##VIDEO ID:3D6BvQeqTWc## not no no way no and it would have been a fight that's why there was no evaluation she would [Music] okay it is 6:30 p.m. so I'm going to open the meeting so in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and it will be broadcast over the lunenberg public access Channel and uploaded to the lunenberg access YouTube channel the following information excuse me I'm G stop that um the agenda lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law so to open the meeting I'm going to take attendance so tonight we have President Karen manard yes Chris Sullivan Tim Lawless and myself Anita shers um we also have present tonight joh D from the OPM firm scansa and we have Chris Ruth our facilities director here as well so the first agenda item is to complete scoring of The Proposal submitted by the landscape design firms at our last meeting we had done the initial ranking which was a very brief um stating of scores by each member of the commission um we were not able to score the evaluations of the um submitting firms uh that was being done by scansa so tonight we are looking to get feedback from Tom in terms of what happened with the evaluations um we did receive um evaluations for each we did we we asked that they each provide a minimum of three references we contacted three references or more if they were provided um we did not receive any uh we did not receive all of them but we received at least two for each um uh Team um all of the the um references came back extremely positive as you would expect um because nobody's going to give a bad [Music] reference um I am sorry I am not prepared I do not have those immediately at hand but I can provide them to you or I'll pull them up um for later discussion if you la but we do have some firms coming in theyve been instructed to wait there till we go to get them yeah I just sent them into the front meeting room thank you thanks um so I guess we can either just score them all evenly there was nothing in the in the reviews to suggest to us that one firm was Superior or more advantageous than than another firm okay um all right so what would you advise we do in this situation um I think we can either uh score all of the firms evenly uh at the same value um based on the outcomes of those of those uh references um or if you wish we can wait till after the process uh or till after the interviews and then review those those score sheets and um look at them then and see if there's anything that tells us um a negative I I'm trying to find them on my computer right now so okay I pull them up as quickly as I can what's the wish of the commission do we want to wait until I the references it yeah that's fine I mean if if everybody's going to be scored everybody's GNA walk away the same score and that it sort of the ranking still stays the same exactly so okay so what do we if everyone's okay that we'll just wait and that evaluation scoring discussion after I had some questions about the references but we can say that's the appropriate side it's now well no I mean we have even though the first firm's here they're a little bit early so we have few minutes to ask questions regarding it if you want to sure yeah um so mezra for instance uh they had letters of recommendation they were they were good but they were old and there's nothing more than there's nothing more current than 2021 I noticed so we could re them say any more current you know that we can go off of already three years ago and who knows with their management chain because there's not a ton of tenure on that team what's the quality has the quality kept up with the project so far after their current executive board um the fno they didn't seem to have much experience with two million plus projects they had no letters foration which one is that yeah um so that was a little concerning to me and then Ray uh d uh the references were all select board members lenberg I was like but what experience did they have as it relates to I know they're just clients of their but do they have any actual like tangible input or stake in the projects that were completed okay outside of just being on the S can what was your comment again on F O'Neal um I said they don't have to they don't have as much experience with 2 million plus projects and they had no letters of recommendation from satisfied clients so I think we didn't make it a requirement to put letters in there correct we just needed them to provide provide contct yeah um Tom on the um the one for um Nez the the context that the references that you checked were those did those happen to be more current projects than 2021 uh we did get one reference response from uh somebody on nesra um this came from uh Stephen Jello at walam Public Schools um and they rated them all fours and fives they got a four on document quality but five on communication um budget control schedule control construction control were sort of the categories that we asked on and they got fives on everything except document quality which was four they did not provide any sort of detail as to why they scored for on that particular particular C all right any other questions regarding references okay um before we bring the first perm in to begin the you um we had a list of questions that sent it Tom um Tom what's the best approach for making sure that each of those questions get answered do you want to um should we kind of let you lead that discussion for the initial questions and then we can jump in with additional questions after that that's fine is that okay with everybody yeah did my question on like the phasing part I looked over your list briefly did something about that end up in there it was yes okay yes yeah I you glad you send me emails that I don't always get to read man hey okay so if everyone's ready I'll go grab the first round and they are what's the order first alphabetical order is first second Ray D last thanks okay debate so that means yeah [Music] we did our it's this side of the table here and K I'm going to let you be the person who kind of guides him and con sure so um I don't know where's Chris um how do you do you do you guys want to either log into zoom on your own device and put it on the screen do you want me to do it for my device or do you want a cable to connect into our and I don't know how that would work I think the cable's probably the worst option C wor okay yeah I'd say join the call and share the screen yeah do you have that ability uh as long as we get internet yes yes we can make I don't know but passw don't ask like what is it red coat don't ask you why if it's I related in this town don't ask oh right yeah we have like triple kits of everything so want to make sure I can it yes so the power is there's go for over here you want grab this one there's one over there I see one right here I'll just nobody kick her under the table please there we go okay yeah I learned the hard way that the battery on this laptop lasts minutes to an hour you never know that's all you've got anyway so you should go great but with her luck it'll like go faster and then she'll be sitting there going are the copies of the presentation as well let's hand up the hard properties no cheating yeah you back you for Alison that's the path the ID and the path Co oh for the zoom meeting the zoom meeting is red Co and you said to start in the back and read it all before you any capit letter sorry come back I don't think it's capital letters is there chis [Music] it just takes a minute while we're waiting um let's introduce ourselves oh great so I'm Anita sheer chairman of the committee and we have here tonight Karen manard and we have Tom D scan project manager and we also have present with us tonight Chris Ruth who is our facilities manager so he is a resource very strong resource for us in this whole process awesome and since Allison knows Dave Dave pasio is here as a member of the community since he's no longer on the board fantastic didn't want you to think we were excluding him putting him in a corner Andrew dismissed that oh good and let you introduce yourselves sure um my name is Andrew bone I'm a landscape architect of Fon and I'm Alison farther I'm a landscape designer right so whenever you're ready conference room I'm connecting to the [Music] WiFi help time yes opening that okay yeah is the uh Zoom Link in the agenda yep and I just handed it to her right on that piece of paper cool I'm gonna take my jacket off sorry yeah feel free we are inal I put a college shirt on says it's connecting but we are not there yet what Wi-Fi um I picked the Ritter lower conference room red Co s if not that pass will work on the regular one oh okay maybe I should try that one didn't work on Lower there we go put that buing anticipate that's I put too much I saw two days ago TT almost there connecting VI Zoom okay and and you have I've already shared the sharing capabilities okay should I join the computer I and just go you just it just um volume down okay okay perfect thank you excellent we're good yeah that looks good awesome um well thank you for having us we're super excited to be here um you know I think one of the things that is is super important to us is um the joining of forces with um the waa team and fuss and O'Neal um we did a similar merger uh with about a year prior to W the joining is out on her maternity leave right now but she's due back the end of September which we are super excited about super happy for um and she will be the lead project manager on this project um moving forward um so just a quick agenda a little bit about fuss O'Neal our team um understanding of the project and project background why F and O'Neal we believe is the right choice for this project um and then some time for question and answer um so F O'Neal is 400 people strong and growing um we have multiple offices all over New England uh and New York um and I think it's important just to really point out that we have lunenberg surrounded so we have the capacity to get here from from various uh spots um and very quickly so I think that's a really important part of that so our team we have over 20 Landscape Architects and designers um on our in our firm um myself and Ian law run the lcap architecture group um and with the joining of wola into to uh into F O'Neal it's been such an incredible kind of juncture between the two the two firms so um Emily and I actually known each other for 15 years um I had the opportunity to go and teach a studio at UMass and Emily was in that studio and since that time we've always tracked each other kept in touch um run across each other on projects um and she's just been such an awesome rock star um that you know we've always kind of kept in touch with each other so when the opportunity arose for her to join with her wet team it was like a perfect pairing we were like how can we make this happen as fast as possible um and make this transition happen so um Allison as well um I worked with Allison when she was doing interior design to work at UH C riddle um so we've known each other for close to 10 years as well so um I think the uh the important part that we want to point out is that you know we have a lot of designers that were really kind of um pushing the design La component for for leading this project but we have a full bench of all the different support needed so from geotechnical to permitting to Transportation um MEP we have all of this Under One Roof um which is really helpful as far as efficiencies go so for us to be able to kind of meet a schedule that's that that's um pretty accelerated we want to point out that that's that's all under one house right and with that I'm GNA walk us through our our project understanding and I'd like to start by personally expressing that I'm excited for the potential opportunity to be working together again during my time at waa Marshall Park was a highlight of my experience and during that time uh we were able to really see how important this park is for the town of lindenberg um and so starting back in 2022 with the master plan and um site analysis we spent a lot of time in Marshall Park taking inventory understanding the existing conditions of the site um and recognizing all the opportunity for improvement here all the unique features and special moments of this park um and all the ways that we could create more connection between the park and the pond so we spent a lot of time during that process and then through that into Community engagement and Outreach you know that really revealed all the various amenities and recreational activities that the people in town are really looking forward to enjoying in the future of this park um and it was it's quite a mix of amenities that's really going to offer something for everybody so it was really valuable experience to be a part of that that listening period of the project and that is all that process is what shaped the master plan that shaped this concept design um this is this is your vision for this park and we were a part of puzzling it all together and finding ways to to balance each need for for this park in pond um and because we have this history you we've been along the ride for a few years now Emily and I um we have a really good understanding of how we might need to phase different pieces of this project between phase one and phase two and how we can plan and design ways to make sure that all these pieces come together to create the cohesive Vision that is the master plan for Marshall Park um so now we're going to jump into talking a little bit more about PES um we'll talk about some related project experience talk a little bit more about our team some of the tools we have to assist with funding and to meet this this schedule so as we've already started talking about we feel our familiarity with the site the history of the project having been on this journey for a while now is a really big asset to our team um you know we were excited to be on the team while we were at Willa and we're excited to potentially bring it here with Bess andil we you know have been involved since master plan through schematic design we LED Community engagement um and we assembled the schematic design package that was used for the cost estimate so we have we have all the history there and it's ready to it's ready to share with our team at F O'Neal so I'm just going to jump into a little bit experience there's a lot of different programmatic elements that are happening in the park um and I think it's important to look at the the entirety of that that Master Plan um even though I know that this is really focused on phase one but it's really um it's got some super Dynamic features that um you know are are very Diversified skill sets for each one of them so really kind of piecing all that together is important um and really having kind of a deep bench to be able to help with that is is really critical we think so um we've done plenty of ball fields Parks um athletic surfaces what is the arrows here there you go um from natural Turf to synthetic turf fields um we have plenty of experience in that um we've done a lot of hardcourt surface uh Sports um we've done a lot of multi multi um surfacing lots of um really trying to balance the the Comfort station because that is one of the areas that can get a little bit out of control as far as costs go so really trying to make sure that we're right sizing it and making it you know robust enough to Fe to um to really fulfill the needs uh of today but also thinking about kind of the long-term full buildout what that looks like um and making sure that it meets the budget as well um plenty of playground experience um one of the tools that we use is really using this 3D um 3D modeling to to really show what this is going to look like but not only just what it's going to look like but how it's going to feel so you see you'll see a lot of that in the presentation as well experience with picnic pavilions um again really trying to rightsize it make sure it fits into the community because this is a park for the community so you know what does it look like how does it function um what's the flexibility we're looking for in these different programmatic elements is all part of that plenty of work with parking areas for trail heads um green infrastructure storm water traffic Transportation kind of have a full bench of all that stuff Community Trail networks um more in the multimodal and into the more rustic Trail networks as well um plenty of Boardwalk experiences a project that we did at molio College where we created a wetland adjacent to a stream channel um to really look at Trying to minimize some of the some of the inputs the nutrient inputs that were happening on campus but they use it as a living living laboratory on campus different stream Crossing techniques and designs for that different Scenic overlooks so we're really trying to make sure that you know the full breadth of the full buildout is is really understood and covered in that and that's really where it comes into our team so um Allison was gracious enough to dig up this photo of me and Emily um at a project we're working on um out in Deerfield and um as I mentioned you know with Emily and her team coming and joining fuss and O'Neal um has really been an incredible asset for us um very like-minded um very much in the same mindset as far as creativity and the and kind of the inclusion of multidisciplinary efforts in projects um and making sure that they're all part of the team so they understand the why behind some of the decisions that are made um our community engagement is is really kind of at the core of what we do um we understand a lot of the community engagement has been done to this point um but that will continue so I'm really looking forward to continuing that effort as well and this is our crazy team um out of Springfield just to show a little bit of our our our flare um you know we um we're a really tight-knit group um everybody comes from different blocks and different backgrounds um everybody's super excited to work on this project so yeah now we're going to talk a little bit about the tools we have to generate different visuals and Graphics to help communicate design intent um and one of those is 3D model in and and rendering and so there the series we're about to show you is all from the past four to six months even less um we've been doing a lot of this work with other communities all around Massachusetts um and it's really helpful for like Andy said being able to capture the look and feel of a project there's ways you can study materiality and layout and scale and volume and impact and planting um there's a lot of different ways that you can use renderings and Graphics to help communicate that not only with our our team internally but with the community um and you know and beyond that um especially when it comes to funding um yeah so with this we you know we really um we want to be able to help the full vision of this project come to life um and kind of a byproduct of doing the 3D visualization and work through um is is we have a product that can be utilized when going after funding sources in a very competitive market that kind of raise raise the project above um other projects that may be going after the same funding sources so it it's really something that we've found to be very helpful and useful for for our clients um to be able to utilize that moving forward um so just one quick note so over the past five years we've um helped our our clients and communities raise over $100 million in grant funding um we understand the level of effort that it takes and the time associated with that but we also think it's really vital to kind of being able to help the community see its full vision and understanding so that they can see the full full complexity of the project so onto schedule so the schedule um for this is is vitally important and just as a teaser we wanted to throw this in here if you take close look at the graphic here this is Marshall Park this is this is the rendering of of the park um so we already have a jump start on this we already have an understanding of kind of how the existing master plan lays out and how these different elements may fit together um so we think that that's that's that's important I think the the timeline is is 100% attainable um but I think it's um it's something that we just need to get going going on it and we need to be able to kind of make some decisions so we can get things dialed in another view of of the model Marshall Park and what that that potentially could look like for the community um and this is you know such a great tool to use for stakeholder engagement and kind of community um input and and understanding whereas it's much harder to read a plan um but to be able to kind of put people in this model um we feel like is a really great jump start and we have this now in hand so another shot of and the different tennis court options in that area and we have gone through the concept design we've gone through the schematic design um we have that information we're ready to go um and really excited about this opportunity to to kind of move things forward so just to tie it up again being familiar with the site our experience our team our Graphics um our funding abilities um and our our ability to kind of keep a project on on schedule is something that we think are highlights of what what makes F the right choice I think with that we're we're open for questions thank you thank you thank you thank you very much um so for questions we've um we've asked Tom to kind of compile the questions that we've sent to him so we'll have Tom to start off the questions and then once those are answered we'll probably have others that will want to jump in sure and add to no problem or before they're finished for that matter sure um okay first question can you commit that the people identified in your orb chart will be the individuals assigned to this project for duration and that they're available to start upon signature of the contract yes with the caveat of Emily being um and life things happening but yeah thank you um describe your team's quality control and quality insurance methodology and how you approach M Min how your approach will minimize construction Changers sure um it's a great question um we have a very stringent um qaqc methodology that we work through in fonal um I owned my own business so I knew what it was like to be the last person to kind of get the final look and put the stamp on the plans um and it's great to have someone else now that does that Beyond me um so um I fully recognize change orders being kind of the death of a project um and causes some tension in in that relationship between a client and the designers so really trying to make sure that our our plans are fully vetted that we've kind of crosschecked them back and forth and then we have someone who really hasn't laid eyes on the project look at it and say okay here's my review before we do our final qaqc project is funded in part by state and federal grants describe describe your team's experience and in designing within the restrictions of multiple grant funding sources and how you work to comply with the reporting requirements of the grants sure another very very valid question uh and we do this a lot we do a lot of a lot of work um in the LA Department in our water and natural resour resources department um in our community development uh with our transportation group all have different grant funding um and each one of them have different reporting requirements um and it's really about being organized um being on top of things making sure the schedule is is laid out so that we can make sure we're hitting these markers along the way um the different reporting requirements are key and you know when we were a small business Emily and her mine and my own it was a huge amount of work to kind of get those things but we have a full administrative team that understands the reporting requirements and how they're going to be set up so that it's as smooth and seamless um and lack of a worry and effort um we also do a lot of like a a pre-check on the any reporting requirements so we'll do a draft make sure that everything's on there so that we kind of have it dialed in in that framework to set up moving forward the project has a very aggressive schedule for phase one to comply with the requirements of some of those grants um how will your team work to meet the schedule sure yeah so we're we're ready um we we I don't want to say we're going to get in front of our skis on this but we're we're dialed in and get ready to get this thing really started as soon as we have a contract in hand um I think the important markers and the schedule that we'll lay out um will show how we get there I think the permitting is one of the key pieces of that that we'll really have to talk through and think through with the community um and the project stakeholders to understand what are those markers what are those permits what is going to be triggered that we need to get done for Phase One versus moving into phase two the project has previously completed a schematic design under a prior contract I think you're aware of that in your review of the documents what do you see as the areas of the design that will need further evaluation before proceeding to the next stage sure so um I think the biggest piece of that you can jump in as well is um Geotech um and understanding kind of the Comfort station and how that that fits into um to understand kind of how that sits in the ground and stay secure um I believe there has been test fits done um previously um but there may be certain areas that we need to do a little bit more exploration depending on storm water and stuff like that um lastly from me please describe your team's experience with the Army Corps of Engineers water quality per sure um so I a little trick to my background is I spent the last basically 17 years of my career really focusing on kind of the ecological world and the the the joining of the people and that ecological world so how do they how do they work together um so I have a lot of experience in the Army Corps and the waterways Perman it um whether it be through docks um boat ramps launches boardwalks um really I think the key to that is really trying to keep them in and engage them as a project partner um and really make them part of the project so they understand how the project is evolving um so that they can kind of have a an not an oversight but some buying on it so they can kind of head off things as it comes in so that when it comes to the actual approval process and the licensing processes that they're they're already they're not seeing anything for the first time they understand exactly what's happening and why decisions were made um based on guidance that's happened um so everywhere from working with the um the Army Corps on the Connecticut River I've done miles and miles of work on the Connecticut River um to the coastline um so both riverine and Coastal experience play into all of that so um I think we're really well equipped we have permitting experts which is they're not our like they just love permitting and they get into it and um and I bless them and embrace them for our our team but they're really really good about kind of providing that guidance and keeping in touch with the regulators and having aome relationships with them so that they can just reach out and send an email and not have to go through a formal request and and I think that that's really really critical it's so helpful because that is a full-time job in itself really it's a piece of a project so yeah it's been great working with with April who was helping a little bit um doing some coordination with the the docs and boardwalks yeah yeah that's it for our list of questions we have about 10 minutes left for additional questions from the committee so I just want to make sure I understand um the or chart a little bit sure um obviously I go back to the W days so would be like Nick bets am I something along the like is that the order like that yeah so Nick was our civil engineer so Dan would be overseeing the Civil team is that Andy how you would describe it with Amy and okay jmy yeah yes okay um so we have a at some point a skate park is going to be placed yep uh so just curious if you've run into something similar to that in some projects before where there's a completely separate entity a completely separate sort of deal not attached to this in any way yeah but coming into the same space that maybe is part of you know intertwined in Phase One of this project sure and how you've done that and accomplished that and you know yeah no it's a it's a it's something unfortunate that happens a lot um and it it's really um it may not be a completely different entity but a hey we want to throw this programmatic element in but it's not going to be ready until X so we need to make kind of adjustments to make sure that we have room for it and we don't do finished stuff around this so that we know we can kind of get access to it and not destroy something brand new um communication really is the big part of that and really really making sure that you're you're dialed in on that communication about what what they need um you understand their project as much as um as they understand yours so that we can really make sure they blend together um we kind of those there's never a clean line of like here's our limit of work and here's your limit of work it's a you know how do we how do we Flex that so to make sure that it looks like it's always been there when it does get implemented and that workflow was something we did during schematic design with baa and working with the skate park team so we have a little bit of a relationship there or some past history working together so I imagine that you know bled with your experience of making room for a piece like this um yeah be prepared to collaborate and make sure that both pieces are success have one other question I know you touched about touched on a little bit with the Army cor but we have so on March upon the boardwalk that goes around and Scenic Overlook uh would touch on I assume you would have to involve the Conservation Commission to do work over your WS like that what's your experience with that dealing with yeah same thing project um you know really make sure they have a good understanding that they have um I think this is one of those easier ones for a Conservation Commission because it's such a community amenity moving forward um I think the idea is really just minimizing the impacts everywhere possible so if it's um you know looking at doing winter work so we can just lay down swamp mats and do helical peers and really have a small small footprint small penetration into the ground be as delicate as we can so that when we come back come out in late winter you know everything just pops back up you know it's you're you're not destroying the vegetation so those are the things that we really look at um to make sure that everybody has a comfort level with it um but I think it's also one of those things that it's a great educational opportunity for the community um to get out over some of those areas that are much harder to get to for a lot of people so um I think making sure that they understand the educational opportunities of kind of the ecology and the environment and how important these different sensitive areas are um is really key in that sure thank you yep um one of the things that we know we are going to need a lot of your help but would be um educating the public in terms of um what this project is going to Encompass and um we need there Buy in at the special town meeting in November to get the additional funding um so there's two parts to that um one is how do we make sure that we have the most accurate information possible um in time to prepare for town meeting because obviously we need several you know weeks before town meeting to have some number to present to our leaders in our community um and to the public so that's part A Part B is what would you envision Community engagement being like to help the public understand what we're going to be asking of them at time sure um it's a little bit hard to to to perfectly answer the question question because it's very very based in what the how does the community engage um we would love to get and go where they are um so is that you know is there a farmers market is there a community event that we could go to is there something where we could get information out to people um is there a website that could be set up all those things are kind of tools that we would use to kind of have um a place to to for people to go to to understand what this is um and understanding the phasing of it and and the flexibility of that phasing I know phase one is pretty dialed in as far as the limits but is is it phase two and three is it is it combined together a little bit more um you know I think all of that information is really important I think the the part that you want to get in front of is just not having misinformation out there letting things kind of run wild um so I think that just means being proactive yeah proactive I was gonna say you want to be you want to be aggressive about it and and really make yourselves available and US available to the community in that way so that it's that the information's out there not aggressive in a bad way but just like really trying to put it out there as many places as we can so that that information is correct and it can kind of be disseminated in an appropriate way okay so what about the getting the best handle on a number sure sure um so I think you know we have we have the numbers to go off of which are outdated at this point um so really getting a good understanding of kind of the sniff test on where we are now um I think initially we would we would really look to sit down and springboard this out say like okay this is our understanding of phase one are we all on the same page has anything changed is there anything we don't know that we should know um and really getting kind of our cost estimator in there up and running as quickly as possible so that they can um they can get those current numbers dialed in I think that that's that's the way we would really really try to get that get in front of that um costs are Bonkers um they're starting to come down in some areas but you know it's it's the when we do open bids like we're still like where are these numbers coming from um we have found that having professional cost estimators on our team has really kind of narrowed that Gap to be for us to be able to say like this number is just throw this number out because this is not not appropriate this one's 10% high this one's 5% low but we still see rent it's really making sure you also get um when it goes out to bid to public bid that you really get good good involvement from a large pool of of contractors um the issues that we run into is the contractors are super busy with all the work that's out there and you get like one or two and that's that can make it challenging so um a lot of times we we look to try to bring on potentially a private partner um early on or work with the with a cm to really understand you know where these numbers are so that's another option as well our cost estimator on our team is structures by Design who was part of the schematic design cost estimate as well so hopefully there's some she I think she did a our second and I'm looking at Chris Ruth she did our second cost estimation for us the redo was in January of this past year year so we' worked with her twice on awesome that do we have any other questions no ma' good CH do you have any questions you like to not not the moment my concern is typically the the details sure so probably the one tearing apart logical drawings and the pluming and all that type of stuff yeah those are my biggest concern at the moment now that the master plan just kind on and just to touch on that I think that's one of the things that that we should point out is you know our our MEP and our um our pipes on the ground or water um they'll as soon as we get a notice to we're good to go they will come out and they will meet with you they'll understand the existing infrastructure what your preference is what the town likes to use and that will be what they move moving forward okay John did you have any question you want no question thank you okay thank you guys thank you so much yeah very much looking forward to the opportunity thanks for your time thank you in terms of process um The Hope is that the committee will tonight choose a Top Choice firm um and um if not tonight it would probably end up being early next week um but we will try to get you know get feedback to all of you you know as soon as we can so that you reach stand okay this won't linger time is of the essence it is yeah so yeah and if any other questions come up feel free to reach out okay yeah thank you so much thank you thank you meet you all thank you good to see you to meet you to meet you [Music] Dave thank you David as a former per thankful ran when he text me some reason it wasn't alerting me to his text he changed it so that it would make a noise when he text me but even when my volume's off it still comes through so there's like nonsensical text messages going through between like all the kids and me and like get me off yeah so um ask you what's the best B on what I've done years wait thank you if you're doing a Pres presentation yes um if you want to use your computer there's a information for logging into the zoom you can share your screen give you a few minutes to set up we'll do introductions and thank you [Music] I'm going have you leave all in the envelope and I'll just take all that and thank you did you that from the previous USB USB yeah it's in the [Music] okay you have some folks joining us VI Zoom well no so what it is thank you we record all of our meetings but because we're in this small meting room meeting room eyes okay so like anytime somebody talks it picks it up but what we found with this room it's better than our town hall for presenting so when if you can log into zoom and log into this meeting and share your screen we can see it there that's great whereas in our other town hall is now we all know what password is left can you get I'm an open book I'm an open book so the idea is to access access Zoom here and then use this that's the ID and passcode for the zoom meeting ex thank you second on Wi-Fi oh yes connect to Wi-Fi um going to join the Ritter Network and the password is red Coast plur all is [Music] all red FS red is in the British yes I suppose had a red W coat when I was in voice C see the [Music] Wii is it yet here we go yeah lower conference room just regular thinking about it how many folks are you introduced today three are we the middle ones or the middle ones okay while we're waiting for that why don't we start introducing ourselves then you can introduce yourself so um my name is Lita shers I'm the chairman of committee and tonight we have with us Karen manard R Tim excuse me I'm Tom little WIS scansa the owner project man okay and also tonight with us we have Chris Ruth who is our facilities director and our host Dave Dave is a former commission member and he's very invested in this project so I'm arson hamard zuman I'm the principal of n engineering and this is my associate hia thank you for coming tonight our pleasure yeah than just much for the invitation okay so slug into Zoom now yeah I'll let you in there present any one yeah I want to share the screen here awesome great all right so I'll start thank you for having us it's a pleasure to be here we appreciate the opportunity um we'll run through a brief introduction about our comp next slide there um talk about our services our project team um we have a comparative schematic design of a similar project we completed to essentially just show you how we do it and how comparers and how we would be able to pick right up where you have left off and run from there discuss our approach the road map your timeline for the project completion and hip has some ideas about monetization and funding sources that we've encountered with other projects that we completed and some general considerations for the site so Nal engineering is established in 2011 I'm a family member uh I split off of Gale Associates they're a nationwide company they specialize in design of parks and athletic facilities um I had some ideas of how I thought I could improve service and and work with clients a little bit from more my perspective a little more closely a little more intimately than a lot L firm and so I've decided to try that out and it's been very successful since since we did um we've completed over 100 public projects across Massachusetts we're licensed in five different states Massachusetts Rhode Island New Hampshire Florida for fun completed over a quarter billion in projects as far as construction value goes um and we worked on many sizes of projects small ones from one acre to 12 120 acre Parcels we currently have a very large project in wal Massachusetts that's about to be completed um and we boast a 100% success rate with permitting whether it's through conservation planning boards zoning boards I'm on a zoning Board in my local Town familiar with the process you know and um well versed in in regulations so we'd be happy to help you with those uh our services are full encompassing but we primarily focus on civil engineering and as I said we specialize in parks and athletic facilities that's our bread and butter um we have completed many parking lots some parking lot only projects we've completed um a charging stations parking lots with charging stations for buses for schools uh things of that nature we complete peer reviews uh at times we're brought in as expert Witnesses in cases of litigations where projects go sideways especially uh when dealing with athletic facilities and trage uh issues that may arise we brought in to provide our expertise we're actually doing that on the cape this time as well uh we provide master plan servicing we do our own land surveying except when it comes to property line boundary disputes we have a subc consultant who helps us with that and they're listed in uh one of the future sheets coming up um that we'll talk about our subc consultants and people who collaborate with similarly um Wetland lineations and permitting we do all our permitting in-house but we do have two Wetland scientists that we work closely with that helps us with field delineations reports attending conservation meetings if needed um but we're very comfortable going through the process ourselves as well construction Administration we always provide construction Administration for our projects we like to have some form of control and oversight of the things we designed because if things go sideways during construction that could potentially have a bad reputation than us as well so we want to be involved um at times we provide resident Engineering Services on a part-time or a full-time basis if if for example you're not sure about the contractor or we have mixed reviews and you're unable to go with a different contractor if it's a low bit situation where they're qualified but there's some issues we sometimes recommend resident Engineering Services to keep an eye and make sure Corners aren't cut or even have fossil issues down the line project teams and folks we've collaborated with and continue to collaborate with um we keep our Circle fairly close and tight that way um if there's ever an issue or we need really trumped response from someone I know these people by name I have their cell phone I can call them for example Scott from teron I've worked him for 15 years he's hopped through a couple of companies starting from teron and then going back to teron but I've always stayed with Scott because I know know him I can trust him they are geotechnical Engineers I'm a licensed soil evaluator myself but when doing light towers Foundation scoreboards building foundations we will sub out the geotechnical services to teron they will obtain soil bearing capacities infiltration rates all the data we need or our structure team needs to calculate the design um environmental teror environmental they deal with contaminated soils which you do not have on this site that we're aware of um lyf architect they would be involved in this project if we were to be selected for the Fieldhouse restrooms building design we've used them in the city of walam for ly we completed a 80 by 60 Fieldhouse there with them including locker rooms official rooms private restrooms for the officials restrooms for the public full concessions with rators and all the requirements not that you have to do that but to that scale also we completed North High School's Field House brand new field house with restrooms designed and permitted for the number of seats for the bleachers we're able to get a waiver from the plumbing board reduce the number of fixtures that's required and do half of what you have to I don't I don't believe you have extensive seating here but if you have an Athletic Facility the code the state code requires you to provide the same level of restrooms as you would at Gillette Stadium which is very excessive so regularly the planning board provides a 50% variance just by applying to reduce the number of fixtures so instead of at a 2500 seat Stadium instead of having 60 toilets which is very excessive you could have 30 you know and don't quote me on the number we have a calculation but approximately that um Vincent dioro he's our electrical engineer if there's lighting electrical to the building scoreboards Etc we will collaborate with them and the last consultant that would be relevant to this project would be irrigation consulting services I don't believe they're necessary for first phase but down the phases if you do the athletic fields they design drip irrigation athletic irrigation all the necessary plans and documents for public B this is a project we have in walam it's the old Cornel property um it was the old state hospital that was vacant for years it was a highly contentious site there was a lot of people unhappy about it there was not much anyone could do for a long time uh we were involved to provide community outreach start a discussion and facilitate the process this is phase one it's 75% of the way through construction it has a universal playground that's going to be one of the largest accessible Universal playgrounds in New England uh it has a mini golf course to the right of that multiple parking lots we're going to have a walking Track with mileage showing the distance you get around the walking Track those rectangles on the sides are going to be poured in place surfaces with exercise equipment for various levels of abilities mobility and exercise ability so folks can walk around get the exercise they need work on their muscles and then as you go up the winding path further up you can actually play this video this was our schematic design but um as you go up The Path there's a memorial area there's signage along the way uh recognizing the people who who were affected by the facility who were treated by the facility recognizing you know the difficulty that they've had and just bringing recognition to the site and the history of it so that there can be some kind of a closure to um this level of design when we completed it includes all three phases and what we'd like to do in our presentations is give a real life world view of what these would look like constructed what we're proposing not every feature was implemented but we had a robust public meeting uh multiple multi mle meetings to build consensus to discuss what would fit what would be appropriate um at times presentations we had over 500 people through zoom and we had to regulate you know who could speak how do you manage that don't want people be inappropriate jump out of turn those things so we do have experience with that this is a seven minute video so we don't have to look at all of it but wanted to show you that we do have the experience and expertise P to guide you through this process it is included in the thumb drive wanted to that later yes for a road map um all projects start out with your typical background evaluation site analysis which you have completed we've reviewed it uh it looks like a great you know great first step it looks like a well done survey the Wetland delineations for what part we saw was there a lot of the survey points the boundaries everything looks but what we could tell from the PDFs you know it's great job compliment whoever completed it to date um planning and schematic design stages you have essentially gone through that it appears we would continue that uh we would propose reviewing it with you to see if there's any changes you would like any modifications clearly there's already a 3D rendering if you wanted to modify that based on any changes we'll be happy to do that for you if you want us to provide any Public Presentation material of what the project would look like signage about what's coming down the road or how to uh phase and subdivide the project we could do that and then we would just jump right in with construction documents and permitting uh there definitely going to be conservation permitting for all the different phases bid assistance and construction Administration um we like to see the project through and then most projects have want oneyear completion warranty period and we will make periodic side visits 6 months and right before the completion of the warranty because things can get forgotten you might have a tree that's dead that's on a warranty that You' haven't gotten around to and you're not sure when the warranty is up and we'll activ you actively tell you hey you know you still have a month or two left these trees are dead let's get them replaced on the contractor's time before it's too late things like that and I I don't believe a lot of companies do that um but what we found not only does it make the project look good which makes us look good it also keeps our relationship with you going longer and when you have another project down the line or it's time to redo this project we're always welcome to redo our projects most of our clients are return clients we work with the same % of them clients and um we find that as we continue this close relationship with our clients if they tend to sort of move on and go to different locations different municipalities they tend to kind of bring us yeah man to grow quite a bit that's a great you know that's a testament to what arson um foresaw when he left Gale in terms of having that closer relationship with clients and it's it's really helped us we feel very blessed because of it I appreciate that and I want to say that Gail does a wonderful job I have no issues with you fantastic firm as well and I'm thankful to them for having taught me everything I've learned all day um for project timeline we understand your timeline I believe you're um looking to award as soon as possible early September with the site design um beginning end of September detailed design end of September through November permitting November through January pering process can range anywhere from 30 to 90 days legally I believe it's a 90day Max period that the municipality has to permit often times depending if it's one one meeting or two if they require additional information you know it'll be between 30 and 45 days that's pretty typical it fits in your timeline um and especially for the first base it's very doable bid opening end of January early um February 1 contract award but construction start mid-February that's all reasonable uh we've indicated here approximately a six-month construction prog process normally you wouldn't need a full six-month window for this level of a project but playground deliveries at this time are 12 to 16 weeks out I'm not sure which playground company you're planning on using but LSI is 16 weeks out um game time and other things are about 12 weeks out so that should be one of your primary considerations to nail down the play equipment first uh and in the construction end that could be the first sub mittle process you can circumvent that process by doing a direct purchase to a co-op board which we've done walan buys all their playground equipment directly so you can have that material ordered designed per and ordered right after permitting and not wait for the Full Construction to start and have the installation in the bid so that large wallan project for example that's over a million in play equipment and they've ordered that directly yes you pick the color you pick the vendor when you put it in the bid public bid law opens it up to substitutions most contractors won't substitute now and then you get a contractor that will and that's a long battle to save it well is it equivalent is not equivalent what is an equivalent playround that has three slides I have three slides so it can get messy um so we 50% of our clients purchase the playgrounds directly 50 um included in the bid package only once I've had a substitution um again so I think a six Monon duration four month to get the equipment in the contractor can do the site work install the playground it's during the warm time so surfacing is not an issue if you're doing pip surfacing the temperature has to be 40 degrees and Rising preferably 50 degrees so there's no shrinkage issues there's no delamination issues um and I think that would be a successful timeline for for you um we can talk about some monetization strategies and and a little bit more about the site constraints and then um we'd be happy to answer some questions in terms of the RFP we noticed that the month of November is when uh you may be going out to get some additional funding or potentially looking to secure some grants and that so uh we thought well maybe we can include some of the uh items that some of our past clients have um actually done in terms of racing some additional funding uh since uh your project right now looks like it'll Encompass uh potentially baseball softball field um we were looking at some of the uh like a potential potentially trying to fit uh like a multi-purpose field maybe where the baseball field is leaving room maybe for a soccer field but things like that could actually open you up to um be able to rent out the property for some of the local teams looking for uh you know some of additional Le facilities everyone loves Le facility is there any local universities or colleges stateb state so we've completed three other projects where this this your diversity has contributed funding towards the construction of the Athletic Facility in exchange for playtime available time on that facility it might be beneficial to reach out to them as well to see if they're looking for field space and that if you do that in advance then you can tailor the field to meet their needs dimensionally because College might be different it is different than high school but for that extra space you can get a lot more funding from them yeah other sources uh to raise some money are crowdfunding which is kind of like a Kickstarter if you're familiar with that um we do uh you know sponsorship and advertising in the form of many different aspects of it but you can put banners on on some fencing you can actually we have some clients that have gone U and purchased some really high level uh dig scoreboards and what they do is they sell that advertising space some of the local schools have have kids that will do be doing digital design and so they'll use that as part of their um strategy to educate the kids in Taunton the kids the students actually get credit from the school for creating the advertisement in their school program and and posting those advertisements on the digital Schoolboard yeah we had feedback in in North adoro which is uh Town very year and de us both he lives there and I live there too but um I've had the superintendent come back and say hey we actually got the scoreboard in and we sold out on our advertising um you know sort of schedule which has been really positive to see that that um and you know the town be able recuperate some of their costs um you know Memorial um and P areas uh the RFP did mention some potential historic and and uh some um you know in this particular case we can actually do Memorial papers um where you would be able to apply those and and put your name on it uh purchase additional plats that type of thing is another aspect of the money uh fundraising which we've done quite a bit of um you know things like certain events of functions like weapons um you know certain items where people want to purchase the particular Pavilion or space uh that's something that that does happen and um you can you know leverage some of that as some potenti servic are you folks pursuing any grants or um CPC funding or CPA funding at all C no because we don't we're not we don't participate that for those who don't know C is community preservation act um we did we have um applied for four four or five grants we received the park Grant um with that was a half million dollars um we congratulations thank you um the $1 million landed water grant however that's there's some hoops that we have to jump through with the Army Corp of engineer permitting in order for the National Park Service to sign off on that so that's there um and we are we did not receive the trails grants correct and we are waiting um still waiting on the Ada um that we submitted for to bridge the gap between our original estimate and our most current estimate for playground um so we have done those um I think there are still some on the horizon that we would like to apply for but time will tell yeah we always help out with that process if you need renderings cost estimates Etc we're happy to help if don't charge to help you get those grants and regarding Trails we we do have quite a bit of experience with with Trails this particular project that we just mentioned has a brail Trail so um yeah it's it's a very um yeah a very sort of cool concept and I believe it might be in that video if not it's in the still stuck on the mini course oh we haven't even train too electric train oh yeah we have El Train ad accessible Caboose ad accessible Caboose It Go the the mini golf we have ises that know as a business or just a community Co sorry s tracking there's multipurpose Fields there's a ton of tennis courts we have a disc um Disc Go course there's a disc gol for sure um that's been uh as part of one the design we've already design that and then chipping range a driving range yeah y a shorter version of a driving range does the drain work I mean up it's on Wheels it looks like a train um but it's on Wheels you can drive it anywhere it's electric you charge it at night we have station where it sits underneath like a St does that yeah yeah they got approv leave two FTE or two employees that's going to manage part Park so yeah it's a very very cool project there's a Snow Hill and there's all kinds of really cool stuff the list goes on so the first phase is comparable in budget size I think about $8 million for the first phase that's being completed now and there's another two phases about that much will be complaining okay and then lastly just a brief slide about some considerations I think you know we mentioned that earlier um you can purchase equipment directly from the manufacturer which will save you some money that's a cost saving initiative the other thing too that comes um in terms of Permitting as you go through the Nifty and the swib and the storm water permitting uh through the EPA um just one thing to know the item area in pink on the top right and corner here are all historic properties and they basically fall in under the national register for SCH historic places so um because the property of buts that um we just want to be careful um in terms of drainage and those calculations and and the the type of um bmps that you set up for the particular project because of it does it could get to a point where it could Downstream affect those areas so that's just a consideration not not big red flags but these are things that we think of that that we look at that we try to anticipate and it will come up in the nifty's application whether you're close to historical sites we also do all the pering fors well clients the other thing that wasn't mentioned in terms of specifications not that you need it because we we've actually seen your your RFP but we do both front end and back end the technical specifications if it's needed as as part of of the of the project that's sort of already something consider yeah we'll provide the technical spe technical specifications and then the front end specifications for you to review and pass along to your legal councel to make sure your legal council signs off on it or we use yours whatever contracts you not have over prer okay some towns don't have frontend contracts so we'll just use AIA documents and so that concludes the presentation behind this so and I won't go into it but in in your uh physical packets you'll see um it's actually going to be uh down here but it's our project Matrix of oh projects um it's in the actual PowerPoint which is this is a PDF but um they're located in the back of try to show what each park has whether it synthetic to our Fields lights natural grass Etc so sometimes you might want to see relevant projects that hit certain criteria and usually provide that Matrix for thank you sure sure and you have that in terms of questions um we do have some preset questions that we're going to ask Tom to um ask of you and then um when we're done with those I'm sure we'll all have others that we going to jump in with as well uh CH the first question can you commit that the people identified in your or chart will be the individuals assigned to this project for its duration and that those people are available to start immediately upon completion execution of the contract yes very good thank you um describe your team's quality controlquality assurance methodology and how your approach will minimize construction change orders through each phase of the project we do a review process we meet with you we discuss it and then we look at the plans as a contractor would not just on the engineering end but when you take a plan and break it down into installation okay how much pipe do I need how much base do I needed so on and once you break it down through each step of the installation process not just the design process you're able to catch what the contractor is going to come up against during construction hips a license construction supervisor we have extensive experience on the construction end so UTI utilizing our skills on the completion end we're able to design to ensure we prevent and minimize change orders change orders are inevitable if there are unknown conditions underground we do our best to survey and find out what is there we do rely on surveyors in this case you already have the survey completed so a portion of that will be relying on the accuracy of those documents that are provided to us but we will will do some field investigations to verify the accuracy of those documents as well this project is funded in part by state and federal grants describe your team's experience in in designing within the restrictions of multiple multiple grant funding sources and how you work to comply with the reporting requirements for the grants we have worked with multiple projects that had state and federal grants in our experience the majority of the documentation that has come up was through the construction phase where they would visit and inspect and ensure that the employees were getting paid the fair wages if they're meeting the required breaks Etc uh in terms of the design end um we haven't been asked to provide anything additional other than what we normally do in our office whether it's construction uh design progress meetings documentation of our correspondences providing construction estimates and Designs but that there hasn't been anything specific that I can think of that's been required of us the project is a very aggressive schedule for phase one to comply with the requirements of some of those grants if how will your team work to meet this schedule so part of our success or the reason we've been able to do so well is we do not take on too much work we like to we charge a fair price we do well but we only take on the projects that we are comfortable with and can meet the timeline the walan project is ending its construction are we're limited to one site visit every two weeks there this will be a natural transition point to our next project so we're very comfortable meeting your timeline the project has previously completed a schematic design under a prior contract in your review of the documents what do you see as the areas of the design that will need further evaluation for before proceeding to the next stage I will complement the work that has been completed from what I saw obviously we didn't have an involvement with the folks we don't know your communication and uh experience with them but as far as a PDF document that you would look at everything seemed to be adequate there were some areas of wetland delineation that were noted to be completed by others I don't know if that was done or not we would like to look into that um the survey looked accurate I wanted to just confirm I probably would like to confirm the data that it's completed on to make sure it's on Massachusetts Mainland datum North American vertical datum the same construction standards that contractor will utilize that way when you go to construction they can actually create a 3D map of the design contractors take this they create a 3D map then they can upload that to their equipment and that eliminates some of those construction changes and costs and issues where they can actually use it to work so I would check into that to make sure the surveys is in the right data I would check the Wetland delineations to make sure they're appropriate also the timeline I'm not aware when they were delineated but normally Wetland delineation is only good for two years so if that has expired we'd like to go back and redo that um you know there was some areas left to be determined for treatment those will come up in the design uh and drainage calculations but as far as the base looked appropriate to me I didn't check all the field dimensional layouts I did notice that the softball field had the file zones turned in so you're required to have a 25 foot file territory and then the regulations are vague after the infield whether that 25 should continue or you're allowed to bring it in in the past we would bring it into safe space um NCAA has changed their regulations so for college use you have to maintain that 25 fot all the way through um we've actually left messages and talked to nfhs National Federation of high school sports to get a clarification they don't really know it's not a problem until is a problem so that would be my recommendations to maintain a file Zone to match NCAA then you don't have an issue to worry about at all um those were just some brief brief things that I yeah in terms of the sort of next steps from there would be sort of getting that full download from the team members and figuring out exactly where you're at in terms of those next expectations with community outreach and how we can help and facilitate some of that as well so it's just going to kind of pick up as we've mentioned uh a lot of the information looks looks good we just kind of want to know where they left off and what those physical sort of like digital well the digital documents they look like yeah it would be important to us if we could get the data today in AutoCAD format that way we don't have to retrace the steps and I assume your contract in most contracts the owner owns the digital documents so hopefully that's something you could provide we either obtain them or we will be obtaining them so last question from our list is please describe your team's experience with Army Core water quality permitting 46 cons we have had Rel um work with the Army Corps we've had a project in new Hamp I'm sure where it dealt with Wetland filling wetlands and replicating uh so we work with Army Core there and we've had a subdivision where developer brought us in because there was historical filled Wetlands but it's not specific to water quality in terms of lakes and ponds um we would be limited there but I am certain that our Wetland scientists have quite a bit of experience there stepen chamil one of our Consultants has completed pipeline L across the entire United States that required extensive Army quote permitting and Robert procop is a wetland scientist and a professor at UNH who is one of the leading experts when it comes to Wetland so we would rely on on their expertise to that with that I'm still on the mini golf cour I questions uh we have a skate park that's going into the same facility under completely separate sort of project and we don't have any ownership of that at this point just we've given them rights of access to the land and so forth so do you have um I the timeline on all of it is probably going to go ins side they're all GNA kind of intertwine a little bit if you have experience in how you navigated working in a in the same U parcel of land very close to each other with two completely separate projects we have and it was with building contractors versus site contractors folks doing the concessions buildings and folks doing the athletic facilities because often times those are a bit separate which actually we should probably talk about in in terms of your project as well but um so the key there is our specifications the front end documents and how you conduct the site work specifies that other contractors will be on site space will need to be shared disputes will be resolved through the engineer the engineer or the town will have the final say in terms of disputes contractors are encouraged to collaborate together and so on and what we'd like to do is provide them a fenced in area construction zone that they each can maintain so dispute is limited and to provide each other separate accesses if possible um just as a side note to the building if you do not do a prefabricated building that building will be a vertical construction it's bid through chapter 149 vertical construction versus 30 39m site work um unless you bump it all up to 149 vertical so you'd have file sub bits and so on but that'll raise the price up of the overall bid so often times we will bid the building separately and then the site work for everything else separately that would be you know I obviously would work with you if if selected and get your input on that but um that's our typical recommendation no questions um my question goes to this issue of looking for addal funding we um are planning to go forward at our November special time meeting to request the remaining funding that we need for the project so there's two concerns with that one is um where we're going to need to have a much tighter grasp of what that dollar amount we need to ask for is as soon as possible um we know that the cost estimates that we have are outdated um so can you explain to us how you would work so that we can try to get as good of number as possible um to provide to town meeting and we'd need this you know several weeks before that November town meeting right to November what we do with our projects is every bid we get for our own projects we have a schedule of values that breaks down all the aspects of the project then one of our team members Dan will import all that into an Excel spreadsheet and we track for the last 14 years all our projects and how they have involved in cost especially through Co and the raise in the inflation that's happened recently and we're able to take individual components and build an estimate would've been fairly accurate um if we are aired we tried to air on the high side um you know 10% over is non uncommon or it's a good contingency um but we do have that strategy for estimating there's always the mass Highway numbers there's a cost schedule provided by mass Highway for utility work and roadway construction Etc so we will check in with that as well yeah but Mass highways on a higher side than Municipal work state work I think given this particular deadline that you're you're up against it'd be critical from our perspective to be able to sort of narrow down exactly what it is that you're looking for so getting that Community input if that's still part of the process that we need to do um it's getting a stakeholder key stakeholder Buy in to figure out what exactly is wanted there and that way um once we know that then we can actually go back through all our numbers as arson mentioned uh we have a lot of um we have a good relationship with many contractors at least two or three or yeah about three contractors that we can actually go to for pricing um plus the mass Highway uh information that we have occasionally had contractors essentially price out a project for us all right the second part of this is the community engagement helping the public understand exactly what it is we're going to be asking the money for so um you know trying to get information out to the public well in advance so they can look at it have time to understand it ask questions of us prior to town meeting and then also presentation for town meeting itself um what experience do you have in that for Wam we had like I said it was over 500 attendees we had to expand our server to handle the volume of people that we presented to and specifically that one's a contention site every project we go through some sort of community input we will meet with the stakeholders the athletic users the park users the residents the different committees um we can create videos we can create 3D drawings um you create phone boards um for example Everett we've had um Community meetings with the mayor and uh some of the residents um when we present um but yeah we have access to in uh Framingham we did a a park session where we put up a tent with drinks coffee breakfast uh sent out flyers and notifications to the bers to Common to the specific Park where we can present where we present the design options we had kids come up to the board and vote for different aspects of the playground that they like and we combine those um of course the municipality is a final say but it's nice to see what the kids like in Everett we had a a vote for the color for the basketball court which colors they would I think they went with Lakers colors but can't win them all yeah so we do have extensive experience when it comes to uh working with the community and working with our key stakeholders um we have a multiple Avenues of sort of feedback mechanisms um back in my previous life um I used to program surveys so we we have the ability to actually do like a survey we can create questionnaires send those out um it's not something that we've done most recently but we have done it forever they'll post the results on the website or they'll try to integrate it with some sort of back link into like survey monkeys as a relatively in expensive one but we do have that sort of almost real time feedback that that can be gathered um to try to make it a little easier for for the res un all right thank you um we have any other questions I have a couple Qui questions um from what you said before it sounds like you're doing your cost estimating internally you do not have a c a estimating consultant correct okay very good um second question on your proposal or chart you listed Susan Moore Moore Associates as a landscape architect they didn't appear in list of your team members in this presentation can you talk about what their role would be in this project sure Susan does our planting she designs our planting um she would meet with you and discuss we we noticed there was limited amount of planting proposed in the design there was trees and and a lower canopy and some some grasses I'm not sure if that's intentional to limit the maintenance but um we're not Landscape Architects so we sub that out to Susan landscape architect she was working for us as a um like a 1099 or on call but now she's with a firm her own firm so we would we would provide even provide that that's a great catch and I'm sorry I missed that of sight but I think for phase two that you know that where would require a lot more of our potential involvement something all right well I think we're good thank you so much I ask couple questions time um the funding you would be looking for in November is that for phase one only no that would be for the full project remaining so okay yeah and um the folks who've done the initial steps or the first phase are in are they in the selection process or are you okay good just want to make sure everyone has a good working relationship still yeah for for both sides yes for sure okay thank you so much app I don't remember thank you so much for your time thank you so much to s pictures i' never never even thought of that one I'm really like yeah I know it's no because he's already in so I wish I WR before I gave it the entire multiple he maybe now we can change something that makes sense sense but um you don't have a conductor hat how would I have a conductor hat so that you could drive the train that drive a train maybe get hat for Dawn come on that would be my husband is a train nut he would volunteer to operate that train did he tell live right down the street did he tell you about the day that I gone the day that I was passed with opening up the and um I had never let I had never opened up that building before ever right so I didn't know which door I should use so I decided to use the main one and I was the first one there and my key got stuck couldn't get it out and I'm like and the ladies that were there that came after me that worked there they're like yeah our our bades aren working we're having a hard time with the with the key and I'm like what do I do they're like I don't know those doors are absolute I called him and he wed over went very long time ago a yes hello hey Chris how you doing see nice to meet you nice to meet you anet and I'm Karen I have bun I guess it's very nice to sit here yeah sit wherever I guess we're in the we're in the hot seats yes are you still on I don't see you on my I my Compu I didn't real I saw it go on I was like how' that happen magic how are you am I not there anymore yeah it doesn't look like he anymore but I'll let you back in if you try to log back in I didn't I guess I clicked the I did connect to the Wi-Fi the best way right now to um to do presentations for us because we're in this room okay there she see me so I share my [Music] screen in progress yes you're going to turn down your volume turn it down or turn it off off would be best but turn it down also someone else Commission on the call just nope gentl um Nick has jumped from the commission so he now have to sit in the audience okay so that's why he's but he's probably on some other committee a million you know only two only two so are there you want to pull up your are there housekeeping items or no I do I let you share it on your screen okay perfect okay let me see if I can make it full screen mode how's that look good looks good okay well um should we do our introduction sure so I'm Anita shers I'm the chairman of the committee right now and we have Karen Menard Tim bace and I do little the owners project manager with scans scner okay and we also have with us Chris Ruth as you most of you know he our facilities director yes okay and um I'm Ray dunit with Ray dunit landscape architecture we shorten that to rdla because my last name is very difficult to pronounce I'm David nardone with vision Sports design so Mur Associates we also have on our team um a couple of firms that are not here tonight um ggd will be handling the MEP portion of the work for the concession restroom and um we we use an independent cost estimator um to track cost PM andc group out of uh hangam um since Co it's been very difficult to pin down pricing so um so we'll talk a little bit about our experience um before you start did you bring um for you yes do you want those now yeah okay in any follow thank you thank you to save paper I post two slides per page I didn't do double-sided because it's a letter M um but um yeah so I'll talk about um we'll all talk about our collective experience um we're a team um we'll share some insights on the project um we'll talk about some of the site improvements that you're looking for that that were um in the RFP and then timeline and then we'll open up for Q&A okay so um just some of our background um with rdla um and these are similar projects to Marshall Park um Stevens Field and Plymouth um coal project not on a wetland it did have Wetlands associated with it um but it it included parking accessible locks multi-use courts ball field um green infrastructure um design weapons um it had a boat launch which may come into play our our experience in this in the second phase and the playground that was a $4 million project we worked for the town on and next um these are two projects that we're working on now um Congressman Neil Park in Springfield uh has a $5 million budget um somehow Springfield uh got the got the earmark from from the congressman um and um this was a former Monsanto um recreational area for their Factory which is no longer there um similar similar to Marshall Park phase one parking accessible walks multiuse Court ball field green infrastructure Wetlands boardwalks and playgrounds um we are currently permitting this project right now um the this the area around this uh the very green part of portion centr part is all Wetlands so we're within the buffer and and many of these things uh but we're using you know pervious Pavements and and trying to um reduce storm water bof and to the right it's a project in in shika that we're working on it's it's much larger than Marshall Park it's 72 Acres um David is on our team for the for the sports fields for that project um we were hired for the master plan and now we're working on phase one improvements which are at the bottom of the site new parking um and a a very large spray pad um with a u u green infrastructure picnic areas um and that type of thing um that is a very big project uh probably $20 million project at the end of the day um but first phase probably two million um going to turn it over to Vision Sports designs David just a few projects that are you know kind of similar um you know ball fields um to be successful require a lot of details a lot of kind of key features and um Smith playground in in the city of Boston was done in two phases kind of similar to yours it was a full you know kind of reconstruction um every everything was moved in the park basically it didn't have an organized entrance it didn't have organized Fields they were kind of put in over time so we kind of organized everything and kind of see very similar program one of the neat things in that pin wheel is that we accommodate Little League we have sort of a dedicated Little League dedicated softball and a dedicated adult softball you know they can softball could happen on all three diamonds the way it's laid out but it's kind of kind of fun to kind of focus on that some of the other you know the drainage details has high groundwater it's near the Charles River things like that so things some of the similar things you you know you you deal with um herfield um just um finished that in Arlington that was kind of again a full reconstruction um soil amendments on on that which um you know i' been out to your site it's probing around you have very good soil out there so that's something we want to take advantage of and kind of save money but you know again green infrastructure um everyone's always looking for some kind of jogging Loop and something you know something like that so we're kind of like working those in I think high high program is you know taking advantage of all aspects of the asset you have and providing many opportunities which we work you know closely with rayon to try to add to maybe add some ideas to the master plan who knows you know just and I just wanted to um mention um we strategically added Vision Sports design not for the first phase of work because there's no field workor but we're looking at this project as like if we get hired for the first phase you're most likely to car well hopefully we'll do a good job and you'll carry on to the later phases but wanted to look at this um very holistically and we also strategically partnered with Meridian because nobody knows this project better than this guy um he's done all the drawings um I when I looked at the plans I said you know we can probably pretty close to permitting these these schematic drawings I've never seen schematic drawings so complete um doesn't he knows so it was kind of a strategic partnership and um you know Chris has given him great reviews on some of his storm water work at other projects and um he's he's got some experience with the town so with that um oh I'm sorry you had you had the cour yeah and just in the in the kind of the Court world you know everyone knows the the growth of pickle ball and even the standards within pickle ball are changing a lot so this is a project I worked on in Sandwich you know I'm working on a project in Methuen right now we're doing the fencing a little bit differently you know we're doing kind of tweaking it you know just everything is changing so quickly there's a lot of ideas and thoughts behind what the standard should be so what about the what about the sound attenuation yeah God we're looking at a project in fouth and we we're probably as far away from every house house we could possibly be in the entire town of felth and they they've converted some tennis courts in town and they all kinds of noise complaints they had so they to pickle converted them to pickle ball then they had to shut them down kind of crazy but anyway um yent Farm in wilington I I included that one here because you know you want to build a court but you know basketball might be a great need but it can also serve other uses like in this one the simple things we did about you know using extended arms on the um backboards integrating the post into the fencing so it's not in the court and they play street hockey there and they plan on flooding it for ice rink and things like that so you know just any ideas we can build again just taking advantage of the asset who can who can use it how can you how can we benefit you know from every every little everything we do and those details make it easier to maintain the court too you know so you get you get benefits I think that's where I've been focused on Athletics facility work specifically for over 20 years and it's all those little things that you know will make a very successful project for you guys oh that ho that so I can I can talk that was his picture we had to put that in I wanted to exclude that picture yeah that was that was one you want to talk a little bit about yeah um so obviously I've been involved in the pro project since day one um I think you're the you and of the only new members that probably have't interfaced with me um but yeah we did all the the engineering the site braing uh the storm waterer design uh and part of that process was you know the plans right now are almost per ready because we put in so much time up front to really get something that we knew would work and that helps you get a more refined budget in the in the end um but just having all that inside and doing all that work strategic strategic um methods and and reasons for all that stuff it's it's kind of built into the design of the park and I think that carrying that momentum forward through permitting is hopefully something that we're best positioned for because all those again small decisions on is it in fill is it in cut you know let's be aware of all the ledge where are the wetlands how are they being handled uh interface with Greg Roy um on the skate park design and and tweaking that around and then kind of working off of his swarmm water design to integr our storw design um we've really had an interative process um with not just the Parks Commission but others involved and obious the town um so we really have a good understanding of the park I've been in the cave which looks like has s filled in has since been filled in noed I was going to get a tour tonight like where is it you have to sign your life away so yeah very very familiar with the park um and assisted all all the layout the baseball field I know when we when we first presented that reoriented field there were some concerns from the town but um we had good reasons and then we went out and did the soil testing and found that wonderful test pit so we really have a lot of knowledge that's kind of been approved through this whole process that I can really build off of and I think that gives the town a leg up as far as getting through per just understanding that I mean yeah M itself I think the next slide maybe shows um this is basically how The Parkers laid out and this is what I was thinking while we're doing that design processes and these are all things that we've done as a company you know hundreds if not thousands of times storm water systems we've done so many of these and I would say 95% of our work goes in front of conservation commissions planning boards for site plan review and ultimately D and it's going to get pued so we know the process we know what things work what what kind of uh what things get hung up in peer of use and permitting we have experience with all of these different techniques and if you kind of break the park into into these you know kind of fraction we have experience that covers all of this so we really think we're we're well suited to to get this through construction um and we can also provide a lot of handholding along the way if needed because I know that this is kind of Uncharted Territory as far as the scale of the project moving forward so um good communication with scansa will will be Paran to this um and I think having that as an OPM and and the rest of the team kind of specialists in each each area I think it really kind of combines to make a successful um project team to go into construction with and if I just may add having them know so much about the project and already have documented we can hit the ground running without another you know another firm really has to become familiar with with the park and and but we already have that information so we can dive into the details you kind of get the best of both world you get some fresh eyes and you get the experience right so there's more examples of the types of systems that we uh kind of Envision going in here um and knowing that there's so much ledge out there we Tred to we favored Phill heavily so our systems could work because there's all sorts of requirements for separation to ground water and things like that they were just you know things typically you don't see in a 30% design because 30% is is kind of high level Pine sky but we really got into the design to make sure that we were presenting something that was constructible the we didn't want to redo the whole CL so um some of the improvements that you're thinking of obviously uh shade is important um particularly in this day and age whether it be planting trees or or or building structures um there's some some of the things that David was talking about in terms of active courts and and using the courts for multiple Purp purposes which you know hockey basketball um we have uh quite a bit of experience with nature play um we can do traditional playgrounds um we got the vibe that maybe through the master plan that nature play was a desired feature so we've custom designed um uh play areas with using black locust and there's also stuff off the shelf that you can buy that looks natural from some of the main um vendors out there um health and fitness notice you have like a kind of an old park horse out there but we can we can provide these sorts of things maybe in future phases that kind of keep with the theme of of of Nature and natural abilities um and then the concession um restroom building um we at that Congressman Neil Park we're we're doing a similar um prefabricated building um the prefab company provides all the structural Electrical Plumbing details um and they they ship it and then the contractor puts it in the ground connects it up it's Plug and Play yep five minutes okay um that's what we're doing out there this one has a nice shade element to it you could even consider putting solar pan CH on it someday um your planned skate park that we you know we raise some concerns initially about these two projects kind of happening consecutively but um we we will provide you know we can think about providing some separate construction access for just the skate park so that we don't mess up the new work that that that we we provide um timeline um we're hopefully getting started uh in September looking to do permitting in in the fall um there are quite a few permits that need to be pulled together um because the drawings are are so good right now um that Meridian left them produced um we feel like a couple months um for uh bid documents bidding this out in in March and um you know as soon as we get Tha we would we would we would start on the construction Administration um the long lead times would probably be the prefab building um but uh yeah and then close it out by the end of the year so that includes what we have have to show you happy to entertain any questions I a quick question um I noticed on the originalos that you have 34 active projects um with 50% dedication on the projects how would that tie in with our project like how how would the resource dedication be we have um we have seven Landscape Architects Nick a landscape architect the drawings like I said are in really really good shape right um if I couldn't if I couldn't complete the work on time I wouldn't have like bid on the project um so our projects um our projects we do only government projects mostly I mean mostly government projects they they start they stop that that list of projects doesn't mean that they're all going full steam right now gotcha okay we're still under contract that would have been yeah my biggest concern you guys a 34 project that yeah no we've we've worked for the town before so you know we've always delivered and um and like I said I don't I don't take out more than I can Che sure this project was I've actually full confession I've been watching select board meetings for the last two years um watching Town meetings you know um when is it when is it gonna I I think I've emailed Chris a couple times like so it's been on our radar for a long time cool we do have some preset questions we'll ask Tom to uh first question can you commit that the people identified in your or chart will be the individuals assigned to this project for its duration and that they will be available immediately upon execution of the contract yes describe your team's quality control quality assurance methodology and how your approach will minimize construction change orders we um actually have another former bsla president that works for me Tom and I were BSL Boston Society of Landscape Architects presidents full disclosure Ray and I work a together a lot on bsla on professional Society issues not not work well yeah not not not design work uh and David and I worked at the same firm together probably 20 years ago now yeah yeah so after we leave he can say bad things but um but um um I have another um we have a process of of tqc um in the office we have a very uh t Nickerson who will be working on this project I believe he's in the proposal um he has a lot of technical he he's a um certified cons DSi specification writer um and um I I've been doing this for 39 years and mostly public projects so I know public work um there have been change orders particularly with unforeseen conditions U but nothing we we rarely have change orders based on our design work it's it's either the owner wants to add something to the project or um or you know there's we've had one where the contractor pulled out some concrete walkway and it had a wired mesh in it oh I want to change order for that um yeah unknowns basically yeah so um we've been tried and true never had any lawsuits or issues or and you know I've been doing this 39 years just to touch on kind of both of the questions there is I I don't want to underplay everything that Ray is going to do on this project but I think the next kind of phase to get it into permitting and through permitting and construction doents a lot of that's heavier on the engineering side I think because it's all about storm water and responding to the 10 storm water standards and things so from our our team we'll have three dedicated Engineers on the project I'm a landscape architect so I have to work underneath them um so that we three people there doing qaqc and then um when it gets into permitting I myself will be at every meeting and then we'll probably have somebody else another engineer on the call just in case there's some super technical question that comes up that that process is kind of built into our our our whole process actually qaqc just have multiple people from our office see it from different perspectives different backgrounds and ultimately we'll be pass it to Ray to finalize everything we'll be we'll be reviewing there they review it as well so there's so many Hoops to jump through the Fuller um again there's there's no project that has absolutely nothing that's you know change order free it's usually site conditions like you said in this case it's likely going to be an amount of ledge removal that is uncovered um so we can kind of anticipate that and we dealt with that on other projects but um we respond quickly to it and again just having a transparency all the way through scansa and back to the contractor just being honest about what it is and how to move forward don't let it don't let it slow you down because the longer it takes the more it cost phase two the um identifying the ledge because you've got these large athletic fields that you want to relocate so that's critical we talked about a few ideas how to better locate the top of ledge so when we lay out the fields you know we can do that op you know we can adjust things from the master plan still get the essence of the master plan but try to watch out for unknowns just scanning and probing um next question the project is funded in part by state and federal grants describe your team's experience in in in designing within the restrictions of multiple grant funding sources and how you worked to comply comply with the reporting requirements of the grants we have never had [Music] to we've never had to report for the grants usually the municip ality handles that or are you hoping that we will that part of that we well the grant reporting is clearly going to be dependent on your progress and your activities right right and at a minimum I don't we actually haven't discussed this question in detail about who would be doing that reporting but you would need to be contrib preparation right we would provide the the drawings the data the estimates everything you need and um we've certainly you know because we do mostly Municipal work um most of our projects are are Grant funded so we know that something has to be built by you know June of 2025 and we do everything to schedule our our workload so that that that is likely to happen um during Co it was a little bit tougher to meet some of those deadlines um um and but they were usually understanding gave us some extensions but um we're happy to provide whatever information you know even if we have to fill out some forms or whatever I I don't think I don't see it as yeah I've been involved in a few projects where you know the courts might be being paid out of one bucket One One Fund you know if you go for a CPA Grant you can't pay for Synthetic Turf so I've had clients pay for everything bought and then the you know friends group or something's paying for the turf so you know we've taken um pay apps and broken them up before you know kind of just say this should go to that you know help you that this should go to that grant that should go to that funding you know Town funding I've had that's the most I've ever done is sort of three sources for one one I've noticed we're we're doing some work in L right now and um when we get when we get paid we see that they pull money from One Fund part of the part of our pay is from One Fund and then part of our pay is from another fund but I don't I'm not aware of what what's going on behind the scenes as long as the paycheck equals my [Laughter] interest the project has a very aggressive schedule for phase one to comply with the requirements of some of the grants yes as we discussed how will your team work to meet this schedule um I think I answered that with our timeline but um I'm happy to reiterate if well I'll I'll push a little bit you had mentioned going going to bid in March um our schedule is a little more aggressive than that we want to be out to bid in December yes um so that gives you about three months if I'm doing the math right um to get to a set of contract documents is that possible well about the permitting so much it's dependent on the permitting that it's hard to just say you know it'll go through the problem um we're assuming that there's going to be OB peer review and there'll be comments coming back and there might be some minor tweaks I'm hoping that the site plan review and the conservation are understanding that this has been like a community effort and we're not just in there to we're not just private developer to kind of mow down you know the park um so I'm hoping that that works in our favor and then as far as the storm water actually having me you know kind of leg up on it knowing some of the comments said I believe there was a paction on one of the final presentations that had asked me a question on the zoom call so just knowing some of those areas I think we can get it Buton up and hopefully the comments are are minor um but again it's such DP can come back I know the skate park got some heavy comments when they when they went in prod of conservation from the D so you know like I said I think the drawings are almost permissible um how long will it take to get our contract a so does that cut month no um and I believe in the RFP or may have been in one of the agenda that you know we wanted to present what we thought based on our experience was a reasonable um schedule that and we also said that we're flexible so if we can get I think the biggest driver is the permitting um and then of course we need to pick out some we I think the biggest design that fact is the play area we can work together on that but it shouldn't affect permitting right yeah I don't think Perman will be hung up by selections of materials things like that it's mostly storm related um so then the question is if we through permitting in November and then of course the fun time between November and December is always challenging with people going away and holidays um um if we could if we could get done Perman in November and then we have a you know your appeal period 21 days where you basically can't do anything you're just waiting for um you know final sign off that would be best case scenario um I don't want to be unrealistic were you guys were you guys anticipating like that it would overlap it would go out to bid we may not have the permits back and you know there might be some changes I mean that happens we haven't really talked through all the possible iterations we just we just know that there is a grant that has to be expended by June 30th 2025 part par gr it is Park gr and um so that's kind of what we're building our whole schedule approach to now we can come up with a different schedule that accommodates that I yeah I'm that's certainly discussable but we that's the bottom line yeah yeah we'll do our best um with I mean we can't we can't make the permits happen faster than they happen but I will say that um you're not going to be able to you know you might be able to do some clearing and some you know in the winter but we need thought conditions for Paving and whatnot and that's April we generally bid things in January after the holidays When contractors are not busy with you know traveling and Christmas presents and and all that kind of stuff and and they're usually hungry for work they want to fill out their schedule for the construction season so January you know we often bid early January and um that's kind of where our schedule that's what I was thinking about but if you if you need it in December [Music] um it's all in the permanent World we've never we've never missed the deadline so um but okay something's out of our control very good thank you um the project has a previously completed schematic design under a prior contract in your review of those documents what did you see as areas of the design that will need further evaluation before proceeding to the next stage familiar with something yeah you might be aware of that they look [Laughter] perfect yeah there's there's certain areas um I guess the phasing the phasing um in the RFP that showed the entire kind of mass parking lot as part of the phase but then it was excluded from the scope that area is going to take there's like a loose end there in my mind so just kind of how that integrates with what is how the parks being accessed currently um the edges obviously are just of that perimeter are kind of in my mind just floating in space um so just integrating that back in is kind of where we'll focus a lot of the energy um the storm water does need to be Advanced obiously it's at 30% right now um but that's that's really the bulk is just the storm water size in that Basin and on the bigger Park the the full scope of the Park yeah the full scope of the park it's again once once we have the systems kind of all sized for phase one have the same exercise for phase two because there's multiple systems for the park um I know we're tring to tie into the approved subject system that dill and Roy did so there's some coordination there and then there's also a force main line going up to the mass um one thing that I just had to asking way too technical for this but I'm going to ask it anyways you have a utility connection proposed to go to the the preat building which is a forc m connection to massav and if you choose not to build the parking lot for phase one then that utility connection is going to have to be buried below the existing ground which is going to put you like 10 ft below where the finish grade of the final parking LW is going to be so your utility is going to be buried like 14 feet deep to get out to massav because it was a fill situation where we be running through fill originally saw it was a little concerned with how that whole detail is going to play out and and the feasibility of that because it just tell us it's now more wedge blast seem to get to massav where it could have been in if we chose to do the the parking area with it I know there's obviously money tied everything but it's 100% money yeah it that's the reality I figur it was like I alluded to earlier in phase two is like we'll look at the what the profile wants to be for these fields and kind of work you know hand inand to kind of optimize the grading to kind of you know save money on Phil and other stuff so that's a level that you know we want to go through so just that's some P things I saw just in this phase um yeah is that something that the town's going to need to decide or the commission I mean we might have to present I would probably present cost implication cost implication so if we did kind of a little cost estimate for if you want to go with the trenching option all the way through the ledge that's going to be X number of dollars if you were to build you know the parking lot within the next six months or a year whatever it is that's going to be exra dollars and just going to weigh those weigh those costs at the end of the day you just make a decision this is a decision it's backed up by this cost estimate and that's what you need to provide to the town say we made a good choice so so do you do the I'm interviewing you sorry do you do the uh do you we can do you stub off the steward water connection no the one for the new rest restroom yeah so that's that's going to go I mean sted off when they get it and then really deep technical talking no but I mean I mean like instead of going all the way to mass you just wait for you don't use that yeah I guess you could have you know bath it's not operation operable until or you or we or we put the pad down yeah and wait till that that phase there's a lot of options we can explore there also you're going to need power to the though so that one is coming off of a pole but still that was anticipated to be buried if you can share trench that's always good um so there's there's some cost savings there if we do it you know option A versus option b but we'll have to kind of iron it out when we when we get in two weeks yeah before we the we'll know the last question is please subcribe your team's experience with Army Core water quality permitting so we've done Army Core permitting um we've done chapter 91 permitting um water quality not so much that's something we would typically sub out um we do up soil evaluators but that's that's not going to help us um and when I did lay out the boardwalk for the project I I reached out to a company to kind of get invol par price and we worked through kind of how they would approach it and they wanted to go with the helical pile method which just the other day I was like well if there's this much ledge out here I don't know if the compiles are going to be as easy as and so we're hoping to minimize disturbance as much as possible on the boardwalk um and hopefully that just makes the Army probably a little bit easier um but again that's gonna luckily that's in phase two so that won't hopefully doesn't slow down the permanent for the phase one I think per for phase two will be a lot harder just because there's bigger areas I know the dog park is a concern of n extra extra nitrogen runoff and then there's a boat boat LOD going on there so um Ray and I both have experience with boardwalks too so we can kind of help a little bit with that you'll be surprised that some Crazies come out of the woodwork for things like that um we had a project that we thought we were going to build low and no railings and we ended up having to raise it because people commented and there's a state you know there's a state guideline on how to do boardwalks and the shadows and maintaining the plant material and all that kind of stuff so there's some Nuance to that that Ray and I both have a lot of experience with okay questions from the you got I think you kind of addressed it already but obviously the skate park going in um but just the interaction how you go about that interaction with a completely separate entity yeah I have a lot of and and we both have a lot of experience in that realm as well the sandwich um the the quartz I showed there was a skate park built on on that parcel um I used to manage a group that had a Sports Group that have a group of skate park designers within it so I'm kind of well versed in all the construction that goes along with that yeah it's just the you know you don't want to mess up what you just built so you got to get concrete in you got to get all those materials in it's it's not terribly invasive the the biggest thing is probably the concrete truck to be honest because those guys work in small teams and you know they work with you know Gunite and form work and Steve metal edging you know be a separate construction entrance or something for that it could be yeah I mean the skate Park's really getting a huge benefit from this cuz we have to basically build their storm water basin and then we have to likely blast all the ledge they would have to blast so they're getting kind of free site clearing out of this um yeah I did I did work with with Greg to kind of size that stor Mar so hopefully when we're done they can come in and build the park and just connect the storm water to ours and everything should kind of work question okay Qui question um dealing with um trying to find the additional funding for the rest of the project we have a special town meeting coming up in November we're going to be asking for the remaining funding so two concerns is how do we get a dollar number that we feel comfortable with to present for that funding request in time for the November time meeting that's the first part second part is how can you help us get information out to the public in advance of that town meeting so the public knows you know kind of re-educate them in terms of what Marshal Park will be and you know why is it costing as much as it is and what will it provide the community in return yeah we've um we've done communication Outreach um either providing a a QR code or something that people you know town hall or the library or you know the future of Marshall Park where they can find you know a landing site that will provide all that information um I know that when I worked on the School Street project um they Heather set up a pending page for us and we could put our renderings and news feeds you know I'm sure we could work with Julie on on maintaining that but the QR code is kind of a Nifty like you could even put the hand hand out at the schools does a really good job Home Room hit him with a hand out you know yeah exactly bring it home but the you know the cell phone technology is I we could do a lunenberg access kind of Mark Park update Channel yes you could put you could put you could you could actually yeah scan you could put on your your your access Channel you know the QR code actually say scan them computer the skat Park Advocates are already organized right so use them as an Avenue the phase one is going to help get the skat Park the polls up at the center like they're collectings they make it always hand out the QR codes we have we have inh house graphic designer who's not a landscape architect but a graphic designer um who who puts together all of our flyers and QR codes and marketing media yeah as far as the cost for phase two I mean you're going to get a schedule of values for phase one from the contractor and then if we want to you know that's that's the number they're going to use so if we have that number and then we make you know revise the cost estimate for phase two work that gives you a better picture of what the cost are going to be and we'll kind of know from phase one work how much ledge do we hit like where do we go over where where do we save some money and we can kind of work through cost phase too based on that you know disc disc so just keep you better informed except that we're looking to try to try to get it this November this November I can have pull together an estimate okay I mean there was an estimate for the master plan we can we can provide um some of that information to him he actually happens to be another landscape architect but he for an estimated company um and um he knows he knows do you know Travis so he he knows he he works with a lot of sports field comp lot of parks yeah I estimating for a lot of parks which you know sometimes and he does a great job with aquatic St ports and stuff a lot of estimating firms don't yeah used to work at a firm Wason and Samson I don't know don't nothing at all so so we can we can have him he has a general ballpark you know and they can put allowances in for for certain things okay thank you any other [Music] questions yeah okay thank you thanks for hanging hanging in there late l for coming late pleasure very nice to meet you all nice to meet you your [Music] deliberations thanks been a while I like sad I know this isri School site do the whole like jump the other side comfortable now I would offer to move but I got the I'll move right owl staring at me inserts maybe that um I did put together a quick spreadsheet to show the results of the references um I also emailed the compiled references to Anita but she can distribute those um if you want to give me the zoom information I can log into zoom and um share this on the screen people realize the CES are blocked how many people are going over there to look at it well we let you know had several people come to say what happened we canlock them no we we put up a door with with a lock and we nobody can get in come on I don't know the only key right now is hold by the fire it's also important that anyone found a way in you know they have able to get them out for sure oh you want me to let you in Tom if you be so kind I was so [Music] kind I think my day over with the amount of yawning I'm doing know this is a long meeting guys but he that uh let me [Music] share okay so um couple of Corrections to my previous statements we received two reference references on F O'Neal one on NRA and three on RDL um the scores five questions we asked them were about their Communications abilities and Effectiveness um their control of budget both Construction and design budgets the quality of the documents there control of the schedule uh and their construction Administration uh Effectiveness and in involvement and then finally asked them if if we they would consider working with this firm again um and so you see the the scores here um I was going to do some sort of statistic statistical analysis of this but that doesn't really work um because you know like some people for is a really good score and you have to do outstanding BM five and others are like five is just great and we loved it so it's a little hard to to do that kind of assessment on but you can see that in general um for the most part everybody got very good scores from their U reviewers very consistently high scores um there were a few comments um on a couple of the scores um which I am trying to pull out you know sort of explanations as to why um a particular firm did or didn't um score well on something let's see the chapy estimate or this excuse me the CH chapy score [Music] for um communication uh they only scored a three on while they scored fives on the rest of their um the criteria but then their comment was personally very personable Community engagement very approachable wonderful so it doesn't really tell me why they gave up three on that particular category but there was something there that caused them to give a three um the other ones one of the um f and O'Neal uh references gave pretty full descriptions for the their response on each category um but again you know they scored fives on everything except four they said the applicant provided good administrative budget support in terms of clear and transparent invoicing there was never an issue with cost overruns however the applicant has among the highest costs for services compared to other comparable service providers so that was specifically about their own design budget um and um it wasn't really that they controlled the budget well it was that the budget was high so you know make of it what you will um I guess generally looking at these I don't see any grounds to personally to significantly downplay one versus another but you're the committee you're making that decision not [Music] making so if they're just GNA treat them all equally as we mentioned earlier it doesn't really change the ranking from what we had established before which um B had the highest no excuse me Nezar had the highest ranking at 91 these are total scores um P had 90 and rla had seven um but you know that's why we have the interview process because you know where we you know might be looking that the documents um it makes a huge difference in terms of you know how we interact with doing interviews and um you know the interview process has just as much impact if not more sometimes than paper proposals so um does anybody have any thoughts out there in terms of what you're thinking your CH Choice firm might be and why I'm just in at 9:00 but um me go first yeah I like NE you're still my Top Choice mainly for the fact that the scope of what we've outlined is legit their bread and butter business like you mentioned and I don't know I just got a good vibe from him just his demeanor and the questions he answered or the the answers to our questions I felt were I don't know adequate and sometimes I feel like folks are is getting a little bit of a around that's all so I liked NRA as well um and I really liked I liked F O'Neil and I liked NRA I think my the one thing in in Tom you can tell me if I'm just sort of going in the wrong direction is one of the things that I liked about NRA is they seem to have they they're using Club contractors and they're not all internal so there's better peer review when it comes to overall of the project would be able to catch things as versus that's one of the things I ducked them in on my evalu I didn't duck them but I called it out I was like they didn't mention any sub subcontractors for the presentation they did and show that's just one thing go through their proposal I like where's there subcontract us but then they showed it to so can find around with their set up I don't if I if it was just these two in front of me I'm not sure we go WR with either one one obviously knows our project very well but same time I feel like NRA's some of their questions and just the way they presented themselves I I I I liked all of that they seem to have a lot of experience with the bid or bidd and all that stuff and the grants and a lot of leg that were not too priv or familiar for that matter how much of a concern my concern I think with NE I don't know if it's about concern I don't know the business as well but the the um cost estimating sort of aspect of it that that's done it just that was the one thing that just seemed like it was like yeah we we we figure it out we do it you know like where's the other like oh we have a guy and we have a guy and this Nez just seemed a little bit looser in that and I don't know if that's I don't know if that's a valid concern or not just what they what I thought was when they described it made me feel better because you know I like the approach that they were going to use in terms of getting those numbers up to more current data they they had past projects where they were going to take you know cost per item and then apply an escalator you know a cost increase and then you know have a have an established basis for putting new numbers associated with each item that to me seemed a very legitimate approach but okay that's I don't from that that's you know that I don't understand it just in my you know in my brain it was just it just seemed a little more vague and there wasn't a go-to like I seem to like the fact that there was a guy you went to a you know a guy or two people and you would this is where we're going to get our numbers from kind of kind of deal this is this person's specialty is kind of deal where it didn't seem like they had someone that was really in their wheelhouse per se but they were going to figure it out that if I can react to that a little bit yeah please using cost data from directly from bids is not necessarily the best approach because contractors either if they're doing unit price bids or if they're doing schedule of values can manipulate those num numbers so that it's not necessarily reflecting the actual cost of the item per se um you can all kinds of games get played um in that process that was quite B to there's there's an adult that we know is likely not going to make it you're gonna play with that price because you know it's going to get cut like I said there a lot of games you can play if you know the history and you have idea how something is like to the plan if if you're doing a unit price bid and you know one item is very unlikely to get increased in its quantity and you know another item is very likely to get increased in its quantity you manage the costs that you bid on those two items so that you if that one item gets increased you get more more paid more for um the same thing with schedule of values which is if you do a lump sum bid we require the contractors to provide a schedule of values which is basically a breakdown of all the items in the job and how much each one of us costs um and those are can be complete science fiction um because again we're playing we want numbers what items are we delivering first okay we're going to put more of the schedule of values into more costs into the scheduled values for those so we get more money up front so there are games that can be played with that having said that um it is frankly all cost estimators will use that data to some level greater or lesser extent to to build their current pricing um cost Consultants will typically be talking on a daily basis with a number of contractors about hey you know what are you getting for rock what are you getting for drain line installation blah blah blah um and they have a larger portfolio Pro of projects that they have estimated in bid so that they will get um get better pricing collectively from that the sciences and what you do with all of that data that you collect if you really believe it or not and how you adjust Ed for current market and the specifics of that project so personally I am more comfortable with an outside estimator than than doing things inhouse because that's a person who is dedicated to doing that as their full-time job um but that doesn't necessarily say that an outside estimator is going to be exactly accurate every single time um so I think something that's important to remember too is when it comes to peerreview there really needs to be more than one peerie you know the one that they're talking is more going to be Code Compliance does it work but there also need to be PE riew back with the end user group of you guys do conru so when you're looking at a set of plans you're notna see sorry just quite a biten what tommer I see when we look at a plan is very different than someone who doesn't do it every day so there's got to be a peer review on the codee side was got be something on our side you know I want to do it regardless just because I came from that design build world and that's what I look for and the biggest in this project has been the J and it's it's kind of the game with contractors and public work is they look for the holes they go and scream low and then we're contract obligated to go with them to the change orders as long as it doesn't exceed 25% of The Bu so there's there's a lot of games that are played there and there's contractors that are famous for it so I think the peer review is huge and your experience may be different when I've seen peer review from other architects in the past they catch one thing check the box send it back so there's could be advantag to inous it could be advantages to not in house you know I don't know the all the players so I can't say which is better in this situation important to consider I I generally like to have a certain number of Consultants because then you are getting people who are expert at that one thing but if you break the project down into too many experts at that one thing then whoever is bringing all that information and coordinating it has to be looking at all of those different aspects and understanding that okay you know you data from a whole totally different region well yeah or or I mean specific to the design documents did the civil engineer coordinate with the plumbing engineer on on the connections for or the the toilets in the in the kitchen did they really get all the pipe size correctly and all those kinds of things um so it it makes it a little bit more complicated as a coordination effort if you have a large number of sub subc Consultants preparing the design at the same time I it it is ADV advantageous to have people within a single firm like a f O'Neal or Meridian doing as many different things as they can comfortably do in house because it it that that coordination is easier to happen when somebody is sitting desks away than when it's a a review set that you get at the end of the design phase as long as those people really know what they're doing so you know again it's it's like the estimating it it can go either way um but you know there are certain things that I would like to see as an outside consultant um and I think you know I mentioned that one the soils kinds of things um the Geotech that almost always has to be an outside consultant um there's very few firms that do that internally um Wetlands is often done as an outside um but the basic design function between the arch the engineer and the landscape architect they should be able to cover 90% of the design for this project um so it would be just making sure that those two guys are working together or women in this case maybe are are working together well and and looking at what each other is doing on a regular basis and and keeping in sync with with the design as as it involves I've also found that you have one firm that has can do most of the stuff in house if something gets delayed we're on a tight timeline things happen they don't have anyone to point a finger at it's it's all in house they can't say you know someone that's got a ton of subs and say oh this guy's not doing a job and we're pushing him and even if they have to make a switch there's time right so in house you get that advantage of not my problem you know scans is not going to tell me oh this project manager is not available they're going to grab another one and keep it going another firm that sub out somebody else may not be an option and it's everyone's pretty busy out there so you know so keeping that number smaller of you know 20 Subs is the problem now you're ranking 20 separate companies you know in host or couple of ss you have a little more control and that's a concern they had excuse me had about NRA because they are relying so heavily on Subs um I originally had ranked um f O'Neal as Top Choice then NRA then rdla last based on interviews I totally changed my mind um I was very impressed with rdla um for many reasons they um I think they have the most indepth knowledge of this project more than anybody and I feel very confident that that's a firm that knows what they need to do the moment that Inc gets signed on that contract and um you know meridian's a really good firm and you know I I think there's a lot of trust Factor there I also my gut instinct just with meeting the three gentlemen who I've never met them before I think that's a really good team that will work work together I think we will work really well together with them I also like that there's some past history with Tom with some of those individuals because that's going to really kind of guarantee some good communication between ourm and the design firm long way I didn't tell you what that history was but you know the is there something we should know no they're they're they're very good they're very good at what they do and they are very good to work with from from my experience so they they might not have had some of the bells and whistles that NRA was talking about but I think we're getting a lot more bang for our buck with rdla knowing that we've got a good solid team that knows this product inside and out because you know we have some really tough site conditions and we have schedule constraints and I I have a real level of confidence that they can help us get through those my only concern with them is that well two concerns number one I'm concerned about the number of projects they have ongoing but number two I'm concerned that there the understanding of how tight our timeline is it wasn't there I'm very concerned that um you know for um the seem to put a lot of emphasis on I fully think that you are correcting and that Nick that'ss knows this site site can the site inside and out there's the day that picture was taken you know it it he he knows this and I fully get that I'm just the whole package there is what's got me a little bit more um a little bit more concerned I guess more you know the June 30th is is a deadline that we need to really stick to um and because of that I think that there's a lot of other pieces and yes I understand that permitting could hold things up um but I think there needs to be some sort of understanding from them that there is this deadline that's looming that we don't have from you know our Construction build date can't be from May through October it really needs to start earlier than that but on that permitting ourd is the one team that can get that permitting process started faster and they're or minimize some of the concerns that permitting might be the thing that would screw up our schedule yeah they answered it honestly the rest right that was my point that 100 times they were the ones that said well I we can we're going to do like I appreciated the I don't get a vote since I'm not part of the commission but in my mind the continuity of either fuss and O'Neal or Rd is huge for the timeline those are the two that I had from the GetGo like when I I mean my scores of both of them were the same one in the initial packets I put I kind of I wrote across the bot on each rubric kind of deal and I kind of went F new rdla and then nestra um oh speaking of which did you bring your individual sheets no okay we'll get them so I just I kind of wrote like across the bottom and just kind of ranked them across like if they were both threes but if they were a little if they were to the left they were a higher three than like you almost want to go a 3.5 kind of kind of deal with reload so right so I I kind of you know and that's I was I was fuss O'Neal rdla and then nesra um and I went back and kind of looked at n again because they scored better I was like so I was like what did I like what did I miss but my opinion still didn't change a lot I I just I felt like their packet was incomplete it rumes that were included fell off like you know three years ago like they just everyone's packet was different like it I I just it the fact that there's a lot of subcontractors does have any concerns um so I I think the continuity um it might well here's a deal mine's totally different a binder and it's got written like last minute stickies like it's totally different sort of like everyone's pack was a little different it's probably the master I um I think it's time for us to look at this sheet um so if you look at the the sheet that Tom prepared do I have that losing my mind okay so at the Tom took all scoring that we had but at the bottom he included details on the price proposal submitted by the firms so bus O'Neal okay so I'm going to step back for a second the RFP was very clear in that the contract for this first phase one had a not to exceed of 143,000 so Boston O'Neal's proposed price for phase one is 200 23,000 well qualify that they what they actually did was they presented a fee that was under 143,000 however they excluded bidding support construction Administration and one other thing I can't remember exactly what it was off the top of my head I can open it up and look um as being out outside that 143 and then gave numbers for what those Services would cost those Services were included as part of the scope that they were supposed to propose on and were within that $143,000 so you're you're correct I technically they presented a fee that was below 143,000 but it did not buy all the services that we expected for that4 other two those other two data on phase one yes yes um so NRA's Phase One cost is 1285 and rdl's Phase One cost is 143 then you look at phase two costs plus an O'Neal spent 500,000 for phase two mesra had 354900 rdla had 284 700 so when you look at total cost that they're proposing for the design fee total project bu and O'Neal's was 7 123,000 NRA's was 483 500 and rdla is 427 700 now we are not obligated to make a choice based on cost but we are obligated to try to do the best we can for the town in terms of you know getting the most we can for this contract price so I don't know if these numbers make any difference to any of you in terms of yes your thoughts I mean right away it does just you know it could I was weighing too it's you know at the end of the day I can love fuss and nail all I want and the day my top choice but do I think any three these firms would do a decent job yes of course based on that I and based on the numbers alone I'm not sure I can still tell you that fonia would come up in my top um I did especially if they're excluding things um especially knowing that Nick was there when he found an ocean and I think that's and I think Nick's right about the next phase is the master plan's done we're looking at small details to dress it up but the reality is we're at instruction details you know that's I think the only thing that the only other thing that worried me about Ry and this is not this it could just be a simple conversation um there when we first started this process on the playgrounds we absolutely were looking at you know the what was sort of brought to the table um by Ola was a more natural landscape type playground um I think that we may have moved past that in our our current desire um to have an more all-inclusive playground I think that's why we saw a a pretty significant price jump between our first and our second estimate especially on the ground material I guess I just want to you know as we're looking at that but you know that those details I would assume would come out in the next phase anyway to say you know we're this is what we're really looking for that was a great idea the beginning but we sort pass that I think I'd like to hear from whichever firm we picked to what their thoughts are on maintenance cost versus the all inclusive because that's you're blowing leaves off and really not touching it and the more natural as cool as it looks it may be more Locus doesn't rot so it's going to be there for 30 years and be fine but it's what are we looking at for maintenance cost because right now my entire Parks Bud Landscaping mainten us for the most part so if you go down to um Peron Park they just they just had a grand opening of their replacement park for one that they built I know 30 years ago it was all wooden they knocked that thing down now they have a modern U play center and then they also have sort of like a secondary play center which is more of the wood Ember natural um spot so it's neat to see both of those in the same park and to see how people utilize those both at the same time so I was there like last week just watching who plays on what and how many people gravitate toward which one that I want to say I don't want to say bad things about the natural wood but I could see down the road there'd be a far much more maintenance on those like screws Pi them out boards could rot not saying they will but it even even the one over next to the sen Center we're over there once a month preparing something you know everything's going to break yeah and when I saw the natural my first thought was maybe incorporate some of that along the boardwalk somewhere where it's NE the trail and then we have some of that but we still have you parking lot all inclusive playround you know exactly that was where my thought went I think that's how they did it in air at the park is more of an ancillarity like okay now kids can it's smaller structure here more natural but it doesn't detract from the main all inclusive and the conversations like that aren't going to hold up our storm water those things those details we can change halfway through the pro really want to you know the biggest thing right now for us is really tight t so it's going to be getting the mechanics of how the part works first is GNA be the biggest thing we don't we're not talking materials at all at this point are we like this 483 like what that g us s materials features or yeah is that a spash pad is that stuff under the swing this this is just design this is just their service no materials this I mean this definitely I mean like I said I was weighing to I had you know um but it definitely pushes me own direction for sure to rdla yeah POS on rdla would have been my talk too very close I I lean towards R just you obviously the cost is we have to justify this to a lot more than the people in the room I was leading towards F on but then hearing tonight a little bit more of how much what we've already receive like the perception I got after the interviews was a lot of what we received was and I don't think I had necessarily that understanding of how much no die maybe he had done versus W had done and so forth and it was a good team they were a great group together they did a great job but they got us pretty far so you know that yeah the pretty architect side his understanding really pushed it over the top a little more for me tonight does anybody want to make a motion for a Top Choice firm I would make a motion to move forward with ourd r DN nightcap anyone second it I can second it okay all in favor all I so what happens next so technically very close that time we the we give the information back to um Julie and she will work with the um interim Town manager to get that contract going with the firm can we please I don't know how to do it but we can't let it take as long as it get no there's there's um we just don't have the time I don't know how to stress to them that we just don't have I have a meeting already set up with clner for Monday so the other advantage of ourd and and we didn't really sort of talk about the the mandatory submission requirements um the um all three firms acknowledged acceptance of the contract however fuss and O'Neal proposed a number of revisions to the contract which RDA did rdla did not so in theory you should be able to send that contract to Ray and he will sign it and send it back to you and you'll be done done in theory now does it always work out that easily no but they have indicated in their proposal that they are accepting of the contract as it answer okay I just don't want it to drag on it just 100% that's great you have a meeting on Monday already so which perfect that's awesome Lockwood the previous chair is coming with me so we will be stressing harder the need to I know um need to get this thing done awesome that's huge to p on it because there's also s meeting last night they impr Mar funds that need to be projects done and spent so there's going to be a lot of more bu lose plate as well to get those out that's money that they want spent before the end of the count okay so Thomas there anything else we should be discussing tonight about this yes um notification to the propos proponents proposers um how do we want to handle that do you want me to contact them do you want Julie to contact them and also the firms that were not selected are going to want to know why um so we can I can start some notes of of my interpretation of this discussion on that um but that would be a good thing to pass around and and have others add too okay that'd be great um let me ask Julie tomorrow okay how she wants to handle it I wasn't in that process tells you work it's G be you yeah I had to guess that's fine I'm perfectly happy to do it but if there's a town protocol it's done a way I don't believe in the first process we did that at all we didn't do this in any of our processes there might be people waiting for do you do you wait until the contract is signed with Ray before you notify yes okay we will I will I will not notify the other firms I will contact Ray now and say you the first choice provided we get the contract signed um okay and U then notify the others once we to public meeting they can always wait two days um okay um anything else that we need [Music] to okay I'm sure there is but we we will need to it's 9:30 and we still have other things on the agenda we will need to I'll touch when I touch B with you tomorrow talk about next C terms of the um the the subcommittee you know that um will be working and I I have tomorrow is Thursday um I should be available most of the day so whenever you call how about it okay thank you so much thank with me go home yeah thank you we really appreciate your help probably shorter R than usual first do how far you it's not bad I live in act a half hour away so it's not terrible and if that was you parked out back by me you get their [Laughter] pre okay so we're going to run along here because we all want to go home yes so the next item is um I'm going to actually skip to item six which is consider the approval of the Parks Commission revolving fund and submitted To Us by the termin office so um in your packet there's an email that I received from Angela basically kind of explaining um providing some cont in the fund she said last year the budget and opened up $35,000 of funds from the revolving account to be used um uh she said last year they ended up using $37,000 um she feels that um $40,000 would be fine for now um so that's her feedback uh we also in the past I included spreadsheet from the uh new Finance director didn't I or no I didn't that was they are separate um oh if I have to look at the sheet again yeah so currently there's like basically $61,000 in there [Music] um so all right the question here though becomes if we're seriously considering increasing um the director's hours um $40,000 obviously won't be enough I did check with the finance director he said that we could start with the $40,000 and if we do if we find ourselves able to move ahead with increasing the hours for the rec director out of this fund then it would just be another vote of this commission and notify him and give signatures again on that higher amount when we're ready for that so we don't need to feel like we're shoehorning ourselves in by approving the $40,000 now has the ability to be so all of that correct and all of that said though one thing that I will point out after looking at this go Dar spr sheet for more than my fair share of hours today that 60 976 that's um the account balance that's at the end of fiscal year 24 that doesn't include the 35 hopefully thousand that we bring in in revenues between now and the end of the fiscal year so I don't want to say I jumped the gun when I called you in a panic this morning going we don't have enough money but there is the reality is we should be bringing in approximately 35,000 um between now and the end of fcal year 25 which would be at the disposal of the commission um so the chances of that money would be there I would like to point out too that the 40 is we're not spending 40 and taking nothing in it's it's the ins and outs it's we pay the vendors and it comes in and when Angela came to me part of my reasoning of leaving the 40 is as I'm sure some of you are aware we've had all kinds of munist issues and and getting vendors paid so if if my Rec hasn't deposited money yet all of a sudden we can't pay a vendor because we didn't put enough money it's not that we're going to spend 40 and not make the 40 it's just to have the money available the only thing I'm going to say and I think over the next couple of days it become I'll I'll have a better picture because again I I spoke with eie multiple times today I'm going in tomorrow I've looked at these spreadsheets I've got Angela's emails is that this revolving account I'm not saying it's not that somebody's not doing a good job in in trying to manage the money but I think it needs to come in front of us more often to look at um and I'll give you an example and this is from um the list of purchases services that we had that came out of our revolving account when I'm running through this I'm seeing things like gental Flow Yoga classes that should be coming out of the line I am that was for new salaries in programming which was up to or I think it was at 5,000 I don't know how much of that is expended and not expended um but there were you know a few of those in there there were um there was something else there was um you know some stuff that people could argue might be more purchase a service that should come out of an operating budget versus the revolving account I just think that we need to do if we're going to whether we approve this tonight or not I think that we need to as a commission be looking at this more often to to take a deeper dive and where the money is going and how it's being spent um and is it coming out of the right account the wrong account because things get mess it just it's the nature of the Beast I would agree with that statement that should look more often I will say we currently have vendors that we cannot enter PO for because this is I wasn't on these emails by the way if you want to have Angel make sure she includes me what I to my phone actually I look because I thought I the inial email I ski the days and I didn't see it and I was like all right and just car like reading I'm like I don't have any Manita or me as the cler that something should probably be sent out Town Hall um to and so did Annie Ezekiel and Carter to say this is the current Parks Commission and this is who the people are because it was something else that came out that went to Sam over at the DPW and I'm like oh she's that's just no that doesn't go to her anymore so there was there was that sort of Missing Link there too um I don't have a problem with this I think I feel a little bit better after literally looking at these all day um to say that I think that we will be able to build this account back up and still probably be able to fund our um you know an increase of hours um but yeah that my only commentary is I just think we need to be making sure that things are the ins and outs into um the right accounts and you know but that money SP BL yeah the last couple years we had some pretty big expenditures too that we had to dip into with the covery repairs the beach which is what we we expected and that's I again I'm meeting with eie tomorrow and I was going to ask him for what some of these numbers were because there's some years I think the really the only thing that came out of our revolving count was some salaries and the Big Ticket items of like the beach house and stuff um but yeah no I mean I don't have an issue with um doing this I think our vendors need to get paid I think that we you know need to do better at the town in making sure that they get paid on time because these vendors then have to pay their employees and it's those employees that sucker when they work they're not going to want to come back to us correct correct the the other I mean I think one of the other reasons why there's a delay right now is that um um angel had just recently I think within the last week or so requested that the funds be released we compar right and so so um I think she's kind of learned now that that's something that she should do right as as soon as the new year bisol year starts um so that this will be happening a lot more quickly and and in the beginning of the F and not six weeks into it um so that's you know just lesson learn type thing okay so I'm going to take a motion to approve this this is all related to the docu sign email stuff that we have so okay all right yeah and I believe it only needs my signature so in the past there hasn't been and I think part of it is as he's trying to re some of the the past practices in so I think it's I think it's overall a good thing I mean obviously it's never fun when the timing comes up six weeks after the fact but it's no different in The Growing Pains we had last year but everyone was new yeah you know across the FL and I don't have an issue with it it's just when it came in with no cont context um you know especially for someone like Tim who's now what this is your second meeting third meeting whatever it is third meeting to all of a sudden be getting something that's like here sign here you know like but so yeah so did you motion that I did not but I'll I'll make a motion to approve the Parks Commission revolving fund is submitted to The Chair by the town manager's office I can second that okay all in favor okay so I'm going to um I'm going to sign that do sign thing tonight I don't think the rest I just did I just did it because I think we're still going to get emails until it's done so if you want to stop getting emails thee it literally it would you clicked on it and it just all right well then everyone go ahead and sign it um um tonight if you can or first thing tomorrow morning and then because Angela really does need to get those per started Ang's not here tomorrow [Laughter] [Music] anyway yeah okay next thing on the agenda [Music] agenda okay we're going back to special town meeting warrant articles so in your packet is a sheet where I have just put my initial thoughts on the articles that we need to put forward for the special town meeting um the first one is um seeing if can change this revolving fund from the current form of the 53d which is specific parks to the more general form of 53 and a half which is what most of the other departments use um so this is pretty stand language here obviously it'll get you know reviewed by uh the intermt manager get reviewed by Town Council but the question is are we looking to try to have this um take Place mid year which I don't even know if it's feasible or are we comfortable with having this change take place for the next fiscal year meaning July 1 2025 for the revolving fund for the to make it the new type of revolving fund so I'm fine with either I just and I guess I still am not clear after talking to Carter um that we actually can put it in now because what he said sent me back was highlighted of it has to be done at the start of the fiscal year not halfway through um but at least if we can at least if we can have it start the fiscal year you know so even though we're voting it now if we're allowed to um that that gives us the information that gives um you know so that we can plan accordingly rather than wait till Springtown meeting and have to scramble yeah a month so if we if we are allowed to get this on the agenda and get approved now then we have time to work with Ezekiel and and everybody else to make sure that we're properly prepared for this that would be my rationale I agree with I'm fine with I'm fine with that as long as we can do and the only other thing I'm going to say to that is they were pretty adamant last week that we needed to put a number with that yeah when when revolving funds are approved reapproved every year there's supposed to be a number associated with so he was and I think this is how some of all of this stuff like the whole request for signatures came about was when I was like what do you like we don't have anything to do with that he's like what do you mean so he like and then he sent me something he's like see this is what it looks like I'm like oh no I know what it looks like we've done it before but I don't know how to determine those numbers so that's he they were both of them were like you need to have numbers well I think we I think we have some basic information of what the numbers need to be the question then will be are we pulling are we going to need the number to be that $35,000 or whatever it is $37,000 higher to handle the cost of Angel's increased hours and we should know that in time for the warrant to be put together so okay um the next one is um we regarding the increasing in the recreation director's hours and um this one I I have no experience in drafting a warant article of this type so I'm going to be relying on Carter to help us word it but you know just to see if the temp will vote to increase the hours of the recreation director from 19 to 28 you know for the purpose of allowing increase in Recreation programming and for additional duties for which the position is already responsible for and to fund this increase in our from the current Crux roling fund so hopefully that's but like I said those we get give you know I do have one comment on that one um and going through with um Finance Comm and all that we may have less resistance if we go more than 28 hours because once you start figuring out the cost per hour of the benefits it gets a little cheaper per hour we did and we actually talked about that at the finance committee meeting when I was president at the last one this seems to be one because we're funding it out of our roling revolving account and there's a a set like they can see that there's a set limit for we can't overspend that so I think if we were to say um we can only handle this much we can't do that um that seemed to that Dave was there I think that was more of an acceptance at that 28 hours a week then going from 19 to 22 hours going 19 to 20 no 19 the B there was a big thing back in the spring of last year yeah with MX so I know what Chris is talking about with increasing people's hours and the general consensus was if you're going to increase their hours just go full-time because you're already paying all these benefits um and but at least two of those positions were bumping it just a few hours wasn't even going up to 28 hours but it was also coming out of our operating budget um whereas this one was a little bit different because it's all we can afford you know we can't we can't if we went to 4 if we went to 38 hours a week the problem ends up being that we can't fund that out of our at this point we can't fund it out of reol yeah I was thinking the 32 was the number I had stuck in my head and then the other concern I had we have to check with everyone else is are we pigeoning ourselves to if more funding frees up somehow is she now locked into 28 because that's what went to town meeting we have to wait another six months all I know is right now what we have now when the programs are R are not sustainable the way we did it it's it's pulling away from facilities tasks which you know we're happy to doing the interim but it's that's not the guy's jobs to be doing that and then it's it's some of the programs are off hours and then we can run into Union issues with the guys of I'm asking to switch hours and yeah so okay so we'll we'll get more feedback on the language of this one but I think so you recommending going to 32 hours is that what you're yeah I think it's I think we're all heading the right direction and I think it's enough to get us on a warrant I think we just have a couple details to hammer out but but the question becomes if we can this passes we can't have our work 32 hours but I also think that if we're approve at 32 we could say you're cap to 28 yeah they say to a Max of 32 yeah and then there's always the possibility that more funding frees up elsewhere you know he the previous Town manager her plan was originally to take this to fall town meeting and not do with the revolving funds and there was quite a bit of support for that already right so if that support if some of that support still exists I think we capitalize on it and you know there were departments within the town that were cutting positions that were supporting her increase hours so yeah I'd rather it not be an issue of her not being able to work the hours that are necessary yeah because we didn't work it but part of me also says that if we started with a smaller number and show that it's working then we can have better justification to change it for the next and that was what angel I said because I point BL called her one day and I said if we brought you the full time and there was great pause um and part of it you need to build this program and to to build it um you know I think she was more confident in the 28 than going to 38 for sure yeah I think 38 is a big job yeah than you a lot um she also handles all the Parks Building yeah so it's it's not you know the term Recreation director for anyone else that's watching or paying attention that's not her only job she handles all there's a lot under that her job description do you have a cop okay thank you good they usually are it basically took what any other Tas do you necessar off everything related to Parks so I think if we could figure out how to um to phrase it so that we wouldn't be limiting um her to that just being at that 28 hours um if the up to 32 is the appropriate phrasing that I think we're all right I'll try to I'll talk to him about that yeah okay yeah that's I think that's R we'll be meeting again before yeah all right and then the last one is the funding of the Marshall Park project and this one you know is just saying to see if the town will V to borrow some of money within the town's debt limits under Mass General Law chapter 44 section 10 with the purpose of funding the design and construction of the Marshall Park renovation project including all related equipment costs or take any other action relative there too that because this is not looking for a debt exclusion to you know to do this borrowing um it's a much easier warrant article and it does not require a ballot question either so it's just a warrant article so but I'll as I said I'll be reviewing all these uh with Carter on Monday I'll let you guys know if there's any issues with any of them so that's not really a vote I need um at this point is a good though thank you because we already voted to put these articles on the work so all right next item for discussion chair updates your chair updates okay I don't really have anything so cross out that um upcoming meeting dates so our next regular meeting would be third uh Thursday in September I don't my calendar in front of me third Wednesday September is the 18th September 18th okay that would be the regular time is 7 o'clock here okay um so any other business um we have no correspondents I do have one announcement from Angela um the beach closes Sunday August 25th Chris what happened last week with the beach being closed a single day do you know that's for the card Board Race the cardboard race was on weekend there was like something on I I start early for the but I I I to be honest I wasn't aware of that it was it says the be oh now it says the beach se but there was it was weird it was like there was an alert that popped up that says the beach will be closed on X day um so no we go okay um does the board have any other comments or announcements CHR okay public comment okay okay well good job guys this is a lot go through one night motion to adjourn at 958m second all in favor I I thank you all