So I want to welcome everyone to the Thursday, February 18th, JCPC meeting. And the first thing I need to do, we, every, all our members are here. I just need to make sure that everyone can hear and be heard. So I'll just call out names. And I wanted to double check. Council has used a first name way of addressing each other as I want to make sure that's okay with everyone. So as I call out names, you can, anyone can indicate if you would want me to be more formal. So Mandy. I'm present and Mandy is fine. Alex. Present and sorry, just a point of order. Does somebody need to volunteer to take the minutes? Yeah, I was going to do that after I make sure that we can all be heard. Is that okay? Perfect. Yep. Yes, I had a lot. I had enough like to do list. Definitely. Farah. Yes. And far I was good. Thanks. Okay. I am here on a great. Thank you. Jennifer. We can't hear you, Jennifer.  Okay. Okay, great. I am here and Jennifer is fine. Thank you. And her. I'm here and it's fine. Okay. So we're seeing everyone is here. Sean did minutes last time and. He did terrific minutes, but we need volunteers. For a minute taking. And I think when I counted up, no one has to do it more than once. So if you can either volunteer today for today's meeting, and I can ask this each time. That may be the most efficient way to do it. So is someone willing to. Do it for today. Alex said yes. And what I'll do. Alex just to make it easy. Sean did it in word. I'll just send you his thing. And then everyone can use that same basic template that we're using. So no one has to figure out what does it look like. We'll use Sean as our model. And Kathy, can I say one thing real quick on that? Yeah. We have a new flow for posting videos. So every Friday. All the meetings. Prior to that point will be posted on the YouTube. Channel. So. Well, it's being Thursday. This meeting should get posted tomorrow. If you do need to refer to the, to the video when you do the minutes, it'll, it should be up. So we're going to start with the style that the minutes. Capture what we talked about, but doesn't necessarily do a verbatim what everybody said. You know, everyone's, the styles can vary, but we're not. Asking for essays. Necessarily. So I think with that said, we have a minute taker Alex. Thank you very much. I think we're ready to start. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to you with this. Totally amazing package that you sent to us. Thank you. So yeah, I'll share my screen. Is that large enough to large? I'm okay with it. I don't know. I'll get anybody can. I guess shout out if it's not. Okay. I don't know why we don't have to wait until the end. So. So this is the very preliminary capital improvement program. We started last year trying to get this done. Before JCP started, JCPC started. So that JCPC had something to react to and provide a recommendation on prior to that it was sort of drafted after JCPC. And I think JCPC was a little. We're trying to find our way prior to that. So this is a new charter. So this is a very preliminary version. It's a living document. So your feedback will certainly shape. How this looks when it's finalized. And that will be around the end of April. It doesn't really get finalized until we present it to the council. At their first meeting in May. So. So this will continue to evolve as we go. We looked at this page last time. This is just the charter language. So this is just a little bit of an overview of the capital process. It is kind of a full year process, different elements of the capital process are always being worked on. The first phase is department heads evaluating what their capital needs are and preparing their requests for the upcoming year. Department heads meet with the town manager and with the finance office to review those requests. And they help update their inventories in this, this first phase. So this is just a little bit of an overview of the capital process. We last year, we, we moved up the inventory collection point. We were trying to do it January 1st. We actually moved it up a little earlier last year because. Because we're a member of the green communities we do. Stephanie Chikarello, our sustainability coordinator. Has to do an inventory in the fall anyway. And so we were getting a little bit of a grumpy responses when we'd asked department heads to give us inventories. And so Stephanie and I kind of joined forces to do one consolidated inventory in the fall and that seems to work well. We're in this next phase of working with JCPC to review the plan and the proposed projects and get a recommendation from JCPC. The next phase in April and May will be to finalize the plan and make any adjustments to it and present it to the council. And then we'll start meeting with the finance committee who will review it as well and review it. And then in June, the council will receive a recommendation from finance committee on the capital plan. And they will, there's a public forum held. I think it's actually scheduled in June. This year, sometimes it's in May. And then the town council will vote on the, on the capital plan. And then staff work with our procurement officer to begin to make those purchases, whatever was approved, they start working on that. So there's a little narrative for this year that will evolve. I think I'll point out the major elements of this plan as we go through the specific projects. I won't spend too much time here. This pie chart, it gives you a little bit of a split again. Every year can be a little skewed if there's one big project in that particular year. This year, for example, fire is a much bigger slice than they normally are. And that's because the ladder truck is in the plan you'll see later on. And that's a, not an every year type of purchase. That's a big slice for them. So. All right. So back to our date. So I was thinking maybe we could stop here for a second to circle back to our discussion around the alternate dates. So this is what we looked at last time. There were a few alternate days where we were hoping to push back the meeting time. We were hoping to do that. We were hoping to push back the meeting time. We were hoping to push back the meeting time. So from starting at five to starting at six or 630. And we were going to see if that worked for everybody. So it might be. If people can do a thumbs up, raise their hand if it works. And I'm just look at a screen. It's fine with me. You know, every. At least. I think one, one of these meetings is. Yeah. You know, I'm not in a conflict with. And, and, and, but that's the only one, I think. Once it's once every month. Okay. Do you know what date that is or the one that you might have a conflict with if we push it back? Just a moment. I will tell you. The 24th. The 24th, you'll have a conflict. Yes. Yeah. If the meeting starts at 6.30, I will be coming out of a meeting at that time. So again, if this meeting, if the JCPC starts at 6.30, it will be fine. Okay. So you're fine with those three dates? Okay. Good. Yeah. I'll just change them. Mandy, you have your hand up or was that just saying the dates work for you? So I think we have agreement, Sean, and you can make sure we all know that on our calendars. Yeah. I'll send out the dates and I'll try to get all the calendar postings out there for you all. Okay. And you're serving dinner? Is that one of the? Yeah, that's great. Yeah, Farah, you need to unmute. Is this just for these three dates? Yeah. So just these three dates would move, we would move to the alternate time. So it would be February 24th, we would start at 6.30, March 3rd, we would start at 6.30 and March 17th, we would start at 6.30 instead of five. All the other dates would stay five to seven. Whoa. Yeah. Could you? Yeah. That would be helping me a great deal if we just follow it up with an email on this or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I can send out everyone this schedule so you can look at it and let me know if it works. And we do have one, we do have one extra day if we need it. And then one other change, again, this is a living document, so I'll let you know of the changes that have popped up since we sent this out. The library date did not work for Sharon, the library director. So we're going to actually, I think we're going to switch Jones Library and Police in terms of the schedule. So when I send you out the dates, I'll send you that revision as well. And I'll keep going. All right. So the complicated chart here. So this is basically what we looked at last time, except last time you looked at the FY22 version. This now has been updated for FY23. So again, at the top, you have our property tax estimates for what our revenues are going to be from property taxes and then the cash capital or the amount of that levy that we dedicate for capital improvements. It's based on that. So for FY23, we're proposing to go to 10 percent. So it's 10 percent and it's actually based on the FY22 prior year levy limit at 57.2 million and under FY22 approved. That's what we base the 10 percent on because we do a look back so that we know the exact amount. So that's where that cash capital number comes from. And you can see we're proposing going up to 10 and a half percent. And that's where we would stay in the future if and that's only really if we stick to the plan for the four building projects. That's really what drove us to go above 10 percent is to make sure we have enough funds to do the four building projects as we've been planning for them. Anna. Why does CP sorry, this is this sorry if this is irrelevant. Why does CPA drop so much from fiscal year 24 to 25? 24 to 25. So I believe there is continue to go down. Yeah, Sonya, correct me if I'm wrong. So this is based on just the debt. So these are only only debt CPA.  It finishes that drops off completely in a couple of years. Yeah. So hypothetically, those will change if they take on more debt. Exactly. Yeah. So for example, if they had approved the the track, for example, we would have a when that is approved, that would get folded into this. Well, and I think chiming in, I think when the library that was my yeah. So that's not showing up yet because it hasn't it hasn't been incurred. But then it shows it starts and it is in the it is in the future years. So if you look at that, you can see it in out years. Yeah. Yeah. If you at the very end, I'll show you the debt sheet that shows you what's included in some of these numbers. Yeah, like when it jumps up and yeah. Thank you. OK, so I'll keep going. So then so cash capital that this top section is revenue. And so other revenue sources after cash capital included that exclusion override if we if the town council decides to do that. And that's what's the estimate is for the school project to that that would be funded through a debt exclusion override. Reserves, this would come from either free cash or stabilization. Again, this is tied to doing the four building project plan. So the years we would use reserves or the years we would take on debt significant amounts of debt from the building projects. So if right now we're one one variable in this plan right now is whether we borrow for the Jones Library and whether we do that. And if we're going to borrow for it, but whether we borrow for an FY 23 or borrow for it and have our first payment in FY 24. And so there's still a little bit of uncertainty about when our first payment for the Jones Library will be and that's tied to the the pace of the project and how quickly it's going to spend money. Irv, did you have a question on that? Yeah, but in that borrowing for the Jones Project, while we are borrowing or if you decide to borrow. Anyway, whatever happens, they're borrowing or no borrowing as the state reimburses us. That sort of bounces out on one side of that ledger. Because yeah, yeah, I need them out. Yep, exactly. So we've already received about two and a half million from the state. And so we won't have to borrow for that portion because that will come from the the grant. And we're every year we're supposed to get roughly that amount through the life of the project. So the next section is the Community Preservation Act. Again, this is really a wash with below because it's it's technically part of general fund debt. We show it here so that it ties to our other numbers, but it just comes in and it goes out. Comcast funding. This is for the municipal fiber project. That was part of the agreement with Comcast that they would some funds would come to the town in order to reduce the or to put towards the debt for that project. And it should be done in the next few months. We're optimistic if it's under construction, there's some really just some final pieces that have to be done. But it's one of those areas that's hard to get people to come back because there's so much work going on around the state. Other would be if we had another funding source, which we're not proposing anything for FY 23 and then state aid is that chapter 90 money, which is really specific for roads. So the total of our revenue sources for FY 23 is 7.6 million here if based on this plan. And you can see what it looks like as you go into out years. The borrowing is 36 million. And I'll show you that's because one of the building projects kicks in and I'll show you where that number comes from. And then on the expenditure side. So when there's on this borrowing side, this is not cash going out. This is we would borrow money and it would be a resource to us. The payment for the borrowing would be reflected in this next section, which is where all the expenses are shown. So the first area here, actual debts, that 1.3 million that includes our all of our current general fund debt, it includes that CPA number up above that's a wash. And it includes our regional assessment as well. So one of the reasons this year's plan got a little worse from last year's plan, Kathy probably saw that, I'm sure. Last year was much closer to the imbalance this year. It's this year it's one for the worst a little bit. And one major reason is because we have increased our estimates for regional school debt. They proposed some major new projects at their four town meeting. And that assessment to the town gets paid out of the same source because it's a capital assessment. So again, I'll show you where you can see what we're estimating for regional school debt, but that's one major change from the previous year. And there's a couple other projects that were surprise projects or or unanticipated projects that I'll point out. And just while Sean's on this that negative 71,000 that has to go to zero for the for the current year, you know, so that's one of the places when we're looking through the projects we we can't spend more than we have. Right. So actual debt, again, 1.3 million. Our projected debt is the one million thirty six thousand. And that is again, we're right now. Our plan is that we would borrow for the Jones Library and FY twenty two this June. That's this May and June is when we roll over our borrowings and do new borrowings and that our first debt payment for the library would then be an FY twenty three. It'll always be that year after we borrow. So the reason we're thinking about doing that is because interest rates are low and they're rising, though, unfortunately, and so there is some urgency to try to get funds borrowed for that project at a low interest rate. And then the other benefit to that is the M.B.L.C. allows us to take their grant payments and use them at the end. We don't have to use them first. We can let them sit and build interests and then put that interest towards the project. And we estimated we can generate another twenty or thirty thousand dollars from the from the interest we can earn on those M.B.L.C. payments to put towards this project as another funding source. So that's our plan right now. That's our plan right now. A lot of it's going to be driven, though, by the by the cash flow of the library project and when they're going to start construction and how quickly the funds are going to be spent because we can't borrow a bunch of money and then sit on it for a year or two. It's just not allowed. So so this could change. We have the library building committee right now has brought on OPM, but we haven't brought on the designer for the next phase and we won't really get a better picture of that cash flow until the designers on board to start doing schematic design and and map out the rest of the project. So that's one major variable here that could change. It's kind of. I'm fortunate that we're not allowed to borrow on the current current conditions that we have to wait to do it. And you know, Sean, and I know that the conditions are going to change dramatically and they're changing dramatically on the month of month basis right now. Yeah, you know, that's that's one of the reason why we're we're looking trying to why there's urgency really to do all these building projects. We want them spaced out a little bit so that we can, you know, step up to where the debt needs to be and where we need to get our resources to pay that debt. But yeah, the longer we wait, the higher those interest rates seem to be going. So they're still good, but they're they're not as good as they were a couple months ago, for example. Jennifer has her hand up to Sean, Jennifer. Yes, I want to have two questions. One is just a process question. Is it our practice in this committee to raise hands to ask questions or make comments or are we more casual? It would be good to raise your hand because then it's not the first voice that's raised. At least the hand goes up and I'm doing my best to watch the hands go up. So use the little raise hand symbol at the bottom of the screen. That'd be great. Great. Thank you. My question is Sean, you mentioned you were going to talk about the 36 million and fiscal 23 borrowing at some point later. Are you also going to talk about the 55 million in the in the two years out as to just explaining? Yeah, I can point out where you'll find that on the plan and what those projects are. Yeah. OK, thank you. All right. So the last thing here where it says new projects, so 4.4 million, that's roughly what's available for that's not related to debt. So what we could put towards other projects this year and then state aid is the grant funds that we get for Chapter 90 comes in on the revenue side and then goes out on the expense side. So as Kathy pointed out right now, we have a deficit of seventy two thousand. So we we do need to do some work to get it in balance. And then really the out years or where the bigger concerns are those numbers grow a little bit. So there's quite a bit of work to be done there. Any questions on this chart before I go through the next through the actual projects? I just thought, you know, as you move into the next, for me, it's great to see the out years. So one of the things just everyone should be aware of is as we're bringing in the big projects, the new project line, it we're OK this year and next year, it starts going down. You know, so in thinking what we're doing in this year and next year, what's in the queue, it will be harder to do roads, sewers, road, all sorts of the repair programs. So I just want it's purely an observation, not anything more. Mandy. Yeah. On this plan, you have 10 and a half percent for FY 24 through 27. Could you remind us when that 10 and a half percent is projected to be able to decrease back to the 10 percent goal because of the. That that swing, I think there was an intent at some point to take it back down to 10 percent. Yeah, I'll tell fiscal year, I just don't know which one. Yeah, I believe it was around 2030. It roughly had to go there for about 10 years, but I can. I'll get the exact year. I don't remember off the currently. OK, thank you. So I'm not seeing any other handshown. I think you can. OK. So I'm not going to go through every project here, but I will point out some of them. Is that too small if I make it so I can fit the whole five years on there? That's OK. All right, good. All right, so the way this is organized and there's still some work we need to do to to make this as as useful as possible. But we have our department location type, whether it's a facility type purchase or a planning or equipment, a description of the short description of the project, the funding source. So when we get down, I'll show I'll point out the large borrowings that make up the numbers that we asked about. And then FY 23 is the year that will be voted on. But you can also ask questions on the out years if you have questions on those. So first thing I'll point out, we've increased energy sustainability improvements up to two hundred thousand dollars. It was one hundred thousand dollars for the year we're in currently, and it was zero before that. So we're trying to ramp this number up. We know as we try to do more and more to meet the the goals of the community, we're going to have to have capital money set aside to make improvements to buildings and to have them consume less energy, improvements to vehicles or additional costs for vehicles if they're going to be hybrid or fully electric. So we did increase that to two hundred thousand, which made a big impact in the plan. Because if you do it over five years, you know, it's five hundred thousand dollars more than what we were planning for last year. So one thing we just use this for, just so you have some sense of what types of projects this is used for. We are taking thirty thousand of the article from FY 22 to put towards the new fire pumper truck that we just purchased to make it a hybrid or give it a hybrid capabilities where it can idle at an emergency scene without using its fuel. So that's one way we're using it. And then we're also looking at potentially using some of it for some of the solar discussions and solar planning that's been been talked about. I'll keep going if there's any questions on any of these. Again, you're going to get anything in FY 23.  But if there's anything high level, feel free to stop me. Going. This EMS, the defibrillator monitors line is a little bit unique. So I'll just point it out. This past year, there was an emergency need to replace five of the of the life packs that the EMS staff use. We decided to go with a three year lease to pay for it because we took the first year out of the operating budget since it was an emergency. And so the second two years of that lease are shown here, this 48,700. So we put it here, but it's that's we have that equipment. It's really the the final payments on a lease. Least to own that we would keep at the end. So one of the emergency projects that came up was the gym floor replacement and HVAC improvements at Crocker Farm. Just from spending some time there, I know that there was issues with the ventilation in the gym and the ventilation underneath the gym floor that's caused it to have issues and swell up when it gets very humid.  So that was proposed this year that wasn't on wasn't really on our radar, wasn't on the plan in a previous year. Another one that we're going to have to think about is the accessible playground. What we had on the plan last year was $200,000. The initial request was for about $700,000 this year. So they increased the $500,000. I think we need to work with them more to figure out whether community preservation can pay for some of that or if there's grants we can apply for for that. So you're not seeing the $700,000 here. You're only seeing the $200,000. But I did want to raise that as something that might be an issue. And actually that makes me think I should put that in that section down below of of projects that are on our radar that we need to keep track of. I don't think I put it there, so I'll keep going. I'll point out electric bus batteries just as a heads up. So we're getting to that point where where the free electric bus is no longer free. And so the estimate to replace all the batteries in our current or E-Line that we have in town is $150,000, which is about $50,000 more than a regular diesel bus. So it's not a judgment there. It's just we're going to start seeing the cost of things like that hit. And we are exploring what it looks like to have more electric buses, but this is one of those things we have to factor into that that calculation. So in public works, as Kathy mentioned, one of the elements we've discussed with the four building project plan is that there's going to be less sort of unencumbered capital money in the future. And so there's some things we want to invest heavily in now and before those projects, before the building project that comes on the books. And one of those things are roads. So for the last several years, we've put a lot of money into roads and sidewalks. This year, we did drop the road a little bit and maybe sidewalks a little bit, but it's still a pretty large contribution and compared to, if you look at previous years, what levels those were at. So there's still a pretty sizable contribution to roads and sidewalks. And for roads, again, you have to look at the seven fifty plus the eight forty one to get the full the full idea of what's being put into roads. Jennifer. Yeah, sorry, going back to schools. So the school section. So Crocker Farm is the only building that's called out. The others just say schools are the are those are there specific buildings for some of those or. Yeah. So there were so there were in Crocker Farm or Fort River and Wildwood. There were so the approach that they've the staff that I've seen them take. There's more. They're more maintaining those buildings and anticipation of the building projects coming up. So they had a lot of little a lot of little capital projects in those buildings. And what we've asked them to do is is look to these larger pots of money that covered some of those things. So, for example, they had some HVAC projects that were small, but they also have this general HVAC improvement bucket of one hundred and thousand. So we've asked them to look to these larger pots for those for now. Same thing with interior, exterior upgrades. So they had some smaller projects requested that could fit into this larger bucket of interior, exterior upgrades. And so we've asked them to look to those buckets for now. OK, and then the middle school and high school aren't here because they're regional. They're right. Yeah, exactly. But but. But how does how does spending for those buildings get reflected in this? Yeah, so so you'll see them in the debt section. I'll show you at the end the way regional school capital works is the school committee will vote it if the town, if all towns pass it or don't vote it down. The the region can then borrow for it and then the region will assess us. It's not really our debt, it's an assessment, but we do include it in our debt because it acts in a similar way. I'm just going to add, Jennifer, when the schools come in, when we look at which date people are coming in in the past and including in the town, whether these buckets, there's a description of what's in the bucket. So we're not just looking at one line, but you get under this. We're going to be doing the following so it gets more specific. It's just rolled up into one line. All right, I'll keep coming. One other new project that was proposed this year that I think was part of the accessibility plan or was a concern raised is repairing and replacing the audible pedestrian signals at the crosswalk. So that's been put in here. Oh, one other change. Again, this is a evolving document, but I'll just point it out real quick. It was more of a timing. I had to get this wrapped up before tonight's meeting. I mean, you'll see a project in here, Town Hall Flooring, 80,000. I've spoken with Jeremiah, our facility manager, and he has said that the portable assistive listening systems for the Bang Center are a higher priority than the flooring. And so one change I think we're going to just we're going to propose when Jeremiah comes to speak with you is we're probably going to flip those two and put move the Town Hall Flooring back and move the portable assistive listening systems for the Bang Center up. So just a heads up that you might see those two projects flip. All right, I'll keep going. So planning consultants. I'll point out sort of two two projects on the radar for this money would be funds to help with the the solar study conversation that's going on in town. To work with our planning department and then also an engineering analysis of the Bultwood garage to determine if it could support additional stories on that garage. So those would be two specific pieces that could come out of this. And then this last page has vehicles and buildings. So for vehicles, I think the most noteworthy things are the ladder truck that we are putting in there this year that was identified as a high priority as part of the budget guidelines this year that the Town Council issued. And so that is in here as a borrowing. The ambulance is also in here as a borrowing for the fire station. It's potentially we might be able to pay for that from another funding source. I talked about how we have an ambulance fund that collects money. And if it has sufficient funds, we may be able to just buy it out of that ambulance fund and not have to borrow and take it out of out of these funds. So that's something as we collect ambulance money throughout the rest of the year, if we get to the a certain point and we feel confident that we could pay for that out of the ambulance monies that we've already collected, then we would take it out of this plan. It would help. It's a borrowing, so it won't help FY23, but it would help the out years look a little better. Mandy. Yeah, two questions. The first one is on the prior page in the planning, recreation and conservation departments. They seem to be the departments that didn't have FY25 to 27 spending at all that seemed to potentially have spending where I would think would have spending there. Like like finance didn't have spending on the out years, but that finance doesn't make sense. But these three departments didn't make sense to why there was nothing included in FY25 to 27. Was that an oversight or is that some? I think you can ask them when the departments come. You know, if if there's anything on the radar, the way we work with them is we ask them for their current year, but we also ask if there's things on the radar that we should be putting on there. And so I think that's certainly a good question for when they come. If they if there's anything missing from this that they expect. OK, and then my second question has to do with the vehicles. And this is in preparation for the next couple weeks, which is I still find it extremely hard to match vehicles on the on this capital plan page page 12 with I liked the color coating in your vehicle and inventory. But what I find hard is the figuring out how many say one ton dump trucks there are versus three quarter ton. When you look at the vehicle inventory, that's what I have problems matching in terms of how many do we have of this quote type of vehicle in terms of size and that. So I don't know whether that can be added easily to the inventory. But sort of figuring out a way to classify them so that we can sort of say, oh, we're replacing one every three years and we have 12 of them, you know, in in our inventory or we're replacing four in the next four years. And they're the only four we own type thing. So just for future conversations. Yeah. And I think that makes sense trying to have some sort of summary to the inventory and maybe a better way of flanking these the DPW ones. Guilford is going to have to you'll see in the explanation of the projects. That's one area that's still pending. And I'm waiting for information from him. But I'm sure by the time he comes to present, he'll be able to tell us exactly what ones are replacing. But I agree with you about the some sort of better system of summarizing the inventory because it's hard to look at the whole list and take a lot away from it. Hannah. Anna. Oh, sorry. I have the I also had two questions, but Mandy's you got one of mine, which was trying to tell all the different vehicles apart was challenging for me in the inventory as well. So I appreciate that. Like my question is about Cherry Hill and why it's broken out separately from other recreation or public works, especially and the rudimentary question is can't they share mowers? And I recognize that those are like what we're looking at right now are different types of mowers. But I'm just curious why they're always broken out. And is that a consideration on years when it might be the same piece of equipment that recreation or conservation has? Yeah, so I think the second question is probably best for when they come. The first question, why they're broken out. I think we've always wanted to be able to track how it's not technically a revolving fund or an enterprise fund, but we've always wanted to track how well Cherry Hill does, you know, whether it's breaking even or if it is it so. So on the expense side, you can get a sense of what its costs are on the revenue side, we have separate revenue accounts as well. So in any given year, we can look and say how did it do, which recently it's done. OK. Prior years, it wasn't doing so good. So I think that's why it's generally been broken out. Sonia may have a better explanation if she's there. But one other thing I'll just say that we're still monitoring and we don't know if Cherry Hill is doing better because of the pandemic or if it's doing better because Hickory Ridge closed. So we're so we're hoping that it's I mean, it's not a good thing that Hickory Ridge closed, but we're hoping that they're doing better and it's going to continue. And it's not just a temporary boost from the pandemic. Right. Alex.  I think my new buttons off screen so I could type that I couldn't get to it. Yeah, I just had a quick question and this might have been in there last year and I missed it. But there's an HR section where we're doing a $40,000 compensation study. And I know that we fund studies under capital projects, but usually they're like ancillary studies. So I'm just trying to figure out how a compensation study is under capital. Because it'll be it'll be a large consulting contract to hire somebody to do it. So it would fall under in terms for us, it would fall under a capital purchase in terms of being a procurement. Are you saying because it's not related to a building or a physical structure? Yeah, I mean, in the in the in the past, when we defined capital projects, you know, you had the $10,000 threshold, it had to be a building project, or it could be consulting engineering services that are ancillary to a capital project to a building project or a capital project. And I just didn't I didn't seem to fall into those buckets. And so I just wanted to understand its placement here. Yeah, I mean, again, I think our rationale was it sort of a one time, you know, pretty large expenditure of money where we wouldn't want to increase the operating budget sort of temporarily for this and then have it kick back down the following year. So I think that was the rationales that it's sort of a one time singular expense. So to follow that logic. Yeah. Can I add to that? Part of it is is also capital project funds or multiple year project funds. So this might go over more than one fiscal year. So that's that's one of the reasons we put it in capital. It's it's kind of like doing the revow for assessors. It's the same type of thought process. And that one, I think, is more regular. It's not every year, but I think it's more common for the it's a consulting contract. Yeah, I think it's five years now. Well, we can again, I can talk with Paul about and we can make sure if our. We can review the criteria for what's capital and make sure it fits. So for and then Irv. What is it's under it's on page 11 Atkins Center and Hampshire College Planning. What is the Hampshire College Planning? Part. Pays under planning. I think it's yeah. Yeah, so I think these again, Dave and his staff will be better to explain. I think it has to do with sort of those village centers and what goes on at those village centers. Like, for example, the Pomeroy Village Center, they're they're doing the they got a grant for the Rotary. We've got Hickory Ridge in the area. And so there's sort of a process about what that village center would look like in the future. But again, I think Dave will be able to explain that one in better detail. Irv. That 40,000 HR. I think, you know, that's highly problematic to be put in capital. I missed a stretch, a very big, huge stretch. So I would appreciate it if the town manager, you, Sean, come back to us with a better rationale on what you put forward. Sure. So I have a question not so much on your list right here, Sean, but it's when we get down to the inventory and it relates to vehicles. So I'm following up on the vehicle. Not only was it hard for me to match categories, but we've got this great vehicle list now that shows mileage and how many miles it was drawn. So in general, it made me wonder, when we buy a new vehicle, do we take another one offline? Does it disappear or do we keep carrying it in the inventory? Because it looked like a few of these aren't driven very much. Yeah, I don't know what what the very much is. You know, so if it's only driven 50 miles or something, you know, that was I was looking at like didn't take it out very much. So, you know, what when do we remove it? And this is a more general. Is there a market where we're getting rid of? We think it's outlived its life, but it still works. You know, so some with police cars, we have to change them out after a certain mileage by regs. But but we replace things and don't seem to remove. I mean, this it's a little hard to see the totals, but the totals for at least one department are fairly startling. And it was a question and it's DPW, it's a question whether are these just like there's a spare truck sitting on the lot in case another truck breaks down and it's never used and it doesn't break down. So it's that kind of can we do that interactively kind of when we get to the discussion of inventory with the new purchases? Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think those are the department head. I'll be able to explain that better. But for for many vehicle purchases, when we buy the new vehicle, we'll trade in an older vehicle. So that's one way the vehicles will you'll see the one come in, one go out. Some staff, some departments do have those backup vehicles. Some have they have summer staff who come on. So they have vehicles that are specifically for their summer staff.  So one of the things we're hoping to do this spring is to your to your second point is we have a platform called what's it called? Govdeals. We started using its online platform that you can post assets and get competitive bidding across the country. If prior to that, we would just advertise in the local newspaper and we wouldn't usually get nothing. But once we started using this Govdeals site, we sold an ambulance recently that we would have gotten, you know, maybe five hundred dollars for a thousand, if anything, I think we got five or six thousand for it. So we do have a more advanced way of selling these vehicles now that get better, that gets better exposure to the full country. And so what we're hoping to do again this spring is go through some of these vehicles that we feel like and work with the department heads that maybe can get repurposed or sold and do sort of a spring cleaning on that front. Mandy. That goes into my question, which is every year I notice we spend a lot on technology. And so I don't know whether or whether there's multiple people to ask this. What do we do with all of our old technology? Because a three year old laptop we might need to replace, but certainly has useful life left. Yeah, I don't know whether that's something you guys can answer or whether I have to ask I.T. Plus school I.T. Plus library I.T. All the different I.T. departments. So yeah, yeah, it might be a little different between school and town. And Sean Hannon will definitely be able to give a better or a more complete response, but that's one of the things they've actually, as I was mentioned, for vehicles, we just replaced our phone system. And so they've got all these phones. And that's the same thing we're doing with the vehicles on that Govdeals site, we're probably going to do with the phones as well. You can it doesn't have to be just vehicles. We can we can post anything there. We have I think one of the issues is we haven't been getting rid of the I.T. equipment. It's just been piling up in places. And and so we've got to again, do some of this. We got to make this an annual process to try to sell some of these things or repurpose them and recoup some funds. And just, you know, that's an interesting idea. When at a place I worked in New York for a number of years, when they were doing that, Sean, they did an inventory and they posted it town-wide or employee-wide at what they thought the market price was. So people had a first dibs if a staff person, if a staff person's family member. And it was a nice way of we're getting rid of a pretty good computer. So I don't know if there's an easy way to do that, but it was a speak by over the next two weeks or we're going out to the general market approach. Yeah, we have we do have an asset disposal policy pretty recently updated. So we follow that, which we can give it to other departments, but I don't believe there's a I don't believe there's a sort of first comfort serve in terms of that goes beyond the municipal staff. It would still have to be used for the staff, the town purposes, if they were to take it. And so the borrowing, there were some questions on the borrowing. So right now, that large borrowing number up in FY 23 is there because it includes the the borrowing for the library and the borrowing for public works. And actually in looking at this, the borrowing for the library could actually come out because we already did the borrowing for the library. And it just impacts how much it says Barron doesn't impact the rest of the plan per se. So this 15751 can actually come out because we we authorize the debt for the Jones Library and FY 22, I believe. Or 21, but we've already authorized it. So really it would just be the public works building, which would still increase it. That number could push forward or could push backwards that's subject to when when a site for the DPW is identified. So it will it will if we don't find a site soon, it likely won't be an FY 23. It would be in a year after that. So moving that number back just affects when the first debt payment would start. So right now, the first payment starts in FY 24, FY 25. If this gets pushed back because we can't find a site or because the construction takes longer than expected, it would push when that first debt payment starts. So right now it's their best guesses as to when they when they're going to start. OK, it looks like Mandy and then Irv. So I noticed for the DPW building that I thought on our original sort of capital borrowing tool from a couple of years ago at the council that that number was 20 million and now it's 18.05 million. Is there a reason it's gone down? Yeah, it's because we borrowed some of it already for the design and engineering this past year. So we did the so if you add what we've already borrowed for that first phase to this, that will equal the 20 million. All right, that answers part of my question. So you've already borrowed two million dollars for the public work. We haven't actually borrowed it, but we've got it authorized. So it's already has a. Yeah, so and we did that because we wanted to be able to move forward with design once a site is found. We wanted to be able to move quickly forward with design up until construction bidding, so. Right, the 18 million, what is that based on? So the total was 20 million originally for the DPW. So that was based on looking at sort of square footages of other DPWs that have been replaced and looking at cost escalation and looking at sort of our current DPW and its square footage needs and coming up with an estimate. So we had to all of the DPW, the fire station and even the schools are all based on cost estimates at this point because they don't have detailed designs yet to have a full cost, a full cost estimate. And I think it's I'm glad you said that, Sean, all of us must bear in mind that these do not include all of the elements that would allow one to come up with a reliable estimate in terms of cost. Yeah, I think I think the for all these, we're going to have to develop the designs are going to have to be developed. So again, there's not there's sort of high level designs for DPW building. But when we looked at that estimate and looking at the other four building projects, we knew that there really wasn't any way we were going to be able to afford that level. So we looked at other comparables. But I think the big unknown right now with all these cost estimates is what does net zero do to the costs? My understanding on this in my work, related to the school building project is that net zero, the impact of net zero may be an increasing cost as well, maybe growing even faster than regular construction costs are. And we know construction costs are going up really sharply as well right now. So that's one of the reasons why we want to get a design developed pretty quickly for the DPW and for the fire station so we can get a more detailed estimate of what we can get for the money. Thank you for that, Sean. And I can I can say that, and you know, and everyone else knows that these this number is not going to be a static number that it is certainly going to go up. Yeah, I mean, we're going to have limitations on the numbers going up. I think we're going to there's going to be choices made for all the projects if that happens, because to take on four building projects, one of the reasons why we came up with these estimates is because we had to set budgets for these projects to see if we could afford them. So I hear you because because you know the industry and you know what's going on with these projects and you've been through these before, but we are going to have to do is, you know, really everything we can to try to stick to the to the budgeted numbers unless we have some other funding source that becomes available, Jennifer. Yeah, so I guess my question is along with similar lines, like I'm looking at the 40 million and fiscal 25 for the school building project. And I don't know if this is the appropriate time to talk about it, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around just like sort of the order of operations for how this all works. Like right now, the school committee is looking at the ed program that will feed the design that will feed the like the cost estimate for the project, but we don't we don't know how much the we know it's as you said, it's such an early stage. We don't know how much the project will cost yet. And we were we were told that like the MSBA does not want us to say we have X and a million dollars. What can we get for it? They don't want us to start with a number. But like we kind of are we kind of are starting with a number because it's it's it's in this plan for how the town can afford the four four projects is the way the town can afford the four projects is if the school building project costs the town 40 million dollars. But we don't know how much the building project I guess I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how how that all fits together. And and like if we if we do need the project to you know, to cost the town 40 million. And yet we don't know how much I don't know. I'm just I'm struggling with. Yeah, no, it's it's an unusual challenge. I would say that the town is, you know, we're trying to take on these address all these buildings that, you know, some of these buildings should have been addressed 10 years ago or 20 years ago and they weren't. And so now we're trying to address them all within 10 years because, you know, if you look at them, they're they're at that point where they need to be addressed. So so it is a big challenge that we're taking on. The reason why we have numbers now is because the council and the town manager wanted to come up with a plan for how we could do it and prove out a plan of how we could do it. So this was I think 2020 when, you know, we looked at comps. We looked at cost escalation at the time. We projected forward a timeline that seemed reasonable and came up with these costs. I think things one of the things that's a goal for the council this year is to update that for building project plan. And so we're starting work on that. We're trying to wait to see if we get a concrete number related to the school project so that we could factor that in. And if we find out any more information on the fire station or DPW. So but I think to your point, it is, you know, it's it's a it's not a. It's not the way we would do things if we could plan it out, you know, well in advance. Or you're muted, Kathy. OK, I was just going to say want to kind of limit the conversation on the four capital projects, because that is we at JCPC don't have to make these decisions. Thank goodness. But and we don't have numbers yet to revise this. It was part of this financial planning model that Sean mentioned on. It could work if these numbers could work. And we clearly in the COVID world are going to have to take construction costs and twenty twenty two versus twenty when we looked at them the first time. So fortunately, in twenty twenty three for us, we're not going to have to make decisions about these. It's not that it's irrelevant. It's just it's not on that list. So it's really important for all of us to understand because this is something that can be communicated broadly. Not only throughout our community, but throughout the state that these numbers are for the what we're seeing right now are forecasting models that do not in any way necessarily represent what the reality will be in the future. So it doesn't have no impact on the planning process that's going forward right now in terms of the school building, in terms of the program, educational program and ed plan. This does not have anything to do with it. This is a forecasting model and model only. Thank you, Mandy. While it's a forecasting model, at least for those that would not be debt exclusion overrides, they go. Those models and those numbers go directly into that bottom line future borrowing numbers that show our five year plan not in balance right now, including while using reserves. And so it it's it's forecasted, but it also is directly relevant to whether we can afford buildings because for every million dollars, those forecasts go up. Our capital plan becomes even farther out of balance. And while the schools in some sense, I think Sean would say are an in out number because they're intended to be a debt exclusion override. You still got to get it past the people. And that's all I'm going to say with the schools in terms of the forecasting model about the school cost. But for the other projects, it does directly relate to whether we can balance our capital program and our five year program and every increase in those numbers increases the expense projected borrowing expenses in the out years and puts our model even farther our plan even farther out of balance. Herb. Yes. Yeah, I would agree with you, Mandy, but, you know, no set of plans can go forward without having forecast. It does not necessarily mean that you're predicting what the future is. You're predicting what you hope the future might be to give you some guidance in terms of your actions in the present. So that's what I'm indicating. So I think. Don't make you keep going, Kathy. Yes, I think no, I think keep going. And I just this is definitely coming back. It has to come back to the Finance Committee and the Town Council to relook at the picture of the big projects on how what's possible in a five year period. So it's as forecasts change, we have to also adjust to them. So that is coming. Yeah. All right. So I skipped over the project descriptions. You can look at those and again, there'll be more information from the department heads when they come and present. So this is that pending list I was talking about where I should put something about Crocker Farms playground in here. And so what we decided last year was that there were some projects on the plan that we every year they just get pushed back and we knew there was really no way we were going to be able to fund them with existing resources. And so we wanted a different way to reflect them. And so these are projects that we broke last year based on JCPC's feedback. We broke the list into two different types of projects. The first list, our projects that if we get a grant, we're sort of ready to go ahead with it and do it. So there's Puffer's Pond dredging, Kendrick Park design. So there's the first phase of Kendrick Park is done, but there's additional work that could be done if there was money. And then Amherst's North Amherst intersection is another one. So those are ones that we apply for grants when they come up. And if we get them, we could we could move forward with them. This other list are things that are not quite ready to either because of funding or because they just really need more analysis and planning. And so that's what this list is. And there's some new things on the list this year that have been raised through various conversations with the community. One is the Youth Empowerment Center. One is the Cultural Center and then the New Senior Center. So we've put those again on this list that are still really in the planning phase. So I mean, I'm going to call on Anna first, but I have a comment. So I just want to make sure I get others first. Anna. Sure. So my question is about the Youth Empowerment Center. I thought, and this is truly just me needing to go back and read the report from the community safety working group. But they didn't want that to live under the DEI department. They wanted it under recreation. I don't know. I mean, we maybe I put the department wrong. The reason I put it under recreation for now is because we allocated some American Rescue Plan resources to this initiative. And our recreation director is leading the sort of feasibility study around a Youth Empowerment Center and where it could go and what it would look like, that kind of thing. So that's why I put it under recreation, but ultimately it might not be under recreation. OK, thank you. So I had a general question of what goes on a list as opposed to we're still waiting to figure it out. So we last time heard that some of the things that had been thought of for Crocker weren't on a list because they hadn't gone through a whole vetting project process and been recommended by the school committee. I think a few and I would say Youth Empowerment Center and maybe Cultural Center hasn't gone through a we want to do it. We're still going to have a conversation. So that was sort of just a comment. But one one that's on a back burner is the high school fields, the track. And I know that's the regional budget, but I was curious of why there's not a it's out in the future, because if that comes to us, it would be through a different avenue, but it would be a big one. So sort of it I noted since it's even in the newspaper today, right? But it's and I don't know what number what number you would pick in. But certainly if someone would give us two million dollars, we would probably do something with it on that. You know, so so we could reflect this somehow. It's sort of it's sort of funded in the plan already. When I show you the regional school assessment, we've increased that regional school assessment to acknowledge that there's going to be a cost for the track in the future. But to your point, depending on what option they go with and what are their capital needs, there are the costs could be greater than what we've projected. So, you know, we could think about how to reflect that. Yeah, it was just what what so people who weren't I think this was an innovation last year. We wanted to know what wasn't on the list, you know, when we're looking at the five year list, what didn't make the cut? And we didn't want to put anything in the five year that was like, I'm up in North Amherst, this North Amherst intersection. We're not going to do that unless we get a grant. So we wanted to signal that in some way. So this this whole page was new last year is a better way of capturing the wish list of projects that have been completely endorsed. You know, it's not that there's still a discussion about whether it should be on the list. So thank you. Yeah, so this is that asset maintenance page that I talked about that gives you a little bit of baseline info about each building and the budget for the building. And one of the requests last time was from Alex to. Add the North Amherst library here. We're going to try to figure out a way to do that right now. That's not a budget that is managed by our facility department. It's it comes, I believe it comes out of the library budget. And so we don't have all that data readily available. So I'm going to work with Sharon to see if if we can add that as another building. And it would be a little bit different than these buildings because these are directly managed by our facility department. But it might be interesting to have that comparison of of hours of operation and square footage and what the cost is to maintain. So this section, we agreed last year to report on any capital projects that have been approved in the past, but not spent yet. And we agreed to do anything that's three years or older. So that translates to anything in FY 19 or before. So these are projects that still currently have funds. They haven't been fully spent or turned back to the town. The way capital articles work is the department gets the money. They go ahead and do their project. And if they have any money left over, it gets closed out into sort of a capital savings fund or transfer reserve fund. And then we can appropriate from that fund for capital. And so Sonya does a really good job working with the department heads each year to basically you know, get good reasons why they haven't spent their money. And if she doesn't, if it doesn't seem like there's anything left to do, she'll close that out into this fund so we can repurpose it. So we're still working on getting some of the explanations from departments on why they're why things weren't spent, but I'll point out a couple. Our phone system upgrade, there's some money left over there. We're in the middle of doing that upgrade right now. So we that money should be spent pretty soon. There's a few departments left still left to be swapped out. This radio upgrade, I think the timing of this just got thrown off once it was approved, I spoke with Guilford and it's nothing they still need to do, but it's not as high a priority as it was back when it was approved. And so he's going to look at this a little bit closer and this might get turned back into that fund that we could appropriate for capital. North Amherst Library design that's in process. Not going to do all of them, but keep going. A lot of them are the plan is to spend them in the spring. So hopefully they'll be spent soon. And yeah, so so that's again, you can when department heads come, this is another area you may want to ask them about the status and what their plan is for these as they over the next year or so. And our goal is to try to keep this number as small as possible to stay current on these. So I think Sonya's done a good job getting this number down in the last couple of years. There were projects that were, you know, five, ten years old previously, but we've got it pretty up to date. Capital projects will take two or three years. Generally, it's not just because by the time the funding is available, you have to procure it, you have to get contracts in place. Sometimes you're not really able to even start the project until the second half of the year after you get the money. But our goal is to try to keep these old articles to a minimum. Anna. So this is saying police facility, exterior maintenance 25 five. There's also exterior maintenance in fiscal year 23 for 100,000. Yep. Those are two different exterior maintenance needs. Yeah. Yeah. And again, that would be something Jeremiah can speak to when he comes here. And I I'm just looking to see anyone else before I jump in. I'll raise my own hand and then call on myself, Kathy. When you get down, if you scroll down to the schools, one of the concerns was we'd seen the schools had a fair amount of money on the books that hadn't been spent. And it looks like that is still true, although it's a smaller number. So when the schools come in, I think we could be asking the you've got this money, you're asking for this new money. You know, what's in the works, because some of these are in the big buckets. Jennifer, that you were asking about, you know, it doesn't say for this thing, it's new equipment, eighty five thousand. So, you know, that's sitting there. And and I guess the available balance is literally whatever they originally asked for, this is still what has not been committed in any way. So it's just what's left. It's not the original amount, but it's not the original. So some of these, the number was quite a bit bigger, but the rest of it has been spent. So it's just it's something that when we get to this, we can go back and forth to be looking at these sheets. Yeah. All right. Here's the capital program information. I got to see if we can fit that compensation study in here somewhere that was challenged. So I won't do it now. I'll look at it later. All right. So capital inventory again, and this is I would say based on feedback, this is probably the area that's the most still a work in progress to make it as useful as possible. Try to highlight buildings that were likely to be addressed under one way or another. So Jones Library, for example, we've got the funding for that. We're in the planning phase for Central Fire Station and Public Works. East Street School, there's a there's a plan, right? An RFP that went out to potentially do affordable housing storage tank, talking to Guilford, that the removal is being planned. And then the Centennial Water Treatment Plan is that renovation is underway. So of all these projects or of all these buildings and their conditions, there's a number of them that are at least in the in the pipeline for repair replacement. Anna. Sean, with this inventory for the buildings, and I know that I'm kind of stuck on this inventory question. With the inventory for the building. Is that Anna's honest connection, maybe? Yeah, try unplugging and plugging it back in. If it's a speaker, sounded like it had some trouble. I think she might have froze. So does anyone else have a question? Because I have a question while we wait for her to come back. Sorry, that was like a total. OK, no, no, no. Anna, then Alex, I want to. OK, so I like. Nectar core just freaked out. OK, so here's my question, Sean. So my question is you said you combined with Stephanie, you combine powers with Stephanie on this inventory. Which of these questions was hers? And the reason I asked that is because looking in the climate action and resiliency plan, you know, that she talked about or the group talked about the need to ask questions like energy use, water use, doing an energy use inventory. Generally, you know, the question of is there on site renewables? And that's not reflected in this inventory. And so I'm curious where those numbers are, because I do think it should be taken into account as we look at the capitals, capital buildings. Yeah, so her inventory, at least the inventory that she has to get information from departments is a vehicle inventory. So some of the things that were part of her inventory were like the market class, the drive type, the miles per gallon. And the fuel type. So in terms of the buildings, she didn't. We didn't for that one, we don't really do an inventory the same way where we reach out to the department. So none of this is related to to Stephanie's inventory. I don't know if she does a building inventory or she just has sort of an existing list that has characteristics where maybe she plugs in the energy usage. But I get your point of is there a way we can build some of that in. Yeah, so that was part B of my question was if there are changes we want to see, is that something that we should be taking to finance through Cathy? If there are additional categories since finance was the one who approved the initial inventory areas. Yeah, I would defer to Cathy or another member of the council. I think one thing I'll say is the building maintenance sheet up above gets more to energy usage and consumption. We want to a lot of these buildings. I don't know if we would have the ability to get. We don't have the current ability, I don't think to have that data. The way we do for those other ones, or we can say how many gallons of heating fuel were used or how much how many kilowatt hours were used. We may be able to do a little bit with electricity consumption, I think. But again, we could take a look at it. I guess I should stop talking. We can look at it more. So, Mandy, did you want to respond to it on it? So, Alex, is it OK if I take this or is we? Yeah. So all I would say is what happened to get this list was the council referred to finance a question of what would you what should what is finances recommendation for putting on the inventory? And then it was brought back to council and voted on. So if you want to add stuff, I would recommend you bring to the council a request to add, you know, modify the capital inventory inventory list to add the following categories and ask that that request be referred to finance for a recommendation. And to Sean's credit, he did send me the meeting minutes and the memo. So you did do your due diligence. Sean, I just still was a pain in the butt about it. So no, no, it's OK. And one thing I can follow up on, too, is what does Stephanie already have? You know, can it be folded into this in a way that's useful? Alex. Yeah, I just had a quick comment going back to the how defining capital. So the prior JCP had a definition and then this definition got added last year, which I don't if we had a discussion about changing how we define capital, I don't remember having that conversation, which is neither here nor there. I'm just sort of pointing out that there is a in past JCPC reports. There is a definition of how we define capital and what goes under this. And it's put that out there for the group to know that it there's a different definition that exists. And I don't know if as a group, we should be defining that. If somebody else should be defining that again, I don't know. Procedurally, I'm just putting it out. There's the group knows there's two different things. Yeah, so I believe this definition I could and I can double check. I believe this definition was in our financial policies. And it's been there for a while. I don't believe we made any changes to this. And JCPC and its report may have described its its capital, but in terms of the town's procedures and how it describes capital, I think this has been the definition for a while from the from the financial procedures. But to your point, there may have been a JCPC used to write more robust reports and there may have been a different definition in those reports. I was just looking at the top of that and where it says part of I guess that's part of the definition in terms of capital projects in terms of eligibility. If you're looking at project eligibility, you're talking about tangible assets or related planning and design work. It would seem to me that certain parts of a discussion that some of the item, one, at least particular one item would fall definitely outside of that. Yep. OK, I got it. I've got the feedback, I've got it. Sean initially said, let me just change the definition, but I think that the question is, should it be changed or not? I'm very open to the feedback. So I will take a look at that. Can I have a question on the building list, Sean? If you can just show the initial. So my question is, again, a generic one. We have some buildings that are in really poor condition. They don't get used. One of them is empty building South Amherst School, empty building used for storage. The Hitchcock, the old Hitchcock Center is closed. It's not being used for anything. When and how do we when, how or if do we make a decision? We have no plans to use it and that someone might actually want to buy it. You know, the land that it's seeing on. So and I don't think that would be a JCPC discussion, but I think it would be worth coming to the council at some point with, you know, the refinement, because one of the things we were supposed to, I thought do over in that comment is if there was a plan for the use to put it in the comment, you know. And so I love the one that says empty building, restoring things in it. That's that's that's an interesting use of a valuable piece of real estate. And it you maybe it's in someone's mind that in the future it would be a community center or it would be a, you know, I don't know what. Because of our shortage of money for capital, if any of these turned into money, it would help on the capital side. So that that's my question about the unused buildings that are and just on everyone else in the Hitchcock Center, the common school, a couple others looked at it and thinking, oh, we could expand there. And the building is in such bad shape that they didn't want they didn't want to take it on. Now, it's the old Hitchcock Center, the one just by the not. Isn't it in here for demolition? There we go. Isn't it in the capital plan for demolition? Or is that a different Hitchcock? Is that the was at the Larch Hill building? Yeah, I think that is the old. Yeah, the Hitchcock Center. Is that the old OK? Well, because that's one down, Kathy, one down. OK, OK, so good. So demolition and then and then what? I guess the Southamers. Sorry, I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's and are you just where I am? Like, are we going to knock it down and build something there? We're going to knock it down and sell it. Are we going to? I don't know the answer for that for Larch Hill, but I do know the Southamers School, I think, Sean, aren't they trying to keep that for storage when the school building project is happening because they're going to need storage for things that need to leave whatever building or library storage to. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and I'm just storage, just library operations. And I think right now there's there's a lot of potential swing space needs in town as we go forward. So but I could talk to Paul. I mean, Paul will be the best to give you Paul and Dave or are a little more in the weeds on that type of stuff about future buildings and planning for replacement and things like that, or if we were going to ever sell off any and we just did or well, not just did, but we're we're in the planning phase of doing that with East Street School. So, yeah, but I can I can get more information on that. OK, thank you. So on the vehicle front, I tried to flag the the for the departments that let me know where I could figure it out. I flag the vehicles that are going to be replaced be replaced with FY 23 funding and the sort of brighter orange. The other vehicles that are going to be replaced with prior funding or were marked as potentially being able to be sold. I marked in the the lighter orange and then I highlighted our vehicle inventory that's slowly growing of hybrid slash electric vehicles in green. So you can start to see that. And again, it's probably as high as it's ever been and each year, I think it'll grow a little bit more in the last piece here. And then I'll stop and put the screen down. So wanted to give you a sense of the debt for the projects and what's on the radar and what's what we're projecting. Again, this will evolve. But so you have an idea where things are. So this top gray section, this is for everything that's been approved already in the general fund. Some of it, we still have to to issue because we're waiting on the timing of it. But it's but there are things that have been approved. So like the police facility, Chiller Fire Department Pumper, some of that still the timing of that's still going to fluctuate based on when we actually get the vehicles. This next phase are projected general funds. So anything on this plan that had a borrowing next to it other than the four building projects have had a borrowing next to it. Then we've shown you what the projected debt would be and that this is what folds into that projected debt number on the summary sheet. So you can see the original cost and how we're what our timing is of that debt and how many years we're projecting that to be repaid over. And again, as we as we modify what we have on the horizon, we update this to make sure it still fits within the plan long term. We gave you CPA so I can confirm the CPA question. So yeah, it looks like a couple. There's a few projects that drop off in FY 25.  And then we do have an estimate for a couple of projects. Again, that are the timing we're not quite sure. Jones Library Historic Preservation and Valley CDCSRO. Those projects are not quite ready to borrow yet for so. But we do have it folded in since it's been approved. The regional debt assessment. So we've got the actual number for FY 23 and the actual number for FY 24. The region presented a plan that the debt number went to a place where we're going to have to have much more of a conversation about whether the town could afford it. So I did not go that high with the regional debt assessment number. I went to 800,000 and left it there. We're going to have to have more conversations with school district officials about about what we can afford for a regional district capital assessment. But we have essentially doubled the contribution from where it is currently to reflect that there's going to be a track project and a roof project and some other capital needs in the future. And then the last thing here is the four building projects. You can see an estimate of what that would be. Again, that's not really a decision that this committee has to weigh in on, but it affects those it affects the numbers. And particularly the projects that aren't the school project. It affects how much capital we have left over for other projects. Mandy. Yes, things. I love this chart. So thank you for this addition, because I don't think we have this last year. I wanted to say I love seeing the chart and all of that. And then I you said you didn't put the full, you know, there's there's three potential proposals out there from the schools for the athletic fields. They have multiple millions, the differences in millions and all, which number or project or, you know, they've also had multiple ways to pay in terms of Amherst thing. Can you just indicate which one you put into this? So we don't have access assessment. So one thing we're waiting for from that we've asked the region for is if you go back to the four town meeting, what they presented to us is Amherst assessment based on the capital plan, not based on the track. So the track was one project within that capital plan, but it also included millions of dollars for other projects. So I can't tell you there's a specific amounts related to any one of those options in here. I think we're going to have to get again, we have to have more conversations with the region about what we can afford with our regional assessment as it fits into this capital, because again, this is probably the singular thing that made the biggest impact on the capital plan this year in terms of making it go from balanced to not balanced. Because last year it was roughly four hundred thousand dollars a year. And when we we beefed it up to eight hundred thousand dollars a year, it's about a million. The impact was about a million dollars on the capital plan. So so so we have increased it quite a bit, but not as far as what they're showing. So we're going to have to have that conversation to to figure out where we end up. But for FY twenty three, the number we've the number they've proposed is this three eighty nine before Sean takes the screen down on. Are there any other questions on either this screen or the things that came up before? I don't see any Sean. So I think. And I, too, want to thank you. It was when I got to that, I said, 10 years fantastic with what's in the pipeline, because it is. The decisions we're making now may feel like just one year, but they have long multiple year impacts. Yeah. So, Alex. I just want to echo, I mean, for those of you new to the committee, there didn't used to be a building inventory list or didn't used to be a vehicle inventory list. There didn't used to be. I mean, the amount of information that we get now, I really, really appreciate. So Sean, thank you so much for everything that you've done. It really makes it easier to have a better understanding of what we have. And I'm sure all of these will continue to develop and change. But I really appreciate all the work that you do around this. So thank you. The town charter requires it. So, but just thank the town charter, you know, so. So, Sean, I really just want to thank you for this presentation. It's the thoroughness of the transparency of it. It's just refreshing, not only refreshing, but also reflects your professionalism and I really thank you for it. All right. The HR studies coming out. It's coming out. They're coming out.   When I first watched JCPC and Alex was on it with Mandy, the first year budget was seven million dollars in deficit. And the second year budget was 12 million. You know, in other words, it's near to balance now. Now what do you do with a set of proposals that we can't possibly pay for them? How are you going to make decisions? So what you've done to work with departments to get it to you? What do you really need this year? What do you really need next year is amazing. And I know it's it's not just you. It's you, Sean. So long, you know, all the department heads helpful. Yeah, it's and all the department heads are making a real effort to say, I don't have to have it this year. Or I can it's it's incredible. The transformation, I think, yeah. So, is your hand back up or did it just not go down? So, Kathy, do you want me to pull up the resident capital request? We have the speaker here. And was this is the only one we received this year? Yeah. OK. Just so everyone knows, this was an innovation in, I'm going to say, 2018. I should have memorized it. But where any resident could come in with a capital request and could do their best to guess a number on what they were asking for. And it goes in as if it was part of the larger set of requests we're looking at. So it goes on the list for us to decide on its merits. So I guess we have our presenter with us on up. So I wasn't quite clear that I got a full time to present this. And I apologize. So I don't actually have a presentation, but I can walk you through this and talk it talk it out. And I want to, Kathy, I'm curious, since this has been implemented, how many per year do you typically get? Um, I don't think there is a typical. There was a year where there were about four or five and the year before that, there were a lot of crosswalks. And then last year, we just had one. So it's varied, it's varied a lot. And in terms of what's made it in last year, it was a solar canopy study on the regional schools. And it made it into the larger sustainable pot. We said, you know, look at that. And then two made it in from an earlier year. You know, so again, it's it's where they fit. And then the support that the general town is giving them that it fits with in an overall plan. Yeah, but it's never been 10, you know, it's never been as high as 10, you know, so it's yeah. Yeah, so I kind of wanted to ask that because I want to give this context as to why I was the person who did it. So this was before I was sworn in to council. I did know that I would have the seat, but just to clear that up, this was in November. I was not a counselor at that point. And so this started when at a district meeting, actually that Shalini and Darcy were leading. We had a couple of residents come forward and say, hey, you know, we're really concerned. Our kids are trying to bike to school. They're trying to walk to school around Middle Street and Potwine. Yeah, and they were they were saying that the road, specifically Middle Street is really fast and people use it as a cut through. There's no bike lane. There's no shoulder and there's no sidewalk. And so they were pushing for an actual just go and make a sidewalk or make a bike lane. The issue is that Middle Street has a lot of wetlands. It's got a lot of got a lot of things that might make it difficult to just put in a sidewalk. So I I spoke to them and asked about, you know, what is it that? What's the end goal here? And really the goal is a safe route to Crocker Farm for folks. And there's it's Middle Street, but then there's a couple other streets off of it that would be impacted by this. And the reason I put it in is that this was a tough, a little bit of a tough form to navigate. How do you estimate the cost of a feasibility study? They would have gone in and just set a sidewalk and talk to a local construction company to get a cost for concrete. And we all know that that's not realistic when you think about town capital projects. Right. So I backed up. I started talking to some folks in in town about what it would cost to do a feasibility study. I looked at other towns that had done feasibility studies of similar sorts. Fifty K was the number that I came up with when you include all of the wetlands studies. I know that seems like a lot for feasibility study, but granted the complications from the wetlands, the number jumped a little. This also does fit in with. Oh, yeah. Oh, I wrote a whole essay, I promise. So this does also fit in with things like the Safe Roots to Schools program. And that's a Mass Dot Initiative, which Crocker Farm is a part of the study on Middle Street can lead to recommendations that support other aspects of that. Safe Roots to Schools, such as a parent travel survey, this does fit in with our sustainability goals and that it's encouraging folks to take bikes or walk to school when they live within that radius. We're talking about somewhere that's about one and a half, 1.6 miles away from the school. So it's a reasonable, bikeable thing for little kids. And really the goal of this is to say what's possible for making this a walkable, bikeable route for folks. There's a lot of houses in that area. I think I counted them. 60 houses directly abutting the road, 27 on Sherry Circle Blossom Lane, South Richard Drive and Berry Circle, who must use Middle Street to access it. The road is two and a half miles long. It connects 1.4 at its closest point. So that's the basic outline is eventually, yes, a bike lane or sidewalk would be great, but the feasibility study needs to be done first. And the reason for that is to determine what are the environmental impacts? Is this even possible? I do also have, it wasn't submitted with this, but I do also have a couple sheets of resident signatures supporting this initiative. And I can take questions. Mandy? Yeah, so I appreciate you including in your brief summary here, the end goal of a safe route to Krocker Farm for biking or walking. It's my understanding we bust kids to Krocker Farm if they live a mile, more than a mile from Krocker Farm in all elementary schools. Maybe that's the wrong number and the school committee members can help me with that. But if the closest Middle Street to Krocker Farm distance is 1.4 miles, which is what's in your narrative and the farthest is two and a half, it appears that all of those students would get bust to Krocker Farm with school transportation provided busing. So my question is the safe routes to school program does do they, first of all, does Krocker already, do we already provide busing for all these students? And number two, the safe routes to school program, does that have a mile indication in terms of where we're looking to provide safe routes to school up to what's particular mileage? And if so, what is that mileage? Sure, so yes, these kids can have busing. I will also remind folks that we wanna put a lot of money into a nice new playground at Krocker Farm and that could be used outside of school hours, right? And so, again, students that would like to get to school and don't wanna take a bus because while we do offer them busing, 1.5 miles is a reasonable amount in my mind speaking generally to for kids who might want to bike to school to have that option, right? And not to have the bus be their only way to get there and get home. And again, after hours access, weekend access to Krocker Farm, but also there are trails that link up to Middle Street that this sidewalk could service access to getting to those trails for walking and things like that as well. I will confirm the safe routes to schools mileage. I do not believe that there is a specific mileage indicator but I'll confirm that because this was in November when I was doing this research. Did that answer your questions? Thank you. Other questions, comments? Sean? I was just gonna say, Guilford will speak to this when he comes and gives his presentation. I think we'll have him speak to whether this is something that could be incorporated into his existing funding or it would have to be a new request and his recommendation on it. Yeah, there's also the benefit of this beyond just access to Krocker Farm, which I think is the main benefit. There's also the benefit of folks accessing the South Amherst Common, things like that just for general residents beyond just little kids. Oh, sorry. I don't know if I'm just calling people or who it is. That's okay. It's just hand over the baton, Jennifer. Jennifer, I think you're next. Then Alex. So did you say the study was for a sidewalk or bike lane for folks? It's a feasibility for both. Like it's, cause the sidewalk would require extra space going in. The feasibility study would say, nope, those wetlands are way too close. You have to just do a cut in bike lane versus yeah. Okay. Yeah, because obviously a sidewalk won't help bikers because bicycles aren't supposed to be on a sidewalk. Right? Yeah. You are correct. Yeah, thanks. Thank you for asking. Alex, you're muted. Sorry, taking the notes. For the committee purposes, I'm pretty sure I'd have to go back that we had a resident request to make a sidewalk on Shade Street and it was same idea around kids on Shade Street not being able to, there's a sidewalk once you go past, but then there's not as you come down toward 116. So I believe that got referred to DPW. I don't know how it ever ended up, but I just kind of put that out there that existed previously. Yeah. I think, and Sean, maybe, I don't know if you want to go first. Do you want me to say what I know? And then, okay. So I do know that there was a request for the crosswalk on Shade Street and the lights and the sidewalk going up to that. And I believe that was just completed this year. I think that's, I know it's operational, but I believe it was just completed this year. I don't know if that was a capital resident request or a general one. I thought there was one for Southeast Street, Alex, or maybe not Southeast. I thought there was... Northeast. There's definitely not still a sidewalk there because I walked in, I pick up my husband from Cracker Farm and I will have to walk on that street. Yeah, I'll name it just full of sidewalk chunks, right? And then walk in the road. Yeah. So it's very possible. Yeah. It's not that I was pushing for that project. I just happen to know this still doesn't exist as sidewalks, yeah. So just one added when Sean said when Guilford comes, when the East Pleasant Street sidewalk proposal came up, they originally, the first time they came up, they were told they needed to go the tack route to get it on the priority list of, and it was this first study, then figure out what to do. And they got the 50,000 number originally on it from Guilford to do a survey of what was possible. That would about be the right. Then the next time they came in, they worked really hard. They got to the top of the tack list. It came in and it was accepted with a little bit of hope it went out for the study this year, four years later. And it was only because of multiple phone calls. Cause what happens is it gets consolidated into the larger Guilford priority system. So I think when this comes up, we need to figure out, does it need to go to the tack route first? And if so, what's the timing? And so that's just a general comment on a, even if it gets favorable, it doesn't necessarily mean it's in the works as I guess what we discovered. The other question is you said on the speed of the road, has there ever been a request for speed bumps? Not speed bumps because it's a 35 mile an hour road, but they did put one of the light up signs. It helped for about a week. Yeah, cause what I've seen is speed bumps on 35 mile an hour roads actually work too. So that's what, if you see on Dana and a couple cross streets down near UMass, you actually hurt your car if you go over them. So it stops the speeding. So I didn't know whether that, and I don't know the relative costs on them. So you said a bike lane and or a sidewalk or something, so... And that's part of the study would be estimating costs as well as the feasibility. It'd be looking at what would it mean to put a sidewalk? What would it mean to put a bike lane? Which of those is possible, et cetera, et cetera. I will say that on the tack angle, just so you know, I did reach out to Tracy and we spoke about this. And so it's, again, it's kind of a little bit of we're still figuring out who does what, when and where and how. And so this was the, JCPC was the route that was recommended to me by town staff, I believe, because, you know, otherwise it was gonna be through TSO, but TSO doesn't really handle capital projects. They handle town services. So it did go a little bit around. And I will say when, yeah, so that's, that was kind of the, that was the response I got from Tracy was that, you know, you might consider TSO. And then when I spoke to town staff, they said, try a capital request form. No, it definitely is a capital request. I was just saying that an Alex was there when the other one came, but it helped to move it forward that TAC had it as a high priority. So Alex, Alex's hand is up. Yeah, I have two thoughts. And it has nothing to do with this specific project. It's the resident capital requests in general. You know, in theory, I love the idea. It's still not, when we've had conversations in the past about how could a resident possibly know how to fill this form out and the costs and its onerous. And it also raises for me the issue that, right? I mean, there's a lot of Amherst that's not got sidewalks or bike lanes. And by having this resident capital requests, we are bringing to the top the people who have the ability to bring forth and make sidewalks. And I like that always, I very much just like that aspect of this is that I feel like it preferences certain people about who's gonna get a sidewalk in their neighborhood. And I don't know what we do about that, but I just think I probably say this every year because I feel this way every year when a resident request comes up. And the other thing that I struggle with is our current sidewalks are in terrible shape and we don't have enough money to maintain our current sidewalks. And every time we add new sidewalks, it's even more sidewalks that aren't being maintained. And again, I'm just posing questions. I'm not providing any answers, but these are just the things that when sidewalks particularly and streetscapes come from residents, then these are just the things that come up for me. Yeah, no, honestly. I mean, I think that first point was the biggest thing that was in my mind was one, there's a lot of privilege that already goes into navigating knowing who to talk to and then there's a whole other level that goes into understanding how to navigate that form and all the complexities. And I had a hard time. And that is not at all to say I'm an expert in this. Clearly, as you all have seen, I'm very much still learning. And it took me a lot of effort to fill that thing out because I was really worried the whole time of like, if I way overestimate, are they just gonna say this is ridiculous? I didn't know that all of these would be heard, right? And so that's not clear. So there's a lot of things to this that I think that there's room for improvement. And Sean, I'm happy to give you all of my feedback about it, but I think the larger point you're making of, when we create systems for engagement, how are we building them in a way that isn't just continuing to reach the same population that already knows how to navigate these systems, right? And so I think that's something, Alex, that might be really good to bring back to TSO. And I'm, you know, in 13 minutes, I will be going there. But I think that's a really good question to think about when we think about outreach, how are we doing it differently? How are we engaging beyond just the folks that understand these processes? And I would just add to it, there was, we had something called the participatory budget commission that I was on and we did a report and we identified this as one place residents could participate, but, and then everything that Alex just said, but the but is number one, there's not even an earmarked up to a certain amount we will do so you could participate. We don't have any way of sorting out. So in the participatory budget processes that exist in some towns, if there were six proposals for a certain pot of money, people kind of vote on it. You know, it brings in which one, it wasn't just which committee to go to. So it was that could we make these processes simpler, fairer and how that we didn't answer. We just said, you know, here is one and CPA was the other, you know, that you can bring a proposal but you have to know an unbelievable amount to get through to, does it fit? Now what do we do? So it was a question about the two places where residents can come in as opposed to town staff or a large entity. And we didn't answer it, we just flagged it. So there may be room for discussion about this, not necessary CPA, but how well this is working and could it work better? So I'll just stop, but it was one that was noted as an innovative creative idea that was flawed in every way that Alex just said. So, Mandy. Yeah, I wonder if this is a conversation that we could more fully explore in terms of the general topic of resident capital requests and what forms and all, after we're done our recommendation process this year, generally JCPC essentially disbands but isn't technically disbanded at the end of March, you know, maybe sometime in July, we could have a meeting or two that talks about the form and what would be helpful for us on JCPC because maybe it's not the cost, maybe it's descriptions and thoughts or maybe there's other ways to engage to get ideas from the public, but do it outside of this process. Alex? Yeah, and I would just add for clarification. So we being JCPC created the process. We JCPC, so it wasn't like Sean and finance in town, like it was JCPC who decided, so it's within our purview to fix this in any way we think is appropriate because it's our committee that created it. So I just put that out there for everybody. So you realized where it came from and it's in our power. Hanna? Yeah, so maybe I really appreciate that. I'm all for it. I wanna be clear. I fully support the resident request form and I think that there's some work we can do on it. Like that's where I'm at in general. And so the other part of Alex, your question about, you know, why add more sidewalks and we can't maintain the ones we have, I think it's because the alternative in this case for the folks who live in that area feels more dangerous, which is to have their kids on a road that people, I mean, people are flying because I was going around with the folks who wanted to collect signatures and like, oh boy, that was stressful. And so there's, yeah, I mean, I think that that's in my mind, that's the equivalency, right? It's like doing nothing isn't a neutral. And often that's what we're faced with, right? Is doing nothing is not a neutral and we always think it is. And so I think that's, that for me is the question here is like, is not studying the feasibility actually the better option versus having a sidewalk even though we know maintaining it might be a challenge or? I agree with everything you said, Ana. And I think the something that should be considered is that, yes, there, this project, I mean, given what I went through when I was running for a reelection on Middle Street was heart-stopping when I'm going door to door on middle. And so I understand that. I also understand as I walk through all those neighborhoods that there are numerous streets and sidewalks that need to be repaired, upgraded, et cetera. So the question is, how do we prioritize these projects? So I think that that might be a good place to say we have discussed this because we're gonna be coming back to it when DPW comes up. If that's okay with everyone because I think that is a good question. And my understanding was tack when it comes to sidewalks that was part of its function. But is that the best way? I don't know. And it's the more generic resident piece. So I'm looking for other general comments because we actually are running on time with a pretty robust discussion. Can I ask? Sure, absolutely. Anything folks feel like they would wanna see in addition to... And Sean, I don't know if that application is available for folks to read through because okay, great. Thank you. I'm sorry if I missed it in my packet. So if folks do have other questions, let me know and I can come prepared to answer them when Guilford goes and I can supplement that. You know, Anna, it actually wasn't in the packet but it's been... Okay, I was gonna say, I didn't see it. But you had to be... Alex is the one who pointed out, Sean posted it, we just didn't get it. I mean, and so... Sorry. That's okay because what I think you're starting to do is you're often posting things that you know are coming up too. So if you can at least give us an alert if you don't wanna attach everything... I'll send a reminder to check the packet, yeah. Cause what we'll do is we're gonna post all of the project forms probably the next week or so for all the future meetings. So you can go into any of them and see what projects are gonna be discussed. So I'll send a reminder. I'll just let you all know once that's done. Yeah, so let me know if there's more info that you need specifically beyond what's in the application. Alex, was that your comment that... I was just gonna echo, JCPC is not a receive a packet model. It's go seek it out. So it's always go to the folder on the JCPC site on the town website and that's where you find the materials. They don't come to you in your email. I love all the things you do, Sean, but that's one thing we do not get packets for JCPC, I've learned. To be fair, we don't... And every year I forget that until we come to this meeting and Sean's like, but it's in the packet. Well, and see, you have to be on the finance committee to know that you almost never get... It's in the look in the packet. If you see it's on the agenda, there's probably, it's probably in the packet. So this was great. I wanna thank everybody. And I don't see any public. So now would be the time for public comments, but I don't see any public. So I will not be asking for public comments. So I think we are finished. And next week is the different start time, correct? It's the one of our three with, I wrote them down.  It would be the next two weeks. And I really do appreciate you guys being willing to do that. I don't know, my vice chair might too, because she's gonna have to chair some of the CRC meetings. So she might appreciate it too, by getting out of that duty for a little bit, but thank you. But thank you all very much. And I'm gonna say we're adjourned and we will be posting, and one other thing on minutes. We did this process last year. I wanna make sure it's all right. Whoever's the minute taker gets me the minutes. I do some minor edits. And then we post them. We can send them out too. So Sean's minutes are ready, or we can put them on the agenda for discussion if people wanna review the minutes. And we can do it either way. We didn't vote for the send out option. I'm not a committee member, but just knowing the how busy the schedules are gonna be, I think that's probably the... Yeah, so it was to keep the agenda focused on what we're discussing each week. And you can always look at the minutes and say there's actually something missing and we can amend them. But so Sean's, I don't think I posted yours unless you posted them Sean, but those minutes from the last time will be up. So we will get them up as quickly as possible. So I think we are adjourned. Thank you. And thank you for tonight. Thanks, Kathy. Thanks Sean, bye all. Bye all.