feet to set back eight to Fifteen yes and that's how they came up with the with the the body lot because everybody's like yeah that's fine and it's not really fine because there's not enough room well I think I I think sorry to interrupt you but I I was looking at the bylaws and I think the 8 and 15 is actually a minimum and maximum it's yeah you don't want it to be too far set back you just said if you go to like any successful downtown there's not a lot of feet like look at like Wellesley downtown like there's not a lot of Sorrow because enough for like the tables I don't mind this all right so show show the pictures of um Falmouth would you because I was trying to figure out today that's Plymouth actually um and that might be a yeah keep going back more more sorry that's that's Falmouth and the next one back the first one that one is Falmouth okay I've walked out do you think what do you think that is because that looks to me like it's it's at least 15.
that takes time we have to sit down with our Pre-K teachers all the way through our 12th grade teachers in a really Define mine what what is a communicator an excellent Communicator at a Pre-K level Kayla at a grade one level so you can imagine how one this is going to take it's a lot of work that needs to be done another example in instructional strategies I'll just pick one here I'm having rigorous and aligned standard-based curriculum directly connected to the portrait of the graduate which has been designed and implemented that's a lot of work while that's working here one that's going to take a couple of years to finish that up but as the time goes on Dr Mann will be reporting out on the Strategic plan often in sharing and bringing up teachers and our instruction coaches to talk about what curriculum is being uh or presented at a particular similarly in integrative technology the majority of professional learning are just picking the one in the middle there will have digital tools for learning so when we're doing PD with our staff whether it's our parent Educators or even our custodians but of course our faculty we're going to make sure we're teaching them and incorporating tools of Technology tools and then in supporting continuous Improvement there are a number of items of items in there uh that we're going to be working on and continuing to improve for example efficient well-maintained facilities user-friendly Communications for an example we're going to be updating our website obviously board policies that support teaching and learning so while I didn't want to read every single one of those I wanted to just point those out the other piece to that is if you go back to the left it says initiatives and in year one that's the district implementation all the details will be count Ed accountable we'll be able to link and we'll present that at a future meeting for you but it was important to bring this forward what I'd like for the board to be accepting of is that every couple of meetings we support and how we're doing against the Strategic strategic do and I'm thinking and timing wise with Candlewood Lake opening in a couple of weeks maybe the candidate like update can come off the end of the meeting and we could put maybe a standing strategic Plan update at the end of the not maybe not every meeting but so that's the first part and if you have any questions or talk uh last meeting about special right director kind of ways so we might consider having a slot on the agenda that you alternate around the next one we have a special everybody in the community and we can get unless they have to up to date on both of us I appreciate that I think that would make sense he's actually on the agenda for his second update with us all right so continuing on my report I want to turn it over to Dr Mann just to give a brief update she's got a handout for the board on new teacher orientation thank you um so I know that we're also gonna about to go into consent agenda um but I wanted to take a couple minutes um from Dr gorilla's superintendents report to just highlight how excited we are um to not only kick off convocation and share uh the one pager on the Strategic plan and all the work that we've done throughout the Summer with the entire faculty but first but the beginning of that week meet with our new teachers and about there'll be about dozens maybe 15 people who are participating in our new teacher orientation and that will start on Monday August 28th and it'll run for two days 28th and 29th before rolling right into our welcome back and convocation the 30th through the first so what I've handed out to you is the correspondence that our current hires about eight or nine of them at this point received yesterday from my office so it's just a welcome letter and we're excited to welcome them as members of our Brookfield best community and it just gives them the outline of the day so you can kind of see what the plan is for those two days one of the things that's important to me and I you know inherited a really nice strong new teacher orientation but it was really important for me to make sure that each of the teachers saw saw the um thank you thank you I saw all of the as many district leaders as possible so each of our principals is involved but many of our assistant principals um the instructional coaches will be there and so this is not only a kind of an onboarding and logistical piece of their experience but it's also the beginning of really welcoming them and building enthusiasm one of the things you're going to hear from us from both Dr Brill and for me this year is kind of grounded in Purpose with being inspired by vision and that's really the you know kicking off the theme of this this year's new teacher orientation so you can just have a look at the two days um you know as I said there's there's some more kind of perfunctory things making sure they get their badges making sure they get their login information but also really thinking about you know their well-being and and their understanding um we're going to be doing some various activities you know thinking about their milestones and having them kind of set their personal and professional goals beginning to think about that and so I'm really excited about meeting with our new teachers and again welcoming nice way to ease into the entire week of a celebration of coming back to school anyone has any questions about it report back on this feeling it's going to be at TSS I'd rather have everybody get in yeah that was one of the things we were hoping for that it would be an absolute clean and perfect condition without a lot of workers around where we can act can't be like the one last message a tradition may happen so continuing on my report just an update on kindergarten enrollment we are at 159 115 kindergarten last month we were at 156 so we're really holding nicely in our 17 to 20 range with um 20 or 19 kids or 21 kids in class depending on the classes are a share here really just thrilled that Dr pepsoski and Mr Roland could work together on they're both said this at the Personnel negotiations committee the other night they're really it's nice to be around them have Dr Mann service with me and haven't been a scheduler myself having people who really understand schedules and student needs and being able to look at that that whole Matrix and put things together um we're taking a look uh Dave is really taking a look at his regular para Educators in terms of the 4.5 pair Educators we invested in as a board a year ago really I had that support for the kindergarten students in kindergarten classrooms but it was a half day and so what he's doing with Mr Roland in special education is looking at all of our Paris schedules looking at um I find students in the classes where they need to receive their service but also looking at efficiencies in those schedules and there may be a way they're still working on it where we can actually have another adult almost all day for the kindergarten classrooms and we know how important that is even if a student is an identified um they're one they're very little school is very new to them many of them and not um and especially give the circumstances of the last few years our younger children are coming in frankly more and more effective and so there's a look there's a lot of support that's needed there and an extra pair of hands is great for our teachers as well so we're really excited about that thank you to gentlemen for working on that coming up coming up now so I wanted to share that but enrollment wise the eight sections looks like it's technology just two quick announcements and this will be in the newsletter the broadcast that goes out tomorrow um we are working on getting an upgrade scheduled for the district website um Conklin um still working on whether we stay with our current vendor or given their schedule and their opportunity or do we move to different budget to update our website that will happen this year this year likely uh uh mid to late fall when we started that we also are getting a new phone system this correlates with the new school but also the entire district is getting a brand new phone system which includes new phones and all that that's been budgeted in it's important for everybody to know that while the main phone numbers will be the same for the schools the extensions will change and so we'll publish all of that Candlewood Lake school's main number is the old huckleberry now it's time for summer school I'd like to actually turn it over to Dr brutal we had a great summer schools program as Dr Moon comes up just a little bit of History our summer school program really was re uh was invigorated this this is our third summer of having summer school and we've used our passer funds for that as we develop the budget going forward this fall for next year we will have to think about how we're going to one of those items that rolls into the budget but I don't want to talk about that I want to talk about the celebration of Summer School this year and here's doctor thank you Dr Burrell good evening everyone happy August I am very excited to be here to present um what's been going on out of Brookfield this summer so we had two sites this summer our k-4 students were at Center some of them were in our step adventure program and others were in the esy program at Whiskey near the same structure was done except just note that stem adventure for middle school was Middle School five through eight Mr Roland will speak about esy in a little bit but I am here really to talk about our saying over the past three years I've worked with Mr runda Mrs Kayla Denault was the site director of whiskey near and this year Mrs Alyssa Larson was our site director at center for the first time so the four of us really worked together to um do a really I think special program for students so not only were students working on some reading and writing skills and math skills we were able to provide a lot of enrichment through this stem program as well pictures of our students hard at work they enjoyed it feedback was amazing at Center we had 96 students participate in grades K through four at Whiskey near we had 26 students participate um granted smaller number of grades there versus where it was our next year we hope if this program is able to continue with your support we hope K5 will be housed at Candlewood Lake and more students will be able to participate so just some details like I said at Center there were 96 students that participated we had nine certified staff members the other amazing thing about this program is our very own high school students with the help of Mr belanda's selection were our Tas so students that were in the future teachers of America Club National Honor Society anybody really interested in maybe pursuing a career in education were able to apply to be a teacher's assistant and we put them to work they were working with small groups of students they helped lesson planning and preparing they ran our arrival and dismissals seamlessly at CES they used to pick my kids so to get some of our kindergarten and first grade students ready our parents are ready to use it again would like as well so we really took advantage of stem Adventure this summer uh with skinnier like I said there were 26 students six certified staff members um were in the program as well as four High School Tas we used at both sites the stem modules from the national inventors Hall of Fame which provides all-in-one stem modules everything you could possibly need the curriculum the materials um new this year was online learning even to help students really engage with different stem topics one of the modules for our I think our first grade through third grade students were that robotics so they got to take care build take care and code a little pet dog that they then got to take home and it was absolutely absolutely amazing um and then of course in addition we had small group lessons in literacy and math so again these classes had 10 to 12 students we like to keep the ratio small so it was really to adults one certified teacher and one ta with those to 12 students this July there were 14 days of instruction we ran the program Monday through Thursday and for three hours each day something I'd like us to explore potentially for next year would be the transportation issue busing was not provided for students um in the stem adventure program and it limited the number of students that were able to participate as well as students that were invited couldn't necessarily take advantage of that because of the transportation so that's something that I'd like to take a look at for next year as well and of course more pictures they got into it these kids were building them and not only were they focused on stem they were focused on teamwork collaboration um really big problem solving what to do when you disagreed with someone else's opinion how to navigate all those interpersonal skills that um tie in with the Brookfield sees and feedback from families was wonderful um and I'll share this presentation with all of you season actually take a look at the pictures a little bit more and see some of the feedback too and we were able to do it because of you so thank you for your continued support and um can't wait to try this again make sure so I also just want to add that um doctor and I talked about when we were organizing this she was organized in this this spring I asked her if because we had so many students high school students asking to be Tas or if you saw one up there a couple of them were volunteering so they chose not to be paid because they wanted to use this time for volunteer hours towards their graduation um but I asked her to inspire them to help with word of the week and so the word of the week program has been compiled as a collaborative effort between the Tas and some of the teachers Dr rubel and Lisa Bramley who is phenomenally together all of our pictures and so the world where are the week is going to come out in the next couple weeks and summer but also I look forward to what we're doing with our strategic plan and really is that again grounded in her business inspired by Vision himself and the faculty and students had a lot of fun they were running around trying to take pictures and get words and the students the K4 students actually got involved in suggested Words which was so I know that it's a really popular program with K4 but it didn't look like there was a lot five through eight is that just like a lower interest with that age group or did we try to keep the groups a little bit smaller at five threes and some of the targeted needs are a little bit more intense than Q through four um once invitations go out a second round of invitation has come out a lot of the initial limitations are based on under your assessment so sometimes we don't get that data as early as we would like and at that point parents have already made plans for camps or Vacations so that kind of interferes a little bit much appreciated a successful program once again and we'll see Danielle at the end of the meeting she's put the slides together for our Candlewood Lake updates um the other shout out and kind of informational piece on when we talk about our future teachers teachers of America or students interested in Oklahoma school and community service hours um Dr pepsowski and the team are always interested in students who want to volunteer at the elementary school and especially if they want to help when they're out of school at 2 45 and then come over to the elementary school and help out whether that's classes helping with dismissal whatever it might be just contact Dr rudel or Mrs Gordon with the assistant principals of the Upper House in the lower house and we can arrange that so we already have some of that arranged maybe kids really um it's just nice to see the the entire team and the community coming together and empowering students so much it's really exciting okay I promise I only have a couple more to get get through here there's just so much on so much so much so that was summer school oh so just to go a little further on the library book limitation protocol so the the board as you may recall directed me to address a library book limitation and making sure parents were aware of the policy and their rights and making sure we were paying close attention to to them we have an abundance of care to be very candid in good faith working with the district leadership team which includes our principles is to ensure that was unanimous coming out of our meeting after the July 19th meeting that we would move forward with on the demographic information in the portal asking the question because we don't want any students to fall through the cracks where their parents might be concerned and want to make sure that we know they will be likely be requesting a book limitation so that was the the basis of the decision it was out of care for our students and alignment um I won't bring the concern of Mrs Carr because we had a great conversation about it and I always respect her input to the team on the next meeting and see if that is something we want to keep as a required field or an optional field and we'll have that conversation certainly didn't fall into fears tonight so I appreciate that the other piece that sent too is the very simple piece of the protocol which actually Mrs card to talk about which is very nice and easy for parents principles with their newsletters next week we'll have this in there they'll have a list of the library media Specialists with their emails and so if a parent has a concern with a particular author or particular book titles they can email the librarian and away we go the librarian will have that on file and we'll know not to check that check that out if a parent happened to check no in the portal that they aren't going to contact the library that's okay because if you send an email to the librarian and say I don't want my child to read this book that's obviously going to be honored and will experience or caring individuals and they are they are on top of it and don't so in all honesty it came out of a place of goodness and care and that's all I can say and we will continue monitoring and enhancing and Improvement and then the last one for me on at least for now on certain of course just a brief piece on Candlewood Lake I think it's really important to just make a firm safe in here that all indications from Ong our contractor are full steam ahead they have increased their workers their all indications are we are set to open up on September 5th albeit between now and September 5th if there's going to continue to be um a anticipation and a rising action as we comes Crescendo into the morning of September 5th Hopefully Dr Mann and I are riding some buses we'd like at least around that did last year so we might have to do that um in the morning with the elementary kids but um it's important to know that the the workers have increased substantially in the last week Mr Belden I know I think he he might have lunch out there or something I don't know you stop over there quite a bit Mr Golden but I spent a great deal of time with the team over there walking through the school that Dr pepsaski and I are closer than we ever thought we would be with the work we're doing this summer and uh in all honesty I'm very confident OMG is confident our leaders of the NBC are confident but in all honesty um I empathize with someone who might have some thoughts to say I drove by and it looks really commodity like I don't see a parking lot yet how are you going to get into the school right now the site work is the biggest challenge it's been what happened actually was what's called unsuitable soil not unsuitable in any kind of a toxic way unsuitable in the sense that it was soft developers of the the property as it was owned before it was even Huckleberry and then when it was Huckleberry a lot of stumps and other things were varied there so when they dug out and tried to get ready to pack the soil it was way too soft almost like a trampoline well that had to be dug down deeper than anticipated which caused the delay and then harder soil with more gravel and so forth had to be put on as a replacement but that's all being rectified for catching up Gerbers the contractor who's doing the excavation in the parking lot and everything and they've been unbelievable they're outperforming expectations working really hard and I anticipate while we'll have a temporary parking lot as part of the plan um is it near Candlewood Lake Road the south parking lot at least prepared enough to to have our 100 parking spaces that we need there whether it's the perfect finish on August 30th for our teachers to come in that's the remains to be seen but we've been surprised the last couple of days is some improvement so anyway I'm going on longer than I I wanted to we'll talk about it later but we're really excited and we're ready to go for September 5th and that's all I have this problem any questions from the board for Dr William oh one more one more Candlewood Lake I don't want to forget Candlewood Lake Road so everybody knows the widening of the road the um the paving is going to uh packed it down they cut it out they now need to pave and that is going to happen I believe Tuesday August 22nd Which is less than a week away and come around the corner and they'll start going in what's in that construction entrance that's called the South driveway they'll start Paving up in there on that same day standing right now 27 yeah that's a Tuesday that's Tuesday you got it next Tuesday so yeah that's it that's good all right here you know further questions uh next up is or special education update and his bill comes forward just a reminder that as Mr Golden was alluding to earlier Mr Roland and Dr Mann most months are going to rotate on a report so we'll get them in front of the board more for some updated reports in addition to that this is actually what Mr Roland asked for in the summer so you got your wish girl you're going to be presenting I do this is the this is the sequel I spoke about um good evening members of the board thank you for the opportunity to come to you uh last time I couldn't hear I was three weeks in now I am six weeks in um my slideshow is uh less than it was last time but I would like to have the opportunity to both reflect on uh some good things that we've completed and some plans that are moving ahead um the first thing I'd like to speak about is this special education strategic plan committee and I'm so pleased that Dr Burrell spoke about the district strategic plan this evening because again as I as I've spoken about before both in to you as the board and also individually we want to align our special education plan with the district strategic plan customizing it for special education so the opportunity tonight to speak about that we are still in the planning stages I have been encouraged by parents reaching out to me to to want to be on it but I would also encourage other parents if you have it uh to please give me a call or email me I'd also like to engage members of the board our teachers our parents our related services staff and all Community stakeholders to be part of this decision-making process and this creation of a unique uh strategic plan focused on special education but aligned with our district strategic plan um we are in the plane space ages I'm looking forward to having a kickoff meeting in September as a side note to that what I've started doing on a monthly basis is also doing office hours and that's where I I did it during the day this time and I'm gonna give me feedback from parents do it for different hours evening or afternoon for them to be able to just come and talk ask questions and have access and opportunity in addition to the meetings that I've had with parents both individually and in groups also just as a as an update for you on the correct specialized program review Dr Burrell proposed this last fall in addition to the district-wide special educational review this is focusing on our specialized programs our ELC our life skills uh and those pieces in addition to what our processes are when we're looking at out of District placements it's not necessarily a review of the out of placement specifically it's more how we operate and how our decisions are put into process in terms of what have we done to move that forward and and the necessities of them and in addition how they might be students returning from out of this Replacements and how we we approach that uh and I've been in uh frequent contact with Dr corvo Who I know spoke before my arrival here on the district program review but she will be back in the November board meeting to speak about the specialized program review and that is in process um I've reached out to the parents that are involved in the the interviews and I've reached out to the Atticus Replacements many of whom I've worked with in other capacities so I'm very encouraged by both uh our are moving forward with the Strategic plan committee and with our specialized program review and I'd like to just close with sort of an addendum and I'd like to give a acknowledgment to Dr rudel Who without her help and support during esy with her stem Adventure team we collaborated so well and it was such a welcoming for me in terms of getting to know the district and getting to know parents that we were sharing the space both in center and the other site at Western Air for our older students um just a sincere thanks to Dr brutal and her team but also to the teachers the Paris the related services staff the families whom I met in both pick up and drop off uh that allowed and welcomed me and allowed me to reach out to them and connect and I think that's that's crucial in in our first month or two of my being the director is relationships are being established and communication is opening and we're having good solid discussions about what concerns are and how we can support our students in the classroom both at an early age and all through high school and up through adulthood and what we can do as a school district to help that uh in terms of rosters between the two I didn't break it down by program but we had about 132 students on our rosters for both sites and again as you know esy is to prevent regression over the summer from the end of the school year to the beginning of the next school year it's a decision made during a PPT meeting where parents have a voice in what their children would need during the summer and whether or not extended school year is appropriate for those that were part of it I know that they had a great time and again having the stem Adventure team in the same building with us was such a great demonstration of how general education and special education just collaborate and be together I picked out a couple photos thanks Dr rodel for adding a couple for me but this was kind of uh the first and last which is kind of the last day when we were kind of getting ready to say goodbye for the summer and this these are our students at play having done a whole lot of hard work in the esy program and worked on their goals and worked on their objectives we were so happy to see them coming in eager to come to school and also being part of a group and learning how to work with others in a just a nice community of Learners teachers and support staff those are my two slides so I thank you for that I'm also eager to take any questions you might have um and this is the first ad as you know of many updates the next time I hope to expand on the Strategic plan committee and talk about openings of school and uh just different processes that we're looking at examining and how we're collaborating with the principles in each building a question thank you Bill thank you thank you thank you Bill um let me remiss if we didn't thank our special education secretary uh Karen Olsen and also with civio in the office but Karen uh really with Taryn Argenta being new and Bill being new she made sure in the month of June that we were really set and prepared and organized and communicative with our families so I know Bill appreciate me mentioning that and uh the great great summer in Africa all right so we're going to shift gears into our subcommittee reports and we'll start with policies okay we met on Wednesday July 19th um we really had two main items to focus on in that meeting we talked about policy 6162.51 which is a survey of students and we had spent several meetings discussing the survey policy prior to this meeting and then found out that there was a brand new updated policy from Cape dealing with surveys for students so the July 19th meeting was really spent reviewing cape's new recommended policy which is much more streamlined very um clear much easier to understand and just very direct so we reviewed the updated policy from cave and had some questions and thoughts about again going back to our previous discussions about opting in versus opting out of surveys so we had agreed to table our discussion until this month so that our full subcommittee could be there and weigh in on the discussion and also that would give us an opportunity to get some input from our board attorney so we continue those discussions in our meeting tonight actually uh then we also talked about policy 6563 School library media and a policy change request that was that was children's puzzle via a petition so um part of their request in the petition was had to do with acquisition criteria and acceptably use policy so what we decided to do was again we had a lengthy discussion but decided to table any decision until this month's meeting or Beyond so that we could have some time to review the acquisition criteria and also talk to our library media Specialists about how they go through the library book selection process we also wanted to spend more time reviewing the district's acceptable use policy before we made any decisions so again at con that discussion was continued in tonight's meeting um and then we just had some you know a brief discussion about future communications to parents and staff regarding Candlewood Lake Elementary School thank you are there any questions for Debbie so did you finish on either of the policies that are the table in June July tonight or there's Contin [Music] broker from the high school came to our meeting tonight with Mr belanda but we asked we gave her an assignment and asked her to give us some input on some additional information that we're looking for no thank you any questions uh Joy isn't here it's all through the facilities update um and I'm pretty much just going to go through the minutes that you all received but the we met on July 19th committee um impact committee meeting we had the on the draft building condition study for BHS and Winston very expensive study it was an existing and they reported in general that the two buildings are uh are in good shape generally but there are projects that need to get done and more projects at the high school than at the middle school and we kind of went through their identified areas but roofs windows piping are some of the most urgent needs what they identify they said they don't all have to be done in a five to ten year plan and so one of the assignments that we left that meeting with was to turn their recommendations into an actionable uh plan that we will present to the Capital Community present to the capital committee when that committee reconvenes what should be happening I hope soon uh uh the uh but if I if I get the high the high level numbers it was and the 12 million at the high school over a 10-year period and five to six million in the Middle School Ken you're not in your neck right right a lot of sections of the roof needed to have a regular replacement skid we'll talk a little bit about the guidance roof in a moment because that's the that's the current project um it's a good report we had a good discussion with them but there's more to come on that that front um the two big items that we have requested Capital uh in in the spring for or additional capital and spring the maintenance vehicle has been completed with the utility body and the liftgate so that's that project is complete now and guidance from roof project was going to take place in early September and I think it's the week of Labor Day week is when they start and that was driven entirely entire so that is uh that's going to be done they also reported it should not be a disruption for the students it's a group of work being done on the roof it's not going to be um Capital project update the HVAC project at the high school nearly complete they're working on the final punch list so that's been a big project that is we've talked about every month there are some HVAC units that were not part of that original rollout and we'll be part of the rollout on the building conditions study over over the next five to ten years room the drywall at that time was complete and it's scheduled to be completed mid-august has been getting regular reports since then it's in really it's really progressing for completion and that includes outside accessible restrooms which was a real important addition to our uh our high school field setup the turf field project will be completed in its entirety by and in October early November but it comes in two phases one is the field itself which is recarponing the main football field action is going to get done in high early by early September but and what happens after that is that is the track project around the field which will be paved soon soon after the football field has done and uh and then it has to have the rubberized surface on the top they take some time to cure and set so those will will have access to the field um our athletic directors working to make sure that we have as much access to the field for football games for example well yes and Bob Mr Baldwin is in uh believe and I don't know if Mr belan could not his head for me in the communication I think just recently may have gone out today about Athletics and it's not you know it's we call it the athletic field as a reminder for everybody because all the sports play on that field um and so when we think about football there's the one game a week and then but um peers at this moment we anticipate that less games will be missed that we originally thought given the process that you were just describing Bob um and working with the vendor and the athletic director and most people in public don't know is this is a while it affects the school system it is a Parks and Rec project run by Parks Iraq with support from the municipal building committee the Board of Education and situation Act project we have we have cooperation in class and the the key time moment is about a two-week period when they have to lay that rubberized surface yeah you can't be walking across it in those and even like even a ball can't fall on it yeah there's a two-week period between home games that we could utilize uh do that but it's all dependent on the weather and that's that's always the hard thing about outside projects so um security projects we got an update on those those are all proceeding very well and many of them completed most particularly in the Intruder proof class at both West Bay Area and high school is complete right so we've got the entire first floor and it's already built into clas so um the media center at the high school is a challenge because the cost came in a lot higher than expected to a contractor and the engineer to see if we can get it closer to the approved budget and that's still worked up that's going on it might include some value engineering because we'll come back too many times asking for more questions uh the third one is equity and inclusion okay um I'll go over a little bit and then I'll hand you over to maybe Dr Mann when we get to the agenda item to get into it a little deeper but we met last because that was last two weeks ago two weeks ago on on first we had met in April Dr Burrell wasn't able to attend that but we had met in April with Dr Mann and Miss Abrego who will be seeing a bit later um this is something that's been ongoing we started this Committee in like the summer 2020 into the fall sort of in reaction to some things that were happening nationally and we had a meeting with some alumni that came just to give the background had some strong opinions and things to say about the districts that we felt it was important to look at it and look at the district and look that things are Equitable for every student in the district so we formed this committee and I think as we learned through our meetings and through reports to the board we've sort of bit off a little more than we it was um we had a little lost in the process and the data and the direction of the committee got muddy at times and not to mention conflicting schedules it was a very big committee we had students we had community members staff hard to keep everyone on task and we had a lot of you know what problem are we trying to solve and just people have different ideas um on the committee on the board about what we should be doing so Dr Mann when she came in wonderfully who had worked on this in her previous District had suggested dissolving the official subcommittee of the board and bringing it down to more of a district level committee so she and Dr Burl I'm sure she could talk of it when we get to the motion part or the agenda item about some ideas that they are already working on and like the Strategic plan the special interview things that are already ongoing and some other things to sort of implement the possibility of making climate committees at each School an advisory Council to the superintendent with parents educators students right speaks educator advisory counseling and super redundant so these are just some ideas that speak on later so that's basically we had that discussion we made the motion to bring it to the full board to go ahead and dissolve the official subcommittee of the board and leave it leave at a strict level Dr Mann and so we'll talk more about it in a couple months right that's it for uh subcommittee reports next up is consent agenda I would move that the board approved the address on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations transfers and degree changes the second oh second um okay smooth and seconded uh Dr Berlin any comments on a lot of personnel moves I have a lot to say but I'm going to defer to Dr Mann who is uh in charge of working with HR and hiring this summer all right so thank you very much um so everyone as you can see has been very busy in the HR department and the building leadership level this is you know summertime is the busiest time in terms of hiring and making sure everybody is in the right seat on the bus um so I do want to extend a thank you to the members of my staff and human resources and the benefits Department they've done a lot of work processing all the paperwork getting at people on board I also want to extend a huge thank you to our principals and the teams that they put together you know it's integral to the hiring process at the building level to make sure that we have all of our colleagues and community members involved in the process and so they put together spectacular teams of the right teachers and support staff to be a member of these hiring teams and of course those people who you know our invested in our district give up time in their summer to come in and participate in these high committee so I really really appreciate it and I want to say thank you to ether um so you'll see that we have a few of the most recently new newly hired um this isn't a comprehensive list of people who will be at the August 28th and 29th but these are many of them we also have some list of resignations and I wanted to kind of just highlight that in terms of I'm not sure if anybody saw the article over the weekend I believe it was August 11th by Ken Dixon of the Connecticut Insider that's because referenced the teacher the difficulties that all school districts are facing this summer with the teacher shortage you know there are specifically there not all districts are are suffering as much our district is actually very lucky with our recruitment because we are a desirable District to come work in which people want to come work but this is not something that is exclusive to these resignations and transfers there's a lot of opportunity for movement in the in the state right now particularly in some of some specific disciplines such as Math Science and special education and paraprofessionals there's a huge shortage in those four areas um so I just think that that kind of adds some context to the resignations that we have people have opportunities um to move closer to home to have different schedules and that's really what we're seeing um and so you know we do have our list of resignations but what I really am excited about sharing with you um is our list of transfers we have had opportunities with the combination of our full Elementary School and right sizing the middle school there are have been some shifts in uh positions and so we want to extend a huge congratulations to all of the people who have transferred but Mr Julio Landa Verdi who is become the head exciting promotion for him he's a valued employee and has really done a fabulous job Jen shot who's coming back from a year of leave but she is a one of our seventh grade social studies teachers so she's taking the role of instructional coach for social studies K-8 so we're excited to have her on board and then Judy Sanborn who's served us very very well as a repair professional ABA paraprofessional has um is getting their certification and is moving into the classroom and she is a huge asset she was a star during esy and she did some long-term Southern course at the end of the school year we're just really really excited to bring her on board as a fully certified member of um and then also the uh the kind of culminating piece is that we obviously are an educational system we value education at all at all times of life and we I've always been very impressed since I've gotten here of the number of um staff and Personnel who are pursuing Advanced degrees and and further certifications so we want to send a huge huge congratulations to the four folks who are listed there who have advanced their degrees and they are just a few of the many who are continuing on in their pursuit of their education including our own Mr Roland who is going embarking on his hopefully last part of his doctorate degree pursuing his doctorate and that's my reflection on consent agenda thank you any questions on the consensus okay all in favor congratulations to all right we're in the new business section and we're actually moving we'll get at least short and business agenda this evening so first up is a trip to France approval foreign [Music] France as recommended by a World Language ml curriculum leader Catherine Abrego and Brookfield Texas if you want to get us going on us so as a follow-up to the celebratory um is it from the French students to Whiskey near we now have Catherine back with us and she's going to talk about the exchange program to have our students visit France um part of our strategic plan we use the phrase world class and I think postcoded post all the concerns really getting out there and working with our families and saying you know what we need to get our students out there and see the world so Catherine can you take the mic thank you appreciate you being here tonight all right thanks for having me um and as Dr Burrell said I just wanted to recall back I think it was May where we had our videographer put together a lovely video that summed up um the French students coming here and enjoying Brookfield we also had some students speak about really just Unforgettable experiences that they had and so we're excited to complete that cycle hopefully the first of many more to come our French teacher from whiskey near Keith Johnston has been the key proponent of all of us to be honest we can't be here tonight but um the itinerary that was put together and the actual proposal he pretty much did most of that and I've just kind of been overseeing and working with people here and there to make sure that we've kind of uh costly teased out of the eyes of all these little things and worked a lot with Ken when we talked about like Insurance related things and just making sure that safety is covered that we have everything that students need so that they can truly get abroad and then just enjoy their experience um primarily what's like similar to what the french students did here because they stayed with our students and their homes so that will be a reciprocal experience there and then there's just a blend of activities of being in a French school experiencing what that is but also doing some of the touristy things you know going to Paris for like an overnight trip and then just experiencing some of the nature some other cities to just really give them a nice well-rounded view of France and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them but I think back sums up what we're hoping to do and the board had the full proposal on Friday board Packaging so let me just I'm going to ask the questions I think I can read the answers but that's something people watch it with us this is targeted for April 10th to the 19th correct School holiday week it is so it would be about two to two and a half days that students would miss we may depart on the ninth it really just depends on flight prices and the timing of things but they would just miss about two to two and a half days of school and then take their April break how many students we're hoping for 30 that would require four chaperones to go as well and that just helps to drive down the cost a little bit too we didn't want to go too higher you know than 30 since that'll be our first time traveling internationally for a while but we didn't want to keep it too low either because it really you know we wrote the cost was a lot if we kept it really low so this kind of made it a nice middle of a road and we're going to the same school that because we've seen students yeah yep so they'll fly into nice is the airport that's closed session then they would commute to Santa pay and then they'll also have um we had train ride to Tulum and then into Paris just to give them a little bit of some different cities European training that's the best experience exactly and what is the cost for families roughly um so we did an estimated cost whenever possible we did try to round higher on prices as a lot of these things could change when it comes to food I mean even the dollar to Euro changes a little bit day to day so we're hoping that it comes in a little lower than this but we looked at um 1876 dollars and even just calling it even two if you're trying to for a couple of the meals that students may have to come out um or some spending money that they might want to bring is our starting point again hopefully it comes in lower when we're actually able to purchase uh flights and and solidify our hotel reservation and for Paris for example um and then of course we would also hope to be doing some fundraisers throughout the year to just help students um you know set off the price a little bit that's my next question yeah families yes and now that we've got approval here we can really move forward with a lot of that and try to make that happen sooner rather than later and cost to the district I mean do we pay the teachers and or chaperones or is that the cost for chaperones is built into this studio price so we expose that across everything so that would be covered um and then the only thing I thought that where we may incurate costs would have been an insurance coverages but I believe Canada favorite broker was correct there's no additional charges we just need to kind of make some contacts and make sure we add all the international travel policy and we can get more details if we choose but it doesn't incur an additional costs on our the district behalf or for the student questions sorry I just I wanted to make sure that it was clear for those who didn't have this 4K job all right sounds great and all in favor of approvals okay you're off and running thank you very much thank you Catherine appreciate the leadership all right uh next up on the agenda is uh the dissolution of the board subcommittee on equity and inclusion with a possible motion and here we're showing an action that uh so we're going to get a report [Music] thank you so um as Amy said we met and actually Catherine was with uh with me in the uh the first meeting that I was a part of in the spring to talk about uh the direction of the subcommittee of the board and you know subcommittees on the board that are kind of regulated by board statute um usually have a specific purpose and a specific Focus that are aligned with curfew of the board and it did sound like as Amy already spoke to this kind of an organic situation in a couple years back when which was what the whole state and Nation were facing and different school districts have handled the uh concerns differently and I think that having a subcommittee of the board was what this District needed at that time but given how far things have come and you know changed and then we also dealt with a variety of different issues including covid it seems to me based on where we are now as a community the work that needs to get done is really more at the district and building levels as part of a lot of the other work that has actually frankly been going the correct program review with the development of the Strategic plan with our reflection on where our students are and not just looking at their academics but also their social emotional development and how we're meeting the needs of our of our students and also with that you know ultimate goal of really preparing them for life and um you know life beyond school life work and involvement in the community so we I'm interested in helping to partner with again with my colleagues Catherine was very excited about this work to really think about what it is we're you know digging down into the needs of each of the schools but also then looking at a comprehensive I would keep that View and then reporting back to the board on the work that we're doing whether it's through climate and culture or through curriculum or um through programming in terms of meeting the needs of our students it's really just a matter of allowing the school Personnel to do some work on behalf of this initiative but under the purview of a more you know of a more Personnel aspect so that's kind of where we were coming from and I'm certainly happy to answer any questions or Dr Brill or Amy can answer questions Dr Mike you're part of that conversation so so there was a mention of an acronym committee an advisory Council and on speaker so it hasn't been publicized or find finely formalized so one of the one of the the goal of mine going forward this year is getting Candlewood Lake behind me and delegating leadership of Candlewood lately to Dr pepsoski will allow me more time in my schedule to more formally engage with the community and one of the strategies that I want to take action on form a team of advisory team of students parents and Educators that could be an advisory Council to the superintendent so students parents Educators advisory Council to the superintendent little cutesy but I think it works and really focus on Communications and engagement and resource provision really early in the day because it's all about our students making sure they have the greatest welcoming and environment where everyone feels that they belong and that's one of the opportunities to get feeling direct engagement we have school climate committees at our schools and so that's going to be a place where principles how we can get representatives from mental climate committees to come to the speaks committees and our district level talk things through I talked with several parents that are interested in volunteering As Leaders on this just to help me um so that's just one aspect I'm talking about what Bill talks about with the correct program review oftentimes when people talk about equity and inclusion um immediately folks go to sexual orientation or race we 've been part of that we need to make sure to make sure included and they have Equitable opportunity as well this really affects all of us so we already have a lot of great things going certainly anything that um is going on in the school building is under the responsibility of the pursue School principal so they'll know what's going on stakeholders that serves any changes that go on with curriculum and I can't say this strongly enough is very important I think this helps Mr Ontario with his question go through the cape committee so and then after the cape committee onto the full board so it's always transparent we move forward with that that's really important looks like we approve a textbook or a curriculum or whatever it might be um I just wanted to you know what we do as school leaders is look at a lot of the many of the issues that we Face through a variety of lenses and so this is really just affording us a formal way of looking at all of the things that are under our purview you know certainly curriculum instruction and assessment climate and culture uh you know Athletics uh um you know special education involvement who has access to different courses just by nature of our kind of scope and sequence those are the kinds of things that not only from are we having are we using the highest leverage instructional approaches and using the best of most of appropriately aligned assessments but also are we noticing when a certain seems to be getting left behind or not included in some way right and not not to not to nobody's fault but just the way that our structure is created so to me based on what I was what I was listening to with members of this subcommittee it seemed like there was a kind of a question of what are we doing with all this information there's a lot of information shared a lot of data was collected and crunched a couple years back and then there was kind of a stall because it wasn't there was kind of not quite a direction of what we should do and that's partly because as members of the board it's not your job to do it's our job to do and so um that's really kind of where we were going with this is that I am anxious for this not to to stall because it's an important part it's what we've seen it's one of the reasons that concerns have been brought up from our community members about special education and other aspects of our you know our choice of books and those kinds of things so um it's really just an opportunity for us to continue to looking to look at our work through a variety of lenses the formal way [Music] I just wanted I just wanted to add as just somebody who was part of the formation of this Committee in the beginning was part of it throughout its long life and the last couple of meetings that we had um Dr Mann definitely said a lot more eloquently but the appropriateness of it really just ends up resting at the school level but what is nice that came out of it I think is the fact that um administrators and and building level leaders know that it's a priority of the board that's something that we want to focus on and so those reports are going to be really helpful and I think useful to us so I think um you know I I would um you know support the dissolution of the committee itself I want to add to um I had forgotten to say earlier some other like Anna had said some other districts also tackle this like our neighbor new town and a lot of them went throughout of hiring like an equity coordinator and I believe that position is no longer in Newtown right yeah but there's been I think there's a lot of you know it's somewhat of a buzzword sometimes too when people think there might be a hidden agenda but it really is all about what Dr Mann was saying you know the best outcome is for everyone kind of going back to the beginning of the meeting when we said hey we're gonna have a separate bill we're having sex with the doctor man this could be your part of a kind of a regular or online I thought that was kind of some I was thinking when we said hey we're going to make a spot for Dr men and but maybe you know other people of that of the climate committees and different schools can come and take some of that too but just in the interest of you know transparency I think it's really important stuff and then you're on top of that so I really appreciate that and so I um reflect back on Mr montero's comments at the beginning he said there was something called I'm going to get this wrong and Dei Playbook that was reviewed at the state level Equity check first Equity is that something that we use or is our approach more General I mean I don't even know what that is so I'm not familiar with the cave um Equity toolkit and I don't believe it is something that added the work of the subcommittee so but that would be from cave it would be not so much I I didn't read it a number of years ago when the committee was first formed it really was about process um member of how you get started in a set and have assessments and things like that okay and then the other we approved a policy statement to work hard on that policy system this does not affect our general policy statement on equity and inclusion is that a true state ment on the foreign any other comments discussion polls all right Amy why don't you put the motion on the table there so I will move that the board dissolved the equity and inclusion subcommittee second Ed any discussion okay all in favor aye Dr Mann thank you for the thoughtful conversation with us I appreciate that the third item in new business is a memorandum of agreement between the Brookfield public schools and the Brooksville Police Department I will move that the board approved the memorandum of agreement between the Brookfield public schools and the Brookfield Police Department regarding concealed carry for off-duty Brookfield Police Department officers exactly yes uh yeah I'll be very brief the um as uh the board may recall this was brought back brought to the board a few meetings ago you've seen this uh you've seen the Moa before the police commission has already approved the memorandum of agreement for concealed carry for off-duty police officers on school grounds and this was developed by legal counsel it's important to remind situations that remind the board that our legal counsel for the Board of Education actually is the same firm that advises the town as an advise the town and is able to collaborate on this and basically early in the last school year police chief a police he came to me he was seeking permission for off-duty officers um employed by the Brookfield police Department to carry weapons on school grounds and install sponsored activities off-duty police officers under current Connecticut Law which was just go down again recently are not permitted to carry weapons on school grounds and so they're prohibited for a variety of reasons the chief's main concern and my main concern is that we want to provide students and staff with the greatest protection in any emergency that might require an honored police officer and so if an off-duty police officer can't carry weapons on school grounds they would have to potentially leave the vicinity of the emergency and possibly Municipal grounds in order to retrieve a weapon thus possibly losing valuable minutes to most serious issue situation so really at the end of the day we have wonderful police officers many live in town others maybe they don't live in town but they serve as a coach or something like that they're on school grounds during their off-duty hours because Connecticut state law doesn't allow them to have their sidearm with them we want to make sure that we don't put them in any kind of legal Jeopardy and we was a resource for us if they're off duty and there happens to be an altercation in a parking lot or whatever as and that's basically the area if I recall the discussion of our first time through with us with the lawyers the uh if they were to be responding immediately become an on-duty office that's my understanding yeah um and this is unchanged since the first time I was on uh yes and the commission got it right after well Chief policy work to get it on the commission's agenda to then ultimately requirement we weren't going to sign it until then absolutely yes it's in draft it's in draft form Bob's name needs to be spelled correctly and we need to add the date in there so we'll get in the word document and have our town officials congratulations all right questions thoughts about this I I have a question um if right now by Connecticut state law they're not allowed to carry correct grounds how does this bypass the law I understand I thought I think the law said unless they have an agreement between themselves okay okay so the second part of that question is I would like I don't know I just I don't really feel like I know enough yet about how this would work and I really would feel more comfortable with presentation or discussion with the police chief about what other school districts are doing is this pretty widespread across the state if the state made it um illegal to carry on school grounds when you're not on duty I feel like they're was probably some justification for that and rationale that about your feel like we've been given that background I have not done the research or asked for that trustee but lazy trust our Council and equation of good police commission's judgment on that so it's our local off-duty police officers that are it's very clear in the Moa good standing of course I don't feel comfortable it will always do you want to take uh take a look for one meeting and uh isn't that a place to bring that up I mean I would feel better if an unarmed police officer could get his weapon in the event of an emergency that's what this is that's what decision this is saying he doesn't have to do it it doesn't have to do that he will he or she is so this would allow them to actually kept on our arm while being a coach at a practice is necessary in schools point out that it's not microphone and it's it's not like a it's not say Cooper it's a Brookfield police only if we were to open it if we were to open it up the state troopers it's another mou right right with the state right it's just I feel like you said something that's a little confusing okay they're a coach and there's many officers that don't live in town that are departments if they coach only Brookfield police officer so a police officer a little league coach for example and but the game is on school grounds they right now their weapon right thank you I apologize to the Republicans microphones in this room just bounce off of each other like crazy with respect I would like to go ahead and vote on this personal uh and uh we've talked about it before and I I personally would like to school this way along Debbie I'm sorry I didn't disagree with you first respectfully there anybody else have an opinion going now versus waiting okay all right so any other questions or discussion all in favor of the motion on the table please say aye aye all against okay passes five one thank you all right um so next up that's it for our new business and uh all right so uh next up since we did public comment there's no old business and we did public comment in its entirety at the beginning so next up is Kenwood Lakes Elementary School building project update all right so a little bit different for this update and you probably only have one or two more um this for a couple of years now so I'd like to invite Dr P to the microphone just to kind of open the celebratory comments this evening as well as I'll eventually with Dr Casey doctor will show the slideshow just a little bit but things I agree so first thing I'd like to share is on Friday we were able to email all of our sales parents and let them know who their child will have as a homework teacher the high school did not do that and it's important to understand why as much as I'd like to say it's because we're superheroes the reality is 1200 students 51 schedules young and physical they move my home rooms so 51 home runs 51 schedules the high school with 900 students and over 100 course offerings I think it takes me the same amount of time to schedule 1200 as it takes you to schedule so that's awesome thank you uh and the same with the middle school middle school has maybe 600 kids for the same time so that's why we're able to do that so not because we have superheroes right a little bit so that was awesome to be able to do that and I was able to reference a schedule sorry and now that I'm thinking with Paving and this shows me 20 29th 30 31.
I'm here to address the proposal itself and to make some additional comments from um some of the facts that may or may not be getting put out there first of all I find it interesting that you know the first three bullet points on this proposal which has to do with physical injury and suicidal intentions and a complaint of verbal or physical altercation those three bullet points are already in process they're already being followed there's no problem and then the fourth bullet points include sort of like it's sort of like you know slid in there a student requesting to be identified or treated as a gender other than the student's biological sex how do you know or how are you guys going to tell or how are the teachers going to know what the students sex was at Birth are we going to do DNA tests on everyone or are we going to physically inspect our children the second thing that's mentioned here is the Rasmussen poll we have a few comments on racism they are frequently highlighted and featured in the French publication The Epic Times which is a falun Gong religious cult and has become a leading purveyor of right-wing misinformation since 2016 it has used aggressive tactics to create a media Empire comments from other hard fashion statistical analysis site state that the Rasmussen report is biased towards the GOP that they use response bias they skew right during a recent election cycle a major cable channel even stopped using their polls due to and you see an extreme bias ethics alarms states that many of the questions asked in their polls by The Residency report are incompetent they're responsible and unethical so why are we shown only one poll as data from this highly right-bending organization to support this policy proposal I think we need more information um the policy changed to out non-conforming children is extremist and homophobic and nationally is even supported by the proud wife so a lot of people don't know that they're they're a wonderful group now I'd like to mention ab1266 and asked that the school board consider who's going to be accountable and liable for any harm that might come to a child in this District should this policy be implemented okay so a b 1266 came into signed into law in 2013.
they just and so you know it's almost like I mean you look at that Mexican restaurant they have like the seating that's kind of like their Alcove and the sidewalk itself is that's about like 10 feet or 15 15 V Max but if you go down further down the street in in Falmouth downtown the buildings aren't this far back this is like the anomaly well they've got three or four different pitchers there so this might be the only strip that's the anomaly because I haven't been there in a while I was and I was there in the winter so it definitely didn't look as fluoriferous as this does what's the next one Kev after this huh that one nope the next one after that yeah yeah maybe that's what they did here there's a there's actually enough room enough length in this planter by the way so that was a dead Street tree I think that's in there and there's a shrub and flowers in there which I thought was really interesting um so I guess you know if they went back another five feet let's say we've got another five feet because we're all talking about how massive the building is that would give them space to put to have a little more latitude on the sidewalk and you could have raised Planters you could have Street trees blah blah blah blah and you know maybe we could do some of the things if I ever send the drawings of the of the Planters to people or maybe not maybe I need to do that too I think they're sitting in my drive here um I think I think we're looking for some buffering ideas and some seating out there you would have all that if you lost that massive landscape bed that's a complete mess how many feet back do you think that is what he's showing in that I mean they're showing like a four to five wide sidewalk and then Landscaping up to the building setback what do you think at its narrowest is is eight feet right there's very little at the narrowest and one of those I think the the gcg by the way um you can get like a five or wide plenty bed which is all you really need like that condition and then you keep a straight sidewalk and then you have room for Planters and benches and have the sidewalk relate to the building and then that makes the planting beds relate to the building and then it all starts to see this just seems like they just like slapped a building down on the sidewalk and just like put landscape right up to it there's no way this is nothing intentional about this it just seemed like just a complete just a mess is this actually this is actually the the Street sidewalk is that correct that we're seeing right here it's going to be destroyed anyway so you might as well just well wait a second it's actually a really good point because this looks like it's his sidewalk when in fact it's the Street sidewalk and it needs to be labeled as town of Ashland sidewalk because that's that's part of the confusion here perhaps too that's not being replaced with the downtown improvements so why are we keeping like the existing sidewalk when it's probably going to be traveling with construction well he may he may the real question is how far into the street can he go I think that's that's Street curves there I think last time he had said right the existing building remember at the site visit we told him that it looks less than four I think uh four feet it was less than four feet so one of the corners so he said it's existing so he can by law go up till that but he's not he's but he's doing a complete renovation of this site if he was if he was doing a a repair or keeping that building and adding on to it that would make sense to me yes but I can't see how he can do and as of if you go on the uh the layout plan where the old buildings are superimposed on this you can see uh how close it is it's that one on the corner right on office yeah and this is the one I actually but he's going if you see he's comparing this building yeah this too or is it a 35.
should we determine we might delay a little bit basically because on the 28th there's supposed to be some payments that's the case awesome let's get the baby done I'll remind you to come look at our beautiful new building uh as far as being in the building I get to live in every day I've been there for the last week and a half full disclosure at 3 30.
it is a state law it extends gender identity and gender expression discrimination protection to transgender and gender non-conforming K-12 students in public schools it already protects our students and our gender non-conforming citizens the California Department of Education heard their website States a lot of stuff but I'm just going to say that it reduces stigmatization and improves educational integration of these students it maintains their privacy students have civil rights in this country just like the adults in this room do okay they have civil rights the California the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution Leslie yes wrap it up okay thank you students are protected under the First Amendment and then the state of California has even stronger freedom of speech protections the California Education Code also protects the students rights to discuss lgbtq issues and liability very quickly what if a student is harmed by this policy what if the teacher outs a student to an abusive parent who didn't know that their child had become gender non-conformist what the child is then harmed by another person or an angry parent or guardian and then they self-harm themselves of God forbid in their own life what will happen to children who lose the trust for positive respectful independent determined and engaged Trust of their teachers in a place and that might be their only safe place in their life these schools are golden the work that you guys do is golden this this all protects our children if we pick on a certain population of children and help them and put them at risk then we are not doing our jobs if that's something that you're uncomfortable with um you need to rethink maybe your um your membership on the board and I would like to again request like someone else said that we use our limited resources to enhance and provide quality education for our kids let's not put ourselves at the risk of litigation either thank you [Applause] there's hormones hi I've been here for 50 years I've been a teacher since 63.
the corner one okay because 35 looks like it's pretty close and that's pretty close so this demand this is an eight foot box so this this complies with the eight foot minimum setback um I have concerns about this location that's less than eight feet I think actually that um gcg does too because they talk about one of them being less than what it's supposed to be do we so do we need to comment on parking and all the other topics that gcg has reviewed I mean they're they're saying in their report that the parking is is lacking so to what extent do we need to comment on it and and use numbers and and do calculations I don't think we need to comment on it yeah you can either say we we're agreeing with that or we can also say that like the gcg report we think there's too much going on in the site there's not enough room for everything because I think we can yeah we can also suggest is you know the planning board should uh on site you know like I think like how Kevin said that uh square is eight feet but I think when we were on the site it seemed less than the existing building was less than eight feet it was just four feet here they're showing eight feet but in reality I don't think so it's eight feet also the existing the corner building that the red blocks is right the Kevin's red box that box is eight feet I don't think so that existing building is eight feet so either this composite overlay is wrong or the are the existing you know maybe the walkways little I mean we don't know the Border you know the boundary yeah so which one are you talking about the one on the corner no I think not this one this is the one go on this side yeah yeah on the album side see if you does does it look like eight feet yeah I think it does I think it's about at the front there I I don't think it's four feet I I think it's I don't know six feet Maybe and that's what I think the gcg report was referring to but but I think but it could be 18 I just you know I'm just eyeballing it but yeah why don't we I don't know whether it was this building or the other one maybe the it could be the other one it might be yeah the other one yeah this one sorry this is the one yeah that's really close well the stairs are close but what about in the porch maybe the porch was an add-on after the fact so the porch if it is three feet right and then three feet in the grass so that's six feet looks like six to seven so I think this this one might be a moot point because they are they're their setback is actually more than not at that location right they're pushing the building back further they have more than they probably yes at least yeah I mean it's by just one feet possibly but I mean I'm not sure maybe you know unless you see it in reality like actual site measurements there's a little oops there's a little inset on the Alden Street side of that bill of the 4749 but on the Homer Street they haven't even said it at that corner so that's in the front that's potentially tight but I think it's your Square would fit around that corner but where it doesn't really fit is over here on the commercial side now that whole area doesn't fit that that part has to go back I think yes so okay so so it's now 8 20 8 17 maybe we should um we should start writing stuff on the report so I think we need to I think we need to specifically comment on this your square up here on a commercial and and with a with additional sort of comment that they they need to double check to make sure the building's set back at least to the minimal code and I don't know about the rest of you but I feel like the building is it's it's just too massive for the site well I don't know what's going to happen on the parking bees like I it if the project can't be as of right if they're not providing enough parking and if the project goes through because because you know fewer parking spaces are are just approved um I I don't know what what we're doing um I think we I think we say something to that to that effect right that we think there's there I mean I really think it comes down to partly what Brendan was saying and and it's and there's too much going on it can't fit it adequately on the site um and you know challenge them to do something different and they're going to be annoyed by the comment but because they're into this this far and you know we should have been seen by them long before this and so that's actually partly another reason why I made them well I just said we're gonna have a meeting on Thursday with planning board when they wanted to have a meeting with us because I think they're having trouble this building too um what do we recommend that that um just this portion of the building be um at least be re well be rethought redesigned at least what did I say should be well okay so what does everybody else think that they want the building set back or not sit back more I think it could at least it should at least meet the zoning standard well theoretically it's meeting the zoning standard Kev what about you Joella what about you is it meeting the zonings no no because because Kevin said it's it's under a feet uh on the commercials that little commercial area on the left there yeah the driveway it's definitely not meeting it so at a minimum we think it should should meet the the commercial the commercial we needs to meet the zoning on the commercial side there um or are we going to gain anything by setting it back that's what I'm asking um I think there are large fundamental issues with the project um but we also have to go line item by line item reviewing you know the project in detail but and are you saying we shouldn't address small items like that if there's a larger issue at hand I think we address them both yeah that's why I'm at that time bringing it up now because it seems like this might be the place to bring it up maybe there's a better place for it because I mean you we sort of addressed it there absolutely I I'd recommend leaving it here and then um just so we have it written down and then we keep going through the report so because we need to make progress yeah we're not very far okay so let's keep going then okay I I wrote this item are we flying with this one should we say inadequate or should it be misleading because I feel like they're providing the right level of detail with the the SketchUp model but it's it's there underestimating the scale of it and I think it's intentional it doesn't seem like well I think misleading is is act is um is a better word and um but I I think their method of creating these renderings is you know could use some improvement as well and we we could also in this line and bring up that it it doesn't look right the rendering of the building doesn't look right against the the photographs that show the brick buildings farther down the street yeah it's just because it looks the um we were getting that comment at the last meeting so it looks sunken yeah I completely agreed with what George was was bringing up in that meeting yeah so I think we need to say that there yeah so I was looking at the page so on page six of the eight three it actually it's a shame because it could be a cool project but they just don't really have the professionals to kind of execute it Building looks sunken into the street compared to the photographs of the three one-story brick buildings just passed it going towards Main Street would you say west of the project site okay there you go unfortunately I think we're going to keep asking for these things and we're not going to see an improvement on on the quality I think that's the I think that's the fact the matter uh but we should keep asking um should we have an item here in red um there that that take greater care in in um providing exact details exactly well I'm trying to say something about scalage in achieving um and accurate representation exactly of the scale I think that's fair okay shall I move on to the next item I think let me put this in red okay materials and textures uh we had asked for a material palette to be presented by the applicant um which which they did and maybe I think on this one we just need to know what we requested yes um was it four I think it was four of material palette options yeah and it's not um hang on I'll tell you it's not number one I think we took number one out you see the number one or number five out we took number five out so Kathy did you add my notes into yours no not really what I did was look at them and said oh I think I've got these covered here sorry um I'd like to use my notes for this one because I um it's fine with me if you think you've got it worded better we're selected by the community yeah we did not select five though actually we should take that out take that out of which the note my notes out of your notes I thought we took out um can I look who took out number one because it had um which was the one that had all the modern stuff that I think we had them take out is that number one or is that number five it was number five okay so what where where are you here on a note just where are you we're here after lead I'll fix it on this materials so it's one two three and four oops are we sure about this oh actually we can just look at them okay let's look at it I think they're not moving was a little bit strange so type so where's the first one two three oh so it's actually type four it was it was five in the previous iteration let's just say the one without the metal panel or the sorry the one with the metal panel that we should be removing all right so let's see it's one two and three we want them to work up in renderings and it's for I'm just going to say four were selected moving the option of the metal panel cladding okay I got that so you don't have to put that in I I took the numbers out I just said take out the one with the metal cladding so we don't have any confusion between versions of sent over what do you want me to do right I I have it don't worry about it okay yeah I got that it's more what what we got to do for the report um yeah so um right now so the Apple can present before material palette options so we asked them to provide renderings um yeah I would say take Type 4 out don't don't put a number on it because if somebody gets mixed up between the because they numbered them differently between their version but that's why I said the option showing the metal panel cladding was not selected type four yeah take well uh okay I just take Type 4 out all together it's not necessary this is this should be see above really well the date on that is whoops what's that what did you just do with don't didn't we wait a second didn't we just we answered that up above yeah so I'm I don't think we need to you don't want to say see about her no I want to take it out I want to actually take it out because I don't want the more stuff we have in here the more confusing it's going to be I'm just gonna make that sure black uh renderings of the building when windows and slope runs should show an accurate representation of the intended tone color of the glazing we didn't actually talk about this with the applicant um it's still true we should still leave it in there yeah I'll just eventually they're going to show us um you could say not discussed okay okay so on solar panels were not discussed underneath that one we can say the applicant's going back to look at to review solar panels and as many areas of the site as possible including uh parking canopies and and all the faces of the roof I think they wanted to look at providing solar panels on the on the on the the surfaces of the roof that face in a direction that wasn't desirable by by the planning board um yeah I think all all roof faces whatever that terminology would be all all of orientations I think okay um that one EV charging applicants said they were going to um Afghan said they were going to make every single space EV ready inside and out and that actually was per gcg yeah I'm not clear on how many are going to be provided with an EV charging station they would say they were saying that there was going to be a a conduit stubbed up that's called EV ready oh yeah not right how many actual stations are they providing well I think we we further after you write that in we further say that we asked them to be specific about how many actual stations they were providing because at one point they said none and we didn't didn't seem to indicate to them that that was very acceptable so what do you think are you putting that in there oh so say that again so um EV charging at this meeting so I think in between after C point two the June 15th comment put in we should put in something for August 3rd yeah so I've done that oh I'm sorry I might be in the wrong place because I'm looking forward my screen was paused so here you go here's what I wrote oh great okay okay that's great that's perfect okay so um anybody else has something else to add here is that on their little cheat sheet here oh you know I don't think I've seen it anywhere no because they would have put it on there if it was so it makes them look good you'd be ready oh he shows it on those hmm I think they're planning on just making everything EV ready and not actually providing any stations well that's what he said so I think we we put that other ask in there because we talked about it a and b it's a a trade-off perhaps yeah so Brendan just to make you even happier we talked about bike racks going out on that front sidewalk somewhere and I told I told them about bike rack benches by the way I don't know where he even put them well the bike they uh I want to say it's I think it's Foundry actually has has the site Furniture where they show bike racks with they show benches excuse me with um something that you can attach a bike to and they call them bike ride and and I thought that was very interesting because basically you're getting two you know two things for the for the price of one little higher price but it was an interesting concept and I don't know either I mean I think this has to be redone in some respects but it's a good start I mean I also talked to them about the fact that I need to protect the windows better I don't know with um those have to be a you know put off the curb and then you know the five foot walk so there's not a lot of room yeah I don't think the benches should go don't know let's talk about bike rack they have to be there or you're saying they could go farther back I mean well you have to want them it's like a Bollard with the bike rack is that what you're saying well because a bunch of things came up at that point because we were they were also talking about doing some more raised court and steel planters out front there um and then somebody else brought up the lack of space blah blah but that way it also you know slow down a car that's out of control that's headed towards the building I'm against ballers bollards themselves yeah they're ugly no I'm just saying Ballers and like I don't think cars are Greening down Homer Ave and crashing into buildings too often well I don't think anybody thinks anything's careening too often until it happens to them yeah I know I just you know it's better to in some cases uh it's better to think about some of this stuff and just say okay let's put something up here and it looks decent that would that would serve the same purpose and maybe that's part of the redesign of this area is something like that happens we have the telephone poles Kathy so well their start until we tell them they have to put them underground okay now we're talking and there's only and there's only three of them out there so there's a lot of space in between just saying Brenda and the same is going to be true up at the Mill buildings you know I like bollards and they like I don't think we need bollards to stop cars from crash into buildings but I think if they're very important for professor and safety right I just I'm not well there's a whole bunch of ways we can do this so although I don't even understand why they they're Cordon steel Planters it seems very odd it was well at 18 inches that would help um and that that would you know between the soil and the water and the soil and the plantings I would start to make them be heavy uh uh okay where are we at here Kevin um C point three but storm water um I don't remember why I wrote it this way but peer review responds I think there was a question about how the stormwater recharge works on site and it was noted that it goes from the parking lot to the catch base and it discharges into the subsurface infiltrate in infiltration structure I think just leave it the way it is right now are there several plans available well gcg raises it in their peer review and I don't know that they've provided new ones yet and they talk about the fact that I haven't seen a survey or any kind of actual technical drawing besides these some of my 17s so the applicant considers themselves in in feasibility study right now they're not they're not even in schematics schematics okay sorry um well with gcg commented that a couple of them were too low based on whatever they saw with whatever they provided and that they weren't going to be working correctly so I just I wouldn't even address it I think we should just move on program we can't gcg is probably going to do the storm water there's another group they use all the time for storm water there's a drainage calculation in storm water management plan that was reviewed by gcg and that's probably in the current cases um okay because that says April 22nd all right I'll pick it up um I think we just look at that the action here is that the report will be submitted to the town for review yeah as long as someone's looking at it yeah um I wanted to add something to the materials [Music] Oh I thought we could add it under his okay so his Heritage and historic details I think we should say something about the conversation that Joan brought up about providing a village field like differentiating the materials and right Joan is trying to enter the room oh geez thank you hi Joan okay so yes hello Hi how are you good thank you how you doing great impeccable actually but the comment you made about The Village feel we're trying to insert it in here oh okay nice should we mention Joan by name or say no just say we got a comment about it um I'm just fixing the minutes to better reflect that actually and breaking up the building up on add to the character of the downtown yeah so the actual comment was too built would like to see separate buildings and two buildings on site to create a more Village feel to the project and we could potentially put that in there and see how far we get where we can say character if you don't like the feel ings yeah okay that's good okay so going back up to the D point one we didn't actually talk about the historic ornament and maybe we don't mention anything here I think we'll review that in the next meeting we'll keep it on here and report number three would probably touch on this sure yeah because that wasn't shown very well either even if they were doing something with with making the sidewalk all look like the siding on the Richardson Building looking like an exact did they show something like that well they said we can't show no and well the answer is sort of sort of for the little tiny pocket park when they showed it uh yeah that thing right there part Park walkway Paving pattern but he hasn't actually said what that is because he's still actually researching it because there is no Paving pattern like that because it would have bumps in it and nobody wants that on a on a walkway like this it wouldn't be allowed you could do it at your private house probably but well I took that it was just the pattern you know that this like ashlard pattern right and that's what I think he's talking about yeah I actually take issue with this because none of Richardson's buildings take the pattern on the wall which is intended to be on the wall and put it on the horizontal surface and so why so why you didn't say anything about that last night and I kind of wish you had um you want to say it now well we should say it now in the report yes upon further discussion yeah we'll say that but so we're on the ornament right now so what do we want to say about the ornamentation oh we don't have anything to say about the ornamentation okay so right now yeah so I'll add this as 2 3.2 um so it it was presented the Stone pattern template well yeah I guess as a as uh as the basis there you go um he actually said he was going to carry it over to all of the patio by the way not just a pack of Park okay and would be carried across the um the commercial Plaza spaces um uh um well is it never repeat are Never Bound um on the horizontal walking service they found on any horizontal surfaces um no I think around his buildings they're typically so like Copley Plaza in Boston is a is a brick Plaza it's just modular brick right um and maybe we can't say never because it's a like a national pattern can be found in the landscape but um I don't think I think it's disingenuous to say that well you know the pocket Park Plaza surface references back to the wall of the historic Richardson Building I I I don't think that's historically accurate if we're trying to relate back to it and well yes there's a mm-hmm ing board's been repeatedly asking for something from the Richardson Building to be carried over to the site well let's look at what that might be I I don't I don't honestly think there is unless we take that the co that corner of the Richardson Building I was talking to you about a long time ago right whoops go back on the corner of the cap the front corner the other Corner sorry where we can see it better as you're going down the street um yeah okay so see how you can see those arches there the only thing I was thinking of would be if they had some kind of a pergola over the pocket park and some kind of pergola in front of over the windows ground floor windows that mimic that particular Arch patterning the problem is that are we really trying to mimic this building uh let me just finish okay somebody on clipboard keeps asking for it so I literally was you know that we've had these discussions again and again our on our committee and I've been sort of banging my head about it like is there any possibility of anything we could do and short of using those Colors that appear on the facade that sort of mahogany red and the color of the if anything it's probably the use the roof line as part of that pergola that's somewhere that's on the um Alden Street side yeah but that's you've lost the connection at that point you're way on the back I don't I think their intention was to have it on the front I don't think that would make I don't think it's the development to copy the Richardson Building it's kind of a so is there any so let me ask it this way are there any elements of this building that we think could be successfully transferred over so potentially the facade colors into like patio Paving sorry sorry to interrupt you no to answer your question I don't think there's anything I think we let the historic building be in the historic building I don't know where the planning board is caught up on having elements of a historic building replicated you can't you can relate to a building but typically you do that in a in a modern way so that the historic building is you know stays it's it's what it is and can be I then let's go back this is a completely different use too and in retrospect let's not try to match anything on it I'll leave it at that in the in the in our comments to them so they stop looking for this walkway Paving pattern and they do something else put a mural on the brick building yeah that would be that'd be great oh well he's got big plans for that that brick building by the way he's gonna take all that stuff down he wants to put Windows in it and he wants to put a doorway in it because he wants the tenants next door when they eventually develop that building to be able to also access the front of this building yeah I I think you know to further the statement I was making I think the answer is no that we can't relate to it because of just the building scale like what how are we going to put a Pergola on the side of this building and have a roof form that is taller than the building itself as it is so take it all out take let's go back to the um so and just say after you wrote that right after the word surface just say um in retrospect we just feel it's impossible to to match the Richardson Building in any meaningful way to perform any meaningful way there you go um so it's I suppose it's possible but maybe it's not um what's the word like it's not the right thing to do it's um well with the current scale of this building it's not it's not you know this building was a one-story building we could say hey but the roof over there you know have that overhang there would be a lot of things they could do but it's not really possible to do it the way that the scale of this project and otherwise all the other little parks are too small and you know as you just pointed out against the one-story brick building there's nothing you can do there it would look totally out of out of character on the back well can I say sort of we advise that the historic building be allowed to um stand alone stand alone yeah sure I think that would be helpful I love the mer the mural idea actually it's half joking so it's it's much more Community focused and modern and you know could be vibrant so make make another make another D3 oh no Heroes everywhere you open this Starbucks everywhere open that door but actually it's not such a bad idea because it's stucco right now and then they stucco it probably because the brick needed re-pointing so that seemed to be the simpler thing to do that's my guess and let me just say you're gonna get like another Southwestern sunset with mountains you don't like that it needs to be changed up a little bit I mean that's the that's the you know it actually used to that comes to mind when I think of Ashland I think it used to be something else actually yeah um each one a mutual mirror no no wait so the um painted on this the existing stucco wall of what is what is that address I don't know um it's nine 9 11 and 13 I think so I remember having this whole discussion with them that day we did the sitewalk and I'm not one of those buildings has it on the front oh 15 there you go if that's 15 then how is this project 9-49 because that entire lot which includes those three buildings number nine this is where they're only developing that part which I I don't know why it's 9-49 it's that's also misleading so we take the word painted out there because then they could do something else like a mosaic you know that cool mosaic art they have down in Philadelphia yeah it could mimic the Richardson Building don't say that because you're gonna get that on there if you do it of limestone and whatever it is sandstone portrait of HH Richardson all right um can we can we look at where where's the rendering of oh they show the signs well I I think they're trying with this bench yeah that's that's trying to be I think it's trying to mimic the historic building but but it's not historic no the wrong this is the wrong approach there is a way to relate to but I think this is the wrong approach so we actually need to get set by a truck we need to actually say that perhaps then that this is not because you know what I noticed that too and I didn't say anything about it I'm like that doesn't look right um yeah that needs to be a much more modern um sorry the dog is totally squirming right now I don't know what his deal is and he's sitting on my lap okay um maybe that pergola or the or that covered canopy however they're referring to it needs to be a different needs to have a different roof to it it could be a flat covered pergola I could put greenhouse plastic on top of it or something to that effect and they could put plantings Vines growing up it could do what they did downtown um what do they call that garage Post Office Square well that's pretty ambitious for this project well I'm like people thinking vicious for Ashland I mean that would be can you imagine having that down there it'd be gorgeous even if it was little can you imagine if they did it across the side of the building he's spiffy what do I want to say here I'm getting to wordy um I I yeah you are I think I wouldn't even I wouldn't even I'd get rid of that entire sentence just say we think the the roof line is not appropriate for the scale of the park I could see why they did it if they're getting pushed back from playing the board to be that seems like the most logical way to relate but I agree it's it's not right it's not as much scale for me though it's about um mimicking it's also yeah yeah so why don't we say it that it needs to be of a different aesthetic believe it that maybe or use some other term matching directly okay can we leave it matching the Richardson Building we could even say rather than trying to match the Richardson Building yeah I mean that's a good point you're always gonna just be trying to match it and never actually achieve it right [Music] okay okay that comment was which one is that D3 [Music] I wonder if it's not if we're trying to like match the riches in building or why not use the plaza to kind of like maybe have an interpretive panel to explain why the train that building is kind of cool maybe pocket park yeah maybe that pocket park is like the HH which is in pocket park and it has like a confirm like informational panel or something that kind of gives the history of that train station building an architect and and you kind of um get some sort of kind of cool cultural feature for them they could actually do an interpretive spine there and then for further you have a QR code that links back to the historic commission yeah but like yeah maybe you don't maybe have like a there's a page that kind of looks like HH piece with a you know an 18 by 24 panel that kind of explains what you're looking at across the street exactly it's referred to as an interpretive sign that's what how they yeah and um like the state any big parks that have that stuff then they could work with the historical commission to kind of really design it and actually increase awareness of why this dentist office kind of looks cool exactly it's actually terrible you give if we give a little meaning to that Plaza as well rather than just having it be just like um that's actually a better way to do it I like that a lot yeah I like that too because um in our work we do exhibit design as well in our office and we do if yeah if we're if we're um working on a historic project or we've actually done a lot of adaptive reads as well of historic properties like you know we actually we did the Liberty Hotel in Boston oh that place is sweet yeah converted I didn't work on it but we converted an alternating into a hotel yeah um there are a number of modern just like very clean um black metal panels direct up from the the ground and on on them is displayed the history of the site and it's not meant to match it's meant to to complement and kind of hide in the hide into the background actually right it'd actually be kind of cool for the kids or I know like we did like a a field trip around Ashen to a historic site so this could actually be kind of included where you kind of learn about architecture and maybe even appreciate downtown a little bit more that's what I've been trying to do with it with a combination tour between historic and us to do exactly that in downtown Ashland because I think then people would be would get it a little more they'd appreciate it more and then have a better understanding of what we're trying to do so anytime you want to do that I can go wind up some people on a historical society to help out because I've been talking about lunkers uh it used to be I know I know don't even bring that up it's a really sore subject with me we it's probably been very good for our budget our waistline it's not the hyperals anymore but that was an awesome little entire setup there was awesome I've heard about that you could go like I I don't even remember how many times I suddenly went oh my God I forgot somebody's holiday or Mother's Day I forgot to get a flower I can run down there and she would always have flowers out there there would be a card you know something that would be acceptable because we'd be going up there to my mom's for Mother's Day or Bill's mom's for Mother's Day and he wanted to bring something you know and um plus I would always bring baked goods if we're going with my parents I didn't need to bring them to Bill's mom because she lived close enough to zabar to walk there so um okay who is it when you're going to design that too what's that you're gonna design The Interpreter panel well who who is it I thought I heard you've interested what are you asking well so Brendan's point I was asking who in the town actually would would start such a um conversation about doing interpretive panels throughout the town uh uh well I'm guessing that Joan is listening to this with a lot of interest and I'm guessing that she would have some cheerleading from the historic Commission in the Historic Society to say nothing of us and that would actually be a great um hang on one second it'd be a great use of CPC funds potentially um Joan go ahead um just quickly um so the historic commission um historical commission actually has been doing some of that and we're working on a kiosk at the um Hall house right now and um there are kiosks in the Warren Woods Etc so there are various signs around town I I understand that this one may be different than that you know I'm not saying that they need to mimic it but I I really like the idea of the interpretive sign very much um you actually have a sort of a signage template you work with yes yeah branded for Ashland I'm sorry you've branded for Ashland so to speak yes it's kind of yes it's it's um each one is a little bit different um it's not necessarily exact but um but there are there are various signs that um that you know we can we can work with and um and take a look at and and get once we get the right information that's the important thing and then what we did with the hall the hall house was we we wrote up um because that was um you know um Henry Warren's um workplace and we wrote up uh wrote up a little um paragraph um about it and then we had some pictures of the of the original house and Harmony Warren and some of his um inventions that type of thing around it um that hasn't gone up yet it's still under review with this select board um to be for to be finalized but that's what that's what um Helen and I have been working on so great so can we say see this store commission about this yes I think so I would just contact Jim Nielsen yeah they would love to love to I'm sure he would love to have you come to the meeting and and talk about it if possible yeah um I did have one other comment if I can if I can just chime in um the when something kind of hit me a little bit when you're talking about the um the train station and not mimicking not mimicking and I agree you can't mimic the historical aspects of the train station but something hit me about the colors that they were looking at um last last time and that maybe as opposed to like the Grays and things that are totally different to maybe use more neutral tones on the building that just kind of would would not be as um such a stark difference I guess if I could say not exactly so the blues and gray tones as a and you maybe use more beigey kind of beigey kind of tones as opposed to that was just something that I kind of thought might might make a difference like with more of a um a brown roof and um you know the siding more a different different tones I don't again I like the I like the idea of different materials and different and different tones but um but on the more on the on the neutral side as opposed to the gray side if that makes sense just something to think about sure there um we're asking them to put this what they're showing here on the sides of the building which I guess you didn't have time to do before you sent this back to us so um we I don't know do we think we could say that now in this or just wait until they almost think we need to wait until they show us something before we we comment on that yes um because I'm not sure we send them that comment now I'm not sure that he's going to interpret it yeah I think we wait I appreciate the comment Joan and I understand where you're coming from on that I I think we should see it in the greater context and then we can have a further conversation about it but um and you're welcome to join that conversation too when we have it um so your idea about the beigey tones is that coming from a particular context in the downtown you know should we be thinking about some particular buildings that we should be relating to um well I I think if if you're trying to I was I was thinking more of the Richardson Building as opposed it's it's it's all beige and brown tones as opposed to the blues and Grays that they're talking about putting this building would be you that those blues and Grays make it a totally separate entity in my mind I actually like losing Grace personally that's those are more my colors but you know but I think I think in this in this sense maybe not to mimic it or anything like that but just to kind of keep it in those tones where it wouldn't be as as Stark um uh contrast yeah okay yeah we'll we'll consider that in and determine where I think I don't think we'll put it in this report but we'll um make sure we mention it going forward but definitely please definitely please reach out to Jim um on the historical commission and I'll I'll send him a note tomorrow and let them know that you're might be coming well I don't think we're coming we're going to ask the applicant to come so when they come before you because um Helen brought that up at the last meeting and that would definitely be something that you all can discuss with them okay put it in this report right now and that's a good way to also potentially um I I know I no don't put his name in there please no oh okay and take and I would just end the sentence at Commission and and let the historic commission talk to them more about what they're doing um all right I just lost my thought um Helen talked to them about the fact they had to come in front of them for the demo delay yeah yeah and then this would also be a good way for some additional if if you found anything else uh more significant about those other buildings there might be additional opportunities at the front of this building for interpretive signage here's what used to be on this site so you know we might have more than more than one or two but right now apparently there aren't any records I'm not I'm not really sure how else you would find them I I think she's asked around all the places she knows of right now but I think somebody's still looking to find about about like Evers in the in those buildings you mean or um no the two buildings on the site oh yes the two historical buildings I'm sorry yeah she did she did mention that to me too yes yeah yeah all right yeah I'm still we are still working on that she definitely is working on it I'm I'm on vacation so I'm not doing a lot right now but I was surprised to see you come on this call actually we just got home and I said I'll just jump on and see what's going on oh great I'm sorry to hijack but no worries um and you haven't all right so Mark um is it's related right away with something we're doing right now uh yes and this is just before this meeting I can't I was on historical to me listening and all that but I'm not gonna bring any of that up the idea of what's going on here and now is how many more um pages and paragraphs will be going on this until completion well we have to go through it so I don't know I can't answer that okay because um I saw on the agenda that um you have a bunch of other things after this so I was wondering hopefully all we're doing is the minutes after this we're not doing anything else because we're already this is already taking too long I can tell you right now we're going to get some of the older minutes approved and try to get more stuff as we move on Mark okay now quickly for this would be um you said it was said before about the uh buildings and how big they are and all that's and all that was before earlier I wanted the combat back then but you're up on going I'm thinking that this project there's an oversize for this for the slot itself and of course and then with the uh the sidewalks they out of town sidewalks so that's kind of be an issue right there and it hits dark and the physical Storm part about the building it's got to be worthwhile talking to them about and the um you didn't get to I don't know if you did or not but the uh the storm water that's that's conservation and uh other issues that is going on here to me and I'm not putting it down or anything but to me this looks like it could be a final draft or or vote for yay am I right um no I don't think you're correct about that we're not doing a final draft we're doing an interim draft okay thank you thank you all right Kev can we keep going please so we're on signage good question sorry do we want to still keep the mural idea or if we are going interpretive or I I think the two might go hand in hand potentially okay that's just my sense I think we could just leave it in there okay well you didn't see what happens yeah um so the actual item here was the applicant was to present a generic indication of signage locations where tenants and for General Residential Building signage um and I think this is my note from the meeting on 83 signage for residential and Commercial together at home or um actually I thought that was an issue that in the plan they were saying that there would be signage um or the residential and the commercial in this band here we actually want to see their signage and we haven't seen it yet they haven't thought it out and we actually want to see it because I think I think you're correct and his answer wasn't didn't make me feel any better let's put it that way and you might have to signage together inside which would make sense but outside I think the fact there's no residential entrance at the front outside might be confusing to people especially people visiting a resident in the building and that has to be really spelled out at the front where do you go yeah I don't think it's been thought through right I think I was saying that the residential signage um may not be necessary at home or because the residential has two doors at the back what do you want to say no well I think you we just need to say the directional for you know the directional signage is is lacking right now and so they have to say something on on Homer because if you're you know Susie and Joe moved into the building and Barbara and Mike are coming to visit them and they haven't they don't know Ashland they haven't been here they have no idea where to go when they arrive at the site other than what they might have told them but the site's full because there's a dance a dance thing going on at the studio tonight so they parked across the street and they walk over and they're still like going where am I supposed to go to get to the residential side they they have to have signage that says residential entrance this way at the very minimum on Homer you know I I think it's a result of the building plan not being flushed I don't I don't think they understand their own their own plan um so yeah I think that I think they're rushing it as part of the problem [Music] um so signage should be could be indicated um on the elevations in and you say clearly indicated yeah great thank you my issue with this which I understand what you're saying Kathy that if someone comes to this building and they're a visitor and they're visiting a resident you know do they come to the front of the building but then the actual entrance to the residential Lobby is is actually on the back you go through this vestigal and then out of the building again and then inside which I've also didn't make a bit of sense to me it doesn't make sense because I I'm like that they have a door and a door maybe they should take part of that wall out and just have it open in there between all of those things why would they put another door in when they don't necessarily need to you know um why would they have a problem take it out yeah I don't even think we should get to that level I think we're talking about signage prematurely because the building plan isn't washed out right but isn't this awkward here which part right whoops go back up where you had your hand I know and then where the two walls are go but keep going down towards this doorway oops okay and then go to the left which is that wall this wall between those two spaces that strikes me as really awkward in terms of people moving in that space because that was open and there were columns in there instead of if that's a bearing wall then why wouldn't they just that would be the obvious place to put your some of your signage in from the back or the front so here's where you want to go if you're doing residential stuff here's where you want to go if you're doing or is that an elevator I'm looking at that's an elevator okay that's why that's in there okay so I don't know this sorry I don't know they've got all these doors that little tiny vestibule between the elevator and bicycle storage and then you have another door that you have to go in to go back out to go back in well I just think it's awkward I think the entire thing is awkward and why wouldn't you have that whole area open around the elevator then so you don't have door so small too why so you don't have to go out to get in right about Paving text repeat that looks like a two for wide door okay well we can't I mean I just think it's awkward I just think it's awkward how it's done all the doors are very small and I think it's it's not uh well it's got to be accessible right on the ground floor because that's where their accessible units are and how are you supposed to take that elevator and get upstairs if it's not accessible yeah I do commercial units usually have like one door I feel like that's an odd too um well I sort of brought up where the door locations were because I don't like them and they're you don't even line with the walks each each one actually has two doors except the one on the far end over on Alden Street and that only has one and I just and I said well where are those folks gonna go if there's a fire if you know if it's out on the street and they can't access access it and he said oh he had an answer but it wasn't there's a back quarter there you're like you're still inside the building you can't actually get to the outside you'd have to go down the long court or farther over on that that plan I just thought that was awkward also yeah see that on the far right that last commercial space it's on the corner of home rental then you have to go down that Corridor to get out yeah I think they were nice why would you have a bump out on on Homer out but the axis is all the way on Alden the lot they're right in the first I I actually don't understand I don't know why they didn't put a little door in there too I don't know I don't know I I find that and that's actually well I probably just should have said that why don't you put one on Homer there because I need to give more space to this unit well that's what I think they're trying to do but they could still put a door there and then if that unit needs it they'd just keep it permanently locked all the time [Music] lock from the outside and go through on a you know crash bar come inside well we agree that the building planning is is subpar right now yes all right so let's go back to our report because it's 9 30.
you'll still workers leave and myself it's kind of describe it as Kevin come home alone emptying these cribs which is when the swag Runners were proudly showcasing at home it's just such an amazing structure uh and to that end I can't wait to get the community and to see that the classrooms are all finished uh it's just a matter of getting my staff safely to the classrooms so they can start unpacking their boxes so that's going to happen next week again with the 22nd Paving if they choose to do so that's a courtesy of like a lot of them are really good shooting and we'd love to give them that opportunity that's about that's about it uh we have some really incredible slides to show you I am blessed man because at home I could yell Danielle and poop my wife appears and solves my couples and issues and helps me at school I do the same I give you all video Dr little appears and helps with the problems and issues and whatnot and she's going to come up here today show us as possible presentation and slideshow of pictures that she personally took Dave before Danielle starts can you share a little bit about the office that and their stuff because they're fully in as well office staff is also fully in as well and the nice thing about the office staff they're sitting in the front with the big picture window that overlooks the library of the stairs my office is kind of in the back earlier this week I heard screams in the main office oh my gosh I mean staircase so they get to kind of see everything as it's happening and exercise Disney [Music] so I am very excited to share our most recent progress photos of Candlewood Lake Elementary School and like Dr P and Dr Burrell have been saying we are so excited to stop sharing PowerPoints like this and actually invite you only to see what it actually looks like um it's amazing I know we keep saying it but it really truly is an amazing building um that we're so excited to to work for every day so last time you saw an administrative office that looked a little boring perhaps a little just furniture and some walls here's our furniture for the administrative office Dr B working on it he's in he moved in he unpacked his two bucks he's almost there but it it's Donna um similarly in the main office ignore the garbage can there but our four of our three of the four pictured here of our front office staff have moved in started unpacking those boxes getting settled um like you see the picture window behind you they get a very interesting view of the demo that's happening um behind to see Huckleberry go away but at the same time you see the bridge torque that's being done there and installed the bridges are installed um and cement is actively being poured each day we go and that's Debbie Lisa and Claire and that's where they're weaker on the house so they're getting their permanent workstations and speaking of the bridges in concrete the stamped concrete is in um right outside both of the front entrances are all actually interior the main entrance and the lower Pre-K entrance you see beautiful stamped concrete and there we go so this was taken on Tuesday but this is the multi-purpose room flooring being all prepped and ready to go you see the walls that are um all nice to soundproofing and then this was Wednesday the view from above um of the multi-purpose room the rubber um subfloor thank you it has been laid both in the multi-purpose room and in the gross motor and it's ready for the next step Christmas so progress is happening in these roads most recent this picture was taken this afternoon the grand staircase so um we got to see today cement being trucked in by buckets from the book Bridge into the building and actually being thrown on and poured and smoothed out so that was pretty cool to see but you see the railing in place and done the flooring is just about done I believe one more coat goes on from what I understand Chris our project manager and here's a look from up top and you see the landing being laid it looks good pictures aren't doing it justice it really does look good gym floor progress we heard and smelled them sanding today so that was a nice update it's been sitting and kind of curing a place after standing the next step is the staining so that's along nicely our lower Media Center is completely carpeted now and Furniture installation has begun all that wood that you see around is the bookshelves for not the lower but the upper Media Center as well shelving is being put in place much to de-piercing specifications in terms of shelf height even for books so it's coming along quite nicely so by the end of the week shelving should be done early next week at the latest just an example of kindergarten classroom all ready to go all that's missing is the teachers to unpack those boxes and 21 students in that room same with the upper grades classroom they're all ready to go this is really cool so in the neighborhoods in addition to in the hallway the neighborhoods there are some walls that are bulletin board so teachers can decorate it just like they have now at Huckleberry except they're quite large in addition some of those wall coverings are this amazing wall art in the different neighborhoods that go with the things so here you see the butterflies in the kindergarten the kindergarten wing and up in the fourth grade weeks see the uh the really cool fish artwork and the the seaweed Danielle if I could add on this it's really important for everyone to understand the way the construction was done of our Candlewood Lake we have shoe drop walls and what has been done the genius of the design thought that's gone into this not only do we have bulletin boards as Danielle mentioned we also have this wall art but the wall art is made of a material that is washable so instead of fingerprints and the like the dragging of the pencil side of the wall of those things we've probably all engaged in that a little bit ourselves as youngsters can be washed and then where there isn't wall art or a bulletin board there's a plastic type cover and the every surface is but these again pictures don't do them Justice um outside of the fifth grade there is a Big Moose leading into the teachers staff ORD it's huge it's amazing it's hard to believe it's in school it's so cool and then these are the backgrounds of the um sculpture wall art that are going in the neighborhoods too so um eventually those installations will be housed right here I believe that's the kindergarten in a third grade and the um one on the left is in the hallways or in the stairwells in the back stairwells all the stair treads are installed so staff can students um Can safely go and get down the stairs and it's important for people to know the truth saved they're almost finished with all the stairwells that stairwell is dirtier there is an increase in workers I don't think Dr P will be able to wander by himself after 3 30 for the remainder of the summer um course all that will be cleaned up but I'd rather have it dirty and have a lot of workers in there finishing everything up so it will be clean I won't think that that's what the finished stairwell looks like and in addition to the stairwells our two elevators are functioning and they're improving and of course the beautiful Chromebooks that are going into each classroom so each so students no longer have to look for their Chromebooks store them in whatever Contraption teachers think of and are creative enough to think of students don't have to share unless classes they all get to be housed right in the classroom for easy access when needed instruction and the logo that you see there is the logo for Candlewood Lake that will be on the center of the gym floor to rival the Bobcat at Brookfield High School and that is there August progress so hopefully next time you won't see a PowerPoint next time you'll actually see it in here maybe even a video of Entry to the school I have an idea all right and David Daniel can you share a little bit you know we took a picture of the the office that's worth in there you talk a little bit about the adjustment of the remainder of the admin team you know Tara and the dead and uh June and also if you can tell they share the anecdote about Nicole Barrera one for one for Brookfield High School English teachers who has transferred and is now going to be the lower Media Center uh librarian I think there's just two really poignant important pieces to share here so it was uh with respect to Nicole Guerrera without Nano Island embarrassment certain enthusiasm we were walking through the uh the school at 9th graders come from torch who's very excited and uh as we walk through the lower media center she was just so I'm impressed like it just really tearing up a little bit because she's just alone by how awesome the structure was and I have a rule that Nobody Cries along so I may have cheer up a little I don't know a legend uh but just it was so awesome because I didn't really know her but you know I had interviewed her she allowed the committee we knew that she's a person but just to see that that passionate excitement I heard was was just awesome uh with the office staff admin right but so I've got okay so like just in general how are they interested well I I kind of feel badly for Dr Rudolph and Dev Farris because their offices are upstairs and they're ready to go but they can't safely access them so they're working with us so Danielle has taken refuge in the beautiful school psychologist office and is sitting in our school resource officer's office but it's still this beautiful little windows and gorgeous don't get me wrong I just feel bad you know I work with my stuff and I'm putting my pictures up Dr P if you're ever feeling a little hungry hangry and you just got the almonds and all those great little snacks so we're in we're excited and we're just waiting on Taryn Argenta who had the nerves to get married and go away on her because we do but she'll be back shortly uh and she will I don't think anybody has taken her office knows and what's been nice is over the past year we've been meeting every week so Debbie's been at Center we've been at Huckleberry everybody's been all over this past week minus Terry for sure we've all been able to be in the same building in the same office suite right next to each other being able to bounce ideas off of each other and laugh and go crazy when the cement was being poured and yeah so it's happening it's real it's real thank you both so much are there any questions at all at this point for Dr Peter Dr riddle while they're up there um I love those smiles I have a few more uh items to share as we go and uh it's just really informative for the board informative for the public and again um actually come up maybe a little bit later to share a little bit about some key dates and also some of the communication system he and his this is Gordon of Dr rule has sent out they're trying to have a at least a weekly Cadence of communication is going to our families and into our staff to make sure they know what's going on because I know everybody is chomping at the bit and I'll be very very honest no one more than me you know I've been I've been a part of this project with many of you board members who've been a part of this project from envisioning it when we looked at the ball field in the back of Huckleberry decided they might come and uh so to see it really that whole Vision really come to life it become brick and mortar and concrete and Timber and then come to life now is just a crowd up a couple of things just to kind of share a little bit about what's ahead and we've already kind of done that but I want to make sure you go through my notes so I don't miss anything that set expectations so I talk about rising action you know we're really heading toward that Crescendo of the start of school and with any construction project it is a furious fight to the Finish and that's what we're seeing now we've just pulled into the temporary lot today which again is the lot it's kind of a raised lot that's close to Candlewood Lake Road and I couldn't even get a spot now thankfully I'm a Jeep so that was hard for me to find a spot on campus I throw the mud out the parking lot to prove it um so I did have a little fun but um it really that's how many workers and that's never been the case up until this week so they really have increased their their Pace like we said we're sanding to get rid of the polyurethane in the gym the other large space area floors are finishing upstairs or finishing up really the concrete work that is really so beautiful and you saw the stamp concrete that actually looks like um pavers that were put in by a mason so it's a real high quality and that's kind of a section and or phase at a time so I've taken a little more time the concrete trucks that come in actually have to come in with the die in the truck or the color of the concrete to match exactly as so it's taking a little more time than just coming and pointing the white content concrete anyway I just continue to ask for everybody to be patient flexible I know you're anxious to get to get a lot of updates and punch lists gets done gets shorter every day that punch list continues to go down other questions arise as you know what are we doing with the small Wares boxes and where are they going who's unpacking them right now and here we do that so those are coming up every day in terms of cycling use the word Paving a couple of times there's a lot of phases that go into the site work as everybody I think knows it's a very wet site at Huckleberry in fact Brook River really serves as a remote for our bridges to go over so it's a very wet say there's a lot of phases of drainage in there in the parking lot so all of that infrastructure needs to be dug out and laid out first talked about the softer soil and the work that had to remediate that and drained properly into the into cases so that work is really going on in different phases but that south parking lot we did receive good news Dave and I talked with the NBC late yesterday afternoon and they had worked with OMG we were under the impression that we may have to not only start with the temporary lot which we always knew would have 100 120 of the south parking lot which is very close to the building we may have had to start with that being kind of a gravel stone dust Rock process um and then the paperwork would have Paving work would have to be done on the weekends we're hearing now that they're actually moving so quickly performing so well that that may be asphalt by the time if not for the first day of school so they're doing what they can we obviously have to get the buses in because sidewalks everything has to be safe staff has to be able to get out of their cars and walk safe things change every day for us we won't give updates every day because it would be too confusing for everyone so a once a week communication is probably um sorry so I'm sure I've got everything here um we are examining we're working with the police chief Fire Marshal and All-Star Transportation they're out there looking at temporary driveways that's neat and that will likely be installed until November when the north lot is done that is going to limit our space one of the things we're taking a look at Dr P will be in touch with parents when the time is right if this in fact becomes a decision there may not be enough space at with the buses to also have parents doing a ride around cars so when and if that decision if and when that decision is made that when I meet them to pause for a month while continuing TXS is developed we will talk to those parents and let them know and want those students to us and of course individual circumstances if that's not possible because it was a particular family situation obviously accommodations would be worked out we'll um the other expectation that people need to know is the state bureaucracy really got in the way on finalizing the order of the playscapes Ong and arcadis went around I think executives are owner agent went around and around the state in multiple meetings are very accessible and incredible playscapes will not be ready to start the school year they'll be arriving probably the first week in September by the end of September we're anticipating the install of all three playscapes with the poured rubberized safety flooring for each of those areas so I just want people to know that Dr P and the team are working on what the alternative outside exercise and recess time could be in a season area as well as our fully air conditioned facility with all of those large spaces how we could conduct inside recess especially on those hot days in September in those large spaces have a ball have a great time and also not interfere with visible education and working with Mr Baldwin maybe front load some of the health lessons in physical education so we could accommodate inside recess if we need to so Dr P is going to work on that with the team and we all know we'll make whatever alternate options we need to explore not only communicate that to families and faculty but make it work for everybody and again we just uh really ask for patients and flexibility and I think that's all I had Dave would you come back up and talk about some of the communications you sent out beyond the teacher assignment and then just uh kind of let us know where over the next week we might go and I know um maybe he's getting ready to talk about dates for Western Air and make it might be as simple that I just take the 28th and switch it to the end of this Friday instead of Monday so I'll know more next week definitely and then you know communication I share all the communications with of course the staff as well so that requires the situation uh so they will be able to start on a third Wednesday in the classroom so they should do that and then as we move forward I'll continue I like I said weekly Communications excuse me the way you're going everything is happening so quickly I mean when I think about that parking lot what it looked like yesterday versus today it's just this beautiful smooth and yesterday it was the truck so it looked like my childhood sandbox come to life which was very exciting for me but today it's just all nice and smooth and I saw Dr Mr baloney so that Mercedes parked way up there overlooking and we're surveying the scene and I'm thinking you're pretty impressed with what you saw with the Department the drainage culverts so that's uh that's a good sign because you can actually start picturing the driveways okay anything else all right thank you very much it's going to be a wild ride in the last couple weeks and uh but we're going to get there right we're going to open on the kitchen cannibal Lake Elementary School all right next up is three main points okay I was thinking that um nice to feature the update from Dr rudel about the summer school program then I was thinking about the um news about the France trip from Catherine Abrego would be exciting to put in and the Candlewood Lake Elementary School update all right and upcoming events Candlewood Lake Elementary student walkthrough scheduled for the last week in August specific pacific times and dates have been and maybe will be communicated again to families and the high school Tuesday August 29th is that right engineer will be open for student walkthroughs on Tuesday August 29th from 10 to 12 and Wednesday August 30th from three to five and at the high school on August 22 ND and 6 p.m is new student orientation and 23rd at 6 PM is the fall Sports parent meeting both of those take place in the auditorium and the first day of school Tuesday September 5th a full day yet that's not an odd day yes the new school start times yes at the Whittier school start times do not do we have those right I believe right yeah why don't we talk a little bit about the new school story times before we break what are they and how do parents will they will they yes so Mr post can talk about scheduling is in just a second so um in how that gets communicated from All-Star but what I will tell you is we've put out a school message to all of our families regarding specific start times the fact that the high school starting 45 minutes later 35 and that was eight o'clock excuse me and the uh it'll start at the same time as whiskey here and then the elementary school starts at 8 50 and all buses for the high school and middle school are separated we do not have middle school and high school students are writing together that was important to the committee and then the elementary kids for Candlewood Lake as most people know while both elementary schools Center and Huckleberry started at the same time they were on split runs the runs will go through a neighborhood once and pick up the children there but I think what I don't want to be lost oh and we put this on Facebook a couple of times and the start times will be in my newsletter tomorrow as a reminder and the principals have their newsletters coming out next week and it'll be there as well so the word is out on that um but going back to the committee's work which was approved by the board in June of 2020 but the work started at the beginning of the burglary or 2019. the whole point of changing the start times rose out of adolescent health issue which was making sure our adolescents had his sleep but they needed based on their actual bio rhythm s of being in those teenagers and all the studies pointed to the kids were up later naturally and needed to sleep later and so all of the work that we did Yale checking with other schools and what they did and looking across the country it was very clear that if you were going to make a change for the later do it at a minimum avoidance people don't bother doing that and so we made the whole decision to move from the additional Brookfield seven o'clock start time excuse me 715 star term to eight o'clock and and we're really excited about that we actually had Mr Baldwin our health and PE leader K-12 as well as our athletic director he serves in all those capacities on the committee not only so he can advise us on the health piece but he can take a look from the athletic perspective in what an after-school perspective what that disruption could look like and really there is minimal disruption and the reason for that is one it wasn't going to be that disruptive in the first place but second many schools over the last 15 years are moving in the direction of a later High School start time so we're all getting on that scene there are some things with Athletics with some of the spring Athletics mostly but fall golf where the evening time in terms of sunset starts to impact things and so those things will be worked out there's always a plan in place for that we're really excited about it it's a lot of years in the making we wanted to implement it earlier but we decided to postpone for a year until Candlewood Lake was going to be ready last year and then wasn't so we've really postponed two years longer on this decision than we wanted to but while we had this amazing opportunity with the consolidation of the fifth grade to elementary schools into our new school we thought what a perfect time it would be to bring the entire district for the right sizing of the middle school and the big change with the high school with the start time do everything at once so it's kind of a fresh new starter as we you know as we say free tomorrow today um know we had a number of our board members on the team I don't know if anybody wants to comment any further thank you all right and losses of the objectives thank you all
I hear all my grandchildren I had seven kids go through Wasilla and the high school and thank you to all the teachers they not only about the greatest college and I thank thank all the teachers here have been doing an excellent job my point is uh Diane's made her point in Don and John um the whole thing it said around the children and if the parents and the teachers can work together and communicate with each other for example when my daughter you know got sick I was called on phone and notified that she was sent and any kind of issue that comes up at school it's the parents and the teachers that are working together in Partnership to help the children thank you for your time thank you thank you is that it that was it on our public comments okay I'll need the pink slips after for Genie we have a number of emails and letters that were sent in earlier and asked to be read tonight at the meeting so bear with me and I'll pour through first one hello my name is Chelsea Wilhite my child is a student enrolled in the Bass Lake School District I am a graduate both of wasuma Elementary and Yosemite High School I earned my PhD in Psychology at the University of Nevada Reno and currently on full-time adjunct faculty in the psychology department at California State University of Fresno it has come to my attention that the school board is hearing at least one proposal disguised as parents rights to make it mandatory that teachers and other staff notified parents of a child who displays Behavior inconsistent with the behavior assumed by some people to be proper to their gender assigned at Birth this brings up a number of concerning issues listed below number one first the California Education Code specifies Public Schools shall develop resources or as appropriate update existing resources for in-service training on School site and Community Resources for the support of lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer and questioning pupils and strategies to increase support for lgbtq pupils and thereby improve overall School climate including ensuring that schools are safe place for lgbtq pupils which is an article 2.7 should teachers and staff be required to reveal to parents any atypical gender related Behavior it would be a direct violation of the California Education Code number two should the basket School District adopt the proposal it will open the district up to lawsuits three given the lack of existing objective definitions for the concepts people advocating for so-called parents rights rules refer to it brings up a number of other legal issues to be clear the only way a teacher or staff member would know gender assigned at Birth of a student is to observe their genitalia as you might see this is incredibly concerning number four the health and well-being of children who might feel comfortable behaving one way at school but fear their parents at home is of utmost concern children need a safe place please do not allow radical hate groups to turn our schools into nefarious reporting agencies protect the health well-being and human rights of our children thank you Chelsea foreign ER to whom it may concern recently I've been made aware that the basic school district is proposing a parental rights policy to help students who may be considered trans to their parents this is horrifying I can't imagine in a room full of educated professionals that no one has considered how dangerous this is for the child is this real life if a child feels safe presenting the way they feel comfortable at school why would you then go and make them uncertain this is appalling and dangerous not to mention why are grown adults so concerned with a child's genitals whose business is it uh is it what they have in their pants disgusting if a young boy feels more comfortable wearing a dress or a little girl wants to dress in pants and climb trees who are you to determine that's not okay and why this all of a sudden how many of us girls snuck out of the house with lipstick or spirit in our backpacks to change into when we got to school where teachers concerned about tattling men why now seems like this policy is absolutely targeting lgbtq plus children as Society continues to wrestle with what is right and what is wrong I'd like to remind everyone that in this country as in this public school district religion or religious beliefs attitudes expectations and taboos have absolutely no place as policy or love if my child were trans I'd like to know they can go to school the same as every other kid without worrying about their teachers making issue with how they present don't you guys have more important things on your plates why are we even talking about this when we should be addressing the ridiculously underpaid understaffed under-supported teachers or how about teach children about acceptance and equality and our Real History instead of targeting those who are different I passionately hope that our community comes together against this to serving potential there are two other huge points worth discussing having grown up and abusive home myself I speak from experience the school is the same place for many students favorite teachers friends activities outside of the home we are things or were things that kept me alive literally now we take a trans kid who may be experiencing hate and abuse at home and you strip them at their safe place by mandating teachers tattle on them for being different this will undoubtedly lead to physical emotional and psychological harm possibly even death second Point School is meant for exploration and experimentation we get to choose who we want to be who we want to hang with how to present ourselves this is a time-honored tradition and part of growing up we have pajama days Crazy Hair Days backwards days etc etc encouraging students or encouraging kids to try new things and explore Styles and cultures yet we draw the line of dresses what does this actually mean it means we're saying trans kids aren't acceptable we're saying it's bad or wrong to being who they feel comfortable being we are teaching hate it simply cannot pass we cannot do this to our children signed a very concerned model this one's from Nick Dugan I am a lifelong Eastern Madera County resident past attendee of blsd schools graduate of Yosemite high and parent of children currently enrolled in the Mountain Area Schools I write to express my great concern with the proposed notification policy brought forward by board member Flaherty conflating serious notification triggering events such as physical injury suicidal ideation and physical verbal abuse with the manufactured concern about elementary school children expressing gender identity as a divisive and transparent attempt to inject nature our national politics and political ideologies into our local schools our overworked underpaid and underappreciated teachers and administrators don't deserve to be thrust into the middle of the social wedge issue I implore the board to act in the interest of our entire Community focused on high quality inclusive education for all of our children and Lead divisive National politics out of the district policies thank you next one comes from Anne Flanagan to whom it may concern I am writing to oppose the parental notification policy proposed by board member Flaherty on tonight's agenda it is a misguided attempt cloaked into the guise of parental rights to force School staff to help her students to their parents this could result in limiting what some kids for some kids is the only safe outlet they have for expressing their true selves and could endanger their mental health as a parent it is my duty to understand and know my children to the extent that they are willing to share with me for kids who don't have supported parents regarding their gender identity or sexual orientation this will undoubtedly cause them harm and put School staff in an unnecessary and difficult position I encourage all board members to stand up for students and vote no on the Smiths guided and harmful proposal next one is from Elaine Paisley I have read the proposed policy which includes mandatory recording of a student's gender identity to parents or Guardians I strongly encourage rejection of this proposal or any such proposal that is a clear violation of Human Rights enforcement of this policy could affect the privacy of students and their families placing them at risk of bullying or Worse enforcing this proposal also places an unwarranted burden on School staff as a former educator I question whether such a policy is within the purview of a school board this Mountain community and any Community would do well to be more concerned about gun safety in our schools than in a student's gender identity what name or pronoun he she they choose to be called [Music] Loretta I understand you are considering a proposed policy of Parental notification I am writing in opposition to that policy I do not think School staff should be mandated to notify parents of students gender identity request instead of safeguarding children which I am sure is your intent it may jeopardize them these are young children and if they are talking with school Personnel before they talk with their families they may be recognizing their risks of Abandonment and abuse students should not fear going to school this policy threatens the safety and well-being of lgbtq plus students and violates their rights instead they should feel safe and included as should all children please vote to oppose this proposed policy or any similar policy Excellence from John Flores I am a parent of a student and find your policy infringing upon the civil rights of children frightening Administration staff are not there to help children to their parents this can have disastrous consequences if and when a student wishes to reveal themselves to anyone that is their choice and right I have had two friends from my own school days who had to allow or had to run away due to their sexual orientation being revealed to their parents one was beaten by their father at 14.
all right so we're okay you're great what's next so existing conditions for so we're on site in landscape parking garage um comes within the forefoot property line um do we need to say anything on this they they we did talk a little bit about where the drive lane is um in relation to the parking garage below actually they indicated that on a plan um but I I don't know to a additional comments well not not for that per se I mean I still think parking spot 17 is going to be badly impacted by a fire a fire truck and if it's got a canopy over it I don't think that little space is going to get a canopy I mean potentially they could go around the corner with a canopy but I don't think they're going to do it but if they do it they definitely have a problem with that corner yeah um do you want to introduce so we sent our letter about the environmental impact state statement or study rather should we mention that here I think in relation to the location proximity to the property line um we have concerns about how it might impact the foundations and and budding properties introduce away um let's see um I'm looking at the letter actually well the first thing we said on item two was the Africa needs to produce an Eis environmental impact study assessing the impacts of developing the entire site in particular putting in the below grade parking garage the constant vibration of the trains and the properties proximity to the railroad tracks less than 100 feet away and then critical neighboring properties for Eis consideration we talk about the railroad building and also the gas station we didn't actually talk about and we should have the proximity to nearby well we actually at the very end of number three we say where these properties in mind is the digging Jackhammer and dribbling and Blasting will create additional significant vibrations to both Parcels as well as other nearby structures you could lift that right out of the letter if that was easier or we can reference the letter c letter of God did I not date this August 2nd to the planning board that's great actually you want to say item three of the letter or just say see the letter let me just say see the letter that's simpler it's sort of all related to the i i e uh e-i-s yes um we felt there does not need to be oh so we've already actually we addressed this and I think it's an issue if if planning board isn't reading this and um [Music] taking our comments into account but um I would actually why don't you keep well you just got highlighted and after it in red just say see above see above comment yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna put it here because I want to I want to keep this the way that it was um eight point yeah right okay um so this one applicant shall consider constructability of excavation um I would just leave it we didn't discuss it just leave it I mean I could write this same thing actually about the environmental impact study yes yep okay we didn't talk about the pergolas that were a topic of conversation on 615 I think we just say this need wasn't discussed needs work wasn't discussed and still needs work that we did talk about and he's supposed to continue showing us that stuff which he doesn't have yet um that's what I had written oops I had written an applicant to provide box of samples after next meeting about um this is about the pocket part though right and I just think we it's not it's not ready yet we just say we still haven't received it hasn't been hasn't been I'd like to say really discuss but we discussed it a little bit um hasn't been thoroughly discussed materials not at not yet received so what we want to say about the the benches we talked a little bit about Planters at the edge of the commercial patio spaces or um why don't you make a note there it says consider Planters with benches built into them because I've seen a couple examples of that now are we should we just say seating no one really uses benches when's the last time you sat on a bench they're uncomfortable you can't like use a laptop I feel like like a cafe table and chairs would be a lot better or at least say seating okay let's start like depending on where you are there are some sidewalk places that have actually seen where they have seating built into the Planters literally um and it might be like long bench sections actually okay I'm sorry yeah I just saw benches but benches I think we have to like you know um we're not going to get them to do all of what we want them to do and I think we have to have some latitude here and then you know in a crowded area when there's no other scene people will use benches and I think on a you know if you wanna if you're going along on a sidewalk and you're looking for a place to sit and there's no chairs but there's a bench available people will use the benches so you can't like decide what people are gonna do if that's all there is out there that's they'll use it so I think there was an idea to use these as a buffer from the street as well Planters is a buffer from the street yes so that would still be on the inside because we talked about that don't put the benches on the outside of the street put them on the inside because nobody's going to sit on the outside of the street unless they have a bus stop which we haven't even discussed and and to reduce potentially do this as an option instead of the the large amount of landscaping that they're proposing right right Brendan you you your point is to reduce the amount of just extraneous landscaping and kind of pull it back and create more usable space in that area isn't that oh did we lose him looks like we lost him where'd he go yeah we might have lost them hang on oh he lost power yeah we lost yeah so can you still keep going or Draw no I I have power I said we lost Brendan oh okay okay do we know that he lost power yeah he said that he just texted me oh so I didn't think it was is it raining out oh I'm surprised I didn't lose power this morning I used to with chrome I'm I missed the yes I missed the um there was a little bit of Thunder I don't think I saw that much lightning but maybe I missed it I mean we got some serious downpours I was just keep going yeah let's keep going so um we could put in the comment well I think we need we need to have these meetings with Brendan if he's going to have these comments about the Landscaping because he and I fundamentally disagree about some of it but I think he's on to something perhaps we we might be able to simplify it um so uh where's the actual I can't read that right now yeah can you can you can that there are ghosts much better thank you I think we just leave that and move on I I don't I don't quite I don't quite know what to do with the Landscaping right now we really need him at the meeting we need to have a a comment about it yeah I'd like to understand how um we can we can come to resolution about that streetscape and if we want more landscaping or less Landscaping well I think I haven't sent you a couple of things I need to send you I was actually hoping I was going to get some more stuff sent back by one of the suppliers who has totally ignored my request right now so I don't know how they do business they must have some giant projects and they don't care about somebody asking for some stuff for a design Review Committee um just just leave that um this wasn't confirmed yet but I think we should leave it on here I do too and I actually think we need to tell them to label it as the Street sidewalk on the drawings it might be apparent to some people it's not going to be apparent to everybody well what would that be if it wasn't the Street sidewalk maybe it's too appeared I don't know if it would be something that they would be providing and then to be an additional Street sidewalk which is how they got into trouble with 12 pond um it just needs to be clearly labeled that it's the town sidewalk not the applicants Town sidewalk period I would yeah simpler is no yeah just take off yeah there we go I think that's good and so we have the note in here already about the underground utilities that confirm if that extends down a homer so I think just put put it back in there again oh yeah you take it out it just you know all of this needs to be reviewed in more detail right you know what yes understood um G point six applicant to verify the net change in the previous surface we didn't discuss this um that needs more discussion I mean they're talking about it being paved back there but it's it's not really paid anymore and it's rough whatever is out there so it's a lot more pervious than they think it is [Music] but you know some of this is you know we're we're in this process of the planning board giving approval for the project to go forward but where where'd like at least a year or two away from actually seeing a permit issued for this project and some of these questions would would come out of the final design documents and and um you know when it actually goes through permit review well you know it was like the discussion about the critical root Zone where Julian said he would definitely Mark those trees and actually we have to figure out where to put that in here um and and we need to see this stuff on on drawings and we need assurances that it's going to get in there I actually think it's down here under landscape yeah is it was this on the original site plan I think what we just say is um assurances were received from the applicant because sorry this is a new item yeah because Julian and I think it was wreck actually said those that the critical root Zone documents could be put onto the onto the actual construction drawings so that appear and I was like that would be great that would be fine because as long as they're either have to be in the planning board decision called out on the planning board decision or they have to be on the final drawings but if we don't call it out here it could it'll get forgotten or it won't happen at all these are the existing root zones is that right for for trees that is protecting the existing trees as discussed protecting the critical root zones of the existing trees as discussed C diagrams sent by design review and you all were cc'd on those documents today which is part of the same package of stuff that we I don't even remember how long ago it was now do you remember how long ago it was that we sent that stuff over to the planning board I think it was it's been some time yeah like at least 90 years right yeah yeah because I remember that was a meeting where Trisha Kendall said oh my God this this planting diagram is showing to take the metal basket off the tree and we just pulled the dead tree off our property it had the metal basket still on it and I was like yep I go to properties and people say why is my tree dead and I go who planted it for you did you all plant it and they go no you know somebody else came and planted it I'll go well let's take a look I always find I always find the wire basket sometimes it's sticking up above so what what is the action item on this word we want the planning board to include that in there um in their decision no uh could be added to the construction documents that's the action item construction documents comma two per to protect existing trees on site and you could say C diagram Sent By Design Review Committee the planning board has prevent previously seen not sending anything new okay let's keep going here so this is um site sustainability not building sustainability permeable pavers um we were expecting the design and detailing of the pavers and we did talk about this um that they're they're drivable pavers that then get um you know that pattern you don't see over time well he needs to show us that stuff Kevin because I'm I'm going back and forth about what he actually said about specifically what the product is [Music] um and um uh the other thing he said is because I was talking to them about the shoes on the snow plows so I was asking basically to make that whole patio permeable on the front and they could use shoes on the plows they could specify in their operations and maintenance plan that whoever was plowing it was going to have shoes shoes on their plows and that's a term for the little gizmos they put on the bottom of the plows like 50 a pair they're cheap actually for what for a plow they're incredible actually it just raises a plow enough so you're not catching the corners and picking the bricks up because the plow it the entire plow surface is down on the ground it picks the bricks up it's almost impossible not to do it I mean you can do it if you raise the plow a couple of inches but most operators forget to do it and then it's too late so that's why they put the shoes on the bottom you need to say permeable pavers and that well both the three three adjectives yes please on the products plural and the method of plowing the papers as required by the fire department well the fire department doesn't specify plowing they specify clearing so the clearing of the snow piece um is something they were they were specifically going to address in their o m plan that if it was getting plowed they would use um the the the shoes on the plows wanted to call them bumps but that's not the type of proper technical term all right I'll just take that on the it's actually clearing it's not plowing the papers you have to say clearing because they might snow blow we can't be telling them how to do it they can just say clearing the pavers of snow of snow I mean you could do like semicolon if plowing they will use um plow not Wheels um plow shoes specified in their o m plan um [Music] are they wheeled what are they no column column column shoes please because only a couple of them were Wheels actually because I I spent a bunch of time looking at this at one point but it took me a while to figure out what it was until I found a document from Minnesota that talked about it and then I could look them up and most of them are they're um I don't even know how to describe them but they're similar to the pads you put on the bottom of furniture except giant for plows yeah I know what you mean I just don't know what they what they're and they pulled to the bottom um they're called snow they're called plow shoes I'm telling you what they're called it seems it seems a little weird but they're actually plow shoes oh oh sorry it's an actual term there you go it's no shoes which is something entirely different exactly um papers are do you want to mention what they told us about the the rating of the pavers they they said that they're age 20 rated for drivability and I was gonna say that they'll be filled in with Clover rescue and Wildflower um well actually he's getting us the seed mix for that because I I don't I have to look up that seed mix so you need to put that in there actually they're going to provide the seed mix because they're providing seed mixer listen for the patio um one of those was uh the one up on the patio is full of a lot of annuals it will not stand the test of time like they'll have to keep constantly reseeding it okay do you want me to change anything or is that 8-20 rated or they actually say that as H2O and people know that it's not water rated um looks like it's h-20 yeah I'd put h-20 in there just to make it clearer to people although this website is not uh doesn't have the dash yeah yeah I'd put H dash 20.
you cannot allow this policy to be implemented or children may become harmed if this informant policy is adopted I will contact California attorney general Rob fonza with my concerns over this overreach of authority next one's from Yvonne Austin as a concerned Community member and grandmother of the transgender youth adult I am extremely appalled by the proposed policy to discriminate against any persons to restrict and hinder a person from learning is absolutely disgusting and also apparently illegal thank you as a body I am contacting you in regards to very unsettling information I received about the LSD board members proposal the idea that the district would mandate violating the rights and trust between a student and teachers slash staff is outrageous this could potentially put the student at Great risk but also be a liability issue for the district if harm came to the student our underfunded small schools cannot afford this liability I noticed proposal and support for did come from a small group of ignorant older citizens Mrs Clarity included that have contributed nothing to the betterment of our Mountain Area Schools this group's mission is to weaken our public schools and make parents distrust our teachers and staff by making these ridiculous claims our four children attended Mountain area schools for their entire School careers my husband and I have been volunteers for all 19 years and it breaks my heart to see what this group has done to Staffing students of the mountain area with their paranoia and hate I wish you the staff and students the best of luck in combating people that want to destroy our Public Schools thank you for your time China clubs in Flores I am a local Citizen and parent who is very concerned about this new policy proposal that attacks gender identity and its effects on our young people the schools should should be focused on teaching our children not policing behavior that doesn't fit status quo as if it's a crime insisting that teachers and School staff infringe on the individual students constitutional rights privacy this proposed policy squeaks in a betrayal of A Private Matter that is a subject's own business to be conducted on their own time between themselves and their parents it is not for us to do it for them that is where the danger lies a potential change of gender identity is not a danger to them it is outing them that is the danger before they are ready we do not know the intricacies of their Homelite nor the prejudices or and biases their parents possess or what those parents family members or Guardians who they live with may do with this information to structure this proposal within the framework of protecting our kids is purposefully misleading and simply untrue this policy will absolutely increase the risk of them committing self-harm or running away this policies underlying message is that you want to read them out and make them more of a Target not just at school but at home these are fear-based tactics that are known to rile up those who prefer to dehumanize the lgbtq communities who do not fit into their own ideological agendas reconsider this bigoted policy it is harmful to our kids and our community and makes our schools increasingly unsafe places our children already have to do drills for armed Shooters if you're making it worse [Music] to those of you that value limited government and worry about the overreach of government and choose private lives this policy undermines parents ability to have private conversations with their own children about these issues and requires the school district a government agency to intervene into the private matters of the family records will be kept letters will be sent conversations will be documented this policy implies that parents aren't keeping a logical eye on their own children and having conversations about these issues with their own children no one wants our teachers turned into the morality secret police to those of you who dislike when people try to force their politics and religion on you please reject the temptation to inject your politics and religion upon all the children and parents of our community and the teachers and staff that work for the district to those of you that want the district to have talented staff and teachers this policy will make it harder to attract and retain teachers and staff as many potential candidates and current teachers will find your moralizing Accord and will work elsewhere to those of you that believe public school is for all children not just the ones that conform to your religious and political ideology this policy will make it harder and less safe for those children that are trying to be true to themselves and are simply trying to live their lives to their fullest you're moralizing from the diocese doesn't help it hurts and it makes Public School less welcoming and less safe for children I sincerely thank some of you who came to this policy will be helpful but I promise you this policy will result in a child or children being harmed and when that happens it will be on those of you that supported this policy thank you for considering my comments hello my name is Diana strimling I am a graduate of our local schools I also have a master of arts in marriage and family therapist and a lecturer at CSU Fresno and have a graduate certificate in diversity equity and inclusion I am also the founder of Oakhurst lgbtq plus which started because of members of this community not having safe spaces I volunteer earlier lead a peer support group for local lgbtq plus youth as well which has had many local youth should come and share their stories with me bullying of LGBT kids and not supporting them in their identity has been clinically shown to cause great harm to their mental health and well-being lgbtq youth are not inherently prone to Suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society 75 of lgbtq Youth report that they have experienced discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity at least once in their lifetime and more than half so they experience this discrimination in the past year those who experience discrimination in the past year attempted suicide at more than twice the rate of those who did not imagine being a child with non-supported parents who have been informed by a teacher or other staff official of their identity imagine the emotional and physical harm that could result from someone else sharing such private information before you were ready for it to be done as a therapist who has worked on school campuses are ethical codes parenthetically this includes school counselors social workers and lpcc's all prohibit us from disclosing this type of information this also breaks the best practices recommended by California safe schools which I have attached to my state being lgbtq is no more a choice than having blue eyes or freckles supporting children is literally a life-saving major thank you for your time [Applause] thank you this one's from Jennifer Flaherty I'm truly saddened and definitely opposed to the proposal being brought forward by blsd's board member Diane player schools should be focused on supporting and educating our kids not pulling them out for being suspect and questioning their own personal gender identity Please Don't Force our caring teachers to help their students the far right Fringe is going too far students have civil rights this forced outing policy is pure and simple bullying and should not be tolerated as a senior citizen in the Oakhurst Community I am firmly opposed to this proposal please reject this proposal [Applause] I'm a member of the local community here and I'm writing to object the proposed parental notification proposal this is not something the school and especially not teachers should be involved in it is a private family issue don't put teachers in this position and don't leave students feeling trapped between teachers and their parents it will create a terrible Dynamic where students will feel as though they are potentially being spied on by their teachers instead of trusting them school should be about educating not making kids feel like they are suspected as criminals in danger of being reported to their teachers this comes from Junior Johnson please reassure us that our teachers will not be mandated to out students to their parents it should be up to each person to tell their family or not it is most certainly not the job of schools to get involved in such personal matters between students and their parents it could be very dangerous for the kids thanks for listening foreign Judy Stafford I'm writing to strongly disagree with the mandatory reporting to parents regarding student gender identity the young person should inform his parents when he or she chooses not as a teacher her teacher should not be made to police their students this is madness in regards to the bsod meeting this evening I believe in children's right to thrive I believe in parents rights to decide and support their kids I believe that kids have the right to learn and the right to succeed I also believe that teachers have more than enough to do in supporting their students without adding gender policing to their list of never-ending tasks suggesting that teachers spend their time questioning a student's gender rather than teaching said student is absurd let's focus on Family Values by allowing families to decide how to proceed with their kids it is simply not a teacher's place I am a parent and a grandparent we have raised our family from K through 12 grades in blsd I do not feel that any child should be singled out it's hard enough being a growing up uh this will cause mental health problems that are just not necessary my mother and father taught us to love one another school boards should not have the power to invade on a child's privacy who should not have access to therapy records if you vote for this you will be processing the Privacy action this is from Sarah Domenico I am a concerned Citizen and parent of blsd student students what I have read about the proposal of mandated outing of non-gender conforming students is highly disturbing to say the least these children are already at Great risk of harm and or self-arm and suicide the statistics speak for themselves on that do we need to lose more lives because a school Society wasn't comfortable with what was in the child's pants if a child's parent doesn't know their child's gender identity before the school does then there are obvious issues with the safety they feel at home expressing that part of themselves huge red flag on home safety subjecting the children to further bullying and singling them out because a group of adults is so concerned with what genitals they have is preposterous schools should be a safe place and this proposal is far from that we don't send our children to school for this this is a violation of a student's civil rights which is very clearly expressed by the California Department of Education my children couldn't care less if their peers are non-gender conforming maybe a lot of people could learn from them Emily O'Connor maintaining communication with my children as they grow towards adolescence has been no easy feat knowing them is a full-time heart-wrenching Pride swallowing job but at the end of the day I get to take pride in it because the yields are real relationships what I don't get to do is hold someone else accountable for how well I know my children I don't get to make it some someone else's job especially when that someone already has a job and they wake up early every morning to create inclusive nurturing environments where any child can show up and get an education if I don't know what my child my children's pronouns are that is my bad I have failed to make space for them to communicate interrogating teachers enforcing knowledge about how my child identifies only serves to damage relationships and discourages learning keep disrupted policies out of our school and protect teacher-child relationships Harbor this I I am a local resident and citizen and learned of a very frightening proposal before you I am opposed to forcing teachers and school administrators to identify and report on students who are questioning or talking about their gender identity we are not a police state especially in our schools whose focus should be on educating our kids and opening their minds not making them afraid and or causing them to shut down out of fear of harm or ridicule students have civil rights this forced outing policy is pure and simple bullying by those who want to control the hearts and minds of our diverse young population and align our institutions to their own religious extremism thank you from Bridget Hannah schools should be focusing on education not individual personal gender identity that is a parent's responsibility and their child should be part of that private discussion Miranda jams I am writing to express my extreme concern over a recent policy proposal regarding students who Express questions over their gender identity or sexuality let it be known that reporting students private information is illegal according to two different laws one would be Education Code 49060 that states private information such as transgender status should not be released Title IX would also prohibit it please refer to the judge's ruling in a similar case in California above all please refer to what the Calgary Department of Education has to say on what you are attempting there are many more case laws and legislation in California that blocks the board from taking any action on this clearly if the board follows through they will face serious legal action from the state and possibly civil suits from residents uh Dr Tara Lockhart I Am A literacy educator of 25 plus years who lives in awani and has taught in K-12 education community-based literacy programs such as the boys and girls club and most recently in the CSU system since 2008.
otherwise there's going to be a lot of confused people around because if you look up 8-20 it shows up with the pavers right I don't wanna um you can't spend the time doing that let's just put h-20 if we're wrong somebody will be sure to tell us the whole drawings so are um maybe we don't do anything with this one they still always several drawings right well we they actually did they're in the latest documents we didn't really discuss them so I would leave that for right now okay maybe this should be up with the building um well no I no we didn't we discuss it up in the building already yeah so maybe I take it out all right well I we have sustainability there what's up at the top before you start taking stuff out I'm not taking anything out yet I was just looking at sort of sustainability about the building this is what we have noted right but I think that isn't what we had up top about parking um because we were talking about so why was this up I don't think we've meant we've talked about the park number of parking spaces uh oh okay I can't tell we haven't got we haven't gotten there yet okay so let's just leave it here and keep going I'm I'm less concerned that we might be being redundant than I am that we're yeah at 10 o'clock and we're right okay um they were to provide a grading plan which I think is related to the Civil so let's just leave that one on there yes um this one's about the loading zone for only two vehicles and the axes across the site that could potentially be a problem right and the other thing is that that's actually labeled for emergency vehicles on at least one drawing so which is a yeah oops so I should mention that here I think so so this is the new comment on this one and I had put this in here during the meeting we talked about having more space for um you know having more usable patio space in front of the commercial development um it's a very general comment but maybe we leave it I think we leave it okay because I think it wasn't is that in red it's not in red um are you are you um so maybe we leave it then because you've got other ones that aren't in red either that's fine yeah because I think it's really that they hadn't addressed this you know this is a follow-up comment and they haven't addressed the main well in common we actually need Brendan to have that discussion with them we need to and and I think it needs a lot more I need some some real thought um the discussion of the landscape though I feel like is secondary to the building maybe not being viable because of the the lack of parking and the size of the project on the site you know should we focus our time on on that discussion and and also you want to say that exactly what you just said because that actually is the Crux of the issue here or if we say it in the in the email that I send over to them that accompanies this document yeah because honestly I think that's part of that's part of what we keep wrangling about here is that that's really the big issue right I mean I kind of feel like we're right now wasting our time on on smaller issues well I do too um so I think um since you keep saying exactly that I think I'm going to ask you to send this email on behalf of the committee that goes with this when we when you're done because I think that would be that's that's actually real I think it's really important and I think they I don't know for whatever reason they haven't they haven't uh thought about this but it's candy that we're meeting with them on Thursday so foreign are we working this into a final version that we're sending tonight I hope so all right um meeting tonight like this yeah okay I mean I also feel just the further my point I also feel like talking about the materiality of the building um is is maybe premature as well which I don't want to say because you know I'm happy that we're reviewing the project um but maybe there's a a calculation there's a numbers game there's you know something about the feasibility of the project that might not be working and we should be um between the planning board and ourselves we should be focused on that before we start you know approving materiality and Landscape I I yeah I mean I think that's part of the problem here is that they're shoehorning giant project into a small space and trying to make it work and then you know honestly what we don't actually know from our end is how much we don't know because we don't have anybody on we don't have a consultant on our end in the town who can say to us this building is making more than enough money or it's barely breaking even we don't have somebody to actually specifically tell us that and I've always felt like ever since these really giant projects started coming in that we actually need somebody uh you know on the town payroll that you know we put that cost back into the building permit or the site plan application however they do it so that we we can consult an expert like that because then we would have a much better idea of where we stand in terms of you know getting stuff set back a little more if we want it getting it to look a little better separating it in two buildings instead of one because they're going to lose some units that way you know um the issues with the parking I mean the issues with affordable housing all that stuff would start to sort of fall into place the only thing that I know of is the stuff that I sent out a lot earlier this year to design review in the planning board that I found after hearing about it um hearing an interview and then listening to it again online was the stuff about the parking spaces and how costly they are per unit in a building and I was shocked I had no idea they could be upwards of you know between ten and twenty thousand dollars a unit for the parking spaces and you know that really flips some of the equations of of putting these projects together I think it's even more if it's you know you're trying to build a parking garage and especially one underground well I think they said that actually I think they were talking about above ground parking for the 10 to 20.
I am sorry I'm not able to attend tonight's meeting but hope will be read as public comment in those in these roles I regularly work with lgbtq plus Youth and other young people who are exploring aspects of their identities as a normal part of the development and maturity process although this exploration ideally happens within a supportive family and support structure too often my students report that raising questions about their gender or sexual identity has caused them to be kicked out of their homes emotionally or physically abused or to have familial or financial support withdrawn many of these kids end up homeless struggling to still attend school and pay their own way in such cases these young people need the support of other trusted adults such as teachers to help them feel cared poor and safe enforcing schools administrators and teachers to out a young person for questioning how they identify not only poses a safety risk to such kids but also detracts from the explicit mission of the public education to help young people learn about the world the issues and people that shape our world and themselves calls for mandatory reporting of a child's gender questioning even when a child explicitly states that they do not feel safe having their emergency views reported jeopardizes his educational goal further such reporting can push kids over the precipice and retorts self-harm and suicidal ideation or action as reported by Forbes in 2020 and the largest survey of trans non-binary youth to date over 40 000 participants more than 60 percent had committed self-harm in the last 12 months and over half had seriously considered ending their own lives the antidote to this crisis is not policing children and their teachers it is instead as the study found in Greater levels of support and acceptance which are directly associated with dramatically lower rates of attempting suicide parents certainly have a crucial role to play in helping their children form their identities and can just do that daily at home public schools and their teachers likewise have a duty to support all children and to do their part to keep children safe as teachers we put your child's education and safety first even if you yourself cannot imagine it we have seen firsthand how such Majors can go drastically wrong for children I urge this board to reject all proposals for mandatory reporting of gender non-conforming or questioning to parents or Guardians given Decades of experience with my own students as well as the National Data and research cited above such proposals are simply too dangerous in the cases where such reporting could lead to dire repercussions foreign Jessica White schools need to focus on students educations and not and not try again schools need to focus on students educations and not how they identify or their sexual orientation this policy would endanger students and could put them in potential dangerous situations are you ready to take responsibility for a child's life if it's taken too soon by bullies abusive parents or suicide if this policy is to be put in place the policy itself goes against California's Education Code 49602 as well as assembly Bill 1266 the school in Sacramento that put this in place already is now being investigated by California and don't think for one minute the same won't happen here if this had passed I have attached a government website that shows all the educational codes federal and state laws and bills that this policy would be infringing on as well as many other resources on this subject thank you for your time and listening to my concerns I'm a mother of two in the community and the safety of the children in our area is my top priority while emailing you hope to see you at the meeting [Music] I'm a retired administrator I am requesting that bastic school board keep its focus on protecting and educating children not adding to any pain some may have schools have a duty to never harm children physically mentally or in Social manner please resist the politics of a local minority whose interests are only their own respectfully Dr Bruce seller made a retired assistant superintendent and Bass Lake homeowner and resident [Music] Carrie Jenkins I am a parent of two yhs graduates recently ran for the yusd school board and a local business owner and an extremely concerned long-time local resident I am vehemently opposed to forcing teachers and school administrators to identify and report on students who are questioning or talking about their gender identity at school put forward by a small vocal ideological zealous group this ridiculous forced outing policy threatens the safety and well-being of lgbtq students who may already be vulnerable to harassment and potential abuse from peers and family members please do not burn the schools further with enforcing this ridiculous overreaching policy thank you students have rights this forced outing policy is pure and simple bullying by those who want to control the hearts and minds of our diverse young population and align our institutions to their own narrow-minded religious extremism please stop this strong armed tactic to help our kids who don't conform to what used to be societal gender Norms they have a right to coexistent feel safe especially at school among their peers and caring teachers thank you Greg returning as a full-time homeowner in pokers a taxpayer and a licensed clinical psychologist well-versed in human behavior and Child Development I wish to oppose the above reference proposal to require children to be out and publicly as identifying with a gender difference in what is society this is psychologically harmful and puts the children along with their family at risk to extremist elements in the community who may not be accepting of such matters it does not belong in a school district which is tasked with nurturing and protecting children as they develop into healthful and adaptive citizens who will then be able to guide others under their charge once adults it is also not appropriate to utilize taxpayer funds to push an agenda that has been scientifically researched and shown to be harmful in short both personally and professionally I strongly oppose this proposal and I'm saddened that this extreme politicization has been allowed to even be presented in front of the board in the citizens of our local community and the last one from Beverly Harper [Music] I am a resident of Madera County and I vehemently opposed this blsd policy proposal regarding teachers being forced to invade the private lives with minor children with possible gender identity issues this is California not Florida teachers are paid teachers are paid by our taxes to teach school not become fastest air in tattletails to the school district what about teachers who do not agree with this proposed policy and if enacted are then forced to Engrade children privacy and rights what if that teacher was wrong harm to these children could result in the form of Parental abuse bullying and or self-harm or worse and a teacher would then have to bear blame due to the following school policy that should never have been and live with this travesty for life this policy has far-reaching ramifications teachers are already overburdened with tasks unrelated to teaching don't burden them further with this violation of minor children's rights foreign well uh again this is uh listen put up for a vote tonight and it's just a first grade uh first draft something whereas we're looking at it's a lot of school districts are looking at this we've got attorneys looking it over and uh we've been listening to every comment you know pay attention to our agenda minutes and go to the next week first reading um so is it just automatically go towards I mean we haven't discussed it as a board like if we want to see it just go forward like personally I don't want to say performer so well first reading it's a it's us to it's up to Ralph foreign legal opinions coming in and so we could we're definitely not moving forward with it tonight well no I know not tonight but typically our first readings are followed up the next month with an action item and I do not want to see this on the next month's agenda as an action item for one I will be out of the country and I won't be able to attend well that's the perfect time I don't think it should be an action item next month because of the it's just the nature of the issue and the controversy um there's a lot of information still not in and and quite frankly I'm confused I mean I understand everything about child rights um but nobody's talked about any parent rights you know and that we can't do sideline all the time I've not put put aside indefinitely so so can we make a motion to table it November let me bring it back later well it came to this agenda without us all approving it so I want to make sure it doesn't come to the next agenda without further improvement from approving from the board anyways okay um can we make a motion to table it until October definitely until you come back no no no don't worry about that [Music] until at least October a second okay [Music] um okay thank you okay wow all right and enrollment report so this was due for the board packet last Friday um so numbers are constantly changing when I check today before the meeting it's at 810 students but as of this report it was 804 and you can see the number there we ended up 800 we ended the year with 849 students so that's the decrease of around 40.
not you know parking spaces below and not adding the the things like they have I think over it 12 Pawn the stackable Parkers because that's you know those are expensive so okay so where are we with us sorry I was just looking at this the summary of gcg's report and they talk about the the layout of the lower level parking and the lack of parking spaces I'd it so I I think this goes hand in hand with the environmental impact study you know we're saying that that should be conducted and also a traffic impact study should be conducted to you know if they don't have enough parking on site how does that impact you know people are parking um somewhere else in the downtown right so one of the things I want to get into this report is the comment about The Pedestrian Crossing and having some kind of a a lit pedestrian crossing the second somebody's standing there on the sidewalk to go across the street and I think they have a smaller signal over at the library now okay where oh here well pedestrian access there you go can you blow that up a little more later it gets the harder it has let's see sorry seems like we're not going off the minutes but and we talk um back up before we do this I'm sorry did we talk about the solar panels on the parking which I think we did up above on sustainability yeah at the beginning we talked about the uh the canopy can we just say see note from above under sustainability oh yeah I was going to come up to these well we didn't talk about this one either um so solar studies um well so this is about that was actually the shadow studies yeah and she'd say shadow not solar and that that needs to be revised [Music] that's if that was on yeah um and then where do we have this thing about the parking and the EV I was at the very beginning we didn't have it under sustainability it's under the building sustainability so that we have two sections of sustainability one is about the building and one is about the site and so we we put that here weren't we also going to say on this that we were going to um I think we just make a note after at the very end of this see further notes above or below wherever they are regarding solar canopies yeah that's great thank you okay some reason it's that handoff is highlighted for some reason yeah oh that's because you were looking for it okay never mind okay we're almost there um so this one we didn't look at yet the bar the the north bar was moved North by two feet um I said that it feels more generous which is generous for me to even say that um why don't you say feels a bit better I wouldn't even you know what I'd take that out all together just leave it and that was actually um to put raised Planters wasn't it yeah but I'm going to say however um it was noted that the raised planters will contain material um that that may may not grow high enough to provide provide the intended privacy right and then applicant was asked to provide different plant materials and to look at the seed mix because they were just going to do that with a seed mix and um I I don't I actually don't think that's going to be that's going to work necessarily it would work as if it was a baseline for like a tree growing out of it or something but it's not going to work it needs to be it needs to be looked at really closely so they don't take care of it it's just going to be horrifyingly awful up there agreed okay so now we can go back down to pedestrian access um access to rezies through garage and a main lobby off of Homer Ave um that's just a note we don't have to do anything with that um it's actually I think that needs work because you have it as it's through that main lobby but it's it's awkward maybe we say that in there mm-hmm um it's awkward and would need lots of signage to work that's a good directional signage to work I think it actually needs a redesign like forget signage actually well then put in there like that because I couldn't agree more let's push for a better design not signage that takes tries to make better Aid or poor condition yes thank you redesigned with with with separate [Music] um commercial and residential so we redesign period yeah okay well I was trying to say that I think the two uses should be kept separate I think they should be kept separate don't you no not necessarily the residential entry sequence is awkward I think you could say that in there because if they if they design it better and they have proper signage then there's no reason why you can't walk into the to one lobby and you go one way for the residences and the other way for the commercial and in fact you can do that over at The Bagel table because you have to go out into the lobby in the back to get to the bathroom that Services all of the commercial entities in that building I got challenged being out in that Lobby one day like what are you doing out here because I the person didn't recognize me and I said I was coming from the bagel table well I think that's why they should be separate we we typically design a totally separate entry for the residences so that they feel like they're they have their own space it it's secured it has different access hours so if you want to say something to that effect then we should probably because that would make sense because there's no real way to secure it otherwise which is a really good point um and that's just like one more thing they don't really have enough room for in this building I think it will be tough It's a security issue also because it's not easy to you know you can't question a customer a commercial customer well it's awkward when you do because that's what it was when when the person who's questioning me realized that I was actually there for a legitimate reason they didn't like it very much but they couldn't say much more yes security of yep perfect okay I I you know I would have said residential versus commercial if you want to do change that because it's really the yes I think there you go because when I'm If I'm renting a place I'm not going to check you know how many entrances it has you won't even think about it until it becomes wrong actually okay what else we got here Kevin public part um public bike parking uh residential bike parking provided in a garage quantity to be reviewed um we didn't talk about this really not really yet and they sort of tried to they sort of tried to push off the public bite stuff would be up to the they try to push that off onto their commercial tenants but I don't actually think I don't actually want them to get away with that comment oh I think they need to be a little more thoughtful about it that's why I brought up the benches with the bike things um okay I don't know what to add to this right now I I want to add some new well I want to finish adding the new items that we want yeah so you so you're looking for an item about lit pedestrian crosswalks thank you Allah all ants there's ghosts because that was one of the comments and um site lighting must be reviewed along with the Town Street lighting in congestion and appropriately shielded from residential Apartments we would recommend Street Bollard or or street level lighting as opposed to overhead lighting for this very reason I think he did mention it will be Pollard or the you know the landscape lighting I think they're not planning for Street lighting but the Town Street lighting will definitely affect the residents right and I think we need to say all this and that in this comment I'm I'm totally with you because that that's going to be obnoxious if you're in that the Corner Apartments over there and the town street light is there I had one where to put this could this be under a landscape site improve I think I need to move this up to site improvements what are what is it under right now it's under pedestrian access well okay so either way we still need lip pedestrian crosswalks and we still need lighting at the street level and I think we say that there and then move this the rest of this comment in its entirety up to the top so some of it you're going to copy and put it up there Kev I think that's the best way to do it I think we call it Street lighting or street level lighting I don't think we'd specify Ballers necessarily because they street level lighting like bollards because it could always come from if they used like gooseneck signs on the signage their spillover from those signs facing down sorry my cat's meowing pity in the background I couldn't hear it oh God I want to say that so we recommend that um the the towns Street lighting be considered in um in in how it might impact the um the residential units along Homer and Alden I think I would take the word might and use how it impacts because there is no doubt in my mind that it's going to impact unless it's on that pole foreign so he was actually talking about yeah just keep going signage site signage was not reviewed [Music] um we've already talked about this above so I would just put take if proposed and put period after review Ed here's parking again yeah so I just say see needs more discussion per gcg peer review of June I think that's June 3rd okay you could say from June which believe that one as it is as well yes I made a note about the commercial space I was updated and they relocated a stair um which resulted in the current plan that they submitted do we want to see an entrance on Alden or on Homer excuse me for that last space now that we were discussing well Brendan was still on with us before he lost power um does Alden want to be a Commercial Street should there should there be entrances at all in Alden and if not then there should only be an entrance on Homer I think well uh to be perfectly blunt I don't like that back exit through that back hallway and I think that Brendan was essentially agreeing with that and you know and grumbling about the general design period of what we're seeing and wanting something more and the consistency piece to me says if every single potential block off section calls for that or you know has a space like that then potentially they could put it there anyway because it'd be consistent and then they might not use it I mean there's plenty of places where I see doors and they aren't being used and they'll have signage on them says please go around to your left to the entrance um but it's there in the event of you know a fire or something in fact there's a a shoe store that moved from its original location in Newton to a new development farther up on Washington Street and they have a couple of those doors to get to the side door in the back off of part of the parking there and there's a street door on the side street that they're located on I've seen that multiple times so I I just think they I don't know I think they can put a door in for that it will look better and it gets used or doesn't get used I mean if they were for instance gonna put a dance studio in there I can see that being a I think the dance studio will actually have to erect some kind of walls inside so they have enough bar space keep some of the lighting from the front and you know do some kind of something on the front to make it look good I don't actually know how that would work over there I don't know I I think I'm agreeing with you that I mean there's I think there's a fundamental code issue with that long cord or anyway I think there might be a dead end Corridor situation it's not code compliant um but in addition to that there should be more direct access to the front and out the back of each commercial space tenant space yeah I think that far space is depicted on the right just needs a an entrance on homework just to keep up the continuity um where was I going to put that well well it could potentially go under miscellaneous or it goes back up I don't know at the top Maybe I think that's good okay let me do this so did we get thing about parking space number 17.
if you look at today's number you can see the numbers for each site in the blue box so you can compare um you know to see where the where the schools are at at the end of last year so you can see Oakhurst Elementary is down about 10. Bliss is down about um is down nine and then oak cook is [Music] so you can see it spreads through all of it so this report is from the end of last year last uh no last week I did the report okay but the blue box has the numbers of the end of how we ended the year the header is oh I'm sorry oh man you guys always catch that stuff I missed it coming after us um no I'm sorry I will fix that and re-upload it right now no this is the current okay current numbers thank you I was traveling so I did this late at night I didn't see that right you see the notes that Genie included for the beginning of the 23-24 school year we have 44 students transferred into our District 27 from Yosemite unified seven from Mariposa seven from solanaki and three from Raymond Knowles 30 students transferred out with 15 going to Yosemite unified Ford Mariposa tend to chewanna key and one to random number again this is typical for our beginning of the school year yes for us and it settles down yes okay um accomplishments and other reasons to celebrate throughout the district yeah this is a new component to our board agendas we've talked an awful lot how we we always enjoy having our student groups come in and present it and tonight with Chris on the solar suitcase project there there's so much good stuff that's happening in our district it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle so we've created this area of the agenda that will go each month now and to kick it off we looked at some of the accomplishments that came to our attention at the end of last year so these references to an eighth grader that were in eighth grade last year but nonetheless this is how we finish the school year so the first one there deals with the city National Park eighth grade law day and we had two oci students bring home some Hardware Emily Kirby took first place in the art competition and Kate man landingham took second place in the essay [Music] [Applause] the Fresno Madera County Music Education Association oci student Rory Booth he participated Rory participated in this and was one of only two middle school band students that were accepted from our area [Applause] California Cadet Corps the Bass Lake Cadet Corps participated in the 2023 Extreme Team Challenge down in Southern California late in the 22-23 school year our core earned first place in the junior high division and in this year's annual General inspection the same team received a grade of excellent which is the highest ranking possible and the junior high units comprised of students from ocim Washington [Applause] in the Madera County math tournaments you see our Kira and Michelle [Applause] at all [Applause] [Music] Madera County academic pentathlon you can see the results there for the 23 pentathlon Daryl Henderson first place in literature and Essay in second place in science Michelle Tran third place in science Rory Booth first place in science and second place in literature caveman landingham uh fourth place in social science and the super quiz team brought home third place and the academic pentathlon team earned third place overall in athletics last year we had championship teams at oci in boys basketball boys soccer boys football and girls basketball and they were also winners in boys and girls cross country in track and field and while Sumo Wildcats cross country team won the golden Gallop down at minarets high school when they competed [Applause] this is a biggie and I've got some pictures attached there so if you have access to the agenda the creative Club got them um Parker student out at lasuma she was she was a fifth grader she competed in the American Iris Society foundation's National essay competition called the Ackerman essay contest during the 22-23 school year Ariel was informed by local members of the foundation in front of her classmates and teacher that her essay was selected as the first place entry in the national competition for the 22-23 school year um foreign not only pictures of aerial as she learned of winning but also her actual essay is attached to so you can go on and access that agreement she's an amazing kids [Applause] program is every year the huge reason to celebrate so Chris thank you for all that you continue to do yeah we'll share that well but it's awesome stuff [Applause] all right superintendence report uh I'll make sure that this gets attached to the notes or the meeting minutes as well there were a few hard copies out back but um just a couple of quick things just a welcome back to school I was able to make the rounds and grab a few pictures the first ones you see there are some of our TK and Kinder students here at the lunch line in this room that we're in tonight and then also then you asked to see the swings there's a picture on the top of page two the upper right hand corner the other thing that um was really good was we contracted with an organization called knowledge saves lives and we did three days of trading one day each at each of the three sites and it involved active threat response SO trading included classroom instruction training which the stations one was a classroom another was the school office and then also self-defense techniques and fire extinguisher safety and included at the end of the training with a response to gunfire and then which would initiate lockdown procedures and protocols staff provided very positive feedback regarding the training which will allow individual schools in the district to further its safety initiatives and response plans and then I attached several pictures we didn't allow video and we didn't allow pictures in parts of the trading because we don't want it out but our responses will be but we did I did capture a couple of pictures one was here in you know at the OES training with the staff doing the classroom portion the second picture on the bottom is a portion of the staff doing that breakout session and one of our classrooms the top of the next page is the fire extinguisher safety and then using whatever you have at your disposal if you have the right and so each of our staff members got the opportunity to shoot out the fire extinguisher on the dummy you see in the picture his name is Bob Bob took a beating because not only did he get spraying with the extinguisher but then the staff member was trained to flip the extinguisher around and come in to do harm so you can see our peaceful 11 staff members they actually got after it pretty good uh so it'll be several pictures of oh yes folks and then there's a picture of the wasuma staff in their classroom portion and then the last several pictures are members of our Fresno flats and wassuma staff um getting after it and I think it's time that Cecilia definitely retires because if you look at it she was getting after Bob pretty good you use blank space real and then last but not least the last picture is or Madam the principal over there getting after Bob yeah [Music] and then the last page we'll have we'll have all kinds of back to school nights coming up the rules our principles and make sure we get get Jake sometimes and all that but also we're starting our our carnivals and and Community nights and stuff and it's the advertisement for a lot of students is on there uh being Friday September 8th that's all I have for you tonight really fast uh I'm doing dance party recesses on Friday and if you guys are welcome to come it's from Pittsburgh from 9 20 to about 10 40 and I'll be kindergarten and the first and second grade I've been doing their Vibes like 9 20 to 10 40 on Fridays yeah so I'd love to have any of you come and dance along with us except for what you asked for yeah no it's going to be it's all good you know um okay good okay well we're gonna practice that yeah yes all right um board member comments I just um it was fun to help out in school and we'll just be here um yay I got down about kindergarten I'm going to be there tomorrow uh very fun to see all the young kids especially um and I really don't have anything else to say except for if the other schools need help please like reach out to me because you know I will volunteer Thursday or Friday if I can those are my days off um I will not be able to make the dance party this week or next week because I am working but after that you never know um and I am going to Europe on September 13th or 16 days so I will not be at the next board meeting and and we'll be attending the Madera County School Board Association meeting next Wednesday that's all I have to say this is next Wednesday right yes it is okay beautiful to see Chris's presentation and how these kids are you know learning to help others I think that's really beautiful but I just wanted to bring up that uh September 17th is the day that schools are to commemorate Constitution Day and citizenship day so I hope the school will take part in doing activities that uh you know these kids can learn about how awesome our U.S Constitution is and why we have free speech that people can come up and say whatever they want and wonderful floor no comments all right we'll all use work on your mind anyway so it's really great to have a full house for me it's personally really sad that nobody's here you know and uh we don't hear very many teachers we get almost no parents and uh and from what we heard tonight you know it sounds like everything that we really want to do to help our kids has to start with the parents and uh you know other than knocking on doors personally I don't I don't know how to get more parents to actually pay attention you know what's going on in their schools looking forward or even in their Community I don't know what they're doing you know but they're getting rid of their kids for the whole week you know but anyway if you get too far in that soapbox but the um wanted to say uh you know thank you for all all for coming and uh and I wanted to brag on our our schools a little bit you know we we were pretty avant-garde in getting you know the safety measures we got in place with the doors and the locks and the windows and the alarms and the cameras and then to follow that up with actual um what was it called knowledge stage lives you know first year of training for all of our teachers you know we set ourselves up as actually a pretty safe place for people to come we'd like to see that continue and uh you know and I was really happy to see the the enthusiasm that the teachers at Wasilla put into their the knowledge Safe Life thing that I that I was part of it now you know a lot of times I go to events and and the people that have to be there just kind of you know walk through it like I'm doing my thing I got to get here you know that I'm moving and and that's not what I thought I saw I saw an enthusiasm the teachers that wanted to know how it was going to happen what do I do how do I stop someone from shooting hit I mean they were very involved and uh I just wanted to know I know a number of teachers are here I'm going to compliment them for that and because I know that goes Downstream and they're going to be the kids are safer because of that and uh it's a group effort so that that one the link was my my spot all right um future agenda items all right next meeting date yes September 13th Wednesday September 13th it's on it's on the agenda yeah very good okay yeah we thought it was a gentleman asking are we like wanted to wait till we have that for sure okay um I mean public comments regarding closed session items I've never understood what to do without honestly there's no how do you know what we're going to talk about right because it's on here so with that our public uh portion is over thank you foreign
Kevin uh did you mean uh due to parking the radius sorry here oh yeah yeah I do where did I see that parking it's here uh same same above right here uh 8.3 where your cursor is the first line on the bottom bottom uh 8.3 Point 2023 that's the date though what no no no in the parking radar you you actually have parking radio in that comment yeah yeah that's what it should be radius right that's a plural of radius actually unless it's a little awkward um but I think that actually is the official plural okay okay um have we could put uh I I think it's I think I'm over tired because I still I don't still I still don't see where I wrote Radio all right hold on a second don't worry about it we we sorted it out it's okay it's right there and I think that is the correct plural of radius yes it is okay so let's go back to this other one which is uh astobus bus 40 engine and and uh uh parking numbers parking lot space 17 [Music] and other than under traffic we we should just put another one here we should just make one more entry under this in in traffic it's not the traffic per se it's well it's the fire engine traffic per the gcg report and parking lot number 17.
space number 17 excuse me and we might just say in this especially since we've asked for solar canopies out there do you want to say that we agree with the juice the gcg report sure um overlaps with the with you know so what was it was the what's the name of the apparatus the uh ask ash toe which I think is a s h t o bus 40. I'm not sure why I think that I might have seen it somewhere else so uh do you want to go back to EV parking for a minute because I'm looking at the minutes um yes I'm just finishing this one would be actually much already um it's called turning turning study okay where do you want me to go well this is going back to the EV stuff where we had this conversation because George was asking part of the question about what voltage the EV stations were and he actually said 240 at every spot and then he goes well you don't expect that I'm going to pay for this to you and um we actually pointed out that lots of places actually do provide for a couple for commercial and and some for the residential so I think he was he was asking about who pays for the electricity yeah so one aspect is the installation and the other one is who's paying for the electricity that charge cars every time I hook up to it right and that's why I think we talked to them about grants and to look into it and see and to see essentially because um and he said he would I mean he was talking about having that solar expert so I'm assuming the solar expert knows knows something about all of that but a lot of these other places are going to provide some of them and then you know I don't know maybe they were going to have cards or whatever but there are some some that have been gotten with grants and there's no charge for them okay um and can we so we don't do we have anything somewhere about site furniture okay uh because I think we should rethink the we should rethink some of the site Furniture so that we're we can combine the bench and and biking and bike rack do a combined bench bike rack unit at the very least yeah do you want to try to mention that in relation to the Planters in the ideal World they would also be part of the Planters yeah this is ashto by the way oh thank you of course it is it is a double a double a s h t o uh planter yeah I've seen that before as a butter from the street I shouldn't be doing this anymore thank you okay so open space and Community let's put it in there yep as maybe creative creative organizing of site furniture to potential to potentially combine functions of of planters with built-in benches that also function as bollards and bike racks leave it at that we'll organize inside first my function to planters there you go lovely and then um somewhere in landscaping we just need to say that they're they're looking into trees to other species of trees they could use up front and it's and it's actually dependent on the heights of the poles and the wiring native tree species yes well um let's just say trees right now because I told them I said look at Natives and then if you really can't find any we would consider some other ones and I I would like them to use natives but I'm not sure he's going to find them depending on the on what happens to those phone poles and how low the wires are [Music] and he was looking into cerseus in particular but um it's hard to know based on what you read about sources whether it would work there versus what I know I saw on up at the intersection of um foreign Ty and 126.
as you're coming from the south or on the left-hand side or they were so you want to say that that can grow tall but [Music] um well no no I I just think we have to avoid conflict with the wires and leave it at that they have to figure that out I mean you can always go to the New York Street Tree City list and find a bunch of examples but I don't know how many of them are native [Music] um checking my notes okay oh um that patio up above [Music] we need to say something about the fact that the applicant agreed to use bison wood paver as opposed to um fake artificial turf it could be outrageously hot in the summer now you excuse me once you're done with that let me know what was it that they were proposing that would be hot the oh the stone pavers no well artificial turf no yeah is turf is a different connotation than pavers you know the pavers are going to be hot but Turf you think it's not going to be hot there's there's a ton of issues now with kids playing on a fake Turf and you can't play in really hot weather because it's incredibly hot and they get contact Burns third degree burns when they fall on it they get dehydrated much more quickly um oh I wanted to mention the three units that I don't know well I shouldn't say who's aware of of what or not but the three units that only have access from The Green Roof I think is it it that really shows to me that the plan and they have access going in from the building also no they don't and I think that is the craziest okay yep then no you need to say that I don't know if gcg said it but just say it in this because that's important these three units there's no hallway they said you know they couldn't get a hallway through here so they just give them one that's right no you you need to say that I think that's important unit one two and three that's another way I wouldn't even specify the units I'd just say three of the units you have it I have it in this in the notes is three units have access only from the green roof this may be an egress and life safety issue that must be reviewed to the Building Commissioner yes so I think it seems like you did take some of my notes and Incorporated them them into yours that was one of my yeah I don't know if I cut and paste it or if I actually wrote that in because at the time when you brought it up I was like wow he's making a really good comment here it's funny this comment actually doesn't fit in and you are here because um it might be outside of our purview but it's a it's it's it's a it's a really important comment it's kind of like the end of the commercial space that I was talking about where I think it needs another egress to Homer I mean it's our job to notice stuff and talk about it they're telling us all kinds of things are out of our purview right now but the project is better off if we say something when we see something sorry it's 10 45.
you're right but um we I think it's we we're we're holding this meeting on a Tuesday because I thought it was important to send this to the planning board before they met on Thursday so I wanted to make sure that all right and then I wanted I want to quickly approve the June 15th minute so we can at least say yeah we've done that oh is 10 45 the cutoff no no cut off 11 basically saying we gotta like we we've got to get through this because tell me what you'd like to do I'm losing my mind here um I think we need to I don't think I think we're almost done with this aren't we yeah I think we are yes and are you yeah because I've actually been looking at your oh I might have read that thing about the green roof off of your notes actually yeah that makes sense okay the only other weirdo thing was what Terry said to us at the end after we adjourned mm-hmm logs in our report actually you just said the city of noon is about to adopt a vibration ordinance system whereby licensed vibrations control person would sign off on it City council's permitting Authority for Newton and they fashion these amendments and their planning board manages this I just fixed a typo um but I thought that was really interesting we need to remember that for tomorrow Okay so are we happy with this I think I wanted to add the item that I I brought up about um about passive house the applicator Terry mentioned that you know next next we'll be asking for Passive house but actually the billing code kind of requires passive house because of the stretch energy code I don't know if um that would be under sustainability wouldn't it yeah okay and maybe we just make a section that we keep for forever it says stretch energy code we can just keep it under sustainability I think that um you know what else they said that we haven't put anything about in this yeah what's that about the chamford Granite curbing for the reinforced line or the concrete line [Music] and the more he talks about using that that product is concrete the more I'm disliking it there's another plastic grassy pave makes a a has a um product that will meet fire engine specifications because I've seen it in lawns around um assisted livings I've only seen it because I got hit by the plow and pulled up that's how I knew it was there are they proposing a concrete drivable paver it says reinforced line or concrete line and I'm like what is that oh look while you type um what was I adding uh about the chamford curbing that area the concrete permeable pavers actually is a grid that doesn't get grown over you would you would still see the grid um yeah I think we should actually tell them that we don't want that but the other one the reinforced line is what I'm thinking of and it's a series of grids you roll out until like soil and then you plant grass seed into it [Music] um yeah I'm looking at the product trugridpaver.com okay there's like half a dozen of here on the front yeah see I don't I don't want to I absolutely don't want concrete out there because concrete gets too hot and it looks terrible but they need to tell us what they're proposing but I I thought it was something like this that's what I thought too so I think we need to tell them not to use concrete lawn for concrete pavers for that purpose and just leave it at that we don't want to see it out there because it won't work I mean that's why I don't want to see it and it looks awful all the time that looks awful yeah there's tons of this stuff on the market now and we used to have two or three the only downside is that I think it's a plastic product so it's not um but it is a hundred percent recycled plastic so there you go yep none of them are any good I mean concrete takes God knows how much okay so does everybody think this is it now yeah I think so I might um I will I can do this right yeah um it's fine if you want to send it tomorrow morning we're just gonna uh tomorrow and do a last look at just the formatting but not not content and then I'll send it along well if you see some errors fix them please I mean you know and you I think that it would be perfectly acceptable do I like I guess I want you to weigh in on this but from my point of view be perfectly acceptable for you to say that thing you keep saying about this building period and the parking and all that in the email that you will send it with unless you can figure out a better place to insert it into this document and say it because I you know we we we're having a hard time with it and it's possible that's the same reason the same and the same manner that the planning board is having a hard time with it for the same reason um I realized we didn't we didn't put a comment on on this um Plaza space item that's that's why we started having part of the big big question I think I think it really requires further discussion as related to site furniture did we put that uh point in sorry if we have already uh corner where Kevin said it was not it didn't seem like eight feet the left side corner entrance the distance from the walkway to the building Edge um it's that commercial section yeah I think that's the place to put it because we're talking about the street Edge um and it's going to be next to the driveway entrance extra extra attention should be given there you go yeah to site plan measurements or in the required um setback of eight feet setbacks of eight foot minimum 15 foot maximum in this Zone in this District oh I think we did eight foot okay it might be useful to say it twice here yeah if we don't have a list accompanying this right now so I'm less concerned about um being repetitious I think I don't want to try to even work on a list right now because we've added so much stuff and we're all tired so I think we just send this along hope they're good at reading it yeah the listing that's why I was highlighting items in red that that was the list we don't need to repeat it at the bottom just the red items or the the action items yeah well I I I'm gonna respectfully disagree I think lists are very helpful for people sometimes because then they know if not get off they've done it I think go to the next one but then it's incumbent on us to make sure the list is correct so so yeah I hope they read this yeah I actually don't disagree with you but in the limited time that we have to review these things and create reports um you know I I don't wanna yeah [Music] hello um okay so I'd entertain a motion like Kevin double checked this report for any errors tomorrow and send it off with an appropriate email to the planning board on behalf of design review I seconded all those in favor mode I see Rooney I Okay so we've got four minutes can we do um and I guess I'm going to do a very simplified notes and I'm going to embed the report and the notes in our minutes is and all right I'm just taking notes right now and then can we um we approve the June 15th minutes please yes I'm gonna pull those up uh I think I wrote them actually after you've done this because you can't take minutes and do this um we gotta have people help us do this more people taking minutes in the future because it's a really I can't take minutes when I'm running a hearing okay June 15th so this is this report should uh I'm sorry this these minutes should have report number one for 9 to 49 Homer attached to them this is this is our first meeting um yeah actually we let's see yes is my answer so um and I think I would put it after the paragraph about the list and just put it in there about the list what did you say yeah there's one to the third paragraph says the list we're asking for from the report I wrote it all down yes and I would just put the the report in there that's where I would insert it into that and I can do that unless you have time to do it tomorrow morning which would you prefer I would prefer if you could take care of it I would be happy to take care of that one okay I'll do my thing and you'll you'll do yours and uh I'm gonna entertain a motion the first motion is to approve the minutes of June 15th and I'm looking for a motion and a second I'll make the motion to approve the minutes from June 15th he's rolling I seconded it excellent all those in favor Kathy Rooney I okay and then uh I'm actually gonna make a motion at 11 o'clock to adjourn I seconded okay I'm entertaining it so I'm gonna put you as making the motion to Adorn I'll second it right 11p all those in favor which would happen okay definitely I okay excellent thank you very much for sticking in for so long so we can finish this tonight and thank you um Thursday I don't I don't know if I'm gonna if I'm gonna see you Thursday Kevin I think I'm gonna come on just to make sure she's not uh that there isn't an issue with the rep the letter yes yeah but um so we may not have a quorum but it won't matter it won't matter because if there are more of us that suddenly want to show up and be at the meeting then it has to be official if we're not we don't have to worry about it and we can just put something in it says we didn't have a quorum out there so we're set up to be able to do that right and that's actually the real reason after long after I talked to you about it I was like the real reason is in case the others change their mind and they want to come in they can um so that we don't we aren't constrained by trying to be efficient too efficient no sorry I jumped the gun on that one it's all right happens it was fine yeah except for us and and um when I figure out what the real reason was so we have some flexibility okay thank you all right everybody good night we'll see you again all right good night good night
I call to order the regular building board of appeals meeting for August 17 2023 Bill call Paul darling here Robert Hart David arnsdorf here you flat here Kevin Cox building official Glenn Dempsey here City plumbing inspector Ryan Miller here Fire Marshal Michael Redman here myself Deborah Williams we have a core the first item on the agenda is approval of the agenda we have a motion for that slow move I approve the agenda all right second all right we had no one for public commentary by the way all right thank you approval of minutes from the July 20th 2023 meeting I moved to approve the many minutes second motion and support those in favor aye classes appeals actions and show cause hearing you have one item on the agenda this month and I'm going to describe what the process is that how the appeal process works so first we'll get a report from staff about the process and then we'll have to come up and present their request for our variants and the board will ask discuss and ask the applicant any questions that we may have about the durians and then we'll have a motion by the board and quote and then um probably the next week or so after that you'll get a written approval from the from the board secretary about the results of that just have you ever hearing a written copy of that so um so the first item on the agenda is variance from DBA 2304 earns for 23.98 verdidian Circle Unit 10 Hanover Michigan and we'll get a staff report um I'm gonna go over the background and follow that staff report the building's at 2369 2383 2391 2397 Verdine Circle are part of the development multiple buildings of our two occupancy and 2380 Viridian Circle Community Center you can see attachment one for the list of addresses units and the building permits these units are in a mixed use A3 and B occupancy classification as described by the 2015 Michigan building code it is indicated on Signed Sealed plan submitted with the permit applications per the 2018 Michigan plumbing code 403.1 see attachment 3 each our two building must have one automatic closed washer connection for 20 dwelling units the applicant is requesting relief from the requirement that the one per 20 dwelling unit connection per building and proposing the closed washing equipment to be in the community center the petitioner is appealing based on the provisions of the code not being applicable of course there are the standards for approval true one of three standards the true intent of the code or the rules governing construction have been incorrectly interpreted the provisions of the code do not apply and or an equal or better form of constructionist promotes proposed so I'll continue on withstanding the staff recommendation staff recommends this application be denied as it does not meet the standards for approval the code has not been misinterpreted provisions of code do not apply and locating a washer Connection in another building on the property is not equivalent or better than the requirements the 2018 Michigan plumbing code the code is written to pertain to the building and the requirements are to be interpreted as such per section 101.2 a 2015 Michigan building code is not the intention of the code that per building requirements be met in another building on the property the applicant was informed that one Connection in each unit would satisfy the requirements and be equivalent to or better than what the quote requires it is staff's opinion having to move between buildings is not equivalent to having facilities in the building with your dwelling unit furthermore the distribution of dwelling units that have automatic clothes washer connections and those without seems arbitrary okay thank you next we can have the afternoon come up sign in and tell us about your fuel [Applause] hi everybody so um we have done several similar projects like this or other communities Dexter just finished up all similar scales or not all of our projects but several with similar scales we're trying to keep a residential scale not a big building with Central corridors and in general so there is no common space in the buildings for common laundry that would be readily accessible to any tenants so we have always the laundry in the community center for four projects over 20 some years and nobody has ever hinted that it was a problem so when we started this project we did the same thing um and that provision in the code from what I can find goes back as far as I could find an old code it's not like it's changed recently added um and so basically we have we have added connections washer Connections in the units um in order to get through the permit process because we needed a letter from Glenn to close on our financing so we can start the construction we are asking to be able to remove those washer connections and use the connections in the community center and Wendy will provide some examples of why we have concerns with the washer Connections in the unit we don't have common area to provide washers that aren't in the units which would be a little more acceptable from a management standpoint um if we did we would lose a bedroom in a unit and it would mean that a couple people would remain homeless instead which is really not what any of us are about I don't think um and the other thing is although I I can't argue that the city's interpretation of the code is wrong I think this particular provision is poorly written and needs a lot of elaboration not just that I wish it would clarify that they could be in another building but there is nothing requiring dryers so these tenants could have a washer connection but no way to dry the clothes um and it's generally just problematic in many ways for us we believe that what we are providing which was a central location where they could get all of their laundry done in a relatively short time um meets the needs of the tenants and has met the needs of hundreds of tenants for for many years over our other properties thanks yeah I'm Wendy cardi-saxon director of real estate development at Avalon housing we will own manage provide services at the Grove at Viridian and we're really excited to be able to bring these 50 units of affordable housing online 30 will be supportive housing for folks coming out of homelessness 10 of those we're working with ozone for youth coming out of homelessness and we're playing like David said to close on our financing by the end of the month thank you for that and then start construction in September so we're just excited about that and thank you David for all of your work on this too so we understand obviously staff didn't recommend approval of our variance request and we're really hoping the building board of appeals will consider it we've been doing Supportive Housing for about 30 years and really do recognize the importance of tenants having access to laundry you know particularly Supportive Housing households that are coming out of homelessness a lot of folks don't have cars they can't get the laundromat so that's why like David said our new construction we've always been sure to you know include on-site laundry there and so it is noted we've got you know four on-site not just hookups in the community center but washers will be providing and five dryers that we'll be providing um so really recognize the importance of having that access for folks you know the staff report mentioned that the distribution seemed a bit seemed arbitrary of what units had it so it's really pretty specific our three and four bedroom units we provide hookups and we provide washing machines and we provide dryers in those units that we own we maintain we replace so just recognizing those bigger size households are just going to have that much more draw on all those units the one in two bedroom units though which don't have that same exact full draw those are the ones that throughout and here at Viridian we're looking at folks going to the community center so not having hookups you know just using the community center provided ones so say you know so in addition to learning over the years about the need for laundry we've also certainly learned problems that we've had when we've just provided hookups to the tenants you know the households where housing don't often have the funds to be able to provide a good working washing machine so that can really lead to leaks and breakages and then if we're not informed of the leaks that can cause problems more maintenance problems within the unit or if they're stacked units in the downstairs unit if water comes leaking below and just sort of a lot of you know calling our maintenance stuff hey can you fix these units well they're not ours so it really has led to problems in the past which is why we moved to this where you know we're here's your laundry we're providing it we're handling it three and four we're doing the units but we have limited resources and space so it's not that's why we're not doing it absolutely everywhere um so that's why both you know it's not just we prefer the common laundry we also have active concerns about just having hookups how well that would serve the tenants and US compared to having our common on-site laundry so really hoping you'll Grant the variance request you know we really do feel that it's an equal or better form than what just the code specifically would have um you know that our proposal they have four washers and five dryers so I think that's a one to six ratio with the units that don't have anything in them um you know provides more resources uh than I required by code and it allows Alva to provide affordably provide and maintain housing you know better is demonstrated with our at least through us with our history of doing it so just really appreciate your consideration of the variancement list the one thing I'd add the three and four bedrooms traditionally have been required by mishta who was our one of our primary funding agencies to have laundry facilities in them including not just connections but the actual laundry facility so that's why we started that the applicability of the Mr rules has changed over time we're not using that source so we actually have longer that that's a question so but we don't necessarily know that early on so we have not both varied from from starting with that assumption that they would have laundry so that it's not really arbitrary at all the locations seem arbitrary because most of those family units are away from Platte Road and close to the playground at the community center but there are some that are farther out just to distribute different types of units throughout the community um good question you've got I think 11 units highlighted in yellow which you say are part of this appeal when you're a chief there's a bunch of units off to the other side that are similar but our highlighted I was curious why we were left out I don't have the color version oh um so I was just wondering why these units were these are the family units the the four bedrooms these are all of them everything that's not highlighted is a three and four bedroom okay go ahead okay I was guessing looking at the footprint so it must be and there are townhouses okay typically except for a couple of flats all right board so you've already put in the connections which you'd like to remove them and the concern primarily being that uh potential equipment that might be installed by the tenant might not be of the standard where you feel comfortable that it might cause damage or concern that's certainly part of it um there'll be water Connections in the unit that will if someone decides to open them we'll just dump water on the floor as well the only place we had space for this was in a storage room there is not currently a floor drain in there we could choose to add that but I mean and also there's a significant expense to all this in 24 units and it's about 1500 a unit for the plumbing work and some of them need electrical as well and I'll just add right so we still need to start to build so it's in our plan certainly but if we didn't have to do it we'd be happy to be able to use those funds elsewhere since we already have the community center piece much of it thank you so it sounds like you're the kind of design complies with uh the Michigan Housing the three or four bedrooms even almost have the virgin before the one and two bedroom ones yes and actually Mr rules I think encourage a common laundry for the rest of them and you said that this has occurred already in Ann Arbor as well as other areas we have the same situation at carrot way which was done over 20 years ago at Pauline which was done um 2013.