 Great. Thank you Sharon. So let's see, seeing a quorum today is December 20th. This is the Jones Library buildings and facilities meeting. I'd like to make sure that we have a quorum and everybody can see and be seen here and be heard. So, George. Here. Here. And Alex will save I'm here and thank you Sharon Sherry for being here. So I'm going to call the meeting to order at nine o'clock pursuant to chapter 20 of the act of 2021 the meeting is being conducted be a remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting. I like clicking on the live link to the new meeting that can be found on the public meeting calendar. It's on the town of Amherst but also on the Jones Library website, or by dialing by phone. Public is able to comment during the public comment segment of the posted agenda by raising their virtual hand. This meeting is being recorded and will be posted to the Jones Library website. So, first item that I have on today's agenda sorry to windows open is a motion to approve the minutes of November 15, 2022. Anyone have a motion. I move to approve the minutes. George on second second. Any questions or comments I did notice that the meeting was at 415 in the morning, I think down in the words as meeting call to order. I think I didn't change the am to PM. Yeah, so other than that, I think it's good. All right. So, George. Yes, to approve the minutes no to not approve minutes. Yes, I approve. Okay. Yes. And Alex I will yes as well. Public comment, I do not see anyone in attending the meeting today. Wow, just us birds today. Okay. So the next item then is the delivery van update, which expect hasn't changed since we're waiting but if that's changed, let us know George. I speak with the sales rep of the dealership last week. They have not heard anything from the factory yet so it has not put in, then put in the queue to be built. But all of the paperwork is in order and it's just waiting for supplies suppliers. We all know the auto factory businesses and it's because of all the supply chain issues and demands so so yeah we're just waiting. No update. Story of everybody I think doing anything related to a vehicle right now. Any. Yeah. Okay. George or Sharon North Amherst library building project update I see there's a hole in the back of the building and it looks like there's the beginning of a foundation of anything other than my observations as I drive by. That's all I know. Yeah, same here I haven't gotten any update from Guilford so I don't think there's anything meaningful to report. Okay. So that takes us through the monthly building and grounds report. And as I gave a brief overview in the trustee meeting on what was that December. I didn't even know what day that was. Whatever it was. 14th. Thank you December 14th. I just wanted to make sure that one of our boilers went out so now that we are we're in our official buildings and facilities meeting so George if you want to give the actual report versus what I attempted to do at the meeting that'd be great. Sure. Yeah, I'll go over it and if anybody has any questions afterwards feel free to ask them. I'm going to reiterate this happened on a Sunday. I got a phone call from my staff. One thing I want to clarify that I know was miss quoted in an article is that my staff, my staff didn't smell smoke there was no smoke involved. This was the gas furnace that flames were just emitting from so nothing technically was on fire it's just that the flames were escaping the housing. So they smelled heat. And that's what, you know, like if you turn on your furnace for the first time in your house that that smell you get for everything warming up for the first time. They smelled and it was an unusual spot in the building so they checked on it. That's when they discovered that flames were escaping the boiler housing. They shut the boiler down and called me. I went on site to investigate. We ensure that the power was shut off to the boiler and that the gas was turned off to that boiler. Because of the way that they're wired the boiler next to it was also shut down as a as a precaution. And then I called our boiler technician who arrived on site the next day. They removed the gas line from the boiler and disconnected all of the wiring. So that there's absolutely no threat or danger. At the time that it was discovered. There were no flames escaping the boiler housing, but neither the heat sensor which is above the boilers, which is attached to the fire suppression system that had not gone off. And each boiler has a built in switch that is made out of lead and if it gets too hot, the lead melts. It shuts off the power to the boiler and it shuts off the gas line that did not melt that did not activate. At no time were any staff patrons in danger. Nothing in the room was in danger of catching on fire as the boiler room is basically a concrete encased room with no flammables in the room itself. What would have happened if we weren't open and this happened on a holiday weekend for instance, it would have kept on the flames would have kept on emitting the boiler would have gotten harder hotter. It would have set off the alarm and that switch and shut things down and alerted the fire department. So because it had not gotten to that point. And I did go on site to ensure that the power was off the gas was off. I didn't see any need to contact anybody else other than Sharon the library director at the time which I did, just to let her know what was going on. And as I came on the next day on Monday. It was determined that the insert liner in the fire box which is where the flames collect when the boilers running had collapsed and allow the flames to escape through the metal frame of the boiler itself and start to melt the metal. Because the boilers we discovered were made in the 1970s, they were originally oil boilers that have been converted to gas. So we can only assume that they were converted to gas when they were installed in the 1990s renovation to follow up on another concern I heard, because the boilers were installed in the building during the 1990s renovation. And there would be no asbestos in that. They would not have been permitted to have been installed at that time. The architects and this local building inspectors would have picked up on that, if that were the case. So the insert itself would not have been made out of asbestos. So where it stands right now the boiler is not operable it is not repairable. The boiler next to it was rewired so they could operate independently. There is no imminent danger to the building to the staff or the public. The other three boilers were inspected as best as they could be without taking them apart. They did note that some of the other inserts do have cracks, but none of them are showing any imminent danger of collapsing like this one did. And it's my plan that when they come for their quarterly service, I'm going to pay the money and have them just do an inspection quarterly, just to ensure that the inserts are still in good shape and not collapsing. So I think that's all I have anybody has any questions. Thank you, George. Too bad you weren't at the trustee meeting to give that report. I'd also like to add that, you know, in my prior job. I was both certified in boiler operation and assembly, as well as trained in asbestos abatement. So, you know, I certainly an area of expertise that I'm very familiar with so I would say that between me and the boiler tech itself. And making the determination that there's no asbestos in the boiler I think that's a pretty sound professional opinions. If it needs to be taken further we could certainly have a sample tested, but I do not see the need for that this time. And can I also say that. So when grad ski was giving me the tour of the boilers. He did point out the fact that these boilers do not contain asbestos. That was part of the tour. Yeah. So does this mean we can we function without this boiler. Just like, well, as long as the other three boilers remain operational, it should be okay. It just means that they're working harder, you know, when the, when the building was renovated in the 90s, there were a lot of redundant chemicals put in place so that if something broke down, other portions of it could make up for the loss. And that that's really the situation with this the four boilers all operate on a cycling system so that they're not necessarily all operating at the same time. One takes over when one shuts down. So with three of them they are still heating the entire building it's just that they're working more often than if they were if all four were operating. Thanks. Okay. So, yeah, I think that probably I mean I would just echo that. You know, Yeah, I think we had Todd Holland at our trustee meeting who is on our sustainability committee but is also senior mechanical design engineer at UMass. So he's a good good person to have but he had also sort of echoing to your comment George said that, you know, he was happy to see that we had four boilers now three days as they're likely able to carry the peak load when temperatures drop which is obviously when they're working the hardest so yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Please. No, I was just gonna say I'll be happy to add that you know if if any further questions arise. I'm happy to give this review at a trustee meeting as well as long as my schedule allows it. Yeah, and this meeting is recorded to so we could also just send this to the trustee so they have a chance to see it if you're not available so either way. Great. So are there. So the backup building project planning, like, kind of melds into this so I don't know if there are other grounds slash building updates before we move into that piece that you want to share George. I don't think so everything else has been pretty much business as usual. Okay. So, the backup building project planning, I don't know, Sharon, if you want to start or George, where where we are on that on the backup building project planning with town. I don't know that I have any updates since our last meeting. We have a meeting scheduled I believe it's for January 5, Sharon can clarify that. But at this point, I don't know that there's anything to report. Am I right on that, Sharon. Yeah, I think so. Yeah I just received that invite I think yesterday for a meeting in early January, and the meeting is with whom. This would be Sean mangano, Jeremiah the plant Rob Mora, Stephanie Chickarello. Yeah, so this is the group who's done their assessment with town and is helping us to come up with a plan B around backup planning. Yeah. I understand that the town is trying to decide whether or not they want to hire an engineer architect to decide, you know how to move how to move forward how much it's going to cost what what does it but what what's involved in getting us a new HVAC system. Okay. Should we be attending that Sharon, or I don't think you two can because then it's a you know publicly posted meeting but certainly George and I will respond. If I think what I understand is that Sean mangano and his, his colleagues at town hall will be submitting some kind of written report about their recommendations so that's what I'm hoping to receive in the next month or so. Okay. Yeah, go ahead Park. No, go ahead. I was just going to say so I mean I feel like we have kind of three potential paths that we're dealing with right so one is because we have three boilers now right. So one scenario is, you know, our existing three boilers we have a problem and we have to deal with that problem. I mean what I heard from. I think grad scheme maybe was in the email that you sent Sharon but also Todd Holland echoed is, you know the lead time on getting a boiler is like a year. It's like getting a new car. It's a year it's very long so even if we fully designed a system today and put an order in it would be a year until we had a new boiler in place. So we, we likely need to have a plan around this boiler, one of the three boilers breaking down and then what do we do in the interim. And then, and then the scenarios are you know, if we're closing the building down, you know, a year from now to start construction for the project, you know, whatever the solution is does it go to there. If it doesn't move forward, then we are likely looking at a longer time frame of maybe needing to rent a boiler and then. Yeah, so on Jeff on the joint capital planning committee with the schools when they were in this similar system with the chillers. So I don't know if it makes sense for us to have sort of that same conversation around, you know, I don't even, I don't know whether a chiller works the same way a boiler works is where I have no idea what I'm talking about like, I don't know if that's a possibility for us to investigate. We, I did make an inquiry with grotsky to start the ball rolling on what it would take if we need to supply the building with a temporary heating system. They're sales people and everybody are on vacation. But I did get a response that they would get back to us when they're able to. I would say that it's not likely there is any kind of plug and plays type system that that will work given the complexity of our buildings HVAC but but we did start the ball rolling for that what if. Okay. Yeah, yeah, so it would be good if we could get from them just what are the possible options whether it's renting like we did with the chillers or maybe it's another. Yeah, I'm not even a speculate because I have no idea what I'm talking about so that would be. I know what I'm talking about but I'm not going to speculate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Again, I mean I know again in our trustee meeting one of the trustees had inquired you know, sort of to the plug and play is could we, you know, integrate a commercial great heat pump into the system and again it was helpful for me to have Todd who's a mechanical design engineer who does this. And I guess he had commented that they're actually working at UMass to convert their entire system to heat pumps which is very cool but what he said, and again George correct me if I'm, you weren't there but you would probably know equally. He commented that the technology around heat pumps that heat pumps don't heat the water temperature high enough for older systems like ours which are designed to have the water I think he said like up to 180 degrees. And I'm sure I'm not saying the numbers right but like a heat pump can only go to 145 so you just you can't put it into our older design system, putting a heat pump in you'd never get the water hot enough in the winter time it sounded like for us to exactly. Yeah. He had commented that unless we are able to do some really incredible work around sealing the envelope of our building. Or, you know, put in some kind of I think he said like a fan coil heat pump but it didn't sound like it was a likely solution and my recollection from my time on this committee is we've sort of done all of the low hanging fruit on sealing the building envelope of the building that we can do so it's not going to get any. Better likely at this. Yeah. No it's not. Okay. So that doesn't sound like that's probably a solution for us at least not without redesigning the entire system. Exactly, exactly. Okay. I wish of note and correct me if I'm wrong but when we went to Western builders again that was replacing. That was replacing the boilers and things to use our existing design. Right. Exactly. That was a replacement in kind that was not changing how anything works. Right. So if we wanted to move to heat pump type systems. That's a larger scale than what Western builders was looking at because you have to actually redesign the system. Exactly. Exactly. And also far wasn't here for these things so it's a little background for her as well. So far do you have any questions or no. Okay. All right. Okay, so then it looks like after your meeting on January 5 from the town hopefully we'll have a better sense of next steps and putting together a timeline and and then have some something to report back to the board about what what would be next. Right. Anything else, anyone else have anything not anticipated or yeah. Sharon, when you were referring to the meeting on the fifth and you said that they might hire a consultant for a plan B is this something the town does is it something the library does know the town would. Yeah, so Sean talked about, he had to discuss it with with Paul the town manager to see what path he wanted to take forward. Yeah, thank you for asking. Okay. All right. Well, thank you everybody. Keep this short and sweet. And George, keep healing hope to see you back in the building soon. Thank you. Look forward to it. Thank you for everything you're doing. I don't know how you're doing. Thank you. We're making it work. You could write a book on boilers George. But I don't, I don't know if that's what it'll be on, but Thank you. Thank you. Take care.