Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: I was I'm a little nervous being at this point.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Is everybody numb? So it says live, but we're not always live until

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: it says it. Okay, great.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: So we are

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: back in Senate institutions on Thursday, January 29. And now we are looking at section 13 of the capital bill. And we have with us folks from the Department of Public Safety and work to the commissioner. So if you would like to

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thanks for having us. My name is Jennifer Morrison. I am the commissioner of public safety. I'm joined by deputy commissioner, Dan Batesy, and our wingman from BGI, Joe Major. And I have online captain Mike Manley from the state police and director Mike Drosha from the division of fire safety in case there are questions that we can't answer. Inside the Department of Public Safety, of course, you know, a lot of people think of it as the Vermont State Police, but there's the Division of Fire Safety, Emergency Management, Administration and Finance, the lab.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Radio technology.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Radio technology, and our eighth division is the Division of Animal Welfare. So, eight divisions under our Sherk Esteban. This capital bill implicates most primarily state police and the Division of Fire Safety. There are three things in the capital bill that I'm going to give you just a quick mention of, and then Joe is gonna give you the nuts and bolts in the slide deck. The first priority, which has been our first priority for the last four budget years, is what some people are calling a USAR building, but it's actually a special police building. And by special teams, I certainly do include the urban search and rescue teams, but also the hazmat team and the state police recreational boating program, and various other special equipment that the state police have to house, ATVs, snowmobiles, various things that they need to have. The Special Teams Building is also envisioned that we would bring things together under one roof, and that we would also then be able to get out of a lease in Williston for the fire safety regional office. So we would be bringing together the three components of special teams, the fire safety regional office in one location. The Fate Police part of the special teams equipment was supposed to be part of the new Williston Field Station. The project ran out of money and they ran into ledge. There is still all of the special equipment from the state police at the old Williston Barracks. It's still being stored there. The urban search and rescue equipment is not just with water rescue boats. That's one component of what they do. They also do rope and aerial type rescues. They do shoring, which includes a lot of things to beef up structures that have maybe been part of a fire or partial landslide so that they go in and shore it up so that searches can be done or investigations can be done. There's a lot of equipment, pneumatic equipment. There's a lot of very expensive equipment under the urban search and rescue umbrella. That and most of our hazmat equipment, also very expensive and very specialized, is currently being housed at AOT District Tribe in the Forge Canal. It is in a, I don't know, what do we call it, a garage or a- It

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: is what's that, it's an old hanger or something like that.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: It's an old deposit hanger thing that they were kind enough to let us take residence in because they didn't want it anymore, didn't want to use it anymore. And it has never been appropriate for its use that we are using it for. It is not sprinkled. We have millions of dollars in assets that are not sprinkled. The general work conditions of facilities are abominable. And so it was meant to be a very temporary fix. In mind, I know Commissioner Schirling raised this issue before he left, but this is my, I believe, my fourth year bringing this issue forward that we need to have an appropriate storage for the equipment, but we also need an appropriate place for the people who work in that building. So that's the special teams building. That's our top priority. The other two are pretty straightforward. It's the replacement of the Rutland Field Station, the Rutland Barracks, and that replacement is destined for a piece of land in Clarendon that we bought fifteen ish years ago. And the time has come, and Joe will give you more detail on that. Captain Manley's available to answer questions as well. And then that there's also money, a smaller amount of money, to begin the work of replacing the Shaftsbury Barracks, which is on a it's a leased building on a very small piece of land in Chopsbury, and that would be the next field station up after Robert Plunkett is done. So those are the three things that you will find in the capital bill. And Joe has more of the industry talk, so I will get right out of his way.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: What were we done? For the record, Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction with Buildings and General Services.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Joe, when you go through these, could you mention if they were in the bill last year or not? I think USAR is the only one.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: That is correct.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: That is new. And then just if you could also talk about the total project cost which I think what you normally do and I appreciate that.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Alright so first off we're going to see lease cost right now, Shasta, our field station and plantings. So in the 27 bond money, we're requesting 150,000. And this is to start the understanding of the needs of public safety in that area that they're working out of and what the next building would be. We are looking to still continue the buildings that we had started way back when we started Derby, a public safety building, somewhat of an H shaped building. That has worked because it can expand different ends of wings as the property also allows. So it does work well for that aspect and we're looking to do the same thing here. So like a cookie cutter that you take that, take what you need locally, fix it on the property, and it works best for us. Theoretically, there's less design involved because a lot of that has already been worked out. The Berlin Barracks is the only one that does not follow that law. That was the old state library when they moved out of Middlesex. So with the Shack Road Field Station what we're looking to do is, with this funds, is to gather the information for public safety of their needs and then sort of develop a right sized square footage of the building and then go out and look for property that'll fit that. So put an ad out there or work with a realtor or both to look for land and then assess each property that comes in along with the pros and cons and the cost and then select a site. Then at that point, we would be coming back for an additional funding to and language to purchase property and start the design process and then ultimately construction. But this year is only to start that planning process.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Any questions I've got? No too much.

[Unidentified committee member (male) — possibly a listed member]: I'm gonna throw a big monkey wrench in this, it's been thirty five years as a volunteer fireman, and one of the biggest problems we have out there with ambulance service, fire service, is dispatch. And I think we kind of went a little bit all the way when we set up the 911 system, but we didn't follow it all the way through with the actual dispatch centers, and it's getting harder and harder for people to find places that do reliable dispatch. I know several town's ideas use the state police, and I understand you guys, the first priority is state police calls and the others come afterwards, but thinking ahead, it would be great as we start planning these facilities, maybe not initially that they become dispatch centers for war and then state police, but in the planning stages, you're thinking about that because public safety is more than simply the state police, and if we could make sure the dispatch centers that you're planning for have room for expansion to address some of these other needs down the road, I would think would be good planning.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: I'd be happy to speak to that briefly. The work that you're contemplating is already being done by the Public Safety Communications Task Force, which was established in Act 78 in 2023. That task force is completing its work and did present their findings to Senate gov tomorrow. We'll be delivering their recommendations to senate and house gov ops. There will undoubtedly be conversations about exactly what you just spoke of. I I will say that if there were an appetite for the state I mean, as you know, we had warped saps and we collapsed to two many If years we were to unfold that box again, it would not be in Shaftesbury. It would likely be back in Rutland and Derby. I So don't think that Shaftsbury would be contemplated as a also a PSAPdispatch center, but that it does not mean that other like the Clarendon Station, that that shouldn't be a consideration as we examine that site and the design phase of that, which he's gonna talk about in a minute. But the reality is that we have to figure out what the future shape of public safety dispatching looks like. There are currently 37 entities providing dispatching services and several of them are out of state. They're in New York, they're in New Hampshire, they're not. So shrinking that number and finding an equitable way of people paying for that service and providing equitable service, whether you're the fire department or the state police, is all part of the work of the task force that we are hopeful will get some attention this semester. And that we will have a better sense of what the preferred future of public safety dispatching across the whole state is by the end of this session.

[Unidentified committee member (male) — possibly a listed member]: My only point was not to miss an opportunity.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: I hear you, sir, and we don't want to miss opportunities. We are acutely aware that in this dispatch space that the fire service and EMS services should can no longer be an afterthought. They have to be equal partners with the consideration of not just where we build dispatch centers, but how we provide service.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah, thank you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: A really good question and I didn't know that that report is coming out tomorrow, so that's helpful. Can you talk about why you need to move it from this location to another location?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Personally, this is leased space. So we've been leasing, I mean, living here for over forty years, as far as I know, we've leased that spot. In the days, it could go away, but it is still, Did you know, big on the you start? I mean, like three.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Yes. 40 When I was

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: three, I just looked down at the end of the road. I was just checking. I was checking. Been here forty years.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: And he remembers everything, which is really helpful. Do you It's also a joke. Did you you probably talked to the owner about buying it.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: We have not, if we're looking to buy the property then what do we do to a temporary setup for public safety?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: I also want to point out that there's a lot of problems with that site.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Okay, that's what I'm Right, right, so

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: it's backs up to a quarry and there's a persistent dust.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Is that the thing on that side? Yep. Is it looking like water to me?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: It's not a waterfront. Okay. Well,

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: would be flooding issues anyway. Alright.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: The other one. Problem. But it's not it's backed up to a quarry, and there's a persistent dust issue, which is having to be mitigated and can't be in some cases. And I know that Captain Manley might have other thoughts on that, but there are problems with Okay. The

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Thank you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Also, we're suspecting. Yeah, except maybe you don't have it yet, but I I think it's good for us to know the total amount. No idea. Did the last one

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: I get when I

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: What's the rate?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: So last year last year's not a good one because that was Williston. It was a larger facility. But when we go into Rutland, the Rutland facility we'll be looking at 17 to 18,000,000 total yes today's estimate

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: thank you

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: so this one would be in today's dollars roughly the same. Now both Rutland and Casper would not include land purchase. So because Rutland was purchased years ago. Up next, Lernerton Field Station, so there's the Rutland Public City because everybody knows it. We're moving down the road to an intersection of Route 7 and Route 103. This land was purchased back towards the end of design, started construction of Westminster. It's been on the books for a while. And the reason was that was the next facility that needed to be replaced. However, during that time frame of putting together an RFP for design, Williston really came to a head in the condition of the old Williston Public Safety Facility. We literally had windows that just fell out, the siding's board, the development building part of the structure has rushed through, so it has had a lot of issues going on for it, and that's why Williston moved to the forefront, and Clarendon sat in the back. Now Clarendon is off, we're moving forward with it. We, now have a contract under, for an architect. They've been working on it. We're 60% complete the schematic design phase. The, there's a locals, the sewer line is running through there to the, to your route line, so that's a bonus, we will have to do a drill well. When you look at the property in the bottom photo, you'll see there's a tree line running through and dividing that property. The power company has a right of way through there, and they're giving up, they have decided on their own to route power around our property along down along Route 7 And 103, so we don't have to worry about that anymore, so instead of having a bifurcated building, we now have the whole site to work with. So we're coming in off of 78 to access the property. And that'll be the, for the public side of things, as public, if you look at the, most of the facilities is the public and then public safeties and a fenced yard that sort of backside and this property will work out good for that also. What's those wick buildings that are in the area or whatever? Those are storage sheds. Okay. Is that far in the property? It is not. Okay. The yellow line is the property. Okay then. And a little bump out in there, but I'm not sure. It might be a well. K. Oh, no. I did look at it years ago. I just remember rocking my head down what that is. It's wooden. Yes. The top photo is the existing public safety facility, even though the point on it says transportation department, there on the top are and outside of the photo, but that is the building that public safety is housed in. On the left hand side, see a gray roof, the parking lot, that is our DMV building down there.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: And that'll stay? The DMV?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Yes, so we'll, public safety, I don't know at this point in time if we have a means to backfill it with a different agency or whatnot but that's still few years down the road. So we do have some funding on hand already we have enough to keep us going to complete the design and then work with a construction manager to help us out at the end of the phase, semantic design design phase, help verify the architect's work and true up an estimate, will be working with us to move forward on how best to lay this project out. We're not asking for any funds, in this FY '27, because this is only for design. We, obviously, in future years, will be back to the balance of it. Now the reason we're moving out of Rutland, we can't see it, but over the tree line a little bit beyond that to the right, this is a river and that has flooded at times and the building itself is at, is above the one hundred year flood elevation however the road that connects to Route 7 gets flooded. Okay. And they also went in there. Yes. So they don't have to, they had to go up, not so good back way, that also crosses that same river further downstream, so they could become landlocked if it was bad. Okay.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Well, and it's really old and nasty, the field station.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Oh, okay.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: I mean, it's not just about the they're flooding. Yeah. Pretty grim now.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: On top, right, because left their knees. So

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: How long has it been there?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: I don't recall. Before your time.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: More than forty years. Because you could have not

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: been, but

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: I don't know if we're going We could find that

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: for you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: So the next one will be fifty years.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: You'd like a fifty year building?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Yes. They're probably maintained. They hold up well. Been there for better than forty years, but I was down there. I lived down in that direction in 1986 and was there very strongly. Probably have been.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Okay. Sure.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Next up, we have a special teams facility and storage. That consists of, as Commissioner said, urban search and rescue, the hazardous material, rain oceans, and fire safety regional office for Williston, in Williston. This came out about originally when we constructed the Williston facility. We had to cut to save cost, we cut parts in the building, it still wasn't enough, so we cut out the overing division garage at the time. Right now they're squatting in the old facility, We did have language two years ago to sell the Williston property. The town of Williston had right of first refusal, they chose not to because we have not found a home for the Marine Division. They're squatting there right now and it has come to EGS' thought is can we repurpose this building and not sell it? It's a thought. Their developer is also looking to construct a road on, would be the south side of the existing building, there's a piece of property between us and a gas station. If they put a road in there, it connects back to the mall with a light to get you to the other side of the road. That facility, I think, becomes more valuable because you're not trying to, to take a left turnout at the facility is difficult. Here you'll have a light nap, move them off the backside of the property. So what we're looking to do is complete some programming and planning to understand total needs of public safety. And then also going forward, can it be met on the Williston site? Or do we have to look at other things? One being, do we look at putting the Marine division back on the new Williston site? So what does that entail, the cost and everything else? Or go out and find another location to house them all together. That's doable. Land value in that neck of the wood is woods is difficult, very expensive, so trying to find that, not sure. This photo that I have here was our attempt back in '24 where we evaluated constructing the ORB building to have everything. We didn't have the funds and with the speed to get it underway and going, it was built to suit. That came in very high. Property was found, it's in state sixteen and forty, and right off the exit, but the issue is that it came in on the lease rate close to 2,000,000 a year. And that doesn't come out of bonding money, that comes out of commissioner's general fund budget and whether that could be sustainable. It just did appear to me that, you know, that was the right way to go. We evaluated the building and said, okay, what if we cut off fire safety? What if we cut off, you know, hazardous materials and then urban search and rescue and with the marine division the value dropped a little bit but not enough to make it worthwhile to even do that so it may be that this process would be looking at the existing public safety land, these old public safety land. The presently USAR Hazmat is located on the Fort with the District 5. Can that building that they're in be renovated at a reasonable cost and considered equal to or better than building new? Could we build new on that site? So all these have got to come into play and that's what our next steps are going to be for this project.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: That's fairly complicated trying to figure that out.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Yes.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: So, is that plan on the Williston property that we tried to sell?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: No, this plan here was the one that we had on Build the Suit where we tried to put everybody into one massive building.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: So that's your ideal?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Yes, because they're able to drive through. Personally right now, if you like to use our hazmat or in the old, where the Marine Division is in the old public safety facility, you know, they're two or three vehicles deep. If you use our hazmat, some of their boats and equipment can diagonally park in between some columns and so you got to move the main bay out first just to get to those, just swing those out and they move everybody back. So it's a big chess game that you gotta play.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Do you have helicopter access?

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Well we don't have any helicopters. Right.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: The other thing with you, I mean, might be corny. Yeah. You, I guess not or they just land on the pavement they land

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: on the pavement yeah

[Unidentified committee member (male) — possibly a listed member]: so curious Joe we've said originally this was going to be part of the new Williston facility, but it was cut because of

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Only the state police

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: part.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: So you'll come back to us?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: With a request for something on how we're going to move forward.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: And so is the cash for this exploratory process?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Yes. All of the funds that we have now will be going forward towards that. And

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: does anybody have any questions? So, this will be, so next year will you have planned, I think?

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: I would like to say yes, but I'm not sure. It all depends, you know, in architectural engineering team on board, us as developing their programs and how that's going to fit the size of the building and then what.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: So I guess there's a question, just my district is probably as far away as you can get from where they are now in Hornitsky, although I think it's Colchester.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Which component? The hazmat. So, the hazmat and urban search and rescue have a large percentage of their specialty vehicles in fortieth and allen age. Yeah. There are agreements with fire departments around the state that have swift water rescue teams. So we have written agreements with multiple fire departments to house our assets there so that they can mount a quick response and then the cattle rates can come from Colchester.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Hazmat as well.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: And Hazmat as well. Okay. So there are rates all over the state for Hasmet and for USAR. It's not every single asset under one roof, but that's the vast majority of the assets under that roof.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Okay. That's good to know. Alright. That's all.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: And we'd really love for him to come back next year with a plan and a price tag.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Don't want to document it that I said yes.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: You said you would show up. That's fair. All right. And it's probably a good field trip too actually.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Sure.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: We'd love to show you. Yeah.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: Oh, I do have a question. So it's, I think I'll just look at the language. The language that we have is running to do BGS, or DPS, or an urban surgeon mapping facility. Is that sufficient language for you to use it for use are and these other things? Or does it need to have the entirety of the possible uses? I think if we were going to change anything, change it to special things. Department of Public there. I guess my question is, does it need to be exhorted? Is that sufficient? I'm not a lawyer. I mean, for me, I know what I'm presenting. If you're agreeing by, you know, passing the bill, All good with it.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: All right, but good question.

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: So we should create that up. Yeah, know there was something last year that had to be changed a little bit and kind of the job notation, but something ours is good because

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: we had. Yeah. Okay, good. All right, so does anybody online? I think they're online. They're in the back. They're busy. Here to people. They're getting

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: at pace. Rick's our money man in case we needed Rick. Mike's over the hazmat and urban search and rescue team and Captain Manley's been representing the state police on all the field station work around the state.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: And there's a lot going on. Yep. Okay. Well, you very much for being here.

[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: See you soon. Thanks guys. Thank

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: you Joe. Thanks so much. You're welcome. Thank you for seeing you. Appreciate your time. Earlier conversation. Got it. I think they'll anywhere but It's there. We you

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: have two more. Vermont Historical Society and the Port. If there's

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: any more I can do, let me know.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: In that year, Amy. Yeah. It's kinda

[Joseph “Joe” Major (Director of Design & Construction, Buildings & General Services)]: all you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Institutions)]: Well, let's, let's adjourn until 03:30, please.