the agenda that is approval of minutes we're going to have a discussion with the school superintendent john failing the state of the current school building project particularly with what we've been calling plan b the alternative proceeding with a new building we'll have an update after word from builder of all of this the chair of the building committee i'd like to discuss briefly the sub committee assignments and working group assignments for this year  committee and some new members my neighbors join family to the very proud superintendent of the belmont schools are very happy to be here tonight to let you know about some of the work we're doing to kick off the school year in then get into the subject of the seven to twelve project and also the comparison of what we're calling the alternative planning never to be a need to take a hike if you don't have a successful one nov th or so a few highlights that we get to bring to your attention and it's great to be able to bring all i can say is that over the past few years we have developed over time really good relationships with the work committee which we value and we respect and we look forward to continuing so just a quick update on the schools in general we have this is the beginning of the year we'd like to make sure people know what our goals are where our highlights are and then we'll get into the meat of the subject matter as relates to the building committee in the alternative plan we have goals this year that we've been continuing to focus on the culture  schools and social motional learning by the classroom by the teacher by the students and in our buildings this is a very much the fabric of what we do each day the achievement gap and cultural culturally responsive teaching as relates to our families who are new in and out of the majority in sure that we're representing all children at the table when we do our work in classrooms across the district in the short in long term work we have been doing as a relates to capacity budget from last school year into the school year we are very very appreciative of the continued support of the of the budget process for the schools the enrollment has been outpacing our f t s but the f valuable to ensure quality class sizes and programming for students i walked to belmont high today and there was not one child in the hallway in three years ago i was here asking you can you help me with this  of having two and three hundred students in the hallway so substitute teachers that we okayed in the budget a building substitute to support the high school and having those students in for the professional folks every day has shifted the culture and the climate of the high school significantly few years ago we talked about all the classes at the elementary level that were over the recommended class size of the school committee that was about forty percent would show that list of all the classes that were twenty six and twenty seven we started the school year with every kindergarten at two hundred and twenty three years ago every kindergarten was a twenty six you can't place enough value on a child's experience in kindergarten and st grade with four or five less students that that teacher has to manage navigate and support and guide so those are all major accomplishments we cut study halls and half at the middle school another goal and we're adding good programming at the high school that's budget neutral and adding to some of the f t s robotics coding after school clubs we've all been able to manage some of which we had to pull back on some things in our budget so we could add that were neutral and some that came with that were provided in the budget and we did ask for one hundred thousand dollars for our educators and materials and supplies because we really felt that we were going to the f b i either p t o the boosters the palms and the patrons way too much in that one hundred thousand dollars has been rick stream we helpful to get teachers what they need we are excited that the new teachers that we added at the middle  school went from twenty eight in grade five to twenty four that's the nd team of grade five teaches that we added grade five has two teacher teams and we've added modules at the burb at the burbank great support from the capital committee in the town that ability to make that school larger and spread the class size across one more class pro grade has enabled us to achieve those class size goals that we had and lastly when we look at some of that short term work we have exhausted every inch of every footprint of every building we have added in the parking lots marshall is at every level and that was all the short term work that we began three years ago so what that box checked we now into the long term work that we have been doing in parallel which is the bell belmont high school building committee work we have forwarded this work and secured final approval from the board of selectmen the school committee and more importantly from the m s p a with the unanimous vote in late august for the seven to twelve project does anybody have any questions about the opening of school in anything as it relates to our start for the belmont public schools for the eight thousand nine hundred school year ok your flat should we should we get something going is everything all right there where i was up thumbs even those down we want to present tonight why we feel the seven to twelve project is a solid project and great for the town where  working with the assumption that most of you have seen some of the pictures of the school some of the design options i do have a power point that's behind this that i can show pictures of any of the floor layouts and of the outside of the building that folks want to see it that have not seen it but this presentation is built on the fact that we think people have already had that information in front of them is there anybody that would like to see any of those slides i can do it now or i can do it after so let me know if we go along if you have any specific questions i can move over to that power point and show some pictures of the building there are three things that we want to talk about the st is the process way back in two thousand and sixteen we were approved after writing the application in two thousand and fifteen to the state i believe this was the th year that the town had written an application to the state in two thousand and fifteen so it's accepted in january of two thousand and sixteen this is a format that the m s b a gives us so we have kept it and just added the dates of completion kind of a little bit of satisfaction here for we can go through the two thousand and sixteen we formed our team in the summer of two thousand and seventeen we put off usability started together in fall of seventeen and the summer of eighteen we did us community design and we're now awaiting our funding project vote on november th so this is the flow chart to walk everybody through the process this is involved a lot of work from the belmont high school building committee we have members here tonight loughlin top computer oh patrice serves on that as well and so  also the work of the many many community members that have participated in the forums to visioning sessions in the community events as well as the building committee so yeah on that slide you don't have dates for the bottom panel coming out of completing a project that's contemplated when so we will provide those dates as we go through that's it later these are the ones that we've achieved ok so i can talk about detail design and construction later in the profit later in the slideshow this just read some folks like the visual some folks like the narrative this is the same information about the work of the committee through time it should be noted that when we built the team it was d projects as our owner project manager perkins and will is our architect firm and we hired scan as our contract construction management team and we feel that that team represents a great resource for the t so again approval when i talk about this in front of parents and p t o members and community members i was here last night with our a group of our chinese community folks and it's really it's really important for them to see that our community members who volunteer have approved this work so school committee board of selectmen in the a must be a have all approved the design that you're about to see when we think about why we need a school the short version is we feel like the high school has to the needs that are far out we need to to revamp them we feel like in rome at this extraordinarily high and increasing every day and every year and we feel like the space that we have at the high school does not fit the actual educational vision that we have for how our students and teachers should engage in that work now in for the next fifty years so when we look at the facilities we are ninety eight compliant at the moment we have updated systems but we have outdated parts we were lucky enough that our school system took care of the buildings through its back systems and certain parts of the facilities report that when we went to the s b a they give you points in return which actually equals money they give us the full two points because they go into a well maintained doesn't mean they were now dated in need of repair but it means that of the most of the machinery was well maintained over time when you look at some of the pictures you see that you can't even find parts for these types of equipment that happen in our building each day but we're thankful that the town took care of the machinery it's just outdated and has gave us a full a full term tenure of service the windows leak this plumbing leaks we do have hazardous material in the building and it absolutely does not have the set up from a structural standpoint for the security measures that we would like to see in a modern school especially  in that we see growing each year this is a taken from the kevin report that we did in the fall of two thousand and sixteen that was the nd report that was the updated report this is also consistent what the by two thousand and twenty four is real in ironically we did our in rome and on october one that's the date that we take our roman for an apples to apples comparison and here we are just below four thousand six hundred and the calculation o monday was forty five thousand five hundred and sixty eight students that's our official count as of october one so we are in line with their projections we are averaging if you add in this new increase this year around ninety five needs that we have and we believe the seven to twelve project not only addresses the high school need but also for those folks who have been aware but not fully plugged in this release of pressure on our middle school level in our elementary school level as well lastly teaching and learning hands on learning space students who can learn by doing flexible spacing science classes that have room for students to work in labs and also have seats at a lecture seat to have places where students can have rooms that can open up to large spaces then become small spaces all of these things are in our new school these are all flexible tools that a building can provide as relates to teaching and learning a school is not a place where you just go and learn a school can actually be a tool for the teachers and the educators to support the teaching and learning and that's what this new building will provide and that's certainly not what we have at this point in time this is a for high school physics class where the materials are right in the classroom and when they need to use them they pull out the table and they pull out the equipment in the middle of a traditional classroom and if they want to use computers they have to go to another space here we have the infamous ban practices in the automotive shop and if you've ever heard the been there unbelievable i went to harvard square when they are the jimmy fallon two years ago it was an unbelievable day and you wouldn't believe that they practice in the garage i don't think you're a felon could have written i took any better than  we also have the need for you know fully functioning labs science labs and have the appropriate space the appropriate accommodations for for lab coding robotics and we actually feel like the teaching and learning that we want to have taking place with our children deserve space that accommodates that that kind of environment so those are the three reasons the  inadequate shape of the building and condition of the building the enrollment and the need for teaching and learning space that rises to the level of the students in the teachers that we have and belmont this is an aerial view of the layout that's been shown more than a few times walk this is where the old high school or the current high school is this is your field house is your spot again we're seeing the field house the pool remains right there underneath that roof and what we plan to do  to get to the point of when we move in and what the next steps are with a successful vote we would have the students remain here while we build this part of the school which is a nine dollars to twelve dollars part of the building we would only have the pool not accessible to the students during the day every other classroom will be in operation and we had a great question last night while my child is a freshman next year or why my child is a junior next year where does the day look like while they live in this building next to the construction site st and foremost no classrooms have been taken the auditorium is intact the field us is intact the little theatre is intact every classroom is intact every program will be run every a p course every hon rs course every math science social studies music course will be run that's why we have a two phase project because you want to keep the students in the building with their ongoing educational experience untouched while we build next so it during the day there will be no minimizing or distracted actions from what the programs are offered and what the teachers do there will be a distraction outside to the left because of the construction project going on so it's very very clear that we want to communicate to parents that they'll be noisy next door there is noise next door and every construction project that every school house and they'll also be less than ideal circumstances for our after school athletics as it relates t fields in the pool for a period of two years while we have this work take place and then we turn the the program over to our th and th grade building as well so there is a bit of a sacrifice that we're going to ask our community for my thought is having lived through a building program in my own town once the steel goes up and once the building takes shape the excitement builds and people think i can get through this for two years because that's going to be beautiful and i think that that's going to be the same case here in belmont this is an aerial picture of the school and again i have more pitches in another power point the folks are interested this is the the in and out for our high school side this is a four story building for the one through twelve this is the cafeteria everything on the  floor is shared by both the th and th graders and the nine through twelve graders at separate times this is a three story building for a th and th graders and they're in and out is right over here so we have always had the thought that we wanted to have careful separations of a th and th grade students that are adjacent to next to our nine to twelve students but we also have been working really hard as educators to identify the really great connections we can make and the great enrichment opportunities by having all of these facilities under one roof and having the th and th graders be able to utilize that space and have teachers get together to talk about curriculum and teaching and learning and offer great programming across a wider span students so we think that that that seven through twelve model has great upside is safe and is something that will benefit the town when you look at the other side of that we will go then to review this with our educators this fall k to three and all of our elementary schools and call the primary schools and we look to have this building go from a middle school to an upper elementary school and service our th th and th graders to be the best school no no offense to the brand new one is going to be the four hundred and fifty six school and if you're an educator you know why great environment here's a here's a layout that shows how the classrooms will be in our th and th grade way over here one grade profile or in this is a model of how the cafeteria runs in between in the high school common area which is the media center in the library the middle school has their own traditional library in the middle and these are the departments for the high school nine to twelve this is the auditorium in the nd floor this is the pool this is the art of this is that the field house and this is this is the music w you know where i live here there so we're we're making an assumption that will have three launches for the high school and two lunches for the middle school we're also that question right there has about seven questions that are underneath there and what we're doing with all of our educators is letting them know and we put a google doc of what questions and concerns you have about the seven through twelve school for six school the questions specifics that will be something a great start earlier so the high school kids can start later because if you do that they can come in one period before body else used the st one for the high school students get there and then the high school can have that part of the building they can also have lunch earlier so that cafeteria would be only half used for a period before the high schools have lunch in only one period while the high schools they're leaving that side of the cafeteria basically vacant all but two watches for that kind of an overflow so the b of demarcation between where they seventy three inside is a high school site and the overflow for the high school folks will be that side when the that you watch is a not an operation there is a real thick list of things that we really have to unpack to make this work that everybody has ideas about but really want to vet it through all the steering committees over the next year and a half yes they actually will be the push model that they can push and push up but they don't go up and down that's not safe and we are doing a geothermal where there will be no air conditioning but they will be tempered here because of the function of the geothermal so well to what you would see at the senior that has the exact cost allocation of every single line i can't tell you how many lines there are and if you have your glasses on get your glasses glasses because it's a very small sheet but the total project that was approved by the ems v a is that they will fund  dollars and that's how they came up with the eighty so those are all determined by the s b a and we have signed that document securing that that funding formula that means the net cost to belmont will be two hundred and fifteen million dollars or two million dollars of which has already been given to the building committee for the for the work that we've done up to this point so the net cost to the taxpayer will be two hundred and thirteen million dollars some folks look at that number and say that's a big number because it is this is a small town  so you look to your town neighbors to say if they have projects going on what do those projects cost in what we have discovered at arlington who will service a seven hundred and fifty five dollars student high school only nine through twelve their project right fifteen enrollment number designed in roman number and that's actually two schools it's a seventy eight school inside and next to an adjacent to our nine to twelve school so we know that all those numbers are high numbers but it gives us the understanding that we're not way out of the off the charts in terms of what it costs to build schools in two thousand and eighteen in the metropolitan boston area yes  schizo headquarters in the seaport town of any of you work in the seaport it's a whole nother life being a teacher and then going to the seaport office it's very different this free food a free coffee you have a big only no i'd ask you you know would you get that brothers the teachers room you know of they just have them there it's amazing so we hired a construction management team early to know our ollie begin the process but to evaluate and start to create that conversation of push back around we know that this is how you one of the sign it but these transitions don't seem to work in the time i house the work and were challenging every assumption to ensure that there's less change of orders down the road so i consider that to be money well spent because it's going to be money that doesn't go out the window when we have to change something at a high rate and also in bill speak to this normally in construction you have one dollar estimate or maybe two we had three estimation estimates done one by projects and well one by data list they all had to agree with a number of us and they all had to agree to a pretty tight script to get there so we think that that gives us a lot of insurance that everybody really knows how what what the moving parts are what settled and what the products will look like so that gives us a lot of confidence in the number the s b a has seen that spreadsheet and all its estimates and they have also blessed that number as well any any further comments about this this slide to the timeline project with the yes vote on november th we would enter into the detailed design plans which are really already happening now in good faith from the groups that we're working with we're really not not working right now we've been meeting twice a week and we've been talking to folks in ensuring transitions and timelines already but they will be in full swing and of ember seven  summer of two thousand and nineteen we will break ground on the high school site which we're calling phase one of the one through twelve portion of the building will be some infrastructure work done over the summer they will deal with the utilities right around where the pool is they will establish the construction site and they will stablish the school side they will fence and cordon off and begin that grid so we can have a school side and we can have a construction site that construction will take two years so in two hundred one thousand nine which is three grade three years away but really two years away all rising nine to twelve students will walk into the new building that's a nine to twelve building so if you think about if you have a freshman your child will walk into a new building senior  we have an th grader the walk into a brand new school as a th grader and to the point if you have a th th or th grader everything in europe in the building that you have right now will not change all the program that we offer will not change the high quality teaching in the expectations will stay the same in your sports in your out of school activities will will definitely be shuffled and not traditional but we will make it work in two thousand and twenty one i'm sorry in the summer of two thousand and twenty one when the and twelve moved up they will extract the hazardous material out of the building they will begin to recycle and break down the building of which is now the high school and then bring that down to the ground to begin the construction of the th and th grade when were here there's not very much work that needs to be done here because what will happen is that we already have the classroom space thankfully it will only have three grades of students in our four so we have room to grow back into traditional classrooms there's a lot of rooms and spaces in this building right now that are being used for teaching spaces that are actually now i'm teaching spaces so we will will know where our romance is when we get there we'll identify the classrooms were great for grade five and grade six and whether we do with that summer or not is going to be a question that will we'll think about over the next two years we do know that we'd like to soften the building down to an upper elementary feel but there's really not much work to done had that done here generates a solid building that has a classroom space that we need so we have the space that we need that's that's that's one of the big questions that will happen what is the culture of that four hundred and fifty six school what's instructional methodology i really believe that we want to make that more of an upper limit tree less of a middle school that's the whole point so  opinion would be you know regular th grade teacher team for five and six and then we'll get them ready for that team approach when they go to seventy eight and for the parents point of view you're really this transition points are really important if we do transitions well that research told us when we did in january any configuration or there is no configuration that has a direct correlation to high student outcomes what they said is if you do transitions well and you build a good culture for the grades you have in the buildings that you have that's that's the trick to good student arkham so this is really giving us insight on how do we make sure the rd to th goes well how do we make sure six to seven goes well and we know having seven in the same building that the eight to nine will go a whole lot better because remember you're going to that mike mcallister middle school where everybody has to be somewhere when this post to be to a high school that has a little bit more of an independent feel with those students in that building already that that really relaxes that transition stress for the th graders going into ni to do to prepare for that challenge the st thing that we do there will be three phases the st phase would be that we know we have more students in the high school middle school right now then we can handle the st thing we would do is we would ask the town for modulus space for at least a middle school in the high school and if need be for the elementary that is money that would be temporary temporary money spent to support the immediate need for room and we've already exacerbated all those internal stretches of class size and closets being used as the director's office that we need to have places the kids to go and learn if we're going to take another four years to figure this out so we would votes for that to work so asking the time for twenty one million dollars for something that's temporary is a hard task but that's what would be asking yes i think that a modular is inherently a one story structure you don't have would probably have to walk out to the baseball field and all weathers they would do that then come back so they walk up to the modules currently they have to go to every module has to be at least fifteen thousand one hundred and fifty feet from the building so that th to review their planning of an addition and renovation of the general school we need to make if we're going to continue with this number of students we need to add more classroom space and we need to make a bigger cafeteria we need to enlarge those multi grade spots like the gymnasium right now we have the gymnasium and we have that fitness area that has a ceiling the same height as this room so they can actually have a physical education class in there so we would have to enlarge those spaces we would make the modules temporary because we're assuming that this is going to be the plan that takes the district for the next thirty or forty years because the plan that we are presenting through the you must be a was not approved by the time so this is the plan  d we hope to build a building that will accommodate that many students so the modules would then be taken away after it was done that the expectation i think the expectation of the time we would want to live in  for ever which may be the case at the elementary level because it was nope we didn't address any plans to add on to any of the elementary schools at this time yes it sounds like the modulus are temporary unrolling create permanent that generally speaking generally would have to be expanded by x percent where x square footage arrives would have to be expanded by a number that's pretty substantial correct but i take it t the design work has been done so far to see of the building really lends itself to the kind of remodelling if you remember estimated initial study and they have a design very very polluter a design of putting in addition onto the school and quite frankly it was rather creative it's it's a tradition that would go right up the middle of the building and then there'd be an expansion of the cafeteria that would go into where the garden is and classrooms would be above that that that  courtyard and they would build classrooms up from there and they would expand the gym and go up so that's generally what they projected and gave a ballpark number of what that would cost but a bit different absolutely challenges with with that and that would have to be reviewed and fleshed out and the construction period d mean a fair amount of interior work in the existing building i think correct ok and you know knowing that we haven't fleshed out the details that by any means the way that that work works is their work that you can do during the school year when you're occupied in this work that you have to do over the summer and they call it some a blitz is where they come in and they organize themselves and they take over the building for the summer get part of it done and over the next i would do the power so again that's a policeman every estimate  option all with that whole work of getting people to buy and getting the design done getting the funding and getting the necessary approvals the rd would be to provide an addition in to renovate the current high school site the reason why this number is so high is because the eco points as soon as you start to a large enough renovation all that work kicks in the building we need to to our needs this is a large number we actually asked did most projects to go back and look at it again in august because we did have to present this option to the s b a as part of our overall scheme  of have a continuum of options that they wanted us to consider in this number is also escalated for the twenty million two hundred and forty two thousand and twenty eight timeframe as well as the other numbers that i showed you in phase one phase two what this does not reflect is the modules that are already on site would probably even maybe had to be added to or are somehow manipulated because we'd be building now on site that's occupied and work being done to the building like at the while students are in it so a lot more complicated build none of those costs are reflected in this estimate that's just a projection of the construction if we put an application end and if we if we want to get back in the queue and i shouldn't even say the cute there's no line remember how the s b a works every every year is a whole new group of needs and  projects in towns expectations and they and they take it out of that group each year so you're competing against a whole new group of folks if you were to get in queue or get in line what assumption would you make with respect to available state members and i would only say that we go through the same process that we just went through and we would we would do the same thing that we just took for the last two years and it could result in reimbursement cost appending of what the building drawings look like and what some reimbursable and what's not reimbursable the only reason why i don't bring up as b a here is because we're assuming that we have to now that we know that we're not moving at a certain direction we have to take firm steps the long range planning regardless of whether or not we want to wait in that line or not the high school i don't think can wait for numbers be a application to be awarded again and the process to be reengaged and i'm contemplating for the new building we really don't know because we don't know what the design looks right now could so the thing that the challenges are and i read references on one of the future slides is that because we haven't designed these buildings yet we can speak with confidence about how well they coordinate and how well the renovation and the additions mix in provide the the same type of value we see in the building that we just designed from scratch with the whole community taking part so i can't speak to what that quality would look like obviously it would be fully renovated it would probably be stripped right down to the bone and brought back up but i don't think that it would not be moving walls in it would be adding in addition it would be renovating the building the way it looks as it is pretty much right now and if you go back to the the list of sixteen options that we started with with the building community probably presented it to this group i know is present that is the public essentially it is adding  the current high school has pods they actually have a little courtyards in the middle it would be adding in those places to try to provide more space in the building so i just i can't i can't really say with confidence what that how that would spear i'm doing this with the assumption that we're not making up occasion to the u s p s because i have to come up with a plan that i think has three fleet phase it phases that we don't have to wait on an outside party to be part of so i guess i'm a bit confused even if we didn't plan to wait for an outside party would we apply and if there were a fortuitous opportunity to obtain funding from the state take advantage of that grant if we had to go down this road there's no guarantee that's correct and so that's why i'm making that assumption yes joe i just want to go back to what you started the presentation with which is that we applied ten times that atmosphere  could do that we know that this disk project is costly and we would want to add cost the taxpayer on top of that i think people can do a lot of things for a short period of time but the time for them to do a lot of things with an indefinite solution so we're hoping th so this is just the same information a table roughly phase one module classrooms were estimating in about three million for a four unit package that's what the price was when we just finished the m at the burbank we know that this is a potential but it would have we do at the elementary level probably would be permit at this time we don't have plans to add any school at this time we didn't go down that path after this work is done the addition or motivation to the middle school maybe starting around two thousand and twenty two this is again it's the estimates from m s m s m m a to great configuration study that we presented in general ninety two thousand eight hundred that document in that study is on the website if you want to look up those details roughly around two thousand and twenty four with the assumption that we're creating our own work and creating our own timeline without support from the state we would somewhere around two thousand and twenty four side additional high school to the number of two hundred and three million for planned design bid fun construct and the cost estimate was from data as projects august two thousand and eighteen i bring those dates in those documents your attention these are rooted in the information that we've been partnering with with our two architect firms and our firm as well that adds up to two hundred and forty seven million dollars these are projections we're trying to capture what the the cost would be and then we've tried to escalate those costs to the years that the monies would be allocated we have not planned some of the smaller things that would happen if you had to move students in and these are rough costs this is what i think was asked of the school department and even the building committee as we as we got to the spring what's that apples to apples comparison of the two projects so when you put them next to each other you have the th us essay question what's the cost of the taxpayer two hundred and fifteen versus two  what's your estimate of timeline five years including the one that we're in versus approximately ten quality of educational space we know it's great because we designed a building from scratch to the point that we just discussed it really will be hard to determine that when we look at renovations and additions to existing sites the number of projects involved one up to three projects if we went to the alternative plan funding from the state as we see it right now eighty million we do not we're not counting on anything if we go down the alternative path at how many votes need to be provided and supported by tom meaning in the public one it's november sexed up to three over the next five to ten ye building that you know approved three million dollars for the renovation of the existing building so they're true alternative which may be doomsday scenario or maybe you have one that is what is the fallback if either of those projects are done and we're forced to run our education program and system within our existing facilities i worry about that for phase one the modulus face to the middle school in the face through the high school and that that will be a very dark scenario as a relates to conditions for teaching and learning to take place with the amount of students that we have and that will continue to gain in it with the space that we have even if you gave us more teachers is going to be a certain point where we can use more teachers right here at the general we can have more music classes because we don't have any more music space we would have gave given our go after dorian a point for music teacher as part of our nine f t s he couldn't i always get this wrong because i'm just a teacher i'm a special education teacher by trade geothermal if the geothermal and the solar panels go through as the mechanism to support the school which we believe it will in there's an energy summit tomorrow night cheddar if you want to come and find out what that means we think the operating costs will go down as relates utilities which is very very very exciting that's a that's a big bill will be no gas or they'll be no fossil fuel going into the building we know that we have to add operating cost to support a school system of four hundred dollars students per grade whether we have a new building or not we still have to find enough people to supervise educate and support four hundred students are great so i think the operation budget is going up regardless in the reason why i keep saying that over the course of the last two budgets sessions is i want to dispel the myth that well when you build that big school you going to hire ninety five folks to support it we need ninety five folks and we want to hire him five or eight at a time over the next three or four years not five i'm exaggerating we need an incremental increase in our staffing to support the the logic incremental increase of students that we get so whether we're in a new building or in modulus our operational budget should go vision so right now we're in we're in the middle of a ten year span of our need ask accreditation process and seven years ago before my arrival they came out and did their two week assessment of the school you know the high schools programming  also did state a deficiency in the in the building itself due to lack of space in the condition of the space so that continues when that group comes back out to need group that would be one that we wouldn't be able to have re for that with that that's not good news as a relates to our we ask accreditation well if we could try to quantify that and we could also say a lot with a national dead if if we get to the next two years and realize that as we're preparing for either the middle school high school which comes st which makes sense to come st there's no reason why we couldn't get that are hard for folks who don't have full mobility know that and we've been working in serving those students as best we can under the conditions there is and i raise that is simply having the solution more thought you is probably less optimal to come up with your own solutions i'm curious about the risk profile of having a solution for thought i knew i had a similar question we haven't done that analysis but that's a very good point i'm not an expert on eighty eight but i believe e t a the remedy is only that they can require you to spend some percentage above the capital cost that you are going to do they can't come in and tell you to take a non compliant building and magically make compliance if you're going to spend five million dollars they can say you of the challenge of maintaining the great staff that we have that college is i think one of the challenges if this goes down and ultimately we're left with play is we may not be able to preserve what really is the ultimate driver of education here which is like you know you do you know we get asked that question last night when we hire folks to come to belmont and we have turnover of about twenty five dollars or twenty eight dollars teachers a year which is fairly the appropriate number  we always like to know a front that they know why they're coming here it's a high performing district it's a great town they all want to be here when they apply here but when we start to talk about what we're going through they say well that's great but they really don't know what that means until they t i think that they enjoy working here because they get reprinted support and they have great students to work with but we have had situations where a couple of folks have left and just this year at the school that we're in you know some want to wellesley so i'm tied to high class size and  want to do that anymore and they were a quality person then and you know that was closer to their home but that was part of their exit interview and i have exit interviews with all the administrators and any teacher that ass and that person asked be with me and that was one of the pieces of the story so i don't think it's a dilemma right now but i you know you can understand when we had class size of twenty six i was sitting in a wooden classroom and a teacher trying to me and said i used to have one thousand and twenty supposed to fail and that was just like eight or nine years ago there's twenty six students in here it felt like they were thirty seven because they were off the wall and she had them although not exactly when they were supposed to go and i was like whoa and they were all doing the right thing and moving it but if she had to continue which was the sevens i would suggest that that  somewhere else closer rouse of the decade award to the amount of time and expertise they put into this work we are actively working with the design team while we are in this middle period of waiting in this probably about forty or fifty people working on this job right now preparing  for a hopeful positive vote i believe that the questions that we get have to be asked and the answer is sometimes a really great the answer sometimes a kind of hard but in the end the community of belmont will benefit greatly from it from a lot of views of what a good time needs a long term asset a great education system that has the structural support for a fifty year view of what good teaching and learning looks like and  it's one and it's one decision away and so we really feel it's a good decision for the community from a budgetary point of view from a balance sheet point of view from an educational point of view and i showed this picture to my own children in the town i live in we have one baseball field and one football field i said the i just had to bill gave me the big boards and i had to bring him home and they had to take him out of the back seat because my dog was going to the back seat so i had him in my dining room and my own children said dad that looks like a college campus  the bill will probably speak to a better than i but we've we've had our consultant who works with traffic for a living come out and do models of work models and take data or look at what it would look like the model that you see with the  and bike area we're working on what this would look like here so when students come in and biking or on foot that we have safe crossing without it lights we're looking at some temporary tables here for reduction in the neighborhood so we're working with all the constituency is we're getting some really good responses and we're getting some still some hard questions and so we're resolving them as we go i believe that the infrastructure is really important to have on the site as it remains right now that's what our experts are recommending i take them for their word  and they also suggest that the make up that we have now is is one that they feel works best for safety and for some traffic mitigation my opinion is that the traffic that we have in belmont is not solely  the issue of having a school and park it out that we really have a regional traffic issue that we're in the middle of and that whatever we can do as a town and there's a high school traffic working group right now working on those issues that i think will kind of help the in did when we got to have occasion it all became real as he reached out to those folks and said we have this huge elephant of a project that we're going to put down on the site how can we be helpful and not hurtful of the projects that are important to the community and so the designers have what i would call because these i'm not building committee projects but they are community projects that are important to us we actually have built around the fact that the under the alexander underpass could happen so that fits we plugged it  so they want to plug in to us when they when they have that up and running we're available to do that we have army allowed in with the generational folks are already at it it's already working it's are going to be done the ice rink folks who really would like to see something change here and create a partnership with the town either on this site or maybe at the incinerator site if it is the site we are prepared to work with them to provide space here to make that happen and actually add amenities to the site so those are important to the community and what i said to the parents all the time is people go to dunkin donuts and sit and talk about all of us and say they don't talk to each other they don't get it don't they know that this is happening over here the left on defense are so they're right on well all the hands of talking all the right people are talking in this space has truly been discussed vetted supported partnered with from community planning to chie the police chief to all the committees to preserve the other parts of the community and their projects that they would like to see happen so it wasn't we're coming in we're taking over the site we're not going to worry about your stuff you have to wait now it was absolutely bill's ability to bring folks on board give their feedback to the architects of the architects worked around them so if they plug in it works if they don't plug in it still works so it's really nice when the when the public officials and the folks who work for the behalf of the community are all talking to each other and doing the right thing it with that i give you bill of the committee go you go back and try the answer all the traffic ones before you came out so i like to introduce bill you know bill he has the spreadsheet to go over some of the numbers that ari forge referred to earlier in a specific industry eight and budget projections and construction cost questions he will be able to answer i appreciate everybody's time in the room tonight so we can do  of this i also want to say again my true thanks to patrice and the group at town hall you don't know how much it means to add to the school budget will be going up by as many students it makes a big difference we're trying to showcase what difference that makes to our parents in our community that it talks to tax dollars that three year override is now in year four will last and so year five we're doing the right thing with the tax money that we're receiving and we really appreciate it and we value it so thank you very much for your support middle school and it's really exciting we've been at this for two and a half years i said tonight you know two and half years and i get it you know two half years ago there wasn't a lot of people talking about it and got off to our own thing and that's fine but out the community is really ramped up in the last month or two and really engage the committee and i do appreciate that and so here in front of you in iraq we talked you know what to bring john did a great job but you folks i think are very passionate about the cost of the and i would take this next twenty minutes or so and and present what i'll call as the final project and budget so the m s b our partner here has a very regimented process i don't you know john said a few things about me but i got to tell you john and his his staff have been stellar and their ability to turn things around when the m s b ask questions and provide a quick answers and it is allowed us to make every it is allowed us to actually accelerate our process through the s b a and here we are today ready for the general election vote that could be no more than the perfect plan and so we've executed it john again i want to thank you for your work and your staff not a project that could be modified they are very red regiment in the way they work through they worked with us to get the best project that met the vision and the educational plan that was put together by john and his team and therefore the project that you saw is the project the board voted on people say what if we take ten percent of the no that doesn't work with the m a spade is that project that project has a cost that cost was estimated by the building committee not b dollar not by two but by three independent estimators most projects we do we have an estimate people come to the m s p there are two estimates we did three the rd one was our professional construction management team askance good that we brought on they don't they manage the construction aspect of the job we brought them on early we brought them on early for several reasons one was to drill into costs two was to look at constructibility and three was to provide a very detailed schedule that we have full confidence that could be executed someone said to me tonight so how you really know it's going to be done on time i know it's going to beat on time because we already have an execution plan we've been working on this all summer and that execution plan  starts in november with some early early packages going out the bit not nestle big construction but we're moving forward with some early remediation in the winter break so that we can get in and look at some utilities a lot of detail i don't need to talk to you about the detail just tell you that we know the schedule we work collectively with the construction team know all summer we know the cost three estimates they were all then reconciled submitted and that form the basis of our project budget and so the next piece of information that will have to execute the s b a will be the project funding agreement after the vote should be successful this document is just a subset of the main document that came to his office had i think about eleven exhibits only showing you a couple of exhibits which i think are most important you must be doesn't put these together i forgot to bring my binder that i carry in my car for ballast but it is a binder of all the information that we sent to them and then they parse that out and attach it as part of the binding agreement as matter fact i think patrice we are waiting for town council to give their final ok on this and then it's executed the project scope and budget agreement so that's this piece and the two exhibits i have attached to this speak to the project costs and then for the project reimbursement now go through that briefly and please if you want have any questions or tell me you know what  want me to stop please do st you've heard a couple of numbers the s b a says right on here congratulations we're giving you an estimate officially grant of seventy seven point nine million dollars and at the sound like eighty million dollars that's not the one million dollars because that seventy seven million nine hundred thousand dollars is against the construction costs of the project cost that doesn't include contingencies so that project that relevant project cost is two hundred and seventy eight million dollars and so when you add in those contingencies project is used in terms of when the construction starts escalation and future construction costs built into those contingencies or are those  numbers so the estimates put together as current cost numbers and then it's escalated to the midpoint of construction we are bidding this project as one dollar bid for the most part we will break a couple of phases into a couple big packages just because of convenience but most of it will be bid up front as ones that we didn't middle school start for several years contractor will come in to price and let me tell you the logic behind that because we have a discussion but it works out pretty easily when you think about it public bid process we cannot necessarily just go out and pick our betters we have to bid it so if we're bidding it a nd time for a phrase to we may have a mechanical contractor be and we have a mechanical contractor a and phase one well the building has to talk to each other all across and it's just not going to work out very well so that was a quick discussion in we said no we're going to bid it all as one would probably defer bidding for instance like the p v on the roof because we don't want to buy something that's go be four years old by the time it gets installed and we know that technology changes so there are a couple things that will differ on bidding and we've already talked to the help me out at the tourney general that said that we can do that  construction management team is very crafty and they've they have a direct link to that office and so they've asked these questions of how we can go about parsing out pieces of the project and still meet the massachusetts public bid last i can't tell you how talented and excited i am to be so back on the cost which which is good to understand when i say contingencies that's not escalation that's that's that's above the line contingency would be anything that falls out that we didn't tremendous asset in our town as you know we always carry ten percent every project we carry ten percent you know save the pool with us i would how we do it i suppose ten percent is projects a lot of money i say we developed a whole set of drawings that was that was priced one hundred and cut that estimate that contingency down from ten percent to six percent still fourteen plus one million dollars and we knocked the price down in our budget by ten million dollars we can do this we can make that happen  we have a good set of drawings we have of we have a project that's generally a new construction it's called the renovation because it's fifteen percent of the billions being renovated but by and large it's mainly in new construction so be has given us forty sixty six percent of eligible cost reimbursement someone said to me i guess they use their smartphone and said listen eighty million divided by two hundred and ninety five million is twenty seven percent it's not forty percent why are you telling me forty percent because  atmosphere says it's eligible costs and i told you before that they have a whole bunch of rules what's eligible and we try to follow those as much as possible but on projects you just can't have everything eligible so i will tell you that we fought for all our points and i'm very happy with the amount that we exceeded forty percent that was sort of a target i had going in the wellington was forty percent so that we did a little better we could be proud of ourselves we start with a base points of thirty one percent and that's just that by the state treasury and then the additional three factors are basically the socioeconomic factors of of each city and town in massachusetts so we're on the lower spectrum for obvious are other communities that have a lot more in percentage points that are grabbed through that and then we get what's called incentive points those incentive points are what's allowed by certain things that  do anywhere between zero and two percent of percentage points is provided for for maintenance the proper or best practice is they're used to operate and maintain the building and must be said across the table from us and said two percent we've never seen a community get to hold two percent you guys do a great job of taking care of buildings that i could tell you that made me so proud to just hear that you know we talk about the building being in tough shape but it's it's lasted as well as it has simply because of the effort that's been put into it so for every percentage point on this project and reimbursement you know we're getting two million dollars so it's four million dollars right there in the state see him at risk that's just a choice that we have getting the job through chapter one forty nine a that's a percentage point as i said we're actually renovation and so we've got a we eked out a bit of a percentage point there that's another one million dollars and then high efficiency or energy efficient schools you can get up to two percent and  we are certainly going to be a very energy efficient building and so we'll gather all that two percent and that's what gets us to the forty six percent of eligible costs so that is that is memorialized in our agreement with the project and funny agreement this cannot change next year we're going to have a whole set of different factors for belmont as well as the rest of state this is locked in for the like for the projects locked enough and they won't change that's the commitment that allow it and we have a portion of it that the reimburse is for for renovation and then the excess beyond its like about sixty percent beyond sixty percent of that building any costs are not reversible so we took that  out the have a maximum size of auditorium that's allowed a school i will tell you that the m s b a has a very regimented and they don't it doesn't matter that we're two schools in one that were middle school and high school it's one school to them and you you have only one nd theater space we call the black box theater it's not going to have a race just purely flash and it's a very functional space that can be set up in multiple ways but that is in excess of what's permitted and so that's not included in there reimbursement and then there's a few small spaces called district offices so we have heads of nursing in and technology and so forth that the district has in the school today and will continue to have in the school today but it's not specific to the high school therefore they exclude that small square footage but that's about all that all adds up so when you take that and you apply the the ratio they come back and say well since that's excluded we're going to exclude that ratio of design fees and o p m fees so that's getting why they exclude some of that and then they go on to say well we're going to exclude permitting fees and that that's that's fine we don't really expect any permitting fees really put a small budgeted for that but we won't need to run that through our office and then  other things that are excluded would and so that's sort of the soft cross and then what's excluded in construction costs if you look down at the you see these two line items h b ac and electrical we are going to be a very efficient building where we will be collecting credits and rebates from our systems but in past the s b a has excluded has if you take those they will deduct that from your grant because your grant is a max and facility grant and anything that offsets that will have to reduction be reduced from the ground well there are three drivers for designing building is educational program appropriate energy efficient penalize us so they changed some of the regulations years ago and now they're itemizing that by taking it out of eligibility so they took out the difference in cost for installing a geothermal system which we have  ever and at st i was a little worked up about that but what i found is that it didn't matter on the bottom line because they the biggest factor in what's in eligible is the excess above the maximum construction costs that they allow the mass and construction costs they allow whether in boston or the western edge of massachusetts is the same cost as three hundred and thirty three dollars a square foot at this point in time that we're executing this agreement our cost for the project is five hundred  s thirty two dollars a square foot and that's it well within the range of other projects if you go on their website and so that's the big delta that's the one that really impacts us and that's why taking these specific items out of the bottom line still does  not affect our bottom line of the graph programs would be the same in the same place took me a while though to understand that and they don't clearly explain that but i do numbers guy certainly now understand that and finally there's a couple of other so the proportional ratios of overhead license and all that sort of stuff on those costs also show up as excluded because it's just a proportional impact to the total you get that and then finally there's two other big numbers in eligible auditorium  of the guidelines again those guidelines you before explained there was a percentage of cost there was some square footage and so that multiple that square footage multiplied by our construction costs leads to the twenty eight million dollars and then the last number is just that delta of three hundred and thirty three dollars eligible construction costs versus our total construction costs there's a couple of the things in here that's excluded such as swing space in modulars no they will not pay for any a temporary facilities so that's that's why we're trying to minimize all that and and moving costs are not included so all of that together starts to add up to what's ineligible the last piece is our technology for sure is fixtures and equipment the s b a has one dollar cost per student whether you're kind of guard or you build that kind of garden or elementary school where you build the high school we know when you build a high school every student has a lot more needs because there are a lot more classrooms that they go to a lot more technology and a lot more space in a school versus an elementary school which you have the students sitting in one classroom and that's it there's a there's a p e class and and there's a music class but that's it so  that's just the way they work so we said professionals advise us that the budget that they give per student is not sufficient for a high school we asked them to provide some examples they gave us a high range in the low range and we were right in the so we established that cost but again the m s p i said that's fine but we're not reimbursing you about the limit that they provide so so all in we have four hundred and forty five thousand one hundred square feet for the project designer roman of two thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars students at a total project budget excluding the contingencies of two hundred and seventy eight million dollars and there's there's one i got a laugh but they they will pay for one hundred percent of commissioning the honest day on their nickel commissioning is getting the building operating  so they deduct another forty seven thousand dollars from from what they have just there they're great with the numbers right so when all is done we have our total cost our owners contingency that's on the soft costs we have are in and eligible construction contingency because we classified this as a renovation project even though we're fifteen percent of patients we have up to two percent of contingency that's eligible for reimbursement it's only one percent of who has a new building so that was that was a nice jump and all in all i think i'm getting the glaze over everyone this all ends up at the eighty million dollar grant and the two one hundred and ninety five million dollars construction told construction costs and i'll close or at least stop and pause  here and say that people have come up to me and say construction costs always go over you know you guys going to be over so you know how can you guarantee that the s b a does not allow projects to go over that's why they have monthly reviews that's why they have the owners project managers that they approve on the projects because those are the sort of even though they work for us they're also making sure that we're doing the right thing making sure they keep the honest pay for making sure the project doesn't go over the budget and we're obligated to do able to turn something back over on this project i don't know what that is but the goal is to finish with money back in the pot so i was about fifteen when i'm getting better and the st time i did it with the school the school committee here to transfer or something but so we submit every month even if what we're doing right now is reimbursed through the m s p a program or design design or professional fees that we're doing on the feasibility and so every month we put into what they call their pro pay system our before in the event this project is not approved we have to return that no no no so that was a commitment that we signed with the feasibility agreement the commitment was actually a little less on the reimbursement we're going to be retroactive through that so they'll be a little kick up we were thirty six dollars thirty six point eight nine percent that they're contributing to us right now and that is that agreements so as you know we it's ours i mean we is also an extremely complicated project lasting an even longer time and actually more but in my experience for these things to work there has to be intense of the involvement by both communities such as the one you're on is there any indication that the people who've been involved with planning the news of the building would be interested in continuing to were for some plan b or would be back really sign from scratch even seeking people who would be qualified to lead such a project i have not had that discussion with the committee members i do know that our committee is i think formed through town meeting based on an m s p grant program that if it doesn't exist very likely the moderator would have to start again maybe some of those members could bring some institutional knowledge and help out but i that discussion hasn't reached any  committee meetings we have a very positive attitude some of our energy folks in belmont people that are very passionate about our commitment to two thousand and nine of eight percent carbon emission reductions by two thousand and fifty said this project has to do all it can to start reaching those goals and they're actually right if we're going to make those goals the commitments that we made two thousand and nine we have to start with inventory that's coming across our tables now and so we've worked with this with before we even started with the our fees the request for proposals for a design professionals and we integrated in those republicans language that spoke to our intent i stop short of saying our goal because we we have to test that whether or not the goal works for belmont what we've tested it and i could say that we have a building that meets those goals it is zero net energy meaning that the energy the bill the building will consume can be supplemented by onsite resources or google resources and that's that's a long way to response to say there are a lot of steps that happened we put a design together that can do that now there are different entities that are beyond the building committee that have to be engaged as the project moves along to get those energy credits placed operational cost that's be the school committee and we're going to talk about that tomorrow night and the energy summit there's a panel group of nine experts in their field they'll be sitting at a round table in the auditorium with me i'm going to try to moderate that but i'm going to learn i think a moderator is great when they don't know everything because they get asked questions so i plan on doing that and it's open mike for the the community in the nd half of that to ask questions and it's a learning it's not just for the high school as i said to other folks this is this is not unusual if you're in the building industry like i am these are things that are happening that you see regionally and nationally the west coast usually pushing a lot more understandability faster than the east coast so we're going to learn s combined with geothermal i've learned from our energy folks in town i think there's a factor of seven from that was taken that multiplied that to really created a huge impact and how those energy with that that has to be something that we would use to beat down debt or whether it's something we could use elsewhere in the town i don't i don't have an answer to that because that's operational but i'll tell you this we didn't get being by massachusetts they because like i said the bottom line didn't change anything they did this specifically because they knew we were doing and they wanted to make sure we could capture those credits that's an operational cost credit that is a debate whether or not it's school borrow money or whomever and we have chris ro are our belmont light manager there who will be participating to more and i didn't talk about you know at some point we could put the entire site can be structured with photovoltaics but is that the right place for a rate payers taxpayer money or do we look at other places to gain those energy reserves through more cost effective means because putting on the roof very cost effective start to build structures over parking not so cost effective and so there's a balance there of where you want to stop and suggest you know that the more that we understand that a little better at some point down the road just in terms of how that those that those energy credits generate funds to the town and the school and where they end up going to that you have to be an answer before and they probably change the rules change a bit to as we go on but we're told that that's that cash stream is sustainable you know i that's a question i have you know it was something that will see dry up in two thousand dollars you know i think it's wonderful i think the cash rate and now i just want to get the fields and out of the way that this new school is going to be in so that we could advance early while the design of the building still taken place the next package will be a sort of a structural foundation package again the building still the finishes and all being designed but we know what the structure is we know the foundation we're going to get that out early because we're going to start installing the foundation piles next fall and so those are early packages and as we also have a design team that  is you heard john say there they're really cranking right now i think they're got a good idea that i guess it'll pass because they're making a commitment like everyone else's and as soon as we get going they'll be invoicing on that so we have a we have a cash flow that we we have put together actually for the m s b and then we share with the town and floyd use that to put together a plan that i think he published just recently and taking out probably two or three bonds  strategic times and the cash flow will be very steady so we bid doesn't mean you're paying for it when you bid it's just locks you into a price you actually have products that you that you pay for which the product reaches the site so it's a fairly even cash flow we could have wrecked so five million dollars a month at some point on this project that we looked at so it's it's a pretty steady stream for the two plus years a contract action was five years from now significantly lower because it's short term maybe this is probably silver or station that maybe we should have a conversation about to understand how much rigs have to rise to make us sorry that we didn't borrow money upfront rather than ok yes even during the construction period and every doesn't change yeah it's now if we if they start to challenge some things my understanding is they simply don't hold the whole thing up right in my business sometimes you  that the clock starts ticking that if i can say that in a scenario where we were thirty days away from the general election and we said guys you know we're with this all general election probably some leniency there we actually have a full time commitment on this phase of thirty months from when we started which expires early part of next year so that is another part of our dream and the agreement that we signed that's the clock is ticking so there's probably some leniency in this but there must be a says listen we're holding a check for eighty million  dollars you're going to either use it or not because there's three hundred and fifty other cities and towns that could really use it and that's why they put time limits on the sides that so this isn't so much a question for you bill because it's it's really a question for ford carmen and i'm echoing what what what chris was just talking about this need to understand the financing plan since we're in an era of rising interest rates and anger and we unclear exactly how much that would be but somewhere the ballpark of forty five million he's imagining at five percent for twenty years and he and his a paving an additional short term borrowing probably around two thousand and twenty three march and lower interest rate  and so that's that's probably the most flexible thing yet one of that's one of the last one and i do want to say this the eighty million dollars is the maximum if we don't spend it all if we don't spend our full budget which we don't intend to we're not going to ever see the full eighty million dollars is tied it's not just a lump sum it's tied to what eligible and what's being spent so john talked about all the different agencies we're talking with and that's one of them and we said to chris is that can stay there because it's right on the side of our drive we've left it there clearly we don't want to be ripping up the finished work if we don't have to so he's looking at prioritizing but the project to move ahead with that building still there we're just going to be right alongside of that in the schedule a bit so that's that's some contingency right there and we also make sure up front that we have investigated those things that could cause a some problem so as i said in december school break right around the other year there will be a week of activity where that school shut down we're going in the school and we're going to do some exploratory know and most ordinary school who just pop the ceiling down do that lie school you've got to bring the whole process in of cleaning up what's there before you can even look at it so we're moving sections of the ceiling over mostly by the the field house it will be leaving it that way for the remainder of the year so you go back in there and you're going to see bare structure you're going to just see lights hanging you know ceiling and that's going to allow our folks to really look at those areas that we find we we think are high risk so we we don't address them and then finally our current schedule target completion day or what we call substantial completion we take control of a portion of the building which would be the high school is july if you say the fall because a building of this size it's going to take a while to move furniture in to get the commissioning going to understand how to operate the building understand all turn lights on and off and flush toilets and all that sort of stuff so we want to have ample time to do that so when the teachers leave in june they will be putting all their stuff that they're taking in one little box that's according to there's an enormous sewer that runs through the campus right now because that's where most of the town sewer is going before it exits the town water example and we're taking power from the new service on concord of tapping into that and as well we out in the summertime for obvious reasons and and get it all at least get the utility dock banks and so forth to the campus site so that we can pay but the road back to go before summer is over we'll have a website we will have our construct our contractor has done this many times with districts and you know anxious folks and so they have really streamlined their ability to keep people informed and will be working with them right after the vote to start talking about schedule and what's coming up in you know keeping people informed it will not be the belmont high school building kitty website will have a link to there is but they they're pretty good at keeping people informed they will have regular neighborhood maybe i forget what they said at coffee and donuts or something maybe something healthier than that coffee and fruit or something but the try to keep people informed through multiple channels so that  you know i think what people understand what's going on there are a lot less relaxed and just not hearing anything so we're going to do our best to keep to find different ways to keep people informed and there's two to three different neighborhoods when you look at that campus that have different  asked different expectations and different ways they they go about their life so we have to be respectful of that to all the count all the construction activity will happen on concrete it's not going to go through to injure so the st thing we'll do is open up a red cross and go to st a and entrance into the site so that construction vehicles could exit the site there and turn and go east to concord have and drive back to route to there be no traffic coming through center of town all construction traffic is  because we are overlapping to middle school high school so it's it's something that they're i think anxious to see how they can work it out and that would help on a few things i think right it will help on alleviating some of the impact traffic but john knows very well that i said in the very beginning of this project two thousand and sixteen that traffic was going to be the biggest issue and i could stand here sit here for you and say traffic is still the biggest issue i don't i talk about cost but traffic is what i talk about most and it's it's it's somewhat driven by the school but the traffic is really what's in town and the school impact the traffic is less than an hour in the morning and that traffic that you see that's in the afternoon it's not even the school traffic that's back it up it's after school so we've been meeting with neighbors and they're passionate about what things can be done to mitigate and as i said to them and we're working on it now those don't have to wait until two thousand and twenty one when schools open i think some of that  will happen sooner because they might need some relief on some of the challenges and traffic and i'm happy to be in a community this is a group is not a high school building commands doing this this is something that tom i think you suggested as a softening and now the s a large group called traffic working group with time representatives from different parts of town with very different interests and collectively they'll come to select justin's and the building committee is committed to try and listening to those suggestions and bring them to the project for whatever the right solution is for bill maher design professionals as john said said what they said is important but belmont needs to have the final say and it's not the building committees final say it's really communities final say so figure the next couple months our next meeting is friday conversation a lot of different people have different passions for different reasons and our bellmawr community is so kind and so it's just been a nice process you know people have some concerns and not all decisions ring well with people but it's really wonderful you know this but what you do that we're just working in this community and meeting different people and listening to them and and you know bringing that back to discussions at a table like this and our committee really makes a great so thanks for saying that but it's a it's a great compel my community i think is make this project wait is this design that john showed it's not the building committee solution this is belmont solution fifty four meetings what our next meeting next week will be a th just building committee meeting that all the other stuff and that's that from she's an incredible person with a lot of knowledge and so would make a good team and let's hope for a good outcome in november and then i guess we've got a lot more work to do  up very likely a town meeting the worst like minutes past the board of assessors to take a look at our senior tax deferral interest rate right now a spokesman of you where is the opportunity for seniors that qualify at certain income levels to request you for all on their taxes and that is accompanied with eight percent interest rate sort of the way that that typically works when that individual creation of a transportation advisory committee so there's already a traffic advisory committee but the thought is to effectively disband that group create a new group with a slightly amended charter that  opportunity to see that from the ground from the get go capital and then how it goes to where we're going to really have a capital improvement plan and as related to departments just seem to me that we couldn't really unless we're just interested is individuals affectively decide which ones to go to which it was not until we had committee assignments and the subcommittees met and said ok you know here's the i don't know public safety group you go to the fire you go to the police or whatever so i think we need to do some organizing i think in order to make that effective before we can effectively participate in t subsequent yes so this one is really just to kind of get a look at what departments are looking at for the capital items and i told them that it's not really not you know anything about ten thousand dollars that's kind of where we start and then we are going to have discussions about what we think are the main priorities in regards to those items what they're thinking where they fit physically over a five year period and then from there it's talking about how to