Good afternoon and welcome.

We're here for a joint committee work session with the Planning Housing and Parks Committee and the Health and Human Services Committee.

We are here with two directors and an exciting moment here to talk about the Western County Recreation Center, which has been a long time coming and been advocating for this since it was part of my district now as part of Councilmember Balcom's uh district and has particular importance to the Up County, and a lot of us have been advocating for it, including my co-chair uh who's here uh as as well, uh dating back uh years from time before uh uh even on the council and uh just really excited about it.

I know um we're in close touch with the Fair Access Committee and with the town of Poolsville, who have been champions of this project for for many, many years.

Appreciate the county executive and uh the Department of Recreation, Department of General Services and Health and Human Services for moving forward on this.

There are a lot of moving pieces to uh make uh this uh effort uh move and uh really appreciate uh that effort uh as well.

So uh with that, uh open it up uh to see if my co-chair has any comments, and then we can uh turn it over to the departments to walk us through.

All right, good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here, Councilmember Sales.

I am um feeling like this is a full circle moment seeing my former colleague and chair of HHS here to present on a topic that is so important to so many of us and of course the Western County region who has been patiently awaiting the discussion and the investment in recreation centers suitable for the residents living in Poolsville and the surrounding communities.

And so I too want to uh thank them for their advocacy and the county executive for including this in the CIP and look forward to the discussion.

So welcome and thank you.

Thank you.

And uh with that, uh Director Albernaz uh welcome uh here.

I'll turn it over uh to you and to Director Dice and uh can go ahead and walk us through where we are.

I'll just speak at a high level and it's good afternoon, good people.

It's great to be back.

Uh thank you all so much.

So I too have seen this project from a few different angles, and I'm excited that we are here today.

Uh the recreation department is looking forward to this project being completed and the keys turned over to us.

Uh we will be working with our colleagues and friends in Poolsville as we get closer to launch to conduct community surveys and needs assessments to figure out what exact types of programs will go into the facility.

But of course, we're here to discuss the capital process and where we are in that process.

And so I yield to my colleague and friend Director Dice to give an overview of where we are in that part of the process.

Thank you, Director Alvarnoz, David Dice, Director of Department of General Services.

Um, I think we're all believe breathing a collective sigh of relief and shared anticipation for this uh as funding becomes available.

I want to acknowledge the uh cooperation and collaboration with the town of Poolsville, who have been very instrumental in working very close with DGS staff and uh determining the final site of this park, uh which will uh the property at Dillingham Park is owned by the city and we'll have a ground lease there for quite some time.

The design on the uh project will begin in FY28, and we'll proceed unfettered through uh design and uh construction from that point on.

There's really not much more to update at this point, except that this gives us the green light to go forward and work closely with recreation and the town to come up with a final layout and design and be happy to keep the committees uh informed and updated.

Uh this will, as it becomes official now, will uh become uh uh a feature on the county's neighborhood, the DGS's neighborhood projects page.

So the millions of interested uh people listening in on this will be able to go to uh DGS's website uh with neighborhood neighborhood projects link and follow the progress of this uh project as it uh moves forward.

That's it.

Great.

Let me turn it over to colleagues uh starting with Councilmember Balcom.

Okay, thank you.

Um very excited about this project.

Um thank you both for um uh your roles in doing this.

So uh from the perspective of the health clinic, so at what point do you bring in HHS or the local uh providers in and looking at what that clinic piece looks like.

Um I'm gonna hand that element over to Deputy Director Greg Osent with DGS who's been working with all the parties involved.

Greg?

Good afternoon, Greg Austin, Department of General Services.

Um yes, so a critical component of the program is the HHS suite.

Um we worked in uh closely with HHS and of course the rec department in putting this program together some years ago, and then obviously had heavy input from the local community, not just fair access, but a number of providers in the area to identify the need and support the need and and uh that carried through the POR and uh ultimately into the project.

So it's an important aspect of the uh of the CIP.

Um between now and uh well uh design of the is as David mentioned, the design is not going to start for another year.

Um so we're gonna be doing a couple of things.

First, making sure that we've got all the stakeholders covered, of course, rec uh in partnership with their um uh with the upcounty area uh as well as HHS uh and the public health, uh same folks that we worked with and in developing the POR.

In addition to that, and I know uh Councilmember Freedson um had mentioned this before, but we're also gonna do the housing uh affordable housing feasibility as part of that too.

So those are the kind of the interim steps that we'll be working on over the next year or so before we hit the start button on the design of the actual facility at Dillingham Park.

Um but uh uh to answer your question specifically, uh we've got a team assembled with our public health officials or public health division over at HHS.

We'll rely on them to identify exactly not just the space need, but I ask actually how it's going to be programmed, because that will be integral to the actual design of the facility, entrances, exits, and taking lessons learned from other similar facilities that we have in other places like East County and and uh uh with mobile med and and other uh similar uses.

So uh work in progress, uh, but we won't start in earnest on that for another year.

Um thank you.

And then the uh equipment, is there any equipment included in the CIP for for the specifically for the suite?

So um right now, my recollection, so uh just to put it in perspective, the over the size of the facility, the size of the medical suite is uh is about a thousand square feet total.

So it includes a storage room, a couple clinical spaces, medical exam rooms, and then of course reception and and uh and intake.

Um so it's really a fairly small component compared to the rest of the facility.

Um there are um those medical exam rooms do have plumbing and those sorts of things already in the program in terms of the actual furniture and the equipment, not in that number yet.

Um I suspect what we'll probably do is if we can't identify it, uh we will identify it during the design process.

Um, I am certain that in this number and this CIP number, it's just an allowance built into the into the CIP, uh not knowing exactly what that equipment is yet, but it's in this number.

So we won't come back for a subsequent ask for additional equipment.

Okay, great.