2.1.2023 Park Board

I call this regular meeting of the Park Board of Commissioners for Wednesday February 1st 2023 and the government signed the city council hearing room to order

open me in law pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledge and permissible foreign ers Victor farrios Helen Rigo Joseph the silver

acceptance of minutes from The Irregular monthly board meeting November 2nd 2022 January 4 2023 and the public hearing informational meeting Land and Water Conservation Grant Lafayette Park Eastern Avenue motion to accept second out portions accept by commissioner Regal seconded by commissioner farius all in favor say aye aye citizen input we just had uh two people sign up no no uh okay I have a Chandler

Hearn yep and Katrina Katrina just saw state your name and uh address for the record Chandler Hearn and Katrina Myers 505 Bay Street Fall River we're coming in here to spend a little while since we saw you uh we have uh since received a grant from the mass cultural uh local cultural Council um to uh for buddies to do that mural we spoke about the homestead mural um we've been in touch with the National

Association of parks and the Olmsted uh basically olmsted.org in the whole Olmstead folks and talk to them about it they're excited and we wanted to check in with you guys um I know this is just a quick input um let you know that hopefully we can get some time for next month show you some ideas that we have and um any input that you guys have that you'd like to see involved even going to

the Historical Society trying to find like nuggets of things that happen with Olmsted in his time creating Parts here um and hopefully come up with a really unique Visual and educational image that everyone would like and the plan was before we wanted to place it on the street facing wall of the Kennedy Park maintenance building which as you guys know is one of olmsted's parks and All Rivers

centerpiece Park the Drew level River so we'd like to put it there if we could we realized the maintenance building was recently painted however we're trying to think of it as it was recently primed for a beautiful Olmstead mural that will only accentuate the building further and make it that's what I was thinking special Park how do you feel Mr and what I had said to Katrina when she

called was we could she was going to send this information we would speak with the administration since that was something that they had um to get that building painted and it would have to be a collaboration anyway with the administration in this board so I advise them to come back to the next meeting they will provide me with Doc uh you know photos and and kind of mock-ups and different ideas they would want to

put on that and I said in the meantime in this month in between the two meetings we would meet with the administration and see how they felt about it and then we would be able to communicate with them either I would be able to communicate with them and then they could come back to the sport next month the board can't communicate as a whole but I would be able to communicate with them any commissioners

I like the idea I know I've always said that I like that idea that I wanted something like that just someone can come up with a job there I think it it's a brilliant idea it's because what better way to have a homestead on that Hawk is because you ask most kids and that they probably don't even know who else that is so at least if you have the architect there

they can see history yeah now in the 21st century who created these products definitely gives people a spirit of place and it's great that that could be a Fall River well thank you guys thank you for taking up on this initiative thank you see you guys next month thanks thank you all right uh no no other citizen input any other citizen Airport all right so item a uh they're not here yet right

okay so do I have permission to uh skip item a for now and we'll get back to it yeah we'll take anime Out of Water yep and go to Item B m a uh commissioner Ferris made that motion seconded by commissioner Rio all in favor say aye aye Item B uh Bobby Bailey to address the board the use of City uh fields for Diamond vocational Sports programs due to the upcoming School Construction

uh I just received a call from Mr Bailey in that so what we can do is discuss this to place on file uh to our future meeting fan but he's not going to be attending tonight so if you guys want to just uh place this on file for now I'll make a motion to place this I'll file until the next say

aye aye hi hey item C request for a three on three basketball tournament at Kennedy Park on Middle Street by stay biz on June 10 2023. is anybody here for that come on up since your new assault for the record and what you're here for my name is Gregory molinar I'm with stay busy and we are looking to use Kennedy Park on June 10th in the morning hours to put on a three-on-three basketball tournament

you guys uh we have a packet here and there's our item C so I know you're having a bunch of different things around the city yes what they're looking is to do is just the three on three uh tournament at Kennedy Park let's go off we have anything on those dates yet we have not asked for the groups to submit yet but as far as right now no there's nothing on the 10th I believe

the community event is the week after that but right now um we don't have anything scheduled um um like how soon would I need a yes or no yes um a month or so probably yes

so we can find out what's going on and what exactly they have coming up so we don't know what they can okay tentatively maybe approve this but the final approval probably wouldn't be able to come to you until March 1st okay if that's enough of time yeah I mean it seems like it's just the use of those basketball courts and the immediate area from what I read is that correct that is okay and

then no It also says live DJ and everything and uh

Civic events form you the police sign it they know that that has taken place there and it's a formality in there but I would imagine it would be subject to the pot fee yep and then uh I know last year when we had an event down there the building inspector has to sign off on that also and he's going to inform you with the DJs that any generators all have to be hardwired to the um the

ground or not so um so they're going to have to he'll he'll he'll instruct that are you having any stages or anything no because if you want to have stages you're going to have to work with him about that yeah no stages and your film crew you ever felt cruising something that is just people that you know right no well they're professional but they're like part of the overall So based on this uh

just so you know what you need epoxy is 125 for the day okay I needed to have a liability insurance policy absolutely um after that it would be just signatory sign-offs from the various departments that may be okay um if like I said the board can tentatively approved this and give you a final approval by March okay that'd be great I don't think there's no be anything that conflicts with this and it

should be something that you've put in for it so you would have that access but that's something with the board not sending the letter out for your accepting requests it's a little bit premature for us to say yes 100 understand I know exactly what's going on but I would hope that by the next meeting this board would be able to give you a yay or an A and I and

I don't see events like this all the time so I don't see an issue unless the board has some other opinions cool I think it's a good idea so uh do we uh wanna I guess what I would do is um you can table it or you can tentatively approve it those are your two options attentively approve and then until we call the final approval will come on at

the next board game so you can vote to tentatively approve so that you see what other dates and functions are coming in and then he'll know that by if there's no other event final approval can be given in you can do that in the same motion right now so that you don't have to meet again but March 1st is your next meeting so I'm not going to be able to give you an answer before

so they get the emotional I got a motion to uh to approve it attentively attentively so uh to much first meeting uh yeah that's me all right seconded by uh commissioner various all in favor say aye aye okay thank you very much oh God item d request for a Juneteenth event at Kennedy Park Broadway to take place on Saturday November 17 2023 is anybody here for that so this is an annual event uh she's been

doing it the last two years um the only note I have is I know it was addressed but the reason why we asked for liability commission is is because if something happens in that at the box and I know last year it was uh the platform and that noticed it and brought it to Mrs Smith's attention that the production company that uh the sound guy that was doing this

uh event for her end up backing into one of our branding pot benches destroyed it and then they left the park and think we were going to find this and then that's why the liabilities have so we end up making them replace that pop bench last year with us tonight so uh do we have a motion to approve this is ahead of the game and then she can get her answer as well

and watch first okay do I have that uh Second second okay let's um commissioner Ferris made that motion to attentively agree to March 1st to approve this until we have our uh information back from all the leagues and everything of the use of box seconded by commissioner Regal all in favor say aye aye item e a request from the mobile Adventures to come into various Park Properties to conduct events anybody have that

uh I spoke with this lady is going to submit a more was it request what it is is similar to the Pokemon remember the bookmobile only they have their adventures and they come out and do these Park adventures and I did um and I don't know if this is how she's going to proceed I did put her in touch with Grace curling so that she can possibly piggy back her

events so it won't just be a few kids scattered it would be a major event that she would be able to get a little bit more exposure so she is going to contact me and we will again budgeting of our future so if you want to just play some part um she'll be sending in an additional Viewpoint all right hi to me uh do I have a motion to place this on file make

a motion place on file commissioner commissioner Smith that motion second by commissioner Rio all in favor say aye itemf request from the Marine quality to conduct an event in observance of Iwo jimo day at Veterans Memorial Bicentennial Park the Wall Street on Sunday February 19th at 10 A.M this is an annual event correct motion approved by commissioner Rigo second by second by commissioner Faris all in favor say hi

item G board to send out letters to leagues requirements to request a field and event permits for 2023 season motion to approve motion to approve that letter commissioner Rigo made that motion seconded by commissioner Ferraris all in favor say hi all right we're going to go back to item a motion you make a motion to go back to the um yeah nefarious made that motion seconded by commissioner all in favor say aye

item a master plan consultant to address the board initial plans for Oak Grove Cemetery Prospect Street visibility study and improvements by means of introduction uh this is Casey Lee he's with um the BSC group they've been hired as our Consultants to help us with a master plan um that was brought to this committee uh quite a while ago I think at this point um so the idea is to have BSC group go

through the cemetery help us identify future burial space so as the board is aware we've recently or just about completed a major expansion that'll give us burial space for hopefully 20 years but we don't want to wait to use up all that space before we decide what the next steps are for Oak Grove Cemetery so it was important to get this started because it'll help us lay out the roadmap for where future

burial space will be give us an idea of what the budget would look like to do some of these projects and then attack them in smaller chunks so it's more cost efficient and effective for us the other elements of the plan include general maintenance so going through the cemetery kind of with a fine-tooth comb identifying maintenance needs prioritizing those and help us identify ways that we can become more efficient

in our day-to-day operations the other thing I'd like to know is we've asked BSC to do this project because they are um experts if you will in Cemetery design including in historic Cemetery so the overarching goal is to respect the history of the cemetery understand you know its initial development and how Oak Grove is kind of adapted through the years to the different Cemetery Trends

and how we can in the master plan look to bookend those um different development time frames in a respectful manner to the original design so I'll turn it over to Casey Lee and he can go over thank you Chris right now for the past couple months my design team have been working through analysis of the different data layers associated with your Park utilities roadway materials the grave

counts grave types as well as doing an extensive field analysis so we've had people on the ground assessing materials surfaces conditions your Arboretum of trees and from that we've just developed a set of layers um and a set of guides on that that will go from here are the things you have and looking towards the things you need right now we're coming to you with the analysis layer of that and use some of

the information and a whole lot of the questions so this will be this first meeting is for us to reach out to you with a set of questions about how you want us to communicate communicate in the next meeting which will focus largely on design with an Outreach Forum a public walks and discussions in the cemeterys um to help with that because it's a lot more material

so uh Miss Smith you're going to make this part of the record right yeah thank you and we'll submit digital copies of materials uh as well for you tomorrow but

with me I'm not sure how much and to what degree or what orientation we should present should I sort of Swing these to you or pick a side camera's there yeah okay I'll use that chair yeah thank you

sit up yeah understand there's a whole lot of information here you've got 120 Acres so this is broken up into layers and right now it's on paper all sort of grouped together so that we can organize it and show you what it is with the code accumulated what you'll be receiving in the next round with public Outreach is an online form where anyone who's state will be able to turn pieces of this on

and off and compare things so they can look at a specific chunk or specific notebooks idea within the cemetery first layers roadway conditions so this is assessing the Pavements as well as utilities drainage issues damages encroachments based on some of the older curves

thank you foreign assessments topographic analysis including sort of thresholds of level areas versus slopes to help us make decisions about what spaces are best for grades what orientation they should be and where you can cut or fill to make the transitions for some of these by and large I'll see sort of in that yellows and the Reds with the steeper portions and that all of your roadways have this recess

it's going to come to as a huge benefit to you later on because it allows us to offset a pair of Roads choose the ones that are in disrepair swap the soils with new Graves to allow for that so instead it's a development benefit it's a drainage problem that we can solve in this way soils report but sadly this lists as largely an urban soil so the soil Maps

don't give us all of the detail we want specifically down in the two undeveloped wooded areas chances are the reason those areas are the last to be developed and from some of the things we see on the ground that there are issues of ledge and a whole lot of irregularity there'll be some drainage things to solve but we've got a plan for that we're also looking at those as the last piece of green space that's truly

forested and in the city a little piece of forest can be very valuable we've got some ideas in the packets on ways you might be able to benefit from something that we normally

then looking into access points routes of circulation this combines both what are the primary ways for people to move through the cemetery so this breaks it down into three layers the green being primary access routes these are absolutely necessary these stay open these also tend to cross with spaces that have Utilities in them so they're not places that can switch over to Grays the red secondary Paths of travel

these are necessary so that you've got the on-road parking for Cemetery uh internment events and funerals but the last the blue roads these are tertiary roads these are spaces where they are short enough and have enough critical mass of road around them for the parking that you could convert these over to new Grave spaces it gives you a chance to bring in more trees or tree related Graves

offset your space Through Time um but without losing the functionality or the Aesthetics of the cemetery in fact it gives us some opportunities to take things back towards the more historic Cemetery feel in converting those tertiary ways

with that combining both your road conditions your tertiary ways process slope the depths and look at which are the best pieces for you to convert so we've set that up and broken it out into multiple phases so you can set these in modules similar to your newly developed space in a 15 to 20 year set to give you Cycles so that you are not doing projects that are so big that they're disruptive to the feeling but

not so small that you're constantly under construction we also mapped out through the historic areas in the dark green and the pale dashes we have a lot of turf grass ways and pathways some of these are Level enough and wide enough but they could receive new grades others we felt it's aesthetically and connectivity connectively important to retain them so in the light gray we sort of mapped those out

others have drainage issues or encroachments that could be modified slightly or are too narrow with some of the large trees where cremation Graves with flush markers might be a way to utilize that space to help most of the field but also give people options in the historic area and maintain the function relative to that circulation we've also looked at all of the signage and mapped

out where all of these little paths and roads have names only some of them have signs saying where that is so if you're looking for your family it may be a matter of upgrading those signs we may be also to tie into some of your the online resources you already have and put out data markers or small numbers to help people Orient and find where they are in the cemetery because

it can be a bit of a mix

of the floor at this size and this amount of green it's a significant open space now with that we've Quantified out what we thought the most likely Graves were and this is a full quantity um this is not an intentional design at this level that'll come into the next meeting when we start to look at here's everything you could possibly do now narrow it down to the things you really

want to do the things that are most cost effective and the things that are most fulfilling to the community the most useful for you that includes what are the possibilities for redevelopment in the two wooded areas and looking at their relationship between the more heavily wooded historic sections curves wider spacing smaller groups of graves the other bookend is that forested area

and between a certainly open planes of dense mid-century Graves was necessary at that time sort of Pat things in but as we're slowing and we're finding the numbers we sort of tracked not just this Cemetery but the cemeteries regionally to say where you are relative to what burial pressures may be sort of frame some of those numbers and make good decisions but balancing historic and modern Trends

they're a push for greener burials for more trees so some of those things we'll be looking at so our this gives space at a level it'll be optional to retain the trees that are there and plants into them with green burial Graves their Pathways allow you the options for natural burial grapes which can open up options for people of different faiths when there are reasons for a quick burial

natural burial but is not necessarily a conservation piece and balance those two but that's one of those options that's going to go into many of the examples you find in the packet doing the online interface and the public meetings get people's feel about how much of that is right for your community culturally

this is one of those points where it becomes important that you're able to work in chunks of data especially for Chris you're starting to have to manage these things but this looks at the set from your daily tree inventory and it's a great inventory but it doesn't necessarily specify how to change things and make them work for you so this combines in one of those red things that have problems or need to

come out or be pruned more aggressively um and the harder to read but even green spacing out in the graves that you have now that are in the lawn it was very difficult to go in and have trees in between those because they were still in active variables now as we move away from that and these start to slow down you end up with options in the margins between Graves for tree burial Graves so you

Graves that support and fund a tree but for people who are like you know what I would like a family tree get four or five cremations into that that's one of the ways you can do the Arboretum but you can simply plant them this includes looking at spaces where views need to should be improved looking at the big back of a building or areas that are out into housing

spaces off and what we might be able to do in and around the buffers that you have where your nodes and potential Gathering spaces could or should be relative to those new Graves sort of got everything on the table decisions

that's all of the sort of data layers to it but um if you take those up for a moment and provide things in online format we have a lot of questions in there that we want directly from you a lot of examples from other cemeteries and projects of ours where we're moving things into some of those and questions about how you might do your roadway fills some examples of what those might look like and how they

function um looking at different forms of communal grave spaces and options that make those work where and how we should fit those into the landscape

and the question is do you want me to sort of walk for the community through those analysis questions or is this something we should leave with the board to review and provide answers and then we can hosted to format for public generation Outreach where we've got more people um how do you guys feel how do you feel do you want them to just leave this with this one out yes the review and then

so the goal here is to you know tonight give an initial overview of the data we've collected there is some feedback that we do need to gather from the board some direction and then from that point doing the community engagement so this will be a pretty thorough and not a very quick process we want to get this right we want to lay down the road map for you know where the cemetery is

going so I think there's three main goals in completing this master plan the first is making sure we have adequate burial space to accommodate future burials the second is to respect the history of the cemetery and the third is to make sure that we can maintain it and that includes increasing our Perpetual care funds and the only way we're going to do that is by keeping Oak Grove Cemetery open

um we've seen here locally what happens when cemeteries go inactive and how difficult they are to maintain other communities are facing the same problems and we want to avoid that for as long as possible with Oak Grove hopefully long after each of us are gone at that point um because I think there's a lot of opportunity here to to keep okra open for for Generations so I'll add a couple of questions

so uh knowing that we have three homicide pox is Oak Grove considered Homestead or no no all right because I'm just saying is like when we're like taking out roads to put in I don't wanna it's important to understand too that that's not a New Concept and not one unique to us so Oak Grove um everybody knows or most people know that it was designed after Mount Auburn and Forest Hills in Boston both of those

cemeteries are doing these exact same things if you walk through uh Forest Hills with their director um what they're doing is they're selling historic infill graves in the vacant spaces that were left in the historic parts of the cemetery and they're doing them at you know costs that we will never be able to sell our Graves for but that is how they're sustaining that cemetery is by selling in these historic sections

um because they're unique you can't find this in the cemeteries in Fall River or many of the surrounding communities so we have something unique to offer to families who are looking for something uh much different than what's out there the other question I had too is uh what we said about the input and that we're also going to be reaching out to the historical commission and also uh

friends of Oak Grove yes the next the next step would to have would be to have a public hearing um both uh sit down with the community to solicit their feedback but as Casey Lee also said doing walks through the cemetery um say to you know show what we're thinking but also get feedback from the community this isn't a process where you know Casey Lee draws up the idea and we just run with it it's

this is the you know the process we've gone through so far is the ground layer well again all of the data all of the different options and then kind of working with the community working with this board to kind of identify with what makes sense for the history of the cemetery the culture of the city and and where we want to go as a group all right so you guys want to just take time to

review this and then come back to us with the digital package that you'll receive that comes along with this um there are also some digital files that tie this into there is a website up in draft form that's not public yet but it'll include a survey and we'll look to you for some of the questions that come out of that as well as meetings with the key stakeholders group from historic and

friends about Grove to fill that out and disseminate it as well as draw their friends family neighbors into the events and or can you make this less of a maps are heavy for people who aren't spending a lot of time reading Maps some googlers files that will bring you writing to a photo inside the space where we can put some notes to it to make a tie between the feeling that's

the real thing so I think in your package there are specific questions that Casey Lee is looking to get answers on again that could be done tonight you can take it home shoot us an email um and we can make that part of you know the public record as far as the the master plan is concerned um so that way the community can see you know at least the board's feedback

before we move on to the next the next process I think it's important that we have some sort of Direction uh before we move forward with anything else well we definitely have to think of yeah we did the expansion so that could last us 15 to 20 years we definitely got to come up with some kind of ideas to for the next 50 years that's the only city cemetery right there ain't no other space anywhere else

so yeah there's only really in our study we found that it's all uh denominational so there are spaces available and they should buy our projections have space available at about the same rate for maybe 200 years before they have to also make conversions in the type of burials they have yours we can go a lot longer if you're willing to make some of those changes and what burial means is changing now and has changed

started cremation was a much smaller piece of pie and that's slowly growing that gives you options to carry for hundreds of years we've certainly got given the right type of development uh excuse me to 500 years worth of aerial space available it's a matter of peacefully layering it in any other questions have any questions if you have any questions about veteran stuff commissioner ego I know this is a big

topic on you how do you feel what they don't take the money from these Graves I know where I stand on that I do a specific questions is there anything specific you need tonight together a lot of water from there everything worth yes yes and then give us a perspective from the board so we've got that to pair up with respect perspective historic friends and then we'll inform those

questions when they come because we have staff ranging from the Civil and Structural Engineers to some of our our Master Landscape Architects are from Mount Auburn so if you walk the ASA gray Gardens that's us but my focus actually is more the municipal end in how can I make this functional and affordable for communities who don't have those and we have two other Commissioners that

are not here tonight so we'll have to get their opinions too so my suggest questions possibly together possibly individually with Chris to answer any of those questions set up whatever kind of time is convenient for you if you have any questions for them Chris can refer the information back numbers yes reach out to each one of us yeah we want to we want to keep this moving um we we have a lot of momentum with the

data Gathering the next steps are are the feedback and that's an important step so thank you all right thank you

we have a Commissioners and flowers I just wanna a couple things I've noticed a couple people here today uh I just want to say thank you on behalf of the pop board and the citizen of Fall River I see Mr Mancini Miss Dennis and commissioner Faris who serves on the CPC I just seen you meet him the other night thank you so much for granting us the other extra 55 000 to get Maplewood lights done appreciate

that the kids are going to enjoy that thank you awesome

um Richie Lambert Richard Cemetery episode are you sure foreign

we're just going to have a moment of silence for our Miss Richard Lambert I best I guess he was a city uh former city employee we just have a moment assignments for him

I want to wish everybody a happy healthy New Year is anybody else have anything else before the popcorn no do I have a motion to adjourn to adjourn Mr Rio made the most effective by second is all in favor say aye