 Hello, welcome everyone to this meeting of the Community Preservation Act Committee on November 16, 2023. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.02pm. We're meeting remotely via Zoom, Zoom as permitted by the town and the state. This meeting is being recorded and will appear on the town Amherst CPA webpage. At a later date. I'm going to call on committee members so that we can make sure that everyone can hear and be heard. I'm Sam McLeod, Bob. Yep, here. David Williams. We're not able to hear you. It might be your mute button is on. Yes. There we go. Can you hear us, Tim? Oh, yes. Okay. Sorry. My door shall parking. Present. Michelle. Present. Robin. Present. I see that Matt has arrived. Yeah, yes. We can hear you too. Wonderful. So we do have a need for a minute taker at every meeting. Tim has kindly volunteered to take the minutes for this meeting. So we have a busy agenda in terms of presentations and there's a number of folks in the audience. We do have our first item of business on the agenda, which is to approve any outstanding minutes. We have minutes from the September 14th meeting in our packet. I saw one edit to them on the second page where a word appeared twice. So I will edit that. I believe the word was the entire. It appeared twice relating to the group. Do any members have any. Comments or. Edits related to the minutes. I see a hand from Tim. Minor point under the Zion church under my motion. I have an E at the end of Neil that was left out. But okay. That can be taken care of certainly very good. Any other. Comments or edits relating to the minutes. It was there were only a few of us at that meeting. So I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point for the attendees are here. So did anyone, everyone get a chance to look at them. Who was at the meeting. I moved to approve the minutes from nine 14, 20, 23 was suggested edits from Tim and Sam. And I will second. So we have a motion and a second related to the minutes of nine 14, 23. So I'm going to proceed to. Roll call vote on the minutes. Bob. Hi. David Williams. Hi. Tim. Hi. Doug. I will understand as I was not present. Michelle. Hi. Robin. Abstain. Matt. Hi. I will vote. I as well. So if my. Calculations are correct. We have six votes in favor. Two abstains and one absent. So the motion passes. The next item on our agenda is public comment. We have a number of folks in the audience. We did receive letters from. 28 individuals. Which interestingly enough, everyone was in favor of. This, the pickleball project. We're not talking about that yet, but if some of the audience members have written letters and wish to make a comment, recognize that we have received those letters that were submitted to Holly summit to myself as well. I'm going to go ahead and open up the. Open up the floor to attendees. For public comment. This is something we do at every meeting. It doesn't have to be generic to any specific. Issue on this agenda. And please raise your hand if you wish to make a comment. If you're not able to. Please seek to communicate via chat or other method. If you're not able to make a comment, please raise your hand if you wish to make a comment. If you're not able to make a comment, please raise your hand if you wish to make a comment. The numbers are on the website. The phone number. I don't have it on me right here. I see a couple of hands that are raised. The first hand in the audience. Was Ryan. Holly. If you can. Bring Ryan to where he can. He or she. I already have. So Ryan, go ahead. Hi, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to be talking about the agenda. And I'm going to be talking about the agenda. Part of the misdi meadows property association located in South Amherst. And I was hoping to have a minute tonight to speak about actually the, one of the proposals that's on the agenda, which is the proposed pickle ball courts at Kawainas park. So our community. Got some letters about, about this. And. Has taken some steps to just meet and talk about it because. I think it's been a long time since I've been here. Siting residential, citing pickle ball courts in residential neighborhoods and some of the negative impacts that are happening in other communities around the country. And so this led us to actually. Kind of take an investigation approach. And to visit other pickle ball courts and other towns. To interview residents who are actually living in close proximity to other pickle ball courts. And to see if there's any negative impacts to their, to their living environment. And when we find out that there was. There's been a lot of concerns that have been raised and there's actually a lot of articles that are written about it. So this is kind of a short, you know, comment about it. There's a letter that are. Missy meadows property association has submitted to Paul Backelman already. And maybe that's found its way to some of the committee members. If not, I'd be happy to share it. But it's been a long time. And so I'm happy to share it with you. But right now we've taken a vote as a neighborhood association and voted unanimously to oppose the pickle ball courts. And we did not take that lightly. It's not something that we're anti pickle ball by any means, because I hear that there's 28 letters supporting pickle ball in the town of Amherst. And so I would say I would be somebody who would support pickle ball courts in Amherst. I'm somebody who wants to actually start playing, but it's the proper location of the pickle ball courts that we're talking about. And so I'm happy to share it with you. I think it's four major issues that we'll talk about maybe in more detail as comments become available. But it's basically noise and sound is one. Parking traffic and activity is another. Alteration of existing uses of the field. And then the fourth one being the negative impact to nearby home prices. And so we have kind of expressed these four concerns in a letter. We'll share that, you know, with, with you all. We'll share those concerns with you all. And we're hoping that we can continue to have some, you know, do diligence on this a little bit more to not rush this process because we feel like there's some really significant concerns that our community has. And so again, we're, we're not anti pickle ball by any means. We actually want to have this be a constructive conversation with the town. So I'll stop there. I don't want to take up all the time tonight, but just kind of wanted to introduce myself and just kind of bring the issue forward and see if we can have a conversation about it together. Thank you. I do recommend that you submit your letter. You can email it to Holly or to buy, I believe it's Amherst CPC. Look on the website for the correct email. You can also email it to me. S McLeod and S at a wall.com. I'll make sure that Holly gets it as well. We can also reach out to Paul. Thank you. Thank you. Today is just presentations. We have deliberations that will occur at a later point in time, as well as a public meeting. The next person who has their hand up in the audience is someone named. Pat. So Holly, if you're able to bring Pat in. Good evening. Can you all hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. My name is Pat. And I live on Tomarack drive. I'm a resident resident. I'm a resident resident. I'm a resident resident. Opposed to pick a ball. That has been proposed in my neighborhood. I'm not opposed to the. To the game itself. But I don't believe it should be in residential area. I do have a family member that has autism. And, you know, I worry about noise. And the disruption. On him. And so I'm here. And you guys will be receiving. A letter from our association. I'm one of the board members for Mr. Meadow, but I will stop because I know you guys have. A lot of items on the agenda tonight. But thank you for serving on CPA board. Thank you, Pat, for your comment. And we'll look forward to receiving your letter. If you have difficulty. Getting it to the appropriate email. You can also email to me and Holly. Thank you. Sorry, could I interrupt? I'm taking the minutes. What's her? What's Pat's last name? Can you spell it? Was she gone? I believe I can get it for you because I am. I'll get that later. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Michelle has her hand up, please. I see that. I want to open it up for the audience attendees first before committee members. To give them the opportunity. There are a number of attendees. At this session, if any of the attendees. Wish to make a public comment, can you please. Raise your hand so that we can see you. I don't see any. Seeing any additional hands raised. There is Pat with a hand raised. I'm not sure if it's the same pat or not. Because there's. Pat. There's two in the. My understanding is the same one, but. If it's not Pat, feel free to color in. The hat is the hand has been lowered. I see. Okay. Second call for public comments from the attendees. Please raise your hand. We'd like to give you the opportunity if you wish. You also can reach us via letters. I see that Carolyn Mailer has her hand up. Yep. Carolyn, the floor is yours. You currently have your mic on mute. Okay. I'm on two. Sorry. Hold on. I'm on two different. Computers here. So I have to get one down. We can hear you. I'm here to. Represent the pickleball community. I've been working. Closely with the town we have for the past several months. And. I know the pickleball discussion hasn't officially started yet, but I just want to respond to. Brian and Pat. And let you know that we have considered a butters at every one of our meetings. And done some research. And have several ideas for mitigating the noise. And some of the other problems. So. At some point we'd like to discuss those. I don't know when the right time to do that would be. Okay. Any further comment. Carolyn. That that's it. Just. If I can get some advice about when to speak up. Or not. While the public comment, we're here to listen to you. In terms of the project managers, I believe it was submitted by. The recreation department and Amy. The proposals indicate. Who the applicants are. And it seems to me that that might be a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that the proposals indicate. Who the applicants are. And it seems to me that that might be a good starting point. I am going to call on Dave Zomac right now, given that there's a question relating to process and who to communicate with. And I know Dave is familiar with it. I see that your hands up Michelle, but forgive me. I'm going to call on Dave because of the inquiry. Go ahead. Sure. Thanks, Sam. I just want to acknowledge. Thank you. Thank you. Ryan, Ryan and other folks. Comments and concerns on, on this call. I know that I spoke to the town manager. I'm losing track of days here yesterday. I believe when Ryan was in the office. And we are committed to sitting down with Ryan and the neighborhood association as soon as we possibly can. And we are committed to meeting with the neighborhood association. Again, we're, we're going to try to get that on the books as soon as we can around the Thanksgiving holiday. But we are, we are on top of that. I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you, Dave. I'd like to ask the audience attendees again. If anyone. If anyone wishes to make any further comments or additional comments, please raise your hand. Carolyn. We did hear you and hopefully Ryan and Pat. I heard Dave's home acts comments. So he'll. In the town will be reaching out. I don't see any other hands. So. I'm going to. And I do see anyone. Excuse me. Anna Carter. You seem to have raised your hand. If that's the case, please. Can you bring her in Holly and let her communicate. We want to give the public the opportunity to communicate if they wish. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Oh. So I attended the neighborhood meeting and I've lived in the neighborhood since 1996. And I think. I've always been interested in it. I've always been interested in it. I've always been very increased traffic. Increased noise. Are some of the main points that I think we're all concerned with. And. Many of the other concerns. Unfortunately, I just entered the meeting now because I had been out until now. So I don't know what's already been. Express, but. the arguments or points that was pointed out when some of my neighbors was that the athletic fields are excellent for the youth in Amherst and the fact that increased traffic, increased parking, increased noise would be added by three pickleball courts and I agree with the point of view that pickleball courts, if possible, should not be located in your residential areas because of some of the research that's been done that makes pretty compelling arguments that it increases the noise in the community and and even decreases the property value. So those are all concerns that were expressed that I agree with. So I just wanted to register that. Thank you, Anna. Thank you for coming to the meeting and communicating your thoughts to us. And I look forward to meeting with the committee in person like David Zomek said, so I'm looking forward and I will do everything I can to attend that as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Is there any other, I see another hand from Carolyn Maylor. Carolyn, is there anything you'd like to add from your previous comment? I'd like to say that the CPA grant receiving the money does not necessarily mean it's going to be put at the Zomek, I'm sorry, the Kiwanis Park as proposed. There are other options, so I wouldn't want the controversy here to prevent us from getting the money we need to do courts wherever they are. Yeah, I think it's important to move forward. Happy to meet with the abutters, but if we don't get the second part of this grant, we won't be able to do courts at all. Thank you, Carolyn. If anyone else in the audience wishes to make a public comment, it can be regarding anything. It doesn't need to be related to the recent comments of others. You have an opportunity. I'm not seeing any hands. Again, I'll say a second call. I see a hand. Joyce Hatch. I'm sorry for our presenters. We're going to try and keep you on time, but we definitely wish to allow the public to make their comments as they wish. Joyce, if you have a comment to make, your hand was up, but I don't see it raised currently. If you have a comment to make, please go ahead. There, there. I was unmuted. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. I'm a big supporter of pickleball courts in town. I think they're very much needed. And I think many letters were written by people of mostly older people who are now playing, but I just wanted to express that I see young people starting in the public courts, like in South Hadley and a couple of other areas where they're public and they're free. So it's, I originally was very enthusiastic three years ago about courts for seniors because there aren't facilities and if you no longer can play tennis, it's great. But then I've seen this increase in youth playing too. So I just want to be on record of supporting pickleball courts. I understand that the neighbors concerns and I hope we can find a place that meets everyone's concerns. Thank you, Joyce. I see a handout from Carlos Toriago. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly. Carlos. Yeah, you did. Thank you. Hello, everybody. I'm not resident with this town for almost 30 plus year and this is the first time that I have an opportunity to participate in a forum like this. This is really like a great lesson to me in terms of my community. I am a resident in South Amherst. I'm part of the association of Temerak and excuse me, I live on Willow Lane and I've been here for almost 20 plus year. When we have a conversation as a town, there will always be the sense that a group of people want something, another group of people don't want that and somebody else have a different idea and that's the beauty of having an open space where we can talk as a members of this community. I think that my neighborhood we value whatever decision is taking in terms of helping the community to do things, physical activity, sports, whatever. But what surprises me about this issue of the pickable is the process. Decision has been made and we were not invited to talk to be informed about this. The community are large and it surprises me because I hear voices that I haven't heard before, faces that I haven't seen before and you guys are making decisions are about to make decisions about my neighborhood. I would like to know you in person but I also want you to know that in a democracy if you don't engage me then I had to react and that's what we're doing right now. We're creating a space to say something because we were not invited to the table and I think that that's not the way to go in terms of having a conversation that is a friendly conversation, a mindful conversation about the whole community because we belong to this town. It's not that we want to go against something that some people might benefit. Everybody benefits for the decision but less people to participate in the decision if the neighborhood is involved. That's my minimum requirement. I don't think that I'm asking for too much. This is the second time that a decision has been made in our neighborhood and we have to have a voice because we were not consulting. And this is the second time and we'll do it a third time. I will do it four times because if we are not consulting and engaging in this initial conversation we are going to get our voice but I want to sound friendly about this because I do want to engage in a respectful conversation where we listen to each other. It's not about convincing us or convincing you. It's what is good for the community as a whole but in order to get that we need to share. We need to share opinions. We need to share the conversation and don't allow those with power to make the decision and then with the decision it's made we get a letter. I'm surprised about that. This is the second time around that the town has done something that we have to react but I invite you guys and us to have a conversation. A beautiful conversation about the town about what is the best solution about this. If there is money involved, yeah let's keep the money but let's find avenues that allow us to make the best decision. With everybody's view it's taken into consideration. Thank you. Thank you Carlos and thank you for taking the time to participate in town opportunities for the first time. I would like to communicate that the committee, our committee first received notification of this particular application as with all other proposals and applications that we've received on October 13th so this is our standard process where we invite the public to share their opinions on individual comments related to any particular project so thank you for sharing your thoughts with us and I would say that your comments were received as intended in a friendly manner with concern. Thank you. Are there any other members, attendees who wish to make any comments? I see Rachel Harb. Hi can you hear me? We can hear you. Hi thanks thanks for listening to all of our comments today. My husband Ryan shared his thoughts earlier and I want to chime in with mine and I want to say that I do strongly oppose the pickleball courts being located at Kiwanis Park and you know I am thinking about the voices that we heard at our neighborhood meeting. So many concerns were raised and just echoing all the comments about not not locating these courts directly in residential areas who are greatly impacted and hopeful that there can be another location that will not be disruptive to neighbors. I'm sure that my husband did not want to share this because he wanted to protect my privacy but I did want to contribute to the conversation and just for consideration that I believe that the the noise factor is a greater concern that I initially believed having looked into it now. You know our house is located just one of the closest ones to the proposed site. I'm someone who suffers from chronic migraines. I get them you know multiple times a week I'm constantly managing pain and I don't know if any of you have experienced migraines but it can heighten sensation you know noise light all that and so I have greatly appreciated my quiet neighborhood that allows me to get plenty of rest you know quiet when I need it to recover from migraines and I I have a lot of concern thinking about not being able to fully rest and recover due to the noise and I do echo many of the other comments that my fellow neighbors here have shared. That's what I have thank you. Thank you Rachel for joining us and for sharing your thoughts and comments on this issue. Thank you. I'm not seeing any other hands raised in the attendees. I'll wait a minute certainly wish to allow everyone to communicate if they wish. Sam I think it would be a good time as well to just notify everybody in the audience that the public hearing on all the CPA proposals will be held on Thursday December 7th is what we're scheduled for as well which would be another opportunity for folks to speak on any CPA proposal. Thank you Holly. I'll reiterate that we'll have a public hearing. It will be posted on the town site and there's an opportunity for individuals to speak on all the projects. I believe it says Holly said December 7th Thursday which would be in the evening. I don't see any further hands so I'm going to go ahead and end the public comment time period because I think everyone's had an opportunity. Michelle you've raised your hand on a couple of occasions very patiently Is there something you'd like to add? I was just trying to figure out where Misty Meadows was and I found it via Willow Lane so maybe Amy when she presents can just touch upon like the actual proximity of the neighborhoods to the pickleball courts. That's all. Thank you Michelle. So for all the presenters that would be you Amy for the first four we're running a little bit late but we want to make sure to give you the time that you need scheduled so we'll just push everything back 15 minutes. So I see that Amy is in the audience and we're ready to hear from you regarding starting with the Qantas pickleball courts. Okay well I'm glad that we're starting with pickleball courts because there's been so much discussion about it. So I'm Amy Rezeki. I'm the assistant superintendent of public works for folks who don't know me and I'm actually going to share my screen because I have a couple of slides and so bear with me for a sec and as I'm doing this I'll also recognize that we have Dave Zomak and Ray Harp here as well and they're both you know Ray with Amherst Wreck is you know he's been a partner on this as well and then Dave has been helping out with the process as well. So they may also jump in with answers I guess is my point on that. So I just want to kind of run quickly through the proposal for the the pickleball courts at Qantas. So just a little history because this has been talked about for a while and this was actually one of the questions that came up from our initial proposal so I just kind of want to talk about the timeline here. So for the FY23 CPA a group from the community submitted a proposal for three pickleball courts that proposal initially envisioned it at the Mill River recreational area and it was for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars that was ultimately approved by CPA. Once the town was you know given the money to say hey here's some money make these pickleball courts happen that's when the town started to really sink our teeth into it. So we were meeting town staff the Amherst Wreck Commission and the friends of the pickleball group have all been partners in this conversation and we were just trying to figure out where exactly they would go and how we would locate them and you know to kind of summarize you know a good year's worth of conversation down into a statement. Ultimately we thought that the Qantas Park was the best location we could have in town to build these three pickleball courts and certainly I recognize that you know there are some opinions on that and that not everyone agrees with that opinion and so it sounds like you know more conversation needs to be had on location but earlier this year town staff did start working through the permitting process but also as we worked through permitting and we looked at the funding that we were given $120,000 was just not going to cover the full breadth of the project and that's regardless of location that's just in general the cost for the fencing has you know doubled from the original proposal the cost for painting has nearly doubled from the original proposal so that 120 was just even if we were at Mill River it still was not going to get us three pickleball courts there. I'm going to actually skip over this because I feel like a lot of the letters talked about the importance of pickleball or why people are so excited about this having pickleball courts in town in general and then I'll just talk about this kind of runs down the line items and you'll notice actually the site prep and paving and the permitting those two items weren't in the proposal that you guys got because that's what the initial FY23 CPA allocation covers at this point and so what we're asking for is the additional $100 for the surface prep and paint the pickleball nets and the site fencing and to the left of the screen here is this is just a quick schematic of where the pickleball courts the siting of where we were thinking about them on at Qantas Park. Michelle I wish I had a more blown out version so that you could actually see where that is in relation to you know houses or other people in the neighborhood but it is kind of tucked behind that's actually the front the front here this is actually a wastewater pump station so that's actually a municipal building that's right in front of where we were looking to site them so anyway that's that's my you know quick overview on pickle the pickleball proposal um Ray or Dave I don't know if you guys have anything to add I think the only thing if that's all right Sam the only thing I would add is that you know this is very early in the process to some of the concerns that were raised earlier very valid concerns and any of these town projects have to go through a rigorous permitting pathway and so the conservation commission has considered this proposal and and found it meets and has received what's called an order of condition another order of conditions in other words you know impacts to nearby natural resource areas would be quite limited from this proposal however um there's still a great deal of process left to go through this has not got this would need to go through the planning board site plan review process which is very rigorous any citing a pickleball courts or recreational facilities would need to go through that so I just want to assure the cpac and the neighborhood folks residents that there is that process has not really started yet other than the conservation commission and if it were to move forward there would be significant opportunities for feedback in addition to the meetings that all Bachman has talked to Ryan and some of the association members about um I just wanted to echo I think what Carolyn Maylor said and what Joyce Hatch said is I think we regardless of whether Kiwanis is selected as the site or not I think the important thing is we we can all I hope recognize the support for pickleball and the importance of creating some court courts somewhere in town so I hope the proposal can move forward and uh if this is decided not to be the right site um we still fund the the project and create pickleball courts um in a site selected in the future thanks thank you Dave I see your hand Tim but uh if uh Ray I don't know if you have anything to add as well good to see you here welcome uh if you'd like to speak please do so as you know I I can just uh say hello to everybody I think that Dave and Amy both certainly sum up where we are on that thank you Ray um anything else you'd like to add before we open the floor for committee member questions or comments Amy no um I'm happy to open it up to questions sure uh Tim I see your hand is raised uh yes I don't think we need to have the answer today but I have two questions one I have the assumption that the approval of the funding would be for the courts in any location like the funding is not unique to uh Kiwanis field so that I think is going to be important as we make our final decision and the second is uh one of the other proposals is to upgrade the softball fields at that same park and there's use for many other activities so I am just curious as to the volume of vehicles people noise etc for all the other uses of Kiwanis park to me it just doesn't seem that adding three pickle courts is going to add that much more uh noise and car activity and parking uh than what already exists for the use of that field and if the softball fields are increased or improved we might see more activity etc etc so I just need to have some better understanding again we don't need that today but maybe the applekin could address that in their future presentations thank you uh thank you Tim um Michelle um hi I was so you mentioned that the fencing costs like increased it substantially and I was just wondering the purpose of the fence is really to keep the ball around right and then pickle ball you can't really hit the ball very far and I was just wondering if you you definitely need a fence with a pickle ball court and if like can you shave off $55,000 if you have to to get pickle ball courts in there or is there's the fence necessary or could it be a backstop or something like that yeah I mean you my understanding I actually have not ever played pickle ball so this is my understanding from talking to other folks um but my understanding you know the fencing that we were looking at um you know we were just looking at a four foot tall fence so just tall enough that it would kind of contain the ball and then there's also an even shorter fence that goes in between the different playing courts so that you don't have any cross play and kind of the safety factor of that so um so we're not looking at some of those super tall um fences that would add cost I can add that in uh comparable courts in the area they different towns have done it in those two different ways some have added the separate and fencing in between courts to to allow the one game to stay where that one game is being played and not have the overlaps and some have decided to just have open courts looking like a basketball court where there's uh in line to in line there are three courts four courts there and and the community and and and those two can be a little bit affected by how you separate those but the uh the fencing around the the court is necessary to answer question thank you right now uh bob yeah um two questions one um what is the that map came up so quickly I wasn't able to get oriented but how what is the distance of that location from the neighborhood is one question number two is is the treatment plant does it provide any you know sonic relief and I guess the third question would be um I assume that there have been other locations that have been considered and ruled out as substandard yeah I'm going to start with the last one um and I'm hoping as I'm doing that that maybe Dave or Ray can look at um distances to the neighborhood um but I will talk a little bit about some of the sites that we looked at so the town kind of took a very broad scope of where we might want to look so we looked at groth park um the biggest limiter with groth park was just where we'd have to put it because we have a lot of the playing fields that are right next to um the roadway and the parking lot area and so it would have to kind of be tucked in the corner which isn't a huge deal but in order to make it um handicap accessible to get there you've got a really long um sidewalk to get there and so that substantially added to the cost um we did look at mill obviously that was the original proposal um one of the big detractors there was um they were looking at taking part of a parking area there um so taking away parking spots it was going to take away I think somewhere between 16 to 18 parking spots depending on how you oriented it um and so then you're adding another use which is going to add a couple more cars and you're taking away 18 parking spots which you know when there's a couple of little league games going on in the back corner you're already kind of maxed out you know we've got a pool we've got tennis courts we've got two softball fields and we've got a pavilion and recreation area that parking lot can get very busy and so then taking parking spots away and adding another use especially when there's no parking on the side of route 63 so there can be no overflow parking there um that was one of the big limiters at that location um and then we looked at the cow the cow pasture as well or um which for folks that don't know that's right across the road from the North Amherst library right across Sunderland road there um and that one um it could technically go there it um you you were kind of squished in a little area that you know wasn't going to be accessible by um it didn't have parking there already so we'd have to either look at parking or connected to other parking and so then that adds a sidewalk to get there which is going to add cost um and you you're limited to a really small space because of nearby flood plains and that sort of thing so the point is we did kind of really cast a broad net and just kind of kept um different things very much added cost or added um additional complications which is you know how we landed at Qantas um Dave do you want to talk about the distance at all do you have that number uh or I guess it's really up to Sam as to how you know how in depth you want to go here happy to really quickly answer those or at least touch on those questions um I can go I can go really fast um so to Tim's question about upgrading softball fields I mean again we can go into more detail later but anytime you upgrade or improve a recreation facility um if you build it more people are likely to come so if we improve the softball field in the far corner of Kiwanis Park um we are we are going to see more use of that it's been kind of a um a lesser used recreation area um because the facilities are in need of upgrading so I think I just wanted to address Tim's question yes if if we improve the softball field through one of the other proposals it will get more use when the Fort River school fields are taken out of commission for that new project down the street um recreation areas are going to have to absorb some of the uh the use in terms of distances I don't want to go into great detail but um we can do all of that on our GIS um you know nearest houses is over 200 feet away I'm gonna I don't have it right in front of me here at home but I'm going to say approximately 225 feet and then and then houses range you know between 200 and 600 or more feet away and it depends on where you where the where folks live in the neighborhood um let's see what was the other um and and the other thing somebody asked about can we can we put up barriers can can the treatment plant there the sewer uh pumping station I think that's a level of detail that we're just not ready to go into tonight we be happy to come back to you on that but the the bottom line is the balls the the wiffle ball wiffle ball like balls for pickleball hitting the the the paddles that is identified as the noise that is most challenging to mitigate I guess is the way to to put it um so I'll stop there uh thank you Dave uh Doug Marshall Doug your hand is up for a bit there well I um I was I am on the town GIS and from the approximate location where Amy was showing the courts it looks like the nearest house is probably immediately to the west on Stanley Street and that's about 220 feet as David said and the nearest house across the street in Willow Street area uh looks like it's about 330 feet or so and that uh development heads north away from this site so I don't I think all the rest of the houses are farther away thank you Doug um I have a couple of questions I'm familiar with that field having coached a lot of soccer games there I assume Matt is as well uh in years past um I know the location had is that the location where it needs to go in that Stanley Kiwanis Park field or is there the capacity to put it further back on the right corner in other words uh directly further in uh perpendicular from Stanley Street or if not is that something the town planners might look into we have looked a little bit at that that is a possibility Sam the quick answer a short answer is yes that is a possibility um and hearing what you I will point out though like if you've played soccer there if you move it from the location that it is then we're not able to still put a soccer field you know like it cuts into either where we put the soccer field or where the the you know baseball or softball is on that field so it it just compromises the play playing space of another um sport and that might be an okay compromise but it it would um compromise a different playing field in the process yeah it sounds like it's something to at least look into I haven't been here sometimes may I to Amy's point one of the reasons why it was settled in the space where where it was settled is because that field is not already scheduled for field use uh that's where the talk about the trees that were there uh the trees that were being removed there it doesn't interfere with the with the with the any of the action that we have on that field right now and so to move it into place where there is scheduled or potentially scheduled uh action and especially coming up with the with the use of that field changing with other projects in town that that becomes doubly the the most optimal space in that in that area without giving up uh parts of some of the project either the existing activity or the proposal for the pickleball courts um thank you Ray a follow-up uh cop question I guess would be or requests would be hearing what I'm hearing from attendees uh I'm wondering if it might be worth looking into sound barrier fences not necessarily surrounding the entire courts but perhaps I mean it's a dual you lose the vision but you might deflect or prevent some of the look of all type noise if you have you know they have them on highways not ideal of course but maybe something on the north side just a thought um and I had one last question which is it seems like there's a lot of interest I'm curious how the pickleball court access gets scheduled is that something that is done through the town to prevent conflicts that may occur in the future if there's a lot of interest is that like similar pool lane swimming and I don't know if you've gotten that far on it right or not but we've we've started to look at all of that I can tell you that that's part of the the conversations I've had with other sites in the area um the encouragement that we we went into this with the intention of looking at open play almost exclusively much like we have at mill river with the basketball courts where it's set for open play people show up they play you can organize it the pickleball community has ways of of they do already have a language an hour ago of of pickleball that allows you to reserve time so we says you show up and have basically drop in drop in activity but we would like with the basketball courts at mill river we would reserve the rights to have a community event there or something like that if that came up but by and large it's an open it's an open play it's an open play proposal yeah thank you Ray do any other committee members have questions at this time we also can email questions at a later point in time or suggestions Tim I see that your hand is raised yeah I don't want why I'm going to repeat myself for me I'm not sure this committee should just make this decision based on the location I think we should leave it to the town professionals for that what we need to do is make a decision with a expenditure of funds so a key question for me is would the funding be the same regardless of the location um so if the if the applicants could get back to us on that that would be helpful at least for this one committee member okay thank you Tim thank you anyone else anything you'd like to add Amy on this application proposal I think the only thing this this conversation has been great and I think the other thing somebody raised the question about the pump station and I do notice that kind of where we've looked at the site it's somewhat tucked behind that pump station and that pump station does have a row of really tall ibervites I don't know that I've looked at it specifically to see um you know how good of a shield that might be um because I haven't you know really looked at those specifics but I'm curious about that and that might be something to um you know for us to look deeper at so I appreciate the comments on a lot of the questions here uh thank you Amy and thank you for the uh responses from all of you um so I guess that's good enough for now um and further inquiries or questions can be provided to the committee and or to the applicants uh the next project on our agenda uh we're running over but that's fine because it's you Amy for all of them for now you and Ray uh the Mill River Tennis Court Rehabilitation all right I am going to share my screen again um yes I am sharing a screen and here we go um all right so this project is for um to give some uh rehabilitation attention to the Mill River Tennis Courts um and again you know recognizing Dave and Ray um as you know we all work together on this one um so this one um Short and Sweet um as you can see with this photo and a couple of the other photos that will show um there are some cracks in the Mill River Tennis Courts um and a lot of it is actually stemming from the net posts and how we how the net posts are currently installed um and so what we want to do is remove the existing net posts and install them using a different uh technique that will not cause these cracks and then we want to fix all of the cracks and then um repaint um refinish the surface uh so just kind of bringing these tennis courts back up to um a more safe and playable surface um so the need for this um again um it really stems from the nets and the the damage that they're causing um but the cracks are affecting the playability and safety of the surface um this photo I tried to show with my pen just how wide that crack is I could fit my entire finger in it um so it is a pretty wide crack um and there's cracks like that throughout the play surface unfortunately um and you know we'll point out that um at least on town-owned land these are the only um town-owned tennis courts that we have within Amherst so it's certainly a valuable resource they're used a lot in the summer especially um and um the the project cost it's you know doing the net posts repairing the cracks and then um painting the play surface and hopefully removing all of this grass that's growing in the cracks along the playing field so um Ray and Dave I don't know if you guys have anything to add to this one if you have anything just speak up I can't see you so if you have something to say Ray or Dave at this point just do so it looks good Amy well then we'll take questions trying to catch you back up well thank you um any committee members uh like to make a comment or ask a question well I would um so it's interesting looking at those photos the uh the amount of tension and damage that the the net tension can do on those um supports uh those are certainly some serious cracks throughout I'm curious how how effective our repairs to cracks like that is to say have we done this in the past um and separate from that are either any any of you aware of the process that's used to actually repair those cracks thank you yeah I I'm not I don't know exactly how they do it but I do know that um you know in as we were preparing this we consulted with a company that does do those repairs and the surface repainting um and so you know it is it is a you know professional company that does this for basketball courts and tennis courts and you know various outdoor playing facilities like that so I I ask because those seem to be uh uh cracks on steroids squared yeah I'm curious it'll be interesting to see how that progresses another question on this project is when would you anticipate this project to commence assuming uh funding is granted yeah so this um you know the the the toughest thing with this is that um you have to get the right temperature anytime you're doing paint or you know kind of repairs to surfaces like that you have certain windows with temperature and with moisture when you can work and so um you know once we got the approval you know obviously we would get in touch with the company that does that immediately but it might take several months to get on their calendar and if we miss the window in the fall then we'd be looking at trying to get on it early in the spring is it the same company that would be doing the paint resurfacing is doing the crack repair yeah okay and last question the am I correct in my understanding that it's the entire plane surface that's going to get recoded uh with some form of durable flexible uh paint their epoxy I guess uh you're redoing the entire surface after or redoing after the cracks okay yeah thank you uh any other questions or comments from committee members on this project okay anything you'd like to add Amy Ray well just like that we're back on schedule bing bing boom okay uh thank you the next item on our agenda is the rehabilitation of softball facilities uh we're we're listening okay going back to the screen um I kind of love before we switch from this I love I kind of love and hate this photo right here because it shows over time how much those tennis posts are bowing um in word and it's just from years and years of people trying to tension the nets and eventually it caused enough pressure um so it's pretty powerful when you look at that um anyway um softball field rehabilitation um so again in partnership with uh Ray and Dave on this project um and so this we're looking at more holistically we've got outside of the Fort River facilities we've got three other softball facilities within Amherst and we're looking at um rehabilitating them um all three of them giving them some attention to bring the uh playability of them back up um and so we've got one at community field which is the one that the um the high school girls varsity team plays on um we also have one at grove park and then we have one at guanis park um and so this photo here is actually the one at grove park um just just for your reference um and we're looking at regrading and rehabilitating the infield so kind of leveling off the whole infield making sure that there's not you know holes or high spots in that um replacing the field hardware so that's um new bases um at some of these locations repairing the back stops it's really I think only at grove park that the backstop is in backstop is in rough shape um and then replacing bleachers at these locations as well um the photo here this is of guanis where you can see that the entire baseline so the the grove park and guanis both have um grass on the infield and it's only kind of this infield mix on the baseline you'll see that the community field the varsity field has infield mix on the whole infield but um yeah anyway you can see crab grass here that's grown along the baseline over time so these as we were saying these are used the softball fields are used by the community they're used by the Amherst regional schools Amherst recreation does programming it has adult league softball on them and then Amherst baseball does have a softball program and I'm also told that their sometimes the t-ball also plays on the softball field so there's a lot of different various uses um throughout the town for the softball fields um and especially we're trying to think ahead with the Fort River fields which are you know some of our most premium uh softball fields in town with those going offline for construction we just have to kind of think ahead of where we can put some of these displaced um players and um so this is kind of thinking of how can we bring some of these other facilities up in the quality so that they can absorb the usage during the time that Fort River is offline and again some of the conditions of the fields it's affecting the safety and playability of the fields you know imagine you hit a ball and it rolls all the way across the infield but it hits a lip at the end and it goes into the the air I suppose that gives Amherst a home field advantage but I don't I don't know that everyone else appreciates that um and again especially when it comes to community fields and this is an Amherst public school site and so Title IX compliance certainly comes into the conversation on that um the photo here this is of the community field so you can see the entire infield um being that infield mix and you can also see the you know standing puddles so we've got a low spot between um home plate and first base um and then there's uh kind of a couple of frost heaves on the third base to home plate um line there as well that you can see is collecting water um so ultimately the budget that we're looking at um you know as proposed so the regrading and the rehabilitation of those infield areas that's the biggest cost of the project but then also the hardware the back stops and the bleachers so that's that's what comprises the whole project so that's kind of the brief overview um these photos here um the one to the left that's the uh fence at park so that's the backstop at graph graph park um and then the one to the right that's one of the bases at um at Kiwanis so you can not only see the base but there's actually a nice hole right afterwards that um I'm glad that nobody's gotten injured on that but certainly um that even with the crabgrass there you know having a hole like that right after the base I can imagine is uh is a safety issue so um I'll I'll open up to I don't know if Ray or Dave have anything to add on this one either I would just reiterate that um from my perspective and the recreation director's position is uh Amy did mention it the big the driving force here is thinking ahead for Fort River and managing fields when when Fort River comes offline uh thank you Amy thank you Ray um Bob I see that your hand is raised um yeah um for is this the community preservation act or the community reconstruction act um it it did look at those scores in the softball fields which I've been looking at for the last 20 years it just seems like there's a lot of work to be done I I'm curious as we start to get into all this recreational stuff we get to war memorial and move down the line here is there a way that we wrap all this together into a bonding issue instead of because we're going to start to talk about some very big dollars and I'm just curious how CPAC interfaces with some of these larger projects I know we're just at the beginning of the line with softball but if you kind of look at it all as a whole we're you know talking millions here I don't know Dave if you want to jump in on that um I don't know I I think we could certainly take that under advisement and talk to Bob Bachman a little bit about it um I yeah it's it's both interesting to think about but also hard to get your head around these things because they're they're so different in many ways like building building a new bath house that at war memorial is very much different than rehabbing rehabbing three softball fields and so the disciplines and the general contractors needed and you know you don't need architects to skim three fields or even build three pickleball courts but you need an architect to design build and oversee a new bath house that and make sure it's all up to code at war memorial pool so there's certainly some economies of scale I think is what you're talking about for sure um and there's no question um you know and Amy and Ray and Paul and others we talk about this constantly that um unfortunately we haven't given enough attention to these facilities over the years and I think we started probably eight to ten years ago started to to really look at these these facilities all across town recreation facilities I'm talking about and we we did some upgrades to war memorial pool and got some matching grants to help us with that we did the same thing at mill river so we did war memorial mill river we did some baseball fields but um we have not um put enough capital money and CPA money and grant money into these recreational facilities over the years and it shows so we're trying to catch up it's really a game of catch up is to to upgrade these fields to last us the next 20 30 years and then also at the same time have the resources to maintain them over time to paint them and mow the the the outfields and make sure we don't get lips and in fields that are dangerous and and and things of that sort so it's both upgrading them and also maintaining them over time so we can certainly look at that whether it's makes any sense to bundle some of these even with the bidding process thank you Dave uh Doug thanks yeah I was going to make a comment about that and uh then I had one question for Amy it's my impression that the work on the fields that doesn't include a building or architectural work can be bid under chapter 30 and that work on something like a bathhouse would be under chapter 149 and typically in my experience at the university it's more cost effective to bid things under chapter 30 when you can bid them under chapter 30 so bundling may make sense for some of the sort of site work horizontal construction that you're talking about with the fields but including a bathhouse would probably be more expensive and probably more cumbersome and to have to do everything under chapter 149 so that's my perspective without a lot of expertise on chapter 30 the the question I had Amy we are faced with a couple of million dollars worth of requests and one point something available funds to give away and so my question would be of the 85 000 that you had broken down you know how how easy would it be to work with 60 000 or 40 000 you know are you gonna just would you do still do something at all three locations or would you just say okay we're just gonna we're gonna rehab one field and pick one or two fields and pick two um so um it's a great question Doug and I I will state my opinion but certainly that's the sort of question that I'd love to you know have the opportunity to have you know Ray and Dave and you know Alan Snow from our from the DPW weigh in on as well because we may have have different opinions I'd love the town to have a consensus of a response on that um but personally I think if the if the budget on this were shortened we probably I would prefer to see at least one field brought up to that level rather than three fields brought to you know only brought up so much um and so and I think you know the the community the community field the varsity field that's probably the most important one that gets the most usage so that would be my highest priority to bring up that being said I would I would still have concerns with um you know with Fort River going offline if we don't have at least one other site to be able to absorb that usage because otherwise yes you could bring community field up but then if you put all of the usage on the one good diamond um then you're just gonna you know fall into that same pattern again to by putting too much use on it so but that you know again I I'd love to hear Ray's opinion on that or our rec commission had a pretty strong and and divided conversation about this proposal in particular because the issue of frankly the issue about whether or not those other two fields Kiwanis and Graf uh rise to a level of importance for as community does uh on one hand two different problems with one hand we've been pretty assertive about saying we want to try and build our core and build community field and build that that space in the center town and put our investment there uh and then we also are looking at a at a management plan for those other source those other fields um our our interest is I I think I agree with Amy there and saying that our first and primary interest is the community field but again and and bearing the weight of expectations in the next few years that's why I'm not willing to to throw away those other two fields and the impact that they're going to have in programming for us but community field is is I think I think I'm speaking in general for the conversation we had the rec commission last week but I think I think our interest is in building that community field but also understanding that we're going to have some some uh some burden being spread in the next few years thank you uh him yeah that that actually was going to be my question regarding the opinion of the town regarding the priorities because if we have to make decisions and we will have to make decisions assuming these project costs remain the same of not being able to fund everything uh where would we best place the money and that kind of gets to the other project that we're going to access later trail restoration and so on uh I for one as a committee member would not like to make a value judgment based on what I think the town priorities I would think the expert should and I would love to have some kind of an opinion if dollars are scarce where you folks would would uh prefer to uh spend the dollars so Michelle I'm I'm just gonna give an attestament to how bad those other fields are and I've been injured and I've seen people break noses on those lips and I played at colonists when it was probably better than it is now and it was so terrible and like kids are playing there and like that's like where generations are coming up and they have the space to play when they're getting out competed by the varsity field and the people that get preference there so I just wanted to say that that those fields are used by everybody and they're pretty dangerous and you know when the grass grows in your cleats get stuck and you can't slide and like all kinds of things happen and I just wanted to sort of throw that out there because I understand throat you know making one field nice but all the other people that have to play on those other fields are kind of getting exposed to all the dangers that you've mentioned in your presentation so I just I just wanted to give my personal attestament there thank you Michelle Dave Zomek your hand is up um yeah just a couple of thoughts one is you know I just want to remind everybody you know that through the CPA but also through our our capital dollars and state dollars we are going to create what amounts to you know one of the best fields in the future will be at the Fort River school that is that was a central part of the recreational facilities there is the community advocated very strongly for a a wonderful if you will state of the art softball field there so I think that is coming but it'll be a couple of years before we get it so but CPA dollars went into those or is going into those fields I would agree with Amy and Ray that our highest priority should be the field central to the high school middle school and community field so if dollars are tight and we know they will be um first and foremost um I think the town would like to see that field brought up to the highest standard possible and then we may have to prioritize from there and that would be up to you know Ray as the programming department for you know our fields and then Amy the the department of public works that takes care of them to decide if if we don't have money for three fields and we do two which two are they I would say that we start with with a community field that varsity field um because it also serves young women in our schools and and title nine is very important and we support that um so we start there and then we would choose another field um and I think as you you know as you know we will be going through all of these proposals and in some as Tim has indicated and frankly with some of the housing projects that have been proposed there's always some flexibility in what the numbers ultimately are so that'll be something I know we worked really hard last year to bring that number into a range that was fundable so I think at the end of it at the end of these presentations that's really when the hard work will begin is how do we figure out how to fund as many of these worthy projects as possible but we're as staff we're willing to work with the committee of course as always to do that thank you Dave um Doug yeah I just wanted to sort of ask a question that we can talk about when we get into deliberation or at least after Amy's fourth project of presentation but Dave you sort of touched on the fact that we're behind on maintaining existing uh facilities and so one way we could think about this is do we want to build new facilities that are going to eventually need maintenance too or do we want to be devoting money to maintaining the existing facilities we have and uh Amy I'll just say maybe you guys have a perspective on that I don't know whether you want to voice it at the moment but at some point we may want to hear that Doug it's like it's like you're a plant I've been saying this for years that I love new facilities but we got to maintain what we're doing and I feel like as much as you know the town loves to build some of these new parks facilities and that sort of thing but unfortunately that's partly how we've fallen behind is by not putting money towards rehabilitating what we have so that that's something I've been a long advocate for and I'm glad to see so somebody else share my opinion on that well I also know it's a lot easier to raise money for a new exciting thing right you know it's clear the pickleball community is very excited about you know generate you know having a facility well maybe there's some enthusiasm in that community that could be leveraged uh and then the town can devote its resources to maintaining what it has so I'm not you know I'm not trying to throw the wet uh you know throw the pickleball community under the rug but you know most of your proposals seem to be for maintenance uh rather than creating new things and I just think we've you know the town is trying to do a lot of things right now and we're going to have to be careful so I'll stop thank you Doug um I have a question or comment related to just the general fields and in particular community field uh you know the field is certainly used by the school and in response to the questions it was indicated 90 during the school year with greater usage by rec um you know the conditions aren't new it's certainly a challenge because Amherst uh no matter what field you go and community might be one of the better ones there's a lot of water uh there's a lot of damage to grass a lot of use and a lot of use outside of any athletic school events but has the town school facilities attempted to repair any of the issues and you know in the past uh and might some of these maintenance type aspects as opposed to new develop new creations be uh something that might be appropriate for a school budget I don't know if Dave wants to speak on that I'm gonna I'm gonna remain silent on that um well it's an interesting yeah the whole conversation is interesting Amy and many of us have had this conversation about you know kind of what you know what should we invest in right I guess on the softball front I actually would argue that these are not new facilities all three of these diamonds have been here for a long long time I think decades so we're not creating any new soft the the new softball field we're creating is actually a Fort River school oh there's one there but that is significantly upgraded this is really rehabilitation I don't I use rehabilitation because that is appropriate for CPA uh CPA should really not be used for maintaining so we are rehabbing all of these fields and and making them much much better than they they are today in terms of the school Sam um you know we have a good working relationship with the region um you know the town puts in certain monies on an annual basis per capital um we are always trying to work with them creatively to increase that amount but it's all coming from the same pot which is uh taxpayers and uh state funding so um we we trade off there are things that they invest in that we don't have to invest in um like uh for instance um you know a lot of the heavy lifting if we do a new track will come from the schools so CPA dollars will go into that but a lot of the heavy lifting will come from the school so it's kind of a uh collaborative cooperative relationship but but it doesn't mean we don't ask we do ask and we try to get help where we can from them I don't envy the challenge of pound staff with all the all the demands uh it's a lot to do and I certainly recognize that from my perspective but a follow-up question similar related to uh you know that it's used by schools how about town DPW and grounds staff um have we ever used that staff in this type of capacity uh that is to say does the expertise exist within the town uh from the existing employees for a project such as regrading of softball fields? We don't have the equipment to be able to do that um it's my understanding when when like the Zomac Diamond so the baseball diamond at community fields when that got degraded um the the money was put in to you know bring in the equipment and bring in you know some of the expertise and then we supplemented that with the tree and ground staff and I think Amherst baseball actually had some volunteers there as well so they also collaborated on that um and so certainly those are some of the measures I mean those are some of the measures that we would do to keep the cost down um you know I think given the scope of fixing three softball fields and you look at the cost you know that that's part of it is we're trying to do as much um in-house and keep the cost down as much as we can but um stuff like laser leveling is just not um we don't you know we don't have the equipment and the expertise in-house to do that. Thank you um do any committee members have additional questions or comments? I have a quick question for Doug what is chapter 30 that's the key distinction of chapter 30 versus 1.8? Well you're you know I know enough to be dangerous and not enough to be an expert chapter 30 is used for what they call horizontal construction so it's it's roads it's sidewalks you know I think bridges may be included but when you get into buildings and vertical construction as they call it uh then you have a whole a greater set of procurement requirements and the bidding requirements are different uh you have filed sub-bids for different trades and it gets uh just a little more complicated. Got it uh thank you um just just doesn't aside that all these are public properties and they will all have to follow procurement laws and um that will all go through my department in order to um through our procurement officer to make sure that everything is bid out properly. Add that to the list of things to do. Thank you Holly and Doug uh any other comments uh from town uh applicants Amy, Ray, Dave on this project no okay thank you uh next project uh is everybody good with me continuing do we need a two minute break or everybody seems to be nodding to continue uh revitalization of the enhanced war memorial area okay last one there's one following you as well yeah last one for me sorry um and again I'll I'll try to be brief um so this I those are you guys that were on the CPA committee last year heard us talk about kind of the phase one of this project um so this is something that we've been talking about for a bit but we're looking at revitalization of what we're calling the enhanced war memorial pool area and again this is a project with um with Dave and with Amherst Wreck and the DPW all working together um so to kind of give a little bit of a timeline on this um in 2019 we had the Amherst Facilities Strategic Plan that was um written by Weston and Samson and one of the things that it really recommends is um reconfiguration and enhancement to the community field and the enhanced war memorial area you know it talks a lot about kind of um focusing on the core but one of the phases that it particularly calls out is the community field and enhanced war memorial area um the schematic here that we're showing is kind of the the 10 000 foot view schematic that they had of the area that has you know the pool and a new bath house playground area basketball courts where our tree and grounds building is um and to orient you the high schools in this corner and the track and field is here and um you know Zomac Field and all the playing fields are right over here so last year you know given that this was a priority um and given that the bath house you know the the kind of lynch pin in this whole thing is that the bath house at war memorial pool needs to be replaced but we didn't want to simply just replace that building without thinking about what the other uses of this area are and what the needs of that bath house are and so last year um we were successful um you guys approved 200 000 for the schematic design of that area um so kind of just looking at what we want in that area um so that the bath house can be designed um and so right now we're in the process of identifying the consultant that will do that schematic design of the area and the design of the bath house um and I I will note that um part of that process is public input about what features are there so is there going to be a playground is there going to be a splash pad you know do we have basketball courts you know we're we're not set on what features are there and that is part of this process is um public input to help us define that area um and so what we're doing right now um what this project is is the next phase of that and so it's to take the design that the this phase one comes up with and move it to the next phase which would be construction um and so the ask is 750 750 000 for the complete design and the town matching portion of the construction and what this is going to do you know we do recognize that this is a little bit putting the cart before the horse um in a way because what this allocation will do is give us the town appropriated funds to be able to apply for a park grant or an lwcf grant which requires town matching funds um so really what this is going to what we're hopeful that this will do is set us up for um being able to be successful obtaining some state funding to cover the bulk of this project um some of this we talked about last year but just the need for you know really the linchpin of this is uh the war memorial bath house that needs replacement but this is also a great area to revitalize um you know a lot of the the playground equipment is um it you know it's in rough shape it hasn't been upgraded in a while and certainly especially with um you know the playing fields both the zomac diamond um and the softball fields right up you know right next to this and then you go across the road and there's the track and field and soccer fields and so a lot of times you know people are looking for a place to say bring a kid when one of their other kids is maybe running in a track meet um but they have a young kid that they need to entertain for a little bit and so having this space um be revitalized um it's it's part of why the western and samson study highlighted that um and like i said the matching funds we need for the state grant um so what you know what we're looking at you know ultimately at this preliminary stage you know we think this is about probably two million dollars for this entire area and that that's a you know very rough back of the calculation or back of the envelope calculation we don't fully know um we'll have a better idea as we move through the process with the consultant in phase one um but you know i i put below you know if we apply for a park grant we need a 30 local match so if it is a two million dollar project that means we need six hundred thousand dollars in local match um at minimum um and then the l w c f land water and conservation fund that needs a 50 local match and so again if we're a two million dollar project then we would need one million um for that so you know we're some some of this is unknown and we get that we're like i said maybe a little bit putting the cart before the horse but if we wait for all of phase one because of the timing of when you have to apply for these grants if we can't allocate through cpa this year or somehow otherwise find the funding from the state or from the local match we're gonna have to wait a whole another year to be able to apply um so um yeah that's that's the broad overview of this um Dave or Ray i don't know if you guys have anything you want to add to this conversation i think i'll wait for questions okay uh thank you Amy um i guess i'd like to open this up to questions or comments from the committee bob i see that your hand is up first um sure this sort of gets to my uh previous previous observation i i i understand that each one of these projects is kind of trench warfare you need the match and to get the match and you put it together and the next thing you know five years down the line we've got a brand new warm memorial project put together um what i just think about the limited resources that we have and 600 to 750 is the ask and all the other things we heard about in our previous meetings and in future meetings i i as we move down the line on the athletic um strategic plan are we to expect an ask proportionally large in each one of these projects as we move ahead maybe that's a question for you Dave you know when you get to the track and you get to um sort of bringing Amherst up in a state-of-the-art athletic facilities are we going to be putting increased pressure on on CPAC funds so happy to jump in on that sam if that's okay um yes so yeah it's a great question bob i think as i as i indicated earlier um my my my thinking is that you know we really started to get serious probably eight or ten years ago about the backlog that was kind of the the the the word i was looking for earlier we have a tremendous backlog of recreation upgrades that we have not done um and i think i and some other people started to raise that concern 10 or more years ago and we began to tick off some of that backlog you know uh you all recall when war memorial closed war memorial closed because it was unsafe and the um the lining and filter system was 1950s and so we spent some CPAC money and we got some grant money and and uh here we are and likewise mill river so i think we're we're ticking off some of the easy easier things but this one is a pretty big one if we want to keep war memorial open we need a new bath house and again from the staff standpoint why why do a new bath house unless you look at the whole area around war memorial which again the the play structures are from the 1950s those are original i know some people who played on them when they were young myself included so um they're still there and they're not great so i think yes there there there could be some big ass but let's put it in perspective the western and samson plan which i hope you all read if you haven't read it looks at phases this is really part of kind of phase one the track and field is the big nut in in um phase one and then this is kind of part of that phase one i'm very realistic i don't think we'll be moving forward on phase two or three or four of the of the western and samson plan for years i think it were 10 years 15 years or more down the way for some of those other other changes in field but one of the the underlying message in the western and samson plan was we should invest in the core fields with the most money we can and those core fields our community field the regional high school and the regional middle school so that's what we're trying to do as best we can so i i love the pictures of the other communities but there's no way i'm moving to framing him i want you to know that thank you bob and dav uh matt yeah i have a couple of comments and then um i have a question so just to respond to bob a little bit i was my first year on the cpa committee last year and i found a lot of this a little strange the process but um second year around it seems to make a little bit more sense but just for your information last year the cpa put a substantial amount of money to support the fort river fields as part of the fort river school project and then the year before i believe the cpa committee put a substantial amount of money already into the track and field at the high school project so that one actually the cpa already has put money into um then going to uh amy's presentation a couple of things that came up in the recreation committee meeting that i found quite interesting so just to speak to the urgency and this was again when we went through this process last year with the 200 000 for the preliminary design there was quite a bit of discussion about the the the detail falling down state of the bath house at war memorial and um how it's it's broken basically and it's not really working and that that sort of goes to the urgency like if we don't fix it it's likely to clothe you know this the situations we've had in previous years where it closed for season or part big part of a season where serious risk of that happening and we don't replace the building and then the other point with respect to the preliminary design one of the things that is being considered that i found quite interesting was public facing restrooms in the bath house so not only would this be a facility to support the pool but it could also be a bath house facility to support community field and the track and field project without people having to go into the interior of the high school to go to the bathroom so that's a couple of points and then my question um and i'm not sure the best person to answer this but um for this 750 000 how much of that needs to be uh sort of as cash and how much of that could be capitalized or does it make sense to capitalize all or part of it Dave are you asking are you asking because it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like the 750 000 would actually be spent immediately it would be several years out before that would actually be spent oh yeah that's a that's a great question matt um you know holly excuse me um amy outlined you know the one of the most compelling things about this is you know that without the local match we will lose at least a year maybe even two if we get out of the grant cycle for the park grant and the land and water conservation fund grants so we really need we need a cash match for that are you asking whether it could be borrowed or or well yeah because if it's borrowed then it we pay for it we we we commit to it now but we pay for it when it's needed in two or three years time it's a holly can speak to this but it's a both of those programs are reimbursement grants so we have to expend the money and then get reimbursed for the state or federal side of the the ledger so we have to put all the money out and then we get reimbursed in a fairly timely fashion so holly i would defer to you on you know could this be borrowed i believe it could be but i i defer to you on that i believe that it could be borrowed as well as long as there is an appropriation or a borrowing authorization you would be able to count that as your match um and again borrowing is something that we we just really need to be fairly careful with because the more and more we borrow the less and less we're going to have to give away in subsequent years because we have to make those payments no matter what so borrowing just really ties our hands in future years as to how much money we'll we'll have to give out not saying that larger projects and bigger dollar amounts aren't sometimes much easier to manage that way to get you know everything that we want to do um accomplished but it's just something we'd have to carefully consider uh doug um short quick question for amy that maybe i missed in the in the in the description uh when i look at the the western and samson master plan illustration for that area uh the dpw facility with the trucks and the plows and everything goes away so is there any relationship between executing this vision and uh the dpw facility that we haven't yet built so i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna clarify that just a little bit that the building that you're referring to that's just the tree and grounds department of public work so it's just one portion but yes that is basically across the road from the track um and at least the scope of what we're looking at with the project we're realistic that that site is not going to be moving in the next few years and so the scope of what we're looking for in that area is assuming that the tree and ground building will remain where it is and so it that's that's part of why that 10 000 foot view as we zoom in it's not going to have the the full scope of what they might have envisioned because we just don't have as much space even the place so they're going to have to be a little more discretionary about what they put in there so this this two million dollar project doesn't buy all everything i saw there in that on that side of the road the western the western samson model that was in that presentation includes images from from intense early on and there were basketball courts to answer your question there there were basketball courts where the trees and grounds building was that's not part of the okay that wasn't presented as the as the summary of what's going there necessarily okay thank you yeah um the 750 thousand dollars uh that is dependent on the total cost of the project so if the cost was less than two million say one and a half million the town could get by with a i don't know six hundred thousand dollar match or a six fifty match right so how how close are we to really understanding what the cost project or what the price of the project is as we try to grapple with this distribution of funds with not enough resources to cover all the requests uh you know i'm a little concerned about approving the entire 750 if we have a really shaky understanding of that two million dollar cost any way we could get a better understanding of the total cost and thus have the 750 number be a little bit less uh just wanted to ask obviously you probably couldn't answer that right now but as we proceed in our deliberations that i think will become important yeah i think that the number will become clearer the more time but i will also point out that 750 that we put in you know even assuming that two million dollar cost which that is an assumption but also you know we don't know if the park grant or the lw um cf grant is going to be the better um option for us or which is going to be a more viable um ask and one of them even under that two two million one of them's you'd be asking for 600 and the other one we would need a one million dollar local match and so that 750 also you know it could the the local match could be higher or lower depending on what which of the grants we think is more likely to be successful there's a lot of unknowns i guess is my point um i have a question i guess partially related to tim's uh has there been any feedback or is the town heard anything that would be pertinent or helpful to communicate to the committee relating to the feasibility study that's in process and yet to be completed at this point we're actually in the process of finding the correct consultant you know identifying the consultant to do it so we don't have that feedback yet um and i i see that there two grants under that have potential uh possibilities i'll make a comment that i'm quite impressed with the number of grants that the town has been able to secure for various projects it's wonderful we have that level of resources and whoever's doing the applications for these uh you know kudos to the forethought and the planning because it's obviously tremendously significant um can you apply for both of them and you know it is there any you know which one's most likely to happen i think we got the part grant my understanding is when we did the quantus field we approved the cpa money with the part grant pending uh dave and so did we approve the quantus field before we applied for the park grant or did we just kind of know we were going to get it so i'm wondering about the timing of the need for the funds um in order to apply for the grants so the short answer yes we can apply for both of the grants land and water conservation is federal but it goes through the state and then the park which stands for parkland acquisition i had it on the slide restoration for local communities it's a c yeah for communities and renovation renovation yeah we can get both um i'm not sure which fields you were referring to sam but we got the quantus the quantus excuse me kendrick park i misspoke kendrick park kendrick park was just a park grant it was not land and water conservation rough park the spray park and playground was both if i recall correctly but they need to be the funds need to be uh available and confirmed in advance of the application uh because i know we had a quick turnaround on the kendrick park the playground is so that's the issue that we're we're struggling with is um the sequencing here we would need to apply in the late spring early summer usually june and the funds need to be available you know when you apply you need to have town meeting or town in our case town council approval of those matching funds so we would need them in the next fiscal year they would need to be available in f y 25 on july 1st you know or after so that's that's the challenge i'll make one other comment from my perspective that certainly is an important area uh in terms of use and central activity that you know so you know i applied the forethought many years ago with the planning advanced planning for the whole master plan for the recreation area uh and you know our challenge is funding and available resources but it's i'm glad to see the effort being put into uh do what's possible and amy may have said it earlier but so we're going we're engaging um right now we are in the process of we will be selecting a designer for this area and the war memorial bathhouse i believe we've given them a deadline of june 1st or june 30th of 24 to complete that design so to tim's earlier question we will have a good sense of cost estimates in you know they'll be moving in that direction swiftly march april may of 24 so that's kind of the earliest we will be able to get kind of a sense because what go where does the bathhouse go how big is it what are the what are the you know what are requirements from code and and whatnot and then what are the amenities around it is it simply a basketball court is it i don't know is it two pickleball courts is it a spray pad what is it a playground what are the things the community wants around the pool those are all yet to be determined uh thank you uh any more what tim my apologies previously somehow my head i lost my feet uh that raised another question dave and that is uh should we feel we can only expend 500 000 rather than 750 is that a gameender for the entire project or does that mean we can do the project less extensively uh do you know that the antenna that question you know we can't do abc dne but maybe we can do ab and c if we expend less than the 750 or does the whole project go away i guess i you know i would say never never say never and you know if it's 500 and then then we kind of run with 500 and see how far we can get and and run this project out and go through the design and see where we are and if for some reason we're not able to make this round of park and land uh water conservation fund uh grant funding then then we hold then you know just have to anticipate the costs will likely increase a year from that point or whenever we get ready to bid the project so um i think if it's a hundred thousand dollars i think we're not going to be able to bridge that gap with any other private or or grant funding because you've got to show that local match to the state and federal government so okay thanks uh bob you had your hand up do you have um jam asked my question thanks um any other questions or comments from committee members any other uh yes amy yeah no i this is just getting back to matt maybe didn't ask a question but made a statement a little earlier about the condition of the bath house and i thought i would just read a paragraph from the request for proposals that we put out to um contractors that i think kind of summarizes the state of the bath house so we say the warm memorial pool bath house was built in 1953 and has greatly outlived its useful life the largest problem is the structural integrity of the building the roof needs replacement and the masonry walls are starting to fail these structural issues have led to various problems within the building including ventilation plumbing and paint which all need to be constantly spot repaired to keep the building operational and so that's really the big push of this hole and i get that you know we keep kind of talking bigger picture but the big push is this bath house um on an annual basis my guys do everything they can with you know duct tape and glue to try and kind of get this thing um open for another season um but we're really kind of um reaching the end of even what we can do with the resources that we have um and that's the real linchpin of this whole project thank you amy anything else to add uh amy ray or dav so thank you uh all all of you for persisting with the delays amy with your four presentations we do have another presentation on our list and thank the committee members we're going to run a little bit over here we're going to continue and get this presentation in it's important that we stick to the date of the schedule so i see that erin is in the uh list of presenters so erin uh we'll be glad to hear what you have to say can you guys hear me we can oh okay i can't see myself on the screen so thank you um did you want me to share i have a presentation do you want me to share my screen i don't know if i'm able to do that um holly are you able to enable that just uh what i'm going to need to do yes it's just going to take me a second um excuse me as we're pulling that up erin can you identify who are you i mean what are you work for the town or yes my name's erin jock i'm the wetlands administrator for the town of amherst okay thank you and this is the trail and restoration trail restoration and enhancement proposal correct erin so i've just promoted you to a panelist so i can allow you so i think you're going to have to hit a button there and then i should be able to allow you to share screen so i just made you a co-host you should be all set now to share your screen great thank you and there you are there i am um so thank you for having me um again erin jock wetlands administrator and um here to present on um some improvements to uh town conservation lands um primarily trails improvements to accessible trails safety improvements um so we have um over 80 miles of of trails on our conservation lands and um it's really important that we steward those lands and um take care of the ecosystems uh that are on those lands in association with the trail management make the trails safe um care for the beaches um and make the trails accessible to folks who need to use them correct historic problems undersized culverts and add structures where appropriate like bog bridging boardwalks foot bridges etc um focusing on a couple specific um properties here uh puffers pond um hickory ridge of the robert frost trail in general which goes through the town of amherst larch hill markets pond and amethyst brook um there's a lot of things that need to happen uh with these projects and i tried to give just a general sense of um planning so right now there's quite a bit of planning going on for hickory ridge or i'm sorry for for puffers pond um and the hope is that in the next couple years we're going to be moving toward similar to the presentation you just saw towards grant applications so then we can move towards construction hickory ridge uh we have designed everything um we're in the permitting phase right now and construction is expected in spring of 2024 but only a portion of what we've planned for is funded um with the current funding that we have um we are in the process we we've done quite a bit on the robert frost trail um over the past few years as far as improvements but it's a long trail and there's lots that needs to be done um larch hill there's a handicap accessible boardwalk sorry did somebody say something oh okay sorry i heard a little feedback um on larch hill there's a handicap accessible trail with a large boardwalk that needs to be replaced which requires survey wetland delineation design materials um markets pond the trails down there are pretty significantly degraded and amethyst brook um a few years ago we lost a trail bridge there which is also on the robert frost trail but it's a pretty significant trail bridge and these projects require a significant a significant amount of planning and a significant amount of staff time um in the last year we did um lose our conservation land management assistant who we just rehired someone and our our land manager was out on leave so that limited our implementation but we have tried to utilize this time um in 2023 for planning and so a significant amount of time staff time has been put in planning to try to queue up projects for construction um next year and um things that we frequently need funding for our surveys wetland delineation materials sort of the brick and mortar pieces that go into the construction of these projects and town staff typically does the permitting um and if we can the construction and labor so i shared some of these images with you last year um of puffers pond puffers is in really tough shape right now we have spent the last year visioning for puffers pond trying to come up with improving some of the ecological impacts that are happening there with erosion loss of vegetation we also have problems with um uh accessibility the trails are in really bad shape and it's really impacted people's recreational use of the property and and so this visioning process is coming up with well what's the what is the vision of what we want these improvements to look like and then we can go into grant and design um getting grants design permitting and construction so this is kind of the visioning is the first step um for hickory ridge um we in 2020 uh we acquired the property in 2022 um there's been a significant amount of staff time invested in design of a handicap accessible trail system and a multi-use path for the property the purpose of the path is to connect the environmental justice communities that are to the north the brook renew mill valley estates to connect it with crocker farm school walk walkable access and also the south amherst village center the town has received a 2023 park grant toward the accessible trail loop 2022 mini entitlement grant for the multi-use path and we just found out that we received um in partnership with the mass division of fisheries and wildlife um uh this um nifwith grant america the beautiful for quite a bit of ecological restoration on the site um we did have some renderings put together for the handicap accessible trails and so this is um some images of what those um trails would look like um and so on this slide you can see on the left this is sort of the the full trail system um and on the right this is what the grants cover so in order for us to really complete this project um there's going to need to be some local funding that goes into this um or we're going to have to find additional funding sources these are some images of the robert frost trail just to give you a sense of the condition of the robert frost trail places where there's bridge crossings missing that we need bridge crossings um there's been significant blow downs with the weather in the last couple years um there's uh um accessibility issues there's um problems with bridge crossings bridges that are basically caving in um sorry i have a uh a two year old who's screaming for me upstairs right now so i apologize he's if you hear him um in the middle of my presentation so i apologize um uh the uh sweet alice project was um a bridge project that we constructed in 2022 but the bridge um there was a beaver that came in beavers that came in and flooded out the property um and uh flooded out the bridge and so we had to come up with a solution um my uh our colleagues at kestrel land trust partnered with us to construct this um this bog bridge to reconnect the pond loop trail and so this is just an example of the sort of um public-private partnership that we can you know use to leverage the funds that we get to make some of these improvements on townlands um a few examples of projects on the horizon these are just some photos of the existing boardwalk at larch hill photos of the second boardwalk at sweet alice that's needed through wetland um you know these are examples of of again infrastructure that's that needs needs updating and then the amethyst brook bridge that washed out this is a 50 foot span over the amethyst brook and um it's in desperate need of um of getting replaced it's it's causing a significant amount of um damage to the stream bank uh where the trail has been rerouted because this bridge washed out so um that is my presentation um happy to thank you erin uh i'm wondering if you'd be willing to share your presentation uh with holly uh and therefore with the committee um yes absolutely and perhaps uh amy i see you're still in the audience so you might be willing to also share your slides they all look great and they're quite informative i think it'd be helpful for me and perhaps others to be able to look at some of the highlights um so thank you i'd like to open up the uh the conversation to any to committee members who might have any questions or comments uh tim um basic question uh what exactly is the money for uh do you have it for each specific project or are you requesting a lump sum and then you'll make some decisions later on and do what you can with that lump sum and if the lump sum is less than 100 you'll do what you can with that lesser money uh that's the kind of question i have yeah so um i think that that what you said is right you know we we try to do the best we can with the funds that are available to us and so um you know as you all know the cost of materials has fluctuated pretty significantly over the last few years um you know what we might estimate one year um to do a given project might cover half of that project two years later so um we really sort of try to roll with it and do what we can with the resources we have we also actively apply for grants whenever we have the opportunity to do so so if we identify a project we know we have um x number of dollars that we could use as a match um we will leverage those funds and or if we identify a project in some cases we get private donations from people we get we have kestrel involved so we can you know piecemeal together some things to complete given projects but um you know we leverage the funds in the most effective way we can to get as much done on the trails as we can michelle this is curious of the many projects that you mentioned what what are like your top three priority or maybe top two priority um well i mean i would say puffers pond and hickory ridge from my perspective are are two top priorities i will defer to dav you know he's he's got i'm sure his priorities in mind as well uh nice segue because dav your hand is up sure so great question from michelle i i would not disagree with erin and all i think hickory and puffers pond are very high on the list but you know i i wanted to just comment more broadly and and get back to that but um erin's presentation covered a lot of ground and you know i i don't want to emphasize that you know whether it's on the recreation side or the or the conservation side you know we're we're planners you know not unlike the university not unlike the colleges we're planning for five you know this year three years down the road five years down the road 20 years down the road you know we're planners we want to make things better for the community so as i listened to erin there was a part of me that was wondering is everybody on this call getting overwhelmed going wow there is a lot to do so when i listened to erin and it was a wonderful presentation and i had previewed it earlier today it kind of gets overwhelming you go where do we start on these trails so i wanted to kind of put a pin in that to say we have great trails we have 80 miles of trails people compliment me all the time it is wonderful you can hike you can mountain bike you can do yoga you can run you can do trail running um you can fish you can hunt you can do all these wonderful things um and many people don't even notice what we notice as planners we want to make the trails better we want to make buffers bond better i can't tell you how many people come to me and say don't touch buffers bond it's good just the way it is but we look at it through a different lens not unlike recreation where we say wouldn't it be nice if more of buffers bond was accessible to people with disabilities that would be a wonderful thing wouldn't it be nice if we could better protect natural resources and instead of having people slog through six inches of mud and a true wetland resource area wouldn't it be great if we could put a boardwalk there and raise them up so they don't get their feet wet their kids can can have fun on a raised boardwalk and we protect the natural resources so i just wanted to get that out there that we get it you know we're not looking for a million dollars i will say that i would put these in categories of kind of short term and long term so erin identified two long term projects hickory ridge and buffers pond and we're going to chip away at those over time this hundred thousand dollars and we're starting to come we've been pretty consistent over the last couple of years coming to the cpac for a annual an annual amount of money last year i believe it was reduced to 50 000 so we understand the budgetary constraints the town is going to be under with cpac money but again i think this is really the short term project money this is not going to fix buffers pond this is not going to you know it will make an impact at hickory ridge as we have as erin indicated we have cdbg money and art grant money for hickory but 50 to 100 000 isn't going to get you a dredged buffers pond with new beaches and new trails that's a long term goal we have this is to fix some of the ada trails that erin showed images of and do some of the routine repairs upgrades to bridges boardwalks things like that uh thank you uh david and erin um i i want to inform the committee we did receive an email this afternoon that i just opened uh from erin we had asked the question of what was the current balance of funding and the responses that the cpa funds current balances are 24 000 for parcels purchased with cpa funds and 50 000 for passive recreation trails this will be sent to the committee members as well but i just wanted you to be aware that erin had responded to the question that we asked once she got that information um i do have a question for you erin i recall last year and i i gather uh as dav indicated the scope and breadth of the amount of work in areas of responsibility and uh tasks that are required i remember last year that we you know their rental of equipment rental was a aspect of some of the usage of funds and i saw it referenced again and i'm wondering if the town has considered purchasing i asked the slasher ask it again a mini excavator or a mini roller uh because if we're renting them year after year it may well be that it's more cost effective to actually acquire them if or if they have not done so might the town consider searching or even perhaps used once thank you uh i see dav's hands up erin would you like to answer that question day or yeah maybe i could jump in just because erin isn't as involved in capital planning as i am but great questions am when we can we share equipment with dpw they've been helpful for instance at marquard's pond helping us with a small dam structure there but our busy time is dpw's busy time so their excavators their minis their mini excavators their skid steers and such they can help us and have helped us in the past but typically um they're busy when we are we did through the capital planning process so we have tractors brush hogs uh two tractors uh three brush hogs um we have some other smaller equipment for mowing smaller fields things like that keeping early successional habitat and we were successful after about four years in getting a skid steer um with mowing equipment on it uh as well as a bucket and associated uh attachment so that is something that will help us and will allow us not to have to rent as much equipment sam for instance to um to maintain some of the or enhance some of the ADA trails um i wanted to just address the the funding the existing funding i would anticipate the existing funding that we have given all the planning that erin mentioned we will probably spend through that money by i would say uh late august or early september of 20 um four so that money that we are have been sitting on if you will so the planning could be done will be gone you know in the first six seven months of 24 uh thank you um do any committee members have additional questions or comments uh for erin not seeing any hands uh erin is there anything you'd like to add uh after hearing the questions or comments i mean the the only thing that i would just like to add is um you know we are a really small department and if you think about the amount of lands that our department manages and cares for we have two staff people who do all of that work and basically two to three staff people you know who who sort of do the the sort of more office task type work and we rely on you know funding sources for us to be able to properly store these lands and do the work to keep these trails safe make them accessible for the community and it's really important that we make them accessible for the community for to be safe for folks who have disabilities or um you know access mobility challenges so um we want to keep just a couple of the properties um a handful of the the properties accessible for these folks and safe for these folks to use and so that's that's what this focus is towards uh thank thank you erin for uh your presentation and uh thorough answers and uh and it's clear you're quite busy uh with and i know it's late in the evening for you so thank you for taking the time and waiting uh beyond our intended schedule uh to the volume of public comments received if we have additional questions as a committee we might email you but thank you again um so the next item on our agenda is financial updates uh i'm going to go ahead and share the screen that i have from the packet or holly are you able to do it um no i mean if you wanted to share it you can go ahead and share it but i just there is nothing new to report the numbers are exactly the same as they were um a week ago today we've not received any money from the state yet so as of this point it's exactly as it was last week i guess i won't share my screen no need to so if anybody has questions that's fine but if not i don't i don't think it's i have a question related to finance in general um there are questions related to potential bonding that we've heard today um do we know or might you be able to find out for our subsequent meeting what the anticipated rate of interest would be for a bond were we to do so and this relates to um also relates to the all the different projects in other words you did it in your financial pressure projection for the current year i'm wondering if the next year depend at some point when we start to deliberate we'll likely arrive at a place where we need to consider the implications for the next two or so years of whether or not we seek to engage in any borrowing uh so if that information could be on the radar uh because i i'm sure that question will arrive so i'm bringing it up now uh i know we can't predict everything at the time of borrowing but any general idea i think would be helpful when we come to the point of deliberations um the other question or comment i have at some point it would also be beneficial i don't know if in the middle of our busy cycle right now is the time but to receive uh to ping to to reach out to the currently outstanding applicants where funds exist for just a synopsis update of where they're at we added that to our general process a couple years ago i think it's a very worthwhile step both in terms of finding out if there are composers that are no longer um going forward or if they so if you could just add those two items to your extensive list of the requests um any questions or comments from committee members i don't have any additional uh topics uh i'm wondering if anyone has anything else they'd like to bring up the last thing i'll say is uh as we're hearing all these proposals we do have some new members um it might be worthwhile to take a look at prior year recordings of prior year's deliberations i know i had sent the links when you first came on board just to get an idea of what's coming down the road essentially what we will do as a committee as a starting point is all of our members here will look at all these projects and simply try to come up with a simple straw pool rating of one to five in terms of how we feel about the project and that just gives us a ballpark to start to talk about them but soon enough in two more meetings we're going to have the uh the next meeting is on the 30th of November where we'll be hearing historic preservation proposals and then on December 7th i believe uh 6th or 7th we will comment we'll have a public hearing and in that meeting once we hear from the public then we begin discussing the projects and at that point in time all of us will have wanted to think in our own way on a consistent basis so that we're each internally consistent of how we might rate those so i wanted to rate the projects on a one to five scale i just wanted to prompt committee members feel free to email me or reach out to me with any questions on that i'd be glad to provide what i can but i think the best method might be to just take a look at a previous meeting where we discussed it or there's one little chart that kind of summarizes how we went through it so that's that's all i have i'd like to thank everyone for staying we ran extra today but i think it was worthwhile to hear extensive public comments on the presentations or on the areas of application this time around so thank you all i'm going to adjourn the meeting at 8 25 p.m and we'll see you all at our next meeting which is not next week but the following week two weeks from now thank you all good night