The Fall River City Council's Ordinances & Legislation meeting on February 27, 2024, began with a roll call and an announcement regarding the open meeting law. There was no citizen input. The council first approved the minutes from the February 15th meeting after Councilor Raposa moved to amend a typo, changing "Council Washington" to "Council Samson." This motion passed, followed by the approval of the amended minutes, both by unanimous voice vote. The meeting then addressed a proposed ordinance for traffic handicap parking at several specified locations on Earl, Gothfield, Oliver, Oregon, and Woodman Streets. A motion for an emergency preamble was made and seconded, passing by roll call vote with Councilors Cadim, Har, Samson, and the Chair voting yes. Subsequently, a motion to pass the ordinance through all readings also passed unanimously. The main discussion revolved around a proposed ordinance to amend the mattress disposal fee, increasing it to $50. Mr. Denmeet from the Department of Community Maintenance explained that the increase was necessary due to rising disposal and hauling costs, and a state ban enacted on November 1, 2022, prohibiting mattresses from landfills. He noted that the $50 fee would cover the city's costs, including labor and administrative fees, and deter out-of-town residents from using Fall River's services due to previously lower rates. Councilor Raposa raised concerns about illegal dumping, to which Mr. Denmeet confirmed a $300 fine for such offenses, and shared instances where offenders were caught and fined. Councilor Cadim supported the $50 fee, provided it fully covered the city's costs. The motion to pass the mattress disposal fee ordinance through its first reading passed unanimously, and the meeting adjourned shortly thereafter.
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Council
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legislation come to order if the clerk will call the role coun here here counos here coun Samson here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings and Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and
0:28permissible did anyone sign up for citizen for citizen input no okay item number two is the minutes of the meeting uh councelor Raposa just need to make a motion to amend the minutes there's a typo on the second line of the minutes from the February 15th meeting uh Council Washington should now be Council of Samson so I'm going to make that motion to amend that second motion has been made and seconded all in favor I
1:02I and then motion to approve approve the amended minutes second there's a motion to approve the minutes with a second all in favor I item number three proposed ordinance traffic handicap parking uh Earl Street South 38 ft west of do roia Street gothfield Street West 106 feet south of globe Street Oliver Street South 507 ft Easter Broadway Oregon Street Street West 3 38 ft north of
1:32Short Street Woodman Street North 228 ft west of King Street motion for emergency Preamble second motion for an emergency Preamble was there was a motion in a second all in favor roll call roll call you have to do a roll call for that Council cine yes councel har yes councel yes councel Samson chair yes motion to pass through all readings second motion pass through all readings there was a motion in a second all in
2:06favor I I do we need anything from the Traffic Division or you're all happy with us thank you very much for coming appreciate it item number four is a proposed ordinance um it's Amendment to the mattress disposal fee um Mr Den meet is here if you'd like to come down the ordinance change is to charge $50 for disposal of a mattress so good afternoon councilors uh yeah U it correct we're
2:51actually coming uh we should have been here sooner we're coming from behind on raising this rate most municipalities have gone this route a lot sooner um I got some packets I like to pass around it has some comparables from other municipalities along with the rat that we've had for the past few years and um it it'll break it down a little simpler but um with the cost we have three vendors that we use in each one
3:30have has specific um they have specific guidelines of what type of mattresses they accept cost a lot of money and um some ACE mattress very particular what type of mattress they take it's almost has to be an impeccable shape no stains no tears no rips cannot be wet uh Superior mattress and hands up they're a little more lenient but as you come along this type of vendor the price for for disposal SL uh recovery uh it
4:04escalates and um along with the hauling and one of the issues we have is handling uh in for River uh unlike a lot of other municipalities we have a collection system where some municipalities have drop off only and um once it's brought to our facility it's removed from one truck sometimes moved into the trailer this is done by Staffing it's logged into a computer onto a sheet and administrative
4:37fees had up and then sometimes the trail is full the logistics problem comes into play where we have to stack and load these mattresses into another part of the facility until that until that trailer is uh able to be emptied and hauled Away by that vendor um but uh and this has all happened since the the wasted textile uh mattress in textile band uh back in November 1st uh
5:052022 um we do have um can you talk about that band you said there was a band in 2022 back uh November 1st in 2022 uh the state of Massachusetts enacted a waistband they have different variations of waistbands that been going on over the years and this one particularly affected textiles and mattresses and box springs they can no longer go to a um a landfill so we had to enact recovery systems for both
5:38of those uh Organics also and that but we doing mattresses tonight um at that point uh we in we had Ace and uh we had another vendor excuse me Superior we had just put on into the into effect and we were able to keep them the uh the fees just around there there was a lag in between enacting one of those vendors and uh we had been disposing and recovering of some of
6:13these mattresses at a higher rate than we were collecting much High we're actually dis recovering them disposing them at a higher rate right now okay um so due to that band and we we're coming out from behind aball and we really need to in increase this fee um it's something that we put off way too long far longer than we should have well I for one understand you know
6:43the cost but the concern that I have and I just had a situation last week where somebody dropped mattresses off at the old Coughlin school and luckily they have cameras and today many people have cameras they got the first two and last two numbers on a license plate with their video camera and the type of truck it was and at first the individual was told that they needed the whole license plate but I was
7:14at a meeting and asked the mayor um if he could have somebody check this because working at the DA's office you give me the first two and the make of the car I can pretty much figure out and they ended up catching the individual who lived right near the school did admit that he had dumped the mattresses there and paid a fine but when we're not making things like that public people
7:38think they can just drop them off anywhere you know so that's the hard part um you know that what is the ordinance if somebody drops off a mattress illegally um and maybe the clerk can check on that too I think if we're going to raise it then we have to make sure that we have an ordinance that if you don't do the right thing that there is a consequence no there is a legal dumping
8:04is is uh fined to $300 there's a state there's a state statute in a city ordinance that it's aligned with that 2632 were aligned with that but um and we've been effective with some of that both have you been effective in collecting yeah we have we have we have uh we tracked a couple down um one in particular we had a a a home camera a ring camera where some drove down I believe it was
8:33um it was one of the streets off of Swindell and the the car came down one one fell held the mattress on the roof of one on this side the other fell on that side oh je and they released it we had the plate in the front we got just yeah and they paid the fine yeah they paid and um we had one that was on the front page of the Herold news U Charlie wer
9:00uh he had a photograph of it it was a chair in the middle of uh Atlantic Boulevard and we he took a photo of it and we ended up the person also left a bag and um we called him he fested up and paid the F do you keep a separate uh list of that how much money you've collected we we we have uh excuse me we have a list in the uh in the um database
9:28for enforcement firstman has a list of uh the ones that uh they cited ones that were paid ones that uh were dismissed or whatever the findings come out to be councelor kadim um so I guess my question you kind of alluded to it so the $50 isn't covering the actual costs for disposing of that right because it's it covers it it covers the cost of the disposal and Hauling mhm you still in
9:59there we are with our salaries and everything else we're covering most of the uh administrative fees and that so it's it's covering our cost the $50 will put us in a good spot where we could also have working room because as you know these these escalate uh mattress and box spring recovery is Market it all revolves around the market uh week to week the metals the textiles you have to wait it's if the Market's
10:34volatile they'll hold the textiles they'll hold the metals they won't release them so you have to have but um we're looking now it's probably going to bounce up again and this they're going to escalate it will it will escalate like anything else tipping fees everything else just keeps going up and we're going to bounce but how we've survived we had to our rate being at this rate we've had people follow people down
11:06195 that were bringing mattresses in from out of town and follow them into our yard and report them MH because our rates were so low so we enacted another policy where we ided everybody there would have to bring proof of a posle ID uh a gas bill or something to prove that they actually lived on that pel in the city because they were bringing them in from outside you you know
11:31so this is where we're at if we rate just our rates there will be no reason for them to try to bring them into for because we'll be pretty much across the board it will be even M mean that's where we need to be so our taxpayers aren't funding for someone else yeah my my concern is I I support the $50 but just you know having had conversations with the community that I work for I
11:52mean I know it's it's costing us more money I know we initially put the $65 in there um as a way to to the uh the incentivize people to to kind of dump with us so if you were buying a mattress you're going to go whether it was Cardis or Furniture Company you would have that disposal charge taken care of because so that they can incur other cost associated with it but um having just
12:12further conversations I know the cost has increased to to really get rid of all these mattresses so I just wanted to make sure we were capturing um you know the fee is capturing all the cost associated with what we need to to cover on our our side in terms of you know generating additional revenues for that I it's not and I know we look at the $50 we're not generating uh Revenue we're
12:33we're covering our costs so we're covering our costs in labor administrative fees in in disposal recovery it's just it's incredible and um our hauling and handling is just it's we spend so much time bringing it we offer carbicide service which is collecting these mattresses most municipalities do not offer that anymore that's some drop it's all drop off so we're picking them up we pick them up we
13:01will and we off we will offer the service um the $25 mattress if you have a mattress in good shape you can bring it to us we'll inspect it and if it's in great shape we'll take it for $25 Ace has a separate uh we have a a d Grant we got a container from them and that'll it'll work out well it really will but um we need to do this it's just
13:26something that just be on that uh well I I would I guess I would really kind of you know push it back on them to see if if you've identified and if you've done your analysis if you feel like you're covering your cost then I would say the $50 but um if we're not covering our costs I would I would support going going higher but if you're suggesting and recommended $50 and I support that
13:47you I yeah I I I think Council the council is correct and and I think the $50 will cover our cost and um it it it should not uh then another point will come back um so but I appreciate that counc I do I'll make did you want to add something no nope I'm almost side I just wanted to find out if it was um we they were able to drop it on the side and not
14:12drop it off the well a lot of them too he's he's right you know some asset Swansea they have to bring it themselves so if they're going to bring it themselves and pay the money they're paying they would bring it right here to us and that's kind of what I think Mr Demi is saying happened I did um suggest to call um Mr Young Who has the the old Sam's Club The
14:36Mattress Place and he has someone you know he drops off to to some company because he deals with that but he could only give them space for maybe 10 mattresses this week maybe next week 20 you know what I mean um so I know that they have uh DCM has looked at other um Avenues of doing this was very accommodating he was he did everything he could with us and he and he was he
15:04was great volume was so high right and uh it just he was willing to give it all the room he had left in each trailer it's it was it was just we just had so much volume as you can see the increase over the years it just just keeps going up I think this will regulate it a little bit but um I think it's uh this is the right way way to go okay do I
15:30anyone else have any questions motion to pass through first reading motion to pass through first reading did you second that counc there was a motion and a second all in favor I I motion to adjourn second all in favor I thank you thank you thank you