hello everyone i'm joanna jewell a senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald and wicked local belmont dot com thanks for tuning into this episode of belmont in thirty i'm pleased to have with us as our guests today roy steen chairman of the war committee and anne marie mahoney chairman of the capital budget committee roy when he's not volunteering on the war committee in his real life is a professional economic consultant in litigation manners and an adjunct professor at boston college for finance and marie is an online discussion facilitator for a boston college is continuing education program for the school theology and ministry and facilitates bereavement groups she's lived in belmont since one thousand nine hundred sixty two and has served on the capitol budget committee for about ten years she served as a select men from two thousand to two thousand and four and most recently has been appointed to the c p a committee and space task force for belmont public schools roy you also have a long history on the walk me ten years and that's just that's quite interesting that you're both at your ten year ten year marks and i thought i would be great to have you on the show because i want to talk about what you're now both involved with something was recently formed in february the capital budget has been looking at major capital town projects since two thousand but more recently since two thousand and twelve you've been focusing on what is referred to as the big four the library the high school the police station and the public works facility now to give everyone an idea of what the major capital projects working group is we're going to cut to a clip of a presentation that emory gave at a town  meeting that evening and mary mahoney town meeting member precinct one chair major capital projects working group when i figured out that they were going to be a lot of presentations this evening i thought gee how can i make this stand out maybe i should accompany it with some music and being a child of the sixty's and given the topic this evening i considered such hits as gimme shelter or we got to get out of this place but then i realized that mike was not going to have any of us so therefore what i am about to present is an interim report or an overview of the work of the major capital projects working group since two thousand and twelve the capital budget committee and later the capital projects of a group of the financial task force have offered tools and analysis for prioritizing the four outstanding major capital projects on high school d p w the police station and the library however to date a comprehensive plan to make them a reality has not been adopted what is our goal we are trying to break the twenty five year impasse of picking an order to do these projects one at a time we aim to make progress on all of these projects in a reasonable time frame and add a manageable cost we have toward all four buildings and that with the incinerator consultant to understand the available space and the capital process we have met with the police chief the library director and trustees the directors of d p w community development and facilities and the senior planner we have met with advocates for other pending projects such as the community path and affordable housing we have spent time thinking inside outside and all around the box to pose questions about every aspect of futures for these buildings we see that the d p w director and the police chief finally believe that something good might happen for their facilities after years of just talking and studying we owe our employees a safe and decent place to work we will find solutions that are financially acceptable to our taxpayers we will work with the community pathan affordable housing groups to ensure that all of these plans work together will identify parcels that could be sold for revenue to finance our recommendations we will have public meetings before the fall town meeting to present our work and to collect public employment we will be back before you in the late fall with a plan or we will die trying just might and when we report our recommendations in the fall i hope that i will set the presentation to either good vibrations or i'm a believer so that gives a lot of people an idea of what you're going to be doing and i know you can't tell me a lot about what the solutions will be because you're still working on them and that will be presented at the spending in the fall but i'm hoping that you can tell us something about how this how this finally came to the point where it is i mean a twenty five year you said in memphis a you know doing one project at a time and finally someone got the idea i don't know who to let's try to fix let's try to fix these problems the major problems in these buildings instead of just saying ok we're going to do one over another and i recently tore the facilities and i'm sure you agree i don't know which  it's definitely is also in need of repair but it's not like not the same as the police in the d p w and the high schools on its way to being repaired so i think the best way to show people the dire need wow those photos really do tell the story and it's been a long time coming for both of those facilities it's hard to say which one needs needs more help so tell me how are you going to fix these these problems well i think first we have to acknowledge that the town has done a really good job in the last fifteen or twenty years of addressing buildings so that you know we've done the fire stations in a senior center in wellington school was there a lot is going on but these four just seem to fall to the back of the pack the high school because we were waiting for state funding which we now have the promise of and the other three buildings to a certain extent the sighting was an issue or was a question so they all have feasibility studies they all have acknowledged shortcomings and when capital budget committee tried to prioritize as did the financial task force strongly that those two buildings are in the most need and so some of us might have a budget said we we just have to find a way to make it happen and when we came together as this major capital projects working group we said our goal here is the think outside the box how can we tackle them in a different way because if we try the same old path they're never going to get done sammul path would be choosing one no i don't bond it wait till there's more bonding capacity and so  would be a very very long process so now we're not we're not going that route what can you tell everyone what he's got some we have a suggestion to try to go well there are various problems before such a sighting and and so forth it looks now at the high school proceed the library site i think it's been resolved it's going to stay where it is d p w will stay where it is the police station we have some of thoughts that we're still evaluating for a site that has not been discussed in town so far and where before revealing what that is we're doing some feasibility work to make sure it's a sensible option there's been talk about the incinerator site but we are thinking of actually a totally different look really yes in terms of the works to be done it occurred to us that it could be staged or there are some urgent requirements from the police station and d p w that we think can be addressed significantly for an interim basis five to ten years that would dramatically improve working conditions in the serviceability of those buildings and then have a more comprehensive approach to those buildings in the future alive so in terms of timing looks like the high school is going forward we're working with the library to establish timing and funding for that consultant that you're working with that's all you have that the town has a contract with sims maine mckee associates and we have tapped into that and we created all of our questions pull together all of the information that we needed answers to with their consultants a couple of times and handed them that information so they will come back to us we hope by late august beginning with the answers really ok that then we can start to work with i would say that actually our committee  gave them a lot of direction about what we we would like them to evaluate and we're waiting for them to come back largely to say whether our ideas have any traction i want to tell me about any of those ideas whale well i think they ar term and long term i think short term we feel an urgent need to address the working conditions of our employees and so we ask them some very specific questions about that how we could do that with the potential of as quickly as the fall asking for some money to do that in some respects the d p w which is which is i think worse shape than your photos indicated actually it's a little bit easier to address we were thinking in terms of attaching some modular units in the back that would provide better amenities such as poil it's changing facilities showers right now people can be working all day in the summer in a sewer and not have a place to shower at the p w which is right not acceptable right but we think with modular units and some selective engineering of certain parts of the building that there could be a dramatic improvement both in service ability in quality right but they are nice they're nice facilities but they are and they are temporary what about financing how are we going to finance even the modulars well floyd carmen is a member of our committee and we're giving a lot of thought to that in part it depends on the information we get back from the consultants about what they think is necessary from an engineering but we will be spending between now and four town meeting coming up with a financial strategy it will probably involve a small dead issue but the i think the cost will be small relative to the benefits that we get and i certainly hope the town meeting  would really be in the hands of television well i think the goal is in november to present the town meeting with our recommendation here's what we think the town should do short term long term financing and to be clear  point why why is how could it be that four buildings all at once we need to be renovated or rebuilt i think it's more that we have embarked back in the year two thousand on a very long term process to address many many buildings in town i think you almost have to look at a fifty year look at the town that says the town historically was very conservative and very prudent and how it dealt with its finances and how it dealt with its infrastructure the problem with that is once proposition two and a half was implemented that severely constrained us in how we could address things even the roads t water and sewer pipe replacement all of that started to hit the town all at once and so while i always hasten to say we've done a good job with replacing the fire department buildings and building a senior center replacing the wellington and the paul and many projects we still have these four i think that because the high school is sold big of a project and the others you know the library has come forward in the last twenty years with multiple feasibility studies and multiple options never could quite get behind any of them and so we're committed to doing that now people should recognize that the d p w police buildings are abo always useful to see what other people have done sometimes you get ideas about how to work with a difficult site and belmont is geographically very constrained but i think the requirements are well known but it's really a question of having the wherewithal  stretch there february march and april every single week every friday just to to get to where we are today well i know at last town last night's town meaning the word over i came up quite a few times addition to the other two separate things and over and over ride is a vote to increase taxes to cover operating expenses a regular budget write a debt exclusion is also a vote to increase taxes but for capital projects  some kind of debt exclusion will be required but we think it will be acceptable to the town once people see the scale of the spending that we're talking about which will be very disciplined and the need which was very real well i mean i got it has gone to a point where it's just so much at once and it is so now it's like how do you prioritize are you right i mean can you do that well we believe our commitment is to make progress on each one of these simultaneous and you really think you can you can do this i think we can i think by just thinking differently about it and exploring different options from what the town has done in the past i think our viewers about the long term or short term solutions that you're you're working on i would just say that there are many pieces to this and they all have to weave together smoothly and neatly and some of the other pieces include the location of the community path or any future affordable housing device all of that has to come together because we are a four square mile town we're very tight with no new buil lot and so we just have to be very creative with what we have and we have to work with each other and part of our message to each of these constituencies everybody is going to have to give a little bit to make it work for the whole  and in fact we will be reaching out to the community past groups even the group that's working on the proposed park around clay pond intergenerational walking past being funded by c p a funders there's a lot of points of as you know when it's way from waverley one of their preferred routes is through the d p through the d p w and through bell months after crossing through the back of the electric light building and by the high school so by it's nature all these projects and i brought my list of i don't leave anybody out offshore or any of their qualifications for members of the present capital budget committee pap roche who currently chairs the permanent building committee and is also a member of the high school building committee and worked on the library feasibility fallon who was our representative from the warren committee and she too served on the library feasibility study mark polow is a representative from the board of selectmen and he and i worked closely on the financial taskforce myself  from the warren committee and roy has done a lot of work with them on like board on their advisory committee on their working group and on their substation site committee and then finally phyllis marshall interim town administrator and floyd carmen for his treasure know that's definitely a lot of people so it's a good group if we want to keep it small so that we could meet frequently and be focused i think one thing else that i would like to add when we talk about the financing is the need for private funding you know the library has committed that they will look for some private financing that they will look for some partnerships to meet their needs for a new library building and that's wonderful do you think you'll have a public form soon sooner than later before to now meaning paul yes as soon as possible and i would say we expect to get a great deal of additional information in the next four to six weeks because we have a lot of activities and in process right now and we would be happy to come back and report over great oh great well i definitely think that doing it sooner than later this is good because i think there's a lot of people residents who might have ideas that all that we want to hear yeah absolutely well and our meetings are all public maybe and so anybody who is so inclined on a thirty on friday morning says will come in and then definitely somebody put me on that group even ellen all right is the word out i'll get the word on your coffee it's time to wrap up unfortunately but i will have you back on the show because i want to have you back on when you can share more about what this major capital project you group is doing but i think it's exciting and i really just wanted to let the public know about it stay tuned there will be more there will be there will be more and i wish you well i wish you luck luck with it with everything thank you have to do before that november you very much and i want to thank everyone for tuning into this episode of belmont and thirty i i want to thank the belmont media center for making this all possible especially julie for her work but the video clips that we use