11.18.2024 Community Preservation Committee

meeting being held at uh one government uh Center uh we're in the city council hearing room it's uh Monday uh November 18th 6:00 uh pursuing 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 such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or

unperceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible we'll start with roll call we'll take those Zoom first just uh state your name Chris and yep Chris pav okay to my left end Michael FAS Alexander Silva John brand James henby Rick Mani BJ McDonald okay any citizen input not here and Jo okay oh we're also uh Missing right now uh Chris Oliver and Bentley will be joining us later on

Zoom uh we also have uh Craig from forer TV and Sandy Dennis our Administrative Assistant with us too uh no citizen input no citizen input okay can I have a motion for approval of the minutes from uh October 21st I'll make that motion that we approve the minutes of the last meeting October 21st I'll second the motion okay and then uh the two new guys won't vote on this because you weren't here so we'll

start with Mike I vote Yes approve Alex Silva yes yes Bain Rick Mancini yes all righty uh project assignment we're just going to go over the list uh since we've had some newcomers and people out uh just to make sure we're covered on everything

all right I'll just go down a list in case uh uh for Historical Society uh we have Alex on that uh matoy at uh fire station police station Alex on that John everything in Green's already done okay then the uh Mari time is is finished the article 97 is finished the preserving the water department documents Alex uh dery house is finished at it was Alex the central fire station should be starting up that's Alex and

Rick uh the Dr Fisk house is uh Chris uh form bees which you're done was Rick uh School ad building uh which was me and Rick the Fall River fire Museum um is uh me and uh Michael Ferris um let's see the uh South wppa land it's done I was Joanne kopa cut Reserve water supply land acquisition uh that's finished right the that's V on that one uh you skipped East Bay Bike the bike study oh

the East Bay Bike study uh is Rick um let's see the quicker Shan River Trail which is finished out was Rick the Niagara bike path was Rick and Alex um the Southshore Kennedy Overlook is uh Rick andoch school is Chris preservation design guidelines is Chris complete the Art Association is Chris and Rick did you say that was complete some The Pump Station uh is Joanne and Rick uh um Maplewood Park is Joanne

um see Father Kelly Park which is almost done that's uh Joanne and Jim North barel ground is uh Alex and me withle Rowing Club which is almost finished right that's uh joeanne and Jim um St John's the Baptist Church is uh Rick and me uh North wupa C Pond wall is uh Joan and Alex Ander rank Farms is uh Rick and me uh Oak grov uh Ironstone is Joanne the Fall River uh Veteran Center

is Alex the Fall River Library is Chris historic St ANS is Chris and Alex the Union Belt is done that was me and Rick CHR Rock Church is Mike uh Corky R Club is um me and Rick and the children's museum is Mike and Alex um I have just one question on the uh Children's Museum is Tammy still in charge of that Tammy still the point on that she's still the point on that

okay Mr chairman just oh I'm sorry she's with new bford though right or she's she no longer with the city she works she works out of here sometimes too oh does she yeah I don't she's all over the place she is technically she is with the county the county brist county yeah superintendent St of Bristol County okay thank you uh let's see uh you had a question yeah the form B's are not completed that

should be finalizing in June or July of 25 okay that's still ongoing uh you uh comfortable with all the projects that you have do you want to bring somebody in like uh DJ or Chris oh well um it' probably be best for I would think the new people to start with the new round so they're familiar with the projects to getg go rather a lot of these are going to finish up so yeah

it's just various stages and histories and start and stops and extension you know so it's probably better just to start fresh I would think with this year you're starting in like right kind of at the good the good time okay all right may I ask a quick question on Children's Museum my mentor here uh where are we at with that what are they doing because I I wasn't part of that we haven't we

haven't gotten any requests yet so oh okay so it's that's you feel we can you or I can check in but you could guess that they're still in design development maybe something like that I mean we could just funding in July well they rewarded the funding but they haven't you know submitt any invoices for work yet okay so very good thank you okay uh next the uh application process review

um okay we have the application process review we going to discuss there you wanted to go over the pro what the new members can expect going into the review and the funding round yeah okay um but not like Project Specific yeah right so we're going to have uh this is our last meeting so December we won't be meeting but we'll be getting December 12th the uh final December 2 they hang so you have a okay yep

y okay so we'll be getting uh the final funding applications December 2nd so we'll find a way of getting those to you so we'll have a month to look them over so we'll do some studying um when you're looking them over it's best just to you want to look in perspective as far as uh is it a benefit for the taxpayers it must be used by the taxpayer it can't be something that's closed off where

taxpayers can't get in it's got to be open to the public so uh that's one of the main things um then when you're looking at it because we're probably going to have somewhere around a little over two million uh to to Grant this year um so some projects we might look at and uh we might not be able to fund the whole thing so say you like a project and

you're like well I'd like to see you get on board and start working uh maybe it's an historic building and we' like to get a deed restriction on it so maybe we'll just fund some Windows start the project off get it going and then have it come back to following year um so there's a lot of things you'll look at as far as getting to that amount you want to spend now we

don't have to fund any projects we can fund them all so uh when you're looking at it you don't have to look at all 14 projects and say how are we going to do this um so um let's see Alex you have uh some input you want to put in um I would just tell everyone the new members especially that as once you get the packets that Sandy puts together with all the funding

application requests um make it' be helpful just to make a list of the questions you're hoping to ask uh the people who are presenting sometimes if you uh you know you think you're going to want a piece of information that wasn't included it might be helpful to reach out to them ahead of time to say hey I was wondering about this could you bring it in because I'm planning on

asking about it that way it just gives everyone heads up and everyone's fully prepared to answer the questions that you want and then we can make our decisions more expediently we don't have to do any postponements or anything um similar to what John was saying we don't have to fund every project we don't have to fund everyone in its full amount um the categories so you just pay attention to what

categories they're requesting under um and what kind of caveats that generally comes with as John said uh as chairman brt said uh the historic preservation projects or they're gener the open space that generally intended to be open to the public or at least beneficial to the public in terms of you know facade work or or just accessibility uh for like public events or walking or whatnot

community housing projects um it has to have a percentage of units affordable in the project that's generally what you look for for community housing projects um yeah that they'll so there'll be the funding hearings we split it up into two uh two days back to back um and that's where you ask all the questions um but that is is not the the forum for you to kind of voice your opinion at that time

you're still kind of gathering intelligence that's kind of how I kind of look at it your fact finding at that mission the deliberation hearing on January 14th uh that's when you can kind of express your opinion um and then it's in a fair you know form at the right time um and you're not kind of giving any indication ahead of time of you know preferences or voting or anything like

that it's all done uh strictly strictly as it should then January 20th will be the scoring and the voting um I don't think you got the kind of rubric that we use but that'll be sent out um probably during the deliberation time uh essentially um we'll find out the total amount of funds that we have to work with and then like we said you don't have to we don't have to allocate all of

them it could be just you know a certain amount um 10% you might have heard this already 10% has to be um assigned to each cat atory um no matter what uh so uh that's 10% of the total funds allocated has to go to Historic preservation 10% has to go to open space and 10% has to go to community housing and then the rest go into the undesignated kind of category um and

what essentially that means is even if say we in the past couple years we haven't funded any uh community housing projects just because there hasn't really been um the right applications or any at all sometimes uh that just puts 10% of the funds aside to community housing for future years so it's it's just kind of like designating that funds for community housing in the future um

in my phone at this point um so uh so it's very similar terminology throughout okay so the category is community housing not affordable housing affordable housing is its own kind of definition under community hous housing um so affordable housing we go B we generally go by Mass General law I think everyone has to um so I'll just have the I we can send the whole defin I'll send this to Sandy to send because it's a lot

it's just a lot of text but affordable housing uh is home ownership or rental housing which is restricted to occupancy by low or moderate income households which have its own specified income levels by the state so there's there's income level brackets that go with the definition of low the definition of moderate income so I'll I have all those definitions and we'll send them because

there's a lot to read but um low or moderate income households of one or more persons and for which the sale price or rent is Affordable as defined by the criteria for inclusion and the Department's subsidize housing inventory or consistent with funding sources so um there's different categories of affordable housing um it's extremely lowincome households uh there's lower moderate income households those are

households with a gross income at or less than 80% of the areas median household income so I won't for well I won't just this just a lot so I'll send this to Sandy to send to everyone but that is the definitions that we go for for community housing and on our end on community housing uh uh 25% of the project has to be for the affordable living so if it's 30 units they have to designate six

apartments for affordable yeah and that's a that's a preference that this committee is made that's not like a requirement then anyone's telling us other than us because we thought it was you know you having folks come in they're doing three units out of 40 and it's like that's really not what we wanted for so we I thought the 25 we thought as a board was easily attained some folks can't do it because

lose an apartment the full amount you know it does it hurts their bottom line and they're paying back their their debt and then uh when you are looking at projects and you have a question um if it's eligible under uh Secretary State Standards you can go on the CPC website very useful and you can type in um um doors or anything and it'll pop up all all kinds of projects that were

funded um how what what they did so that's a good tool to use if you want to see if anybody's ever or if it's allowed go to that site and you type it in and it takes you right there the DAT it's a datab bank it's right at the top of the website it's very useful I I have two questions if I could um the scoring and the rubric that's something also that you can Sandy can

provide that basic kind of gives you an outline of what you're looking at and how you get there we'll get that somewhere before January 20th and what normally it is is you say we have 14 projects it'll probably be four number ones four number twos and three and then we take the lowest one as the winner and then we start working our way down funding from that okay yeah so the one two and three

are like a ranking system where the one is you know to try to narrow it down yeah well then we we add up everybody's ones twos and threes and in theory um the most desired projects by the entirety of the committee would have the lowest scores and then we take those uh projects in that order for funding requests and sometimes by the end of all the projects we have money left over

sometimes we run out you know halfway through that's where we talk about the ranking and how the funding is kind of allotted sometimes when we're ranking we might get to a point where say we want to we want to have a surplus balance in the account in case of an emergency we might end at two we might be at 2.2 so somebody will like say Okay I want to make a motion that we suspend

funding right now because we're at 2.2 and then we take a vote and keep the rest in for backup emergency funding and then the projects that have already been they haven't been fully submitted but you guys have vetted them right so that packet that I got from Sandy that they me eligibility they met the eligibility so you can kind of get a jump on to get a general idea of what those projects

are when the final application comes in right so I have those 14 that have already gone through we're not getting anything else new it's those 14 and then in January once they come through that's kind of like the all the eyes are dotted teas across on the application and at that point you can go through that's saying that uh take for instance you'll have uh one coming in for South Park

that'll come in we just got that they want to do trails in the bathroom which all fell under historic preservation and uh Recreation so now when that comes in that'll have the whole breakdown for bathroom tile Plumbing everything um whatever is going to be used on the tra uh the pass everything will be marked off so even with the housing projects we have on the uh Pleasant Street that'll come in

depending what route we want to go it'll be broken down so you we could literally pick we wanted to do windows and doors it's going to be itemized out where we could say okay we'll we'll do 250 hypothetical and uh that will cover windows and doors so you can titiner around with you know if the project looks good and we want to get you know hand in it you know man ask a quick

question um what about uh like the emergency funding projects is there so hypothetically say you have two two million that's what we'll have um for this coming 2025 fiscal year is there a number that you guys try to keep in the Coffer like for those or um or how do you how do you typically handle those um I think what Alex we normally try to keep about five $500 000 is normally

what we it's changed right now we're we G lower but we like to uh cuz like when the this the the library the roof L yeah and then the VA Center back to back yeah we did have the Surplus money to handle that um sometimes the pro if we go over the project sometimes the projects warrant us spending the money so we do go a little lower but we do like to keep uh a

little in reserve okay thank you yeah it's changed year over year um right now I think our reserves are a little bit low because we opted to fund a lot as many of the projects as we could have last year um but for instance um we like I said we haven't funded any community housing projects in a while so we're sitting on I think just over $400,000 designated for community housing um you know in addition to

whatever funds we're getting this year and whatever funds we have left over in you know undesignated categories and then this year will also be kind of a one-off keep in mind it's a fun it's a fun year for new members but it's should be kind of tempered with the expectation that it won't always be this way um because we're getting a lot of uh funds back from previously finished projects

that we kind of Sitting In Limbo so we're going to be getting a little bit more money than we normally would have this year so you know it's at the committee's discretion whether we opt to fund more projectss this year or maybe we build up a larger Reserve um because it should kind of knowe that we have especially in recent years been getting a lot of uh supplemental funding requests from projects that had already

been approved um just because of you know cost overrun and over runs inflation covid had caused um you know some hiccups with a lot of projects in terms of scheduling and stuff uh so it's good I personally believe to always have you know a sizable a sizable chunk of funds uh just in reserve for a rainy day yeah question if uh if I can jump in you guys hear me we can't hear you Chris

okay great um so to to add on to BJ's question there um in the criteria to you know approve or deny um sort of the ranking system through you know one through three how is how are the actual funds deliberated is is it through just a discussion in terms of what the application States or I guess how do you determine you know 50% of of an application might get approved versus

you know 100% of an application Etc Well what we'll do is after we go through the uh the the funding hearings January 8th the 9th then we'll sit down as a group and we'll deliberate the projects and we'll kind of come to kind of an agreement and okay that's when we'll do the voting next which is all up to to you how you decide to vote uh but the deliberations where we'll discuss each

project yeah it'll it'll be during deliberations and we'll come to a consensus with the vote um a common example could be just to kind of get your mindset in the full project may have been you know a full restoration of the exterior of a building but say we don't have enough funds to do that and all the other projects we as a committee maybe want to do so we opt to you know

fund a portion of it that is deemed by all of us maybe the highest priority generally it's things like the roof before Windows stuff like that so maybe we'll be like okay we're going to give you x amount of money to make the building uh weathertight via the roof and then uh we'll you know be expecting or feel free to submit an application in a future year to finish the project when

you know this one is done or or however we kind of want to pursue it um but it's it's it's through deliberations and the discussion and then ultimately the vote and you can kind of like pick and choose there's a lot of like pieces that you know we've discovered over the years like it's not easy to kind of separate pieces of projects out it's not as easy as just taking out like the window

number because you know they have the Architects explaining to you how we still have to design a percentage of the project but the cost that was given was you know the full design price so they have to somehow come up with a partially designed cost estimate that do you know it's it's generally a tricky thing so it's at our Le and a discretion fair enough yeah that helps thank you can I

make a recommendation I know I I run this process for the city of Everett and with their particular case they'll actually say okay here's your big picture of your project hypothetically it's $2 million but we want you to break it down into three different phases maybe that would be the recommendation we asked for folks that are looking at a larger projects is because then it puts the onus on the

individual to say okay we're we're not going to build build the roof before we build the foundation and so it's just a process where okay we see the benefit of the project in the long run and we can do this much for this year and then we recommend you go again apply in the future but at least we we're putting you know we're not putting the the cart in front of the horse we're doing things

but I don't know if that's something that could be written into well when we're doing the the funding hearing yeah and say it's a big project and we could break it down into we would ask okay if we don't give you the full 750 and we want to do stage and sometimes they'll have it in stage one two and three yeah so we'll say we want to do stage one for you okay and the the

vietta project will work and you know it benefit them benefit us we could work it into our budget then so we we would ask them before we started just splitting it because they might not want to just take the money for Windows or you know so yeah and the eligibility hearing which already passed is a good place to you know kind of put that that plant that seed in their in their year um telling

them oh uh it might be good to include in your funding application a breakout of you know the phases that you would want to approach first um just in case there's limited funding this year or something like that yeah I mean as as far as funding uh our tax as a city we've already collected 1.5 a little over 1.5 million and the state just did a match it was 18% which was

271,000 our share we still get two more matches on top of that so who knows what it'll be but that's where we stand right now so um any more questions on the yeah would you say that 18% from the state again oh the state Grant so uh we now have 200 uh CPC members in the the state uh four joined us this year so what it is is uh they collect the money the interest and

all that then they split it and uh our percentage well everyone gets 18% so our percent was 18 so we got to 271 oh it's be 18% of the total Grand money yeah it's an 18% match from the state 18 match okay generally um since SE Community preservation acts Inception the percentage of match has gone down because more communities in the state have joined so there's more people pulling from the pool money in previous

years there were supplemental Appropriations at the state level I think this year they didn't get the supplemental appropriation that they're hoping for so it's more of a limited uh reimbursement from the state that's why I ask question plus we get it we get a good portion from um uh when industry of Deeds from home sales U I know what it's from I recognized that the 18% sounded low yeah and that's why I asked the

question I think two years ago we were at 34 or something I think when it started it was a 50% match yeah out from the state it was pretty pretty intense when it happened I mean I I did work for it we were the 72nd Community to join that was first gateway City in the I know so yeah all right so um I guess we'll move on to uh emergency funding

process uh now we had I guess that's covering what we discussed about with uh projects that would come out of cycle yeah well some people haven't heard anything about it and I don't think we discussed it fully so um if you want to kind of give the premise for the new members well what it was is uh normally we just had a uh we called it our emergency funding process um so that

would be uh like the for Library the roof out of cycle funding requests yeah out ofc and uh so they came before us that was an emergency uh project uh roof uh cost overruns that would be emergency they come in so we've been trying to uh uh outline it I um I think Alex and Chris have been working on that and you want me to so right now

so right now as it stands um I think the language can be found in the City's community preservation committee plan which we have to update um I believe after this funding round um the language in it is very vague so it's kind of open to the committee's full interpretation as to what constitutes emergency and there's been you know differences of opinion and you know questions over what

you know if deferred maintenance is generally not supposed to be considered an emergency so there was an argument against the public libraries application because it was a deferred maintenance project um but ultim ultimately it was deemed an emergency because of the state of the building the damage that would have caused to the interiors and the artifacts and such ins sight um but we

just approved you know an emergency application for the Maritime Museum um their business was not in operation because of the safety hazard as the result of a storm um so there's all kinds of different scenarios that come out uh and I believe John was looking to add some clarification to what would constitute an emergency um I kind of put together I think everyone has it in their packet the

draft um it was supposed to be just some examples um some Direct ction uh I don't think I heard any feedback uh in between the meeting uh and now so if people wanted to read it over discuss it I had like one additional thing to add that I thought of um since I sent this but uh that's kind of where it's at I did kind of want to talk about

uh uh a project that uh we Grant funds and two years that come back for an extension and and uh we give an extension and then 6 months a year down the road they're coming back saying they need another 100 200,000 I think we got to have some kind of cost factor in there when you come in to get an extension uh because we're we're we're we're approving the project at 500,000

we're not expecting you to come back two years and now you want to ask for 6 25 changes the whole project I I think we should have a cut off of a 10% overrun and if it's higher than that they have to bring the project back to us for re-approval I yeah I I agree with what you're saying I also would put in that stipulation that if they're coming in for an emergency response to

something that the that those funds are supposed to basically help the Integrity of what the Project's going to be for example you know we have Christ the Rock Church and you know um those funds are to basically do repointing to make sure the building doesn't come down I don't want to see any of those fundings going to aesthetic improvements or it should be to to help the the welfare or the safety

of the community and so all all the the ancillary stuff there should be a priorities and that's why I say when we look at phasing a project you know the first thing that gets done is the stuff that has to get absolutely has to get done that way because a lot of times a project will be put on hold or it just won't move forward yeah and then you're stuck with something that's falling

apart and a good example is the church you know where the Abby Grill used to be yeah and so um you you know again um things do happen it's part of life with construction projects but it should be the funding should be going into something that's not just a aesthetic beautification but the structural Integrity or saving of that particular building or whatever might be in the community Co was a difficult time but

now we're kind of past that because I mean it was tough getting contractors y uh we saw the price of uh plywood go from 28 to 95 bucks I mean so now where it's a little more evened out we should be I I just want us to when we do have some something like that come before us we ask questions about is your contractor what's the bid going to look

like did you talk to him is he going to be able to hold the price for you you know just then we're not having him come back saying oh I need more money you know I just I just don't know how you guys feel about that that's why I they they bring it up for discussion and we do have Joanne Bley joined us on Zoom hello Joanne question want so I would just say in terms of

your cut off with the 10% overrun all of our projects we already ask in the funding application for them to include a 10% contingency So in theory if they're coming back to us for additional funding they've already went through a 10% overrun so I think I mentioned this in the previous funding year perhaps uh this year or going forward we ask or require you know a larger contingency

put aside for the project than 10% maybe 15% or 20% whatever we think is reasonable or or at least in like would insulate us from those kinds of requests um I would say kind of similar to what you said um when we do get some extensions or some you know supplemental funding for projects a lot of times I'm find that the project itself is morphing into a different project and I I worry

that you know we're granting funding to a project that's didn't actually go through the review process the prior year because it's essentially a different project you know we were going to do the I'll use the same example we were going to do the windows but we found it out we need to do the roof first so we need more money to do the roof you know the whole application review process may have been for the

windows so so is it a new project that is a question that up until this point has been left to the committee to decide at that time you know so perhaps um we codify that in the plan that if the project changes substantially that it does not you know uh it does not qualify for an extension and needs to be applied for as a new project in the next funding R you

know okay question question on my end if if it's step in uh Ju Just to understand um because it sounded like John that there may or may not be um consensus on the process itself but is there is there some sort of process like uh that's written or some kind of operating procedure right now to understand how emergency funds are allocated or is this I guess we do have so on the website

there's an application and essentially it's a it's a smaller application than the full round and it doesn't like you know you have before you the schedule that that's coming up where you know there's the eligibility round there's the funding round where we ask questions then there's deliberations then there's voting and essentially an emergency project skips all of that you know so as it stands now so perhaps it's um

changing the process to have a little bit lengthier of lengthier of a review process although some would argue that kind of goes against the need for an emergency funding apparatus you know where time is of the essence you know that's why right it I would guess that I wasn't around when it happen it was made in a vague way you know because even since I came up with you know these examples

uh so emergencies may include but are not limited limited to projects that are impacted by natural disasters crimes such as arson time sensitive land or property Acquisitions threatening Public Safety and or saving cultural or historical resource in significant and immediate danger those are just some examples um since then I remembered an emergency application that we ourselves filed you know for deed restriction

filing fees where we ended up having to allocate money to file uh deed restrictions in a timely manner that's not in that language right now so you know we would need to write something in for that I'm kind of thought about it and I'm leaning more towards keeping a sort of miscellaneous category to kind of keep our eles um protected from anything that would be unexpected or you know in 50 years when there's a

different kind of emergency that we don't even understand you know somebody sends a robot to walk into a building like you know whatever the heck could happen in 50 years you know so yep I'm thinking of maybe a miscellaneous category um and or an administrative cluse in 12 years of funding I think we've only had three emergency funding applications but we wanted to tie like if somebody open space comes

available that's in there if somebody uh is buying affordable housing they in there now uh so there's different things we wanted to add to be you know if somebody says oh can I get that out you know now it's we have it in writing you know it's just not this year the board of it next year we're not in favor of it you know know it's it's in W so our biggest thing is

the uh people coming in for an extension that's where we run into the the issue well extensions so we just need to tighten up the rubric on it sorry go ahead it yeah there's a delay go ahead sorry I was just saying I was just saying extensions and supplemental funding are technically different things someone could be asking for an extension without asking for more money you know right right got it okay

okay that helps thank you um and I was just going to add that this language can be changed every year when we review our plan um which I think we generally do in the summer uh so it doesn't have to you know stay this way it can evolve you know as the needs arise and change okay all right um You Yes say can I just ask that um maybe Alex if you could email me the outline

in the process I'll have it put on the web page so that if if someone out there is looking to apply for emergency funding they can I can we can direct them to our web page and they can find what the process is okay yeah for the new guys a lot of our stuff is on the city website we're a little more expanded than some of the uh City boards we put a lot of information

and a lot of places to go to get the information so you can always find it there too um so all set on that uh project updates so what's the decision that you like are we just going to because I don't I personally don't think we should change anything in the middle of a funding ground so I would think that we add this or think about adding this in in the upcoming plan

change well when don't we uh we'll keep taking suggestions on it and then we'll put it on the agenda probably after the uh funding round so if we have anything you know that we wanted to add to it we have plenty of time okay and that would happen sometime in the summertime you're saying typically generally meeting yeah all right yeah and that in case the public has any input too they can always reach out we

should have a hearing too like a public hearing kind of for I guess we could do that yeah or at least I think I had said maybe we invite people to the meeting you have to have a public hearing the plan anyway yeah so maybe when you have your public hearing for the plan you can kind of zoom in on emergency portion of it well I guess we could put that in the plan and then have

it yeah okay what do you have to do that for three three months three readings or is that or do we you got have the public hearing and we have to post it on the website then it has to be presented to the city council for approval and then okay we have it for the year yeah process yeah so just because s's not liked I don't think public hearing then post it to the website for public

comment and then city council approval y um all righty any project updates um we Mike and I went to Christ the Rock Church uh twice since uh the last time we spoke about project updates um did you want to lead or you want me to lead and you kind of supplement or um well I'm learning from you so I delete it we both there so uh it was as uh Mike

said I think earlier in the meeting uh masonry restoration project um we didn't fund the full amount that they requested last year because it was a tight year uh so this is kind of a good example for for the new members we ended up only funding partial the partial amount and kind of gave them a directive of doing the most uh pressing work to stabilize the building first and that was determined to be starting from the

ground up so the foundation is secure um and then they can pursue funding for the top steeple part uh portions that um as Mike and I went up there and saw our in definite need of attention um you might have saw a recent Herald news article that kind of detailed the project um and some of what they're going for going through and for the church is starting a capital campaign to

try and raise additional funds um to essentially complete the rest of the work uh the quote that they got from the masonry uh contractors on site right now to finish the steeple um is I think 13,000 additionally we gave them 100,000 I believe um so it's and that's not even the whole church that's just the steeple um I will say that the contractor who has a lengthy career said that it was I think the worst

church he had ever seen in the condition of it um if you when you're up there you can actually see the exterior wall kind of separating from the interior wall so it is becoming a safety a safety concern uh one way or another so so they're thinking and about funding sources and we may see you know an application from them in the future um we've advised them to you know look for whatever funding

sources they can because nothing is guaranteed as we know um we have some pictures I didn't send them to standing time actually so we'll send them for the next meeting um but it'll show kind of some of the damage but so part of uh the problem with the church was when the mortar in between the granite Stones uh was replaced in the 70s 1960 1960s it was replaced with a mortar that it

definitely should not have been and it's kind of exacerbated the problem so I actually have samples do you want to see again or no okay so there's two Mor samples uh the heavier one is the new one and the lighter one is what the original is SL was um it's I guess important to note that the higher elevations of the stel still have a lot of the old mortar so it implies that the

church stopped repairs at a certain elevation at one point in the past um the work to get rid of the new mortar is a lot harder for the contractors because it's essentially Like Glue I think they said they have to cut it out pretty tediously by hand um so it it essentially made the project harder um whereas the top would it would be easier to cut out um for future work but

essentially the new mortar is a lot heavier as you'll be able to see and this is causing a lot of problems with cracking uh the stones because the weight of the mortar is as you can see it's probably like quadruple what it should have been um the the olden morar to it uh it's supposed to expand and contract and the new one that they put the morar in in 1960 is not it's an epoxy type of

mortar and it's really like a rock and so there's no expansion during freeze and fall cycles and so what's happening it's cracking some of the stones so they had to remove all that they've done a really nice job up to the point where they've finished right now um with the scaffolding and the insulation and so when I was mentioning before you know one of the things is a critical element

to this this is that they really need to work on getting that fa facade um to a structural level where it's safe for the community and not and maybe bypass any of the aesthetic components of that um cappings and and and such not but uh it is one of those things that um being new to this trying to figure out what the best solution is and uh again we've given them some insight on how to apply

what they should be doing and uh we said mentioned to them you know this is a a church that does a lot more than just it's not just a church they do other stuff with u as a homeless shelter and for food and such not so this would be an example of um spending the money wisely for the structural stability of the building and then for you know for guard the the aesthetic component of it

just for the the safety of the building and and keeping it structurally sound so that's an example of it good Al this is almost done yeah so committe knows yeah so they uh just submitted their third and I think it will be their final invoice um the invoices and the work was split up essentially into three twoe periods and just to give you a sense for the cost for this type of work it was averaging I

think around 30ish th000 for 2 weeks and a large portion of that cost which was said last year in the application round is you know the scaffolding which is up right now so if they were able to keep going it would essentially be more cost effective um but it doesn't look like they have um enough additional funds you know they I think they were talking about maybe adding a couple extra days

of work ra rather than weeks that are needed so um that's where they're at uh Jan did you have any updates anything I did I just had a few I had uh St John's Church is uh all but wrapped up they just got the stainless stainless glass in um so they're they're looking pretty good they um uh the fire Museum sent me a request um they don't want to apply for emergency

funding uh because they think the windows that we uh wanted for uh they the city won't let them open with the windows they have so they go if we do the roof we won't be able to open so um they wanted the 480 they want to uh keep that for the windows and the 380 is going back out the bid and they're going to break the roof into two sections to

finish the roof so they'll be able to do half the roof and then they'll have to come back for additional funding if we Grant it that's the risk yeah that's the risk but so my my question would be similar to like the U the M The Maritime Museum their goal and again that was in the paper just recently um Christ the Rock Church was not only in the Harold News

but it's this week it's going to be in the I believe the Boston Globe and so it's it's getting some identity to these projects one of the things that was a key element to our emergency see funding for the Maritime Museum was they've been it's been closed to the public um and so that's an opportunity to open back up if they do this roof component of this you just mention that they can't open it up

to the public because of the windows so they're going to keep the windows going how about is there any caveat associated with the actual roof well the fire museum is connected with the police department Animal Patrol yep so they're trying to see if they'll come in but you know that's not going to happen yeah the city's not going to yeah put any money so they were basically short getting the uh bids out

because turnover staff Y and so when they did come back they were higher and even if we took the 463 that uh they have uh uh um a bond on they'd still be 18,000 short so uh they're going to go with that route and I told they'd have to come back and you know whatever happens happens it's their choice okay and um oh uh I guess the uh uh the Father Kelly Park the lights are almost

done but I did get a letter from uh Mr hacket who uh but here's the thing where when we granted the funds we granted for lights only we didn't he has a list of things that he wants but I mean we we're not funding a scoreboard we're not funding netting we're not funding so grass it's like additional scope yeah could you send that to us uh yeah so he wrote that

to the park board too I believe and we deferred him back to some of it seems like it's damag well we could just advise him that that would need to be a new application yeah I told him I I talked to nice guy he just thinks extra money he should be able but I'm like you're ve very seldom do we ever get extra money back so I mean it's like

you'll have to put back in and uh you know unless it's unless it's like a code compliance issue like for instance the lights might need a Transformer then you would see you know hopefully they put that in their bid to realize but like I would say in that particular case then you know that this is ancillary additional uh work to a project but like the the landscape the Shrubbery and the

tire tracks and the broken water line you're going to hold whoever did the work responsible for that right I would think so project yeah so I mean he's asking us to fix things that were broken by contractor there should be insurance and I thought the scoreboard too like I there I don't know part of his request was there is a scoreboard and could we update it or could we tie

it in to you know so there I think there was a lot of like we might have some extra money can we fix kind of some of this stuff I've talked to him a numerous times and uh nice guy he does a great job uh but I told him I said you can only use for the lighting and we've deferred him back because we're like it's not our money to I can't you know

the park board sometimes you know in an agreement we might have been a little you know lacking the full description but that one says lighting only yeah so you know so it doesn't say lighting ballpark you know where we could say okay this ballpark but this one that's a good thing to mention for the new members so what John uh chairman brand means by that is when we are crafting

the uh Ward agreements for the grants we have to we can or can't be very specific in what the grant money should be used for so in this instance it was specific rather than vague for the the lights so but but I did pass this also on to uh Al DCM so he has it so I think that's mostly internal stuff so I mean that's not just to update you on it and

then uh Corky row roof R can you get out there yeah I got the mail today okay good good good I told him i' let them know me or you would be getting out there so that's all my updates I can probably do that tomorrow afternoon hopefully I can do that tomorrow afternoon for you I'll give him a call do you have any other project updates I just happen to be talking to

uh Ron at the Arts Association this afternoon and it appears he has a contract to start the project and it looks like it might be underway in April so you just say what the project is for the members oh the UTS Association has been uh going through a number of projects and they've got some money outstanding for uh one put in some handicap uh Provisions inside the building and then also the the porch

front porch uh is pretty well deteriorated there's money in there to get that front porch rebuilt and they're putting in a handicapped uh lift for again to make the property uh handicapped accessible which it is not at this point and being a public uh facility it has to be handicapped accessible so but that they they've had real difficulties trying to get contractors who are licensed uh others

that have bailed out on them but he says if they have one now uh that's going to be doing the project so that's any questions on the odds no the other is the Form B the Steep Brook is being the second portion is being accomplished by Roger Williams University at no cost to us nor the city uh The Form B money that we have is being used primarily for the bio

reserve and the the bio Reserve is as most of us are aware is the bulk of the land of Fall Rivers on the on the east side of the uh W Tupper reservation a portable water supply and uh the artifacts or or areas of H uh concern are close to a 100 at this point that's all historic artifacts and historic areas uh that have been located and now getting documented and are going

to be put on significant structures list and also be put on uh historic registration uh both nationally and local and state so it's a quite an undertaking and all these years Fall River has never had that documentation accomplished so any project of that nature we do large scale projects and we actually have to put in a caveat that archaeological digs and Sur basically survey of a particular project I would

assume that area probably falls into those categories do you know if uh these students are going to be doing that aspect of it that that in the Bier Reserve we've hired a professional firm for that okay good so that's being done students are only doing the Steep Brook area those are homes that they're being done and researching the history of the area M okay but the buo reserve is being

done by an organization out of Pucket good okay yeah and that should be accomplished uh we're being told we'll have a final report and presentation June or July of 25 okay okay so any new business I would just say under the new business uh I know uh John Coughlin sent out uh the bills for deed restrictions and I think Sandy got him set on the right track he has to bill the project then we

pay the project and then the project pays him uh because we can't pay legal fees so uh then uh we we should start on the next upcoming rounds um the uh Marine Museum yeah definitely since we're finishing that and I've been just a little reluctant to pursue that with any Force because it the payments to the attorney haven't been made so I was well we haven't gotten invoice so that's why

so I'm just yeah but you now that all of that is is settled out and it's it's proceeding then I'll jump right back on it again yeah it should be in that cycle once he gets in the cycle and he knows well it's it's going to be smooth yes because we hopefully we'll be getting all caught up in the uh future here I just have one comment about payments um I know the uh

the um individuals that are processing the payments for Christ the Rock Church uh there was actually um kind of some major delays in them getting paid uh I'm not pointing fingers but uh I did notice that they did put in a markup of a percentage of if it's not paid within a certain period of time and so that's again another one that you would look at that's additional fees that could be

avoided and not sure um where that uh falls upon but I just want to at least make that known because that could potentially sometimes it doesn't go as smooth as we anticipate because Sandy will fill the right proper paperwork submit it yeah and then they submit it then it gets paid yeah somebody goes on vacation no checks I'm not as I say I'm not saying I'm poting hard believe that

the city you know but yeah but yeah just wasted money that doesn't need to be if we can get them to work there magic all right uh so can I have a motion to adjourn I motion to adjourn so move second uh roll call Julian we'll start with you and Chris Joan Bentley yes Chris F yes Michael feris Yes Alexander Silva yes John BR yes James Hornsby Yes Rick Mancini yes BJ McDonald

yes well everyone have a great Thanksgiving and a happy holiday New Year and I don't forget to pick up