##VIDEO ID:sbcjCpHYi50## all right well I'd like to call to order the select board meeting for Tuesday October 22nd um we will um our agenda tonight is to have Community input then uh appointments and resignations we're going to have a brief discussion about this fire station renovation owners project manager interviews and then we're going to um invite uh those those uh firms in to the room uh individually uh and then we're going to have a at 910 we'll have a American Rescue plan act update and then the Town Administrator report we'll go through warrants and minutes liaison reports and then we'll um have a last session of community input and then we'll adjourn um so for tonight I'd like to uh with calling the meeting to order um it looks like that we have uh four members present and David Modell is not present and doesn't look like he is on line either so um with that why don't we get started and uh for Community input um is there anyone in the room I'd start with the room who wants to offer any Community input on anything seeing none um online Bentley I see there Debbie Bentley has her hand raised I don't know how to hand my rate I don't know how to raise my hand John La afterwards so Debbie you have approximately two to three minutes I don't think I'm going to take that long um my name is Debbie Bentley I live on held Road um I'm here as the co-chair of the uh carile cultural Council and I'd like to invite all the select board to come to uh our Open Studios the first one is happening this weekend and the next one is in 3 weeks time this is where we all we have created an event for local artists and Artisans to be able to exhibit and sell their work in their own Studios or in some shared studios around town so it's a tour around the town and um it we have pulled this I'm going to blow our trumpet a little bit we we pull this together in three weeks which is absolutely phenomenal most people take like four months to do this and I wouldn't have done it had it not been for you know the people on the cultural Council and the amazing people in town who just said yeah let's do this we can do this and so um it's a great Community event and so I really it would be really wonderful if you could uh come and visit the sites it's all on our web page um and um you tour around the town and see see what our residents are doing in the woods that sounds great they're creating amazing things by the way I I'm really really impressed by the the workmanship of all the people that are on this tour wonderful well thank you for that announcement and um we'll go on to Mr lavy hi Travis thank you I'm sorry I'm not on video I'm little unprepared I just rushed in but I'll be quick I did forget please please mention your street address too sorry John lavy School Street in car okay for about 20 years um I'm focused on the fire station uh interviews today and what I'm concerned about is your your criteria I guess for selecting a uh designer doesn't include any sort of measurement system for the fire department itself there's no performance measure or success measure or efficiency measure and I've sent you guys documents before pointing to the ISO standards the insurance services organization standards which rate every Fire Department in the United States and have for about 150 years they currently rate our fire station 8B um as a call station and in the design process I think it's important that the designer decide or make a recommendation about what they think the Right iso standard is for our fire department because if the right standard is 8B where we are now we shouldn't be designing a building to accommodate a a four or a five or a six we should design for what we want the problem is we haven't defined what we want we haven't told the uh designers in anything that I've seen this is the standard we want our fire department to perform at and this is the building that we want that will support that so I would suggest questioning them about what they think is the appropriate ISO standard for Carlile and um what equipment we need to achieve that standard in addition to what we have or maybe we have equipment we don't need and we could design a fire station that could be more efficient um uh with so with by getting rid of the excess equipment these comments are specifically towards the fire department side not the ambulance service side which I think is doing an excellent job in a bad space and maybe the right way to divide this up is to try to remodel the fire station for the fire department and an ancillary building for the ambulance service and all the uh what like on Personnel needs for the department members for the uh EMTs Etc and so we can get a a clean building and a and a fire equipment building great all right thanks that took I was a little unprepared so that took longer than I thought that's all right thank you John appreciate the comment um if there are no other comments we're I don't see any so let's move on to appointments and resignations um the diam park subcommittee Charter and membership uh Ryan is there anything that you wanted to report on that or so Mr chair this comes directly from the Recreation Commission they are creating a subcommittee in order to investigate possibilities for renovating Diamond Park this is the charter membership they requested it just needs to be approved by this board or amended if you see fit I had a question and that was um is there an end date on this um committee and if it's going to be greater than a year or three should they be um given you know staggered dates so that if it continues on so they didn't recommend that when they sent it to us but you can add that as a condition if you want it's tough because they're it's just they're all starting now I know well but do do you start them with staggered ends so there's one two and three how many years do they need Diamond Park they'll be done in three years won't they just let them run and be done just just so it's just a purpose till the till the project is done but I do think it should be I I don't want a a committee on our books that hangs there and is not being used so I want would like to have an and you know some state M then that the date you know this is a until the job is done committee and then it just totally goes away and it's off our books we've had that issue with other yep you want a sunset Clause is that what you're kind of suggesting so that's what I'm anyone else think that's appropriate what do you think as far as a time limit a ter like a three years or do you want to you know or or specific of project is there a specific goal well I must have Ryan we must have some boilerplate sort of language for that kind of thing right that some that committee that will end at the end of this one's very specific to this charge of coming up with a plan for Diamond Park I mean two to three years if they need more they can ask for extension if you want to put a time limit on it and it's you know the last line of the of the starter says and they will report their findings directly to the Recreation Commission within 3 years okay two to 3 years just add that in phrase okay yeah yeah great anybody else have any amendments or thoughts on this reminder of my calendar too is there a is there a motion to accept it as amended there another one did anybody put a motion in no no but you could make one I I would oh we have to approve the okay I move to amend okay I move to amend the demon Park subcommittee Charter as included in the packet with the addition of the phrase within two to three years uh at the end of the last sentence of the charter second okay any further discussion I mean this is I'm only saying is half ously but I would love to know how you're supposed to pronounce the name of the park diamond or de yeah um so it would be lovely if it's part of their job part of their Charter they would give us a phenetic um so that we all talking about the same park okay um make a motion on that no motion all right so we have a Kate had seconded any further discussion let's do a vote in favor I I and he opposed none okay so they have a charter now I think we just have to move to a point yep you want to I move to appoint the following to the Diamond Park subcommittee Sarah wingert Adam cotton Emma uh found beter I think it's pronounced UH 60 ledu well the first sorry let me go over Sarah weard Sarah wingart a reccom member Adam cotton a reccom member Emma beter 60 edgeways aen Foody 32 Lions Gate Road Carolyn Abbott 8 Nathan Lane elanar Longman 43 Partridge Lane and an associate member Jesse Pescatore 50509 South Street and Associate member Kate garabedian 137 East Riding Drive do hear a second second okay um I I just had one question for um there was a note in about Jesse pescator did that get yes confirmed she is a resent she is a res confirmed okay great all right so you have a motion and it's been second second any other comments all right um Voice vote all in favor I I None opposed okay great moving right along so fire station renovation owners project man manager interviews Ryan I think you had suggested before we begin you wanted to have a quick discussion about it or is there something you want to talk about so the the plan of action here is the uh that the opms have all agreed to to wait in the Parlin room we'll we'll shut the door bring them in one at a time to ask questions the questions were sent to you ahead of time I'm going to read each question to allow you to uh pay attention and ask any follow-ups there's they are ranked in order of what you sent to me and then any additional questions so it goes from most important to the least important because I don't know that we'll get to all 11 yeah I'm just going to say it's I'm going to keep a tight clock please don't get mad at me for refereeing how much time each 30 minutes each and the question one supposed to start at uh 7:20 7 minutes so and the point of this organizational time is to just um if there's anything that you want to see done or if there's anything you want to clarify in terms of the questions or the process now would be the time to discuss it so that everybody gets the same interview right and Ryan you're going to read the questions and the point is that the the same questions for every candidate so it's a fair process I had a question relative to Mr laies they all got it ahead of time too just they've already gotten this okay but they they haven't does anyone here feel that that question you know do we want to ask it or it have some additional standard this ISO standard thing yeah yeah or is that too specific for what we're doing at this point couldn't we once we make a choice have that part of the what we want them to look at the scope sure can't can't that be a charge it's going to be a design comme or Char a design charge sure whole committee is going to spend time doing that right we get that far well that's not really a design question that's more of a what if or not what if what do we want you know it's was it what do we I thought I didn't catch it all cuz it came like but it sounded to me like he was asking like what would it take to meet this standard what standard should be applied I think is part of the question and then falling out of that there's the design impacts of the standard you choose we're not here to do a design review we're here to pick confirm we have confidence but it's part of that first the pre-phase or the what are we calling it pre-design we're going to have to answer that question sure but we're going to appoint a committee we're going to pick who we think can take us across right we're going to appoint a committee of people who were so I don't expect them to have an answer to that question should give them a charge but that's part of what they will do in this first initial which we haven't specifically talked about no we'll have come up with yeah we we but that'll be part of what we want them to do in that first phas I've had a few questions too just to take 20 seconds so the owner project manager works for the town and helps to guide the project they spend the time to make sure the project runs well into the standard of the select board so there'll be three phases the pre design phase then the creation of the construction documents and then the construction they work through US throughout however once predesign is done they will be helping us hire a designer who actually does the design right so uh there's two we're not hiring a designer today we're hiring the project manager and the designer would require funding from the town yes right yeah I think it's premature to be asking about ISO and this that and the other um it in this venue you you've been difficult is too strong but you've been working with the idea of how can we know that we're we're building the right building you should feel confident the OPM can help you recommend that but they're not going to be the ones designing it they're going to be picking the designer that does what you want right sounds good and so our goal on timing though is because I see at 9 10 we're supposed to do go to the arpa reports or goal would be if we stay on track that we would have what 15 minutes before like end at 8:50 or so we we would have because that the idea would be we're I think what we said was we were going to wait and discuss all three at the end of all three interviews right so we did send out a um amendment to this agenda that was more clear ah so the interviews are 30 minutes there's 5 minutes in between for reset and at 9:00 you're doing deliberation in arpa won't be till 9:30 so you'll have 30 okay okay so 710 that's good all right so we we're we're now so 720 we would have to call okay the first one okay so 9M so I guess Ryan I'm thinking also since they have already had these questions in hand rather than spending you know four minutes some of these questions are very lengthy could we boil the first question down to the last um last two lines for instance you know just describe the process and deliverables You' use to ensure Carlile to achieve our goal I have a plan he's got a you have a we're going to let Ryan he's the the moderator so to speak we get to ask question okay he's asking the question I want to ask Ryan a question my question to Ryan is where is question four oh or what is question four it was it was too serious a question at the go right okay what if our Town Administrator doesn't like work this is what happens when you're excuse me okay 9 10 11 that's funny it's like floor 13 you know that's right and everyone is we're we're seriously need to time boxes because I'm assuming you cannot give different times to different right correct exactly okay yeah I'm not going to just cut them off mid-sentence but it's going to be around 30 minutes and same with you so okay we should we should really just shut up and listen go get them to these answers right exactly yeah there's not a lot of time here yeah thank you all hear that thank you state thank you procurement y yep all right so RGB is first RGB red green and then CMS and then col your right one two three okay okay moving around conratulations I borrow a piece of his paper hello evening hello hi you didn't see that okay great short of paper well I it's a long story still not firing on all cylinders yet little different we're doing there hi how you [Music] doing have we get paid by how many cards we give out okay all right thank you retro what we did tonight we know we are didn't have a lot of time we put all some of the answers on this piece of paper so that if we ran out of time or perhaps once we leave you have any questions of what we said or how we said it something you can refer to all right great so uh just to let you know you're here in front of the for they are the design selection committee for this OPM and uh this project we're in front of the public obviously this is a public meeting and it's on Zoom if you want to introduce yourselves That's How we'll start and then we'll get into the questions please David dequatro I'm U managing principal and CEO of RGB my name is John rine I am also principal and director of the OPM division all right great let's get started so question one the goal is to to bring this to the annual town meeting in terms of funding the design so OPM funds are set but we want to fund the design a town meeting and introduce the project to the community we've listed a bunch of goals which you've seen as I can see on your handout here so the select board would like you to describe the process and deliverables you would use to enable Carlile achieves this goal and what do you view as the major challenges and risks needing mitigation to achieve it sure I I'll I'll start Dave you can jump in any time um my first thought would certainly be uh the on one second we we have people that are remote closer pull that a little closer yeah this better thank you very much you're welcome um yeah oh I can certainly hear it now absolutely so uh our first goal obviously would be to do a master schedule um we need to meet that deadline so we put a work plan together starting with the deadline and working backwards and achieve all the milestones and work on those Milestones um I know it sounds pretty obvious but that's certainly something that will be your our road map throughout the entire project um then uh we also would like to bring on the design team right away um that's critical because you're going to want that team to uh do the investigation site investigation do have that team do the uh due diligence on the site and uh do programming and things of that nature then we'll take that team and bring it to the um uh to the end users and uh really find out what the program is what is it that the fire team is looking for um and then uh do a final study kind of take that programming take the pricing develop a package that could be presented to your uh your board and your in the town so basically for us it always starts with the schedule how are we going to get there from here and then ends with the study and financing and timeline any follow questions very brief question when when you say the design design team is that someone on your team or is that a third party design team just what would that look like oh it we can certainly do it as uh as because we're we we do do architecture as well um but um we can certainly do the study but my understanding is that we're bringing on a team uh the an architect engineer and things of that nature to do that study that's my understanding but we're certainly flexible we can certainly work with the town in any manner that I would like to certainly have done them too complete a lot of we have we've done a lot so I think from our perspective the first thing is really to un for you to understand sure and guide us really in what we actually need oh absolutely and that to me would inform your selection of designer and all the other things so maybe you want to elaborate on that oh yeah so there's always some original there there'll be some due diligence on our part we want to take a look at the site obviously we want to find out what those restraints are we want to talk to the fire department and uh understand what they're looking for what is the end goal and then we're going to talk budget and timeline and we piece all that together in order to provide the r you know put a quality RFQ together so that we can get that team to to to execute the uh schematic design and and moving forward and we would do all that on a John was talking he's done a lot of research on the building itself what it was built like how you can't go to that second floor can you move your mic closer oh you can't go to I is the yeah light is it on Sarah it is on yeah okay is it working want we share the mic share the mic we can't sing together okay so we've uh John's done a lot of research on the actual site the building itself how was constructed how you can't put a second floor how you have restrictions on Wetlands we would go through that whole um the kind of gondra of a list of things that we can't do versus what we can do and that will limit and give you a direction of what your your choices are at that point certainly he's done that research and we've done that on several projects as well all right moving on to the second question so in the RFP and in the questions that we sent you the select board identified five major goals for this project this is what they've told the community is the reason for this project they also stated that the project budget for this is 5 to 10 million that's the hope with the concept of an anex facilties so not necessarily a new building or renovation but maybe some combination of so based on your experience and expertise do you believe this is achievable to meet the board and the town's goal and to stay within this budget amount please discuss either way sure happy to discuss um when it comes to budget it's always achievable um I think it's a it's a matter of uh uh understanding what the limitations if any are there um so understanding the budget um you take tailor the project to the budget at least you try to uh with some exceptions uh sometimes there are things that you just can't live without that may affect the budget but obviously um one of the first steps when we do do the do the study and the cost estimate we'll know what we're looking for and then we tailor that project to meet those expectations so um I think with depending on uh what the end result is what the programming is um what the expectations are how pieces of equipment are going to be stored how many volunteer firefighters are going to be ultimately housed in the building you know what uh other classroom uh and some of the the decontamination locations all that will dictate how big the building is and an ultimately what you're going to need to do to fit into that budget so yes I think it's certainly possible um I think it's you know it's there's a little bit of a road to get there from here one I can step in there one of that John's known for is he keeps a spreadsheet an Excel spreadsheet of what your budget is when we went and did a public safety building for 30 million the town had $30 million to spend and we could do nothing else but spend that 30 million and the whole thing was trying to save off that so he kept the town in this case the mayor uh a price of what the budget was all the way through and uh they looked at things in terms of fire engines and police station police cars rather they didn't look at Dollar say well how many police cars can I buy how many fire stations or fire trucks can I buy by so we will keep that running tally all the way through the project so it starts at $10 million and everything takes away from that $10 million so you'll know in advance as a committee how much money you have left for contingencies for additional and then lastly we put together a wish list now wish list is what you want but you may not be able to afford and you have a contingency so certain parts of the project you'll go through and you'll have some contingency left and that's when we say Okay Now's the Time you can go and pick some of that wish list because you have that money left so we we guide you through through that whole process um so that you understand how much money is there how much money will be allocated and used and how much money you get left okay I will add that it was fun conversation asking how many police cars can I buy now and it always kind of it's like do you want furniture or do you want police cars all right moving on to the next question so the town's looking to hire a firm that's willing to design or help us design the project that's necessary to the meet the community's building and budgetary goals not necessarily other goals like architecture Etc so this might include some value engineering Creative Design alternate building construction methods like modular which has been discussed so how will you help the select board recruit and select a designer willing to consider these alternate approaches and make sure that we select the right designer are there approaches you've taken for other fire station projects where you've employed ways to help the town save money while meeting that budgetary goal taking on these aims so please discuss sure I I'll start I'm sure Dave would like to add um but ultimately uh selecting the design team is a is a comfort level um when we put rfps together we tailor the RFP or the rfqs in this case we tailor the rfqs to um specifically for the project um so when I would when I develop these or I would write it I would put incentives or or cues for the design teams to show some of their alternative thinking um one of the one of the items that we that we like that we've done successfully is uh do a pad ready portion of a project first and then do the the actual uh construction of the building so if you're not familiar with the pad ready is that you're essentially doing everything to the site in anticipation of the building and what that allows you to do is you and it's ultimately two packages so you'll you'll do a package and put it out the bid and have a general or a a site contractor come in do all the site work you bring in new utilities and uh you upgrade the septic system in the well which is what you have here um in anticipation of the building and if there are some cost overruns on unexpected unforeseen items that come up it gives us the opportunity to change the design a little bit of the building to accommodate for those uh unforeseen items and then when that building goes out to bid you're you're tailoring that project closer to the budget and to the to those items um once we tailor that RFQ U we certainly would review and talk to the design teams with you make recommendations and things of that nature and see if it's the right fit um uh and then um obviously um we would take a look at other cost saving methods all the way through the project you know uh is it a what type of non-combustible material would it be is it better to do a um Steel versus CMU or or things of that nature a lot of that depends on the market and what's available in this area um so we'll we'll keep track of those things as the project goes through um so those are some of the items that we recommend I always like to give examples because it shows you what we've done in the past how we've done it successfully or not successfully this was North Kingstown fire station it was a seven North kingtown fire station Rhode Island and a client had a $7.5 million bid that he had another architect do and he didn't have that kind of money had $3 million to do it so he came to us and he says can you do that so you had mentioned uh modular the word modular to me also means pre-engineered it's something that's done so think about this think about everything you have in front of you whether it be shoes or your computers are all modular and bass if they weren't every shoe would be designed individually if a computer be designed individually so someone in the industrial uh uh era told us or found out that when you made things in a certain way certain you could reduce the cost that was the idea we had so we did a pre-engineered metal building for a fire station opposed to a brick and block a Brick by Brick type fire station we were able to come down on that budget we got that project for doing that so we would do a similar thing to you we would look outside the box is there another way of Designing and building it perhaps using a thirdparty cost estimator alongside of us we do estimating inside the office but we also will use a third party as well to bounce that off and those are some examples of what we could do to load reduce that all questions seeing none we'll move on to question four please discuss your recommended Staffing plans for the Carlile project I tell us whether or not that team's here tonight and if the project would if there would be a person assigned to the project solely yeah so I'm the I will be your your representative I'm the face of the of the OPM Division and uh I would be your your uh your your main contact um but I do also have resources that I would uh um lean on um bill marquetti would be my uh senior senior project manager um and I also have a field representative um and it'll be Dave uh green for this project um so we don't change the team once we get on there um unless there's a major issue and we can't get that for that team number out there uh we uh we we we tend to stick with that what go ahead sure say what about uh like if you need specific fire station expertise nfba standard you know those types of things how do you handle that sure well we have a lot of our own personal knowledge because we we've we do a lot of design work as well so we have um a good background as well um and we do have resources that we'd use like U BR is one of our um MEP um uh Consultants that we would use uh SLS is another code um specific um fire suppression system uh company that would use so we do have a number of resources that we would reach out um a lot of times we would also Bank on uh the design team right that's why we're hiring them so if we we know uh obviously quite a bit about these systems and these these uh facilities so if we find that something doesn't quite pass mustard we'll certainly uh ask them to to verify confirm or we will go out to a third party uh consultant ourselves I think you had it on that one he always likes adding follow um and I apologize if you had it in your proposal I I didn't see it anywhere in the proposal which is um can you tell us a little more about um sort of the in the these different phases which members of your team are going to be on site when and then when they are on site how much time they're giving to us let's say you know on a weekly basis sure so um I do a lot of the frontend stuff so basically prior to construction um I'll do a lot of the a lot of the leg work um set up the budget set up the um uh schedules and things of that nature um Bill and Dave uh bill would take care of a lot of the U once we start getting into design he'll do some of the peer review work and some of the uh you know take on some of the budget review responsibilities and then during construction uh Dave Green is is my field representative so Dave and I have been working together for quite some time um we're actually just finishing up I know it's another question but we're just finishing up a major project uh multi-building project in hopkington so when that's done uh it'll be a great devv tail this project would work perfectly for our for our schedule um so I anticipate Dave his availability um is certainly up to uh the board and how much um availability you'd like us he could be out full-time or if budget doesn't allow um he could be out here periodically during but at least we want him at least at least once a week or more but at least what at least once a week or more during construction uhuh but if we wanted um him to be here every day absolutely yeah yeah you can do that as well oh I'm sorry during construction yeah right right now up in hopkington he's there every day we have actually one and a half to two guys here every day depending on the need so you construction goes in phases initially it starts very slow then it goes very high and then when you end up it goes very slow and then when you finalize it goes very high you know when you have to finish it all so we put Staffing as we needed they're in place um to uh to man the operation I got question five right great moving on to question five so there are as you've seen in the RFP and discussions there are several phases of this project predesign design and instruction given that all OPM firms have different strengths the select board and the select board's desire to work with one designer why are you the right firm to take the select board through this entire process so I got to say I probably think and maybe I'm biased but I think probably we're better suited than any other firm that's expected right I'm going to say that right I'm not going to say anything else but I can back it so we've been doing OPM and owners representative since the 1970s uh in the 70s we used to call them owners rep before they were own as project managers um I've been at the firm since 1992 when I first started there um and then it it's kind of been drilled into us since then that you give the quality of you want for the owner so the owner is so happy that they call you back for the next project 85% of our projects every PE customers and that's what we do we give it so that question that just the last question you asked is how much people you need down there we'll throw everything we got at it to make sure the job gets done right and gets done responsibly so that you call us back for another project in the future now with that said our uh task since the 70s has been the same thing to look after the owner's interest so even when we're doing straight design work we're always we're heavy onto the ca portion the construction Administration portion because we believe that's the greatest point of liability for all parties and that that's when a project can really get either success or not successful uh fully done uh through either uh the work is not being right or trade issues or supply issues there's a lot of things that can go wrong so we feel because we have the design background being Architects being contractors being project managers we have that full Market that there's no one that can Bluff us there's no one that can come in front of us and tell us one thing where they think we're thinking something else and it's really something we haven't really seen in our in our years of doing this we've kind of seen it all so I mean bill marquetti has 40 years experience I've got 35 years John has 25 years experience Dave green has 35 years we're talking a lot of veteran here that have taken a lot of years uh that have done this that have seen this so there's as John alluded to before there's a process and we'll take you through that process so I hope that answers that question any followup questions right great question six workload is a concern for the for the select board your your workload and your ability to manage this project for the next for the next year or two so describe your current workload as it relates to this Project's projected timeline and how can the select board be sure you have the time and resources necessary to make Carl a priority sure um as I mentioned before we've we're we've been working for the past four years actually four years plus in uh in hopkington so basically I would like to take my team and Parky here uh if that's possible so we would um we certainly have the resources um we can certainly devote the amount of time that you need we also don't want to overload the project um we want to make sure that we give the the service that you're looking for but we you know it's it's a it's a great project um and I think one to two person or three person staff is certainly going to be sufficient for this size um we you know I'd love to put five or 10 but you we're not doing you a service by doing that so um depending on the design team and the contractor I think as things progress uh we certainly can provide as much or as little project management or support as you need and we're very flexible that way all right great it sounds like oh sorry just sounds like you will have other projects going on but a different team will be managing those that's correct yeah yep John manages he's the directors he manages all the OPM all the all the projects you're working on yeah yes yeah but I obviously have support so if I'm putting your budgets together and I'm putting your schedule together focuses on your project um and then you know there's there is some delegation I do have to support them I do have to rely on my teams as well I can't do it all but yes that's absolutely uh we have more than enough support to to to take care of this project that's for sure and I think the word you're looking for is dedicated so we do have the dedicated staff for the for the project and we to assign those dedicated people for that which is the um maredy and sorry to say last names uh and David Green those two are the dedicated staff yes okay great thanks I just want to um ask a followup that also relates to the earlier questions just just so I'm I get it clear in my head I think a big part of this project that may be different than the norm is that pre-design phase um where uh you know you talked about bringing in the design team we as a select board are are looking for an OPM that can help us in that initial Define the requirements Define the correct standards uh work with the various stakeholders is to really kind of come to agreement on what the requirements are before and I don't know where that interfaces with the selection of design team but from from your Staffing standpoint is that something that your team would do or do you feel like you need to bring in the other resources for that initial upfront work because I think that's what as a committee we're not struggling with but that's that's a I think needs more attention right now than maybe some other projects that you've seen sure no we are uh I've personally done a number of uh DeCamp certified projects or studies here in Massachusetts um so doing studies is not an issue um and our team is certainly capable of doing a number of studies on fire on fire stations in particular I mean that's I think one of the things that Dave was alluding to with respect to being uh Architects opms and contractors is that we're as the designer in general a lot of times uh before the OPM became such a popular thing we were the first ones in we're the we're the team that was brought in to develop that study to do the study and then a lot of times they'd bring in an OPM to monitor construction uh things have changed a bit where the OPM is is tends to be the first in now um but that that's perfect for us I mean that's that's what we that's what we do so we are certainly capable of providing you a a a pre-construction or pre-design study on your facility um so it's something that could be attached to the RFQ um to allow the design team to bid on absolutely we could go all the way we could do schematic design bring it all the way up to schematic design with a cost estimate have basic design Engineers around us and support us so as a committee you would have an understanding of the size the cost the systems and all be on the same page and then give that to a design firm to finish that off those are typically called bridging documents so you produce bridging documents and that should also Al narrow the price of designers cuz now you've given them all the answers the the other piece that's important for us is the community outreach to inform the community to get their Buy in so that we can take it to town meeting to get the funding to take it to the next large step and I'm I presume you have experienc with that as well yeah Bond referendums and then selling it uh absolutely we'd go to public meetings that's kind of where I step in we'd go to public meetings the biggest thing we offer is you know you want to get the public engaged before you have a question you go to that town meeting in May you want to get them engaged you want to get them excited but you want them to see why there's a need why you want to do this I just don't want to provide H my taxes are going to go up when people find out what they're going to be used for and the benefit to them they're all behind it you want to get that energy going it's usually some other meetings you have with them you invite them you give some refreshments around the table people come there they introduce you have it at the fire station itself you show them what the problems are and then more they're going to be people that go behind you to support you through that that town meeting the I mean I like that approach but the concern and that is the right you know approach I think marketing but the concern is timeline right so there's we're six we're roughly six months out from the town meeting for spring of 25 and we're not going to have time to I think you know gather the schedule and the needs and then do a schematic and then Market that there won't be time so still has to be two- stepped right it depends on we could I mean this is a $10 million a job we're a 30 person firm yeah and we can wrap we could probably do the whole construction documents for you in 12 weeks yeah well a bit we could but I'm saying it's your pace when John alluded to a schedule you agree on a schedule you stick to that schedule you put the resources as you need them to get it done right we don't see may as a as a hindrance okay well that's good to hear I have a technical question for Ryan though if the bridging strategy that David's alluding to would be a different RFP right that wasn't what was requested here or you could see that that's within the scope as proposed it could fit we'd have to talk about it but it could fit okay thank you all right so this will be the last question we have about 3 minutes left I'm not going to like throw you out we got about three minutes so I'm going to combine I'm going to combine seven and nine so um we have limited staff time here we there will be a a volunteer board dedicated to this project a a building committee board which I'm sure you're familiar with and of course the select board will want to be part of the communication process so we think communication is important part of this relationship with people who are coming in and out as volunteers of the project and of course you'll be engaging daily with staff so what is your communication frequency approach how do you communicate during these projects to help everybody feel informed and comfortable is very similar to the question I just answered it's it's Gathering that support it's finding out what those people needs and wants are if you're a committee based on 6 8 12 we've had committees that have been 20 people the hardest thing about a large committee you want to get a Core group together that Core Group represents and be able to Pivot as needed even during construction so it's finding the core group it's finding the individuals but it's also communicating back to the logic group of the needs and wants so what John had alluded to earli we take you down that road initially very slowly about what you want we identify it by meeting on site so that the whole committee understands what the issue is at the building the whole committee gets to interview if they don't if they're not there for those meetings then we set up a schedule where they are there in those meetings and we make those Milestone dates there that people can attend those um once you get that Core Group uh like we're doing in Canon uh Canton right now at the library we got a core group going on with a major restoration building going on um that Core Group makes decisions daily sometimes during construction so we would get you energized for that and we would then report back to the larger group so even though you may not be part of that Core Group you know what's going on we set up a website so everyone knows what's going on the website in town so there is no one's uh uh looking at it from I don't know I'm not close enough I don't know what's going on it's communication communication communication that's what we're all about all right we have time for one or two follow-ups there if anybody has any can you describe what U one of your weekly reports or or what your actual documents look like yeah we we could certainly do that so every um and every committee is a little different um some most of the Committees that I've been with or have done recently have been meeting at least once a month or once every two weeks so I'll have a project update that gives you uh what the project SC status is um what the critical um decisions are for that for this for that particular meeting um and then what the future uh schedule is looking like and then any Financial requirements or anything Financial issues um that'll be part of the the uh report and it's a brief one it's it's almost a dashboard um and then we provid you um a letter or a recommendation with every um bill or requisition that we review that's part of our submission uh we maintain your budget which is a spreadsheet of um what was estimated what was um a lot of times what was coming as bid what's been spent and what's left I know it sounds like a lot but as we go through it you'll you'll you'll pick it up it's be no problem um and then um we also maintain the schedule uh as you know periodically as we go through so the idea is that we give you as much detail as you would like but we also don't want to burn you with the minutia you know I'm not going to unless it's something that the board would like um a lot of times it's colors and things of that nature or finishes so all that stuff comes through but I will say that um we don't want to we don't want to burden the board with a million decisions if they don't need to be but we're happy to do that as much as the board feels comfortable we had I'm just finishing up project now um we were putting in a field that was the OPM for it and it was a a a five five meeting discussion on the logo for the uh for the school so uh every Coler was selected by the board then I had to go to the school board as well so it went from the from the you know the building committee to the to the bigger board to the school board so one other recommendation I would have is not have too many boards it's it's great late con yeah um just what I what I I'm joking but it's we just have to make sure that um if it does have to go in front of three boards to get the contractor paid for example that's happens right so you got to go through one board get approval makes a recommendation the next one then to the next one we just have to plan all that out as it goes through because there's nothing that slows up a project faster than not quick payment so yeah yeah I could say you know what after doing this for several decades you want to get excited you guys are I'm probably not getting paid to do this you have to show up you put Oodles of hours into it you put something here you want to get something back it's get that excitement going it's generating that excitement and if you can generate that excitement from within you can generate it from outside and people can actually see it you want to be excited when you come to these meetings you want to find out what the the next steps are you want to have that behind that and you'll get that momentum you know I've done countless school projects and public uh Bond project Public Safety projects you want to get people behind you you get great friends you develop great relationships that last longer than this project and it's always something you can go around and say at a later time hey do you remember we had that issue like I did this great 30 million dollar school we did it on time and it came down to the last pump the fire pump was wired the wrong way didn't know took it out of a box you install it it's working the opposite way almost stopped the whole school from going on we did it 24 hours we were there till 10:30 at night but those are the best days I had because you get to really know people when you're there 10:30 at night and you're waiting for something to happen it's really fun and that's what you want to make you want to make something fun because you get it done and you're successful and you're happy at the end and that's what we try to do well gentlemen I'd like to thank your team for taking the time to put this together I know it's a lot of work to respond to these uh the town of Carl and select board really appreciate you coming tonight thank you for for your present appreciate to providing this wel regardless of what your decision is We Wish You A lot of luck thank you yeah I sure it's not working is it just all right to the board I'd have I'd have you put away the materials they gave y you have 3 minutes we have three minutes three minutes I like it right full blow discussion now right we're doing yeah yeah yeah okay and uh CMS is next okay yeah they're going to need the mic more than me who's who's next see who's next CMS yeah CMS is do you um have any questions adjustments concerns about the questions or process I just want to make sure that the alignment between what as a select board we're expecting to happen over the next six months and what all the opms are expecting to do right um and I know this I know this was this is a big this is a Challen on this project where um that that pre-work so I'm I'm curious to see if that continues to be a a question mark with the different presentations because I I wasn't I wasn't convinced that what they were presenting was an alignment with what we're looking for in the near term but I mean that's for them to interpret what we've said yeah right is that fair yeah okay am I the only one no okay no I agree absolutely none of this is seeing approach if they intuitively pick up on what we're looking for that's going to be helpful something yeah all right I'm going to get the next firm y nobody needs any more time Noe and I also think they any idea just remind them about speaking into the mics we have two mics on the table you have to wait and see the other one no one off put his on yeah my worri all right so this is say what do you want is that going to just this is CMS M how do we not how do we get over that hump yeah so we'll see I think we should have a big timer should hourglass s yeah well they have those on hearings yeah yield my time oh yeah and you see it right there if anyone feels shorted I can get a real chair hello hi hi there how's everyone doing good I have how you do you too me too put your materials away hi seen you before I'm Barney Barne all right good thank you hi how's it going yeah hi hello how do you do good to see watch your step good to see you oh hello how do you do thank you I'm good now yeah a lot of people are these Scott to meet you thank you Steve gotal maybe please get in the right order cuz I'm terrible with yeah Welling on if you say Scott go at first you got all arranged yes all right gentlemen you can uh take a minute or two to introduce yourselves or skip that or however you want to participate um this is the Carlile select board please know that we are um live on TV and on Zoom as well here in the select board meeting excellent and uh we're going to have some fun well thank you uh good evening everyone um brief introduction my name is Neil Joyce I'm the proposed Project Director and a principal at construction monitoring services and I'm Scott luer I am a senior project manager also a principal at the CMS good evening um my name is Steve aaro and I am the on site representative all right great we're going to get right into the questions um we're we're going to try to keep it to 30 minutes so I'm not going to try to be rude but I am going to try and move it along okay and you have received these questions ahead of time so you know that the the first goal of this project is for funding approval for the for the design that we would go to town meeting so we want to go to town meeting with the conceptual design and get money for the actual design and construction documents yep the path for that goal was laid out in this question so knowing that please describe the process and deliverables you would use to enable carile to achieve this goal and what do you view as the major risks and challenges needing mitigation to achieve it so um every I think I think the the major hurdle for every project in the public market today is is really fundamental in education educating the public on the cost associated with public construction as well as the processes that we have to undergo in order to legally put a job out to bid and move forward with construction so that really focuses on identifying the need at the Town level right there has to be a recognition by the public that the project has value and is a necessity to the community and that is something that we have had very uh great success with doing greater than 95% of our projects are passed and go through to construction to completion so we have a great success record on bringing that information forward and Pres presenting it in a meaningful way to the communities how do we do that we do we've done about every possible thing from Radio spots to uh Project Specific websites published frequently asked questions with answers um open houses at the facilities show the Department's deficiencies if you will and let the public get in and move around in the space and see what the problems are and how to best address them um we've done as I said local Access TV we've done radio spots we've done about everything under the sun to get the message out and again the um the message has been heard in most cases it's been understood and it's presented in a way that's easily digestible we always look at the economic impact of every project what it cost to do something we also look to look at what it cost not to do something what does it mean to the community long term um unfort fortunately the last 5 years have been really expensive years to build in construction but we're not seeing prices dropping seeing the rate of increase decrease so it's it's getting more expensive slower if you will but it's not slowing down to uh appreciably um at the end of the day it for us the exercise is is truly earning the Public's trust making sure that you understand understand we're trying to do what's best for the community as it's outlined in the goals and objectives for the project and we try to do everything with our due diligence we like to look at all the options that are available to you we like to make sure that we've turned over all the rocks and scratched all the the Earth and make sure we know what we're getting into before we put a shovel in the ground and we try to do it in a manner that maintains integrity and is fully transparent to the public so they understand where the numbers come from and ultimately what the cost of the project will be at the end of the day any V questions Scott you mentioned educating people about the need and the cost and I I I do think this community recognizes the need um I think a big question that we need to resolve before bringing it before the town is you know gold elocks what are we trying to build here we don't want to over speec it and make it too expensive we don't want to UND speec it and then find in a few years we have to add something or do something else so how will you help us not only communicate the need and the cost but help Define what that right target is that we can then present to the public so I think all of that really starts from the most fundamental part of the design process which is the building program understanding how you manage um your spaces if you will employees apparatus response like just sort of look at the department operations whole and develop a building wide program for what's existing what is to be added if that's the path that we move forward and how best to optimize that space and I think that's an exercise that's really somewhat iterative largely dependent on the feedback that we get from the department and the observations we make in the station during design and also um having the right designer on board to to Marshall that process through any follow-up questions from the board from your standpoint the in that process working with the department and the different stakeholders the expertise on your end to vet to confirm or identify things we haven't thought of do you bring that to the table as the designer so we want we want this to be a two-way discussion right so we so we've done um north of 70 plus projects across the Commonwealth over 25 years so we bring all of that experience with us I like to think I like to I like to ask more questions than our client does because often times it will help to prompt their line of thinking and when you're when you're going through the programming process I think one of the common pitfalls that we find is departments sometimes tend to operate based on what they know as opposed to considering a better way of doing things that might mean a a larger degree of change in the short term but make operational efficiency better in the long term so we we sort of Channel all of that experience and together and and ask a lot of questions both of you and also of the designer and draw in their experience as well all right uh thank you the next question so in the RFP the select board identified and provided five goals for this project that are well vetted also in the RFP the select board described um a hopeful project budget of between five and $10 million with the concept of potentially adding an Annex facility So based on your experience and expertise do you believe this is achievable to meet the goals and to stay within the budget that it's described so I do optimistically always I do um I think that the scheme that was developed and uh presented to us at the walkth through as well as distributed um after Woods appears to address each of the goals that was outlined for the town in in preparing the original study so my hats off to the chief I think he really knows what he needs um to make the to make the station right um really quickly I think the site provides the sufficient space for expansion of the existing facility while maintaining site circulation around the building I think the expanded footprint will provide an opportunity to optimize and make more efficient use of the existing building and structure at the site I think um that the addition of the separate Locker facilities and private shower rooms address the gender Equity issues across the station um that do not exist and I think the overall statement or station organization excuse me coupled with the improvements of the additional training spaces offices the exercise room the day room Etc are going to be a tremendous Improvement to the morale for the firefighters in the facility and are going to Aid in retention and attraction of of Labor we've seen a real sort of shift in the marketplace in the last say 10 years that newer stations are drawing more talented people they want to work in a nice place they want to have nice facilities available to them and it's making it easier for towns to retain the the firefighters in this case that they have currently on staff so so so that's that's great so you like kind of the programmatic at least plan and I don't know if it's a fully defined plan but at least those are our goals sure but you you do think that that you could based on your experience and you guys have been doing this for a long time and you see these numbers all the time that something that meets those programmatic goals could fit into A5 to10 million budget I I think realistically you're at the high end you're looking at a 10 million project I believe I I don't think you're going to get it for 5 million respectfully but well no that's what we're looking for judgment but but is it you know and and again you don't know you haven't done the plans and everything but you've seen it's your expertise you know is it 15 million when you say gosh you know by the time we get done it's really going to be I had I was going to bring this up later on but we did fairly recently 2019 we we did a a an addition renovation on a fire station down in Dudley Massachusetts it's a a little I think the town was a little larger than this is but essentially the the building was an existing fire station it had been added on to multiple times over the years so we took the oldest Bay off of the building completely demolished it back to sound structure and then we put an engineered metal building onto the end of the facility it was quick it was efficient it was clear and we used that for um apparatus Bay and then within the existing station we reconfigured some spaces on the first floor did a full renovation of the first floor new offices um and then added bunk rooms in the back which I I know is not necessarily part of your program but we did all of that work while the station was occupied they never missed a call they were never delayed in a response and we work seamlessly with the Department to move through that job in less than I think it was about 11 months was our construction schedule and at the end of the day the job only cost $6 million now that was again that was 2019 it was a 2018 bid so we've seen some appreciable escalation across the last five to six years but I think if you if you really look at what you need and how you build it I think there are opport unities that are out there that we can get you into your your budget and and again a lot of it is very speculative at this point Pie in the Sky some lines on some paper and some general space definitions but I don't I don't think what you're asking for is extraordinarily expensive space so we'll I think that leads into the to the next question which is the town is looking to hire a firm that's willing to design their project not necessarily a project that a designer is looking to design if that makes sense to you so this might include value engineering creatively designing an andex or considering alternative building construction methods like modular so how would you help the select board recruit and select a designer that's willing to consider these alternative approaches and their impact on the budget while still meeting the goals of the project so I think the I think the first step with any project is a is a clear expectation set with any designer the budget is what the budget is and if if your budget is 10 million and that's where you want to be at the end of the day that needs to be stated explicitly at the beginning of the project and there should be no relief granted from that restraint their trick much like it is ours is to figure out how to address all the programmatic needs within that number and ultimately that's sort of where the rubber hits the road and I you know I could sit here and tell you a thousand different ways that we can get there none of which may be appealing to you tonight but at the end of the day you're paying us to think outside the box and to come up with Solutions or potential solutions that will address um the needs of your station as well as the needs of the facility and I I'll just say that the last thing that we want to do to your point earlier is to build a station that needs to be renovated because we used inexpensive materials or whatever else so part of that balance is just picking durable materials that are going to stand the test of time and we'll and will operate the way that the station needs it to operate As you move forward and I and truthfully I don't have all those answers sitting here tonight but at least that's a perspective that we bring to each project that we serve any follow questions or comments all right moving on to question four please discuss your recommended Staffing plans for this project is the team here tonight and will the project be assigned to a dedicated person or who who will be working with so this is a this is an easy one um we have been very fortunate um and we're very pleased to have been selected uh by the town previously to work for the police station renovation as well as the library renovation and the team you see here before you is proposed to do the fire station as well um I do have additional staff that's coming available the middle of the summer of 20 five right mhm um that we will likely be adding to the project which maybe right around the time that we're moving forward with a construction package for the fire station I think it would work out quite well um I I will just say that collectively speaking Scott and I have worked collabora collaboratively together on probably 10 or 12 projects over the last 15 years so we know each other very well we're very familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses um and I think complement each other well and up until I joined the company 15 years ago the job the the staff was I think all family so we've I think we've done a great job we have we have a good bench I'm very happy with where we are in the marketplace as well um and I I think we'd be a good fit for the project followup can you clarify then uh Neil Your Role versus Scott since you both have the same title um sure um our our roles are pretty complimentary um we can step in for each other at any point in time under under most normal circumstances I'll try to do most of the leg work during the design work getting everybody up and on board getting the design moving forward and then Scott tends to be a little bit more operational and mechanical than I and uh sort of steps in more so during construction and less so during design and it really it's all about um current assignments and and where we should go yeah I would Envision that we both have a kind of a little bit of overlap not without being like putting focusing both of us we don't need to for a project this size but I mean um as much as needed to make the project successful and satisfy your needs another file does your firm have or bring from the outside me Consultants code Consultants fire Specialists we're not designers y um so we would not bring code consultants in they would likely be a subc consultant to the designer and fall under their design envelope yep um so to that extent no as far as project management skills and services we provide all of them inh house um using our own employees we do our own cost estimating our own scheduling etc etc ET yeah we also we work with commissioning agents sometimes we bring them in during the design process so that they can you know get eyes on the documents and you know do yeah kind of a peer review um during that process thank you quick followup um so working for the police station renovation I don't know exactly what the time frame is on that one but let's say um you know that we have a goal of having the um enough of a design in the sense of the cost that we can take it to our town meeting in May and um because we're going to have to then have the town approve funding for the actual design and construction going forward have you thought about the overlap because I see Steve you're down you're you're on both projects right I am indeed yes and and uh so I'm looking at the uh breakdown of hours that you all gave in your proposal and so Steve you're down for the construction phase for 40 hours uh but um so an eight I guess during bidding and then 24 for the close out so tell me how you're thinking about that so I'm my thought process in Staffing the job is that we'll have um myself as Project Director Scott assisting me as needed throughout the design period and until the point in time that the job is ready to go to bid As I understood the schedule that was presented you're looking for uh I'll call it a strong schematic design with a um a schematic design estimate to go to town meeting in May what that tells me is that there's probably an additional 120 to 160 days of design time after that to complete documents and get ready to go to bid so again that largely will change it may vary um I don't know how far along will be in May we'll pick that logical cutoff point and then we'll have a complimentary design phase after approval um which would likely extend through the summer and into the fall and then if we can get out to bid at a reasonable time December is not a great time to start doing found work in New England but you know if we took a similar approach to what we did or are contemplating to do for the police station which is get it out to bid you know sort of early in the winter with like a March one start date type thing um that would work great because the police station renovation and the library renovation are both set to complete sometime early next spring so the timing would yeah but you got there's another town meeting cycle in there we we're we not going to approve the whole thing this in the spring right let's make sure we're clear on that there's only a we're only going to request I think correct me if I'm wrong design funds I was going to say you you would know better than I well we we perhaps because this was a confusion with the prior party as well perhaps we did not articulate that well enough in our RFB because we need to get to your point earlier which I totally agree with you know you got to communicate people have to understand the need but we're going to get them to commit design funds they they'll ask naturally is it a 10 million or a 20 million sure but of course we need some money to design and then we're coming back with the real cost I okay am I correct in what I'm saying yeah would that be under a presumed special town meeting or would that be an annual town meeting in May of 20 5 six5 honestly we need an OPM to help us there you go work through some of those time frames yeah there you go so uh good segue to there are three phases to this project so you've identified a few of them predesign yep and then after town meeting the design phase and then the actual construction phase we know that OPM firms have different strengths all of you have um different strengths and focuses so why is your firm the right firm to take us through all three given that the select board wants to work with one OPM for the entire project um so I will say that we 100% % of our revenue and our corporate structure is to provide OPM Services we don't do anything else we're not designers we're not Engineers we don't claim to be and we have no other outside interest no out ofate offices to support 100% of your funds come back to you indirectly through our services um I think that we operate with a level of respect and professionalism that really isn't common in the business I think we're the right siiz firm to work with a community like carile um and I I think that we have a proven track record of completed projects across the Commonwealth we've never had a project come in over budget um which I think is not something that a lot of firms can put on their resume um and I I think that we provide a balance of experience and efficiency and cost effective project management solutions that complement this project well but I'm biased we we also don't do a lot of studies we we see projects through to completion so it's just we've been lucky but I think it's more like just our you know dedication of the projects and making sure that you know we're doing everything we can to you know give the town the the best project that we can give them for the for your funds you know for your money and and just try to make the community understand that can you pull the mic closer to you yeah and just trying to you know make the community understand that um you know every all all the money that's going to the project is is um is being spent wisely any follow-ups hey I think we discussed question six indirectly in terms of the workload and timeline so I'll jump to seven so communication is an important part of this project the select board would like to know your communication style and also I'm going to combine another question here so that there will be a building committee appointed for this you're going to be dealing with me and the staff and the select boards how are you going to communicate with all those entities what's your style give us a description of how you communicate in all the different ways so um I sort of I'll sort of break it down into formal communication a little bit informal communication um formally um when we work with uh designers we're responsible for recording meeting minutes uh throughout each design meeting we'll we'll submit those meeting minutes back to the town with a summary of uh discussions had decisions that were made um next meetings topics to be discussed we'll really try to provide a a a road map if you will of the progression of the design so that you're well informed about where we are at any point along the curve um we try to get those minutes out as timely as possible we target 48 hours after every meeting so that the information is fresh and people always have the ability to comment or provide uh critique back to us if if something wasn't recorded properly or we feel like we're misrepresenting a decision that was made um during construction uh formal documentation is uh we'll do a a fully customizable monthly report schedule update budget update Narrative of completed work forecast of upcoming work you know for the next 30 to 60-day period um really try to give you a good snapshot in time of where uh the project is uh once construction begins um our teams uh Steve does a great job with uh creating daily reports which log the firms that worked on the job each day the number of employees the tasks performed the weather conditions really takes a snapshot progress photos the whole nine yards um and uh collects those every day those can be distributed electronically by email um we don't want to fill your inbox we're certainly respectful of your time but we we're committed to providing you with the as much information as you want relative to the project and then in terms of informal correspondence where it's it's normal and customer that we meet regularly with our committees whether it's the select board or the building committee um participate in meetings lead discussions provide updates uh any anything of that matter um and then always available email voicemail phone message pick up the phone and call me I live in Reading I'm 15 20 minutes away um well 30 minutes away sorry um but uh certainly local and available to you um as needed anything else you you use critical path with the contractors yeah yep and let us know when there's for sure absolutely yep absolutely yeah if we when we monitor their schedule if they if they're be you know bearing off the critical path we um we ask them for Recovery schedules and um they should be giving us schedule updates monthly so um I think um just in terms of our experience with building committees um we've been very successful in establishing relationships positive relationships with the Committees that we serve we're very respectful of your time as volunteers and we'll try to do as much of the leg work and heavy lifting as we can before coming to the meetings we'll do the best we can to distribute the information in a timely manner prior to the meetings so you have an opportunity to review things and look at them ultimately it's about us building a relationship of trust with you that you're paying us to manage your project for you and we really want to do the very best job we can for you as we're moving forward um I always I always ask the the people that work with us I always say to them please don't bring problems without bringing Solutions and that's really what you're asking us to do is to is to create this Synergy of information and um highlight the path forward to to make the job successful and and run and that's really what we focus on all right team we have 30 seconds if you have any follow-up information sorry oh we're right on time it's perfect I have a quick one I'll try to make it quick building committee so we will establish a building committee for this project and in this town uh building committees are volunteers and they take it very seriously so it'll be a active engaged group um who would be the main point of contact with our building committee uh depending on the point of construction I would say either myself or Steve during design and then probably either Scott or Steve during construction okay is likely the way it will run right great question great ending uh thank you very much for coming thank you thank you thank you very much for your time and to the board you have four minutes four minutes for what stretch your legs get your water I need more water good night everyone good very much than thank you I appreciate it thank you very much byebye I gotta get caught up project where did it like it's just okay all [Music] or the designer that's giving in the bid right right this why you need these guys to say that's not like right okay we need somebody then to be more clear about what want also and also who to go to and when to call call their to the fire fair enough okay so that's why we're but it sounds like we have a lot of a lot of work has been done need to be reviewed and confirmed right right CU a lot of the we don't want another study start over from scratch we just want to like take a critical look at it all we still on camera just letting every know know okay I'm just getting caught up on this St wrong just let everyone reminding everyone okay why I'm going to have so many business cards no I'm just trying to get straight in my I was the only one who didn't put my materials away I like told every I told you all to put your materials away M put those away please like so you know and I'm also I'm also still trying to get up to speed with all the work that's done to this we did all other I mean I knew it was going on but I all the all the work that was done previous like leading into this that's there no no that's fine but it's not it's not relevant to these questions well it's relevant to the process see difficult challenges we've been facing yeah yeah at this stage Ryan's just reminding us we're still live yeah okay well we are live we are live car it's hey are you ready Tuesday night yeah last one keep nice we're going up the ladder all right so this is isers colar yes totally forgotten everybody it's great that way I have no bias from the prior uh yeah completely forgotten everybody references 51st dates every time the whole new date so I can't I can't possibly bias my opinion based what they submitted CU I have no recollection no I mean I'm on to like 88 other between last time and now how many decisions have I made in my life right perfect in government then I have no recollection you're telling the truth right hello hi hi welcome sorry someone gets the short chair chair right behind us yeah we got more we got more big Big Boy chairs that's go big girl chairs big person chairs hello Dereck how do you do David mod Hi D and Barney Angel to meet you Angela hi nice to meet you what's your name watch your step y thank you hi Angela hi nice to meet you see here wellet the names yeah up booby traps for all of our just [Applause] my all right great if you want to take a minute to introduce yourselves and you just shook hands but to the anyone watching into the board and then we'll get right into the questions wonderful well good evening and thank you so much for having us uh my name is Derek ostman I am the regional director from cers and I'm so happy to be with you here tonight when I was a bad boy do we need to do that again no no no in the future yes please yes I'm Angela Campbell I'm with kers I'm the Senor senior project manager I am Cesar colado I your construction representative and T win um senior financial analyst with callers right great thank you for taking the time to come tonight we know a lot of work goes into this and it's appreciative and we don't mean to to rush it or to minimize the work we're just trying to get it all in so thank you very much so I'm going to start with the first question for the from the board so you received these are questions ahead of time and you know a major goal is to bring a schematic design or or some version of the project to town meeting in likely May so that uh funding can be paid for for the design phase and then we identified the path to that goal in the questions that we sent you so can you please describe the process and deliverables you would use to enable carile to achieve this goal and what do you view as the major challenges and risks needed to to mitigate the achievement so we looked at um your schedule uh and we believe it's definitely achievable getting to the town meeting by May 2025 um we would want to get started right away to bring the designer on board um issue the RFQ um and start a design kickoff meeting you know within the first two months by by November um getting us a cost estimate by March April 201 25 will allow us to um look at that cost and make sure we have everything that we need to bring to town meeting um and then of course making sure that we do some public Outreach leave time for that um in that timeline and then ultimately getting you to the start of construction um in September uh October um 2025 so I I'm the resident question ask for this one I think one of the and maybe it didn't come across in the materials but one of the critical things for us is the pre-design phase and our goal is to is to bring basically a high level schematic I guess is the right term to town meeting so that we can get funding uh to carry us through the kind of the full design phase and into construction so at the front of the end at the front end it's it's it's it's working with the board the chief the different stakeholders to really uh review the work that's been done to this point um and do the work required to to bring a recommendation to town meeting for a a design for funding so I'm curious how how you would use that time um over the next few months to do that work in terms of how you would work with us community outreach and things of that nature it's what we do best I mean doing that community outreach piece of it and making sure everybody's informed is what gives you um the the clarity and the and the clout to go to town meeting um along with that community outreach we're working with the fire department and the fire chief they're your best Advocates they're the end users we want to make sure that they're happy and ultimately getting you the right designer to do the project is probably the most important piece bringing them on board in a timely fashion um getting their expertise and and getting the team up and running and working with the committee and how is that Pro what's your process for in general for selecting the designer and matching the designer to the the project requirements so we have a tried and true process in terms of um submitting um and and getting an RFQ out there we have templates we have um um all the correct um wording should is the best way to say it um and and we have great expertise working with a lot of design firms so we can help guide you in that process and what what each designer brings to the table and their expertise um and looking at at at a good match between what the project type is and what their experience and and expertise is that making sure that that matches that gels can I ask so Angela I mean what you just said makes sense but it doesn't jive with what you opened with which is we need to get a designer on ASAP to us we think that piece understanding what we need Consulting with us about from your experience with design firms who's right interviewing those guys that's a couple months that's not like next month like that's what Scott's trying to say is that's really the critical thing right now now because we have and we I think on reflecting with the interviews we've had we probably framed the question in the RFP poorly but this is a TW town meeting process the first step is to get the funds to get a designer on board for which you need some schematic and some ROM of what the end cost is but not the design and then the second meeting is the actual design construction budget that would be voted in a subsequent town meeting did that I don't think maybe that was clear it wasn't clear but that's okay I mean you there are several different ways you can do it so do you want to amend your answer based on that do please um yes it is very critical that that we get the designer if that's the route you choose to go then then we need to get them on board um is it doable yes it's it's all it's all possible it's all doable but it would be no but that's all we're trying to do basically yeah between now and the between now oh okay just bringing six months is to get like here's this General concept Y and we need these funds for a designer this is the designer we'd like to use we have the quotes y the whole construction cost and all the design cost is a subsequent town meeting so the RFQ would for a designer wouldn't go out until after the May town meeting approves funds for that what you're saying person you'd are you'd have to know wallpark what you're asking for you but you don't have K it you just so what we needed was it was an OPM to help us um figure figure this out whether or not we're going to bring in a design or after yeah so let me jump in here real quick just because based on where the conversation's going I would say what I believe you're trying to do is not that uncommon in that essentially you want a schematic concept as associated with a budget we will probably ultimately tell you that it will be helpful to have a design team on board even if it's just just for the schematic piece as well as cost estimating um and that's pretty typical because it's it's sort of a minimal amount of investment to get to town meeting number one right as you had stated to then be able to with approval really take it forward to full design actually execute the project so I wouldn't say that's a foreign concept we perhaps didn't fully understand that that's the route you were taking but very very familiar with that process and and happy to help you execute against that plan um but ask more questions if there are any related to that too all right um yeah I'll I'll follow that up because we've been having this conversation multip you're not the only one yeah um just to restate it and give you a chance to respond I think you know one of the things as as we've said before is I think the community recognizes the need for a new fire station I think that's been something that's that's been discussed and and is apparent um and I I think we all have some expectation of what the cost may be for that and I think where where we need to really hone in on uh leading into town meeting and and and getting the support of the town is really making sure we arrive at the and I'll use the phrase again the Goldilocks of what we need in a fire station and how to approach this renovation and expansion so that um what we're asking for is reasonable it's not far of respect and doesn't contain a lot of things we don't need but it also doesn't omit things that we do need and so working with the OPM and perhaps a designer in some capacity to get us to that point um and work has been done to this point on studies and things so there's a lot to work to draw on but really coalescing all that work and bringing it into a a cohesive credible proposal to town is what we're looking for and again I based on my own experience the town recognizes the need and and and is supportive of these things as long as it's well vetted and well considered right yeah I think that absolutely makes sense yeah and and we have of course all the um expertise from um all the past projects that we've done we're looking at Cost Trends we're looking at square footage we start to look at options with you in terms of um different cost scenarios so that we could fine-tune that into one solution that you can bring uh bring to the constituents all right so moving on to the the second question in the RFP the select board provided five goals for this product well vetted goals also in the RFP the select board described a project budget between $5 and $10 million with the concept of potentially adding an NX facility rather than a straight renovation or a new building So based on your experience and expertise do you believe this is achievable to meet the goals and stay within that budget amount sure we we do so that's the easy part um but but much like uh a a teacher would i' I'd like to show you my work and explain how we got there and why we got there so the these are some of the favorite conversations I always have with communities that we work with um and budget development is is such a hugely important piece of the project in terms of making sure you get what you wanted um and also managing expectations and bringing something forth to town meeting that actually could survive town meeting so when we look at a budget and we look at A5 to10 million budget the first thing I'm going to ask us all to contemplate is wherever we land in there I'd like 70% of that budget to go to hard costs your physical construction I'd like 10% to take care of contingency most of that will probably end up going to hard costs in construction um but for now we're going to separate it so that you have cushion and contingency as as the project progresses over its life and the remaining 20% is all of your soft costs in this case that's your professional fees and expenses it's Furniture fixtures and equipment it's anything um that is either a service or good that such if you turned the project over and shook it those are all the things that would then fall out of the completed building right so that's how your budget comes together so then we looked at can you achieve the goals you stated within A5 to10 million budget and so then we started to to do some analysis and I looked at um what other folks had been saying I looked at our own data internally um I was particularly interested in a study that I think way out in western Mass Williamstown just posted where they were looking at 224 numbers based on a state average that today if you were to put a shovel in the ground today was around $700 a square foot but knowing that our project together will be in the future we escalated that out and then start to put some contingency and cushion on it to give you what we thought might be reasonable so understanding kind of my basic math of 70% hard and 30% everything else and understanding where the market is we can guesstimate that physical construction the hard cost construction for your project is likely to land between $850 and $1,000 a square foot bringing a total project cost to between 1,200 and 1,400 a square foot and so then we simp take your 10 million or 5 million divide it by the full project cost of in this case I used the lower one the $1,200 a square foot and got to data that suggested you could afford at the $10 million Mark about 8,300 Square ft and about half of that at the $5 million Mark so then if we start to look at the program that you expressed as priorities it does seem achievable and so the question then is how do we get there and I think that relates back to the first question of making sure that we're involving the community picking the right design team and working with you to make sure your vision is actually executed properly so that you get an appropriately sized um and functioning uh project uh as opposed to a little um too much or not quite enough so that was a little fast on the math yeah but I'm happy to take anyone back through it so some things that have been discussed moving on to the next question to help to meet that budget goal have been then um some discussions in the community about value engineering creatively designing an Annex or using alternate building construction methods like modular so how would you help the select board recruit and select a designer willing to consider the alternative approaches so the the board is looking to hire a designer that wants to build their project not be led by a designer to build the designer's project given all those constraints so why would you be the right firm or how would you help the firm uh the select board to do that that's why you hire us to um understand all the costs and the ramifications um and certainly any designer that we would bring on board um would be that type of of firm that would work with the committee that's what we're looking for somebody that has experience looking at um alternative construction Avenues we as Colliers would be exploring any and all um opportunities to help SA save money stay under budget and um any and any and all opportunities will be will be looked at finding the right designer that's part of our job as well is to guide you to make sure that it's the right fit that they have the experience and the knowledge um to understand that coming in on budget is a priority and and looking at those opportunities are part of that process okay not seeing any follow-ups so the next question please discuss your recommended Staffing plans for this Carlile project is the team here tonight will there be anyone else who will be dedicated solely to this project yeah thank you for that so um the team is absolutely before you this evening so I'll explain a little bit about each of our roles and then I'll mention two people who aren't in the room but are important um additions that are available needed um so really uh myself again I am sort of your view into colar and make sure that you have a good experience from a municipal perspective from a client perspective and the team is always getting you what you want um if that were ever to not be the case certainly you'd come to me with that feedback and we'd adjust it immediately but in terms of day-to-day Angela will be your project manager uh what I love about Angela in particular is her specialty as Public Safety primarily fire with some police has Decades of this work was recruited two callers specifically for her expertise around planning design and management on fire station projects uh so can't think of a better match she then is supported by Caesar colado who is a recent recruit um and is really doing wonders for us in the field so as the project will eventually transition from design phase to construction Caesar will be your eyes and ears as the project is actually being built um and then certainly as importantly especially given the objectives of this project and and the financial constraints Towers our internal um financial analyst uh cost controls and and general support in terms of funding finance and and managing all of that as as well as uh providing analysis and and and uh kind of managing your risk profile um so while you won't see her every day you might see her monthly uh she's an incredibly important part of the team to make sure that finances are well tracked managed and that we're avoiding risk everywhere we can throughout the life of the project um then beyond those folks uh you would have seen in our qualifications a gentleman by the name of Tony delusio so in support of Angela Tony similarly has built his career around Public Safety projects and I never like to send one expert into a community alone I always like to have two so there's a backup option so Tony would be the backup um and then to the extent that we need it um we're delighted to have one of the leading Minds in terms of MEP systems and Engineering on our team we have internal commissioning and so Sarah Masten will be helping us from an engineering um perspective uh in terms of the technical review of designers documents and making sure that systems are appropriate I think one of the things we've heard more than anything else from clients is when a building is done and turned over sometimes then returning the operations to the local municipality isn't always so smooth um so it's our commitment to make sure that doesn't happen to you and that's really what Sarah is about um do you have an estimator on staff we don't so we generally use third party estimating uh the reason we do is because it's their full-time job to collect Market data and while we are the largest OPM in the region uh we want more we have our own Market data we want someone else's and so we'd recommend that we go outside all right any follow-ups um yeah just quick um I was looking at the what you um provided in your proposal about um on site um and so I see that um Cesar for the construction period you're it's listed one to two days per week during construction yes yeah yeah and so um there's some concern among some of the um Town Hall experts in this kind of thing about um having a kind of a clerk of all the works that's there on site during at least the kind of the critical times of construction so how do you it um what's you're thinking about that yeah sure thank you for that question so um when when we put that together and our thinking around that generally speaking is we absolutely agree that there will be critical moments over the life of the project where you need someone on site that day and Caesar Andor a member of the team absolutely will be there uh knowing that you are likely cost sensitive though I don't know that it makes sense to have one or or several um full-time Personnel on this project given the size of the project if we were talking about a school that was hundreds of millions of dollars you wouldn't notice the cost of having a full-time employee so to speak monitoring it for you um I can tell you that you absolutely will notice the cost no matter who your OPM is if you want a full-time person on site from your OPM team and so really the thinking there is we want to be smart with your money only provide resources when you absolutely need them and we're happy to continue that conversation with you um but we don't want to force staff on you when they may or may not be required um because then that comes with costs that you have to spend on labor as opposed to putting into your building and when you say your team that's the um five people listed in your proposal that that team stays constant we do and then when you said you might assign a different member of the team rather than Cesar if meaning one of the five yeah one of the five okay great six oh I'm sorry six Sor my bad right right right six yeah if you exclude me it's five question may be too large for the time we have but um I just for Angela I know in in the materials that had been sent in The Proposal you have a lot of experience specifically um you indicate with Public Safety with fire stations Energy Efficiency um all all the things I think that that we're looking for can you just speak to maybe a couple of the key uh challenges um in doing fire stations that maybe a more generalist may not have that that you bring to the table so I'm sorry Angel I'm going to rephrase that one a little bit for you um just to make sure we hit all the questions okay and it it relates Scott I promise so um got there's three phases to this project there's the predesign that we talked about the design itself the construction documents and then the construction so given that OPM firms have different strengths and the select bird wants to work with one firm for the entirety of the project why are you the right firm why do you have the right skills to help the select board with this project fire fire station specific well all three of those phases are very important you know one is not more important than the other but certainly preconstruction we have a lot of expertise a lot of folks uh backing us up at Colliers that help us with the the the preconstruction part of it that's the meat and potatoes that's where all of the um goals are set um and it's really important to established that early on the design portion um you know we have great expertise in terms of um doing some quality control um certainly we go into all the drawings all the documents that designers provide and and go through all of them look for any gaps look for any missing information we do an extensive um Quality controlled um review of all the design documents and then the Final Phase in terms of construction you know as we mentioned Caesar comes in with great expertise um in terms of managing the construction project um on a on a weekly basis and making sure that everything is is as it should be I'll let him speak to that yeah in that part I was supporting you you know as needed for the priate basically my my main function here will be to be your eyes and your ears in the priate and and and basically in the construction phase I will be monitoring like the cost the quality and like that everything is on schedule and as your spect to be um I will provide later when we finish the meting but we have like a standard week um weekly um you know advance of the project how it's going and also during the close out project we have like the all the documentation in our server and we can organize that as you want it to and you have you have all the punch lead all the documentation that you need you know so you can operate like as you need um the the building so basically that's what I can tell you so far um that we can provide you in the construction phase and the close out phase too yeah the one nudge I would give you Angela just to make sure we we we brag appropriately and maybe it's not your style but I'm going to do it on your behalf um is is knowing that you've spent um so much of your career in fire stations in particular having conversations with Angela and Tony where I make assumptions that are totally wrong because I'm not I haven't done 20 years of fire stations as the team has but Angela really knows operationally how they work so maybe provide a little bit of thinking around that yeah I was going to follow up I mean fire stations are very unique um project type and certainly um every fire station has similar similarities but there's also differences um depending on the town or the city that we're working with so I think part of it is working with the the fire department understanding their needs their wants the other side of of this project type is the infrastructure and the technical knowledge to build everything that you need to have in a fire station that's going to last you for the next 50 years and having that foresight and future proofing the building um in terms of the infrastructure there's also the added layer of building in all the energy compliance um that we need to have um for this new state-of-the-art building and understanding the cost implications so um I would say in terms of a project type the fire stations um that I've worked on there's generally similarities but when you get into the details and the operations you also have to fit it towards the needs of the fire department and that's what makes it so so unique all right we have time for one more question have you worked on on on call fire rather that you know as opposed to totally yes y yeah uh different it's a it's a different need it's a different operation um and certainly um it it still has the similarity as to um you know a permanent 247 um uh facility but there there are some differences with with on call firefighter needs all right so our last question is going to be about communication the select board is going to or likely going to appoint a building committee which will be all volunteers local volunteers who who really care about the town in this project you're going to be working with staff that obviously has many things to do and then the select board has has limited time so they're really depending on the OPM to communicate well so can you talk about your communication style how you plan to communicate maybe give an example and then we'll have time for one followup yeah I our style our communication style is is that we are involved heavily every day um sometimes it's it's every day sometimes it's weekly it's phone calls it's emails it's um reports and at a high level we provide a an executive summary every month that highlights the progress of the project and where we are financially um to give to the select board and certainly we prepare um lots of different reports depending on what the town's needs are um but we respond um in terms of communication whatever you need and and at the at the phase of the project that requires that level of of communication and interaction um and also I know that in the construction faces like a really risky situation when the fire station is operating at the same time they have users and we will make sure like we have a a really smooth and a streamlined process where every stakeholder is informed what is happening without inter without like they have any struggle during the process of the construction or interrupting the process of the regular operation of the fire station any follow-ups on the board I have a quick one just on um the building committee so uh we will definitely have a building committee and it'll be made up of volunteers and typically because we've had other building committees it's a group of people that are very committed and really engaged and are going to want to be um you know very involved once once everything's set to go with the um how everything progresses so how would you see yourselves uh interacting with a building committee and honestly that would be the group you'd interact with more frankly than you would the select board once it's a go yeah yeah it's okay if I offer a couple thoughts go ahead yeah so I would say that basically on essentially every Municipal project we work on it more often than not is the building committee that the the team has the pleasure of working with um and what I think we do really well is we Empower all of the building committee members to have all the information they need to make all of the decisions that need to be made because it's really not our place to make decisions on carlile's behalf it's the building committee and you're all uh position to make those decisions but we give you all of the objective data to make those decisions and Empower people and really get them excited about their participation on the committee because everyone joins for very different reasons typically um and we want to make sure that people feel really passionate about the project and quite fulfilled um not only at the end of the project when we're cutting the ribbon but all the way through uh so I think it it becomes a really nice uh collegial working relationship between the Collier team and the building committee as as we kind of um charge forward with your shared vision of of what this project will be um so so really typical and and we're all kind of people people we stay here all night if you let us and and so we're you know we're ready Well we'd love to have you all night but we can't here all night anyway so as I said in the beginning we really respect the time that goes into this we know this was abbreviated that we have spent a ton of time with your materials and and the interview has been very helpful so thank you for coming on behalf of the town and the project and we appreciate everything thank you thank you very much thank you very much Cesar you going to give us some of your your handouts yeah I got some handouts too okay I didn't get too much talk time today but I'll leave you with some presents thank you great sure thank you thank you okay thank you two pages willing to do that upon occasion estimate reconciliation all right is this for a particular type of project it was another project I've done recently one of the most recent numbers we acquired this year over the summer yep and they're in 50% construction documents what type of building was it just a like a town building of some kind it's a fire station oh it's fire station sorry it's probably on there no I wasn't confusing at all I got it there public it was the way it oh yeah yeah but um so this is a fire station fire station and you said it's at 50% completion at 50 station large they have they're looking at a new build so not the just the way we run the numbers yep I facilitate these meetings and do comparisons a little previe great thank you thanks apprciate it oh okay did I talk to again no no talk with the numbers okay great great thank Is this different from what was in The Proposal it is okay we allowed to take it ex summary okay that we provide that was a big one change a little but yeah what we us provide to owners on a monthly basis thank you so much great thank bye bye have a good night all right all right so just to remind the board from the last meeting you went through each one of the proposals to create the short list so we're now limited to the short list parts of the proposals you can adjust your ratings for the RFP responses based off the interview so the numbers that you've already created you have the references and then you have the interview scoring to do for each firm so I would remind that this is a recorded meeting and these are professionals that that took some time so use numbers rather than words if you're going to be overly critical it's just a suggestion but um clarification again Ryan so I thought where we landed was the uh the uh you know playin round was done and we picked three of six and then we clear all the yellow cards and now we're a fresh they all start even at this for tonight is that true or not true you have to you would have to adjust the scores as they already exist and justify it so that's opposite of what my understanding was from the last time we met I thought we clear the old one that was to get into this round and now we evaluate him based on what we heard today so we can't we can't quite clear the field you you have to take the entire proposal together okay can I remember then you have to remind us where we landed do we have this I anticipated that Kate's got a question um were you able to get references for RBG no I was not okay I got one additional reference for Colliers and those were sent out I can uh it was for the Williamstown fire station sent out to home and the group paraphrase it they they thought they had the required expertise um the project contact I talked to felt like their specific the some of the aspects of the projects weren't tailored to their specific needs and not not a commment on the individuals but they felt like um the larger they were a bit more focused on the corporate bottom line yeah corporate processes versus their individual needs um one thing he the contact was particularly not happy with was the fact that they just whatever the cost was they just took the time and divided by right years it wasn't it wasn't cost like the the hours weren't build in any kind of actuals it was just a but hours well they agreed to a budget for the OPM yeah and then rather than billing by hours each mon took it by div if it was a 12 month they just divide it by 12 and build the same so he particularly didn't like that aspect of it um without seeing like the actual time that went into it um so I would say um overall I would characterize it as a and they weren't they weren't they didn't continue with them past the initial phase they went with a different OPM for the construction okay so so on this process um we had evaluated these three firms we had ranked them ahead of time with our scoring and the score and I think this is all public right if I was to say what the scores were or um the the lowest rated one was RGB who was the first first to present tonight and so I would just in a way to expedite this would was there anyone who felt as though the RGB the first presenters tonight moved up significantly or would we still consider them at the I I think this an excellent way to look at it and my answer is no okay I agree no so no and I feel no as well it's got any or maybe I mean they may have moved up a little bit but not into first place okay all right that's part fair enough Barney um this is the first one RG yeah that's what I'm looking back on um I'm it's too bad we don't have some references what right because we never we never got any right well that's tell by itself but um did we solicit references though I mean I did but I never got any back and did we follow up and try to get references nope that one's on me did not get to that I I have a general question before we get too far into the different groups because is I was it didn't seem like everyone got the assignment so to speak and I'm not sure if that was a function I to be us if all three got it wrong well to differing extents though I think yeah I think definitely to different I just wanted to get your your perspective on um the materials between the materials we provided them the overview I was I was surprised that at least they didn't weren't prepared in some cases to address our specific timeline do you feel like it was adequately explained in the materials so I looked back at the materials to to make sure um in the scope of work that we sent the predesign uh so the OPM shall provide advice and consultation the select board to assure the town of Carlo receives the highest Design Services it says um the OPM will provide advice and consultation to the awarding authority and designer on a preliminary design review and space needs evaluation including coordination and participation of all stakeholders other interested parties in the general public shall assist in the establishment of ensuing design criteria and development of the project scope and then when we Chief correct me if I'm wrong but when we held the pre the pre meeting with all of the designers um I I was hammering home the idea that with the opms or the designers we invited all the OPM sorry thank you sometimes called designer he the people we met with yes the firm I can't say that those people I can't say that each one was there exactly I can go back and look you process-wise you met and they had the opportunity to meet with you and the chief to to specifically ask the fire station to do questions about the fire station we described the process of the select board needing significant assistance in the selection of the designer okay in the uh program and scope of work necessary to design it okay I think where they appear to missed and it's a question whether other towns do it differently is the two town meeting model okay I mean I'm used to Carlile and I'd say to some degree you know I don't know if I in this case I don't know if I did it but I certainly generally push only asking for an amount that will get you to a good answer not asking for an amount where you don't yet even know what the good answer is right and and many projects not just this one and and at least again my experience in Carlos is that's the way you sell it you say you need a little money we're going to do this is kind of what we want to do it's kind of going to cost this but we need some money to really nail it down we'll come back to you with a much better quote that's how we've done it I don't know that we and maybe we're an outlier in that process but that's clearly not what they think well and I think part of there we're looking for someone that can tease out still talking about RGB no anybody anybody generally okay I I I would not say that blanket because I think you would not say what blanket that they none of them got none of them got it I felt the CM did get it finally when we guided them they got I will say when we guided them they got it because they work in the town I'm not sure even when we guided it the other guys are like woo what's this about like even when they were told they answered the way they wanted to answer which definitely in the case of the last one and I comports with your uh reference they got the call your way like we do it this way and they again they the just for the record they had we got four references three of them were very positive um and it may not be a bad way but it's the call your way so so maybe we'll go about this differently then um you know it seemed like there may be a strong preference for a first place person or firm on this or not what does that mean I I mean based on the three that we reviewed tonight yeah if there's if there's a consensus that there was one that was outstanding or that we would select you know maybe we start there and then work our way down well I think I think no I like the way you started you eliminated the third place well I had I didn't because as Scott brought up maybe there's something or Kate or Scott that maybe there's some information that's come to light that changes how we think about that so really well the other thing can you envision a scenario or that is a before I before I really ding somebody I just wanted to know it sounds to me like they had enough information enough opportunity to get the assignment and I'm saying you have to think like the way Ryan proposed it when we didn't have references assume they got glowing references would it change meaningfully change the position of that third place firm to move it up to contention just assume it's great references we loved them they did a great job so I think I can help maybe I might move them up to second I might not move them up first is yeah yeah they definitely don't move up to First no no I I mean for me let me be frank so for me um can I can I try to just give the so qualification criteria for for interviews so a highly advantageous firm demonstrates excellent presentation communication skills by the actual project staff with a clear understanding of the Project's needs advantageous is satisfactorily presents and not advantagous is a poor presentation so based off your initial scores assuming you don't want to adjust them based off information you heard tonight the ranking was CMS and then callers and then RGB this is inbound inbound yeah so if you were to rank tonight just the evaluation criteria of the interview there would have to be a significant movement to change that order in the same with references it also isn't rank somewhat important to the process in case one can't do it that we have to fall for the next it is yep rank is important is there any waiting in these how do you wait the iners interview with the paper RF well David I did see in our scores that we did last week or um that we had a significantly the the first CMS scored significantly higher y on our pre interview so if you talk about waiting if there was something that was you know I would give them a lot more weight initially going in that's right no I agree I agree with that that the benefit of the the interview and the references is that you can blank someone so if if you if you do not want to work with someone or you get a reference that you can say then they just don't even meet the criteria right but it is it is difficult to go the other way and say this interview was so so fantastic that they're going to go Leaps and Bounds above ISS of I'm just explaining the process given that I would you know there's one that I feel is clearly the strongest candidate for us to consider is my opinion right but I would potentially ding the other two and say I'd be willing to throw them out and maybe not throw them out but I want to hear what the board well I'll give you all right so I agree with your assessment I think the one is clear and by the way I guess two other independent processes not us have picked the same one right different firms in car no but among firms yeah two other Carla boards not that maybe shouldn't matter but they picked the same one okay so there's reasons we can discuss why I think they do come out attractively I I I want I want to make a statement it's kind of maybe damning with faint praise but cers is easy to dislike they come across as smug we know it it's our process hey no no no I'm going to say it and they need to they can hear it they can hear it we know better you don't know that's kind of the impression however however they have a deep bench of a lot of expertise in areas that we don't know nothing about and I don't think it's enough to move the order but I want to acknowledge that they didn't get there just by being big they seem to really when the guy answer the cost like he knew what he was talking about like boom and you're going to get and the lady she came in at the End Tow but like solid analysis you're going to get like deep skills that a big company provides I'm not here to advocate for them I'm just saying they come they come across as smug and and not as nice and user friendly as the other guy but they got a lot of stuff in there I want to just say that okay I I think my um how we doing this well why don't you go ahead I mean give your input yeah I think it's interesting comparing the the interviews with with the materials um I think based on the materials I I thought Colliers was a stronger candidate um based interview no no based on the materials I think based on the interviews it I had some concerns about we talked about you have a giant firm yeah what team are you getting are you getting the processes are they really tailored right and and and the one reference one of the two Colliers and we had three positive references one being a fire station the the last one I talked to is is a project they cited tonight in their favor um and he also said his advice to us was or not to us but in general one of the things he said was that you know for a project like yours or our scope because we talked a little bit at very high level what we're doing you know you may want to think twice about going with one of these big guys because you probably want more of a tailored experience that a smaller firm can give you and I think with Colliers that's kind of where emotionally I net out is yeah you know they're going to tell you you're not and I don't feel like they I was kind of surprised how off they were with what we were trying to do of oh we need to get you to design done by town meeting which concerns me I mean there's with all those resour she kind of missed the assignment right right not a fair statement so I don't think we were our RFB that poorly that people didn't get that so I don't know data suggests we did so I one one thing I think with and again I think CMS had the had the has the best overall package but even RGB I will at least say um I like their materials the least right but I appreciate the fact that they are smaller operation they have done fire stations they did bring a relevant handout that at least so I appreciated their approach I appreciated um what they brought to the table but in terms of the best combination of materials and presentation I thought um CMS was was the best and so I would I would rank the interviews kind of CMS as advantageous um RGB is probably whatever the next one is was highly advantageous advantageous 32 you put cers at the bottom on that one yes in the in the interview yes for the interview I'd agree with that okay I agree that I would put CMS at the top I would flip the order of the other two just personally so you agree no I don't no he said he FP the order I flip two and three is all I yeah I understand I understand where from that CMS presented the best okay small etc etc they they only do OPM you know all that ja all right so I think we can universally agree that they would be our number one choice yeah CMS y okay and so do we need a second and third in the event that CMS well given this conversation and the lack of references for RGB I would say if you need a second and third you should um get the reck get the references and have another meeting about it to be that's fair that's fair do we do we need it though because only if you need it do we wait and see you negotiate with them at the if we were to give you the go-ahead which presumably we'll do tonight if we're in agreement we will negotiate with them get a contract and we'll sign it if you are able to reach agreement with them that's the only reason that we would need a second and third correct and do you think we would I mean we've worked with them in two projects in car I think it would his would indicate we've only start they haven't done any work yet no but what he's saying is they reached successful agreement sucess an agreement do we need to spend the time at this point or is it a reasonable risk to just say we're just going to stick with the one and if something falls through that's unexpected then we're going to lose some time in this but we maybe don't lose that much time for the effort that we would put in getting references and coming out have another meeting to change our Viewpoint yeah that's fair okay is everyone kind of said how do we ensure that we're getting the right I'm concerned now after this interview that we're that they understand what they're asking them to do and that them once we get under I'm assuming you can take that offline and and back and forth in the discuss I wrote down because when we said it said yes we understand that you want a strong schematic design with a strong estimate for me right seems to me they got it you don't you said schematic is not the if I could be candidate to the board I would say going through this process has helped you clarify your thinking in terms of what you want for this project so although I agree that mostly the Carl has done the two town meeting approach I think that has come out of you going through this process and wasn't identified prior to the RFS development so you're communicating you you wanted an OPM because you wanted help understanding what you need to do with this process and where to go they did the best they could to respond to what we put out which was we need help with this and here's what we think might happen now we can work with a firm that you feel comfortable with to really hone in on the project and Define it that way as long as you feel comfortable with who who was selected I've worked with you now on this project for a year and a half and you are continually moving towards where you want to go in a good way but it hasn't always been clear so I'm not surprised that some people don't know well and still the the end product is not clear the wanting help is clear right so we hiring the so I would say I agree with what Ryan's saying the main thing is are you comfortable look I think all three have the creds to do a good job right so who are we comfortable with who will be responsive to our idiosyncratic needs right small no small town on call Department you know blah blah blah so I think we've reached a consensus on that so in answer to not answer but in response to Scott's concern I think if we're comfortable and there's a reasonable negotiation about what it costs I'm confident that we can then reconvene with them and say all right now let's really talk about how we get to a good assessment of you know merging our needs and what you practically know about the industry like what the cers guys say you know like it's $1,200 a square feet so yes it may look a little different but it's still going to be 1,200 you know that kind of conversation will be an open conversation a candid conversation once and do you expect us as a select board to do that I don't know that that might be that might be the building commit all I'm saying is or we still the process of no I'm going to be firm with that it has to be you yeah I think so because it's programmatic goals and enough and and making we're not right we're not laying it out we're just saying just build what we right right right they're going to monitor right that okay so I think we does that address your concern kind of would you be confident if we picked CMS to have that conversation with them and get to the answer you yes okay great do we need a vote Ryan or is this quick wait I got one quick question on this so um I know that uh the proposal the cost of using CMS for the police station has gone up substant you know from what they originally I don't know if substantial is the right word but they're basically were taking money out of the contingency in order to cover their fee which we had underestimated fairly significantly right am I saying that right not quite no well so that has nothing to do with CMS I thought in the document I saw in front of the building committee on Friday there how much they thought they needed to get paid had gone up substantially from I think it was 90,000 we had in there for the OPM so that's the building committee not CMS though CMS is only responding to the scope that we gave them for cost the building committee estimated the 990,000 okay all right were they contracted at 90 or no it hasn't been contracted hasn't been contracted so this is part of the process like this is what it costs to do your sense was that what CMS proposed was reasonable in the context of the market and the scope and that the 90,000 was just an underestimate yeah and under under the umbrella that we're just doing understanding and not talking money before we talk qualification right that's important for procurement you heard tonight what what um a few of them said or a couple of them said which was we can do whatever it is you want us to do but there's cost involved with that so if you want a 40 to 60 hour week service to monitor the every second of the project which everybody would given given like unlimited resources then that's what it's going to cost I'm suspect ing based off conversation we've had so far that each firm is going to say we think that's overkill for the size of your projects but you have to decide that risk level but wouldn't also CMS they may they more or less said it right we're here in town anyway on two other projects so being here is not the issue right so once a person or firm is selected for their qualifications then you can have according to council then you can have conversations about divvying up work and stuff like that as long as you select just un qualifications we can talk about budget but I just want to answer the question they're going to propose whatever it is that you request for a service so if you say we want you here every day in the office working with the town it's going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars you say once a week it'll be cheaper still expensive but cheaper well I guess the question is whether we ask them to give us the cost of this you know that they gave so whether they would revise this first you know this was in The Proposal you know how many hours from each person we can't talk about that until you decide which firm is the most quality to do your project right so I'm just saying once we if we chose them we could ask them to review this we're defining the project as Soup To Nuts right move on with like this is Soup To Nuts we're not we're looking for one person from start to finish Although our initial effort is the this predesign what are we asking them to whoever we pick what comes next we ask them to quote a certain work scope yes so I'm going to bring done that no so I'm going to bring you that scope okay with their proposal and then you can react to the cost in The Proposal okay okay and that's based on their proposal but is based on the proposal they already sent or they will revise that so in the RFS there is a scope from overall project down to closing the project right that's like if if you're going to have an OPM do every single thing we said maybe we'll do that they will give you a proposal for that or some smaller version of that cuz those are but do we have a so I mean I thought we've kind of said that we're scoping like part a right from now till town meeting the town may tell us to take a hike we're not are we scoping the rest we have two quotes how do we evaluate we're going to get a good question so we're going to get a proposal for the entire project but it's going to be in Parts okay so the first part the pre-design as we're calling it will be one price we would only contract for the first part we will contract for the whole thing but they're all they're Gates they're we stop here and then the M we only obligate for the first okay okay but first you have to pick the most qualified firm right so that's what we're doing right now are we ready to do we vote on it we'll try this at Home Folks ready to yeah let's vote 9:30 would you like to someone make a motion I guess for a vote for the move we um authorize uh Ryan to um um open negotiations with CMS for OPM of the fire station project second do you need anything more is that good okay any further discussion okay let's uh take a r uh not a roll call let's just do a Voice vote all in favor of the motion I I any opposed none okay okay very good okay longer than we thought but no this was plan :30 oh yeah well we were going to do a arpa update I thought that's coming I thought you said the revised agenda was 0 9:30 I didn't either but maybe you were out of the room when Brian went I sent you these email so in light of um in light of the um OPM discussion and just the general calendar um I wanted to provide an update on our arpa funds and also proposed some motions which I'll just walk you through um the the key thing right now as we look at um again just high level we have to have funds obligated by the end of December um all available funds have to be obligated by end December or you lose them so we're just in the process of um housekeeping freeing up available funds identifying funds that aren't going to be used and then putting them back in the unallocated fund so as of today we currently have 9,553 available that could be allocated by the select board um that money is again unallocated and can be um allocated with our vote um below and that's about up around around 95 last time we've we've um closed out some projects and I I can take you through those but basically uh about 25,000 was returned to unallocated I have four motions below that we can we can do tonight or we can do at a future date uh essentially these are um actually I'd like to do the Council on Aging and Human Services one um these are all based on conversations with the project owners and these are requests that they made and and feedback that they provided so um I'm not looking to recommend we take away money from anyone that had money approved and wants to use it these are all just check-ins and project updates so for the Council on Aging and Human Services uh Carol wanted to take uh $1,350 that had been approved for nutrition support which has been um spending at a lower than expected rate and apply it to rental assistance for seniors in need because she has some a couple of uh new requests so motion one is essentially transferring 1350 from one of her projects to another project at her request um motion two was based on uh the current spend on the online mental health counseling um she just projects that she'll have some additional funds that won't be used and so motion two is essentially uh taking out some of those funds based on her feedback on what would be used um so these are these are probably the motion one is one that she would actually like to have approved tonight um and she Vol she offered to be here but I know she's I think in transit and so I just said no I can speak to that that one um ESC in the house tonight I had asked about the remaining balance there and they had communicated back uh some of the activities that they still planned uh but then said that of what had been approved they'd have about well exactly $644 left over so I was recommending reducing their uh their project budget by that amount to uh so that they can do the things they want to do um and then we can return those funds and then the last one I don't know Ryan if uh I checked in about the remaining funds in the town hall records management I know back in August you were just awaiting any out uh final invoices I know nothing's come in um if that project is closed we can either close that out separately or we can do a motion to zero out the balance it depends on if you still are have a question about if there's outstanding invoices uh there is an outstanding invoice which is why I haven't answered can't get them to send it to me so that's fine so we won't do motion four and what we'll do as a project close out which will have the same effect um and then as we look forward to next month again we want to get everything closed out going into December so that there's no surprises and we can we can make sure we use all our funds um the planning board and they had have been approved 47 or sorry $875,000 for the gis implementation um Julie is estimating she's going to have up to 16,000 that she won't be able to spend related to uh digitization of the board of health records that has been um delayed or postponed and so some of the contract work she had planned to to use for those funds she will not be able to spend um so I'm not recommending that tonight I want to have some more conversations about that but that's potential amount that could come back um and then I'm following up with the Board of Health I haven't followed up with them uh in in a little bit I know they're running a Clin a vaccination clinic in November um and we'll see if they have any extra funds at the end of the year for that and I'll follow up with them in November and then they they uh stopped the bleed training workshops there's still $1,200 in Balance there and I'm just going to follow up with Linda and see if they have anything planned for the end of the year comma in the wrong spot do I what did I oh yeah 2.8 million yeah $2,800 so that's kind of that's essentially the universe of adjustments left and again there's three motions for tonight and then up to three or four motions in November um but the other thing just going back is as we look at the OPM and how we would fund that if we're going to use arpa funds we can commit funds tonight from the unallocated pool if we want to do that or need to do that um otherwise we can again free up some more funds and and maybe we might have up to around 150,000 in in unallocated arpa that we could apply to OPM or another project right have up to 170,000 I think to fair enough 13 and another 35 Y how do we have any ballpark idea of I mean this is going to your second page right does that the second page is just the it's just the request form it but we have no idea how much they're going to come back with but we would deploy all remaining the idea would be after you flush all of these that would be sort of our last project if it's if it's uh if it comes in under we would have extra funds that we'd want to allocate right okay sure right but I mean likely that would be then you sweep everything up in one last request right yeah okay all right yeah what we don't want to do is get into December and realize oh we have all this money where can we spend it I think we have plenty of places we can spend it right um my goal is to close it all out have funds available tonight if we need to if we wanted to authorize I don't know if it matters but if we wanted to authorize arpa funding so that there's actual funding in place when you enter the negotiations that won't matter okay unless we start okay but we have time we have meetings to do that yeah well and I don't want to hold up the process either if okay we have to contract so it won't happen in the next three weeks okay so I would just recommend at minimum I would do motions one and two tonight and then we can we can do housekeeping um another night as well do three okay two three okay all right great thank you you want a motion made or move to approve aror funding for nutrition support for seniors in need project 54106 to be reduced by the amount of $1,350 to a total of $5,650 and arpa funding for rental assistance for seniors in need project 541 05 he increased 1350 to a total of $ 68,800 should I do all threee motions sure go ahead sure uh and I additionally move that the select board approve arpa funding for online mental health counseling Co program project 54103 be reduced 2,000 to a total of 9,500 and that the select board approve arpa funding for root assistant ability Earth Day event April 2023 project number 19801 to be reduced $624 to a total of $ 7,397 56 second okay does anyone object to voting on all three motions at the same time no seeing none um is there any further discussion seeing none we'll take a Voice vote all in favor of the motion I and none opposed good job call out uh thanks to Kelly berer for all of her help continued help both administering this and staying up to date with all the rules and regulations she's been a great help and an asset to this process you have one quick question uh following up will we have to have another um audit and is that covered we as as she informed me today um well so we already allocated funds for the next audit she did say that we can be audited up to the year 2033 for arpa but I don't think she's requesting additional audit funds I'm going to be I'm going to meet with her at some point between now and and November just to go through all this and see if there's anything else we need from a accounting standpoint well we can cover that through you know yeah F we've already approved it for the next because we have I mean we can't encumber those funds so no and we don't want to we can't put them into we don't want them sitting there if you don't need them exactly okay I just wanted to be sure that yeah but I'm going to sit I want to sit down with her at some point just go through everything to make sure we're not missing any anything all right if we're nothing more let's go to the town administrator's report okay great um if you can communicate to your liazon for Scott in the town that um once these funds are allocated These arpa funds that they need to be spent and spent first so these aren't things you can hold so the boards and committees in the programs they have to spend this money first after this deadline um otherwise we're giving it back yeah and and I'll be I'm in touch with them yeah so um is it anybody besides cahs what's that anybody besides cahs that needs to be told well the like the D the DPW the the vehicle like that needs to be one of the there was an email today about what obligated means and obligated is not simply the select board approves it it needs to be like for example a vehicle I got the sense we have to actually have the order in and we do okay so there's a few projects but honestly there's I have my eye on all the remaining projects and and they're all in pretty good shape um and most of them the large ones um like the HVAC that's all work in progress It's been contracted out obligated and and should be completed and the chair of the ESC is here so she knows yeah spend your $800 $875 yeah it's it's um it's a manageable list at this point I'm not I'm not worried about that okay all right so for my report we have a first draft of the first floor remodel just want to take you through just some of the concerns so we want to make sure the cohs employees have enough space and there's enough drop in space for short-term uh pilot and workr of drop in hours for seniors we also want to make sure the town clerk is accessible and has enough space and is close enough to the Vault over in the town clerk area uh one of the major challenges is the town clerk area has become the holding area for all records that have not been digitized in the Overflow of the Vault so the new town clerk should be able to clean out a significant amount of the Vault and move some of that in but the digi the digitization of all Town Hall records we we are modeling around that right now so that that continues to be a a hindrance to several of your goals to include proper employee space and uh transparent and access and then also um succession planning so just I'm only pointing these things out so you can see how all the pieces work together so it's just it's the one Department that we've mentioned before on the digitization it's all the land use boards so we've worked on historical commission um board of health records upstairs and the Conservation Commission has has a ton of records as you can imagine they're not shy about saying that and then um zoning board of appeals were working on getting digitized right now because those are under control of Julie and John and then John's finishing the planning board records so all of it does work together and assessing as well but they kind of get forgot because they contained in their little area so the I'm just going back to the arpa money that was allocated for digitization that's covering what uh Ryan is saying is underway and it's what's not underway that's being returned just just my record so we offer digitation to every department and n of them took it up okay which absolutely FL me yeah right out loud yeah in any substantial way there was u a couple small boxes that were just but isn't I mean probably not the time to take this up now but perhaps in a future meeting we just went through this big at least the first of two you know very successful in my opinion thank you to Julie for organizing and the planning board the um the uh uh MBT MBTA open house you know there's a lot going on and it seems to me as we move to the step of maybe qualifying or characterizing those regions that have been identified that analog records that are sitting there get digitized and mapped and why can't we force that issue like it's amazing to me that we're doing all this work on one side and then these other people doing nothing like I really feel like again not at 9:45 but at some I I would ask the chairman to put that on and if we need a joint meeting with the Board of Health let's get a joint meeting this is ridiculous I agree with Kate completely dly noted thank you HR update from the assistant Town Administrator uh almost 20 applicants for the town clerk position which I think indicates that we've priced it well that it's an attractive job and that uh we're going to get a high quality candidate we've also received applications for the CHS transportation services coordinator and the facilities technician so to be determined we are still seeking heavy equipment operators um we did make an offer to someone who uh chose a different town they had multiple offers at the same time so I've asked to interview that person and and lean Lessons Learned it'll be a small focus group obviously only one person but we are we are struggling to get heavy equipment operators um we've had significant failures in in all the attempts we've made to make offers here okay uh fall Outreach I was a judge for the Carlile PTO trunk Retreat o I brought my son he took it very seriously did you rank them based on set criteria yeah we did we sat down very responsive sort of responsive and I mean in the funniest way but we didn't complain we just did it we went through the process did they know why they there right I was joined by Jen from the library Holly from creation and Jim MOS superintendent of schools we had a good time and hundreds of people there car does a great job at these small events bringing in big crowds I'm also going to the Revolutionary grave marker installation at the central bearing ground on Sunday October 27th I know at least Travis is joining me because he's a key speaker I hope to join I'm not key I'm a speaker it's a significant uh thing they're going to install these markers and then March to the cemetery and do another um another ceremony at the cemetery so very very cool event and then I'll let you guys speak to this at a different time but the select board started their office hours initiatives we're hoping to learn uh lessons from that what length it should be if it's successful frequency Etc and add that to our yearly Outreach calendar and then I'm scheduling my own winter Outreach now so we'll have time Sil St okay budget update um I gave you a memorandum for discussion on Thursday at your meeting on Thursday which is duly posted for budget discussions that will inform the budget letter that goes to departments Kelly and I have finalized the draft that will then include your goals and be sent to departments for return by December 3rd and this will officially officially kick off the FY 26 budget uh key decision point for you for the board to make um hopefully by Thursday is when annual town meeting is going to be uh that's key for planning for the planning board and many of their initiatives and then also our back calendar and be be aware conquered is in June this year because of the the 250th so they're I think June 8th well it's he attached their schedule so so we had set April 28th the moderator reminded me that Carlile does not schedule Town meetings for after school vacation so we're looking at the first week we will be ahead of the we will be F we will be ahead of them this year well but what happens if they amend their school budget at time meeting well Theo and the the the school budget timeline is also June 2 is conquered is also um delayed not delayed they're usually about a month ahead of us and now they're about a month behind our old schedule I think it'll work fine with our current schedule but yeah everything's been pushed back and conquered for the 250 interesting so do we I think we should put a date on the let's let's talk about yeah it's should come with a date uh Thursday it's it's going to be one of the first two Mondays in May likely and uh have you asked the moderator about either one of those or you need someone from this group to ask him from what I remember he said those dates were fine but we can reach I'm sorry I may I may have misunderstood you then I thought you said that the moderator said we never did it after April vacation the week after the week after he the week after it's the Monday after vacation late yeah right break yeah right April 28th is this year vacation later this year so the the first Monday in May would be May 5th May s of the mile yep and the next Monday would be the 12th Margarita's in budget we're going to need need to be honest we're going to need about four nights this year let's get let's get ready for that no this is a this is a stacked agenda you don't think and we can't do the 26 let's not do that guys let's do that on Thursday well but no I think it's zero in least a couple options yeah May 5th May 5th and 6th I think it's possible it's two nights no I think it will be two nights be yeah I think we should plan on two nights so 1213 all right maybe we have a select board meeting on the 13th normally that would be and we would have one uh in April we'd have one on the 8th and the 22nd so we'd probably want to move our schedule and meet on the 6th and have this town meeting on 12 and 13 if if we didn't want to well we we can move our that's fine yeah we have to that's think about all the hday is on the 22nd so of uh May yeah so okay Rich of sustainability April 26th probably on the April ail prob yeah take out it's got to be 5th or 12th May 12th hey let me ask a question though is there any um has anybody I guess you're on the committee is there any um uh proposal coming out of the town meeting group we might want to do the weekend yeah we might that's what I was wondering yeah well let's so I I think I believe that we should have the discussion with fincom more generically about if we if we lead conquered is there any risk that conquered votes something different that materially changes our budget ordinarily we Trail conquered so we know all the facts when we come to meeting right I think that's what we should think about first and then we can feather in I I think deciding between two Mondays in May right now is premature personally since they've come out with their calendar okay Ryan had suggested we need to do this is there what's the well we we're having me I'm not saying delay it I'm just saying it's not just we have to think about what the impact it's never been in my 20s something years that we were before conquered never and conquered sometimes votes things actually change back jumping up in front of them last year I'm happy to have a conversation i' just rather have it we got scooped yeah June's late I mean June June is late but they've well also we the the way we do it our town elections have to be how um after that before June 30 everybody has to be voted before June 30 but don't we have to have a certain amount of space between town meeting in the election it's it's a it's like a five days or yeah it's a short amount okay but you could still get it in if we wait have to do June first week can we'd have I don't know concurrently or something I don't know in the co time didn't we do we delayed it right yeah but the whole budget the whole everything was but we still made it before June we'll make it before June 30 anyway okay um um the 9th looks like it's like I Dro dead date okay it looks like the 5th 6th or 12 13th I'm sending Wayne an email well this is to go in may not to wait till June right okay I just wanted to double check with him there's anyone else that I'll talk to him as well what I will talk to him we will we will because you should ask our our committee will govern committee is going to seriously recommend a weekend I think we've had enough input from board and committees now that we can have that deliberation we have not yet had we've talked about it Loosely but it sounds like it's well soon I guess next meeting it sounds like next week I guess not till next week no you have to post it bun it's October I know he wants to get it done it's not going to be earlier than what anyone it's not like we're looking to pull it in so I don't think any of these dates are going to be a problem for the budget process later is okay as long if we were discussing early April that might be an issue but but yeah all these stes should be fine yeah all right online donations um the cultural Council has withdrawn the requests so we're no longer building a pilot they're going to use Services provided by the Community Foundation for Metro West which will manage a dedicated fund for donors to contribute uh from any Financial source so this includes Donor advised funds personal checks credit cards and more so they'll be getting um funds directly from them for their for their programming kind of a similar to a friends of but it's this this particular group is for a lot of nonprofits not just one I don't know why we didn't think of that before I think that's a great solution and I think a lot of our they to do some work to I I haven't caught up with Mark but I know they it wasn't like a they had to do some work to to figure out that they could do this don't like I forget the whole I don't know all the mechan of it but not everyone can use these groups you know me some so some good news we talked to about a vehicle for the facilities Department purchasing it using FY 25 funds Aubry was able to secure through some significant work a Maya grant for $10,000 to offset that cost nice um justifying it through reduction of risk at the school with the smaller vehicle and um that's great work great found money so uh my working group established a contract with spra energy for one year combining four CPS accounts and six town accounts this uh secured a new contract rate of 8.7 cents per decm for 12 months uh we had s our work on this to assess green options U spoiler alert there's only three providers in New England and natural gas isn't that green so uh we did our best but overall the procurement is in the best interest financially we only signed a year to see where the Market's going so it was really low uh Co and it's spiked up it's coming back down and now this is setting us up for for uh hopefully a reduction in the next year but you know there that election and other things that are going to cause significant changes so we'll see all right OPB presentation my financial oversight working group I invited David and Mark to review the OPB actuary study and liability and trust funds with us we are 27.8 6% funded putting Carlile in the 80 and 90th percentile for Massachusetts uh definitely a much higher for small towns yeah this is a 6% increase in our funding ratio uh so this is good news and that comes from employee experience and favorable interest rates so the working group's recommendation is to the finance committees to maintain our current level of opab funding and I included that report for your review it was decided that you probably didn't need a full presentation but just that report holiday hours I am recommending that the select board offer Town employees additional holiday hours in the coming months it's a weird year with um Christmas and New Year's falling on a Wednesday so I'm recommending that we close town hall and non-essential buildings on December 24th and 31st this includes compensating employees that need to fill necessary shifts so that's police and dispatch and any fire calls that come up um I think building usage would be really low and limited in those days and I think if you were to ask employees what they wanted for gift it would be time with their families on those days so that's my recommendation to you so they would come in on a Monday and be off on a Tuesday and Wednesday in both weeks if they wanted more time they would take a crew time okay all right fair enough okay capital projects Greeno Barn project is now final we're working on a Public Presentation to include in video with our land use team the Corey Auditorium lighting project is now substantially complete as of Monday There's a couple small installations still needed but the auditorium is open with approved lighting and safety we will also have a video presentation for you on that a dog park is continuing along uh and still on track to be open later this fall tree work finalized in the central bearing ground on Sunday this open sight lines remove limbs that were endangering historic markers next uh the grave restoration folks and the Lichfield seat repair company will come in and fix those projects hopefully before the for the holiday season uh the cost of this would require they almost had enough but they're going to need a little bit more money and they're likely to request CPC funding for repairing the entrance Stone so if you're at Ferns and you're walking directly into the cemetery that opening there's Stones there that need to be fixed and repointed what size of project is that just of curiosity the total no just that last one that they need that they 30,000 30 they're nice Stones they better be 10,000 a piece wow so they had about 20 so they're missing 10 so it's already been approved okay most of it so okay so they're looking for 10 more I'm asking because I'm I'm just wondering um instead of having to wait if we could just say arpa arpa this is where we're getting in trouble this is where we're getting in trouble all right we start spending I don't know what their timeline is I mean we can I I would they were totally fine waiting until it's not a it's not a DI they're not going to get to for the winter right what's going all right okay mfc's contracted with the mechanical House doctor Engineers to assess construction conditions and construction documents for the library hbac coils approved in your Capital plan and will be rolled into the renovation to save hopefully time and money they're also working with the Recreation Commission using fy2 funds to replace the HVAC system in the brick building uh which will likely use fy2 funds from the recreation revolving fund back stopped by the MFC so they're continuing to do good work and I just want to report you on that Lieutenant Newman and the fire department procured their new garage Bay heaters and those will be installed early next month that's also a capital plan Construction projects Library building committee will discuss and finalize their CMS proposal for OPM services on Friday police station renovation committee met last Friday and approved a proposal to bring to you which you have for your meeting on Thursday for final approval or adjustment and then we did a lot of work on fire station OPM tonight so I won't touch that discussion points for you to review uh Town Hall hours your discussion with the Cs at your next meeting town clerk appointment the the climate resilient policies presentation that's coming Julie and team are coming before you to talk about uh MVP and other related climate policy changes that may or may not be coming and that need your input and then your tax classification hearing is scheduled for November 26th we approved a banner at the North End of the Town common advertising the mosquitoes annual campaign it'll be there from November 18th to December 2nd trick-or-treating hours were set by Chief amandola for October 31st from 400 p.m. to 800 p.m. and we made sure to let him know not to mess that up we'll be communicating those hours to the public um if I didn't have my own kids I would love to come here it looks like a really good time in carel but I would be divorced so bring your kids good candy here um I would like to recognize Town planner for staff recognition Julie and our new planning zoning land use assistant Noel for their MBT communities housing uh Outreach and update specifically their open house uh that was held last week which saw over 100 people um the planning board designed two open houses with the goals of exchanging information gathering feedback and refining mapping Julie and Noel held one-onone conversations explained MBTA efforts and gather information to inform the planning board's final recommendations in my opinion this is how public service should be done with a lot of input from the community and the staff listening and recommending things to the elected and appointed boards the Department's willingness to share information and answer resident questions will pay dividends during what we just talked about the annual town meeting likely I want to say that there were a lot of people that came um that didn't understand that this was still a work in progress and assumed uh that they were coming to see a fet comp so I just like to remind everybody again I do agree with you what you said Ryan that um we we're trying to get people used to the idea that we're actually asking them for um input and help with um looking at various options and that we're not making decisions they're going to want you know we're trying to just give them the information that they're going to need for making a decision down the line at town meeting so is the um the uh working group going to make any changes in the overlay proposal before the November whatever it is Saturday open house well no I'm just asking that is that the idea they would make some adjustments based on the input or I believe so yeah okay good yeah and so that you know might be that'll they should well I'm sure they're do I'm sure Julie's on top of it but the you know the new publicity for that date should include it was already all yeah it will No it should but not the the postcard we got but right the new publicity for the Saturday oh yeah that's right you're on the committee yes right should include making it clear that this will be there will be some revisions of the overl send a new postcard I guess we'll have no no no I'm not saying you should I'm just saying whatever publicity you yeah send out for it and also to um really remind people of your point which is this is a work in progress this is not the final plan uh and I also wanted to say because um Brian mentioned the MVP presentation we actually talked today um and I'm sorry for slipping in my le as I'm report to yours Bri but uh we we thought maybe we'd do a twofer and have an uh an MBTA update for the this board at the same time oh for the agend when it comes up when it comes up on the gotcha gotcha um because we think it's important we're we're um tomorrow at the Board of Health there's going to be an MBTA presentation to that board because we're kind trying to keep all the boards and committees in the loop as well as how ideas are evolving as we go and getting more input so that we don't go off into some direction that people don't want us to go in that is my report excellent thank you okay um I guess we're towards the end of the meeting if unless do we have to approve minutes yeah we do have a set in here set in here yeah you all have a chance to look at those yeah I over the meeting minutes of October 8th move approval of the meeting minutes of October 8th is presented a second anyone I sent a very minor change about the spelling of my name to Gretchen no big deal okay so do you second it with oh yeah of course I'll second it and with the um with the correction of the spelling of Barney at the end Perfect all right any further discussion all in favor of the minutes I I None opposed all right um Lea on reports it's kind of late I think we just have one quick pitch which um I sent you guys the post the flyer today Tuesday next Tuesday the CPC is holding their first ever I believe even though we're supposed to have been doing this every year there it is um a community hearing uh good here um to have people um provide their ideas about how they'd like to see CPA funds spent in the future and if people have already have specific ideas of something they might want to propose that we give them some feedback on eligibility and we'll and a very brief um sort of review of the act and um how it works in Carlile so what again I'm sorry I missed the date it's next Tuesday the 29th from 6:30 to 8 here at uh here in the Clark room and there'll be light Refreshments exactly yeah nice Tuesday the 29th at what time yep uh 6:30 6:30 to 8 all right so it's not house it's a presentation all right um we're to the towards the end of the meeting and if there are any public comments seeing none in the room I got one real quick oh you should have done this at the beginning Thursday class of 2027 sixth grade spaghetti supper at the school Thursday this week this week oh this week two days from now yes okay so carile map PTO if you go there just Google spaghetti supper carile you can buy tickets online starts at 5: great event and when are your office hours or have you already done them I didn't want to share that but my office hours are tomorrow from 10: to 11:30 I believe you should post something City in the woods yeah you should you know are you do you know how to do that I don't know I'm not even on no I'm not on you want me to do it for you no no you want people to come talk to you no no I'm kidding um sure I don't I I don't it was it was worthwhile oh no I and I've already done one of the coffees we had a we had a we had a bunch of people show up so I just assume they show up uh so it's it's not it's tomorrow you said uh yeah I can check okay it is tomorrow 10 10 to 11:30 10 to 11:30 10 to 11:30 Town Hall where am I healed room upstairs yeah okay yep bring Refreshments you will have Refreshments Gretchen has done a wonderful job gret I don't know but the refreshments maram does it she's doing it if Gretchen's out all right plenty Refreshments uh okay all right um so back to community input seeing none in the room I look online and I see Mr La can you uh I'm the only one here I think yeah but can you I figured out how to raise my hand I don't know how to put it back down John can you up your sound a little bit uh I don't U one second I'll try can you hear me now no just speak into your microphone a little close first how about that can you hear me now we can hear you that we can hear you we'll listen intently okay so um my initial comment still kind of stands um where and concerned about not having a good U measurement system or standard for the fire department um as a precursor to this whole project the discussion today was really about construction and construction management and there was very small discussion about a stakeholder input and um getting all the the the town people or all the the fire team as one group said it um to say something I think what you guys have done has have put that off onto the uh the committee that they are going to be the ones that Define the feature set for this whole project that feature set will include what you guys want for the fire department I think that's what you've done it was a little confusing and I think the the contractors here tonight had a little confused about who's going to do that and who's going to run that process so okay that could still work um but then the committee selection becomes important um because if all you do is get people that agree with Chief Soros on what the fire department should be and what he wants then you're going to get a goldplated fire department with a lot of features you don't need uh so I can suggest that when you do staff that committee you look for people that might have different views or are willing to look outside the box a little bit from what uh Chief Soros wants for the Department because in conversation with him and in correspondence with you guys I have pointed out um uh what I think are after 10 he's got a bunch of stuff he doesn't need in my opinion that's just my opinion and uh there's no third- party check on him that I can see no there's no there's no thirdparty professional that's reviewing this process the guys that you're hiring tonight they're just going to say what do you want okay here's how we build it so who who does that cost benefit analysis who sets the feature list the feature set for the fire department for what the town wants great well thanks for that input John and um we'll take that under advisement all right thanks Travis yeah um is there anything else I see no other public comment um anything else so why don't I take a motion to adjourn so move moved all right all in favor all right we're done so we meeting in person or virtually On th morning in person