11.30.2021 Fall River City Council

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forever city council public hearing will now be called to order madame clark roll call police counselors kadeem here dionne here kilby liberty lebeau lee here peckham pelletier pereira here and president ponti here pursuant to the open meeting laura any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised such

recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible first item on our agenda on our public hearings is a second-hand article store for robert bragley is there a motion to open made by councillor peckham secretary councillor pereira all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it robert bagley of doing business as

one stop thrift shop of 19 spring street in taunton massachusetts zero two seven eight zero for the permission to operate and maintain a second hand article store located at 1649 south main street doing antiques collectibles and various used articles to be sold is there any proponents wishing to speak on this item calling all proponents calling all opponents wishing to speak on this item calling all opponents

madame clark anything written no sorry wearing none motion to close would be appropriately made by councillor peckham seconded by councillor kilby all those in favor aye opposed the ice have it auto repair shop for a robber radagrow tashay motion to open second made by councillor lee seconded by councillor peckham all those in favor all right oppose the ice habit rodgro tashay i think i'm saying that correct

rodrigo tashay okay thank you council 628 buffington street doing business as to shea auto repair inc for the license to operate an auto repair shop on 109 to 18th street on lot k138 in the assessor's plan any proponent any proponents wishing to speak on this item calling all proponents calling all opponents wishing to speak calling all opponents madam clerk we have nothing written motion to close

made by motion of clothes made by council elise secured by council of peckham all those in favor oppose the ice habit motion to adjourn our publications were made made by council vice president seconded by councillor lee all those in favor all right oppose the ice habit former city council committee on finance will now be called to order madam clerk we'll do that right now just do the roll call

yeah we just hold it i'm sorry um counselors kadeem here diane here kilby yeah well libby lebeau here lee here peckham here pelletier pereira here and president here pursue it to the open meeting laura in a person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised such recordings or transmissions are being made whether

perceived or unperceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible uh council prayer citations sure

for the president do you mind if i stand with her sure absolutely oh no those who are getting a citation if you'd like to come down counselors you're happy to come down oh do you want it as many of you know we had a halloween extravaganza at city hall that was so well attended that we even even had to put tables on the outside um we were going to have it at the picnic grounds

but the weather wanted to do something else so we couldn't have it there and it was one phone call somebody called me and said we'd like to do this how do i do this can you help from that one phone call it just spiraled and i think that there are so many good people in fall river that want to volunteer their time to do good things for our community and sometimes we just complain about issues

but when people do good things when people come together from all sides politically come together to do good for the city that's really the floor river that i love to see and i have some citations andrea if you i'm gonna

have halloween decorations that are out of this world and they let us borrow it with the help of perry long's moving company and walter monas moving company they moved everything back and forth um and then justin come on down andrea come on down brian

huh why caught you roxanne i called you andrea but you came so i knew you i did it did you i know i did that too but with roxanne's phone call and now we've developed a great friendship between everyone but i just wanted to take the time to present a citation from the council to all of you for the work that you did it was extraordinary and hopefully we can do it again so to

andrea and ken rosendes to justin to brian vienna into roxanne longstone it's in recognition for your generous decorations and time to making the boo at the beach which turned out to be a boo at city hall and we adapt a very very very successful time where families came um a lot of kids came counselors came um pam was there trout was there a bunch of us uh michelle came we all came and just

thank you thank you because this is what the city needs so to both of you in appreciation to justin thank you couldn't have done it without you roxanne thanks and brian is our guy that gets donations like you can't believe and i don't know where justin went to decorating school but he is off the charts thank you so thank you so much

oh you didn't take a picture okay get together so mr longstone take a picture

ready perfect thank you thank you so much

all right next item on our agenda is citizens input amy melody of six oak lawn street new bedford regarding creative arts network motion wave of the rules made by council of lee seconded by council of pelletier all those in favor opposed the i7 you can go right to that microphone

i'm pretty loud all right well i want to introduce myself my name is amy melody i'm a current intern and student at bcc and i intern with creative arts network and i'd like to thank you for your time tonight so i have a couple notes in front of me i just want to ensure i cover all my key points and to start off i want to speak today not only to ask for your support but to

personally invite you to a couple really wonderful events that we have coming up to celebrate the holiday these events are in collaboration with creative arts network the farvara community preservation committee and several students from the bcc college the programs they are in are the event design and intro to hospitality these events are their class projects and i do want to stress that excuse me

as you know farver has the cpa or the community preservation act which partially allocates tax dollars to historic preservation projects at creative arts network we're passionate about the rich art culture and history within the city which was shown by you guys thank you so much so on december 11th i want to mention that we have a historical tour which will be showcasing six historical

projects in the city starting off with lafayette durfee house the maritime museum the former district courthouse historical society the school admin building and lastly the abbey grill each of these projects or properties have received funds from the farver community preservation committee in an effort to preserve these historic properties guides will be there and be present to provide a

history of each of the buildings and about the projects and how they were funded students from the bcc will welcome guests at each of these properties alongside cpi members and property staff they'll all be present and help share information and answer everyone's questions related to the property and the funding this event is a prime way to show our taxes show how taxpayers in the

community and where all the tax dollars go besides the historical tour we also have a festival of trees you may have walked through and seen all those trees in our government building we are allowing individuals and looking for individuals or businesses who would want to sponsor a tree and decorate it it is a great way to create a new memory by decorating it or showcase your business

we will have toy building workshops candy stations and we'll even have santa present with some live music at this event you'll be able to purchase your ticket for the historical tour and a holiday concert which is held at the abbey grill the holiday concert which will be at the abbey grill will have light refreshments in a cash bar the music will begin at 4 pm and is free to those who have purchased this

historical tour ticket which if you did not it's only five dollars at the door and you get to support your community in closing i do want to thank you all for listening to me and taking the time to do so and once again i would love to see you all there and have your support for this historical event and in support of the community thank you very much next item on our agenda is a resolution

the committee on finance meet with the administration to discuss traffic trash collection and a proposal for a cart program this item was tabled back in may of 2020 emotionally taken off table motion to lift the item from the table made by council lee seconded by council peckham all those in favor all right pose the ice habit it is a very detailed resolution uh in summary um there was discussion that was

taken place in early 2020 or summer of 2020 whereas council vice president and councilor dion worked tremendously hard to try to find out how we could reduce the solid waste disposal costs and counselor dion specifically i know went through uh quite a bit of work to try to find out why businesses are getting trash cans picked up for free i know there's been some discussion most recently that the mayor is

possibly looking into ways to make this uh become a reality but the resolution does say sponsored buyer council vice president be it resell that the administration attend a city council meeting on finance to discuss an end date for the trash and recycling pickup that is happening direct opposition to our ordinances and present a car program proposal mrs sahari is mr perry here

i've got a paging system here alison can you call his office and see if he's coming please thank you

mr perry welcome welcome thank you counselors apologize for my late uh entrance how's everybody doing good how are you good good so um the agenda item tonight is to discuss trash and some of the things we've discussed before so i'm here to answer any questions you might have as far as where we stand uh council and seat four council vice presidents your resolution we'd like to acknowledge you first thank you so we

actually i'm gonna defer to uh councilman seat 2 on this we had as you said we had met with the administration about a multitude of items when we were doing the budget last year this was brought up again because it was kind of at a standstill we we know that the covet had happened however this we were expecting this to still to be going on in the background and so i believe it's

on here again now and council president just tell me if i'm i'm wrong here i know the mayor was questioning this as well um just to see where this is at and and i do know that they have sent something down to us in regards to or sending something down to us in regards to the um the commercial pickup they kind of put that back in our court yeah

that was that was in the early part of the year where i believe the mayor sent a communication down to the city council saying if you want to end business trash and business trash he wasn't in a position to do that so i don't know if that's changed so i did have a conversation with um with him last week um about it and i believe they're in agreement with it that we're not

supposed to be picking up the business trash so that's a conversation that's that's going to end up back down here um but do you have a an update for us mr perry so yeah i mean once that conversation had taken place we did do some digging um to counseling seats to um the work that she had put in uh obviously we had to to do our own work on that so we did an audit

of the business trash uh we took the information that counselor dion had given us we did an audit two different ways we did one with easy gathering the information that they gathered as they collected along the routes each day uh identifying the businesses and how many bins that they were collecting and then we did our own internal audit of the businesses and how many cuts that our compliance officers actually went

out and did we did that over the course of a month and we came up with some numbers as far as total numbers of businesses total numbers of carts that were applied to those businesses and then at that point i started to try to calculate what our expected uh savings would be if we would eliminate that program so that's where we were at that point the conversation as it sometimes does died out

and here we are again to discuss it so i'm not sure where you'd like to begin but again i'm here to answer any questions that i can hopefully i have all the answers you're looking for so um i we don't have that letter with us but um i'll wait a minute yes we do

i'm just gonna read this is that okay council president what are you going to read the letter from the mayor which is what puts it back in the in the council's court at a meeting of the city council committee on finance held on may 11 2021 a discussion was held regarding collection of trash for commercial establishments a motion was made and seconded to request that i review the city ordinance is available to me i've

had the opportunity to do so my thoughts are outlined below and it goes through and it go with the definitions of collection and carts and household trash the city shall collect solid waste and recyclables from single-family dwellings and multiple family residential buildings containing up to six dwelling units solid waste shall be collected only place an official city bag and place in

a green cart that's been changed recyclables should not be placed in green cards and a solid waste will not be placed in blue or pink cards in reviewing these sections my opinion that without specific verbiage in which commercial trash is collected and since section 62-2 c does specif does specify collection for household trash it could be and is implied that collection for commercial

establishments does not occur however this is currently happening then there's article 2 provides for collection regulations section 6242 which describes placement of refuse from commercial established instruments on sidewalks states business establishments stores restaurants and laundries will be permitted to place refuse and rubbish on the sidewalk on the day of collection provided such refuse and

rubbish shall be in proper containers and bundles and shall occupy a space not larger than 12 feet long three feet wide and four feet high as the council vice president indicated during the meeting section 6242 relates to placement of trash on the city sidewalks but does not authorize such collection members of the city council had a clear message the 110 businesses that are currently oh i'm sorry this is your letter

i'm sorry god's president that are currently having trash picked up need to be placed on notice this will no longer be the case we don't have that one we don't have that was my letter to him recap yeah i'm sorry i saw his name on it but he responded to it that's the one i was looking at yeah and pretty much in summary that it doesn't actually say if the council wants to change the ordinances

have the council change the ordinances that was the summary of the the letter that the mayor sent to us in response to my letter to him got it yep but we don't have that one i apologize that's the one i was looking for so with the conversation i had with him um i believe that it's going to be coming down to us sooner rather than later and that it is going to be addressed it should be

addressed up my opinion is still that um you know it's not fair that we're picking up certain businesses and not all of them i still believe that that the section on commercial trust on the sidewalk specifically relates to whatever trash day they have with which ever service that they have people don't seem to want to touch it because it's a um you know they don't want to upset the

businesses but if i'm a business and my trash hasn't been picked up and all of these other businesses is i'm i'm already upset so i still hold the same position on this and i'll yield to uh counselors too mr perry and um uh mr perry or mrs sahara can you speak on any conversations that have been uh occurring internally about what plans there are from the administration yes certainly so so we have been meeting

with regard to this matter and i believe the mayor has actually reached out to some of the counselors and indicated that starting in the spring we would no longer be picking up the business trash mr perry has been doing them number crunching in terms of what that means in terms of budgetary savings and at this particular point the mayor has been apprised of that information and we're working on putting together

some type of recovery if you will within the budget for purposes of trash i mean he's also i believe mr perry can confirm going to have the trash subcommittee meet further and and have some further discussions on this going forward but at a minimum i believe he's indicated to a number of you that the plan would be to eliminate trash pick up for businesses council vice president i apologize i

know i yield it but mrs hotty what do you mean by recovery in the budget well we need to start looking at other mechanisms to include revenue sources resources in the budget whether those would be going back to a trash fee or some other mechanism in terms of reducing the trash pickup we have again been working on this mr perry has been working on this looking at the number of businesses and

the savings are really not significant right now there's 212 businesses 225 225 businesses which will recover about 200 000 in trash fees which as you know is is certainly something that's helpful but it's not going to significantly make an impact on the general fund budget i'm sorry what's the money number between 150 and 200 000.

and did he also say i believe he said to me that um there's going to be a a significant notice given to these businesses that we're currently picking up the trash they'd have to be for us and then this is going to have to be changed or redefined in ordinance so we don't have any further questions on it yeah i think that would be the smart thing to do for all involved

to iron out that ordinance so that it states specifically what our intent is so if you read an ordinance and it's vague language it can be interpreted multiple ways so i think at this point with this conversation having taken place over the multiple years i think it's time to kind of put that on paper get the ordinance correct uh put that debate out there in the public so that we can get the verbiage correct in that

ordinance and then there's no um no interpretation that's needed the audience will clearly state what the intent of business collection is or is it and council president is that something that we can do at this meeting can we refer this piece to owners or do we need a new resolution to do that um you can refer the item to ordinance and if you'd like the ordinance committee to work with the administration on

preparing an ordinance you can absolutely do that yeah and then it will be there okay i'll do that after discussion counselor and seat to counselor dion good evening good evening um i think i'd like to preface my questions and comments with so we're talking 200 000 a year but i believe we're in year five so that would represent a loss of a million dollars in revenue in the last five years would you agree

150 to 200 000 yen yeah so though some people might think 200 000 isn't significant over long over the long term it is and i agree with that council and and just to mr hardy's point i think when when when we use the word significant just in an overall um sense of where we're at as far as the hole we're in when it comes to disposal costs and whatnot i don't think 150 000 or 200 000

dollars for that matter is anything to scoff at um but i think mrs hardy's pointing you can correct me if i'm wrong is it doesn't solve all of our problems but it is a start i agree and it's something an action we can take that that can show that you know we're serious about this and something that maybe never should have happened is going to be corrected now in terms of the ordinance um everything i read

for instance cart city supplied wheeled trash receptor blue and pink cart solely used for recycling and green carts for household trash that's pretty specific then when you read into it further private premises any dwelling house building or other structure designed or used either holier in pot for private residential purposes whether inhabited or temporarily continuously uninhabited or vacant and

shall include any yard grounds walk driveway porch steps vestibule or mailbox belonging or aperturant to such dwelling house building or other structure so again it brings in a house a dwelling under collection and disposal generally 62-2 the city shall collect solid waste and recyclables from single family dwellings and multiple family residential buildings containing up to six dwelling

units solid ways shall be collected only if placed in an official city bag placed in a green cot recyclables shall not be placed in green carts and solid waste shall not be placed in blue or pink cards again they reference dwellings not businesses and that's that's an ordinance if you look at the easy disposal contract um whereas easy offers its collection and hall services to city to ultimately

transport for disposal certain quantities of residential and municipal acceptable waste doesn't say business acceptable waste means all household including occasional non-hazardous so i think i don't need to continue to go on and on but everything i see refers to household nothing refers to businesses and i guess the thing that sticks out the most is in the contract residential collection and hall the outside

the curbside collection of acceptable waste generated by the households including limited business customers set forth and exhibit h i don't think they would have had to put an amendment or an exception if it was acceptable and it should have been common practice so for me i feel like there isn't really that much to do to any ordinance because it seems to be pretty straightforward and where it continues to refer to

constantly the household and then we had to make an exception um in terms of carts how many carts total are we talking 681 681 um do we have a breakdown of solid waste recyclable so that's 681 carts total you're generally in in and a lot of the numbers i use come from dep databases that tell you x amount of pounds per bag is in average whether it be a household dwelling that'll be one way a commercial

establishment would be another but your your recycle weights are generally one-third of what your solid waste is um so you run with that formula and you basically take a third of what your overall solid waste would be and that's generally where your recycling is around and that's how i arrived at my numbers uh to where we're at so um and the business collections for solid waste you're looking at about a hundred

and uh to 120 25 000 for solid waste and then you're looking at another 50 to 75 000 in recycling now each week what is put out on the curbside varies uh so the numbers will never be exact there'll always be a plus or minus percentage that it'll be off uh one week somebody may put out four bags that way a hundred pounds next week they may put out five bags that way 70 pounds so it's

a law of averages uh and that's why there's such a varied range 150 to 200 000 as you said those numbers aren't small 50 000 isn't small as well but there's no way to exactly pin down how much weight is going out each week unless you did a week by week audit and weighed each business route that's collected now those business routes are collected along with residential so those numbers are all averaged out so

it's between 150 and 200 i know that um initially when the mayor was elected two years ago he had a transition team that looked at the trash as well and they wrote a pretty comprehensive report um i will will you be taking anything from that report that potentially could help and i asked that question because in the report um they make no and we know a truck of yard waste it's three hundred

dollars to dispose of a truck of uh of yard waste but it doesn't mean the truck is full so whether full or or empty or have no i can't say empty no matter what the quantity is in the truck it's a 300 expense is there any way that we can um reduce that amount or um somehow keep track or of trucks being half full versus completely full because obviously long term that

would help as well so i know that was part of the transition report um and you know that does happen it's going to happen it will be a truck that will show up on site and it's not completely full but that isn't the norm that is the exception so there'll be a route that may be excuse me uh let's say in up in the reservation area or you know in the the

upper north end of the city that truck finishes up there's nothing left there they'll jump on the highway and they'll go off to the the disposal site so maybe that truck is in full the vast majority of the trucks when it comes to yard waste that go to dump out are are maxed out when you get to the end of your routes on a friday and there's nothing else to

collect the next day or whatnot i'd say yeah you're going to have a few of those trucks do i think that those half-empty trucks or three-quarter full trucks are skewing our numbers to where we're not getting the best price we can i don't think that is happening i think yeah we're paying for certain trucks that might not be full the vast majority are full so again when the law of averages you're still around the same

price that you would pay normally another part of that transition report that was was key was renegotiating contracts and trying to get better prices for things like that you saw that with the recycling we've recently renegotiated a contract with a different company got a much better rate that company has been very patient with us we're still working on our contamination issues we were getting we were getting better

for a while we had a setback a couple of weeks ago but we continue to press on that so renegotiating contracts trying to get better prices as we go along is something that is very important we did that with the recycling mr marola from easy disposal will be coming in next week to meet with myself and the mayor and ms sahari to try to talk about the future where we

go we're six years in now to the contract with easy do we continue down that road can we look to try to renegotiate early get a better price um you know a situation like this with the businesses uh 681 cards 225 stops that's something that will be coming off of their workload right so that's that's a bargaining chip for us to be able to say we're going to reduce some of what you're collecting um things

of that nature have been happening um you know just keep in mind and i ask everybody to bear in mind that you know this isn't a conversation that just happened yesterday we've been discussing trash in the city since i've been here in january makes 22 years for me there's never been a clear answer a concise answer to fix the problem not only that but it's not unique to just fall river i think you see other

communities struggling with it as the clock turns and the in the calendar turns things continue to get tighter our our issues with trash will only exasperate going forward because there is not enough room there's just not enough room to put all of our trash not enough people are recycling in the way they should and that market is starting to turn around but it hasn't made a complete comeback yet there are certain

commodities i eat cardboard that have made a bounce back but this is a long ongoing issue i think some of the answers that uh make the most sense uh may be some of the most difficult to enact because they have to do with financial impacts to residents and homeowners um but i've stated it before i stated again of the 250 plus communities in the commonwealth there are only 11 that

don't have a pay as you throw or a household fee and of those 11 most are affluent communities that can afford to cover it through their tax base or they have a infrastructure in place to handle their disposal i.e a transfer station or landfill and none of them i don't want please please coming up anytime none of my questions or comments are meant to knock any individual or any entity um i

personally believe that easy disposal has done a great job i think the men work very very hard um obviously there are some neighborhoods are going to put out more yard waste than others it was more an overall general question than a specific question or or um trying to say that they weren't doing the proper thing yeah so to get back to you at your question which the answer is anything that was

put in the transition report any feedback input that we can get from any of the counselors of the administration or anybody who has experience in this is all taken into consideration i don't think there's anything that i would rule out as a possibility would obviously have to be vetted but yes the transition report has some good good points in it and it definitely is taken into account

i think the trash task force we need to get back to that um you know we've obviously had some events here in the last six to eight months that kind of put the focus and spotlight on other things but i think we need to get back to that and start to dig down deep to get these hard answers and decide as a group which way we go to move forward and then my next

question would be in terms of commodities now cardboard has been a commodity all along but you just mentioned that it's it's increasing in value again correct so my next question would be have we looked into purchasing our own um equipment that we can compact that that cardboard and sell it on the market ourselves um because that would generate extra revenue as well yeah that's part of the upgrades at the dpw

that i'm looking to do the council was great enough gracious enough to award us 200 000 this year in my budget so we're looking at getting some of those upgrades done we have the feasibility study um hopefully you know with the infrastructure bill or opera funds at some point when that debate plays itself out maybe some of those funds will be able to be used for a new dpw facility as a whole

but the first step with those monies is to get that that that facility uh up to par looking you know professional um you know laid out in a way that makes sense for the residents when they come in um and and a cardboard baler is something we looked at i'd say about seven or eight years ago um but the infrastructure at dpw needs to be upgraded so where we would need to put

that the electric that would you know electricity and the outlets and and the connections that would need to be made to have that baler work and then you also have the manpower piece where you'll need to have two men one in a bobcat and one monitoring what's going in it to bail it every day now it is commodity now will that will that cost outweigh the profit we don't know yet um is it going to cut

into our um our spending absolutely and i've said this as well any savings is also could be looked at as revenue correct so either way you look at if you save money then you're increasing your revenue in in the same respect so if you pay less or you you charge more as long as you're cutting costs and and streamlining your operation now do we sell cardboard now we don't because our our waste stream our recycle waste

stream is co-mingled so when easy picks up a card at the street it's the cardboard is mixed in with the glass the plastic the paper when that gets put in the back of the truck and crushed the glass gets on there recycling and any other contaminants and that contaminates that load so where we could look to do that would be the cardboard from schools exactly schools so schools municipal buildings such as this one

um you know anything anywhere that generates a significant amount of cardboard those would have to be picked separate and brought straight to a facility such as mid-city so we can recoup those revenue so at this point in time essentially the cardboard is costing us to get rid of that is correct so i i think that's definitely yeah worth looking into um i mean i worked for a a gentleman who

owned a business who had his own machine and that's what we did we packed it up every week every two weeks the truck would come pick up the huge pallets of cardboard and he was paid you know monthly for that cardboard so i believe it's definitely a viable um source of revenue what about with um in terms of we've talked about a grinder in the past because obviously with the

grinder you re you re you can you know you can take a room full of furniture and reduce it to a couple of truckloads so essentially that can uh be a cost savings as well correct correct that is another feature and option that we we would like to expand on you know if we can move forward with the dpw facility and the upgrades that i'd like to do there again you know i'm not i think everybody's

familiar with the dbw facility so when you come up and you know where the old incinerator pits were and the big garage doors up near the office to the right of that if you're facing the building would be that corner where we would look to have a recycling center so any commodities that we can separate and and recoup monies for would be something that we'd look to do but again it's

infrastructure it's it's doing what's necessary at that building to get it to a point where it can handle that and it's manpower it's it's manpower to run those kinds of machines so as i just said with the cardboard builder that's two people with the grinder you'd be looking to have at least three people you need a machine operator to be able to load it now the same machine operator

loads of cardboard bales could probably load the the the um the grinder but at the same time you're going to need at least two men at that grinder because you're going to want to make sure they're safe you're going to make sure everything that's going in there isn't going to damage the machine abc disposal just invested in some of those grinders and uh some metals were left in that grinder um that actually

damaged it and shut them down for for quite some time so it's something that we have to vet out and do correctly it's not something we can just shotgun and try to just put in place and say yep we're going to do this we're in the business of grinding up items we're in the business of bailing cardboard we we need to be able to have the infrastructure in place first and foremost at the facility and

we have to have the know-how and the the manpower to be able to do it and and as you know everybody's stretched in right now so i i'd be looking for an investment in in a few more bodies um when we got to the point where we were ready to kind of move that way well i guess i guess my position would be at this point we've talked about trash for 20 years you've talked about

a cardboard a compactor for seven years that we are at a point that we need to make stop talking make decisions live with our decisions and and hopefully make the best decisions uh my last question will be to mrs sahady in terms of opera funding i know that it's water and sewer infrastructure however trash would fall under health isn't health a proper category for opera funding there are certain aspects of public

health that are eligible expenses i have not seen anyone use public health for trash i guess we would have to look at one what particular areas within public health is allowing us to expend opera money on any one of these items so whether it be a piece of equipment or it certainly would not be the infrastructure portion of it um so as mr perry just indicated you know this hope that in the next bill

that comes down there'll be infrastructure available for the site itself the question would be with regard to the equipment would it fall under any of the eligible public health categories as you know we've talked about this there the interim final bill is still out there the final bill is not out there um and there has not been any decision really from the treasury as to whether

you can supplant your budget or you have to supplement your budget okay thank you with that i yield thank you counselor and seat five counselor lee just that last piece on the public health i'm writing it down if i remember correctly 2013 was it uh the public health was the public department of public health was used or sort of the moniker of public health was used to implement the uh

purple bags was that correct on that waterfall what was it the board of health yeah it was the board of health that's right council didn't vote on purple bags board of health did the board of health was what was the entity that brought the purple bags in uh during that time so a lot of people still say to this day that they didn't even know some people support purple bags they didn't support the

implementation of it because it was really taken out of our hands um and it's just it's just kind of bringing this up you know for for as a way to you know justify arpa funding would be uh sort of poetic justice on that on that end because because honestly if we think about the topic of infrastructure has been brought up a lot um but you specifically have been talking about the infrastructure piece way before

it's been brought up you know through opera funding you've talked about having proactive infrastructure investments um and that's and that's and that's why that's where we land like we've been on opposite sides of fees and certain things like that however we do come to common ground and it's very similar to the water department actually that you know if if we had proactive infrastructural investments in the first

place we wouldn't be having what i call money grabs left and right that always seem to fall on the residential you know we're talking about a change in the ordinance to represent the fact that uh commercial uh trash is is something that is again becoming a burden on the residential side because when purple bags come down their residential fees their residential costs they fall on the hormone and they

fall in residential very rarely do you see those costs land on the on the commercial side so i think in this situation i mean i'm in full supply i've been in full support for a long time of uh eliminating all of whatever you have you have 601 carts um you have 225 businesses and expected estimated savings based on law of averages uh 200 000. um regarding that that law of averages he brought

that up a handful of times um i think that there needs to be a more of a proactive effort to uh measure accurately regularly so we know what the exact costs are i don't know if that's something that could be done we we measure our tonnage each month we monitor that um so we monitor our recycle our trash and our yard waste tonnage each month and each month it varies there's very few months where

it's it's it's the same number would we as would we as a body be able to get um or is it on is it on a website already no no it's not on the website but we we keep a spreadsheet and i could certainly fall with that to the entire council i i would i honestly like legitimately would like to see that you you'll get a three-year comparison you'll be able to

go back three years and and you see the significant jump i think we're back here again you know i i don't want to keep saying pay as you throw no um but once we that was eliminated um our tonnage increased i mean you may have some counselors saying that you have a new council coming you may have some councils that will support that stuff we were averaging we were averaging

probably anywhere from 15 to 1700 ton a month with the program uh and we're back up to anywhere from 22 to 26 100 ton a month so it's more than doubled yep since the the program was was eliminated now the savings the expected savings let's say that you get some of these expected savings two hundred thousand dollars maybe more maybe less um what would be done with those savings specifically

well it would be it would be a reduction in the expense line item in the disposal 23 budget for disposal if we implement it now going forward it would be that portion of the year in terms of a savings we will know in the next month or so what the six month mark looks like for expenses in mr perry's department so i'm assuming he's pretty close to being on budget right

now but as you know in prior years there's always been a need or that has been in the last few years a need to transfer into his budget by year end to shore up the expenditures uh when you were doing your analysis did you what did you do regarding hybrid areas that have residential and businesses in the same on the same property yeah so excuse me if it was a hybrid i tried to

delineate just one car for the businesses and then the rest were for residential okay um let me see i gotta double check on this right so um we did have a conversation a small very small conversation today about um and you did talk about easy disposal a little bit today and we actually had a resolution to talk about when um solid waste sometimes gets mixed in the same tonnage as

recycling and yard waste um we just had a recent one uh come up as well i know you're going to be speaking with the easy disposal representatives uh soon about that but again this is the reason why i think we need to see a regular you know monitoring of costs because there could be some negative costs right or they could be it could fall negatively on the on the residential or taxpayer in the situation yeah no

definitely i mean each waste stream needs to go in the right truck our ordinance even specifies that absolutely there's no there's no defending that there's no arguing that point um does it happen yes should it happen no yeah can we have our eyes on every truck no that's why it's it's important and it's it's good when residents send out videos or pictures or notifiers that that type

of stuff is happening um i think it's happened enough i'm fed up with it it's happened i've i've really held their feet to the fire as absent you know pulling the trigger on any kind of uh monetary um consequence to them but i think we're at that point now and and they're being brought in and not not you know again to counsel in c2s point i mean they've done a good job oh i think they've they've

done an excellent job they've been a great partner to work with um you know nobody fought harder against privatization than mr pacheco and myself we didn't want to see our men lose their job we didn't want to see you know what we should be able to do ourselves as a community go to an outside company but once that happened i'm going to be honest a lot of the problems that were on my plate went away

and they've they've done the job and not absent any issues but there are going to be issues in any position any job any company so i think now it's time to bring them in talk about the future and to um hold them accountable and get some some hard answers from them as far as to to how come this stuff happens how do we stop it from happening and and let them know

that going forward we're going to need to to put those financial um safeguards that are in the contract it's a good use you know politically we run a slippery slope when we start talking about privatizing and union conversations and things like that however i'm always of the of the uh mindset that we go with what works the best and if that worked the best and i and i did believe at the

time that it did work the best and i'm glad that it's working out that way however we still have an obligation to niptuck where the mistakes are being made you know understood now we haven't seen mr mccoy here in a while however um maybe just in this conversation could we can we get some kind of language back from the mayor at some point in time as to what the administration is going to do i

mean i think that mr perry has great intentions but his his hands are going to be limited if the administration itself does not want to do anything in response to what we've been seeing uh time by time when we've seen the mixing up of of our solid waste and recycling and yard waste for that matter so i think you know i i always i keep a good line with you we always have a great

rapport i think it's great but i think that the mayor the mayor himself or the mayor's office needs to start to make you know get it out there as well to the public as to what their concerns are in this and what is going to be done in response to this because the city council does not handle day-to-day operations we do this we come to the meetings we make it public record we try to do what

we can to talk about this stuff but the truth of the matter is our hands are going to be tied at the end of the day too we're going to still go on social media and see all this stuff too and i'm going to continually keep on going to mr perry about it but at the end of the day it's the mayor that calls the shot on us so if i could

on that just for a second so i will tell you um the the mayor this administration especially supports you know what i do and how i do it um and if you read the contract i'm sure counseling c2 has read it you know at nauseum but it states that the responsibility of executing that contract falls with the department of community maintenance director so i i have no doubt and i've talked to the mayor um you know

it's time to start issuing the fines okay and that's going to be the message that's going to be set um uh you can get that from me here i'm the executor of that contract with them it's my kids 22 because you're trying to renegotiate contracts with them and you're trying to keep a business rapport with them now to to your other points maybe there's some other information that you're looking

for as far as deeper questions that need to be answered but when it comes to that particular item as far as the mixing i can assure you going forward they will be held to that financial um safeguard which is in the contract if it happens again i'd like to intervene for a moment the resolution speaks specifically to the carp program and we're really going down a whole rabbit hole here of discussing

trash and purple bags and easy disposals services i'd like to get back to the topic at hand which is the resolution whereas we're discussing the cart program okay so whatever questions that we have for mr perry regarding the cart program i think we should get because we'll be here until three o'clock in the morning talking about what mr perry wants to do what easy's doing and not doing

i i'd like to get back and i i really don't the reason why this we went down this in the first place was based on the fact that the re the ordinance that we're speaking of in this resolution talks about the separation of the two and its overall goal is to reduce the you know trash the cost of trash i mean that's the reason why this resolution exists in the first place was with with

an opportunity to try to reduce the cost of trash so i think i felt as though that was and that's fine i let the conversation go on i'm just going to go through a little bit more of this just based on that but i i will stop my promise um the cardboard conversation was was was brought up in previous council brought that up so i just wanted to ask i wanted

to follow up on that what are we doing right now with um school cardboard right now school cardboard uh if the school has a dedicated cardboard compactor that will be picked up and brought to mid city so we will we will recoup as much of the monies as we can um but if it's co-mingled in the compact that as at that particular school there's really not much we can do about that but dump

it with our code mango okay thank you um and i do have one last thing um the abc contract when it comes to the recycling costs where are we now uh with solid waste cost and recycling costs 85 dollars a ton for recycle and 106 dollars a ton for solid waste the hundred and six dollars a ton for solid waste will go up to 108 in september okay thank you i yield thank you councilman seat eight

councillor pereira yeah i just have a a few quick questions john you said there were 225 businesses yes but the ordinance the way it's written now does not talk about us picking up for business for free correct correct so when are you going to implement that so again that's that's what the conversation has been um as ms sahari had mentioned we're looking at the spring we're going to obviously need time for

us to notify the businesses give them an opportunity to get a private hauler and then collect the bins we need to make sure that we give them ample time to be able to do that so we were hoping to start that process at some point in february you know draft a letter that we'd send to all of them putting them on notice um notify all of the private vendors in

the in the area that would you know they'd be looking to to collect their their trash and recycle and let them know this is coming so that they're prepared uh and then start enacting it enacting it as soon as possible after february but i just think this went in in april april 20th of 2021 where counselor lebeau and dion put this in that realizing that the ordinance wasn't specific enough

so think of the money that we've lost from now till then i understand notifying people is sending out a letter what you have to do right so let's send out a letter why why do we have to wait send out the letter they did all the work they came up with that sometimes i think we take too long to make decisions on things we did have the trash subcom you know committee that

got together and i know that one of the business owners complained when we said about businesses having to pay complained that she has dumpsters because she owns big factories in the city and you know the problem that she has is that people will come and throw trash in her dumpsters and that's a legitimate problem for people just like you talked about the trash going up from 17 000 tons whatever to like 26

tons now you know that that's a lot of people in outlying areas that bring their trash to fall river how do we stop that i think there's a lot more that we need to look at doing this is something that we had already agreed that this is what would happen when the ordinance was first written a couple of years ago i mean technically i would like to see a new dpw building i'd like to see containers

i'd like to see the grinding machine i'd like to see um you know a cardboard compactor to make money but i'd also like to see of other ways of us disposing our trash you know picking up the trash stays a certain fee but it's then getting rid of that trash that fluctuates correct because more or less easy pays their men the same thing you know what you're going to pay yeah for for the money

it's the standard but when we get rid of it is when it costs more now with having the train come in you have an option to put containers on a train and get them out someplace less expensive you have the pier and the waterway another way to get them out i think we need to look at stuff like that because let's be honest when we stopped the ten dollar fee and when we stopped the bags

we created a big deficit what does it cost you to collect and get rid of trash within a year for the city upwards of 10 10 to 12 million 10 to 12 million dollars i mean i know people some people that owned businesses are saying why is it falling on businesses and i know that some people are saying well we're going to be charging now for six families or higher well some six families

are owned by people in the city who have not sold out you know who have seven eight hundred dollar rent versus other people that have come in and bought our six families and i don't know maybe the council president or council lebeau will be able to tell you what six families are going for but then they have a high mortgage they're charging people a thousand why are they paying the same that

somebody who's owner occupied is do we do something with that i mean i don't know i don't know but i mean if i just think you're telling me you're going to wait until the spring i'm saying this is a law it's on the books it's an ordinance send out a letter next week well i just don't want to cause i just don't want to cause chaos when i say february

you know i say february because here we are now november 30th december comes and goes very quickly um and then january is you know the new year so that would give us just yeah in february valentine's day if you take them you know what i'm saying oh they're not getting any value matcha st patrick's day come on john there's always something coming up let's just get it done april's my birthday by the way just

throwing that in there with that i you mr president thank you counselor and seat one counselor kadeem thank you mr president just a um a couple of quick questions and i i was going in the same line of question as counselor and see they so the timeline so i know we've been here for a year and a half now we've been starting having this conversation since 2020 and just kind of rehashing so we're saying

as in february just to keep an action item list for me that we're gonna put an end to uh business pickup is that what we're committing to yeah yes notifying them sooner than february letting them know that it's coming in february and then come february start to collect the bins from those those businesses and make sure that they're passed off to a private event and so when can we expect i guess a

recommendation or a request from the administration to have ordinance committee um advise the ordinances i'd say that'd be as soon as possible is that next week i mean when the next ordinance feeding meeting is i i could make take the steps to make sure that we have a request on that council president what's our next council meeting what is it december 22nd no we have another one we have two meetings in december

14th december 14th some 14th so because it has to go to council first and then till when it is can we so can we can we target december 14th for just an ordinance change because it's got to go through ordinance and obviously the ordinance committee can i mean councillor i i want to be opposed if the council's okay after you're done speaking of course is to refer this resolution to ordinance so

the ordinance committee can work with the administration and prepare the ordinance so we don't have to wait for the whole and that's fine too i just i just want something from the administration i i just wait we've been talking about this for a year and a half i just want to be able to have some deadlines um or a timetable at least that we can kind of work with so and

then you quickly mentioned and i know this is a little off topic but you mentioned getting the um trash committee steering committee subcommittee whatever we're calling it to to actually work out solid waste task force to work on some recommendations i guess my concern is is just i know we're going in it sounds a little early because we still haven't wrapped up the fy 22 budget but we're

going to be building them shortly the fy 23 budget so i think a lot of those the analysis that you're going to need and recommendations as to whether or not we're pulling triggers on you know um any recommendations that are coming down would need to be taking place rather quickly if we're going to incorporate it in the fy 23 budget that's correct right so when can i guess when can the council

expect i guess conversations uh with recommendations to solid waste whatever they may be you know whether it's the you know the trash compactor or um i don't know i'll take i'll take the steps uh tomorrow to send out an invite to the task force see if we can't get them to reconvene asap um you know if december 14th is the next council meeting i'll obviously hopefully have at

least one maybe two if we can get it in uh meetings before then i will have the ordinance committee meeting if you're going to refer that tonight i would imagine before december 14th that way that conversation can be had so now come december 14th at the full council meeting we'll have some information from that ordinance meeting and whatever feedback we can get from the task force i know this uh business trash

and the six tenement um collection was two things were the two big things that we had spoken about at the task force that's what's on the table at this point in in terms of the uh businesses that are being picked up does that include non-profits yes it does include nonprofits non-profits and we are um churches um there's only a couple charges that we've got that are getting picked up you

you've got more along the lines of people link next door um you know things like that um so that would all be that would all be included in the in the elimination of the business and just out of curiosity i know over you know this car program goes back to 2008 2009 um timeframe and do you have off the top of your head how much we have spent just on carts alone yeah

it's it's a big number it's a big number uh off the top of my head i wouldn't even want to guest and give you the wrong information console but i can get you that total we have all of that in our system i guess uh so let me rephrase a question i guess and i know it's because i know it's going to be in the millions in terms of cards but

the 680 that i guess we're projecting to to reduce for the businesses how much do you think that would be in in cost of the carts about the 681 carts each cot saw roughly 49 57 i think it is per car so you know easy enough to do the math the 95s are a little bit more expensive so those are probably up around 54 a car okay um in terms of just

kind of going back on what you had talked about the facility down on lewiston street are is the is the steering committee going to be putting together a cost-benefit analysis and i i know it sounds great that we're going to collect or shift through the uh the recyclables to try to get as much as we can but who's who's doing a cost-benefit analysis to see if it makes sense for us to expend and invest in

um staffing the equipment you know because i i guess i would just be a little concerned about the payback period for the type of machinery i know we just went we just privatized so now we're kind of moving in a different direction to hire more staff to to bring them in and one of the reasons uh we went privatization was it was supposed to save us money right so we

were looking at the total fixed cost the opeb costs the pension um you know healthcare everything associated with that so before we start making these decisions who's i guess who's going to be tasked with you know providing at least a cost-benefit analysis to see if it makes sense for us to go in that direction or um to outsource you know that type of service down at the facility at lewiston street so i

would say at this point the sorting piece that you you referenced we're not there yet we're not even close to there yet we don't have an area that we'd even be able to do that what i'm more speaking of is is a recycling center where we could extract the commodities so the cardboard the glass the things that are making money um and and i'd say that'd be a group effort that would be

obviously the administration myself miss sahari mrs sahari and anybody else who would have you know invested interest in that i don't think it would be any one person but the cost benefit analysis like like i said an investment would need to be made and what can we recoup over that time how much cardboard can i recycle with the baler how much the baler cost me and how much it would have cost me to have

these two individuals running it for the year i don't think you you recoup it in a year i think it might take several years um but no and that's fine i mean if we've got a payback period of 10 years then i would say that that that makes sense but i think when you're looking at staffing levels and you look you're averaging out that somebody potentially could be working for the

city for 30 years and then then you've got other posts employment benefits associated with that that can go on for another 30 years you know there are costs that to the city that we need to understand if we're talking about being in a financial situation that we need to look at reducing our expenses i don't think we should be making decisions without knowing what we're adding to the expenses right so

while it sounds good that we would be you know recouping that money it may we could still recoup it maybe not at 100 maybe it's at 80 70 percent um by outsourcing versus having folks in and when you're looking at the long-term pitcher and i know it becomes a little bit challenging but at some point it's got to be it either makes sense for us to do it this way or we we need to go in

a different direction i just want to make sure that that analysis is being done and um that we're not forgetting to do that analysis going going forward and then the the you know and i know the the quick comments about you know easy with you know picking up some of the the recycling and the trash and and the fines and and i think we should we should have been enforcing the contract

from from the get-go right uh what i will say is half the time that we do see these uh photos it's it's because easy uh has limited access getting down to those streets so we don't necessarily hear those parts there's these are road work that's going down so they can only get one truck down there so you'll see one truck throwing trash and recycling in there i think for the most part if you're

looking at the streets that easy does um you know if you get stuck behind any any trash truck um on any given day i think you will see that there are specifically two separate vehicles that are going down there so i'd be curious to see with that photo if there was there was some road work or a closure or water break um that they could only get one truck down there and that's why it's there and

unfortunately residents don't understand that and don't really recognize it but i think uh internally with you know when we have that type of insight we understand municipal government i think we need to be a little bit more cognizant of that um and then my final question and and i know you had mentioned that potentially and and i appreciate the proactiveness to try to get easy to the

table because they have been a partner with us um and see if we can get better tipping rates and and uh reduced uh costs associated with uh trash service um but the leverage amount i know you're saying 680 cards off of the uh you know off of their i guess their roots but you also mentioned that we just added anywhere between 2200 to 20 2600 tons of trash right so when i'm looking

at reducing 680 carts but adding you know 2 600 tons of trash because we got rid of a page of throw program and they did something on the page you throw program you've just created more work for them and i'm just curious have they even come back to the city looking for for additional monies with regard to the services of you know because quite frankly listen if i'm easy disposal i'm coming back to the

city and said you folks asked for a 10-year contract with a program that included pays your throw yeah you eliminated pay as you throw and you increased all the tonnage which means that now i can fit less trash in a truck which means that i need either more trucks or i've got to do more routes which obviously cost more money so so to your point um no easy hasn't come back and to the mixing

point into the holding them to the safeguards within the contract that's part of the reason um you know there are extenuating circumstances in particular situations with the mixing that can be explained away as a construction issue or road closure but the bigger issue for me was weighing what has changed since the contract was instituted how has easy handled that and in turn how do i handle that with easy um and

and in in to their to their benefit and to their you know respect from me to them they have not come back to the table and asked for more the tonnages have increased anywhere from 800 to 1000 ton a month and and they haven't come back so again they've been a good partner i've given them leeway for that which is my purview um does it make me happy when things happen that aren't making

residents happen or aren't supposed to be happening no but i try to balance that with what i'm getting in return uh for their their um their work now and so my final question is is getting easy back to the table is there any anticipated date or um i guess uh timetable in terms of when you would try to consider either reopening or extending a contract or avoiding the contracting i'm sorry we'll

be meeting with them one day at 10. so that's going to be the start of those conversations you know we'll discuss obviously the mixing we'll discuss you know the remaining years on the contract and what that cost is and what we could do possibly going forward if we look to extend it um or try to work a better deal for us and bought her a cheaper price if we

could um i think that's a you know a tough sell and i wouldn't want to go too far down that road i don't want to kind of throw out there what my thoughts are going to be when i meet with them on monday but monday 10am stops.com okay perfect with that i yield thank you thank you um for i recognize our colleague and see for our council vice president we want

to remain on the cart program for this discussion counseling c4 council vice president i just wanted to clarify and two things counselor c one had said one was we did talk about sending this to ordinance right from this meeting yeah we can't do that yeah and we do have an ordinance meeting scheduled already on december 7th okay and the second thing is and i did speak with a easy disposal today

that uh picture there was actually trash in both of those carts um and the requests came that there's an issue on that street they're having trouble getting down that street if cars are parked on the end i have a message into mrs ferreira in traffic they can't make the corner and it's a dead end they're not able to get down the street or back up but that particular house where that photo was

taken there was trash in both of those barrels that's all i just want to clarify yield constant c2 console or dion yeah just a point of information it took me a second to find it but the 65 gallon um carts are 48 each and the ninety five gallon of fifty two dollars each so there he goes so you were like right there and then the only other comment i wanna make is uh in the easy

disposal contract if any portion of a collection route is temporarily blocked or inaccessible for any reason notice is supposed to be provided to the company and then collection shall be performed at a time as the parties agree will allow the contract to access the except acceptable waste so really if there's an issue they're supposed to be notified in advance and then set up a time that they can get down there

because i i believe that sometimes you're putting the driver at risk in terms of you know if he doesn't have enough space is he going to damage a car is he going to hit something which isn't fair to the driver um and even the men trying to work the truck it makes it very difficult for them so i mean that is something that's in the contract um to make it easier for them and more

viable sure with that i yield thank you any questions any further questions carts concerts council pereira i just want to know how much we owe on our trucks do you know mary i don't have that information can you get that to me i'm just curious of how much we owe on our trucks motion or referred our ordinance has been made by councilman seconded by counselor dion discussion on the referral to ordinance harry none all

those in favor aye aye opposed the ice habit item three uh discussion with the fy 22 derpy high school debt exclusion the item is in item two on our full council agenda uh mayor sent over a communication to the city council uh to add to our agenda where it's where it says in the process of completing the tax rate recap in particular for uh form de1 i am required to notify the council

that based on the ballot vote of 3 6 2018 for the durfee high school construction the amount of fy 22's excludable debt of 4.4 89.089 this amount will be added to the fy 22 maximum allowable levy however we will not be included in the total reel in real and personal property tax levy raised inappropriated fy 2022. mrs sahari could you please give us a brief overview on what that means please and any questions will be

entertained yes certainly council president so um i guess unfortunately or unfortunately the department of revenue didn't have um a certified vote for um the durfee debt exclusion and so as a result the de1 form that is required to be completed hasn't been completed for the city over the last couple of years when we in fact had debt expense that we were not using because it's a debt exclusion based on

the high school um it simply adds to the levy um and this council needs to be apprised of it being added to the levy um and basically indicating to to each of you that it could have been utilized as i raised and appropriated um the purpose of the letter was to notify you that it was not being used as raised and appropriated so just so everybody at home uh understands that that means that

you are not going to the debt exclusion this fiscal year that's correct very good thank you very much any questions no hearing none that is in for discussion any other questions on item one uh which is item four in our agenda transfers and appropriations the mayor and the order appropriating 190 thousand dollars from the general fund free cash to insurance mrs sahari can you give us a brief

update on what that means please um yes certainly so um our property tax i mean our property insurance renews every november 30th of each year this year the new durfee was added to the property listing and the old darfy was removed as a result the property insurance has increased 190 000 over what was budgeted for um the property insurance this information or this this amount of money

is actually net school spending eligible so it will be part of the reconciliation at the end of the year when we're reconciling the end of the year report counselor and c5 counselor lee just just a basic question i think it's for people who might have this question at home as well how why would this fall on the city side and not the school side for expense well it's the all of property insurance

is on the city side so right now the allocation of property insurance to the school department is based on the total value of the property to the total of the school properties and so right now if you looked at the net school spending calculation it's been estimated to be about 500 000 annually and um it will be increasing to almost seven hundred thousand dollars as a result of this our tax our property

tax um ensure i mean our property insurance went up to a little bit over a million dollars when you say uh net school spending um eligible it means that this 190 000 could be applied to it that's correct okay thank you i yield any further questions harry now is there a motion to adjourn in finance made by councillor peckham seconded by councillor lee all those in favor i oppose the ice habit

four of a city council meeting will now be called to order madam clerk roll call please counselors kadeem here dion here kilby here liberty lipo here lee here peckham here pelletier yeah herrera yeah and president ponti here if everybody in the chamber could please rise for a moment of silent prayer and i ask that you can please keep former school committee man uh and diamond superintendent joe martens in

your prayers him and his family did pass away thank you and a salute to the flag

pursuant to the open meeting or any person make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible madam clerk the first item before you is the communication from the mayor

in a financial order that the sum of 190 000 be in the same is here by appropriated from the general fund fy21 surplus revenue to insurance motion to adopt to adopt has been made by council of kadeem secured by council of pereira discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it item number two is the mayor's communication for informational purposes um regarding the fy 22 durfee high

school debt exclusion motion to accept a place on file would be appropriate made by council of kadeem secured by councillor pelletier discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it we have the mayor's request for a proposed ordinance regarding salary updates motion for ordinance motion referred to ordinance has been made by council of pereira secured by council of

kadeem discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it item number four is the mayor's um communication and request for the special act to appoint retired police officers as special police motion to adopt to approve that motion to adopt um madam clerk there's a revised act that has been received on this can you elaborate a little bit on that please um i do notice that we do have the

assistant cooperation council here in the audience um i don't know if you'd want to call him down motion wave of the rules motion away if the rules have been made by council vice president seconded by counselor uh lead discussion hearing none all those in favor oppose the ice habits mr president can i just ask are we this point of information are we looking to adopt the massachusetts general

the massachusetts general law or have we already adopted it i don't know if we've adopted this before madam clerk i don't know if uh we have to vote on it and then we can do a special act i think it would probably be in our best interest to refer the item to ordinance yeah but perhaps the journey atkins can explain it good evening welcome seth aiken assistant corporation council it is a

pleasure to be before you for the very first time tonight um with regard to the amendment first um the proposed special act went to the council with an additional sentence that should not have been there and it was a sentence that was at the very end of section 5 which indicated that these special police officers if in fact appointed in the way that we're asking the legislature to appoint them or allow

them to be appointed would be intermittent or temporary police officers given the police reform act that was signed into law by the governor on december 31 2020 intermittent police officers are no longer really a relevant term so it was essentially misleading and not the correct terminology for this particular request all officers are required under the new police reform act to be certified police

officers sworn officers not sworn constables sworn officers and so therefore the terminology of temporary or intermittent officer was was incorrect so what i'm asking is that the council um uh allow an amended uh version of that to go forward without that final sentence in section five i can also speak to the question of counselor kadeem with regard to where this goes and why this is here in this

form is that appropriate at this time yes sure yes um so this is a home rule petition um and so as you know um cities and towns um are granted certain powers by the state in order to do certain things that they have to do however there are certain situations where in order for changes to be made the legislature actually has to allow the rule to be enacted the way that the council

asked them to so the way this would ordinarily go is that with the permission of the city council this would go to our local congressional delegation that congressional delegation would present it to the legislature at which point the legislature would vote on it and i believe it would come back to the city council the reason it happens that way and it's under the home rule uh changed to the massachusetts to

article two of the massachusetts constitution um which would happen in 1966 so there is precedent for this um is that this uh anything to do with with police officers especially pursuant to the change uh the police reform act that was that was recently signed into law um implicates civil service implicates um retirement implicates a number of state-level institutions that these special police

officers will be exempt from and so that's why it's a home rule petition rather than something that would ordinarily go to ordinance and be voted on by the council so it's probably fair to say attorney aiken that it's appropriate to adopt the item and then the legislator will pick this act up as legislation at the state house yes mr president that is my understanding thank you sir consulate c1 council of kane um

i'm sorry did you say that there's some exemptions in here for the specials or what were the exemptions so the exemptions would be and and i can direct your attention to uh the part of the um so if on the first page at the bottom section two uh special police officers appointed pursuant to this act shall be excluded from mass generalized chapter 31 which is the civil service statute

they are not part of civil service and so therefore do not have many of the rights and privileges that would go along with that mass generalized chapter 32 sections 85 h and 85 h and a half um which is uh the retirement uh and uh disability um uh resulting from service master nawaz chapter 41 99a and section 99a in section 100 uh which is the uh a residence requirement um ordinarily there can be a requirement

that police officers reside in the town that they're serving in specials would not be required to to do that i think it's important with regard to that specific exemption to note that under this petition only police officers who are retired from the fall river police department would actually be entitled to become specials and only police officers who maintained their certification while

retired up until the point of being appointed specials uh would be considered for appointment um and that is important because it complies um with the two new committees that were established by the police reform act which is post which is the police officer standards and training which was going to certify eventually every single police officer in the commonwealth as well as the municipal police training committee

which is more looks at the individual departments themselves both of those require a level of training certification standards being met by all police officers regardless of whether they're special part-time full-time doesn't matter and so that's why police officers who already have some history with the department have retired from the department and have maintained their certification through the department are

eligible to be specialists so i guess favor and support of this i guess my only other question is is there a specific reason why we'll eliminate let me get it to the retired police officers um i mean other communities have specials that are not you know you have retired officers that are special but you also have what they would call reserves and i understand you can't have reserves the reserve academy isn't

acceptable by by post anymore so you've got to have the full academy so um are we limiting ourselves since this is going essentially as a home repetition um are we limiting the potential use of special officers uh by just having having it specifically state retired police officers as opposed to uh special police officers we are is there a reason why we want to do it that way i guess so um

i have captain barton castro here as well from the fall river police he might be able to speak to some of the reasoning behind it um i can tell you that the reason why this is as narrow as it is and i'll acknowledge that it certainly is narrow with regard to how it limits who is eligible to be a special and what that actually means is in order to essentially know that we know that those

officers have continued to be certified have been trained and have met the standards of the follower of police while they were on active duty if you will up until the present when they're serving as special so i think the idea is consistency of training and quality is the is the expectation and the goal uh and i think that very much conforms with post um and uh how they're looking at police

officers and policing going forward right so so the retirement i don't need to bring anybody down so the retired police officers obviously have the full academy right because they were they were police officers so we would only be concerned about the training hours over i think the two year three year period that's required um and going forward uh the training uh and i think this is this is also an

important thing to note is that the training will not cause the city to incur additional costs as if they were training with the active duty police officers because the the municipal police training committee has established a whole online training portal those police officers specials would have to be part of that and that online training porter would allow them to get the training they need to without incurring

instructor overtime or anything else like that which could happen if you were to just have an influx of new officers that require the same kind of training as the on-duty officers or the active duty officers okay with that idea counselor in seat six councillor peckham actually my question was answered uh consecutimaster so the reason for this is excuse me disastrous police phone bill in my

opinion that passed so now everything has to go through the mptc correct yes so that's why we're gonna put we'll call it as it is these are reserves not specials they're going to have powers over section powers same training as the guys on the road um but the reason for going from constable to special is the mptc qualifications yes sir as it stands under massachusetts law special constables uh even if they're used in

the shoes of a police officer don't really have the power to direct traffic to write citations to do any of the things that are required of any certified police officer there is only that one certified police officer standard regardless of how much you work or don't and um that's identified by mptc as well as uh post okay all right i appreciate that the consular nc5 council vice president

sorry counseling c4 council vice president thank you i only had uh one question on section two was the um exclusions and you had said the second one you had said 85 and 85 and a half yes was a retirement disability due to service um there is so there's a retirement section which i believe is uh the overall mass general lodge chapter 32 and that's specifically 85 and 85 each and a half is with regard to

disability while on duty so if a if someone was disabled while on duty they're still able to do this no they would the state or the city would not be required to indemnify them for medical bills it would not be required to put them on some sort of disability insurance thereafter they wouldn't be treated like the full-time police officers on the road uh it essentially insulates the city from additional liability for

long-term um long-term duty to these police officers so if they were to get hurt while acting as a special police officer yeah correct all right i i had it as opposite thank you i yield any further questions i just i'm sorry councilman i just know that the officer came down to speak on this i just would wonder mr president if he has something castro would you like to

thank you thank you anything else concerning c6 council just for uh clarification as to what council vice president said so if they're injured in the line of duty because that's what this is hit by a motor vehicle and a detail god forbid or something along those lines they don't fall under the same guidelines as a full-time police so what do they what do they do so not only do they not fall under the

same guidelines as a full-time police officer the city is under no obligation to indemnify them for any medical bills incurred after the immediate injury or insure them for the disability that might result from the injury all right they're going to wear the same uniform as the form of a pd um yes they are they're going to perform the same functions and duties as the four of the pd yes sir so if they get

god forbid something happens let's say they get shot in the line of duty we're not responsible for that they're wearing a city ceiling they're short on the shoulder so i don't disagree with the point you're making at all counselor um and um i can tell you this doesn't make it right that this petition um essentially mirrors most of of what the rest of the cities in the state are doing

and i think there is an interest in trying to limit the amount of exposure that the city has in employing what amounts to a relatively small number of officers i'm not saying that that is that that necessarily sits well with me as somebody who's served and worn a uniform not a police uniform but a uniform nonetheless um that said it is uh the petition that we we came down to it's

what we agreed on all right and those guidelines under the police reform they are not so those are separate from the police reform yes sir and those were agreed upon within the city to go to ordinance it's um not necessarily that they were agreed upon there are uh there is a lot of conversation among municipal attorneys and municipalities with regard to how to craft these these petitions and i think the idea is that

these police officers are not going to be used in a capacity where we expect them to be in danger that said i would never sit here before you and tell you that they won't be that would be that would be just untrue um but i will tell you that i think the idea is that we're dealing with a smaller number of officers taking on duties that are designed to have less risk um

and at the same time those officers are undergoing um the same kind of training as the as the regular duty officers with the intent of helping them avoid risk okay and um so now that we don't cover them once injured in the line of duty they also fall into the police reform bill so they don't have qualified immunity anymore either so we're putting a uniform on these people throwing them on the street

and saying good luck i don't think it's as simple as that i mean i understand you're i hear exactly what you're saying and i'm not i won't debate it with you because i tend to agree with the principle of what you're putting out that said um i don't think it's as simple as just throwing them on the street there's certainly there certainly are conversations that are had with these specials regarding

insurance and regarding how they uh might prepare for god forbid a disastrous uh potential eventuality that said it is not uh within the city's structure to ensure indemnify uh protect these specials going forward okay i yield thank you just so i'm just home clearing last time i missed something um attorney akin is this only for uh retired police officers yes sir uh only officers who are retired from

the faller police who have maintained certification since retirement and are now interested in acting as special police officers while uh less than 70 years old are entitled to be covered under this and be employed as special police officers okay so i i know you made a comment about constables this the united we're not good maybe i misheard you we're not going to be bringing constables in as special

police no this actually would serve to disqualify constables from serving uh as specials constables don't have the the police powers of a certified police officer and the new reform act does require that all officers serving in this capacity be certified police officers so we actually no longer can use constables even if we wanted to yeah do they get uh union protection rights i'm sorry with this if

if they be brought back in as a special police officer do they have the benefits of having police union protection no sir mass general laws chapter 150 e is the collective bargaining statute uh that you can see also in that line of statutes that these officers are excluded from uh they are not uh included in union protections very good thank you councilman c6 that was where i was going to go with that actually too

so what are we doing with the constables because we all the retirees to work road jobs become constables to be able to do so um and constables do have civil and criminal arrest powers anything from disturbing the peace and therefore rafta um the only difference is is the shake-up in the police reform bill are we gonna track the constables now because i've been bringing this up for

the mayor since the day i was elected um we have a book upstairs as soon as you walk in a man's office it's on the desk that says constables it's first thing you see when you walk in um are we going to track the constables in the city i can't speak to that i don't know the answer is that a a topic you can bring up to the mayor and see if uh

there can be some discussion because we're going to lose a lot of the retirees that are currently constables because they now have to fall under the mptc um we do have other constables that pull a constable license for civil process services only um i asked that maybe something to be put into place to track the constables um on the civil aspect side of it as well um to see what they're doing because they're

also wearing a patch on their shoulder that says four of a police constable it takes a mere signature to sign off to put them out there to uh to work um i don't know i'm just not a i normally support everything that comes before me for the most part for the police department and public safety the non-protection the police reform bill already took that and threw all that out the window our full-time police

officers aren't protected okay never mind to ask for specials to come back out of retirement put them on the street in the same uniform these guys are wearing and have no prote have even less protection um i i'm just not okay with that and with that i yell thank you thank you anything further hearing none is there a motion to adopt to adopt motion to adopt has been made by council of pereira is there a second

second seconded by council of kadeem discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye opposed nay uh roll call madam clark

this adoption would be in the with including the amendment correct yes motion to adopt as a method yes counselors kadeem yes dan yes kilby yes yes lee yes beckham no pelletier yes pereira yes president ponte yes okay next voter business thank you thank you very much thank you very much attorney adkins very nice to have you here yes thanks for coming item number five are the election results of the november election

oh stood second motion to accept a place on file has been made by council of lee seconded by council of pekka molos in favor i oppose the eyes have it item number six is the board of election commissioners regarding the redistricting of the city motion to approve made by councillor kilby seconded by council of lee discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it have

a number of citations motion to adopt the citations has been made by council of pereira seconded by council of peckham discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes haven't item number eight is the second hand article uh let the order granting permission for the second hand article license on behalf of robert bagley this application was denied by the police and deputy tax collector motion to refer to

regulations motion to refer to regulations by council of pereira seconded by council of peckham discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed the ice habit item number nine is the order granting permission to rodrigo to cash um for permission to operate an auto repair shop license at 192 18th street and this application was denied by the police chief both

we have the police chief's report on licenses motion to adopt a motion report made by council of petcom secular by council of kadeem discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the ice habit we have applications for autobody renewals auto body shop license renewal sorry motion to adopt made by counselor pereira seconded by councillor dion discussion harry not all those in favor opposed the eyes have it

applications for the renewal of auto repair shop license renewals motion to adopt motion to adopt has been made by councillor dion seconded by council of peckham discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed the ice have it have an order for the um actually two orders 13 and 14 are actually orders for the transfer of auto repair and auto body shop licenses at 232 lapham street motion to adopt the

transfer motions made by council of peckham secular by council of pelletier discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it item number 15 is the request that the city engineer prepare plans for the acceptance of glendale street except extending from north main street i want to just make the let there let the record reflect the fact that the uh auto body shop transfers are both

items 13 and 14. is that clear let the record reflect madam clerk reintroduce 15 again please um item number 15 is a request that the city council hereby recommends that the city engineer prepare plans for the acceptance of glendale street extending from north main street to a dead end we should refer to planning made by counselor member peckham second seconded by council of pereira

discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it have a number of claims no corporation congressional colleagues should refer to corporation council has been made by council of kadeem executive by council of pereira discussion hearing not all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it item 17 is a request for a structure over a public way on everett street motion to approve has

been made by council of kadeem seconded by council of peckham discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it you have a drain layer application for td construction motion to approve made by councillor peckham seconded by council of kadeem discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed the eyes heaven we have minutes of the city council public hearing held on november

16th emotional position to approve the minutes made by council of peckham seconded by council vice president discussion harry none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it uh national grid's yearly operational plan and notice and of the acceptance on file has been made by council of pereira secured by council of kadeem discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it

have dep's um notification of the waterways regulations program motion to accept and place on file has been made by council of kadeem seconded by council of peckham discussion hearing not all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it the committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on november 23rd voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance accompanied by an emergency

preamble be passed through first reading second reading has to be enrolled and passed to be ordained with counselor kadeem absent and not voting emergency preamble motion to adopt the emergency preamble has been made by council of kadeem seconded by council of pereira discussion hearing non-roll call on the adoption of the emergency preample on the adoption council kadeem yes dion yes kilby yes

yes lee yes peckham yes pelletier yes herrera yes and president ponti yes moshe to pass through all readings so moved it's made by consequences by councilor dion discussion carrying none all those in favor opposed the eyes have it committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on november 23rd voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance accompanied by an emergency preamble be

passed through first reading second reading has to be enrolled and has to be ordained with counselor kadeem absent and not voting this is the proposed ordinance us um establishing the position of city engineering emergency preamble has been made by council of kadeem security by councillor dion roll call discussion counselor in c5 council ali just uh just a reminder to anyone who was uh who

didn't get a chance to see that um that meeting um i think one of the changes or one of the features of this situation is that the city engineer position will be um directly under the uh director of uh dcm correct i thought it was just a contract that's a contracting position oh okay all right never mind that i yield a motion to adopt the emergency preample has been made and seconded roll call please

an adoption of the preamble counselors kadeem yes dion yes kilby yes yes lee yes beckham yes pelletier yes herrera yes president yes motion to pass through all readings has been made by council of kadeem secular by council of peckham discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on november 23rd voted unanimously to

recommend the accompanying proposed ordinance accompanied by oh never mind i'm writing the same one scratch that committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on november 23rd voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance he passed through first reading with counselor kadeem absent and not voting oh should it pass through first motion to pass through first reading

made by council of kadeem seconded by council of peckham discussion hearing none all those in favor all right opposed the eyes have it committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on november 23rd voted unanimously to recommend the accompanying proposed ordinance be passed through first reading with counselor kadeem absent this is these are the cemetery fees oh should it pass

through first reading made by council hearing none all those in favor aye opposed guys have it committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on november 23rd voted three years one day to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance be referred to the full council for action with councillor dion voting in the negative and council kadeem absent and not voting these are the water in sewer

rates motion to adopt first reading motion to pass through first reading has been made by council of kadeem is there a second seconded by councillor kilby is their discussion counselor and ce4 council vice president thank you so much you said this was sent without a recommendation for action yes thank you with no recommendation no recommendation um i'll speak for myself and the other

committee members can speak if they so choose but um i have always voted in favor of the water and steroids at this time i'm not in favor in these water and sewer rates the reason being is we have the ability to use a substantial amount of arbor funds to change the infrastructure that we have flooding throughout the city and not only let me start over sorry infrastructure throughout the city if we don't use

those funds for this which is approved for and if we do i think the opera committee has allowed mr furland 13 million of which he's identified 8 million he could legitimately use all of it and and then some and not complete all of the work needed um i don't know that we'll see this kind of money again i know the stafford square that the amount given at a previous council meeting was about a

40 million dollar project we won't see that kind of money again if we don't use it there or in other areas throughout the city that's necessary we also won't see any reduction in rates in any reduction in rates for opera funds paying for infrastructure rather than the residents paying for infrastructure is going to take a couple of years according to mrs sahari to even be seen so the only way that i can express that

i would like more arbor funds used for water and stewart infrastructure is unfortunately by voting notes that i yield counsel thank you counselor counseling c1 counselor kadeem uh thank you i'm going to be supporting this um you know i've been really vocal in terms of why i was not going to be supporting it the use of one-time monies to offset the rates and part of the compromise obviously when we

were talking in orders committee was i wanted to see a financial policy coming down in terms of the use of free cash in particular with regard to the water and sewer enterprise funds um the use of retained earnings and establishing at least a percentage um that we can all agree or at least we can begin to plan on uh what the rate reductions would be used uh mr furlin has supplied that so um

you know with the with the fact that we we need to get some water rates uh you know approved so that we can get make sure that this uh these budgets are are balanced um i'll be supporting that however i don't disagree with counselor in c4 um i guess what i would say is is that even if we utilize our money it doesn't reduce the rates uh for this fiscal year

so any use of opera monies for any type of bonding or funding are forward going and not necessarily in fiscal 22. so um unless she's trying to leverage obviously a vote from from the mayor come down and saying that he's going to allow mr throne to use it i don't know that even if we came back down and he did say that we'd be able to use opera funds it's not going to impact

the stuff that we've already got because all the infrastructure projects have already been bonded for in fiscal year 22. so with that i yield consent c4 council vice president correct it's not going to impact the rates for um i think they set up the meeting two years at least two years but we could be using more funds for more infrastructure work and see a better reduction i understand it won't

affect this year's rates or even next year's thank you um council of kadeem i know you referenced some financial policies um that you requested from uh mr furlin regarding this care to elaborate a little bit about what's included in those financial policies i only saw it once i i don't have a photogenic memory i think i think whatever you can remember off the top of your head i think uh the cfo did send it

out to the other members but i believe it was um 90 was going to be used for the first year it was going to tail down all the way to 50 which i i don't agree with that i vocalized that at the last meeting i think it needs to be lower than 50 i think if we're targeting um trying to minimize the use of one-time monies um it should be in my

opinion less than than 50 but i think it's a it's a start it's progress uh so year uh year one would be 90 year year two would be an 80 reduction um all the way down to reduction of what i'm sorry uh the use of one-time monies for rate reduction um so then that whatever is is left for retained earnings which is essentially the free cash for the enterprise funds uh would be used for rate reduction

and then he's also established uh the percentage that would be going into stabilization accounts so it's a it's a start i don't think the policy itself is is perfect but i will also state that the legislative body has no jurisdiction whatsoever over administrative policies so i think it's it's progress uh it's something that i think we all recognize uh that you know moving forward we need

to have financial policies in order to to kind of right the ship in terms of our financial stability um i think it only makes sense for department heads to know uh going into a budget and if the council is on the same page what the expectations are i mean unfortunately mr furling comes down and is trying to get a budget passed every single year and there's a constant battle back and

forth so if we're in agreement that we want to see retained earnings used for rate reductions um and it we're in agreement with the percentage then i think it just helps everybody from the beginning of the building of the the budget so thank you counselor thoughtson c2 council of diane yeah i think um if if we don't dedicate the right amount of opera funding now to water and sewer infrastructure there's

nothing saying that moving forward it will be dedicated to that and then we won't have the rate reductions that we potentially can't have moving forward and in the future um if my memory serves me correctly we took a couple of votes last year with caveats that opera funding could be used to offset the finances and it didn't happen they got the positive vote but the result that we

were looking for didn't happen so that concerns me with that i yield thank you counselor and c5 council elite yeah the um again just same same conversation that we had at the ordinance meeting is that um we most of us are aware hopefully the public is aware that the upper funding that we're talking about here will not be applied to um to this fiscal year won't be applied to these rates it

won't be applied to the anything that's new projects it has i mean uh old projects it has to be applied to new projects so it's more of a principle um when we talk about talked about it with with mr perry in the trash department as well that if there's not a proactive effort from the administration to increase our investment in infrastructure if we're not learning from the past as as

all the mistakes especially with the water department and sewer department um when you talk about the cso project we talked about several different uh things that we could talk about all around the city where we have all these flooding problems and things like that um and then we also come back to the fact that um it always falls on the taxpayer it always falls on the residential owner

we're gonna we're gonna not make investments in in infrastructure we're gonna have all this history of all these problems and then we're just going to say oh yeah we'll raise the the rates every single year on you until the end of time and still not be able to uh keep up with what we what we need to do so i i'm going to be voting no i usually do vote no to rates increases um

and in this situation we we're going to need to see an investment a true investment in infrastructure and in a serious investment infrastructure with the money that's coming down the line in order to really uh make the true changes uh to water and sewer that we need to see so that i yield thank you thank you counselor and seat seven council of pelletier thank you again we're against uh not against but uh

give over for the water right and the soil rate to go up and you know i i think you know we have to put the money in and uh to make sure that you know the city keeps running this the way it should be right but uh would be possible get mr phil down here for a couple of minutes yeah motion away of the rules emotions will mention by council of peckham secretary councillor

lee all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it mr furlong and and while he's coming down here you know you got a bunch of good guys that work up there and i know they lost a couple of kingpins up there because they're not paying the money and they had some good help up there and they're gone and it comes out to the same thing but if we don't try to address this if

we don't try to get the money to take care of this what's the consequences mr feeling so thank you very much council for calling me down and everybody else for supporting that um you know we've been through in the past what will happen if the race is uh unapproved uh and and i think this year has been a perfect example of what happens when the rates aren't approved when they need to be

uh we lose operators at our water treatment plant because we're not able to pay comparable salaries dep takes and changes our ratings our capacity rating from a adequate to a conditional you know we're halfway through the year right now and we don't have rates to support our budget um you know i've been coming down for years and you know mr sullivan came down for years before me and talked about what happens

uh if if it doesn't happen you know the state does come down they do notice these things you know this year is is a perfect example of them changing our capacity if we go from conditional to inadequate that's when they essentially come down and start saying this is what you need for staffing plants this is what you need for budgetary that's not a place that we want to be it's happened in other communities in

other water resource areas um and those communities pay substantially more substantially more look at what boston's rates are or any of those other communities that get their water from mwra or uh some other large supplier like that that's it's almost a regulated utility at that point where the state is telling them this is what you need to do you need to get the funding for it so that's not a point we've always

controlled our own destiny we've been lucky enough in fall river to be able to get the support from everybody to be able to control our destiny you look at our rates overall comparative uh to around the state and we're not the lowest i'm not going to say we're the lowest but we're in one of the lower thirds um you know and our rates fully support our budget we don't get any money from the tax levy

other communities subsidize their water and sewer with money from the tax levy and maybe that's how they keep their rates down we don't do that we actually provide back to the general fund for all for all the services that we get from general fund so that adds into our budget so you know you always ask what happens if the rates aren't approved if we don't support our budget i think so far this year is a perfect

example of what does happen all right well i think it's serious business and i know if we lose control uh you know it's going to be much higher without it without a doubt one of the they already come down and talk to you already yeah they uh so we've been i've been in conversations with jim mclaughlin at the ep and uh uh millie the uh director from for the south coast region um there's multiple

other things that we've been discussing but one of them has been a lack of rates to be able to support our budget did everybody get that report the mass dep dwp capacity development survey do you guys get this i sent it at the ordinance committee meeting and requested that all counselors get copies you guys read it anybody see it anybody see it no well i mean it's it tells you pretty plainly what's going

on what's going to happen if if we can't find the funding for it and i just can't see us losing that we have the power to keep it here if it goes up they'll come down and you're going to pay these guys you're going to have to pay whatever they say they need to run it with the the right uh people working with the degrees you just can't put anybody in there right mr phil

yeah correct so an operator at our water treatment plant we need a license the minimum of a grade three operator on site 24 hours a day so they didn't need to be ukraine three or grade four to actually operate the plant that's what's required to be on site 24 hours a day seven days a week now you lost two what's the story where are you now yep nope we've lost uh two operators

we were uh we were moving along hiring uh some and uh we lost two to the operators that we had uh our director also uh a director of water treatment also moved on um to uh to a different uh community uh to work there you know again and that's a perfect example of what happens again it goes back to the rates the rates that we pay you know i think

right now is a tough time too all around regionally water operators uh licensure is down there's there's a large push for retirement um so you know people the market's competitive out there uh and the employees can shop around and get better rates um you know one of our long-term term employees that we lost uh was here for a very long time and was planning on retiring he knew other

opportunities were out there for a while but it just comes to a point you know where you're here or you could be somewhere else making a substantial amount of money more you know we are lucky that a lot of the employees that we do have within the water maintenance division within the treatment division that work for veolia do have strong ties to fall river some of them do feel a commitment to the city

and they take value in the city i think that's what what still keeps some of them here um because you know money is everything but then you also have a you know somewhat of a sentimental value to the whole entire thing so i think that's what keeps some of them here but when you uh when there's such a difference between the two you know at some point it just doesn't make sense

for people so the bottom line if you don't have enough money you don't have the right to help they just come in and say well you're not doing it the way it should be done and we're going to just tell you or dictate to you what you got to do how many people working how many hours can they work uh and the rate goes up not what it is now but much more

if they decide they're going to move in how much you think they could go up i mean you know uh mr terrio uh president of the water board was at the uh ordinance committee meeting and he wanted to be here tonight he apologizes for not being able to come um but you know he said it right in the audience committee meeting he thinks if dep would come up came in took over our water department

we would easily see a dollar increase um easily and and i don't disagree with that you know i've been told by dep in recent conversations with them you know because they understand our staffing level so they understand the stress on our staff right now with not being fully staffed um and eventually you get potentially to burn obviously dep is concerned about that about us burning out the current staff

that we have and not bringing in uh new staff so you know one of the conversations you know that i had with them if we're not able to start to bring in new staff or if we have to cut positions you know dp they told me you know right in the conversation they already feel that we're highly understaffed but they know through our management ability and our capabilities of the

staff that we do have that we're able to maintain our system we're able to maintain compliance throughout our system so that gives them you know that keeps them comfortable but if we start losing staff or losing positions they're not going to be as comfortable so how do we avoid the bullet right now so for right now you know it would be approving the moderate rate increases that were proposed this year um the

council you guys have already transferred free cash um to make up a deficit from the um from the first 50 percent of the year where we haven't had a rate increase so the rate increases stay the same as what has been proposed to you prior but those rate increases will uh make our budget hold they'll allow us to be able to uh you know get a little bit more competitive to be

able to get uh to get qualified employees in to operate well you don't get to say is you know i'm on one side some people on the other side uh what are you worried about yeah you're worried about the the water and the sewer rate to go up and everything else so you can pay now or you can pay later and give them boston all the authority to do to raise everything and that's it either way

you're going to get it you can get it with us at a little less and maybe we bite the bullets see if we get the help and everything else get things in order but i think it's a big issue people always talk about the sewer and water raid and uh sometimes i i tend to forget you've got guys like cable tv they just raise it up and ready to rate it up and here we're trying to

keep it a fall river keep it right keep the price right nobody wants to hear it but the other side of the coin if it goes up there they'll charge you this is maybe a dollar uh you know it just don't make any sense i think we should keep it here avoid that and that's the way i feel uh i'm not i'm certainly not doing it votes it's something that's gonna be done it's a right

it's the right thing to do we should do it it's the right thing to do i i talk about water how pressure the uh pressure it is and everything else and uh i think we've got good water uh you know we changed most of the pipes throughout the city of fall river and i know you're doing the best you can uh to try to keep everything together but uh i i think it's a mistake

if we're gonna push this through tonight and that's the reason why i don't want to see anybody pay a lot extra because we missed the boat here it's not a pleasant thing to do but i think it's the right thing to do and with that i yield thank you counselor in c8 council of pereira i i agree um initially i must say that i didn't want to increase water rates and it was a

personal thing because i was really peeled that you buy all this land and then you don't want to sell the land and you don't have people right now to run the treatment facility but we're going to get people to go mow the lawn in the summertime that paul drives me crazy sell some of that land you can get rid of it pierce street hyacinth street old meridian street get rid of that it's not anything that's

protecting the water that i get off my chest so and i've told you this before you know me i have something to say i pretty much say it but as far as i was going from adequate to conditional the reasoning was finance management and staffing however when you come before us it's not your fault that certain things have happened the price of chemicals have skyrocketed we can't even afford fluoride because

there's only one company making it now and because of covid what they're charging is not a i think it was great that the water department let all the dentists in the city know i think that was good um but if we don't know these things we didn't know that you were having so much problem with keeping some of your staff and you know if people can get 2505 an hour but the average

around here is 28 to 35 for three dollars more i'd get another job many people would three four dollars more you'd be foolish not to so i agree with what you said about the people that work for the water department have a commitment to the city but those that leave we can't blame them for leaving to make more money however to take care of the fact that the director is now gone we're hiring

woodward and curran and i mean we talked yesterday in the mayor's office they're getting twenty five thousand dollars per month to be there per month so even if we're going to have them there for three months we just spent seventy five thousand but we can't give our workers two dollars more it doesn't make sense and i know that there's a whole issue with the union and the mayor's gonna

work with the union because after me has a group a varied group of people under their umbrella that they represent so you can't just give this pocket a raise and not everybody else a raise i think it's crazy the opera money that you're going to get is to reduce some of the pipes correct so currently uh what the opera committee has committed to me was 13 million dollars to do water main replacement and redo

the streets that are affected by those water main replacements um so far i've proposed uh 8.35 million project uh which i'm planning to design all through the summer and through the winter here and start in the spring well let me let me tell you how i feel you run the water department you know probably more about water than i do um but over the years i've picked up but at the water filtration plant there's those four

uh bins that clarify the water filter the filter beds and those to have somebody come in and refurbish them get them back up refurbish them about a hundred thousand dollars a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a piece to do yeah the workers at the water filtration plant they refurbished it on their own for thirty thousand dollars one of them they did thirty thousand dollars we have three more to go so if

we did those three that would be ninety thousand so can you take some of the money from one of these streets you go and get that done so that we still have you know that we don't want any of them to break down because that causes a problem yep um but i would suggest taking 90 000 of the 30 13 million that you're getting and take care of that too yeah it's just definitely something you

know again the savings uh that we get in house by doing the work uh is something that we're always looking for and i i know that mr terrio said at the meeting relative to people the lead found in water could you explain that to the general public because somebody thinks you know they're letting all our water supply so yeah coming from you yeah definitely uh and i did speak uh you know we've uh sent out

our public notice uh so we did hit an action level by mass dep standards and epa standards the action level is 0.015 parts per million for lead and that's under the lenin copper rule um throughout uh that's uh instilled by dep in the drinking water uh the i'll i'll limit so the limit the action limit is point zero five uh what we got back from our sampling sites uh at the 90th percentile which is where

you need to we need to read from what's a point zero one six so we're one one thousandths of a pot per million above the limit above the action limit the action limit uh pretty much says that what we need to do is you know it's laid out right in right in uh dp's regulations what you need to do when you hit an action limit uh you need to uh do a public uh notice

campaign which we've done uh we did mailers to all 20 000 or so of our customers uh we did it to all healthcare facilities uh prenatal care facilities um we did uh you know i was on the radio and spoke about it we did a public service announcement that's posted on our website uh we do have other languages available uh of the brochure that was mailed out there's other languages available on our website and also within

within city hall here so what that means is back in the 1920s 1930s 1940s when they were constructing houses 30s was a really big housing boom within the city of fall river they would put in what was called lead services so the service pipe that goes from the main in the middle of the street into your house is made out of lead they also used lead within the copper piping within the house just out of the

joints brass that was in the water fixtures in pots within the water system within somebody's house the brass has led into it that lead can leech into the water so our water as it leaves our drinking water plant does not have any lead in it uh as it moves through our distribution system within the city uh it doesn't have any lead in it uh where could uh get lead that leeches in so if the

water's moving through our distribution system it's not sitting somewhere and it can't really uh you know come in contact with lead and have the lead leech in where it would you know increase any lead would be uh in there if you have a lead service that goes from the main uh into your house or any portion of that service uh in the copper in the sata that's within in the copper pipes within your house uh from

the bat brass faucet that's at uh uh you know right at your sink uh if those were those weren't lead free up until uh 2014 is when those actually had to be led free prior to that they still had a fair amount of lead in in them um so you know it's not every house within the city that that has that we're talking pretty much houses that were constructed in the 20s 30s 40s

50s not so much but a little bit is the houses where they may have installed those lead services may have if the lead service you know has not been replaced so we've been going through as we've been replacing water mains throughout the city we typically replace the lead service from the main uh to the curb stop which is near the property line that's been dep's requirement of us uh

and we've been doing that and we've been removing uh seven percent of the full-length services per year over the past 20 years uh in the very beginning of the water main replacement project we actually had just lead service replacement contracts originally within the city we estimate there was probably about 5 000 houses or buildings that were affected that had alleged service we're down to probably about a thousand

that have it from uh under a thousand that have it from the main uh to the curb stop near the property line so there's about a thousand that are left um there's more than that probably in the three thousand range that have it a point of information i i appreciate everything he was saying but i don't think he's trying to he's trying to get his rates yeah if we want to try to get

rates passed i'd really love to help at some point yeah so mr frilling how many how many places did you test uh so we tested 64 samples and how many samples came back with that trace of lead so there was eight that were above the action limit so and i just think that people yeah need to know that and and i understand the chemicals and everything else has gone up um you know how we were

it's not your fault mr frilling you can't control all of what happened with covet but tell us because if we as a council don't know exactly what you're going through with losing workers and this and that because then we can't help you and it's not your fault that certain things happen but i guess my colleague in seat number one is um ready to not talk about water uh so i'm

done too i yield thank you thank you counselor and c5 here quick question yeah how many consecutive fiscal years have we raised water rates

so water rates the last time uh it looks like they were not raised 2013.

so we're approaching eight fiscal years in stormwater the same right so it's every year that where we have to raise them or else dire straits completely correct right right well yes and again you know you look at uh dep standards one of the things that they talk about within that capacity rating section so it's check chapter 11 of 310 cmr uh is the dep regulations one thing that they that go through in there

is is rate supporting and rather than doing a lodge rate increase small incremental every four years you know you do small increases on a yearly basis so how how many more do you think you would be here in the future asking for rate increase every year you know you asked me that last year i ask every time exactly you know i i can't everything goes up you know uh chemicals

go up labor costs go up you know you go to the store and you buy you buy a thing of milk you go you get your oil changed it's not this you don't pay the same that you paid in 2013. nobody does it's not it's not hyperbole when i say things like yeah you want to raise them to the end of time because literally that's what we hear every year you know it's it's something it's based

on it's based on the needs of the budget every year yeah um but if you know the state came down tomorrow or if the federal government said we're going to pay off all your debt you know we'd have we'd have a rate reduction you know i wouldn't be i wouldn't i wouldn't keep taking that money from my rate pays if we didn't need it just know that my no vote's not a personal thing i hope

you know that and um you know i'm ready to vote i yield thank you concerns one council of kadeem thank you um so first of all i think it's really important for us to understand how government works okay we are not in the business of selling a product we're in the business of selling services so we have a budget we need a balanced budget we have expenses we've got revenues we only get revenues through taxes and

rate increases there's no other way to generate revenue okay so if we're providing a service and we want a service to continue then we need to support it through rates nobody wants to see rate increases but the reality of the situation is that the simple question is the rates are going to increase every single year we as the city council need to be make sure we are not short-sighted that we are looking out

for the rate pairs so i'm going to ask some very simple questions okay we had 1.9 million dollars in the sewer that was going to be used for uh retained earnings okay one-time money i asked the question during the budget cycle if we did not use that because we're creating a structural deficit what would we have to increase the rates by 80 cents okay now go tell the average resident that

we're going to have an 80 cent increase we're only looking for a 7 increase in a 5 cent increase but if we want to be truly fiscally responsible we would have to increase the rates by 80 cents okay how much do we have in the stabilization account oh seven hundred thousand is a little over seven hundred thousand seven hundred thousand yeah and in sewer uh both combined no both water seven hundred thousand okay

so that means our checking account for the folks at home our checking account only has seven hundred thousand dollars okay we're talking about a 26 million dollar operating budget for sewer we're talking about a 14 million operating budget for for water we have 700 000 in our checking account we're playing with you know some pocket change that we just won off of a scratch ticket okay and

we're trying to make sure that that the rate payers are not being impacted however with that the rates that we're covering right now every year the city council continues to vote for phase 21 22 23 which are infrastructure improvement projects to replace the war domains there was a ballot question a couple years ago two years ago three years ago i forget exactly how long it was 350 million dollars the voters voted

for infrastructure improvements to the tune of 350 million dollars how are we paying for that through rates rate increases that's the only way we do this so now what i will ask is and i'm not trying to put this you know the scary tactics did you know uh dep's gonna come down they're gonna take over but listen the honest assessment is is that when we get the letter from dep is anybody in this

any any of these seats gonna say yes let the state take over water and sewer so the answer's gonna be no we all know that right so that means at that point whether it's now or when they come down we're going to vote to rate raise the rates do we vote to raise the rates at seven and five percent or we're going to wait later and vote it at 80 cents okay so if we don't vote

let's just say we take the no vote tonight okay take the novo you're gonna run a deficit is that correct yep okay so you're not gonna get any retained earners for next year right because it's because the the deficit that you're gonna have is going to be made up for any surplus right you have zero surplus so the 1.9 million dollars that we used from last year because we had a surplus last

year is not there because it's a deficit so now we're making up 80 at 80 cents plus whatever other increases you're gonna have unless we're reducing your expenses is that is that accurate yes that is okay so where are we going where do we go with this so we've got so we're gonna use seven hundred thousand dollars so seven hundred thousand dollars gets you i don't know 40 cents right on each side okay so we're still

40 cents short all right so we're still at the point so we we have to raise rates that's the reality of the situation there's no question about it so we either do it now or we wait until the dep comes down and then we do it then but at the end of the day you're running the deficit we're not going to have any free cash for next year so we're talking about significant rate

increases next year so do we do it now or do we tell the rate payers by the way not only are you getting a two and a half percent increase in your taxes plus you're going to get a debt exclusion plus we're going to raise your water and uh sewer rates even higher is that really what we were elected to do i know it's easy to say we don't want to raise rates i understand that

but at the end of the day we were elected to make sure that the government is running services are being provided that are expected by the taxpayers we're also making responsible to make sure that we are looking out for the taxpayers it's irresponsible to allow the deficit to continue to move forward knowing full well that we have no cushion to be able to reduce the rates because we're going up at least 80 to 80

cents to a dollar if not more next year if we don't address it now at least if we address it now maybe we have some free cash that's going to be able to be carried over for next year to be able to use it to yet again reduce the rate increase but when i hear that we you know we look back and we look at we say well how every year we increase of course we

increase but we also every year take a vote to allow him to go out and bond for five million dollars to to improve water and sewer pipes how do you how do you think we're paying for that we don't just put it on a credit card and when when the credit card company comes file bankruptcy we can't say hey listen it's not the way it works right and we can't increase

you know products that we don't provide we provide a service so we've got to be able to to come to some understanding but i'm telling you at the end of the day we're going to be forced to raise the rates and it's going to be a lot more if we have to do it next year so now the only reason i'm supporting this is because we needed a financial plan right i don't think this i don't

think your budget is perfect there's some room that we can move around in i don't think it's enough to get cut cut the you know to balance your budget especially at this time but we are making progress in terms of making sure that we have a financial policy so that we understand that we want to minimize the rate impacts to the ratepayers but we also need to make sure that we're not continuous continuously creating a

structural deficit and i agree with my colleagues who have stated that we need to use this opera money to further your all the progress that we've been making the 350 million dollars that has been authorized uh with the the vote should be utilized all the you know the additional pipes so that we can maybe and i forget what phase we're on if it's 21 22 25 21.

so if we're using it for phase 22 phase 23 and then that's gonna ensure that we're we're reducing the rates in the future i absolutely wholeheartedly agree with that but to your point not only are you doing everything you need to do for the sewer and water but you're also contributing over onto the general fund which is being supported by the taxes so you're paying for benefits you're paying for

overhead costs you're paying for the use of the cfo and the treasurer and the collector you know that the average the average taxpayer doesn't understand that but the nine counselors here are supposed to understand that and that's how we're supposed to make our decisions right and it's not supposed to be making decisions because it's it's you know politically expedient getting rid of pays your throw wasn't

politically expedient i mean was was politically expedient but look at what we're talking about we're talking about the fact that we don't have enough money to cover our operating costs but yet we still are expected to pick up trash and if we don't pick up trash we've got residents who are upset by it we talked about flint michigan turn on the water how how the is the the fact that we can turn on a water we

have clean drinking water is something that we should not be taking grant for granted we go back to flint michigan okay rusty water dirty water not clean we have clean water right and the expectation nobody really thinks about it you turn on your faucet it is clean that doesn't happen on its own there's a lot that goes into it now in terms of you know your supply chain management and whether or not we're

ordering too much supplies or chemicals and maybe we need to look at just in time inventory i don't know if that's that's the case but you want to look at coven and talk about covet let's look at supply chain situation that we've got we can't get folks to manufacture the supplies that we need and we can't get them to deliver it okay so what happened the cost of limber a lumber went up through the roof

okay what would have cost you you know 20 is now costing you 200 and that goes on and on and on so that also impacts us right so all your supplies not being able to to get your um your chemicals in time chlorine i mean everybody wanted a pool right there was chlorine the amount of chlorine there's a shortage on chlorine right so we continue to go down the road

and we can talk about it but again i think we need to we need to be at some point be realistic about what we're asking for and what we're talking about and again i'm going to support this because we've got a financial policy at least drafted that is going to be moving forward that is going to help the city and get us back on the right from my standpoint

on the right road to ensure that we are providing fiscal uh responsible decision making process and we're not creating structural deficits from year over the year and that's where i stand i've always tried to support your department but i've also agreed my colleagues we need to do a little bit better job and i know you've got lean budgets we need to make them leaner right so we need to do that and um i hope

moving forward like i just said we're starting the fy 23 budget hopefully in in january or february um we hope to see some leaner leaner budgets moving forward but i'm going to be supporting this because at the end of the day we're going to be raising it one way or the other and i just prefer to raise it now and minimize the impacts of the ratepayer and get you what you need so that we can

continue to try to hopefully uh increase our stabilization accounts to to offset any unforeseen disasters that may be coming up in in water sewer so with that i yield thank you um mr furlin um i remember specifically whether it was last year the year before a discussion was had and the council while i supported it at that time asked you to try to work on presenting a budget in future years that indicated doing

more with less looking at your expenses trying to find a way to lean out your expenses so i'm going to ask a very specific question what efforts were done by you and your department to reduce expenses this year versus last year and the year before so it's funny that you asked that question and uh if mr terry was here he would have uh he would have a very good answer uh

mr terry was the uh director of water administration for years uh worked for the water department he's now back on the water board when he was first presented this budget uh back in prior to march of last year you know he took a look at the budget he called me up the first thing and he says i i can't believe these budgets these are some of the same numbers that i used to use 20 years ago

for uh you know for phones for for a lot of the items within there you know that's one thing that you know you pull up one of our budgets from years ago and there isn't much of an increase in many of our line items um you know chemicals go up and stuff like that but every year we're cutting and we're running as lean of a budget as you can uh through here

you know one of the things that we did one of the cuts that was made was in the uh if you go to water and you go to treatment we reduce some we reduce some expenses in relation to maintenance that's because we were able to hire a excellent maintenance individual that we have down there now that's very very savvy um but maintenance still needs to be done so there's still a cost associated with

getting the pots and stuff like that but that's less stuff that we have to send out you know every one of these line items is going through by myself uh by my managers if you go through i think vehicles and vehicle repairs within uh water distribution you'll see a reduction in the uh the repair cost um that's because we've gotten uh you know over the years we've gotten some newer

vehicles got rid of some older vehicles some of our larger equipment uh backhoes we've been able to replace within the past couple of years um but and that reduced you know that had the capital cost within that fiscal year but then it reduces our cost so every one of these line items within our budget is is scrutinized uh individually by either the managers or myself to reduce i hope i hope that answers

your question counselor and seat six counselor hiccup all right now i know um we've spoken at length and op has been brought up and i'll make this brief um the last vote we took on water and sewer uh increases i caught a beating forks they changed my vote because i listened to your concerns and i will say um publicly i did get to witness your department respond to an emergency recently in my neighborhood um

phenomenal service i have a question for you so if we and i propose this in a closed door meeting uh with an opera and i'm a proponent of yours once again if we were to take the two top issues within the city one being water and so on the second being public safety cut that out of money in half to say let's say 35 million dollars give you half give the public safety you have

do you think down the road say next year the year after if you were able to and i'm using 35 million as a fictitious number here would you see um less burden on your budget if you were allocated more funding from the opera so you can take care of some projects that won't be needed to be taken care of for another 20 years or so um would it free up cash within your

budget for the next couple of years to follow yeah so it wouldn't be uh particularly this year and that's funny well uh while i was sitting here earlier i was doodling up a graphic that i want to make on the council back in the council agenda and it was just going to be laying out how oppa could help and uh and um with with you know how it could affect rates or budgets um so um

any project after march of 2021 when the bill was passed is uh eligible to be able to use opera fundings as long as borrowing has not been long-term environment has not been done on that project so any project that started from there so let's say you know we start a project now the project lasts for two years the long-term borrowing would probably happen sometime in february 2023 is when the city would go up for the

long term borrowing for that project the debt service that would be required on that project would probably be on the july 2023 budget um so that's when you would see the rate increase for that for that budget you know for that particular project so at that point that's when you would see you know um not necessarily rate reduction but you know a balance due to the opera funds being used for a project rather than

using borrowing all right so in a nutshell yes so if we do use it the uh rates may not go up over the next few years and we can stop the uh where we started i guess was 2013 constantly it wasn't the year we were um i would like to publicly ask the mayor to look at this since this is a a large issue that we have to tackle and future

councils are going to have to tackle and i publicly like to ask the mayor um to allocate more funding to the water department and i would go as high as 40 50 i would because you need it but we can't keep throwing the burden on the taxpayer every year for them to be able to come up with the money that we need i understand council kadeem's side to this he's an

administrator and i get it and i don't disagree with what he's saying i just think we have 70 million dollars i know we keep saying one-time money but a lot of the projects that you do are they they go out 20 25 years where we spend it now and we don't the city won't have to worry about it for 25 years that's where i would like to see this go

and again i would like to see that the mayor look at this review it and give you a substantial amount of that opera funding and with that i yield thank you thank you i just want to remind the council for for everybody's own edification right so i know we're all speaking about opera and i understood it correctly when mr furlin said the opera allocation would really have nothing to

do with this year's rates that would be for future years so that's how i understand it correct me if i'm wrong mr furland right it's pretty much if you had 13 million dollars of opera money to use you're not going to have to go for whether it's a specific phase or you don't have to go bond and they don't have to pay for the bonds the cost to bond the cost for the mortgage payments

per se to bomb those projects so i know counselors are speaking i just want to let the record reflect that counselors are speaking about opera money but opera has nothing to do with this year's race we can't do anything with opera money to reduce the rates this year in future years the council with the projects that whether they allocate 13 million or 30 million dollars will eventually end up

reducing the rates because you don't have to go bond for it you don't have to pay the interest on the bond whether they go long or short short term when it comes to that so i don't want it i don't want that to be confusion and people hung up on the fact that there's opera money coming down the road the real questions still present themselves in my opinion that we have expenses that i don't think

personally were really looked at that closely but that's my opinion counselor just to touch upon that um and what where i was going with this was and i don't know if i made myself clear was we always use the term kicking a can down the road well we may eventually have to we may be able to stop kicking that can if we take care of some of these projects with the allocated alpha

funding and make your life a hell of a lot easier and that's what i would like to do um and with that yield thank you does the infrastructure um the infrastructure plan that biden passed uh does that have anything to do with water and sewer how will i help you mr farley so the recent one that was just passed by the binding administration there is uh originally that started out as a lodge utility uh

and the utility shrunk shrunk shrunk shrunk um and a lot of it is going towards roads and bridges uh from my understanding now the whole entire project there is still money within there for uh and they use some key terms i haven't read the whole entire bill yet but they use some specific key terms in relation to pfas which is a contaminant that a lot of communities are dealing with

lead removal within water systems uh as well as csos uh so we're affected by two of those uh it's it's gonna be just like the opera money is we're gonna have to see how everything uh settles out and trickles down but those were specifically so there's nothing and how much is the cso debt uh the cso debt yeah the mandated the federally mandated cso project uh so so far we've spent probably about 250 million uh don't

quote me exactly on that whatever it's left it's right on the ballpark you know um again we have the uh authorization that was approved by voters in november 2017 of 123 million that will be spending up until 2025 um and then uh we're still going to have additional projects uh moving on that gets some of our csos within compliant within our compliancy with our federal court order but it doesn't get all of

them we're still going to have new ones coming down new permits that have come down uh that we're dealing with too is the ms4 permit from epa that's to do with any uh separated storm systems within them within a rural area which we have so they used to only regulate sewer now they're regulating all the storm water that runs up often there's a lot of requirements that we've had to comply with moving forward

coming forward starting probably in february there's going to be a new requirement that we need to meet with csos in relation to our discharges and notification of our discharges um so it you know it's the regulations are always changing these unfunded mandates that that are coming down um okay so it's a big number attached to that thank you consular and seat for our council vice president thank you

mr frelin we had a different conversation uh at the ordinance meeting about the employees rate of pay and i agree and i think everybody at that meeting agreed we had the numbers in front of us specifically the numbers that the outside company that was hired are being paid more than our own employees however they are as customer and c8 said they are under the absolute union so we could raise the rates to any

amount and we still wouldn't be able to pay them more that is a contract negotiation correct uh so for the for the operators the operators are within the asthma union the management uh so the director is not with it within the asthma union they're with within ordinance correct and so go ahead the director would need the ordinance changed uh the asthma union agreement would need uh

would need a side letter of agreement or a contract or a renegotiation for the increases in there okay and the director we spoke about that at the meeting too that's a not to exceed number and i had asked at that time if you could have come down and asked for that to be changed mrs sahari was there as well and you had indicated that she wouldn't have stayed anyway because she wouldn't have thought it was fair

to the other employees so we could have worked around that with the director you know i just don't want people to get the the wrong impression that if if we don't that we'd be able to pay all of these people more if we raise the rates because our hands are still tied in a way right so there would need to be steps that that would need to be done you know

one of the big things with with discussions you know how am i supposed to uh tell some people within the war if if i have a budget that that's unsupported and i may have to lay off staff or make large cuts within the budget uh how how can i honestly truly go and negotiate to give some people an increase and then potentially lay some people off you know that that's

one thing that was looked at at the time how could that be done you know and i don't think that anybody disagrees or at least anyone at ordinance disagreed um that that they need to be paid more um but there are there are other hurdles to that not just raising the rates i just wanted to point that out um and as far as the infrastructure improvements i fully understand that it has to be new projects

and it won't change this year's rates but if we don't start using the funds and i am advocating for more funds for the water and sewer department the rates are are never going to go down we're going to be having the same conversation next year in the year after and thereafter and then we'll be looking in hindsight saying had we spent more money on infrastructure improvements we would

be able to lower the rates at this point but we didn't so we can't i think you have the votes here tonight for your water rates um i'm i'm still going to be voting no because i want you to get more money for your infrastructure improvements so that we can see a reduction in the rates that council team spoke about all of the improvements that the voters voted on

and we have the ability to pay for those rather than to bond for those and counselor and seat too spoke about a loan order that was in front of us it was in the spring and it did have a caveat on it that if arper funds were available they would be used and and and they weren't used it was it was put through um and that shouldn't have happened i believe there was three

orders one of them was yours correct so i you know i i would be in favor with counselor in seat six you know formally requesting that the administration um propose more of the arbor funds to mr berlin for his infrastructure improvements so that in a couple of years we're not having this conversation um and looking back saying we we could have done more that yield any of the 700 thousand dollars that's

any your uh stabilization account carry over from the prior year or is that all uh reserves uh in savings from this fiscal year uh so those were acquired uh over the past seven years or so we've put a hundred thousand dollars from uh either our free cash or our operational budget into that that was a policy that was uh brought in front of the uh council seven or eight years ago and we've stuck with that policy

uh so we've increased it by a hundred a hundred thousand dollars per year so there were six hundred thousand dollars in there starting this fiscal year uh we didn't do the transfer yet for this fiscal year again because of uh the lack of uh right the budget being supported so there were six hundred thousand dollars prior to this fiscal year in your stabilization account prior to the last fiscal year 700 right

700 or 600 000.

so coming into this fiscal year there was 700 000 in uh the year prior there was so from last year in last year's fiscal budget there was six hundred thousand dollars and we added a hundred thousand dollars okay thank you any further discussion on this item there's a motion on the floor to adopt is there harry no further discussion i'll entertain a roll call at this time so this is would be passing the

ordinance through first reading yep first reading first reading counselors kadena we still have two more readings yep counselors kadeem yes dion no kilby liberty lebeau no lee no peckham no pelletier yes pereira yes and president ponti yes the motion carries motion passes yes thank you you have a community the parax appropriation for fiscal year 2023.

acceptance motion to accept the place on files been made by councillor pereira seconded by council of peckham discussion harry none all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it and lastly the committee on finance at a meeting held on november 30th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying resolution be referred to the committee on ordinances and legislation this is the um cop program

has been made and seconded hearing no further discussions all those in favor all right post the eyes have it motion to adjourn motion so made by councillor peckham seconded by consular pelletier all those in favor opposed the eyes a good night

you