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foreign all those present Juan bodilla Anna Marie Stevens here Sylvia Hendricks Ella Mae Greasewood Kathleen Vance that completes role we do have a forum we'll continue with our meeting this evening number three is our routine business letter A approval of the August 4 2023 special board meeting agenda there's no objections no motion to approve there's events all those in favor of the motion Juan bondia Annemarie Stevens all right Sylvia Hendricks Ella Mae Greasewood aye Kathleen Vance motion carries and before our action item this evening's letter A the special impossible approval and request for both what's the proposal award for transportation Mr Diaz good afternoon okay my name is I want to thank for our members of the community staff and also our members of the community watching virtually for this opportunity president and then Governor board members we do have one recommendation but before we go through the recommendation we support I would like to go over some background and some information May the spirit of being transparent with the community I will I do have a presentation that I want to go through and also some details that I would like to quote so before we begin with our transportation presentation number one I want to personally take the transportation department in our drivers despite of having a great shortage in despite of An emperors in trying to recruit we are capable to be able to find out to 18 drivers but nevertheless right now we're managing and making it work with only a drivers our bus drivers they have taken upon themselves to be team players and I want to appreciate the flexibility and availability I want to thank the um so far for taking additional routes I want to thank them for the extra hours and they put it into to be able to manage transporting our students with the equipment that we have as well as the main power that we have to my parents are presented also in the community I want to thank them for their understanding and for reaching out either by telephone or by email or by being a government or Express their concerns and also most importantly to be part of the solution by also going on sharing what other options we could explore I want to thank the bearings for also being flexible in other understanding that despite what a shortage and the equipment that we have um they have many of our parents that have taken it up on themselves supporting my driving their children um even though um transportation by law is not required by District our Republican board has been very supportive to be able to continue to offer Transportation so our students and based on our community they have access um it's it's Transportation it is um it is seen in our district a supply area protection is there um to my students I owe them a big apology and I want to personally apologize to my students for enduring what we have been trying to work which is they've been entering with the heat they've been in there with a delays they've been enduring having to be so proud of buses it's not their fault and I want to apologize to them and also to our parents and this is something that you will see based on the information that we have how long ago we've been working on this and trying to address this is on a good note I also want to express that well this problem is fixable and then there's a solution and I want to move um having said that I want to express some words of appreciation through the transportation committee that we started starting back in February for their wisdom for their advice advice and ability to be able instrumental options available keeping the map in mind number one the student safety or two ways to provide more efficient grounds to our students three while in training to our loyal bus drivers and bus in and most importantly finding a solution that will continue to support and protect our employees our bus drivers have been loyal to us and we want to make sure that whatever decision that we make it's also in the best interest of our employees um some of the short-term adjustments that we have been easier to be able to alleviate the Transportation challenges we have to adjust the dismissal times so that they're close to this missile and they will be able to pick up the students and our bus drivers they are going picking up some students dropping them out locally in the company marketing here more students right um I also want to pay my parent case as I have two families that they have been quickly traded in how to drive the small buses and they have stepped out and making themselves available as needed in the near future so they're ready to be deployed at any time when our transportation department itself and we have also based on our current buses so we have um we haven't put all of our buses right now with bottles of water to dry in the network community [Applause] level provides of water I want to also bring to the attention to our parents what are we going to do differently in the starting to win um thanks to the support um in in some of our partners I've been looking and its Glory effective Monday we're gonna have two additional bus drivers with air conditioning and to additional bus drivers that will help us reduce the number of students and begin normalizing the routes temporarily renting the buses until we get our permanent buses our goal is to be able to get two buses this year they can begin replacing the buses that I have inherited in um based on today's recommendation or within the next 30 days we'll also have um they're building a full-time two full-time mechanics to be able to maintain and repair our buses and keep them on Top Notch to ensure that they don't break it we don't have a way to know when the buses are going to break down but we do are at the best [Music] the most equivalent work [Music] preventable service that they that they require we're also going to have up on training for bus drivers and staff and our goal moving forward is to continue to have one bus every single year and the budget allows it up to two buses our goal is to replay this follow the old buses that don't have air conditioner with buses that do have air conditioning and buses that we need to is not in our best interest to replace them all at the same year we have to have a cycle to replace him so we can maintain um long-term salary um having said that at this point uh Mr base if you don't mind bringing the powerful presentation which one is it it is the transportation company to the members of our audience if this was a PDF copy it's not the power pointer can we go in the next slide uh government board members and members of the community right now we have what it is our Fleet and on February I was the name of the permanent superintendent and one of the first uh items that we gave us to be able to look at the transportation to what we have and based on on the preliminary review as you can see we had seven buses in great conditions it's a good condition um and we have about 14 buses that weigh their new repairs or are not longer reusable so this is based on the information the bus provided by our transportation director at that point in two weeks if you completely and two weeks before school started we were able to bring um two mechanics to be able to support all three of mechanics to be able to look at all the buses to ensure that everybody and um after seeing and giving the repairs before school started um the the condition of all the buses will change and even though we did everything we could have done to prevent it we're still playing with some of the buses they're all in despite all the main reason we gave them they're still breaking down so that's something that happened into the long-term vehicle fixed um in the based on our planets began printing for buses um purchased steel that will be at 1206 and moving forward will continue to look at one or two buses each year and this was all the ones that are no longer working next slide I want to also give a shout out this is our committee we put together multiple people from the from the district to be able to see who can help us and to explore all of the different objects we have two board members we had also a director uh from transportation and we started with also our office manager for transportation one of my bus drivers Mr Delano we have our brand um staff of typical we also have a consultant that was helping us join the legal process um what are the some of these options and the director of operations are our CFO and also to administrators in our our goal was sorry that's what I want to be able to begin with four additional drivers we're looking at how we can begin offering more competitive Wages that's still one of the options that we are exploring you can see how how do we can come back um the one to show our appreciation for bird bus drivers but how do we make the wages competitive to attract not only board members of the nature but other outside bus drivers to come into organization but that's something that is still under study um our consulted the opinion has those results in cooking area um they've started salaries around artists from the neighboring districts we won top-notch training for our bus drivers we want to ensure that we have mechanics we needed to look at how to get upgrade not only the systems and also what are the retirement options for some of our bus drivers and the number one is to ensure that whatever we bring temporarily that has air conditioner given that our buses right now do not have Airport and this is equipment again that I heard it some of our buses they do have air conditioner coming around the parks so we're still waiting until all the parts next slide so like I mentioned earlier um I was honored and I'm still very honored I'm very proud to be the superintendent on February 15th I was in the superintendent okay Transportation like in February became my number one priority and that's when we begin with a committee as of March we were not exploring some options we opted to do an RFP which is a legal way to a place um a formal request for different companies to come and help us who can we partner we send the notification to about 600 companies and only three responded to willing to explore and being Partners out of the three companies we had one that actually followed through and it has been time not only getting to know the team getting to know the term Protection Team trying to load equipment and looking for them at that point coming up with options and how they get partner with us um as of me by name we had our vendor uh meeting with us and by June our committee has reviewed the proposal and we were ready to move forward um and uh so part of the process today we need to determining equivalent of water with VLAN which is the the Builder of this over 6 funded and they're willing to um partner with us and address those solutions by bringing additional bus drivers we're getting additional air condition buses bringing additional routes um for our after school programs as well as our athletes uh drug protection and they also working with this part of allow us to have not only a training but also a manager as well as the two full-time mechanics um in the next one so then this week um what we have in last week has been that time not only in meetings with our transportation department but we also wanted to inform the community once we knew exactly what we were doing and what we knew um what gradually we're going to go we um we began providing um the video to the community we said I I scheduled a meeting to be able to address the community and also we offer the meeting virtually for anyone that wanted to attend so today uh video number three which is uh coming before the governing board to be able to make a recommendation to finalize the RFP in a process so that they can begin working on the action contract and and begin working but you make it a recommendation uh except in my recommendation today more than allow us begin the full-time transition and within 30 days we'll have a full transition partnering within life um having said that if you don't mind bringing the uh my memo is it that one the first one I'm sorry no that is my that is that is that is a memo uh this is an abstract the um RFP uh the acceptance um what is saying is you know what I have before um our our members were present and also because of the community it is explaining what I'm going over um it's we have 600 vendors I think we over six a little movements about um and however we only have one that was willing to follow through and honor partnering with us um based on on how much it costs uh to run Transportation by primary is going to cost us 15 more even though it may sound like it's not financially um ideal or responsible do you know where we are embrace all the options we need to then look at that not the cost but what is the benefits at this point our students cannot pay the consequences of what do you need and being on the buses on route for our bus drivers for being buses that we don't know the benefits will will balance the 50 um and the also by law it need to fill out a lot better and and we can move forward and allow the law allow us to be able to move forward um so there's no one else you want to do uh or the natural interest in partnering with us with us having said that Mr Bates if you don't mind going to the second page where I have a recommendation for the government board will be in September 1st through August 31st that is you can be like both will have the opportunity to continue to contract each year throughout the four additional years that is my recommendation uh before the government board and at least four and I'll take any comments or questions transportation I had to be coming comments for the benefit of our community and our staff I feel like um you know I'm a little bit you stepped into a place where um all of this has taken place before you got into that position and as soon as she got into that position of the superintendent we had immediately so let's just work on that and so I'm really I'm really thankful for that um I believe that you know even though there's going to be an increase in the amount that it's going to cost you to get the um this contract for a year that our kids aren't going to be the ones to suffer because right now it's hot our buses start breaking down you know there's there's just you know it takes hours for our kids to get home um and that's because some some of the drivers have to do a couple of routes just to make sure that you know there's there's not overcrowding and the healing and I'm so glad to hear that there's water on the buses for them so I I believe that if beeline comes in and does what it says it's going to do as far as the contract that the school is going to benefit because [Music] um you know they'll be able to see especially with the mechanics we've been trying to hire Mechanics for a long time and we don't have any uh diesel mechanics that are that are available or or working um that you know have come and stepped up so I think you know that what this change um it's gonna be better and and and B-Line it's this contract is only for a year so we get to see that change and the possibilities and and look at maybe if um something isn't working out we can make adjustments to that and it's not like we're set in for the next four or five years with the with the um the B-Line Transportation but for us it's like we need this where we really need to have something and moving forward have a plan on what you mentioned about the buses the you know rotating and making sure that we have good buses and and we're providing the time we continue to provide the transportation so I see it as a benefit um I'm just I'm just really ready to move forward on that um I I also feel the same um I guess one of my questions is um right I guess I don't know if you know because we don't ever direct you here but how many uh how many do we have that are running routes that do not have the AC they don't know um I do have a couple of drivers and [Music] um Francesca confirmed with me yes I mean I guess 15 over the over the current [Music] um the increase that the math happened I guess we actually do have that available I guess make making sure that something that we can cover without jeopardizing whatever other things that we need to do um Peter to bitcoin what are the second priorities that I have as a superintendent in an effort to be able to compete with all the districts um it's to be able to have housing and unfortunately I'm gonna have to put that priority as taken because right now what I need is my students to make it to school um as we go through the year we're going to find ways to be financially responsible to be able to find the funding so we can begin increasing the number of housing that we have available uh the housing right now we have a targeted for for primarily teachers um but nevertheless we have you need not only for teachers working in the middle of everywhere and we need to make sure that we recruit from everywhere and to do so one of the ways that I can compete is by offering affordable housing not only for teachers and administrators but we also need to prioritize on our bus drivers they're the ones that have to be extremely early and by having housing we need to be able to expand and recruit more so unfortunately right now we're borrowing the funding that we have allocated for housing so that we can move forward with Transportation um that would be that answers um also as Kathy mentioned I think that in the long run in hopes that we do do the year of the contract and I understand it couldn't be up to four years from your recommendation um but in my in lieu of that that there be a committee the committee I guess there has to be formed on planning what we're gonna what we're gonna foresee for next year over the next few years um and you know and I'm glad that that the company that has spent forward to assist in this in the the situation that we're in in regards to Transportation thank you very much and a course like as Ruben has shared we are really proud and thankful for the drivers that are here I wish that we could have more and I don't know if you know we'll definitely hoping that HR will do instead intensive recruiting in that area so uh but with that I'm ready to move forward also thank you thank you excuse me uh just one other thing I'll let you describe for being here and I appreciate all you do um my question would be um I know it does talk about they might go with beauty line or stay with your Amina to school and I don't know how many of I decided to do that I did but that's what I'd like to know anything uh based on what I I surveyed my Transportation staff on Monday and when I asked how many will feel comfortable in this school staying under on payroll um it was a hundred percent of them want to stay under our payroll um however they wouldn't continue to be under vision of our partner midline the only the purpose of us managing the beautiful day so their retirement doesn't get effective but at any point if they feel that they want to get under the be like people and I think that it's called by going with a big line they don't have they have other options when it comes to retirement or the current salary but those um I have committed to be able to play these options in the team and if the board chooses to move forward with it we'll spend plenty of time so they can fully understand their options so that they can decide what option they want to move forward our best interest to support our transportation department our goal is to retain them how they want to it's gonna if they for me I think we need to request something to be one of the president need some more drivers um if our goal is to not only to recruit but most people in maintain our bus drivers that would not be an obstacle and in working with you right now make sure that we both have the understanding in the first to clarify just exactly how many drivers do do we have here in the district we're currently not 80.
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and then we're gonna bring in two or four more on we have a requested to be able to um temporarily higher for additional bus drivers as early as Monday we will have the opportunity to have two additional bus drivers through big line we also going to finalize one person that is willing to work with us when do the interviews before working there's the the application process so we'll have as early of this week we might be able to have up to three a b line will could be to have up to four so a short term will give out a total of additional Five drivers that will solidify show the routes and less crowd advance for our uh less crowded buses and we will have uh currently four buses with air conditioner and we're waiting to purchase the R2 that will increase our free avoid a total of six buses with air conditioner that is a process that's something that is not going to happen overnight the person we have two coming into Monday we're hoping to get two by the end of next week and we'll have a based on the vendor that we're working with they're letting us know that around September we'll be able to as the devices that I'm trying to purchase but that's out of my control it will get here when they get here okay what's up what's up um that's good to hear that there's no bus drivers um but also this is this is an opportunity for bus AIDS to really work on their um sales to be bus drivers so really really and and I'm so glad that there's going to be an emphasis on hiring um because I think that made it to happen a long time ago so um and like everybody was saying thank you to your bus drivers that are here and this is this is going to affect you but also I also heard quality training so that's going to be coming forward to you but really the buses um take a chance and move back to be a bus driver because we really really need bus drivers uh just just the last thing I think especially because I know as far as the pressure that we've been aware of from the community um it was always the intention to move as quickly as possible but I don't want there to be any misconception that we're rushing into something that we haven't had a lot of discussion about or a lot of definitely concern and a lot of input and a lot of questions especially when it came to making sure that our that our employees felt as comfortable as possible and I know that wasn't always possible the innocence of how an RFP process looks um but it's a small town and so everyone everyone essentially knows that that the moves that have to be made are not always going to be very popular but but I do want the the general public to understand that you know we had I think we had been asking for committees prior and this is superintendent it's a goal um one or two about kind of really trying to re-engage with what it is that we need to make sure is there and it's appropriate um and our response as the board of how are we going to help to fix these things and make sure that that we're providing what's necessary for everyone to do a really good job um so I have to 100 agree with everyone here and I know Miss Anna Marie is on online that I think we all rested really well that you all just got it done so thank you so much to the bus drivers but it is not ever us on us to question or or to say you aren't doing a good job I think we and I have to say that as as a whole should have done a much better job supporting you and making sure that you're not in the situation that you're in right now because it happens every year it is always hot and it is always cold and we we wait until we hear the complaints and then we want to do something so a full accountability I think that's a board member it's important for me to address that to to you all especially that are here but to the public as well that you know we we don't really focus on the things other than that main priority of educating children but if we couldn't get them to school there's no one to educate I think we're missing that just a little bit and it is important for us to make sure that something is done so I don't I don't want there to be any any misunderstanding that again that this board is just rushing in to work with with a company who said yes um because we did go through the process of trying to look for others that were available to you to assist and and beeline is is the one who stepped forward and has been very open and very um Hands-On and during this entire process which I appreciate and I know that I'm sure the discussions with the drivers um I'm sure they appreciate that as well because I think that that's all we want um communication and some some sense of uh you know we have the best intention so um I know that there was a lot of discussion but I also wanted to be very clear what what the public as well that we also do not have a transportation director at this point and so that is another reason that we have to kind of be very Swift in our action and I'm making excuses and I don't want anybody to say well you know what maybe he said but there are some very strenuous issues that are online but ultimately our kids are are the same kids our our children our nephews our grandkid are all as important to make sure that we're taking care of them so um I don't think there's any any other discussion on this before it was just too massive more clarifying questions but other than that I'm I'm in support of moving forward yeah um based on we're going to have extra drivers on Monday is that from beeline that is buses but your recommendation is that the effective date of the contract would be September 1st that is correct that is the contact but nevertheless I outside of this contract and without any compromise of where the board was going to go I requested support and I wrote a purchase order to rent additional uh buses and additional bus drivers uh in this so this contract so I have temporary uh submitted a request to high uh to hire for uh let's try to rank for bus drivers and four buses is there to cover for the next communities what the Constitution takes place yes this is not part of the contract no so that however it's doing the contract that's also embedded that is correct yeah I have questions now so we know the ball part of the cost is going to be 15 more than what we're actually paying starting in September one what is that cost then for August every bus is about 400 a day a large part is about 400 a day and for the uh because it's not part of the RFP this is outside of the art in the rental um I also have the representative of VLAN on the weekend is available would like to answer any of those questions um if the board has any specific questions um number one I would like the community to know have a face of full big line in run by and number two is the answering the questions the incoming individuals are con are safe the individual was coming for August will continue they're not just coming into August and leave by September one you can you can come up and answer key thank you Mr President Mr superintendent and members of the board uh yes that is a true statement the the drivers coming in are individuals that we have identified that are interested in staying with the community and transporting these children so they're anxious to get started uh burning the area and and having a full understanding of the community so they are not ones that are just going to transition and transition out if the board chooses to move forward on a full contract they would like to stay in these positions and as much as we possibly can we'll identify individuals that want to stay that's the best for the kids to have the consistency and a routine driver that learns them learns their routes knows the families and has an understanding president Maria [Music] um the buzz drivers that are willing to work with us to relying they're looking for housing as well to be able to for us to accommodate them because they're going to live here in the community to be able to address them into the community we do have one unit available right now um but Mr um Kitty he's looking at what he said how to bring one of those trailers to be able to set a temporary housing for them as well they have to have a place to live yeah and they're willing to do it superintendent house um thank you sir thank you thank you for the responses um that's from Dallas then be a question do we have to approve that we're going to prove that later no you're doing if that is um it doesn't exceed the procurement that's not just the purchase of our proposition for August 11th through the business days last week school days do you know the uh the amount can you help oh my God thank you um so the requisition that was put in for the manager um that is temporary for until we I think by a directory for transportation and the manager that was going to help to train um our our previous director um that was a requisition but it was put in for 6 500 for those days um the I asked about the hours that were going to be worked each day because I wanted to know the breakdown of what the hourly rate would be they submitted on their quote Monday through Thursday it would be 12 hours 6 a.m to 6 p.m and on Fridays it was eight hours and so that totaled up to the 6500 um so it was about 224 hours total of work from the 7th through the 31st and then on the other requisition that was submitted um it was it stated that bus rental and Driver um is 450 dollars we did an estimate of 30 days because it was submitted at the beginning of the month so we didn't know when it would start and then it says well sir that's for the bus rental but it says try to come here drivers eight hours per day at 320 a day and then they also included overtime at um fifty dollars per hour and that's just an estimate just in case there's any overtime done and just keep in mind that um this also includes you know any administrative fees for a beeline because they're payment driver so that's not exactly what the driver will get I just don't want that to be misconstrued their way any anyone in the public or the employees I don't want them to think of that but so that's what we have here from the beeline quote have any more questions so I can do the math because out here it's estimated for 30 days and this total requisition was for 97 000 and 400.
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that includes 100 hours of overtime 30 days for eight hours for drivers and that's for drivers or bus rentals at 450 for 30 days but as we spoke about it's we don't have 30 days left in August so it's 19 days yes if they start on the 7th they'll be 19 days 19 work cases um [Music] it doesn't honor yes I think that as far as additional responsibility to me I agree a lot of people were trying to stand in the way of it I think we just want to make sure that you guys understand that but also I wouldn't have a problem with sort of being into what you're talking about now by extending the effect of date rabbit and having you do all of that but I'm just because I thought that's what we were going to do and I meant to mention is this is a start date that's later wouldn't we just enter into it sooner than instead I'm just saying it because I feel like that might help because this doesn't this sounds a little bit like we may just have that because the last thing on is generally throwing something here yes I do not know how long or how many questions or if if you would not want to be able to move forward with this contract or not but nevertheless I needed to have a bad apple and I need to start relief as early as as Monday so this is also a part of our intention to be able to move forward in having our students uh the support and my privacy support that they need so the power significance if you would like to unmain my recommendations it's in in your purview as well been the other concern is did you have that discussion with feline and is that something else even I don't know does that throw any wrenches for you but this is what else can I can be lying amend the contract to start an earlier date and then send us the contract so we can have people review it that's a question you probably have to take back right yeah yes so so just the challenge with that is the amount of lead time traditionally when a district seeks help from a contractor usually in the summer months and you have some lead time to prepare um if the board which would be very grateful of course whatever date you choose but it does decrease the amount of lead time that we have to be successful and we want to come in and be very successful for you and so this transition it's it's stating specifically drivers and statements specifically buses but you're also going to have other components of that if the board makes a decision to partner with Community lighting there are other individuals that are going to be on site that are going to be maintenance people starting to look at those buses you won't effectively be paying them now but this perch sort of covers those extra people coming in checking out the air conditioner starting to look at the plate determining what we can fix right away quickly what needs to be outsourced so that we can make recommendations to the superintendent and your administrative team and this is a great for us to keeper this one isn't working so they're going to be other pieces moving so hopefully have a successful start for the community on September 1st if we do start on August 7th it's kind of like we dropped into cold water and uh you may not think that we are successful as we have the potential if we have more preparation time and I don't disagree that that the all of that would come September but I'm just thinking thinking out loud here but for the sake of covering what we're doing now as opposed to not the effective would be specific to what you had already agreed to be effective September I mean August 7th September one let's start what you would agree September one is that I would have no problem with that I think that's the direction the board wants to take and provides you with whatever yeah it wasn't actually to swoop in on Monday yeah [Music] for the sake of record and our approval that that's at least what we needed at this point no I just thought that since beeline is coming in on Monday that question uh guess what could it be done but I understand the other portions that you're talking about that I'm coming into look at the buses the manager and all the you know all that other stuff that that's going to happen with with with our contract with you but we did also to begin with and then I also thought about the audience what does that going to look like and president media members of War to clarify is how much it will cost for that the following 17 I mean 19 days it'll be 63 520 dollars yes okay Miss Ella the dollar amount that we're talking about does that include a current stock this is the one that I'm bringing to from here to help us foreign so if you have the figures of the purchase order and what we're looking at and as the CFO that is something that the auditor will look at and see that it's in place and you have all your Ducks aligned and everything that then that shouldn't be a problem right thank you [Music] I was just checked I was just looking at the amount of 6500 for and then the 97 000 that would have been over the hundred thousand or is the 6500 was that part of the 97 that's not anymore but yeah the estimate and we were going um I guess just as a rough estimate and I think when they did get the pose before August okay so as presented I'm gonna make a motion uh to accept the recommendation says motion to approve with recommendation as presented I thought Miss uh Kathleen events all those in favor of the motion Juan goes Anna Marie Stevens I'm so sorry I can't even see you up there go ahead Anna hello I'm sorry um [Music] the bus driver here um I appreciate everything you do for our children and for our community I I also have a question about the contract as far as the company coming in are there gonna be um because they're going to be cultural training for these people coming here because they are not from the community it's there people who are going to help them get familiar with the community that they are going to be picking up students from um and having looked into the possibility of training some of these students who recently graduated they are who are seniors to get like some kind of internship so you have them get into some kind of career or a possibility of learning how to be an audible cat um we look mechanic or even being a teacher of a buffet I know that was going to be my question but I think that's so yes question about like um this is the contract include like this month and it was just listening to the conversation but those are some of the things that I had a question to Stevenson I thank you for um for asking that question um under my leadership any new member um that we contract doesn't matter if what apartment they will be receiving calls your journey and while there can be somebody from our community being on the bus with the people who are coming in um based on the conversations with uh B-Line and one of the recommendations was that as we trained as we bring uh bus drivers that are not part of the community or familiar with the culture is to clear the pair them up with the bonus Aid um that is from the community here I have other questions but it could be the competition I think everybody had asked questions that I wasn't asked thank you students are you in favor of the motion yes Sylvie Hendricks Elementary School Kathleen Vance motion carries [Music] um that is all for this evening board and publicity and members of the the crowd so is there an ocean Soldier Hendrix a second all those in favor of the motion Anna Marie Stevens um silby Hendricks they'll make Greasewood Kathleen Vance have a nice weekend thank you
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okay so I'm going to open the meeting at Kevin can you uh actually you're going to be doing you're doing the um report correct I'm gonna do the report so if someone else could take minutes yeah I'll do that so it'll be a little bit slow okay um Hannah well I'm doing this can you just write down all the people who are peer and present police and then send it to me afterwards yes great thank you okay Alva are you letting people in in the waiting room yes I'll keep an eye on it okay good um and tonight I'm also going to ask you since you're on which is awesome thank you if you if any if there's any extraneous noise in the background if you can mute everybody except the person who's speaking um I'm going to set some ground rules for the hearing we're about to open um which is that one person at a time speed I don't want anybody speaking out of turn I don't want people speaking on top of each other because it is too difficult for the committee to hear let alone the public and anybody else who's here um and we had a lot of that last time and I want to want that to change so I'm changing it and um please respect that and please just wait to be um raise your hand and wait to be taken and turn and with that without further Ado unless anybody on the committee has anything else to add let's open this meeting I'm going to open the earring so Mr Morris I'm going to assume you might have a presentation for us uh thank you madam chair actually my remarks will be quite brief because I have on screen with me uh Mr Ron bork your project architect and Mr Rick Salvo of the project engineer and I think due to the nature of the material that is to be presented live yeah largely the speaking process will be by those two individuals with um Mr Bullock being beginning first since he has the presentation which involves as much as 30 sheets so thank you for the opportunity to be here and we look forward to a productive session thank you okay so who needs to share the screen and Alvaro can you handle that for me please I'll give the permissions right now Ron bork Alvaro and what about Rick Salvo or is he the same okay great I also like to add that Julian salguchi is with us he's our Landscape designer so he'll be discussing his concepts with you great excellent so borrow if we could start with the Civil set uh uh I gave you permission so yeah you want me to bring it up or you gotta run yeah why don't you bring it up Rick and you can discuss it you know jump straight to the site layout plan here so I think the largest changes um since this was last uh presented had to do um with the emergency vehicle access um through the site and if I switch real quick here we had prepared um at the request of the fire department um a uh emergency vehicle turning movement through the site through peer review comment it was suggested that a slightly larger vehicle be used which is what you see here on the screen it's called a a bus 40 we had used a single unit 40 at the fire department's request the peer review were required requested a slightly larger vehicle on which we show the vehicle path which now will pass through this area right in here which will include a reinforced lawn which is comprised of a series of concrete octagon shaped pieces that get filled with loam and seed and then a lawn grows over them they're maintainable they're drivable they're H20 rated um what that path looks like I zoom in on it over here so the gray crosshatch that you see and this represents the building that will be sticking up out of the ground the heavy dashed line that you see is the garage level below um that is below ground and this path right through here is a combination of reinforced lawn h-20 rated uh patio for a walking path while emergency vehicles are not driving through there and then um Regular Lumen seed over the deck of the um of the garage so our regular vehicular access will be through this 24 foot wide Drive aisle that will access the perpendicular surface parking spaces head around um this little island down the ramp onto the lower level garages that garage that um Ron will be presenting just after this um and of course the emergency vehicles will be able to travel through the route um that I just identified um those are probably the largest changes there was a lot of um small technical changes that I'd be happy to um happy to walk through as part of the peer review comment that involve things like adding the utility poles to the plan which were our had already fortunately been surveyed that we added to the plan we added the fire hydrant locations which would be at either under the project we added a drain manhole on the Overflow pipe changed the Overflow pipe to a reinforced concrete pipe in accordance with the town of Ashland requirements um we'll be repaving this whole section of Road here from Curb to curb because when we close this curb cut here there's a low point that would trap water here so there we can eliminate that low point so it'll flow down to the catch Basin like it's intended to do rather than into the site which is what it does now um and then there was some um supplemental calculations that were required uh for the drainage system um which we had which we have also um provided and included um those are essentially the site changes to the plan um I think as you could see by and large it looks like probably the very similar plan that you saw the last time but those were the um the Civil changes that were made could I ask a question about the pavers um did you say that they're plantable or they're or are they um is it a mixture of Hardscape and softscape within the pavers so so the The Hardscape area which is shown by this brick hatch here will be just that will be a Hardscape the area in between if I zoom in here with these octagon shaped pieces in between the regular Lowman seed um will be planted and they're planted with what Lohman seed grass what kind of grass um I'm not sure what exact species of grass I guess I'd defer to the landscape architect for that can I jump in yep yep sure so that is actually a it's a clove grass and Wildflower seed mix provided by one Vermont Wildflower farm this is a very low growing seed mix it probably won't exceed six inches it's Clover and what Clover and clover grass and Wildflower what kind of grass I can check and get back to you when I present the landscape design portion of this okay great I'm interested in that in terms of its um ability it withstand drought traffic etc etc is that pattern visible is it reinforced meaning that there's a grid underneath the the planting material or do you would you do you see the the Octagon so you you'll see it when it first goes in once the vegetation gets established after a growing season probably at that point you won't be able to see it so it grows over the grows over it that's correct okay that's that's the same stuff that gets used outside of uh uh like assisted livings and nursing homes and things yeah we've used this on a lot of different projects uh quite successfully is it supposed to be grown over or if it was maintained over time you should still be able to see the no it's intended to be grown over so it's intended to look like a lawn for people that are walking by yet be able to support a fully loaded fire apparatus in when that need arises okay so I I'm asking because there are products that where you still see the the grid of of you know concrete pavers and grass in between yeah the intention will be for it not to be visible okay and then um what's your plan for holding down the edges against plows because that's how I knew that some that they've used that stuff around nursing homes and assisted livings it's like a plowed up at one place yeah I mean well this I mean I I don't think you didn't you'd intend the plow to scrape all the way down to the top the plow would probably be held you know a little bit over the top um of it I've never seen an installation where there was an edge installed with it um I suppose we could consider installing a curb of something along that edge but it kind of defeats the purpose well I think you have to actually have a heart to heart with the contractor who's doing the plowing back there and tell them they have to have shoes or um there's a couple of names for them but they're they're relatively cheap you put them on the plow and they hold it up to keep it so it doesn't pick up stuff like that yeah and we can also add that into the O M plan just so it doesn't get lost in the translation right okay The Pedestrian walking path would be plowed um but Kathy you're saying the plowing of the landscape area as well that does the fire department require the full 12 foot width to be plowed I would I would imagine so because it would sort of defeat the purpose if there was a snow bank there and you couldn't drive a final region through there and all I'm going to say is as they come through have with the with the snow depending on how Frozen the ground is sometimes that stuff also gets picked up so in the case where I saw it they were plowing the snow off onto what they thought was lawn which is how they actually caught the um what are you calling this material I call it yeah grass crate is a common name we refer to it as a reinforced lawn okay but it's made of plastic or concrete concrete ah So eventually when we see the materials I'd love to see a sample of that okay thank you and uh what was the size just since I'm taking the minutes what was the size of that vehicle uh bus Dash 40.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so like I said originally in the comments we received from the fire department they wanted us to use a single unit 40 peer-reviewed re said suggested a bus 40 might be more appropriate it's a slightly larger vehicle um so we went and ran that vehicle and it worked just fine great okay um any other questions from the committee at this moment or can we move on to the and let them finish the presentation yeah I just had one more question about um the drive lane for the fire truck um is the is the curb between the parking lot and where the fire truck would enter into that paver system area would that would that have a chamfer on it you know it's there's a curb there that would prevent sorry particular traffic from going in that direction but it has kind of a 45 degree yeah we'll make sure that this is a as a piece of granite edging that's a good point I mean they can they could they can come up a six inch curb reveal without issue but why not make it a little easier for them I think that's a good point yeah I've seen that before so I'm just racing yeah we'll specify that piece that's granted edging I think that's a good that's a good point I don't have anything else Kathy we can um you can continue on with the rest of your presentation great thank you John one floor is yours again we're on a turn the sharing over to you I'm sorry I was muted is Alvar still Oliver Could you um share with me the file that I had sent over yes are you going to send another an email or just share it from my screen okay I'm sorry albar I can't see uh we can't see the share uh I just sent it to you um so you can there's something up on the screen now yeah now Ron that's my screensaver oh if that's your screensaver you're gonna need to stop sharing for so he can share it well yeah or Ron if it's on yours if it's on your screen and you have it why don't you just you're you're enabled us to share you could just that's what I tried to do but I got an error message so um there we go okay let me try that again all right so share screen okay can you see that yeah there we go thank you sorry about that um so this was the uh uh based on the discussion we had in our last meeting and addressing addressing some of the uh all the issues I think that um and concerns that we had so I will just run through this and there's also Landscaping here which Julian will will take over um this is this is the climate information so I'm just going to pass by this uh this was a shadow study and unfortunately in SketchUp the boxes you see because the plants are like two-dimensional plants you see a box as a shadow but those indicate Shadows of the trees but more importantly it gives us a look at the building itself and what the solstice is uh will show for shadows and and the value in this is obviously in the shadow study itself but also into the discussion about potential solar on the roof um I think that you know we can see that this the south facing uh portions of the building um are really solar ready um the benefit to that is that they are not directly visible from the street so that if you're coming down Homer unfortunately with solar panels you know they don't always fit the roof correctly and they don't have triangular pieces and things like that so uh sometimes it detracts from the building although you're trying to do the right thing but in this instance where we have this Southern face and even the face that's on the um the South I guess the north side of the Terrace but the South Base of the of the roof on Homer uh gives us some opportunities to uh have some I think some significant panels there uh while maintaining the architectural look that we're we're trying to achieve on on the public side of Homer's Avenue uh this is a contextual elevation showing the existing conditions along Homer Ave and the dotted line represents the uh the project site it's a little out of alignment but that's the nature of that elevation trying to piece that together but it does give you an indication of um you know the solid building uh which is the small retail along the uh corner of Homer Ave and then where we step back into this site you can see that there's a lot of I call them you know um indentations and lack of continuity of us of that edge uh which we're trying to address uh this is superimposed with the elevation showing how we continue to bring the you know we bring the edge back we create points of interest um you'll shadow and um solids and voids uh lower level is is commercial space upper levels are residential [Music] um you know it meets the massing if we look at the uh Alden Street elevation next we'll see how the volume uh is consistent with what's on that street so this is Alden Street left to right the right is home around our project site is shown and then there's a massing of the building which is it's a little skewed because of the way the Homer Street works but um where it runs but it does give you an idea of how the massing would would fit into the neighborhood is there project data uh one of the comments on the peer review was about the turning radiuses in the garage I did go back and look at them and they were correct so I repair I've um you know look look at them and and uh made sure that they all worked at 24 foot radiuses they do sweep back which force our parking to change slightly but we do maintain the 38 parking spaces what size are those those are nine by 18.
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with a 24 foot backup okay how many electric stations are you proposing we're making all of them EV ready both on the site and in the building but how many are actually you're making them all EV ready you said so you can plug in anywhere well there'll be the potential to add the stations so they'll be they'll be roughed in to be able to add the stations over time okay so how many stations well 38 in the basement and 22 on the uh round level okay how many stations will you actually have I'm sorry I don't know what um what number that uh what is required well I think we're looking for every development to have some plug-in places and the fact that they're all EV and it's all EV ready is excellent um because then you don't have to dig stuff up to put it back in but I think we'd like to have some I don't think we have a specific requirement but I would have to double check on that but I think you can certainly have some available on the on the uh on the first floor level and then some in the basement as well and have you anticipated a number for any of those no we have not we've we've just made them all roughed in so that that potential is there to add them as they need to be added if you there's a number in mind then we can certainly you know identify which which um which spaces would immediately happen um well I think the more you have outside in part uh for both your commercial and some of your residential parking areas would be helpful and then um you know we're we're I'm assuming you're building this building because you're expecting to be in Ashland for a while so you know that we're going to Net Zero hopefully by 2040 and this will be a big piece of it yeah is is the project pursuing lead no okay that could potentially be a baseline to use you're not pursuing lead but um lead has minimum requirements for some of their credits for Ev stations so that could be a basis um if there is isn't one in the town currently so um another comment from the peer review was on trash uh storage and removal and bike storage so I'm going to go back to the basement so we do have trash and recyclables room of which um uh that building owner will twice a week have uh you know smaller vehicle come in uh pick up trash and take it off site uh for bicycle stores I have one location at the uh in the in the lower level as well as a location just outside of the lobby and and the front entrance as well as that back entrance with a handicap spaces there's also sorry about that um can you go back and show where each of those are sure so in the upper right corner um it'll be a there'll be a like a wire cage uh with controlled access inside or outside inside okay and then there will be um Lock Storage on the first level directly outside of the residential Lobby the residential entrance and the um the hatched area for the handicap access there's also a bike rack just outside of the residential entrance I have a question about the EV setup charging stations who is that it's George okay George uh I'm going to ask you to wait until um we go through the presentation or at least we get through what what the committee has to ask about this that particular with the bikes um okay what about if you're one of your commercial spaces has um let's say they sell ice cream so that would uh get a lot of people biking down perhaps to use do you have bike racks outside somewhere um Max by the little pocket park on Alden Street the entrance to the um to the residence but we can certainly there's there's a you know there's a lot of Paving in front of these uh these entry doors so they can certainly be placed there it wouldn't be disrupting landscaping or anything so I think as depending on what the tenant mix is there's the flexibility to accommodate uh either benches or or bike racks yeah there's actually bike rack benches did you know that no yes they're kind of cool actually okay um so on level two one of the comments was to um shift the building northward this front section to enlarge the space at the um as sort of the the pinch points of the of the terrorists um the number four foot was was used what I needed what I had to do because these roof lines were all worked out and it was very difficult to get the full four feet I shifted it two feet in this direction and then back here I shifted it down two feet so I have the four feet I just didn't have it all in the front I was also concerned about exceeding square footage for parking for the commercial space balance but it does accomplish the same goal um I have also in designing the the units um that you know paid paid attention to creating situations where you weren't looking directly across into a bedroom on a short axis as well as uh as as Julian talks about his his planting uh scheme we've kind of denied the space closer to the bedrooms along here with uh raised Planters and and plantings so people will not be able to be directly above or directly you know in front of a bedroom window within close proximity um how high are the planters uh they're 18 inches okay uh level three uh again the units are um you know at least design development laid out um show that they all work and that they you know they need some square footage requirements and on the roof plan as we discussed so if we look at the southerly part of the of the sheet uh we can see that we have some opportunity for solar uh we'll have some opportunity for solar on the north side of the level two Terrace roof as well as with a flat roof slopes down on either side um on the left side we have smaller Dormers so it'll be a little more difficult to have anything that's really consequential but it really does help um it helps a project it helps the resiliency and things like that but also not having it directly on Homer that's not the most efficient location for them I think helps a project as well because it does solve that problem that we always see with solar panels of them sticking six inches off the roof and being square boxes on triangular you know roofs um so you're proposing putting them on the flat roof sections the 500 and 740 750.
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as we developed the condensing units we can we can work with that and have uh panels on there as well we have space you know maybe we gang them all in one location or I'll shift them so we can we can get additional panels there but also on the sloped roofs along the pathway uh the the emergency vehicle pathway foreign before we leave the plans I have some questions about um level one if you could go back to that so my understanding was that we were going to see a plan that showed more commercial space on Alden Street and I thought unit 2 was coming out could you just remind me and just you know just tell us what transpired about that corner because I was expecting unit 2 wouldn't be there I think well we had discussed um sort of reconfiguring it I I don't think we and and discuss enlarging it um I mean I do have a stair here which which serves from the garage to the third floor which takes up this corner everything else beyond that is for commercial where's the entrance for commercial on Alden Street uh right here in the corner in my corner uh let me I'm sorry let me Zoom one so it's off off the corner off all the shoe so is this I'm going to mark this up is this the space that we were talking about last time that uh the plan would be revised to show the additional commercial tenant space at Alden Street that's this space here there were originally three three uh units along that uh pathway there one of them was eliminated and the other two were reconfigured that's how I read it is that correct Ron that's correct right so I'm looking at the at the previous uh first floor so the commercial went to the corner and the stair was essentially where the commercial entrance is and then we had units one and two so units one unit two um Extended basically to the to the corner of the trash room so that was pulled back that space was given to the um to the commercial space which was noted here is 800 square feet I'm not sure what the square footage is but it was I think it was a comparable size and the stair was shifted to the corner so uh so the commercial space was um shifted more towards home around where this door is located but what was so now I I found the plan that was provided previously where the stair was shifted right um sort of in this location so what was the reason for move removing the stair well there's only um if you go to the the basement floor plan there's only so many locations that the stare on that end of the building uh can be placed the building Notch is in here um the stair was located approximately in this location where space 28 is and it created a situation where traffic coming down the ramp it was running you know directly into the stair which I I didn't think it would be a good idea to have nesting traffic walking through there and then climb an area through the first second and third floors I see okay so it was a result of um continued planning efforts yeah that's right that's correct yeah um okay um so my other question was yeah is this the second floor um so we had talked last time about shifting This Bar plan North and I you said that you moved the South Wall the South red line but did the whole bar move to modify the depth of the recesses at Homer it did but it only moved two feet I believe um the impact on the roofs left it very difficult to resolve the ridge lines so I was able to move it two feet and then I what I did was on the uh where you in a 12 is the wall south of the um I guess I could use the same thing you're using sorry the wallets the wall that's on the unit of Walled unit 12 was shifted back as well to give myself the four feet that we were asking for I just didn't I couldn't get it all on home around so when you did your Shadow study did that move more of that patio into the light the plantings I didn't I didn't do the shadow study with the older version I did I did it with the not in the same fashion um I did the on the renderings and showed it but I did not go through this particular process where does it show it on the on the can you blow it blow it up so we can see those more clearly because they're pretty small in that yeah I want to see what it shows in the Corolla December December 21st uh noon shows a small Shadow okay March slightly larger September and those Shadows on that are from what and so the shadow you see here that the peak is this Ridge um to the south of the Shadow and then the the hash the little rectangles you see are actually those plantings that um I have in the model but they are they read as squares when they do Shadows they don't read as a silhouette of the plant okay so what time of day is this one they were all done at noon so the one in December has less shadow that's what I was I was just I'm wondering if I may have bet I may have reversed one on um when Julian's talking about the Landscaping I'm gonna go off screen Echoes okay that'd be great because that was one of my concerns about that was what's in the planters a lot of that looks like material that needs more Sun than it might get up there if it's in shade during the growing season okay yeah so as Julian's speaking about his his landscape I'll I'll open the SketchUp model and just make sure that I didn't reverse these sticks okay great thanks uh does that answer your question on the commercial space yeah the other the other um you know challenges to is to kind of maintain the square footages in the parking count balance um if I added a thousand square feet I would have not had enough parking spaces on site to cover it so that's sort of that back and forth that we're constantly struggling with yeah I was just making sure the most current iteration of the plan um and it sounds like we are so I am happy about that and I'm looking at the previous iteration of the level two layout you know after Shifting the bar closer to Homer Ave it does seem more generous there's can you can go back to level two I think previously there were there were more um there are more undulation to that to this facade um inside this Courtyard and so it I mean I I wish that it was larger but I think it's more generous than what you had previously so um I I'm not gonna comment on that further right now I also think that position in the bedrooms where there is a significant planting bed in front of it helps to deny people that space so you do have that that sense of privacy right that's great appreciate that is yeah so it looks like the the overall layout of that courtyard space is is new I mean you you completely reconfigured it right that's correct yep yeah look at the plantings the race Planters the comments that were were made and uh Julian went back to the drawing board and came up with an alternate that he'll discuss and hopefully uh is something that Appeals um so there's a requests to do the um the straight on elevations um which we had done it just weren't part of that package you haven't sent these into us yet this was part of the pet the original Pat the package I sent okay good that's what I thought now this one um elvar the package that I sent you this afternoon because I did I did do uh a series of um swatches on the side here for um uh for uh materials colors potential trim colors complementary colors for the trim and the and the siding and I I did share it uh run at the moment that I received that I shared it today okay is that but that's not this file no that's the file that you sent me today this afternoon okay so I will I will uh I will follow up but there are color there's a color swatches here representing the trim the field and you know complimentary colors if we if we were to go with this type of scheme for example isn't what we're looking at right now no I had this afternoon I had uh added uh boxes here that just show a different Benjamin more colors for for cardboard all right so when are you going to send what we're looking at right now oh when Julian jumps on with the uh um landscape I'll I'll resend that sheet okay great uh actually Kathy you should have it I sent it today at around like four oh that is the one I saw okay 346 yeah right because I did it I did add some um uh green roof details just some standard details and I added these color swatches okay thank you for sending in sending it on yeah uh so we we looked at uh different uh styles for the elevation and they all have the same um sort of principal premises to is to have um just several materials in a module and and have order to them uh so in this instance this was the one we'd seen before with the decorative brackets the composite trims uh sort of the dental the large uh glass windows at the um at the commercial space and we'd have obviously low equalizing um and brick veneer on the first two levels of the insets and then a collaborate um style siding above and then looked at that same elevation if we were to use a a shingle in the upper level create a datum line um and then maintain a collaborate on the lower level with a fixed awning another style where if we win with the board and Baton similar to the um sort of The Farmhouse look that you see um mixed with a a collaborative siding on the lower level you know this could be a darker collaborate with a white Farmhouse look personally to me that's that's a style that doesn't belong on this but it is a style that does belong with the kind of the massing and then this is a combination of a little more water material have metal panel on there on the recesses uh flat signage without an awning uh denoting the residential entrance and then all these we show building signage in those panels um so that gives us some different looks to the same elevation but they all have the same principle of having you know each block is organized it's not overwhelmed with diff with you know with five or six different materials um and it has an order to it so I'm going to let Julian take the screen and discuss um his planting plan all right hold on a second one Uh Kevin or Hannah or Bill do you have any questions about what we've just looked at any comments yeah I think we should pause and talk about the architectural materials um start back at number do you want him to start back at number two so there were five total well the first one I saw was two with the brick in it elevation material the elevation that's on the model uh I just want to make a note run I think that you're showing the not updated version of like of the just the last file that you sent to me today no I understand that that's what I was I was okay I know I know it's not the updated version but the only changes were the materials that I showed on the left so I'm going to go back to that and then we can revisit this so if we if we can revisit this after Julian's um that can move us along and I can get the correct file sure excellent thanks so Julian can you um pick it up from here yes I can if you could just move the mouse for me Ron and just indicate the areas that I'm speaking about that would be wonderful but I'm going to start from the front then move to the left side to the rear parking area and then the right hand side but just to preface so while designing this project low maintenance stroke tolerance native plant selection and mature plant height as well as solar conditions we're taking into consideration for this and all trees shrubs and perennials are being shown at their mature sizes so we're going to start in the front and along the front of 9 to 49 Homer Ave and in front of the large floor to see the windows we have a layered mix of perennials and shrubs so from front to back we have plants like carricks abicons geranium maculatum chest manthium latifolium and then hydrangea corsifolia Ruby Slipper they are the largest shrubs along the fronts and they reach ahead of three to four feet tall and are being used to soften the architecture of this development and they're located in places that won't obstruct the large fluency windows um so we saw a solar analysis from Ron earlier indicating that the front of this property along Homer Ave is going to be pretty shady it's not facing so that's expected for that area so all these plants are able to withstand um some levels of shade definitely um also at maturity once they're established they're going to be drilled tolerant as well and require little maintenance for the front plantings I'd estimate you know you need a simple garden opening and closing and then limited maintenance during the season just to keep things looking tidy but this isn't a this isn't any kind of like super high maintenance perennial garden we're going to move on to the left hand side now so this is going to indicate so this is the entrance from Homer Avenue um we see two types of grasses along the entrance panic and Virginia Adam Shenandoah and more the inlets folium north of seaos further back we have an upright variety of white pine pinus strobes facijigata more panicum Virginia and then after staff of the scuba ursery as a ground cover where is that you're talking about is that that's a little triangular thing here yes the arctostery are the um the dark green rev clouds in between the pinus strobus vestigata all right in these areas yes thank you Ron so the green circles I can barely see this on my screen right now could you zoom in for us a little bit Ron good thank you is that better yeah yes it is thank you of course yep so that's along the left hand side as you enter into the rear parking area um yes where's uh South for that where's South for what um in general well yeah because I think that's that's not going to get enough light of self is what's it called um North is along Homer Ave and the bottom area over here is Southern facing along the parking right but don't you guys have a fence property line there there's a six foot tall white fence along the edge of the property line and what's behind the Arctic stifylus uh behind those are the pinkish red circles that is um panicum Virginia anim Shenandoah um what's it called they get to a mature height of about yeah so um you might have to have a plan B if it turns out to be too silly for that stuff because it will tolerate some shade because I have it on a site where stuff is grown in and matured um to a faster degree than I thought it would but in some places starting to die back because it's in too much shade now yeah the Juniper is actually doing better even though it's sort of ubiquitous and and gets overused um in a site where it's going to get more shade I mean if this was on the facing side on the opposite side of the building there what was going to you know have almost no no obstruction between it and the light I'd say go ahead because I I've seen it growing on the dunes in Cape Cod and it's gorgeous yeah with that full sun exposure definitely so that's my comment over in here is that the same thing you've got down here in this little corner yes in between spaces 13 and 14 correct and the fences wear there um the fence is shown by a it's a dashing in X Ron is outlining it right now for us that your property line goes like that that is okay that's very interesting um okay yeah I think um I don't know I think you ought to take a good look at those the the solar values over there just you know and I don't know how many plants you would plan to put in there I mean maybe you could do them right next to the curves on the outside and put Juniper in the back or something but I'm fairly certain they some of that will not last and then you get weeds in there okay yeah no I'll think of a backup for the Arctic staff for this in those locations may I continue along with the real parking yes please of course so along the rear parking um it's cons it consists of a six foot wide planting bed that separates the parking spaces from the white fence we were just talking about um inside this plant inside this planty bed it's going to be a mass planting of plethora almofolia specifically Ruby spice a deliciously fragrant variety of plethora Island Folia and then over time these things will reach six feet wide by six feet tall and before we're Thicket so they're going to grow together eventually um sort of screening out the fence and offering fragrance and um beautiful flowers during the season um and then I have a note about the the arctos Southwest anniversary in between spaces 13 and 14.
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but like we talked about Kathy I will um look into alternatives for that there are some existing mature trees in this area I believe it's in front of space number 10 and 14.
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um there are existing Elm trees and oak trees so we're just leaving space for that and I'm not planting anything too close to them all right so this should show those trees it does oh I see got it okay yeah we have a little bump out in front of um spot number 10 just to uh um yeah just to accommodate it okay great um and I'm just gonna go back to the engineer and the architect the roots of those trees gentlemen have to be protected yes they do so I'm going to move over to the right hand side open excuse me yeah so what's the plan for protecting them oops because I can send you some documentation if you want on on the on the critical root zones yeah we appreciate that okay are you talking during construction on the off chance that a fire engine has to drive through there who's who's speaking please it's Rick Salvo sorry hi Rick sorry okay um I'm talking about the actual existing trees okay during okay during construction yeah and and you know what the plan is for protecting because if you're going to cut off most of those roots then um you know I think it'd be nice to keep those trees and they're shown as part of this and and keeping them only enhances what you're doing here so you know be worthwhile to protect them well there's really no reason to excavate in that area other than for the um for the driveway you know for the driveway so there's no construction going over there as far as building goes right but it's the actual driveway the installation of that driveway because how far down do you go uh generally about a foot yeah okay so I mean on the um on the subsurface drainage but I don't think it's close to that tree no I mean I'm looking at Google Earth right now there's already a there's already a paved parking lot right next to it so from this site yes okay so you know so that we really should be adding a new pavement section there we should just be pulverizing the pavement that's there and repaving over it so I I don't see there to be a ton of impact if it was lawn I hear you we'd be putting in you know um a big pavement section but the pavement section is already there okay I don't I remember walking through there a while ago with uh Ron and Terry and I don't actually remember the condition of it because there was a lot of piles out there at the time so if the paving is really cracked then the possibility there's a there's a distinct possibility that the roots of those trees extended into that area so I'm going to send over the critical root Zone stuff and I just would appreciate it if you all would pay attention to it when you're doing your construction because I think that's going to be those trees are going to be important moving forward okay yeah we can add some detail to the erosion control plan to make sure there's some orange construction fence put around there um and that sort of thing to protect that root Zone you gotta put it where on the erosion control plan so when the erosion control goes in the orange construction fence would go in before any work is done so it'll be protected thank you like that that's awesome and um just to keep in mind when dealing with trees too um you know those roots are going to grow horizontally and most of the roots of a tree are going to be the top four to 15 inches of the soil too so even if you are just simply Excavating existing asphalt you're going to you know disturb the roots to some extent so some sort of protection should definitely be um looked at and Incorporated but I'm going to continue along the right what I'm going to do is send a I'll send this stuff over to Alvaro and he can forward a to um to you all to take a look at it's stuff that we're we've got um under consideration right now to put into the design review um um guidelines in town at the very least but it's it's really you know if you're going to have them even it's it's worthwhile keeping them and I brought this before when you all proposed projects thank you for sending that over so I'm going to continue along the right hand side of this development so we're going to be by the Alden Street entrance to that park at Park that Ron was talking about earlier I'm right at the entrance we have a beautiful Eastern redbuds versus candidensis um and then along the southern side of this area along the fence we have a row of um we have a row of trees they are sugar Maples um the specific variety is Acer saturum Reba which is just an upright variety of sugar maple I believe that maturity the uh you know the crown of the tree is going to be about 18 feet wide so the goal here was to have a tree with a substantial canopy that's going to provide screening for the Neighbors while also not impeding on this Access Road for one a fire truck potentially needs to um get back there and I think this are those a normal tree are they um were they more fastidious they are a loose fastidious I would I would categorize them at they're not extremely upright like a you know slender silhouette liquid Damar Saras fluid but they are like I said the uh the canopy gets to be about 18 feet wide so they are upright but they're not super tight and then we also have shown in a Green Cross hatch is a Seedling mix that I mentioned earlier it's a clover grass and Wildflower seed mix um I just double checked the specs online a couple of minutes ago and the mature height of this stuff gets to be about 10 inches tall and Kathy I believe you wanted to hear about the types of grasses that were included in this seed mix we have two in particular one is which is a sheep Fescue and the other one is you know uh Festus ovina Jetty which is a hard Fescue perennial grass both are considered drought tolerant and um we have other things in there like Dutch white clovers um Johnny jump ups sweet alyssums and um and other perennials but like I said this is going to get about 10 inches tall at maturity that access path um there's no seed in that access path so you know this could be mowed less frequently than grass and it's going to require less water than grass too in the long run what's the um what's this what's the actual name of the mix the mix is a the actual name is Magic Carpet Clover grass and Wildflower seed mix and it's sold by the Vermont Wildflower Farm and a lot of the specs are listed online too on their website right including um you know detailed info like the specific varieties that are included in the sea mix and as well as um you know other other information okay great but that is all I have for the uh for this planting plant right here I'd love to hear any questions you guys have um I noted the uh the question you had Kathy about the I don't know if the question the uh the suggestion to potentially replace the arctostapless oversery with another more shape tolerant ground cover I'll look into that yeah you could you know you could keep it towards the outside you know where it'll get more sun but where it's close to the fence I think uh my experience says it's gonna it's gonna not have a good time back there um and then I want to take a look I want to see the front of the building that part um blown up more please sure thing thank you Ron um can you slide the screen so more of that is more yeah that's exactly right so the facade is more visible thank you so if your commercial tenants wanted to sit outside they you know if they had um if you have benches and stuff so other plans for site furniture out here I'm not showing any site furniture out here we just have um patio space in front of certain commercial areas right there's certainly um there's room for it and it really it really comes down to what kind of tenants end up renting a space so you you wouldn't provide it as sort of a matter of course the tenants would be responsible for it be up to the owner but um as far as he's providing a space itself I mean there's sufficient space out here to do for example tables for a deli um here it could be benches could be small table so you know we did allocate that space on the outside to try to tie the two together uh wanted to create an edge where you know people could sit out there and enjoy you know enjoy home around without being directly on home around it was kind of one of the goals yes absolutely so is any of this stuff ever green no that's the thing these are not Evergreen plantings um you know I'd say with the exception of using hemlocks most Evergreen plantings require good amounts of sunlight throughout the growing season so really Thrive and um and produce so when I was putting this planting plants together being the north side of its development I I steered away from them just because of that fact because that there is going to be limited sunlight in that area um but we do have grass so carrick's Advocates is going to flower produce seed pods and that would be some sort of winter interests that they're left up throughout the winter and then you also have stuff like the um the northern Sea Oats against the windows too if those are not cut down in the fall left up you actually have some pretty attractive um you know grass foliage in front but one day in front of the windows same thing with the hydrangea corsifolia ruby slippers um well not Evergreen they do have interesting exfoliating bark okay I just look at this and I know that you got Ron that you got a lot of feedback at the last meeting about I actually liked the Landscaping what we needed to do is was sort of organize the facade a little bit um I actually like the the planting selection somewhat better from the last time because there were more flowers but one of the things that I think is going to be part of the draw to get people down here is color and having it look really interesting and this is this is great but I'd like to see more color during the season out here and I'm really concerned about it in the winter um and how could you do what could you do out here to make it look a little greener in the winter and then um Brendan our associate member who's traveling today texted me um at the outside of the meeting and said he was wondering about trees out here and I know there are telephone poles and wiring overhead that looks really beautiful in front of your facade of your building but I'm wondering if there's a way to get some some kind of trees in here to help break up the facade some more and it's sort of a question to throw out to Ron and you Julian because I just look at the that front of that facade that Ron had up earlier and I'm like it you know we can see the building but it's it's not um the the Landscaping would help soften it because it's a this is a big building for this area and it's a big Mass which I'm I'm very concerned about actually um because when you go stand over on Front Street and you're attending the farmers market it is going to look totally different when people stand in there and look back over and if you know some year in the future we sink the railroad line down below then this is really going to stick up as something very large and very massive looking across from Main Street I'm sorry I agree with you Kathy on um the other the earlier plan I thought I thought Julian did an excellent job on I just felt the comments were just like it was too much I mean that that's what I heard um well that's what I heard sorry I'm interrupting you that's what I heard too um and I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to discuss it more um I put some some um some of the small like the trees Julian that you had before I mean I thought that I thought you did an excellent job on that and it really started to have the landscape talk to the facade that was sort of the way I presented it um you have the old one I do but I think I'd have to get out of the zoom to to get it so um that's why I was hoping so what do you Julian do you remember what you had out there for trees um I was looking for it I couldn't find it right away so I gave up yeah I'm clicking around right now trying to find it as well um but what I remember is I had some sort of upright variety of trees along the front of Homer Ave um they might have been slender Silhouettes um American sweet gum trees uh I I believe I had those placed on the corners of of this develop of this development just to um you know soften these Corners up and um just because these planting beds aren't that deep there's really a limited number of trees that would fit in this area without getting overgrown at maturity um another suitable tree that I think could be acceptable up here would be um some more Eastern Red Buds um just because they are shade tolerant um and they're not going to get oversized I think they get 25 feet in diameter at maturity um but any trees that are planted along over Homer Avenue would need to be um you know ushered on and curated on by a knowledgeable arborist somebody who's going to um you know prune them away from the building when they eventually do get to the mature size the knowledgeable arborist because I just saw a building where the pruning job that was done to get Pines off of the building was burned on horrible probably use hedge trimmers or something yeah yeah they use hedge trimmers honestly it's really it was terrible um so but Eastern redbuds out here would be gorgeous agreed I think that pop of color in the early Sprint would be wonderful well I like the leaves and the shape of them they're it's a nice you know a nice plant um and then you know you might have to shift a little bit your planting scheme below um to accommodate the shade but maybe not and I know the Tasmanian theme is going to take it the um this Carex I actually use Pennsylvania all the time because it in a warmer environment it might actually stay greener um you know or part of it will stay greener excuse me would a red bud be affected by salt it's actually fairly tolerant it can tolerate some of it I mean it doesn't like the seashore but I've there's a place up along 126 almost at 117 where they're closer to the road than I thought they ought to be okay so road salt wouldn't affect them that much yeah they'll be Dorman and Julian what do you think I mean you could also um they could that area could get lined in the spring or um I'm forgetting the other stuff you can put on in Gypsum oh my God yeah yeah gypsum or something um yeah I know that's a that's a really good point about the salt tolerance because being along with more Ave right there right there and the sidewalk too you know that's gonna be salted all winter so that's definitely a concern um that's a Street sidewalk and not correct that's the town sidewalk not yours correct I believe so is that correct Ron correct yep are you all don't have to redo it because they're doing it is that correct I believe so Rick right the um the scope of the road work will include the sidewalks by the city okay okay well you know we'll just have to see so whatever you can do out there to make it a little more I I think some anything else you can do to have a little more of a a colorful draw down the street would be helpful um and I I do understand what Brendan was saying at the last meeting that might be that might have a tighter canopy I'm not a landscape architect so I don't know but what's what Native species might have a tight smaller canopy I mean horn beams there's a fastidious variety of those but even that they get pretty wide and they in my opinion they would have broke space at maturity um for Native upright plants upright trees the selection isn't that big for um for this area it isn't actually whereas you at least get the flowering of the sources first thing in the spring exactly yeah which would be really nice I know that I know that Brendan was looking for a more fastidious thing on the corner and then you I mean you could go to a non-native plant out there but um I'd be looking for it to be flowering at some point right yeah and I was sticking to Native species too is um important so that really limited the plant selection for this right so when this is getting put in your your plan is to do some sort of irrigation until it's established right yeah so this is going to need irrigation for at least the first two seasons and celebrity here is established but after that it can be toned down um as as most of these plants are drought tolerance yeah I'd actually I I actually think you should plan on three you might get lucky and have a year like this year where nobody has the water where you know last year everybody had to water yeah um because we just don't know what's what's happening because the hotter Road it gets the more I mean I look at Homer Avenue on the street and all that hot pavement is gonna make these plants suffer more you know the July we just had was insufferable basically and it's hard on all these plants right I definitely think the carricks along the sidewalk that will be pretty tolerant of you know heat and sunlight against the uh the sidewalk yeah and I think the oath grass will do the same breed Kathy can I make some comments on the patio spaces absolutely please do since we're in that area um Ron could you just zoom in on on that Northern section of this so I'm I'm just wondering about the attitude that you're taking towards each of these patio areas um so I appreciate the fact from last time all of the commercial entrances are now in the in the middle of each um of these recessed days um and I'm just wondering if it is going to be difficult to maintain the plantings on this North facade that will be in in shade do we reduce the amount of planting here and develop an attitude towards these patio spaces at the same time and kind of thinking leave this one the way it is but then extend all these patios out to the face of the sidewalk just so that we're giving um the tenant spaces you know the the same opportunity to to fit out these patios with site furniture and Cafe tables or whatever it might be to make it more usable and inviting to the public um and it sets up a you know a rhythm the build the the site Landscaping has an attitude just like the building does I I think that's a that's another way to look at it I did um when we get to the renderings and look at the paving patterns I did carry some of the paving pattern I think you had mentioned it across the drive lane from the pocket park and then I also carried it into these spaces which I thought was a was a good a good move um but yeah the shapes and and I guess it's what you're trying to accomplish um from is it is it that you want the building to be welcome and have its own identity so people kind of walk through this path into one retail space and you've got a separate one they share the patio in front but they have separate entrances in uh versus one that may be set up for a deli that has tables outside but still has a little separation from the sidewalk in the street because to me that's important I mean to I know we always reference that that building the the donut Shopper uh Deli and it's just it to me it's uncomfortable to sit on the sidewalk and have a car in the street right there without any type of visual or psychological buffer it's just one thing to add to that though um you could utilize some sort of like like deep race Planters um along the sidewalk too um to kind of so give you that buffer and then inside those Planters you could have maybe some sort of evergreen shrub like a you were a boxer just to give you that winter interest we were talking about earlier um but I I agree it is nice to have the uh the screenage um to separate the patio space from the sidewalk and Homer Ave C I'm gonna interject here just because this just brought up something that's very much on my mind now what um are there is there any curbing out there to stop a car from literally running off Homer Avenue into this into these spaces God forbid but you know there's enough people driving like crazy people these days and they they drive into houses and buildings a lot now so I'm a little curious about that because you know these spaces will be really nice until somebody drives into them and the same is going to be true for another couple of other developments that are happening there's a six inch reveal Granite curb all the way along the furniture's property which is where on this edge of the sidewalk or the edge of your property also edge of the sidewalk yeah okay we also had the telephone poles which will provide protection you're beautiful I mean listen I mean I mean I think some time off the road and and that kind of goes to the maintenance maintenance plan you know this is the front door of this building obviously that landscape is going to get oh it's going to get trashed I'm but it's more to like protect the people inside if there's you know people sitting out on a patio because I just I you know I'm just thinking about it so if you are going to do raised Planters where would you put them out here thank you for looking going in areas where if we open this up uh as as Kevin mentioned and we had a raised planter it's it serves as a barrier but also gives a planting bed but if you're going to do that you might as well leave what we have here yeah well I was thinking or at least leave the trees you know change some of those hydrangeas into trees um and then have you know it would be gated seating underneath the tree which would be you know it would be really nice what's but what's in that word it says hydrangea and what's to the left of it the left and right of it is that the geranium yes that is the geranium yeah I mean you could put the carrots or Juniper or something uh you could probably get away with juniper out there because that's also far enough away from the side of the building is there a native Juniper you typically use um yeah I'd have to look up the name I've actually I've got one that I've successfully used in containers a lot um I'll make a note to send that along with the um like a I was going to say junipers and Talus or that gets huge though right well there's one that gets really nice because it dribbles over the containers and yeah it looks beautiful and then you know some of you just have to come along every so often eventually when it hits the ground and clip it back up but it it's actually really nice and that that actually helps protect whatever's in those Planters because it's an added buffer against the Heat and cold of the street junipers are tough as nails and they tolerate salt I just have to go back and look at a couple of my client notes to tell you what it is because I honestly don't remember right now yeah you can send it over that'd be awesome I appreciate that it might take me a few days I might have to go up to the wholesaler and go around in the back back there and it they literally were plants that were selling for use in Christmas containers and then you could um plant them up and they're nice and small so I would buy a whole bunch and then plant them up and you know places where I didn't want to be doing a lot of digging but I needed coverage eventually so if we're concerned about the canopy of a of a tree interfering with the architecture I think I'm combining some ideas here by saying this but you know if the trees if the tree was out here towards the sidewalk and um was in a an Urban Plaza Grill you know it's not within the landscape but is embedded within The Hardscape um I mean maybe that's a location for where the tree could be it's kind of near the recess and wouldn't be impacted by the by you know needing to be pruned because it's growing close to the to the building to the architecture but where where are the telephone poles in the plan is there are they shown in the Civil drawing yes that would be my concern is the um the telephone pole locations and the wires you want to go back up let me just reopen it so you can see them here here and here I see silver if we were talking about putting a tree here right but the wires run straight between poles right right in the tree and the lowest wire is going to be 14 feet is that correct or is it supposed to be higher and we hope it doesn't sag supposed to be higher right because 14 feet is supposed to be the minimum I think you're right 16 feet yeah yeah okay um and that also limits the type of trees that can be planted along the the sidewalk too I mean Eastern redbuds have much of a ride at 20 to 30 feet um yeah so I'd be iffy about planting those underneath the uh telephone wire but then you could also look at some other large shrubs maybe like a malenky or like a service bearing um they you know they'll still provide you shade but they're not going to get massive and they're easy to prune and keep in check so why don't you look at some of those and then just make sure they're salt tolerant and will tolerate the heat I actually love the Amazon cures but I don't know if they'll tolerate to heat I'll look into that yeah this this is going to be a Shady Side too though Northern facing so maybe if you had some the raised Planters and had those trees directly behind them then that would help with their Roots keeping them yeah I think some of the street the heat from the pavement and sidewalk of the street back oh at the uh one thing too just just some going back to the other service batteries obviously they produce berries in the summer um that could get messy too along the sidewalk so I might well you know at some point here we've done a lot of taking away from nature so you know you'll have birds in the trees it'll be very charming and pleasant yeah mentality yes okay so before we get off of this the the paver I know that one of the other members of the committee who I think is not here or might have joined late they um these patio insects were you I think we talked about them being permeable at one point yes we did are are they permeable because that would be another way um you could actually do some green infrastructure in there in terms of your plantings and your storm water and have you know the edges of the beds be the excess rain water could go into the beds in there instead the bed's being raised and then the mulch slopes and then stuff runs off it could go the other way around might be kind of nice yeah my only concern to make sure that we're ADA Compliant on them on the pathways well as far as I know all the all the permeable Paving is ADA Compliant it's it's more you know the levelness and the straightness of it um and then having it be permeable I mean I've installed them before so we can certainly look at it as our first option and and see what we have for selections and um but I agree I mean storm water Management's important especially in this area so it's an important period um and getting more so with these crazy storms we keep having and it will help you with your snow removal in the sun in the winter for sure because the ice melts into the into the permeable sections so you have a lot less ice to worry about so you don't have to salt and sand out there in fact you're not supposed to okay um we move on this this was um the pocket park across the street um from the train station and this was a design along with uh Paving patterns and how and this goes back to the initial planning board um desire to to speak to the train station I know the comments that were in the latest documents said that we didn't have to speak to the train station but I think that this is a successful way to do it so we're not trying to mimic architecture we're not trying to you know put Richardson in elements in a non-resistonian building um but by taking the just the colors of the building and the paving pattern and and integrating it in um we've created a kind of a symbolic relationship between the two and that led into uh conversation Kevin about what happens if we were extended across and then what we so what I did was I extended across and just keep us kept extending it to those patios so that there's a there's a common denominator between this pocket park the axis kind of crosswalk and then the entrance to the buildings I mean it's all based on on this pattern on the wall so you'd be using that pattern for the patios in front of the building yeah it was more than it was more of the color I mean there obviously wouldn't be the same cut stone it would be a smoother Stone but as far as just the very in color and the um sort of the deep Earth Tones and it's not the entire it's the sort of the front similar to what I did here here was basically a welcome mat uh where the seating is and then it could turn into a permeable Paving if they chose to open this edge up for the restaurant well can you the edge for a restaurant oh that's the front edge of the building I'm sorry quick building right here so that's a building that's currently obscured uh so then the second floor Terrace um Julian I'll let you describe what your thoughts were there thank you so the main feature of the screen roof um are going to be the 18 inch tall Core 10 steel Planters um they're indicated by the uh the darker line um what's it called shown on the north side of this plan um a seed and Herb mix will be sown inside of them and then the circular areas cut into these steel corts and Planters are areas with artificial turf and it's space for people to have outdoor furniture tables chairs recliners stuff like that um I believe we have four foot wide walkways that take you through the space and let me see if there's anything else there's also in-ground LED strip lights that go along the rear side of those circular AstroTurf areas to provide some nice um ambient light in the evening so you'll see pictures of that on the bottom left corner of the plan um yes that is it did the plantings actually provide privacy how what's the tallest plant that might be in front of a bedroom window yes so the the race planted by themselves are 18 inches and then the actual height of the seed mix I believe they get to be about an additional 18 inches tall the mature plant the the tallest plants in this mix will be an additional 18 inches what is the what what's in the mix or what's the mix this is a uh Ron if you zoom into the notes section underneath the Terrace planting plant I have a little list of the plants included in this particular mix but um the name of this mix is Herb and Sedum blend green roof seed and this is sold by the Urban Farmer yeah I actually called them to get the actual mix and there isn't somebody there who can tell me what it is right now um this is information I pulled off of their uh their website so um these guys will need a lot of sun so the Sun I'm very I'm concerned about this not getting enough Sun out there that's my first comment my second comment is is um I I don't like the fake grass and it gets extremely hot in the summer it's not anything remotely environmentally sound so I'm wondering what else could be done out there besides fake grass that would be inviting and yet not um I mean I don't think you're gonna have anybody sitting on it so I'm not I'm not sure what the need is to have fake grass why you wouldn't just use patio some other kind of patio or something else out there yeah that could totally be a another type of permeable pavement um that could be a you know a crushable um the crushable ground cover something that's tolerant to people walking through it um have you tried using um something like ecograss or ecolon which is mostly fescues uh no I have not I'm gonna look that up right now though and I uh one of them comes from uh I think Prairie Moon I forget what the eco line comes from but I've used the Eco grass I use it a lot actually and um it should I'm I can't imagine this area is going to get a lot of traffic thank you it's really going to be from just the tenants and then their guests too I agree so you know be something which you might mow I think it goes to it one of them seeds a little bit in the spring I want to say sometime in May and you might you might mow it high then just to knock off the seed heads you know Shaggy we might wait till it's mature and then mow it and just let it sit out there um but it's a nice it's a nice blend and it will tolerate shade and who did you say the uh the company was was that Prairie Moon Nursery Prairie Moon yeah okay yeah thank you for that I would I would definitely be uh be willing to use that there instead of um artificial turf okay that would be great because I I can hear the comments of a couple people in town right now and they find out there's artificial turf up there yeah it was really just selected because um in the off chance it smells like a high traffic area I didn't want anything to get um beat up by foot traffic but no I like that I'll check out the other one from Prairie new Nursery I think that's my friends go grass from Prairie Moon I forget somebody else I know in town used it and I looked it up at one point my sense of the you know the grass piece is that I don't know if anyone really expects to be walking on grass on a green roof you know I'd um I think but what I've seen is that the walking surface or even where these tables are located is a perfect paper and then you know the the vegetation is within contains Planters like the court and steel planters that you're proposing um but what it what is the permanent paver that is being proposed is it a a masonry product or that's going to be specified by Ron the architect okay um because I I think something that might might be nice out here is like a bison wood paver um and maybe you don't need the grass that you walk on at all maybe everything is you know the the wood paver gives it the warmth and uh then you let the vegetation stay within the planters that might work too I love that idea what color is that Kevin well there are many different colors I'm um I will let the design team pick but you know it's they have light wood colors and like rich dark mahogany colors so um awesome yeah I think a wood paver would would be nice out here and then and then get you know and omit the the low growing grass right well it'd be less maintenance theoretical especially if if I think there's going to be a lot of shade in this space the the solar studies show noon time um the shade patterns and and I I think that um at any other time the Sun is going to be low and we'll have staying a lot of shade so um I think Hardscape might be better for for much of this area so yeah I do know that grass will tolerate a fair amount of shade because it's under a Hemlock that was one of the reasons we used it um Julian I'm gonna I'm definitely think that the plant this mixing oven the Planters will not tolerate as much shade as I think is going to be out here I agree yeah no it's interesting that solar plan that Ron has I agree and then the other the other piece that I'm thinking of is um you could you know you could try putting some taller stuff even like a shrub in the middle of these beds and then you know under plant it with you know ground covers and things like that and maybe a few shade flowering things um you know the more native stuff you have the better but there's there's also some stuff that's not native that would tolerate conditions like that and you could do a mix I I aim for 70 native on all the stuff that I do and I get pretty close most of the time I was looking at doing 100 native for this just because I thought that that was what was asked for but if I can incorporate some sort of you know non-native species that'd be wonderful for this area up here well I think yeah I think you could do it in both in both places um any chance you could use Birch out in front of the building Birch um those things like sun though that's the thing without adequences without adequate Summit they're just going to flop down yeah so maybe some kind of like you were talking about the taller shrubs you know something like that might be nice um I I just think that it would add a little more visual interest out here along the front between the uh the sidewalk and the well also on this on in this these Planters here oh up here too yes yes because that would make it you know that would make it really interesting up there yeah you could I mean I mean collector on the Folia that would tolerate shade aronia two would tolerate shade you know um yeah and then the cluster though yeah Button Bush Maybe Button Bush yeah that could those get big though don't they but they don't have that much soil to grow in so I guess they'd yeah that would be part of the limited factor yeah yeah so just sort of you know I think if you thought about it a little bit more and see if you can come up with something that you know would flower and if it flowers mid-season that might even be nicer okay you know because generally hang on a second how you do all um I generally want to do plantings I'll I'll do like you know I have bulbs in the spring they're not native but they everybody loves a good daffodil or two you know because they say I agree and you know and then you can mix other stuff in there um and I think you know I always will advocate for natives but I you know I also see where there's some things that you could put in there both up here and down below in the front where you might you know you might be able to create some interest year round okay so anybody else on the committee have something to say about this second floor patio space was that you talking or is that somebody else no I thought we completed the Landscaping I was going to before if I forget I was looking at the plans and I was just wondering the lighting Street lighting and I can see here they have the patio lighting as well is that the pad the landscape lighting you're gonna have on the second floor patio yes yes that is the the in-ground LED strip lighting that's going to be going around the um the rear perimeters of all those um circular seating areas and uh are you planning to have some uh pole lighting also or I don't have anything like that shown on the plan right now but um okay yes and also for the main plan I mean since we are on the lighting I see that you have the you know those uh utility poles but I didn't see any uh Street lighting whether it's on your pro on this property or uh the street lighting or pound Street lighting the you know if you have any lighting along the perimeter of the pro uh this uh border oh sorry the fencing like Homer and Alden are the back all around are they planning to have any Street lighting for the parking and along with any Street lighting at Homer and Alden well or will it be just the town lighting down street lights we were planning on just a town lighting for Alden and Homer yeah I mean the polls do you know do you know the height of the street light I mean I was just wondering whether it would be uh you know in line with any of the bedrooms or Living Spaces you know um I I may have it on a rendering that's coming up superimposed on the photograph okay that's good well you have you have like signage lighting at the front of the building correct yeah correct do you have any LED lighting out there or bollards out there to uh in the front I said not not in the front we're relying basically on on the building lighting and the street lighting okay yeah we should look at the facade and go over that okay I mean if we were to place uh you know Ballard lighting I would certainly place it along this path and um a lightning designer on the project no we don't I'm just curious about the foot candles um you know you're saying that you might have lighting along that path and maybe you need it at the at the Alden home or streetscapes but but for egress paths and you need at least one foot candle so you know we we're gonna need to to see that's provided um or well I can't forget a building permit you need it right I mean our egress you know Lobby egress is here we could certainly have building lighting lighting the path along the sidewalk um this drops you pretty much in front of lighting on Alden Street but no certainly when we engage a lighting designer uh to take a look at that um I would I would anticipate would be looking at some type of pathway lighting here and we'll take a look at what Homer and Alden have to offer to see if it's sufficient how do you um all these spaces in the back on the surface so people Park here and then they walk across the parking lot and go in the back entrance well they can either go into the back entrance if of these uh commercial spaces or if it's going into visit or residence or or walking around to the front or or walking through yeah I think you're definitely gonna have some have to have some kind of pathway Lighting in there so people are comfortable to get out of their cars and walk back there okay I'm definitely not suggesting pole lighting in the back but you know something so people can walk around out there and you know and see so um did you get your questions answered about the lighting in the front are you just waiting for them to go to the facade so you don't like I'll just go to the facade so we do have uh you know building signage lighting which will light back at the building um I'm showing a gooseneck Style it could be something with LED that's a little different but um the idea being that the signage will be lit presumably you know the buildings while they're open we'll have light coming out of the windows uh these are some renderings of the little washed out I apologize for that but uh the uh those spaces uh just to get a sense of coming through this this door here and and how it would open up uh this will be from the stairway at the rear comes and then opens up and then this would be from this angle here sort of an aerial is that new that there's a stair that goes up to that green roof I didn't think you had a stair previously there is from um he had it previously okay right there uh he did go it went straight at one point and then I shifted it over to get you on access and to uh provide some some relief for this uh as I started to develop these apartments is that stereo going to be controlled and it's only accessible to Residents or the space would be available to be used by the community well the the idea is that this is residential private space um the controls would be at the entry doors into the building you know there's no gate or anything here so how does how does that um get secured you know it's I don't you know it we I suppose we could find a way to secure it but the intent wasn't to secure it just keep people you know give residents access to it to get to their units and leave and um and have the you know the building hallways themselves secured that um and that I'm sorry that's in the back where that is right let me write here is that the only way to get into the units that are that are have their front door on the green roof that's not the only way to get to them is it you can enter into the building through the elevators okay and then you'll be exiting to get to the unit on for these Universe sort of exterior entrance units um this one you would you would be able let me take that back each unit with the exception of I believe it's one as an entrance an internal entrance off of the hallway but does have an entrance onto the Green Space so every unit you'll be able to come in through the lobby use the elevator come in and enter your unit this unit this unit and this unit would be accessed from solely from that act from that green space has that been reviewed by a code consultant or by the billing inspector I in terms of egress I'm just curious if that's compliant well I'll do an egress check on it but the um I mean this width is is 24 feet I believe so it would be sufficient to to come out and down through the building you know once you've exited to get to a public way but I'll certainly take a look at it so it's really this became a function of the width of the building versus getting a hallway that would come down it and actually work with these yeah I would just advise to have that check because it's not a matter of distance I think it's a matter of your and you're you're not exiting your unit out into a rated Corridor that gets you to a right-of-way you're making your way across the roof of a building that could potentially be burning below you and is not rated so I I've done this and you know I actually did on a healthcare project and um so I know that there's there's code um you know there's the ability to do it created it's a separation of uses so I will I will check that I appreciate that okay um before we leave the top I mean it was brought up a while ago but I wanted to come back to the the pocket park and I just had one comment on that and more of a question actually um the pocket part that is at the entrance from Homer Ave the little triangular one yeah sorry for going all the way back here I just um we left this quickly and I wanted to go back to it um are you proposing the the duo tone colors you said you were going to to take some colors from the historic train station but would it be both the light beige color and and the dark the you know the red terracotta you'd be using both of those in the landscape uh yeah I believe in the renderings I'm going to show you I I showed it and I do believe I used a border on on a few of them similar to this okay I'm kind of hesitant to do that I like the idea of using the same pattern to relate back to the train station um I'm just wary of using the same colors and that would that would make it here yeah let's see what it looks like first and yeah sure we've got renderings let's take a look and see what he's got um so in this I um I'm going to zoom in here oops well this this picks up that patterning across sort of basically a crosswalk that we've created to separate um you know homework in the parking lot and then it continues and I did not show it as a border here I showed it as a consistent color um along these patios you know as I developed this I could develop it as a border and have dual time but the idea was that um and it really doesn't read well here but to have to have sort of that vocabulary and acknowledgment of the Richardson Building carried in the paving pattern uh just very subtly foreign [Music] things that Julian had selected yeah so I think um this is where both Brendan who's traveling myself are missing trees in here and I really I really hate the fact that these your building has these poles in front of it um but I think if you can figure out how to get some trees in here that would be helpful or taller shrubs to help break up the mask because this is this is a a really really big mess it's a big change for this area in terms of the massing so those wires are actually in line with level two and not higher than the roof line of the building they should be down farther is that what you're saying yeah I'm asking the question about where they're actually located because this makes it look like they're high up above the roof line and exactly not would not be impacted by a tree that's even 25 feet high uh let me let me get to a rendering that there we go so this is sort of superimposed on a photograph uh this was the original photo and then this is the pocket park and the entrance to the to the back and um we'll see if we have one that has uh this is from Alden Street so you can see these these wires are they do look if there's the same on on Homer then they do look like they're a little above level two I think that's the worst while checking out just to make sure and then you can you know Julian can go from there yeah so here we go here's here's a here's a real poll versus a model poll so you can see that they are quite High actually they're lower going down Alden Street and then down home around they're they're higher and possibly because they're so far apart um oh but we will we'll get a height of those okay and what are those trees shown there yeah I'm standing on the other side of the tracks and these are these are on the uh on the track side yeah but you have trees in your rendering is that correct to the left of the building oh this is the uh yeah the candid candidates circus but that's a straight sources is that correct Julian it's not the Ruby correct straight straight uh sources Canada that's a straight species so it's so it's green it's not to be shown as green actually so I was like what is that over there I think I think Ron's showing the um the pink flowers uh as if it was blooming in the spring oh yeah we're showing red leaves too sorry it looks like a thunderclub plum like [Music] um so these are the trees that are along that pathway yeah Red Buds Bloom before the leaves come out too so sorry guys yeah so this just sort of puts it in context um this is one of the requests of doing and I normally do these um as a matter of course it just hadn't got to it when we met last um so so as far as the wires go and the telephone poles you know we're dealing with basically the reality of the situation right and the polls are there if they're not going to come down then Julian has more latitude with what he picks out there to grow in there to put in that's correct right right so that you don't get that answer Julian so that you can you know you know have a good sense of what space you have to deal with wonderful thank you so but those that's that shows the polls and the lighting is that a light that's a light fixture there that's at the corner of Alden and and Homer correct that's correct and then um this poll is the one that is um at the corner of the uh the little um brick building and then in between of obscurity because I showed my my model poll but I can take a look at the photograph but if you try if you just Chase these wires you can see how how high this actually is along here yeah but do they are they necessarily going to have another light between these two poles I I honestly don't know I think we'd have to look at um what the city's plans are as far as what's the documentation they have um I know they're doing road work I'm not sure if they had actually drawings that showed what's going on those polls okay so I think um it would be useful to definitely do some kind of a foot candle study out here because it you know gets dark at four o'clock in the winter and if you've got a a deli or you know somebody who's selling stuff up until eight or ten o'clock at night then it's going to be really dark out in front even with a the lights on I'm not asking to put pole Lighting in I'm just you know let's think about people walking around and you know getting some Bollard or some kind of lighting maybe if there's raised Planters there's LED lights on the edges or something I don't know I will definitely engage a lighting designer to to help us work out some of those um some of these issues okay so um what I would like to do is take a second go back to my email for what I had sent out so that I can show you the the color study so could you bear with me one second okay okay so um can you see my screen right now yes it's got Alden Street and Homer Avenue facades on it okay now I've got the new file loaded but it says my screen sharing is paused so probably you'll have to reshare it like click out of this one and then reshare it run [Music] okay can you see my screen yes yes okay so we have the elevation materials key um so what I added here was uh just some color palettes potential color palettes for uh trim uh you know feel colors window colors uh window frame colors and things like that so we get a sense of how these things would sort of come to life um in the different scenarios so it's not sort of that that bland gray that I'd shown in the original models I just want to collaborate maybe a darker color and that to help these pop uh with a cream trim color and then um a black window frame and now we get back to more than grays where's the one with the brick so this would be two stories of brick veneer uh run the uh the collabers sort of up and over as a frame for it and then this one so that on this one we would have we would have an awning we'd actually have a flat panel sign on the building between each sorry what's the difference between each of the options with the with the brick veneer so you have so type one has the brick it has a brick and collaborate uh has a little more detail on a decorative brackets right um and then we look at a shingle style for the upper story with collaborate on the on the lower two levels uh within our fixed awnings and here we have uh the major base coming out would be that Firehouse style of the board and Baton um and then a recess darker color um collaborate siding where where is the brick in this option in the elevator no I'm sorry this is this was just a generic thing so that brick should is not in this option tax that out and then um this one would have a metal panel on the on the recess uh with sort of traditional collaborate on the on the extrusions yeah I think this one makes it matches modern and traditional architectural elements a little too much for me yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna second that comment so you say yeah it mixes too much it's too mix mix I agree with Kevin yeah I don't like the metal panel okay no it's just an option of introducing a more modern sort of style with it um yeah uh this one I the board and bat and I wanted to show as because it is such a it is a popular sort of inacular now and um I don't think it's appropriate for this I think it would you know it's it's a style that 10 years from now you may look back at this and say why'd you do that yep I'm gonna agree with that and it makes the building look taller it doesn't make you feel like Latoya uh the shingle style uh you know both are traditional New England um it does create a data line at the top level and lets the sort of the um the first two stories read and then this sort of a combination of the brick and the collaborate on the recesses so you do have sort of a defined feeling of this wall is not three stories high it's two stories high just put in the materiality and then the upper sort of clear stories a little lighter is there not is there a Type 4 did I miss that now the uh what I did was when I did these I renumbered them to one two three and four before was two three four five so I'm sorry about that um I just it makes sense I caught myself on that so and the reason this files is is pretty large so I wanted to show it and I sent it to agaro so you would have the larger because when I when I when I send them I have to reduce this the file size and it degrades the images and and the quality so I wanted to give you one that was at a higher resolution but um it's just a larger file yeah no problem um so my comments on this would be that for one I would I'd like to see the materials in the actual rendering and and maybe we can select which view we should see that in um because I thank you for putting the the building in the context of of the streetscape in the in the 3D perspectives that you put together and I think they're lacking the actual materiality so it's still difficult to understand how it fits into the context um from a material standpoint um and and so I I'm leaning towards getting an option or or these the three options so I'm scratching out number five if we don't like that one could we get um a perspective rendering of option one two and three um and see what those look like in in the context so I would take a view that you produced um maybe from the train tracks I don't know let's look at the 3D views that you have um keep going like maybe maybe this one I don't know what everyone else thinks what do you think Kathy um I want to see it's too far away well it's too far away I mean I feel like the building's too far away I mean we could see it in that and maybe in the one where it shows it up close yeah maybe maybe the one where you don't really see much of the building but you see the context of the train station this the one that's right below I mean I would I would do it in this one too the one that's the shield I could zoom in on this so that this you know these two blocks for example are well you know fit the screen when you I have a question for you can you stand on the other side of the street or go down there with somebody else and stand on the yellow line and take this photograph for the context because we almost can't see enough I mean I couldn't get enough of them I'm driving this car so if I was in the right lane looking down the street is that what you're referring to yeah even though I'm I mean I know you're trying to get the Richardson Building in and you actually have the so maybe just even back farther in that parking lot well what I'm trying to do is see a little more of your building or keep the Richardson Building and maybe that brick the the last part of that brick building that's going to be your neighbor so we can see them all together because right now the roof line of the Richardson Building well it's useful and the colors of the building are there which makes it useful it blocks a lot of sure so I'll take a few I'll take a view somewhere over here that that that shows the edge of this and and the edge of this and the way the building the way home street kind of bends as it goes right I think that would be helpful for this but that would be interesting because then we see the the two these two neighboring buildings plus whatever you're doing on your that could definitely be one of them right Kevin yes I think so and I would do the the full elevation on the previous page just for good measure but we just um sorry we just have a race hand from Terry uh Madam chair I have a question sure coming back to the facade treatments yes Ron could you bring them up please um would you consider basically alternating two two of the treatment let's say the cedar the shingles and the brick rather I hope you're not talking about having one uniform treatment on all five of those facades in other words you have let's say you had two and then next to two you had you had one where you alternated them or you there are two if you take the whole look of the whole five in a row you'll see two of them are larger than the other two the two on the end as they get closer to the residential neighborhood or smaller do you want to Accent those differences by treating the facade elevations differently that's my question no I noticed that neither one of you neither you nor Kevin just put my rendered opinion when either of those two were up well I think this is it's like Kevin said it's really difficult to to tell right now um and to see it so we could see that as an option also I guess maybe what we should do then is present the full full range of things and show how we would alternate uh two or more patterns what do you think I I think we'd like to see it fully rendered so that we can better comment on it and we'll we'll um we'll allow you to use your design judgment to to alternate the pattern as as as you think is uh is appropriate and then we can comment it on it further from there fair enough thank you my comment on type 1 in addition I I don't think I have right now any modifications other than thank you Terry you know other than making some um alternating schemes my only other comment on number one is that potentially the brick does not need to continue up to level two um that it would just be maintained at level one for the commercial ground floor um and then I I think I'll leave it at that and then see what that looks like in the renderings um see can we see both like two floor brick with one I I know what I'm saying in terms of that but I I actually was sort of enjoying the fact that this was two floors of brick unless somebody else wants to weigh in and say I agree we can we could see both yes because I thought that was an interesting idea to make the third floor fade back into the background more perhaps yeah I think that'd be good to see I mean I would opt for the two floor of brick I think one is insufficient there's just not enough of it comments it's not them I'll just show both so that we have a sort of a true sense of it that'd be great thank you I think that would be helpful [Music] um are there any other questions um from the committee you went in the committee you have more questions I don't think so I I was going to recommend um running through our previous report because we had highlighted some items that we wanted the applicant to provide answers to and um maybe before we do that we open it up to the public what do you think Kathy and then we come back to this or should or do you want to run through it did you open it up to the public because there's some people have been waiting you know very patiently so George um rakis I know you were speaking earlier and I asked you to wait do you want to make it um I just have a couple of questions sure is the rendering to scale this is a rendering to scale uh yes and then on the photographs it's a it's a um it's a function of SketchUp where you can introduce a photograph sure and mail it in can you go to slide five five for me please I think that's uh oh never mind you passed it right here so right here this slide right here it seems that the building is actually sunken down where street level is if you're following the path the street level of the corner going across it looks like it's actually cutting across the first level that's why I asked if it's a scale because the first story on the existing brick building looks like it's probably ending in the middle of the second story in your building just to put a scale perspective on it yeah I mean it's it's not a um this is sort of a you can tell the full you can see the photographs how they're it's not a true lot you know one photo it's a it's a montage of photos put together and especially when you look at this site and and how um you know you look at this if you took a photo from here you're picking up part of this thing so for these types of images you sort of you scale it the best you can the the model is to scale it's it's a floor plan scale sure when you close it on a rendering on a photograph that's a perspective like some of the ones at the end you can control it by um in SketchUp they have a feature where you can sort of size it and and there's a grid and things like that on this one it's a little more difficult and I mean I don't understand that's what you're referring to it's a little more difficult because you're taking a montage of photographs that are actually at different scales themselves because they're photos I was taking so you know you have the you if you look at the for example on the left side the gas station I literally walk down the tracks in a straight line and took a photo but because that set back a little bit it reads a little off in scale so when you when you kind of weave these things together you do the best you can and it's really a representation and not really a true rendering of as if it was you know put onto a photograph that was uh specific to one's one area for example one view I was just asking because in this model it doesn't look like the building's 35 feet tall or 38 feet tall it looks like it's sunk in down and I was just curious is the building going to sit below street level no okay so it's going to be bigger than this I I mean I don't know I'd have to go in and see if I could find a a point to measure from like where would I what would I use as a scale on all of these photographs well the first floor in the existing building that won't be changed you can line that up with your first floor on the top level so that way you can bring it all up and superimpose it that way so the building that will stay there and not be demolished will end at the same point where your first floor ends so that way we can get a better perspective of what the scale of these buildings will be comparatively to each other into the existing neighborhood yeah and um my follow-up question uh you mentioned um solar capacity did you go delve any deeper into that how much uh Power the building could generate no no we did not okay uh next the you said you had 35 spots will be accessible to electrical vehicle charging um will those be 240 volt drops with a 50 amp circuit for to accommodate um not supercharger speed but to charge your vehicle overnight or will they be 120 volt drops with a regular Battery Plus with a regular plug um that I that I cannot answer for you um if Charlie is if Charlie's on the line and he can answer because he has done it on his other properties uh to make them EV ready will the building owner pay for the charging stations or plugs all right I can't answer that for him okay and then my last question to you is how many spots are reserved for the commercial spaces foreign spots in the on let me get to the one sorry so these spots on the surface are for commercial and how many proposed commercial sites do you have uh we have uh 22. so two approximately two spots or you have 22 commercial spots excuse me commercial build uh portions of the building that's what I meant how many businesses could fit theoretically well I mean we we should we indicated uh subdivision lines but you know it's until you have someone who's going to lease a property you really don't know how you're going to carve it up but we have one two three four five spaces shown six I'm sorry six bases shown okay and I just now that you bring this up what is the distance between the sidewalk and the perimeter of the building to the closest point to the closest point I believe we have six foot six okay uh and so the patios you were describing what's the rough area for each patio in front of the doors you were describing uh rough area uh for example this one would be approximately maybe 300 square feet so three by ten yeah about 30 yeah about 30 by 10.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um this one I'm sorry this one's probably about the same this one is probably 150 or 200 square feet okay I'm just for design purposes I was just curious if you put a three foot planter in front of your building how much space is it between the planter and the sidewalk well if you look at the property and sidewalk here you'll see that it changes so um if we put a three foot plant or let's say you can see my cursor right yeah yeah so if you put a three foot planter in this area is that where you're refer to or or down here um on the forward portions not near the doors not near the doors so if you said you're designing like a wall of uh flowers or plans I just want to see if someone's if two people are walking on the sidewalk will they come into contact will the plant overgrowth encroach on the sidewalk um I would suspect that we would hold them back so they wouldn't the sidewalks are I believe five feet wide at the narrowest so the they're going to be five feet wide the city sidewalks okay right uh to give you to give you a scale this door is a three foot door if you if you see this give you a sense of how wide that is yeah I was just looking at your other photos where you said there's you know potential for outdoor seating and I just wanted to see the footprint of a table and two chairs and how they would space up correctly in that existing space sure and that's all thank you Ron you had that on one of your slides you have the patio seating I know I had it in the other package I'm not sure if I had put it in this one or not um I may have it on a rendering yeah I think you had it on a rendering so there it is is it one view of it right so they this will give you a sense of scale or a table with four chairs sort of you know sort of sticking out a little um it's not it's not you know it's not restaurant seating it's it's designed more for just casual Deli okay thank you okay all right so um do we have other people okay so can you yep uh the next person is Mark desoni hey thank you Mark sorry for that how's the road surviving War and Peace on this um how realistic is this picture compare to what's actually going to be great Broken Ground or sight formation not realistic is suspicious George well the footprint is based on the drawings that I that you've seen uh the elevations model is based on the elevations you've seen it's it's a representation it's cartoony it's it's you know it's not it it is what will be built from a footprint perspective whether the plants are going to look like that you know we've had that discussion you know the paving may look if I took a you know a drone photo from here once the building's constructed you know this Paving may look a little lighter for example things like that but the actual footprint of the building the model is based off of the off of the drawings okay and it's going to be in the triangle shape I'm going by what I'm seeing this picture in front of me and the back is going to be Limited space for moving around especially for the uh parking and for the interior residence why wasn't security more talk about if it's not going to be any lights in the back well it's not to say there aren't going to be any lights in the back which we haven't shown them but that doesn't mean that we have to we have to meet minimum criteria for foot candles and and security and things like that so it's not it's just that we did not have a lighting designer on board yet and the um the small pocket driveway that's coming off of home huh how is that going to be controlled traffic wise bear with me sir so it's it's one way in one way out as you come into the into the parking lot you'll have the ability to turn around without doing a three-point turn as well as for residents that will go into the garage they'll also come out of the garage and they'll use the same entry and exit um the we're discussing putting a uh a blinking light uh similar to what you see on parking garages so as a car pulls up it was actually one of the peer review comments for civil so as a car pulls up this light would activate so that anyone coming off of the light would know that there's a a driveway there so won't you be needing a peer-study traffic report for them and I'll leave that to Terry I don't believe we needed one no that no none was required or requested the blinking light was on the garage or on the uh no we would mount it on on you know potentially this utility the utility pole or the one that's right around the corner so that it would have uh you know vehicle exiting or whatever this whatever the nomenclature is but this is a town streak where they accept that they have that there it's a public way and then an extra garage light it's got to be a bit of a warning for people taking the turn off on Main Street to come in because that's how how they get we did downtown right on the island that's going to be a wide turn and it's going to be right on top so there's got to be some sort of warning that there's a garage light Lincoln for that reason okay so there's no answer for that I guess I don't understand I don't understand your question no Ron there's two ways of dealing with it as a car is leaving the site and approaching the bend in the driveway heading I'll say for lack of a better direct directional heading north towards Homer Ave there would be a there would be a a a trigger at that Co at that bend when the car passes that bend that would that would signal another uh another uh light or flashing Beacon at the back of the sidewalk on a pole to cause making that turn from Main Street onto Homer Ave approaching the driveway would see that blinking and be alerted to an uh to a potential car exiting the driveway that's it that's at least one way of handling there are others but I believe that's the one that deals with where the where the beacons are located on our site and be being paired in such a way as to alert traffic on Homer Ave for my reasons to say that this caused from Main Street downtown that turn it's got to be it's a quick turn if you become Adele onto Homer Ave that it's it's a it's going to be a sharp corner appreciation Mark proceeding East or West um going going towards your site off of down off of Main Streets heading east east that's what we're talking about learning traffic making that corner that turn at the pizza's place yes and right there there is a regular regulation traffic like there too right so right there that there's going to be a controlled traffic light and this garage light okay as of what I can see on this this is I have nothing against it but this is a this is a computer rendering of the site right correct all right what are you getting at mark I'm I'm getting that traffic control from downtown east onto Homer two cup more than one car two cars come at the same time and the blinking garage light who sit might think the person coming out from the site using everything where it's going to be churning left or right quickly and not and not really pay attention to the coming off East from Mesa with the two traffic where the traffic light is it's going to be a quick break for The Operators from Dogtown East but we're down to homework one other solution okay and this is coming traveling to to Ashland from Route 9 in Framingham it is a very winding road I forget the name of that Main Street that comes in across the brook from the the count the other end of Main Street there are a number of places there are a number of places where they have turns like this on that road and there have been signs posted by the DPW that say caution driveway ahead that's a standard way of dealing with with uh turns like this where there's a driveway opening onto the curve once before you get to the corner yeah there's all sorts of ways to deal with it that's all we can tell you and from that way that's uh from Framingham nine that's Badger Road coming toes downtown to Myrtle Street okay that's what you're saying the traffic traffic goes a lot faster on that road than it's going to go around I I see it but and this is a just to me it's it's a shorter turn radius from downtown east Trafficway to the calmer it's it's a quick turn for those traffic and the poop coming out of the garage may not see it or maybe in the pockets are coming on and they're coming off there may not see them I think Mark that there that there's a couple of solutions have been proposed and um I think the people will see a lot of construction for a good year down here before you know we even get people in the building so I think at that point people will be used to going a little more slowly hopefully yeah hopefully and courteous both ways well we can always hope right okay well I'll chop off that and do you have any other comments yes yes I do I go I got one that it's a futuristic question I asked the two other boys but I'm not going to ask I'm going to ask in a different way to to both the uh boards and and the committee here once you get through these Marathon meetings and talking and whatever what's going on and positive instruct each other what to do and how the big two-way street come compartments what's the goals and I want this from the from the the uh the Builders first the developers first I want this first what's the goal that you're hoping to meet down the road with this then after I want to have design answer the same question in that same way he wants to go because there's been a lot of talk over two hours for this so this got to be a goal being set there's going to be some sort of sight down the end of the tunnel what is it the developer first okay so Mark I think you've seen this presentation yes okay so we're working out the final goal which is there's going to be a building here and we're working out what what it should look and feel like and we're discussing a whole bunch of elements of it and none of them are are totally cast in stone right now so I think that is the goal I don't think there's a an additional goal per se well there wouldn't be a long bit of term that I could think of it Marathon talkins about everything if it wasn't a success story that wants to be formal to it so the developers what is your success story to follow all these meetings I mean I mean I'll answer that as best I can as an architect my success story is that um the city look favorable on this that people walk by it and feel like it's always been there that there's a level of comfort that it adds to your to your downtown to your to your community and that it houses residents that will add benefit to your to your town I I I I I don't understand other than that what what you're really looking for are you looking just for houses or for mixed residential business what about life it's about it's about enriching your town your town and and producing the best product that we can possibly produce in conjunction with advice from people that that you you know that live in your town and that that take the lead on on these types of things and to work with them and listen to them and add our you know what what my feeling as an architect and and I have to defend it and and hopefully they agree with it and if not then we look at it and we we revise it and that's that's why you get a marathon meeting I mean this is a process the way the process should work okay all right Design's hard you know and and this is a very complicated site go ahead go ahead okay so I think that I'm gonna Echo what Ron said for the committee right now and I think that we've got other people on this call with their hands raised and it's quarter to ten and we still haven't finished discussing this and heard all the public input so I'd like to let everybody else talk about this the the rashes in our end is positively great yeah I'll be positive well Madam chair the developer has his hand up I think he'd like to answer Mr um desoni's question okay okay let me in my process and he can answer and then I'll I'll be quiet after great because positive and I guarantee it oh I think he left I think we lost someone okay um let me finish that we finished Carly answer the question please he's the owner of the project let him answer the question okay okay okay Charlie go ahead Charlie got your hand up I don't know what happened to him would all right I don't know I guess we'll just move on Madam chair sorry for the interruption I did I'll win positively it was said and beginning brother sheer person that you'd be going so far and then once the committee and developer cash out everything there'd be time for public comments he did volunteer to me Mark that it would take about a year from the time obstruction construction began to occupancy if that's your question there's the answer that's is that the answer and this ending I'm being positive I'm being if it's Communications are all good but when you say you're gonna start off with talking to each other and you have no time limits it's just making sure that you don't forget citizens that are listening only to get their questions and information out there thank you thank you okay so I I see Alvaro who's next on your list it will be John gone Freddy okay Joan go ahead yes can you hear me yes we can thank you okay thank you um I'm on the historic commission just full full disclosure um but I'm speaking as a private citizen um I just have a couple of comments to make I I would I would like to see separate buildings and maintain two historic buildings on the site I also missed the last meeting where I believe you discussed the blasting and um the below ground parking and I am definitely opposed to below ground parking and I hope the town changes puts in a some type of a bylaw that that prohibits it in the future and having fed all of that the George I believe um talked about different materials on the different sections as if they were separate buildings and I I have a place in Falmouth and I can tell you the downtown Falmouth that's kind of what they've done it's probably just kind of built up that way over time but it gives you a much more of a village feeling and I I would like to see a little more of that so those are my comments thank you so I have a question for you about that comment though that in downtown Falmouth the buildings are separated some are and some aren't um some of them are some some of them are separated and some of them are to our are built together probably over time I don't think they were all built at once but they are connected and they have different facades different colors different fronts um and they're not they're not just this big imposing building I like some of the colors in the brick building the brick and you know putting the brick in the back with the clapboard or the shingles at the top I think those those are nice mixes I just think that if they were different on the different buildings that it would it would break it up better okay thank you thank you anybody else Avro yes we have one more um Can race he's from Charlie samudo um I know you're a mute Charlie I don't know if there's just maybe like some faults I don't know he's got his hand up but I don't know Charlie are you there you know how to reach him on the phone and ask him if he wants to make a comment right that's how I did uh last time let me try again okay thank you you're very welcome hold on so Ron I guess this might be a question for you and Rick um well we're waiting to see if we can find Charlie and if he has something to tell us um I've talked to several people in town they tell me the water table is really high in this area it's like high all over downtown apparently so I'm just curious what your plan is for the underground garage and uh and if you find a lot of water in there you're gonna have to keep pumping in that area we're expecting to get some boring information tomorrow on that so we don't have the exact information but it's forthcoming okay um I have one more quick question really fast wait who's asking George George okay go ahead will any public funds be used to build us I would say the answer to that would be no thank you Madam chair apparently had difficulty on muting his uh microphone I see there in the box that it looks like that is he Charlie should be able to speak now Charlie are you there Charlie I can't see him on this oh he's down you're down the lower end down there next to Joan and Below bill on my screen jolly Charlie if you want to speak go ahead all right I guess we've done the best we can I apologize for the uh for the break in the action sir and Alvaro did I just see somebody else's hand up uh no that was everybody okay I thought I saw something flash by and then disappear again okay um Kevin I don't know if how you've what you think about that pocket park at the front next to the small brick buildings but I think I want to see that I want to see a better rendering of that and how that would feel in there to sit in there yeah I do want to see a rendering of the horizontal paver surface um I kind of like this seating area although it only has one bench under it so it kind of [Music] closed my eyes thinking to myself if I just keep breathing I don't know who we're hearing here uh it's coming from Charlie I don't know if Charlie can you speak now can you hear me yes well we can I just figured out how to do this computer thing so I just so you know the Run can you go to the screen with the pocket pack against the old original building because we can just hear that right now thank you so so the older the the existing building that's there we you know down the road we're hoping maybe a coffee shop will go in there so we'd like to put a door on the side of the building and access that little pocket pot the triangle pocket park yeah show a much better representation of that and I want to see what I actually want to see what it would look like if you're sitting there so that door would be the store you're showing on the left yeah well you know we don't have any plan for that right now but down the road we'd like to remodel that building and open up the building in the front put bigger windows and also put some windows in a door on the side are you talking about the train station Charlie no the the where the um the single story building the original building that we're not going to touch is a pizza place and two barber shops in it oh the pizza place he's talking about the pizza place building yeah there's two hair places and a on a pizza place in there yeah the pocket pack is right against that building Terry yeah I see it that doorway is coming from the from the brick building I see it what you're talking about now Charlie okay so I think would like to put something in that building later on that would you know open up that whole area and you know be the Gateway for our builds and to allow people to come in okay so I think you should show that in a rendering and I'm curious about the height of the plantings out there especially now that you're talking about this relative all of this because based on what I looked at for the current planting plan for this area I don't have a great feeling of separation from the driveway sitting in there so it doesn't feel comfortable to me so in particular I'm thinking about Shrubbery along that driveway Edge and a mix of things so they'd be flowering at different times um that would tolerate the salt and the Heat things like that but something that would sort of landscape listen yeah I think something that would look you know think about like sitting out there in mid-summer and you might have a wall of greenery where obviously in the winter the leaves are going to be gone you might not necessarily have the wall of greenery it could even be really tall grass but you've only got one layer of thickness there and I realize it's a little tiny Park so I'm just trying to see if you guys can be a little more creative about it um and figure a couple of things out in there I mean maybe you could could uh get a couple of trees in there somewhere smaller trees or taller bushes and we'll give you a better sense of scale both now for your this additional purpose I think you ought to show something that shows whatever that whatever you're thinking it is Charlie to Stephen off the top of your head what what that that side entrance coming out of that building might look like yeah so I think we should let the landscape architect come up with something and well I think you guys should give them some direction on the side of that building so we can see what it might eventually totally look like there well I think it would be nice to have it a little open as well because if people are going to go to the new businesses in the new building and then they can see across to that building as well to see that there's life in that building yeah absolutely I think that's a nice idea I just want to see what it looks like what you think it might you know give us an idea here's a here's our you know a guess at it yeah Roberta guessing excellent okay um anybody else have comments from design review okay right now I'm good thank you anybody else excellent thank you what do you think Kevin are you good I I am good okay so do we have open items from the last report who is that do we have open items from the last report we sent over to the planning board someone else who's talking um that's what I'm looking at right now um one comment we didn't touch on yet was to provide more information on house on sorry on how storm water is treated yeah they still owe that to us Rick Salvo can you answer that yeah so the um just really quick and it's going to become by way of report in our plan in our uh peer review responses but basically the um the storm water from the parking lot is captured in a deep sump catch Basin which discharges to a water quality Inlet which has a TSS removal rate of over 85 percent which then will discharge into a subsurface infiltration facility uh the roof of the building also goes into the same subsurface infiltration facility so that'll reduce um the rate of storm water runoff leaving the site significantly it will reduce the volume of storm water leaving the site and promote groundwater recharge I think there's a zero groundwater leaving the site and Ashland isn't there zero groundwater no sorry Zero Storm water leaving the site no because I mean that would be an impossible standard to attain you know if you're on the side of a hill you know water's always going to flow downhill just required to reduce the um the rate at which stormwater leaves the site okay yeah I think I'd be interested in really interested in that and also this information about the water table yeah that's what we're waiting for to be able to finish our report off and and resubmit which we should have tomorrow okay what about the soil contamination reports that you mentioned on the walkthrough and I've never heard anything else about them again because my understanding talking to now multiple people have lived in Ashland for a really long time or their entire lives is that there used to be a school bus depot back behind in this whole site so you know they were fueling buses and things like that back there I think Charlie's because you know Charlie's probably has the I don't it wasn't me that told you it was that there was any contamination issues I wasn't aware of any contamination issues so like I let Charlie answer that Charlie Charlie yeah yeah so we had Ava 21e report done when we bought the property and uh there was no contamination in the soil the bank wouldn't give us financing unless we had that survey done does the town have a copy of it um I don't think so I don't know I mean I don't think we ever had to give it to him but we we definitely had to do it for the bank they wouldn't give us finance and what the without it okay so I'm gonna keep going yes please so signage um I think we understand that the signage for the commercial will be located in each of the recesses above the um the entry doors at the patio spaces um but we were looking for a general indication of Residential Building signage is would that be located on the building or would there be a sign with the name of the residential complex somewhere in the site well the entrance has we'll have signage as you can see here uh the style and font and things like that I just I just showed a generic but yeah the idea is that that primary entrance and the one around the corner would have signage indicating that it is whatever the name that Charlie chooses for the building uh residences okay so that is that also an entry into a vestibule that serves yet it serves three entrances one is to the residential and then two is into the commercial I'm looking at the plan yeah that's correct so in that zone there might be signage for for both the two commercial spaces and the residential that's correct so there could be signage on the wall of the glass here and signage on the wall and then this leads to the residential Lobby but we could have we could have basically have three signs indicating you know which door leads to what and then they'll be signage on this space specifically for the residential Lobby and you know I'll sign it on the front for the various commercial entities out there that's correct so along these faces will be signage panels that will fit into the style and uh you know whether it's a consistent font or whether it's just a size that that is consistent and then for the main building from Homer we'll have signage indicating that it's 49 you know home residences or whatever Charlie choose to name it and then once you're in this Lobby then you know you could have a sign indicating what these commercial spaces are and then just take you into the lobby you wouldn't be able to access all those commercial spaces from inside there you'd have to go outside to get at them is that correct could you be watching commercial spaces to do that you don't show a hallway right so when you walked in when you walked in this door this would not take you you're not directly in a commercial space you're in basically a vestibule there are doors that multiple doors for this commercial multiple doors for this commercial uh this commercial would have you know one door and then one door back here um so that unit on Alden Street only has one door way over on the right um yeah as it's shown here I mean if this if this line were here in these spaces were combined for example then that would have two doors I mean until until we have you know at least an indication of how this space will be leased these are these lines are basically a best guess but there are multiple entrances where we could put them whether this has one or two to be determined on how this space gets leased out okay because every commercial entity has to have at least two entrances right or two ways to get in and out I mean this back corridor which will also be an entrance in from this parking so if if you have the type of facility that you know allows for a front and back door for example then you could have that but it can serve as a second means of egress how soon do you think you're going to know who's going in there uh that's a Charlie question uh can you hear me yes so Dr Reynolds has been telling me that there's a dance in school that wants to take the this case and they'd probably take the whole first floor but that was a while ago when I don't know what the current environment is with the school and you know we we just don't know even on on Street that's been done for over a year and a half we still don't have the commercial spaces rented right so it's just a waiting game What's the total the total is this one the seven what is that 7 800 right 7820 that's the total space of all these spaces were rented by one entity I'll bust the 725 on the left right right but that would be that was a separate space so this way right if this was rented to for example the dance studio to be about 7 800 square feet okay um it seems to me that we might not need or sorry you might not need the residential signage at home or just because so you enter into this vestibule and then you have to go outside to get to the main residential Lobby which was at the really at the back of the building so um I know this will all get flushed out but I would I would anticipate that signage might only be required somewhere on this space or I'm not sure we can talk about that more but um it seems like you end up just going through the building to get there if you're a resident yeah we'll probably just have the address number on the space for now yeah okay um other items we had on our report that you were looking at um Kathy you touched on this already the constructability of the excavation for the parking garage um Kevin sorry before you continue There is a hand race if from the public so Helen if you want to meet yourself and you want to let us know hi yeah sorry I didn't um ask this question during the public comments section but I I did just uh want to ask because you were speaking about uh people who are wanting to rent out the spaces and the timeline with that um and I'm a little bit curious because you haven't gone before the historic commission and you have to Historic building sitting on that site and if those get deemed historic which one's built in 1840 and one bill one built in 1900 would would get a historic significance uh determination um I'm just wondering what you what your time frame is and what you plan to do about that so Terry what's the time frame if it's deemed historic uh demolition delay but uh demolition bylaw Builder yeah I thought we looked into the to the houses being historic and there wasn't a problem with that but I don't know who you asked who did you ask I I believe Terry did some research on that yeah I don't know where the research came from but Ashland has a bylaw if once you apply for your demolition permit you will automatically be given a um a hearing before the historic commission uh to determine whether those buildings are indeed historic and just by the the dates that they are built 1840 and 1900 they would be just they would be determined as historic and uh there's a one-year demolition bylaw delect so it will take us time to develop the construction plans and um get a lot of infrastructure in place so excuse me let me let me set the record straight here we've looked at we have not filed for demolition permit with the historic commission we want to go through the process first to see if this project is viable once that's established we will then go to the historic commission if they put away I just was asking because you were talking about having tenants who were sort it sounded like you were talking about having tenants who were sort of waiting in the wings and I was wondering about that one year delay if you had factored it in we'll have to we'll deal with that once we get the historic commission and they determine whether or not the properties are preferably preserved we haven't passed that threshold yet we're trying to get through right now design review and ultimately the planning board okay thank you thanks Helen I'll continue on okay so Alvaro are there any other members from the public with raised hands right now no okay great Kathy I'm sorry I want to bring some up which I couldn't talk about earlier that you brought up was the um the patrogen stations so what we've done in the other building is we wired every single packing spot for the residents so if they have a electric car they just got a hook up right to the this uh Outlet in that parking spot that they can hook up right to that outlet well it's a a wire not actually an outlet because each car requires a different setting I thought there was only two or three what's that I thought there were only two or three different charger types yeah but for us to go buy charges for every spot we wouldn't know so what we what we did on Pond Street is every single packing spot has a has a y already for an electric charger and we're going to do the same for this here Okay so I know that there are public charging stations a town hall the municipal parking lot and around in other places I've seen them in other parking lots so somebody's come up with some sort of um you know manufacturer and they put the thing out there and if your car fits it great if it doesn't oh well and I know because it's been on and off talked about in the news that um somebody some American manufacturer has gone to Tesla's charging units and their Hardware so that they're um because Tesla has the most charging space stations up across the country apparently for their vehicles so I think when we were asking about them being you know how many of those spaces you'd actually have the public ones or the residential ones would actually have be ready to go not just ready but that actually have the charging units there so people could plug in that was that that's a real question where we're very interested in that because we have a I think we have a net zero in 2040 um goal for Ashland and that would go a long way towards helping it so who who would pay for the if I put a charging station outside who would pay for the electricity for it I don't know how that works Charlie because I don't have an electric vehicle right now I know well no some places you have to pay just like you have to pay to park and you stick your card in there it used to be your dime or your quarter and now you stick a card in there um so I'm assuming that they work on something like that and I know that some of them are free because they were trying to get people to adopt the technology I know Tesla if you give Tesla a parking space I don't know about a project this small but in the larger scale projects they'll put three Chargers in that the public can use but I mean we can look into that but every unit inside the garage will be wired so each person so we run a wire from each parking spot all the way up to that unit that belongs to that parking spot so that they if they have an electric car they're paying for their electricity but okay that makes sense that's fair hey Kathy we have one more hand race um so okay hold on a second Alvaro if you would so Charlie I think it'd be nice if you looked into that and let us know what you find out okay great thank you okay uh go ahead Alvaro yep church you can go hitting on me yourself so um the question was whether you're gonna have a 120 drop or a 240 drop and you've answered it you're probably gonna have it one 20 drop uh every election excuse me oh we do 240 drops for every packing spot oh okay so every electric vehicle comes with all the necessary adapters to plug into whatever they need to and as of last three months ago uh Tesla has become has gotten together with Ford and Dodge to standardize their charging systems and Hyundai and the Germans have gotten together to standardize so in the next three years there there will probably be only two different variants of the charging system my actual question when I asked this was if you do have 35 spots are you will you um have you calculated the electrical load on the building and whether or not it as is actually sustainable will the building have a backup power source well the solar panels charge a backup power source or will you pull power from the grid so we'd be pulling power from the grid the other problem we have with this building is with the the roof style that the town is making us go with it limits us to the number of solar panels we can use on a flat a flat roof building we could fill the whole building up with solar panels but because this has a hip roof a Gable um you don't want to the town doesn't want to see solar panels on the front of the building so we're only we're only going to be able to put so many solar panels towards the back of the building and that'll probably generate enough power for us to run the common areas in the elevator have you considered putting a solar power awning over the parking spots um no because you can use the square footage on your parking lot and then use the solar power solar panels as a dual purpose awning cover and uh also a power generation system so the problem we have with that is the fire department wants to be able to run um the large-scale fire trucks through the the driveway so it wouldn't really work to cover the whole parking lot like that when you made your fire plan did you in take into account that there'd be cars in the parking lot when there is a possible emergency well the building's fully sprinkled so I saw your fire plan and I was just asking if that was taken into consideration so the the fire the the guy this is the design the fire system they calculate all that out and take that in consideration on the size of the water pipes that run through the building to feed the sprinkler heads excuse me I think George is talking about canopies um probably in Newton Newton City Library that parking lot and various other parking lots public parking lots across the city of Newton have all been converted the ones at the high school those um we have designed this with a 24 foot aisle width which should not impede um fire trucks so it is possible for us to put canopies there the question is does it work for you that's really yeah it'll be too small by the the cost to build a canopy to do the solar it's it won't there's not that much parking spots there okay every every little bit adds up doesn't it Charlie I mean I'm looking at this that I forgot if I gotta spend a hundred thousand dollars on a canopy to get fifty dollars a a month for electricity it doesn't work out whereas if we had a flat roof on the whole building and we filled it if you look at at 12 um Pond Street we've got 300 solar panels on the roof of that building on those builds in here we'll be lucky if we can get 50.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
I have we haven't had the engineer design it yet but it's you know we'll see what he comes up with for a design I we just installed 800 solar panels on all of our buildings and believe me if I could do more solar panels I would because it benefits the property but to build the canopy just for solar panels would have to be a whole steel structure thing it would it wouldn't be feasible to do if the if you would allow me to put a flat roof on the building I'll fill the whole that whole build of what solar panels yeah I'm pretty sure the planning board isn't going to let you do that right yeah that's the problem that requires a special permit we try to avoid that yeah cost by special permit but did you ever do a drawing that shows it I'm just curious did you ever consider drawing a flat roof not even if we did a fake hip roof we could have we could fill the whole roof with solar panels but because of zoning it doesn't allow for it the downtown Ashland District set of regulations it's an overlay District when that was created there was no thought given to the ability to flat roofs clearly they discover if you look at the design regulations they discourage flat roofs they require a special permit for flat roofs whereas on a this property this building we're doing by right and so that tells you a lot about how they feel felt about flat roofs that's because I think they weren't thinking about solar at the time exactly that's exactly right Kathy so Terry going back to what Kevin just said about the fake hip roof because I know you did that somebody did that down there maybe that's 128 main well we did it on Pond Street as well okay so how much would that change the building sorry Ron if you put flat hip roofs up here and and at would that give you enough to add more solar panels to start making it worthwhile or more worthwhile that we could if that if that roof was flat we'd probably put 500 solar pins maybe more on that building Kathy Charlie's talking about a completely flat roof a three-story flat roof buildings you're not talking about with Dormers Gable ends none of that okay well it's just that's not in the Stream of Consciousness yeah that's not going to fly that's why I was talking about the the other item that Kevin has suggested which was doing something a little different where there's a I didn't say that Kathy so the Mansion would be essentially it would be built as a three-dimensional flat roof box and then you add Outriggers on the perimeter to create that mansard look you have one of those fake manside buildings already in the downtown yeah looks like crap excuse me it does not look authentic and I'm sure you if you look at it you'd say you'd agree it doesn't look authentic New England no it looks more like New York exactly um um okay so I know I asked way back when at the outset of this project solar shingles oh so the solar shingles aren't they're not proven yet they're not um I heard I heard Harvey roofing materials is selling them so they might be selling them but they don't work good Tesla doesn't offer them right now outside of their current existing projects in in Tesla actually makes the worst solar panels out there they catch on fire and there's all kinds of problems Tesla does it make solar panels they buy it from LG Panasonic I work for Tesla I'm one of their Engineers so yeah I mean they make the roofs and the roofs the shingles don't catch on fire they're hail and weatherproof you know yeah so I I know firsthand okay I believe me I I if they if they stop making them so they work I'll use them all over the place I don't care all my buildings have solar I'm all about solar I have all our buildings are very uh height the highest energy rating that they can be we spray foam all our buildings we go above and beyond to get the highest ratings from the the hers rating company we we have that comes out and puts below a door tests on our building and checks out windows and all that stuff Charlie be careful they're going to be after you to do passive house which is the which is the maximum standard yeah big article today about the the passive house uh 800 unit complex in Newton on Falls it start that starts a good conversation Terry because the new stretch code requires essentially passive house standard yeah we have to we have to be thinking about this it's base code in in Ashland because they've adopted the stretch code so I'm gonna urge you guys to think about the shingles again the solar shingles see if you can ask around see if you might get a deal from somebody to put them on there to see if they work properly we can put solar panels on the back of the roof because no one's going to see it from the street but that that's about it I know you don't want to see them on the front of the building or maybe we should put them on the front of the building so it encourages the rest of the town to put solar on their roofs yeah I'm not sure why you think they can't go on the front of the building did someone tell you that I I thought Terry we told that they didn't want to see the solar panels from the street Kathy you can't seriously think the planning board would approve solar panels on the face of the of the building on the roof side of the building faces the street I mean that that that's the single biggest pushback to putting solar panels on old houses is what they look like from the street some people don't care but most people do well isn't this facing north anyway it is yeah they face North you're right uh Kevin they do what is the pitch on on that high roof is it like uh four four and twelve on what the um the Gable or these sheds well the roof that would potentially have solar panels this roof here what is 412 pitch on the sheds yeah if you give me permission to put solar panels on I'll do the whole building uh well I can't give you permission to put it on because we don't make your final decision but um I think um they know that the sustainability committee well I was very interested in getting them up there and I and I would urge you again Charlie to see if you can think about solar shingles because uh you know see if somebody's you know talked to them say look I know these things don't work properly right now are you are they going to be ready to go up on my building and will they work properly and you know so if I know we were gonna get in deep into solar that I have my I have an engineer that works in MIT that designs all our solar he builds cities in Dubai and uh um he goes to India it goes all over the world and builds cities that they drink rain water and toilet water and you know builds all these solar farms and stuff right so he's the one that designs all my buildings and he's uh he actually when we permitted Pond Street he came to the meeting and spoke in front of the board for that one if I mean when we go back in front of the the planning board we can I can have him come and speak on that board well I'm just gonna you know I just think you need to think about it because I know that the sustainability committee is very interested in in getting to Net Zero and they've come and talked to us about it and then I I think you know you should really think about it I'll look into it but I know in the past when I did the roof shingles weren't reliable enough yeah well the last when I saw that the Harvey had them for sales well over a year ago so I'm hoping that the pasta smell test if you will and that they work properly so that was an alternative to Tesla because I knew Tesla had problems at the time I'll take a look at it that'd be great thank you all right Kevin I'm just gonna say I would crunch the numbers too early on the solar canopy too just to to put that option to bed just so the problem with the solar canopy is the structural engineering of the thing would be so much it would have to be so strong to hold the snow loads and all that stuff for that small space it wouldn't be worth it in my mind without like even I could tell just by looking at it you know what a rough idea how much it's going to cost to build the structure for that thing where the roof of the building's already built and designed for the snow load so it's easier just to throw them on a roof and I I have no problem filling that whole building again with snow panels uh solar panels if they allow us to do it yeah I mean the solar canopies are becoming more um typical in parking lots and so they can be done with a snow load they just yeah they might be expensive it's that it's the cost of the structure they name it the cost of the solar pins right right but we we might be able to do the the whole building except for just the Homer Ave front of the building so I'll have my solar engineer take a look at this roof and design something great thank you yeah I don't whatever that was in the background we couldn't hear it so Charlie you've got to turn off your mic when you're done please um do we have anybody else with a raised hand no at this moment we don't have anybody else thank you anybody else on the committee with comments okay I'm gonna do a last call we don't have any more comments I think we're going to close the hearing can I get a vote to that effect a motion to that effect excuse me 10 30.
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and motion to close the hearing for uh 9-49 Homer Ave 9-47 Omar app okay I'll second that all those in favor Kevin Modi Kathy Rooney I bill you still here no he is nope no he isn't okay all right so unanimous all right thank you everybody very much sure what happens actually you'll make a recommendation to the board of how does that work we're gonna go through our report I don't know how much of it will get done tonight um and we will fill in all the comments and the questions we have um and then um we're going to send it off to the planning board Okay so we've been having a lot of meetings we um actually just sent a letter um our committee just sent a letter to the planning board um asking about um our brain is fried right now um getting some environmental impact statements from this site for the site and for the building because of the proximity of the railroad the Richardson Building and the gas station across the street so we're a little concerned about how this is going to work um the construction part is going to work down here I thought that these projects require construction management plan which is pretty typical for all such development yes that's good typically it covers things like dust control testing Road and control um you know cleaning keeping the streets clean uh deliveries staging of staging of materials all of that containing construction management plan right well you're within 100 feet of a railroad here so I think there might be some additional things you have to do um I don't know much about it but somebody brought it to our attention at the last meeting and so who who is at the planning boy that oversees that kind of thing um well we wrote the letter to the planning board because we're a subcommittee of them and so I'm assuming that the that the planning board has something to do with it the building inspector and I don't know who else Terry honestly an environmental impaction for it um what is that what what is a report supposed to assess ment developmental plan it's about the vibrations of all the all the all of what you're going to be doing in the ground and the vibration of the so the land 100 feet from the railroad station is extremely settled because of the vibration so you're opening it back up and what's that gonna do city of Newton is about to adopt a vibration Monitor and control system of ordinance which arose as a result of them putting a standard condition in our in every special permit regardless of the situation requiring surveys Beyond a certain you know distance then they basically ran and follow that because it was the way they had applied it it would have meant to every demo payment every time somebody digs a hole so they've established a system whereby a quality a licensed um vibration control person has to present a report to the permit granting Authority saying it if a survey is required or it's not required and if it's required for whatever distance uh is required from the site that's the most current information I have about how those things work who um who manages that what department manages that in Newton well the first thing is the city council the special perimet County Authority and so the planet and they have extensive planning stuff I don't believe me more than 20 people um so they uh they fashion these amendments which they did for this particular case and they presented it to the land to the land use committee it's not going to be presented to zoning and planning committee and eventually it'll be I expect it'll be adopted by uh sometime in September who monitors it it's essentially when a special permit is filed and the plans are submitted one of the things they review uh when they go through the process of zoning design review site plan and at the end when they are putting together the council order they then deal with things like well is there a ledge on the site if that means it could be blasting they assess it based upon what information comes out as a result of the presentation and the questions that are asked and answered during the hearing public hearing process so in essence the city council monitors up to a certain point and makes a determination as to whether this is required or not and then it's it's monitored by both the planning department who has to sign off on any building permit before it goes to inspectional Services that's how it works okay so it's a planning department not a land use Department well yeah because the planning department of paid staff City councilors are paid but they're part-time elected right I'd like to select persons okay okay well that sounds pretty interesting thank you you're very welcome okay so I think we're um what's up with you guys tonight and thank you so much to each and every one of you for all your hard work on this so far in your presentation to point to date and um we'll uh you know as soon as we get the report filed we'll get it it'll get to you okay thank you I appreciate your time you're checking to to get this far likewise thank you very much thank you thank you sleep well yes you too Okay so it's 20 to 11.
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do you want to try to work on the report now or do you want to try to hold another meeting next week and work on it um what do you think committee I think we're not going to finish it tonight so maybe yeah maybe we should look at it fresh I took extensive notes on on what we might add to the report we just have to compile it and agree on each item that we're putting in I think we need to hold another meeting to do that okay great and I will I've got I think enough notes to do minutes um so what we might be looking at those also next time do you guys know what day will you guys be meeting because next Thursday there is planning board meeting so they will be using the zoom link um so I can if you guys give me a heads up I can try to look for another Zoom link that you could be used or another date I would like to try it for Tuesday I I think it'd be great to get the report to the planning board before they meet are they they're meeting about this project on Thursday they have it on their agenda for next Thursday yeah um Tuesday um I could also do Monday if we want to do it sooner than later before Monday I don't think it will be feasible because we would have to send the agenda today right yeah so 2-0 Wednesday yeah so Tuesday would be the earliest which means I have to get out an agenda first thing tomorrow morning correct yes okay um ojwala can you do that which would be the eighth yes yes okay so I think what we'll do is is do that um and we will do the rest of the minutes I think then unless you wanna we want to go through I could put an agenda Kathy and send it to you like first thing in the morning following the uh agenda you had today and just kind of changing the public hearing rather to say discussion of public hearing 949 and if you think it's fine then we can get it posted as soon as tomorrow morning okay why don't you do that and I would we definitely have minutes to come up there first um that'd be great thank you Alvaro yep be helpful um and just be sure to send back the dot doc so we can just send it to the entire committee so that way whoever's taking notes can I just basically take it into the agenda and then I change it okay easier than trying to cut and paste from PDF back into word and never formats properly um and also just for a time frame kind of question do you guys think that the next meeting that this team will be meeting with you would it be trying to look at the materiality or would it be more of a soon meeting just looking at renderings and plans well they're definitely we want to look at Material materialities right Kevin yeah but I think I think we need to look at the renderings first so I was actually going to suggest to see the renderings and the options that we talked about them presenting and then at that meeting we would request that they put a box a box of physical samples together for us to review and um it's they either deliver that to town hall and we can review it there or we have a meeting with them and they can present them to us but I think Kathy you and I talked about this I think I think we should have possibly a an in-person meeting with the applicant to hold some samples in our hands so maybe that's not the next meeting with them but the one after right it's kind of what I'm thinking I don't think it can be the next one okay are we with we're not far enough along yet we're getting we're getting farther but we're not far enough along that yeah yeah I was just gonna ask are we within the time frame within the six 60 days how does how does that work again should we be working I don't think so because they have uh send the extensions like Terry has been very problem sending the extensions needed so I think that we are good until the end of August if my memory is not like we have to finalize our reports and be done discussing the project by the end of August I'll double check tomorrow Kevin I'm not sure if he's by the end of August because I wasn't here when the hearing started yeah um itself but I'll double check and let you guys know my sorry my comment about that in part Alvarez we didn't start seeing this project soon enough which I know that Terry was asking when we did the walk through way back when we should have been seeing this way back when they're probably going to need time to do this if they get you a continuation request tomorrow I'm not entirely sure how it works but I would imagine they would want to continue to August 24th at at the earliest yeah yeah because if they're meeting next week with the planning board they definitely have a continuance um farther out correct yeah I think so because probably like next Thursday they will just be able to do so much you know like from this meeting so probably they will be presenting the same set of information okay my only suggestion when they do the rendering and the cropping just make sure the first floor of the building lines up with the first floor of the other buildings because it seems like they reduced the side of the size of the building by 25 um when I asked him to point that out the first floors weren't even with each other I'm just bringing this up as the scale of the actual building they will put up it looks smaller than it actually is because it wasn't equal to the surrounding buildings yeah the the point is well taken and um we've asked for that previously we always request things to be in scale and to be accurate it's just a matter of you know we can't actually do the work but we we can do um our due diligence in trying to confirm that it's accurate um so I but we'll keep pushing for that yeah I I don't know this is my first time listening to what they had to say and I do agree with Mark about security and lighting and having an open entrance I just didn't want to reiterate that point because of the second floor has access to apartments and it's ground level and it's not open to public eyes so someone could go up those stairs if it's not secure and then enter an apartment and rob somebody and I totally agreed with Mark on that point where it seems that that is an afterthought if someone's hanging out in outside of a patio and you're trying to sleep like does the noise ordinance kick in where you're like oh someone's having a party at the patio or what if they don't live there it's it's just I understood what Mark was saying and I do agree with him that security and curfews need to be held in a high standard especially when your front door is outside a theoretical Park yep thank you yeah that's going to be something I think the building manager and has to manage in terms of tense having parties up there um that's not really something we can control but the second floor entrance I think is that access from the street to that second floor area is a that should be secure that's a little weird actually um anything else anybody so we're gonna look at minutes on Tuesday is that that's what's being added to the agenda yes yeah we don't have enough time right now I think there's a couple I sent something along and there's a couple but I think we need more members of the committee to do that we should we should um approve the 615 minutes but we should do that when more people that were at the meeting are here yeah that would be nice um okay so I'm going to entertain a motion to adjourn anybody's interested in making it seconded making the motion who's making it you draw you're going to make the motion yeah and make the motion to uh agenda meeting I'll second it great all those in favor which will happen after I yeah Kathy Rooney I okay thank you everybody for attending thank you comments good night good night everybody good night everyone thanks
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on the computer okay that's why you have all my positive stuff in English and Spanish light is on guys how are you sorry good evening everyone it's Tuesday August 8 2023 and we've just wrapped up the second day of school um thank you for joining us for the first board meeting of the 2023-24 school year we have a need for an executive session um would you like to first start with interpretation instructions and then do you mind doing doing them again when we come back okay thank you good afternoon thank you madam president is thank you so much I move that the Board of Education convene an executive session for the purpose of CRS 24 64024b legal advice litigation u-prep Throne complaint State Board of Education attorney client OCR complaint updates and process and accountability and CRS 246402 4f1 Personnel organizational restructuring as related to Personnel statuses and updates May I have a second a second thank you Ramona roll call please Mr Amador aye Ms Estrada aye Ms Lovato aye Ms Molina she is excused and should be joining us in a few minutes thank you Ms Zubia aye thank you uh we will return at 6 30 for the regular board meeting
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late promotion I will check it out I am okay please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance switching stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right okay next item is public comments and it appears that you have none at this time so on to informational items first one being Personnel additional class and increase in schedule for Chad should you Mr President members of the board due to a change in the high school schedule it became necessary for judge an additional class during their current preparation period the administration is recommending that he be paid his hourly rate for the extra instructional hour he is teaching there's no board action necessary this is an informational item only okay and this is to help cover the social studies yes okay any other questions or discussion okay you answered my question I mean I asked your question well no and he answered it oh okay yeah so next item is certified employment of substitute teachers uh Mr President members of the board the individuals Below have expressed an interest in being sub clear on the first hiring in 2021 Kathy Moto and Candace Moore there is no more to action necessary this is an informational only okay any questions or discussion tonight I noticed on Kelly's application she also put paraprofessional is was she only being used for a substitute and not also a paraprofessional I believe I'll I'll have Dr schvelt talk a little bit more about this but I believe it's more of a focus on yeah substitute okay Miss Moore she's going to be a great professional that I'm pressed on it so we could use it yourself on Friday if you saw that maybe yes too so sometimes you're able to put yourself okay okay we'll take them thank you any further questions or discussion okay the next item then is the classified resignation and finance of Araceli mignon Mr President members of the board of Marx position is finance Clerk there is no board action necessary this is an informational item only okay and this is a position we have already got coverage for yes sir okay yeah in a transition okay any other questions or discussion yeah next item is I believe related to classified employment and finance of Ginger Zambrano hey Mr President members of the board dangerous ambrado has been interviewed for the position of finance Clerk she will be part-time to start and join uh Miss Gutierrez in the finance office there is no board action necessary this is an informational item only okay any questions or discussion on that okay on the next item then the classified employment of teachers Aid Oscar Reyes Mr President members of the board Oscar Reyes has been interviewed for the position of paraprofessional teachers Aid there is no board action necessary this is an informational item only okay I have to be taller than the students no you don't I can vouch for that oh help him catch more people we've had that when I was substituting and people thought I was a student there so the kid growing up they everybody call them yeah and that's half the town everybody knows him I'm sure I'm sure Mr Reyes is ready to oh yes I know he has history working with us and at the at the clinic as well next item that is the classic Nation classified reassignment and addition of teachers Aid Candace amor current subject has required has requested additional hours as a teacher's aide this more will be a parapro every day and a substitute as needed there is no word action necessary this is an informational item only and since we're already giving the prayer approach 30 hours right right so this doesn't doesn't mean anything in the way of additional benefits or anything right she already qualifies for 30 hours is she has that she has that opportunity for the 30 hours and to um yes okay any other questions next item then is the increase increase in hourly rate for Jennifer Groves Mr President members of the board for the classified working conditions agreement Jennifer Grove submitted a plan salary step already increase a request to me last year to us last year requesting an hourly increase in pay for upcoming college courses to be completed by August 2023 she has completed four educational classes for a total of 16 credit hours and an increase of pay of 15 cents per hour there is no word action necessary this is an informational item only okay any questions or discussion on that is you're working towards like a degree where she's going to be a coming um I believe uh dribbles she's uh she has um she's she's taking some extra classes and I think she's trying to get into education yeah that'd be nice yeah that's good yeah she wants to work out of school good for her good well it looks like quite her attractive it's going to be special ed yeah big demand for that awesome I don't I don't have a copy of her transcript S [Music] I probably yeah I probably just went in as a regular person any other discussion or questions on that one okay the next one is the extra pay position for volunteer coaching and volunteer coaching employment Mr President or Mrs the board the following employees that have expressed a desire to perform the designated extra pay in launching positions for the 23-24 school year Mr Babu Casey co-grants coordinator Chad jgct jted director Nicholas I want to say this right Zachary Harry Harry okay Volunteer football coach Marciano offense coordinator Early Childhood director high school student council advisor there is no board action necessary this is an informational item only okay and as I recall on the agenda for Wednesday these are all broken out to vote on individually if we choose to or we can vote on them yes there any questions about any of those we may have some um a long story short we may have some additional names okay try and have all of the extra Duty positions completed that's just the answer okay one thing I want to say is about a good bunch of people want all right absolutely okay there's no more discussion the next item is policy yes ma'am already done in the first reading on the last yes and the the agenda I put the second reading instead of um and there's no there's no comment and it would disable this item that makes sense you'll have the first reading from the last meeting yes or we could still talk about it because there's not really any of this book items it's up to you yeah um there's no there's no board action so the secondary secondary meeting is kind of frivolous at this point but I couldn't change the agenda yeah and as I recall we usually do the second reading in the voting meeting when we're going to vote on it you know just a first reading again you want to go over to just refresh your memories it's totally fine um there's no harm no foul okay so that we know that it's the second reading but it's not really approval it's still technically a first second week yes and I believe we were all here for the first reading but if anybody wants it read back over again we can do that or if anybody has any questions or discussion about it based on that first reading foreign action possible new agenda item for the next meeting anybody on the boat have um I'm gonna add um another agenda item for the 1C medium we found out there's going to be a Saturday um you might recall about three or four months ago we had an NPI training course only for the elementary um that where they they go on a Saturday for extra PD training it's like an eight hour long training so I'm gonna I'm gonna add another one of those to Wednesday um and it's actually I listed it here but then I didn't love unity sorry um uh so there will be an extra Saturday for the teachers that missed it um the new teachers Decon uh with bothabella's the first the second grade the fourth grade the fifth grade all the new teachers that missed it okay do you have this on the study one because it's not online and I signed in no if you go to the governing board though for Wednesday no go down to where it says governing one action possible new agenda items for next meeting oh I see I see okay yeah Okay click on it oh it does actually mine does say We'll add requests for additional time for teachers on Saturday an extra pay position for Jose via but you don't have to apologize for me not logging in no no that's fine thank you any questions okay yeah no questions or maybe just something you can update on the jom yeah that of can you speak to that well yeah okay but yeah just yeah sure yeah we've we've been talking about it um but yeah so she's not on the agenda we can't go there okay if there's no other thing for possible future new agenda items we are now looking for a motion to adjourn I will second the motion because we all studied before the test so
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Fuller here here Don Runner here uh we have Quorum can we stand for pledge allegiance please stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign no visitors okay then we'll move on to item four of the agenda turn this over to Dr thiely all right uh good evening everyone good evening I'm gonna have to just manually so we've got to find out how Italy was How was Italy there we go what were we talking about earlier about tech all right actually it's kind of important to get to these because Travis has a couple of slides for you all right t99 update I'll turn it over to Travis to share what's going on over there so it is it's exciting to see the progress that's being made uh where T-minus two weeks until opening school day right so there's a lot that has been done but there's still we have a good list of things that are going to get done we've been progress monitoring this throughout the whole time we actually have we've been meeting every other week with white we have a meeting tomorrow morning to go over us the punch list if you will of things that need to get done we have cleaning set up ready to go we have the furniture installation ready to go one of the things when you look at some of the pictures so you can see the addition there is to the right this is a again this is one of the two classrooms down in the bottom right hand corner that are being added again a lot of work it's one of those finishing right so if you've ever been part of construction the the big pieces go really quick and then kind of the end kind of seems like it's going slow but there's a lot of things that are happening we have a lot of different construction on site getting different pieces you can see the front is is wrapped where we had the on the old side where they're going to be wrapping that around so if you can go to the next slide so this is a good visual of the new siding that that will be in place right so in the new window so this is the new addition you can see it there one thing you'll notice is there's a lot of stone there but there's not the actual driveway that is not in place yet we will be ready for students to arrive we're probably gonna have to be flexible where our staff are parking so the whole parking lot we don't believe is going to be done by the time that first day we start but we will be flexible in getting that that done will be good for drop off pick up those types of things just a lot of moving pieces and obviously start different type of parking that is going to be in place with permeable pavers right there's some additional work that is to put the equipment in place these two classrooms actually are in the um in the old part of the building but you can see there's new flooring that was put in place they had to tear up the flooring to to do some Plumbing work and different things so those rooms gotta got a fresh upgrade so all the painting has been done the drop ceilings are are getting put in all of the tiles so and the and the carpeting all of the carpeting is is done so we're we're gonna be on we're gonna be good but we're going to give you a further update we're on budget we're going to give you a more detailed update at our meeting in two weeks okay but everything is looking good but it's one of those things of like okay we're reminding them we got we got uh teachers coming right on the on the 17th because the 16th will be all together so uh but we'll be we'll be ready and we're going to be flexible so are they working 24 hours not 24 hours but they're working a lot so yeah [Music] reminder for staff parking the Omega restaurant across the street as graciously for years allowed us to park in their lot so go grab some pancakes over there to thank them for all other help over the years but we'll still leverage their space here to start bigger and we do have I forgot to mention uh we have our August 10th is so Thursday the Roe walkthrough for advocacy so we're on schedule for that that's a big hurdle to make sure we get completed but we are on on schedule for that well it looks beautiful yeah it looks beautiful it's really neat you'll you'll love the final pictures once we get those in place so that's gonna be great we'll have those for you at our our meeting on the 21st and then we'll have a ribbon cutting we'll invite I invite everybody to that'll be in October October 23rd so we'll we'll make sure that's on your calendar in advance of that all right any other questions for Travis or I on t99 great work thank you there's a rock I'll tell you what when you look at the you know there it's the coordination of external and internal right there's a lot of things that that need to uh need to happen for that and our our staff have done a great job of making sure that hey we have this window to get things done get it done to make sure that we're not holding things up and so kudos to our our staff for making sure that we're good to go what has been the biggest challenge you've had so far um I don't know that there's been one uh it's just when you look at the the process our our vendors have been our good our subcontractors everything has has worked well we haven't like been where are you right none of that has has occurred White's done a great job of keeping us updated they send a weekly report of of pictures with a 360 diagram that you can you can click in and look around the the room and in different aspects of that um I I can't identify like any like I go man we pulled our hair out you know over over this it's been really good fantastic yeah all right thank you Travis you're welcome all right the next one comes back from our last board meeting at the last board meeting we kind of went Slide by slide uh section by section over uh the uh strategic road map for the next school year uh we're going to old school tonight so I've given you a packet at each year tables that looks like this that starts with the Mission Vision and core values on it and uh what Julie and I have done is work to give you uh a more clear document this is available in board docs too for anybody revisiting the board meeting but uh the information that's been provided to the board in a variety of different formats we've tried to coalesce them to one here for you and for the public to see uh what the actual uh tasks are that we're working on both like the overarching idea so if we look on page two under an equitable and supportive environment that's the Strategic Direction the expectation ensures safe and sustainable opportunities for all students and families including access to District resources then in that whole section on page two and it continues on the top of Page Three are all of the specific things we're doing to meet that strategic Direction and expectation some of the measurable things the things we're monitoring that we're tracking that we'll be reporting out to the board on once a month throughout the entire school year as to how we're making progress on these things well we've provided you along with that is also who from the administrative team either the individual or individuals that are most directly responsible for those things so as the year goes on those are the people you'll hear from so for the first one strategically utilize leverage and develop District resources provide students with the opportunity to achieve their full academic potential and demonstrate growth and progress through the continual evaluation of instructional practice and academic metrics including State accountability measures so you can see underneath there what we'll do around that and then ultimately Gina is the one that's responsible on the team for reporting out on that and keeping the board apprised of what's going on so the board could expect to receive written updates uh throughout the year and then obviously you know that there's key points throughout the year where Gina will come and present like when the new school report card comes out or grants or or those kinds of things throughout the course of the year so with that in mind uh I'm not going to read them all to you like that I know you've seen them multiple times before tonight it's just kind of a new format for this evening there's no new information in here I made sure that throughout here a couple of things that were commented on last time was where is the boards pieces in here and there's a couple of spots where I've added that this is an area where the board is working to better communicate or be transparent with the community otherwise I thought we could just take it Page by page and see if there was anything on here that a board member wanted to call out or ask a question about then after that this evening there will be an opportunity where we I asked the board to approve this and then this will be provided to the staff next week when they all return and we'll share it with uh chairs and administration's been involved in developing it but Department chairs will share it with them on Friday all right so on page two uh which is the first one of all of the directions and expectations anything any board member would like to pull out or discuss or have questions about and it's very possible that we don't because we've been over this many times before tonight process and do you bring this then when the yes it's all this is kind of the final review and what's underneath this is our job okay yep and uh we'll bring it to as I said it's been shared with uh I think the draft of it was shared with chairs already it's been shared with both the bargaining units leadership before this um and then the final version will start rolling out this week though assuming the board approves it tonight the hybrid box schedule has been such a source of interest is there anything kind of new there I'm looking at this range too about evaluation like is there anything just specific to that you evaluate your message or anything you're doing differently this year and year two so our one our plan was not to from the administrative side you know we we went through it I in the fall based on how it the feedback we received 10 weeks and we change the format of gathering that feedback uh for the spring and we received really good feedback uh from teachers and from the public that that was a better way both to submit the information and that we did a nice job of reflecting those concerns Ryan did a good job of reflecting those current concerns that time around so we expected going into this year that we would replicate that in the fall because that would give us a very similar look from Spring to Fall at least in format so we could look more longitudinally to see if some of these data points are changing from one way to another we felt like at that point if the board felt like they wanted something different they wanted an outside voice if uh you know if they were hearing that we weren't accurately reflecting that or whatever that that would be the point to evaluate if we should do something different we really wanted to be able to provide like in the spring people said this and now in the fall they're saying this right so we could give that from point A to point B reflection that we really couldn't do from the fall until the spring last year because we were really trying to figure out how that all worked and I think we have a good format now to be able to provide that perspective to the board and to the public if we change everything at this point we kind of go back and restart and then we won't be able to provide like point a versus point B until the spring all right I'd rather get that perspective to the board first and then if the board public teacher who staff whatever feel like ah we need more we need an outside perspective that would be the time I think to have that conversation however I'm open to feedback from the board if you'd like that from jump we could do that as well good go for it thank you all right anything else on page two moving to page three the top is related to the last or no we move on to a two new uh strategic expectations for actually three is there anything in here that anybody would like to pull out all right go ahead um what's the new attendance software it's a product called five star correct hey I got it right um and uh that will be showing up as the year starts for better tracking student attendance so um but that's the name of it but uh I don't know Courtney Irwin anything else beyond that you'd like to share about it or something you're excited about with the tool at all put you on the spot yeah no I think we're first of all it will help us better track particularly during those resource times who's in the building and who has the ability to leave I think the second piece is that it has a lot of opportunity for us to look into some things as the year progresses things like digital hall passes and it has an ability to have like a an online ID and there's an app that's connected to it so there's a lot of really cool features we're kind of just rolling it out mostly basic as we start the school year but then hoping to test it with some groups of students to expand its capabilities problems that makes sense yeah okay thank you I'll just add too it adds a nice layer of student accountability we know that we were really excited about the schedule that there were opportunities for increased autonomy and so this is just the way it allows students to continue to have that autonomy with a natural layer of accountability as well so for example um fourth period will be the first period of the day on Thursdays and we do juniors and seniors with good standing with parent permission are allowed to not come for a period they kind of happening arrival but this will allow us to make sure that everyone who is not in that category who is in resource and in the building and expected to be in the building to utilize the resources in the building this will help us to make sure that they're in the building because they're typically in the Commons versus in like a structured study hall group it's a really nice way to add an extra accountability lens to the student autonomy that we have within your schedule okay Where Do We Stand uh the second one further develop and communicate common expectations for staff yeah that will be part of the opening Day presentation and then we Jill has worked on some uh some nice well presented expectations around communication protocols and consistency across the district that's a handbook that goes along communication but as we open on opening day we're going to share some strategies we'd like for everybody to participate in like taking things to the most direct person involved in the situation when you're going to uh to meet with somebody setting some expectations of giving them a heads up about what that topic is going to be about and what you're hoping to get out of that meeting with them like Cara I'm coming to meet with you about a concern I have I just want you to listen to me so that the when I go in Kara knows she's not there trying to solve my problem she's just there to be a listener or Ken I'm coming to meet with you to advocate for this I would like to to get you on board to help me advocate for this to happen or things around especially around behaviors that we are really specific about frequency and severity like whenever we're talking about a concern around a behavior that we bring with that like this isn't happening that often but when it does it's it's really serious or like this really isn't that serious of a baby but it just keeps happening so much it's just like a thousand paper cuts right so that we get in the habit as team members of using similar vocabulary to express ourselves so that it's easier for the person to receive that to know what they should be doing with what we're bringing in so that will be part of the opening Day presentation to staff great sure about the ones about increased engagement with the community do you or either of the principals like have specific other new things you're going to try to do Under um the first one under build community Foster belonging any specific new things about engaging the community uh yes uh we've been working on a larger communication plan with both the principals and uh with Jill one of the things we're going to be bringing back is our superintendents advisory community meeting that went by the wayside during covid so that's going to come back this year both principals have a parent advisory groups that they're going to continue developing into this year we're going to do the open house at t99 we're going to do an open house at both schools because of the 100 year anniversary and then we're looking for opportunities as I've explained to the board where I will have those meetings or other administrators will be having those meetings to offer the opportunity for board members to come a small number of board members right we can't have more than two in any one spot but uh to work with down to coordinate if board members would like to come in and uh and be available or to at least be in the room where those things are going on and then we'll continue all of the wide variety of monthly Communications we do both from the school level and the district level as well as the end of the year Community report that goes out just curious um have you had the sign up yet for the SAT no that all start as we get into the school year okay so there'll be kind of a rolling window where they'll ask for students to come sign up for like the first batch of them and then if it fills up we'll put those students on the wait list for the next group that comes around but they'll be kind of a rolling sign up window as the school year goes on and that'll happen through the College and Career Center right isn't that the plan any others on page three all right moving on to page four page four wraps up the first strategic Direction and moves into the next one growth of student ownership and agency this is the second one under the middle of the page to help students understand how to elaborate their own structured time is that a new one or is that just sort of building on last year it's building on last year and that'll add this year the um the opportunity for remember last year we had students had the opportunity to be brought in if a teacher invited them this year will be offering more as the year goes on more and more opportunities for go the other direction where students will be able to schedule their time proactively with staff or other opportunities at school this section has a lot of opportunity for growth and how we utilize the hybrid block schedule absolutely excited to see what you guys can how you can leverage that time this year yeah you'll see office hours there's a big big work around how we make that easier for students and families to know where when teachers office hours are so you know this is the kind of the natural growth in year two of the schedule and a lot of this came from the feedback we received in the survey in the spring all right moving on to page five you'll start to see a lot of student support things here you'll start to see Scott's name show up quite a bit in here in the principles you'll see the the work that we've talked in Prior meetings about better measuring students engagement and extracurricular activities and making sure we're reaching out to students that aren't engaged here at school to understand you know maybe they're maybe they are engaged just in something outside of school or maybe they're not anywhere and we need to help figure out how to connect them to something yeah foreign moving on to page six we move into the next strategic Direction that's focused on uh post-secondary planning see a lot of crossover here as well with access and resource you'll see you focus on English learners and making sure that all of our students are engaged in post-secondary planning is there anything here on page six you'd like to pull out or have questions about like a comment and maybe this is recently on a college tour yeah and I was touring the um the sort of uh Career Center and they talked about how they had outfits for all the students to either borrow or take and I was thinking here even post-secondary but also like kids are involved in the speech team and have to wear jackets or my book pants I just was curious is that something we have do we have clothes that people donate that students can use they don't have to go out and buy things for that we have a couple of different venues so yes we've provided them before if needed or help students purchase them we also have through our partnership with the Education Foundation our Angel fund which allows the principals to request funding for those kinds of things should a student need to take advantage I thought it was a neat idea rather than having to ask like I can't afford it yeah to add on to that I'm in Model un and I get to help run it this year and a lot of kids especially women don't first off don't really know how to dress in a professional setting and then on top of that I'll be like oh I'll wear this or I'll wear this and they don't have it so I think that's a really good idea to try and like provide them make it a little easier so people don't have to because I had a personal where a neighbor borrowed some clothes of mine I was like you know she didn't want to have to go out and spend money to do it so I just thought I had to go out and buy stuff from all you win yeah donate clothes so that people can just go in and sort of pick and don't have to sort of admit I don't know what to wear or I can't afford a jacket or whatever is required so just a thought I wanted to ask you something we already did it it just depends on the individual students situations you know there are times where we we have people that provide gift cards or we have we find a lot of things for when students need it okay whether it be for that or just they're not prepared for the winter weather or you know or or or most the time those things come through the students counselor or a sponsor or trusted adult students are good about speaking up I I think they always can speak up more you know and we're always on the lookout for it so I can't tell you like we get every kid every time but I think that we're pretty proactive in it here more than I've seen in a lot of a lot of districts and we have a lot of people that provide us resources when we ask for it yeah it's basically an Ask yeah if we know we've we find those resources um for students that need it yeah can you touch briefly on building systematic programming for families of color and lower income so specifically for post-secondary planning this is an area where Ryan did a lot of work last year especially involving with our hbcus and getting out on some of those tours out to those a lot of this is through our uh College and Career Centers but it's an area where Ryan really focused on a lot last year with students providing different opportunities to get engaged and connected it's the goal this year to just continue building on that yeah yeah and that's also through Courtney and Irwin and their their teams and then bpac which is our bilingual parent advisory group so all right moving on to page seven this wraps up on this page our post-secondary is the first two and then we move into our final area which is recruitment retention sport of our high quality teachers and staff foreign anybody would like pull out or discuss all right moving on to page eight this continues to work with our staff you'll see us start to transition to a lot of work that Rob is doing over the course of the Year leading over the course of the year under the professional development for is there more happening this year given it's year or two of the hybrid like wasn't that a little bit challenging last year is the professional development focused a little more yeah a little bit so we have what we call personalized professional learning so it's the time for the teachers uh to to choose the thing that they're curious about to dig deeper into because of the launch of the schedule last year we used first semester really circling around how logistically the schedule is going to work and then we launched personalized professional learning in second semester and overall the staff said we love it we wish we had more time for it so this year now that we're into the schedule it's going to be spread throughout the entire school year anything else on page eight on the leaning back data to the board under the first point of ensure that staff roles and responsibilities adapt to the diverse needs of students um are you planning on doing that like semi-annually what what's your thought process there sure um we have our two key points that we always do which is the fall in the spring I'm going around the release of the school report card and as we head into testing season we discussed that but we've set aside with the senior cabinet uh quarterly half day meetings where we are going to look at key data and metrics and our progress on those things some of those are listed inside of here like ninth grade on track attendance discipline those kinds of things at the end of each of those quarterly meetings that we have will determine is there something or what is there that we should be bringing back to the board at that point so uh it's like October January April and then June when do we receive our report card from last year's performance end of October end of October so it's usually the November board meetings when we do the presentation so that's why we have a data Retreat planned in October because we'll start to get some like preliminary information at that point and then we can be prepared when the school report card's released the school report card is not a surprise though I mean it's you have most of the data we've uploaded most of the data yeah we have some of the data already and for example started to manipulate some of that data um but the actual data that will appear on the port card is available to us before it goes public so there's actual dashboards into about a month before but then we're embargoed in the ability to discuss it publicly until it's released when do we start to see SAT scores we already have SAT scores it's about two almost three weeks ago I believe that they were released so we have preliminary ideas about what those scores mean but the state has different rules and parameters around that for example how long the student has been our student so the scores can vary just a little bit in terms of the averages and then attendance another you know big part of this report card would assume that we already have that data from last year within our systems okay yeah we upload that data to the state okay typical sort of parents and community members are looking see what the results are October November is the time frame right it's usually a few days yeah a few days before Halloween typically depending on the weekdays yeah so with the test scores though this will be the class of 2023 right which was it'll be last it'll be the Juniors oh okay so they did have the the PSAT and so I mean we have a better sense of of those kids moving through our right we'll be able to start yeah we'll start be able to start bringing back this year some of the longitudinal look at did they grow with us by how much those kinds of things yeah for ninth grade on track do you get any information on incoming students so that you have a sense of maybe people that you want to pay a little closer attention to or that are more vulnerable to not being on track or is it just something that's measured once they start some of that's through the course placement as we play students you know we look at those test scores and how students are doing to some extent at the other end of it you don't want to just assume because the student didn't have a great middle school experience that they're going to start out terrible with us so that's a piece of data that we start monitoring come about week two we're looking at which students are coming in that are failing courses or receiving DS or F's earning D's or F's and courses especially multiple courses we're Drilling in on that from the start and that's something that I look at and Gina looks at and we meet and discuss weekly and I know they do with their leadership teams in both buildings as well that first semester of the ninth grade year is we're keeping very close attention to student progress so that if a student is stumbling we're able to get them caught back up and get them supports as quickly as possible we're not waiting until grades are in you know at the end of semester one yeah and last year we did a really I'm I'm looking I'm looking forward to seeing uh hopefully progress in that area because we were really intentional last year uh on Ninth Grade on track okay all right anything else on eight last page nine anything in these last two items she would like to discuss are we good do we have a pretty good pool of substitute teachers are we how are we doing we do we monitor it I ask the team about every other day how are we doing are there more people um so the the challenge every year going into a school year is that we have a long list of Subs who have expressed interest of subbing in our district that doesn't necessarily mean that when game time comes on that day that they choose us over another District so we have a very healthy list of substitutes they've been more active than just sort of our our passive Subs in terms of making sure that they have all of their documents in line so that so it appears to me right now that most of the subs on our list are far more eager to sub in District 99 than they are in others because they sign up in other school districts so the list is a little bit bigger than last year but I think we're going to have more of them on a daily basis choosing us over another District when they sign up in other school districts do they have to go through a process at every they do every school district has their own application and background check-in you know we we can't share that information across districts so yeah they apply to each district shame so once a sub commits to one District can they also work in another District or only in the one District no they so they commit to as many districts as they want and most of them have this app on their phone that's connected to our absence monitoring software that the other districts have too so they'll see if it's a pre-planned absence it'll get loaded in and they it's basically a first come first claim system so they can claim it and say I'd like to do that job for that so for us it's which we did making sure that we're paying competitively so that way that's not a hindrance to them choosing our jobs over other districts and then the other part too is to make sure that we are very timely in posting the jobs that we have for subbing instead of last minute because we want the subs to know a week from now I've got a gig at District 99 so I'm not going to go to another District yeah the majority of absence is things that can be planned in advance or are not as much as before so uh most of our pre-planned absences before was going to conferences which required a sub but because we didn't have Subs we limited the number of conferences so we didn't have a lot of those but there are some so if it's you know a doctor's appointment or a staff knows in advance we try our best to ask them as soon as you know fill it out because this has Ripple effects of whether we're going to be able to adequately set up your room well we did multiple hiring fairs this summer to try to build out that pool a little bit more yeah and they've been effective we had had good traction on both those days yeah you mentioned the rate of pay there isn't like a standard sub rate of pay save for high schools into page no there's there's no standard rate of pay in fact we're all competing against each other so we made a pretty big jump to bring us back up to to market for our rate of pay so we did that to get us back into competitive pay and now the second part of our work is that um we create a more welcoming environment for them so that way if another District outbids us and has their rate of pay just a little bit more uh our hope is that the people who came here to work with us will choose staying here over a slightly bigger increase in another District yeah so what have we done to create a welcoming environment for this school yeah so we're working on that uh one thing that we want to do is bring them into Institute day so we have never really included them on Institute day so we've got some planning right now bringing them in have them here with the keynote talk with Hank's address to the staff so they can feel more part of the community um t-shirts each building gives out t-shirts every year they do so we we thought what we're going to do this year is provide them with t-shirts so that way they feel more branded of District 99 especially if they're working on a Friday right especially if they're working on a Friday right uh the other thing that we're working on is jury and Tammy are working with food service to create a a daily voucher that they can use at Food Service I was going to say free coffee and then I thought that sounded good no that's that's something that's kind of what we're thinking yeah we're working through the logistics of how do we do that without them handling cash so that way they feel like okay oh and part of Institute day is hearing that but then some building tours and some training on classroom management and stuff like that so so my hypothesis is we get them up to a competitive rate of pay and then they go and tell all their friends look they invest in you you get t-shirts you get a coffee every day you need to come here and work into District 99 yeah so is that a paid day for them if they come too it will be yeah yeah and it's around this but not necessarily totally connected with the shortage of teachers and it sounds like that's going on across perhaps the United States we have a plan in place so you have the substitute talking about inviting them in that really likes being in the district they're getting lots of days they're committed that we have a process for some of those or are they aware of if they or could they even become teachers yeah it's a little tricky the licenses work differently to be a substitute it's just a general bachelor's degree but to be a teacher you have to go through a teacher prep uh program yep even just having that conversation with them that you know this is the process because maybe they don't know as a substitute because they're just substituting yeah we like them they like us yeah they we've gave we've given them a t-shirt you know so they're part of the team process because that's the shortage increases and I'm feeling like it will yeah how are we going to Band-Aid for that yeah so hear your question um we have more success converting a paraprofessional or a teacher aide into a teacher okay because those individuals are usually early or mid-career our subs are usually retired or they have a job that gives them some flexibility during the day with I'm not aware of any of them who have aspirations to become a full-time teacher okay yeah that makes sense but we do work through we have agreements with our support staff Association so when we find a paraprofessional who has aspirations to be a teacher that we can support them to getting the right credentials so they can't become a teacher okay we're going to have Pathways for them to be able to student teach with us instead of having to resign from their job if certain conditions are met and everything works out we've had a couple of teachers that have been able to student teach with us rather than having to resign and go student teach somewhere else yeah quick question along the same kind of line and it's probably not in here but how are we doing on bus drivers um actually I don't know because they're not our staff that uh is technically Jerry and Tammy who coordinate closely with the bus depot um I can check with them well you know I'm just I see signs all over the place yeah you know that they're constantly needing bus drivers and I know I do know from conversations with Jerry that the depot that we use with first student and we share with other districts has not been hurt as badly as other Depots or other school districts with drivers you know I just worry about that because our students need to get to school so without them we're yeah we'll probably be doing that check-in here in the next week yeah I'm sorry I didn't mean third question so several people have asked me because it's summertime freshmen coming in about the busing zero hour and I know like I speak about from the music perspective like band students Orchestra students particularly in Woodridge who live further away right I know there is is that a you know a financial issue we can't afford more buses for the district or is that there's not enough kids like I didn't mean there are lots of Zero Hour classes right now or is there not is there not a huge need for Zero Hour buses there's not a huge number of um Zero Hour classes but many most of our bus routes are here by 7 40ish 7 45 um so most students can make it to zero period when we had zero period that started it's before 7 A.M in fact then it was a YouTube show so starting this year with or I guess last year because we have an 820 start so that kind of shifted things um so it is easier that's not to say that every single student can necessarily get here by that time and there may be students who don't take the bus the parents drive or whatever the case may be but it's a little bit better now or specifically ask me and thinking like you know we'll get there because it's a board made that class but why isn't there a bus and that's helpful to no yeah the requests have been more buses after school hours and last year we added those an activity bus one or two at each School one year school yeah for after school transportation home so what time does the latest bus leave the school or will the latest bus leave the school this fall 6 15.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
7 20 23 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerrone here Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson president Dr Maria president Mr ploger President Miss simultan president miss venmuth president please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation good evening board in many districts we have the opportunity to have individuals who serve in unique roles that transcend schools and their individual pride and really come to the whole District the role namely is that of the athletic director some places they call this person the mayor the impact of this individual is felt throughout the system and for this reason I'm honored to turn uh the mic to Teresa comidas who will share a very exciting and uh important moment for our district as I read through this I would invite the board if you wouldn't mind coming forward so we can congratulate our special guests this evening throughout the year our board does take a moment to acknowledge and recognize the award-winning efforts and accomplishments of our staff and tonight they'll be recognizing an individual who's been with us since 2012 and began his role as the district's athletic director in 2016 and this is the famous Mr Darren Howard [Applause] thank you Aaron Howard is the Oswego High School and District athletic director and he was recently named as the National High School at High School athletic coaches association National athletic director of the year so congratulations Darren we're very proud of you [Applause] [Music] we're gonna do a second photo here so everybody stay put and we're going to invite up any of our ohs staff and admins that are here come on up come on guys it does take a village wrong with my surprise myself [Laughter] [Music] right after that it looks a little weird [Laughter] uh no he's not he's got to come over here and switch with uh miracles [Applause] stay up there Darren and board we're gonna allow your family Darren your families here we'll invite them to come up and do a photo as well thank you stay there stay Thank You Jared we're gonna invite Darren's family to come forward with a picture with all of you as well thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you when does school start playing what day is your first day [Music] big smiles girls thank you congratulations Karen right there right by yourself okay I just want to make it okay for you that's a lot foreign okay 5.1 public comment on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our residents and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system residents interested in speaking to the board this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and no responses to your questions are permitted comments should be addressed to the Board of Education as a whole and not be directed to an individual board member audience or staff member the Board of Education will will not address concerns against individual employees rather a complaint against an employee must be in writing and signed by the person who makes it and the Board of Education will refer any such complaints for appropriate review thank you so doctor this is from Mark Johnson and this is for Darren Howard I have worked with Darren Howard since the day he was hired at ohs what I can tell you about Darren is that he hates when he is the focal point and center of attention most people know that he is the the district athletic director and was the former president of the Illinois athletic Directors Association but he is much more than that he does so much for everyone in the building he has set up Mentor programs for the coaches has set up Leadership Council for the athletes and has even stepped in as one of the assistant principals when OHS needed him what makes him great at his job is not just all of the leadership positions he has taken on but what he also does behind the scenes Darren and I were in a training room one day and one of our athletes who was being treated asked Darren and I what we'd all do all what we do all day after Darren and I laughed a little Darren said something like well if you have uniforms to wear equipment to use coaches to lead you have workers to help at your games have trainers to take care of you officials to officiate your games buses to take you to your events and anything else you may need then that is what we do Darren made it sound so simple but he does so much for our school Darren does such an outstanding job behind the scenes and likes to stay out of the spotlight but today he deserves to have the light shining on him much deserved Darren Mark Johnson athletic assistant athletic director Oswego High School [Applause] I have another public comment for Darren Howards from Dan artson he says I've known Darren for nearly 10 years from the beginning it was clear that Darren is a consummate professional who places students at the center of each discussion High School athletics are an extension of the classroom building leadership character teamwork perseverance and growth opportunities Darren maintains the high expectations for himself and those around him and it is and it is to the benefit of each student in sd308 congratulations on a well-deserved recognition Darren Dan arts and executive director for high school instructions [Applause] wider are we on this time almost yeah there you go we weren't on last month I know it's me again all right hi everyone before I begin I want to formally thank faith for taking the time to not only listen to what I've had to say at the prior meetings but to discuss it further with me and to take action I'm so grateful that she will be working towards creating a procedure for documenting and communicating classroom evacuations it is what I set out to do and not only did the news make me happy but it made my son ecstatic I received the biggest hug from him so I can say with confidence that my decisions actions and even my removal from Old Post has been worth it these kids are what is most important and it's why we are all here as you are already aware I have submitted a handful of foia requests to The District in an attempt to obtain information regarding various concerns I want you to refer to foyer request 23-73 which I will send to you via email where I asked for information regarding incidents that took place at Old Post on March 6th March 20th May 1st May 9th and May 16th the district has provided its response which includes documentation and incident reports for the dates May 9th and May 16th it indicated to me that the Old Post Administration is aware of the district policies and procedures however it appears that the administration neglected to do any sort of paperwork documentation or reports regarding the classroom incidents that took place on the other dates that were requested for my own records which includes my presence in the building discussions with other parents discussions with building staff and in some instances discussions with mitchenson I can verify that there were violent incidents on all of the dates that I provided on March 6 the violence was so severe the students were evacuated for an hour on March 20th the incident began with objects being thrown and I personally witnessed the evacuation and spoke with mitchenson on May 1st the students were evacuated three times because the student continued to exhibit violent Behavior throughout the day there were no reports filed by Swanson or mitchenson on any of those dates my purpose for requesting documentation for those specific dates was to verify that Old Post had reported the problems and that the district was aware My Hope was that this would imply that the district and the administration of Old Post were working together to resolve future incidents to the best of their abilities however it appears that that was likely not the case the lack of reports and documentation prior to the May 9th in incident aligns with the rumors within the community that certain building administrators purposely neglect filing incident reports and notifying the District of issues in an effort to make the school appear as though it is doing well without any major problems and that in turn the children are well as parents we assume the administrators are doing everything that they possibly can to resolve issues within their school we assume that the district is fully involved and that our children are being prioritized learning that it is likely that more action could have been taken prior to May's disheartening and it makes me wonder if something more could have been done to prevent the situation from escalating to the level that it did maybe my son wouldn't have reached the point of having anxiety about attending school maybe his classmates wouldn't have reached their own breaking points led to their own struggles the classroom violence began well before March 6th there should have been multiple incident reports filed well before the May 9th and May 16th incidents it makes me wonder if the May 16th reports were only done because my 9-1-1 call forced their hand and they had no choice but to document it yet the incident that day was not the most severe of all of the incidents that had taken place it was simply the one that broke the camel's back and made me feel as though I had no choice but to take action myself otherwise where are all of the other incident reports the district needs to listen to this and find a way to make sure that all incidents are being recorded though I have no idea how you do that refusing to communicate via email because the information may be subject to a foia request is one thing neglecting the file incident reports when violence takes place is a whole different ballgame and can Gravely impact the students I did speak to Dr sparlin via email on May 18th and over the phone on May 22nd about the concerns I had we discussed the possibility that incident reports were not being filled out and submitted by the old post Administration given the new information that has been provided the district needs to consider the possibility that the Old Post Administration is intentionally mischaracterizing the state of the school by suppressing at least some of the incidents that occurrence will grounds lastly I am aware that the board can't do much about this issue my goal is to bring this information and my concerns to the table so that they can be heard not only by the board but also by the community members that listen to these board meetings in an effort to gain insight as to what and how the district is doing as always thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you Mark Martinez good evening good evening good evening three things for tonight and I'm going to ask the question is everyone here in the community doing everything they can for the kids that are part of this District three things for all of you remember I'm going to give you two numbers 14 and 2 and this shirt that I'm wearing that's a Stanford so 14 the number of years I've had a child in this District volunteered or where my wife has worked as an aide at Homestead Elementary in the autistic classroom that has severe special needs two the number of years we have remaining in this District that we are unfortunately counting down due to Transportation parking services and three this shirt Stanford this is my youngest daughter's dream school who has been talking about going to Stanford since she's been in seventh grade so Brooklyn she's a straight A student 15 credit hours through her first two years of high school not one b not one studying every night getting up at 5am for track doing things after school over 150 hours of volunteering just in her freshman year alone helping kids with special needs doing cheerleading and then eventually going down to Orlando for a World's championship she is now in her second year on the student council exec board as the vice president she is now part of a very small group of athletes who are part of the student Leadership Council here to shape athletes of the future plenty of accolades so why am I here I'm here because of all the opportunities she should have this year she can't logistically do she can't get a simple parking spot at this school in this neighborhood no ride anything for her to be able to do everything that she can I've written or called I think most leaders here as well as Leaders at the village and I've maybe had a 20 hit rate in people that wanted to solve this so I'm asking all the adults in this room in leadership positions and those in the village can we all put aside the past can we put aside all the drama and can we remember who we all serve first our customer are our kids and are we doing everything possible for our kids to seek and get all the potential they have so Mr superintendent you said earlier it takes a village I heard you outside and heard Junior say that how is this Village going to help my daughter and others get past very simple logistical issues it's going to take 25 minutes to get to school with all the traffic and the mess out there in this District in this city we have to do better we need to do better and we can do better so my ask is for as much help from all of you as we can get so my daughter and many others can get every ounce of their potential that they're working for and deserve thank you thank you 6.1 superintendent report Dr Calgary good evening Gord Following last week's meeting and this week it's uh it's great to be here again so quickly give us a chance to continue our conversations pull up my comments here so as I shared last week it is an extremely busy time and a most important time as we get ready to launch the year we are grateful again to all of our leaders at the district level and in our schools as they prepare to launch the most important of days which is the arrival of our students and their educated and their teachers both into their schools and into their classrooms over the last week I've had a chance to visit a number of schools and it's truly been heartwarming to meet many many teachers as they set up their classrooms and really prepare for that first day of school which we know is one of those memorable moments in a child's life when you enter how often we see those pictures as they they percolate across our social media screens and first day of school for ex-student and to see those Traditions go on for years there is not nothing more exciting for a child as they enter last week we also welcomed all our school administrators and we really set the tone for the year building a future a bright future for our students and thinking about the ways in which we share values of Integrity collaboration dignity and courtesy our Educators spent a day engaging in a variety of learning practices in terms of everything from how do we strengthen our students special ed students experiences to equity priorities in terms of the Danielson model and so it was a day of learning for all our administrators this continues this week as we welcome Tamar our new teachers that we've been hiring our human resources department is working very fast and furious to fill all our spots and so that's been really exciting we will be entering a welcoming I think 76 I think the number is going up every day so 76 teachers and Educators and staff will be joining us for a new teacher orientation tomorrow and actually for the next three days I'm pretty sure they are engaging and learning and then last but not least next week we have our Institute days on Monday and Tuesday for all of our staff in preparation for first day of school August 16th so again August 16th looking forward to welcoming all uh for community members to know that the board and I will be visiting every school in those first three days and to during those three days we'll be visiting at arrival midday and dismissal so there will be a schedule shared with those schools and respective board members will be joining me as we welcome students this district has a long tradition of the superintendent Rising writing the school bus on the first day we are shifting that tradition to be one where we'll be greeting people at their various schools so just want to forecast a small change but it means that I'll be able to go to multiple schools and welcome multiple more students than before change is never easy and when I hear concerns raised I think it's a gift right I think that whether it's everything from procedural changes to ways in which we need to address how we roll out new systems pretty robust systems like PowerSchool I appreciate the feedback and the comments that are coming in to help us recognize where we are in this process sometimes it's we're not able to move as fast but we are doing everything and I know our team is working diligently in some instances with very little sleep as we migrate a pretty robust student information system and I want to invite a individual who's been really leading this tirelessly um Dr Kincaid to speak a little bit to some of the ways in which parents can get answers and ways in which we are problem solving as quickly as possible Dr Kincaid absolutely and there has been some challenges over the last week we definitely anticipated challenges as we roll out you know not only 17 000 PowerSchool student accounts but close to sixty thousand um parent Guardian emergency contacts sixty thousand it was almost sixty thousand yes so um PowerSchool has been busy and and so has our student information team um but part of the reason why we wanted to push out the accounts much earlier than um the start the immediate start of the school year was to be able to troubleshoot we wanted to make sure that while we understand that there are some challenges and we've been doing a lot of password resets today because what we were hearing through the ticketing system was that when parents were re trying to reset their password they weren't getting the return email which we um in communication with PowerSchool they have reset our hosting server so that should be much more fluid but we've been in the process of resetting those passwords the reason why is because we wanted to kind of cross that hurdle before we started releasing student information in the portal um so what we have coming up this week is on the ninth student schedules will be released so right now if you log into the portal if you log into the app you will not see a student schedule the team has also worked with multiple departments to have transportation information available on the 10th through the app and through the portal we were working today at the secondary level to have Locker information and Locker combinations in the portal that way the conversations can happen at home about remembering what your locker combination is we also did some work on having the students rights and responsibilities available at the secondary level through the app and the portal so the reason why we wanted to tackle and roll out the accounts first is because we didn't want any concern for when we started to get to there so over the next couple days I know the team is feverishly addressing the tickets and resetting passwords reaching out directly to parents and Guardians that are having trouble to make sure that everyone who needs to log in is able to do that in addition I know that Teresa and the communication team have been working on videos and communication to push out just to give that visual representation and really the last thing that we wanted to touch upon is registration so we have the ability once you're able to log in to the app to complete the returning student registration that does not impact your enrollment so if a parent does not have the opportunity to complete registration prior to any day this week or even the first day of school you will still see your students schedule in the app and on the portal on the 9th so we ask that you take you know time over the next few weeks and complete the returning student registration it will not impact the schedule you will still see the schedule appear in the app the purpose of that returning student registration is to get updated health history to access some recognition so for at the high school level College Board is in there things like that and then really to update your contacts your emergency contacts into reorder so there's a lot going to be available please do not be concerned if you log into the app and there is not much there because our release of information really in Earnest starts on the 9th of this week so the whole goal over the last week was just to make sure everyone could get into the portal and okay thank you very much and uh I'm sure board members may have some additional questions so thank you for bringing that and I want to just say again that the importance of communication and I uh take full responsibility for accelerating some of that communication and increasing some of that so tonight we send out a follow-up message that came under my name uh to the community at large to remind them of where we are in the process and the kinds of resources available to them and I want to thank everybody again for your feedback it always helps and it truly does support our ability to calibrate the the speed of which we're communicating um the last thing is that we've we part of my entry has included meeting with the board at its Retreat to think about the board priorities and goals for the year as part of kind of fine-tuning what among all the priorities in The Envision 308 that we wanted to focus on where will we put more of our Focus versus not right and so what's happened is last week we had a chance to hear what those priorities are you heard a presentation what I'll be doing with those is now will be you saw in your packet this evening a copy of what we call bore goals those will become part of a memo that I'll be preparing for the board to go over both how we'll take those board goals accelerate those and turn those into identifying smart goals to then further support how we're measuring what we identified in those goals is really we're headed to Chicago versus this place right so as a metaphor using that as a metaphor so those goals were really to identify the location to which we're going and what we are hoping to achieve this year or planning to achieve and then now I will be working with the team as part of my entry work to assess what's on the ground what are the factors that are influencing some of the operational challenges that we've experienced even something like parking and some of the financial stability that faces the district are all part of measuring how far and how fast we can go towards achieving those goals because I have to be able to work with a team and coordinate uh thoughtfully what is possible and how fast we can move towards those goals with the systems we have every day that I experience I'm learning something new about the district I'm some of those areas I'm working to accelerate those zones so we're reducing the amount of surprises that we face I might recognize that that is part of the work I am doing secondly really identifying staffing needs and reassigning and moving folks into positions where they can really support us in these kinds of projects one of the things that I was thrilled the board approved last week the identification of a news Chief Financial Officer Mr Rafael buffemi has accepted the position and will be joining us on September 1st with that I want to thank Dr pesky for his leadership in this regard he will be stepping into a role where he will be leading some extremely important work around our information systems and our technology department as the assistant superintendent of that so I want to thank him for his leadership to date and also that we are welcoming Mr obafemi who will be part of really working with the board and with the village I want to also thank the our presidents the Oswego president vice president I met with Dan DeSanto and our village president Ryan Kaufman to talk about some of the challenges and also the future of our collaboration and so we have a plan to ensure that we are working on that I know that this week there is a meeting to talk about some of the traffic concerns in the area I know that this Dan shared that Devoe Road will be opening up on August 12th so there's a that's a acceleration that's an opening and then the other area I can't remember the exact name of it will open up in November and so we also have some other concerns that we'll be working with the village as our partner and finding ways to come to Solutions because that is important to us one of the last things I'll share is that there is a plan and meeting with our new CFO he'd like to launch and this is something I've spoken with him about in September starting intergovernmental meetings so we bring Partners from all of our various governmental entities universities to the table for intergovernmental meeting to talk about priorities that are facing us that will go a long way in making sure that we are coordinating when there are things like construction on roads and roundabouts coming in and we can be at the table and really lead and facilitate that conversation because we are such a big governing area that concludes my comments thank you for your time thank you thank God I apologize we have a little surprise for the board that we want to share just a few uh notes uh part of my entry has been really to listen energize and learn from folks but you can press play yeah and so in these first couple days here are some moments uh the team a couple too many here we go this was our staffing fair that we had uh our hiring event [Music] s [Music] [Applause] foreign just basically there's going to be a back to school bash and more we're board members and we'll be uh serving lemonade to our staff and families so that's this Friday from one to five uh so we look forward to seeing the staff and your families so yeah so our staff and their families are invited out to the deck parking lot from one to five on Friday the weather knock on wood somewhere it looks wrong so we're going to have all sorts of fun out there we have lots of benefits information for our staff and their families to learn about all the great things that are part of working here we have some food trucks and music and kids games and all sorts of Community Partners from some of our public entities and private Partners across the district that'll be there with us and we look forward to the board members hosting a lemonade stand and the chance to meet and greet with our staff and all just lots of fun to really kind of energize as Dr Calgary alluded to we really started that energy at the administrative Retreat and we're just going to keep rolling with it and spreading that across the district so yes as a reminder to all staff members and your families we hope to see you on Friday from one to five thank you thank you did such a better job tonight um so I I hate to this is not a good transition uh but Saturday afternoon I went to the funeral of the um Oswego East student that we lost back in July just wanted to kind of report back that first of all um the funeral home was crowded uh he had a he had a pretty large extended family but also there were an awful lot of friends an awful lot of students that that did come in and pay tribute um it was it was very sad as you would expect for you know any time any time a child is lost and I I did speak to the family briefly and I know you had gone um you had gone to the wake prior to as well but there were a lot of positive things said about the student by so many different people EJ is our uh is his first name and one of the things I wanted to share I mean there was there were tears all around uh but but there were several people that came up and told stories about him and his personality and um from what I understand he uh kind of went to the beat of his own drum so this the story that kind of stuck with me was um and again they were the entire place was wearing red and white because these were the colors that he preferred and and to represent but aside from that uh his uncle came up and told a story about how at one point in time he had he had access to several tickets to the Bulls game so he invited family members and there were several of them going and so they all met at one central location everybody got out of their cars and everybody was wearing red and black because they were going to a Bulls game and those are bulls colors so they wanted to represent which was great and then EJ got out of the out of the car and he was wearing a Steph Curry jersey so he was you know he was sporting the blue and gold much to everyone else's Chagrin there were a lot of family pictures that were taken so he wanted to make sure he stood out in the front and you know was representing with his jersey and uh the Bulls happened to be playing Golden State that day that was the game that they were going to and a golden state kind of destroyed the Bulls and mostly because of Steph Curry and um his uncle said he just never let the family forget it so um yeah it seems like he was he was quite a kid thank you all right I apologize I'm gonna have a social studies teacher a moment I wasn't gonna say anything when I came in but um you know me the social studies guy um I always like to kind of you know remind us and when we come in here and we say hey serving all or parts of the communities of Aurora Joliet Montgomery Oswego Plainfield in Yorkville and I'm gonna say thank you to what you said about collaboration with those around us if you were to combine the total populations of those municipalities into one city that would be the 40th largest city in the United States if you were to add Naperville and Bolingbrook and that would be that were to be one city we would be the 20th in the top 20 largest cities in the United States I say this because I applaud what you said earlier because it doesn't feel like that when you look at the infrastructure around here and I you know I definitely listen to community members and what I really appreciate is the give and take I learned and I like to think or hope that we learn together and um because of the conversations and I really do think the community does listen to each other and because of the conversations that we have as a community um I I heard from one Community member who said they were driving down Route 47.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] in the community about our vision mission and core beliefs I'll just read through those quickly our vision as a corporation is for bcsc to be the choice to learn work and play our mission is we develop expert Learners by partnering with our community to invest in people we have six listed core beliefs we all can rise to the challenge of high expectations friends learning is most effective when we have Choice flexibility and see relevance we thrive in our physical social and psychological needs are met our community and School District are stronger when we partner with one another we flourish because of the diversity and variability in our community our democracy and Democratic institutions are strengthened by civic-minded citizens if you I'll just keep on going here that's okay we are starting this evenings meetings with a recognition we had two listed but uh one individual is not able to be here so we are going to go ahead and recognize the Columbus North girls 4 by 800 relay team now this goes back to last spring in the state championships in girls track at that time so if I could call up our Columbus North Representatives at this point good afternoon everybody I just want to say thank you for acknowledging our girls for their outstanding year um I'll be very short this year was a great year overall athletically for us and academically in the classroom we had a blue and white night on Saturday and I think one of the things that I spoke about to our blue and white all right Bulldogs Community is like how will our kids do inside of the classroom I think it's more important of the success that they have in the classroom than what they have on the field but these girls here they show both and I just want to show I just want to say how important it is for us to be acknowledged here because these girls do a great job throughout the year yeah on behalf of the coaching staff thank you again for recognizing us these four girls they actually they lost their freshman year of track to covid and they finished third second and first so they climbed their way up as they went and uh very deserving and um Lily Baker is on the far well my right uh Karis Glenn Jones Julia kiesler and Julie Klaus three of these are seniors are they're actually graduated now they're going all to Great Schools Lily is going to the University of Tennessee uh Julia is going to Boise State and Julie is attending Purdue so again our graduation there and then of course Karis is only Junior so we get her for maybe a few more of these recognitions so we just want to thank you again for recognizing us and giving us your support and I know these four girls are very excited to always represent our district and our in our town so thank you again congratulations [Laughter] all right thank you thank you back next year okay okay additionally we did have a state champion and girls tennis last year Catherine Wilson Catherine not able to be here tonight but congratulations to Catherine and her state championship as an individual in girls tennis last year thank you okay next we have school board member reports I'm going to go ahead and start with the public engagement subcommittee and then we'll go through the rest of the members Mr Stenner would you like to get Mr nallen would you like to get us started since Mr sinner is not here he is not um so I want to just fill you in on some of the the steps or the process that the committee went through because I think that gives you a glimpse of how we approach our work um so first we created actually we met with a good supportive contingent of public that we got a lot of input from from and working with them we created and brainstormed a list of ideas around improving public engagement then we identified various board actions things like receiving public input at board meetings adopting policy curriculum adoption expulsion hearings we tried to make as long a list as we could and we rated those board actions on a one to five scale that Mr Stenner provided us with that actually came from the EPA but it's the five different levels of how much public engagement there would be all the way well let me read them quickly informing was number one Consulting number two number three is involving number four is collaborating number five is empowering and we looked at the different board actions and rated them on what kind of public engagement seemed appropriate for them and then we began focusing on those board actions with higher levels of public engagement we were actually successful at tackling three of those we created a revised policy for board comments at board meetings we created a revised policy for adopting board policy and Mr Schultz is going to share those with you in just a minute and we created a recommendation around having special board meetings for the purpose of receiving input in an informal conversational way one of the things we heard from the representatives from the public that came was that it was very helpful for them to talk in an informal setting they one of the on our brainstorm list one of the complaints we heard regularly was that when you get up at a board meeting that it seems like you're just talking and nobody's listening or actually hearing what you're saying and so this was an informal way where they definitely hopefully felt felt heard so let me read the recommendation um so this is not a policy this is just a recommendation from our committee we recommend the full board or a subset of the board meet on specific topics of public interests for the purpose of public input these might be topics like major initiatives referendums curricula or policy proposals the board president could make a decision based on the topic and the levels of Engagement focusing on a specific topic would inform which Administration Representatives would attend the meeting these would be informal meetings not bound by Robert's Rule of Rules of Order and more conversational informat so we're hoping that is one way we can improve public engagement so this uh subcommittee and the public participants and so one of them was around the modification of bylaws and policies historically there's been low levels of transparency however with the boards on the most recent ones we've seen when transparency breathes more questions it makes the process a little bit more difficult but at the end you get a better result and so the new policy shows allows for three points of public engagement into the process and one of it is that they'll be posted publicly ahead of the first reading there'll be a way for digital capturing to capture feedback so for those that don't want to express it in person and then also you'll still have the first and second readings to express that feedback and the ability to watch the working sessions on policy so that was the recommendations out of on the policy changes that are presented in our packet and then additionally public participation which was required as well from Neola for legislative updates but also we added multiple areas condensing language clarifying areas where there could be differences of opinion and then also removing the tie to items on the agenda so that way if we have a situation where someone wishes to speak outside of the agenda that ability is there however at the same time the board understands that it has to do its business and so we did put the folks that are at the at the front of the list for those that are on the agenda items to make sure that those voices are heard on the actionable items that are being actioned by the board that night and so those were the two policies that were immediate that we knew needed correction to make sure that what we're presenting here as a a change of how we operate is also reflected in the policies in the bylaws so those are included in the boys packet and recommended I believe Dr Roberts to supersede the ones that are presented by Neola as part of the second reading today yeah so this is what if I could just comment on that very quickly to uh Mr Schultz's point in the board packet or were the notes from uh this uh subcommittee that led them to the work that you have in front of you that will be hopefully approved here uh not tonight but at a next meeting those two policies our zero one three one point one bylaws and policies in zero one six seven point three public participation at board meetings both of those were in that volume 35 number one packet you have because of the work that's being done and tying that back in conjunction with the work of the school board agenda subcommittee these now are the ones and those two were in your packet I think highlighted with all the changes and and that's the one we'll be looking at to improve I believe this is actually the third reading of of that packet of stuff and so I would recommend that we consider this a third reading and look to approve this at the next board meeting on August the 21st foreign do you have any other subcommittee I do not know reports no no Mr Grimes uh yeah so last week I had a meeting with the Indiana school boards Association where I served as the region 10 representative for the state and where we selected um this year's isba outstanding educator and outstanding board member from a rather extensive list of nominees also from the school Foundation several items of note just recently the school Foundation received a gift of fifteen thousand dollars from the Southeast Asian Network which will go into the foundation's unrestricted account and a lot of thanks to executive director Nicole Cunningham for all of her work putting together some silent auction baskets and so that that celebration with the Southeast Asian network was was last April and so the foundation looks forward to continued relationship with them the school Foundation was featured in this month's Columbus Living magazine a nice feature that highlighted you know so many and the things that the school Foundation does the impact of lightning grants and many other things that the foundation does that impacts student learning in a positive way just to plug for the foundation a reminder to any teachers who may be out there listening donors choose if any of you any teachers with wish lists projects that they would need some extra funding for donors choose a place donors to choose the place is the place to go and then for all community members any donations to the foundations programming scholarships so forth all things School Foundation can be found on bcsf stars.org thank you thank you Mr Gibbs Mr major do you have anything the next Health Trust meeting is the 23rd I think so we'll have something after that okay thank you Mr Bryant do you have anything tonight hey Pat do you have anything tonight no no no okay all right we'll go ahead and move on cabinet reports yes we have a couple of cabinet reports tonight and we'll start off with Dr Fleek and the teacher performance update this is a statutory requirement that we provide information to you prior to I believe September 15th Dr Blake and then we have to provide information to the state of Indiana so good evening I will be going a high level overview of our teacher performance our annual teacher evaluation results and please know that this includes teachers only this does not include classified staff and it does not include administrators and so when we do this I have Mr Williams here is a great resource and help to me in getting all of this data collected from all administrators and help to put in this type of presentation for you we look at it's kind of the same presentation we've done for several years again high level overview and this is showing you our evaluation averages over the four domains that we have our first domain is udl udl it consists of 50 of the overall evaluation PBIS is 15 of the overall evaluation and then you will see academic citizenship and academic success that was been using since Inception until last year and as custom State statutory requirements did shift and change and when the group met we Revisited and decided not academic citizenship correction academic citizenship is 10 academic success and learning outcomes we basically combined those this year and called on Student Success um because there were some changes at the no longer a school letter grades standardized test results no longer needed to be part of the evaluation of rubric could be but did not have to and also when we looked at two line items the wording was very close to where we saw teachers were getting the same score on both lines and we just combined them to make it better and then the day requirement used to have you had to be specific with learning outcomes and then that rule went away where you could use more of language that was consistent with your District so we used expert learner language so in looking at all of that the student success success component still comprises of elements of the academic success and learning outcomes of growth performance and achievement but we labeled it Student Success because it made it much easier than having all of those words on the score sheet for a teacher that was one thing Nick and I worked on for that and the rubric is called the teacher success rubric and a lot of that is dependent on the student's success so you will see averages 2013-14 was our first year we started using this tool and in this evaluation tool it was something that our district did create we took two years to create 2011 and 12 as a creation 12 and 13 was the pilot at three schools at that time Columbus East Northside Middle School and Smith Elementary and then 2013 was the rollout across the entire Corporation for everyone and so this is just letting you see the averages over time things have been pretty consistent if you see some drops or increases it was probably some change in statutory requirements during that time let's see the evaluation averages again this is the same look same slide telling you the same information one is the bar graph doesn't have all the numbers but this one does have all the numbers so it's basically the same information represented twice to you multiple means of representation um so in looking at this year's consistency from 22 23 you see the average of udl the component there and the udl is made up of five line items and the average was 3.62 the PBIS domain is made up of four line items for an average of 3.63 academic citizenship is made up of five line items for an average of 3.49 and then the academic and learning outcomes again we did not do we combined them together for the Student Success and that's four line items so and in the past just to let you know because I know we have some new board members the academic success the learning outcomes is again what we combine together for this and just a little bit of change in the line items the other report mandatory for us to do is present information based on universities and where the teachers come from and so this is basically any well the information we have on all of our teachers if there's a group of five or more obviously there are a lot of colleges on here teachers may not go to but if they didn't make a cohortify we didn't include the information on the screen for you to see and then typically every year in the past we've always highlighted the top three and it kind of gives you an idea of the top performing teachers and what universities they came from that in kind of looking at that as well you can look at the quantity and the counts it's different one thing that I found interesting and looking at all of this was that 61 percent of our teachers represented on this screen came from Indiana Public universities so the rest of them either come from out of state out of country private universities that's generated here so that was something in looking at all of that information of what it is and we do have some universities that will reach out to us throughout the year and ask us for the overall evaluation averages and how they compare to others so I just provide this with them so they can look at the data the years of experience if you're looking at the overall average here zero to four years 255 teachers which makes up 33 percent of our teaching staff the overall average was that was a 3.31 teachers with years five to nine and overall average of 3.59 that's for 189 teachers which is about 24 percent of our teaching staff years 10 through 19 184 3.62 again about 24 of our teaching staff 20 to 29 105 the average of 3.62 and 30 plus 44 of them in there please keep staying with us here uh 3.62 the overall average so I know it's something that we always talk about in cabinet the the average years of experience with our teachers and just know that this is bcsc years of experience so you could have somebody on the zero to four line that may have come to us with 20 years of experience in teaching but we just look out for the consistent sake of the bcsc years of experience that they have So currently this is last year's teaching staff under 10 years of experience 57 of our teachers have less than 10 10 years of bcsc experience and so just some things here oh I know one thing I was supposed to that was asked of me I want to point out in looking at um these averages here the 3.62 all teachers are rated on those domains and the the areas they are either teachers can get a one two three or four and one is ineffective on a line item and two is needs an improvement a three is effective and a four is highly effective so all line items are scored either the one two three four that is a statutory requirement of those four headings that we are to submit for and in the end it all averages to the end to either be highly effective effective needs Improvement or ineffective overall rating for teachers and looking at changes for this year every summer the evaluation oversight committee that's made up of Administrators as well as cea members we get together we review the year prior any things that we're hearing any inconsistencies any strengths any celebrations and then we look at legislative changes to see if our plan needs to be updated because our plan needs to be submitted to the Department of Ed Again by September 15th so we did meet twice this summer because of some legislative changes and updated some language still the law is every teacher needs to be evaluated annually and they had to receive one of the four categories highly effective effective needs Improvement or ineffective but they're allowing more flexibility there used to be the minimum at least two evaluations a year and now they're saying that does not need to need to necessarily take place so we are exercising that flexibility and we came to an agreement if a teacher is with us and in the past three years they've received two highly effective ratings then they have the opportunity to go to a minimum of one observation a year and then if someone doesn't have that or they're new teachers or they have less than three years or less with us they're still going to get the minimum of two observations so an administrator can always go above and beyond and please know that only administrators can evaluate teachers you have to be on administrator contract to be able to evaluate teachers and so then at the end some other changes that we made besides going to minimum of one observation for those that qualify is we added we changed all the legislative language in there that needed to be updated as well as during the summit of time the summative is when the administrator meets with the teacher at the end of the year to go line by line look at evidence do an overall rating that if a teacher leaves there at the end and thinks I really think I have the evidence to support me moving up and if they believe that evidence in a couple line items would change their overall rating they have three days to come back and present that information for the administrator to be to consider it doesn't mean it'll change but at least they can have a follow-up conversation and make sure they're on the same page with that information so I feel like we're good to go with this year we are going to have training for the administrators tomorrow we have two sessions Zoom sessions where all administrators can come cea worked with us and we'll be sharing the presentation with them so they can share it with their members as well as their ARS in each of the buildings so looking kind of looking forward to it this is a little bit of a change for us than the past and we will take this year to reevaluate our rubric and our system to see if there are any changes with the flexibility of the law that we still want to maximize so that is what's new for this year I know I talked really fast but you guys know that about me so at this point what questions do you have remaining so I mean looking at the academic results pushed out by the Indiana Department of Education right if I look at 2014 if you can go back to this the bar chart 2014 ISTEP plus our combination of proficiencies on math and English was somewhere around the mid 70s at this point in Spring of 2023 the most recent it was about 31 I believe pre-covered we were around 40 percent so I'm trying to put a a mental barometer around how our students success is trending up relatively if you kind of look at academic outside of the little Peak there where our published data is dramatically declining trying to figure out what's the measurements and outcomes inside these scores that's not kind of mashing what's being reported out by the state and I think the one thing that you'll always hear is our students are more than a test score and our teachers are as well right so we look at the the whole year we look at multiple other assessments and achievement scores that students have outside of the typical iLearn scores and some other things to note with especially iLearn is that not all contents are assessed that all of our content teachers even teach so there are certain things it's usually English language arts math science High School you add the biology aspect in there but not all contents are established there but what I can tell you is since 2014 how many times the test has changed you did recognize that we went from isip to iLearn but each time it does seem like the cutoff scores continue to change and we went to the Adaptive testing and then like you mentioned with coven so then now the state has even gone to the hold harmless with letter grades so not holding schools accountable with those so now they're having a conversation about they're going to change I learn again and I think they're reviewing that now and I don't know I think the new assessment may start in 2025.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
with liberty and justice for all right I'm going to call the meeting to order and 6 32. hey um are there any modifications to the agenda yeah yes we have two of them the first one uh is the recommendation to approve the eject permit for Cheyenne Dinsmore it is to teach at a rate of twenty dollars per hour for 7.6 hours a day not per week and then the second recommendation is to prove an out-of-state field trip request for Chris Townsend to attend solar automation days open house and in August 9th and 10.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
yeah I'm around if needed so sometimes I think in the winter the bus can come a little bit earlier than it comes in the spring season so we're able to customize the based on whether the student athletes need to go home all right anything else in this section anything else overall popped up as we were going through it last call for any other topics or something that wasn't mentioned on here that you have questions about kind of the last call before I ask you to take action on it I think this is a really great way of putting things down for us to be able to and I really like the fact that you put the staff member uh his name thank you on there so a little different take out of this yeah so very good I really appreciate that I'll take the Kudos you know okay I can get it right okay or pass it on yeah and and you'll get it throughout the year in our update document you know in in that document but that's really more of a like an internal where we're kind of just scripting what we're working on I think this makes it better for both you and the public to know at least as we start the year who's who's responsible for what I think this document shows that there has been a lot of hard work put in over the course of the summer about the entire team which is very much appreciated really looking forward to this school year thank you I've been working hard yeah it's almost honest okay item number five the consent agenda before we vote on the consent agenda is there any item on the consent agenda that any board member would like to pull out for further discussion or consideration hearing none I need a motion from the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes a Personnel report appointment certified contract adjustment certified appointment classified transfer position classified B Personnel report resignation certified retirement classified resignation classified and C District 99 strategic roadmap for the 2023-2024 school year so moved second Terry moved Chris second aye Mr s hi Ken Dawson aye and Dan Ritter aye motion carries item number six Julie do you have any uh visitors okay and then item number seven uh can I get a motion to adjourn so moved second it is Chris thank you Chris all in favor aye motion carries we are adjourned thank you thank you thank you everybody got you a quick one
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above