the following podcast is produced or sponsored by a community member the content views and opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not reflect those of b m c or the town of b m c welcomes your comments call us at six one seven four eight four two four four three or email us at access at velma media dot org hello everyone welcome to community conversations on the b m c podcast network i'm your host roger colton delmon has some public buildings that are quite literally falling apart they present classic situations of problems that should probably been addressed yesterday and yet they languish but due to the diligent efforts of a small group of public servants we may finally see a way forward the group has a fancy name the major capital projects working group hopefully today however we're going to simplify the issues and make it more understandable to you the community with me today to help us do that is anne marie mahoney amery is chair of the major capital projects working group welcome anne marie and thanks for taking time to come over and talk with us today thank you roger happy to be here and always happy to get some information out about our group we're going to try to cram a year's worth of work into a half hour today so if we can agree just at the beginning i think this is ok you and i haven't talked about this but we're going to set aside the high school and we're going to set aside the library yes and so what we're going to talk about are the other two of the big four the d p w yard and that the police station sounds good just to set the stage can you give us some history why are we at the point where we even need a group called the major capital projects working group well unfortunately we have a long history and that's why we're pushing hard right now to finally find a resolution as we move forward if you go back and look at the building projects we've done we've done schools we're deep into the high school project now we've replaced the pool we've replaced our track we've even done our fire stations and a renovation of the town hall all of that is good stuff but what it's left us with is a d p w and a police station in addition to the high school in the library who are in desperate desperate shape capital budget i also chair the capital budget committee we've been talking about these projects for years in particularly after the wellington school was completed and we keep pressing we have to do something we have to do something because we're very aware of all the money that we spend on those buildings out of the capital budget to continue to repair them and keep them functional and we can't keep doing that anymore so with the cooperation of the we formed this capital projects working group to still pull ourselves out of capital budget a little bit draw few more people into our project and really sit down and address the four buildings and that's what we're going to present on the thirteenth to town meeting i'm going to tell you one of my impressions and i'd like you to tell me if i'm right or wrong or whether you whether you agree or disagree with it and  seems to me that the d p w yard and a police station don't have what i would call a constituency to promote it when we need a new pool there's a group of people who w and police because they don't have that until you have raw sewage in your basement or until your house is broken into largely d p w and police are invisible to you they're integral to the function of the town and they're the two entities that every every person in the town needs but they're invisible and so we have dubbed ourselves the cheerleaders someone has to get out there and be that constituency for them because they're not sexy they're not exciting you know they're not they don't have any books they don't have any recreation they don't have things that people love and yet we desperately need them or we don't function as a town of course so let's take them one at a time  changed dramatically since then just as everything else says libraries schools and whatever that particular station is on a very difficult site a difficult plot of land it's surrounded by two major roads pleasant stre the railroad tracks and the old like department building the topography is difficult so the exteriors is there's no there's very little parking for the police the ability for the public to enter that building is tough because of the slope of concord avenue on the stairs so the exteriors is tough before you even get inside the building inside the building is really bad it's not accessible if you want to see the police chief or meet with a detective you have to climb twenty one very steep stairs there's no elevator in term which means that that isn't happening the police chief has to come down what happens is the police chief of the detectives come down or often they will travel to somebody house to meet with them rather than have them come to a station they can't get into so there's excess ability issues there are safety issues the way that the police enter the building with a prisoner is very unsafe way the way the weapons lock up is set up is not safe their record keeping is now outgrown the available space by law they have to keep records there on paper and there's no place to put them and then there's the equity if wall equity issue i can say it three times faster we now have many female officers which is wonderful but they don't have appropriate locker room and shower room space and they should have equal space all our male officers in addition to that our cells need some work and we need a better and safer booking area and we need just a nicer area for the average citizen who comes in and wants to sit in a quiet off off the beaten path setting to meet with a police officer or to be interviewed or whatever so we have safety accessibility and equity issues in that building and unfortunately the site is really too small to do a lot of meaningful expansion or renovation there so we're looking at a new facility down the road ok and then let's flip over and let me ask you the same question imagine if you w what why do we need p w the good news is the d p w has a great site and it's got plenty of room there and their neighbors love them and want to keep them there so that's a good thing however the facility is very old very rundown and as anyone who's been back there knows it's a grouping of buildings some of the garage buildings are fine but the main building where people work and are housed and are supposed to have their lockers and a break space and administrative space is in terrible condition similarly not accessible it's stairs to get up to the little administrative offices absolutely no equity for any female employees and even for our male employees for all our employees there is not an appropriate locker room space there are no showers so if our employees are digging in a sewer all day they have no place to come back take a shower and change their clothes which is appalling if they're out plowing in a blizzard for hour after hour they have no place to come back and get a meal sit down maybe rest for an hour before they go back out again so we're looking at the same thing accessibility appropriate and humane space for our employees and there are some safety issues there that need to be remediated as well and it strikes me perhaps perhaps it's evident from what you're seeing but d is is an acronym which is the department of public works yes it is the e u talked about how it touches everybody every day but it takes care of the streets it takes care of the response that the working group is going to propose or is proposing one is i don't want to see a short term response because that gives the wrong impression  but we quickly realized that the town can possibly manage for projects at once they can't even manage for projects say over five years and we certainly don't have the money to do that yet we kept looking at the police and realizing that there were emergency situations there so we said wait a minute let's address the emergencies and let's address that now and then simultaneously let's plan for the new building down the road where will it be what will it look like so for the emergency situations it was to address as quickly as possible those major issues accessibility safety and equity and so the emergency will be quick funding a quick plan and we've identified with the help of sims many maccie associates which is an engineering firm consulting firm with their help we've identified what needs to be done and broad terms how it can be done with one exception and that would be the elevator at the police station ok and let's talk about the police station without going to i don't think we have time to go through everything th little place because everything works there easily and so we can quickly do this remediation within the existing building without a lot of hoopla the police department is a little bit of a different issue because you need the elevator for excess ability but to put an elevator in the interior of the building would cost millions of millions of dollars and we don't want to do that if we are not the building down and build a new one somewhere else so therefore the elevator has got to go on the exterior of the building and that's the thought we had a spot to put it but we don't and something they didn't strike me and tell right now but having lived through the waverly square train triggered at a very low level they're triggered at different percentages one is around twenty five percent one is around one third or thirty percent but it's the total value of the building and because those buildings are old and their town and buildings their value is very low their taxable value is very low and so we trigger those code requirements very quickly and so that means elevator that means a sprinkler system for the police department and it means some other things that need to be done and we're very aware of that and we're aware that it's a balance between what needs to be done and how much it costs after a certain point if it costs too much it's not worth it to do the it just go ahead go forward go forward with the whole thing yes yes so when i think i heard you say let me see if i can spin it back and say ok when i heard was what you intended to say was there are there are emergency actions that need to be done and you're proposing to with at least is plenty of space and we can make it happen and the police station even the emergency actions are different colors more complicated very challenging not just more complicated but complicated complicated yes and when we talk about emergency actions that is to get us through the next five years the next ten years i assume when nothing's going to get in the way of the high school no and that's been one of our guiding principles that the high school is on its own trajectory and everything else is working around that yes and that's ok that's the way it should be and so because that such up huge debt exclusion when it comes everything else will be time to round that as well  so we're we're calling it a ten year solution because what we're proposing is that we fund the actual construction of the emergency solutions with ten year bonds and so our goal would be for the emergency solutions to last for ten years but for us to have in place the new permanent buildings at the end of that ten year period i understand ok so let's set aside the emergency then or them are emergency responses and talk about the long term responses there's the topography is difficult for the police station you know there's there's no room so the police station go somewhere else yes and that's somewhere else has been the big question for a number of years because it was the library but now the library stand in place exactly that was one study and once that came off the table then where does the police go and that's what's held us back from doing anything with them they didn't have a site and so kind of out of the blue we said hey you know what we walked around the d p w yard there's a lot of room down here can we put a police station down here and so we had sims maney do work figure out the space figure out the size figure out what the police station needed how much space they needed they did the drawings and said yeah it'll work so  department buildings in one big sort of campus in order the first thing that people say is oh my god that's too much stuff down there traffic cars waverley street side streets not a good idea our goal is to work with the a and private landowners to create access at grade across the tracks to pleasant streets so the police and d p w vehicles only not the public this would not be an open public way can access pleasant stres as well as wave at least trees and that has the advantage to this is another tell me whether i'm right or wrong that has the advantage to of making sure that the police have quick an adequate access to both sides out of the tracks with jack perfect because right now they're dependent on the underpass hills crossing and down near star market and that is it  strikes me as being a much better solution than putting things out at the old incinerator site right and you've touched on an important point in our work and that is that we took a look at the incinerator site we met with the consultant who was planning how the site would be kept we looked at a lot of drawings of proposals for the site and we came to the conclusion that it was just not an appropriate site for the library the police or the d w it's too small for the d p w police it might work but it's not a great site for them and because it's nowhere close to the middle and it's off the beaten path for the library and so yes we took that off the table and we felt it was better suited given its location near rock meadow conservation land it was better suited to recreation or ideas such as solar farm and the beauty of the site is it can be divided up into different parcels and can have multiple uses but none of them fit well with our buildings and so that came off the site although i will say that we can fit the police station at the d p w because we will move some storage pieces from d p w to the incinerator site so pipe bar blocks or whatever they store down there can go to the incinerators in storage can be anywhere  and it is the three used to the incinerator site then within the purview of the working group our regional goal as defined and approved by the board of selectmen was the four major projects and consideration of the incinerator site because at that point no one was sure you know what could happen there too we did some drawings and really looked at it we didn't know and so we it we took it off the table and then started our focus mostly on police and d p w ok where we're talking today with the anne marie mahoney and marie is the chair of what we call the major capital projects working group and i imagine you will hear about that the name of that group for forever actually were thinking maybe we should change it's just not a good name it's really not good but we're living with it so far i mean something catchy we need something with a fun acronym and the working group is bringing something to town meeting there it is there is an immediate need for funding for the emergency action yes so you're there are proposals for a town meeting in just a few weeks yes on the november thirteenth so we have an article on the town meeting warrant that is requesting funds and those funds are a total of i don't have the total here the total is three hundred and eighty three thousand dollars that was some high speed math three hundred eighty three thousand dollars for schematic design so basically how are we going to do this the design in the information we need to do the emergency construction at the police station and the d p w and that money it actually breaks out as we only need one hundred twenty three thousand for the d p w because police is a little more complicated we're looking at about two hundred sixty thousand for them again design work and then the construction itself we're anticipating will be in the range of one point six million for the d p w and two point eight for the police station the design money will come from the kendall insurance fund which is what it's there for and then as i said earlier the actual construction funds will be bonded with ten year bonds with ten year bonds and they actually will be rolled into the bonds for the modulars at the burbank so it'll be one the plan right now is one bond issue for those three spring time so we're just going to be asking for the design money and that will come out of the kendall fund which we already have and let me ask the b in evitable question perhaps town meeting always has the option of voting no what would happen i would really really be a problem what happens i don't know i think what happens is the same items we've identified certainly for the police station but for both facilities would come to the capital budget committee as requests so we would have several million dollars in requests dumped on the capital budget committee to say you've identified this it needs to happen now we feel we need to find another way to fund it so it has to happen it's basically the question is how does it get fund isn't an option isn't there if this is not discretionary is what we keep saying this is not a nice discussion this is not gee maybe we should think about doing it this is it needs to happen needs to happen now  solution because we do have the high school i mean we can ignore this right we don't you know we do have the high school coming up in we do have a library coming up and these will be in addition to those yes and you and i have talked before this along were to question vets ok you and i have talked before about not having the option of not doing this but there are people who can't pay all right  this we want to be able to time the debt exclusions so that we're not hitting taxpayers with too much all at once but we do have a short time frame we would like to explore and our committee will continue doing its work we would like to explore some creative solutions of for example taking the parcel of land that the police station the electric light building a current only on and selling that selling it as a parcel to a developer or perhaps partnering with a developer but to raise revenue from a sale but also to raise continuing tax revenue from whatever might be constructed of course that's one option that's not we're not saying that's going to happen so don't everybody get all excited but that's one option of what we would start to look at to try to make this a little more affordable the other thing that would i think we're going to propose is that police in d p w b one construction project because they will be on the same site by having one project one contractor that would save the town's one architect that would save the town some money to go forward in that way the other thing to be aware of in addition to funding the other reason that we can't just willingly go off and do all these four projects is the town itself the town personnel can't manage though all four of those projects are too big so they have to be spaced out and similarly the citizenry cannot manage the disruption of those four projects happening all at once think about building a high school and a library in con ave at the same time it's not a pretty picture yes yes and so all of that has to be worked out and that's why our group will continue to work on those those issues and we talk about the working group we're at a time but i do want to ask there's a group of eight or ten p seven of us actually four of us from capital budget mark polo jenny fallon and myself roy epstein is joined us from the warren committee and we work with phyllis marshall who's the interim town administrator and floyd common who's the town treasurer and how do you i mean this is so complex as we've just talked about today how do you think about this and i have to say we work constantly hand in hand with a lot of town personnel police and d p w have been with us every single meeting since last february we work with the town planner community development the fire chief on code issues we're working with everybody and they help us we sort of ask the questions and they step up and help us find the answers so we really are very indebted to them but we have a nice partnership we think with every all of these town departments and they've been great with us great thank you we're at a time it's been it's been fun hopefully it's been informative to folks i caused every time i speak with you i learned something more which i think is probably a good thing i do appreciate you taking time today we have been talking with anne marie mahoney who is chair of the major capital projects working group for the town of belmont i'd like to think you the listeners for tuning in today you can stream community conversations online at the b m c podcast network at belmont media dot org or you can or and you can find our podcast online a tunes by searching for the b m see podcast network i'm your community conversations host roger coulton thank you for listening i will talk to you again in two weeks