 Hi, welcome everyone. My name is Angela Mills. I work for the town of Amherst. You are here at the Jones Library Building Committee. It is the 22nd of September, and this meeting is being recorded to the cloud. It will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel shortly. And at this time I would like to introduce the chair of this event, Professor Austin, Sarah. Thank you. Thank you, Angie. I wish I dressed for the occasion. It's nice to see you all. We're going to just go and you'll signify your presence vocally Sharon. Here. Thank you, George. Here. John. Here. Paul. Present. Alex. Yes. Christine. Yes. And Austin is here. We have a, we have a quorum and other members may join us. We are joined by our good colleagues from. Colliers. The first order of business is the approval of minutes. From first from August 9th. Is there a motion to approve those minutes? I will. Thank you. That was good. Is there a second? Second. Any corrections, comments on the minutes? Okay. Hearing none. Sharon. Yes. George. Yes. John. Yes. Yes. Alex. Yes. Christine. Yes. Austin votes. Yes. Thank you for that. Okay. Minutes of August 23rd. Motion to approve. I will. Thank you. Second. Second. Okay. Any comments or corrections on the minutes? Sharon. Yes. George. Yes. John. Yes. Paul. Yes. Alex. Yes. Christine. Yes. And lastly, September 8th, the motion to approve. I will. Thank you so much. Second. Second. Okay. Any corrections to the minutes? Sharon. Yes. George. Yes. John. I'm going to abstain from those ones. Paul. Yes. Alex. Yes. Christine. Yes. And Austin votes. Yes. Thank you. And thank you to Angie. For the minutes. Okay. The next item on the agenda is the town manager report. Paul. Hmm. What is a town manager report? So. I was not at the council meeting on Monday. So Sean was. And so is Austin, Alex, I believe. So I will defer to someone who was actually there to report on that. That's the most recent town council debated. Entering into a. A, a, an addendum to our memorandum of understanding between the library and the town, which would carry. This project forward through construction bids. It was a lively debate and the town council voted eight in favor. Five opposed. I think that's accurate. Did I get it right? Yeah. So that's the status of where we are right now. I think that's the status of where we are right now. Is putting, putting that proposal together. Great. Great. Great. Great. The proposal being this memorandum of understanding. Yeah. Memorandum. Good. Totally, totally fabulous. And Paul, do you want to say anything on the agenda? It says additional state funding initiative update. You want to say anything about that? So there is a, there are people advocating at multiple levels with additional funding for additional funding or adjustments in the mass board of library commissioners commitment to their building program. And I think that's, there are about 12. I think Sharon has this information about 12 communities who are in the exact same boat as we are. I just actually got off the phone with one town manager and another community. Same situation. Where their, their library project has increased significantly in cost. And so seeking relief at the state level seems very logical. But the state has a number of things in play that they're trying to manage as well. So we are hopeful, but, and we'll continue to advocate at the state level. And there's, you know, the council, there's different people involved with that effort. Right. Thank you, Sharon. Do you want to add anything to that? No, I just, I encourage you all to write. Letters. Okay. I, today, tonight, tomorrow would be ideal. I think it makes a difference. And, and these folks, especially on ways and means want to hear from you. Thank you. And those letters are, I mean, they're right, Paul. This is a statewide problem. Yeah. There's a kind of funding crisis that's precipitated by things beyond the control of any of these. So, you know, there's a number of libraries and these libraries are in various states. So some are like us where, you know, signed, sealed and delivered. Others have right preliminary awards. Others are expecting an award. But everybody is in the same boat. And in fact, the cost escalations in other towns, percentage wise, or even great in some other towns, right? Or even greater than ours. So that's one, you don't have to name the town, but like what is the highest percentage? There's one that's a 60% increase. 60% increase. So. Okay. Any questions about either the. The town council report or this report about. Initiatives at the, at the state level. Those initiatives at the state level are, you know, kind of running in parallel, if you will, to the ongoing fundraising effort that is being carried out by the friends of the library capital campaign. Okay. All right, Paul, thank you so much. Sean reviewing approval of invoices financial update. So we do have the August invoice from colliers. We have processed and paid all the invoices that we had from FAA. So we're all set there. So this is for August similar format as the past. So I'm saying monthly fee. I would look for a motion to approve. Is there a motion to approve. I make a motion to approve. Thank you. Is there a second second. Any questions about paying the invoice. Sharon. Yes. George. Yes. Sean. Yes. Christine. Yes. Alex. Alex gave me thumbs up. So I think that's a yes. Paul. Yes. Sorry. I couldn't get back to my unmute. Yeah. Paul. I'm a yes too. And Austin is a yes. Thank you, Sean. Anything else on a fight on the financial update? I think the OPM is going to share a few different financial updates. So I'll defer to him. Great. Okay. And any other questions for Sean? If not, let's go to. Adam five on the agenda, which is the call your call yours. OPM. Report Craig's nice to see you will. Thanks for coming. Thank you, Austin. All right. So please, as you all share my screen. Please. So I think we'll start with the schedule. And then make our way through some of those. Documents that Sean referred to some updates to the finances. And then we'll move on to the next slide. So here was the project schedule. From a couple of months ago. When we were in schematic design. Using the information that we've learned since then, talking with the design team, we've updated the schedule. And as could be expected, things have drawn out a bit. So I'll show what that looks like now. And then I've got both so we can sort of toggle back and forth, and then we'll move on to the next slide. So I'll show you what we're doing here. So where here we are at the red line. This is a couple of days ago. September, middle of September. What we've done is we were poised to enter the design development phase. I'll zoom in a little bit. Yep. The design team. So a couple of things have extended the duration of design development as well. So the, this block here, these two months here, this is time the design team has said that they need in order to update the plans. Sort of bring them up to speed so that all the modifications and comments that they've received can be incorporated. So that's sort of like the first step. So once the town gives them the go ahead to move into design development, that's like the first thing they're going to do. So that's what they're going to do. They said eight weeks, they're confident that they can get everything done and caught up in that time. If they can reduce that, they will. So if they can do seven weeks, six weeks, whatever, that's their goal. But they wanted to be conservative in this estimate. So we plugged in two months. Here's the normal design development portion. And then I attacked on extra month at the end. Because we know we're so tight on the cost and the cost is such an important thing. And we're going to do another round. I'm sure of looking, taking a hard look at value management items. I added some extra time in there. So that would be time. And if we don't need it, great. But that would be time that the cost estimators can give us some prices for things that we have ideas about this, this board and the community, you know, consider them and ask questions back and forth. So added that in there. That gets us into construction documents. The next major phase, say the latter portion of spring 2023. That phase hasn't changed. Actually, I tightened it up a little bit looking at our detailed timeline. The cost estimate for construction documents doesn't happen at the end. It happens at the 75% point. And so that, you know, we don't need to do a similar thing when we tack anything on the end. That puts us with having the construction documents, starting the bid process of fall, sort of mid to late fall next year, let's say November 1st, we would go into bid. Three months for, you know, bidding. To get the bids, you put the information out there on the street, get the bids back, begin evaluating them. And for this committee to decide which contract they like to go with. And at that point. Up here in the top row. I'm tracking the MBLC disbursements. So that point will be eligible for disbursement number two. So that would be say end of January 2024. Construction phase did not change. That would be eligible for the third disbursement. I've got here in July. That would normally be here at the point where we got a building permit, but because we're getting number two in say February, that one's got a bump to the next fiscal year. So. Fiscal year starts in July. So that'll be number three. Construction goes all the way through to the end of summer. Or let's say two thirds of the way through summer of 2025. That's when we anticipate will we would, the contract would reach substantial completion. And you, you, the town would get their certificate of occupancy from the building inspector. And you'd be allowed to move in your materials, your furnishings and equipment, either, you know, reused or new. So we've got that time to get everything set up. Occupancy is this big star here in fall. Let's say October of 2025. And that marks also the fourth disbursement. The fifth disbursement would have to, from MDLC would have to wait till the next fiscal year. So we've got that coming in the summer, as soon as it's eligible, the summer of 2026 or disbursements, that timeline has changed significantly. Similarly, the temporary occupancy line down here has kind of stretched out to match, you know, when, when you'd get the space when the space will be ready to start getting inhabited, used and then moved out of. And so those durations didn't change. It just kind of slid down. What I did is I took this public input and stretch that out. So that's our new schedule. Does anyone have any questions about that? Great questions about the schedule showing. Craig or maybe Sharon knows, is there any precedent for MDLC? I know their, their rule is one payment per year, but is there any precedent for them making more than one payment per year? If they have the funds. You know, if there were a reason they don't make a payment to one other library and they have the extra funds, would they consider it? I'd love to say, yes, I'm sure they would, but they tend to really stick to their rules because there are so many other libraries involved. So I'm guessing the answer is no, but I'm not sure. Craig, do you, do you have any other information on that? I do not, but I'd be glad to ask MVLC and sort of walk them through this timeline and see if this is in fact what they would plan on. So I'll put that on my to-do list. Great. And you should be in touch with the, with Sharon as you reach out to MVLC. We'll do. Okay. Any other questions about the schedule? So Craig might just question is given that things have slid through, you know, for a variety of reasons. Is this schedule sufficiently ambitious? Yes, I think so. So there's no, nowhere along the line that we, you can anticipate that we can kind of pick up time. There are some small opportunities to pick up, you know, a couple of weeks here and there, but nothing that would significantly change the layout. Okay. Any other questions about the schedule? All right. I see none. So Craig, thank you for that. All right. So next item I wanted to go over. Let's see page 12. So something that we've been talking about with this, you know, the budget. So this is the latest and greatest. This still is a three kind of a low, medium and a high estimate because there are still some pretty big unknowns, but looking, I think for our purposes tonight, we'll look most at the mid here. One thing that we talked about last month, I'm sorry at the last meeting was this category here, the FF and E budget. So previously this was 2,516,000. And the question is, all right, what is, you know, can we take some money out of that? All right. So if we take a million dollars out, what does that look like? And so I had mentioned that, you know, the use of existing furniture is one way you can save some money there or reduce costs there. But Austin, I believe you were looking for some more definition. And so we do not have the cost estimate, the furniture and equipment. Just just Craig, just want to make sure of you. The budgets that you were showing us the. The 43, 46, 49, those, those have not changed, right? But they are, they do not include. Value management. Savings, is that right? This, what, thank you for, that's a great question and start from upbringing up. So what these numbers represent is incorporating all those value management ideas that were approved last at the last meeting. Okay. So those have been rolled in with one exception. And that is the slate roof. So I still have only heard back from one of the cost estimators and his information, although good. He admitted was a couple of years old. And so I was hoping to get some, a second opinion before we kind of start counting on those savings. But if that one cost estimate or fantasy is correct, they are switching from real slate, synthetic slate is a significant cost reductions. I think throughout the number of 250,000, something like that, like it was significant. So that will help certainly. These numbers that we're also looking at do include that, you know, not yet approved, but sort of conceptualized million dollar reduction and furnishings and equipment. They do or do not. Does. Yes. Okay. So, and to help understand what that entails. These are the old plans or the previous plans. So right there, we know that this is just a diagram. What we did without having the benefit of the furniture and equipment, either designer or vendor on board as we look. Colliers looked at some recent projects we've done, what the furnishings cost kind of like middle of the road. So not. But, you know, you know, lower basement. Cheap stuff, but also not really high end stuff, but, you know, solid dependable things. Products. And we've got three categories here. I'm sorry, I'll flashback. To this. We've got three categories that we've broken death furnishings down into loose furnishings. And that's, you know, chairs, tables, office furnishings. And then there's the library shelving, which of course is necessary. And as a specialty. And then this category E. A V equipment and book sorter or 440,000. The design team very helpfully solicited. Some information from. A book sorter manufacturer. And they estimate it was somewhere around 300,000 just below $300,000 for the piece of equipment, so that's a good sort of break down. Now, back to this diagram. So we use some colors here. I'll just quickly, I'll walk you through it all, but we use different colors to help visualize what we're talking about. The loose furnishings, those chairs, tables. And then there's the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the equipment that we'd be looking to install here at the Jones library. And so then we have about 140,000 left over for AV equipment. So I think that. We have a lot of them. We have a lot of them. We have a lot of them. We have a lot of them. We have a lot of them. We have a lot of them. We have a lot of them on the tables. They have this blue box around them. Library shelves are all in green. And then the book sorter is just this purple. Area here. So. Under this. 1.5 million dollar budget. We would get at the recommendation of the design team. They said, no, no, no, we can't reduce any costs on the. Shelving. You want all new shelving. You want all new shelving. So that's a little bit more of a thoughtful kind of furniture and equipment package. So with that assumption. It actually checks out with our information. You know, library shelves. We counted up just over 700 units. $600 a unit is something that we saw on another. Recent project. So that comes in. 400, let's say $440,000. So. within that budget, just barely, but within that budget. So that number of 440,000 for the bookshelves, so far as checking out, and that allows you to have all new bookshelves. The books order I mentioned, 300,000, that fits within that $550,000 line item. So now it's just a loose furniture that I'll walk you through. And that is something that you guys may have already as a resource is some furniture that's hopefully in serviceable condition. What I've done here is shown kind of an a la carte, you know, what things cost so that we can visualize, all right, anything in a blue box, I've counted up and estimated how much it would be. So if we say, all right, we want all, you know, we don't have chairs, but you know, we want all, or we want all new chairs for our new large meeting room, that's gonna be somewhere between $23,000 and $31,000, our estimate. If you say, okay, well, we also need all new office furniture, this is how many offices I counted, level one, five, level two, four, level three, seven, total of 16 offices, 3,000 or 3,600 to 5,000 to furnish a typical office. So if you do all new office furnishings for those offices, we're somewhere between 58 and 80,000. So you can kind of get a feel for, all right, if we're talking about offices, that's how much we're talking about. So everything else on this lower floor, if it's available, of course we'd have to, you know, someone would have to do an analysis of what's available in the current library that can be used. So this is just kind of an example or a sample. So everything else would be reuse. Second floor or second level, main level, I thought maybe this is an area where more new furniture would have sort of the biggest impact, biggest positive impact. So, you know, looking at the circulation areas, you know, average prices for this, I did computers and furnishings, someone around $17,000 to do the cafe space with this, you know, the former layout and this boutique wall display, I assumed that was gonna be an eight or $10,000 item, the chairs and tables somewhere between 35 and 50,000. Chairs and tables back here between 30 and 40,000, chairs and tables in the young adult section, 40 and 50,000. Similar thing up on the third level, new chairs and tables for these rooms, but not necessarily these rooms. Hopefully there's things that can be reused. And so what, so you can kind of get a feel for, all right, we're doing about like half new furniture, half existing furniture, and what that yields is this little table here. So, of the loose furnishings, this was our budget, you know, $526,000. What I've shown in those blue boxes, if you bought all that new, that would be approximately $300,000. And that means we've got 200,000 left over for grounds and custodial equipment, special collections, specifically the high density storage, you know, that's something that I didn't have a price for, but it's gonna be necessary. This does not include phones. I did include the computers in anywhere I put their blue box, new computer, but obviously there are other places where we are showing computers. So again, big disclaimer, this isn't our area of expertise, but in sort of, this is our best attempt at helping this committee understand what that million dollar reduction would kind of look like. Are there any questions? Thank you, Craig. I've got two hands up so far, Sean and Sharon, Sean first. Yeah, I've just, I've got a few questions. So like bathroom fixtures and things like that, that comes out of a separate budget, not this one, right? Very good question, you're correct. So the fixtures, furnishings and equipment is a little bit of a misleading term. Toilet fixtures, light fixtures, that would all be part of the base building cost and so that would be the plumbing line item and the electrical line item. Okay, and likewise, like the wires and conduits that are in the walls and ceilings for technology and things like that, is that part of the electrical or the general contractor's budget? Yes, so we would have that built into that I forget now what the cost estimate was but that's the cost estimators included those. It's within that, okay. And then signage for a building like this I don't have a good sense of like what I imagine a new building is going to need quite a bit of signage on the walls and would that come out of this budget? Typically, yes it does. It would be something that is sort of a separate line item. I can't recall if we have a specific line item for signage in the budget, but yes that's a very good point. So that would be another package of scope that would have to fit into this 219,000 sort of leftover. Okay, and then the last one was just if there is going to be any purchase of new laptops, computers, projection equipment, anything like that that would come out of there too. I know there's some of that's already, there's money for separately, but if there's any additional because of the new area that would come out of this area, the section of the budget. So we have let's say 140,000, if the book order is in fact 300,000 we'd have 140 left over for AV. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. Thank you, Sharon. Yeah, so I just wanted to know if now is a time for me to ask, so George, Hicks Richards and Matt Burby are for an inventory of what furniture exactly could be reused and how many computers that we can reuse. Who are you asking that question to Craig? I think Craig is now the time or should I wait? I would say more information is better. I know that's a big undertaking to do so I don't wanna do it too lightly but if the committee is seriously considering this million dollar reduction, then yes, that would be very valuable information. Thank you. Christine. Yeah, my question's about the books order and that amount that's in there, Craig, was that from a specific RFID or like from another library? Like is it a rigorous one, a minor one? Where did that fit? So the system, it was a, what is it called? Biblioteca, I believe is the manufacturer and that would be the cost for the equipment that would go in the collection area and so it's like a series of rollers and sorters and lifts. So that's what that $300,000 would buy you, it would not buy you necessarily the RFID. The design team pointed that out that $300,000 did not include the RFID package. So it's just the books order and does that include installation and like setting it up? I believe so, yes. Thank you. Sharon. Yeah, I just wanted to say, so we met with the two companies are Biblioteca and TechLogic, they're both on the state's bid contract. And so, and those are the two norms across the state of Massachusetts, Biblioteca seems to be the better option. And so that being said, both companies have been given our designs. In fact, Biblioteca reached out to find Gold Alexander on their own. I think they've worked on other library projects together before. So basically what they do is they have our specs and they'll be able to design a system and get us exact price costs. Thank you, Sharon. Alex. Thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to, I guess, clarify. I know that, so there was a question about laptops and AV equipment, and there have been conversations about, will we go back to the Joint Capital Planning Committee for these things? And I guess I wanna clarify and make sure my understanding is correct. So in my time on the Joint Capital Planning Committee as a library, the usage on our computers is hard, high and frequent. And so getting all new equipment on day one doesn't mean that we won't go back to the Joint Capital Planning Committee. We have a cycle, like everybody has a cycle, those schools have a cycle, the library has a cycle for their tech equipment. And I guess the gift of this is we skip a cycle in essence, but then we would still go back to some cycle. So, and I guess I just wanna be clear that that's still the case. I think in terms of the planning we do on the Capital Improvement Program, we would still expect there to be a replacement schedule for technology, yeah. Thank you. Great. Sharon. That's exactly what I wanted to say that, yes, hopefully that was understood, but I'm glad it's clarified. Thank you. So we asked Craig and he's done a great job. We asked Craig to bring us some things so that we could come to some understanding about whether or not we wanna endorse the reduction in the FF&E budget for this project down to what I think he showed on the diagram was about 1.5 million. That's right. And this was, this is part of our value engineering, value management activity. We've endorsed a variety of reductions in the budget for the project. The question is whether or not we are ready to endorse this one. Given the understanding that Craig has said, this is not the final word on this. This is to give us a rough idea of what it might entail. So are we ready to express our collective view about the proposed million dollar savings in the FF&E? Okay. If we are, then someone should make a motion to accept the reduction as described by Craig in the presentation that we've just had. Can I ask a question first? I'm sorry, I've lost my ability to raise my hand, I'm sorry. Since this is FF&E, we're not gonna need this stuff in place for a couple more years. Well, with the exception of the sorter, can we hold off on making this decision? So going back to the state initiative for additional funding, I'm feeling very optimistic about it and that could make these cuts premature. So I take it that if we say we wanna make this cut, that helps us have a sense of what the budget would be. I take it that if new funds become available from the state, that this committee might have a conversation again about various items. Some of it might be too late to change, but it's your pleasure. Do you wanna speak now about this or you wanna wait? Alex? So I guess my thought and correct me if I'm wrong, Craig, but I feel like what I heard last time was we're gonna hire a designer, a designer plans the whole thing, and then if we get more money later, we're not going back to that designer again. So I guess my question is, is it better to have somebody design the whole thing assuming the ARPA funds and the fundraising come through and we have our best case scenario and then okay, don't we make our own decisions about the changes in the cuts versus getting sort of a watered down version and then we wind up with more money, but we don't have the bigger plan. So I think my preference would be to hold this as something we can cut later, if it makes sense, like for me, it makes sense to have somebody plan the whole thing and then cut, but that's my thought. Craig? That's a great point, Alex, and I think a very good strategy. We're gonna have this designer, have them design sort of the best case scenario, the best library with all new furniture and then like you said, we say, all right, now we've got that cost, let's decide, all right, this table instead of being new, we've got one that we can use. These chairs instead of being new, we've got those we can use and kind of take it from that direction, but then also maybe in the back of the mind or with that inventory of existing furniture, sort of keeping an eye on that, like, all right, we also sort of know the stock that we're starting with or that could be available if we wanna go that route, if we have to go that route. So I think that's what Alex proposed is a great strategy. So I just wanna say, I don't know, that makes sense to me, but I think it would be really good to be able to say what we think the budget of this project is gonna be. And if we are planning to make a million dollar cut in the FF&E, I think we ought to say that that's what we're planning to do, as opposed to not say that that's what we're planning to do and float a budget figure that's higher than we actually are planning to use. So long as it's understood, but I'm not wedded to this position, but so long as it's understood that because FF&E gets done later on, we might wanna rethink that later on. That's the only reason I can think about for why we might wanna say now what our disposition is, but Craig, oh, I'm sorry, Craig, Sean was showing it. Well, it's related to what you said, Austin. And I think one reason I sort of agree with the way you're going is the number we shared with the council and that we put into the last presentation was the number that included that million dollar reduction in FF&E. So if we were not going to do that, we would wanna let them know that the midpoint is actually a million dollars higher because that was what was in the last budget that was sent out. Craig. Thanks, Austin. So Jesus, I forgot what I was gonna say. So one way to sort of manage costs is the concept of tiered reduction. And so you can have say a price or plan for all new furniture, but then have, all right, if that doesn't, if we're able to, if we need to cut it by a million dollars, that's a tier in that you could say, actually maybe in the opposite, sorry, I'm thinking out loud, so it's a little scramble, but you could do almost a mindset of, all right, well, here's our reduced budget and we're planning for if more money is available, then we would go, these are the things that we'd like to add. So it's almost like in parallel having two options available or more, but I think for what we're talking about, it would just be to that 1.5 million dollar and then if you get more money, 2.5 million. Christian. Yeah, I get how that 2.5 is kind of like an arbitrary number. It was like a holding number. So just Craig, if you could better explain a little, so we're looking at, you described what we could have for 1.5 and then all I was seeing that it's really cutting is like half the furniture or something that would be reused, but no way is that 1 million dollars, like does it have to be 1.5 or 2.5 or could it be two? Like what else besides furniture is in this million dollars that's getting cut if it got cut? So I took that full million out of loose furnishings which are the tables and chairs and office furniture. But yes, you could do something like delay the purchase of the book's order. Sorry Sharon. As a strategy, get more furniture and then as money became available down the road, purchase the book's order. You could do things like that. But as an exercise, I just took it all out of the loose furnishings. Is that answer the question? Hold on, would second any good. Sorry, Christine. So I'm still like, there's no way that that a million dollars is getting cut that's just loose from it. Like what else is it like? Is it computers? Is it like what else? Because it just seems like a million dollars of furniture is ridiculous. I think once we have the furniture designer on board, they could give us a price for all new furnishings and then we can see more accurately what does it mean to take a million dollars out? But yeah, furnishings are a big expense. And so yes, if you were to get all new furnishings, it's gonna be at least a million dollars more than that $1.5 million item in my estimation. Anika. So I had a question. I heard when you said or I saw rather the cringe from Sharon when Craig said about delaying with the bookstore. So I wanted to ask about that. And second, I just wanted to share, I don't know that this would work here, but in terms of refurbishing, I was just reading and I'll try to pull up the article. It was actually about a museum that did something similar and within like kids and teens room and where it applied, there was actually a community buy-in of like painting some of the furniture. So it was just like, it was suited and it did actually help cut costs. But with that, I wanted to understand the cringe on the bookstore. I hope I didn't cringe. I think I giggled just because I knew early on that would be it. So my only concern about the bookstore is staffing. If that machine is not in place, then I'm gonna need several more staff members. It's any library that you speak to that has one of these books orders talks about the amount of time that's being saved and a library that the size of Amherst that does the amount of circulation that Amherst does, it's a book sorter is a very common thing. So that's my only concern. Are there Alex next? If George hasn't spoken yet, so I'm happy to wait if that makes sense, where I can go. I defer to you, Alex. Okay, I was just gonna make a comment. So the original budget submitted to the MBLC for loose furnishings was $2 million with library shelving at 500,000 and audio AV books are at 400,000. And the signage that Sean was asking about telecommunications equipment, data equipment was all included in that furnishings number, the loose furnishings number. And so when we made the first cut back before the project was approved, we had reduced the number by, I think it was like $400,000 because the original number was based on all new furnishings, all new stacks. And then it's also an escalated number. So these are escalated numbers for the purchase of these things. And so I guess if that gives Christine some perspective on her, so it's not just loose furniture in there, it also includes the signage, it also includes, so those are all categories together. Thank you Alex, George. So the current building as a lot of us know is a mishmash of vintage furniture, used furniture, some modern furniture. I do feel though that cutting the FFNU by a million dollars is doable because a lot of the furniture that we have that would be serviceable and repurposed is furniture, say, from the meeting rooms. Like for instance, we have 100 Herman Miller stacking chairs that are less than 10 years old. That's a big chunk of money right there. We have a lot of our newer furnishings are still in very good shape. However, a lot of the older furniture is not ADA compliant and wouldn't be able to be repurposed. Most of the office furnishings are hand-me-down items, older technology that wasn't made to be used with computers and over the years we've just adapted to it. So I would see that a good chunk of the furnishings that would be out in the public use could likely be repurposed, but we definitely would need new furnishings in a lot of areas like offices, practical areas where the size is going to be smaller than what they may have now. Like for instance, tech services has enormous tables that probably won't fit into their new space. There's built-ins that aren't going to exist anymore, things like that. But I do feel just thinking through my head, I do feel confident that cutting a million dollars out of that is not going to be too damaging. Craig, thank you, George. Christine. So building on that and Craig, I know this isn't your expertise, but maybe you've seen other examples of this. What is the possibility of buying used furniture? Like especially for the offices and that kind of thing, could that be a savings and is that done sometimes? Yes. So there are some used furniture vendors and it does come out of savings so you could take your money and kind of stretch it. But a used piece of office equipment, an office furniture may be say 70% the cost of a brand new piece. So yes, there are some savings, but it's not so deep that you would be able to furnish the entire building. Right. George. Yeah, I'm just gonna, what Craig said, because we, a lot of our recent furniture purchases have been from a company of West Springfield that specializes in used office furniture. And while there is a cost savings, it's not that much over a new piece of furniture. Okay. So the question before us is, shall we vote now on the proposed FF&E change? And with the understanding, I take it that when the council voted to endorse moving forward with the memorandum understanding, I don't know this, the council would have understood that costs are gonna, might go up, they might go down. So maybe Anika would say whether or not the council when it voted was voting, this is the budget we're voting on. And the reason why I say that is because we didn't, we don't have a budget, right? We have a low estimate, a medium estimate and a high estimate. So while I'm in favor of voting now to give a sense of what the budget is, my own view is that we're not required to do it because of something that the council might have thought when it voted. But again, I defer to Anika. I mean, a lot of movement on the screen, Anika. To my understanding, there was, it was made clear that there was talk about an additional a million dollar cut. Okay. All right. So, yeah, Christine. So Sharon, you spoke at the beginning of this that you kind of wanted to wait. Do you, after our discussion, are you still feeling that way or are you wobbling? Yeah, no, I'm happy to cut out the one million. I was just asking if it could happen later, but I completely understand optics, politics of, let's get to a number. So just for the sake of our conversation, if someone would like us to vote, to accept this million dollar cut, could they make a motion which could then be seconded and then we can continue the conversation? Sharon, you wanna make a motion? Yeah, I moved to reduce the FF&A budget by $1 million as shown on the screen before. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank, okay, that's very helpful. So Anika, your hand is still up. Do you have more? Yeah. I'm sorry, okay, I've got Alex and then Sean. So I'm happy to vote in favor of the million dollar reduction but I really, really want to make sure that there still exists an opportunity because for, I mean, to me, just getting the full budget number from a, just purely from a design perspective, I just, I fear we do a million dollar cut and then something comes back from the legislature and then we have to go back again and that just builds up costs again. So I'm happy to make the cut that sends the signal, this is the budget, but when we sit down with the furniture designers, I want there to be a different budget that we can then cut the million out if we need to, if that makes any sense. Because I fear it's gonna be more expensive in the end if we wind up having the money, then I'm happy to take a red pen with Sharon and George and like cut out what we need to. The budget is not like the 10 commandments, right? I mean, if we need to make some changes in the budget and I take it that there's some items that are gonna be fungible. I mean, we're gonna save here and put some money there. So it's a, I think they would say in, maybe the Supreme Court would say it's a target, it's not a quota. I mean, this is what our operating budget would be with the understanding that- As long as the direction to the designer is to give us a plan for X dollars, I'm fine moving it around and then cutting it later. That's my only, I just, I don't wanna keep going back and spending additional funds because we keep doing this and it's just gonna be easier to cut than it's gonna be to add and whatever that looks like, that's just what I'm asking for. Craig, do you understand what was just being asked? Yes, I do. Okay. So, and is it possible to vote now for the million dollar cut and still accommodates Alex's desire? I believe so. That's something I'll have to ask the design team, but I believe that would be reasonable. Okay, Paul. It just to be clear with Craig that this cut is included in the number that was presented to the town council on Monday, right? Yeah. Yes. Okay, so that's, I think we should be in alignment with what was presented to the town council on Monday, which so it means I support Sean's motion. Okay, is there any other discussion of this motion? See no hands, are we ready to vote? Sharon, so you vote yes, you're voting to endorse the million dollar cut? Yes. George? Yes. Sean? Yes. Christine? Yes. Paul? Yes. Anika? Yes. Alex? Yes. And Austin votes yes. Thank you very much. Craig, anything else on the value management list? Nope, not at this time. So I want to raise a question about, and it follows logically from Paul's intervention. And I'm not in a position where I can really advocate this because I voted no and didn't prevail. So one thing that has stuck with me is this sawtooth roof change. And it was referenced a couple of times in the council. And I've done a little testing of sawtooth roof designs. The Amherst College Science Center has one. And I went into the science center, which it's not where I usually go. And I thought it made a big difference in the design of that building. Now that's that building. So I'm not able to say we should reconsider because I voted against it. But I did want to just raise this question about, so I think what we've done so far is we've managed to do value engineering that preserved the essential elements of the design of the library and the core functions. And I just worry that the sawtooth roof cut, I mean, I wish the architects had been here, is a real change in the design of the library. Sean? Craig, is the sawtooth roof, is that too big of an adjustment to be considered as an alternate? I would say yes. Okay. So if no one else wants to talk about the sawtooth roof design, then it's done because I, again, I voted no. So I can't introduce a motion to reconsider, for example. And I don't know what anybody's interested in that. Christine and then Sharon. I just wanted to ask. So Craig, as we're still sort of moving through SD and sort of starting DD, and the designers are working hard, when can we expect that they're gonna come back and give us some idea of what the design is now gonna look like? Because I think when is a new rendering coming? That will be helpful. I also wonder as the design subcommittee, when is that gonna come to us or here? Great question. So at present, the design is not being advanced. We're sort of in between schematic design and design development. And so once we start design development, I would say, I would guess that within the first couple of weeks, certainly within the first two months or so, the design team would be able to start showing what the new building would look like, maybe not with those fully rendered perspectives that they have done by an outside company, but at least some rough sketches and some rough imagery. So right now we're in a holding pattern. Once we give them the go ahead, I would say a couple of months. Yeah, a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Okay, Christine, does a question answered? No, it's just a follow up. So could we request a rendering? I also see the outreach community is gonna really want that kind of thing. I don't know, Alex, you tell me, because we're gonna wanna get some feedback, not just, I mean, Austin, I think what you're bringing up, other people have that concern. And I think a picture is worth a lot and I know they go to another company, but could we have that sooner rather than later? I would think not so they don't know, they haven't developed whatever concept they're gonna propose next. If they've developed it, yeah, we could probably get a rendering of it, but because the design team, as of today, they don't even know what that next iteration is gonna look like. Yeah, and I meant a couple months from now, like as we were rolling, I didn't mean like right now or two weeks from now, but if that could be part of their process, as they hammer it out with us and then kind of roll it out to us, which is more like six to eight weeks from now, so. Right, right. Yes, I think that would be a reasonable request to get some 3D imagery as soon as possible so that everyone understands what the new design looks like. And everybody's gonna understand whatever we ask the designer to do that they are not now planning to do increases the cost. So I don't think, I mean, I think we need to think very carefully about, well, show us this unless it's really kind of essential, but Sharon and then Alex. Yeah, so here's the problem. So remember back would Paul basically when we first started meeting 10 years ago, he talked about wanting to build a library, design a library that not only is gonna stand the test of time but it's gonna be something beautiful that Amherst can brag about. That sawtooth roof absolutely contributes to that look and that feel and that wow factor. I think losing it is heartbreaking for this building that is so important to downtown Amherst. That being said, so we also just had this discussion about the town council vote and is it the Bible or is it not the Bible? Because I know that the architects, it hurt them to cut the sawtooth roof. They wanna build beautiful buildings and that was an integral part of their design from day one. But if that's gonna cost about the same amount of money as the sorter, I really need the sorter from the functionality and the staffing side of the building. And then fast forward to this whole ARPA additional state funding possibility. This is a really hard decision to make right now without being able to screw with the bottom line. Alex and then Anika, Alex. It was my emotion, my emotion, it was my motion. So we're already talking about it. So I'm happy to put a motion on the floor. So what I would propose and I'm doing this on the fly, so it's not gonna be well crafted, I apologize, Angela. But what I'm thinking is that we, I make a motion to move the flat roof back into the not plausible in exchange for the modify the design, it was item 8.1, modify design of saw-tooth roof light monitors to reduce costs. And there's someone else second that I'll speak to why I'm suggesting that. Point of order. I think don't you need to vote to reconsider the original motion? I think that's the first order of business. The committee has made a decision. You would have to vote to reconsider because you voted in the affirmative. So you can vote. And then if that motion carries, then you can make the motion that you'd like to make. Sweet, whatever Paul just said, I do that. That's my motion. So your motion would be to reconsider the motion on the saw-tooth roof. Yeah. Is there a second to the motion to reconsider? Second. Okay, now there's a discussion of the motion to reconsider. And the discussion of the motion to reconsider is substantive. It's not just procedural. In other words, this is about, do you really want to go back and say, let's go back to the saw-tooth roof with its budgetary implications? Anika, were you looking at my recognize before? Sorry, Alex. Check, check. So my thought process was this. I like the half million dollar cut, but the cost of the slate roof, if it is around $250,000, was not part of the number that was considered by the town council. So if we put the 500 back into the not plausible, we do the modified the saw-tooth, which is a 250 reduction, and we get another 250 from the slate, that keeps our number the same. So that was my thinking. If that makes a happiness ground for everybody, that's what my thinking was and I just throw it out there for people to consider. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Sean. So sorry, I froze for a second, but I think what you said is if we take the saw-tooth roof out, we put in the modified the design and we get the numbers back on the synthetic versus real slate that's sort of a wash and we keep the number the same. So that makes sense to me. I guess I would be reluctant to vote today because we don't have the numbers yet on the synthetic slate. And it doesn't seem with the design teams moving forward. They're not gonna start until, I think October 1st at the soonest. So if we meet in a couple of weeks, I guess I would prefer to wait till we come back and we have the numbers on that to know for sure that kind of shakes out that way. And then I think it is worth the discussion. Christine, you're muted. Yeah, I agree. I think we should wait. We haven't even seen what it's gonna look like. I know we love the way that it looked, but the designers are off trying to rethink about windows and the skylight. And I think after they've given it some thought we really need to hear from them since we sent them off on this initiative. I don't understand why we would have to reconsider this now when my other thing with the slate was there was some pushback in the beginning that historical commissions may not like that. I would hate to see just to put all on that and then that get lost. I'm thinking at this point, we have a really big number that we're trying to get down. I think we need to be considering both right now redoing the roof without the sawtooth monitors and also the slate. Thank you. So the motion is the motion to reconsider. And then if there's a motion to reconsider, right Paul? Then there's the motion on the substance, right? Which Alex would then make. Is that what you were suggesting, Paul? Yeah, I'm just looking up Robert Schultz or Orders as we speak. Okay, okay, okay. And I don't know if we had an, did we have an individual vote on this or was it a package vote? I don't know if that matters, but I can't remember if we voted individually on this one reduction or if it was a package of reductions. Well, if there's an motion to reconsider, right? Presumably it's what Alex just said what she wants to do is she wants to move it from one column to another. And I don't know Angie, you tell me what was the vote? Was the vote individual? I don't think it was, right? I think at the end of the day, we voted on the package. My recollections that you voted on the package, but it is in that batch of minutes that we just approved. So I think what we really want to do right now is before we get tied into the Gordian knot of Robert's rules, which is always helpful, is I think we want to talk about whether or not we, whether this is plausible for us. Now, what Christine proposed is we wait and we see they do all this design work. But then of course, if we want them to stick with a sort of roof, we will have invested time and money for them to design something. So the question is whether or not you want to go forward and say to design this other thing or whether or not you want to reconsider and say to them, well, no, we don't want you to put in all this time and money in designing a flat roof and other skylights because we're having second thoughts. So that's, I'm just trying to get a read about that. Alex? Yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, I think Sean's idea is a good one about waiting. But again, that would mean that we would need to schedule a meeting because October, right? October 1st is the date, which is next week. So I'm happy to withdraw my motion if people are able to meet again and Craig thinks that we'll have the cost estimator and then we want, I mean, that's, I'm happy to have that conversation. That makes sense to me, but... Greg, Craig, do you think, when do you think we're gonna find out about Slate? I don't know, but I would suspect that I could get a number within a week. So what I'm hearing in the room, so to speak, is that there is not a lot of enthusiasm for right now saying restore the sort to roof. I'm not hearing anybody say, let's do it now. So unless I've misunderstood, Alex, maybe the best thing to do is to just withdraw the motion. And in a week or some other time, we can go back to the conversation about the sort to roof. Meantime, I invite you to walk through the Science Center at Amherst College and see the face of the Lord through those skylights. So, okay, thank you for that. Craig, anything else from Colliers? Nope, nope. Thank you so much. Any other questions to Colliers? Okay, next design, seven committee, Christine. We haven't met, we're just... We're in abeyance as they say. Thank you, Christine. Outreach. We have not met either. I haven't known what to tell people, so we'll meet again soon. Okay, nine number seven is meeting schedule. So we would, if we followed our usual right procedure, meet on the 6th of October, is that correct? That would be two weeks. No, there was just talk of meeting sooner than that. Do we need to meet sooner than that? Can I, yeah, can I just say, Paul, I wanna put you on the spot. So the trustees on Tuesday, the 27th are supposed to, in theory, discuss, approve that bridge amendment, but we haven't seen a draft, will we? Yeah, I think you will, yeah. Awesome. Then, so in theory, that could happen on the 27th. In theory, we could meet on the 29th. There's a lot of theory there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we also need, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Paul. Well, we also need the estimate from Craig. I mean, Craig, can you get it? Look, it's probably easier, isn't it, to notice a meeting and then cancel it. You wanna put in the books, a meet on the 29th. If we don't have the estimate, we're not ready to go, we can cancel it so long as we preserve the meeting on the 6th. Anika. Would this be, I'm sorry, oh, you may have just answered the question. Was this for both the 29th and the 29th of September and October 6th? So we, I think our current schedule is we meet every other week. So the question is, preserve the 6th of October, that's a regular meeting. Put in a meeting on the 29th. If we have the memorandum of understanding and the trustees voted and don't know where the trustees scheduled, but something might come up and Craig has the information that we need, we meet on the 29th as well. Okay, we good with that. So 29th at 430 in the afternoon, as we'll notice it if we think we need it and the 6th regularly scheduled meeting. And just to clarify, 430 as opposed to four. If we could meet at 430, that would be helpful. Okay. All right, thank you on the meetings. Next is correspondence. I have received no correspondence. I do want to say again, how grateful I am for the care that was exercised by the finance committee and the town council of thorough vetting of the project. I think it was very helpful and I appreciate that. Topics not anticipated other than I walked through the science center I saw the sort of roof. So no, there are no other topics. Next is public comment. We have, I think eight attendees. Again, we're grateful to all for attending the meeting. Does any member of the public wish to make a public comment? If you do, if you would raise your virtual hand, I see no virtual hand being raised. Again, thank you for the, thank you to the attendees and no other business will adjourn. Stay well, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all.