Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Community Preservation Act Committee on November 17, 2022. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.02pm pursuant to the decision of the town of Amherst as permitted by the state we are meeting remotely. I'm going to call now on all the committee members to make sure that you can hear and that you can be heard. My name is Sam McLeod I'm the chair I'm here. Tim Neil. Here. We can hear you. Andy McDougal. David Williams. Present. Excuse me, Katie Allison. Michelle Abbey. Mike, excuse me, Matt came. Present. And Robin Fordham is not here as of yet to my understanding. I'm sure she'll be here soon enough. We are going to need to have someone to take minutes for this meeting. The meetings are recorded and they're available. So I'm going to give you that method for assistance after the fact would anyone like to volunteer. I'll volunteer. Tim. When was the lottery. Thank you very much, Tim. No problem. So we have a busy agenda this evening we have six historic preservation proposals. They may or may not run over my, my thoughts are that we start as soon as. Presenters are ready if they're ready in advance of 615. I don't see. I don't either. But we can keep an eye on that. So the first item on the agenda is to approve any outstanding minutes. I don't believe we have any outstanding minutes available. If, if I'm incorrect, someone please speak out. No, you're correct. Okay. So we have a little bit of time here. I'm wondering if. How long might the, any financials update. Take Sonia. Real quick, because I don't have any financial updates at the moment. There's no changes from the last week. Okay. We should be getting our state aid pretty soon though. So I might have it next week. I did see, yeah, I saw an email from. Stuart. We haven't received it yet. Okay. There were some dollar amounts in a spreadsheet, but not the 20 million or anything. Okay. So I'd rather wait on the. I'll process because that might be a more. Might take a little bit longer and I don't want to risk cutting any of the presentations delayed after their start. I want to start on time as soon as we can. Okay. I would say to the new members and to any others, we do have a Facebook page for the CPA committee. It's on the town website. It's Amherst CPA. Facebook Amherst CPA CPA, excuse me.  Sometimes we put up photos of different projects and actually if somebody had an interest in. Assisting with managing the Facebook page that could be helpful. Sarah Marshall. Posted a lot of different project photos last cycle. I don't know if anyone wishes to assist, but if they do let me know and I can add you as an editor. I don't know if it's easy enough to do, but the intent of it again is to just let everybody in the community know that we have this program out here that there are dollars or community dollars. And they're intended for community projects and we want input from members and to spread the word as wide. And as far as we can. I'm thinking we just hang tight here for. To our first presentation arrives. Do a new public comment or topics to chair. The other things. I don't have any topics that I didn't anticipate other than what's on the agenda. I want to not prevent the opportunity for public comment at a later point in time. We could open it up now, but I'd like to open up again after the meeting because it's on the agenda. Yes, Tim. Okay. I was just raising my hand electronically. Just, it might be helpful for particularly for some of the new members and just to reiterate. Based on last meeting. My understanding was. We had about 1.7 million funds available. And if we included the reserves, it would be 2.2 million. So that was kind of the range, right? Just that's what it was. And. There are requirements that we spend at least 10% of that total for historic preservation. For housing and then for open space slash recreation. So for the applicants tonight under historic preservation. Just to put our mindset together. There is about 170 to about 220,000 at a minimum. That we must spend. And of course the requests are higher than that. So. I just wanted to make sure everybody. I found it helpful to just sort of understand that terms of the ballpark. We may or may not have some debt expenditures that might come with some of that. Okay. Hopefully, you know, when, when we come to that point, Sonia will be able to share us the exact numbers. But thank you for bringing that up to him because we do have four different categories. Michelle. Yeah. Just real quickly. I'm curious about the reserve. I asked a little bit before of it. So it's for off cycle proposals. So just because I'm, I'm new here. I'm not familiar with the cycle, but there are things that may happen in the summer or something that would get CPA funding or what is that generally allocated for? Yes, we set that aside so that after the tax rates is set, we can't appropriate money on estimated revenues anymore. Once the tax rate is set. And that was just set today. So after today only. Excuse me, my phone keeps ringing. So after today. We can only use that we can only budget appropriate from that budget and reserve because we appropriated it's available to us. Otherwise we would have to have to use. Borrowing. Authorizations. So essentially each, the reserves are available for any time during the cycle. The cycle. Even through June. Through June 30th. Yes. So that would be for the next. Of next. Of 2023. So they be used for a new project or some over budget cost from the projects that we approve? No, it has to be. It would be a new project or additional funds that you approve. You'd still have to go through this whole process to add money to a budget that. That wasn't enough. You would still have to go through the whole process. So new proposals come in through the year. We don't normally, we only go through the proposal process once a year, but sometimes projects come up during the year that become an emergency that need. The need funding right away, maybe to access grant funding. I see. Got it. So that, so then we would. We would bring that committee together again and go through the same process again. Did we use any of the surplus for either Kendrick Park or the track? Or were those both just debt and not touching the surplus? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kendrick Park, I believe. Was debt and so was. So was the track. But we could have, if we had wished. Used it. So it is. I think at that time we didn't have a budget of reserves. So that our only avenue was borrowing. We just started budgeting this reserve like maybe one or two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I sort of have a related question. I think that we're working on what we're, we're hearing about right now that we're voting on right now. They wouldn't receive money until July of 23. Is that right? Correct. Okay. So the, the painting one, the Mabel Loomis Todd painting one, I think they want the money sooner. It would. I didn't realize that, but they wouldn't, it wouldn't be available until July one. Right. Unless we voted it as a separate thing. Out of the budget. Out of the budget reserve as a fiscal year 23. I got to remember my fiscal years as a fiscal year 23 project. Cause what we're voting on now is fiscal year 24 projects. Right. Okay. I have a question. I see your hand, Andy, but before that. I have the name. Ben for the first presenter. I don't know. I don't know. According to the schedule of the CPA funded projects, preservation restrictions. I see three individuals. As attendees, but not. He do you know, Sonia, if there's somebody else here who might be the presenter. Well, Ben Brewer left. He's no longer with the town. He left last Wednesday. So it was supposed to be Dave's on that. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you can see. That's good to know. I've got not good that he's left. Yeah. Have that information. I didn't know that till last week either. Wow. He took another job with the department of transportation. Well, congratulations. To him, I guess. While we're still waiting since we don't know what's going on with the first presentation. Thanks, Sam. I had one other intent of Tim's spirit of sharing learnings from years past. Maybe Sony can help me get this straight. But I know that as we talked about some of the housing projects and. I think Diane alluded to this last year that there's a multiplier effect. The sort of the multiplier effect that was referred to by the committee. I think that's a good point. Diane last week. For the East street and Belcham road. I know that. I get to reference that in years past as well. But. If you are comfortable, could you sort of share with the. With the. The committee here, what that multiplier means and what projects that would impact. I'm not comfortable. I'm not. Okay. I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable with that. I don't. My thought was that he was saying that the funds that they use are kind of seed money and that they partner with others to then multiply. But I think that's a worthwhile question. That we should pose. To the. John. Reference. It was John, I think. Well, he wouldn't. He's the one who mentioned the past. I thought he'd said like an eight X multiplier or something. Right. Just sharing how. There's a. There's a lot of, a lot of things that we can do. I think that. Certain projects would actually be eligible for. Or that. That multiplier. We can check. The history of the meetings because they're recorded. We can also inquire. It's worth doing. My understanding was that it was by virtue of partnering with others that they. Bringing more money, but I could be incorrect. So it's a worthwhile question. Yeah. Andy, were you referring to the fact that the state expects a local contribution. So it's they may be tied into that. So it may be with that contribution with that show of good faith that they'll kick that money in. Honestly, Matt, I don't recall enough. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't imagine that the CPA would wholly fund the construction of a large housing project. Right. Yeah, I mean, she'd mentioned the I would think the CPA would only be providing a certain local contribution or seed contribution for something like that. Yeah, she said last week there's basically $1.8 million would turn into 21 and a half after the multiplier. Yeah. So, I'm sorry, I just heard from Dave Zomek he stuck in another meeting so he asked us to move on. So he he was presenting the two for Ben Brigger. So can we move on to the five paintings by Mabel Loomis Todd I see. I saw that I saw Gigi in the audience. Are you indicating that Robin was not presenting the historic barn and outbuilding. Well we're trying to figure out whether that was a conflict of interest since she is on the CPA committee. She was on her to use herself and we can't, we haven't got a clear answer on that so. What she, she's currently was she currently scheduled to present though that was my understanding. Ben Brigger was supposed to. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Oh for two. Yeah, Katie I saw your hand up there. I'm going to get one final clarification because Michelle made me question this which is the reserve can be used this year should we vote for that for these projects that we're looking at right now. If you choose to put this in the balance that's available for fiscal year 24 it will no longer be available for fiscal year 23. Right, that's that's that's I just wanted to clarify that we have the choice to spend it all distributed all allocated all now, then we wouldn't have anything if something came up in the spring winter spring. Right, or we could save it in case something comes up but that's the question I think for the committee at some point, not just far from now but I just wanted to clarify because that's what I thought it didn't have to be used off cycle. It could be put into this cycle, yes. Or a portion of it right I mean we could, we could use half of it. Yes. Okay, great thank you I appreciate it. So, apparently our first two presenters are they're not. It's not likely to occur did you say Dave is in traffic or not able to present at all this evening. It's not going to meeting he said to move on to the next presenter and he'll get here as soon as you can. Oh that sounds fine. So, um, you know, if, if the five paintings able to lose Tom I do see GG in the meeting if she's ready. That would be fine to start. I certainly don't want to obligate someone to present in advance of their schedule time. If they're not ready but if she is ready. I see a hand up for Gigi. How can we get her to communicate with us here. I'm going to let her in. Hold on. She is. Can you hear us. Yes. Okay. You want to see me me see what I can do. I want to see your, your privilege to determine. I'd like to see people.  Yep. Question. Yes, Tim. I need to, I declare I'm not this is not a conflict of interest because I'm no longer but I am a former trustee of the public disclosure. I'm in historic society. So I've no longer in that capacity, but I was at one point just for public disclosure. Okay. Thank you. So I don't know if you've been listening. I assume you have Gigi. We have our first. Two presenters delayed based on. Staffing for the town. I'm glad I came down from supper early. I'm glad to welcome you and allow you to proceed if you happen to need more time. We'd be welcome to delay, but given that you said you're ready. The floor is yours. Okay. Thank you all for reading the proposal that the. Amherst historical society presented and for your questions, which I hope I've answered to your satisfaction. If not, we can go over those later in the proposal itself. I focused on the physical condition of the paintings and the need to restore them both. For the coming exhibition at the historical society, as well as for their future survival. Missing from the proposal was some of the contextual information that you might find of interest and important. So that's what I'll be talking about right now. Mabel Loomis Todd, who was she, I think we all know something about her, but she was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1856. Her father was an astronomer, mathematician and naturalist. And her mother was descended from John Alden of Plymouth County. So both parents actually had. Colonial backgrounds. She was educated at the Boston South End School for young ladies. Not atypical Georgetown female seminary in Washington DC, where her parents moved in the 1870s. And then at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1874 and 75. It's been proposed that she studied with Martin Johnson, a prominent landscape artist and painter of luscious tropical plants. However, Mabel was largely self taught and painted local flowers, weeds, vegetables, wildflowers and occasionally birds and butterflies, both in oil and watercolors. By 1879, she felt sufficiently accomplished to write a book on painting. Wildflowers in oil, but it was never published. After she married David Todd, he built a studio for her artistic endeavors in Washington, where they lived right after their marriage. And then later he built another studio for her or made room for it in his office quarters at Amherst College. She gave lessons to local amateurs and painted, multi-part screens, plaques, ceramics, and other objects that served as gifts. And she may have sold some as well. We cannot ignore the relationship of Mabel Loomis Todd to the family of Emily Dickinson, both during the life of the poet and afterwards. Mabel Todd had, as we all know, a long standing relationship with Emily, rather Austin, but that helped her become sort of an intimate of Emily and her sister, Lavinia. And of course, eventually Mabel was one of the editors of the writer's poetry. The relationship between the two women, however, was an odd one. They never met face-to-face, but it was close enough that Mabel apparently loaned one of the two women. The painting of the Holly Hawks to Emily in 1885, as noted in a letter from Emily to Mabel. Also evident in her letters to her lover, Austin, was the importance of painting to her emotional state. At the end of one fraught letter to him, Mabel notes that she will, quote, get up and go to school. And in the end of the 19th century, the letter to him Mabel notes that she will, quote, get up and go out, pick some white roses to paint, perhaps. So flowers played an important role in her life. Both as the subject of her artistic endeavors and in maintaining her own emotional equilibrium. Evident at the Dickinson Museum is Emily's own interest in flowers and gardening. That interest is, of course, also found in her poetry. The Library of the Museum is a copy of a book presented to Emily by her father in 1859. Clarissa Badger's Wild Flowers contains poetry and hand-colored lithographs of flowers that Emily would have known and that she later featured in her poetry. One of the paintings of apples by Mabel and was Todd also reflects a major agricultural crop in the valley. Other paintings by her include depictions of tobacco, corn, and squash, other important crops. Paintings of flowers represent the local interest in horticulture that continues to this day. The paintings will be the centerpiece of a new exhibition that has been curated by Diana Lempel, a guest curator at the Historical Society this past summer. They will be accompanied by a selection of artifacts given to the Historical Society by Mabel, who traveled widely with her husband to South America, Russia, and Asia. As Diana has written, and I quote, this exhibition explores Mabel Loomis Todd, founder of the Amherst Historical Society, through her botanical artwork, nature writing, and efforts in historic preservation. She committed herself to land conservation in the Amherst area, as well as in Florida and coastal Maine. She painted weeds in local plants. She wrote about the sunsets from her Amherst home and savored every moment of her wildlife. This exhibition calls us to be moved by Mabel's unabashed enthusiasm, unbridled love, and unquenchable activity for seeing beauty in the world. Finally, we should not ignore Mabel's role in civic life. She was a founder of the Mary Mattoon chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Amherst Woman's Club, as well as the Historical Society. She was an advocate of the landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, whom Austin Dickinson wanted to advise the town and Amherst College on landscaping matters. And in fact, the impact of that relationship still exists. Intellectually, she was accomplished. She was a fine musician. She wrote or edited a dozen books on literature, astronomy, and travel, as well as edited Emily Dickinson's poetry. In short, she was an important local figure and her paintings are certainly deserving of recognition and preservation. And are there any questions? Oh, dear. Well, I took the time to go to the museum to see the paintings. They were quite impressive. For some reason, I thought there were three, but there are five. They're certainly quite colorful. I have to say that upper room there is kind of like going into somebody's attic. Yes. Which is always fun to explore. I had never in all my years actually entered that building, even though I've been in Amherst most of my life. Yeah. I think it's great to try. When we open up in the spring, it's evident that we have a lot of work to do to get the community into our building. And I think one of the things we'll try to do is to invite groups of people, whether it's a church group or members of town, government, other social organizations. We just need to get people in. And the Mabel Lumistad exhibition will be the major one next summer. Yeah. No, it's a great building with cool things to look at. And I saw the. Bridges family exhibit. Some of those people in the photos grew up down. Down there where I grew up in Amherst. It's really something to see for anyone who has not questions. I see Andy. I believe you had your hand up first. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for the presentation. Getting that extra context. Yeah. So my question and apologies if I missed an email or I'm looking into out of date file, but when I'm looking at it says you're requesting 16,450, which looks like the cost from your estimate just to restore Holly Hawks. No, no, that's the total of all the paintings. Okay. The individual sheets talk about. Okay. They. I mean, I looked through them again today and I think that. Okay. That was my question. Thanks. Oh, I see one. Yeah, right above the. Total estimated cost, but that's the total for all of them. Yeah. That's, that's what it is. Thanks for clarifying. That would be very pricey. Matt. Yeah, I have two very short questions. So the exhibition is in summer of 23. Is that correct? Right. Yeah. So as I suspected, this is actually an off cycle request because, but it's not, not a big deal. So you need the money like now basically. Or soon before spring. If we could, that would be fabulous. Yes. But before spring by early spring at the latest. Well, we can phase them in. We can start working on them until July 1st. And as soon as, and as soon as I hear that we have the funds. He will. Commit as much time as possible to working on these. Okay. We could get you the money off cycle earlier. That would be better for you. Oh, it'd be fabulous. Right. Okay. My second, my second question. Has the, has the museum been open since COVID? Yes. Or is this like, oh, okay. But this is kind of like. Okay. But, but this is sort of part of a, as you sort of alluded to, sort of a relaunch to. Increase attention in the museum and interest in the museum. Absolutely. Okay. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think he's a lot of people are interested in the museum and interest in the museum. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. We had. Visiting curator last summer, Diana, Lampel. I've been in the research library museum world for decades. And she is just singular in her. Intelligence. Ceaseless. Good ideas, turned the board into a very different direction than it was following, let's say, five years ago. And we're going to be trying, we're trying to be very active in our efforts. We want to try to bring back visits from schoolchildren. Any of you who grew up in Amherst probably visited the museum when you were in third or fifth grade or something. And those visits stopped largely because of the busing costs and other issues, but we're really pretty committed to reinvigorating that program. And as I say, just being more open, trying to get a larger volunteer base to keep the museum open more hours per week. Right now, we're a very small board and we have no paid staff. So it's pretty difficult, but we're working on it. Certainly a wonderful location, very easily accessible. To follow up on Matt's question, if I heard you correctly, there's some flexibility with Michael's and galleries regarding your payment time period, even if it's after July, that as long as they know, at my assumption, correct me if I'm wrong, as long as they know the funds are coming, they're able to proceed, although you would much prefer earlier if possible. Oh, dear, this past fall, I, Ben Brigger made it. We started working on a current project without a signed contract.  Now, I leave this up to you. I mean, if contract with the town or contract with contract with the town. Okay. So which is something kind of new. I mean, I used to be the board chair and presented to other CPAC committees and I've never heard about contracts. I was clueless. So if does that sound right to you, Sonia? Yeah, it's not really a grant agreement. Yeah, it's an agreement between the grantee and the town, stating that you agree to all the restrictions that that would be put on this when you accept the money that you and other and whatever specific to the projects. So it's, it's not huge contract, but it's probably a one or two is but the contract would not necessarily be time dependent. That is say the contract could be signed, even though the funds may be processed at a later date. Is that correct? Well, if we're talking about fiscal year 24, it's fiscal year 24. So it starts July could be signed prior to fiscal year 24. They can get it ready. Yes. Oh, great. I mean, I'm sure Michelson's would, you know, be happy to start in May and wait until July for payment. You can't start the work. Well, it depends for fiscal year 24. You cannot start the work before July 1st. If you if you do part of the work in June, we will not be able to reimburse you for that work. That's my understanding. Right. It really doesn't matter unless we do it off cycle as Matt was suggesting. Yeah. Okay. Well, if you can do it off cycle, or if you could use funds that are held over from this year, maybe that would work. Yeah, that's what we mean by off cycle. Oh, okay. Thank you. Any other question? I guess I have a question. We receive and Robin, you might be able to assist with this. We received the letters today from the Amherst Historical Commission regarding the different projects. And this one also received a letter from the pair of the historical commission strongly in favor of it. But I'm curious, are these and or any, you know, are these recognized in the Massachusetts Historical Society of any, you know, is there any like formal recognition that occurs with paintings such as these? Think that the paintings would not be part of the system called macros, which is building structures and objects, those are all external items. But the requirement for CPA is simply that the Historical Commission confirm that they are significant historical resource of the town. And we've done that with, in the case of the Jones Library, the significant historical resource there is the archives themselves materials in the archive. So it's perfectly aligned with CPA standards. I guess kind of a nonsensical question. Do you have a favorite painting of the five? I love the Holly Hawks. Holly Hawks. Yeah. And the fact that I don't know, research is a funny thing. And Diana Limpel had read the book on Mabel and Austin. And she noted in one of her texts for the for the painting, that it had been on loan to Emily Dickinson. And I thought, wow, that's that's just incredible. And I thought, well, I better verify this, because that's what I do. So I open up the book by Polly Longsworth on Mabel and Austin. And I literally opened up to the page, mentioning that painting. So that's my favorite painting. So one other question, I looked at them and I saw different degrees of work needed on them. So I seem to have some some damage on the primary portion of the paintings. Do you can you describe how they might repair? Well, something like that. Yeah, the painting that's in the worst condition is the the long horizontal panel of the iris. But the part that's badly damaged is the lower portion. And they can do some in painting, they use a water soluble paint, in case anybody wants. And it'll mean that's, you know, it'll work out very nicely. If that had been a portion of the painting that had a lot of little details or, you know, figures or small things, then it would be very difficult. The other one that looks in terrible shape is the wisteria. And that's kind of fun, because we've got a beautiful wisteria plant at the Historical Society. And that the surface on that is just simply really dirty, according to the conservator at Michelson's galleries. So that'll clean up very nicely. I had just a little tiny bit of training and painting conservation. And it's amazing what even just a little touch of water and a little bit of special detergent, don't use your ivory or Dawn on it. But it's amazing what, you know, just very minute solvents can do getting getting surface paint off that one I thought was beyond repair, but he said no, they'll make it look nice again. But yeah, they're quite varied. Any additional questions or comments from committee members? Yeah, you might wonder why we didn't get multiple quotes and bids. But frankly, the paintings are so fragile that traveling across the Commonwealth from Boston to Williamstown didn't make sense. And the Williamstown Art Conservation Center is the finest in the Northeast. But had we had them do condition reports and estimates, and if we didn't get funding, we'd be liable for several thousand dollars. And we just couldn't take that chance. But Michelson's will do a good job. And they've done other paintings owned by the Historical Society. And so they're certainly vibrant in color. Yeah. And they're large. Yes. Yes. So I don't think there are any other questions or comments from the panel. If you have any last comments yourself, usually. No, I think I've said enough. I've had more than my share of time. Thank you to the other people who couldn't appear yet. Well, great. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain the proposal further to us. Well, and thank you all for taking so much time out of your lives. I know it's a lot of work and effort. So good luck. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, bye bye. Bye. So I don't know if this next presenter is ready or not since we are ahead of schedule. The next one in our cycle, which is scheduled for seven o'clock would be the Dickinson farmhouse roof and restoration. I do see Rebecca Frick in the audience. Although I don't know if you're hearing us or not Rebecca. I'm promoting her now. Yes, I'm here. Wonderful. Would you be able to present at this time? Or do you need a little bit more time? Can you hear us? I cannot hear Rebecca. Okay. When I was invited in, you all disappeared for a few seconds. So here I am. Hi, everyone. So what would this time work for you? Yes, I got on early and saw Gigi and then I thought, oh, no. So here I am. Well, the option's yours, but I see a hand up, Robin. Is that correct? Yeah, just and I just want to apologize to everybody. My historical commission meetings were always at 630. So I was perfectly on time for the historical commission, but I was late for this meeting. So my apologies. Madeline Helmers going to be the presenter for the barn's proposal and she is here. So I just wanted to put that out there. Okay. Well, we have invited Rebecca to present. So I say let's stay with that and then we can consider adjusting thereafter. So the floor is yours. Okay. I should have asked this ahead of time. Would it be helpful for me to share my slides? I think you've seen them. How would you like to do this? Whatever you feel is best. Okay, you decide. I'll put the slides up because I assume it's not just you watching this. And first, I'd like to say thank you to all of you. I know you have some tough decisions coming up this year. Let's see. Can I share my screen? I think so. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the Dickinson Farmhouse is on the grounds of Wildwood Cemetery and we're at 70 Strong Street. You can see it's a very large parcel. We actually have two different parcels and the cemetery office is in the Dickinson Farmhouse and has been there for a very long time. It's sort of nice that we followed the Amherst Historical Society because the names are all similar. Austin Dickinson was one of the major people to set the cemetery up. He saw that West Cemetery was filling up and he and what I call the street name families worked on purchasing this land. And at some point, pretty quickly, he convinced his cousin, Fidelia Dickinson, who was married to his cousin, to donate the house and the house we think was built in the late 1700s, 1790s. Okay. So we consider Wildwood a local historic resource. We have some century trees, quite a few that we're trying to keep healthy and providing shade. We have monuments of all shapes and sizes, representing native stone materials and non native. And we have quite a few notable people and I say that with I'm a little hesitant to say that because I think everybody's notable but there are a lot of very important people who are buried at Wildwood. And we have been a non denominational welcoming place from the start. What happened was that so Austin saw the West Cemetery filling up and he said, let's do this. And he tried to get Frederick Law instead to help with the planning of the cemetery and Olmstead wrote back and said, I'm too busy. I'm sorry. But here are my, my latest articles on the rural cemetery movement. And he provided a long list of native plants that he recommended. And he had very definite opinions about how the monuments should be. And as with a lot of Olmstead's projects, the people in Amherst sort of took what they wanted and didn't pay attention to some of his other ideas. But the Olmstead firm came back, well, came about 10 years later to see the grounds and I have that report in my files. So what's happening with this house? As you can, if I know that some of you visited, it has been worked on over the years, you know, we have new windows, we have wheelchair accessible ramp on the back. The roof has been replaced multiple times right now, there's a tin roof on. And the chimney and the mortar is all of that needs attention. When I met with the Historical Society, they, they said, well, that's a very large number you're coming to us with. And they suggested that I break the project up. So I for this ask, I am asking for the roof and the chimneys. And I know some some of you asked if we could break it down further. And so if that would be the case, then I would just ask for the roof. We should start there. And then we can do the brick and mortar at a later date. And we did ask for, we asked a few companies to come, we chose one that was super responsive. And they do this composite slate that looks very similar to the tin roof that we have and could actually be the modern day equivalent of what was underneath. We're not sure what was what was originally used. It could have been shake, cedar shake or or slate. We do intend we do hope to do a snow retention system. And the crown molding needs to be replaced. Right now, I have a woodpecker, who's managed to make quite the hole in the molding that we just replaced with wood. So we're talking about using composite material. Whoops. I don't want that. Sorry. There we go. Here's some pictures. We did have new insulation put in, because the building is extremely drafty. And we were hoping to help the upstairs apartment. And the insulation that we did have there was disgusting. So we did put in new insulation. And we put in some new flooring so we could walk over the thick layer of insulation. And in the process, we really, we found these cracks around the chimneys and leaking happening along the the walls. And you've seen the budget. In this budget, we do have the masonry and the roof combined. And the thought was that we could use the staging for both projects. And Wildwood does operate for such a large place. We do operate on a pretty limited budget. But we thought we could put in 5%. And we have a renewed commitment to building our buildings, we're building a new garage, which is a huge project. And we're trying to do a lot of deferred maintenance. And we've been doing that for the past three years. We're in the process of setting up a 501 seat three. And we've been doing green burials since 2014. And I would like to expand that idea. And we're hoping to put in more pollinator friendly landscaping. And we're really encouraging the public to come and use the grounds for quiet recreation and and walks. It's a pretty safe place to walk. We do have an outer trail that runs about three miles that hooks up with town conservation land. We have burders coming through. We have the cross country running team from the high school. We have the preschool from right next to Wildwood. We have Wildwood school classes coming over to the pond area. And I first, I hope that in the near future, we will start doing some public, historic and environmental programming for people. So that will stop sharing and take your questions. Does anyone in the committee I see, Michelle, your hand is up. Sorry if this is in all the information packets. I was wondering if all four chimneys were functional still? They're, they've all all the fireplaces have been boarded up. There's one that was open when I was hired and they sealed that up because it was just an empty, you know, open space to the sky. But the, as I said, this building has been used for as the office and it has the apartment upstairs. So it has been it has been changed a lot from the original way it was being used. So no, we do have to keep them though the right height. That's just that I think the option is to either take them off completely, or keep them at the height of I forget how many feet over the roof, which we intend to do to maintain the look. Katie. Rebecca, thank you so much. I appreciate the presentation and the proposal itself. I did have a question. You responded to all of our questions. Thank you very much. But I wasn't sure maybe you're, I don't know if it's Sonya or someone else to answer this. And if I missed it, I apologize, but it was about the removal of chimneys being in compliance with CPA requirements or, you know, adjustments to chimneys. And so I didn't know. I'm, I'm just wanted to get understanding I understand the need for all of what you've described, but I wasn't sure about how it applies to our CPA requirements, because I don't know those well enough. So Robin, you might answer or Sonya. Yeah, that was actually my question. It has to do with the the secretary, the CPA, legislation requires alignment with the secretary of the Interior Standards for preservation and rehabilitation. And there are 10 standards. I've been studying them in school. One of the requirements is that all original materials, if they can be be repaired or be reused, should be should not be replaced with new materials. So that was my that was my it was more a question. And this gets to the issue of the roof material as well. I'm not yet a preservation consultant who could speak on these issues. But I know that I'm not sure how the town is working to set up the confirmation of just that requirement. But that was just a question related to that to make sure basically the scope of the scope of work needs to be reviewed by somebody familiar with familiar enough with the standards and a professional capacity to make sure that there's no work being done that doesn't align with them. So that was that was the nature of my question. That answer your question, Katie. Well, it sounds like it's a still an outstanding question to be answered. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, it's an outstanding question for the town. So I'll just hand it over to Sonya if she wants to address it or we can discuss it later. Yeah, I'm not the expert on that either. I was referred to the coalition to the CPA coalition or to the department of revenue. So we can do that. Somebody did ask me about this roof and I think it is the exact same style that the Jones library is going to be using because it looks, you know, it looks right. And in terms of the bricks, I think the Mason we chose was very, he was very proud of of reusing as much of the material as possible and doing the masonry exactly like it had been done. He was really impressed with the way I mean, he was going into so much detail. It was pretty cool to hear how the bricks are layered inside and and facing in different directions. So I think he's quite confident. Great. Thank you. I just I just want to clarify that I don't believe, as of this point, that the Jones library is using CPA funding for the roofing. So yeah, I just want to find that. So Rebecca, thank you for presentation information and for submitting a proposal. And I know you alluded to what you think might have been the roof materials initially. I'm wondering if anyone has actually sought to thoroughly research that to try and identify what was there at the time? Were there any photos? You know, might there be some location where something can be found? I have most of the photos and I don't I would have to go through them again. I don't think I have any from those early, you know, as early as you can get. The tin is obviously not the original and it has it might just not have any of the older stuff because the the boards that you can see on the attic inside the attic are the original ones. And then you have like bad plywood above that. And then the tin another question I have for you is there's been reference to the new maintenance building that's being built. And I'm wondering how the group decided to prioritize the maintenance building over the existing roof. Yeah, that we have needed a garage since I think about 1950 it was first mentioned in the cemetery reports. We are doing more business than we used to. And our ground superintendent is on site now, you know, 40 hours a week or more probably. And his his space his office space is in the basement.  It was really inhumane to have people down there and also our equipment, you know, any electronic equipment stored down there, it was not going to last. And when I came on board four years ago, I just said, All right, we have to do this, you know, and also we have more of the digging equipment because we are an operating cemetery on site. We used to contract out and now we have all of those big pieces of equipment that are sitting outside. We are also doing more burials than ever before and that and we do burials all year round. And it gets very tricky in the winter because if you dig a grave, and you have the soil sitting in the pickup in the truck, it freezes. So now we can put it into the garage and not have that issue, we could keep it at garage temperature. So there were a lot of different reasons why we had to do that first. But the roof is leaking currently. It's we've sealed it up with caulk, but it's not a permanent situation. It's not a good permanent situation. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Robin, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I just wanted to ask you mentioned that you might be able to, if absolutely necessary, you might be able to split the project into two phases. Do you know what impact that would have on the total cost? Well, the roofer said that it wasn't going to change his cost. And I didn't I didn't ask the Mason because then we're talking about, you know, two years from now instead of the next year. Yeah.  Right. I mean, I just know if it's, you know, $5,000 or $15,000. Yeah, I don't know. I could find that out. Although I think they would be hesitant to tell me. Oh, okay. Yeah, just because we're so we're now projecting into the future. Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's, that's an issue that's rising and questions that we have for most all of our presenters are back. And we made in the future, because we have requests that are significantly greater than the budgets that we have. And we may inquire of all relating to can things be delayed and what could be done with a lesser right. Right. And that's a recurring theme that's that exists here. Do any committee members have any further comments or questions or Rebecca, at this time, we may have questions at a later point that we would email. Yeah, that's fine. And do you have any met? Yeah, I just wanted to just make the point in the Mason's quote, there was a $15,000 quote for removing the chimneys all together. But I guess it's still outstanding as to like, what, whether that would qualify for CPA funding or not. Yeah, and we really don't want to remove the chimneys. Why? Just because it's, you know, it's that the look that it's had since the beginning. Okay, but so many things have changed. Yes, that's true. That's true. It's hard to hold the line there. Robin. Yeah. I mean, I can say that removing the chimney chimneys absolutely would would be not being in alignment with the Secretary's standards to remove historical material that's existing is big. No, no. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Do you have any further comments for for us, Rebecca? No, just thank you all. You have some really tough decisions ahead. It's a big year. I was shocked when I saw how many of the projects were were here. So good luck. And thank you. So just remind me of the process going forward. We will continue to hear all of the presentations. We have more scheduled for next week. Thereafter, the committee will begin to deliberate based on various criteria. And at some point, as we go week to week, we will arrive at what we will determine to be a slate for funding. And we will then have votes upon that generate presentations and present it to the town council. Anything that we don't approve the town council can't grant funds for. But whatever we approve, we are recommending it to the town council. And then they must actually authorize the funding. Once the fundings, once the granting of the awards are approved, then there's a contracting process that Sonia and others might know more about than we would on the committee. And the cycle for the award is based on the fiscal year that's associated with. So our determination process will be occurring. I expect over the course of the next month. But we may have some questions for you and other presenters depending on what the committee comes up with. All right. So would it I guess my next question is, would it be helpful if I found out how much the staging is so that I know, you know, how much we would be saving if we combined the roof and the masonry? Any information would be helpful. Okay. More information is better than less, particularly if it's specific to something you're inquiring about. Okay. All right. You're, you're welcome to provide it right up to the time that we're voting a little bit sooner than better. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Bye. Good night. So Robin, there was a question or a comment in the chat that Madeline did indicate she was ready to present. And since that presentation was scheduled for earlier, she indicated she was ready at the 630 timeframe, we didn't realize that she would have been the individual. So I think that your comment and suggestion to have her present now makes sense, given that the preserving Zion Church at 715, so we, you know, Madeline has been waiting longer. So if you're able, Sonia, to bring Madeline in, Madeline, hopefully you can hear us. And we'd be glad to listen. Hi, thanks for bringing me in. Hi, we can hear you. Hopefully you can hear us. Yes. Thank you for your patience as we flex the schedule at this time. Oh, no worries. We'd be glad to hear your presentation in the floor is yours. Yes. Okay. So my name is Madeline Helmer. I am presenting on behalf of the Historical Commission for funding to create a historic barn and outbuilding assessment program. So I'm just going to present a brief overview of the proposal which you've received, and then I'll provide some additional details. So this program would provide small grants to help with conditions assessments for historic barns and outbuildings in Amherst. The grant would offset the cost of hiring a qualified contractor to evaluate the condition of a historic barn and make recommendations for its care. The qualified contractor would prepare a report that prioritizes repairs and gives rough cost estimates. So with this information, owners can make informed decisions about their buildings repairs, whether they can preserve or apply for funding the building. And the conditions assessment would also serve as a public document, a record of the building that could be housed in a public online system such as Makris, which is Massachusetts State Historic Preservation's offices online system. And this recordation would also be useful to the Historical Commission if they're faced with requests for demolition, just to know what the issues are and what are the hurdles that need to be crossed. So Amherst barns and outbuildings are abundant, but they are at risk. Since 2017, the Historical Commission has received 21 requests for demolition of historic outbuildings in barns. Vermont and New Hampshire have programs for this type of grant, but Massachusetts does not. So there certainly is a need. And just to address some details to answer questions that we've received, the Historical Commission would maintain a list of recommended qualified contractors, just to recommend to private owners who are considering the program. And we propose a 50 50 matching program and this is an adjustment to the proposal. But we think that it would maybe create more just a better partnership with a with a property owner and more of an incentive to find a find a contractor and and only approach the grant if if there's a real need. But the we anticipate that an assessment would cost approximately 1000 to 1500 dollars. So a match 750. And it would be a first come first serve basis to avoid administrative burden and another application process and to allow for funds to be distributed at any time of the year. And we were asked whether we had an estimate of the cost for rehabbing or stabilizing a barn. And that's just really hard to say it's it's variable. But this assessment could just allow an owner to make informed decisions regarding the building's future. And the barn would not need to be visible from the right away in this program. But we're considering that it would still be pertinent because the condition assessment would be provided as a record of the building that's available to the public and it would serve as a documentation of of the resource. So that's all I have. I can answer questions. Tim. Yes, hi. Thank you very much. I have a question. If a barn is considered historic by whatever criteria and whatever organization, can a owner just tear it down? Or could they be prohibited from tearing it down? So the recently updated bylaws in Amherst require that a building over 75 years old needs to have needs to be brought forth to the historical question, I believe to be considered what they need to consider whether it's a historically significant building. I'm all new to this, so I'm kind of fumbling with the language, but if it's over 75. Any time if you need. Yeah, thanks, Robin. I just joined the Historical Commission a few months ago. And Madeline is doing us a favor by presenting this proposal, which I actually wrote on behalf of the Historical Commission. So since I'm on the committee, we thought it would be better for her to do the presentation. But in terms of demolition, yes, if there's a demolition request and the building is historically significant, then it would come before the Historical Commission and the Historical Commission would decide would have hold a public hearing and then decide whether or not to impose something called the demolition delay up to 12 months. The Historical Commission does not have the power to prevent demolition and perpetuity only with our biggest tool is a 12 month delay, but we sometimes impose delays to allow for other preservation efforts to come forward. Andy. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for pinch hitting here, Madeline. Great job and presentation. I have a couple of quick questions. So you said 21 requests for demolitions in the past five years or so. Does I guess does anybody have a sense whether getting this assessment, so essentially maybe knowing how how poor conditioning your barn is, would actually help to save the barn? Right, because ultimately it's that's the objective, right, is we want to use this to be able to save it. Does this actually help with that? And one of the reasons why I asked you is I noticed you expected a matching matching contribution, nominal matching contribution, but just, you know, they're essentially they'll get a statement saying how bad it is, right, and how much it's going to cost. But if they don't necessarily have access to funds or grants to repair it, I guess what what good will this end up serving? Well, I think so it's sort of it creates kind of a clear sort of understanding of what needs to be what needs to be done and what are the costs? And what are the sort of levels of intervention that you could do? Maybe what would it cost to just stabilize the structure, etc. And I think that would allow perhaps an application to further CPA funding or or other types of grants that are available for historic buildings. Okay, so maybe it's maybe the barn owner thinks it's really bad. It's actually maybe not as bad as they think after getting the assessment. And it's perhaps a nominal enough money that they could go to CTAC. And I mean, these are just these are often just buildings that are that are neglected and an owner doesn't really know where to start, you know, and sometimes it seems easier just to knock the thing down rather than really put some money into assessing the structural repairs. So this would be to sort of make that more available. Okay, and then one other question, I'm not sure if you know the answer to this, but do you have a sense of how many historic barns there are in Amherst that might benefit from this group? What do you think, Robin? So let's start looking for them. They're everywhere. I see them. I don't know whether I don't know whether it's 100 or 500 or 50, you know, lots there. Yeah, yeah, I would guess over at least over 100. I mean, when I started driving around town, I mean, it couldn't stop to take the pictures for the proposal. I couldn't stop for all of them. It really is surprising. I was just going to add a couple of things. One is that I think I put in a proposal that we would structure the program to wave the fee for those coming before us for demolition purposes. Since there's already an incentive there to tear the building down, we would want to allow the program to fund a an assessment because in addition to assessing repairs and stabilization and possible rehabilitation, it would also be these are timber framing experts who would be providing historical data on the building. They'd write a report that would include information on the structure generally when it was built, what it was used for, how it was modified over time. So there's sort of three different prongs like that becomes this information that can be used to populate an inventory form in Makris to update the historic inventory in Makris is a central responsibility of the historical commission. So that we're promoting that effort by implementing this program. And then it would be to get an assessment of a building that's facing demolition so that if it is demolished with a record of it and then for property owners to have a building like this on their property who think that they might like to rehab it or stabilize it or repurpose it in some way, this would give them the first step going forward. And like Madeline said, they could conceivably apply for CPA funds after that. There aren't really any extra preservation funds for private property owners. So that would be the only option. But some people might have their own funds too. But the idea would be to incentivize people with barns that are not falling down or barns and outbuildings that are not falling down, but you know, are there and they may have curiosity about them. And this would be an incentive for them to move that further so that if they wanted to repurpose the building, they'd be able to get some help making that first step. Yes, one super fast one also sandwiched. I may have already, you may have mentioned this Madeline, is historic greater than 75 years? Is that, that's where you, okay, thanks. Matt. Yeah, I'm just sort of trying to understand a little bit more concrete what's going on here. And maybe Robin is best to answer this question. So in the last, in the proposal it says in the last five years there were 21 requests for demolition. I just want to understand what actually happened roughly to those 21 requests for demolition. And then if you had this program in place, what would be, what do you anticipate would be different? I, let's see, I should, I think how many we did not put a demolition delay on any barn or outbuilding that I recall. I know there was one on the University of Massachusetts properties at the Renaissance Center. There was one up near the 163. So you think, you think basically most, almost all of those did get demolished? Yeah. Yep. Yep. I think they all demolished. There were no assessments done on any of those. Okay. So if this program was in place, what would you anticipate would have happened? The first thing would be that we would have offered or I think we would have the power to make a requirement within that 12 month period that an assessment be completed for any properties that we felt were particularly significant and that we wanted to document. Do you think that would have been half of them or less I would say that they, I mean, a good number of them. There were definitely some that we were pained to see demolished and we tried to find ways to at least repurpose the materials and that sort of thing. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is that the Historical Commission paid for a survey that was completed by the Pranger Valley Planning Commission of outbuildings in Amherst, which we have on file. And so that serves as an inventory for us to potentially contact those property owners to promote the program. So that along with the buildings that come before us for demolition, we would be proactively reaching out to property owners to let them know about the program in case they were interested in participating in it. And a final question. What? Oh, I actually, I think it's answered. Sorry. I was just going to ask what is your budget? Like you you have. Oh, sorry. No, that's that was not answered. So what resources does the Historical Commission currently have? Do you have any resources? No. Not for this purpose. No, I was just wondering if you would consider prioritizing buildings that were visible from the right of way just for, you know, prioritizing community enjoyment. And I understand that might bump up your administrative cost a bit, but that's my question. I think as I thought through this and writing their proposal, the reason that we that we want to develop this program is to have funds off cycle. If we went to a prioritizing by public view, I mean, we could exclude buildings that are down in the public view that that would be an option. But if we were to prioritize that we would be in a situation where we would have to make it a grant cycle, we would have to get a bunch of applications. And then public view buildings would be prioritized and non-public view buildings would fall behind. We're just trying to avoid that so that we can provide the funds when the interest is expressed and make a program that's quicker and more efficient. And this is, you know, this is really kind of the pilot for this idea. But the Historical Commission has been talking about it for a number of years now, particularly with the barns and outbuildings that have come before us that have been demolished. Michelle? Oh, I'm sorry. You've already finished your question. Katie. Thanks, Sam. I'm just wondering, first of all, thank you, Madeleine. And I just wanted to understand. I think I understood that it was fifteen thousand dollars were requested for three a three year kind of pilot. Is that right? Right. So. First of all, I like that addition of the fifty fifty split for a lot of different reasons, you know, between the homeowner. And I'm just wondering if a pilot could be say six thousand dollars, which might get you, you know, six projects funded or something or more with the fifty fifty split if it and to sort of test out is this. Does it get a lot of traction?  Tell me a little bit more about why the three years and if since we have so much money requested if if a smaller amount could be piloted. Yeah, that's certainly valid, especially because there is such a demand for funding this year. We have discussed that it could be possible to have a lower amount and we would still be able to implement the program just so we would need kind of to reach a certain number in order for us to to have a pilot program. But I think we were thinking ten thousand would if we could drop it just five K to to do a ten K program if that's if that's necessary and we would still be able to kind of have it be a working program. Thank you. I just want to remind the committee we're running a bit over here. So if there are further questions, if we can try and keep them quick, Tim, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I should have removed the hand. I had the same question as Katie. So I have a quick question if the 50 50 split that alludes to the fees being for the appraisal being split between the applicants and the historical commission. Is that correct? Correct. OK. And I guess this might be for Robin. Might this be considered administrative expenses? Is the concept since we're now OK, I'm trying to I'm trying to identify I know. What's the word qualification purposes? Yeah, you know, I floated creating anything, but we are yeah, gaining administrative purposes for the purposes of decision making. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, no, I actually I floated it as that at the at the historical commission and Ben suggested that after talking, I think after talking to other staff that I put in a proposal. So we're in favor of it either way. So any other immediate questions for the committee? We do have the opportunity to ask them at a later point in time. I don't see any any final words from you, Madeline or Robin. No, none for me. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for patiently waiting in the audience. I appreciate it. Our next proposal is the Preserving Zion Church. North Amherst, Sonia, can you are you able to enter? I see Seekyong Pak, if I pronounce it correctly, I believe that's the individual. Let us know when you can hear us. See, I will say, please tell me how to pronounce it if I'm doing it incorrectly. We can see that you're here, but we can't see or hear you. Do you see anything related to microphones, Sonia? Yes. OK, I think you could. Can you hear us? We can hear and see you. So thank you for waiting. We ran a little bit over. I appreciate your taking the time to present and provide an information and for waiting. We will not curtail your time period based on the delayed start. So please proceed as planned. We're here to listen. The floor is yours. OK, thank you. I'm here with my pastor, Aaron Song and Conan Redo architect Chris Folly will be joining us. And before we begin, I'd like to thank the CPA committee for sending us 18 QA beforehand. So help us present our case, maximize at the same time, minimize any misunderstanding or confusion. So Chris Folly will join us at his home and CPA could ask, ask him relate to our project with the roof repair and structural engineer analysis. So if I think he's joining us, I don't see him yet. But I see, I see him in the attendees. Oh, it's just getting there is. OK, so maybe that committee will like to ask Chris Folly relate to our project first before we get to rest the question that we are giving. So if I understand correctly, you wouldn't want us to ask questions at this point in time, or do you wish for Chris to speak? Yes, Chris to speak on behalf with the related project. Wonderful. Thank you. And I hope I pronounced your name right. Chris, please go ahead. Well, greetings to the committee. Thank you very much for giving us some time to talk about the project. So we were retained by the Emersion Church gosh, six or eight weeks ago to do an assessment, a structural and architectural assessment of the existing roof structure and the surrounding roof trim, eaves and drainage gutters and downspouts for the for the building. We worked with a structural engineer GNCB from Connecticut. We did a site assessment. We did discover that the roof structure was really in in in overall in in quite good condition, except for a couple of specific areas where it appeared as though there had been some water infiltration into the into the the attic space and that there were two structural members, structural Perlins that had been compromised and then had caused the roof to sag a bit and that further exacerbated the the infiltration of air and water into the building. I know that the Emersion Church had a I guess I would call it a flood into the into the basement portion of the building that I think was at least in in part due to the fact that the the roof had sagged, the the gutter had sagged and therefore it wasn't working correctly. So so we did an assessment and as I said, discovered that a couple of Perlins need to be replaced. There are several sections of the the Eve trim, the the crown moldings, the soffits, the facias, the freeze boards that need to be replaced. They've also been compromised and the gutter the gutter and downspout system needs to be repaired and in some places replaced and and the assessment that we did for the church was really focused solely on on those components. Those were the most pressing issues that we saw in terms of water infiltration and and damage and potential damage to the building. So we we prepared some simple drawings that I know the church used to get some budget estimates for the work. We also had a report, a letter prepared by our structural engineer. And then I know Shikyong and the church approached numerous general contractors. I believe that at least in time for for for for this meeting, they were only able to get a response from from one of the contractors. But that's the that's the the the primary scope that that we saw as being imperative. The work really needs to be done or there's going to be a lot more damage to the building, not only the exterior, but also the interior as well, if that water and the elements are allowed to to continue to get into the building. So I think our drawings and our structural report documented that. And I guess what I'd like to say is that Shikyong, I know that you had a number of other pieces of potential improvements that you had estimated. I'm not sure if you're all if you're including that with the features, the repairs that need to be done or if that's a separate separate piece. So maybe I would ask you to speak to that. I will after you finish. I will give a CPA explanation why I was giving CPA that large sums of money without specific details. So I would link to them. OK, so in terms of an explanation of I think of the the immediate work that needs to be done, I think I'm my my part of the presentation is complete at this point. Thank you, Chris. Can I take Robin, go ahead. Sorry, I just want to say sorry, I apologize. I just wanted to catch Chris before in case she was going to log off. I just wanted to clarify what if you could give a professional a sense of what what timeline this work needs to be done on CPA usually operates on the fiscal year basis where funds of where work can't start until July 1st and funds are available until July 1st. Obviously, we have a lot of wet weather and snowy weather in between then and now we do have funds and reserve. So if you could weigh in on if it's possible to weigh in on a professional opinion on the timing of when the work should be completed by to prevent further damage that would be really helpful. Sure. So on the south side of the building that that piece of structural work and and roof trim work, that's really the most imperative. Ideally, in my opinion, that work should be done immediately. There is a similar scope of work on the north side, but the deterioration isn't quite as great. And I don't think the danger is as immediate. I do think that there are some steps that could be taken to to stabilize the the portion of the roof that's been damaged and the structure perhaps over the winter until spring. But but in my opinion, it should be done as soon as as practical. The work should be done. Thank you, Chris. Sikyung, you were going to be speaking. OK, when I chose to submit the CPA application by September 30th, we didn't have all the specific details as far as how much project total cost. So in the meantime, that Peter Ham was from historical preservation association, he came out to our church and looked at it. And so he give us rough estimate of six hundred and fifty nine thousand dollars with the staging, repair roofing and painting. Reason that he put a painting is I thought a sense that they're going to set up the staging to the repair roof. I thought I'd kill one, you know, two birds in a one stone that need a pain when if we do the painting, we have to do the staging at the same time. So that's that's why I asked them to give us a painting estimate, too. It's not his fault that he put that on. I asked them because that when we were preparing CPA application, in one of the questions says, list all the exterior work that we like to have done. So that's why we put it there. But now that Chris just mentioned, they're focused on roof repair and structural engineering aspect. So cost will be a reduce from what we were asking. That was just estimate what we had. That's the only thing we had. And the director of the CPA sent me the email asked how much that we are seeking CPA. So we told them that it's have to be to be announced because we don't have all the necessary material to send it out to general contractors. So in the meantime, that they give us an estimate and director asked me send that rough estimate. So put a figure down. That's what happened. And now that we know what's what and historical commission asked us to prioritize what is needed. And Chris just mentioned the south side of the building is a needed work to be done before winter. So that have to be prioritized. But at this year, we are seeking only to based on the work rough draft from Chris Folly roof repair and structural replace repair replace. And that's so amount will be reduced quite a bit. And like I mentioned when we started that we got to this 18 question QA and we wrote down most of the question is our private funding. How are we going to come up with the private funding? I listed on a number seven that we have a twenty five to thirty congregation weekly attending. But in the meantime, we are started as fifty dollar committed construction fund. We started already. I know that's merely dropping a bucket where we are seeking to CPA. But then I have a list of five different things we're going to do plan on next spring with the mass Korean community golf tournament event where our Korean community from different church we help each other if something happened. So we are planning on next spring two thousand twenty three. Then those embers community event like a bake sale take sale and concert or things like that. Then we're going to ask our church of Nardering in New England District. We are the nomination is church of Nardering then also seeking central church of Nardering in Kansas. And we ask you CPA support too. So that's where the private funding will be coming. So Chris Folly give you his professional aspect what has been done. And our church what we're going to come up with our own private fund and that's yeah. Thank you, Sikyon, for talking about the project and alluding to some of the things that you are looking to do. We are slightly tight on time, but that's not going to prevent us from proceeding with some questions. I'd just like to remind committee members and also applicants just try to try to answer as quickly as possible and thoroughly. Matt, I see your hand up. Go ahead. Yeah. So thank you, Sikyon, for all your work trying to nail this down over the past month. So today we received a letter from the Historical Preservation Associates dated November 16th with a revised estimate of one hundred and fifty eight thousand seven hundred. Is that your revised request? Well, that have to be. I don't know exactly. We only have one estimate from general contractor. But I mean, is that that is that kind of the scope of the request now? So it's gone from six hundred and nine thousand. Yeah, yeah, down to down to. So now now the request is more like around one hundred and sixty thousand. Well, I would say about two hundred thousand. OK. Robin, your hand is up. Yep. I was curious if there are other estimates coming in. And I also had another question for Chris, if you can just clarify, is it necessary in order to stabilize the roof and keep it from leaking to proceed with the slate roof at this point? Or would it be possible just to tighten up the existing roof if if we needed more time to get more funding? So two questions. I guess the first one is for you, Sikyung, meaning are there more estimates coming? Yes. And we had a two general contractor. One just sent me an email he withdraw because he doesn't have enough manpower. So I call somebody else general contractor and we are planning on meeting after the Thanksgiving. I know it's timing is not on our side, but we are trying best we can with the committed situation. Chris, the second half of the question was related to the need to do the slate at this time or not. Did that essentially correct, Robin? OK, so I just based on my visual inspection of the roof, I think the the the vast majority of the roof just actually appears to be in good condition. And I think there could be some temporary temporary measures taken to button up the the the the breaches in the envelope, perhaps for the winter and then the work could be done in in in the spring and summer of next year. But but some amount of of temporary temporary work needs to happen to protect because there's there are open and open holes into the building. We saw a proposal that came to us today. That's a young regarding not the full roof, but a portion. I think Matt alluded to it somewhere around one hundred and sixty thousand or so. That was four portions. Is that I don't know if you saw that Chris or not. But is that what you're referring to, Chris, or are you referring to a smaller scale emergency fixing, for lack of a better term, a triage prior to the hundred and sixty. So so my understanding, I did see a copy of that proposal from Historic Preservation Associates. And my understanding is that's for the the full scope of the re roofing that's required, the woodwork that's required, the painting and structural work and all the associated scaffolding. So what I'm talking about for, you know, kind of emergency stabilization would be some I think quite a bit of a smaller portion to just protect the interior of the building, the structure until the the full scope of the repairs could be done. Probably certainly would be helpful to get information related to that. If it's an option on the table, given our budgeting situation and what the estimates for that might be as well. Andy, thank you for waiting. Thanks, Sam. And thanks for the presentation. I think my question is for Chris, if I make sure I understand the scope in your letter from the 22nd dimension, the architectural survey, the structural engineering, but I guess. Has any of that been done like you? Has your survey been completed? Is that something that's still being requested? I so my understanding, if I understand your question, so we, Cune Riddle has done an architectural assessment, a focused assessment of of the existing breaches in the envelope. We hired a consultant, a structural consultant, GNCB engineers to do specifically a structural assessment. And so both of those have been completed at this time. Those are all right. OK, very good. That was just my question. I'll just go. Thank you. Yeah, so this is for Cune. So obviously this is a historic building that is important in the town. And we don't want it to we want it to be maintained. I just have a general concern, you know, in comparison to the South Church, which in their proposal, they said that they have an annual maintenance budget of thirty five to fifty thousand, which is their annual budget for maintaining that they've, you know, been doing constantly and consistently. And they're not like a decade behind. So this their building is in pretty good shape and just the size and the scope of a historic building is going to require, you know, that kind of a range each year. So I just sort of going forward beyond this immediate fix, have a concern as to how how are you how are you going to get there? Well, compare Apple to Apple. We are nowhere near the South Congregation or Amherst Congregation Church. They're compared to us. They are mega church. They have a more congregation. Therefore, they have a more budget to maintain the building. Like I mentioned a while ago, our church is only twenty five to thirty people and small congregation. We've been stewardship this church only ten years. And we try our best to custodian role and whether we had a sixteen thousand dollar budget yearly and with that ninety five hundred goes to library entrance. So we made five, six thousand fifty five hundred dollar yearly. So we take care of that here and there, small job, whatever that is visible that we've been fixing and maintaining. I know it's concerned for CPA give us this grant and how we're going to maintain. We are going to do our best just like we have been. And now that we are aware of this visible repair needed with the deteriorating in aspect. So we try to set the budget a little more higher to maintain it as possible. So maybe that we don't have to come see CPA, not that soon. Maybe next year we have to come. But after that, we are trying to do our best with the giving our situation, giving our budget. So we try to stretch a little more set the budget higher than fifteen thousand dollar yearly. Thank you, I just have a quick comment. We're going to only have a couple of minutes here left. I just, aside from your project, just FYI, I was a contractor for 10 years, doing different types of work. And I saw the staging being referenced with an expense and a rental and the painting lessons as a painting contractor for 10 years. One comment, two comments that I have for anyone who's seeking large projects. It is very much in the organization that's paying to get the work done or the owners of the building. You get multiple estimates. And secondly, you'd be amazed at how efficient a bucket truck is in related, certainly for painting. I don't believe I ever use staging in 10 years. That's me. Other contractors might use it depending on the nature of the restoration work. But I'm just indicating it's worth. Pursuing all the different variables. OK, in your interest, particularly when finance is tight, I can't say what's best. But I do know that bucket trucks are phenomenal in terms of speed and efficiency. And I don't know if they're appropriate. I'm sure you have a lot of information on that, Chris. I just wanted to raise this as in a side. If it was my mom who's no longer with us, my grandmother, if it was my friend, anyone, I would make that recommendation to anyone. Check around and see what's up there. Sean, we're running real tight, but I see your hand is up. I'd like to invite you in for a quick comment if you're able. And then we're going to have to end here. Thank you, Sam. I just wanted to confirm, Sikyung. What is the amount of your request? I want to make sure that Sonia and I have it in the spreadsheet properly. I heard Matt say one number, but I see the quote. The total on the quote is for five hundred and sixty one thousand eight hundred and four. So I just want to make sure we get the right amount of the request down. Forget the five hundred sixty one thousand because that's not it. And we like to seek whatever needs to be done to repair and replace roof and structural. That's what that's what we are seeking with the base on what Chris Farley have done, his work and the structure engineer assessment. We submitted to a CPA, so maybe based on, you know, give us whatever is support us, then we'll be great. For recommendation is that you might just have a short note that would clarify what you just said to reference what you believe is an appropriate amount given the changes and perhaps even something that might take into account what Chris had alluded as another option. So Robin, do you have something very quick? We can't hear you. You're on mute, Robin. There we go. Yeah, I'm just looking at the I'm looking at the letter that we received. Let's see. This is from October 9th revised November 16th. There's a bolded line item that says project project total for roof repairs at Eve's only for plan and specifications one hundred and fifty eight thousand seven hundred, which includes a 15 percent contracting fee. That seems to be the grouping repair sub-total. That's helpful. It is helpful. And if there's any updates to that, and or Chris via Sikyung, please inform us in a timely manner. I'd like to thank you. I'm sorry that we're busy here, but it's certainly a complicated project. We understand that you've tried to put this together quickly. It's a difficult task. And there's certainly a lot that needs to get done on the building and some of it being pressing. It's certainly a historic building. Having said that, there's lots of questions to be managed. One would be what needs to get done immediately and what can get done for less. And the other question that seems to come up with a few folks is have you pursued as many avenues as you might to get really thorough cost estimates and alternatives of how to approach it? I think that's in everyone's interest, certainly in the owners of the building interest. We may communicate with you further at a later point in time. But thank you so much for your thorough amount of work that you've done to try to present the description to us. And even though it's ongoing, the description process because it's complicated and thank you for taking the time to present. Thank you, Chris, for your clarity and for your communication. We may have further questions before you go. Just two things. Thank you for the tips and another one we will do better next time. And thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much to the committee of you. Bye bye. Thank you so much. OK, so our next presenter who has been waiting patiently is the South Church. If we're able to bring in, excuse me, if we're able to bring in Stephen, maybe if I pronounce that correctly. And if there's anyone else that you want, Stephen, let us know, please. And thank you again for. Waiting here, so. We'll see who comes in. You hear some shot, Sonia, are you able to get? I see Stephen is in now. So can you please bring in Mike Schaefer and Mark Morasco? We're waiting for that. And by the way, Stephen, we will not. Make a panel issue for the time that started in your you're the last non non-town proposal. So we'd like to give you the opportunity to discuss thoroughly your. Well, I've timed it. I've timed it in its four minutes and forty eight seconds. Well, yeah, you're welcome to use the time as you. So thanks for the opportunity to speak to with the committee today. So my name's Steve, maybe, and I'm the current chair of the South Church Board of Trustees and Mark Morasco, who's on the call, is another member of the board and Mike Schaefer, who's the structural engineer with Huntley Associates. He's on the call as well. And rounding out our team is Matt Wilcox of Wilcox Builders, who's been helping us with developing cost estimates. So the South Church steeple, as shown on the left, has four sections, the barrel at the top, the belfry, the tower and the tower base. The bottom two sections have a wooden support structure for the tower walls and the roof upon which the bell says. The top two sections have a separate wooden support structure inside the tower and the tower base, which is the primary area where we're having problems. The pictures that show on the right are just a few examples of the issues that we are having in each of the four sections of the steeple from top to bottom. These are just examples. Number one is the barrel. There's significant water penetration and subsequent rot going on in the barrel. Number two is that we have rotting bell supports and deterioration of in the roof structure that supports the bell. Number three is deteriorated columns in the tower, which is part of the interior support system for the belfry and the barrel. And then number four is the crack beam that's in the tower base, which, again, is part of the support system for the belfry and the barrel. In addition, we're having a lot of issues with water penetration within the tower roof, the walls and at the gable roof connections. We've done a lot of attempts at patching over time and they haven't worked well for us. And I think the main point that where we're at now is that to keep using that kind of a band aid approach is counterproductive and we're just ending up spending dollars without really fixing the problem once and for all. So our goal right now is to remove and replace the barrel and belfry using a crane and rebuild them, remove the internal structural system that's supporting them and the walls of the tower and tower base, then rebuild the tower and tower base walls with shear walls and roof framing capable of supporting the new barrel and belfry when they're replaced and then address water penetration issues, especially where the roof line meets the tower and tower base. And I don't think I need to go through all this list in detail. Most of this was in our application, but our building remains a resource for the community today, just as it has been from the beginning. And we will continue to seek opportunities to make our building available to the community as a civic space. So to sum up and to update you on some of the answers to the questions that we submitted back in November 4th, we consider the project to be somewhat urgent and we're ready to go. We have initial plans. We have a contractor who's interested in doing the work, the timing works well for July 1 because this is definitely a summer project, not something that we really want to do in the winter. The funding that we're requesting will be used for complete restoration of the four sections, as I described previously. We've made or we can and will make every effort to limit the amount of money that we requested. I think we think we have a good budget. We did contact the Amherstion Church of the Nazarene as requested and offered to share our expertise and resources. However, we haven't yet really found any economies of scale or other sources of savings there. We have examined other sources of funding, but the timing is something that we're not sure fits our needs. The Mass Historical Commission Preservation Project Funds, the new round 29 is not up yet. It'll be up in December. But when you look at their detailed timeline, the typical start date for those is November, which is a bit late for a project that should be done in the summer. We also looked at the National Fund for Sacred Places. Again, their awards are not made until October. And then there's a period of consultation and technical assistance that actually can extend quite a few months beyond October. And I looked at their recent their last year, they had 305 letters of intent. They invited 30 congregations to file full applications. They awarded they awarded between 12 and 15. So it's five percent or less success rate. So it's it's a very, very competitive process. But the additional limitation to that particular funding source for us is that only after you've been accepted into the program, can you then raise funds either through private donations or through other grants. Only then can you raise those funds. So the CPA funding, if we were granted some funds, wouldn't necessarily qualify because it's before you would be accepted into the application, which in the program, which doesn't happen until October. So there's some issues there. But we do anticipate to provide at least 10 percent of the total construction costs. And we've already invested 15,000 in the project and have committed another 18,000 for design work. And you asked the question about funding this through our operating budget. It's really not possible. Pledging units are down and we're still recovering from the fallout of covid. But that's our that's our presentation. And we're certainly happy to entertain any questions and provide any more information that you need to make this work. Thanks very much. Thank you very much, Stephen. And I have to say I'm quite familiar with the church. I've been to many weddings there. As you well know, my grandparents were very active in the church and my cousins were married there. It was it's always nice to see what the church is doing. And I certainly can attest to the volume of community involvement and civic outreach from this church. I also wanted to comment that I love the photo that you put up because I drive by and see that photo. The image of the church and the steeple. And I've commented over the last three years to my daughter every morning when I drive to school, I'm like, Elizabeth, take a look at that steeple. And you can see the pitch. I don't know if it's been accelerating it on. I know there's been a lot of work done there, but it's really noticeable. And when I read the proposal and saw the references to being able to support the bell tower, supported or rather not supported by the cracks on the dome, it resonated with me, dare I say. So anyway, thank you very much for your presentation. That was my comment about the extent of the pitch that I can see when I drive by it every day. Like to open up the floor to questions from the committee. I saw Robin, your hand up first. So Robin, thank you for that presentation and particularly the feedback on other sources of funding. I just wanted to add that I don't have personal experience with this, but I know that when I was digging around, I was trying to develop a a data sheet of preservation funds that varied in the language on the not very easy to read mass preservation projects fund page. There's a statement that emergency stabilization funds are available off grant cycle. I know that they're challenging to get in touch with. And I don't know that your project would qualify for emergency stabilization funds, but it certainly looks like something that might feel part of the pangolin in that direction. So that might be just because we are so stretched in our CPA asks this year. And then it seems like in a couple of years prior to it would be worth an inquiry there to see if Mass Historic Commission could at least get back to you on that because that does seem to be something that they offer and would be helpful for the historical permission to know if that's a helpful avenue as well. We'll look into it. Tim, I believe your hand was up next. OK, sure. I'm just looking at the proposal and the project cost estimate that I saw was the two fifty nine to ten, which is equal to the request of the CPA committee. You said that you would cover 10 percent of the cost. So is the actual request 10 percent less of two fifty nine to ten? Now, that would be correct. So we need to revise our figure, correct? Yes. OK, I didn't do the math because I knew you were the accountant. You can. OK, thank you. Katie. Thanks, Sam, and thanks, Steven, for your presentation and the proposal. I had a follow up question of Tim's, which was I thought there were two. Estimates one was one ninety six. And I didn't know what the difference was between the two. And if I had the same questions, Tim, is like what was the actual amount that you were requesting? Yeah, I had one other small clarification. But if you want to answer that. Yeah, maybe Mike Schaefer can answer that one ninety six is the contractor's cost estimate and the others are a contingency and soft cost for engineering. OK, so the sixty thousand are those two pieces? Correct. OK. So the other question just for clarification, you had in your proposal mentioned the ten percent. You know, covering that portion and there was a reference to having already covered some costs and that there would be additional costs, you know, having to take on before July 1st. And so I wasn't sure. And also you mentioned that a portion of the 200th anniversary fund raising campaign would go to this. So I wasn't clear if what portion was which and if it was going to end up being more than the twenty five thousand. You had already spent some some money already. So I wasn't sure. The the 10 percent is we're anticipating would come from the 200th birthday campaign. The additional money that 15,000 and the 18,000 is not included. That's extra over and above the twenty five for the 10 percent. Thank you. Soft costs may be defined as soft, although they get paid with the same dollars. Although we. Yes, I don't think you did have a mark. Yes, we did have a question. I know you said in a prior presentation in your literature that you know, any costs from the CPA funding would have to be done after July 1st. However, because we're so eager to get going, we'd like to start the engineering work prior to that. If we were to spend money prior to that, could that be considered part of our match? I don't believe we're allowed to reimburse for funds already expended. But if it was our match, it wouldn't be the CPA funds. It would be our match of the total project. Well, yes, because then you could tell us verbally at this point in time before we deliberate that the amount of the match is actually less than you you could retract that matching amount. But we really love it to be more. Sure, but if I understand correctly, the essence of your question is that you're hoping to be able to all things being in a line and up properly, you'd like to start as soon as you can if I understand it correctly. Yeah, our goal would be to do some of the engineering and drawings, the soft costs ahead of time so that when July 1st hits, you know, if that portion is our part of our twenty five thousand dollars that we're saying we will match. Could we get that done ahead of July 1st and then, you know, start construction actually in the summertime? Is I correct in my response, Sonia? If it's private money, it's not under our purview. So as long as he's not spending CPA money or incurring costs for CPA money to be reimbursed, refined. Yeah, OK. Additional questions or comments from committee members on the project? When will you make your decisions or recommendations? So in case we want to come back to you with more information before you make your decisions. Well, a couple things in context. We meet every year, every year there are funds taken out of the town that are part of the tax dollars that are contributed to CPA and typically matched by a state amount that were available for spending through all our different projects. We never know exactly what that's going to be. But it's average, I don't know, million point two. I'm just guessing. So every year we come, but we don't know what projects will be in front of us. For example, this year there's a ton and that may be something that continues. We don't know. But in terms of this site, we have a number of other presentations yet to hear and we currently have presentation scheduled for December 1st. Thereafter, we begin our process of discussions. We typically have been able to come to determinations over the course of a couple of weeks, that is to say a couple of meetings. This year might be more difficult. We don't I'm not going to commit to that because we want to be thorough in our process. There's a lot for us to consider. But that during my last three years has been the case that we've been able to come to resolution in that time frame, but it could be a bit longer. We may have some additional questions for any of the applicants, in which case we would email them. The process, once we as a committee generate our recommendations for funding of various projects and vote on it and approve it, is we then presented to the town council. The town council is the ultimate decision maker on whether or not to allocate the funds. They can't allocate funds to things we have not as a committee recommended so they can't exceed our recommendations, nor can they alter our recommendations in terms of switching which project we might go to. But nothing gets funded without the town council's final authorization. Once that occurs, then it goes to the town. I guess I would say procurement office contracting group for lack of a better term who then generate the grants and the specific details for historic preservation. There's apt to be some caveats or some items tied to the maintenance and or historic preservation restrictions, potentially, which is one of the questions. But that's the general process. One after Thanksgiving, we'll have one more presentation meeting. Then we'll start to literally delivery for the next two Thursdays, maybe three come to a resolution, then go to town council, typical in January. But once we've made the recommendation, that's a good indicator that it's apt to proceed. But it really depends on the council's final authorization. So I just want to chime in and say there's an annual public hearing that we have every year and it's going to be December 8th. So if you have supporters or something that want to come to the public hearing and voice their support or be there to answer any more questions, that's a good time to come in and advocate for your. Should we resubmit our request and subtract off the 10 percent from that number? You can or I can. OK, all right. There would not be any negative, or at least I don't believe the committee would have any negative mindset towards a more precise application. OK, thank you. Other members comments. Well, apparently the proposal is very thorough and informative. It's I particularly like the photos of the the clarity of the photos inside, so in the damages to the beams is you can see exactly what's there. So we may or may not have further questions for you. Thank you so much for coming to us and for such a very thorough and well, in my opinion, well researched proposal. Proposal certainly as many of the projects are very important building and we will go through our processes and we may or may not reach out with additional questions in the meantime.  Thank you for the work you do. I appreciate it. Thanks very much. Thank you, all of you. Thank you. So this is a longer meeting than we anticipated. I've let a couple of the presentations go on longer than on time ones just because I felt it was the most efficient use of our time to let them verify what they were asking. We have not as of yet dealt with the very first presentation, which I assume was Bob Berger, who's no Berger, who's no longer here. But I do see days in the audience. And if Dave is able to present on that project, that would be great. This is Dave. Sure. Nice to see you all. Good evening. I know your meeting is running late, so I'm going to be very, very brief here. And I apologize. I was coming from another meeting tonight. Normally, this would be one of my staff presenting Ben Breger, who has worked for a couple of years with the Historical Commission and done a wonderful job. I recently got a new job, so Ben has moved on. So I am pinch hitting here tonight. I may not have all the answers for you, but I know you have a number of meetings coming up. So if we don't have all the answers, we will get them for you. But essentially, I think the proposal that was put forth by staff, Ben, in particular, with the support of the Historical Commission and certainly with my support was for twenty thousand dollars for legal legal funds to help with the preparation and the writing and the coordination of historic preservation restrictions. These are the restrictions that are required. And I know you're talking about you've just, you know, I've listened to a number of presentations tonight on on his potential historic preservation projects. I actually didn't hear HPRs come up, but I believe all of those application applicants who have asked for funding for the two churches and the building in the Wildwood Cemetery have been asked if they would accept historic preservation restrictions on their buildings. It is a requirement of the CPA, and this is something that typically falls to staff to do. And we have historically, historically, we it has been our practice to work with Town Council, Town Attorney, I'm sorry, to to do these restrictions. It is very time consuming. Each one is unique. There's a lot of research that goes into them. My staff can do some of that research, but ultimately it comes down to often lawyers talking and writing with other lawyers from the applicant, be it a church, be it a building on Main Street, be it the Women's Club, the UU, et cetera, et cetera. These often get bogged down because we just don't have the the time to work on them. And that can create challenges because once the town has given money to a project, we want to get that historic preservation restriction on the building as soon as possible. So it's a fairly straightforward proposal. Twenty thousand dollars. Ben Brager and Nate Malloy from my staff estimated that's probably would get us, you know, two to four HBRs on those properties. Robin may be able to speak more to this because I know Ben and Nate spoke with the Historical Commission about it. But the bottom line is we need to kind of break the log jam here and get some of these done. I will say and Sonya or Sean may be able to speak to this but in the past, these funds have simply come from the town. So we're engaging town attorney and these projects are essentially being picked up. The cost of the legal time is being picked up by the town. It makes sense to a lot of us that because these are associated with historic preservation projects, there really should be some funds coming from CPAC to do this. I don't know whether it would be in particular through through the historical line or through the administrative line. Sonya or Sean could speak to that more specifically. I think Ben Ben answered all of your questions. I'm happy to take any more of your questions. If I can answer them, I will. I work with I have worked with Ben and with Nate on these through the years. And as I said, they are very time consuming and with any legal document, the devil is really in the details. And there's a lot of back and forth between the entities between the town and also between ultimately mass historic as to review these. And that takes a tremendous amount of time and back and forth as well. So I'll stop there and take any of your questions. And I'll do the best I can if if you have them. Thank you, Dave, just another busy, busy day for you. For all of us. Sure. Standard standard 16 hour day. Tim, a quick question, Dave, give me an example of what an HPR is for a project. So a historic reservation restriction typically focuses on the outside of a building. It does not by and large address what happens inside a building. It's typically about the facade. It can be about the grounds. It can be about the roof, the windows. It's really protecting those features that the external features of the building. We have done historic preservation restrictions on parts of the Jones Library, the historic Kimball House over on Northeast Street, the brick federal house on Northeast Street that is so prominent to the to the east of Northeast Street. Um, the the UU building and the parts of the UU building and the the stained glass window in the UU and and, you know, other structures like that. So every time, you know, and again, you have a couple of proposals before you if if a church or a house or a barn is reserved in some way with CPA funds, it requires a at this point, a permanent restriction be placed on that part of the structure. So that no one else in the future can change it, basically, that's what that is. Change the or there within reason, things can be changed. But in other words, if there, you know, there is a historic feature of the exterior of the house or the barn or the church that those features should remain relatively the same. Thank you. But it does not get into, for the most part, the internal layout of the building. Is up, Matt. Yeah, thanks, Dave. You actually answered some of my questions just now in your presentation. So one question I still do have. Do you have a sense of how other towns do this? Oh, that's a really good question. And I don't have the answer to that. I can certainly get it for you, Matt, and for the committee. I think, well, as with anything in CPA, I think all towns are different depending on their depending on their size and complexity. I was going to say that one of the comparisons I didn't make is that. In a similar way, think of historic preservation restrictions like a conservation restriction or an agricultural preservation restriction. So that when a town or city puts in public money, there needs to be a public benefit. And by and large, Amherst has gone for permanent historic preservation restrictions. Some communities actually do time limited restrictions 30 years, 40 years. We haven't really gotten into that yet, although it's something we're looking at. So maybe the Historical Commission could come up with some standards around that. But sort of a separate question is like I looked through the sample and I did some research on the state website about this. It seems like basically it's it's a legal document that goes into the registry of deeds that has a certain amount of boilerplate and then a certain amount that's specific to this, the specific site that you are talking about, the specific quality that you want to preserve. I'm just wondering. Are we are we are we is are we sort of overengineering them? Could we just do them in a simpler way? Well, my understanding is if they are permanent, then they need to go through mass historic and mass historic has the final say in reviewing those. So and they're really specific and they're really specific, yes, about what they require in those documents. So in a similar way, as I mentioned, an APR, an agricultural preservation restriction or a conservation restriction. There are state standards. There are state boilerplate pieces of those that must be in the document or the state won't approve them. So that's what gives it the permanence that, as you said, it it runs with the deed of the property. So the next owner and the next owner and the next owner when they purchase those those properties and it changes hands even within the family, it runs with the deed. So the goal is to try to protect that historic research resource, at least the external features of it as long as possible. Michelle, I think Robin was first, Robin, you want to go? Oh, I'm sorry, I got it backwards. Robin. That's fine. Oh, I just was just going to give an example of maybe an easy to understand example would be the replacement of historic windows with vinyl replacement windows. Those those original windows would be considered what we call character defining features. And that is the purpose of the preservation restriction to protect the historic character of the significant resource. Thank you, Michelle. Yeah, so, Dave, I see that the 20 K will cover about four based on the answers to your question. And there's two in the backlog and two of progress. So that's four based on the proposals that we have before us. Are we looking at sort of accumulating a new backlog? Because as you said, I don't I didn't hear anybody mention any kind of historical restrictions tonight or mostly. So I guess I think this is very important. And I'm just wondering if it should be sort of more ingrained with the approach. No, really good questions, Michelle. I didn't prepare this this proposal. So I'm I'm going a little bit on kind of my own history with HBRs and CRs and APRs. But I think we we could certainly I think I understand that just your question. I think we I think Ben put it together based on what is in the queue and not is not necessarily on what you might approve this round of funding and the town or recommend to the town council this round of funding, but there's no question in my mind. There's at least three proposals that if you fund all or part of them, they would require HBRs. So you're right. If if if you recommend those three to the council and they are approved, that would create more of a backlog, if you will. So that number of 20,000 might not go as far. We also have never done this before. And frankly, we did not look back. It's kind of cumbersome to look back in the years of legal billing, essentially, and say, well, how much have we spent on this over the course of three years or five years? I can tell you it's a very significant amount of money because I've been involved in many of the conversations about the Kimball House and the Jones Library and some of the other buildings. So I think you're right, Michelle. You know, that's a good point that if if if two or three of those are approved and recommended and approved by the council, there will be more work to be done. We're looking at this as kind of a pilot to see how it works. But we do need to bake it into the cost. This is a real cost and it's not been accounted for up until now. Robin, I hope that answers your question. You're hands still about Katie. Yeah, I, Dave, I just for clarification. And thanks for pinch hitting. I in the questions and answers and in the proposal, I got the sense and I I'm getting a different sense from you tonight that there isn't a requirement that that there isn't a policy that says every single project has to have a stored preservation restriction. It sounds like you're saying it does if it's funded with CPA. I got the understanding like if we owned that, you know, if the if the town owned the property it had to, but if if it wasn't an ownership piece of it. So I just I'm just not sure I understand maybe everyone else does and I apologize. No, it's it's a good question and I may not be be able to answer it fully. But it is what I can tell you is it has been our practice that. That at least with all structures, that if we fund structural improvements to a building to preserve that building that we require a permanent restriction, something like, you know, something like a painting or a dress. Emily Dickinson's dress we my understanding is we have not. I think there is some flexibility. There must be a restriction. The length of the restriction is I think there is some discretion town by town, city by city and the length of the of the restriction. And I have been involved in in discussions, you know, preliminary discussions with our town attorney, Sharon Everett, on whether the town working with the Historical Commission might bring some sort of a policy recommendation. In other words, maybe there's a gradated, you know, if it's $50,000, that might be 10 years. If it's $100,000, that might be 30 years, something like that. But our practice has been that that we do require a permanent restriction. And again, I will say I think all three, the two churches and the Dickinson home and in Wildwood Cemetery, I think those are significant asks. I would call them significant asks. I think everyone is over 200,000, if I'm not mistaken. But that certainly would be our practice to ask for a permanent to require a permanent restriction. Now, as Sonia knows, and Sonia works very closely with us, the challenge here is that we have to go into the we have to go into the discussion with these entities, these private entities, with them knowing full well that they must do this. And so the challenge is when when they get into the details, some and they have a lawyer representing them, sometimes they back out, they're not willing to do it. So and we're we're in negotiations right now with some of the private entities that the CPAC recommended last round, talking with them to see if they will go forward. If they don't go forward, then they won't be funded. OK, that was my that was that was thank you for answering that question, because I didn't know if it was in our application that said it would be required so that people would know it upfront versus at the end. Every one of the applicants should know because my staff has talked to them already that there is a requirement of restriction. And it was interesting. We were talking earlier, you were talking about the barn, the inventory of barns, historic outbuildings, etc. And we actually I believe the CPAC and Sonia may recall this more closely than I did, but I believe CPAC recommended fifty to eighty thousand dollars for the preservation of a historic barn. It happens to be very close to me here in South Amherst on West Street before you get down near Mission Cantina on the left. And we thought it was a great project. The owner thought it was a great project. In the meantime, they sold the property and the next owner did not think it was a great proper project because of the historic preservation restriction, and they backed out. So that fifty thousand or maybe it was eighty thousand dollars. I can't remember was never spent. And unfortunately, that barn is is vulnerable to demolition or just, you know, falling down eventually. Thank you. So it's it's definitely a dance. It's a complex, you know, process and dance. And it comes with, you know, there is the carrot and there's the stick, which is unique that the public needs to get something out of this. And that is the restriction as well as, you know, driving by, walking by, biking by a historic structure and perpetuity. Hopefully there certainly are some resources from the the state, Stuart, Senator and others. I sent some links to everyone. I did read also, Katie, that, you know, it's certainly mandated when the town purchases and owns a building, but there's flexibility depending on the communities, although days provided us with the current standard tends to be for Amherst in reading the proposal, Dave, although it came from Ben. I saw two things in the proposal. One primary was for funding for legal work related and looking at some of the proposals I saw, there are some covenants that are less, you know, some may some covenants exist that are not as restrictive as some of the other preservation restrictions. There's differing legal language in there. But I see how each one might be distinct. There are some templates that exist. I'm sure the town has them that they take and then adapt. And there are some from the from the coalition that were recommended. My guess is they're all similar. But I see two different aspects to the request, one being funding to accomplish the legal requirements to affect the differing types of agreements. And secondly, I see a request for policy setting policy. My thoughts are that it may well be that the policy wouldn't be ideal to be generated by somebody who's a consultant as somebody who's vested to the same degree in the town, such as the Historical Commission and or other committees that are involved. That would be my recommendation that there might be some committees and or town staff who are vested locally, as opposed to an external factor to come up with whatever those policies might be. I distinguish that from the blocking and tackling, for lack of a better word, affiliated with the legal case. That's that's how I read the proposal. It seems to me that the committee here, the CPA committee, may have some thoughts on what makes sense. But the Historical Commission likely is a good place to start with their recommendations. I'd have greater faith with the local committee than I would with an external consultant. That's me. I'm just distinguishing between the two. And it may be that some of that policy generating work can be accomplished without expending funds or generated or developed. I don't know that that's quite as urgent as the immediacy of the other ones, of the of the actual documents that need to be generated. That's how my mind works. I'm not asking for feedback or response. It's just I'm giving my feedback in terms of just general logic. You can respond if you'd like. I know I I'm sensitive to your time. But I think, you know, building on Michelle's question a few minutes ago and Katie's as well is, you know, the immediate thing is not to get further behind with the HBRs that we have. And again, thinking about this funding, this funding would need. If you recommended and the council supports it and authorizes it, it wouldn't actually be available until July 1 of two thousand twenty three. But we just don't want to get further behind in in these HBRs. And I think there's time working with the historical commission, working with our town attorney and working with, you know, bringing through you for your input, perhaps some new policy around, you know, is there a dollar figure that the town invests in property X or property Y and is there a threshold that requires a 30 year agreement, a 40 year agreement, an agreement in perpetuity? I will say that not unlike a conservation restriction or an APR, the other thing that goes with this and part of the work is and Michelle works in the field of conservation and restrictions. And I know she's she's more of an expert even than I am. But there's a lot of baseline work that goes into this. You really have to get an architect to look at building a or B or C and say, what are the historic features of this building? And what are we trying to preserve? What are the dimensions of the building? All of that has to be packaged and then linked with the historic preservation restriction so that somebody a year from now, 10 years from now or 50 years from now can look at that preferably, of course, digitally now and say, oh, yeah, you'd like to change out something in the windows or, you know, something is rotted in the porch. Here's what you can do. So so it's more than just a five page or 10 page historic preservation restriction. It's all the accompanying appendices that support. Why is it that the town has invested one hundred thousand dollars or three hundred thousand dollars in in preserving this church or this building, you know, in this historic district? So anyway, I don't want to take more of your time because I know it's good. Thank you for responding. And I had one other question. And I, you know, maybe it's too specific, which is why are the current covenants and restrictions not sufficient? In other words, what aspects of the existing templates that we've been using aren't desirable? I read a couple of the ones that were provided. They seem to cover. I guess this sort of gets back to what Matt was saying that, you know, if there's a general template, is there a way to, you know, and maybe this longer term would be a goal for various elements of the town to come up with some process to ease the burden on the on the town staff related to taking a proposal and tweaking it. Because we've had a lot of programs to date, a lot of historic preservation awards to date on any given year, going back many years. And I'm not sure I'm gathering from what you're saying that most of those have some form of restriction affiliated with the agreement. Well, I think the the short answer to your question, though, Sam, is, yes, the boilerplate is important, but no two properties are the same. Yeah. So it's when you get into negotiating and going back and forth with the applicants, in this case, an applicant who has been funded through the you and the town council. That's when the legal fees start adding up. Those two lawyers need to go back and forth. There's specific language on it could be it could be, you know, what can be done to that porch? What can be done to that historic fence, you know, whatever it might be. And that's where you that's where you get into the weeds. So, yes, the template includes standard language, but there are sections that every each each HBR is unique in some way to that structure where the back and forth gets. And and up until now, it's been town attorney doing that work. And we just get in line with our town attorney. She does a wonderful job. But also the town picks up the tab for that outside of CPA funding. And it's significant over time. It seems to make sense to have some sort of standard, not standard, but close to standardized process. And there may be one suggested could conceivably be that if there's amount of work being funded, maybe it's not all of the aspects of the building, but whatever aspect that does get funded. And HPR exists for that. If they're doing the roof, you can't change the roof that probably would lead to less rejections from the applicants. I don't think the Mass Historical Commission would ever accept something like that because then you could you could destroy all the other features of the building, but say, oh, I have a slate roof is still fine. But I've changed everything out.  So I've asked the questions that I had. Thank you for mine. I see Robin has a hand up again. And thank you for staying on, Dave. And pinching, as you always or often do, Robin. Yeah, I just wanted to let everybody know that the Historical Commission has been working. We were working with Ben. Now we'll be working with Nate until then replacement is tired. But we have been having discussions about what an appropriate and effective restriction policy is. And so that'll continue in our work. And I think I recall the language because we've been discussing this from the CPA laws, that when the town acquires an interest, that's the I think that's the phrase of the CPA law, which can be interpreted a lot of ways. But one method that I can't remember which community but some communities use a method where they require that the individual property becomes its own local district, which is a different approach. But anyway, when when we meet, we can maybe look a little bit more into what other towns are doing. And we're we're interested in moving that process along to be more flexible and more functional for for both the towns and the applicants. Very good. Does anyone else have any questions or comments for Dave? Dave, do you have any final comment you'd like to make before we? Oh, just want to thank everybody. And I will take Michelle's comment back to Nate and and some Christine Brestrup, our planning director, just in terms of, frankly, is twenty thousand dollars a good figure if there are more if, you know, if if there are going to be more projects on the tarmac come July 1st, two thousand twenty three, you know, again, this might be a way to get started or we just come back to you next year and say, oh, well, we got three HBRs done for X and we need another slug of money to cover cover legal fees. It seems like an administrative expense. Yeah, and I would defer to Sonya and Sean as to whether this goes under CPA administrative fees or or or whether it is truly a historic you know, request. Thanks. Thank you so much, Dave. Appreciate you taking time out of your very long day to follow up and answer the questions and help us. So that concludes our presentations. I do want to open up the floor for any public comments. Granted, it's later than we anticipated. I do see one individual who's not a committee member in the audience. If there are any public comments, we'd be going to hear them at this time. Please raise your hand if you have one. So I'm not seeing any public comments, which is fine from our timing standpoint. Sonya, we asked earlier. I just want to confirm. Is it correct that there are no financial updates needed at this time? Correct. OK. So we have one last item on the agenda, which I added, which is a review of the straw pool rating process. I'm bringing this up because we have two new members on our committee. And I think it will be helpful to Matt and Michelle's just to have an understanding of how we go about it. It's not the same every year. I did send a few documents to you, Sonya and Sean three days ago, asking that they are able to be made available to the committee. Now, I can share them on my screen if that works, or if not, if you have them at the work as well. I don't have them. I'm not on my desktop from work. So am I able to display my screen, my screen? You said they OK. So I just hit this year screen. So I'll be on a moment. What we do, what we have done, at least during my time in the committee is the committee members individually consider all of the proposals. And there's lots of different factors to consider. They're in the plan, the different criteria and I'll display them. I know that you both look through the plans. I had sent them to you earlier. But every committee member thinks about all the different proposals using their own process. We have some recommended processes that have been adopted by some. But after doing so, after all the public comments when we meet, the first thing we do is even we've done this even before we've come up with a certainty of our budget, because sometimes it flexes based on need is we ask the applicants to come up with a rating of one to five on each of the projects. Five being this is phenomenal. I really want to support it. One being this is not a project that I think is warranted, essentially. There is no requirement as to what the exact definition is of a one, two, three, four or five. It's subjective based on your own analysis of reviewing all the factors of what's in front of us and how much there's two elements. There's the merits of the project, the lack of a better term. And we also have budgeting that we have to consider. In the past, I had projects that I thought were really good, but I thought the number was wrong and I might lower my rating. Other people might think this is a phenomenal project, regardless of the number. But we use this one to five rating and we go through each of the projects without really talking about the merits or anything. And that's just to get a sense of the committee. That's the starting point that we use. We get a general rating of which projects seem to have more support and are more favorable than others. And then from there, we're in a position to be able to start talking about them. And there may be a few that can be ruled out that it's quite clear that the committee is not in favor of and it's a method to help us move forward. So I'm letting you both know that because between now and really, it'll probably be the eighth in the public meeting where we may have this stop pulling. You'll want to think about the different projects and come up with your own ranking. It is not something that is set in stone because after we do this ranking, we then talk about them all. And we might be influenced by the conversation of others. So it's not like, oh, my gosh, this is my number. This is it. I'm firm fixed and it's done. It's this is what you think and it assists our discussion process. So that's what we refer to as stop only as opposed to voting. We don't want to use the word vote because that is legal indications. Thank you, Anna, from last year. But it's a polling process. So some of the things to consider, I'm going to show on my screen and you probably already would do so. But I think it might be helpful for me to show these to you. And if need be, we can email them. So bear with me, please. Well, I get my screen to be shared here. And everyone see my busy desktop? Yes. OK. Welcome to my world as the I don't know if it's any Arnold song or very price. Bear with me, I'll try to enlarge. CPA presentation. So a few of the things that are taken from the plan are the evaluation criteria. This is what we communicate to the p