[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:05] So good morning, everyone. With me is Barbara Bard, she's the chief of staff and also the clerk of the city council. So what I thought I'd do this morning, the questions that I get asked most often are what's the status of the projects that are going on in town. So I thought I'd give everyone an update on the major projects that are going on in town. We'll start with the smaller ones and end up with the largest one at the end.
[0:32] So first, new police station, at least now we have a sign out front that says
[0:38] future police headquarters over on Southfield Street, the project is
[0:41] progressing along, anticipate likely we're going to be moving in next spring.
[0:48] There were a couple of delays as a result of back orders on some switch gear
[0:54] in the backup generator, so that slowed down the construction process, but it's
[1:00] going in earnest now, the delivery dates on the backup generator and the switch gear are
[1:06] in late January, early February of next year.
[1:10] So the contractor anticipates that if those deliveries happen on time, there's a bit
[1:15] of work they have to do to get them hooked up and running that hopefully by March or so
[1:21] of next year we'll be moving into the new police station.
[1:24] So, that's police station number two, what is now called Stillbrook Park, which is the
[1:32] former Takahota farm on Pine Street, that's almost done.
[1:40] We had some problems with the paths in the park, so the contractor is redoing those as
[1:46] we speak.
[1:47] were anticipating getting the project turned over to the town probably early
[1:54] October. Probably another couple three weeks they'll be done replacing the
[2:00] path materials in the park. The problem was the materials they put down for the
[2:05] walking pass were a gravel that wouldn't compact. So it was akin to walking on
[2:11] beach sand. So they came up with a different gravel stone dust material that they're taking
[2:19] out the existing material and putting the new material in. Yesterday, in fact, the last
[2:24] of the amenities was delivered to the park, the little pavilion that's going to be installed
[2:29] in there. So we're hopeful in about two or three weeks to have that turned over to us.
[2:38] Number three, Mayhalla, which is Northwest Field Street, the Colvert Replacement, in the
[2:44] dip in Northwest Field Street, 187 heading towards Westfield.
[2:48] That project has been moved to the spring.
[2:52] We experienced extreme difficulty getting some utility poles and wires moved, so no one wants
[3:00] to go through what we went through on North Street last year, which is to have that road
[3:05] would be closed for six or more months.
[3:09] So that project is being moved until the spring.
[3:13] That way, it can get done as quickly as possible.
[3:16] The asphalt plants will be open,
[3:17] so there won't be any question regarding being able
[3:22] to pave it to get it reopened.
[3:23] What happened on North Street was some specialized
[3:26] fill material, the plant that made that material
[3:30] went out of commission because the machinery
[3:32] that makes it broke,
[3:33] it was the machinery was manufactured in Europe so they had to get parts from
[3:38] Europe that caused the project to be delayed and we couldn't reopen because the
[3:42] asphalt plans weren't open so we couldn't repay the road. May Hollow is almost
[3:47] identical to North Street it's a very steep deep you know drive so it can't be
[3:55] reopened unless it's paved so this way if we started in the spring there's no
[4:00] question regarding as soon as the contract is done it can be paved and re-opened.
[4:05] It's estimated to be 90 to 120 days is what the estimated time for the construction period
[4:12] to be.
[4:15] So that's, you know, knocking on wood and hoping that we don't hit anything that we're
[4:20] not expecting.
[4:21] But like I said, it was difficult and we're still not done getting, we got the polls
[4:29] moved and we got two of the three utilities to move their wires and we just got
[4:34] confirmation this morning that the third one's going out next week to move
[4:39] their wires so but it was it was difficult because we we asked the utility
[4:47] that owns the polls to move the polls and so they went in there and they put brand
[4:52] new polls right next to the old polls even though we had marked on the street
[4:55] in very large letters, poll with an arrow, and they didn't put them we were supposed to.
[5:01] So they had to go back, take those poles out, put new poles in where they're supposed
[5:04] to be, and then there's three sets of wires on all the poles, every source, Verizon, and
[5:11] Comcast, and then we had to get all three utility companies to come in and move their wires
[5:17] off the old poles onto the new poles.
[5:20] So hopefully that's done by the end of next week, and the project will start next spring.
[5:39] It's a state project, but the hope is that it's going to go out to bid this fall, and construction will happen during next year's construction season.
[5:51] We just finished the Council just approved Monday night.
[5:54] the land takings for the project the town is responsible for the land takings in the final
[5:59] horse of pavement but it's an approximately 3.6 million dollar project of which the town
[6:06] share is a little over 600,000. We were also just notified of a grant we received to do
[6:14] reconstruction of Moore Street in North Aguam, the lower portion of Moore Street.
[6:19] that hopefully will go out a bit over the winter and be done during next year's
[6:25] construction season. So, you know, and hopefully you notice Springfield's streak
[6:31] got repaved. They'll be coming in to do the lining after the big E because we
[6:37] don't like to schedule any work anywhere near the big E while the big E is going
[6:42] on. Last but not least, Meadow Street is scheduled to be repaved. Again, after the
[6:50] biggie is done, we're finishing up doing there was a couple of water and sewer line replacements
[6:56] that we had to do while it was torn up so that we wouldn't hopefully have to disturb
[7:02] the new pavement for at least five years after it goes down. In addition, Ever Source came
[7:07] in and repaid down by the bridge by Rockies, the area that they dug up after that project
[7:13] was done a couple of years ago. So that they did right before the big E started. But the
[7:21] biggest project is the high school. So I brought these as illustrations so I can kind
[7:29] of explain where we are in the process and what the timeline is. We're in what's called
[7:35] design development. The project has been signed off on by the state, actually received yesterday,
[7:45] the signed project scope and budget agreement by the state. So it's 100% go.
[7:53] Design development is where you look, I brought this because this kind of shows the entire building,
[7:59] But this shows, you know, right now there are leadership team meetings that are happening
[8:08] every week.
[8:09] I spent the better part of the last two days in team meetings at the high school.
[8:15] And then there's constituent meetings, which is where we meet with teachers and professionals in various areas of the building.
[8:23] So just kind of give you an idea.
[8:26] this was we had a meeting on what portions of the building are going to have
[8:33] flat roofs versus pitch roofs where we're going to put the mechanical
[8:38] corrals for the HVAC equipment on the building so this kind of shows this is
[8:44] the community wing of the building that's the academic wing of the building but it
[8:47] kind of shows that wherever possible we're putting pitch roofs on this
[8:55] building. This area up here is the gymnasium area of the building. That'll have
[9:00] pitch roofs. Virtually the entire academic wing with the exception of the
[9:05] pod areas in the back will have pitch roofs. And what we're looking at is
[9:10] spacking is standing seam metal roofs, which have a useful life of more than 50
[9:16] years. Whereas your best flat roof material has a useful life up between 20 and 25
[9:24] side years. But this kind of, you know, this kind of detail, you know, this is an exterior
[9:30] detail just to kind of show you this
[9:43] is one of the early schematics of the big block areas
[9:48] inside the community wing, which are again the athletic center, the auditorium, the cafeteria,
[9:57] the industrial arts, the advanced manufacturing pathways room and the woodworking room.
[10:03] This is the portion of the building that construction will begin on next year.
[10:08] So this will be constructed first to kind of give you a reference point.
[10:13] This is the existing entry and the front of the high school that we built in the 90s.
[10:18] That's the only portion of the building that remains.
[10:20] So to kind of give you a reference point, the community wing will be entirely in the
[10:29] field to the west of the existing building.
[10:33] Once that's done, a portion of the existing building will be demolished and then the
[10:38] academic wing will be constructed.
[10:40] This is just an artist's rendering of what the courtyard area potentially will look like.
[10:46] but this again is was like the first layer of the leadership team meetings was
[10:54] talking about the basic layouts. We're now down to doing the floor plans
[11:01] room by room by room. I thought about bringing the bathroom plan because
[11:07] believe it or not that's we spent a lot of time on bathrooms and where they are
[11:13] and what kind of bathrooms they're going to be but you know down to so for
[11:19] instance yesterday we met with science teachers to talk about their science
[11:25] labs and the layouts what you know materials we met with both of the the
[11:31] advanced manufacturing pathways folks the woodworking teachers to get an idea of
[11:37] of their layout and equipment needs and so forth.
[11:41] We met with early childhood folks.
[11:43] I'll throw that plan up momentarily
[11:46] because as part of this project,
[11:47] we're converting part of the existing building
[11:49] into a new early childhood center.
[11:51] But each area we met with special education folks
[11:56] to talk about the layouts of their offices
[11:59] and all the spaces inside the building for special education.
[12:04] So, it's trying to nail down the final design because we're in what's called design development.
[12:14] That's scheduled to end December of this year.
[12:17] From there, your design is kind of, for lack of a better word, set in stone.
[12:22] So, what happens at the end of design development is there are detailed cost estimates.
[12:29] There was a detail cost estimate prepared at the end of schematic design, which schematic
[12:33] design is kind of like just the overall size of the building and the basic layout.
[12:39] When you get done with design development where you've really honed in, I mean, we've got
[12:43] another plan that talks about occupancy levels because that determines, you know, your heating
[12:49] and cooling loads in the building.
[12:51] So that all has to be, you know, specced out by the various, you know, engineers and consultants.
[12:57] Once we're done with design development, the base plan, they do another detailed cost estimate to see where it is compared to what the budget is.
[13:07] And at that point, if it's at or below budget great, if it's over budget, then you have to engage in what's known as value engineering.
[13:17] What can you change inside of the building to bring the cost into where the budget is supposed to be?
[13:24] this is a new process in Massachusetts over the last few years because the
[13:29] contractor is already on board so the contractor is part of the process so we
[13:33] have input from the contractor regarding what the you know what the impact of
[13:39] potential changes are on the cost. Plus we're also doing spending quite a bit of
[13:45] time with the staff in each area having them identify which equipment they can
[13:53] bring from the existing building to the new building and what equipment needs to be replaced.
[13:59] And that's an exercise of looking at what's the useful life of the equipment, what's
[14:04] its condition, and there's a cost associated.
[14:08] In other words, there's a cost associated to moving, storing, and installing.
[14:14] And so sometimes it's not worth moving and storing a piece of equipment that has very little
[14:20] useful life left on it versus just buying a new piece of equipment and putting it in
[14:27] its place. But we're trying the concept is to try to reuse as much of what's in the
[14:33] high school as is possible. But we've talked about things, you know, one of the decisions
[14:41] that we made was that we're not going to have a quote unquote grand entrance to the building.
[14:49] We've been out to visit other new high schools where they've spent a lot of money putting in a grand entrance.
[14:55] The problem is nothing happens in the grand entrance.
[15:00] So, we would rather invest the money in areas of the building that are actually going to be used. So, to kind of give you an idea, we decided on the auditorium to go with an auditorium that has a balcony, so that there's a base auditorium and then there's a balcony up top. So, in our opinion is a better investment than having a grand entrance. We're basically going to walk in and say, oh, this is nice, but what are you doing in the grand entrance?
[15:29] insurance, nothing.
[15:33] Our gymnasiums are on the second floor of the building, and we've
[15:39] invested in, we have a full-size collegiate basketball court. That's the big gym with
[15:46] all the bleachers around it. And then a full-size high school basketball court also, so looking
[15:52] at the configuration, this portion of the building is the collegiate, the portion that goes
[15:57] and this direction is the is the high school but we have the we have the ability to have three gyms
[16:04] because the collegiate gym can be there's a curtain that can go down the middle
[16:08] and that can be turned into two high school regulation gyms so we'll have three high school
[16:12] regulation gyms at the building right now in Aguilon we have one total that's the main gym at the
[16:18] high school none of our other gyms are regulation size the junior high isn't none of the other schools
[16:23] are regulation side to games.
[16:26] Cafeteria, for instance.
[16:27] Cafeteria is a two-story.
[16:29] If you look, this is the Cafeteria on the artist rendering
[16:33] from the, looking at it from the courtyard,
[16:37] the Cafeteria is going to be two stories.
[16:39] The main concourse, but you can see that in the Cafeteria
[16:44] what we decided was the Cafeteria is two stories,
[16:47] but it goes up.
[16:48] There's a section above here that's kind of,
[16:51] That kind of be like a cafe that overlooks the cafeteria.
[16:57] It's a quiet spot where students can come up and eat their lunch up there, not in the
[17:03] middle of the big, busy cafeteria.
[17:06] What they're doing now at the high school, believe it or not, is a lot of students get
[17:09] their lunch and they go down to the library and they're eating in the library and if you
[17:13] knew the high school, the layout of the high school, that's a hike because the library's
[17:17] in the back of the building and the cafeteria is in the front of the building.
[17:20] But it's things like that, trying to build into the facility as much as possible.
[17:30] We've had debates on, do you build the new technology into the structure?
[17:35] And the answer, you know, the architects and engineers said, no, that's not a good idea,
[17:40] because what's high tech today 10 years from now is all tech.
[17:45] So they said build the capability in, but you know, because what's now big is what they call interactive whiteboards, which is basically, you know, if you've seen a whiteboard, these are whiteboards that are connected up to a computer.
[17:58] So you write on them and it shows up on the computer screen.
[18:02] That may be the technology today, but 10 years from now it may be replaced by something completely different.
[18:07] So, we are trying to invest in the ability to upgrade technology easily in the future rather
[18:14] than build the whiteboards into the walls, because then all of a sudden, if they are
[18:18] not the latest technology now, you got to deconstruct it all to put whatever the latest technology
[18:23] is in that spot.
[18:25] So, what I am driving at is a lot of thought is going into the design of the building.
[18:32] We got some good news, we did our test well for our geothermal system and the results came
[18:38] back about as good as they could possibly be, so that's good news because this building
[18:43] is going to be entirely heated and cooled by geothermal because there will be no fossil
[18:51] fuels in the building.
[18:54] The backup essentially is an electric water heater because geothermal, in the back of the
[19:03] property there will be a geothermal well field.
[19:07] You won't know it's there after they drill all the wells and the water is pumped to and
[19:16] from the geothermal well system into this portion of the building and then they use converters
[19:23] to convert, whether it's, you know, chill for the summer or, you know, heated water for
[19:28] the winter. So the backup is an electric water heater. It's a more fancier name than that
[19:33] that can augment on the really cold days. But, and you may say, why are we doing that?
[19:40] Well, because that's what the Mass School Building Authority requires. They require this
[19:45] building to be at least what they call lead silver certified, which is, you know, meets
[19:51] the stretch energy code plus and no it's a it's a it's a warm water system but
[20:01] just shifting gears for a quick sec there
[20:09] will
[20:28] be backup generation at the
[20:29] high school but it will not have the capability to run the entire building
[20:34] because that would be near impossible and the difficulty is that the building
[20:43] code now requires you to have an uninterruptible fuel source for your backup
[20:50] generator and so they've come out and said that natural gas is not considered
[20:56] to be an uninterruptible source so we have to have a diesel-fired generator just
[21:03] just like at the police station, we have to have a diesel fire generator.
[21:07] I fought the fight, but, you know, because I said, if we're at the point where underground
[21:14] natural gas pipes are disrupted, what's the chances we're going to be able to get diesel
[21:18] delivered?
[21:19] So, it's, you know, because the tanks at the buildings only will last for a certain amount
[21:24] of time, and then you've got to have to have a truck come and fill them up again.
[21:27] But in any event, it will have backup generation for all of the key areas in the building
[21:32] to be able to keep the heat going and all that stuff, but won't have enough capability to run the entire building just because it's just not possible.
[21:42] It is possible, but I guess it would be enormous, the amount of generators.
[21:47] This is the early childhood center, which is the current industrial arts wing at the high school, which if you're looking at the high school is all the way in the back on the right near where the baseball field is in the back.
[21:59] It's where Park and Rec use to be located years ago.
[22:03] So this is going to be converted into a new early childhood center stand alone on the campus.
[22:10] So this is a design it shows there's going to be the capability for ten classrooms.
[22:16] What you see at that end is a new office building that will be built and attached to it.
[22:23] So there also is going to be on this end of the building, a family resource center.
[22:28] Our family resource program is scattered amongst three different schools right now.
[22:33] So this will allow us to get it all in one location.
[22:36] And our early childhood program is scattered between two locations, Perry Lane and Sipelli
[22:41] School.
[22:42] This will allow us to have them under one roof as well.
[22:46] So but again, I can, you know, we've had already multiple meetings on the design of this building
[22:52] and already have redesigned the office areas for both family resource and the main office
[23:00] twice trying to work with staff to get what's necessary.
[23:06] What's neat is, and I'm going to do a community update, is that the architectural firm has
[23:13] software that in real time they can move things on their computer, but then they can put it
[23:21] into a program that kind of looks like a video game, so you can walk around the building
[23:27] and see, you know, it's not extraordinarily detailed, but you can get an idea from
[23:34] a walking person's perspective what the spaces will look like and how it all flows together.
[23:42] So, you know, and what's neat in the meetings is that they have a tech at the meetings and
[23:50] And he's adjusting walls and then going into that program so you can kind of say, hey,
[23:54] okay, we decided to move this wall over there.
[23:57] How does it, from a perspective, some people have the ability to look at a plan and
[24:01] can see it in their head.
[24:03] Other people, they just look at a plan and they can't visualize what that space is going
[24:08] to look like, you know, constructive.
[24:11] That program allows someone to be able to sit there and say, okay, now we move that over
[24:16] so now I can go walk in there and say, okay, that makes more sense.
[24:21] But, you know, we're down to dealing with, you know, furniture, you know, you know, because
[24:29] we have to make sure capability wise, we build enough space in for all the furniture that's
[24:34] necessary. And again, it's an arduous process because we're asking every department to itemize
[24:43] all of their equipment and tell us what can be what can be saved and moved and what is you know
[24:50] beyond their useful life. I mean going back to the high school we spent a while with the woodworking
[24:58] teacher and you know so we were talking with him and he's you know he said I have an old industrial
[25:04] planer that's huge you know and he said you know and so we're looking at you know the guidelines for
[25:12] how much space you have to leave around it and it would end up taking up 20% of the classroom.
[25:17] So he's like, it's easier just to buy the wood plane. And then we have, he said, there's portable
[25:24] planers that you can use that are much smaller than the old industrial planer. The industrial planer
[25:29] dates back to the 1950s. So it's making decisions like that to say, you know, to move that piece of
[25:37] equipment and set it up in the new school. And he said, we don't hardly ever use it because
[25:41] it's so cumbersome it's there so he said we really don't need it and it's
[25:46] better to use he said we're using the portable planers now more than we use
[25:49] that one so it's things like that dealing with the science teachers setting up
[25:54] the labs because they're looking for we our labs are abominable at the high school
[25:59] now so they're gonna have state-of-the-art labs but going back to industrial
[26:07] They now, whenever they do anything, you know, whether it's in the sheet metal side, if they need to paint, they actually have to physically go outside and paint it outside.
[26:17] The woodworking, when they're doing, putting, you know, polyurethane on or varnishes on or whatever, they have to go outside.
[26:24] So the new building is going to have a spray booth that can be shared between the woodworking and the advanced manufacturing, which is metal.
[26:32] they'll have a spray booth that's located between the two rooms that they can use with its own exhaust system,
[26:40] so that we won't be going outside anymore to do those kinds of things.
[26:46] Because, you know, we had multiple meetings already on what type of school safety measures are going to be built into the school.
[26:55] And that's always a consideration in design, you know, kind of like looking at this just to kind of give you an idea.
[27:05] These are classrooms and so there's eight classrooms and then two more here.
[27:10] This one we decided to put an accordion wall here so that this one can be opened up into a bigger space.
[27:17] When bad weather occurs and they need, you know, bigger space to deal with the kids, they can that can be a bigger space.
[27:23] but they initially wanted doors to go between all of the classrooms well from a school safety standpoint
[27:30] that doesn't work well because now if someone can get into a classroom they can get access to every
[27:35] other classroom. So we limited it to one classroom so that the two classrooms are joined in the middle
[27:41] and then the door that's going in there is going to be you know a safety door like the classroom
[27:49] doors or safety doors, but now you go into the older design schools, all the classroom
[27:54] is interconnect, and that creates a safety problem relative to being able to shelter
[27:59] in place.
[28:01] So it's things like that.
[28:04] There's a safety consultant that's on board on the project.
[28:07] like she is looking at, you know, cam replacements, you know, what type of hardware, you know,
[28:19] where on the property, you know, we're going to have exits and entrances because this
[28:24] is going to be vastly different than what the high school is now. The high school now has
[28:28] a big parking lot in the front of the building. The new building, that parking lot is going
[28:36] There's going to be parking interspersed around the site so there'll be a large to the west to the left of the community building.
[28:45] There's going to be a huge parking area there. Then you're going to come around the back. There's going to be another huge parking area behind the building once the existing building is torn down.
[28:57] There's going to be some parking in the front, but it's going to be dramatically less than what's there now.
[29:02] And again, the concept is to try to put parking near where needs of the building are, rather than just have a one big parking lot in the front and then, you know, no access in other locations.
[29:18] So there, you know, it all goes into the big, you know, safety plan for the property.
[29:25] So, like I said, that's what's taking up most of my time these days.
[29:30] Yes.
[29:31] It's pretty much going to move up to where the parking light is now.
[29:37] Yeah, well the, like I said, if you get it, that is the old, that's the existing entrance.
[29:42] So you'll get an idea that the building, the building is going to come closer to the street a little bit.
[29:49] but from a square footage standpoint, what we're building is roughly what the existing building is.
[30:00] It's just far more compacted because it's two stories rather than one. If I had the site plan, I could show you, but that, you know, the back of this building, you know, which are the back of the, the academic pods, probably, well, it's hundreds of feet more before you get to the end of where the existed.
[30:30] building is now because our existing building is just this giant maze so when
[30:35] people come for like outside games that they don't have to go through the
[30:39] schooling or against the gym they'll have access right there at the gym. We'll see
[30:42] there what we're looking at now is just to get up so that there's going to be an
[30:48] entrance over here that that'll be the main entrance for going into the
[30:55] the gymnasiums and the auditorium and the cafeteria.
[31:00] But we looked at the concept of trying to, you know, the difficulty is, like I said,
[31:07] we could build a grand entrance but on this design where exactly does it best fit and
[31:13] then you're going to spend that money where you could spend it, you know, so like I said,
[31:18] we decided to invest more and having an auditorium that has a balcony in it versus just
[31:25] a straight up, we decided to have, you know, what we're calling like the cyber cafe over
[31:30] looking the cafeteria, you know, in that area, we're going to invest heavily in the courtyard
[31:37] which is the
[31:41] main feature of this building. It's going to be the courtyard area in the middle.
[31:48] So that's the concept of the building. And so this, this is the existing front entrance on the
[31:56] on the school, the high school doesn't really have a grand entrance other than the one that's
[32:01] over on the circle. But again, you know, the concept is when you come to a game or a show,
[32:07] there's going to be a big parking area over here. So you'll be parking over there. That parking
[32:12] is a whole lot closer to the athletic fields. So that will be the area where you'll park to go into
[32:17] a show or to a basketball game or a volleyball game. Or if you're going to a football or whatever,
[32:23] There's going to be another big parking area that's going to be off the back here, which is adjacent to where the baseball diamond, the softball diamonds are, the outside, you know, the other track event area, which is in the back over there.
[32:39] So it's going to be a lot closer for people coming to events at the high school rather than parking over here, you know, and walking all the way around or trying to park in the sidewalks, still going to be there.
[32:50] but parking in the sidewalk and, you know, walking all around to where the events are.
[32:56] So it's going to be, it's, the parking is, again, there's a net increase in the number
[33:02] of spaces. A slight increase, they're just moved around in different areas to better meet
[33:09] the needs of people coming to the building. And then talking about, you know, the community
[33:18] The goal is to have that open operational year round, which as I say to people now, we could open up the high school during the summer and open up the gym except that it's 85 or 90 degrees in there for months of the summer because there's no air conditioning.
[33:32] So this building is fully heated and air conditioned, so we'll be able to have events in the building year round.
[33:42] And so that's the, you know, that's the concept.
[33:47] And, you know, in the academic wing,
[33:49] there's also what they call a large group presentation area,
[33:52] which is an area that will hold between 100 and 150 people
[33:58] to be able to, you know, if you wanted to have, you know,
[34:02] if I wanted to do an update on something,
[34:05] right now, the best space I can go to is the library
[34:08] in the community room, which holds about 60 or 70 people.
[34:12] There really isn't another space in town to go where you could make a presentation.
[34:18] So this will have that capability in the large presentation area.
[34:23] But we're also there's another plan that talks about, you know, where in the building there
[34:29] will be large video capabilities, which the gym, the cafeteria, interspersed in the academic
[34:41] is set up in three pods. And in each pod, there's a media center. And then the pods are
[34:47] all two stories, and there's classrooms on the perimeter of the pod. And the center
[34:52] is what they call a collaboration space. The collaboration space is open for the two
[34:56] stories. So, it's an adult being an area where, you know, you could bring multiple classes
[35:04] out into that area. The concept being right now, the way our high school is designed, you
[35:10] know, you go, this is the science wing. This is the math wing. This is the English wing.
[35:16] And the new school, and it's based upon what the state, you know, and what the teaching guidelines
[35:22] calls for in each pod their science rooms, math rooms, English rooms. So the concept is
[35:29] to have those teachers collaborate so that, you know, as one of the science teachers
[35:33] said jokingly yesterday, he said, all I ever talked to was science teachers. So he said
[35:39] it'll be refreshing to be able to, you know, to collaborate with math teachers because the
[35:46] curricula for these subjects all overlap and so that's the concept the state is
[35:51] driving at is to get the teachers together in a common space so that as these
[35:58] as the curriculum-free subject overlaps other subjects then they can they can
[36:03] work together on the teaching methods for those areas.
[36:07] So I mean the students would have to move as much make them teachers would move
[36:10] rather than the students. Right well the big I'll be bluntly honest with you the
[36:15] The biggest complaint, and it's based upon, again, state guidelines, our school is set
[36:21] up now that every teacher has a classroom, okay?
[36:25] But keep in mind that I think there's seven periods at the high school, and teachers
[36:31] are required to teach four or five periods a day.
[36:35] So that means that at a minimum, two periods a day, if I have my own classroom, my classroom
[36:41] is not being used.
[36:42] So, the Mass School Building Authority requires you to do an analysis of utilization.
[36:48] I spent almost 15 years on the board at STCC and we went through that process at the college
[36:53] where we had to transition from professors having their own rooms to them not having their own rooms
[36:59] because, you know, it got to the point where you just didn't enough rooms.
[37:04] And so there was a learning curve but they got through it and it works better.
[37:09] So, that's what we're dealing with here is there won't be assigned rooms anymore.
[37:16] But like I said, we also in Aguom, we're fortunate because our special education department
[37:23] has a lot of in-district programming.
[37:26] And so, we're building into the new facility, the space for all this in-district programming,
[37:31] just to kind of give you, you know, we're required to provide a free and appropriate education
[37:38] for every student regardless of their, you know, of what their needs are, and so if we
[37:45] can't provide a program in our schools, then we're forced to do an out of district placement.
[37:50] And if we send students to out of district placements, they can run tens from the tens of thousands of dollars a year
[37:59] to the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
[38:01] I forget off the top of my head, but I think the average out of district placement cost
[38:06] was $70 or $80,000 a year.
[38:10] So by us being able to accommodate providing these, because the goal is inclusion.
[38:16] You want these students included in the school where they live.
[38:20] That's the goal.
[38:21] Our special education department has done a phenomenal job with inclusion programs at the
[38:27] high school.
[38:27] So we're building the space in one one of the inclusion programs is now being operated out of the old senior center
[38:34] It's going to move to the new high school
[38:36] The strived program is currently operating out of the old senior center. It's going to move to the new high school when it's when it's built
[38:44] And the concept again is that we're able to do it
[38:48] You know at our facility
[38:50] Which is far less expensive than sending them to out of district placements where you're paying for transportation
[38:57] and tuition, and it's, you know, regardless of what the needs of the student is, it's better for them to go to the school and their town.
[39:06] You know, and I can tell you from being up at the high school as much as I'm up there now, you know, there are, you know, the students up there, you know, they all welcome everyone, no matter whether, you know,
[39:21] when you when you're there while classes are changing and you see some severely
[39:28] handicapped students. The students are all going by high five and hey great to see
[39:33] you know it's it's a very healthy environment that the staff has promoted up
[39:39] there and again it's better for the students better for their families because
[39:44] some of these out of district placements require you know bus and van rides
[39:49] that can sometimes be an hour hour and a half to get them to and from, where if we can provide the program in Aguom,
[39:57] better for the student, better for the family, and better for the district, because it's going to cost less.
[40:06] Gloves?
[40:07] Yeah.
[40:08] Sure. I'm here for any topic.
[40:10] I go back after
[40:13] the paving in front of Sacred Heart Church.
[40:15] Yeah.
[40:16] At traffic, like, when we're coming from the high school, no.
[40:19] I live up there. I know all about it.
[40:21] It's two minutes long.
[40:22] Yes, we're when ever source came and put the gas line all the way up those
[40:30] intersections were built with magnetic strips under the ground so that when
[40:34] a car pulled over the magnetic strip it completed the circuit and triggered
[40:37] the light for whatever reason and I wasn't in the mayor's office at the time when
[40:42] they when they finished their work they never replaced or repaired the magnetic
[40:46] strips so we now have to go to the visual if you go down to like by the bridge or
[40:52] you go to the lights that stop and shop, you see on the booms there's like little look
[40:57] like cameras or sensors up there. We have to, you know, there's one company that does
[41:02] it in the area. We've asked them to give us a quote on that intersection, the Sacred
[41:07] Heart intersection, to put the sensors up there. We did it at stop and shop. It's working
[41:13] much better there now. It's a long process because there's one company that does it and then
[41:20] And then they put them in and then they have to gather data for a while and then they
[41:25] try to program the signals based on the data.
[41:32] I see people now that they're forming two lanes to turn left into sacred heart.
[41:38] My hope is a probably won't happen as well, but my hope is by next spring we'll get the
[41:43] detectors on that intersection.
[41:45] We were able to reprogram garden and popular streets so that works all right.
[41:49] But that's that I I live off Northwood Street. So I go through there every day and you pull there and you wait and you wait and you wait.
[41:58] Now we are and hopefully hopefully next spring we can get the company and put those visual detectors up and and that'll make it work much better than it works now.
[42:06] Thank you. Sorry. I'm going to walk a dog.
[42:11] Other questions. Any topic?
[42:13] I noticed that these smell on the pavement smell like too many times.
[42:17] I didn't method to use them after they probably just a slightly different mix.
[42:24] Maybe that's what it was because it was really smelling in 9.50 or 75 there or
[42:29] you know through high school and up to the sacred heart church.
[42:32] Oh that was that was a different that's called fog ceiling so that that's not new
[42:40] pavement. That's a that's a sealer that goes over the pavement to extend its life. So they fog
[42:48] sealed part of mill street. It's a new it's a relatively new process. It's different than crack
[42:54] ceiling crack ceiling is where they go in and this is for newer pavement. We're trying it out engaging
[43:00] to see you know but it's supposed to extend the life of of pavement you know by years and it's
[43:07] relatively inexpensive, certainly much less expensive than repaving.
[43:11] So that's what they did on military, so a lot of people say, hey, you repaved military
[43:16] now.
[43:16] It was fog seal.
[43:17] I
[43:21] have a question, Mr. Mayor.
[43:24] I live in Pine D circle.
[43:25] Yes.
[43:27] It's an old street, okay.
[43:30] It hasn't been repaved in 50 years, but there are a lot of cracks there.
[43:35] Do you think that they could crack seal the cracks that are there, which would extend from
[43:41] the road that's remaining because it's getting worse.
[43:46] The crack seal equation depends on the size of the cracks.
[43:51] The town has a pavement management program where we go out on an annual basis and evaluate
[43:59] the condition of streets and put it into the pavement management program.
[44:04] And I know everybody wants their streets repaved, but the program sets priorities based
[44:09] based upon condition, based upon whether it's a main road versus a side road, based upon
[44:17] you know, whether there's upcoming you know, whether it's water sewer or other utility
[44:24] work happening in that area.
[44:28] So we can, I can take a look, I'm meeting with the engineer after I get done here this morning
[44:32] I can ask her to take a look.
[44:34] Crack sailing will work, but if you start to get the bigger cracks, crack sailing doesn't
[44:38] work with those. There's a lot of, you know, like, hey, there's grass growing in between
[44:43] the crack. It's probably too big for crack ceiling to be effective.
[44:48] Really? Yeah.
[44:51] But, you know, there also was a shift about 10 years ago that was made, where
[44:57] they decided that they weren't going to do...
[45:00] Paved sidewalks. And they wanted to only do concrete sidewalks. Again, the difficulty is we don't have the ability to do concrete sidewalks in house and they're very expensive to have done. So I said we're going to start doing paid sidewalks because most of the streets were built with paid sidewalks, paid sidewalks last 25 or 30 years. So we bought a sidewalk paper years ago, the town did. But they never really used it because they made the decision after
[45:29] that they bought it, that they were going to have concrete sidewalks, which that's great
[45:33] except, you know, you can do four times as many sidewalks paved versus concrete, especially
[45:41] if our guys, our DPW workers, start doing them ourselves.
[45:46] And it's easier to repair a paved sidewalk.
[45:49] Yes.
[45:50] The hardest thing to be honest with you with sidewalks is that it's the trees that have forced
[45:56] the sidewalks up and so you have to come in and you have to cut the roots out and in a lot of
[46:02] cases within a couple of years of doing that to treat eyes. Sometimes they don't, sometimes the
[46:07] roots regrow and go around the area but a lot of times it'll cause the tree to die. And the problem
[46:14] is that the town's responsible for the street trees which are the trees that are between the sidewalk
[46:20] and the road but we're not responsible for the trees that are on people's front yards that may have
[46:24] because the sidewalks to pop up.
[46:27] So we're gonna go in and we're gonna repave,
[46:29] but we can't repave over the routes.
[46:30] It doesn't make any sense.
[46:31] We got to cut the routes and then repave
[46:34] and in some instances that'll end up killing the tree.
[46:39] So, but also a lot of these streets were built
[46:44] with sidewalks on both sides of the road.
[46:47] And to be honest, a lot of neighborhoods
[46:49] they don't need sidewalks on both sides of the road.
[46:52] So it might be a scenario where we're gonna go in
[46:54] and replace the sidewalk on one side of the street
[46:57] and then excavate out the sidewalk on the other side
[47:00] and plant it and make a grass
[47:03] because it's not necessary to have sidewalks
[47:06] on both sides of the street.
[47:07] I live in a very large neighborhood,
[47:09] the neighborhood off Northwood Street.
[47:11] And I have, we have paved sidewalks
[47:14] because that's the way the subdivision was built
[47:15] in the 70s and 80s on both sides of the street.
[47:19] And I can tell you, there's not a single person
[47:21] that walks in my neighborhood
[47:22] that walks on the sidewalk.
[47:24] and they're not in bad shape. Yeah, there's some areas that are a little bumpy, but they're not in bad shape overall, but everybody walks down the street.
[47:31] So it's like, you know, so we're going to try to target the areas where the sidewalks are literally crumbling.
[47:39] But we're also going to look at it and say, do we need sidewalks on both sides of the street?
[47:43] If it's a residential neighborhood, a sidewalk on one side of the street will probably be suffice because if you want to go take a walk.
[47:49] You can if you're on the other side you can walk across the street and walk on the sidewalk and then you know
[47:55] I got asked the other day by a city council or what about sidewalks on north street
[48:01] We looked at that 30 years ago and the problem with putting sidewalks on north street is it would require about
[48:07] 75% of the trees that are on north street to be taken down to accommodate putting sidewalks in so it was a drill we did
[48:16] towards the end of my original tenure, where I had DPW go out and we put little ribbons on every tree that we would have to take down.
[48:24] And so we said, if you want sidewalks, that's what's going to have to happen.
[48:27] And North Street's got trees that are, you know, and it would change the character of the street.
[48:33] And people said, no, no, no, I'd rather not lose all the trees to have sidewalks.
[48:37] And
[48:40] when that road is closed towards the road going to Westfield, so people have to either get
[48:47] to very into 57 over into South-Egg and over and then over the tracks to go to West
[48:53] Springfield.
[48:54] No, the shorter detours you're going to go down the end of North Street extension, then
[48:58] take a ride on Southwest Street and come out by where autumn mist is.
[49:04] Okay, so you'll be able to be more on a mist?
[49:08] The work is happening in Mayhalla, which is where the road goes down.
[49:14] There's a major drainage culvert that goes under Northwest Field Street.
[49:18] That's what's being replaced.
[49:19] That's what's being replaced.
[49:21] Yeah, just like on North Street, if you go down North Street right at the bottom, that's
[49:24] called Deep Gutter, right at the bottom of Deep Gutter.
[49:27] You can see the new drainage culvert was put in there.
[49:30] This is a similar culvert.
[49:31] It's a little longer than the one that went in on North Street.
[49:34] But it's it's you know, it takes a major stream from one side to the other.
[49:40] It started to collapse about four or five years ago. The state came in and made some emergency repairs.
[49:45] So it's short up. It's not in danger of collapsing at this point.
[49:48] But they said you should really do this.
[49:53] So like I said, the plan was we were hoping to get it going this summer,
[49:57] but we couldn't get the polls out of the way.
[50:00] And I said, I don't want to do it.
[50:03] I don't want to have that road closed for the whole winter like North Street was.
[50:07] So the contractor agreed, the contractor said, no, let's, the contractor said, I'd
[50:13] rather work from bad weather to good weather.
[50:15] So he said, I'd rather start an early spring work towards good weather.
[50:19] And then I know when we're done, we can just get the final paving done and open the road as
[50:24] quickly as possible.
[50:26] It's different contractor than North Street, you know, but this contractor has been very proactive plus the same engineering firm designed both and so there were some lessons learned at North Street.
[50:43] So they've made some changes to the plan for May Hollow to make it go quicker and, you know, one of the things was to get rid of that special film material.
[50:56] I know this high school is a very complex thing to do.
[51:03] What is it the construction when it's started and something like this?
[51:07] So the ground breaking will likely happen next spring.
[51:13] The actual construction will start next summer.
[51:18] And the community wing will be constructed first.
[51:21] First, before then you might see they might start to put their perimeter fencing up to
[51:27] do all that stuff, but the hope is for, so just going back, we're in design development
[51:34] once we finalize that, which should be in December, then they have the arduous process
[51:38] of preparing the construction drawings.
[51:42] And once the construction drawings are finished, then the subbiting occurs on the project.
[51:48] So the hope is that will be an earnest in the spring, the subbiting, because it's going to take months to do the construction drawings.
[51:56] They're not on paper anymore. You can print them out like this, but they're all done on computer.
[52:00] But it's thousands and thousands of pages of, because every last detail has to be specced.
[52:07] So that the electrical contractor knows this is where the plug goes, and that's where the switch goes, and what the capability that has to be built into both.
[52:18] So construction, the community wing start construction next year, that'll take a little
[52:23] over a year into 26.
[52:27] The hope is that by the fall of 26 or latest the January of 27, the community wing is
[52:35] occupied and then the academic next step is a lot of demolition of parts of the existing
[52:41] building and then the academic wing will be constructed with hopefully the the the building
[52:50] being occupied by the fall of 2028 or January of 2029 because you like to do it you know
[53:00] at a semester break either you know in September or January. So that's the hope there'll be some
[53:07] work that will be happening after you know because once the academic wing is constructed
[53:12] then the next step is to demolish the rest of the existing building because the field
[53:18] that the community wing is going on is being relocated behind the building now.
[53:22] And then the softball diamonds we have one now we're constructing a second one as part
[53:27] of the plan they'll be constructed in the back area where the geothermal well field is.
[53:35] So it's a it's quite a process but in talking with other schools because we're
[53:44] out visiting new schools new high schools that have been built in the last
[53:48] time and 15 years, most of them had challenges that are much more significant
[53:53] from a site perspective than ours does. But the contractor or
[53:59] Fontaine Brothers is working earnestly, now on making sure the sequencing, the phase plan is going to work because they've got to get utilities in to where they need them to start construction, and like I said, but they specialize in building schools.
[54:19] They built, I think, eight of the last nine high schools in our area.
[54:27] So other questions,
[54:32] Eric Nunn. Thank you as always. You know where my office is. If you ever have a question on anything, hopefully we have an answer.