##VIDEO ID:azzcRxJJqZw## I would like to call this uh meeting of the Greenfield Community preservation committee to order let me read the chairperson statement this meeting is being recorded by the community preservation committee if any other person's presence are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time seeing none we will move on okay um I'm going to all the rols because that's what I'm supposed to do Donna here whsy here G is not here Sarah here Peter's not here Becky present Travis here Jack here okay and we have a quarum um is there anyone from the public who is not going to be speaking out of about a specific proposal who would like to speak at this time okay seeing none we will move on okay uh we do not have um minutes from the last meeting last week we will deal with them at the next meeting um Sarah I thank you for even attempting to get them done in this period of time thank you okay moving on let's go on to our fiscal 2025 application review and we're starting with Greenfield Public Library histo history room collection is there anyone here wishes to speak to that see Anna I don't see Anna let's move on and we'll come back okay um Megan you're up Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity the Birch Street project Hi how are you fine thank you how are you doing good um good I I wasn't planning on repeating the application but I'm happy to talk about habitat um and answer any questions Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity purchased a small building lot on Birch Street in Greenfield last year um and uh we're planning to build a uh TW bedroom one-story adaptable home on the lot um we're currently working on uh the architectural design and the pre-development planning um so that we can build that home um we would appreciate the assistance of the uh city um in the construction funds um and that commitment of the city will also allow us to then submit a local action unit application with the city to put a permanent deed restriction on the property so when there is some local action through through funding or zoning um and that allows us to go through a sort of a simplified process with the state to um make it a deed restricted property in perpetuity um this is the same process we followed with our petty Plane Road Project over um near the fairgrounds and um we we have our signed regulatory agreement for that one on the books and construction is going well over there we're um doing flooring now and we'll be moving on to appliances and wrapping up by this spring so we hope to the volunteers working on that project will then move over to Birch Street in Greenfield great thank you are there questions for Megan um from from anyone on the committee I do have one that um because I live close to the neighborhood um I have heard from a friend who lives um very close to that to the property that a lot of the um of the debris from the previous house was dumped into the the foundation and I'm wondering if that's been clarified and whether that's accurate or not and if if so how is that going to affect what you're going to be doing um we as part of our due diligence before purchasing the property we did a phase one environmental assessment and confirmed that a permit was pulled for the demolition of the house um I you know other than that um until we go to dig the foundation you know we wouldn't know um exactly what they left um but as the phase one environmental assessment didn't raise any concerns about things like underground oil tanks or other environmental contamination great thank you uh anyone else have a question for Megan I do yes ma'am on Section seven uh in case of partial CPA funding what are the next steps what do you mean when there will be proceeds from the sale of the home what happens to the proceeds with respect to like funding does that mean you will give you know x amount of money back to the CPC or or you know other granters of funding um typically it costs more to build our homes than it does to that we recover in this in the purchase price um so the the subsidies from entities like the CPC are an important part of making it our budgets work so um I'm not is that what your question was so we do sell the we don't give them away for free yeah when the when the when the home is sold what happens to the proceeds um they go back to they're part of our budget for how we're funding the house gotcha okay any other questions comments I just had one um in the application it says a one or a two-bedroom is it confirmed that it's a two-bedroom I think you said that when you were speaking I did I think um we it's a very small lot it's actually a non-conforming a lot that's Grand but we as long as we pull a permit this year because it was previously developed we can build a house on it um so the footprint on which we can build is very small um but I think that we uh have done enough due diligence that I feel fairly confident that we can fit a two-bedroom but because we wanted to make it an accessible home uh a one-story home has a larger footprint than a two-story house so if we if we were having trouble fitting a parking and driveway and set meeting setbacks we would consider going to a one-bedroom okay yeah there's a huge need for two-bedroom accessible units so if you can stay that path the local housing community will be very happy great well we will appreciate getting the word out about that opportunity um it's a fairly you know um flat lot in an existing neighborhood and so it seems like a good spot it's about a half mile probably show the nearest bus stop so it's close to transportation in a Franklin County way but um oh see good um any other questions for uh Megan in regard to this project being none we can move on we thank you Megan for your time and your efforts okay um oh she's outside okay is the you want me to get it is she downstair she's downstairs yeah oh she's trying the entrance front doors yeah right that's right automatically close at 5 yeah the front door is lock and the the side do is open so okay we'll just wait now we we don't have quite a quum so we'll wait on that give Anna time to breathe so I think you're out as soon as folks get back yeah great we give Anna time to to breathe what were you going to say well I didn't think I needed to ask this of um Megan but in the pictures of the other habitat houses and it was so neat to see them each one of them had a smallish building either right to the side or right in front what is that just storage are those yeah those are storage sheds there you are yeah I'm still here I didn't go anywhere um I uh we we T we usually build our houses on a slab so there's no basement for storage and the square footage is fairly modest and the attic is just full of insulation so uh we tend to we also don't build garages um so building an attached shed has been one of our ways to help make a covered entry is usually we can have some sort of little Landing porch in between the two and have a place for people to put things like trash cans or bicycles or lawn thanks I just was so curious about that yeah it makes the building a little bit more interesting since we're building a a fairly simple form of a box yeah yeah and I we'll give you time to breathe so okay moving on Noble home gray water sure come on that way you can be heard you can be heard on the speaker so do you want me to give us synopsis just just a short very short okay so uh Noble home is planning on developing a uh small housing development in Greenfield off a stone Farm Lane 20 to 24 small units and um we're seeking funding of various types to help with some of the sustainability parts of project to make it a little more ecologically friendly so um I'm approaching this board for funding to fund the uh development of a graywater um treatment system and uh basically what that means is collecting water from sinks showers laundry Mach machines so forth and treating it in a more e ecological manner rather than just putting it back into the sewer system or a septic system uh depending which way we actually go with the um water treatment um and what that does is a couple of things by keeping additional water out of the sewer system um we're going to we can reduce the load on the treatment system itself and also reduce chances of combined sewer overflows which are frequent when there's flooding events and so forth which means water is bypasses the treatment system and goes directly into water wavs rivers and so forth um polluting them etc etc so um in a sort of a long range um I'll back up a moment the Title Five regulations in Massachusetts are sort of a little bit behind the times um with these graywater systems there's States out west that are doing a lot of this uh just through normal permitting um so I'm hoping this also can become uh either a pilot project or or something that other people can look at and to bring more public awareness to raywat treatment systems which we really need in this in this state um so that's that's sort of the of it thank you thank you do we have questions yeah I'm just this is sounds very interesting I wondered how much of the need for Town sewer or SE or septic does it eliminate does it eliminate the need completely for the town to be involved um well I'm not totally sure if I do end up hooking into the sewer system I'll still be needing for what's called Black Water for basically for toilet flushing because there even though there are good biological ways of treating black water that's definitely an uphill battle for Massachusetts and getting permitting for that um basically the way to do that Al also would be um using composting toilets um but a that's very expensive um because Massachusetts only allows certain models that are very expensive to be used so that's not even on the table for this project um so we will be using sewer but um depending how much we how much uh how extensive the system is we'll be reducing it by either between 500 and a th000 gallons per day other question hang on I might have one more where abouts on Stone Farm Lane is it just like plateau you see on the right at the end yeah but it sort of tucked the terrain map where it's flat southeast of the existing neighborhood so it's actually in the hillside so it abds all the hiking trails up that way uh yeah I mean it's not right on the hiking trails but it's very close by I didn't out the map I so if you go up High Street yeah I know where it is but where's the actual Road oh that's Farmland here Y and this is where the current housing is there's current two houses down here there's Valley View Drive and Sunrise Avenue which me fur down okay all right there's two c duplexes pretty much where at the very end right at the end where the yeah there's so you would be up further from that so the sort of the colored section is the land that I'm currently leasing so the building I'm proposing is right in the middle of the green area and then just south of it the two little structures that are not colored those are the existing duplexes okay okay other questions um I don't I don't know if uh it would be I don't know if it makes sense to go into this in more depth but uh I think I recall Christian Maybe doing a lot of uh trying to figure out whether whether like this whole sewer system thing is like allowable under the CPA and it seems like it is and I don't know maybe Christian if you could maybe refresh our memories on that yeah let me let me pull up the email um but the the basic gist of it was that um you can fund this as part of a an affordable housing development this is contributing towards that um the only important piece obviously and Noah has uh indicated this already in his application that the entire um facility would have to be 100% area IM median income restricted housing and Below um you couldn't for example fund this if some of the housing was above the income restrictions it would have to be all below the CPA level AB or below at or below yep so add 100% of area median income or below which is 50 grand um for a single for an individual it's like 61 61 6 for an individual and then it goes up can't getg it get goes up based on the number of members of the household and if anybody wants us to see that we can pull we can get that for you so you're saying that they would have to be 100% of those would be at or below that's certainly my hope so that's a that's a question I have is what happened in the event that that's not feasible then whatever money I received would have to go back to the so yes before any of the the units are are sold SL rented however it ends up working out um before that happens you we'd put a condition on this project that um would require an affordable housing housing restriction to be executed between you and the city um so and if that so you time comes like you're about to sell them and you're not going to start any affordable housing restriction for whatever reason then you return the funds to the city any other question the application says half of the units not 100% did you see that part Christian that the the application in the in section three says with income up to 80% half of those will be 100% well I said half I was going to try to make 80% like half under 80% and half under 100% as long as long as the 100% or less where we within the rules of the CPA did I write it correctly and half the yeah um any other questions I have one before I go I'd like to any has in what uh sorry go what does it mean when it says deposited into the landscape the water is dumped into the landscape there's different um different ways you can do it after it's treated so after the um the water can either be treated mechanically or biologically so if it's biologically it would it would go through some planting beds potentially in Greenhouse or something and then once it comes out it's um I wouldn't say it's NE pable but it's safe there's nothing in there and then it can just be used for landscaping or or go into like a infiltration system like a like a leech field type of thing very cool and go back into the ground part of the reason I I just I know that area is to be sensitive um there was a village there like four centuries ago of like Native American stuff and so I would be concerned about potential damage to like the surrounding environment at large but it seems like it's pretty self-contained yes um and it's possible uh even a system that's allowed by Title 5 allows you to have a leech field but it's a little higher up um doesn't need to be so far down like a septic system so that the water can be accessible to the it's within the root zone of vegetation so the vegetation will take up this water and utilize it that's pretty cool um whereas a septic system you're putting all the pollution below the root Zone it's going down on the ground and eventually finding its way to the river which is bad which is bad um but ideally I'd like to treat it within within the greenhouse biologically and then whatever if there's any water that's actually left can just be used as gardening water that's pretty cool so you have a a budget plan here for $18,000 for this particular piece I'm just curious about it's a $3 million project right right that what you said in the total so are you hoping to recover cost from sales of the condo you know those yeah I mean what what I'm trying to do is is just uh yeah cover um because I want to add additional sustainability measures to the project which obviously adds cost so I'm doing other things like solar hot water systems and so forth so um what I'm trying to do is just um recoup some additional cost to that so that I can maintain um the housing sales where I would like to so I mean it's all all you know it's all a balancing act um with your sales price and and the other issue is I'm Noble home is a is a for-profit business so I I don't have access to a lot of subsidies that other like nonprofits might have access to which makes it more of a challenge to build anything affordable you might want to check with the state on that at Point with the in the affordable homes act well I have we do have we actually have an ear Mark in the affordable in in the ACT but whether that'll go through is yeah it's not my ER of expertise but uh keeping my fingers crossed D yeah could you speak a little bit to um the whole project in terms of your timeline and permitting like how that's going what's already been accomplished and what's still to be done yeah we're currently at the uh schematic design level in terms of the architectural design and we're starting some of the site engineering currently um I think we hope to go in front of the city for site plan review and uh we need a special permit um from the zba um this March or April and um if we get approvals for that then we can get through the rest of the drawings and hopefully break ground later this summer or early fall is what I'd like and it's probably a two-year project to get everything built all right and I'll follow up with a question that Jack had because I see that it's in the chat and he was asking um also about the condo project itself um and uh was wondering about the perk test that was um po eventually supposed to be done in December or January I guess oh we're a little well we're a little bit behind on that we haven't done the perk tests yet um for a couple of reasons we're not sure we're waiting to see if we need to put in to work with a septic system which would changed the location of our Tri tests um and everything just got set back once cold weather came so we a little behind the eightball and and all of that thank you Donna thank you for the answer sorry my dogs were not cooperating it is the $3 million of the project fully funded I I just missed that other piece there's well I didn't speak to that yet um It's a combination of private funding and uh lines of credit that I have so I mean the the the funding is available um I don't have it yet but um but it's there you be able to you might I might already have it I don't know if you sent it um because we discussed this and for other reasons but um the budget for the entire project the CPC might want that I don't know see if you have it uh I don't know if I have it with to me later oh sure yeah it's in F every day it's changes but and and um you understand that if you um have uh if you get funds from us then there would be a deed restriction on all of the all of the condos that everyone who buys one would have to agree to yes okay right I'm also under uh restrictions with the Valley Community Land Trust that I'm Leasing Property from and their restrictions a little different they they um mandate that that their properties are bought and sold under for under appraised value so I don't know exactly where that sits related relating to 100% you know area medium income um but that's I guess to be seen well it would because the Ami changes every year right it would it it would change in relation to um who who is buying it but um it would yeah it would always have to be at 100% or less right of that of the Ami at the time yeah okay any other questions comments I'm a little concerned about what the condo prices are going to be have you spoken to A lender about what the the minimum income someone would need for the level you plan on pricing the condos at well I've looked into that i' I've done some calculations So currently uh well there's three different sizes of condos so right now my range my projected range of sales prices are between about 150 to like 225 so 150 for like a studio type unit and 225 for to be a small three-bedroom un and that's that's about where the I think the 100 100% Ami lands other questions comments go ahead um so I think that this was at a city council meeting that I attended and the um some of the neighbors around had commented about they had had numerous beatings with you I guess and were very satisfied and then all of a sudden they were scared were they and but I think that so I just want to double check I think they were scared thinking that all of a sudden you were going to be adding more levels more levels more levels is that accurate because I think um I don't I haven't followed it completely but I think they were concerned about some of these new zoning bylaws that were being proposed which was going to lift a cap on buildings but it wasn't even in this that's right zoning District was different and I think they were that's the feeling that I had confused about that yeah yeah plus and and rightly so they were concerned about this thing getting you know I've always been maintaining that's between 20 and 24 units but they're saying well what's going to stop you from building 45 units or well frankly nothing but except for my own conscience and so uh actually that's not true because I mean the city has will have something to say but in theory I mean I could this is a multif family even though it's a non-conforming lot multifam lot currently I think the way this the zoning reads is I could have several buildings of up to 24 units each um but I obviously I have to go through the public hearing process and all that so who knows what would be like allowable plus if you keep it at 24 you have then you can be the pilot program for all of these other sustainable issues that you want to develop in there right yeah you up on a pedestal for the thank Noah for building Such Great Hopes other questions comments sorry I have one final one no you don't have to be sorry I think Christian said you're going to work on a budget I was looking at the Legacy engineering and the homestead Incorporated trying to figure out what the exact use of the 18,000 is are you able to clarify that sure it's it's really to get through the design process for the graywater system so it would be the um it would include a perk test the engineering of it and um the permitting for the graywater system system this is the $10,000,000 total no no but your letter from 10 who said they would do this work for you or some of it anyway from homestead Inc yes is 10 grand 10,000 um and the other 7,500 that's what I'm trying to figure out is it is that 17,500 if we're adding those two parts together uh not sure what so the one is 10,000 and then Legacy has schematic design at 7500 just trying to understand how exactly oh Lacy he was adding 4,000 as an additional um so he's the uh Lacy is the plumbing um sorry Plumbing an HVAC engineer on the project so he was his contract was saying there's an additional $4,000 wor Plumbing design to make the greywater system work is what I don't know if I had big letter with but that's the part I I highlighted on his contract on the screen yeah this part here so it says uh please note that the included addition additional expense for Designing the sanitary drain and vent systems for connection to the greywater system is 4,000 so I added that $4,000 into my budget for this project okay so we got the let's let's go through this the $110,000 that is in the one letter and then it's $4,000 so we're looking at $4,000 difference and their requests and then I I put in $4,000 for my company's work to coordinate and uh uh help with the Staffing part yeah the staff okay design you know the schematic design Homestead will do the engineering part but I have to figure out what it is we need to make work with the the community in general so yeah when come time to actually paying you the 18,000 it would basically be um copies of the paid invoices for the 10,000 and the 4,000 and then an invoice from you with like backup documentation on payroll hours or you'd like to do it um for the 4K and then and then we' reimburse you for the 18 care great okay makes sense okay thank you now I'm clear yeah any other questions I just have a quick question sure um so think I think you said you haven't done any of the permitting yet um so I this might not apply yet but I was just I I saw that this uh area where you're building is in um natural heritage priority habitats of rare species so um and you'll be discharging not sewage but you know water into that area so um I I was just wondering if you had reached out to natural heritage yet and or I have yes uh I have but I'm also uh fairly confident that we'll be in the clear because in 2005 there was a approved and permitted subdivision for this property of 14 Lots um and uh 14 Lots 28 units and 14 septic systems all throughout the property so there were perk tests in 2005 a number of locations obviously we can't use that data for the current design um we need new perk tests but uh and that was that was all um U all approved by Conservation Commission and the National Heritage group endangered species etc etc there's some plants there um again it's above my knowledge but yeah there's I guess some rare plants that on that whole ridge poet seat Bridge area um but they weren't concerned with 14 Lots taking over the whole 32 ACR so I figure you know I'm doing a very small portion affecting a very small portion of the property so I'm confident that we'll be okay okay thanks I would just like to suggest that you reach out to them because their process often takes a long time yeah yeah we started okay started conversation with them but thank you it's yeah Point well take uh any other questions comments okay see none um I want to thank you very much for coming um if you can give us that a full uh budget that would be helpful and you can just send it to Christian and he'll get it out to the rest of us sounds great thank you very much thank you Anna you're up Cookie Anna cookie I'm good thanks um had a one of the staff members what you call it we we had about five people not come to work today because of various things so we were like a shell staff and we were all jumping around doing all these different jobs and so one of my colleagues bought cupcakes and I can't remember what she called them so we had these delicious little soothing cupcakes so I'm good on my suar intake in fact I was like oh I kind of of enjoyed that cupcake a little too much but it made the day go really well and it was a good day so excellent and I'm sorry about the confusion getting in I just assumed the side door would be open and I don't have a key yeah okay so what we'd like you to ask you to do is to give us a very short statement um if there's anything new please add that into the discussion um and uh you know anything in particular you want to emphasize sure so as you know we have the new library and excuse me we have a purpose built climate controlled um local history room which has brought together all of the items that the library had in storage for many years and we are getting quite a lot of use of the collection from both people local and the far um and a lot of the materials are one-of a kind um and old and falling apart as does happen with books spines crack Pages fall out Pages get torn um etc etc and so we feel that this is a really good opportunity with that beautiful space and with the interest of people coming together to look at these items to um fix them and make sure that they last in perpetuity so that's kind of the idea um and I um have been part of the board of the State Historical records Advisory Board trb we call it which is um a state um office I guess you could call it that uh provides guidance and help for State kind of unique um documents right and so with my work with shrab I know the local roving archist who lives in East Hampton Sarah Jane Point exter and I had her come take a look and so she was very helpful in helping me determine what type of restoration do we need how should we um make sure that these documents don't get further damage but can be used of course digitization is a great process but that's not where we're at at the moment and a lot of people really like touching the the original documents um it's largely Greenfield and Franklin County material so obviously relevant to our community into the county um and so in my proposal what I've done is I've kind of uh gone through the collection um and guesstimated how much work needs to be done and it's not complex restorative work it's you know like repairing torn Pages making sure the spines are intact and mostly rehousing the most delicate items into boxes and folders so that they're not just shoved on a shelf that people just willingly grab and they fall and they fall apart you take out a box I don't know if you've seen archival boxes if you've ever had a chance they're usually gray or this color um they're acidfree you know they're they're materials that are made for housing um works on paper and they're also very expensive so that was my idea was to apply for the grant and see if there's some funding available to help us ensure that these I objects items um can go into the future and so really what we're looking at is someone who's trained excuse me me in archive work we're really lucky to have Simmons Library school at GCC now and they also have an archives program so we may be able to get someone who is an archist in training um who will you know kind of a win-win for everyone um but they do get paid and so in my proposal in the budget it's kind of the hourly wage of an archist and then um I guesstimated how much supply of these um containers and things we would need um that's it yeah you would get consider um asking small Corp to work with you on I do amazing work is small Corp the the folks who do the um museum museum glass yeah other things maybe I don't know if they do there is a a company called University products which is in hoolio which is the archive Museum suppliers really for around the world and they're kind of local I don't know if they would be willing to to maybe donate this small Corp has always I hadn't thought about getting in touch with them too so yeah and this you know I when when I went through with Sarah Jane the AR the roving archist she kind of you know she took her time and look through and she's like I estimate about you know 20 hour so it's plus or minus um that's why I think my last item on the budget was miscellaneous $500 to give us a little wiggle room could be less could be more I don't know but um it's not the entire collection that's falling apart it's just certain pieces the older pieces the ones that tend to get used the most and it would be uh I've looked through at least in Massachusetts to see who else has a lot of these materials and people in fact one library in the eastern part of the State uh has been getting rid of their local history room and so we got some books that we didn't have for Greenfield for Franklin County from a library that was saying we don't want other people's history we just want our own history which makes sense you know it's a lot to oversee and manage um but not many places will have some of the items that we have so okay that's the project okay questions comments anybody um I guess this is more of a comment than a question but I was just going to point out that um uh you know when applying for these funds it's good to be estimating on the higher end because then you know if it comes in under budget then the money just gets returned to us and then you know we can use it in the future so sure it's not it's not an issue I guess longterm for us if if it works out that way so just wanted to point that out for anyone watching yeah yeah I want to say it it seems like a miracle when you see these things that have been rehabilitated um that sometimes it looks like it hasn't even been ripped or whatever right I mean they and they use obviously preservation friendly materials so like rice paper is very often used to repair tears um Japanese paper um so you can barely tell that something's been done and it's very delicate work but it's it's specialist work I have done a lot of training in conservation and preservation management I don't have time to do this but I also you know I don't have as much experience and I think it would be a good opportunity to get someone to come in and if we can get someone who's in training even better to give that and always about Partnerships and getting opportunities speaking of which yeah um this is this is not for this proposal but last year um we had um a request from the clerk's office around records that they have records management yes that they have that are in some of the that or they need to reach out to We Will and we will not able to fund that um but I'm wondering if if you know whether or not we fund this if in future years you might consider talking with them about about something for for those records as well so shrab actually does a lot of trainings for city um clerk offices About Records management and particularly historical records and they also have um fund they have a program where you can get a grant and someone comes in and does an evaluation of your collection and tells you what you should keep and what you shouldn't keep and then they also have um another Grant which will provide money for supplies and usually it's like a um what do you call it when you get an external Grant and they match it like a matching Grant type thing um the the kind of city has to agree to spending x amount and they will P the same amount so that is a wonderful resource shrab is and Massachusetts is really fantastic about wanting to preserve important documents I'm not sure if if the cooks office knew about that I can reach out to might be worthwh because something like that might and then come if they KN need a match coming back to us next year that might be something that might be useful um the second part-time roing archist actually lives in green fields and he goes and does a lot of the assessments and those are U once you've applied for a grant it's pretty easy Greenfield have a roving architect yeah yeah another profession I knew nothing about right actually Massachusetts is one of the leaders in this um State Historical records Advisory Board kind of project with robing archists and they um they kind of are being copied by other states which is kind of interesting that yeah you know we we have a great system so it's and you know it's an old state right with lots of lots of historical right importance and they want to preserve that as much as they can so I I will reach out to Kathy and I'll reach out to the roing archist and say have you reached out to Greenfield part of their work is Outreach thank you yeah thank you are there other questions comments do visitors to the library need an appointment to view the documents they can just walk right in walk right in if you have been in there in if you go in the next time look at the floor because you'll see lots of little pieces of broken pages from books and spines and things like that it's they just it they're very fragile and it comes out until you see little white pieces all over the floor and you know we we expect we just change our rules so you can't do any food drink well no food in library any in the main part of the library but we've actually not allow not letting people have drinks in there either because that was becoming precarious things spilling and like that so um and of course we have the green F recorder on micro film from when was it 1789 or something through 2018 I think and we hope maybe we can digitize those in the future we're waiting for the state to see if they are going to do some digitization projects um but now the world is in flux so who knows we find money for all this stuff anyone else with a question or comment now with all the all the hands touching the documents do you expect this to be like a recurring cost with the increase I don't think so yeah I don't think that the volume is that high that people are in there like all the time but it's certainly every time you touch something it can hose you know potential damage although gloves have more contaminants than hands I yeah they've now done all these studies that white gloves actually aren't necessary pencils are very important though can't go in with pens um and uh I I I suspect not but that's why why down the road possibly looking into digitizing is not a bad thing to do it also allows people who are further a field if they can't get there in person to access digital copies and of course well I going to say digital lasts forever it actually doesn't unless you keep your software up to date and you know all that fun stuff um so paper actually lasts longer than many digital files um and I feel like I had something else to say but I don't remember what it was I forgot so any other questions comments from the committee um I just a just a thing about the digitizing um if this work is done as you know as in the application um and then you do decide to digitize any of this stuff um does this work is is any of this going to need to be like undone and then redone to the books um you know like any of the preservation stuff or is it no not NE not typically for books the digitization like the cameras that they use are flatbeds and they have kind of they they don't take apart materials I can actually speak to that I'm working with the Museum of our industrial Heritage to digitize the conservative rebel I actually oh that's right that's you I'm like you feel so familiar to me yes and so they do have they just bought a nice digitizing machine that's good to know I know it's oh it was $600 it was on on sale $600 but it's basically just a flat bed with a couple of arms that you can down the pages and it has a camera with lights and if you have a nice one there's a fixture with a you know the blockout external light and it has software in it that will automatically correct to the bed pages and everything like that and for what it's worth it does a very good job so if we need like volunteer hours or whatever you know that that's the kind of thing that I would suggest using them for especially if it relates to Machining I think Jim I think he's probably drooling right now he doesn't know why that's really funny but yeah so is it's definitely achievable even if you have volunteers I was gonna say I mean you yeah you could of course go out Farm it out and go to some super duper specialist company and you're going to pay for right even digitizing machines the they're not terribly expensive you can get on like New Egg for a discount you know that could be something that that a service a service that the library could provide with you know limitations in the future but certainly the these books in particular if handling them becomes a problem I think that I'd be very interested to see digitization you know we also have the digital Commonwealth which is based out of the Boston Public Library and they um as nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts you can reach out to them and ask to you can apply for digitization um of materials the only issue with that is that um typically they have to be accessible to everyone and you can either host it yourself depending on if you have a server with enough memory I guess that the right word um or they can host for you and it's accessible through the digital Commonwealth website and you know it's it's great it's all about access right but it you want to make sure that you have copyright permissions and all of that kind of stuff um but they do a lot of digitization projects for us for free um just the wait list is kind of long but um when I worked at the community college in Springfield we had them digitize all of the yearbooks and as a public institution we could do that um and then they hosted it and we just had a link from the library's website and people could go in and look at their and it took them about a year from when I applied to do the digitization project to when they actually did it and finished which is actually not that long when I got the call that they were coming to collect I was like oh what I that me a lot longer so there are options and there are affordable options um I'm not suggesting that we digitize unless something is absolutely in such bad condition and you don't know that until you start examining it right and um so I think the first step and I will say that I uh we fell behind because of holidays and sicknesses and everything else of getting our volunteers to come in and go through and identify that was one of the things I had put in my plan that I have I do have some volunteers that we just haven't been able to come together since the holidays um and identify the feast that really need special care so that's the next step um I was a little bit kind of also waiting to see if we get this grant um because I don't want to pull everything out and then you know stack it someplace and then we don't have time to do it we have to delay it work for another Grant things like that so but I have people who are interested in help so that's good other questions comments seeing none oh sorry I do I do have one question grais sorry I know questions are good this just popped into my head so um uh I guess this is kind of a question for Christian the library would the funding work the same with like City departments they were like are City Department so yeah I mean that's what I was assuming that yeah y yeah so it so the basically the the main difference is the the it's not even a grant agreement it's a memorandum of understanding between the CPC and the library um and basically the funding is appropriate and then Anna has access to it in the city's munis system and she can carry out the project with less restrictions they would have like an account number related an account number you can create your own POS um basically just giving me corly updates so it' be like materials and then that's it archist two separate accounts to make sure that we're tracking how much we're spending on human and on the materials yeah okay anybody else I'm not not saying anybody can't speak I'm just uh want to make sure that everybody has their questions and everything taken care of okay now I think I'm really seeing none so um Anna thank you very much for coming you all very much and thank you for considering this oh yes we appreciate it thank you and thank you for opening the door again we have a new exhibit in the library uh a local um artist photographer so it's opening this week okay so if you are in the library check it out who is it it's in the community meeting room this sorry the conference room room Paul Jon you know Paul oh yes yes I did something from great just finished hanging it today so it looks really good it's really nice to have art walls okay um thank you Christian do you have anything in the old business area that you want to talk about uh just one update does it matter which door I go out is it the side door where the bathroom um so only update um from prior year project um in the last week is that the uh as some of you recall in your first year you funded the Agricultural Society um Barn Rehabilitation they're back for round two now um but the condition on that that first set of funding was that there'd be a historical preservation restriction placed on the cattle barns to uh save them in perpetuity um and so that finally is being processed and it's going to be going before the historical commission for approval um probably at their next meeting the February meeting next yeah that that be you um and then after that once it's received approval from the historical commission it'll go before city council for approval and then if it's approved by city council um everyone will sign it and then it'll go to the State Historical commission for their final sign off and then it can be recorded at the registry of deeds so at the almost at the end of the long path for that one wow um say that is the only thing we have for this meeting our next meeting is going to be February 13th so you've got a little time to breathe and we will be looking at the two Greenfield Housing Authority applications and the Valley Housing Co-op um application and between now and then we'll be putting out the uh press release and opening the survey on February 10th which was the plan um so all right so with that um I will entertain a motion if someone wants to make one motion to adjourn do I have a second second okay all those in oh we've got people on fine so I actually have to do this this way okay um Donna yes wisy yes Sarah yes Becky yes Travis yes Jack yes and I'm a yes okay but is unanimous thank you all very very much I will see you on the 13th and enjoy the time between now and then thank you [Music]