11.25.2025 Fall River City Council

City council committ finance will please come to order. Clerk will call the role.

Council Scadine here. Dion here. Art here. Kilby here. Here here.

Ponty here.

Reposo here.

Tiff here.

President here.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present now deemed acknowledged and permissible.

We have one individual who signed up for citizens input time Richard Branco.

Subject matter city charter have three minutes. Mr. Branco, excuse me.

Thank you everybody. I'm going to try to use a deeper voice because I hate the way my sound my voice ends on social media. I just want to set this up with a preface. You guys are all educated. You all most of you have college degrees.

I'm very intelligent.

I race cars. I deal with a rule book, which is what the city charter is. It's basically a rule book. So my biggest regret was not running for the charter commission because there would have been someone there to second Danny Robelad with a lot of things that he needed to say. My personal opinion as someone who ran for political office with the old charter versus the new charter, this new

charter is not set up to make more people get involved in the system. It's definitely set up completely different.

In my personal opinion, it was a magic trick. I have no idea what the charter commission is going to come and say today. I just know that technically they're not even honoring the own rules of the charter with what they're doing.

It's it's a loophole. It's what I do in racing cars. I exploit rule books. And I'm exploiting this right here. So, my opinion, and I wish Auggie was here, and you know what? I'm here.

Start the process over again. Think outside the box. Have an election with the nine city wards and have that be the nine member board. It's a possibility.

But with what we have now for a rule book, I don't want my daughter to be participate in the game with these rules. You know, there's a lot of changes in the next 10 years that this city chart is like it's I believe there's a lot of people that want more people involved. And all this city charter does is it makes an exclusive club an exclusive club. It makes it very hard for the average

person to get in. And I just hope you rip it up and you start it over again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item number two is a special charter review committee report tabled on October 8, 2024. I'll entertain a motion to lift.

Motion to lift from the table.

Second.

Motion to lift from the table is made in second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Item is now lifted from the table. Can you come down please and presentation on the special charter review?

You're welcome.

Please give your name and address for the record so we can have it, please.

Sure. Good evening, uh, city councilors.

My name is Reena Brown. I'm the chairperson of the special charter review committee. That was Can you hear me? Oh, more closer.

And uh, I'm accompanied with my clerk.

And truth be told, I can't talk well.

The dentist gave me these horrible teeth. So, I'm gonna let Tim answer all your questions.

Oh, no.

Uh because I'm spitting and it's crazy.

Go ahead, Tim. Introduce yourself.

Yeah. So, I'm Tim Campo.

Please speak into microphone.

Oh, sorry.

Ripped it up and threw it out there.

So, I'm Tim Campos. Um I was the charter clerk um responsible for executing the changes in the document and providing uh edits throughout the the process. Um obviously we had a much larger group of individuals but they couldn't accompany today. So it's just Reena and I. Um I know we've already presented this. I was unfortunately not at the first meeting.

Um but we've taken the feedback that was offered and we've added some additional changes. Um you know we had to work with a document that was already made previous. Um and so rather than rewriting the um the document, we did our best to make u you know edits and revisions that we thought would be prudent to uh better um operations here in the city. Um we've tried to be fair

on all ends and we've tried to um you know be really thoughtful about how this document could continue to last into the uh into the future.

Yeah. I mean, uh, the last time I was before you, uh, we tackled the big issues, parts of the charter that were subject to litigation. One was the recall provisions.

So, we changed it to two elections and we changed the language. There'll be one ballot that says, "Do you want soand so removed from office? Do you want so- and so to remain in office?" And then after those results come in, if the individual uh the majority of voters have voted that that individual is going to be recalled from office, there'll be a special election for that position. And

we uh had Ryan Lions, the um chair of elections uh down before the committee at least three times uh because we didn't want to make a recommendation that changed that process and it really couldn't be facilitated in real life.

Right.

And uh he explained to us that uh the time frame that we uh recommended in the charter for that special election uh was a time frame that his office could meet.

So, uh, that was one of the big changes.

The other big change, we call it the Hetsler clause. Uh, that was also litigated. The city had to litigate an individual that was an employee of the city and, uh, uh, on the school committee or wanted to be on the school committee. And so, we addressed that as well. um in it was actually it appeared in in two different areas uh under the prohibition um sections of the charter for the school committee and for the

city council. Um and uh we changed the other change we made was right now our the rec the charter the existing charter you require 150 signatures to appear on the ballot. um the input from people that did appear before the committee uh wanted it lower. So we lowered it to a 100 signatures and remember these are just recommendations from the committee.

Uh it was a nine person committee corporation council was a de facto member um and we worked for over two years on this and their recommendations.

We're not rewriting the charter and it goes in effect. Um I think one of the other things that came up and I'll discuss it because uh there's a lot of talk about it is there was a discussion to change the form of uh the council toward counselors right and it was discussed at at least two meetings and um it didn't make it it didn't get a second a motion was made and it didn't

get a second so it wasn't going to get the votes to change. Um and and that's all the stuff that the charter, you know, entails is your form of government, your, you know, job descriptions, the prohibitions.

One of the other things that came up was people did uh came up and were very vocal about felons being able to serve in office. It's unconstitutional. There were uh four lawyers on the charter review. So, you got your money's worth when it came to legal opinions and it is unconstitutional to keep anybody from seeking public office, felons, non-felons. Right. So, um, we did put language in there that, uh, was

one of the more recent changes is that if an officer is charged and convicted of a felony, but that felony entails their job, uh, I, you know, I, a, a city councelor writes themsself a check out of a city fund, right, and, gets caught and is charged with lararseny over or embezzlement. That's a felony committed while you're in office and then you are charged and then ultimately convicted.

That office is deemed vacated upon your conviction. Uh because again it is unconstitutional to presume that the person is going to be a felon. They're not convicted yet and it's unconstitutional to tell them they can't have that job. Um so then we basically move to the vacancy procedure at that point. So um Tim, can you speak?

Oh, sorry. And then and then we moved to the vacancy procedure. Um so that was that I think that was we tried to make the document more user friendly. You know we did things like you know an index and we referred uh a lot of the areas are governed by either by mass general laws. So we didn't have to delineate what your ethical obligations are. What we did was referred you to the mass general law

that governs ethical behavior of elected officials. Um, and we tried to reference that uh throughout the document so there wasn't confusion which in the previous edit there really wasn't references to that.

Um, so it could be open for some, you know, different interpretations that would be incorrect.

I think those were the big ones. You leave anything out recall felons.

Those are the big numbers. Those are the big ones.

We got a couple council ask questions.

Council C6 council party.

Thank you, Mr. President. First off, thank you to you both and to the committee members for what you've done.

I know it's all volunteer work. So on you know on behalf of the council thank you for all your work. Um just for um my own edification and those watching at home um the process by which you are making suggestions where does it go from here? Well, our uh interpretation of that was that it would these are recommendations that uh would come before you like tonight and if you approve those recommendations, the mayor

also has a copy and his office has to approve and you can do a couple things.

You can say, "Okay, we approve it and we're going to throw it in the filing cabinet and in a couple of years maybe we'll revisit it." it or you can say we approve it and let's send it to the attorney general's office. They have a municipal law division. Every charter in every town has to go up to the attorney general's office where their municipal law department reviews that city's

charter for any conflicts of law. They do not send it back. We think you should do this and that. All they do is red line any areas that conflict with state law.

Okay?

And then once it comes back, let's say you approve it, mayor approves it, you have voted to send it for the conflict of law review, and then you get it back and it's stamped by the attorney general. It'll then come back before you because this council um is the body that approves whether it goes on a ballot.

You approve anything that goes on a ballot, right? this council uh votes to what goes on a ballot. You vote on when there's an election. Um let's just say tonight you approve it and you say let's send it to the attorney general's office. Mayor approves it. Um and it comes back to you before November of 2026. Let's just say in a perfect world it comes back to you. The problem with

it with you voting to put it on that ballot is we spoke to Ryan Lions and a November 2026 ballot is going to have like a thousand there's 25 to 30 referendum questions.

Ryan feels that if uh the charter recommendations, the new charter goes on that ballot that it will get lost in that shuffle. There's a a ton of questions. I think it's already a two-page or three-page ballot in 2026.

You can sit on it and perhaps uh you would put it on the November 2027 municipal election ballot which would be focused on local election and there would only likely be one uh question which would be related to the charter. However, that is for your determination. Um we we feel that this going up to the legislature, they're going to take their process and they're going to take their time. Um you know,

it could take a very short period of time. Um you know, they have I think like a year and a half left for them to work this through. Um so they could work it pretty quickly or they could, you know, it could go through its process which might take a bit longer. Um so for us, our recommendation for, you know, for maximum visibility to the voters would be to wait until 2027. Um,

however, that's just a recommendation.

Um, I think, um, the legislature certainly will dictate whether or not it's available for, uh, to go on a ballot for 2026.

Yeah.

All right. So, you you mentioned the the Hetsa clause is where I would call it.

Um, that's kind of how we referred to it.

So, it remains in this city charter that if you are an elected official and you are deemed uh by the executive, the mayor, uh, to assume a duty of, let's call it, I don't know, a city department role. That's an elected official, right?

What would what would happen in that situation? It would still remain that cooling off period for an entire year before. Has that been changed?

Well, the the court said, listen, that part of your charter is not okay. That's what the court said. It's not okay. So, I think right now um you couldn't prohibit somebody because the court has said, but it contradicts the verbiage and the but it contradicts. So where where direct me where in this charter that you made that that that clear change. So again again we can go back to Mayor

Flanigan appointed Kathy and Vera city administrator. She was a top folk on the city council. Never took that never took the seat but was not elected. That's totally different. However, if a mayor decides to appoint a city councelor as city administrator uh the charter says you can't do that the existing charter.

But where did you make the change here?

What's it the prohibitions holding other city position the one-year wait?

Yeah. Yeah. We have no former member.

Oh, that's for the school.

Oh, I don't have the old charter with me.

And it could be school committee.

That's my problem. I don't mind. And it could be school committee, too. I'm just using this as an example.

Yeah. Um, so we don't have the old charter to reference. Um, but we we took it out completely is what we did.

Yes.

The language of it was that a I think the language of it was a city employee couldn't seek elected office.

I think that's what the language of it was.

And I apologize for not having the old charter with me. We completely Yeah, we we took it right out. Mr. President, can I do a point of order on that? What um Attorney Brown is saying if you were on the council, when I was on the council and I ran for mayor, I had to be out a year, which meant I couldn't be receiving a pay, but I had committed to

the voters of Fall River to serve for two years when I was elected. So I served that year for nothing, right? That was about the only way I could have went from here.

And I and I think the other thing is the your the ethic the code of ethics addresses the salary issues.

Sure.

It tells you you can't take two pages.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. So here's my my point. On page eight, it says, "No former member of the city council shall hold any compensated appointed city position until one year following the date on the former member service on the city council as terminated." I guess that's to my colleagueu's point, right?

Yes.

Such employment shall be subject to civil service or collective bargaining.

All right. But again, I'm not talking about elected officials running for office. I'm talking about an elected official. I know there's a cooling off period at the state. I get that. But I I'm I'm wondering if a if if a mayor wants to take a school committee person and make them city administrator that can that or can that not happen?

They have to be out of you and where where where not according to the current charter that you're working under, but that's exactly how why that litigation was initiated.

Right. So why why why wouldn't we just out of curiosity, I'm not trying to minimize the work that you did, why wouldn't we clarify that now instead of totally removing it because we removed it and I think during my last visit here we provided you with the Hetsler superior court decision too. Um, do you think it's worthwhile? I guess my question if if after my colleagues speak to have that discussion again and and

and clarify that or are we just going to follow the state for a city employee? Now, let pose the question again.

All right. Sure. So, if if the mayor wakes up and there's a vacancy in, for example, city administrator. Yeah.

And the mayor decides that they think the they want to appoint a school committee member to the role of city administrator. The current city charter that we have states that an elected official is not able to take a city job without waiting one year.

Is that is that that was removed from your current suggestion?

No, that's still in there. Prohibition um it's in a couple spots. Section 2-3 except for and then it also is under the under the school committee prohibitions.

What is this point of information? What is the state cooling off period? 6 months.

Year. That's a year.

It's 6 months.

It's under 2-3 and it's also under 4-3.

No former member of the school committee shall hold any compensated appointed city position until one year following the date in which that service ends.

Because you say the charter is separated into executive legislative one year. So we had to do it twice.

Just got a point of clarification first.

Is it a year or six months? How many a year?

The question was the state. So state ethics says that you have to wait six months.

Six months. The charter says it wasn't in the charter. The state law the charter says a year.

The charter says yeah. But his question was my my point is wouldn't why wouldn't the charter be consistent with state law. So to my colleague in seat one's point in and my point of information is that if the cooling off period at the state level is 6 months then why doesn't it say 6 months in our city charter?

certainly something that we should maybe throw back at the committee and revisit that and maybe get an opinion. I only say that because it's look, it's hard if if an individual if a school committee member or city council member resigns from their post January 2nd, that person cannot take a city paid job for six months, right?

Currently, it's a year. Mhm.

So if for example if a an elected official isn't reelected for example and there is a city opportunity that that individual may want they can't apply or get that job for 6 months right based on the state but on the charter it says a year. So we should probably clarify that the mayor we have funny you said that because we the same scenario came up. We were like what if a school commander doesn't get elected but

there's a teaching position available immediately. We had many discussions about that and we did put a clause in here if it was for good cause.

What defines good cause?

We did.

But what defines I got to find it.

What defines I'm I'm just curious. What defines good cause?

And who's And who makes the interpretation of good cause? Uh uh good cause the city council, the mayor, the No, we did we we did put it in here. Do me one second.

All right. And while you do that, maybe Mr. Campos, you can answer this. So, in terms of contracts and appointments, I do want to get back to that, Miss Attorney Brown, but um I I do want to ask this contracts and appointments. Um I I take the position that um if if the city council authorizes and approves an individual who has a contract, so you bring a city auditor, for example, and

that person was approved by the city council to have a year contract or a two-year contract or three or whatever it is. at the term of the at the end of that contract, the term of that contract, I take the position that um that person needs to come back before the city council for approval. Again, that's my my opinion. Is there any clarification on that in your suggested changes?

I see you have I see you have um do you have a appointments of the city council on page 10?

Yeah. So these, like uh Reena said, these are sections. So there's some um repeated sections but have slightly different verbiage. So if you can just direct me with what you're looking at, I'll Yeah. So I I'm not looking at anything.

I was kind of looking for you for a little guidance. Where would I find in this document that you guys work so hard to prepare if the city I I have to say this so I hate to interrupt but trust me when I tell you anything could be litigated and we certainly were trying to be as thorough as we can. I don't want I don't want to appeal like we left stuff out. I think

these are great questions and I think we need to go back and take a look at them like making the six make making the one year to six months to mirror mirror the state.

I But there was like so much just Attorney Brown, I just want to make clear I'm not trying to do gutas in any way, shape, or form. These are just things, these are just things I think about all the time, right? Like my my my first question that you're looking up is the mayor's having a heck of a time filling positions, right? Could we make it easier for a chief executive to hire

a qualified person who may or may not have been elected official, right? I don't know. It's hard to find people according to the mayor who I spoke to.

So, and that was the thing that we that took up a lot of discussion was like why do people have to wait so long and why can't they just fill these positions if they're the most qualified candidate?

And I know we put language here getting point of information if I may. Section 2-10.

Um, it relates to appointments.

The question that he asked a second ago.

Okay. So, it doesn't state anything here, and I'm reading it really fast, but it doesn't say anything here about the terms of a of a contract, right? So, again, if there's a city employee that gets appointed by the Forver City, the mayor sends down to the for city council an individual for a department head contracted position. That contract runs out. It's a two-year contract signed by

the mayor and that contract's over. I take the position that that person needs to come back before the city council for approval. Such happened with um Maline Coelloo when she was the uh um city human resource officer. She would come back on the beginning of an election year in the beginning of that year every year because her contract was every two years. But that has stopped and it's no

disrespect or uh not being disingenuous to the administration. I just feel like that has stopped and it doesn't happen anymore. I believe that if you have a two-year contract with the department head, they have to come back before the city council for approval. That's what I think. And is there any comments or any commentary on that here?

No, I don't remember that. I don't believe so. I don't. So, I don't even remember hearing conversations.

No, I don't I don't believe we talked about Remember, if it wasn't in the old charter, we probably didn't address it in the new recommendations, right? And and I'll be happy to memorialize this and send it to the clerk to send it to you. Um, but I it sounds to me that we have time, right?

We've had a lot of time, but we have plenty time.

We have time. It doesn't look like this is going on next fall's ballot. And I think we have a really good opportunity after probably hearing my colleagues speak a little bit more about where areas where we can improve. But there's a lot of that. Now, I did see the whole last comment I'll make is I did see the whole if a mayor um uh if if a mayor releases or um I call it discontinues the

services of mayor.

The council president would then become the acting mayor, have the powers of the mayor, but would resign their his or her seat on the city council. My question is, what would happen to the 10th person on the city council ballot? Would they would would the would the seat of city council? So, the city council president becomes the acting mayor. that city council president is the acting mayor

and cannot serve on the city council.

Does the 10th position take the city council president's seat as the ninth member of the city council?

If not, then why the vice president becomes No, no, I'm not no I'm not talking about council leadership until the the 10 on council. If it if it says here that the city council president would serve as mayor but could not go to the city council and act as a city counselor and I know you made a mention that the city council president serving as acting mayor would would get the mayor's

salary. You made that change here, right? They wouldn't stick on the city council salary. So then my question is the 10th person on the city council race while the council president goes up and the vice president goes to the presidency that opens a seat on the council. Correct. Would the 10th person on the ballot jump in and serve as counselor for the remaining of that term?

Yes.

Where is that clear here?

It's in the vacancy. We refer back to the vacations. I think vacancy in office of mayor automatically become president 15. So page 15 page 15 through to 16.

So if the council president if the president becomes mayor that create that creates a vacancy in the council then you go to the vacancy provision under the legislative portion of the uh charter.

So the city what if the what if this mayor says I'm stepping aside for until I you know whatever and then comes can can that mayor come back in six months.

There's time frames.

Three months, whatever. Yeah, there's time frames.

There's time frames. So 60 days.

So the mayor can come if if the if the elect duly elected mayor, correct, steps aside for office for two months, that elected mayor will then be able to go back to the mayor's job and the council president goes back to the city council presidency.

No, we put um it's contingent on specific circumstance. So um if you look at three uh 3-10, whenever a vacancy occurs in the office of mayor by death, removal, resignation, or incapacity for a period greater than 21 days during the first 18 months of the term for which the mayor was elected, the city council shall call a special election to be held within 90 days. So if the mayor deci, you know,

happens to fall ill, that's a different scenario than if um he resigns or he or she resigns or or dies um or have happens to become very very ill where they can no longer, you know, do the duties of mayor.

Um that would kind of take a different sect than if they were just saying, "Hey, I need some personal time." Um there's a window of time there with 21 days. 21 days and on the 22nd day, the mayor doesn't come back. He's gone.

So now that would then trigger the vacancy of office.

It would trigger 38.

Okay. Where did 21 days come from?

Do you remember? Was that in the existing charter?

So I believe that was in the existing charter, but I also think it's consistent with state we try we tried to reference as much of state law as we could um and then state practice so that we could be aligned with um other cities, right? like the hundred signatures in the alphabetical order of candidates on the ballot mere of state uh state rules.

Yeah.

Okay. All right. I yield. Thank you, Mr.

President.

Council council.

Good evening. I don't have so much as questions as I do comment.

Okay.

Um I guess I disagree with um the purpose of the comm the committee's job. Um, and I'll I'll So, whoops, I have to go back to today first. I'm sorry. Um, the uh let's see.

The special committee shall hold a minimum of two public hearings, shall file its report with the city clerk by June 30th in the year following its appointment, which we're actually far beyond that, but that's beside the point. Recommendations shall be posted on the city website and copies shall be made available to the public at a cost not to exceed the actual cost of reproduction. There is nothing nothing

in here that suggests the city council should has to or will take action.

Nothing. However, at the 10-year review, which is in two years from now, in 2027, the special committee sh and it's a and it's a different composition too for some reason. the the committee. But anyways, the special committee shall file its report with the city clerk not later than August 1st in the year following the year in which the committee is appointed. The recommendations of the special committee

shall appear on the city council's agenda for action before August 15th in such year and if not so scheduled by the city clerk, the matter shall come before the city council for action at its meeting next held following August 15th.

and no other business shall be in order until such report has been acted upon by roll call vote. Copies of any recommendation shall be made available to the public on the city website and shall be available upon request at a cost not to exceed the actual cost of the reproduction. So when I read both of those, there's nothing nothing that says we take action now. It's strictly make recommendations, post it on the city

website, um send it to the clerk, action comes two years from now. They they missed the five-year. What happened is we weren't appointed.

Yeah, we were appointed.

They they completely missed the five-year. There was no five-year and then um our appointments came late. Um and it took us a couple years to get through this.

Um yeah, it was supposed to happen in 2022. I think you ended up being in 2023, but really didn't kick off. supposed to be filed the f following a year later, the following August, and now we're in 2025. But we're two years away from the 10-year. Um, right. Because they never got to the fiveyear.

Yeah. So, the five-year was never done because the last revision was what, 90 months ago.

So, you're right. It's not something that was going to be re It's not something that was going to be rewritten. It's not something that you were going to change. It's not something that we're going to change. It was a review with recommendations that hopefully hopefully the 10-year committee would pick up from those recommendations and at that point then the city council take action then

perhaps it gets sent to the state. But I don't think at this point in time that's where we are and I don't and there's nothing in here suggesting it is and um that's just my two cents and I'm not a lawyer.

No, I hear you. I I mean, let's face it, there's been charter violations by the multitude every year.

Oh.

And I think, you know, um because there was no five-year there's a charter violation, right? There was no five-year review of that document that you're operating under now. And what that what happened is because there's no five-year review. Would they have caught the litigation that happened? I I don't think anybody would have anticipated what happened with the recall with the recall election and then what what we

deem the hets clause and those were things that one would have hoped the five-year review. I mean the charter commission before us spent 40,000 $40,000 on an outside firm correct to review that document that ended up costing this city a ton of money in litigation.

So um it was also a templated, right? It was kind like, well, and and so I think, no, I get it.

All I know is that we were appointed, asked to make recommendations, and here we are. What the city council does with it.

We're done with our job. We I mean we'll go we you know there's been great questions like make the six month make the one year mirror the state with six months and um revisit uh the prohibition right uh that I think that's a great idea and I think those are great recommendations our job's done we're after tonight I don't think we have to meet again unless you unless unless unless you want us to.

Yeah.

Um that's why I said you guys really you can take it and put on shelf right now.

Yeah. And and and I think essentially that that's what was meant. But I agree with you. Have there been a ton of violations? Absolutely. Has there been any recourse?

No.

Do things cost the city money?

Well, yeah. So, um I'll back up, but so we we have no recourse other than if every time the charter was violated, we would have to go to court, which would be what? 40,000 40,000$40,000 $40,000 every time there was an infraction. So there was no mechanism in here, in other words, to be able to address anything without litigation, which I think was a huge mistake as well. So yes, I mean, I

appreciate the work you did. I know you worked very hard at it. Um I just think at this point there just isn't we there really isn't anything we can do other than say yes, we're going to take the res uh the recommendations. We're going to put them on the city uh website.

They'll be filed with the clerk. And I I hate to interrupt, they're posted on the city website. We've worked closely with it that every time we do a revision, they're always public.

Oh, no, no. I know.

You know, we publish our minutes, our agendas, uh, every meeting.

Yeah. I was just speaking to the wording, not that you haven't.

No, I got I and I think if if you as the council feel that this document is sufficient to meet the new needs of the city and you want to push it, I think that's where Yeah, that's that's where our that's where we're trying to um to help facilitate. So we've we worked with a document that was basically a templated document. It was not uh fully customized or optimized for the city. Uh and that's

why there was a lot of issues that have come up over the last. So our job and our task was a difficult one because we didn't start rewriting the document.

What we did is went through what was already present and tried to optimize it and tried to reference good law. also, you know, some big errors and big issues that we saw, we tried to address those um in in a manner that we could facilitate handing this off to you. Um and then now I think if the council wants to say, "Hey, we like what's in here. We like that there are additional

protections. We like the additional wording. We like the additional work that you guys have done. You can now push it up to legislature if you want.

But I would also suggest with this conversation going back and forth that there's still other things that need to be addressed and need to be discussed prior to sending this to legislation."

Well, this is a living document. I think this is going to be what should be happening in the future as well. I mean, the the five 10 year periods, that's where this document really should continue to grow and and develop. You know, we started with something that was paid with a consultant and now we've had a we had a commission there looking at it and now we have our commission that's

looked at it and then there will be another commission after us that will look at it. Um, I think the goal is that this document continues to grow and develop to meet the needs of the city.

Um, you know, and I think that's where we tried to do our best to give the next group or the council the best version of the document that we could um to s to cover what's kind of come up and have have been problems for the city.

I mean, you you're not going to be able to get around that the what I I hate calling it the hex clause because he's probably watching. I don't mean to call it that. The problem is city's going to face litigation over that again because if you because it's in your current charter a court has deemed it unconstitutional and if you want to enforce the current charter you're going to get litigation every time you tell

somebody no with this holding two positions. Your other problem is going to be your recall your recall provision.

you are still gonna end up with the same thing that happened during the last recall and that is they recalled somebody and reelected them on the same ballot and people tried litigation and lost and I you know um those were like two of the big ones that really caused problems for the city but as your current chart is written it's still going to cause problems for you. There's also, and for

any lawyers that are on the council, um I'm sure you understand how important wording is in legal documents, um the the the document that we had was not very well referenced. Um particularly with the law and left for a lot of interpretation, which Reena and I spent a lot of time going through amongst the other um commissioners. And what we tried to do as a whole is make this document much better written and it

flows. it has much better references. It references mass law um which the other one didn't and it opens it up for scrutiny. It opens it up for you know misinterpretation. And I think that's where the city could have could walk into some issues depending on how people are reading the old document. And so we really tried to tighten up the language in this document um to eliminate that in

the future. Right. I think the superior court judge in one of his opinions, 10 taxpayers versus the former mayor said, "Hey, your charter doesn't say it. I'm not changing it for you. That's up to your council."

Um and so your charter, that provision is what it is.

And and and there's and there's no argument that that um in many many places within this document, there is no specificity. I mean, everything's general. everything is well, you know, intent it, you know, as opposed to being black and white. Um, and again, so I I I think there's uh just definitely more to be done. Um, Oh, yeah. I I there is I mean, I I didn't know that the prohibition was six

months according to state, but truth be told, I didn't I didn't read all the state laws applicable to the prohibition.

No, we we tried to reference We tried to read them all. All right.

Well, I'll yield in case anybody else wants to speak and uh take a motion.

I mean, I would personally, if if I was going to make motion, it would be to send it to the clerk, file it, and um let the 10-year review pick up from there, and then the city council take action as recommended. But that's just me.

That doesn't mean we have to be on the 10-year review, right? You're not No, no, no, no.

Okay.

No, no.

Well, you don't want to be on the 10 year. I listen you don't want to be on the 10ear review eight other wonderful people and they they when I tell you they all showed up I mean one of the I can tell you this one of the issues we ran into is we met on Tuesday nights the school committee meets on Tuesday nights and one of our members has to be from

the school committee so that was one of our issues y um and then another member was from the city council and then she resigned so she couldn't finish out her term but I have to tell you we had a very eclectic knowledgeable real passionate groups of people. Kathy Nemkovitz from Holy Trinity Church was our neighborhood person. Tracy um Almeida was kind of our person in education. She's at UMass Dartmouth. We

had John Mitchell, Paul Mashado, um Danny Robot, Danny Robelad, because you have to have somebody that served on the last charter commission. And Danny, there's no one more passionate about Danny. And we had a lot of citizens that showed up early on. later on, not so much. But early on, we had a ton of my charter review file is this thick because we had a lot of citizen input.

Um, either they came in person or they emailed us. You know, we were only held two public hearings. Every single one of our meetings were open to the public and we had two public hearings later. Um so I I think we went above and beyond to make it as you know transparent as we could and we literally you know were begging people come come you know and we didn't have we didn't even have a limit

on input people came and could speak for as long as they wanted to because you know we felt like you know people really if you needed to go on for 20 minutes we kind of tried to cut it but I mean if that's what they did that's what they wanted. So um I I certainly want to thank the city for the opportunity. It is not we're not done yet. more council have questions.

I'm actually going to make the motion that that we file it with the city clerk because it doesn't stop discussion but just that the motion is there.

Council council thank you. Uh so first of all thank you for all the hard work.

I know how difficult it can be and especially with u differing opinions in terms of how you know municipal government should run and interpretation of the uh the charter itself. The only thing I do want to mention is the I think unintended consequence with regard to the vacancy in the office of mayor and it's something I think we should really kind of take u a hard look at because the way it reads and just to

piggyback on uh council Ponty's line of question and anything short of six months left in the term there is no election required right so we got a new council that was just elected so god forbid something happens in February Um, and now we have to have the either the president or the vice president or somebody in this council has to serve as the acting mayor. If nobody in this council wants to be mayor

or run for mayor, they have now lost their position that they just ran for for city council, right? Because they can't come back to the seat. So, I I think there should be some type of language. Uh, unless the council president or whoever is serving as acting mayor intends to run uh for the position of mayor, they are allowed to come back to the city council because that's essentially the position that they ran for,

right?

Um, so because if not, then we're all going to be sitting here voting to figure out who's not serving a two-year term, right? So, that that's essentially what we're doing. Um, you know, pretty much having a a vote saying, "Okay, Right.

Once you go in, if you're voted out, you're out. No, I Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly.

So, I I think that's that's just one because I don't I don't think that was the intended consequence for it. So, I I think if if there is no intention to run for the position of mayor once a vacancy is had, that individual should be able to fall back into the position of city council, which is where they were elected. So, uh that's my only statement for the the charter moving forward. With

that, I yield. point of information.

Council seat six, the the point um to my colleague in seat 2 that we're we're filing a there's a motion that was made to record it with the city clerk, but there's some changes that we want to make. Where are we going?

We're just accepting.

What are we doing that? What's what was the point of the motion if I may my colleague too?

To follow what the charter said that we put a committee together that would look at the charter, make recommendations, they would be posted on the website and filed with the city clerk. But can we still can changes still be made?

Yeah.

Can the committee still commence? I just want to make sure. All right. Because we we That doesn't stop that.

I just wanted to make sure. I wanted to be clear with the motion. That's all.

Yep. Thank you.

It's for the next council. The report has already been filed with city clerk. So that's already all set.

So then my point of information, not to convolute this is we all a bunch of us just made some suggestions and some clarification points. Where do where do those go from here?

in a box.

In a box, you got to put them in the suggestion box for the special charter review committee that is going to take place in two years. You have got to either appoint or elect uh is it uh at your tenure? You got to get another charter review committee.

Yeah, we we really you you either need to take this document. I mean we can continue to make some minor modifications and present it again within whatever the time frame is right before it but otherwise you'll have to appoint a new committee a new commission in two years in two years and then they would have their time to come and take they can take this and do what they want with it

or they could throw it out do a whole new one.

Well then what the heck have you guys been doing?

Well, I thought that's what we were doing but it's open to interpretation.

I guess my my point is I'm just so confused. You just guys spent two years going through all these changes and now we're going to put in a box for maybe a committee in two years to pick it up or do nothing with it.

That seems like a exercise that it's it's what we were appointed to do.

We don't have any other That's what the charter said they had to do.

Y So in order to make changes to our charter, you have to submit to the legisle.

We have we have to submit it to the legislature.

Yes.

Do we need to elect a charter a new charter commission to do that?

Not at the moment. Not as far as we're concerned. We thought I'll tell you our interpretation of it was we just make you recommendations. We go back and forth with you. We get your input.

Right.

If you if we come back in three months, it's a new council, but if we come back and it's to that council in three months, they love these recommendations so much.

you can vote to send it to the attorney general's office to have it reviewed for a conflict of law and then get it back and if you still like it then it can be put on the ballot for 2027.

The only way that this charter can get executed as in its new state is if the voters vote on it.

Y so it has to make it to ballot to ballot.

It has to go through the legislature first and then come back to the council.

can't go to the ballot unless it goes to the attorney general's municipal law division before this council and the mayor which can happen within the next two years.

Right.

Thank you.

Council see one.

I'm good.

You good?

Yeah.

Right. Well, thank you very much for coming down. I want to commend you both on and the entire committee that reviewed this wonderful job.

No, Michelle has the motion.

Thanks for all your time. All set.

Yeah. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, we we worked really hard on this and I know there's some, you know, it's a bunch of people are missing, but they were grateful to serve.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Michelle, you want to repeat your motion to see what they do.

Motion second.

Michelle made a motion and the motion was seconded. Are we having a roll call vote, Mr. President?

We can. Motion has been made and seconded. Madam Clerk, you have the motion correct? Yes, but if I could add to it, the report was filed with the city clerk's office um September of last year. Perhaps you could refer it for posting it on the website. It it has been on the website as part of agenda packets and perhaps on the special committee's web page, but after the council's um discussion tonight, perhaps

you can um refer to the right and then in order it to be placed on the website.

That's my recommendation.

I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?

I'm sorry.

The mot the motion was to uh send the report to the clerk for filing.

The report was filed September of 2024.

Okay.

The next step according to the charter would be that the recommendations be posted on the website.

Okay. in light of tonight's discussion, you could, you know, take that vote and make that request for the website and then we have to get another committee to look at and review the changes and make any additional changes to it prior to Well, there's a 10-year review that's automatically done that would be forthcoming. That's going to happen in a few years.

Okay. So, is there a motion?

Thank you.

As the clerk stated, yeah, mo I make the motion. The clerk just second clarified second made in second. All in favor?

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Item number three.

In accordance with the provisions of chapter 44 section 33b of the Massachusetts General Law. I recommend the following appropriation transferred to your honorable body. Item number one, that the sum of $189,68262 be in the same here by transferred to various department salaries from the reserve fund. That's 8B1.

Is there a motion?

It's unnecessary. It's already a full council.

A motion to refer to full council. It's down there.

Okay.

It's a full discussion already.

No discussion.

We'll go to item number two. that the sum of $39,46842 be the same as hereby transferred the police salaries from facilities salaries discussion yeah what is this transfer all Mr.

President, what what is this about? Can Can we have some clarif clarification?

Sure. Want to come down, please? I just heard about

So, there's a transfer of 39,000 from facility salaries to police salaries.

Correct. So, um, if you recall during budget season, we had a conversation that there was, um, a budget for street light repair and maintenance from facilities that was transferred into the police department. Um, and it wasn't, I guess, a transfer, but it was moved during the budget process. We had conversations then about the um, staffing for the workload to be transferred or not. And because we were

unsure of what that was going to look like at that point in time during the budget, we did not move anything. Um, since then we did decide that we were going to move an electrician over from the facilities department that was vacant and has been vacant into police um because they had an opportunity to hire an apprentice um to help take on that extra workload. So um it's just to

move some of that money over um we took the time to do it during this contract um the ask me contract during the ask me contract financial movement because it is kind of there's increases that are part of it and so we're just moving the budget between the departments. So, it's 39,000 because there is a need for an increase in salary for facilities based on the contract changes without the position

moving. So, I think that's about $18,000 that was needed there. So, that's why we're only moving over 40,000.

Okay. But none of that's going to go towards like overtime or anything like that.

It's it's just for the position being shifted over at this point in time.

That's it.

That's it. and for obviously the increases that are coming with that position from this contract, right?

Because there's a budgeted amount plus then like the two and a half% increase.

So that's for that this indiv is there I'm sorry. Is there an individual from facilities that is going to go to the police department?

No.

So then what how did we find it was a vacant position.

Oh, so it's a vacant position in facilities.

There's two vacant electrician positions in facilities and you're taking and what was the what was the amount budgeted for those two positions?

58,000 per position.

All right. and you're taking just the remaining 39 and moving it to police because yeah because there was an increase for the other positions that are still in ask me in facilities that need to be kind of increased at this time. So instead of moving money into facilities and moving money into police and then moving money from facilities to police I it just kind of washes.

Well then on that on that point since we're talking about a collective bargaining essential transfer how much was the ASME increase then uh in the current for that position? you know, altogether budget-wise.

So, that's that's included in your documents. Um, I can pull up the number.

Sorry.

Yeah, I just had this item in front of me, so I wanted to I know that item is before us on item eight on our full council agenda, which I have questions for, but I'm just wondering since we're in the finance meeting, we've got five minutes.

Thank you.

Um, so the the total cost of the contract, the fiscal impact statement is provided, it's broken down by fiscal year. So, um, the general fund for fiscal year 26, it's an impact of about $145,000.

Um, for EMS, it's about 110,000. Um, sewer is 200 or 2,200. Um, and then water is 550,300.

So, that's just for year one that I went over. So, all all three years are broken out individually and then in total by fund.

Yeah. And that and that's on item eight on our agenda. Is that what you broke down? Okay. I I'll review that then. I yield. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Council T1. Council Kim, I'm sorry. Can we Can we go back to 8A?

We haven't done that yet.

We haven't.

You did.

It's got to be in full counsel. So, we can if you want to ask questions, go right ahead.

No, we did AAA know there was no questions and then we moved right to AB.

I just Correct. Go ahead.

I didn't have enough time to raise my hand. That was that was the only thing.

Oh, then I'm sorry. I got questions.

Um, just I guess originally I didn't have any issues or concerns with the CBA. Um, but just leading up to the meeting when I was in the back, one of my colleagues came in up and then basically suggested and I'm not sure this is the case, but are is there now different rates for dispatches and MIH dispatchers? And if so, what is the city's infatuation with paying MIH more money than every other comparable group?

This is the second time it's happening, and I I I just I struggle to understand the logic behind it.

So there they're two different unions.

Um we are now playing catchup a little bit on the dispatch side for ASME 3177 122 different union. Um we are making some corrections. You've probably already seen them come through in the EMS agreement that came in. um not reducing salary but changing some of the certifications that are needed on the 122 side. Um but the new dispatch rate is catching up to that rate over on the EMS side.

So there's still lower than MIH.

Yes.

So why are we pay I don't understand why we playing catch-up. Why wouldn't we just catch up to match that rate?

Yeah. I mean dispatch is dispatch. I I go back to the paramedics like, you know, you you've got essentially private work getting paid or were suggesting to to pay them 5% more than what a 911 emergency paramedic was going to be doing. And and I I had individuals that were trying to justify that there was more work for transport than there is for 911, which is just not the case. I

don't care how you sell it. But now we're we're starting to see that dispatch is there's a discrepancy, right? I don't know if you if you pick up a call, right? A dispatch in a 911 center has to do just as much if not more than somebody doing just solely transportation, right? There's a lot more information that goes into it dealing calming people down. I mean, when when you're dealing

dispatch at a hospital, every I think everybody has come because people have already received medical services. So, I I don't know why they would be paid more than our 911 dispatch.

Understood. We added three additional steps to the dispatchers for 3177 and they will pass that rate at the end of this.

Okay. Uh so I I will not be supporting this just for that that purpose. I I cannot support the increased inequities with people performing the same jobs or or people performing less of the job or responsibilities and getting paid more money uh for that those job responsibilities. I I just and Right.

And it just seems for whatever reason MIH is just taking this stance where they should be paid more than the individuals who have been performing and continue to perform at a more difficult and stressful position.

So that's just that's just my stance. I I I wish I wish we would have been told that in advance. I know you and I have had a conversation in a sit down. Other than that, I support this and I just I just hate to uh impact the other I don't know 200 members that are that are going to be uh part of this collective bargaining agreement. I know it's difficult especially dealing with as me

having those uh different groups from you know water, sewer, uh clerical, all that. I understand that. But again, I I think when we look at equity, there needs to be equity across the board. and I just can't continue to sit here and support the fact that the administration comes down with higher increases for one division um without any legitimate rationale for it. I I just can't support that. With that, I yield.

Thank you, Council Counc.

Thank you, Mr. President. I agree with my colleague. Um these are some things that I've heard. Um we did have a conversation uh prior to this meeting.

Um just to elementary this to bring this down a level, right? So, if I'm a police dispatcher or a fire dispatcher in this current collective bargaining agreement, are they seeing or are they not seeing an increase?

They're seeing an increase.

Okay. However, if I am a dispatcher that has been assigned to uh transports and MIH down over here at the new building, they're getting an increase, but a higher increase.

No, their rate is currently higher.

Their rate is currently higher than the Fall River Police and Fire dispatchers.

Yes.

And they're also getting an increase in this as well.

No, that's a separate union.

What what union is what union is that then?

Uh EMS. They they are part of 1202, right?

This is 3177. So the EMS dispatchers are part of the EMS.

But the inequity to my colleagues point, what what what is Let's break down the inequity, right? So your thoughts.

No, I I understand what you're saying and that's what we're trying to fix here by adding steps. Obviously dispatch is one of the areas that we've had a lot of turnover. We've had trouble with retention, recruitment. We we do think that the new steps and the increases will But aren't we getting um Mr. Magalini, aren't we getting are aren't there issues with recruitment for dispatchers

all across the board? It doesn't matter if it's uh for EMS, if it's a fire or police, it's a tough, daunting schedule.

It's it's it's a very challenging job and they they deserve to see some increases. No, no question about it. So do a lot of our other Ask Me employees.

But the inequity there, like did anybody come into into the collective bargaining discussions and say, "Well, wait a minute. This is it's completely unfair."

Those are part of the conversations that we had. We did do comps on the dispatch side. And my understanding is EMS I mean um the police dispatchers are in agreement with this contract. The union voted for this contract. This went before their body. This entire document that came before you, the ASME union voted for and that's why it was sent down to you. their body is in agreement with this package as presented.

Is the body is the body fully aware of the inadequacies and the unfair they're aware of what the the EMS dispatchers are making. Yes.

So because the majority of the dispatchers that are currently employed are at step three which is currently without this agreement. It's the currently the max step with the new stuffs being added in. Their salary for FY26 is within I believe I can pull the document that I have from EMS, but it's within $2,000 for the year. The same sal. It's not that far off. So I I'm not sure.

Yeah, but why would we pay? I'm just curious. A dispatcher is a dispatcher, correct?

Different bargaining units.

That's how the different rates get set.

So it's not But why would we have un point of information could does does anybody know what the call volume is between 911 and MIH?

I would have I'd be curious to see how that breaks down to 2,000 a year.

Yeah. All right. So look, I agree with my colleague. This this isn't something I think I could support right now. If you want to bring it back to the union if it's if it doesn't pass the council, maybe it does. I don't know. But I I just I don't think it's I don't think it's fair. Um and are we overstepping our our bounds by saying this? I don't think so. Um I think it's going to have

future financial impacts on the city and I think it's going to have future financial impacts on being fair because this is in my opinion is a a key ingredient for an unfair labor practice dispute if I if I can be completely honest with you. Um and I I we I know with all due respect to you, Mr. Mini, we did have a meeting in your office and you were wonderful to talk to. I'm not

questioning that. But this is just something I I don't I don't necessarily find to be fair all across the board and I think we need to correct it now. I yield. Thank you.

Council see one council.

Thank you. Um in in ter in the bargaining unit itself, how many dispatchers are there?

38.

38. And how many are in the actual bargaining unit?

I don't actually know that.

38.

Well, I think employed right now.

No, ask me. Ask me.

Oh, I'm sorry. About 200 give or take.

So there's 200 voting members. How much?

about yeah if all our vacancies are filled you're right so about 200 probably so so 200 so and I'm not suggesting that this takes place but let's I I think we understand the logic right so you've got 38 individuals who are fighting to get some type of equity you've got another call it a 170 140 uh 60 other people that are going to be voting that if you have given them everything that they are

looking for right and it's a halfway decent contract the numbers would tell you that they would potentially vote for it because they're looking at their their own right gain in terms of the collective bargaining. So from my standpoint, I again I understand collective bargaining, but there's got to be equity, right? So you've you've got a group that only is 38 members out of 200, right? And and the fact of the

matter is is that the call volume is through the roof. I would I would highly suggest that anybody who has never done um who who is part of the collective bargaining on the administration side go and sit in 911 and listen to the calls coming in the non-stop calls. We already hear it. The police the police doesn't the police department doesn't even show up to half the calls, right? because the

call log is going through and we're suggesting that we're going to pay another unit who is doing dispatch for transportation higher. I just don't understand how that makes any sense. So from my standpoint, I think when we look at collective bargaining and I understand that we can't give everything to every single individual, I think we do need to make up on the inequities, right? And that for me is one of the

inequities. So when we talk about what is more important in terms of filling vacancies and keeping people retention um and trying to attract people into dispatch I mean that is one of the most difficult positions to keep to train and to retain right so from my standpoint we should be looking at it comparing it to other communities and paying what other communities and not doing a catchup for

something that is solely just transports. That's that's my only stance without a yield. Thank you. Council council se five council 5. Um I have a question. Um the police department their dispatchers take about 250 calls a day. MIH is about 75. That's the numbers that I was given from a dispatcher. And the other ones were getting a$1.50 more per hour than what um the police dispatchers were getting.

police dispatchers now on that step are more comparable to what it is in other communities around here and that was one of the things that they complained about. Remember when we had done the contract um before and we had uh people in the water department filtration plant how they needed to have all these licenses and everything else. We did a memorandum of understanding with the

unions to bump them up because of what they you know the certifications etc that they have to have to have. Would that be something they would do with the police dispatches? Is that something that you could consider doing?

Yeah, absolutely. That's something we could entertain.

And Emily, how many dispatches do we have? If we bumped them up so they were equal, what would that cost out to be?

I could get those exact numbers. I don't have I don't have obviously the NIH exact numbers in front of me. I only have the ask me stuff with me at this point in time. Um I do have it rather readily available. It wouldn't take me long to get, but I I just don't have it at hand.

I mean, I'd like to get a commitment that you'll do um a memorandum of understanding and get them up to par because I'd hate not to vote on these contracts and have everybody else um not, you know, get their salaries.

So, for that reason, I would, you know, let's call the mayor and see if he'll do that. Um, with that I yield.

Thank you, councelor. How long will it take if the council's uh in I'd like to make a motion we take a five minute break and let her go get the numbers.

Second.

Motion has been made in second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed?

No.

Motion carries. We have five minute recess.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. N.

Heat. Heat.

City Council reconvene.

Council C1, I think you had the floor and I think she made a point of Okay.

I had asked a question on what the differences would be in salaries.

So, um fully budgeted positions being filled um that cost by by budgeted is what I'm going to say. It's a $100,000 additional if we wanted to change it to the exact pay scale that matches what the current MIH coordinators are at.

Would they do a side letter for that?

Would there be enough money in the budget to do that? I can't tell you.

I mean, we could always revisit after.

Pardon?

We could always revisit after.

After when? How long will it take for it to take place? Take effect.

I couldn't give you a date. We'd have to sit down. We'd have to look at the funding. We'd have to discuss with the union. I would like to be clear though that the other part of this is that the currently employed dispatchers that we have, none of them are at step one. And so the biggest change that's happening is really in these first couple of steps. And on none of our currently employed positions, not

none of them, but the majority of them are not at step one or step two. They're already at step three and would be now going to this new step four. And those rates are not just comparable but but more more than they may perform.

Okay. I just hate to not approve it because there are so many departments involved. I always say some of them should split up and get you know different segments of union because I think dispatches clerks and I think what we have blended oil all together under one union and everybody's jobs are so different. um that but I mean you pick the union uh that's their fight with the

union not ours but I if you you know if we can look at that I don't want to hold everybody up if we can look at that and we have the ability to do that which I think we do um then I'd like to see all the dispatchers getting the same amount of money with that I yield thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

thank you Mr. There you go. Count to seat 7 count proposal.

Yeah. A question regarding the dispatchers on the MIH side. What is their requirements currently? Because I know you mentioned that you're looking for additional I don't want to paraphrase you, but qualifications.

Yeah, certifications.

Certificate. Thank you. Certification.

What do they currently have? They do not need the same certifications that dispatch does, but one of the things that was in the agreement that came before you previously was uh EMT basic certification for all EMT dispatchers, but that's not currently active.

That is not currently in there.

So, the dispatchers in NIH and the dispatchers on the police and fire side are exactly the same.

Certification wise, dispatchers on the police side would be a little bit higher.

Police and fire have 911.

They would be higher.

MIH does not.

No.

I yield.

Thank you. Council councelor in C2.

Councelor Dion.

No sense. How's that? Council C1. Council Gin.

Uh, thank you. So, you're saying the impact is $100,000. That's that's what it is.

Correct.

So, fiscal year 26 for for 26. Right. So, I I guess I understand some people's concerns not to do it now and let's do it later. That to me doesn't make sense. I I say we reject it. We send it back. Come back to us at the next council meeting, make the change. I know we can't negotiate it.

you can figure it out because I can find you $100,000 right now within seconds. I mean, I would Let's just talk about free cash. What was the free cash certification for FY?

It's not certified. Oh, for 20 For 20 for current fiscal year, we do not have a certification yet.

25.

For 25, it was 17 million.

$17 million. How much of that was due to turnbacks?

About 9 to 9 million. Okay. So, I don't know.

9 million. Can I find $100,000?

We we did already adjust the budget in 26 to cut that back.

I recognize that. I What I'm saying is is you you fully anticipate turnbacks coming again for fiscal year 26.

Nowhere near those numbers though.

But you do anticipate turnbacks coming always.

Right.

More than 100,000. But because if you're anticipating $100,000 on a a significant budget, right? Five00.

What's what's the budget? What's the total budget?

450 million.

Okay. So, if we're we're talking about 100,000 just on turnbacks on the expense side, that's that's when you when you talk about zerobased budgeting, that's that's zerobased budgeting.

So, that's the goal.

So, I'm my take is there's money to be had. I I say we reject it. Uh turn it back and then come back to us at the next meeting. I I think it's only right we start talking about paramedics and all this other stuff. At the end of the day, whether it's power DMS or whatever it is, the dispatchers do have to give instructions, right? So they they are given instructions. I don't know that

you have to give instructions for uh somebody who is unresponsive, not breathing, how to open up air waves, things of that nature for a transport, right?

I just want to be clear on the the idea of coming back the next meeting. I don't think that that's a plausible timeline because if this goes back, we're gonna have to go back to the body. They would have to then have meetings to approve a new CBA that then would have to then be filed. So it it would be at least what's the turnaround time for the union? 48 hours.

It would be about it would be after January 1st because of posting deadlines for meetings and then a vote. So I would believe it'd be after January 1st.

What's what's the posting deadline? 48 hours.

Um they would have to tell you that.

Nobody knows.

I don't think it would be until after January one.

Okay.

They're they're all going to get retro retro pay, right?

They will get retro.

Everything is retro.

July one, but they're not going to have it for Christmas.

Point of information. Retro is from July 1 correct?

Correct.

So, this already includes retro, right?

These costs are part of Yes, that is.

All right. I yield.

Thank you, council. Council seat, council puzzle.

That was my question. Council can mask.

I yield.

Okay. There be no further questions.

Thank you for coming down. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Motion to adjourn findings. I apologize.

No. Is there one more?

No.

Second.

Motion to agend finances made a second.

All in favor?

Any opposed? City Council Comm is now ajourned.

So want to roll right into the meeting?

Yeah.

Four River City Council, please come to order. Cler will call the role.

Council Scad here.

Dion here.

Hart here.

Kilby here.

Pereira here.

Ponty here.

Raposo.

Tiff here.

President Camara here. Will everyone in the council chair please rise for a moment of silent prayer?

Please remain standing for salute to the flag. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Pursuit to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public hearing or may transmit this meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Madame clerk, Mr. President, the first item before you is a request from the mayor for the confirmation of the appointment of Emily Arky to the position of the director of financial services. This matter was objected to at the previous meeting held on November 12th.

Motion to confirm appointment.

Motion to lift from the table.

Made and seconded on the motion lift from the table.

Motion to lift the item from the table.

Second.

Motion to lift the item from the table.

Has been made in second. All in favor?

I Any opposed?

Motion.

Confirm.

Motion to confirm has been made. Is there a second?

Second.

Motion.

Second. On the motion council seat six council.

Yeah. I'd like to make a motion to wave the rules for cooperation council to come down for a quick question. Second motion to the rules is made and seconded. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

So, thank you. Um, for for the record, I am in support of the appointment um for Mazari, but um I wanted to get your opinion on contracts, right? So, the contract that is going to come that we don't have a contract before us, but the appointment is going to be for a one-year contract, whether it's this individual or if it's another individual who has a three-year contract or a two-year contract,

and you and I have had a discussion about this. I take the position that the individual needs to come back before the city council for re-certification or reapproval when their contract expires.

very similar to what we did with Miss uh Coella when she was a city uh human resource director. Your thoughts?

All right. First, just identify myself with it. Um Alan Ramsey Corporation Council. Um that's not how the charter is written. I understand your point and I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, but the way their charter is written is that the mayor's appointments, so it's executive branch that makes the appointments subject to the confirmation of the city council. uh the city council. I mean, what you're really uh

confirming is the name of the person.

So, um the way it's written, it's I mean, this is not in there, but the way I interpret it, but the way it is written is that you're you're really confirming that the person is competent and qualified for the position. The actual terms in the contract, it's an executive function. So, they'll determine, for example, you know, uh the amount of vacation time, the compensation, uh the term of the

contract. I mean, that's that's the executive function. So you know it suggests to you that this body's approval or disapproval is just based upon the person itself.

So so if we have that ability on the front end and I'm not saying this is the situation for this individual. This is just broad scoped, right?

If we feel that or we do or we don't feel initially that we're we believe that the person's capable of doing the job and after an individual does a job for two years, three years, four years and their contract's up and we feel or the city council at that time feels that that person's not qualified enough or capable of doing the job, we don't have another bite at the apple. We have one

bite at the apple. That's it is your opinion.

That's correct. So, if that So, let me ask you if if an individual sent a two-year contract with the city um and that contract is is over. It it doesn't exist anymore. The the person leaves, right?

Okay.

We would then have an ability to hire uh to vote on a new contract for the next term of a new contract with a new employee. Why is that any different than an employee uh uh terms of their contract being up and then extended by the mayor with no input from the city council?

Well, let me just slightly change the facts, not to change your hypo, but I think it it clarifies it better. Um, so, for example, you have an employee, let's say they're under a two-year contract.

Um, typically speaking, that contract gets renewed or extended before its expiration. And even when the case is when somehow it's it's an oversight, it's they just continue past the contract under the same terms until it's renegotiated. But what the city doesn't do, we don't treat it like a new hire.

So, for example, if that person happens to have a week of vacation left, we don't buy them out. We don't give them a cash settlement. Here's your one week of, you know, we don't start over from scratch again. It's it's treated as one continuous employment. Um, for a department head, for example, they get sworn in the first time with the clerk's office. uh they get sworn into their duty. We don't make them re-swear in

every time their contract is extended.

So um you know the situation you brought up if somebody were to leave for a month I think that's a that argument sounds like that would make sense. So for example department head leaves for a month and they decided they hate their their new job and they want to come back to their old job. You can make an argument that you are at that point that's a that's a new employment that

they would have to come before this uh the city council again. So, you don't believe after a term of somebody's contract is up, incomplete, that the term of their contract ends at the day of their contract being completed and voided or not voided, no longer in operation. Does doesn't the term of their employment with the city of Forever end?

We're still going to pay them. I mean, if hypothetically, if we somehow did not renew a contract, let's call it an oversight, but we we're happy with the employee, the employee continues to work for the city, we're still going to give them the benefits, we're still going to compensate them for the work. They're not terminated. It's not, oh my gosh, you have to leave the office right now

until we get a new contract signed.

So, no, it's it's one continuous employment.

Can a council make a motion for an appointment to have a one-year contract with the rat uh for it to be reratified back before the city council to term their contract? Make their appointment subject to uh I would prefer it be a resolution because I don't believe it would be enforceable. Um it's an executive branch function. It's it's right now what the charter allows for the city council is

to confirm the name. Um, you know, I think there are agreements that I'm sure there are many agreements that the city council makes with the mayor for many different things. Um, but it it wouldn't be uh a legally binding agreement. Um, all right. Uh, I'll I'll Okay, I yield. There you go. C1.

Thank you. Uh just in terms of contract law, terms are important, right?

Of course.

So even with a successor agreement, the contract is a new contract. Would you not agree with that?

Yeah, they're new contracts. Yes. It wouldn't be new employments, but definitely new contracts.

Right. So, if it's a successor, that would mean to my colleagueu's point that it's should come back down to the to the city council because let's just say that there is because not all contracts have language for notification on whether or not a contract's going to be renewed.

So, let's just assume that language is not in the contract. What happens to the individual when the term, right, it's usually one-year term, two-year term, three-year term, right? If somebody has a three-year term, right, by the legal definition, that is only good for that period, three years. Is that not accurate?

That's fair.

Okay. So, and if there is no language in there that the city has to provide notification, do you at the end of that contract have to terminate the employee or is the employee already terminated?

I'm not sure I completely understand. I mean, I think that's the situation. If no action if no action is taken no action is taken and and you feel like you know what I mean typically the if the administration did not want that per person working again there's usually a letter saying you know here's your we do not intend to extend your contract but but I I already said there's there's

no language in there that person does not have any right to the pay the salary the sick time or the position is that would that be an accurate statement I I think there's some property rights there when comes in.

You just told me that the term is three years.

I get it. But there's usually a notice as to the person.

I said there is no notice. I'm just saying hypothetically speaking, if there is not there is no notice because sometimes some contracts that's omitted.

So if we've got a contract that's got a term, the individual has no authority or no rights to that position after that three-year period.

Well, I would suggest they become an atwill employee.

All right.

And but the the thing I mean I understand your hype. Uh the difference I I would take with it is the city council doesn't confirm the contract.

They confirm the person. Um there's no even requirement that the contract gets sent down to the city council to suggesting the term, the compensation, the vacation time.

Right. And I'm not suggesting that nor is my colleague suggesting that. What he what he's suggesting suggesting is is that if they've got to come back down before us, right? and the first appointment requires a council review and approval. Then every subsequent contract should should require the same.

It's a new contract. You can call it what you want. It's got a new term.

You're changing. You're modifying it.

I I I would disagree. I mean, the legislative control would be the appropriation aspect.

So, do you you honestly think that the charter commission had the intent to bring individuals for ratification down to the city council just one time?

Absolutely. And the reason I say that is if you look at the old charter that was in existence for what 83 years I believe something along those lines. Um at that point it was essentially a plan a city which is a strong mayor city where there was not even a city council confirmation of appointments. It was 100% an executive function. So when you take that 83 years of history and then you

look at how did the charter the new charter change it? Well, you look at the what was written, and they could have written any number of things, but what was actually written is the mayor shall refer to the city council and simultaneously file with the clerk the name of each person the mayor desires to appoint just the name. That's what's sent down. So, I think it's pretty clear to be honest with you that it's just a

you're you're either approving or disapproving of the person.

So, so when when the person is hired, the appointment goes down to the city clerk.

I'm assuming all the and that probably doesn't happen, but they should get sworn in. They should sign the book. So, is it for a term?

This is ridiculous.

I don't believe so. I'd I'd love to see the book. I mean, I I signed mine. It's been almost six years when I signed mine. I know I've signed it once. I haven't gone back. And and so I I guess the the charter commission would suggest that it's probably more important for uh committees and commissions to come back for reappointments to this council. But for an employee who is going to hold the

position, they do not need to come back down to the council for they are treated differently. They're absolutely treated differently in the charter.

Okay.

Um yeah well okay based on that good luck with the uh good luck with the votes moving forward then I think council although I think this discussion is appropriate because I'm the one that put in a resolution. Maline Kella was the only one that had to come down and get her contract removed renewed and no one else did. But this is a com this is a conversation that a resolution should be

filed. It should go to the ordinance committee, debate it there, and if that's what the body wants, then you do it. This is not for the discussion. We are we're talking about the confirmation of one position and to take time to ask about contracts and who can leave and how many people are there. I don't think that that's part of this conversation and we have people waiting. I think it's

a good conversation, but I think perhaps if my colleague in seat number six or seat number one want to file a resolution to that end. I agree. Maybe we should be confirming people uh you know when their contracts are up but I don't think that this is the venue for it right now. With that I yield.

There you go. Councelor C2 approve.

Thank you. No, you too. Share it. Point to yours.

Um, so I have one question. In the section that you were reading, the mayor shall refer to the city council and simultaneously file with the city clerk the name of each person the mayor desires to appoint as a city officer, department head, or as a member of a multi- multiple member body. How are you saying they're treated differently in the charter when they're all in the same paragraph and in the same sentence and

the multi multiple member body people have to come back for reappoint? Why can't the mayor said, "Oh, I reappointed them, so thanks for doing it the first time."

Well, I mean, they're treated differently in a number of ways. So, for example, somebody who's a member of a a body has to be a city resident, and not all employees have to. Um, you know, they are signed up a lot of times for these boards. Um they're configured so that you always for example you might have a board that's nine members and each you'll have three members that have two-year terms. So like there's there's

o there's overlap. It's not like all nine come and go as they please. So the term is much more relevant when you're trying to like a third of the body might potentially get changed every three years. Um so that it's not nine people come into it. You don't want the body starting fresh. Um, but from the city point of view, from when you have an employee, um, you know, we're looking for consistency. We're looking for

employees that do a great job. We want them to stay for, you know, we want them to stay as long as they're doing a great job. And when you look at the the function of the executive branch, which is the administration of the city, they're in the best position to know who's doing a good job and who's not.

Similarly, let's assume just hypothetically this board approved what you know to be a one-year contract. in a month the executive branch could fire that person. It doesn't have to come back before the legislative body say it didn't work out. We've terminated this person. So I mean I I think that we understand the concern and you know uh but really it is just confirming the name of the person and it's a goes to

competency and qualifications really.

With that I yield.

Thank you. Council council C1 council kadim.

Thank you uh to to my colleagueu's statement that this isn't important for this discussion. I I'd beg to differ. I was I was in a meeting with the mayor when he committed to a counselor for a one-year term. Right. So that so that's super disingenuous if you're going to tell me that it's not coming back. Like why would you commit to a counselor that I will change the term from a three-year

to a one-year if the intent was never to come back down to the city council.

So this is why the conversation is being had, right? So that that's the reality of the situation. So, we've got a mayor who was telling us he would give us a one-year contra term for an individual and that it would come back down to the city council. We're being told that it's not supposed to come back to the down to the city council. To me, I think it's absolutely crazy to think that any

commission would put into a charter that a review or a confirmation from a legislative body only happens once, right? Especially when we're dealing with contracts. At the end of the day, I don't care how you spin it, a contract is only good for that term. we can say well this is what we do this is what we should do it's a term there is an expiration on the contract that's coming

before us so you are deciding to hire that person again so it should come back down to the city council and if that's the stance you're going to take then so be it let's take the votes but there were there were I I know there was a commitment made to a counselor uh for a one-year term and I'm just saying that that's the reason this conversation is taking place with that

if I can just just to be clear because I think you understand it. What I'm saying is what the law requires. I'm making I have no opinion as to what any agreement the mayor has made with this body. And you know, I assume if the mayor says he's going to do something, he's going to honor it. So, I'm not suggesting by any means that there's an intent to not honor any agreement made.

I'm just telling you what the charter says.

But but it's also not fair for one for one individual to have to keep coming back down to the to the council, right?

It should be if we're going to do it for one individual, it should be for everybody.

That's why the the council say we should put an ordinance.

Yeah. With agree with that I yield council council seat four council ky plus the the individual is intimately linked with the contract. I think that's what council was saying.

Yes.

I I tend to agree. I mean um when you're hiring an individual the contract is they're they're both the same.

All right. I yield. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Council, we've got a Mr.

President.

I'd like to I'd like to make a motion that we I know there's a motion on the floor that we're have for discussion, but I'd like to make a motion to approve the confirmation of the individual for a one-year contract to be prepared by the mayor subject to terms in the contract to state that the contract need to come back before the city council one year from execution. I make that in the form of a motion.

Motion has made. Is that second? second.

But can I discussion?

Wait.

Sure. Council C5.

But here's the thing. What is the term of that person's contract? If I was going to get a contract for one year or I was going to get a contract for three years might make a decision on whether or not I want the job who wants to come for just one year. Do you know what I mean? Maybe somebody would, maybe they wouldn't. But if the mayor told some counselor here that he was going to have

all these contracts come up with one year, then I think that's important for us to know that. I wasn't told that. I wasn't informed of that. That these were going to be one year. And honestly, for us to make a motion, oh, we're going to do it for one year. How do we know that that individual wants the job for a year? We don't know that. I mean, that's not much security.

With that, I yield.

Council C1, did you want to speak on it?

Just just along the lines of council Pereira, I mean, what's the guarantee? Does the mayor have to come back down before us? You just told us he doesn't need to. So, regardless of of a a motion being made by Council Ponti if he decides not to come back down to us in a year, what what's the ramification?

As I said, I don't I don't think there's a legal requirement.

Okay.

Mr. President, y Unless it's in, Mr. President, unless it's in the contract, then it's an enforcable item. If the council just appointed is going to approve an individual with terms in the contract executed by both parties. If if the individual doesn't want to do a one-year, then don't sign the contract.

That's how that works, right? That's it's it's it's a legally binding agreement, as you know, with two parties executing and with consideration coming thereafter, which is payment of our employment of duties. So, if if the person or a person if the council says one-year contract for whoever it may be and then the person doesn't want to sign it, well, person stays in their current

job and isn't the CFO. That's how that works. See, I I I'm going to be completely honest. I was the counselor who who had a conversation with the mayor for the avoidance of any confusion of doubt that I decided that I think that this person is quite capable but needs some me a little bit more mentorship and a little bit more support from people in this building and others

so that she can rise to the occasion and be successful. What I'm not doing is running around town saying I'm not going to support the individual because I want to give this person the keys to be successful. Yes. So, I'm I'm I'm I'm the one who the mayor had a conversation with, okay, and said I want to support her, but I want her to have a one-year contract to make sure people in this

building support her, people in this building can respect her, and that she can continue to gain the experience necessary to be successful. I'm not running around town saying I'm not going to support her, though. This is what I'm saying. So, if anybody wants to cast blame where this all came from, this guy right here did it. So, I think that the motion before us is an appropriate motion. The verbiage should be in the

contract. That's a one-year subject to the city council approving the contract a year from execution. That's the motion. It's on the floor. I ask the president to call a question.

Well, somebody else wants to speak.

Council, prior to that, I'm just curious who who decides whether she's getting support from people in this building or not. the counselors. You're talking about department heads, the mayor, the auditor, right? But I mean, she's gonna get support. What do you mean? Like someone she ask someone the question, they're not gonna answer the question.

Well, I mean, like, so to to your point, Mr. President, we had a prior CFO sitting in the seat, uh, Mary Sahad, who had years of accounting and and municipal experience that will run circles around many people.

I know I know her well.

And I know you know her well. So, so there really wasn't a necessary need for her to have somebody to rely on with questions. If you recall, there was an individual getting paid quite handsomely, uh, Mr. Iapony to be a consultant who I don't sure if he's still here doing that at all, that the individual who was in this role prior got some help in this and currently right now, I don't know what the

situation is with this current unemployment. So I believe that the what I mean by support to be clear is making sure that the person has a mentor and has support and somebody to rely on and the mayor is supporting them. I'm not saying that council isn't going to support the person or other department heads aren't going to support a person but we got a city right now that up

until today has no CFO has no auditor. I mean we we we don't have a city administrator.

So, I I want to see how this person does rise and I have all the faith that she could rise to the occasion, but I I I want to see this as a one-year contract, and I want it to come before us, and it will allow us to evaluate the person so we can get some support for her to be successful. That's what I mean by that, just to be clear. I yield.

Thank you, C2. Did you have a hand up?

Yes. Um, so my only comment would be I think it's a great motion. I think it's a great idea, but the mayor isn't here to agree to it. So, it doesn't make it valid even if we vote on it.

And with that, I yield.

Point of information five years. You want to speak?

No. The only question that I had would be I would ask this applicant, is this contract for one year? Did the mayor have a conversation? And is this contract for one year? Do we really want to do that?

I don't know.

No.

So, who's going to give us that answer?

Is it for a year?

I think this is going on long. Wait, wait a long council.

I motion to confirm has been made and seconded.

Val, can you confirm the motion, madam clerk, for the record?

Uh, the motion I have is that the appointment be confirmed for one year subject to the city council approving the contract after the one year um expires. So that's the subject. That's that's the motion. That's a motion has made second on the motion. Roll call.

Council Kadim, no.

Dion, no.

Hart, yes.

Kilby, yes.

Pereira, no.

Ponti, yes.

Rapos, yes.

Tith, yes. President Camaro.

No.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Five days, four names.

Motion to confirm.

Motion to confirm.

Second. Didn't we just do that?

No. Just vote for on the amendment.

Motion to confirm the appointment for a one-year contract.

Second.

On a subsequent motion to confirm the appointment for a one-year contract, council, no.

Dion, no.

Hart, yes.

Kilby, yes.

Pereira, no.

Ponti, yes.

Propos, yes. Tiff.

Yes.

President Camro, yes.

Motion carries. Six, three nays.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsey.

Thank you.

M clerk.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Sorry for all that poppy circumstance, but congratulations.

The next item is a request from the mayor for the confirmation of Christopher Pino to the position of director of community maintenance.

Motion to reject.

Seconded.

I speak on it.

A motion to object and reject. Reject. Reject.

Reject. Not object. Reject.

Okay.

There's a motion to reject. Sorry. Got objection on my mind from last meeting.

Motion to reject has been made. Is there a second on the motion to reject or no second? Second.

Any discussion?

Yeah.

Roll call.

Roll call on rejection. I'm not rejecting it.

On the motion to reject the appointment.

Councelor Scadin.

Yes.

Dion.

Yes.

Hart.

No.

Kilby.

No.

Pereira.

No.

Ponti.

Yes.

Raposo.

No.

Tith.

No.

President Camara.

No.

Another motion. Motion to confirm.

Motion to confirm is being seconded.

Roll call.

Roll call.

Discussion.

Sure. Raise your hand.

Uh, council C1.

Motion to wave the rules.

Council see one.

Can the administration come down?

Motion to wave the rules made. Is there a second?

Second.

Second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

What's uh what's the job description for this?

What is the job description for this?

I mean, I can provide responsibilities.

Yeah, I can provide you a full job description, but it's running the uh community maintenance department. So, all of community maintenance operations, street, highways, solid waste.

Uh gentlemen, could you please before you begin, just state who you are and what department with for the record, please?

Yeah. Nick Melini, director of human resources.

Al Oliver, director of city operations.

And the uh the applicant before us, what experience in DCM running streets?

Worked in worked in DCM for many years.

Yeah. Then transferred over to planning, did training, left.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said the previous director of DCM. Yes. Um Chris worked for BCTC. He worked for um the cemetery trees department. Uh he's worked as chief of staff. um he has uh very good education, but I when we interviewed applicants for this position, Chris really stood out as someone that would be able to come in and hit the ground running. He knows the mun background. He

has experience collective bargaining. He knows how to manage crews. Um he can do both boots on the ground and he can do administrative piece.

Yeah, but that I mean the technical aspect, we're looking for somebody with the technical aspect of DCM, right? So what DCM technical experience? So he's going to be overseeing road work, trash. Any experience with regards to that?

With road work, he did work supervising some crews when he was with Swansea group.

He was part of the planning group.

Planning. Okay. With day-to-day operations with contractors. Yes.

In planning.

In planning. They theirs their system is a whole lot uh smaller than we are.

They've got public uh DBW.

They do, right?

But he worked alongside with them.

Okay. So, do you think this this fits the merit principle of all appointments and you know qualifications that are coming back before us again like somebody who has experience? I I you know my my concern is is that you know it's especially your department Mr.

Oliver the amount of projects not getting completed the the amount of things that are going to the wayside is is just concerning as as a counselor. I I'm only speaking as as one counselor.

So now I've got a an appointment and a recommendation coming down before you from somebody who has zero experience in DCM. Okay, they've they've worked in cemetery, but truly truly running the operational aspects and components of D of DPW or DCM, whatever whatever title we want to call it. So what what type of reassurance am I going to get that everything that I've requested for the

last I don't know, call it five years is going to be completed. We've we've asked for efficiencies. We've asked for projects to get completed. We told that we don't have bids, but we have reports after the fact. When we asked the question, the reports were already there. We have dollar amounts, everything. I mean, I've got a a a laundry list of items and concerns coming from DCM internally. Lack of response from

emails, okay? Not being part of the uh open space and recreation plan goes down. Facilities and maintenance, significant concerns, libraries, right?

Fire department. So if you're asking me to appoint somebody with zero experience in DCM, I cannot do it. Not under this current leadership.

So councelor, that's a that that's a great statement. Um right now I've been the DCM director. I've been the project manager. I've been the cemeteries director. I've been the parks director.

I've been I have a lot of hats going on right now. council. This person will definitely help me distribute some of that load. I need to spend more time in project management by getting this person on the day-to-day regime of running DCM and I'm very confident in this uh candidate. I really believe that this will help the city immensely. This person does have a strong administrative

background that's needed in DCM. That's some of the things that I would have to pick up on the daytoday employee uh certifications, employee uh maintenance. We need to make sure we have someone that has the administrative skill.

Mr. Oliver, all with all due respect, and I and I really mean this respectfully, but isn't that what we pay you for?

We do. We do, but I'm also I'm also the facilities director. I'm also the project manager. And getting someone in that project manager and facilities are a job in itself. I mean, you know, council, you've you've I do I do know um when you took the position, the position and the organizational flowchart had you overseeing all those departments. Is that is that accurate?

And I'm also doing the work right now.

Okay.

I shouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing right now that I'm doing because there is no one doing that work.

All right. So, my question is again, we pay you to do that and I and for me from my standpoint, I have not seen any performance coming from you. Zero.

Right. And I've had this conversation with the mayor. I've received a number of complaints and I don't even want to having this conversation in public, right? But the fact of the matter is is that we've got a recommendation and you're recommending somebody to me who has not had any experience outside of being in cemeteries with the operation of DCM. And then you're going to recommend somebody who we by the way

promoted over to planning to have trained and then left, right? How how long before he left? I would never prevent somebody from leaving for a different opportunity when they could go for more money.

After we invested in an individual and we trained, what was the commitment that was given to the city of For River?

I couldn't tell you the amount the exact amount of time that he was planning assistant planner here, but you're the HR person and you've got person I couldn't tell you off the top of my head how long he was here as assistant planner. I'm being honest with you.

Did we do an exit interview?

Uh, I did not do an exit interview, of course, at that time.

Um, you did not do an exit interview with the employee. Did you talk to the employees prior supervisor?

Yes. And what was his response on hiring?

I'm not going to get into would I have a conversation with them?

So, I got to ask for a request of information or I mean you you're coming back down before this council looking for a confirmation. So, you had a conversation with the prior supervisor.

What was the prior supervisor's recommendation?

I did not speak with the prior supervisor. The mayor did speak with the prior supervisor. This is the mayor's appointment.

So you did or you because two minutes you and maybe you misspoke, but two minutes ago you said you I did not speak with Dan.

Okay.

No, but the mayor did speak with Dan Aguar and and you were part of that conversation. You had a conversation with the mayor.

The mayor told me he spoke with Dan Aguar.

Okay. So what what's your role as an HR director?

I'm in charge of the hiring the onboarding employee benefits.

So I was part of the interviews for all of the DCM employees. We interviewed nine applicants. We had nine applicants.

We interviewed five people. Ultimately, it is the mayor's appointment. It's the mayor.

I understand whose appointment it is.

I'm fully understanding of that. So, when you do a checklist and you go through, do you look into personnel files? When somebody leaves, do you put in, you know, yes, they're going to be hired back? Not going to be hired back.

Obviously, not having a conversation with a prior supervisor. Mr. Oliver, did you have a conversation with the prior supervisor?

I did not, but I was one of his supervisors.

That's okay. So, but you didn't reach out to your colleague who supervised him before to to have a conversation with him.

No, but he did a great job when he worked with me, but you didn't have a conversation with a supervisor.

I did not. I did not.

Okay, man.

Council, I was one of his supervisors. I saw the work that he did.

I don't really did a great job.

Great.

Okay. With that, I yield.

Hey, Counc.

Look, I I don't know what's going on. I know that he did work as a planner and was always hoping to be the planner rather than the interim planner and I think that when he got a position that he could be the planner, he left us.

That's kind of what I because I asked, you know, gee, wait, why is he going?

Oh, he got a permanent planning position. I will tell you that I've worked closely with the cemetery division in trees. Um, Mr. Martins does a phenomenal job there. So, I hope we have something for him pretty damn soon because he's a good worker. But I can tell you when I when Mr. Pirano was running the cemetery department, he didn't come in in regular clothes. He came in with work boots on and Bob

Kelly, God rest his soul, spoke very highly. And the teamwork that was done there with the the all of the people that worked there, the crew, all I heard was positive things. So just from the workers themselves um and I say he has administrative experience for sure and they really need you have men there and women who know what they're doing. They know their jobs but he has the other side of it and the

way to get people to work together. I think that's key. We have to let people that work for this city know that we appreciate them res respect their work.

I know Mr. Olivera, I've driven by here on Saturdays in your cars here and I know that you, you know, had a position to oversee and that orch throw it out because it's not working, but you didn't have any leaders in these departments.

How long are we, we just put Darren Medeiros over at park department just what two weeks ago?

Few weeks ago and I'm still in the training process, but you know, he was doing he was doing a great job there learning. He didn't know anything about parks and this and he's gotten the support. My colleague talked about giving people support and helping them out. He did get that support with the park department, etc.

So, you know, I that's all I have to say. I just think it's it's getting really tough that I feel sometimes we question the people that work for us, but if you follow them around and saw the work that they did, and I specifically feel bad for you, Mr.

Alivera because when you came in all these positions were filled and then Nancy left, Charlene left. They you know people retired out and then you're stuck having to do it all. No procurement person. You were also working on that.

But I'm equally as upset and I'll support my colleague in seat number one.

I want those parking garages done. Um you know so in 40 hours is 40 hours. So you can't split yourself up.

There is no 40 hours. 40 hours to everything.

Thank you for your work and um that's all I have to say because I think that I have positive feelings about Mr.

Pirano and the work that he's done while working for the city. There was never complaint about him. So with that I yield Mr. President.

Thank you councelor Council C1. You have the hand. Anyone else have the hand up to speak? No. Come see one.

Thank you. It's it's the same old same old, right? We're not going to hold anybody accountable. We're okay with the fact that we invested time and energy into somebody and then they left shortly thereafter. Okay, so that's issue number one. Issue number two, we want to say Mr. Alivera has done a great job. I challenge my colleague to show me one completed project and task that you're

happy with because behind the scenes, everybody wants to have a conversation.

They want to talk about Al, but when we're here and when we're trying to hold people accountable, dirty word. Sorry, Mr. Alivar. Uh Al, I I apologize. But at the end of the day, there has to be accountability. There has to be accountability. And then we have the person who is in the leadership position moving forward. Now what I want to share is that on top of this all the conversation that I had with the mayor

with regard to this appointment when we was asking for my support he told me that the individual only committed told the guy what I I don't know.

Go ahead.

I hear a word council. You have the floor. Please let speak.

So the mayor said that he was only going to commit or was at least committing one to two years. So here we are again. So, we already have a track record. So, now I've already been told prior to this even coming down to the council that the commitment's at least for one to two years. We give a three-year contract, do we not?

Yes.

So, we don't even have a a commitment for a three-year contract. We're okay with that. So, we've already seen in the past that we've invested time and energy to train and promote somebody to only have them go to another community to come back because there's a higher salary to train them again to leave and be in this situation again in two years. Do you think that's going to help you, Mr. Oliver?

Council, I've worked with the individual, Mr. Oliver, I'm going to ask you.

I believe the person, that's not the question I've asked you. I'm asking you answer the question. Do you think as the leader of DCM that you are going to be successful training somebody, showing somebody all the work associated with on job training, getting somebody to the point where they can actually benefit you, which is going to take more than a year, a year and a half. You think

that's okay to be back here in two years? You think that's going to benefit you?

It's not. But I will train that person to a point where they're not going to want to leave. They're going to do an exceptional job.

How do you know that? We I was just told that the commitment from the mayor was one to two years.

That's what I was told.

I never heard that, councelor. I never heard that. So, I'm just telling you that this person is qualified enough to do the work.

With a little bit of guidance and from me, I will guarantee that this person will succeed. The contract that was discussed was a three-year term. And the mayor had a conversation with him and said, "Uh, I want your commitment that you will see out your contract." And this individual said, "Yes."

And so the conversation that I had, right, and maybe I'm misleading you, maybe that's what you folks think. The conversation that I had, I don't record my conversations, right? But I think that I am upfront with everybody. I was told specifically from the mayor that the commitment was one to two years.

Are we okay with a one to twoyear commitment?

Is that what we're looking for?

He just say looking for a threeyear commitment.

I'm just I want somebody to answer my question.

I'm just telling there's totally Are we okay with a one to twoyear commitment?

No, it's a threeear.

You just let me know when you're ready to answer.

It's a three-year commitment. I have a I've seen a drafted contract with terms for three years.

That's not my answer. That's not my question.

I understand that. But your answer your question doesn't have an answer. You're saying it does. It does.

You weren't told by these gentlemen.

Mr. President, with all due respect, my my question is very simple. Very simple.

No, I get it. I understand the question.

Peter, I understand. But to their knowledge, they do not have any knowledge of a one-year contract that you was told was going to be the agreement.

I am asking the director of DCM if a one to twoyear commitment is acceptable. Oh, he can answer that if he wants, but he's talking about a three-year commitment, not a one.

I am asking. I just want to know is a one to two year commitment acceptable.

I never heard of a one or two years.

What do I got to do to get my my answer question my my question answered?

It's not acceptable.

Thank you.

That's why it's a three-year contract.

But, you know, but that's not the commitment. A verbal conversation with the mayor that's coming. Yes, they have a you had it is with them.

Okay. So, everybody gets a three-year contract, but the commitment is I might be here in three years, maybe. But I'll I'll at least give you two. That's my point. We've already seen it from the individual, but enough's enough. We we can we can continue to go on and on, but I yield.

Thank you, guys. C5, you know, I find part of the problem, too. We had a city uh auditor, a city um auditor. We gave him a $20,000 raise in this contract, and he left because he's getting more money somewhere else where I think he only has to go to work in in the building twice a week. in the three days he's home. Then he took somebody else with him too because she's going to

make more money. You had the uh the IT guy. What do we What did we give him?

Point of information. Would you hire Would he hire the people back?

I don't understand what the the the No, but I'm saying I think too for us to keep good qualified people, we need to be able to pay. And unfortunately, we don't pay enough. And then if they find something better, they leave. And we trained Edapony was here training the auditor. All that money was spent. So maybe we should, you know, do something where you have to commit to so long. I

mean, maybe that's something you want to put into an ordinance. With that, I yield.

There you go. Council.

Thank you. So there's a couple things I want to try to bring us back to her for a moment here. Right. So my colleague in seat one makes up brings some pretty good points up, right? When we when we when we when we commit as a as a community to hire a person to do a job that gets trained under to hopefully they they're here for as long as as possible and then they leave to better

themselves. It's the American way to go to another community and then come back here 18 months later to do to do another job which is most likely a pay increase.

I'm assuming a promotion. the continuity that we're leaving from other from a person who's from who's here who left who got trained to do a job for nine months went to another community to do another job that was coming back to do a completely different job. I don't think that sends a good message throughout other people that are in city hall working. Okay, that's number one. I've always been a strong believer that

hiring and promoting from within needs to probably be paramount for not only culture but continuity and respect. It didn't happen here. I don't know why.

Did any other city employees apply for the position? Were they interviewed? I don't know. What I do find con uh concerning to me is that we have a human resource issue in my opinion on when we have employees exit and we don't have exit interviews and we don't find out their reason for leaving. If an exit interview was conducted here, we would have found out that this individual had

plans to come back. maybe if that was what their goals would have been at that time. Right? So, look, from my standpoint, I I'm I'm I'm I'm struggling with the appointment here. This isn't a matter of whether the the person is is going to be here for a long time. But when the chief executive officer of the city says to a counselor that this is a 1 to twoyear thing, it's a three-year

contract. I think that we need to clarify that, right? Because one thing was said, maybe there was a misunderstanding. I believe I may have even been there, but I maybe I'm having hallucinations and I don't really recall that occurring. Certainly possible.

Pretty busy. But I will tell you that I believe that we need to clarify how long the contract really is and the commitment that was given from the mayor to a counselor in terms of what really is happening here. So if if it's the will of the council to clarify that, we could table this item. We can discuss it at our our next meeting in December. But there is some things that were said here

that we need clarification and I think that we need to we need to be clear with this and and I'm not going to get into a performance issue within this department but there has been there's been number of projects that Mr. Alivera I've been quite critical of and and you in you training a number two in command when you're having a heck of a time executing with what you're doing from a project's

point of view and a capital projects point of view has me a little concerned.

I just want you to know.

So council, I will tell you this. There isn't a world out there that you hire someone new that picks everything up right away. There isn't. I don't care who you are, where you're coming from.

I'm going to train someone the way I want them to work in that position. That person has the knowledge. They has the foundation. He has the education to do the work. Any personal issues that you have with the person is beyond me. I don't care. Stop. Seriously. Stop. Stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Cuz if we're going to go down that road, then I'll I'll bring up some stuff. Like I want to make I want to make one thing crystal crystal crystal clear. This is no personal issues. I don't have a personal issue here. I don't have a personal issue with you. I don't have a personal issue with him. I have a personal I have an issue with how this was conducted. We find time and time

again as a legislative branch, inadequacies, things that occur in this building really without any kind of leadership going on. You have a person who leaves and doesn't get an exit interview, that's like that's minor fundamental HR 101. So this isn't a matter of being personal. I I have an ability I get elected just like all of us do to sit here and hold people accountable. It's not dirty to hold people accountable.

That's not what I I I have I have a unique opportunity just like my colleagues do to analyze what you and your department does, Mr. Olivera.

100%.

Okay. So it's not personal. It ain't personal with him either. I've had great conversations with him. That's not what it's about. I have an issue with a person leaving the city after getting trained in another department for nine months and then coming back to the city to get a promotion. What does that tell you in a building that has a culture problem? Because I'm telling you, I walked around this building a couple

times and there's a culture problem here. There's department heads who are not holding their employees accountable.

That's a problem. There's there's department heads that are leaving, going, coming. It it's like a free-for-all around here.

And so what is this going to do to fix that problem when there are people within our own organization who have been here for a long time who might be deserving of a promotion?

So my question is how many people applied for this position?

Nine.

We had nine.

Nine. Any of them from within?

Two.

Were they cap maybe they were or weren't capable? I know you probably can't answer that question because none of those people are before us. This is my point.

This is my point. Are there people within our own organization with our own family? People who show up and commit themselves every single day that might be deserving of a of a raise or might be deserving of a promotion. No, we're going outside of the city because it's not if if if this person was in parks or cemeteries for the last three years or stood under Mr. Aguiar and completed his

his milestones, we'd be having a completely different conversation. But that didn't occur. That didn't happen.

So we want to be a city that promotes integrity and and and and promotes continuity and promotes growth within our own departments. Instead is a promotion within your department and we are going to we are going to push aside individuals who are in the city and not give them a chance to succeed at the job. Why we did we interviewed them but why aren't we giving somebody else an opportunity within the city to do

something like they weren't qualified to do the position.

So what makes this person qualified?

this person. I've seen this person perform a oversight of a department.

He's done an excellent job. I've seen him. I I've seen his resume. I've seen I've worked with alongside him. I've seen his eagerness. I've seen his desire to get the job completed. I've seen it all. Counselor, I'm ready to hire this person.

So, you supervised him when it was under Mr. Aguar. Yes or no?

No.

Mr. Aguier was a supervisor.

No, I supervised him when he was at the cemeteries.

Okay. and did a great job and excel evaluations completed.

Nope.

No, of course not.

As of January 1, everyone will we are implementing performance evaluations.

You see my point, right? We've had this I've had these same conversations about police chief, right? It wasn't about the person, it's about the process.

This is the same thing and we haven't learned our lesson.

So, roll call this. I'm going to object and I'm going to ask questions for Mr.

Aguiar are and I'm going to ask for a a meeting in the mayor's office on personnel files. Is this a one-year or a two-year contract? Is it a three-year contract? Where's Mr. Where where is his last uh supervisor at for a letter of recommendation? That's what that's what I'm going to do. So, it's not happening tonight because if the roll call comes to me, I'm objecting.

I yield.

Thank you, councelor. Motion contingency proposal.

The only the only statement I made to all this and I and I shared this with you this afternoon. I don't I don't particularly enjoy the way this was all communicated. Um and and I'll make the point that having a conversation on a Tuesday afternoon two hours before a council meeting of of where things should go. And this is not to Mr. Pino.

This is the conversation as a whole does not provide enough time to do any sort of due diligence to anything. And I I think the communication I and I made it very clear to the mayor. I wasn't happy the way it was communicated to me as a counselor to him and I told him that again today. Mr. Oliver, my my thing to you is in in education, I think that if

you if you're going to coach somebody up, you have a game plan, right? What are you looking for this person in general, whoever you're hiring, what are you looking for them to achieve? What is your action plan to train this person up to exactly as you said, and I don't want to misquote you, to work as what was the line you used? Work as you need them to work or something along those lines.

like this is obviously gonna get objected. So, I'm gonna save this conversation for another day and maybe you can come back to me on this. Is what is your game plan to make this candidate successful in the job? That's my biggest thing because just saying, "Oh, I'm going to coach him," is not tangible for me at all. I want to see, okay, this is what I want to do because listen, if

we're going to hire somebody, I want him to be successful. We don't want to hire him, he fails, and then we just recycle the process again. I have enough respect for Mr. panel that I want him to do well, but if we're not going to give him a chance to succeed, then we're wasting our time. So, you as the director, I want from you to be able to tell me this

is my game plan to help him be successful. That's what I'm asking from you.

Is that is that attainable?

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Thank you. I yield.

Thank you, Kaza. Motion councily.

Um, when somebody applies internally and they're going from one department to another department, does that department head have a conversation with the department head that's moving over?

Typically, yes.

What's that conversation hypothetically look like? How the employee is, work ethic, things of that nature?

Yes.

Okay. So, what is the reason that Mr.

Olivera doesn't reach out to Mr. Aguia to have that same conversation? Like do we just completely ignore the fact that we've had people internally he was the last supervisor we like and then he refuses to do it. Shame on him. But as the HR director you you don't have a conversation.

I did not have a conversation with him.

No.

And you don't think it's pertinent to to have a conversation with another department head who's No. Absolutely. But I had spoken with the mayor who had spoken to Mr. Aguar.

But as the HR director, do you not do your due diligence or you just listen to what the mayor is or does the mayor rely on you to perform human resource functions?

It goes both ways. The mayor had spoken with Mr. Aguar and was content with Mr.

Aguiar's conversation.

So what happens if you have a conversation with Mr. Aguar that he might not have heard or you hear something different? Is it not your responsibility to go to the mayor and have those conversations?

Absolutely.

So do you think maybe you should have had the conversation with Mr. Aar?

Yes.

I mean that would be typical in what protocol would be for human resources.

Yes.

Okay. I yield.

Thank you.

Roll call.

Roll call.

On confirming the appointment of Christopher Pino to the position of DCM director. Councelor Scadin.

No.

Dion.

No.

Hart.

Yes.

Kilby.

Yes.

Pereira.

Yes.

Ponti.

Object.

Click.

Point of record. Uh point of order. I'm sorry. Just uh what's the 45day?

Give me a minute to calculate it.

The man can still

the appointment was received on November 20th 2025.

45 days from that date, Sunday, January 4th 2026.

Okay, thank you.

Two meetings clerk.

The next item is a request from the mayor for the confirmation of the appointment of Christopher Murphy to the position of city auditor.

Motion to confirm the appointment.

Second.

Motion to confirm the appointment has been made and seconded. Roll call.

On confirmation, councelor Scadin. Yes, Dion.

Yes, Hart.

Yes, Kilby.

Yes, Pereira.

Yes, Ponti.

Yes, Raposo.

Yes, Tiff.

Yes, President Camara.

Yes.

Is he here? Mr. President, I don't see him.

Oh, yeah. There he is. Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Must be an Mr. President, may I ask a question?

Absolutely.

Is there a reason why Mrs. RP didn't come in come down for her. She did get appointed.

She did come down.

I think I think by right she should come down as well.

Come on down.

If you wanted to come down couch that's fine. I don't make that choice. They do it on their own.

I didn't invite him down.

I'm The next item is a request from the mayor for the confirmation of the reappoint of Kristen Canara Olivera.

Motion to confirm the reappoint preservation committee.

Motion to confirm the reign.

Second.

Motion confirmed is made and seconded.

Okay.

On the confirmation. Councelor Scadin.

Yes.

Dion.

Yes.

Hart.

Yes.

Kilby.

Yes.

Carrera.

Yes.

Ponti.

Yes.

Raposo.

Yes.

Tith.

Yes.

President Camara.

Yes.

The next item is a request from the mayor for in a solicitation proposal for the request for proposals for the sale of the former Deval school located at 112 Flint Street.

Motion defer the committee on real estate.

Seconded.

Motion to refer the committee on real estate. Second favor on a motion. Hold on. Is there a second to the motion?

Second.

Second.

On a motion council proposal. The only thing I want to just make a statement to the real estate committee in reading the proposal, it's evident that the value of the building is much higher than what the bid came in as. So, I'd ask the real estate committee to look into that deeply before it's uh moved forward. I yield.

Madam clerk, Mr. President, come six.

Uh the buyer on this a potential buyer, we have a name. I can't just want to make sure there's no John Ferrer. Is that what I'm seeing here?

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm good. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Motion referred to committ second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is a communication from the mayor and an order for the intermunicipal agreement for drinking water services with the town of Westport.

Refer to committee on finance. Second.

Motion refer to committee on finance as made in second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Item seven is a request from the mayor um for two loan orders. Phase 23 water systems improvements in the amount of 4,000 excuse me 4 million $200,000 and also phase 24 water systems improvements in the amount of $4,700,000.

We did receive communication from bond council this afternoon um that the an amendment is needed on each of the loan orders. Um specifically if paragraph two uh could be uh removed authorized to be published and referred to the committee on finance as amended.

Second would that be appropriate on an amendment first motion to accept the amendment. Second motion to accept the amendment has been made and second. All in favor. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Motion rise. Authorized to be published and referred to the committee on finance as amended. Second.

Authorized to be published and referred to committee on finance as amended as a second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is a communication from the mayor and the memorandum of agreement between the city of Fall River and the ASME council 93 local 3177.

Motion to reject. go back to the union for uh based on the council's discussion and finance tonight.

Second.

Real motion has been made and seconded.

Okay.

Would that be a motion or to withdraw to reject? motion to reject and and bring it back uh and refer it back to the um the city administration and the collective bargaining unit based on the city council suggestions in the committee on finance tonight.

regarding the paramedic. Um, regarding uh dispatch on the motion, councelor Kadim, yes.

Dion, yes.

Hart, no.

Kilby, yes.

Pereira, no.

Ponti, yes.

Raposo, yes.

Tiff, yes.

President Camara, yes.

Motion carries.

The next item is a uh transfer appropriation in the amount of $189,68262 from the reserve fund to various city departments to adopt.

Motion to accept and place on file a communication and adopt the order.

Second.

Motion to accept place on file adopt the res second. All in favor?

I. Any opposed? Motion carries.

And item point of order.

Point of order. Would that would I'm sorry, Mr. President. Would it would it be appropriate to uh table that item because we just didn't ratify ratify? I I stand corrected. Motion to reconsider.

Second.

Motion to reconsider. Has been made and second. All in favor?

Any opposed?

Motion to table. Second.

Motion to table has been made and seconded. All in favor? I.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

The next transfer is an appropriation is in the amount of $39,46842 to be transferred to police salaries from facility salary.

Motion to table. Second.

Motion to table and seconded. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Feel so bad for that. The next item is a communication from the chair of the board of election commissioners with the certified results from the municipal election held November 4th, 2025.

Motion to accept and place on file.

Second.

Motion to accept and place on file as made a second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

We have a number of traffic recommendations.

Motion so made.

Second.

Motion ordinance committance legislation be appropriate.

Motion to refer to committee ordinance legislation. Motion to refer to committance. Legislation is made and second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

We have an ordinance for second reading and enrollment. This is Maple Street as a one-way street.

Motion to pass through second reading and enrollment.

Motion to pass for second reading and enrollment has been made and seconded.

All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is also a uh proposed ordinance for miscellaneous traffic for second reading and enrollment as amended.

Motion so made pass through second reading enrollment.

Motion to pass second reading and enroll as amended as made in a second.

Second.

Second. All in favor?

Any opposed?

Seat six council seat six and council seat seven opposed.

Whereas the intersection of William Street in Broadway has been statistically shown to be one of the most dangerous intersections in southeastern Massachusetts according to the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District. And whereas a pedestrian was recently struck by a motor vehicle at this intersection.

Now therefore be it resolved that the committee on public works and transportation convene with the director of traffic to discuss the need for a traffic study at this intersection which if conducted would determine any necessary changes to improve safety for pedestrians and motorists such as flashing LED crosswalks and be a further resolved that a letter be sent to the director of traffic, director of

engineering and planning and the traffic commission after the adoption of this resolution to encourage the review of this intersection.

Motion to adopt. Second.

Motion to adopt the resolution as made and seconded on the motion. Council seat 7. Council Pos.

Thank you. I want to thank my colleague council Ponty for co-sponsoring this with me, but we've received numerous emails from the city resident regarding this intersection um with multiple accidents that have been occurring and and they've been witnessed to. Um so, Council Ponte and I filed this resolution. This way we can get some movement on this. Clearly a dangerous intersection has been identified as

that. Um so we need to we need to act and act quickly. I yield.

Thank you. Council council seat six.

Council Ponti.

Thank you Mr. President. So I I I sponsored this resolution only um due to the fact that we did get an email and um when I forwarded it over to the city clerk, they were gracious enough to let me know that our colleague has already started the process to my left of filing a resolution. and I was asked if I wanted to co-sponsor the resolution with them because we're all acting in good

faith to try to help this resident and this individual. Um I would like to though um to be clear um whether there it's now or in committee here from our our colleague in seat 2 certainly because this is a William Street Broadway issue um and certainly being a southern resident yourself I'm sure you can opine a little bit on trying to find a way that if this is can be resolved

any quicker or if this is the best route going forward but um we just just emails came through and just just trying to help and uh hopefully we'll be able to accomplish that. I yield.

Thank you. comes to C2 Cons.

Yeah, my only uh comment would be um it's a very congested intersection. Um yes, there have been accidents, but I can tell you that the intersection of Broadway and Bradford Avenue, there have been far more accidents. Um, and then you there's a traffic light at middle, but um, so anyways, we and and it's Lafayette Park, so we have a park, Upper Kennedy, Lower Kennedy. There is nothing at Bradford Avenue and Broadway

to help pedestrians, vehicles, any of that. Middle Street has a traffic light.

There is no button for a child to push to be able to cross Broadway. It's strictly a traffic light. So, my request would be that this be amended for the traffic study to go from Columbia Street all the way to Middle Street.

Um because and again, especially with that being a park, I mean, you have basketball courts, you have pickle ball courts, you have baseball courts, there's so many children, the pavilion, so many people there on a regular basis.

Um and like I say, there have been I can't even tell you the number of accidents. And I did speak actually speak with the traffic director about the um light on Middle Street and I was told that that was not her her purview.

I had to get in touch with the signal director in the police department which I did do that. Um he at the time said that that that just to just to change that light was probably a $500,000 undertaking. I don't know why it would be that expensive. Um, and that we were getting solar lights and they would be put at Broadway and Bradford Avenue, but that hasn't happened yet. So, if we

could do the traffic study to include that entire strip.

Second.

Motion made to amend the resolution include the street Columbia Street middle to Middle Street as made and seconded. All in favor?

I.

Motion to adopt the resolution as amended. made second.

Has been made in second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

M.

Whereas there have been two election cycles following the changes in polling locations in Fall River. And whereas the percentage of registered voters who participate in the voting process has been and continues to be declining. And whereas many voters have reacted negatively to some of the changes in polling locations. Now therefore, be it resolved that the committee on finance convene with a chair of the board of

elections, a member of the administration, and a member of the Fall River Commission on Disability to discuss and evaluate these changes and trends.

Motion to adopt.

Second.

Motion to adopt as made and seconded on a motion. Council C2, Council D.

Yeah. Um, I know when when these changes were initially um brought before us, one of my questions was, are you going to track the voters? Uh, you know, will we look back and and see if they've been positive, negative? Um, and there are many, many people who are not at all pleased with BCC specifically. Um, so I think it's I think it just warrants the conversation. Is that contributing in

part to the decrease? I don't know.

Maybe it isn't. Um, but I just think it it's worth the discussion. And with that, I yield.

Thank you, council. Motion to adopt as a made in second. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Whereas the city council recognizes the importance of ensuring that all municipal departments operate efficiently, effectively, and in the best interests of the taxpayers. And whereas performance audits serve as a valuable tool to evaluate departmental operations, staffing models, service delivery, and cost-saving opportunities, thereby promoting transparency, accountability, and continuous

improvement within city government. And whereas the city council believes that a systematic approach to conducting performance audits focusing on one to two departments per year would provide meaningful insights and allow for measured implementation of recommendations over time. And whereas collaboration between the administration and the committee on finance will be essential to determine the appropriate

scope, methodology, and funding strategy for conducting such audits on an annual basis. Now therefore be resolved that the committee on finance convene with the administration to develop a comprehensive plan and cost estimate to perform performance audits of all city departments.

Motion to adopt.

Seconded.

Motion to adopt has been made and seconded. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Whereas the committee on real estate has traditionally met for the purpose of disposing of city-owned real estate. And whereas all tangible property including vacant land and structures owned and maintained by the city is considered real estate. And whereas housing is defined as houses and apartments collectively and new growth, new developments, and the surge in market rate development all fall under the

definition of housing. And whereas redefining the committee on real estate and its role would open conversations involving development, maintenance, upgrades, capital improvements, both active and inactive, resulting in true transparency and accountability. And whereas housing is defined as houses and apartments collectively in relation to real estate. and that is not the role of the committee on human services,

housing, youth, elder and veterans affairs. Now therefore be a resolve that the committee on ordinances and legislation convene to discuss and consider changing the committee on real estate to the committee on real estate facilities and housing and the committee on human services, housing, youth, elder and veteran affairs to the committee on veterans, youth, elder affairs and human services.

Motion to adopt. Second motion to adopt as made and second.

Mr. President, I'd like to add a friendly amendment to this while they're bringing this to the ordinance committee to look at these two committees. I think we should look at all the committees. I think maybe we should have something with it or something more with um uh tourism, but also the liaison position, some of those things. Senior senate isn't even here anymore. So, I think we

need to look at all those positions. Um come up with senior moved on.

Pardon?

Seniors have moved on.

They are. We don't have them.

I'm almost junior senate in there.

We don't that senior senate. That's no more.

Is there a second to the council's amendment?

Just second.

Any other question? Any other people you want to talk resolution? Council.

Yeah. On the resolution, um I'd like to commend our colleagues for sponsoring this. I think when we kind of reflect back on the recent um uh campaign and the forums that you know for a reporter did, WSAR, Herald News and everything in the neighborhood groups you know there was a real fundamental discussion I think that all centered around one premise which is um housing which is an issue uh and um making sure that we

address our homelessness issue if we can as well as um I think over the last several years there's been such a huge emphasis on our veterans as well. And I think the purpose of our colleagues resolution here is to really um make the real estate subcommittee uh as well as the other subcommittee as well to have more of an apparent role. I mean, we just had a pretty heated debate and

discussion about what is happening or what isn't happening within um the department of community maintenance. Um u we have a Dery High School that was just built. We have facilities that we're buying and taking care of and there really isn't much accountability from um from the city council side to get quarterly reports or to get updates and and and to find out if there's a needs an assessment or a needs analysis

that needs to be done. We have the Bank Street Omry, we have the police station, we have a number of uh uh pieces of real estate that may be worthy of having a more quarterly or or or monthly or however the chair of that committee so chooses. Um, so this is a really good resolution and this and I believe this this acts as a as a pillar and a fundamental step forward towards um the

council having a hand in a role in making sure we're addressing the homelessness issue having more of an open-ended high overview discussion on housing and then just referring an item that need on a on an item that needs to be leased or rented. And I think this is really going to be good. I mean, the city of New Bedford, I believe, has um a whole depart a whole subcommittee that city council has a whole subcommittee

that is geared towards more housing, and I think this accomplishes that. And to my colleague to my right, um they also, I believe, have an IT uh subcommittee as well in New Bedford. Right. So, um I think this is a wonderful resolution, and I'm in full support of it. I yield.

Thank you.

Motion has been made and second, Mr. President, if I what is the amendment to review all to review all committees and liaison positions?

If I may, the resolution relates to housing and real estate. So, would it be more prudent to file a separate resolution that relates just specific whatever you think madame clerk?

Just a suggestion.

If you think we should do that, we'll do that.

I'll just stick to what is I'll withdraw my motion. We'll stick to the current resolution.

Thank you. Motion to adopt current resolution.

Second.

Motion to adopt. Main second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Have a citation for John and Evelyn Narcizo for their 70th wedding anniversary.

Motion to adopt is a remaining second.

All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is an order for out of body shop license renewals.

Motion to adopt.

To adopt.

Motion to adopt as made and second. All in favor? I any opposed? Motion carries.

These applications were for Ian Pankowski, DBA Classic Auto, located at 270 Shuff Street, Joseph Jennings, DBA Jennings Garage, located at 64 Judson Street, and Wayne Pereira DBA Auto Sales Auto Body and Sales Inc. located at 155 Willis Street.

Motion dot seconded.

Already did that.

We already should have done that.

Sorry. Sorry. Okay.

The next item is an order for auto repair shop license renewals.

Motion to adopt.

Motion to adopt. Has made. Is there a second?

Second.

Second. Mad reading before we vote on it this time.

Thank you.

This orders for applications received from Robert P. Forier DBA 40th Auto Sales and Service Inc. 605 Globe Street.

Ian M. Pankowski DBA Classic Auto located at 270 Show Street. Eli Boramia, DBA North End Auto Service and Sales, Inc. located at 3293 North Main Street.

Joseph Jennings, DBA Jennings Garage, located at 64 Judson Street. Francis B.

May DBA Brass Auto Service located at 156 President Avenue. Roger Corey, DBAs Automotive Service LLC at 46 McGawan Street. Tony El Corey, TNK Gas and Auto Repair, Inc. doing business as Tony Gas and Repair at 42 Breman Street. Antonio Pinto, DBA TNP Auto Repair and Sales at 2553 South Main Street. Fousy Rod Michael Antia Inc. DBA Foy's Auto at 256 Bedford Street. Rodrigo Tekash DBA

Tekash Auto Repair Inc. at 192C 18th Street. and Elio Yunes DBA Coastal Fuel Inc. located at 1082 North Main Street.

Motion has been made.

Two dots in a minute and a second. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is the police chief's licenses.

Motion to adopt.

Second.

Motion to adopt. There's a second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

We have a number of claims.

Motion to refer to corporation council.

Further claims cooperation council has a remaining second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is a request from the city engineer for a street opening less than 5 years at Robersonson Street between Bedford Street and Pine Street.

Motion to adopt.

Motion to approve as remained in second.

All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

We have two requests for drain layer licenses for AI landscaping inc and Sweeney Excavating Corporation.

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve has been made. Is there a second?

Second.

Second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

The next item are planning board minutes for September 10th, 2025 and October 8th 2025.

Motion to accept and place on file.

Motion to accept and place on file has remained second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Motion to take items 25 through 27 together.

Seconded.

Motion to take items 25 through 27 together. Has made second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed?

You read items 25 through 27. Madam clerk.

Absolutely. They are city council minutes for November 12th, 2025 for public hearings, committee on finance and regular meeting of the city council.

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion to approve. Has a meeting second.

All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Item 28 is a communication from the Massachusetts Department of Utilities for a public hearing and request for comments regarding the petition of the Massachusetts Electric Company in Ant Electric Company of its 20ou 2022 to 2024 three-year energy efficiency plan term report.

Motion to accept and place on file.

Motion to accept the plates on files as remaining second. All in favor?

I opposed. Motion carries.

Item 29 is also a communication from the Massachusetts Department of Utilities and a request for comment for the petition of Liberty Utilities for the approval of its 2022 to 2024 three-year energy efficiency plan term report.

Motion to accept and place on file.

Second.

Motion to accept and place on file.

Second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Good. I'm thinking council hold a recess for the signing of the ordinances. Two minute recess

City Council reconvene. Madam clerk, Mr. President, we have a proposed traffic ordinance for uh passage to be ordained. This is the one-way uh proposed ordinance for Maple Street.

Motion pass be ordained. Motion to pass be made and seconded. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next item is a miscellaneous traffic proposed ordinance for also passage to be ordained as amended.

Sweet potatoes.

Motion.

Motion to pass be ordained as amended.

As made and seconded.

All in favor?

I.

Any opposed?

Motion to adjurnn.

See six and seven opposed.

Get sleeping bags.

I am so tired.

I'm tired of it.

I did my last bedroom today.

The committee on finance at a meeting held on November 25th, 2025. Voted unanimously to recommend that the report be accepted and placed on file and posted on the city website. This is the report for the special charter review committee.

Motion so made.

Second.

Motion's made and second. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries.

That's all we have, Mr. President.

Motion to motion to adjourn is made second. All in favor?

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Good job. to go diamond and go China.