Hey, everybody, this is Brett, and today I'm super excited to go over this brand new 2023 Jeep Wrangler Hi-Tide in pumpkin orange metallic. Paint code on this one is PE4. I'm going to go all the way around in this video. Inside, we're going to turn all the LED lights on at the end of the video, so stick around for that. I'm going to go really fast just to make this not too long of a video.  I love this color. I think this is going to be a very fast seller because of the color, and I don't think they're going to be coming out with this color next year, so as far as we know right now. Anyways, Hi-Tide package, studying off, it's a $12,095 package, but it gives you a lot. We're going to go through all of that. This one has the 3.6 penistar with the 8-speed automatic transmission, and if you learn anything in this video, remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel. Really appreciate that. 285 horsepower, 260 foot-pounds of torque, 24 miles per gallon, highway 19 city, for an average of 21 miles per gallon. Starting right off the Hi-Tide package gives you the LED headlights, running lights, running lights in the fenders, as well as the LED fog lamps. You'll also notice that black bezel on there, part of the Hi-Tide package as well. I always recommend getting a Wrangler with the LED light group. This one comes standard with the Hi-Tide package. You get the Hi-Tide stickers on the hood, you get the sandals there, the Wrangler or the Jeep driving up the side. Notice you don't get unlimited anymore on there. You get the blacked-out Jeep lettering, you get the rock rails, part of that Hi-Tide package. You also get the Xtreme 35-inch tire and wheel group with the Hi-Tide package. So that package in itself gives you a lot. Starting off, you get the B-Lock capable wheels, they're 17 by 8 inch, and then you get the BF Goodrich all-terrain TAKO2 tires. These are LT 31570R17s. This one also gives you a suspension lift from the factory. You get that 1-inch bigger sway bar link there, as well as the 1-inch bigger spring. Overall, over a base sport package, this Jeep is going to sit 3.5 inches higher. This one sits at 75.5 and a base sport sits at 72 inches. Take a look at the original window sticker. Also with that Xtreme Recon package, you get the performance brakes on here, and the Hi-Tide package also gives you the color match hardtop standard. I'm not going to go through everything.  Four-door Hi-Tide pumpkin, it's actually a punk-in metallic clear coat, 36 V6 8-speed auto. Everything standard here, please pause it if you want to. Pumpkin metallic is a $695 option, which is $200 more than the normal paints. Hi-Tide package, which is 25D, is a $12,095 option. You get the Xtreme 35-tire package, Hi-Tide decal, premium-wrapped steering wheel windshield with the gorilla glass, the wheels, the tires, the body color three-piece hardtop, Sunrider hardtop for Mopar is also included, the LED lights, rock protection sill rails, the daytime running lights with LED accents, the deep tint windows, the power heated mirrors and power windows and locks, keyless entry, anti-spin sun visors, freedom panel storage bag, rear window defrost, rear window wiper washer, molding color bumper with gloss black, all other formats, hinge gate reinforcement by Mopar. This one has the tech group for $1,095, the convenience group for $9.95, 8.4 inch premium audio group, an 8.4 group is $22.95, gives you everything you see there, 8-speed auto and then the cold air intake by Mopar is $5.25. Total MSRP is $58,940 if you want to get your summit price in the upper right-hand part of the screen is a link to our website also in the description below, 3 year 36, bump into bumper, 5 year 60 for availability of course and pricing information. So here's your miles per gallon, your safety radians right there and then feel free to pause us. I did everything that you would have to add to get everything that the high tide package gives you and you can see everything right there, total improvements is $13,700 total cost of that high tide package is $12.95, so definitely worth it to get everything that you see here if you were to add it otherwise, I couldn't even get a price on rock rails because you can't really add those to any Wrangler. But anyways, let's continue on, like I said the premium wheel or performance breaks I should say, you get that hinge gate reinforcement also on the back here is a little dog, he says Ralph that's for the light extensions, these are an inch back, so they got to put these extension pieces in there, they got Ralph on there for right and then they got the bulldog over here Louis for left, so that's kind of cool. There's a good look at that tire and wheel, your sunrider top comes in here, the hard top case holder for the front pieces, you get the alpine subwoofer, can take these hard tops off, we did a video on that, that's in the description below, also in the upper right hand part screen, I'll link them at the end of the video too, you get these seven slots on the back and the JL badge right there. So you can see all the bars are painted too, so when the hard top is off everything color coordinates nicely. Also get an LED light and the license plate light, notice these fender flares are flared out, that's also part of that 35 inch tire group for state laws and everything up tires got to be within the end of the fenders there, so entering ghost system, the heated mirrors part of that convenience group, you get the black cloth interior, this is just a normal sport interior, the leather wrapped steering wheel, the 8.4 inch touchscreen and as promised I'm going to turn on all these lights and then we're going to start it off after that, so definitely stick around for that. And like I said I wanted to make this video quick, so if I went too fast I got a more in-depth video on this particular Wrangler that's on our YouTube channel, that'll be linked in the description below, but I'm going to pause it and then turn off all the lights so you can see how nice and bright these are. Alright so you can see just how nice and bright all those lights are, all of them are LEDs, I would highly recommend if you're going to get a Wrangler just get the LED light group from the factory then you don't have to worry about hookups and stuff like that and they're under warranty so, but you can see just how nice and bright everything is, really a good look and as pumpkin metallic, it doesn't look metallic but it is a very faint metallic, I'll show you that in just a second, there's the back with the LED license plate lights and brake lights there. I'm going to turn all the lights on so you can see that pumpkin metallic. So if you get up close to it, it doesn't look metallic at all, even just going down the side here it doesn't look metallic at all, but if you get a bright light up on it, you can see it's got just the ever so hint of metal flake in it. That again is PE4, it's got just a little bit of metal flake in it so really a cool color and like I said I don't think they're going to be having this color on the vehicle next year. Let's start it up, take a look under the hood and keep this video under 10 minutes. You can always tell when it's got the gorilla glass, you get the little gorilla right there. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today, hopefully from this HD video. You've been able to get a really good idea of the overall options, looks, and styling on the high tide and this pumpkin metallic under the hood we have the 36 V6 engine, Penta star, the start stop, 285 horse, 260 torque and it's gonna get you 24 highway, 19 city, 21 average, there's the emission sticker and just a really really good looking Wrangler. I would highly recommend it, like I said if I was a little bit different position right now this would be mine, it'd be in my driveway permanently and thanks again for checking out the video remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel to see more pictures of this Jeep or one of our other 550 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, you name it we got to go to that website right there full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle all at summitauto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto, click the bell notifications you'll get updates on the videos I do each and every day here at Summit Auto. In fact in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to my YouTube channel in the upper left, a link to more Wrangler videos I've done in the upper right a link to how to take your doors off your Wrangler in the lower left and a link to how to take your hardtop off your Wrangler in the lower right click those check us out and we're super excited to be offering this brand new 2023 Jeep Wrangler high tide and pumpkin orange clear coat thanks again for checking out the video remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel I really appreciate it thanks again


Good day, fellow investors. It's Friday morning, 7th December before the market opened, before any news came out and we are here for the stock market news with a long-term fundamental twist. We're going to give an overview of what happened in the last five days. We are going to talk about the most important piece of information that came in last week which is the yield curve and I'm going to explain how the yield curve forecasts a recession, how it has done it in the past, why it is so important and why are people investors so scared about it. And then we are going to discuss to finish three key things to keep in mind when investing in the current environment and that should summarize the news and that should give you the most important things among the millions of pieces of information you get from the stock market everywhere. Let's immediately start with the market's overview. So everything was fine, there was trade truths announced after G20 but then all hell broke loose. First we had Trump saying how it's not that big of a trade truth and then we had the yield curve inverting. So last week in the news we spoke about how Powell turned from hawkish to dovish which signals that the economy isn't doing that good and consequently investors are expecting a recession. When that happens then the yield curve flattens or inverts because investors are expecting lower interest rates in the future and therefore they want to lock the long-term interest rates the higher rate now so that they earn when those go down and further short-term rates go up because investors demand higher returns on the short-term because they know that in the future they will get lower interest rates. When that happens is usually a signal for a recession. Let's explain the yield curve. So the yield curve can be a normal the orange line very steep the blue line can be flat the gray line and can be inverted the yellow line. The inverted yield curve means that the interest rate on a 20-year bond is lower than the interest rate on a 5 or on a 10 or on a one-year two-year bond. When the yield curve is flat it means that all maturities be it a five-year bond or a 20-year bond have the same yield. So today we are looking at an almost flat yield curve. This is the 30-year treasury constant maturity rate the interest rate on the U.S. government treasury you can see that that that's in the green then the red one is the five-year treasury and the two-year treasury is the blue one and you can see how all those interest rates are converging to around three which means that the yield curve is getting flatter and at some point it is inverting. Last time that happened it was between 2006 half 2006 till 2008 and we all know what happened next. So so if you expect a recession and you are a long-term investor then you see okay now the 30-year bond is giving me a yield of 3% I can buy that bond now and lock in the 3% because if there is a recession the Fed will lower interest rates and the 3% will be very good for me and perhaps I'll even make money if the 3% on the 30-year treasury becomes 2%. The investors that bought the 30-year bond in 2006-07 they locked in a 5% yield for the next 30 years 5% yield no risk from the US government so this is the principle this is the investment thesis of buying long-term fixed maturities now if you expect interest rates to go down then that is a great investment and that is why there is a lot of demand for such offerings therefore the yield is lower and people are avoiding investing in the short-term therefore the short-term yield goes higher and that's why the yield curve flattens or inverts this means that the market expects that there will be a recession soon that the Fed will lower interest rates and that they will gain from the 3% yield that they have locked for the long-term and that they will perhaps gain if that long-term yield goes lower however from an economical standpoint 9 out of the last 10 times when the yield curve inverted it means that the recession is coming in the next 6 to 24 months this is the 10-year treasury yield minus the 2-year yield and you can see that whenever it comes close to zero which is the case now sooner or later rather sooner than later we are in for a recession if we take a statistic from the Fed over the last 70 years as soon as the yield curve turned negative there has been a recession in the next two years with a recession starting within 6 and 24 months from the term spread turning negative you can see here the term spread turning negative and only in the 1960s 1967 there hasn't been an immediate recession so that was just an exception to the rule but then a recession came a little bit later I think it's 71 72 so this means that the risk of a recession is very very high and that's why people are chasing to lock in those long-term yields but let me let the Fed do the talking the term spread the difference between long-term and short-term interest rates it's a strikingly accurate predictor of future economic activity every US recession in the past 60 years was preceded by the negative term spread that is an inverted yield curve furthermore a negative term spread was always followed by an economic slowdown and except for one time by a recession 1960s that we mentioned while the current economic environment is somewhat special with low interest rates and risk premiums the power of the term spread to predict economic slowdowns appears intact consequently this is still from when they published this a few months back but the risk of an upcoming recession is very very high apart from the economy there is another little thing to worry about and that is valuations bull market strong economy for the past nine years low risk premiums low interest rates pull pushed valuations to historical highs the cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio is still higher than where it was in 1929 at its highest point and it was higher only in the 1990s with the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash so we have economic data showing there will be a recession and we have very very expensive stock market not a good combination to be in which leads us to the question of how to invest before we start to talk about the three key things one has to think about when investing let me just to show full disclosure tell you what i do i am a stock market researcher i run my own stock market research platform where i'm focused on researching stock market researching sectors and finding great businesses that will do well no matter what happens in the economy will there be a recession okay probably all stocks will go down but there will be an again an economic upturn and if you hold the good ones you will do very very well so my research focuses on such investments and i try to invest in them over time what allows me to sleep well overnight is the sheer amount of research that i put into my stock market platform so practically most of my days are spent researching stocks writing reports and if you click in the link below you can see my curriculum and that is just the content the research that i have done in six months so over the next six months that is supposed to double as we know knowledge compounds likes the stock market like investments so this is the added value that i hope to give people so if you don't have the time to do the stock market research to invest and sleep well if you want to save time or if you just want to get great ideas from someone you can check my stock market research platform it costs still just 74 cents per day it will go up to one dollar per day from 2019 so you can lock in this low price per year forever plus there is a 30 day money back guarantee so if you want to see all what i do i talk a lot on my youtube videos but i think the best picture of what i do can be shown by just checking my stock market research platform there is a 40 day money back guarantee so i urge every viewer on my youtube channel just check it and ask your money back if it's not for you no hard feelings there will be always youtube videos and you can always comment and watch here so that's my message really check what i do it will give you a better perspective even on your portfolio so check that out and then you will better understand even the three points that i'm going to discuss now about how to invest in this environment the first point is it's personal investing is really a personal matter it goes about your finances your discussions with your spouse your plans your life your mortgage your job everything that's related to investing is personal so that's the first thing you have to sort out how is my stock market investing related to my personal financial life is it completely detached whatever happens doesn't matter that's a great way to invest if it is attached if you have here a student debt loan with a variable interest rate if you have a mortgage on the house that if the stock market crashes is the housing market crashes if you lose a job you're forced to sell your stocks at the bottom to cover for your mortgage payments then you are in trouble so that's the first connection you have to separate and or better to say you have to analyze okay what if all things go wrong what if the stock market crashes how does that affect my personal life what if i lose my job will i be forced to sell stocks at the bottom because the key is to buy more at the bottom so you have to be in a position to buy more when it's profitable to do so not to sell to some vulture like me that can't wait that stocks go down to buy more and then have high returns on the upside if you are so separated then you don't have to worry about anything you simply buy more when stocks are down and i'll let manga do the talking here top tick to bottom tick by 50 percent i think it's in the nature of long-term shareholding with the normal vicissitudes and and worldly outcomes and in markets that the long-term holder has his quoted value of his stock go down and then by say 50 percent in fact you can argue that if you're not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50 percent two or three times a century you're not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you're going to get so plus the second thing that allows you to buy more when stocks go down and increase your long-term returns is to have cash if we look at berkshire's cash pile over the years you can see how every time the yield curve inverts they have more more cash on their balance sheet 1999 look how their cash balance went up 2008 their cash balance went up then they spent a lot of cash in 2009 they always have the 20 billion necessary for insurance protection for their insurance investments and then they will have been piling and piling cash over the years waiting for the next crash to do again what they do best and let's invest in the downturn november 3 2009 look what berkshire did they bought burlington northern santa fe the u.s railroad betting on the u.s economy great investment 2011 they invested five billion in bank of america preferred shares eight percent interest rate that they exchanged then for stocks recently so if you see bank of america in buffett's portfolio it's both like that and i think they tripled their money on that investment alone so have some cash to buy more when the opportunity comes because opportunities in the stock market always come beat some sectors beat in the whole market but you have to have the liquidity to take advantage of that and the recent stock market crash pullback is not a crash at all it's not an opportunity at all stocks are still up for the year so there is no crash everybody's panicking but that's just because the news is like that however a real crash is 40 40 50 down and then we are talking about a crash and i can't wait for that to happen now to become and to be happy when stocks crash because you can buy more at a lower price and increase your long-term returns you have to avoid buying wrong investments you have to avoid buying highly risky investments highly leveraged investments investments that are zombie companies that are not focused on shareholder returns for example general electrics emote to receive 112 million as he steps down this was a year ago a little bit more than a year ago we all know what happened afterwards so they did a lot of buybacks that did a lot of very bad capital allocation decisions but they were focused on how to push the stock price higher to get returns for them not for the shareholders and this is the consequence so this is just one example and but if you but if you buy companies like Berkshire that are focused on shareholder returns creating profits return on capital i'm sure we can bet that Berkshire's earnings per share in the next 10 20 years will be higher than they are now and therefore you don't you don't have to worry about that because they are focused on creating value for shareholders general electric and such companies that focus on creating value for employees for the ceo that he can fly even if you retire you can still use the company jet to fly around the world as a retired ceo so with such let's say interests you want to avoid those companies highly leveraged that are taking loans to make acquisitions i don't know baker huge etc etc that is highly risky because they will focus on their short-term management bonuses that come in every February you want to be invested in great businesses that focus on shareholder returns and there if you really look if you do the research you'll find those and i will talk about one perhaps tomorrow or on sunday so please subscribe to this channel click the notification so that you see which kind of video comes out almost every day so don't forget to check my stock market research platform in the link in the description below check it out you have nothing to lose subscribe we continue with our great businesses discussions we continue with the summary of margin of safety soon so thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next video


Before I get into this video, I want to remind you that we are giving away a Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo Switch OLED Edition, also a Collector's Edition of Tears of the Kingdom, and a pin for PAX East. To enter all you have to do is go down to the pinned comment or the description, click on the link. The winner will be drawn this Friday, May 12th winners, I guess there are three different ones. We're also on our road to 133,000 subscribers, so I'd appreciate if you would subscribe to the channel as we try to match 133 years of Nintendo. Alright guys, we have a couple things to talk about here with Tears of the Kingdom, so there's going to be a timestamp below, splitting this up into two parts. The first part is Nintendo doing some, well, very Nintendo-like things, and these stories are semi-related because Nintendo is, they're not happy. Let's just put it this way. Look, Tears of the Kingdom, you know, leaked over a week ago at this point. Only one week ago, right? It came out last week Monday, here we are a week later, and Tears of the Kingdom's been out there. Some people have beaten the game, some people have, you know, 40, 50, 60 hours into it, etc, etc, etc.  That has been out since last week Monday, and Nintendo has been doing its best to shut down as much as they can. Now, I've seen some reports out there that Nintendo has shut down thousands of Twitch accounts that have attempted to stream Tears of the Kingdom. That's not surprising. They've also shut down a bunch of YouTube accounts that have attempted to stream Tears of the Kingdom, and they've even gotten TikTok to take down some stuff as well. They've gotten Twitter to take down some stuff. Nintendo has been doing their best to shut down the leaks as best as they can. Of course, it's basically impossible once something becomes openly available on the internet to shut everything down. But Nintendo is now seemingly turning their attention to potential future game leaks, realizing, hey, look, maybe we've been going about this all wrong, and we need to find a different way to stop future leaks. So what did Nintendo do? Well, a handful of days ago, they actually issued a DMCA takedown request to GitHub. Now GitHub is a place where people upload free pieces of code work and stuff like this to share with the masses. It's typically completely open source. And look, it's a place that as someone who's been into programming has a lot of useful information on it. A lot of programmers sharing information. But one such program that was shared on there is a program called Lockpick. Now, Lockpick is something that you would use on a hacked Nintendo Switch. And what it is for, it's intended use, and really the only thing it allows is for you to dump keys from your own Switch. So you would have to have an own Nintendo Switch games and then be able to dump them with this.  This tool is only useful for yourself. It's not useful for others, sort of, because here's the problem with Lockpick. I use the word problem loosely because obviously Lockpick is literally just about dumping your own keys, which is 100% legal because you are allowed, at least in the United States, to make backups of your digital goods. That is something that is allowed. It's that how do you think the ROMs become available to download online? What do you think helps with that? What do you think causes distribution of ROMs? Things like Lockpick being used by someone who wants to distribute. They would use Lockpick to dump their game keys and then put that stuff online for people to download. That's not Lockpick's fault. Lockpick is just a tool, but Nintendo clearly wants to take out even the tools. And as of today, Lockpick has been successfully taken down by Nintendo. Now I'm sure there's other versions online and Lockpick has been preserved and is up on other websites. Look, you're not going to be able to stop people from doing this, but Nintendo is trying to send a message that, hey, you know what, we actually think people just shouldn't be able to dump their keys, legal or not, because it is leading two weeks like tears of the kingdom. Obviously, this hasn't gone to the courts and Nintendo hasn't had to defend their actions there. GitHub is just going to avoid lawsuit actions because they clearly don't want to go into what could be a multi-million dollar lawsuit with Nintendo and they've just taken it down. So it's interesting because I think this leads to our second conversation and our second point in this video. And that is that Nintendo, because of tears of the kingdom, because of this being arguably their most high profile game to leak out there, I know Scarlet and Violet was a really big deal last year, but they had leaks going on for that game since summer. So what have we really learned from the game leaking out there besides the performance was pretty bad? Look, Nintendo doesn't have a lot of games that you could argue are not only game of the year contenders, but game of the generation contenders, right? Occasionally, a Mario game or a Zelda game pops up or some unique special circumstantial game like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But when a game like this of this caliber leaks and Nintendo is this upset about it, that they're actually DMZ taking down Lockpick, which has been up on GitHub for years, they never went after it before, it makes you wonder if tears of the kingdom and it leaking out there is unfortunately going to cause a change at Nintendo. And I'm sure they're rethinking this right now and this isn't me saying that Nintendo is no longer going to support physical games. They did report in their last financial briefing that digital sales have finally surpassed physical sales percentage wise in terms of number of units being sold so digital is a rapidly growing sector for Nintendo. I think what we saw them do a Metroid Prime remaster is sort of a taste of what Nintendo might be willing to do in the future. What do I mean? Nintendo releasing physical copies weeks after the digital version launches. They wouldn't be the first company to do this, other companies have offered paid programs to get digital copies early, but Nintendo, when they launched Metroid Prime remaster, they dropped, this was a shadow drop, but they dropped the digital version and then it was two weeks later before you get the physical version. Now why two weeks later? Because once the digital version is out there, the game leaking isn't as big of a deal or once the digital version is out there. And all of the leaks, every single game leak in basically Nintendo Switch's history, all the games that have come out before the game, you know, come out in ROM form before the game was available came from physical copies out in the wild. And since Nintendo has to send them through distribution and all these channels so they get to retailers on time for people to pick them up day one, well what Nintendo was no longer concerned about that because there was going to be a digital release date and then a separate later physical release date. And I think Metroid Prime remaster sort of gave Nintendo a roadmap, not necessarily the shadow dropping, but the idea that you know what, we can get away with dropping digital first, physical later to avoid leaks. And that is not something many of us want to see because most of us, I shouldn't say most of us, there is a segment of us that will be unwilling to buy a digital copy and will hold out for physical and it's going to feel like we're getting leaks anyways, except the leaks are sort of intentional because the game is actually already out there and you're just choosing to wait for a physical copy. But look, this would pretty much solve all of Nintendo's problems. Nintendo's leak situation becomes a non-factor, not just with Switch, but with future platforms, if they stop putting physical forward at the same time as digital. I don't want them to do this, but the other solutions aren't great either, right? Nintendo could introduce DRM into all of their games requiring online connections. That's not good. Nintendo could obviously just cancel physical altogether and go digital only. We already have Xbox and PlayStation, both with digital only platforms. And for the most part, physical with PlayStation and Xbox is just an unlock key. You still got to install the game. So, I'm just saying that if Nintendo's policies change on their next system and you start to see them launch digital games before physical or they announce their system, you know, hopefully not without physical support, but without physical support, just look back at what happened with Tears of the Kingdom, how Nintendo is going after GitHub and going just beyond what they've done with other game leaks. And remember, Nintendo was so pissed that they decided now is the time. Our next system launches. We're not going to have this happen again if our system gets hacked. On one hand, I don't blame them. On the other hand, for people that want physical and obviously want a day one, it's pretty disappointing. So, again, it's none of us legit customers' faults. I want to make this clear. If this change happens, it is not your fault. If you bought a legal copy for launch day, you bought the collector's edition, you bought the digital version, it's not your fault. This is one of those things that when people are breaking laws and doing things Nintendo doesn't like, Nintendo can tend to overcorrect. Except in this case, I don't know if it's an overcorrection when it's been happening with every game. At some point, Nintendo has to make a change and this could be that change. So I just wanted you to keep this in the back of your mind. This isn't me trying to be negative about Tears of the Kingdom. I'm super stoked and super excited for this game. But it's a reality that we might be facing as soon as the next platform launches. Anyways, guys, I am Nathaniel Rumpeljantz from Nintendo Prime. I want to thank you for tuning in. Let me know your thoughts on this down in the comments below and I'll catch you in the next video.


All right, Lynn, go ahead. Okay. Good evening. We have two meetings tonight. The first is at six o'clock and the second is at seven. The first is a special town council meeting with the Jones Library trustees. I'm going to start by just the usual statement. We are allowed to meet virtually. Thanks to Governor Baker's March 12th order. I'll call each counselor by name, and they can hear me and we can hear them and ask them to unmute their microphone and then mute it again after saying present. So let's start with Shalini Balmone. Present. Alyssa Brewer. Present. At the Angeles. Present. Darcy Dumont. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Johanicki. Present. Dorothy Pan. Present. Evan Ross is absent tonight. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane, we expect to join us. Steve Schreiber. Present. Andy Steinberg. Present. Sarah Schwartz is not able to be with us tonight. Seeing that we have a quorum of the council, I'm calling this July 13th meeting to order at 6.06. Lynn, would you please proceed to call the library trustees to order? Thanks, Lynn. We'll do. And thank you to the town council for agreeing to this joint meeting. Tammy Ely. Present. Alex Lefebvre. Present. Robert Pam. Present. Lee Edwards. Present. Chris Hoffman. Present. And Austin Serrad. I'm present. So we are, the library trustees are in order and ready to meet at 6.06. Great. This meeting includes audio, video, and is available live on Amherst Media. It is also being recorded. There is no chat room for this meeting as it is a webinar. If you have technical issues, if you were either on the library trustees or if you are on the council, please let us know by letting Sharon or Austin know, or in my case, letting me or Athena know. And we will make sure that we note that and try to get you reconnected as soon as possible. There is information that was shown on the screen earlier on how to connect. And we will continue, we will proceed from there. Tonight, we have an opportunity to hear expert opinion on one of the several outstanding questions regarding the Jones Library. Quite simply, the question is, what will it cost to repair the Jones Library? This question was raised during Joint Capital Planning Committee meetings as far back as 2017, which led to the first repair quote. But that did not include accessibility costs, often tripped by a magic number of $5 million, or actually maybe less. It was discussed again in 2018 and in 2019. It was regularly heard during the Capital Project Listening Sessions, held in December of 2019. Clearly, it is a question that precedes any other questions down the road. Therefore, I asked the Jones Library trustees to provide us with an answer and to include in their estimate the cost of spreading it over more than one year. With their consultants at Cune Riddle working with Western builders, they are now able to provide us with the answer. This is a presentation about repairing the Jones Library, which by the very nature of its extensiveness of those repairs trips the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding accessibility. Tonight's agenda does not include the following, and therefore these questions are not on the table tonight. What will it cost to renovate, not repair, renovate the existing library? What would it cost to rearrange the space in the existing library? We will not be discussing what it would cost to make the Jones Library more sustainable. And we will not be discussing what it would cost to expand the programming of the Jones Library. And, most importantly, is not about what the Town Council will do, if and when the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners offers us a construction grant requiring significant town match and Jones Library fundraising. So none of those are on the table tonight. We know these questions are out there, but in the hour we are able to devote to this presentation, we are not going to discuss any of those issues. As we have additional information, we will have those discussions, but not at this point. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Austin, and I believe you are going to have Elon Tierney from Cune Riddle present. Thank you, Lynn. And again, I appreciate the opportunity to meet with the Town Council and to discuss the repair estimate. As you all know, this is really the second step of the examination of the repair, of the possible repair of the Jones Library in 2017. We received an estimate from Western builders of $9.5 million for the repair of the Jones, including among other things upgrading and dealing with the serious problems in our mechanical, electrical, and plumbing unit. Those problems are so severe, they happen at the Jones Library every day. We have today encountered another one, a leakage in the HVAC system, which has done damage in special collections. Following up on that and in response to the discussions that Lynn summarized, we asked Cune Riddle to build on the Western builders' estimates and to look at, in addition to those costs, what it would cost to make the library accessible. And by accessible, we meant to meet the requirements of federal and state law. And what Elon is going to talk to you about tonight is the results of the Cune Riddle study. I want to say great thanks to Elon and Cune Riddle for what I think is very valuable and good work. Elon? Thank you, Austin, and thank you, everyone, for coming to this meeting tonight. I'm going to show a series of slides, only 10, that's a brief summary of the study that we did. I'm going to try to share my screen now. Can everyone see my screen? Yes, thank you. OK, so let's see if I can get it to work. So just a little bit about Cune Riddle. Whoops, well, I'll go through that quickly. I'm Elon Tierney. I am president of Cune Riddle Architects. I did this study in conjunction with one of my senior project managers, Liv Wyatt. Cune Riddle Architects has been in Amherst since 1988, founded by John Cune and Chris Riddle. And I became president in 2018, along with my two partners, Charles Roberts and Jonathan Salvon. So let me back up a little bit because I seem to have jumped forward. OK, apologize, there's a delay. So why an accessibility study? Some something has already been mentioned about that by both Lynn and Austin. In 2017, Western builders provided an existing building evaluation and identified required building repairs. And those repairs focused on the following. Replace the large skylight in the center of the building. Replace the south elevator, which is small and in need of repair. Some interior improvements such as replacing carpeting, painting, et cetera. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing improvements were the largest items. Structural improvements, which went along with some of those mechanical, electrical and plumbing improvements and exterior improvements. So the envelope of the building, the masonry windows, doors, et cetera. Their review, Western builders review, did not take into account many of the accessibility upgrades that would be required based on those associated costs. So the purpose of this study was to identify what would be required if they move forward, if the Jones Library moved forward with some of those repairs. And hopefully this study is giving you the information that you need in order to look at what is the cost required to do the building repairs versus the cost for a whole building renovation addition as proposed by Fine Gold Sender. OK, so accessibility regulations. Lynn mentioned that there's the ADA or the Americans with Disabilities Act that is a federal civil rights legislation intended to reduce physical barriers to people with disabilities. As a civil rights legislation, enforcement is via litigation, not by the local building inspector. Massachusetts has its own set of accessibility regulations, which is called the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board regulations. We often refer to it as MAAB, and it is part of the building code and enforced by the local building inspector. The requirements of the Massachusetts regulation is very similar to the ADA. And in some cases, it's more stringent. We primarily focused on the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board requirements as it is something that is triggered when you do any type of construction. And I'll explain a little bit more about that. I did want to mention that for existing and especially historic buildings, there is a variance process for certain features that you may be able to avoid doing because it's a historic building. But this particular study did not take that into account. It's a much larger process. So the accessibility trigger. The Massachusetts Architectural Access Board code states that regarding existing buildings, renovations or additions, if the work performed, including the exempted work and exempted work, can sometimes be roofing or replacing windows amounts to 30 percent or more of the full and fair cash value of the building. It's just the building and not the building in the site, just the building. The entire building is required to comply with 521 CMR, which is the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board. So the Jones Library is assessed by the town of Amherst at nineteen million one hundred and ninety six thousand dollars. And 30 percent of that value is five million seven hundred and fifty eight thousand eight hundred dollars. So that's the trigger. So what did we do with respect to this study? Cuneville Architects myself and Liv Wyatt did a walkthrough of the building. Liv actually spent several days going through the building, photographing, looking at all the various details, which are required to be accessible and identified them on drawings. And then we created Task Two, which is the accessibility scope of work narrative. So we identified all of the issues that needed to be repaired. If that trigger was was triggered and that scope of work was then used along with the drawings by Western builders to create a cost estimate. We also did a thorough code review for the mass Massachusetts Architectural Access Board. So just going through that, all the regulations and identifying which ones were applicable to this particular project. So all of those documents were delivered to Western builders. We discussed with them what we had found and they prepared a cost estimate based on the proposed repairs that would be required. We then compiled all of those documents together and had several meetings throughout this process. We met initially with the Jones Library representatives through the scope of work narrative, accessibility code review, and confirm with them if they had any questions about it. And then we reviewed that together with Western builders. We then received the cost estimates back and reviewed that again with Jones Library representatives.  And the following slides are just a very brief summary of that. When we were preparing the study, the Jones Library Board of Trustees requested that we review if the proposed work could be performed in phases, which is what Lynn had mentioned. And at what point the value of the work would require full compliance with the access code. In addition, they asked us to look at what is the most logical flow of work based on discrete construction projects. So which ones could you do without triggering other ones? What work has the highest priority based on the age of the systems or deterioration of the building systems? What is the most cost-effective way to approach the phases? And what, if any, work could be completed while the library remains occupied? So we reviewed this with Western builders as contractors. They could help us think about all of these questions. Some of the questions in terms of priority is really the knowledge of the Jones Library in terms of how old the systems are and the amount of maintenance that they're doing regularly on the systems. Ultimately, we looked at two different options. The first option is what we like to call the lowest cost first. So how can we do these projects without triggering the accessibility code? And what are the sort of the discrete projects that would make sense to do together? And this is based on conversations with Western builders. So I don't know if you can see my cursor on the screen. Yes. Okay. So phase one or the first year, year 2021 would include replacing the skylight and the south elevator. The design fees that would be required is about 12%. That's typical for a historic renovation. The library would need to be closed for 30 weeks and move out, which would cost $650,000. That number was taken from Feingold Alexander's estimates for relocating the library. And that phase total then would be about $2.3 million. Figuring that you'd need to take a break between projects. The next project we proposed would be the exterior improvements. There would be three years worth of escalation at 4%. So the cost, the construction cost would be a little over $2 million. About 26 weeks. Because it's just exterior work, you would not have to move out of the library. There would be design fees included. And the total for that phase would be 2.26. So we haven't triggered the 5.758 million yet. So we have to move out of the library in those two phases, but phase three would require triggering all of those items. And these items, interior improvement, MEP systems, structural improvements are all linked together. You can't really do those projects separately. Without a lot of additional cost. So that would automatically trigger the accessibility improvements. And this number, the 1.194886, that is the cost of. That we discovered in this study. So the total for that is 8.3 million plus five years of escalation is close to 1.8 million. The total for phase three would be about 10 million. So that would be a full year project. And it would require again, design fees and moving out of the library and relocating. And we figured five years down the road, there'd also be escalation on that cost. And so we're at 12 million point two. Looking at all of these projects to complete all of these repairs, you'd end up at almost $17 million. The next option that we looked at was. What's most important? What's the work that needs to happen? First, and it's our understanding that the MEP systems are the systems that are really failing and need attention. And as I said earlier, the MEP systems are linked with the structural systems and the interior upgrades. And once you spend, start spending that money, you've triggered the 30% value. So then you have to do the accessibility improvements. And part of the accessibility improvements would also require replacing the south elevator. And then once you've done all of that other interior work, it doesn't really make sense to do the skylight separately later on. So this really becomes a two phase project. The first phase being all of the interior work. And the second phase being all of the exterior work. So the first phase proposed in 2022, because it'll take more time to complete all of the design work. Would come to $10.2 million. Add in design fees.  However, in this scheme, you're only moving out once. Because the second phase of work done three years or two years earlier would just be the exterior improvements. And the library can remain occupied during that work. So in summary, both of these options would bring the building into full compliance and provide the building with new systems, which would last 25 to 50 years. Before systems would require replacement again. These repair projects would not increase the library space or modify or improve the spaces within the library. The library would essentially function as it is currently functioning. This is just about the repairs. That's my summary of, of our study. And I don't know if we open up to questions. I'll go back to Lynn at this point or Austin. Thank you. Go ahead. We're going to open up to questions. We'll go back up depending on questions. But we're going to start with questions from. The town council. And the first hand up is Steve Schreiber. Thank you. So I've watched the presentation that you gave to the board of trustees and they also watch the sustainability. Committee meeting. In which the topic of the pandemic was brought up. So I guess I'll ask it now. Being the first question asked. Is. Well, I guess I really have two questions. So one is in particular regarding the MEP, that does the mechanical electrical plumbing. So nobody knows what the best science is in dealing with. You know, the, the viruses. So I'm just curious about. What your opinion is, or may there be extra costs, or maybe there'd be a different way of thinking about. The mechanical part of this in light of. Really our new concerns or new different kinds of concerns about indoor air quality. And then I guess I have a second question that's also related to the pandemic, which has to do with a value statement. So one thing you did not cover is whether or not this is worth it. So in other words, what we're getting is a library. It's not the same as it is, but just with new systems in it. And so you as an architect, you're also looking at this as when you talk to your clients, you're talking to them, whether or not it would be worth putting all this money in when you're just getting the same. And then particularly in the light of the, so I looked at all the diagrams in the, the report that you prepared. And there's diagrams of the conference rooms. And I have to confess that I shuttered a little bit because those rooms are very small, very crowded. So I'm just wondering if you're willing to comment on either of those. So the mechanical. And then just overall value as to whether or not this is worth it. So, Eileen. Elon. Please stick to the first question. And then we'll go to the second. Okay. So the first question about the current COVID crisis and air quality. First of all, that was not part of the plan. In fact, we started the study right before everything fell apart, I guess. What I will say is that is. It's all very new. And the HVAC experts are figuring it out. And I can't really speak to that personally, other than to say that I am very, there will be a lot of information about that coming out. So the second question, is it worth it? Intentionally, I, this study was meant to be just looking at the numbers and not about the values. And really the, I think the point of this is to provide you with a lot of information about that coming out. And it's really up to you as, as a town to make a decision about. How does one value the other? And I'm sure that fine gold Alexander would say that libraries are being used very differently now and in the future. Then they were in the past. So I'm not going to answer the question.  Yes, and I apologize for joining late. Somehow I put the wrong time in my calendar. So if, if this is a repeat, just stop me. As you looked at a build on Steve's question, as you looked at the way spaces being used currently, it configured. And I know you, because in the report, you periodically talk about something in the fun gold Alexander report. Did you have any sense of how we, it could be reconfigured or do you know whether there are space, space, and I don't mean outer space. I mean library space consultants who can do what. People with old houses often have them do and say, if you moved this to here. So for example, in FAA's design, special collections is moved to a different part of the old wing. Oh, old building. And, you know, thinking about children. Did you have any impression of that? Or I know you weren't asked to do it, but in terms of walk around or thinking about it. That's a difficult question to answer because it's as architects, we walk into a space and are constantly thinking about how it's impacting us and how it might be impacting others. But the reality is that this study, we were asked specifically just to look at the existing conditions and the accessibility of the existing conditions. And it's a dangerous slope. Once you start to tinker around and think about how the space could be better organized. And that is a much larger study. So as, as hard as it is as architects to not try to think about how to reorganize the space, we had to intentionally not do that. Otherwise, we would just spiral down into that rabbit hole and that's a much larger scope of services. But it is a scope of services that architects can do. Of course, just like renovating your home and thinking about where the kitchen and dining room are and maybe flipping them as better. That is absolutely something that architects do and, and especially architects that specialize in libraries. Can I just, build on one part of that for the special collections. The current location. With an open door that makes it hard to do climate control. Does what you propose solve that problem? No. That the, all of the mechanical systems that were reviewed by Western builders, we just built off of that study. That was previously done in 2017. We did not review or reevaluate the study that they have proposed. And it's my understanding that that. The special collections. Peace was not reviewed thoroughly. So I think that's still an issue that needs to be. Considered. Thank you. Lynn, may I just say, I'm not sure what you're talking about. When we go into the next phase of conversations with the town council, I think it'll be very helpful for all of us to review actually what the board of trustees did to get us to this point. And of course, one of the things that we did was we examined the question of what we could do. With the existing space. And we concluded at the time that we could, we could review what the board of trustees did to get us to this point. And then we looked at what we could do with the existing space. And we concluded at the time that we could not with the existing space accommodate. The program of the library. So when the time comes, I think it'll be very helpful for all of us to review those studies and to kind of walk through the evolution. Of why it is that the board of trustees. Found that we could not do what needed to be done with the existing space. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.  My question is, what are we supposed to do with this? And that's a serious question. Do you want me to answer it? You can go ahead and yeah. So the point of this study was to look at how much. The building costs X amount of dollars in conjunction with the required accessibility. Upgrades or repairs. And I think the idea is to go off of Steve's comments. Way the value of that. Just repairing the building costs X amount of dollars. Doing the renovation expansion costs X amount of dollars. What is the value to you as a community? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Given that there would be accessibility on all of the floors. After that, if we chose this option one or two. Doesn't that open up some space in the library? That hasn't really been able to be used very well. And does it also give us the option. To move. To move administrative offices. It does seem like. There should be some flexibility if we have accessibility throughout the building. That, um, that's a, that's a possibility, but it doesn't expand the space or move any walls or. Change any of the layout. This, this study did not look at that. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I understand that. Anything else, Pat, at this time. Not right this second. Okay. Darcy. Yeah, I'm just interested in knowing, um, if you have an opinion about, um, regular maintenance and whether. Uh, the fact that we've been deferring maintenance. Um, Has actually raised the cost of the potential repairs. Um, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Raise the cost. It perhaps has, um, quickened the need to make the repairs. Obviously if you take care of an old car. And change its oil every month or every three months through whenever it's going to run longer. It's the same thing with the building. If you're able to keep up with all of the repairs, it's always a good idea to change the car. Um, but then I think that's basically everything does wear out. Um, they are mechanical systems. Is there a, is there a formula, like a, that, you know, for municipal facilities for. You know, like the percentage of the total budget that should go into maintenance each year. Yes. That's above my pay grade. the top of my head. I'd have to, that is more a mechanical engineer question than a good type question. Thank you. Are there additional questions from the council? Okay, then given the hour I'm going to immediately flip to the attendees. If you wish to ask a question please raise your hand now. I'm not seeing any hands. Nobody seems to want to ask a question and we have 28 attendees and that's not counting all the people who are on just watching on Amherst media. All right I'm going to come back to the council then. Are there additional questions from the council? I'm going to figure out how to do it. Okay. Kathy please go ahead. You know I sent a list of questions in ahead to you and my understanding is we're going Lynn is going to take mine and some of the other councils and we'll post them but some of my questions were about build a little bit on what Pat was getting at that if we get accessibility on all the floors or their potential ways of reusing the boardroom which right now has some beautiful old furniture in it but is not used for a lot of community events. A bathroom up on the top floor that is hinged in a way that makes it hard to get into so trying to think of even with just accessibility reusing was one of my questions so I think you partially answered that but it was also about do are there any potential offsets to if we wanted to to move ahead with doing this rather than the larger project if if the Jones could apply for partially CPA money if they're in the historic building that some of the funding could come from that funding source in the larger project they're proposed to start tax credits and I realize at this point it's a complicated question to say how much but I'm assuming that renovating and dealing with a historic part of Jones not the new addition which the new roof wouldn't qualify for the same kinds of potential offsets could apply if we went this route is that correct on those offsets I again it's a historic tax consult we need to be a part of this process to determine what would qualify or not I can't I'm sorry but I can't answer that question about that's too there's too little information and again that's a specialty with the historic tax consultant when we work on historic buildings they're part of our team and they were not part of our team for the study okay okay that's fair you know so you know and I know the the computation is sort of partly what you're doing you know and as is you know special collections is a piece of it but Jones in the past has gotten CPA money to repair a roof because it's a historic building so there are some potential offsets to it so I just was looking at what would be the net cost to the general revenue fund although CPA is still tax dollars you know it's just coming out of another pot of money so thank you sure you have your hand up yeah um I one one just administrative thing is if we're looking for public comment that isn't questions we might want to phrase it that way because we asked when you phrased it you asked specifically for questions there might be public out there that don't have questions but would like to say something so just an administrative thing on that but I you know one thing I wanted to say one thing that strikes me about this study is that it costs a lot of money to just repair the building and that that repair doesn't come with at this point with that that number that we have any gains in sustainability other than that we have a 40 year old a 40 year newer system and one of our council goals is sustainability so I think as we move into this conversation we have to really look at what this gets us versus what our council council policies and all are because anything we would want to do to make this library more sustainable is going to be on top of whatever numbers that we were presented with this study is my understanding because the study isn't looking at adding insulation replacing single pane windows any of that stuff a better upgraded system that doesn't use fossil fuels that I believe some of the other things given my reading of the sustainability report does so I think we need to keep that in mind as we do what Steve was saying that value comparison and continue this conversation on Dorothy I'm actually going to skip you to give George and Lisa a chance and then come back to you George or Alyssa no it's George thank you thank you this can't be answered but I'm just wondering if you could give us a sense or maybe Austin would weigh in what the next steps are going to look like going forward and if there's a timeline that could be given to that I'm just wondering where we go next I think that's a question for Austin so where we go next so we were eager for this meeting because we want the council to be clear about what the repair costs would be the feasibility and design committee met jointly with the sustainability committee to review what fine gold Alexander was presenting for improvements in the plan having to do with sustainability and several questions were addressed back to fine gold Alexander which need to be clarified in terms of what they can do and are recommending about sustainability once we have that then we will be taking the next step and the next step is to really be in a position to present to the town what the revised plan would would be so that's kind of what the next steps are from the point of view of the library board of trustees Alyssa that was actually the perfect segue thank you George and Austin because that's what I wanted to make sure before we left this meeting tonight doesn't have to be this second but in a couple minutes is to be clear what the community's role is next and what the town council's role is next so Austin indicated that the sustainability committee which is a committee associated with the library it's not like some overall town sustainability committee gets some more answers back and feels like they have a more fully fleshed out picture then it's a question of when you say present to the community does that mean the community is supposed to watch one of your regular Jones library trustee meetings that typically haven't been filmed in the past doesn't mean you're planning to have a zoom webinar and how does it all fit in terms of you know beyond the pandemic right which is hugely an issue right now is the idea basically okay we we got that data and now we're just putting it on the shelf until we find out what's going on with the library grant or is there an ongoing conversation to be had between now and again and obviously again this is not a question for Allen but it a question for Austin in terms of what do I tell people on the street except you know we don't actually see people on the street anymore to say what's happening next and here's who you can ask more questions of and here's what the timeline looks like it are we just in a holding pattern or could you be a little more specific about that so thanks that's a good question we're not in a holding pattern what we've done is we've asked find old Alexander to refine the design that was presented to the MVLC the MVLC came back to us and it's approved the you know put it put it it's stamp of approval so to speak on the proposal we're number two on the wait list it said we needed to make one significant change and that was to move the large meeting room that occasion some rethinking of the arrangements of elements in the plan and final go like Alexander's been working on that and then we've asked them to think about the sustainability piece how could we make the library even more sustainable than it would have been under the prior plan and so we're waiting for them to come back to us now and say well this is this is what the whole package looks like there may be things that we wanted to do in the building that we're gonna have to sacrifice because of the sustainability piece that we are trying to achieve Finkle Alexander is a pretty well known and pretty expert in working with historic buildings but they're also really well known about working on sustainability and in fact the Jones Library proposal has already attracted attention around the state for our interest in sustainability so once we have all that then that'll be presented to the feasibility and design committee and then the feasibility and design committee will make recommendations and at that point will be laying out a process of how we're going to go forward from that point on with Dorothy you have your hand up yes two-part question before plans are finalized I think you need to add the adjustments for COVID-19 which we hear may not be going away right away which would mean some rethinking of space use in terms of program use because we've we keep adding things as we go on but I think that not to have that in this plan would not would be a bad idea but my short-term question is I read Paul's email about the damage in the special collections which sounds extensive and that's right now and there's tarps and the ceiling the HVAC system is dripping so that can't wait for whatever this process is and so my question is what can you do to try to save the special collections that's a very good question and I'm gonna ask Sharon to answer it but I do want to just say as you all know what we're worried about is a cascade of things so what we're worried about is what begins with yet another leak in special collections will begin to trigger or cascade into other failings in the mechanical electrical and plumbing in the in the library and that's why what we got from Coon Riddle looked at two different options right one was you know kind of what could be done first and the other was what needed to be done first Sharon do you want to say something about the special collections problem sure literally as of between 430 and 5 it was still being worked on so you know I don't even know what the magnitude of the damage is quite yet and so we will fix it and regarding how much it will cost and where we get that money from so a year ago during the JCPC process we had asked the town for money for these kinds of issues you know just in case and and so we were told that when the just in case emergency happens then come back and ask for it so if it's a large enough repair issue that we're dealing with then we'll come to town council and ask for money to get it repaired and and Cindy our curator will work on how to best save the documents that have been damaged Alex you have your hand up yeah I just want to add thanks Sharon I want to add that so we had this exact same issue last August so every time we're running the air conditioning units again because our systems are at end of life and this this is our concern and this is why the MEP systems are probably one of our highest priorities and I'll repeat what I repeated last year at JCPC is that we have an end of life system there's one guy who knows how to work on our system we have to wait till the one guy who knows our system can come out and work on it so last year we had to wait a week before this person was available so this has become a recurring problem and to to to counselor Pam's question we do fix it every year we do as much as we can to protect things but when your systems are at end of life I mean we keep repairing them I mean they're just they need they need to be replaced so I'm going to quickly flip back over to the attendees and ask if there are any questions please raise your hand I see none are there any final comments or questions yes Kathy Kathy you need to unmute I do indeed need to unmute as I've been listening to the additional information we're getting out of the sustainability committee and I saw some estimates of those systems will you be putting them together with a revised total cost of the project and you mentioned that in the the larger I'm talking about the larger project right now and will you to the extent you have to you use the word sacrifice something else you wanted to do I'm assuming you you have to do the things you told the granting authority as I understand it so I don't know where you've got the flexibility but I think it would be very helpful as you present these so I'm not asking you to do it now to present those pieces because I think some of what we're looking for is that we didn't ask Alen and her team to look at different systems but we've got an opportunity to say you had an original cost for your internal systems and now you have a revised cost how much did that add so we can do oh that might add that much if we just did renovate but at least it gives us if you want a building that is more sustainable in terms of fuel so I think just following the pieces to a new total even if it's the same total and one of the worries I've had about the total aside from the town's ability to finance it is that that total was originally priced out assuming on a 2019 construction so if we're at 2022 you know if you get a grant extension so just walking all of us through that so there's a full can be a full public dialogue not just with the council but with the broader residents on what are we talking about sure I think that's exactly right and we're certainly doing that we've asked find gold Alexander for exactly for that information but again I want to remind myself and maybe others that what we're doing is you're trying to think about the program that the library needs the services that the library needs to provide so that's where we began and that's where we're going to come back to at the end what is it that the town wants our library to do and we've designed a process and work through a process in which the program led the design and a land may not want to opine on this but typically that's what architects say you should do you should begin with the program and let the program lead the design that's what we've done and when we're we have more time as I said earlier we're happy to review right from the beginning how we got to the point where we believe an expanded and renovated Jones library is the library that the town should choose because of the services that the library needs to provide and we're going to be able to tell you exactly what the costs are and for sustainability we'll tell you exactly what the cost of moving to the level of sustainability that we are trying to move in which would make the Jones library a model of sustainability for the town thank you you know I do appreciate that the program led to the design and it's just when I was running for council one of the things that struck me is that we rarely think about the whole town we think about one big part so you're the library trustees it makes sense that you focus on the library and some people are asking me we're about to hopefully build a new school so where should the big community room be and and you know a question of if you look across all our public space so it's those kinds of questions Austin on the library trustees under one roof and others have asked me so I I think that is the right way to approach it and so there just are going to be questions on that vision in terms of what else we need to do in the town so this isn't in isolation sure I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't want to trade my place on the library board for a place on the town council so thank you for reminding me of my privilege so thank you first and foremost to the library trustees for taking on the responsibility of answering this critical question it's a question that all of us have needed the answer to in today's dollars and with the implications that have been presented. Elan thank you very much for your study and with that we're going to say this is just the beginning of our discussion with the library we will be back as we have more information and at that point we will engage the council and library trustees and the public once again so going to adjourn this meeting you need to adjourn the trustees and then we will be turning around and in three minutes reconvening for our hearing so yes go ahead did you want me to adjourn the trustees first please okay is there a motion to adjourn this meaning of the Jones library board of trustees is there a second okay Robert Pam are you in favor of adjourning yes Alex the favor you in favor of adjourning yes Lee Edwards are you in favor of adjourning Lee yourself Lee is saying she is way to go Lee Tammy are you in favor of adjourning yes Chris Hoffman are you in favor of adjourning yes and Austin said if we are adjourned thank you very much those just in the town council we don't even have a motion they're so anxious to adjourn just let me adjourn the meeting so we will adjourn and reconvene at 7 o'clock thanks counselors we can stay right here we're going to use the same webinar for the that makes it more likely I'll be here on time


Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome guys to our new podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scott-Okitaya, founder and CEO of JSA, along with my fabulous co-host, Mr. Evan Christel, top V2B social media influencer. Yeah, great to be here Jamie for this inaugural podcast, where we're sitting down with some of the most influential men and women in today's telco and data center world, who are supporting the growing and complex network infrastructure requirements of this new world we live in. Before we get to our first guest, which you are really excited about, how are you doing? How are things in the OC, as we say? Great, and as those who read my blog know, I had a baby girl, Ava Capri. So that was four months ago already. And so back off of maternity leave and back excited to be part of our amazing industry. And there's a lot going on, you know? Things are- Yeah, the things are never quiet in our neck of the woods in terms of tech. But have you got her the new iPhone? Four months old, that's about the right time, right? You know, yeah, there's the rattle in one hand and the iPhone in the other. That's my babysitting advice, frankly. That's what my mom does. She's like, just throw them the phone and they'll play with the games. And I'm like, yes, I'll also call Tokyo. So like, can we, you know? But yeah, the new iPhone is crazy too. It's 5G ready apparently. Always something to get you with the new iPhone. And it's actually a pretty big release for us people on the network side. Obviously a 5G has been overhyped to some degree, but the fact that the iPhone with 5G is real means that you're gonna see millions of new devices and applications and use cases emerging. And the network is going to have to evolve accordingly. So that's kind of what we're here to talk about. Yeah. And that brings us to our fantastic guest, dear friend of mine for 20 plus years. I don't wanna say it. But as you know, data movers, we really wanna dive into our speakers' background stories here, his careers highs and lows, unique perspectives of the future, our industry. And there was no other person that we could think of to do our inaugural data movers. Then with our amazing guest today, Mr. Eric Contag, Executive Chairman of GlobeNet and of course, President of Suboptic. Eric, welcome to Data Movers. Jamie and I wanna thank you so very much for having me here today. I'm so excited and honored to be able to share the scenario podcast. This is great. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. And Jamie and Eric is what we call a beta test. So you're our first beta tester. And you're actually calling from sunny New England in Rhode Island, which is nice to see. Yes, yes indeed. While our office is in Fort Lauderdale, I'm really enjoying the Northeast this time of the year. Yeah, it's a good time of the year. It's kind of our season of fall before the snow starts to settle. But let's start by talking about your background. I wonder if you've been in the telecom industry longer than I have, which is about 30 years. So to give you some context, but maybe you can talk through where you started and how you got to where you are now. Actually, I didn't. I didn't start in telecom and I joked that I hated telecom. As I started my career actually in San Diego, California, working for a company called General Atomics as part of the team there working on nuclear energy staff, fusion, fission experiments, et cetera. I was invited to join the startup team of the San Diego Supercomputer Center. So ever since I was very much involved with high tech, the latest stuff on the compute side, super computer graphics and so on. And I was fortunate to be there at a time where everything was new. So we tested all sorts of stuff. It was like a big startup that exists today, which led me from doing local area networks that were brand new back then to help build the first National Science Foundation Network, the NSF Net, which is the granddaddy of the internet that had replaced ARPANET at the time. And so I was always on the data side of things. That gave me the opportunity to move to Latin America where my parents were living and I had a younger brother that I hadn't seen growing up and it was just perfect to launch my first startup being a company focused on local area networks, it going to the largest companies like oil and gas and education and computer animation and so on. An awful lot of fun. From there I jumped to computer graphics representing SGI that was a household name in the animation world, eventually in the data center, in the server world and the internet. And that led me to a couple of other companies and things were going great until I joined a good friend of mine and we decided to build a basically a platform for the converged world of mobility in the internet. This is in the 1999 timeframe, early 2000s. And Evan, you mentioned before that 5G was a little bit overhyped.  So everything that we're doing today with 4G is what we thought we were going to get from, let's say from 3G. And we set out to build this startup, moved to the United States and helped with the political turmoil in Latin America were not great. And I got, let's say exposed to that convergent space. This time that startup became a statistic from the dot com bust. And then a good friend of mine called me up and said, hey, there's this Brazilian telecom operator and they're buying a subsea network. And I think it would be perfect for it because it's a turnaround job. And so we bought the assets from 360 network. I joined GlobeNet. And what enticed me to do that in 2003 was the fact that you had this amazing digital network. This was the side of telecom that I didn't really know much about. And I didn't have to do with the old analog incumbent type, let's say mentality, right? And so I saw this as a combination of a great startup and a turnaround job that sitting on a huge infrastructure asset that was the latest network that had been built in our region. And that's kind of what got me into telecom. I thought that I would have stayed with GlobeNet maybe three to five years and it's been a little bit more than that. Let's put it that way because every three years something fun different happened. Here's where I am today. And that's when I met Eric. He was a client at Telex, one of our early, early clients. And I had started at Telex as their head of marketing and PR. And yeah, and so early on we were trying to figure out, what else can we do to promote GlobeNet to the telex community? Let's do postcards. That's right, that's right. We did a lot of those things. I mean, we've had a lot of firsts, I think, at GlobeNet and something that I'm very proud of, right? We were the first subsea cable in our region to have carrier ethernet as one of our products when people are not even talking about that. We extended our networks into new markets even terrestrially over OPGW wire lines to service, Manaus, for example. We've replaced cable segments and so on. So there's a lot of things that were happening and latency, we became the very first subsea network basically to look at latency and deliver services between the Bovespa Sock Exchange and New York City. So definitely a lot of firsts and a lot of fun. As if we were on a high speed yacht versus a little Robo. That was actually one of our postcards, Jamie, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, carrier ethernet too, it was MEF certified, I want to say, right? And we were doing things early on that was just incredible and now has become, through Eric's leadership, subsea standards, if you will. And your role, not just as chairman of GlobeNet, but now president of Suboptic, I mean, you are always speaking and gathering committees together to think about the future of subsea. Any thoughts there? What do you see coming up? But absolutely, I think our success at GlobeNet had also a lot to do with the fact that right from the beginning, we embraced partnerships that had to be part of our DNA because we couldn't do it all alone, right? So you have the subsea network that is basically a link between two terrestrial networks and nowadays more link between two data centers. And so you depend on somebody else to be able to deliver that end to end service. And when we started, for example, with carrier ethernet and the MEF and so on, we had to convince our partners in Latin America, this is a good thing, right? This is something that you need to look at. And I think when you look at technology or what I've always done is I look at the developing world, right? I look at the U.S. I look at Europe and see what's going on in Asia and so on. And you know that eventually what's happening here today will happen in the developing world versus the developed world. If you look at that, it will happen in say three years, five years later, right? So that gives a little bit of time, not necessarily to be the beta tester or version 1.0 user of our product, but you're already looking at what is established, what's going to work, and you need to make sure that the economics are good, right?  Earlier this year, where we were asking the question, how is COVID-19 impacting the global communications fabric? And I think the learnings that came from that series is that our global network proved to be resilient. I mean, at work, it didn't collapse, but there was many lessons learned that came from that, right? And so when you look at that entire ecosystem or the value chain, you have to ask yourself the questions, why did it work? Why didn't collapse? We had excess inventory, we were able to use that because we did see a huge spike of data, in particular, say, in our neck of the woods in the April timeframe of this year, March timeframe. And people didn't think that it was going to continue to grow, they thought that it would plateau out. And if you look at the numbers, gaming jumped initially 30% and then you asked the same people, let's say at the exchanges, how do you see that a month ago? And it's now continues to be in a 50% growth rate. And if you talk to one of the larger OTTs, they looked at their media platforms and they didn't jump 10%, 20%, they jumped 35 times. That is huge. And to be able to absorb that amount of data, you just need to have that physical infrastructure ready in the available headroom, let's say, to do it. But we also learned many, many things in that process, right? Awareness of the global communications infrastructure is critical. So the work, for example, that other organizations such as ICPC are doing to talk to the governments, to push them to have a single point of contact to, hey, we need to work with each other because we've got all these oil tankers part, which happened actually in the month of late April, early May where nobody was driving, right car. So we're gonna store all that fuel. They have to park outside of the protection zone or subsid gables because if they anchor, you could create damage or you've had a crew on a ship, seafarers already for months that need to go home. Can you quarantine inside the ship, for example? So people started to talk and collaborate. And I think that that was critical and has been critical keeping our global communications infrastructure running, right? So the question is what happens now? I mean, major OTTs, for example, accelerated their 2021, 2022 investments to 2020 just to make sure that they didn't run out of bandwidth, right? So those are some of the things that we are seeing. And I think collaboration and co-opitation is key in order to keep that fabric strong, resilient and up and running. Wow, well done. Well, that's something I wasn't even aware of, you know, as Americans here in the US speaking for myself in the telecom industry, I don't know anything about the LaTam market. I would probably say that's true for most of us in the industry here. So give us a snapshot or some highlights of what's happening in the market. I know it's very diverse and it's a huge area geographically and market-wise. What are some highlights and trends that we could learn from? And some insights you might be able to share. I think from a telecom perspective, you're gonna find that that LaTam is not too different, let's say then in some cases the US or Europe, right? So if I'm gonna talk broadly, for example, about the operators just like we in the United States had to learn to deal with work from home, I mean, think about it. Most networks were designed to provide that level of resiliency to the enterprise, to physical buildings downtown New York, right? Or downtown LA or places like that. And those areas are empty. People are working not only from home, they've decided to move to rural areas. And so now you need a very different network. And mind you can go through New Hampshire, through the streets or here in Barrington, Rhode Island or even Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And you'll constantly see trucks of people blowing new fiber, fixing fiber, laying fiber. And I think one of the things that COVID-19 has done is it has accelerated that fiber to the premise, fiber to the home process. And I think that we in our industry need to stop thinking of that reach to the end user as a last mile. We need to start thinking of it as a first mile. So if you really want to do eventually good telemedicine, maybe be able to talk to a patient that is doing remote dialysis and stuff like that, that network needs to be really, really strong. So some of those things we're also seeing in Latin America where perhaps the last mile was a lot weaker than it is in the United States. So different telcos had to really rush to build out that last mile to increase capacity, to redesign their networks, to move the IP traffic, to make them more resilient. I think it's also pushed for, we need updated regulation. If we want to launch 5G and everything that it has to do with 5G, we need to look at how is this going to be done? And what you start to see is that there's not enough capital to do everything. So if I take Brazil as an example, which is 10 times larger than perhaps any other market in Latin America, you start to see companies that are saying, look, we did okay in 4G, but maybe this is not our strength anymore. Let's sell off that wireless group. And you're gonna go back to having maybe three strong wireless operators because the capital that is needed to cover an entire nation that's the size of the United States is huge. And then let us focus, perhaps on a backbone network or a national backbone network that is very strong, that is very robust, et cetera.  And in order to do that, you really need to beef up those networks. Now, you may argue that 80% of that is maybe gonna stay local. Well, is that really true? I mean, that's a question that we need to ask ourselves. Is that really true now with work from home? I think that some technologies, like for example, autonomous vehicles, they're gonna develop first here, maybe in Europe. And then eventually they're gonna go to Latin America where perhaps today they may not make that much sense. But if you think of long hauled trucking routes where you have tons of accidents, where you have drivers that are underpaid, they're driving 23, 24 hours a day and then you have accidents because they fall asleep, those are routes where you say, man, in order to get my mango from the Amazon delivered here at my closest shopping center, we need to improve, let's say services. I think honestly, we're at a phase where we're gonna see exponential growth and innovation and technology. There are a lot of things happening just because of Moore's law, right? Just because we have doubled the capacity of compute and double the capacity of graphics over the last 18 months, following, let's say that the Moore's law, where now there's things that are possible that before were just not. Medical imaging analysis, for example, and things like that. Because we live in a connected world, you see scientists in Latin America collaborating with scientists all over the world, not just the US, right? Where they're looking at the next generation of vaccine where they're saying, hey, maybe we can use CRISPR to do some gene editing to come up with the next coronavirus vaccine and stuff like that. So all that interaction, all that global interaction requires very robust networks. And so while many of these subsea networks, for example, that are being built around the globe in particular, these massive large networks are optimized to connect data center to data center, we're starting to see projects that are circumnavigating globes, like for example, the latest release of a network around Africa. Because if we don't start thinking about those things, those island nations, for example, or the Caribbean or the smaller countries, if they're not considered, you're just increasing the digital divide, right? So infrastructure is gonna play and continue to play a very important role in our connected world. Yeah, and COVID obviously throwing a huge spotlight on how digital divide is really impacting the future, education and how do you raise a child in this if you have no steady internet? It's definitely an issue. Now, circling back throughout your career, thinking of all the amazing experiences and knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time, give us one piece of advice that you would say to yourself at the beginning of your career, what would it be? If I would have learned about the stock market back then, I would have invested in these tiny little startup companies that we use to build up the network since San Diego, people like Cisco that were in a garage up in Menlo Park. This is all well and good, but I need stock tips today. I need names and I'm on my Robin Hood app here. I need to trade something now, so I'm looking for some stock tips, please. Just kidding. That's one that we'll probably have to take offline, right? But it's critical for people to start looking at these things and when I talked to my kids, I said, look, my older son that just starting his career in San Diego, California of all places where I started, he says, dad, what should I do with this? I said, well, get yourself a broker and start learning about these because there's many companies out there that are unicorns today that 10 years ago, we didn't even know what their names were, right? And it's just gonna get faster and faster and faster. So focusing on things like artificial intelligence and a lot of those offshoots, that's where, if you wanna take the rest, there's a couple of companies there that should definitely look at. At home, alcohol delivery, Drizli, that's the future. Particularly in the pandemic. But in all seriousness, shifting gears to your personal life, how are you coping with the pandemic and have you developed any new hobbies or maybe focused on some existing hobbies to kind of keep sane in this difficult time? Well, yes. I mean, I was on the road 95% of my time and then come March 17th, when I flew back from Sao Paulo, all of a sudden that stopped, right? So absolutely. So you learn to cope, right? I mean, there's things that you can do, obviously to keep engaged. But one of my hobbies is aviation. And I think, to some extent, yours, right? Well, mine from a Microsoft Flight Simulator standpoint. So I think you might actually fly real airplanes if I'm correct. Ooh, I do. I started early in my, when I was in college, I got my private pilot's license to work up through my different ratings and my instrument and commercial take at the flight instructor. And then life happened. I moved from San Diego, California to Latin America and they didn't recognize my ratings and I had these startups and eventually a family. For 30 years, I stopped flying. And a few years ago, a business friend of mine asked, we're sitting there in a discussion of two CEOs, what's your passion? I started to talk about strategy and whatever. Well, that's not good. What about you? I said, God, I used to fly.  I said, yeah. And then I got pushed to gotta get back into it. You gotta do this. And I did. And it's been super rewarding. And so during COVID-19, of course, I went back to the books because most flight schools were closed and then as they started to open up, then I rejoined my recurrent training. You have to stay on top of things. It's a good time to relearn the things that you haven't learned. I actually did a course called the Rusty Pilot Seminar just to bring me up to speed on things that needed to be done. And now I'm keeping it up and the freedom of flying in the US is amazing. And so it's definitely a passion of mine. Fantastic. Well, we may need to hitchhike on one or two of those flights coming up, but thanks for sharing. Absolutely. So I'd like to move us into what I call our rapid fire section. So tell us just the first thing that comes to mind when I say what's an upcoming purchase you're thinking of? Come on, none, gotta save, it's COVID-19. Well, okay. iPhone 12. Favorite food that would surprise people. Well, most people know of me as a carnivore. I love anything that is, let's say that is grilled, but I would say in that space grilled artichokes. Oh, that's a good one. I like that one. And if you could watch one movie on repeat for 24 hours straight, I'm not sure why you would, but if you could, what would it be? My favorite movie is Cinema Paradiso. And that's one that definitely speaks to me and I would mind it seeing it over and over again.  My husband plays it on repeat every time. It's so weird. My nephews are like, is this what Christmas means? Just walk away, walk away. It's a wonderful life. Come on, that must be one of the best movies. So what celebrity do you think you look like? Andy Garcia. Good one. Oh, can I see it, yes, yes.  Charismatic. Yes, absolutely. Innovative. Innovative, yes. All right, so thank you so much, Eric, for taking your time to be our inaugural guinea pig for your data movers. We were just thrilled and getting, like I took some notes because I didn't realize all these things that you have done and getting a deeper dive into your background was so cool.  Artichoke. So Jamie, I mean, I'd like to thank you and Evan, this certainly has been an awful lot of fun and I think we need these things, Evan. So you asked about... Yeah, this is the height of my social outlet for the week here. So yes, we'll meet for a beer, a socially distanced down in Providence, you know, sometime this winter. Absolutely, I'd love that for sure. All right, take you up on it. If you enjoyed today's data movers podcast, be sure to check out jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming data movers episodes, releasing every other week on Wednesday mornings, as well as other JSA podcast series. And additionally, you can follow us on Twitter at jscido and of course, at Evan Christel. I'm sure you're all following him, but if not, you know, he's the guy on Twitter to follow. On meantime, thank you all. God bless and happy networking.


The financial statements are prepared directly from the adjusted trial balance. The focus of this short video is the statement of retained earnings. After the income statement, we prepare the statement of retained earnings. This follows the income statement because net income is also included in this statement, as net income increases retained earnings. So let's use the adjusted trial balance and complete the financial statements. We use retained earnings and dividends from the trial balance and put that on the statement of retained earnings. Additionally, we will use net income from the income statement. The statement of retained earnings has a company name, the name of the financial statement, and the date, which is always year-ended and then whatever the date is. The date is done exactly like we do with the income statement. So the statement of retained earnings details the changes in retained earnings of a business for a period or range of time. Retained earnings from the adjusted trial balance is listed first. Then we add net income to increase retained earnings. Finally, we subtract dividends which decrease retained earnings. This gives us an ending retained earnings balance that will go on the balance sheet.


Can I have one minute to speak with you one minute? Yeah, hi I'm a realtor in the neighborhood, and I just sold the box down the street And I was wondering if you'd be willing to sell this. No Hi, I just want to let you know that I'm a realtor. I just sold the box down the street Hi. Yeah, I sold the So I just sold the box down the street. That's a beautiful feathered fun box You have I hear that they're going for a lot of money these days Would you be willing to sell your feathered fun box to a new buyer? Yeah Here, let me give you an appraisal. It looks like a very nice box I'd say that you could definitely get more than you paid for it. Yeah, you're looking at it, too, right? Exactly like yeah, if you look inside. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just trying to help