School Building Facilities and Maintenance Committee

Hello, everyone. Yes, hello, everyone! My name is John Link. I'm Somerville City Councilor-at-Large and this is the School Buildings Facilities & Maintenance Committee. It is 601 on October 6th and we're going to get started. 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 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. And with that, I think we'll get started. Can we please establish quorum?

That we can. This is roll call. Councilor Scott. Councilors Sait.

Here.

Chair Link. All right, with that we have two members present so we do have quorum.

And I will also take a brief recess while the school committee establishes quorum

Thank you, Chair Link. This is Leron Biton, Ward 7 School Committee Member and Chair of the corresponding School committees, subcommittee on school building facilities and maintenance. I will establish quorum. Laura Pitone, are you here?

Here.

Great. Liz Eldridge, are you here?

Present.

excellent so with three members present we have quorum and uh with the deference to um Chair Link, I will entertain a report from the September 8th, 2026 meeting of the subcommittee.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

All right, motion by Rep. Pitone, second by Rep Eldridge. All in favor I need to take a roll call so Laura how do you vote?

Yes.

Liz, how do you vote?

Yes.

I vote yes. That report is approved. And with that we will turn the meeting back over to you Chair Link. Thank you very much.

All right, so we will, given the lengthy recess that we had, reestablish quorum.

All right. Hope no one got lost. Councilor Scott? Councilor Sait?

Here.

Chair Link?

Still here.

All right with that all two members have returned we do still have quorum.

Wonderful, all right so we will get started with the agenda item one which is 26-1384 Approval of the minutes from the September 8th, 2026 School Buildings and Maintenance Committee meeting. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will lay that on the table to be approved at the end. So we have, hopefully, I think our... We've got what seems like a lighter one today. Let's see what we can do here. We're going to start off with item number two, or I guess not start off but continue with item 2 26-0842 that the Director of Public Space and Urban Forestry considers snow clearing requirements to maintain inclusive winter use when selecting turf materials for the new Kennedy School Inclusive Playground. We had this one left to close out.

I think just as a reminder to kind of where things stood, the understanding was basically that there wasn't materials to really... There wasn't much we could do in terms of improvement when it comes to the materials themselves, but we were hoping that there was improvements we could make in terms coordination and communication. with just setting expectations essentially. And I see Director Olvera is here, I'll pass it to you.

Sure, good evening. Thank you for having me through the chair. Just a point of clarification. Would you like me to explain the choices and trade-offs of different materials or that is not, in fact, what you'd like me

Speaking for myself, I think we kind of covered that a couple months ago. It's because I believe that we know that it's kind of what we have is what we Have. There's no new magic materials that are going to save us. But I guess I'll open it up to everyone else if you have the same understanding and same feeling.

Sure, Biton? Yeah, thank you Chair Link. My understanding of this item is that from the prior discussion The work still to be done was around a communication plan related to how snow clearing will occur on schoolyards, not just at the Kennedy but across the... across the city. Sort of how that will be communicated to families and to other users of the parks so that All members of our community who are affected by the storm and then subsequent clearance have a clear understanding of what the timeline is, what areas will be cleared in what priority.

Not talking a point-by-point plan, but really that was the overarching nature of our discussion last time. and I'll defer to our IGA director if there's any clarification there.

Yes, Dr. Dagan-Williams

Thank you both for the comments on that. I think my reasoning from the last Meeting, it was two-fold. It was the communication piece but then also a branded maintenance plan for the materials which directed Alderaan to speak to that piece. Um, Commissioner Wiseman is at the Traffic and Parkway Commission meeting and he's intending to join me as soon as he can but I have some more stuff in the interim. And if there are additional questions that remain The Department of Public Works always endeavors to have schools open safely as soon as possible, but weather conditions, snow falling out The timing of storms, school calendar and staffing can impact the department's ability to open the day following a storm. So snow operation plans fall into three phases.

Days one is immediately before, during and after, immediately before or during and half the distance. That includes plowing, shoveling and snow blowing snow from sidewalks, stairs, doors, walkways adjacent to schools and de-icing fields. Phase 2 is immediately following a storm. That involves plowing, shoveling and snow blowing from drop-off areas, priority parking lots for teachers, snow piles when it impacts safety. and Crosswalks, ADA ramps adjacent to streets. Phase three starts within 24 hours after a storm. that involves plowing, shoveling and snow blowing from select schoolyard hardscapes, additional parking areas, additional piles left over from phases two and three. As noted earlier there isn't a way to remove snow from existing schoolyard safety areas.

We have been reaching out to neighboring communities and none of them do snow removal from poured in place rubber because it will destroy the surface. We are currently reviewing the snow plans for each property with SPS. Once they have reviewed, the school department will incorporate their information into their news reports.

Thank you, Director. I'm also actually now remembering, Councilor Sait, I think that you also had brought up if i'm remembering correctly The idea that maybe we could actually try to incorporate the fact that there is snow. Instead of looking at it as an something that's an impediment just looking at it as more of a like this is something I can that could be fun

Yeah, I do recall that. It's been a while since we've talked about snow, but from now on it's going to be here. Yeah, I don't know if it was to Commissioner Wiseman or the previous commissioner that we look at other communities and see if they have any snow play issues If they do any snow play. I know there's like liability and all that, but just for especially for older kids. to see if you know there's a way to um yeah get the kids outside playing in the snow especially when it snows you know one snowstorm after the other Yeah, this past winter was one of those winters and then we discussed not everyone can have all the snow gear and all that to play.

So I think there are some challenges there, but yes, I did bring that up at some point. I think something to think about, but I'm not expecting that DPW finds its solution for us. I think it's more us as a body, as Google Media is a body. I have no, I'm not going to ask if there's any updates on that.

I think it's fair not to maybe have an update, but I am curious if I see Commissioner Weissman is here and Director Oliveira you're here. I wonder if either of you have thoughts on that though? If you don't, that's totally fine because you're being put on the spot over there.

I just wanted to open that up. Sure. Thank you, Chair. Sorry I kind of jumped in at the end of that conversation but I will say that we attempt to remove snow from hardscape and in the schoolyards whenever possible to give opportunities to play without damaging Safety Surfaces. And that plan is something we're working with the school department on, sort of codifying which areas We'll have snow removed and which ones won't.

That's fantastic. And then, yeah, so the second part of that that you I think you missed director was just that we're talking about like could this snow actually play on? Instead of it being the thing that is stopping play, being the part of the play.

Thank you chair. I think that's a great idea. Between the two meetings gave this a lot of thought and did some research on like ways that we can make snow play more inclusive. Like, this is I think beyond the scope Public Works, but I do understand that there is special equipment that can be used and then I also spoke with PSUF. They had some ideas about equipment that could be used to sort of make snow play a little bit more inclusive, but I'm not an expert on this. But there are things like special devices that can push people with mobility issues onto the snow and use the snow. I don't know if there's anybody from PSUF that can speak directly to that, but there are some things out there.

Here's the chair. I think your question is whether it is good for children to play in snow and I think we have been doing that since the beginning of time. I should be challenging, should be different, should Thank you so much for joining us. Conflict on playgrounds. So in terms of child development, yes. The second question is, is there a way to make it inclusive for children who have different physical abilities? and the issue with that is still the same.

The school can decide to do a number of different things it's certainly not our call to make but we still cannot put We still cannot shovel the snow from the port in place because that is the only surface that both meets the playground safety requirements, ADA and it is not shovelable. So are there things that the school could do to make Winter Recess more accessible? Absolutely. Are there things that the school, can the school decide to let people play children play in snow? Absolutely but that is really not ours or DPW's call to make.

Thank you, I think that's fair. I guess the one place I would maybe want to look is like what we're doing to the snow but when we're clearing it because there's I think been times where maybe the things that have been done to this know make it not necessarily the best to play on like if it has for example a lot of an excessive amount of um you know chemical um melt on it but yeah But I'll leave it there. Chair Biton, I'll pass it off to you.

Thank you, Chair Link. Rep Eldridge, go ahead.

Thank you. Through the chair, I just want to summarize to make sure I understand it correctly. There will be a plan in place for the plowable schoolyards and like an execution plan on how to or when those will be plowed Number one. Number two, I was really interested in hearing a little bit more of Luis's suggestions on How to make play if we decide to navigate that more accessible in the snow? I'm not aware of any. I'd love to learn, I'd like to just better understand how If we are exploring snow play, whether or not that's right now. I don't know what current policies we have. Is it school by school? Are we doing it at all? Or are we not? depending on who comes in with gear like I would really love to just learn a little bit more about that in general as well um yeah

For the chair, yeah. Just to answer your question about removing the heart, like what's no removal we're going to do in this sequence for that? And again I apologize, I was jumping from a meeting I understand that maybe some of my comments have been read, but if not we're working with the school department on and A sort of a tiered approach to getting the schools open as quickly as possible that'll start with what work we do during the storm, which is mostly sidewalks, walkways, stairways, ramps. Doorways, and then immediately after the storm which is key parking areas drop-offs adjacent like ADA ramps. And then finally

Additional sort of play spaces, particularly hardscaped ones and athletic areas like basketball courts that can accommodate that kind of work. you know like there's slight nuances from school to school so we're actually going school by school and like looking at the layouts and eventually we will be discussing that with the principals and coming up with a like a clear and I think like exactly timing gets complicated given a given storm conditions. Timing of like the school day and the school year but uh overall yes we we will I think we have identified some hardscape in each school that can be used during uh the recess if if um The school so chooses.

Liz, is it a follow-up on that?

Yeah, just to make sure I heard correctly. You have identified a space at each school that would be plowed although we don't know the correct We don't have the correct timeline yet. It's dependent upon the storm, totally get that but we do have a space identified at each goal just to clarify

You wouldn't believe how much time I've spent looking at these layouts. And I want to say 99.9% yes. I think maybe the only exception is the high school. But every, I believe, I don't know, Daniel Barry, who I believe is on this call. And I think we have something at each school. But I'm going to say yes. I'm going to throw caution to the wind and say yes. At each of the elementary schools, we've identified areas that are hardscaped that can be cleared

And if I can just interject for the listeners, I did see Ms. Berry give a thumbs up to that

It will also, through the chair, just being familiar with all the different schoolyards say that that is true. Now whether they are used for children to play on unknown but there are Tarmac areas, bituminous concrete at every schoolyard. Yes.

Thank you. Rep Pitone, go ahead.

Thank Thank you for coming and sharing this. Thank you to the DPW for collaborating with the district and trying to figure out what the plan is moving forward. Request on that is, you know, some level of documentation that is public that sort of explains how this works. I'd love to see this on the website then when families are asking they understand how this For a lot of people, it reduces the complaints and concerns because they understand. So whatever we can do to get that done into any kind of conversation that we might want to have about what the procedures and policies are for snow play. That's something I think we have to take over to the school committee and decide. And so I'm going to give that back to the chair of this committee to see if they want to elevate that with the chair, the school committee and see if there's a conversation that's valuable to have.

Yep, noted. Rep Pitone, thank you for that. I agree and I will bring it back to administration and to Chair Ackman. Ms. Berry?

Yes, thank you. Through you, Chair. Danielle Barry, Facility Safety and Transportation Coordinator for Somerville Public Schools. I just wanted to add, I agree with Director Oliveira and Commissioner Weissman that each of our pre-k to 8 schools do have an area for kids to get outside for recess. Commissioner Weissman and I have spoken about sitting down with each principal going over the plan and then making that something that would be public on each school's newsletter so each family has clear expectations of What happens when we return to school after a snowstorm?

Thank you. And I actually think that that's a A preferable approach than putting it on a public website per se, getting that into the Hands of the families of the students who actually attend that school in their inbox. It's my personal opinion, but Rhett Pitone?

I'm fine with how people choose to communicate. I would say that The only value of having a website as an and is that it's a reference and a resource, as opposed to I didn't get the newsletter. I didn' read the newsletter we don't send the newsletter every year because this is creating now a process where every year we have Fair point. Thank you. Ms. Berry, go ahead.

Just to piggyback off that real quick, I did discuss with Daryl Nash, the Chief Communications Officer about also having a condensed blurb go out when we do cancel school and when we return to school one way or the other that we will have some information in some context regarding that as well.

Excellent. All right, lest we become buried under a snow pile of... Yeah, additional commentary here. We'll pass it back to you Chair Link

Alrighty, thank you very much. So I think that we've probably come to the natural conclusion of this item and I think unless there's any objections, we can mark this work complete. All right, and that moves us on to item number 326-0841. Sorry, tongue tied today. that the Commissioner of Public Works provide an update on the improvements made to the temperature of the Edgley Education Center, Cafetorium and Kitchen following installation of the air conditioning unit. And I believe at this point Commissioner. We were just, we'd left it at there was one hot day coming up and then we're just wondering how it was going to perform so I'm not sure if you've got any updates there?

To the Chair, yes thank you it performed well we checked in with Daniel Barry reached out to Kitchen staff and got their perspective and they said that it's been Thank you so much for joining us. Transition to Heating in the next week or so. So our beloved temporary air conditioner will be mothballed very shortly.

Wonderful. I don't have anything. I really appreciate the work.

Thank you so much Thank you, Chair Link. That's all I was going to say. Just really making our schools comfortable places for our students. For our school workers, it's so important. And you guys responded as soon as we identified the need. We heard the... Request from the community. You guys jumped into action and got it done, and just really glad to see how smoothly that... And well that's performed, so... Just kudos and congratulations, and thanks deeply.

Thank you chair.

All right back to you Chair Link.

All Right so I think we can mark that one working please well. All right, and that moves us on to item 426-0710. That the Commissioner of Public Works and the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management update this council and school committee About safety improvements to security cameras, enclosed school yard fencing balconies and other infrastructure at the Argenziano School. We do have a handout for this one that came along. I'm not sure if there's anything else to add at this point. Yes, that's it right there. Thank you, Clark Laney.

This was written by Ms. Berry, so I don't know if she wants to speak about it.

Thank you. Through you, Chair. Happy to do so. You had asked for a response from... Dr. Carmona and Principal Soto so we had spoken with both of them and at this current time There has been no issues and Principal Soto is completely fine with the way things are going in the school. And that the current balcony meets all the Safety requirements through the state and all the OSHA requirements so at this point we don't feel that there's any further action that needs to be taken but we will continue to monitor the situation closely as we continue to move through the school year.

Fantastic. Thank you for this response. I think I had asked for that, so just... This answered exactly my question. I'm glad there wasn't An assessment from the district and I'm satisfied. Thank you Any comments or questions for my colleagues? If not, I'll turn it over to you Chair Link. Thanks.

Thank you, Chair Patron. I'll just say in closing out on this the one thing I guess I would love and I don't expect any response right now or anything like that and we will I do think we'll mark this as done but um I did notice uh as a so you know I spend a lot of time um over at Arjun's you know uh and I did notice, so we've got a fence now and those contemporary bollards for snow plowing. It seems like that's going to make a lot of work for the snowplows to get in. I'm curious, and this is just a thought to put out there, and... Whatever happens to what happens to it, but I'm curious if we feel that we need both of those things.

If the new chain link fence doesn't perhaps perform the same service that those temporary bollards do But yeah, that's it for me. All right so let's also mark this one as work complete And that leads us into item number five. So this is 26-0241 that the administration provide the committee on school building facilities and maintenance with regular updates on the Massachusetts School Building Authority process for the Winterhill and Brown schools. Director Raish?

Thank you, Chair Link. Since last we met the team including both SPS administration and the Perkins Eastman design team had a successful meeting with the FAS, the Facilities Assessment Subcommittee of the board. They had sort of typical questions doing their due diligence. They did note the ambitious nature of the ed plan, which I think reflects well on our district. The largest questions that they had around on the facility side was around the maintenance, because as you recall, we have several rooftop areas for field and education. So as we progress through design, it will be interesting to see how we anticipate Maintaining those which were sort of on our radar anyway. So we successfully made it through that.

We are scheduled to go before the full board at the end of the month on the 28th and anticipate a positive vote coming out of that, which will advance us from the feasibility phase into schematic design. In anticipation of that, we've been doing work with our consultants and readying our amendment for a professional services contract to incorporate all that additional work. and are continuing to advance some of the other aspects of the project. So far, so good on our ambitious schedule where we continue to tick off the milestones that we need to hit to hit this schedule.

Thank you very much, Director. So does that mean it sounds like we're still at least on schedule for our hope of accelerating this so that its early 2030 I believe was the last?

Correct. That's correct. We still have a lot of big hurdles, not least the proposition two and a half debt exclusion vote. But luckily as of right now we've got no slip in the schedule.

wonderful um and so yeah i guess so that that means you know i i know we've just been doing some of like the early exploratory of the site um but everything else seems so far uh it's all copacetic since our last Check in on this?

Correct. Yep. You know, all the pieces of it are progressing. We've had some internal meetings on the sustainability aspects of the building including a go-no-go on mass timber We're continuing to explore that and we anticipate being able to draw some conclusions on those next aspects of the design in the next month or so, which will keep us on schedule.

Wonderful. And I'll just say before I pass it off to Chair Biton, or Councilor Sait, that you know I'm having now my Oldest just started doing soccer there and I'm really appreciative of the fact that it's such a great space, but I hadn't spent a lot of time in that space before. And I'm glad that we've managed to you know in the plans that the potential plans that I've seen we all we seem to be trying to maintain some of those great spaces so you know that's really wonderful Councilor Sait

Through you, Chair. This came up at the last meeting when we received an update on the MSPA process, the geothermal Any updates on that?

No new updates through the chair on geothermal as of this point in time.

Thank you.

Chair Biton Thank you Chair Link. To Director Raish, thanks for the update. We heard a very similar update yesterday from Dr. Carmona so stories are lining up. Quick question on, is the MSBA comfortable with our selection of the 925 candidates? Seed, Preferred Schematic Design. Our preferred option in the submission?

Through the chair, yes. In terms of the size and location The submissions, I think spoke for themselves and MSBA is comfortable with those conclusions. So I anticipate as we Move to the next phase that those things will be locked. The 925 at 115 Sycamore will be blocked from the MSBA standpoint.

Got it. And my second question is you mentioned the debt exclusion vote. I think I've heard... recently that we were targeting next November so that would be the 2027 municipal General Election. Is that the target date for the debt exclusion vote?

Through the chair, the debt exclusion vote time is something that we'll all collectively need to agree to. Mayor, city council... and School Committee, I think we'll be determining the exact time of that. Again, the aggressive schedule that we're laying out for our consultants is to have everything ready by that summer. So if the city decides to hold a special election in advance of that November election, For this, the design team will have everything prepared to support that. But then it will be sort of a city election kind of decision.

So, you know that's a long way of saying yes at some point next year the exact date whether it winds up being a special election or the municipal regular election in November is still to be determined.

Okay, so what I heard just summarizing is sometime between next summer and next fall.

Yeah, and that you know it is a little bit of a political calculation on whether our odds are better as a special or in line with the regular municipal. So those are things we'll be exploring as we get closer to that date.

All right. Understanding that this will be a conversation that we will have both at school committee and in city council, I will just share my initial inclination that I think Getting input from the broadest possible slice of the electorate is preferable. Make sure that we have full buy-in. Understanding we're not having that conversation right now, so that was just me editorializing. Seeing no questions from my colleagues, I will turn it back to you Chair Link. Thank you.

All right so we will as always keep this one in committee and moving on to our last item of the agenda item number 6 26-1452 that the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management present on continued concerns related to exterior tiles on the Somerville High School building and provide updates on measures to identify and mitigate those concerns. Director Raish?

Thank you, Chair. So I think as everyone here knows We continue to visually inspect the exterior of the building in the course of that typical visual inspection. One of our capital project staff members Saw a tile under a windowsill on the library side of the building was leaning. He has much sharper eyes than I do. But he's also about 20 years my junior, so we'll just blame that. And so he immediately was able to access that tile from that particular window. Call Up Sunrise, the subcontractor that did the envelope. They were on site within the hour. They able to remove that tile from the window or what they did was secure the tiles

from the window, from that third floor window and then returned the next week with a boom lift to remove it. We found that tile had chipped at the locations where the metal clips behind hold it. We sent those photos to NBK, who is the manufacturer of the system. Both the metal bars and clips on the backside and the manufacture of the terracotta tiles The failures that they saw there weren't consistent with anything that they have seen in terms of wind or seismic.

We had had the theory since this seems to be happening in September that perhaps it's a thermal expansion issue as we go from quite warm summers into some chilly nights. NPK has indicated that they've never had any record of such thermal expansion causing chipping of those tiles. and that the thermal expansion is accounted for in the way the system works. So, that initial theory that we had doesn't seem to be supported by the manufacturer's record So in light of all that and with the constant diligence of Sunrise, the envelope contractor who have been an excellent partner through all of this I mean they have shown exceptional diligence and attention to this Aboff,

in principle to a solution. These are happening essentially at the termination points there's two different types of retainers On these types of clips, there's the clips on the continuous surfaces where tile meets tile. And then where a tile terminates at a window sill, it has a different kind of clip. Um, so not wanting to rely on those clips having had two of them now chip out on us. and also not wanting to rely on continued inspections by themselves, the school personnel or capital project personnel. They are going to proceed with restraints essentially from the windowsill point. So they're manufacturing...

You know, basically metal bars that match the appearance and the aesthetic of the existing windowsill that will then provide an overlap instead of just terminating and leaving space there. It'll come around like an L. So they are on their dime manufacturing those to match in and will be installing those around the building. They were the ones that proposed that plan because obviously it's an expensive plan. We didn't want to direct them to do that, but they see that really this is Thank you for watching. Those Ls, those restrainers. And then it'll be quite an effort to get them in at all those locations.

So we anticipate that... You know, it's unlikely that all of these things will be in by the time snow falls this year. So this will carry into spring and in the meantime we'll continue monitoring all of this We even were discussing with fire department and a couple other departments. We do anticipate coming to city council with a request under the surveillance ordinance for a drone. So we don't just have to rely on Kevin's eagle eye that he can fly a drone up and actually get close inspection of these things.

Director Risch, it sounds really great. I really appreciate all the attention that's being paid to this. I went to grad school at UMass Amherst which famously had a library where Things were, bricks were falling down and it put like fences around it. So this was bringing up some bad memories but it sounds like Things are in hand to me, and I'm not seeing anything from the council side. I'll pass it on to Chair Piton.

So I want to apologize to my colleagues and the public. My notes in preparation for this meeting I had the wrong agenda item, which is why I had a wrong agenda topic in the last part here. I did not include this conversation on our agenda and this was one that I had flagged for discussion so To avoid a violation of open meeting law, I apologize but I think I'd like to request that we discuss this again at our November meeting and apologies again to my colleagues on the City Council and to Director Raish.

I'm sure that there was probably a miscommunication of mine.

No, no, this was me just working too quickly. Fair enough.

All right so yeah I think having heard all that and with gratitude to Dr. Aish, we'll leave this one in committee so that we can pick it up again next month. All right. That brings us to the end of our agenda. Do I hear any motions to adjourn? Sait makes the motion.

Motion to adjourn and approve the minutes from the last meeting.

All right, adjournment and approval of the minutes. Councilor Scott? Councilor Sait? Yes Chair Link?

Yes

All right, with that, that is all two votes in favor of approving the minutes and adjourning at 6.49 p.m. on our time or on our end, and then we'll pass it over to the school committee.

And we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Thank You. Night.