1.30.2023 Community Preservation Committee

welcome to community preservation committee uh I'm hearing at city council hearing room one government center Fall River uh meeting will be a accessible individual through Comcast cable TV channel 18 or through Fred TV Facebook live stream uh in case of conflict review on Channel Nine today is Monday January 30th 2023 605.

uh pursuant to the open meeting laws any person we make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or make transmit the meeting through any medium attenues are therefore advised as such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether received or unperceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible and I start with roll call we'll start at year end uh Victor Farris pockboard

20. Alexander Silva present State Council appointee John Brandt conservation Richard Calderon president mayor appointed Rick Mancini historic commission and we have on Zoom Kristen Cantara Oliveira mayoral appointee attending remotely by Zoom okay we are missing tonight Carolyn Auburn and we're missing a member from uh housing and I think that is it and uh also from planning we don't have a member

uh can I have a motion to uh oh wait um any citizen input okay um can I have a motion for approval the minutes from January 17th I'll make a motion to accept the minutes from uh January 17th second roll call vote start on Zoom yes yes Alex Silva yes yes yes Rick Mancini yes okay next we had a request for uh public records uh North End Neighborhood Association

can I have a motion to refer this to the legal department I'll make a motion to refer this through the legal department I'll second okay roll call vote yes Victor Ferris yes all right so the yes yeah right yes I'm not sure if everyone's aware there's a time limit for these public records requests but I'll make a motion yes yes well we don't want to really talk about

it we turned it over to them uh 10 days as the days oh yeah I'm not talking about yeah it's the legal toy or convey the answers so it will start the process next up is the Maplewood Park Lake Project uh I want to thank uh for all the information you gave us so we'll work and looking over and uh but just to go back on this project when this project was presented in 2019

uh was one of the best presentations we ever had as a committee here and then when we approved it uh well in 2020 2021 we approved it for FY 22 budget which within the neighborhood association to the Parks Department and when we proved that we knew that somewhere in the two years the costs were probably going to go up specifically you know so we had to kind of our back of our mind um

but when we're looking at these projects we look at the grant not we do look at uh estimates but we don't approve estimates we make sure what's in the estimate is going to be in a hard Grant the grant is what we're responsible for um so keep that in mind that's how we've always gone if we want to change that after we do this funding round we can look at different options but as a board

and since this project came up before before that's what we look at and then we don't step back in until the project is finished and then we inspect it to make sure it meets every standard that we had in the Grant Office application so that's where we are now and occasionally I don't want to say we're a cash book for uh overruns because in my 10 years I bet you we've only had maybe

three projects that overwind budget so uh just keep that in mind uh so I'm going to open it up to the board for questions that they have on the project one of the things um you're writing what you said chair but respectfully as long as everything is being followed by Statute I think um you know there's definitely you know board members that have that background and and I think it

goes in line with what this board does so my colleagues to see if they have any comments and I have to have some questions okay all right well I have I have no questions I don't pick up oh okay so um so some just I just want to go on record too um I mean yes the uh The Architects they provide you know a good amount of information they still left out some of the information that

the board members had asked um the other things I looked at um as far as the the estimates so the Architects they want to incur a 9 800 charge they also want to incur a 3 900 3960 dollars for redesign fee I mean this that's going over the 20 percent uh threshold that should be allowable under statute so I just want the board members to know that um for me um I mean I'll just keep it

short and sweet I'm just I'm gonna respectfully decline this project so there's just too many variables there's a lot of you know there wasn't enough time really you know to look at this stuff I mean we all work full-time you know um it's just uh you know for for myself I mean and looking at it and kind of going over the numbers it's just it doesn't mean criteria so

I'll leave it up to any of my colleagues well okay I I did get the complete package thank you to Sandy and I spent hours just looking through it and I looked at the textual design and the specifications a very thorough set of documents thing that so I and I understand I don't want to get into a lot of depth I know where we're going but the the 499 000 was the original bid and we're

looking for an additional fifty thousand dollars or so because of the added costs and the inflation and things that have set in and I agree with it this project is a good project that's deserving it's going to be well used maybe there are things we should look at at a later date but the architectural Provisions were really well done very thorough I couldn't find any loopholes at a

general electrical contract is going to have try and work into those documents they are tight they're good set so I would agree with all of this you're going to get my E8 on this however I would not include the additional 30 or 40 000 at 20 percent May load on my pot sold here but more on this I would like to pointed that will not approve the 40 000 in the extra 20 percent that's being

looked at but this Base number of 552 000 have changed an agreement with well well put together documents we should get those types of presentations but looking at that particular documents I was impressed okay salads um I was just actually hoping Richard could you provide some more further information on what state statute you think the 20 is kind of going against and then you were talking about the 20

contingency to support the additional contingency after the 50 000 being requested that's what you're talking about okay so Richard yeah and I'll second that motion with within so so I obviously there's two components here this one which is 30b which there is Statue um for anything over 20 there's no there's no statute for construction however the Office of the Attorney General bases this rule is on

interpretation of Court decisions something I'm a little confused with the 20 thing because this is not a change order right it's not a change it would have bought did you the Geo Technical Services that they're adding to the contract Star Tech 9 800 plus the redesigned are they including that that costs additionally correct that's being added because they had to rebid so that that's not anticipated that three

thousand nine hundred dollars was not anticipated because we had assumed everything would be able to be awarded on the initial bid but when the bids came in at six hundred thousand eight hundred thousand and nine hundred thousand there was no way that we were going to award that bid at those prices because we would definitely show up over three hundred thousand dollars Miss Oliveira as well

so just to clarify the original chips oh I'm sorry Nancy Smith director of parks Al Oliveira director of City operations so to backtrack a little bit the initial bit that 3 900 is because we had to go out again that's not something that wasn't we anticipated and the 9 000 of the geotechnical costs is actually a construction cost that we didn't anticipate that was for the borings

that was for the actual work so that we could provide a report to the individual bidders so they wouldn't be able to come back at us afterwards with some astronomical change in the bid and say well no one did the testing or the boring we had no idea what the ground below those um that pole installation was going to look like so we did that as part of a almost a safeguard for ourselves not to

run into an overrun because I overrun could be far worse down the road for these contingency costs that the board is saying they they are not interested in funding and I completely understand that I come here tonight to ask the board to allow us the 53 000 so that we can move forward with getting the project started because this project has to be completed according to your agreement by June

and we have put a stipulation in this this contract for them to be done by mid-april which I'm assuming we're going to have to move back now if with the information we provided you can see that the next low bidder is an additional I believe almost sixty thousand dollars and when we solicited these bids we got and that information was provided as well I think 22 or 26 bidders picked up these bids and five return them

so I don't think that going out is going to get us any lesser of a cost I think I don't have the original proposal because it was submitted by the Maplewood Park and it was submitted in a document that went directly to this board but I do know that most of the increase was they did not anticipate the construction costs to be as high as they did nor did anyone foresee the construction costs that were

going to Skyrocket between when covid began and at this point there were people that were had purchased land they held off on building houses because of the materials and and all that type of thing well we run into the same thing so where this project was underestimated was in what we thought was going to be a construction cost and when I looked at that number it's almost the sixty thousand dollars

so so I wanna so can I respond and I apologize Miss Oliveira um so just to clarify so I understand that you know to you know unforeseen of the geotechnical services and I also understand that of the redesign because you had to go back out to bid but either way still a change still a change whether if you want to refer to as a change order but not because if you so let's say an example

that the architect knew that he he um he know that this this geotechnical Services was part was gonna they were going to incur that cause that would have brought it over 30 000. the city would have to put out a request for proposals for architectural um to hire an architect not directly go under and just pick whomever because anything right the geotechnical service of 9 800 was not done by the architect

it was done by an outside for the last in our last meeting um unless I'm mistaken I thought that the architect was going to incur that cause as part of their contract okay and then the okra because the architectural firm did not do that it was like an outside firm that did that work okay so I I don't believe that okay it it would do the you know wouldn't be included in the

architectural cost because they didn't do it so if I could if I could just interject I've been involved with probably over 500 million dollars worth of construction in the Commonwealth I'm a certified mcpo um a procurement specialist when we're talking about fifty two thousand dollars in the in the escalation component in the construction field that's minimal compared to what we're

talking between the covert years and the and the the proposed dollar amount that is not a very high cost I will tell you that being it being a professional in that field uh but again this board has to approve that and the contingency I will tell you a little bit about the contingency the key component to the contingency is if something happens if nothing happens that cost is not but

we're not even looking at that that's a whole different animal but I don't want anyone get getting confused with the 20 percent versus the escalation the escalation is what we're referring to the contingency is a little pot of money that says if we hit something we want to make sure this is done the right way folks we're talking about some some tall polls that carry some weight to them so we want it

done the right way and the engineers and structural folks those are the those are the professionals that know what we're talking about nobody knows what people are going to bid as as Nancy mentioned we have folks that are bidding in the six hundred thousand dollar range at this point so this right here is is um I mean when we're talking 30b 30b is the parts of goods and services this is

mostly I believe it's 149. the initial design was procured through Chapter 70 chapter 7c which where there was a procurement process to that so it's it's confusing about the fifty two thousand dollars that's the part that I don't get and I'm more than welcome I'll welcome any other questions pertaining to the construction end of it I had a chance to review the project this is cut and dry folks

yeah so Mr hello says you know I'm also MC PPO certified as well too and I've done a lot of public projects as well um again it's just how how it was kind of presented the last time maybe I misunderstood and if I did I uh I apologize I thought that this was incurred by the architect um but I mean again I'll leave it up to the other board members I mean the architect is a well-known

um architect in the in the local community so he's done lots of projects um and he knows he knows what he's doing and as I stated earlier the architectural design scope of work the addendums and and the the added agreements that were put in by the city Splendid job very very thorough I went through it and looked through see if I could pull anything apart it was very well done there's no concerns there

fact it's so well done that you should not have a need for any additional footage because there aren't many there's just it does not appear to be a loophole in there you did borrowings and the contractor was the the specifications want that contractor to do a very thorough investigation so it should be nothing left open-ended that quotation where maybe electrical service while the electrical services there and

again when you evaluate that it's either adequate or not you look at that you know that so to put in this thirty thousand proposal to look at the electrical service not necessary so my whole stand is I think the 52 000 additional money no-brainer I agree I think the project is so worthwhile it's wonderful and I agree with you the costs have been outrageous and stand on it the only thing I'm concerned

with is these extra monies constantly what they are is for the electrical contractor oh that's a gravy train I'm going to look and see what I can do and pick at that because it's available to it's not there they're going out on a project and they know there's no nothing to pick from do your job and that's my whole position and that was why I made the motion I agree you're going to get a

yay vote for me on the on the project and additional funding but not on the uh contingency Oaks I was just wondering you might not know this did the architect perhaps look at Ground penetrating radar surveying in lieu of geotechnical borings so savings I believe Nancy mentioned that it was just borings at this time and what they do is I'm not sure if anyone really knows how that's done they strategically

figure out the locations you can really pinpoint everything within a certain grid but again there's a cost to that there's a major cost of that so what they do is they strategically find the locations where they're going to bore just to do the investigation I don't believe they did no I believe it was something where the um electrical engineers suggested that we do this I think they felt that that would be

enough of an indication of whether we would have to do additional work by those whatever that boring report had produced and we put that as part of the co of the contract information so that the bidders would have that information when they um did put in their bid I do agree you know commissioner Mancini you know sometimes that is some some contractors may look at it as a bonus the extra money but

right now what we're really looking for is just to get this project off off the off the ground because we don't want it to turn into one of these other projects that uh like sitting in the works since 2017. this was a two-year project we're coming to the end of our two years we want these kids to be able to play under these lights it's something they waited for for a long time they're very excited

about it and you know we've been working diligently with the league to try to move this along so that they can open their season as close to normal as possible and that's something where you know I appreciate them the committee having this meeting within the two-week period because it's something that if if we can we want to move very quickly on and have it all closed out for you by the by the deadline of what that

contract that we entered into with this committee said so I have a quick question I'm sorry go ahead so it sounds like there wasn't a look at radar serving no not that I know of I wouldn't be able to that that would have been a question for the architect I'm not really sure I can't give you an answer yay or nay because I would be just making it up going forward it might

be worthwhile to see if there would have been a cost savings there um we'll not know for sure now I do have another thing but um just a just a quick question um has there any work been done in the park previously any other type of work was this is just the first not as far as ball field lighting oh okay but it has been like other other work there not

just on the light I'm saying just in general yeah the league is very very Cooperative they have redone Playing Fields they did install lighting at the lower field themselves at their own cost um I would say maybe 10 or so years ago 10 or 15 years ago so there has been investment just overall oh overall investment we have the Patriots playground in there that we've we've received um money for okay from the

craft family there are three ball fields Maplewood Maplewood Park is one of the leagues that constantly improve their facility they have the use of the facility there are new fences there have been tennis court repairs I mean basketball court repairs it's probably one of our most um up to date and parks that are very well cared for and we can thank the league for that for because many times they have

collaborated with us to do repairs good I didn't know that thank you Chris any questions no I'm outside I've just of one final thing um so when this project came to us it was an application through the league and then this past fiscal year we had another application for lights through another League at Florida Kelly Park I'm just wondering if perhaps in the future if uh this is another type of project down the

line if the parks department or the city would take the lead on this uh to maybe avoid some of these errors in the future it seems like some of this could have been avoided if we went that route and um perhaps also thinking about contingencies and capital budget so you don't have to have these hold ups for when extra cost overruns occur um that's just a suggestion my answer to

that is if you have the PAC Department solicit the course you're going to get much higher costs for your cost estimates because they whenever a league solicits costs from someone they get a certain price and when we solicit costs from people we get a different price because of wages yes so that's why these organizations come they like to do these things present them to the Committees they have

to come before the board and we say sure you can do it but nine out of ten the league does not do anything more than submit the proposal to you after that it comes to us the league does not do anything else after you grant them that proposal do you advise them during the creation of The Proposal they have come to us sometimes and other times they've solicited their own information and and sent it to this

committee we've had some issues with that we've had some issues where outside sources have come to this committee and not come before the pockboard so that was something that we worked with this committee to say if you don't want us to not want this project then we have to go through the step of they come to the park board first so this is this has been a work in progress for a lot of these projects on

how to handle them I mean we've had some people go oh you can just give us a price for that they can't do that we have to follow as Mr Calderon said we have to file procurement procedures these people think that they can just because they submitted it privately that they can complete the project privately and that's not the case and we've the Blackboard has been very um I don't want to say strictly trying to

get this point across but they can't contact who they think can do this work this is something that has to go out forbid and oftentimes when it does it kind of tweaks their price because they're going to get it if you do something privately and like even the leagues a lot of times the leagues will say we want permission to do this because we know if the city does it it's

going to be that much more expensive however my understanding is I think now there's a rule if anybody does it they have to follow um yeah prevailing wage so these things have all taken their costs down the road where it's been a learning experience for the people submitting these proposals as well we do have another proposal it is for a much smaller field it's also a hundred thousand dollars

less that was awarded by this committee now my understanding is the bids are supposed to go to this committee that was not something that was originally done when we did this one these are again the changes in the rules as we go along so this next project with the four hundred thousand if this committee wants to see the bids in this or these plans and specs that's something that we can

do but it's something that we all have to understand the bidding process is a timely thing anyway and this is going to add time so you may have to extend the life of that contract well it is uh when uh you get the bids in with the person who's assigned to that project would we'd like them to be there when they open the door so it's just the person uh who would be saying pick was

he would be there while the kids are open for um often when I was on the subject of uh future funding uh in general we used to we ran on the proposal presented to us because you normally don't give us bids you give us estimates uh so if we look to do that in the future where we want to see bids is that uh can you get this January and can we vote on your project before

the bids or well I think when you us when you solicit a bid now that's an actual formal right bid you know a dollar amount that's that's not going to change but then again I don't know that this committee wants to get to that that point at that point the committee may as well award the bid you know what I'm saying so there's no way that we're going to be

able to get it when you go out for bid you go out for bid but in that estimate I need to have the architect prepare those documents and we're not going to have that without the the award from this committee so once the committee gives us the award we'll say we'll call it 500 000 for a round number the first thing we do is go into the design phase the architectural Fitness so that money

is already drawn down from that the only thing we can do is immediately notify you when the bids come in but it's not going to change the fact if we're high or low like the first time it would have been ridiculous to notify you of the bid because as the gentleman left the room he said okay I'll wait to hear from you I go don't bother because we're about

300 000 over so this is going out again so so and I have um and not I don't have any more questions you you guys have done you know yourself Miss Smith and Miss Oliver a great job I think this is just a huge learning curve for this committee as we as I think as this committee is actually evolving to miss missed point it is different when um this it's a private versus a public when

it's private you know I'm just gonna just throw numbers out there um Ms aliver knows this you know private would be like 20 bucks for an electrician in public it's like 95 right you know per per hour so this is when the the numbers you know jump up dramatically and then the other caveat to this too is when it's public a lot of these contractors they're all you know even though there's covid all these

contractors are very busy and they're just throwing numbers out there like I mentioned in the last uh meeting and hoping it sticks I mean Oliveira you know that so they don't care they're just like hey I'll wait and see if I win it I just you know my profits just quadruple and just like just one bit back so I I think there's a couple of things and again and I it's just some

were part of this and it's just I know we'll talk about it later on but I think um in regards to the board um you know being part of the process I've looked at other communities like Westport that did that they actually have in their bid documents that the CPA will will review you know the uh the bid documents and have final approval so that way this will you know kind of just

we won't be having this discussion you know it was just like Hey by the time we get to to the to the CPC meeting decisions are made and not kind of going back and forth because there is time constraints you know this supply chain issues that we're having so I think this is a huge learning curve overall um you know for me what I said earlier is regards to my motion I mean I I want

to change my emotion and I want to say yes I think this is just a huge overall learning curve you know just for us and then you know the other thing and lastly and I'll close with this is just making a process that will work for you know projects for the parks is because it's true I I understand I mean if if if if a league is trying to come to the board

and get money you know the part you know the city should be aware of what they're trying to do and it's just it almost I don't want to say they're circumvent in the process but the process of being circumvented and this is where it delays this confusion and no one knows what's going on and then you know it kind of delays the project so I think if we were you know for for this board to create

some kind of process that says anytime I receive any kind of application for Parks it should be that you already have a conversation you know that's a conversation and that is inflation okay no project can come before this board without a letter included in their application that says the board of pot Commissioners has re you know they've come before the board they've presented

the project that they'd like to see done and the board agrees with it now official letter and I'm sorry we issue a letter yes and the leagues you know the league has been this league Maplewood league has been very Cooperative they initiated it they came before us they did whatever they were supposed to do like I said that particular some of the projects when they would come to the board and go how come this

is not being done we'd be like what we don't even know you have a CPC money because they would go through somewhere where else so I think this both the park Department the board and this committee have worked to solve that problem by making that letter a requirement from the board so down the road you will see these letters yeah I mean 65 of our projects have been to the city which probably only had three

crossover runs during that 10 years so it doesn't happen a lot but it is always good like you said the book to tighten things up in the future yeah but just as far as the past I'd like to keep this you know when it came to us we were not that you know headstrong on the bits coming in we grabbed the money and they fell on the project and actually we've

gotten money back from the city over the years because they've over budgeted and we had refunds so I mean back into CPC who's taking him okay do we know the available monies uh in this pool just that we did we did contact uh uh Bridget Hallman from uh City and she did okay the uh 52 000 uh there's enough in our funds to do this uh we have uh 2.4 million after the use of this is

so if no other questions then I have a motion for an additional 52 000 funding excuse me Mr Graham I don't want to fall short because we're I don't want to come back here again wait what it's 52 09 928.72 so I think it might just be easy just to say 53 000 or 55 000 whatever 53 whatever you want to do this way you'll know what went into it

um in addition to the 499 if this board so pleases that would be I think we just say 55. I'll take it okay put the additional fifty five thousand dollars to the already allocated 49 490.

I'll second that uh roll call vote start with Ibis alvare Kristen Cantara Oliveira I vote Yes make the Paris yes Alex yes Richard Calderon Yes Rick Mancini yes and just for the public hearing that we just raised the 55 the balance would come back to CPC if not usually it's not going 55 in case I made it a typo I don't want to come back here for a typo already thank you very much thank you

very much thank you we'll keep you posted take care thanks

oh gotcha okay uh yeah

the batteries yes we have uh