ORDER-2019-104 : Acceptance of a Two Hundred Thousand Dollar Grant from the from the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development Mass Marketing Partnerships/Office of Travel & Tourism Program to upgrade the Performing Arts Center in the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School.

Transcript (~13 min @ 34:32)

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▶ 34:23 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: other questions we have a motion on the floor to recommend for passage duly second it all in favor any opposed great we'll make that recommendation to the full board thank you thank you our next agenda item order number two zero one

▶ 34:41 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: nine one zero four acceptance of a two hundred thousand dollar grant from the executive office of housing and economic development mass marketing partnerships office of travel and tourism program to upgrade the Performing Arts Center in the Melrose veterans Memorial Middle School we're still under suspension of

▶ 35:06 Speaker 7: rules good evening I'm Cindy Tame or superintendent of schools so

▶ 35:14 Speaker 7: representative rotor I think did a fairly accurate representation of the reason for this money the building is 12 years old it gets an exceptional amount of use not only by our students and our increasing performing arts programs both drama musical band orchestra and chorus but also with rentals um if you came onto campus in the past six weeks you know that there was a lot of dance troops who rent us um starting in july the wakefield repertory theater rents from us not wakefield so we do have an awful lot of use as well as using it for public events such as the veterans day the memorial day and anything else as the city may want there has been tremendous wear and tear on the floor of the stage the curtains a year ago during production season both the light board and the sound board failed and we were able to buy replacements using the revolving fund monies but they seriously need to be upgraded to be competitive with what you see is being built out in wakefield and other venues among the small things we were able to do again using our income from the property is we upgraded to led lights we replaced some of the mics we did whatever we could but we did have tarpe come in a couple years ago and as you know they built our theater they also built wakefield and they did a complete assessment and at that time they were recommending 800 000 of repairs and upgrades we of course are not pursuing that we're doing what is within our budget this two hundred thousand dollars from the state helps tremendously towards that work thank you alderman mortimer

▶ 37:07 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you very much i'd like to make a motion for all the aforementioned reasons to recommend

▶ 37:16 Speaker 6: this order for passage second okay the motion made by alderman mortimer and seconded by alderman

▶ 37:21 Scott M. Forbes: Tremont ozzy on discussion thank you just a quick question I believe last year you came before us with a couple of items that you were going to be making improvements on within the hall and they were left over monies that were from various bond projects I believe it was that's right can you talk about the is this in addition to the work that was done if you could just kind of let us know and kind of maybe tie everything together for us oh yeah this this this

▶ 37:46 Denise Gaffey: $200,000 grant is going to supplement that funding as as Cindy mentioned there they were about there we identified about $800,000 worth of need in the in the facility and the 230,000 roughly that was appropriated or it was a transfer of funding but it was approved by the alderman about a year ago was only going to allow us to do a fraction of the work in the in the in the auditorium including this the stage and some of the AV sound system work with this additional 200,000 we're able to obviously do a lot more including the carpet and the stage lighting so we're really going to be creating I know we use the word state-of-the-art all the time but um you know a state-of-the-art a current a current state-of-the-art theater those funds haven't been

▶ 38:39 Scott M. Forbes: actually use yet that's correct that would be in addition to that's correct

▶ 38:44 Denise Gaffey: so we are many of the projects that we're using the grant funding for right now are we're we're doing are happening right now and they're happening before the end of this fiscal year we're also going to be later in the summer when those when the the auditorium is not in use and into the early part of the school year we're just keeping the facility closed so we can do the stage and the lighting work great that's the timeline was my next question so I

▶ 39:12 Scott M. Forbes: appreciate you getting there before me thank you very much the plan thank you

▶ 39:19 Monica C. Medeiros: autumn and Madeira's thank you thank you just I don't know if you have those the numbers but about how much rental revenue does the facility take in don't

▶ 39:33 Monica C. Medeiros: have that off the top of my head okay is that something that we could get for the

▶ 39:40 Monica C. Medeiros: full board meeting I know a representative Broder had mentioned you know that this is vital to keeping it going so it would be I think maybe helpful to be able to demonstrate the revenue that is coming in from the rental of the facility and that's all handled by Public Works and facilities

▶ 40:02 Monica C. Medeiros: that handles the yes and do you have any is it something that we're actively

▶ 40:10 Speaker 7: trying to continue to rent the yes yes when Wakefield opened we were concerned that they would be drawing from us and we've worked hard to maintain our relationships with the companies that have rented from us for many years as well as to expand opportunities you know witness Wakefield chose to stay with us and not go to Wakefield so it's an important part of the revenue what has happened though is as our performing arts program has expanded that has restricted some of the rental time because the way we work this with public works is the schools get first choice on all dates we closed booking between the beginning of September till usually Columbus Day weekend and after that GPW opens it to outside renters to pick dates so the students will get first

▶ 41:05 Speaker 6: first yes exactly thank you thank you all the minute master thank you madam

▶ 41:08 Shawn M. MacMaster: chair thank you both for being here this evening can you talk a little bit about the grant administration requirements for this particular grant this is not a

▶ 41:15 Speaker 7: school grant this is a city grant so that would fall to the city side what

▶ 41:22 Denise Gaffey: what are they quite there's so there's no quarterly reports and who's responsible for it right so I'm doing the grant management and there's no matching funds for this grant just like with the other one they they've asked for identify identification of the scope of work which has been provided and a final report once the work is complete along with of course all the copies of

▶ 41:50 Shawn M. MacMaster: the invoices and that kind of thing so when there's there's obviously a direct benefit to the Melrose community but there's a particular benefit to the school department is it standard for the city to be involved in grant administration without the school department is there ever any scenario in which they would be shared administrative responsibilities and if

▶ 42:12 Denise Gaffey: so what would that be well I think it would be cumbersome to share the grant management responsibilities on a project like this but I mean certainly I we work together with the school administration on developing the scope and the timeline and obviously you know we've worked with a lot of different parties including the drama all the user groups as well on this particular project so there's been a lot of interaction I've just I think because I've worked so closely in the middle school and over the years with on school facilities it sort of naturally felt to me but I you know I think the issue of trying to do it trying to manage it with two entities would just be cumbersome so how is that typically

▶ 42:52 Shawn M. MacMaster: determined when there's a grant that has a particular benefit to the school is that who made who makes that decision in terms is it a is it a capacity issue is

▶ 43:05 Speaker 7: it's a facilities issue so anything that is a facilities issue typically falls to either dpw or the the city planner because they do manage all our buildings for us that does not mean we're not involved i think both ms gaffney and mr chena will tell you and all the building projects we've done together for seven years i attend all the project management meetings i meet with all the contractors and all the workers are quarried through my office I do week weekly walkthroughs of the projects because we want to make sure that the the final outcome is what will serve us best but as terms of the day-to-day management I certainly am very happy to leave that to Miss Gaffney

▶ 43:51 Shawn M. MacMaster: Miss Gaffney you're obviously very busy if you have the bandwidth to do the administrative responsibilities related to this grant yeah I do and actually

▶ 44:00 Denise Gaffey: been getting a lot of support with this particular grant from from the facilities department from Ann Wade in particular who's terrific we're able to get a lot of these services from the state contract and she's she's an expert at that so to be honest and she's and she's also just familiar with the scheduling around the the use of the auditorium so work as a team very well

▶ 44:27 Speaker 6: thank you both I just have one follow-up question oh I'm sorry Alderman Zwirko

▶ 44:31 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you madam chair leaning in so I heard a couple of things I just wanted to you might not know them all now but I'm just curious as to what some of the improvements are gonna be so I heard stage lighting I heard the sound and light music board I heard the carpet I heard the stage itself curtains potentially anything else that you're looking at did you hear carpet yeah

▶ 44:56 Denise Gaffey: carpet and some of the seats have to be repaired so okay so in addition to stage lighting we've also done all the house lights completely replaced them all which is a really difficult task to do because of the staging that's required so there were quite a few that were out after the ten years but instead of just cherry-picking they replaced them all and they'll last another ten years because we have the scaffolding there and we had the funding to do it which is really really great the rises and risers to there'll be a new set of risers for

▶ 45:27 Michael P. Zwirko: the choral groups. The seating capacity is a great draw I'm sure from a rental standpoint you know we were in there for a grad night and we're very meticulous we make sure that the kids stay in a very specific area and they're not running around but you know when there's only a group in there it's it's like a

▶ 45:47 Speaker 7: huge cavern it's a great theater. I was just gonna say a simple upgrade for you to visualize if you're familiar when we do productions you usually walk in on soundboard and the light board is usually right there on the right side when you walk in that will go away everything will be digital everything will be done from the booth right so that's a simple upgrade to visualize right that's great thank you very much thank

▶ 46:15 Monica C. Medeiros: you madam chair um alderman medeiros will that allow for additional seating capacity

▶ 46:19 Speaker 7: well that's not a place where we normally have seats but you do know that we try to keep certain spaces open for handicapped seating so that will allow for more wheelchair accessibility thank you

▶ 46:32 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: thank you just a quick question so our the fiscal year 19 is almost over so is there a requirement that these funds be expended or encumbered by the end of this month how does that work

▶ 46:42 Denise Gaffey: there is a requirement to encumber the funds by the end of this month and um that is not going

▶ 46:48 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to be a problem for this and i'm sure that's i know we've already pat i recommend the last one but i'm sure it's the same for that as well the memorial hall great thank you we have a motion duly second it all in favor aye opposed great thank you very much thank you good night third order on our agenda is order number two zero one nine dash one zero two an appropriation from free cash account number zero one three two four zero zero one in the amount of two million three hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred ninety four dollars to various accounts as set forth herein

▶ 47:28 Speaker 6: we have a number of members from the administration so we welcome them up good evening good evening