2.10.2022 Community Preservation Committee

18 and four river on the following websites foreign government tv wwf rgtv facebook that's www.facebook.com and you can live stream it too in case of meeting conflict you can view it on channel nine uh it's thursday february 10 2022 6 p.m uh pursuant to any soon to the open meeting laws any person who make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transformation containers are therefore advised that

such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible um can we start with roll call uh we'll start uh vicar vic here you okay alex silvia here john ferreira yeah paul machado yeah carolyn auburn here richard colton here thank you uh miss oliveira here and let's see okay we're missing uh jason burns from

uh housing tonight so in attendance at the uh uh virtual uh meeting is john brandt victor ferris alex silvia richard calden john ferreira chris oliveira paul machado and carolyn alban citizen input i know we have a letter that came in alex do you want to uh read that letter yeah i can just one second let me get it okay

um okay so the following was a letter submitted by the non-profit green futures it was submitted i believe by their president tim bennett um it's a little long so i'll just read through it uh it starts with a quote by e.o wilson i will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless to be learned and cherished and never to be surrendered without a struggle dear cpa committee the trustees the

oldest land trusts in the u.s owned some gorgeous historic homes estates museums farms beaches and parks the only land parcel they own specifically to protect native biodiversity and dedicated in 2002 as a buyer reserve is the southeastern massachusetts fire reserve according to their last annual report they have total assets exceeding 300 million dollars we oppose their request for 45 000 from the cpa

their ill-conceived plan to remove all rocks and roots cut select trees and brush excavate down to mineral soil permanently altering the forested land that the massachusetts natural heritage and endangered species program has listed as massachusetts priority habitat for rare species is appalling there are dozens of miles of trail already accessible to mobility impaired children and adults

obviously this is the wrong location for what the trustees say they want to do why have a foul nature experience when you can have a real one a real one on already existing trails in the bio reserve dozens of miles of existing trails fire lanes and old wood roads in the bao reserve are ideal for exploration and perfect for nature study and play and open to people of all ages and abilities

if the trustees truly wanted to give the mobility impaired full access to these trails and unique habitat areas a true forest experience the trails are already there and waiting we suggest the trustees put their money toward acquiring a small fleet of adaptively equipped all-terrain wheelchairs and all-terrain slash off-road strollers instead of further forced fragmentation and biodestruction all for a fake forest

experience give everyone the real thing we could support that the community preservation act passed in fall river with support and law being by us and others but mostly due to the independence campaigning day and night fortunately it passed on election night november 6 2012.

cpa has funded many wonderful projects over the years this one from the trustees should not be one of them a wealthy statewide land trust shouldn't be requesting cpa funds that come out of the pockets of fall river's residents if their plan is such a good idea let them pay for it it is so important to save our intact forests and restore remnant forest parcels keeping and restoring unfragmented

forests is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to address the impacts of global warming and climate change intact forests absorb and sequester carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and regulate water runoff during heavy weather events such complete forests also provide resilient habitats for climate sensitive native plant and animal species allowing migration routes uh should global warming temperatures

continue to rise most of the bar reserves biodiversity is found below ground and that's what the trustees want to rip out and discard along with the rocks and routes in the shockley trail finally the southeastern massachusetts fire reserve also protects the public water supply for fall river and some surrounding towns with scant direction from an adult most small children instinctively know how to

play in the woods we've taken many including some with serious mobility issues to experience the woods as we find them depending on the season we've observed salamander migrating to vernal pools in early spring to lay their eggs caught frogs by hand to study them up close and then let them go watch turtles lay their eggs in june climbed to the top of bellrock and other granite outcroppings in the forest

smelled summer wildflowers made fairy houses of loose bark sticks colorful stones bits of moss found feathers pine cones jumped on puffballs to see the smoke played poo sticks and brooks and at stream crossings etc kids don't need adults to tell them how to play it is a shame many of us forget that curiosity and wonder for the natural world that we once had before we became adults

the trustees have done the wrong thing before their damaging trail idea may be an attempt to mollify some here in the city who are still angry and upset that the trustees promised a fire reserve education center that has not yet been built back in 2000 we were there when the fire reserve was being created at that time the trustees coming on board as a fire reserve partner promised to

construct a southeastern massachusetts bar reserve environmental education center to educate on and interpret the fire reserve's biodiversity the announcement of the bar reserves creation in the fall river herald stated under the plan the trustees of the reservation sick the oldest land trust in the country according to durhan would establish an environmental education center end quote

they even hired an environmental educator for the facility who did some amazing things out in the fire reserve educating inner city school children and adults with scant help from the trustees and no physical structure they fired him a few years ago in the beginning the trustees opened an office at 57 north main street fall river they were going to bring nature and environmental education to farmers economically

depressed and educationally deficient they first needed money there was no cpa at that time they attempted to find old money in the city and organize meet and greets one sparsely attended at the quickest shane club was intended to explain the benefits of membership in the trustees to city professionals and to explain their plans for the bar reserve and promise education center basic membership in the trustees today

is 50 for an injured individual and it wasn't much lower 20 years ago well the trustees didn't find any old money and recruited few new members they closed their fall river office and fled to the toner suburbs of westport and dartmouth the bioreserve languages waiting for its education center to interpret the wonders it contains the trail they wish to alter in the bar reserve is part of the last large mostly

intact forest in bristol county and because of its large size haunted species of flora and fauna disappearing from most other areas of heavily populated and developed bristol county do no harm don't be snookered thank you tim bennett president of green teachers thank you alex that was a long letter um okay uh any i don't think there's any more citizen input okay we'll move on to approval of the

minutes meetings uh february 3rd 2022 can i have a motion for approval i'll make a motion to approve the minutes from february 3rd 2022.

okay uh roll call vote uh vic uh yes i wasn't here though okay uh alex yes richard carlton yes john ferreira yes chris oliveira yes paul machado yes uh carolyn auburn yes and john brett yes okay minutes passed now we're moving on to the funding hearing and public private projects uh first one on the agenda is uh father kelly parks polls and lights uh that's uh recreation four hundred 000 applicants john hackett

and that's location is south main street and globe street uh tell us a little about your project john good evening uh my name is jack hackett i i am the director of the former scholarship softball league uh for the last 54 years we submitted a grant application to the cpc looking for some help financially with upgrading our lighting system to metal poles and erecting netting in the right field

area to prevent neighborhood property damages it is very important that field writing be of the highest quality for safety and this we do not have now at father kelly softball field i believe that outdoor recreation activities and events should be an important part of the city of florida we need help in getting financial support for these two projects i would just like to leave you with the thought

that young boys and girls in the past take special boys in the past present and future when they are introduced to playing recreational sports they go to the game of baseball and they start off with t-ball little league and other leagues that are formed in the city the last few years i know we have lost the cyo league with uh father mack passing away and i don't think we have this the

sunday uh the pony league anymore so many of the oddball players that play for the high school team or they will play for legion and usually at the age of 18 or 19 these baseball leagues and this area are all done so where do the players go they go into the salt wall league over the years each season we bring in 34 or 35 teams we are the biggest softball area uh city in the area

bringing in eight to a thousand players each year i would like to leave you with this thought that we have had ten players who were put in this from this area who have played minor league and made to be major league baseball teams five of those players when their career ended did play softball at the jack hackers softball field i will nearly name them quickly greg gagne out of somerset shortstop for the

minnesota twins won two-wheel series we had mark baumbach jeffy high school all-star baseball player pitch for the new york mets and one season he had 10 victories and two of those were against a big cincinnati red machine with pete rose johnny bench and joe morgan what a feat for mark and then we had al gleberl on the west part our liberal junior out of westport who pitched for the father of the marlins

and then we had the great baseball player out of jeffrey high school doug cavall who played a couple years in the chicago cubs minor league system and then the last player was peter corey who was in the new york yankee system also dougie who played in the league ended up officiating so it does go to a show that softball in the city of fall river is great and it's a place where the players have activity exercise

camaraderie make friends and many of them we have every occupation with those players they pick up side jobs i had to have a plumbing job one of the players was a plumber came up did the job fair price so i believe that there is a place for softball definitely in the city of four river and in order for the league to continue with its future goals we do need some help financially so i want to thank

the committee for giving us the opportunity to submit an application and i hope that you are favorably looking to help us i believe the blue books we answered all of the application grant applications questions that were requested and i think i want to especially thank my wife for putting those books together and the rest of my committee who worked on them i just want to say that we are not grant people we are just

plain people citizens of florida trying to bring up bring pride to the city and i think with those books and the information in them we deserve some help and i look at back at uh mayor paul coogan in his election re-election campaign on one of his cards he had stated if we have something in the city of fall river that brings pride don't knock it down build it up i thought that was a great statement by

the mayor and our salt barley has brought pride to this city so please consider giving us some financial help it would be greatly appreciated thank you once again for your time have a good night i see you were signed off by the park department and you got three quotes now all the light bulbs are 25-year guaranteed so maintenance is great from the lighting companies that we contacted it's a 25-year

light bulb right now a regular light bulb that we deal with usually lasts about two years and it costs us to lead ninety dollars uh above we pay the electricity ourselves from two to three thousand during the season we actually take care of the whole field we uh raise funds to uh bring in the landscape on buy the clay uh put up the fence guard paint the benches i brought in this we're on our

dirty electric scoreboard right now so we do work hard to keep it up and i think if anyone's ride by the park and look at it they can see that as well taken care of we have our corporate signs we have a tractor we drag the field we work on the field every morning getting it ready for the night games any other questions uh how long does your season run and uh

well this season goes from we will start in april practicing and we'll open up in may and we play to almost just before thanksgiving our night league will go into october and then i have of course a sunday morning lead and then we have our four league which we start september on the fall we play just on saturdays and as i said we i usually run two tournaments and i would say from 800 to 12 000

players step on that field during the season and i believe you know if you read our endorsements and the feelings from those players who had participated you can see they they really enjoyed it and our endorsements they feel that we deserve some help i'm going to open up for questions for the board raise your hand and i'll call your name if you have any questions richard go ahead

my only uh question one of my questions is um besides the the male league is there any women in children league that participate in the field as well uh in the past we had uh co-ed league boys you know many many bills i've had a woman league there i've had a senior league guys over 40 so we've had all types of leagues there of course uh you know the women they get

older and they have families and that kind of faded out a little bit uh co-ed was big at one time as i said uh last year i had 33 teams now if you look at the uh somerset league and the tiffany league softball league they have about six or seven teams so we are the biggest uh softball league in the city and we as i said 2022 would be our 59th season that's tremendous yes

john go ahead i just want to make a comment um well i personally played there and jack knows about 40 years ago 35 40 years ago um and and at any morning you drive by there you can see jack and his wife and jack's getting up there in age and you could see him and his wife um he's sitting there working the fields breaking the fields uh got the tractors out i mean they work

hard he's been there like you said 50-something years and a true dedication every every day he's there rain or shine they're both there and i play for them obviously i've got a soft spot for softball being the varsity softball coach at durfee um and i just i i just wanted to commend jack for all his hard work i know that we had something similar to this for maplewood uh so i'm sure we'll take

everything into consideration but i just want to personally thank jack for his efforts and i would like to i would like to thank you john uh you and i go way back john did play in the league and john could shoot the ball and he was an outstanding sportsman on the field and off the field and i've officiated many of his high school games so thanks again john is it go ahead

i just have one question so um now how many poles are you replacing and how many you put them back now right now at the field first of all there was eight pulls and in the year 220 which is unusual that nobody did got hurt a poll fell down in the month of april because of the win and the poll has never been replaced but that day it fell down good thing it was raining

because i would have had two teams out there practicing somebody possibly could have got hit so now we have seven poles up but the inspector has been down and if you did look in the book you'll see that he might fall the polls that have rotted and have to come down and attending the park board meeting one of the park board members mentioned that there were 66 polls in the city of fall river that are rotted

so they they've got a problem there so so i hope i answered that for you she did any other questions uh alex go ahead hi uh i just want to say a great job on the application uh definitely a lot of thought and effort went into it i really liked the letters of support too as you said it kind of shows the the meaning that the park and the field has in the

community uh one question i had from the application i saw that it listed the department of community maintenance will be doing the maintenance of the light poles i know in your application it said that you were doing the delete was doing a lot of the maintenance for the light poles so is that a new agreement with the park board where they're going to sort of take on that or are you going to

be doing the same kind of duties for maintenance that you do with the new polls if you got them okay alex uh seven years ago the the park board switched the lighting bill to the leagues which of course upstanchi fees for the team for the teams as i said on a full season we would go between two to three thousand and the league pays for it the electrician that works for the city

is brian bishop and brian bishop played in our league many years and he is a friend of mine and if we have a problem with the bulbs and out we bring him in we have to pay for the maintenance we have continued to do that with the new new polls if we do get them we do expect to do our share and pay for the electricity now i understand when cliff points was

chairman of the city council they did bring up about the writings the fields that have lightings little league and so forth that the city should take over doing that because these players most of them involve the taxpayers and that was put on hold but i know when i read the resolution they did not have the softball field in there but i i feel we should do our part so i know it hurts but the teams are

they do come up with their money so alex uh we would continue to do what we could to do our share with the maintenance of the rights and so forth any other questions well thank you mr hackett we'll uh we'll let you know later on okay whatever happens i want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to go in front of you and express our concerns thank you very much thank you

all right next is uh central fire station exterior restoration of north facet uh historical it's 644 474.

uh tammy's here from the uh project mate manager facilities maintenance uh that's on bedford street uh tammy would you like to tell us about this project i actually have mike kane here who's helping me out with this project so he's gonna do just about all the talking for us because sounds good just understands it and can explain it okay good evening everyone how are you all um i have a request would it be possible to

share my screen at all or gain access as a host to show photos or is that not how else can you do that okay

okay looks like it works everyone can see the bedford street elevation

can everyone see it on this screen okay i can see it yeah okay yeah so just to sort of walk everyone through the scope of work um that we were proposing on behalf of the city again this is the 1931 bedford street or central fire station and what we've been asked to do is to look at the bedford street facade and restoring it we did take a look at some of the other elevations

the troy street side we felt that bedford street was the most in need of restoration so the scope is essentially the same as what we had talked about during the eligibility round and what i could do is just sort of go through that a bit um if you don't mind but what we're looking to do is restore the original brick masonry to clean the masonry and to repoint the masonry

there's also quite a bit of work that needs to be done with the cornice which as we talked about before it may not be readily visible to most people at the ground level but we did do a drone survey uh last year and was able to sort of get a bunch of aerial shots of the building and just sort of zoom in on it for you but you can see that there's quite a bit of disintegration

and deterioration of the stone that's at the cornice and so um that's quite a bit concerning for us in terms of this being you know fronting on the public way um and also there's um again i don't know how well you can see it but there's quite a bit of cracking that's occurring at the brisk masonry joints uh through the brick which is which means essentially that this movement going on in that wall

as you can see too there's a lot of open joints in the masonry and also the stone work what we're seeing too is we can actually see it our offices on the opposite side of this building and we can see that there is some mortar and deterioration occurring on the roof side now that was a roof that was replaced just a few years ago so there would be some concern there too

with damaging the new roof that was um recently completed so our work that we're proposing is to completely you know re-point and restore the brick masonry on the bedford street side we are looking at also replacing the existing windows which have deteriorated uh substantially as well they're not up to code they don't meet energy compliance either uh they are not original to the building um in fact i

don't believe they're even glass i think they're plastic so we'd be looking to remove those and install new windows which would be sensitive to the original configuration of the um of the building based on historic photos that we'll be looking at the metal panels as well have deteriorated quite a bit and we're looking at trying to restore those versus removing and replacing them with

something different so we think we can do it we've talked to a couple of people um so we do think that that's possible the lighting as well uh as you can see is sort of in different stages of deterioration we're looking at restoring the lighting replacing the overhead doors with again something that is uh you know similar to the original configuration of the doors that would have been there at the apparatus phase

one thing we talked about last time when we got together is uh there is no air conditioning central air conditioning for this building and right now what they're using are you know sort of these through window residential type air conditioners so what we're concerned about is that once the work were to be done that these residential type air conditioners would be going back into the windows and

leaking onto the newly restored metal panels which will eventually lead to rust so what we're proposing is to install some mini splits ductus cooling units on the roof eventually there are small units they're not they don't weigh quite a bit uh there's just some simple piping that would need to be run up to those those units so we wouldn't be doing many penetrations in the roof and

the penetration that we would be doing would be small in nature so that i want to say is the technical scope of the project if i could maybe just show you a couple of photos that we took so this is what i was talking about earlier is you know some of that deterioration that's happening and that damage that's going on to the newly restored roof which is which is a concern

and some close-up shots too that we took with our drone where you can see some of the damage that's occurring just above the cornice and areas which are are completely open to the elements it continues along troy street but i think we just need to figure out a place to stop so we're looking at you know approximately this area here of stopping the work and again some detailed shots of

the rust that's occurring at the metal panels

and the windows too that we're looking to replace so that's essentially the scope that we're proposing so i don't know if there are any questions on his just

just short clip for you to see

so that's essentially the clip i don't know if anyone has any questions on the scope this subtle just runs in a loop so now the 644 the front is just being taken care of this time is that right i'm sorry john said what the the 644 you're just taking care of the front part of bedford street right now right right that's that's all we would be looking to do so and again this is um

because it's it's one of those city-owned buildings we need to go out to public bid uh on this um so it's a prevailing wage project so um so yeah the the requirements are a bit different so um but yeah this would be just for the bedford street facade only and then the windows and the garage doors will meet the secretary standards we um we started to go back and look at

the photos of the building you know shortly after it was constructed so that is the data that we have to go by um you know as far as the configuration and you know certainly as we go through it we can review it with the cpc and the historical commission as well

see i'll open it up the questions for the board uh raise your hand uh richard go ahead all right i got a few questions for the city um in the application it says the design fee is 50 750 is is that correct that's correct okay um but then in the uh first cv tags it says the architectural designing fees okay um my question is is that so cv texan forgive me if i'm pronouncing the

name of the company wrong so you guys were selected already that's the architectural firm for this project well let me uh go back and look at that i don't have our fee in front of us

um i'm looking for it pardon me so you have another question too while i'm looking for this i'll wait

uh our fee is twenty eight thousand seven fifty twenty eight thousand seven okay so our proposal so is it just a proposal but you guys haven't you guys don't have a contract yet with the city correct no we don't have a contract so this is a proposal that was dated august 24th of last year okay um so my follow-up question assistance you guys don't have the award yet um will the pricing remain the same

as far as the fees for our contract correct yes that doesn't change okay all right um the other question is

so within is your name is michael correct yes he texts okay it says he said i strongly recommend that the owner obtained an environmental engineer consulted to sample and test the existing windows including the caulking tool assertion to the presence of the hazardous material prior to the completion of by design is that included on here as well or not no we that's typically a third party

that would do that we don't uh our office is strictly an architectural firm so uh good question we don't sample and we don't test for hazardous materials that is something that typically uh the client in this case the city would need to have their environmental engineer sample anything that would be affected so it could be any flashing mastic any caulking around the windows so we don't have any data on that at the

moment so um and there's been no sampling or testing that i'm aware of okay so so the city does the city does have personnel to to cover this or they will have to they typically contract it out yeah okay so would that be include well it can't be included if you're going out for construction in a 149 project correct it'll be a separate contract right so so we so so we

okay um we do a lot of publicly bid work throughout the commonwealth so what we did is we in our um this if you look at this summary okay so we have um an allowance of eight thousand dollars in there for uh for abatement work and that's just strictly for uh you know for removal and disposal of anything which could be considered or is considered hazardous so at the moment i

don't know what that scope is that's something that the city would have to have you know they they have a couple of environmental engineers that they typically go out to and they would have to come out and sample but right now to have somebody come out and do that when um again the scope is not completely defined in other words we right so we're estimating just based on on projects that we do

uh that are similar in scope that are publicly bid that we would anticipate about eight thousand dollars for abatement so so that could be lower could be slightly higher um but that's what we would estimate okay so and just for clarification um so i'm in your first page here in the design for allowance so for architectural which is you guys is the 28 750 yep the structural the 6000

and then the mechanical hvsc design is 8 000 pre-designed sampling and testing that's three thousand and aftermath design and construction specs and monitoring that's five thousand so not not so if you remove the architectural the rest of the design who's who's gonna do perform that work not us it won't be us we're not a structural engineering company i don't i don't know uh necessarily that we will

need structural but it's an any all of those line items that say allowance uh it's basically a placeholder that we're assuming could be a cost so it's not fully defined usually we have a better sense of what the scope is when we actually start the work so we're not anticipating that there's any substantial structural work but we do have a line item allowance in there in case we do need it

okay but it wouldn't be performed by us okay now does this does the city have um any vendor that they work with so as an example so if you get if you commence the work um obviously you want to make sure that you know these guys are the vendor is also available as well to to perform this work as well tammy i don't know if you want to structural engineers is that what he's talking about yeah

mechanical enhancement does the city have any vendors that they currently work with that they've maybe discussed this project and just yeah we have we have several that we work with throughout a lot of projects so we have a good selection of okay have has the city talked to any of them about this specific project and the only reason i'm asked is just everything is timing right so you know once this project comes

obviously there's a certain amount of time that this this work has to be done um you know per per the contract as you know michael um so i'm just trying to figure out you know will this be any kind of delay has there any been discussions i mean no i don't foresee a problem with you know obtaining one of the several that we utilize okay yeah i think i think we can um

we're pretty confident that you know whoever does get selected uh to do that scope of work that you know it'll be completed within you know the overall time frame that we have so um now the mechanical just going back to that we are we're proposing a certain type of system right uh which is a mini split ductless cooling units right which are just those you know cassettes well they're wall mounted units within

the space right and then it just gets piped to the roof uh with some small condensers on sleepers on the roof it's a very simple effective way that we've done before uh not us but with our mechanical you know engineering consultant so um so the cost the line item costs for that we based it off of um what we would estimate our designer's fee to be right uh and also what the

cost of installation would be based on similar projects that we've done that are publicly bid so this data that we've gone back to um you know to sort of get that information the reason why uh i would say it's not a hard number is because again we're not a mechanical engineer and when the engineer does come on board they may say you know mike that was the that was a good idea but we would

propose doing something maybe a more centralized system to cover all those spaces i don't know so um but if we did go the route of what we're proposing um based on the numbers that we're seeing right the construction numbers that we're seeing i think we've got a comfortable number uh in there so we do have a contingency in there too and i know you guys have started to require that in the last maybe a couple

of years or so um construction costs and i've said it again you know before i'll say it again uh now are all over the map and they continue to be that case um we we we do have two or three different professional uh cost estimators they're independent cost estimators that we work with uh on a lot of times so um actually for all of our publicly built projects so we're pulling data that

they're giving us we're pulling data that we're seeing uh that's happening right now in the field but i could i got to tell you on all of these jobs whether it's cpa projects that we're involved in or not the numbers are all over the map uh and i'm not seeing that there's any sort of relief to that so just be aware of that with all the applications that you guys see that come before you not

just the ones that you know civitex is presenting right correct um and tammy just a question for you just more curiosity does the city um plan to do any other type of work in in the fire station uh yeah inside uh in this area we're looking at doing some upgrading right now i'm working on uh painting we just did some lead testing in there so i'm gonna start painting some rooms on the second floor

which is where all you know everybody um sleeps and eats uh we did just upgrade some lighting in there i believe and as far as that right now we're just oh the garage doors the overhead doors that's definitely uh in the plan in my capital plan okay so the city does have a capital improvement plan yes okay that's all i got for now gentlemen thank you thank you tammy you're welcome thank you

there was one question uh on the ac units i don't know if that'll be able to uh be included i can check with the state level but uh not being historic i don't know if they'll let us put that in there uh it's something i can check out but um that that could the city come in on that end tammy and take care of the ac probably i don't see why not we could definitely uh

we could definitely look into that i don't know i don't foresee a problem with that not for that amount i mean i do see the benefit of it uh having that units put instead of putting in many many air conditioners in every window um okay all right since there are many splits that does you know save a lot yeah it costs john it might it might actually qualify for under historic preservation just

because it helps to preserve the building in different ways by by having those types of units rather than the window so there is a way that it it may be able to um yeah i mean on the off chance that it can't it's good to know if the city will cover but i do think it might still actually be able to qualify under that well i was thinking it's always been a a firehouse and uh

we did we put avax in the uh children's museum to preserve the building so right i think it could fall on those lines right i i would say too that these um any sort of rooftop condensers that that we're discussing or i'm discussing would i do really don't think they'd be visible from the street level so you know if anyone has any concerns too about views from the public view

and we can diagram that out to see what the views are and how far away you might see see it but i really you know that they're only you know a couple of feet you know tall um so they're not not very large uh john you had a question i've got a couple okay one is uh michael now what do they have for heat in there because i know the mini splits are heat and ac correct

yeah good question i think they're i think they're still radiators there if it's steam um you know so i'm not overly familiar with the building we've only been in you know uh a couple of times but uh i want to say that there's still steam radiators in there but i'd have to check to answer your question so so the the mini splits in essence if there was an issue with the uh with

the heating system that's presently in the building that would have said alleviate the heat that way as well yeah i believe that when you've got a parapet wall in the front there that that would cover any of these little condensers that go up there right right that would probably my only concern is on these on on that cornice if you look at every joint on that cornice it there's this seepage from behind yeah and

you know that's the extent of the damage to me uh is more alarming because you know the water gets if the water's getting behind if you know a freezing thor you know that thing's just going to keep uh working its way uh i'll right away we also had some settling out there as you stated there's some cracks uh over the first ellen fall river on the second halo river you had a serious crack there

which is showing that something is is giving away yeah so i don't and so so for that reason we put an allowance in there for a structural engineer and it could be that we might need to do some uh helical ties back you know um back into the you know further into the masonry um we might need to cut in some expansion joints where the that large crack is that you're referring to you

know above the cornice so we might need to cut in some some new expansion joints because you're right there's definitely some movement there so so for that reason we put in you know an allowance for a structural engineer to potentially look at at the project too so we're trying to cover all all the bases and and make sure that you know we are covered so um the only way to really

find out is to get up on the lift you know once you get started and really get into it and maybe even do some uh what we call destructive investigation right some exploratory investigation and by that i mean get up on a lift actually take out you know a few sections of brook masonry units to see if we can look in behind that wall to see what's going on but there's definitely some moisture that's getting

in behind there and you can you can see that yeah again on your video every joint on that cornice uh you see your source water stains underneath it i mean yeah it's not like sporadic it's it's it was right across the board the whole thing it's a whole thing now i don't know if some of that goes back to before they replaced the roof and they you know they they you know the membrane that went up

and i thought of that too because right right so it could be that with the roof replacement maybe it alleviated some of that the damage has already been done at that point um but there's still you know there's there are still you can see it with that mastic and again that goes back to the hazmat testing there's some mastic on the those horizontal joints at the at the caps exactly so so you know so there's

definitely somebody somebody saw some moisture getting in through those those cracks on the cap and dunked it over so yeah i saw that as well yeah all right that was just my concerns i'm just uh hum you know i thought of the same thing because that that roof is right at the base of the purple wall with the glasses on the other side so if it was leaking it could have leaked through and in

or is it leaking through the top of the cap of that or you know and i didn't see the cap over on the left there's two points there that they kept up um all right i'm all set thank you anyone else the question richard uh my question for you is there is there going to be file sub-bidding uh maybe not okay that may not be yeah because because we're under the 25 yeah

we're under the 25 000 so i would expect would be under 25 000.

well let me take that back i keep we're talking about hvac and all these other things so uh we will have filed subs for masonry sorry uh but not necessarily for electrical or mechanical uh i think those are going to be under the threshold for requiring uh filed sub-bids but they would be for masonry um right so that you will carry the rest and it's just amazing yeah yeah so it's

whether or not you know we put this out to bid um with and this is all open for discussion i i don't quite know exactly we we sort of strategize with the client in this case the city in terms of trying to figure out the best way forward so um in some cases if it's a small project you know we might have the mason as the general contractor with this has multiple trades we will i'm expecting

when i have a general contractor and a mason as a filed sub um you know i wouldn't necessarily i'm not sure if i would have a mason do all of these other trades you know typically that would be something to have a general contract right right so ecam certification requirement camp certification for masonry yep and d came certification for the gc so good questions i love your questions

i'm in public service that's why i'm so there you go i kind of wondered

so i'm just you know asking all the questions that again i i do it for a living i said it in the last meeting just making sure you're just just crossing everything just thinking no absolutely i appreciate that you know i always i love it i you know the more eyes the better i'm i'm good with that so but yeah i appreciate your your comments they're all good by the way everyone i appreciate it thank you

can we just revisit the um heating system it's steam at central fire tammy let me help you we were asked he was asking about uh what kind of heating system we had in there and it's steam i just asked our it is steam yeah that's that's what i thought it doesn't mean that we couldn't you know when you um bring in a mechanical engineer um you know that we could we could have

them take a look at that right i don't want to have this scope morph into something you know different right um but i think it certainly warrants um you know to john's point having uh having the mechanical engineer take a look at that and maybe suggest that the the mini splits be um not just cooling but offer supplemental heating right so uh but that's that's that's outside of my sort of realm

i would defer to an engineer for that alex uh tammy i think i heard you mentioned that the apparatus bay doors were kind of on the horizon for the capital improvement plan um and then like i see that there's an 80 000 allowance for the bay doors and the estimate i'm just wondering if there's a difference in the apparatus bay doors if it was funded via the capital improvement plan with you tammy or with

a potential cp a money is it going to be more historic in nature bay doors are they going to be the same bay doors i'm going to assume that um the 80 000 would be just for the bedford street side and you're looking more at you know the bringing back the historic um aspect of those doors as far as um aesthetically because we've been slowly replacing all overhead doors in all the fire stations throughout the city

so we've we're on our fourth station now in the last two stations i have in my capital plan to do our central fire and stanley fire so with central uh i don't know if it if we're gonna be able to do different doors on both sides of the building um or if we're gonna have to stick to historic all around because i know what the cost of our overhead doors are for all our other

locations and they're not has you know of a historical nature one one point to that if if this is funded by cpc funds they will have to be because anything that you do to the outside is going to have to conform to secretary of interior standards so they are going to have to have a historic look to them okay so it's a historical look it's not um a particular like model i guess or manufacturer so to

say it's all about the aesthetics yeah usually um it's not like you're gonna have to put back original wooden doors or you know if they're not there now most of the time if you have something they'll ask you to refurbish what's there but they i mean they make allowances all the time for buildings when you're putting in windows and things like that they don't require you to have the original wood windows

and buildings that don't have them anymore so i mean there's a lot of options but you will have to maintain some type of a historic look and i think mike is is uh my keen is well aware of those things anyway so yeah you're absolutely right as long as the the the overhead doors the apparatus bay doors that are there now are not original which they're not um you know it you know but i would be

looking to go back to you know researching the original photos which we've already started to do um and looking at the the configuration of those doors and trying to get as close as we could to that with you know something that's that's more modern that is again weather resistant right but still in keeping with the original design intent of that building okay any paul mr kane assuming that the

cpa budget doesn't allow for the entire amount to be funded if a lesser amount were funded would progress on the restoration still be able to occur uh if that's the question for me i would say absolutely yeah um you know i uh there's there's some sections that you know i would say you should take care of asap right the masonry um you know uh if if you were to do anything with the

metal panels that sort of goes hand in hand with the hvac right so i wouldn't you know be looking to restore the those medallion or the metal panels without doing the hvac work i look at that as going hand in hand um and almost sort of with a window replacement too so i look at all three of those together um as as sort of one right you know um but yeah the masonry that that is

something that you know is definitely a need um i think the photos and the drone footage show show a lot can i piggyback off of paul's question mike so question for you and john um you can correct me if i'm wrong or this is permissible um so if that is the case right where there's certain part of the little structure that needs to happen right away would would you be

able to submit kind of like a phase one or fake you know phase two so that way to paul's um question if it was a lesser amount that way right the committee can see okay so although we can't you know we we're not you know given the complete funds you know we can do maybe phase one so i'm not i'm not sure if that can be submitted to the committee well richard

how that would work is we would uh take a vote and say we're going to fund this year masonry work and windows for 80 000 that's what they would be allowed to do um if we decided just to fund a portion right the only reason i asked john is because so when they submit this contract to the city it's a binding contract that's for all the work so is if you know that the contract is

not phase one or phase two because then phase one is one contract and phase two will be another that that's the only reason that so but i i i get it thank you and so i was just going to say when we originally talked about this with the city i think the city was uh um you know thinking that we could do bedford and troy street and i said you know there's a lot of work that

needs to be done just even on the bedford street you know and the amount of money it's going to cost to do that so let's just see what we can do and go all in on bedford street right it's it's it's highly visible to the public right you have thousands of people that are going down bedford street and and um you know going by this building um and just because the visibility point

you know we're looking at trying to take on on all of this elevation this facade any further questions all right well thank you mike and uh tammy thank you thank you thank you thank you thanks for your questions thanks uh next up is 36-56 water street window replacements and limited masonry restoration uh historic uh 137 760.

uh we have janie uh to tell us it's on uh located on water street vinnie you're up

can't hear her yeah genie we can't hear you you're muted right now

same thing happened to me last meeting it fixed when i left the meeting and came back um it said the issue was the browser was blocking uh zun's access to the microphone so i don't know if you can figure that out genie you want to sign off and then sign back in see if that works yeah um i can start it john if you if you okay that's part of your product too okay

yeah this is um so i'm on this one and the next one so um so i don't mind starting uh and so could i uh forgive me if i just want to get set up here would i be able to get or have control of the screen again sure alex can you do that okay okay so um this is for this application here is for 3656 water street which is located along the city's waterfront um

as part of a let's just grab this here

as part of a study that our office completed um i'd say about a year or so ago um we looked at a few different projects which we could potentially take on for this building and again this this study that we did um was funded through cpa money and so the first project we looked at if you recall which was not funded um was for a roof replacement project on the building and

historically this is um was originally constructed around 1845 and i'm just trying to find a certain image and it's not working so you sure that i have a host for some reason it's not letting me share the screen

okay there it is can you all see the photo on your screen now yes okay this is the structure as it originally was so this was a a third and a half story greek revival structure uh along water street and as i mentioned it started to say constructed around 1845 is what we were able to date it to and it was originally the headquarters for the metacomet bank it acted as a

storehouse shortly after that and also as offices for the american printing company which later was part of the firestone tire and rubber company and in october of 1941 there was a tremendous fire that broke out at the fire stone complex across the street and we've done quite a bit of research on that fire and let's see if i can call up some more photos for you

so this was the 1941 fire and directly in front of you is the tower that was part of the um firestone complex the building that we are looking at is on the corner here um which is uh the building in question here was decimated and brought down to a one-story structure the narrows is on the right hand side here to sort of get your your bearings and water street is is running this way in the background

right and today i can call this out

what's left of the building is just this one storage structure so what we're looking to do is to um replace the existing windows which are aluminum windows that are not original to the building with new windows which meet the original architectural design which was six over six windows and try to replicate those as best we can we've also looked at doing some minor masonry restoration work just in the

area where the window jams are and where there's some ferrous material and removing that ferrous material and restoring the brick and also doing some cleaning to the masonry it wouldn't be for complete masonry restoration it's just in the area where the windows need to be replaced but the windows that are there now are in you know various stages of deterioration um you know they're considerably old

um and they're not functioning properly so um part of this too would include any cleaning where there's been some ferrous staining or metal staining on the original sills of the building and you know as you can see with some of the conditions too um this would be some of the areas that we'll be looking to remove some of the damaged brick and replace with new that is similar to the original

and there's some areas that it's a bit more severe as well here so we'd be looking to replace some of that masonry also so it's a fairly simple scope that we're looking to do it's and it's limited to just the windows and some minor masonry work and it would include all of the windows around the perimeter of the building um and here's some more photos or a photo this paint over here

of the 1941 fire uh this is the building here that was destroyed and reduced down to a one-story building and here's the firestone complex across the street where the fire broke out originally so that's essentially the scope of work for the project i don't know if anyone has any questions it's the same scope that we had presented previously for the eligibility round so there's a total of 18 windows being replaced yes

now uh in the installation to the windows is that is that covering some masonry work too yes yeah this there is some you know money in there for for masonry but and again just to make sure everyone knows it's not for you know complete masonry restoration of the building we were just looking to do the the windows that was most in need for the building the masonry in general is in pretty good

shape uh what you saw in some of those photos is really the worst of it and it's centered mainly around where um where the windows are so um there's like i said that you know as far as the mortar joints as far as the brook masonry units it's actually in pretty good shape uh open up the questions to the board hey john john go ahead no michael the one the damage that you're talking about

looks like uh damage from the uh original brackets on the old shutters

because everything seems like you said the rest of the masonry seems to be intact but it's always just in brackets with the old shutters the original shutters right right when the mill was there yeah do you uh i apologize i had a little bit of a sort of technical difficulty here trying to get access but uh could i just show you a brief clip has anyone seen the newsreel image of this building going down or

or not um let me did there's a there's a british newsreel from 1941 um which i think is pretty pretty neat so if i just play it's less than a minute if you don't mind

from the ground

from the firefighters it represents a lot of 12 million dollars and it represents a lot of time and production which is worse seems likely to a world that is itself a plane but it still is no mean conflagration

so that that's basically i don't know if the sound came through it at all for you but um it's it's pretty impressive what happened what a decimated what's that that's amazing footage isn't it can i i'm just going to just just quickly just do something here if i could uh one sec yeah all right so so this gives you a better advantage point this is the building right so you've all driven by it now

um the water's on this side this is the firestone complex that went down as part of the fire and and this is the three and a half story structure here the narrows is right over here if you want to get your your bearings right so we did a bit of a bit of digging to try to find some of this information and there's a lot of history here as i say um

you know and with all of the the attention that's being brought to the waterfront um you know i think this is it it's one of those buildings that's worth saving whatev whatever is left of it uh richard you had a question no i was just gonna say that um jeannie i don't know if you can hear us or not but i know she was trying to get everyone's attention she was kind of flagging everyone down um

i think if you were to if you were to get out genie and go back in um it'll prompt you to say if you want to join with your audio with your computer audio so maybe that's the issue you're having i'm not sure if you can hear me on that or try this out i did you hear me now yes can you sweep we did it on our phone um

i'm sorry so if you have it on your phone mute your um your zoom because that's why it's echoing i did maybe just sign out of the computer okay okay yes uh or go in a different room i'm so sorry

all right we're gonna try that no it's still doing it i'm trying i'm hitting leave meeting we're on their

can you hear us yes perfectly okay so sorry okay would you like to add anything genie oh oh i'd like to add that i need to breathe and stop sweating right now because that is stressful yes i i would like to add something sure can you see us okay i know i think they can just hear us as long as they can you hear us okay okay very good okay

okay so um here we are again thank you so much for accepting our um application to apply um as you know we did apply for a new roof grant um on the last round last year and we were not accepted for that understandable it was a large amount and one of so many valid projects so we understand and after looking at that um in detail and and with mike keane again um we realized that

looking at why this grant would be given and the reasons that we feel are important where we are part of the city's master plan um and the waterfront everything that's happening there doing the roof would not be something that was visual to the improvements on the on the waterfront and with the historic nature so we have been working on the roof we've been repairing it little by little and we are working on

we're working with the sba slowly but surely to to get some funds to not to put on a new roof potentially but to repair it um and but we are just repairing that ourselves and looking into bids to just do a major repair not to totally replace it that being said when we spoke with mike we discussed the obvious that the windows are in dire need of repair with some masonry work and

the same as we've said before and you know that to preserve the historic nature of the building being in the cultural waterfront district and with all the future growth of the waterfront um we we hope that you will help us we have put thousands and thousands of dollars into the building with things that are not seen such as heating systems air conditioning systems new plumbing we we've just

replaced so many pipes in the the basement i mean we are constantly um making improvements to the to the property and um we do know that it is you know one of many many projects but we hope that with the letters of um support that we received we were very happy that the fall river redevelopment authority um you know mentioned that this building is located across the street from 45 yan juan

which the fall river redevelopment authority is planning to purchase and redevelop and increasing the vibrancy of this district while preserving its historic nature are important goals of the city and the fra and they believe that the cpc support to maintain the structural integrity and historic features of the water street building are a worthy investment and once again we were you know very um

pleased and appreciative to receive support from both city and state representatives as well as all of our neighbors on the waterfront um and we you know again you know us um we know you some of you better than others but you know we've been working on um and loving this building for many many years and keeping it alive and looking so forward to all the improvements on the waterfront

and we would just really appreciate your consideration and your help to get this done not to interrupt but it is one of the first buildings when you're coming down water it is one of the first major buildings that you see before you see the narrows and the uh and the uh uh building across the street on animon street which houses the uh museum so uh yeah it's it's a first seat uh for

tourists and so forth after they see the battleship so you know we really appreciate the support does any of the board members have any questions

oh alex go ahead uh i just wanted to say great job with the application um and i really appreciate the kind of pivot from last year he took our feedback i think to heart in terms of what would uh count as historic preservation and kind of showing the overall value to the community i thought the letters of support from your neighbors and everyone really kind of helped show that if

the neighborhood feels that it would be a neighborhood improvement um this being a private project i know in the past we've had some discussions about uh using this grant for uh private projects um especially just kind of based off of community feedback uh in regards to that but i was just wondering uh if you as the owners would be open to perhaps a longer deed restriction as maybe a kind of way to convey your

commitment to the city and the building uh is maybe an alternative i think traditionally we've proposed 30-year feed restrictions on historic uh preservation projects um i know other communities sometimes do longer so i was just wondering what your thoughts were on that you mean longer than 30 years yeah we won't be here probably more than i am pretty sure we won't be here um 30 years from now will we maybe well

we might be here well i think i think i think by agreeing with that it would uh it would instill uh uh the longevity of focus for the building you know uh especially for for the community that it belongs to because it does belong to the community too so um i don't see a problem with that i i don't see a problem with that and but alex i and thank you and i

understand that so no i wouldn't object to that we wouldn't object to that but i i just i did note something um and i believe i put it in the application but it does read too that in the city of fall river master plan um the proposed project addresses the following needs outlined in the city of fall river master plan preserve historic buildings and landscapes preserve and enhance natural and historic resources

preserve the city's historic architecture just what you're talking about for as long as possible develop strategies for assisting nonprofits and private owners of historic buildings in preserving their structures so the master plan does include private owners which is obviously why we were invited to apply i understand that um so you know we just hope that you will take that into consideration and you know um

we are private owners that's this is the building that we own and it's because we we love that building we love this city you know again i was born and raised i mean 1994 when i opened water street cafe and lambert said give it five years and the train is coming we've been so very patient and the train is coming and we've you know we've we've paid our jews and happily um you know but

the building is beautiful as it is um it needs help and we are asking for yours and your support um and and we are thrilled with the support letters we got and we hope that you will take that into consideration and we thank you for all you do because we know that this is something you do because you love the city so thank you for that paul you had a question i just wanted to comment and

indicate that a permanent deed restriction um is very complicated and much more expensive than the deed restrictions that we do um they have to go through state approval and the cost rises exponentially okay good to know i yeah i would have to learn more about that absolutely i don't understand the details paul but thank you any other questions all right genie thank you for uh attending tonight's meeting sorry for

all the technical difficulties stay well everybody thank you okay next up is uh madison uh number five fire station police station hay loft exterior restoration 197 300.

we have the jacobson's here tonight and that's on freedom street um before you get into this uh charles can you uh uh listen to where you're at with the other grant uh that you got the work that you've been working on nowhere i can i can speak for that michael yeah let me yeah i can so we talked about this last at the last meeting you know um we did put the project out this is for

uh the west elevation of the of the building and um which was the previous uh grant award so we did put it out to contractors that specialize in historic masonry uh just to recap for everyone on the this meeting or call and their contractors that we our firm has worked with previously uh that we felt we know would do an excellent job um and so unfortunately you know we kept waiting for bids we gave them

deadlines and uh their workload was too great uh at the time to to bid on it so what we've talked about doing and what we will do is is casting a wider net uh as far as the contractors go and looking outside of our immediate area um some of these contractors are just south of boston so i think um you know there's the potential that some of the costs would be higher than what was

originally anticipated but uh that's what it will have to be so um in the next few weeks we're looking to put out the bid documents again so our office completed drawings our office completed specifications so there's no need to go back and redo those the construction documents this would be just looking at changing the dates and putting out the bid to uh a wider group of of contractors

they are contractors that we have worked with in the past they are again just outside of this immediate area and i don't mean just fall river i mean the previous contract was looking at we had one in rhode island and one um who's down in the new bedford area that does quite a bit of work with whale um that we've worked with before so um so that's where we're at right now

within the next few weeks we'll put that out to uh to a greater number of contractors mike let me let me get a couple sentences in before you take over but do you have some photographs of the fire barn that you can put up like you was impressive okay while you're playing with that i'm going to say i got my financial backer oh okay yeah i got my financial backer

gloria my son he worked with me for three years on this and my grandson in the background uh i bought it real quick 1989 seal bid from the city the building was abandoned i had to kick out some raccoons and pigeons we've had it's had 35 years of neglect the windows that's a nice picture you did michael had a boy all right continuing on for another sentence or two we're trying to continue on the

restoration on the west side or the ocean side mr keane has been working on this with us all along these are drone pictures that will help get a better picture in your mind of the building we're talking about and with that thanks for letting me get my two cents in and we'll turn it back to mr keane so if i could um just to kind of uh re-familiarize everyone with the building this is the 1873

uh massasoit number five fire station and uh police station uh this structure is a essentially a mirror image with some uh some differences uh to the uh fire station on main street right next to morton which is where the uh the current fi fire museum is housed so um i find myself whenever i go into this one sort of getting my trying to get my bearings because what should be on the

left is actually on the right and vice versa with the other building so um but it is an amazing building on freedom street the south end of the city so if you have not been by there um take a look at it and it is quite spectacular so these are some just some drone shots that we took uh of the building and i just want to point out too it just i'd forgotten about this one so

the jacobsons are working on the building it's not like you know there's no activity uh i could tell you from knowing charlie for as many years as i have and his family uh they are very hands-on uh and especially when it comes to this building so uh i just happened to notice that this was one of the windows that you had taken out last year and uh and had that restored there's a a company

that is in new bedford that specializes in in restoring historic windows uh and and that one was taken out and we i forgot the gentleman's name but um but that was something that you guys had had done so uh this is not the facade that we're looking at this is the project that we're looking at this is the back of the building uh or really on the side street um where the historic hayloft is

uh where it was originally um specifically what we're doing to looking to do is restore the masonry uh on this building and if you remember the photos or the photos are included in the application uh this section of the masonry wall in particular is is of concern um it started to pull away from from the building the um the uh the wood soffit has deteriorated substantially uh when we went inside of

the hayloft you can see that there have been some attempts to restore it over the years with the different types of materials but it's still uh it still is failing and uh let me try to zoom in for you a little bit more but there is some bowing out of that wall in particular there's some deterioration of the mortar joints so part of the project that we're looking to do

is not only just to uh to address the gutters and downspouts in this section of the building but also to repoint and reconstruct some of these areas that the deterioration is a bit more severe um original doors that are so handsome right so so there's the grapple hook uh for the hayloft and the original doors as well and so i can zoom out a little bit here just some additional photos so the scope

of work is really from from this point on over to the left and here's the south facade it's not as deteriorated as as some of the other elevations mainly the east elevation but that will be part of the the scope as well um let's see if i can call up

try to show you some other photos oops so here is uh we went out on a on a rainy day so we could see where some of the water is is coming down on the face of the building but um more of a concern is is this here i could um but this is the roof line right with the east elevation and the water is coming down it's literally getting back

inside the building and going into the masonry wall construction and that's really what's causing most of the deterioration at the east elevation and so is some additional shots of that fascia that i mentioned earlier which is deteriorated some of the roof framing um this all needs to be replaced this is all part of the scope this is from inside the building looking out at the east elevation uh right below you here

is is where that masonry wall the exterior machine wall is um this is the inside of where that grapple hook is that you saw in the last or earlier photo where water infiltration is coming into the building along that that grapple hook and dripping down into the building so we took these on on a rainy day um which i think helped tell the story a bit in terms of what the work is that's needed so um

so that's that's essentially the scope of work i don't know if anyone has any questions on on the scope you can see it does it's in in dire need of help right now but do you feel confident that uh you'll be able to get make scenarios this time around yeah i do um as i mentioned earlier uh it pricing is crazy uh getting contractors good contractors is is hard to do right um and i think

when we originally looked at doing this and when we did do it um you know i i thought with a pandemic that there was some contractors said yes we could fit it in we could fit it in uh but it didn't pan out so so for that i apologize uh with that but i think putting it out to additional contractors and again there are contractors that we feel comfortable that are dcam certified we talked about

dkm certification at the state level but these are our all contractors that we work with both on public pride projects and private projects as well um that i'm i'm confident that we'll do a good job so um so yeah i i don't see an issue getting pricing this time around on the west elevation mike can i comment that well i got a few bids but they were not capable of doing the type of work that was

needed for this unique building and this is from the inside every time i come into this building up the street i get excited inside it's got the original fire doors that are still there i've had a mason no i've had a ship right there working different parts of the parts that deteriorated on just these entry doors and they are such an asset to this building and the comment uh opening up the questions anybody have

a question any questions no oh alex hello um i just wanted to commend you on your commitment to the property in the neighborhood it's definitely been a labor of love that your family's kind of undertaken um just this being a private project same question i posed to the padillas um would you be open to a longer deed restriction on this uh as kind of a as kind of a show to the

public of the commitment to the longevity of their investment if the grant were to go through i guess that would be something we would consider for sure or whatever whatever is necessary one word to help yes absolutely

anyone else all right well sir charles thank you for attending tonight we'll let you know it was delightful being able to present it thank you thank you have a good night so long thank you i'm bringing it off um thank you and i have uh control of the screen so i just wanna make sure if i leave i'm not gonna shut down your meeting i've done that um so uh

i just wanna make sure somebody else has got control now alex we're all set okay all right thank you have a good night everyone take care uh next up is coppercut woods uh accessible nature uh play and trail on property improvement uh 45598 that's recreation uh the applicant is uh gene klein from trustees of reservation it's located in copercut woods um if you'd like to tell us a little about your project here

uh hi everybody uh my name is winslowdresser i work with jen klein she couldn't make it she's on vacation this week um so i'll do my best to walk you all through the project and try to answer any questions that you might have and i'm joined by lillian gould another one of our colleagues um i have a brief powerpoint i'd love to share if i can be authorized to do so looks like it

looks like that will work let's see here

is that working for everybody yes all right thank you um so i'll just run try and run through this quickly and um answer any questions we can um our request is for funding to support the copacat woods accessible nature play and discovery trail that we're hoping to get going on fall of 2022 and this grant would complement work already approved for funding by the state through their mass trails grant

and will allow for completion of the trail improvement project as well as some other necessary work on the property here's sort of a statewide perspective of why we want to do this work we're looking at accessibility to our properties all over the commonwealth and in southeast massachusetts we don't offer the same accessibility to nature and the outdoors and some of our properties as we have elsewhere so we want to

make some progress on that it's been our strategic plan to do so and we've made progress on some of our other properties around the state in improving accessibility here's a picture from a universally accessible trail that was built at the doyle community park in leominster several years back i actually helped on this project so just briefly what's an accessible trail um it's a it's a trail that

is accessible to those with physical disabilities meaning and it meets requirements for width and grade um as well as the surface which has to be crushed stone pavement or boardwalk accessible trails or trails or routes that have been constructed or altered in compliance with the requirements of applicable accessibility guidelines and we typically look at the u.s forest service guidelines for trail design and

construction this is um the latest plan from the engineer that we're working with so this follows the this is on the footprint of an existing trail you can see our current parking area and the the one on indian town road at the lower left and this is the shockley trail between indian town road and yellow hill road you can see there's a short section of reroute in the middle there

and then these red areas along the trail are bump outs where there would be nature play installations similar to what's pictured here um along the route and i'll show this again at the end so these nature playstations we are working with a landscape architect firm that specializes in nature and children's play and discovery and these stations will be tools to connect young people with nature

as we all know play in nature is critical for young people's emotional social and physical development and this project helps to create opportunities for that in a safe and controlled environment that will appeal to some folks who may not yet be comfortable venturing deeper into the woods on their own um we've been working with some external stakeholders that include members of the fall river disability council

head start mass in motion and others in summary will benefit all our visitors will benefit the visitors will benefit the most are those with mobility challenges and young children this trail is connected to the large network of trails across the southeast mass bio reserve um and it complement we believe it complements ongoing planning by the city of fall river to develop a comprehensive

trail system that's welcoming and inclusive and that it supports city master plan for the bio reserve in addition to that copa cut woods reservation is an important community resource for the residents of fall river it's six miles from the city center and probably no more than 15-minute drive for most of fall river's residents and access to high quality trails and green space is critical for physical and

emotional health of folks living in urban communities so we believe this project supports creating spaces where city residents can recreate play and find joy in nature here's a map of just the context within the bio reserve if any of you are not familiar with cope cut woods or the bio reserve you can see northward tupper pond and the copacat reservoir there the red circles show the left upper red

circle shows the segment of trail that we would be upgrading and the right circle shows the secondary parking area that we'd like to improve as well and on that note what exactly are we asking for from cpc so cpa funds would support these three components of the nature play trail the final design construction of the play elements we're going to do the trail construction with mass trails money and we've

paid for some preliminary design work from our own operating funds it would also provide for interpretive signage along the trail and materials for the play areas around the structures including the footings and safe surfaces elsewhere and copper gut woods we would improve that secondary parking area which basically means resurfacing it and resigning it to make it more available and then finally replacement of a

failing stream crossing on the meadow trail this is a small a small trail bridge on a different trail on the property so our total request is just over forty five thousand dollars the total project laid out here is uh just just under a hundred and thirty thousand dollars so this is about thirty five percent of the total project thank you all for your consideration um i can leave that

last slide up if you'd like or i can stop sharing if that's better wow so uh i'm redoing the trail how many trees do you plan on uh taking down so let me pull this um illustration back up again so this short section right in the middle here where we have to do a small reroute the current trail footprint is marked in blue there and the proposed trail is is the brown that continues above so that

section it's about a hundred feet of trail wouldn't we would close and re-vegetate the existing and then um need to clear a small number of trees through there and we're still working on a final plan with the engineer as far as these other nature play areas they're designed to be built into the landscape in a way that will minimize clearing of larger trees there would be some cutting of brush and you know um

understory plants but the goal is to minimize the cutting of trees so i don't have an exact number for you but it would not be many and i i should mention too where we have um cobra cut woods is under uh permanent deed restriction that's held by the state of massachusetts through dcr and mass wildlife so we've had several conversations with staff members there to make sure that

what we're doing complies with the terms of the conservation restriction and we also have had preliminary conversations with caitlin young assistant planner with the city of fall river and we will be filing a notice of intent since where the existing trail is you know within the buffer zone of the wetland so we want to make sure we're complying with everything there um and we've also had preliminary

conversations and we'll be filing with national heritage and endangered species program to make sure we're not doing anything in contradiction of those goals for protection too because obviously we support everything that those are designed to protect uh open the questions any board members a question i'll stop sharing alex i have a couple questions hello um i was just wondering uh in your application the letter

from dcr talking about uh if it's the project proposals and compliance with their conservation deed restrictions there are a couple of things that were left in the air they were they were looking for the exact location of the 140 feet that will be rerouted and additional information on the nature play areas i was just wondering where you were at with them because that letter was dated may 26 2021

and one of the things they mentioned was no play areas i believe on the western side of the trail and i think you still have if i saw in that drawing correctly station g was still i think on the west side so i was just wondering where you are at with dcr in terms of those questions sure thanks for that question we so we as you can see we started the conversation quite a while back because

we wanted to make sure we're on the right page with this um we had to find internal funding to start the design process to be able to come up with um plans that would actually let us present something to dcr and to everybody else that has to sign off on this so we just the draw the color drawing i just shared with you we just received from our engineer last week so it it i mean as

was mentioned earlier it's been really difficult to get contractors so we had to find funding get this engineer on board and then they did a survey and created that site plan for us so now that we have a site plan we're going our the nature play consultants are working on their plan this week and once we have a firm proposal we'll go back to ecr and mass wildlife life for a final sign off

which i think that letter makes clear that that's not a final sign off and that we will okay anything with them before we go ahead i hope that does that answer your question yes um and did you also where are you at with the project notification form with mass historical commission that they suggested is that something that has to be done after approval or have you already started that so with i

if i'm understanding correctly and i don't have that letter in front of me this might be a better question for jen but i believe the historical questions were around excavation and we're electing not to do any excavation for this project we'll remove the loose vegetation duff layer from the surface and then build up from there which from the state's perspective removes the need for an archaeological

review because we're not disturbing the soil there we're just building up from it i i think that's what that might have been getting out but i i apologize if that's not right that sounds right um i think i know the answer to this but are there any other accessible trails on buyer reserves or uh properties significant to fire reserves under the trustees care or in the state if you know it um

i i i guess i don't know the answer to that question the the southeast mass bio reserve uh itself includes as i'm sure you know city state and um private land trust lands um and there isn't another bio reserve in the state that is similar in its makeup okay um um okay yeah uh i guess my question kind of stems from the letter that we received from green futures i don't know if you

had a chance to hear it at the beginning um but they i guess they had some concern about you know disturbing some of that lower soil and the kind of protected plants and animals and fauna that uh go with that um and since it it is the only bar reserve in the state it's specifically kind of geared towards protecting more of that biological diversity so i was just wondering where the accessible

trail the value of the accessible trail comes in with the mission of the fire reserve uh kind of prioritizing that biological diversity so i was a little concerned with their green futures concerns about disturbing that kind of deeper soil but if it sounds like the accessible trail will be minimizing damage from what i'm hearing i don't know if that's a something that's changed or if if there's any concerns

with that it sounds like you've kind of answered that already though yeah yeah there was a lot to unpack in that letter and um i i don't want us i don't want to try and speak to every concern in there um the trail width we're going for is 48 inches which is the current width of that trail as i described we're intending to build up not excavate and we have to be in compliance with the conservation

restriction with wetland permitting and with national heritage and endangered species program and we we want to do what's right here too i mean we believe this is a project that complements the bio reserve mission in that it will allow more people to access these spaces who have no who may not have another opportunity to do so um so yeah i'll just leave it at that and again i think jen klein would probably

speak to much of this better i mean lily and maybe you have something to add but i think that kind of covers it no i'll just i'll just add that yes i mean it's really core to the trustees mission that you know we have 123 properties across the state and that we are absolutely committed to doing what is right as stewards we have a long history and track record proven track record um

we're a leader in kind of conservation and stewardship um i mean wins will probably speak to that better than that than i can he's been at the trustees longer but you know it's it's very dear to the the trustees mission and and our core values certainly um and we are really committed to growing the next generation of environmentalists who will you know be concerned and want to care for these properties like the bio

reserve in perpetuity and in order to do that we need to make sure these places are people feel connected to these places and are invested in them and if it is just something that they can't enjoy that they can't access that they don't feel is open and welcoming to them then they will never be able to really grow that relationship to and the environment and nature and to really you know cultivate the next

generation of environmentalists so that's just what i'll say about that thank you well said lilly thank you now winslow you said you already filed with the conservation office no we had preliminary conversations we're waiting on this plan from our engineer because we wanted to have that before we filed so yeah we got it in the last week and it's my intention to file as soon as we have a free minute here

that'd be good for us to know because we've worked in march so yeah if it's okay okay uh board any other questions i just said i just had one more thing um i think it might be useful for us or at least me personally in our deliberations if uh in terms of the estimated cost if you could break it out per piece like you know parking lot uh footbridge play areas that just might be

useful in our deliberations uh depending on how things end up yeah i think we did some of we may have done a great job in the application so i'm happy to send a follow-up where we break that out more clearly for you okay thank you that's it thank you all ready well thank you guys for coming tonight's meeting thank you all for your time this evening in your consideration thanks next do we have any new business

uh seeing no business can i have a motion to adjourn i'll make a motion to adjourn a second all righty uh roll call vote uh vic yes alex yes caroline yes richard yes ms oliveira yes uh john yes and paul yes and john yes it's okay meeting adorn thank you have a good night

you