minutes we will have comments by the chair of the major capital projects working group also a representative from the library trustees specifically on the library proposals for special town meeting no other projects after that we will have an initial discussion of the articles for the november special town meeting and any updates from the various committees  let me just start with a housekeeping item i discussed last week that the study groups that i had proposed in our first meeting run into a slight speaks first because she has another engagement this evening so and we want to come to the table views on the library project ok well as you know we're having a public meeting tomorrow evening at seven thirty at the beach street center so be there and i don't slides for that as everybody knows so i have some picture of where we're going tomorrow night i have back up a little bit and just start with a little bit of history that gives us a context as to how we got here and that is going back there quite a number of years a budget committee as well as other groups the capital budget committee intended to take the lead interests beginning to make the public aware the town meeting in the field the board of selectmen that after the wellington school was done there were still four major projects hanging out there the pool was there and that was taken care of and you know we're still looking at the rink and we're still looking at some minor things but in terms of big construction projects that had been addressed yet we were looking at from one high school the library to the b w and the police station and so in the two thousand and five two thousand and six area two thousand and eight i think in one case we had some feasibility studies done in particular of police and d p w to give us an idea of the scope of what needed to be done and the cost and in both cases those studies said you've just got to bulldoze these buildings and start all over again in the case of the d p w that was easy they had to cite the neighbors love them let's go in the case of the police department whole different story the site didn't work had to find her other place whatever in that context was the shuffle that was proposed at one point of we need a new library to so do we put the library across the street like the police station go down on to the library and as you know we explore all that didn't work out so then everybody dropped back a little bit didn't talk about from while and then the pesky capital budget committee came up and said no no no we've got to keep talking about this meanwhile  t high school started to gather a head of steam and put their plans together jennie's better versed in that than i am and put their application into the state and eventually that application was accepted so when we were looking at four major projects it was clear that the high school was going forward it was going to be a very expensive project and a building committee was appointed that gave us the opening to say hey we have got to look at these  three buildings these are the three facilities we cannot let this go and so ultimately major capital projects group was formed and we have these other three big projects to deal with  as we work their way down the line and talked about this last week we've we have been and will be proposing some solutions for d p w leaks library because they did another feasibility study for a new building on site with a slightly different program for what they had explored in the past because of course everything evolves and what libraries are today and will be tomorrow is different so they have a very very recent feasibility study which was completed last february and library trustees love it and they're enthusiastic to go forward the goal of major capital projects was to come back to the town meeting in november with these three projects and say here's how we propose we handle them here's a priority order here's some costs here's what we'd like to do hasn't exactly worked out that way as we approach the november town meeting we have taken a slightly different direction with d p w and police and the library trustees have asked for and have an article on the special town meeting for a building committee for the purposes of fundraising but once they have a building committee that's a building committee and they become a separate and completely independent entity that answers only to the town meeting so that leaves us focusing on d p w and police trying to to herd everything together and trying to propose a reasonable timetable and priority order for addressing the street projects with the in the contacts doc the high school and the necessity for operating overrides going forward so that's how we get to today what are my thoughts on the library not completely jelled yet because we're not quite at the end of our deliberations we have a couple of more meetings our goals for those last two or three meetings is to lay out some kind of priority and it may be multiple priorities based on varying circumstances and to lay out a tentative but not to detail timetable because we don't know yet exactly what's going to happen with the police  i'll talk about that tomorrow night and again a town meeting so that is in the true sense of a politician i think that is a very very big and convoluted answer that i'm giving you and i'm sorry about that i'm happy to answer questions i'm happy to have roy or jenny or a fellow as was also on commenee jump in if they have anything to add or clarify or whatever you'd like to say would be great but let me just flesh it out a little bit more if in everything works out i think we've just done this last week also by school we'll see if it goes forward i certainly hope it goes forward the library building  and then the question is which i gather of the result at this point is whether the library could be ready in time to have it that exclusion for the library on the ballot at the same time so high school may not be feasible if not then how much later would it make sense for the library to come up for that exclusion and the discussion thus far was that it's probably not desirable to postpone that extremely far off in the future because it raises the question of what do you do with the existing building which is likely to need some significant work so rather than spend significant money on unclear followed by and we've discussed our short term solutions for policing d p w hopefully if those proposals all work out and looks like the d p w will there's still some solution to the technical questions of the police station will be found that there has been no new work since last week to report on and it could be that it is not feasible  urgency of the project will be escalated and maybe done conceivably even before the library but that's a discussion that we really won't be able to have specifically until the spring after the feasibility work is complete there's so many moving parts no our we're probably is not entirely done once a building committee is formed simply because there is still the library out there there is still some minor stuff incinerator site or whatever we at major capital projects and will we anticipate following through at least until june town meeting will be there the building committee as i understand it is being formed for the short term solution solutions are still out there currently and we will continue to address those yes yes i mean frankly we're struggling to get our arms around the library once they kind of stepped out and asked for their own building committee because now we don't feel like we are controlling the conversation at this juncture and so we cannot for example get up to town meeting and say what the fundraising is going to be or or how any of this folds in for us and so i we're in a little bit of an awkward spot at this point trying to manage a reasonable presentation on all of these projects but not having the hard core component do we have kind of an order of magnitude bigger than a breadbox kind a sense of of what the cost of the project might be what percentage of that project the hope is will be raised privately i know there of the library group seem to be confident that the people who are stepping forward back who knew pursuing this state for it would still be or were hanging around the who as the project with four and i'm just curious if people have expectations moving the plan in february i think was for a building the cost approximately twenty two million dollars but how much of that could be raised from private fundraising i think is still really  i'm in the building is moving forward fast because there's a believe some of us is that you can't really do fundraising without significant plans you've got to have something to show somebody something concrete  library does not have that yet there's a conceptual drawing but there's no real plan about this is the building that we would build and so that the building committee is being formed to work with the architect to produce a schematic design which can th be the basis of fund raising and there are a couple of things about the fund raising campaign which are germane to this conversation one is that as we talked about the other day with ellen there's going to be a really good thing you can't have too far away if you're getting time if you're going to be raising funds for a product of some sense of the duration of the campaign and it can't be you know twenty years from now we're going to build this building because who wants to give money to that and also so i'm one of the people who will participate in the fund raising there will be a number of folks and we've been sort of starting to get ourselves organized i don't want to come out with a number right now because we don't know you know we're not harvard where we've been cultivating people for thirty years and we know how much people are willing to give in their commitment and all that kind of stuff we're at the beginning here and we need to figure that out that said  we want to have a significant impact on this project but i want to put a number out there that we don't need so we're you know we're starting to do some research we've been talking to some of the other towns who've done this we're getting a sense of you know how much people have been able to raise i do know that you know for every year we can't it's not that every year that goes by we can raise more money people are going to make a gift toward this project so at some point we will cap out how much we can raise and so if you if you do let it keep going you know the amount we raise is finite and the costs escalate so there's a number of folks getting started but the advice we have gotten which is was our instincts to begin with is that people want to kick the tires they want to sit down and they want to look through plans and they want to know what you're talking about and they don't want to feel like they're putting money into something that's not going to happen or they continue they all continue to go up so that is a true chemist advantage of libraries unique i mean we've been doing some research on this you don't raise private funds to build a high school you don't raise private funds to build  police station libraries as i look across of projects you know that threw out a bunch of local towns they do get private fund raising and if you look back our library was originally a gift from the underwood family the first library building that we had so it's all the way back to carnegie with you know all the libraries are so it's it is a precedent it is not unexpected it hasn't really happened here in belmont to the scale that we're hoping that we can achieve  it's it's a unique kind of thing and this private public private partnership is definitely going to be unique and we're going to have to sort of feel that way we there are certainly examples of private and just to add one thing there it's it really is both looking at major donors and looking at grassroots i mean this is something that's going to be embraced by the whole community and like a bunch of other fund raising projects that we've done it's going to be a lot of people that make it successful report that was produced as part of the feasibility study because i think that's one thing that might be unique about the library is that we don't have viable short term solutions that we really based on the work that we did you know as the engineering report says we have issues with the current building at the top the men on the bottom and you know there are consideration to it the roof the walls aren't spec to carry the it's on the web page and i think you know we've tried to put a lot of the data from the feasibility study on the websites of the annual report is out there as well so you can see how we reported using the library how many people are using it to grow the programs and services that we are so i think really connected the two key points are you know why a building committee and why now and so i think as we've said the building committee is very then go forward with schematic design which is really a building design at a detailed level that would layout and what the what the actual floor plans what the actual and structure would be for the building  you in terms of cost because i think that was one of your questions we are asking for a total of three hundred thousand dollars which will be shared by the belmont library foundation and the t there would be up to the estimate that we have is a little bit below that but again it's an estimate and so i think you know couple other points that i would make you know in terms of you know why now and you know we really need a path forward if you know as i am or you are saying this is complicated down lot of competing demands a line of a lot of needs in the town we are unique that we can fundraise for for the library unlike some of the other projects and costs do escalate year over year and and we're also faced with you know an aging infrastructure as the report talks about tied to there are real need so we need to map out a plan to understand we can reach for fund raising but we then need a plan and a path forward so that we know what is prudent investment and a building so you'll see that you know we just replace the boiler and put to the little or time is signs to inspect for a building that's insulated there is no intel a shine and in the ceiling  you'll see that we're going after close one section of the library for a month and the other section while we replace the ceiling and put in new insulation so those are the types of things that we're facing we've we've  planning for floor to floor as much as for tile so you know we want to make sure that what's the right investment and and verses want to money that would be thrown away so we're eager to understand but we can't give you a number before we get started and do that thoughtful analysis and that's that has an element and then also you know look at when we were in one plan would we come forward from the from a death transparent and polarity collaborative throughout this and and so you know i think what we need to do is continue to progress understand get information so that we can make that bob asked first of all it will take us time to find race with it we're not going to raise the amount of money that we would like to raise in the next nine months so i think it would be suicide to go for exclusion without having put a significant dent into the cost of the project so that's number one we don't know how long it will take we don't know how much we can raise we're trying to get a sense of that it's going to take us awhile to have a sense of th but i can guarantee you we're not going to get there nine months the second thing is with regard to a debt exclusion you mentioned the building committee is not answerable to you know the trustees or the selectmen whatever another one who put the ones who put it at exclusion on the on the ballot so the building committee can't do that so as much as the building committee might ask for it there's three people who voted on  and so there's pretty much of a listing of the people that we need to be involved and she said that very often they will look for somebody who wears multiple hat but more from building perspectives so she's saying you know  the pool building committee we had the head of the recreation commission we had a pair and we had a couple of people from the permanent building committee we had you know i mean there was a smattering of we had somebody f exist and then a future building committee would be appointed to see the project through here but for the present i think that an answer is generally when  would have the same building committee who would go through that whole evolution of the project i think with regard to building committees that were requested for the short term solutions that are considered their being put forward for the police and public works facility are for those short term solutions and not for a full scale new building so if you if the town decided to move forward when the time decides that that's a priority and can be financially structured then there would be a different building committee for that project so with regard to this i think the idea is that the building committee would be conveyed or convened for the schematic design aspect and then you would have detailed design after that but it would be the same committee theoretically who would move the project to the just to right now the pool the building committee but maybe other thing that we haven't mentioned here is that the funding that you give to the building committee is strictly for the schematic design and at that point there is a funny question and you know if the if you have a dead exclusion than the town may or may not approve it and then town meeting has to approve the borrowing if you know you're talking about something that does needed a dead exclusion you still need town meeting to approve the borrowing so you know for right now what what is in this article is the strictly the funds to hire the architect to do the schematic design and then there is a decision point  foundation that one hundred fifty is a request from the town and we did i know we discussed in one of our meetings last week that the expectation is that the actual cost of schematic design be something under three  hundred in these types of projects in the event of a complication comes up and the budget is more than three hundred thousand what happens in order to be able to complete schematic design and we would not ask for any money from the town we went we would go to town meeting and i wonder if you and and and again i assume that if everything works out well you know we're going to get a good collaborative outcome have the building committee will do what is asked to do  i am wondering why we don't why there isn't some consideration to tinker around with with the new article language to to ensure that there is some representation on the building committee by at least haven't we want we want that balanced because it's it's important to get as we did with the feasibility study they're very purposeful on the feasibility study to make sure that we had a balance of participants from the community different different to segments of the population in people with their friends counts and so we would we would want that as well foundation it was it's in the foundation portion isn't in the town article for the on the war article but it's in that summary to so that when people read the article they understand we cover that that it will it's really good to share cost and i think that's important to jenny's point because it should be a shared responsibility that's that's very important to make sure that there's a balance of commitments and that it's something that you know not one constituent wants but that that adds that that that we all want that campaign but you know it has been reenergized new board members and so i think i think folks will be pleased to it with the energy that's coming forth ok great thank there were there was an article at the annual town meeting about the speed reducing the speed limit to twenty five miles an hour which was the result of a change that was enacted end of the modernization act  thousand and sixteen this article two is the same kind of thing less choice though this is really just a requirement to change our bylaws amend them so that there were evolving fines are all listed together as a creation there are some schools from all the funds that are listed separately in the bylaws but these are the town general revolving funds and they are they are similar these are the ones that we appropriate annually and we will continue to make appropriations annually this is just the creation of these  us in terms of we have a tricky configuration here for a lot of our buildings and fields and so this is not for the feel this is for buildings but that that the whole issue of the rentals and i think as one of the not related to certainly to this but the whole idea about the financial taskforce was to try and look at the increasing revenues and rentals  at scheduling and looking at creating a format that was part of the recreational strategic plan was to come up with a mechanism to cost out fees and try and schedule facilities so that there would be opportunities for rentals for parties for facilities but in any case for example some of the other and the the stormwater proven fund is one that what that was created by the storm water by law changes that were made i'm not as clear as you are about what year that was but when it came before a town meeting and so that fund was created in that that document in terms of how the money would come in from developers for in one case for peer review in another case so you know those go here the library last books are one that is appropriated by town meeting for the amount of money that's available to be spent but that wasn't necessarily structured into the bylaws anywhere so this is where those things move from the source of the decision to have a evolving fund into making it by law have this is what i thought i heard you sort of giving out was if some group had a program that sort of fell under some tell program they could still collect money for that through through the general way that you get a revenue  spending within was in the town budget without having it necessarily go through the revolving fund it would just if anything was not spent it would it would it would be part of a term part i will get back turn that i don't want to tell you the wrong answer that they are created and they're not in this section of the buy a lot but i'm not sure that they're not anywhere else so i have to look on that jim i don't know the answer the superintendent about his presentation here on the on the on the presentation that he's that he's presented at the different times it does say that funding for technology and instructional instructional materials and furniture will be so you all know that this language is different in this article because the difference in funding that will be proposed is that borrowing but we wanted to put all the options out and that number is the estimated project cost the number that's described in the summary than two million five nine seven which john when he comes before you that the   closer to town but not next week so the article for is for the appropriation of funds for the schematic design and authorization of a building committee for the article five is the appropriation that we talked about earlier for that building committee on the schematic design of the library and then the article six with the citizen petition that was received on the moderator discussed general planning for the town meeting and it sounds like the it was either the bible review committee or town council or both had significant concerns about the way this particular article was worded and there's a good chance it will be revised the bio review committee is meeting on the first to weigh in as they do on all by first of november to repeal and tell and there will be there would be a modification in any case because by the by law review committee because they're the ones who look at where it would fit in the violence and how the number  they will be convening on that and then there there might be a revision there would be a revision by them likely anyway so they will be discussing the merits of the way it's written  jim so with all the other things going on i'm really am really happy that this is being taken place you know it doesn't the request and the short term solution for the police station and the public works facility in the event it's a it's an estimate that's requested for the appropriation to fund the schematic design and in the event it comes in under that the money would obviously be returned back to the well not obvious because i felt compelled to say so but it would be a return to the candle fun as we talked about with regard to the library  ed there may have been a range of reasons why people felt that way but at least two of the reasons were a the decision was made some time ago to use the funding for this  we'll be meeting a couple of times before a town meeting that i think there is  that the bulk of the opinion is to be used the kind of money that reprieve burst that is really not necessary jack not to express an opinion of the substance of that but it sounds like there's no nothing that could prevent i proposed several revolving fund to have approved projects contributed into a design five year reimbursement design fund that could be used to fund future design costs right i mean if the town so chose it good it could create a parallel structure that just was a call the camel fund yeah i'm just not sure how that that's worked go because these projects don't generate revenue so you know i could see if we were doing something that we are actually generate cash from the outside that some portion of a few here marked work temple architecture in design fees are usually considered part of the cost of a project so if you prefer undid a that the reasons offered against it reflect a lack of understanding of the proposal and so that maybe as you know i didn't believe this is these are small amounts of really doesn't matter if  jeff i mean there are there are that that you that you that you may not get the same that the investors that the lenders may not get the same tax tax on the benefits that that the th balance of the rules and b that are out there there are there are a series of former treasurers them counties across cross across the country who thought that they could enter into in interest so it's an increase of fifteen that the net net in the freshman class you know that they need to get another fifteen in next year's freshman class that hold that for four years and then they'll be good at six forty  they can do it and i mean with that differently so they have a sustained in its class size has state sustained increase of fifteen students that's an extra sixty students in the school if over over four for over four years you know that they've got fifteen right from last year's freshman class to this year's fresh freshman class which is which is good progress you years from now it was sixty students higher than it was last year with a with a new school be maxed out and that was not sixty from last year no i'm just wondering but it would be close to be