Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Where you put your spreadsheet. Okay. Well, folks, this is South Directions and Instaproitions. It is I

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: think so. Yeah. And

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we are working on our capital budget. And with us this morning, we have the judiciary as well as BGS to talk over section 14. We're gonna get some updates on some of the county courthouses from the judiciary first, Then we'll go into PGS for those that are owned by the state. So welcome.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Thank you. It's good one. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: if you could both identify yourself, the record.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: I'm sure it's Terry Porcelain, State Court Administrator, and Greg Mosley, who's the Chief of Finance and Administration. I do have hard copies of the brief memo that we submitted with people. Yeah, but yeah, but you can go ahead and hold them.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Please cut them my tongue. Are we better? Yes. Okay. Some folks work electronically. Some folks work with copies. So Thank you. Thank you.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: So we'll we'll talk about some of the county buildings and some of the projects that involve state courthouses, projects that BGS is managing. So Joe Luneau will talk about those. I do not have the spreadsheet in front of so I don't know what order you wanna go in. That's the easiest one.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Does someone have their spreadsheet that they it well, we have Woodstock, SX, Lemoyle. So

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: and Lemoyle probably should go together since they're very similar projects. Last year in the capital budget, it was appropriated to have backup generators installed in courthouse today. There's no adjustments being asked for this year. Work projects are still ongoing. Both projects have hit some design snags. So in Woodstock, the issue was exhaust where they wanted to where the vendor decided to put the the generator, the exhaust was gonna infiltrate the HVAC system. That's not good. That's not good. So they had to redesign, and the redesign involved getting library approval. The library is the neighbor, and they need to get an agreement to gear that space. So that generator and a tank will be right between the the property line or right on the property line between the courthouse and the library. There's not expected to be any issues in the library. The communications in some meetings have happened, but they still are working on some of the details. So they expect to start building once the snow melts.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is that a town or library, or is it a nonprofit?

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Think it's the Woodside Terrace I

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: think it's a town. The town's been involved in these conversations.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. So it's probably a town property.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Not a lot of space there.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. It's pretty plain old space. Were they gonna put the generator in the back of the building? It's gotta be where they were.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: They're gonna put it now on the side of the building. The back of the building is gonna be problematic, and they were gonna have to put an exhaust pipe up the back of the building, up to the roof. And the storage preservation was not going to but they didn't want to do that. So they're now moving it to the side of the building, which is right between the library and the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we put in we put in a 100 for this. And I was trying to remember, is there money from the county budget going in for this at all?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: I think only ongoing maintenance, not the implementation.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And will those redesign and delays, are gonna increase the cost?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: That's not over the budgeted amount. So it's only been some extra hours of redesign work. Most of the work has been happening with the county administrators in the town, so not on our dime.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just wondering about the 100,000.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Still good on that.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Questions?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That one's easy.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Similar circumstance up in Lemoyle, where a backup generator was appropriated last year for a 190,000. Again, they are going through some design issues. Again, with the exhaust being an issue, All the courthouses have had new HVAC put in, and the vendors who came in with the design did not take into account where the vents and the intake for the for the courthouses are. So that's also being redesigned. That one actually, I believe, will end up with a exhaust pipe that goes up the back of the building up to the roof. That also is waiting for the snow to melt so that they can water concrete and get that started, and there's no adjustment as for this year. So they just needed to make a change to where it's going. They did. It's just and it's not adding cost to it. No. Alright. That's good. That's great.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: The design was done internally or the vendor is that

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: The vendor is a subcontractor, and so it was not done internally. When we reviewed it, we realized the HVAC problem. Mhmm. And that's when we went back and asked them to to move that. Good. Great. That's more exhaustive in place. So neither of those projects, I think, are at issue. We're just, at this point, finishing up some details on the design and then waiting for the snow to melt. It should be good to go. Brings us to the Essex connector project. This one does have a adjustment request in there for $500,000. We we're planning to start that project in the fall before the snow flies, and we hit FNAG. There is a water system in that corner of Guildhall with fire hydrants. So the assumption when we started the project is that we would be able to tap into the municipal water supply to feed the sprinkler system. Neither one of those buildings, the courthouse or the meeting house that are going to be connected, neither one of them have a sprinkler system. They're very old buildings. But because of this renovation project, sprinkler system's required, water is required. The when we started looking into the water system, we had some questions. We got an early

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Water system of Gil Hall.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's Gil

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Hall. So we had engineers come in and test the flow rates, and it failed. It's not enough. It's not enough to support Right. Suppression. And so we we informed the town of our results. We went to a select board meeting and talked to them. We left there realizing that in order to move this project forward, we would have to build a fire pump and supply tank separate from the municipal water system in order to make sure that the the courthouse and the meeting house are sufficiently fed fire suppression law. So that delayed us until spring, so there's been no construction. There's been a lot of design and redesign. We're still working on defining the estimate of on the fire pump. The 500,000 is still a bit of an estimate. We're still trying to get estimates from the subcontractors. But essentially what it is, is a 14,000 gallon tank somewhere around the courthouse, and then a pump that would pump it into the building when the sprinkler system is initiated. And delay was because usually the tanks are underground, and you need a bigger pump to pump the water up. In this case, there was a garage behind the building, so there was the option of putting it at ground level and hiding it within a garage till we realized the garage would have

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: to come down. We'd have

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: to build a different garage around the tanks. And now they're looking at a hill behind the courthouse that would be above grade. So the water would be pumped down. That impacts the the fire pump that's needed, and so we're still trying to refine that. We just found out a couple weeks ago that there there's no ledge in the spot where they want to be very thanks. So it's still an ongoing There's no ledge. There's no ledge. It's good. We are able to figure out right before the snow hit.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So for the town of Gilpin, their drinking water system, are they part of a water district? Be on their own. I don't know a

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: lot about their water system, but what I have learned is that they get their water supply from Northumbridge in New Hampshire. There's a pipe that comes across underneath the bridge. It is it's an eight inch water pipe that goes to the bridge that then goes into a six inch water pipe across the bridge that then goes back into an eight inch water pipe once it's Vermont side, goes into a meter, which is a four inch meter with a six inch pipe. So that design raised all sorts of yellow flags with us, and that's what caused us to call the engineers in early to say, Let's test this system. So what they do is they put the pressure meat readers on the hydrants. They open up the hydrant, and they see what happens to their flow rate when you're dispensing water. And the flow rate was not up to state standards, just barely underneath. And and there was a lot of leaking around the fire hydrants, which is a little bit of leaking is normal. A lot of leaking is not. There's a lot of leaking. So Losing pressure too, though. Just Right? The engineers thought that there was something underneath the ground that needed to be looked at and fixed. Hydrants are built That helps the

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: pressure Yeah.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: At that place then? Yeah. But that be helpful. The confusing piece, though, is that fire hydrants are built where they vent on the other ground so that when you turn them off, the water drains so that it doesn't freeze and break. So there's something with the drains there that

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, it's draining out. That's all right, Tara. I can imagine for the town of Guildhall, they have many folks on a public water system. And Gilmore is such a small community. Kind of rural. I can't imagine

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: They have a water system.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I've been through a lot of folks as well. Yeah. I mean, it's such a small community, and it's so rural out there. I can't imagine.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: I have the assistant judge here. He might know more about the water supply, but I, you know, it's it's a corner of Yongkol that includes half a dozen houses or so and then the the probably seven or eight hydrants. And

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not very big.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: It's not very big.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not very big. That's why I'm wondering part of a water district with other communities out there. Just curious. Another thing that's going through my mind is if there is an issue right now with the water pressure to begin roof in Guildhall with their water system, regardless of what's happening with the courthouse or not, we fund drinking water projects for communities. And I'm just curious if maybe they're working with the state to kind of update or repair their water system. System. That's the other piece that's going through my mind.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Representative of Edmonds at this field hall select board meeting, we suggested that that be looked into. I don't know whether they did or not. But in fact, when the water system was last upgraded twenty years ago or so, it was with a state grant. Right. But we don't know. We really haven't had contact with them after that meeting, which was in December.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So when will you be getting the estimate back?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: We were expecting that before today's testimony, we did not get it as of left hand. Pieces of it come in what we're waiting for is the actual fire pump itself the cost estimate for that. The other piece is around there's a pump house. There's obviously some concrete tanks that can either be precast and brought in or poured in place. And there's the excavation work and mechanical and electrical. So we have some of those pieces, but not the actual equipment itself.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm just kind of wondering. Do we pay half 1,000,000 here, or do we work with ANR to really work with Gilchalt to update their drinking water system so that there would be enough pressure in there for the courthouse to hook in. Because either way, you're coming to the capital bill for money. Either way. Either you folks are coming here for, at this point, a half million dollar request for a tank and a pump, or Gilhull is working with ANR to be put on the priority list to upgrade their drinking water. And we provide money in the capital bill through ANR for drinking water from municipalities for drinking water and water districts. So I'm just kind of thinking either way, there's money from the capital bill that's gonna be going to a drinking water project around the courthouse one way or the other. And I just don't wanna be duplicative here. Does the committee follow me on this?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Yes. I know. But wouldn't that be a lot more money to upgrade this town's drinking water

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: system? Have to do it if they're leaking to begin with.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Right.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. If they've already got a problem right now, regardless Right. They're gonna have to upgrade.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: They would rather get the money to come through ANR so they'd pull down the other dollars.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But we still have to put a match.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yeah. We still have to put a

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: match, but it wouldn't be

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: We get more. Think it'd be We

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: don't know. That much, but you never know. And then you still have to it may delay the project for the courthouse. But you can't go forward until you know you can support a sprinkler system. You can't do anything in that courthouse until the sprinkler system is resolved.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Representative Emmons, I'm happy to reach out to the guildhouse flood court to see if they have made any overtures of the gun guard.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I would think if they've got a leaky a leak in the system, and their fire hydrants right now aren't even pressurized, They got a problem.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: That's why we thought it was critical to inform them of our test results so that they would be aware, which we did. But again, there wasn't any indication at that meeting as to what steps they would be taking after that other than to tell us we should proceed to address our particular sprinkler system.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How long ago was it that you spoke to? December.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Right.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Had we not uncovered the water system problems, would this have been sort of a no brainer that you just were connected and it would have been done? That was our thinking going in. We saw the fire hydrants. We thought it was a system that we could tap into with sprinklers.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: odd because you got fire hydrants out there, and there's not enough for like, what is you're talking an inch and a half pipe. Right?

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: I'm not For the

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: sprinkler system?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: For the sprinkler system. Oh, the sprinkler system is a small pipework, inch and half. Yeah. Right. The feeding tubes are probably, I think, about eight inches

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: in diameter. They're they're big.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: They have their the flow during a fire, you know, you need you need thousands of gallons in a minute. It's not like residential use.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Do do we know there's not enough pressure to the fire hydrants,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: or are we assuming that the No. They

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: might We have an engineer's report that that said that Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what triggered the whole thing on their part.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yeah. I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: mean, on the judiciary's part, that's what triggered it. But there's enough pressure, and there's leaks.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah. And one piece of information outside of the water piece that I wanted to share with you, I know this committee heard testimony about transports yesterday, their share of transports, and how long they they stay at the courthouse. It's important to know that this one of the reasons, for this project is to build the necessary holding cells, sally ports. Right now, those detainees are held in cruisers. Sometimes we use a conference room, but they're sitting in the parking lot for most of the day when they come in. So this would build the proper holding cell for thermal port.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm wondering, Tate, if you could reach out to I think he's the commissioner. I don't think he's the deputy commissioner. Neil came in. And I have him he's in the building quite often. If he could circle by here so I can ask him about Gilchol, see if there's anything there. And those folks are coming in next week. We're gonna schedule the drinking water folks from A and R in next week. Maybe we can figure out this piece of the puzzle to see if Gilmore I mean, it's a big loss for them. For the small community, it's a big cost for them.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: They they referenced the status of their budget. Yeah. Yes. When we were there.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's such a small community. I don't know what the population is. Two two hundred something. If that? If that? Kevin?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well, that's a tangent, but it's a little shocking that we've got fire hydrants that aren't working and we don't know about it. And so you could try to to have a pressure I would assume there are rules, and I don't like to add rules, but we ought to be checking our fire hydrants periodically to make sure there's water in case there's a real fire.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's up to the towns.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: The last test that was done in Guildhall that I'm aware of was done in the mid nineties, and it passed the system passed the test at that point. What has happened to my understanding is over in North Elmbridge is they changed the water supply. It used to be a reservoir back when the test came back fine. And since then, they have changed to two tanks. One is elevated, so the pressure is good. One is lower, and that's the pressure that's the water that comes to Guildhall, and the pressure is less than what was predicted.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So they're at the mercy of the state in New Hampshire as well.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: I'm like, yes. So that's

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: where their water supply is coming.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Well, the reservoir is just I'm remembering. The reservoir was there. But that's

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: not Yeah.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: I'm not sure. There was a reservoir there, but since then, they have built some tank. But those so those are not New Hampshire. Those are New Hampshire's tanks. They are. Yeah. It's across the river. Okay. And there's a pipe that goes under that bridge that feeds that section of for residential water and the lower fire hydrant system.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But Gilhoe is at the mercy of another state and another town for their drinking water, which is not a good situation, Ben. But

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: it doesn't

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: sound like that's the problem. The problem is you have leaking. So if check the pressure, then they

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they checked it back in the mid-90s. So it's up to the town to do that. Up to the towns.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: You were not given an indication that anything was planned in the next few months, which made us want to get ready for spring implementation. And capital budget adjustment request was the way to do that. So here we are.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And you're not even sure if the half million would cover it.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: I'm confident that it will. We're still waiting for pieces, but we've got good people that are pulling these estimates together. They've been refined a little bit. It's gonna it might it won't be over 500,000. It might be $4.80. It might be $4.75. But anything left over will get reverted back to capital fund anyway. Good morning.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Good morning. I know. Question other questions? Thomas, thoughts?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: No. Our other projects are in state owned courthouses, and is here to talk about some of those if

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the committee is you've got 3.685. Is that still anticipated to cover the cost of do you have construction documents ready to go?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Everything's up to Sprinklr Design.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the longer that takes to figure that out may impact the construction time frame in dollars, possibly?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Yes. We could get started earlier than winter allows because there's some renovations inside the building that we could start with, but we don't want to start any of that until we know we can finish. So if we were to receive funding or a plan that would finish our fire pump or sprinkler water issue, then we could start, you know, in February, March before the ground thawed, but we would start with work inside the building. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: this is a good project for the committee members to learn because there has been questions why is there we appropriate, but we don't appropriate. We authorize the dollars for certain projects. And two years later or year and a half later or two years later, why isn't the project completed? And this is a very good example in terms of what can pop up for projects that we've listed and authorized expenditures and could be two or three years later, and it still hasn't gotten off the ground or is delayed. And we don't know those things. Last year, we didn't know what we were gonna encounter with this project in terms of the sprinkler system and the water system. It's out of the state's hands. It's out of our hands. It's a local problem. It's a local problem. Up to the town of Gilhall for their drinking water system, and they didn't even realize themselves that they were losing pressure in their system. So these things happen, particularly when we do projects in the capital budget, there's things out of our control that pop up in these projects, and that's why the projects get delayed. So it's just for the committee just so you can process this because this happens all the time in different places. It's not

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: much we can do.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You wanna weigh in? Just identify yourself for the record.

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: That's Transky, and I'm one of the assistant judges. And one of the things that I think we've learned from this, which is a wonderful thing, even though it's painful. We all walk by fire heartedness and we all assume they work. I'll assume. That way. And we all know that, that it's just you and me. But one of the things that came out of this when Greg and the team started talking about this standalone bank, and we looked out

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: the back window, and we've

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: got a Hillside, and let's just do a separate standalone system, separate from the town. And it it just seemed like it's so simple and so easy, and it would be so fast. And if a fire starts, the the tank would put out the fire instantly before it could spread anywhere. And whether the town ever fixes its system or not, it wouldn't matter. You know, our own system, we solve all the county and the courthouse issues. Sheriffs, everything would be done. And that was the brilliance that we learned from this, and it was really fortunate. Everything else in town could burn up because the system is never going to be fixed, but our system could do it. And we've got all the contracts, subcontractors, they're all in place, ready to go.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: We're actually at risk of losing contractors. They're lining up their work in the spring, and they wanna know if this project is gonna go or not.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So They're not gonna know until what the money gets through our process, which will be until April or May.

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: We were movers lined up to move the staff into the Sheriff's Building when this all happened to me. This was that close to that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that was his fault? Yeah. Take anything off base value? Nope. So you anticipate the estimates for this project to come back in a few weeks, shortly? Shortly. So when you do, can you circle back with us, please? Yes.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Absolutely. Let you know the minute we have the final estimate in which we had anticipated having in time for today.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yeah.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: So apologies for that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, it's not your fault.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's not your fault. I assume the fire department knows the problem and they're deciding to check more regularly than twenty five years.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm assuming it's a water department.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: I mean, means that to me is maybe more critical than upgrading the courthouse right now because we've got citizens that are thinking they've got coverage and they don't. Sounds like LA to me.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Greg, so when is your cutoff? Like, can you wait to get an answer in April or May, or are these guys gonna be like, we can't wait till then, right? Because they've got other work that they know I know they can line up. A it's a situation that'll have to be managed, and we're working very well with the general contractor. Yep. But they are trying to make sure that they stay busy through the spring. Right. So I don't know the answer to that. There's no deadline. There's no cutoff.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I've got some thoughts. But if you could get back to us as quickly as possible, the other thing I would recommend, if you could reach out to Senate Institutions Committee and see if you could get testimony in there as soon as possible on this. Because if they can understand flex vehicles in the time frame, we might be able to fill up something out. We're gonna take the letters with a letter of intent or something. We've done that in the past. I mean, I'm just thinking outside the box, but there's there's a few things that we could possibly help with knowing the construction schedule because they were ready. The contractors are ready to break ground in the They're on hold. So I would really recommend you reach out ASAP, the Senate institutions, and get on their agenda. You're going to do that today? Yeah. And then I can have a conversation with the chair do it once you get the estimate back.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Thank you. We appreciate the effort to this unique problem.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Figure something out, maybe.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Sorry, Jared.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just making a note.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: As we turn our attention to the state owned courthouses, I know that Orleans and even Washington Criminal Courthouse in Barrie are, you know, on the radar screen. Joe is here to talk more in-depth about where those projects are at. But I just wanted to mention that we have a couple of criminal courthouses that don't have the proper security system, the Sally Port, the holding cells, the pathway into a courthouse and out that would keep them separate from the general public. Orleans and Barrie are the other two courthouses in addition to Guildhall that does not have the proper Sally Court. New Port, New Orleans, and Washington County in Barrie. Yeah. And those are on the to do list.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the Barrie one, that's the one that we visited a few years ago, which is we have put money in to find a new location or expansion of that courthouse in previous Capitol Hill's. Where are we in? That's a peachy

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: See you, Paul. Thank

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: you so much. Thanks for the cookies.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And, Joe, you're not prepared to talk about the barriers, but I think we've got to get an update because we've had previous appropriations for the. And this wasn't this past session. I believe it was the previous session. And we have language in there to see if

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: you could

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: find another site for the courthouse or find a way to do an expansion. And that was in the previous biennium. And so we need I need a refresher on where we are, and the new members need to be updated. Joe has this little smile on his

[Emily [surname unknown], Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services]: face. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: welcome, Joe.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Thank you, and good morning. Good morning. For the record, Joe Agea, Director of Design and Construction with BGS. Not in the slideshow, though, is the Washington County Superior Court in Gary. And so I can give you some feedback on that. Basically, if you look at the money that we're giving back into the cash fund sources, there's a line item in there. Because we believe that Newport could go before the very courthouse in getting rebuilt, new, whatever. So we have given back some funding.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's in the reallocations.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yes. It is.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is it various projects? Or Yes.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I don't know. I mean, $1.89.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: $1.89. You got 752.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: 50 there. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Out of how much?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: And I don't have any hands to know if you're talking about it other than giving that money back. We are there's another line item, if I think I remember right, we're giving back. That is under various projects. There was a total of 700,000, 750 something like that. We're gonna retain $3.50 to still develop a plan of what we wanna do with Barrett. And then the rest of the money will be real for the fact. But I can get that information.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'd like to know. I'd like to know much.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: We weren't just dropping off Barry a 100%. What we are looking to do is focus more on Newport, but Barry come up next on what we can do. What we have not done with Berry is really look at the building itself as a whole and whether that could be renovated to accommodate the needs or judiciary. Mainly the Sally Port legal Sally Port, and everything else. And then on the internal part of it is to keep the front of the house separate from the back of the house, and that there's no interaction that they have now. Right now, everybody shares the same common hallway. It's of a traffic situation.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And there was when we were looking at this couple years ago, there was also the product that you purchased from some abutting land.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: There was talk of that. We never investigated the abutting land. We did go out for a property search and did not find anything that was worthwhile or met our needs or the price was in the range. Since then, though, I think there's a greater look at between the Downtown Barrie area and the needs of because of the flooding, what truly is available when you're looking at a site map. The Buried Courthouse itself did not flood. It sits well above a hundred year flood elevation, but it became an island, during the the twenty three flood in '24. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I know I know what you're saying that Newport's a priority. But is there something that we can do language wise for moving money around to kind of help continue the process of the Barry Ford house doing maybe going back out for another search of property.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That's where using some of that funds is to look at the building itself and can it be renovated. Now to do that would also be moving one of the two of the other tenants that are in the building also to a different location. We did do a study back in Two years ago? Further back than that. I don't know exactly when that was done, that we looked at putting an addition on. You showed us that last year. It wasn't that favorable, but it shows potential. So to look at that in a more holistic way of, you know, not putting on a large addition, but what can we do to the building the right cost? Because that the elevator is killing us in there. Right? That's a new pool.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, that's Newport. Sorry.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. This is shared hallways where the offender is coming in and sitting across the hall from the victim. And the judges don't have a separate entrance. They have to walk through this too. James?

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Just because I wasn't sure I heard you right. Very basically. So you're saying out of the $7.50 that I think it's $7.50, right? That some of that money is going to stay in this project, but most of it's gonna move to Newport. Did I hear that right? Am I No.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That 700,000 is reallocated at the bottom line.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 750,000 is being reallocated, but they still have a balance left of about $3.50 plus from the previous appropriations.

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: I heard you wrong. Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: We'll get on the right page.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just don't wanna lose momentum on Barry. And that's why I'm just wondering if it would be worthwhile, and maybe John could do this, take a look at previous capital build for language, not what we did last year, but the previous biennium. I believe it was a previous biennium. We put in language for the. So it'd be really good if maybe, John, you could take a look at that and let us know the money amount and what the directions. Because we had language in there in the last biennium.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I worked with Scott yesterday with whining, you know, whining with what's out there and it's coming potentially coming back or not. And if he could find that, that would Thank you.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, he's like that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was looking for the previous appropriation. Previous biennium.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Doctor. No. Talk to her again so you can comment. There are in FYI '24 cash, there was 850,000. And I wanna say that is the one that we're looking to keep some of those funds to complete this planning. I don't know they We're looking at in the balance. Can reallocate it to a helping firm. Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is there any bond in mind? But you said that

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: While I'm looking at this spreadsheet, no. But I'd like to before giving you a real answer, I'd like to do some homework.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Because then because what we're doing is reallocating 750,000 of the cash, and that only leaves you a 100,000. You said you have like 350,000 plus. So there's gonna be some bonded dollars in there. Maybe a pre

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That's the one that we're giving to the bottom line. Right. And

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you're keeping a 100,000 in cash. So maybe John could do something.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: John. Okay. I think it's more

[Unknown Committee Member]: for the judiciary. I thought we were sort of courtroom in Barrie, essentially. And I'm just wondering, how is that contributing to the whole backlog? And do we need to be talking an interim measure like we did at Bennington with a mobile courtroom or something? Mean, it's that bad.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that would be rough

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: as well. Get to tenants, we'd have to pick up some. Yes.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: And that's that's what this planning study would do is, you know, what can we do with the existing building without putting an addition on? Knowing you still need a vehicle salary port, and how to work that into it. And I've got some ideas. I talked a little bit with Greg about that, but it's real about, from an architect's point of view, what can be done. Because, you know, you've got 12 parking spaces or something like that. So you're very minimal. You don't wanna lose parking and how the whole thing works. But, you know, if one or two of the tenants that are residing there now, we move them out to a different location. Does, you know, does it work for you? In

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that Attorney.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Attorney, AHS, DCF is in there in the 44, and I don't I need probation parole. It day? It that? I don't recall if they're still in there.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Move any of them move up to McFarlane House or McFarlane?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I don't. The biggest internal move, that's Eric Pembroke's daily work that would involve.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, could you kinda check out I mean, they're all state employees, and we own the State Building. Oh, Emily, you're here too. I mean, we have the State Building McFarland House, the road there. Uh-oh, Scott.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: John Gerro, for the record Scott, Mayor of principal office. Looking in Act 69, I do see a million dollars in bonded.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And what year was that?

[Scott [surname unknown], Joint Fiscal Office analyst]: This would be 2023. It does say a million dollars in bonding plus a $7.50 in cap for renovations at the Washington County Superior Court House in January.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hang on. There was a in f y twenty three, there was a million dollars bonds plus cash in f y twenty three. Yep. That was 750.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Correct.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So then and then in FY twenty four, there was an additional $8.50 cash.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I have to look that after this is Act 69 and has passed in 2023, so I'll have to go look and see.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I've got to get the threat of money. John?

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: John Gray of civil legislative council. I'm not seeing I mean, I can take a further look at the extra $8.50. What I see is an expansion of the purposes for the seven fifty, the '24 capital bill.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is that a new seven fifty or is that

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: seven fifty. It's just expanding the purposes to where

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: she came.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it wasn't eight fifty in '24? Yes.

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: I'm not seeing that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just wanna double check that. I wanna see what the expanded language was, which I think I know what it was, but I just want to

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, the expanded language is adding design and land acquisition. And then there's a standalone section in the policy sections related to authorizing uses of amounts in Act 69 to purchase the land.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I wanna see this written down. Is there And there was also We had language about including the city of Barrie in the discussions in terms of looking for space.

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: Yep. To consult with the city of burial financial options for renovating or replacing the courthouse.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I want to get all that in one spot so that we can see it, and that will help the repo. So you're reallocating $7.50 cash, which leaves you a million and then you've expended some from that million, I would assume. So I wanna know how much has been expended. So I wanna put all these moving pieces together. Does that make sense for the committee? Not that we don't trust you, Joe.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I'm gonna stick with a script next time, not go off. We won't talk about Barry. But no. So we will get you that information.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just wanna connect the dots. Yes. I really don't I know Newport has bumped up to be the priority, but I don't wanna lose momentum on Barry. That makes sense. K. So let's go back to Joe's script. Alright. Section 14. Mhmm.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: On old funds for the courthouse renovations, we're basically done that renovation right now. Court is opening up next week, back in its new home, renovated home. They're just doing some touch ups now and all that fun stuff that comes at the end of a project that you have to finish up. This funding that is shown on the slide is all for the renovation of that building For the new HVAC boiler, electrical, the likes of that, in the two additions. We are asking in the second half of the biennium for $1,600,000 in bonded funds. And that is for the Riverbank stabilization project. Originally, it was included. However, when we went out to bid, we just didn't have enough money. And so we moved that from that part of the project, and plan to come back later.

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: There there

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: is fill in that area. The bank was steep, originally, when we purchased the property and built the courthouse there back in the eighties. And now it's just starting certain parts of it, are starting to slide down the bank. So we went out and we hired a consultant, a geotechnical engineer to evaluate the bank and give us some options. Two of those options that we elected Matt to pursue was one was a retaining wall with some tiebacks and then just mesh fabric and tiebacks to the bank. The problem with those two there's a sewer line that runs through that back lot between the building and the top of the riverbank. And so it had been very difficult to lay off those ties so that they do not impact that sewer lines. So the other option was to remove some of the earth to the bank, and you put riprap back in, key it into the bottom of the slope, which means you just dig it in, not into the river, from the bottom of the slope to help stabilize that whole riprap going at the slope of the bank to hold it in place.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is it cutting down some of that brush and tool?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yes. The brush and all will go away. Because the brush that has grown up over time also impacts the stabilization of that riverbank.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the sewer line, is the sewer line there for the building, the courthouse?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yes. It does tie into that, but it also continues over to the railroad station.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And do we own that sewer line, or is it municipal? Municipal.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: We have never done any work on it.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: But Yeah.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: We know. Because others tie into it. So as you can see in the upper photo, it's, the crack ceiling in the pavement. The is due to the riverbank sliding off, and you have that nice gentle bow in the guardrail that's not both like that on an angle. It's supposed to be vertical. So there is movement going on. It's not going to slide down the bank tomorrow. But strangely enough, if you look down on the bottom photo of the elevation between the water and the courthouse itself, the hundred year flood elevation is probably six feet off of the door of the courthouse. The water can't get up that high. If that were potentially but it could be catastrophic.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do you know how high it came up during, Irene?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I don't.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So before I go to Shawn, the upper picture, that garage door, is that where the sheriffs drop go in to bring detainees or also where law enforcement drops folks off

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That is correct.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: In Sally Park? Yes.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: K.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Those folks that are There's a sheriff's vehicle out there, it looks like. So that's where they come in, in the back of the building when they're transporting folks, just to connect the dots from yesterday. Shawn?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So the riprap wall Yes. Go it would it go from kinda how how long is the the the quote? Is it like 100 yards or

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: It's a couple 100 feet. It is a couple 100 feet. So 75 yards. Further, roughly where the top photo was taken from, it was down the riverbank there. There's a culvert Yep. Coming in, and that's got a concrete head wall and side walls on it. So it's roughly in that point going towards on the top photo to that shed in that area near the track.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: And then worst case scenario, that's in. There's a there's a flood. It's six feet from the place. That's gonna hold the building together and the land together. It'll hold the land.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yes. It'll hold the land. Okay. Great. Thanks.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any other questions?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I have a quick question. Yeah.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Just in case anybody else doesn't really know what it is, and as soon as you say it,

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I probably will. What's rip can

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: you explain what riprap is? Larger rocks. They're

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: they're nice. They start at the bottom Got it. Slope and work their way up and place them. Yeah. So when you drive around the state, you'll see, you know, nice stone embankment that's running along and that's riprap. All over the place.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, as soon as he said I

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: got it. But I just I

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: was to add something very different in my mind.

[Assistant Judge (Essex County) [name unclear]]: Like where they have the like the

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: what looks like snow fence with the

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: with all the stuff built in and they Gabions. Yes.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah. That's what I had in

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: my mind. Yep. They couldn't work also. They're just the riprap somewhat interlocks. I get a number. The gabions, you got to drive a rod through to anchor them together. Appreciate it.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. John?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: I was going say there's a really recent project by Monument Road in Mississauga. The ripret project, stabilizing bank. I don't know if you were involved with it. No. But the state wanted some It's very well been done in France.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything else on this one before we jump to Newport? K. While this project's getting done, it's been many years in the don't want for many years in New

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: works. York.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, Newport keeps going and going and going. Newport. Again,

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: we have looked and put out an advertisement to search for land. And we found there was some up in Derby, but talking with the judiciary, and all. It's really about being more in areas where there's public transportation, where the people are, and Derby was just a little bit too far out of town. So we're still looking into the city of Newport on what to do. Because of the historic nature of this building, putting an addition on would be pretty difficult. We did do a study five years ago, six years ago on that, that actually connected it to the county court. That ended up, I think, with adding five elevators because of the different elevations between the two courts. So when you look at the public entrance needing accessible elevators versus also from the detainees coming in, now you work the back half of the house, it was a lot of elevators to get you to basically different floors. And some of them only had, like, a half floor going up. Yes. Typically and because there's a different elevation between the county court and the state court. So it's really about finding another property, to build this on. But some of the money that has been appropriated has been expended, 126,000 so far. And what that was for is the elevator project, that we just finally had to go forward with because it was at a point where it was not reliable at all. Although the elevator had been modernized, it still does not comply with the American Disability Act standards. It's still a narrow you have to switch to a special wheelchair, then back into that elevator. So the elevator is located inside the central stair tower. And so it can't be expanded. Probation and parole, The state's attorney used to be in this facility. They are no longer. So similar to what I mentioned in Barrie, could the judiciary fit now in this building? Yes, but. There are so many things that are still non compliant. The not shown on this photo, but on the other end, is where the accessible entrance is. Whereas the public comes through the center door in this building. That's where they get processed coming in. So when you're in a wheelchair, that's different. Or if you got to use the ramp and you're coming in sort of the back door. It's not easily accessible. And then they, you know, judiciary staff have to then pivot to have somebody come into that. So even though it potentially could fit, it's still not a great fit. It would not be a interior Sally port for the vehicles. Your vehicles coming in because of the backside of the lot. In the photo up above, it'd be on the right hand side of the building that's on the corner of the parking lot. And I forget how many cars that hold, but it's angled parking. It's very tight. And so there's no real way of putting a vehicle sally point in there for accessibility, let alone then how do you bring that detainee through the courthouse. Still the same situation. Everybody's going through different doors, but you end up at the same elevator and stairway almost. So that also becomes a point of contention. So, again, it's looking for land and what to do. The city of Newport, the downtown development, Newport Downtown Development Corp and whatnot, they have developed a master plan and they have looked at potentially working with us to, you know, to relocate. One of their ideas was to land behind the county court. In the upper right or upper center photo of this one here, the county court is the longitudinal horizontal building. On the lower part of that building. There was a building out back, the old jailhouse that's gone. So there's potential for that. But, again, that's county land. It's not state land. I don't know. And how this whole interaction works. So everything's up in the air, and we're just trying to now, this year, move forward, get it queued in and come up with an actual plan on what we're looking to do, whether it's looking at the pooling ground again, the pit, or someplace else in downtown. But again, like I said, group, the they have met with us and given us some ideas. They had their plan, and we looked at it and said, Okay, that's nice. And it may or may not work.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How are you, Ivan?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: You just remind me about when you walked away? Was that just lost?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yes. It was almost double your value.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And it's still on receivership?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Yes, it is.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Kevin? I'm

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: sure I asked last year. We're not compliant to federal law or Vermont law?

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That's In the elevator? It's it's the ADA standards we are not compliant with. Which you said is federal? Yes.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: So we must be on a waiver or grandfathered in for a period of time. Is there some deadline that this has to

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: be done to be There's no deadline. It's one of those that's a historic building. We can't renovate it. And as long as that elevator stay the shaft stays the way it is, we can still use it. Okay.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I want you to

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: It doesn't mean

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that and it triggers.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Right. And it doesn't it still doesn't prevent losses from happening because it is a standard desk, and you you should do it You comply. Gotcha.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just feel we're right back to square one on this, trying to figure out where to go. So on the bottom of the schematic there, the design, the long rectangle building and the small square one behind that. That is County Hall

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That is correct.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: In County Land. And one of those buildings, the smaller square one, is vacant from what I

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: can see.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: It's it's been demolished.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: It's not. Vacant. It's not there. Sure. Yeah. It's not. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have there been conversations with the side judges in terms of in terms of working together on this or getting some state function on county land? Emily?

[Emily [surname unknown], Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services]: Sure. I'm the deputy commissioner of buildings and general services for the record. So we have worked closely with the judiciary to having conversations with the county judges. And as Joe referenced, we've also been working very closely with the city of Newport representatives from the city as well as some of their redevelopment group on options because they're being boosting their downtown development. So while we don't have a specific site to share right now, we are optimistic, very optimistic that we will be moving forward with a site. And that's why we're really prioritizing Newport, one, because it's been a long time coming. But two, we also think that we have viability to move forward in the downtown.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And you can't come forward right now with where that viability lies in the site. When will you know? We believe we will know

[Emily [surname unknown], Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services]: with more certainty in the coming weeks, months. You're in negotiations? We are. We're not actively negotiating. We're in the early stages. We have some options in mind that we're discussing.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The way it works, folks.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: It's the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: way it works. Shawn?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Either Emily or Joe, so with county, that seem like maybe that is a possibility, Is that really hard to buy county land? Is that like a is that a hurdle?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I

[Emily [surname unknown], Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services]: know if that that would be a hurdle. It's more about programming and whether that site works well.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Okay. Oh, I gotcha.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And when you say programming, I want to be very clear. It's programming within the BGS world? Or Programming with what judiciary's needs are.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: One of the same in this case. It is that I mean, it's their their program, judiciary's program, and then we need to program a building site.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To sign a building site. Yes. Their program.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: So by

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the February, you would have a little bit more direction maybe, March 1?

[Emily [surname unknown], Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services]: I think that we'll have a better direction then.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That's what we're hoping for. Fingers crossed.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Perhaps. Perhaps.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because I will tie in to mark up. That will tie in to mark up because right now, what's being proposed for Newport is an additional 1,700,000.0 bonds and $7.50 cash for a total of 2,470,000.00 on top of what's already been appropriated in the past. Mhmm. That's what's being proposed now. So when we get to markup, we may move those numbers around a little bit based on the information you might have that's more clear on the path forward. Or it could be more murky on the path forward, which then leads to other decisions and markup. And then it might clear up a little bit once the bill gets over to the Senate, and then that might change then.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Right? What are they using now?

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Like, what's being

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're using the old

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: They're using this building? Yes. They're using

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: They are in there right now.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: That's when they Okay. Gotcha.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This has been ongoing for a long time. It's trying to find land. You can't you can't build the building until you have the land. Some that's really hard for some folks to comprehend. You gotta have the land to build.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: It's

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a tough I'm serious. There are folks that don't understand that.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah. Well, the unfortunate reality is sorry to raise me. As soon as people find out that the government wants the money, price goes up. It makes it even harder.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that's why we have to be careful when we're putting money in the capital bill for site acquisition. Anything Mhmm. Else on this one could be determined? Like Barry, could be determined. Like the essence to be determined. So, I'm going ask members, please do not forget that we are due for information back on Essex. I do wanna have a conversation with A and R about the Gildhall water system. We need further with John, John's gonna get back to us a little bit more in terms of all the building pieces for the Barrie Courthouse.

[Greg Moseley, Chief of Finance & Administration (Vermont Judiciary)]: Do you want me to

[John Gray, Legislative Counsel]: just write them right now? I can send you an email.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I'd run ahead in writing so that we can see. Because we have so many moving pieces, dollar wise as well as language. And

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: then

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: when you have a better idea of the moving pieces for land. Makes sense? Anything else I would introduce Sharon here? You folks hearsay anything else? No. That was precious. I don't care. You weren't raked over the coals, were you? No. No. I'm rich. Else before we break? Not four in the morning, but, you know, 10:00. Yep. Anything else? Thank you. You're welcome.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Thank you, Joe. Yep. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Good luck.

[Teri Corsones, State Court Administrator (Vermont Judiciary)]: Thank you. Yeah.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: Oh, no. I'm definitely coming back. It feels

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: really good. Well, George, you We try to do Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Capital bill. So let's take a quick break, folks, and then come back. We do at 10:00, but come on back a little bit before.

[Joe Aja, Director of Design and Construction, Buildings & General Services (BGS)]: And

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we'll go out