Oh, this is so exciting.

Look at this round.

I'm ready here.

Okay.

You get used to the code.

I'm going to call special meeting of the Board of Alderman to order on Tuesday, January 13th, 2026 at 701 p.m.

in the Aldermanic Chamber, which has been duly noticed in two places, including the city's website in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91A.

Tonight's prayer will be offered by City Clerk Dan Healy and Alderman Clemens who lead us in the pledge to the flag.

Almighty God, we have the high honor and the serious duty to manage the affairs of our beloved city.

Fill us, oh God, with a spirit of unity and understanding, which enables us to face our multiple problems with a serene mind with justice and charity for all, so that any and all decisions made by us will always be for the betterment and greater happiness of all our fellow citizens.

So help us God.

Amen.

I quit allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands under God, individual with liberty and justice for all.

Nice to see you all.

Um okay, would let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance, please.

Alderman Clemens.

Here Alderman Clay.

Here Aldman Chuss.

Here Aldwoman Smith.

President.

Here.

Aldman Dowd.

President.

Alderman Sullivan.

Here.

Alderman Senate.

Here.

Alderman Johnson.

Present.

Alderwoman Kelly.

Here.

Alderman Morgan.

Here.

Alderman Lopez.

Nay, I mean here.

President Wilshire.

Here.

Fourteen present, one absent.

Thank you.

Also joining us this evening is Mayor Jim Donchus and Corporation Counsel Steve Bolton.

Communications.

Communication has been received from Tim Cummings, Administrative Services Director in Don Enright, CFO, regarding request for special board of Alderman meeting to discuss capital projects.

Communications requiring final approval.

Communication has been received from Sam Durfee, AICP planning manager, regarding recommendation from the Nashua City Planning Board to the Board of Alderman regarding the fiscal year 2027 capital improvements program CIP report.

Alderman O'Brien.

Opposed?

Nay.

That motion carries.

Discussions and presentations.

Capital Project Planning.

I'm going to recognize the administrative services director, Tim Cummings.

Joining me this evening is um uh CFO Enright and Sam Durfee, the city's planning manager.

And what I'd like to do this evening is set the set the conversation up, hoping it will be a little bit of a dialogue but ultimately really looking to start a capital expenditure conversation with you all, building on the previous work that we've done.

So with that being said, the discussion tonight, the purpose of this discussion is to provide a high-level overview of the capital project planning through the lens of the ad hoc joint mayoral and board of Albany Committee on Capital Expenditures and debt service.

And so if you all recall, a couple of years ago we we got together as a group and we worked really hard to develop our priorities when it came to capital project planning.

And so the objectives for this uh meeting this evening is to give you all a little bit of background on what bonding is and how the City of Nashua um executes on our capital project planning, acquaint folks with the uh prior work that we did, and then ideally what I'd like to do is is revisit the prior work and then talk about maybe reconstituting the ad hoc committee to talk about uh pending uh projects, future projects, uh new priorities that we that we've heard over the last couple of years so we can plan accordingly.

And so um this is gonna be a little interactive at this moment.

I'm gonna ask Don Enright to come up.

She's gonna give you a quick overview on what bonding is.

And then I'm gonna on the next slide hand it off to Sam Durfree, who's gonna talk a little bit about the CIP.

So uh CFO Enright.

Don Enright, CFO.

Thank you very much uh for having me this evening.

So, bonding, why do we bond?

We um bond for many projects that we have that need to be um accomplished throughout the city.

And um, in order to get these projects completed, uh we actually go out to the open market and we get a loan to be able to pay for these projects.

This helps us to be able to keep our budget um steady in terms of loan repayment so that we're not having to pay cash for for a lot of these projects and have an influx on the on the budget.

Um we do um from time to time use our surplus to be able to pay cash for some of the projects.

Um we've been very successful in keeping the amount that we do bond by using um the surplus in this manner.

Um the community uh has many needs, as you'll see with the CIP report that has been presented.

Um we have many needs, way more needs than what we can fulfill.

So having the relationship with all of you and the understanding of the needs of the community and giving us guidance as to which direction you would like us to go in in terms of which projects to bond and so forth is um a very good relationship for us.

Um I'd be more than happy to answer any questions if anyone has any specific questions with bonding.

Alderman Tebow.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Uh it's weird being on this side.

Um I get two questions.

I'll ask them at the same time, so I don't have to raise my hand again.

Um so the first question is can you and I I know the answer to this, but I want to make sure people understand it, both at home and maybe for some of the newer aldermen and women.

Um the question of, you know, when people think loans, they always think that's bad, right?

So I uh if you can explain why bonding is good for a city.

Um and the second one is I recently saw that there's a bill up at the State House that's going to, if it passed, would very risk be very restrictive to a city or town in New Hampshire to be able to bond.

It has to be almost like very emergency infrastructure falling down right on top of us, like it's and for a city like us when you're bonding for big you know, fire trucks and schools, it would put us in a really bad situation.

And I wanted to get your thoughts on that as well.

Thank you very much for that question.

Um, the first question in terms of why do we bond?

Um, as a community, we go to the open market because we do bond um enough projects.

And then when we go out to the open market, we have to go to the rating agencies to um to get a good rating, which shows that we manage our money well and we manage our organization well.

And we are doing good things for our community.

That those are the things that they are looking for.

Managing our debt is favorable.

They want to see that we can manage our debt.

So if we were not to bond, we wouldn't show that we're managing our debt.

An example would be somebody wants to buy a home, but they've only paid cash for anything their entire life.

They have no credit.

In a city our size would never want to be in that situation.

The second question about the legislation that is up at in Concord right now.

That legislation saying that we can only bond in dire emergency would have a very adverse effect on our budgeting.

Because a dire emergency could happen once a year, once every two years, once every five years.

So you're going to watch your debt service ebb and fro.

And that is going to have a negative effect on your budget as well as how you're going to be rated by the agencies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alderman Doug?

Yeah.

Could you just explain for the new people that what our bond rating is because we manage our bonds so well?

Yes, we are a triple A bond rating by standard and poor.

Thank you.

Alderman Johnson.

Thank you.

Could you explain what the additional costs are when you're bonding like?

Do we have to pay attorneys fees, et cetera?

There are some additional fees that are rolled into the funding, very similar to when you do mortgage, have a get a mortgage on your on your home.

There are some additional fees and interests.

Follow-up, Alderman Johnson.

Yes, thank you very much.

And I get it with the mortgage and all that.

But could you, or can you give it to the board at some time so we can see the breakdown of the different fees, like the how much the attorney's fees might be, and how much anything would be like with a mortgage, you get a sheet, you know, uh closing sheet, and you're able to see exactly what the whole breakdown is and what is the total cost.

So if we could see that, that would be great, because then we can understand how much more it's actually costing us with the bonds over and above what we're asking for, the loan.

Okay, certainly.

Thank you very much.

Alderman Lopez.

Um, just for a comparison, so that I can see something to compare to.

Could you also go break down the fees that tax collection funds would have included?

Like I assume you're not working for free and there's other city departments.

So just so that we can compare a dollar of taxpayer money versus, you know, if we're doing bonding, how much the taxpayers have to pay over that time.

I'm not exactly sure what the question is.

Would you mind saying that when you're well the previous speaker asked if you could give us a breakdown of overhead when we borrow money as a bond, and you're able to do that.

Could you give us an idea of how much overhead might be coming from strict taxpayer contributed funds where there might be also people managing that money or overseeing its use?

I can provide all of um all of the expense that are related to the bonding process, yes.

Okay.

I would like to do the general budget, though.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll turn back over to the county.

Thanks.

Yep.

So um a couple major takeaways here.

One, we're really focusing on general obligation bonds.

Um one thing I want to note sometimes we do do bonding, but our bonding is with um the let for the landfill or for uh wastewater treatment plant.

Those bonds aren't necessarily part of uh this conversation this evening or the conversation we would have in the ad hoc process.

We're really focusing on general fund obligation type bonds.

And so um with that being said, just want to close out by saying as a community we need to work together to manage our debt service budget to develop a framework for our capital expenditures because we only have one debt service budget for the entire city.

And so it's really critical to think of it from the lens or the perspective of we have one bucket, and that one bucket is what's paying for these capital projects that may be carried out by uh the police department, by uh DPW, uh, by the library, uh here in uh City Hall, and so they all need to work together because they all they all have to work in unison with our with our debt service budget.

So with that being said, um want to just kind of break it down a little bit more where I'm gonna ask uh uh Sam Durfee, our our planning manager to come up and talk to you a little bit about the CIP.

And after the presentation this evening, he's gonna come back to you all and he's gonna talk to you a little bit about the CIP for FY27 uh in a little bit more detail, but I'd really like to kind of break it down and talk about what the CIP is versus our debt service plan, or basically how we pay for our capital expenditure project uh projects when we when we borrow funds.

And I put a little note on there.

We talk a lot in acronyms, and so with some of the newer folks here, don't be shy.

Ask us what these acronyms are.

So right there, we often refer to as GEO, general obligation.

That basically just is our our term that we use when we're talking about the general fund, CIP, um CIC.

You're gonna hear these acronyms tossed around a lot.

Uh don't ever hesitate to ask us uh what these acronyms are.

So with that being said, I'm gonna hand it over to Mr.

Durfee.

Good evening, Madam President, members of the Board of Albion.

Uh I'm Sam Durfee, planning manager for this fine city.

Uh, thank you very much for having me this evening to talk about the Capital Improvements Program and the Capital Improvements Committee.

So the the program, also the document that you may have seen, it's it's really representation of a six-year capital planning effort.

The Capital Improvements Committee basically solicits capital projects from all of the city departments, and then those projects are gone.

We we receive presentations from the departments on those projects.

Then the CIC, the committee, uh creates and establishes um these review criteria, and basically will rank these projects and score them uh based on these these seven criteria, which I can get into in greater detail uh later this evening.

Uh the CIC, the the committee itself was established by city charter, tasked with the with the idea of soliciting these projects and being able to plan into the future what the city's capital needs are.

Uh it is a subcommittee of the planning board, so in terms of process, the CIC will produce the uh capital program and then refer it to the planning board for a recommendation, and actually the planning board took this up at their meeting last Thursday on the 8th, and they provided a favorable recommendation to this board on the document.

Um this year we had 125 capital project requests, uh, and again, those are scored against the the seven criteria.

And this year we actually did separate out our general fund projects versus our enterprise fund projects.

The reason for doing so as um Director Commons had mentioned we have general obligation bonding.

Uh, that is for to solicit or to gain funds to pay for some of these projects versus whereas we have these enterprise projects that are associated with services that are paying, you know, receiving user fees, and so those funds rather than having to go out and obtain debt financing to pay for the capital projects, the the ongoing service revenue pays for those projects.

So we we found the need, the committee found the need to separate those out because of the the funding sources are inherently different.

Um the the CIC is not concerned with how the city decides to pay for the capital projects, and I say that simply in the context of if a project uh is going to be paid for by cash or bonding, the city's or the CIC is indifferent to those sources and how that is paid for.

However, if a project is bringing in outside funds, say grants or match dollars from perhaps the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, or others, the CIC does want to know that because that greatly reduces the economic impact of a capital project.

So that all gets wrapped into uh the scoring criteria, and the CIC has crafted that accordingly to ensure that that element of funding is captured and reflected in the rankings of the projects.

Uh I'll leave it there, but I'll happily take questions, and again, I will speak to this in greater detail later this evening.

Aldman Clee.

Uh thank you, um, Madam President.

Um the question I have is obviously one here that's near and dear to my heart, um, is one that I know there's an 80-20 match, and that's the Lock Street and Whitney Um Street project.

And and when I look at that, I see that it's got a ranking of a 3.56 out of five.

Um the the potential of losing that 80% match if we don't go forward with this, does that increase the ranking or anything like that?

Um I I guess I have concern when I don't see this in like a full four or something to that nature out of the five.

So certainly.

So that that that weighted average score that you see at the end of the table, that's a reflection of of all of the criteria that go into the evaluation.

Um in this case, this is a 10-year plan project associated with the Hampshire Department of Transportation.

Those projects are staggered through 10 years.

And one of the criteria is urgency, another one is project readiness.

So we take a look at the the plan, we we hear from um Engineer Hudson on the timing of these projects within the 10-year plan.

We recognize the value of that match.

However, if that's not coming until FY30, say, it's not very urgent.

The project's not ready in terms of it's not happening imminently.

Therefore, it would score lower, despite it may score a five on economic impact because of the match, but just the timing of it pushes it further out into the plan.

Follow up?

Yes.

Okay.

So the the question is if you know that the money has to be used by a particular date and time, um, does that increase the um the economic impact or the even if it's not shovel ready?

Um so for I can only use this one because I know more about it.

We're in the the process of the design and having meetings with the public and so on to talk about the impact.

Um I hope not 10 years.

We've been waiting since 2018 for this one, so um so does that um have that kind of impact on it?

I mean, I for from what I've gathered, we already have this money, so it's not it's not an issue that we're gonna lose it to the best of my knowledge, but I'm just talking to this one because I know it.

But in for others, it certainly does, yes.

Uh and and I will say that the the CIC does rely on the information that departments provide on the projects.

We have uh an online portal system and and they're able to write up a narrative, but then also present to the committee on these projects.

And so the CIC makes an informed decision based on all of that information.

So we would look to uh the department heads who are you know carrying the flag for these projects to provide that vital information.

And certainly as projects move up closer into you know the current fiscal year than the next fiscal year, those become priority projects for the departments, and those typically receive a lot more detail in the the document, but then also in their presentation, and then inevitably score higher.

Just one more quick.

So you will be re-scoring all of these each year, is that based on the readiness and what has already been done and maybe what's been added to it?

That's a very good question.

And I and I should have led with this in my in my initial presentation, where a lot of what you see in the document this year is carryover from previous years.

The number of projects will always fluctuate as some get funded and completed, and that but new projects come in.

As again, we progress through the fiscal years and projects are are checked off, you know, others will move up closer to the present fiscal year, and again, they will be rescored.

Urgency and readiness will likely improve, and therefore their rating will improve over previous years.

Thank you.

Appreciate the Alderman Senate.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Question along similar lines.

Um looking through the document, I no, I I I understand how the um the weighted score is broken down, but I when I look at the just the overall the the rank and the score of certain projects, and then um correlate that with the the anticipated year of a funding request.

I see some that may rank lower, but the funding requests would be coming sooner.

Maybe something like a like a 29 or something would be um landing in fiscal 20 or 29, but something lower, you'd anticipate it in the 27.

Um what would what would drive that?

It could be a number of things.

And and keep in mind it's 125 requests, many of which are landing or at least being requested for in FY27.

Now that may be when the request is is made.

Um the CIC may kind of read the narrative or hear from the presentation and say, okay, it's being requested for this year.

Maybe it can wait a year, maybe it can wait two.

Uh is very competitive.

There are so many requests.

Um we really do again rely on the presentation.

We even this year asked the the department heads to identify their their top three projects.

Obviously, we can't hear presentations on 125 individual projects.

Um so when we are told by these department heads exactly what their top three priority projects are, those may be um FY27 projects.

They may be FY30, perhaps because it is a large project.

High cost, high impact, desperate need, but you know, further out, that may still score higher because of the articulated need and impact of that project rather than something that is requested for FY27, but of a lower cost and potentially lower impact.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All of them down.

Just so that people know, I know you're gonna explain later the subjects of different criteria because that's kind of detailed.

But can you mention just by position, not names?

Who's on the CIC committee?

Certainly.

So the makeup is the by charter, the chair of the planning board, myself is the secretary.

We have two aldermanic representatives, one is a primary member, one is an alternate.

And then we have a CFO Enright as well.

But then we do have space for uh one other city staff person in the finance department, and then it was wells that we have a number of spots for uh members of the public.

Uh currently we only have one, but if any of your constituents are very interested in capital planning, we have space and we would welcome them.

Alderman McKelly.

Uh thank you.

The rubric looks interestingly like some other things I've seen.

Um when you guys are scoring it, you say we, so it's the committee.

Do you guys come to consensus or do you take every single person's score and then bring it together?

The latter.

It's all averaged.

Great.

Thank you.

And in scored individually away from each other.

We we two years ago we worked very hard to establish this new system really to uh pull out subjectivity and make this as objective, give very clear guidance on the criteria.

People will interpret them differently, but the idea then is through the averaging, we may get closer to to what the real score is, if you will.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, so again, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

So the CIP break it down very simply is it's essentially an inventory of various capital projects, it's graded, there's a rough timeline associated to it.

But then when you take that, then I'm gonna use a term called, and this is part of the reason why I want to have this conversation with you all, is because uh what I'm gonna use is a term is called um fiscally constrained.

And so that is policy guidance that you all need to set in direct staff to help us understand how we want to, you know, essentially afford to pay for these projects.

And that comes into your debt service plan and and making sure we understand how we can pay for these various projects based on the policy guidance that you've you've given us.

And that's the work that we've done over the last couple years, and we're before you uh uh now this evening to further clarify and ensure that we're on the on the right track.

And so why is this important?

So as a community, we have over 700 million capital requests over the next six or so years.

Our debt service budget is only uh just over 23 million dollars.

And so we need to balance our capital needs with our operational demands.

Ultimately, the previous guidance that we're giving that's given that I would like to reaffirm is we want to maintain a stable property tax rate increase year over year.

And so what steps did we do?

Uh what steps did we take?

We recognized a need to organize the various requests.

The mayor uh and the president formed an ad hoc committee to study the issue, a group of Alderman and members of the administration studied the issue over months and developed an advisory plan, recognizing we wanted to maintain our tax rate increase year over year in a stable fashion.

The major takeaways and the work that was done throughout that process ultimately led us to essentially wanting to keep the new debt sale authorizations to about 25 million uh over a five-year uh on average over a five-year period.

Uh we passed our 2407, and I included that in the communication this evening.

So if you get a chance to to review that.

Uh but also we we understood that these plans are are not static but living documents, they're gonna change, and uh we we welcome that.

And we want to, but what we want to ensure that we do is constantly check in with you all to make sure we're going in the in the right direction.

Uh and it was also noted through the process that we want to try to use cash more than borrow, um, and and and certainly using cash on hand is is the preference when it when it makes strategic strategic sense.

So just wanted to quickly show you what our general uh fund debt service kind of looks like right now, and that's that 23.7 million.

But to give you context, and that the real takeaway from this slide is actually the last uh um line there, which you know 23.7 million represents approximately 15 percent of our general fund budget.

And that's uh that's a good target that uh I would recommend to you all that we consider staying with somewhere in this general vicinity is uh is certainly where we would strive to go if that's your pleasure, we can certainly have that conversation whether you think it should be should be different.

So the bonding projects to date.

So I want to just kind of touch upon this.

And these are projects that we had previously identified, and that we kind of noted that were imminent and needing needing work.

And so, first and foremost is the garage and fleet uh maintenance and uh fleet maintenance facility under design right now, it's moving towards construction.

Home and stadium, we have some renovation or repairs that need to be done.

Mohawk tannery pedestrian bridge.

We have a contractual obligation that the uh previous board of Alderman signed where we're looking to institute a pedestrian bridge over in that uh uh brand new housing site.

Um we have some hydro improvements that need to be done, particularly for regulatory reasons.

It's under design right now.

Want to note hydro is one of these general obligation bonds that that's how we treat it, but we do actually collect revenue off of this project.

So that's uh uh something to just keep in the back of your mind, and that also goes hand in glove with the high in Elm Street uh parking garage project, which is under construction as well.

That is another uh general obligation bond, but um, unlike some of these other projects, there is a fee associated to that, so revenue does come in to help offset some of that, some of that cost.

We also had some of the transportation projects mentioned earlier that we've we've authorized.

We have a uh signal implementation uh project.

We haven't started it yet, but we did authorize uh cash to be used uh for for that project.

We have a police training facility project, a nearly complete.

Uh we've authorized for a roof repair, some school projects, Birch Hill and Maine Dunstable completed a middle school contingency uh authorization that was completed.

Those are projects that we identified during the ad hoc process, um, along with knowing that we need to institute a paving program within our debt service, surf also within our within our debt service as well.

These were projects we again had previously identified.

Some other projects that uh we previously identified in our next stop on the list.

Um we know the fire department uh just underwent a master facilities plan for their deferred capital maintenance.

We've slotted in about 1.5 million in various um deferred capital maintenance needs for the fire assets.

Similarly with schools, they did the they did the same type thing, and we've slotted in the plan about two million dollars a year over a year, and two big uh building projects that we've identified is the library renovation project and then the Pine Hill Fire Station uh rebuild.

So those are the projects we've previously discussed and are at some there's at some point through the through the process.

But here are all the projects we also identified that we really haven't even started on yet.

And this is where I wanted to bring this to your attention because as we're talking about some of these outer years, we need direction to ensure that we're working uh correctly trying to slot some of these projects in.

And so um, I'm not gonna read all of them to you all here, uh, but you can see them as they've been identified either by the community, by the departments, or by you through the conversations that we've had uh either through the ad hoc process or after the ad hoc process uh uh wrapped up.

Um moving forward.

Um ideally the way we will move forward is is we will continue to increase our capital improvement spending within the operational budget in FY26.

It was at 1.4.

If uh I can convince the mayor to increase it a little bit, I'd like to try to get it up to 1.5 and then continue to grow that over the next few years.

Ideally, I would like to see us, you know, with spending a little bit more than two-ish million dollars.

Uh but again, that's something that we would need to work towards.

Uh again, looking for direction to limit our debt sale uh to approximately 25 million per year using a five-year average.

Um just re recommitting to the idea that if we have surplus, we can use it on capital projects.

That's a process that we've done in the past.

It's something I highly recommend.

It goes to um all the woman uh Cleese point earlier this evening, the lock project.

The reason why we're able to get the lock project done is because we actually used cash surplus.

And part of our job as staff is to be identifying opportunities along the way to slot some of these projects in to advance them for the community.

And I think the Lock Street project is a good example of that.

Um, but there are other uh particularly the 80-20 transportation matches where where this type of strategy really really takes hold, and I would certainly recommend it to you all instead of trying to to borrow for everything.

So with that being said, my last comment is I I really want to kind of keep this process moving forward.

I'd ask the body to consider reinstituting the ad hoc committee again, uh using the CIP from FY27 as guidance and trying to get together regularly over the next couple weeks to continue to to build out our plans so ultimately we can offer some bond resolutions this spring tied with the budget season.

So with that being said, Madam President, I thank you for your time.

Do you have a minute for a couple of questions?

Absolutely.

Okay, Haldeman O'Brien.

Thank you, Madam President.

Director Cummings, what I saw in being chairman of infrastructure, one of the things we discussed in the past, I see the police department's roof.

But I don't see the six roofs for the fire department.

I don't think we want rain coming down on the fire, and they get wet wet enough at times.

So we we've authorized already uh two million dollars, one point five uh for the roofs for that six roofs and about uh three to four hundred thousand dollars for HVAC repairs, and it is currently being spent and it is going to be incorporated into the FY27 debt service uh figure.

Okay.

Aldman Clee.

Thank you, um Madam President.

Um just to clarify when we met at the ad hoc, um, if I remember at that time, we could have um done up to $30 million debt service, but we decided to leave that buffer in case of an emergency.

Is that correct?

Uh that's absolutely correct.

At the time, CFO Griffin's recommendation to the body was $30 million.

Uh the body, as you noted, opted to go with more like a $25 million.

Right.

So that we never kind of committed ourselves to more than we really truly could afford.

And the other question um or comment that I want to make sure that I I still have that correctly, the committee also said that um one million dollar project and less, we would try to do cash as much as possible and not bond.

1.5.

One point five, okay.

But I have seen that this past year we did bond sometimes a one million dollar.

Can you talk to that?

So uh again, um if I may, Madam President, uh excellent point, and one that I'm gonna note, and that's and that's because we need to grow and work towards being able to use the cash, which means that we have to create the space or the capacity within our operating budget to be able to do that.

Um so you we can't just increase our uh operating budget or use all of our surplus um for these projects.

And so, but we still have these projects that have been identified as priorities, so we've strategically bonded them.

Um, particularly the ones, some of the ones that we've bonded, it's an initial authorization for design to let us know what the true project cost will be, so you can have a follow-on authorization for construction or total project cost, and you have a little bit more accuracy as to what that number was.

If you remember back to a couple of years ago, one of the comments that we heard routinely is we were authorizing some of these projects without design, not really sure what that number is, and part of the strategy was to resolve that that concern.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam President.

Alderman Sullivan.

Thank you.

Uh my mine is more of a procedural question.

And it's specific to uh on one of your slides you had mentioned about the DPW garage, and I wanted to talk about or ask a question about more procedure and process.

So I understand that we have leftover money, and we we took some of that money for an initial design, and then there's a first reading tonight for the resolution.

Obviously, not you know, it's first reading, not getting into it.

But my my bigger question is around process.

Why do we uh spend to put the design before we know that the overall funds are going to be approved for a project?

What why wouldn't we flip that?

Why wouldn't we say we know we have the money, we know we have the resolution, we know we have the bonding approved to do the project.

So now let's design it, get it all out on paper, and then we'll go.

If I may, Madam President.

Director Cummings.

That is exactly what we did.

And so we just didn't take the actual step of authorizing the full bond authorization.

What we what we did was, and and just to be clear, there was 2.2-ish million dollars from a previous uh bond authorization that we used to start design, and then there was a bond uh resolution this evening that's separate from that, that's $5.5 million to continue moving the project forward, uh, not just with design, but also doing some other other elements as well to get the project to a place where we can start construction this summer, if and I say that because everything that we did a year and a half, two years ago was predicated on the idea of understanding that the total project cost off the top of my head was $54 million, and we you understanding we're fiscally constrained, we at the time chose to fit that into our uh debt service plan and accommodate it within that $25 million year over year.

If and I say that because everything that we did a year and a half, two years ago was predicated on the idea of understanding that the total project cost off the top of my head was $54 million, and we you understanding we're fiscally constrained, we at the time chose to fit that into our uh debt service plan and accommodate it within that $25 million year over year.

So we certainly could uh authorize the monies up front, taking a little bit more conservative approach.

It's more of a two-step process where we're doing design and then construction.

Ultimately, the cautionary tale is if you have any slippage on the time and on the schedule, construction costs go up year over year, 10 percent.

Um if you were to authorize the construction monies in advance without actually doing it in that two-step process, then the the what I would say the trade-off this body needs to be aware of.

There will be times when projects come back before you to increase the total project cost by whatever that may be, if you don't actually hit the timeline targets as as spelled out as originally contemplated, which happens.

It happens a lot when you're doing building and land development.

Okay.

Thank you.

Alderman Dowd and then Alderman Johnson.

Yeah, when we were doing schools, um, we would get a best estimate of a cost of a construction project.

And then we didn't do a final number until later.

When you go through a construction project, there's five levels of drawings.

You don't have a final number till you have construction drawings, and the construction company actually prices out the exact cost of the construction.

The monies before that for design uh help us get through the initial design process, get through the drawings to get to a point where you can finalize an exact cost.

So doing the planning up front is is much more efficient, and when we go to do a bond, the bond will be much closer to what we need.

And not overestimate or underestimate a bond, because if you underestimate it, now you can come back and add to the bond number.

And if you overestimate uh then at the end you get more money you have to return.

But so we have a much better uh idea of cost of a construction project if you don't do the final number till later in the design process.

And and I'll just note I went I flipped to this slide because I'm gonna use the library as an example.

I I didn't put it on here, but uh there was a presentation to this body uh last fall where they they they did a feasibility study.

That's something I I recommend that that big big major capital projects do because they do identify and try to tease out total project costs.

And it's and it's a rough uh uh order of magnitude type type of number, but it gives us something uh to use for planning.

And so as this conversation evolves, we will plug some of those numbers in to ensure that we're staying on track with the policy guidance that we're that we're given.

And we could do the same exercise for the Pine Hill Fire Station as well, uh, but they're just not as far along in the process.

They haven't concluded their feasibility study.

I believe that is happening actually any time now, maybe this spring.

But the libraries, they they did they did do a feasibility study, um, and I believe they elected to go with option number two, and that is the design guidance that will be given, and that's the direction we would go until we were told otherwise.

Thank you, Madam President.

Alderman Johnson.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Cummings, for this great presentation.

Um you didn't email us a copy of this, did you?

I did not.

Would you be kind enough to email me a copy of this presentation?

Sure, I will send it to Donna and she includes it with the minutes and the whole body can have access to it.

Thank you very much.

Oh, thank you.

Um I have a a question that's kind of rewinding a bit to the uh grading of the different projects.

Um is is it one of the criteria to um just based on my knowledge of of bonding and debt, uh one of the main purposes for it is to be spending money uh that is anticipated to be borrowing from future expected money that would be coming in.

Basically, you anticipate that that's gonna increase your tax base in the area.

Um that and that's why you're you're choosing to bond, borrow money that you're expecting to get later due to the improvements.

Is that considered in the waiting?

So I'm gonna start by answering your question, but then I'm gonna kick it over to to Mr.

Durfee, who can talk to it a little bit more detail.

But what I believe you're essentially referencing is uh there is a strategy used, and I would say not for all capital projects, but yes, a community will strategically make an investment to spend cat to spend on infrastructure in particular because they they recognize by if they do that capital outlay, there will be future tax dollars that comes in and can certainly pay for for that infrastructure investment.

But I'll I'll hand it over to to Sam who can probably talk in a little better detail.

Thank you.

Uh Sam Durfee, planning manager.

Um so when we're looking at the capital requests for the city, the vast majority of these are uh maintenance of existing structures, um, existing infrastructure, um, some improvements, but I think largely what you're getting at is you know, what are what are the investments that the city can make to you know expands hack space?

And there's only a few of those type of projects within the capital plan, uh, and those are largely in the economic development request sections.

I think uh the riverfront uh is gonna one example, you know, investments in public space to further you know increase land value, and then there's development and then the tax base that's you know gleaned from that initial investment in the public space.

You know, that that might be more of what you're asking about.

Is that a fair characterization?

Uh I think I think it touches, it touches on it, yes.

Um, thank you.

Um so it sounds like that that is weighted the anticipatory increase in in tax revenue.

Sure.

And to get more into the weighting of that, you know, we do look at economic impact.

So that does weigh the cost, you know, what is it going to cost to actually do the project?

Um, what is the cost of not doing the project?

You know, we we could invest you know two million into a roof now or we lose the building in in several years, and obviously the building is more expensive.

Um but then also we do look at potential return as applicable to certain projects because some projects they just don't they don't return like you would, you know, that strategic investment to to you know spur private development.

Thank you.

Thank you.

These are that large Alderman Lopez.

I'm not sure if this is a similar line of what Alderman Chess was referencing.

Um but um when we look at projects like the performing arts center, for example, or um the riverfront, it's in a tax increment financing district that ultimately we are confident that investing the money now will increase the property values, but we're also committing to those property, some of those property taxes, the difference between values before and after the project being used back in that specific area.

Wouldn't that put if that's weighted that particular way?

Doesn't that create a different disadvantage for things like the uh I guess the DPW truck washing station that is not necessarily gonna increase property values but definitely increases the assets and the retention of vehicles.

Is there a clear way to compare the two that where one is forecasting economic investment as increased or outside development, and the other is this is taxpayer money that's gonna go further because the garbage trucks last longer.

If I may, madam president, uh that's a that's a great question, and I think it's one that uh internally city staff it constantly wrestles with as we're trying to balance the approach of deploying the TIF strategy as opposed to not necessarily engaging with that strategy, but nonetheless recognizing that we need to invest in particularly if we're making these investments, we will see uh we will see exponentially higher increases in certain areas, but also recognizing more broadly that uh rising tides lifts all boats.

And that's certainly true too.

One of the things that you can do to mitigate some of the concerns that Alden Lopez is uh raising is there's no reason why with a TIFF that you can't also make a direct contribution or expenditure into that specific item as well if uh if uh the the body decides to do that.

And so that is often done as well.

You can you have uh an analysis done where if a TIF is moving forward, you identify what the quote unquote core services are for the city, and sometimes you um you carve that out or you set that aside to ensure that you are maintaining core services and then uh leaving a differential that you can then use for that for that strategic investment.

So these are the conversations that city staff is having all the time uh as we're trying to move this community forward.

Alderwoman Kelly?

Uh thank you.

I think it was um Mr.

Durfee who opened up this kinworm, someone asked this question.

Uh last week I was sitting with a bunch of people in this industry, and we were talking about some of that back and forth when you plan something and you you know you put the money into the architectural drawings, and then by the time that gets the construction company, the construction costs have ballooned.

Um, and one of the um scenarios that they talked about where they had a really interesting success was having construction involved in the planning process so that you can really kind of steer that conversation instead of it being like I'm gonna do a glass front and then glasses through the roof.

Um have we ever done that?

And is that a potential place for us to start to really rein in and keep costs to uh a minimum?

If I may, Madam President?

Yes.

We do that all the time.

It's our standard practice.

I would never recommend that we move forward with uh a building project and we not have the construction team there, part of the conversation along the way to help influence the design.

It's critical to ensuring that we do the best we can to bring the projects in as the at the target budgets that we set.

Y'all said Alderwoman Kelly?

Yes.

Okay, well, thank you, Director Cummings.

Thank you, Mr.

Durfee.

Appreciate your presentation this evening.

And Madam President, if I may I'll follow up with you to see if we can schedule some time to continue this through the ad hoc process.

Yes.

Thank you.

I just had a question around the ad hoc.

Um, and I think I said this when we first talked about it.

Does it make sense to do as an ad hoc, or is this a budget conversation?

Because 15% of our budget really affects what we can do as a budget committee.

And the initial intent of that ad hoc was to come up with a general plan of how much we should be bonding each month or each uh year, which we have.

So I'm just wondering if that's the appropriate vehicle.

Food for thought.

Thank you.

Okay.

Umderman Clemens.

Thank you, Madam President.

I uh would move that the January 13th, 2026 special meeting of the Board of Alderman be adjourned.

Motion is to adjourn.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

We are adjourned at 7.52 p.m.

And just two minutes, we'll start our next meeting.

Oh boy, there is a website redesign.

You don't have desertations.

That's why sometimes it's better than sitting on the whole issue.

Like I used to have