School Committee: January 14, 2023

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:20 [Music] [Music] I am just checking to see if everyone can hear me yes all right so I will call us to order at 903

0:48 um um is everybody here twice or is that just me I can hear it in your background okay um all right so we’re gonna open with public comments

2:18 but Sarah we can’t hear you you’re muted my morning for Tech so I didn’t see any hands for public comment and I’m just notifying everybody we’re gonna take items out of order because I do have a hard stop as I feel a few other people do as well so I want to make sure we get to certain items we’re going to jump ahead to the Eveleth Library memorandum of understanding discussion just to give everybody an overview we received Outreach a couple times from Kim who’s joined us from the library regarding the Eveleth building um water coming through the roof as well as a couple other issues if I recall I will um let you I’ll kick it off to Kim for a moment um and then we will go to Michelle just to recap the memorandum of understanding

3:08 hi everybody hi everybody um I’m Kim grad I’m the director of the library and um I did approach the school committee facilities team to request assistance with the cost of covering the roof repairs which are significant in that we’ve already incurred some damage from the leaks that are running down the hall um leaks in window areas and so on um so that’s that’s been a problem and on top of that the um boiler furnace system has also needed significant repairs in order for it to function and both of those things threaten our ability to operate as a

3:53 library if it’s too cold in the building we can’t open the library if our books are wet and Soggy and our people are wet and Soggy we can’t have the doors open um overall it’s been a pretty good space people have been enjoying it it’s set up wonderfully but these two issues are are hindering our our maintenance budget and it’s stretching us very thin since we’ve had to you know be in this building set it up um and also at the same time cover expenses in our other building during this interim space time before the contractor takes over so anyway we ask that the memo of understanding could be

4:38 adjusted to include um some of these repairs some assistance from the school department um and there is a clause which Michelle will go over where it says the mou may be amended from time to time so I guess that’s what we’re asking for and I I’m going to hand it over to Gary for any other comments Gary is our board chair and our building renovation committee chairperson yeah thank you thanks all thanks Kim um no it’s great summary and we should definitely suggest that we’re very grateful that we were able to use this facility as our temporary Library it’s been working out great as Kim mentioned and um when we when we toured the building I think we knew the boiler was in okay shape and would probably get us through at least you know the time that we were there

5:26 um we did not anticipate that you know there were roof leaks I think we had noticed one when we had done our initial tour and thought we could deal with that but um we had a couple rainstorms the last couple months um the leaks have grown and um you know we we understand we did enter in the mou and we did understand that we would be responsible for general maintenance which you know we we’ve paid for the boyo to get his annual inspection we’ve done some minor repairs to the boiler um and we understand you know that was kind of part of the deal but this what we’ve talked about is that this is a little bit over and above you know general maintenance this is you know almost in a Capital Improvements bucket and as Kim mentioned our budget is is pretty small and pretty tight and um

6:13 we didn’t we wanted to ask um if the school committee had anything in there you know maintenance budget or operational budget that was you know still still available to help us out I mean Kim mentioned significant costs were really only talking about you know six seven thousand dollars that we had to pay for a roofer to come out twice to to do some significant repairs I think the last time they were out they were paired over over I think 90 little holes and spots in the in the roof so um so again we’re we’re doing our best to keep the building in good shape um because it is a great building and you know hopefully when we’re done it can be used for you know another purpose whether it’s Parks and Rec again or some other um Town Town facility or town organization but um again we’re just

6:58 asking for some assistance to sort of help our budget because we haven’t taken care of both buildings and we all know um all these maintenance items come up you know usually at the wrong time so um so thank you and uh I’m happy to answer any questions any further questions might I add just a couple things there are some significant improvements that we’ve made too including um updating some bathrooms to ADA compliance and including electrical outlets and expanding on the um Wi-Fi capabilities so on and wiring for all of that so it’s really it’s helped us make the space functional as a library thank you we do appreciate that and I’m going to kick it off to Michelle in one second I’m just gonna you know announce the elephant in the room because yeah

7:43 that’s just my thing we’re not sitting on any excess amount of money that we could put towards this we would absolutely love to we run as every Department in this town does we run you know exceedingly tight and the that’s why we were very wanted to be very clear when we made this agreement that we could not be financially um available to help during this um I can totally understand your frustration and understand where you are with things we just we cannot um and Michelle May counsel us differently but we can’t take our our budget’s fixed we can’t take money away

8:29 from a line item that would be impacting students and educating students to to put towards a building that we don’t currently have students in um Michelle do you have any guidance on this that being said one of the items on here is our properties discussion if what comes out of that is that we are looking to keep evolith for another purpose then that that could have a bearing on this but if what comes out of that is we’re looking to put a Warren article to turn this back over to the town when you guys are done with it it would not be a wise investment or uh to read you a roof for a building that we’re going to to hand back um but Michelle I want to hear from you as far as the memorandum of

9:15 understanding and then I’m sure Todd will have some to add as well

9:21 um yeah so when when the memorandum of understanding was well as you guys all realize or or no we were initially planning on the library utilizing the coffee school um so I was actually looking back through my emails because we had shared the capital needs assessment with the of the coffin school with you guys I don’t see documentation that we shared the evelist school capitalize assessment but it is on our website and always has been um since we had it done a couple years ago so these issues are not new to us so we were aware of them and it’s unfortunate that it sounds like you weren’t guys weren’t aware of them because we knew that this building needed a new roof we you know we knew that this building needed um some significant boiler work system so it just sounds like all of a sudden

10:07 when the shift went from the coffin school to the Avila School that information was not you know understood or or shared or apparent with you guys um so but given that information we’re not receiving any rental income for this building so therefore we really don’t have any income or funding source identified or earmarked for the everlift school at this time um right now we are carrying the costs for the coffin school which is a discussion we’re going to have later on today um but it does it does it costs money to even keep a vacant penalty so when the library wanted to use it and we agreed to waive any rental fee

10:52 um it was of the understanding that you guys would pick up the the um maintenance costs that adding at that time but you know it It ultimately is up to the school committee to amend an agreement um but um at this time I don’t have any funds earmarked for the repair of Avila now Michelle now Michelle yeah yeah definitely go ahead so so Gary and Kim um you said six or seven thousand to repair the roof or that’s what you’ve already spent to date so our um our initial invoice um was I think was 48 and change 4800 and change um and that was for the initial you know 96 spot repair where they went around the entire roof um we had a roof consultant come out

11:38 first actually to take a look at it and he sort of coordinated the repairs for us it’s a gentleman that’s been working on several other Town buildings at the same time so it was very helpful but um so the first invoice was about uh 4800 like I said and then we had uh that was right before the major storm about two weeks ago on a Friday and thank goodness that we did that because it did stop a lot of the leaks but we did find three additional leaks that were still persistent so we um have another quote for them to come back it’s another like 775 dollars to address three separate areas and hopefully that will get us through the winter and in Spring and um you know moving forward we’re just not sure if more will pop up but likely they will because like I said the roof is probably in need of replacement as you mentioned and

12:26 and again I don’t think we understood that at the time but um that’s neither here nor there but um so yeah about total of 5500 is is what we’ve sort of committed to to at least get us get us through this winter in Spring and which is still I know when we went through looking at rental when we were doing our building project that still is you know a savings overall from renting renting a space um

12:58 the hard piece of this is for instance our high school roof has been our high school and our Middle School roof has been leaking to the point where our principals and custodians literally for years now have been running the building with buckets and moving them around faces where we are educating kids and students so if we were to tell taxpayers and teachers and students that we’re going to prioritize a building that’s not under our committee well we’re still going to have students sitting next to a bucket with dripping water we and all good conscience I I just can’t I can’t do it our priority has to be our buildings that are housing currently our students where we have this memorandum of understanding um and and I’ve been I know I’ve been super

13:43 um transparent and vocal and every discussion I’ve had across town and and in papers about how well our facility strategic plan has been laid out that really lays out this um and it’s and it is available so I think maybe right now would be you know we can ask Michelle to send that to you guys so that you know the assessment of everything um on CE it’s also available on our facilities tab on our website um unfortunately I I do I feel absolutely terrible but I don’t see any way that that we could suggest as a committee right now changing the memorandum of understanding well Sarah is there an opportunity to capitalize on the roofing folks that

14:30 we’re using for the schools I don’t know if it’s the same contractor I think it’s the same but it might not be because I mean maybe there’s some synergies there some cost savings there yeah and another question I had depending the outcome of what we decide to keep Michelle could um I mean could could this be a capital request spot served by both committees a Warren article if this is if we’re for instance I’m jumping ahead I’m giving a very hypothetical if we decided down the line once they vacate the building we’d be moving exact our our Administration in there or something is this a warrant article that could be sponsored by both parties I would think so I mean I would if

15:22 either committee could request the article at this point because the library is controlling the building the day-to-day and we still own the building so yes either committee could request Library could write one essentially for supplemental funding for their building project to cover otherwise be a lease somewhere but this will be repairs in their current so that might be something you guys well the warrants still open for another couple weeks want to um explore doing it’s another week the warrant closes as well the warrant requests are due next Friday at noon time January 20th yeah yes okay so you know I think I think it’d be hard to convince everyone to pull one article for a building that we’re only going to be in for another you know year or so um we have enough issues I’m trying to get our own

16:08 renovation project going and yeah over the next year so um I think and I appreciate everything you’ve said and I totally understand we’re we’re trying to take care of all of all of our buildings in our town we know there’s um there’s issues with a lot of them and I want to do the best and keep these buildings you know viable good viable assets over over the over many years so which is why we’re taking on so much at the existing Library so we can you know keep that building going for another 30 50 years um the mou I think again I don’t think we need to change the mou as more of a understanding of you know we know we’re responsible for day to day and general maintenance it was just this we felt was just a little sort of over the top and in a tenant landlord relationship you know typically the landlord would be responsible for things like this like the the larger you know structural items

16:54 um and we would understand we’d be paying utilities and doing you know General General minor improvements that we wanted to make and we’re happy to make the Improvement to the bathroom so I think it made the building a much better place we did as you mentioned save a lot of money by not renting a space outside of of the evil school so we were happy to put those funds to good use and and hopefully reap some long-term benefits from the from those improvements so um so yeah I don’t think we’d take on a separate Warren article but if there is if that was is it I know you’re going to discuss this later but if this building is going to be kept for a long time I think a roof would be a great investment it definitely needs it and you know it’s it’s a great space and you know good location and I think it could be used hopefully by other Town um

17:40 uh Town departments you know going forward and I this may be not possible this may be just me trying to oversimplify this have you guys reached out to fincom to see if there’s anything they can do to help with this um we have not yet no I know we’re going into budget season right yes they do have discretionary funds to to use Michelle correct me if I’m wrong they do have discretionary fonts they shouldn’t control themselves interesting since this crosses over for so many Town departments that might be a conversation you might want to have but as of right now the schools cannot uh that may change later in this discussion but where we’re at right now we cannot do anything and I apologize I really feel terrible about that but that

18:26 does it doesn’t change the fact that we can’t do anything um Allison do you have anything you want to add okay um

18:39 so so I I guess I feel bad but we’re gonna I’m gonna move on to you we do appreciate you listening to us and hearing us out and um we will definitely reach out to the finance department and and um just continue to yeah like I said if something changes on our end we’ll definitely loop back and and inform you but as of right now we just we simply just don’t have the funding right now to do it thanks for putting us on the agenda we felt like we had to try to start the conversation somehow um to solve the problem so hopefully we can find another way um and the you know one one other thing is that our fiscal year we’re 50 almost

19:26 more than 50 through the year so that that’s something you know knowing that the budget refreshes again in July and and if you have a surplus at the end of the year you’re able to use it for this right now we had an additional 1.5 or so million of out-of-district placements that we didn’t anticipate so and yeah we just we just have things we have to do right now that’s something that you could look at instead of sending it back um okay thank you um thank you I’m gonna move back to the facilities update from Todd

20:08 good morning Happy New Year everybody as we’re going through there’s our typical issues with seating and things like that um as you stated yeah we’re still some areas that the Vets uh and and at the uh high school with uh buckets um we repair as as we need to well Michelle and I are working on getting those you know areas redone especially you know the high school roof uh the d-wing roof msba is you know uh we’re going to be working with them of course for that um and uh for the most part you know the other roofs and the other schools that are are pretty tight um and it it does depend you know we’ve

20:55 gotten some serious storms with some very serious winds and in different in varying directions when that happens you find different leaks so you know we’re keeping track of and we do have a contracted roofer they were here uh two days ago over to high school to address the areas that because we always list out and send it to them these are what we need you to do um and uh sometimes when it’s cold out it’s a little difficult but you know to to uh to patch those things so that being said um you know we’re we’re still going with uh going forward we have our controls contractor coming in Tuesday to update

21:41 our HVAC controls to begin it and that should help us be able to control four out of our five buildings the Brown is on its own the other buildings are in this one grouping so we’re working on that uh the hopefully within a month or maybe six weeks we’re going to be updating the fire alarm system at the high school they’re going to be coming in uh pro it’ll take them they claim a few days so I love how they claim things but we’ll see so that’s going to be all refreshed and we’ll have get another 20 years out of that system at least which is the great um and of course you know there’s just

22:28 day-to-day things so as um if you’re all familiar I don’t know near the Magic Hat area at the Veterans School there’s the stairs that kind of go to nowhere so under that there was a piece of uh cement board that dropped it didn’t drop immediately it kind of swung down so we went right over and we were going to re-secure it and it did drop but I’ve already contacted a Mason to come in and and repair that also in the back um near the generator there’s a set of stairs a couple of corners on these stairs are getting repaired because they’ve chipped out or they’re cracking uh they’re gonna um

23:15 pretty much redo the uh the pad that’s under the generator there because the edges are just basically turning to dust and then also he’s gonna um you know repair that railing that we have out in front of vets uh the issue with that was yeah somebody hit it with a with a plow but the steel pipe was only in the concrete approximately two inches so we’re gonna have to add a section of pipe to it and drill down further so that we get at least six or eight inches into the concrete the concrete is in good shape but it was just never sunk down enough so that’s that’s ongoing right now um

24:01 yes I have a quick question generators um I know we run a test on them every Tuesday every Tuesday 7 30 pm okay my question is with the possibility we had Joe koala come and present to us um about the possible outages I know what you’re gonna ask

24:23 so one of the concerns that came up to me later on was with sir our servers that that there can’t be any lag whatsoever with that when we go out to when the server that when the Ser the generator kicks on yeah is what we’re doing just starting it to make sure they start or have we done a stimulation of the power goes out the automatic start starts in what is the lag time so approximate lag time is five to ten seconds it’s it’s almost instantaneous we have them tested and maintained and checked multiple times a year they’re run every Tuesday for a half an hour to make sure that they’re running

25:09 and as for the uh the server room the main server room which is located at the high school Steve and I have been working on this project and of course Michelle um we’re finishing this project Tuesday they’re coming in we had to run uh 550 feet of monstrous size cable from where the server room is all the way back to where the actual circuit the main power room at the the high school is where the generator comes in so that when it and there’s this gigantic battery backup as well but this will immediately kick into that to keep that power running that’s that’s the whole idea behind this project so if we do have these rolling blackouts um

25:54 um um we this won’t affect us at all as far as Tech because so much of what we’re doing in the classrooms right now with smart boards and Tech we will it will be seamless um you know that being said these generators um are in the end of things emergency generators as opposed to the brown where we purpose built it to be able to sustain the building so that being said we’ve been going and testing and making sure that the when the generator kicks in it will run the boilers and the pumps to keep Heat going through the buildings but they’re not intended to run all the

26:40 smart panels throughout these buildings not intended to run all the lighting throughout these buildings so we would not we our generators right now could not run the whole building if if we do have these words we would have to shut schools down the only one that could would be Brown okay that one was purpose built that way to handle that that load okay these other ones no one ever thought of such a thing they’re they’re intended just to get people out of the building safely okay so we can’t so for instance if the high school goes down where our main server is can we still run all of our other buildings like can these generators run the whole server system

27:25 the the server for the all the it yes that that’s that that’s the end goal for this project yes okay and we have the capacity all right so it would be school so school specific that we would need to shut down okay okay um and if we’re out of power and that doesn’t affect any of the water issues right because I know we by law can’t keep kids in school without water no the only way that would ever happen is if there say there’s a break somewhere you know due to something or the main uh pumps supplying the town itself went down if those go down and we have no water in the building yes we cannot have uh children in there okay

28:12 all right that has nothing to do with uh you know the generator it will be building specific for the rolling rolling blackouts where where are we okay um that don’t panic slide really be handy right now for me I like that um okay that was my one question and then where are we with the high school in vets repair process are we talking about I would assume for the high school the school for the high school we need to bring an architect on board for that um you a roof that size where you need an architect for it we’re we’re gonna um we have to get a project manager on board first um and I don’t know is as if we

28:57 necessarily need to hire an architect for the the entire project there may be some engineering involved if we decide to go with some solar panels because you’re adding a load to that roof you know it was built specific for what’s up there and it can you know hold a little more this way that way but yeah we did tell public we would make this roof ready to get panels and Joe did say he would cover the extra so yeah for the engineering part of it sure yeah um so where where are we in the process of getting an OPM and and I’m assuming that has to go out to bid Michelle when what’s our timeline for that um Todd and I were actually just talking about that and starting to put the big

29:44 Ducks together for the OPM and we were talking to left field as well um because they did state that they’d be very interested in coming back to a district or bidding on a district that they had recently worked in and they worked well with so um they will hopefully be bidding on the project um so hopefully within the next two months we will have a contract being awarded to an OPM and then we will take off from there I’m not sure what the timeline is once we have the OPM on board but then we will bring in the Architects or the OPM will bring in the Architects and get all that together we had talked about using this committee as the the project building committee for those roofs okay correct yeah all right but um just so you’re aware also Sarah that the the roofing material itself is

30:29 the last I checked is about a year out uh for that quantity so it’s not something that um I wish you know could be quick um yeah and it’s a year out from order so we need to get the OPM then the design then we need to do a lot so I would I would guess we’re 18 months at best right and then it’s uh that we’re going to have to do one or two wings at a time even over a summer they they wouldn’t be able to roofers that I’ve spoken with that do that sort of thing so that’s too big a project to do over a summer One Summer uh because of all the rooftop units and everything else that they have to go around and replacing all the uh because we’re ripping that right down to the

31:15 metal decking and then most likely it’s about a five inch insulation that we’re going to be putting down there so we’re gonna increase our energy efficiency throughout the building as well okay all right um so you’ll just keep us up to date on where we are with the OPM and Michelle when you get that RFP ready to go out can you just make sure we all see it and we know who’s responded and everything absolutely all right um that brings us to our school properties discussion um there’s been a request several times by members of the general school committee for us to have this conversation um right now we last year we gave back Beacon Street to the town um the last one before that was the Gary

32:01 as we all know um what is left now even though it looks like we have a long list a lot of those smaller Parcels are are actually our main campuses you know for the instance of high schools on multiple Parcels so the ones that play really right now are the coffin school and the evelist school um I personally have strong feelings on this I I would not recommend that we um even consider giving back coffin my reasons for this are um there is a extreme land shortage in Marblehead um once it’s gone it’s gone we won’t get it back we opened up brown which was built for 425 students and we currently

32:51 have I don’t know John is at 428 or um 453. so we’re we’re over capacity um and and to be perfectly honest that enrollment chart that they showed us um that I fought with all through the msba process showed that we should be way lower than that right now um if we have a problem in one of our buildings which we have seen in the past we have nowhere to put students um it it in the past as I’ve followed these meetings over the years it’s always been the suggestion of the school department that we keep buildings in our back pocket if you will that if there’s an emergency if there’s a need for

33:37 to open up additional space for students that we have these so I would not recommend that also we know that we need to relocate our Central administration offices right now we’re at the whim of the town at widger Road um you know just for an example about two years ago they came through with tape measures and when we when they were asked why they were like oh we’re just we’re just moving measuring for the archives we’ll be moving in in a few months that changed and they didn’t but we we literally could be told to move with a few months notice and we also have our program for our 18 to 22 year old students which is our um I guess we’re not calling program names anymore but

34:23 um I those students used to have an intentional space at at avalis that they used as their space they they’re obviously being housed right now but I would like to to have an intentional space that’s been designed for those students that meets their needs um it’s never sat well with me that we kind of have been forced to plug them in from somewhere if you will um it’s a wonderful program it’s a tuition in program at times and I would I would like to dedicate a space to that that’s really appropriately designed for that program and who knows maybe it can be something that helps us you know draw other districts to send their students as well um my reason for coffin is when we took

35:11 cough and Gary offline there was a tremendous outpouring of feedback in the town that people were upset we were taking the school in the north end of town offline my feeling is if we ever have a need to put another school online we owe it to those neighborhoods to that end of town to put it back give them a school in their neighborhood it I can’t understand why we would want to Bus kids to the complete other end of town when we we own a school in their side of town um so I I think we should definitely keep coughing I also you know I see value in evidence as well when it when we used it as a Kindergarten Center it worked wonderfully for our preschool and kindergarteners in that site it actually

35:57 was a really nice um educational use to kind of have those kids in their own space it’s another growth potential I think that we could do long-term leases letting um places like park and rec use it but it’s really this committee needs to make a recommendation on whether or not we want to give these back noting once we give them back they’re gone they’re never ours Gary sold for eight hundred thousand dollars it wasn’t a tremendous Revenue draw for the town um it didn’t help you know a low-income housing I think those are those units are selling for like 1.5 right now um each individual unit in that building so I’m just saying I understand there’s

36:42 an idea that we should give this back it will help the town books I I think for the best interest of the longevity of the schools and our students we should keep those two properties but that’s my thought I’d like to hear from everybody else they’re all the way in um and you literally just sent everything that I wanted to say I think we’re just I think we’re crazy to get rid of these properties I understand that we have to upkeep them when we’re not in use you know but I think we’re silly because if there’s ever an emergency like there was a couple years ago we’d be out of luck and students would be back home instead of in another facility so my personal opinion is we if we can financially we hold on to both 100

37:28 I I just want to weigh in I don’t want to extend the meeting by laboring the point but I fully agree with Jeff and Sarah I think the potential for even you know a temporary disaster type situation with a roof or something is certainly plausible and having those buildings it is critical to being able to maintain that educational experience for our students which is what we really want to do I think Sarah mentioned also a really good point about the community and should we ever need a new school I happen to be a person that’s on the very North End of town but don’t even somehow qualify for the bus so that I know is a very big frustration for this side of town and so I think that that is a great gesture as well and I think that

38:14 the program at evil if my son went to kindergarten um at Eveleth was part of it that year and it was a phenomenal experience um I understand the building’s old it was a kindergarten when I went to school here grew up here so and it looks exactly the same as it did then but it was a phenomenal experience and I wouldn’t you know in the beginning I’ll be honest I’m not sure that I was thrilled because there was kids going to Glover and then kids going to evelyth um but I would I would venture to say that the evilest kindergarten preschool experience was just next level um the building might look old but it it just was perfect for that age group of students and it worked really well and I’ve also heard wonders uh about you know really great things about the the

39:00 programs that Sarah mentioned that happened there um for the older students as well hey Sarah sorry one more one more Point um so with Central admin being sort of at risk at any moment um could we be proactive and grab one of these buildings move that there I’m not sure how the finances work does the school committee pay for their school department pay for maintenance at widget Road or Pig rent is there any offset there advantage that hey let’s just let’s be proactive give the town that space back um well the the

39:36 benefit would be that we would know that we weren’t we literally were told we were going to move in like two months we the benefit would be we would we would have spaces that really met our needs instead of retrofitting um that in that we would have securely um so I think we definitely should look at where ideally we’d want to put Central admin and does that fill the whole space or would it be you know would it be used jointly with something else but to follow up the discussion that we just had with the library either one of these buildings needs substantial funding like huge amounts of money right now Todd actually added up what we spent just to maintain coffin

40:22 excluding utilities and we’re over thirty thousand dollars so that’s a huge cost that we’re not even budgeting for technically I mean obviously I I’m absorbing it um but it’s something that we need to be cognizant of and it’s not going to get any cheaper to maintain these buildings um as we saw with these Capital needs assessment these were our two most you know most needy buildings they’re they’re in need and dire repair and if anyone’s going to occupy them permanently we need a substantial plan too well I think that’s just it we wherever we I think we need to make an intentional decision of where we want to put Central admin and this would be a you know a warrant article this would not be something that would

41:09 come out of our um our our yearly budget but at the same time for so long we have made decisions not on what is makes the most long-term sense and what is best strategically instead of what can we Cobble together financially I really want to be intentional with all of our facilities decisions and it’s in a need it feels knee-jerk to me to say we are so tight with money let’s give it up because we don’t we have no way to expand and if we did I know for instance when we built Brown we had a show expansion uh I think it was a 10 or 20 expansion where we could do it we we can do it but we have heard loud and

41:56 clear this community does not want a 600 person Elementary School they don’t want a three-story Elementary School can we do it yes should we do it no in my opinion I do think it’s time for us ideally our town would have a master plan quite honestly that we would know where everybody is going long term the police department but

42:23 no one asked my opinion on that so I know it’s costly to keep these buildings I think that we need to continue to maintain them because the bottom line is if we had an issue like we had at coffin or even the brand new school that opened when we had that issue and had to evacuate kids we were very lucky that we could get them in the next day but if we didn’t have a coffin or evelyth and we didn’t have a week or two of school that is that is extremely disruptive and there’s just no there’s no space in this town to get back if we need to if we have to expand and the right now I mean I’m just looking at my neighborhood all these houses are selling and it used to be these houses sold to another family

43:10 in Marblehead now it’s people are coming up from Charlestown they’re coming up from the south end in Somerville and so these projections were based on birth rates and all past data what is moving into town is completely different than than what those projections were based on and I do think if this year is anything to show by our enrollment is is growing and it’s growing at a somewhat rapid pace and I think that it would be fiscally irresponsible of us to give away any properties that we could then house Futures the future expansion in um John a superintendent as speaking to the administration offices what are your thoughts

43:55 thoughts thoughts um I I think I agree with everything that’s been said land is King and we should not be getting rid of the land but I do think the community needs to understand that the maintenance of these buildings is a liability for the district we’ve had vandalism at coffin there’s an oil tank there that eventually uh we will have to address uh but you know the building itself is one conversation the land I think I don’t think anybody in the school department is advocating for getting rid of the land but those buildings and what is feasible for them I think is a conversation for this group so I I’m gonna make a motion I just because there was some clarity requests

44:42 at our school committee level I I’m making a motion that is the recommendation of this committee that we do not sponsor warrant articles to transfer ownership of any of our properties this year second who moved it Jeff moved he made me do it and Allison you seconded yes I will do a roll call vote I usually try to do an alphabetical order but it’s not working that well right now folks so um Dr Bucky I just need clarifications Sarah in the past you have said that where the school department folks are not voting members of the subcommittee

45:26 okay then I’ll do roll call I can’t remember um I I would like to have you I I well can I before we take a roll call you’re going to be asked at our next meeting what your recommendation is I’m happy to speak to that I’m just procedurally I know that Roberts is important to you and in the past we have not been voting members I thought we all were because we can’t all count as quorum

45:59 just a quick question before we take the vote were we going to kind of prioritize the list of what properties that we want to keep obviously the schools are on this list we’re going to keep all of those and we’re talking about keeping the land for the coffin and evelist building but these other all those other properties are adjacent in part of our current campuses so for instance there’s two or three properties that are listed with different addresses but they’re all part of either the fields at bats the approach to that’s the driveway or that’s proper same with the high school at some point we may want to look at getting them deeded as one property rather than all these individual Parcels

46:45 but when we broke it down before all of those are housing something that we’re running a school with the only outstanding one was Beacon Street which we got rid of I believe well I know we got rid of Beacon Street but that my research showed that they when I mapped them out they all were adjacent to our properties would it be helpful to go through the list or no not necessarily um sure

47:21 yes okay so the yellow are our current buildings the kind of Aqua are coffin and Eveleth and then in white or probably what you’re saying Sarah are adjacent properties yeah so we’re in fields at Village and the approach um Smith Street is the back approach to the high school okay um village obviously is Village I think buyers Road I have to look that one up I think that one is the back side of that’s but I have to look it up um and Vine Street Vine Street is backed as well okay um um so I’m looking up buyers is part of Village okay

48:07 Village okay Village okay it’s adjacent Village yeah um it’s like the those the back the back back part of the lower Fields okay yeah so they’re all um and then then Maple and and Pleasant Street is the high school obviously so all of these are just parts of um our building and again we might want to look at at some point going through the process of just eating them as as a single property to make it easier but all of these are attached to our schools

48:44 um all right so going back I am gonna look for a roll call of everyone on this just going into through um so I’ll start Jeff St George yes Allison Taylor

49:03 sorry yes sorry yes Dr Bucky yes Michelle Cresta yes Chad blood good yes Sarah Fox yes the motion carries six zero unanimous that it is our recommendation that we not um sponsor War articles this year to turn over any property um the next that would lead us to what is the next steps of this does it does it we probably should have a meeting to just talk about these properties um and think about next steps as far as do we want to at some point

49:42 maintain the property and I’m not saying this is going to happen this year but raise the buildings um I I think we need to keep at least one building um and and what is the renovation process look like it would definitely be some type of Warren article in the future for that and timeline um it would be a capital project overall but I think we need to start talking about and bring Paula into this discussion I would think how large is our 18 to 22 year old program what has it been at its largest what are her plans is she looking to grow that program what space ideally would she need for that program and then we figure out kind of where that works and then what is the ideal

50:30 space that you would need for Central ad um Michelle how would you recommend we go about this could we start at a feasibility study if you will um um I would assume so we we ideally really need to figure out where we want to go I mean it’s kind of difficult to say okay we’re going to go to eveluth in you know two years or we’re going to go to coffee in two years I don’t want to do a feasibility study on two different buildings um oh you missed the joyful part of the Gary building project where we did a feasibility study and I think seven different options not cost effective by any means I think dollars I’m just a dollar person

51:17 so I guess like just talking about square footage what what matches up so if we can even talk to Paula get an ideal layout of what that program would look at like how many rooms what do they what do those rooms do it doesn’t need to be something super polished or super formal but I know for instance before they had one room that was set up as a bank one that was set up as a grocery store what are the uses she needs and then that will give us an idea of can we invest in Ebola and do that does it make more sense at coffin for that and just kind of look at a longer term picture on that so if we can ask Paula to have that for us um I would say in like the next three weeks and so when we meet again in four weeks we can discuss that

52:02 I will ask her to put that together okay and then um John if you can just make the list about Central admin should have that we that maybe don’t have that you find are are if we have extra ones or whatever and then we can look at those two and just kind of look at are we using are we renovating existing buildings like like Avila are we looking at a larger scope um all right Capital request discussion we normally would have had this in December the town has not closed their books yet for 2022 this normally is done in October so because they have not closed the books we have no idea of what our certified free cash is so we really

52:50 have no idea what our Target number is that being said we do have that facility strategic plan I tried to pull it up before this I found the individual assessments but the Strategic plan actually isn’t on our website so if we can make sure that that gets up there onto the facilities tab you can certainly look on the needs assessment for each building but I liked when we had it all together because you could drop down for any given year Michelle do you happen to have that number if he went by that plan what it would be I recall it being like one to two million dollar mark no I don’t have that at the top of my head I will have to find that okay um I know we’ve been looking at various different documents to see what items we might need and but for example I mean the um turf field replacement was not on that Capital plan because it

53:35 wasn’t part of our buildings but it really needs to be you know included in one of our Capital requests coming sometime soon um currently fundraising for that in the past boosters has kind of taking care of that um do we still need to do it as a capital R article and then they reimburse us or do they just take care of it we met with them in the spring and they were not intending to raise the full 650 000 that it will cost okay I so I’m not sure what their fundraising um plan is right now can you touch base with them to find out because I know they’re currently are are fundraising for it and just find out where they’re at it’s so we know how much you know we

54:20 should be sponsoring that and would that be a separate article just for the turf I well I would submit it to the um town as part of our capital capital ask okay um so it would really be up to them to determine if it’s a separate article or not okay all right because I think that there would be widespread support in town for that um people seem to support s here um so if you can get us that that number including the turf and then since we’ve just talked about evelist um do we do we know what a new roof had ever was with it

55:06 I don’t know off the top of my head I know it was part of the capital needs assessment a couple years ago which yeah those figures have gone numbers have ballooned like threefold they’re starting to come down a bit though um okay I think it’s a number we should at least have

55:29 so so Michelle do you have an idea from the town when they will have some information for the capital

55:39 we ask on a weekly basis and we’re just old sorry we don’t know when that memo would be coming out because normally it was late November early December for the capital requests and the Sounds of Silence procedurally can they even give us that before they have their certified free cash they can give it to us they can’t do anything with it and make recommendations until they have an idea of what their free cash is okay all right so we’re in a holding pattern you’re going to get those numbers together so that when we have information from the town do we have a warrant article written as a placeholder already I know we talked about this at our last meeting yes we will be submitting it this coming week yes okay so on the warrant we’ll have a

56:24 placeholder for our own Capital override requests our own prop two and a half and our own debt exclusion

56:34 the debt exclusion was part of the capital like capital or debt exclusion can we put I think my understanding at the meeting Allison correct me if I’m wrong is that we voted to put it because we don’t know for for our our whole town or for our operating budget if some of those things would be a debt exclusion like a curriculum or things like that so my understanding was we voted to approve a debt at the capital a debt exclusion if we need it for the school department or a prop two and a half because some of the prop two and a half we had pushed back people wanted to see those in a debt exclusion last year not in a prop two and a half so we may be asking for our ask to be broken up in two ways does that make sense okay I’ll have to go back and make sure we have the right wording then

57:20 okay I just want to make sure if the warrant is closing we have the right articles yep all right is there anything I’m missing folks if not we’re pushing on 10 it’s 10 now so I’d like to adjourn us if I’m not missing anything I just want I just had one quick thing uh that I wanted to mention and I I know everybody has been aware of it and I know Dr Bucky discussed it I just want to make sure that there is because it was back this week with a little bit of defendants I just wanted to make sure that there is a and um Mary’s been made aware as well that the goose poop on the brown field that we are moving forward I’m not sure what the mitigation plan is or if it’s you know owl decoys or I don’t know a fox decoys or something which I realize sounds kind of

58:06 silly coming out of my mouth but um it just needs to happen yep and it’s funny because Todd said that it’s the best text that he’s ever sent a principal that is ordered the coyotes so um the fire department uh has been working with Todd uh we reached out to a local um mitigation person Todd speak to that would you please don’t they live right now I’m sorry uh so we reached out to this person they they uh to invite them to take a walk by you know uh once children were out of the school um to to see and kind of give us a proposal to see what they recommend um also you know as John said you know

58:52 coyotes they’re they’re on the Move they’re they should be here short shortly and also the fire chief has been going up there every day at four with his own dogs and chasing him off and also going up there a few times a week very early in the morning with his dogs to chase him off which I thank him profusely every single day for this but we’re looking at something I’m happy to do that with my own dog as well I didn’t know that it doesn’t I mean she’s the Giants we’ve all offered I did volunteer Bob Jeff so just so you know this is as long as it’s outside outside of school hours we can’t right what is it right yeah but so you know we have people that are helping in that sense you know which is

59:38 wonderful we are reaching out to uh a professional uh to see if there’s anything more and also we’re getting these uh coyote decoy coyotes uh to put out in the field oh coyotes okay we’re working you know as fast as we can and I hate to say you know apparently it takes a little bit to get coyotes because we ordered these I think uh over a week the day we heard yeah we heard we ordered them yeah I trust that you did I just think it’s good information that that we can then share back with the public because under it’s understandable why the you know parents and of course and I appreciate that uh Mary up to date on it as well you know so she knows yes yes

1:00:25 my experience with those decode coyotes is they have to be moved regularly yes yeah yeah so but we also have to figure we may need to maybe secure one or two to the fence so they don’t um in the middle of the night walk away on their own type of thing so

1:00:48 understood understood all right well thank you I will join us at 1003. thank you all and have a good weekend