[0:00] I'd like to welcome everybody to the Town
[0:02] of Salpich Animal Control Shelter Building Committee, Thursday,
[0:08] August 27, 2026 at 6 p.m. Vice
[0:12] Conference Room, First Agenda Roll Calls, Carlisle, here.
[0:17] Are you here?
[0:18] Are your tees absent?
[0:21] Your Provost?
[0:23] Present.
[0:24] Chief?
[0:25] Here.
[0:26] Katie?
[0:27] Here.
[0:31] Josh, are you excused?
[0:32] Alex?
[0:33] Here.
[0:35] Okay, moving on to...
[0:37] Who are the medics?
[0:38] Jack, do we have any medics?
[0:39] No, unfortunately I wasn't able to get them
[0:41] finalized today.
[0:42] I apologize.
[0:43] Okay, we'll take them up on that meeting.
[0:45] I thought I had one, buddy.
[0:46] You're fired.
[0:46] Moving on to number three, review and discuss
[0:49] the following and take any action.
[0:52] Chris with an update on MEP, building project
[0:56] design, and construction dollars.
[1:00] Chris?
[1:01] Okay, so, yeah, we provided...
[1:04] So, we didn't go out to formal estimates
[1:07] on this because of the...
[1:09] I'm sure Alex is in the business, and
[1:11] Sky is in the business.
[1:12] It's like a moving target.
[1:14] So, we go and pay somebody the $10
[1:19] ,000 that we were going to do it.
[1:21] We literally talked to these people, like, you
[1:23] know, we're going to tell you this today
[1:24] and tomorrow it's going to change.
[1:26] Like, you know, pull together an estimate.
[1:29] What you're looking at is probably on a
[1:30] high side conservative where we want to be.
[1:33] If you're looking for funding, you know, it
[1:34] doesn't always look great when you go off
[1:36] the initial set of funding, but at least
[1:37] you'll be covered for the project that you
[1:39] have going on.
[1:40] And then, you know, see how that, you
[1:43] know, see...
[1:44] Well, you've really got to put it to
[1:46] bed to find out what you're going to
[1:47] fund.
[1:47] So, what we did was use our opinions
[1:50] of profitable cost.
[1:53] From the site side, my perspective is I
[1:56] use all mass DOT budgets for projects that
[2:02] occurred in the past, from present back to
[2:05] two years.
[2:06] So, I'm talking about moving materials.
[2:08] So, really it is the municipal jobs that
[2:11] are using actual estimates that have been made
[2:15] for projects that have been completed.
[2:17] But, again, those are street jobs, right?
[2:20] Like a project.
[2:21] So, if you...
[2:23] It's likely, again, probably it's a conservative estimate
[2:26] where we exactly want to be, but there's
[2:29] probably going to be some savings in there
[2:31] because you're going to have someone coming and
[2:32] going and going.
[2:33] As long as you're following all the public
[2:35] procurement, you have to pay for building wages,
[2:38] but you're not always seeing the same swings
[2:41] you would see for a big highway project.
[2:43] But that's where we have to come from,
[2:45] our estimates, because that's basically where the numbers
[2:48] have come from.
[2:51] No, I think that makes sense.
[2:56] Again, it definitely probably seems like it's probably
[2:58] aligned with a road construction project versus a
[3:00] site development plan.
[3:02] I was looking through and just curious about
[3:05] the site conditions themselves, how much that contributes
[3:09] to some of those, but nothing really seemed
[3:11] like crazy.
[3:12] I don't know.
[3:13] To me, it seemed like you were being
[3:14] conservative, as you mentioned.
[3:17] The only thing that really stuck out to
[3:19] me on the building side, which I don't
[3:20] know if you want to talk separately about
[3:21] that, but on the building side, the only
[3:25] concern I have is some of the specialty
[3:27] items because those can be, out of left
[3:30] field, expensive.
[3:32] So the dog doors, that could be $10
[3:34] ,000, that could be $40,000.
[3:36] I was like, no idea.
[3:38] Yeah.
[3:38] So those are some of the items that
[3:40] just stuck out to me.
[3:41] I think specialty-wise, that would be Pamling.
[3:44] I'm sure it's probably not too far off.
[3:47] And then I saw there was just a
[3:48] couple of square foot estimates at the bottom
[3:50] based on a bunch of different values.
[3:52] I wasn't sure if there was any insight
[3:54] as to where those values came from.
[3:56] Yeah.
[3:57] That would just—and Jake Align is the architect.
[4:00] He's pulled those off at his number.
[4:02] He's sort of basically doing the same type
[4:03] stuff that did Zazai.
[4:05] It's kind of how we have to run
[4:07] it on most recent projects and keep that
[4:10] as up-to-date.
[4:11] Yeah, it's an interesting mix because it's a
[4:13] commercial building, but a lot of construction is
[4:16] kind of more residential construction-style.
[4:17] Right, right.
[4:18] So I think, again, I can't tell you
[4:24] how much it costs to build an animal
[4:26] control shelter per square foot necessarily, but I
[4:30] think figuring out where those—what informs that is
[4:33] definitely helpful in determining if it's an accurate
[4:37] estimate.
[4:37] Right.
[4:40] Any other questions?
[4:42] Is there anything that suffers DAW to do
[4:46] to cut the cost on this?
[4:47] I mean, anything.
[4:50] So, I mean, from a public procurement perspective,
[4:54] it's tough.
[4:55] I mean, it comes from the chief procurement
[4:57] officer that says, okay, can we break this
[4:59] up?
[5:00] Can we get something done internally?
[5:02] Have them look at how— And that's really—anytime
[5:09] you get into a situation like this, they
[5:11] say, well, as long as it's good with
[5:13] the chief procurement officer and we get buy
[5:16] -in from that DAW, then we can say,
[5:18] hey, this is what we're looking for.
[5:20] Can you prep this pad for us?
[5:23] If that's really what we're looking to have
[5:26] them do.
[5:26] And then we can do it to cut
[5:27] the cost.
[5:28] That's what I'm wondering.
[5:31] In the realm of— Well, that would be
[5:33] okay, but then you hire the contractor, then
[5:36] it's not how people would expect that you
[5:38] did.
[5:39] I mean, I don't know in what perspective—
[5:42] Like site preparedness.
[5:44] That's what I'm thinking.
[5:45] We've got all the equipment to do site
[5:48] preparedness, don't we?
[5:51] This one I'm going to say no.
[5:52] Yeah.
[5:53] We have a ledge at a very shallow
[5:55] grade with ledges, so there's going to be
[5:59] a hammer blasting, which I think it would
[6:02] probably be a hammer, but that is a
[6:04] different tool than— I didn't notice that.
[6:09] When you go onto the site and you
[6:12] lay it out, you're going to do the
[6:13] foundation, you've already done the deep hole test.
[6:16] You've already researched where the subject is.
[6:18] That's Toronto.
[6:19] Right.
[6:20] So for us, it's more or less blowing
[6:23] a hole into the ledge that we can
[6:25] get some foundation in.
[6:26] Yeah.
[6:28] And I don't think they have the capacity.
[6:29] No, they don't.
[6:30] It's probably a difficult part of balancing.
[6:33] Like, your budget needs to be as low
[6:34] as it can be.
[6:36] Because we're abetting the project between the general
[6:39] and the DBW.
[6:41] Yeah, because they're going to pull off the
[6:43] plan if they have some emergency content.
[6:45] Right.
[6:45] And you're just trying to get a pad,
[6:46] a simple pad, and pull it down.
[6:48] I think where we've got to go is
[6:49] we've got to find out what the actual
[6:50] number is.
[6:52] What is it?
[6:52] How many square feet is the building?
[6:54] 3,000.
[6:55] 3,000?
[6:55] Yeah.
[6:58] I gave the prints to a contractor to
[7:01] look at it, and then we plugged in
[7:02] the numbers, and they thought it was about
[7:04] $500,000 high.
[7:06] But again, this contractor deals in commercial work
[7:10] and stuff like that.
[7:13] Yeah.
[7:13] And I'm going to agree with you 100%.
[7:14] Yeah.
[7:15] These numbers are going to be all over
[7:16] the place.
[7:17] You know, 3,000 square foot building, and
[7:19] gentlemen were talking about it, and he told
[7:21] me this idea, okay.
[7:23] But then, I know Jeff and I have
[7:25] a little bit of experience with how the
[7:27] bids come in.
[7:28] You know, we did the middle high school.
[7:29] We did the fire station.
[7:31] You know, go for a rebid.
[7:33] You know, there's a lot of chess pieces
[7:34] to move around.
[7:35] But the thing is, on this one here,
[7:37] I think, there's a lot of money that's
[7:40] been donated, and there's still people that want
[7:43] to donate heavy money, and I'm turning around
[7:47] and going, I don't have a solid number
[7:50] to tell anybody.
[7:51] Yeah.
[7:51] So, to me, I think we've got to
[7:53] go to the next step, which is going
[7:55] to cost money, and this is why we're
[7:57] here.
[7:57] We're going to discuss, do we want to
[7:59] go to the next step, which is, you
[8:01] know, a bid process.
[8:04] You know, how long will it take.
[8:06] Yeah, I mean, we're all in line to,
[8:08] this is all, we're in line to stop
[8:10] pulling bid docs, because we just have them,
[8:12] because we didn't want to start charging town
[8:14] if they weren't going to put it on
[8:15] the street.
[8:16] Yeah, because I think it's 6 and 1
[8:17] 1⁄2, because, yeah, it would be great to
[8:20] have, like, a realistic number, but to this
[8:22] point, by the time we get the money
[8:24] in line, is that going to be the
[8:25] realistic number anymore?
[8:26] Or are you low, because you were basing
[8:29] it off of bids from months ago?
[8:30] That's part of the construction of the world.
[8:33] Oh, yeah.
[8:34] But, if I may, we're not going to
[8:37] go out to bid if we don't have
[8:39] the money allocated to the project, because then
[8:44] you're out to bid, and you don't have
[8:45] the funding to do it.
[8:46] So, it's going to have to be presented
[8:48] to the council of how you're going to
[8:50] fund this.
[8:51] Right.
[8:51] Because we could throw it out on a
[8:52] bid, and if the bid's coming in too
[8:53] high, now you've got to change the scope,
[8:55] because you can't rebid the same job.
[8:59] So, unless you make a change, a substantive
[9:01] change.
[9:03] So, like, for the fire station, when we
[9:04] did that, our first bid package was the
[9:06] fire station, alternates and all that, but it
[9:10] was all that included demolition of the properties
[9:13] where the original bid documents were.
[9:15] When we went out the second time, it
[9:17] was a built-in, and all that demolition
[9:20] was out, and that type of work was
[9:22] out of it, and so that was enough
[9:23] of a substantive change in the bid documents
[9:25] that we didn't have to change the scope
[9:26] of the building anyway, because it was, like,
[9:30] we took a substantial portion out of the
[9:32] project.
[9:33] So, that's the caution, right?
[9:35] So, is it you invest $10,000, like
[9:37] you say, and get an actual closer cost,
[9:40] then go to council?
[9:42] Is that what you do?
[9:43] Or do you go to council and say,
[9:45] hey, the opinion problem cost is $2.1,
[9:47] but we only have $475,000 left.
[9:51] Where's the $1.7?
[9:53] But I think that number's way high.
[9:55] Well, how do you determine that?
[9:57] By going out to bid.
[9:58] But then you're going to have to have
[10:00] town council support.
[10:01] How do you find that?
[10:02] So, not trying to dissuade anybody, but you
[10:06] can't go out to bid unless you have,
[10:08] how do you fund the project?
[10:12] How much money do we have right now?
[10:15] A little bit undefined.
[10:20] We're getting more from...
[10:22] But you can't go out to bid, say,
[10:23] right?
[10:23] Yeah, we don't even live.
[10:25] One of the fun things was, it says
[10:27] how much do you need.
[10:30] How good of a relationship does the town
[10:32] have with any of the general contractors that
[10:34] were not working recently?
[10:36] They might be willing to give you some
[10:38] pretty good estimates at no cost.
[10:45] A lot of late work for $0.
[10:49] Yeah.
[10:50] So, people want you guys on a time
[10:51] track sort of thing?
[10:52] Yeah, because they want to be in your
[10:55] good graces, so that you're happy.
[10:57] If we want to go down that road
[10:59] beforehand, I'd ship this off to our owner's
[11:02] project manager.
[11:04] Does a lot of the design, and if
[11:05] I have good, at least baseline documents they
[11:07] can give me that, we can send to
[11:09] him.
[11:10] Rick Pomeroy does a very good job.
[11:11] They're very good on...
[11:13] That's the owner's project manager.
[11:15] Yeah, the fire station.
[11:15] And they'll probably do that estimate for you.
[11:19] I mean, again, we didn't want to go
[11:21] to an estimated knowledge gap because...
[11:23] He may be able to just take a
[11:24] quick look at it Yeah, your risk is
[11:27] a lot lower because you have a set
[11:28] drawing.
[11:29] It's not like you're at a 50%
[11:30] set drawing.
[11:32] You're going to come back and...
[11:35] It's probably enough for them to be able
[11:38] to...
[11:39] Yeah, just give a baseline, because they're out
[11:42] there bidding on the public side, not just
[11:43] the commercial side.
[11:44] They're bidding on the public side.
[11:46] If we had some good scope of, okay,
[11:48] it's a septic, the waterline is this, this
[11:52] is the site, what is the general site
[11:54] work, what is all that?
[11:56] Yeah, you build in some sort of escalation
[11:58] anticipating that you're not going to actually buy
[12:00] the project until, say, a year later or
[12:02] something along those lines.
[12:03] And that's essentially right on your contingency of
[12:07] 5% escalation, anticipating that next year it's
[12:10] going to cost 5% more to build.
[12:11] So if you send a PDF to Jack
[12:14] to give to Pomeroy, that would be a...
[12:16] Send you this site, the architectural, and the...
[12:22] And I'll ask them, I'll see if they'll
[12:24] do it for us with no cost and
[12:26] go from there.
[12:28] Just so you can...
[12:30] I mean, I think it's not going to
[12:31] go into big detail.
[12:33] They'll be able to just look at it
[12:34] pretty quick and go, okay, I know...
[12:35] There'll still be unit rates and all that
[12:36] stuff.
[12:37] Yeah, of course.
[12:37] But it'll be forked off of hopefully something
[12:39] that's slightly dialed in.
[12:42] It'll be a much more scientific process than
[12:44] what we've been practicing so far.
[12:46] And I have mentioned to Tom...
[12:46] They're not giving you any different answers.
[12:49] I have mentioned to Tom that he was
[12:51] willing to take a look at it.
[12:52] I just need more details as to what
[12:54] I've said to him.
[13:01] Excuse me, I have a question.
[13:04] Go ahead.
[13:04] Actually, I have two.
[13:06] Why would the doors be so expensive?
[13:09] You said that they would vary from $1
[13:12] ,000 to $4,000?
[13:14] The dog doors?
[13:15] Oh, I was saying the...
[13:17] Yeah, the...
[13:17] Just specialty items in general, I guess.
[13:20] Any really specialized that you're not installing all
[13:23] the time, you have a really difficult time
[13:25] estimating what that cost would be without actually
[13:27] getting somebody to give you a price.
[13:29] Really?
[13:30] Yeah.
[13:30] Oh, okay.
[13:32] And I assume those are just like the
[13:34] doors that let dogs out?
[13:36] Yeah, but I think, if I'm not mistaken,
[13:38] you were saying they have a pulley system
[13:39] so you don't have to actually be in
[13:40] there to open the door.
[13:42] It's a little more complicated than a dog
[13:44] door.
[13:45] Oh, okay.
[13:45] Yeah, because they seem cheaper at a pet
[13:49] store.
[13:49] Yeah, of course.
[13:50] So I was like, wow.
[13:52] And my second question is, I haven't been
[13:55] at these meetings in a long time.
[13:57] Are there any changes of proximity to the
[14:02] roof or any of the buildings?
[14:06] I mean, really, I don't think I've been
[14:09] here since last February.
[14:12] Yeah, these are the same ones that were
[14:14] submitted and approved through planning and constitution.
[14:18] Yeah.
[14:18] Oh, okay.
[14:19] No changes?
[14:20] No.
[14:21] Okay.
[14:22] Thank you.
[14:23] Sure.
[14:25] Hey, Chris.
[14:26] I'm going to move on.
[14:27] We talked about reviewing preliminary cost estimates, the
[14:31] funding, update on the bid process.
[14:34] If, Jack, you take a look at that
[14:36] hypothetically, what are we talking?
[14:39] Say he comes through with a projected number
[14:43] and we go with his number and we
[14:46] say, we think we're going to go forward
[14:49] with this.
[14:50] From the time we go off to bid,
[14:52] what are we talking timeframe-wise?
[14:54] So we have to pull the documents together
[14:57] and then there's usually a standard 30, 60,
[15:00] 90, depending upon, because, again, Jack's office tells
[15:03] us, okay, we want to give folks 30
[15:05] days to review this and 60 days to
[15:07] review it, get the bids in by then,
[15:10] whether they need We did 30 the first
[15:13] time.
[15:13] We did 30 the first time.
[15:15] So, you know, the MEPs are ready to
[15:18] pull the bid documents together.
[15:19] I'm ready to pull the bid documents together.
[15:21] So that could be within a month, we
[15:22] could have everything together fully.
[15:25] And then it's just I'll lay out the
[15:27] timeframe for standard bidding.
[15:30] It's going to be bid for two weeks.
[15:31] It's going to be, you know, review.
[15:37] So that's usually a few-month process.
[15:39] And then at this point in time, you
[15:41] could, you know, get construction ready for the
[15:46] spring if we had everything in place.
[15:48] Perfect time, this time of year to do
[15:50] everything.
[15:52] People, when it's in, then they're just setting
[15:54] this work aside, maybe the first job, or
[15:56] whatever else, but at least they're, you know,
[16:00] this is a good time for bidding anyways.
[16:02] The spring.
[16:05] And then the site would allow them.
[16:08] The site would allow this at any time
[16:09] because it's not in the world.
[16:11] You know what I'm saying?
[16:12] If they wanted to move in and move
[16:13] in during the wintertime, there wasn't, they're out.
[16:17] Is it fair to say that the whole
[16:18] building is going to be on ledge?
[16:22] It won't be on ledge, but it's going
[16:25] to be close.
[16:26] I mean, the footings and everything will be
[16:28] pretty much on ledge.
[16:30] Right.
[16:30] So in the wintertime, ledge doesn't freeze.
[16:34] I'm just thinking about your company did a
[16:36] high school, and there was no ledge.
[16:39] The winterization was tremendous.
[16:42] Expensive.
[16:44] Following the ground is not a good idea.
[16:45] Yeah.
[16:47] Did we have to follow the ground?
[16:48] Because I thought we had a good spring.
[16:51] There were envelopes.
[16:51] No.
[16:54] Everything went well under budget, on time, with
[16:57] what I got, but when you're dealing with
[16:59] a palm field, when you're dealing with bedrock,
[17:01] it took two different worlds.
[17:03] And maybe that's aggressive, but like I said,
[17:07] sometimes the state says you can't go on
[17:08] the road April 15th, but we don't mean
[17:10] to wait until April 15th, because they're off
[17:12] in the backfield.
[17:14] They're not in anybody's way, really.
[17:16] It's whatever they do their work.
[17:22] We're going to get the PDFs out.
[17:25] I'll get it from him.
[17:28] I'm rolling to you to be ready very
[17:29] good.
[17:31] All right.
[17:31] So at this point, we'll move on to
[17:34] any other discussion.
[17:36] If not, moving on to four, approval of
[17:39] any invoices to be submitted to the finance
[17:42] department, payment from McClure.
[17:45] This is just an invoice for Chris for
[17:47] $2,990.
[17:51] Invoice number 22970.
[17:55] Sorry for the delay.
[17:57] At least it's a small number for you.
[18:01] What's it for?
[18:02] It was for the last revision.
[18:05] It's all in line with our contract.
[18:07] So we haven't touched the bidding.
[18:09] The next thing for us to do is
[18:10] start the bidding process so that money doesn't
[18:12] set aside.
[18:13] So we heard the finalization of it.
[18:15] What was that number again, Jack?
[18:17] $2,990.
[18:19] A motion.
[18:20] It's a motion to pay invoice for $2
[18:24] ,990.
[18:26] Do I have a second?
[18:27] Second.
[18:27] Alex seconds it.
[18:29] Any discussion?
[18:31] All those in favor?
[18:33] Opposed?
[18:34] Unanimous, all present.
[18:37] Discussion of the next meeting day.
[18:40] Do you want to wait until we retrieve
[18:41] that?
[18:42] Yeah, I guess, yeah.
[18:43] We should have a quick turnaround, but I'll
[18:45] put it in today.
[18:46] Sounds good.
[18:47] Motion to adjourn?
[18:48] Motion.
[18:49] Second.
[18:50] All in favor?
[18:51] Opposed?
[18:52] Where's the motion?
[18:53] I'm sorry.
[18:54] I motion.
[18:54] Second.
[18:55] I second.