We'll call this an informal conversation for the moment. I'm glad it's uh being recorded and if we achieve a quorum, we'll call the uh meeting to order. I do see that we have the RGB folks with us. So, uh Dave, let's see, Dave, Mason, and I think I see Andrew, too. So, uh
appreciate you all joining us. And I guess uh could let you guys uh take it away right quick if you if you and we like I said, if we call the meeting to order, we'll we'll worry about the business then. So, okay. So what we'll do, we have a quorum over here. So we're all ready.
Excellent. Right. We're uh we'll go through this and we consider this all these meetings a draft up until the final anyway. So this will be just another draft. We're going to talk back and forth and any feedback we get from everyone will be good feedback. So that'll make that the final even better.
So what u Andrew will go over is how we refined some of the designs. We got some more imaging and then we started our costbased analysis uh identified and we tried to put everything up on the same level and I'll explain that when we get to that sheet how we're doing apples to
apples. We took the four options and we made them three options because really option one and four from the last time is really option one. So we collectively, you know, if you uh do nothing, what does that mean and what does it mean long term and what does it mean short term? So, we looked at all
those items and then we did a pros and cons and we do a costbenefit analysis if you do one versus the other. We'll get into that the last couple of slides. So, we'll go in these few slides relatively first fast rather just to bring everyone up to speed of where we were last time
and then we'll drill down and get to the last few slides. Does that sound okay? Okay. Okay. Andrew, take So, yes. I mean, we could actually Mason's driving, so I'm going to let Mason be the guy share it with you.
Okay. Can everyone Can everyone see this first color sheet? Can't see it. Okay. Show my screen better. How about now? Better. I can see it.
You can see it. Okay. Huh. Can you try and I don't see it. Hang on. Jim, can you see it? Yes, I can see it. Yeah, I I exited full screen. Now I can see it. Oh, all right.
All right. Sure. So So just recap. We could go through these fairly quick, but this was the last last time we met, we put together this series of of images and describing the options. And then uh Mason and Jeffrey did a couple more. We
were talking about transitions of existing to what new spaces created could look like. So, um, Council on Aging, Youth and Recreation, and the the
proposed use for the former high school. Those are Yeah, I'll let it keep going. So, we looked at uh the highlights of the community sort of conversation, what things should be considered. Um, again, recapping this, it really hasn't changed
u from last time, but I know like Jim didn't get a chance to see it. we keep going. Uh we looked at the high school layout, how it's currently used or how it could um per floor level. Um
what it potential uses could be. We had option one which was uh really not doing anything specific um to it but we wanted to uh look at its cost sort of pushed
out from 0 to 5 years 6 to 10 11 to 15 and 15 to 30. So that started the conversation about what the cost use of the relative buildings are that you currently have. Right. So we have the council on aging,
we have the town hall, we have the town hall annex along with the high school. So if I can stop you there, Andrew, the reason why we do this gentlemen and ladies is because like a broader picture of this thing is that realistically when you compare
something that's going to take you 30, 30 years to pay for versus something you can get away with one year, in 30 years you still got to do maintenance to those items. If you did nothing, you still go to heaven. So, it's to bring everything up to that same even keel and we can
look apples to apples in the best interest of the town both now and in long term. Yeah. Yeah. So, that the first option was adaptive reuse keeping the entire high school uh
say complex the facility how it could be broken out or retrofitted. That was option two. And then uh discussion about breaking or removing significant sections of the building and giving it
more of a campus uh condition where we did um town hall and annex as a complex, a school edition and uh youth services and and athletics. And then we had council on aging
potentially farmers market and even the uh auditorium re re reconfigured and some fairly extensive site work that makes it more interesting and gauging between
those two or three components. So yeah again these are just diagrams. This is the space of what temporary what's being used now in the high school and then if what not is what spaces are not being used um
existing conditions. Um and then well we call option one. Previously, we called this option four, which is kind of the um if we didn't do anything to any of the other buildings, but we wanted to take the town hall annex and add it to the town hall, what
would that look like or what would that conceptually look like programmatically, not specifically what it physically looks like, but maintaining the town hall, moving the town hall annex and this program and and and inhabitants and adding it on to the town hall. So, that
was the old option four. It's now kind of conjoined into the first option. So, uh this was again option two taking the whole footprint of the building and looking to find programmatic use
benefit. These were the areas that could be adapted or developed. Again, this is primarily put together this way for a public meeting. So, we would break it down and obviously we take more time. Yeah. Yeah, but we do it
graphically this way. So if a person doesn't understand how to read a 2D plan, they would certainly see an axonometric and understand. So again, exterior spaces, how the site might be used um more effectively or or
as it is. Um some some alterations to the the circulation and the flow around the building. Now and added parking and added Yep. parking Um and a little uh sports what do you call it a concession restroom area in
the back which don't have now. Okay. So this was just a breakdown on the square footage um between um the existing square footage, what new square footage um could be added or or
been captured. Um and then so so the the net difference between those between the different uh programs within the high schools. Go back. I just want to say one thing on that line. We added a couple things on
this slide or the last two. Yeah. Or as far as performing arts and then exterior hardcape. Right now there none exists. You could argue that they used the high school. You could argue that there's space in the existing although it isn't code compliant and if they wanted to use
it they turn some things on whatot. So we added those as new square footage. Yeah. To bring your net up of new space. existing and then if it works
just an option what it might turn into what it might look like. Yeah, these are some of the options. Again, people uh generally see this a lot clearer than they can see a floor plan. So these options show different configurations on how you can aesthetically change the
existing building to provide similar uh newer spaces inside that building and opening it up. I think we have quite a few of these but in many ways yeah one and the same. the back of the school,
new playground, a new outdoor space adjacent to I think was the the farmers market. So this was the campus, the concept between take the building and split it into segments, sections.
Again, a layout of the program given each program sort of identity or an address and then what it might look like. This again has quite a bit more exterior um access and to each building itself.
Now they come three individual buildings or four really how you come and go. Uh ADA access level change in the topography. Um so starting to look at that you also add some elements right if
you can go back there for a second. You add some elements from the other one. You can actually see where the building's been chopped up and taken off for that reason. And what we've done is we've switched those to hardscape areas. Yeah. Areas in which the the town hall could be closed, but the after school
event could be open. Um or you'd have weekend events and whatnot. So brings the community into that environment. As Andrew alluded before with the concession stand, now you're bringing this existing school and you're using the fields that are around you and you're bringing that type of activity back to that school, back to that area.
So in theory, you could have a baseball game going on at the same time as your parents are playing some pickle ball across the way. Yeah. And there's there's also the farmers market. There's the rows of tables and then the the after school or sort of a not a
segregated but a separated play space for young young kids or after school programs. So it really does become more of a campus and then it can have a life beyond just a nineto-5
and there's even potential for after say after school or an evening program that we're be considered into the school uh section of that purple and uh a breakdown of the square footage between. So this option of what it would
afford very similar. Yeah. Yeah. In many ways they're going to be this changes somewhat because we added on and cut through that little garden space. night access
the space between uh what would be the new the new town hall the town hall annex and then say council on aging you have potential for athletic space between there council on aging or for that matter any
after school or after after the building was shut down like the uh theater, the amphitheater, oh, good lord. Auditorium and the kitchen and the space between the two could be used as well as a place for gathering
community uh events. Council on Aging wanted a you know exercise space which is separate from their quiet studies library or coffee time space and there's ample opportunity for that. If I could just go back to
that for a second. Last week we went into two weeks ago we went into a little bit more uh detail and Jim I don't know if you were there for that presentation but this is we took the actual interior photos of the school and we modernized it. We took that wall out which isn't a bearing wall and made it a curtain wall
bring some natural light in there. Yeah, we've uh modified the ceilings. This is an SAT grid just like it's in there. It's just a different material. Obviously, there's new floors, whatnot, lights, but but take that existing space and really modernize it. Uh, which is current trend that's going on for all
these buildings that have been left uh in behind with all these new schools happening. Right. Right. These these are images that are just make believe like they're modeled images from within the space that you have. So, not too too
deep, but enough that we know we can take something down, you put something back. How do you open it up and give it a more modern up-to-date look? All right. the back of the school.
The potential to have a outdoor farmers market, indoor and outdoor garden how it be used, the existing classroom, how it might be set up.
Again, that that last one was sort of the idea that you could take a classroom and turn it into it could be a it can be a a bizaar. It could be, you know, uh indoor like winter gardening sales if you so that farmers markets are not just
located outside and out in the cold that you could have something that continues through the winter time as well as a community space. This was the Mason. I'm not letting him talk at all, but that right now you use the sports fields
out back. They're they're occupied, have have a reason to be there, but no place to go to the bathroom other than porta johns and there's no like shelter space or concession space. Again, it doesn't have to be this, but the idea of it that
you provide that So last week went into the pros and cons uh of each one that we looked at and this is kind of sharpen but these are pros and cons that can be added and
subtracted. So if any people uh person on the committee feels that we miss something then you can always add something we can put in and these are intentionally to be talking points of how these would generate either good
things or bad things whatever option the town wishes to go with. Next slide. Okay. So now the cost benefit analysis we'll look at this and again what we did is to put everything on a level playing field like I can't look at a a bond for
30 years and put that against renovating an existing town hall for one year for obvious reasons the numbers will come in very different. So we looked at all the options up to 30 years and as Andrew alluded to before we incrementally broke
them out from zero to five, five to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 30 years. So on a building, and I'll pick on the town hall because I just said that first, but on a town hall building like it is, you can predict what's going to happen 0 to five. Potentially, you can predict 5 to
10. You don't know what's going to happen 15 to 30 years out. You can only assume things like the roof has to get done. The windows will probably get done. on the HVAC will get done. Uh you have septic issues in 30 years. 30 years is a long time, but 30 years is based on a bond. So it's a cost you're going to
spend on a bond. What's the cost you're going to spend on the other elements? Um look at it now and then. So I would say the big difference is is both options one and two are cost along the way. So that includes inflation
and that's why you see number two being the most expensive because all those changes and added functions and modifications are all done over a 30-year period where things are obviously more expensive than they say
they were 30 years ago. 30 years ago I was doing construction for $85 a foot and now it's 800. So it's 10 times in 30 years. Hopefully, it's not 10 times in 30 years from now, but it's going to be something up there. And we looked at that. Yeah. So, those are important to
look at because we do our when we do the costbenefit analysis like you see in front of you. These are some of the pros or the good things that we see that comes out of that. So, we're going to come back to the slide in a second. We're going to drill down to those
estimates. We can explain further. So, unlike does that show the whole estimate? No, that's we broke them into each one each building because we can't it's too big. So, what we did is we did full estimates of hypothetical scenarios of this town
hall, the town hall annex and uh the existing high school and then the third the second yeah the third option would be the the community type high school. So, we've got full estimates of these times. Last time what we we submitted and presented were just bullets of
higher profile categories and I know some people got confused where they those numbers didn't add up. So we thought back and said let's get rid of that scenario because when this thing goes public no one's going to understand that. So we're still on the fence. We have the these are drafts but we have
the actual larger estimates and these are major bullets that'll get us there. Something very similar. So in this scenario which is the town hall you can kind of see what we're projecting is uh first year 0 to five 5
to 10 10 to 15 and and the last one 10 to 20 you only went 20 years out on that it should have been 30 should have been 30 right so it should be 30 since 20 we'll modify that so we put everything up to 30 million 30 years rather and
then that brings up to let's say 18 10 10 million ten of change. That's just a town hall. Go to the next slide. Annex. Town hall. That's just the annex. Okay. This is a town hall. Town hall is 9.2 million. Again, if you look at cost
01, it's relatively inexpensive. The costs really exceed and go up higher when they go to that higher year. And some of these vary a little bit because we know like I I I spoke to uh Sean Lee. I reached out to Sean and Manny both
because their facilities they understood what recent money has been put into the buildings and then also what and working with the information that Jim you provided us in terms of the costs for for maintenance and and uh custodial and
all. So we looked into those numbers to try and fold them back into this. So um we tried to keep them all consistent but not all all of them are the same. In other words, like you don't need a new well here, but you need a well there or
immediate need. So that's why you're trying to push it out over the next series of years. U I would say in most cases, septics usually last 30 years. So you'd almost need to replace your septics on all these different
scenarios. That drives some of that cost up. But like at the annex, we it could be three months to less than a year, I've heard number of times. So, you know, that was a variable. We pushed it to a more an expenditure that's more needed more quickly. Next slide. Next
one is a council going back take one step back. So, I don't know if it makes any difference. I understand what you're trying to do with the cost and it looks like work, but the HVAC at the town hall is being replaced this year. Um, so that'll be
right. brand new as of January. Okay. And I remember Jim, you said that you had a like a grant for windows, right? We don't have a grant for window. We have a grant for the HBAC and some insulation. Nothing for the windows. Not for the windows.
They going to put a central plan in there for for your air conditioning. Uh, we're going to do the heat pumps. Um, So they do they have ventilation units uh on the roof is he No, not nothing on the roof. Uh we'll have a uh I guess a
splitter in the attic that'll feed the second floor and we'll have individual units in the offices down first floor, but no no natural ventilation. It's just because heat pumps just give you heat and air. They don't ventilate. Right now there's enough natural
ventilation going through the windows. Yeah, we understand that. Yes, but it was long term just get tight there. Um, yeah, that was a window replacement number that you
know to evaluate the exact number and size would get narrowed down. But okay, so let's stick on the town. What do we have for HVC? We already plug a number in there for that. 360 upgrades. Yeah, 360 are years 5 to 10, right? So your
heat pump may last 15, 20 years. So maybe we just put that number on. Just bump it over one. It doesn't not a big deal. Just Yeah. It's there. Okay. So let's go to the We'll go to the next slide. Next slide talks about possible
on aging. Yeah. And if you want to go into the details of the different Well, we know we knew that they have had some HBAC after they they could do a bit more uh envelope. We just decided, you know, like siding and and the shank shakes and
shingles, push that out, but it's still something that should be done. We know the parking lot's been patched and sealed. And again, these things are serviceable now, but looking out the next five years, what would need to be done? Um, electric service, we know it's
it's it's there, but it's aged. Um, so we just basically again carried a well replacement out 5 to 10 years, not knowing exactly how old that is now. Uh, and then domestic water upgrades,
plumbing and pip piping. I know the building, you know, based on its ages, the infrastructure there is older, but there have been some plumbing like ADA bathroom upgrades and some fixture replacement, but not a like a a total gut rehab type of thing. And it's
difficult because it's used. So, that was really where we based pushing money out another five to 10 years. That'll definitely be something we want to look at or be carrying money for. Uh interior improvements. There's ADA ramp
off of one side. Uh access on the say wet or plan north side works, but the one into the basement is is questionable in terms of how you would get to it or if it's even used at all because when we were there, they're storing paper and
products on it. Like I don't think it's actually used. So we just push that out again as well next 5 to 10 years. if they were going to stay there, they would have to do some improvements there. Um, and so that's really how we came up with
that number. Okay, next one. That's council on aging. This is the old high school. Now, this is pretty tricky because, you know, the question was we understand that seniors are in there now. So, the question came up is um what do we have to do to make it code
compliant now? Right. So I would say if you do absolutely nothing and let them I don't think they've in there on a day like today because there's no air conditioning in there. So that's one thing you'd have to do but code as far as bring out to what I call uh in all the other brief I put together what I
called and determined as hab habitable space. So, it's in addition to code compliance. It's habitable. In other words, it has air conditioning, which is not a code compliant or compliance item, but it's in a habitable space that we live in an environment where like the last couple days you've had heat waves
and all if you're going to move all the seniors into that space. It has to be, you know, habitable type space. So, and the windows that exist now are what they call hopper windows. You can't put air conditioned units in those windows. So,
we looked at short-term and you have to deal with the entire building. So, the building code won't allow you just to do, well, they're only going to be in 5,000 square feet. So, we're changing the use of the building. So, we only have to do 5,000 square feet. COD looks at that as an assembly space. It was an
educational space. If it is an assembly space of 155,000, 99.9% chance you're going to need a suppression system in the building. Now whether or not you go for a variance, whether or not a variance is accepted, they'll allow it. Buyer variances are
very difficult to get. So the worst case scenario assuming you don't get a variance. And what is the cost of that? When you look further down, you go into windows uh above life safety. So life safety reaches down to about 17 million
because you have to address the entire building. Can I ask a question? Yes. If the Council on Aging only put educational activities in there, that would be consistent with the current use, right?
No, an educational system according to the building code is a school school. It's not it's not I turn my office into an educational office. I can get away with that because that be done all the time. So, it's a little twist of it. They look at it as senior center as a
business use. Even if it's educating seniors, they all are. All All senior centers educate seniors. Okay. Okay. So, it's a skew. Here's the danger part for the town. If something were to happen inside there when someone
gets hurt, the town would then be liable for that kind of stuff. So, you have to look at that. Now, what's the liability of that? Whatever they could do. Right now, as it exists, there's no doors that stop anyone that's entering the senior center or the council on aging to go to
the other side of the building. There could be more hazards on the other side of the building. There's nothing stopping. And the way the egress is set up with that school, it's meant for a larger space. So, you'd have to look at how you petition that so that number one, the people on the council agent
don't go to these other transient spaces. And if you can just control that one area compartment. Yeah. And some things like fire alarm, the fire code doesn't look at just an area. They look at the entire building. So now you make
got to make building fire alarm. So you do open up Pandora's box spots when you do in there. Fortunately, nothing's happened. Unfortunately, something could happen uh where you have people in there that are risk and they could always come back. There's a ton of civil attorneys
out there that would would sue in a heartbeat saying that you should have known it, should have done something about it. There's liability. So, it's kind of our job to let you know what that is and it exists out there. Is is it Go ahead. Is it you know I'm I'm way
over my skis here. Is it can one condominiumize the building so each section can be treated separately? So when you condo a building, say if you had a say a big industrial building and you condo it out to different tenants, you still got to address the overall
fire rating, you compartmentalize that building. So you break it into different halves. So say one building would have to be separated by two hour from the other side of the building. You could do that in a way where I think they would still go after you with a fire alarm. You'd have to go for a variance because
you're not it's still one building, one water system, uh one sewer system. use. So as much as you argue that it couldn't be two different buildings, they're going to come back and they're going to argue but it is one building. So their position or the building code's position is we can't force everyone to
immediately retroactively change their buildings to a new code when we come up with a new code. The only enforcement we have is when you do renovations to that building, we can enforce you have to meet that new code. So you by doing that, you're triggering that element from coming up. Now, I'm not saying you
can't put a good argument together and get some of the stuff with a variance uh with other provisions. You know, you trade. I'm not saying that at all. But that would have to be a, you know, another analysis where you look at that and say, what's the cost benefit analysis if I stop putting two rated
walls everywhere versus suppression system in a certain area? You know, we'd have to look at that separately. Could I have a Could I ask a question as well? Sure. Um, so I I know I'm probably getting
ahead of your presentation, but you're talking about fire fire suppression systems, etc. What um when when you do the scenario of just putting an addition onto the town hall, I know that we we talked about that at the last meeting
that by just, you know, closing the annex and putting an addition onto the town hall as being one of the alternatives. Did that include a complete sprinkling of the existing town hall as well? Bringing the existing building up to code
when you did the cost of that. Did you look that up? I don't believe it did. I think in that case when you're building a new addition, you can separate those two structures. Oh, okay. All right. That does not include any upgrade for the existing town hall.
Right. Right. So if you look at it this way, Cindy, if um if you put an addition on that town hall and you made it a separate structure and you raided the two corridors between it either with the raided doors or rated wall, in theory,
if the existing town hall burnt down in theory, the other building should remain standing up. Okay, I got you. Okay, I just really wanted to know whether or not that was included or not. Okay, so it wasn't. Okay, I I get it. I get it.
That's why understood, you know, Ed had brought up the scenario with the existing high school. Could you do something? They're going to say, well, if there's a fire hot enough that burn steel and melt steel, it's going to transition. Let's say you had a fire on the other side of the council on aging
and that fire burns so hot that it hit the structure. The structure is still going to collapse on the other side of the council on aging because it's connected. So, you're going to have redundant. So any kind of addition you do building where you don't require the existing the building to be brought up
to code, you have to have two separate buildings. So in theory, one burns and crashes down and doesn't affect the other one. Sometimes you'll see that on on the news, you'll see a fire of uh condo units and one condo's completely burned and the other one's not touched.
That's why they do that after the firewall. So So on that point with the town hall, right? Um, and I not sure if this is included in comparison, but we're going to do apples to apples to building a new facility up there in
Main Road or adding on to the town hall. We would have to include the rehabilitation of the existing town hall as well. in order to have a fair compound. So, yeah, if it fell in those 30-year uh
30-year repair window, then you would put that in there. Well, I'm I'm just looking at the cost, right? You're looking at a new municipal complex up to the old high school, and that would essentially be a brand new facility, a new municipal office. So, if we're going to compare the two, I think we just need
to put a dollar amount not only to build the additions of town hall, but to rehab the existing town hall facility. Okay. Yeah. Do we have car it doesn't carry a sprinkler but just
say you're going to renovate one, you should renovate the other one. So, it's the cost of renovating the the town hall on there. even on small and minor renovations along the years for 30 years to do some renovations to the town hall. And one of the things I think you've touched on, but as part of your final
report, I think it's important to address what we can use the building for now and what triggers additional um code upgrades. I'm looking at it right now. We have a a code analysis done from, you know, code
analysis company and that says if we change the use, if we spend any money up there, if we do anything else, we need to upgrade the building for earthquake standards, fire protection, ADA accessibility, and so forth. If if we can do things without doing that, I
think we need to know. And if we can't do things without doing that, we need to make sure that's part of your report. because right now there's a feeling strong feeling amongst the community that um they don't understand why we just haven't moved our offices up there yet and why council aging hasn't moved
them yet. So point yeah we'll do is we'll do a slide on any use other than education school it's going to change and then it becomes mix use makes occupants
I think what Jim is and correct me if I'm wrong Jim what you're asking is what triggers it what triggers that how much he's saying why don't you just move your office in the existing high school and unless you show them what triggers that code and what potentially that cost that's easy enough code break Yeah. Yeah, that's easy enough. We can do
that. Okay. Yeah. Give that job to Jason and Tim and you can what you can't do. We've got one of our guys, one of our principles is like a code expert. So, he can also tell you what you can do uh to minimize the impact of the code as well. and and you
touched upon it in your slideshow, but I think it's important to really point out the costs that it's costing us now for the current uses we have and the limited uses that we have in the building. You showed on your your plans and I think we're occupying about $21,000 square feet. Um, but the majority of the
building is now being occupied. So, we're we're spending whatever 250 $300,000 a year to occupy a very small portion of the building. Essentially, we're just using the gym, right? the after school program. It's a couple hours a day. It's a 100 kids. It's probably two classrooms, maybe three.
You know, it's the plan that we show how it's used and what's not used. We could put a dollar amount of what that's the space is used and it costs 360 a year just to keep that. Yeah. Sure. Okay. And then we can actually use the same diagram for that so you can see in the
area. Put it on the same. Yeah. Okay. And then uh the existing spatial analysis um and I know it's just conceptual with the the couple options that you have moving up to the old high school but what we're actually using the Alpha
Town Hall Council on Aging Recreation they're using what their needs are in the after school program is that is that consistent with what you're showing the building I know it's not be perfect but I just want to make sure we're close like I just noticed
that the recreation in the new building shows the gym and it shows almost that whole addition there to the south side of the building recreation use. Um yeah, I don't see them using that whole thing unless it is, you know, becomes a community complex. That was the diagram
we had before where I said, you know, you just you scope creep and you're occupying the whole thing on the other back. That was cut back, right? Those needed the diagram. Yeah. Right. So, you want to go back so I quickly show Jim to make sure he's he's on board with that or we need to modify a little bit.
That was the black. It's it's the option where it's that the option two. Yeah. And we gave them more space, right? And we go up there and I think was Yeah.
what what Jim is saying and correct me if her wrong Jim what you're saying is you know there's a there's a degree difference say that top diagram between brown and black so yeah I'm just looking at the recreational rooms right you get quite a bit of that building set aside
for recreational use that is that needed is that you know we have the gym downstairs a small gym is that council aging facility or is that you know overall recreation oh I guess in general I just want to make sure that the uses are consistent
with the needs, right? Like you're showing, I don't know, one, two, three, four, five, six, probably a dozen classrooms, 10, 12 classrooms for the after school program. Yeah. Is that the anticipated need uh that currently not using that much?
That that came from a from a conversation with uh what's her name? Jennifer, who runs the afterchool program. I think they have 100 kids here now, right? So that's she had a a waiting list of another 150
or 200 that she could support but no space to do it in. So well they have the space there now. So yeah I think I'm not sure why she hasn't anyway I just want to make sure that the uses that you've allocated here is consistent with the
need. Then even with that, you're still looking at what 20 26,000 square feet of the rentable office space and night school. More than that, 30,000 square feet. Yeah. Space that really has been
allocated. So that's the one that's used now. So this was taking the whole building. Yeah. Yeah. So we get we need to show what areas are not going to be used based on the current
capacity and what what effect does that space have the current capacity is the other one that we use now right because you inherit all that extra space that yeah that's being used now.
So Jim take a look at this slide in the middle. Yep. That's what we know. All the all the gray is the unused or or unoccupied. Yeah. Yeah. So, just reiterate, I think this is
feedback, so I'm just trying to hear correctly. No, you just point out I think that's an important slide right there. Okay. But what about the administrative space? You don't show that as occupied. It's it's just that one little office. It's that little office. Oh, that's how
little it is. Okay. There's two maybe three people in there. Okay. Yeah. And I think they use the some of the what the hell the drive up the garage space, but other than that Yeah. Loading area.
Okay. Okay. So, we'll spend a little bit more time on this one. Maybe elaborate on Yeah. on why that's u why it would take it. I mean that was kind of the catalyst for option three. We saw this abundance of unused space that you would have to heat at least maybe you wouldn't
have to air condition it but you definitely would have to heat it. So just looking costbenefit analysis, right? Um it's always difficult in municipal use because we don't always look at that. But so let's see if we can go back back to those. Yeah, if we could, Jim, I'd like to just finish the
slide. Sure. I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's okay. We'll finish the estimates. So we all see that. go back to that slide and I'm going to talk briefly about because it amazed us when we were doing we did them independently and then we had our in-house estimators doing them
independently not knowing the bigger picture. We wanted it that way because we wanted to know the real numbers and then we would kind of know go to the the last ahead of us and then we were looking at um geez why are they skewed so much why are they different and it
wasn't until we understood why which was interesting it was because of that 30-year slow. So when you do a bond for a building, you get the money day one and you're able to build it day one and take ownership and uh beneficial
ownership rather of all those spaces immediately where if you wait 30 years to do something, not only does the price escalate uh but it's also the unknown and that drives the cost up which skewed that um
option two right through the roof of option three which totally blew me away because I didn't expect that to happen. So that shows you when you wait and do things as it goes, it may immediately cost less, but long term, again, 30 year when you're looking at a 30-year bond,
it costs more. And that's what that should show uh there. So we were on the slide last that was the last high school. Yeah. Do you have the the new one? Oh, no. You broke it out for the the
Yeah. Did I? No. No. You mean the one of of the campus? We didn't do that. That one? No, we're gonna do all that. I want them all baseline, but not. So, it's Well, I want them all equal. So, they're going to compare. Let's go back to the slide you're on right now. Cost benefit
analysis. So, if you look at option option three, what was that? 68 68 million 81 million 33 million. Now, some of the benefit of a $33 million scenario one, obviously, it's
less than half, maybe right around half of option three, but it stagnates where you're going. It doesn't look at potential growth of the town, development of the town, and resources around the town that can be used. um
where the community campus integrates the town and the the public a lot better. It also opens up to other programs that we don't even know about yet that could come out of that building of that facility that you build that's
inherent in that building of that facility. That could either be revenue generating uh areas or it could be more nonprofits or like Andrew mentioned before an EMS or something that's beneficial to the town that we haven't even recognized yet, but you have the
infrastructure to build it similar to scenario two or option two where now you've got this massive building of 155,000 square feet of which you're not occupying a better part of that as Jim just alluded to but that doesn't
prohibit you from developing that in the future but we don't know what that is. So we looked at the building as you're going to need minimally you're going to need windows time period you're going to need a roof overall uh HVAC repair overall the HVAC you're going to have is
going to have to be segmented for the different things. So a day like today, you're not paying air condition for the whole building if no one's in it after 4:00 and only one area by. So I think they all play something different. So if you want to take a couple of minutes and
read these bullets, I'd like some feedback on this stuff and uh feedback overall on what we uh came up with. So we still, and I know this will sound biased, but isn't. I look at uh what the taxpayers
going to look at and what's the taxpayers going to understand is the most corner costefficient benefit long-term on a 30-year growth pattern of the town or trajectory growth pattern of the town. Um and options
really benefits kids, adults without kids, adults with kids and seniors. So all the population really gets beneficial use of that space where option one pretty much only
utilizes some of those uh citizen population. So if that goes out to a bond vote, it's highly likely that you'll have the people that don't have any dog in the race go against it because they just don't want their taxes going up. Scenario number two where
adaptive reuse is a long period of time. It's 81 million, not at once. It's over 30 years, $81 million. So, it's a long period of time. So, that's an easy pill um to swallow, but it's a constant uh
unknown on your balance sheet every year from a building that the the town owns. So, that be greater or less. Whereas, option number three is a pretty much static number that you work on less. And as revenue becomes greater, just like your house mortgage, the the payment on
that debt becomes less and less over that 30-year period. So, we look at this and we say the most benefit that we see for the bang for your buck, so to speak, would be that option three long term. But that's our position. Yeah. We're
just here putting this stuff together. I'm sure you guys will have some things that we didn't include on this. That's why we wanted to toss it back to you tonight. So, I I do I do have uh another another point and I have to admit I'm flying blind here. I'm going through a lot of
this by memory because I'm on a phone for reasons because I'm traveling. But anyway, I remember all the different scenarios. But the cost of doing nothing, I think, is also a very important hammer to bring home. And that
is there will be people out there that say just sell the property and let's just be done with it. And therefore then we roll into the other scenarios about you know status quo keeping the council on aging keeping the keeping the town
hall as it is. that important component of the fields I think has to be addressed and the cost of of either knocking that building down in order for the land to be sold or how little the land is worth to try to sell it with the
building on it if in fact that's true. But the cost of losing those fields I think is something that people really have to understand that there is a very big cost associated if we lose that piece of property and it's not just because we have to renovate some other
buildings but we have fields to replace and we may have to re you know knock down the existing building. I think that that's an important cost for people to understand. Couldn't the buildings be sold and carved out of the uh playing fields?
Yeah, that's that's what I was going to ask. Well, okay. So, well, so I mean, is is there is there a value attached to that? I mean, do you think, you know, do you have some scenario at some minimum value that you think that you would
place on that? want to go back. Cindy, like you said, I the the whole the whole piece of property as I'm sure more valuable than just the site where the building sits. Could it be I'm sure
it could legally be separated. Yeah. S and and fire department's going to require 20 ft around the perimeter of the building for access to the building. But if but if we were to sell just that
building and we were able to carve out you know the parking lot the building now we you know we wouldn't necessarily have as much parking but can you place a value on that so that I mean some people think it's worth an awful lot of money and I personally don't think that it is
and you know numbers have been tossed around in the past and I I I just want people to be able to understand what that value is. that value the value of the retaining the the the property for field. No, no,
no. Selling selling that building. How much do you think we could get to sell that building? Oh, so Mason looked at the GIS value of that. But I don't Yes, he's running through it like uh I want
to say it was I don't know what 15 million. I think it was very high. 15 million, right? Yeah. So, so we we had it appraised about three years back and it came in I think $1 million. It's not gonna happen.
And that's the problem. People out there think that it's worth a lot of money and that we're we're silly to to spend this money on this building where we should take the money and reinvest it into some other piece of property. You know, if you came in to us with $15 million bid
in hand, we would seriously consider it, but I don't think that's going to happen. So, Cindy, I think you're going to look at it. Um, the building was probably appraised for 15 million, including the fields, right, in the land. Yeah, that's right. Once you drastically
divide that out, now you got to go into a special use permit. So, let's say a developer comes in there and they they buy it and they want to put up u let's just say it's an industrial building. So, I'm going to make industrial uh type of R&D facility out of it. This
is a big building. It's got a lot of free span. Uh it's got wings that I can put different labs in. Well, that's very very different type of use than it is now. So, now you go into all the special zoning and planning operation and you'd have fields next to it. So you'd have
parents coming out and saying, "I don't want my kids playing in a field the way they're mixing paint or that there's they're making something." So a developer is going to be pretty limited of what they can put because now you've restricted them because you want to keep the fields there. So you don't have to
convince you don't have to convince me. There's a lot of people out there that think that it's worth a lot of money. I'm just running it through my mind from clients and developers. That's that's how we're trained to think for that life. So then I look at it as you know
housing not as much residential loss but I would again utilize building structure that's the most um that's the the worth of the building is it structure it's concrete it's got amazing uh good bones on the building. So you try to maximize
that use and kind of minimize demolition you'd have to do. So again for that scenario you could make condos out of it. you could make type of housing, but a lot of housing is market rate housing unless they're forced to do uh lower
cost housing and for them to get any incentive they have to make the proform work, which is a very tight line. We're trying to do that on two developments right now and the developers are having a hard time because the rents right now are high enough where they can support
the high degree of construction. So once now I take and I do 48% of that rent structure for uh what they call affordable housing and the number of units I have to do it now it skews that a lot. So a lot of our development
partners are waiting to interest rates go back down because the interest rates are driving a lot of that cost of developing those things. So when the interest rates were 3% it was a scenario that worked. Now that they're six it's a whole different ballgame and what's that restriction? And this one's unique too
because you have your plumbing and septic system and leechfield remote, right? So you have a distance to go. It makes it even more difficult to make up. So one of the one of the big issues and I don't think we can sell a building and keep all the fields these these orange
radiuses here if you can see that those are our protective well radiuses and you're not supposed to make any changes in those. So, um, yeah, it's we we couldn't sell a building because the well is in the middle of fields, uh, and
there's a protective radius around the wells as well that they would need to be responsive for. So, you could sell sections, maybe a little piece up the top and a piece down the bottom, but you're looking, you know, two $300,000 a piece, and there's really
no revenue in Yeah. selling the building or the land. You know, I think you'd have to give the the property away for them to just uh break even tearing down the building with that, you know, that 10 or 12 lots that they get out of it.
The building itself, I think there's some value um just because steel steel is so expensive right now, concrete so expensive to and to get those major spans. The greatest thing about uh that building is a single loaded car. It's got bearing points in either side of the
classrooms. There's no columns in the classrooms. Yeah. All that stuff cost a lot of money right now to make. But is there is there a use that would want to come down to this area? You know, that's the building, you know, if it was in the Central Fall River or some other place that had water sewer um
you know, different public utilities. Yeah. It's it's an attractive building, but being here on a septic um public water supply Yeah. it it places limitations on on the use, right? You know, if you wanted to
put a restaurant in here or you wanted to uh put housing that increased the overall um current yield of the wells, you would have to upgrade all those public water supplies, which is not an easy process. Correct. I believe Jim, it's uh 10 John
tell us 10,000 gallons. You you would create your own water treatment facility. Yeah. they make you do that since it's it's a public it's not public water it's well water well water that has a whole another cost because of potential use you know and if the current yield is say 3,000 gallons per
day for the well and you want to bump it up to 5,000 gallons per day they will not let you u expand the well radius where it is now you would have to find an undeveloped portion of property that has no fields no parking no
buildings in order to get that protective radius is to upgrade the yield as well. So that that's something we can check on and see what the existing yields are because that's important, right? Because that's going to allow you to or going to dictate how much
flow you can take from those wells. And also the septic system has limitations. It should be fairly substantial based on it being a school, but you know, you're not going to be able to increase it over 10,000 gallons per day. Um,
and if the yield is limited already, you're going to be limited as to what you can do. Yeah. I guess the biggest scenario that would be the u the age of the septic, right? You're right that the thing is designed for multiple multiple toilets for the size of kids that are in there. How old is that aging system and
how right how long is it going to last before you have to replace it and then what do you replace it with and then what are the requirements for that? So, I think it's a great great point you guys brought up and I think what we should do is put that in the beginning of the presentation. So, as to say to
the public, look, we've already looked at this as to say, okay, if we do absolutely nothing when we sell it, what value does it potentially pose out there and what are the detriments uh to stop us from getting maximum value back out
of that site if we try to sell it? And if it is, it is. You just put it up there. If it's a scenario, if it's a town that likes to do it, they do it and go with it. But if not, maybe there are some alternatives utilized in that existing. Um like I
think I I I would I think that that would be very very helpful because I think people just need to understand what that value is, what that value is, whatever it may be to uh to disposing of the property or not doing anything with
it. that that comes at a tremendous cost of its own. So I think that would be very helpful and I would expect early on a discussion of using it as is the limitations of it
because that that's where people are going to go quickly. Can't we just shove some people in there? No. Ed, what we're going to do is I'm going to have one of my guys do an existing uh existing condition code review on the building. Okay. So, that's
going to tell us, okay, I've got the council on aging that wants to go in there. I've got after school care and I've got recreation. Okay, what do I got to do codewise to make this thing work in the new Massachusetts building code,
you know, 2025? What does it have to do? And then what are those? and then I'll give that back to my estimator and he'll put a price on those things and we'll factor that in so when that question comes up we'll have data to back it up. Good point. Okay. Is isn't after school
an educational use and therefore doesn't need updates whether or not you can see when you go into it. Yes, it is after school and yes it's educational. Yes, it exists now. But now I'm using mixed use because I'm now throwing a business use on the other
end. And what what does that do to the building when you have a mixeduse? Right now it's all educational use. Soon as I throw business in there, now I got a mixed use. And what's the business? That would be the senior center or the council on aging. I keep going senior center. I apologize. Council on
aging is a business use. Yeah. So, and if we did town hall annex or we did that town hall, it's all business, right? So, most of the times and when you have a mixed use on a bigger property like that, they'll have ratings, fire ratings, separation of the
two type of uses, the most restrictive. What I want to know from a code standpoint, I don't want to shoot from my hip here tonight. I want to do the research so at least we have it. Mhm. is are there any uh let's say historical or existing code
provisions for this exact type of scenario in a code book and there are in New England there several states that have those I believe Massachusetts has amendments to historic historic restoration re reuse refurbish that's Rhode Island
Rhode Island has one Connecticut has one and I believe does have There are are exceptions as long as those exceptions are accepted by the AHJ, which would be fire marshall or building commissioner. So, in your town, right? So, we're going
to do we'll do a quick I mean that's a that's a day search. It's not a a big thing that we can throw back to you guys uh next time we meet. We'll have that one good. So, that would go towards the front of the presentation existing. We'll do a whole segment on
the existing building just putting people in there now, what effect it has. Yeah. Basically, what conditions drive a change of use which then throws you into code improvements. So, what would be helpful as well is a
breakdown on your estimates. Um, like I know the auditorium is beautiful. be a great facility, but what is the cost to bring that up to code and to rehabilitate that that portion of the building? You know, if that's going to
be a 1520 million upgrade, it's higher than I'm sure it is. But if it is, is that is the value there for the town to do it? or should we, you know, one thing that I we've looked at in the past is the south side of the building where the
gym is is an add-on, right, to the old the original 19607 building. You know, we took everything north of the old just that addition portion, wiped out everything, kept that for recreation. Gym, you have classrooms upstairs. You
have a small gym downstairs that can be used for council on aging. You have some big locker rooms there that could be converted into council on aging space that would satisfy that. Maybe you add addition to that for or you keep some of the classrooms next to it for the after
school program or you add an addition to it. But is is is there value in doing something like that? What is the value to keeping the auditorium in some of these other spaces? So, we'll break down a breakdown of those major elements now. Yes. Yes. I
think that would be helpful. So when John did this estimate, did he break it down areas or he just did general area? Believe he just did general area. So ask general area is what we didn't break into programmatic. Okay. So the same with with each building.
Yeah. So okay, it's easy enough. We have we have the it's a square foot area and we know the condition exists. So we can segment that. Okay, that's a great point. And and then I I think as the committee goes forward,
whatever the committee decides to recommend, um I think we need a fallback option, right? So if we go to town meeting and we propose or we go to voters and we propose A, B, or C or whatever and that does not get approved, what is what is
plan B? Is it is it just to keep going as we are right now for as long as we can or is it um do we put out there that it's going to cost us three and a half$4 million to tear it down? We need a plan B.
Yeah. And you you've been saying that for a little while, Jim, so my apologies for not having it on here. Plan B was was the annex added to the town hall. Yeah. What Jim is saying though is say the town says, "Oh, these are great scenarios, but we're not affording
anything. Let's do nothing." Well, what does that cost? Absolutely nothing to do. So, you got to shut down that school, take it down. That cost something. Who's paying? $3 million to tear it now. Take it away. I Yeah. And I think it's fair to say
that, you know, if we try to continue as we're going, we may get five to 10 years out of it. But, uh, there's a good possibility that we're going to have to put some serious money into it, whether it's a heating system, whether it's the well, whether it's a septic system
within the next one to 10 years. And then it's going to come on us fast, right? You know, it's one of those things that's just going to go. That's what you have up there in the zero to five, one to 10, right? That's perfect. You can show them what happens if you try to keep open. That's what should cost. But how much if you don't keep it
open, shut, lock the doors and stuff. Oh, that's only not going to get better. Yeah. Tear down at X dollars a square foot. Yeah. I I I I can't imagine a tear down scenario. It I think it's a it's a do as little as possible scenario
because you got 400 kids playing basketball in there. You got 103 after school. Uh you got school administration. You got counsel and aging uh heading in there. But I think what's what's going on in
the town is they've been anticipating doing what we're doing now, right? They're waiting for the for the information to come out and they're saying we'll put a band-aid on it and for now we'll just use this space and and I agree with you. This is great space that the town is actually enjoying
and using on a day-by-day basis. But like Jim just alluded to, there will be a point in time when that roof starts leaking and there's going to be a big bill because, you know, you're looking, we just did this tonight, uh, at 155,000 or 28,000 foot to replace a roof, it's
$4 million just to replace the roof where it's $35 million to take the building down. So that's going to happen sooner than later. I say one to five years. You had a new roof on there if I remember sections. Yeah. So, you may say you get hit with a million dollars,
million and a quarter dollars. It's still something that you you don't account for, something that happens that you have to react. And I'm sure that the town doesn't have a million and a half dollars in play just in case uh something like that happens. So, you
should be aware of that. So, um you're you're right. You should educate them to say, "Hey, you've been using the building. You know, it's like an older car that just keeps running on you until one day it just dies and you're using it. And the one day when it dies, it's going to come. We all know
it's going to come, but it's going to come when you least expect it and needs it the most. But I think that brings a good point too. You know, the gym's getting used. We have a small after school program which could move to one of the existing schools. It's not ideal, but um it
could. Um and the council on aging definitely needs space. town hall aside, we something needs to be done with these buildings. Whether it's one year or 10 year from now, it's going to have to be addressed. Um, but if we did something, is there something minimal we can do there to maybe keep the gym?
Instead of an $80 million project, we have a $15 million project, but we have a new community center there. The Council on Aging has enough space, maybe a couple of classrooms. Um, yeah. Listen, ideally the auditorium is
beautiful and some of this other space is great too, but can we afford to keep it? And will it get the use to justify the expense? So maybe a scenario where you keep the gym, you blow away the rest of the school and you build a community room, community area where the council
on aging goes where you and I think if you look at that gym addition, there is space in there between the locker rooms, the uh the small gym in the basement. Yeah, that's there may be sufficient space in there for not ideal for council
on aging, but enough in the gym. There's no reason why they can't use the gym during the day, right? council. Yeah. We lose the elevator. We need stairs. I mean, there's going to be costs involved in Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yep. You know, a whole new heating system, HVC, you know, fire protection.
No matter what you do there, it's going to be in that scenario. I think you're right, Jim. We need a a a least cost alternative and with and and they'd be a it'll end up with be a minimal program but it'll
be at least cost. Okay, I got it. So lease cost thing like like if you had to do this yourself right you can't say hey it really comes down to what program you really want to keep trying to get the gym trying to get
counseling agent needs more space the school needs some space the recck department needs some space and then will others vote just for those well because as Jim mentioned I I mean, these are all programs that we're currently doing. So, if we obliterated
the whole building, we would lose all of these programs. So, you know, that that's once again an important point to drive home that we can't just knock the building down and walk away from it because it's going to impact so many things that are already being, you know,
being used as a resource. The building is already being used as a resource for. So, um, and not everyone understands that. because it's pretty, you know, it's pretty invisible. A lot of people think it's empty.
Right. Exactly. So I think that you know making sure that it's clear that there are hundreds of people, hundreds of families that get use out of that building, whether it be very young, very old, in between,
uh lots of different walks of life of the community currently use that building. Well, maybe it's not just maybe it's not just the gym. Maybe it's the gym and the classroom, you know. Yeah. Well, actually the community that's exactly everyone that spoke up
said, "We don't want to lose it. We want to keep it. We want to expand it and we want to use it more effectively." So, I I didn't hear anyone say, "We want to limit its use or take those things away." Definitely, they didn't want
that. Yeah. But but we didn't put a dollar amount to it, right? I I mean, over the last three years, I've been through a debt exclusion on water sewer. I've been through an override on Proposition two and a half and we got slammed. Right. I want
Everybody wants it if it doesn't cost anything. That's right. Everything they try. So you Yeah. I mean it's a it's a great question. Right. So if they don't want to spend any, what's the minimum you can do to maintain what you have?
Okay. Right. And that may include taking down some of that building and capping it off uh and just keeping the programs the way they are. It's a different thought. Yeah. I mean I I personally do not see the town being a
landlord and leasing portions to businesses and stuff. It's just Yeah. We don't have that capacity or expertise here in town to do that. Um and you know, you know, you need a management company to do that. You know, who's going to accept the calls when something goes wrong?
It's just Yeah. Well, who who would take over control of that? Even the minimal if we school it back and square it up and chop it down, who's in control of that? It's a good question, right? My guess is it probably be the town side.
You don't think the school gym would um would take after after school and wreck? See, see the after school is a private program from where I'm staying. you know, they they pay a small stipen to the community schools to um use the facility,
but that's Chris Chris may have more information on that. And Council on Aging if they're in there. Yeah. Again, we're Yeah, you could downsize and you could pair it back and get a a lower the lowest cost option. Well, that's scenario three. And we cut it back. It's going to need even more and then it
still will need control. Yeah. All that goes away. the auditorium, the garage, the whole brush of a pencil, you can tear it away. It's just what really goes in there and then comes up. I I think it's a great idea for you because if anything else,
you look at it. Yeah. That's all I ask. Yeah. And if the talent says, "Hey, we can't afford like they don't want to pass anything else. We can't afford it, but we can afford that one." Something's better than nothing. That's what you got. So, may I ask a question? Um talking about all these different scenarios,
fallback scenarios, etc. At what point are we making a recommendation or is the committee making a a recommendation to the select board and at what point are is this feedback from community members expected? Like is that community meeting post recommendation to select board or
is that to inform the recommendation to select board or are we also like anticipating like the feedback at the town meeting or special town meeting? Like I'm I'm just a little curious. I think I wasn't following why
we need like a like a like where at what point are we engaging the community where we're going to need this fall back and and engage them? um this deeply about like the choices. I if I could answer then I I'm sure Chris or Jim would be able to get the first part of
your question, but I would say why you want public feedback is you want that momentum. So if the select I do want one of these scenarios that people are advised about it and any questions that's the form you want to ask and then we've done the research to back it up.
We're not just throwing at a hey we just want you to pass this bond and good luck. So it's it's before the recommendation. Sorry. Right. That's the strategy. You get people alive. You know that that last meeting we had people were alive. They were looking at they
were giving their comments. Yeah. We've done a lot of work since then more numbers and you know so I would be interested to find out what they think. Yes. Alluded to three uh three questions that they all rejected. Right. if they
see this in front of them and they see the cost benefit analysis and they say, "Boy, you know what we haven't factored yet that we'll work with Jim on is the actual taxpayer issue. Like what does $60 million mean for the average taxpayer per year, right? What is what
is 20 million? What is five million? What is 30 million?" Then they're going to start seeing dollars versus use. And depending on what family is, oh, I've got kids in school. I could use that. I don't have any kids, but me and my wife could use that. I'm single. I can use that. And that's what you try to plate
is all those parties. So you get everyone interested in the whole town into voting for this and in favor of this. And then I would also say you want that selectman at that meeting so they see it as well. So they're not making a decision in a vacuum. That's a great
idea. And I mean sorry Craig was muted but is is it Mr. Dra? He's a selectman correct? Yes. So he he would know the process. I think that I think he just um kind of texted all of
us on the email saying that he can't um participate, but he can hear us all. He's on his car's Bluetooth, I think. Yeah. Grace, I don't know if you want to answer D's first question she had about Yeah. what your vision was the initial process and and I'm asking because I do have
some thoughts on the community event. So I'd love like 10 minutes if we could touch base on that before we all head out. Yeah, sure. So, so briefly I I guess the biggest thought that I have com when considering a you know what Jim's calling a lease
cost option. Um I I think it's important to have that as part of the costbenefit analysis certainly but I think ultimately what what at least I kind of envision is make is this committee making
recommendation to the select board uh to bring a a question to um I'm thinking more and more a special town meeting would be the appropriate venue to bring this question uh but I I think that I think that the option should be
presented. The least cost option should be presented more in terms of of uh making a comparison as opposed to an option that would want I guess that we'd want to uh put towards
a town meeting. Um you get what I'm saying? Like I I really I really think it's actually crucial that we present a single scenario by the time we get to that point. um just with the data to back up why it makes sense. Um but I know I
guess the question is where where is it is it appropriate to talk about that right now or is that um is is it should this should it be part of the study or is that something is that like the next phase after after the study is completed. So I mean I go back and forth
on on how detailed you want to be as far as the options go. I mean, I I will I will tell you based on what I've seen what I saw previously and what I've seen today and just the general I guess that between the cost and the
flexibility, I would be leaning most towards presenting a the community campus type option to the uh to the town at large, so to speak. So, um I I think what what I worry about with presenting
a lease cost option is it's almost considered like an automatic default to that option. It makes it too easy. It makes it too easy. Exactly. Exactly. So that's that's really my concern. I I it I think the data is necessary but not necessarily as a
you know I think it's going to be better by the time we get to the town if we're presenting them with here's here's an up or down option and and you know if that I think a fallback option really shouldn't be presented at the
same time that that's kind of that's kind of how I think because I I I well well Chris I bring it up on I only bring it up just so that we are prepared with that information should it be asked. I mean we would really I think
look very inadequate if someone were to pose the question and we were like well we didn't even look at that or we don't know what that is and then it would look like we really didn't do a thorough job. And I think that it's important that we all have that information in front of us
regardless. You know, we can determine whether or not it it's brought out, you know, as an entree of of choices, but I think at least this committee needs to have that information and I absolutely agree 100%. That's it's crucial for the
comparison. It just I I think I think we need to have two separate discussions as to you know what we're doing what we're creating in terms of data and what we're creating in terms of actually presenting to the town if that makes sense. Yeah I
I agree Chris I don't think you want to present more than one option at town meeting at the ballot. So may I say so town meeting I think one option and then Craig just said he envisioned the community meeting as being like a facilitated discussion of the options
maybe moderated. So is that accurate to what everyone else is thinking? maybe options facil the three options facilitated at a community meeting with the fallback prepared for those questions and then recommending one option with a fallback to select board
and one option at special town meeting you know I'm kind of even thinking for the next community meeting would it be appropriate to focus in on on one option um along with the again the the the the data to the lease costs and everything,
you know, basically having something to compare it to. Um, but I I think even in terms of the public meeting at this point, maybe it's best um maybe it's best to focus in. But I I do think that it's going to require um I I I will you know as we're kind of in informal
session here I I would like to have a full committee meeting and you know actually have a vote on on that procedure before you know before we get to the public meeting. So hopefully maybe we can try to reconvene something uh pretty quick
in the next couple weeks. uh because I I I know that you know DAU had mentioned specifically getting getting the uh public meeting on discussing the options for the public meeting and I think it's important that we have at least a fuller committee to discuss that for sure. But
I I think that makes sense that the community meeting being one option and that the quorum votes next internal meeting on what that option is because I was thinking when is the community going to vote on which option they like, you know? So I I personally agree with that. Um, and I I would still like to discuss
it later, but I didn't have anything like that the quorum would need to vote on. I just wanted to pitch to you guys like how I wanted to engage the community. So, when we're done with this part of the discussion, I'll I'm going to hold you guys quickly to that. So, continue. So, what I'm hearing is that we'll have
one more meeting with this group and then we'll have a public meeting. You need a committee meeting, not a community meeting. Yeah. Committee and then a community or and then you make recommendation through the selectment.
That's that I think is where we're at right now. Um just I I I would feel comfortable having um would would want to have a little bit more participation before we have another public meeting from the from the committee. Unfortunately, we shouldn't have, you know, full full rank here today. So,
yeah. When should we have our next committee meeting? because um summer's going by fast and I feel like it would be nice if this the comm the next community meeting also happened in summer considering the first one was in April. Um so like let's find a time that works for everybody to
meet. I I agree. I would I mean next week is going to be I think it's tough in general vacation wise but uh certainly yes you know the first second week of July um and I think we can make it for uh certainly make it for a five
five o'clock or 5:30 I think five or 5:30 would be better some folks were like four is like a little too tight so yeah maybe we can yeah you're thinking that I look in my calendar Wednesday the 9th I'm down
July Wednesday. Let's see. Is that uh I do have Oh, yeah. That's right. That's our 7:38. Oh, so yes. Um school I've got a school committee meeting at 7:30 in the morning. So would certainly be able to do uh Wednesday evening the 9th.
I can do I can do Wednesday evenings. Yes. Maybe we maybe we do a hybrid meeting too. So I know some people want to participate in person. Sure. Yeah, we can do that. Hybrid for sure. Do you guys want it in the select boards
meeting room? Yeah, it's all set up for hybrid. So, and I think, you know, if you all uh uh RGB folks, if you're able to be there in person, that's great. If not, that I think that's okay as well. If you need to do if you need to participate virtually, that particular
one, yeah, I think in person's if you're if you're available, I would I would certainly want want you guys to be there for sure. So, we we said 5:30 on the 9th, right? Let's go with 5:30. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll set that up. Okay. And and Dia, when do you want to do a
public meeting? When you want to throw some days out right now, should we? Okay. I mean, maybe I feel like that third or fourth week of July, maybe top of August. I I want all of us to feel like we're a
team. We're ready to handle it. So, I don't know what you guys are thinking for timeline cuz I wanted to make it um a little more engaging like uh I just attended like a bunch of conferences basically and they were like when there's something tangible it really sets it in. So, I wanted to like print out some maps and maybe some of the
design you guys have um here. So, so all that to say is thinking of my own preparation, it would be nice to have at least two weeks from our Wednesday the 9th meeting to be able to get the word out and stuff. So, I would love like the last week of July, top week of August. I
don't know what you guys think about that. See, they said it wasn't long enough. Remember, we gave him two weeks. People come up and say, "I just found out about it today." Actually, called me and said, "I just saw when I passed it on the interstate today. What is going
on?" I'm like, [Laughter] "So, three weeks? Three weeks from the 9th will be the 30th. Yeah. Oh, Craig is not available on the 9th
or the meeting. Okay. Okay. How is the eth or the 10th? 10th is not good for me. The eighth. I could do it. Eth. How's the eighth for everyone? I I can make the eighth work. Yeah. Yes. Good. I can do the I I can do
the eighth. Excellent. And as far as the public meeting, I mean, I would be open to either the week of the 28th, that's the Monday, or uh the 4th. Either one of those weeks would work. I I'll
um I'll just say that I'm on vacation from August 1st through 4th. So, I can do week of the 4th, just not Monday. But week of the 4th sounds good to me. I I I think uh I think in a I think doing at the top of a August would probably be Yeah, I think that'd be a good look. I
know the 5th is like public safety day. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Why don't we set it up for the 6th of August? We can confirm that at our next meeting. Your next meeting on my phone. Craig just said he could do four.
I I'd like Yeah, if we can set it up for the sixth. Yeah, that window would probably be I would say either select the board's office which might be small if we have decent public or new school the auditorium.
Could we do the new school's cafe or c sorry the old school cafeteria or new school cafeteria somewhere where people can um I'd stay out of the old school. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The the heat. Yeah. I I I think I think it needs to be an
auditorium. And if and if we're limited to the new school, then that's that'll work. I just I I I I do think for the purposes of of just of not only getting the engagement, but just for um kind of almost a more formal setting than the last time, I do think an
auditorium is important. Oh, you want more formal? Okay. Well, not maybe not in terms of uh well, yeah, I guess I guess they do a little bit more just in terms of being able to kind of control the uh the crowd
uh dynamics a little bit better. I think an auditorium makes a little bit more sense and we can, you know, do some orderly orderly rows for uh for comments and stuff like that. May I May I pitch something? And you guys are free to just be like this is this is this is not it.
This is not the vibe. I wanted to RGB your um the option three community campus slash option two. I feel like what we're this committee is going to decide it's it it might potentially decide one or two. Whichever option it is, I wanted to
print out like the floor plan you guys have and maybe have just some markers so people can like basically it was like community engagement. It's really effective when people can participate in more than just sitting and listening like lecture. So, I was thinking we could avoid like a lecture type vibe for this community meeting and people could
like follow along with the presentation, maybe spend five minutes drawing in what or coloring in what they would like to see in their community campus, sharing with the neighbor, and then moving into a more robust robust discussion of what this option looks like and covering why
we can't slash shouldn't sh sell, why we can't move in now, and the existing conditions, code review, and cost of doing nothing. Oops, sorry. So, what are folks thoughts on that? Does that sound like too much out of control? Like, I was going to walk around and see what people were doing just to get, you know,
break the tension a little bit and have somebody talk to their neighbor and be able to, you know, physically hold the diagram and be like, "Okay, yeah, I get it." Um, if if we think that's like kind of ridiculous, I like it. That's fine, too.
I I like it. I am worried about I'm actually worried about the turnout over if if we end up with overwhelming numbers that could get could get messy quickly. Could get messy. Not not the worst problem with too many folks. So, what we've done in the past is we could
just put some of the floor plans or a couple of the um site plans on easels up in the back with post-it notes or markers and they can write on that as they walk in or if they want to walk around. Yes, I love that. those comments to go back to Dia's point then so and
back to Chris's point I guess is okay let's say you have a scenario where you have an auditorium full of people you present three or four options are you looking for that crowd to pick an option or we going to go there with a determination of what option the direction the committee would want to go
with the danger of yeah you could divide that auditorium in four different parts and it could be three equal four and you don't know where you're going at that point. Um, or do you push it a certain way that the committee has decided to go? Who do you guys see is is it better
because ultimately it's the selectman who take that information with it and ultimately everyone votes on it. I I am certainly a proponent for for having an option in mind.
Yeah, me too. Yeah. I think I think we should present what we're recommending to the select board to folks at the community meeting and then the next time we see those folks should be at special town meeting for them to vote is my opinion. That's that's where I'm that's
definitely where I'm going as well. Okay. Did do you present it as this is the preferred option but we looked at A, B, and C. What do you just present? D. I I think A, B, and C need to be there
as as almost um reasons for picking D. Reasons to pick. Yeah. Reasons that we we decided to go with this option. Okay. To establish that we were thorough, that we looked at all these alternatives. Yep. And then maybe the people in the audience stand
up and say, "Hey, this is great idea, but I I like the other option. like you know just gives them opportunity to speak and yeah I think I think by having they can participate yeah I think that
by presenting it as this is what the committee's recommended based on what we've gone through but here also we want to make sure that we we give you all the information that we've had exactly and and and let it you know uh I guess let the meeting flow a little organically
based on that I think would be a good way to approach it. Yeah. So, when we look at the cost too, we should have, you know, we're going to present what it would like a debt exclusion would cost um per taxpayer on
the average home. You know, if we're looking about $60 million, that's what the school was at the time. That was about $425, $450, I think, for average single family house. Now the value of the average single family house has gone
up probably about 20% since then. And instead of getting a two or two and a half percent interest rate, we're probably four and a half to five and a half percent. So we're probably looking for the average single family home anywhere from $650 to $800 for 60. But we we can get we can get a u a definite
number based on a million or $10 million and we can have that information if somebody that'd be real helpful. I will get that this week. Okay. All right.
All right. I think we marching on this, right? It's all set. So, Tuesday the 8th, 5:30 p.m. hybrid. Yeah. That will be Yes. Hybrid meeting for the committee. Sounds good. I'll go from there. And on the agenda de we'll
go over this one kind of touch base of where we work. Then we should talk about the public meeting. That would be great. Yes. What we need to do to get people, you know, put on the agenda anyway so we can talk about it. Sounds good. I'll I'll I'll put it on the agenda. I'll
tell Chris, too. Yep. Perfect. Hey, thank you guys. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. See you in a couple weeks. All right. Sounds good. Thank you so much, everyone. Take care. You're welcome.