preservation act. Oh, sorry, I will call this meeting of the Community Preservation Act Committee to order at 6.01 p.m. on Thursday, November 4th, 2021. We are meeting remotely, I believe, through the end of the year. Before we go further, excuse me, can I have a volunteer to take minutes? Sam, thank you. I was going to volunteer with Sam Beaping. Oh, you're welcome to, if you wish, Shana. No, no, you could, Shana, if you're willing, if you can attend the next meeting and are willing to take them. I was going to say, actually, I will have to leave early because we have conservation commission. Oh dear. Okay. My theory on volunteering early is like Andy's, when you have a construction project, you go to the top of the house and get it over with. In that case, would you like to switch for tonight? Maybe on it to take minutes tonight. Oh, if she wishes. I'm good either way. All right. Sam, I'll get them tonight if you want to do them next time. That's fine. Thank you. Okay, so Shana will take the minutes. I appreciate it. So let me make my announcements right now. I already told some folks that if this meeting runs long, I need to leave it 8.30, but then our vice chair will take over, but hopefully we won't go that long. So our next meeting is in six days, not seven, next Wednesday, because of Veterans Day. And at that meeting, we will hear the recreation proposals. And then the following week we'll meet again on Thursday on the 18th, and that will be the public hearing. And since we never know how many people may want to make a comment, everyone should be prepared to start discussing the proposals. We will have heard them all and hopefully you will have done your evaluations, and we will start discussing them. So I'll just say one more thing about the evaluations. I think everyone has chosen as some kind of method by which to assess them, take notes, etc. Remember that at the end of the process for each one, we'd like you to assign it a score between one to five, where five is extremely enthusiastic. You really like that proposal. You want to do it. One is not interested, not important to you, whatever. And then we bring those scores to the discussion, and it's not a simple vote. It's not like we add them up, and then there we are. It will help us organize our discussions. We will talk about every single proposal. We'll have the opportunity to say what you like, don't like, why you scored it the way you did. Do we want to fund the whole thing? Recommend a smaller amount? Whatever. But the scores between one to five help us see areas of maybe more or less agreement, and then areas of strong disagreement and where we need to focus our discussions. Okay. All right. So I see Kathy Shane is also in attendance. Great. I have a question. Last week I said I was probably going to use the long spreadsheet, and I started to look at and do some of my own, and I am finding the shorter form, the one page, are more helpful for me. So for the record, I'm going to be using the shorter form. And I did have a question on the one to five. And is that per category, or is it for all of them? So you don't have a five, say, for each of the categories, or is it against? No, it's each one in its own right. Okay. Whether you think it's a great proposal or not a great proposal, you know, some years we might, it could be hard if we have a lot of very highly regarded proposals, and then we have to wrestle with how to go from there. Okay. All right. So is, yes, we didn't lose anybody. I thought, okay. Sonia, is there anything new to know about the money situation? No updates. Okay. All right. Then I think we can launch right into the first presentation if the presenters are in the waiting room. Should be hearing about the Conkey Stevens house. Sonia, do we know who that is? We have Jean. All right. I'm going to make him promote to panelists. I don't see them on my list. I'm not, I need to look and participate in these. Got it. And attendees raised their hands, like if there's somebody from... Oh. So, Jean, you can unmute and start your presentation. Jean, can you hear us there? Hang on. I've got it. There. My computer's being funky since we uploaded Windows 7. So, the Conkey Stevens house is part of a mixed use condominium association. Most of the units belong to people who live there. It's their primary residence. Some of the units are rentals. There is an HOA fee, which is collected, which is enough to cover the expenses of the condominium complex. But obviously, the expenses for the Conkey Stevens house far exceeds what those 50 or so residents ought to be shelling out because it has nothing to do with their own units. It's a building that has significance for the town, but it's not... It needs more than what a mixed use condominium complex can supply. The people who built and owned that house were contemporaries of the Dickensons and interacted with them in the town. It is part of the East Amherst Historic District. It's a pretty prominent building, and it has fallen into disrepair. The HOA has been taking care of it as things arise. But some of the projects that have to do with restoring it to its former grandeur is beyond the scope of the HOA. If you guys have questions, I would be more comfortable counter-punching. Okay, thank you, Jean. Committee members, and I realize I didn't take attendance, so I think officially I need to do that. So I'm sorry, Jean, to bear with me a moment. So, Sam McLeod. Here. Tim Neal. Here, present. Andy McDougal. Present. Dave Williams. Here. Eddie Startup. You need to unmute. Present. Thank you. Anna Devlingoth here. Present. All right. That's all that. And Sarah Marshall in here. Thank you. I'm sorry, Jean. All right. If you have questions, committee members, please raise your hand. Well, I have one. And forgive me if this was addressed in the questions and answers. How many condo units are in the house itself? Good question. I can research that and get back to you. It's about six or eight. Okay. Somewhere in there. Yeah. I think what I most want to know is, do they have a different assessment for the upkeep of that house compared to the folks in the units in the more modern construction? They have, generally speaking, much less square footage than the people in the residences. If you own a unit with living room, kitchen, and a couple of bedrooms, that's obviously more than a one room office. So there's no differentiation between the kinds of buildings and the different kind of maintenance that's required. Oh, there's a big difference in the type of maintenance that is required. No, I mean in the fee. It's not built into the fee. The people, the owners of the units in the historic house, do they pay a higher fee that goes to the capital, you know, capital improvements then? It doesn't work that way. So all unit owners contribute into one pot. As an example, there's one long building of residential building and every unit owner in the Conkey Stevens house paid into their regular HOA fee plus the special assessments. And we put $100,000 roof on that one building. Then the other buildings also all needed new roofs. And so the way it has been going is the condominium association was under some poor management. It was a long while ago now, slightly before I came on the board, but it was probably about from about 15 years ago till about 10 years ago. There was money that was not, you know, the place was being neglected and the money that were being collected, unfortunately, left town. So the condo association has been playing catch up with contractors. A lot of people were owed money. There are a lot of repairs that had been left undone. So this condo association has been kind of paying, you know, paying out a lot of money. And on the average has had a higher condo fee than comparable condominium complexes around town.  So when someone steps out on their deck and falls through it, obviously the board has to decide to repair decks rather than the Conkey Stevens building, which has thankfully been so solid that it has stood for all these years of not getting the true attention it could have used. However, during all that time, we have always done the small repairs. You know, we've been replacing the slate shingles, for example.  We had the wiring we done.  We couldn't afford to continue all the way up. So we have been sort of in emergency mode. And all the while trying to rebuild the capital reserve, which had been allowed to go down to nothing. So we are built, rebuilt the capital reserve. We're up at around $100,000 at this point.  Most of the emergency stuff has been dealt with. The biggest project facing the HOA is, it's going to be extremely expensive to repave the entire parking. All the tar needs to be retard. So there are a couple of big projects like that. The biggest project, however, is the Conkey Stevens house, which those projects are so big that there's no way to do it halfway. You can't start the mason with staging when you're going to need to staging again to do the roof, for example.  Thank you. Andrew. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks for the presentation. So kind of jumping on one of your last points here. It's a large ask of the money. If we were not able to provide money for the entire project, how much of the work would you say is critical?  But, you know, how much of this would you say is truly required for things like safety and so forth, and how much of it could be offset or delayed a year or two of need be? The thing that absolutely must be done is the roof. And in order to do the roof, the chimneys have to be repaired. So I lumped those two together. They can't flash to a chimney that is going to, you know, which requires them to pull away the flashing to do the repointing and rebuilding. So and they both need to do that work. The danger for the porch isn't a danger. I mean, the underneath structure is as solid as a rocket. I was crawling under there myself. It looks as good as the day they rebuilt it. So the porch is not going to fall off the building. It's the fascia boards that are rotten and the, you know, and we don't want that rot. The way the gutter is attached, you know, the poor gutter fitting on the rotten boards, it dumps the water against the building and it also dumps it ultimately where it is near a corner of the building, which, you know, that's not a healthy thing for the building to have all that water getting dumped toward that corner of the cell. So if we had to break it up, I tried to do that in my prison. I hope that it was legible and understandable what I wrote, but the roof and masonry need to happen. We need to secure the building. And then if the wood, you know, once the water isn't continuously hitting on the wood, maybe even if it is rotten at the surface, maybe it will just dry out and stay that way for another year. Okay. So perhaps I can ask condo association to rip off the fascia boards and just tack something fresh back up there. You know, we can do a band-aid approach to the porch until we can get back to it. Okay. So just so the essentially from your funding needed that option one is really the critical that's 120,000. That would address the masonry and roofing. Okay. Very good. Thanks. Tim. That was actually going to be my question as well. But while I did think in terms of the historic significance of the house, can you talk to I understand it's in the Dickinson district, et cetera. Can you talk a little bit about how many other Amherst residents value or would be affected by the historic components of this project or this house? I don't know if I'm answering this question correctly. Let's put it if the Dickinson house, for example, was in need. To me, there that's many, many, many people come and visit and understand that it's a huge community resource. This house, people drive by it and those might go in to see the folks in their offices. But other than that, what other historic don't take this the wrong way, but what other historic value is there and compared to say some other historic structures in town? That's the genesis of my question. Well, I'm going to shoot from the hip here. I think when I was a little girl growing up, we used to call that the haunted house. I don't know how long you've all lived in Amherst, but that house had an elderly member of the Stevens family living in there who couldn't afford to keep it up. It will continue to become more and more of an eyesore to the town. That alone, we've got the as opposed to being a grand old structure that represents what the town looked like at the turn of the century or even before it's 181 years old, 200 years ago and have it be a good building. You're right that there are offices in there. They have had until we've got COVID now and the building is being used less during COVID, but it serves a lot of people in town. A lot of people utilize that building in terms of going in and having their appointments and it's especially well located for students because there's a bus stop near there and also because it's close enough to the middle school and the high school where kids can come and have their appointments and the parents can still be at work and that's been proven really valuable to a lot of a number of families in town. Thank you. I can't hear you. I'm sorry. I said, okay, Tim, please put your hand down at the yellow hand down, right? We all need your member to do that. So now Sam and then Heady. I'm sorry. Pam, you're really quiet. I can't hear you. I think your microphone. Thank you Sarah and thank you Gene for the presentation. I had a follow-up question, a slightly different way of phrasing. Tim's question, which is given that the house is comprised of private condominium offices, what access would you envision the public having to the building? That's my first question. I, well, I don't know whether to say this out loud or not. The building is always unlocked. You know, it's a public resource. I don't know how to answer that beyond saying that. I was thinking in terms of usage, there are some buildings that have facilities that are regularly available to the public or rented for use and things along those lines. That's, I'm not familiar with the occupants and the owners of the units, which is why I was asking just the general. Aside from the external appreciation of it, I was trying to get an understanding if there's, you know, tactile coming in tours, things like that. There are no tours of the building at this point. You know, the reality is that those of us who have offices there are all very gray haired and white haired and nearing retirement. And if I was kind of making a joke at the Amherst Historical Commission meeting, that if the town was interested in that, you know, to hold a museum or something, you know, the future use of that building is something that can be quite open to discussion. If the town wanted the building even for to be a museum or a boys and girls club or, you know, utilize it in some way, I imagine that a lot of those units will be turning over and in the not distant future because we're all nearing the end of our careers. And I had a second question. I walked around all the buildings this week and I counted on that building 48 shutters, 32 of which are on the front brick area. Is the estimate including work to the back non brick non primary original house? There are some shutters on that. Yeah. Yes, they the work. I agree with you and it needs to be further investigated about the shutters being specifically named. And that's a concern I share with you. But there is also if you look at the estimates I gave you the there is a painter who is making estimates on repairing and painting the wooden portions of the building. The oldest portion of the building is the brick portion and the old only wooden parts are the parts that would be coming under the work of the liberty estimate where he's talking about replacing the wood and painting. But it's funny if you picked up on a very good point which is none of them specifically says the writes down the word shutters and between now and and you know actually signing a contract with them that needs to be delineated. Yeah, I did see the $20,000 expense allocated to acquisition of shutters which if it were the 32 would be about $600 a shutter if it were the 48 it would be different. But I was asking primarily to distinguish between the original historic portion of the building and the extended section in the back. So thank you for sharing your understanding of that. And I guess that's those are my questions for now. Thank you. Eddie. Hi and thank you Gene for your presentation and hello everybody. When we discussed this at the historical commission I think it was pretty interesting to sort of see how one piece of this ask is related to another piece.  And we had a suggestion about the budget in terms of maybe the HOA picking up the payment of the furnace replacement which you'll see in the in the budget description numbers. So that might contribute to a little bit of a different bottom line. And also we talked with everybody about sort of phasing the project so that we would take care of you know the roof and the flashing and chimneys as part one and then we would go to the next things. I mean this is complicated work and the scaffolding alone is a big expense and once you've got it up you know you need to be efficient in the way you think about that in terms of the town's money. So I think that most of our concerns were related to timing and when bits of the work could be done that was that was in our discussion. But you know historic houses aren't you know they can't wait in the way that perhaps more you know younger resources can. I have a couple of quick points of clarification. One is that the house is not part of the Emily Dickinson historic district which Emily Dickinson house is actually its own historic district I think. And the Conkley Stevens house is actually part of East Amherst Historical District which is really cool and it's very much a house that we see if we're coming into town from the east part of the area. So it's an important distinguishing building you know from the outside for the public you know even if access to the inside is at the moment limited by virtue of what its use is. And I think there are lots of ways we could make this house you know sing to a wider range of people without you know interrupting the work of the people in the offices it could we could do a virtual tour you know and in that way make it available to people or because of COVID we've got all these different ways of reaching people and so that's I think not a way to think about you know not funding it because it's not somehow accessible it definitely is. Thank you Hedy. I will just say that we're a little pressed for time so so just so this purpose of this meeting is to get answered you know ask our questions of the applicant and we will we will be hearing all the pros and cons within the committee about each project. Yeah and I'll we'll want to talk about everything you just mentioned but I think we need to check if there are no more questions for Jean from members that Tim has one more okay. Sorry sorry I just want clarification I too did site visits on all these projects and I was unclear is this project for only the big front apart of the house the house you see from the street there's a there's a back addition that goes out of a lower level that it attaches to the big house is this only for the front part of the house or does it include the back. Well the back is actually part of the historic the back let me look at my dates the back is actually part of the Conky Stevens house it was built in two phases but the renovation was done I believe 1860 wait a minute anyways you know that that is not not part of the building let me just okay so thank you I was not sure about that can you say that again 1868 1868 the entire structure is an historic property thank you sir yes yes okay all right thank you so I think we need to move on thank you Jean very much for coming tonight okay okay all right thank you okay so now we are looking for someone from maybe George Naughton from the Simeon Stronghouse yeah I'll promote him to a panelist okay I think I just did Sean I'm not sure I still see Jean in the participants there's George welcome George I want to yeah I want to make sure we're we're removing removing people when they're you want you want me to well I don't know can Jean do it herself or does Sean need to move her out I put her back to an attendee that's fine okay all right then we will welcome George Naughton from the Simeon Stronghouse thank you for coming tonight and please tell us about your proposal so the Simeon Stronghouse is over 250 years old it's the third oldest house in Amherst and is itself one of the prized pieces in the collection of the Amherst History Museum's artifacts but we've never conducted an actual structural engineering examine of the house due to determine its physical condition and what preservation and care it might need during the 1990 Jones Library construction our building suffered damage to its foundation which then needed concrete and steel reinforcement last spring one of our window frames suffered wind damage and then in the summer we had pieces of plaster fall out of the second floor ceiling locally global warming means that we may expect more warm wet humid weather which would have predictable effects on the old plaster and old dry wood we can expect more powerful wind storms and the projected Jones Library renovations may involve demolition of some of the existing foundations which could have more impacts on the strong house foundations society itself Amherst History Society is interested in making some changes to the buildings we'd like to install an HVAC system we would like to make it more handicap accessible we might even want and be able to build an addition for more gallery programs and all these events are happening as we have no definite idea of where we stand with the building and its structural strength so our proposal is simply that we find out thank you there I think one obvious question maybe I'll just kick it off is when do you expect to have have an estimate because we will start um you know deliberating in as soon as two weeks that's not the deadline but it'll be more moving quickly so um I had some people I had uh Jake Smith of Thayer Associates and Jim Colaney who's one of his associates they were looking at the building we did a full three-story plus the attic and basement walk through yesterday um I can bug them about getting an estimate I understand that you're not going to allocate funds until you have an estimate so I should have numbers from them I've had trouble finding other structural engineers or architects who are willing to examine the building um I I asked one firm and they said we don't do that and I asked another and they recommended Jake Smith of Thayer Associates so I'm still working on getting more than one estimate but at least we're going to have one set of numbers in here thank you Andrew well you sort of stole my question probably many other people's questions I will ask this though a first thanks for the presentation um and then just to be clear this is purely for the survey so this would not be any remediation you wouldn't expect to use any of this money for remediating anything that that might be identified through the survey that is correct it's just to get the the survey okay thank you Tim first uh in public disclosure I was a or I am a former trustee of the uh the historic members historic association and the strong house uh number of years ago I was on the board trustees my question is have you talked to UMass and might this be a graduate student project uh or does it take much more professional uh study than that kind of an approach uh excuse me no we have not talked to UMass and that sounds like a good line of inquiry um I'm not sure how far I would trust a graduate student um to do an accurate job on this I mean what can I say a graduate student is not a professional and has not had years of experience any other hands Katie well you're muted yeah sorry I um thank you Sarah and thank you George for your application your presentation um I I'm not um familiar with um the association in terms of its um financial um position so I just wonder about once you have this analysis are there funds to um take action um I think I can honestly say no um we're a small poor local history museum we're not the Dickinson Museum um and once we find out what's going on with the house then we would have to prioritize what should be done next so in terms of fundraising or grant other grants that you would need fundraising or or grants or something like that uh finding wealthy benefactors got it thank you I wonder if if George or maybe some others in the group can tell me what is in what is involved in the engineering survey are they using instrumentation to measure if themes are deflecting or is it just casting a very expert eye over every little piece of the building that can be accessed when I walked through them yes walked through with them yesterday uh there was not a lot of measurement um there is no drilling into walls to take core samples um they didn't do anything with tape measures as you say it was the um casting the experienced eye over what what is presented and some discussion about what's underneath some of the what's presented um one example was uh in an upstairs room there were uh corner columns that are wider at the top than at the bottom and uh jigsmith remarked on that and jim calaney said oh yes that's just sort of the facing and that's not actually the beam um gun stock beam is what they call he said um so it was they were having a conversation um and the places where the plaster fell down they could see what was underneath it thank you and yeah thanks for the quick follow up here it's more of a like amusing here I guess um if um so Sarah if uh if George is not able to um to get a reliable quote um within the next couple of weeks should we should we ask for like a placeholder figure just so we can evaluate this um I think I would seek some guidance from Sonya at that point I mean we know we know we are required to either award or reserve 10 percent of new revenues for historic preservation so on the other hand we have lots of requests for historic preservation so right I mean the 10 the 10 percent the 10 requirement is of new revenue right that you either appropriate to programs or if you don't have any programs then you would put it in a reserve so um that's the only avenue to this is if you wanted to move forward with this project and you wanted to reserve some funds um when it came back that would be the only avenue but then it's also knowing how much funds you want to reserve for this as well I can certainly get in touch with um Mr Smith and Mr Colaney and at least try to get I mean a rough estimate give me a ballpark that they could then refine right like is this $30,000 or $100,000 for yeah that would that would be helpful yes yes um you know they're professionals they're employed they have jobs to do but I think I can at least get that from that get some kind of range all right any other questions from the committee Sam it's not a question I just had a comment and thank you George for your presentation I just wanted to commend the approach of uh gathering information of attempting to gather information and uh getting an accurate analysis and studying uh before you embark on a plan it's certainly a historical house for uh Amherst I know it well and uh thank you for your presentation all right I don't see any other hands up so George I thank you for your time and just shoot if you get as you get any more information just send it to Samia and she will distribute it to the committee well thank you for your time okay pleasure thanks good night good night I think Sean will move you out of this meeting somehow no I'm supposed to do that oh okay he brings them in and you push him out no I'm practicing I think left or in like if you didn't remove them so I just did so okay so now we are looking perhaps for Dorothy McAfrey yeah for some other uh to speak to the Alice Mod Hill's house application I promoted her I don't see her coming up though how there she is and also coming up coming up okay we can hear you now we don't yet see you buddy here we are oh you're you're in the house yes we thought that good way way to make our presentation please proceed okay um the uh this is a grant that we're looking for is to paint and repair the outside of the the Alice Mod Hill's also the Hills Memorial Clubhouse which is its actual legal name I think the house was built in 1864 the women's club as an entity was created in the 1890s and the house was left to the women's club by Alice Mod Hill's in 1921 so we have maintained the house all that time and had our meetings here and people rented for small weddings and things like that we feel that we're an important part of well we're not connected to the Dickinson house we are part of the Dickinson historical district so we're right next door to those buildings and we we feel as if coming into the town when you get almost into the center of town if you're coming down main street you see our house the Dickinson house and the other Dickinson house because you come down the street and I think it's a nice introduction into the town um we have we were asked the question about maintaining the house we have maintained the house for the last hundred years and in the last 20 years we have completely revamped the HVAC system in here we've added air conditioning to the public rooms we have redecorated it with wallpaper paint and lighting that's appropriate to the Victorian period curtains shades all the inside of the house we certainly has spent a lot of time and energy bringing this house we think it's it the pinnacle of its decoration but though what needs to be done on the outside is far more than we can afford at this time and we feel as though um you know when it was presented to us that we could we could apply for this grant we felt that this was something that we could and should do we have also uh repeated three of the four roofs on the main house although if you look at the I'm sure you have you have the bid some of the smaller roofs need to be fixed um and of course the club's work involves giving scholarships to the high school every year and also giving money to the community service organizations that apply to us we have kind of a grant system and they can apply now last year because of COVID we couldn't raise any money so we didn't give any of those grants but we will be doing so again this year um I think too that the house the club and I think I think the house is representing the club and I think the club has been notable in the history of Amherst and in a couple of interesting ways in women's history and also in the fact that there have been a couple of famous members Helen on Jackson was a member and she was someone who worked very hard for the rights of Native Native Americans um and she wrote a book named Ramona maybe none of you are familiar with it but it was a book about Native Americans and um I'm old enough that it was something that people read when I was a kid um we have also we have on the second floor there are three small apartments we've also brought those all up to code and fixed their um electrical system so that um they are more uh that's the word I want economic um let's see I um I just think it's important that we are able to maintain the outside of the house and I would like to be open to any questions you have any questions to question us further besides the information you probably already have sure thank you very much um yes it's time for questions from the committee I just see one hand so far Andrew I'm happy to go second or third I feel like I've been the first in a long time well all right then Tim can go first and then yeah sorry I kind of feel the same way so I don't particularly go ahead just someone has to start so all right well I'll start all right how many members of the Amherst Women's Club 90 90 and are they all women oh yes yeah well it is a women's club yes well in today's society frankly I didn't know the answer to that well it is okay pardon me uh 90 okay and had you uh if yes you know we're tight for funds uh if this committee approves some of the funds is it at all possible to ask the members to chip in another piece or is that really something that just doesn't seem to fit in the equation we are all the time doing that our membership constantly our membership is constantly funding this club by donations and also from our membership dues okay and presently we're repairing kind of the protocol and that's being paid for by the members okay those are and I guess the last question is other than the club and the 90 members what other public use and access is there of that facility you mean who uses it besides us yes the other the town of Amherst uh is it well that other citizens in the town etc etc well we often have concerts of things like that that people come to the public is welcome anytime I mean our meetings are always open and I think since we've been doing some of them this year we've been doing them in person and on zoom and I think more people are connecting to it people rent it but I don't think that's what you mean do you um I do actually mean yeah my wife sang in a group called wings and I know there were several practices they used but I didn't know how many other organizations what I'm looking for is other than the members what universe of Amherst citizens actually benefit from the house other than just seeing it when they drive by well the league I'm I don't I don't have all that information but I'm hearing from the audience here that when the league of women voters uses it which I didn't realize um LIR all around the world women I know that's a local group the travelers group that's another group of females club yeah and also we have people coming here to have their meetings that is part of our uh renting of the house as a venue for uh small uh family gatherings or maybe meetings of some institutions because people give music lessons here so it's we have a lovely grand piano I know I'm familiar with that okay thank you all right now Andrew thanks Sarah thanks for the presentation to the whole team over there um my questions somewhat similar to what Tim had asked originally of just the the ask the 166,000 um I I just done a quick like summed up the the numbers that you had and it didn't quite get to 166,000 and then you would also mention that the committee there that the the women's club is committed to spending 30,000 towards the project so I'd love to just sort of understand better what the actual ask would be um because again just you know the math was wrong it didn't add up to 166 you know something I am embarrassed to tell you that I just took this bid and I did not re-add the numbers up myself and I okay good that that is good to know so so then I guess another an add-on question to that when I first saw the headline of this um which was exterior painting and repair you know the 166 seemed like a large number I'm wondering how to have more than one quote um that help would help us understand sort of well that was a question that is I'm sorry just how competitive that is and then also like better understand the scope of the work um I had that question early on in this process when I first got the application and started filling it out and so I wrote to the person who was given to me by Mr. Blockerman as the contact person Mr. Delaney who I understand doesn't work there anymore so I asked him do we um basically how many quotes do we need and he said if you believe it's a good estimate one will be fine and the reason that we use the estimate that we have is because Ronald Keith who um has helped us to maintain and restore and refurbish the house for 25 years and he has experienced with the historic restoration restoration and I mean he understands the building its problems and its peculiarities and we feel like he has the skill and knowledge but since we were told we only needed one estimate then we didn't go any farther. Well actually we did and uh uh we are expecting from a valley home improvements a potential uh proposal for this uh type of work so we are expecting we got promised that they will do the estimate. That's great sure if you get revised a second bid or or you check the numbers on your first bid and they didn't add it just just send in the new information just on me and that's that's fine but as soon as possible. Yeah yeah I'd love to see that again it's I don't have experience doing this type of restoration so I it would be very useful for me to understand you know whether this is market and again better understand the scope of the work. Did you get the actual estimate from the contract or just the one that I put into the application? I am looking so apologies if that was shared and I've not seen it I'm looking just at your application. If it's part of the materials and that's on me I've got to go back and check. Well we were asked supplementary questions by Sonya and when I answered that I also emailed through the actual well this is my copy with a lot of writing on it but um it's three pages long and this is the contract assessment I mean I sent it I didn't send it originally I just asked you you know I just put in. It should be in the packet for tonight. Excuse me. It was added as addition with photographs and PDF files of the contractor's location so we have there. Do you have photographs? No it sounds like it's been sound like it's been sent and I'm just a click behind so thank you for doing that. If you've sent it then we'll get it and we'll be sure to review it. Well the thing was that when I was submitting it my computer couldn't handle all those pictures so which I didn't realize and when I called the town hall I talked to Brianna and she said bring a computer up here so she took care of it. Okay took the pictures from my computer and sent them forever. There's an addition or an appendix to the proposal that was sent the same day when the proposal was the day it was due. Also PDF file of the quotation. Yeah all right well we will track that down if we don't all each of us have it right now so any more questions? Who? The committee, Sam. Katie first. Katie you were there first. That's okay thank you Sam and thank you Dotty and company really appreciate your application and your presentation. So funny Andy I did I added up the numbers and I thought they added up to more than 166,000 so I have a different problem. I had seen that in today's packet but I so my question was whether it's 166 or 169 or less was the 30,000 to then be reduced from that that you're so that the ask is actually less than the 160 whatever. That's what she's asking. Okay yes yes the answer to your question is yes. Great so we can contribute $30,000 from our treasury. Great well that's wonderful and so it sounds like the ask would be whatever the total is which we'll find out and less 30,000. Does that sound right? Yes. Okay great thank you so much I appreciate the clarification. All right Sam did you already ask your question? I did not. Okay so Katie if you can lower your hand yellow hand thanks. So thank you Dotty and the rest of you at the club in response to Andy's earlier or Tim's earlier question both I can attest to the usage of the women's club in the community my brother was married there we had a 90th celebration for my grandmother's years past friend of mine's had a memorial service there it's widely utilized and it's a location that's available to rent and for others who might be viewing it it's a wonderful location I mean it really is it has a certain ambiance to it but my question for you in relation to the proposal is I have a few one is when was the building last painted? I think it was the 1970s but I wasn't 2004 2004 okay 2004. I have quite a lot of experience in the subject area I was a painting contractor for 10 years having done all kinds of buildings and complexes in all facets and I also was a manager market manager for Sharon Williams for three years so I'm very familiar with the scope and the nature of what's being done not the reparate not the repair work I do advocate just based on my own eyes multiple estimates in all the years that granted I was doing the work back three two thousand but it's a very large ask and there are a lot of variables that come into play but I can tell you from my own experience there's really a wide range in pricing structures that might be received by an organization and for any organization you know for me if it were my own personal house and I were considering a job of that scope I would want to see a number of varieties and so I highly align I guess with Andy's inquiry with the concept of multiple estimates because my belief is there'd be a significant range you know when when we're talking $20,000 for the carriage house the number you know it's a large ask as a committee one of the things that we have to consider one of the things that we have to consider is the concept of maintenance as it relates within the division of labor services and I recommend you know the other committee members when we come to that point in time our key aspect of our decision is to distinguish between maintenance and or restoration which is why one of the questions was as such but but that's really the essence of the questions I'm assuming and you could ask from whoever provides estimates if they're incorporating prevailing wage rates into the estimates I assume that to be the case mandated and based on the amount and you know it's not a small amount it's like 60 some odd dollars or so depending on the nature of the painting but it's worth it you're asking for any quotes that you get and I also think it's in your interest to identify the approximate materials components I reckon I see which versions are using using the Sharon Williams ever last I checked the other week and they four times a year the stores that sell this have a 30% off sale and given the the cost per gallon of the upper 90 dollars you're talking huge savings there if it's purchased at the right time perhaps the club purchase it perhaps you couldn't you know confer with the people making the estimates to buy at that time so that's really it I just had a couple of comments based on my experience and I was interested in the time period when it was last painted so thank you very much for answering the questions and for your presentation now do we have to give you some kind of does the contract I have to give you some sort of a some proof about the prevailing wage business because I wondered about that myself that I believe that's a state requirement that's distinct from us here Sonya might know better than I on this may I ask you question do you have suggestion of a contractor that we should approach to get the proposal because there is a custom of contractors for a long term involved in the particular business like our house that other are not giving the proposal otherwise we pay for it so would you give us a name of somebody who would do that for free I'm not sure if that's something I would be allowed to communicate if I had a recommendation I don't know but if it were me I'd go through the listing of contractors locally and and I know the name of the individual who provided the reference as well he'd be one of many whom I might contact but I do know some other contractors just living in town for all these years but I wouldn't use me as a source for your due diligence so and and perhaps Sonya has others but but there are many and they are busy but the advantage of being somebody who's seeking to contract for work is you have the flexibility in scheduling and as the quote-unquote buyer you're you have a lot of influence over whatever gets done Sonya let me just see if Sonya has something to say to your hands up Sonya do you want to yeah I just wanted to assure everybody that the budget and all the photos they are on the website with the proposals okay everybody did get them and I also as far as procurement laws the town has to follow those procurement laws if it's a town job and we're using CPA funds but when we're granting it's a different that's a different creature so it's up to the people that are asking for the grant to get their own proposals and contractors we don't require we don't the state doesn't require three quotes and there's no when you're asking for those repairs not just painting it is more of a looking he looks for areas that you need to watch out for and he repairs those areas so it's not just painting okay I'm sorry I wanted to ask oh I'm petty you have your hand up go ahead um yes just I think they could come back to us at the Historical Commission with some suggestions for other painters other quotes and it's definitely the case that painting is a preservation piece of the pie but the question is is that once you start painting you definitely as Sam was alluding to I think you can definitely find other issues that you need to address it's a really good example of mod project creep for that reason and I think it explains why there can be these big ranges in in estimates I have a question and that is about the the colors are you going and have you do you intend to follow the same color scheme or is there work to do to find out what the original colors were or the same yeah we're planning to keep it the same okay thank you all right I don't see any more hands last last call for questions all right ladies thank you so much for presenting and for doing it in the house which is just gorgeous I've been in there it's wonderful so um yeah I'm not sure that we are in fact missing any information but maybe you're going to check the check the the sum the bid that the numbers were added up correctly and just let us know if there's any change okay not not this moment oh well I email Sonia with that information yes yeah okay thank you thank you okay good night Sonia's yep she did it okay poof all right so now we are looking for Alan snow to talk about the north cemetery fence improvements I don't see Alan snow in the attendees but I just brought in Ben Breger I'm not sure are you handling there's a there's an Alan um Sonia I think that's probably him oh okay and gets to do the west cemetery but hello there we go where'd he go good evening everybody evening Alan welcome so you are going to tell us about the improvements to the fence you would like to make at the north cemetery yes so the town is looking to replace the deteriorating fence at north cemetery it doesn't have a significant historic paper trail that we're aware of um the fence was I'm told replaced about 18 years ago on a project that Stan Zomek undertook with help from the Smith vocational and they were recreating a fence I'm told that was in the location previously and they built it using rough sawn timbers uh so they're not you know your typical two by four the rough sawn version of that out of mostly pine or or hemlock it looks like so they restored or recreated I should say a fence that they believe were knew was there before but we don't have proof of that so that was my uh thought upon using this avenue to gain funding under historic preservation after the review with the historic commission it really sounds like it might not have been the appropriate approach for the funding to use that historic preservation but anyway I would like to continue going forward with the process and and if it's not the right venue then we'll just reapply for something else in the future um but the fence is deteriorating um it uh all the there are eight ornamental gate posts uh sit on either side of the entry way into the cemetery those have pretty much rotted in place some of them are still connected to the the rails of the fence others are not and the posts are just kind of sitting freely um and if you apply any pressure to them they tip over um the majority of the support of the fence comes from great fence posts that are stuck in the ground that support the length most of the length of the fence um if you long and then the uh the one inch uh one inch conventional square pickets uh that line the fence um are separated by uh one inch by five inch um um lumber is approximately 12 feet long so you're not um and again not your stated off the shelf wood that you get these days at the lumber yard so all right are there is it time for questions Alan or we did you have something sure I mean I read the photo I pretty much yeah trying to review that so looks like Ben wants to say something and add to the yeah go ahead yeah thank you Sarah um Ben Brigham I'm a planner with the town and work closely with the historical commission um and I just wanted to bring up another point and I was gonna also talk about this point when I present about the west cemetery but um I think it's an important uh when we're thinking about the fences at these cemeteries it's not the fence itself that is the historic resource that we're looking to restore it's the cemetery and the historic landscape the historic burial ground um you know west cemetery goes back to 1730 north cemetery I believe is 1818 and so these are you know very significant landscapes for the town document a lot of our history um and are you know important to people today is you know still as as uh folks go there to remember their their uh loved ones and so I think it's just um uh important to remember that yes the the the fence may have some history to it I'm not where it's still unclear but it does a really important job of securing the west cemetery and the north cemetery um in this case and you know I think it's both an aesthetic thing and a you know a perceived um border that you know this is a special place and you should respect it and you should uh you know respect the the landscape and also physically it does create a barrier for vehicles you know pulling pulling in and stuff like that so I just wanted to add that point um and thank you thanks all right so does anybody in the committee have a question would you oh okay oh Ben's hand is still out maybe you can pull it down Andrew you have a question thanks yeah a question and a comment um so first thanks for the presentation and then I'm sorry if I like zoned out but what what material would you were you planning on using for the replacement um again so so you know if we're going for historic preservation they were supposed to use the uh similar materials that were there before um I prefer not to I would prefer to use a material that is more rot resistant than white pine um I mean I have to admit that I was amazed at how long the fence did last um it did paint several times and pressure wash it so a good coat of paint definitely helps keep my pine uh stable but um you know black locust is an option um if we could source it uh cedar is probably the most common you know wood to use for fencing so all right very good and then um a broader question and then you might be able to answer this better do we know has there always been a fence here right because my I'm almost wondering like you could say we we replace this fence or you could say that we just take it down right I don't I mean it's it's not a fully enclosed cemetery to my knowledge right I think that there you can drive in if I remember I don't think there's gates so like it's it's not it's not serving a containment purpose it's it's purely just that ornamental and um again I won't I won't comment on on architectural style here but I'm wondering if we have a understanding of whether there has always been a fence or not again we we don't um and we just have essentially a word-of-mouth story that there was a fence there previously and this fence was put there to replace it um by Stan Zomek and uh another group in town at the time and it's you know as far as there are fences on two sides two chain link fences on the the south and east of the cemetery and then um the north side uh is essentially along the uh there's a wooded area wooded strip next to a field the farmer's field so that's what separates the the north side of the field and the the entry the fence definitely helps with traffic calming in the cemetery as far as you know I can imagine people would have a difficult time some people might have a difficult time making sure they entered the cemetery on the roads persons across the lawn um so the the fence does a really nice job of making people slow down in an interest in the okay thank you did that answer your question yeah that helped uh thank you very much Anna uh Ben your hand was up did you have something to add to that before I jump in with my yeah uh thank you I was just going to add that the uh the form B that which is like the historical inventory form for the north cemetery does indicate you know digging through the town meeting record they they did build a fence in 1886 so or they allocated money to erect the fence but it's again the paper trail is kind of lost after that it's unclear how long that original fence lasted um how it was maintained but even what it was made out of I I worked with special collections to try to find a picture or something we couldn't find anything so but there is at least evidence that there was a fence at one point um so my question is is kind of along the same veins I'm looking at the information that we had in our packet today which included some great beautiful pictures lovely but then also some examples of a historical replica at the Dickinson homestead and I'm curious if you happen to know what material was used there if they use pressure treated or if they were able to get black locus or if they use cedar um yeah they use sorry no no yeah they use cedar um and that was you know that was sort of the the project I use mostly to to come up with my pricing for this fence got and they they adjusted for inflation um a 10 foot section of that cedar fence was costing between nine and twelve hundred nine and twelve hundred dollars ten foot section yeah that was all you know it's all roughs on special cut right to be historically accurate um so yep okay thank you so that maybe maybe answers my question is is that a picket fence is appropriate to an 1818 I don't know if it's still in use actually the cemetery but but that is an appropriate style if we don't know what the original fence was but but this would be appropriate I do you mean with the Dickinson no no no a picket fence at the north cemetery is that appropriate to the age of the cemetery I I don't know the answer to that historically speaking of other cemeteries at that time period use similar um I just know that they I was told that they were trying to recreate a fence that was there previously um okay maybe from a yeah a different later time perhaps okay anybody else don't see any other hands yeah oh Sam okay you're muted Sam we don't hear you still don't hear you still don't hear you maybe your connection loose can I ask a question while we're waiting for yes go ahead so I guess this is kind of for Ben and Alan as we look at the fencing that we're doing across town I mean we have this cemetery project are are they consistent um are you going to try to keep them consistent well still off it's kind of a tough one right because you have like the historical level here and then you have consistency and design here and is there a is there a medium between the two or do you feel like you need to consider both or are you able to just go and treat each project as individual based on its own historical value does that question make sense how are you balancing design consistency and historic preservation I can I'll speak on my opinion what I'm trying to accomplish here is I was looking to to recreate a fence um since I didn't know what historically previous fences looked like right that maintains some kind of conformity to other historic fences in time around town and that's why I was mostly attracted to the Dickinson homestead fence because it is it's very prominent and everybody sees it when they come into town really and I thought it would be a good example of something we could do um at North Cemetery yeah thank you thanks Eddie I think um early 19th century fences you know you could have had a cast iron fence wart iron fence or a wooden fence in New England um the first 50 years of the 19th century but the point is we don't know and we don't have very good information um right no I just wouldn't want something terribly anachronistic you know it's just like like plastic no one would ever built that okay I think Sam has had to log up and try to come in again um Tim can you hear me hold on yes but Tim Tim is featured a punch so Tim and then Sam this is just a quick quick question uh you mentioned the homestead fence uh when I visited that site at the north cemetery the existing fence is very short so you could see that there's a cemetery there and frankly I've never seen the cemetery because I just drive right by and you can see it now if you put the homestead fence you won't see the cemetery so isn't that kind of counterproductive to what some of the intent is for the public that that was my question I um again so I was looking to to modify the homestead fence um I wouldn't create the same gate entry uh ornamental or whatever you have there um and I think it would definitely be a shorter fence that uh you alive you see over it better you wouldn't have a you hedge a you hedge behind it correct there would be no other green hedge right right okay um Eddie do you have another question no I should sorry that's fine all right then I think we can move on from I've got one I'm so sorry yes Sam after all that yeah so just a quick uh segue Alan are there plans or has it ever been discussed to consider a fence on the north side of the uh north cemetery you there's you know as you say there's the uh fence the wire fence on the two sides and the short one in the front I'm just curious uh from your perspective if it's something that would be warranted in the future just think from what you discussed uh pretty fancy there it's um we have approximately 20 plots left for sale in Amherst and those are all at uh south cemetery north cemetery um plots have all been sold so there's no more plots for sale there um and the room for expansion if there would be expansion at north cemetery would go in the direction would go north um so we are kind of leaving continuing leaving that option open there's been no discussion of doing that officially but um it seems to be a natural direction to head in if we were going to scan that cemetery interesting okay all right then I think we are done at this point so thank you Alan for coming to talk about that um thank you for your time yeah thank you and and I guess Ben can just in a moment uh launch right into the west cemetery proposal great good evening everyone thank you um so the west cemetery is the town's oldest burial ground um it's located in the center of town behind uh one east pleasant street uh and it's accessible um off of triangle street and off of north pleasant street downtown um it was you know constructed in 1730 uh before Amherst was even a a town once it when it was still a precinct of Hadley um hence west cemetery west of Hadley um the uh the the it has a lot of history the west cemetery a lot of you know Amherst's most famous people are buried there uh numerous civil war soldiers uh african-american civil war soldiers as well um the uh and the cemetery has evolved over time um in the past I would say 50 years uh the cemetery is not um fared well uh there is um you know towards the end of the 20th century uh there's neglect of the cemetery turned into a kind of an undesirable place to the point where it was actually listed by the preservation massachusetts as one of the top 10 most endangered historic resources in the state um and I think subsequently that jump started a planning process in a series of investments into west cemetery to get it to the condition where it's in today which is overall pretty good pretty good shape um there's a 1999 west cemetery preservation plan uh there's been investments uh some of which from cpa committee and headstone restoration uh over I think 300,000 or no 300 headstones um and actually uh $100,000 has been allocated and that rft is in process procurement process right now for headstone restoration work to continue um the fencing at west cemetery currently uh the the the black rod iron metal fence um that encompasses most of the cemetery was built with state money um in 2001 however uh they did not kind of fully enclose the the cemetery in that um in that round so there's still this eastern edge of the cemetery that's a chain link fence uh which is currently falling apart and in urgent need of replacement um so and I think the it's important to note that the the similar to what I was saying about north cemetery is um the fence does a lot of important work uh in protecting the cemetery um and keeping it safe from uh people you know coming in and out at night um you know we want west cemetery to be a place people feel comfortable in walking and and um and enjoying and spending time um and I think because west cemetery is tucked back a little bit off of the street um there's this perception that it has been a perception that it's unsafe um and it's not just that there's uh you know damaged the headstones there's been vandalism there's been trash and so I think part of the upkeep of west cemetery is just making it appear like it's a cared for place investing in it having a nice enclosed fence uh that is a uniform all around and giving the appearance that it's a place that uh should be respected um and cared for and so um we are proposing asking for money to finish the work that was started in 2001 I can just quickly share my screen here if that's okay um so the goal is to the black outline is where there's currently the the metal fence at west cemetery just to orient you this is triangle street and the track is over here and then this is one east pleasant building and Kendrick park so uh we're proposing to replace the chain link fence which you can see pictured here and mimic the uh black ticket fence um that encompasses the rest of the cemetery um and that's the first part of our ask the second part of the ask is to um uh they'll construct and install signage for west cemetery of which there is at this point just one sign that we were able to uh scrap together some funds and put in place just in time for the juneteenth celebration this year um we thought it was important to have a sign there um and so we at this point you wouldn't know west cemeteries here if you're walking on north pleasant street uh likewise on triangle street you could see it but you wouldn't really know what it was um so we are proposing signage that recognizes and directs people towards west cemetery um at the two yellow locations here and then we are also asking for money for signage um along here and this is just a three proposed locations it could be at other locations maybe at the dickinson museum uh dickinson cemetery plot or other other way other locations but we think it's important to have signage within the cemetery that conveys rules right now um the one sign we did install which i regrettably don't have a picture of right now but it mentions you know do not play on headstones do not damage headstones do not and you'd be surprised i've seen kids playing on headstones there and it's at this point a lot of them are very unstable it's unsafe um so you know do not vandalize if you see suspicious activity call the you know police number or um certainly also dogs on leash pick up their waste that those kind of basic rules that you to um we have at you know all of all of our conservation areas but specifically uh important to preserve the history of west cemetery and preserve the uh the headstones in their current condition um so we propose signage within the cemetery that conveys rules and then also welcome signs that also bring people in and i i included um in my proposal as well um that there's the signage would also um convey interpretive material about the amherst history museum mural which is here the amherst history mural was uh installed in i think 2005 but then subsequently re uh painted onto the back of one east pleasant street when the carrot shops were taken down um you know i one of the questions i got was the amherst history mural is not historic and i would i would agree with that it's it's it's uh it conveys amherst history and it's an important part of the west cemetery but it itself is not historic however that being said i think interpretive signage um in the cemetery could help uh people understand and learn about the cemetery and learn about amherst history and also um you know you're not going to respect what you don't you know understand and know about so i think with people understanding the significance of the cemetery and the mural kind of playing off of each other um i would hope that would need to you know more respect of the cemetery and the headstones and the landscape overall so that's the two parts of this proposal is to replace the fence which is long overdue um and to install signage uh to recognize the cemetery and to convey rules and interpretive material that is all thank you everyone for your time so you can stop sharing thank you okay great um so helpful to look at pictures all right so looking for questions from the committee i see anderson thank you sarah um and thanks for the presentation ben if you had to pick would you do the signs first or the fence first uh i think the uh that's a good question the the the the fence is um in urgent need of repair um it's it's it's it's potentially hazardous at this point things sticking out and everything um so but i do think with the headstone restoration work that's going to happen next spring and summer um which is cpa funded i would expect there to be a lot more i would hope you know we want to publicize that bring people into the cemetery say hey we're investing a hundred thousand dollars into the cemetery um so i do think it would be important to have signs up there as well um when when that work is ongoing so um i think there's a maybe a bit more urgency for signage and also i would say too the wayfinding downtown wayfinding system we're gonna have more signs downtown bringing people into west cemetery and so when they get there i'd want them to have uh more interpretive materials and um understanding of their roles in the history of the cemetery so i guess i would say signage he started off saying the thank you so i i appreciate that i mean i've you know like there's only so many dollars to go around absolutely more than first time know what's priority um thanks i have a couple questions um one i wouldn't i wouldn't thought you could get that a whole length of metal fencing even for fifty thousand dollars so you're comfortable would that you be able to buy that complete stretch of fence um we yeah we are comfortable with that um uh quote it's based off of a quote that alan got um a few years ago using prevailing wages and um i think you know we added in a little bit for contingency but i i i would yes i do think we're confident in that number okay my other question is if if we if we thought that um cpa money could fund signs but not for the history mural which is not a historic thing oh are there not um locations to grave sites within the cemetery that you might want to have signed out like here's emily dickinson in their family right right that's why so many people are going into the cemetery to find so i guess i'm wondering why you would prioritize seem to prioritize the history mural over over the actual graves that are of historic note yeah well i think they play off of each other i mean emily dickinson's face is emblazoned on the mural and you know it's part of a bigger story of emerson literary history and so i think any sign that we had would you know uh point out you know either if it's at the grave would you know point out the mural show emily's face there or vice versa i think a sign at the mural would call attention to emily's grave close by um but uh yeah i think it wasn't necessarily a matter of prioritizing the mural it's more just um right now there's there's uh nothing that explains what people are looking at when they're looking at the mural and i think that's all also important for understanding the significance of west cemetery because most of those people depicted on there are buried right in the cemetery right there as well um and so i could imagine having like a a map of the cemetery key to the yeah as you're interpreting the mural show oh this person buried here go visit their grave something like that so um yeah i think it's almost like even though the mural in the cemetery came at very different times in history they are so um interconnected in that way okay thank you you just see okay sam uh yeah i just had a comment uh ben thanks for the presentation i in walking around the cemetery which i had not done for decades i was really struck i mean it's really an impressive place uh i noticed just a dramatic change in terms of the the impact from my perspective that the current metal fencing made because i remember when i was you know kid in high school whatever people guys would be going through there you'd see cans uh weekend nights whatever uh going through there now it really has a particular feeling and if you take that walk and you start looking at the gravestones which i was doing uh you kind of feel it it's really quite nice and i i think that the metal fencing style the that currently exists on three quarters and you're hoping to continue adds to that i really i really felt that i did you also see the family sponsored fence around the dickinson uh location and various markers on her grave i'd almost like to see an additional perimeter around that to keep it safe but i i just wanted to give kudos to whoever's been doing the work uh in there from the last time i went there it's quite noticeable yeah yeah that would thank you that would 100 be alan and his uh crew and the in the grounds and maintenance division they do a great job with west cemetery any other questions about the west i i didn't want to point out that amherst is west of excuse me is east of heavily so it can't be western part of highly maybe the western part western part of amherst western part of the third precinct but it's not west yeah that's a good point anyway it doesn't affect the application that's yeah all right well i don't see i don't see any other questions so that'll do thank you for your time thank you for coming tonight and uh oh it's gone right all right so our final presentation this evening should be meg gauge i think for the district one neighborhood association and the phase one research for a mill river historic trail interpretive trail could you thanks so much sarah and i'll get my camera going could you also invite two other presenters uh eric johnson and dav mix dav mix barrington um sonia do you see them yeah i'm doing yeah okay thank you for for waiting we're a little bit behind i know it's okay see one and a half of you i'm joined here by bill robinson who's going to also make it be participating there's eric eric so we can hear everything and david is materialized okay well welcome um please go ahead tell us and we do have new members on the committee this year so great you yeah so um we'd like to make fairly brief remarks so with this chance for questions and to hear where you're uh what your thoughts are about this we're very happy to be back with you all at the cpa committee with revised and dramatically smaller funding requests this time for the preliminary research of the mill river history trail unlike last year for those of you who weren't on the committee last year when we brought a proposal to support the entire project this year we're seeking funding only for the first step of archival and field research this first step will lay the necessary groundwork to work with the conservation commission and others to develop a comprehensive plan for implementing the history trail that we envision and that we delighted to talk with you about but this particular proposal is just the research this research this larger project down the road will include signage development of a web page securing the artifacts safely in the strong house building a neighborhood oversight committee and engaging a larger community to build public stewardship and enjoyment of the historic and natural treasure along the mill river conservation area and i shouldn't probably even say this because now i don't want to distract you that's not what we're seeking funding for this year just the research but it's research in order to achieve this vision of a important community resource the site and historic documents are threatened if they're not protected i'll give you a couple of examples in the materials we sent you saw the artifacts that have been gathered and bill here thanks to bill we know who has them hopefully they can be secured k caner did a huge amount of research before she passed away and we understand and it was confirmed by Pete it's in boxes and Pete Westover's basement not getting any younger i had a our conversation with a 99-year-old Pete Koslaskis who lives in summer street who worked in the um lumber yard amherst woodworking company fueled powered by the puffers pond waterfall which is where uh mill hollow apartments is he he actually worked there as a high school student not only will our project identify and protect valuable historic artifacts and features we will bring to life this little known entrepreneurial chapter in amherst history north amherst was an industrial center in western massachusetts from the second half of the 18th century there were six mills in 1775 on the mill river already to the early 20th century when manufacturing moved to holioke and springfield drawn by the great power of the kinetic greater power of the connecticut river we're one of the wonderful things about living in amherst as we have access to the university of massachusetts deep branch of academic and research talent we're so fortunate to be working with dr eric johnson community archaeologist who knows our community well he has worked at the dickinson homestead for example and lived here a long time so i'm going to pass this over to eric dr johnson eric you were talking about fey cana fey cana fey cana she's the one who stuff is in the basement of pete west over all right so thank you yeah correction correction noted thank you all right so i see eric thank you thanks for joining us go ahead thank you thank you meg uh i just wanted to reiterate what meg said that the objective of the research project is to acquire information on the mills and the other sites that we're looking at on the past history and on their present condition and that information will be important for the second phase of the project the interpretive historic trail that'll lead into that and the other thing that the research is going to do is to encourage stewardship because the members of the community will know more about the history of the sites become aware of their condition including possible threats to their integrity and knowing that will encourage people to take care of the sites and protect them and this is a community archaeology project comes from the community not from the academy the archaeologists is are working for the community not for a developer so our field research will be known about our results will be shared and our research has as meg pointed out two components archival research and field research and the archival research includes studying documents like maps deeds census records tax records written histories includes talking to people people like bill rodinson who know so much about these places and their history and the field research does not the field research does not involve any digging any documenting the present condition of the sites by mapping them and photographing them and in addition to reporting the results of the research we will complete historic site inventory forms for each site and send them to the massachusetts historical commission share them with the town and the community I really hope and I really believe that the interest we generate in our work and in its results will increase public awareness of historic archaeological sites these ones in particular and and really historic sites in general they they are fragile and they are tangible links to the past with being at an archaeological site where you have some information about it it really invites visitors to contemplate our past in a really positive way thank you thank you okay so David is a community on our committee our community our neighborhood committee david mix barrington for hi my name is david mix barrington I live on pine street I've lived there since 1995 and during that time since then to now I've spent most days of the week bringing a dog over one of the areas of mill river every um on morning walks I'm very familiar with the area there uh I love the mill river it's a beautiful place I really like the fact that there's now stories there that have been put up on the storyboards and I think it's great for the plague people to live the live the to know that area and learn about it and um get closer to it I first learned about the mill river in 1980 when I was an undergraduate at Amherst college and I took geology and everybody who takes geology at Amherst and a whole lot of people who take geology at UMass go down to mill river because it's nearby to see how the shape of water flowing through rivers how their shape is expressed by where the water is flowing and the sort of thing it's a geology thing to learn and one of the things I learned that I was there is that the landscape the waterscape of mill mill river is artificial it's I mean I've known it for a long time but I didn't know it then that uh why is our river here why is our river there why is there a valley this is all explained by the fact that this was made uh the mill races for the for the uh mill races were established where the where the water was sent and so forth and that's carved the landscape out and made the landscape the landscape has been that way uh Puffer's pond was artificially built by Mr. Puffer I believe and uh it's maybe not it was named after him later Bill knows this more far than I do um so the land is made by the history in this in this in this case and it's great to have a connection to it uh a couple years ago I took a walk through this area that Donna organized with Bill and Eric and I learned all kinds of things about what used to be there how it got there what was done there and I'd like to have that understanding available for anybody to look at on signs as appropriate and uh my role in this would be as a community member to uh try to help discuss where the eventually where should the signs be what do they look like what do they go that would in collaboration with the conservation commission and so forth about where that would go so thank you thanks thanks is is that it for the presentation Bill is here to answer questions okay okay this book about North Amherst with Pat Holland and he's the uh most knowledgeable person I've ever met about okay all right but it's time time for us to ask questions or do you have more to tell all right so then I will open it up anybody I will start off with one um is the is the the archival research um is that primarily to uh so so in the future phase you know what the story is to put on the interpretive signs or is it helping focus where this field archaeology will happen that is is are you do you think there are sites of interest and you don't know exactly where they are or you know where everything is so that's the that's my overall site area yeah so thank you Eric um it's not so much trying to identify where other sites are it's like you said telling the story of the sites okay and there are some sites that are hard to get to which we probably wouldn't want to be too dangerous for people to walk around too dangerous and the conservation commission doesn't want a lot of people wandering off the trail into the conservation area right but like the bunghole for example that would be a dangerous one to try to walk around look at also the cushioning paper mills in that area it's pretty dangerous to walk around yeah but like the rubbish mills it's very easy to walk by and nobody's going to get hurt so so can the field research I mean these things would happen at the same time or does one have to happen before I always like to have as much as the art of the archival done first um it may give us hints of as to what we're looking at when we see something and the significance of the you know parts of the structures that are still preserved and maybe also the extent of them I mean I know there there are some traces of buildings or structures but would this information help you know how you know what the plan of it was and maybe where to look for more remnants quite possibly and and also if we find that you know what we see now is a small part of a footprint of a much larger structure that can be conveyed to the visitor who you know can imagine it the way it was okay all right thank you anybody else well I have another question who Sam has a question he's muted as a question okay ah there we go okay uh thank you Sarah uh thank you Meg uh Eric David and I forget the other gentleman Bill this is a very interesting project to listen to in so many ways um I I think it's great that you're seeking to do something that will provide education on the history of the town having gone to Puffer's pond as a kid and jumping off all the cliffs back then we were able to which we're not able to do now uh all the people from my time period are very familiar with that region having grown up in town but I really yeah everyone made it through but that was a different era but what I bring that up in context of I never really knew about all the history related to the area I know the proper name of course but not really all the different things that you're talking about and I find that just very interesting um that's just my comment and the fact that it's community driven my question is um I recall you coming before us the prior year I'm wondering if you can share with us any information you might have received from the conservation commission and or the historical commission that may have uh influenced your approach to your proposal this year um the historic commission was very interested in trying to help us fit the guidelines of the CPA and particularly Robin Fordham did a lot of research we also worked as she's also helping us supply for other funding that would come in later and there was their suggestion to do exactly what we did the conservation commission didn't advise us on our proposal so much as to uh share with us their interest in um I hate to use word branding when we're talking about conservation land but in uh creating signs that indicate Amherst trail system which they feel isn't adequately appreciated because there's we have so many wonderful trails so we would work with them to uh make sure that our signs aligned with their wishes to uh create a unified image I hate the word branding just sounds so awful but that may have been the word they use but you know what I mean to have a consistent yeah can I jump in sorry please thanks sorry Anna no it's fine it's fine hi Meg um so it's it's it's less branding it's just to give a little context we are getting inundated with requests for signage and um we're trying to be very comprehensive and thoughtful in in how we put signage in our wild preserved spaces um and so we also didn't have enough time to deliberate on we're not necessarily deliberating on it but um our our input is less about the the content of the specific proposal which is much more about historic preservation we're more concerned with the use of the conservation land and you know Meg and her team have been very um responsive and respectful of our our wishes in that so um we have not necessarily had a chance to really continue talking about it but we Meg came to our meeting last week and when we get to deliberating out of this questions phase I will happily speak more about what concom discussed I'd just like to say that Puffer's pond was originally owned by the the Wheelocks and the Marshall family and it was split 50-50 right up the middle of it and that Steve Puffer would pay them for the use of the pond by giving them heights so it it's now was never really Puffer's pond but he's got that name Steve Puffer's father his father yeah he might have started it yeah anyway Steve Puff yeah can I just make a note I don't know if this is uh allowed or not but Robin is also in the audience and does have a good uh well I would I know I was sorry yeah well thank you thank you for that um my first one to hear from Tim because yeah yes um yeah I'm going to ask the same question I've asked of another applicant and that is considering the funding had you considered talking with UMass or Amherst College to see if this might be a thesis for either graduates or undergraduates at Amherst seems to me that this might be a very good project for students to conduct this archival study we there have been students like from UMass or something that did a study of the Mill River yeah there it might be down the road but we need to focus on getting our project launched and for example we're thrilled that Eric you know Dr. Johnson himself is doing the research not a graduate student we love graduate students I'll tell you the students I would most like to get involved are high school students and that's actually my first when I was teaching at Amherst High School a gazillion years ago um I had students write research papers and I would get these great papers like the Hat Factory and the Pencil Mill and so on and these kids had done high school students had done research in our local library and at the Strong House and uh we're writing these papers and so I mean I think we could get college students to write theses on this maybe as step two well the per the frankly the the purpose of the question is you probably know we have quite a bit of uh requests and not very many dollars to distribute and I'm just thinking whether that you the whether you've even considered that as an alternative funding source the I guess I graduate students yeah if we don't get this you could quote save some money or the town might say quote save some money that was the question and I think you answer the question so thank you it's a follow-up oh sorry I just have a follow-up on that question you know tim I think it's it's always a valid suggestion and I think the realities of of seeking graduate or undergraduate student support are never quite that easy I think that it's it's really not it's not a matter of just going to a faculty member and saying hey we have this research project right and so I just I always want to this little flag comes up for me in my head of you know it's it's not a simple ask to do that when when the curriculum is so defined and and often it's the students who come up with the proposals themselves so I just I you know while it's a great idea in theory I think often the reality of that is not um not always realistic yeah and if the purpose of that would be to find alternative funding there's lots of other alternative funding ideas we have okay well I mean establish the kind of basic parameters establish that there's a project here first that's our that's our okay well maybe I will reserve until we have a discussion amongst the committee thank you I would like to just add a note about the last question I expect to be working with a professional researcher who does archival research she is fantastic she was a colleague of mine at UMass and grad students want to get paid as much as anybody else does so they will they would require money I always try to see if I can get particularly undergraduates involved in any project that I do depending on the schedule and depending on people's interests and availability one question um I'm sorry David has his hand up or maybe that's left over no I just wanted to oops there we go yeah um I just wanted to second that point um when you I mean just in advising students and having student projects when you do a student project your priority has to be the good of the student if you want the job actually done you much often want to get it done by by professionals and then this spins off into good projects which can make things that it doesn't happen but when you're actually looking for a deliverable you don't want to center yourself on you don't want to assume that you're going to go to students for their own stuff and get anyway that's right all right thank you um I don't see any other committee hands up um so that means I think we could just go directly to public comment and by robin to speak if she mag you wanted to kind of hope that everybody saw the letter but Barbara puffer sent and the their families around here who the puffers and the joneses and the that are still that are very uh interested in tracking this project is have you considered oral history as part of the I just did an hour of taping of this uh 99 year old peter keselowski's who some other immigrated here from uh lithuania wow cool all right I see hands going back up okay thank you uh meg for and and all for communicating uh and I see robin's hand up so I'm hoping she might also enlighten us on some of the changes that you might have made from last year based on feedback and my assumption is some of the references to artifacts and whatnot uh in the presentation it was nice to see the photographs and all uh but if there's anything else you could add and uh and I'd also like to also hear from robin thank you we're not gonna I'm not gonna bring in robin yet okay I understand I understand okay so Anna I have a uh a critical and very important question um which is meg when will we be able to get uh amherst clam or no kushman clam club uh apparel from this it's it's it's critical that's a great fundraising idea all right i'm sorry sarah it's okay and it's okay I mean I can see it now right okay you're talking about the clam base club yeah called the clam base yes I can see I mean I can see the apparel because I've got I've got ideas anyway we can move on now sarah I think the patrons that went to the clam bake they could envision most anything after a few drinks it was pretty wild place well and the drape coming back too I mean yeah this but all right so anymore we're allowed to go to when we were teenagers or even in college but anyway all right so I think that ends this formal part but if everyone meg if your group will just linger we'll bring in robin is a member of the public and see if she has a comment I don't know if there are any other members of the public wishing to speak can you hear me now yes okay let's see if you can see me on my car yes oh my gosh you're driving no I pulled over okay thank you thank you you guys have been keeping me company on my trip from Vermont to Amherst hello everyone we're better than nice to see everyone it's going to say most of you know me as the former historical commissioner up to the CPA heady has bravely taken on that role I'm so happy to have her there you might remember me as the person who is obsessed with the definitions behind the CPA law and guidance about what can be funded so we'll have a little bit of a return to that scheme I just want to go quickly I have some public comments on on most of the projects that I'm going to be as absolutely as because I can which I think is relatively brief um uh in terms of the two uh historic houses um and very much in support of those projects as member of the historic commission and as a member of the public um I just wanted to remind the CPA committee from the historic preservation standpoint that a public view is always considered a public resource so CPA funds can actually be used to um for example I used to own a house on Hall Street which uh had a um a beautiful window in the attic had I known of CPA funds then I might have applied for them it's not necessary um for the property property to be accessible to the public it's great that it is but um keep that in mind as you go forward public view is a public resource um as far as the fences are concerned I wanted to thank Ben Breger because I in our historical commission meeting brought up the question of well the fences are historic ergo we can't um fund them and actually in conversations that I had with Heddy afterwards we realized I realized we realized um exactly what Ben said which is that the important formula behind uh historic preservation in terms of CPA is that you have a resource and um you apply a verb to it and in this case with the fences and uh he's absolutely correct that the cemeteries themselves are the resource and the fences are effective um measures for preservation um as far as the north cemetery was concerned my one comment was just that it would be great if the uh committee felt like it was appropriate for the historical commission to weigh in on the design review um that seems like the most logical place to comment on a appropriate historical fence to go um as far as the signage proportion of that particular ask this is where I was going to get back into issues around what CPA can and can't fund and last year after pouring over all the documentation I determined that there's nothing in the CPA language that says you can fund it and there's nothing that says that you can't but there is some language around um CPA funds not being able to be used to for example write a history of something and I see uh signage as an interpretive function and not a preservation function um I'm very in support of the signage um I just have a question about um whether or not it should be funded with CPA funds and again going back to this larger idea CPA funds are special and um that is why we sit on this committee in order to determine um the best for them to be distributed so I'd encourage you if you feel so inclined to take up that question uh and then finally the mill river project which um I'm so uh thankful for Meg being patient with me over this last year while we hammered out uh a new way to uh break this project up into two phases so that it would fit under the guidelines of the CPA um I think Sonia and the town are determining where best uh to apply funds I won't go into uh the um the answer that it seems like the administrative line item um is what we would use for surveys um but Sarah I believe has my information on that I know Anthony had it talk about that separately um but I'm uh I've been delighted to work with Meg uh over the last year very much in support of this project um uh it does align with the guidelines it's an absolutely necessary first step um and I did want to make the point that I think Meg brought up which is that um we are trying to seek some additional funding through the National Trust preservation funds it's a it's a small grant program it has three rounds a year um I was working with Ben to have the town apply basically for half of the ask that um that Meg's group has asked for so it would be a conditional funding that if if those funds came through then the CPA funds would be reduced which would be great it would be more um as just as much money for the project and more uh CPA money for the town and as a member of the historic commission I'm trying to um help these historic preservation projects do exactly that access uh other resources that might be appropriate so that our CPA funds can go further and with that um I will just say thank you it did anybody I don't know if anybody had a question for me I'm just a member of the public I don't know if I can answer questions but happy to if that fits with the agenda as the see the historic commission heady and perhaps Robin uh rendered an opinion at all as of yet related to the project I think this is a wonderful project um I I think it has so many components that that fit with our mission um such as I understand it in the early stages at the moment and apologies for early on kind of wading into something that I probably shouldn't have gotten into and I think Sam's Sam's inviting us to go there again um um I think that Robin and heady may well have their own conversations and you know heady will bring back the opinions of the the historical commission to the group um yes Meg I can send you the email that Jane waltz sent me in response to my question after many conversations I think it seems like you support this and she wrote a very enthusiastic yes then please send it to Sonia okay send everything anything to Sonia and she will check with Jane since she sent it to me I'll just be sure sure but Sonia will distribute it to the to the group okay um are there thank you Robin thanks for your your comments thank you Robin um pleasure to see everybody yes okay drive safely thanks Robin is there anyone else out there and attendees who might want to speak Robin's our only attendee at this point okay all right Sonia there's no one else so Bill wanted to I was talking but I forgot I didn't have my mic on now there's no one else okay Bill you're here I think yeah Bill wanted to say something I don't I've been walking through the mill river area for many many years I think it would be an excellent idea to put signs up to mark where the mills were because I've seen so many people looking down or wondering what was going on so if they could have signs there identifying what would go on there I think would be an excellent idea I can't see anything negative about it at all it's just this pesky thing called the legislation that's I'm not a salesman or anything yeah no it'd be an excellent idea I'm just a high school graduate son I'm just giving you my point of view yeah yeah I we hear you okay well I think then um we just say thank you for attending tonight all four of you and sharing this project with us thank you for all the hard work you do okay a pleasure so good night if the committee will stay on all right I think it's just us now um super so we're only a little bit over time um I just want to reiterate somebody who somebody maybe it was Katie came in came in light glad you could make it Sarah Isinger um was not able to come at all but that next week we meet on Wednesday okay the following week week we meet on Thursday again and have our public hearing and maybe in our deliberations all right so that's all I have to say does anyone else have some information we need okay then Sonia unless you know if something else we need to do no no okay then this meeting will be adjourned at 8 18 and we'll see you next Wednesday thanks everyone thank you thank you thank you good night