good good morning everyone um today is May 17th and this is the elementary school building committee meeting um our May meeting we're now meeting once a month um my first order of business is to make sure everyone on the committee can hear and be heard and we are missing a few people when they join us I will uh as make sure they're they can hear and be heard as well uh Jonathan morning good morning Jennifer good morning Paul morning Deb morning Bruce good morning rert good morning and Elicia here thank you all for as always getting up bright and early for our Friday meetings um this one as you know from the agenda is a pretty it's it's one of those uh key points where we're getting the 90% cost estimates and the documents have been uh starting to be reviewed for completeness and other issues because we're heading toward bidding um so I want to turn it over to Margaret who will just review the agenda and Al also the schedule um we've scheduled one subcommittee meeting morgret so you can make sure everyone knows about that and then um to continue the meeting so Margaret I you have been able screen enabling exactly okay so as Kathy said it's a pretty brief agenda um we're going to go over do I'm going to do my usual schedule overview going to talk um a little bit about the 90% uh cost estimate results hope y um Everybody saw my memo um and the the estimates which are also posted in the packet so good news there uh talk a little bit about sustainability um highlights um the CNA and Rick and Tim will give an update on the early site prep um and an update on the pre-qualification process and then we do have some invoices so going to take that down and see if there are any questions about that looks like Simone has joined us hey Simone hi Simone just a double check that you can we can hear you and you can hear us maybe not yet okay um go continue Margaret okay so I'm gonna now pull up my schedule and and I will tell you this is very little changed from you know over the last six or eight months this has been um sort of challenging to keep up with from month to month but there's almost nothing different here from what you saw last time so you know again we are here in this column so we're at the May 17th esbc meeting um we have a cost estimate reconciliation complete and we're sort of headed into to the bidding process which is this timeline so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this um other than to say the one thing that is not in here right now is that we do we have scheduled the sustainability subcommittee for this coming Tuesday the 21st I believe is the date so um I'm going to actually put that in right here so that is really kind of mar can I just double check I think it's the 28th it's the 28th yep you're right okay thank you at 11 at 11 so so that's going to be occurring and we'll get posted um a couple of things that are uh good about that is we do have the um some information including the plug load uh calculation back and you know just following up on a bunch of items from the previous meetings so um that is it for the schedule overview um does anybody have any questions about that and Simone can you hear us I can hear you yes I can hear thanks s okay oh and Doug us hi Doug can us know we can hear that you're here we can hear you hello everyone sorry I was late oh that's okay we're you your timing is perfect alrighty well now um I'm going to Pivot to the cost estimates um and I'm going to pull up the memo that I sent and just kind of recap it if you haven't had a chance to read it um here we go so um the estimates came back I guess the end of last week the beginning of this week and then we met on Tuesday I believe it was oh no it was Wednesday all day pretty much um reviewing them um the news is good so you know here this is where we were at the 60% estimate this is where we are at the 90% this line here this is the funding agreement with the msba so the um and keeping in mind that this is construction value only right so we wanted to be at or below 81 and we're so depending on which of these numbers were at 79 or 78 and for the purposes of the process we use the am Fogerty estimate as the estimate of record and the PM andc estimate which is they're working for the OPM is the check estimate so um going forward are going to be reporting on this number so um just to kind of put that in context of the overall budget so um what I'm doing here is this is the project budget column so this is the based on the agreement that was signed with the msba this is where where we are today with the with the foger estimates so um as you know from the last meeting um you know the early site package is bids so that's kind of reducing um risk since we know the value of that and you'll remember that that came in below budget now this is um the Fogerty estimate number um uh keep in mind this is a little bit confusing but this number here the 78 includes the early bid package so um you know it's these two numbers together that add up to the Fogerty number above so what is left to bid is a 76.6 million let's call it 5 million and that does include um almost 1.5 million in design and escalation contingency so there's still a safety factor in that number um the other project costs that are embedded in the uh project budget have not changed at this point um nor have the construction contingencies that have been set a lot set aside so essentially a way of thinking about this is that the savings that we estimate right now um that are coming out of the bidding process which is about 2.5 million those essentially become additional contingency within the project so um I will just want to say that is all very good news and I really want to thank um denisco for you know putting together a truly impressive set of documents which is allowing for a very detailed level of estimating um and with that I'm just going to see if there are any questions about that or Rick and Tim if you want to add anything to what I just summarized Rick and Tim are not going now I just want to say the the uh reconciliation process with pmnc has been very smooth all the way through and people are getting on the same page and uh I think you can have confidence in u the efforts everybody had to come up with this budget I think it's been a good process Kathy has a question no it's it's actually a comment to to build on Ricks um I started going through to compare the two and a lot of key components they are so near you know you know I know you've reconciled them too but that also and some of the big ticket items have that weren't design changes such as the geothermal Wells um the solar panels we're getting pretty consistent numbers so that at least makes me feel like you know the inflation estimates as we're getting nearer and nearer were good and we still have an inflation Factor built into these so um thank you all again the documents were amazing uh for the amount of detail in them thanks okay um so we had uh the next the next item on the agenda was highlights from the 90% documents related to sustainability so Kathy I believe you were hoping that Rick and Tim could uh give some updates about the further development of those design components um yeah I I think that'd be great and just the one other comment I wanted to make I mean I send an email to everyone in the committee these are what was sent in terms of the details on the design which are moving toward the bid were voluminous um and there is a paper copy at at Town Hall somewhere Paul I mean Bob parent told me there is one if people want to look at the full extent of it we're we're making attempt to condense a few of the files to be able to post them somewhere but they weren't they weren't downloadable and postable and then for the entire set there were some con there are concerns of security on telling folks exactly where everything is in the building um so at this point we weren't they're too big to post anyway but they weren't um being broadly shared and Margaret you you might just say a word about how many eyes are looking at these documents um in addition to you and denisco and well and and Bruce colum who I want to give a big shout out to for having dug into the detail in the last week and um uh forwarded some questions which uh denisco team has responded to so um yeah so let me kind of iterate that so we're looking at the documents um Shelly and Jacob um are looking at the documents from uh the net peer review perspective um the commissioning agents are reviewing the documents there is a structural engineer what's called a peer review uh peer structural review which is ongoing which will get submitted with the 90% set um that feature that used to be a part of the Massachusetts building code it is no longer part of the code but the msba requires it and I think it's actually good thing particularly for um folks in building departments in towns like ammer to you know get um some reassurance that an a second structural engineer has looked at the structural design um the msba will reviewing be reviewing the documents um and honestly you know I think um I want to say that we we got some great comments um from The estimators Who in as they dug into the detail of the estimate identified some items which um were will be better for clarifications made in their wake so Rick and Tim and cassena am I thinking of anybody else who's looking at this that I've left out Bob parents expressed an interest in digging the Civil drawings and he'll be giving us our uh comments by the 1st of June and and then we'll take those and we'll schedule a time with Guilford to go back over everything uh thereafter uh it's more of a regulatory review but as a result of finishing up the drawings there were adjustments in the storm drainage so we submitted to concom for a Dom Minimus change on that so that's on Aaron's desk now being reviewed I think that's about it do you want to make any comments on the development of the sustainability design so the geothermal the solar Etc um we can just say that obviously throughout the process there have been back and forth uh you know balancing the issues of cost whether or not we're going to meet the code required energy model stuff like that so if you'll remember we've had double pain triple pain more insulation less insulation insulation under the building uh continuously or 2 feet at the perimeter um the 90% set that has been issued um reflects you know the final resolution of all of those items and none of them are up in the air and we even have the actual date that the 10th edition of the Massachusetts State Building Code will go into effect now um which is we are we're going to be in the concurrency period when this actually goes out to bid but all of those uh items have been resolved finally before we go out to bid and they are reflected in the set um even the additional uh plug load model that we will review in detail with the subcommittee is back and it has us basically on target for where uh we had been all along so the the energy model is is being Revisited and with the detail the of the new code it means that thoron Thomas said he is tearing into any construction details that might have changed because basically there's no detail too small now for the energy model to to make sure that um the heat losses and gains are consistent with what we're trying to hit okay any questions I see Bruce question more of a comment than a question I just from the committee's point of view I to say that I agree with Margaret's view that this is an extraordinar comprehensive and and competent set of documentation and and one that I I looked at basically the exterior envelope section so I read the spec sections through the divisions 5 four which is masonry through division eight which is Windows uh I mean one reads these things uh quickly and not every word but tries to get all the important sections and then I looked at all of the drawings in the wall sections and the construction details which in my day would have accounted for maybe five or 10 drawings but in this case it's 20 or 30 um such a a comprehensive coverage here and I I did look at other sections as well but that was where I spent most of my time I had uh many questions many of which I answered as I went along but I ended up sending about 40 to denisco through Kathy uh and every one of them except one was satisfactory answered and I should say that the unsatisfactory answer is not only unsatisfactory to me but it's also unsatisfactory to Rick but it's it's a kind of what can you do kind of situation with the manufacturers um requirements and so forth but uh short uh um comment is that uh I've never seen such a comprehensive set of documents in the 50 years that I've been operating and that includes uh the ones that my office prepared and I used to be pretty proud of what we did so uh we can I think on basis of what I've seen be very confident that um uh the documentation set is essentially a record of what we own before it's built and all of the con the discussions and arguments that happen during construction are about whether or not these documents satisfactory describe what we own before we actually own it and this is a pretty comprehensive description of what we own thank you thanks Bruce I see Jonathan has his hand up I'm I unmute uh I I didn't go to Bruce's extent and read read all those spec sections um but I can say from from my review I absolutely agree with with Bruce this is incredibly comprehensive set of drawings um you know it it it's quite professional I'm I'm very pleased with where we are like Bruce I'm very happy that you know it's well documenting what the town wants and and will ultimately home through the project great thank you I am not seeing any other hands Kathy oh I'm sorry Kathy Kathy so one I just want Angelica's joined us and I just want to make sure we can hear her but she also there's a UMass graduation going on so she let me know that she may not be able to stay Angelica good morning everyone and yes sorry this is weekend big weekend for you Mass so starting last night till Sunday you will see a lot of traffic closures so heads up on that so I I had um a couple I had some questions not not so much on what was in the cost estimates but uh um on if we went I went back to look at uh what we did in January 2023 when we were value engineering when we were cutting cutting some items um that were uh in the initial design to see whether and this is a question on whether we could think of those as potential Alternatives if when we go out to bid since I don't want to add to costs I think it's a good news that were're under the cost estimates um under the budget but I'll I'll give you the couple the three examples that I found one was the uh the back stops for the softball fields um they were in the $60,000 range for two or 65 if it was rolled up and my understanding is that we you know if if we put them in we would get a bid on the cost of those so I don't know I'm not suggesting we put it in but have it in an alter Rick and Rick and Tim can tell me how one might do it so that was one then we reduced the um tiling in the bathrooms as I can read are it was you may or may not remember what this spreadsheet looked like it was tiny little numbers but but we the bathroom tiling was reduced to leave part of it to that would need to be painted and that was uh almost 100,000 94,000 estimate savings and the notes on that what I was looking for his notes where it said it's ex basically the same it said somewhat less durable will require painting and maintenance and then similarly the the tiling in the hallways was reduced so those were three areas and I didn't know whether Rick and Tim might want to comment on the tiling issues those were the three I saw most of the others made a lot of sense to me that we hadn't cut anything there were no I was looking for wording like not as durable or less durable or requires maintenance not a complete replacement that gave us the same athetic um so those were the three I had um so marget I don't I'll just yeah RI why don't you respond to that and then I see Bruce has a comment question as as well okay uh well Kathy you're putting this as doing them as as bidding uh alternates to add in instead of incorporating them now and uh just from from a procedural uh standpoint as cassa and Margaret can elaborate the bid laws require the awarding authority to accept bids in order so you can't if you get bids for alternates on three items you have to take the first one and to get to the third one you have to take the second one and to get to the third one you have to take them in order so that's one thing uh on a project this size I wouldn't recommend doing the back stops as an alternate it's a very small number the other the other unfortunate thing about alternates is it's something else to put in a bid form and I like to keep bids clean and it's an opportunity for somebody to make a mistake and it's kind of a small thing to make a mistake on uh and jeopardize a bid so my personal recommendation for the back stops was to either put them in or keep them out unfortunately there's no middle ground there's been some discussion about can we do the foundations and then come back later you know so we don't have to augur holes in the dirt and put the the post in but the uh the back stop pipes are typically um poured with the foundations and not put in a sleeve so there's a structure ual and a coordination effort there so I really that's my position on that as far as the uh the tiling you timt uh of all the the V items that's probably the only thing if you had said what would you put back in it would be uh some of the tile and I think Tim also uh we've got a Wayne's cot on wall the stairs that was included in that ve so that's that's maybe the one item it's also a real easy item to put in the drawings now if you went back on some of these things you'd have a bunch of Architects jumping off the bridge because we've got six weeks to go and we're kind of down the road that's a you know and so I I rais those Rick only because I saw the notes that you had put in on tile um it we were giving up something by so so so not Alternatives and so those are the three I saw so I'm understanding that you would just put them in the drawings you know you would put them in for the biders yeah I think we did it that's the way we do it yeah yeah and I I just want to add I would concur with with Rick's opinion on that Bruce do you want to add something to this conversation um only to say to add to Kathy's list I looked at the same list that you did Kathy last night uh and uh other downgrades were replacing Granite curbs I think with binous curbs I think unit pavers with uh either concrete uh so some of those Landscaping downgrades but these are again a VI of their questions because I I really hear what Rick said that you don't want to uh cause people to have their heads spinning sideways because when you have a set of draw drawings that as comprehensive as this that's great but when you have a set of comprehensive drawings and you want to make changes at the last minute you've got a comprehensive set of drawings to change and so I would be guided by denis's Sense on what what is uh advisable here but I simply add those as uh uh items that I saw on the list that if you could waiver one you might choose to uh put them back in or not and whether you put them back in into the drawings themselves or as alternates uh again I'm I'm uh not not uh I don't have enough experience to know the the wisdom and so forth other than to say I mean the uh the notion of an alternate is that you are capturing the the competitive uh pricing uh as opposed to doing it subsequently where you're in a change order situation unless of course you do it after the contract is completed in which case it's a whole another um piece of work so there are three ways in which you can do it as opposed to doing nothing at all so that's four I suppose and uh uh which of those four is the way way to handle these uh borderline items from January last year where we were saying yes we wanted them but no we can't afford them or we don't know we can afford them let's be safe uh but so there there's not many of them but there's those three of Cathy's and two of mine potentially that we might choose to be interested CA I see your hand but I'm going to go to Jonathan and Paul first okay so Jonathan I you know I would argue that um to avoid alternates if if if we can just from the same perspective that Rick's coming from keep keep that bidding set as clean as possible um the less opportunity for mistakes less opportunity for confusion um you know when you know if we were in a financial position where we we were really feeling like we were missing something critical um and the only way we could you know get the potential of it was to include as an altern I be more supportive um I I tend to agree you know if the items are small and we want to reconsider adding them back in uh we should do that but I I would caution against um you know making the bidding process any more complicated than it needs to be okay Paul yes I agree with the I understand the um goal of Simplicity and Clarity for the biders and you know again we have a fair very recent experience with this with another project where it was comp more complicated and um resulted in um a very high bid my concern is that if we incorporate things that weren't part of our original goal of building a new school and the bid prices come above you know we had confidence that 90% level you know in December for this other project and so and then suddenly it comes in not suddenly it comes in much higher um I don't know if uh I don't think that's going to happen with this project but we have you know we have been hit by this before so my goal is to keep this project within budget and as we start to add things into the budget have we had a are these the things we want to add have we had a coherent conversation about including these particular things in the original budget I don't think it's too hard for biders to handle one or two um you know alternates you know especially if they're Standalone Al alternates um but I just want to make sure that if we're going to add things in these are the things that this committee really wants to add in as our priorities um because I worry about the project coming in higher than we had originally anticipated and then we're you then and I guess the assumption is that these would be be the first things that would be value engineered out yeah uh okay so let's go to cassia and then to El thank you so I also want to agree that keeping documents bid documents as clean as possible as ideal I've heard many philosophies on the use of alternates and I think I think the one that strikes the most true with me is that an alternate is often a great thing for if a project is coming in over budget and you have one meaningful thing that you can drop so that you don't have to restart the process I don't think we're in a significant risk of that um so and I I agree with Paul that one or two well structured ideally only one well structured and very Standalone Al it is a good idea I also agree um with Rick that the value of a back stops relative to the value of a project is something that we should probably just work that into the base scope especially given the current estimates um the reconciliation the estimate reconciliation meeting had some absolutely amazing to me uh discussion of the fact that both estimators right now estimators are very conservative people um concur that it's time to start recognizing some good news from the market trends as part of the estimate um so it sounds like not only has have some things trended in a better Direction than we've seen in if the last few years but not only that but estimators who are conservative are ready to recognize that and that's excellent news having said that I just want to say it is not in any way a bad thing to be progressing into the rest of this project is into a bidding process and even past the bidding process with a very healthy contingency because there are a lot of Innovative Technologies included in this project and there may be things that come up around the use of Innovative Technologies you know and the sustainable things the geotherm of a solar you know um some Innovative um HVAC equipment that would benefit from having had a safe cushion thank you C Alicia um thank you so I I understand like not wanting to over complicate the documents so that when we go out to bid we have more of a chance of getting like a wide range of good bids um but I don't think that like smaller items like the back stop would put us at risk of not getting the bids that we're looking looking to get at this point and I think like with the 90% estimates like I do feel very confident in this project and that we're moving in the right direction regardless and so I'm hoping that we can just have that discussion now as to whether or not we can add that back in um since you know I think Paul said he would like to have a discussion about it and so I'm wondering when we can have that discussion I would suggest we have it now um Paul just I went back you know to the the design it had it had a big one a side one and the total cost was in the $65,000 range in for two different pieces um so that's why I I focus on it because my understanding was we'll we'll have to put the field and then we'll have to dig it up to put the back stop in when we do it um and if it's part of a bigger package we might get a better price on it rather than trying to just go buy it with the labor cost because they going to be concrete people out there doing something with curbs so that that's where I started I just saw the tiling completely because it said more labor costs more maintenance cost so that we're lowering the price tag so it wasn't an urgent we all thought that was fine but the back stop was relatively inexpensive Paul Sanders you Paul you can speak yes yeah so thank you so yeah I don't I'm not saying I I totally understand the E the economics of that and and agree with it um my only I want to make sure that this I know with this group that we are saying we're choosing this over something else you know and what is this a choice of something are we saying no to something not even even either or are there is there something else we should be considering since we have confidence enough to put the back stop in is there something else that we should be adding at this point in time as well and I just you know when I looked at the just in that context this the tiling I mean Rick and Tim are the ones who know about tiling and then rert who has to maintain buildings uh the reducing the tiling Wayne scotting saved us 55,000 so it's comp when you're saying it's comparable to the back stop cost you know on uh right is something else that was what caught my eye the bathroom was more expensive it would be 95 that and this is we're dealing with a year old numbers but they had an inflation factor in them so I didn't know those just had caveats on them it's the only reason everything else said just as durable will work just as well so it wasn't uh we were giving up something um I actually it's a tiny savings but I there is a specification for Golden Rod and in the plants it's not very much money but I'm a person that sneezes when she goes around the Golden Rod so I would just I would just look look at the shrubs we're putting and and not add add to the sneezing and someone said to me we're going to get golden rod on the this lot whether we want it or not because the red that's making you sneeze not the golden couple thousand yeah if I can reframe I I guess what I'm thinking is we're gonna have to do the back stop at some point in time totally agree with that and whether it comes out of this or CPA whatever but um my the way I understand the town approved this building and I would put the money the first dollar into the building if it makes the building better that's what the voters approve that's what my goal on the building committee is to make the building um as good a building as we possibly can within the the um costs that we you know the budget that we have and so again that's that's how I look at it is that the money goes into the building and then and then the other parts of the project as well I see Alicia's hand is up again um thank you yeah no I I totally hear where Paul is coming from with the concern but I also think like looking at it a little more holistically uh some of the things that came out of the community listening sessions were about like usability for the community and having more versatile use of the fields and outdoor options and like you know we do have a whole subcommittee of like looking at the playground in the outside area so that is also an important aspect of the project outside of the building and how usable and versatile the fields and what we put outside of the building are for both the students and for the community members um and I think if we're already designing it in mind for it to be used for athletic purposes it just makes sense to put the back stop back in um especially considering like Kathy said it's not a big ticket item um and I think that just doing it upfront when we have the contingency space and it's not going to be taking up much of that um it's like a very small cost I think we should seriously consider just adding it back in so that it can be usable for those athletic purposes as soon as it's ready to go Bruce well let's say in order to move this conversation forward I move that this committee uh instruct the design team to restore the back stop uh to the uh construction documentation I second the motion but that doesn't end discussion if anyone else wants to weigh in the point is it St discussion on a in the right direction right Deb I um so as someone very inexperienced in this kind of thing and all I know is the project that uh Paul is referring to if for some reason the bids come back with the back stop in as uncomfortably close to the maximum what is the process for addressing that at that stage so you're asking if if we blow through our contingencies and and a 65 a $67,000 cut would make the difference can we then just no no because I think that's can we then make a cut you know can we yeah easily so um I I have no idea you know how well I mean the the Nugget of it would be I mean this is this is the the issue that risk is that Rick is Raising about the alternate so the easy way to take it out is to put it in as an alternate because then you it's what's called an ad alternate you can choose to accept it or you can leave it out but you know TX point he would prefer that the documents be simpler so if you go with um doing it as an alternate there is no risk on that if you go with a using having an alternate with it's a separate bit item you probably pay a little bit more for it and there is a little bit of risk so thank youel when you talk about the contingencies being depleted and therefore do we have an option of dropping yet do you mean at bit time or do you mean ultimately as we go through construction because there are different sets of contingencies um right so there's going to be with each step major step that we take along this process um we reduce the scope of risk right so bidd is a major one when we get past that there's still risk of changes you know unforeseen conditions in construction and there are contingencies for that um I could say that change orders can go both directions right so if we know that this is something we're worried about and if we're waiting to get past the geothermal work or some other you know what we might deem a risky Venture um we could hold on how having the back stops ordered right so that we still have the option of backing it out as a change order given the scope of a project and the value of the back stops I doubt it will a be necessary and B if if we're in that situation be the the heal all solution if things got that dire but there are still mechanisms to remove scope later on as we go on yeah and ju I mean just to be clear that what CNA is talking about is this sline line item if you can see the screen so this construction contingency this is the line item in the budget for change orders so as she says the the third way to do this is to treat it as a change order during construction and then it come out of this value and her her point is you could choose to do it later in the project um because it's it's part of the final site work so that you know where you stand relative to other change orders so Paul you had a question or so yeah I don't support that approach that where we put it in the change order I think that's not a wise approach um two two things just from the and what the design team is saying is we recommend that you include this into the original budget are and then my question to the design team are there any other things that you think we should be adding into the into this original bid document so that we have fewer addendum as we go through this that's question one maybe I'll leave it there and then go to my second question once that question gets uh I think the addendum is uh a separate item that we can talk about that I don't see if you've got alternates they cause a denda uh Tim can you think of anything uh other than the tile that given the parameters that the committee has talked about is is is being a uh qualitative issue uh that might be considered honestly no I mean we I would like to think that we've spent a lot of time making sure that the value engineering items that we did select would not have a qualitative or experiential impact on the project we certainly saved a lot of money in the exterior envelope and some design features and there's always a nicer finish than the one you could select but I don't think putting any of that money back into the project is going to meaningfully improve the building and I don't see a need to do it okay thank you uh the second question is more a comment cassia said earlier so Cass what you said is that the design estimators are starting to incorporate sort of positive news I think you said into their design estimates and this is a this is designed based on multiple bids happening later this year basically um and is that something new that you're seeing um from design estimators that's they're starting to so I I haven't heard that from anyone in the last many years it's very exciting but also estimators are incredibly good at what they do they do not possess a crystal ball that's functional okay that's useful thank you so but them being conservative that's why it took them so many years to even start saying that and using those numbers so okay I see Robert's hand is up thank you um I know that this is a discussion uh on a motion for the back stop um and um I think I I think it's clear that the town is going to end up spending the money on the back stop and it's probably the least expensive way to do it is to do it as part of this project um uh if we wanted to discuss you know other possible improvements um I I I would like to learn a little bit more about Bruce's suggest question regarding uh the curbing going back to Granite um because I do feel like that's something that uh with plow trucks and and mowers may not stand the test of time as well um and so I sort of like some input from folks who deal with this stuff more uh and if we were going to talk about tile and wanted to prioritize it I think stairwells and bathrooms would be uh much more uh valuable in terms of reducing maintenance than just the hallway Wings scotting TI those are my comments thank you Jonathan were people able to hear I had a hard time hearing rert but I think I got the gist of it yeah I mean he's uh his points were that he's echoing Bruce cuum on the looking back to the Granite curbs as opposed to I think what we have is cape Cape Cod burms which is formed asphalt curbs and then um he was saying that from his perspective the tile and the back a higher tile in the bathrooms and stair Hall and and uh stair Halls was more important than the than the quarters thanks Jonathan uh I'm just sorry I sure I was UN muted um I'm supportive of the idea of of you know putting the back slops back in the in the in the base project um and would be open to discussing some of the other things but but that one seems like a simple one to me um and then just a quick comment uh on the not you know on the topic of of estimates the other thing to remember about um you know estimates at this level is that the estimators are not trying to identify the low bidder for a project they're trying to be middle of the pack you know that gets to that conservatism um and so uh I'm I'm feeling mildly optim IC about where we are cwise okay so uh we had a motion about the back stop um do you want to take a vote on the back stop or is there any desire to expand the motion to include more scope like the tile or in the let's just limit it to R point the the bathrooms and stair halls and then the third one which is is a bigger ticket item than the other it's a much bigger ticket item yeah Kathy what I January 13th packet January 13th okay great I will I 20 2023 but that was more in the couple $1,000 range if I wrote I wrote notes to myself I mean that was and I think Rick and Tim you were saying that is go back to the architect design stuff as opposed to tiles were easy so I I don't know it it was just more cost a lot more costly so this is the um concrete Paving that's not the yeah that yeah you don't have the one that has the what we took in it right it's in yeah we we took a couple different curbing items we we took um at the drive Lanes the Cape Cod burm as Margaret mentioned we took a switch to pre-cast curb around the play area um and and it is well over $100,000 for the multiple items yeah yeah I don't actually see the kod burit but I think Tim's got his handle on the number for the the Gran I mean I I'm with rert on the on the granite but now we're starting to talk about you know real dollars I see Rupert's hand is up again and then Bruce so rert why don't you go okay I'm trying to hold my microphone in my hand and speak a little bit L it's better that's better um uh I think that we should just vote on the back stop and then continue the discussion separately so we don't get too muddled well I I mean I yeah let's do that okay H Bruce do you want to add anything before we we take that vote I need to say I agree I was going to suggest we do them as three separate votes the back stop and then tiling and then curving and we can vote separately in each one if we choose and we could even instruct differently as to whether and and and I think obviously with the granite we would need to hear from denisco about just how disruptive it is to their process so I I think I think that each of the three of those items is different and we should vote consider and vote separately okay so is there CNA yes um thank you there's also an option to vote for something potentially to be carried as an alternate I think we should clarify which one which way we're proposing to vote on each of them like maybe the more expensive one for curbing would be the one meaningful alternate so Bruce was proposing to include it that was the basis of the vote not as an alternate so any other discussion before we take a vote yeah I do I'm sorry raise my hand sorry that's okay so so I just want to be clear how I intend to vote I I I intend to vote for the the Curbing and the tile um and I would vote the back stop as a third priority so I don't just so you know how I'm looking at this in terms of I think they're all good things to add and if we're faing confident in our numbers why not add all three uh okay so from a process perspective um I think we need to have three separate votes and then um I think we would have to have a third vote on assuming that they all passed um they would they would all go in but the vote will determine the majority vote will determine whether they are all in or not that sound right okay and Paul um are you okay with us taking them in the order that they've been raised which is back stop tile um Granite because I do agree with Bruce cuum that we need to hear I think the impacts the back stop and the tile impacts on the design team are fairly small and the I do want to hear from Tim and Rick on whether if we went to Granite curbs that is an impact on your pro proc yeah I just I don't necessarily think we have to determine the order now I think we have a motion on the floor and we can just vote on that motion and then if someone wants to make another motion for whichever they feel like should come next that we can do that one next um but I think we have a motion on the floor and I would like to vote okay cassa should we clarify when we say tile where we mean because we talked about bathrooms we will we will clarify that when we get to the tile okay okay so the motion on the floor Bruce um motioned Kathy seconded is whether to incorporate the back stop as it has been previously proposed into the base documents for the project and I I'll I'll do the member call if Margaret take the tally um so going across Bruce I Paul yes Doug yes Jonathan this is back Jonathan yes can you hear me yes Jennifer yes rert yes Mo yes Angelica yes Elicia yes it's unanimous with three absent okay so um someone want to take up the tile oh Paul's got a question so I moved to include the granite curbing into the Bak bid packet package okay is there a second second dab second okay so um can I ask Yes Rick can you and Tim talk about the impact on the construction document process and your opinion about this well on on one hand anything that you add on site work doesn't affect Tim and I at all because I'm going to tell Brown sadena and horley Wht to do it uh that's kind of a smart answer but uh there's a couple of there's a couple of components to the Curbing and I'm going to ask Tim because I don't have a drawing in front of me we still have Granite curbing on the project we have Granite curbing where at a but sidewalk we eliminated Granite curbing where it would uh something else would do we have Cape Cod burm along the planted edge of the parking lot uh and I am not sure I'm going to some of that's a component of the of the storm drainage uh so I I'm going to say right now that I'd have to ask if that affects the storm drainage I'm going to guess that it it doesn't because it's a a vertical Edge as opposed to a a tapered Cape cab burm the other uh uses is as Tim mentioned we we substituted pre-cast around playground elements that were flush granite before Tim can you uh offer your recollection of what where those changes would be too do we still have a um I I'm looking at drawings and and we actually took ve items at 60% and at DD related to Curbing and as you know as Rick is starting to describe we have multiple curb conditions spread throughout the project so in the space of this conversation it's going to be very hard to nail down a number and a quantity and an exact um or shall I say precise change to vote on um but but we do have Granite curbs where you have sidewalk in the project we did accept a substitute to go to pre-cast around the play area we do have at the um along the drive AES we have the Cape Cod burm and then we have at the uphill side of the parking lot on the west we don't have a curb so there there is a a full menu of curbs that we have on the project um and and replacing them you know like from a pre-cast to a granite is not a large um imposition on the design team uh and I'm speaking for someone that's not present but uh I I can say that we have no confidence we have uh no problem asking to do that but um it's a sort of longwind answer to say to give you a a fully informed fully detailed um description of cost and what you would be voting on or an estimate of the cost and what you would be voting on might might be uh impossible in in this meeting yeah um I I just pulled up this is just a random picture from the internet just in case anyone doesn't know what a Cape Cod burm is so it's an asphalt formed BM and as um Rick and Tim say it's it's not everywhere but it's in some locations so I see uh reck you still have your hand up did you want to no hand is down okay rert and Kathy rert why don't you go next so I'd like to clarify maybe um my interest in replacing with granite is really only where the cape Cub burm is subject to damage from plow trucks I think that's really the only place that uh is worth trying to um incorporate a hard heartier substance uh other folks may have more experience with plowing than I do I've never run a plow truck but um I don't think pre-cast around the playground is of major concern in terms of maintenance is really just the snow plows I I would say that's exactly what I meant yeah my motion thank you for the clarification now that's helpful folks Kathy um you know this was one that I didn't raise when I first raised them because I thought it was more work on the design team Paul and rert um and so I don't know whether there's what rubert just said is the specific areas where the plow trucks are we do have that cape card BM all over the town I've been looking looking at it and including on the UMass parking lots only some of them have the sturdier stuff so I I would I hate I was trying to avoid adding complications when I I was doing this so um I could probably vote against this unless the design team tells me they think this isn't essential and they didn't think it was essential when we took it out so that was a a comment as well as an observation about having learned what these things are my eyes keep saying what is ammer college have what does SUS have and how many variations are there yes many Rick you want to add something yeah the picture you put up is a Cape Cod burm I think it's it's actually more abrupt than the one that we've got detailed uh and of of the revisions and Tim uh correct me if I'm wrong but simply switching out the snow PL related curb elements should not be an imposition on the site design team yeah I think that would be accurate and then I think well you know the areas where it would be of greatest concern for example the um Loop in the drop off Loop South of the building where the plow is required to make turns uh possibly snow can't see that those islands in the center are Cape curn uh conrete curb there would certainly be more um durable and Will Survive excuse me Granite yeah there a lot of curbing uh details on the table right now a granite curb there would survive an occasional impact with a plow whereas a cape C burm would not de Leonard so would Paul entertain a friendly amendment to include the uh Granite along the areas that are affected by plowing and not the playground yes yes I would just I don't even think that's a I think that's a clarification on the motion to to be in in sync with what rert had identified as as the high priority items so sorry Paul mentioned who was the second it was Deb so I don't see any other hands are you all ready to take a vote on this I am not seeing any NOS so Kathy do you want to call the rooll or would you like me to do that oh r r hand is up R is down R's hand is up sure so I just I just want to make sure before folks vote that we don't actually have a uh an estimated number that we're adding but we think that it's uh less than 200,000 because that was the sum of all of the value engineering for curbs is that correct that's correct I would say it's substantially more than that you're it's substantially more than 200,000 no less it's substantially less than that okay and just I'm sorry I should raise my hand not just take a chair but um to the extent the number is higher than we think um can we this is what makes me uncomfortable voting on this one Paul because I know the other ones are not very expensive um can we get a number you've got to put this in the drawing so I I we don't have time to futz around with this so we're telling you to put it in the drawing and then this could be one if the bids come in higher than we hope is on a list for switching back I mean the good thing about the parking lot is it happens after the school you know it's not right on day one so I'm just looking for if if we need to switch it back but if it's in the 100,000 or less range it's it's a smaller number I just don't have a sense of the number rert is hand us up my other question for uh um for folks who deal with this stuff all the time is that the kind of thing that you would uh consider as an ad alternate because it is relatively simple uh change uh and since that is not part of Paul's uh original motion uh should we vote on uh if it should pass whether it be add alternate or incorporated or can we decide that after process question so if I can address that so you would make an amendment to the motion if you wanted to make it an add alternate U my motion is to include it in the in the base bid all right so I guess I'd like to hear back from uh the construction experts about that notion before I make such a a an amendment we're not trying to complicate your lives we are though I know uh it's it would be a relatively easy add alternate uh it affects it affects one trade one bidder and its GC work uh so diagrammatically and by detail it could be done pretty simply again it's we're talking about in the order magnitude of about $100,000 I guess from somebody that's seen the list uh that could be done that way uh Bruce has his hand up and CNA Bruce um I think we should vote on this as uh as Paul has uh moved for it to be added to the base the concern that we have that uh unique among the three options we're considering we haven't uh really got a firm idea of price on this I think we should adjust that by saying we will um decide subsequently whether we might revise that to uh instruct it as an as an alternate as opposed to being part of the base that way the work is done uh it's in the drawings and then uh it could be rephrased slightly differently or or or S become an alternate if we choose to but I think we can proceed to put it in um and with with the you know with with with in good conscience because we could decide to U declare it or stracted declaration as an alternate subsequently on the advice of the design team Yesa I think this might actually fit the philosophy of carrying a single deduct alternate that if you're in trouble you drop it but then the base scope would be nicely packaged and if we just want to move forward without that alteration we just don't execute the deduct alternate and there's no additional uh document modification um that's needed in order to incorporate an ad alternate Jonathan I'm supportive of Kenya's approach um you know we're getting close to the end of the process here um I would would prefer not to be instructing the design team at our next meeting to do something um in the way of of uh putting something as an alternator including as a base but I'd rather give them clear instruction today I think cen's approach does that okay so I'm not seeing any hands so I think the Paul we would be modifying your proposal to include the additional Granite curbing where it could where curbing could be impacted by the plow as the deduct alternate and the scope that that's not my motion oh okay sorry you want to my motion my motion is to includeed in the base bid included in the base bit period y okay does someone want to make a modification to that be as a deduct alternate can can I can I ask do we need to say that right now or the team just do it you know in other words we put it in the base and it becomes one of the things that we can do I I don't quite understand how the the bidding works on this I'm I'm a neoi on this first time ever Paul and here's why I mean this is why we're getting confused here is that we're doing we're we want to put this as it's $100,000 versus the previous thing we just voted without a question as a deduct alternate and if we're talking about which ones are deduct alternates I'm choosing the base the thing that our our facilities director says we need and I'm I don't want to get into that conversation and I think just put into the bid and let it play out and see what happens otherwise we're value we're saying this one should be deduct that one shouldn't be I mean I I don't want to be in that conversation right now okay thank you for the clarification so uh Paul has made that motion Deb has seconded are we ready to take a vote on Paul's motion looks like it so I will call the votes um Bruce I support Paul yes Doug yes Jonathan yes Deb yes Jennifer yes rert yes Simone yes Angelica yes Elicia yes and um I'm going to abstain because I'm not sure about the cost so I'm going to abstain okay but the motion carries so okay Alicia you a question yeah sorry I just wanted to add a quick comment um because I do also want to note that I have some concerns about the cost but I do like I think it was Bruce I could be wrong that recommended that we could just it for now and if the cost comes back something that we're uncomfortable with we can then decide at that point if we want to move it to um an alternate so I hope that we can still consider that in the future no that would be off the table I think because we have to give direction here at this meeting to the design team because they're in the final month and a half of completing their document so I don't think I Rick and Tim tell me if you disagree I don't think 's going to be an opportunity to change that direction in the future it if it's if it's in the documents without being considered as an alternates we're simply changing the Cape Cod burm to Granite if it's going to be an alternate either as an add or a deduct alternate we have to show both conditions so those have to be in when the drawings go out to bid in the first of July okay thank you John I I'm sort of agreeing with with Paul that you know in the grand scheme of things this this is still a relatively small uh item you know it's it's not likely to be a make or break and and let's not get into kind of ranking our our preferences okay so tile does someone want to make a motion about the tile maybe John I will make a motion that uh we well first we hear from the design team make sure that this won't cause and undo burden on the process but assuming that it doesn't um we include the additional tile in the bathrooms uh and I thinki his priorities second second okay um Rick and John and Tim you want to talk about that this is a pretty easy one isn't it Tim uh this this is the easiest of easies um so I mean I I I don't want to say you could even wait longer on this one but if we being honest about the effort um this this is about as easy as it changes there can be from our point of view okay rer okay and so once again do we have an idea what kind of amount we're proposing to get added back in um the I wrote them down rert the the bathroom one and and the issue is I didn't specify out the hall the bathroom was in the almost 100,000 range I mean you Tim you can check these later and then I'm less sure about the Wayne scotting because I don't didn't see you know the the hallway versus the um the stairwell I I didn't see so yeah looking at I see ceramic wall tile and the bathrooms as being 90 about $9,000 $95,000 savings marked up and there were I don't see a value for the stairs and the value for the hallways we're not talking about which was a big number we we can certainly go back and do a detailed look at what we think it will be but I I will say that in the multi fixture toilet rooms right now we already own full height tile on the wet walls as a durability concerned so these are the additional walls so we already own more than half of what the change so I don't want to say definitively but I'm fairly certain that this is less than a $100,000 change I'm not seeing any hands does that mean everybody's ready to take a vote on this Rupert's hands back up hi rert sorry about that um Bruce was it you that uh identified this stairwell as a separate item or was it you him no you did you you did I thought the stairwell got mentioned as a separate item from the regular hallways at some point by someone it's possible that it did but just looking back at the document um that summarized all the options it wasn't called out as a separate number which is why we're having a hard time putting a number on it now there was an item for hallways and there was a number for deleting wall tile at the multi fixure toilet rooms on the on the walls that were not wet walls to clarify my statement that it would be less than 100,000 was the tile in the toilet rooms and the stair and I was not considering adding any additional tile it in the quars throughout the building right exactly do you put them both together Tim which is great okay correct okay so also not seeing any hands so is it time to take a vote I think so uh so I'll go around uh Bruce I support Paul yes Jonathan yes Doug yes Deb yes Jennifer yes rert yes Deone yes Angelica yes Elicia yes it's unanimous unanimous with three absent so Kathy you're a yes I'm a yes oh Kathy's a yes yeah okay got it great okay well well done team um so just to go back to the agenda I think we are now at invoices oh we were going to do an update on the site work I apologize Rick and Tim do you want to do that uh sure the uh I believe they're on track to finish the ram aggregate peers today and uh at which time Keller the that specialty Foundation contractor will demobilize and uh uh gangal Uchi will begin bringing in the preload fill which is intended to duplicate the weight of the building and will serve to f further compress the soil and they anticipate that to be phase to be completed uh in uh another month say mid June uh and they will be then the early site package will be all but completely completed at that point so ah Hadad of schedule that's great okay so I think we can turn to invoices Deb has a comment just really a question how do you duplicate the weight of a building with a film Phil Phil Phil isil lot of soil of dirt you'll you'll see U an 8 foot high Plateau out there when they're done okay and then then people will have questions like what the heck is going on out there so everybody on the in the group needs to be prepared to explain what the big pile of dirt is doing so oh and by the way that big pile of dirt then gets all spread over the rest of the site to bring it to grade during phase one so the big pile of dirt disappears by the time the uh building's occupied all right turn it over to cassena for invoice Rue I'll just throw in one more update detail on the pre-qualification process for the general contractors in the file sub bits which is to say that we're just about through the process we have enough applicants who are going to be qualified in each category both enough to me meet the requirements and enough to have a decent competitive spread so there's still a couple of details being worked out but we're just about there with sufficient time we will of course need to re read vertise the elevator trade very rarely basically never do we get any submissions there and it's just a process we have to do go through for pre-qualification again pre-qualification is not bidding it is identifying the list of contractors General and sub who will be permitted Sub in certain categories that will be permitted to submit a bid when the documents come out this summer all right now invoices one second I'll put up my screen I'm very incentivized to get through this quickly because um almost 10 o'clock in conflicts okay so I'll start with perspective as we did last um month to say that this bar represents the overall project budget and the road ahead as then not committed not subject to being invoiced is still by far of a bulk of it um the green represents what has been invoiced and paid in the past and that's only 6% the black bar represents what's being placed for in front of you for approval today in the current invoice package and that is $694,000 6 694 768 um and uh the yellow represents the unbilled portion of contracts that are already in place and committed so that is OPM Services through the balance of a job through the end of construction Design Services through the end of design and through the end of construction for over site as well as what's left of the uh early site package contractor's work okay um this right this bar right here again represents the full scope of the the budget and it shows that the the blue or is that purple um is the hard cost right construction with like the actual products that you're getting and the green hashed is the soft costs that are in invested so the Professional Services and a little bit more perspective that we didn't see last month um although it's issued and updated monthly is the cash flow the yellow bar indicates where we are in time today so this is the April package of invoices April service that we're paying for um the green bars are monthly spending month full or month to date so they've clearly gone way way up you know in terms of magnitude from where we were before but this is just to say and this is where we're going uh the particular shape of this is somewhat of an educated guesstimate um and will continue to evolve and improve as the project comes online as the general contractor gets awarded but basically this is a little perspective on where we are um financially the invoice package that's presented to you today has all invoices have been reviewed negotiated finalized and are being recommended we recommend them to you as the openers project managers for approval um there is uh one two 3 four five companies um and within them denisco invoice has broken up into three let me see is that a is that a good enough Zoom right there the total of a package is $694,000 uh 53 of which is for the OPM owner um answer advisory and represents um a 2% progression on our billing bringing us to 24% build and uh 76% remaining for the rest of the the project a lot of that is field oversight money uh denisco uh is uh asking for a 5% progression bringing them to 63% the balance of 37 represents finishing the contract documents overseeing bidding and then overseeing construction gager DUI is the early site package contractor and their bill is for 12% progression bringing them to uh 39% complete in reality they are already well ahead of that they are moving very quickly so this is a pretty conservative billing um and uh there's a small bill for bit docs online that's the online website the hosting platform for that uh recently uh uh accommodated uh receiving the pre-qualification submissions and that whole process and then finally we have a teeny tiny $200 bill from the third party testing company you'll see more of them as we go on but they're out there timely uh they're just strangely behind on their bellings um this is the answer invoice for 53,000 I'm going to flip from every page and welcome you to stop me if you have specific questions uh this this is the gager duci early site package um bill for 294,000 with their lean waiver uh denisco bill for the design progression denisco bill for wetland Permitting Services small less than $1,000 Den isco's bill for asbestos and Hazmat Professional Services um 90 9,588 the bid Doc's invoice for [Music] $4,500 and I think that said I must have missed the um testing an inspection one but okay any questions not seeing any hands and uh buer there's a I make a motion we accept as presented Shane second I will not seeing any hands up I will put it to a vote uh Bruce I approve Paul yes Jonathan yes Doug yes yes Jennifer yes rer yes Simone yes Angelica yes Alicia yes and cassia I want to thank you for both the format um and the way you're capturing it I I find it very useful to see the future flow as well as what we're paying thank you so I think we're ready for public comment yeah I'm just looking around if there are any other final thoughts I don't see any so we are open for public comments um and as you know these are limited three minutes maximum and uh we will be uh taking the public comment but not responding to the comments as they occur so Maria I have brought you into the room hi thank you Maria kapiki South ammer um first of all just um I don't speak as a representative of the people who play softball but thank you um for the back stop really appreciate that um I I have a question that perhaps um you can answer at an at an upcoming meeting I'm just kind of curious about how the msba re reimbursement Works in this part of the process um uh how you know or do we are we getting anything from them is that all going to come at a later date or I'm just curious about that if you could address that at some time um oh I had something else and I can't remember what it is that's okay um but uh thank you um this the work of um our OPM and designers has been it confidence inspiring thank you so much for for all the excellent work thank you Maria Tony I have brought you into the room hi thanks Tony Cunningham um so plus one to Maria's compliments and it was great to see that the estimates came in under budget um I was curious about the canopies I thought there was a conversation at the Town level about putting arpa money into to expanding the canopies over the parking lot to the north part of the lot in phase two is that something that the designers will add to their documents at this point or is that something that the town would do on its own after the project is complete thank you thanks Tony so we we both comments um are answerable so what we can do is um get answers Margaret and we can put them in the minutes of the today's meeting so we don't prolong the discussion right now yeah okay so do it we just we'll just get you more thorough answers um I'm not seeing any other uh hands up I have I have one quick question and if um that um is for me and I can understand it more when we meet again in June but in in the specifications you have something called mockups which are allowing us to see various pieces and maybe next time we meet you can tell us a little bit more the function of them I don't need to know that now but uh emers college has some on their site right now about a building they're building and it is kind of giving people choices of Windows and colors and stuff they set up several so I saw that there were some mockups so maybe next time we can get a sense of what th what those will be and when we can be seeing them um I don't need answers to that now uh I can answer Simply Now if if you okay the the mockup panels that we specify uh as you know as being part of the the design review uh group we're we're asking uh that colors be selected and the mockups are used for workmanship and not color or material selection the one thing that we do use the mockups for uh for example we'll get the specified brick and we'll use the mockup to select one mortar color over another so that's that's the range of uh of color selection that comes from the mockup will also if the Mason uh submits to dreaded or equal brick or something we we have that brick installed in the mockup as part of the approval process so that's when uh that's when mockup is used for an approval but generally it's not for colors in fact if we have Windows inserted in it uh we'll tell them that we don't care what color the window is because our our import is to get it in the mockup wall and have it tested by the testing agent thank you hope that helps no that helps um now I saw a mockup of something that was being built in another country and it was you know a selling point for it so so I don't see any other comments um we have a June meeting it should be on everyone everyone's calendars and the sustainability uh I think we've already posted sustainability meeting for the 28th and we will be putting information into that packet um and so it has a zoom number so I want to thank everybody um this was uh in my opinion a very productive meeting and I apologize for lengthening it by going back to some decisions we made a year and a half ago um but I thought about that last night so thank you all very much um and I will see you in a month we're adjourned at whatever time it is 10:07 10:07 thank you