 Order of the President of the Cormac Congress meeting to order at 6.03 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and live broadcast by Amherst Media. Thank you Amherst Media. Welcome everybody. So this is actually a shorter meeting agenda. We actually only have two items, formal items on the agenda, plus public comment. But with that, just a very quick announcement. Mr. Dumling is running a little late today and so he will be joining us as soon as he can, but he will be coming in a little bit later. And the first order of business is public comment. So we had it on the agenda for six o'clock. There is no one currently here, but maybe we can give a moment to see if anybody comes running through the door if that's okay with the committee. It's always awkward when you're trying to finish dinner and do all that kind of stuff and then make it to a public meeting. I don't want to belabor the point if there's no one here, what we can do perhaps is if anyone shows up in the next five or ten minutes or so, we can take some time for a little bit of comment. Okay, so the next order of business is appointment of members to the Joint Capital Planning Committee, also known as JCPC, and we should have received a memo that was forwarded by Dr. Morris to the committee from KP Law. It was addressed to Mr. Bachman, our town manager. And Dr. Morris, I'm going to introduce this item. Sure. So the town manager, well, let me take a step back. So the Joint Capital Planning Committee is the group that works with representatives of multiple town elected officials and bodies to look at the capital requests that come from not just the schools, but the DPW, the town, the police, the fire department, the libraries and so on, and tries to look at what available funding there is, what requests came in, and tries to work collaboratively to assign projects and make recommendations to town manager, and in this case, the town council around which projects to fund. And so the memo that we've received from the town manager, well, from KP Law to the town manager, just because it's a change of form of government kind of tried to delineate that there still are representatives requested from the school committee and how that process would work and really what it comes down to on page three of the memo is that, I'll read it, you know, talking about school committee and library trustees, third, second, full paragraph, the only way a member can represent the other members of a multiple member bodies if they're authorized or designated by that body. For that reason, in my further opinion, the respective committees referenced, which is school committees one of will designate their representatives. So the agenda item is for the school committee to formally, formally designate two representatives to the joint capital planning committee from the school committee who will join that group. I think they are planning their first meeting for the end of next week, maybe as soon as a week from today. They're still working on details on that. The meetings are generally have historically generally been in the mornings. Also for for folks that know generally they've been 830 in my understanding is that's likely to continue. Weekdays usually 839 30 people here have been on the joint capital planning so they could speak to their experience as well. Mr. I have I was on it last year. And if it's kept the same way it was previously, it is a very useful board for this group to be involved in because you not only go through and hear departmental reports from every single department in town, what their needs are now what their needs are for the next five years. You can also kind of articulate a defense of your particular interest as well as weigh in and what some of the other issues are in town. So it gives you a much gives the committee a much better sense of where we're fitting into the overall plan of the town and how to advocate more effective think politically in an environment in which we know there's more needs than there's money. And I just have a question is there flexibility in terms of timing for the meetings? I think you mentioned 830 generally is when they start just for members who, you know, may need different times is the committee they work with the members to accommodate their needs or is it pretty rigid? It's hard for me to comment specifically on I think it's historically been 830 but we're also in a different form of government. So I wouldn't it's hard for me to be definitive about but I think everyone recognizes that there's been other shifts that might affect that. I think the attempt is to be in the morning and not have another evening for because there's so many evening meetings for different elected boards that would have representatives that just the complex would be unavoidable. That's the most interesting thing to me is that is that there's going to be a difference in this. Like I'm sure for the town departments, it'll hopefully be the exact same thing. And I'm sure everyone hopes it is. But the turnover is going to be huge right. And so I'd love to mean I don't I'd love to know the answer to that question. Any other questions or thoughts from the committee? Is there a day of the week that it's most frequently on just because I there's certain days they don't work. Wasn't on like Wednesday or Thursdays? I believe Thursday. That's what I think that's right. So we can get that information, I think for the committee that might be helpful. And when do they need an answer? So they're hoping to have the answer, you know, because they're planning a meeting, I believe, for the end of next week. So they're hoping to have membership at that time. So if it, I don't want to be too forward, but if the group wants to talk and get some more clarity, it's possible that we can get together in advance of the region meeting next week to formalize that because if people can make that, you know, maybe for 10 minutes before the region meeting to do that. Again, any information I would get, I can take back and I'm meeting with Mr. Bachman tomorrow, actually, and I can get these answers and share them back with the committee by the end of the day tomorrow. That might be helpful. I think we did. I heard from Mr. Demling saying that he would, you know, volunteer or be willing to be volunteered if needed. But I think just providing some more basic information about meeting times and dates would be helpful to help make a decision. Depending on what it is, I'd be like, I thought we had actually already designated ourselves. I thought I volunteered for it. I did too. Yeah. I was confused about if we had to do like a formal vote and that was why it was back on the agenda. But I'm happy to revisit if somebody strongly feels like they want to be on it, I'm happy to revisit it and potentially 9 30 8 30. My office has a 9 a.m. meeting every Thursday. So it would be difficult if it's Thursdays from that time for me to actually do it. But if it's flexible, I was also happy to to participate. Debbie, would it be possible to circulate to this committee, the list of subcommittees? Because I do remember us having a conversation around JCPC. I remember it as well. But when I went back to look at my list, I did not. I couldn't find the names. So I don't know if it was discussed and no final action taken or if I failed to put it on. Okay, so I'm happy to circulate the list. But right now it doesn't have it doesn't have names on it. Okay. I remember. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'm still happy to serve it would be difficult for me to miss my my works meeting at 9 a.m. But okay, okay, we could talk. So why don't we get some more information about times and dates? And then if we can take another look and see if we can locate the folks who volunteer? Because I do remember us having that conversation as well. And then we can, you know, sit together a couple minutes before the regional committee next week. Does that make sense? Okay, good. Just just one other thing that I didn't share is the frequency. So I think maybe maybe talked about this in the earlier conversation that both of you are referencing. So it doesn't meet much of the year. But when it does meet, which is basically from here to when the budgets get voted, which I know it's a different form of governance that's unclear. It meets pretty frequently. You know, so I think it met and we were talking to Mr. Rockland about it six or seven times last year and a relatively small, it's always the same. Yes, it's every single week. Yeah, it's for the relative intensity. Yeah. So just just to be aware, it's the rest of the year, there's literally no meetings. And then, you know, you get to the point of the year where budget season and it's very frequent. Ask a follow up. If that's the case, I wonder if, since they're asking for two members, would we be able to kind of trade off and on who's the physical leave there and update that other person when they're not there? Like, I'm curious about the role of the two members during the actual meetings. That's that would be not welcome. Okay. I mean, mainly because everyone who's there actually weighs in and asks questions. I think one of the things that really makes it kind of interesting is that is that you obviously you can provide context for items that are coming from whatever your board or committee is, like the library can talk about library stuff. But they actually welcome you kicking the tires and asking questions about everything that's going on. And part of the idea is that if you do it in the spirit, you're not just there to advocate for your own department, then the the sort of the wisdom of the whole, essentially, you're helping to improve the collective decision making and improve the sharpness of the thinking around how we look at what we're doing a year one, year two, year three of the capital plan. So, right? I think that's right. Yeah, I would agree. I think it'd be hard to even with notes taken to because the so essentially the way it works. And I think Mr. Nakajima was saying this, but is that, you know, town departments come in and they present their role and it's a cumulative effort so that if you miss one, even if you have notes, not being there when the library presents its piece, it's hard to recreate that experience. And actually, yeah, I should clarify that by the time you get to week, as you said, week six or seven, what you're actually doing is you're starting to shape the finite capital budget. And you start dialoguing with the town manager about the time manager wants to recommend. And you're looking at tradeoffs between all the departments. And one of the things is very helpful is that if people have been there and they've heard, you know, why do we need a new dump track or something from the DPW, not to pick on something, but like something that might seem like something you could push off for another year, you might have heard just some horrible reason it is needed. And you know what I mean? So you get into that kind of conversation. And obviously, we can do the same thing here with our school, with our elementary schools. Okay, so we'll get back to the committee with more information about dates and times. And then, you know, I tend to agree that having consistency among members and representatives for subcommittee appointments is preferable. As I mentioned before, Mr. Demling said that he would do it if we were just about to volunteer you, Mr. Demling. So perfect timing. We were just discussing the JCPC. So we're going to send more information to the committee on the actual meeting dates and times, or at least the tent of schedule, because it meets early in the morning, 830 or so. Pretty regularly every week, it seems, from Mr. Napa, Jim was experiencing Dr. Morris's understanding. So we're hoping that we can get that information to the entire committee and then make a decision just before our regional committee next week about who the formal representatives will be. If that makes sense to you. Sure. Okay. Great. All right. Thank you very much. While we were discussing this topic, I noticed that a couple of members of the public just came in. So we had ended our public comment soon after it began, because there was no one here. But if members of the public want to come up and make a comment, you're welcome to do so. Seeing none. All right. So our next item of business is the MSBA statement of interest and the community engagement process. So I'll just take a moment to bring the committee up to speed. And then Dr. Morris and Mr. Donald should feel free to jump in, as we've been in conversation since our last meeting, as the committee requested to settle, set up the listening sessions and, you know, take the lead in establishing some of the community outreach that we've been doing. Where we are currently in the process is that a facilitator has been contracted. And he actually has begun working with us to establish the format for the listening sessions. As a reminder for the public, there were nine sessions in total, three of which were with educators and staff in the district and then six, which were more community wide for parents and caregivers, but of course for voters more generally. And so we've begun setting up the format for these listening sessions. We put together a schedule of sessions and locations and have already started promoting that and sharing that publicly with the public. And for your information, there is a flyer in front of our front in front of you with all of the dates. And I'm going to read them out loud just so that people who may not have, you know, access to this or haven't heard them can hear them. So the dates currently are Wednesday, February 27th from 3.30 to 5.30 at the Bangs Community Center, Wednesday, February 27th from 7.00 to 9.00 PM at Wildwood Elementary, Thursday, February 28th from 4.00 to 6.00 PM at Fort River Elementary, Thursday, February 28th from 7.00 to 9.00 PM at Jones Library and Woodbury Room, Wednesday, March 6th from 4.00 to 6.00 PM at Crocker Farm Elementary, Wednesday, March 6th from 7.00 to 9.00 PM at the Regional High School Library. And then we've also set up an alternate snow date. And this is only if one of the other or two of the other sessions have to be canceled. That is for Thursday, March 7th from 4.15 to 6.00 PM. And also again from 6.30 to 8.00 PM both will take place here at the Regional High School Library. So again, this has been shared with, you know, networks in town. It's been shared with the Town Council. We met with the Town Council a couple of weeks ago at this point now. It's been a week or two weeks. Yeah. And Dr. Morris reviewed his presentation that he shared with us with the Town Council. We had a very good meeting, I thought. And the Councilors have expressed a very strong interest in being partners with us and helping to share both the spread board of the listening sessions but also preside over them and, you know, try to promote the listening sessions to gather feedback from the community as much as possible. So, you know, I've really appreciated that. And I know that the President, Lynn Griezmeier, has also been very active in promoting the dates and working with the Councilors to make sure that they understand, you know, the parameters of the proposal and that they're getting as much information as they can out to their constituents. So I think that now it's kind of off to the races, right? We're, you know, just trying to get that email that we talked about before together. Ms. McDonald and I have been working on drafting text. We've also started working on drafting the feedback form that we had discussed before. Dr. Morris's video is already finished and we're just going to embed that into the email and send that out shortly, hopefully by midweek, next week. And we've also reached out to the bulletin to get a column in there. I know that people have already taken information about this and are sharing it out on social media. So all of these different avenues for communication have been activated to try to get this out. But I think, you know, this is still a huge lift to try to get, you know, the numbers of people that we would like at these sessions and also to encourage people to respond via email. You know, we've already, again, gotten a lot of emails but trying to get more of those. And if people, you know, have any questions or anything like that for them to come directly to the school committee and ask whatever their questions are, share their concerns. Because what we don't want is, you know, any misinformation to be getting out there about what the proposal actually entails. And we want to make sure that people are all sort of hearing the same thing but that we're also hearing back from them and it's not going to getting filtered or anything like that. So I think that's the challenge that we have right now which we knew would be a bit of a challenge, right? From the beginning is in trying to, you know, share out both the proposal but also making sure that people feel heard and that they know that they can come to us with, you know, with their thoughts and opinions on that. I don't know if there's anything else that Ms. McDonald or Dr. Morris wants to add for the committee's information about this at this time. Just very briefly that the flyer will also be in the Friday superintendent newsletter going out tomorrow as well. We've certainly shared it on our social media networks. I know other people have as well but that's just another way and even, you know, our network goes to families with children in the elementary but also in the secondary schools who may not have children in elementary schools but may feel very strongly either as time residents or as parents, guardians of children who went through the elementary schools, they may have really strong thoughts on the topic. So, you know, that listserv goes, I'm trying to think how many people around them look at Ms. Mr. Mullen. Over 3,000. So that's another vehicle that we're going to be sharing it, another vehicle by which we'll share it tomorrow. Great. Ms. McDonald, is there anything you wanna add? No. Okay. The other thing I should have mentioned that which I didn't mention is that this is the actual physical flyer on the back is the Spanish translation. There have been a number of questions about what kind of language capacity or interpreters we will have available throughout the process. So this is the first step is, you know, translating this into Spanish at the very least but we will also, I'm not sure if Dr. Morris have Spanish interpreters available at the sessions. And there will be town council members as well as school committee members at every one of the sessions. So I'm really looking forward to, you know, hearing from this committee, if there are individual sessions that you really wanna attend or that you can attend, you know, these are listening sessions and so they're not, you know, functional school committee meetings which means we wouldn't necessarily be, we're not gonna be debating or engaging in any kind of debate or conversation but people can certainly attend and listen, you know. Any other thoughts or questions from the committee? Mr. Denley? Yeah, so I'm just wondering, so we'll have town councilors, school committee members and then professional facilitator there, right? So in terms of like what the expectation should be about like our participation, like, so for school committee, are we just sort of there in the audience? I guess they're sort of thinking out loud. Like, you know, like to listen, actual listening session and we up on the dais, you know, to address questions. I think it gets a little overlapping with town councilors because some of these are being promoted as district meetings and so, you know, there's presumably a role there for town councilors at a town district meeting so I don't know if the facilitator, if you've worked with him so far, has had any thoughts on that? Well, I think we're just developing the format now. The conversations that we've had so far are that school committee, meter school committee, north town council will be playing a formal role. So we're not on a dais, you know, we're not presenting anything per se. The facilitator is really there just to leave the conversations and his approach for these kinds of issues that, you know, frankly have been rather divisive in our community and in other communities that he's worked in similar fashion is to establish working groups in, you know, among the participants, right? So that people aren't feeling like they're being talked at. Instead, they're invited to participate actively in dialogue, right? And, you know, he, I think I've mentioned before, will have note takers there who will be recording, you know, the participants reactions and feedback and thinking so to share that back with us. So really our entire role is also to just sit there and listen. And I'm sure that there'll be some additional questions or things like that that people will want answered, you know, we'll have to come up with what that process should look like. Cause again, we're not, these are not meetings and we should not be deliberating or anything like that. But perhaps we can have some sort of feedback form that gets shared with this entire committee simultaneously and then we can react to those afterwards. I'm already know this or I should already know this, but are you planning on doing some sort of truncated presentation at the beginning or are we attaching the video because we're praying people will have already seen it before the shop? What's the expectation? Sure, so, you know, we talked about that when we met with the facilitator. The reality is actually there's some of these I can't make, I have other commitments and you know, one of these is during our Canadian registration event, another one I have a commitment to lever it. So we're not banking on kind of me to have a formal presentation role. It's really, you know, I know the chair has shared with the facilitator the video, the slides, you know, the news coverage of that we're trying to position him to, as a neutral facilitator, to talk about things that he's not himself recommending. So it's really clean and neat in terms of who's doing the talking and it doesn't feel like a sale. That sounds great to me, but I guess based on your conversation with the facilitator, you feel confident that by the time we get to the 27th that person will have a strong enough background in some of the questions that are likely to come up so that at the very least we can debunk any misunderstandings people might have about what we're doing. I'm hearing about that. That could be me, I don't know. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I mean, I think not to speak for Dr. Morris, but I think that what we're hoping for is just a short, you know, brief presentation from the facilitator on the material facts of the presentation, right? And we've by this point shared that quite widely in various community meetings and committee meetings. So he understands what the presentation entails, what the proposal entails. I think he's got some enough basic information. Again, this isn't necessarily the kind of format or forum where people will be raising a bunch of different questions. We anticipate there will be some questions, but for the most part it's about sharing some basic information and then recording people's reactions to that. So there may be some clarifying questions. We'll have to think about if we were talking initially about putting together like a frequently asked questions document that can help answer probably a large majority of those, the questions that we anticipate would come up. But I think as far as like additional detailed questions or things like that, we have to talk with him to see what he recommends. Yeah, and I didn't necessarily mean that actually. I meant more of them. I hate to say this, but more sort of the obvious question was that we've actually already answered, but we just don't know that everyone's heard the answers. That's exactly right. Yeah. Oh, wait. I just had a question about the letter to the editor and the content that you were envisioning for that. Or I'm sorry, not letter to the editor, our column. Excuse me. So I haven't heard back yet from the editor or from the opinion editor. So hopefully we can hear back soon. But basically I think it's really just a repeat of everything that we just talked about. So it's a listing of all the different sessions. It is a review of all the different avenues that we're employing to try to get community input into all of this and sharing just the basic review of Dr. Morris's presentation. There's a limit. There's only about like a 500, 600 word limit for this column. So there's not a lot of room there for additional information. But if that sounds right to the committee, that's basically what I was going to put together. Dr. Morris? Yeah, I was thinking of Mr. Nakajima's question prompted a different question for me, which is while they're framed as listening sessions, that's an area that you described could come up. And I'm just wondering if we're planning to post these at school committee meetings for the sake of just that there'll be a quorum there. And it's possible someone would ask one of you a question. You know, that's, I could see it going either way, but it may be it's worth having discussion of whether these do get posted or how they get posted. And then to Mr. Deming's point, the role of school committee members because I don't know, it might be worth just making sure everyone has clarity on that. Mr. Deming? So my opinion on that is that it's best not to post what would be seven school committee meetings. One, just because I just think the appearance looks odd. It's like we really sincerely want to be there to listen and to the greatest extent possible. Ears open and mouth shut. And so I think to post it as a school committee meeting sends kind of a mixed message. I think obviously we don't want to break open meeting law, but my understanding that the real, what you want to avoid in a quorum is deliberating on topics or expressing opinion on topics of items that might come up to the committee. So if someone asks us a question, oh, what's the proposed great configuration that the superintendent's talking about? Oh, it's K to five or K to six. That's not, that's just sharing information, right? It's not breaking open meeting law. So I think as long as we're all comfortable of not standing up on a soapbox and expounding our opinions in great public detail, I would be comfortable with it, but it's just my initial take. I agree with that. And what I would say just further clarify, because I'd agree with what you're saying, is that I'm assuming what you're envisioning is a scenario that if there's four breakout groups, you're sitting in a breakout group and someone's next to you when they ask you, a couple of people ask you a question. It is a factual based question around something we already know. You can answer to clarify them and do you feel like the gag rule on you is so strict that you can't even be helpful in answering the question? And I would agree the answer is just answer the question, but also don't freelance. And then more importantly, if a question's coming up to the facilitator, we don't jump up so that we can answer the question for them. You know what I mean? Like your debate. That's where we enforce the rule. Yeah, I would also agree. I think that having a school committee there, primarily the listen is extremely important and to send that message is extremely important. And I think for most questions, again, between an FAQ document and the facilitator's knowledge of this issue at this point, he's been working with us now for a couple of weeks. We should be able to answer, I think a large majority of those questions that will pop up. And then again, we'll be capturing a lot of these questions, right? I think they're also really important, those kinds of things that we want to hear. We want to hear whether people are super confused about some of this stuff. We've already been hearing some confusion. And I think that there's a few different topics that people are aware of as a community that we're currently thinking about and dealing with that are lending to some confusion as well, right? So one of the things that I'm hoping that we can actually help clarify is the differences between some of the projects that are currently going on in the community. And I think that that's a great opportunity for a neutral facilitator to be able to do that. But I think that there's also a lot of other opportunities that we're finding ourselves with now to answer some of those questions that are coming to us from district counselors, from the community about what's going on with the Fort River Feasibility Study Building Committee, for example, or what's going on with other things. And to that point, I think there's in this community engagement process I had actually hoped Mr. Nakajima could help shed some light a little bit on some of the recent conversations that have been taking place because it actually does touch on this topic. Again, I think there's some confusion that's going on. There's simultaneous forums almost that are being planned. So if the committee is okay with that, I'd like to just shift a little bit so that Mr. Nakajima can fill us in on this. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. And so just for context, you may recall or hope the committee remembers that when we were discussing the Fort River site and building feasibility committee as well as the end report itself, we had discussed as a committee that we were hoping that that work would be transparent to the public and that they would engage the public periodically when they're doing their work. As the timing of when the cost estimation, the analysis of different sort of construction options came through, the timing and then the holidays and everything and then when this is hopefully wrapping up. I mean, I'm saying all this because if you were to say it is not optimal to have multiple competing listening sessions going on at the same time, I would completely agree with you. But it's unfortunately the dumb luck and Dr. Morris is on the committee as well. And he's been at these meetings that the calendar of when we're hoping to wrap this thing up coincidentally stuck an opportunity for the public to engage around this report around now. And I think there is some, unfortunately I think there is some confusion. It's also continues to be something we've discussed as a group, our own nomenclature that no matter how many times they call it a feasibility study, there still is the language out there of it being a building committee and it's hard to kill something even in the name of a factual clarity. What that? So there's a public session on the 13th. Here we're done. It is, I believe 6.30, but I will tell you. 6.30 and it's at the middle school auditorium. 6.30. There's going to be a presentation from TSKP, the design group that's working with us. They're really going to lead that discussion in what they're looking for. Is they're looking for, they're going to outline sort of progress today, but then really look from the public to see if we've answered their questions. The intent of this report is in the end for it to be a usable document by any stakeholder in the town that wants to understand the fore-ever site better, the building better, and based on those site conditions and building conditions, what different potential options there could be for reuse. As I've said before, and I said last day at the meeting, the feasibility committee meeting, there's actually no contradiction or conflict whatsoever between the work we're doing for the statement of interest and the feasibility study, because as Dr. Morris has said before, things around reuse of buildings or non-reuse of buildings, even the location, whether any new building we did was at fore-ever or Wildwood or even theoretically at a third location that we don't have identified right now, all those decisions, even if you've said this repeatedly, all those decisions are going to be in the future. They're not being made now. They haven't been made already. They're not in your proposal. And so in fact, this work, which is primarily an engineering and site analysis with some building concepts should port very easily into any future work that our town does and our schools does to think about it with the best information we can. So what we're looking, I say that as context, because I think also that's by the way, like massively misunderstood by based on conversations I've had. And so I think people can comfortably, what I would say to anyone in the town listening right now is I'd say, you should feel comfortable fully supporting the work of the feasibility study of that work at going to the meeting and seeing if there's any questions that are coming up to you around how we're looking at the geotechnical insight. How are we looking at the flood plains? How are we looking at the existing building conditions? How is that taken into account around different building options? How are they, and what's going to be in the report in the end? Those kinds of questions because if we want to document that in the end will be usable and useful to the town, we need questions around, is this presentation clear enough? Are there things that might be missing or a question that should be clarified? And then what they're going to do is take that information and go back and continue working their draft and hopefully complete it in the near future in a way that would be, will be very helpful to us and very helpful to the community. Ms. Nakajira, do we know, is there a date in mind for the report at this point? We were talking about that just today. I want to say like by the end of April. End of April. Is that right? That would be my guess. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the reality is the designers are very far along in their work. And I think, I guess I can slightly editorial this because I don't have a quorum of that group here. My view is that the committee needs to kick the tires on, we've done an awful lot of work on sort of like cost analysis stuff. And the reality is we haven't dug in enough on like the geotechnical survey that just came back, which showed a relatively high water table. And so the question is, what if any implication does that have for the design of the foundations that we need to be built or the renovation of the existing slab, if any? And we haven't talked, I mean, literally, we just haven't had a chance to talk about it yet. My point is we will as a committee, but that kind of stuff, you imagine when we get to a final report, people, the credibility of the report will be based on whether people see like a really thorough and partial analytical body of work that they can say, oh, I get it now or I understand the site better. And by the way, just as a sort of throw it again, because I've heard people say that, if we move ahead as a committee and the public agrees that we should or we modify it in some way, we move forward that in some way, the money that was invested in that study is somehow wasted. And there's just, there's no, I'm just saying, I know that's a public fear that's out there. I think in light of spending a roughly equivalent amount of money on a temporary bridge and station road, there's probably a lot of sensitivity around funds being expended in our town right now. And I think it's perfectly reasonable that people have those fears. But the reality is this analysis is gonna provide really useful information that can be used by the town, could be used by any new building project. This will become a series of documents that can be entered into that work. We have a lot of stuff on Wildwood already. This will give us some good information on the Fort Riverside. So it's, I really think that the reality is, I mean, I'm sorry to go on about this, but I think it's actually really important. I understand that as we're moving forward in our discussion and our community engagement process, that every concern we have, and I say that reasonably, becomes freighted on everything that we're doing. And so people start looking with an even clearer eye to what are you doing, does it make sense? I think in all honesty, if you take a deep breath and sit back and look at what we're actually doing, it's okay. This is gonna be a good and useful analytical report. It'll help inform the committee in the town. And if people have feedback that they wanna give to what we're deliberating over, they have lots of really wonderful options to do that too in a different venue. And we don't have a, at this point, there's no project for a new school building or any building, really. So this is providing site information. So if there were a school or at some point in the future to be built on that site or anything to happen with that site, it would, that would be site-specific information that we didn't have before, which we have now. Just one more question. The committee is supposed to sunset at some point because I remember the vote that we took last year. Yeah, it'll sunset when the report is finalized and delivered back to us. Okay. Dr. Morris? I think the two other things that add to Mr. Nakajima's comments. One is that I'm on the subcommittee that looked at dates for this and we were conscious, as Mr. Nakajima said, I just want to put perhaps an additional point on that or a final point. We were conscious of the potential confusion that might come from, at that point we didn't know these form dates yet, but we were intending to do the outreach earlier, but the process took as long as the process took and having a form without the geotechnical reports when that's one of the items of public interest seemed to not make sense and then we were organizing around designer schedules and other town events. So I mean, I think the group tried to do the best they could do with the scheduling of it and it's not like the same week or this same two weeks period as the other forums, but I'm conscious of that. I think the other thing to note on timeline is that if we end up, if the town council and the school committee end up voting to submit a statement of interest this year, we won't hear back till December. So in terms of the urgency of the timeline of finishing, we just need to finish because the work needs to complete and the architects need to go on and do other things, but in terms of the timeliness of it, we'll have that information for sure by the time well in advance of when we would hear back whether a statement of interest was accepted. So I mean, I think for me it's not so much, can we get it before statement of interest is filed? I mean, if that happens, wonderful, but I'm much more on the other end because this information being incredibly useful from my perspective, if we get into the MSBA process and understanding more of that. So from my head, that's the date that I think about a little more. Mr. McJane. I just wanted to clarify something because I don't know if I said occasionally my brain skips a group. I don't know if I did a moment ago. I wasn't implying that we needed to get the report before this actually I was trying to, I'm just saying this only because since your statement might be misunderstood to saying my statement is different from what I thought it was, I feel the need to reiterate my statement. My statement was that these are actually two completely different processes. They're entirely separate with the obvious addenda that the feasibility study done well, done correctly and done robustly is gonna provide really valuable information into whatever the town chooses to do in the future for an elementary school and could port directly into the work of a new building committee if we're accepted into the MSBA. So I agree with you that there's nothing about the SOI process that is gated by the forever process. But also I was really putting an emphasis on the idea that it's also true that there's nothing invalidated about the value of the work of that study just because we move forward with an SOI. I mean, quite the opposite. In fact, that information still is, I mean, you know, if we get in, we're gonna need information like that and it'll help us to move along faster and better to have that both for Wildwood and for River. We'll agree. Thank you. Any questions or comments from the committee? Mr. Dunlin? Just that, I mean, I would just completely agree with what Mr. Nakajima said. I would even go further to say that that the timely production of the estimates from the for River Committee is one of the factors that's made this moment of consensus possible. And if we set the way back machine to two years ago, you know, right after the last building project failed, one of the points of contention was we don't know that detailed level of information for the building on the site of Fort River. And, you know, it was caught up on the crossfire of all those votes. And so, you know, one of the next logical steps that the school committee said was, why don't we form a community committee composed of members of the community from all points of that debate, that past debate and go forward and provide that objective information. So not only have they now given us that, you know, they're still tweaking the numbers, but, you know, we have now an order of magnitude sense of what those ad reno and new building costs are, which is something we didn't have before. It is very useful in terms of trying to, you know, project what we should do going forward. And they've also modeled consensus. I mean, so, and people have been very honest about what their positions were on the past project and they've worked productively together. And that's what we're, we're at the very beginning of asking the whole community to work productively together. So I think it's been already a tremendous benefit and, you know, I see one as supporting and enabling the other. About this process or, okay. So thank you for that, Mr. Nagajima. That's actually really helpful. Again, I think that, you know, some of the work ahead of us is to helping to clarify, you know, fact from fiction, if you will, and just make sure that folks understand the purpose of these different initiatives that are going on. And I'm hopeful that the listening sessions, as well as once we send out this email and we, you know, start receiving information back, helps get us closer to a sense of consensus anyway. One of the things I talked about at the town council meeting was, you know, that if we are hearing from the community that there is still a lot of concern and, you know, people are feeling pulled in different directions that, you know, that's sort of, that's it, right? This is, you know, a proposal that we felt very strongly or with the superintendent's leadership that this proposal actually pulls from all the different sides and helps us find a path, you know, down the middle that's a path forward. But we'll see, we'll see what people's responses are and whether or not they feel like they can come together and if there actually can be consensus around an idea, great, and then, you know, we can go from there. The other thing, another detail that I mentioned, which is really an important detail, so I was approached earlier this week and from what I understand town council president was as well to appear on Stan Rosenberg's new show for Amherst Media called Byline, that's being taped tomorrow. So I just wanted to share that with the committee for a half hour long show or so. So he will be interviewing both myself and President Griezmeier from the town council at the same time to talk about this project and talk about, or to talk about the proposal and to talk about the listening sessions and all of that. And I understand that there will also be a separate segment about the Fort River Feasibility Study Building Committee specifically. So, and that will be with the vice chair as well as the chair from that committee. So, lots going on. But, you know, again, I'm still optimistic and hopeful, I hope you are too. And we'll see what happens. Can I just ask when will the Byline episode air? Is it gonna be, I don't know how long they take to produce it? I think it's pretty quick, from what I understand. It'll be taping tomorrow and then I think it's shared. There's a couple of different showings, airings. So it's tomorrow night, right? And then on Monday as well. I'm looking at our Amherst Media representatives here. You said same day. Same day and also Monday, from what I understand, right? Yeah. Mr. Dillon? So just minor follow-up to some details from earlier. So I love the idea of the anticipated questions document. Like, I don't think for these things you wanna do like 20, 30 minute, put you to sleep presentations, but some sort of thing? Like someone walks in 20 minutes, what is this thing even about? And so not only does it might have anticipated questions, some of which we just talked about, but just an overview. What is the proposal? Why are you proposing this? What's the deadline? What's the alternative? Just the most, the challenge is gonna be space, right? But kind of a one-pager where you know, this is the proposal and then anticipated questions. Some, just some sort of primer. I think that also helps in a group dialogue to get people more comfortable talking. It's, I think sometimes easier to speak in relation to some shared context. Just boil down to the facts. So that was one comment. The others, I don't know how easy it would be or to make Facebook events out of these listening sessions. Facebook is pure evil in my opinion for a number of reasons. I say that's serious, but it is where people, a lot of people get their information and events on Facebook are pretty easily discoverable and shareable. I have seen one or two of these pop up as district sessions, so I wouldn't want to, if it's a district session, I wouldn't want to co-oc that, but I don't know if that's something maybe that you and the town council chair or the superintendent could look into doing. Okay, Dr. Morris is saying, shaking, nodding his head that he could take care of that. Thank you, yeah. It's probably the best way to handle it actually. Yeah, I agree. Can I ask about the district piece because it's just coming up in my district, I know we have this neighborhood association they're trying to help to report this. Are some of these specifically, because I wasn't aware of it, are some of them specific to specific districts or is it just that the district leaders are kind of taking them on themselves? They're not taking them on themselves. So what's happening is because some of these are taking place in districts, obviously, and the town council wanted to be a part of this, what the town council president had suggested to the town council was that they tried to, if there's a requirement in the charter that town councilors have these regular district meetings throughout the year with their district, right? And so to make it a little easier and perhaps even more enticing for constituents and counselors alike, the suggestion was that some of these meetings could basically work two functions. One would be district meeting and then the other would be for these listening sessions for the school issue specifically. So I think there was an attempt to see if they could maybe expand some of these sessions beyond the times that are here to be district meetings. And so that's up to the district councilors to try to figure out, since people will already be there and if there's an opportunity, they can try to turn it into a district meeting per se, but we're not overseeing that and the town council isn't in charge of these sessions. And then the facilitator wouldn't be. The facilitator would not be a town council. Yeah, town council will be there in the same capacity that we are, which is basically just to listen and to be there for their constituents. Is that more or less in alignment with what you've heard? Yeah, it's just potentially, so that's confusing for folks. I wasn't aware that was. So building on that, I do have the question too, because I've seen or read or heard that they would be introducing or welcoming people to these sessions. And so I just wanna, because I think having the clear distinction between this is the school listening session and then followed by the district meeting, that the district meeting isn't all encompassing. So I don't know if that's actually sort of the choreography of the evening for these sessions, that if it's also a district meeting, to be clear that the district councilor probably should not be welcoming people at the beginning of the listening session, but at the end of the listening session, would be my vote. Yeah, we can work out some sort of protocol for that. Also, I mean, if it's gonna be, I mean, this is very clear to me that you don't need to be a member of any district in order to attend. But I'm concerned that as a, so I live in district one right now, none of these, I don't think Wildwood is, I think it's right over the border of my district. I wouldn't want anybody in district one feeling like they're not welcome at one of these. And so I'm just, yeah, as long as we can keep our messaging very clear that it's open to everybody and I would encourage whoever's doing the communication at the town council level to make it clear that these aren't open to everyone from the entire community, regardless of which district. So they feel like they're welcome and that it's not something they should ignore. I completely agree. And I can pass that on to the town council president. You know, we have been very clear in our communications that these are not district meetings. And so I think it is probably just making sure that the community understands if they're being invited to any of these sessions by a town council or that it's not just because that's that session is for them. It's for everyone. So they may or may not be with their neighbors and that's okay. Yeah, Mr. Narcissus. Yeah, and I think following up on that, I mean, obviously I agree with everything people said. I don't know if the council president is planning on taking the same level of ownership overworking with her council on how they're approaching these things. But if I hate to burden you with this, but if you two could follow up and make sure the ducks are all lined up, because also there's an opportunity for maximum embarrassment if a council member comes in and assumes they're going to Grand Puba the event and we don't want that to happen. And maybe they don't understand why they would, it creates problems where they don't need to be problems. We're all trying to work on the same thing here. Yeah. I think that's a very reasonable and easy ask. And again, I think what we've heard from the town council when we were there is a willingness to work with us, excitement and interest in doing that. And so it's just about making sure that we are setting up the right protocol so people aren't feeling left out or like they are also responsible somehow now for putting these meetings together. Yeah, I think if the ducks are lined up in advance, this will all go great. Swimmingly, didn't you that vision? Yeah. By the way, the cookies over here, I didn't send them down earlier, because it was an appropriate moment from meeting the do so. So I just want to send them back down. You were making like a really eloquent statement earlier and I was thinking, oh, Peter needs a cookie. I totally, like, so I waited. Thank you. Thank you. No worry for good statement. It's remarkable patience. Yes, thank you very much, I appreciate that. I'm more important than a cookie. Indeed. Ms. Spitzer, just one more thing. This morning, I was talking with some folks who've worn on Facebook, who weren't on, didn't have kids in the schools. And one of the suggestions I heard from them was potentially engaging the League of Women Voters in helping to get out the word. And I don't know if that's something that's already been done, but I think if it hasn't been, we should definitely consider doing that. So that's a great point. They are actually the ones who are working with Stan Rosenberg for the byline segment tomorrow. So that was actually something that one of their board members actually helps to organize. But yes, I mean, I think that hopefully again, between the bulletin and the email that's getting pushed out and these sort of public appearances that that provides an opportunity for people who don't have Facebook, social media to participate, to be heard. But this really is reliant on all of us, I think, to try to push as hard as we can to share both the listening sessions and all of the messaging and make sure that people understand what these sessions are intended to do and how we're trying to get their feedback. And I think as a message to the community more broadly, if you don't have access to listening sessions or you don't have email or you don't have social media, you can contact the district directly and share your thinking. We wanna hear that, so yeah. Okay, well, so it is 6.58 and we were scheduled until 7.15, but dare I say that we have sort of finished all of our business in advance. We really just wanted to bring the committee up to speed on what's happening and bring the community also up to speed. So, great. Other than that, I hope to... Mr. Navegouma? I was gonna make a motion. Okay, well, before you do that. No, I know, that's cool. And before you do that, just to take a hard look again at these dates and times and please let me know if there are any dates or times that you think you can attend or want to attend. It'd be great to see as several of us have said multiple times before, as many of us there as we can do, but we also just, there's a lot of meetings already. On our calendars, so, you know, do what you can. Dr. Morris. Just to clarify my comments earlier, because I think I wasn't as clear. So I will be attending the ones I'm able to attend. It's not that I wouldn't be attending any of them, just there are multiple ones where I have... Well, I think you said that. Okay, I was thinking back that I hadn't been clear, but thank you. You're welcome. For the cookie as well. Mr. Navegouma, I think you were about to say something before. Move to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. All right, all those in favor? Excellent, we are adjourned. $6.59. Excellent. That's amazing. Thank you.