Facilities Steering Committee, Phase II
Town of Princeton, MA
Meeting minutes for 05Nov2018
7pm at town hall annex
Attending for the committee: Richard Chase, Noelani Chase, Rick McCowan, Dennis Moore
Richard Chase opened the meeting at 7:01 pm.
Committee Members approved minutes for 10/22/2018 and 10/29/2018.
Richard summarized his conversation with Margot from JWA. She agreed to meet with the FSC sometime next week to review our questions and the next steps of the project.
Dennis and Richard agreed to be the FSC members who will attend the JWA meeting. Will extend invitation to members of the Selectboard in addition to Chief Bennett and Chief Powers.
Reviewed proposed questions presented by members of the FSC and public (see questions on FSC Meeting Agenda 11/5/2018). Discussed the need to prioritize the important questions for JWA. Richard to refine questions and send to Margot prior to meeting.
Major points: How do we get the cost down while still maintaining the needs of both departments respectively? How does the Town move forward, what are the next steps and costs associated with construction ready plans? How can we position ourselves favorably to acquire financial assistance from the Bond Bill? Can JWA (along with the FSC, PFD, PPD) conceptualize detailed plans for a ‘minimum design building’ based on current building codes/requirements, industry standards/recommendations, as well as specific Fire and Police standards?
Rick spoke with Terry Dierks from Morton Builders (IL based company with office in Westfield, MA) about the Wilton County NY Fire Station, which was a design/build. Mr. Dierks quoted in today’s dollars the building was $1.3 million; however, it was only a fire station, and unknown if that was just exterior frame or if it was full build. Cost did not reflect site work. Rick is waiting to hear back from Morton Builders about obtaining conceptual plans on the Wilton County Fire Station, and further granularity on what is included in the 1.3M? Would need to find out the cost for a public safety building.
It was suggested that we reach out to the Wilton County Town Administrator or Fire Chief to see if we could get plans if Morton Builders could not provide them.
Reviewed general public questions posed to the FSC for the next round of Q&A:
Discussed the septic and well at the Princeton Center School. Chris Knuth to get ahold of Bob Mason for a more detailed analysis. Per the JWA site assessment report the well is only 15 years old and septic has been regularly pumped, but the consensus was that it will need to meet the requirements of Title V. There was a general discussion and agreement that both systems will need to be looked at and upgraded accordingly. It was noted that Fire Station 2 has separate tanks for drainage for the firetrucks, and something similar will need to be in place for the public safety complex.
Discussed the need for a training room at the new public safety building as well as a community room. Since ~$350K is being put into the Annex could that suffice as the community room or even meet the needs for police/fire training? Scheduling of town/committee meetings and municipal trainings at the Annex would be problematic. Police Dept. currently have no meeting/training space in current station and need one, Fire Dept. has a small training room in station 2, but the size does not meet their needs. It was proposed to make one training room in the new public safety building to be shared by both departments for mandatory police/fire training.
It was asked if Fire or Police need to be in their station/within proximity to gear for trainings, or could they do trainings at Bagg Hall or Annex to forgo training room at Public Safety Complex? Answer: Yes we need a training room that can be shared between police and fire but having it open to the public is not a viable option.~ Yes, we need to be in the public safety building to do training because we need access to our equipment to train and should be near apparatus should we have a call.~ It’s not feasible to ask us to train in a location where we do not have access to our gear.~ Public access would be only on a special request basis as it is today.
General consensus that a community room needs to be at Annex or Bagg Hall.
General discussion on the Bond Bill; Richard has data on previous Bond Bills and which Towns received funding. Richard and FSC to sort through data for previous public safety funding in other towns.
Discussed the proposed Code of Conduct Policy. After review FSC did not approve policy at this time.
Discussed the need for a long term Facilities Committee to oversee continuous improvement, budgeting and maintenance of any new and/or renovated buildings going forward. Will need to set up reserve funds for town buildings to prevent the situation we are currently facing. More discussion needed with SB and other committees.
The FSC members agreed no meeting the week of Thanksgiving
Meeting Adjourned at 8:03pm
Submitted by, Noelani Chase
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