Fire Station Building Committee - Regular Meeting

It is now 7:33 and I'm calling us back to order in open session. Um I'm going to open the floor for public input. There's no um guests in the room. Is there anyone online who wants to have any input? And I think there's actually no guest, just Cassie. There's Cassie, but I think Yeah, she's not unmuting. So, okay. So, we're going to move to new business and have updates on sites under consideration. Um, we got two reports today. And so, Jeff, I would love it if you would talk us through the reports and people can ask any questions if they have any.

Can you make Jeff and Steve co-host, please? Okay. Okay. So, you should you should be able to unmute on and off, Jeff and Steve. So, yeah. Hi.

All right. Um, so we did get the reports from the civil engineer Fussen O'Neal for both 984 Massab and 1300 Massav. And by and large they follow the same path that we had been talking about before when we've given you interim updates. So they talk touch on the well for 1300. They touch on the public well um scenario. We don't need a public well and we'd have to discontinue that.

We need a private well there. They touch on the wetlands and uh setback uh challenges for 1300 although it's not been delineated and it's a little unclear exactly where they would fall on 1300. Um that's work that would need to be done if that's a site the town wants to pursue. Um they do touch on that uh as incumbrances. And um for 1300 they talk about the septic system which we've already talked about as well. and that um I'm not quite sure exactly in the past how much has been explained about that, but just real briefly, the existing septic system in their words can be reused for the use of the fire station, even though it's designed for a larger population. It won't function as efficiently, but it will be um it could be potentially usable. They do want it to be investigated by a um specialist, but it's something that could potentially work. Alternatively, we could design a smaller system for the site ne closer to the building cuz this of course extends further out into the adjoining property um next to 1300. So um that's all good information to have. there was no sight um um sight lines study done on the for the traffic on the street. So, they speculated that that should be done, but I think from the what I've heard in the past, the fire chief said it seemed like it was a a good um or at least uh acceptable entrance um from the road there. And uh and that's that's for the most part what they had to say. I think, you know, the biggest concern for 1300 um in their words was the quality of the soil conditions and whether they're

appropriate for a septic or a leeching field. Obviously, if we can continue to reuse what's there, um that's probably in the town's best interest. If we have to make a new one there, um you know, that's when they get into testing those soils to determine how that could be um designed. Um, and I think that they they say that generally speaking it it seems doable um considering the size of the site and how big the fire station might be that there'd be space on the site for that septic system wherever it would end up. Um they they give some recommendations on what next steps to perform. Although I don't think it's necessary for the town to rush out and perform these next steps before we pick a site. Their next steps were to perform an inspection of the SEP septic system to see if it complies with the current Title 5 requirements uh to prepare an estimated sewage flows for the new fire station to confirm they're less than um for the existing system which I think is obvious on the face of it. Uh but I think that you know is a box to check. They would want to do test holes to confirm the soil conditions for uh percolation rates. um determine uh with the DP how to uh extinguish the existing public water drinking supply uh delineation of the wetlands and a site distance analysis which I already mentioned.

Uh looks like Steve has a comment. Yes. Uh thanks Mary. Um Jeff and and I guess maybe Mike in regard to the report for 1300 and the inspection of the existing septic system to uh comply with Title 5, wouldn't that be on the owner because they're selling or potentially selling the property to us like like anybody any homeowner would have to make sure that their uh septic system was was in compliance before they sold it unless Uh, and Mike, maybe you can tell me. Is there has there been any verbiage of if we sell it, we're selling it as is?

There has not been any verbiage like that. I believe that it would be on a seller to have the title five check, but I'm not positive about that. That would sound right. Yeah, I would I would expect the the seller that would be a condition of the sale, but you know, anything's possible in a negotiation, I suspect. But

right, I mean because I think I think Jeff's right as some of these uh recommendations we don't necessarily have to do now, but there may be a couple that we we might want to consider. And I think I think certainly that bullet point uh we need to we need to know that from the from the seller um if we if we're heading in that direction.

Here's my dilemma. Um, we want to go to town meeting and get town meeting to approve the sale in March and but we wouldn't actually go through with the sale till that's done. And so would we have to wait for them to do because we could potentially go forward with two pieces of property. If we wait then we won't have it to make our decision. But you know how I don't know how that plays out. Do we have to make our decision?

Boils down to the cost that we would put into the overall project budget for the construction of a new septic system. And if we can confirm that the existing is uh complies title 5, then we can assume that you know with minor you know alterations we could probably uh not have to count the cost of an entire new septic system. not a ton of money, but certainly an impact to the project budget. So, I think that's where it hits us is really on the budget perspective. Um, and it's Go ahead.

We we could vote up to 4.5 million and condition on purchase and sale agreement or something and then we can negotiate down if there's a septic issue. Yeah. And that's kind of what I was getting is that, you know, we build it into the budget at the worst case scenario. we have to build a septic, which is, you know, again, not a ton of money, um, but still an impact. And then if it finds out we can use or reuse the septic system, then that money does not have to be spent by the town. Did we hear from the seller that they're now willing to not sell us the piece across the street? Because I thought we were using that as a

not here. We're like, yeah, we're going outside the scope of what we should be talking about public. Not here. Um, Mike, I did just check and it is required both commercial and residential. There's no exception for commercial. If they bought the property less than two years ago, they had a report done, we can look at that.

Okay. Um, and so from this list of recommendations, is there anything that needs to be done before we make a decision and before town meeting? Understanding we're on a tight deadline and a tight budget. Well, I I think I think on uh 9 984, you know, the the we still need to go through 984. So, I mean for 1300 right now. Sorry, Mary. I have a couple comments.

Just one second. Jeff, can you answer that question? Or or Steve, is there anything in this list that we need to do before we make a decision or before town meeting? Jeff, I don't know whether delineation of the wetlands would be an issue, but we we know it's there. It's frozen. Oh, he said Jeff Maria said Jeff's frozen. Oh, is he? Yeah. Okay. So, we can come back to this question.

Um, so let's try to remember. We want to ask wetlands mask. Sorry. Am I confused or were was they was that person confused about which way east and west was? He talked about going across the street for the across Burroughs Road to call Burrows Avenue. He called to uh the septic system and that was going west something. Isn't that west?

No. No. I think it was they were a little confused there. I was also concerned that he c he speculated that perhaps the reason that the septic system is across Burough's road is because the the soil was not might not be good enough to have a septic system on 1300. That's that's what I read. I thought it also was because the size building the capacity of the septic system is very large.

Well, right. So they were putting in a much larger septic system. So that they did say we anticipate the size of any new septic system will be much smaller than the existing system and therefore easier to locate on the property at 1300. Just back on the meeting. Okay. But he still had some concerns about the soil. Y. So that's not something we need to investigate anymore before. So that's my big question from this report. Is there anything we have to do before we make a decision and take this to town meeting?

We can we can always if we can negotiate the sale of both parcels, then we know that we're covered because we can always use existing septic system or we we make changes to the existing septic system and Yeah. Right. So

I I agree. I think that that in total the property has enough space to accommodate a new system in various different configurations and locations even if the soils don't turn out to be ideal. Um now you know there's no way to eliminate all risk. Um but there seems to be adequate space which is seems to be the upshot of what the civil engineer is stating. Um, I think, you know, like any good engineer, they're trying to alert you to every single potential minor flag that might be thrown on this property. Um, but I don't think these amount of things we have to run to ground before picking a site. I think the fact that they have a functioning septic system there is a pretty big important key. And like Larry was saying, we can address that and maybe even adjust that if need be. um to make that work for the fire station. So, in my conversations with the civil engineer, he's never raised it as a reason that we absolutely should be doing this before we pick the site. He's just said these are things we want to investigate at some point. And

what about the delineation of wetlands? Because he he did say it's in a riverfront to the west. Um yeah, you wanted to determine the extent of the riverfront area. Yeah. And I think that would, you know, be great um to know just to understand how much room on the site we have to to maneuver things, but considering there's a building there, um you know, I think we'd be okay building where the building is. Um but we don't know. Okay.

So, the where the um the existing uh I forget what he called it here specifically. I don't know if it's a stream or a water perennial stream. Yeah.

There's certain setbacks depending on what it's designated as. And um you know it is it is surrounded. You know that's one of the things we've talked about before about some of the drawbacks of 1300. it's surrounded by this uh wetter area and um what we don't know is essentially how much the setbacks encumber the the property that we're on. Um so we might be a little bit more limited in what we can do there but until we delineate that we don't know for certain. Um

because it seems like streams potentially brief. The delineation would require um time and it also would require the right seasonality of doing that work and I'm not a wetland scientist so I can't say if we did it in December would we be able to rely upon those results we have to do it in the springtime or something like that where they can see the plant growth um to really understand where the actual boundary of the wetlands are. um we delineated 502 um in order to understand the impacts on that site. But even with the delineation at 502, we were still able to build or I shouldn't say build, but propose buildings within certain setbacks that were going to have to be negotiated with the um the town's conservation commission on that side any and so even if there were setbacks, there would still be a discussion with Hong Kong on that on what we were doing in those setbacks. Any other questions on 1300? I

was curious about the site uh site distance analysis. They're recommending that to occur. Is that just because there isn't anything? Yeah, they just recommended because we hadn't done it at that site and we've done it at many of the other sites and they didn't you know con typical um engineering is to be conservative. If you don't know the answer, flag it as an unknown. And this is an unknown in their mind. Um, I would probably defer to the fire chief. I think we have on previous occasions for 1300 and Burrows Road there and how that would work for their purposes. That's that site has the best sight lines of anything we've looked at.

Absolutely. You agree? I don't see any problems with the sidelines at 1300. Okay. All right. So 984,

right? So 984 um you know in in some ways it kind of boils down to a similar topic um about septic but they did um you know look at everything that they could. Um they had access to prior permitting documents that the current owner has submitted for prior projects that they wanted to do. So that was actually very helpful to understand what all their design firms have proposed on the site in terms of locations of septic and storm water um is you know items. Um the nature of the soils is a little unknown. I mean we did do some of our own test bits and there were prior test bits that we have access to the data on um but not all of it at the site has actually been dug up. So, we don't necessarily know what is in this so-called embankment that has been uh built on the western side of the site. Um, but we have, you know, a pretty good sense of where we could do septic on this site, um, and where the groundwater is and where some of the ledge is. So, that's good information to have. Um they the civil engineer did assume um again in a very conservative way that you know the potential would be we would not have access to Sarah's way to exit fire apparatus and the public so we would have to make a direct connection on Massav and they did the site distance analysis based on that and that came back uh um adequate um with the exception that we would want to take down some of the vegetation and some of the uh little slope of the burm there along Massav on the west side of Massav to um to just increase the site distance on that side, but they felt that that was doable and since we would own that property, we could do that. So, it

really wouldn't be an issue. Um they did opine about the potential that there's an existing well servicing the home that's there and that maybe could be used for the fire station, but a lot you know testing would have to be done to confirm the uh flow and the and the quality of that well. But certainly they their expectation was um reasonable assumption that a new well could be drilled here without any problem um if that old well couldn't be reused for the fire station. uh to provide water and since we wouldn't be a public water supply really wouldn't be an issue. Um storm water of course there's nothing there and they're they're not really you know proposing a whole lot but um it seemed based upon the the limited work that was done that it it didn't seem to be a major concern for anybody that storm water could be accommodated. Um and this is kind of similar for both sites frankly. And then um they did have a series of recommendations very similar to 1300. They there is a parcel uh across the street Massav uh to the north that has wetlands on it that this property is within the 100 ft setback of that. So they would want that to be delineated. But in talking to the engineer, he felt confident there was absolutely really no likely impact on what we would need to do for the fire station. um we just want to know kind of where it hits the site. So I wouldn't rate that of any concern. Um prepare again the estimated sewage flows for the septic system. Again the fire stations is not going to generate a ton. So I think you know it would in his opinion would fit onto the site pretty well. Um, the investigation of Sarah's Way is probably a little bit more uh of an of a question mark as to whether or not we'd be able to have access to that for public uh and and the

apparatus driving out. We kind of speculated that would be our preference, but not knowing since it's a private way that kind of just has to get run to ground, but I don't think it's an an impediment to the site being selected. And then like I started with uh the soil evaluations on site just to confirm the um septic and storm water design. And since we've already done that, I think they have a good sense of what's there and it can be done. So you know in in slight contrast to 1300 I think this is actually better because we have a little bit more information on uh where we could put septic and uh storm water and and some of the other designs have done in the past. So I think that's informed that civil engineers thoughts year and generally speaking it seems you know doable. The only other thing that they don't mention as a recommendation but we've talked about it as a group is just sort of the nature of the soils and the fill in the embankment area and what that consists of. Because we have not done a design of that site. We don't know how much of that embankment area we'd need to use for um apparatus turning area or parking things like that. I don't think the building would be over there, but you know, certainly maybe outuildings or something. And be and that's certainly a a a risk of not knowing and potentially needing to deal with that. But if we don't need that space, there's nothing to say that town has to do anything with it. it would just be a known, you know, thing that the town would have to be dealing with in the future if there's ever any further development on the site. Um, I think the idea would be from the fire station perspective to kind of stay more towards the east side of the property anyways. Um, just for ease of access. So, that might actually make it a little easier. But um that is

probably the biggest question mark on this side is what do we do there? Um what does that look like? Do we have to do anything with it? Um can we leave it? Should we leave it? Um and so that's I think kind of my overlay on top of the civil engineers, but they didn't they didn't mention it but didn't mention it as the part of the recommendations. And on the bottom of the first page, it says there's a large cleared area in the center of the site that has been flattened and filled. And we don't have any substantial knowledge of the nature of the fill. Given where we think we might site the building, is that problematic in the center of the site?

That is more concerning. And um and we did propose and will hope to be doing a geotechnical uh drilling boring program on that site which will help to give us information before the committee has to make a decision on the nature of that fill material and what implications it has for founding a building. So do we have to remove it to put foundations in? Do we have to to deep uh to to put in deeper foundations or piles or you know some other um foundation soil support system which would increase the cost of the project. That's certainly something we would get information on from the geotechnical engineer at that time and and frankly depending on where they drill the borings um could in fact get some information on the embankment as well. Um, but we know the embankments fill and usually the geotechnical engineer would want us to remove that if we're going to put a building over there. But since the building's not likely to be in the embankment, but it is more likely to be in the center where the where the civil engineers noted, that's the area we're most cautious about and want to understand the depths and the nature of it so that we can um adequately put into the cost estimate the um the costs of putting the building there.

Yeah. Other questions? there anything that we need to just like 1300 we need toly do. Yeah. Is there anything that we need to do based on these findings that we're not already planning to do because we we already voted the environmental assessment phase one and two.

Yes. So we so previously we we voted to put in the to do the geotechnical um borings which I just mentioned and then most recently we did the environmental work which I think kind of rounds out this site pretty well in terms of what we can know about it and I don't see anything on this list or any the engineers that have mentioned to me that would be additional work that we should be doing or not

and On page, let's see, 1 2 3 4 5 under site distances, table one, the intersection site distance from the site driveway looking to the west falls below the the measured falls below the required minimum. So, do you think this site would require a light? Um well I think the alterations of the vegetation would is what they're saying would take care of that. Um you know that the the application of a traffic light is probably beyond the sight distance consideration. Um if you have the correct sight distance then we need to look at other factors to determine a warrant for a traffic light. Um, but I think the most critical one was sight distance from particularly from the fire department's perspective. Um, now it it may also be something that's simply just a convenience frankly, you know, depending on traffic volume that the fire department feels might be useful to have. um beyond that, but it's since it's a state road, you really need to have a warrant analysis done to determine whether this, you know, whether the state will even allow you to put one there because they just don't want to put traffic lights wherever people want them. Um they they don't want to confuse people or make it less safe for people using Massav. Um they want only put them there where it's really needed. So I think the site you know if we alter the site distance on the west side that really takes care of one of the major concerns.

So if it's a if we use Sarah's way there's no issue but that's where there is the issue. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Table one is it's table one is driveway Sarah's way. Oh that's okay. But they did talk about we could reduce vegetation and the kind of embankment. Right. Quest any other questions?

Yeah. Is who who you Sarah's Way is owned privately. Is it owned by the land owners that live down Sarah's way? It is it's it's private and there are easements on that lower uh part of it um where the current land owner uses it and that was something be something where we'd have to have some legal work done and and have easements and and maybe even some improvements to the bottom part of that road if we were going to use that. Would we consider instead of easements making it a public road if the owner was amendable? because we do that it seems a fair amount at public at town meeting we vote

I think that's a probably a larger discussion I did talk that over with our land use director and he said it's it's complicated because it's a you know it's a dead end road with three homes on it um and he doesn't believe that it was built uh to the same standards the town would require um so if we would have taken over as a as a public way we would take on the responsibility of of rebuilding it a lot sooner um than than we might have to we'll be run and then we're taking over the plowing. So I think I don't think that's off the table but I think it it requires some discussion um probably with legal probably with our DPW and some engineers to look at the analysis of how that road was built. uh the the land use director has some knowledge of how it was built and just doesn't think that if we were building that public road we would build it to that same to those same specs.

Would we have to take the public road all the way up to the houses? That's a question. I think I think there's a possibility if we have an easement and maybe take responsibility of of uh reconstructing or maintenance up to a certain point. I think that might be what what I what I see happen more than taking a road. Yeah. There is living room. It's there's woods on both sides. It would be that would be a task to build that to standards, right? Well, it's that versus build a whole new separate entrance at the west side where there is no sight problem, right?

And what's the cost of doing that versus rebuilding a private way to make it meet public standard, especially considering the amount of weight that's going to go up and down at all the time with fire and carrying this road. Yeah. Right. Right. So, so the only thing is I thought when we looked at it last time that front portion maybe talking about just building that that was ledge, right? That's what I thought that when we looked at this a few years ago, we were concerned with the ledge in front to be able to use it to bring the trucks and straight onto mass. I don't

Yeah, there is there is some ledge or at least they hit ledge uh in some of the test pits there and there's consideration that in that sort of embankment or burm against Massav particularly as you go west you're going to find that ledge there. Now we believe that on the eastern corner of the site it's possible to connect to Massav without encountering much or maybe none of the ledge. Um, but that's very close to Sarah's way. And the question then becomes, can you actually have two curb cuts so close together? And I don't know that that's really going to fly even though Sarah's way is private. So I kind of it lends more belief in my mind that we find a way like Mike was saying to kind of have a public entrance to Massav and Sarah's way kind of gets truncated there and kind of comes off the public entrance and creates the private private drive after the public entrance has been made kind of taking over that last portion of Sarah's way. I think if we try to come out on the west side of the site, there's more of a topography challenge there. And so we're going to spend more money um trying to make a driveway over there work.

Yeah. We could also potentially have multiple curb cuts off of Sarah's Way, which would might be more convenient for public and and for firet truck use. Yeah. Rather than having multiple off of Massav, we'd only have one, right? There's there's really no question that we would have to um upgrade Sarah's way to carry the the heavy loads of the apparatus.

And then the other issue is that Sarah Way comes out and 975 is trying to develop. They made him move his curb cut from almost directly across from Sarah's Way to the west. And so it's actually spray painted. You can see it. Um so then if we went west we would have Sarah's Way. I don't know how the planning board with site approval would be if they had their cut and then we immediately had a cut. So they made him move it specifically to be out of

you know the the connection this way right so that would make three cuts and that might be difficult because I don't know how far down 975 is going but that was definitely part of the site plan and that was a change in the site plan during the eight-month hearing that he had. So, so this might be something we want to explore while other work's going on. But, uh, yeah, good. Other question?

Well, at some point we're going to have to contact and get permitting application to DOT. Yeah, that is a consideration for this site is that there would be another permitting factor which 1300 doesn't have and that's the mass DOT permit process which they have their own timetable and process that that you kind of have to subscribe to and they have requirements and conditions and all that. So that would be a cost for this site that do you mean if there's just another curb cut put there as opposed to adding two curve cuts onto Sarah's weight? Yeah, if we're doing anything that connects to the states right away, they're they're going to be part of the conversation.

Anything different than the Sarah's Way entrance. Yeah. But even if we're improving the Sarah's Way entrance, we'd still have to talk to the state about it. It would be easier because it's already going to ask if that's an easier conversation. You know, we're going to make this better versus we're going to leave that and now we need to do a whole new one. So, okay. So that is a maybe on the well it's definite but it depends on it's a scaled kind of conversation and we wouldn't do that until we were we own the land and we're in design phase but we do it maybe right at the beginning of design phase.

We we would have we have to submit them something because they they they don't tend to do informal meetings. I I have I have gone to one fairly recently but in general they want to see something. So we would have to give them some kind of a site plan as to what we intend on doing and then um and then go through their process of um through their portal uh for reviews.

We weren't designing the project here. Um there would be a little bit of time spent by the engineer completing an initial engineering study and and plan that's prepared to the level like Steve said of detail that MD dot would actually need to see and then we would start that process as soon as we possibly can because they sometimes take a while to get through it and it might it might be you know we're getting close to bidding and they're finally getting around to giving us their final level of comments. Right. That's that's correct.

Okay. All right. Um that's great. That's really helpful. Um I think under here we also want to talk about um we got an estimate from context because so when we voted all the previous estimates context did add more time because we've gone beyond the December town meeting. They added more time, but it was in the analysis for properties we took off the list. So, they came forward with an estimate separate from everything else just for their time through um from January through March. it is a um I'm going to say maybe a tight estimate in that they're going to probably come to fewer meetings especially as we get to the point where we need less information and that um but Jeeoff anything else you want to tell us about this?

No, we just wanted to make sure that if you needed us we had a mechanism to come to the meetings and all that. um you know it's after in theory uh we have all of the data and the results and the committee can make some decisions about sites so there's a possibility that you maybe don't need us for as much time as we have and certainly we wouldn't bill it if we didn't uh use it. So we have 13 working group meetings which is basically you know January, February and March and we have uh one building committee meeting per month for those three months. questions, comments motion,

Mary. Um, I move. Do we have a number on this? Yeah. $8,400. Oh, amendment 12. I move you approve amendment 12 in the amount of $8,400. Second. Okay, Maria moved. Pria seconded. Any discussion or questions? Okay, I'm going to take a roll call vote. Allan, hi. Matt, hi. Pria, I Maria, Sarah, I. Larry, hi. And Brolan, I thank you. Thank you.

Um, while we're in this, I there are other estimates in here. Mike, do you want to describe um there's an email the station layout and placement? Do you want to talk about that? Um, sure. That's um I think I don't know if you want to take that as an update. That's regarding swing space. Yes. Uh we could talk about it right now. Yeah.

Okay. So um as we've discussed, Chief and I have been working on on two things for for temporary space. One is um at the department uh should the project not move forward in some sort of swift manner and the the other one that's housing for the for the department. and the other one is uh to put uh swing space over at the Regency as you know come up as a suggestion. So we've continued to work on that and we received two estimates um and they came from companies that were recommended that uh Chief and I had not talked with before and um if I miss anything here Chief jump right in. So, one is from uh Fors USA, and that was a company that was recommended by someone listening a couple of meetings ago. Um so, Chief and I have had meetings with them, and Chief has had a lot of follow-up conversation. They have forwarded um an estimate for um kitchen, dining, and and a living unit, which is not living space like beds and that sort of stuff. It's more of a a place where they can gather and eat. Um, and that came in at $560,000. That's one custom designed and built unit. Um, a decon and uh decontamination and storage unit which came in at $45,000. And then another separate third unit for their SCBA uh unit at $200,000 for a total of um um $1,165,000. Um, I've plugged that into the into the spreadsheet that we're using to estimate this. Um, and and you've got pictures of the of the three different designs that they included. What I've included in our spreadsheet is the least expensive of the of the layout just and that was the first one. The other two were totaled

about $1.6 million. Um, I didn't use that one because it was more expensive and two because the layout they use didn't fit into the the uh parking lot area that we're allowed to lease from the agency. Um, and then I'll talk about the second one which is not yet in your packet but we'll include it um on the website and because we just received this about an hour before this meeting but I can talk about it and it is the um another price on the apparatus bag. So what we have is a number of of fabric bays over steel structures. this other company that we've been talking with which is also recommended. It's called Clear Span and they have designed um customdesigned and proposed to build their least expensive um apparatus bay which is one entire apparatus bay unit. It is a a steel structure. So, it's a corrugated steel structure um which is built on a on a foundation of a number of concrete blocks. Um this proposal does not include that foundation. We'd have to do that separately and it does not include anchoring to the foundation. But that estimate um it's an 8 bay apparatus bay. um that's came in at 643,000 approximately which is more than the estimate that we had that was over at um the old DPW's base which came in at about $68,000. So it's it's about you know where is $40 $50,000 um more

but there's no foundation or anything right so and that's not like electrical and all of that correct that is truly just for the structure that's the structure correct it does not include electrical it includes the overhead doors but did not does not include the installation of them um it also that's helpful yeah um door kit it also it also doesn't include uh the shipping and installation of the of this and they're out of Florida, right? Yeah. Um gosh, I'm sorry, Connecticut.

They're out of Connecticut. The other companies out of Florida. Um this one doesn't include shipping installation uh and site work. We don't believe the site work required, but they couldn't confirm that. And the first one I gave you, which was uh from Forts USA, um I think that's everything. And it came in at about $643,000. So I've included that into the um into the spreadsheet that I shared with you before. I actually raised the price of the overall project and it's up to almost $4.4 $4 million fors. What's that? Fors from including both forts and clear span because they were estimated two different parts of this. Yeah.

So, can I understand? So, you're saying that the total swing space based on these is how much? 4.4 million which is which is about uh $500,000 more than what Vert.Ex had estimated for the for the swing space over at the old DPW space.

Okay. So, thank you for doing that. Um, like that's great that we have this information because now when we hear that the swing space isn't right and I've Googled or I've called we have backup in documents that show that contents was correct, that number was right and quite frankly I'm vertex. I'm sorry. I'm going to take a little pat on the back. We didn't spend $44,000 for that. We asked our, you know, our OPM to provide us the information based on their experience and that's what they did and we've just confirmed that. So, thank you guys. I know that was a lot of work. I appreciate it.

And what um Bertex did and Steve correct me if I miss anything but they they based it on a similar project done at another place at the same time. And so, you know, it's called, as Sarah points out at the time, that's benchmarking. you know, you didn't design it for our specific place, but they did benchmark it from a similar project that was being done during this time frame. So, um, some of the estimates that we were given and companies we were given, that's fine to talk to somebody on the phone giving you give us an estimate, but that I believe that didn't include prevailing wage. It didn't include shipping, it didn't include some install installation like we found. It doesn't include installing overhead doors. Doesn't include bringing electricity, a lot of things that are needed to make this operational, which Steve had included in his estimate.

So, did you I'm guessing you didn't go this far, but for the things that were not included, did you put an allowance in there for all that other thing and then increase the price also? I did. So, those allowances are in there. That's what brings up to the to the 4.4 million. Although I will say I don't have pricing yet for the for the concrete you know the like larger vendatures of bar are sort of thing I don't have pricing that so that would increase it but that would be cardiac contingency you know so I believe the 4.4 for we cover everything. Yeah. But I didn't specifically price out those things that I said weren't included. But that's great. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. I know you and the chief both worked hard and thank you to these companies. Um because Yeah. It gives us more evidence and clear evidence that these estimates are good estimates. Right. Yeah. And one of the Google companies too, right? Me too. They were both recommended by um the community. So yeah, good. So now we got to go back to our day job. Yeah, exactly. Thanks.

Excellent. Okay. Any other discussion on sites or um I have reviewed site matrix but I I don't think that we need to review it right now. Um, we because we're waiting on more information from 984. I will say in December and January, we're going to go pretty quickly. So, you might be as your homework reviewing your site ma matrix based on the reports we have. See if you change any of your numbers. Um, so that site matrix is going to be down to three. Right. Right. Correct.

So, and we've already done 72. Not a lot changes on that because we made some additional changes between the two and we've already done some 13. We did do some and then my other question is remember this thing this um so are we going to look at this again? Yes, but this is what I'm thinking. Um and and you can disagree with Larry. What I showed her was the the list of the cuts, right? um potential that we looked at before and then we were going to look at again, right? Sorry.

We need to make a decision on warrant articles, final language by January 8th. So, all of our meetings in my mind through then are going through any data we have, reading draft warrant articles, and finalizing warrant articles. As soon as we're done at with that at our next meeting in January, now we start talking about how much are we going to tell the town this is going to cost. Context is going to come in with some estimates, the the conceptual estimates, but and then we can be looking at this to say if it comes in at 32 million, can we take off another two million? So yes, we will be going through that, but I feel like we don't need that till town meeting. So we have time, but can we um because at that point we'll have chosen a site. Um can we just can can contact Vert.Ex um just confirm the information they've put on here based on the site. Does any of this change because of the new site? I don't think so. Any of the savings they proposed, um I don't think so, but I'm not sure. And so before we do that, I think it would be great if we just

We can ask that. We're on limited time with them, so we can ask if they have the time to do that. Yeah. Very, it's very generic, but just, you know, Yeah. But I I would guess that since those were based on the design for 72 Stow Road that doesn't change much um until we get to a new design that might change because of a different site. And that's a guess on my part. Yeah. And that's fine. And maybe they just confirm that. Like I just I just want to make sure that if we're going to be working off of that, right, that that information still valid if we end up either 1300 8 984 or um or 72 wherever we end up.

Yeah. Okay. And they are going to do take that conceptual design and put it on the other two sites. So we have that mapped. Okay. um special town meeting. Okay, so one thing I want to talk about here is you know we do have all of our we have our timeline that we talked about last time and I just want to see um so we uh December 5th is coming so we need to get our warrant article placeholder in. So Mike and I will work on that.

That's just um Yeah, it's just the placeholder. We just want to make sure we have the placeholder. I can get that in there because that's just, you know, site one, site two, design fee, design fee and and and at that point if you're down to, you know, just one site, that's we the site acquisition and design fee effect. You you're doing separate, Mary. The acquisition separate and the design separate or are you combining Oh, I was thinking separate. Separate. Okay. I think it's easier.

I think so, too. Because I think if you do it because especially if we go with two pieces of property, that's a lot of information. And I don't know, you'd end up in with it. Vote A, vote B, vote C, and then that gets too complicated. Simple just talking. So, one of the things I want us to look at, if you guys can look at your calendars, is so as I said, we have to vote final by January 8th. and get our language in by the morning of the 9th.

Yeah. So, the way our meetings go, we have, let me just look at this. It's on the back of our agenda. We have a meeting on December 4th and December 11th.

And then there were people had conflicts for the 18th. There's a holiday for some folks on the 25th. New Year's Day is January 1st and then we come to the 8th and I'm wondering is that going to be enough time or do we want to try to meet on another day before the 8th so we have more time for discussion and all of that. One thing we could propose is January 2nd. It's a Friday. I don't know if people are working. You may be on holiday. I'm getting nasty look. No, not nasty. just questioning

uh and or earlier the week of the 5th but I know we have issues with select board meeting and fincom meeting and all of that so I don't know or we just say we're going to do it on the 8th and people are going to do their homework in between and we come ready to make decisions I think we should have an extra meeting in there for Kim so we have I found out on the 6th you do you have a select board meeting on the 5th. I I don't think it's until the usual the 2nd, right? 12:00, right? So the 5th we do January 5th with my work

unless we we end up adding a meeting too from our end, right? But you can't add you won't have the information until we have it done. Yeah. So and the 12th works is this select board of science Rex, right? Because you'll have final information um things. Um, the fifth works for for me. Larry, does that work for you? It looks like everyone else. January 5th. Yeah. Yes.

Okay. So, it's going to be January 5th and January 8th. Boy, we're going to spend awful lot of time together. I know. And and um Mike, I'm going to put and say it out loud right now. We want to post by December 29th. And if you're if folks are out, we'll post before the holiday. So, um that way for the 5th in particular because you know you the first is a holiday so we have to post before the first so um do you know about the town hall Mike? What is our place to meet if it's available? You mean it's available on the It's available. Yeah.

So all of these days we're on the town hall as usual. No. Uh, December 4th, you're here. December 4th, we're here again. 7:30. Uh, yeah. Uh, 700 p.m. if we want executive, which we're going to want. So, 700 p.m. for executive and then December 11th, January 5th, and January 8th will all be at the town hall starting at at 7.

Yep. on the on the 5th, January 5th, well-being committee has the grains reserved. Uh, but I don't see the Morris Hillberg reserve. So, I'll I'll see about Morris Hillberg. I'll also see if wellbeing usually does the mornings, right? Uh, they don't right. It's 10 to 12. So, so I'll boo for us. Yeah, they're not move meeting 10 to 12 p.m. I know it's a lot of time together, but it's these are big decisions we're making in a time of we get to spend a Saturday al together. All right. All right.

That's January 3rd. Yes, the time we get to the 5th. So December 4th, I'm going to come to the meeting with draft warrant articles with X's in place for things. But that way we can pick at the language and then get that set. So then when we can plug things in, we we can go a little faster. Steve's got his hand up. Okay. You can just Steve, you should be able to unmute. Just should I'm able to. I thought I made him a co-host. You did. He's a co-host. So, there he is. Oh, sorry. I must have must have done that by accident. I did not.

You're probably waving your hands around like I do. And then I do that at work and I set things off. Okay. Um All right. So, that would take us to public outreach update and we have our dates for that. So, we don't really um the only thing is we were going to move it to 11:00 that day. Yes. And I didn't. Did you check with um BXBTV? I did not. All right. Um I'm happier with 11. Great. All right. Excellent. So they're on. So we're good. Excellent. Because Yeah. I think you were in at our last meeting. So I don't think that was just repeat the dates and time sitting with Jan 28th. Yep.

11. Yeah. At the bridge. Um and then where's the pre-Town meeting? or where are we with that? It's going to be here. We don't have the date nailed down yet, but uh Alec Bjan and I will work on that. But we are working on that. Um and then we have we haven't really met because we really we're sort of at a standstill. Um yeah, once we have a site vic, we'll very quickly be able to pull together the stuff we need to pull together. Um and then there's the possibility of um somebody who likes the cold going to Winterfest. I will not be going. I don't like the cold. Sarah and I.

Although I will say one time when my kids were younger, it was 70 degrees on Winterfest and I walked down there with the kids. We were drinking hot chocolate and there was like it was the most beautiful January ever. It was 70° so I'll go if it's 70°. Happy to join you.

Okay, I'm just putting all this in my calendar so I actually go to it. Um Studio is available for you guys whenever you want. Podcast. I think once we pick a site, we'll probably go back to doing a couple YouTube things, podcasts, you know, whatever, that kind of stuff. But without a site, there's just nothing left that we can really put out there. Yeah. So,

it's tough. Yeah. Um, we did find um a a typo on our web page on um Tuesday night at FINCOM. John Connor brought up the fire station building committee web page and instead of 984 Massab, we said 984 Massive. So, but Rajan was there and we asked him to fix it and he said, "I'll take care of that." So, I hadn't looked at it in a while. I guess we should occasionally, but he did fix that. So, but that's it. We don't really have anything else right there.

Okay. So, that takes us to the minutes. Um, and I'm just looking for my right packet of minutes. We Yes. So, we have minutes from October 16th, October 23rd, and November 13th. So let's start with October 16th. Okay, I found one to clarification. I think at the bottom of page two, the second paragraph up that starts, Mr. Shaw stated the next sentence says there will not need to be as large of an expense for this study compared to what? Where's the rest of the sentence? Um,

there will not need to be as large of an expense for this study as sentence before compared to what seems like there's something missing.

Okay. Town administrator John stated that he is approached yesterday by a landowner interest in selling their property. Additional research should be done on this property. The site is large enough to fit the program and is located centrally in town. The price may be attractive. The committee may want to consider approving some money for studies on the land. Mr. Shaw stated that some material about this site has been compiled from existing records. He spoke with the civil engineer and drafted a scope to give a fuller understanding of the property. There will not need to be as large of an expense for this study. I only think it's compared to the study of the property. Yeah. because of all the information. Okay.

It may not be particularly well written, but or it could be exactly what he said because we're having a conversation. You don't actually speak to way necessarily write it. Yeah. Anything else on those minutes? Okay. Let's go to any comments on the 23rd minutes from October 23rd. Oh, on page two, the second bullet item down, the uh I guess it's the third sentence from the end, it says no study been completed. Has been

has been study has been okay. And then um under item four, the big paragraph under item four at the bottom of the last sentence says these additional items bring to total. I think it's supposed to be bring that total. Bring the total. Yeah. The total cost estimate back to approximately 4 million. Yep. Yep. All right. Um, and any there's one more set of minutes. November 13th.

Um, item two at the top there. Yeah. The very last five words it says and to determine and then there's half of a parenthetical phrase there. and to determine what uh okay it's held to consider the purchase pursuant to and to it it was to vote the minutes and determine whether to make them public. So it's and to vote previous minutes and determine whether to make them public.

Okay. Yeah. Um under item six where it's talking about today's meeting. It says at the library at 7:30, but do we have to say it actually started at 7? No, cuz on that day we said 7:30, then we discussed and moved it to Yeah. And it will be in minutes from tonight, the actual start time. So, did you get all that, Mike? I did. Okay. So, because we amended them, I think we should vote each step separately because for the last two, we want to say as amended. I think all of them amended. I didn't amend October 16th. Oh, because this makes that

Yeah. Yeah. I was going to vote I was going to make a motion to vote to amend to approve Allen's minutes.

But seriously, can I have a motion to approve the minutes from October 16, 2025? Still moved. Sorry. So, Maria moved. I heard Alan second. I'm going to take a roll call vote. Alan, hi. Matt, hi. Hi, Maria. Hi. Sarah, hi. Larry, I Mary I Okay. Do we have two more sets after that? Yeah. Can we just give both? Those are both amended. So, October 23rd and November 13th as amended. 13. So, I move to accept the minutes of October 23rd and November 13th as amended.

Sure. Okay, I heard Maria move and Sarah second and I'm going to take a roll call vote. Alan, hi. Matt, hi. So, I Sarah, hi. Larry, I Roland I. Okay.

All right. So, that's the minutes. Um, we have a budget and invoice approval. So, um, Steve, if you want to share that and bring it up and for everyone, you should be, if you have a paper copy of it, it should be a copy that is edited, like it's got cross out so you know it's the right one. There was an up.

Yeah. And actually, uh, Mary, we, uh, we were able, it was late this afternoon, we were able to get those, um, completed and submitted, but, it was not in time to really distribute. So, you everybody should be looking at what I'm calling the redlinined um,

set of uh, of the VIP, but this is this is more the completed. Uh so the invoices for October and and the reason we give a little history the reason we had to correct things is uh is because of the reimburseable to uh Alec Wade. Um he had purchased some uh supplies that had sales tax on it and we had to take the sales tax off. Um, so that's that's why we had to do the the revisions. Um, so the invoices that we have, and this is for October, we have the vertex invoice uh 14 uh for $4,948.75. We have contact invoice 13 for $9,245. We have the Kristen Patnod um uh meeting minutes invoice for $425.91. I believe that was three meetings worth. And then Alec Wade had a reimburseable to him for supplies that he bought for the pre-Town meeting. Um, one was from Staples for $459.11 and the other was from Market Basket for $47.78. Uh, total of all the invoices is uh $15,12655. And then you have the the vertex invoice, the t context invoice, uh the uh the Kristen uh patnut in invoice, and that that was for three meeting minutes. And then uh we've got

the reimbursement sheet, cover sheet for Alec Wade and the u and the two um uh the two invoices. And we're just showing that the the mass sales tax was crossed off of the uh of the Staples uh invoice. What was the bottom line, Steve? 15 what?

It was back $15,12655. So move that that we approve the invoice the October invoice of 15,126 55 cents. Second Mac move seconded. Um any discussion or questions? Okay. Roll call vote. Alan. Hi. Matt. Hi. Hi. Maria Sarah. Hi. Matt. Uh no. Larry hi. And Berlin. Hi, thank you.

Okay, thank you. And then you'll see the budget update and right now there's the budget is showing and this again this is through the end of October uh $53,382 left in our original $500,000 appropriation. now. So, that's going to go down because of some of the amendments, but those will show up in November. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Um Okay. So, then we have a reminder for our meeting dates. December 4th, again, here at 700 p.m. December 11th at town hall at 7 p.m. January 5th now, which is not on this list, but we just added. and January 8th, both at 7 PM at the town hall. Any other updates? No, I see everyone's shaking their head. Okay, I'm going to move us to public input at the end of the meeting. Um, if anyone online has any input, please raise your hand or put on your camera. We'll unmute you.

Y. All right. Seeing none, I would take a motion to adjurnn. So moved at 8:41. So moved at 8:41. Second. Okay. Maria moved. Allan seconded. Roll call vote. Alan. Hi. Matt. Hi. Hi. Maria. Neil. I Sarah. Hi. Larry. I. And Brolan. I. All right. Thank you everyone.