ORDER-2023-24 : Funding Authorization in the amount of Sixty Eight Thousand Five Hundred ($68,500) Dollars for Design Services for Public Safety Facilities

Transcript (~50 min @ 1:22:20)

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

▶ 1:22:33 Speaker 1: Okay, we are back.

▶ 1:22:36 Jen Grigoraitis: And I know we've had a large crowd waiting quite some time. So I would entertain a motion to take order 2023-24 funding authorization and the amount of 68,500 for Design Services for Public Safety facilities out of order so moved. Second so we have a motion to take order 2023-24 out of order made by counselor Stewart seconded by counselor Garipay all in favor. Hi any opposed? Okay, so that matter is now before us.

▶ 1:23:06 Paul Brodeur: By way of by way of reflection. That's kind of a two-part presentation here tonight the the important party.

▶ 1:23:17 Speaker 5: the

▶ 1:23:19 Paul Brodeur: important business of Council tonight is the request for funding to essentially round out or bring up to current date some of the analysis that was done during the original public safety building committee work, which believe me when I tell you a substantial it is to the to the tune of two binders full of information of information. It was expensive and important work as we've heard from our other discussions tonight. There are impacts that were going to hear about today both in terms of Building materials but really what we're talking about is the various possibilities of plans the public safety building committee led by excuse me, the co-chairs has really done amazing work and this isn't to a certain degree kind of a coming-out party. Will you will see how much work has actually gone on and the kinds of things that they have been. considering and that need That need public input and need further discussion in the community. But in order to have that sophisticated discussion, we are going to need the additional resources that are the that are the basis of this order in order to move this project forward with that. I will turn it over to the leadership to give a more detailed explanation of the work. They've been doing and very much want to thank as you can see it is a very strong and very committed group because they're all here tonight on a Monday night at in addition to all the other things they do with their day jobs and the work that they do on behalf of the city in this committee. So without further ado,

▶ 1:25:13 Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everybody. I want to thank you on behalf of our committee for taking us out of order. I am Eugenie Gibbons as was noted. I Collide the public safety advisory committee public safety building advisory committee with Jeff mcnaught. I'm joined at the table this evening by Andrew by Emmanuel Andrade. Has been very involved with our proposal development subcommittee, and then we're joined by nearly our entire committee including representatives from police and fire. So we're in really great company. Our goal is a committee is ultimately to make a recommendation to the city and this body for how best to proceed with necessary investments in public safety facilities in Melrose. We as a committee seek to ensure that our final recommendations are grounded in well vetted information and Analysis and toward that end. We have been meeting very regularly since January to gather information about the needs for public safety building upgrades and to develop several scenarios for how to prudently but adequately meet those needs. A manual will present an overview of the scenarios that we've arrived at and he can field questions that you all may have. But the next step is the mayor noted in this information gathering process is to procure Design Services from architectural firm, Doran Whittier. To complete pre-design for proposed upgrades for the city's fire and police facilities these services that we need include developing a conceptual design plans schedules and updated cost estimates. I know that the last set of information that we've been working with is at this point. Six years old almost six years old almost. Yeah, so very outdated consistent with what we've already heard tonight very frequently about the current market and some of the challenges that exist out there in terms of Contracting and construction time is of the essence. And we really need to be able to procure these services in order to make an informed decision about how best to proceed going forward and also to begin to engage the public in this process. And in this discussion. I know that if we are able to issue a contract by the end of October we can expect to have updated information by Q2 of 23. So in the spring and it is really essential that we have that sooner rather than later so we can continue moving forward and without further Ado I turn it to Emmanuel.

▶ 1:27:54 Speaker 4: Good evening, Madam chair members of the community. My name is Emmanuel Andrade. I'm a resident of the Wyoming neighborhood and with my colleagues here in the comedy. I've been assisting this committee since January. Very pleased to say that in the last eight nine months. We've done a lot of work and but as a committee charged with making a recommendation to the mayor we've gone as far as we come possibly could right now moving forward. We need assistance of a design firm. That specializes in public safety buildings to assist us. with refining the work that we accomplished so far and and developing realistic cost estimates and project schedules So with that today, we I want to present before I talk about the proposal that we received by The Architects. I just want to give you a sense of the conceptual options that are committee has developed. There are a few subcommittees within the committee and my focus in this community has been in the subcommitted responsible for the proposal development proposal development is by the way, I forgot to mention that I am an architect. This is my day job as an architect. What I'm doing here in this community as a volunteer is exactly what I do during my day job. I work. I'm an architect for the state government doing feasibility studies for state government buildings courthouses State hospitals Correctional Facilities, you know over 10 million dollar projects. So my focus in this committee has been assisting with the conceptual options. So before us today, we have a few conceptual options that I would like to share with you. We started by reviewing the 2007 2017 visibility study. There was a lot of good information there, especially existing conditions information. In we incorporated the good aspects of good study. But we also pushed further on other aspects. And we we have I'm just going to say a few of the options for for example for starting with the fire stations Engine 2, which is at this intersection of Tremont Street and Melrose Street. There are two options one option is to completely demolish the station and build a brand new true story station. A second option would be to renovate the existing station and add a two-story addition directly adjacent to the building. For engine 3, which is on East Foster Street directly across from the commons. There are three options demolish the station and build a brand new station. Renovate the station and add a second floor to that one story plus basement building. and A last complex complex option which is just renovate the building as is and not add any Square. No new area. moving on to the central fire on Main Street We only have one option which is to renovate the building to bring it to. Replace the roof make, you know much needed masonry repairs replace the historic sensitive windows and that alarm will be a big chunk of the budget for that station. But I also have to we have to do some complex and very expensive site improvements for a building that is over a hundred years old. But in in all the options that we have, the only option we have for that facility is to renovate the building and know addition to that building. Should that historic building? Last but not least the police station unlike the previous effort. We don't believe that the police station should remain can remain in the same location. with the square with the extremely small lot that it houses the station. So we have two options one option is for an empty site identified not by the committee, but by the city somewhere in Melrose where centrally located to build a new three-story fire station on an empty site. the second option to find a new site in perhaps a new site with an existing building and perhaps we can renovate that building and convert that existing building on a new site should become the new police station for Melrose. So those are the conceptual options. Our committee worked in the last nine months and moving forward. Do we need an architect? We need a design firm with specializing in this type of work in our region in the state to help us moving moving forward. So we Reached out your door and Whittier on architectural firm for new Newburyport. They are the authors of the previous visibility study. And we asked them were engaged with them to since they have A lot of knowledge of existing conditions of costs. They know our buildings to come back and provide a quote to provide the following services. First they're going to take our conceptual options in consideration, right? We're not asking them to come up with other options. We're asking them to refine the options that we work so hard. They're going to meet with the police and fire departments to refine what we call space needs and Analysis. Our conceptual options are just location-wise options there. We're talking about the building shell. But space needs analysis would be to understand what happens inside the station. And we need an architecture help us with that. Second they're going to provide a high level project schedule. We want to understand what our options are for how long construction will be. Luckily, we have three fire stations, perhaps one of the fire stations can be renovated while Personnel from that far space station is relocated to other true fire stations. We didn't architecture help us really figure out the logical sequence of construction and finally but most importantly a high level cost estimate to help us understand how much this effort would be and because our committee has laid out. Conceptual options, they're very incomplexity and most likely varying costs will have a good cost range. But again, we need an architect to help us with that. So the request today is for the funds to fund this Initiative 60,500 for pre-designed services, right? We're not in design yet. We're in pre-design and we thought this would be a good investment for an effort. They could take quad cost the city tens of millions of dollars.

▶ 1:35:02 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you both for that presentation. Are there questions from the council from the committee? Excuse me?

▶ 1:35:09 Maya Jamaleddine: councilor demaldine So I just a quick question, you mentioned that in terms of the police station. It would be either finding a new empty lot and and building a new one. or fixing that existing one and build on it in case we went to with plan A. Do we know? With that plan be including demolishing or what is it that's going to happen with the existing building. So you got you

▶ 1:35:45 Speaker 4: got option a correct, but option let me rephrase. Repeat optionally option b is still building a new. Three-story police station on an on a site somewhere in the city that already has a building. Okay, so it's not at that site. Yeah, okay,

▶ 1:36:03 Maya Jamaleddine: and how about that existing building right now? What is it? That's what's gonna happen.

▶ 1:36:10 Speaker 4: What's the plan? So the plan would be to for the police department you continue operations in that facility until the new building or renovated building is can be occupied at that time. The police State Police Department would vacate that building and what happens to that building is a city matter. I We don't have any recommendation this point.

▶ 1:36:32 Maya Jamaleddine: And my question was just to clarify if in case the decision was to demolish it because it's not anymore. You know be able to be used with that demolishing be inclusive or anything of that

▶ 1:36:48 Speaker 4: matter. I I no, no the proposal The Proposal that we're asking The Architects to assist us with does not include any demolition of any existing of that building.

▶ 1:36:59 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay, and in the current building of the police station, what is the if you can just list some of the concerns that we have? I know you mentioned that it's very small what other

▶ 1:37:15 Speaker 4: concerns do we have? So to start the building is a more than a third of the space of a police station of the Personnel size that Melrose Fire Department police department has so we would be looking for a new building that is at least 20,000 square feet where they have three three seven thousand square feet and we have members of the police department who can help me explain the conditions that they have and that building but as you can imagine he's a building that was Converted from being a telephone company into a police station in around 4959. 51 can no longer house modern Services of a police station the cells are not ADA compliance. So the building

▶ 1:38:05 Speaker 3: the building's not able to build itself. Yeah, so

▶ 1:38:08 Speaker 4: it's both you know.

▶ 1:38:13 Speaker 3: An issue. Yeah, it's wholly inadequate for what is needed and I would welcome some of our colleagues from the police department to speak to some of the specifics but as Emanuel is noting just in terms of size. It's problematic. There are you know codes and standards that need to be complied with there is you know, I think it's important to note that both police and fire provide a number of different services to the community especially police and the police department does a good job of working with what it has to try to meet and provide those services, but it is definitely not capable of doing so adequately I'm thinking of you know, there's Whether it's a Services related to support for domestic violence, whether it is social work Services, if it's you know, drug-related Services just there a variety of things that just can't they're happening but they can't happen to the level that I know that our police would like to be able to

▶ 1:39:23 Maya Jamaleddine: provide. Yes. I myself have toured the chief file in fact us to tour and I can tell it's that it's a lot of problems in it. I would invite any member of the police if they would like to explain more to the public

▶ 1:39:42 Speaker 5: I know that. the planning on offering Wars to folks they get the exact nature and extent of the deficiencies all buildings much like

▶ 1:39:59 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Thank you both for willing to speak Lieutenant Norton.

▶ 1:40:01 Speaker 7: I'm officer Dale Parsons.

▶ 1:40:03 Speaker 4: Thank you for having us here. As it was highlighted. Our our building is incredibly deficient for many different reasons. We have a rodent problem. We have code problems. Our cells are not up to date. like my colleague said the building itself is not ADA Compliant. We've had multiple issues people with physical disabilities who have trouble gaining or can't get into the building. So we we cannot stay at that building as a police department going forward. There are many things that we want to do speak on behalf of my union. We want to do more community outreach programs and we can't host those in the building that we're in right now. Yeah.

▶ 1:40:54 Speaker 7: So the building itself was was built in 1900. So it you know, it's very old building prisoners. When we bring prisoners in they we have to walk them down a set of stairs into the booking room. The booking room is probably I don't know 10 feet by 12 feet tops.

▶ 1:41:19 Speaker 7: It's had. said many Renovations over the years but none of them were of professional standard type of renovation in that booking area, so it's kind of a disaster.

▶ 1:41:40 Speaker 7: The facilities the ventilation in the facility in the in the Cell Block area. When when a prisoner and whether it's female or whether it's it's a male we have four cells for male one one for female but the ventilation system events into the building. So when you hit the lights and put the fan on. All the air that's in the Cell Block. It's dispersed throughout the building. That's just one major problem. the front stairs Again, not not compliant. The lobby is is very small. We don't have an area for training. our property in room a property room and evidence room is probably about a third of the size that it should be. We have no area to store larger properties right now. They're put into the garage, but the garage isn't set up to. With a locked facility to put property. The back of the building the facade is is to the back corner of the facade is breaking off the building. the roof leaks in the hallway main hallway leaks down and then over through the offices. So, you know, the tiles get stained no sense and replacing them because the roof still leaks so that that's still there. Recently. We had I would say about 12 years ago we redid the dispatch because the dispatch Wall fell in so they had to redo the dispatch area. The building is failing. It's it's age, you know, it's breaking down.

▶ 1:43:38 Speaker 4: if I could just to speak to his point of the building following down just last week. We had a wall mounted desk in the main lobby of the front lobby and elderly woman was using to write on it and that fell off the wall and she ended up having to go to the hospital. So the building the physical building is falling in on us. Yeah, and we need the city support to yeah new building and to speak to the renovations. So John Norton brought up. We've had female officers since sometime in the 80s and we are now just having our guard room retrofitted. To accommodate a female and male locker rooms separate locker rooms. the The Mickey Mouse Renovations that's gone on that building have reached. a Tipping Point and

▶ 1:44:35 Speaker 7: It is. Yeah, it's not like we saw it's not enough room to actually put a lock around and have a guard room our guard room. Where we do roll call if you see a traditional police show on TV the the sergeant gets up in front and he tells everyone what their assignments are. Well, that's what we do we do that but now that room because we've done the renovations to accommodate for lockers and not that room is now probably a 10 foot by 10 foot area where we give our own. That is definitely going to be displayed when we do tours. Feel free to come down. I'll take you on a tour anytime. But in the meantime, we're gonna do we're gonna do some filming. And we're gonna kind of want people through because not everyone's gonna be able to come down to the station and partake in seeing what it's about. facility wise office wise Superior offices the person in charge of the building at any given shift like tonight's probably a little lieutenant and there's a street Sergeant but that office that they they command out of his shared by eight eight Superior officers not all at one time, but You know when shifts would get relieved you have eight different people that are sharing the same desk in the same office. So each person gets a drop. To put their property and you know, so it's just inadequate at this point. Yeah, I agree

▶ 1:46:03 Maya Jamaleddine: with you. I mean we all know but I wanted for the sake of the public so they would understand exactly how dire is the need of you know, renovating or changing the whole say I definitely agree with you you guys have stretched to the maximum the usage of this building. I appreciate all the effort and you know continuous effort to make sure and to ensure that you're providing the great service to the public. So thank you so much for your patience. Thank you. Like I

▶ 1:46:36 Speaker 7: said come down. I'll give you a tour any time any well, too.

▶ 1:46:44 Manjula Karamcheti: Council carm-chady when I became an elected, I was given a tour by Chief Lyle and I have to say I was shocked and sad about the conditions of the police station and as someone who has a vision for just what you described community outreach community policing supporting citizens to feel welcome and safe at the police station. It definitely did not have that Vibe and appreciate everything you've done to try to make that happen, but definitely see the need for a new building with new resources and whatnot for the benefit of the public just in terms of the pre Design Services. Could you just give an overview of sort of what that entails what we could expect from pre-designed Services as the outcome of what we've

▶ 1:47:41 Speaker 4: been to help us move forward. Correct? Yes pretty design service means we are at a conceptual stage at this point. So I referred many times as we have conceptional conceptual options and the architect will in a period of four months meet with us meet with each department and develop. high level project estimates cost estimates we're talking about they're going to give us a rough order of magnitude of saying you know, this is a Let's say 50 million dollar project or a 65 million dollar project. You know I'm saying those numbers are completely hypothetical numbers. They're going to give us a rough order of magnitude. There are also going to help us with the project schedule in those four months and really help us understand which options should happen first. What a priorities are which stations should go first and logical sequence. They're not providing renderings of what a police station will look like they're not going to be involved in public meetings. These are really three. Very focused exercises of program space. Schedule and costs serving our committee.

▶ 1:48:59 Manjula Karamcheti: the three options are potentials that were presented in our packets. It's very clear sort of what needs to happen with the police station, but there are those three different options for the fire stations renovation. I think Engine 2 and 3 are potentially demolition or renovation with an addition or

▶ 1:49:26 Speaker 3: I can't remember what the third one was of the don't but how will pre-design well as part of that helping advising us on which one. The pre-designed process is helping to advise the committee on what to hone in on for our recommendations to the city for how to proceed and so the proposal development is one as Emmanuel noted. One of the working groups are subcommittees that we have organized as a committee. There's also one focus on excuse me, my Can't remember the time I have on the funding plan. So to doing some initial groundwork to figure out kind of like how to make this possible. There is another working group on public engagement and we're starting to get in this discussion starting to get into some of the things that we hope to engage the public on not only what is the need or why are we here but also getting input and feedback from the public and then we'll have working group within our committee that will think about decision execution and how we arrive at our final recommendation. But as I said, this is very much part of a thorough data Gathering process and information gathering process so that we can be sure that our recommendations are sound are grounded in well vetted data and information and that, you know, you've heard some of the needs just from police the list for fire goes on and on as well and we're not trying to build Cadillac see like the Cadillac version we're being prudent in our decision. because we don't we have no other choice. The clock is kind of run out on what these existing facilities can do and it's not a question of if we do something as a city. It's a question of when and quite frankly. We don't have that much time to be thinking about it or to be, you know, entertaining lots of options. So we are trying to get to a point where we can present really sound really well grounded recommendations for how to move forward in a meaningful amount of time.

▶ 1:51:32 Manjula Karamcheti: okay, so just to clarify the pre-designed services will be a report of some kind given to your committee and that information will be used as like foundational data for all of the Committees in terms of figuring out recommendations for city council and mayor. Yeah. Okay.

▶ 1:51:50 Speaker 3: Great. Thank you.

▶ 1:51:53 Speaker 1: Counselor Stewart, thank you. Madam. Chair,

▶ 1:51:57 Robb Stewart: he's given Mr. 100. Thank you for being here tonight. I appreciate it and say from the outset that I think this is great. I want to for Ride Along when I was. campaign a couple years ago, and I got a tour of the Police station also on the fire station and understand the difficulties on both sides. And to me this has always been something that's been top of mind that needs to be addressed. So I'm glad that you're bringing this forward. My first question is about timeline Beyond this recommendation. So, you know you Q2 rolls around you get the recommendation. What's what's the timeline that you've worked with the administration in terms of when they want to accomplish this because that there's considerations when you come to this body in terms of how it's going to be Finance where that money is going to come from And what the timing of that is, so to the end unfortunately Mr. Mayor stepped out, but he may have some input into that as well.

▶ 1:52:57 Speaker 3: Actually with an updated timeline, we initially thought that we would be able to move this particular request forward about six weeks ago. And so that actually it doesn't seem like a lot of time but it does matter ultimately you know this. this is gonna have to come before the public and so our charge as a committee is to complete those recommendations by next summer right once we have our Within a meaningful amount of time within about a quarter of when we receive that final report from Dora and Whittier. but I would defer to the mayor on how he sees this sort of moving forward in terms of making a decision and ultimately taking it to the public. We can certainly give you our updated timeline. Once we have a better sense of the sequencing and the timing that we might be

▶ 1:53:54 Robb Stewart: looking at sure sure, and I'm sure you would appreciate the one small cause for concern that. Someone that would vote on this is we granted this money and then you do the study and then you sit on it again, right? And that's that's something I don't think we want to see I don't think anybody wants to see but that requires I think the commitment from the administration that yes, it's going to move forward definitively and what that looks like in terms of how they're gonna get the money how they're gonna get the public Buy in all of that at all kind of comes together. So That's why I'm asking that question. And I think that that needs to be a continuing dialogue both with this console as well as with the public so that way we're well informed on what that schedule looks like. Oh, we

▶ 1:54:43 Speaker 3: certainly share that that sentiment and are not looking to kick this down the road any longer and so welcome the collaboration with the city council and with others and really making sure that we're all being held accountable to see the project through to completion from recommendation to actual buildings that are functional and operational in a reasonable amount of time. So we welcome that collaboration good and what's the public as well? Sorry. I'm excited

▶ 1:55:09 Robb Stewart: to see the start to move forward. Thank you.

▶ 1:55:12 Speaker 1: Vice chairmagliarelli, thank you

▶ 1:55:14 Leila Migliorelli: madam chair and some of my questions are just asked by counselor Stewart. I guess I'm wondering a little bit more about the process if you are you get this information and In terms of this report sitting on a shelf, I guess that also depends on the committee that you have. Do you feel confident in this committee and that you'll have consensus achieve consensus? You know, I mean, you've been working together for whatever 10 months and just want to make sure that That you know that you feel like you're you're set you're set to go.

▶ 1:55:53 Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I I'm looking at my fellow committee members. And yes, when we began meeting we did so with the understanding that this was a time. you know time it was we had a Time specific like specific amount of time that we were trying to work within to come up with the recommendation because we do not want you know our information that we gather to become outdated. We do not want to be having this conversation again, six years from now like we just don't have these guys don't have the ability to do their jobs. Well enough if we're going to continue to punt. So yes, I'm confident that we are working well together to try to build consensus and to reach consensus over our final recommendations and this particular piece of information is going to go a long way and helping us get there.

▶ 1:56:41 Leila Migliorelli: and so if you get this report in you know, if we you know appropriate this money for this purpose four months is what it looked like the consultant would take to pull this together. Are you envisioning that the public engagement piece will start happening after that or alongside that I just curious because I think this is you can all imagine was going to take a great deal of work with the public. Yeah.

▶ 1:57:08 Speaker 3: um that I Don't want to speak for the entire public engagement committee. But I do think that some portion some of that work will be happening alongside the development of this report. So it was mentioned that we're working with mmtv to develop a series of videos to be able to post so we can get that information out there. We're working to make public all of our initial materialism and everything that's already been posted is public. So some of those early pieces of public engagement are going to be happening alongside the development of the report we will work as a working group to figure out sort of the sequencing and the timing for full on engagement and you know how to pull folks in and when before we make a recommendation, but it is certainly Our intention to make sure that the recommendation is a reflection of the what we have already done for the last nine months what information we're going to gather from door and Whittier and what we hear when we do start to talk to the public. Thank you. As everyone said I took tours back in 2019 too. And I took my whole family on the couple of the fire station tours is Chief cleaner might remember and so now when we drive around to other communities, my kids will point out. Wow, look at that fire station. Look at that police say they noticed these things. So thank you very much. I think it's it's really important and and well overdue so I'm hoping you'll get some good information on this and we can move forward. And I just want to make one other comment in regards to what you just said constrlay is this is a common need in all of our surrounding communities and in communities throughout the Commonwealth. So that is another reason why time is of the essence because everyone's finding themselves in the same situation where there's going to be a need to invest significantly in these buildings and in these projects and you heard from the conversation around the library, you know, it's There are other market dynamics that are going to come into play. There's the availability of Labor and of contractors who are qualified to do this. So we benefit immensely from having an established relationship already with during Whittier, who knows our buildings and who knows what are need is they've been really receptive and receiving feedback and they're ready to move forward to help us better understand what exactly it is that we're going to be asking for because we are not alone in terms of cities or towns that are facing this

▶ 1:59:42 Speaker 5: Can I add to that a little bit because I have a little bit of information that I just said with you guys. Late this afternoon. So you probably haven't seen it

▶ 1:59:50 Paul Brodeur: yet because at a recent mayor's meeting the mayor of Pittsfield was talking about similar problem. Their police facility is a converted building from the 30s looks a lot like from the pictures. I've seen a lot like what we're facing here. And so they started to do some along with the Birch and delegations and walk around trying to create essentially the equivalent of a school building assistance program for other municipal buildings. I would not suggest that that is happening tomorrow by any stretch the imagination but part of that information and justification for that effort came from a report that the auditor did the state auditor did around the state of

▶ 2:00:33 Speaker 5: Municipal infrastructure and in particular municipal buildings in western

▶ 2:00:41 Speaker 5: Mass. Now the some of the conditions up in western, Mass. Are you need to Western? But a lot of it is not and so

▶ 2:00:50 Paul Brodeur: to kind of drive home the point and happy to share this report with you all fairly new and from I want to say October of 22 and

▶ 2:01:00 Speaker 5: much of what it said about western Mass is true to Commonwealth as a whole. So to the chairs point, this is not at all a unique situation and it doesn't really requires emergency across the Commonwealth and we're going to worry about ourselves, but I am going to be working with

▶ 2:01:23 Paul Brodeur: the some of the other Mayors particularly Gateway cities Mayors to see what kind of you know reliable repeatable supportable funding source, there is because you know that why are our schools in better shape than our other Public Safety buildings Because they're there's a resource that's been established to assist in doing that. Why are libraries to a certain degree on the radar because there's an identified funding source that we can count on when we make these plants regrettably. There's Virtually nothing along with some maybe Boutique grants around energy or whatever the case may be that our Public Safety related that communities just can't get their hands around particularly when you're reflect on what a modern facility actually needs in terms of community space in terms of you know, victim services and things like that. So it's going to be this is not something that again that that is unique to Melrose but is something that we absolutely have to address

▶ 2:02:32 Speaker 1: counselor Stewart

▶ 2:02:34 Speaker 6: Thank you madam. Chair Mr. May you.

▶ 2:02:37 Robb Stewart: Ran out right when I was going to ask a question. So yeah, please don't anyways, the question I had asked the committee was regarding timeline and commitment from the administration that this will indeed happen. In the foreseeable future as opposed to in the one. Thing that I've heard a little bit anecdotally is that we may need to rely on the middle school funding to end for this to pick up. I don't know if that's If that's the case or not, if you could speak a little bit about what the timing is and how this is going to impact drawings. Well,

▶ 2:03:20 Paul Brodeur: let's work for you cram these guys up. It's quite frankly. It's part of the it's part of the conversation. I think we all understand explicitly that going to be a very very large price tag. It's not something that no literally no matter what else we do cannot be fit into our Existing tax base. So, you know, it will be a debt exclusion kind of the nature of that will depend on on the plans. Certainly. I wouldn't want to hang a timeline on it that we can't execute on we would obviously want to do it. I think ideally not as a special election as a one-off we want to do it in conjunction with another with another election, which puts me in mind of 2024. I don't think we'll be ready. This year because it's not just setting the date. It's then. Making the pitch because even after you know, it's a two-part piece. We want public input about what they're thinking of in terms of their idea their Vision about what these Public Safety facilities should look like, but then we're going to settle on something and then kind of a campaign begins a new with this is why we feel this plan. Meets those needs and have that you know that second part of the public discussion the the fact of the middle school going off. Of our debt service is is an important part of I think what people are going to think about in terms of you know for the individual Homer. What can I actually afford but that will not control when this goes to the valuable certainly be part of the conversation around the affordability of it because early on in this process of some of the voters do approve it.

▶ 2:05:21 Speaker 5: The fact that matters that debt will come off.

▶ 2:05:25 Paul Brodeur: The tax rolls and it is not, you know, unlike two and a half it goes away. So then we would have to make a new ask but we would be certainly when we describe the financial impact of what it's likely a 20 or 30 year. No that that other debt is going to fall off. so there will be a reduction in in your property tax bill, but I don't want to create any illusion that there's going to be a wonderful one trade-off. The middle school debt is roughly a two hundred dollar per home. Impact this is going to be substantially more than that.

▶ 2:06:05 Speaker 6: Okay fair enough. All right. Thank you.

▶ 2:06:09 Speaker 1: Thank you counselor Garipay. I was

▶ 2:06:10 Speaker 4: gonna make a motion to recommend second.

▶ 2:06:12 Jen Grigoraitis: So we have a motion to recommend made by counselor Garipay seconded by President sonella on discussion. I had a few questions. Sorry. That's okay. I'm just follow picking up on mayor broder's comments about the cost. I just obviously I know that committee is not responsible for coming up with that. But Mr. Andrade you had mentioned Newburyport and I just looked up that they're doing one building that 6,800 square feet for 5.9 million dollars and we're talking it looks like approximately about 10 times that total square footage across all of the buildings if I'm reading the slides correctly. Is that a fair?

▶ 2:06:49 Speaker 4: Statement. Can you repeat the question about square foot

▶ 2:06:51 Jen Grigoraitis: you're looking at about 60,000 square feet total?

▶ 2:06:55 Speaker 4: That's about right can give you the exact amount.

▶ 2:06:59 Speaker 1: so the Newberry Port building 5,000

▶ 2:07:03 Jen Grigoraitis: Total sixty eight hundred square feet right and they said it's gonna be 5.9 million for that just went out to they just approved that in August of this year.

▶ 2:07:11 Speaker 4: I'm not fully aware of that project. Oh that you

▶ 2:07:13 Jen Grigoraitis: mentioned Newburyport is one of the projects that the Architects had

▶ 2:07:18 Speaker 4: worked out. The architect is from Newburgh Airport from

▶ 2:07:20 Speaker 1: new airport. Got it. I thought you said they had worked on the Newburyport project

▶ 2:07:24 Jen Grigoraitis: go to deal sounds like it. So okay. I just was trying to be able to kind of scale up what we're

▶ 2:07:30 Speaker 4: talking about. I can tell that we as a community we are kind of cataloging all the newer or police stations in fire stations within our area. We're focusing on the I-95 belt. So we didn't look in Uber report, but we can add that to our research. We looked at Burlington Woburn Wakefield. Even Lawrence because Lawrence just got a new police station around the groundbreaking ceremony was less this Tuesday.

▶ 2:07:56 Jen Grigoraitis: So we can look at Newport. I need another it wasn't I don't have a particular passion for Newburyport. I just thought that was what you had said and that it was a recent caught that that just as a cost estimate that that's 6,800 square feet. We're talking about 67,000 in one of the proposals for the sum total of our project.

▶ 2:08:15 Speaker 1: yes, okay, and

▶ 2:08:24 Speaker 1: Yes, they can't hear if you're not going to make.

▶ 2:08:30 Speaker 7: Accreditation assessment I was probably about six years ago. They had a they had a renovation just prior to us doing that accreditation assessment. So they're they're buildings whatever they're doing. Whatever that project is. It's it's a renovation as opposed to a complete rebuild so that might be why you're seeing that

▶ 2:08:56 Speaker 5: The car yeah cost difference. We feel the similar situation where they have yeah somewhat new combined, but they are doing a reinvestment into that so they

▶ 2:09:02 Speaker 7: had an old part of their building and they had a new part of their building. So they're probably renovating that older part now so they didn't do different but I I think

▶ 2:09:11 Speaker 3: to get to your question we'll have a better sense of rough estimates. Once we have the pre-design work to give you a ballpark of what the actual cost is that Melrose might be looking at for any of the scenarios that we outlined. and then and I and I was gonna say I welcome the opportunity and I know our committee welcomes the opportunity to touch base with this body along the way, you know, if they're updates that you want to hear from any of the other working groups that we have who would be better positioned to answer some of these more detailed questions about cost or about public engagement plans but to get to what I think you are getting at was we don't know the number right now, but we will get to it when we have this report

▶ 2:09:54 Jen Grigoraitis: excellent and then Related to the proposal and maybe this I know this is mentioned in here, but there's discussion of moving the police station to city land that has not been identified. We're a community of 4.7 square miles. I guess when in the process is that land going to be identified and are we because that feels kind of critically important to moving forward.

▶ 2:10:19 Speaker 3: The excellent question Mr. Mayor, would you like to answer?

▶ 2:10:23 Paul Brodeur: it all goes into the mix because there are there, you know, technically anything the city owns is a possibility that will very much have to be part of the public discussion and the Delta between land acquisition and not having land acquisition will obviously favorably impact price, but we don't have any centrally located land that isn't already built upon that anyone's going to go. quickly and easily Oh sure. Take that take that parcel. It's all good. So it's going to be that is one of the harder parts of what we're going to be talking about because there is a there's obviously a neighborhood impact and a price impact and they're both very real we're gonna have to try to figure out that sweet spot.

▶ 2:11:14 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, and I just wanted to say to all of you. It's clear how much you value and trust each other and I think that is a huge win for this community and this project. So thank you for the work that you put in to getting to that point. I know that this is sort of the elephant in the room in this community is trying to figure out a solution to this. So I'm really excited that we have such a strong Foundation as we move forward and what I know will be a challenging process at times. So thank you for that. And with that I will summarize that we had a motion to recommend made by counselor Garipay seconded by counselor Stewart if there's any other discussion Okay, seeing none all in favor. I any opposed so that will be recommended to the next council at which we have eight counselors. Thank you so much. Thank you.