School Building Facilities and Maintenance Special Committee

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the School Buildings, Facilities, and Maintenance Joint Committee meeting with the Somerville School Committee. I'm Jesse Clingan, the chair of this committee, and before I... Take attendance and dive into our business. I'm going to read this blurb that allows us to hold this meeting remote. So pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local Cable Access, Government Channels. That said, we have our clerk. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?

Yep, there's a roll call. Councilor Davis.

Here.

Sait. Here. Chair Clingan.

Present.

All right with that everyone's here so we do have quorum.

All right so now that we've established quorum before we get into our Agenda. I will turn it over to the school committee to open up their meeting. Chair Patan, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. This is Leron Betone for School Committee calling our meeting to order of the School Building Facilities and Maintenance Subcommittee. Sarah Phillips, Laura Patone, She just texted me saying she would be here in a moment. So we have quorum and I look forward to seeing Laura in just a moment. So we have quorum and Chair Clingan will turn it back to you. All right, excellent.

This is our last meeting of the 2025 session, calendar year. I don't know if I'll be chairing the next year, but I've had fun for the last couple months chairing. That said, so I believe these items, regardless of what happens, the box will be cleared out and we'll resubmit some of these more standing items like... Item number two. I'm going to go ahead and start with item number one, approval of the minutes of the School Buildings Facilities Maintenance Special Committee of October 28th.

Davis, and Councilor Sait. Yes. Chair Clingan?

Yes.

All right. That is all votes in the affirmative.

All right. So just going in order of our agenda here, item number two. which is a long-standing item that we keep in committee by Councilor Davis and basically everybody that the administration provides a special committee on school building facilities and maintenance with regular updates about the Massachusetts School Building Authority Process for the Winter Hill and Brown Schools. We have Rich Rage. I don't know how substantial of an update there is right now, but we have Liaison Radice. Go ahead, liaison.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Yasmin Erdasi, legislative liaison with IGA. You are right. No substantive update on this. Just want to share that the mayor and the mayor-elect are... in touch on this, where they're committed to making sure that this is as smooth a transition as possible and that they are waiting for the recommendations from the school construction advisory group. And I believe that Director Raish has an update from the last school building committee to share as well.

The School Building Committee is now in a cadence. We're meeting monthly. This past month's meeting focused on the educational plan. Our consultant architect Perkins Eastman is leading a number of workshops with the SPS administration to develop the educational plan. and we have committed that once that plan is developed with the administration that we'll bring it to the school committee as the school committee did for the high school vote to accept that so we're we're tracking for that meeting the work on that educational program will be through these early months of the of the Winter, probably come to the school committee in February or March.

Thank you for that, Director. Rish, yeah, I recommend just so, you know, The director can't regurgitate everything that happened in the MSBA committee meeting, but those meetings are recorded. And so the firm that we have hired to guide us through the process has a pretty aggressive time schedule that includes some community engagement that's coming up. A couple of opportunities for community engagement. I just recommend you all, anybody who wants to see their presentation and kind of what they've been up to thus far in this short amount of time, those meetings are posted. on the City of Somerville website. The last one was last Monday, I believe. So that would be the first. Yeah, it was on 12-1. So yeah, check those out. And things are moving. Things are moving. So thank you, Director Reich.

So that one will be one that we want to resubmit. So Councilor Davis, you can do that. Well, again, I don't know if I'll even be on this committee. All right, let's go right to item number three. That's an order from former Councilor Pineda-Neufeld that the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management develop a swing space plan to accommodate several public school students to mitigate disruptions to students, families, and staff. while school building is unavailable or during construction. We did discuss this previously and there is a plan, there is a location. There is an idea of what we can do, but furthermore, there is a memo attached to the agenda, kind of outlining... I'm sorry, Clark, I'll get with you in one second. The COOP plan, Continuity of Operations plan.

There's a great memo attached to the agenda by Director of Office of Emergency Management, William Fisher, who's here. and this is just laying out a timeline so as far as being executable, there's still some legwork that needs to be done. I'll let him speak to that. Madam Clerk, I'm sorry, I see your hand up.

No worries. Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt. So we want to mark that last agenda item as work complete or leave it in the committee.

Lance, can you just clarify? Because I've been confused in the past. I know that we were doing this practice of just clearing out the boxes, but then we weren't always doing it strictly. Sometimes things were kept in. Where are we with that?

Mr. Chair, happy to speak to that. So the... As you'll recall, the practice years back was to just at the last meeting or at the first meeting to renew all items that had been a committee that is no longer in favor. So my understanding is that any items that were set to committees for action, you know, to recommend approval or recommend to not be approved or et cetera, will remain a committee. Discussion items like the bulk, if not all of the ones in our committee here would automatically expire and then can be recommitted. As to the clerk's question, it's a matter of choice, a matter of preference of the chair and the members of the committee. My personal thought and I'll acknowledge this you know this speaks as much to my sort of you know executive functioning tricks and techniques as anything else is that if we mark things weren't complete they then no longer in the box and to the extent that

Any of us or any of our new colleagues who may or may not be on a certain committee in next year. might want to go take a look at the box and see if there's items that are important to them to resubmit. Those would no longer be there. So, you know, my preference is sort of Let them expire because then they remain sitting there for as long as someone wants to take a peek at what it is that is expiring, right? and literally for no other reason than that other than so that they're still visible for folks to see what's there and decide whether or not they want to resubmit something. But they certainly could be marked where complete. I don't, that's not my preference. I feel like we risk losing items, you know, just from memory if that's the case.

Yeah, no, I agree. We're going to leave this one open. Obviously, it's going to get resubmitted, whether or not it expires or not.

Not that we're going to forget about this particular item, for sure, but just as a general practice. There are others that are not quite as prominent. Thank you.

Okay, no, I get it. Yeah, so number two, keeping committee, please.

Perfect, thank you.

And then moving on to number three, which I already read, we do have Like I said, there is a memo attached to the agenda, and we do have Director Fischer here to speak on the item.

Thank you, Chair, and through the Chair, again, Director Fischer from the Office of Emergency Management, Somerville. The memo outlines a lot of the details. I will say that this process started in October. We started meeting with the school administration as well as city administration to establish a framework. From there, in the last month and a half or so, we've been working to establish understanding of what the issues may be or the risks may be. also trying to understand clearly what the critical resources are whether that be personnel, physical resources and to make sure that Any space that's chosen in any plan actually reflects the educational expectations that we have for our schools and those are continued and so that we're hitting all those benchmarks. Moving forward.

So with that, we're continuing... Mr. Director, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt for a minute just for a point of, call it a point of information or a request? Could I just ask, I have this... Thank you for watching. Participate if folks are watching from home. Thank you. So I apologize for the interruption, Mr. Director.

Thank you, Councilor Davis. It was very small. My eyes are not great anymore either. So as I was saying, so we have a bunch of things going on. We've actually at this point, we have a cadence where we're meeting weekly. to discuss the different topics to keep this moving forward and the process is basically again that we're understanding those Those risks and the critical resources and then we'll be shortly moving into looking at alternative facilities and continuity. and many more. formalizing a completed final plan that we can put into action from that point. Without any other details, the other details are kind of outlined in the memo. I won't read through those in specifics, but just know that the process is well underway.

and some of the you know you may note that there's actually a skip from October to December in the memo and in the timeline that is just because you know there's a lot of stuff to consider we want to make sure we're not missing anything and we Thank you. But director.

In October, we were told, and I don't see a reference here, I would think that the plan was speaking to the location we were given, which would be that all city staff would be immediately moved out of the TAB and we would most likely use the TAB. Is this framework... Related to the TAB building?

That's correct. So where we are right now, without getting into the details, because again, some of this stuff is still being worked out. The plan would be have we'd have the initial situation that would be assessed for the disruption of the school. If we decided that we needed to move, the initial thought would be to move into the tab and ensure that the tab has the resources to to meet the needs in a temporary basis. So it would be, you know, the incident would happen that would have a very temporary basis while we find a more permanent solution in a different facility. Or if the tab met it and it worked out fine, but that's not the... where we're going with this is to have a phased approach.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Okay. Any questions from colleagues on the comp side on this particular item? All right, let's see anybody. Chair Vuitton, take it away.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. For those watching, I just want to note that the timeline, including in this memo, concludes in March 2026. So, Director Fischer, if I may. Ask you, what do you think being a risk mitigation person? What do you think the risk of slippage in time is on meeting that requirement? Fairly Aggressive Deadline.

So it's, you know, it's difficult to say for sure because I don't know what's coming down the timeline, but I will say if you note on the timeline that a large portion at the tail end of this timeline is to actually Vett, the drafted plan to do an exercise and have an opportunity to do an after action review so that the final plan is the best plan we could have. So Looking at this, the draft plan should be, and if there was a slight delay, it should be done around the end of January. If there's a slight delay, it could be towards February. But my point is that at that point, we would have a draft plan that we could execute if we needed to. It just wouldn't be fine tuned to a perfect plan we want to have in place. And so we could have an actual plan based on this more comprehensive review and plan development for continuity in that timeframe. Although having said that, as the chair said, we have a very rough draft of an initial plan that we could execute right now if we needed to.

All right. I appreciate that. Thank you. Any questions from my colleagues? All right. Not seeing any. I'll turn it back over to you. And thank you, Director Fisher.

Thank you. Thank you, Director. I think this just, like you said, whether or not it's perfect at this point, I think this just quells a lot of the anxiety that folks have that somebody is working on a potential plan in the event that we, you know, had an emergency school situation because we're no stranger to those. And, you know, it's good to have something in place. And this is a nice memo. I appreciate it. And I'm going to probably... Madam Clerk, I'm going to keep this one also in committee just because this is kind of an ongoing, so I'll probably have to reintroduce that one. Got it. And that'll bring us... Moving on to item number four.

Also from Councilor Payne and Neufeld that the Mayor create and make public specific plans that outline the full scope of work necessary at the coming school including capacity, time, and cost to host Somerville public school students in the event of an emergency and provide regular updates to this council until such plans are completed. We also, we do have a memo from Director Raish who's here to speak this evening. I don't know if I looked over the memo and a lot of it so it sounds like we're doing improvements now based on the fact that we're using it as a warming center but these will be improvements that are working towards ultimately potentially having a school functional operational school building in the long term maybe I don't know Director Raish go ahead and

Thank you, Chair Clean. Yes, so the memo here, this is still work in progress. The memo here outlines the work that we were doing, you know, specifically for, to occupy for the warming center, but it is also useful work. in terms of occupying the Prescott Street wing of the building. In addition to that, we have just finished Scope and Fee Negotiations with Bayer Blinder Bell, who is the architecture firm that did the work at the Edgerly and at City Hall, Roof and Clock Tower, excellent firm. So we just signed a contract amendment with them to do additional investigative work in the Cummings and specifically in the School Street wing there to give us the list of additional Upgrades that would need to be done to the building to occupy it. So that contract was only just signed.

As you probably heard me before, it takes a long time to get. Those contracts in place so that the work is underway. Director Ralph Henry from Capital Projects is also here. He can speak to specifics on the work that's just been done, again, for the warming center. and also what's planned for Bayer, Blunder, Bell. But, you know, again, that's just that's kicking off. I imagine it's going to be subject to a future meeting. So we probably don't need to go too far down the details on that part.

Yeah, just on that though, Director Raish, to either you or Mr. Henry, the contract that we just signed, I'm sorry, just for clarity purposes, they're going to evaluate the building on what it would take you know both you know scope work-wise as well as financially to

Get this to be a school building again? Correct. There's a number of deficiencies in the building from ADA to electric and plumbing code. There's also some structural deficiencies. So they're looking at it through all of those lenses and giving us... A conceptual scope of work for what would need to be done and planning level cost estimates. for that. And we do anticipate that that number is going to be fairly high. Just from walking around the building, we know there's quite a lot of work that would need to be done in there. So they're working on that.

I'm just curious about one thing. I don't see any hands from my colleagues yet, but so in terms of like the MSBA process and the feasibility and all that, like, How does this does this dip into that process at all in terms of like we have this other school building and if we're like with this work could this work that this firm is doing be sort of folded into our

Logger process? To the chair, unlikely. I mean, the first thing we need to do is assess the building. So once we assess the building and have an idea of those costs and what that scope of work is, we can make other strategic plans. But I wouldn't complicate the current MSBA process by trying to inject this because it would be of very little benefit to us.

I wouldn't want to complicate either. I just was thinking that in their mind, in MSBA's mind, we have what is officially a school building under the control of the school department. that is unused right now. So I didn't know if that was like a red flag for them or something. Not from our side, certainly. Not particularly. Any questions from colleagues on this? This is a work in progress. probably will work complete this one and then put something in in the future.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you. Yeah, I guess, thank you, Mr. Chair. So it's just sort of thinking, thank you for that question, sort of thinking about that. And this is something that I've been sort of kicking around a bunch. in the last few weeks as well as we think about the Winter Hill School project. You know, so there's I mean, I guess at least three school buildings, one that are under the control of the school department that aren't active schools. One of those, of course, being the Edgeley School, which is very much is active and very much is the Winter Hill School right now. and obviously the other being the 1895 building which I don't think anyone reasonably anticipates being used for a school building ever again. At least I don't. you know but the the you know the coming school certainly is is a you know different category and I guess to your question um

And I don't know if this is a question more or more sort of thinking out loud, like, you know, given the improvements that we're doing to use it as a warming center and as Director Raich noted, you know, getting a handle on what else would be needed to make it a possible swing space. I guess your question about whether the MSPA process whether that might be a relevant point I think you know Thank you for joining us. As we look at what is the future of the building that contains the Brown School right now, that certainly could be a relevant factor in a future reconstruction or even moving to a new location, particularly.

Potentially for, you know, for a replacement for the Brown School if that project, if that concept remains separate. So I think this is actually great. It's important work and, you know, Seems like it'll open up, you know, a number of other opportunities going forward in, you know, a few years down the road when we get to that point. So, yeah, couldn't come up with a question there, but just thinking out loud. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Well, I just got one quick question, which is that through you, I'm sorry, to you, Director Raish, is like these improvements that we have done or are doing, like they don't hit any trigger for like, Yeah, through the chair.

The work that we've been doing is largely code compliant work and ADA work, which doesn't like self-trigger other things. Even if it doesn't make the Prescott wing viable for educational purposes, It may very well make that wing viable for other functions that would then free up space at, say, the tab. It can be looked at in that sort of overall portfolio. If not directly for student education, it gives us additional space to shift things around.

Yeah, I mean, God forbid we need that West Wing for people from the tab because the kids have to go into the tab. But yeah, that's good work. You want to add anything, Mr. Henry, before we turn it over to the school committee? I don't see any other hands from colleagues.

No, I think Rich pretty much hit that on the head. Most of the work that we're doing right now is really just to bring the code-compliant issues, fire alarm system, for example, restrooms. to be compliant in some additional heating capacity in those rooms, which would obviously be needed for the warming center.

Great. All right, Chair Paton, I don't know who was up first on your order, but I see both of your colleagues with their hands up.

Yeah, thanks, Chair Clingan. I saw Ms. Paton first, so we'll go to her.

Thank you. Can you hear me? Yep.

It's loud and clear.

Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for this. I just have, there's one short question and then one, it's not a long question, but is Bayer Blender the group that worked on the master planning like five or six years ago?

To the chair, yes.

So they've done, just for context for the committee, they've actually done some analysis on this building because it was part of the original master planning work. Obviously, this is going to be in more detail and the building...

Through the Chair, Bayer-Blinderbill did not investigate the Cummings building, but they are familiar with all of the other buildings and are functioning.

Okay, was there a different organization that looked at the Cummings or it just didn't get looked at in that way?

The Cummings was not looked at.

Oh, okay. Thank you for that reminder. And then I'm just going to ask my other... question, which is, I think I want to make sure I understand in terms of the process for this building in general. You know, we know we have multiple potential uses. One of them is to for administration purposes. But I want to make sure I understand. I think this work of assessing and evaluating the building has to be done either way to make a decision about how to disposition the building, correct?

Correct.

Okay, so good. So this is the foundation work that we have to do either way so that we can make choices that are thoughtful and the school committee can choose whether or not to maintain the building under the... Can you hear me? You can hear me. Whether or not to maintain the building. Okay, good. Sorry. Whether or not we're going to keep them building as a school in our portfolio, whether or not we're going to release the building and it goes to the city. But this is the foundation work that has to happen. in order to make those choices. So, that's correct?

Through the chair, that is correct.

Excellent. Thank you, Ms. Patone. Yeah, I think she's traveling right now and I appreciate her. Making this a priority so she can participate regardless, we'll go to Dr. Phillips.

Thanks for you, Chair. Just wanted to clarify, right, like, The potential uses that the district is aligning around, and I don't know if Ms. Berry is here. Oh, you are. You can tell me if I'm wrong, right? The potential uses are adult office space. Places for scale, places for all our basic needs stuff, potential swing space if we have to do renovations on a school. Am I missing any of the purposes that the district is considering at this point?

No, I don't believe so.

Thank you. I'll ask a question, maybe in the memo, and apologies if it is, but I'm wondering, now that the contract is signed, I'm going to call it BBB. When do we anticipate that work in evaluation being completed?

Ralph, do you have a timetable from them yet? I know we're kicking it off real soon.

Yeah, we're kicking it off very soon. I would say probably... To be conservative, it'd probably be about two to three months for them to gather everything. I apologize, I should say, through the chair. It'll probably take about three months for them to pull everything together. Again, they bring in building envelope specialists, MEP specialists, ADA specialists. Looking at any additional access for the building including elevators, things of that nature. So they bring a whole gamut including energy, stretch code, food service. So they look at all the different angles through that review.

Okay, and just to follow up there, after that evaluation, presumably they issue some sort of report and give that to the city. Is that, I mean, so it's sounding like... A few months is the kind of projected timeline. Are you thinking that's when we should expect a report or is that longer out?

Through the chair, that's a good question. Typically, the way the process works is they'll put together some draft language for us to look at. One of the more difficult pieces that has to come together is the Thank you for watching. See you next time. Escalation of Costs, things of that nature, and the whole gamut of what it might be. And, you know, Rich and I would look at it and discuss whether or not there are some elements that we might want to look at differently depending on what they proposed. But I would say probably three months and then having some draft reports and then eventually packaged together with a construction cost estimate.

Okay. In which case, that might be... Another month or so and building in some back and forth, seeing a thumbs up for Mr. Raish. That's reasonable. So my suggestion then would be for us to keep this in the back of our minds for... for the, I don't know, May timeline when that work may be complete. And there may have been some time to synthesize that at the city side and have an informed discussion here with the joint committee. So, great. That sounds... Excellent to me, and I appreciate the hard work that has gone into securing the bid and the commitment to moving this forward. So nothing more for me. We'll turn it back over to you, Chair Clingan.

Thank you. Yeah, you know, since we're looking at, you know, May, probably like five months before that report's ready for primetime and for these guys to come back and present that report, I'm just going to work complete this one. Madam Clerk. Get that out of the box. Anybody else have anything on that? Okay, moving on. to item number five from Councilor Sait that the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management and the Director of Office of Sustainability Environment provide a written report to this Council by July 1st regarding any updates on measures and practices taken to assess, monitor, maintain, improve helpfulness of the school's physical environment. I know

Do you want to give some background, some context to it, Councilor Sait? I was going to say, I know that Liaison Radisi, Radasi, sorry, is here to just say that, like, They're not quite ready, but it would be helpful just to hear sort of what your thinking was with this order in terms of the scope. You know, it seems like it's pretty wide in that it could include like, you know, I don't know, filtration systems or something. Just reading it on face value, I found it somewhat daunting, but certainly important. So go ahead and take it away, Councilor Sait.

Through the chair, thank you for that introduction. So this is, as you all know, back in 2024, We as a city council and school committee passed a resolution on actions to promote student and community health and resilience in the era of climate change. and in the resolution outline steps. that we can all obviously you know we don't need to stick to what's in the resolution but the hope was to work together so that we can um um achieve decarbonization of the school buildings and in the resolution it says that starting the 2024-2025 school year

Both bodies will receive an update on this work by July 1st. I put in this order back in May or June. So that's why it's appearing on today's agenda and I intend to put in, I will, yeah, so it doesn't matter if this one expires, I will remember to submit a new order. and I have been offline reaching out to the administration, to Director Blaze on this and Also to Director Rage and it will be great to have this written report. Again, this resolution was passed unanimously by both bodies and I understand that we have obviously, you know, thanks. Right now that are more of a priority such as the Winterhill

But again, I would like this to not be just forgotten because it's important to look at the full picture. We just discussed an item about if another school goes down, what is the plan? And this is how I think about this resolution is in the event that, you know, school doesn't have heating, school doesn't have AC, school, you know, just... I don't know, ceiling collapses. What's our plan? What's our plan in the next few years? And what's our plan in 10 years? Yeah, so I haven't seen any... Communication from the administration on this. I would love to hear about this and if we have any update.

Yeah, thank you for refreshing my memory of that resolution that we passed. That definitely clarifies things. I'll go back and read the specifics in the resolution, but certainly I understand the spirit of this order now. Before I turn over to the school committee, I just wanted to double check with Liaisoner Dassey that if you have a statement to make, if that helps clarify things or...

Through the chair, thank you. Yes, we are aware of this. It was actually a provision of the SEU contract collective bargaining agreement. And so as it's laid out in that collective bargaining agreement, The next step would be for the school committee through presumably SPS legal to reach out to the city's attorney's office so they can figure out, I believe it's an MOU to set the standards for what That's very helpful and makes sense.

Thank you. Any questions on the...

I do have a question.

Go for it.

Thank you, Chair. So when do we expect to have an update on this since we haven't received an update since July 1st of this year?

Through the chair, like I mentioned in the collective bargaining agreement, it lays out the steps. And so school committee through SPS legal, again, I'm not exactly sure of the mechanics, but would need to work on that MOU with the city legal law department. and I have flagged this for SPS administration as waiting on that next step so again haven't forgotten about it we've communicated to SPS that that from our understanding is the next step so looking forward to hearing from them at in the future.

I was just going to say, thank you. But yeah, it sounds like this conversation has to happen. And actually, I have not looked at the latest contract, this year's contract, and what is the exact language there. So we would love to hear from our school committee members or students. The school staff here. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I see someone from the school committee has their hand up, so I'm sure School Committee Paton has their hand up. Something to say on it. But I will say that, yeah, definitely. I remember this was something that the council was sort of in support of, but it's definitely sort of on the school side of things in terms of the, you know, What the parameters of what exactly the healthiness of the environment means. And so I look forward to that being sort of spelled out and happy to support, happy to continue supporting SCU and our students. Your hand's still up, Councilor Sait. Did you have something else? I'm happy to... No? Okay. Yeah, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to the school committee, Chair Patel.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. And I just want to thank Councilor Sait for spearheading that resolution on the City Council side. I was very pleased to work with her on that and advocates because we did pass our own version of that was nearly identical to the city council side and I think it sent a powerful message. Statement that both bodies are committed to that important work, as is the SEU. So really pleased to be working in partnership. I see Ms. Patone has her hand up, so I will go to you, Ms. Patone.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes, and an announcement behind you.

Yes, the cafe car is now open, so in case you wanted a microwave cheeseburger, you're all set. I had a side comment. So, yes, I very much appreciate what Councilor Sait has brought up and We as the school committee, probably through you, Mr. Batone, but you can decide, should follow up with the superintendent about... executing the work to create the MOU but I would you could talk to them offline but also I think we should bring it up in our next school coding meeting as an item from boards members but I give them a flag so thank you for that and and we can get that ball rolling I mean I don't know what the timeline is going to be we're going to have to hear back from the district but um so thank you for that Clarification. The thing I had to ask about was, and I apologize if this doesn't fit in this item, but I'm just going to put it out there and we can decide that it's not relevant, but

Associated with the sort of maintaining improved school buildings, one thing that I've been kind of getting my head around is the MSBA has Re-initiated their accelerated repair program which is also called the ARP program and that's focused on roofs, windows, and doors as well as they have a heat pump program which could be directly interesting in the context of the climate work that through the contract with the SCU. And just for context, they awarded and this year and every two years they're going to do awards and so we as a school committee can submit for whichever school buildings we feel like need to have a roof repair or if there's interested in the idea of doing a heat pump conversion on it and I don't know if that's viable at all for us but so I just wanted to put that out there and I don't know if

Commissioner Raish is still on the call. And just to put also one more piece of context is that There are schools that are in the MSBA building program that are also in the accelerated repair program. So it's not unprecedented that a district gets awarded both. So currently Medford High School is building a high school and then they've also had two other buildings that were accepted into, I think, One is just the roof and one might be a roof and heat pump but please don't quote me on that. I've tried to actually research and find the exact information but This is something I learned through a school committee in Medford. So you might not be prepared to speak about this. Obviously, the school committee has the authority to put in an application but obviously we would love to do that in partner with the city and figure out because we do it in partnership so we basically the school committee can authorize it but we can't do it alone we have to do it the city and so thinking about the timing and whether or not

The district is going to be and the city is going to be positioned to want to start working on an application in the fall of 26 to put in their application early in 27.

To the chair, we wouldn't be able to physically do the heat pump on the program until we have swing space. because the work that would need to be done in the classrooms would be longer than our eight-week summer window we would have to displace. It's something that we will be very interested to do once the new school opens, especially if we have the additional capacity there plus edgerly to start rotating some classrooms and do that. So I think that's something we can think about further down the line. We are tracking... Some roof projects for the Healy and for the JFK that I think it would be a good idea to start thinking about the accelerator repair program for those roofs. as we're lining up that work.

So let's strategize in the new year on the school committee's assistance on that program.

All right. I am incredibly grateful to Ms. Patone for bringing that to our attention and to Mr. Raich for offering his partnership in the city's continuance of looking at those projects. So I guess we'll all stay tuned on that. All right, not seeing any further questions on our side. Councilor Clingan, I will turn it back to you.

Thank you, Chair Berton. And Director Raish, did you just say what schools were needed? I know, because the Healy School needs a roof, right?

Yeah, so the West Healy and the Kennedy School are all in the queue. The West is further along in terms of design, and we don't want to wait on it. So I think we would proceed with that project without MSBA assistance, but we could queue up either or both of the Healy and the Kennedy in the MSBA accelerated repair program. Awesome.

All right. Anything else on this item? I don't see any hands. So I'm going to work complete this one, and then... You're going to give them to July 1st, this time for real July 1st, or somebody's going to be in trouble. You're lucky she didn't put 2025 on there. Oh, turning it back over to the school committee. I see Dr. Phillips has her hand up. Thank you, Dr. Phillips. Go ahead.

Thanks to you, Chair. Just wanted to flag for Councilor Sait, you probably know this, but the Most up-to-date contract with the SCU is online so you could pull right from there for your order.

Yes, thank you.

Don't constantly say it's okay to work complete this one. You're going to

Yes, I will put in a new order and this time I will do it in February. We'll have a report in July. Thanks everyone. I really appreciate it. our colleagues on the school committee and our partnership on this and by the way yeah that definitely did a lot of

Ms. Paton, I definitely did follow within this. I mean, this whole committee was started out of COVID and all of the failing, the systems and the issues that we found, but the ventilation systems is why we ended up with this committee to start with. Definitely fell within that order there. All right, item number six. This one, so I'll read it into the record. ID number 251455 from Councilor Strezo, Davis, Wilson, Sait. The Director of Health and Human Services informed this Council on which buildings have menstrual products available. and which school buildings have inoperable natural product dispensers and when they are scheduled to be replaced. We did discuss this one last time and I'm not sure how it stayed on the...

In the box, we were told there was a memo and we were told that none of them were inoperable as far as the school department, as far as the DPW was concerned or Director Carroll, and that... Yeah, everything's supposed to be in working order and that they're replacing them regularly. And so I'm not sure where the reports of the contrary came from, but, you know. That's what I have on that one. And I see I'm going to turn it over to the school committee side unless anybody has any questions on this one. Councilor Davis, no. Councilor Sait, okay. Chair Plum.

Thank you Chair Clingan. Going back on my notes on this, I recall we had questions about the frequency of restocking. and also about the Argenziano where there are no gender-neutral bathrooms and Looking at questions about access to menstrual products for people who would want to get them from gender-neutral bathrooms. So those were the questions I had listed. I see Ms. Berry has her hand raised, so go to you, Ms. Berry.

Just for clarification, though, just so, like, and I do remember that now that you're saying that, but we, so, but specifically on this item, Those issues were addressed, so the questions that you just raised are a little different, but it certainly falls within, so if there's any updates and any answers on that...

Thank you, Chair Clingan. I think we had made the decision at that time to keep it in committee to get the answers to these particular questions, but I'm fine with it being a new item and how we deal with this in the future. So all the same to me.

I think... Ms. Barry had her hand up.

Yep, thank you.

Hi, thank you through you, Chair. So I do have a little bit of an update from the Director of The Health School Health Services, Liz Cortiello. She is reporting that Citron refills East Somerville every 56 days and refills Winter Hill every 28 days. She's saying the difference between the two is Winter Hill was part of a pilot for the city buildings and that is on the same schedule as libraries. etc like city buildings and the herd department opted for a less expensive option at the east because it was a new program that they were running and they wanted to see how it was going to work in the school

Um she's reporting that the custodians fill all the other dispensers so it Her team depends on the custodians and school administration to let them know if products need to be ordered when they're running low. So far, when I've spot checked the buildings, there has not been any issues. Usually they're at least three quarters of the way filled and operable. And then as far as the Agenziano, there was a dispenser installed in the gender neutral bathroom there. So that was the only school that the gender neutral bathroom didn't have one. And now it is installed.

Great, thank you for that update and that is good news.

Yeah, of course. So the program seems to be going in the right direction.

Yeah, that sounds great. Dr. Phillips, did you have your hand up?

No longer, Ms. Berry answered it. Thank you.

All right, there we are. Okay, thanks for that concise update, and I'm good with closing this one out. Check, Clingan.

Thank you, Chair Baton. Ms. Ferry, is that in like a report form or because when I give the... Well, did you get those notes? Madam Clerk, because when I report out at the meeting, I want to make sure that Councilor Strezo, I don't want to forget any of the details that we just heard.

Yes, I do have the notes, but it doesn't look like we have any kind of memo or anything yet.

No, no, it's okay. I mean, I don't think Miss Barry was, you know, new to submit a memo or something, but as long as you just got what she just said, most of the details of what she just said for the minutes.

We are all set.

All right. Yeah, in the future, you can just, if you want, Ms. Barry, you can just, you know, send it to the clerk to attach to an item if you have information on an item, and we'll get it attached to the agenda. will do thank you no problem all right so item number six is work complete Moving on to item number seven from Councilor Davis, that the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management update this council on how the foundation at the Brown School is monitored, whether mitigation is required to address any concerns, and if so, the details of those mitigation plans. I'm going to turn it over to Councilor Davis right away. He might have some more setup for this one.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is something that came up in the school committee a little while back, so I submitted it through my role sitting on the school committee, and it was just noted that there's a What looks like something that might be notable to the eye, but I thought we'd get the inside scoop and just make sure folks understand what the status is, how we're monitored, what it might mean, and all that. So that's the intent of the item.

Yeah, so just to ask the straightforward question, is there a known issue in the foundation? I mean, I've heard rumors of a crack in the foundation. I can say that.

Well, through the chair, there's more than rumors. There's visual evidence of a crack in the foundation, which has been there for a while. I'll actually turn it over to Capital Projects Director Ralph Henry. to give the detail on this one.

Excellent. Thanks, Rich. Through the chair, yeah, the existing crack that has been there for quite some time, has opened up whatever mortar or caulking material was placed inside of that, has fallen away and eroded out of the it's basically a sawtooth crack that kind of descends from one edge of the where it begins and drops down into the lower part of that brick facade that's in that corner where the tree is located so We just received a purchase order for a contractor who's going to go in and fill that and just put some backer rod and some mortar or some more elastic-y type of caulking material in there to close it up. But we actually monitor it every quarter. One of our staff, Kevin Hatcher, that works up at the Somerville High School, our green buildings manager,

He goes down to the site and usually I can try to join him depending on our schedules but we check all the different gauges that are in the Brown School to look at them and compare them to photographs that we've been gathering now. on our own for the last two and a half years, along with looking at some of the historical photographs that were there. It's there. It opened up a little bit basically because the material fell out. And we're going to be filling it back in for two big reasons. One is to keep water out. and the other is for pests. It would be a very likely source for little four-legged friends to find some warmth and shelter.

I'm going to turn it over to Councilor Davis, but I am just going to ask a quick question of Director Raish or whoever. I mean, I don't know buildings. I don't know how these things work. But I mean, you know, you're saying it's been there for a while. Is it just due to like the ground shifting or like when they, you know, when we're pile driving a few blocks away for a building or something like building the Teeq? Is there anything specific that caused the crack or is it just age?

Yeah, through the chair. Generally, it's age. That particular crack and a couple of the other ones, we don't have a definitive answer and probably wouldn't until we rip down the building. The prevailing theory is that the roots from that very large tree are causing stress on that corner of the foundation and have pushed it. And this has been evident for a very long time. The internal cracks, as Director Henry says, We've been monitoring them for a long time. We're now monitoring them on a quarterly basis and it's kind of fascinating because we will notice that they do drift back and forth over the course of the season, almost as it goes hot and cold. Uh, that cracking the foundation has been there for a while and, and mostly because that one's external, uh, and is, uh,

Director Henry points out, you know, if we got water in it with freezing and thawing, it would get worse or a A critter could get in there so that that external one is being patched. It's not a structural concern. It's just an element and pest concern from the outside.

That's what I was going to say. You guys know buildings. You are talking about cracks like it's no biggie. Just assure the folks watching or anybody listening to this that there's no cause for alarm in terms of Structural Safety.

That is correct, Chair. We've had several different structural engineers and geotech engineers look at this and none of them have raised any cause for alarm. Particularly given the monitoring and what we've been seeing with it. So we don't have any concerns in that front. Dibbs. Take it away.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was my question exactly. Just to confirm that there's nothing imminent that should raise any concerns or anything like that. So I appreciate the very detailed response. And I got nothing further on.

One more quick question. When did you, do you have a data when you first identified the crack? Like, was that crack there when I went to the Brown?

Yeah.

The first evidence we have is a report from, is it 2012?

I was there in 85, so.

Yeah, but it had been there for a very long time. So the first report that we have available to us is from 2012. And it had been noted that it had been there for a very long time. And that's when the gauges were installed. So it had been monitored for a good period of time and then monitoring of it fell off and we've restarted the monitoring with the past couple of years.

That's all from us. I'm Councilor Sait. With any hand up, I turn it over you to Chair Paton.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. So I hear you that this is not a structural concern. Given that this has been an issue since at least 2012, I am wondering... Whether there is a mitigation plan that has been developed, presumably that tree has not learned a lesson around... What is a permissible space to grow into? I certainly support all of our green residents, but I do want them to play nicely with our structures. Especially those that house important educational activities like our schools. So that's one question and I'll just pause there and see if you have any response.

The plan is the monitoring and the fact that we've got that constant monitoring and are not seeing any drift or permanent drift there. Yes, the structural engineers and geotech engineers recommended that we chop down that tree immediately, but that was several years ago and nothing has changed. have all grown in the wrong direction. So I think the best plan is to continue to monitor. And if we see permanent deflection in there, then have the discussion around that tree.

Okay, I appreciate that. The second thing I'll raise, and this, you know, again, trees grow slowly, buildings... If everything is working right, have gradual, I don't know, issues that come to light over time. And my tenure on the school committee is only two years at this point, so I certainly don't have a long memory on this stuff. But... I will say that it would be very helpful to have schools brought in on this and to see copies of those reports. which are happening, I guess, quarterly. So if you could please loop us in and make sure our school administration

Miss Barry is on here now and and I I think making sure that she and and others are looped in so we have awareness on how this is going, what the status is, any issues so that we're not caught on our back foots here. That would really be helpful.

Yeah, to the chair and to the chair. I think that that's the most expeditious way is for us to share those quarterly reports with Ms. Barry. and then they can get encapsulated in the superintendent's report or something like that just for streaming purposes.

Thank you. I appreciate both of you making note of that. Okay. Ms. Patone.

Oops. Here she is.

Are you talking to me? Through the chair, this is Laura. I'm sorry, I just keep going in and out. Amtrak is not the best source of Wi-Fi connectivity. I just wanted to bring up that A constituent sent me the photo of the gap, and I've seen it before. I live in the area. And is there a way that the city might want to make... This information that you're sharing with the body more public in some way, I'm not implying the sign next to the crack is the right answer, but it's a way to make information that is being shared. for Alarm. We've had it evaluated for a structural safety standpoint so that people don't buy the building and get anxious or feel concerned or stay on the website that acknowledges that we know we have this

Structural, this crack and this is what we're doing about it. And so that if school committee members or city councilors or even parents see this, That the principal has some place to send people to or like I said, it could be a sign. I have no idea what you would think is the best practice, but some way to make this information more public.

Chair, we can talk to the administration and to Christopher Ames about something along those lines.

Yeah. Thank you.

Okay, I don't see any other questions on our side, so we'll turn it back over to you, Chair Clingan.

Well, I would just say to Director Raish that Something like that and those reports or what have you would be the type of thing... I know we're still fleshing out what this... Public-facing website is for the projects at the schools, whether that's the bigger things, like I've talked about Chelsea, where they might say, you know, the Browns scheduled to get, or whatever, this school's scheduled to get a new chiller, but it could be down to smaller things as well. If we did have everything, you know, all this information house in one location, that might be something, you know, that might be a good place for it. Again, I don't know, like, who's working on that or when. I know that you guys are all busy and I know... As far as building out, this is going to be... I guess we need somebody on your side or the city side to kind of...

And again, this is all coming out of the same reason this committee was born, which is, you know, knowing what's going on at the schools. You know, in some sort of regular fashion, Councilor Davis. Did you have one?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I raised my hand and realized I should lower my hand and let the administration answer first because they know better than me. But I was just going to note that we heard in school committee last week, I think, a presentation by the new... Communications Director, I guess. I see sort of one piece of many improvements that I think we're making citywide to address exactly that type of consideration. And so school district website, you know, will be improved as good as it is already and certainly can be better and that's in the works. And I think we've already heard in this committee a while back, I believe, about the very robust

Thank you for joining us. and that that's already in the works but I agree with you and that is you know that's the kind of thing and with the member who raised it that that's the kind of thing that would be great to have and so my hope is that as we As all of these systems are improved, to whatever extent they're not already, we can connect those dots so that the public has all that information.

Yeah, it just seems like one of those things where it's one of those like everybody's on the same page and everybody has ideas and information like they did hire the new security facilities liaison. So now she's coordinating with the city and it's just how do we get everybody in the same place and just get the information to the public as far as their school buildings go. On that, Director Raish.

To the chair, everything President Davis said is correct. A lot of these things are in motion. Moreover, in the transition meeting that I had with Mayor-elect's Wilson's team. I mentioned this as one of three focus areas that we need to prioritize in the early days of the Wilson administration. So I hope to make some headway.

Excellent, yeah, and I think Councilor Sait had an order in before. I thought I put everything on the... I think we maybe need to resubmit it, but it was around the progress of that. But the new year coming, this will be a priority for sure of this committee in 2026. All right. Moving on to item number eight. Also from Councilor Davis, from the school committee and others, parents. The administration of the school department discussed with this council the budgetary and planning impact of snow days and how adaptation to climate change may affect future snow day planning. I did have a brief discussion with Liaison Radice.

Um, this, you know, this is, this is kind of, how do you want to approach this? I don't know, liaison or DC? I know you're not ready, the city's not ready to, they don't have a robust response, but, um, and I know that going into snow days it's a joint decision with well it's a DBW commissioner who's on that call um yeah they have a system um

Mr.

Chair, if I may put a context on the side, if you don't mind. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, through you to the committees. Yeah, so this one came out of a sort of a question that was raised by a member Green in a discussion a couple weeks ago, I guess. And I have the pleasure of sitting next to Chair Baton at school committee meetings. And so we sort of workshopped What's the question here we're trying to sort of put to the administration? And I had a similar conversation then with Leozandro Adazi. trying to express that. I'm happy also to defer to the good chair of the school committee subcommittee to further articulate what sort of the quest was here. But my understanding was just, you know,

as we look at budgeting for various things, particularly snow removal, and as we live with and realize the impact of climate change. Is there anything we should be thinking about? I think was the crux of it. Just sort of an intent to kind of put that question out there, hopefully ahead of time for this year, next year, four years from now, whatever the case may be, just in terms of Anything we should be doing or thinking about now because snow budgeting is certainly related to the way our climate is evolving and changing. That's sort of what we're getting for there. It's not a really easy question. The answer might be, maybe we don't know yet, but thanks for flagging it, and we'll keep it in mind. could be the right answer, right? But as I said, through you, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to defer to Chair Paton if there's anything, a better articulation of the question or anything else that he might add.

Yeah, yeah, because before we do that, I mean, you know, it depends on which direction you're talking about. In the last three years, we haven't had a real lot of snowstorms, but yet somehow I want to say that the... The plowing budget was still, we still somehow had to appropriate more money or something.

Yeah, well, can I add that, Mr. Chair? Yes. Just so, yeah, so for my understanding of this and anyone in the administration or who does math better than me in numbers and everything could please jump in, but my understanding of that is is that at least some part of that, why we see that phenomenon happening is that the state budgeting rules permit municipalities to effectively I can't even think what the right word is. Any budget overrides can be amortized over future years, right? So unlike other items like- Oh, right, right, right. Right, pothole repair. Snow plowing is something that we don't necessarily have to budget it super conservatively. And so you can budget what might be reasonable. And if you do go over, That cost can be advertised. It can be sort of handled a little bit. It's a little more flexibility there. That was how it was explained to me a couple years back. It was like, we hardly had any snow. How are we over the budget?

So that's my understanding of it, why you might be seeing that. But to your point. And certainly, yeah, climate change means lots of change, not necessarily one direction or the other. But I think the question was to flag it for something that we might need to consider at some point.

That's just why it triggers me when I see budgetary, but there may be a piece on the school side in terms of budgetary that I'm not aware of. With that, and then also... Just, yeah, so I don't know. I'd like to have Chair Baton add to what you had said.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. And I really have very little to add to Councilor Davis's excellent summary of our conversation. It really did come out of a prompt of I think in fact we may have been talking about our school calendar and thinking about snow days and that may have morphed into a conversation about snow removal and You know, thinking about how projections of climate change have us receiving Less in some models and more in other models of snow and ice and, you know, there's really... with more moisture in the air from a warming climate, we may actually get more precipitation. So there's a lot of complexities around this.

And I do hope our Our city staff are thinking about this more cogently than I am, so I would be very interested. And I see Commissioner Lathan has her hand up, so I'm happy to defer to her about this conversation.

Hi there, Jill Lathan, Commissioner DPW, fellow committee. I just kind of wanted to give you guys some context about snow removal and budget stuff. When we, it doesn't really necessarily equate to a budgetary number and the amount of snow we got through the season. So anytime we have any sort of snow event coming, We have to be prepared and a part of that being prepared is planning and making sure that we have the contractors and the vendors and the staff on site and ready because in New England it may be forecasted for two inches and then we get four. We may be forecasted for six inches and we get two. We still have to be ready regardless. And so the reason why we've been so successful in Somerville is that we really have cultivated a strong group of vendors of snow removal vendors and staff members who were trained to kind of remove snow so

A lot of times, we don't want to lose a snow vendor to another town because we didn't call them in or we didn't have them ready or we didn't participate. We have snow drills every single year. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, we bring in all of our vendors, we bring in all of our internal plow drivers, and we actually practice our roots. and we practice because there's always new infrastructure, new bike lanes, new bump outs and everyone has to kind of get familiar, re-familiarize themselves with the city of Somerville in our in our snow This is why, again, we're so successful. So I just want to make sure people understand, you know, if you see a high number of a snow budget and we say, oh, it's not that much, we still have to be ready and prepared to do our due diligence. Also, this significant amount of the community path and ice and things like that, bus stops, we are very diligent and very invested in making sure that everyone here in Somerville can get around with mobility, whether they're walking. Biking, taking the bus, or using their car.

Also keep in mind, unfortunately, Somerville is a pass-through for many commuters. And as people pass through Somerville, it's vastly different. and other communities are coming from trying to get through Somerville. So I just want to give people some context of soil removal and how complex it is just so everyone has understanding about the budget and snow and how we kind of do that here at DPW.

Great. If I could just take a moment to thank you and your staff, Commissioner Lathan, for the important work that you do. That keeps our students and families, thinking about that on our side, but all of our residents safe during the inclement weather season and year-round. So that is... Very important work and foundational to what we want to do here in Somerville. So thanks for that. Chair Clingan.

Thank you. Yeah. And thank you, Commissioner, for the context. That's kind of what I was getting at is that, like, Snow Operations. It's near impossible to figure out, like you said, in terms of budgeting, because of the fact that we have to have everybody at the ready. The salt still needs to go down. Contracts are still out there. I guess just because I usually get really technical with these council orders, the second line about how it may affect future snow day planning is, I don't know if there's anybody that can speak to that or what that piece of this item is referring to. because, you know what, Commissioner, maybe you can, can you just speak to the, for instance, the snow day, you know, when you all do get together and huddle and call. A snow day usually coincides with the snow emergency, right?

Or can you just explain that process real quick? I might just kind of speak to that and then we can move on.

Yes, through the chairs. So when we look at the forecasts, during this time of year, we're always looking at various forecasts. We have different subscriptions that we have. to look at the weather. Also, you know, tune into our local weather news. Everyone, sometimes it's a big guessing game. We also are part of the Massachusetts National Weather Service, and we get those updates and briefings. Anytime there's something that's being forecasted that's going to be over four inches, that's when we lean towards calling a snow emergency. So I will call a snow emergency meeting or snow event meeting. And we'll sit down and talk about just as what the forecast looks like and the schools involved with those meetings as well as the other departments such as mobility and engineering, parks and rec, libraries, communication, traffic and parking. We're always helping human services. We're kind of on that meeting. And I'll kind of give a briefing about this is what we're forecasting. This is what's coming in.

And this is where the time is going to kind of land for us. We kind of have to call some emergency people's time to move their cars because that means they're going to start towing operation. So sometimes, you know, ideally, you know, snow's coming in at 8 p.m. You want to Make sure you get that snow emergency call by two so people can move their car four hours before that. Sometimes you just don't have the luxury with, you know, it's coming in. Sometimes it may not come in until Thank you for joining us. and it was supposed to be like you know six or eight six six or so inches coming in um probably about around so much you got called cars started getting towed like around 10 30 I look at the weather forecast and all of a sudden a big update. It shifted completely. It was going to be like less than two inches.

I'm like, oh, stop. Stop doing right now. And so I have to call them in and say, I need to call this off right now. It has just shifted. We're not going to get nearly as much snow as we need to. and we stopped towing in meetings. And so sometimes we can do that and sometimes we just can't. So like I said, we really work with the school system and kind of give them as much notice as we can Sometimes we have to do a closure based on when the snow is coming in or the ice is coming in. If that's going to be smack dab in the middle of school starting or school being dismissed and the health and safety of those students. We'll err on the side of caution every single time. If we cannot get ahead of this storm before kids need to get to school, kids need to get home from school, we will recommend closure for that reason, to give our crews time to get out there and bow and whistle. and make sure that they can get to school and get all the places in school. So that's kind of how we do that. But it's a long season for us, but we love it. We continue to want to get better and do it well.

But we also are pretty transparent in how we communicate to a city and to the school district.

But Christian, just so I'm clear, not every snow day is directly tied to a snow emergency, but every time there's a snow emergency, there's going to be a snow day for school.

If we're calling a snow emergency, that means it's going to be a significant amount of snow, and we're going to be recommending that we do the park out this year and the schools are closed.

But sometimes the schools could end up closed, but there is no snow emergency. It depends on the way the snow is coming in.

It's that middle of the way snow's coming in. So if we have a heavy band of snow that's going to be hitting us, you know, say maybe hit us at, you know, one o'clock when our schoolmates choose to end early. That's on the school department.

Right, but I guess the direct tie is when you call us no emergency, that forces the schools then have to call us no day.

To the chair, yes.

but otherwise it's up to the schools like if they you can advise them but if like say there is no submergency but they still want to either close the school or not close the school

We try and get as much information as possible when the storm is coming in, how much is going to be there. I send out regular weather reports this time of year. That gives the temperature. It gives the pavement temperature. It gives what's coming, what's forecast. I highlight those weather forecasts that the school gets so they can kind of see this is the timing of stuff. to help them make the best decisions they can. So like I said, I use a system called WeatherWorks and they give me daily weather reports. And this time of year, I will send weather updates pretty regularly, sometimes two or three times a day to make sure the school's updated on what's happening. And Danielle, I see you nodding your head, so yeah.

Turning it back over to School Committee, Chair Baton. Thank you. Dr. Phillips, go ahead.

Thanks to you, Chair. Sorry. I'm just thank you for this great presentation and all the work that you do to keep our kids and our families and our educators and everyone safe. My understanding was that a few years ago we severed the link between an automatic snow emergency and a school closure by not letting people park in the school parking lots. Is that true still?

Through the chair, yes, we closed those locks, but we've got to be able to clear those locks and get those locks safely open for school operations the next school operation day. That's no longer an option. We have to make sure those slots are clear so we can do the proper show movement so people can park, kids can play, and the schools can be reopened.

So you're saying what I was thinking was wrong. We actually do have that link still. When we call a snow emergency, we close the schools because we need to let people park in those lots.

No, through the chair. We closed the lots. No one can park in those lots. We gave them clothes. If there's cars in there, they get towed. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Phillips. Seeing no other questions on our side, Chair Clingan, I'll turn it back to you.

All right. Madam Clerk, if you could just work complete this item. Moving on to our last item, item number nine from the Councilor Davis and folks of the Commissioner of Public Works provide an update on how snow and ice is removed from different types of surfaces in schoolyards. including any limitations based on surface type I'll just say real quick before I interview Councilor Davis I was actually thinking about this earlier because I've always I understand the challenge and you can read there's a great memo attached and we have a lot of poor rubberized stuff but I was trying to think about what it was like when I was a kid going to school in Somerville and then I realized that There were no play structures in the schoolyards when I was a kid. It was all yards. It was like you're either playing basketball, punch, ball, kick, ball, four squares. There was no play structures like there are now. So that was the difference there. But now that we have these play structures, I think it drives the lunch aides, whoever's monitoring the kids outside crazy because

You know, the kids naturally want to go on the play structures, and I'm not even sure what they do with the procedures, if they're not even allowed to go outside now or what. That's something that's unknown to me.

Councilor Davis, you put this one in if you want to set it up. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you noted, yes, another item that came through discussion from school committee. So and I certainly will defer to my colleagues on the school committee for further detail on this. But, you know, as you know, the issue seems to be now with the New safety surfaces that we have to make it softer when kids bounce or when kids hit that surface after falling off the jungle jibber, whatever the case may be, apparently creates a bit of a challenge to clear it safely or within warranty or whatever else the case may be. So I'd like to, at least through you to the members of the school committee, subcommittee, if there's any further detail or clarification on the challenges, whether that's the... The playgrounds are not open or any more detail on what the challenge here was. As I said, I submitted this because it did come up in that meeting, but I don't have the firsthand experience that my good colleagues on the school committee do.

All right, I'll take that cue and pass it to Dr. Phillips, who has the first question.

Thanks, through you, Chair. I think what folks have been doing, right, so... When there's a lot of snow on the playground, it really... Ms. Berry, correct me if I'm wrong, but it varies school to school a little bit. But at Urgenziano, where my kids go, you can't play on any of the play structure if there's snow under it. It's just not allowed. And so what the PTAs have done is really organized shoveling. as much as they can as often as they can without metal tipped shovels but people are hand shoveling and they're finding it's unsustainable and so I think this comes up over and over again I think it partially is coming up because of the Kennedy School Playground The folks we're visioning now and wanting to put in a surface there that then can be shoveled if it does indeed snow. One question that I've been asked to raise here

And so Commissioner Lathan, I apologize, but the PTAs have discovered that a powered snow brush is approved for use on crumb rubber. And I'm wondering, do any of our neighbor communities have one that we could borrow and try out? I hear they're pretty expensive, but it would be good to know if that's a solution for us.

Who's the chair? I just have to say any kind of shoveling, whether with a weather tip or not, is damaging the surface. That is, there's no way around. And even though, so volunteers, when they do go out and do that kind of removal, It is damaging the surface. And so, unfortunately, just because of the urban setting we're in and the type of play surfaces we have that we need in a city such as Somerville, to have these kind of incredible playgrounds and surfaces. There's no way around us removing snow from these areas without damaging the surface. These surfaces are extremely pricey to replace. Sometimes you look at a school like East Somerville that they have some significant damage to that surface. That's going to require complete resurfacing that playground. that we're going to have to look at capital and work with PSAF to see how it's going to happen.

But Genziano being a fairly newer school, there's damage to that surface as well that we need to continue to look at and monitor. See what we can get ahead of so it's not a completely surface huge down the road, but that surface has some damage as well. So it's just kind of one of those things that we will continue working with in the city. I understand the angst for folks not being able to use the playground. I'd like to, you know, how ways can we be creative and work with different schools in doing, you know, snow programming, whether that's with working with Parks and Rec, those creative programming ideas, but from a DPW's perspective, Without causing damage to our services in future taxpayer money expenditures, there's no return. I just want to set real expectations.

I'm sorry to be very bad news, but I don't want to pretend like that we have some great grand idea that we can never bring to life.

Dr. Phillips, do you have a follow-up?

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for that, Commissioner Latham. I hear you. And I think the PTA hears you too, because what they're really wanting me to ask about is... Can the city borrow or find or try a powered snow brush which does not have metal and seems like you can use it on crumb rubber? Or give me some information or share with them some information about why that's not a solution. for our playgrounds.

Through the chair, those brushes are made for synthetic turf surfaces. So those blades of plastic that's underneath with that infill. So you have the padding, you have the infill, which is the crumb rubber or whatever it is, and you have those blades of movable plastic. Those brushes are made to kind of break up that movable plastic brass things. That's not what a play surface is. That is that rubberized surface that's not had the removable kind of blades of plastic that the infill's set into. So that kind of brush is just kind of basically if you would take that same brush and go over a newly polished floor in your home to pick up dust and materials that the kids have spilled. It's just not going to do what you think it's going to do, but eventually just continue to scratch your hardwood floors.

Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Dr. Phillips. Thank you so much for having me. What... And there was a lot of terrific, very detailed information in your memo, Commissioner Latham, about the different services really responsive to our question, right? What... What is the snow removal? And, Clerk, if I could ask you to zoom in on that memo there. Thank you. What are the different types of surfaces? How do we remove snow from these surfaces on schoolyards? The answer for many types of surfaces according to the memo is We can't do it. We can't do it without voiding the warranty. We can't do it without damaging the surface.

And in the context of us building a new or designing a new schoolyard at the Kennedy, it really begs the question of, you know, what type of schoolyard do we want to design so that it can be accessible to our children during the school day year round. We have policies in our schools that encourage outdoor play as part of the learning environment. where children need to be active and ensure that they can use the outdoor learning environment in addition to the indoor learning environment to further our school's educational goals for the students.

I think when we are designing structures, and maybe this is a question then for... are forgetting the name of the department but the department that designs schoolyards that we need to be cognizant of what Surfaces actually can allow for removal of snow and ice. Now we are at the tail end of a cycle of removing, I'm sorry, of redesigning schoolyards, right? The Kennedy, I think, is pretty much the last of the schoolyards that are undergoing a redesign and... Rebuilding, so that they are modern, inclusive, and

Fully engaging schoolyards that further our educational goals for the students. But if the schoolyards are then unavailable During the school day for our students, that really poses a significant problem, right? Why are we doing all this great work? I mean, again, it may only be a few days a year where this is the case where these schoolyards are not available, but I think we really need to focus on what we are designing the school yards for, which is for the use of our students during the school day. That should be the primary focus. And if there is anything we can do to ensure that those schoolyards remain open when school is open so that students can access that outdoor learning environment, By golly, we should be doing that.

Alright, I'm going to get off my soapbox. I tend to climb onto it. And I see Liaison Radassi has her hand up, so I will defer to her.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually did watch the school committee meeting where this was discussed, so I had a feeling this might come up. So I did connect with PSUF before this meeting to get some information from them. So from PSAF, playgrounds and schoolyards have a required six-foot fall zone around play equipment. And so this fall zone is composed of this poured-in-place rubber surfacing. or an engineered wood fiber commonly referred to as FIBAR. And these are the materials that are used because they are compliant with the American with Disabilities Act and because they have the required shock absorbency for these plates. Playgrounds. And then they also wanted to note that when they are going through the design process for planning these schoolyards and playgrounds, that there is an overwhelming desire from residents for poured-in-place and synthetic turf fields. So just wanted to share that information.

Thank you for that. Go ahead.

Nope, go ahead. Oh, thank you for that. Yeah. So, you know, just a couple of quick. Comments on this issue. One is that poured-in-place rubber... I've been doing a little research online and it seems like the rubberized playground mats, the flooring, the tiles, I think they still have the amount of shock absorber, but they're a lot more... As a surface, they're a lot more durable in terms of shoveling and stuff like that. But I guess the issue this also runs into is... For Jill, for Commissioner Latham, it's like, I don't know if it's a union thing, like who would be in charge of those playgrounds, the schoolyards? Would it be the school janitors or her people? And, you know, what kind of labor would be looking after that? But that aside, if the...

In the case of volunteers, I agree that I think we should be trying to design parks that are usable throughout the year. If there is another surface that is more durable... I could hear what Pesop's saying, but I do see pictures and things about the rubberized tiles. We have them at some of our parks, some of the older ones, but the rubberized tiles. Like maybe those are another option. And it's just something I think we should think about or look into going forward if there is another option. So I agree with what my counterparts in the school period are saying. The last thing I'll say. as maybe a potentially, even better than the brush, is like a leaf blower. Like for certain types of snow, I think you could probably just leaf blow the snow right away and that wouldn't hurt anything. So, again, I know that poses...

Labor challenges, but I'm just going to say that that's what comes to my mind in terms of as an option to move snow without harming the surface. and again it wouldn't be for like heavy or wet snow although if one's powerful enough I mean you could definitely get it off because I'm trying to figure out if it's just the ground or if we would have to clear off the play structures themselves and that would be really tricky so you're just talking about just the they're still allowed to go on them if all right chair for time go ahead if you have the answer to that no uh sorry i don't mean to cut you off um and i don't have an answer to your question So if the snow's on the play structures, they're still not going to be able to go on those.

That's right. And, you know, I, my expectation is... That's what I've always thought is like, why bother with, you know, because if you can't go on the play structure. No, I think... You know, I don't want to put words in my colleague's mouth, but I think speaking for myself, I'm thinking about the outdoor areas that we have. Independent of, you know, the monkey bars. I'm not asking that we have DPW workers sort of brushing off every single bar on the monkey bars or anything like that. That seems... I'm talking about clearing snow from the ground so our students can run around in the outdoor area outside of our schools. Yeah, during recess because we still have recess and we still have outdoor recess assuming it's, you know, if it's, listen, if it's 30 degrees and there's still snow on the ground, our students should be outside by and large.

Yeah, no, that's helpful to know because I think, you know, that's the daunting part, I think, for probably EVW2. It's like, are they talking about every little staircase to each, you know, play structure or... You're talking about just leaving a six-foot circle of snow around the play structure, but everywhere else in the schoolyard is accessible so that kids could... Potentially run around you know whatever throw a football or something like that I mean that would probably be a school case-by-case basis just based on how much of the ground is You know, rubber, poured in place rubber or whatever. So I think we'd have to do like an audit of like each schoolyard, it sounds like, and kind of what that would look like. But I mean, it sounds like there's a real desire from... Both parents and teachers that this happened. So this may, you know, I understand we may never be able to run a shovel over poured rubber, but if we could tackle the other challenges, I think, you know, sounds like that's what people want.

Okay.

If I may, Chair Clingan. My suggestion is going to be, and I'll submit something through Councilor Davis, President Davis, to get... Further discussion, perhaps, in the upcoming calendar year on these questions around design, because I don't think it's fair to ask Commissioner Latham questions. How exactly we should be designing the Kennedy or other future schoolyards. But I do think that there's more More nuanced conversation that we can have with PSUF and sort of untangle some of these issues. I had this crazy idea while we were talking about Putting radiant heat under the schoolyard to melt the snow. I don't know if that would...

you know be a possibility certainly easier to to lay it while the schoolyard is being built rather than retrofitting so Just a crazy idea I had but I see Dr. Phillips has her hand up. Go ahead.

Thanks through you, Chair. So Ms. Patone is listening in at Penn Station, but can't get into the Zoom. So ask me to ask this question, which I believe is going through you, Chair, to Ms. Berry. Regarding snow removal, great information and materials. Is the joint committee interested in learning more about, one, Which schools are impacted by this constraint and how much? How many areas are not accessible during snow because it can't be cleared or it's unsafe to The second question is how snow clearance can be factored in explicitly in the design of the new school building? Maybe it was for the high school or other buildings, but every time it feels like there's a surprise by the limitations of area use during snow in new or updated outdoor areas.

She's encouraging us to be as thoughtful and proactive as possible.

Yeah, I think everyone's interested in that. You mean like who's going to take up the lead? What are you saying to... Ms. Barry, because maybe that's something she could kind of make a note of.

Sorry, I was just reading the question from Ms. Potomac. I think Ms. Barry has the answer to the question, and I think we just need a city councilor to help us put in an order to get that answer in front of all of us. So I guess Mr. Davis and Mr. Clingan, we're looking to you next year.

Okay. We shall pursue this in 2026. Let's hope we don't get any big snowstorms. All right. Anything else on this? Or anybody else? Okay, that brings us to the end of our agenda. We'll leave item nine in committee. Alright, any questions on Any dispositions of any items? Did you get all of them?

I don't believe we specifically said what we want to do with item number 7, ID 25-1637. Do we want to leave that in committee or mark work complete?

That is work complete because the firm is going to do up a report probably around May. We should be expecting an update on that. So we'll just bring it back in the spring. All right. If there's no more items, Councilor Davis moves to adjourn. We can get a roll call and adjournment when you're ready, Madam Clerk.

Councilor Davis. Yes. Sait. Yes. Chair Clingan.

Yes.

All right. With that is 749 and we are adjourning.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. We are adjourned. Have a good night.