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Home My WebLink About2020-12-10-CEC-min JS�®pN�N Minutes of the �3 Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting December 10, 2020 \ V APAIL 19 \..GEXI NGTQ Location and Time: Remote Meeting; 8:00 A.M. Members Present (remote participation): Charles Lamb, Chair; David Kanter, Vice-Chair & Clerk; Sandy Beebee; Rod Cole; Wendy Manz (joined at 8:07 A.M.), and Frank Smith Members Absent: None Others Present (remote participation): Staff: Town Manager's Office: Kelly Axtell, Deputy Town Manager; Stella Carr, Sustainability Director; Department of Innovation & Technology �UT : Tim Goncalves: Director of Innovation & Technology; Dorinda Goodman: Director of Information Technology; Finance Department:Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager for Finance; Jennifer Hewitt, Budget Officer; Sara Arnold, Recording Secretary; Library: Koren Stembridge, Director; Emily Smith, Deputy Director; Members of Other Committees: Glenn Parker, Chair, Appropriation Committee (AC) liaison; Scott Bokun, School Committee (SC) liaison; Sara Cuthbertson, (SC) liaison; Town Meeting Member: Taylor Singh Documents Presented: • Notice of CEC Meeting, December 10, 2020 • FY2022-2026 Capital Improvement Projects/Programs (CIPs) as of November 24, 2020, by IT and the Town Manager's Office • CEC Provided Questions & Comments (Q&C) Regarding IT's CIPs with IT's Responses (IT's Q&C) • CEC Provided Q&C Regarding Town Manager's Office CIP and Town Manager's Office's Responses (Town Manager Q&C) • Mr. Kanter's, Reorganized-by-Department/Office, FY2022-FY2026 Capital Summary Tables from Updated FY2022-FY2026 CIPs as of November 24, 2020 • Draft #3 of CEC Minutes for its December 3, 2020 Meeting Call to Order Mr. Lamb called this Remote (Virtual) Meeting, which had been posted as such, to order at 8:01 a.m. He reported that the requirement to have a physical presence of a quorum had been suspended in an Executive Order by Massachusetts Governor Charles D. Baker, on March 12, 2020, after having proclaimed, on March 10, 2020, a STATE OF EMERGENCY in the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus, known as "COVID-19". Mr. Lamb further reported that the documents for this meeting, which had been provided electronically to the Committee and would be available upon request, were those listed as Documents Presented. Any votes during this meeting would be taken by a roll call. This meeting is being recorded to assist in preparing Minutes, and the recording would be deleted once the Minutes were approved. Mr. Lamb took a roll-call vote and confirmed that all six Committee members were remotely participating. Ms. Manz joined at 8:07 A.M. Page 1 of 3 Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting December 10, 2020 Review of the Town Manager's Office FY2022-FY2026 CIP In response to questions related to the Town Manager Q&C, the following includes some, but not all, of the staff's further responses: • Currently, Lexington has vehicle recharging stations in public parking areas for which there is no charge for use and municipal-only stations located behind the gates at the Department of Public Works building. • Locations for the two or more proposed stations have not been identified, and the current proposal does not include revenue generating capability. • It has been demonstrated by other towns that it is possible to track users of such stations so that the general public pays by credit card while municipal employees use a municipal card. There are different models for serving both purposes. • Eversource partnered with Lexington to help fund the installation of the public stations that are currently in Lexington. Frequently, there is easier access to the grid on town-owned properties, minimizing those costs. • It has not been determined whether a vendor will be used to manage a revenue-generating program. • There is an effort to bring electric and hybrid vehicles into the Town's fleet as vehicles need to be replaced. • New vehicles are included in the operating budget, but there has been some discussion about using a Program Improvement Request for electric or hybrid vehicles because of their greater cost. To allow for future expansion, Mr. Lamb recommended that new conduits be built to accommodate more than the immediately-needed cables. Review of the Department of Innovation & Technology FY2022-FY2026 CIPs In response to the IT Q&C and to Mr. Lamb's question about what "keeps IT staff awake at night," the following includes some, but not all, of the staff's further responses: • A major cyber-attack or other unimagined catastrophe (such as the damage caused to the IT equipment by a broken water pipe experienced last spring) cause concern and create an effort to constantly anticipate the worst. • Redundancy is critical. Lexington has had three data centers in Town, although only two have been active. There have been some problems with overheating at the 201 Bedford Street location, and repairs continue at the Town Office Building where the water-pipe accident occurred. The Cloud is used for some storage of backups. • Additional Cloud coverage using Microsoft Office, for example, would impact the operating budget by $120,000 to $150,000 annually. A hybrid model is a likely option with backups of the servers being kept in the Cloud. Recovery would be expensive, but that might be covered by insurance. • A project manager is currently preparing an after-action report on the water-pipe breakage event to evaluate what was done and what improvements should be incorporated. Page 2 of 3 Minutes of the Lexington Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC) Meeting December 10, 2020 • Although back-ups are tested regularly, full data-recovery drills with multiple staff members knowledgeable of the process, is a current goal. A business model analysis is being pursued to identify recovery time for critical components of the system, priorities, and which components need a full drill. • The municipal and school IT departments collaborate regularly, although there is not a lot of crossover. The municipal department is business focused while the school department is education focused when addressing IT needs. Mr. Lamb summarized his thoughts as: Moving to a distributed geographically-diverse Munis would be worth $100,000 annually; Munis is mission critical, as are other systems; Microsoft Office 360 is not critical. Approval of Minutes Mr. Kanter presented clarifying amendments to the Draft #3 CEC Meeting Minutes for December 3, 2020. A Motion was made and seconded to approve said Minutes, as amended. Roll-Call Vote: 6-0 Committee's Report of its Preliminary Positions Regarding the FY2022—FY2026 CIPs With the Mr. Lamb's concurrence, Mr. Kanter used his reorganized FY2022-2026 Capital Summary Tables to lead the Committee's discussion of each of the 72 CIPs listed. A Committee consensus was reached on the preliminary position for each CIP. If any CIP did not gain unanimous, unqualified, support, the Committee's concerns for each of them was noted. Mr. Kanter is to provide Mr. Lamb with those CIP-by-CIP concerns integrated in the reorganized tables—the ultimate purpose being to discuss all of those tables with the Town Manager and his Financial staff during the December 17, 2020, CEC meeting that has been posted including that as an explicit purpose. The Committee granted Mr. Lamb permission to edit what he receives from Mr. Kanter and, without further recourse to the whole Committee, provide the result to the Town Manager and his staff, with courtesy copies to the Committee and the others we routinely advise, as soon as practical before that scheduled meeting for all of them so there would be an opportunity for pre-meeting review. A Motion was made and seconded to proceed with the report as discussed. Roll-Call Vote: 6-0 Adjourn A Motion was made and seconded at 9:57 A.M. to adjourn. Roll-Call Vote: 6-0 This Minutes was approved by the CEC at its meeting on December 17, 2020 Page 3 of 3