Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-04-09
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr.
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● APRIL 9, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:30 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Vice Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Absent Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Absent Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: Mayor Robert J. Dolan, City Planner Denise Gaffey, Superintendent of Schools Cyndy Taymore, IT Director Jorge Pazos, City Auditor/CFO Patrick Dello Russo, City Treasurer Art Flavin
ORDER-2015-111 Bond Authorization of a Bond in the amount of $5,300,000.00 to pay for costs of constructing Interior Renovations at Melrose High School Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 4/15/2015 5:25 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening. The time is 7.30. It is Monday, April 9th. This is the Committee on Appropriations. I am the Chairman, Peter Mortimer. The Vice Chairman is Jacqueline Byrd. This is a Committee of the Whole. And with us this evening, we have Alderman Gail Inferna, Alderman John Tramontozzi, Alderman Monica Medeiros, Alderman Robert Boisselle, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Jennifer Lemmerman, Alderman Scott Forbes, and um donald khan so we have one order tonight it is a bond it is order number 2015-111 but before i read that order and get started on the business i would like to have a motion to open the floor for public participation please alderman ferner has moved to open public participation
▶ 0:59 Peter D. Mortimer: Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now open. Are there any members of the public who would like to come forward and make comment or ask questions about any of the orders, actually the one order on the appropriations agenda this evening? Seeing none, Alderman Lemmerman makes a move to close public participation. Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. public participation is now closed this meeting is being shown on MMTV as required of public meetings for the local cable access and copies of it are available on the city website and on the MMTV website as well for future reference the order we have before us is order two zero one five dash one one one
▶ 1:51 Peter D. Mortimer: It is authorization of a bond in the amount of $5,300,000 to pay for costs of constructing interior renovations at Melrose High School. The order was held in committee at our last meeting. There were a lot of questions and further information that many of the aldermen wanted to get. A lot of that has been provided to us by email, by direct phone call conversations. My phone calls, and now we are going to have more information about that tonight. So I would welcome a motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the appropriate city officials. So moved, second. Alderman Ferner has moved to suspend the rules, so we may hear from the appropriate city officials on this bond. The motion was duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis.
▶ 2:44 All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension. honor mayor dolan please come forward thank you you're welcome sir would anybody else be joining you at this time yeah i'd just like to make a brief statement then turn it over to the to our group i would just like to uh first and foremost uh thank this board of aldermen uh the first meeting that we had at this meeting was an introductory meeting um in which a number of very appropriate questions were asked regarding a bond of this magnitude and such an important project for the city it was an excellent meeting as you know as the old saying goes the executive branch proposes and the legislative branch disposes and it
▶ 3:29 was a night of which that was at the forefront and you certainly this board certainly did challenge us as you should for a bond of this magnitude and I want to thank you for that in the questions over the last two weeks I think we have responded positively in a number of areas to not only hopefully educate the public as to the importance of this project as well as answer several questions at least in my office for those who have concerns we off also really allowed the entire community whether your children at the high school or not to digest the importance of the importance of infrastructure investment in Melrose High School and I thought it was a very good community debate over last few weeks we have also have also provided through your instruction a number of answers
▶ 4:20 to questions and various reports that we also made available on iqm2 for the public a week ago on tuesday so i want to thank you for that as well as the attendance of the tour of the members of the board of alderman led by those that use that space the most which are the educators and the students i thought although i went to melrose high school and spent a great deal of time there listening to them from from a different standpoint really also enriched my knowledge of the project and in my opinion its importance and i know each of you also appreciated that during our two tours and i want to thank you for taking the time to do that i think it was important i also want to say that when we present a project to the science be it the newspaper or the media
▶ 5:09 or individuals or ourselves try to simplify the message in terms of what it is and that's often easy when you build a science lab we know it's a science lab so this particular project has has had many names it's been called a technology center a media center a library but it's a lot of different things and I don't think it needs to be should be labeled as one thing it is a library a library of the 21st century but it's also a library of periodicals that traditionally we understand and know it is an expansion of Melrose high school in terms of learning space in classrooms dealing with the variety of programs that are now offered it's also a security project in terms of bringing together all the school's administration into one area to coordinate better
▶ 5:59 communication safety and in progress for the school it's also a stem project with CAD it's also a media project with our television news television studio proposed it's also a rehabilitation project for underutilized space it's it's a number of things and it's often really hard to label such a broad project so I So I hope at the end of the presentation this evening and the questions and the information that you have, we can explain better to the people of Melrose through this meeting and the information that we provided that this is a multifaceted project that shouldn't be labeled as one thing. Does it have technology? Yes. But it also has a lot of other things, including a space for the public to meet in, a place for professional development. We could go on and on and on.
▶ 6:53 uh it is not simply a library or media center it's many things and i want to personally thank the board and i hope over the last few weeks uh that we have answered many of your questions and you certainly have heard from your constituents regarding this issue and again i ask for your support tonight thank you very much does anyone have any questions for the mayor before you go sir mayor just in case any of the aldermen have questions for you does anyone have any questions for mayor dolan no okay who else would you like to uh have join you sir anyone who you want we have finance we have our superintendent we have our architect our project manager we have our i.t we have our city planner who's ultimately responsible for this project so any questions
▶ 7:32 Monica C. Medeiros: unless you want them all here they can come up as needed or whatever the will of the committee is very good uh i think we'll take them as needed are there any aldermen who uh have any questions and to whom would you like to direct a question alderman boyce are you giving me a signal no no any any ultimate questions alderman Medeiros please thank you uh maybe miss gaffey if you could come up i first of all i just i want to thank you i want to thank mayor dolan a lot of actually the comments i wanted to start off with today uh he he did address uh in particular i want to thank miss gaffey i know you had a large request for information from us and you responded you know quickly and thoroughly and i personally very much appreciate that um taking us on the tour
▶ 8:33 Monica C. Medeiros: and providing us you know plenty of backup um i wanted to say it's a little bit uh unfortunate because i think as i mentioned at the last meeting i had been on the school building committee so i know that certainly when you see all of the the meetings that went back through 2012 that plenty We certainly had many, many public meetings in regard to this project. I know this is not your part right now, but I do think it's somewhat unfortunate that when this order did come to us, and unfortunately it's not the first time that this has happened, that as of the last meeting that we had, we only had two pieces of paper. I have a few notes on this one, but that was it that had been supplied to us as of the
▶ 9:25 Monica C. Medeiros: morning of our our meeting so I think the questions that the alderman had were you know very reasonable and and I think you know moving forward and I guess to the mayor and administration if you know this is not the first time we've had projects of bonding that have come up with without as full documentation as we'd like and I think it's unfortunate because it created I think in some perspective the idea that maybe there was something to hide and most certainly I don't believe that that's the case and but it the more information that's provided upfront I think is better so you did provide us plenty of information and one of the the questions that has been raised to me and I know it's it's in some of the meeting notices is how if you could just kind of walk
▶ 10:16 Denise Gaffey: the public through the process of how we got you know some of the votes that this board had taken to study this project and how the how tap a was was chosen and kind of walk the public through that sure happy to do that and I did prepare a memorandum it was one of the items that was requested that was relative to to the CIP process that I think the public wants to get a good background on the process that's a good document to refer to but I think I think really I know that the the mayor has made the high school a priority for I don't know probably the last 10 years and it really started with the the middle school project when we took advantage of the the fact that we needed to create swing space for the eighth graders during that project and we we realized that we could
▶ 11:14 Denise Gaffey: at the same time build out the open space that never worked effectively in the high school in order to do that so that was really the first major high school renovation project and since that time there were there were several other projects that generally speaking I think the the priorities were sort of based on both based on need and also based on funding availability I talked about the the unique financing arrangement with the athletic complex that allowed the city to embark on that four and a half million dollar project that was really important and but several years ago I'd say maybe three or four years ago the administration and the school administration spoke about the need for the for the investment in the Resource Center I can I can I can remember today
▶ 12:02 Denise Gaffey: the meeting that happened in the Resource Center the public it was a a press event where we talked about that being the next major project and that was probably about three years ago or maybe four years ago now but what happened as I outlined in the memorandum what happened well so so that announcement was made and then we came to the Alderman for funding authorization for a feasibility study so that was the first funding authorization that we saw it it was back in May I think of 2011 and those dates are all in that memorandum I don't do I didn't memorize them but I think that's right which is all available for the public to see so that was the we came to the the Board of Aldermen to get the funding for the master plan the feasibility study
▶ 12:42 Denise Gaffey: that was going to you know primarily focus on the Resource Center but also look at some of the other spaces in the building and make sure we were planning for the future and that funding was received by was was granted by the Alderman and then we proceeded to meet with the building committee designate a design review subcommittee who then went and selected went through a design review subcommittee process I'm sorry designer selection we had a designer selection committee that that went through the selection process to hire the project manager and the architect so that that all happened about three years ago and at about the same time we had we had also a couple of sorry about a couple of months after that we came back for an additional funding authorization
▶ 13:29 Denise Gaffey: was about $250,000 because we knew we needed, we would need additional funding to advance the, to go, you know, in order to make the feasibility study happen and to hire the project management that was necessary to do that. So that was the second funding authorization that was, again, related to the same project. So we had secured the services of the architect and the project manager at that time, but then what happened several months after that? There was some initial feasibility work that was done, but we sort of put the project on hold for a while because we got the science lab grant opportunity, which at the time nobody could have foreseen. It was a one-time program by the school building authority, and it was to provide 50 percent
▶ 14:19 Denise Gaffey: of the funding of new science labs. Again, because of the open space concept in our building, which was so inefficient, it created a great opportunity based on the parameters of the science lab program to create brand new state-of-the-art science labs in the flexible kind of program that they were that they were modeling that they were piloting so we we so we we sort of shifted gears a little bit I think there was unanimous support among the alderman to do that it made a lot of sense to take advantage of 50 cents on the dollar and so that that project really preoccupied our time through 2012 and into 2013 and then as I outlined in the in the in the memorandum we we as that problem as that project was coming to completion we were
▶ 15:10 Denise Gaffey: confronted with the fact that the heating heating ventilation and mechanical systems in the building were failing we were also doing some assessment regarding energy efficiency as part of the ESCO project so we were we were both assessing the the feasibility of the system and realizing that it couldn't effectively be be maintained any longer and so again we were able to take advantage of green community funding green community grant funding to apply towards an HVAC project so that that sort of again kind of bumped the the Learning Commons and feasibility study project for the time being so we could complete the HVAC system which you know has been successfully done it was completed in the fall of this past year we're sort of
▶ 15:58 Denise Gaffey: just finalizing punch list items now will be what we'll be firing up the chiller in a couple of weeks actually to to make sure that's working but the system the upgrade has worked really effectively so with that project kind of winding down this past summer and fall we sort of ramped up and accelerated the Learning Commons project so that kind of brings you to where we are today sort of part of it was just taking advantage of opportunities grant opportunities which were which we were really fortunate to take advantage of but knowing always that that that this project that we're here to talk about tonight was of high priority for both the school administration and for the city administration and and then so in some of the new material that we've received
▶ 16:50 Monica C. Medeiros: we do have we do have sort of a more detailed breakdown of where the five point three million dollars would go I believe from my recollection from some of our meetings I know one of the questions last week had been about the contingency and I believe if I'm not correct if my memory is right that we have built into this project kind of expecting that we might have removal of possibly asbestos and we will absolutely have abatement issues with this project and so and that's built into it's built into the construction number so therefore we don't need the contingency to be quite as high because we've well we won't need the contingency for that we'll need the contingency for unforeseen conditions during construction and and I think that you
▶ 17:45 Monica C. Medeiros: know that the mayor touched upon this and I think it's you know it's it's nice to have the jazzy name of the Learning Commons but it's really it really is a much larger project and you know attacks three floors of our high school and not just the Resource Center itself and I think it's important for the people at home to know that I did get to go on the tour again and you know I think it was very worthwhile after you know having gone through the high school myself having been in the building numerous times as an alderman and especially doing the tour a few years ago I think it's good to see again with your own the the space and you know so there's different questions before us tonight about whether or not you know whether or not this is a worthy expenditure or
▶ 18:40 Monica C. Medeiros: something that we need and do we have the ability and and if so should we do it now and I you know I think from going into that building I know when I ran for school committee way back when and one of the things that was a concern was to make sure that we were adequately maintaining the buildings that we do have I know that the high school is kind of you know it's a tough building as many classrooms that are you know if if I had millions of dollars you know with unlimited funds I'd love to build a whole new high school but we don't have that the mayor said that it would cost a hundred million dollars to rebuild the building this at five point three million dollars is you know only five percent of that and I think if you look at this in terms of you know what are we
▶ 19:32 Monica C. Medeiros: getting and for the value of the money if we tried to you know we had to rebuild if we took five percent of what it would cost to rebuild any of our homes you know it it might not even get you a cold kitchenery renovation and here we're getting three floors and it's it's three floors and it's different aspects it's it's putting there's this certainly a safety aspect that we saw when we were on the tour where you know right now people can go and we know safety of our students is a high high priority we know people can come pretty much right into the building and go right upstairs this would create a separate entrance way to have sort of a stoppage and more control of the public coming into the building be able to put guidance down the first floor which
▶ 20:31 Monica C. Medeiros: would help student services which help administration which would help with safety and let us repurpose some of the other areas that we've talked about tonight so I think it's a worthwhile project I think in terms of is it a need one of the most compelling things we heard was from miss Farrell last week saying you know that she had a professional development group together and they they all had devices and they were ready to work on something together and because our our Wi-Fi and our internet capacity wasn't there and building they weren't able to move forward and do that and so this would would upgrade that so I think these kinds of things make this a need in a question of whether or not we can do this now it's this is within our five
▶ 21:24 Monica C. Medeiros: percent of our operating budget is within the policy that our mayor and our administration has set forth and we're at a time where we're in our cities has the best bond rating in the history of the city so makes it the most favorable in terms of borrowing we think about can we wait and we already have waited as you pointed out to do this project and I saw the difference with my own eyes of that space in yes the Resource Center and beyond and and how two years had affected that space we know that technology is changing and it's changing the world we live in and it's in the way things go and we need to be able to have the infrastructure in place to let the kids you know be able to compete and and
▶ 22:20 Monica C. Medeiros: have the skills that they need to be able to go out and all of us at work probably have a computer even if you're even if you're at a restaurant you've got a computer or a tablet now that you're doing work on so it's it's important and lastly we have to look at what's happening in the outside environment and you know very soon there would be construction probably for a casino nearby there's a lot of talk we don't know what will happen with the Olympics but should that come into play that will absolutely drive the cost of construction up dramatically in greater boston and you know if we wait we might be faced with competing for contractors and and much higher construction costs so um i i thank you for coming
▶ 23:13 up and i'm just wanted to let everybody know i'm going to support this tonight for those reasons thanks thank you walderman Medeiros president khan please yeah um the first thing i want to do is go from the global back to a very parochial issue I'm glad we have a lot of information tonight we needed this information to evaluate this project but one of the things that's troubling to me is the Board of Aldermen needs to do its job and our job is to review things like this major expenditures in the city bonding financial proposals and i don't think we're doing a great job of doing our job and we need to get the information that we need to do our job and we need to evaluate it and we need to serve our role as the legislative body of the city and in my 16 years of as an alderman we've done
▶ 24:28 many many wonderful projects uh we've done many wonderful projects with this mayor he he supported as did i the the middle school debt exclusion he came up with a good proposal to fund the track and the athletic field proposal but in all instances this board needs to remember what its role is and the role is to objectively evaluate plans and vote on them after seeking information not to be cheerleaders voting with no information but to do our job and i want to see us do a better job of that going forward because if there is a disconnect relative to information we bear some responsibility to because too many times it appears that this Board of Aldermen isn't interested in getting or evaluating information as we should and I hope that
▶ 25:27 that changes in the future I've been very disappointed on many occasions that we don't seem to want to discuss things and that we don't want to seem to delve into even the most basic information that we are elected to evaluate and look at that that's all on that for a moment miss Gaffer you're on the school building committee is that correct and does that body keep minutes of all of its meetings we do you know I take minutes of all the meetings who's the custodian of the minutes I am okay and that bought that body is supportive of this proposal is that correct correct it didn't take any official vote to support this project did it and it's it's not really it's practice to take votes is that correct it's not and in terms of the cost analysis and hopefully the
▶ 26:26 Denise Gaffey: public has looked at the information that's been put put up on IQ m2 who prepared the cost analysis was it was it tap paid it was prepared by a consultant who has a contract through tepe and that's municipal building consultants no it's um pm and c and who was municipal building so municipal building consultants is our our project manager pat sayada that's the name of his firm so he took the um the detailed cost estimate that's done by a cost estimator and then he provided um he summarized the the construction numbers and added and the broke down sort of the soft costs so so this summary sheet that we have is a summary that that they compiled based on the feasibility study that we were given based on
▶ 27:15 Denise Gaffey: the feasibility study and the cost estimate that was done by pm and c on data january 15 2015. and can you explain for me the variances between the bottom lines on those two uh those two reports um the bottom lines so the cost estimate um that's performed performed by the by the the estimator um is summarizing the the the hard costs that's the that's the four two nine eight oh eight seven right so that's summarizing the the hard construction number the actual the you know demolition the abatement the new materials that are being purchased and then the installation of the construction the actual hard labor so then on top of that we have the soft costs which are items like project management fees which is the 217 thousand the architectural fees that's
▶ 28:23 Denise Gaffey: all the designing all the design and engineering fees are four hundred and twenty thousand and then we have a series of a couple of consultants that will be involved like it has Matt consultants and testing consultant remove hazmat removal monitoring and testing agencies that kind of stuff and then we have FF&E and technology so we have numbers in here for the purchase of furniture and the purchase of technology equipment and then at the bottom number is the construction contingency which is essentially at this point we're carrying five percent of the estimated construction now in terms of your your schedule from what i read you hope to be able to put this project out to bid in november is that correct and can you tell me what steps you take
▶ 29:12 Denise Gaffey: leading up to november please to get to november so um once the funding is approved um we will be be able to advance the design because right now we're really at this you know early very early schematic design so we need to that will involve a series of additional programming meetings with staff and end users and then it'll it'll involve just a series of design iterations design development of sorry schematic design design development and then construction documents sort of three phases of design which are typical to any design project and at each one one of those phases we refine the costs we get we get cost estimates and further refine the costs so that when we when the construction documents are complete
▶ 29:58 and we put the project out to bid we have a pretty good idea of what the number is going to be and based on my review of all of these documents what I want to ask you is it's it's the consensus of the school building committee the Melrose school committee the superintendent and the administration that this is the highest priority project for Melrose High School at this time is that a fair statement I think there's a fair statement based on the feedback we've gotten I don't think I have any questions from his gaffey further at this time as the chairman would you like to speak to any of the other department heads or city officials at this time well I'd like to speak to many people but I'll defer my questions at this point I don't know whether any
▶ 30:48 Denise Gaffey: other people have questions from this gaffey very good thank you anybody else wishing to be heard at this time the school building committee is is made up of can you just tell us who typically is on that sure I can give you I'm I can give you all the names actually if you give me one moment I know it's dig through my pile your office so it is the the co-chairs of the committee are the Superintendent Cindy Taymor and John McLaughlin who is a who is the chairperson through the middle school has been on the been a chair Since the middle construction of the middle school We have a citizen by the name of Gregory Aloy citizen representative we have a school committee member Chris Cassatelli fills that role right now and
▶ 31:41 Denise Gaffey: Throughout the last three years. We've had the aldermanic representative has been Monica Medeiros that that has recently switched to Alderman on women and we just haven't had any meetings since that happened mayor Dolan is on the committee George Doyle right now is a citizen representative on the committee myself Mike Lindstrom was the mayor's assistant and Joseph Nevin is on a committee as our citizen representative and John Chenna who's we've had various people over the years who have represented facilities and currently that that role is filled by John thank you I just wanted to make sure that in fact we do have yeah we always have when I was on it as a school committee representative when we did the Lincoln and the
▶ 32:31 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Roosevelt and the middle school I think and I was fairly certain that we had an automatic representative and I am happy that we do that I understand president upon concern that this board, you know, needs to be sure that we are aware of what's going on with these projects. I'm going to be putting forward an order requesting that any all-demand group representatives to any outside boards give a monthly update. So that this board can be informed when there is a meeting of the water department, or the water committee, or the building committee. And so as we go forward, there won't be quite as much of a surprise to some members who haven't had an opportunity to inform themselves otherwise. But thank you, Ms. Medeiros, for your service the last three years, and we look forward to more reports from Alderman Lemmerman going forward.
▶ 33:28 Jaclyn L. Bird: I think it's a great committee. It's always been, I think, very inclusive, as well as available to anybody to go to or drop in at. So I think we all hold a certain amount of personal responsibility to be informed on that as well. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Any other Alderman wishing to be heard at this time? Alderman Lavender Bird, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few questions, Ms. Gaffey. Just to go back to the process a little bit for the School Building Committee, we've heard a lot of talk about how this project has been talked about for several years and sort of throwing out kind of an assumption that we should all know about it for that reason and that sort of thing, but it sounds like
▶ 34:14 Jaclyn L. Bird: it's also changed and evolved a lot because of the science lab project taking priority, the HVAC project taking priority for several reasons. So would it be fair to say that really this project has been the focus for the last year, from January to now, maybe a year and a half? Yeah, and maybe not even that long, really. maybe since the since the spring and that the meeting minutes that we have it looks like it's a little bit of a hodgepodge of sort of who was in charge of taking those and how the meetings are documented is that typical for the school building committee or is that something that what I'm curious about a lot of the information that we asked for it seemed like it was maybe not readily
▶ 34:59 Jaclyn L. Bird: available or something that was being created you know after the fact and I don't know if the meeting minutes fall into that category I know some of the information that was collected about sort of the impact at the high school and certain things that I would have expected to be part of the process as we got towards a proposal probably you know would have expected to be part of that process we're meeting minutes taken all the way through was this something that we kind of looked back and said okay what did we talk about at those meetings all the information that I gave you except for the memorandums whereas information that existed that exists and I think maybe a little bit confusing is sometimes we have school building committee meetings and sometimes we have
▶ 35:37 Denise Gaffey: client meetings and those meetings are usually run by the architect and they include just they were usually very targeted means that specifically include user groups like the administrator in you know in this case it would be Cindy and Mary Ann and in their team and they're not they're not building committee meetings per se they're their client committee meetings so that's why it look that's why some of the meeting minutes came on letterhead from tap a the same would be true for the science lab project we would have I would have I have minutes in my folder in my files from AI 3 who was the architect on that project and those are minutes that they did to document the client committee meetings which were very they're very hands-on nitty-gritty design oriented
▶ 36:25 Denise Gaffey: meetings I mean the school building this is sort of the process we've always followed but the school building committee meetings are more high level I mean we are certainly you know we go to the school building to endorse the project but also to when we get into selecting professionals or going out to bid and making awards to contractors or deciding what our alternates are going to be I mean these are the kind of high-level decisions that our building committee weighs in on but the nitty-gritty sort of you know roll up your sleeves and and talk about how many computers are needed in a given classroom are really best made by the users the professionals are going to use the space okay and we're teachers yet teachers at the high school brought
▶ 37:07 Jaclyn L. Bird: in at that point or are they sort of you're just saying they're weighing in further down the road but we have had some preliminary discussions with teachers but we there will be more meetings okay and then can you talk specifically about two of the line items in the breakdown the project breakdown sure the FF and Eve mm sorry two hundred and ten thousand and the technology the one hundred and twenty thousand can you talk a little bit about what those are going to include exactly I know we have some breakdown but yeah and and you know this is um I just want to preface it by saying it is a feasibility study budget so these numbers are somewhat approximate and we are we are going to live to the bottom line but the numbers might move around a little bit right now
▶ 37:51 Denise Gaffey: our preliminary thinking is that the two hundred and ten thousand dollars will be the number that we need to outfit this the new spaces that we're creating print with new furniture and likewise with technology we you know we've heard we've had some preliminary discussions with a technology consultant about and with the the end users about what the technology needs are going to be and we've come up with that as a budget number when you say the technology needs do you mean mostly wiring connectivity no I don't actually all the infrastructure like that is built into the construction number so I took this technology number is is equipment is laptop computers laptop carts desktop robust desktops in
▶ 38:34 Denise Gaffey: the cab lab that kind of thing okay and is that and I don't know if this is the right question for you or for someone else here but if so that's different than the upcoming technology upgrades and leases that we're going to be talking about in the coming weeks it is I mean they're there it's going to be a little bit of overlap I think some of the the numbers that that George paces is carrying and the technology budget will also be used to serve some of these spaces but I don't have them I don't have an exact breakdown I think that's it for now mr. chairman thank you Thank You alderman lavender bird any other alderman wishing to be heard for the first time alderman Boyce L please the committee has been very busy in the past few years and I have to thank them for
▶ 39:32 Robert A. Boisselle: that it's looking at the record of the high school roof and the HVAC operations in the science labs the school has really improved quite a bit I had a chance to visit the science lab with the principal this past week and actually in action you might say with the students and the technology in full operation with the whiteboards and the computers along the walls and so forth and it was very impressive and hopefully the this will come out similar to that in that aspects I have a question concerning HVAC in the in the original in the past project it are any of these areas going to be covered again with this construction in other words you did HVAC in the high school right and you also have HVAC almost half a million dollars right again so are we double no no here
▶ 40:35 Denise Gaffey: or no because we knew this project well we we thought this project would be forthcoming so we we have designed the systems in the building to accommodate changes in these spaces just you know as a reminder the the HVAC project that we just completed which was about a three million dollar project was really to rebuild the mechanical systems in the boiler plant and to in the boiler and chiller plant I should say it we didn't have sufficient funding to do all the distribution in the building so the ductwork in the building is is for the most part original to building with exception of those new spaces that we work on, which is one of the nice things about doing the spaces and doing this approach.
▶ 41:18 Denise Gaffey: The open space that was done 12 years ago when classrooms were created, all new duct work and mechanical systems was done as part of that, likewise with the science wing. So that number is accommodating the duct work and other types of mechanical upgrades that we can make when we go and go above the ceiling and attack these spaces you also have well all the materials talked about the hazardous materials removal and she mentioned asbestos is that the hazardous material that's been identified as a problem in this construction or we haven't done the identification yet we just know from experience with the science labs in particular what to expect with um when we when we come around and doing demolition so there may be other materials
▶ 42:09 Denise Gaffey: that you're not aware of there maybe although the city does the school department is required to do um and keep up to date an error report where they occasionally you know they yeah you have science labs chem chemicals and so forth so i'm just wondering if if those who were accounted for again we haven't done any thorough the thorough testing yet but we feel like we have a pretty good pretty good idea in a, in a good place holder in that, for that work. Okay. Back to the furniture that's there now. Is any of that going to be recycled within the school or moved out into the outer, other schools? I really can't answer that question. I imagine it will be reused. Yeah. Everything gets reused, right?
▶ 42:52 It's sort of like when you put stuff out on the curb and it's gone in a half hour. So that's basically, every time we've done a renovation, we put out a notice to all the other buildings that we have materials and equipment, if you would like it. And it's not a pretty sight, but if whatever we can recycle, we recycle anything we cannot recycle among ourselves. The administrator for finance puts out forbid in accordance with state regulations. Very good. Yeah, we also have the technology section here of 120,000. What does that mean, 120,000? Are we talking 90, 100, 200 computers, or? It's, it's not. Do we want IT? That 120,000, as Gaffney mentioned, it's a rough number. We're looking at about 70 computers.
▶ 44:00 How many? 70 to 75 computers in that space. It's, it's important to note that some of those computers are CAD computers and graphics computers, so they're a little higher end than just a regular desktop that you might buy, like a regular classroom. So that's why you're looking at that. So you have about 50, I believe, I saw at the present site in the center. where are they staying or being upgraded or moved to other schools well the ones that are there will need to be retired um and retired or recycled well we generally recycle them but yeah so we retired and we put them up to pasture and we give them to john chena who does something with them but um yeah those really need to go they're they are older um they would ideally
▶ 44:51 Robert A. Boisselle: be replaced as part of our tech plan which would replenish computers across the district it just seems that 75 seems to be a low number i mean when you read the comments i'm receiving that there was always a problem with having access to technology and 75 seems to be low i think it is a little low we're actually thinking about like three computer carts with three laptop carts in the library space itself which would be about somewhere between 75 and 90 so let me expand on that a little bit so and you'll be seeing we'll be putting out the technology report next week at next I this coming Tuesday school committee meeting you have to think when we say technology and expensive for the technology you can't think just devices
▶ 45:42 you have to think about more than devices so let me give you an example so in here when we met with the staff on what they need or what um they thought would enhance the programs one of the things that we will be purchasing is a 3d printer that is technology in order to do some of the robotics work we're doing and the engineering work we're doing we need a 3d printer it's becoming pretty standard in the field when you have technology and you have the carts we have to have carts that and george can help me here that have a management system embedded in the cots because every time you have to upgrade an application on the tablets you certainly don't want to be going through 75 tablets hand by hand so there is a special
▶ 46:28 cart they fit into the application upgrade goes into the cart and all the computers are upgraded there will be a need for some printers as well there is probably some other specialized equipment in terms of that if this is this is past that presentation space needs a whiteboard it needs a projector some of the some of the project rooms need smart boards so it's so it's very difficult to think of it as well if I'm spending a hundred thousand dollars and computers are two thousand dollars of each that should give me X number of computers it's a much more complicated definition of technology question again in the point that these are rough numbers if the numbers come out lower than 5.3 will that money be directed to
▶ 47:27 Denise Gaffey: the technology section not necessarily not necessarily I think when the school building committee reconvenes when when we're at a further down the road on this project one of the things that they do is they work with the schools to identify help me on the terminology and alternative or an alternate alternates alternates we would probably build it we are in fact already plenty to build an alternate into this project the stem piece that you saw in the master plan documentation is that stem classroom is is already envisioned to be an alternate because we we know these numbers are going to be what we think the numbers might be tight so we're gonna bid that piece as an alternate and if we're lucky
▶ 48:11 Denise Gaffey: the numbers will come in low and we'll be able to award that that um that work is that listed it's in the uh actually no listed on the sheet the budget update that i have here to 20 2015. it's not because we we don't we have not um because it's an alternate it's outside of the budget but if the money is there it will be directed to the stem project yeah that's that is the thinking right now that's my first choice okay is that documented anywhere or just in our discussion at the building committee meeting the last meeting all right and it's on the master plan documents the plans that you got that plan set it is talked about there in the total budget what is the final cost for this project five point three final five the final cost five million three hundred thousand
▶ 49:07 dollars and you're borrowing that money I believe that is the intent okay and the interest is added into this the interest would be above this amount right all right so the total project what we expected to cost in today's when we bid it out so the total cost would be 5.3 million plus interest right which I believe there's an amortization schedule that was submitted as about 4.2 million i believe okay okay thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman board self i think for the second time i first saw alderman Medeiros did you signally that you wish to be heard again uh yes i'd like to just uh add something yeah very good then and then alderman khan you'll be uh after alderman Medeiros for the second time then alderman byrd will be for the second time
▶ 49:55 Monica C. Medeiros: after president khan i did please proceed thank you i did just want to point out i know i kind of caught uh ms gaffey right at the beginning of the meeting but this uh this idea and this concept has come before this board and i and basically every member here except for alderman lemmerman who's new and alderman forbes uh who had been new uh in and she does have it outlined in the cip process memo that in december of 2011 through order number 2012-54 we voted to spend our author spending of $25,000 on a feasibility study for this project there was discussion at that time and again in the following April 2012 it is order number 2012 dash 134 where this board authorized two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for design and project management services so I just wanted to
▶ 50:56 pointed out with the actual order numbers and the time frame to kind of refresh everybody's memory thank you thank you alderman Medeiros president Khan please yeah I didn't really need my memory to be refreshed I understand that we voted prior to for a feasibility study and when I vote for a feasibility study I'm voting for a feasibility study the order that's before us this evening for a 5.3 million dollar bond which is completely different um so this didn't fall like a bolt of from the sky but it's certainly fair and appropriate for us to ask for cost breakdowns before we vote on an order of this magnitude but i digress superintendent um i read your material relative to staffing and my understanding is that you don't believe
▶ 51:53 that this project is going to require to be supported by any additional staffing is that correct I say that at this time okay right now what one of the benefits of reconfiguring where we put people is we're able to pool the staffing right now we only have three of the staff on site so to speak by reconfiguring where we put the CAD lab the business lab and some other classrooms we will now have have I think believe six people on site so that will give us a healthy adult to student ratio I think I believe I try to explain in my memo that whenever we do electives at a high school there's a great deal of flexibility depending on subscription and classes ebb and flow with that subscription so while I have
▶ 52:51 identified one two three four five about six people on site right now if let's say more technology was to be used there would be a shift in staffing so instead of for example right now we do forensics if forensics was to fall away and engineering was to be increased what would happen is the point four that is assigned to forensics would be shifted to engineering so it's not necessarily the addition of a staff it's the reallocation and the reorganization of staff that happens all the time at the high school okay that's the only question I had for the superintendent Thank You president Kahn Alderman lavender bird please thank you mr. chairman actually mr. pesos could come back up to and actually mr. mayor if you wouldn't mind coming forward as well
▶ 53:47 Jaclyn L. Bird: this is probably a kind of a several part question I think one of the things that concerns me is sort of the order in which we're talking about some of these different funding mechanisms that all relate to school funding so what I think what I'd like to be able to do I'm excited about this project don't get me wrong I was excited about it the last time we met you know I don't I haven't talked to anybody that you know doesn't think that that space is tired and could use some renovation so and I was happy to participate in the tour and see the space firsthand I think that part of my concern is that I feel like I'm looking at this sort of through this small lens looking at the bond you know just by
▶ 54:32 Jaclyn L. Bird: itself and I think that maybe how you're viewing it is through a wider lens with the kind of big picture of the bond the technology plan that we've talked about coming up in the next couple of weeks the school budget that's going to be coming out in probably about three weeks and sort of seeing it through that whole picture and I think part of the thing that I'm struggling with is sort of we talk about what technology is included in this piece what technology is going to be included in that piece are there staffing issues that are going to come up do we know what the budget for this year is going to look like as far as and you know a larger deficit I just feel like I don't have a clear picture of
▶ 55:09 Jaclyn L. Bird: that and I think that that's you know I wish I had the same view that you had right now with that information so I didn't know if you want to talk a little bit about that I think it'd be helpful to kind of have that all out and I don't know if there's a reason we're sort of doing it piecemeal but yeah and maybe it It just makes sense to do, I understand that there are different funding mechanisms, but one's long term, one's operating and so forth. But to me it's kind of all addressing similar issues, so I didn't know if you could talk a little bit about that. Sure, yeah, we, in this administration, try to solve problems, and that's what we try to do. And we try to solve problems, in many cases, that have been unsolved for many generations.
▶ 55:45 At no fault of any individual in the past, sometimes the economy dictated that. sometimes different grants that are available now, that sometimes will in priority. I think in 14 years it has been very clear that those who have served with me during that time, that the Norris Public Schools, we build our budget around the needs of education in this city. I believe that education is the foundation, not to be cliche, but for this particular community as a bedroom community. be it our economy, our home values, our quality of life, based upon the quality of our schools. And the world has changed tremendously over the last even five years as it pertains to the technology. And I would not claim for a second to be a technology expert.
▶ 56:36 But I set out, as Denise said, 13 years ago to revamp the entire high school, middle school campus. Because it is the most highly populated part of the city every day from 8 AM to now almost 4 to 5 PM, in which we have over 1,000 children and adults in both schools. And in this committee has been with us all the way. And we have set a continuous path of those improvements. I often call it the Fenway Park approach. Every time you go to Fenway, you see something different in improvements that's been made. Because as we said, we've studied this and we can't build a new high school. Technology has changed dramatically from the times, forget me, but even my youngest son Ryan, the fourth grade would go down to the technology lab and sit in the computer for an hour.
▶ 57:37 Now it is totally integrated into every aspect of pre-K through high school. Even kindergarten homework right now in my house is being done on an iPad with Lexia and- IXL. IXL math and reading. So the way we were doing it is very similar to the way we were doing roads or projects in this town for a number of years, which is when money came up, we put it towards that issue. And how we collectively dealt with roads is that now we have a $1.5 million bond. We ranked them, and we have an ongoing plan with a funding mechanism to be able to do not just roads, but all the different things we have in the community. We don't end up with holding the bag of all sorts of poor infrastructure, poor trucks or parks, etc.
▶ 58:32 We didn't have any plan for technology. And one positive point that the mayor being on the school committee is that allowed me to see how negatively the schools were affected by this. And the fact that, due to financial crisis in the state, we had to keep people working. So in the schools, and even in the city, when George said we need another 200,000 for computers, we had to say, well, we have to keep teachers working, can you hold on another year? Because George is a good manager, he said yes. Well, that 200,000 has turned into more, because when we put things off, it only costs more money. And we had no options at the time because we had to deal with the economy. So we have a group much smarter than myself, made up of citizen volunteers.
▶ 59:26 Many of the projects stem from that approach about how do we solve this problem. And we've talked about it now for several months through an audit as well as the committee. And I think we have a really good plan. I think we have a good plan. It's not done yet, but we're going to present it at the May meeting. But it's a holistic plan that once again keeps with our strategy of not two countries, the schools and the city. We are one community with one goal of upkeep of technology in the city and in the schools, as we've done with maintenance and DPW. I think it's a better, most cost effective management approach, and that plan will be presented. So although this aspect happens to have technology in it, it is a much larger solution,
▶ 1:00:11 Peter D. Mortimer: I believe, to a problem that's plagued the city for a long time. hope that explains a few of the excuse me please excuse me I'm gonna have to stop you right there under the open meeting law to comport with the open meeting law the rules of our board require that meetings that are posted have to start within a half an hour we have two other committee meetings on tonight one was posted for eight one was posted for 815 maybe we'll start and recess them and And then we can get back to this bond question in the Appropriations Committee. But the next one must start by quarter of nine, and whether we'll do them both now or wait until quarter of nine, that would be the president of the board's call, President Kahn.
▶ 1:00:56 Gail Infurna: But right now, I would ask for a motion to recess. Motion to recess. Second. We have a motion to recess by Alderman Medeiros. Second. Seconded by Alderman Byrd. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, please stay tuned. Appropriations Committee will be back very shortly and we can continue discussing this very important bond be at the hour of 831 on Thursday evening April 9th the Public Works Committee will now commence and we'll just do a few housekeeping things and And then we will recess Voting members on this committee are alderman Medeiros alderman Margolis alderman Lemmerman and alderman Boisselle All those present are President Kahn, Alderman Byrd, Alderman Mortimer, Alderman Tramontozzi.
▶ 1:05:20 Jaclyn L. Bird: please come back to the desk And Alderman Byrd had the floor when we went into recess, and she continues to have the floor at this point. Please continue, Alderman Byrd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for coming back. So I guess my point was, and I appreciate the background information, I guess my point is that I feel like it's a piecemeal approach right now, and I think we're looking at, it may not be to you, because I feel like you're looking at it from a broader perspective than what we have right now in front of us. So what we have in front of us is the bond, which until the information was given to us a week ago without a breakdown, I didn't even realize how much technology would actually be included
▶ 1:05:58 Jaclyn L. Bird: in this project. You know, it was such a general breakdown that we didn't really have that. So what I'm trying to figure out is kind of how these pieces are gonna fit together. So it sounds like status quo staff moving into the same new space that's being developed, but new equipment coming in under the bond, and then further new equipment eventually we're gonna be talking about down the road. And I'm just wondering if it makes sense to wait and talk about some of these things in a combined fashion. You know? Because as I said in the beginning, this isn't a technology project. No, it's not. It's not a technology project. Multi-faceted construction. But it will be affected by the technology plan.
▶ 1:06:36 Jaclyn L. Bird: They all are sort of, you know. Yeah, I get it. Depend on each other, right? So would it make sense then to have the, you know, I'm anticipating the budget will be out, what, three weeks, to have the budget as we discuss this project as well? Or do you feel like that, you know, we shouldn't have the same kind of broad perspective of these different projects as we go forward? That's up to the board. My position is that there is enough information at this time and a plan in place to vote on this project. Obviously, that's, as I said earlier, we propose and you decide. There are concerns, you know, we want to get started, obviously, but we can't get started without approval. So it's obviously the will of this board.
▶ 1:07:17 So one of the things that I would say, Alderman Byrd, is, again, you have to widen your vision of technology. When we sat with the architects and the project manager, they bring in a consulting company around technology. It's not technology like George does for me when I say, should I buy this machine versus that machine? They come in and they're talking about that when you pull back the walls, where are you going to put your drops? where do you need your your access points it's a very it's a very construction based discussion and that's why when Alderman Boisselle says it doesn't seem to be a lot of machines for that budget is because there's many more pieces to the technology to the Learning Commons than machines and we in there's
▶ 1:08:07 a fair amount of work to be done when they begin to pull back the walls and the ceiling there just like we did when we did the science labs when we realized that we could go to the studs on the science lab again the architects brought in a technology consulting firm to talk about what goes behind the walls and then what basically protrudes from the walls so that all your devices can work so again it's a it's a very restrictive view to think about technology that way and when I just yeah I want to make clear I'm not thinking of technology in that way I mean I was the one who asked for the technology audit last year to make sure that we were really and I appreciate your support on that approach
▶ 1:08:45 you know so I don't I don't mean that I'm restricted that I know but I mean when you're talking about the library learning comments right right okay and when you talk about the technology plan that's coming forward next week don't forget now we're talking pre-k through 12 we're not just talking the high school we're talking eight buildings 3,700 children and the needs of those two children and this and the teachers in every department in the city and every department in the city so while they're while they're connected and while they are I would say symbiotic to some degree they really are very different aspects to the two plans and then when then when you talk about the school committee budget I mean I would defer to chairman Thorp who is in the
▶ 1:09:38 audience as to whether she thinks the budget will be ready to come down or mrs. Driscoll who was the chair of finance and facilities as to whether she'll think it'll be ready to come down in three weeks but again what you're talking about is everything from buying pencils to hiring you know replacement teachers for those that are about to retire so again it's there that interconnectedness but yet they can stand alone as projects just may add you know the budget will be down the city budget will be presented to the board we're estimating now at the 11th and we can do it a little sooner we'll try to do that but it should also be added the school department has been given the number in which they can spend but they have the school committee has fiscal
▶ 1:10:24 Jaclyn L. Bird: autonomy to spend it as they so choose so we'll have a budget down in the 11th just the school budget itself in terms of how they're going to spend their appropriation might not be completed the goal is to complete it but it might not be because there are some very a lot of moving targets in particular I know it's off-subject but the kindergarten grant which we lost $200,000 last week which is outrageous in a real setback for the city no and I think that's what I'm getting you know getting out of sort of that they are all standalone things I understand that but they are all connected they are they do you know play into each other certainly long-term borrowing is going to have an effect on general operating costs all of those kinds of things and and um was trying to see if it would
▶ 1:11:04 Denise Gaffey: make sense to hold it um ms gaffey could you talk about would that have a you know a severe impact on you as far as your planning purposes to wait a couple of weeks on that i think it would i think it would be really advantageous for us to to get the authorization as sooner rather than later we you know we are concerned we you know we're target targeting um the calendar year 2016 for construction and to get to that there's actually a lot of it an awful lot of work that has to happen and we want to be able to bid this in the fall so that we can can ensure that we're going to have a contractor on board for January construction so I'd be reluctant to advise waiting much longer the and if you remember from the discussion from last week there's two parts to this
▶ 1:11:52 project are actually three parts as um i think miss medeiros referenced and um the live the learning commons itself can be done while the students are in the building but it means that we need to close it down by december and that piece has to be almost finished by june because in order to do the student services suite we need the building to be empty and again everything has to be up and running when we reopen in august of 2016 other than the typical punch lists and minor things we did that with the science labs we've gotten quite skilled at it and we envision that it would be a similar schedule as the schedule was with the science labs excellent thank you i appreciate the background information and the detailed information i think already tonight's
▶ 1:12:47 Robert A. Boisselle: meeting is um you know much more productive than the last one that we had so thank you very much Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman bird alderman boy cell please just a little clarification earlier stay stay where you are a little clarification concerning the technology infrastructure you mentioned that was part of the construction budget of the four million right yep so the hundred and twenty thousand is strictly for equipment not the infrastructure that is right and the infrastructure is going Wi-Fi or wireless or are we talking cabling you the way she's talking about here is referring to cabling actual in the wall okay and the Wi-Fi is being picked up by the technology section or the you know is actually being picked up is part of
▶ 1:13:43 the tech plan although we already have a limited deployment of Wi-Fi at the high school so again it's some of its in the tech plan and some of it is in existence today but the infrastructure is covered by the by the construction budget all other infrastructure all the drops that she was talking about it's all in It's not in the construction, it's not in the 120,000. Correct. Correct, okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please. I'd like to make a motion to recommend order number 2015-111, authorizing a bond in the amount of $5.3 million to cover the construction of the interior renovations at Norris High School. Alderman McAteer-Margolis has made a recommendation for passage on the instant order.
▶ 1:14:35 Second. That motion for recommendation for passage has been duly seconded by Alderman Inferno. Is there any further discussion? President Kahn, please. Yeah, I don't have discussion on the motion. There are a couple of, if this moves forward this evening, a couple of items I'd like to ask mr. de la Rosa to get to us he and I miss connections earlier today so I didn't get to ask him in person but um I would like a break out of what the prior bonding has been relative to the renovations to the high school to date please and also and I know it's probably Probably not much, but if you could tell us what the impact to the taxpayer would be when this $300,000 per year charge comes online when we're fully bonded on this.
▶ 1:15:40 Peter D. Mortimer: And I expect it'll be a small number, but if you could have that to us before our next meeting, that would be good. Very good, thank you, President Conn. Before our next meeting, that information will be provided by Mr. DelaRusso. Would you be able to do that, Mr. DelaRusso? Thank you, sir. You weren't at the microphone, but just for people at home, Mr. DelaRusso has responded affirmatively and that he would do his best to provide that information. President Kahn and our clerk of committees has written down the information as well. We do have a motion on the floor, made and duly seconded to recommend this order for passage. Seeing no further discussion, we are now ready for the vote. All in favor, please say aye.
▶ 1:16:25 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order passes unanimously with all the members present voting affirmatively. And it will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting on April 21st. No, we're having a special meeting. Special meeting. On this one? Okay, next Monday there will be a special meeting. That will be on the 16th. 13th. 13th, the other 16th. Mondays and Thursdays, Mondays and Thursdays, 13 and 16, so we will have a special meeting and it's expected that information will be there. Thank you everyone. We have a motion to adjourn this meeting from Alderman Inferna. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. All in favor of adjournment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, video on appropriations is hereby adjourned.
▶ 1:17:18 Gail Infurna: Thank you, one and all. All of them in Boisselle? All of them in Boisselle? I'm not going to tell you, I told you, but. Next week? All of them in Boisselle, if you want to start right up. We're not doing it. No, I understand, I'm just telling you as an aside, just telling you as an aside. The Committee of Public Works will now resume, and we have three orders before us this evening. first order is order number two zero one five dash one one seven the acceptance of a 604b water management quality planning grant and the amount of fifty thousand dollars into fund number four zero one eight from the massachusetts department of environmental protection as set forth here in and open the floor i would like to recluse myself from this order because of my affiliations with