2.15.2024 Fall River City Council

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joint meeting of the city council of finance and the board of Park Commissioners will begin the clerk will call the rooll councilors kadim Dion here Hart here Kilby here Pereira here PTI here raposo here Samson here president here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are

therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible will the chair of the board of the park Commissioners please call the role I call this meeting the uh joint meeting of the city council in Park Board um February 15 2024 to order at the city council chambers um pursuant to the open meeting law any

person may make an audio or recording a 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 OB deemed acknowledge and Priss roll call commissioner Burns hel R DJ McDonald commissioner Joseph the Silva thank you um I'll stop this is a responsible

resolution that we hold a board a joint meeting to discuss the staffing needs of the parks division Council propos believe you follow the resolution you want to open up the floor yes thank you good evening to all of you thank you for being here um I want to start with a simple question we there's been a lot of conversation since I've been on the council about Staffing of the parks

department so I would like to take this opportunity to have you kind of chime into it where do we stand with Staffing what are the challenges that you currently face and ideally what are we looking forward to advocate for to make sure that our parks are taken care of and our quality of life for our residents is as high as it can be I'll turn it over to you should have Miss answer yeah I think

that may be I don't want to put an answer on the spot but I feel like that's a better question for okay the park director the park director do we need to make a motion W the rules it' be safer if we did yes motion wave the rules second motion R being seconded all in favor I any opposed okay hi Nancy hi so um basically the staffing needs have remained the same I have um 15

Personnel total in the department that includes myself one clerk uh Foreman one mechanic two working foremen and nine laborers that's the full compliment right now we have one laboring um position that is not filled um but we had to utilize that position to um for payouts cuz people left went to the school department so they had um severances what of what was due um to them so that one position I may be able

to fill come the spring for a few weeks and then it would have to be um in the budget again it would be vacant come July in the past how much staff did have you had so if you were to kind of look at the past to now has I'm assuming staffing has decreased over time yes it it's decreased because that's how we've maintained our budget we had balanced uh

we used to have have to balance our budgets and basically with the increase in order to balance our budget it would usually be through aition of positions so I at one point we did have five working foremen 11 laborers and we used to get a staff of seasonal help in the summer but we don't have that anymore and why is that lack of budget pretty much okay and how many parks does the Parks Department take

care of throughout the city 24 parks and playgrounds all of the median strips um Bron Avenue Eastern Avenue um Plymouth Avenue the greens and medians that you see um portions of the rail trail um so pretty much anything that's green we got our hands on okay in terms of equipment of the department where does that stand well we do need trucks we've put in for them um in a few

budgets I am presently I believe in this past budget there is a crew cab um and a cabota that the infamous cabota that we're still talking about but yes that's what I'm supposed to get I did put in for a couple of pickups in addition to that but those were not um granted okay so because I have one 2008 small we call it a Colorado it's like a small S10 kind of truck and two

of our trucks are in really the crew cabin and another uh truck 2012 I believe and they're in pretty bad condition I mean they're working every day non-stop you know there's no Trucking materials for ball fields so they get their wear and teer I have to that out 2017 have discussions already started to take place regarding the next year's budget and your needs as a department uh not as far as Vehicles just in general

uh we have submitted some budget salaries and expenses um I have not received the information as far as for Capital I think that was something that we would have to put in those other two I would again put in for those other two trucks that weren't funded this time but um trucks no okay salaries and expenses yes I'll yield for the moment let CC vice president pero yeah I I have

a lot of questions um a lot of our Parks unfortunately I don't see activity on them you know Columbus Park Maybe um is one that I don't see a lot of activity you don't have the little leagues that we used to have before I don't know if we just can't get people who want to coach or uh Maplewood seems to be always bustling they have a lot of activities

going on there but I have had people say like the Ecuadorian socc uh the Ecuadorian volleyball that that's something that people wanted and they were just going in putting them anywhere um and now there's one somewhere that I don't think the board really wanted it placed down Kennedy Park um so I find that as a little bit of a problem like I think they should talk to you and see

where is um the park that best utilized for different things I've had a lot of people say they can't get to a soccer field a a matter of fact I talked to the May last week or no was actually it was uh yesterday um I talked to him about people wanting soccer field behind britland park there there is an empty space behind the the one that's already there um and maybe some other parks that we

can put um some basket uh some soccer fields another thing is the softball field I know you're all familiar with Brian Bishop who does a lot of our electrical work great electrician uh company in the city and he travels all over traveling teams that would be able to come to the city they stay at airport road or Westport they'd stay in a hotel they go to our restaurants they buy stuff here that is economic development

and you have workers that are going out maintaining these fields that aren't being used um do you have any plans for that is it a lack of money um that's one question the other one is I know that um when Mr aloa came on board they did a playground study and found that some of the playgrounds the equipment um was not in condition that children should be on so they removed some of that has there

been any discussion about where those playgrounds were how they've been removed and who's going to pay to put them back there um if some of them are in certain areas maybe Community Development would help with that like how do you go through all of those things and counc I just want to be this resolution done work it's on the staff how do you we might need to file another resolution to say you know what are you

thinking we're going to to do with the par and how to utilize them you're bringing up some great points you are bringing up some great points but I'm not sure that this is what the intention of this joint meeting was for well I just think that if they have the staff and they're utilizing them but we're not utilizing them for something is I mean do you need more people to do this is

that well that's a fair question so basically do they need more people exactly I'm sure the answer going to be yes would you say yes Nancy absolutely okay I think the other thing too is that the of the last meetings you mentioned softball Dumont field um they they're resurrecting those to be softball fields so if you've driven by um Mr Ferrera is the softball coach at dery who also runs

Youth Travel teams and him and I forget the other gentleman's name Mr cabal maybe Timmy cab so they've taken that complex over they've been spending their own money and fixing those fields and I think you'll see a lot of use out of those this summer um well I did get a call about that because they're taking their own money and doing it and which is nice of them but maybe you need more

money you know think that might might not be the appropriate time but the other thing I think is uh coming up with some type of fee structure for leagues that use the fields because there is none uh right now so I don't know if that's within the purview of this board if that goes to the council how that plays out but the city does not have any way to pay to use these fields so you

know the leagues that are using them um don't pay to use them and that would give you money to hire more people or maintain them yeah a little better pretty much most of our Fields I mean once we once we open up and open up those parks for the spring and we do the initial cleanup and bring in the ball field materials and get the fields set up in Spring pretty much after that

we're just cutting grass those leagues are getting those fields done every day the volunteers from their leagues are the ones that are raking them lining them we don't have that anymore like I I feel like a broken record but you guys know I've come here and said each Park used to have individual people that were assigned to these parks and those of us that are a little bit older remember

that we knew the people that worked in the park we knew and those people treated that parcel of land like it was their own property those Park workers took care of that every day they knew the people that were in those leaps that's long gone I I I can I doubt we would ever get it back because those were that was when the park Department had 50 workers we're not going to get to

that we all have to be realists about that we're never going to get to that point unless there is a merge of departments and all the Manpower is merged as well if we're just going to merge departments on paper and not merge the Manpower then it doesn't make sense to me well and it's unfortunate too that we don't have like the cedar program or whatever that gives you that extra help you know

in season to do some of them times they give you the help but they do not give you the supervisor so now we're going to take a person that we would normally Norm be able to have do that and they're going to be younger kids for us they have to be 18 so by the time they're 18 they don't really want to be on Ceda they want to be out and

they can get a real job and and make some decent money and again my my thing and I've corrected that was the fact that CLK workers were making $16 an hour I couldn't keep the people in the parket department for $16 an hour I've we've now we've since changed that mayor has been on board and we've changed that that they're now at 20 but interviewing people and telling them that they were

going to start at $16 an hour I couldn't do that and I couldn't interview people and have them start at a higher rate when I had other workers already there at 16 so now we've completed that Circle everyone is at at a higher rate of pay and I've seemed to be able to fill my spots a little bit better as far as vacancies so in this year's budget will you be asking for additional staff I did

not ask for additional staff but probably because I just I've asked for additional staff year after year so I figure after a while you just don't ask anymore sorry did you already submit your budget I did but it's not nothing is completed I have not had any conversation with anyone about my budget I haven't sat with um anyone about it so I'm sure if that's something I mean it's only February well I know councilor

kadim uh wasn't able to be here tonight but he made a comment some time ago that the money that the park Department receives is about $2,000 a park yes is that would you say that's accurate yes this budget that I submitted I put in three I requested $300,000 for various projects because as councelor kadim had said he brought up the fact of tennis courts basketball courts that were in need of repair I

happened to go around with a contractor looking at all the various courts he was nice enough to say this is I can give you some pricing ballpark pricing on this stuff it came to over $300,000 I've also put in$ 250,000 which is the price that I had received I think it's a little bit high but for a park study a park maintenance program that was something else that councelor kadim

had asked for I did put these same figures in last year's budget but they they never ended up staying so I resubmitted those figures again I did not resubmit I I haven't submitted for additional Staffing but I did submit for those items because those items can be contracted out for an outside contractor to come in and do those repairs so your department the people working in your department can't do

those types of contract things they maintain it but they can't they can cut grass you have to hire somebody else you know repair benches they can repair you know different slides whatever small repairs in the Parks do ball field maintenance they do trees you know things of that sort can I ask you something because I do know some of the park workers I see them um you know all the time and I'm I'm old

so I've been here a while but the garage that's at Kennedy Park yeah is there an issue with the beam in there because I heard that there was an issue with that beam yes okay okay that kind of concerns me could we maybe check and get that fixed but um I I really have to commend the park department on the pickle ball courts and other things that have been

done and I would just urge I know we're short Manpower but just to be able to utilize these fields with different sports I mean I never thought we'd have an Ecuadorian volleyball court I didn't realize that that was even higher um but we have to acclimate to our community lots of people play soccer we have to acclimate and get people outside and get active and and healthy um but I I'm certainly

looking very carefully at the budget coming up especially with the park Department because people you know don't have a lot of expendable income and to get outside and utilize Parks um I think it's good but I commend you for you know the some of the changes and updates that you have done in the parks with that a you Mr President coun too good evening so I'm understanding that you've

submitted your budget for this year I've submitted expenses and um salaries but there's been no discussion there's been no feedback on that yet not to me no okay so I guess when we hit budget season there'll be more questions to ask about that then just a point of clarification when did you submit it a month ago a day ago a week ago no I I uh I believe it was gosh beginning of uh

January end of January it was recently I mean well beginning and end is 30 days when was it the beginning or was it the end I I couldn't give you a date but it's it's within the past two weeks thank you I feel like um and I'm sure you do too the park Department always falls through the cracks um I know that a significant amount of Opera funding was put into the parks in terms of the

pickle ball the tennis courts the splash pads etc etc uh trying to make our city more viable and um to utilize outdoor space but I have to think that that also put an increased burden on your department who does the maintenance the winterization Etc of the splash pads for example I um I hire outside contractor to come in and do the splash pads and then the facilities Department would do

any other any other winterization there the splash pad person comes in and does splash pads only so anything over and above any irrigations any that that's the facilities dep department does that has done it so that did add to your budget and as far as if you have to hire an outside um company obviously that's that's added to your budget monies that you didn't already have yes I have added a couple

of times into my maintenance either an additional thousand or additional 2,000 whatever it may be like when we added splash pads I added additional money because this contractor um comes in and does it now in terms of the pickleball courts the tennis courts the basketball courts who maintains those Park workers the park workers but we if it's a crack or anything major that's not anything we would have to do

we would have to contract out with a a like a resurfacing company to do that but as far as the sweeping the cleaning the maintaining the taking the leaves when was fall and people were still playing pickle ball the leaves were falling off the trees we were down there every night um and I mean every day and then the during the night if it rained where the Ecuadorian Courts are there

was like a big runoff situation there and the courts would fill with mud so we had to do a little bit of construction over there where it um hopefully the addition of those courts will alleviate that but we had a few days where um the courts when we had some heavy rain the courts were covered in mud and had to like power washed off so that would be Park workers so again as positive as

these changes are and as good as these things are for the community it added to your burden but yet there was there's no additional Monies to um for the upkeep it's just an added burden correct um minimally in my budget and I can I can tell you um we'll say like in in um other repairs in maintenance I might have had $30,000 I'd put in 35 because I know I now have that additional I I never

increase it like exorbitantly because I don't want to you know not have it be realistic so you know something that was 30 might have become become 35 um different five I think I have four or five accounts that I increased by $5,000 um I have one account when they close the the building at Kennedy I decreased that by um $2,500 because it was wasn't heat wasn't electricity so I

reduced that so um that's how I try to keep my balance with my budget within check and I know it's not the best um option I suppose but I know for fact with Opa funding we have purchased numerous vehicles for multiple departments um um it's unfortunate that there weren't any vehicles um purchased for your department there I I don't want to say that there was one vehicle a crew cab

that was put in with Opa funding I did ask for three but I got one I asked for three to replace three that were very in very poor shape I did get one um as much as maybe and and none of the vehicles that we um replaced in any other department were were good enough to keep using and using your department I believe they kept them themselves so they have all their

original Vehicles plus new vehicles I I don't want to speak out of turn I don't know for sure but um but you were not the recipient of any I was not the recipient of any of whether they kept them or not yes okay I think that's unfortunate as well um I'll yield for now thank you Council Council C Council Simpson so I have other questions but I'm going to

try to stay topic here thank you um the Staffing issue that's before us so my first question is because how many vacant positions do you have right now do you have any vacant positions my vacant position is being used as I said to just to buy the um severances so I have one vacant position that I'm I guess I could fill but then I would be overspending my salaries because I've

had to pay out Severance to three employees that left to go to the school department okay so my question is and which I'm not understanding so help me understand sure okay you have this need you said at one time we had 50 people person in every Park I'm from the Maplewood section so you got Maplewood people you know back in the 80s 990s whatever now you're saying we don't have

that you have how many people 15 15 so incling from top to bottom top to bottom right 15 of you right you're not out there mowing the grass right not half of right not yet right not yet it could happen right with because I um it's a it's a little concerning and I'm just going to say that you have this need so it seems to me that you're frustrated you're

frustrated I come every year I ask for more staff I ask for more staff so I'm not asking I'm not doing it this year that's a problem for me because how can we fight for you and fight for our constituents if you thrown in the towel so that's a problem I feel and I'm going to say it that you didn't ask for it so how can we advocate for something that

you're not asking for well the reason I didn't ask for it is if I don't have a man the truck to put the man in now I'm I'm wasting it almost twice because I have a man that has no way of getting around but so I don't know I I'm not I'm not I'm not GNA buy that right now because I feel like that's you've asked for it every year and you didn't have

the trucks so you didn't have the trucks this year but you asked for the trucks and not the man so it's just it's just not so you know you got to stick in the fight here that's what I'm saying you can't throw in the towel right that's why you're frustrated so that leads to my next question yes other community you've been doing this a long time how many is 20 45 45 okay 45 you're tired

all right Nancy tired let's call you a TI all right I feel for you so listen what are other communities it's I'm just learning now right from uh chairman uh McDonald that we don't have a fee so you want to come use I have advocated for that fee year after year I'm sure that you have I am sure so what are other communities doing to for their fees do you have something to show this is what

New Bedford this is what it cost to use that Park in New Bedford and this board has been presented with so Taunton New Bedford um uh Brockton all these and I ALS and and we don't have to look very far schol the school department charges and I say we don't need to reinvent the wheel if the school department charges we should charge we could charge the same fees we could charge a little bit

less if we're going to maintain the fees less you know in a lesser capacity and the and the groups are going to help us out so now you give them a discounted fee because they help that out but that has also been addressed by this board on I've brought it in multip multiple times so I think that's something that we can look at definitely something that maybe we can have you come down in you

know my committee to take a look at um involving Youth and and what that looks like or or maybe an audience I don't know we can but we should I I would like to see what that looks like I would like to make an educated decision on what's going on over there can how much more money can we bring in to give you more staff but not to ask for the staff is

not I don't think that you're and I'm going to be realistic I don't think the money that you're charging is going to enough for us for staff however it will do a couple of things it will stop organizations from saying they need to utilize fields and they don't use them which is what councelor Pereira is saying they they are vacant Fields because if you are not paying for a field and I think we've discussed this

as well if you are not paying for a field you're going going to take five hours on that field just in case you need it y but if you are paying for that field you're going to take just what you need and I'm going to be able to allocate that field to somebody else the reason the fields are looking vacant is because someone is reserving that field for five hours and they use it for and

only using it for two but in my records and in my being I can't put that field out there again because as far as I'm concerned they're using it for 5 hours so that's what the feast schedule will help to alleviate well it would alleviate my thoughts of that there's hundreds of thousands of dollars out there in fees that are not so you'll tell me no it's more like 10,000 or

whatever it is then that that's you can there's some seed to for the lawn I don't know right you some materials for the fields exactly so I'd like to see that absolutely the other thing is are we looking at other resources that doesn't cost us anything the sheriff's department are we have you looked at networking with the sheriff's department you said well we can't do you know the Ceda because we have to provide a

supervisor well they you're not providing a supervisor for the inmates so can we stick the inmates in you know the problem with putting the inmates in the Parks is it's kind of a but wait you got you you have medium strips so if we have you got them out there I see them across the highway picking up trash if we put them at every intersection where you guys have grass

like you said I mean that that's a load off you guys those medium strips some of them look there's barrels out there I'm like how the heck did those barrels get out there so if you are utilizing Sheriff departments to take the need off for somewhere else it's not costing us a dime are we looking at that point of information perhaps does somebody's reason for incarceration perhaps interfere with

whether they can or cannot be in a park some I would say yeah well no I just just thrown that out there and then the second thing is does it interfere with the fact that you have um excuse me union workers that's the other issue so I can I can buy that I cannot buy that they can't be in a park because like we said we have medium strips along the highway there are multiple places

where there are kids not around or other issues like that so then I I would say there are union issues but so does that negate were there not Union issues before when Cedar was there I mean didn't Cedar was there at one time Cedar was in the Parx I mean wouldn't there had been Union issues then I'm saying what are we not utilizing for free I look at I a constituent actually last

week sent me um Maine and I thing that Maine is doing bangar main they have this project it's called girls doing boys Jobs quote unquote and they're giving uh younger females a chance to do quote unquote male jobs and so they they have this Avenue of you know work that they're able to train people are we looking at that are we looking at um diamond we have Diamond why are we not

using Diamond the community maintenance department Diamond to to do they build houses they can't you know do community maintenance so on what resources do we have that may can I make a suggestion yeah the people that tagged our eima Monument maybe we should call the courthouse and say that part of they should do community service in all the parks think clean all The Monuments I think it's a great idea and I don't

think the Unions would complain about that no what any of the men because that was a total dis I just I just have a thing I mean the unions have always been there and we've had other programs in the past so just to say like well I think these things need to be looked at we had a lot of Staff we need to invest everything we can in the beautification

of our city are we grasping at every aspect I don't know I mean I would start with we need to put in for more staff you can't throw up throwing in the towel right now you can't get in that fight I know you're frustrated but we can't have vate if you can't Advocate correctly and I would ask that are we looking at all of these other things that are free for

the city and are we asking is this a is this a union issue I don't know go find out I mean there there is a lot of free programs out there so um I guess there's a lot more questions but that's my sentiment for today with that I yield thank you coun I just have one comment on that so if my only understanding of this if she does add additional staff

you will need to add additional trucks cuz the trucks that she's adding right now hour to replace the ones now not for additional correct right so I just just wanted to throw that out there if she does add she may need to add additional trucks as well let me respond to that so I would ask that you just do what you've done in the past whatever you have done

in the past keep keep on plugging I mean you just can't stop you know well we we need 20 guys well I'm not getting it so I'm not asking for and that's three truck whatever it is you've done it in the past do it again just keep asking you can't stop with that a yield thank you counc come C4 counc kby yes so is it fair to say that your department is um on Dire

Straits pleas a matter of I guess that's a it's not cross examination STS what did you say that I I I I have always said that there are other departments that I understand are PRI advertised more and I've said this again like I before um we function we're we're keeping our head above water for a number of years now how deep is the water I don't know we don't we don't

want to sink but where we we do need shame on me no no shame on me I didn't as I said we've come here we advocated for seasonal labors the seasonal labors were going to make $15 an hour my guys were making 16 I'm like forget it I'll have a I'll have a war okay interrupt you please it's not shame on you you you've been here a long time

you know your job um so don't take my line of question a little bit as an insult to you um how many parks do we have Homestead Parks three three three built in the guy who um who uh was the architect for Central Park in New York right yes and um is CPA money available we have CPA money available to yes do the infrastruct I wouldn't say I wouldn't say um that you can hire people

with it because it's a recurring expense but so I received a letter on my desk with regard to the the Armory right and it's going to come up in a resolution that Council Hart and I filed so $500,000 the CPA is saying they want to utilize possibly utilize um just to patch up patch up the Army okay so what would 500,000 do do dollars do for your department in terms

of infrastructure so just so you know we recently have a CPA project at Maplewood Park where we we replac what would $500,000 that was $550,000 and what was done with it we took down all the Ballfield lights at Maplewood and we put all brand new ball field LS there we have the same project CPA project right now at um Father Kelly Park we're in the process of getting specifications together um same thing

those light that's and that's another situation of taking these light poles down we had a light pole survey there are some faulty light PS light poles that I've put in for in my capital and I didn't get that money either but CPA is going to do that any repair any major Improvement that you see in the Parks is not done through my budget it is done through CDA the Ecuadorian core is being done through CDA

$117,000 from Opa funding $100,000 from CDA the pickle ball call at the bottom was done with a pot Grant 4 um I think 458,000 it ended up being for the pickle ball C the two lighting projects they're all either CDA CPC I do not get Improvement money in my own budget from the general fund anything that is improved and and we do these things we go after this funding

well maybe this is a a crazy question um but you've been around a while like I said said um I don't don't take as an insult you're beautiful I'm to get a the um are the pox I I know I drive by listen I think that the pox are utilized they're very UTI amazing I think the amount of staff that we do have does a tremendous job they they do they do the

do so not to be long with my point is yes I I I've always been of the uh the rationale that uh okay we're not going to do this because we have to do this and we can't do this because we have to do that and nothing gets done that way in my opinion things just sitting in a in a uh you know temporary in a cube yes but my point

is my opinion your your department is um needs an infusion of some money so I have this proposal here and it's not guaranteed just to seal the Armory is $500,000 I thought it'd be less I thought it'd be 300 according to Ellen malcomber so it's just a matter of priorities and I just want to make a point I'm not being bitter the vote went 63 um I'm not being bitter I'm speaking

my mind here let's stay focused on the subject of Staffing in the PX please yes thank you Council for steering me that way so anyway I'm just saying that your department is in Dire Straits you advocate for your department as much as you can with the limited resources you have and and um our pox are just really really really really important and when you answered the questions uh from the

other counselors um it came out I could I could see it that in terms of um um what the needs are and what you're not getting that you should be getting so thank you thank you Council counc six Council party thank you Mr President so just a couple things I want to clarify right so the we right we got to stop this narrative that increasing fees to parks are going to pay for all these

Personnel that the park department needs okay it's never going to happen it's not sustainable you're not going to go to Maplewood Park you're not going to charge them $5,000 a year and you think that's going to pay for personnel okay it's not even going to pay for somebody's essentially vacation time okay so it's we got to stop that spin that we keep trying to convince ourselves let's put more strain on these

Parks which will they need more strain to be put on them maybe right but but we have to stop saying that cuz it's not sustainable the other thing that we need to recognize is over the last couple of years I'll give credit where credit is due the the the mayor and prior Council and the administration have done a phenomenal job I think of putting money into the Parks from the sidewalks at

North Park to the even to the pickle board uh the pickle courts to everything that we've done there has been a huge huge invest in our Parks the problem that we have is the maintenance and the FTE that you've had since 2002 uh 2022 up until fiscal year 2024 you have an increased Personnel okay because for some reason this department works in a silo and I don't understand why I'm I'm really struggling to

understand why when the municipal budget comes before us and the parks department is under Community maintenance why does the park Department work in a silo and I don't hear anything when it comes to cemeteries I don't hear anything that comes with streets and highways snow removal traffic parking engineering Solid Waste why is it that there is there's there's no connection there in community maintenance I'm

struggling I'm trying to your department isn't a department pleas speak it to the microphone if you're going to say anything please your your department isn't its own specific Department your department is under Community maintenance yes right so because your department is under Community maintenance it is very common with within departments that if your department needs something you should be

able to go within your department to ask for something so if you need trucks in the cemeteries have trucks why can't you go to Mr Aliva or the city administrator or the mayor and say we need more trucks for our for our Parks we have so I don't understand why your department essentially is is is is kind of alone in a sense of when they need things they can't go under the Community maintenance

we do go under Community maintenance as a matter of fact for the most part when Mr Perry was here he submitted for our trucks he was the one who did we submitted as a package for trucks so maybe I'm not being as as clear as I want to be if you need a truck why can't you just call the cemeteries department or utilizing their trucks we have no extra trucks we have bed trucks from DCM

okay on occasion so if we H if if you hired three or four people you mean to tell me there's nothing for them to do unless they have a truck to I don't think that DCM has the trucks to give me without taking a truck from their staff that wasn't his question he said if you hire three or four people can they work without a truck that was just question too well

the problem with that is we we travel from Park to Park Cemetery is in that location they don't travel as much so a lot of our maintenance depends on being able to travel from point A to point B and that's why the trucks are so essential to us so that may be why you're hearing the trucks more from us than you are from right I'm just I'm just not hearing any other department

come down before us and say they need more trucks that's what I'm trying to say unless and I've watched the meetings I haven't been here forever I haven't heard lots of departments except this one say they need more trucks well we don't get them so then so then is going to be so it's a continuous some it's like I'm repeating myself I I I understand that but what I'm trying to

say is as the department head for Parks you need to submit your proposal over to the administration to ask for more because nobody here can do anything about that but this is my thing the city council cannot increase a budget so if the mayor's office is not going to come down to this Council and say uh Hey the park department needs a c and d we can't do anything about it we can sit here and

talk all we want about it but we can't do anything about it so I guess my question to that is does this Council see the budget that we submit or just the budget that comes out of so the the the mayor's office or or whatever the budget that you submit to the mayor yeah is has the ability to be changed by the administration and the city administrator right so what you

sent to them we're not part of budget prep meetings we usually I yeah well that's a problem so that's something that you need to take up with the city administrator and the mayor as to why you're not part as a department Point clarification Nancy when you submit your budget does it change and come back to you or do you never see it again I many times I I see it again after this

Council has approved what yes so you don't get to see it and things have been changed in the meantime no okay why don't you ask to change that you can look at it there's clearly Mr President a communication barrier issue between this department and the administration right so I I think that there's there needs to be a a a a consistent conversation with the mayor and his Finance team in terms of what this park

department needs six years ago eight years ago when I first got on you were having these same conversations with that Council then Municipal budgets have passed from 2020 2021 when Jazel was here to Mayor cougan that we have the same problem in this department and nothing gets done about it okay so there's a problem whether it's a communication problem or the inability to get things done there's a some

there's a clear problem and we need to find out what it is if the mayor doesn't want to give you any more positions or it doesn't want to give you any more support when you come down here before us you got to say to us we need more we can't get more but you've done to your credit every single year that I've been here you've done that you've come back

and said I need more I need more help but you don't get it so there's a problem here and and none of us here are Executives in the mayor mayor's office and we can't sit here and propose any kind of a plan because we don't prepare a budget we don't propose a budget budget so I think if if we want to really jump in here and help the parks

all of us when we go to the mayor's office when it comes to our budget prep meetings we say we want to advocate for the parks if the mayor doesn't bring down a budget with more FTE and more resources to the parks we can't do anything about it we can't do anything now I want to just make the other comment here is and not to lose sight of over $400,000 of Opera money that the

Administration has put towards parks and I think have done a great job in investing in their Park over the last 24 months or four years or whatever it's been and I'm going to ask this question when we have our quarterly update tonight and I've always been an advocate for these um um uh Capital um unused Capital money that we have in our Municipal budget that just sits there dormant right so

I've learned and you know this um when Mrs sah was here I was an advocate for keeping millions and millions of dollars in unused capital projects that could be used in other departments for like long-term projects okay we're still sitting on uh looks to be over $2 million of streetscapes money that's a balance is is available and hasn't been used Revenue received but it hasn't been

used it's essentially sitting dormant in inactive capital projects okay so if you need $500,000 to get some stuff done as long as it falls and I would urge you to talk to the mayor about this as long as it falls within the same like term like a street Scapes program or whatever it is if if roads are 10 years and you can get something for the longevity of 10 years we could be using

more inactive capital projects and stop having to worry about going to go to opera or going to our stabilization account so the money's there you know the the money can be found the city has been sitting on millions of dollars of Opera money and so I would urge you to have a conversation a perfect example of that you're looking at the in the general fund there's 100 looks to be on this

$137,000 in the Cathy Assad Tot Lot Capital repairs right and I know you don't know really anything about it but this this needs to be a conversation that I would urge the administration to have with you and your department because there's it's money sitting here and it could be used so it's in what Kathy it's it's in the general it's a it's a capital expense under the general fund so my so my estimation of that and

I'm just guessing here is we had a grant that was for the Cathy Assad now when these funds are reimbursed through the park Grant they may go into this account so if the grant is $400,000 and it's a 7030 split when the grant monies are submitted and reimbursed it probably goes into that account right of which I mean I don't have any access to that is that something that you're you're agreeing

with me correct I agree with money that could be so what you're saying it almost could be like a revolving fund for other Park improvements to be the the the you just said earlier that you need a couple $100,000 from what I heard right and what would that $300,000 do exactly it would repair various um tennis courts various basketball courts um I believe councelor kadim had said a lot of them

had the cracks which they do but that would be something that we could put out that's the what the contractor came around with me I had them go to the various sites and price out some of these repairs so that I would have an estimate of I would just I would ask you and if I have to write a memo I will to the mayor and you to have a conversation

about trying to use some of these capital projects un that are not used for example I'm not sure it could be used but Street Scapes on Bedford Street it's over $2 million of money that's sitting there they've expended $132,000 of it it's right in our quarterly updates and this has been the thing that I've I've advocated and been successful at in Prior administrations to urge them to stop sitting on this

money and if you can use it for like projects use it and I think our parks are a perfect example of something that can be done and utilized for and and I just I want to put that put that to bed because it's it's money available as long as the long-term longevity of the project is sustainable you can do it so I would urge you to have that conversation or just look at this because it's

available and it should be um the only other thing I have is these uh the park Commissioners have been here and they really haven't said much tonight and I'm not sure if there's anything that they really want to say from your perspective on what this Council can advocate for the parks uh as we go forward going into this fiscal year I just wanted to clarify the fees that I mentioned before

nobody's looking to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars on fees or kill any of these leagues by utilizing it it's more of it's a two-fold issue and it's more of what Nancy had mentioned you see we have issues with some of the parks where we have these beautiful parks and they might be permanent out from 800 in the morning until 5: in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday but they might be

done playing by noon time we don't know that when we get the when the permit comes before us and we're not going to tell the league they can't have the field right but if we charge them a little something and they have a little skin in the game they may not ask for an eight hour permit they may ask for a 4-Hour permit for the time they're going

to be there so I just don't want it to be misconstrued that the park board comes in and is asking to charge people to use the parks that's absolutely not what we were asking or what was mentioned it's more of there are leagues that use them and like Nancy said Maplewood Park is a perfect example they've been up and running for a long time those baseball fields they maintain them it's their money you know we're not

looking to to kill those leags or spend their money that's that's not not it at all I know that's not your intention but there's this this there's this I understand that I continue to say that and it's a disrespect to anybody who's running government that you're not going to be able to buy personnel and increasing we are not expecting to be able to hire people by charging mwood

Little League or four of Youth Soccer to use the fields sure that's not what we were uh int intending yeah no and that's why perfect example you have uh britland the tur fiing that that tur field has to be replaced that carpet and everything where is that money coming from so if we charged for the use of that you have men's leagues there you have for of you at soccer and everything but we had to make

a rule last year because of a cop to keep it no practices practice at tasus on the grass field and it because it was getting so used you have to try to maintain that for longevity yeah yeah I mean and I'd urge like that's a one-time expense right it's not something that is is going to be that much of a hindrance on the city of Far River for years to come

take it out of the stabilization account if it's going to be 800,000 do it that's what it's there for we've had this new and I know we want to keep raising our stabilization account every single year because it looks good where we go for our bond ratings and all other stuff but if it's going to cost $800,000 to put the turf down let's spend the money and then like you see an abundance

when when it was covid a lot of people were shutting down and everything like that we're getting leagues from out of town coming here wanting to use our facilities cuz we don't charge anything when these other communities and high schools and everything dery perfect example they build all these brand new facilities in it we let them use North Park now we're letting Diamond use it in

the tennis courts all the constructions going on but then they're uh they're U excuse me they're charging fees and everything we're not trying to ask for we're just trying to ask for I think what is it when we do a permit $125 and it's for the people that are permitting it out it's for the leagues when they come in and ask Nancy for a permit so they need insurance they need all these different

things to get a permit anyways so not right but so I I guess I guess my question and I because I don't even know where do we go from here to fix that problem what needs to happen as far as to create a fee schedule you're asking right I I don't know I that need to go through does that go to ordinance I think how that Fe is created microphone please nany microphone please Nancy

microphone please thank you it's okay what what how it would be created is just as I've done it before I bring the fee schedules from other cities and towns to this Park Board this Park Board would vote on you know wanting to create fees they have to go to the ordinance committee meeting to you know Rally or to to you know say this is what we need to do I would imagine we would

brainstorm between the two of us of this is how it's going to work yes we're not going to make raise a million dollars but yes we might be able to limit field use be able to to have open field time for just anyone to go use that field and as you said it's never going to pay for bodies it's never going to pay any of that what it may do is just small maintenance items improve efficiencies

is what it sounds like ex and improve the efficiency of scheduling and allow people not to think these fields are not being used so then so then when are we going to do that I've done it multiple times and uh and this board can tell you I think I've brought fees to three or four different boards already because we where is it currently right now is it currently this is currently

they wanted to bring it to to the council to get the council's feel on it on raising fees on initiating fees creating fees so then to to accomplish something with this well-intended resolution what I think should happen is the park Department with with your assistance get a a schedule to together review it vet it send it the communication to the city council we'll vet it through ordinance and then it'll

come before the body for its proper readings and if we don't we can stop talking about it we can execute on it and then if we don't if people don't want to vote for it they don't want to vote for it we can maybe invite the leagues to the to these meetings and hear their input right they have they have a seat at the table here as well so let's let's do that I'm not saying this

Administration but other administrations have asked us when this board has talked about fees other Administration this Administration we have not brought fees to so I'm not saying it but other administrations have said we do not want fees so shut it down you're not going to have Fe and I get it I get it and and that's what why it's come to us so many times and we've had the same

conversation so many times between this but we don't know if there's a middle ground here because a conversation hasn't occurred in with this Administration years right so if we can accomplish anything from this and improve efficiencies send the communication to the park board Park Board bets it comes to the ordinance committee and the council will do it and that will be able to accomplish to help

some of the things that are concerning to you in the Park Board which it's it's evident and we need to be there for each other there might be a middle ground between the leagues but to Mr McDonald's point he makes a valid point and I think that discussion needs to start with you come to us and then the mayor will decide what he wants to do with it so I mean unless anybody else has

anything Ellen I I uh over here I just think that as a body this park Bo does the best they can I know you're volunteers as well so I we do the best we can we try to abide by every we try to help everybody we just ask that when they come before us anybody tell us the truth that's all we want yeah I agree I don't have anything else um thank you Mr President thank you

councel councel C3 councel H yeah I just um I just wanted to you mention that the the feast structure has been brought up and I think that's a good idea for you guys to start to initiate it also too on the school side coming from the school department as a school committee the fees work very well so I my my suggestion would maybe I know you probably have something together already

but maybe go see uh talk to um uh Kenny pachico uh and and the others in that department because they've you can use that maybe as a template we we just even this board has had conversations there is really no need to reinvent the wheel if the school department has something in place there's no need to reinvent the wheel we mimic what they do right um like I said B on what type of services

maybe they can provide more services so they have they are allowed to charge a little bit more maybe we charge a little bit less but you know it does I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel no you don't and I think by talking to to those guys over there it might be a little bit easier in transition also too um the question about the uh the turf at

britland when did that get um put in 2015 2015 how much was it 6 00,000 so they came with a maintenance right there's a maintenance on it there so many years you get then you got we've done maintenance on it we've put like $15,000 into to that field as far as but the but the life expectancy of a turf field is basically 8 to 10 years I believe eight to 10 years and I think

too if it's 8 to 10 years you do have you can get some kind of inspectors to go out there and they can see if it needs to be completely removed um or if it they might say do a couple of repairs to it you can make it can maybe last about another five six years I think that's what they did at the schools so that's just a suggestion too thank you I

Yi there you go just so you'll know life expectancy of all those turf fields is based on how much usage they have exactly so if they're using it once a week it's going to last a lot longer s day if it's used consistently it's usually about a 10 15 year but you're saying 8 to 10 that that sounds right too thank you coun coun CD counc Samson I just wanted to bring this up um

something that my uh uh colleague said councilor Ponte he talked about silos so I wasn't going to bring this up because I'm going to bring it up because he mentioned it and it seems that this department is the department your department is in a silo and you ask that you were asked for trucks you might need to ask for trucks it was a big thing I got to ask for trucks I don't have

enough trucks I got I got to borrow a truck so today I watched the last two pacbo meetings um it was painful it was a painful uh watch and um you were fighting over keys and I'm going to bring this up because it all it's relevant to the to the staffing issues I have a lot of respect for you I have a lot 44 years 44 years you have served

this community well you know what I see Nancy you're tired right I want to empower you okay this is woman Toom okay I want to empower you to rise above okay and do the job that you have done well by this community now I know it's frustrating when things change and people come in but but this you need help there's no there's nothing about it and sometimes right you got to give a

little to get a lot right and at this point I watched that painfully watched that the keys are not going to be given to a department head who you are going to have to ask to borrow a truck cuz you don't have enough trucks you have trucks so you're going to have to he's head so you're goingon to have to ask him to borrow a truck but he won't get keys to

a building I I don't B truck truck but he's the head of all it you know what I'm saying listen to me you're a smart woman and when you you are in a position where you need a lot of work you need help in your department all the help that you can get you know from working in this tough Community you've done a lot with a little and as you're ending

out your career over the next couple of years you're going to have to keep that same fight that you've had for 44 years to the very end listen listen and you can do it cuz you've done it and you've done it well so I ask watching those meetings you this this board has to think outside of themselves outside of what's always been done and what is best for the community

because what I saw and some of the things that may have been done in the past may not be what is best for the community right now because we need a lot of help in that department so maybe we do need to give the keys maybe we do need to have other people help signing contracts all of those things that we have always done but we need help you've done it you've done it long

whatever the whatever the case may be whatever the case may be those are painful meetings to watch and this department needs help and so whatever it is that you need I know Nancy that you can run that department and you can run it well I know you've done it you've done it for a long time but sometimes we need to give a little to get a little and in this we need a lot of help we

don't got a lot of bodies and we need the help that we can get so with that I yield thank you coun Mr President put Miss Burns is wants to say a couple words and with regards to Staffing I believe she deserves watching the last meeting and going on about different things please stick professional to the staffing issues go ahead go ahead I will say I think when it comes to Staffing

Nancy very much runs the department and she runs it in a way that has worked for 45 years I wasn't I wasn't running it for the whole time well well she wasn't even born when you started literally I was not um when it comes to well I don't want to be out of order so I C some of the things that you said I personally do not agree with because being in those

meetings they are painful to even be sitting there um so when it comes to certain things I think someone had brought up the volleyball court when it comes to contracts we didn't sign those so we had a meeting said it should go here we didn't sign the contract it ended up somewhere completely different and we found out at the next meeting so there's things like that that where there has to be an order because if we

are held accountable from the community the city council if we vote on something and something completely opposite happens because of set individuals I understand that it ends up coming back to us and when we're not being the ones that are following the same protocol but then at the end of the day it always comes back to us and it's kind of out of our hands at that point I respect that I respect that completely

thank you hold on five PR you ever follow oh me I just have two things to say about um the soccer field every M but right behind that soccer field is a big open area you could have another soccer field right there that was a practice field before okay so what happened to it they didn't want the soccer players didn't want someone on that field at the same time well the

soccer players don't run our Parks your Park Department our Park Department we're going to put one there they could be there they could be at travasos the other thing this is the only complaint I get about our Parks bathrooms please keep that in the back of your mind because when I walk the boardwalk or I'm in B Centennial Park mainly B Centennial they complain about bathrooms brillin Park they complain

there's a bathroom there there's an exercise thing that's pretty nice and I see people in the woods on the side hey there's no bathrooms let's try to see if we can come up with I told the mayor that I I was in um I was in the AOS over the summer they have cards that uh one of the bathroom places it's you put a card in and it opens the door and it says you

know there's a whole thing that you swipe the card it has the number who you are that's your card I don't know they paid maybe 50 screws for the card or something and something like that maybe you know know for people that utilize I really hate hearing people talk to me about their their medical problem leagues are just individual people huh no they give it individual people so you

would go to the City Hall you would sign your name show your ID they'd give you a card and that card you would have to be able to go to the bathroom you you know I know put your card in and the door opens Staffing counselor Staffing it's Staffing there would need more Staffing if we were going to add bathroom so well but really we have these bathrooms and nobody can use them I don't know then

why are we building bathrooms if people can't use them want me to put the com station attendance back into the budget cuz that's what used to have that senior citizens did that we had Rosie at Lafia par they did but that the youth got a little bit little too feisty for the senior citizens and we couldn't do that anym I know ours was Rosie and I would always bring her some chocolates from

NASA's variety cuz cuz that's what we did when we were kids but I just wanted to throw that out though thank you all for coming though um so I will see if I can get my budget Back N I'll ask I got a question yes when you didn't put in for a position this year did you put one in for last year I've put them in before yes I had no last year did you last year

one excuse me I believe one how about the year prior um year prior I think was I think it was Co was that Co yeah did we put I'd have to go back and all right cuz I mean how about same thing you put them in every year or put truck in every year yes I put the trucks check because I mean you didn't put one in this year and

it's true I mean whether you give up or not I mean it's I put one in this no talking about for the staffing oh no I did ask you about the trucks you said you did put one in I understood that no we haven't we haven't put trucks in yet I understand I'm talking about I asked for both Staffing and trucks you told me you did not put one in fish year for

Staffing but you have put in Prior years but trucks you put them in every year thank you for clarifying that thank you what do you want to say Mr chairman I've been I've been on on the board for four years already and I know for a fact every year the kabod is brought up so she does put in she never gets it okay and that kaboer is for Kennedy Park for them sidewalks because you cannot drive

a the the dump trucks down there because when them sidewalks were done they weren't done correctly and they're going to crack all them sidewalks down Middle Street is is a cab there is a Kabota in the op of is a Kabota got a bucket truck to it a bu yeah is what kind of TR is just a regular passenger Cabo with a lift with a thing with a plow so you don't need a

special license for it no no Hydraulics license no bucket no okay that's why we did a Kabota not a bobcat okay all right good all right with that being said thank you very much for coming down I I think the pocket department does a wonderful job of what they have but I'm disappointed that we not try to put it for more positions when we know they need it guys do they need to adjourn their

meeting they can sure you meting hold on guys got to agour the meeting sorry motion to aour Second commissioner McDonald made that motion second by commissioner Burns all in favor say I thank you motion to adjourn motion to ajour has been made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries meeting is now adjourned you guys want to go right into Finance you want to take a minute break Finance okay

rock and roll let me know

same city counc committee finance will come to order clck will call the RO council is kadim Dion here Hart here silby here Pereira here ponti here Roso here Samson here president C here pursu to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings

or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible before we begin I do want to say that I had spoken to councelor kadim and unfortunately he had a prior commitment to when this meas this meeting was scheduled due to the snowstorm the building was closed we could not hold the city council meeting on Tuesday so we decided to have it on

Thursday and unfortunately Council he could not join us today because he has a prior commitment we have one individual signed up to speak before us today Carlo Caesar subject matter Parks car has left the building he's back in the building it's okay I just had to uh you have three minutes Mr Caesar thank you I just have to uh confirm rumor with the Nancy but I got clear on that very good

thank you again um and uh it's a few things that I would like to um to say today uh first of all I have to thank Nancy um I have been working with Nancy for so many years and uh we used to do a lot of of events on the parks and every event that I had to use a park I had to to work with Nancy and she was always

there to help me and and make and make those events uh possible so I have to thank her for all this years of work and dedication it's not just to for you to hold a seat that long you it's not just your job you have to love the city and love what you do uh for the for the city um but it was a couple of things that was mentioned on the meeting that

that just uh I just want to remember the bo the the the the Cilia um about I will say about 10 years ago we had a project uh that we used the inmates and um I think Louie um your husband um counselor Lafia Park yes um the inmates came to the park we painted the the fence on the field we painted The Back Fence um and we work with the with the uh males and

females and every time that I was called Naomi for the group to came down she would tell me I don't know which group to send because they love to go work for you they uh they bring the candes back because you feed them so good they want to go to to for River to help you so I mean I did use the inmates before at the parks so I don't know if anything

changed after that but it's just I just want to uh uh remember the board uh that um and I mean a lot of those events that we use the park was free um and uh today we don't do many events it's no need uh I somebody's getting paid an organization in for Riv is getting paid to do events now so all the nonprofit organizations they used to do a lot of

free events for free with a lot of volunteers now everybody gets paid to do an event but that's where the the Administration wants to go and it's nothing that we can do um finally I don't know if if I if I remember correct the last budget was a lot of conversations with Nancy on this table and the and the counselors were an agreement just like you all are today to give her some

help but what happened last time the councils run out of time do you remember that is the day before and the mayor had to uh the the the the day before the meeting the mayor had to approve and you guys could not fight back because you run out of time to approve the budget that was three years ago it was three years ago okay so I just hope that that doesn't happen again because this

department really needs help uh so I hope we have time to have those conversations and to give help to uh um to this department and finally and finally I heard that's why I went to check with Nancy that she had moved to the garage she had moved from her office on Kennedy Park to the garage which to me was a concern because now the building was not going to be utilized

and was going to be abandoned so um but according to her they moving her back which is good news so that's why I was checking with her to make sure was not a rumor so she's going back to Kennedy Park with that said thank you again for your time thank you excuse next we move on to item number two fiscal year 2024 quarter 2 budget report it was referred to the Council on

January 23rd counc president we whole discussion counc for counc um with your permission and the council's permission I I think it's probably in the best interest to table 2 three and four the CFO is not here I mean she's the head of that department Council kadim who I consider an who I consider an expert expert on this stuff uh can't be here so um I would ask us be table to the next

meeting I second that roll call we have one counselor missing councelor out of nine there's one missing and yeah but the individual roll roll call on the motion to table Madam clerk was there a second there was the so just for clarification the transfers and Appropriations are still in the regular meeting but you wish to to table those in finance as well I just yeah maybe yes please can we take um

thanks uh Miss buad uh could you just table to table two and three and uh we can we can act on uh act on four okay Mr President point of information please con six this is this this we we have the city Charter that we need to start abiding by and this meeting this this this quarterly update should have already occurred in my opinion and I know we're talking on technicalities on

when the first meeting was or wasn't but we're going to be going now we have a quarterly update I'm sure the city administrator is capable and and able to answer questions if he's not he said he can just say he doesn't know I mean how many more times are we going to kick this can down the road with a quarterly update we're going to discuss it in March at this rate I mean Council kade's

not here there's eight eight other of of us the city administrator here if he can't answer the question he say he get back to us there's some legitimate questions that we need to be asking Mr President we have a five-year budget forecast that was presented to us and a couple years from now has an $8 million budget deficit I think there's any discussion after it's a it's a point of information so I I'm trying to

understand Madam clerk if or Mr President can you understand how far out on the city Charter are we going to go before we have our budget budget update yeah no I understand councel listen I'm all ready to ask questions and have it come before us and I think councelor would all do respect if we run into a saag Fu and we can't get certain questions and answers then we should table them I'll withdraw the motion than

thank you my play thank you boy there was a lot of discussion after a motion to Table in a second there was point of clarification so we clarified it Council SE to C I just have my hand up to ask questions about the qu to two budget okay no problem can you come back please okay sorry to take the council's time you're good no I understand where you come

in again I do want to reiterate the department head was going to be here but she has a also a prior commitment that she couldn't get out of and she sent a letter stating that so this isn't by deliberate on anyone's behalf the snowstorm on Tuesday set it all back to he counc to good evening um under actuals on the first page we have uh investment income the uh original was 800,000 we're at 1.4

million can you expand on that uh what the investment was how we arrived at that number yeah so those are our actual Investments that we have in different um bonds uh the cash that uh CFO almond has uh invested throughout the year so that includes everything from um not only our bonds but we also invested the arpa money when we received it um because of the way that came in we were

able to do that that's not always the case um so there was significant investment income from that as well as just in the ordinary course uh the bonds that we have and other things so um I do have to say that I I think uh CFO Alman has done a really nice job uh being very mindful of that and how we can make additional money without a tremendous amount of additional effort uh and and

certainly we need uh every dollar where we can get it excuse me one second councelor could both of you just give your names and department heads for the record I know sedc some people might not recognize who you are so just give your name and what Department you're with for the record so people at home that watching will know Seth you can do the same please thank you Seth Aken City

administrator Cedric Souza City auditor thank you very much seat two Council Dian you get the flooor I'm G Tred to do this without cheaters but I don't know if I'm going to be successful um on the very next page Public Works salaries this will be all be under expenses uh have I add expenses yet Public Work salaries is at 82% can you explain why sure that was actually a uh misclassification that was

corrected in the next period so that'll reflect on the next quarterly um book um which is it's not a normal occurrence but that's kind of part of my um uh everyday job as I go through the accounts and see that was charged at a wrong account and I reclassed it but with that being said um if you look at the uh Community maintenance total for the block we're still at uh

43% so what is the actual percentage on the salaries do you know rough and tough I would probably say in the 40 percentage in the 40% and is that the same thing with the recreation and Cemetery salaries that are at 63% that one no that one's an actual that one's actual so moving forward I'll I'll keep a closer eye on that and see where we're at okay and if you turn the page um property

insurance um was budgeted at 1.2 million we're at 1 4 million it's 115% yep can you explain uh I believe water had 1630 Bedford Street a new building um that was not in the original uh appropriation that we just had to pay for so um an actual order will come down to correct that um that budget so this is accurate but you don't but it hasn't come down yet correct

yep so we built a new building and we didn't ensure it no no it was an old building that was um I believe put back on line 1630 Bedford Street so the um the old building still stand stands and so we're ensuring that while also ensuring the new building there was clearly an oversight in making sure that we had accounted for the fact that that was going to come online that we would

have to ensure the old building for as long as it stood which shouldn't be for too too much longer once the weather gets a little warmer that'll come down okay um they're not going already knocked it down not the whole thing I think there's still a there's still a portion of it that they haven't done yet I could be wrong about that but I I understood they didn't do the entire thing there's a foundation removal and

everything else yeah it's wise to ensure that anyways um on the very next page the EMS rate revenue is at a deficit of 6 million 6.4 million oh the EMS um so that's actually a timing issue um the way that the the revenues come in in the um expenditures that they pay out uh EMS historically always ends in a surplus anyway so that's just the timing of how that

fell okay um we're going to go to City expenses page

four let's see um so 20 let's see I'm assuming that's overtime the very top line purchasing I don't know overtime prch I'm assuming is purchasing 75.8% can you explain what that expense is so that line is um other purchase Services um I don't off the top of my head know exactly uh what's been expended to that but I can definitely get that for you and get back to you okay and Define that again it's other

other purchased Services other purchased Services okay yeah if you could do that that would be that would be helpful let's see page six um so this is another other um one two three the fourth line 283 per not that it's a significant number but can you explain what that line item is and why it's at 283 per.

off the top of my head no but I can like the prior I can definitely get it and give you an answer moving down um in the city collector's office service out of rank what would warrant having service out of rank in the collector's office fortunately almost not sure but again I could I could definitely look into that for you yeah okay so I think I think with that one um when the

assistant collector when the collector treasure collector is out that's uh Mr shackney you the assistant collector would serve for a day or several days you know as the case may be there's a service out of rank for that person so you're the assistant collector your job is to step in if the collector isn't there but when you do you get paid more it could be so whether it's the assistant or whether it's somebody

stepping up to to fill in another position there are there are ranks within those uh positions that sort of follow the ask me even though they're not all Union employees um so they follow some of the asme rules so if somebody who would ordinarily in any other department be a union employee is stepping up to serve beyond their position and outside of their job description they get paid service at a

rank Seth I don't I think the clerk can clarify some of that I don't think they are AC me I don't think they're service out of um it applies to these positions can Madam CL can you just clarify whether you I agree with that Mr President they're not Union but they follow some of the Union rules to get at a rank that's all I'm saying okay I think not everyone's aware

of that if that is the case it's not the norm that's fine on page eight um is the uh Compu uh yeah Information Systems so if you look at 8 nine and 10 uh most items that are 100 are at 100% or higher um so if 100% has been utilized in most of in the majority of the the categories what does that mean moving forward for the next two quarters so that the way that that um

department is set up if you see like the first one two three four lines the 192 that's budgeted on page eight I'm sorry the bottom of page eight I'm not following what you're saying the top line is 192,000 correct and then was appropriated yep and then the bottom three 73 Grand 11 8 um it's set up as sub accounts so even though that's 100% that's drawing down from that 192 okay and that follows through with

the yes on the next page on page nine Etc and and that doesn't exceed the 192 as you go down that list No so at the well I don't know what the exact percentage would be but at the bottom line it's only 75 well 76% of their budget has been utilized so not all of those are sub accounts for the cell phone major account which is what that is and then what follows are sub

accounts but then some of these are actual software that was purchased in the first or second quarter um and so that is purchased there's a subscription that goes with that it's a year three years something like that um some of it's Hardware so those aren't necessarily recurring costs the way the personal would be that's upfront cost upfront Cost U let's see on page 13 SRO overtime um you had zero budgeted

and we've expended $1,346 what drove that and why would we have zero budgeted if we do we normally I believe last year it we had SRO overtime as well so why would zero be budgeted and what warranted the over $10,000 expenditure I don't know the answer to that I'm going to have to get back to you because I know how overtime ordinarily works from the pool with the regular police but I know SRO are

treated a little bit different and what draw what drove the overtime is something I'll have to find out I'll get back to you on that now aren't the SRO generally funded on the school side yes on page 15 so under signal operators there was virtually well there was $145,400 total that was um originally appropriated but we've expended $919,000 can you please explain that yeah so we had a new um a new method of

input in the budget this year rather than having the auditor's office um put in all the budgets for everybody each department had went ahead um went forward and entered their own budget uh police being a little bit more complicated of a budget um they stuck it all under majority of it under the 1210 um which I think would also answer that SRO uh question for you so again it's something that I'm going to have to

later in the the year go ahead and um line up based on what um the budget the police put in yeah I think um I think every line item should have correct should have a dollar amount associated with especially I mean I mean we have to know in the past what we paid for uh signal operators Etc um yeah that definitely so we are we do meet with all of the public

safety departments every quarter um and the CFO does a does a really nice job of carefully monitoring overtimes and other things like that there's there's no way that they're overspent by $800,000 or more um that's that's well I don't I didn't interpret it as as overspent necessarily but you have nothing in the line items to indicate what the anticipated expense was so we really don't

know what that final number is or isn't it is certainly less than clear and we'll clarify yeah and I I find that that that that's a problem um the environmental police salaries is the same thing we knew we know we had at least one environmental police officer zero money is appropriated but and I mean again and you know we're at $882,000 now I don't believe that one environmental police officer salary is$

82,000 no so again why how did we arrive at that number have we taken on an additional environmental police officer do we still only have one how many vacancies are there still in that so what probably accounts for this is that there is one environmental police officer that was on at the beginning of the quarter and then another one came on toward the end of the quarter um out of the academy so we

now have two environmental police officers but that one would have only come on for a very short period in the quarter so those together probably come to the 82 but let me verify and confirm that for well I know when we did the 2024 budget there were I believe five environmental police um vacancies or four vacancies that were funded right so it's you know so we have it funded in

the in the 2024 budget but when we get to the quarterly uh report Suddenly It's not funded and again we don't have a clear picture as to what the 82,000 is I find I find these things a little bit uh distressing and we have the same situation in the animal control salaries uh 11,000 was appropriated we've spent 53,1 se4 not that I wouldn't anticipate we would spend that money obviously we

have more than one animal control officer so it's not an ISS it's the issue is you're appropriating nothing and then we have a negative number but we really don't have an accurate assessment of how we arrive at these numbers um so hopefully in the third quarter report we can eliminate these issues that would be uh helpful so next I'm going to jump to I only have two more things I'm going to jump to page

24 and again this is not a substantial amount of money it's uh we appropriated under for garage rentals 25,000 we've we're at 10% we exceeded it by 2,600 what garage rental and why why why wouldn't that be a fixed number so there's one um facility that we do rent for the facilities department so DCM has their vehicles at the Len Street Barn across the street um behind there's a old bus company there there's

a there's a barn actually a really nice facility that we've been renting for the last several years um that rental is actually going to she's selling the building so that's going to stop um but there was a rental and then um at some point in the second quarter um the landlord advised that she wanted to renegotiate the lease based upon additional equipment being kept on the property um so that accounts for the

change and um that should I believe come off during the third quarter entirely okay and lastly on page 27 it's under public Works um again this isn't a big number but it's other I am I'm assuming that's stien stip would that be for an abbreviation for a stien I apologize councelor where are we here on page 27 the very top line there we go other stiens um I mean I'm assuming at me

that's what it is is a stien I mean I could be wrong it could be an abbreviation for something else um but it is under Public Works no I'd agree with you that that's exactly what that is um so do we know what the stien was for to whom it was paid why it was paid I don't I will find out and get you that answer okay with that I yeld thank you

thank you councelor Council Cate Council Samson I have a a question for the city administrator the um we just heard from a department head and I don't know if this is normal practice um that she submits a budget to you and then when she gets it back it's completely different nothing that she asked for she's not even contacted is that normal practice for your CFO to do that is that happening is there a

discrepancy with that do you disagree with that I don't think she said that I just want to clarify I think what she said was she said it's a budget and then she doesn't see it till after we vote on it so if there was any changes she's not aware but it's not completely different every time she submits a budget sometimes they may be changes if there changes she just doesn't see she doesn't

know about it I mean is there are you discussing with your department heads and I don't want to put words in her mouth but my take away from that was that um is she are you discussing the changes with the department heads are they just surprised after they submit a budget to you um what's so the changes are definitely discussed with department heads okay but just to be clear um Parks

is not a department it's a division yeah right so um the way it goes is it works its way through the chain of command so that um those divisions within City operations submit their budgets um those budgets then are submitted through City operations to the CFO um so ideally there is conversation I know there's conversation between City operations and the CFO what's supposed to happen is that there are also meaningful

conversations between the department head and the division and the division head um and so my understanding is that's what happened uh obviously you know that's concerning if that is in fact what's going on uh and I'm not going to I can't speak one way or the other as to you know know what's really happening there uh but I'm certainly going to look into that because my understanding is that you know we can't

have every division head or even you know subunit be negotiating their own budget with the CFO it does have to follow a path and um as far as I know that path is being followed yeah and you know not everybody likes the changes that's going to be made and you it is what it is but I would think it would be very important for um there to be communication when are changed and I'm

not maybe there was and there's some miscommunication there I just hope that that's not common practice that um after a budget is submitted changes are made and it's not discussed it's not common practice it's really not even what happens believe not common practice is to say happens you're right um I will I will tell you that specific to that department which is you know kind of an

unwieldy Department because has so many divisions in it the arpa requests that went in um in lie of capital projects because you you'll recall that last year we took all capital expenses out of the budget and tried to satisfy them through arpa um in order to give some relief to the budget and we did it for two years um so last year the entire city operations DCM uh which is streets and highways

Solid Waste Parks cemeteries and trees all of their oper requests were submitted as a s single list um and so that is being worked on as an aggregate list and so there's trucks there's the cabota there's other things in there um that very possibly because it happened quite some time ago um the division had at parks may not even remember or be aware of um but I will tell you that as an aggregate list for

that entire department there is arpa money being brought to bear instead of City you know uh budget you know from the from the city budget City funds uh to purchase vehicles that if maintained and and we do have plans on how to do that should last for years to come and replace things that are not in great shape so the the which leads to my next question this there not a hoarding of

vehicles is there a like so I will say there's there's not a lot of extra um so I I think we we all sort of understand that this is a city where there's not a lot of extra um there is no hoarding of vehicles so there's not you know some parking lot full of City vehicles that no one can use unless they you know know the right person um I so I we just got

two uh electric uh or you know hybrid explorers in uh those are distributed the people that were using other vehicles those are distributed someplace else um you know as things have happened we' become aware you know hey the the uh four person at cemeteries and trees could really benefit from this kind of vehicle you know let's see if there's room to add that on so it is a fluid situation uh and as Vehicles come in

they're being distributed out and other vehicles are being moved around where they have less of a burden on them because they're older yeah so I just want to make sure with the riog that in the divisions that some of that information is getting trickled down if you could just look into that I will and I will tell you that that there's even been a conversation about how we might reorganize City operations in order to

have overlap in the forces because you know 15 16 people to deal with all the parks is not really enough however if you have a common motorpool you know for cemeteries and trees DCM solid waste and uh Parks all dealing with the maintenance issues and doing preventative maintenance you know that multiplies that Force right if you have uh you know multiple laborers across the divisions on a cutting schedule working

in different places that multiplies the force so there's a lot of uh work being done around that and and hopefully that gains some Traction in the next month or two yeah that's a uh I like your thinking there I think and that and that would alleviate some of the misconceptions or the concerns or the lack of communications or the lack of help so um I don't want to take credit

for something that's not me that this is Mr oliv he's been talking to the mayor uh I know he's been talking to uh Mr denme and and other division heads within that department so he just he just related to me that this is something they're talking about so well it's a good idea so with that I yield thank you Council c seat six counti thank you Mr President um so a couple quick just uh

High overview things if I could just U make a request um please um maybe for the uh next meeting um if you can um Mr aen could I get a list of all the stiens I can go through it sure um but if you can email that to me that would be appreciate appreciated does that include just to be clear all uh um Union non um no because it's it's the stiens your

union organized all right so not the snow stuff and correct I can see that those those are basic but I'd like a list of the colgain try away from it looks to be by reading this that this is starting to creep up a little bit more more more so than previous uh budgets that I looked at so I just wanted uh to to point that out and get that list for me please the

other thing is when it comes to net School spending for this fiscal year just want to make a point of order real you could send it to all the I'll I'd like one of those yes no I think it's important whatever information I send out send everybody I understand that no problem um in terms of net School spending uh this year um are have we committed to the school department uh the necessary allocation

to meet 100% of net School spending so we are committed to meet 100% of net School spending I will tell you that as you know well that's sometimes is a little bit of a moving Target so we'll find out in the third or fourth quarter that there's more than we thought no matter what we're committed to 100% of net School spending do we owe the school department money money right now I don't

believe we owee the school department money right now but I'd have to check I'm not certain about that and that's fine if you could let me know that uh and the whole Council know um I did watch a couple school committee meetings and I know a couple of school committee members were advocating uh for um some additional funds that the city owed them I believe okay so if you can get back to

me on that that'd be great do you know when that was was it a recent meeting uh it had to have been within the last couple of yeah since we got elected So within January I believe I I don't remember the meeting but um I do know that um if my memory serves me correctly because I remember I think it was Mr agar who was advocating for the mayor to

get back to him on some specific things and I believe we still owe the school department a sizable amount of money notwithstanding the fact that it's not going into the end of the year uh actuals that you guys usually go through and go back and forth for the insurance and all that other stuff so if you can get back to me because I'd like to know what that number is point of information is that are you

you talking the 23 or 24 budget I'm talking about the budget that we have right now in front of us because I believe that number we have transfer for the 23 budget before us tonight right but that was I believe the number is about 2.5 million yes yeah okay so that answers that uh inactive capital projects it's kind of been a thing of mine I don't think we've talked about

this um I've always been it annoys me to see several hundred, usually in inactive projects right and I recognize that we can do so much with that money um but we were talking to the parks tonight and we have in inactive capital projects we have Maplewood Park and I know this isn't a lot of money and I'm not trying to be too picky here but it's $133,000 of idle money for Maplewood Park you're

looking at for two Park almost $440,000 of uh idle money that we can't do we're not doing anything with I'm looking at the globe fire stations uh fire station it looks like we have $76,000 of idle money not being used I am almost positive that our fire department needs within all the fire buildings that we have need additional help or resources I'd like to see if we could do something with that um we're

talking about government center roof replacement almost $140,000 of idle money um can that be used I guess to preserve the Armory at this point right because there correct me if I'm wrong because prior CFO used to tell me all the time that as long as it is within the boundaries of having the same um longevity call it right we could repurpose that money and the administration can repurpose that money

to like projects to like projects yep that that's the key like so that pivots me to my next question uh I'm not going to ask you tonight for a commitment to do something with this Capital Money I want to urge you um if you could please get with um CFO and try to find a way to repurpose this within this current Municipal budget because we prior years we used to see pages and pages of idol

money now we just have like you know 10 lines here and it's it's it's almost $400,000 395,000 I think the auditor can speak that a little bit that's a project they're working on right now yeah so CFO almond and U Mr Olivera are actively working on um seeing what like uh projects can that that can be used for I I don't know and I don't know and maybe you know you're talking about Parks

about $52,000 and we just sat here for an hour and we talked about how Parks needed more help so if we have $52,000 of idle money do you know if Mr ala's plan here is to re um uh to use that money elsewhere within the parks it has hopefully within the parks to help some of the needs they have so I I I think there is a plan to try to repurpose that

money the problem is that Staffing is is usually off limits when it comes to to some of that especially since it's onetime money so we just we want to make a long-term plan if we're going to bring people on and people need to be brought on there's no question um but some of that money especially I mean You' brought up I think Street capes and some of the other things my next question

there's just no um you there's no opportunity to to divert that toward Personnel streetscapes is an active is an active project uh that's already being bid right now as soon as the weather gets warm uh that's uh going to be an intersection on Bedford Street um let me look at the description I was just looking at it I was in the uh but I I want to get to that um M Aken but I

want to I don't want to lose s on the my question yep do you have a plan on address you you clearly have a plan to talk to Mr ala about doing something with his idle money any idea what that may be is it I mean the parks need work I mean I know the baseball fields need some work I know uh some of the fencing needs to be replaced she was speaking

about a grant earlier today about some lighting that needs to be done I'm not necessarily saying that we're going to use this for personnel purposes but I know there's some parks that need some assistance and I'd like to see if we could repurpose this money as soon as possible and have a plan from the administration on a reallocation so I know that there is a tentative plan for reallocation I can't commit that it's

all for the parks okay um and you know I mean you you acknowledge that there's been a lot of money put into the parks you unfortunately guys have done a great job there are so many different places that are that are crying out for resources so you know I know they're taking a hard look at that and those are really challenging decisions uh but there was a plan um and you know I I we

could even have Mr Olivera come down and and brief the Council on what that plan is uh because in addition to looking at inactive projects we're also looking at over funds uh from Community preservation so going back to 2016 there's a number of projects some are ongoing so that's you can't touch those but there is some money left over right uh and we could repurpose that to the Armory and other places so well what

makes what makes a capital project idle money that's a great question I don't know the answer in terms of whether it's time or whether it's that the project has been deemed completed um and that there's leftover money I'd have to find out okay if you can let me know about that um and I appreciate that I want to I want to Pivot now to the current capital projects that we have um so

we're looking at a number of uh projects that have been sitting here for years um some of these go back to 2016 in capital projects that were authorized um some of them 2015 um so here here's what I and I know this might be an a challenge to do but for some of these older authorized projects some of them even in their comment section appear to be coming towards the end of their

completion um for example when you're talking about streets and highways um we have it appears to be $24,000 and the comment says resident requested sidewalk repairs and are completed and inspected and the available use of that money is almost 205,000 and I'm almost certain that we could repurpose that money for additional sidewalks within this community um so would you be able to maybe maybe for our next quarterly

update work on cleaning this up a little bit and give us a little bit more detail on when these are expected to be completed because we have how much we expended uh we have how much is left over but there has to be game plan soon as to what's going to happen when these things need to be finished and your plan for streetscapes Mr Aken is what again please so that's uh about $2 million um

from what I understand that is to complete the intersection of I think it's uh Bedford and Robison continue on Bedford West um and that right now is is actually I was just talking to Mr agar um uh at the break it's uh let's see construction dos are actually being prepared right now uh to bid out this spring uh so the hope is to actually have that work well underway before the end of the fiscal

year okay um can I can I have a point of order yeah of course uh talking about sidewalks this year my understanding was that this year they were going to do from Bedford Street up to ston Haven Road because there are no sidewalks on either side going up they did the sidewalks on ston Haven from the water department over to the high school right but coming up the kids are all walking in the street and I

was told that that was supposed to be being done this spring so is that part of some of this money that's here so I I believe it is I believe that's this project um part of that is those sidewalks plus there's actually a significant amount of arpa money that's been put specifically towards sidewalks and streets that right now is in the planning and and will be in the bidding process shortly I just don't want them

to forget that and go and do something else because it's safety for the students certainly thank you Cliff all right yeah no thank you um so you know this streetscapes thing has made more buzzword over the last six or seven years than it needs to um do you feel does the administration feel that it's necessary to put more money into these Street Scapes programs uh this streetscapes

plan other than that repurposing it for some of our other deteriorating roads that might need to be done I think highis street is a perfect example of one Diamond so I think this particular project uh the one I just spoke about I think is is certainly worthwhile it's an important project there's a lot of traffic there um but I I would agree that there's there's probably a lot of different um you know places that uh

could could benefit from more attention um but that's that's a conversation that I I probably would have to sit down have with the mayor and Mr agar I know that there is a a pretty big plan with regard to both streets and sidewalks around the city uh it has an order to it um they're they're already moving very quickly toward being able to to put shovels in the ground as the case may be as soon as

the weather turns warm uh and we could have Mr Yer come down and do a do basically a thumbnail of what that plan is so you know what the next year um working on our streets and and sidewalks looks like I I I guess my guess my question is that is it that is that more of a priority than some of our other roads and and this the Administration has done a really good job of addressing

some of our infrastructure needs over the last couple of years but I'm trying to figure out if is this the best use of our money right now we've been playing around with streetcape since 200 what 18 or something uh 2016 and the project still hasn't been done we're still looking at a$2 million of money that could be allocated elsewhere is it the priority of the administration to go down this route

with other things that we have to do so from my understanding this particular project is a priority of this Administration with regard to where we focus other money on other roads uh I can't speak to that right now uh but I could certainly get you a plan okay and and that's that's fair um again we're just looking at almost two $2.4 million of Street Scapes money that was authorized in 2016 and we're kind of

just getting to maybe the final phases in some of them I mean you know that that was a that was an administration at the time that wanted to do this whole revitalization plan you know I'm going to be honest with you I think Street Scapes has its pros and cons but with the development of our Waterfront and I've talked to the mayor about this from the development of our Waterfront coming

up towards City Hall needs to be where our Focus needs to be okay it doesn't need to be with all due respect in the middle of the city where we have a lot of through traffic that needs to look pretty I think it needs to look pretty I think all of our city needs to look pretty I think all of our onramps and off-ramps need to improve I think our Highway access and the visibility on

some of the work that gets done by uh the state needs to improve but I I think priorities probably should be to find a way how we can connect our downtown to our Waterfront by way of Street Scapes it started around here that was a total waste of money and then it works its way it should be working its way down that way because in my opinion that's where the Economic Development and Tourism is

going to work its way up this way right so I would urge and I know it's a priority it's been sitting here a while I I would love to urge you to bring to the mayor and and and the city planner to find a way where we can maybe look at repurposing this money for other priorities that are get get us a return on investment um besides looking good and looking pretty I think should also

be cognizant of where our City's going in the next 5 to 10 years and it's not going that way it's going that way up right that's the only way you're going to revitalize our Waterfront and connect our downtown I and unless you want to articulate where in our Capital plans we have any kind of a plan to do that do you know of any plans to um try to connect our Waterfront to our downtown

so that's not something I'm prepared to speak about right now um I know that there there certainly are our conversations there's a master plan uh that's been commissioned for the Waterfront uh I know that that certainly speaks to a larger connected Vision uh but I I can't go into it any deeper than that at this point yeah I mean I I think we could take $2 million and we could

make South Main Street a one way and offer some more parking opportunities down down downtown and seeing if there could be a traffic study done to see if from Columbia Street towards city hall or not longer to try to maybe from the TA this way to try to find a way where we can make that a one-way parking with Road uh with some additional parking for people like they do in Newport and some

of these other towns I mean there just needs to be some emphasis behind doing that and I don't want to lose sight on what what's really important when it comes to that so no I I absolutely understand I I mean I do know the highest highest I can't even say highin street thank you to New Boston Road is being redone this year yeah um but I know that with the new diamond construction going in there's they're

holding off on and are you doing sidewalks down highest Street too do you know I believe it's it's it's every when they do it it's sidewalks and and Street yeah there's no sidewalk on highest Street right now so they're going to have to add sidewalks and if there that's going to be a a more thorough way for cars to go to drop their you know their their students and kids off to

Diamond because that's where it's going to be you're going to go down highis street and the school's going to be right there where the where the football fields are so more people are going to travel that road so um I think sidewalks hopefully are part of part of that plan I don't know if Diamond's going to pay for it probably not but we got to try to find a way to do that my only other

question is on the um on the uh Capital uh plan I have a brief question but I'll wait until the next item on the agenda for that I yeld thank you thank you C you know while we're at it in that neighborhood there easn Avenue doesn't have sidewalks all the way up on E Avenue as well you have some places have sidewalks on E Avenue other places there grass patches there then when it snows

people walking in the the breakdown Lane so we should really look and I've talked to the mayor about it in the past we should really look at putting sidewalks at least on one side of Avenue A lot of people are walking nowadays in the summertime and it's it's dangerous CED seven counil proposal thank you hi Cedric uh two questions on the motor vehicle excise tax I'm assuming the bills just went out so

correct um we that would explain the 15% very low number at this point we'll get more information quarter three yeah correct okay and then just on that same page toward the bottom is the non-recurring expense can you just clarify what that may be yeah the the um the extra cash is uh interest uh I actually just checked before the meeting it's yes perfect thank you very much I Y thank you

councelor counc C5 C Vice per would you have your hand up yeah I'm most of the questions that I had have already been asked so I don't want to be redundant but highis Street was already done from New Boston Road up it's uh from Locust Street down to meet it and they they were going to do it but they couldn't do it because the gas company has to put in

extra piping that has to be put in the road for Diamond so that one wasn't done but I would say that I absolutely agree 100% with councilor Kamara I have gotten so many calls from people on Eastern Avenue because a lot of the kids from dery walk um Eastern Avenue and as a matter of fact at Eastern Avenue in Bedford one of our trucks went off the road and hit some I don't know they're

like pillars with wood things that were across they look terrible they were damaged nobody's ever taken them down or cleaned them or done anything but there should be a sidewalk there a lot of people are walking and it's not safe there and that's a great neighborhood to do some work in so maybe that's something that you can use uh you know some of that other money yeah there's on that on that

point there's actually Jersey barriers that next to the church St anthon there a church that were put there too that need to be addressed the Jersey barriers that are there yeah yeah it's like even even some of the I go into the Armory and there's all these light poles there but right over here at the corner near the post office a light was knocked down and you got all wires there near St

Mary's Church another one with all wires there so if we have it it's a matter of putting somebody there to be honest with you when we came up with the facilities Department 15 years ago you weren't around here but I was and it was supposed to be we'd get our own own Havoc person HC person we'd get our own electrician our own plumber we'd do everything in house that has never happened it's been an abysmal failure

and there is no way the city is going to hire an electrician or a plumber for what you want to pay versus what a plumber and electrician can make working on their own you know they they're making really good money um so we can't hire them for that amount of money but I do agree we have to utilize some of the money that we have and I do know that the money had the

project has to be completely done before that money can be let out because we've we've done that before um not not all for Parks um because there's a lot of other things that need to be done but I think that having Mr ala perhaps come down with Mr Agia and look at what are the things that we're working on what are we doing um to see what happens there I mean I hope small Street gets

done they've been asking for that for three years that's supposed to be done this year I know it is on the list maybe we need that list to reassure people of What's um you know what's going to be done what can be done and I know that they were talking earlier about um getting inmate Crews to come down and I believe even Mr Caesar discuss that I think it's important for people to know

the encampment on Brighton Avenue the mayor did go out there they have cleaned out that whole encampment got rid of tents and it was uh Sheriff Haru sending down some of his inmates at the request of the May so we are utilizing them I just don't think that they utilize them as much because I I believe they're having just as much of a problem in the prison of getting guards

as you know and you you've got to have manpower to be able to go out with uh with the crews so everybody's kind of struggling with that but um do you have anything to add Cedric anything that you think uh we should be looking at things that are done differently I know that there have been some things that have been done differently uh with the CFO like how the police department procures

things and and things like that and different departments and with all the OPA money all that is going into these departments you know with a A young a young Department um is there any initiatives that you can come up with to make things a little smoother has there been any like that I mean we we we discussed procurement at length I think the last meeting you know how I feel about that I feel we

need a procurement officer that is not if you're doing it right you need a full-time person there right you can't do it or other people doing that I didn't think when we hired the CFO that procurement was going to be her job right or be part of her job and to you know get a couple of Clerks to go and get trained it takes a lot more than that what was the name of that woman

that was here before um uh Whatchamacallit did it for a little while did what who was it do you remember arene robinet arene robinet arene Robinette she had that place running really smooth but she dotted her eyes crossed her tears we never never never had an issue and she worked full-time and sometimes overtime to get it done right because they look at that I I almost feel like sometimes you look at

well we're going to put this position in with this position so instead of paying two $50,000 positions we're going to make this person at 60,000 or 70,000 and you're going to do both jobs but this person Works 40 hours and this person Works 40 hours so if you take this away you're still only getting 40 hours you know you need to have the manpower to do the job and do it right

and not be caught up with like oh I made a mistake here or there because everybody is human you did ask a question I think SE was prepare to answer the question fine but do you have anything that's come through that we're doing now differently than we did before not that comes to mind councilor okay I just want to check with you you yeld councilor I yield thank you very much

there be no further questions we'll move on to item number three fiveyear Financial you have a fiveyear financial forecast referred in January 23rd to hold discussion counc seat seven Council propos on that's just a just a quick question regarding the statement on diamond has there been any clear number shared to this point um from last last time we discussed the current Diamond situation not that I'm aware of no I

don't know see if thank you thank you counc counc C2 on page two under expenditures um Public Safety for make sure this right um 2 3 4 yes so under Public Safety from the FY 24 budget to the 25 budget is a decrease of $2.5 million um I'm a little confused as to how uh the expenditures in public safety are going to decrease by 2 and A5 million

um we got a staffing Grant uh to pay for the salaries of a number of police officers that will go into effect uh for this that's in effect this fiscal year are you talking about the eops or are you talking about the 2 and A2 million the two and a half million okay because that two and A2 million I just happened to have with me um so it's actually 2 million 375,000

um but it's over a threeyear period and it's up to 125,000 per officer over three years you can't expend it all in one year that's correct so that's so how can it be how can you have the full savings when that you have to expend it over three years well I mean that's part of it right so so you're offsetting around 800,000 thereabouts um a year in addition to that um there is let's

see there are some initial costs um in terms of so fy2 24 there was a lot of retro there was a lot of initial costs for startup for body cams and other things now that was certainly arpa money there's no question about it but that was part of uh police budgeting um for the two years at least after that that's on a subscription that was prepaid so there's going to be some savings there

uh I could find a actual I could get a breakdown for you and show you where the whole two two and a half million is but there's probably a million there between the grant which is just just right under 800,000 um plus the um not having the initial cost of some of the new infrastructure we put in so which would have been in 24 that comes off for 25 and 26 and then we'll

probably go back up again you see an increase in 27 because we're going to have to renew some of that so um that's actually the increase starts yeah actually starts in 20 FY 26 so you're going to see um you know because you're going to see about 8 or 900,000 come back on in 27 um so you got 800,000 for 25 26 some 27 uh with those startup costs coming back on for technology um the biggest

thing being uh body cams there's more to it I'm sure and I can get you a break down I appreciate that because um it it it doesn't increase the monies in general it's only an increase if you hire new police officers right it only offsets the cost of a new of of a new uh police officer so it doesn't have anything to do with the public safety budget other than that

well I think the I mean I think the idea is that even though there seems to constantly be open police slots we're always trying to have us you know have our police fully staffed right and use the money that's budgeted so you're right whether we fill those spots or not it doesn't change how it's budgeted um but if you imagine that probably 70 to 80% of that is Personnel the other 20%

is where those fluctuations are going to be so that's that's where I think we're going to find it and I'll I'll get a breakdown for you okay I appreciate that thank you that a yield thank you counc CC seat six c p uh yeah thank you so I noticed that in this uh budget forecast that you have here it's just screaming at me uh that going into fiscal year 2016 on we we're looking at a budget

deficit starting in 2026 at $8.7 million 9.8 the year after 10 million by 2028 12 million by 2029 in the projections that you have here um does that include Diamond yes that that the biggest part of that is Diamond so 6.8 to 6.9 million dollar is the conservative estimate right now beginning in FY 26 is diamond and so at that point you know there is other money of course uh for the shortfall um but

the vast majority of it beginning in 26 is Diamond well so it looks to be that that number of $6.8 million is going to be 6.8 million every single year after okay so every year that deficit continues to go obviously higher and higher so by 2029 2028 we might be looking at a56 million budget deficit if we're not seeing anything I know that's far along but I mean this raises some

concern here so I guess what is the plan by the administration to start planning to address this deficit now because we can't wake up in 20125 as you know and start having these discussions so um the um not a trick the challenge no I know it's not a trick question but it's it's a it's a it's a tough answer um because obviously whenever you start talking about how do you save money when

you have a budget that is comprised mostly of personnel you know invariably the concern becomes do we have to cut personnel and when you start talking about you know people's lives and livelihoods that might be the worst conversation you can have um so right now there is conversations uh and I I take councilor perea's Point well which is that we can't survive un combining positions and hoping that one person can

do two people's work in the same 40 hours but right now that's the initial step is where can we find efficiencies and then once we're done looking at efficiencies and um you know how we can do more with less you know without significantly cutting city services we may have to start having a conversation about how do we red reduce our costs and the majority of our costs are Personnel

so um those are conversations that are being had I think it's important that very soon we bring the council into that because only together can we figure that out in addition to that conversation around you know do we have all the people we need in the right places and you know is there overlap where there doesn't need to be overlap all those things you look at um there's also the

conversation about garbage um you know what are the solutions out out there that will allow us to begin to if possible decrease the amount of money we're spending on Solid Waste there's some very interesting Solutions we've had people come and do presentations to try to figure out if there's technology out there that will help us with this issue um you know we just announced and

this was a very drop in the bucket truly a drop in the bucket we announced we're no longer picking up commercial trash I think um um attorney Thomas put that out uh it's something that this Council has been asking us to do for a long time uh this mayor had the political will to do it which is great uh it took a little while to figure out exactly what that looked like because so many barrels were

given out under so many um carts were given out under the previous administration those are the two big things that come to mind um but that but but but but that doesn't seem to me these are all great I think they're efficiency savings I think we start now have a big impact right in 20126 or or sooner but that doesn't equate in my opinion to $8 million of new Revenue that we need to generate because we're

not going to be able to bank on the waterfront being developed by 2026 we won't be able to capitalize on that new growth at least until 20 27 28 if we're lucky so what do we do I mean I I what generally happens and the colleagues who have been here a lot longer than I I've been here can tell you the council's always put in a situation these bleachers are filled everybody's here

signs every all these crazy things are happening and it's like hey well guess what well if you don't approve this budget you're laying off 30 firefighters right when the eops grant happened there was pandemonium okay so this goes back to the continued Reliance on utilizing onetime money to balance Municipal budgets over the last several years and I know Co happens but I'm telling you that the detrimental

impacts that this community will face is a is a as glaring as it can be right now in 2024 $7.8 million of onetime money was was used to balance the budget in terms of Revenue you're planning in 2025 to use maybe just about $5 million or thereabouts of onetime money so you've said the 7.8 Million number before sure where are you getting that from because because you in 2024 you used in your

report here you use $4.5 million of oper so 2.25 was to was to off offset other expenses so we could delay the dery debt exclusion coming on right it wasn't offset the dery debt exclusion it was Revenue so you didn't have to go to I get that but I'm just saying this The $7.8 Million number is real because you use 4.5 of arper you use $2.5 million from your stabilization account and you

use $840,000 from free cash so that's $7.8 million considering the stabilization in freee cash one time money yeah it is yeah because it is it's it's not not reoccurring you took it from one out and you we're not going to be able to balance our budget by taking money out of stabilization no understood but with turn backs and other things we do grow the stabilization sure and that rolls over into free cash to the next

fiscal year understood I think it's a different category of money I mean now we're getting this this is probably I'm not trying I'm just trying to make a point that the Reliance on onetime money without the assurances that we're going to continue to receive the same amount of money from the state the governor's been talking about uh not being able to provide the same amount of resources to

cities and towns that that's not even taken into consideration here so look we want to keep adding these positions we want to keep giving raises I have to ask the question on if the administration yet has the numbers from the police department when you guys bargained uh with the police department to get the increases to the patrolman which were warranted I'm not saying an increase wasn't the analysis

has that been done do we have that yet in terms of how that's going to impact the city in this fiscal year future fiscal years and in your collective bargaining negotiations with other unions so I think it might have been last week or maybe early this week we did send because I guess councelor Kadeem asked for like all of the the basic salaries for every officer I mean that's really the start of that um so I

know that there's an ongoing analysis that you should have shortly as to what that really looks like the first step was to actually break down all several hundred bargaining units because everybody you know based upon whether it's Quinn Bill and everything else they're all kind of in their own categories um rank is not doesn't really tell the story um so I think we can have that for you pretty easily so you can

actually see what that looks like at the end of the day both the fire uh contract and the Police contract were significant but in order to retain and recruit the best public safety people those were necessary um you know one wasn't necessarily our choice but at the end of the day it was important to to make sure that those guys are safe and and have you know the money and the equipment

everything else they need to do the job they have to do which is a job that not a lot of people want to do um I think at the end of the day any of the things we're talking about don't really come close to offsetting an eight or nine or 12 million shortfall um I would say that that one of the conversations that we had what two jues ago when we talked

about diamond or maybe it was last July um was you know is there a will to to try to undertake a debt exclusion for Diamond uh it may be the only way to really do this without significantly impacting the budget um and getting into the the more difficult conversations um I think that's that may be something that the the mayor will ask me to come down and propose to the council at some

point soon I don't know if the if there's any counselors that have an interest in even having that conversation because that's a it's a hard conversation um you don't want to put it on the taxpayers but at some point it it lands on someone uh and that's what we're dealing with but we're looking at every option that we can look at because we know this is coming we're not going to just you know whistle

whatever the saying is you know uh there's a saying where you just kind of ignore what's about to happen and um what is it Dixie Dixie yeah well Whistling Dixie is a little bit different but but I'll use that thank you counselor thank you counselor um we are not ignoring or or just pretending this you know you know this is not coming this is something that is talking about every day and and I think it's

right to certainly include the council in in figuring out Solutions and I and I appreciate that here's my I'm just going to be direct with you okay yeah and with all due respect how do you how do you bargain to determine that you're going to give an 11% increase to a union whoever it is I'm not talk this isn't a a call out to police this isn't or fire or DCM or city employees whoever it is

right that's not what I'm attacking here I'm attacking the process by which occurred to determine the increase to a collective bargaining unit whoever that may be without an analysis that was done that was going to have a ripple effect on other unions it opened back up Superior officer unions it opened back up the fire department again when you guys were probably close to settling

from what I'm gathering it has created a ripple effect so to to say that it's not going to have an impact on future contracts I think is irresponsible and here's why I say that okay you would you would figure you would look at a a a an analysis and say okay well this collective bargaining unit is going to get an x amount increase the X amount increase is going

to impact the fiscal year 24 25 26 27 and so forth right it's going to have an impact can we afford that as a city right and yes I remember when I was first here I was sitting here and I had EMS came down before the council I'm not sure if you remember this but EMS came down they wanted to get into group four and insurance and we needed to give them

a 12% increase because they could not continue to keep EMS employees in the city of Fall River because they were going up third floor apartments and they were taking jobs in Somerset with less third floor Apartments guess what EMS is still telling us to this day that they still need help hiring people so I don't necessarily I think money is important I think the policing job is more

challenging now than it ever was before I think that's a component to it but I also struggle with the system that was in place or lack thereof to determine the impact that those collective bargaining contracts are going to have on the city and I don't think any analysis was really done it was just we need to pay him because we need police officers and I agree we need to pay him

we need police officers but nothing was done from a financial standpoint to determine whether or not it was accurate from what I'm gathering because now we're still getting information to the council about oh all of a sudden we're going to start getting you analysis is that we're done or we're going to create them now and I know it's not popular to say this but well we've done an analysis

I mean we we did the analysis we've sent a fiscal impact but the kind of analysis you're looking at the long-term analysis we would create because you're asking for it I mean I think we have a sense of what this looks like you'd agree that you and I had this conversation privately yeah and it's frustrating to me and I and I gave you my answer which is which is that we looked at what

really amounted to to two really distasteful options right one is you can't recruit or retain police officers and you have multiple police officers transferring to other towns to fire to State Police to any number of places in uh a climate where get even getting a list of police officers to go to the academy is a challenge um and you know I think this is a situation where you and

I just you know disagree philosophically on how and which which I think reasonable people can do um but I don't know that I can offer you any different answer than I did before which is that we looked at the money we knew that it was significant and we also knew that it would probably have a ripple effect across other unions but if we don't have effective Public Safety then we've got

nothing well and that was the that was the that was the the very basic dumb down premise of what we did I agree I get all that right and and you and I have had this discussion we've respectfully disagreed like we're having a respectful debate here right now okay but I'm just telling you in my opinion from a business standpoint it is irresponsible to do without a full analysis on how it's going to impact

other units other bargaining and other fiscal years okay cuz nobody here is going to ever say that they were going to say no to the contract because it would 11% increase nobody was going to say no to the superior officers Union because they opened back up and see they there was no parody there right 11% to patrolman you got the superior officers at 12 like I get all that but that's my

point right I'm not we don't do collective bargaining but I don't believe and I'm just going to say it one last time that there was enough analysis done and seeing the financial impact you said you did an analysis well where is it what does it look like you're you're you're you're preparing the analysis today or now and you're starting to get it to counselors six months later well it's more of a question of there are

just certain things that should not be out in the public and there's other things that that can be right an analysis that for public consumption because you know whatever we send here we we know very well could end up on Facebook right and that's not you know I me just it's easy enough to do and I understand you know there's people that in very good faith say you know what

this should be out there so they send it out there I understand that I get it so in terms of of the internal conversations that we're having the internal analysis versus an analysis that's suitable for public consumption it's not that you're hiding anything it's just you you got to make it clear so that the public really understands what you're doing I get it I don't envy the position you're in we don't bargain

collective bargaining you do I I tremendous mod respect for you and the job that you have but I'm just saying I don't believe that the job was done adequately enough it was just let's hurry up and let's get it out and it's going to have an impact on the community and it's not this isn't Cliff going after police because they got an 11% increase they deserve the increase right but it was more along the lines of

realizing the impact it's going to have on this city and nobody wants to talk about it because it's public safety and nobody wants to have a real discussion with you I'm having a real discussion with you today telling you it was should have been done they needed increases and candidly they needed increases years ago not all in one fisc year also not your problem right so well definitely my

problem but not my creation well it's not your it's it's not the problem isn't created by this Administration it's created by prior administrations for just saying all right we'll do it give you one two and now we've finally risen to where they need to be but I guess my question is and you can't answer this because you got to get back to the bargaining table is this going to be a

consistent thing that we're going to be giving this Union and this Union 11% increases I it can't be it can't be and that's and that's what this analysis tells us right we need to start Penny pushing penny pinching now because in 2026 we're all going to sit here we're all going to look at each other and we're going to say well what are we going to do Mr President because this

this place is filled with people and we're going to have to lay them off because we were irresponsible four years ago three years ago six administrations ago whatever it is so I'm off my soap box for this but this really grinds my gears when I when we have these discussions and there's there was limited analysis is done that's just what it is so I yield on that thanks thank you coun I just want to point one

thing out we can do all the analysis we can do all the 11% increases but as we here talk as we're hearing now when the governor is proposing possibly nine c Cuts who knows to what extent and how hard those are going to be you have no other choice than to make very difficult decisions the administration the counselors It's a group effort and I've seen it done in the past so it's it's

not a good place to be in but other communities are struggling with the same situ situations it is not easy to get police officers and we all wanted them to hire and retain the ones we had and hire new ones and I think you know to their credit they was able to get the job done but you're right there is a cost that goes along with that and we're going to face it in a very near

future good points con to yeah I just have one more question when you're speaking debt exclusion now that the full debt exclusion is on the backs of the taxpayers because this there's no more oper funding to be offsetting it anymore will there be a separate line item on the tax bills because it's a fixed dollar amount for a fixed number of years and when the debt is paid it goes away because it's paid sure so as

long as it's put in a lump sum when I get my taxes and say for the sake of argument my taxes are $1,400 a quarter my taxes aren't $1,400 a quarter they're whatever they are plus the debt exclusion and way back in the beginning people were promised it would be a separate line atem just like the money for the CPC is a separate line item it can be done and I think people want to

know they voted for it they they said yes we'll pay it they're going to pay it but they have a right to know how much they're paying so everything you just said makes total sense to me and and I agree you 100% however I've been told that it can't happen I don't know why how here's the thing though um Ian shackney is is is the you know the Arbiter of all that

stuff and knows it inside and out um he would be able to actually give you an actual answer on exactly why it can or can't happen and what would need to happen in order for that to take place um so let me find out from him because I know this question has been asked several times I've I've been told privately that it's somehow not possible but I don't know what the reason is and so it's that's

not a really good answer if I don't know why accept and it's one of those topics it depends who you ask the question to that's exactly because there's a lot of other people are going to tell you yes it can be and yes it should be like I said I know how much my percentage of my taxes goes towards CPC funding well if if you can break that out there should

be no reason why you cannot break out the debt exclusion certainly with that I yield thank you Council counc SE five counc vice president pero yeah I I just have a comment to make um I know that my colleague felt that there should have been some type of uh you know there some kind of an analysis before um you know bargaining with people and I think he's right that over the years we only gave 1

2% and now with everything that happened um you can't get police officers even though and I don't care what the analysis would be this city would have to pay to keep a police force because they're leaving we had seven that went into the academy five already left so we're going to get two we have two that left to go to another town we have another one that left to go to another

town I mean they're leaving when you have have towns that are paying you right off the bat 90 92,000 you leave and you're in a smaller community so we have to do and I think you're 100% right if we don't have Public Safety we have nothing and you know that can be a pet peeve for people like I I I think that uh counselor Pont get his a little pet peeve is you have

all this money that's in these um you know accounts use it you know do something with he's right you know that bothers me too you know what my pet peeve is that this city stupidly stupidly got rid of all of our trucks right our garbage trucks we got rid of them but this year we're paying 400 and some odd thousand to pay for the trucks next year another 400 and something last year was 500 and

something the year before was 500 and something where's all that money going the third year though was 187 I think and we'll be paid off what I think wasn't bright either was to combine the trucks with police cars they should have been separate but who am I to tell you about figures but that bothers me think of the millions of dollars we would have had in our coffers versus paying a loan on

trucks we don't have that's just my thought for the day but I thank you very much for coming down it was enjoyable and I look at this 5-year projection those numbers are all going to change they are all going to change you know hopefully for that's what happens with that I pleasantly yield for the evening thank you so much thank you coun thank you councel I and I was on the impression that your pet

peeve was always when they Clos the airport now I know that was one of my pet peeps too how would we be Mr President if we had an airport in an industrial park with a fire station on the side how good would that be I don't know that that airport reminded me of a jet P Joe travaso was that his name Bob travaso he rode a motorcycle yeah and he

worked up there he lived down near you all right C let's get back but I just made that analogy because that was always peeve I um there be no further questions I want to thank you both for coming down and explaining it the transfer and appropriation just one quick question we have that before us don't we it's coming up next okay this is the this is the fiveyear financial forecast transfer Appropriations coming

up next yep I just have a question coming in the um in we'll move on to council item number four transfers and Appropriations the first one in accordance with the provisions of chapter 44 section 32 of the mutus general laws I recommend the following Appropriations to your honorable body oh the that the sum of 2,500,000 being the same is hereby transferred to the stabilization fund from the 20

fiscal year 2023 Surplus Revenue any discussion at all no hearing none we move on to the next one and would be in in full Council as items three and threea 3A and 3B next one item 3B that the sum of 2,500,000 be and the same as hereby transferred to the school appropriation from the fiscal year 2023 Surplus revenue on that coun seat six C Dr py thank you um so on DSC

released um maybe the last week or could have been today I don't remember that the Charter School tuition and the school choice have changed so it's going to be increasing the the contribution to the city is probably going to be another million dollars on top of the 2.5 that's being transferred tonight are you aware of that I'm not you're not I mean I I'm aware of it in principle but I I don't know what the

actual amount so you knew there was another number hanging around because dsse D deese released a report um I have um here uh that does indicate um in the report uh that uh the an analysis was done the chart of school tuition assessment and school choice assessments have changed the net effects $367,000 uh on top of the 3.5 that's already owed so I guess we're going to have another bill coming our way for the

schools for another million dollars and I guess we're the the only other option to do this would be to take it out of our stabilization account again is that what the plan's going to be do you have any idea I don't know you don't know all right well we all should know candidly that another million dollars is going to be over schools just now not taking their NV reports into consideration

so um I we we can't change or amend an order now but be prepared another one's coming yep so U at least based on the reports that I I read unless I misread it but no I don't think you're wrong the the and I want to say the problem but the issue is that is that there's so many moving parts to this and you know I know it seems surprising that we're

still dealing with 23 now um but it does sometimes take this long for the for the actual bill to shake out and you know what's considered you know net School spending eligible and what's not so you're probably right carryover impacts Us in this fisc year right and then next year is going to impact Us in future fiscal years so um so I know I know for now I just wanted to point that

out be prepared it's coming so thanks thank you Council counc five yeah while we're on um education uh at a meeting I heard that some of the parks were being utilized for students from Atlantis Charter school because there's always such a congestion in that area of Jefferson Street Etc they have buses meeting at Maple Maplewood Park buses meeting at B Centennial and I believe at

Kennedy so the children are brought via bus to those locations and parents are at those locations are we going to be responsible for the bus transportation now from the Atlantis Jada school cuz we pay transportation for yeah so Transportation first of all not n school spending eligible with regard to the public school right right um but the way transportation is reimbursed for charter

school is totally different than the way it is for the public school so I don't know that the burden falls on the city in the same way it does for transportation to dery or cost or some place some other place um I'd have to figure out exactly what that portion is do you happen to know um I think it follows the path of diamond high school because we don't pay for that Transportation either we don't

pay for this yeah so I I think there is a much larger cont simar to Diamond so it's similar to Diamond so the cont the so that's covered um whereas we cover the entirety of the public of follow over Public Schools transportation and it's not net School spending eligible I thought somebody said that that was going to cost an you know an additional $4 million or something crazy which

isn't crazy because I have not heard that um but well they said it at um at the park board meeting that I watched they talked about that there and about you know even though the buses are stopping in the front there's still parents who don't get out of their car of grab their you know get their child they're in their car kids crossing back and forth and I think that's what councelor Samson referred to earlier in

the meeting is that people tend to work in silos where maybe Park should talk to traffic and try to figure out you know what's the best roots and whatever but I just wondered about the transportation with that I yield thank you thank you Council there be no further question entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion to adjourn finan made seconded all in favor I any oppos

city counc commun finan is now agend you want to roll right into the do Mr President I I'm not sure if I heard it but did you did we get number one yeah completed oh you did okay yeah where was it that was probably the joint meeting yep that's the first one we have at the park

okay city council please come toward clct will call the road councilor is kadim Dion here Hart here Kilby here Perera here Pony here Roso here Samson here president cam here will everyone in the council chair please rise for a moment of Silent prayer

I know we've had several deaths this week in the paper of a lot of people um that many of us know but specifically to Captain uh zeni who worked at City administrator head of the Housing Authority if we could keep him in our prayers and M Lango as well and Mrs loango Shirley loango as well and um Kathy Castro people who did a lot for our community I agree councelor

please remain standing for to the flag I pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that

such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible Madam clerk first item before you is The Miz request for the confirmation of the appointment of Michelle monus to the Council on aent motion confirm motion confirm has been made and seconded all in favor I any oppos motion carries item two is a communication from

the mayor and an order to accept the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 203c um which would allow the city to utilize prudent investor rule when investing other post employment benefits trust funds motion to adopt second motion to adopt have a made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have the transfers and Appropriations the first that the sum of 2,500,000 be and the same is hereby

transferred to the stabilization fund from the FY 23 Surplus Revenue motion to adopt second motion to adopt has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries and a second that the sum of $2,500,000 be and the same is hereby transferred to the school appropriation from the FY 23 Surplus Revenue motion to adopt second motion to adopt has made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion

carries item four is the mayor's communication and request for the approval of a tie agreement for Sacred Heart Lofts at 160 Linden Street motion to adopt motion to adopt that's amaz and seconded all in favor I any opposed oppos seat to opposed counc seat to opposed do we noted motion carries item number five is a communication from the mayor and orders accepting grants the first excuse me and the amount of

Grants which are for compliant wheelchair height service counters in each of the government center motion to adop Second motion to adopt has a made in seconded all in favor any opposed motion carries and the third would be the amount of $76,000 for the mass office on disability these are also for accessibility improvements to the veteran Cent on Pine Street including restroom and wheelchair ramp upgrad

motion to adopt second motion to adopt hasard made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have the traffic commission making amendments to the ordinances motion to refer to committee and ordinances motion to refer to committee and ordinance and legislation has been made is there a second second and second all in favor I motion take 7 through 10 together Mr pres second motion carries motion to take 7

through 10 together has made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries on the motion motion 7 to 10 Grant Lea to withdraw to Grant Lea to withdraw to items 7 through 10 has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 11 is an ordinance for uh traffic miscellaneous traffic ordinance for Passage through second reading and enrollment motion so made motion to pass

through second reading and enrollment has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 12 is a proposed ordinance for Passage through second reading in enrollment and relates to allight parking of commercial vehicles motion so made second motion to pass through second reading and enrollment has been made and seconded all in favor any opposed motion carries item 13 is a

proposed ordinance that relates to prohibited parking due to impeding emergency vehicles and this would be for Passage through second reading and enrollment motion so made second motion to pass for second reading and R has been read in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 14 is a proposed ordinance this would amend section 50-35 salary schedules for EMS local 1202 askme Personnel also for Passage

through second reading and enrollment second motion so made second motion to pass through second reading and enrollment has been made and seconded all in favor I I any opposed motion carries item 15 are also salary amendments um for contract Personnel in the Emergency Medical Services and the Law Department department for Passage through second reading and enrollment motion so made motion pass through

second reading and enrollment has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 16 is a proposed ordinance that relates to panhandling restrictions for Passage through second reading and enrollment motion so made second motion to pass the second reading and enrollment has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries and lastly we have a proposed ordinance establishing

the position of finance analysis and compliance manager if I may the grade um which is basically just a munus code needs to be corrected so this would be for Passage through second reading and enrollment as amended motion on the amendment necessary yes motion made uh to amend motion has made to amend and seconded do you need to put the amendment in now or is it just the amendment is is basically just to to

change um the grade it it went from fcm to FMCA that's motion to pass the amendment has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries motion to pass through second reading and Ro as amended is there a motion motion motion and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion seat seat seat seven opposed president's

opposed whereas the fallover city council voted six y three Nays to keep the bank Street Armory and whereas the bank Street Armory is in a condition of deterioration and whereas it is in the best interest of the city to spend the necessary funds to encapsulate and seal up the building now therefore be it resolved that the city council urges the administration to allocate the appropriate funds within the fy2 proposed

budget is there a motion to adopt the resolution motion to adopt second motion to adopt remain second on the resolution counc seat for Council K I want to thank Council hot for co-sponsoring us with uh with me um speak for itself uh the Council made a vote which I respect um and the city still Lo the building I did we did get a letter from the from CPA but um again this is a resolution so

it's an expression of intent on part of the council to take the necessary steps to uh whatever it's used for hopefully it'll be used for the purpose that the voted for um but to uh to tighten up and seal the building and um I spoke with Mr malcomber um on numerous occasions when this was an issue for the last four or five months and he used a figure of 3

350 that's what he planned on doing um downspouts some roof repairs um uh window repairs so just to uh to pres to preserve um the building from further further damage so for me um it it is a no-brainer in my opinion and um I'm I'm really happy to uh to be able to you know sponsor this with Council Hart um to uh take some steps necessary to uh to accomplish that goal and it goes in line

with some of the other U resolutions one filed by Mr de Mrs Dean which is coming up um so it's uh again it's an expression of the intent on the part of the council whether the mayor does it or not um that's up to uh to the the mayor I I'd be honest with you wasn't too fond of the resolution and um you know we put it in anyway um and uh so I yield with

that I hope the council supports it thank you Council counc C3 Council hot thank you Mr President yeah I I was glad to co-sponsor this with Mr kby in the next one as well um really simply this is just to seal it up uh to keep it um you know from stop from deteriorating at at any level um and I know that there needs to be a lot of work done to it but

I think this is the first step to you know preserving it but I also know that the letter that we received from CPA or historic Mr um Su uh they they have some probably good plans as well but this right now is just to seal it up and to make a normal um you know safety uh maintenance to the building so that's that's I'm supporting it thank you counc president just one quick point I know

Michelle de her hand CC D um if the CPA fund does funds do go through then look at it as a match the city of FL matching what they're putting forth to even do more improvements um on the building so um I thank you thank you counc counc C to counc De yeah I was just going to suggest that where both um resolutions address um the money for tightening up the building that we could take both

together and discuss them and decide what direction we would want to go in you want to just amend his resolution and include yours it's with there two resolutions vote on this one vote on next one simple however you want to do it I don't care I mean they both they both address funding but at two different Avenues y so I don't know if it made sense to address them both now or you do it separately it

doesn't matter it's the will the counil it's the will of the council whatever you guys want to do address just vote on the resolution motion to adopt has remain in second it all in favor I any opposed motion carries M clerk whereas the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the only right to shelter state in the country and whereas the governor has declared a state of emergency regarding the migrant shelter

issue and whereas the governor has appropriated millions of dollars for Emergency Shelters for migrants throughout the Commonwealth to address the migrant crisis and whereas the governor is locating property throughout the state to house the growing migrant population ation crisis now therefore be it resolved that the committee on finance convene with the city administrator Corporation councel and

any other individuals the council president deems appropriate to keep the city councils informed as to the current status of the full River and the city's rights under the Master General law part one title 2 chapter 23b section 30 emergency housing assistance program originally passed in 1983 motion to approve second motion to adopt has in made and seconded any discussion yes Council C3 Council H

thank you Mr President uh again Council Kilby Co spons of this resolution I think it's a good resolution I think that um nobody should be uh alive at all uh there's there there is definitely an issue growing throughout the country and in Massachusetts the governor just herself uh uh allocated um a building uh took over a building anyway maybe that's not the proper uh uh way to put it but

uh she um was a youth building in Dorchester rockbury and the neighbors were very very upset because they didn't expect it to happen they weren't aware that that it was going on or that it was in the plans according to the reports that I saw in the Boston papers and also on live television so my only my only reason for doing this with Mr Kilby is just to just to be aware that um if in

fact there is any plan for something like this coming to Fall River that we just be are we get aware of it where we know that it's coming um and that we talk about it and vent it and have meetings about it and uh just because it could become an issue where um there what there's no transparency I don't think there I think there will be I and that's why I'm doing this just to have

more transparency in this particular issue so that's all that uh I drafted this with Mr Kilby and that's what our goal is simply to be more transparent with it thank you thank you C CC C4 counc kby um just my uh my argument and motivation for this okay it is not to open Pandora's Box um it is not to um get out of my Lane which I've been told over the last

couple of weeks it's within I said that oh I didn't say that that's okay I you interrup councel will you please let the council speak he can say what he wants I he's got the floor please don't interrupt him it's St not the only we said San my okay um my answer to that is it's within the lane of this Council um we talked about possible nine seat Cuts coming

down the road um we talked about uh well it's a discussion throughout the state house in terms of it impacting the budget a supplementary budget was passed and you know uh just for the for the community's um purposes I'll stress like the resolution says we are the only only right to Shelt state in a commonwealth I'm sorry in the United States of America the only state that comes close

is the state of New York and only within the boundaries of New York City okay so that's that's that point uh the governor as Council H stated has declared of a state a state of emergency which gives her broad broad powers like a blizzard like a hurricane like a flood broad powers to locate properties um and I just think the feedback I've been getting in a community is that people have a right to

know council president people have a right to know and I I I again I've gotten a lot of Kickback on on this resolution and um so I think so is Council hot but in my heart it it's the right thing to do it is the right thing to do just once again I mean we could wait a year before council president decides to put it before Finance if it

if it becomes becomes an issue and I do know firsthand I won't reveal where when I've had discussions of Mill owner being approached of you know a crazy hypothetical and it this is just a wild room of Bishop Cony okay so my point is if it's going to Deval School if it's going to Bishop Conley if it's going to whatever people in the neighborhood have a right to know directly impacts our

budget our school department it impacts our police officers it impacts social services and it again it's um the law was passed in 1983 CRI sakes Joe Joe and I we graduate from high school went to I reunion last summer that was a long time ago so it's morphed instead of instead of of Sheltering people within your state who were unw mothers who are child of people who were homeless it the

legislation has morphed into something else so all this is about is providing notice to the community that's it and another thing for many many years guys councils have been on uh Council for a long time we've done a fair hereare that was the Mantra 2025 we've done our Fair here so it's only providing notice and and yes we if if the governor decides to send migrants then we have all we want

is notice that's all so I I I feel strongly about this resolution I have numerous conversations with uh M hugan um and uh Paul Hart even I offered a friendly Amendment hopefully to maybe go in line with his his thoughts are um and it it was nothing like adversarial lir and I you know have a lot of respect for him but the people have a right to know whether the administration wants to come

down or whether we just want to sign on a letter asking Mora hilly to uh at least provide notice to the council that's it that's all I yield thank you councel we went to our reunion this year Paul gets to go to his he was a year behind us same basketball team counc C he Council Samson I just got some questions and um and wave through you council president

about this um so what we are we asking the governor who has has an executive order on a state of emergency as Council Hart just said to give us notification and then have meetings and talk and discuss and see I just I just don't see the governor is just going to do what she wants to do so we she's going into communities and looking at properties there's already secret meetings that you know you're saying

that you know is this you know my concern here is that are we rocking the boat up setting or let us know if you're going to come do what you want to do anyway if she's identified a property I just don't know if they're going to say well wait a minute let me run it by the city council first with exec I just I just don't know if that's going

to happen if is that what you're asking is to have a negotiation or just please are you just saying please just give us notice so we know so we can prepare our community or are you saying we would like notice we' like to discuss it we'd like to go back and forth what what is it that thank you Council Wasington the spirit of the resolution is people have a right to

know that's it okay what happened in Roxbury what happened and and and once again um Washington DC maybe this is not in my Lane but they got to get their act together there's no doubt about it look what's going on and maybe this issue after they do get their act together will Abate and it'll kind of pass but I'm not like that's why we put in the amendment if anyone wants to amend it

feel free to Amendment amend it um but I think it's important that we go on record and we we promise and we take we take we've taken in our oath of office to be transparent to let people know what's H may be happening in a neighborhood what maybe not be happening in the neighborhood that's all that's all this is a bone councelor you I just want to put on public clarification you

spoke about an amendment that you made but you didn't officially introduce it to the council yet so you the adop the motion that we have is to adopt the original one that the council had if you want to adopt this one you should offer it up as an amendment you haven't done that yet right okay I I'll do that right now it calls a sponsor anyone can do it yeah I'll just

read it right now and to whereas the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the only right to shelter state in the county a country and whereas the governor has declared a state of emergency regarding the migrant shelter issue and whereas the government uh Governor has appropriated millions of dollars for Emergency Shelters for migrants throughout the Commonwealth to address the migrant crisis and whereas

the Governor is locating property throughout the state to house the uh growing migrant population crisis now therefore be it resolved that the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a matter of fairness and Equity provide notice to the city of Fall River regarding potential sites within the M municipality that are being considered in regards to mgl part one title 2 chapter 23b section 30 emergency

housing assistance program originally passed in 1983 that's the amended version and I we need a second Cor adop as amended seconded motion to adopt as amended has been made and seconded all in favor any opposed Moot and just just to go back to what council C1 was saying U and what councilor Kilby just said that this is all it is it's just for to be notified um and I'm not I don't want these big

huge meetings absolutely not I just want to be notified if they they are thinking of uh locating anything like that in Faller that we get notified so it's trans AR the citizens know it and um if there there needs to be some type of meeting then we have it but I don't see that happening I just want to be aware that that might be coming that's all thank you counc clarify counc C you

still have the floor yeah thank you I just want to say I support what the idea of what you're trying to do I just don't want a misconception among the people that the governor has to do that she can that she can say that's a nice letter she doesn't have to listen to us but I understand you wanted on file that you have requested to have notification if she decides to come here but she doesn't

have to give it to you and the people need to know that and that's all I'm saying a fair point so with that I yield thank you con SE a feel good it's a feel-good resolution you know we want people to know we care we think that you should know about it but the bottom line is the governor has the power of executive orders she can come down here tomorrow and say we're moving migrants

into this building and there's nothing you're going to be able to do about it because she's the governor but what happens is I'll give you an example this kind of you know just rolled into something which it shouldn't have been but the governor was here on on last Monday for an event she stopped at the Boys and Girls Club to see the wonderful work that they're doing there all of a

sudden you know the phones and Facebook and everything went off that the governor was looking at taking the boys and girls club for migrants that's a lie she can't the reason that she took the center in Roxberry to my knowledge in talking to our state delegation uh some of the members was that that was underutilized and the state pays for that building so that was why hotels she's

not just going to come to any hotel a hotel has to request to do that and we have one hotel in for River who I don't believe at the airport would do that we have a hotel in Port I don't think the LA Frances would do that they have a lot of business people that come in in their hotel seems to be full all the time but you know it breaks my heart to see

people who are coming from Bad situations and coming here um with their children going through all that they go through but it breaks my heart when I have senior citizens and people living in this city right now that are living on Social Security checks combined $1600 with a rent of of 1,00 a month you know that's that bothers me too I do feel bad for migrants coming in I think that

President Kennedy had it right you want to come to this country you come you have a sponsor and that's the way it should be Washington is failing us so Washington's shipping it down to the state and the state then turns to us it's a it's feel-good piece resolution you know we should be you should tell us okay make it feel good I think you should that she has to legally she

doesn't have to he he's ribbing me because we've debated this and that's fine um I mean I'll whatever I'll support it but it doesn't really mean anything but to sound good thank you because it sounds good thank you but she's not going to call and say hey Brad I'm thinking of putting some migrant down there just want to let you know I don't know with that I yield thank you con any further

discussion Council T4 counc kby I just want to publicly thank you L very much we keep it Prof to Linder so so much we always have good reputation together so all right that's it motion has been made in second to adopt as amended already voted all in favor I any opposed otion counties we all feel good now where the bank Street Armory has sat dormant since 2015 and as such has deteriorated without proper oversight

and where it is the will of the city council to move forward with a plan for restoration and best use of the Armory and whereas in the code of the city of fiva Massachusetts 2018 chapter 54 article 3 section 101 the board of Park Commissioners exercises the powers duties and responsibilities of the Armory Commission of which historic property is not their area of expertise and whereas the bank Street

Armory was placed on the national register of historic places in 1983 with a preservation restricted added in 200 17 and the City of full River has an appointed historical commission with insight and expertise in the preservation and development of historic properties and whereas the historical commission and the city have the ability to apply for grant funding for a feasibility study and the emergency

funding necessary to address and remediate deficiencies causing the damage and deterioration to the bank Street Armory including but not limited to the roof window replacement repointing removal of vegetation and a heating system now the therefore be it resolved that the committee on ordinances and legislation convened to discuss amending chapter 54 of the code of the city of fora Massachusetts 2018

Which chapter relates to public facilities to reflect the current state of the property and to transfer the oversight of the omry commission from the board of Park Commissioners to the historical commission and be it further resolved that the historical commission as the new managing commission have the ability to create a subcommittee to focus solely on the Redevelopment of the bank Street Armory and including the

creation of an updated feasibility study for future in best use consistent with preservation deed restriction motion to adopt second motion to adopt as remain second on the motion sponsor resolution C C2 yeah the reason I did this um the the mayor has made it I think very clear that he has no intention of putting money into the bank Street omry um I think there's going to be enough burden

um in the upcoming budget talks and Etc um that there's just going to be no appetite to add more money to the budget to to uh rehab the armory in any way um people from the beginning said you know if council's going to vote no what's the plan what's the plan so I looked at this two ways it it takes care of the money end of it because yes there are monies available to secure this

building so it doesn't deteriorate any further and it gives some somebody with expertise the ability to move forward with a plan and we can see where it goes from there but at least there'll be somebody with a concerted uh effort opinion and ability to um oversee where we go next when with that I yield C five counc vice president pero I think it's a good resolution I would like to add a friendly Amendment if my

colleague in seat number two doesn't mind but be it resolved that the historic commission along with the president preservation Commission because the preservation um they're doing a lot of work on it too with the letters that we've gotten from preservation that those two groups together and they work very well together would be able to get um the funding and the plans and they already

have written a letter with plans and ideas that they have so amended I'm is that okay to add the preservation no that's fine by me um because obviously they're both in in the same track that they both do the I mean the similar work um yeah no I have no issue with that I think with the two boards they're going to find the the best qualified people to move forward with it so I have no

objection to that so I amend to add the preservation um commission as well motion to amend has been made in a second second second all in favor of the amendment I any opposed motion carries counc C4 quick I think it's a very very well written I think it's a very worthwhile resolution and just stress that it it is not selling the property because that's the city council's purview as we know um but it

is giving you know some authority to these boards um and the likelihood of something happening there I think just went up 10 times so I Y thank you for the res C3 thank you Mr President yeah I agree I think this is a it's a good resol resolution I I mean I I was on the wrong end last uh last meeting about I wanted to sell uh the property the omry

to Mr mumber um because there really wasn't a plan you know but now that having seen this it's making me feel a little better about it and the fact that that we that that the Army will be sealed and uh you know the uh will be fixed um with the we with the roof and the leaks and all that for the time being but this is much more uh for me a

long uh it it I think it'll get now I'm comfortable that it will get done um so I I'm definitely supporting this so are you thank you thank you go else motion has been made and seconded to pass as amended all in favor I I any opposed motion carries click whereas homeless encampments create issues regarding quality of life those residing within them neighborhood residents directly impacted by them and the community at

Large and whereas there have been numerous complaints and reports of theft drug activity and crime associated with these encampments and where as there are no proper bathroom facilities Within These encampments which creates a serious health and environmental hazard now therefore be it resolved that the committee on health and environmental Affairs convene with the administration representative from the for Police

Department a representative from the for of Emergency Medical Services Department and a representative from the Board of Health to discuss public health and SA safety risks regarding encampments as well as potential strategies to decrease these risks motion to adopt second motion to adopt has made in seconded on a motion consy to yeah I wrote this um because I do believe there's a serious health um an

environmental component um to these encampments um we don't allow people who have and I don't want to sound crass or anything I I I'm going to try not try not not say this the wrong way but we don't allow people who have dogs to allow their dogs um to be in public places and not pick up after our dogs you know there are lower Kennedy Park there are children who play in that Park which is

adjacent to this encampment needles have been found on the ground um I don't want to see a child pick up a needle that might have some residual drug um that affects the child I I just think that we have to um we have to make our environment safer people in the neighborhoods have to feel safe in their homes you know the people in the encampments have rights but the neighbors have rights everybody in this

city has rights and we need to learn we have to find a way to either coexist or somehow remedy this problem and with that I yield thank you coun counc cat3 Council hot thank you Mr President I I again will be supporting this I've been talking to I think it's Kelly you can and um I've been meaning to get down there um but I haven't been able to uh meet up with her but the pictures that

she sent me um are pretty um they're pretty horrific and uh some that they don't belong there something needs to happen um I'm as compassionate as the next person but boy I'll tell you that that's got to stop and we've got to maybe act on this pretty quickly U because I know it's been in the works uh quite some time but there's not really any action being taken I know the people

that are going down there the M's team is doing a fine job but um but to have them still there and they're bothering the neighborhood according to the neighbors there so um something's got to be done so I'm definitely going to support this and I look forward to going down to uh down there with Kelly um to really get a firsthand view of it but uh the pictures I have are pretty alarming

so i y thank you thank you con C Samson this is an excellent resolution and I commend you for writing it I I it is completely a Public Health crisis it really is I'm worried about a collar outbreak out there and other things if you look at the encampment down off of uh Brighton Avenue I well aware that's owned by the state the city does not own it but it is a Public Health crisis and

so these are the things in my community that I'm concerned about um we got to help our own you know and we talk about helping other countries our community is uh is hurting and hurting bad and uh this is an excellent I will support this and it is a Public Health crisis in these encampments so good job that a yell to yeah the only other thing I wanted to mention was this past week

there was a fire at that encampment um if and I have P the same pictures as well and within where the fire was are numerous empty propane tanks people don't I mean they have propane tanks because they need it to cook well that's all well and good but what had happened if this fire had spread and now you suddenly had 20 lb propane tanks that were full and exploded I mean it's a serious serious

situation and you know I don't want to wait till somebody dies or a child drops ill or you know we we by nature for some reason we have this uh we tend to wait until something bad happens and then we react um I think we need to be proactive um there's nothing wrong with helping but we should be giving a hand a hand up instead of a hand out and to a certain

extent I think some of the people need to take a little responsibility for themselves and with that I yield thank you councel motion has been made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries whereas the city of Fall River recognizes the critical need for affordable housing for low and moderate income residents and whereas the city council seeks to address the shortage of affordable housing and mitigate the

impact of rising housing costs on vulnerable populations in Fall River and whereas the establishment of an affordable housing trust presents a viable mechanism to facilitate facilitate the creation and preservation of affordable housing options within the city now therefore be resolved that this resolution be referred to the committee on finance to discuss funding the trust and that it also be referred to the

committee on ordinances and legislation to establish an ordinance to create such trust motion to adopt second second motion to ad has minut seconded uh on the motion Council seat six Council party is sponsor of the resolution thank you Mr President so I know this uh a couple of my colleagues have asked me what are you trying to accomplish here and and to the credit of the clerk I think on a Saturday I sent like a 45

page uh our old colleague Steve camaray uh resolution uh that was probably about three or four pages long and they worked with me to try to help me condense this because there's so much to say and there's so much that we're trying to I'm trying to accomplish here so I wanted to introd ruce this resolution to the council tonight um because obviously when we were all campaigning for office

we all heard from every news media Source or every outlet that pretty much said to us what are we going to do to address the housing problem right market rate housing is a good part of the city's economic engine right uh affordable housing is an important part of the city as well as low income we need to continue to be Diversified under that portfolio now I've been following the MMA and uh what caught my attention

mention was um the governor appointed the mayor of Lynn to uh her housing board uh to advise her on housing needs throughout different municipalities throughout the state um and entertain me for a moment as I kind of break this down for everybody's edification and those at home um the mayor of Lynn um and I've spoke to the mayor's office of Lynn on more than one occasion regarding

this resolution uh last year um isn't the only municipality that did this um but but created a trust and the purpose of the trust was to create an affordability of housing for a municipality the mayor of Providence just put $10 million into their own uh created trust the same process by which we're going to need to adhere to to be able to do this now um there's articles people can read it it's very simple it's

called the affordable housing trust I have the actual final resolution which I've sent to the clerk's office if it gets passed and if it goes to ordinance tonight that could be amended by our ordinance committee so it wouldn't even be involve all that much work um and I I I have a number of different articles and a a number of different things that kind of outline what the intention here

is now the the point of this is for a municipality um to act as either a financing entity uh or acting as finding opportunities to wait uh that may need to be waited for CPC or ESP special we don't have town meeting but I'm getting this right from the State website um this trust will be able to distribute funds to other affordable housing entities via grants or loans in accordance with trusts um that would be

created here in the city of Fall River now where this differs from like what Community Development does is it it allows for the purchase and the development with the money that this fund creates or is able to obtain uh through Surplus property for municipalities it allows them to create um lowincome opportunities for home buyers if they wanted to uh to create to help low and moderate income families to

make health and safety repairs to their home uh educate and advocate for advanced affordable housing initiatives uh rehab existing homes or apartments to convert them to affordable housing opportunities for people people uh provide financial support for the construction of affordable homes by private developers profit or nonprofit um currently there is over 130 communities in the state of

Massachusetts that have an affordable housing trust um and this mechanism um is meant to further affordable housing in municipalities in each City and town in the state of Massachusetts um I have a number of kind of q&as here that I I've kind of put together uh but this all needs to be adhered to and approved by the Attorney General's office now I I have an entire packet here and by the way this bill was

presented at this at the state level in past that allows municipalities by the greaton general court has allowed municipalities to um establish their own Regional Municipal Housing Trust Fund this was done in 2023 in January of 2023 um it would allow it to be done that way um I have the actual bill and Mass General law that would make sure that this gets done the right way there's

also a process by which if this Council gets it through its proper committees that after this is complete there's a eight there's probably about a seven eight step process here that would be involved in the submitting to the the bylaws we need to be submitted and approved by the Attorney General's office you have to establish a Board of Trustees so this is the real big thing that I want to articulate here is

that the the the Board of Trustees which the mayor would essentially be or his his or her design would be the the the chairman of this Board of Trustees that would go out and and work to acquire properties and fund this trust so that the city would be able through its Board of Trustees go out and acquire properties sell properties rehab Properties or heck convert some of our distressed properties that we have in

the city uh this this would be an a great initiative in my opinion for the Flint this would be a great Initiative for some of the buildings that we're taking back this might even be an Initiative for the omary we don't know right but it allows the city to be able to do that um and then there's a different Mass General law needs to be followed public um uh public uh input

needs to be required here it's a process but I feel that it's it's something that will allow the city to kind of get ahead and start working towards addressing the housing uh issue now why I wanted to get this get referred to the committee on finances because we need a commitment from the mayor and the administration to start this trust account if the administration doesn't have an appetite

to be able to want to go out and fund this by the use of Opera money or Bristol County money or whatever one-time money that we have to start this this doesn't happen but I think we would be crazy for us not to consider doing this if you spend the time to research this and if the ordinance committee could properly vet this this would be a step in the right direction it's not going to

solve all of our problems when it comes to housing but it is a unique thing that the MMA has been pushing to cities and towns um I have a list here of 128 municipalities um that uh have created their own affordable housing trusts our neighbors in Westport have done it Newton has done it Dartmouth has done it Bridgewater Bourne Boston I'm not going to name all 129 thank you but it is but

it it is it is something that will be effective and I would urge my colleagues in the community to research this issue um and and look at it as another tool in the toolbox like we all like to say to start impacting housing at a higher level and and we've all been asked I mean every debate that we had any Forum any news media outl asked us three months ago what are you going to do to

address housing and the answer is nobody really had the answers to it but this is a tool that would allow the administration and the council to be able to to um to start working towards addressing some housing affordability in the city and I think and I'm going to urge the mayor and my colleagues if this gets before us to put your money where your mouth is when it comes to investing in housing this is the unique

opportunity to do it we don't need to be relying on HUD we don't need to be relying on CDA it'd be a separate entity and it it's all clearly articulated in the proposed final or um order in ordinance that Lynn adopted most recently in 2022 just could we use H money for this too or not uh yeah there's there's a different um areas where you can use CPC money CPA money could be used however the the

Board of Trustees wants to raise money for this specific trust it would be up to the Board of Trustees to see how they're going to spend it so if you find a property uh that might be abandoned or in the Flint uh you could use this rehabit collect the rents you can hire property managers you can do all that but these individuals would not report to this body it would report to the

Board of Trustees which is established uh by uh the council as well as the mayor but the mayor would be the chairman of this board whoever that may be uh to work on continuing to facilitate the mission that this Board of Trustees would have with a focus on affordable housing opportunities so I'll yield I'm sure my colleagues have some questions about it um and i' be happy to answer them to the best of my ability

thank you counc C Council Samson thank you council president I do have a question um so I'm on the the mass.gov website right now for the affordable housing trust fund so it says that the affordable housing trust fund has been structured to ensure that many different types of organizations are eligible to receive funding then it goes on to the list of funding so that was a lot and I

love your passion I just have a just I just need to understand it a little bit better um so people then according to this what I'm looking at can then apply to funding from this trust fund in order to get to like buy a property that or the trust fund would be able to advance money and Loan money to these individuals who will have a primary focus on in a deed restriction on

affordable housing opportunities so so a private buyer could then go ahead request money show like you know we we're worth this much I need $100,000 for this property over here and I'm going to put affordable housing and then the trust fund would then go ahead and give them the $300,000 appr by the trust fund yes to then put in affordable housing okay and you're thinking that could be started with onetime funds I

know you love onetime funding um to to do that so okay I just needed some clarification like of of how that works all right thank you with that I yields thank you any further questions think we'll have to wow committee simple I think you did a good explanation of it though I can't hear you what I think you did a very good job of explaining it so you were pretty uh I just as one more

point I'll be brief I promise we are sitting on you know a decent amount still of onetime money that's here um uh if you read the statistics on what other cities have done they they they've looked at a strategy that you determine how much you start this trust fund with by taking the amount that you would acquire a piece of land for right and to construct an affordable housing facility or or building so it could be

essentially three family it could be a two family it could be nine units it could be a converted Mill it could be whatever we want it to be or the board would want it to be not us and uh then they the mayor would fund that specific account to be able to work towards affordable housing opportunities so I this is going to be you know I know it's going to be convoluted and confusing but

those people who are on the ordinance committee I'm telling you you just have to spend a little bit of time reading up on this before you have your meeting because it will make sense when you see what other Mayors and other cities and towns have done again the mayor of Providence just put $10 million into his affordable housing trust fund I'm not saying we need to put $10 million but if

we can put a couple million dollar in there I think that would be a start of doing something that will actually put our money where our mouth is when it comes to affordable housing so I hope I look forward to this getting before the ordinance committee and uh the chair our vice president if you can let me know when that meeting is I might want to see if I can attend to to to speak on the

resolution so I yield again thanks is there a motion on the floor right there is and that's why we're having a conversation Council but the way that uh Council Pont is explaining I'd like to get more information on it because I know that we just got a bunch of uh properties that were in tax title or whatever that we got them and the city is working on that to do just that

affordable housing I know that there was two uh houses over on uh Robison yeah um Roden street that was just purchased and that was a long time and finally getting that property sold uh Mr Dion's office will give you money isn't there a for River affordable housing agency too what was the one that was down here um that they would help you to buy a home and this and that do you remember who it was

it was right across the street from the library Down on the Corner we can invite those people to the ordinance meeting you know well it's going to go to the mayor first if the mayor doesn't have an appetite for it it's not going to come to ordinance or right Finance it was going to the mayor first Finance Finance all right well we'll see what happens it's worth looking into with that I

yield thank you K motion has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries CL the police chief's report un licenses motion to adopt second motion to adopt Chief license has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have applications for the renewal of auto body shop licenses at 151 Cove Street and 115 Maple Street motion to adopt motion to ad are made

and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries of applications for the renewal of auto repair shop licenses located at 857 Warren Street 151 Cove Street 127 East Avenue 748 Pleasant Street 80 William S canning Boulevard 65 Tower Street and 193 o Grove Avenue motion to adopt motion to adopt seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have a number of claims motion refer to Corporation Council for the

Corporation Council has made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have a response from the Assistant Attorney General with regard to an open meeting law complaint that was filed back in November motion accept file second motion to accept apply F second on the motion C C5 um just to let people know that um the response from the attorney general was that the council

did nothing wrong correct so it's just a waste of time sometimes we do these so often and I think we should be knowing what is the response did we do you know good point so far we have't okay thank you with that I Y we've been cleared again thank you thank you madam Clerk item 28 is an application for a structure on a public way on behalf of the board of election Commissioners

motion to approve second motion to approve as a remain in second all in favor I I any opposed motion carries just curious how big is the banner that it Ty it is says 156 in by 78 in it's basically going to span across um South Main Street and one 156 in it says inches but I think I don't know if it's feet but it's kind of that's a small ban that's okay just curious mam

CL item 29 is a communication from Mass doot regarding upcoming replacement of the fender system on the brag Bridge accept place on file second motion accepted pass fire seconded all in favor I I any opposed motion carries item 30 is an email communication regarding pawn broker fees and auction policies motion toer the regulations second motion committee and regulations has been made

in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 31 is an email communication from a resident regarding a water bill and a request for review of that bill to refer the Committee on Public Works and transportation second motion refer the Committee on Public Work and transportation has a m and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries motion to take 32 2 36 together second second motion to takes

items 32 and 36 has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries I want to read items 32 to 36 please we have minutes of the public hearings that were held on January 9th of 24 committee on finance meeting on January 9th regular meetings on January 9th and the committee on Finance on January 23rd and regular meeting on January 23rd motion to approve motion to approve items 32

through 36 as a made and seconded all in favor I I any opposed motion carries we have an order granting permission for the transfer of an auto repair shop license located at 1904 Bay Street motion to adopt motion to adopt as a made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have a drain lay application on behalf of T and K Asphalt Services motion to approve motion to approve has been made in

seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries the committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on February 15th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying communication be referred to cooperation council with councilors kadim and Hart absent and not voting this was the communication regarding a fee schedule for the farmer Brewer distilling permits motion so made second motion is made and

seconded on in favor I any opposed motion carries Council will take a two-minute recess to get the application signed there one more

all

ready city city council reconvene and Clark have before you ordinances for Passage through final ordination we have miscellaneous traffic motion to adopt second second motion to adopt pass to final reading ad oration has a made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have the allight parking of commercial vehicles motion to adopt second motion to adopt has made in second all in favor I any

opposed motion carries we have the parking prohibited due to impeding emergency V Mo to adopt second motion to adopt has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have amendments to salary schedules for EMS local 122 F me Personnel motion to adopt motion to adopt the Amendments has been made and seconded all in favor I any oppos motion carries have amendments to salary

schedules for contract Personnel in EMS and Law Department motion to adopt motion to adopt have made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have uh pan hand pan handling restrictions motion to adopt motion to adopt has been made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries and lastly for Passage through final ordination as amended establishing the position of finance analysis and compliance

manager motion to adopt motion to adopt has a me seconded all in favor I president opposed oppose oppose councel and seat seven oos or appros and councel C8 Samson appro opposed them that's all we have Carri second motion to adjourn has a made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries good night everyone good job City ccil meeting is now AG

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