ORDER-2018-123 : Authorization to Submit a Statement of Interest to Massachusetts School Building Authority for High School Roof Replacement

Transcript (~23 min @ 9:00)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 9:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: motion to close public participation that concludes public participation just quickly before we get to the four items on our agenda I will mention since it won't be addressed directly by any of the four on here we are aware that IQ m2 was a bit glitchy this week and was asking for a login to see certain certain links my understanding is you could get to all of the information if not through the order printout and that it was available and the clerk of committees is aware of the issue and working to rectify that with them the

▶ 9:40 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: first item on our agenda this evening is order 2018-123 authorization to submit a statement of interest to Massachusetts school building authority for high

▶ 9:52 Speaker 2: school roof replacement motion to suspend the rules second motion to

▶ 9:54 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: suspend the rules by Alderman Medeiros seconded by Alderman Search all in favor aye any opposed we're now under suspension of rules thank you to hear

▶ 10:03 Monica C. Medeiros: from please our city planner and related officials good evening good evening my

▶ 10:13 Denise Gaffey: name is Denise Gaffey I'm the director of planning and community development and I have submitted this order it is a statement of interest asking for the Board of Aldermen to vote to allow the city to submit a grant application to the Mass School Building Authority for in this instance it is to to do selective replacement of the roof over the Melrose High School and this is a procedural vote that's required in order just to proceed further with the grant submission it does not bind the city in any way to subsequently accepting a grant if it is awarded it also doesn't bind to the MSBA to award us a grant but it is it is a it is required that we submit a vote affirmative an affirmative vote from both both the Board of Aldermen and the school committee understanding that we are submitting this grant application so I did present to the school committee last week and received a vote from them so I'm here tonight to ask for your support for this language this is boilerplate language many of you have seen this language before we've done similar grant applications with the MSBA for several different projects including a similar project on the high school roof about ten years ago at that time we were submitting an application through the green repair program in this instance it's the accelerated repair program they were very similar that one was a one-time program what which targeting energy efficiency and sustainability and this one is a program that they offer annually and it's for accelerated repairs it's specifically for boilers mechanical plants windows similar to the project at the Hoover that we have we implemented through this program the window replacement at the Hoover and then also a roof replacement those are sort of the the key projects that they fund through this accelerated pair program so about just and about ten years ago as I mentioned we did replace a significant portion of the roof over the high school at that time we worked with Gale engineering and their professional engineering company and they did a feasibility study on the entire roof for us and they determined that the roof that we're talking about in this application could get another 10 years effectively if we replaced the steam seams at the time so we decided we opted not to do the complete roof replacement on this segment of the roof and this happens to be the roof that's over the Learning Commons area that we just made a significant investment in and so ten years ago we we repaired that to extend the the life of the roof by about ten years which is where we are about now or we will be one this this if we're lucky enough to get funded for this project so so we think it would be it's it would be good proactively to apply at this time because we are having some water infiltration that's occurring into the space which is obviously very disappointing giving the investment into the Learning Commons and we would like to be able to replace the roof the way we did on the other areas ten years ago and that was with significant amounts of insulation and a white roof so it's a very sustainable roof design and at the same time we'd also do the fall of the flashing and masonry repairs so there are obviously other ways that water can infiltrate into your building not just through the rubber roofing materials but through the masonry and through the flashing and we were unable to we didn't make those kinds of repairs over this particular area of roof ten years ago so that's essentially what this what this project would be so we're applying for the grant application it's due on February 16th we would find out sometime later in the spring if we're asked to proceed forward and at that time of course we would have to come back in order to to get further votes and from the alderman for funding for feasibility and for authorization to proceed forward thank you and so I still have the floor

▶ 14:29 Monica C. Medeiros: so could you talk a little bit about the process that we got here I know we've been receiving periodically reports from different committees at our regular full board meetings but I don't think that we've had one from the school building committee for a little while has has this gone through the school building committee is this a little bit of an emergency kind of situation or yeah it

▶ 14:50 Denise Gaffey: isn't it isn't it hasn't gone through the school building committee we have just frankly we're just I'm aware and through you know my relationship with John Shenna who manages the facility there I'm aware of some of the water you know issues that have occurred through the roof and through the masonry and flashing and so we know you know and I'm also aware that this program exists so we thought it was a good opportunity to take advantage of it does the school

▶ 15:15 Monica C. Medeiros: does this require a vote of the school building it doesn't require this vote of

▶ 15:19 Denise Gaffey: the school building committee but if the project were to move forward and would absolutely require the support support of the committee and do we have any kind

▶ 15:28 Monica C. Medeiros: of cost estimate of what this would be in total and what's the grant would this be for the entire project cost is this for so right so the grant the grant

▶ 15:40 Denise Gaffey: program typically awards about 50% of a cost of a project and that's that's that's the percentage we've received for the last several projects that we've done with the MSBA and at this point I have not I really don't know what the cost is to be honest I'm extrapolating a little bit based on what we paid about nine years ago when we did the we did about 42,000 square feet of roof over the high school and it was about a little bit shy of $900,000 so I know that this we have we are currently as a placeholder which is an order that's coming up next I'm talking about setting aside some unspent bond proceeds and about $400,000 worth I think that is a pretty pretty generous amount for this project and I think if we got the grant we wouldn't need all of those funds because I would estimate the project to cost around that amount so and so you

▶ 16:41 Monica C. Medeiros: think we would the the deadline you said was February 16 and sometime in the spring would probably learn about this is this something where we'd be able to if we were to move forward would we be able to do the work right away or is

▶ 17:00 Denise Gaffey: this something that would no it's a process with the SBA we would do it's usually done in two stages the one nice thing about the accelerated repair program is I do one of the ways that they accelerate the schedule is that they they they pre select the engineering and our engineers and architects and OPM firms for you so we in fact the last time we did this for the Hoover School we didn't even work off a shortlist they just assigned us an OPM and they assigned us an architect and I mean that's that has its pros and its cons but it does accelerate the program when you do that but they would initially require us once they assign the the engineer to us then initially require like a feasibility study so we know exactly what the implications were

▶ 17:46 Monica C. Medeiros: going to be and do we have any I mean is this water infiltration that's happening is this is it putting anything in jeopardy any it's not it's really just a

▶ 17:54 Denise Gaffey: nuisance right now the the the Public Works Department is replacing ceiling tiles when they when they get damaged with water and they're very aggressive about chasing down leaks and trying to get them repaired so we are spending some money on maintenance to do that so obviously you know we're not we wouldn't let any damage we try very hard to prevent any damage to that space and so do we know the the

▶ 18:20 Monica C. Medeiros: we don't know necessarily the cost of repair versus replacement at this time i don't all i

▶ 18:28 Denise Gaffey: would say is i think um it would probably be prudent that we that we entertain replacing it especially if we have a grant opportunity because we did study it 10 years ago and that the expert opinion at that time is we probably get 10 years and do you think that we can you know

▶ 18:44 Monica C. Medeiros: the spring is of course the rainy season and right yeah can we put tarps or do something to

▶ 18:54 Denise Gaffey: temporarily yeah i don't want to make it sound is that i don't want to make it sound like it's a dire situation it's not that i mean they've just you know there'll be a wet ceiling tile they'll it'll get noticed and it'll need to be replaced so it's not like there's constant drips it's not not coming down the walls it's not ruining any of the equipment or furniture or anything like that so putting us worried to that extreme we just know we have a situation that requires some attention thank you and then probably arranged to do it just to answer the question you originally had about schedule I think would probably make sense to do it to plan it such that we did it over the summer the next the following year 2019 thank you and we

▶ 19:31 Monica C. Medeiros: would probably be able to do this with the kids in school well there's no

▶ 19:40 Denise Gaffey: reason we couldn't to be honest because it's just you know over the Learning Commons and it's not that noisy work so that's a good point we wouldn't even

▶ 19:54 Monica C. Medeiros: necessarily have to wait to do it during the summer months okay and just on a different note and I think to kind of address something that came up from a member of the public that it is typical for us to offer the Board of Aldermen to authorize a bond for to go out authorize the treasurer to go out and bond on our behalf and then for the treasurer to do a temporary bond and then later once the project is you know kind of underway go out and do the full bond for the full

▶ 20:38 Michael P. Zwirko: long period information thank you thank you madam chair so thank you for this information I'm just curious so we are you know it's said that the school building committee will get involved when this project moves forward but I would I'm thinking that this is actually really the first step in getting this project to move forward and I'm curious if in the past prior to us making an application to the Massachusetts know that the SBA if projects historically have gone through the school building committee before we've actually made

▶ 21:11 Denise Gaffey: this submission not necessarily and there's no requirement for that I mean I think in previous years we may have been more actively engaged with the school building committee because we've had other projects going on so there may have been an opportunity to have it on the agenda and talk about it we just

▶ 21:28 Michael P. Zwirko: haven't had that situation well and i note that it is uh it's under priority category as you had mentioned um so i can understand the need to maybe make this a statement of interest filing first and then coming back to the school building committee i just i didn't know if in the past what the path was and there the school building committee's involvement on projects i don't know if there's a standing meeting or if this kind of comes up on an ad hoc basis or what the information flow is on these things because i mean we are i mean we're the board of aldermen right now is being requested to uh you know submit this statement of interest form to the massachusetts school building authority you know i would believe that this would be the first step in actually moving forward on this project so i you know i would be interested as to what that committee's opinion was on this as well as other feedback from the public that may have been received but here we are tonight asked to approve this so i'm just have there been any other projects that have gone this route before and again i'm sensitive to the fact that this is under a priority category but I'm just

▶ 22:26 Denise Gaffey: wondering what the general president most of the ones we've submitted have really not been sanctioned by the building committee first I mean we just we're kind of aware of the need and we and the grant opportunity comes up and they also don't give us a lot of time for this grant to submit the statement of interest we probably got it about two weeks ago so you know it's it's it's not something we do typically get sanctioned by the building committee I just I guess

▶ 22:54 Michael P. Zwirko: i'm just questioning then what the power and the need of the school building committee is if they're not involved in these types of discussions or if it's if it only matters at certain times i guess i i guess that's some learning that i have to do but well they do are you know they're

▶ 23:05 Denise Gaffey: involved when we are doing a building a school building project in terms of um you know a typical school well one maybe not an accelerated repair project but if in situations where we have to hire consultants like architects and engineers and project managers then we the school building committee is involved in that they're involved in decisions about bidding and about awarding contracts and about scope of design and things like that but we're not even you know this is so preliminary like such an early stage so they will be afterwards they they will be involved in

▶ 23:43 Denise Gaffey: this project afterwards yeah i think it's likely that we would bring them in this this is also not a particularly complicated project a lot of design elements yep no I mean I and I

▶ 23:54 Michael P. Zwirko: get that and I know that maybe they I just again this is really for my own I'm just trying to understand where they play a role in certain of these funding of projects because it is it is an issue with the high schools roof and there is

▶ 24:05 Denise Gaffey: no requirement just for the record like MSBA is not requiring us to get any kind of approval from a building committee right they are seeking approval from us from the Board of Alderman and also from the school committee yeah correct

▶ 24:19 Speaker 3: that's all the questions I had at this time Thank You madam chairman thank you

▶ 24:23 Manisha Bewtra: two quick questions one is just to get a sense of proportion of the overall roof how big is like proportionally the the section of roof versus the rest of the

▶ 24:39 Denise Gaffey: building it's a probably about maybe about a quarter and the remaining three

▶ 24:46 Denise Gaffey: quarters were replaced so right the the remaining half was replaced about nine years ago when we did the green repair project and then in 2005 when we built the middle school we first did a significant investment in the high school open space we built out the classrooms in the high school but we did the roof over that space first it was it was combined into one project well one big project the middle school with the high school repairs but that opened the roof over that old particular open space area to complete those two floors of classrooms that was swing space if you weren't around at the time we had to build swing space for all the middle school classrooms in order to construct middle school so we moved the eighth grade over into the open space the high school into this open space area that didn't have walls and we built out all classrooms it's actually a really great project because it's we now have you know 14 classrooms or double that I can't remember exactly how many that we didn't have before and but depth so just long story short the roof above that portion of the high school which was original at the time at the time we replace that it was original to the building and we would time to replace the other two sections ten years ago it was original to the building this particular roof over the open learning Commons space is was done in 1995 it's

▶ 26:16 Manisha Bewtra: over 20 years old my second question is does the school building authority

▶ 26:26 Denise Gaffey: require any kind of match from the city 50% that I'm guessing 50% that's about the rate that we have typically we've received for the past few projects that

▶ 26:38 Gail Infurna: we've done thank you very much madam chairman I just want to take a moment to thank you and your team for the work that you do in being proactive in seeking these out even though it may not be something that we can do just like that immediately and we have a process to go through it's it's nice to all the work that you do to be so proactive in this so thank you to your team for that

▶ 27:01 John N. Tramontozzi: and thanks for the questions that you've been asking on this so thank you so just just to be clear this statement of interest is for the specifically just for that roof project we also have an order that's coming up next and you made reference to it order 2018 124 and that's an appropriation for 400 of the amount four hundred sixteen thousand three hundred eighty nine dollars and thirty seven cents for high school roof is that the same project that we're looking the same what we intend to do with that money is what we're asking for

▶ 27:38 Denise Gaffey: through the grant it would be it would represent funding that could be used as matching funds to support this project so when you submit your statement of

▶ 27:44 John N. Tramontozzi: interest is the state we require us to have previously appropriated the money

▶ 27:53 Denise Gaffey: no no we're just in this situation because we have to we have to reallocate these funds so it's a timing thing the timing is fortuitous in a way

▶ 28:03 John N. Tramontozzi: right so if we would the state look favorably or unfavorably if we if they're aware that we have already appropriated money for the roof I would

▶ 28:15 John N. Tramontozzi: say that would be very favorable the fact that we if if we were to appropriate the money the state would say what we have an intent to actually do the project does that give us a better shot I think it does I think it

▶ 28:25 Denise Gaffey: does again this is an accelerated repair program they want to be up there they're gonna be looking at communities that are ready to to you know get right out of the ground quickly this is one less stumbling block if we actually have

▶ 28:40 John N. Tramontozzi: funding that's available do they waive what there are other cities and towns

▶ 28:47 Denise Gaffey: also applying for these funds first oh yeah they'll be they'll have other grant

▶ 28:51 John N. Tramontozzi: applications there's no guarantee at all i understand right but with the uh how is the state um look if if another city or town came in looking for a grant and they did not have an appropriation of funds to set aside for it would they the sits the authority look differently on them as opposed to a city that has already appropriated money i don't know the answer to that and i'm not and i

▶ 29:13 Denise Gaffey: don't think this i don't want anyone to think too that just because this and we're going to talk about this order next i know just because the funds are there that we wouldn't have to come back and get another vote from the alderman you know very specific about what the project is um i just think that when we're writing our our putting our statement of interest application to the sba that's something we could say that we that this there is funding that's that the city has access to that would you know represent the match to this program that's right you know if it were

▶ 29:48 John N. Tramontozzi: it to be approved if it were to be approved i mean i think it would be appropriate to tell them um

▶ 29:52 Denise Gaffey: we're serious about the project right it's something we can write into the narrative

▶ 30:02 Robert A. Boisselle: of the application all right thank you thank you thank you well we've been doing the mel murrow's high school and the middle school's roofs for a number of years and after the roofs are fixed we seem to blossom out with solar units on top of them is that a future scheduling of the 18 000 square feet uh in the future um this application doesn't

▶ 30:21 Denise Gaffey: have anything to do with that but i think there is an opportunity to do the opportunity is there

▶ 30:26 Robert A. Boisselle: to nest another 18 000 square feet of solar units right because that that that this that roof does

▶ 30:37 Denise Gaffey: not have any solar panels on it right now right correct so you're right okay that is true thank

▶ 30:45 Francis X. Wright Jr.: you thank you minister alderman wright thank you madam chair a lot of the questions that we answered but just to summarize for myself and people at home we have a 20 year old roof it leaks we have an opportunity to apply for a grant we have a short order of time to do that we have no commitment if the grant is is received but it could match up to 50 percent great thank you thank

▶ 31:09 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you madam chair thank you any other members of the committee wishing to speak for the first time

▶ 31:13 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you thank you I just wanted to catch back up again the Hoover School it was the accelerated okay I just I just wanted to ask because I know I had been on the school building committee at the time and we call us I'm sure you talked

▶ 31:31 Monica C. Medeiros: about we talked about it for sure yeah maybe that was just because we were we

▶ 31:33 Denise Gaffey: also had the Learning Commons project that we were working you know actively on and wrapping up the hvac project with several projects there that we're working on yeah yeah so we're just probably more engaged exactly i think the committee was more engaged that's

▶ 31:51 Monica C. Medeiros: that's precisely how i would put it very good well i think alderman wright uh summed that up pretty well and uh i think this i'd be supportive of moving forward with an application statement

▶ 32:00 Peter D. Mortimer: of interest i should say motion to recommend for passage madam chair second motion to recommend

▶ 32:02 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: for passage by alderman mortimer it was seconded on this side i'm sorry was it alderman Tramontozzi thank you all in favor any opposed this order will be recommended for passage at our next school