Agenda and Minutes 2009-08-19
City of Northampton
Community Preservation Committee
210 Main Street, City Hall
Northampton, MA 01060
Community Preservation Committee
DATE: Wednesday, August 19, 2009
TIME: 7:00pm
PLACE: City Council Chambers, 212 Main Street (BEHIND City Hall)
Contact:
Fran Volkmann, Chair, Community Preservation Committee
Franv@comcast.net
Tom Parent, Vice Chair, Community Preservation Committee
ParentBridge@hotmail.com
Bruce Young, Community Preservation Planner
byoung@northamptonma.gov
(413) 587-1263
Agenda
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Public Comment
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Q&A Session for Round 2 Applicants
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Acceptance of June 17, 2009 Minutes
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Chair’s Report
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Report on Round 2 Eligibility Applications
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Discussion of Change to City Clerk CPA Grant
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CPA Website Update
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Proposed CPA Legislation Update
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CPA Grant Reporting & Monitoring Update
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Other Business
For additional information please refer to the Community Preservation Committee website:
http://www.northamptonma.gov/gsuniverse/httpRoot/comm/
MINUTES
Community Preservation Committee
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: City Council Chambers, 212 Main St.
Members Present: Fran Volkmann, Tom Parent, Lilly Lombard, Downey Meyer, Don Bianchi,
George Kohout and Jack Hornor.
Staff Present: Bruce Young, Senior Community Preservation Planner
Fran Volkmann opened the public meeting at 7:00 pm.
1. PUBLIC COMMENT
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Cathy Larocca from Overlook Health System asked the CPC about the total number of CPA
awards that have been recommended to City Council and about the range of CPA funding
awarded to applicants.
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Fran Volkmann, Lilly Lombard and Don Bianchi gave a quick, yet comprehensive review of
approved CPA projects to date.
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Joanne Campbell from Valley CDC asked the CPC if there have been any changes to the
Community Preservation Plan since the first round of 2009.
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Jack Hornor stated that most of the background information in the plan was not updated, but the
CPC has made several small revisions to the plan. Jack added that the most significant revision to
the plan was a change in the project application, which clarified exactly what the CPC expects to
receive from future applicants.
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Fran Volkmann added that a preservation guarantee policy was inserted into the plan.
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Cathy Larocca asked the CPC to answer the following question: if a building that houses low-
income individuals is upgraded with CPA funds and is later abandoned or used for another
purpose, is the upgrade CPA eligible? Cathy stated that new buildings would be constructed on-
site for long-term low-income individuals, and the older buildings would, most likely, be
converted to administrative offices.
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Don Bianchi stated that the term of a preservation guarantee attached to a CPA project is typically
relative to the amount of funding received. Don, not knowing the specifics of the project,
encouraged the applicant to move forward with an application based on the idea that the CPC
might not discount the short-term use of CPA funds to achieve a long-term low-incoming housing
goal.
2. MINUTES
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June 17, 2009 minutes approved as presented.
3. CHAIR’S REPORT
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Fran Volkmann reported that the Florence Civic and Business Association submitted a signed
contract for their CPA project.
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Fran Volkmann reported that a Housing Authority Representative should be appointed by City
Council by September.
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Fran Volkmann reported the Community Preservation Coalition is interested in hosting their
annual conference in Northampton. Fran and Bruce Young will be meeting with the Coalition to
discuss the conference.
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Fran Volkmann stated that a CPA fund availability update will be presented on September 2,
2009.
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Fran Volkmann stated that the Round 1-2010 timeline will be placed on the next agenda.
4. REPORT ON ROUND 2-2009 ELIGIBILITY FORM SUBMITTALS
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Fran Volkmann reported that 15 Eligibility Forms were submitted and all 15 Eligibility Forms
were approved. Fran stated that most of the projects will require site visits.
5. DISCUSSION OF CHANGE TO CITY CLERK CPA PROJECT
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Fran Volkmann read a letter from MIS stating that the proposed shelving for the City Clerk’s
office would not meet building code due to excessive weight on old floor joists. The City Clerk
has requested modifying the original proposal to include scanning the historic documents into
Laserfiche and then storing them in humidity control boxes to keep them from deteriorating. The
proposal included two bids for the scanning project.
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Jack Hornor motioned to approve the requested change for the City Clerk CPA project allowing
the City Clerk to decide on a preferred contractor.
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Tom Parent seconded the motion.
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All present voted in favor of the motion except Lilly Lombard voted against and George Kohout
abstained. The motioned passed 5-1.
6. WEBSITE UPDATE
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Bruce Young presented website update information sent by Teri Anderson, Economic
Attachment A
Development Coordinator. See .
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Fran Volkmann stated that the website working group should get together and respond to Teri’s
email with a firm date of completion requirement.
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The CPC website working group, after some discussion, decided to hold one additional
workgroup meeting. The working group decided to invite Teri Anderson to the meeting.
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Bruce Young stated that a wireless internet box, discussed at prior CPC meetings, for the City
Council Chambers for CPC and other board meetings, which would save on paper copies and
allow members easier access to information, would need to be purchased by the CPC. Bruce
stated that there are no available City funds for the purchase of a wireless internet box. MIS
provided a quote of $500 for a wireless internet box for City Council Chambers.
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Bruce Young requested that the CPC utilize administrative funds for the purchase of a new laptop
computer. The existing laptop is nearly five years old and a new machine is needed for daily
CPC business. The old laptop would be sent to the City Council Chambers for presentations and
meetings.
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Bruce Young stated that the Office of Planning and Development is willing to create a GIS map
system for the CPC website as an in-kind match for the purchase of a new computer.
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George Kohout motioned to allow a technology purchase from administrative funds up to $2,000.
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Jack Hornor seconded the motion.
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All those present voted in favor of the motion.
7. PROPOSED CPA LEGISLATION UPDATE
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SB90, a proposed Bill to amend the CPA, was discussed.
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George Kohout reported that he spoke with a representative from Steve Kulik’s office, but has
not yet received a reply on the questions he asked the representative.
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Fran Volkmann reported that Kathy Roth from the Community Preservation Coalition would like
to meet with the Northampton CPC to discuss SB90 on September 2, 2009.
8. PROPOSED CPA LEGISLATION UPDATE-postponed
9. OTHER BUSINESS
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Wayne Feiden requested a one-year extension on the use of the funds for the Jackson Street
Bikepath Project. Wayne also requested potentially changing the use of the funds to allow a
bikepath ramp off of North Street.
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The CPC decided that a new bikepath ramp constituted a new project and would require a new
application.
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Tom Parent motioned to extend the use of funds for the Jackson Street Bikepath Project for one-
year and to require a new CPA application for a ramp at North Street.
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Lilly Lombard seconded the motion.
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All those present voted in favor of the motion.
Meeting adjourned at 9:28 PM
Attachment A
Hi Fran and Bruce:
Here is a summary of what we think we can do to accommodate your website and wireless needs for the
Community Preservation Committee. I have listed your requests and our responses. I am happy to talk
more or to answer any further questions to facilitate upgrades to meet your needs. Let me know how you
wish to proceed.
1. Correct the URL’s to delete the gsuniverse/root portion of those web pages that have this in their
address. - MIS has been testing a fix in-house, but it has not been successful. At this time, we
think we will need to hire Gravity Switch or another consultant to make this programming
change. We would need to speak with them to get a timeline and a cost for this. From my
perspective this is an essential item that we were going to fix anyway with the City funds that we
already have allocated for website upgrades. I don’t think it will take that much time to hire a
consultant to complete this fix.
2. A reasonable amount of space to post documents, pictures, info. – I think we have confirmed that
the website now has sufficient space to accommodate their needs especially after the Laserfische
system is up and running because this will allow for additional archiving of files linked to the
website. MIS asks that each department monitor their web page content to delete any outdated
content to preserve our storage space on the host server.
3. Ability to create new mailing lists – MIS has negotiated an additional 10 mailing lists with our
web host for a total of 20 mailing lists using our existing technology on our website at no
additional cost to the City. This should hold us for a while, and MIS is investigating using the
new Laserfische tool that the City is instituting as an option for additional unlimited mailing lists
should we need them. MIS can make this change to the website by your September deadline.
4. Ability to create an interactive web map – Vanessa referred me to James and DPW. DPW has
confirmed that they do not have the hardware or software capacity to do anything beyond their
own limited DPW maps. Both James and Andy in DPW suggest using a google interactive map
or an interactive PDF file which James has created in the past for other projects. James can work
with you to create these maps.
5. Ability to create a homepage/pages unique to CPC. - We have confirmed that one of the goals of
the city umbrella website was to create a consistent look and feel for all departments and boards.
I have included a summary below of the exceptions to due to special circumstances and
programming needs. All of these departments keep a city website with a link to their external
website so that we have all departments and boards on our umbrella city site.
Police Department – Needed a virtual private network with private network and extra security
walls that we could not provide on our umbrella site in order to institute an on-line police
reporting program called CopLogic. They needed to have an independent site for security
reasons.
School Department – Needs to have a separate website as well as separate network fiber strands
separate from the city in order to be eligible for the e-rate federal reimbursement to school
systems for technology costs. Since they also have so many different schools all with their own
web pages, it added a level of complexity to their web pages that our site could not meet.
Assessors – Have an outside website to accommodate their assessor’s database which is too large
and complex to incorporate into our website and web server.
Arts Council – Arts Council had its own website prior to creating a city website that is created
and hosted for free by the Gazette. We tried to get them to convert at the time we did the city
website, but because it was free and they had long term plans for doing online ticketing, etc. they
decided to keep an external site as well as a page on the city site. They just recently upgraded
their external website, but all of the design and the ongoing hosting is being contributed by an
Arts Council member at no cost to the City.
6. Ability to have a public wireless connection in the Council Chambers and the Hearing Room for
board members and the public to use during public meetings. - Vanessa has estimated the
following costs: Council Chambers cost - $450. Hearing Room cost - $500. MIS will install the
Council Chamber wireless network immediately if CPC is willing to fund the installation. We
will then seek other sources of funding to wire the Hearing Room at a future date.
I hope this answers your questions and can meet your needs. Let me know what you think.
Teri
Teri Anderson, Director
Community and Economic Development Office
City Hall, 210 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060
413-587-1253 direct #
413-587-1275 (fax)
tanderson@northamptonma.gov
www.northamptonma.gov