The Fall River Park Board Commissioners held a regular meeting on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022, at 5:53 P.M. Commissioners Victor Farias, Helen Rigo, and Joseph De Silva were present, while Commissioners Sylvian and Burns were absent. The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Commissioner Farias and a moment of silence for Al Lemieux, a pioneer of the Quequechan River Trail. The minutes from the September 7, 2022, meeting were accepted unanimously.
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did I call this regular meeting of the [ __ ] right off uh meeting of the pot board commissioners for Wednesday November 2nd 2022 into order time is 5 53 P.M roll call commissioners Victor farius Helen Rigo Joseph the Silva commissioner Sylvian commissioner burns are both absent at this time I'm going to ask commissioner Faris to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please rise flag of the United States of America
0:47between the Republic
0:58at this time I'm going to ask if we can have a moment of silence for Al lemur who is a pioneer of getting the quickestand river trail and it's named after him
1:14thank you rest in peace okay I'm gonna open me alone Pursuit into the open meeting law any person may make an audio video a recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are there for advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present in a deep knowledge I permissible acceptance of the minutes from the
1:50September 7 2022 minute second commissioner Rigo made that motion uh to accept seconded by commissioner nefarious all in favor say aye aye everybody
2:12new business
2:23foreign
2:50item a letter from greater foreign for a Christmas parade on Saturday December 3rd 2022 this is an annual event make a motion to grant that second Commission of fire has made that motion to Grant second by commissioner ego all in favor say hi hi
3:18let him be a letter from Mass office of energy and environmental affairs funding for a skate park at Abaco was not approved so if you guys remember we had the Grant right income before I think a couple of meetings ago to do a presentation on Escape pod for us to approved for the pox Grant but it did not get approved for uh the skatepark at Abacus so we'll have to try again so
3:55the motion to place this on file second uh commissioner Rigo made that motion second by commissioner nefarious all in favor say aye aye item C letter of thanks from the four of uh Diocese of foreign for the use of Kennedy Park for the annual procession peace event that was held on October 10 2022. make a motion place on file second commissioner Forest made that motion seconded by
4:25commissioner Rigo all in favor say aye aye hey item D request from Bobby Bailey athletic director at Diamond Regional High School requesting a use of City Athletic Fields for the upcoming 2023 spring Sports season
4:52hello members of the park board my name is Bobby Bailey I'm the athletic director at Diamond Regional Vocational Technical High School I come before you requesting um the use of city parks I do understand that you do not make that decision until January but I just wanted to put it on your radar it will be requesting to use the parks because as you all know the school will be rebuilt and our athletic
5:18fields will be taking over so I just wanted to put on your radar and I'll be back in January um to kind of have that discussion any questions from the commissioners okay make a motion please let it on file second okay commissioner Ferris made that motion uh seconded by commissioner Regal all in favor say aye aye um all right to me information from uh information from stocks architect award the bid of a
5:59bid of the basketball court Renovations at Brooklyn Park motion to accept washing tips up sucking it second about uh Commission of Regal made the motion to accept seconded by commissioner Ferry is all in favor say aye
6:42so just so that the public knows Joey a little bitter you should tell a little bit I can do this water oh yes this was going to be our water to the low bitter which would be Century Paving in construction Club for the company yeah and the amount of 100 174 plus 174 800.
7:09it was definitely a little bit um okay thank you Mrs uh array item f information stock architect Award of the bids for the installation of ball field lighting at Maplewood Park I'm going to ask Mrs Smith bring us up to date on this so basically we had the bid opening Friday it was I hope that we would be able to award the um bid today however all of the bids
7:43far exceeded the money we have for that particular project so uh it's back with the architect he's going to look at it and I believe we're going to put it out for bid again um they'll tweak a little bit in the of what we were asking and then it'll go off a bit again so hopefully by the December meeting that can be awarded as well uh I just had a couple questions I know
8:09I went with Mrs Smith to walk the feeling that when the uh the contract just came down to look at the project and everything they call Mr perrano up to the mic please uh tree uh warning so I I know I requested Mr Verano to go by look at some of the trees that were in the way there um have his recommendation and everything there was a couple of trees there
8:45some big trees that are right near one of the light poles that's going to be getting replaced tonight uh my recommendation was gonna to remove them and plant them with new ones but I guess it's going to be an actual model of course and everything so what Mr mirado is recommending is to trim him back Spruce them trees up a little bit and everything so I would just say if we can
9:07get some of them trees done at Maplewood Park and in a few months Spruce them up or something so that way if we get this we can get this awarded as soon as possible if we are once we all re-bed this because uh if not Maple was going to be in a jam for like baseball now we have a deadline as well with the CPA money so we have to it has to move along
9:31do you think we can always Spruce them up there trim them back trying to get it scheduled and funded there's three trees there one of them could potentially be removed the other two are good enough shape I think to not warrant removal at this time okay thank you sir all right uh so I'll be rejecting these bids uh yeah you I would reject them okay well you know what I
10:04I think you can just let it be so decide what till purchasing decides we I don't know that it finally needs to be rejected by the board we don't have the money so we can't accept them so I don't know that they have to be rejected first places off Island I would place it on file for now until your next meeting okay oh yeah finally I want to be our table this
10:24until the next meeting yeah okay I'll make a motion to table this until the next meeting second the commissioner uh commissioner Ferris made a motion with the table this matter until the next meeting seconded by commissioner Regal all in favor say aye aye hey item G tree division planting at Turner Park Dr fracking green and Eastern Avenue okay so we have um the city was awarded uh greeting the
10:58Gateway Community a gate agreeing the Gateway Community implementation Grant in the sum of just over ninety nine thousand dollars to plant approximately 175 trees in various locations throughout the city this fall we would like to plan at the Dr Franken green Eastern Avenue between County and Pleasant Street and Turner playground um so this fall we should be doing about 60 to 65 trees and then in the spring we'll
11:28be doing the balance of the trees which would be here at Government Center on South Main Sullivan Drive um Frontage Road and Third Street you can also be planting at um Second Street and spring I guess down second to Rodman as well and then South Main Street at William around like Nick's Hot Dogs um JJ's that area and then that's about it so it's 175 trees funded again through State PCR Grant
12:21um Turner playground we'd like to do this weekend Saturday Eastern Ave uh we need to start today tomorrow the rest of the week as planting season as quickly coming to a close um looking at the doctor Street area yes and mostly the doctor Street area I guess what Miss Smith was talking about telling me is the neighbors down there already complained they lose their water view where they won victories there so
13:03we put more trees there we're probably gonna get major feedback just a thought just so you're ready you know okay I don't think there's much we can do if if I'm remembering correctly those trees that are blocking the view both at Turner playground and along doctor Street are not on the city property no those are on Railroad property um the other issue we would run into even if they were on city property is we
13:32don't do Vista pruning unless we have special earmark funding the only Vista pruning we've done is on dwelly street for cook Pond and that was an earmark from the state from representative Sylvia so it's the city's policy the trees tree divisions policy to not do Vista pruning right I'm not asking them yeah well I'm just relaying you know just just so you know my concern with him was not that we do any
13:58Vista pruning right it was just that we're going to be adding to the what they're saying already is an issue so just so you know I don't know if you want to put as many there or the selection of the locations just so the board is where it was based off of two things three things green in the Gateway um has specific planting zones that we can plant in one two environmental justice neighborhoods and three tree
14:29Equity score so we went through the city and looked at tree Equity score which balances a number of different factors to figure out which locations in the city need the most attention for our trees all of these locations that were selected are the worst Equity scores for trees in the entire city which means they have the lowest rate of canopy cover the highest ambient temperatures heat island effect is a huge Health
14:58concern so increasing tree canopy cover wherever we can including in a strip like Dr Street where we have ample room for the trees to grow and be healthy and require a lot less maintenance is something that this city should take seriously foreign I'll add the trees the trees and the tree location were selected by our Consulting arborist not by me so they were professionally chosen by someone highly educated in
15:31Tree Management and tree care so um I think we've done a nice job in selecting trees that will provide both health benefits aesthetic benefits Wildlife benefits environmental benefits and everything else that comes with planting trees how big is that every Aroma though like why it's fairly wide I mean I'm not going to say that the trees couldn't fit there fine I just wanted to make both
16:00the board and Mr purano aware of the situation that does exist there and that whatever decision is made by the tree Department by the arborist by if the whatever all those dreams that are there right now were removed today and we planted these trees tomorrow they're not going to block anybody's view for 50 60 years not necessarily but what I'm saying is we can also maintain the trees that are
16:30planted and you know we're not planting them to be uh what's currently there which is just invasive brush overgrowth these are ornamental landscape trees that I'm assuming somebody's cutting the grass on Doctor Street yeah so they'll be continuously mowed and weed whacked around so that if if the city ever developed a policy where they would have Vista pruning this would be ideal for their spacing
16:58they're you can't this isn't necessarily the scale this is you know no it's a big me and then yeah and the arborist on our cell phones while we're out in the field just putting dots on a map it's somewhere between 25 and 50 feet apart that's why they want to plant a tree um so we're not creating a wall of trees they're they're spread out you can see that this is uh the I don't know if
17:23you're a certain color yeah they are it made special ones the green are large trees the orange are small so we've got one two three four five yellow dots medium and then the red right is when they have the like on South Main and everything is where they have to like remove sideways so basically Krista an example would be that row of trees is going to be similar to the row of trees that are along
17:50Kennedy Park with it yes that's that's a visual for you to have I'm just that row of trees would be I'm just saying since we're gonna I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware before the trees went in I like this idea I was just bringing it to your attention what she was saying that you might get feedback but I like this area that's why I was wondering about area and where uh
18:17the playground area is that's a wide area too yeah yep I'm just wondering maybe eventually we can put some benches and some picnic tables on in this area and make another picnic room have you ever heard of that street doctor I'm just saying it's a nice area it's right near the waterfront but you can't see the waterfronts it might be an area for like the you know school kids and everything to come down
18:43I mean these trees are already purchased for because we want to plant on Saturday um we got some really cool trees that'll go there um in between the the basketball court and that other cement pad there we've got some nice columnar trees that'll go so they'll stay really tight um I want to say they're pin oak columnar pin oaks um around the monument and flagpole um it's a flowering tree so it'd be some
19:11interest in the spring um a good variety so there'll be spring color fall color it I think it'll really enhance the park we've had some requests of the parks that I've gotten requests for Turner has been the most popular Pulaski being another popular request we planted in Pulaski a couple of weekends ago that was I would say hugely successful we had a lot of neighbors and young kids out helping us plant so
19:41that interrupt you but commissioner I know you were very festive about Kennedy and everything Mr perrano planted you an evergreen tree at Alaska foxy who can decorate he what I'd have a green a Christmas tree there is to be planted a Christmas tree I've got a Christmas tree to decorate on November 14th because I look forward then I'll cut it down and put it in front of here that's why we planted it isn't that what
20:11they're doing where's the Christmas tree coming from this year they don't cut it out of the fox they get it donated from the community this might be one we donate at some point
20:25any questions no no Jesus
20:46commissioner fire has made that motion seconded by commissioner all in favor say aye aye thank you you're welcome all right commissioner inquiries requires gee I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving to the public and to my fellow colleagues and everything over there and uh and on our Veterans Day to a lot of veterans I don't know about that thank you how did you forget I don't know
21:23like I'd see you guys before that right so I've uh motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn motions seconded by commissioner uh made by commissioner Ferris uh second black commissioner all in favor say aye aye