HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-12-11-CEC-min tt Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting
' December 11, 2019
Location and Time: Town Office Building, Parker Room (G-15); 7:45 A.M.
Members Present: Charles Lamb, Chair; David Kanter, Vice-Chair & Clerk; Sandy Beebee
(remote participation); Wendy Manz; Frank Smith
Member Absent: Rod Cole
Others Present: Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager for Finance; Jennifer Hewitt,
Town Budget Officer; Carol Kowalski, Assistant Town Manager for Development;
Karen Mullins, Conservation Director; Katharine Lebrecque, Management Fellow,
Transportation Management Office; Nadie Rice, Town Clerk; Lee Yates, Archivist/Records
Manager, Town Clerk's Office; Deepika Sawhney, Member, Town School Committee
Documents Presented:
• Notice of CEC Meeting, December 11, 2019
• Land Use, Health, and Development Department (LUHD) FY2021—FY2025 Capital
Improvement Projects (CIPs), October 23, 2019
• CEC Questions with LUHD Answers Regarding the LUHD FY2021—FY2025 CIPs
(LUHD Q&A), December 10, 2019
• LUHD Table of Prior Funding for LUHD FY2021—FY2025 CIPs
• Mr. Kanter's E-Mail, December 8, 2019, at 6:33 P.M., to Nadie Rice, Questions
Regarding [Town Clerk's Office's (TCO)] FY2021—FY2025 CIP #307, Archives &
Records Management/Records Conservation & Preservation (TCO CIP Questions)
• Draft Minutes of the CEC Meeting, December 4, 2019
• CEC Positions(CIP Summary 230ct2019)Prepared by DGK 10Dec2019
• Mr. Kanter's E-Mail, December 10, 2019, at 7:55 P.M., to Mr. Lamb, Potential 2019
Dates for CEC Meetings, including Budget-Related Events
Call to Order
Mr. Lamb called the meeting to order at 7:46 A.M. with a quorum of the members in
attendance. He announced that he had authorized Ms. Beebee to participate remotely as
she is unable to attend in person due to a personal matter that requires her to remain at
home at the time of this meeting. He stated than any votes during this meeting will be taken
by a roll call.
Approval of Minutes
Mr. Kanter explained the amendments that were suggested for the Draft Minutes of the
Committee's meeting on December 4, 2019. It was moved and seconded to approve the
amended version of those Minutes. Roll-Call Vote: 5-0.
Member Concerns and Liaison Reports
Mr. Lamb addressed the distributed copies of Mr. Kanter's e-mail with potential dates for
meetings of this Committee in 2020, through the 2020 Annual Town Meeting (ATM). It was
agreed that Mr. Kanter should obtain room reservations for all of those potential dates and if
a date is later found not to be needed, the reservation would be cancelled as soon as
practical—and, hopefully before that meeting had been posted.
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Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting
December 11, 2019
Review of the LUHD FY2021—FY2025 CIPs
Ms. Manz used the LUHD Q&A to initiate a discussion regarding the 8 LUHD CIPs.
• CIPs are addressed in the order of the LUHD Q&A. (The SECTIONs are those in the
grouping order used by the Finance Department in the distribution of this year's set of
CIPs and numbering are the CIPs number.)
• She acknowledged that the detailed responses in the LUHD Q&A reduced significantly
the additional questions needed during this discussion.
• Ms. Kowalski, Ms. Mullins, and the CEC members provided comments, when needed,
throughout the discussion that were not limited to the following—many of which are
based on the written responses provided by LUHD.
SECTION III — COMMUNITY PRESERVATION ACT (CPA) PROJECTS
#882, Parker Meadow Accessible Trail
• Phase I design and permitting is expected to be completed in February 2020. If the
FY2021 construction funding being requested is approved, request for bids could be
as soon as July 1, 2020.
• An operations and maintenance plan will be prepared as part of the current design
phase. Annual maintenance is minimal, but projected to be $10,000 over 10 years for
repair of boardwalks, replacement of stabilized stone dust surface, and for cleaning of
any pervious asphalt material.
SECTION II - CAPITAL PROGRAMS
#981, Transportation Mitigation
• Specific projects to be funded include: Speed feedback signs 5 permanent and one
moveable; Survey Watertown and Pleasant Street intersections; Rectangular Rapid
Flash Beacon (RRFB) on Maple for crosswalk near Harrington; Design of Watertown
and Pleasant intersections; Provide pedestrian crossing at Wood and Hartwell—
design, pavement cuts, and ADA complaint pads; Survey and design Minuteman at
Hancock crossing; Stealth speed counter (2); Bike counters; and studies that arise
from transportation safety requests.
• Funds on hand that remain to be expended in this or subsequent years are
FY2014: $9,479.56
FY2018: $8,662.07
FY2019: $39,000.00
FY2020: $100,000.00
It is expected that most of that funding will be used. Part of the funding used is to
address issues when they arise so sometimes there is money left over. The
Transportation Safety Group (TSG) was without staff for most of FY2019. As a result,
TSG initiatives were put on hold.
• Regarding large issues that would require substantial construction; TSG judiciously
choses those to do further study. Many of these are tied to the bandwidth of the
Department of Public Works (DPW). In a sense, TSG only takes on what DPW can
handle fixing in subsequent years.
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Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting
December 11, 2019
SECTION I - ONE—TIME CAPITAL PROJECTS
#983, Parking Lot Consolidation
• As this CIP has the same revision date (10/16/2016) as the previous CIP, as well as
the same cost projection for FY2021 and FY2022 as previously for FY2019 and
FY2020, it was acknowledged that it is likely not an accurate picture of current status
as it hasn't been updated to the cost estimate conducted for this fiscal year.
• There has not been any progress in a survey or any negotiations with owners.
• There has not been a directive by the department to include this in current Economic
Development Office work plan this fiscal year.
• The scope was to consolidate the parcels behind the library. The names of those 28
parcels was provided.
SECTION III - CPA PROJECTS
#1037, Conservation Land Acquisition
• There is no additional information to provide at this time and the Conservation
Commission is hopeful that negotiations will be successful to be able to bring this
purchase forward to the 2020 ATM.
• The Community Preservation Committee (CPC) is aware of this possible acquisition
and, although no specific cost has been negotiated, has some funding set aside that
could be applied.
#1062, Willards Woods Site Improvements
• No additional cost estimates since last year's CIP.
• Phase I is being approached in two parts: Part I, the ecological land-management
plan, is currently underway and services of an ecological-consulting firm have been
retained with an expected completion date of March 2020. Part II, design and
permitting for universally accessible improvements, would begin immediately following
the completion of the ecological land-management plan in spring 2020 with an
expected completion date of late summer/fall 2020. Bid documents would then be
ready to go out to bid for construction, pending the approval of the FY202 funding
cited in this CIP.
#1068, Daisy Wilson Meadow Preservation &
#1069, West Farm Meadow Preservation
• These are two efforts under the multi-year Conservation Meadow Preservation
Program—better named as a Process.
• The Conservation Division has received these previous funds for other projects in that
process:
■ CIP #928/FY2016: $26,400 to preserve Hennessey Field at Paint Mine
Conservation Area and Joyce Miller's Meadow Conservation Area. Those two
meadows were completed in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
■ CIP #1016/FY2018: $40,800 to preserve Wright Farm and Willard's Woods.
Wright Farm: Services of a site-work professional have been retained.
This project has been delayed due to challenging site conditions and difficulty
finding a qualified consultant, but we expect to complete it this fall/winter
2019/2020.
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Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting
December 11, 2019
■ Willard's Woods: Meadow preservation is currently on hold pending the
ecological land-management planning related to CIP #1062; however, it is
intended to implement this project pending more precise recommendations
from the land-management plan.
• Through annual goal setting with the Conservation Commission and Conservation
Stewards Directors Group, Conservation staff identified Daisy Wilson Meadow and
West Farm Meadow as the next two conservation meadows to receive this treatment.
• Although the basic cost projection for both the Daisy Wilson Meadow and the West
Farm Meadow are nearly the same, even though the latter project is later in time and
twice the acreage, the cost projections for these two projects are based on amount
and complexity of work, in addition to availability of volunteer labor, not on acreage.
For example, West Farm has an active neighborhood Steward group and much of the
contractual work can be done by machine with a single operator. Daisy Wilson
Meadow, on the other hand, has more clearing and invasive pressure on the edges
and will require selective, and discerning, vegetation removal in a wetland buffer along
Moreland Avenue, which will take more time, require permitting, and cannot be done
by volunteers.
#1089, Wright Farm Access Planning and Design
• Deeding to LexHAB the portion of the parcel designated for is currently in progress.
• At this point, LUHD was not able to project any costs for the barn, and cost projections
for the construction of trail and parking improvements would be developed as part of
the design process that this funding request addresses. LUHD expects to request
funding for permitting and construction for parking and site-access improvements in
an out-year, pending annual goal setting by the Conservation Commission in
May 2020.
Review of the TCO FY2021-FY2025 CIP
Mr. Kanter used the TCO CIP Questions to initiate a discussion regarding that CIP. Ms. Rice,
Ms. Yates, and the CEC members provided comments, when needed, throughout the
discussion that were not limited to those questions.
SECTION III - CPA PROJECTS
#307, Archives & Records Management/Records Conservation & Preservation
• When questioned whether each FY's funding is just for work initiated in that
FY (i.e., any excess would be "returned" after that FY), Ms. Kosnoff
confirmed that is not the case. She said that except for the special case of
the Public Facilities Bid Documents (CIP #749)—which funding is for use in
just the FY of the appropriation—all other Town Meeting appropriations are
available for use in the appropriation FY and potentially all subsequent FYs.
• In response to the question whether the level funding at $20,000/FY
represent an optimum funding in the out years, Ms. Rice and Ms. Yates
explained that the funding is for contracted services to accomplish the
conservation and preservation and that level of funding was sufficient for
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Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting
December 11, 2019
those outsourced services as it addressed what the "bandwidth" within the
TCO could prepared for those services in an FY.
Review of the Town Manager's FY2021-FY2025 CIP
SECTION III - CPA PROJECTS
#1087, Restoration of Margaret Lady of Lexington Painting
• Ms. Kosnoff asked if this Committee had any questions about the CIP. Ms. Manz
asked why an only-$9,000 request was being presented in a CIP because of the usual
$25,000 threshold for a project—even if funded over multiple years. Ms. Kosnoff said
that was done as it provided a document to present to the CPC. Mr. Kanter expressed
his opposition to that use when the CPC has an existing provision for a submittal
requesting CPA funding that isn't in a CIP.
Public Comment
Ms. Sawhney was recognized and she advised that she had just been advised that the
Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) would be announcing at a meeting that
morning those schools that would be invited into the MSBA's current, annual, selections for
potential funding support by the MSBA and that Lexington's Statement of Interest (SOI) for
renovation/reconstruction of its High School had not made the cut.
Initial Review of Concerns Regarding the FY2021-FY2025 CIPs
Mr. Lamb discussed with the Committee its preparation for the discussion with Jim Malloy
(Town Manager), Ms. Kosnoff, and Ms. Hewitt at the Committee's next meeting
(December 18, 2019). The purpose of that discussion is to provide them any concerns our
Committee have with those CIPs so those concerns can be considered as the FY2021 Town
Manager's Preliminary Budget & Financing Plan ("White Book") is being created.
Mr. Kanter discussed a spreadsheet he had prepared and distributed that lists all those CIPs
with columns that could be used by each member to record their concerns and, for the
Section I -One-Time Capital Projects that will be subject to Ranking, their proposed ranking.
Ms. Kosnoff was asked whether our Committee's inputs would be helpful and she said
"yes"—agreeing that ranking as High, Medium, & Low would be sufficient. Mr. Kanter
requested that a Not-Supported ranking entry be allowed and that was agreed to.
Mr. Lamb asked that each member submit only to him by the coming Saturday (the 14th), by
their close of business that day, any of their concerns about any of the CIPs and their
proposed rankings for the Section I CIPs that are requesting funding in FY2021 —which the
Committee expects would be the primary purpose of the ranking.
Adjourn
A Motion was made and seconded at 9:19 A.M. to adjourn. Roll-Call Vote: 5-0.
These Minutes were approved by the CEC at its meeting on December 18, 2019.
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