2020-12-10 PPS School Board School Improvement Bond Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2020-12-10
Time 16:30:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: School Improvement Bond dec 10 2020

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um do we want to start with a round of introductions i mean i think we we all know each other here i i did notice um a student that i wasn't familiar with uh jaya and i don't see if jaya is in the room or not i can't see i do not see jaya and the other student i noticed um was tay i don't see him right now either okay so let's jump into our meeting then um the first thing we have um are our introductions but i think we can skip that we we know each other um public comment and we'll acknowledge our previous minutes is there any public comment today we do have public comment from don mcintosh should be able to turn here there you are yeah okay thank you thanks for the opportunity to give public comment um so my name's don mcintosh excuse me don before you go on hi thank you for being here i appreciate that before you go on i've got a little um statement i'd like to read just to remind you of the protocols around the testimony okay sorry i'm having trouble accessing it today just a moment okay so um we thank you for taking the time um tonight to attend this meeting and provide your comments public input informs our work and we look forward to hearing hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility tonight is to listen actively but not necessarily respond if you have additional materials or items that you'd like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to publiccomment all one word at pps.net and make sure when you begin your comment you clearly state your name and spell your last name and you have three minutes to speak this evening you'll hear a sound after three minutes which means it's time to conclude your comments so um mr mcintosh please go ahead thank you yes so my name is don mcintosh mc capital i and t osh i'm a journalist with the northwest labor press newspaper which is a independent labor union newspaper here in portland about goes out to about 50 000 union households including about 20 000 in the construction industry trying to keep this short so um i have actually as a journalist i've been a journalist over 25 years i've i attend a lot of public meetings and take notes and tend to interview people afterwards but i don't know if i've ever given public comment before so this is new new for me um i didn't know what else to do at this point um i want to read the statement from the public schools bond website it says portland public schools uh operates under the highest standards of public transparency and accountability and i guess obviously i want to applaud that but unfortunately i don't feel like it's been my experience recently and basically i've been wanting to write about portland public schools contracting policies and learn more about how the district scores and awards construction bids and enforces prevailing wage laws and so for 21 days now i've been hoping to get someone to talk to me i sent two emails and left three voice messages with david maine who's the communications manager and now two emails and two voicemails with marina creswell so i guess really i i shouldn't be this hard uh and i'll all i'm i'm only here just to ask if i could get a commitment uh to talk with me my questions are not not gotcha questions or just reasonable questions that any member of the public ought to have a right to know so that's that's all i've got um mr mcintosh thank you um for your comments tonight um i appreciate you being here and and knowing about this and offline we'll see if we can address your concerns and actually michelle if i could just um don i i believe i read your article in the northwest um labor press but would you mind forwarding that um uh if you have our emails that would be great just to make sure that we've got um what you wrote and that i know what you're referring to that would be very helpful absolutely i would put it in the chat but i don't see a way to do that um and i want to say it was a very it might have been perceived as a very one-sided article i made as i say numerous attempts to reach out to the district so if that's the case or if
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there was inaccurate information i i apologize but i tried my best i said how's that i'm gonna send that with you to you also mr mcintosh this is director constand when you forward your article if you want to include the list of questions that you're seeking to have answered by the district that would be helpful for us to know too did you ask how did you ask how to send it to us yeah yeah so go ahead i'll just give you my email and we can make sure it's around it's it's a-n-s-c-o-t-t so a-n-scott pps.net a-n-s-c-o-t-t pbs okay and mr mcintosh i'd also like to add um our board liaison roseanne powell that would be our powell at pps.net okay that way we'll we'll all get a copy at the same time all right okay we're going to approve the minutes from our october 29 meeting do we have a motion to approve oh so moved i think do we just acknowledge the minutes do we do a motion i think so i think we do need a motion no i think we just need to acknowledge them and there are informal minutes okay sorry about that any comments i don't have any uh issues with the minutes thank you thank you it's time now to get the quarterly report the bac bond accountability quarterly report uh you should all have in front of you kevin thank you chair to pass um i'll try and be as brief as possible and just leave some time for questions if you have them um this is our quarterly report um we met in virtual session on november 4th which was a week later than planned but nevertheless we did have the meeting on that day there's a list in um our report of the work that's currently being handled by pps staff so i won't read that off to you um at the at the meeting osm reported that uh there was significant progress underway on several staff vacancies that had been a cause for concern and maybe i assume that's moved along since we're a month or more later now there's also been a change in strategy in the program management and construction management and so at some point in the near future i think it'll be essential that the bac and others probably get an updated organizational chart so that we can figure out who's doing what we got reports as always on the 2012 bond program um that program now shows projected final savings of just over 1 million dollars there's some ongoing work on audits in closing out and we have asked for some documentation on roosevelt and grant that we haven't yet seen but i assume that'll be forthcoming the 2017 bond program uh the budget situation remains in the red no surprise there um the entire program now reports it hasn't changed a great deal in the last quarter now reports unfunded costs of 207 million dollars and as you know the 2020 bond included 214 million dollars to uh complete the work covered by 2017. the pandemic has resulted in some issues on on the construction work in particular and as we reported before we applaud the approach taken by osm staff in working cooperatively with contractors to address these issues nevertheless um and not surprisingly covet related costs had amounted at the time of our meeting to 2.6 million dollars on this on the 2017 bond program with projections for an additional 1.2 million in 2020
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and 4 million in 2021 2021 i'm sure is a pretty squishy uh estimate um which we would understand under the circumstances you have a list in um on uh in our report of the work being done that had been done on uh health and safety uh now totaling over 20 uh 74 million dollars a good deal of work had been done in the last quarter the 2020 bond and congratulations to everyone who was involved in getting that passage that successful passage um we discussed the upcoming execution plan uh briefly at our meeting and it wasn't clear at that time as to whether what role the bac would have in the development of that uh plan but it's it's on your um agenda today and uh this is the first we've seen of it um i think i heard before the meeting started uh a recognition that the bac charter will need to be amended if the intent is for the bac to uh provide oversight for the 2020 bond the the current updated charter uh is specific to 2012 and 2017. um so 2020 at this point is not not included in that other issues um equity remains a significant issue and we got a presentation as i think you did at your last meeting from the benson contractor and uh we were we were pleased that uh that contractor was um proposing some creative alternatives and i said the bac thinks that um different approaches are going to be necessary particularly on these uh larger projects so we applaud that and we hope that the district will be able to support those efforts um there's been a lot of uh focus on the contractors in terms of equity but and that's that's appropriate that's where most of the money is but we shouldn't forget the consultants who and there is a significant amount of money uh there and on both lincoln and benson the consultants are falling short of the goal as well so we need the little focus in that area too kevin excuse me kevin when you say consultants do you mean specifically the the project management consultants or is there a wider array of consultants we should be looking at this uh amy this would be primarily the designer the the design team so the architects and all their engineers i was going to clarify so when you say those are like those would be called professional technical experts do those include engineers people that provide furnishings uh you know i i don't know the answer to that michelle i think it's reported to us just in terms of contractors and consultants so i assume um i maybe um marina or purchasing could enlighten us to who all is included in that most of that money is in the um design team packages um as we reported last time when there is an effort underway to uh to improve the and to re-engineer really the whole bac report reporting mechanism and as from staff to the bac and the bac to this board and we've had one meeting with with chair depos and and staff to kick that off and we're we're hopeful that that will be a productive exercise and it may well be that uh since we have to open up the charter it may well be that some of the terms of the charter should be changed in accordance with the board's wishes in terms of reporting um other than that uh tenzin uh gonta tom peterson and myself uh leaving the uh bac and you're gonna have a discussion i understand later in this meeting uh to talk about uh four new members
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with that i'll gladly answer any questions if there are any does anyone have any questions for kevin or other bsc members kevin do you have any comments about the [Music] process around adding new members to the bac or the applications that have come forward or the process itself anything you want to share with us about that really we were not part of that exercise the only um input i had personally was i had recruited one applicant some time ago and i encouraged her to um to apply and i believe you know the the memo coming your way is is anonymous but i think um that applicant is is one of the recommended um participants but we have not been part of that exercise i have not seen um uh the applications to compare with you know the the recommended ones to compare with others haven't just haven't seen them um we um i'll speak to the process we went uh through with our applications a little bit later in our agenda um but we did we did try to instill a process install a process to increase the diversity of experience and backgrounds on the board also cultural backgrounds age and some of those social dimensions so we'll talk about that a little bit later does anybody have any other questions for kevin or any other members this is um it's more a question for staff i know we're going to talk later on in this meeting about the um 2020 execution plan um but is that i know we're going to consider it in committee today is that going to the bac on a future um agenda for them to also review and weigh in on and i missed your question i'm sorry sorry am i lagging no it just cut out it okay no my keywords no my question is just will is the 2020 execution plan that we're talking about in today's committee meeting also going to go to the bac in a future meeting for their input and feedback we're happy to share the 2020 execution plan with the bac what you're seeing today is a draft of that plan it's not finalized but you know i think as we're going to talk about it in a bit it is um uh it's it's primarily about setting sort of the structure of executing the 2020 bond as opposed to making any significant decisions so it's it's really just an attempt to kind of provide the framework around which we um perform the 2020 bond program and then give you some expectations about when you'll hear more information moving forward because we recognize that everybody's very interested in what we're doing but it's still quite early since the approval of the bond measure and so it's going to take some time for us to kind of work through the details and we wanted to make sure that everybody knew yes we are working through the details and here's kind of how we're starting to work through those details but um it doesn't it doesn't make significant decisions at this point i guess we have to amend their charter first i think that this i mean a lot of them in tandem and yes so the charter could be reviewed at the same time is where the staff i should say is developing this you know this way forward or this this plan and that's probably a good segue um marina if you're interested in starting to talk although kevin you still have time on the agenda if you'd like to michelle could i just can i just finish up on this um well and and i might have missed something about the charter my apologies on that because i thought we did amend the charter um for the bac to to review the 2020. so i'm not sure what that was referring to amy well that was kevin kevin you want to speak to that what you mentioned in your report yeah what we andrew what we amended was to um get us involved in the preparation of the bond but it it's silent with regard to a successful 2020 bond oh i'm sorry i missed that in your report it defines their purview as 2012 and 2017 in terms of oversight and then the prep for 2020. okay i'm getting back to the um i so um marina i actually found the the um the execution plan really helpful
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and and i'm sure a lot of it's sort of boilerplate from prior bonds but i found it really helpful just laying out um we in quite a bit of detail your process that you're going to go through and and how you sort of approach each of the different things and and i understand and appreciate it's in draft i would i would value the bac committee's feedback on that and just to see if they have anything they may not have any um sort of you know comments but i think it would be great if we did just put it on one of their future agendas just to see if they do so i found it a very helpful document thank you agreed um do you want to go ahead uh then marina with your um office of school i'm sorry office of school improvement osm i report we'll do the osm half of the quarterly report how's that well thank you next agenda item um and i apologize i've been talking all day these um zoom meetings you know several hours of talking i might lose my voice um so bear with me i'll try to speak clearly uh so um just kind of start a little bit with the 2012 program a little of a meeting um roosevelt high school uh we've completed the windows and uh we are um we've essentially completed the scope of work at the main building that was occurring over the summer um we are contracted uh to do the edition that will be the cte edition um phase four so we'll be moving for that on grant high school our upper field improvements project is moving along and we are um we've submitted the land use application for that so we anticipate a robust uh public process other than that 2012 is winding down and we are doing all of the kind of logistical work in the background to clean up our project files and um put the monies back to the place where we can we can utilize them for the next um uh the next need of the 2012 program um since we do have a couple projects that are moving forward of course um we want to maintain some contingency funds for those projects for 2017 starting with the most 2012 question before you move on sure have you have we completed the final budget reconciliation on grant there's i suppose um there's probably a definition of final budget reconciliation that we would want to put out there we have completed our negotiations with the contractor we're in the process of completing all of the paperwork that goes with completing the contract and paying out that contract once we have done that our construction auditor will do a final construction audit to review that final payment before we actually pay it out once we pay it out then we go back and complete our close out of the finances for the project so but generally the answer is no but there's a bunch of different steps and so i just wanted to kind of say here's the steps that we're going to be going through we've completed that negotiation piece which is pretty important so generally the people who thought that they still needed to get paid have reached agreement with us on getting paid we have reached agreement on the payments we are working through the process of actually getting payments out you moving on to 2017 and the modernization projects um kellogg i don't know if you've had a chance to to drive by recently it's looking stunning and the construction is going quite well the vast majority of that construction is going to be done in march we do have some work in landscaping that needs to wait until the weather gets a little bit better so you'll see some some continuing activities after that uh we will also be working pretty hard and we've started that work in working through the transition activities to operations one thing that's nice about kellogg is that we are finishing in the spring and so we have a good opportunity to work through all the operations transitions um long before we need to open the school up for the new school year um if you're interested our website has a ton of really great photos of kellogg from recently and i encourage you to go look at them it really does look quite nice madison madison um is also moving along quite well in the
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construction um that said uh it has always been our modernization with the tightest schedule and we have certainly seen that over the last couple months um i think as chair spellman uh noted in his report there have been some challenges due to covet there have been some challenges due to air quality from the fires and we had site shutdowns due to both of those issues and while we are on schedule um we're we're kind of holding on by our fingernails at this point um and the team is very focused on staying on schedule they are working overtime as needed to do that and if there's an opportunity for us to work overtime to get ahead of schedule we'll probably take it um we don't know what the winter is going to bring and so that is um that's definitely a concern for us and we're watching it um we also remain on budget i do want to note that the covid costs mentioned in the pac report those covet costs are intended to be covered by the program contingency however i've asked my project managers to to track those costs within their project and to the extent that they can be absorbed by the project budget they will be so we are actually um anticipating those through program contingency with that in mind madison remains fully low budget there was also a note about the renaming of madison and i did want to clarify that the um the renaming process for madison is not going to affect the opening of the school on time um there are individual elements to a renaming that we are working through the timing as far as um how that's going to fit with the actual renaming whether it's mascots or logos or or colors um there's different pieces that show up throughout the facility and so we're working very closely with the renaming group um to identify what needs to change when it changes and um how we'll address that um from a scheduled perspective it won't change us from the opening of the school on time it may mean that there are some things that that get addressed during a winter break for example afterwards if the if the naming process is not um on the same timeline as the construction for the monetization so uh lincoln uh we have been plugging away at lincoln as well and um you'll see that if you drive downtown you'll you'll see that the floors have been going up and um it's starting to look very exciting very much like a building we had we did have some heartburn from the length of our permit process with the city but um we were very appreciative that the city was willing to work with us and allowing us to move forward with some work um and doing inspections prior to formal issuance of the permit that permit has now been received on the benson project we have completed 100 dd documents and um for the benson proper and we are reviewing the cost estimates um i do want to be very upfront those estimates have come in quite high and and we have concerns about that but we're only partially through the value engineering process for this phase and we are seeing some significant reductions as we move through that process so we will keep working through that we have quite a bit more to go the work on the swing sites is moving ahead and mpg building is working on their schematic design um they did uh get a request from pbot to change the entry from one street to another so they've had to kind of rethink a little bit um but in the process of doing that i think they've come up with some better solutions for the program inside that building on the health and safety side of things um the the components of health and safety that are moving forward um we're working on design for roofing projects for next summer we're continuing to work through projects for asbestos and lead paint mitigation our water quality started bidding out packages in april they're doing packages bid packages basically every three weeks there will be 18 bid packages and they will not complete sending those out until may of next year just to give you some understanding of the extent of the program as we touch every site every school site in the district what we have learned though is that the fixtures that we are using for um for uh potable water so drinking fountain fixtures that have um bottle fillers with them those fixtures went from a three week lead
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time in april to a five month retime and what we've been told from the manufacturer is that bottle fillers are especially popular right now due to the pandemic so uh we are looking at strategies for that we anticipate that we may choose to purchase our fixtures directly from pps and store them so that contractors who come on board later in that bidding season will have the fixtures available instead of waiting until they come on board having them purchase and having them wait five months to get the fixtures in so we're looking at the feasibility of that it looks quite good um we don't anticipate significant changes in the schedule that we would have previously but if that changes we'll certainly let you know on sort of a programmatic level um as um as was noted in the bac report we've been doing quite a bit of new staffing we have uh accepted offers for three new entry-level project managers for our 2017 projects for a senior manager for business operations and also for our director of construction we're still working through some of the technical details so i won't share names today but um just to know that those are um almost in hand we also have we're working through the offers and the background checks for an e-builder administrator and a contract specialist we have to hope to have those finalized within the next week ideally and yes excuse me especially with the project manager positions are those new positions that we're adding internally or are these all just um changing staff it's actually a mix um so we added new entry-level project managers we're um one of those we call them p them ones right they're the first level of the pm position so one of those pm1s will go to the benson team the the extent of the benson project is pretty significant and they simply need additional helping hands um the other two pm ones are going to be split across teams so they'll be basically half time with each team and those are new um the senior manager position for business operations is a new position as well that will be overseeing kind of the operations side of osm so our finance our our contracts are invoicing communications e-builder that all the things that support our project teams part of the reason for my question which maybe we'll we'll talk about all this a little bit more when we get to the 2020 execution plan is just trying to understand um the extent to which we are or are not building internal capacity versus our historic project management reliance on our contractors we are building internal capacity um our intent was actually with with most of these positions our intent was to build that capacity several months ago um had a small hiccup in the form of a pandemic and um it definitely created some challenges for our recruiting process but our intent has been to increase our capacity that senior manager position for example really is intended to provide a lot another level of program management so that we don't need to get that from an outside source so we're looking at that pretty strategically in terms of what we need to work a little bit more internally we do have some recruitments out there right now for uh 2020 as well um it's the start of our recruiting for 2020 i'm not going to say it's the end of it we have we anticipate there will be quite a bit more uh we have two types of recruitments one for pm2 which is kind of our mid-level project manager and then for a pm3 that is our senior project manager we have two openings right now for that pm3 position and we are basically doing a a pool of applicants for the pm2 level position because we anticipate having several openings for that we have two that we're looking to fill right away and then as we continue to develop our um strategies for moving forward with 2020 we'll we'll add additional openings and
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utilize that same recruitment um i will be happy to share links to both of those recruitments uh to the members of the bond committee and i would ask you to please share them out widely with your contacts as well um love to get some good applicants for these positions i have that um marina are we um doing any active recruiting at places such as namco the business development group the latinx contractors group um the minority other minority chambers of commerce hispanic chamber black american chamber native american chamber um are we doing any of recruiting there or we could consider going to their meetings and doing some active actively recruiting uh we do typically reach out to them um i'm happy to kind of i guess get with you and um and and review lists to see if if your list is more extensive than my list and i can you know get some additional names from you um but we do reach out to them with our recruitments um we haven't we haven't seen a lot of impact from that but we're looking at um sort of extending our recruiting you know in many different ways moving forward um so well i know i know many of those that i listed the minority chambers in particular have job boards and um you know building that relationship over time which i know you've done goes a long ways in terms of getting getting good applicants so i'd love to work with you on that sounds good thank you and marina i would just add i i really appreciate it sounds like the direction you're going in terms of bringing more of this in-house it feels like with three bonds open and one closing out but two to be very active very soon and with a plan you know to go out again in four years it it feels like bringing that construction project management work you know in-house as much as as as possible um i think there's some real advantages to that moving forward so it sounds like you're moving in that direction i'm glad to hear that so thanks yeah we're certainly interested in uh building our capacity within osm to the extent possible we recognize also that there are some limitations when you're dealing with time limited positions and and also that um sometimes our private sector partners can get better applicants based on their pay scales than we can get within ours so you know we want to be kind of thoughtful about how we do it but at the same time as a as a budget manager um i'm very conscious that bringing somebody in-house is significantly less expensive than um working with outside contractors and so i always have sort of an incentive to do that and i think gives us a little bit more um direct oversight of some of it as well which which can be which can be beneficial so yeah and i'm happy to send out to my network you can't have any of my construction project managers but i'm happy to send that to my networks otherwise if you want to share some names i could i could maybe tell you if there any i'm interested in metro has a few construction project managers but yeah we i think we should also all share within our networks and you know do our best to recruit you know actively recruit um you know minority applicants if we can i would appreciate that particularly for our pm3 positions um those uh two positions one of them is intended for the jefferson high school modernization um the other one is intended for the center for black student excellence so to the extent that we can get people who understand the community and who know the history of the community i think that is going to be especially beneficial to the project so yeah i think that's fantastic um opportunity to have somebody that does have that cultural competence with that institutional historic knowledge would be great and we did share that in the position description as well so hopefully that'll that'll be clear the folks who are applying um and last but not least we are audit work continues our performance auditors are working on their field work right now and they've been starting their interviews they may reach out to individual board members to do interviews on specific topics this year so don't be surprised if you get a request and you're able to talk with them they appreciate getting your input and feedback and perspective on the different focus areas that we have in our audit
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um our construction audits of course continue per their regular schedule so no no new news there and uh i did want to just as one last thing um thank uh kevin spellman for his um many years of service to the bond accountability committee um i know i'm taking this away from dan who i'm sure would have done it probably done it more eloquently than i have but um we appreciate what kevin has brought to the committee um it will um it'll be a different look um at the end of the year and um i just want to say thank you for for spending all the time that you have in keeping us um on the straight and narrow if i could just jump and vary i would love to add that i hope um you're a phone call away um for people like myself or other bac members that may need um some some institutional knowledge or hand holding or clarification that you know i it's going to be a big empty chair there but i hope you're still available for consultation yeah i just want to say very quickly as well that i've always appreciated kevin your support and your insights we were there at the very first bac meeting back in early 2013 which seems like an awfully long time ago now uh so uh we've had a great relationship for all these years i just really appreciated the steady hand that you've always been so thank you i'd like to chime into cannot overstate um kevin how valuable your guidance and leadership has been and your service all the time and also your scrutiny your really tough scrutiny of our decisions as a board even though it was not pleasant at times i always appreciated when you came to the board with points of disagreement about decisions we were making in our infinite wisdom at the dais because you always had the best interest of our district finances and our students at heart and um i always took it very very seriously and i appreciate everything you've done in terms of um recruiting in the past and making sure that we have a strong bench on the bac and um we'll really miss working with you thank you so much for everything i'll just add my voice as well when i when i when i got elected to the board one of my colleagues immediately put me in touch with kevin who who also has been heavily involved in metro zubond uh for many many years um and uh um you know immediately just to sort of get up to speed on on some of the issues and other things and so i mean kevin you you you don't just give to portland public schools you give to the entire region and community uh an incredible amount of time and knowledge and expertise and we're we're losing a lot i'm losing you off of this committee but but i really appreciate your work and um and i know you will stay involved uh in in in the region so thanks uh kevin everyone else just it's a dog pile i couldn't i couldn't help myself um i think i owe you a lucky lab beer or two um [Music] going all the way back just thank you so much thanks i'll take you up on that for sure uh thanks everyone um i actually had two meetings next week i think so i'm not quite gone yet and um in response to michelle's uh request i'd be happy to do whatever anyone would ask as time goes on so thank you um interested in getting invited to the lucky lab uh when that happens don't forget about me um are we ready to move on does anybody have any questions about the um osm quarterly report just in the interest of time i'll be quick um marina you you mentioned permitting issues and i know this is this has come up um through the intergovernmental committee context as well and board members sort of being frustrated it sounds like this has been an endemic issue for years i i will say that i don't think it's endemic just to pbs i mean i think there are permanent issues for construction both public and private sector um and i guess what i would say is is um to the extent that you think there might be value um in sort of elevating this and and getting getting the city to think about pbs more as a um uh not just here's another project here's another project that goes into the queue but more as a strategic partner and that that you know making sure that our projects are done you know quickly and with a high priority um not only saves money but also helps students and and and city of portland you know residents and constituents to the extent we want to elevate that to a political level um the intergovernmental committee would be happy to talk through that as well so
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because i just i know it can be it can have a real um impact on the project schedule and cost um when when those delays you know happen so um let just want to let you know that we're available if it gets to that point i i highly encourage that conversation we have tried in the past and not gotten anywhere but the players are different at the city now bureau managers and in some cases um even staff bureau directors you know there are other entities in our in our community that have designated staff people for their huge projects and for some reason we don't and it it doesn't make a lot of sense andrew i totally agree and you're you're the right one to lead that charge yeah i agree as well um we shouldn't have to i don't know how long permits are taking i know there's a lot of um a lot in development right now but a permit shouldn't take six to 18 months to get through um it's just way too long i have a question about that are we um i know you get a final permit when you've got final documents but is there any way for us to submit um concepts or concept conceptual plans prior to final plans to sort of speed that up knowing that we're looking at at least six months to get a permit and it'll take longer as a matter of fact because of um probably impending you know impending staff pets at the bureau of development services um is there any way to submit partial plans or i don't know it's a complex process and i want to say that the city has they've updated their permit system um to be much more interactive electronically we have found that to be very beneficial for us because we're able to get comments back on portions of the drawings without waiting for all the comments to come back at once um i think the challenges for us at lincoln were less about bds not doing their job we felt like bds worked with us very closely and tried very hard to move things along um one of the significant challenges is as always with the city there are multiple bureaus that oversee um the review of the documents and coordinating those bureaus and all the pieces and parts that go along with it can be problematic so um i don't i'm we are absolutely talking internally about um ways that we could advocate for um a smoother process we have seen improvements in the process lincoln i think was somewhat unique just because of being downtown um there are design overlays there's all kinds of sort of unique stuff that went along with that downtown location so we didn't have the same issues with kellogg they were certainly lengthy but not to the same extent so i think it's a multi-faceted issue we're definitely looking at it and trying to understand what it is we would ask for if we wanted to ask for something i i'm wondering if if we know and anticipate because of the zone if there's a design overlay in architectural or historic overlay if we would start the process there at those at that level at the that would be like the planning commission okay and we do you do okay you start that well ahead of submitting for permits yeah yeah and they don't line up in terms of when they're complete or it's just that the building permit process needs to take those things into consideration as well when they're looking at the drawings themselves okay thank you um are there any other questions shall we move on then to the bond execution plan i'm not sure who's delivering that if that's you marina or if that's dan i'd love to hand it to dan but i have a feeling he's not going to let me if i could do as good of a job as you marina i would but alas alas well played dan she knows it's true i mean this isn't hard he's a master at um uh at this um after years of service at pbs um i can only aspire to his level so bond execution plan uh we shared with you a draft bond execution plan and a draft control schedule and i think as i said in some of the comments earlier
00h 50m 00s
the intent of the execution plan is just to kind of give you some framework um about how how the bond program is managed in general um and how it's going to be managed a little more specifically with this particular bond and some of the unique characteristics of this of this bond and so um you know it's a fairly lengthy document um with the intent of trying to provide as much information as we can at this point and the you know it's broken out into a couple different sections we've we wanted to make sure that you had an understanding of the scope that we saw behind each of the categories where we anticipated seeing board and community input and oversight and some additional information about how we are looking at sequencing or scheduling uh different components of the program how we anticipate putting together project selection and prioritization criteria and um some of our internal stakeholder engagement how that will occur how we typically procure things just to kind of lay out you know the some of the obvious things about um our public contracting rules but also some of the not so obvious things about our our equity and public contracting or our use of alternative procurements uh and then just general understanding of budget and financial operations and so i'm not going to go through the whole thing with you but i i want to kind of talk a little bit about it conceptually this is a um a unique bond program which is to say it's different than what we did for 2012 and 2017. there are portions of it that are very very similar and then there are some components that really are different our intent is that osm will continue to maintain the the financial oversight of the bond funding and um we will be doing that you know through our our internal system of approvals that we use that we've been using for 2012 and 2017 that allows us to ensure you know good transparency checks and balances auditability all those important things as we approve encumbrances and expenditures in particular beyond that osm will also be assisting with um you know kind of providing an umbrella for communications um community engagement and really ensuring that we all work together regardless of the scope of the components so we have been working very closely with the the technology component the curriculum component and um uh in particular um our community engagement department as we talk about moving forward with jefferson and the center for black student excellence and so um you know i just wanted to kind of note that we are we are doing that um all together but this is not um separate and unique pieces all off on their own with different departments we're really tackling this as a as a team and osm is um uh you know doing our best to to to lead the team forward um we uh have here with us um don wolfe if there are questions about the technology luis is here to answer questions about curriculum if needed but i also wanted to note that we are anticipating bringing both of them back for the january bond committee to do a presentation on where they are with those scopes of work for the 2020 bond as i mentioned earlier is still very very early in the process we have not sold our first bond yet we are still setting up all of the logistics that go on behind the scenes whether that's um recruitments for staffing or it's setting up projects within our our system um ensuring that our funding is is laid out within um the district's financial system as well as our own system of approvals so there's a lot that's kind of going on behind the scenes and this is really just intended to give you a taste of the the types of things that are um going to be moving forward if there's anything in particular you'd like me to talk about i'm happy to do that um or just answer questions in general um yeah i you know so i again i i found this this really helpful um as sort of a draft and just to sort of see all the pieces and how they they begin to fit together um i was particularly intrigued by the
00h 55m 00s
timelines and i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that so i will tell you i was i was a little surprised for like the jefferson reopening um timeline it seemed far out but maybe it's not and again i wasn't here for development of of earlier high school so i guess one of my questions is is that is that timeline for jefferson consistent with our timeline for the high schools we've done today or is it longer because of more community engagement you know etc and then i also just just um timeline related um the timeline for both wilson and cleveland uh and i just want to sort of i had it here bringing it up um it looks like and and there's a lot of um uh uh stuff on your on your um sort of gantt chart that i probably don't understand um but it looks like we're sort of starting that work and and by that work i assume i mean we're talking about all the pre-design that was included there but really starting that work in 2023 and sort of being done with it by it looks like by mid-2025 if i'm if i'm getting that right my question about those projects um were are because i think i saw something in your narrative as well about trying to sort of tie those into potential future bond requests for construction can you talk a little bit about how those things sync up so again timeline for jefferson and then and then how the wilson and cleveland sync up with future bond tasks okay yes absolutely so uh let's start with jefferson um and and understand too that the timelines that are shared are the same ones um upon which we made our assumptions for things like escalation costs um so these are the timelines that we've been working with when we set up the budgets prior to the approval of the bond measure jefferson you know typically we start we have to hit an opening date for school so when we look at construction we're essentially starting at the end and scheduling forward to some degree we went through a conceptual master planning process for jefferson um they the community that was involved in that came up with a preferred option we put a schedule based on that preferred option and that was the schedule that the board essentially approved and i you know we kind of talked about the different options for the conceptual master plan for jefferson with that in mind it is lengthier than some of our other modernizations for a couple reasons one the preferred option essentially has um jefferson doing a very similar thing to lincoln which is setting up a swing site on site so creating you know a whole temporary school on site in order to do work on the existing building and not have to move students to a different site so it's a phased project and that phasing tends to lengthen the the overall construction um in addition to that we also anticipated that with jefferson one it's a complex school it's large right so there's some some complexity to its existing school and we know that we need to spend a little more time with the community in ensuring that we are doing the right thing with that school and so we added a little bit of extra time in our design phases in our master planning phase to really um make sure that we weren't rushing through um getting community input on those phases so there's a little bit of extra time built into the master plan and the design phase as well um and then once you've worked it forward that kind of starts at a certain timeline in order to hit a school opening timeline um we also have in front of that master plan we have a community engagement process that is going to be working in coordination with community engagement for the center for black student excellence so those two projects really work very closely together and the community of course overlaps we want to make sure that we have have gone through that we have a big you know sort of strategic picture of where we're headed before we start really working on the facility itself so you'll see that there's a there's a period of time in there that's um uh i i don't remember what the the um i think partnership development is what what it says in the gantt chart but that is that process of reaching out and having conversations with the community about you know that that cluster about those schools that are in that community
01h 00m 00s
so really quickly on jefferson reopening 26 27 school year and and that's at the thousand person capacity did i see that right substantial completion at about but then you would continue doing work after reopening for that that's correct because we are uh demolishing specific buildings at a time so we have shared use buildings that we can't demolish too soon because we need the students to be able to use them until we create a new one so that's there's multiple phases involved in that jefferson piece and we can't we can't get rid of the last shared use building until we've completed the thousand square feet once we get rid of that last one we can put in a piece in its place that will create the additional 700 capacity does that make sense so thanks before we get too into the weeds here um one of the things that has concerned me about jefferson is exactly this moment that we're talking about right now we're rolling from master planning into design development with certain assumptions that may have come out of the master planning process one of them being that the that small group of people preferred a historic modernization of the existing facility over a brand new school um i believe that when those couple of conversations were had with that master planning group it was before there were real um concrete budget estimates and now we know that um the difference is somewhere on the order of like 40 million dollars if i'm remembering correctly it's enough to practically build a new harriet tubman middle school or completely modernize martin luther king jr school or other things we might want to do associated with the center for black excellence so i just want to make sure that we um have an opportunity to to talk about those trade-offs before we just go headlong down this path you're also saying that um aside from just the difference between new construction and modernization there are more costs associated with the phasing and with the the cost of construction when you escalate out for that longer time period so this is this is something that i'm i'm really concerned about as a board member both in terms of getting more community input but also um just making making a sound um financial stewardship decision um i i personally have a lot of questions as to whether it is defensible to proceed with um you know a preference that might be based on sentimental attachment to a building if it costs 40 plus million dollars more than a brand new state-of-the-art facility so i i just want to make sure that i understand when and where we are going to be able to have those conversations certainly and i i just want to clarify that um that is the option that came out of the conceptual master plan that is the option that we priced and that we scheduled for the um to move forward with the bond measure and and i think we provided uh multiple options and that was the one that we settled on moving forward i wouldn't have said right but that said that's that's a starting point and it is especially especially because of that um that we have eight months of of community engagement before we start the comprehensive master plan process so we're not moving we we aren't going to do eight months of community engagement then move directly into design it's not going to work like that either we're going to do you know a significant amount of community engagement and make sure that we're on the right track for where it is we want to go with this and then we're going to move into a comprehensive master plan that is informed by a conceptual master plan that says we want to acknowledge that there was a group of people from the community that came forward and did some work and this was important to them and we're going to share all that work and we're going to share what was important to them but we also recognize that that things change and there may be more voices we hope there are um and and the process may change the product so we're definitely not just rolling right into here's how it's going to be but we had to make some assumptions
01h 05m 00s
right right i did want to say that at the time of that conceptual that master planning process was before black lives matter and before the pandemic and and and i think i i'm certain that people's um minds have you know we're we're in a different operating environment right now i feel like um it's really going to be important to hear from the community we've been talking about this through the bond campaign as a community-led effort and so i feel like um we we need to present the options and the cost options and what they look like and go back out to the community with what we know today so so thank you for you know including those longer more engagement opportunities and i'm just i'm really interested to hear what the community thinks for instance there was a naming renaming conversation that happened a couple of years ago and i do believe that we'd have different outcomes today just because our times have changed so i'm just in the interest of time we have about hey michelle i think nathaniel had something you wanted to add on this thank you um and i'm really sorry i didn't see i can't only see four people at a time nathaniel can um please go ahead sorry um i don't know how well you can hear me but i just like to say that um you know as a part of the jefferson community i while i agree with you that i think the renaming conversation should we reopen it again which i think we should would probably have a different outcome now i suspect that if we were to or when we we opened the discussion around um building even with the you know 30 million difference i suspect it will come up with the same conclusion because i i don't think recent events will really have had much of an impact on communities desire to preserve the historic building i mean it's possible it has i don't know i don't want to make too many assumptions but from what i see i doubt that it will have um i mean again the name is a separate conversation i think and i i do very much suspect that it would come up in people of changing but but not the not the building thank you nathaniel um andrew were you getting ready to say something character nathan you'll get in do we have any other comments um we have one more issue to talk about and we've got about 20 minutes left yes it's julia sorry my video's not working um so i just had one question about the the plan and uh thanks staff for giving us an overview of sort of where where you're heading um the section on ada was pretty minimalist and i'm curious about there was a lot of discussion during the referral phase of and between referral and the november election about the ada piece and i'm curious how um whether whether or not you're going to incorporate um external expertise on universal design whether the how the community engagement and specifically the disability community is going to be engaged in that conversation and i'm not saying it doesn't exist but it just in the the initial plan the um the section was fairly small so or not expansive and i'm curious where more details of that will when more details of that will come out or what the process will be marina if you'd like i can jump in and i think answer this quickly so what will be coming to you in a work session very soon is uh details about the ada transition plan update so uh i think that's going to be actually very soon i'll say the next you know month or as far as maybe two months out uh and where you'll have an opportunity to see the team has gone through there's been quite a bit of extensive engagement with the disability community we work with partners as well to help us shape the ada transition plan so i can't answer a lot of those details right at the moment but she will be getting a lot of detail here pretty soon great thank you i really really appreciate that and i know there'll be a high level of interest in seeing what that transition plan look looks like and um how it will lead to i think that people think we think is going to be a pretty transformative investment in our schools so thanks thank you for that comment um i i agree um dan did you say at some point once this is fleshed out that i
01h 10m 00s
didn't i didn't hear your final answer that it will be shared with community um with the board absolutely so our intention is to uh schedule a work session specific to uh reviewing the ada transition plan uh and then if we need to make any changes or pivots from there we will and then the full plan will come to the board for approval but uh yeah we're looking to schedule that soon i think the january 12th is the work session oh great fantastic thank you yeah i know there's a lot of interest there um so it'd be great to capture the energy from those interested parties do we have any more comments again i can't see everybody on my screen um as to this topic and are we ready to move on to the bic new membership discussion i i don't see uh any hands raised or anything um so the bond accountability commission as you know uh has an outgoing outgoing uh chair um kevin and has two other people that are leaving at the end of the year as well and so we have been we've put together steph and i have um have put together a process by which to add people to that committee we met about this over the summer decided to put an application together posted that on the website solicited applications from as broad of a you know community members people that were interested people that have expressed interest in the past um we got for the three to four potentially four spots we had 14 applicants and dan i don't know if you want to speak to the process we went through to sort of sift through applicants list them out and if you want to speak to that yeah just uh briefly tonight we're short on time uh we did uh we we did reach out to uh the community to see who would be interested uh the people i i reached out to anyone who said hey you might want to reach out to this person i reached out to that and we got 14 really good applicants and what we took a look at in your materials you have information about all of those applicants and you also have information about the bac members who will be continuing into 2021 uh and one of the things that we looked at was uh somewhat rounding out uh the skill sets and the first diversity of the vac you'll still see the members that are continuing on really strong construction management backgrounds have auditing experience uh and other great skill sets and so the intent here was to look at some people who maybe had some different skill sets that could help uh provide a bit of a rounder uh more you know uh group with a rounder experience and so what you have in your materials is a short memo or staff recommends uh adding four applicants uh to the bac which would bring it to the total of ten you don't have to fill up up to 10 the charter says approximately 7 to 10 uh and there's also a number of other really qualified applicants in there so there's clearly no specific this is right this is wrong i think we actually ended up with uh quite a few assault applicants and all the ones that are down as recommendations i reached out to all of them directly and i think only one i haven't been able to talk to directly about the other ones i have and the intention would be if there's a decision made want to proceed forward i would reach out to all of them again uh confirm that they don't have any last concerns or questions and then putting that in a staff report resolution you're on you michelle i want to add to that and just say one of the things that was on my mind when i was looking at the composition of the committee was to and as always uh try to diversify the voices that we're hearing from to guide this work especially after having reviewed the charter which you know clearly states that this is an advisory committee and also knowing that as valuable as construction management experiences um there are other backgrounds that can contribute to a more diverse voice um a more diverse representation and age gender and all those other social demographics and so what we've presented to you today is in your materials is a table that shows existing committee members and down below that are the list of applicants that applied and we really
01h 15m 00s
tried to um i mean i encourage staff to make to to think about the holes on the to the holes on the committee rather than um appointing people that we know um i i recommended anonymizing it to um help us make decisions based on on other factors besides who they are who they were as people and more in terms of like are we looking for financial are we looking for someone that has ada experience are we looking for someone that has auditing experience one of the areas that we didn't hear from that would be helpful to have on the committee is we didn't hear from someone that has kind of a curriculum background um that's a little niche that's hard to i just i wouldn't have even known where to recruit for that so we of the recommended uh four members one of the people is a disability uh rights advocate um anyway you can see in the materials who they are i'd love to have a discussion about that in our remaining time um if you've had a chance to review if you have any comments about the process um i'd love to hear it um i mean this is all draft and all open to um co-creation here so just like open it up about the um oversight of the curriculum and technology into a lesser extent accessibility pieces here so um i think the staff report said that those pieces um are going to be largely managed by their respective departments under luis's direction and dawn's direction with osm really handling the financial oversight auditing the larger program specific functions which seems to make sense to me in terms of how we organize it but i'm just thinking about the bond accountability committee it does make sense for that to be a little more broad not just specifically tied to the osm functions and um so in that sense you know maybe we should make sure that maybe it's not through the bac but how do we make sure that we do have some conduit for public engagement and some degree of oversight of those pieces and and don i guess specifically since you're on the call i'd be interested in your perspective on this because you've got you've got some big purchases ahead that there might be different opinions about and i can i can certainly speak for myself and saying the board is is not going to be especially helpful in knowing you know what which is the what are the right decisions about specifically how to invest those resources so talk a little bit about that oversight well absolutely and happy to do that and not necessarily on making the specific decisions but we've already been working closely with marina to try and that the same level of transparency that has taken place in all of the osm level projects is being applied to all of the technology level projects and the things that we're doing um fortunately um while the work is complex and um the scheduling is complex most of the things that we're talking about in technology is is pretty straightforward in refreshing networks building networks out it's it's not um extremely complicated or overly complex work to understand um we did put forward i i actually reached out to a few people i know in the industry to see if anybody would be interested and found what i thought was an exceptional candidate for somebody to sit on the on the bac so i hopefully that that might resonate they also work for um tau so they work with a lot of businesses that are in this sector but overall have a very broad sense of what good budgeting process and reporting process looks like um there are a number of people that may not fit into that if if we chose to and we wanted to have just another level of scrutiny and transparency made available to um i am certain it's a very tech rich area we live in that we could find people that could review the plans as a subcommittee or um something else if that makes the board comfortable on the decisions we're making and the directions we're going to you know make sure that we're we're making the best uses of the funds that we have provided for us thank you for that um i'll just note that one of the
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four staff recommended advisory members is is from the technology association of oregon and looks like has a workforce equity and career learning equity background um which i i would find i would think would be valuable um i'm also noting that there's increased age and gender diversity with the four applicants that staff recommends which is a good thing i've been reading about the impact of diverse teams and diverse teams produ are more fiscally responsible and produce better outcomes so i don't know i mean we we've got four recommended out of the 14 if anybody else wants to chime in i'll just say that i i think i really appreciated the process i didn't have a chance to take a look at the materials until earlier today um one we got a very strong pool of candidates and i hope that we are going to reach out to the people who are not being selected and and let them know how appreciative we are and that we may be coming back to them in the future because i think as you know we need additional um you know folks for either this or other committees i just i don't want to lose anyone who's willing to volunteer their time um you know who has this you know great background experience i want to make sure they feel good about the process even if they didn't um get selected i think the people we've selected sound great i think it's it is it does add um diversity to the to the committee both in age and and gender and um and race and ethnicity um and again the backgrounds i think the varied backgrounds are exactly what we need so i was just really pleasantly surprised going through seeing the quality of the candidates and the process i think anonymizing it um is is great it's something i had not seen before or even really thought of so michelle thank you for that um i think it adds um it adds you know it really does focus you in on on what's there and not oh i know that person or i know someone who knows that person and um so no i really appreciate the process thank you that's we're demonstrating what diverse teams can produce i wanted to apologize real quickly i realized that i just responded to uh director constance question and my camera was off the entire time so my apologies for that it's a very nice suited up picture of you though so with you are not supposed to give demerits to our students or our colleagues for that are we we're supposed to give a little grace in the zoom era camera off is perfectly acceptable um in our last three million minutes um we've got these four four candidates i i really appreciate you andrew reminding us to send a really nice letter um acknowledging people and also absolutely right if we have people that want to volunteer for us we should absolutely plug them in and find them something to do if not on this committee than in in in future opportunities um i mean if any other opera any other committees right now need people this is again a really rich group of people willing to step up portlanders um we are just about at time i believe we're one minute away do we have any further i think um in terms of these four applicants the process would be they would need to be presented to the full board um and then we'd need to finalize an appointment uh finalize these four and i'm also willing to um sign or help draft a a thank you letter to the candidates that did not make it the applicants yeah and just as a no we're looking to fast track it and look to have this actually out the next board meeting to appoint these these four i support this slate i'm i'm very i'm thrilled with the slate as well um do we have anything else and again i can't see you so for the good of the order next meeting i'd like to suggest that we have a conversation with staff about some of these uh wage and hour concerns that keep bubbling around us or at the very least some kind of a staff uh response to some of the concerns that have been raised because i keep having anecdotes coming at me from different directions um but i really don't know understand the state of play with the whole district so i'm fully supportive of that um i also want to um amy you sent a short list of topics
01h 25m 00s
that need to be that you'd like to see addressed and i will i'll make sure that we get those items on the agenda in terms of process improvement um we've just as of yesterday i've just had a conversation with staff about how we um the the where we schedule in agenda setting meetings how we share that information with other committee members in the board so we're sort of you know we're a new team trying to work out some of those details but um wanna want to create a way a pathway for people to give input that's scheduled and regular that they can count on um so no that's happening um is there is there anything else for the good of the order you'll have to just pop in


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