Thomaston reviews Riverview Park entrance and parking plan

[0:00] Speaker A (unidentified): And how many people really would be into that? [0:02] Speaker B (unidentified): I wonder if you can get, like, some type of a survey. Yeah. If you don't get it, show, like, the top 100 products. We have, we have. You're live. Okay, come on. Did you get all the products and what they sell? [0:21] Speaker C (unidentified): Did you get a flash drive yet? Yes. Okay. This one's mine. Okay. [0:36] Speaker B (unidentified): I was telling Alan, I've been battling this cold. [Speaker C (unidentified): Like, it's hard.] First you get it, and you get hit with it, and you're like, okay. A couple days later, you're like, ah, fine, feeling good. Go to bed, wake up. [0:52] Speaker C (unidentified): I'm like, sick again. [0:54] Speaker D (unidentified): How is that possible? Yeah, it's crazy. [0:56] Speaker B (unidentified): My daughter is battling, she's on antibiotics right now, so I don't know if she'll be able to keep on her last chemo. [1:04] Speaker E (unidentified): So did she get this? Did she get it? [1:07] Speaker B (unidentified): Somebody at work said they had allergies. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about colds and allergies. [1:14] Speaker C (unidentified): I was out all weekend. You were? I was out all weekend. [1:19] Speaker D (unidentified): I turned the camera off. Right. I turned the camera off. Yep. [1:23] Speaker E (unidentified): Come on. That's what I used to do. [1:35] John: What I've got tonight is a presentation of a dozen slides that show the proposed work that we'd like to do in the former prison property next year. I'd like to go through these and show you what we're looking at. Some of the slides have different views than the next slide we have, because some of them we haven't really settled down on exactly which way we're going. But this will give you a pretty good idea of what is happening and where we're going with this. I'm going to sit down so everybody can see. This is the proposed site. This is the prison property. It's all here. Here. And this is what we voted on two years ago or three years ago to settle what we were going to do. And this land up here and this land here was set aside for future use by the town. This is the entranceway into the park from Main Street, Route 1. And this is William King Drive. And then the area south of William King Drive is the remainder of the park. The railroad runs right through here. The river is right here. So this is what we decided we were going to do with the land. Now what has actually happened in the current land use that we've got going is the fire station is going to be on this property here. There is no plan at the moment to use this site that was formally set aside for the clinic and they apparently are not interested. And what we're talking about tonight has nothing to do with any of this land south of William King Drive. We're not looking at a new entranceway that would come in from Main Street, and we are looking at putting some parking and a storage building in this area here. And this is a summary of the work. Basically we're looking at a new entrance here. This is the crossing of Route 1 from the trail that goes up through the town forest. This would be a new sidewalk along the front of here, and this is the fire station where it's going to be. Actually it's going to be a little bit more over this way I believe than what was originally planned is that [3:54] Speaker D (unidentified): correct Cara I think so yeah I think that [3:57] Speaker A (unidentified): parking area has moved and this is coming over [4:01] John: it's over here and we're looking at the idea of putting a buffer area in here somewhere that would sort of make it a little more park area over here and a little more fire station area over here without them being mingled together too badly. There would be a new sidewalk along on Main Street from the crossing over to where the path goes up to the park. And this would be put in with some sort of the paving stones. It wouldn't be a concrete sidewalk. It would look more like the paving blocks out back of the Business Walk or the new sidewalks on Knox Street. And then the idea was to put a little plaza in here. Not big, but it's a little big, that the existing sidewalks would join it on either end. But it would give, and Ivan suggested, that we use a different color and kind of block for this as we did for here, to really separate the plaza or always a separate area. From this area, there would be a path coming up through to William King Drive. As you can see, it's not exactly a straight path. That sort of moves over a little bit to offset the path, to minimize, to mimic the curvature of other parks. And these spaces here would be, or this area here would be, some of the granite blocks that we've got stored up to Public Works, used for seating, shrubbery behind them to make it a little more quiet place. And we would put, when I get to that next stage, I'll show you more of the plaza. The other part of this work is to put a storage building and utility building right on here, on William King Drive, and to use this area from the storage area all the way up to where the fire hydrant is to install parking on that street. There's a real shortage of parking for anybody who wants to use the park or wants to watch a soccer game. So the idea here was to dig this back a little bit, put in some permeable material here. This would either be crushed rock or reclaimed asphalt, so it wouldn't be necessarily paved, but it would be set up and marked, and then we would put shrubbery along on the inside. More trees would be added over here in the park area. [6:22] Speaker G (unidentified): John, so that's nose-in parking, right? [6:26] John: Well, it could be back-in parking so people could sit in the vehicle and watch the soccer game. Okay. Justice tells me that 's a popular way to go. [6:35] Speaker D (unidentified): And John, it wasn't just a storage building, right? It was a whole public facility as well. Right. [6:41] John: One of the other things that's lacking in this area that we have talked about is public restrooms. So at the end of this building, we'll have two portable toilets in there that we can use. [6:53] Speaker G (unidentified): In the storage building? In the storage building. [6:56] John: The idea being that the storage building is probably not a permanent building, but to get as much area use out of it as we could now, putting in a place to put portable toilets in there would provide the restroom facilities, provide the storage area we need, and not be something that we would worry about if we had to take it down in the future. This is a little better look at the entranceway. As I said, we're going to widen the crossing of Route 1. This will be an 8-foot-wide walkway rather than a 4- or 5-foot one we've got now. This would be a new sidewalk up through here, eight foot wide, and this plaza area would have the blocks on it. Seating is provided here and along here so that you've got room to stop and rest. We're going to put a sign out here that says, for the Riverside Park, take next right, so that people can figure out how to get there if they're coming up on Route 1. And if we wanted to put something in there, it's possible we could put a sign here, maybe an archway here, that would do anything with Riverside Park. [8:12] Speaker A (unidentified): Riverview. Riverview. Riverview. Thomaston Riverview. Thomaston Riverview. [8:18] John: And there's a space over here where you could put a statue. That was one of the things that was recommended in the original concept plan. If you want to do some artwork, we can put it in here. [8:29] Speaker A (unidentified): Have you posed for the statue yet? What's that? Have you posed for the statue yet? No. [8:34] John: It's not in this phase, but it could be added right here. Again, we would have shrubbery. This would be native shrubbery, all native material, something that would fit in well and be a benefit there. These are some of the new trees. We would add more trees up through the walkway here to try to make this less of a narrow area, a wide area, and make it a narrower, more comfortable walking area through here. [9:03] Speaker G (unidentified): John, the decision was made to leave the crosswalk where it is now as opposed to moving it up to the east. [9:11] John: We looked at moving it up and putting it across here, but the problem is that this is going right up into a banking here. Yeah. It's not a good place to cross. And then we would have to rebuild all the sidewalk down over here. And changing this around is not good. We're looking at the idea of putting a couple of the rectangular flashing beacons in here, a crossing of Route 1. That's the same as we've got in front of the Thomason Grocery right now that is apparently very successful. Oh, I know another convention. The idea here is that this area and this area in here would be lawns. It would be kept as a lawn, mowed regularly, and maintained low. But this back area, the yellow lawn here, would be what we call a meadow. It would not get mowed regularly. Hopefully it would get seeded down eventually to wildflowers and to pollinator use of material. So it would provide a chance, and my thinking is that if we want to promote the use of native material, here's a place to put a signage in recognizing that and warning people about the fact that we've got in there. It wouldn't be any invasive species. Everything would be local, natural for the area. Here's another look at it. This is a little more detailed look at the area. But you can see the lawn area is here, and here there is the wildflower meadow area in here, which would go all the way over to where the fire station is going to be, and would be the buffer in between. Again, you've got the concrete granite blocks here that would provide seating capacity, and you've got shrubbery around it to make it a little more private area. A close-up of it there is where the statue goes, and somebody raises the money to buy a statue for it, but that would be your artwork. You can see that the grant walks fit in here very nicely, giving you a really good place to be. And again, here's the possible way to put an archway over here or signage or something that would recognize this as Thomason's Riverview Park. The new pants are offset, so if you're coming up, you would actually step over to walk this side, and the idea is to make it a more leisurely walk up through there that doesn't look like you're in the racetrack. On William King Drive, which is right here, this is where the restroom and storage building would be, and as you can see, this has got a wall around it here, so that the restrooms are sheltered from anybody can walk up here and use them, then this end goes into the building from the storage area would be right here, the parking area begins here, we're debating putting a sidewalk on this side of the area. We've got a good sidewalk over here. I'm not convinced we need that. That's something to look at. [12:52] Speaker B (unidentified): How tall would be the wall around the bathroom? [12:54] John: Probably about 5 or 6 feet high. [12:58] Speaker B (unidentified): Would it be on the side to Route 1 also? [13:02] John: Well, no, because this... The land up in here is quite a bit higher. You can't see from Route 1, even across to this area, because the two ramps go from Route 1 up and then down again. So it's pretty well sheltered in there. [13:16] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, the only thing I worry about, like, the little wall there, is you can't see mischief with kids by the bathrooms. Like, you wouldn't, you, like, just wouldn't be able to, you wouldn't look over and see kids that might be doing something. [13:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Right now, the bathroom is behind a massive wall, so I can't, I can't see what they're doing back there anyway. I think this would be an improvement, at least they're out when they open. Behind that wall is even more of a blind spot, so. [13:40] Speaker B (unidentified): Do they tend to pop gate? [13:42] Speaker E (unidentified): No, it's so far out of the way that, like, they're not, like, all in one at a time. [14:01] John: This gives you some idea of what the restroom storage building would look like, except that, unfortunately, this is only a 12 by 12 building. So this side would be facing William King Drive, and this would be another eight feet long. There'd be a wall and a roof, and then it would be open on the end for the restrooms to be inserted in there. I don't know if we get a double door or not. I'm not sold on that at the moment. I guess Justice is going to have to decide what she wants for a door there. This is the building. On this one, it's sitting on pressure-treated timbers on the bottom. I'm leaning towards a concrete slab. It's still easy to remove in the long run, but it's a little more sturdy than putting it on these. So this is generally what it would look like. I think it fits in pretty well, and it's just wood-framed. It would last as long as we need it to last. This is the overall picture of that section on William King Drive. The restaurants would be up in here, and we've got parking going all the way along this side of about 20 spaces, and the fire hydrant is right here so we'll put something around the fire hydrants or barricades up to the fire hydrant so that people can't back into it or drive into it cause a problem but this would provide a lot of parking spaces for people to either drive in or back in and watch what's going on. Or walk in the park. How many spaces is it actually? I think there's 19 in the county at one time. [15:44] Speaker C (unidentified): Do you think that's enough spaces for you, Justice? [15:49] Speaker E (unidentified): I think it's stark. My biggest concern with the parking, like the limitation of parking, is if I've got a soccer game going on there,, that's on average 15 kids. That's just my team. So if Waldovaro shows up with 15 of their own families, the way that currently fills out is cars lined up the right side and the left side and then backed up to the actual, they're parking the grass, they back up to the soccer line. So in the future, not a great situation because a fire truck could not be at the William King Drive. But I think, you know, allowing there to be those parking spots will clear up at least one side of that drive. [16:35] Speaker D (unidentified): It's like the big antique show thing out there. Where are people, are they parking along Wisewear Street or the prison showroom and walking over? [16:44] Speaker B (unidentified): No,, doing the same thing. [16:46] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, same thing. We actually had a game the same day as an event up there. And it was, if I wasn't practicing, it would have been a perfect opportunity to grab a photo because there was just the fire department would not have liked it but from the grass to different ends of pavement it kind of looked like a rush hour and [17:09] John: this gives you some idea of the fact that we're looking at a serious planting program putting things in so that whatever kind of trees or shrubbery we're planting in there will be something that will last and be done [17:23] Speaker B (unidentified): properly and bring it correctly John didn't the Garden Club plant a bunch of tulips a couple of years ago so that's not effective the Garden Club has done a [17:35] John: Lot around the business walk, okay. And I think I was looking, hoping that we could get some help from the Conservation Commission on picking out shrubbery and helping to keep an eye on it in the long run. Again, we need to think about how we maintain the parks and down the road. I would like to see the Conservation Commission take on the job of mowing the lawn area. It's small, not a big area to take care of, but it would be something that could be done by them as a lawn area rather than, maybe even with a push lawnmower, rather than getting anything very big in there. He's not talking about a big area. And they could be involved in getting wildflowers planted in the meadow area. So I think there's things that they could have help with that would be really beneficial. That's the last of the slides. [18:35] Speaker G (unidentified): John, what's the timeline for doing these things? My plan at the moment is to take [18:41] John: this program to the planning board probably in October or maybe, I don't think it's going to be here soon, isn't it? Maybe November and get approval from the planning board. I've got to do some work on this building because they don't want to see more detailed plans about this structure you get a pool from them there is some funding that Kara has set aside for here we've had to pay Regina some money but not a lot so there's still enough money left in the spring and Public Works has indicated that they would be willing to dig out and level off and put in some crushed rock for the parking areas. So if they were willing to do that, would get that started along pretty well. That would be a good help. And I had hoped we would get some of this far enough along that we could have conned some of Valley's sidewalk crew into doing some of this, but they're going to be gone by next spring, so I don't think that's going to happen. It's hard to find somebody who really knows how to put in those paving blocks and make them last and work well. So once behind the business block and been in for what six years now and they look good they really haven't moved much but we were very hard on the contract to bring those in we had to do it right [19:59] Speaker G (unidentified): Was that Farley's? That was no, that oh [20:05] John: I forgot who that was but we had to lean on them a little bit [20:08] Speaker D (unidentified): John, when are they doing the front main street facade because that was Farley's could that be coordinated with this at all I'm [20:20] John: Not sure. Oh, the fellow who did the paving blocks behind there was the, he used to be a landscaper and then he went into the construction business, so he actually had some knowledge of what was going on. We haven't had him back. Well, he built the sidewalk out here that goes up around on the building outside here. We were going to get the front steps, they would be good. Is there a reason that the two things, is there a [21:06] Speaker A (unidentified): reason that the sidewalk on Route 1 is only on the west side of the entrance? Is there no, should there not be a bit of symmetry to it, is there not? On Knox Street? No, on this Route 1, on the park entrance. We've got, you've got sidewalk planned to the west of the plaza, the new plaza. Can we not have the sidewalk on the east of the plaza, too? [21:37] John: Is that wrong? Well, when DOT redesigned Route 1 through here, they agreed that they would pay for any sidewalk replacement where we already had a sidewalk. So we had to do a little digging around to show we had a sidewalk. And anything that didn't, there, we had to pay for. So we filled in what we could. And then Public Works put the sidewalk in from Wadsworth Street over through to I guess almost a ship street on that side, so that was our own project done after this was after Main Street was all completed, but we paid for quite a bit of the [22:18] Speaker G (unidentified): Main Street sidewalk, so I think funding was probably the reason there was no more done. I think one way to answer Alan's question is that there is sidewalk from there to over to Wadsworth Street. It's a regular asphalt sidewalk. And the reason for upgrading the sidewalk between there and the crosswalk is because as part of the town trail, and it's like you're coming from the Water Tower Trail, you're crossing Route 1, One, you're on the sort of what we've imagined as the town trail that goes around the perimeter of the village. And so that distinguishes that as part of that and leads into the park. Maybe that's what's going on there visually. Right. Okay. [23:07] Speaker A (unidentified): Just seeing the little odds and ends of it. That there wasn't the same style of bathing either side of that entrance. And the other thing is that we spoke about the entrance to the park being highly visible to people as they drive into town or out of town. And I just want to make sure that the trees that are proposed aren't so close to that plaza that actually you drive right by and you don't even really see them. That was just a consideration that we keep it, we try to show it off. That was all. [23:51] John: So that's where we are at the moment. My thinking is if this all went well, we could do a good deal with next spring. Our long term goal, Tara and I have talked about this, was to improve the entranceway on Route 1 before we had our big celebration next year, and also to tie in with the fire station, whatever they're going to do for shrubbery and trees and improvements along there, so the fire station and the entranceway all look like they belong together and were part of the town. I've got questions. [24:27] Speaker C (unidentified): So, with the bathrooms, why would we put in an affordable toilet and not just a temporary? You're talking about port-a-potty, right? [24:39] Speaker D (unidentified): In a building structure, so it works. [24:44] Speaker E (unidentified): Maybe slightly either. To have your own public restrooms and maintain them, that's asking a lot of public works. Like Rockland, for instance, has their public restrooms and constantly have to police the, when are they being locked, when are they being unlocked. They have a number of issues with drug use in them. versus port-a-potties, that rental also covers maintenance. So, they're not the prettiest thing to put out, [25:12] Speaker C (unidentified): but I mean, camouflage goes around the structure. [25:16] Speaker E (unidentified): I guess that's my assumption on it. [25:18] John: The port-a-potties are becoming more popular. We use them up at the town forest. Right. We use them on recreational areas. And I think in the long run, as the water level gets higher down at the public landing, We may want to do away with that restroom building down there. Maintaining them has been a problem for years. Nobody really wants to go down there on a regular basis and clean them up. So I'm even thinking that someday we may want to just take that building down and put porta-potties down there, maybe with a little shovel around them or something. [25:54] Speaker C (unidentified): How much does that cost for any of these warehouses? [25:57] John: We only pay for them in the summertime. They're reasonably cheap to rent. [26:01] Speaker E (unidentified): it's 160 per unit so we would pay that much and my other question was why not [26:20] Speaker C (unidentified): put that same amount of parking on the opposite side of the building [26:26] Speaker E (unidentified): There is basically two polling spots, and they were shown there, and that's where, because I get there ahead of the games, I'm always parked there. [26:38] Speaker C (unidentified): Oh, wait, I remember those spots. [26:40] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, so there's two, well, four, I believe. The space in between isn't large, but I think to kind of feedback on yours, I think a bigger goal, if possible, to add more than 19 spots would be a true solving of the problem. But additionally, with the shed, if storage is the big thing, I think Public Works would be interested in the possibility of the large goals, the metal posts being able to fit in whatever structure we put there. So instantly, I know you're going to sell them with double doors, but from trying to squeeze bags of balls just out a normal sized door, but then it can be bigger like goals. I know that they have to move them every time they mow, and in the winter season, they are taking more of a beating compared to Rockland, who has the shed there that they just put them into for the winter. So, I don't know if the case is going to be bringing them here. [27:32] Speaker D (unidentified): Can you pull the map back up? Yeah. That one? When the Knox Clinic was... You want my pointer? Were they going to put the parking closer to the prison showroom on this end? [27:53] Speaker G (unidentified): make it deeper yes the idea when we thought the Knox clinic was going to build there yeah there was talk about a cooperative parking lot between the Knox clinic and the park and the town and it would have been at the sort of southeast corner of the law that the Knox clinic is going to go in so we've have been actually adjacent to the prison showroom parking lot if it was [28:26] Speaker D (unidentified): closer to that and deeper, a bit more parking spaces without taking out, taking [28:34] Speaker G (unidentified): up the middle piece. Yeah, I mean, well, speaking to the recommendations of the ad hoc park, yeah, they were pretty adamant, I should say we were pretty adamant that the parking not be carved out of the park right acreage, so doing it on the south side of the William King Drive would have that impact, and like Justice said, there are a couple of two, three, four stubs that people use for, I think that's what utilities, utility, yes, you can see them, that's where utilities I think we're stubbed off because the original plan was for the mixed-use housing to go, and of course that never happened, so you [29:23] Speaker E (unidentified): can fit two cars in each of those so it's just like four spots but then everybody else sees that 's where the cars are parked so they're going up on the curve and just matching the style of parking there anyway and then going down the line of William King on either side and going on the grass when that [29:38] Speaker G (unidentified): Spot from when those spaces run out. I think I mean if the ad hoc committee's opinion was no sin parking on the north side of William King, that'd be great. The parking beyond that, we should over the long run construct a parking lot down here, the prison or adjacent to the prison showroom parking lot down about. Even to the right of that, I think if you take your, yeah, if you go in the white space to the right of that. [30:18] John: That's kind of a slope down over here. [30:21] Speaker G (unidentified): This is pretty level here. [30:23] Speaker E (unidentified): They're saying the actual white spot on that map. [30:26] Speaker G (unidentified): I'm talking about the actual white spot because, you know, I don't think you get to the prison showroom parking lot until, oh, maybe that's right next to it. Yeah, okay, yes, okay, there's the right hand end of that green shaded green tinted area. It's you need fill brought in there I think some gravel or whatever, but you could level that for [30:51] Speaker E (unidentified): a parking lot. Yeah, and I mean truly to solve the issue you'd be looking at like 40 cars comfortably. And I think there's room for more there, because we are loading William King Drive and then filling the prison showroom parking, and they just haven't made a complaint about it. [31:09] Speaker D (unidentified): I wonder if it did not, now we're just brainstorming, but if it was tucked in on that side and deeper, I wonder how many lots that would be, and then opening up the middle. [31:23] John: Well, one possibility also is this is going to be the restrooms and storage building here. Move them back so that they're behind it and put parking all along here. Right. You could probably get 30 or 35 cars there with no trouble. That might be a possibility. [31:40] Speaker A (unidentified): So that leads on to what I was going to ask. Is any of that parking area and shed area on the acreage that Knox Clinic had preserved? [31:57] John: On which were it affected? [31:59] Speaker A (unidentified): Is any of it on that lot that they were... [32:03] John: Well, yeah. All of this parking is going to stick into that lot. [32:08] Speaker A (unidentified): Right so what's our position are they do they still have a constant still have an option [32:18] Speaker D (unidentified): Technically take me but I don't see anything I just never see going but [32:24] Speaker A (unidentified): Nevertheless we have to leave [32:44] John: I know Mitchell [32:53] Speaker G (unidentified): Ray sort of felt and you can comment on this John. Not that nose-in parking on the north side of William King would be by far the cheapest way to add parking. [33:05] John: That's one of the reasons we're looking at it. It's really economical to be on that. [33:10] Speaker C (unidentified): Is there thoughts or plans of using this space for events, but renting it out for events such as this? The park? Yeah. [33:21] Speaker G (unidentified): Yes, the Ad Hoc Committee envisions a possibility of doing that, and that was one reason for wanting a pavilion. Of course, we've got to get grant money to build the pavilion. We're not going to ask the town to pay for that. [33:39] Speaker C (unidentified): That would mean that we would want more than, what's it, 15 spots? [33:43] Speaker A (unidentified): So that would make the Joshua a different coffee area. [33:48] Speaker G (unidentified): At that point, you'd need a full-blown parking lot adjacent to the person's showroom parking lot. And then probably the next parking lot you'd have would be at the West End where it joins, where the Louisville came right away to Shoe Street. [34:04] Speaker C (unidentified): How much of that property is available to use? [34:08] John: From don't forget that this whole walkway here right that's what I'm talking about this belongs to the restaurant all of this does yeah but we [34:19] Speaker C (unidentified): Have right away here yes right that's just for I think the fire [34:24] Speaker E (unidentified): Department does plan on that kind of being their primary good to yeah but [34:30] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll say like if you're a couple we read weapons we don't get more than 15 20 has people most of them hire buses that bring them back and forth and so [Speaker C (unidentified): Right so] They would most of them usher that people back and forth they don't just have them all hired because you know there's usually alcohol involved so they prefer them not to drive [34:56] Speaker E (unidentified): I will say even with the plan for the 250th of doing a bazaar at the park my biggest challenge is I'm going to have a parking nightmare with the construction of the fire station and there's the lack of parking I'm going to basically make an agreement with the prison showroom that I can have there a lot for the day whether I find a shovel or not [35:17] Speaker B (unidentified): We are going to try to talk to the school about making, asking them to have buses so that people can park behind here, bus people back and forth. So here and down the way to the waterfront one, down to the waterfront one also, I am working on that. [35:36] Speaker G (unidentified): Thank you so much for that. I appreciate it. [35:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Assistant to the superintendent was across the street. So I'll go ahead. [35:45] Speaker G (unidentified): Just so this is on the radar, I sure hope the fire department isn't pushing to have William King Street being continuous from Wadsworth Street all the way over to Ship Street because the big theory of the Ad Hoc Committee was that at that point people would start using this bypass when people were on this ground. [36:10] Speaker B (unidentified): I can't believe [36:11] John: That would be a useful bypass for anybody. [36:14] Speaker G (unidentified): You know, Alan and I were out behind the grocery store with the picnic tables the other day, and we saw a Brooks Trap Mill truck came into the lane beside the grocery store, bang a right on Star Street, go over there to Beachwood, and bang a left on Beachwood, and that clearly was to avoid the traffic light at the intersection of Beachwood and Main. [Speaker E (unidentified): People do] amazing things to avoid traffic. [36:45] Speaker C (unidentified): I live right at the beginning of Beachwood Street. That's exactly the point. No, that's exactly what I do. [36:52] Speaker A (unidentified): In fairness, it was not actually a Brooks truck. It was likely a truck going to Brooks. It was another Elf. [37:04] Speaker D (unidentified): Can you pull up that other map again? The one that shows the whole... Yeah. So right now, in the preliminary designs, they show this being extended just to about here. here. For the apparatus bay. But none of this would be finished so it would not go through all the way. So probably like [37:31] Speaker A (unidentified): 100 feet maybe? So far the committee said that the thinking from the fire station at the moment is that the trucks would go out and engines would go out in general onto room 1. But should there be massive hold-up for reasons of severe traffic, accident, terrorist attack, or whatever, and they can't get onto Route 1, but they need to go out onto William King and access Waterloo Street in order to go east or south. And the idea the plan got changed around actually with the engine bays going over to the east side of the building in order that they could come out to that corner to that east south east corner of the lot onto a slightly extended William King Drive I was actually hoping that he wouldn't even have to extend it, but they could come out on an arc and just hit pretty much where it ends now. But apparently that's not, you know, they don't have that great a turning circle. So that was the reason they wanted to come out straight. [38:54] John: I know I've preached to you before about the fact that we're in this SS4A program with the other four towns in this area. And the goal is to look at how we can improve safety and traffic flow on Route 1. That's the two things we're supposed to be looking at. So I have been collecting thoughts from people, and some of you have provided some of the information, on ideas that could be done to improve that. Part of that is also going to be however the DOT arrives at what we can do for getting fire engines out of the fire station on Route 1. There will probably be some kind of red light stop light there that will stop traffic once the alarm comes in. But I have received a number of proposals. I think I've got a dozen or 14 or 15 already of different ideas, the whole length of Route 1 that could be done to improve it, including a number that, or he was trying to look at the idea of what could be done relatively inexpensively that would yield us a return. So I've got some ideas. These are coming to you people sometime in the next couple of months, probably. Or you probably want to have a workshop on it and review the whole thing and see what we want to actually submit to the consultant as ideas that we would like to see projected and let the consultant look at them and evaluate them. But I think that this is going to address some of the problems that we've got in town. Hopefully would solve some of the problems that John's talking about of traffic that goes up the alleyway and across behind the block and to get over to Beechwood Street so long as we stop at [40:41] Speaker A (unidentified): Thomas and Gropi they won't care that's right I am so yeah I think the tall guys trusted told [40:47] Speaker G (unidentified): me if he stopped he wouldn't be fine the intersections in the street are definitely [40:54] John: Definitely one of the things we've been looking at, everything from 131 North to Wadsworth Street to the new fire station to downtown, how do you get this crooked intersection we have out here that doesn't align to work better? Over to 131 South and all the way through to Rockland, what can we do on this whole area to improve the situation? [41:19] Speaker D (unidentified): What does everyone think about what the region has put together? [41:25] Speaker B (unidentified): I think it's encouraging. I guess my thing is I like it, but I would like to see what it's going to cost and where we can come up with the money for it to have it. And, you know, like Alan said, make sure that it is visible enough. Like, if we drive in the ASI's fire station, the next thing you see is this entrance. It's just really, wow, what's that? [42:00] John: One of the things that we're looking at is how we can get this done economically. I was even thinking that this whole building that we want, If we could get the prison property crew that works outside occasionally to build that for us, if we bought the materials, you could get that built very well. [42:18] Speaker B (unidentified): What about the Coastal Technologies? [42:20] John: Or them. Any arrangement that would help that way. And Public Works will be able to do some of it. [42:26] Speaker B (unidentified): I know some of that's just buy the materials and they'll build them because that's what they're teaching. [42:31] John: you know and the other advantage to this is that this would be an economical way to start improvements that would work towards the park if we did get the entranceway done now we're looking at what could we do in the park that would move ahead in the long run and I'm not getting involved in that 's well [42:50] Speaker G (unidentified): With that in mind, what could there potentially be an opportunity when the work is being done on that front end parking and the pathway in from the street to the gazebo to potentially get water from that hydrant over to the gazebo there? [43:13] John: Are two things that I think we need to think about how we're going to handle it. One is getting water into the park and areas that can be used, and secondly is getting electricity into the park. They're working off of a... [43:27] Speaker D (unidentified): And is that something that could be put in when they do the fire station? Yes. [43:32] Speaker G (unidentified): When they do the fire station? Yeah. Okay. [43:35] John: That electric that's at the gazebo at the moment comes from the pump station down at the end of Ship Street. And it's a buried line, and why it's still working, I'm not sure. It's one of those miracles. So sooner or later, we're going to lose that. And we need to get something more permanent in there for long-term use. I think coming off the fire station, the electric room is on that west east end of the fire station building. It's going to be, the electrical outlet's going to be right here. So bringing that across to the gazebo makes a lot of sense and setting up something at the gazebo we could draw the power off of would be a good move. And also there is the water that comes into right here with the hydrogens. Can we have it cross the road to the zoo? [44:24] Speaker G (unidentified): That's what I'm talking about. Because if you did that, wouldn't it then be possible to have a manifold off that fixture at the gazebo where you could take hosts to different parts of the park because, as you know, the Conservation Commission is hoping to have a tree planting program in the park, but if you're going to plant small trees, you've got to have a way to water them. Right. And in the same breath, is it an opportunity to make some progress on the perimeter walking path around the park that the ad hoc committee had envisioned while people are down there moving gravel and doing that stuff maybe something like that could be added on to the work program either then or when the fire department is being built I'm looking at [45:25] John: This project that's being proposed here as the way to start working on things that need to be done in that area of time. Yeah, so I think that this would, you know, we've done nothing for how many years now? Too many, right? And now if we could get started, let's start doing something and then move on to that and continue the program. [45:46] Speaker B (unidentified): I guess the only other thing I would say is I would like to see if there's any way to maybe move the storage building back and try to get another five, at least another like 25 spots, just to get a few more spots in there because, you know, all the less cars that we can have parking on the street obviously help in all ways, and especially the fire station at some point in time might, you know, like Will said that if they're going to do mutual aid to cushion they might want to go, William came in down. And not try to move one thing down around so, you know, so we could maybe look at maybe a few more spots of packing and moving the storage building because so what you're going to walk through cars to get to that building? That's not, that's not life-ending as much as cars in a way of emergency vehicle. Whoever is maintaining the porta parties needs to get. [46:44] John: Their vehicle up in there to vacuum out them, right? But I mean we'd have to leave a driveway space in here wherever we had that, so there would be one space that would be a driveway and then we could have parking on either side of that. [46:59] Speaker B (unidentified): So that's something we would look at. [47:00] Speaker E (unidentified): Could the parking lot be just kind of crisscross lines for like no parking in this spot where it would be direct access or something like that? [47:08] John: And the same around the fire hydrant. We can't park in front of the fire hydrant. We needed to use it and wouldn't be able to. [47:15] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll put a major in the sort of parking and medical. I'm hoping they wouldn't come on a Saturday anyway, that they'd probably have a Monday-Tuesday shift. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't take more than 10 minutes for them to do what they need to do. Most of the time they come, like, early, in the morning, so they're in and out of there before anything would even start. [47:40] Speaker G (unidentified): John, could you put your laser pointer on that half-acre piece of the northwest corner of the, yeah, right there? That's owned by Kachai, and the ad hoc committee had thought, geez, why don't we add that to the park? They're not doing anything with it that we know of and that is another place where you could have. [48:02] John: Parking, yes, there's room enough there to make a decent parking lot over that. I mean if they. [48:08] Speaker C (unidentified): Even wanted to make it parking themselves and say, okay, well, they have to ample, they have more [48:14] Speaker G (unidentified): parking exactly already, and so I don't know why they would invest in another parking lot, but they might, if we do something attractive, they might, you know, cooperate with us to... [48:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Well, they might even, if it's a wedding, they might be willing to lend to the wedding party that spot to make a few extra bucks, too. [48:36] Speaker E (unidentified): I would say overall plan, especially with the warehouse sports facility, is our town doesn't have a rec center. It doesn't have a rec facility. The fact that those say recreational fields, and then even then the least of the concern is how to maintain or upgrade that as a facility for sports or recreation. I think to say what activity happens there in the winter, not much. But any time that I spend up there is you've got the occasional walkers that will walk around the actual walkway. We've recently had a couple of disc golf nets donated so they're on the east side of the recreational fields on the lower. But as far as the facility itself, we're falling behind on every other town around that are putting money into new tennis courts and new facilities and upgrading their facilities that we're allowing a completely unrelated organization to come through and handle the indoor sports, but we still aren't paying attention. And so it's encouraging to see something done in the park, but it's discouraging to see that it has very little to do with recreation being the only space in town that we have designated. [49:58] Speaker D (unidentified): Do you think Regina would do a little more tweaking on the parking? [50:05] John: Yeah, I think that you surprised me a little bit tonight. I thought you would have more comments on the entranceway instead you've had more comments on the parking space. [50:13] Speaker G (unidentified): I think the entranceway looks outstanding. [50:16] John: I'm delighted with that. Yes. And I will go back to the drawing boards and the parking and see what we can do. I think there's a lot of options there to increase the parking. If we're not going to use that lot in the near future, making more of it as a parking lot probably is a good idea because parking lots are easy to change in the future. You don't want something permanent in there that you can't change. But if we could use more of that lot and make parking out of it, maybe you even make more than just one roll of cards in there something that would be worthwhile I think that's worth looking at and if I can emphasize just [50:53] Speaker E (unidentified): The appreciation for you thinking storage and thinking rec, but you know, to put a band-aid on something that like double doors and being able to put the goals away, I think would be a bigger solution for parks and public works to be able to feel like I'm not just leaving them with the broadening goals throughout every month that I'm not using them. [51:17] John: I mean, even a dirt parking lot could be used a good deal of the year if you didn't want to put in crushed rock or asphalt at this point. It's something we could add in the future. So there are ways to get this project going without breaking the bank. [51:36] Speaker D (unidentified): Should you bring it back to the select board? [51:39] John: Would you people like me to pursue this some more and bring it back to you in the near future? It might probably be another month or two. Love it. I think what I'm going to do also is... [51:49] Speaker B (unidentified): I don't know that we need a whole workshop. I guess we just want to see what she comes up with for the mall parking. And I do think the double doors is a good idea because I know when I was rector, many moons ago,, a single duo was not easy to get through with all the equipment. So anything that you can open up wider and just do it, does this job so much easier. [52:17] Speaker E (unidentified): If we are okay with the changing of the size, really that's what it came down to, the limitations of how big we're willing to see for visibility, but if we're moving it back anyway, we're putting it on the elevated soil that you're going to be able to see. But I'm assuming this is no different than a building that's not going to look bad on the green or is that our goal is you don't know if there's a building there I don't think it's [52:38] John: going to be a problem when you work backwards it's going to be okay it's nice and solid and [52:43] Speaker E (unidentified): painted yeah and big enough does that mean is that I don't I don't know that truly the current plan is big enough especially if I was to put all four goals in there 's no way what we had originally talked about just like storing balls and the ball pumps the things that I use on a daily. [53:00] John: Think about what size you want, Justice. [53:05] Speaker E (unidentified): Could you also do storage under the gazebo if there was an apron around the gazebo? If you don't mind bending over and crawling. Yeah, I have to crawl under there for some loose balls sometimes. I don't want to say that's not fun. So if I could avoid having to use underneath the gazebo. There's also just nothing for insulation down there. So I know we're not talking about insulating the shed, but it does provide just a little more protection as far as being able to put soccer balls there in winter. [53:35] Speaker B (unidentified): As far as the goals, would it be easy to have just light goals underneath there? They're too big. [53:42] Speaker E (unidentified): Maybe the smaller ones could fit underneath there, but there's no way the five, six goals underneath. [53:49] Speaker B (unidentified): I think that's why you just put them. [53:51] Speaker E (unidentified): They're not. They're just left out there, so they can't just have any other weather damage. And they're like $3,000 a piece, so I'm gonna be doing this here. [53:58] Speaker G (unidentified): No, not instead of, but in addition to. Right, yeah. [54:03] Speaker C (unidentified): Could there be some kind of light? [54:07] Speaker E (unidentified): I think it would just look nicer anyway. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we stopped at the road somewhere else. [54:14] Speaker B (unidentified): They've been making a lot of noise for all of you, right? [54:18] John: Thanks, John. Thank you, folks, very much. We're going to have a little walk tonight. [54:26] Speaker B (unidentified): Us too. I'd like to thank them.