001uh Mr REI president miss Rosenberg here Mr White you do have a quorum Mr chair all right stand for pledge okay screen is up with the flag I pledge allegiance aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for which it stands one na indivisible Liberty Justice all right uh I don't see any audience present let us move on to the Highland portable classroom update okay I will take over and I see Mr White's joined us so welcome Tim the um the agenda is up on the screen the Highland Portables I'm going to start flipping through some documents you know tonight's meeting um is informational there are there are no items that I believe need any approval but we'll we'll see how it goes so um before I talk specifically
002about the Highland portable classrooms what I thought I would do is just um share a couple of highlights of the information that um I had provided to the planning committee members in advance on what's happening with housing in town we um Jeff Solen and I had a meeting with Mike Len the town planner this week and he provided some updated information so what I'm showing on the screen are the essentially the apartment projects that are either in construction um on the top half of the slide or project anticipated to start construction this year and you can see out in the upper section that the we've got quite a few large ones Hazel Drive is 114 units um and more than half of Hazel Drive apartments are already opened and we do have some students coming
003out of that particular development already um lot three at Stonebridge crossing that's obviously the largest complex that is on the construction Mike Len updated us that he believes that as early as September some of those units will have their coo and um you know people will be living in that North End development that's the large development that's just north of 691 here in town I I if you haven't heard the uh there's a couple of large chain stores that are going to be in the retail section Whole Foods is one t J Maxx is another that's that's certainly gotten a lot of buzz from staff here in the school district about both of those um East Mitchell Avenue is over by Highland um and realy drive that's that's under construction if you drive by rout
00410 and realy drive you could see that and then the lower section you know that's about another 120 units of housing that are expected to start so all total there 4 apartment units and they're either one or two bedroom primarily um so there the expectation from the town planer is there won't be a lot of students that come out of those apartment dwellings and most of this was facted in to the enrollment projections that were used to project out where will be over the next eight years which determined the sizes of the two new school buildings uh however some of these um apartment units are relatively new so they weren't included in the projection but again if we follow the assumption that these apartments at one and two bedrooms won't have a lot of student
005traffic probably won't make a significant impact to enrollment we'll see I'm going to just move over to the next page um on this so these are the apartments what this is showing which will have a certainly a greater impact in terms of number of students in our schools these are single family home projects under construction and there's you know just under 200 in total that first one lot seven Stonebridge crossing that's the town houses that are being built on Sodom and way um some are already occupied wingford wingford Road those 20 approved houses also under construction um and it's my understanding from Mike gliden that 16 of those units have already been sold and I I live very close to there and I know that one of those units is fully complete so that will
006be occupied relatively soon Academy Road um that's Academy Road and you can access the Orchard View subdivision off of Academy or whis Road those are 20 units you know or large you know four bedroom you know two two and a half bath Colonials um some of those are occupied already and then there's four more um approved houses over on Mountain Road so with that as a backdrop one of the things that we've been discussing here and planning for more than a year is since most of the developments are slated for Highland Elementary just because of where they are and Highland it does have the largest captive Zone because it's the biggest school we think we're going to run out of room for classrooms at Highland we won't be able to fit you know all the
007students that we expect in the next two years while the schools are still under the construction so approval had been given by the planning committee quite a while ago to do a search for um Alternatives we hired into Nazi associates they did a study and we concluded that the best course of action was to add um two portable classrooms at Highland and after Jeff and I met with the town planner um we certainly think that it was absolutely the right decision to make we we are going to need these two additional portable classrooms the um student enrollment at Highland has increased from the beginning of this year from around 870 we're around 893 or so Jeff I think you had pulled up the figures earlier this week so island is um bursting at the seams
008as the planning committee knows we had you know added into the hallways at Highland cubicles so that we can have some of our learning support tutors you know in the hallways because we didn't have any more classroom or other office space that we could put them in so with all that as a backdrop we um issued an RFP um which the the planning committee had approved we issued the RFP February 16th I'm not going to go through the RFP I just you know wanted to show you that um you know that was the document that was issued we um sent this out to several vendors that we know we did get two responsive biders back that's what I'm showing on the screen now one from modular genius and one from Nadler mobile if you look
009at this column for option one um modul genius submitted a proposal at 294,000 Nadler mobile at 2 42,600 that would be for a purchase this option two column it would be the leas price and the modula genius didn't fill out the form correctly but their three-year lease price with total payments of 9,956 but Nadler modular if you do the math at 4875 it's it's just under 175,000 to do a three-year lease and um option three was a lease to purchase and the the math just doesn't make sense there so really where we are after doing a review of both of these proposals um both proposals were good proposals they included everything that was required as part of the RFP um but when we completed scope review including checking references we decided to award to Nadler
010mobile which is you know it also happens to be the lower cost um whether we do a $242,600 purchase or at leas for three years at 4875 a month which would commit us to$ 175,000 um that still would keep us within the budget we have $450,000 which would include the architectural fees that we have to pay um the purchase you know of the unit installation of the unit on the site and site work which would include we have to pour a pad we have to bring in the utilities these are Portables that would have running water and you so bathrooms and sinks you know for the students so the good news is we've got we've got good bids in hand we've gotg Nadler mobile can meet our deadline these two units are actually in production
011so they can be delivered when we're ready which would be at after school's out in June so they you know truck them up these are four units that get bolted together to form the portable classrooms this is the configuration I'm showing on the screen now and I just wanted to show you just very quickly so you get a sense that that when these are delivered and installed there'll be one uh entry way and you go left for one classroom right for the other classroom you'll see in this Center section is where the um the you know bathrooms would be that serve these units this is closet space along the back total of each classroom including the the bathroom area is about 768 squ ft per side so it's perfectly adequate you know to to get
012us what we need which is to get through for the next um two years uh the reason we did a we asked for a threee lease is um just to give ourselves a little bit of flexibility because if you did a two-year lease and for whatever reason we could not vacate these classrooms in time um we would we W want to be stuck so that's kind of the the the backdrop on where we are with the Portables the work that needs to be done from here on out we have a a project meeting scheduled for Monday with our design team the um team that did the site review the um madler modular representative um Mr clette you know and we have to get a building permit uh in into the town so that we can
013begin the Planning and Zoning process it does need approval but we we did engage with the Architects and the site um and the site civil engineer a while ago so you know we've got everything teed up to be able to make our deadlines so that these are up and running for students come August right which is the plan so barring any unforeseen circumstances I I think we're in in good shape and I'll pause because I know that was longwinded in those questions uh Miss Rosenberg Vinnie can you just um remind as I know we discussed even through purchase or well specifically to the purchase um option what the resale um opportunities were well there's always a resale opportunity I guess the the financial decision on this will be if we want to keep these temporary
014if we think after three years we don't want them don't need them then if we did the lease at 175,000 they just come and pick them up and then what we're left with is whatever site work we did which we would have to disassemble you know get the utilities which would be Electric and Plumbing um and a wasteline get those closed up get everything back to where it was before I I think really the decision is do we think at the end of of a three-year period we want to send these back and it's not that simple a decision because if you if you think about the 175,000 lease payments plus the cost of of pouring a pan and and installing the utilities if you have to disassemble all of that you're going to be
015at your total purchase price so I really the decision is do we want to keep these after the three-year period is up um if we buy them and decide to sell them then we're taking the risk of the difference between the purchase price and the sale price if we lease it then we pay the 175,000 un lease payments and then it's not our problem anymore to to sell it they'll just take it back I will tell you that in speaking to the representative from Nadler his name is Steve Muller if we decided to keep it an extra year um we can continue to make those same lease payments you know so that would be another you know roughly 60,000 so we'd still be a little under the purchase price and then they would card it
016off I was waiting to make that um decision with Jeff until we had our initial project meeting to understand exactly what we're gonna what our options are on the site work um and is there going to be a substantial difference with what we have to do if we were keeping these for three years versus permanent so I mean I I've certainly been a proponent of just buy him and leave them there um because the worst that would happen is we could get rid of the two older ones if we don't need for four Portables at the back of Highland um you know and we always need space for something anyway even if it becomes storage so you know that that's really what what the decision will come down to but I don't have enough information
017you know until we have this initial project meeting that I understand a little bit more about the site costs so does that make sense it does I'm just concerned about any future costs um as you mentioned the uh ability to clean it close it up if we do decide to sell it is the burden seems to be on us now versus you know them taking it away and making the space you know back to to normal so to speak yeah my my thought on that is if we do lease this for for three years or whatever it is that the work you know are we better off just buying them outright because the price is going to be about the same now we have something tangible we still have that that we can use for
018whatever purpose we need in the future yeah I don't know if anybody else has any other thoughts Rich anything else on the kind of the construction side three years versus permanent that I know you and I chatted about this yeah I mean I I I think I don't know my personal opinion it's yeah you might be better off purchasing them outright I mean ultimately at the lease price you're going to pay for you know the mobilization fee T you know connecting all the utilities doing the foundation or footing and then if you lease it after 3 years you're going to have to pay for the restoration so by the time you add all of those dollars up you know it the Lesser uh cost might end up being purchasing it outright so the math has
019to be done but on face at face value that's what it looks like it makes the most sense if we get rid of the two older ones later on we have the potential of earning some a profit from them so to speak Ben I think that's so yeah you're not g there's no equity in those okay you know if we want and I think that's why the purchase makes the most sense from my mind because those trailers are more than how old are those trailers anyway I me they got be close to 20 all I know is we've re roofed them yeah we refurbished them we add they're probably closer to 30 yeah and they're you know they're uh unsightly a little funky it the best case scenario is that we're just demoing those and
020keeping two new ones Mr White thank you uh yeah Vin do you happen to have I appreciate your comments there Jeff about that that's kind of where I was leaning already um do you happen to have a sitemap fin and the reason I ask is I'm wondering about the relevance rather than just talking about two portables getting switch two newer Portables getting switched out for two older Portables does it have any bearing the location of them does it have any bearing on the use of the property fields or anything like that well it this will uh impact some of the fields potentially um you know not by a lot but that there's a front baseball softball field so this and we don't have the final site work done yet because if you remember when we
021originally engaged with anazi we asked them to give us a site plan for four yep portable classrooms and and we're down to two um I I will have that site plan in the next 10 days or so from SLR but if you if you're familiar with Highland with where the current Portables are are these would go further south of those two kind of Ben if you stop sharing screen for a minute I could throw it up there thank you Jeff yeah I actually I'm not sure where the Portables are for Island right now off top yeah you you have to stop sharing so I can't thanks Jeff they don't they won't be as visible as the current ones now from Street these These are the current Portables here yep and they'd be heading south so
022the new ones would be in this direction okay I mean from my perspective that's not necessarily impacting the fields that much if we switch one out for the other what's what's that stuff right a little bit farther south this sort of like equipment so you that yeah we're gonna have to relocate or at least minimize a playground area but I think you're right in as much as stating that it'll have marginal impact to the ball field well not just ball field but playground and stuff like that you do have to move some stuff around but it's not it's minimal regardless okay yeah in effect we're swapping this you know southern area here for this Northern one yeah yeah you know we're not doing this by choice obviously you this is all necessity unfortunately but it
023is what it is we'll you know we'll we'll deal with it and it's exactly what we're doing right any estim any estimate on um knockdown cost for the two portable the existing Portables I I don't is in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands rich I don't think it'll be hundreds of thousands yeah okay um the one thing I will say I mean you know although they are aged they're still you know they're still utilized utilized heavily and once you have square footage that has at least good utilization it's going to be you're going to find it a little difficult to get rid of it whether you use it for sto storage or otherwise you know if it's in halfway decent shape you know it's not going to make too much sense to get
024rid of it at least not right away so we'll have to we'll have to cross that bridge and we get to it well yeah certainly if you go by the history you know of our Portables in this town where yeah I mean the Chapman Portables we did get rid of you know probably about 10 years ago but they were there at least 25 years the Highland Portables as rich said have been there 30 the two portables at the back of Norton you know they've been there again we've reroofed resided those yeah 30 plus and those are those are definitely candidates to Dem those are ready to go the Norton ones yeah they were ready to go five years ago yeah you can't use them for storage Rich n they just need to go you know
025they're pretty they're pretty dilapidated we had um June 26 we had a tree fall on one of those Portables and unfortunately it didn't crush it it did it only did enough damage that it could be repaired and I mean they are used so that that track record tells you uh just buy these because you're going to use them for years to come but we will make that determination they sound very durable Vin yeah well I mean listen if you take care of them they last and they're not the greatest solution and um you know these will not be connected to the building right so the Scott Jeffrey has recommendation is likely to be to use these as fourth grade classrooms and then reshuffle within the building and so they'll be in proximity to the other
026fourth grade classrooms in the building um it is you know that's the plan for to get us through the next two years so again I don't need um anything formally approved um because the planning committee had already approved us to you know issue the RFP we have the money so if there are no further questions we're going to keep moving on this and I you know I'll keep everybody updated obviously you know not only through the planning meetings but at the board of ed meetings as well Mr White thank you yeah you said we have the money already just to be clear on that let's say you bought them for 242 and there was site work and whatever other costs are involved there does it and up hitting the 500,000 where we need to go
027to referendum or did we already do that no we have 450,000 okay um and cover all the cost yeah yeah we're I I don't we won't have a budget issue I mean I our biggest challenge is to just get everything approved through Planning and Zoning get all the details worked out get them placed and ready to go and this I'll say this is not I mean this this is not my ideal situation um but it's also urgent so uh I think what it sounded like you were recommending was moving forward with the buy instead of the lease is that correct that would be my recommendation based on yeah what you know I get it what I know now and I I don't think it's going to change after we get an estimate of the cost
028for the site work so I mean all things considered particularly the possible switch out of the existing old Portables I think it probably makes sense to buy them but that's a that's a weak that's that's a weak uh endorsement of your opinion versus just leasing them it's we just I hadn't really gotten this far in thinking about this until just now it had just been focused on getting something done in six months rather than what we were doing in a few years if you think buying them that make that could make sense to me too yeah and again I'll I'll firm that up after we talk to the site um the site engineer on this thing I I don't know if there's any difference when we go to um to get approval if you know
029one route is any different than the other in terms of speed to approval Mr Rosenberg Vin just to clarify um I'm I'm definitely for purchasing them with the benefits of having additional storage obviously um in the future um but now that we're positioning them towards the South what's the entry point or access they have bathrooms in there but the students will need to go to their elective specialist excuse me it's Elementary School um PE and so forth you're gonna have to go outside and through what how far of a distance are we thinking of here well we've got a couple of doors that we can access at the back of Highland um I'm assuming that we would probably use the same one that we're using for the two Portables now okay which is right down
030the ramp from the existing portable and then you know there's a door there it won't be too far of a walk no it won't be okay thank you okay all right uh Mr I believe that concludes that agenda item um the next one is the an update on the energy performance contract if you want me to keep going absolutely okay so we had a um a meeting with energia and I just brought up on the screen the slide presentation that that they used and when I say we the meeting including you know representatives from both the school district as well as the town and what presented is their their findings based on a preliminary review we gave them the items that they asked for you know specifically our utility bills for the last um year
031or so and the copy of our Capital plan um some additional information that we talk through and so this financial impact SD means School District there um findings were that we're spending about 950,000 a year on utilities they believe based on a preliminary review if they could um reduce our energy usage by 23% based on making improvements to various infrastructure components in the schools that would result in about $220,000 in annual savings which could fund the um infrastructure improvements and it would be offset by Energy savings and you'll see the note there that the analysis excludes Chapman Darcy and Norton because we know those buildings are going offline in two years so it wouldn't make any sense to include those buildings as as part of any energy performance contract and then for the town they're
032spending about $575,000 a year on utilities utilities by the way is mostly electricity but also includes natural gas uh and or heating oil and or propane for uh heating as well um you know their estimate is a reduction of energy use by 26% which is about 115,000 in annual Energy savings and they excluded Arts place because the current Arts place um is moving into the um into a new facility at the B and socket Factory in case you didn't know that so all in all the um the bottom line is that they believe that there they could fund about $6 Million worth of improvements based on the anticipated Energy savings now this is done at a very high level so the The Next Step really would be to for them as part of the arrangement
033we have with them is to put together a request for proposals to try and find energy companies that would actually come in and do an in-depth review you know inside every one of the buildings that we identify to come up with a solid plan and list out all the energy Improvement initiatives that could be done and what the exact reduction in energy would be and what the cost of those improvements would be so their their recommendation which we agree with is go to the next step get this RFP issued they've put together a list of what they need from us in order to go to the RFP stage um and I just brought it up on the screen I mean they're looking for things like what buildings do we include they wanted copies of our
034floor plans ah hero reports are the asbestos management reports that we have they wanted seasonal utility bills and they wanted the upcoming Capital project plans who the points of contact were you know I will tell you as I as I speak here tonight rich and I have already provided all this information for the school side to them as of yesterday so they have what they need from us the town is working on pulling together their items uh the capital project plan that I sent is the latest one that was approved by the Board of Ed so it's it's the most current we highlighted on that project plan which of the U items of priorities and you know they include the work that we want to do at D little the adding air conditioning replacing the
035windows uh replacing the roof I'm not sure that those are items that could be covered under this performance contract but you know we've identified those as well as um some of the boilers that need to be replaced at the high school we did uh remind them that we want to include solar in any type of a um an energy performance contract if it made sense we identified the ditt roof area as one place for solar I did let them know about the that large 4 acre parcel on the west side of the baseball fields as at the high school as a potential place for them to review so the third um item on this list shows what their tenative timeline is so the the goal here is to try try and issue an RFP around
036uh the 9th of April um and then there would be a a kickoff meeting with the potential proposers um rfps would be due back from any proposers May 29th we did ask um the representatives at eneria if we issued a an RFP and used a $6 million total project as a rough estimate because it could be higher than or lower than that um they certainly think that we would we would probably get at least four to five proposals for this type of work from amesco which is the company that we used previously noresco Schneider Electric potentially ConEd so they think that we would get pretty good response um and we even after that our p is issued and the proposals come back we as a planning committee and you know a board and then on
037the town side we review it we decide does it make sense to go forward and if we decide that it doesn't make sense to go forward then there's still no cost to us to go through this step the only time we will incur a cost is if we actually agree to an energy performance contract and then any cost that's due to pay eneria gets paid out of that energy performance contract so there's no commitment at this point even going to this step which does make sense so we could get a real understanding of you know what is what ises a new energy performance contract do for us in terms of the improvements that we want to make and what would we save in energy to pay for those improvements so I think I covered everything
038on that rich did I miss anything no I think uh you got it right on on the money we you know the RFP once the rfps get issued um and evaluated we have a better idea of what we're looking at for uh potential savings you know Downstream yeah and just to be clear the RFP document um they did send a to us you know we we'll go we'll scrutinize that and make sure it you know not only meets our legal requirements for when an RFP is issued because the town does have to issue the RFP um but eneria is you know is really the one company that will be driving this for us so we will be providing uh staff to allow the tours of the buildings as these energy performance companies come in but
039you know all the all the heavy lift is being done by ener on this project so that's that's my update there if there are any questions we'll be glad to take them Tim has a question yeah okay yeah Mr White I apologize I was muted no no thank you thank you um yeah so first of all thank you for making this happen uh I think this is fantastic if we could you know do our performance contract 20 um not have to go ask the taxpayers for extra money on stuff that really make sense to just about everybody uh keeping it trying to keep it simple for people my one request I think this is my only request is to sort of reinforce within the RFP in some way it doesn't need to be in the
040RFP but to make sure the contractors are not living in this sort of like historic world where they're coming in and doing simply what they can do I'd like to I'd like it if they're looking at all of the incentives that they can get like the IRA um the energy space is as slow as it is it is quickly evolving at this point and so you know something could become public hit the ground a year from now and that's after the fact even if we don't start construction for two years I get that completely but some of this stuff is pretty well known so just to make sure whoever whoever proposes make sure they're not just looking at their historic project models to make this happen and trying to get us the best deal that
041we can uh yeah Tim here you ladin clear definitely on the incentives you know what I Envision when we get to this next stage and and we really get into the details of what the energy conservation measures that are being recommended entail what we did in the last in the First Energy performance contract is a committee was put together that included Board of ad um t Town Council you know an energy um a representative from the energy commission to take a look and make sure that everybody was on board with with those energy conservation measures and and did they make sense and I I do I can tell you from that first first go around some of the energy conservation measures were very clear replacing the electric heat at Highland with natural gas heat and
042the air condition in that one was relatively easy we we did have to work really really hard though to to your point that the recommendation from ameresco was replace our fluorescent with more efficient fluorescent and we didn't like that idea and we did go to the computer controlled LED and that's worked out fantastic for us so you know there you know you will have you know an opportunity to weigh in on those energy conservation measures which I think is a very important part of the process um and hopefully you know we we get a a good contract that we can look at and execute that gives us not only the Energy savings but you know gives us infrastructure improvements that are a little more Forward Thinking than any you know old school thinking to your
043point yeah and please also have the uh I mean this is probably on the town's responsibility but just to make sure the attorney whoever the town attorney is aware so that we don't go down a path and then just find out afterward they don't agree with a particular point that didn't exist 20 years ago or 10 years ago that's all thank you then I I appreciate it I appreciate what you put together here M Rosenberg yeah VIN thanks for this I think you know kind of to Tim's point it looks like your Tim the at least the tentative timeline provid as some sort of due diligence um checklist so to speak but I mean just adding another layer of you know checkpoints so to speak uh at least for the Boe representation side right I
044don't know if that's a possibility I know you mentioned that this is more of the town and District now but I don't know if we can insert ourselves in somewhere Within These timeline projections you absolutely insert yourself you know do you did you want to get more involved in the RFP process or you're saying after we get that back um I mean if possible I'd like to be involved with the RFP I don't know about my colleagues on the call here but I I just think if we had some sort of representation one or all of us um not that I don't trust you or Jeff um I just think on the public end um to keep us up to dat you know current somebody should be uh representing Us in this process okay what
045I what I'll definitely do is um as soon as we have the RFP drafted you know and is at a point that we're going to send it over to uh for our legal review which we would ordinarily do for something this large um I'll circulate it to the planning committee we could make we could hold a meeting if you'd like to do that as well but you know certainly once we get the proposals back yeah there's going to be a lot of involvement you know from from planning you know and and the board you know as well as this committee meeting that I think makes sense to make sure everybody is on the same page about what we're trying to do here and by no means is my intent to micromanage this again I I
046trust both you and Jeff but I I kind of hear where Tim's coming from as well so that there's that other perspective so to speak just staying connected yes thank you okay I like Jeff's diplomacy okay that's it on that item um I do have a couple of other items Mr eky I we do have an agenda item for other matters I just wanted to give you a couple of quick updates if that's okay absolutely okay one is um planning committee knows we had resubmitted nine HVAC grants um over a year ago we submitted the grants they were all turned down for technical reasons we're not alone you know in in school districts that were turn down so we resubmitted them in December we did get a request earlier this month from the state looking
047for additional information which we provided to them um what I'm what I'm really hoping for is a couple of things of the of the total of about $1.2 million of projects that were completed um that we requested as part of the grant because the grant was allowed to be retroactive um the the amount that was appropriated and we requested in the grant was 1.15 million those projects are completed at a cost of $500,000 so under this grant program if it's approved and we get full funding that would be about 450,000 I'm certainly hoping we get that because again those projects are completed there's another $1.8 million of new projects uh but only one of those is underway which is the $600,000 dot boiler replacement project so you know there's $750,000 at at stake based on
048projects that are either completed or projects that are approved that we're going to complete this summer so I'm really hoping that we do get approval on those grants but we probably won't know for a couple of months but I just wanted to give you an update on where that stood and then I also wanted to mention that this summer there's three we've got a ton of work that's lined up for the summer and when I say we I mean rich clette and his staff and who do great work um and rich is a is a strong planner and administrator of vendors right but the two projects that I wanted to mention uh one I already said the dot boiler replacement project that did go out to bid we had $600,000 the bids came back at$
049569 so that project is designed um Rich do you want to just give like a 30- second overview of of that project yeah that project uh fortunately came in uh within budget um currently we're in a submittal process um we're probably 80% through the boilers are on order um all the long lead item uh materials are on order and we're scheduled to begin uh as soon as schools dismissed somewhere on or about June 15 so we're on track with with that specific project okay thanks Rich the second large project is the West gym lockers uh both boys and girls lockers behind the West gym long overdue for improvements including Ada uh improvements that had to be made in accordance with a review that had been done now more than 10 years ago um so that
050project you know did go out to bid bids came in a little bit higher than we anticipated but we do have two capital accounts that we were able to draw from so that work is also on track for summer completion anything to add there Rich that I missed oh this project also includes the um there's some office space and bathroom for the coaches yeah it's a full renovation of the boys and girls locker room plus uh staff support ADA Compliant bathrooms and the and the like uh we are on track um long lead items oddly enough the lockers are are long lead items and then we also have a rooftop unit that's going to uh be able to condition the room control humidity and uh and the like so that's uh currently all on track
051and we're also scheduled for uh start date onor around June 15 okay and then um also underway not a project a project that was approved to replace the dot fire alarm that work is um has been underway it's being done off hours when there's no students in the building I Know Rich you said from my last meeting about 15% or so complete on that project yeah we're yeah we're roughly uh I think we passed a 25% complete uh point on installation that is going very smoothly um it's almost happening in a transparent fashion staff don't even doesn't even seem to realize that it's going on in the evening but we are working second shift and the contractor is performing very well on that project I anticipate uh we'll have a fully commissioned system uh possibly
052by June and then the last thing which is has to do with the new schools that I'm not sure um if we gave you an update because it's kind of breaking news but in order to get ahead at the new Norton there will be potentially some site work that we're doing this summer to um cut in a roadway where the new building will be built where the current building is along the back as well as um starting the site work to come in and create a construction entrance initially off of Sharon Drive the reason that we would like to do that over the summer is um that project itself is slated for a construction start in December and we're going to have to do this work um and we would rather not do this work
053while the students are in school so this would basically prep the site so when we actually when we begin the true construction this will be done you know in order to accomplish this all we had to do was move the camp quinac summer camp which is usually held at Norton that's being held at Chapman this summer so um the details haven't been finalized but it it's looking very likely that that's what we'll do this summer over at Norton to begin that that site work and that's all I have for tonight I'd say it's also that item is on the agenda tomorrow night or Thursday night excuse me for the tomorrow is Thursday isn't it yes wow anyway uh it's on the agenda tomorrow night for uh nextg School building committee too because we are certainly
054of the communication that needs to occur with the folks who live on shair and drive Mr White thank you um yeah Vin this is intended to be relatively quick each of these points uh with uh with regard to the connection to Sharon Drive so you're thinking that would be done this summer and no construction would begin until December correct so we have the we basically have the fall semester there I'm just wondering if that's going to be made not like a high grade or anything but something where it's relatively safe for kids to walk because they will be walking there yeah that's kind of the idea we wanted to try and do this for student safety they would erect a uh you know a fence okay you know so that when the students come back
055um in the fall after the summer there will be a fence up which has to get done we'd rather not do it you know while the kids are in school the the logic of doing the Sharon Drive um entrance also has to do with they they have to install a cover and a bridge um and so that's something that the construction team would like to get ahead of okay thank you thank you I thought you had mentioned before I I didn't follow completely but with regard to the hvx my understanding was you're saying we're eligible for up to $750,000 in Grant refunds just based on the completed projects and the one project on the way with total 750 if we do get any funding where does that go public schools or the town you on
056the Town Council you know the record town is gonna glom that money no no no I'm just I just want to be clear on that the money just goes back to the town because not just us here it's people who are watching at home like it doesn't go to the schools it's we're saving the money but it doesn't benefit us really in any particular way correct way Tim thank you that's actually a great question yes it does go it goes back to the town of course we can always ask the town to appropriate some of that back to the schools if there's a need which they have which the council has done in the past but as of right now does go back to the town okay thank you um and the last my last
057question topic is energy Supply our electricity generally speaking I think we engage contracts fossil fuel electri fossil fuel generated electricity contracts probably never go for more than say like a few years three years typical I think Renewables yeah in the past we've gone as much as five years but okay you know I right now we're we're in contract that expires in October um I I know that you know Tim you were involved when when we decided to do that or I updated you but um I did reach out to our consultant you know today to get me an update on electricity prices in particular um and I also you know at our next planning committee I just didn't have time today but I think we we need to engage in a longer in uh the
058discussion that You' wanted to have about a long-term you know energy or electricity contract specifically um yeah I mean just basically what we could do is instead of fossil fuels it's really common to engage in a 20-year contract for Renewables which is exactly what we did at the dog park um and also I think it's entirely possible we can get a rate a supply rate lower than what we're paying for fossil fuels anyway I don't know the Market's been crazy interest rates have been crazy recently but I just want to keep that on keep that on your radar because I if we could get it done by get it done I mean if it works for the Board of Ed Works to issue an RFP I think that could be good I think there's potential
059to save money and also lock in uh minimize budgetary volatility definitely still on my radar Tim I you know I won't forget I know you won't make me forget anyway but you know I mean you you know the energy Market's you know better than I do um you know and I've been watching what's I mean I do watch what happens you know on CNBC as the day goes on not a great time to lock in for anything but we'll keep asking um and I didn't hear back from Rachel today which is unusual because I I didn't want to give you an update on what the you know even the one or two year rates would look like for us but we're good till October but then after that you know we I I would rather
060not go back to the standard rate from ever Source because we always do better when we do you do better in the market yeah yeah not all the time but almost all the time you're gonna do better in the market yeah you I was I was upset when we did our last long-term deal at at eight cents but man I wish I could get that now Mr Rosenberg Vin just two quick questions so what you're saying is we're doing a preliminary groundbreak then um yeah I don't know that I would characterize it as that but I'll Jee what do you think yeah I don't I don't I think what we're providing is access not groundbreaking we're not we're not doing any sort of school construction as much as we are providing access to the site
061gotcha yeah that falls under that would fall under the category of site preparations so not really a ground break gotcha yeah we're uh we're going to have to plan some sort of significant festivities for the fall I don't think we want to be out there on December 5th or whatever in a snowstorm with metal shovels you know freezing our you know we'll have to do something ear I mean we could once we have all the bids back you know from the you know from the bid issuance which will be late fall I certainly think that that's when you're going to see a groundbreaking that's when you want to do it gotcha and then my other question is really off of Tim's uh point about so the funding that goes funding goes directly to the town
062is there an extensive process to obtaining those funds I just don't want a delay should we need that in the immediate you know well no if you mean if we request from the Town Council I guess I don't know what the process is and how extensive you'd have to file whatever request and a lot of the stuff we've paid for already that we're asking the for grant money from the state reimbursement um and then historically the state or excuse me the council has been pretty good about reinvesting that in the schools certainly with school security you know we've been in a long-term loop on that one we'll do a project I'm using arbitrary numbers for $100,000 the state might reimburse you know $40,000 back to chesher and then we ask the town for another thou
063$100,000 project we'll get reimbursement on that but we got the 40,000 we already submitted um so there's some of that that goes on too so it's just a matter of filing a request for reimbursement there's no extensive you know application process to get the money that we is owed to us technically from no we would make a request to the Town Council get on the agenda um explain what we're looking to do and then they would have to decide if they want to basically all they're doing is re appropriating the money that they received into the grant account right to a board of ed you know they would you can't mix this money which is capital money with operating budget money so what we've done in the past where we've gone to the council is
064we had money that came back from a school security Grant and we asked them to reappropriate it back to the account that we used to fund school security improvements I just don't want to I am obviously you've done this before anticipate any roadblocks in trying to obtain the money that's typ that's oldow to us already yeah it's technically it's it's not owed to us it comes back this grant was is unusual in that it was announced after the projects were already approved oh that's true y I forgot about that yeah yeah the the council and you know the finance director were counting on getting any reimbursement um but if there's a need like the one thing that I would see if this money is coming back for HVAC projects and we have more HVAC projects
065to do I would certainly you know would want to ask the council can you take this reimbursement and apply it to HVAC work that we know we've already requested in the capital budget and it's ultimately their choice you know how to whether to do that or not thank you I don't have any more questions mark I'm good we got anything else um not for me all right motion to adjourn second we got it we got it beautiful all in favor we are adjourned thank you everybody