City Council - workshop

good evening and welcome to tonight's uh city council work session on the missile municipal uh building complex i'm going to pass it over to kate cook and john tabor as the chairs of the committee i just want to thank in advance All the members of the community. This is a this is a very tough project at the end of the day will be the One of the largest projects will do in the city Certainly a need for that to make sure that the police have a suitable work environment and I just want to thank again You know, this is this is not you know uh the end or even you know at the beginning of the end uh we're still at the end of the beginning uh stages here but um just the work that has gone into this um there's been a lot of full urban committees but you guys have really put uh the work in and asked a lot of tough questions and hopefully as a part of those tough questions getting to a result that is going to get you know uh 80 of the the city on board uh with this path forward so Again, just want to thank you in advance for the work this meeting tonight. We're hosting it in advance of your next meeting that you're going to have. That's why we're having it in the middle of July. It's not to sneak it by everyone. Everything's on YouTube. We'll have more as we need to have more, and there'll be many opportunities to discuss as a part of the lead up to the CIP. So with that, Councillor Cook and Councillor Tabor.

thank you your honor um i asked for this work session this evening because this committee has done a considerable amount of work over the last many months reviewing potential plans and thinking very seriously about how we move forward with the municipal complex and i wanted to make sure that the council had a good update on that and that our community was aware of the process moving forward while all of our meetings are broadcast and they're available to the public i know that they don't always get a lot of attention sometimes in the afternoon when we meet on a wednesday and i thought it was really important that we bring it to the council level make sure we get council feedback before we move forward as a committee because the council feedback is really critical to knowing what are our next steps and i just want to thank the staff because

this whole process has reached a point where we've had a breakthrough and the diet of fingernails for all of us on the committee was would all these pieces fit in this building and they do fit but not without a lot of discussion with the staff because this will be a long phased project over six seven years at least and our city staff will have to move and then move back in many cases as typical phase construction goes but you know let's find out how what it looks like and then we can answer those questions with that we're going to have our deputy city manager carl weber walk us through the presentation with a cast of supporting characters here we go

everybody hear me okay my first time on this mic thank you Ian to the mayor and assistant mayor and the council for this opportunity to give you an update on where we are and really thanks to the committee for all of their engagement and a big note is this has been a highly engaged committee who asked a lot of questions and their input has really meaningfully shaped the work that we're going to review tonight and really they deserve a lot of credit for the persistence and questions that they've asked and along the way and so we really looked at moving from just a police facility into the municipal facility and what can be done for a similar framework, for a similar funding envelope. And one of the things we wanted to state really early on in this process is the costs that you're gonna see on here are very preliminary. They're rough order of magnitude. There's a lot of work still to be done as we go towards the fall to really refine the numbers as we go. And so if you, next slide. Part of the question that we were facing is what can the city accomplish if you consider the whole building and not just the police department? So a standalone police department project really was limited in scope to just the police operation, single purpose. Now we're looking at the municipal complex as a whole. How do we reclaim space? How do we better use existing space within this building? This is a very large building. but if you walk through it on any given day, there's a lot of wasted space. And so what we're looking at is not only meeting the operational needs of the police department, but also creating an accessible point of service for residents, a place that they can easily access the building, and really the services you'll see later on, the services that they would access on a regular basis are right in front of them, and it reconfigures some space to be more efficient in the long term. Next slide. So how did we get here? It's been a long journey. We've been meeting every department. We met with the departments to establish what their needs were, what the space needs were, surveyed the building, we developed some concept, and then compiled some phasing and preliminary costs, which we'll talk about tonight. But throughout, you know, the committee's focus has been working on adjacencies, bringing related services together, and that really has helped us come up with better options as these have gone along. Next slide. So in the process, we started with three concepts, concept A, concept B, and concept C. We think that we've actually narrowed it down to two at this point. Concept A is carried forward. It's a strong alternative, but it has the largest square footage. concept b was set aside partly because it required a second story on top of the sally port and we know the viewscape was an important aspect of this project so we've set that project aside and the adjacencies really didn't work in that concept and then this concept c which we'll go into more detail is the lowest square footage and the best adjacency so sometimes when you put things into a smaller package you can be creative with the space and we were really trying to do that We'll talk a little bit more about the lower-level space here in a minute. Next slide. And all the detailed plans on all these are available. If the public wants to look at all the concepts, they're up on the website. But the concept A was really larger to begin with. It had a sort of a – if you notice, the shape was sort of an arced addition. but we noticed that the entry point was small the point of service was smaller so people would be sort of queuing up in a hall it was a little bit clunky the way that you would come in and be offset from the council chambers and so we just looked at that and said it's a good option but as things have progressed a little bit more uh it hasn't turned out to be the both the most efficient use of the space and again this was the largest square footage in the project of the concepts so the next concept next slide was concept b um this was trying to not expand in the front as much and again what what happened on that was it required a second story on the sally port which we thought was less desirable and so that got set aside the other was the prosecution office and where the victim advocate offices would be in really undesirable space and have to be not adjacent to the front lobby of the PD. And one of the things that we really learned was you want that experience for victims and witnesses to be a good one and to be able to come in and have a safe space to come in the building and not be interfered with by the rest of the operation of the PD. So that really, when we looked at that as a whole, that option became less desirable and we set that aside for now. Next slide, concept C. And you'll also see that you'll see the more detailed plans on your handout as well. This starts to come together a little bit differently. So if we look, if we start off in the basement, you'll see that the existing range is there. It's using new lockers and showers. physical agility in space that you know why would you put lockers down there well it's less desirable space but you come in you change and then you go on to other things so it's a good use of space that may be considered less desirable in the long term one of the things that you're going to see in here is if you notice there's a square footage below recommendation we'll talk about that a little bit more but that was a strong recommendation of the committee that says if you're building a in addition to the building, can you reclaim the space below it? Because if we're going to dig a hole and put in something, what happens if you put a foundation below it? And we'll talk about that. It turns out to be a little economical. So on each of these, you do see that corresponding space here. Next slide. Now what you see is on this floor, now you have a better access. You have a Sally Port out front. You have a renewed access for the PD, and it also allows space for the victim and advocate offices. Booking and intake is in a place out front with the Sally Port. And the flow of the public into interacting with the police department becomes much better. The offices for the prosecutor and victim advocate becomes much better. It's a much better location where they can come in and then privately go in to adjacent space. Next slide. And then we bring ourselves to the main level here. What you'll see here is an accessible point of service. One of the things you'll notice about this option is the entrance, which would be accessible by a ramp. It comes right in if you need to go into the council chambers. There's an adjacent training room. The other thing that was really helpful about thinking about this project as a whole is space no longer was, this is police department space, this is city space. Things like that training room, it's a shared space, so it can be used by the police department for their trainings, it can be used by the city, it can be used by other boards and commissions. The other thing you'll see in here is it also includes redoing the council chamber and turning that into a shared training space. This is a very large room and done more efficiently. You can actually break it into multiple rooms that you could have two big trainings going on and you could sort of have the wall just sort of, you know, collapse when you don't need it and sort of make it into two rooms when you do. and it would really help. It gave us better access to large space. The other thing you'll see is elevator right off the lobby. Very important what you see as you come in, 90% of the activity is usually clerk tax assessing. It's right there on the first floor, especially with clerk and tax being right adjacent to the lobby, but then there's an elevator to go up to other floors as needed. The next slide. What you'll see here is one of the concepts that really makes this work is the floor that is currently planning sustainability and building actually becomes police department space for detectives. But built into this, you'll notice there's two areas that are flex space for both the municipality, for the city side, and for the PD that will allow us to use swing space during the construction, but it also allows us for future programming space along the way. And again, just to orient you to the plan, spaces that are now in pink are sort of public access where they would come up. And instead of right now, if you walk through most of these floors, there's long hallways. And then offices here, you would come up into a space, be greeted, welcomed into a conference room or something else. And then a lot more meetings would be happening in conference rooms or adjacent spaces, not necessarily in offices. Next slide. And then what you see is the fourth floor eventually becomes sort of the integrated school and finance, because one of the things that you'll see a little bit later, we talk about having the school move into the high school and leave behind the co-related services, the finance, payroll, and some other things that make sense to sort of have, but you have a wing of the building that essentially is city manager legal, finance and school finance, and HR and IT sort of all in the same place. And next slide. And you might be asking then, why is concept C becoming more preferred? Well, we kept concept A still there, B because of the adjacencies, but also the second story addition, we set that aside. What makes this one sort of emerge to the top? Part of it is, you know it's the most efficient use of square footage there's a point of service at the main entry stronger adjacencies including co-located social services one of the things that the committee was very strong about was making sure that if you go and look at one of the wings it's got health and welfare and the social workers all in the same wing so there's a there's that ability for the public to access that and coordinate services and really that was a great of the committee of sort of co-locating that so then services are easy to access but also there's some collaboration between those related services. It keeps most everyone on campus except for water sewer billing and most of the school department and reusing a lot of the building as we can. Next slide. But also, you know, one of the questions has been, you know, does this meet the operational needs of the police department? And I really big credit to the chief for ADG and JSA working together and really developing the needs of the department within the existing space. If you notice, it's not a lot of additions, about 8,000 square foot of additions and only a small portion of that is for the PD. But it gives a secure operational core. It does account for realistic growth. It gives much better access for the victim advocates and the witness area. And it also gives us some opportunities for the future of policing, AI tools, real-time policing. We're making sure we account for space of the future needs of the community over the long haul. Next slide. And really, what does this deliver for the city as a whole? The real big thing is the point of service. You know, it's funny. Nathan and I were sitting in the lobby today just having a conversation, and we had to direct a lot of people where to go. Why? Because you come in and you're just not sure. And, you know, it's like, okay, go all the way down the hall, take a left, take a right, and it's on your left, versus it would be right there. And what we see is, you know, 90% to 95% of that traffic could be serviced right in the point of service. New elevator with better accessibility with a ramp out front and better accessibility for all residents Again a lot of better access for the public in general and that integrated social service wing is important and now here's where it gets fun so roughly you know what we were trying to see is what can be done for the money that was considered for just the standalone project and if you think about the police facility at about 42 million dollars we know that the quotes for the city hvac was around 10 to 11 million dollars now we're talking somewhere between you know 52 and 53 million dollars But what do we get instead of just the police operation? Well, we get the operational needs of the police met, we get that accessible point of service, we get departments reconfigured for a better use of space, we address all the HPC issues that are here, and we get the basement space reclaimed at about 50 cents on the dollar. Next slide. So the other thing that we've worked on with JSA is how do you phase this in because this isn't something you just do all at once. There's going to be a phasing that has to happen so you can move people along. So there's a summary of the phases and one of the things you can see, we sort of put the red line where that original $42 million ends up and you notice that you can get the police department and the municipal additions out front and the point of service that's a pretty good value compared to just getting the police operations for the 42 the others you know around the council chambers and the others is how do you get through the rest of the project so the the building is sort of done in in a total and again this is rough order of magnitude there are lots of contingencies in here there are escalations for inflation the work that we'll be doing in the next few months is going to continue to sort of refine this as we go and the project will continue to get refined as we get a little bit Every time we go back and meet with departments, we get a little bit tighter, we get a little bit more refined. There's still work of the committee to help make this more refined. And so we are going to phase this. We're moving it on what they call a move once philosophy. The philosophy is if we can, we only move you once. Some might have to move out temporarily. We have discussed, you know, there's a public workspace above their new addition. There will be departments that move there for a while. Others might move out temporarily, but we're going to try to shift people so they only have to move out of the space once and then move back into the space. and why would we do that there's a couple reasons you know it minimizes disruption but it also minimizes cost we've looked at other communities that have had to rent space and that can be close to four million dollars just to rent space we'd rather spend the four million on the building and reuse our own space or phase this in a way that makes it so we can utilize the buildings that we have next next slide this was a great recommendation from the from the committee which was hey what if you build something below every addition that you do it turns out the estimates have that about 50 cents on the dollar so if you're going to build something you might as well capture that space the benefit of that is we can have it for storage we can have it for future use But it's really nice to have space that's built that doesn't have pipes running through it, especially if we're going to store documents in these spaces. Because right now, most of the spaces we store documents have pipes running over them, and we have lots of problems with leaks and other things that happen. So really great suggestion for that. Next slide. There's a couple of things that unlock that concept C. One is flexible council chambers, renovated for multiple use. So now the council chamber isn't just sitting here all day. It might house training. And one of the things that we really... learned was the police department can be a place to host training and then we get free slots in those trainings and don't have to pay travel to the training. So the more places we can do that regionally, the better we are as a whole. We can do it in the police department, we can do it in other departments as well. the other is the proposed move for the school department uh proposed for fiscal year 28 frees up the fourth floor space improves collaboration and shared support with finance for those who remain and i can't go forward without a special thanks to former mayor peter weeks for asking this question at every meeting was great and so we we addressed it but what it shows is all that feedback all the questions that were asked really helped us shape this design over time and so just as a reminder next slide these costs are preliminary we're still in the conceptual phase we're gonna refine that estimate this this mid-summer and we're gonna start talking about the public feedback we've scheduled some farmers market days in August we've drafted up some frequently asked questions and the project landing page and what we'll do at their next meeting of the committee is is going to review all the different sort of public outreach and feedback opportunities, because you know I love feedback, to make sure that we're getting a lot of feedback as this thing gets refined along the way. And now to the fun part, the next few pictures. So what you'll see here is, instead of just looking at the plan, we wanted to look at the conceptual view. What would this actually look like? And what the attempt here is to really blend the new that incorporates that in well so you can tell where the additions are but also how does it flow and if you notice it's just a one-story sally port and if you look at this compared to if you some for some perspective and we might go out and put some posts in the ground at some point right now there's four parking spaces there that's going to take up about three of those parking spaces that are there and you sort of see if you go from the connor's cottage if you go from the farmer's market that doesn't affect the view at all here in the parking lot it just does that one-story sally port part of that is we need to have that in a place that's easy to sort of Drive in and then if somebody's released they're released back out without having to be Escorted through the entire secure part of the police station So a lot of questions around why is the sally port in the front? It makes sense to sort of be able to do that Booking intake and then release without having to interfere with the other secure part of the building Next slide you get a view of what it looks like straight on. Oh There is a green dot on the corner peter tells me that you put a green dot on the corner out there so you can go out into the parking lot tonight and see where that actually would be so i think that's helpful just visually and i think as we get further into it we talked about putting out a poll and maybe a piece of tape just so you can sort of visually see what that outline might look like but again you can see how it really integrates in and i think it gives it sort of the feel and look of you know that it was intentional uh how this uh building all fits together and then i'll leave you with this which is where we go from here july 29th the committee meets reviews the layouts and prepares that public outreach during the month of august we're going to continue to do phasing costs and really trying to get some outreach and the committee meets again on september 9th and then the goal is to bring this back to the council in a more solidified way for recommendations to move forward and so what we're really looking for is just affirming the direction that the work of the committee is progressing along and we want we think it makes sense to continue to refine concept c at this point because it's the most viable option confirm feasibility comfort that says hey the price estimates so far are consistent with what you'd hope to see and then support the public outreach and then a little bit later tonight you'll hear about the request for a public hearing for the remaining $2.8 million which continues that sort of design and bidding process so we can get this out and get some real solid numbers which we know will change and even when we go out to bid you know they may say hey look if you phase this a little differently you might be able to save some money and we really won't look at ways to to rein that cost in and so with that any take any comments from the committee and then we're here to answer any questions that you may have or the council has

certainly to open up to the committee um any feedback that was a lot to take in um uh appreciate the effort that that went into that um council questions uh that we have councilman

um exactly what phase will we put the hvac because i know that's sort of a component that affects the entire building and it's a big price item so i'm just trying to figure out where it phases into the phases you've got so i can take i'll take a stab at that and you could correct me when i misspeak so the current system is a centralized boiler system down in the boiler building

the approach to this is going to be more of a distributed heating and air conditioning system it'll be a separate heating system from the air conditioning side so it allows us more flexibility in terms of phasing it'll be done you know it has to be done as the project goes forward so a good chunk of it will probably get done in the first phase but it is being broken up into a more distributed approach which will allow us flexibility instead of having to go through the entire place all at once it gives us the ability to do sections at a time and it's it's a it's not necessarily uh how you would do a a new building um but it it is i think it's a really good solution and i'm really comfortable with it at this point i think it gives us a lot of ability for easier maintenance and you know being able to isolate sections at a time as we go forward over time so and we get rid of a lot of those big pipes yeah yeah it's much more efficient from a heating system side smaller pipes lower temperature we lose a lot of heat going from the boiler building getting it into the building counselor hopkins

thank you mayor um a couple of considerations i would ask as you move forward with design um as a mom and a physical therapist so the first one as a mom in these public spaces are we hoping i would hope we would include a lactation room And I've seen those coexist with sensory regulation rooms for people or children who need a quiet moment So that's something that I would request and then also Changing tables and if we're having a if we're having gendered bathrooms a changing table in both the men and the women's bathroom and then my other thing on bathrooms that I will I've been PT for 20 years and I see it all the time and it irks me is when we're putting like coat or purse hangers on the back of bathroom doors. You're putting them at shoulder height for a woman who's 5'8". That is not handicap accessible. That's not accessible for anyone who's short. So either two hooks or a lower hook and even if nothing else just in the handicap stall at least. You have railings, you have space and then they have to reach to the shoulder height of a 5'8 woman to hang anything up so just little little design nudges um otherwise i think the plans look beautiful and i appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this from the committee staff and consultants one one point i would add is that we're showing non-gendered bathrooms for all of those public spaces it's we can fit it they're all accessible and it makes all the sense in the world thank you even better

Any other questions of the council before public comment or any comments? Councilor Cook. Oh, Sue, on the end there.

Yeah, I was curious because lactation never came up in any of our meetings. So I was going to ask Richard if when you were all speaking to staff at different times, did that subject ever come up?

We are currently showing wellness, we're calling them wellness rooms, so that would provide... Cover both quiet time and lactation. So we have them on each floor, so I think we have two on each floor right now.

And that came up a few times in your... It did.

from a staff a staffing needs standpoint just general staff use as well as for public and also like the city clerk will often receive you know parents with young children who need to register their birth because they had a home birth so having that accessible on the public floor again was a request it makes all the sense in the world

oh no i agree it just the subject had never come yeah and it's it's part of current um code as well for an employer of a certain size there's mandated rooms for mothers okay lactation rooms are that's great thank you back to council hopkins and cancer group

I do have one more question, actually. And this is from, again, my time in health care. What safety mechanisms are going to be provided for our staff who are public-facing at point of service should someone become unruly or dangerous? Or even looking at this council room, I mean, if someone were to come in, God forbid, there just doesn't seem to be adequate safety measures in place. So I'm wondering if we have those in the design. I'd like to hear more.

Yeah, this design because it's so concentrated now a point of service allows for a much greater higher level of security There so we'll employ the latest technology for security For sure it's so much easier with it was really it was really the point of the point of service because we have people wandering through the building previously and as Recently as five years ago. They would wander through the building at all hours of the evening after a meeting so We now have currently card readers on a lot of the doors that keep people on certain floors after hours. But this layout will allow us to get very concentrated with our security. Absolutely.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And I think that's why you see in there, you look at the pink spaces where the public may go, and instead of just wandering down a corridor into someone's office, they'll be greeted by someone and then sort of allowed in. And the point of service in general, people are behind windows, which is also helpful. So it's a lot more secure than what we have now.

Councillor Cook and then Councillor Murrow.

I just wanted to point out that it's critical to understand, because I received this question from several members of the public, that it's not as if you can do just the first five phases and stop there. The project requires that you do the whole project. because you're displacing people and you have to then move them back and so you have to finish the rest of the spaces so while this is coming forward at a slightly higher price tag because of the phasing while we don't have Nathan money here down here right now we would be phasing it as far as financing as well so you're not bonding all of it at the same time which helps with our debt limit and the financing of the project um over a longer term i think counselor cook nathan isn't taking the night off he's in the back there yes exactly having to sit at the table um counselor

I'd just like to say thank you guys so much for all the work you've put in, and it's really nice to see a plan that's going to make what I consider a lot of unused space much more usable, so really appreciate that. As far as I'm concerned, I think you're going down the right road. I think this is the least obtrusive as far as additions you're putting on. it's going to preserve a lot of the natural traffic flow that everyone's already used to so that's really helpful and i do love bringing up both clerk and tax right up front that's a brilliant idea to not have to walk to the far corner of a building and the the split use of council chambers i think is just also a wonderful idea so i'm on board with all this and i do like the idea of paying for it over like a decade that's so much easier

Thank you. Discussing of bonding, I was wondering if finance had looked at a potential of what the bond schedule looks like or within the phases of how that would affect year over year our debt ceiling and kind of if that has been discussed or if we anticipate that to be discussed in the next phases of this project. I saw you with a folder.

Folder's misleading. It's just the early stages. Good evening, folks. The question and the comments from the Assistant Mayor and the Councilor Crook are right on. right on target i i tried to prepare a couple of notes it's still very much early days for us i think in this conversation and we also didn't want to get in the way of the concept conversation that you were all having but undoubtedly the question of affordability is uh is on your minds So let me offer something that's fairly concrete and then something less so. First, to the extent that I can, let me define for you or explain to you debt limit. Debt limit exists as a legal statutory reality. There are, you've heard this, many of you in multiple meetings in the past, there are limits on the amount of debt that we can carry. They are different on the municipal side of our lives and on the school side and in the area of water works. There are no limits in the area of sewer. Municipal has a 3% limit based on the valuation of our community. City school can be an additional 7%, and the waterworks can be an additional 10%. today our total outstanding debt is somewhere just north of 300 million dollars the total maximum debt limit if you add up municipality and school and water might look like more than two million dollars so in each of the categories we break down 2 billion. Did I say 2 million? You did. 2 billion. Thank you very much. We're already there.

2 billion dollars. 2.1. And we're at 300 million. And if you add in anything that you have already

authorized but we have not yet issued to create the real debt because the the auditor's calculations will include those those commitments as well that totals 380 000 380 million we are well within our limits at every step and this project moves you in the direction of the limits but by itself doesn't drive you anywhere near the legal limits that are set by statute less less strict if you will or less definitive is the area of affordability in terms of our financial policy and i think one of the couple of questions that i've already received were about the 10% rule that we use. We have a financial policy by which we limit ourselves to not spending more on net debt service in each year than 10% of that current year's appropriation. So if your budget is at $150 million, 10% of that is 1.5 million. And we, 15 million.

Is it late tonight over there? It's just one of millions, right?

And so you've seen that, that's in your budget, and every year we give you an illustration where we talk about the current year and future years of the CIP, and we show graphically how we're comparing against that 10% ceiling. i would remind you that every year of late we've come in right around eight percent so two years back when 20 fy 26 was uh 7.97 percent this fy 27 budget we've just begun uh came in at 8.04 percent In almost every year that you've seen it, we have in the out years climbed up against the 10% ceiling, even broken that threshold a little bit. But I would tell you that historically, by the time those out years become current years, we're back down around the 8% mark. because those years are, in effect, a wish list in that CIP and have not yet suffered the aggressive scrubbing and deferring mechanisms that we put in place as we bring the CIP to you each year. And if we go back and look historically, you'll find that each year as it arrives is back down around that 8% mark. But even then, that CIP includes not only the tail, meaning what you're paying now in payments against past borrowing for projects already completed or in the process, it also includes a projection of things that you anticipate in the plan. If you tease away, if I strike away all of the want that is in that CIP and just consider the tail for actual borrowing and actual projects completed or in progress, that number That number tops out just above 8 and falls off very quickly to the middle sixes and then 6% by FY33. It's a graphic that we could share when we dig down deeper into this and we get to the real affordability question. I guess what my point is in that is to the question of is this affordable, If I add back in this project at its fullness as projected in the presentation you just saw, we still don't see the tail, on top of the tail, this growing to anything more than somewhere just north of 8%. the management piece for this then is yes this is affordable but we we need to manage all of the other wants that are included and there are some larger ones coming the schools have got some retrofits when they reach 20 25 years of life in high school and then the middle school to follow we have the project with the CTE Center mechanic Street we've talked about recently So there are other things that we need to manage and balance, but this by itself is certainly a manageable project so long as you're willing to make some of the choices and defer. We did an exercise just, again, back of the envelope, but we did an exercise adding back in everything that was in the know so far of wants. We had to defer them out and tease them out over a greater number of years, but it wasn't 20 years. It was another five or six years to make sure that we got back to everything that we wanted to do and still managed to stay under that 10%. All of that is just numbers, most of them right, a couple of them wrong, I'm sorry. But the concept is there is affordability here, but it's going to take making some choices and setting some priorities and managing this down the line. Does that help? We certainly can come back later with more.

it does thank you and i just want to touch on thank you very much for bringing up the cte um the technical school at the high school as as that is in the rotation within the state too um and i think we talk a lot about the we've talked a lot in the last couple years about um new franklin and some of the retrofits at the elementary schools in the police department and in the municipal um and i think that the conversation of the cte has kind of taken a back burner, but that's a very important project that's going to, I assume, within a timeline run parallel

to this work and so just making sure that we are keeping that in as your department is of the of the long-term planning within if the state dilly-dallies if I may if the state dilly-dallies maybe this lasts longer and takes we don't start that project until after we've come closer to completion here but you're correct that's a match most recently I knew it to be a 30% local 70% state budget so we want to make that a priority I'm sure and don't want to miss the opportunity

you so much counselor flynn um this is great i love the better use of the space but my so it looks from the edifice isn't really changing except for the sally port the footprint will stay the same it's coming up all right so i'll toward the parking lot um i know that when we toured with chief newport the police station the foundation of the wing where the city managed that wing with over here. Is the foundation, are you gonna have to like dig? Because I know there's all that's like, why is the integrity over there, that portion of the building? I don't know, maybe that's premature. I'm just curious.

I'm looking back and forth because I'm sure we can all answer that. Who's going to jump to it?

I thought the same thing because I'm thinking of the Pfizer building in New York City that sort of buckled and you want to make sure. I understand.

So what we know about the complex is it's made up of, in the common way we talk about four buildings. We talk about the building on the end, but it's actually made up of several different structures, as many as I think 16, 18 different structures. So some of them are very easy to just remove. We can kind of reverse the construction out into some of the low quality additions that have been put on. But the foundations of the major structures we believe are very good. And of course, we'll go through geotechnical exercises. We'll do probing and so forth. And to determine that, we'll go around the perimeter of the building and probe the foundations to make sure. But there's nothing currently saying to us that the structures are in any way compromised, which is good.

I would assume that had been.

We have a lot of documentation, as-built documentation, believe it or not, even for some of the older structures. We have some pretty decent as-built information going back.

There's still plenty to go. This is a very conceptual level. But these are all steps. Things like the hooks, we would be getting much further down the road. But it's a great gap.

You can't unsee it.

You can't unsee it. You can't unsee that. You can't unsee it.

The other thing we'll do to make sure of what I just said was to do, Peter just reminded me of destructive testing. We'll open walls up and maybe ceilings to really expose structure that might be in question. So we'll do that in advance of buying the contract out with some pre-construction services that might create a better value for us. That's great, thank you.

Mr. Weeks?

Yes, one of the things at the last meeting that we talked about at the committee level was thanking the staff and the architects for finally coming up with a plan. I know that we've been accused of moving slow, but I think they finally have come up with something, because we're not just trying to build a police station. We're trying to improve the municipal complex, the HVAC, the electrical, the point of service, And at the last meeting, one of the requests we made through the chief is at their next commission meeting, does this plan address all the needs that they have to make this a final plan? And we look forward to seeing that at the July 29th meeting. But so far, I think that we've fulfilled what the mayor requested when the committee was established is to try to come up with one building that will service everything.

If I may, the police commission tomorrow at our July meeting will begin discussing concept A and concept C and make a preliminary judgment of whether it meets our needs, at least our needs.

I just want to say that sitting on this committee and going to all the meetings, I have total faith in our DBW and JSA that whatever we end up building is going to be excellent it's not going to be hodgepodge or worry about the safety of it and that was real important to me because we all know that if things are done too quickly or whatever taking shortcuts but i have to truly say that i have great confidence in this group of people sitting right over there that they'll give us the best product at the very end that we can trust for a long long time

So, uh, sister mayor, I would agree with that.

North has never led me south. He's always a question. And this is a concept plan aside. This is more for, um, leadership of Joe and Peter. have we taken into account that, or I know you have, but I guess for maybe the next time this council gets together of what it would look and what it does look like for potential new staffing needs for this facility that we have, we are growing bigger. We always know that salaries, benefits, uh staff size as always comes up very heavily during budget season and that talk so just um maybe just thinking rough preliminary numbers of what that looks like for any additions needed um within the staff of the maintenance of the facilities department as we are adding a large square footage to the building

I would say we're cognizant of that. We're cognizant of that, and we have not defined where we're at. As you know, custodian services and maintenance services are a challenge for us in keeping staff, and so it's a continual challenge for us. But we really made some strides relative to leveraging our resources, and we think we're going to land on a good number, but we haven't established that number yet. But we are cognizant of that. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Commissioner Schur? There's been a variety of staffing studies done as to the police station, and I think, not speaking for the commission as a whole, but I think we're comfortable that this plan meets what we anticipate the future needs within the reasonable future for the police department.

Councilor Hopkins, then Sue.

Yes, I have another Conceptual use of the facility question because I have you here And I'm presenting on childcare later and if you don't know I'm the mom of a three-year-old and one of my goals is to welcome families with young children into government so Because I feel like we're underrepresented anyway in these facility designs and public spaces I Would there be a multi-purpose you in the room that could be available for child care for an event? Say a bunch of in-home Child care providers came together and did a joint CPR training would there be us and they said hey city Can we use your training room for that? Would there be a space for? them to hire a babysitter for six hours and a pass their kids in a room for child care because child care as you will if you stick around for my report is quite a detriment for just functioning I'm here because my husband works at 9 to 5 and he has our kid at home that's how I show up here every night but For those who don't have that option, getting childcare can be a big hassle and a big roadblock. So if there is a space as you're like noodling on all these different rooms and uses, I would ask that you would consider if someone were to host a training that would involve privately bringing in their own childcare, I'm not asking the city to provide childcare, would that be a feasible use as you lay out design?

I just want to add on to what Peter was saying about how we were slow or people perceived it. The other thing I really like about this team is that the reason we're going slow is because they're interfacing with all the departments. So it's not a group of us sitting here saying, oh, we think they should only have this or that. We don't work in their spaces. So that's why it's taking so long because I don't know how many, you've interviewed a gazillion people or the same people over a gazillion time and come back with new specs and everything. So I just want people to understand that this isn't just group deciding what the employees of the city are gonna have to put up with that they have a real input into this which I think is really important in selling this also to the community Council cook and then we're gonna have public comment I was just going to echo that I some of our departments actually have are sacrificing quite a bit of space because they determined especially departments like planning determined

they don't need the kind of space that they have now that they would be perfectly comfortable working in more of a cubicle design space which does save us a lot of space within the building so the staff has been really accommodating of this process and has thought very critically about what their actual needs are in the workspace excellent well public comment anybody

your honor if i could while we're waiting for folks to come up two acknowledgements rodney mcmanus from adg is on zoom he's been a big part of this process so i just want to recognize rodney's on remote and um chief didn't take enough credit but under his leadership the pd does have a lactation room now so that will only expand

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you. This has been a good process. It's been very open. It's very easy to access all of the information that has come through these meetings. But it is a long time coming. the police department did a study, a facility study, which showed that this police department didn't really belong in what was a hospital facility. So here we are still talking about it. And so my concern is really having toured the police department, what's going to happen between now and 2000 and whatever, 29, I guess, Will there be improvements in those two lower levels of the police department? Which I think are really crucial to the health and safety environment for the police department question number one We've had five police chiefs since 2012 we've had innumerable city councillors police commissioners a new city manager a We've had new staff. And so here we are trying to build all of this within this building with lots of really lots of changes that have taken place. I am opposed to any addition that goes on to the front of the building. Portsmouth is really being squeezed in by multiple developments as you go through this downtown city. And this, you know, I think people chuckle at that, but this is an iconic view from the front of this building. There is no place else on the seacoast where you can get a view across ponds to historic buildings, to the North Church, to the bridges that cross between Portsmouth and Kittery. And so the Sallyport sitting out there, it looks pretty ugly, actually. And I'd like to know what it's going to look like as you're coming up Junkins Avenue and you're looking at the buildings because there is a pretty, I mean, it's looking hodgepodge. The building that was built in, what was it? 62, I guess, by the hospital is not a pretty building. And I thought that the Sallyport was going to be at least level with the lobby, but it looks like it's gone up several feet. Maybe that's three feet, eight feet. But what does that really look like from all aspects? I really think we need a tabletop rendering. i'd like to see the perspective of this to connor's cottage what effect that is going to have on the residents who are living there and what effect will have on the view so i do thank you for all the work i did serve on the committee for a year but i feel that it's really a great committee and you're doing wonderful work so i thank you

thank you mary lou any other speakers for public comment on the municipal complex well seeing none and seeing none on zoom uh want to thank again uh the work of the committee um love that the committee is is full of folks that are uh super excited um about the the process and some folks that were a little bit more skeptical of how this was all gonna shape out. I appreciate that the police commission is gonna take this up tomorrow night and really be able to get to the bottom of is this gonna be able to support the needs of the police department going forward because that's ultimately where this started. Where it is now and where we're going is I am really excited about it for a couple reasons. one just the cost aspect of this um uh where we originally got estimates you know maybe if we built this back in 2014 it wouldn't have been 72 million dollars but 72 million dollars is a is a pretty sizable number um and that would not have taken account for the hvac stuff that this building still needs outside of that. So that, you know, really an $83 million number to get where we're going to be able to get here for almost less than half of that is pretty remarkable. the second and this is the part that i'm really excited about uh from a standpoint of somebody that that spends a lot of time uh thinking about portsmouth and portsmouth's government nobody thinks about portsmouth departments when you know residents they don't think about you know individually the fire department or individually the planning department or the assessor's office they think of the city of portsmouth and so that this committee is thinking about the city of portsmouth that this room could be used for much more than simply the council chambers i remember you know i would call this the most expensive room in portsmouth because we heat it we cool it we use it about 10 percent of the time uh because there's just not people in here so if we can actually activate this space if we can have trainings in here if we can separate it so there could be childcare on one side and an event on the other, that would be a huge win and get more people using that. So again, we're not at the beginning of the end. Hopefully we're at the end of the beginning with a couple more meetings that we can align on a path forward. There will be feedback. I look forward to Peter putting out a sheet. I did see him. I was wondering if he was doing it for this, but he was rolling out and And so I figured that had something to do with this. And so if we can get more visualizations of what that looks like. But I'm happy that this is going to be able to serve the needs of the police. i'm happy that the changes that we're going to make to the municipal building itself are going to make it easier for residents to get the services they want that should be where we start is how do we make this easier for residents and how do we make it easier for employees to do their jobs for the residents so i thank you all for the work that you've done to this point and i will thank you for the work that you will continue to do you've made portsmouth really proud in the deliberative process that you've brought to this so far and i look forward to many more meetings together on this