The Fall River Park Board held a regular meeting on January 5, 2022, at 5:15 p.m. The board accepted the minutes from the December 1, 2021 meeting and elected new officers: Commissioner De Silva as Chairman, Commissioner Fabius as Vice Chairman, and Commissioner Burns as Secretary. They addressed an Open Meeting Law complaint from Patrick Higgins, agreeing to provide more specific agenda item descriptions and voting to send a letter to the Corporation Council requesting more timely responses to board inquiries. Key discussions included cemetery operations, where the board approved new cemetery fees to be effective January 6, 2022, and adopted a recommendation from the Cemetery Director to pre-sell specific percentages of grave lots and niches at Oak Grove Cemetery. City Planner Bill Kenny presented a project to extend the rail trail by 500 feet, requesting and receiving the board's approval and a letter of support for Community Preservation Committee (CPC) funding. Mr. Kenny also announced his retirement and introduced Caitlin Young as his successor, assuring the board of their continued involvement in future trail projects. Two significant items involved local sports leagues. Jack Hackett of the City Softball League proposed rule changes, including the use of wooden bats and limited flight softballs, to address safety concerns and property damage. The board approved these changes for the upcoming season, with a commitment to re-evaluate after funding for protective netting is secured. Lastly, the Fall River National Baseball League presented a field renovation proposal, but the board deferred a decision, opting to refer the league's legal paperwork (regarding its 501c3 status and solicitation certificate, and the relationship with "Mill City Hitmen") to the Corporation Council for review, aiming for a resolution by the February meeting.
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i call this meeting of the four of a regular meeting of the park board of the commissioners for the city of far river to order at 5 15 p.m on january 5th 2022 at one government center council hearing room pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that
0:39such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible the rule call of commissioners okay caffeine solely burns joseph de silva commission nefarious is off uh is absent today and also commissioner rigo so we do have uh three commissioners here so we do have a quorum item two acceptance of uh minutes from december first 2021 minute
1:22meeting i make a motion to accept it commissioner burns made the motion to accept the minutes uh seconded by commissioner sylvia all in favor say aye aye citizen input do we have any citizen input or correspondence new business item a election of offices for chairman vice chairman and secretary a nomination for our chairman you know i may go to the silver second i accept roll call of commission is for the vote
2:06commission commissioner sylvia ghosted the film commissioner burns yes commission of the soldier yes three vote carries hey vice chairman uh do i have a nomination for vice chairman nominated uh commissioner fabius second commissioner fari so talked to me earlier he did say he would accept so real call of commissioners commissioner sylvia yes commissioner burns yes commissioner mr yeshua and commissioner regal are
2:51absent so three uh oh vote uh nominations for secretary i nominate commissioner burns second i accept roll call of commission is commissioner sylvia yes commissioner da silva yes commissioner burns yes hey three will vote congratulations everybody item b response to the open meet and law complaint from patrick higgins dated on 11 3 2021 not responding to the not listed enough spec specifics on posted agenda items
3:41aid in the 11 3 11 30 2021 complaint regarding not responding to the 11 3 2021 complaint within the designated time period
3:59so i know that miss uh perry spoke to the corporation council and they have addressed this um i can't speak to the specifics of it but i do know that uh mr perry and i did have a conversation we'll be putting as much information as we can without overload um i think the question was like when we put a tree we need to put the trees lifting the sidewalk causing
4:24a public safety concern for like a tree removal so it's just a matter of putting a little bit more information and we have agreed to do that so um i guess mr perry if we need to address it any further i know the ag's office and the corporation council they do have correspondence and they do reply to the complaint so i'm assuming that mr higgins doesn't receive something we will be notified
4:51but my understanding is that has all been in the works and the board should um just put it as taken care of place on file make a motion to accept and place on file commissioner burns made that motion commissioner have a second uh i just have one question i would like to uh can we send a letter to corporation council from the board every time we send something up there whether it's an over meeting or
5:24complaint or we're we're looking for legal advice it really takes forever and i don't understand if there's an issue we should be notified that they have an issue they know they're short-handed or whatever the case may be so we're not coming from meeting to meet in every month wondering what's going on now we we voted i believe a month a meeting or two ago to send these up to corporation council and i was coming
5:54back to us you know and we don't get anything we don't hear a word from corporation council i think you know they need to let us know what's going on in a more timely fashion and our second commissioner burns is both the roll call vote uh took place on on file is uh commissioner burns yes commissioner yes mr silvias so we're going to send a letter to the corporation council asking for written responses to be followed
6:26yes thank you thank you item c cemetery issues
6:42cemetery fees approved by the city council set an effective date so my recommendation is to set an effective date is tomorrow all the funeral homes that we work with have been notified um after the firs after it was passed through first reading it was published in the herald news as a legal notice so all the funeral homes are ready and aware that the pricing changes are taking effect
7:09and we haven't had any any issues with questions or concerns about the price changes mission is we all heard about this before when we went up to the council and everything was approved anybody have any questions i'll make american that uh history passed i second approve the date as tomorrow yes hey commissioner made that motion to pass and uh approve a cemetery fees effective tomorrow january 6 2022
7:48and commissioner burns seconded all in favor say hi hi item 2 suggestion from the cemetery director number of lots to pre-sell at oak grove cemetery so you should have in your packet um a chart that has the different grave options something like this might have some lines on your copy yeah that one right there um so it breaks down the grave count for each grave type so 192 single graves
8:29280 traditional doubles and so forth and then that second part down below there provides a percentage that i feel we should pre-sell and then what that number translates to rounded either up or down to the nearest whole number and then what that revenue would equate to based off of the sale price so we're looking at uh 40 of the double grave 50 of the cremations and 100 percent of the niches of her pre-sale
9:02the reasoning behind this is single graves will hold off on pre-selling because we just go in the number sequence we just continue down the line when we do single grade burials the the two grave lots are our most popular so we want to make sure that we have enough moving forward to serve at need uses cremation lots are pretty easy for us and there's plenty of room for us to add more cremation lots so we can
9:32sell a little bit higher percentage there and then the niches as well those are pretty easy for us to uh order and install um we don't have the niches installed so we would wait until they're actually installed to pre-sell we're still dealing with uh supply chain issues acquiring shipping containers to get those shipped to our location so that's the recommendation i'm putting forth to you all for consideration
10:02i had one question on the niches i know uh we were talking uh the first two that are gonna go in yep in the spring time i believe the the original goal was spring we got to notice that there's shipping issues and they were thinking october but i actually got a phone call just before walking in that there's another delay um they're thinking maybe first quarter of 2023 so we have to look at our options on
10:31that front i'd like to speak to mr perry further on that and come back to you with an update as we get more information but it was a quick conversation i had with the contractor uh this evening before coming my only thing is i know we had talked about the performing arts the veterans the law enforcement and everything yes my suggestion would be the first two that go in one veteran and one for law
10:54enforcement and firefighters they'd be the first two to go in well so the uh the obelisks are what's being engraved with all of those and uh all six are arriving in the spring okay so the niches are are separate from the obelisks um so all six oblasts will be installed uh we're thinking april or may just depending on whether um and then we should have final engraving productions available
11:20probably the next meeting for your approval all right those issues are not gonna change this in any way right uh not necessarily we just hold off on selling uh the niche units down at the new expansion um we already have we do have a significant number of niches available that we are selling already so it's not going to cause anything another ones that are located up above the office right yes make a motion that we
11:52accept this recommendation to accept the pre-sale of uh the percentage of uh the lots uh pre-selling lots commissioner burns second it all in favor say hi hi hi and i don't know if part of that did you get the um the spreadsheet for the payment plan that we had discussed in a previous meeting no no no okay we'll hold off on that
12:31item three report from the arborist from the tree removal at 248 frost street that is lifting sidewalks and posting a safety concern so uh there's no sidewalks at this location the concern was that the tree was uprooting and swaying during the in windstorms um so we had the arborist go out and take a look on uh i believe it was monday the 13th and she followed up the next day with the report
13:02that the tree is the same risk as it was in 2018 which was listed as moderate which is pretty much every tree in the city it does have weak attachments and leaning due to utility pruning which again is not in common in an urban setting the union of the stems should be monitored after significant storms or the tree could be considered for removal um i think with this report that we should just continue to monitor the
13:29union it hasn't changed its risk rating since 2018 and has withstood some pretty significant storms this year so if we just keep monitoring it making sure that it's not getting any worse it should continue to thrive in its current location it's not showing any signs of uprooting um from what the arborist looked at i had one question is this the same one that we just talked about last meeting yes the one that was
13:59supposed to have a video and everything yeah okay so your recommendation and the obvious recommendations leave this tree up yeah any commissioners have any questions or concerns how far i don't know if you can tell me how far um do you think it is the tree from the house roughly if you know i mean it doesn't look like it looks like it's a fair distance maybe obviously it's a big tree if it's not going down
14:34you're 40 feet if that right if it fell on the house for sure yeah i mean it's a big tree if it something happens it's gonna go across the road or whatever and the power lines are running right through it so it's taking out the power and everything i don't know how did you guys feel well i just how did it get on the agenda for tree removal if the
15:02is this because you were saying it was on the last agenda it was on the last jedi and so we had uh mr piranha we have voted to have mr pirano had the arborist go out and uh assess the tree because it was last assessed in 2018. i mean i'm no tree expert so whatever even the arborist feel fit i think we should go with yeah so the request came in that the
15:25tree was swaying in the wind and uprooting so at the last meeting we voted that if the arborist said it was an emergency we'd take it down right away if not we'd review the report the report is saying it doesn't mention anything about uprooting it does have a slight lean but that's because of the utility pruning and the risk rating hasn't changed since it was initially assessed in 2018 so okay
15:51so the emotion i make a motion that we leave it and monitor it for the arborist instruction mission burst made that motion second by commissioner sylvia all in favor say aye aye all right thank you thank you mr morano i'm great all right item d bill kenny city planner to address the board our extension of the rail trail from behind le page's seafood restaurant to the westport line and then mr kenny will also be
16:28requesting a letter of support from the board to request cpc funds for the trail extension project thank you mr chairman folks nice to be back here again i have a project that's been in the works for quite a long time if you're familiar with the rail trail and you're heading along the south watupa pod behind the pages you'll get to a point where it just stops and it it's got another 500 feet or so
17:03to go to get to the westport line and when the trail was originally built the intention as i am told was to go all the way to the westport line but the funding wasn't there so they did what they could that's what happens with a lot of these trails they build pieces of it as as they can so we have uh the benefit of an award from the community preservation committee uh back in 2019 they funded
17:35the cost of having the engineering firm of vhb prepare construction documents and obtain permits so that we could go out to bid for the actual construction of that last 500 feet those construction documents will be ready probably uh early spring and the uh estimated cost of actually finishing that stretch is approximately uh 200 and where's my figure here 250 000 plus some on-site inspection and supervision
18:15during construction we've applied for the funding to pay for the construction from cpc and that they've determined that the project would be eligible for cpc funding and in january or probably early february they'll have their actual final hearing on deciding whether or not to award us the the funds to make that happen and as part of that process they want a letter of support from whatever board or commission might
18:51have jurisdiction over this and my understanding is that the park board is now the the jurisdiction for uh the rail trail and the existing rail trail and i assume any extensions to the rail trail would be part of that as well so you're the guys that i that i need to talk to um and we simply uh would ask for a letter that we can submit to cpc uh basically outlining that this will fall into your
19:19jurisdiction and that you support the uh the project so that's why i'm here and i hope you'll look favorably upon that request i just had a question i know uh this was uh brought up in a public hearing and that and i had a commission of sylvia or attend that meeting when you had it here to go over um what the proposal and everything was so i don't know if commissioner sylvia
19:45wants to speak up a little bit on this um i did attend that meeting and it was there was a presentation on what would be consistent and it was quite impressive the only question i would have and i think someone mentioned it that night i'm not sure mr kenny can maybe refresh my memory but as it is as far as fall river it's going to end at the line with a turnaround sidewalk or walkway
20:23um and i believe the question came up about contacting the town of westport see if they have have any plans to extend our mail trail in their town with you know along the water and and i don't know if mr kenny is contacting anybody there or any of those plans have been discussed but that did come up at that meeting yep that's a good question um the uh again these these trails tend to
20:53get built when you can do when you can do it and we have the opportunity to do this extension now westport uh the the folks that are in favor of bike paths and so forth there uh have uh they're sort of on again off again uh it depends on the level of support at any given time currently in sarah labassier who who's the mass in motion person here in city hall speaks with them periodically and they
21:22actually asked for a meeting with with us to talk about what we were up to on our side of the the town line and we told them you know we're working on this extension why don't we wait till that's a go and then we'll talk with you folks they were very excited about that because uh that would be an inducement to the westport uh community to say okay now we've got the fall river connection let's start
21:48getting serious about planning what we're going to do on our side of the line and and i think it's it's uh this will help move that along if we can if we construct this addition and eventually uh there's going to be a bike path from that town line deeper into westport these things take time and you have to develop the local support for it the support in westport's definitely on the upswing
22:15i'm glad to hear that because uh you know to have it just end there it's not a bad thing but it would be better if we if westport uh you know you can get some money and get some support and yeah i think this will yeah this will help them get support they could say look fall rivers come up to the line now it's up to us to start building from there the other thing is that
22:37this is helpful because that last section is another privacy feature for people who want to use the trail for biking or for walking or what for whatever else you don't want them to have to be on martine street at all okay and this is an additional section that's going to be protected from the traffic so it's uh it's good for for public safety the motion to support and to approve this make a motion that we uh
23:10i think we're going to have to do two more minutes to pop motion um yeah all right we'll do the first part of the motion so uh to approve uh the extension from the rail trail from uh behind lepages to seafood to the westport line i'll make a motion that we approve the proposal second second commissioner sylvia made a motion and commissioner burns sucking it all in favor say aye aye
23:39and now we need a motion and make a motion to uh give a letter to them from the board to cpc in support of the project second commissioner sylvia made the motion seconded by commissioner burns all in favor say aye aye the other thing mr uh kenny i know you're going to be leaving at the end of the month correct i am sad to say this this this may be my last appearance
24:11before the park board i don't know but uh i i have to tell you i woke up on december 29th to another birthday and uh the day before i was only 70 years old and on december 29th i woke up when i was 71 years old and i said wait a minute this is this is not a good trend heading in the in the wrong direction i've only got about another 30 years
24:32left to go so i i thought in those 30 years i should maybe have you know do some of the things that i've put off doing but i love working for the city it's the most exciting job i've ever had it's great working with boards like the park board trying to advance the public agenda make the city a better place and i appreciate the cooperation that you've given to the planning board i have to tell you
24:54my assistant caitlin young who will take over and i hope someday will become the planner herself uh is very talented very energetic devoted to the city and i know you'll be seeing her here from time to time so uh that'll be a nice connection to have so thank you thank you for your good wishes thank you for your support on this project and i hope to see you at the ribbon cutting well i think if you
25:16could just pass along to her i know that's why i had commissioned uh sylvia attend that meeting a few months back we made a motion here at the park since when the quicker shan river trill dropped into our labs yeah yeah now we made a motion that any future linear parks trails on mount hope trail that they're talking about everything that one of us be uh on that committee good idea good idea
25:42have the inside knowledge of what's going on yeah i'm glad you reminded me that because just this afternoon we talked with a consultant who's working on that mount hope bay trail to move that to the next level of planning and so we're going to probably sign a contract on that in the next month or so and i know there'll be a sort of an advisory committee or public outreach of some kind and i will make
26:06certain that the park board is involved as you should be thanks folks okay item e jack hackett scholarship city softball asked to address the board regarding rules changes to address present safety concerns and adjacent property damage
26:34okay i'm just gonna make one statement is jack please stay on topic prior meetings it's gone way over right we want to keep this right to the point first of all uh good evening and the next thing i would ask is when the park board members speak if they can speak into their microphone because my wife and i are a little hot on the hearing part i did mail a letter into the park department
27:00uh i hope you all have a copy of it do you yes okay and what do you feel about that this was going to the wooden bats in 2022.
27:19use a limited flight softball and as you can see here if they're first of all i ran a tournament this season we had 23 teams with wooden bats and we only had three balls that left the field so there is a big difference in using a wooden bat and a metal bat on hitting in the flight of the softball and of course you see we would make sure that if there was any property damage that
27:54the team employer involved would get an incident report from the league insurance carrier as i stated all teams are insured for property damage and liability to the usa state softball commissioner and i also would make sure that i stay in contact with the homeowner that had the damage and i have to make sure that my umpires report the incident to me last season twice they did not and i had no idea that
28:34there was property damage also we would limit the caliber of the teams we would just bring in c teams the smaller teams where the bigger teams of course have the big guys who hit the home run and of course i told you that we did have someone down to look at the netting and it would cost 22 000 and there's no way we can raise that i did incorporate that in our cpa application
29:07my wife and i did drop off the 10 books that contains all the information about the league and the improvements and so forth in early november at the government center i have been in contact with sandy dennis the cpa meeting will be sometimes in february and my wife and i will appear in front of the 10 person panel and hope that we can get the 400 000 and that possibly we could incorporate the netting into that
29:38i do understand that if anything was to happen that the money probably wouldn't be available till next august if i don't know we didn't get any help from the park department uh considering uh maybe helping us with the polls and erecting them we did purchase the netting for sixteen hundred dollars if we do have the netting it would be with the eight foot fence it would be uh 48 feet high
30:09and 70 feet wide that would cover the right field area so uh we are just requesting that in order to keep the adult softball league going which this would be our 59th season if the blackboard would be compassionate and let us continue the league using the wooden bats as i said all teams will have property insurance and liability insurance and each season the state commissioner does submit an insurance form
30:48to nancy at the park department and as i did state we did have insurance this year but i didn't know about two of the situations one of the situations the window in the frame was broken the bill was 179 i paid it myself and i went to the insurance company and they did re-embarrass me so our teams are covered what would happen here switching to the wooden bats we would possibly lose a lot of teams
31:22and we are the biggest softball area in four river tiverton somerset they have a league but they have about six or seven teams i'm bringing in 33 teams of recreation adult recreation at the park i've had women teams co-ed teams senior teams and across the young men so we're hoping that the park board would reconsider so our lead could continue in its 59th season it's important that i know because i
31:57have to get the applications out to the teams to see who we're going to have back and if we're going to lose any so that's all i have to say i have a few questions but does any other commissioners have any questions for us sylvia well when i read this letter i was happy about the the changes as far as the aluminum bats and versus the wood bats from my experience with baseball obviously
32:36you don't have to be a good hitter when you're using metal the ball travels off the metal so um in my opinion and from my experience i would believe that there would be a big difference in how the ball comes off the bat um and i understand it may affect some teams who may not want to play with the wooden bat but also you know it's the city park in the middle of a residential neighborhood
33:11and trying to keep the peace between neighbors and mr hackett and his league and it's great that it's been there for a very long time um so i would be in favor of those rule changes and see how it works out this year and if the incidences are number of incidents and lowered and it may be a solution i would also i'm just upset about the point about the polls
33:48we we asked this over at many meetings and mr pepe's not here so i can't ask him directly but i believed that mr perry mentioned and i could be wrong correct me if i am because i don't want to put any words in anybody's mouth that dpw was gonna well i'm saying dbw uh community maintenance was gonna look in with whoever national grid or whoever to see if we could get some polls to put
34:20that net up and they were going to assist if i'm wrong correct me after doing more deliberation i don't remember that either yeah after doing more uh talking with mr perry in the mayor and everything um because i got a phone call i think this gentleman that can't place your name i'm sorry dave it's from the league uh he called me and told me the next day after that meeting about these proposals and that and
34:50i approached the you know the higher ups and everything to see what we could do in that and like they said we're trying to help out non-profit leaks this is a profit league the city's not going to bail out not a profit lead he he's making hold on he's making money and everything on this league so this gentleman also told me over the years they've donated to easter sales and everything i hold on
35:22you had your time let us talk it's great to donate the charity and everything but what you're running the league you need to also take care of the plot the league itself your plate you're using the field and everything you don't pay fees in that for that league for that field the use of the fail and everything so invest in your league more it's nice to do charity and everything
35:45like that but if you're making that kind of money you should be incorporating it more into the league and then you would i don't want to hurt you and hurt all these guys from playing that because i also hear from your players that that's not fair and everything like that they don't want to leave and everything but we have to look at both sides we have to look at the property damage and
36:06everything and also so and he also said that he also has the net already purchased at his house at his garage net so you already have the net so i have no problem putting these rules this year for this year to see how it goes but eventually if you can get that cpa funding and everything get that net up and go back to your rules that you had and everybody aspires into this league
36:30okay may i say something first of all there is no profit made at this league last season as i said john perry asked me to give him an account of where all the money went and i showed him that we pay the balls the umpires the field work the deported john we paid the electricity and i submitted the pamphlet to him and he looked it over and i said john if you
37:01have any questions i would be glad to come in and sit down with you what we do is we collect a fee each year i believe it was close to sixteen hundred dollars for the night league and all that money the managers get a flyer showing where all the money is gone there is no money made here the umpires make the money my wife and i we work the field every day for just twenty dollars
37:26ten dollars a piece there is no profit made and over the years i've always heard jax making a lot of money that is not true and i will tell you every year if we buy a screw or boats we keep the receipts because i know this always comes up the money that they pay the teams they know where it's going they get a flyer and all the money goes there there is no
37:52money made here over the years i ran raffles in the snap we put up three scoreboards one was fourteen thousand the other was eight and one was eight we bring instead of putting up a fourteen thousand dollar scoreboard keep score on a piece of paper and put up with twenty thousand dollar net this is what i'm saying this is the problem this is where this comes to be the issue
38:15my suggestion to you to avoid all this jack hackett is making a profit years ago we said become a 501c3 that would avoid any of this conversation about you making a profit or you whatever and it would it would avoid all of that okay that would be my suggestion to you to to just put the whole thing to bed because then you have to report all your earnings to the irs to wherever and all of you
38:43your your your organization is an open book that would quell all of these situations that you're talking about yes and i feel like we commissioned hold on i will look into that hold on commissioner burns and everyone can think i'm rude for saying this but we cannot keep having the same conversations over and over i've been on this board for over a year and the amount of times i've heard this same conversation
39:06is i'm sorry it's absolutely it's ridiculous at this point i'm i'm honestly over it like i understand like we know what the end game is we know what we want you wrote this letter up we agree with it we're going to make a motion on it although everything else is it's got to stop because the amount of times we've had the same conversation and everyone wants to raise their hand and say this
39:25it's getting to be too much and i apologize if people think that i'm being rude but it's at the point where some people are just never going to agree on certain things we just need to agree to disagree and move forward like we know what we want we want this league to succeed we want everybody that lives in the neighborhood to be happy you came up with an idea this is what we're gonna do
39:42going forward you're gonna try and get the funds to be able to fix the light poles put the net up if that doesn't happen then we'll readdress whenever that time comes but other than that this needs to be put to bed i agree what you're saying i disagree with the comment comes out and i am making money that is the defamation of my character and my integrity i understand that jack but
40:04do you know how many stories i hear about me every single day sometimes it's not worth it's not worth the energy
40:22three days tournament only two balls barely made it over the fence that was with regular flight balls not with limited flight calls limited flight cars you're looking to get one and one go out it could happen but more than likely it's not gonna hit the houses that's all i can say all right i make a motion to accept all of the changes that jack is willing to make and then we will readjust uh
40:46re-address the situation once we hear back about the funding give us a second okay can i ask one other thing now do i go ahead and submit a permit for the field to you with the understanding it would be a wooden bat league and then you would let me know what's what yes and like i said i will give back to you and let you know how we make out of the cpa
41:10i'm very optimistic that we will do okay we did a great job in our application all right and uh i thank you for uh reconsidering and giving us a chance and we want to work with the blackboard and we want to work with the neighbors and once again thank you for doing this thank you can we just address the fact that the the teams are not supposed to have the insurance the league is to have the
41:34insurance because i want to make sure it's not impossible for the fact that these things should happen so as we said jack you should take the insurance that we get is you need to be they need to give the bill to you and you take care of it not the teams because what happens is if it goes to the team it falls through the crack you are the team the league
41:57administrator it needs to go through you right i understand that i would handle it to the insurance company i'd have to get the team and the player's name of course that would be on your end but as far as the homeowner the homeowner is to deal with you and not the team not the coach not the referee not the umpire the person is to deal with you you are the person coming forward to this board
42:21you are the representative of this league so please let's try to put that issue to bed as well at this time and we can move forward with that and and please know that we'll do this but you need to still keep track of that that is what i do that was broken i did handle it with the insurance exactly so all right i'm can i ask a question about the netting
42:44since we purchased the netting i always hear all these meanings mississippi is 100 correct the gentleman that is in here was going to get in touch with i want to show his national river he was getting in touch with someone about getting these poles erected i was here at the meeting he brought it up maybe you guys can remember that's a crucial thing to get this net up there to make it even
43:05safer that the ball's not going but i think even if your net goes up and your wood league is working i don't know that you want to go backwards and try to go back to those aluminum balls you know no the question i'm asking here isn't about no but i'm just saying even if it is go up that i was here i was constantly silvia brought it up you guys were here i was
43:24sitting right here and you guys can't recall the gentleman that was mr perry that's correct indicated he was going to get the polls and get this thing directed continuously i i was going to say there's no way that he said that he was going to do that he probably said he would look into it he would there's no way that he said we're going to get these closer i promise you there's no way that he's i
43:45know i i asked him if his guys when he said about the metal poles if his guys would be able to do it and they said he had specifically said that it was way out of their realm that's what he had said if anything it would be taking down like the wooden poles that are like rotted out yeah and that was a conversation that had happened early but i don't remember exactly what it is but all
44:05right that's also not on the agenda gonna all right hold on time out time out guys time out commissioner burns had already started emotions so i shouldn't even let you guys speak once she made an emotion nobody's supposed to speak i was waiting on the second so commissioner burns made the motion do i have a second second second uh commissioner burns made the motion seconded by commissioner silvia all in
44:28favor say aye aye aye okay all set thank you thank you so just so i'm clear the motion is to accept the new rules give these new rules an opportunity to correct the crowd and then we will react to continue to look into the netting we're not dropping the netting and continue to look at okay thank you you're welcome thank you thank you all right item f review information submitted by four of
45:01the national baseball league regarding field renovation proposal for three three fields on brogan boulevard and lafayette parkfield on eastern avenue i have a question before we have you start i know that there was an issue with the permits or with the names and who was all of that has that been figured out i don't know that it's all finalized i do have a an application that's dated september
45:32our lawyer is in the process of it he has gotten from the irs a new ein number as well as from the state we're waiting on the 501c3 for that to go through it's when he had contacted the people who issued them they said it could be upwards of a year by the time they get it to go through um you don't advertise anything as little leak it was waiting
45:58for the paperwork to come in which we've now received and now we can get you have the paperwork that he's talking about in your agenda so that's the llc i believe it's an application for corporation yes baseball thank you right applications for a corporation it said it has signatures i didn't see it i don't know if i received the whole thing the email and an application um and an ein number those are the two
46:23documents that you submitted with all your attorneys correct it was an ein number and a llc it looks like an llc i'm not again i'm not an attorney but this looks like an application with a fee of 35 page so you would still need and you can let your attorney know this your 501 c 3 as well as your certificate of solicitation correct because we're still waiting for the so there's two pieces of
46:55paperwork that they're still waiting on okay so my question is is this even something that we can approve if they don't even have the proper paperwork in place i know that's like above my pay grade but like that's not my decision that's the decisions the board's board makes the problem is if you don't approve it and they've put that money into it i i don't know yeah that's well i don't want
47:20to get like an open meeting complaint because we're giving approval for something that's not you know what i mean i don't know if that's a well i think that like i'm not this paperwork i've never received this this looks like your application to the um commonwealth and that's the secretary of commerce to change your name from national little league to national baseball correct okay my understanding is
47:48this is one thing and then the certificate of solicitation and the 501c3 is something else that's correct correct so i would say two they have two of the four pieces here now i don't know how long that something maybe yours because i mean this was submitted in august so i i don't know i've never put in for a corporation i don't know how long solicitation is actually was part of that
48:18through august once that was approved because i don't have and like i have that i'm not sure what does it come together yeah it comes as part of it that's i and then what about the 501c3 i think there's all three different applications that has to be done through the irs and there like i said they gave us about a year turn around but i mean even as you mentioned you don't have to
48:38be have a 501c3 to be able to work on the field because like even like the men the softball like they yeah yeah no no i understand that it was more of just one i just want to make sure all of our ducks in a row and that not that we don't have to end up coming back here for another thing yeah but go ahead sorry you can oh i'm sorry
48:56i will double check on that i believe that was one of the things that was sent was that as signing off on it they were signing off on the solicitation as well i just have to um that was actually been trying to get a hold usually they give you a letter that says you are a five you have been approved as a 501 cp matter of fact i have your last one in this proposal i believe
49:18um so that the board could see it every piece of paper that you have ever sent this board has received so um i believe it may have even been in the december yes and that was if i'm not if i'm as your solicitation expires and first of all the solicitation is not valid because it was under little league but it didn't even expire in february right and then i believe this paperwork
49:43that had already extended it through into next year i don't have that so okay you'll have that that needs to come to me my paperwork that i have the last date says i think 222 2 of 22 february of 22.
50:00so that you know like i said that's the um certificate of solicitation which allows you to fundraise and i will i can email the person i have um in the past and hopefully i can get that for you and like i said i'm not an attorney so i don't know what these things so maybe if they're going to have an attorney the board should have them submit the paperwork to us to submit to our corporation
50:26council to review it because i certainly don't want to be responsible for saying this is what this is because it's not just the normal form this is all kinds of applications and if they're going to be pending then that's something i think the city lawyer has to be comfortable with and they're good because i'm not like i said the paperwork that i've dealt with is this is such-and-such committee they're a 501c3
50:53this is the certificate of solicitation expires on 2 of 2022 check so that's the kind of paperwork that i can approve anything like you're submitting here through your attorney i think maybe we need to send it to our corporation council because i don't know what it covers does it cover the 501c3 does it cover the or is it just an llc they said it covered the solicitation so if there's a different right so oh right
51:19because it's the same filing fee is basically what they're saying is that this is the same thing as the solicitation certificate that it was paid to have to have it so i'll yeah if you can clarify because i can't make that i know i don't know the diff you know i'm not going to say that i can interpret this state paperwork normally it's just a form letter that says fall over national 501c3 foreign
51:44national certificate of solicitation that's what i can go check check check i have the information so what they're submitting i um i can't tell you what it involves and i'll email the person tomorrow who i've talked with to see if you know if it's just a matter if they sent something different yeah my look my question is too is i know we spoke about this the last time you were here in july
52:04it's for the national baseball uh and then middle city hitman is for uh the hitman going to be covered under the same liability as far of a national yes we have insurances for separate yes separate insurances so these are going to right and i think we talked about in july to have them as two separate subs uh yes they have in their the city is um on there as well so do you need two
52:28separate this is again if there's two separate do i need one thing that says fall over hitman and one thing i mean not middle city it's under the umbrella it's basically basically is it's it's all run okay i'll rephrase it's all run under the same umbrella of the league and then that's why we need to find that out from corporation hustle because there's no separate right because on
52:50these documents that you're sending us it doesn't say anywhere like even the insurance policy so that's not something that i would know it's the hitmen included under the the um policy of the fault of the national that's something that i would think that if they're going like on this llc it doesn't say anything about the other organization it just says fall over baseball and when you do fall river
53:15mill city hitman did you do you do like i don't know fall river baseball dba middle city hitman i don't know it's all under the same umbrella we just get different insurance because we have okay because last year i had one insurance that just said fall river national little league i didn't have anything that insurance that said i think afterwards we have to get one you i have yes i can get one yes
53:37we have insurances for both but everything falls under the fall of our national baseball i know previously um what i submitted is what are sent in as well was a proposal going back over a year we were trying to get work done on the three fields at dumont as well as lafayette um we had volunteers work on one of the fields of dumont we were basically up to the point where we were getting
54:10back and forth corporation council getting the final paperwork set up when um the construction company that we were using um immaculate teams who have disappeared the last thing we talked about was he was um had an issue with the film with a sick family member and was leaving the country for a little bit and then we've never been able to contact him and i know there are other people that are
54:35in the same boat i think the company may have disintegrated or however you want to phrase that but i mean unfortunately some people wore out money we had not given them anything but i know we got basically we were waiting for like the last set of paperwork that they were from the lawyer because it was like i think one thing that needed to be changed and we were never able to
54:55contact him or hear him from him at all um so we got a new quote from a different company which is um what is included um the original proposal um chrome rodrigo construction um the certificate of liability insurance and then the um estimate for the three fields oh sorry the three of jumaa and lafayette um our main focus is being able to get the middle field done which is labeled as field 2 and lafayette those were
55:33the fields that are going to be getting the most use there's some touch up on the the third field as you face it that we're going to be doing as well um this is the breakdown he gave us of what needed to be done um is that we're not looking to like i said i know in the past they had mentioned doing a phased approach i believe you would mention that and that's what we're
55:57looking to do for the spring we actually have um heard from some people who might be willing to uh contribute as well and i know there was an issue in the past where it was almost ten thousand dollars for it and so i mean the two fields that we're looking for field two in lafayette that's i believe like roughly 8 800 but we also have been gotten um some people willing to help donate for
56:24that as well and then the other fields we can do separately once those are completed not donate money donate time or work is that worse um we've had some companies offer say that if we needed to have work done because the the rule is regardless of who's paying it can't exceed ten thousand dollars oh well yes i know i'm just saying i'm like that's yeah so i don't want them to if you if
56:47you're at 8 800 then they're not going to be able to put in more than the 1200 this is what i'm saying oh no what i'm saying is just those two fields what we're focused on now is just a quote for all of them okay uh field three is that the newest field yes and so field one would be the souza's field yes the one on the left as you face correct
57:10nowhere on here does it indicate only on these proposals which field is which um it sits off the third line down on the right hand column it says field one field two
57:30the other thing too is i know we talked about this last year and i know you guys are trying to be good and everything we're all listening my thing is too is we have a lot of other leagues and everything that need more areas to play in that and they're all framing in that i don't want you improving four fields that if you're not gonna utilize four fields and i know last year we've seen
57:55your offices you only had 10 players on each team i'm not going to designate a team of a whole field to themself for the whole season when you can utilize one field for three teams i mean when i have other teams that are trying to skip and squeezing games at other parks and that when i can utilize that feel for them sorry i mean there are other teams that practice at the fields as well i mean
58:20lafayette is for a different age group so we would be able to have the hitman home games there which we have to travel and we're also going to have a 13 to 15 league so that would be on that field um as a i'll say a backup plan we did put in the fields at on field three it has two different depths i'll say for bases so we could do different ages that's why at the moment
58:47the the field one is not a high priority um which is the de souza um just because we can do without it at the moment um one of the issues we ran into last year is the we were supposed to get an even number of home games and away games and we did not so that was part of the problem we would have had about the way it should work this year is i
59:17believe we should have probably about in at down at dumont 30 about 36 roughly games there between the different age groups so there may be times when it may be two different ages playing on the same deck and the other thing too is i wanted to mention is even believe me i want all these leagues to build back up and get these kids off internet and everything and i don't i think we're in
59:46a totally different time now that most kids don't even play sports as much anymore but one of these fields i know when i was down there looking and a lot of the neighbors they complain when there's no places to park people are parking in their driveways maybe there's a suggestion that field one comes down and we make a parking lot there for that league for that park so you guys have plenty of
1:00:08parking down there because it's not right for the neighborhood either just like we just talked about the softball team we gotta walk we gotta look out for everybody i mean there is one person that has had issues in the past um there's usually plenty of places to park um even when multiple teams are playing or multiple fields are in use um that there's one person that tends to have an issue and that's just because of
1:00:40how people are parking so i mean you can have one random person parking out there to you know just go play catch and they could you know run over the person's lawn we can't control that but it's there's definitely all a large area to park up the street both sides and the side street so that's not something that has been an issue now i've spoke to a few people there
1:01:04well it's never been rob except for that one person yeah all right what do we want to do anybody else have a question commissioner sylvia i just once again i'll make the unpopular comment i'm not comfortable with some of this paperwork that only says florida national baseball when you say that it's under one umbrella but it's two entities um i think it may be a legal issue i don't know and again i'm not a lawyer
1:01:40obviously there's a lawyer's name on here well i i would like to refer this in that question the corporation council especially when it comes to raising funds are you raising funds for for national baseball are you raising funds for hitmen and are you going to have uh the state solicitation paperwork for both entities or not is it legal to have it under one umbrella i don't know i'm not a lawyer
1:02:14um obviously there's a lawyer's name on here he didn't answer those questions though um to be honest with you i wish he was here we could ask him um i i stopped this part of it the state and federal paperwork i think should be referred to corporation council with those questions that i just raised because again to follow through with my colleague um i don't want to do something tonight and
1:02:49then next month we're back here and we asking this all over again because you know i'm not the most popular guy when it comes to youth baseball lately so um i don't want to come back and rehash all this um if there's some kind of legal ramifications that could come out of this because it's and i'm caught with mr whining not my words it's two separate entities under one umbrella i would like a clarification on that
1:03:23before i vote on this part of it the field work i have no problem with right but i don't want them to do the fear my my i understand what you're saying is you know i agree you don't give him a permit because then that's not going to sit very well yeah right with me if corporation council responds in a timely fashion they could get there this could all be cleared up by our next
1:03:50meeting my suggestion would be that mr vining by the end of the week or whatever provide me with the information that you said you might have or have your attorney send me the information that i can forward to our corporation council and let the corporation council determine whether this is able to go forward i don't want to be the one to say it's good or bad and then it's not correct because i don't have
1:04:17that knowledge i'll be happy to i'm trying to look out for everybody here no i don't want them to spend money this kind of money that's listed on here if there's going to be issues i agree what is it i'm sorry no this is not i think that it needs to be decided by the february meeting because construction is not going to stop prior to february i was going to say that so i
1:04:37think that this needs to be forwarded to them and they need to get back to us so that this board can address this concern at the february meeting because by by march or you may be able to do construction so i think if we're going to do this as they say call my lawyer that's exactly my point if you get it if this is taken care of in a timely fashion
1:05:02then the next meeting we can say everything's in order everything's made clear in february you can stop you know your renovations are you know put down so you're gonna have to have them address where the hitmen fit in this situation and that's why you have your attorney do that clearly so i'm turning it into nowhere i will apologize i misspoke i remember last time mr silva you mentioned or high
1:05:28school in july one person doing like being the the con the go-to person that's kind of what i was referring to the way it was we had mentioned this to lawyer it was supposed to be drawn up where everything is falls under that so basically anything just as if like for instance you have a maplewood team regardless of what maplewood team it is it's all under maple wood they all say maple wood so
1:05:49that makes it a little bit easier right well that's right they're maple wood so it looks a little bit easier i would just have your attorney put together a cover letter in that cover letter saying this is the llc for whatever and it does it it covers forever national baseball and mill city hitmen are both incorporate or whatever llc's under this whatever this type of agreement is that you put
1:06:12together under this just have you have an attorney now so i think it can be very cut and dry let them put whatever it is together and then we just take it and we give it to the city lawyers and hopefully like jeff says we'll have to stay on them because we're going to say we need this back for our february your attorney can stay on them too exactly yeah and that's not a problem
1:06:33and i know you mentioned my points literally as an example you have different divisions under one umbrella okay but it's all clearly in their charter what it says and what the divisions are this is not clear because in these documents and i was just reading them as people were talking there's no mention of mill city anywhere in this what happens if something you know god forbid something bad happens and there's
1:07:05lawsuits or you know somebody got hurt or whatever and there's no mention of middle city in here you know who do they have insurance do they don't are they meeting the requirements are they not is it okay to be under one umbrella if it is i have no problem with it but again for months and months we try and fix things the right way on this board and we run into roadblocks and you
1:07:31know and when we try and fix things where we're called you know on the carpet for doing what we we think is right well let's get the corporation counselor involved to see the legal documents that's what he gets paid for he you know he's a lawyer i'm not saying that there's anything shady for lack of a better word in here but well i think it covers them that they provide for proper people working with
1:08:00us and and who better than one lawyer within another lawyer and the two jobs agree why can't the two lawyers get together and fix this yeah right i think you i yeah i i don't want to rehash things that have happened in the past i don't i bet i have i will i reach out and i will reach out to have them send whatever documentation you want that can get if they have to meet with
1:08:23the corporation council you have what i would do is you have the letter from last year that says this is what the board requires for a permit i would give that letter to your attorney and say this is what we need to provide to them proof of our 501c3 and and then he can item a here you go item b and put it there i take what you give to
1:08:46me i give it to the corporation council is this satisfy what what this is requesting yes it does because evidently from what you're saying i'm not going to get a form letter in time i'm not going to get a 501c3 normal letter like i get from leads that are well established you're saying that this they told you it could take years so if it's going to take years i need to know that this temporary
1:09:11paperwork covers us for the same thing as that letter i know covers us for so i think the best thing to do to keep everybody on this same page have the attorney take that letter that we send go through it piece by piece like you guys send in well there's this they're not going to be able to send rosters they're not going to be able to send schedules but they will be able to
1:09:34satisfy the legal documents and when you put that to me he can copy attorney ramsey as long as he copies me as well so i can give it to the board he can send it directly to attorney ramsey if he wants to but please have him copyright absolutely me so that i can distribute it to the board and this way you'll know exactly when it got to the corporation council because
1:09:56you'll be the one sending it right and so just to answer i know you did have a question i think we it wouldn't be before march when we were looking at so i don't want to hold anything you can't do that kind of work this time of year anyway right and he was i mean if you're looking at it like he's looking one at most two days per field so he's looking you know so okay
1:10:16and just to clarify what you had said about uh someone speaking and everything like that back in the drawing what i said was i had miss smith redefine the rules again and that will be going out with all the applications and everything is we have some leagues that have a president and then we have some that have a designated spokesperson that's going to be part of the rules now whoever the designated that's the person
1:10:42that's going to come and address this board we're not going to have like we've had tonight five or six people from the league it's not going to it makes the meetings way too long and then everybody's wants to give comments and that it's not going to happen tomorrow and tonight i will be the person who becomes either the president or the designated spokesperson and going forward i would be the person for anything
1:11:03for anything related to baseball in general yes all right but i think that'll satisfy what amber said too is that paperwork in order i think it just covers everything i just without a big person i don't like wasted people's time so i mean without you in the moment where like i feel like even right now the first question i had we ended up at the same spot from the question i just asked 30 minutes ago so
1:11:24it's one of those things like if we call it a day you know what we do need this go to corporation council we'll see you next month yeah thanks so we need a vote a motion and a second to do that motion to i was gonna say jeff made the motion right to send to corporation council yes and i second it second okay so is there a time frame that you would like him to
1:11:43submit the page i would like to be notified by our next meeting as soon as possible make sure that it is in check as soon as possible you can do it tomorrow fine but we we meet again next month and i i think you know that's ample time for two lawyers to get together about facebook yeah unfortunately yeah unfortunately i think between the holidays and the um the lawyer we have
1:12:13is now running for office so i think that has taken up a bit of his a bit of time which originally we thought at the last meeting he would be able to attend and i found out that day that he could not so that was also kind of a uh i think has been an issue but i've been trying to reach out to him and i will i kind of hit a snag over the holidays so
1:12:32i have a call into him currently
1:12:43made that motion uh seconded by commissioner burns all in favor say aye all right commissioner inquiries any commissioner requires i know mr pirano is still here and i know i have had a conversation with him that uh he's going to reach out and do some homework for the next meeting to uh any future projects that we have ongoing projects i know we're doing uh cpc work down at north bureau and
1:13:17everything so he's going to reach out to see with the time frame how everything's going just to give a quick report to us so that way everybody knows it's a new year we should be updated on stuff that's going on happy new year everyone do i have uh a motion to adjourn smoking no uh motion was made by commissioner burns seconded by commissioner sylvia all in favor say hi hi meet and adjourn