the question is do we have sound I just want to make sure we have sound from you that's what you get for dialing in from Vegas whatever hotel hallway you're in she's home she's watching her pups are you texting me right now probably there she is you can text or tell I don't have my phone on me everybody's waiting for Bob right behind oh there he is it wasn't come right here cleaning up oh no after oh just saying it's like right it's a substitute oh wow pretty cool all right she has okay hopefully we don't need you [Laughter] Jenna all right so I think BH plusa we should probably get to started right so before we get started I don't know if you guys have read any of the emails um we do have to nominate a chair for today that's where we need to be like to how about the CH yeah you it before I'll second that yeah I was gonna nominate Kate make a motion to nominate Bob did you just second in Kate you are going to be our secretary today yes awesome all right you have the agenda I do all right uh we're going to call this meeting the order at 6:32 uh first thing on the agenda is discussion approval of meeting minutes did send them to everybody I a chance look at them I not they had AO on the date of one of them I did fix that on the most one I have onee we talk oh you want to start with the February 20th yeah February 20th meeting want start there work backwards sure I was I was present at that meeting February 20th yeah because I made the motion to the January yeah you [Music] go a clarification I think it's a correction solivan reports Rock Memorial courts I think those were the basketball court basketball courts very anyone anything anybody anyone else second thank you Mike motioned Rich seconded we have do a roll we can just do do we do roll call on all in favor all right on to the March is is that date correct March 5th all right on to the meeting minutes for March 5th all right anyone want to make a motion to accept them today's discussion I'll make a motion I'll second it all right all in favor here are the meeting minutes and all right um right we're on to public comment is anyone here public comment anybody online no all right going once going twice all right on to um we have to appoint a member to the CPA committee is a CH I'm not sure what it entails here and then we also have an email from Eric G that he wanted me to pass along if you want to read it or not but he said he'll be willing to will nominate himself okay and I did speak with the town Jem she said we were able to do this as well still need to be vote okay so um Eric says he's interested in being the CPA study committee um so um so we are mentioning that now um so is anybody else I guess before we go is anybody else interested in being a member of that committee would somebody like to nominate motion made to nominate Eric all right we have a second I'll second it all right Eric work all in favor it's right congratulations Eric if you're listening well that was nice and easy all right can you all hear me now yes thanks everyone everyone misses right so that was quick now we have we're on to Amplified sound requests moving along all right so look like the first one we have is from the reading Lions Club for July 18th 2024 is their Lions Club Journey for sight at Memorial Park from 5:00 p.m. to 900 p.m. do they want to use sound equipment such as speakers all right Journal announcements national anthem and music does anyone have any comments about that somebody like to make a motion Mr the lion all right so I got move to approve the Amplified sound requests from the Lions Club right do we have a second Mike seconded right all in favor right go give that back to you all right and again we have the Lions Club requesting sound permit for ring friends and family day at Birch Metal Field from 10:30 to 3 p.m. same use speakers musical instruments General announce and music what's the date on that uh that I'm sorry that is June 8th 2024 thank you and that is reading friends and family day y um all right motion Mike I'll second it second it all right all in favor on it way too all right look at this do this more often all right we are on to the Memorial Park donation Michael Terry installation of six service component flag po discussion and vote um he's Michael's here thank you for joining us sure be happy too oh good evening I'm Michael Terry I'm a member of the good smaran Sonic Lodge here in Reading uh few years ago a friend of mine not a Mason uh mentioned a conversation he'd had with a member of uh town government saying asking if he if the town would be willing to raise the service flag of each of the services on the date of that service's founding uh so the the Army would be among the earliest the Navy uh the most recent obviously would be the space force um that basically went nowhere when my friend was told that they' raised no flag on the town common other than the American flag and the P flag um I talked with other friends of mine about it in our lodge and we proposed the idea of Don donating six flag poles to the town initially to be put behind the war remoral just across the street from town hall I spoke with our veterans agent will uh we looked at it thought it was a good idea and then we also spoke with the DPW DBW looked at the idea they they liked it but they looked at the area we wanted to post those flags which were on either side of the main flag pole behind the war memorial and there were several issues with that one was their IR found pipes there that would be required to be moved if we were to sync foundations for six flag poles second there's a tree off to the left that would need to be trimmed significantly if we're going to do that because of the spacing required by the poles and thirdly we learned that the uh foundation for the monument itself uh the existing Monument is uh less than completely stable and the town was concerned about digging six more holes behind that Monument uh the discussion then went to where else would be suitable and as I think all of you know that there was a move of the World War I memorial stone uh From The Far Side of Memorial Park if you're looking from here to the near side right on Harrison and Charles uh at that time the stone got moved and also a 25 foot flag pole was erected with the national colors on it um the DPW came back to us and said what would you think think about putting the flag poles for the six service branches flanking that American flag pole uh so we looked at it and said yeah that sounds like a great idea we've raised the money the flag poles are in hand uh I understand that there there may have been some process questions uh as citizens of the town and not necessarily involved in town government to any great depth we don't necessarily know process we spoke to Town members and we expect that uh you know they would kind of Shepherd us through so we're hopeful that the town will accept our donation and the hope is further that we will be able to have a small ceremony on Memorial Day this year probably after the various uh cemetery and uh Cemetery Services I'm thinking probably something 3:00 3:30 and then will very wisely suggested a bigger ceremony on Veterans Day in November uh with potentially an honor Squad from the running police perhaps uh some military branch personnel as well so that's what we're looking to accomplish and we're very excited about the project and then I'd like to mention too as uh with Will and Mr Terry we did go out to the site where they have and I'm going to share my screen just so you can see it and the spot that he was speaking of is the one that's directly across from from town hall over at the cemetery as well that's where there was the issue with the groundwork um there as well so I can share my screen this here would be the layout so it's basically i' call it almost like a half shell we kind of walked it apart and now will had said that um they need to be five feet apart I think we're close to six feet is that where it'd be six feet apart the flags will be about they'll be 3x5 foot flags that we are donating and be committed to maintaining the quality of those flags uh I hesit hesitate to say in perpet perpetuity but we've committed to supplying those flags as well as the national colors as well uh so we will take care of that there should be no ongoing maintenance as far as the town replacing flags as they age and I know DPW did bring up a point they might be extending um that little mulch area just so there's they don't have the weed whack around that as well too so it' be extended a little bit it's really not taking away from really the field um I know myself I know Jenna um will I think we're all on board I think this is a great it's going to be a nice look obviously coming from that's Charles right still getting my street names coming up from Charles it's a straight shot um and I think it's fitting being at Memorial Park as well how cool so those those you said they're six feet apart those orange Flags those cones are are six feet apart on the arc Y and how tall are the poles the poles will be 20 feet above ground and how tall is this pole this pole is 25 feet those are the requirements right it has to be lower than that's correct be lower it's equal to or lower than okay so these have all the other and with the addition of the space force the same ones that are reading Memorial High School on the wall there the same yes with the the service flag which would be different for The Medallion Way but yeah Army Navy Air Force Marine Corps Coast Guard space force yeah Mike or will is there a requirement to light these uh as far as I know there's not a requirement although there is already Lighting on the national colors and these light these poles will be within the Arc of that uh lighting so but no dedicated light for them no dedicated nights needed and that was a concern from one neighbor we did receive one call from one neighbor and she was curious if there would be more lighting and we had told her that there wasn't um and then I also received two emails as well um from Neighbors that were in full support of this um I can mention their names they said that we can speak on their behalf I don't know if you want to do that all right uh so this is from Mar Connors Dear Mr Sullivan I'm writing in regard to the proposed placement of six flag poles presenting the six components of the US military of Memorial par and reading as a resident of one Charles Street and neighbor Memorial Park I strongly support this proposal and hope it will be favorably acted upon as soon as possible thanks for your for your notice of this proposal and for this opportunity to respond to it sincerely Margaret e Conor is one charl street un 5 sorry Unit S and another email we have from from John CZ CZ sorry I Mis pronouncing it 57 Harrison Street Dear Mr Sullivan in regards to the letter that you sent I am a home homeowner located at 57 Harrison Street I will be unable to attend the meeting on April 9th regarding the installation of flag polls at Memorial Park however I strongly support this installation Endeavor and wanted to email and let you know thank you John Cortez 57 Harrison TR and I think it's also important to mention on that site visit as well I think we had two neighbors that had come out that were also in full support they were direct abutters from there I think they were both um in some branches of the military as uh I know one was Air Force I'm not sure about the other and there was a third who didn't come over but uh he gave me a big thumbs up uh he was a neighbor of the other one who did come by so is this this ends with us right or does it go to the select for next I mean I think it's I mean Janet would you have the answer on that should this be brought up to the select board with it going on a park yeah so um Matt corelis the town manager um I spoke with him today about it and he said just let him know the outcome he'll reach out to the select board about the recreation committee recommendation or approval and um if the select board decides that they you know need to vote on it they will do so and if not um it can move forward so either way we can let Mr Terry know thank you fls will be up 24 hours it'd be up 247 just like the national colors are okay I I move to enthusiastically support this recommendation and thank you for the donation well again it's the Good Samaritan Lodge not not just me uh but yeah we're very thrilled about it thank you for the support do we have a second I'll second that and thank you again yeah do we have any discussion any further discussion before we vote I I just have one quick one are the um words engraved on the glan granite block is that a done deal or is are we solicita any input is that the stone about the stone yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry if I'm not being clear it's just a stone at the base of the flag I didn't know I saw some graving I figure it's it's like you know Memorial to Fallen Soldiers or something but I just wasn't sure if that was already done or if we were going to look in the community yeah so that Boulder is actually pre-existing and there's no um there's no intention of adding anything further to the boulder at this time it's the original one has a um plaque on it that is donated to TJ McGrath what's the inscription on it I did when I was there Jim come on there are names on there oh it's just names all right it names reading men who served in World War I because the plaque on the other end it was that right on the far end by Wall Street right yes there says something yeah that's where this one came from they moved it over did they that when they redid the wall they redid the wall oh okay it says honor the hero who gave his life that we might live in Freedom true right any other comments before we vote I mean the one thing I can add is you know that people do play things and stuff like that down there these flags are well into the corner of the park so it doesn't affect any of great really good location I think it's a great location I just I just asked like trying to figure it out way in the corner and M that I have doesn't have doesn't have it on there the light is on a from a a street pole across the street and it'd be lovely if we got a better light but is that's a very bright light have a question for will is it still required I I thought I read somewhere that you don't have to have a light on a flag anymore that on the national col FL 24 that's to stand what I thought Sunset if you don't not in compliance with the the standard of flying the national col so so it always be lit just fly 24 today so and as you mentioned Michael too when the neighbor who was asking if there would be more lighting she did mention that that light was a little bit intense um as well I haven't seen it at night myself but I mean it's something we can certainly look at down the road it'd be nice if I mean the traditional thing is lights at the base of the the up but that's down the road man and maybe the Samaritans want to take consideration I like it this is this is really I like you how much flag PS are you not rich I got a yard on down in chadam that I have to light up and it can be S and you good with that answer yeah thank you I just had one more little question um are these Six Flags and FL are they G gonna be observing like half flag half mass and then I was curious because the flag pole in front of coolage is it half Mass 300 days a year so I just had a question about half Mass I I would expect that uh we would need to drop those flags to half staff I think that if the national colors are at half staff will correct me if I'm wrong uh if the national colors are at half staff uh you would drop any other flags in the uh vicinity as well they still can't be any higher right thank you and it's is that a town policy when they lower the one out here they do they lower the ones at all the others places good question I don't have I think they're supposed to I think they're that's just another thing to deal with one cap staff today and I wasn't sure what that was about right so anytime that the governor or the president United States orders the national carless to be lowed it's lowed on all the state and town buildings and no other flag can hi fly higher than the National Standard so I'm all for this this all right let's vote all in favor of accepting the donation doesn't count I feel bad not putting my hand up throw up for good appreciate it it's on video thank you for the donation thank you very much I'll pass this on to the members of the lodge and I really appreciate your time and your consideration thank you you thank you thank you thank you thank you we learn something yes put Spotlight on myn way too close too CL do that worry so close what I was afraid of all right next item on the agenda is a presentation of community center locations and discussion I think we are now changing that name um to the reading reading Center Liv living and um I think um we have our presenter on here correct Jenna is he in here yet or no or is he yes Joel is here um he's been working with his team in recal and COA very closely for the past few months now I think they officially started in January so we've identified three locations and he's done a tremendous amount of work um figuring out all the ins and outs of all the site locations and he has some really detailed and great information and since there is um talk about perhaps this obviously it's a the priority is for our senior 60 plus population but um with survey results and some Community input there is a desire for perhaps a community center as well so um we thought it would be a good opportunity for the recreation committee to weigh in on their thoughts and just get an update on um all of the finding so far so I'll hand it over to Joel Joel thanks for being here thank you and Joel if you can't share your screen for some reason I know there might have been some concern that you can't I do have it but it looks like you are sharing your screen right now so perfect good timing Jim so thank you my name's Joel bargman and um this is a long presentation that was put together for the Senior Center Council on Aging and recal committee and uh I'm there's sections of it I'm going to go through quickly I thought it was good to keep it all together though so that when it goes on the town website anyone else that looks at it sees the whole comprehensive presentation but I know there are parts of it that I don't know to need to go into such detail the first slide is just expressing the problems at the existing building and why that is in need of either expansion or major renovation or finding some other site it's it's the renovation there is 30 years old um but most importantly it only has 4,000 square feet of usable space and you'll see we're talking about 15 to 16,000 more um a total usable space in a new facility all that translates into the inability to meet you know needs and services and reading unlike not unlike any other community we're working at you're actually a little bit on the low side some communities were hitting 35 to 50% um you know down on the cape you hit 55% senior population in some of those communities so it's a it's a a need that needs to be filled and this is just uh pointing out that when Jim just um maybe mute Judy um if you can people tell us don't don't um say if you build it they will come but I won't say it this is a slide that just points out situ Falmouth many of our other community centers senior centers when you build it that their population that uses a facility just skyrockets uh 200 to 300% in in communities so Jenna opened it by saying there's going to be senior Focus the trend and I won't speak foring but I'll speak for other communities we're working with is to bring Recreation into uh and and other Town departments into the senior center when those senior center spaces are not being used by the seniors partly because they're so state-of-the-art with distance learning the multi-purpose rooms have high-end audiovisual capacity so Board of Selectmen finance committee those kind of meetings can be held in those rooms if you wanted to and quite a few of our facilities are incorporating gyms really at the behest of the recreation department but then the seniors realize that there's a huge advantage to having that type of joint facility at a senior center where they can use the gym in the morning or afternoons and then the community has use of the gym at night and that that's a real popular feature that's um gaining widespread uh incorporation into Senior Center buildings so where we're at is we're we're about halfway through the whole process we're at the end of looking at site and trying to determine which is the preferred site and when we get to that hopefully that will happen the end of this month um then we'll start schematic design and understand more about the building right now we're focusing on the site and as much as we can we're leveling out the building across the site so that people don't say well I like xite because I like the building that's on xite better right now that this same building can fit on um the two sites that have new buildings and the program for Pleasant Street we've gotten uh in one option to match the program uh of the other site so that as much as we can the building itself is not the deciding factor on which site you like best there there three sites considered Pleasant Street's your 49 Pleasant Street building right near the center of town the existing building then Oakland Road is out by the high school it's a site that was actually partially used during the high school construction that for Phill and um construction staging and then the third site is off up in the right corner Simmons way it's next to the um ice arena and out there where the Nike missile site was uh in in in the 60s the first site I'll just walk you through is the downtown Pleasant Street site it's it's really half an acre 22,000 square feet a tight site it's that's a 4,000 square foot usable it's 2,000 on a floor there's happens to be a basement um but that basement has a very low ceiling height so it's it could be used for maybe storage but you can't really legally walk in it it's less than S feet high as a ceiling height see it it's it's a struggle to add if you have 4,000 square feet of usable space and our program is 18,000 square feet without a gym and um about 26,000 square feet when you get the gym and the track so those that far exceed the total square footage of the site and you'll see it it when you put that program on the site and you try to put parking on there it virtually fills every inch other than this little area here this is a ramp that takes you in to a of all things a parking garage so you have two levels of parking underneath program space in this box and that Parks approximately 52 cars which in in reality you would have to put additional cars s out on the street so there's seven spaces on in front of the building and there are other spaces in the in the neighborhood you'd have to find to to space to park your um car in a space the reason being is that a facility of this size we usually look to get 70 spaces on site for daily use and then somewhere around 80 to 90 95 for Peak use what is nice is that by putting the parking underneath the building it's all within 125 fet of the front door and that's really excellent for seniors there's a second option that first one showed the building with a gym and one of the problems with that is the the program is just so big that we're going over setback lines on the sidey yard on the street side there are many areas where the building just goes beyond what the zoning says is your building envelope now the town is exempt from their own zoning but the working group recal that and Council on Aging have sort of felt that we should at least abide if at least point out if not abide by the zoning setback requirements the height the bulk the floor area ratios what would be typical zoning bylaws that are put in to protect the neighborhood and um you wouldn't want to be the cause of of uh you know not not protecting the neighborhood because you can see you're right next to some residential buildings right here you're you know 20 feet away from 16 Parker streets so as you can see there's the north side and then where the doors are is the west side the additions on the far end and the rear of the building these are three uh historic Bays that in the 50s and 60s there were two bays uh in the 90s they renovated the building put the three Bays back so this is its sort of historic appearance of that facade it is a national historic building this is a great image because it shows the bulk of gym which is 6,500 square foot has a high ceiling for basketball volleyball has program space in the front and program space in the building but the building that looks like this on the street is fully dwarfed by the addition and then off of Parker Street you have a ramp going into the lower level of the garage off of Pleasant Street you have a driveway that goes into the upper level of the garage and that those two garage levels don't connect so that's another little issue with the parking it would be somewhat frustrating to find a space and if you're going this way and you can't go in and can't find a space and you have to come around and go down here and see if you can get a space and that's never easy to turn around in a garage so that that's clearly one of the um detriments to this particular option on this opt the that is in 1990s addition that would come off to facilitate the new building that's really 90% of it is on this side of the building and it actually is quite nice because the way the site naturally slops you can get that lower garage level in without having to do a major amount of excavation Pleasant Street is 8 feet above here and this slopes down so almost works out without uh without a huge takeaway of soil from the site but you do want to recognize that when I have that large addition we're right next to a two and a half story sort of multi-unit house and then a single family dwelling here that's it's two stories but it's it's a not quite an antique but it's you know it's 8 foot Florida uh the ceiling Heights is not a modern house that has higher ceiling Heights it's quite a small property and and both of those are really encroached upon by the the building what's nice about this site is it's comes fully filled with site utilities not all the sites have that and there's nothing to worry about from an environmental perspective no Wetlands no flood planes that traffic and parking um mentioned the parking is is short by 18 to 20 spaces on the daily basis you'd have to find spaces elsewhere in town and then and walk to the facility which is not impossible and then at times you will have a a lunch event or a special speaker and you would want more than your daily use uh so you'd peek out at at roughly 90 generally we size the parking lots for 90 to 100 users that accommodates most Recreation and Senior Center uses and then if there's some very special event then there's a traffic management plan with perhaps some busing to another lot or some other way of dealing with it you don't want to put such a huge parking lot on it that's not used because the asphalt is not drainable it's not great from the storm water management and it gets very hot in the summer um the driveway is um off a Parker Street doesn't have great view distances the driveway off of Pleasant Street has good right and left visibility but on Parker Street it's less than 200 feet and seniors really look for 250 feet in each Direction clear visibility so that you can get out of your building out of your parking lot make a left turn and not feel hurried or harried in doing that the building use is allowed by special permit in this um District so um that's good the the issues where it doesn't comply is on the front yard in the sidey yard but what is interesting is that in the scheme that doesn't have the gymm well if we don't have to have a gym we can skinny up the building a little bit because the gym has a certain width for basketball we can get our setbacks in around this building and this building and we can make that building fully comply so if per chance the option of doing this without a gym was desirable it is less expensive um that would get you fully compliant with the zoning perspective all right site two is Oakland Road and it's a site that sort of rings this road it's next to the high school and while we haven't had any direct talk that issue of you know the occasional overflow parking seems like something we could approach the school on occasion with with some Advanced planning and find Advanced parking either on a overflow parking either on a a weekend when there might be a basketball tournament in the gym or on a a night event when there's a big selectman's meeting or some other type of event where you would observe overflow parking this site is on a curve right here what we are doing is moving the driveway entry opposite at the suggestion of our Traffic Engineers opposite the high school driveway it's best to line up your driveways because you can see and stagger your your cars much better when the driveways line up you come in and then you would come to a site that has 93 parking spaces in it which is great and that portion of the site happens to be flat because that was where they put fill when they built the high school they dumped all the fill in this area FL plens out the site but that Phil is something that would have to be dealt with compacted and is bought into the cost estimate the building sits on this portion of the site the good portion of the parking is within 125 ft of the building we're showing for Park uh pickle ball Lots it doesn't they're shown to really show that it's not a great idea on this site this portion of the site the each one of these Contours indicates that this is a rising site it's very steep here be very expensive to put the pickle ball in but even more so you can see the proximity to Residential Properties and pickle ball as you may well know can be noisy and irritating to neighbors so uh we showed this really to identify that if we know pickle ball is desired but it may be the idea to separate them to a different site and not try to get them on the senior center site even though they're quite desirable for this particular program so you come around the site you can sort of see that this is all going uphill we put the parking in the building in the low portion but it goes up quite High here behind the building and here it goes up up quite high and there's a a neighbor that we want to be as careful about encroaching on as possible so there is a a pretty good buffer around that neighbor's house and here you can see how dense that site is in the summertime you can also get a sense of how much the sight's going uphill so there it's rising here it's rising even more and then behind this house it rises quite a bit and here you can see we we don't want to put pickle ball because you'd be right in that person's backyard and um when that person bought the house this whole land was drawn up and proposed to be single family houses so they didn't buy that house and or buy that lot however it went down um knowing that there might be a institutional building or a town building next to them so I think you do want to be cognizant of their their being next door beautiful sight lines on either direction from the driveway at the high school and the driveway to the senior center so that's great you come out of there and you want to make your left turn or your come out um that that's not really an issue um plenty of sight line there you can see that Steep Hill for pickle ball be be complicated to get it in there um the the complication on this site is this area was filled and you can see it it's relatively level it was filled during the school construction and that would cause an extra cost to the portions of the building Foundation that go into that fill area um it means that the building really doesn't want to go in the fill area the building sort of wants to migrate to this side of the site and as a consequence these red lines are the lines that the geotechnical engineers identified as the Bedrock to this site and some of that Bedrock would have to be removed and um if this was a chosen site then we would have to do a study for how that might be done without a lot of noise and with a lot of vibration because you do have many Residential Properties surrounding that site so that's something to be thought of as we go to the next stage if this is the preferred site we don't think it's a deal breaker when you look at the topography and the depth of the of the uh Bedrock it's probably workable but um it is something to contend with and just this is more of interest to the the U legal department in the town so I'll skip over that um again there's Municipal Water available but um sewer is not available on the site we'd have to bring sewer to the site or learn more about the I believe the school is on a pump station and see if there's additional capacity that could be pumped into that sewer line um right now we're carrying in the budget extension of the sewer to this site the storm water uh would be handled on some there's no flood flood issues and there's no Wetland resource areas so that that's great about this site the um zoning ordinance asks you for 79 spaces we have 95 so you're well within what we said is the low end and uh the the peak in existing Road I mentioned is in is very nice on that site um oddly enough a community center per se is not an allowed use on this site but they do allow nonprofit cultural facilities and um that would be as a special permit via community Planning and Development commission and then a Civic Club is permitted as a special permit by Zoning Board of Appeals it's felt that a senior center would fall well within a cultural facility nonprofit cultural facility and would be allowed with a special permit on the site all the other zoning requirements are met the last site is a really interesting site it's sort of the furthest away but when I say furthest away it's still within five minutes of the center of reading easily accessible by police and fire um emergency vehicles and it's next to the ice arena and some outdoor ball fields which are behind the ice arena and you can see there's quite a bit of parking for the ice arena again we haven't approached them we don't know if it would be feasible but one has to think that there would be some opportunities for shared parking that they may actually on their tournament events on weekends be uh desirous of using some parking that's related to the senior center so there's potential that if this site was chosen we would begin some discussions about what do you do in the worst case scenario for either facility is there an opportunity to share some overflow parking here we have the building area we have parking area here we can put pickle ball it's not included in the budget but you're not bothering anybody by putting a pickle ball cord here it's the backside of a ice arena with no windows on it and um a chiller that's making its own Fair racket this is a dry portion of the site but on the right it's a wetland site and there has been some discussion of this being a Nick Nike missile silo site uh missile not not Silo but missile missile site actually the Nike missile site was this strip here and this road was put in on the edge of the site um so this site wasn't actually it was cleared and and used for Access but it wasn't housing um flammable missiles and it happens to be a rifle range Gun Club at the far end of this Range Road which is also called Simmons way and there's some question as to whether there was ever in the old days firing in the other direction where he may have led debris from bullets on the edge of this site so that maybe a little long shot but something that we would have to do due diligence on should this site be selected um here's the Wetland line um there's a desire on the town to carve out out a parcel that follows the road the town owns this road there's an easement that allows the the gun club to use that area and get to their rifle range this portion of the site is wetland and in that area is this area it's quite nice you exchange extend Range Road up to this point you have two ways into a driveway one you come here you drop off conveniently disembark passengers are on the correct side of the car go into the building the person can then drive if you're in a wheelchair you can get out drop the wheelchair Patron then go park using the pickle ball you can come Park here there's spaces at this end for pickle ball and that fits in nicely as I mentioned behind the behind the uh Ice Arena now I mentioned a couple times we're trying to level out these schemes as much as possible so the pickle ball is not included in the budget of this scheme because it's not really feasible on the Oakland Road site and it doesn't fit on the Pleasant Street site so to make things equal we're we're not including it but we're pointing out that should you want it it is feas feble here and of course it's feasible someplace else if if if the town so desires here's that 150 foot radius for the your parking one issue on this site is it's a little bit remote it's off the Beaten Track you have Hill haal Street and then you have to come down Simmons way and then you get here and you go in and there's the Community Center Senior Center so it doesn't have Frontage and having Frontage out on a main street can be good for business at a Council on Aging Senior Center or for a Rec Center it it it's just people see that it's an active use it's not a deal breaker uh it's not a lot of residential use on this traffic on the street that you're bothering getting to your site here you can see the sight's been dug up they brought uh some water lines down to the gun club to put sprinklers in their building so we know that water at least is coming to this manhole we have to extend sewer to this site which it doesn't have there you go to the parking lot for the ice arena so you'd go this way to the senior center slash gy this way to the other facility and then the building and parking lot fronts on this road so it makes quite a nice complex in terms of uses the as I mentioned utilities need to be brought to it storm water is doable it's it'll be clearly a little more challenging because this site is a more wet site has a lot of wetlands next to it so um you know it it'll be more challenging but there's not a a real inability to manage the strong water I do want to hit on the environmental I I sort of alluded to it um you know that just because of its previous use and some of the very preliminary tests that were done in and around the site there are some contaminants they're at a very low level um it's something that at the next phase needs to be brought through to due diligence but there's no red flag that came up that said this is not a a doable site what a site like this has that's been wooded and um has trees on it for centuries is it has what's called Forest mat so there's a good two to two and a half three feet of soil on top of the site that's disintegrated leaves and pine needles and twigs and that's not good for buildings that's organic material so this particular site needs to be scraped of that organic material and then uh rebuilt so that is a cost that's put into the uh to the budget but again the um you know Pleasant Street has the garage cost Oakland Road has the um The Fill cost and the Bedrock cost and this one has the additional cost for the the soil fill and just because it is a wetland and we know that wetlands are are growing as global warming occurs we've priced the particular building on this site plan the footprint of the building is raised two feet above the surrounding grade so it would be have quite a capacity for the water level to rise over the next 50 to 100 years time on this site by raising that building up it still be handicap accessible we'd raise the the parking lot as well you as you look at that site there is some debris on it but there's an old car that it's unfortunate probably had some value a couple years ago was a Model T or a a antique automobile it doesn't seem to be any gasoline residue in the soil borns from that or other things left on the site this just shows an aerial here's the ice arena that's the Nike Site this is the site that we're looking at so again this is like Oakland Road community centers not allowed um but non not nonprofit cultural facility is alone so these are the floor plans this is that 4,000 2,000 square feet on the floor 4,000 square foot existing fire station building we're proposing the possibility of putting an addition we're meeting with historic commission tomorrow night to see what they feel about that there's also an addition on the back we'll be talking to them about that we think this one may be controversial this one on the back probably less controversial and then the one I mentioned on the side where we're taking off that white addition that's where the bulk of the new building is going you get the two levels of parking on this side you get um there's a parking at this level which is Pleasant Street there's a parking below this off of Parker Street which is a level below and then you come in there's a multi-purpose purpose room and the the public kitchen and and restroom so the big activities are at this level the senior specific activities are on the second floor arts and crafts Game Room gross motor room Senior Center offices and when you put a gym there that takes up the back portion over the the uh cars there's the lower level of the parking you can imagine you come in you look for a space you can't find one you've got to come out go back out to the street up to Pleasant Street the fact that there's no internal ramp connecting the two levels of the garage is really a a pretty significant compromise in our opinion this particular scheme we as I said we tried to equalize the options but there's just not room available on the site so so there's about almost 3,000 square ft less program area when we use Pleasant Street than when we go to the all new sites so of their program they don't have the large program room they don't have the fitness studio they don't have a senior lounge and they don't have a program coordinator and in all the other schemes there's a walking Track above the gym but because of how this this is configured you're on the second floor the walking Track is above the gym and the gym is on the second floor you'd have to build stairs and elevators to get up to the third floor where the track is it it just gets prohibitively expensive to put a track in on on this particular scheme the the new build options the same building can go on either site and um again when we have the gym is exactly the same size gym that would be at Pleasant Street same size multi-purpose room same size offices for seniors same size program rooms but in the new building you get the full complement of program spaces what's really nice when you have a new building you have some freedom for how to orient it and with an eye on at night or when senior programming isn't a priority you have the opportunity to come in and use the multi-purpose room at night because the lobby takes you to the multi-purpose room when you turn right turn left goes to those special and Senior Center offices and Senior Center rooms so you could literally close off the senior center and have a board of Selectmen or select board meeting you could have finance committee you could have rentals out of this multi-purpose room you can come in and use the gym for recreational purposes if the seniors and Recreation have that type of an agreement so what this scheme is showing is there's a huge opportunity to share space without encroaching on the senior center and having people wander through the senior center when kids are coming to play basketball at night for example and the way it's organized is that the gym is completely separated from any Senior Center room by a series of store rooms by a corridor by another wall so um it's the bouncing the basketballs pickle ball there three pickle ball courts can fit in this gym um that kind of noise would not be bothering the senior center use and what's also nice is that this wall on the gym could be a a glass wall so parents could come in and see what's going on wait for their kids not bother the coaches and the kids that might be finishing up a game but they can you know really see what's going on so you know being a parent I love that not being in the dark about what's what's going on when they're coming out getting to see what's happening um these are the kinds of things that the flexibility of a new design give you that aren't really possible when we renovate made um Pleasant Street so what we've done is we've done two schemes we you could certainly build this building without the gym and you would have an 8100 square foot 18,100 foot building and that's the same size building that could go on Pleasant Street if you didn't have a gym so what we're saying is if if the town so desires to build a facility either at Pleasant Street or on a new site without a gym you can get the full compliment of programs we don't necessarily have the parking solved at Pleasant Street but the buildings are Level from a programmatic perspective where they don't level out is when you get the gym you can still get the full Senior Center program and a gym at Oakland Road and Simmons way but you give up that um 3,000 square ft of space uh at Pleasant Street when you have the gym so what do all this cost it's it's people are surprised these days and cost have increased quite a bit due to inflation but Pleasant Street the cost of the buildout with the gym is very close to Oakland Street and Simmons way although though the square footage is is a bit smaller and one reason there's this discrepancy in the square footage is the walking Track itself is quite a bit of square footage and that's counted in this square footage and it it sort of uh tips the scale square footage wise and I don't really um like to count that square footage because putting a track in a gym there's no extra lighting there's no no extra heating there's no walls it's really a little bit of structure in a floor and you have your track it's cheap space to build it it shouldn't really reflect that big of a program change so that's why in that previous slide I it was pretty clear about the difference in the programs but they're they're surprisingly close in their budgets $28 million rounded off if you were to take the gym off of the program the then the Oakland Road and Simmons way really do have a bit of a benefit about $4 million less expensive than Pleasant Street because while we're taking the gym out of Pleasant Street we're taking the gym out of Oakland Road we're adding that square footage back to equalize Pleasant Street with this so it gets the penalty of that 3,000 square foot of program space being added to equalize it and when you have Pleasant Street with two levels of parking deck that's already got a cost penalty to it to build those parking decks um I mentioned there's some opportunities to add on to the building at Pleasant Street that we're meeting with historic commission tomorrow night we didn't want to include those but if we're successful on the the addition in front of the garage doors that would add 1.43 6 million to the cost um that also adds a kitchen on the back and then um if you add the space over the gym the breakout of that space that I was discussing is uh 3,6 3 million 670,000 um another way to look at it is what's the cost of the gym at Oakland Road and Simmons way the gym and the walking Track C cost you $5,500,000 there's a little bit of site work in there obviously for the building but you also need more parking if there's a gym so that cost includes a reduction in parking at those two sites and some people had asked uh well what's the cost of the parking garage you know there may be additional Highway Department funds for Downtown parking where you could perhaps find a way to fund the garage at Pleasant Street in a different manner or maybe build the garage at a different location so we pulled out for talk sake the cost that's embedded in that estimate for the parking garage and um just out of curiosity uh if you built a pickle ball at Simmons way it's about a$ 4,000 $400,000 cost for those pickle ball courts so we have a huge amount of data on the sites four pages each site's been treated in a really rigorous uh and fair manner we're trying not to um have a bias on anyone's site we've gone through and sort of evaluated against key criteria but the next step is to take a very detailed criteria sheet and have U the groups that are assigned by the town to do the evaluation evaluate the building on 12 key factors and within each factor there are three ranking levels and what this is designed to do is to make the the judging of your sites as Fair as possible because we're judging each building against the same criteria and points are allowed um for how you decide uh something is successfully or unsuccessfully met so it levels out your judging and then at the end of the of the review each reviewer has 20 points where they can make I call this objective analysis and this is subjective analysis where they might say something like I think the site works great as a senior center one person said well here's a good example I'm allergic to oak trees and there oak trees on that site so I don't like that particular site that's a very personal uh decision but we think it's important for people to have room to write a short paragraph that says personally why they like or don't like a particular site um we learn a lot from those kind of issues and thank you for giving me so much time we're uh as I mentioned we're about halfway through the feasibility study process we're here in 2024 the intent is to finish schematic design this year have enough time to present it to the community bring it to town vote in 2025 and and start construction in in 2026 um you have to do construction drawings and a lot of uh other work once the town decides to vote on a particular project but the goal now is to identify a site and then go uh full bore into exactly what does that Building look like so going to stop the share and I really appreciate the amount of time um we had to get through this tonight so thank you thank you yeah great great presentation questions I have one question on on the gym is the gymnasium going to be used I don't know is it for like um the wck basketball or is it g well or was it too far advance to kind of I mean I would think it' be a joint venture and I came from Marblehead where we had a shared Senior Center and a um recreation center and pretty much from you know 8 in the morning to 400 p.m. there was a lot of senior events in there whether it was dance pickle ball or cheer yoga things like that then at 4:00 when the seniors were heading home for dinner kind of transitioned over and then it became a w space where it was pickle ball you know we had community events in there the daddy daughter dances were in there okay basketball there could be kickball volleyball so I feel as if we would utilize dodgeball um so I feel like it would be multi-use okay and it would fill quickly I could see that being full from whenever we had it until it closed is it designed like for spectators because it looks like it's pretty tight in there is it more designed just for like like it was saying I would assume there probably wouldn't be bleachers in this Joel we put one or two bleachers on each side it's it's not really adding spes space for bleachers can make the gym quite a bit bigger and so we're we didn't have that but that's one reason that circulation Corridor doubles up it's spectator viewing corter outside of the gym on the new build watch and on the new build when you have the track of course you can have if you had a Saturday basketball event people can stand on the track and watch the basketball yeah because the big issue in Reading is a lot of the gyms that they currently have don't have pretty tight seating right pretty tight you know I know it's a something at kilum that we're talking about as well and they're going to try to get bleachers and killum so that Spectators can get in their so I don't cly that could be topic of discussion yeah like folage is real tight and obvious the Y is real doesn't have the Bri just walls yeah right right exactly exactly any other questions no very good I have I have a question this is put you on a spot if you had your choice where would you put it I don't know if I can say [Laughter] that get absolutely and I I'll admit I have a favorite site but and we're we're trying to be yeah unbiased tell everybody Joe Friday of Architects that it's the facts just the facts that call back I like that I will uh I hope at the end of this we're we're doing our own evaluation form this week and I'm going to submit that to Jenna and hopefully that'll be part of the the evaluation ni Jo Joel this m I have one question on the square footage on the cross slides at one point I think you had said that that was a typo and was I I had the numbers backwards okay so it was correct and the 263 is correct because that included the the track and I I was thinking it didn't typically doesn't include the track but okay that number yeah sorry about that thank you Joel and Michael just another quick question you are the Le on to recal um so is there any other information you think would be beneficial to hear from the rec committee at this time any questions that I mean the one thing that that you know in the terms of the gym discussion uh the 60 plus Community could really use a gym they would love to have a gym and none of the gyms in town are available until like six o' whatever yeah so that's a that's a big plus for a part of the senior community that in general is not represented at Pleasant Street because Pleasant Street doesn't have a gym and um and the the great room at Pleasant Street is full for active programs and other things so um there's there's really is a need for for more space for this what would the gym be used for all the other things I mean other than oh dancing pickle ball basketball we have le one as well so I mean even the 50 plus and the the gyms that they're talking about have uh partitions so you could you partition it and run one thing in one part other stuff in another thing so there's yeah I have experienc at the Amera call center over in Wakefield and they run pickle ball badminton volleyball I didn't know if sen do and I also do a lot of motion stuff I'm part of yeah there was a lot of discussion too about having larger events in the gym um obviously we have the multi-purpose room but you could have an even larger event in the gym um a performance a big prom we had a new Bingo event at Hillview last year which was re really successful we had over um hundred seniors attend that so um that was also a discussion that that could be a benefit and then also our town clerk has indicated that there's a need for another voting location that down the line they might be taking voting out of schools and um having a larger space in the community would be extremely helpful for her and her team moving forward h of um the program for after school and and reading but just as another example for how the Synergy Works in in Penbrook they have a hundred kids in an after school program and they put the recreation and seniors together in a building just like this where there's a gym and then after school at four o'clock the kids can use the multi-purpose room they do their homework for an hour and then they have free use of the gym parents come and pick them up between 5:30 and 6 and it works perfectly so that it's not just a gym that that can be shared but that in other communities that the multi-purpose room can be shared at times so there there's a lot of uh good Synergy that can be developed can I yep are those costs based on uh 2026 Construction cost or today they're based on starting in uh 2026 yeah okay and is anybody done an analysis or is it too early as to what that would cost the taxpayer or the average taxpayer that would be done um after I think we picked the site and before going to town meeting for that could become that could become one of the reasons why someone would pick one site over another right they so close and cost should be what's that close in cost go ahead Joel yeah yeah they're very similar in their cost so we thought right it's a thousand I think it's a good point we could ask that oh really the average that they use there are a lot of projects coming off of the um off of the debt so we get what what end the library what ends off your you mean the high school and the high school the library um and then there's one other but but still the how much Kellum will be and how much a potential Community Center will be might will probably be a larger um figure for the taxpayer and that number will be determined by probably our head Finance director Sharon kum's kind of on the um what um organization in the town would be uh J was kind of playing around with a little as far as would be overseeing the entire site I don't know where we're at with that J there's a building yeah so I think if it is a um a reading Center for active living with an emphasis obviously on mostly the 60 plus plus population but opportunity for some shared spaces to be available to Recreation and all of the offices would be in there um it just comes down to a simple policy decision with staff and stakeholders so I think right now the concern could be okay well we trust Jim and Chris right now and Jim and Chris get along right now um working well with even sharing space at the current Senior Center at nighttime but if Jim and Chris were to leave what what would happen um how does that relationship work and how do we con continue to share the space and make sure that one organization isn't take overtaking the other organization um and I think it's just going to be a team effort and I think it's something that we could come together and and figure it out quite easily and there's other models that exist in several other towns and recal has seen it with all of their visits to numerous um community centers senior centers um and have gotten a lot of data so we can come up with a great plan I think and Jim's been um very active in Marblehead before and they had a similar model too so he'll be instrumental in in helping create something moving forward and all questions move on Joel thank you very much you you Joel be quick we're actually we're ahead of schedule this will be quick before Michael goes I think I kind of want to just say how we got to here so I met with Michael your probably a month and a half ago two months ago um and I've tasked Michael with um kind of being the point person for pickle ball he's in the the guts of it I guess um and he sees it he knows the people so I've kind of tked him with um keeping us in the loop on what's going um on there I'm still overseeing I'm checking in on playtime scheder play local making some of the rules that we put out there and Michael and I kind of started a little bit of a rough draft that we got to follow up with with kind of our expectations down there um and what I can say I know we're only at April 9th and I'm knocking on wood um it has been a good early spring right now with the cour down at pickle ball um and I'm getting a few questions that do come in and I have been passing them over to Michael and I think he's done a good job um handling that right now so I figured today would be a good day to give us a quick little update as Chuck said um on what's Happening down there at the courts so I just want to it is early season okay and uh it's really tough to get everybody who's been in hibernation and everybody's coming out of the the woodwork you know with good weather uh and I went off to Vermont to watch the eclipse we had a big event on Sunday that really took up more of my time than I thought so getting this liais on trying to talk to everybody um I am well known apparently in town no and think of all think of all the now that you're injured so so trying to trying to manage that um U keeping track of who's doing what to whom and it's a it is a um this is a great problem to have we have a great community in town and we have have lots and lots of new players coming on the scene and getting them linked up with the appropriate people at their level playing and all that so we've tried the our big initiative right now is a Friday night open play uh from five to dark was it five or four might be four might be four it's four to dark um and I think this is going to be um very this is going to be sort of a a focal point for lots of new players at all different levels because you have new players coming in who are very good and they need to find the rest of the that group that that gr and uh I'm very hopeful for that um and we'll see uh we have to see whether we're going to need more of that or less of that um and daytime uh stuff right now the courts are are starting to get booked up in the mornings and they're booked up pretty much every evening still few openings I've been they still a you we're not sold um even today a nice day there were a couple openings but that's not going to that's not going to continue so we did have I just want to give you another update we had uh our big event on Sunday it was very successful um lots of people were involved um I think all all the select board members were there Matt kis the town manager pulled our 50-50 raffle ticket and identified the winner and it was a a fun event I think we made over five ,000 um yeah it's looking like about 5,500 that's all in raffle and everything so and and just so the everybody knows there's um there's a Facebook page called reading players uh Facebook and that's one of the tools I'm trying to use to try and coord you know get to the Comm uh the people in town that site has nothing to do with the fundraising portion of and all this this is it's just a communication tool for reading pickleball players uh ring Pall Players Association is the fundraising arm and we're north of 115k now yeah somewhere and if we can get a site look that you know identified that the fundraising will go easier Joel talked about 400k for Four Courts I think that's um that's a little bit on the high end but um but I don't know where they're you know the details anybody have any questions about I thought that was eight courts is that there's only four shown there four yeah yeah Court seems a little high yeah yeah BN K you should be able to easily get eight courts yeah that's why I thought but not always didn't even look not always not always the no not tennis cours um and but they certainly wouldn't go on Oakland Road that would be nearly impossible no that's just moving them up from from Birch Meadow across the street it's a a hill like this a solid rock that site is is been up by a lot of people kindergarten down there one time theyve looked at that for everything and it's expensive so we're not going there which that that whole is gonna go but if you if anybody hears anything that's going on about pick ball anybody who who is is upset with anything please call me and when I'm desperate I'll call Jim but we'd like to you know just try and handle this it's a it's an easygo Place have you guys had a Friday yet with the Open Play or is just we've had one and um we only had two fights we only had four people come the rain cold kind of windy I think this Friday is supposed to be pretty miserable too promoted a little bit better this I haven't really at our big event I promoted it a lot especially to the beginners that up there now you know how to play the game yep come find your crew yeah and I did speak with a woman I think I passed one over to you as well um she stopped by and we talked about and I talked about the Friday night open and she wants to bring her kids down there and stuff as well too because this it could turn into maybe this a family fun night that we see some hours as well too and I think that will help kind of bring a little bit of the noise down as well and like you said help people learn what to do how to book courts and what they can and can't do and we have a a a tenative draft set of rules if you will about things and one of the keys is uh Saturday morning no profanity on the court I can't play that's a challenge donation money no I appreciate you doing it not easy app thanks anybody have a question yeah um I just wanted to bring to your attention something that was achieved just this week the trails Committee in conjunction with some boy scout Eagle Scout volunteers we finished connecting a trail that goes from Main Street 28 all the way across to haal and so I think that's a really significant achievement um it it's it's sort of helps my vision of weaving together the the town and um and there's there's parking right now for maybe a dozen cars at Camp Mata which is off of 28 and then um then it's a really beautiful hike it's about a one and a half or two mile hike from Camp Mata all over to hail and right now on hail there's no Crossing Place per se but if that could be addressed either with you know just crossing lights a speed bump um that would enable people from one side of hail over to the uh I think it's the Nike Missile Range um but I just think it's really neat I wanted you guys to know that you can walk from Main Street to haal that's great is that the one that was in the paper was on the front page of the Daily Times Chronicle that Eagle Scouts did it um well they were responsible in just this past week and finishing up maybe the last 50 feet um it goes It goes into the um sort of like the the Town Cemetery on Pearl yeah and Ben on something like that too if you want to give me a heads up and we can get on agenda just to recognize the folks who did that I think it'd be a good idea too you know yeah a few people still get well I'm not trying to keep it a secret we just got it this week but um going forward I definitely will thank you so Ben on the on the recal side are there walking trails on the far side of Hil that do go into the Nike Site through those we um not really I mean it's it sort of goes on the haal between uh St anthonia church and um the Manan Lumber right so acrossing across hail would need to be established and of course hail as we all know is kind of a busy place and so just cracking that n would be important but um you know there if we can do that then we can maybe take advantage some of the parking off St anthon um and above Camp Mata there there's a Terrace Garden uh that people have yeah you know assumed responsibility for for growing fruits and vegetables and and offering sustain sustainability perhaps to um gez students and seniors alike y but that's the community garden true yeah cool it's use space thank you on to the next topic Jim yeah we're gonna let Mr Ed go first give a quick update on what he's been up to in the last well next week's April April vacation um kind went we offered like five programs originally for April vacation uh Tuesday through Friday um three of them kind of stuck with some good numbers we have a science program with topnotch science an SNL sports camp and then an Ninja Warrior program with knuckle bones Ninja Warrior has actually been a pretty popular program for us which is um interesting uh but what I've spent most of my uh time doing since we last met um was planning and finalizing all of our summer programs uh which went live on March 28th uh we definitely have a a busy schedule this summer with a ton of um options every week um throughout the whole summer um we've kind of you know partnered and been working with a ton of the High School varsity coaches who offer clinics you know football field hockey basketball um we a cross country run cross country uh Clinic over at the the forest um so I just think that's a cool kind of relationship we've had I mean they've already had those well before I was here but I just think it's a cool cross country's first time this year country is first I'm the football coach the first time too how's that going how's that registration going I think we're up for 20 now and he just asked me for the length this week so I don't know how much you really been Pate so should be good should be good um and then obviously we have a ton of other option um offerings with our you know normal venders like SNL Sports Zone SNL and all that or knuckle bones um lastly summer dation re wrapped up interviewing 40 people uh for for counselor positions um we ended up uh I think we have 11 new hires coming in um and then we're just kind of working on finalizing dates for orientation and CPR courses for all the councilors and I've been working on both of um entertainment people to come in to to can kind of uh split up the days help Break Stuff up um we have like a flying high dog like frisbee show to jam puppet band which they're great kids band ice and some like s slid and science shows coming in for that so looking forward to a a fun summer there so do you guys still get Wayne from M Wayne from M I haven't heard that name in 15 years my jam new Wayne much better but Kudos Ed for doing all that stuff too thank you I've been doing this 18 years or so on the fact that we had 45 kids apply for a summer camp position like I talked to other towns and friends and they're begging us to send them the staff we don't have we're not doing that quite yet because a few kids that will bail out but um we had to turn away a lot of kids and again kudos to Ed and our summer camp directors as well that sat down with all these young kids who come in and they're nervous as can be um so they're gaining a lot out of it even though if they don't get a job or consistently encouraging them to come and how many reapplies for we have like fiveish so the difference was back coming back do they have to reapply or did they or we keep them on staff because a lot of them M works and birthday parties that we do we have the rocket birthday parties so we do keep them on staff um as well um we just have them do Cory as well too but we do um evaluations at the end of the year so our directors sit down with that I sit down on some as well and we do an evaluation on all these staff and we Mark you know are we interested in having them come back if we have questions we'll have them come back and interview um if we don't think they're good fit and they've been told different things they need to work on um we won't ask them to come back we'll ask them to re reapply um next year I believe in taking the best um some kids come in they start off good and they get comfortable um and that's where you get into trouble especially with kids at a summer camp so um it's nice to have that extra staff as well too um because if we do need to ask someone to you know leave we have someone that's ready to swoop right in as well so it puts a little pressure on these kids knowing that there is a a list of 35 Plus kids looking to get in there as well too good job um all right some things we're working on I know we got Nelson on here too I haven't met you yet Nelson but I just wanted to mention um Nelson's uh kind of been involved with uh talking with Jenna and um Kate as well um the tennis courts at bpro uh they they're at the point where they need to be resurfaced um again as well um I went out there last week myself Ed and Ryan went out there the town engine there we did see some cracks that are pretty significant um in the court we saw a lot of areas to that St in the bowl where water is constantly resting on there we actually saw the high school coach out there spoke to him as well too and the kids are always out there squeegeeing as well um when we do get some rain and when we do get rain it gets the cord a little Mucky and a little slick too so um I know Jenna and I know Nelson and Kate were talking about some grants they're currently working on as well um so I appreciate you Nelson kind of taking the lead and jumping on I don't know if you want to jump in and say hello um what you're interest in as well too because I mean moving forward you're probably going to be kind of a big part in trying to get these courts uh back up to where they once were yes thanks Jim um I have a daughter that's uh a seventh grader in coolage middle school and a big fan of tennis and I also and I also play a lot of tennis um I played in the Runing Tennis Open that Larry leati runs every year to raise money for supporting the high school teams and I think that our reading uh Birch meow tennis courts are really fantastic uh you know there are a few courts with lights and so there's actually a lot of people from out of town coming to reading to use our Courts at night which uh sometimes gets um a little contentious because even though we have the place scheduler um they're packed in the summertime so they're really really heavily used um but they are showing a lot of wear and tear there's a lot of cracks and uh the surface needs to be repainted um but but last year Coco go won the US Open and so the USA has a uh Grant initiative called the US Open Legacy initiative that actually adds 15% more to any grants that uh public facilities and towns can apply for so if we can successfully get a grant for this that could come up to like 35,000 that the USA could potentially Grant to us if we're successful in getting a grant um and I got some quotes from some vendors that uh price out repairing the cracks and repainting the surfaces and that cost is around 90k maybe at most 100K to resurface all six repair and resurface all six of the Courts at uh Birch Meadow so I think that you know if we can get this grant that might add some impetus to get this project uh started sooner rather than later uh my hope is to get it all fixed up so that when my daughter can try out for for the team uh reading will have new courts and have you know really good home court advantage so so that's my motivation uh for doing this and I hope that I can work with your committee to to make this happen appreciate it Nelson thank you thank you yeah nice all right few quick updates from me that I just wanted um I spent a lot of this past month working on procurement for all the folks who run programs with us that make over 10,000 it's a kind of a little bit of an extensive process so we're good for the next three years I don't have to do that again which will be nice um I'm going to share my screen again just to show you some pictures I never show you pictures I kind of talk about the stuff that's going on um but I never really show you photos so one thing I wanted to show folks was what uh DPW has been up to um so I don't know if you've been at barrows Bob you've probably been there I honestly I'm not I saw pictures I got to get over there barrows was in basically extreme bad shape I went out there um last fall and then early this spring and it was a field that I honestly didn't feel like it was safe for the kids to play in um where those infields were the lips were they looked like ski jumps um if kids chasing a Fly ball it was such depressions where I was afraid kids were going to roll their ankles blow out their knees um so I found out that ready reading Little League was in desperate need of using this for their younger division the six and seveny old so I met down there with Mike Hanford who's the parks and Cemetery and Forestry DOR ctor through DPW and we kind of chatted about some stuff reading Little League had some money that they were going to put on other fields and we kind of looked at this one and then Mike said to me you know I can probably have my guys do this we just might need some help with some sod so um at that point instead of taking away a field we don't have enough field space as it is as we all know um we came up with a plan um his guys could take care of the field and they've been out there since um I want to say probably for three weeks or so regrading this entire area getting a level bringing in clay bringing in top soil for the grass um these photos were from about a week ago um I'm G to show you the next one as well I don't know if I can just scroll is there a sprinkler system in there so that was another thing so I had to rely on Pete Isbell who I should give props as well over at the water department um there was a fountain on the back side of this field I don't think any of these photos are going to show the um the back side of the field so an issue was that we needed to keep the watered immediately get out there um so Pete iSell and his crew went out there and they hooked up a hose they were actually out there today getting more pressure to that hose so that they can run more water um one good thing with the rain all the rain that we've had over the last week they haven't had to water a lot um but a day like today the crew is out there as well and Jared Stanton who is the field coordinator for reading Little League um he's new this year um we're going to be coming up with a plan for the weekend so whether it's myself getting out there turning on the sprinklers getting this watered or his volunteer coaches um we're going to make sure that this gr um does take because it does need to stay wet consistently or um it will die pretty quick so I just want to there's a crew of about eight to 10 guys that have been out here and this field is probably going to be one of the the nicest fields in town right now and I mean probably all and were looking at $4,000 just to get this field up and playable for um this F so those are DPW Guys these are all DPW guys out here um Kudos that's great yeah in uh Little League went over there bought them all coffee got them all Donuts so this was this morning they got the last half of the saw in run that other side what they going to do is they're going to bring clay too you can kind of see that the grass is a little bit higher than the dirt right now so they're bringing an additional clay they'll level that off and the goal is to have this field open and fully functional towards the end of April may go into March um may may may I'm sorry we're not going backwards so um I just wanted to give them a oh that's awesome so if you see the guys at DPW or any of the DPW staff just give them um a Kudos um on that um and just another fun photo I think a good way to end the meeting I don't know if I had any other stuff that I wanted to bring up today I'm sure it was this was um our last uh trip that we had with uh the folks um over at the reading Memorial High School um that we did with the YMCA the best buddies as well we all went to the Celtics game we had a total of 33 kids we all met over at the train station and I'm not sure if they enjoyed the game more or if they enjoyed getting on that train going in there it was something cool a lot of these kids have never been on a train without you know sitting side by side um we were lucky enough to get seats up in the um what do they call that I can't think of the Raptors but they called it the something lounge or the club but it was all the way up at the top so literally we got right into Noah station had an elevator shot right up there Legend club I what's it called Legend like the Legend club Gard soet so we were up at the top and we had our own little section two rows of seats that were overlooking the court and um a neat Park too we also had a sensory room that was sitting directly behind us so there a few folks of wear headphones they get over stimulated so if an issue arose we had that sensory room where they could go back and away from the noise and relax um and getting back about 10:30 the kids had a blast we left a little bit early because the train I think rolled about what time it 9:40 I think it was and if we missed that train we would have been stuck there till 11 20 so we made sure we were there in plenty of time so I want to give thanks to for draft king um I know I almost cut that out get a photo of them all too excited to watch the game it was another great event thanks to John tuo thanks to the staff who were uh work over at the reading high school and the special education department thanks to there's a number of best buddies um that are in here as well so we had the students we had staff from three different organizations and I've worked in other towns you don't see Town departments like Rec departments getting along with School departments and Rec departments let alone getting along with YMCAs um as well so the fact that we have this um I think it speaks voling to to the town and the people that are in these positions as well so let's all end this meeting make motion second all in favor thank you everyone Thanks for dealing with all my emails everyone all right Jenna can I ask you a quick question sure he might end the meeting but okay are you all set with the Grant application or do you need more help from me no so all I need to do is enter in that USA number which I think that I'll be able to get like if if the one that we have doesn't work I can just reapply for our own tomorrow okay and it should be done by tomorrow so I'll let you know the one that I'm applying for is um the Ws up to 25,000 um add the do the Legacy one though because that adds another 15% more so you can get up to 35,000 should I do both or yeah do do both but the the US Open Legacy one adds another 15% on top so you can get up to 35,000 for that one okay so the um so the U hold on um so the US ta also does the US leg US Open Legacy one yes okay it's it's on the the link you'll see like Coco Go's face it says US Open Legacy initiative it's on the same inquiry form that you filled out before but just specify you know whatever information on the project planning or in the comments page that you're applying for the US Open Legacy initiative because that was for because it's it's for public facilities you know Coco goof had played trained on public park courts so so that's what they're doing it might it might you know get the grant up there in in the review process okay awesome all right so I'll do that tomorrow and if I have any issues with that one I'll let you know okay great all right thanks Nelson thanks Force see you Jenna you too have a good night you too bye e e e e e e e e e for