12.12.2023 Redevelopment Authority

okay we're going to call to order the December 12th 2023 meeting of the uh Fall River Redevelopment Authority this meeting is open to the public to attend in person at the above reference date time and location a recording of the Open Session can be viewed at Harvard uh sorry not Harvard Paul River government television um um person went to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or

video video recording of this public hearing or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmission are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible start out with a roll call John Ericson wicon Ron rusen Joan madas also joining us remotely is an oh I don't know if you can hear her but an

Keane right here next to me uh Sarah paage our executive director John coflin Council Ken fola administrative services consultant in Karen Martin project coordinator uh first item on our agenda is approval of the Open Session minutes from November 14th our last meeting 2023 so move with the presented second second okay John Ericson yes yes Ron Ron yes Joan madis yes and Keen yes okay um the warrant which is

49 3841 13 which Joan has already reviewed uh any questions on that anyone any of those items no okay um motion approve warrant as presented 49

384-1361 contract with Bristol County Economic Development Consultants BC EDC um it's basically as you guys know it's basically the same there was just a little minor tweak in the uh termination time and so um K's been we know very helpful over the several years that I've been here and uh he is the devil we know so I'm going to keep him devil they're all angels we got issues uh so I need a motion to uh to

approve to allow me to execute an amendment to the contract for three-year extension starting a motion to approve the renewal for three years with Bristol County Economic Development Corporation yes second John Ericson yes Lis yes Ron R abstaining Joan Medeiros yes and Keen yes okay um so we we received an amendment um to uh Elevate Karen's position to project manager SL executive assistant

and uh approve in U approve a salary increase uh I think you all are familiar with these items so uh I need a motion to execute this amendment motion to approve coun play agreement with the increase second second John yes lcon yes Ron R yes Joan madas yes next yes sorry keep forgetting man is over a little bit my arm uh next item is uh City Pier and Karen is going to give this an update on

those I have yes so the dogs they still Linger on um the punch list is trudging slowly I got confirmation that tomorrow they will be there with the remainder of the white pile caps the new lock um and they're going to be bringing the key and um the software information to me and then um closing up the um cleaning up um all the fencing the pter toilet that's still there that'll all be

out of there too um they're hoping to get it all done tomorrow if not they swear they will be there Thursday morning and then hopefully we'll all be wrapped up and then they're going to lift the gang way as they're done and that'll be up for the season so they promise me so let's hope that it will get done um and then I think that's going to be that will pretty much wrap

that up and then we'll um look for the opening in the spring the shepher management issue just see do we have a ground break do we do do we have an official opening on that yet well so we're thinking about we're working with our uh event committee and thinking about having you know an oyster festival or a seafood steal my phone I'm sorry yeah I'm so used to responding to Ken's questions um so the unit price

maintenance agreement with shepher group um one of the things that um is challenging especially as we're going to be starting to do a longer season out at the pier and all this like myself and my Swiss army knife don't get everything done that needs to get done out there and when I was um uh talking to vendors about like the plowing contract and the Landscaping contracts out at City Pier um and I

reached out to a couple of property management companies um you know property management companies want to like manage the property they don't just want to do like tasks um and then um one of the people that I was able to spend some time talking to is Don and gy at um Shephard group who knows Joan and um um they are they he runs a very unique service he they are property manages but he also

will do task oriented things on like an hourly basis and he and he um you know they manag The wereham Crossing property they manage the South um Coast Marketplace property so I mean they have um a good Core group of people um they he did you know give us pricing on the plowing he's a little bit high on that so that's why left it with d Silva but um one of the things that he did give

was he said you know these are some unit prices um you need us anywhere in Fall River the prices are good for anywhere um you know we've talked Sarah and I talked and we've um we want to go ahead and issue a unit price contract that um they're reviewing now Shepard and you know to just see how much we're really going to need it um you know there are certain things like D DCF and DCM will

help us up to a certain point they're just not quick on turnaround on things so we just kind of want to use this as a mechanism to um be able to trigger a quicker response if we have like damage or something that really needs to get done out of City bear or God forbid at any like Commerce Drive or any of our other properties and if we get in on

street that would be included too so I I just think that you know if it looks like we're going to have a a a a a lot of Need for for it then I think it's something we would need to think about a true scope and put it out to bid for competition so I think it's kind of a wait and see It'll um he's he was everything over and let me know if it

looked okay and then we'll probably execute a small um unit price agreement and just you know move forward from there so I think it's it's a worthwhile Endeavor to have and plus I don't have a lot of height so I can't reach a l of things um when you see unit price do you mean only when we need them or is there like a yearly fee no only when we need

them so it's like he's giv me hourly rates for like it'll if if it all goes through I'll have it in the next board package um but it it's like a Labor's rate like a truck rate um cleanup rates disposal rates um all of that stuff that sounds good yeah so that's that's kind of all and it is kind of a unique Niche that a lot of I couldn't really find a

lot of people that would be willing to do that so um so I think that it at least will at least be able to gauge need and an idea of what that might really roll into so um so that sounds good and then that was all I had on that events events so events um so we've been meeting with we've had I think we had a meeting we just had a meeting last week

with the events group and then we had a meeting um back late September I believe and we're starting to um rule out things for 2020 24 we had received a call about a wedding out on the pier and we tossed that around a lot at the events meeting about you know opening it up to the public you know there's still a question on parking we are um going to be working

with Ken about seeing about renewing the lease um at Taylor and Hathaway there and there is not going to be any Deval street parking available next summer I talked to Dan egar about that and um I think that it was in the consensus of everybody on the events board to like hold off really opening up events to the public until we real I mean when I say open up events to the public having

public sponsored events like people doing um weddings or like if they wanted to do a fundraiser thing out there or whatever just holding off on that until we um until we have better um amenities around the area the city's also supposedly going to be looking into getting you know a shuttle that we could utilize and things so there's still a lot of kind of balls up in the air but

as for events for 2024 that the city and Viva and the narrow are looking to do um the narrow has a concert scheduled for August 24th um Viva is looking you know they're going to be doing the yoga on Monday nights again which had a really good um attendance and uh she was actually going to look out look into to see if anyone I guess there's some um calling for Zumba

classes maybe on another evening and um the city's going to do another Fourth of July similar to what they did last summer the um mayor is also thinking about potentially another um time to do another concert type event and then we're thinking that the docks will probably have a soft opening in May and we're looking towards June to potentially do like some type of a maybe like seafood festival to really kick off

and open up the docks um Sam that works in the mayor's office is looking and seeing you know who we can get to um to help sponsor that um so that's kind of hopefully something that I think could tie in nicely out there and kick off the whole kind of summer season so those are some of the things that we have working now um and uh as we firm things up I will keep you all posted

so that's it right now City Pier is oh the only other thing I'm going to say on City here um we got hit with graffiti and we got hit bad with graffiti um it's on all the um cabinets out there um and it's this one guy he's got quite the signature um and so in a good and a bad we had all the um stainless steel cabinets passivated that helps with protecting the cabinets I talked to

steuart Dean this afternoon he's given me some options of how to clean it um we will be taking that P that um pass passation coating off so we will need probably to repassivate if we want to keep that protection going um I'm going to be talking to um Laura in the city down in traffic and parking has some um I guess she's got a big graffiti removal kind of setup so I was going to talk to

her about seeing if they could help us in any way too and then um uh not sure the aluminum and the water metor enclosure got hit too the two aluminum cabinets at the end of each Pier One at the end of each pier and then the um the green water meet enclosure gotg and we're probably going to need to use a different product on those so we don't etch them and um cause any further

damage I'm hoping um steuart Dean doesn't think it's going to leave any mark behind like sometimes it'll leave like a um a shadowy staining once you clean it but he doesn't think that's going to be happen on the ones that are passivated I'm not sure what will happen on the aluminum and the water meter enclosure but we'll have to see um I do have I talked to the camera guy this afternoon camera guy the camera

subcontractor uh Scott and he's going to see I Tred to be looking at the tapes but it's very slow monotonous not much going on on the tapes it's not like a good movie and um so he's going to see what he can do about um focusing in on a couple of cameras and seeing what he can do for pickup motion and see if he can get um get me a window of when to look

at the cameras and I'll I'll work with the police and see if they recognize him or recognize the signature or anything but it's just too bad and it's like all the graffiti is on the the side of the cabinets that faces away from cameras so but he still had to do it and he had to be there so should be walk there or something yeah yeah so um so that's yeah

and there's only like he can only get on so you know so Scott's going to work with me we're going to see what we can find on the cameras is it swears or is it no it's not really intense it's not really um anything that's like in my mind readable but it's the same signature on each cabinet got yeah yeah so um I can show you guys L like you so you

know you may want to think you may want to think about just taking control of those and getting your own art on them yeah we talked about that right because you know so there's like a code amongst graffitist definitely tell's got a signature that's no no but I'm saying but when when it's just like the um the ones in the city you know they got uh Verizon boxes or whatever or National

Grid boxes once they're done over they're not graffitied out of respect out of respect for the op so we can find who it is and have them do it well yeah so I think MB Billy used to do them yeah there's a bunch of so there's you know I know that Frack does a lot of it um I think Viva was involved in it one point so it may be something to keep in mind

just so you can control it yeah well it's um otherwise it's going to happen you're going to get more graffiti now yeah we're just going to keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning yeah yeah all right let me um let me look into that someone just did that nice that's why we don't we don't want the conx box there bring it out I thought was I thought was going to put graffiti

on going to do weot work on um so all right let me um I will look into that and I will report back but it's just so disheartening um so hopefully we can find something what will come of it who knows but um uh I think that um you know we'll see what we can do the water's all shut off out there too so it's cleaning will have to be like chemicals I'm

thinking so we'll have to figure that out so uh that's all I had okay um on the project updates uh section Sarah do you want to talk about the Pleasant Street FL yes I do so the really good news is we have nearly 300 survey responses that we've received which is a lot more than I think anyone expected I think that the gift cards went over really well and really helped with the response of the

surveys and people who came to the meeting um Karen did a fabulous job of going out to Family First Health and a few other places to do tabling and actually talk with people and ask people to fill out the surveys so some people don't really want to fill out the survey but they'll talk with you so she was able to get input that way she also went to catel Heights the senior housing

development where we then held the public meeting uh she went to Shannon uh rodri's um dentist office in the Flint and Shannon really encouraged her to come I don't think there was a huge amount of traffic there compared to some of the other places but uh it was good to go there and um then Elena who we asked to work with us um on this project for a little while she went to the

senior center on Alden Street and so one of the really good things about Karen doing tabling at catel Heights was when we went and had the event there she'd gotten to know the people who Liv there who managed the place and they were really helpful and um there were people who really were ready to talk with um Captain ferado who came from the police department and really told her um

exactly what they're seeing happening on Pleasant Street that's really upsetting them and she left with ideas about how to address it things are happening in bus shelters and in the middle of the night they're seeing this so she has ideas about how to address that and so um we didn't have the turnout that we wanted at the public meeting but instead I think people filled out their surveys

and got them into us and um so but the people who did come spoke up and were engaged in the meeting and it was a meeting where we really uh did updates so the mayor welcomed everyone Mike Dion updated everyone and he had pictures um that we'd gotten put on on Boards of the uh storefront improvements that he's working on and he told people about all the other storefronts that will be done

and then people were really excited that Paul furland came and talked about the $2 million Grant to do all the planning necessary for Stafford square and it's um flooding and the flooding in Stafford Square came up many many times in our meetings and conversations with people so that was really exciting so we didn't have a huge crowd but we had a number of people who really engaged they were from

different parts of the neighborhood someone represented the neighborhood Council and it was a really good meeting and then Karen's been having fun because she's been calling people saying oh you want a gift certificate and people have been coming in saying oh I never expected to to get a gift certificate so that was really um that was really nice and uh I think a really helpful touch

and thank you Ron for your contribution toward that thanks Ron how many people showed up you said is it no it was about 30 people 30 people okay so it wasn't what we had hoped did Aaron T talk about what he's doing he did I'm sorry he's on my list here yes Aaron talked about the buildings that he's renovating and talked about being a um you know a developer landlord in the neighborhood and that was really

nice so um I think that's the update is there anything you want to add to that Karen no just now that we're tyan Bon's working on all the EPA um work that's involved with the um the urban renewal plan and that um Emily and in his group is working on um the final edits and we're hoping to get a document into hlc uh for a rough review a rough draft

and for review by the end of the month so that'll be good the meepa stuff will follow along after that so and related to meepa um Ken and I work on a commit a Statewide Committee of developers and uh Mass Inc pulls it together and um the whole group is really concerned about the meepa regulations and how much it costs to add all this Consulting time and how much time it takes to uh fulfill

meepa requirements on urban renewal plans which never was the case until legislation that passed um in January of 22 so we agreed to help work on a letter that um the developers group would take to legislators to ask for changes so that there aren't such onerous requirements for uh groups like ours to work on our urban renewal plans so I've been working on that letter it's been going out to a number of people in the

group and people commenting so I have another uh bunch of comments to work on a final draft which we'll probably talk about at the January meeting of the group and so the good news is that from the meepa perspective we felt so frustrated by what we had to do for this urban renewal plan so we're taking action on the state level as well as getting it done so yeah so the next item is the master plan

for 79 develop Street Carter with the vote to authorize the chair to execute an agreement with stantech architecture and engineering PC um the gentleman sitting next to an can describe this more El I can I think Karen sent out a draft contract to the board ahead of time so if you remember what we're doing is entering into an agreement with stantech for the root 9 master plan um so that scope of service has been

negotiated the price has been negotiated so that contract's ready to be signed so we need a vote to authorize the chair to sign that contract with stantech and also to reject the uh all the bids received under RFP number 242 so we need that motion so I need a motion to authorize the chair yeah motion to the authorizing chair to ex agreement with Sant Tech architectural engineering PC and also

rejecting the other rfps under 2402 under y uh second second roll call John Ericson yes leis conso yes Ron Rin yes Joan madas yes and Keane yes uh the chair makes a finding that an open session would have a detrimental effect on negotiating position of the public body the purpose of the executive session to is to approve the executive session minutes from November 14 2023 and to discuss strategy with respect to

real estate transactions at zero Turner Street and 589 599 Commerce Drive uh John Ericson yes so it's a we're not going to return to open oh yes we're not going to return to open session so we need a roll call to enter and not return uh so need a motion to enter executive session and not return session motion to go into executive session for the following properties and we rean second second John Erikson yes lcon

yes Ron Ron yes Joan madas yes and Keen yes okay thanks everybody and