School Building Committee

Office of the City Manager City Hall • 375 Merrimack Street • Lowell, MA 01852 P: 978.970.4000 • F: 978.970.4007 www.LowellMA.gov Eileen M. Donoghue City Manager Kara Keefe Mullin Assistant City Manager School Building Committee Meeting Meeting Minutes Date: February 4, 2021 Time: 5:00 PM Location: Virtual Meeting—Zoom School Building Committee Members Present: Eileen Donoghue, Mike Vaughn. Lt. Peaslee, Bill Samaras, Conor Baldwin, John Leahy, Jim Cook, Diane Tradd, Connie Martin, Ed Kennedy, Rodney Elliott, MaryAnn Manzi, Maria Sheehy, Erica Harvey, Rick Underwood, Mike Fiato, and Jeff Wilson City Staff Present: Phillip Geoffroy, Jim Hall, and John Drinkwater Perkins Eastman Staff Present: Joe Drown, Robin Greenberg Skanska Staff Present: Maryann Williams, Jim Dowd Suffolk Construction Staff Present: Rex Radloff, Shelly Webster Called to order: 5:07 seconded by Dianne minutes accepted by Kennedy and Vaughn E. Donoghue: Asked Rex for his presentation on construction progress and procurement R. Radloff: Discussed the beginning of the gym foundation and the clearing of the site. Also said steel will hit the site in March. Suffolk has purchased trades for abatement and demo, earthwork, concrete, structural steel, and waterproofing and are set through April. Bids have all been coming in under budget. Sen Kennedy: How much under budget? Rex: $10-30,000 under budget. Dowd: Also stressed that they have set aside leftover funds for allowances. Shelly Webster: Introduced herself and explained how she was contracted by Suffolk to work with subcontractors on minority and women business enterprise (MBEs and WBEs) goals and workforce diversity goals. They are encouraging subcontractors to first employ Lowell residents. 87,000 construction contracts been purchased through WBEs. 4,348 hours of work have been done by 26 people of color, 4 women, and 15 Lowell residents. This means that 52.4% of workers are POC, 3.7% are  Office of the City Manager City Hall • 375 Merrimack Street • Lowell, MA 01852 P: 978.970.4000 • F: 978.970.4007 www.LowellMA.gov Eileen M. Donoghue City Manager Kara Keefe Mullin Assistant City Manager women, and 29.3 % (all of work hours) to Lowell residents. They have been holding corrective action meetings to figure out why subcontractors aren’t meeting goals, and also have worked with community groups to get the word out. They sponsored SDO certification and advertised in the Sun. Erica Harvey: Does it include people with disabilities like the Plus Company? Shelly: Not currently, but would be happy to. Samaras: Do you feel you will be successful? Shelly: Yes. Donoghue: Asked Joe Drown about next steps Drown: Said that the contract documents wrapping up. They will go to the printer, on Feb 16. And will be available on Feb 19. All bids will be in by 3/24. Donoghue: Gave closing remarks, everything going as planned Meeting adjourned.