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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-12-07-CEC-min Capital Expenditures Committee Proposed Minutes December 7, 1999 Meeting 1) Meeting was called to order by the Chairman in Rm 105 at 7:30pm. All members were present: Narain Bhatia, George Burnell, Tom Griffiths, Charles Hornig, and Shirley Stolz. 2) The Fire Department, represented by Chief John Quinlan and Assistant Chief Peter Taroda, presented its capital spending requests for the next five years. These were documented by means of a handout: "Town of Lexington Capital Improvement Program F01 to 05, Departmental Summary of Capital Improvement Programs" for the Fire Department. These Minutes will not reproduce all of the information contained therein. 3) This year, the Department seeks to replace Rescue-1, which now serves as the backup for Rescue-2, a relatively new unit with about 19,000 miles. The replacement is part of a strategy of replacing each of the rescues units on a four-to-five basis with the replacements staggered so there is always a relatively new unit in service as the primary rescue vehicle. 4) The Department had about 2,000 rescue calls, of which about 1,200 resulted in transports. Calls are increasing at about 4-to-7% a year. 5) When a new rescue unit is purchased, the Department also purchases a new defibrillator to go with it; otherwise any equipment from the old unit is moved to the replacement unit. 6) Concerning private ambulance services: Private ambulances are equivalently equipped. Armstrong has paramedics with higher ratings than Department personnel, but they don't transport people unless requested to do so by Lexington. As a rule, Armstrong is called for transport in the East/South Lexington area. Bedford is called in the Hartwell Ave area. 35% of the transports involve the use of Armstrong paramedics. In 60% of the cases, they are dispatched or partially dispatched. 7) Billing: When Armstrong bills, Lexington gets $135.00 from them. When Lexington bills for transport, we get $105.00 of $225.00 billed. As a practical matter the rest may never be collected. We collect about 78% of what we bill. 8) Staffing the ambulance requires four people. It almost pays its way. 9) The exhaust system requested for FY2002 is for the main fire station only, where the need is more critical. They would hope, however, to be able to do both sites for the amount requested. 10) Note that the future request for "Fire Alarm Upgrade" also includes a request to upgrade mobile radio equipment. Maybe 15 units at $2,500 each and 12 other units at $2,500+ each. 11) The expected lifetime of a pumper is 15 years and the expected lifetime of a brush truck is 40 years. 12) At approximately 8:30pm members of the COA Long Range Planning Committee made a presentation to the Capital Expenditures Committee. They were represented by Clark Cowen, Chairman; Jackie Davison, Vice-Chairman; Phyllis Rand, Secretary; Dan Fenn; and Nancy Freed, Director of the Social Service Department. Jane Trudeau also appeared from the COA Board of Trustees. 13) The representatives had previously supplied the Committee with copies of their proposal. These Minutes will not reproduce all of the information contained therein. 14) Basically, the COA wants to build a 30,000 sq ft (usable space) that's on a par with centers in some other comparable Massachusetts towns. Peter Kelly was quoted as estimating the cost at between $5M and $6M. 15) The group seeks planning money, maybe $500K, this year to go all the way through to construction documents. 16) The group is seeking a five-acre site, but would need less acreage is a two-story design were utilized. They plan to come to Town Meeting with a site. The Center needn't be in the Center, but transportation is important. LExpress might meet (or be encouraged to meet) the demand. 17) Facilities to be housed in the proposed Senior Center include Social Services; the Adult Day Program, which is currently housed in Lincoln; physical fitness equipment; and an area big enough to accommodate programs with an attendance of 200. The facility should also house a class and meeting area. 18) The group is unenthusiastic about a multi-generational facility, because the ones visited tended to shunt seniors aside. 19) The group didn't have an operating cost estimate, but said the cost of operating the current Center for 1999 is $315,000. The group said volunteers play a major role in the delivery of services in the Center, and that helps keep labor costs down. The senior Center has between 200 and 300 volunteers. 20) The Committee expressed reservations to the COA group that they would attract the group they described as younger seniors. 21) The Committee also asked if the COA group had considered raising any part of the funds for the Center by public subscription as had the library for its expansion. 22) George Burnell reported on the committee working to assess Town use of Town buildings. He said the committee is currently collecting wish-list data about using space. 23) Tom Griffiths reported on the Elementary School Task Force: Of their December 2nd meeting, he observed the following: a) The goal of the Committee is to support the School Committee in meeting its recommendations, which were stated in a packet handed out to task force members and liaisons. In particular, the Task Force views financing as beyond the scope of its deliberations. b) One alternative being proposed is a 7th school, maybe on Young St, near Harrington School. There were several currents floating around about why this would be a good idea: (1) The Fiske is going to be so expensive to repair that a new school makes almost as much sense. (Delta about $1.5million). (2) Building a new school first allows better phasing, with little or no interruption for children, except redistricting. (3) School would be smaller, and that's better educationally (arguably). But, of course, if you build seven schools where once you had six, you're reconstructing Fiske too, and that invalidates argument 1. c) The operating delta of an additional elementary school would be about $1.5M. d) Tom raised the possibility that, since design were already complete for Hastings and Harrington and they were two schools that would see increases in population, they be moved forward in the construction process. e) In any event, with any number of schools, it appears that the construction will be staged over a number of years. 24) The Committee also discussed having meetings to formulate policy: o December 20th to discuss small-ticket items. o January 6th (tentatively) to discuss capital spending with Rick White, and, if time permits, big-ticket items. o Sometime week of Jan 10th to discuss capital spending with Peter Enrich. 25) The meeting adjourned at 11:07pm Minutes by Tom Griffiths