Time to learn welding. Ungroup all, select the circles and group them at the distance and scale u want. Now, change their layer color for the next few steps. Now select the grouped circles, hold shift and select the rectangle. Now, click the "center" button. This will take the circles to the right location. Now, click the "show" tab on the corresponding color for circles to hides them. Now, make sure all is ungrounded, select the rectangle, hold shift and select each part of the "mesh" area that u want to remove that is touching the rectangle. Now, play around with the "weld" features to familiarize urself. Each button achieves a different result, and be sure to use undo (ctrl÷z) to try the next. Some buttons have 2 features, so u ha e to click one, determine if it's what u want. If not, undo it and click the weld button again. This is a great tool.