Meeting transcript
Capital Improvement Planning Committee - Regular Meeting
November 19, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Hit record.
Oh, no notification came up on my end. Okay, it says recording. It says recording. Okay, excellent. So that's our roll call. Public comment. None. Wear your mask.
Eric's public comment. Okay, so no public comment. Additions or changes to the agenda?
And then what do you have? I want to add one request based on my discussion with our superintendent for a request for the school.
What's that? Oh, you're going to put that on there? That's added to the agenda. So that'll be C. All right. Six C. Yep. What is that? AES request. Alrighty. Minutes of Minutes I'll move approve the minutes of the meeting from 08/20/2020.
Eric had something to say before you jumped in on that. I did too.
Okay. Okay. Go ahead. So, Eric, what's up? So I would add d, preliminary CIP recommendations for public works. And, Curtis, what do you have to add, sir?
But I guess it would be e would be the Veterans Park. Okay. At Monument Lane. Alright. Anything else?
I won't have anything in front of Firehouse till probably next month.
Okay. Okay. So our meeting just got longer. So all right. So that's our any further additions or modifications? All right. So approve prior meeting.
I move to approve the minutes from the meeting on 08/20/2020. Second.
Both of us. Okay. Who got there first? Ed. Doesn't matter. Ed. I'd give that one to uncle Ed. Uncle Ed. Okay. Okay. So all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any
abstentions or complaints or anything? What do no? Okay. 500. So that takes us to our new business. So Shannon
Yep, take it Veterans Oilfield. Yeah. So hopefully you all got my email in which I described this so I don't have to go into detail about it. But based on discussions with a number of people in town, I think it would be wonderful to have a playground at the Veterans Memorial Field on the berm on the western side on Riverside Drive. I did not know about this having been raised when I was in charge of making sure that field got completed a couple years ago. But Carl's son, SUN, his wife died of cancer. His son is in the fourth grade now at Andover Elementary School, and he offered a significant amount of money that he didn't know whether that would cover, and I don't know whether it would, to put a playground there, but I would love for us to go forward with that.
Pamela John is probably Adrian trying to come in. Could be.
So unless it's an somebody visiting our meeting. Okay. That'd be exciting. So no. I'm not saying goodbye. Oh, that was that was our cat. Never mind. So, Eric, do you know were you able to look into would it have to be ADP, you know, compliance? I would imagine if we're doing new construction, it would have to be. You mean ADA? ADA. That was it. Yeah. I would ADP's security system. Anyway. I would assume,
but the good news is it's completely level there from the parking area back there. So I don't think ADA compliance would be a particularly big deal or deal breaker there.
No. I just was wondering, like, I've never constructed a playground. And I was wondering, for example, if we have to have parts of the quote unquote apparatus that would accommodate disabled individuals? That's what I was wondering.
I would have to say that I have no idea.
I'm glad you said that because I didn't either. And we'll have to take a look at that. Do you have any idea what the cost of a playground? I guess, obviously, it would depend upon the apparatuses we decide to put in there, but what what we might be looking at?
I think it depends totally on what you want. I mean, playgrounds, you know, that covers quite a range of of things. Yep.
You know, the the thing that came to my mind is would you fence around it or would you not? Would you leave it a grass surface or would you use like the rubber chip or would you want it mulched or what? You know, it seems like you need to kind of understand what it is you want there. And I would also want to think about the location of it in relation to anything else you're likely to put. I mean, my suggestion would be you come back essentially with a sketch that shows where a playground would go, where a future concession would go, you know, and we don't have to do everything at once. It can be staged over a number of years, but you wanna plan for all that now. Yeah. So where I was thinking just when I was looking at the berm when this came,
of issue was if I'm standing on the field and the Hop River is to my left and Riverside Drive is to my right and the berm is in front of me, then the playground would go over to the left of where all the electricity is now for the watering system on the field because we would need to use the electricity and potential water access for bathrooms depending on what we do with that where the decrepit snack shack now is, which is on the right hand side. Right? So I was thinking playground over on the left hand side closer to the river, bathrooms and or pavilion with storage, blah blah blah blah over on the right hand side where the access to the electricity and water now is. Right? Well, we need a lot more detail about that. I know. Well, that segues into my next point, which is we've needed bathrooms there for a long time. And Eric had counseled that he didn't know if we could really afford or the town better yet, if the town would support We'll salt on it. Having a more
expansive building rather than just compostable toilets. But my idea for that area was we absolutely need storage for soccer and for softball because the soccer shed is down in the parking lot that floods all the time, and the soccer shed floods. And that storage container that's now used by softball is an eyesore. It looks hideous up there. Now I understand it's being moved across to the softball field by Ryan Fitch, but it'd be nice just to have storage and have a facility that had storage there right on the berm. Right? I know when we had originally looked at facilities that would have a bathroom and storage, and we also thought about incorporating a concession area because baseball twenty years ago used to do a major league concession business out of the decrepit snack shack. So when we had looked at that years ago when we were doing the field, that was about a $100,000. So just to put that out there, like what we want to recommend if CIP wants to recommend anything. Eric, you had said that compostable toilets are 30 to 35,000?
Yeah, something in that range. If you want a good so the company that does the most of them is called Clivus Moulstrand. The reason why How do spell that?
I think it's c l I v u s M something. So no, I can't really spell it. I could get you that info though. Great, okay.
So that's what's used at all the national parks and like all the Connecticut state parks used them other than right now apparently they're not using them because of COVID because they don't want to have to clean them so they're paying for porta potties. So they've got much nicer composting
toilets right next to the porta potties. Does somebody have a radio on? Because it's really coming across and interfering. Okay. Thanks. Sorry, Eric.
So I guess what I'm saying is that that can be a very effective way to go. You know, I looked at one of those for putting one in at the Andover Museum too, because it gets us away from having to put a full blown septic system in. There's some maintenance involved but it's not a lot, you know they're pretty reliable, pretty brown proof today. There's tens of thousands of them out there. Yep.
You can make them look like anything you want but you know it's not as nice aesthetically as a regular you know regular bathroom with you know all the regular bathroom type stuff and I would think the the question that would the thing that would make it harder is if you decided you wanted like running water in there and sinks and stuff like that. Because at that point, that means you have to have a gray water discharge area anyway. So it can be a much smaller leaching field, but you're still talking about a leaching field. So that may make it less, you know, less economically feasible if you got to commit to a small leaching field for the gray water anyway. It also depends on what you do with the concession stand because a concession stand may very well require a tested potable water source.
Ah, okay. Well, I the concession stand is is the third priority if if it's not even a priority. The priority for me was was toilets. And then secondly would be storage because our soccer shed floods all the time where it's now located,
and the storage container is hideous. The gray thing's sitting up on the berm. So Why don't you just do the trailer park thing and put it up on a couple of blocks?
And we could have people tie dogs to it, make a little dog park in there. So anyway, we need a lot more detail before CIP can spend much more time. I'm not aware of that. So I'm just putting these ideas out here.
So the third idea, which I think is totally awesome is in the park, used to be the parking area is the area that I referred to as the area that floods where the soccer shed now is, I think would be an awesome area to put in basketball courts that we then could line for pickleball for especially the seniors who live right across the street on Riverside. And it would be okay, hopefully, even though it's in the floodplain. And I also know that if we go to the extent of pursuing anything there, we're going to be dealing with the plight of the turtles that we dealt with when we talked about this before when we were doing the field. That I understand Julia Victoria's husband raises as an issue because the turtles' habitat is in the area around Hop River. Is that right?
So, yes. So there would have to be some due consideration. What I would suggest doing is if you're interested in pursuing that, that you reach out to Hank Gruner. Okay.
And you discuss it with Hank because Hank may be able to tell you how to do it, give you a lot of guidance. And let me give you his email right now while I'm thinking about it. Okay. Or his phone number is (860) 712-1308. Who is he?
He is probably one of the leading herpetologists in the state of Connecticut, and he happens to be a town resident and a turtle guy. But he's a really nice guy. I use him, we pay him as a consultant anytime we're doing stuff in the Hop River Watershed because he's, you know, a really good authority and he's pretty level headed. You know, he understands that there's trade offs and everything. And so I'm sure, you know, usually what ends up happening is you end up putting some restrictions on the time you can build it or what you have to do to mitigate the effects of it. In other words, he's a fairly reasonable guy. Great, okay. Yep, so he'd be a good resource if you're looking to do that. And we do know that quite a number of turtles go across the road there and burrow and put their eggs in that field by the Hop River homes, believe it or not. Oh, wow. Okay. You look at it carefully, you'll see in the summer some little dig spots in the really sandy grass there. Wow. And that is turtles bearing there. And when we were chip sealing the road, the contractors had to rescue two of the turtles, which fortunately they managed to do it before they put the, the, chip seal goo down, or else they would have coated those four turtles, but they had to escort several of them out of the road so they could finish the paving and the chips.
Yep. So those were just my ideas. I think that we could really use those improvements to improve our offerings to the town Priority wise and I'll I'll I'll elaborate on these ideas for our next meeting, but priority wise would be the playground because we've got somebody in town who is interested in helping to provide funding. And I think we probably could get some grant money on top of that to do funding for that, depending on how much it costs. And then second priority, because we're not gonna be using the fields as much during the winter, would be to start looking into the compostable compostable toilets, compostable, whatever. Compostable. And then to look and see if there's a way to incorporate all of that within a structure that we were looking at that might include the storage and how much that would cost so that we can look at the cost differential and the construction. We did, I know, look at where leach fields would go and there was enough area we believed on the berm itself that wouldn't then interfere with the playground area and a pavilion type structure? And then I will reach out to Hank to talk about the turtles. Okay.
Hey, Shannon? Yes, Louise. Yeah. I'm wondering, do you know who may will be maintaining that playground and all that? That would be our public works, would imagine. In addition to what they're doing now? Yep. Okay.
So I would imagine that anything that I mean, we don't have a parks and rec department. Right? So anything that would come under town supervision would be done by our public works. Okay,
but I don't I don't Louise. And so certainly that needs to be a consideration as we look at the funding for that. I don't think just based on what I know about the little I know about playgrounds depending on what we choose for example as Eric was mentioning for the flooring of that. If it's mulch and or the rubberized component. I don't foresee a heck of a lot of maintenance, but, you know, then again, the other thought Louise is because this gentleman wanted to do it to memorialize his wife. Maybe he would undertake it as his project for the town to maintain the playground that might bear his wife's name, for example, you know. That's a possibility also.
I mean, if you if you did a good job and you built it with quality durable materials, you know, I don't see a lot of, you know, I don't see a ton of maintenance involved in it. I think it's something you could do, you know, without burdening public works.
I well, I don't think even if we had maintenance, it would burden public works because I you know, just from the the custodial services at the school, I don't think they spend a heck of a lot of time on our playground equipment, you know? Right. That's my point. Good. Oh, my bigger concern is maintaining
a toilet facility that requires even the even the composting toilets do require. And so that's that's a long term concern about that. Yeah. Somebody has to clean them. Yeah. Right. I nominate you. I nominate you, Fred.
But What's the thought, Shannon, at this point? Is it it to try to do a playground that that has equipment then? You're saying that the kids aren't really playing on the equipment that they have at the school now? No. No. No. No. So totally different, Adrian. So here's the deal.
The thing that prompted me to consider this was I had two people in town say, Shannon, I would like to be able to take my grandchildren to a playground. And can I do that at Andover Elementary School? And I looked into it and the answer is yes, but not while school is in session. So especially during the pandemic with some grandparents caring for their grandchildren, they don't necessarily wanna be limited to only being able to go to a playground especially in the winter months when it's dark by the time school is out to be limited to that that facility. So when then I then learned about mister Sun's offer a few years ago to do the playground on the berm to memorialize his wife, it just all kinda fit together to say, hey, that would be, I think, a really good thing for our town of Andover to have,
especially given that if we located there, you know, you've got all the people who use the soccer fields with their siblings and parents and whatnot being able to use the playground while the other siblings are practicing and playing. It just seemed like a really good idea.
Is the is the goal to have this to be accessible to
kids with disabilities or? Yes, sir. We talked about that before you got on. I think any new construction of a playground right now would probably mandate that.
It doesn't, but it doesn't, but there is a there is a group out of Hartford called Boundless Playgrounds. My wife, it was actually on the board for them. And they help communities both design and and raise funds for for community access playgrounds.
So your wife is gonna take charge of the project?
Yeah. No. I could I I could barely get home for dinner. So
What's that about? Adrian. I was trying. Okay. Yeah. Adrian, can give It's called balanced playgrounds? It's called boundless playgrounds. Boundless. Okay. Yep.
And I can see if I can reach out and get a contact for us. That'd be great. Alright.
So Shannon, do you know if the offer from this guy is still valid?
Yes. It is still valid but I don't know how much it is. Okay. And what I wanted to do there was first come up with an idea of how much we're talking about as far as what we want what we wanna propose to see for the playground to then figure out the potential cost before I recontacted mister Sun to find out what he was interested as far as the funding that he was willing to provide. And therefore how much more we would need to budget raise, go to a grant or all that kind of stuff. So that's right. That's where I started. Yeah.
Well, I'll reach out because boundless does this all over. If you actually Google Boundless Playgrounds, they actually come up on on a Google search of all the playgrounds they've done in the area. Great. They they started here in Connecticut but now they're nationwide so Did they did they help out with the one at the Jewish Community Center in Bloomfield? I believe they did. They also did a really big one over in South Windsor. Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. So so they can kinda they can help us a little bit. Right. Great. Yeah. Anything else about that?
Nope. I'll follow-up with that for our December meeting. I will yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm just trying to think if we could have a December meeting, but I think we can based on the schedule before Christmas and holidays. Alright. So
B, community center update. Is that for Eric to clue us in? I just wanted an update. I know Ed uncle Ed is on the committee and just wanted to hear what's going on with that. Uncle Ed? Yeah, I'm here. Community Center update?
Yeah, the last meeting was canceled by Jeff Murray and Eric probably has the latest information on that. Eric, I know you and Adrian were working together as to the drawings in the back of the building. Our last meeting was at the gazebo and we looked at the availability of space there, having to only move the septic tank and with Adrian's good idea about in the future being able to connect it to our existing community room. And so all those good ideas were put forth. And Adrian, I guess you haven't had a chance to share the committee as
far as the PDF, your drawings you volunteered to do. No, I did. They were on a Google Drive for three weeks and they were available to everyone. It was sent out to all the committee members. You guys, all you had to do was download them if you wanted them for yourself. And I believe Amanda downloaded them for the town. Okay. I must've missed that email. Sorry about that. Yeah. No. It's fine. I I mean, I I still have them obviously and I just You have my email address.
Could you please email them to me? So I can't email them, but I could try to open the I can put them back up on the cloud drive. They're they're too big to email because it's it's an actual walk through of the building. It's not just drawings. It's there's some PDF pictures, but there's also an actual walk through. And when when Jeff does the meeting, I told him I would get on there. I'll share screen through Zoom and I can walk you guys through the building.
Hold on. If you said you sent it to Amanda, did she put it on the town website? I don't know if she did or not. To
be honest, I have not. Been tied up in other things so I haven't been able to follow-up on that. Yeah and I didn't, not only did I miss that email where you said you put it up there, no committee members
had any discussion through emails about it. So I. Well, part of the problem here is I'm not looped into so Jeff's like, I didn't even know there was a meeting. Jeff never put me on the community, like, the list, the loop. So I found out that there was a meeting after the fact. I did reach out, like I said, I reached out to to Jeff and I said, know, how come you hadn't sent it out? He goes, well, I already had a meeting and you didn't get me the drawing so I canceled the meeting. I said, well, I sent them to you. So anyways, I resent them by sending him a link to the drive and like we left it up there for about three weeks. And I I actually just pulled it last week.
Well, that's too bad because I guess I I don't think a lot of committee members got a chance to see that through mis communication but that's okay. Yeah, I mean, so Jeff never actually gave me a list of everybody that was on the committee unfortunately.
I don't have everyone's emails. If you wanna get that to me, that would be helpful and I'll gladly resend it if you feel like it didn't get distributed.
Yeah, I can find the group group of people on that and send it to you. Let me just I I we haven't emailed in a long time. What's your email again? I'm I'm on the I'm on the town email.
Yeah. We've had two we've had actually two canceled meetings now. So before our next meeting, I understand. We should all have the opportunity to review those again. Because obviously that's the next step is to review those drawings. Yep. Yeah. And like I said,
tried to get them out to you guys ahead of time so you'd have time to look at them before the meeting. But I will also, during the next meeting when he schedules one, do a screen share and do a walkthrough.
Right. Okay. So alright. So I'll get you I'll get you, other people's emails so that you can
blast them out, blast out the connect you said you're gonna repost it so that I can. I just I have to reload everything up to the Google Drive and then I will send you a link to the drive again.
Am I am now texting with Amanda because she just sent me stuff about the toy drive and I'm asking her whether she put it on the town website, which would circumvent the need to do all of this. So
bear with me. That would be nice if she did that. I know she was having a hard time downloading them, think because there was a there was an issue with the the town security, like the way it allowed her to access or not access.
But but to sum up then, anyways, we had a lot of good ideas at the last meeting and, Adrian kindly volunteered to do a lot of volunteer work on those drawings and I can't wait to see them here. Not just the drawings. I mean, Adrian agreed to build it for us. Wow. Awesome.
At At spec? Yeah. Way to go, Adrian. All right, man. Get your head there. There, buddy. Also
share with Shannon and the others then the ideas of the grant money so that we can't connect the two buildings now, but after it's built, wait, let a year or two go by and then we better connect it in a closed walkway to kind of make a complex there, right? Yeah, you could. I mean, the thing is you can't
formally plan for it as part of the process because if you go, the thing is if you go, if you do it as a renovation, then the the threshold when it becomes Davis Bacon and mandates you to to do the whole state thing is much lower. If you if you do it as new construction, it's a million dollars. So as long as you stay below a million, and and the advantage of that too would be it would allow local contractors including, you know, Andover contractors, Andover residents that are that have, you know, businesses, which that believe it or not, there's a ton of guys in town that are electricians, plumbers, contractors in general. I know many of them. Right. And I mean, you know, and and listen to be candid, this is not this is not my forte. It's not something I would go after,
but certainly some other folks in town might be interested and, you know, it's a nice commute for them and it'd be a great project. And that the currently the way the building is designed out, you know, if the committee goes for it, would be a wood frame type construction. So it could definitely be handled by by local contractors. It doesn't have to be something crazy. You know, we could do prefab trusses and and the building will go up a little quicker that way as well. So and that the plan at this point would be to do a building
building space upstairs and an and an unfinished basement that we could adapt to the community as we needed going forward. So basically, do two levels. You'd have a a, you know, a walk in level from the back, then you'd have a a, you know, a grade level from the front or side.
That's right. And to share with the committee, nice part about that with the walk, the basement part of it is accessible from grade. So the grade is such that we looked at that, that it opens up very nicely to a big backyard. So you'd have a lot of opportunity for outdoor
activities on the big grassy field that's there. Well, then you end up you actually end up with two completely separate spaces. So, you know, you'd have a whole another a whole another space that would be accessible for for whatever type of access you'd like down the road. Right. Indoor shooting range, you know. I'm game. Hunching.
Okay. That sounds really good. So this Adrian tried sending me the files, but they were too big. Last I heard he was gonna try to send them to me differently.
So once she My web posted them, but that's fine. I'll I'll I can do it again. I thought she was having a hard time pulling it off the website, but
He just said that whatever you said it was too big. So however you need to get her to her, are not conclusion, they are not on the town website.
Not a problem. We'll figure it out. Well, Ask ask her if I give them to her on a flash drive if she can post them that way.
So I'm now your secretary. I'll happily do that, Adrian. Okay. Here we go. You're right.
Do you mind? I'm asking if you can Oh, no. I don't mind. I don't mind.
You Well, we we don't wanna get ahead of ourselves either. I would say that most of the members on the committee haven't had even chance to review it yet. So we wanna get the committee to meet on them first before we go totally public and ask for public input. Shannon's
shaking her head. No. I would like to see them. No. I'm just seeing whatever.
Or you could see them, but you're on a you're on this committee, and you're asking touch base with you tomorrow. So what am I telling her, Adrian?
The the question was just if I get him on a flash drive, can she can she upload them then? Great. I'll ask her. Is there a is there an upload limit on the town website? That was the question I guess. Well, Eric can answer that. No. He can't. He's not that guy. Amanda's that guy. Amanda's that guy. Okay. That person.
Amanda Amanda is the is the the shizzle when it comes to the town website. Oh, excellent. I'm glad to know she's the shizzle. Okay. Excellent Yiddish word.
And the town hall is closed tomorrow. So how would you get it to her if you were going to do that? I would open my window and throw
it in my window. I actually will not have time to do it this evening, but I will get it to her on Monday. Okay.
Okay. Sounds good. So on to our next thing. Request from Shannon item 16.
Yes. Okay. Hold on. I'll I'll stop texting. You're the hot ticket for the Oh, baby. I came up with so many CIP ideas. I'm gonna bankrupt the town. It's gonna be awesome. Okay. So here is the newest thing from our superintendent. Based on pandemic, based on HVAC requirements, whatnot, we would love to be able to get air conditioning throughout the entire school, which will cost Watch it, Mandeville. I'm gonna not be your secretary anymore. Okay. So Which one costs? Stop laughing, Fred. Damn you. Which will cost $50,000 No way. And what continent? No. No. No, yes. No,
yes. So you have to school for that. Per room, per room. You know, maybe you could give everybody one ice cube each for $50. Great. Are we talking about those little handheld fans that they carry around? They need not to budget for Stop
it now, man. Are rechargeable. Stop it. Am going based upon the request of my superintendent. I love that estimate. That's an awesome estimate.
So for the Hold record on. That is from our business manager to our superintendent to me and quote unquote from our superintendent. Everything else that she would ask for is a want. And right now we can only deal with needs. And this actually is a need that we probably will not be able to provide for in our budget. So that's why I'm putting it forth to CIP as the board of Ed liaison to the CIP.
And no more laughing. Okay. Can't do that building for 50,000.
There's no way. It's not the building. It's what's not already air conditioned in the building.
It it currently there is only one wing that's done, right? Yeah.
So the new wing in the central office has AC in the the
lunch room as they Yeah, sit and the library and the computer room. So all we're talking about is the 1st Floor and I think 34 Wing. Okay.
Well, there but they're Yes. Go with the superintendent's request and let's deal with that. And then I will go back to her and say, everybody on CIP, especially Adrian, thought you were crazy. And I'll diss you specifically,
Adrian Mandeville. So there we go. Well, we need specific information. We need some something from a contractor.
Okay. I will get that. I just wanted to alert CIP that I'm doing my liaison duties and not just all about pie in the sky projects for the town. Sure. I will come back with that for December also. So I I would say You realize December's like next month. Right?
I realize this, Adrian. Do you know who you're talking to? Apparently, a dynamo. You are. Who you're talking to? You're on fire tonight. Oh, yeah. Guess you wait, buddy. So When I'm talking to you from the White House. Yeah. Okay. So if you're
to put in You know, in power. Yeah. DC. Yeah. Given the situation with COVID, probably the single most important thing we need to do is start accommodating fresh air intake in all the rooms, which is something every school should have anyway. You know, that's to me that's almost a more important if you came to me and said, Eric, what I really want to do based on COVID is I want to come up with some kind of HRV or system, you know, for fresh air exchange in the classrooms, to me that would probably be more pandemic related, would be more than just AC. Most
likely, There's a so the the problem is the the way the school is built, there are certain fire breaks that they can't cross. So that was and that's why I'm questioning the the cost issue only because one of the things that came up when we were talking about or when the when the discussion had come up about using that wing for other purposes. Yeah. You know the whole thing came up, oh, you know, can we do Right. Yeah. Can we do AC or something? I remember.
What they We had talked we had also talked about putting in the like the Mini splits. Mini splits. What? No. We had talked about putting in air conditioning per room like the, you know, what are those things called? That's called a mini split. Okay. That's what it's called. Fine. Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah. So mini splits are are basically they're they're self contained units. And that in theory would work, but in a COVID situation would not be great because it's gonna We're not no. That's not what we're talking about. Yeah. So So
So I will do two things. I will look into the air conditioning proposal and fresh air intake into all of the rooms for pandemic issues.
Yeah. If Laura if Laura has an estimate, if you can just grab the estimate, that'd be great. Laura Laura's estimate was 50,000.
So, you know, we'll see what I can do. Now, as far as the fresh air intake though, I mean, respectfully, Eric, every room as a room to the outdoors, I mean, that like open in the room? Is that or what are we talking about to accommodate that?
So every modern building, every building today has any every commercial building has a requirement for a certain amount of fresh or makeup air going into the room. Know, older buildings like ours do not. And one of the things that's been very apparent in indoor space is if you have high ventilation rates, there seems to be a lot less transmission of the virus. So like they were doing some comparisons about a couple of gymnasiums. There was an NIH study, two gymnasiums that both had COVID people they found later COVID positive. And one had really high ventilation rates and the other one is an old building that didn't. And it was a difference between like 40 people getting it and nobody getting it. Yeah, it's the same thing for airplanes, you know, how they have that forced ventilation on airplanes for pressurization.
It's the same principle. But
the thing No, about no, I was asking so that I know what I'm asking about is are we talking the need to install ventilation systems in each room for the air intake? No. So it's act it's it's an
it's a it's a certain number of air exchanges per hour that's generally required anyways. But it may be depending upon what this quote is for the air conditioning. It may be part of it because they they may do a push pull system where they they're pushing in cold air and they're doing a drawback for a recycle.
It just I don't know what how it's quoted so. Well, I just want to note for the CIP record that we have gone ten weeks without any COVID cases in our school And our superintendent to give her additional kudos was incredibly forward looking. Send out a survey to all the parents, 70% of whom said we do wanna do this, so we are going remote. And this was before any of the stuff happened with a 145 out of a 169 towns being red alert, because we wanted to not have to close between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So just to give a positive report from the Board of Ed, our superintendent is fantastic and was so forward looking that she looked ahead and said,
let's take care of this and we are dealing with it so that we will be going remote for only seven school days between November 28 or thirtieth and December 9. And that will have resulted in us basically being quarantined for fourteen total days or remote for fourteen days, which I thought was a great idea and supported her in doing that even though we had a lot of pushback from some families. But just kudos. We've gone ten weeks without any COVID cases based on all of the preparation that everybody has done and all of the work everybody has done. Administration staff, parents, teachers, students, it's just been wonderful. So I really am proud of that. Great to hear. Okay. So, Eric, preliminary public works request.
Okay. I'm gonna share my screen. Presuming I can figure out which of the freaking 40 open documents I have. What? The what kind of documents? Freaking. Freaking open.
Are you looking at a screen that says 2,021 CIP recommendations? We are. Say hallelujah. Okay. Hallelujah. If you remember back to last year's plan, we had originally talked about putting roughly $110,000 a year into the slush fund, not slush fund, the capital fund for public works equipment based on a fifteen year equipment modernization plan, basically. We didn't put that, we put half that in last year, and we didn't buy the big thing that we had been forecast to buy, which was a mower with a sidearm flail mower, basically, just because that was more than we really had or wanted to spend
given our limited funding. So the town initially put $55,000 into the capital equipment fund, and the Board of Finance was able later to supplant it with $25,000, you know, at the end of the budget cycle by transferring in some unexpended funds. That fund already contained about $25,000 which brought the total up to about a 100,000 in the fund. We bought two things. We bought a material handling boom for the loader and we bought a material spreader for the plow truck, which was supposed to be delivered last week, but was not. Those things have a long lag time because they're basically custom built. So the bottom line is we should currently have about $82,000 in the capital fund. So the big thing that we need to start thinking about doing is replacing our sweeper. Our existing sweeper is 38 years old.
It's well past its life expectancy and it's very time intensive to maintain. The downside of sweepers is they're stupidly expensive. They're somewhere between $210 and $2.60 0 to buy for a standard sweeper. We looked at the rationale or the case for just contracting out in the spring, sweeping the roads. But one of the things we've run into is that because we're starting to do a lot of chip sealing as part of our road maintenance program, chip sealing requires a lot of sweeping because basically you sweep it just before you chip seal and then you chip seal and then you wait about two weeks and you sweep it again and you wait a couple weeks and you sweep it again and you may choose to sweep it a third time because you keep knocking stones off for a considerable period of time. So the bottom line is we're going to need a sweeper not once in the spring, but we're gonna need it a bunch of times throughout the summer season, which makes it impractical to hire a service because we'd have to hire one too often. So I think on the table would be buying a sweeper, whether new or used or kicking in with another municipality, to co buy a new sweeper. The downside of co buying is that everybody wants sweeper in the spring at about the same time.
But the good news is that nowadays, because most towns, Andover included, aren't really putting sand on the roads, There isn't anywhere near as much sweeping in the early spring as there always used to be. We used to sweep like crazy for about six weeks. So we will bring it up again with Hebron. Hebron and Andover had talked about co purchasing a sweeper because that's obviously one way to reduce the expense of purchasing a sweeper. The other thing to do is that a lot of bigger municipalities who sweep regularly for trash in the roadway tend to have sweepers that are, you know, only eight to 10 years old, but have enough time on them that they want to get rid of them, but they still got life left on the sweeper. So that's the other thing I think we really need to look at is what are the, you know, can we buy a good condition used sweeper, you know, for 80,000 or so, you know, as an alternative. So that if we're going to make a big purchase, that's probably the biggest purchase. Well, by far the biggest purchase. The second thing we need to contemplate is, our third plow truck, which is 15 years old as of this year, has some pretty significant body rot. In fact, we've had to take the cover off of it because there's nothing to the swing arm for the cover where it attaches is basically rotted off. We're probably going to, in the short term, send it out and get that welded.
Eddie
That's not something Tim can, Tommy can do in house?
Tommy thinks that's past what he's really comfortable welding. Okay. So yeah, I think we would end up sending that out. In the past, we have pretty typically replaced those dump bodies about year twelve. What we've done the past number of years is we've started sandblasting the bodies to try to extend that, but so this thing is fifteen years old now And if you remember our normal capital plan, the intention was always to have three primary plow trucks that are 15 years old or older or less old. But since we're coming off of a period where all the plow trucks were old, it's going to be another six years or so before we have or seven years really before we have all the plow trucks within that age. So this plow truck at least we're going to have to plan on extending and running it past it's kind of recommended.
So I think there's a, you know, think we have to look at in the next year or so potentially re bodying that. And that's a big shot. That's the bodies are about $40. We would reuse the chain, we would reuse the little hinge gate on the bottom, we'd reuse all the hydraulics, but just the bodies themselves are fairly expensive. So that would be something that we would consider. Eric. Yes.
Let me just ask on that old five truck. Is it well, how's the drive train on it? The motor and the transmission is a decent shape to keep it going?
Yeah, it does seem to be in reasonably good shape. That truck earlier in its life had some it's an international. It hasn't been super mechanically reliable, but for the last four or five years, it's run we haven't really had any problems problems with with it. It. The transmission okay or is it a standard? Well, transmission had a major repair. That rebuilt recently, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So it's an automatic? Yes. Okay. Yes. So so so we we invested in a new transmission and how's the the motors? Is all cylinders firing okay? Yeah. As far as I know, the motor's in pretty good shape. Mechanically, the thing is in pretty decent shape. Okay. So it's worth repairing the bed then?
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think in the short term, what we're looking at doing is just welding it, you know, before the salt starts spilling out the side of it. But longer term, we're going to have to consider a new, you know, a new body for that. As you know, we switched on the last plow truck we bought to a Hardox bed, which is a different steel that has a lot better weathering characteristics and is a lot tougher, simply because over the life expectancy of the truck, it's cheaper to spend more on the body initially if you can really make it last long enough that you don't have to replace it. And pretty much every one of the Everest bodies we've got, we've ended up replacing before we got to the life end of the truck.
Eric, could you could you move down your cursor on the document hunt so we can look at your thank you. Okay, that better? Now I can see what's coming next. Thank you. Okay and the last thing
that I think would be reasonable to consider is purchasing an asphalt hot box, which is just what it sounds like. It's a box you put asphalt in that can heat it up and keep the asphalt hot. Because one of the problems we've had with pothole patching and doing repair work is that, you know, the asphalt needs to be hot to come to be well compacted. If you're putting it down and it's too cool, compaction, you don't end up with a good quality patch or material or driveway apron or whatever. And because for potholes, you know, you're doing a little bit here and then you're moving and doing a little bit more, you're using small quantities of asphalt and you don't have a good way to keep it hot. So what the crew had been doing is they've been buying about five tons, you know, and using one to two tons and pretty much pitching the rest because it was too cool by the time they got it, but they needed that big hot mass so that it cooled slower. So we've been borrowing a hot box from Bolton, but in a lot of ways it would be a pretty convenient thing to have sitting in the shop because it means any given time when you have free time you can send the guys out potholing and doing shoulder repairs. What's
the cost estimate on a hot box? That's one of the things you didn't include, my dear. Right.
I've been looking at that. It depends on the size. It depends. There's a lot of variability in hot boxes. They can be propane fired, they can be diesel fired, they can have a hydraulic, so they dip backwards, and they can come with accessories. The two things I see that are worth having extra on a hot box are a separate tank to put in tack coat. Because one of the things is if you're doing a repair, a tack coat is like a glue between the layers and you get much better bonding, you know, if it's cleaned and tack coated before you put the next layer down. So you can get some of these with like a 20 or 30 gallon tack coat
drum on it with a hose. So that's probably a worthwhile thing. And the other thing I've seen is a bunch of them have a little hoist on them. And the reason is to get a big enough plate compactor that will do you some good, they're pretty freaking heavy. So lifting the thing up and off each time is kind of a pain. So a lot of the crews will have just a little hoist, whether it's hydraulic or manual, just to lift the thing up, put it on the platform and drive to the next hole. So the bottom line is you're looking at somewhere around 40,000 for a new one,
but I've been poking around and Adrian was poking around looking at some of the used units. And I think you can get a ten or twelve year old one, you know, for basically half the cost. And mechanically, there's one hydraulic cylinder on them and there's a diesel or a propane heater. So there's not a lot of stuff to break. So I think that's one where we could get away with buying a used piece of equipment and get reasonable use and lifespan out of that. And I would think for somewhere around $20, you could potentially come up with an asphalt hot box that's a dump style and then retrofit it with the tack coat tank and a little hoist. So that I think I've been looking at a couple of different options for kind of bulk pothole patching. That's one of them. The other one is something called the spray patcher, which theoretically should be a better fit for us,
but, know, they're kind of finicky. And the people I've talked to that use them basically say if you have one really good operator that likes the thing, it's going to work really well and if you don't, they're going to hate it out in a couple of years. So I'm still trying to arrange for us to try one to see what our luck with it is, but the hot box is the alternative and the good thing about the hot box is for doing bigger pieces that's a better fit than a spray patch anyway. So that's kind of where I am with that. Just so we know where we are in terms of our list, this is the current capital plan. The only thing that's really different from the capital plan from two years ago and last year is if you looked at 2020, we were originally planning on purchasing a mower with a sidearm flail, but that got kind of canceled because we just didn't have the funds last year to do it. And so we did buy two things. We bought the material spreader and we bought a blower for our small Steiner traffic tractor, which has proved pretty handy. We've actually used that quite a bit. So my suggestion for 2021, the next year would be the priorities would be a dump body, the asphalt hot box, and then some combination of sweeper. And if we went all new with that, that's about three twenty of which we have about 80 socked away. But I think we can reduce that number by going for used equipment, certainly for the hot box, potentially for the sweeper. I think we would end up with a number, you know, quite a bit smaller than that,
you know, and kind of go from there.
Eric, is there anything out of that list, the hot box or whatever that we need for spring into, you know, into June, July or the sweeper? Like, what's our status with that? I know we have some money in funds currently, so if it's something that CIP needs to address and move over to the board of Selectman Finance whatever, is there anything that needs to be addressed prior to the season next year?
Yeah, so probably we don't have enough money to go for a sweeper set aside unless unless we found a used one, you know, that was relatively inexpensive and it's still in good shape. Potentially an asphalt hot box would be fairly doable with the money we have sitting there right now. Theoretically, we could do the body for the Everest, you know, the Everest body for the truck with the money that's sitting there now, although that would need to go to public meeting. We could buy the hot box and be under the threshold at which it would need to go to public meeting. Board of Finance could approve that, but the Everest dump body would definitely be a a public
meeting. Well, the It reason sounded it sounded as though what was the priority, Eric, was the sweeper given what you'd see as our needs for next spring with regard to the chip sealing and whatnot, my dear.
Yeah. That's that's kinda why I was asking. Well, I mean, I think
my own feeling is that right now we can weld we can weld repair the body and easily go another year. The reason I'm bringing that up is because if you if you think about it, we're gonna hold that thing, we weren't really planning on buying another plow truck till, you know, the 2023 season. So if we do that, then that body will have gone another three years and then that truck is going to be our emergency spare, you know, potentially for up to another five years before we buy another truck. So by the time we get to there, you know, we've run that truck, you know, somewhere around twenty three years, which is clearly past what we're ever gonna sneak out of that body. So somewhere in the life of that truck, we're gonna end up rebodying it in some form or another.
It's how Yeah. What I was saying, I think what Adrian and I are both trying to get to is what action do you want CIP to take to potentially make a vote or a recommendation that then would need to be acted upon by Board of Finance, Board of Selectmen for stuff coming down the pike that we're gonna need for next spring?
Right. So, I mean, for this coming spring, And I think the only thing potentially we would buy would be the hot box.
Also the other question Eric is, and we ran into this when we bought our previous truck. Given the lead time, like what's the turnaround time to get a body put on? Like if we put this in a budget, you don't get the money until July. Can you get that done before winter? Because obviously you don't wanna lose the truck in the winter. Yeah, I mean what we would do, we could do that.
The bodies are easier to get than a whole truck built. It's you're talking like a three month lead time on a body, something like that. But remember, if we approve a budget in May, you know, we immediately order as soon as we have a budget approved. I mean, would order it. No, that's fine. We would be able to pick it up plenty of time to get it. Okay. I
just didn't want us to run into an issue with the truck. You know, I I know that the pothole maybe isn't a spring thing. It's may probably
you know, it could be, I guess, depending upon our schedule and and what our guys are doing. But Yeah. But it sounded like you really wanted us to get the sweeper, Eric. So are you backing away from that my dear? No no I mean I think in
terms of large projects the sweeper is the thing you know we need the most it's it's basically the oldest big piece of equipment and it's something we've been limping along for a long time and it's like parts are falling off of it you know which is kind of embarrassing when Andy comes back and the back flap is missing you know and he's driving out with the pickup truck trying to find the pieces off the sweeper You know, I mean, it's it's led a good life. We bought it new. We ran that thing hard for thirty eight years. You know, now it's time to take it out back and shoot it. It it might behoove you though, Eric, to
to move this along as the sweeper, come up with a number for a used one. Yep. Sure. A lot of this type of equipment will turn over cheaper in the winter because nobody's using it. You know? And then in the spring, it's gonna get more expensive because then everybody's gotta pick up sand from the winter. So if you move this along, it may be a better situation where you have the money available and you could just find the right piece. You know?
Just a thought. I have I have two questions regarding the hot box. Technical questions. Sure. Number one, if you can find a used one without the little boom on it, don't don't doesn't one of our trucks have a lift gate on the back of it so we can move a move a heavy plate compactor around with the lift gate, can we? Yeah. But that you're gonna be towing it, so you'd be you'd have to disconnect the truck or run two trucks out whenever you're working. Oh, separate truck. Yeah, two trucks, two man crew anyways. We're gonna have two man crews, two trucks.
But this it's more practical to have it right there on the trailer setup and it's lower to the ground. It's just a better and they're not we're only talking like a thousand hour of like winch boom. A That's fine. That's Second
more important question. We've done a lot of good chip sealing. My concern, and I brought this up before, we're gonna see this winter and the spring a lot of locations that we did a nice chip seal. Now the road's totally sealed like it should be. But in many cases, we have a 90% good road, but we have real rutting, particularly in the right side wheel path where the road is dipped down. We've lost the profile for drainage. Now what we're going to see, in many locations, we're going have ponds of water that won't drain through the cracks in the pavement. They're just going to be sitting there and the plows can't take them out because it's a dip in the road.
We might want to consider upgrading the hot box concept to what we call also a skid box where we can in these very infrequent locations, we could skid a hot mix across to get to reestablish the cross sectional geometry before we chip seal. Right. You're basically Get hot
box for a little more money that's capable of skidding a leveling course. What about that idea,
Eric? You know, the the the problem is is that you're talking by the time you do that, you're talking a lot more. If you want to really fill, you know and the wheel ruts yeah it's more than a pocket wheel ruts you're you're talking about a lot more material than you're really gonna put in a standard you know, smaller scale hot box. Yeah. You know, you're really talking about getting some kind of drag box and using it behind the existing truck.
Yeah. Which many which many towns have, but so far you've talked about subbing that out, right?
Yeah, I mean so far we've so one of the one of the reasons why to me I'm not so concerned about that is just because when I really look at the cost for us to hire a paving crew when I'm shimming roads by far, the majority cost is the cost of asphalt.
You know? So I I think in some ways, you're better off subbing that whole thing right now. Eric, I I can barely hear you because somebody is not muted and there's a lot of background noise from a TV or a radio. Could everybody who's not talking mute so we don't hear that? Please. Thank you.
Okay so I guess you know and we had Adrian and I had talked a little bit about you know the possibility of buying an actual small paving box But you know again the limiting cost really is the cost of asphalt far more than the cost of labor. So I'm not sure it really gains us anything and in many ways I'd rather have a full blown paving crew that knows what the hell they're doing, you know, rather than our guys up just, you know, dragging, you know, and filling ruts.
Right. Well, definitely could do it that way. However, just there's a lot of infrequent locations and spot locations where if you're going to sub it out, you almost have to spend a lot of time going out and painting it and telling them where to go. Whereas, you know, our PW guys could find these and take care of them as they pop up. So there's advantages to either way. Certainly, Eric, you can solve the problem either way. Sure. Yeah, I mean,
your point is taken, Ed, except that our guys would locate them anyways. And our guys generally have to go out with the crew just to do traffic control as part of the contracts.
But my point is we do need to address those because, again, I think we're going to see quite a bit of problem this year on all the roads we chip sealed that we didn't do shim. And I know Eric, we talked about it, you and I, and you said you didn't have the,
you were short on funding. And I think that's going to turn around and bite us in the butt a little bit on that. Well, think I think what Eric and I also talked about though, like we said, we're at the idea of picking up a smaller box. A lot of guys don't like the little boxes. They want the biggest box they can get because they can do the big parking lots quicker. Yeah. So the little boxes come up fairly frequently, fairly inexpensively.
So Okay. I'll just start looking at those and tracking the pricing and and we may come back to to CIP with an ask for that. Right. And let's let's watch this spring. I think there's going to be very little specific locations around town where we're going to have puddling that's now is not draining. Because before it used to drain through the cracks and undermine and accelerate each year, but now it's not going to drain and we're going to have puddles. So let's keep an eye on that for the spring. That may be the justification at that point to pull the trigger on a small box. There you go. Okay. Thanks. We can move on. Yep. Yep.
Eric, can you please Eric? Yes. Are you either gonna post these documents or can you forward them to the committee? Absolutely not. These are top secret.
If I send them to you, I'd have to hunt you down and, you know,
I wouldn't wanna do that. You know where I live as do I use, so we could deal with that. Right,
yeah I can certainly send it out to the committee to be honest I finished this at about, I don't know seven so, that's why seeing the typos I appreciate that okay. Right. It's got a little polishing up to do before it's ready for prime time. But one of the things I've been tracking, is, you know, keeping a list of what equipment we have, what equipment, you know, should be on our list, what the effective lifespans of the equipment are, and what age our equipment is. You know, our goal is to basically have, if you look at the last column, which is age over lifespan, our average piece of equipment you know should be basically a half you know on average we should be halfway through the lifespan if we're doing a good replacement cycle. So what I've done is basically listed out the age over lifespan for all the pieces of equipment we've got. You can see that because we bought a new plow truck,
at the five year mark after plow truck number two, We're in much better shape with plow trucks than we were just a few years ago, but number three is already at fifteen years and we're going to end up running this thing to more like eighteen years as a primary truck. So, but after that rotation and we bought that piece of equipment, then we'll have everything, you know, in terms of plow trucks within that fifteen year time span. So, so that's good. You know, so that's pretty much everything. I took the, if you remember I produced this list last year, I took a couple pieces off that list because we junked them. I mean, still technically have a roller but it's so old, it hasn't run-in about six years, it doesn't vibrate, so there's not really any reason to hold it and we're going to get rid of that, pretty soon because it just to us doesn't really have any value. So that's kind of it from me unless you have questions.
I have a couple of comments if I could. Certainly. That's in regards to the we're talking about the the the new body for the international truck. Yes. That's old five, you said? Correct. Yeah. I I pay attention to what other towns around us, and I'm not saying, you know, do as they do or anything else, but the town of Lebanon, the town of Hebron, the town of Coventry, Bolton, they're buying the either aluminum or the stainless steel bodies on their new plow trucks. If you look at the the state, the which you could buy off the state bid list, they went from the internationals, which really do not last. I I was in international for probably thirty some odd years, different different models and makes and years, and they're they're a lousy truck as far as the cabin chassis go. So I'm Yeah. I'm looking at I'm looking at your list here to put a a new hard ox body, and I I
I try to pay attention when, we were looking at the the Peterbilt, the the newer Peterbilt that we have now with a hard ox body. That's still a that's a steel body. It is a steel body. Right. I know what it is. It's supposed to be the best of the best for steel bodies and things like that, but steel still rots a lot quicker than aluminum or stainless steel. The town I'll take the town of Vernon. I'm I'm I'm I'm close with the, one of the the head of the public works over there. And they order their they order their international, and now they're buying Freightliner trucks. But they they specifically request aluminum fuel tanks, aluminum air tanks, and the, either aluminum or stainless steel body on their Freightliner cabs and chassis. And, I just think that the our existing international truck, I I think it would be a waste of money to put a new body on that truck because I I would suspect that the cab and chassis are gonna just probably puke after you put that new body on a short time after. I would recommend that you weld the heck out of it to get as many more years you can and then replace the whole truck, because that they they just don't last. Last. They do not last.
So that truck is only going to be a primary plow truck until you know we're we're scheduled. So what I'm trying to do is get us on essentially a five year purchase cycle. So we buy one of the three every I five understand.
You know, the next one's scheduled to be about 2023. So we keep them spaced at five years. To do that, we're going to be sitting at eighteen years at that point. And then it goes into the rotation as the emergency spare. And what we basically said is we'll keep it as an emergency spare, you know, essentially until we blow it up or something expensive happens, you know, and then we junk them. Because it's not worth committing to an expensive repair, but it's awfully nice having a spare plow truck if you break something to be able to put somebody in. So is it is it worth spending the money on a on a on a new Everest body
on that old truck? That's my question or comment.
Right. I mean, the question is if you're really gonna go and try to push the thing because remember now we're still talking about pushing the thing another eight to nine years in our inventory. And can you weld it and keep the existing body functional for another eight to nine years?
Well, I mean, I think that the answer to that is we talk to the person that welds it and see what they say. Yeah. And with regards to going to steel or stainless steel or aluminum, we actually had a rep come in and talk to us about it. And one of the things that they pointed out is that a lot of places do like the aluminum and they like the stainless, but they're not quite as durable in the sense of whether they you're getting dented, if they get bumped around. And then the repairs to that are much more expensive because it's stainless, because it's aluminum, and certainly more complicated. Our guys don't even weld aluminum.
I I I understand that that that concept, Adrian. But what what do our what do our dump trucks do right now besides carry salt in the winter first for plowing and sanding or plowing and salting, should say. They're not. Yeah, they're construction vehicles, but they're not heavy construction vehicles.
No, but but if you put it Hence the reason for.
I can almost guarantee you that the aluminum is gonna last a lot longer than the than the than the steel. Just just look next door with with a firehouse. We bought our very first aluminum bodied fire truck in 1984.
Yeah. But, Kurt, your your apples and oranges, these these are very you guys are really nice to your equipment. You know, public works, the equipment takes a little bit more of a beating. You know, it's it's out every single day. It's it is getting stuff, you know, put in it. Hence the hence the truck part, Adrian. Yeah. Well, I mean, You're not you're not gonna sell me that the the steel body is better than aluminum or or stainless steel body. Well, there's a difference between what I like, I have aluminum on mine, and I I totally agree with you. I have aluminum on mine, but I am babying my truck. These guys are not. They're they're they're banging out their eight hour shifts. So if you go and look at the truck, you'll understand. It's not, you know,
go ahead with the lines. I look at them all the time. No, I meant our bodies, not not not like a regular. Not not a fire truck. So no, no, no. I'm talking about I'm talking about our dump trucks. Okay, so you know they're dented up.
Well, that's, you know, if, I hope they're not getting a bit like, oh, never mind. Won't I won't say what I was thinking. Yeah. Just just just thoughts that I have as far as, putting a brand new Everest body on a on a truck that's 2,005 that is an international, which do not last long. Yeah.
And we have gotten away from buying internationals. That's the only one we've bought, and that has been less reliable certainly than the Peterbilts. Cheaper
The ETR. Correct. That's all. Just the just the just the thought I had.
Yeah. I mean, I I agree with you in that. I think if we can get it evaluated and we can get it welded and we can keep it together structurally, I'm fine with pushing it. You know, I'm just concerned that, you know, we end up going a little too far and being a little too cheap. Since we do, we are going to end up keeping the thing. Because the other one, our emergency spare, our fourth one is I think already, yeah, our fourth truck is twenty three years old now. Just the Sterling. We're gonna be running that one as our emergency spare if it doesn't blow up for at least another three years. So You're talking about the Sterling?
I don't think it's a Sterling. I think it's a Ford. That's a Sterling. Yeah. Okay.
That's it for me unless you got questions. More details to follow.
Fred, you're muted. Yeah. Yeah. I just unmuted. So that's it for that. Then we have, item e, Kurt with something about Veterans Memorial Park.
Yeah, and I'll direct this question to Eric. Is that slated to get irrigation like like the, soccer fields? Not at the moment.
No? I thought I thought it was on the on the radar to, to put in some type of irrigation down there. As as part of our rework a rework plan. Yes. Yes. That's that's that's my point. And I just I'd like to read this just make a recommendation that when you do, you either replace all of the the grass or turf down there with, either a whole new whole new lawn like we did at the ball field or consider putting in some turf, when they do the irrigation. I was attended the veterans, the, you know, with you, the vet the veterans Sure. Remembrance day, and and that I helped I helped build that that area with Bruce Goulet back in the back in the day when we, put that all together originally. And I'll tell you that the the grounds are terrible. Absolutely terrible. Doesn't look like there's been any any, fertilizer or, extra grass growing or anything down there, for forever. That's just a just a recommendation that when
when they do do the work down there that you consider putting in some some new, some new great the type of new grass. Kurt, that's why I got put on hold is because there was talk about putting irrigation down there. And I pointed out that if you're gonna if you're gonna end up reworking all the turf and putting material down there and regressing it, you'd wanna do the irrigation as part of that, not Correct. Not before and then ruin it all when you do the stuff. So Right. Correct. We put the irrigation on hold, but we're still trying to figure out to what extent what it's actually gonna take to fix that whole project down there. And, you know, so we're we're still trying to kinda sort that out as to whether it's better to The idea was to bring in material initially, but in order to do that, we've been told that we may actually have to take it down a couple of inches to have room to put material in otherwise we're just gonna be too high. Correct. So there's still there's some some a little bit of work to to sort that out still. Right. I just just wanted to get you know get in on it before before anything major is done there. Yeah. There will definitely be conversation publicly before anything's done down there But because it's gonna be probably a bigger project rather than a smaller one. Correct. Okay. Eric Eric, could you take us off of of screen share, my dear? No. Please?
Nope. Get over it. Okay. I'm over it. Can you do it anyway? Thank you. So so is that all we had for that? Just bringing that up? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Kurt. So that takes us to our comment. Do we have Pamela John? Who who are you? You've been is somebody there? That's Pamela John. Pamela John. Yeah. I don't I don't know who that is. Who is that? Nobody knows me. Ah, the stranger. Hello, Pamela. Hello, everyone.
I am just working in my office I, will probably drop in on many meetings and just sit in I'm loving hearing all of you and all of your input and all of the hard work that you do for our town and just moving here I give you guys so much credit and that's all I have to say thank you thank you welcome come to any of our meetings yeah Join the join the committee. I knew you were gonna say that. Yep.
Okay. So well, thanks again for coming to coming to our meeting. Any any public comment other than that? I move to adjourn the meeting. Seconded.
Shannon not for nothing. It's great to see you on point. It's you're going at it. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. See me last night, buddy. Who seconded that adjournment? I did.
Adrian. Adrian, because he wants to leave too. I'm eating dinner. That's why the screen's off. Well, we're go we're going to the gym. So
Okay. Well, thanks, everybody. But you shouldn't do that. It's bad for you. Yeah. That's why we're doing it.
Then we're gonna come to your house and spread the germs we get there. Hey, now. Hey, now. I know where he lives. Have a good Thanks
everybody for coming out. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Don't spread any germs. Yep. You too. Bye bye. Thanksgiving. Adios. Bye. Eric, answer my email. You just emailed me?
No, P somebody did from some committee somebody I I, sought out and I picked on it was about it was about a project you'll see the email she, she just forwarded it to you
okay I don't have it. She just just forwarded it to me? No. It was a while ago. What's her last name?
I think it was P. Lewis, Peggy Lewis or something like that. Does that ring a bell? No. Okay, I'm going into my Google emails.
But I have to say on a bad day I get a 100 emails so unfortunately I drop a lot more stuff than I wish I should. I
I am not judging you on that one I'm in two open enrollment periods for Medicare and everybody else that's why that's why I didn't put myself up there tonight
Sure. I don't see any I just did a quick search on my email server for a Peggy or a Lewis and I don't see it. So unless what's her do you know what her email address is? I just brought it up. It's P King.
Paula king. Oh okay sure. I just said to save you time, sorry to pick on you but the but you had the easiest name to ask my question. Sure. And there's rehab program with government funds to rehab, historic residents.
Yeah, okay, now I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, so I knew you would. Sure, so Paula, you know emailed me regarding that and what I said was I need the information on the program because it's not really something I know anything about so do you have links on you know what the program is who it's funded through that kind of stuff? I actually do
I have well I was talking back and forth by voicemail to Mansfield Town and then the Mansfield Town is, where it started where I heard it from. Sure. And she's very well versed in the whole program but I think you had to attend meetings to get the money for your town is kind of the way I'm hearing it. Yeah, very possibly.
If they have anything left over, who's to say you can't maybe jump on board because I'm doing 25 And 27 Hebron Road. I would love to make them pristine but they're costing me a big fortune here.
Yeah, historic structures are a labor of love that's for sure. It is
buckets and buckets of dirt out of the basement that's where I started because I knew nobody would go down there and service anything if I didn't. Sure,
sure. So what do you know what the name of the program is or do you have a contact? Who do I talk to?
Let me see. It isn't a while ago. It was last week, I think. It is I just had I just saved it to Mansfield Town it's (860) 429-3341
hold on 860429 what was the last part 3341 and do you know have the contact person's name I'm gonna listen to the voicemail if I can find it. Okay.
Because she gave I think it was Mary something but I get a 100 calls a day. Know and 400 emails. It's not easy being us is it?
No I think most people these days are in that mode you know. I think a lot of people are. One day at a time. Yep.
Pamela, it's Jolene calling you back from the Mansfield on the housing rehab program. I am not aware if Andover has a program or not. Would suggest you give their town clerk a call and inquire. I've never met anyone from Andover at any of the trainings or anything that we have to attend. But I do think it's it's just worth a phone call to see if they have this program. If you have any other questions (860) 429-3341 is my direct line. Thank you. Okay.
Well, is a blast from the past. Jolene was when I was first, chairman of the planning and zoning commission in town many years ago, Jolene was the, she was the recording secretary for the meetings and she was fantastic. And then Mansfield hired her away from us by paying her owe about five times what we're we had in the budget and, she went to work for Mansfield great woman
really a class act okay I know who to It talk really nice of her to get back to me with just just what she had
Yeah yeah no I'll reach out to her and see whether I can get details on the program because honestly it's you know it's like it's kind of crazy but you know if you know about something you can also often like like get in on the deal and you know we've gotten money from a batch of different sources just because somebody said hey you should apply for this I'm like what are you talking about and they're like here it is and knowledge is power yep exactly
the more people as you got out there the more money's coming in and then you can get your street sweeper Yeah, that's gonna be inexpensive but necessary. Yeah. Okay.
Will Can you sell the steel from the old one? Yeah, actually kind of buffer the cost?
Yeah. Except you don't I mean, the wholesale price of steel isn't that high. We do take all our scrap steel down to John's steel yard. And usually what we do is we run a credit there because we, you know we buy steel for repairing stuff there also so you know we keep a certain credit and then when we have excess material we plow that back into the town general fund. I like that. But it's it's never a you know it's It's not what you think it is.
No I mean you know we've bought brought trailer loads of steel down there and you know I think the last check they gave us was for like $500 it's almost not worth the hauling but, but on the other hand, you know they they'll do like a one for one poundage swap with you so if you find stuff down there that you need, like a couple of years ago, we got a whole bunch of, storm grain steel covers that somebody had ordered the wrong size, and they had like 12 brand new ones sitting there. And we got them for the bulk price of steel which was, you know, way cheaper because they're normally like $180 a pop. So, you know, every once in a while it can work out for you but the cost of steel is, you know, is not that high but still worth getting what you can you know. Right well these these guys,
I have a client in Mansfield Center on Center Street and he
had he told me about it and he said they come and if you have lead paint they scrape it all the way down, they vacuum up any remnants so you don't have that, you know in old historic homes or historic buildings you have that white peeling paint that's laying on the ground all the time? Yeah, absolutely. It's it is you keep covering it with mulch or you pick it out of the mulch when it rises to the top after a week. Sure. You know, it's just so they take care of all that and this they hire certain companies that have gone through all the regs I guess. Sure. Right and it's free. Yeah.
They all need the money to do it, they hire the people to do it, they log it with a historic registry or whatever and, you pay them back at zero interest when you sell the property or if you die. Sure, okay. It's a beautiful program.
Yeah, that sounds like a great deal. And his house looks pristine.
That doesn't his house is white and pristine. It's, probably