BOE Capital Project Communications Committee Meeting on Wed,, March 18, 2026, at CES at 7 00 P M

001We are good. All right. Welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us in person and if you're watching the live stream. Uh tonight we are going to give our second capital project community forum. Uh just a little introduction first. My name is Brendan Cardi. I'm on the board of education. Uh this uh forum is put together by our communication committee. Uh so I'm also joined by committee member Loftton Riser. Jamie Fox could not be in attendance. Um we also work with the facilities committee. Uh Jim Craig, who is the chair of the facilities committee, couldn't make it tonight. uh work commitment, but we have a lot of heavy hitters that are uh joining us tonight to help share some of the information as to catch the community up on to what has been going on in

002the facilities committee over the last few months. We've got our uh interim superintendent uh of schools, Megan Arjeno, assistant superintendent of business, John Frink. We have our director of facilities, Walter Moran, and then we also have from our uh construction partner uh which is Triton, John Hansen. And from our architectural firm, Tetratech, we have Jim Buffard and Ingred Martinez. So, they'll be here to add some color to any of the descriptions that we we give uh throughout the night. So, as I mentioned, we've been meeting as a facilities committee really for almost a year at this point. Uh and tonight, the goal, high level goal is to catch the community up on everything that has been discussed and decided upon, give you a sense of where we ended up, why we made some of the

003decisions that we made. uh and what the recommendation ultimately is to the board of education uh and then ultimately what would be uh in front of the community on the ballot in May. So, first thing I want to do is a little bit of re of a review uh to catch people up uh on what we covered during the last forum. Whether it's your first time hearing this information or you heard the information once and forgot most of it soon after, it's always good to do a quick run through and get back on the same page. So, first most important question, why are we pursuing a capital project at all? Uh if you recall, we did uh a capital project four years ago now. And you might think, shouldn't that have been enough? Well, there

004are two big reasons why we are pursuing another capital project. Number one, we still have a lot of needs around the school district. And the second is this has been the plan all along. So the needs, even after completing a roughly $23 million capital project, we still have so many needs that were identified in our most recent building condition survey and internal facility assessment. Those uh needs total about $78 million. So despite taking one crack at it last time four years ago, there's still almost $80 million worth of needs. And by needs, we mean things that, you know, are are due to simply just age. Uh things uh mechanical things that um maybe have a 15 to 20 year lifespan and they're on year 22. So things that have to be done at some point

005and many of those uh are coming due. I mentioned we've been planning for this. So, back when we passed the 22 capital project, we also asked the community to approve a new $5 million capital reserve fund, and they did. Um, when we funded that project, if you recall, there was a zero uh tax increase. It was tax neutral. So, we didn't we could do a 20some million dollar project without raising taxes. That's because we had a capital reserve fund that was fully funded at the time which supplied the community's share of uh that project. Just a quick reminder, a capital reserve fund is a savings account that is separate from the operating budget that allows school districts to save for large capital improvements. Many of these capital improvements qualify for state aid of up to

006almost 75%. which means every dollar that is in your capital reserve fund will be matched by roughly $3 from the state on qualifying projects. Qualifying projects being an important caveat which we'll discuss as we go through. So with that 3:1 roughly 3:1 ratio, if you have a fully funded $5 million capital reserve fund, that will be matched by roughly $15 million in state aid, which is how you can fund a roughly $20 million capital project without raising taxes. This was the general formula we followed last time. Now, we have a fully funded capital reserve fund. So, as of right now, we could do about $20 million worth of capital improvements uh in a tax neutral project. But we don't just have that one capital reserve fund. Just last spring, we asked the community to approve

007an additional $5 million capital reserve fund. That fund is about halfway full with now a little north of $2.5 million, which means uh that would that half full capital reserve fund on its own would be matched by another roughly $7.5 million in state aid, which adds another $10 million to our spending power. I know there's a lot of math, so we'll try to make it simple on this slide. So, we have that 22 capital reserve fund that's full. That has $5 million. The 25 capital reserve fund is about half full at $2.5 million, which means we have about $7.5 million in capital reserves. You match that by you add that three times state aid. So, that would be about $22.5 million in state aid roughly. And now you're up to $30 million in spending power

008based solely on what you have in those capital reserve funds, which is great. We also have expiring debt, which increases our spending power even more. What is that expiring debt? So, back in 1999, the community approved the uh the new high school that has been a uh that was bonded, and we've been paying that each year since. In recent years, we've been paying about $3.5 million per year to service this debt. In 2030, during the 2930 school year, that debt will be paid in full. This is important because if this capital project passes in the spring through the the the financing process with the state, we would essentially be paying the bond. Make sure I get my verbs announced correct. We we'd start to be paying the bond in that same school year when the

009previous debt payments will be coming off. So, the debt payments for this new bond would basically just take their place. That's what allows us to maintain the same level of yearly spending, but now have so much more spending power. So, with that $3.5 million freed up essentially, uh, we could allocate that towards this project, which would increase our spending power even more from $30 million to $55 million before you hit the threshold where you would have to increase taxes uh, more. So, that's what we covered the last time about the funding. Okay. Now, where are we now? If you recall, I just mentioned that we had $78 million worth of capital improvement needs identified in our building condition survey and we can we can fund about 55 million without raising taxes. There's a bit of

010a delta there and we're going to talk tonight about uh what the uh various projects are and how uh what the facilities committee has recommended to the board. So looking at all of those needs, uh the facilities committee has recommended that the capital project be broken up into three propositions, each with a different tax impact. So proposition number one, two, and three. One would be just district-wide improvements to our instructional spaces, infrastructure, safety, and security across all the buildings. That proposition would come in at around $44.5 million. Remember, we have $55 million of room. Anything underneath that would be tax neutral. So that first proposition would be completely tax neutral, meaning we could fund that without raising taxes further. Proposition number two would be classroom additions. That's uh so classroom additions at the middle school,

011this building CES Lee Road and Cornwall on Hudson Elementary School. The total cost of that would be just north of $21 million. But that would be only half of that or half about half of that project would be covered under the uh the tax neutral umbrella, meaning we would have the the taxpayers would have to fund the uh the second half of that project. So, we'll get into the the tax impact of that, but long story short for now, Proposition two would have a partial tax impact. Proposition three would be athletic fields. This would be uh an athletic field addition to the high school and the cost of this would be $14.6 million. Now, you're beyond the tax neutral umbrella. So, this would u come with a full tax impact. Okay, we'll start with proposition

012number one. And as I mentioned earlier, we want to break down the project details in a little bit more detail and really catch you up on some of the facility committee discussions that have happened over the past several months. So, this is where we're going to go a little bit deeper. Uh hopefully uh don't throw too much information at you that you cannot absorb it. Uh but let's let's do it. So this is the high school again. Uh all this is still under proposition number one. These are uh improvements to address critical infrastructure needs across all of the buildings here at the high school. That means among other things, we would construct a bathroom and concession stand next to the tennis courts. That is something that we have to do in order to uh get

013this project approved by the state education department. I'm going explain that. um the the project itself in a second, but essentially when we did the last project, when we built the uh athletic facility at the high school, we did not include bathrooms and concession stands. In order to uh to get anything else approved, state ed has said, you've got to go back. You've got to finish that part of the project. So, this is why it is uh literally the first item on the list. It's just something we need to do. Uh, I'll cut to the end here before passing the mic. The fire alarm system and the PA and clock system. This is something you're going to see across all five academic buildings. This is to this is think of this as a uh a

014safety measure. So, our PA systems uh and fire systems are are old. they uh they depending on what building you're in the the um engineering difficulties are a little bit different but I think the message is the same across all buildings when they fail this means uh central office the the principal's office and you know main office cannot send messages throughout the building if you imagine an an emergency situation this is a critical uh safety issue so having the PA systems and of course the fire alarm systems uh modernized and reliable is a paramount issue and and one that uh we would be addressing at all of the buildings. Now for the uh the pavers, the roof sections, I want to pass it off to John for a little bit more detail. Perhaps you want

015me to hand it directly to Walter. >> So I'll just jump in real quick and yes, we will turn to Walter with his wisdom. Um so we put up values up here from the facilities committee. These are uh best estimates that we can put together based on the market. So, um I just want to make the public, the community aware that uh these numbers could change, but again, we're not looking to change the overall scope, but we're trying to be as transparent as possible with the community with what our anticipated costs would be. Um again, estimated um with respect to specific projects up there, the pavers at the front entrance, if you notice that at the high school, uh very difficult uh to maintain. It's been what, 20 years or over 20 years now. Um,

016and you'll see some deterioration in those pavers. So, we'd like to pull them up and especially during the winter months, they start to get a lot of salt uh and sand and the plowing to clear that has has um again enhanced that deterioration unfortunately. Um, install I'm going to split this with Walter actually. Install magnetic hold opens on remaining bathrooms, assembly spaces, cafeteria, and gymnasium. You'll notice that our doors get propped uh open on those spaces and there are magnetic latches that will release during an emergency that those doors will automatically shut to prevent fire from spreading. Um and it's a safety and security measure. Walter can talk specifically about the roof sections and then the floor decking as well. >> Sure. Uh good evening everyone. So I could speak a little bit about the

017roof. Um, we we've had a roof study done several years back that has shown that there's several areas throughout the high school building that needs to be cut and replaced. The insulation is wet. Um, there's leaks on uh by the the similar materials on the bridges, the tea bars. These are some construction terms need to be replaced. 23 years old. Uh, for the most part, the roof itself is in good condition. We've had the material tested. Uh we still have a lot of life in the roof, but there are certain sections that we've been replacing over the years and and that amount right there will replace the identified areas through the study. Uh replacing the south and central floor decking. These are the bridges uh that connect the buildings together. There has been some settlement

018in those floors. uh an expansion joint needs to be installed, a control joint as well and and repair on those floors um both structurally and uh cosmetically. Um moving to the fire alarm system. Um we can't get parts for the fire alarm system. That's basically a computer system about two years ago. Uh we we living in Cornwall know that we always get these coned I mean uh central Hudson brown outs and power losses and it burnt out the main control panel. We were able to find a used one that we could replace but there aren't any parts. So we really need to update the fire alarm system you know throughout the building. And then the PA and the clock system those are 23y old technology. They're analog. When there's a time change, you actually have

019to go into the old phone, the digital phone, and plug in a code. It's not integrated with our phone system, which is a digital phone system, voice over IP. What this will do is it'll integrate both the PA, the clocks, the phones. It would be one system. Thank you both. That'll uh take us to that uh I want to dive deeper into that bathroom and concession stand that's next to the tennis courts. So this would be uh actually let me cut to the next one to give you an idea where this would be. So this is a diagram of the current athletic facility footprint. So what we're look the building that we're talking about would be just to the left of the tennis courts there. So the as you uh if you're looking if you're

020sitting in the stands looking at the school this would be to your right and this is what that building uh would look like. So uh slightly different concepts here for the breakdown. Um you know this would be determined um you know during the design and scoping phase but the essentials are the same. It would include bathrooms, men and women's bathrooms plus a storage and concession uh booth which would be towards the uh the front of the building closest to the field. This would again this is what we need to do to satisfy our stateed requirements um but would also add to the experience at the games themselves. Moving on to the middle school. So this has the middle school has some of the most uh the higher ticket items. I want to talk in greater

021detail about the paving the service road and the new parent drop off pickup. I'll talk about that in a second. Um the bus loop. This is the front bus loop. This would be uh a repaving job. The bus loop. And and Walter, I'll I'll quickly ask you to check my math here. That's about 30 years old. That the the the pavement on that. I mean, it's meat. It's met uh its usable life. Uh and then the cafeteria and kitchen edition I will talk about uh in the next couple of slides in more detail. But uh essentially we have an opportunity one of the um one of the needs that we need to address is the existing kitchen at the middle school uh is structurally failing. the the floor underneath it needs some serious work and

022in order to rebuild that kitchen, we couldn't simply just take it offline uh for a number of reasons. Number one, we'd still have to service the students at the middle school, but to complicate matters, our that middle school kitchen also services Willow Avenue Elementary and Cornwall on Hudson Elementary. So it's not really feasible to just uh take that offline and and uh you know for the for an extended period of time. So the solution that we have come up with is to simply build a new cafeteria and kitchen. And I'll explain where that would be and and all of that in the next couple of slides, but build that first so that once you start renovating the existing kitchen, you just it transfers over and and the the new kitchen and and cafeteria would be

023ready to go. And then we would turn that old kitchen and cafeteria into classroom space. So hitting a lot of goals that we have at the middle school. Number one, just uh expanding that the the cafeteria space and and making it, you know, right now we're currently broken up into two smaller cafeterias, which is not ideal. Uh so this would be one larger cafeteria in the rear of the building. And then you get added uh instructional space by repurposing the existing footprint of the uh cafeterias and kitchen. Again, I'm going to go through some diagrams of that in a second, but while we're on this slide, I want to pass it again to John and Walter. Uh John, you can start wherever you want, but we left off really at the sidewalks and moisture penetration.

024>> I think um some of the information is pretty self-explanatory up there. So like replace the D-wing roof. We have had some failures there, some leaks coming through. So, we're looking to really do a full replacement there. Um, and then address moisture penetration at the sewing. We've had some moisture coming down into the crawl space under that wing. So, we need to be able to address that issue as well. Uh, Walter, I'll ask you to talk about the backflow pretor and the sewer line. Uh, really glamorous uh work there. >> All right. So the uh the sewer line that's original equipment to uh to the middle school when it was built. So we do a a maintenance on that line probably three times a year. Sludge builds up. We put a camera down it down

025the the uh the sewer line. Uh it pitches the wrong way. We've we've replaced certain sections, maybe 20 foot sections already going out underneath the sidewalk. Uh but before we have a complete failure, we'd like to at least address the aging sewer line, you know, to the building. Um specifically, if we're going to be installing or constructing an additional kitchen cafeteria, we're tying into something that's new. So that's why that's up there. Uh as far as the uh the backflow prevent, this is our water service coming into the building. And you'll see this at at every one of our buildings. Uh this is a law with the water department working with Mike Trainer and uh Cornal Water Department. Uh we need to install these backflow preventers here which really isolates the school building from the

026the uh municipal water service. Uh it's a law. Um so that's what that will address. Uh the the Dwing roof, I think you had mentioned that. That's an old ballast roof, a stone and tar roof. That's the last original roof to the D-wing. All the other roofs have been upgraded to EPDM or the the newer material in there. So, we do have active leaks in the D-wing. So, replacing that roof is it's important. We we need to do that. >> Great. And as I mentioned uh earlier, so the replacing the renovating the old kitchen area, converting that to classroom space, that's the uh the second half of that uh cafeteria project that I mentioned. Again, what we're going to show some uh some diagrams of what that can look like. Um adding staff bathrooms, uh

027both male and female. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. Um and then I don't know, Walter, if you want to add any, uh any additional color here. As John mentioned, some of these are are pretty clear. Providing gutters and downspouts at the BC wing uh to address moisture penetration uh all the way down through the uh the fire alarms and PA systems. I don't know if there's any anything beyond what's uh apparent that you want to add there. >> Well, most of these items were were identified during our 5-year building condition survey with our architects and engineer. uh most if not all of these items are to address issues that we have aging infrastructure um PA system uh intermittent we've been working on that I've been here 23 years you know from day one I've been

028trying to piece together and make that work so similar to the high school we want to bring that up and and move it from an analog into a digital world uh replacing the fire alarm system now that we we've done a lot of replacement we've upgradeed ated the locker room area. We've put in some new control modules in there, but the end devices we need to replace. So, I wouldn't say that's 100%. That's probably maybe a 60% replacement because we've done a lot of that work over the years. Uh in uh interior drainage in the BNC wing. So, when when the original designers constructed the high school back then, the BNC wing has a crawl space. It's a dirt crawl space. There was no water mitigation there. So, if you've ever gone into the middle

029school or any of your relatives have ever graduated when it was a high school and you walk through in the summertime and you smell this musty there's a musty smell down there, it it kind of has changed a little bit because we put air conditioning in the classrooms and the corridor, but that's because we get moisture in the crawl spaces. So, we need to manage that and mitigate it and and that's that's what that line item will do. Uh staff bathrooms, uh upgrade those bathrooms, they're aging. um they need to be updated and renovating the the old kitchen and cafeteria. So So let me let me speak a little bit towards that. The the structural steel that's underneath the existing cafeteria or I should say kitchen has deteriorated. We had to do temporary shoring under

030there to make sure it was structurally sound so we could continue to use it. And that is really what is kind of pushing us forward to construct a new kitchen cafeteria so we could relocate it outside, continue our operations, and then logistically it would have to be nighttime and summer to renovate into regular GenEd classroom classrooms, the existing cafeteria, kitchen space, and to add some additional lavatories right there for the auditorium. and when the when those spaces are used for public assembly. >> So, we'll start uh with our deeper dive here on the uh that first big ticket item on the middle school, which was the paving the rear service road and building a new parent drop off. So, these are images of the current it's hard to even call it a a driveway um

031service road I suppose that connects the CES Lee Road campus which we are currently on with the middle school. So, get your bearings when you enter uh Lee Road. You could make a right and go up to the Lee Road parking lot or you can go through that small parking lot to uh to the side of the football field and go down this road which would lead you to the back of the middle school. This road is uh heavily uh potholed. Weather has taken uh taken its course. This is actually right at the beginning of this winter. So I imagine as uh this was hours before we got buried in snow uh of which we are only thawing out now. So I imagine there are even bigger deeper pressure potholes. Um and then it all

032leads to this little parking lot in the back of the building. So the logic is we would build uh we would repave this road or really pave this road for the first time and turn it into a serviceable road that is built to handle not only the the the traffic that it already is getting but then it its capacity would be increased. So you can now redirect traffic and have parents instead of parents and buses dropping everybody off at the front of the building. If this road were brought up to uh standard, then you can have what we would uh what we're diagramming here, a dedicated parent drop off in the back of the building so that in the front of the building only the buses in the morning would drop children off. Uh again,

033there's two two benefits to this from a pure traffic standpoint. Number one, that back service road is being used anyway. Um it is I I compare it to like water finding its level. Any any entrance that is available people will use. Um but it's simply not built for for that purpose. So this would be paving that back service road so that it is uh built for purpose. Meanwhile, the front of the building uh you would be greatly aliv alleviating the traffic in the morning that is currently backing up onto Main Street where if anybody has experienced this firsthand, you have buses and parents clamoring for space that was not designed for both. So, what ends up happening is the parents uh cars back up onto Main Street, which becomes a problem for main street traffic,

034but also creates a lot of headaches within the bus loop itself because you have buses dropping off and parents coming up along the side and kids getting out and walking in front of buses and then also walking in front of parents' cars and it's really no uh there's there's not much order to it. By separating those two groups, you uh ju just established establish a flow that is much more easily managed. Now the parent drop off uh currently there is no parent drop off in the back. So you would have to build that as well so that these uh when parents are entering uh from the rear they have a dedicated place to drop off and then you would see they would that that top loop there the top right they would turn around and

035then come back. Uh what we're also seeing there is the cafeteria edition. So remember I mentioned before and Walter expanded on it. In order we we can't just take the current cafeteria offline uh for an extended period. We would we would build a new cafeteria first. that would be in that red uh square or rectangle that's just to the right of the uh traffic loop. So the num the one that is tied to the 9.23 million box that would be the new cafeteria and kitchen edition. There's also uh a new classroom edition which we'll get to in uh in proposition two. That would be on the top right, but that's more uh just pin that thought and we'll come back to it. And then there's the renovated uh kitchen which is the part of the

036uh the building in what would you call that? Teal color is that aqua. Okay. Uh all right. So what what does that look like? So, this is the kitchen and cafeteria edition. So, again, this would be uh if you're looking at uh at the building from Main Street, this is at the back right of the building. If you're coming from the rear of the building, this would be all the way to the left. Again, that's the uh the part the the big red big big we were calling it the red blob, but the big red addition that is in the rear of the building there. This is what it would look like here. Uh these are just rough sketches by the way and not meant to be uh anything more than just to to give

037you a sense of how this would come to life. But now you'd have the uh the caf the the kitchen on the right side and then the cafeteria broken up into those two sections. Um it would increase the cafeteria space uh totally. Um and then again it would allow us to once this is online then we can go back and then do the renovation to the existing uh kitchen and cafeteria which is what you see here. Just to orient you the bottom of the image is the front of the building. So when you walk up those stairs that currently you'd have the one cafeteria to the right, the kitchen right there on the towards the left and then above that would be the other cafeteria. Once those are converted, we would turn that old the

038old the current kitchen into combination of bathrooms and then also storage for uh musical instruments. If you follow this mental orientation, the bottom left is the auditorium. Across from the uh across from where the current kitchen is, we have music classrooms. So, there's a lot of storage needs. Um, if you've ever been in the the auditorium, you often times you'll just find the stage is covered in in instruments. This would uh allow us more space to safely store those instruments which would also have the effect of freeing up the some auditorium space as well. Um so there's a lot of cascading benefits to this. the uh as far as the the space spaces themselves. Uh one of the cafeterias, again, this is not set in stone, but the options are turn one into an art

039classroom. Uh another could be a general music classroom. And this is kind of the unofficial arts wing of the middle school. So, uh expanding on that, giving more classroom space for these programs. And then uh in the current I always get the cafeteria numbers mixed up is bottom right is cafeteria one correct and then the other one is two. Maybe I'm just inventing that now and nobody has numbered them. Uh but cafeteria one then would be uh you know wrestling adaptive PE space. So the again uh additional benefit of this uh not only are you improving the kitchen and cafeteria space but then you're also in the end getting additional instructional space which is always one of the the highest goals that you can have uh as a a board of education and administration. Okay,

040that brings us to this building Cornell Elementary School at Lee Road. So, uh, some things are, you know, pretty, uh, self-explanatory here. I'll I'll pass it off to our experts in a second. Um, biggest ticket item there is repaving the driveway, uh, from Lee Road. So, that's that would be part of the middle school paving process. So, if if you can just imagine again, the the campus the two campuses uh are really just one general campus. So that back while you're paving that back service road, you would just continue that all the way through to the uh kind of curve snaking driveway that uh you have to follow to enter Lee Road. Uh and then some of the other stuff is is a little bit more uh technical. So I'll pass it off again to

041our experts here, John Walter, if you want to fill in the rest. >> Sure. Um let's start with uh converting the steam lab to a functional classroom. We have a a steam lab where we are using uh classroom space, but we want to be able to expand that a little bit more um and and be using it to a more function fully functional classroom space. Um we have ch uh chimney deterioration again on our fiveyear on our BCS and our five-year uh summary. Um we have to address those. Those are some of the more immediate needs that rose up um on the rating scale that says we we should address these um sooner rather than later. Um and then I'll talk about the doors. They replace the stairwell and cafeteria doors. It's eight eight doors

042of uh eight pairs of fire doors needed. So, we have done really a district-wide assessment on all of our doors. Um and these are the more immediate needs for getting some door replacements in here. Um and they have been for a little while. So, um, Walter, I'll ask you to talk about the curtain, uh, curtain wall at the bridge corridor and the egress to room 104 as well, if you don't mind. >> Sure. For those that you >> backflow pretor we also talked about previously. So, >> okay. So bad flow preventer um similar to the other buildings is a requirement that we need to uh um to undertake uh to again to separate uh the building the mechanicals and our water system from the municipal water system and you'll see that uh you know throughout

043each one of the buildings. So we'll need to bring them online. Uh let me let me speak towards the um uh the stairwell cafeteria doors. So that's these cafeteria doors right here and the the stairs that go to the academic building. You have either go downstairs or upstairs. Those are really more smoke doors, not really fire doors, and they're full glass. So we we need to bring them up to code. They've been identified by our fire inspector when we do our our annual uh code review of the building. So it it's on the list to replace. Uh speaking about the current wall over at the the bridge, again, for those of you that know the building, if you walk down this corridor right here, uh not only do we have leakage from the glass, but

044there's a metal panel that's on the bottom, those are starting to oil can or buckle uh water and the outside environment is coming inside into the building. So, we need to replace both sides, the courtyard side and the and the Lee Road side on that. Um, chimney needs to be rebuilt. Uh, and the second egress, let me speak towards that. Again, for those that that know Lee Road, there's a computer room that's downstairs that doesn't have any windows. Uh it had a shared egress with the classroom next door which limited how um teachers and administrators could really use that room here by adding the second egress. Now that room could be used for any type of constru um instruction that the uh building or the ASI needed to do for the building here. um fencing

045around the playground area. Um this is really to protect the the students, the children when they're outside and they're in the playground. We have a road right there. We don't want any runners. Um the building principal could speak more about that, but uh this came up in a topic of dis of discussion on safety, health and safety for the students when they're out there. Um that that became a high priority. Um that would be like a a uh a blackcoated vinyl fencing, something that is uh u pleasantly appealing, you know, to the neighborhood and to and to the building, but that would help uh protect and compartmentalize uh the students while they're out on the playground. >> Great. And that takes us into Oh, I'm sorry. >> I just wanted to add one more thing,

046too, about this theme lab. So, as Walter shared, I and this is going to be a theme we'll hear about a little bit more, but um our spaces were using them for multiple reasons. So, that particular room used to be a computer lab. Then, it became a steam lab because we can't have it as a regular classroom because of the um lack of windows. We're not regulated to do so. And because of the growing needs of our students, when you have to pull students out for, let's say, AIS services or resource room, we've now converted that room into small groups um where maybe you might have one provider working with a couple kids at their max capacity that you can allow that for students in that classroom. So, opening that into a regular space will

047really allow even more flow for if we do need an additional classroom. And you're going to hear more about that need as we move through here. But it is definitely a theme for growth within our within our district. >> So a few more uh in Lee Road uh fire fire alarm and PA systems uh for this building as well. I know Walter if you wanted to add anything for the specific challenges or that those face here and then also the uh the two fire the uh stairwell fire rated doors. Well, I spoke about the cafeteria doors which are are right here, but the the fire alarm, we have very minimal coverage here. Um, we in-house our maintenance crew, we replaced the fire alarm here about 15 years ago in this building. So, we did that

048in-house. We were able to save the district a good amount of money doing that. But, those devices have they're they're aged out. we don't have the coverage on with the the smoke detectors, heat detectors and and the and the fire dialers. So again, and you'll see this theme throughout our school buildings. You know, it's time to really uh you know, focus on our health and safety and and and use this opportunity to upgrade this for the next 20 years. >> Great. That takes us to Willow Avenue. Uh some of these are again self-explanatory. We have uh additional parking and at the uh in the back. So this would be shifting the softball field uh in order to expand that parking lot. If anybody's familiar with that, the the field abuts the uh the parking lot

049pretty closely. So we would have to move the the field itself uh to expand that parking. The repaving this bus loop uh that's another just pavement is now beyond its usable life. uh providing the additional parking, fence, and gate. Uh that's all tied into that same uh that same work. But for the uh replacing the roof, I want to pass it back to Walter for a little bit more explanation there. >> All right, I'll just go right down the list this way. I could I I could explain the best I can. Additional parking. Uh this is really for operational anyone who has had uh students over at Willow Avenue. My my two kids went to Willow Avenue. No parking when there's an event uh in the evening. Um when the auditorium is used, uh very

050difficult to find a place to park. You're really walking parking in the neighborhood. Uh also teachers that are traveling from one building to another building. Um parking is very scarce as well. So the the idea is to widen that lot, open it up, have parking on diagonal left and right, almost eliminate the closer softball field because we really don't use that that softball field. We use the the one farther away, have an aisle right down the center and then and then park on diagonal. So you'd have left and right and then a travel right down the center. Repaved the bus loop. All right. So, our our asphalt is, especially over at at Willow Avenue, we've done a capping, which is just a repaving, but we really need to do a full reclamation and and rebuilding,

051not only in the front, but in the back. For those who know Cornwall, we used to have modular units behind Willow Avenue. We we removed them when we we changed the configuration. We no longer use them. We have a lot of settlement there from the footings and the foundation. If you're in ever in the back of Willow, it you'll you'll see it's uh the road is very it's very bumpy. There's there's hollows there. Uh so that whole area needs to be repaved. Um 72 uh additional roofing. So with the exception of this one part, and this is above the third grade, all the roofs over at Willow Avenue have been re replaced and they're in good condition with the exception of this. This is a a torren and and uh ballast roof similar to the

052D-wing. So that is on the list requiring to be replaced. I've been here 23 years. I have not I've only repaired that roof. I we have not replaced it. The gym floor. Okay, this is this is very important. The gym floor. We need to before we put the loading dock in. Uh let me let me step back a little bit. Uh we we had a lot of moisture underneath the gym floor at Willow Avenue. When we did the loading dock and we constructed the ramp, we found out underground drainage was broken. We replaced that pipe. We've improved greatly the drainage around the back end of the building. But anyone who knows Rose Hill Park and that whole area, it it it there's the high water table that's there. So Willow Avenue was affected by that.

053Hence the gymnasium is affected by that. So, the gym floor needs to be replaced. Now, that gym floor actually sits on maybe about 12 or 14 inches off of the concrete slab. It's kind of raised up. The designers years back did that to keep it out of the water. And there's actually a trench that goes around the perimeter perimeter of of uh of that gym and the water goes out. So, we would we would upgrade that. We would waterproof remove the floor. It has it has a a vapor barrier clo a a paper vapor barrier that is positive for asbestous. No concern for the kids. That's it's all isolated. But when we remove the floor, we'll have to do an abatement and then we'll have to remove everything, reconstruct it, and then that new gym

054floor will last uh two generations. Not a problem. All right. Reinforce the uh composite slab underneath the uh the kitchen. minor repair. Uh but again, identified on the building condition survey, you know, put it on the list here. Add air conditioning to the auditorium. Again, anybody who's been in our auditoriums that lacks air conditioning in the summertime or or for moving up or any other events, gets very hot, very uncomfortable, especially for older folks that are in there. So, this will meet that need. And backflow preventers. Yes, very boring. But again, Willow Avenue Union. Now, now I ha I have to paint paint a picture on what the backflow pretor will be for these buildings is almost a small little doghouse that's in front of the building isolated and heated because we don't have drainage

055and the requirements for these backflow preventers in the building design-wise doesn't work. So, it's not as as simple as just putting a device in there. So, it's a small structure that would be in the front of the building or in the side of the building. >> Brendon. >> Yep. That brings us Oh, shoot. >> And then the final note here would be the the PA system for uh Willow as well, which I think is consistent with uh all of the uh rationale that's been explained for PA systems at the other schools. Okay, that brings us to Cornwall on Hudson Elementary. Um and a lot of work was done at uh co the the last project. So this list is a bit smaller uh including those uh the PA systems uh replacing remaining bathrooms that uh

056were left over from the previous project. Again, installing another backflow pretor uh some of these are mirroring willow. Uh adding the air conditioning to the auditorium. I don't know, Walter, if you wanted to add uh any color to those uh those first two uh items. Again, these are these are items that were identified through the discovery process on the building condition survey. Um, you anyone who's been to Cormal and Hudson can see, you know, the brick steps. Uh, they get salted uh during the winter time to, you know, de ice. Salt has an effect on the mortar and the brick. Uh, so we need to take care of we need to take care of that. We've done uh a lot of maintenance work over the last uh two decades on that, but it it continues

057to deteriorate. uh replace the pipe the dry pipe air compressor. So that's a fully sprinklered building. It's a dry system. The the air compressor and the components that fill that system with air have not been replaced in the over 20 years I've been here and I don't see any maintenance records prior to that. So that's been identified on the list to replace that air conditioning for the auditorium. same as Willow install backflow pretor. Um that is that is minimum because the engineering is not as intensive as at Lee Road and Willow Avenue and the middle school remaining bathrooms. This is on the top floor for those who have been in Cornwall and Hudson. actually take a couple of steps to go into the girls' room and the boys' room up on the top. That is

058full sewer pipe, water, domestic water pipe and urinal toilet replacement. And of course replacing the PA that's an analog PA with analog speakers. >> Great. And now buildings and grounds, Walter Stomping Grounds. Well, they're all Walter Stomping Grounds, but this one in particular, uh, installing a four bay garage. Walter, uh, can't explain this better than you, so take that one. >> All right. I I think the the men and women in the department could could offer a lot of help. We have a lot of skill in the department on on that. But I will tell you, uh, 23 winners here. This winter was was pretty was pretty brutal. This winter, we actually slept over the the job a couple of nights in order to stay all night long with uh with the snow. All right.

059because if we waited for the next morning, we wouldn't be able to to manage it. So, I'm going to paint a picture for you here. So, we have maybe about 12 trucks with plows. They're not inside, they're outside. So, when we when we roll up, when Mrs. Arjenio calls a 2-hour delay or there's a snow day, uh so we're coming to work. We're working in we're working in the weather. We're we have to remove the snow off the vehicles. We have to deise the the windshields. So, if it takes us an hour, hour and a half, warm up the trucks, clean off the trucks, get all that done, and get us get us going in order for us to do a 2-hour delay and get the buildings ready, tremendous impact uh on that. So, needed

060for the men and women that are working. This way, we could give them a safe environment so they could put the vehicles in there. Also, we can take care of our assets because again, our vehicles are left out in the weather. So, uh, this is something that, you know, I have identified years back. Uh, I'm I'm hoping that, you know, this could come to be. It would be very helpful for, you know, the next generation of people who are either in my spot or who working in maintenance. >> Thank you, Walter. All right. Yep. Final is uh some improvements at the district office. This is uh so if those that know the district office, it's in CO. It's the what was it the former library I believe. So very old building uh historic building. So

061there's a lot of uh a lot of projects that would uh be part of this a full window replacement. Um Walter, correct me if I'm wrong. Those are those original windows or I think to the uh yeah uh replacing the front entrance uh and hardware to reverse the current swing. Uh those are a lot of technical words that I think mean replace the door. Uh then there's the timber retaining wall and adjacent masonry stairs. Uh sometimes I think these descriptions are here just to trip me up. But well Walter I don't know if you want to add any anything to that one in particular because that is uh behind the window replacement the biggest item on this list. It it is so it's it's an old building uh and we have a lot of people

062in the building and um the windows lead paint um some of them are not operable uh a lot of leakage um fuel oil boiler spending a a good amount of money to heat the building especially you know in this cold winter that we just had. Uh front entrance uh the door swings inward uh for a public building doors need to swing outward. Um, even though that the the date stamp on the side of the building says almost 100 years, it's really not accurate. I think that that cornerstone came from another building from what I've heard from some folks in the community from another building. So, that's not entirely accurate on there. But, but that door, the swing on the door, um, it is the wrong way. Uh, replacing the timber and retaining wall in the

063back. So, the conference room and and lower level records room. Uh the second egress, emergency egress out of that building is through the basement steps which is in enclosed by a a retaining wall made out of wood, timberwood. Uh that that's failing. That's starting to come down. So we have to excavate that out, rebuild that. There's a drain on the bottom and there's masonry steps that have be begun to fail. We're going to have to replace that. Uh aging toilets and and sinks. Uh self-explanatory. uh water service bat flow pre again original equipment uh provide fire alarm system we don't have an automatic fire alarm system there this there it's a typical battery operated uh smoke detectors >> of course a ADA there there so there's no for someone with a physical challenge uh there's

064there's no provisions for the building there's steps up into the front and even if there was an employee who was working in the building it would be very challenging uh we would have to make accommodations for them. Uh you know, depending on what that challenge is. Uh but uh that's the the final building that we need to bring up to ADA compliance. >> That brings us to so that's the end of Proposition One. All of that work as a reminder is under the the tax neutral umbrella. So go just to go back to the previous slide, we had all of that information on the side. So all of that totals about $44.5 million. All of those those uh critical improvements that Walter and John and Megan detailed would come with zero uh added increase to

065taxes. Which brings us to proposition number two. So these would be the classroom additions. And for those that have sticking with us, the next two propositions are a lot smaller than proposition one. So uh so prop two uh total cost of this would be about $21 million. Again, we are we have about $10 million of tax neutral room uh which would be applied to Proposition 2, but that would still leave a partial tax impact for the remaining 10 or so million, which I'll explain in a second. So, that's the remaining tax impact you see on the left there would be about $10.7 million. That asterisk, um again, that's a partial tax impact. So half about half of the cost of this proposition would be covered by the remaining money that is in the capital reserve

066funds. So what would these uh classroom additions be and then what would they look like? So we'll just very quickly list them. Here at Cornwall Elementary School, we would be adding eight classrooms to alleviate space issues. This would be a four on top of four structure. If you're familiar with uh Lee Road, the classrooms uh in the rear of the building are uh they're stacked. So, it's two floors. You have classrooms above, classrooms below. So, it's basically those four on above and four below. And that would be an extension to the building, which you'll see uh in a second. Cornwall on Hudson, we would be adding it would be part of a a larger project that would be renovating the current cafeteria space. And in the process of doing that, you would create space for

067additional classrooms. And then Cornwall uh Cornwall Central Middle School. This is the project that I alluded to before when we were looking at the diagram of the new cafeteria and the drop off and all of that. This would be uh we'd be connecting the B and C wings. And in the process of doing that, we'd be adding three classrooms. The BNC wings, Megan, correct me if I'm wrong, that's the seventh and eighth grade wings. uh and if you're on Main Street, it's to the right of the building. So, in the process of doing that connection, uh you would be adding three classrooms. So, two benefits there. Uh adding classrooms, but then also improving the flow of the building because currently, you know, if you were in the the B-wing, you'd have to come out, connect

068with the main arteries of the buildings, and then find your way. Um, I I know this more intimately now because my daughter is in seventh grade, but she has a class in in the eighth grade wing and you know this is uh it chokes the the flow of traffic. So this would alleviate that. Okay. So what does this look like? Uh Cornell Elementary School. This is an overhead shot. So the proposed classroom would be on the bottom right there. Um if you are just to orient yourself, uh the front of the building is on the left. So if you're staring at the front of the building, this is the back right. That would be the four on four edition. Again, that's about 11.7 11.8 million worth of this project. So about half of the project

069would be on uh this space. Cornwall Elementary School is our biggest elementary school. Um it has its enrollment is larger than the other two elementary schools combined. And it also has students of of very varying needs. So, um, this classroom space, uh, I, and I, I can tell you from personal experience, um, you know, as both a parent and as a board member, uh, in the time that I've been on the board, we have added teachers to, uh, CES in many budgets. Um, and the classroom, the number of classes per grade has increased as well. I told this anecdote last time. Um I remember my daughter who's now in seventh grade when she was entering kindergarten the kindergarten class had been four classes um in the the prior years and right before right at the

070end of the summer the when the enrollment really becomes you know kind of official. Uh there was talk of adding a fifth classroom to to that grade and it was a little bit of a a buzz, right? Because that it was a bit abnormal at the time. When she graduated uh or moved up into the middle school, uh every cl every grade at Lee Road had five classrooms. So what wasn't what was abnormal then uh then became the norm. And not only that, but the uh the number of students in each class. So the the studenttoteer ratio um has gotten well I guess the ratio has gotten higher um as the as the crowding has increased. So this would just generally help alleviate th those space issues. Um why Cornwall Elementary the other schools Willow

071and CO are much older structures. Uh it would be a lot more complicated to add to let's say CO. Um obviously we have a small addition but if you're familiar with the uh these other structures they they are much older would not be able to absorb this kind of uh extension as easily as Cornwall Elementary. Okay. Now I I mentioned co so this would be the uh the back of the building. So to orient you the the bottom uh is Hudson Street snaking through Cornwall and Hudson. And so this would be in the back uh right at the top of that hill that leads down into the playgrounds and then the softball and soccer field. And this would be renovating that uh that cafeteria space and then in the process uh adding classrooms. And then

072this is the Cornwall Central Middle School uh footprint. So that top right again that is the the B and C wings and this in the red would be the connection and in the uh in the process of doing that work uh we would be adding space for three classrooms u again this is whenever we talk about um capital projects you know there's stuff that has to be done at the last capital project there were things that had probably should have been done 30 years before we did them um so we we you find you're catching up you're you're trying to just get things up to a satisfactory state. This is an opportunity to whenever you're talking about instructional space now you're making a real investment into the the future of the district and allowing uh

073space for this this next generation of students to get the kinds of uh not only the the the space they need but then it just opens up your programming capabilities because you have actually places to uh to store them. So, that's the that's prop two. Uh, well, before we leave, uh, Megan, John, Walter, anything to add on those additions? Nope. Uh, I was just going to say about the Cornwall on Hudson cafeteria edition, right? Just to um add that space on the back there. We're going to get a little bit more space in the cafeteria itself, but we'll also gain a larger space in the kitchen area for warming of our food and taking care of that. the space that uh we're replacing the the smaller kitchen area over at Cornwall and Hudson. Uh that

074will be uh turned into classroom space. Much needed classroom space over there. All right. So that is again proposition two classroom additions. Now we go to proposition three which is athletic fields. As a reminder this would have uh now we are beyond the umbrella of the uh capital reserve funds. So there's nothing left at this point to apply to the capital reserve funds, meaning this $14.6 million would be raised through the tax levy. All right. Now, what is this project? So, this would be at again at the high school relocating the baseball and softball fields and uh installing synthetic turf to create a multis-port field for soccer and lacrosse as well. The picture does a better job of explaining it, so I'll go right to it. Uh just to orient you that is the football

075field on the top right the tennis courts below that the existing baseball field is above to the left. So this new footprint in green would be uh all synthetic turf comes with a caveat as well. This is not a final rendering. uh things would still be of you know we we'd explore different uh you know potential configurations but this one encaptures or captures all of the elements that would be included. So that baseball field is to the left the out the uh sorry the softball field to the right. The shared outfield space of both fields would form the footprint for that soccer and lacrosse field. Again all of this would all everything in green would be synthetic turf. Uh so this would provide uh you know not only uh allowing the I know the baseball

076fields have been uh in in serious um just call it serious condition over the last couple of seasons. So this would provide a a real reliable playing surface for those teams and also uh you know all of the benefits that come with the synthetic turf in terms of you know it its ability to stand up to weather and and use. uh as well. So, uh again, $ 14.6 million. This would all of that would be covered under new tax impact and this uh I don't know, John, if you had anything else to add on this. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> A couple things to add. Um we need to address some drainage issues uh on this field as well. So, that's incredibly important. Um there's some drainage issues where uh near the this the existing

077softball field at this point that we wanted to address. So that was a a major catalyst for this kind of concept. Uh and again as you said this is just a concept we need to play around with it a little bit more uh engage our athletic director and coaches um to move this forward. But it also includes some retaining walls over there um because we do have a significant slope um off that property. And I think some of the questions that do come up is like we do have um you'll see uh the layout for some dugouts in there and that we are uh allocating some money in here for some lighting as well. Um because that would give us the opportunity to kind of extend the the playing time on these fields throughout the

078day. Well, really the evening of the day. >> All right. So, uh we've mentioned obliquely the tax impact. Now, we're going to address that head on. So, the prop one, two, and three, uh some of this information has has been presented, but here it is in a nutshell. Prop one, that's $44.6 million. Zero tax impact because that is covered completely by the funds that we have in our capital reserve funds matched by state funding. Prop two, those are the the new classroom additions. Total cost of that is just north of $21 million, but that is about half covered by the remaining funds in the capital reserve fund and state aid, which would leave about $10.7 million of that covered by a tax increase. Prop three, that's the $14.6 million for that combined athletic facility. All

079of that would have to be covered by uh the tax levy. What does this mean for individual taxpayers or households? So, prop one, if you have a property with an assessed value of $300,000, it's tax neutral. Uh just want to define terms here. When we say a property of an assessed value of $300,000, this is not what Zillow tells you that your house is worth. This is what the assessor's office has your house uh assessed at, which by and large is going to be lower than what Zillow is telling you. So, uh you might need to do a little bit of your own research to orient yourself around what the assessed value of your home is. Um but we're using 300K just as a a marker. uh prop two for a property with an assessed

080value of 300,000 that would that $10.7 million tax impact translates to $180 additional dollars per year which is about $15 per month. Again, this is the one which half of it is covered by the tax neutral umbrella, but then that $15 per month is covering the other half. And then for proposition three, for that magic property with an assessed value of $300,000, this is a $22500 per year impact, $1875 additional dollars per month. However, which we'll get into in a second, Prop 3 can't pass on its own. If prop Prop 3 can only pass if Prop 2 passes and Prop 1 passes. So, it might be best to uh if you're evaluating Prop 3 to package it with the tax impact of all three. So, if all three passed, you'd be looking at $45 additional

081dollars per year, which is just south of $34 per month. I referenced uh well, this is there. Um I won't go through all of these uh individually. We will be sharing this presentation online afterwards. So, this is just a more detailed scorecard of what the tax impact is at each threshold of assessed property value. Again, I just want to add that caveat. Again, this is not the Zillow's estimate of your property. This is what the assessor's office has on file uh for your property. So, in order to get an accurate picture, you would want to verify that number. But again, we'll uh you can explore this on your own time. I want to get to uh expand on one of those points that I just mentioned about how the ballot would work. So with three

082propositions, uh the ballot would use a waterfall structure in which each proposition will be dependent on the previous one passing. So nothing passes if prop one doesn't pass. This is the uh the we'll call it for lack of a better term the the main proposition the critical infrastructure proposition the one that would not have a tax impact. It that passes then only if prop one passes can Prop 2 pass and then only if the first two propositions pass can Prop 3 pass. So if you go in and you vote for Prop One but not Prop 3. Oh, that's a question. Dubious strategy because Prop 3 can only pass if Prop 1 and Prop 2 pass, must pass in sequential order. And the specifics on when and where to vote. Uh, this is Tuesday, May 19th,

0836:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. This would be on the same ballot as the annual school budget. Also, same ballot as the board of election votes as well. Uh this the where probably should come with an asterisk because there's still board discussion, but as of right now uh Cornwall Central Middle School Gymnasium uh is the most uh reliable projection as to where this uh vote will take place. Okay, that was a lot of information. I really appreciate uh our experts here for for walking us through. Again, that was about six to nine months worth of facility committee meetings um in 80 minutes. Uh but open up the floor to to any questions. If anybody in the audience would like to ask a question, now is the time. >> Test test. Oh, hi. Uh, good evening. I'm

084Natalie Ren. I'm a parent for CO Kid and a co-leader of the Mothers Outfront, your local chapter. So, we're climate uh, justice organization. And first of all, I just like to say thank you so much for this presentation. You uh, have clearly put a lot of time and and thought into what looks like a very complicated uh, series of projects. So, thank you for being transparent and um, for all of the work that the team has done. Uh, I really appreciated some of the statements you say, you know, about clearly you're prioritizing safety and health of our kids, and I think we all agree that that's um a tremendous priority. I wonder if just in general um and this isn't something that you that you would have naturally put in a presentation, but from our

085from mothers out front, we you know, we are mobilizing for protecting our kids from, you know, having clean air and clean water and and uh we'd love to see uh like tangible evidence that that you're approaching all of these projects with sustainability in mind. to just like a lens of sustainability with all of these projects. They It seems like a really great opportunity for us as a community to, you know, transition away from fossil fuels, find those places where we can really prioritize safe air in our buildings. Um you stated uh like the flooring in the middle school and and various other schools, we need to replace those. So where can we find uh you know opportunities like uh using sustainably forested you know timber or the you know coating and paints being low emission

086and that kind of thing just so we can minimize that kind of toxic air. Uh you'd also talked a lot about the roof roofs needing to be renovated. if you can consider, you know, ensuring that the design is done in a way that we could support solar energy systems for future planning. Um, what else? You had so many great ideas and uh it's gotten our our uh you know, minds turning. So, we'd love to to talk further with y'all just as a collaborative, you know, team. But, uh, yeah, thank you so much for all of this work. >> No, those those are those are great call outs. um about next steps. I mean certainly um you know the the deck will be shared so you can you have more time to uh to pour through

087all of those. Um any suggestions that you you have you know you can email them to the board. Uh John, I don't know if you wanted to speak at all about the um energy efficient energy efficient projects, energy efficiency projects that we uh that were also part of the the larger planning process and you know what the the the path forward on those looks like. >> Yeah. Then in a nutshell, we did explore what's called energy energy performance contracting um which is making improvements to your school buildings um um through a different process of funding. Okay? Instead of going out to bonds, we'd be going out to lease um and the school district as the facilities committee. We entertain that quite a bit. Um it's looking at going to LED lighting here in the cafeteria.

088Um that's kind of a like an easy one. It's looking at some of your windows replacement. You could go all the way up to the solar that you talked about and certainly putting solar on the roofs. You do solar car ports. You could do solar fields. So, uh, we entertained some of the the energy efficiencies as it pertained and identified on the building condition survey. Um, so we identified, I think, roughly $25 million worth of improvements that could be possible and potential. So, uh, ultimately we decided to table that conversation for now and pick it up, um, in the future. Uh, the board can act on an energy performance contract separately and individually without going out to public vote or they can send it out to public vote. So, there are some options there. So,

089this is fresh in the board's mind. Um, I think the the strategy here was to was exactly what you said. We have a lot to tackle up there. Um, and that was only going to put a lot more on our plate. Um, and there's only so much bandwidth, I think, at some point. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. >> Thank you. Um, have you considered things that are with like very much within the scope of your projects? Like if you're renovating your cafeterias, can you consider energy efficient appliances? >> Yeah, that's correct. That that's kind of like the automatic like we talked about. Just one real good example uh that Brendan brought up was the windows at the district office. You're gonna have energy efficient windows, right? So, that's going to reduce your heating cloth because if

090you come over there to the district office now, you'll feel a nice stiff breeze coming right through the through the windows. It's it's fantastic. Um we also may use some space heaters there as well. So, we're going to un be able to unplug those because of that efficiency. Um you talked about some paints and stuff like that. We are pretty heavily regulated on what we can use in our buildings. So all the way down to um you know we we can't use uh weed killers and we can't use um uh fertilizers. So we have to be very careful here in the school district. >> Hey Walter, I was just going to ask you just very briefly expand on that especially when it comes to like even what we do in the summertime in making sure

091that our gym floors are set and what you can and can't use because it's not like how we might be able to use products in our home. We're very regulated. Uh so I Mrs. Arjun I'll speak towards that but I I wanted to share with everyone we our maintenance team we do at a minimum three air filter changes per year. Uh those are on the unit ventilators in the in the classrooms particularly in the elementary school are air handlers. Our high school was rated number one in indoor air quality when it was originally built by Canon Designs back in 03. We do three air hand air handler um air filter changes there. Uh we have an extremely robust building management system where we're able to see uh temperature, humidity, air flow, CFM in just about

092every space of the of the school district. So if we get a call, if there's a concern indoor air quality, we're able to go right to the data. We could pull the data up. We could look at the trend. we can investigate and we could find out if we have some malfunctioning equipment, some outside air dampers aren't working. Um, you know, is is the filter clogged up? Is the damper not working correctly? Um, so we we do those things. Now, uh, I would love to invite you over to the office one day, kind of give you behind the scenes, and I think you would be very surprised on the things that we do. Um, speaking about our summertime, um, most of most of our work, our maintenance work, we do our very best to do

093it after hours. So, summertime, we only have two months to do. We go into all the classrooms, we pull it apart, deep cleaning, um, floor stripping, floor finishing. We use green products. We've been using green products. We were one of the first school districts. It was Monroe Woodbury and our district when Pataki put it in the law, we jumped right on it and we started converting all of that. Our high school, we use one product that is that is a green product and we're converting the rest of the uh the school district over to that same product. So, all of our cleaners are they're all with the exception of disinfectants because the EPA uh determines that if you if you if you destroy an organism, it's not green, right? But we have to use a

094disinfectant particularly with with you know the common cold, influenza, mercer, etc. So um we we use that you know away from the students. We have to clean the desk with that. But most of our cleaning products if not all of them they're all green products. Again I go back into the summertime where we go through the the school buildings, we do our painting second shift. uh we we're really mindful on on how we interact and and use these products with our students because uh you know things have changed. I'm 62. Things were much different when I went to high school than when my children went to high school. I have to be very mindful on on how we're working, how we're repairing uh our preventive maintenance. We have an extremely robust PM program where we

095have almost 45 4700 work orders every year. Preventative maintenance. We try to get to that piece of equipment before it fails in order not to have a failure. Although we do have failures because that's what mechanical things do. Uh but but we you know we take a lot of pride in what we do. It's taken many many years to get to this point here. and and and this bond just piggybacks on what we did in the last 3 years only to make our school buildings better because you you we have to do this. We take care of people and buildings. This is the building part of it. These are your buildings. These are our buildings. We really have to be mindful. We have to plan. We have to strategize on maintaining our buildings, keeping them

096safe, keeping them healthy. That's what this plan really targets. I I hope that answered your question. Okay. >> Anyone else questions? Yeah. >> Thank you very much. Hello everybody. Um my name is Oscar Rivas. I have a kid going to middle school. Uh first of all, I know there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes with the many different uh volunteers committees. Obviously, I thank you guys for putting all this work to identify all the things that need to get done and trying to find solutions in order to make this happen. So, thank you for all the work that's been done behind the scenes. Um, I have two kind of like softball questions and then one of a little bit of a harder question. Is that okay if I do one at a

097time maybe? Um, so the first one that I had was about the bathrooms and the concession stand at the football field or the in the high school. Um, have you guys been presented with other possibilities or locations or kind of where it could go? Cuz right now it seems like when we have the football games or the soccer games, anybody's going to have to go a long way around in order to get to that bathroom or concession stand to use it. It might be good location for all the other sports, but like how is that going to work when that happens? And in terms of the look of the building, hopefully that's rendering, but like compared to like how beautiful we have the high school and the field and everything, it's going to kind of

098match the architectural of um look and style of the pool. So let's answer part of that. So with respect to the location, we have to be a certain distance uh away um close to the uh bleachers. So that's why that location was chosen because that's kind of like the furthest location. And then we weighed the option of all the other sports that take place. It's not just going to be the the stadium that's using that uh concession stand and bathroom. So we thought about baseball and softball that's going to be taking place and tennis court. So we thought that that would is was like uh the ideal location. Can we shift it a little bit more going towards the stadium? Yeah, that's a possibility. But again, this was all the concept that took place. Um

099and then the the concepts that you saw up there um were were really just renderings that we've tossed back and forth. The committee looked at I think four different options. Those were two of the four that were up there. Um, aesthetically, what's it going to look like for the as it next to the high school? We were going with cost like what can we do to fulfill the need here of we need to have x amount of uh toilets in the women's room, we need to have x amount of toilets in the men's room and urinals and handicap accessibility. Um, and then what happens during the winter with that building as well, we have to make sure that we shut that down for the winter. Get all the lines clear so we don't have frozen

100lines. So, um that was taken into consideration in terms of what is the construction of that building like. >> Perfect. Thank you. Uh second qu Yeah. Go ahead. >> So, great question. I I think all of us on on the committee would would agree having it over on that north west end would would be ideal. Unfortunately, there's no sewer line anywhere near that part of the complex. We we we have worked with with our engineers on the feasibility on okay, so if we if we built it there, can we put a septic uh and a leech field there? And that doesn't work out well. We really don't have a lot of real estate there. There's some wetlands and our neighbor is is right there. Okay. Um second solution. Well, c can we get a sewer

101line that goes from there? We have to get it behind the high school, right? Because the sewer line actually goes down a railroad bed. It crosses over 94 and and there's a pump station, pump station 11, and and that's where that's where our sewer water goes. So, in order to do that, we would we would lose gravity. We would lose elevation or pitch of the pipe. All right, if you're following along with me. So, we would have to put we would have to put ejector pumps. Basically, we'd have to pump it back up to the height, let it go down gravity. We might need two of those. All right. In order to do that, that really would be cost prohibitive. Uh it would introduce a lot of maintenance and it it would not bear well

102for the district because we don't really want to be able to maintain all of these things. It's now it's another thing, another cost, etc. And if we have a failure, however, if we put it on the proposed area, and again, I I believe there's a lot of latitude to shift that either more west, closer to the bleachers, um maybe a little bit back from where the shop put and discuses. Now you now you have gravity. Now it could be gravity fed. You don't need any mechanical equipment to assist having that sewer ejected and get down. it it goes right behind uh right behind the school. It there there's a nice pitch there. It'll hit the sewer line just like it's intended to do. So that's the reason that's the reason why you just and I

103hope that helps because a lot of people like looking at well why why are we putting it there? So there there's a why you know you know behind the reason. So I I hope that helps. >> Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Oscar also from an equity standpoint. So, like if you're at a football game and you're looking at the football field, typically people have been exiting from that side because that's how they've been coming in and where the portables are. But they can go from the other side around, right? And if it's picked up and turned a little bit, it'll be centrally located. So then if you think about families who might be down on the baseball field altern alternatively, they have to then walk all the way. That's going to cause

104a lot of upset families. So this way it's kind of centrally located. And then for our visitors too, for the bleachers there, it's kind of like right there. >> Yeah, I think once I saw the the proposed uh baseball fields and stuff, it made a little bit more sense. Uh but at first I was just thinking about the football and soccer and all those matches like, well, that's a long walk, but that makes sense. Uh so thank you. Uh second question, uh when I was looking at the drop off area for the middle school, um is that going to become now kind of like the main entrance to the middle school? Because then technically you're going to have kind of like two entrances like the entrance for the bus loop where everybody's going to be

105coming on from and then you're going to have a second entrance where all the kids are going to be dropped off from. So how is that going to work in terms of personnel making sure that everything's okay in one side and the other and um when people are coming to visit the office or whatever, which one are they going to have to go to visit? >> I'll take that. So So the main will still be the main. So just think about the morning the drop off with the kids coming in on the buses. the staff is out there. They're coming in and out as they would usually. Parents coming to the building, they're still just dropping their kids off in the back um on a regular then throughout the day. They could still come to

106the front doors there. We would have to staff a little differently during arrival and dismissal to make sure we have security in the back and you know additional administration and so on kind of spread them out and um people who are on duty for different areas of the building. We would just restructure that. But coming to visit the building, you would still come into the front um area of the school. >> Cool. Thank you. Now, here comes the more difficult or complicated question. Um >> sounds like it's going to Brendan. >> Might be going to you actually. um looking at the three different propositions um and seeing how they're being restructured and it's been I've been following the meetings they've been shifted and this uh debt coming off the books and helping fund some of

107the other stuff trying to because there's a lot of stuff going on right we have the tax neutral one we have the partial one and then then we have the uh fields one have you guys considered maybe taking for example the middle school and the middle one middle school and the cafeteria and leaving the classrooms for later for us to have separable capital research fund and funding that through that. Um so that way everything becomes kind of both in the fold of the tax neutral and we can save one of those two projects for later since we are like that the middle school and the cafeteria becomes amounts to like $10 million or something like that. So that kind of could fall to that and then depending the priorities of the district, what you need

108or what you don't need, that could fall to a separate because we've been filling them in about three years. The capital reserve funds u maybe that could be something that could fall to another one a consideration. So that way you just have tax neutral fields capital reserve fund for the next one. Maybe that could be something that to help that with the tax that be part of things. >> So I'll answer first and chime on in. Um, but this was exactly what was tackled at the facilities committee over the over the last several months. So, as the scope got more clearly defined on what it is that we're going to be looking to put out for bond propositions, there was agreement. Okay, these are the things that we uh want to get done or need

109to get done, right? And then it became that continuum of need through wants um and and enhancements. Um, and then the the committee spent hours There's a safe way to put it. Not all at one time, but you know, in certain meetings were extended to decide what was going to be proposition one, what was going to be proposition two, and what was going to be proposition three. Ultimately, the committee made the decision. The board affirmed that decision, and so that's that's how we ended up with what we've presented to you today. Feel free to jump in. Yeah, I think the um there are compelling arguments and there were compelling arguments made for all the different ways to slice it. Um get as much as you can under Proposition One that would be covered tax neutral.

110Ultimately uh to try to boil down a several hours conversation into uh a minute there. The decision was it was better to keep Proposition two as the classroom proposition. So that because what you would have to do is take some of the classrooms as you started to like, you know, dissect from Proposition 2 and fit it into uh Proposition One. You'd also leave some of those classrooms behind, you know, and then you'd have a so under that construction, let's say you had proposition one was $55 million worth of projects, tax neutral impact. Proposition two then would be the a full tax impact for a combination of classrooms and fields. just felt like part of the part of the logic behind the construction and I'll I'll say this has been recommended by the facilities committee to

111the board the board votes on Monday on this very issue what's going to be the propositions so with that caveat there the I think ultimately um well part of the underlying logic behind this recommendation was the community deserves to have the choice So, uh, instead of packaging things that they might think we need versus thing, you know, like instead of trying to like bring different groups together under one proposition, classrooms and athletics, say, okay, we'll have just an athletics proposition. We'll have just a classrooms proposition, and then we'll have the other stuff, which is just like the critical infrastructure needs. So you're not you're not forcing people to well if you only support one you gota you got to support both you know we're allowing people to make that choice and if they they support

112just the classrooms then they can make that choice. Um so that was that was kind of the logic you know and not not kind of making the choice for them and saying we're going to peel off part of the the classrooms put it in here and you know and just bundle everything else together. Um yeah, I think I saw some of those arguments when you guys were discussing it. My my idea was to save one of those not so for example add them to that and then just keep one preposition for the I was saying do those classrooms another time like three four years from now bring it up again depending on the priorities of the district or whatever it might be. So it would still fall within the infrastructure, the classrooms that you're getting

113for the middle school and the cafeteria or whatever or the getting the classrooms at the Lee Road. Um and then for a different capital project, that's where those would come in as well as rather than just oh they're just this classrooms by themselves for this proposition and then athletic fields. That's just is what I was saying. >> Yeah. I mean I think ultimately the the community has that choice. you know, if the community decides that maybe now is not the time to do that, then the the vote would would bear that out. Um, but again, I one of I'll he didn't ask to be uh to be quoted, but uh one of a former board member and uh now community member of the facilities committee, Larry Burgerer, he he said a couple of times and

114it resonated with me personally, u the community deserves to have the choice. Um, so that's that's essentially like the the logic behind it. If they choose now is not the time, then that's the choice or the decision question. So um these are more observations than questions although some there will be some questions embedded in them and just based on the uh the data you just presented and I just want to look at first of all the thing that we need to consider I think or at least has to be part of this discussion is that we moved $2.6 $6 million roughly into the capital reserve this year and that has impact on the tax levy for the the regular budget. And so when we describe these things as tax neutral that's not being accounted for

115there and that actually is part of the cost even though they're not paying for it directly into the capital project but that was part of the cost of what we traded off to have what in a sense the tax status of this particular project. The second thing is, and just to reframe because we're mostly getting these in terms of large numbers, the total amount of the tax impact, whether it's 10.7 for Proposition 2 or the 14 million for Proposition 3 to think of that in terms of what is that in terms of an individual's tax percent increase and what they're actually going to pay because we're talking about the tax levy, which is the total size of the budget, not actually what happens to your individual property taxes. And over the last 15 years, roughly

116speaking, the property tax increase at a homeowner in Cornwall, the Cornwall community, including New Windsor and Woodbury has been roughly about 0.9%. Meaning like little less than 1%. If you looked at that in terms of what is Proposition One and Proposition two, that would be a 2.7% increase, three times what we've had for the last 15 years. and to do one, two, and three be a 5.5 roughly percent increase almost six times what an annual increase has been. Now, I'm not sure people understand people will feel that when their taxes increase, they're not going to do that when they vote. And I think that kind of brings the question about that's a large increase and that needs to be justified by and I think Oscar was uh referring to some of this is like are

117these things we should do now or later and what is the priority on them? And so I guess two points. The first one about Proposition three, which is basically creating turf fields for the baseball and the softball field. And I had a question because while turf football, soccer fields are pretty much common throughout the region and throughout the country. Um turf, baseball, and softball fields are not. And so I kind of looked at how many school districts in the Hudson Valley have a turf, softball or baseball field. And there's roughly 100 districts and the only five currently have it. A few more will be coming online. And that just seems more like a luxury when we have, as you said, a longer list of needs that are not even in this capital project or not

118being addressed. And I really wonder if that's worth an additional $200 per year for that type of thing, which has become kind of an exception, not a normal cost. And obviously, as you said, the community should make that decision. ultimately they will by voting or not voting for the referendum. Um the other second issue and this is just um as you know because I was on the facilities committee and this point has been made um unsuccessfully about the 5.1 million that we're spending for the rear access road parent drop off whatever we're calling that and it really doesn't seem to be that should be something in the first trunch or the most highest priority and so I've talked about this in terms of safety impact of congestion and what happens and I know those argu

119arguments have been unconvincing to a lot of people on the board and the facilities committee but I thought about just having one last way of kind of what is the safety impact and the safety impact when you look at the actual statistics over the last 10 years for let's say bus safety and what that mean what that means for student safety whether you want to think think of that in terms of fatalities or just injuries in terms of fatalities it's 5 millionth of 1% %. So what does that mean? Because that's just a big number that probably doesn't mean anything. That is a risk of getting up out of bed at age 45. Now, I know there's two people up there that are around age 45 and whether you would spend $5.1 million for the

120same level of risk. And why should the community do that for an improvement in safety that's so small? Another way to think about it, it's about 2 hours in New York City, which mean the same impact of breathing the air in New York City has about the same impact of what we would do. Is that worth $5.1 million ahead of classrooms, ahead of other things that we put, let's say, in the second the third trunch? And I think the answer is I'm not sure how you see that, but whether like that goes ahead of classrooms, which is an improvement in the congestion, or the safety of the trade-off. And I think we have a way the way that most districts do this because the risk is relatively smallly important is that they do something much

121cheaper and you know Haldane is doing something similar at a much lower cost for a campus that handles approximately the same number of students. And I think that I guess it's disappointing and I guess if we look at the propositions the priority probably should be flip-flopped. Whether it's going to be done at this stage, I don't know. Thank you. >> I just want to piggy piggy back on something here. So, we have spent probably a year discussing all of these points. We have our engineers and our construction manager here, our facilities committee, which Christian is a part of that. Um, and we sit in a room with about 20 or so people, and we've discussed just this. Christian has brought this up as his opinion. um and has been asked several times, have you seen

122our morning drop off at the middle school because it's basically playing frogger and it's a major safety issue. I am one of the two people that you're talking about who's over 45 and I will tell you that in making decisions for the safety of the children, the answer is absolutely a yes. It is important. It is necessary and it is unsafe. I would also add to um so safety I'll go back to the slides. So safety is not just the only consideration when we talk about this loop. Um as I mentioned before you know I think the pictures this is where revisiting the pictures is valuable. This service road is being used anyway regardless of what the intent is. uh parents uh trucks all vehicles of all sorts are traveling this road and it is

123not engineered for that kind of use. So, you know, as and if this is what it looks like now, sorry, turn around here. This is what it looks like. Again, this was before our uh our great snow and thaw. Uh this is an untenable situation for a district uh that has changing needs and you know, uh is looking to invest in its facilities. So, I I don't want it only to be looked at through the lens of safety. This is about taking something that is clearly substandard and bringing it up to a a more reputable state that is allow that is uh engineered to handle what it's already handling but then also as an additional benefit being able to expand its use and paving this road is go back to the uh get the actual

124number. paving the road. Uh well, it's it we we put uh I think we put the the whole number um together with uh it's five million for that plus the drop off, but the the pavement of it is part of that. Um, and again, I think that's something that is just bringing it up to to standard and something regardless of what we were doing with the bus loops and changing the flow of traffic is something that should be done and that's a significant chunk of that expense. So, I as I've mentioned in the facilities committee meetings, I think the those that live with this every day uh are convinced that it's a safety issue. Um I certainly you know you've you've made that position before that it's not um I guess reasonable minds can disagree

125on that but it's not only uh meant to address safety there are other issues as well. Christine >> I just want to clarify just you know um the middle school administration team was also brought on in on this conversation because if I recall Mrs. Palumbo the last goround had had advocated for this, right? So, this wasn't just like an aboard, excuse me, a board opinion. The people that are running the building in that particular facility weighed in on the the facilities committee um meeting. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. Not to speak for Miss Palumbo because she's not here, but yes, I can say that the last time last go around when we were planning the 22 capital project, this was being considered. It was discussed at length. Uh the determination was not that it wasn't necessary,

126but as you recall, that project had issues that I mean, we literally needed to to do things in that capital project that would allow us to um you know, stay stay keep the doors open, right? Because to avoid imminent failure. So, it didn't make that list. Um but this has been a a project that has been uh developed, planned, evaluated, vetted for almost a decade now. Um and it has been determined by the facilities committee that it's time to move forward with it. >> So just to respond since yes, I was asked that question. The answer to that question when it was posed to me was yes, I have observed it because I have a different schedule and so I've been there on days because this has been discussed for two years. What I also

127noticed in the facilities committee is that your assertion about safety is simply an opinion. It is not grounded on any grounded in any traffic safety theory, evidence, research on other things about what happens at those speeds. And that was presented and it had the opposite of the conclusion. We don't have to accept it. But the point is I know that no one presented any time of why this would make it more safe. So, as I said, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration keeps track on every single accident that involves a school bus, whether it's actually in the bus or near the bus or the pickup. So, we actually know what the numbers are. There are 55 million school children in the United States in every year. 21.4 that take buses. What do you think the

128number of accidents nationwide is on a typical year? fatalities or just even injuries. Is it in the single digits, tens, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands given how many? I do know. And so 5 millionth of 1% is an incredibly small number. As I said, the equivalent risk of 2 hours in New York City or getting out of bed at age 45. But here's another way of thinking about it. The you're going to put 400 cars twice a day from Main Street onto Mailor. Okay, if we take like for example with Heldane which has approximately the same number of students and they actually measured the number of vehicles that are actually in that campus in morning and evening uh afternoon pickup. And so what's going to happen when there's that many more cars on a lower

129level of service road? The average age of a person who's involved in fatality involving a school bus is 51 years old. 2023, the last year that the National Safety Council broke it down, there were 10 fatalities in New York State involving a school bus in some way. Not one of them with a school age child because you have the age. In fact, as I said, we have people who are 73 because the way that most accidents are are, and to use the example, the little old lady crossing the road is actually more likely what's going to lead to a safety issue than actually that because when you're in a bus loop, while I know it's crazy, I'm a teacher myself. I go, I am the crush of traffic on a more impacted road than what

130the middle school is. And that's not the point. The point is not not to do something about this. The question of whether it's worth $5.1 million of district resources and the priority that we're putting on this relative to all the other things that are important and that was the discussion. And so as I said, if we are going to say push classrooms to a future future year, classrooms are pretty essential to a school. So that's the point. And while there was a discussion in the facilities committee, I know we're doing a traffic study. Traffic study hasn't even been reported yet. I'm sure it will come in the next month, but the decision was made before even we had that information. Thank you. >> So, I think there's a uh there's a a blind spot to

131what you're presenting. First, you're you're comparing uh the risk of being hit by a school bus generally to the risk here. Um that's like saying, you know, well, the the risk of uh dying in a house fire is very minimal. Um but if you have a house where it's made of combustible material and you're leaving the oven on all night, well then your risk is going to be a lot higher. So I think when the the individual situation is highly leveraged um as our principal at the middle school has has described it and as I think casual observers can attest um that puts you in a different risk category but I think the more salient point you're only looking at the risk of the school bus causing the accident. Part of what we're describing here

132well those were the only stats that you you you referenced. though if you wanted to make another point uh you you didn't bring up those those numbers but I think the issue is I think the issue is the combination of cars and school buses in the same traffic flow. So that adds a whole new element to to this uh that your your numbers aren't accounting for. But I think ultimately though we are we're trusting the um the opinion of the person who is responsible for keeping the the traffic safe every day or keeping our children safe every day. Um and I think that to say that well nobody has been hit by a school bus yet so there's nothing that we have to do about it to me is not comforting logic as someone who

133next year will have two children in the middle school. that doesn't make me feel very good. So, I I I think that we should we should stop looking for reasons not to do something that I think common sense tells us that we should do and that tells us it's about time we do and we start looking at the ways to to get it done. Um because again this is something that has been vetted for at least a decade at least talked about for at least a decade has been put off and put off and put off and now we we have the opportunity to do it and again it's been uh the opinion of the facilities committee that we should >> so I'm going to just jump in real quick with uh two two points

134with respect to the traffic study Christian mentioned. Yeah, we we uh completed that last week as the on-site. We also provided uh additional information regarding our bus routes. Um we talked about the operation and hours of the building as they stand during the day and then after school. So we provided a wealth of information to our um our architects and engineers. They ended up uh putting out uh cameras and flying drones to do part of that traffic study. We looked at all the different intersections that surround the area. We were asked when we presented this idea to the town of Cornwall, the supervisor and his team asked that we do this traffic study which we had already anticipated to do anyway. Um, so we had been uh we've been engaging in conversations and collaborative conversations

135with them about that. So I think we will have a wealth of information on our hands within relatively a soon time month or so um to to weigh some of that option and certainly before the budget vote. And then secondly, I think one thing that we we keep forgetting to address with respect to this road is the amount of deliveries that that middle school takes on on a daily basis. So just think about your average Amazon and Staples deliveries and UPS deliveries that take place. And that that's pretty standard for any school district, any school building um anywhere. But now adding to the fact you have a cafeteria that serves a thousand kids in the building and roughly 500 outside of the building, you're taking in tractor trailers of food to get into the back

136of that building. So we're now running tractor trailers up there that can't even turn around. So we have to request um smaller trucks to get up there, which will potentially increase our delivery fees in order to do that. So there there's a lot of negotiations here that take place. Having that additional loop was designed so that tractor trailers could come in there um after the parent uh drop off and circle back around, turn around, come out safely um and make sure that we are not impacting the operation of the school day by coming into the front of the building where we won't have our parents come in and check in and out. So, sorry. Thanks, John. >> Uh John Hines, uh I'm struggling right now, Christian, with reducing children and our accidents and potential deaths

137to fractions of percentages. The the trauma that we as educators have to deal with because of that fractional percent is something that no one in this room wants to deal with. So, is spending $5.1 million on this pavement sexy? No. Um I know I could spend it completely differently and everyone knows in this room I'd spend it completely differently. But I I think for paving a road that I drive on often that I probably shouldn't be driving on to support the new cafeteria that feeds other schools and as John just talked about the deliveries, I I don't view it being the sticking point in this project that's going to bring our schools forward. Um, so I I'm just struggling right now with reducing one of my students, one of my teacher, my fellow teacher students

138down to a fractional of a percent. I'm really struggling with that. >> I would like to echo what John said and what some of you guys have said as well. We should never wait for something bad to happen in order to try to fix something. Um, having had a kid come here to Lee Road is a very smooth operation where you have the school buses one way, parents drop off the other way, and it's a smooth operation. Having gone to the middle school and drop off my kids, I can see the chaos that's happening all the time. And um, as a parent, I want to make sure there's a safer experience for both parents and kids as well. Also, as a coach of the football team as well of the youth program, that road gets

139used very often, all the time. uh not just for football, for lacrosse, for many different sports that the community takes advantage of. Um and having a community that you're proud of that represents your values and who you are should be important for us as well. So when you have people from coming from out of town and having to drive through this messy roads and just it doesn't show who we are as a community. Um, but the fact that we're reducing, you know, the chances of a kid having an accident by 5 millionth of a percent, I don't care if it's 1 trillionth of a percent. We don't want to be the community that something bad happened because we didn't do something about it. So that's rather uncons. So I think people are uh mixing the

140risk the chances of something happening with the change and something's happening as the data and the best information. The main thing that keeps kids safe is actually the congestion because it slows down cars and when cars slow down there are less accidents and less serious accidents and that's why at low speeds congestion actually is very frustrating but actually is in the safety. So the base case of this is actually it's probably going to in increase the risk to children not decrease the risk to children. The probability of this happening based upon 10 years, the National Highway Traffic Administration, the National Safety Council, organizations that are dedicated to promoting safety would tell you their data that is pretty comprehensive that the risk is very small. And they say the point is that you at best could

141change that risk by a very, very small risk. And John, I'm a teacher and I've lost students to traffic accidents. When I was in high school, I had a friend uh two friends that were twins and they were driving to homecoming. And during homecoming, one of the twins was driving the truck and the other one was in the bed of the truck. They hit a rock and his twin ejected his twin outside of the bed of the truck and he died. So, I don't minimize that risk at all. And since then, I've had a student either severely injured or killed in a traffic accident. Every single year, I've been a teacher, and that's over 20 years. So the point about this is not necessarily about using the anecdote of a possible case. It's understanding what

142the risk is and that if anything what you're proposing here is going to increase the risk not just to students but increase the risk to other people because you're changing the traffic pattern. And obviously I understand how this looks because it's like saying well what are you against safety? And the point is it's not being against safety. It's being realistic about what the data and obviously this traffic study will come came a week ago which was well after any decisions were made on this. And that's kind of the concern is the decisions were made before the information was there not after. I'm not going to go back and forth anymore. I appreciate people's comments and I think the community should decide. >> Anybody else like to ask a question? make a comment. >> Nope. Oh,

143Mr. John Hines, >> thank you. Thank you. Um, I'm so excited about the potential for new classroom spaces. Eight classrooms here at CES is going to be a gamecher potentially. Um, the middle school art and music space is such a major improvement to both of those programs. Um, also the accessibility for our students with disabilities, getting down to that art room is not realistic. So, moving that upstairs is a great change that we could do. Um, I've already got ideas for that space downstairs. And I've already started a it's not my office, John. But, um, the the current art room down there, like that space could become another music space. It's storage space for for drama, for instruments, for technology. I'm sure Walter's got his eyes on some of that space down there, too. thing.

144Um, but I I think this is a game-changing moment for our middle school. And just to put things in context, I think the high school bond, building the entire high school in 1990, 1999, um, was $44 million. We got a whole new building for that. We're getting some roofs, some sewer pipes, a cap. like we have to put this in context of what cost is going to be if we wait 5 years to do some of these projects. So, um I'm excited for what this is going to do for our teaching and our learning of our students with the the physical classroom tangible things, not Walter's uh sewer back pipes, but those are important, Walter. We'll give you those, too. >> Thank you, John. Um, and yeah, I I don't want to just echo everything

145you or just repeat everything you said like it was my idea, but um I I share that excitement. You know, when I I mentioned this before when we did the the previous capital project, it just felt like, oh man, this is all stuff we should have done already, and this is an opportunity to really uh make investments and and change the the the face of this district and the prospects for our students in a in a meaningful way. >> Great. So I anybody else? Okay. So um thank you everybody for attending and and the the dialogue um and for everybody that is uh watching and will watch this uh in the coming days and weeks. We will be sharing the deck that we presented on uh our Facebook page, the board of ed Facebook page.

146It'll also find its way to the district website and the uh the stream will be available for anybody to watch uh as well. Our next board meeting is this coming Monday, the 23rd, where the the board will vote on the actual propositions that will appear on the ballot. Um, but at any point uh if you have questions, comments, uh, any anything at all capital project related, you can always email us at [email protected]. That will automatically go to the entire board. Thank you everybody for uh attending and watching and we'll catch you