 Good afternoon, everyone. This is the March 9th meeting of the joint capital planning committee. I'm Kathy Shane, the chair, and because we're conducting this virtually my first order of business needs to make sure everyone can hear and be heard of the committee members we have a quorum in fact only one member is missing right now. I'll just call out your name and indicate whether all systems are go Pam. Here. Here. Jennifer. Yeah. Her. Mandy hasn't. And Kathy is here and Alex said she may be phoning in with a phone so. Sean can monitor that. Sean I think I'm turning it over to you so you can. We have a wealth of participants today. dignified members of the town staff thank you all. So I'm going to let you, I tell us what the order is I don't know whether it's the order that they were listed or it's up to you. And I think we have Alex in the audience. So Alex said she was going to call in today so we have a phone number in the audience. Yeah, I want me to double check that that's her. Yeah, the last four numbers are 8312. Anyone knows for Alex's number. Yes, that's it. So Alex, if you just, if you do want to raise your hand or anything like that later, we'll keep an eye out for that. So the first department going today is planning and planning director Christine Brestrup is here to speak to the one one project in that department. And I will turn it over to you, Christine. I'm going to unmute myself. I'm going to afternoon I'm very pleased to meet with you. My name is Christine Brestrup, and I'm in the planning department. I have one request, which is for $50,000 for various consultants. And last year we asked for consultancy money and so far we've used about $28,000 of last year's funds to hire a consultant to evaluate the boltwood garage so that's a very successful project and we're getting results from that soon. This year, I'm asking for, again, $50,000 but I have three different ideas of how to use it and as time goes on, we'll figure out which one or two of those projects makes the most sense. The first one is East Amherst Village Center. That seems to be getting an awful lot of interest lately. The Fort River School that's coming into interview. The East Street School is going to be converted into affordable housing by wayfinders. We have a MassWorks grant to work on sidewalks along Belcher Town Road. The Service Net just got permission to build 12 units of housing for very low income. And some of them are formerly homeless people at 20 Belcher Town Road. And Amir Mikchi is continuing construction on Southeast Common and is planning a new project across Southeast Street from that. So we think that there's a lot of activity going on there. In addition to that the planning board met recently to talk about places that they thought housing could go and one of the places that they zeroed in on was the East Amherst Village Center. So we would like to be able to hire a consultant to study existing conditions and think about proposed development concepts and talk about potential zoning changes that might be needed there. And also infrastructure changes if any are needed. So that would be kind of our highest priority. The second possible project is affordable housing pre-development studies. And we'd like to be able to evaluate properties for potential affordable housing development. Right now we're evaluating a property up on Strong Street, but we're kind of having to use a patchwork of funds to do that. So it would be nice to have some money readily available so that we could hire a consultant to do a survey or map wetlands or do a quick sketch of where housing could go on a certain property. We always have these things that kind of come out of the blue at us and we'd like to be able to respond. And the third one that we have in our, in our list here is evaluating various properties downtown in the downtown area and this is something that's come up before for potential parking garages we have the ability to. Well, how should I say this we changed zoning recently to allow parking garage to occur on a property on North Prospect Street. Some people don't like that location and we've been asked to look at other locations and we think it would be helpful to have a consultant to do that. So, one or two of these projects could move ahead if we had that $50,000 to to use in the coming year in FY 24. I assume we're going to take questions. Since Chris just says, well, we'll do questions of this before we move to the next correct. Yeah. Chris, are you all are you are you done with your thank you. Yeah, I think the one thing I'll just add quickly to what Chris presented is last year we decided to make this sort of a recurring item similar to some of the other departments that have recurring items. And the reason being that there's always things that pop up in a given year. So again, as Chris mentioned, last time it was doing a study of the parking garage and boltwood. I think we were there's also thought Chris right of using some of that for solar. Just the solar bylaw. So, again, the scene planning has to take on we thought it made sense to sort of have this recurring amount each year for them. So we're open for questions. Mandy. Thank you Chris for the summary of what you hope to use it for two questions and they're kind of related to each other. The East Amherst village I think project in my mind makes the most sense of the three you mentioned to do something with because it has a lot of projects going on and all. But my question with that one is, you didn't mention things like design guidelines or form based zoning in that study. And I know we had an RFP proposal or something that was funded I think through JCPC or leftover capital. Things a year or two ago and how would that fit into something like an East Amherst village rezoning sort of study, or is that solely focused on the downtown and would we need to do, would an East Amherst study need more need its own sort of design guidelines or form based zoning if we were looking at that. So yes, we do have $100,000 for design guidelines and we recently got another 75,000 from the state so we have 175,000. We're working on redoing the or updating the RFP for that and we're hoping to put that out very soon, but that is specifically related to the downtown to streetscape and building design in the downtown. There may be aspects of that study that would be able to be transported to village centers, but we're not really sure right now. And I think the amount of money that we're talking about the $50,000. And it's not going to, you know, if we use, even if we used all of it, I don't think that's going to give us everything we need to put in place a plan for East Amherst village center, it's going to be a start, you know, because we haven't thought about it except internally here in the past. And so, you know, we need to kind of talk to a consultant about what's possible here what do you, what do you think we could actually do there are a lot of constraints, existing infrastructure wetlands, etc. We kind of need somebody to help us look at the whole area and then, you know, once we looked at that and gotten a sense of what's possible then we could move on to more specific studies, such as you were talking about Mandy. Thanks. So I'm looking for other hands if I don't see anyone. So I have a question. Chris, let I'll take for our first. Go ahead. Um, thanks. Christine, just a quick question. You mentioned there was a project in the South Amherst common. I'm just curious as to what that is. It's that you mentioned southeast. South East Street. So a gentleman named Amir McChie is developing a building right behind the Farn Savings Bank. And he's calling it Southeast Common. And that's named after Southeast Street where the building is located. He's, he's gotten pretty far with that building and now he's proposing to build a similar building, a little taller across the street. There are three small houses there it's kind of in back of auto express. So he's been talking to us about that for a long time we, I haven't seen any recent plans so I don't know exactly what it is but I think it's my memory is like 50 units and it's four stories high but that's about as much as I know about it. Thank you. So because my, my question is also on this area and I think focusing on that makes sense. I know you're short staffed or you maybe the good news is you've hired rehired but there are the intersections both on the south and and on the east by the school, the current school are problematic. And I think the, you got best works for the sidewalks but I'm wondering if you would want to focus on initial ideas of what we would want in each of those two intersections and I think there's any possibility of having the road along the Fort River expanse be one lane wider and I know it's problematic because of where the comments is, but have the consultant focus on that to help write a grant proposal is really, you know, be thinking of this is not just conceptual because there is you and I were both on a phone call where there is a grant program called busy intersection near school is the title of the grant program and so it's a pretty good fit with this intersection but with the housing coming in that was one of the things that help with Palmer wife, having people say, more people are going to be living there and so ease the congestion with safe ways to ride a bike safe ways to walk. So it's just a, could a lot of this focus on that and it sounded like you said you use 20 of last year so maybe there's 30 left of last years but is that enough to sort of get some help with writing a grant proposal. So that's my question on that one. So, of last year's money I think we've used 28 for the study of the boat would garage that means we have about 22 left, and we're kind of holding that in for the potential that we may need some help with the solar bylaw. But if we didn't use it for the solar bylaw then it would be available for something else. I think that it's a good idea to study Southeast Street in front of Fort River School but I'm not sure that it's part it's, it's, I think, what I'm thinking of is a broader the whole East Amherst area, all the way from, you know, where the, what do you call it the Wemco building is, you know, maybe all the way down to the Maplewood farms I mean that whole area really look at it and say, how is this being used now how could it be used. I think some of the zoning there is archaic and it's preventing people from doing things that they want to do. So that's more in line with what I'm having a concept about. I think that the, the roadway issue is really something, you know, maybe we could get some mass works money to do that maybe we could work with the DPW and they could come up with a plan so it's really kind of it's adjacent to the area that we're studying but it's not the core of the area that we're studying. I can answer your question. Yeah, completely. Thank you. Kathy so I think Alex has her, has had her hand up. It's okay if I allow her to talk. Actually, okay Alex I'm going to allow you to talk. You're on Alex you have to unmute. You're muted. Kind of can you say speak again. I'm having trouble. But now is now better. Yes. We lost you a little bit Alex in terms of your volume. Sorry, better. Yes, that's better. Okay, sorry. I just had a procedural question. As you had said, we started adding this $50,000 for planning last year. This is the second year and I guess I want to understand the role of JCPC relative to sort of when, you know, these sort of buckets of money that didn't exist, whether it's for sustainability or for planning, you know, is our role like, are we expecting for people to bring us projects that we then, you know, bring feedback around prioritization or is it really just that we're, you know, approving an amount and at the end of the day, those departments going to make the decisions based on what they think is best and trying to figure out sort of what the role is. So I would say, generally you're approving an amount because we're not proposing a specific project so you're, you're, you're approving an amount and I think your role is to, you know, as part of this process to hear what we've done in the past and decided you think that money is allocated, you know, for a good purpose so like the sustainability, you know, we brought a list of what that was used on for FY 23. If you, you know, agree that's a good use of those funds, then you might want to recommend that we continue allocating sustainability money that way. Same thing with this planning so Chris has explained what we use the FY 23 funds for and given some ideas of the things that she thinks are coming up. Ultimately, you know, it's up to you whether you work, want to recommend the funds be allocated for those types of things, but the projects themselves are for not, not for a specific project it's for the projects that might come up. And Paul might want to. Yeah, and I think what's what's important here is for the planning department to be able to do its job they're going to need to have consultants at certain times to be able to consult with them and that's what this money is for is for them. And the department head has to be able to make some judgments like, and sometimes the council will give an initiative to them saying, like the, the bullwood garage or something like that but sometimes it's a it's a planning department initiative where they feel like we need support and looking at the zoning in a certain area so this is sort of just a budget allocation for that for them to be able to out to use for certain projects. And I think we found it really useful and very valuable actually. Thanks. Yeah, I don't, I don't take this you per se it's more about setting up the expectations around, you know, projects are brought to us. And, you know, that isn't where the money goes because something else comes up I guess I just want everybody to be on the same page with sort of what what's being brought to us and what to expect and yeah just overall what sort of our role is that's all. Thanks. Thanks, Alex. Thanks for that clarification. I like the fact that the planning directors is is trying to be proactive and putting out in front of us what at least at least one of the priorities for a review is and I could certainly support that focus on the East East Amherst area I'm also very supportive of taking a look at other parking garage locations so I do support that as well. Well, is your hand back up or did you just not go down. So I think, I think I'm not seeing any other hands up so Chris. Thank you very much thank you for joining us and, as always think thank you for the amount of work you do for all of us. Thank you. Bye bye. The next is the fire department and there are a couple additional documents put in the packet, provided by the fire department that give a little bit more explanation from what was in the packet originally. So I'm going to turn it over chief Nelson are you going to speak to these or is Lindsay. Actually, I'm going to have a triple triple team. We kind of read. We share we share share share the load the load here. You know so you know so. Alright, you have access to share your screen. Yeah, a little, little. Share share share share piece he's our tech tech geek, you know, proud proud proud proudly so so anyway. There you go can you see our requests. Yes, yes. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Okay. All right, so you'll see to see our request quest there I mean I think the best best thing to do is, I wouldn't say say that they're eclectic but there's a whole list list list list of things there and think we we should just just kind of kind of go go go go through each each each each one of that that works works for everyone. That that work. Yes, okay okay thank you. So first first off EMS training to train training and equipment. Jeff get get to get to get to the the the nitty gritty. But again, this is some of, most of our work is EMS and this is equipment and train, train, train to maintain our high level of service, but I'll let Jeff speak, speak, speak, speak to it. Good afternoon, everybody. So this is kind of a collaboration and with, with actually with Sean, he suggested I sort of package this together when I came to him a few months ago and said, we have a number of items that we would like to either replace or add to help either make the service better or safer for our patients and ourselves. And the hard part is each of them have pretty extensive R&D processes and testing and processes and what happens is that the price goes up for everything that we try to purchase that lives in the world of healthcare. So a lot of these examples are the first thing which is the bender lift, and that is a fairly simple device in a lot of ways it's a wrap around a device that goes around a patient and uses straps, the webbing straps go around, and instead of trying to pick somebody up stingerly or off their limbs or legs, arms. This wraps around their torso and then has handles and two of us can more safely and more correctly lift somebody using good technique and that hopefully would cut down on back injuries and also make it a safer operation for the patients that we left and unfortunately people have gotten bigger over time. And lifting people is something that we do on a regular basis and some of those folks are extremely heavy or just sometimes in tight places that making access to their body parts to lift correctly really hard to do. So one of those costs about $800 a piece and then when you try to put that on five ambulances and and to first response engine so that we have access to it. That price goes up pretty quickly. And the second piece that we have is an emergency child restraint device that goes on our stretchers in our ambulance, the current one we have is very limited in the. It was the best we could buy at the time at the system we have now is over 10 years old, and the PD mate with that we use was actually built for a different stretcher than we currently use and then what we use the striker structure that we've had that over the last 10 years is built a little bit differently in how it's designed. And we're looking for a system that can incorporate larger groups of children so from five pounds to 110 pounds is what this one is rated for. It means a number of national standard certification that the state has requested we attain. Again, each one of those costs about $800 a piece. The third thing that we probably ran our room to show is a sort of a soft restraint system that we use for patients that occasionally are combative there are patients we deal with that sometimes do everything from hit to bite to kick. They don't necessarily mean to it's just between alcohol drugs, other conditions physical mental. We at times have to restrain somebody so that we can safely transport them to the hospital. The system that we use now was built for again the previous ambulance, the furnace, and the type that we want to purchase with this funds would allow us to use it on the striker structure. It's been redesigned and it's been redesigned by someone who works in the field and looks like by all indications we could cut down our time to actually secure somebody with those restraints in half which, instead of taking six minutes to do it which can be if someone's really pushing back and fighting down to three minutes and that would be a lot safer for both the patient and for the crews themselves. The last piece of this is the most expensive. It's something called the hand heavy weight based or age and weight based pediatric emergency system in assist a system that is designed to help the paramedics. Figure out and calculate the correct medicine dosing for children. Pediatrics is a really tough format because they're probably the least. We probably deal with pediatrics, much less than we do say someone who is in 60s or 70s that we deal with frequently. We're very used to their drug dosing is we're very used to their care. Pediatrics happen very rarely but when they happen, they can be very critical to both the patient and the long term actually affects the staff themselves because unfortunately doing cardiac arrest calls on a two year old is sometimes a long lasting and it's tough to do the current system uses a length based tape. And so you literally stretch the tape out next to that child and then use that to help you make calculations because unfortunately children are not just little adults, and we can't just use half doses and sort of guess we have to be much more precise. And over time that national studies have shown us that doesn't wait the length based tapes have a lot of inaccuracies because just using the tape will just give you a good sense of how much they weigh which is a much better way to use our calculations. So this is a combination of both using weight based to an age to figure out what kind of dosing we should use for our patients, but also as an element of education and the four hour education block that goes with it. In addition to having guides that are can be in the ambulance these guys can also be tied to the computer systems we use and they're integratable into the actual ESL patient care reporting systems that we use so in this case we very modular. And it's pretty flexible as the state occasionally adjust our protocols and our drug dosing, we can actually work with hand to be to adjust the correct protocol based drug doses to it. So I'll total I believe this ask is just about $24,000. And it's something we just can't afford typically in our normal operational because our normal operational budget budget is very tight and use pretty much all the way to the to the nickel especially when it comes to EMS equipment. Questions. I think we'll go through all of them. Yeah, yeah, then we'll do questions at the end. Okay, it works. Coming up next, a bumper truck and engine. And he's here is that there's stands standard and interface standard is 2020 years on on a front front front line piece of that. And the one that we want to replace is 2001 vintage and one of the quirks of the pandemic is you all know is that that delivery times have been been extended standard. You know, the whole, you know, the whole supply supply chain thing. So, from from from time of order to to the time time that we, we take the delivery is a product possibly 24 months to years. And right now we mean we get we to see it in 2025, which which puts are the engine that we want to want to replace that to 24 year years old so that's that's a bigger reason another big reason why why we're looking to to to replace that and I'll have Lindsay, you know, go go more more more in depth. Sure. Yeah, as the chief said this proposal for FI 24 is to replace the 2001 I'm going to jump for a moment to another document that was included in your online packet. Which is just this timeline here. I know can get confusing we have right now vehicles on order from FI 22 and 23 were proposing to you request for 24. And that ultimately results in multiple ambulances and engines which you know we're hoping to justify here today. So jumping to this document it just gives you a quick snapshot of where we are in terms of I'll just start with the ambulance which will be talking about in a minute since it's listed first. We do have one ambulance on order from the current FI 23 budget. Those are also about a 24 month delivery time just like the pumper. We're not going to see that until the summer of 24, and that is replacing our 2012 ambulance now 11 years old. The ambulance were proposing in this FY 24 budget which I'll speak to in a minute. We therefore wouldn't see till summer 25, just like the pumper which the chief mentioned, which is why we're asking for any ambulance two years in a row, because of these four ridiculous delivery times we used to be able to get an ambulance in about nine months, nine to 10 months from order. Now it's two years. As we look for our capital plan, our next ambulance to 2015 in two years, which is your earliest we could get another ambulance will be 10 years old. And you'll notice in the narrative in a moment where it has from mileage I'll talk more about that the pumper that the chief just mentioned. We also have a pumper on order right now. That is from FY 22 budget was supposed to be delivered to us this coming fall. Unfortunately, we're informed a few weeks ago that that's been pushed back to January 24 should have been fall 23 now has been pushed to January of 24. That is replacing our 1999 pumper now 24 years old. The one that chief just spoke about again is replacing a 2001, which we're delivery times of two years will put that as a 24 year old truck. By the time it was replaced in 2025. If we put it in the FY 24 budget. And finally, for those of you that were on JCPC last year, you'll know that we also have a ladder tower on order from the FY 23 budget. Expected delivery of summer of 24 that is on track time wise right now. And that is of course replacing our 1988 ladder tower. So just jumping back to the request. This pumper would be virtually identical to the one that's currently on order. The key component being that it does have the hybrid zero RPM feature that we just got in our first ambulance a year ago. We're now incorporating into all orders. Pumpers ladder truck and ambulances, which shuts down the diesel motor when you park the vehicle goes to a battery backup. So cuts on idling time, which is of course a huge use of diesel fuel and maintenance issues. I'll just finally add that for a pumper truck. It's looking at the photos here. Don't think of a pumper just as a big taxi for firefighters and hose. An integral part of the truck here on the right photo is in fact the pump. And what you don't see is the anywhere from 500 to 1000 gallon tank on board of water. So this is actually a huge piece of equipment on wheels that we need to get to a fire scene is not just a way to get firefighters there so it's much more than a transportation vehicle. And you know what and I would add to add I would add to that that it's, you know, it's, it's our tool tool. It's our toolbox. We, you know, we take, you know, we take, we take the whole whole team. And we bring, bring our tools with us. It's not just, as they said, it's not just just just for fire for fires. We're going to any type type type of rev rest, rescue motor vehicle crashes. Getting kids kids out of out of a lot of lock block themselves and bath bath bathrooms. It runs it runs the gamut gamut. So it's not again it's it's our tool tool toolbox it's our initial water water water source and it's in it's our way way to get our folks folks to to to the scene of the incident incident. That's all I had for the pumper the ambulance we just touched on when we looked at our timeline. The one that's currently on order right now out of FI 23 is to replace the 2012 this proposal is to replace the 2015, which in summer of 25, which is when we would receive it will be 10 years old. And right now that ambulance has 170,000 miles on it so it easily exceed 200,000 by the time it would get replaced under this scenario, which is high for an ambulance. A lot of departments, even privates are not running them beyond summer to the 150,000 mile range because of the abuse they take. So again we're we're trying to forecast out needs down the road, which is why we're putting both the pump or the ambulance in this year, because there's no if we postpone them one year. There's no way to accelerate the schedule so we would have to wait two years to get them. And this would again have the hybrid system incorporated into it. Jeff, I guess you can speak to this one. Yeah. Okay, so this is, as it says at least payment is the third year of three years least payment for our life pack 15 cardiac monitors that is ours do everything cardiac monitor that is required to be in every one of our paramedic vehicles. We purchased five of them at a fairly good discount rate three years ago. And this is just the third installment last installment on that purchase. One of the problems we already have in our possession is the key there. We are the home. It's the least we've been using for two years. Right three and yes, you're you're three of three radios. This is, we do this is an ongoing going pro projects of our server to replace our portable radio and mobile radio radios. We're going to replace the 20 years old and not support for boarded by the man. And they meet meet meet the current government standards standards for transmission and interoperability. We want to go go go indeed deeper. Quickly to explain what you see here the one photo on the left that's just an example of a mobile radio that we'd have in a fire truck or an ambulance or other vehicle. The picture on the right are portable radios. The one on the left is the old 20 year old model. The one on the right is the new and FBA compliant model like the chief said, which is both ruggedized for firefighter use the old ones were a business radio. And they also meet the standards for interoperability, which means basically we can talk to police. We can talk to other agencies. Not just amongst ourselves. Just to give you an idea of costing these mobile radios here for the vehicles are coming in around $5,000, $6,000 per radio. These portables is green portable here. If I buy it a single band VHF just for fire. That's about a six five to $6,000 radio. If I get it for all bands, which is VHF UHF 800 megahertz so we can talk to any agency in the area. That's about a $9,000 radio per portable the prices have just skyrocketed over the last few years. So we're trying to do it is piece by piece when we order a new vehicle. We put a new mobile in it. Sometimes like the case of our last ambulance if we have some funds remaining in the capital for the vehicle, we use that to put towards the radios. If we don't then we have to take the mobile radios that we don't have any leftover we have to take it out of this capital item we're proposing. And then the portable radios we're doing vehicle by vehicle each engine has six of these portable radios each ambulance has one or two. So we're slowly swapping them out in vehicles one by one. Jeff. I'll say Jeff you want to talk about this. Yeah, I was going to. You know, real real quick for me, we, we, we prefer per purchase these about 1010 10 years years ago. And one of the biggest things about about about this it says wear and tear on fire for fire fighters, one back in the three 1010 1010 10 to be real, you know, quite quite expensive, and expenses were quite caught caught caught constantly in terms of terms of harm, harm to the fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, while lost. So that's fire, fire, fire, fire to to to to the town to the people to the citizens, and, and it's, it's, it's just a car car car back in the injury to be a car car car costly thing as I said and these have saved us. They say you say you saved us a ton. And, you know, right now, we're coming, coming, coming to you about this because we're there, we had had them for 1010 1010 years or growing their nearing end of life so but I'll let Jeff Jeff go into deeper on on on on these. So like the chief said we've had these stretchers power stretchers and power loaders so the powers power stretchers a battery operated system that helps us take the patient from a low position and be able to either raise it up to meet them are from a high position down to meet them at their level and then be able to set them on the on the stretcher or if two of us had to pick somebody up to pick somebody up off the ground or out of a chair bed, etc. Put them on the the stretcher and then use a button and the battery to help power that device to lift up so we could extract from the house or a building. So get out to the outside if you look on the left picture. We then can the devices hook together so there's a power loader that brings that stretcher was essentially picks it up, and we bring the wheels up electronically, and instead of two of us lifting the full weight of a patient plus a physically off the ground like we used to when I started and set them in the back of the ambulance this device actually scoops and lifts and then we slide in a trolley system essentially. I spoke to the stretcher representative who told us whose company sold us these number of years ago. These devices are reaching their end of life they are not very far from being replaced by a new version. And what happens is over a short period of time after the new version comes out. They're not making parts for it and there'll be a point in the near future where parts will be less available and maintenance and repairs will be difficult to do unfortunately, like a lot of things these are not cheap. And the world of medical equipment and so this is a really pricey replacement but we do get good use out of them I would estimate that we've lifted well over you know 30 to 40,000 people on these devices over the last 10 plus years. So we've gotten good use out of them and they, there's an AMR statistic out there that says something to the effect of each back injury. They estimate costs about $60,000 per person so that it was injured so we'll never exactly know how many injuries we prevented. But we just know that over history and time and doing this work that we prevented a lot by decreasing the number of times we have to physically move a patient. And every time, every time we transport somebody to the hospital we move them multiple times. And this is a big help. And the main thing is that the cost of each one of these the cost of the pair if you will, the ambulance on the power loaders a little over 50,000 per pair per ambulance we have five ambulances which is where you get to the total that you see 261,000. I would also just add that Jeff might correct that the new power stretchers are actually rated for heavier patient lifts, your patients. We've gone to over seven, I think up to maybe as much as 800 pounds a person, which sounds like we shouldn't see but unfortunately, there are patients that are in our community at times that are well over 600 pounds. And then I will tell you that I know of at least one stretcher in Northampton that was they overloaded and actually they had to have that repaired afterwards and recertified. I would just add that as it says in the narrative, we have as we've bought new ambulances we have recycled these loaders and stretchers from the old ambulance to the new a number of times. So they, they've all but I think one of them have served in multiple ambulances, but the vendor at this point is saying it would not be prudent to put it into our new ambulance that is coming that it's time for new ones. Okay, last two and I'll go for this one. Can I interrupt for a second. Sorry, Lindsay, can I just ask you to go back up to the top of that page so I can catch for the minute so I can catch. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Also, okay. Thank you. I know we're getting a little tight on time I'll go through this next one fairly quickly since it's come up before so the chief can do the last one. Okay. So we've got an effective gear now up to 50,000 a year from cash capital. This is a recurring item we've had for a number of years now. This is so we can replace anywhere from 10 to 15 sets of the turnout gear, which pictured here turnout gear is the ensemble or by the firefighters. It's the boots. It's the pants. It's the jackets to home and it's the gloves. You can see the firefighters wearing it on the right here. In your lifespan on those, they obviously take a lot of abuse from firefighting as well as sunlight and just general wear and tear between our full time firefighters call and student. We have about 100 pairs and circulation in the department. So we need to maintain that 10 to 15 sets a year to stay under that 10 year. Maximum use the mass fire Academy will not let any firefighters train at their facilities with gear that doesn't meet that 10 year requirement. So this is a, like I said, a recurring line item to replace a protective gear. We have a small line item in our operating budget, which is to buy incidentals, clubs, hoods. Some other boots, some other things that come up during the year. This is to do entire ensembles for 10 to 15 firefighters. And finally, our last. Last, last, last item. You TV sort of a small all all all terrain views. The vehicle, as you can see, we had it for says 17 years, and it was used when when when we first first got it. And really, it's, it's, it's, it's used for all for all off road hole up on the up the notch the range hikers at all times over the year. Folks fall slip. The spring break, break, and I hope things that things that need to nature and you need need this to get out, get out, get out there. Get get our response folks out out out out out there treat treat to pay patient and get get them back back to where we can we can transport them. It's also great great use use when when we're going out off off road into the woods for brush five fires and Kelly, our fire fighters and and and tools to get a get out, get out, get out there. And you'll you'll see that we use it for things like block block or party will we use that as our role. We're using the MS vehicle. You know, up and down down down down down the the event venue. So, so it's got to it's got some pretty pretty good utility they're buried. And as we said, it was new to us, so 17 years ago and when's how I think it was what about three three years old when we first got got it. I mean it was so. That sounds about 20 years. It was donated to the department. So yeah, I already had a few years of use. And that is that is the end of end of the end of our, our, so we'll entertain questions. Sean, you're going to be the R. R. Who goes first. I can. I'm sorry I was on mute I just called on Mandy's with my and sorry Mandy. No problem. First, before I get to my, my one question, I want to, since you guys are actually here. I want to thank the whole fire department for last weekend's responses you guys were much busier than we expected you to be, because it was a different sort of response than we've seen in the past and, you know, you stepped up to the occasion and I just wanted to say now that I'm in front of you guys thank you for all of that and your hard work that weekend and the professionalism that you guys showed. We'll make make make sure to pass that along. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. I'm curious you said you've had the zero RPM in, I don't know whether it was an ambulance or truck for about a year now how is that working. I haven't given any data how much it's saving us. I don't think we've had it long enough. Overall it is working well caveat is that ambulance has had, but just about any vehicle and a new vehicle, some mechanical issues, which have caused it have to go back to the vendor or dealer for repairs. One related to the zero RPM others not. We'll be in the point once you get about April or May here we'll have 12 months of use on it. And that would be a good time to try to look at the primarily fuel usage for the vehicle in that assigned slot that's our a one or number first out aimed on the central station to see what the diesels have used previous years and see what this is used over a 12 month period when it was actually in service which would, you know, it'll be, we'll have to look at 15 months to get 12 months of use but hopefully in the next couple of months we'll have 12 months of usage and we can give you a number on that. So totally it seems to be working well within five seconds of them parking it on a scene it is shutting down, unless it's incredibly cold and incredibly hot out and the AC or he needs to keep going. So, we're, you know, we're seeing large amounts of time when that diesel motor would be running when it's not on calls which is the whole intent of it so looking good but no hard numbers to give you quite yet. Sounds good. Pam. There you go. I was thinking as you were talking about the, the pumpers and the trucks that are being ordered that we put ourselves in kind of a similar situation to the existing situation which is, we have several vehicles, only a year or two apart in terms of age. Is there. I don't know the age of all of the vehicles across the spectrum, but is there a way that we could, we could somehow space that out a little bit so there's always, you know, a truck that's a little bit newer that it's nearest replacement if you will. But I think that, you know, in a present day and I and this is going to go on for a while I think I think it's tough to do that because of the supply chain is issue. I think that is for for forcing us to, to, to, to wait we're still, we're still we're going to be two years out on. We're a year out on on our last bumper we're going to be two years out on on our next next one. So, so that so that that's going to be an issue. And, you know, additionally, we, you know, there's, we're, we're trying trying trying to maintain maintain and nationally recognized stance and standard, which is 2020 years on the front front line. So those are issues I mean, you know, we, you know, we, we can't wait if without without the pan pan pandemic, we have a pretty, pretty, pretty consistent time time time frame between or ordering the pan pandemic has made a mess of pretty much everything. When's what you want to add. Yeah, just that if I understood your question correctly the ambulances we have had a set schedule, if you will, for close to 20 years now we're just to try to buy one every other year with five ambulances if we buy one every two years that contains a 10 year lifespan. And that's roughly what we've been trying to keep up with the pandemic we tripped on that and we thought a little bit more behind we're trying to catch up again now. We had prior to the pandemic advocated for accelerating that to a seven or eight year lifespan that's a little harder to do with a year every other year scenario, but we're finding the 10 years they're getting, you know, over 200,000 miles as I said earlier. Right now we do have roughly a 10 year cycle lifespan and a two year replacement so that's been a little more regular to your point the pumpers are a little more clustered. We have a 1999 being replaced now we're advocating to replace the 01 here. The next one if you look at the five year plan would be the 03 and that's showing up. Not in two years but an FY 27 so it's pushing it a little bit longer than it's ideal lifespan but that's where it is in the capital plan right now. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. So there really was. You really are trying to keep them every, like every couple of years. Sure. Yeah. The other question I had was about the different. And I couldn't tell if you're leasing them or buying them it sounded like we bought five of them, but we're paying them off over time or least at least a buy. At least the purchase. Okay, okay, great. Great. So we'll, we don't need to turn around and, and these new ones for the next two years of those five out of seven. No, but there are two, the other two six and seven that will probably come up age and six. I'd have to look next couple years that will be looking to replace those two but this group of five, we will have them for another seven or so years. I just have a couple of questions one is on the techie side that he hand heavy that you showed us in that person for pediatric. I quickly looked it up and it looks like we're still directly connecting with an electronic medical record which the doctor on the other end would be getting real would be getting information. Not quite that far. So it does connect. Like I said, to our ESL computer patient computer systems so our patient reporting on our end, but the hospital does not use the same type of reporting system is different computer code. So what we use, and that's my question is whether we can connect with the, with the system that coolie and coolie system is the MGH system which is a, yeah, it's called epic. I know they're on epic. Yeah. Yeah. So that's not something that we're going to attach to directly but it does actually link up to our ESO system and would actually help input those records into our patient care report, which we give them when we get there. Yeah, I won't even tell you why I've asked. I mean, in my past life I looked at the Dutch system had the potential of the person out in the field was directly linking back with the record. You know, so it sounds like we've got a systems. It can almost do it so it was just a you answered. Yeah. So then my question is on wear and tear tear of ambulance in particular with building on Mandy's thanking you for what you all just went through last weekend. To what extent. We look at you mass and say, you know, a whole ambulance can be attributed where in terror we you know it doesn't last as long as it might have and or staff time and Paul this is what I know for you because you're in negotiations and I also wonder with the fire trucks are they ever going out with the ambulance. And I think in the operating budget side you said sometimes to help lift and will the lifting device that you're getting mean that the fire truck and and are not going out and an accident so just trying to think about the staffing impact on you, and also the first question was the UMass side. And I know this is probably more for you. Yeah, so we're taking approach on that we have already talked to them about that and so we'll be talking to you about that as well and then your future for in terms of what that what they do in terms of the funding to vehicles for every ambulance call that would be something for the fire leadership to address. With that there's, and I'll have Jeff Jeff get get a deep deeper dive, but it's not it's not just the lifting piece that we're sending, you know, fire fire truck and and and and and and and was at the same same time. We found that in their studies out out there one particular I think in all of our mass, where they found a patient outcomes are better when when you're sending for certain certain certain high cutie calls you send and sending an ambulance and and and a fire for the fire truck. And because we're 98% of our folks are par par paramedics. You're what you what you get you get get getting at the same you know when when we send to send them to these high QQQQ calls you're getting more X more expertise on seeing more and and and that's and that's and that's a big big deal. You're also you're also getting more hands on seeing it and it's not not just getting the stretcher from the road to the to to the back of the ambulance. There are times where we have some diff diff diff diff difficult cold care carries from from a house saying you're coming coming downstairs and you're coming. Or we're trying to try to get to get to get them up from a big basement or something like like like that you need, you need a lot more more more hand hands on on on on scene. But one of the biggest thing things is that you, you, for us, we, you're, you're, you're, you're getting more highly trained per personnel on scene at the side of the patient. We've shown that they're better better more positive patient outcomes with that. Jeff. So I know this has come up a few times, and I really do want to point out that we do our particular about the type of calls that we send more than one resource at a time. Those are typically things like chest pain cardiac arrest, respiratory distress unconscious motor vehicle accidents are included in that as well. Extreme trauma cases. And what we're really looking to do is put the best care and the first 15 to 20 minutes at the bedside of the person. So if you're familiar with a code blue team in a hospital. It's a little bit like that and then in that first few minutes the care we give is going to set the tone for the rest of the call. And that's why we send them together so it could be expertise it could be manpower it could be move equipment and get get me things it could be start an IV or give me some medications. Who's going to do airway and set up that that a whole format of care. It could be help me move my equipment and get me access so we can get down the second or third flight of stairs and get out safely in the winter time and all these things happen and based on what we have for situations so it's been very effective we've had some good patient care cardiac arrest saves really good times for stroke patients sepsis patients because we were effective in that first 15 20 minutes. Thank you, you know, so I think what you're saying is it's the people you're bringing to the scene not necessarily the two vehicles that you're, you're building, you're bringing a skilled team there so I mean that's helpful. It's the vehicle you've got is a fire engine is the second vehicle is it's you know the interesting pairing here. But it's it's it's it's a fire truck, but it's a medic level fire fire fire truck we have all the tools that we have on an ambulance so the pair of paramedics can do can can do the same thing from the fire fire truck that they would do from an ambulance except except trans transport. So that's another key, you know you're getting you're getting the tools you're getting you're getting to these vehicles but the biggest thing for us you're getting high highly trained for personnel to take care of that patient. That's the key. And Kathy I think your point about it you know bringing a team together was really the important part of it, but the second part is it we're always doing two jobs at one time or always have the fire department side match for the MS simultaneously together. And it's a little bit about our model. We had a lot of people that were at a station a bit of our both our model and our staffing and if we had, as other people suggested we could take a car if I had extra staff at a station to do that that would be wonderful. But in fact, if I send the engine one and a one to a call on Main Street for chest pain. That is the entirety of that crew that is working at station typically. We're trying to get our bodies to move to say use our and send two people out separately. And then if we go to Bay Road, you're 10 minutes back to get a fire engine if we take a car. And we're always trying to manage this 10 by three rectangle that we work in and do two jobs simultaneously. Got it. Thank you. That was very, very helpful. Yeah, we do definitely appreciate the fact that we have such really well trained paramedic capability that's really comforting as a number as a percentage of all the calls that you take in a year. How many of them are actual fires. That information is in our budget book. Every year so Tim you can weigh in but you'll get updated numbers on all the call data as part of the budget process. Part of that that is the way way to code it for for for for the state as well. I mean, you know, we don't, we don't have a lot of code. You know, but we do have in since we do have a lot of it is in since where their code code code code is as far as what they're not this big spectacular the time to the tackler thing. Pam I can send you the snapshot from last year so you can just send it to the whole committee so you can see that. I'm glad we don't have that many fires. That's a good good good thing. You know what, just as an aside to what you're saying that that is in essence of a test. A test test sent to the fire prevent prevention and efforts state statewide and in particular here in Amherst we've been blessed for years and years to have folks that are really good at that at prevention and that's not just just our prevention officer but our but the rest the rest the rest the rest rest rest staff. We're all about for them for the prevention and it's it's something we're we're especially proud of. Thank you. Sure. So your question 2022 the 100 series in the national database so that list of fires that could be, you know, car fires or building fires. That's a bigger group it's it was 74. We did over 1000 well over 1200 engine calls but of those that list as fires, not rescues not has met not service calls off alarms. So that's, that's about the number. Thank you. Thank you. It's instant answers. Thank you very much. I'm not seeing any other hands up. So, Sean, I, yeah, so like to thank the chief and the assistant chiefs for coming. Any other questions you guys can send them the committee send them to me and I'll get them to the department to get responses but thank you guys for coming. And you can you make sure Sean gets that set of visuals you showed us those were. Got them. Those were excellent. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. So next up, Doug, are you going to take the lead on this or Mr Roy Clark. Roy Clark, I believe. Do you want to go ahead and start running through your projects. Sure. So, a number of these are probably familiar to many of the people on thank you all for having us first of all, a number of these are probably fairly familiar because they, they crop up every year every other year. But if I just start at the top of your list. We've got Crocker farm, a track equipment replacement. This is, you know, the building was had a big renovation about 20 years ago, over 20 years ago and so the equipment there is is aging is needing more maintenance. More parts are breaking more repairs taking place. And this is sort of a typical ongoing effort for Crocker farm. The second item is listed is Fort River parking lot paving that's a typo actually I think it should have been Crocker farm pavement. And so, if the committee is willing, I'd love to amend that application to make that second item for Crocker farm for the Fort River we do have some FY 22 paving money from Fort River that will see us through the next year. I think. The third item of Wildwood parking lot paving. Now all of this is typically going to be either repairs to catch basin drains pothole repairs. The last couple of years we tried to just spread a spear of black top over degrading stuff this is not the kind of money you'd be seeing for a total pavement replacement this is so hatching repair. In all three cases for the in both cases for the paving money. Next on your list of Wildwood roof. You know, with with plans of what to replace Wildwood and Fort River schools we still need to keep the building functional operational safe. And you never know when something's going to give way in a 50 year old building like that so this is sort of an insurance policy to make sure that we can respond if we need to to failures in roof drains. Large failures in the roof itself, and to just sort of keep at the leaks that sprout up again and again. Next item is more HVAC replacement this is a district amount. As opposed to Fort River it's. It's the intention here is to be able to put whatever school has the need for urgent repairs, as well as to. Just sort of stay on top of stuff as as equipment goes. We do have a study in place mentioned in passing. That we're working on at Crocker farm to try to get a view to how to transition that building away from fossil fuels, and how to incorporate that transition with replacing the equipment as we go. And so, once that report is finalized, I should have some more information for folks on that on that point. The next item is the interior upgrades. Actually, it's if you if you look at the project description on the outs on the right hand side. It does include some ADA work, some of which could be exterior the building. So I'd want to make sure that it was understood that, you know, there are cases where this might need to apply interior or exterior to the building. We have the typical annual last next couple of lines asbestos management school security. It's shocking to me how expensive crash bars and safety equipment to get people out of the building costs and how quickly it breaks down. It's just something that we always have to keep after. And also I think it's been a while since we asked for money for exterior doors, we do have some projects going on at Fort River with some money from FY 20 they're trying to send down. So I expect that we will need to do doors and other buildings, not just Fort River. And so making it a district request rather than a building specific request will give us the flexibility to need. And furniture once again that's a typical annual request. And then the next day on top of furniture as it breaks down wears out and we have And then the next lines are all vehicle related so maybe I should pause to see if there's questions on the first half. Yeah, Rupert, why don't we pause for questions and real quick just for those who are looking at these requests and then looking at the plan itself. Similar items have been grouped into the interior exterior upgrades bucket. Okay, so just for sort of organization and simplicity, you'll see that some of like the small parking, the parking lot projects the exterior doors have been grouped at that $100,000 number for interior exterior upgrades and ADA improvements similar to the town's version of that type of account which is for sort of smaller maintenance and infrastructure improvements. So, again, if anyone's trying to all the projects are there that just been lumped into that $100,000 figure. But are there any questions on the facility projects and Rupert maybe drop this down just for a second while we Thank you. Pam. Do we have comparisons over the years of what our actual expenses are compared to each of these categories I mean are the categories I'm guessing or the amounts requested are relative to what has actually been spent over the years. It's, it's, I didn't realize that because I never separated out maintenance of school facilities. I, and I understand that we have maintenance of buildings, whatever that we own. Anyways, has there been a tracking of actuals compared to what's been requested each year. So, so once the, if a project approved that it's set up as its own account and it's tracked by its own account number. And it stays there until it's either fully spent or turned back and if it's turned back it goes into a closed capital fund which then can be appropriated for future capital. So when you look at, there's the, the chart and the preliminary capital plan that shows all the items are three years or older. So, anything that hasn't, again, we usually give our capital projects, about three years to spend their money. And then we start knocking on the door to close it out or spend it. But we do track every individual account, and it's all either spent or turned back it doesn't just sit there forever. Kathy. Thank you for this and show my, my question is sort of builds on Pam's a little bit I'm looking at your sheet, Sean, and I see the 100,000 but you've left asbestos on its own line school security on its own line and furniture on its own line. So, when the school gets this, if they need more in one of the other categories, is it a flexible amount of money that we understand what we're doing is for maintenance in the school. So, I don't know which I would shift it out if you needed more in asbestos management or you didn't spend as much in school security, you know so you've got a few of the 10,025 are still separate so the ones the ones that are specific are specific that's what they'll be used for the one that's broader the interior exterior upgrades and ADA improvements that one could be used to, you know, supplements and asbestos mitigation project for it's flexible if it needed to be of that 100,000 about 50 or for specific projects that Rupert reviewed and his, his plan which was the the parking lots and the exterior doors, and then the other 50 is sort of the general, again, like the town has for those projects that come up throughout the year that break that need to be addressed immediately so that 50 in particular is flexible, but really it's, you know it's up to Rupert to allocate those funds to the projects that come up throughout the year. Okay, thank you. That answer my question. Mandy. I'm looking at the projects that are three years or older list and I'm trying to figure out what remains there, and what's on the request this year that could be fulfilled by what remains there and it's kind of hard to say because right now it looks like at least 85,000 of it from 2019 titled new equipment is just going to be returned to the town. Yeah, I think we have a line item, do we have a line item in our current budget for sort of equipment for schools or we have one for it for schools wouldn't have that one so that instead of returning it to the town for us to full future allocate. Couldn't we not allocate something this year and use the 85,000 that was allocated for new equipment in 2019 FY 19 for that, and then I'm looking at a lot of building improvements from FY 20. It's like over $400,000 and they all just say in progress. And so I guess my question with that one is, do you expect to use all of that money, or only a portion of that money such that what is actually needed for building improvements this year given the fact that we don't have enough, we have to find ways to eliminate some of the programs on this year's capital budget because we're about 300,000 not in balance this year and so could someone speak to those remaining projects that are on this schools list on page 21 of the proposed plan and what money of that isn't actually being allocated that maybe some of the requests this year could go to. We'll take the first one and then take the second. So your first question, Mandy Joe about the closed new equipment so we typically don't directly shift those closed capital projects for something else, but what the committee could recommend if you want to is, we do have a gap, if you when you're done reviewing all the projects you decide, we think you should do all these projects. You could propose, you know, using closed capital funds to help make up that difference we're not you we're not proposing any right now. We wanted you to kind of go through the process of here and all the projects and making your own determinations. And if you go through this and say we don't, you know, we think you should do all these next year they're all urgent and ready to go. You could make that recommendation to look at the closed capital fund to to provide I don't know. I don't know if we'd want to pull out 200,000 but we are whatever the gap is currently but we certainly could look at it for certain projects. And then Doug, do you want to speak to the you can whatever you'd like to. Yeah, I can, I can add a couple things relative that I think that the one thing under the project description is very broad in that in the in the report and obviously you know the thing that we try to be cognizant of and certainly part and parcel of the of the appropriation that you guys do is that these are for specific things a lot of times and so there are limitations all we can spend it so sometimes even within something as broad as as interior improvements if we specify, you know, painting of a gymnasium or something then we really have to spend it on painting of a gymnasium so we do do have some limitations that some of what you're having there I think the other thing is you look at some of those fiscal 20 spending. I know that some of them have been closed out like literally in the last few days because I was working with Sonia freeze to Friday when she retired. She wasn't going to leave anything unsettled that's for sure. I was not. I was annoying her by being slow. So, excuse me, but I also think that that that there are some of those that were literally I think one of those accounts got hit with a request today from a group that as they're trying to get projects completed and work on those so some of those will get spent more over the next few months as we as we try to button up a few more things but but there's certainly some of that that's that's going to get returned and be available for you to use and and we'll try to, you know, refine that and have you know that that amount of funding available to help you close that gap of that of that 300 some 1000 you talk about so hopefully between, you know, we'll sort of swing free up and some flexibility that others may have on projects we can get you where you need to be. Thanks. Cooper. I just also like to piggyback on some of what the fire department was saying, in terms of procurement and and how long it takes to buy things. So the problem that we're having just sort of getting these projects going. I've ordered vehicles and waited six months and then told, we're not going to make them place another order for the next model year. You know I've put projects out to bid and everybody's too busy. Ask us next summer. So, there's a sort of a bunch of logistical issues to get in the way. Certainly trying to do all the projects that we got funding for in prior years, and I recognize, you know that it makes sense where we can't accomplish that that we may need to turn it back to the town to be reallocated. And I think that that that makes sense to me. I think that's the nature of, of municipal finance in some regard. Yeah, but I'm certainly willing to, you know, look at that FY 20 money and go. This is not likely to be spent but it's a good insurance policy. This one we have projects we're just trying to make them go. You know that like for example with the roof money for this year is like, I'm hoping I don't have to spend any of that roof money that we're asking for, but I don't know. So, you know, I definitely appreciate that you want to make sure that we're able to fulfill the projects that we asked money for. It's been particularly challenging with COVID and all that other stuff so thank you for that. All right, so, Robert, do you want to go through vehicles now. Oh, sure. You can you can reshare your screen. Yeah, that was Doug doing that outside was me but I will share my screen. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to make something bigger on my screen here. Here we are. Fair about that. I can't I can't read that little screen on my laptop that has a camera. Okay, so vehicles we have a number of vehicle asks. And I guess I'll just go through them in the order that you see them on your page there. The school bus, this is a $450,000 ask for an electric school bus. We did indicate that there's grant money that may be available to support this. So the particular Dara grant works is, we have to purchase the bus. We have to get it on the road. We have to purchase and install the infrastructure we have to get it operational. And we have to prove that we have destroyed the diesel bus that's being replaced as the terms of this grant before they will send us the money. So the ask is for what we expect the full amount to be rather than what the final cost will hopefully do. And one of the other restrictions with this particular grant is that they've determined that the federal government should only be in line for up to 45% of approved costs. And we're excluded from using other federal money to supplement. We have eight grants or private grants or whatever that's great, but we can't use the other other federal grants to support that electric bus purchase. And together with that is the next line which is the fast electric charger. What we've, what we found is that because of range limitations and charging time. The fast charger which is the less expensive version just does not work for us without one electric bus. So really, if we're going to get an electric bus we also need to get an electric fast charger for it to be workable. And so those two things really need to be paired together in folks mind. Beyond that. Oh, and I will just point out. Quickly school buses are taking off the road after 10 years 100,000 miles. Right now we have three buses that have over 10 years and over 100,000 miles. I've got one bus that they ordered. I think it was in July last year. Hopefully we'll get it before the end of this school year. I need to order another one so if we don't get an electric bus and charger I will need to order a diesel bus to keep our fleet up and running. So just sort of keep that in your vacuum on please. And the other thing I'll say about that is back in 2008 we bought two school buses the same year. And so that puts us in the squeeze to replace two buses at the same time. I'm trying to stagger them out a year apart just to make the cash flow better for for capital purposes but we definitely need to replace the buses we're having a hard time keeping them running and say I ordered two special ed vans. We had some money in a prior year for special ed vans. I ordered the two vans, and then six months later they said, we're not going to be able to produce them. And we can't guarantee the price so pre order the next model year, and we all had enough money to order one instead of two so I have one on order. This amount here I think is to make up the difference. For that request a couple years ago that wasn't sufficient to buy the two day. Yes, that's great. So then next down is the maintenance vehicle, all of our, our service fans are over 10 years old. They're quite beat up. And it's one path to try to replace. Then closing down near the end Amherst portion of non electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And that is that, you know, our service vehicles and hopefully eventually our special advanced will be electric. And we need to start building the infrastructure for that to happen. That's likely going to be a different come in a different form than the bus chargers. So this is pulled out separately to help facilitate getting a start on that project. And the next item electric bus upgrades and battery replacement. I believe our line is capable of having five batteries we bought it with four. We were told at the time. We're going to be paying each battery is about $30,000. Typically electric vehicles as I understand it, batteries start to fail after about eight years, which is where we're at now. And that was the source of this as this has been in our plan for, for several years. So this is, I don't know that the batteries need to be replaced. And the reason why I don't know is partly because you don't know until they fail. But the other reason is that this bus has been out of service. Since last spring. We've been unable to get repair parts for it. We're trying to work with the manufacturer. Until we get a new monitor screen and possibly new controller. We won't be able to access the diagnosis to see the condition of the battery. And then the last item. I don't have anything to say about district technology equipment that would be done. And we talked about that a couple of weeks ago with Jerry champagne was with you all so that's been covered in a previous meeting. So questions about the vehicles. Okay, to be going first the whole time. I'm trying to give others an opportunity so these vehicles are being proposed to be purchased by the town. What, how much of the time is the vehicle used for regional transportation seven to 12 transportation and then for the vehicle chargers, both the bus chargers and the non bus chargers where's the planned installation of that. I know the bus. Currently, the buses are currently housed on region property. And so could you talk about where they would be installed where all of this infrastructure would be installed and whether there's any cost sharing plan with the region on any of this in case the buses or the vehicles plan to be used for region transportation to Well, I can take a stab at some of that. The service vehicles, the service vehicle request does serve all of our schools all six of our schools. And all of the vehicles are housed on region property. In, in my vision. That's the best place to locate charging infrastructure. And I think that that's part of the part of what we're asking of the region towns is to participate with us as a partner for that for that charging equipment that would go on region property. So the, the special ed bands, those are used primarily for Amherst elementary. But we do also use them for some secondary special ed students. In terms of the buses. There's a complicated relationship that we have for the region and with state funding for the region which I don't pretend to be able to explain that I don't know if you can help on that one Doug. When you stop talking. Yeah, I can, I can throw out a little more information there. On service vehicles, we actually the region does own a couple as well. So, so those are both both districts share those a little bit. So we try to kind of cost share by virtue of ownership by each each district of some of those vehicles. I think with the SE bands again to point most of the driving for those SE bands are for elementary students. There are some region students that are all certainly do a process of billing the district back for for some of that time. We don't specifically charge the, the mileage, or, you know, sort of vehicle use charge in, in regard to the SE bands because it's, it's generally been and continues to be mostly elementary students that are on those SE bands. And then like, like you said in the, in the overall transportation picture we have a involved process by virtue of, you know, kids and miles and towns and all that sort of stuff that we use to sort of appropriate costs and expenses across all four of the communities that are playing to the regional district. Can I follow up with that. So, I'm unclear though with the buses and the replacement bus batteries it sounds like you're asking for the total cost to be borne by Amherst and then there's some sort of billing or something going on. And how does that, I guess I'm just still unclear how this all works. Does Amherst receive money from the region like the town for this cost, if we purchased the vehicle totally and then how does that work with the charging stations to Doug, my recollection was that the buses bought by Amherst, while they may support the region, they're only used for Amherst residents, because the buses that go up into lever and shoots barrier Cosmascus formerly Cosmascus. And now I assume five stars that the one contractor we have. So, at least historically the buses that do the routes and shoots barrier or leverage or even Pellum for that matter, where our contractors buses which that contracted cost was shared among among Amherst region and those other the individual elementary school districts pay a share of that as well. So for the buses that the town operates, kind of least historically those buses were only used within the bounds of Amherst. So that's why there was never some billing back and forth with the region because they were only really used for Amherst students. So, Amherst is buying the buses that are used in Amherst but through the regional budget is also paying the transportation costs for leverage shoots barrier and Pellum in addition, a portion of that 80% of it because it's in the region budget, as well as 100% of the transportation costs for just Amherst students is that's where the. So that's where the mileage comes in so for the contracted transportation Amherst will pay the share for of the Amherst miles, for example of that contracted transportation. Yeah, so the transportation system and our system has never been clean. It's probably one of the most confusing things about working in our, in our little, you can ask Doug he has experience with it now. It's probably one of the most confusing things about our system because we have, you know, we have two elementary school districts and a regional school district that are served by the central office here. But our transportation system also serves the elementary schools of lever and shoots very elementary, which are not our school districts but we try to come up with the most efficient efficient system that we could in terms of getting economies of scale so I encourage you maybe to swing over to Doug's office someday and I can walk you through the the transportation workbook, which was the reason why I left the regional school district. It was, you know, it took about two days, two full days and 12 spreadsheets and a lot of work to complete every year. Not only to figure out the billing but also to figure out the, we have to report all this on the end of your report. And there's a schedule at the end of your report specifically focused on transportation and trying to divvy that out for all these different individual school districts takes a lot of work so. So again, I think, I won't say it's a perfect system but I think the rationale in the past for why Amherst owns the vehicles is because they're primarily used on Amherst students and the ones that serve other towns are contracted out. Right. And the other ones don't only serve other towns they serve Amherst students and the other towns it's it's not like the other our contractor doesn't transport Amherst students as well. It's just the ones that we own is somewhat based on the number of staff we have. And those ones primarily serve Amherst students. And so the costs associated so the operating costs and the capital costs on this, you know, in this and so the, the operating costs that are owned by Amherst or any of the other four communities in the in the regional schools all pay their piece of that operating cost. And then the capital costs again the buses that are used that are Amherst owned are used for entirely grammar students and so. And if they're operating costs related to that that's a portion as it needs to be but the actual capital costs because they just transport Amherst kids by and large, or born by the town of Amherst. So I see Alex, Santa's up and then Pam. And Alex has joined us all the way now. Hi Alex. I'm trying to talk over a phone. Yeah, I just I have two questions. One, I guess is a follow up to a question that I asked probably in the first meeting so if I understood correctly, the way the grant works is, you know, we wouldn't, you wouldn't get the grant until you know all the, all the things that were checked and so, you know, again I think it's fabulous that we have a grant, but for me, that means we're taking money away from the capital budget, and for other departments that then comes back at a later date so I don't know if there is a way to sort of fund what we because the grant was already awarded from what I understand so we know what the amount is is there. So I think it's a bucket that can be pulled from so that we're not taking away that money from other departments. And then my second question was, you know, I've noticed that over the last couple of years we've sort of moved into giving each department, sort of a bucket of money 50,000 100,000 whatever it is to address issues that may come up throughout the year and as we're talking about, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars, does it make sense to instead have a smaller pot of money that's sort of centrally located that departments can request, like, is there a way to sort of be more cost effective in terms of creating that sort of emergency bucket. So I'll start with the first one so, and this was a miscommunication on my part so if you look at the capital plan right now, what's in there is the net amount. So we will need to find another source or increase the gap here for the portion that is the grant. So, so, so that is something we will have to do so to your point. I'll come back next time with a some creative thinking around where the other source might be. But if we do, I think first we want to part of that specifically wanted to hear the JCP sees thoughts on is that how you think we should allocate roughly $400,000 of sustainability funds. And our my initial comments when I first presented the capital plan was, this is a big allocation of sustainability funds and one of the things I always struggle with is how do we get the most bang for our buck when it comes to sustainability investments. And just wanted the committee to weigh in on that whether you think this is the right direction to go in. So I'll come back on that and then the second one. So are you talking is your, your question Alex whether we should lump some of these pots of money and, and have somebody be sort of the arbiter of divvying it out. Yeah, I mean I'm wondering, can we have, you know, if I don't know what the total cost is but if you know fires getting 50 and schools getting 50 and you know what I mean like, instead of having sort of $250,000 across all the departments that's there if they could you have a smaller amount of say 150 or I'm just wondering if that's a way that we could sort of cut in this budget, but yeah. So, so the accounts that we have there like that. There's one managed by Jeremiah, who manages the town facilities. There's one managed by Stephanie Chickarello who specifically focus on sustainability improvements. And then there's this one managed by Rupert. And so in the, you know, once upon a time we had one facility director that oversaw all all top buildings. I think what you're proposing might have been simpler under that structure when we had sort of one individual overseeing everything. You know, something I would have to talk more with Paul about but it'd be a little bit more complicated because we have, you know, our facility management is separate now between the school and the town. So I guess what comes to mind obviously for me is, should the library be putting 50 that you know what I mean should we be including this as well because we never have and we all know that we're sort of hopefully we're going to make it right until until things come to an end, but we I think are all pretty aware that we have potential emergency coming up and so if the approach is that, you know, we need to be including that, you know, hopefully you and Sharon are having that conversation with Paul but I guess I just want to be. Yeah, I was hoping it was a way to cut out some money if needed to. Okay. Yeah, that was actually a more articulate way of the question I was trying to ask if, you know, if there are leftover funds in some of these sort of general pots of money. Are we really tracking to make sure that they were all needed, or was it just, you know, kind of a nice general number that goes to, you know, indoor maintenance kind of thing so that was a better way to ask the question. Minor questions are really more about the buses. Two questions. Is there some kind of formula to, to require a certain number of buses for community, or do we, or do we get by buses as as need dictates. One more question. The second is just how many buses do we have and of them, how many are electric already. Shall I answer. Okay. So, since I didn't hear I came to the beginning of 2019 and for a long time before then we've had seven Amherst owned Amherst run bus routes with nine vehicles bus vehicles. We have typically two spares, and I think that's kind of an industry standard. If one bus breaks down you need to have one ready to go out there and pick up those kids and get them home. And if one bus is under repair need to still have a bus able to go out and pick up kids that are stranded someplace. Seven plus two is the number we've been using out of those nine buses. One is electric. And then all of our other bus routes are run through contracts right now with five star previously with five star and with the message. I'm not sure if I forgot some questions, please. That's good as far as as far as the quantities goes, but is there who tells us how many buses we need are these buses full are what the basis for the number needed. So we try to arrange our bus routes so that everyone's bus trip is less than an hour and elementary kids bus trips are less than half an hour. So regardless of whether the buses are, you know, every seat is filled or not, we need to develop a certain number of routes to cover the geographic territory. And that I believe is the basis of the primary basis of how many buses we need is in order to get kids to school recently quickly. And the schools have a software that you plug in all the enrollment every year. And a transportation coordinator that works with Rupert to make the bus schedules every year so every year it's a fresh look at who are the kids that need bus transportation that year. Doug, I see is your hand up on this also. Yeah. Yeah, the only thing I wanted to add was just with nine buses were basically on an every year replace one per year replacement cycle with one year off every decade to replace nine buses. So because about a 10 year lifespan is is is the sort of preferred time. And we require that of our vendors are third party vendors as well. And these are these routes. I mean, are we, I guess it doesn't matter if there are three kids that need to be picked up or 35 kids that need to be picked up. I just answered my own question. Okay, go ahead Doug. I was just going to say, you know, work, work, if, if, you know, technically, if kids live more than a mile a half from school were required to provide transportation to them. And that's one, one piece of it. Obviously we try to be efficient with the buses and fill them as much as possible but also to Rupert's point, you know, to have the length of time on the bus be reasonable as well. So, you know, the goal is to have, you know, each of the buses pretty bull and able to get from, you know, sort of start to finish in the timeframe where we're looking to do it and and part of that's just for the kids but part of that's also just because of the way our schools. And I'm not sure the time of, of classes starting is also a critical component in that and so with the with the shift to the in the secondary schools going with a later start and trying to flip flop those schedules that's been a bit challenging but but nonetheless, you know, that's that's part of that calculus as well but but we definitely try to get you know what the, you know, we don't want a big bus driving all over town with two kids in it. I mean, you know, other than the last two kids on the last stop right. We have a fairly balanced number of kids on the buses and try to keep the roots length of time fairly steady as well. Just said, I had two questions one for the contracted buses, do any of the does the place you go to they do they offer electric buses at all because one of the things I see is how expensive if, if we're replacing our whole fleet we have some major expenses in the front of us so it's just a question of what's available for contract. And then, during the elementary school building meetings, one person who lives on strong street was commenting on the buses going by Doug with three children in the number four children that some of the ridership was down I think because of COVID that people were driving their kids to school rather than putting them on the bus. So, my question is, do you have to have a full sized bus. If you look at the ridership and you never have more than 15, can you have a smaller bus, or do you have to have a full sized bus in case every kid who's on the route decided to ride the bus so I just I know there are rules you have to abide by so I just got a sense of how much of a straight jacket you're in. And I think that's what the next group wants to take that second one. I should have called a straight jacket it's just you know this is, this is the math here are the kids here's where they live and yeah. I think the other thing to consider is that we also use these buses to do field trips, whenever possible when we can transport our kids it's a lot less expensive than when we use our contractor. So we really try to leverage that, you know that feature and functionality whenever we can. I'm not sure our enrollment dropped to the point where we're quite ready to start using slightly smaller size buses I mean I think that gets a little tricky in the sort of overall scheme. But but at the same time I think it's you know as we, if our enrollment continues to be to, you know, decline or reduce further than what it is now in our elementary district will have to consider that as a possibility. So the question of electric buses with our vendors we did put in a, in our last bid, and the last contract request for proposals, we did put in, you know, an option, we wanted them to price, you know, sort of electric buses and what that would be. It's still a pretty new area for everybody. So they have the people that did only one actually put in a price on that. Forget what the number is now but I want to say it was, you know, 200,000 or 250,000 each year kind of an add on because they, they price the buses and went, Oh my God, we've got to cover this cost plus, you know, everything else and so I think we're not there yet. I think we'll see, and I think there are a lot of districts and a lot of communities across the Commonwealth that are like, how do we electrify our fleets will work with these third parties I mean, most of them don't own their own fleet so they really have a lot less control but they want to partner with and encourage their, their vendors to become electric and so it's it's an interesting procurement and and management problem to solve so it's, you know, it's when we keep looking at keep thinking about keep listening to our colleagues and see what they're doing and how we might encourage our vendors to offer that as an option. So, I see Mandy Alex and Rupert. So I don't know whether Rupert you want to build on what Doug just. Yeah. So just, just to add a little bit more to that. I'm obligated to have a seat available for every kid that's eligible for transportation, whether they choose to take it or not. And some of them will choose to take it only when it's bad weather or only when grandma's on vacation and can't drive or only when something else happens it's not something that we can predict. And it's not something that we can require people to sign up for and say yes I, I'm going to do it and no I'm not. So, we really do have to have capacity there. And just as another sort of picture painting, we recently had an all school field trip from one of the elementary schools for the Mullen Center. We didn't have enough full size buses to support that we had to bring in five star and pay them their rates, like the supplement or what we do just to get one elementary school to women's basketball game at the Mullen Center. Thank you. Mandy. The buses that you're asking us to purchase for the elementary school. What percentage of time are they used for regional transportation, not just Amherst students that attend seven to 12 in the region but regional sports games regional field trips things like that is question number one. And question number two is, if we pay for the charging infrastructure and it goes on region land, who actually owns it. And when the buses charge using it, who pays for that electricity. So the electricity would be paid for by the region. That one I know the answer to. It's tied to the middle school account. If the town of Amherst paid for it but it was on the regional school land. That one's a little tricky. I think we probably have to work out something and writing. I mean, I would like to say the town of Amherst owns it but it is technically region property and it's stuck to the property so we probably have to have some sort of something and outlining ownership. Yeah, or maybe some sort of, you know, 100 year lease kind of circumstance or some other range of emphasis. This is where our legal counselor is their money I think in some respects. Yeah, we've got a little bit of maybe Kathy remembers we were we were thinking about putting the geothermal wells on the middle school land as part of the school project if it went up at Wildwood so I think that's what we were thinking about with that was that there have to be some sort of agreement and easement or something like that with between the two entities. And then the first question, I think that's, that would be a Rupert question of how much these buses get used for regional activities regardless of where the student lives. Yeah, I don't know that I have a very clear answer for that. Both for the contractor and for our drivers. We run a two tier system. So we do two morning runs and two afternoon runs elementary and secondary elementary and secondary and that's the most efficient model for our size district to operate under. So in that regard, half of the roots per the Emerson buses would be grade seven through 12 and half of the roots for. So, so half of half of the time the buses would be half of the roots are regional half about roots are elementary. When it comes to meal trips, the basic structure that we have in place is we make a bus available for a field trip from a school on a schedule basis, which we share and so five days a week. I think the elementary schools outnumbering the number of regional schools needs that they get a bigger share of the opportunity for field trips that happen during the school day. But there's a lot of give and take and you know the high school will swap one of theirs on Thursday for an Amherst one and Amherst will swap one of theirs on a Tuesday for region. It's, it's a sort of moving target which I don't feel like I really have a strong answer for you. And then outside of that. There are athletics and other secondary field trips that happen outside of school hours. And once again, we don't have the staff or the time to report all of the needs of the athletics department so they end up using contracted buses, as well as ours. So I don't feel like carrying a full boat on the endless buses. So, I don't feel like that's a satisfactory answer it's just the best that I have. Alex. Thanks, I guess, I want to circle back around to sort of Sean's question I guess about is this the best use of the sustainability money and so I guess I have two questions that and is one. I guess Stephanie weighed in and you're in that in terms of, you know, CO2 output and like what, like where are we really getting our best bang for our buck and the other is, you know, I think ideally we have an electric group of school fleet of school buses but I'm curious if the technology for school buses is to the point where it makes sense to be buying them because I think we've had. I've had an electric car for 12 years it's never been in the shop I love it it's great but it doesn't sound like that was our experience with our electric bus it sounds like we've actually had the opposite so I'm just wondering why I hate to buy another diesel bus like do we need a way to wait a year or two for the technology to really make sense for purchases of this size. And I don't know the answer to that question so. Rupert you want me to start. So that first bus that we got was really almost a first generation second generation electric bus there were no companies that we typically do business with making them. And so the company was a line out of Canada, which is one of the reasons why it's so hard to get repairs and get parts because I don't know Rupert how many times you've had to send it back up to Canada to be worked on but it's, or they've had to send somebody down but that was one of the reasons why that was. It was a very early version. I think they've had more issues just with the interface like actually like turning the interface of the bus on the natural bus itself. The bus that they're looking at here is one that is a company we regularly use it's a Thomas right Rupert. They've come around and created their own version of electric buses Thomas buses have always been, you know one of the one of our preferred buses that we use we use a number of different vendors but that they've always put a really reliable bus out. And there is a another Massachusetts town I think is already using them that we can get input from I believe Beverly right Rupert Rupert has some of these, they're called Julie's is that Thomas Julie. Yeah, they've got some that they're using. So we have some experience that we can call on that we didn't necessarily have with the Eli and there weren't a lot of electric buses in cold weather. One of the things we found when we were trying to find vendors to bid on that first electric bus is that a lot of the buses back then we're in California, or warmer parts of the country. There weren't a lot that were tested for cold weather. And I think the, you know, my biggest concern with this is the price is so much more than a regular bus I mean you don't see this with cars right you know an electric car is not four times the price of the regular car. I just don't know, you know, it's probably because of the scale that you know there's not enough scale yet with electric buses but you know they're almost sometimes more than four times the cost of a, of a, you know, standard bus so at this point, you know we would have to dramatically shift the budget around in order if we were ever going to have a fleet like this where we were either through leasing or through buying them outright would be a dramatic shift in how the budget is allocated to maintain a whole fleet if the price doesn't start to come down. And for anything you want to add to that. Yeah, I just, I would add there are three major US school bus manufacturers. E-Line is not one of them. Their strength lies in other areas. Both Thomas and Bluebird have come out with electric bus school buses and have been running them for a couple of years now. And they have both both companies have New England branches that can service or do emergency repairs much more easily than one in Montreal. I think the fact that they've been in the school bus business for so long, makes me feel a lot better about them. I would not be asking for money for an electric bus if there's going to be another lion, to be honest. I do agree with Sean. It's a big ask. I mean, in an ideal world. If we could provide a small electric car. If we could buy, I don't know, eight of them for the price of one school bus that's probably a bigger impact but who's going to drive them. Who, how do you decide who's going to get them. That's that's the problem. I think it's not, it's not the greenest solution. It's trying to move the needle in a green direction, I guess is the way I would describe it. I don't know if that helps at all. Thank you. So I'm just, I'm conscious of the time and it's three o'clock we have some public with us. I just want to, I will check on whether anyone, if the people are in the public but raise your hand if you want to make a public comment. Yes, there is one person. And then just to remind people next week, when we come together. I think Sean will come. He can say more of this by email but next week is when we start to pull together what we've heard, and think about what's going to be in our report. And we started out so part of this discussion is the budget that came to us was not balanced. There's a $260,000 gap. So, all of this revolves around, you know, what are we thinking, and are there any places that we see places to provide recommendations. So, I'm not going to say any more about that because I do want to call on the one person and then we can come back and I'll get comments but I don't want to go too much over three o'clock either so Sarah you have joined us. Sarah Ross. Hi. Yeah, thanks. Appreciate all this thoughtful discussion around the electric school buses and they certainly are a large price tag item and I wonder I know we've heard from Beverly was mentioned I know we've heard from electric. We've heard from Helen electric fleets before, and would love feedback Rupert from you or Sean or others on whether that's a viable option for us because, you know, they will, they will provide the buses we bring the drivers they provide the electric buses, install the charging equipment as I understand it and you know we get 400 or 570 K back in this tight capital budget and avoid having to make another big upfront investment so we'd love to hear your thoughts as I learn more about that model. So we met with so Highland Electric is a company that they have a leasing type model where they will provide the as Sarah mentioned they'll provide the infrastructure, and they'll help the school that should come with a leasing plan where they'll phase out the fossil fuel burning buses and bring in electric and so we met with them. Maybe three months ago now I mean it could be longer. The time goes by so fast but we met with them and and they gave us a nice presentation and. And so I think we are still unless you tell me otherwise Rupert. The next step with them was we had to provide them some data and they were going to come out and do a site visit. And so I think that was the proposal of what it of what the costs would be and what the, what the model would be. And I don't know if the date if that has happened yet. So, Doug or Rupert I don't know if you guys have scheduled the time with them or where that went. Yes, I did send them a bunch of data and they did come out for a field visit. And lengthy discussions about what portion of the fleet we would want, but to convert to electric and how many years we'd want to stand doing that. And that becomes a more complicated financial question from from my perspective in terms of operations. I would like to see, you know, successful roll out of of one bus before we committed to, you know, half the fleet or more. So, I just, I don't. I don't have 100% confidence that that, you know, going with a eight bus electric fleet at this time, maybe premature or even a four bus electric fleet. Maybe premature, depending based on, you know, our use to generative something we have field trips that go out of state and go to Boston up into New Hampshire and Vermont. And the range and the charge time becomes a big challenge. So I think in terms of Highland. There are questions about, you know, the financing and the cost effectiveness that that I'm not answer in terms of commitment, I feel like, you know, I'm anxious enough with the line experience that I don't feel 100% behind jumping in with both feet to a, you know, a fourth week commitment. So I'm just going to suggest we usually don't try to go back and forth I think it was a great question Sarah so maybe Sean segue into next week you can just give us a few sentences about this you know and and what to what extent there is an option on in a response to the question and comment. As we are. So, thank you Sarah thank you very much for raising it. Kathy, can I say a couple of things about next week. Absolutely. So, next week. I'm planning to bring back sort of the compilation of the questions that you all have raised throughout the first of the last three meetings, including today with responses. I'll try to get it in the packet ahead of time so you can review the responses. I'll also there were a few updates that we needed to make to the plan. We talked, you know, recreation we talked about. There was a project that was proposed that wasn't any original plan so it's going to update the plan to include that it was the top dresser. I'm going to look at the, we'll look at the electric school bus and whether we need to make any adjustments there to reflect the full cost. And then the other thing I'll bring back is Paul now hearing, you know, all the presentations and your input whether Paul has any suggestions of things that we might you might want to consider as party recommendation because I think just hearing the presentations and hearing your thoughts there's things that I can already think we might want to shift around or change a little bit so we'll share those with you as well and then you can do your deliberation. That would be great and I just, not everyone has seen whatever we've sent to Sean. I mean, I know Mandy sent some I sent and one of the questions I had and this would be coming back from Paul is, is there one vehicle on this larger list that we could wait a year on or not, you know, and then the second question was roads there's a clamor out there among residents about roads and I know, Jen you're already updating the the budget we had because it only had, you're talking about a million in it. So just if you can come back and speak to some of that it would be great. And anyone else who has something that didn't come up, but you're thinking if you've been thinking about it send it to Sean, so that we can have as full a discussion next week for what we're going to put in our report. I'm not seeing any other hands up I see Pam's hand is up and yes. Thanks. Yeah. So, being the new the new be in the lock here. So we have the, the FY 24 proposed plan with all of these items individualized each line item, each item. Anything else that I need to look at that is gives me that that bigger picture of all the vehicles, all of the, all of the requests in one location. There's so in the plan there's that you might want to review the inventory. That's at the end. And I think that's probably, I mean, related to the vehicle specifically that's probably the only other thing available. No, and then the other thing to keep in mind, we have next week and I guess you put pencils in the following Thursday but we have to write a report and it's our recommendations that town manager so next week in particular is where we're starting to other than saying we love what you proposed to us. You know, you have our blessings you know on other suggestions are there things we want to emphasize and Sean, I do think we need to hear back on the resident proposals because we. So that was, sorry, I'm sorry. Just because during when we met DPW said they hadn't actually looked at them, they had a concept response on each of them so trying to come back to them because that was that very first meeting. And Stephanie did respond on the one the bike station but we didn't have any on the ones that were more roads. Yeah, no, we'll bring back thoughts on that but I think in hearing a little bit more about it. I think the thing I'm hearing most is that doing individual street safety improvements for one part of town or one particular street may not be the approach that we want to bring to improving safety and streets and so JCPC. So I think we'll have thoughts around how JCPC wants to think about safety improvements more broadly how you might include that in a recommendation. There is the there is that transportation planning account that we already put $50,000 in which is used to do studies and engineering work. And again, I'll talk to Paul more but I think we're leaning towards, you know, the best way to proceed would be to have a more comprehensive study of the entire town and what type of safety improvement should go where, as opposed to picking one particular part of town. So I think that would be a good discussion and people might look at last year's report Pam you. We had a fairly long discussion about resident proposals on if we have them. And they're going to always end up being told you have to wait because for the big plan or you have to go here and they are, you know, send you around. Why do we have a resident proposal so I think that it gets wrapped up because they are often around roads sidewalks crosswalk speed speed. There, more of them have been in that so so I just think that's part of this large discussion. So with that said, you know Doug, Doug and Doug and Rupert you stayed with us thank you very much. We didn't even leave but thank you very much. And I'm glad you're going to try to keep those schools functioning for a while. Anyway, so any any other final thoughts and you. You can definitely just send anything through to Sean if you have some, including, would you clarify certain statements it would be great. I will see everyone next week. We are adjourned.