ORDER-2015-142 : Authorization of a School & Municipal Building Renovation & Repair Bond in the amount of $305,000.00

Transcript (~27 min @ 42:08)

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▶ 41:50 Peter D. Mortimer: participation by alderman mary beth mcatea margolis duly seconded by alderman gail inferna the first order before us is order 2015-142 it is an authorization of a school and municipal building renovation and repair bond in the amount of three hundred and five thousand dollars motion to suspend the rules we have a motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from appropriate city officials here in attendance this evening said motion by alderman medeiros is duly seconded by alderman forbes all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the rules are suspended gentlemen lady would you please come up and uh approach and approach the committee ms gaffey will you be speaking on this order as well no all right thank you

▶ 42:57 Speaker 9: good evening good evening sir um this order is there are two main components to this order

▶ 43:06 Speaker 9: they both involve building repairs and renovations a portion of which are in school buildings and a portion which in a municipal building mainly focused and centralized on our central station the order comes recommended by the Department of Public Works many of you know the Department of Public Works assists both fire and schools within the maintenance of their buildings but this order becomes recommended in conjunction with both superintendent from superintendent a more and chief Larry the school portion is driven by an increase in school population and the municipal portion is the need is driven by the deteriorating conditions of the central station and the immediate need for some

▶ 44:01 Speaker 9: upgrades there both superintendent and Tamar and chief Larry are with us this evening to discuss the need I have prepared some backup which I forwarded on Friday it includes a project estimate some conceptual layouts the school portion will focus on additional classroom space at the Winthrop school and furnishings for those additional classroom spaces it also has two additional components it looks at converting a computer lab at the Roosevelt and a computer lab at the Lincoln into classrooms on the municipal side the funds will be used to repair some of the major leaks to the roof there not only is the roof leaking and it's caused causing exterior damage to the building but the water is getting in the building and that's what people that's where the firefighters spend their time that's their home their living quarters the bathroom and so forth and so on so also included in that

▶ 45:06 Speaker 9: package is some of the photos from the central station and some of the conceptual alternatives we're looking for at in terms of central their bathroom renovations we've also included some

▶ 45:23 Speaker 9: of the damage photos of the damage to the inside of the building that the leaking roof was caused as a separate attachment i included a roof assessment that was done by a local vendor and it obviously shows the existing conditions of that roof and all of the options repair is an option all and you know why not completely renovate it i think the numbers show that that would be close to a million dollar project so in terms of the backup um that's a brief summary of it and if you'd like we are more than willing to answer any questions regarding these orders

▶ 46:10 Speaker 1: president khan please has there been any kind of study or assessment time to determine how much more life we can squeeze out of the central fire station

▶ 46:23 Speaker 6: there have been studies done i don't know when the most recent one was performed building all three stations are in just desperate need of repair

▶ 46:31 Speaker 1: How long do you think we can keep repairing this station before it's outlived its functional use if it hasn't already?

▶ 46:38 Speaker 6: Well, that's a good question.

▶ 46:45 Speaker 6: That's for someone with some engineering background, I think, to make a determination.

▶ 46:57 Speaker 1: Mr. DelRusso, can you tell us the terms of the bond?

▶ 47:06 Speaker 10: It's a multi purpose on the classroom.

▶ 47:11 Speaker 10: An office renovation at 128,500 is scheduled for 20 years. The school classroom furniture at 31,500 is currently scheduled for seven years. The Central Fire Station interior repairs of $63,500 is scheduled for 13 years. And last but not least, the $81,500 for the Central Fire Station roof repairs is scheduled for 17 years.

▶ 47:47 Speaker 1: And is the difference in the terms a function of the different life expectancies of the material? I would assume seven years is probably as far as you can go out for furniture, is that correct?

▶ 48:02 Speaker 4: Correct, that's my understanding.

▶ 48:05 Speaker 1: And can you describe for us what specifically is going to be done in the schools?

▶ 48:13 Speaker 9: At the Winthrop School, the main entrance to the school is, if you look at the older plans, it was once a classroom. been from a classroom that was renovated into an entrance area for the secretary principal and some specialists so we're going to reconfigure that and make smaller principal space smaller admin space and create a classroom in that wing and some additional classroom space for one-on-one learning and other areas of the school focused on an area that i've identified in that backup on the second floor that's currently being used as common space for the teachers and the other classrooms was we're renovating we're not renovating we're switching existing computer labs into kindergarten classrooms into other classrooms in the other two schools in the other two schools

▶ 49:08 Speaker 2: to accommodate the um uptick in the k enrollment and basically if you are familiar with those buildings those labs are four walls and you know typical computer tables around the room and no other furnishings so they they need to be completely furnished kindergarteners have some when you furnishing kindergarten rooms you have some additional needs as some additional requirements ones everything

▶ 49:38 Speaker 2: has to be secured bolted to the wall so there's some considerations the labs

▶ 49:47 Speaker 2: is going to be relocated to different space it's part of the larger plan on the tech plan where we're going to go mobile throughout the system where we'll have more uh laptops and tablets on carts so that kids can be using the as we've talked about just a few weeks ago it seems so that students can be accessing the computers in the classroom rather than walking down to a lab

▶ 50:11 Speaker 1: and then walking back well it's a bit nostalgic for me to see this order because i think that the winthrop school is probably in the condition that it was in the 1960s when i was in elementary school here and i hate to see my old classrooms which probably have my name carved in on your desk somewhere uh disassembled that's all i have for now mr chairman thank you very much uh

▶ 50:29 Peter D. Mortimer: president khan my brothers went there and my daughter graduated from the winthrop last year it's it's the uh it's the grand old lady of the melrose school system it's i think it's our oldest one i am just a quick follow-up if the board will allow me a little attitude do you happen to know which year uh at president khan's previous question which year the fire station was built 1895 1895. thank you very much sir next in queue we have alderman boy cell please in looking at

▶ 50:57 Robert A. Boisselle: your plans for the winthrop school on the second floor you're moving people from the first floor to the second floor into a storage area that exists there do you have the proper ventilation

▶ 51:12 Speaker 2: and heating for that area we brought um both uh the architect and the hvac company we've been working with for the past year on the high school into the space to examine it and that and they feel that it can be adapted so that it is a safe space okay so look at the top shows the existing

▶ 51:26 Speaker 9: right bottom it's the proposed right there's a note there that says split system to service this area that's indicative of the hvac that's planned to be added to this area again these are these are conceptual drawings and the next step would be the code requirement and that that will as we mature them once the funding source is in place we can take that next step the cost is estimated into

▶ 51:49 Robert A. Boisselle: this project it is estimated okay good i just don't want to see the the poor principle of suffocating and freezing during the winter at this point the need has been identified and the cost is

▶ 52:02 Robert A. Boisselle: uh is uh is is in the budget yep okay thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman

▶ 52:05 Peter D. Mortimer: Boisselle uh next in line we have alderman Medeiros please thank you um i think uh president khan

▶ 52:12 Monica C. Medeiros: touched upon some of what i had in mind for questions but i am a bit concerned about the

▶ 52:24 Monica C. Medeiros: fire station now i know we have some issues with the height of the trucks and the new trucks

▶ 52:34 Monica C. Medeiros: will this repair allow a newer truck to fit in the central station this this one yeah right

▶ 52:39 Speaker 9: this funding is to repair leaks existing leaks in the roof today and the damage that those leaks have caused and to further um move the renovation of the bathroom project along um that's all we're going to do with this at the moment and again that's a historical roof as well so these repairs are going to have to go before the historic commission and that adds a little cost because

▶ 53:05 Speaker 9: we're replacing with slate and that's why those numbers are are where they are that that's all we're focused on the roof and not the roof in its entirety the failed portions of the roof the interior damage that those failures have caused and the bathroom so so no no

▶ 53:33 Monica C. Medeiros: no and how what's the life of the current engine that we have at the fire

▶ 53:40 Speaker 1: station well the ladder trucks out of there and we probably get another seven is if we're lucky out of that so presumably we're going to be bonding for maybe up to

▶ 53:58 Monica C. Medeiros: 13 years maybe a little more on a couple things and and we probably can't use

▶ 54:11 Speaker 1: the roof longer than seven is that no the the roof it has nothing to do with the the apparatus floor This is just the roof at the top of the building. The ceiling height for the apparatus floor remains the same. Okay.

▶ 54:22 Monica C. Medeiros: So will we be able to move that apparatus floor? Like if we have to change the apparatus floor, will that make us have to change the roof that we just are putting on, say, this year or next year?

▶ 54:37 Speaker 9: No. No.

▶ 54:39 Monica C. Medeiros: So we can make other changes to the building without changing the ceiling. Okay.

▶ 54:56 Monica C. Medeiros: in terms of the the school situation how many more children will be able to fit

▶ 55:03 Speaker 2: into these new classroom spaces so we have the current we have to add a fourth grade next year and a fifth grade the next year after to Winthrop so we have a two-stage plan and this is part of it but we have one classroom that is available we need a second classroom to be available so this will within two years the Winthrop will be maxed out

▶ 55:28 Monica C. Medeiros: because you have kids that you have extra classes

▶ 55:32 Speaker 2: in k through three and so that's rising and as you all know i'm adding two more k's as it is not at the Winthrop but at other buildings that have that space so but the Winthrop will be maxed out in

▶ 55:46 Monica C. Medeiros: two years and then do we have any kind of any opportunities to get any school building assistance on any of this no no and

▶ 55:58 Monica C. Medeiros: do we think that this is going to be adequate for next year or how do we find out about the

▶ 56:05 Speaker 2: new enrollments coming into so you you heard the mayor in his speech reference a demographic study so along with the Denise Gaffey who's going to do a master plan we're going to do a demographic study for the school population and that should be able to give us a projection it's for 10 years the projection but the first five years are solid they feel are more solid and we that'll give us a better idea of what we're experiencing whether it's a bubble or a trend and if it turns out to be a trend i will have to return to the school building committee and start talking about uh long-term plans to accommodate that trend and my last questions

▶ 56:48 Monica C. Medeiros: are about moving the office to the second floor it's not it's the office is not going to the

▶ 56:53 Speaker 2: second floor so from what i've been told from my own secretary is the entrance used to be on first street and then somewhere along the line it got not too long ago to the side into what was a classroom so we're going to recapture that classroom which means dismantling the principal's office which is next to that entrance space so that it can be classroom size and basically we're going to take an area maybe the size of the room next door and divide it and it'll have to be secretarial space in the set and the principal space similar to what is that Horace Mann in size so you know so that we can have an appropriate class size on the first floor again and we're also going to move

▶ 57:41 Monica C. Medeiros: the entrance back to first Street and so so people can come in a handicap accessible uh if parents or anybody needs to come in and visit the office and the new space

▶ 57:50 Speaker 2: yes yes that's why it has to stay on the first floor and i know we have cameras at at some

▶ 58:02 Speaker 2: portions of the winthrop is that correct i believe outside right because of the playground do they

▶ 58:11 Speaker 9: allow the staff to see the front door yes yeah and the project includes a new system for the new first street entrance and it's outlined as part of the estimate okay thank you thank you

▶ 58:21 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman Medeiros next to speak will be alderman mcintyre margolis please uh thank you mr chairman

▶ 58:26 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: um thank you uh for coming and putting this together um madam superintendent it's two new

▶ 58:36 Speaker 2: classrooms at the winthrop for fourth and fifth grade yes so one for next year no no actually the two new classrooms is basically what we've been doing is um for the past three years um mr schenner and i do our but we do a biannual walkthrough and examine space and we've been slowly moving space trying to maximize what we have and one of the things that we're trying to do is um we have um special ed's pull-out space maybe that needs to be moved to a more appropriate size space to free up other space it's basically a domino effect that we go through every year right and so um what we're going to going to do is we're going to there's a book room on the second floor a very large l-shaped book room we're going to split that in half and take half of that for pull out space okay and that'll be the second the space on the second floor but

▶ 59:27 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: eventually do you think that by next year that will turn into a regular

▶ 59:32 Speaker 2: class no there's an there's there's a an Excel another classroom on the second floor that we use for you know other things like music art that we will have

▶ 59:42 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: to look at okay so at the moment there's no additional the only additional kindergartens are at Lincoln and Roosevelt right right and those will be

▶ 59:52 Speaker 2: basically from their computer labs what we'll do is again because we want kindergarten on the first floor again because you're talking about the babies we're shuffling classes around but we have two rooms that are basically shells

▶ 1:00:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: with no furnishings right thank you and chief on your bathroom renovation was

▶ 1:00:13 Speaker 1: there damage in that bathroom from the roof leaks there was some water damage

▶ 1:00:19 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: yeah as a result of the failing group okay and um is it a gender-specific bathroom i know you have a new relatively new female firefighters yes currently we have the one bathroom that's

▶ 1:00:26 Speaker 1: going to be divided into two separate bathrooms one female and one male because now we have three

▶ 1:00:36 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: females working within the station okay great and that is a plan for this that is the plan that will come into effect when this renovation is finished correct so right now you don't have a separate bathroom facility for the for the female firefighters okay all right that's all I have

▶ 1:00:55 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you thank you very much Alderman McAteer-Margolis next in line we have Alderman

▶ 1:01:01 Jaclyn L. Bird: Bird please thank you Mr. Chairman so for this particular order it sounds like you know we're responding to some external needs for one the increase in enrollment at the Winthrop and in the other the you know the roof damage sort of sort of short-term solutions that we that we need to take on DPW is now handling the facilities management for all the municipal buildings except for Memorial

▶ 1:01:35 Speaker 11: Hall is that right in Mount Hood right okay okay so how are you sort of are we

▶ 1:01:37 Jaclyn L. Bird: being proactive about maintenance in other areas are we planning out sort of what needs to I know City Hall had major leaks this winter too I'm sure you know there's probably not a building didn't have some damage from the weather but are we doing a lot of proactive work as well are we able to in a position to do

▶ 1:01:54 Speaker 9: that we're in a much better position and as crazy as the winter was it was actually a good thing to go through a winter at that extreme you know you can see what leak what froze what leaked you know what at what capacity do you have to start remove snow from the top of the roofs where the leaks are when the snow's up there um we're currently combined compiling a cip manual for all the buildings throughout the city and try and identify the systems that are in it and when they should be replaced and trying to come up with a proactive plan i think we need one more year at maintaining buildings before we can propose something like that but um that's what we've been been doing citywide these are these are issues that uh are accelerated by other other needs i mean there are more kids in the schools and the building is leaking severely um and it's the it's the worst roof in the city right now right now that's understandable um and i'm glad

▶ 1:02:51 Jaclyn L. Bird: to hear that you're doing the um the cip manual project i think that's great did you have your hand up did you no oh okay that's all for me thank you mr chairman thank you thank you alderman bird

▶ 1:03:05 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: alderman lemmerman please thank you mr chairman um thank you i i was just wondering uh mr shenning you mentioned that this furthers the bathroom renovation it does this complete it or do you anticipate that you'll have to it will complete it so that there there was there was a um an order

▶ 1:03:19 Speaker 9: that this board approved which originally funded it when we got into it we realized that there were significant issues above and beyond splitting a bathroom and they included a roof right above the bathroom that was leaking causing even further damage this will complete the funding this will allow the chief and i to work with his union and his personnel the people that are in the building to come up with the best plan moving forward on how to reconfigure their space and um and

▶ 1:03:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: hopefully stop the leaks above them okay and you anticipate this will cover the rest of that to finalize that project okay great thank you thank you mr chairman thank you very much alderman

▶ 1:04:01 Scott M. Forbes: lemmerman alderman forbes please uh thank you mr chairman alderman lemmerman actually just stole my question but uh looking at these photos i do just have a quick question for you chief i'm looking at all these photos of the deteriorated uh mortar joints i'm just uh looking at these are these deep enough where you're concerned that these are are a problem with the structure of the building

▶ 1:04:22 Speaker 1: if not addressed it's something that that dpw has looked at and has had someone out to to see what needs to be done the building all three buildings are need repair um this is just a i guess stop gap measure to stop the leaks get the bathroom going but we we do need to look at

▶ 1:04:46 Speaker 6: a major overhaul sure all right thank you mr chairman thank you alderman forbes

▶ 1:04:52 Robert A. Boisselle: for the second time alderman boyce l please talking about mr forbes alderman forbes and his review the pictures here there's one picture really it's outstanding it's the uh the hatch the roof hatch well it's even worse than that looking I can see through the hatch into the sky and so for it now this is going to be replaced and remodeled in some way with the roof being fixed is that correct is that part of the one of the areas that will be rehabbed completely yeah good next question will be concerning the schools that you're talking about the demographics of new students coming in and so forth are we talking or thinking about taking the BB school out of Mott ball and putting that into action I think it depends on the

▶ 1:05:39 Speaker 2: numbers it's not not there is nothing off the table at this point in time but we really need sufficient information before we come forward with any

▶ 1:05:50 Robert A. Boisselle: proposals to the school committee I mean instead of trying to spend millions of dollars trying to build a new school we have one just sitting there ready to and looks pretty in pretty good condition from what I've seen ready to go and you'll be able to house a good what two three hundred students and they're easy

▶ 1:06:07 Speaker 2: not quite it only has twelve classroom space which means that's two of each class I and I don't have twelve yeah twelve classrooms I believe is what it has it's one of the smaller schools it's similar to Hoover in size but you'll be

▶ 1:06:28 Speaker 2: be able to get at least 100 150 right in there well yes i hope so but you would we want to make sure that we can get six grades in in there whatever we do so that you have a complete

▶ 1:06:38 Robert A. Boisselle: complement of grades so the bb school is on the table for probably reactivation um

▶ 1:06:46 Robert A. Boisselle: it's one of many considerations okay thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman

▶ 1:06:49 Peter D. Mortimer: boycelle seeing no further alderman oh president khan please yeah just uh obviously if the roof

▶ 1:06:54 Speaker 1: is leaking and the building is being damaged we have to fix it but the thing that i'm concerned about here and that i'd like to see us pay more attention to as we go forward is our public safety buildings are outmoded and in terrible shape i'm concerned about continuing to spend money on buildings which have outlived their useful life so i hope we keep a close eye on the police station and all three fire stations to make sure that we don't sink millions of dollars into buildings that are going to be out of use shortly after we spend the money i know that's a discussion

▶ 1:07:32 Speaker 9: that we've had internally with both chiefs we our department that's something that will hopefully be able to sit down and look at public safety buildings comprehensively and figure out a plan

▶ 1:07:46 Speaker 1: on where to go in the future yeah these aren't just buildings that aren't in great shape they're old old buildings that really uh come from another time i i don't know whether foster on fire apparatus was ever used in uh fire

▶ 1:08:02 Speaker 1: so um i i don't want to spend more time in future years well might not be me but i don't want other boards of alderman spending more time floating money into buildings which we should uh maybe

▶ 1:08:14 Peter D. Mortimer: move on from that's all thank you president khan uh seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard on this order we are open for a motion we have a motion to recommend this order for passage by alderman byrd duly seconded by alderman boy cell motion to recommend the order for passage at our next full board meeting seeing no further discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order has been voted to be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting thank you lady and gentlemen thank you thank you chief chairman would you