right it's being recorded uh good afternoon everyone today is uh March 14th and I thank everyone for their flexibility on being able with very little notice to shift from Wednesday to Friday um which keeps
us on track to be able to get through all the projects so I'm call seeing that there's a quorum I'm going to call the meeting to order by first going around uh making sure the committee can hear and we can hear them and I'll just call
out your names as I see them on the screen Bob present uh let's see uh Council Lord present Sarah Marshall pres and M
uh one two and Lee Edwards I knew there was another no everyone else here is a presenter and and Melissa I'm going to let you um you know what order you told people would they would be coming in so um we have a variety of departments here
today and I think you had said Recreation or Ry was going to go first because of scheduling but I don't know whether that's still true yeah so Ry was going to go first uh on on Wednesday when we were supposed to have the meeting so I apologize to
everyone it's um I I had trouble with the website and did not post Post in time so I know this has been a scramble um but if we could do the order of um Stephanie first uh and then Rey uh so
Stephanie in um sustainability then Ry and then the fire department because they have the biggest the biggest package so so you guys can wait are you okay with that Chiefs okay and I just wanted to let everyone know because a few people came on just as we were
charting um Melissa is going to be able to put an updated vehicle list in the packet although it's going to be missing DPW and several questions were sent in in advance and they were answered so there questions and answers in the
packet I actually hadn't seen those but we can continue if people haven't seen them to proceed as we would normally but we'll have them as part of the record for when we're looking at the project list so I think we're we're ready to go Stephanie
okay thank you so much um can you hear me okay yes great yes I can excellent um so I was pretty much moving forward with requesting the same amount of capital uh for this year as well as last year um
right now our our request is broken down to several categories 1,000 or engineering studies or consultants for weatherization and Energy Efficiency um 25,000 for engineering pertaining to solar installation projects recommended
in an acadis report that was done in 2022 um 50,000 additional funding to support bridging gaps for um projects that have more uh standard equipment and sort of making those uh
transitions to more sustainable options um so this funding can Bridge a gap for say as an example a vehicle that might there might be funding for a regular um standard vehicle but we could use some of these funds to help get that vehicle
to be uh an electric vehicle or a hybrid vehicle on the difference in the cost and then um 25,000 is requested for um continuing to support infrastructure at the community gardens specifically the Fort River farm community garden and
Amethyst Brook and then also to sort of um look to maybe build out some other um community garden opportunities so that's basically the request for this year um which is fairly similar to last year and I'm I'm just looking for hands
so I'll start out um last year did you spend the whole amount you know you gave us a list and yes yes so we did not and part of the reason is because we I've been working much more closely with
facilities over the past few years and um we're strategizing on how to sort of decarbonize buildings decarbonize transportation and so we haven't quite been able to
move at least the building portion forward yet which is really what that the chunk of that funding really is really dedicated for buildings um because we're waiting on the assessments to be completed um so once those assessments are completed this funding could be used for an
engineering an engineering design um which is almost always part of projects and even when we're looking for funding for grant funding in almost every single case we're required to have some kind of engineering design as part
of the application Pro um process to secure funding because they want those to be shovel ready basically so I'm thinking about you know Green communities um unless I'm getting funding for more studies which you know again is competitive and then we're not guaranteed to get it so having this kind
of access to these opportunities is really important because you know at any given time if there's a project opportunity that presents itself um you know we can't always foresee if something is going to go down it's an opportunity to have funds accessible to say you know we can get the engineering
done with these funds so um that is the case for at least some of those funds I would say U you know the solar installation projects I would say that's a similar um response to that with the buildings is that we're just
not quite ready um we haven't been ready to sort of um apply those funds quite yet um and then the other funds I've definitely been asked by other departments to help support purchase of for instance um we installed EV chargers at the police Department that was a
collaboration with the facilities Department sustainability and and uh facilities to install those single port um charging infrastructure at the APD uh we'd like to start doing that to more facilities so those funds were you know
accessible it wasn't a long-term plan it just you know the opportunity was arising and so we were asked by APD if we could do that so we were able to Pivot and provide the funds to do that you know in short order um and then as far as the garden the Community Gardens
um there's still more infrastructure that has to be uh installed in terms of a water source for the Fort River par community garden and I think there's more that we could do to support the amethyst Brook Community Garden as well Lee I I see your hand is up uh yeah
yes can you can you hear me yes yes yeah I have a question about about the gardens because I know that we have a Citizens request for support for a garden in some particular area and I'm wondering if
that would be at all appropriate under this and my second question is is it likely that some amount of money every year is going to come along for support of Community Gardens is this once you
put a garden in is it the responsibility of the town to keep maintaining or is it the responsibility of the entity where the garden has been seated as it were to keep maintain it that was a two-part question so I'll
start with the first part um I I apologize that I'm not aware of the citizens request for the garden so I don't even know how much that is or what was or where it's being requested for so um I'm I'm not sure I I would just my response would be possibly I don't see
why not um I think it just depends on how much and where it is um and then as far as um sort of the longterm I think the idea is that these funds to at least in my mind are sort of to get the gardens up and
running so I do foresee that there may be like ongoing things like you know compost is a big you know a big purchase item that's going to be every year there's always going to be a need for compost um if infrastructure needs are things like you know the the Water
Source if something breaks down we'll certainly need funding to support you know fixing you know whatever the water source is um I do think you know we've we've supplied at least the Fort River Farm Garden getting that up and running
we've supported them and I will say this is because we used arpa funds but we did Supply them with some tools to begin with not a tool for every Gardener but just tools that are accessible so if a gardener forgot something or something broke when they were there they would
have access I don't think it's the responsibility of the town to buy every Gardener tool but I do think having some kind of General Supply accessible at the gardens would be beneficial and helpful so that may be a year-to-year kind of
request um so I do think there will be ongoing requests to support the gardens uh in that in that manner I see Sarah has a question I have two questions um first about the Garden or maybe a comment I I wouldn't
consider compost to be a capital request that's a yearly or at least frequent Supply like I don't know you know weed preventor or fungicide if you use it maybe not in the community garden but in any case I wouldn't support that if it is
being um included in a capital request um but my question about the bridging the bridging funds um which I I understand is to pay the the premium for an electric vehicle over gas powered or
maybe it's hybrid do you does somebody actually calculate that premium or is this just kind of here's some money to help um well it's been primarily available as money to
help but I would say that you know for instance with the fire department they installed anti-idling um technology on the ambulance that came from sustainability funds so they purchased the ambulance with a capital funds request but to get that technology
on to the ambulance they used sustainability funds to help them so that was priced they knew what the cost of that was for that in that particular inst instance yes but like for instance the the charging that we put on um AP that we just installed that wasn't
necessarily calculated ahead of time that was something that came sort of um it came up as they were looking ahead to in the future be purchasing electric vehicles they wanted to be able to be equipped with the charging so that they
could move forward and have that infrastructure ready to go and we do have a new you know we do have um an updated vehicle policy and becoming in our application to become a climate leader Community um we were required to update our our
vehicle policy so that new vehicle purchases for staff so I'm not saying all of our equipment needs to all be electric eventually we would like to move in that direction but for staff Vehicles right now they're required to be replaced with electric vehicles
primarily first and if um if for whatever reason a an electric vehicle isn't suitable or available for that need then it would be a hybrid vehicle so um yes I don't I don't see I don't feel that's answering my question and
that installing an EV charger is a separate Capital thing but you're saying there's $50,000 to contribute towards electric vehicles and I my question is is that going to be attributed based on the actual extra
cost of buying the EV vehicle compared to the not EV vehicle she's talking about does it help buy difference is cost difference between those Vehicles yes well if if if it's being
requested I mean this is for also applies for buildings as well um so for instance the the calculating the difference between replacing a boiler and then putting in a heat pump um typically those things are factored out you know I don't have a list of things
right now but if someone is coming to me and requesting that funding then they are calculated out okay so this is a a pool basically but then it will be spent according to actual calculations of here oh yes yes yes absolutely yeah it's not
willy-nilly handed out it's you know like we have this thing that we want to purchase and we want to make it more efficient here's the cost without the efficiency here's the cost with the efficiency yes that was yes I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't fully understand your question okay and then what about the
compost tell me that's not a capital well I so I I guess I you know honestly I mean to me it it's you know I I do see that as when we buy equipment for a department is that you know if I was
replacing a telephone is that going to be a capital expense I mean compost is I don't know if you're seeing it as an operations thing or you know as you know and to in my mind it's um I mean it doesn't seem operational it does seem
like the purchase of something that's used I guess I I you know I would question you as like how you view it I think it could go either way quite frankly in my mind I put it towards Capital because it seemed more of like the tools it seems
like um like purchasing I agree purchasing fertilizer to me those are those are capital expenses I haven't seen them as operational expenses and if that's otherwise I just need to be educated on the difference but that's
why I put it in cap capital okay well I would say it's like gasoline you know it's it's it's used over time you you apply it to your asset it's not part of the asset and it's well it's not so that's but but maybe we have some official policy I
don't know I think there's also a dollar value for whatever there there's a $10,000 value Sarah for it's yeah some it's not Capital if it's not that much right right so telephone yeah so I don't know how much compos cost I don't buy it
in anything like that quantity but I just have that I have that concern yeah so I want to ask one Lee if you don't mind that's not related to The Farms um the it's one that was you've already answered in the answer sheet but uh when
we met and we were talking about the request for bangs one of the things Dave Zac had and he is here but he had said it could be um if we want to reduce or eliminate it he said one of the things you might we might need to do is the
design for the boiler for the banks where everything El the rest of the system will be ready and I asked whether the design for the that that could come out of your sustainability and I just read your answer and the answer was yes
so it could absolutely we would have to have a separate line item for it it could it could draw on your funds yes absolutely okay thank you and iie yeah this and this I think Kathy's a question more for you it seems to me that every once in a
while I read something in the paper that says are we going to keep maintaining Cherry Hill as a municipal golf course we have to go now to that's a good segue to Ray harp who runs it and that's a
separate piece if if you don't mind keeping okay okay it just completely relevant to one of the requests that's right intersection with Stephanie and Ray um perfect so you've heard the question already so I I think does
anyone else have any questions just of the sustainability fund or should we go to the when I said there's an intersection because it's it's charging stations Rob Bob I see your hand us up yeah yeah I just um I don't want to keep
belaboring the point on on um compost but the the town collects compost at the transfer station bagfuls after bag full um what happens to that can we use that on the on the community Farms I I think
the um I don't know if so I think some of it may have been used but I also think that when we're using the compost on the um Gardens I know because of where they're located we've been more careful about about what we put on the soil there
because of the runup because there are wetlands all around it I was the former Wetlands administrator so it's one of those things that I'm I'm always thinking about um so I you know I think we've been very careful to Source our compost from somewhere when we know
exactly what's going into it um so and we've worked with uh Folks at the UMass AG division in terms of locating sources and that kind of thing so we don't just use any compost okay fair
enough is these are great questions so we're do you want to just slide into I you know part of part of Ray's request was related to Garden I mean to golf course and uh charging stations correct
so I'm turning it over to you Ray I actually don't have anything immediate for charging stations that's uh um Melissa do you want to speak I I think there is if there's questions about that charging station that is a uh
so the charging okay that was just under that's under Stephanie okay sorry no so the charging stations as they relate to um Cherry Hill is an out-year request I think in 28 okay um because we collectively as a group meaning
Stephanie Ray and I were looking at the renewal of the um golf cart leases that um Ray just did and he has currently a three-year lease but at the end of that lease you know it occurred to us that we should be looking at a more sustainable option at the
Cherry Hill Golf Course to be consistent with you know our our overall goals as a community to do um the most um have the least carbon footprint and uh electric golf Arts are
very common and um and would work fine but but the facility is not set up currently to maintain that structure so we put it on as an outy your request you know with like I mean honestly I made up the numbers I don't really know what
it's going to cost we you know we'll look into that but it's not something that we need to uh do right now it's it's part of like well we have some time we have we have we currently have a a golf cart solution um but when we go to
renew that um is there a more sustainable option and in order to do that we would need enough charging stations uh to to accommodate enough carts which which we don't have right now right now of course it's just gas and they're parked where they're parked and they don't need to plug into
anything so that that that additional expense of uh the the golf cart um charging stations to be made available and the the additional cost that the electric carts are currently
more expensive than the gas cars and so we kind of looked at those pricing that pricing with Stephanie um figured out that we couldn't do that for this leas renewal but that we should look at it for next time okay so the so Ray the things you
have so it it leads and Lee asked on are we going to keep the golf course going which I think is a a separate question I mean we did have a discussion about that at the council um so for the time being if we assume it's going to keep going we have uh one
request from from Recreation that is the irrigation system um and that's what I'm seeing here Ray is that correct correct um and there's a little bit of a of a of a ad Li uh piece and there also but I
can tell you it's it's all related to the same essential issue um this past year uh the way our irrigation system essentially works is we have uh it's a it's a computer controller that stays in the in the uh uh uh Browns Keepers shed
that that sends messages out to all of the receivers on the course uh of electric sensors in the field um they're about there they're about eight I believe areas around the course that that have networks of
sensors it's electrical transmission from our our controller in the clubhouse to the field that that that uh produces the water for the for the courses um this past year uh summer 24
this past summer there was a lightning strike that hit us it was a massive lightning strike that damaged the uh that damaged that whole electrical system um you know it was costly for us to replace that it was costly for us to find uh sort of emerged not have to shut
the course down um our grounds crew did a fantastic job of of responding right away we were able to were able to uh uh keep the course up and running despite the fact that our system was not speaking to itself right now at that at
that stage what we found I found I think I think uh John Quello probably knew this already but what we found was that the controller being 20 years old um uh uh in order to
replace that controller it' be uh the way I explain it to myself uh through through through the explanation here is essentially if you all of a sudden had damage to a iPhone that you had 20 years ago it was uh that that that finding the
the the equipment to fix that piece of technology from 20 years ago uh our our existing controller doesn't speak to any of the components that we're able to get and save and replace we able to repair replace a bunch of electrical components
in the field but there is no communication with our controller we need a new controller the first and most important piece that we put on here is a 40,000 requests for that controller um um you know so so right
now our system operates on sort of across your fingers and hope that we don't get hit by another electrical storm because that would we are definitely susceptible in in any situation where that happens right now the first the first most important piece
is that we get a a computer that speaks to the equipment that we're able to we're able to piece together and find on the cores which just doesn't happen with our computer right now um the second part of that and that's not in this request uh the
wording originally included the grounding device also but we had originally taped because I I was under the understanding that we have grounding devices out there um um there is a
$60,000 ad in next year's uh capital Q for grounding devices that that uh uh basically it's a to to be able to put u u equipment into the fields around those eight stations around those eight or
nine stations however many stations it is out there to to to BL uh grounding devices into the course so that so that we can protect that equipment in the field now from a strike the computer will the the computer
allows us to to run an operational system that's the $40,000 ask that we have as our one major priority this year our major priority for next year which I I may be asking you all to consider for this year also is the $60,000 grounding
devices because if a lightning lightning comes this year and those pieces get fried because we don't have them then we're going to be right back in the same situation again well I'm just gonna Ray it's just so you know it's not on the
list what's on the list for next year is dredging and carpeting um I just I'm just looking I can subm I can submit to you all I submitted to well but well we'll have a discussion I'm not asking you to go to lot of work I'm just saying for for any
of who's looking at the list that's not I have an updated I can share with all of you all or I can share with you Kathy even now if necessary but I I have do everything through Melissa please I will absolutely um Sarah yeah first of all I
I didn't see a request form for the irrigation system maybe I missed it I mean I saw the email about the there's 40,000 um I see it in the table I didn't see it a form that's Oh you mean in the form
yeah yeah yeah and it's I I I really want to have the form for everything we're considering it's just I'm pretty sure he submitted it I might not have moved it to the new meeting time so I can um okay but but but Ray definitely submitted in a form great great um yeah
I'm not so interested in the quotes and I'm not saying they came from Ry I mean I'm not purchasing expert so excuse me my question though about the golf course is we are in a critical
drought do we continue to irrigate the golf course during the critical drought um and I only ask because like we could spend this money and then shut down the course because there's just no water
so what does any Ray or if he's still there what's do we have a policy about that you might you might also describe the my understanding of how it's irrigated there's this murky pond in the middle of it and I think most of the
water is coming through that rather than through if there's water in it if there's water in it right and when when you talk about the drought that got really down and the course got really Brown um so maybe other s can who actually know how the irrigation because
I think it was kind of shutting itself down because it wasn't water to work with I see Dave's hand go ahead Dave come on yeah yeah I'm happy to have can everybody hear me yeah happy to have Ry
jump in but Kathy you're absolutely right so one of the key differences during a drought is is whether you're using for whatever outdoor purpose you're talking about whether you're using pable water or not so that's that's a big concern you know particularly with irrigation systems
that houses most of them use portable water from our water system and during a drought we really don't want to be using that when we could be we should be using that for cooking and and drinking etc etc so we work with the colleges and the
university to try to uh decrease their use of portable water during that during those drought periods in the case of Cherry Hill um you know Ry has talked about the in past meetings the pump so so we pump from groundwater and a an
irrigation Pond that fills uh through a very Antiquated system out there from the from I believe it's the Dickinson Brook yes um which is a small tributary of the Mill River so when that works and and when it's all functioning we
irrigate as much as possible when the level of the the irrigation Pond and again that's nonpotable water that's just water from a stream think about it as from a stream or a pond it is not filtered it is just you know it's just water that is flowing naturally through
that stream um but when there is a drought and that pond goes down and and the level of the the brook goes down we are at the mercy of Mother Nature so we do as far as I know we've never considered putting you know saving the
grass for That season using portable water I think we would never do that during a drought it is what it is and yes as Kathy mentioned sometimes there's a brown out out there so that's kind of where it's at so the cost of putting water on the course is really any fuel
we use and electricity we use to put that water on the course we did not use plottable water and I don't think we ever would thank you thank you Dave any other questions on on
this and Lee I'm I'm we can reserve a point when we're talking about what we want to write up or a few sentences on the future of the golf course but I think not taking time now would be makes the most sense to me on that I I agree
okay thank you that conversation is I know I've spoken at length about it at this meeting before but that conversation is one that uh town hall and myself are are running through right now oh well excuse me but if there's if
there's a question about whether we're keeping this golf course or not you know assure me that putting $40,000 into it then isn't a waste of money I can I can let Dave jump in after
this the question is not whether or not we are going to be operating this golf course in the foreseeable future the question is about the longterm uh the long-term structure at Cherry Hill to answer a lot of the questions uh
that U you know that I assume are probably at the at the Forefront of Lee's question there could be other questions involved there but we are looking at the long-term uh structure and and presence of Cherry Hill uh there
is no question about whether or not this is going to be a a active and important function of my department for the aable future Dave I see your hand went up on this sure I'll quickly just add um for
the committee um I know Paul has mentioned in the past forming some sort of a group a working group to look at you know the history of Cherry Hill the the current status of Cherry Hill infrastructure Etc uh the budgets and
and moving forward and I think Kathy or somebody you know put out there at the beginning you know are we going to continue to offer this and then and Ray is correct in the short term we we we expect to fully you know move forward and and have another successful year out
of cherry um but Paul is working with Ry and myself on on the the charge for this working group and really what we'll be looking at is you know what's the rationale for for offering this service through Recreation who are we serving
how much does it cost should we continue to do it and should we expect expected to be self-supporting so I think you'll hear be hearing more from Paul and Ray on that working group in the coming weeks um so we are Paul is intending to
launch that group very soon to look at again the long-term questions about uh Cherry Hill in the in the meantime this request is it certainly protects our ability to be open and operate because we are making
good revenue on the course uh that I think I think that we want to continue to do and so this is protecting our investment this is a this is entirely a protection of our operations on the course right now and just just so people know when we looked at it they're closer
to and sometimes more than breaking even so it's not the money loser that it was five or 10 years ago you know in terms of the money that comes in versus operating so I think we have time to now to say thank
you very much to Ray and Stephanie and next is fire is that correct Melissa or am I or I'm missing something thank you everybody you're correct Fire's next you okay welcome welcome
hello lindsy need me to make it so that one of you guys can share your screen I know you guys had some stuff you wanted to present right if you're able to that um packet which starts with just a summary of our requests and then The Narrative of our requests we can work our way through that okay let me see if
I can I can give an overview and then each one of the three of us is going to handle different parts of the requests based on what we take care of here so this is what you sent me yesterday right
correct should be titled Capital request summary fire Capital narratives is this one yeah that's probably it yeah okay I have the right thing up there that correct nope that's it thank you
okay and I I guess I'll just tell you when to advance the page y sure um so hello everybody um I'm here obviously as a chief of the department I have my two assistant Chiefs Steve Gan and assistant chief omstead here and this is just a summary you're looking at now which I
will some go through very quickly and then the subsequent pages are the our usual descriptions of our requests so you can wrap your heads around them uh with photos and I at the very end when we get to our last request which is about an ambulance the very last page of
this packet which you should have uh just gives you a summary timeline which I'll talk about afterwards about the vehicles we either have on order received or are going to order so this is our summary of our existing request for FY 206 um which we'll take you through in a
moment replacement hose which comes up periodically 30,000 and Melissa when I say where it's coming from if I'm wrong you can interject uh from cash capital automatic CPR devices 44,000 from our ambulance fund cardiac monitors 130,000
from our ambulance fund I believe all those items were showing for this year last year uh protective gear for those of you that are newer to the committee that's 50,000 we typically have as a recurring number every year uh due to some grants that Citizen Chief gone will talk about we're actually able to pull
that back this year to 20,000 Public Safety radio replacement uh phase two I'll just point out here that's for police and fire and when we get to that section I'll expand on what that is you'll see a couple of items that have been uh crossed out those are
requests we put in that through round one of capital with the town manager and Melissa those have been deferred to next year so I won't spend any time on those and then under Vehicles we do have an ambulance which we'll discuss by 500,000
from ambulance funds I believe that's something Melissa will need to weigh in on I'm not sure if that ambulance funds or coming from the University for this particular fiscal year and then uh a fire prevention vehicle that so that is ambulance funds Lindsay okay so is is it
the last ambulance that's already on order that UMass is paying for um well the the UMass money for ambulance support goes into the ambulance fund and then therefore gets transferred from the ambulance fund to
cover so it's coming from the ambulance fund okay awesome thank you so if you want to advance to the uh next page Melissa we'll start on our we'll quickly Summarize each item so Steve this is
yours H thank you everyone I'm Steve gone I'm the new assistant fire chief i i i f Chief stren's uh position here so hose so just to give me let me see if I can share we will let me share my screen Melissa um yeah I can stop sharing and
see if you can yeah it says I can can replace it yeah yep okay good hold on so if you look at this I it just gives us a little overview of where we're at so hose we have 18,900 feet of Hose um moving water and and putting water on
fires and emergencies is our business um and and that's critical so if you look at we have we have five engines in a in a in a ladder and each one of them carries roughly 2700 ft it puts 18,900 ft of Hose it's a lot of Hose um as I look back in the history here looks like
the first uh the last time you know when this really started appear in capital was was uh about five or six years ago we're grateful FY 25 we were able to get $25,000 in capitals for hose replacement we were able to buy 3900 3950 ft of Hose
um it's at a 12 months of delivery time so we will see it in about 11 months um FY 26 we're asking for $30,000 it's going to get us another 4950 ft of Hose we're f i I believe that we can hold the
same price that we just paid on the fy2 five purchase um and if you look longterm because we do have some long-term um hose request you can see in 28 in fy3 we ask for we ask for for additional funds um if you put all this
together somewhere around the year after fy3 we should have replaced 18, 850 ft of Hose which in estimate is about our our total um the thing with hose is this is that we we put a lot of pressure through hose we have you know everywhere
from the to get water to the top of a four or five story building to the 22 story you know uh dormatory Library libraries um a lot of pressure so we can't just continue to use hose that is damaged um and and such like that um our supply hose is in excess of 15 years old
uh a fair amount of our attack hose is is is upwards of 10 years old so so this is in reality this is is a significant need if you look at our plan and our layout for how we've requested funding for hose it's it's it's Progressive it takes time it'll get us through fy3
before it's completed but it will it will meet the needs and put us in a very good position if there's no questions we can go on to the next page that you have Melissa okay Sarah hands is up Sarah yeah just um so what is the expected
lifetime of of a hose like after by fy3 everything's replaced then how many years off till we do this again the recommendation is you replace hose in about 10 years but in reality if you care for it and I think we do we've had we have host who lasted excess of 15 um
you can get you can get an excess of that you can get 15 out of it um and and feel good about it's about testing it's about cleaning it um pressure testing it and and making sure that it's still still compliant um a burst hose can obviously be a critical failure somewhere in the system right both on
injury and supplying water to everything from a sprinkler system to to a hose line at a house um and so yeah 10 years is about the standard um but we've we've actually successfully put 15 years in in our supply hose here and much of our attack hose already excessive
10 thank you right so Jeff's going to talk about the automatic CPR devices if you can just scroll down a little bit Melissa thanks thanks Melissa uh Jeff instead um nice to see everybody so the two items I have uh on this are the CPR devices the
automatic CPR devices this is actually a followup of last year's um purchase on our initial ask last year we asked for five as we sort of went through the the finance process we realized we needed uh two more because
we have the two efr uh fire engines we thought we had that and uh had been approved for that and then when it was all said and done um we' don't been received the funding for the first five so I'm asking the $44,000 for the uh
last two uh six and seven devices that'll uh be part of the efr uh engines what we did was instead of trading in um all five devices last year of the older versions we did have that were well over 10 years old we kept two of those um
better uh units and now that uh we've hit this year we're asking for the next two and we'll trade those uh older over 10y old units into uh offset a little bit of the pricing any questions on the CPR
devices I don't see any hands up okay thank you cardiac monitors so I'm asking for $130,000 unfortunately for only two uh cardiac monitors uh these are to replace we have a total of seven of these
paramedic level uh cardiac monitors defibrillators that do a variety of different things including defibrillation um and pacing uh run blood pressures O2 SATs and title CO2 uh very functional uh both for adult and
pediatric patients and these two are to replace two of the existing over 10-year-old devices we have um they will go on to the front online ambulances and we'll move two of our older Uh current lp1 15s instead of these LP 35s uh to
the engines as technology gets better uh prices go up this is what the current cost is of of providing this level of service unfortunately any questions I can answer
on the cardiac monitors I don't see any hands thank you protective clothing that comes back to me Melissa I'm going to try that again I'm going to share another thing okay let's see it should looks like it will so what you can see here is that our our request is for for $20,000 this
year um so we have roughly 90 90 total firefighters we have 50 uh kadre of 5050 permanent fire full-time firefighter we have um upwards of 30 um you know 25 to 30 student firefighters and we have 10
to 15 call Firefighters this time um so so that's obviously 90 sets of of protective clothing that we looked at um so we look at that we we continuously you try to the nfps standards there's a lot of requirement standards that that new that gear they have to have protective gear that's 10 years or less
there's actually a lot of training requirements and restrictions that we would not be able to take part in if we have gear that's greater than 10 years um technology and things science things break down gear breaks down so there's a lot of risk after 10 years so we were very lucky we we applied for and and we were able to get an assistant to
Firefighters Grant we get 76 sets of gear that that should be on their way it's a value of $300,000 it's done a lot for us that's allowed us to reduce in in the overall scheme right we were able to reduce our requests this year from 50,000 to 20,000 in in in the capital
request um that being said the Grant is great and it but it's going to get us coats and pants um and a single set of coat and pants is about $3,600 but it's going to get us coats and pants um what the grant doesn't do is it doesn't do helmets it doesn't do gloves doesn't
boots things like that um so as we look at continuing like why do we need any funds this year that's probably a question that's out there is things like helmets right so we do an assessment we did a gear needs assessment of of the department as a whole we have 11 full-time Personnel who have helmets
that expire so we're talking helmets that are 10 years 12 13 years old um they expire they expire basically July 1st that 12 month period is when they'll some of them will expire um helmets about $500 so you're looking at $5500 in helmets we have four vacancies um we are
actively trying to fill those four vacancies each one will require gear that's $3,600 for a set coat and pants um that's 144 so very quickly we're going to eat up the FY 26 request um it's 19,900 um we we obviously reduced our
request because we understand there's other asks right and we had other asks this year and and we felt it's reasonable and something we can manage we look at FY 27 just because I think it's important to see that we look at this gear we look at our gear that we have right now the goal is for the
permanent Force members to have two sets of gear because if we have a gear a fire or something an incident a snow emergency and people gets their gear gets soaking wet we need to put him in dry gear because if you send them to a fire with soak and wet gear they'll get steam burns among other things um and so
you need that second set of gear we also do a lot of gear washing now we've gained some grants for gear washers um for cancer prevention right so we need that second set for at least the full-time people so there's 16 sets that need to be replaced starting that July
one and the FY 27 in that 24mon window so that's what the the FY 27 funds look at right so that's 16 sets it's actually about 57,600 but we'll Pace it over the FY 27 and and probably and into FY 28 um things that aren't even on here
turning to protective clothing is that boots are $650 a pair gloves are $150 a pair and hoods are $59 a pair each um so it it actually has it's it's obviously a costly you know Venture but it it is it is safety it is personal protective equipment um and that really summarized
why we want just $20,000 this year any questions I'm not see any hands up Sarah yeah just about the the gloves and the help um I forget the gloves helmets or
whatever was in the the things not covered so are you paying for those out of just your operating budget uh so so we we we try to take them out of protective clothing um and and and then we yes and sometimes a little bit it comes out of operating so we generally
don't have to we don't have to replace hoods often um and gloves that then boots they all last a number of years um so they're not they're not even they're not annual and reoccurring for every single every single individual every year um and so we we kind of pick them off you know you can obviously have
somebody put something through a glove right you know uh puncture a glove or something get it in a piece of glass or something and obviously we then dispose of it um but there's other gloves that last years there's boots that last years boots generally last the 10 years um short of of of getting a hole right
taking on water um and then hoods hoods are again washable reusable and and I I think there's people we don't issue even people don't get new hoods every year so it's the the new people we would we fil figure it into that $3,600 a hood and things like that so you were just
showing us what the cost is I was just you need you need to buy 36 sets of these or something yeah I just wanted to show you the cost I think that when we people talk about protective clothing they only think about the coat and the pants and sometimes they don't think about those other things which realistically that's actually that you
know just s or $800 right there in that stuff per person at times Bob yes I was just going to ask uh assistant chief uh gone to uh provide the spreadsheets uh to Melissa so I'm I'm taking notes and it would be very
helpful for my minutes in in order to uh see those spreadsheets if you can happy to send that over okay thank you yeah so um these these exhibits are also very useful you know they may be in our packet but I didn't get a chance to
check it I think the paragraphs are very are a good way of seeing these so thank you very much it's more interesting to look at those photos and look at us talking yeah brings it to life right so the next one the radio system
um I'll expand on this a little bit or I'll summarize what's here for those that weren't part of the process last year a couple things I want to point out so this is called the public safety radio system replacement Phase 2 so the first thing as I mentioned earlier this
is a joint police fire item we chose in talking to the police department last year to put this under the fire department umbrella for Capital because it has to go under one department or the other so it's been under the fire last year for phase one under Fire for phase two it is a 5050 project to benefit the
police department's operations and the fire department's operations so phase one last year which was approved for uh about $900,000 is to replace the what we call the infrastructure which is all the essentially the base station radios that
are positioned around town for receive and transmit or police and fire so that project is underway phase two uh which you see here is to replace what we call in the business subscriber units those are the actual radios mobiles and
Portables that live in the fire trucks live in the police cars the ambulance is and that the firefighters and police officers carry around what you might call a walkietalkie it's a portable radio so this phase two is all about mobiles and portables for the
firefighters and the police officers it is buying the modern what we call triband radio so they're able to operate on VHF UHF and 800 megahertz which are three different frequency bands within the radio spectrum this day and age we
really need to have all three we fire V VF Amis police is UHF all our neighboring fire departments are VHF by the way Franklin County is now 800 megahertz so depending within the town we VHF UHF but as you go out to other
towns for Mutual a or they come here everybody's using different things so this the way to deal with that these days is to have radios that are capable of doing everything and that's what we be purchasing it not only gives us the ability to talk to other agencies Mutual aid but it gives just police and and
Amorous the ability to talk to each other as well so that is what this particular item is for it's the same as was presented last year the dollar amount has gone up uh because all costs are going up especially Electronics so that's what this 1.1 million is for now
is for all the subscriber units for police and fire and the pictures there just give you a a rough snapshot the one on the left is the base station example that's being replaced this year the one in the middle is a mobile that would be installed in a fire or police vehicle and then one on
the right is a portable that would be carried by the police officers and firefighters sorry I see a hand yeah um I'm looking for any um hands up Sarah go ahead yeah thanks is there um any resale
or salvage value for the units you'll be replace um essentially no for the older ones uh we've used them essentially to pass end of life so there's really no value of them to be honest any of the ones that are still serviceable we still
do have some that are on the newer end of things and resemble some of what you've seen not in terms of the base stations but in terms of the mobiles and Portables um those are actually we're not going to get rid of those been uh into our in terms of the count that we're going to buy anything that's less than 5 years old we're going to keep
and it'll be put in secondary Vehicles we're not going to get rid of any of that stuff anything that's 15 to 20 years old essentially has no value it's it would be recycled and go ahead go no go ahead um with us breaking it the last year you
actually asked it all at once and we broke it into two pieces um will this now um Melissa said the other day that we hadn't moved the first piece will this now the whole system will be purchased at once is is that what the plan will be you know um in terms of a
timeline and doing it yes in terms of an actual contractual purchase it would be separate it hasn't moved forward yet because we've run into we were're under the impression we're going to be able to order this under State bid um we're discussing that with town hall now they seem to believe we need to go out to bid
um versus just buy it on state bid so that has sort of stalled the project while the procurement piece of it gets sorted out so that's where we are right now with phase one so yes by the time phase one is sorted out if we are granted the money for this year for FY
26 then in fact it would all be happening roughly together and do you have there's been a on a lot of the pieces there's been a lag in the money is authorized you're ready to buy and delivery do you have a sense on this
equipment will there be a a will you run into I know you can't predict easily no we we we try to stay on top but there will be some not as much as I'm going to talk about in the second with an ambulance or a vehicle but in terms of electronics the um infrastructure phase
one doesn't sound like it's much of a lag time we'd be able to get that within one to couple of months of ordering it there is a sounds like about a six Monon backlog on mobile and portable radios so nothing ridiculous just a little bit of a
weight so the ambulance which is our last one from for this year um this is part of our our cycle to replace ambulances to keep them for roughly a 10year lifespan we have five ambulances so that means every two years roughly we are looking to purchase a new
ambulance um this ambulance would be identical to what we've bought the last couple of times it's a Ford Chassis four-wheel drive um it is uh tying back into what Stephanie was talking about uh the last three ambulances we've purchased are hybrids as is our newest
fir TR hybrid in our world really means idle mitigation uh so the actual engine it's not like a Prius it doesn't shut off at the traffic lights it's a diesel motor but most of our firet trucks and ambulances spend their hours of Life uh
parked and running at emergency scenes versus driving like a delivery truck so idle mitigation is where it's at to save on fuel and wear and tear so all these units have an idle mitigation system where about 5 10 seconds after you park the vehicle it actually shuts off goes
to battery power runs all the lights radios heat AC Etc and to tie back into what Stephanie was talking about we get a price for the actual vehicle they give us what the price is going to be to add idle mitigation it's typically a thir 25
to $30,000 up charge for an ambulance or fire TR and for our last three ambulances I want to say at this point our fire truck and our ladder truck uh that upch charge has come out of Stephanie's fund that she was talking to you about earlier so that's been a
great partnership that works out well so this request is for the ambulance as I said it would be replacing a 2016 ambulance and uh if you Melissa if you just jump to the last page please I know it gets very
confusing um when we talk about vehicle requests pretend pandemic I could get an ambulance delivery in nine months and a fir truck in a year those have all gone to a bare minimum of two to two and a half years uh three years for many cases for us and I'm hearing about fouryear
delivery times out there in the industry so we now have we're in new Uncharted Territory over the last few years where we have ambulance purchases now spread out over four or five fiscal years which is crazy so what's here is a summary not only for your benefit but for mine
because I lose track of uh not only what's on order what budget year it's coming from so here we are requesting another ambulance for you for those of you who have been on the committee for a while you're going to be like didn't we just do this didn't we just do this well yes we actually do have two ambulances
on order right now uh we have one that we're expecting finally within a month or two that was ordered out of the FY 23 budget it's a year behind schedule they're promising us it'll be here in April this year that's replacing our
20202 ambulance we have another ambulance on order from the FY 24 budget which you would hope to see in about a year to a year and a quarter from now and then the ambulance that we're proposing here is to replace our 2016
ambulance which obviously coming up this winter will be at its 10year Mark but we won't see it delivered for another two years till start of 2028 so it'll then actually be 12 years old which is why we're advocating for its replacement now at its 9-year
Mark and then the rest of that page just for your benefit is where we are with Pumpers in the ladder Tower we're not asking for any of that this year thank you um I think that's very useful to get a sense of this lag and they're they're they're quoting a price
that they're willing to hold though so even though it's on a two-year lag yes fortunately so far with uh we sign a contract and they owe a set vehicle for that price there's no in most cases uh no provision for it for them to increase the charge
Sarah yeah maybe this is just idle curiosity but do you know why it's taking so much longer is there just a huge backlog now since the pandemic or is the still supply chain problems or what I'm hearing it's more supply chain
and Workforce so in some cases you know in something like an ambulance um that is built on a Ford Chassis so our ambulance vendor has to buy Ford Chassis meaning the motor and the body from just they're competing with everybody else anybody else who wants a
for whether it's a contractor a delivery company whatever so there something like an ambulance there's a limitation on those chassis that affects the vendor uh fire trucks the vendor builds the chassis but they have to buy the motor the diesel motor so similar issue
electronics supply chain issues I'm hearing that honestly more of the problem is Workforce that like everybody else including us in the fire service the people building these vehicles uh don't have the workforce they would like to have to keep up with demand so that's
what's restricting the flow and in fact creating a backlog than you um any other questions I think you've also addressed it sounds like you made some changes from your original requests in terms of
lowering pieces of it but do feel comfortable with the package that you're bringing in front of us yeah I do I mean as we discussed in the beginning there are a couple of items that were deferred a after the first uh screening of this pushed off to next year um a
couple of those are oper you know improvements of our operation we can afford to wait a year the vehicle one is going to be a little tougher to get to get through um we're not sure if the existing vehicle is going to pass inspection but we'll do what we can to make it through you know other than that
um you know I would say that all these items as we've discussed are sort of what we consider the basics of our operation you know with hose cardiac monitors radios gear those are the the tools of what we do with every day so
they they are a needed requests for our operation any anyone else uh with questions and they some of I I noticed some of the questions that were sent in you've already woven into the these in terms of the mileage on this so thank
you very much for the the presentations I found it very very helpful yeah I'm not seeing any hands up so you will make sure to get this package and
as Bob asked for the spreadsheet that breaks down that St Steve showed us on the pieces I we make pretty good minutes well we make an effort to have good minutes you know it's just on Zoom but it helps us when we write the final recommendations if you know to bring
what you brought to us to life a bit more um so the extra effort you took is greatly appreciated absolutely glad to do it it helps our cause up to out to help you out so so I I think um unless
you want to stick around you can you are free your team is free to leave us okay thank you very much everybody bye and now we have uh conservation correct Dave you're next up actually no Kathy um I think working
with Melissa the we had scheduled that for the 26th okay so so so conservation so that conservation planning will go on the 26 okay so you're going to you're going to stay with planning she said planning was postponed but she didn't say um yeah no I think we the plan was
to do them both together on the 26th and I'm I'm just here to listen and chime in where helpful okay so maybe what I'll do um since we amazingly got through a lot uh pretty quickly um I have and I will send
it to you all but plotting out our meetings as we look forward next week we will be getting through all the projects that are in front of us and Melissa just told us today that would be a vehicle summary and hopefully by next week it
will include the DPW because they have a lot of vehicles um they're not asking for any new ones this year but we'll be able to see what the status is on that and we can um if we have time we can begin a discussion um with about any areas where
we have have questions about projects or begin that discussion if we have time the resident requests were all sent I made sure that Melissa sent the resident requests to DPW and flag the
ones that had to do with blinking lights crosswalks uh uh Lighting on Dana street so everything that was uh uh traffic calming or adjusted so I hoping that he will have responses of views as people
may remember the police said they're for all of it because they think think of it as as safety um so I'm hoping we'll also be able to have at least some more insight to the various residents the week after that so that's the 19th the
week after that we'll be at the point of talking about whether we want to make changes in you know either lower delete um postpone any of the projects in terms of what our recommendations are going to
be and what has happened in the past for those of you who haven't been on the committee is to the extent the town manager is hearing those sometimes that just gets adjusted as a result of our discussion you know so that that
Five-Year Plan the 2026 numbers change um and right now it's in a $500,000 deficit you know so trying to get to zero on that would be part of our Focus then we have a week where I won't
be here Sarah so that first week in April you'll be the chair so that conversation will continue and I didn't hear any nose about moving the following Wednesday to a Friday meeting what I didn't get from people yet so instead of meeting on because I'll be back by then
and so that will be the beginning of drafting the report I'm making decisions about this and then I will get a draft and work with Sarah back to everyone so the final meeting will be uh that next week in April so April 16th I'll send the schedule out to
you but I think that's enough time to get the report done you know that I I write quickly once I know what I'm writing um and we have we have a temp yeah we have a template of how to set it up it's just like what goes here and
there um so I I spoke really quickly and Sarah has her hand up so I am ready now hear any questions or comments yeah thank you I I thought I thought Dave just said we wouldn't hear conservation
and planning until the 26 so I think it's next it's next week will be the 18th or something so that's so Dave if she moved you off today's schedule if meliss then
the next one is when DPW comes in and the schools schols and the schools so it's schools and DPW on whatever the Wednesday is so it would have been the 19th it's the 19th he can come then then will have
heard all of it yeah no Bob is shaking his head I I don't think there'll be time not with DPW and the schools I mean unless I mean I can stay later but that's a that's a lot to handle in one in one meeting okay so so that leaves
out I'm just looking looking for the project list on the I've got it here in this piles of paper so Dave that means your set will have to be on the 26th and we'll have to to the extent I sent a set
a set of questions in on them um and so yes I will yeah I will be yeah I have those those pretty much done anyone who has questions on that and then there's just one planning request the planning request is for $50,000 for consultant so
if people can get the questions in in advance on the $355,000 worth of concert oh no if I take Stephanie out it's a lot less and so one of the questions well da people will see it one of the questions is
Trail improvements are also under CPAC so why are we seeing Trail improvements here so some of them were you know now yeah I I will answer those questions 350,000 for conservation that sounds good Lyn Kath 250 no two 250
sustainability and when you add all the other it gets to 355 so that there's another you know hundred 100ish Kathy to whom should we send if we have questions should we send them to you to Melissa at this point you can send them directly to Melissa because I
sent whatever questions I had or had gotten just send them directly to Melissa and she's same with DPW and schools okay so um and sent them in a way that she just could excerpt them and send them to the presenters and what I
noticed is in today's package fire had answered Stephanie put the detail that she was quickly running through for us but on what was last year's for and what's the plan for this year so all of that is in an answer packet and I think that's a really efficient way for people
for us to have answers at the point we're talking rather than waiting to get back a week later um so any questions on that so and I'm I'm glad to share the questions I've sent on DPW in schools
you know but I I just sent them directly to Melissa to avoid influencing other people Sarah yeah maybe I haven't seen all the packets or something but how do I have questions if I haven't seen the description of the
yeah it was you know exactly I don't know what I tell me what the project is that's my you know so so for example on DPW DPW has a big chunk of money for the intersections and then the next year an
even bigger six million and I know Tac uh not Tech the town the other committee that Bob is on has already raised that what are these numbers we have no description of what they are and they seem completely out of line with what we
think is will be need and we're not even sure about the timing so the only things I could do Sarah is say can you tell us what this is about and how you came up with these numbers so at this point all I had was a column of numbers you know not a written
request on further definition well well maybe I guess Melissa isn't here anymore maybe Jennifer knows I but have those departments not submitted those Capital requests and could they not be put in to start creating the upcoming package if
they've submitted them I'm just looking ahead she started to populate each of these I'm just going to double check on my on my uh maybe Jen can tell us so some of thing some were added to the package um packages but I'm not sure all
but I'll make that direct request for her Sarah to make sure we get whatever was submitted ASAP so we can be looking at it before we meet on the 19th right thank you um I see Lee's hand is up and
Jen Jennifer's hand is up also sorry to have be could you just go again through what's going to be on the agenda for the 19th 19th is schools and DPW okay important ones thank you what Bob just said we probably won't have
time for conservation but it's that set of conservation and at that point we will have done every project on the list I mean every department and project Kathy DPW includes the uh Enterprise
funds or they separate they are separate because we never see any we never see them because they just they come out they come out of their own they don't come out of the uh amount of money that we're talking about they're self-
financed out of the fees so we will see them in finance um in terms of equipment but we won't see them here um and actually there's been a recommendation and I do see your hand up um a few times
at the end of the d report is that when Paul does the capital plan for five years it would be good to do sections on the Enterprise funds so it even though it's in another piece if people think we're purchasing a major piece of equipment it would be good to show that
we just have never put them in the same document so Jen I see you're handed up yeah uh thank you I I can see that there are quite a few requests already that came in from DPW and looks like there's four right now for the school so I can
meet with Melissa and we can get those in the packet so that way you can see them ahead of time and be able to answer qu ask questions for whatever you need to that's great and I'll just have her alert us when she's put them there so you know otherwise what I do is I just
keep checking every day to see if something has appeared Dave yeah Kathy I forgot to mention earlier I think in your packet today you do have a follow-up Memo from from uh
Rob and Jeremiah Jeremiah Le plant on the capital that they requested yes um as most of you know I work you know kind of with them closely and and of course Melissa so I I I hope the memo you know kind of clarified anything that might
have been unclear um when they met with you and and again we're happy to to Circle back as your time allows if you think that's necessary but I think the point being there is is the capital list is extremely long I think their number was north of $10
million um which is simply the reality of now really knowing what these buildings need and then of course the other point they made I think uh was was having this flexible approach is you know can they have this $1 million
knowing that you you know what project are are priorities and there is 10 times that much work but they want the flexibility to move from Project to project given the uncertainties of those projects so so I just looked it was put
in apparently yesterday because it has a March 13th date on it but it is they we had asked them could they give us something more than just the million dollars that what might be the priorities and I had I'd actually sent an additional question as if if you
haven't spent last year's 500,000 could you live with five or 600 this year you know that would get you back up to a million so and we can repeat questions if we haven't gotten answers to them but there is this memo now yeah I I think the short answer to
that Kathy is in the memo I mean there's 10 million do worth of projects so you can you can just you know Dave just if we did the same thing so I'm just saying that if we did the same thing with schools and said give us your mega list and wanted a pot of money we would still
want to know what you're going to do next year so I I I agree that we've got the lists are usually bigger than the amount but it's a great me I'm just looking to the memo yeah well but specifically to answer your question and again I don't have I have very little to
do with the schools other than the track and field so I I don't want to really compare apples to oranges and I'm not sure this that conversation is is applicable here they have given you everything you need to make a decision there's clearly $10 million
worth of funds there so if if it's reduced by 500,000 this year so they have a m 500 from last year and 500 from this year there's a million dollars and they will continue the the the town will continue to get behind on Capital so you
know I think they went into the roof project here at Town Hall so maybe you could do almost half a roof but then there's $300,000 in mobilization cost so it simply is what it is I think what I want to put out there is we have never had more information more accurate
information on Town buildings in the 20 plus years I've worked for the town than we do today so it is a hard pill to swallow for all of us but I just want to compliment uh uh Jeremiah and Rob for getting it to you and it is a hard pill
for all of us to swallow but the numbers are there they don't lie and they're coming out of these these uh these assessments which we've never had before which the council has been asking for for probably 10 years so thank you so Sarah I see your hand yeah so I have
one particular question about that list or that memo that Dave was just describing because I I didn't see it but we could postpone the answer to another time I I think I remember seeing the um you know that the was it the
North ammer school or something which I guess is that ter terrible little building that used to house the survival center right and so one question is you know I'm always very interested is this really still a school building or did
the school committee formerly convey it back to the town and I have that same question about the Southeast Street school or whatever that one is called but my my question really now is is it worth
maintaining some of the like that building in particular I can't imagine that we could ever use it without investing so much money in it that it we might as well just knock it down and keep the real estate so I I don't know that just because we could
sink a lot of money into into repairing Town buildings is that really going to be the best thing to do in every case so do you mind if I answer that one quickly Kathy go ahead North Hammer School actually the north Hammer School building at the corner of in Street
Meadow Street root 63 and sundland road is actually in very good shape um we haveed accessible it's not oh no it is it has it has a lift we there's a has a lift oh yeah it has it's fully it's I wouldn't say fully accessible but it is
access bizar lift sir it's the kind where you stand on a platform and the platform goes up that building I take it back okay other than you know the two the two main issues there are the roof and the heating system but the the General um
out you know outside uh what am I looking for the envelope the building envelope is in pretty good shape except for the roof we've invested significant money cdbg money in that building over the years so it's in really good shape it's been used for Head Start um it's currently used it is
our major uh um uh place for uh Town records so in the basement of that building town records are stored required storage for Town record so all the voting voting the voting machines it's an incredibly important building
and the the usable space if you will for offices and people Etc we've looked at for swing space for when we're ready DPW fire and other other um functions but the building other than the roof and the heating system is in very good shape and
we've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of cdbg it has very it has very tiny toilets in one of the because it was it's been when you walk in one that looks like a normal adult's toilet and you walk in another but I
would contrast that with say part of the South ammer School on the south ammer campus so both there's a newer uh addition to that building on the south and then the the historic building on the north um both of those buildings are
in tough shape but again the bones of the historic building are really pretty solid if we were to do anything in the future affordable housing there whatever mind you we would um we would demo the south non-historic portion that is not
going to survive some reuse of of of that space but anyway we'll talk about that in the future but I just wanted to clarify on North ammer School the bones are very good in that building all right I confess I was only ever in the basement yes so my yeah impression yeah the upper two floors are really and
they've been used for probably there when the survival Cent I was I was yeah yeah okay it doesn't it's a good question though Sarah because it doesn't have a lot of space when you get it it looks like a pretty big building but that's because the ceilings are so high
you know there when you do the lift you've got some a few big rooms but not not lots of space so okay so I see Bob's hand is up we've had this is great that you put this on the list um yeah um I
just have a question is maybe more from Melissa who's not with us but um I I'm I'm trying to find the the Ambiance Fund in um the the the program summary you
know the the the summary of this and and you know where we have we had some things coming from the ambulance fund but they're they're they're listed as either other or cash capital or something so maybe we should be a little bit more explicit about what's in the
ambulance fund that we're using for Capital this year yeah I think that's a good question Bob because if you look at us as revenues that could when we're hearing that that $500,000 could be paid from the ambulance fund is it coming out of
so the question Jenis is it coming out of the money we have or is it coming will it be paid for by this other source because there's not a line I'm just looking at the oh it's called other isn't it there's an other line I don't
know is is other the ambulance fund the 674 yeah so okay so that's I mean if that's all it is we should just call it ambulance fun and we could call if it's all ambulance then we that right Sarah we could call it ambulance yeah I believe that is ambulance but we'll
double check okay okay okay that's a good point Bob and just so others know um I I will work with Melissa on this but we're not showing the state a I've mentioned this a few times we're not showing the state aid number and it's a big number for
roads and I just want to figure out some way Jen of getting the number because we need to feature it that whatever we put in as cash capital is an addition to another amount so the the residents of the Town don't think we've suddenly gone from spending nearly 2 million to
500,000 it's it's like 900 100,000 yes Sarah well could that perhaps be done in the capital Improvement plan I think that's we don't do that right but it could incorporates we have it has always
been a line if you look at last year it's always been a line and right now it's been blanked out because the way the town shows it in the budget is it puts it over on a grant page I understand I'm just saying there might be another document in which to inform
the public about here all the sources of funding for roads and sidewalks some of it is jcpc some of it is yeah just some way that we can show it so it doesn't look like we suddenly dramatically reduce the amount we're spending Jen
would it would it be acceptable to um maybe put it as a footnote at the bottom of that Capital plan that for that listing that funding source for that money so that way it's kind of with the request but noting that it's coming from
another place I I I think that's fine and then if you put it on it it's both a revenue and an expense and it's all dedicated to uh sidewalks and Roads you know if we're not going to put it as a line I mean we don't make any decisions about it as a committee we just know
we've got that money um right so I think that would be fine but to completely not show it would be a pretty major departure from the way we've talked about inv investment in roads and sidewalks okay and for I I think I
finally understand the difference on why chapter 90 is treated differently in the budget than Chapter 70 but because Chapter 70 always shows up um and 90 never does it's treat it's over in the grant World
um so those are those are sort of um housekeeping kinds of things on what this Five-Year Plan will look like and Dave thank you very much for drawing our attention to that response to our questions and it doesn't quite answer what would be your highest priority for
FY 26 but it shows you I've got $10 million worth of things to choose choose from so that was the other question we said you know if you if you're asking for a million and you have 500 that you haven't spent yet so you basically have a million and a half the
500 was roofs what what is the most likely thing you think you're going to be spending on in 27 you don't need to answer it right now but if that I will I will follow up with them on that but I thought there was a strong leaning in the memo toward
the the town hall roof yeah right and the question on that is why wouldn't you go for CPAC because it's a historic building um we we potentially will but normally what CPAC asks is you know what else are you bringing to the table so
the idea might be to bring let's say a million of of capital money and then go for a million plus of CAC so that was kind of the idea is to get some money and then leverage CAC money and this is me probably being too tough on this but
I'd like to know that the whole roof needs it because our 1810 H slate roof Farmhouse had drones flown all around it and it repaired everything that needed to repair and they said you're good it's
been good for 100 years but so I just would like to know that we really have to go for big one but I'm not challenging you on there I'm just saying that that it seemed like that's where Jeremiah Was going with um of the things you listed he would do first on that so
we can I think there's strong leaning in the memo and discussion although I was not here at your last meeting was the town hall roof and again their other strong leaning was or based on um what they know about the roof the slate roof and the estimates they've got is that it
is the entire roof that should be replaced okay so um including some of the very unique architectural parts of the roof which are very challenging to redo and again I think they talked about staging and doing it all at once as opposed to
mobilizing once with staging taking it down doing half the roof and then doing it again that doesn't make any sense for but just so you know we we did plan to go to CAC in the fall round of 25 but we also thought that going for a 2 point $3
million ask of CPAC was probably going to be a challenging piece for them for a lot of reasons um and again maybe coming to the table with half of that from from Capital made sense this that's very helpful so we we are we've managed
to finish if we're finished um and let me oh I put public comments at the end so let me just there are no public there is no public there are no people there so you can write it public
comments no no public um and Lee Lee did minutes from last week and I did a quick edit a lot of it was just formatting and I asked Melissa to put it directly in the minutes section because Sarah had asked where her minutes went but if
people want to see the minutes from each we can send them we can just be regularly sharing them wher every was or hosting them in the next meeting I think they'll be useful when we try are making decisions on what we're going to say about all of this um so Bob is on for
this week and we have people signed up for all and I will do one more polling just for people to think if we shift to that Friday do you prefer a morning time or an afternoon time and I have the elementary school building committee right in the middle but but morning can
be 9 to 11: or any play up to 12:00 and afternoon can be anywhere from 1:30 or on so just on which you would prefer if we shift it that um and I'll just send it out again because no one said they couldn't do that so I'll just give that
those two choices again morning or afternoon and I think that's it so I want to thank everybody um and uh I knew in advance we were going to be missing a couple people and they will be back Nate Nat was always not going to be here for
this week the entire week and Bridget couldn't rearrange rearrange her life and we have school committee in two hours right so we are um I guess I should take a a is everyone okay with adjourning we just raise your hand is
everyone ready to adjourn yes great okay so we are adjourned at 3:32 thank you all very much and have niek