##VIDEO ID:OpRPFTFzoQ8## who's doing the minutes today I want to make sure it wasn't me December wait I give everybody a minute or two to kind of look um I looked them in the email but yeah you can both or uh we'll do one at a time so anybody wants to do a motion for August the August one move to approve minutes of August 27 2024 and have the second second new discussion discussion being seen let's uh have a vote I don't believe we need roll call since we're all here um so all those in favor raise your hand say I I I and any oppose no all right is guess zero good job Michael good work all right I have a motion for the next yeah um can you I didn't get Brian's name Brian Newman yep oh yeah Newman I can add that I don't think we need to vote again a friendly yes can I have a motion for the next one goe minutes for somebody second second you any discussion amendments changes okay let's go to the vote all those in favor of approving the minutes anybody opposed zero thank you very much um thanks good job um I will move to open public comment I'm likely to have any since no members of the public are here outside of our group and we'll move on to the next one um so uh we're just going to go through some uh some updates a lot of really great stuff so um all right the first one is Simon's way pickle ball um so at our probably two weeks ago at the select board meeting um we had requested that $8,000 of the Opera funds that was with elder services that was set aside for um supplemental program space was to be used to help fund um the pickle ball court design um and project over at Simon Way for this year um select board voted I believe it was four to one to use that money for the design phase of this um project but that was all dependent on the select board allocating that land specifically for pickle ball courts in that location that was designated um they didn't want to fully approve it right away they just wanted to make sure the testing that was going to be done over there that soil testing came back and it was good so BH plusa they went out and they had a company come in test that land and it all came back clean which is wonderful um so since that has happened the assistant Town manager Jane wman sent a memo to the select board last week asking that they take the $80,000 plus an additional $7,000 that was left over I believe from um the Board of Health to go towards this design phase of the pickle ball courts based on that land being clean so we actually have a total of I think it's 87,8 to use for the design phase um to get this project moving and our early estimates are that this should cover the entire design phase of um this project so tomorrow night I believe want to say it's 8:45 the select board meeting is when they're going to vote to allocate that land um for that and if that happens then we can start diving into getting the raw numbers to see exactly what the cost will be what we might need to do asking for fundraising or look for funds um at Springtown meeting it is an aggressive schedule um I think ideally we'd love to get things moving in the summer um if we can um like I said it is aggressive but there's a chance so we're going to shoot for that if it doesn't happen hopefully it's just a year and a half away opposed to six or seven months but we are moving um in the right direction so that's that's for that does anyone have discussions on that or questions just have a question on the testing was the testing just for the where the we allocated for the pickle ball was it also all the way over to recal wherever they yep okay so it's all the way there entire site the entire site the entire buildable site yeah buildable site yeah I know the the next phase um is the borings tests um that they're going to be doing as well where they dig down a little bit deeper as well to check they're going to check all of the locations as well they actually dig way down just to make sure it can support whatever is going on there as well um so that would probably be the next step as well yeah I can just add talk to Jane at town meeting the other night walking out and she said that the 87K is is for the design of the pick Ball but part of that includes trying to make sure that it fits with all the rest of the things that that are planned there yes so there is a savings when you look at the recal center too with us doing all this stuff prior as well too so hopefully it will bring that price down so we're doing a good thing not only for the Rec Community but also Elder service I was just going to ask that are we doing everyone here a favor by yeah because there's a what they call it a mobilization like if they were to come out and just do the the boring tests in one location they'd have to set up all the trucks and then they'd have to come back and do it again so there was a big cost savings that's great so was the I wasn't at that meeting what are the pickle ball courts contingent upon the town is going to be an override for the re for the senior center thing is it is it this is SE this will be separate so that's kind of what the vote is tomorrow is they're going to kind of allocate this land because that on the um the initial design plan there was pickle ball courts going there so it's not like if they go there it's going to change the entire entire map so it's going in but so permanently permanently so that with with it being perament is the pickle ball friends of reading pickle ball going to allow that those funds that I think they had over a 100,000 right I think it's yeah closer to little little more north of that right north of that it's it's more than 120 I haven't done the the numbers recently and um with with these activities tomorrow and all that stuff we're we're starting um fundraising in Earnest um so we'll be we'll be uh visiting everybody uh looking for money our goal is to come up to to get the 200k yeah we'll get there whether we can get Beyond there I don't know um but we have I mean basically we have one major benefactor and right and lots of great but the other cons the concern with the money originally was they didn't want it to go to something temporary and this is going to be temporary right or even the design aspect I think they didn't want to go to directly to that because who knows if it would still go through they don't want to I just rereading the minutes and it it carved it out I kept housing I was like we got this right this is this this is our area Rec's not involved right at all correct me if I'm wrong that so I mean it certainly will be synergistic with any recal Center but it it it's got to be decoupled because recal will take long longer talk years more money more money it's several you knowers more money it's being decoupled essentially which is which is the right thing they were really never really coupled it's just that whenever we talked about a senior community center it was always thought to be nice to have pick up all courts oh was basically the same spot and there's not much else that can go on land when we when we looked at o Road we were trying to figure out rather have the pickle H said oh you could put pi b courts here it's like well no you can't a lot of blasting a test So the plan is for eight of them and I know Jane wman I think said that typically 10% of the design cost equals the total amount so a rough estimate it could be 800k or so for eight quarts or so but that number could go up it could go down we won't really know that till they dive into this which hopefully can start happening after tomorrow night great that is exciting um jumping over to bankof tennis resurfacing I know um I think at the maybe September meeting we did go out to bid we got a bid from Vermont Recreation to do the surfacing um they weren't comfortable doing it this fall just with their timeline get out there um there's factors that go into putting down the coats of pain and the resurfacing and the lines where if it gets cold at night there's moisture that comes and it may not cure properly um I spoke with Ryan over at engineering we spoke with Vermont W myself as well as Jane Wellman and I I didn't feel comfortable taking that risk if we were to say go do that and something happened to them we were going to be signing basically you know second waer a waiver saying if something happens you know they're not coming back to fix it so um we've already have it on their schedule for the end of August into early September that way it doesn't affect too much of our summer season um and they can finish this up in a reasonable time where the weather is still warm and it'll be ready for for the spring and I checked the courts the other day like they are not in horrible condition I think we're doing them at the exact right time right now where they are starting to crack a little bit but by no means are they unsafe to to play on right now so um that's a good thing that we did jump on it when we did and there was a little bit of delay but again I think we're ahead of the game of getting these courts resurfaced as well and we actually had a I had a a resident reach out to me about two weeks ago asking who resurfaced those courts or who did those courts because he has a court in his backyard and he wants them to do it and he's looking at them after they've been resurfaced probably eight nine years ago and he was thought they did a great job so he'll probably be blown away when he actually sees them do it again so it is the same company that did it um the first time as well as the second time so they know the courts very well so that should be a very smooth process next update there are a lot of things up in the air that are getting close to getting started is the barrows Elementary School baseball field we redid the um the entire infield over there um the next part of that was to get some new back stops and some new dugouts we did go out to bid the bids came in last week and we had seven folks bid on them wow yeah the fencing the range and the cost in some of these construction things it is unbelievable wow so the lowest bid was Premier fencing it came in at $123,000 this is for back stops um fencing as well as concrete padding that actually goes behind the fence as well it helps keep the weeds out and it's like a noo area and it actually helps the poles set much better so they don't bow um and they're going to add in some uh handicap access where Pathways will come and lead up into the Dugout as well so it will be ADA Compliant as well too so the second lowest bid was $142,000 um by Heim lick fence and then the um highest bid was $101,000 more at $224,000 Yeah by Rad Sports so yeah so we sent out a letter of intent to award it to Premier fencing they have done other stuff um in town um Ryan pille the town ER did reach out to communities where they have worked uh before and they've had no issues with them So the plan is to get them out there whenever that ground is thought so it will not affect the spring baseball season so hopeful late February maybe early to mid- March getting that rolling it shouldn't take too long and it shouldn't disrupt much over there as well all right Feld the host floor I don't know who watched town meeting um it was kind of a big topic of discussion um they originally asked for $1.7 million to resurface that floor um there have been some issues with the floor it's somewhat old it is kind of a composite rubber um and some folks contributed some injuries that were happening on there with the high school students as well so they started researching what other towns were doing and they found out that that composite rubber kind of doesn't have as much give as much balance it doesn't allow feet to spin it almost encapsulates the foot when they land so when you're twisting it's not it's kind of grabbing the foot and sometimes you will get catastrophic knee injuries um the court is safe I'm not saying it's not safe either but they had to go back to the select board to see if they could get an additional 1.3 on top of 1.7 that was given to them um the select board did approve to put it on warrant it went to town meeting on Tuesday and it I believe it passed 140 to four S or 7 140 to7 um which is great I think it's a good investment into the town um they say the life of that floor could be anywhere from 50 to 70 70 years um on that so it'll be nice I don't know if you've been in the Fieldhouse lately it is pretty dark um I think it'll look really nice and they're also going to be putting um get what they call that surface the track surface will be different um but the way they're building the floor my biggest concern was when they were building the floor is that they were thinking they were going to have to lifted it up so we have our Sunday basketball program and all the travel basketball teams that use the side Hoops we didn't want want to have that transition where it was a little bit of a slope up a little bit of a slope down so they're actually digging down into the ground um and it's going to be a pretty pretty heavy dig I guess for them and a build for them so it's GNA start I think in June and it's going to run all the way to Mid September so that's going to kind of push us offline for a lot of our clinics that we run in the gymnasium so myself and Ed are starting to come up with contingency plans take care of whether it's our high school basketball clinic volleyball girls basketball clinic we use that space for indoor rain locations when we have whether it's football outside baseball outside so there's going to be a lot of a lot of moving Parts this summer so Ed's kind of got his hands cut out for him um we probably will lose a little bit of Revenue just because some of the gyms we're going into are going to be much smaller it's not going to be able to accommodate 120 kids if we end up in barrows or Parkers so we're going to try to get creative so that we don't lose too much money um this summer as well but I think overall it'll be a good thing for the town so um could look at maybe contacting a like maybe like Wakefield see what see what like the cic center um that's a good spot it's a and I know it's still a single court but it's much wider and longer so I know Danny pretty well he did reach last year unfortunately we weren't able to help them out when they had one of their I think their high school gym floor which was wood ended up flooding and it damaged the entire floor what about Austin prep they they use it a nice if we could trade them trade them some field space for their gymnasium possibly we could reach out to them too see what the cost would be and see if it' be worth our while and it may just be adding an additional fee prior to setting prices maybe it's $10 more and yeah we're bringing more so build it in and say this is a onetime increase you know they usually if they can try to help us they do with the high school in high school and I know what we're juggling with um all the the schools in town is they typically resurface all of their courts like their hardwood courts which is majority of them right now um they typically do it the first two weeks um right when school gets out yeah so it's a little tricky so I'll mark with facilities to see if they can kind of accommodate us and see if they could do it towards the end um but I'm not overly confident they will do that so maybe if the rec committee puts a little pressure on them possibly help us any other questions on the field for doesn't really overly have to do with us but it does affect uh next up just talking about some of the arer and special education and the inclusion programs um two weeks ago we did our next trip where we went out to Masters of Illusion I think we had 16 total students that came with us and we had eight staff that included some of the high school teachers as well as the best buddies and it was a great event um it was probably one of the easiest events we ever done the bus rolled into town hall we were out of there we parked right in we got our own special parking right there they saw who we were in the low Memorial Auditorium staff um they were amazing at getting us in making sure it was easy for us we didn't have to park out on the street um the show lasted about two hours and if you could have saw the faces on some of these kids it was it was a riot um they were blown away with it it was a a fun event um and I'm sure we'll do it again I think next a lot of these folks they want to uh go to a wrestling so I know they do have wrestling over there as well too so we'll be looking into that um as as well and then this past month we've been heavy looking into other towns what they do for inclusion and specialized programs um last week we met with Lexington Burlington Lexington and Burlington to talk about um certified ctrs certified therapeutic recreation Specialists a lot of towns have these right now reading we don't um it's a growing field in college as well right now um so we're looking to see down the road if we could actually get someone and even if it's 20 hours for a summer season to start small and Grow Big we've been talking to them about best practices what is worked and the common theme is they're saying just make sure you start very small see what you can do see how it goes and continue to grow off of that um tomorrow we're actually going out to Burlington to meet with their staff and their therapeutic uh recck person just to get a little bit more into detail what it took for them to get this position and to get it filled how they did it and then to see what type of programs they are running as well too so doing that tomorrow at 2 o'clock um and then I also want out to Andover Youth Services and spoke with them they have a pretty robust um special ed and inclusion program over at their Community Center out in Andover um and they were looking to pair up with us to run some programming they've kind of got a little bit of a footprint where they do have some numbers right now and they've been pretty successful my goal is to kind of learn from them I don't want to send all reading folks just to and over but I did speak with them maybe we can do some half and half one week we're running the program in Andover and then it's coming into reading as well too just to kind of see it firsthand how it works what we need to do to prepare to to do something like this in town um I'm not going to claim to be an expert um so I'd prefer to kind of see how it works and kind of see some of the flaws or the issues that they might have had um as well so working with them as well to kind of get this moving forward I think it's a long time coming um and I think we could really use this C TRS specialist um in Reading like I said SM start part-time whether it's 19 and a half hours a week in the summer um possibly reaching out to other towns to do a joint um ctrs program other it's Wakefield where we share 20 and 20 hours or 19 and a half we don't want to go over 20 19 and a half and they do 19 and a half and it's kind of wake field and possibly reading or another surrounding town as well so um we're just starting with that process any questions on that I think reaching out to other towns too would be a great idea like North writing if we ever had to share our position I know also I know the folks over both Lexington and Burlington they're obf bedford's got another big one as well too yeah Lexi and Katie were pretty pretty close I've known Katie for a while and and uh I mean they're literally ready to just hand us the book and say this is what we did this is how we set this up and we're pretty fortunate where we have a very active Northeast mrpa region and we were just at a meeting out in Lexington last week and they're like oh I got to get you the information as well too so we're trying not to reinvent the wheel right um we might have to adjust some stuff here just based on our space and stuff and or staff that we might have but um I think we can get it moving relatively quick I don't want to keep dragging this out you know just keep talking about it I want to actually start seeing some actions that' be great and I don't also I know that um Burlington and Lexington have both used interns from um un because they have a therapeutic recreation that's what we're talking about today as well I think brid initially came from she came from which H College was it uh I think unh I think Bridgewater State where I want has one too and I got a few connections there as well too so we'll see but I think it's becoming a very quick growing field yeah great great any other questions I'm moving along virtu metal phase two it's still ongoing um so on Monday we're meeting with h kind of the stakeholders again and the town departments as well to come up with the final con Concepts and visual Plan before we go into a community engagement meeting just to present what we're thinking um some things are getting cut out just for cost um so we're trying to prepare all that before we have a community engagement meeting and with that Community engagement meeting I almost want to make it a joint Recreation committee meeting and have the public come in as well where you guys can ask questions you guys can provide input see which direction you know this community engagement goes we don't know who's going to show up but I think having the recreation committee there as well for some support um on my end as well as DPW would would be great our plan is to get the ball rolling with this hopefully um spring or even summer next year um to get phase two um going so it's not a huge project to be honest with you it's not as big as phase one but there are some moving Parts um like I said it is the two basketball courts in the Tot Lot and there's talk of the upper parking lot expanding that as well too um but it's not a heavy push but there are some moving Parts but as soon as I get the conceptual ideas and stuff I can certain share with share them with you guys prior to any community engag so you can look at it and kind of ask me questions instead of being put on the spot when you show up and be like I don't agree with this and then I don't look so smart so that's it for that last one any questions on phase two and I think the last part I think um Rich had brought up about possibly doing something in the the spring for almost like a dedication or acknowledgement of phase one kind of being completed I know I kind of showed up right when construction started but there was a lot of work that went in with Jenna and the team that was here prior to me to get this project done and um I think it's been great I mean that Pavilion although it is closed right now if people are saying the doors locked it's closed because facilities shut it down just because the nights are getting colder and they don't want the the plumbing to freeze as well too so they did shut it down early there's no heat in there wish we did have heat in there and we could keep it open year round but that's not in there right now we can certainly look at that down the road possibly but that wasn't part of phase one so it is closed for the season with the hopes of open it up April 1 there are porta potties down there I got them dropped off about three weeks ago because there are some teams that are out there practicing so we have porta potties over at that little T Turf to um Corral that's over there but um I think with the spring and doing a dedication I think we match it up with the Jamie M yeah dedication I've got the signage um already I should have brought it up um came out really nice um so we have the two signs ready to go for that as well so I think if we can pair that up and bring in some of the folks um that were part of the project bring in the town manager um and do some kind of ribbon cutting I mean I think all you guys deserve to be recognized as well that we're on this committee that helped push this project through because it's been a huge benefit um the town the lacrosse hit wall is constantly being used the bathroom is being used the pavilion's being used and it's been good so far there hasn't been much vandalism we did lose a couple light bu buls um kids decided to take them out and throw them um but that's really been the only vandalism down there and we did find out who they were so they were held accountable um for those we have some nice cameras there that they may have not seen until it was too late so the cameras were I mean it was only $16 but still they know there's cameras there yeah um see I mean didn't get him rooms at wall what's that we did not we did not the police handled it and that's all I was told so um but yeah I'd love to get something in the early spring so um I'll keep you guys up to date on that I probably involve the conservation committee some of their members as well that could speak on Jamie M great try to get Jenna involved too she deserves a lot of kudos for that project I'm not take credit for it I showed up when fences were going up so right I saw the construction part of it but I didn't see all the initial work that has been going on since 2007 I believe is when it first started yeah I think it was around there so it's long time yeah that's all I have no questions nothing people ask along the way it's a Well oil machine we're moving along pretty good and I think I what I wanted to put on there too is I always think maybe we should end with future agenda items for people just to throw ideas out sometimes as well too it wasn't on the agenda but if other folks want to you know mention anything about future agenda items I'm sure Eric would be happy to yeah you can also always you can always email um myself and Jim directly um to if you have an agenda item if you have something that you want to throw on for something in the future and then maybe I'll just mention I know a lot of folks saw that we had a post or cancel the Halloween event it was not an easy decision I will tell you that right now I was out at Andover that morning at nine o'clock um speaking with them about their special education and inclusion programs and I was getting texts from Ed you know the Board of Health is saying the air is UN health and like I drove from and over to North Fring and it was pretty bad that day I was driving in a plume of smoke and I got out of my car and like it stunk really bad um so we spoke with the board of Hells spoke with Jane Walman and uh we all kind of made the decision it was probably about 11 11:15 or so that we decided to call it just CU there was some moving Parts we're closing roads we had closed the parking lot we had a vendor coming I believe from Connecticut to set up um as well so we didn't make the decision lightly but as soon as we made that call to cancel it the wind shifted it was a beautiful day I remember walking in the police station for a meeting I said uh oh and then you know I saw all the stuff you know on whether it was the reading rant or the Community page as well too and um I saw the comments we didn't make the decision lightly but it was a joint effort as well um so it was unfortunate but at the time we thought it was the right decision um and then once we made the call it was too much to say you know what we got to get these officers we got to close these roads we got to get people in so we didn't want to didn't want to do that CS people still went out there we did uh we did end up putting um after kind of like I hate jumping on social media I'll be the first to admit it but like you learn a lot and I did see that there was a group that was saying we're still going and there was businesses that were going to have their doors open so my head the first thing I'm thinking is we don't have any detail officers at these intersections we don't have roads closed so we did have um two police officers comeing that we paid for just to I couldn't have lived with myself if something would have happened we did have them come in well I'll I'll voice my support I thought you you guys made a very difficult decision um and yeah sometime I I I equated it to you know the number of times that I've canceled a practice because because of rain and then like the wind shift and all of a sudden it's like yeah it's not raining at all and now you know school yeah so you make you make your decision um I'm you know you did the right thing um and just to be clear it wasn't just it wasn't just like Jim as you said there was a lot of people involved in making that decision school put the kids indoor For Recess as well so you know and then to then but then you were able to Pivot and you know support what was happening more naturally as a response so that was great um can somebody make a motion because I do need to uh leave and I know I know I know that I know Ed has probably like 20 things to do um but but uh if somebody can make a motion so rich could take over he's GNA leave so rich is device make a motion to close the meeting no make a motion to elevate Rich to uh motion to elevate to temporary chair for the remainder of the meeting okay any discussion all those in favor raise your hand all post all right s floor is yours everybody we got about one minute left I hope they don't screw it up all yours Ed I'll go uh yeah so my world just kind of preparing for our big stuff coming up this winter the in town basketball league registration Clos on Thursday it's looking like we'll have the same number of teams participate or that will have enough to make the same number of teams uh we did some interviewing and hiring for some new Sunday basketball staff we hired new eight new hires um and then we have a coaches and staff meeting next week on Monday nooba numbers are really good again looking like we'll probably have about a hundred kids again which is good um volunteers anybody yeah yeah we need a couple more I'm pretty sure lind's doing she is is she's great big help uh but yeah we do a couple more would be nice uh we have a l fitting for that tomorrow night so a showa comes down and anyone who needs to rent anything they're there in town so no one has to Chuck it up to nooba um if they can make it tomorrow night uh we ran an intergenerational puzzling event on November 6 it was awesome uh it was in partnership with other services um so we had end up having eight teams of four or five people compete against each other and a race to be the first to complete a 300 piece puzzle so they had about 45 minutes it was really fun there were some family teams of like just families with their grandparents their parents a couple of kids or some people who didn't know each other working together so it was a really fun event and I think it's something that we'll look to do another time or two because people had a lot of great things to say about it and wanted it to feed back who thinks someone finished it 300 piece puzzle 45 minutes think anyone finished yeah someone finish with how many seconds on the clock I think it was like 40 seconds put put their last there were a couple teams that like one finish probably like 50 minutes in not over like an hour and they want to do it and a lot of the folks were going up to Ed and myself and asking if we could make this a monthly um thing as well too so I think it's something that if we put it out there we had a wait list I want to say a 15 people that wanted same puzzle for each so everyone got the same puzzle we put them in a little cinch bag and we put it all on their table and you know we had a clock up on the the uh projector screen we had music going and we said go and they ripped open that puzzle and it was it was funny the panic and everyone had their own little strategies where the grandfather was in charge of finding the certain colors finding the edge pieces the kids were putting the easier pieces together like it was amazing watching it so it was a lot of fun I got the idea from one of our mrpa meetings that we had it that we hosted in Reading someone mention the idea and kind of kept it in my back pocket for we needed an an idea for an event for the infen add stuff um and then I've been working on kind of finalizing our winter program schedule hopefully that the winter and spring stuff hoping to get out the week of December 9th and then yeah and staying active in the mrpa with our monthly Regional meetings and then they also do these new professional monthly meetings so kind of people who are in their first like five years in the field we get together do Zoom calls uh we had one today for an example and uh they had presenters speak on uh kind of social media and best practices for rec departments and connect them with the community so I was listening in on that and I think social media is something we can probably do a little bit better at so it's another thing that we can work on going forward and you hit one of your goals already one of the goals was to join a uh committee and he is now part of the social committee for the mrpa which stands for Massachusetts Rex and Parks Association um so he's part of the social committee where we meet monthly and we plan a big event for all the Professionals in Mass Metts uh this year it's March 19th 20th and 21st out in Norwood and we put on a big event a social committee just to get folks to interact uh we usually do with some type of game or it's a vendor run I think this year we're shooting to do a music Bingo which is big and reading um a lot of the youth organizations use it it's a lot of fun so he's been contributing to that which is great yeah I'm speaking of the musical Bingo intergenerational our next one is musical go with the new image PA what was his name he's a local he's done a couple events for us and he brings the energy something right he might be the owner yeah if you ever have the chance to come out and watch it it's it's it's a lot of fun it's aot we have a holiday musical Bingo on December 12th I think um so that should do that's all I got I think that's it that's all I have Mike second all in favor 8 to zero meeting the journey best me e e e e e e e