The Community Preservation Committee of Fall River, Massachusetts, held a virtual meeting on Thursday, February 3rd, 2022. The committee approved the minutes from November 8th, 2021, with one abstention. They then approved an additional $35,000 in funding for the Kennedy Park Overlook project, bringing the total allocated to $185,000, to complete design and construction documents for the project which had been stalled since 2016. This decision passed unanimously among voting members. The bulk of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing funding applications for Fiscal Year 2023. Projects discussed included the Westport Extension Quequechan River Rail Trail ($297,000 for construction), Watuppa Park ($150,000 for planning), Interlocken Cultural Resource Stabilization ($36,630 for stabilization), Barnaby Blossom Workshop Restoration ($137,570 for restoration), Northwest Watuppa Pond Seawall Condition Assessment ($86,625 for a study), and Copicut Reservoir Water Supply Land Acquisition ($230,000 for land acquisition). The request for $10,000 for the Cook Pond Trail Phase One Survey was withdrawn as alternative funding was secured through Representative Sylvia. The Bell Tower Relocation/Restoration project, initially requesting $100,000, was postponed for further discussion due to new information revealing the tower's severe deterioration and the need for relocation, which significantly expanded the project's scope and raised questions about CPC funding eligibility for a new tower structure. The committee also discussed the general funding hearing application process and future public engagement initiatives.
AI-generated summary. May contain errors. Watch the video to verify.
City Officials
Public / Other
okay welcome to the community preservation committee virtual meeting through comcast cable channel 18 and forever are the following websites forward government television is www.frgtv or facebookwww.facebook.com where you can live stream in case of meeting conflicts view channel nine it's uh thursday february 3rd 2022 uh six o'clock pursuant to the open meeting laws any person may make an audio a video
0:31recording of this public meeting or may transmit the means for any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible okay uh we'll start with uh roll call um i'm just gonna go from the top here paul machado yeah ferreira yeah alex silvia here kristen cantera here richard caldwell
1:12richard oh here sorry i had it on mute that's all right caroline yeah all right so we're missing uh jason burns from housing and victor ferris from park board so tonight attending the meeting is john brandt paul machado john ferrer alex sylvia kristin oliveira richard calden and karen auburn viva zoom meeting um okay do we have any citizen input tonight sandy no i haven't received anything okay
1:50can i have a motion for approval of the minutes for november 8th 2021.
1:58if someone wants to raise a hand for the first and then uh i'll make a motion to approve the minutes for november 8th 2021.
2:06richard you were second that yes okay so we had a first by christian and second by richard okay next on the agenda is a request for additional funding for kennedy park john you need to do a roll call to vote i'm sorry got over that um so can we uh we'll start with a roll call vote on that uh paul yes john i'm an abstain i wasn't at the november eighth meeting okay alex yes
2:40uh see kristen yes richard yes caroline yes john yes okay vote passes alrighty um next was a request for additional funding for kennedy park overlook off of bay street and we have uh bill kenny and caitlin young tonight to uh go over that yep you want to tell us again uh caitlyn is of course is the legitimate uh representative of the city tonight i'm the retired city planner but she's graciously
3:19allowed me to make the pitch on a few of these projects since i've worked on them for quite a long period of time and she's going to kick me under the table if i say anything inappropriate or inaccurate then she can take charge but she's here to let you know it's legit okay this this particular item uh has to do with the section of kennedy park between bay street and the taunton river and the
3:45history is that back in march of 2016 the department of community utilities actually contributed some money to have a 10 concept plan prepared for enhancing that area of the park and that was performed by brown richardson and rowe and subsequent to that the community preservation committee allocated an estimated 150 thousand dollars to have 100 construction and design documents prepared so that the project could go
4:18out to bid what happened between 2016 and now is not much and fortunately i was able to get back involved in this project we have received an updated cost estimate from brown richardson and roe to complete the work that's necessary to get this out to bid keeping in mind that the original quote was just an estimate and it was back in 2016 uh time marches on inflation marches on and the quote now is for
4:52185 000 give or take a dollar or so to do this work which is which is not a great increase given the passage of time uh that's happened um the request is for the difference between the 185 and the 150 that cpc has already allocated to this project so it's it's 35 000 there are some good justifications for advancing this as a supplemental request at this time first of all it makes it possible to
5:26complete a project that was begun six years ago we have an unfortunate history in some aspects of the fall river where projects get started cpc funds them and nothing happens they drift along this is an opportunity to bring this one to a conclusion public funds have already been spent as i said the dpw several years ago had the 10 percent design made out of their budget um the park department
5:56i've met with the park department they want us to proceed with this project we have a contract in hand from brown richardson and row all ready to sign if you can agree to this additional funding we can get this moving immediately the risk of delay is of course that construction costs and planning costs continue to go up and you don't want to miss the opportunity of arpa funding if we can get these
6:23documents done in pretty short time this is a project the actual construction of these improvements is clearly an arpa qualified project so sooner the better we can get this moving we need the additional funds to sign the contract we get brown richardson a row started on it right away there's an opportunity to actually have it built if there are funds still available when the process is done
6:49so that's that's the that's the argument in favor of this request all right so the new contract still includes uh walkways and sitting areas and uh drainage parking lighting all that too yeah it's basically basically starting with the 10 concept they put together back in 2016 the park board generally likes that concept they only said they'd like us to try and put a few more parking spaces in there then
7:14that's going to be easily accommodated uh what i'll do is from the board take questions we'll just if you raise your hand i'll just go by roll call if you want to ask any questions so paul anybody i don't want to single anyone out if you want alex go ahead uh well i was just wondering if there was a official reason or unofficial reason for why the project never picked
7:38up after 2016 and if it's something we should be worried about again but the reason is on chronic understaffing in the planning department and that's thank god being addressed it was addressed most recently when caitlyn was hired to be my assistant planner and frankly uh her arrival here made it possible for me to get out of the day-to-day concerns of the planning department to move some of these projects along such
8:02as this one and she's now going to be the planner and she's going to hire an assistant so that chronic understaffing problem is being addressed finally yeah and and the position has actually as of today has been posted so hopefully we get an assistant planner sooner than later any other questions all right can i have a motion to uh fund the additional 35 000 for kennedy park overlook
8:31i'll make a motion now we approve it a second right roll call vote uh paul yes john yes alex yes christine kristen yes uh richard yes and caroline okay vote passes all righty thank you thank you very much you're welcome good luck next on the agenda cbc committee review funding hearing application process in preparation for the funding hearings um we just thought we'd uh since we have
9:15some newcomers and one newcomer is not here to just to outline we uh the committee members already viewed the applications that are in front of us uh we've already visited the sites um now where the funding hearing the applicants are going to present to us their cpc projects it'll be an open dialogue you can ask them questions tonight or call them the next day committee members may request to provide
9:48additional information then we'll have a meeting to final discussion on projects where you can ask questions clarifications information related then we'll have a scoring process each committee member must score each project once the score sheets are completed uh we'll tally the votes and recommend the city council um just uh some of the key points tonight with the city we don't look for
10:26three three bids just because they go out to cameron so you won't have those on your sheet tonight so it's not as important as private um some of the details you want to look at the application must be filled out completely must be typed i'm just going to highlight some of the pages uh just in case you're looking over further uh how does a project fulfill the general specific criteria the community
10:56preservation everyone should refer to the allowable spending chart see how it falls in then also explain how this project addresses needs of the city plans and that they can look at you can look at the master plan the waterfront urban renewal plan downtown urban renewal plan forward parks capital improvement plans open space and recreation the forward waterfront cultural district then uh
11:27they're obviously they'll have support letters endorsing their project let's see then on the additional funding information identify the additional funding for this project sources private federal state local grants those are always good to have then on the final is no cpc project can begin until the city council votes to approve the appropriation order and projects funded agreements and signed by all parties
12:00i think that's the highlight alex did you uh you're pretty good at uh looking these over did you want to add anything
12:13all right chris anything uh nothing i can think of okay just wanted to make sure if i forgot something all right so on to the funding hearing round uh the first project for fy23 is the uh westport extension quikashan river rail trail uh it's at uh open space recreation 297 thousand we have uh bill kenny and caitlin from the planning department so uh we'll have them uh update us on this um
12:53now uh is it our money going to come into this or any other funding that may be able to help finish this project well let me just say two things first i think you mentioned that if the members had any questions after tonight they can they can call that call should be to caitlin because i'm going to disappear for a little while but the other thing is that by way of background just just update the members
13:19who may not be familiar in 2019 your committee the community preservation committee made an award to fund the preparation of 100 construction documents to finish the this is really goes back to the very first phase of the rail trail um if you're familiar with it you'll see about the vicinity of lepage's restaurant on martine street all of a sudden the trail comes to a to a stop and it's 500 feet short of the
13:48westport town line so in 2019 your award was to pay for the engineering work to get that planned and permitted and ready to go out to build the last 500 feet it wasn't done when the original phase was done because frankly they ran out of money and they stopped where they where they had to um the uh benefit of this is uh two several fold i suppose waterfront access along southwest tupper
14:18pond is very limited the master plan and the open space plan both talk about that safety is a concern if you're on the trail and you want to get to westport when you come to the end you're going to have to go up on martine street which is a busy it's route 6. it's very busy it's not a safe place for your bike number three by connecting to the town line bringing
14:39this to the fall of the westport town line this encourages and makes possible connectivity to uh to westport and the region beyond that um so the the funds we're asking for tonight is the is the money to to build it these engineering plans and permitting should be done in the spring they can go out to bid in the spring and maybe get this work done before the winter the question about other funding the this is
15:07not we have not requested arpa fund but there is pending a mass trails grant application for this and of course we don't know how that's going to turn out those won't be announced until march so what i'm proposing is that and we're asking for you to make this award and you know we we understand that the funding through cpc isn't available until june after the council approves it we're into the new budget year
15:38in the interim if the mass trails grant is approved then we'll just withdraw this and and we won't have to then you'll have another 297 to reallocate to somebody else but we we don't want to just rely on mass trails they're very competitive there are projects throughout the state that we have to compete with we have a good project we're optimistic about it but we can't guarantee it so we
16:01thought the prudent course was to sort of hedge our bets ask the cpc to fund it if the state funds it then uh we'll just uh relinquish the uh the funding that you've provided this will eventually connect us uh from somerset to westport on the trail well eventually i believe this is l lima and the bike people can tell you better but i think it's bigger than that i think it's an east coast uh trail that
16:28eventually we're working towards but in the closer future somerset yes i know we did get a letter from uh jim cusick uh chairman of the city of uh forward bicycle commission uh recommending that uh we pass uh this uh vote he's in support of the uh westport connection okay we've got that but all right uh let's see any questions alex first go ahead just two quick things um where exactly
17:07uh what does it look like at the westport town line where this extension would theoretically end is it kind of just a brushed out spot or does it actually connect to to something that people can continue on well there's no there's no continuation of the trail on the westport side but there has been interest in the community uh sort of on and off again in westport there's a group that gets together and
17:29talks about moving that town forward to work on the trail there but they you know they've said gee why are we going to do this fall river hasn't done the extension to the line yet and now this is going to encourage them to to move forward with that planning process so would it end similar to now where it just kind of ends in brush it i believe that's correct yeah
17:52okay um and then just the other thing i was wondering i saw in the application that there was a design public hearing in summer 2021 um not now but i was just wondering if you could maybe send us the results of that or the comments from the public i think it might be insightful sure yeah we had a public hearing this this actually goes in tandem with another study when the cpc awarded their money
18:17to do the engineering work for this extension they also allocated some funds to do a feasibility study uh to see whether we might extend the trail from greigan street down along the shore of the pond towards where the atlantis charter school is so that's separate that's not what we're discussing tonight that's just a celebrate process that's going on but both of those were at the same public
18:40hearing and it was very well attended i think there were over 30 people uh which is unusual for a public hearing but it shows you the depth of support for bike trails in the city um and we'll uh we can certainly caitlin can certainly find the records i'll track that down and send it to you either tomorrow or early next week and if you could send it to me and then i'll go to the entire committee
19:04absolutely thank you thank you i see richard you got a question yes i did i guess i just just for clarification um so the city announced january 5th the second round of opera money or allocations um in the second page it says they allocated um four million seems for this exact same project no no that's that that's a totally different project the the bike trail uh has been conceived
19:37up in several phases we're looking now at completing phase one which was begun many years ago the four million allocation is for phase four correct which goes from britain park to farther travasos park so that's a totally new uh segment of the trails different projects thank you sure any other questions go ahead christine um just one so in in the application it says um it will provide additional safety for
20:11bicyclists and others who would otherwise have to use martine street route 6 which is heavily trafficked but i'm just wondering since it doesn't since the path ends and doesn't actually go anywhere where would they be traveling on the bike path that um would get them to wherever they'd have to go on martine street because martine shooting route 6 goes all the way up to westport whereas this just kind of stops
20:40so i'm just a little yeah two thoughts on that first of all anytime that we can take people off the public highways put them on a dedicated path that's a step in the right direction for safety and it's it's not a large you know as these things go it's not a large segment but it's significant from a point of view of safety uh and the other thing is the way that these
21:03trails historically get done is is you do a piece when you count and that's how the initial phases started if you look throughout the region folks build these one step at a time and this is another step and it's part of the mosaic that eventually is created and doing this will hopefully as i said encourage westport to now start moving forward to do something on their side so it's it's one small step for a bike
21:32path and i don't know finish that's not done smooth okay uh any other questions all right we'll move on to the next one then uh the next project is whatever park uh 150 000 uh that's under uh open space recreation uh bill kenny and caitlin are here to tell us about this one um my question on this one was uh go ahead and uh yeah let me let me give you the history on
22:09this one because it's a long one and i've been involved in this project since sam sutter was the mayor in fact during the early months of his career as mayor city councilor linda vavares and community member bill demaris came to the mayor and said we need more park land down south what's up a pond there's a triangular piece of land just northerly of the boat launching facility which is owned
22:37by the commonwealth at the end of jefferson street and there's a there's this piece of land that we'd like to open up to the public use and uh my assignment this was back in i want to say uh 2015 uh might have been 2014 my assignment was to make that happen and i i discovered immediately that the property was owned and controlled by mass dot mass department of transportation it's a
22:59triangular piece of land that was sort of orphaned uh when route 24 was put in and it does have some beautiful frontage on southwest upper pond and the limited public access to the pond has been highlighted in the master plan of the city and in the open space plan and we've encouraged we're always encouraged to try and find more open space recreation opportunities on that pond so i initiated the process of having
23:26massdot declare this parcel surplus land and through about a two year process it got masked out to commit to transfer the title to the city for a dollar so that we could then develop this as parkland uh that process is nearing the completion it's in the land court if you're familiar with the land court um it takes a while but it's it's going to happen uh it's going to happen sooner than later
23:54we expected that you know maybe this quarter of the calendar year this overall project is really conceived of is two phases first uh to hire a landscape architect to show what the future of this parcel might be as an open space recreation area and second to fund the construction of it and we're not asking for construction funds we're asking for excuse me the first phase to look and see what might be done and
24:23i think it's it's really important to to get that done for a couple of reasons there primarily there is a lot that goes into planning a parkland next to such a critically important resource as south what's up a pond you can't just go in and chop down a few trees and make a few paths with a bulldozer you've got to talk about conservation issues the conservation commission has to look at it you've got to talk about
24:55ada accessibility issues you've got to talk about parking you've got to plan very carefully what facilities you might have in this in this new parkland and where they might be located so if there is a there is a temptation to just rush in and say okay you know once the deed is passed we could do what we want with this land but that would be foolish and it would be inappropriate
25:20so would you you know talk about this being the community preservation committee i think you have an opportunity which you may not realize to really help preserve this parcel in an appropriate form where it could be used for recreation activities without violating conservation issues without uh ignoring accessibility issues and so forth so uh and again this is we talked about our but this would be an
25:50arpa-qualified project so again if we can get the planning done now there's a chance that there'll be some upper funds left available but by the way this is a chronic problem that that we have in the in the planning field opportunities come along and you're always told well you got to be shovel ready and then you look around and say well we don't have shovel ready plans and they say why not and the answer is
26:18well there's not a lot of money around for planning and feasibility studies but to make you have an opportunity here to to move this in the right direction if we don't do anything uh planning-wise with this there's there's some risk that there'll be a lot of pressure to use this property anyway without proper planning and that would be a mistake okay now how much land are we getting with the uh transfer oh boy
26:50just short of three acres i think it's around there just short of three acres okay so now as i understand when you go down to the park you can only park if you're boating right well that's keep in mind that at the end of jefferson street that's where the the state's boat launching ramp uh is and they've they watch that they want to make sure that you're either fishing or boating if you're gonna park there they
27:14don't want you parking there and enjoying anything else other than fishing or boating so this new parkland will have to have some parking area as part of the plan so again you need the planet because you can't just drive in there and park willy-nilly you've got to think about the environmental constraints so we the the state has uh told us that they are willing to give us authority to pass over their
27:39parking lot to get to our new park area and that's good but they just don't want us parking there that's understood and it's not a problem we'll have our own parking on this on this parcel and parking there would be free um for you i presume it i presume it would be since it's going to be owned by the city okay uh any questions from the board yeah i got a question richard go ahead
28:10um my question is would would just go out to bid for for uh designer services that's a good question i have to quali i have to uh uh kate will have to clarify that with our procurement office uh as you know in some cases uh you have to get uh put out a request for qualifications and put it out for the designers to bid on it or to come in and say that they're interested
28:36then you negotiate a fee with whichever designer you like sometimes when you're doing what we call horizontal work where there are no buildings being built you can avoid some of those requirements and you might be able to just go out and get like three quotes for the services so the quote that we have here is based on something that was provided a couple of years ago just as a ballpark estimate um
29:04you know hopefully we can get services for a smaller fee if it's a little bit more we may be coming back and asking for a little adjustment but it's again just answer your question we need to clarify with with the procurement office whether we have to have an rfq issued or whether we could just go out and informally request uh three bids from various designers but one way or another we've got to comply
29:30with the procurement laws right so yeah so pursuant to mgl seven which is designer architect law any architectural engineering services over 30 000 you have to have a qualification based process um so that's the reason i mean i'm i'm a procurement officer today how are you good yeah i'm a chief procurement officer for 13 times that's the only reason i was asking so just make it show up but thank you for
29:56the clarification now thank you for for the input as i said i wish i'd run into you sooner it would have saved me some time finding out which way to turn on some of these projects thank you any other questions go ahead christine so my only concern and this is just a technicality um because i think the project is great um so it says under section three acquisition of land to so
30:30falls under the eligibility category of land for recreational use or outdoor regulation because it involves acquisition of land to be used for recreation or for the creation of new recreational facilities on land a community already owns now i know it's in um it's in negotiations to be transferred but my concern is if it doesn't happen before we vote on it and we don't technically own the land before we vote on it
31:06then it it does not actually meet that specific criteria well i think you could look at it this way i think the the languages uh it involves quote acquisition of land to be used for recreation right or for creation of new recreational facilities online the community already owns so you covered either way uh one one dollar one dollar of what you fund we can use for the acquisition that's all we need
31:37wow you can't see what i mean you can't really separate the two things okay it's it's really it's both it's acquiring it and developing it okay it's just that we got a real good deal for you it's only a dollar okay because i was just trying to figure out how to make that work in case it doesn't go through by the time we actually vote on it but okay i see
32:00what you're saying if it's if it doesn't go through in the next three months i'm gonna find an open window here on the sixth floor or the fifth floor and that'll be the end i mean you you couldn't imagine land court is just i this is going to happen uh and you can take this to the bank it's going to happen this this calendar quarter okay you take that dollar to the bank i guess
32:29any other questions go ahead alex i just had a quick question about the utility tower on the massdot triangular parcel uh what is it exactly and is ownership of it hypothetically transferring as well yeah no we we won't have ownership of the tower but we've already spoken with uh the nasa as a national grid right national grid folks uh and they understand what we're planning to do and you know they
32:55they don't want anything to happen underneath their transmission lines or near their towers that would interfere with them or cause a safety concern and when i chatted with them some time ago they said look we just don't want somebody watching a boat underneath the tower well it's going to be a hell of a big boat if the mast is going to interfere with that tower and those power lines so
33:18there's really not a serious concern there by the way if you look at the other section of the bike trail behind the pages in that area the path is is either underneath or adjacent to some towers there so this is not something that that is a is a concern good question though uh on this when this project's done you'll be uh turning this over to the park department to be determined right now it's within
33:49the jurisdiction of the planning department and as it was placed there by sam sutter when he was the mayor and uh you know the park department may turn out to be the logical repository for it it's it's it's right now it's planning okay because the only reason i ask is uh the maintenance budget uh has nothing in it so you know because we're looking at the first phase you know there's no maintenance budget
34:16for the planning part of it but uh if if the park board were to take jurisdiction of this uh it would be maintained through the the same arrangement that they have with dpw now where they the dpw maintains their other facilities okay so a quick question bill you know the little park that's their little picnic area that's down by the water in the same general area um next to the boat uh the um
34:44south of the boat launching area south of where the boyd center used to be it's right here because right after the school it's on the same road that you go to the school it's on the family picnic area that was just put in this year who who oversees that area is that the park order i i was not involved in that project and um i do you know caitlin i don't unfortunately i don't know i think
35:13i think i don't know in fact i know i don't know mr furland did you have a go ahead yeah so that land is owned by the water department the florida water department that was purchased when the water department purchased the old void center we have an nou a memorandum of understanding for uh with dcm for them to be able to utilize that parcel so we have a 14 acre parcel there that's
35:50in the future slated for a future water treatment plant on south with tupper pond if ever needed uh in that park area in the rowing center uh all the way up the wooded area up to the atlantis charter school is all that area that's slated for the future water treatment plant thank you can i just amend my my answer to the previous question now i remember i i had forgotten that there was an mou or
36:20moa with the water department with respect to that but i i was uh you know i don't maintain that product i don't know who maintains it i guess water department owns it uh so that's that's about all he's got his hand up again he's gonna tell us something i was just curious that's all it says yeah it's maintained by yeah thank you all right uh no more with that oh alex
36:45go ahead i just had actually i you sparked another question so if it's to be determined about the eventual ownership is this project qualifying for a conservation deed restriction or how does that work if ownership um is still up in the air is it going to be assigned to the planning department and then transfer over or does it not even get a destruction because it's only a plan well i would think that at some
37:09point the restriction of some kind should be put on it because cpc funds are going to be used um and we have no objection to that i think it's a very good idea yeah we probably put that on the land wouldn't that be right paul homocide when we put a restriction on land i i don't know if it would need an article 97 restriction okay all righty okay so anything else with that project
37:47okay let's move on to the uh cook pond trail phase one survey uh open space recreation ten thousand uh bill kenny's here to talk about that one yes mr chairman thank you this will be quick uh we uh i think mike labossia is on the caller was he and i met with some folks that controlled the dwelling street armory back in august they're going to be enhancing their facility they had heard
38:14that the city was interested maybe in some day putting a multi-use path around cook pond which involves their frontage and they said city would you just tell us what you might need what what area you might need and we'll try and take that into account when we plan our enhanced armory facility so we were we were going to ask for these funds to fund a survey just at that shoreline so
38:38that the armory could cooperate with us and reserving it for future possible path use but i know you folks always want us to look for other funds as well we were able to find some other funds thanks to representative sylvia who has donated not donated who has arranged for an earmark of funds to the city to do some uh work around cook pond and we're going to use part of that for this
39:03survey so uh we're going to it's a long way of saying we're going to withdraw the request for the cook pond funding but thank you thank you for your interest all right thank you okay on to the next one would be the bell tower uh relocation uh restoration um that's under historic uh bill kenny's here this project is downtown it's on the corner of uh it's going to be on the corner of central
39:31street and north main street right well let me it's a little more complicated than that in fact it's well let me spin the yarn for you real quickly these bells have have traveled a bit these bells used to be in the tower the old city hall which was demolished to create 195.
39:52they were in storage for a while eventually a tower was made they were hung at the former south main place south main place no longer exists when actually they got complaints from the neighbors about the ringing of the bells and so the ilgwu which owns the building at the corner of pleasant then third street uh said city come on down and put your bells on the corner of our parcel so they moved down there um
40:20over the years and by the way that was like 1981.
40:25over the years the bells have been neglected and we thought wouldn't it be nice if we could get some funds to preserve the bells because they are historic nobody's taking care of them and we went out and got a quote it turns out that the company that actually built that tower and restored those bells still exists and they're a cincinnati company with some branches here in the east coast
40:51called the verdant company so i asked them for a quote and i know that your position generally was that if it's going to be historic we've got to talk about the bells we're not going to talk about the tower because maybe that's not historical we're not going to talk about moving the bells here they're going to talk about the bells and also the mechanism that makes them chime so the
41:12quote that we use for this application is based on the estimated cost to fix the bells make them chime again that was an estimate and i said you know as long as we found the actual company that did this why don't you come down to a site visit and give us a little more refined estimate so they came down and i want to say it was maybe three weeks or so ago and the results were
41:42concerning to say the least it turns out that the tower itself is in very bad condition turns out that the struts that go between the two forces of the tower to hold the bells in place are in very bad condition where we're waiting and we'll probably have the report friday of this year we should have it tomorrow from the verdant company they went up actually went up with a lift and took pictures and did a
42:12thorough exam they're parting words at the end of the day that they were here was the bells needed to come down uh not today but very soon because the towers not getting any better and the tower needs to be replaced so um that was concerning we notified the building inspector we've asked the company for further quotes to take the bills down and either put them in storage locally until we can find out
42:40what we're going to do next or to take them to their plant which i think is in cincinnati to start the restoration of the bells themselves the the overall problem is that parcel of land is is uh everybody in city hall sort of thought that that corner was owned by the city and it's not it's now owned by tony cordero the ilgwu owned it and eventually it's now owned by anthony cordeiro
43:09and he said you know someday he might use the corner of that land for his purposes he's going to rehabilitate the building for residential purposes so he said look you don't have to get rid of the tower now but someday you will and also we have to consider that there will be people living there and we don't want to find out that they're complaining about the chimes as well so given those things and now given the
43:32condition of the tower this tower has to move i've spoken with the dpw uh here in the city we've done caitlin and i john perry went out on a field trip and looked at sites where we might uh relocate the bells and the scheme that we're thinking now is that uh a tower and it's gonna have to be a new tower it should be erected at the corner of center street in north main where the
43:57cosgrove fountain is now and the cosgo fountain could be moved to uh there's a nice spot of land at the southerly end of old second street walkway where it would be displayed a much better advantage so it turns out to be a much bigger project overall than just you know getting a new chime control mechanism and spit shine and polish the bells so i i caitlyn is going to meet with the guy from the verdant company
44:27probably next week to to get a better idea of what we're up against here and i'm i'm just thinking that uh you know maybe if this is consistent with your procedures you'll have to tell us maybe you could postpone any consideration of this until we get a better handle on what's happening maybe kick it off a couple of weeks because because in the back of my mind some way or another the city's going to
44:54have to fund taking these bells down it's going to be cpc or otherwise and they're going to have to be restored and they're going to have to be put up in a new tower at a new location and we've got uh some estimates of uh the cost to figure out what would have to be done at the corner of center street in north main to relocate them there and what would have to be done to
45:15to put the cosgrove fountain up at cosgrove or coswell bell the fountain up at the end of second street but i think uh this this bad news is came in after we had submitted the estimated request for funding um and uh if you could uh maybe postpone more detailed discussion of this for a couple of weeks it would help us uh sort of recover from the initial shock and maybe come back with a with a better
45:43proposal and part of part of in the back of my mind i know your focus has been history and the bells themselves but it's also the community preservation committee and preserving these bells is going to need a new tower the bells otherwise are going to just you can shine them up as much as you want but they're not going to ring and they're not going to be displayed and they're going to be put away in storage
46:07for who knows how long so i i kind of see you know community preservation involves getting involved in the project more than just shining up the bells and having a new control mechanism but that's that's for you guys to to think about and so anyway maybe you could postpone for further discussion for a couple of weeks i leave it to your discretion well we won't vote till probably the first week of march
46:36but i did call uh boston cpc to find out about i told him about the four bells the mechanism which was fine and i did tell him that he was built in 1981 the towers which don't fall under historic preservation right but i said the tower kind of holds historic bells would that fall under and they said it was a good question but they're uh reviewing it now to see if it would fall under but
47:06i don't think it is going to fall under but uh i figured it was worth asking the question so we'll wait and hear back from them but i don't think it's gonna fall under historic so you'll have to probably come up with the tower money it likely it likely won't only because yes you need the tower to hold the bells to show off the bells but technically the tower's not preserving the bells
47:37it's just displaying the bells so and that's where the cpc funds you know you get into those little technicalities i don't i don't think it will so i think the tower the city is probably gonna have to find a way to fund the tower um
48:01as part of historic preservation it's not allowed to create anything new so in terms of the tower i think it would be creating something new so it wouldn't be eligible under historic preservation the only thing i see as part of your application that might qualify would be the sandblasting and polishing of the bells i think but i'm happy to wait until we get more information on all ends
48:22i think the mechanism for to making them ring too i think is covered under that because even though it's it's not technically a historic part of it you're recreating the historic sounds of the belt so i think that part of it actually falls under historic preservations too any other questions on this one no but john i just want to say uh to bill and caitlin that this is the first
48:50of the funding hearings there's two more funding hearings and then it's deliberation so john he can come back you can invite him back during deliberation because after deliberation you have the other meeting for scoring so in deliberation you can acquire any additional information that the committee might need yeah that sounds good so if after our next two meetings you want to sit in another meeting just uh
49:18send uh sandy an email and we can add to the agenda you can caitlin you can send me any updates as you get them and i'll forward them to the committee absolutely thank you so much questions i guess that one is done thank you mr chairman thank you thank you happy travels bill yeah thank you very much thanks very much thank you for your service to the city thank you okay next is the interlock and cultural
49:51resource stabilization project and enemy ranger falls under historic preservation 36 630. paul furland's here this is in the bio reserve well you want to give us an update hello committee uh paul ferlin administrator of community utilities i believe mike labosia the forester he's also on the call with me as well so just to let the committee know originally last year when we submitted it was the intellectual
50:27cultural resource stabilization project and uh a ranger uh after discussions on submission last year we did remove the ranger portion of it in this current uh uh current um application does not have uh a range of caution within that uh mike do you want to explain a little bit about the uh about the project and what we uh plan on doing yeah thank you paul um so um interlocking is a part of the what's
50:58upper reservation it's on the shoreline of the northwest upper interlock in itself is a is is virtually an island it's connected in two places by by uh by causeways from time to time over the years we have done cultural history or you could say historic walks leading uh visitors to view a couple of the iconic historic structures that are out there the two structures and i've provided those in
51:29the uh packet um the two structures are one the arctic ice house which the the remnant 35 foot granite walls are still visible from route 24 um as you drive by it's um almost everybody um you know associates them with the reservation and um there's almost as many opinions as to what they are as uh eyes that look at them uh everything from castles to whatever but um the um the
52:03photograph that i provided shows the um the original structure and uh actually al also the um the barn that was associated with it and the remnants the the part that's left are the um granite walls um and then the second feature that uh is is pretty well known out there and again i provided another photo is the spencer board and colonel borden uh mansion so these both of these uh elements are
52:36really get a lot of curiosity seekers we've had public um like i said these these um historic walks and we get we had great um you know great interest and a great feedback so and and we will never rebuild them they're they're they're gone but there's still enough of them there to really capture people's imagination so the thing we want to do is um have a landscape architect give us some
53:01guidance first of all assess them in terms of what can we do to stabilize them they're obviously deteriorating they're out in the weather um and and they're you know what can we do to stabilize them so they're a little safer um and that will pro i will second guess what architects going to come up with but you as you can imagine probably having to do with um uh you know getting vegetation away from them
53:25vegetation has a way of um you know destroying the parts of the pieces that are left and i should have said that the um the old mansion is gone it's been it was taken down in the 1940s but what's left there is a really interesting uh sellerhole stone foundation and a law the a lot of stonework relating to the the porch around it and um specimen plantings nearby the whole island is really a grid work of
53:55um stone walls from the um uh from its farming days so the thrust of the work like i said is going to be stabilize the buildings and do what can be done i should say um you know recommend what can be done to make the site safer uh as we can you know kind of our post covered plan is to get back into the um the periodic um um you know schedule of uh doing some
54:24public uh supervised public uh you know you know you might say curated walks through there so we want to make it safer and we really want these artifacts to last as long as they can they're really such a um such an interesting um part of city history and um also this land is already permanently protected it's been it's been um you know these these parcels have been protecting the water supply for over 100 years and
54:54they're permanently protected so we feel this would be a good way to to move forward to basically add value to a resource that we already have and to protect it at the same time oh any questions yeah now this is basically a study and design to find out what you need to do with the two properties right yes okay now when you say uh in chance forward as a tourist
55:26destination is this going to be open for the public because that's a big part of having is public going to be able to go down there certain times or how is that going to work well right now um you know to to be sure the west shore of the the northwest upper pond um which has you know been protected some of the oldest of our protected um you know watershed properties and it's not
55:54actually part of the buy reserve the buyer reserve itself there's a statutory uh boundary which the bio reserve begins near the causeway which is up at the northern end of the pond and it kind of moves uh easterly toward freetown so this is this this is sort of an exception to the bioreserve public access um and and because it has contact to the shoreline it will not be open sort of perpetually so really it will be
56:24it will require as we've done in the past having scheduled uh publicly notified uh you know publicly noticed events where we would lead the public through there yeah so you know and i think some of the committee members have been and a lot of the public have been on some of the tours that we had uh prior to covert we held a couple of different guided tours um you know again just because of
56:49the uh the area uh protection of our watershed uh it is a restricted area um but we never i don't think we've really ever uh anybody who's asked for permission we've had other um organizations that have photo organizations and different groups that have wanted to go down uh to be able to you know view those facilities in that areas we're usually able to accommodate those on a request basis my hope is in the future
57:19and mike's hope as well we would love to be able to get the other portion that was part of this original proposal which is uh a ranger position within the watershed uh and to work within the bio reserve uh that works with i think a lot of the board members know about the bioserve iowa reserve discovery center that we've talked about but that would be somebody that would be able to uh
57:46dedicate more time to be able to uh offer these guided tours supervised tours in restricted areas be able to do educational walks throughout this area that's something that we're looking for uh hopefully in the future but we just need to find the right funding source for that for those positions uh do we have any other questions from the board uh john i'm just curious what was the cause of the demise of the mansion
58:21um it's not you said it's no longer there only the stone structure and foundation correct right well so the so the ice house burned um in the early part of the 20th century burned to the ground uh it didn't burn to the ground the they actually the stonework is still there the wood burned to the ground um and then when the city finally uh took control of it and you know the
58:46interlocking was made up of several parcels a number of different owners and so um each required individual negotiations and and acquisition when the last of the parcels was acquired uh and that was the spencer board and mansion the city actually dismantled that took the building down so that it wouldn't be a um a hazard uh and on unintended uh you know a um attractive nuisance it's a beautiful structure in its time
59:16yeah it's a bittersweet end that you know um it's uh you know we lament it now but i mean at the time i think out of out of caution and safety and um probably a desire not to have to upkeep uh upkeep it at the time i think they decided the best thing to do was to raise it and that was common uh over the years many many of the properties that the city
59:42took over for water supply um those houses houses were taken down so it's just one of those things i did want to though um uh acknowledge and thank um community support behind we have three historic uh projects uh this round and i want to thank the four of the historical commission uh for uh sending letters to support those projects um uh that's that's greatly appreciated these are uh
1:00:09the funds for these projects aren't you know they're not part of our operating budget these are but but certainly the city uh community utilities understands that we are sort of stewards of some of these historic artifacts and historic landscapes and really we want to be responsible and do what we can to preserve them yeah just to talk about what you said remember you know uh it is uh you know
1:00:35it was a great structure back in the day and i don't know if you've ever had the chance to be able to visit this site but just being able to go out there and see the foundation uh the front porch that still has some of the tile on on it and stuff like that uh you know you can just see the grandeur that was there this will help us preserve what's left
1:00:56of that grandeur for future generations to be able to view thank you any other questions all right we'll move on uh next is the uh barnes john alex has a question oh alex sorry i didn't see your hand go ahead alex
1:01:23alex go ahead you got a question oh he lost he said he lost his audio oh okay well i guess we can say it for the next meeting you can all right if it comes back on just let me know uh next one is barnabas blossom workshop restoration uh historic preservation is uh 137 570. paul ferlin and that's in the bio reserve update thank you very much uh commission i
1:02:05think uh again most of the commission is familiar where we have uh reservation headquarters out at uh out off of blossom road uh this is a small building just to the left of our of the main house that's out there uh we've been looking to potentially uh restore this building uh this would be the stock of uh of the restoration of that building uh within this project we'd like to uh we'll be
1:02:30using many other uh cost-saving measures um you know one of the things that we do uh pretty relevant out in the reservation area on projects is we utilize a local vocational school diamond uh to be able to uh carry forward some of those projects which typically has a great savings this is one that we've spoken with them and would love to partner with them on uh mike if you want
1:02:54to give a little bit more in-depth uh explanation thank you paul so i i did include um a pen in the appendices a few different things and i think if you have them um appendis appendix a is an 1871 um atlas showing if you look along blossom road blossom road is that is the predominant road in the center of that map and the blossom family was one of the first to um to
1:03:25you know the eastern eastern part of the pond what's up a pond was really a frontier in the 1700s the blossom family arrived just around 1776 and they were the probably the first european family out there an area that was already known as the reservation because in the early 1700s there were there wasn't continues to be an indian reservation um in this vicinity so the blossom family um
1:03:54lived at this property for three generations the city actually acquired the blossom farm from them in the early 20th century but they were farmers they had about a 400 acre 400 acre farm which began at the west the eastern shore the northwoods upper and went all the way to the top of copecote hill um they they did well as farmers by the third generation um they actually own some textile interests in the city so um
1:04:24the the property itself is is really uh it's almost amazing that the city owns this this central uh um this really prominent farm um in the middle of um you know in the middle of blossom road um the blossom family itself is somewhat distinguished and there are some some of the buildings uh going back to the early 1800s or some of the earliest outbuildings that still exist in the city so um
1:04:50our you know our our our goal is to have a um is to be able to build a bioreserve visitor center discovery center environmental center if you will um at a different property but that is you know requiring more time and and and effort than um than you know we realized at the outset so it's very likely we're going to kill a couple of birds with one stone here um we're going to uh renovate
1:05:20and um restore but adaptively reuse this building as potentially the um an interim bioreserve discovery center it's not a building we use every day right now but but we do use it from um for some different purposes the trustees of reservations who were our uh buyers or partners and for a number of years did environmental um you know education and things like that they use this building
1:05:47it's a small building but it has really authentic architecture it's got it's got mortise and tenon joints hand-hewn beams mortise mortise i mean uh you know pegs and um it's really a representative building of the mid um 1800s and um we want to keep it we want to make it useful we want to make it ada accessible so that when we have visitors uh and we have the opportunity to do this interpretive um
1:06:16uh you know use it in interpretive fashion um we will have that available um and and um like and as paul said our vo our our um our partnership with diamond has been really robust we've they've they've worked i've worked with six or seven different shops uh over the last maybe three to five years they've worked on some of the other newer buildings this is this is right now probably our oldest building at the
1:06:46reservation we'd like to we'd like to um uh you know make sure that it stays in good repair and we can modernize the system so that we can continue to use and it's and it's a part of the education um of um you know use it as a part as part of telling the story of the what's up reservation watershed protection and the buyers it kind of wraps it all up are there any questions
1:07:12so eventually it will be opened up as a workshop people come in and you'll be we'll be open to hiking in that area as yeah well so it is it is in the middle of an area that's open to the public um we call this area the triangle you'll see that where it says phillips swamp on that on that appendix a map um that triangular area is about a thousand acres it's surrounded by blossom road to
1:07:36the west yellow hill road to the east and then indian town road to the south that triangle area already open to the public um we've had a partnership um next month will be a year where we partnered with the appalachian mountain club every um every month they do a a guided walk it's all it's open to the public it's free um so you know we've had conversations with them about potentially using this
1:07:59as a kind of a warming hut for them um but what i foresee is we will have some um uh fairly um simple um interpretive uh displays which will talk about um not only um you know you know the the city's mission in terms of providing and protecting providing clean water protecting the watershed area um you know it'll be opportunity to do um exhibits of flora and fauna talk about native you know native history um um
1:08:34and um you know we'll have sort of the permanent exhibits that will be there in addition to having a space like a meeting space um so it's it's it's going to be sort of a mini uh or you know a compact um version of what we hope the um ultimately an environmental senate can be uh now again on this uh there's no maintenance uh listed and i know the city is always bad
1:09:03with maintaining once we do something is that paul you're going to have funds diverted there where it'll stay maintained like everything else that gets passed yeah we would include that within the water department uh water department annual budget okay yeah i would also add that this this is probably um the first half of a two-phase project and um i you know this this the way so we've
1:09:32worked with michael keane to sort of come up with a an initial uh approach to this project um and and the way he foresaw it would be uh we'll work on the external first we'll do the um you know before we work on the in the interior and the floor plan and that um i think that's a good consideration it'd be it would be nice to um to be able to
1:09:54present in a budget what a maintenance budget would look like but this building is at our reservation headquarters operation center so it's it's literally um it's one that will receive this you know our constant attention because it's with our uh you know my office space um the whole the whole minute which is in the house next door um you know we have a few other outbuildings which we house equipment
1:10:21and we have workshops to do all the operations that we do in the watershed so it's really central to our operating i don't know you could almost call it a compound yeah and just to touch on something that michael said just be clear too was uh you know this is uh two-prong two-phase uh if you call it um you know project this is phase one this is almost uh stabilization gets us for the exterior
1:10:47gets us we were ada accessible uh and able to use the building and then we'd be uh then in a phase two we'd be looking to do uh build out of the interior i think that's the right way to go on that uh do we have any other questions from the board alex my audio is working again sorry oh good so i actually had some questions about the phases so i'm happy you mentioned that
1:11:13so uh you because you have in the proposal 100 700 earmarked for construction costs that's all exterior work and i think you mentioned it was to prevent moisture is that accurate well right so um and i don't i'm imagining so i haven't we haven't really drilled down specifically but this is this has for example it has a granite uh cut granite foundation so you know one can imagine it doesn't have a it has a floor
1:11:45um it has it so there's there's there's work in the basement um you know the whole exterior needs to be redone um so almost every aspect you look at is is quite dated and you know a lot of it's failing yeah i think you know this fake first phase if you want to call it that is primarily primarily exterior so if you go through the construction cost it includes roof uh clapboard restoration windows
1:12:17basement uh you know podging it looks like granite foundation restoration the window sills and stuff so this is going to take care of making sure that the exterior of the structure is sound making sure that everything is uh sealed and watertight so we don't get uh you know degradation of the uh interior uh architectural aspects that mike mentioned it earlier uh as well as uh i believe this goes into uh the exterior
1:12:44ada um access as well alex did we get the whole gist of what you're asking i mean if we answered that question yeah yeah it was a little unclear uh where you were envisioning phase one to breaking up but i got a better understanding of that now um just one other thing since uh you both mentioned uh how the water department is in the custodian of a lot of historic buildings
1:13:15i was i saw an application that mentioned some of your staff might be able to help with some of the interior demolition um i know that there were some concerns from the historical commission and some of butters regarding some uh work at the project on redford street at the top at the waterworks complex in terms of making sure everything was uh in line with the historical commission's idea of it how is the department
1:13:40planning on approaching the making sure you know the secretary of interior standards are met and the other historical aspects of it is it something you're going to work with the historical commission on or do you have someone in mind who's going to kind of oversee that well so um you probably noticed in the appendix in the appendix there was a couple of sheets that came directly out of a conditions assessment
1:14:04and preservation plan that was done by civ attack um and um i've really been working closely with uh you know with mike uh in terms of identifying just what those standards are and um this you know this is a true historic find um we actually lost a barn across the street uh unfortunately because um uh i you know i think 50 years ago or more we just didn't have the understanding of um
1:14:35of the value of these old buildings um just because they weren't sort of modern well these buildings were built the barn of course the street was built for horses and oxen and in in animals and over time it evolved into being a storehouse and as quasi garage it was just you know didn't really really didn't have the information um to bear and it just it wasn't used well um but i think now with you know with
1:15:05with the expertise helping us understand what what um you know what it what is what are important elements that we don't want to lose um and and a lot of them have to do with just the old timbers the patina the handwork um those are things you know we're not going to we're not going to sheetrock over this and um and hide that that's really with this building looking at timbers that came off this
1:15:32land this this building was built by hand um you know wanting to pull that story out we're going to pay a lot of attention to be sure that that story is told and that we preserve those elements yeah so we we do have significant experience with the secretary of the interior standards as well uh we've had to follow them with all of our uh historic uh historical grants that we've been
1:16:02awarded for different projects uh on our facilities so we do uh we are familiar with those standards and the way they're required we do follow them anyone else yes i will say um the historical commission did have concerns um we did ultimately give our letters of support to the projects the historical projects because we know that mr labassier is overseeing the project and we have
1:16:39confidence in in him overseeing them but i i will say that we did have a bit of an issue because we had concerns about um the the uh water department maintaining some of the historic properties and we did we had asked mr furland to come before us to answer some of our questions and concerns and he didn't but we did give the letters of support based on uh mr lagasse are coming before us and
1:17:10explaining and you know with the the understanding that he is the one that's overseeing the projects so okay just a note to that i haven't received anything from the historical commission requested my presence but if they would like me at any meeting they can feel free to request me we we did ask in an email and the email wasn't answered the one email was answered with a letter and the other one was just not answered
1:17:43at all so we did i'll review my emails alrighty so moving on any other questions all right we'll close this one and move on to the next project
1:18:07next one is the northwest up upon sea wall condition assessment and restoration plan uh eighty six thousand six hundred twenty five thousand dollars uh paul fernand from the water department this is in the bio reserve uh would you like to tell us a little about this one yes no problem again uh so this is a project uh that we would be looking for funding on uh as uh many you know some of the committee
1:18:34members know all around the north would tap upon we have beautiful uh historical sea walls that was constructed uh late 1800s early 1900s that's the protection of the shoreline uh protection from erosion coming into the pond some of those sea walls over the years has seen a great deterioration what we'd like to do is do a conditions assessment of all the sea walls around the pond there is four
1:19:05primary primarily identified section that are around the pond uh and then we'll uh we'd like to uh be able to evaluate those sections and then come up with recommendations for future uh repair and how to move forward with uh with repairing all of those seawalls around the pond mike do you have uh anything else to add well um that really says it all the um in terms of the um
1:19:41it's reminiscent of the you know of the old churches in the city um these these um beautiful cut granite you know artifacts really they were built at a time when that kind of craftsmanship was available um the historic value is is um is so unique because the granite was quarry right here in town um the the structures are serve a unique purpose they protect the water supply they hold you know they they prevent um
1:20:13you know erosion um but they take a beating uh the problem is they're they're sea walls and you know like we've had recent weather you know nor'easters come in they uh you know the the the water slams against them um and if you look i this this time around you've seen these this application before but i i did add just for um just for a little extra um you know illustration i did add a photo
1:20:37a photo of that i took out there this winter before we had the snow just uh just a few weeks back some sections of wall which you know even though appear sound from wilson road if you're on the pawn side and look at them they're they're the sections are becoming undermined and so um you know this is a this is this is an old world if you will kind of a trade fixing fixing old stonewall so
1:21:06we really need you know professional uh assessment of it in terms of taking stock of you know there are four discrete sections some sections are not being impacted some sections are but we really need to get a handle on um you know maybe there's some maybe there's some um stabilization work similar to the interlocking work that we may be able to do in-house um and and we will try to do as much as
1:21:32we can in-house um especially things that are on the lower end of the skill scale but um how we're going to get access to some of this how we're going to you know repair it i don't i don't i don't know how we're going to do it so that's why we're really going to rely on this study to come up with a way to maybe divide this up into bite-size uh projects
1:21:52uh to give us some kind of an idea how to stabilize because at this point this um this uh deterioration is sorting is uh you know it's reaching a tipping point where a little more and a little more is happening so we've got to really try to get a handle on it arrest it i think i think it's it's part of our landscape heritage and we really want to try to
1:22:19you know save it before uh it really gets too far too far advanced okay i know this is important part before you start but uh do you have any idea what the end result is going to cost i do not never even speculated i mean really this study is going to give us a good handle on that all right i know mayan studies just become you know in the eyes of the public they're going
1:22:54to look at a study saying a waste of uh product even though it's going to be the end result will be good that's my only concern on it so uh yeah i agree i i might even say i'm sensitive to that if you look at the on page seven um something that was brought to my attention as i read through the architects sort of um step by step thinking through it you
1:23:15know he talked he talks about toward the end prepare an order of magnitude opinion on probable cost and i mean that's that's really a foundational you know it's going to be foundational information that we're going to be able to you know assess what is our uh you know what is our likelihood to be able to do what i mean i you know at this point you know we're we we have
1:23:43a 5 000 acre forest and anything relating to trees and that land we have an expertise about this wall uh project we you know we really need some expertise and and some professional input i understand young man yeah uh on the study on this too so these sea walls as i mentioned the inland flood protection uh and sediment erosion control uh one thing that we were just just applied for a dam and seawall grant through the
1:24:18office of eoea for a different project for one of our dam projects but in speaking with them during the grant application process these inland sea walls may be eligible for funding through their program for restoration as well even though their program doesn't talk about historics but they're still uh fall underneath their guidelines so i think you know i do understand your concern about a study and uh you know
1:24:48you heard bill kenny say earlier that sometimes studies would get done and they just sit there on the shelf um you know i think through our uh throughout the pop and we've had a track record of uh moving forward with uh with projects um and not uh not letting these studies uh um you know we look for every different type of funding opportunity once we're able to get a handle on the work and this first
1:25:16first step really lets us understand what needs to be done and gives us that ability to be able to apply for these grants other types of grants whether it be a mass historical grant whether it be a dam and sea wall grant or other opportunities to be able to say here this is what we really need to be able to do this section because we already have uh have had it looked at so now
1:25:43how long would it take them to do this study month two months well i think i actually i'm just gonna go back to the um to the report because i thought i saw 16 weeks i did see 16 weeks so you know three to four three to four months and i'm imagining that's that's a conservative uh number could be less all right i'll open it up to the board does anyone have any questions alex go ahead
1:26:15me again um i'm glad you uh called that you mentioned the other funding sources because my main question i guess i know you probably don't know the answer until the assessment's done but how long this study might be good for especially since you say that some of these sea walls are now kind of at a tipping point i guess i'm kind of worried that we do the study and then you know something kind of
1:26:34catastrophic happens that wasn't encompassed in the study and then it's essentially moot for that section of wall um i understand you probably don't have an answer until you get that assessment but do you have an idea how long this study might kind of be good for sort of speaking uh you know again that's tough to say because you know we could do the study tomorrow and then uh something
1:26:54catastrophic happens to a section but i i think the one thing that we got to say you know the walls there is throughout the whole entire areas of walls there's multiple different conditions currently so there are some that are highly deteriorated and some of that that are in fairly good shape so if we do end up where a section of wall does deteriorate at least it would have the basis to say all right
1:27:19this has gone farther than what the study looked at so we should carry a number more of this to be able to apply to repeat repair it so you know through the study i think that would at least give us the insight to be able to look at the different sections when we're going out for repair to give us better estimates at the point thanks and i just had one other uh question in the
1:27:44application sorry to meet myself i think this would be beneficial to the public um how would you explain that this project could reduce the cost of water treatment i saw that mentioned in your application i think people might be interested in that so within the whole entire uh you know a watershed that protects around these areas uh where these uh sea walls were built uh were prone to
1:28:11erosion from wave action so those were built in specific spots around the pond where you had uh high uh intensity waves coming up washing down the shore bringing sediment and other pollutants down into the water which then would require additional treatment uh to be able to minimize any of that by keeping these uh sea walls in a good condition uh you know reduces the cost of uh of having to deal with any of
1:28:40that sediment or other things that are brought down by the waves eroding away the shoreline anyone else has a question alrighty thanks we'll move on to the next one then uh next project is the copper cut reservoir water supply land acquisition uh 230 thousand dollars paul ferlin from water department that's in the bio reserve yep excellent thank you very much committee uh again this is a uh
1:29:15apostle that we've uh had um kind of on our radar for a while um it's a piece that's within the coca-cola uh watershed uh it's uh almost a direct line between coca-cola hills one of the highest uh one of the highest points elevation-wise uh in uh the city of fall river and the cocoa reservoir this portion of land is privately owned uh it did have a it does have no uh order of non-compliance from uh
1:29:47from conservation commission uh to deal with uh um some wetland issues that were on the property uh we've been trying to work with that property owner to uh correct those issues um you know we feel taking uh taking hold of this property will give us the ability to be able to uh to be able to nurture those uh wetlands back to uh back to a better state than what they're in now
1:30:13so that's one of the reasons for acquiring it the other one is because it is contingent to uh bioreserve properties surrounded uh on three sides um and then uh also uh the wetlands issues what how it's in the watershed of the uh coco cut reservoir uh mike do you wanna go into some more details well so all i would add is that um um well you know we've uh we i'm pleased to say that um
1:30:45green futures sent a a recommendation uh support a letter of support um as did the neighborhood association coco cut uh neighborhood association um we're always grateful for local support for for uh for doing land conservation um so this you know the committee has known us for um doing several other land projects um going back to 2017. we've done um i think the the committee has helped fund five
1:31:15different land acquisitions um the last one was a parcel on copaca road that was 16 acres almost almost similar in size and dimension um these these are the last of the privately owned parcels in the copaca uh the copper cut reservoir water shed area um protecting these protecting this parcel helps to protect um two bands of wetland that feed the copper cut reservoir um the parcel is
1:31:45less than 800 feet away from copper cut reservoir and and really very interestingly and this is this is one of the um first parcels we've had sort of a unique ability to help protect an endangered species habitat next door to the east of this parcel are two certified vernal pools with state listed marbled salamanders now the habitat the vernal pools happen to already be on water department property they're
1:32:13already protected but um the surrounding wetlands if you go to the natural heritage atlas that the state publishes the surrounding wetlands are a part of that habitat and um um you know so so this is really part of that rare habitat so by protecting this property is it just does so many things it it protects our water supply and and literally this is one of the last of the unprotected parcels
1:32:42it protects that 16 acres to the northern end of the parcel there are some interconnections with the 50 miles of of mountain bike and hiking trails that are already in the bio reserve and we have a landowner who is you know willing to work with us we've got an appraisal it's actually in today's market i think that the price we're going to pay is is um is is really quite reasonable um
1:33:15we've got a landowner who's willing to work with us for you know this this process takes a year or two um you know so we're not working with a developer we're working with the principal landowner who's given us this opportunity and then finally um similar to the last project we did with uh with cp a funds um we have an opportunity to juxtapose our grant with uh with a match from the
1:33:42state we did that a couple of years ago where we bought um i think it was a was a 350 or 400 000 parcel on copaca road we were able to get fifty percent match from the state um uh and actually i wanna make a shout out right now to our to our great writer james b dibiase who's actually helped us on a number of these grants um but you know we're i think
1:34:05our land conservation strategy is really a frugal one we try to get the land at the best price we try to look for funding to match cpa funding so that we can really you know maximize and stretch your dollars so um myself and jane were on a grant um um a briefing yesterday for the drinking water supply grant which was the one we were successful with in 2019
1:34:29and we were able to pay for 50 of the cost so this we're asking for the full cost on this as we did with the last grant but we're hopeful that we'll get a 50 match from the state so um similar to uh the way bill approached it a little bit with some of his presentations we'd ask for the full amount but i'm i'm i'm very confident that we're going to do well at
1:34:51the state level because the message from us for us yesterday on the on the phone call was that there's not a lot of competition because drinking water supply grant is a very small pool um so not a lot of competition necessarily and it's probably going to be a year with extra money so i'm i'm can't promise but i think i think we'll be successful uh with the state grant and we'll be able to match uh 50
1:35:16and um be successful with this app with this acquisition it's always good to get additional funding oh go ahead paul yeah i know just to touch a little bit on on what mike said you know we've had uh an excellent track record with the uh with the assistance of uh of the cpc um you know and other agencies uh supporting us to be able to protect these lands so um you know i think uh you
1:35:45uh your your committee knows that we try uh to reach out to uh every different possibility for funding sources uh and uh you know it's always we talk about what which one comes first which one supports which one um but we're always going after those different sources so well it's one of my biggest things is open space any time it comes available and we could uh get it i mean they're not making any
1:36:16more land so it's always good to invest in that now you're taking 16 of the 18 acres the owner staying there is he going to have any waterfront uh footage or no waterfront no so his house is this house is on the opposite side from copper cup uh the opposite side of the road so he currently doesn't have any water on copper cut it's it's wetland it's wetlands that are
1:36:42on his property next to the vernal pools that feed down into coca-cola all right so even the pools he won't have as far as wetlands uh because i know he was up in front of conservation a few times all that stuff will be handled and squared away yeah so what i'd like to add is that so we have we have an opportunity to help configure so we're gonna so we're gonna literally have to
1:37:05go before the planning board and subdivide this parcel we're going to subdivide out the house and you know the minimal um the minimal size and it would be my hope and i think we'll be able to do this we're going to carve out the house law based on uplands and the wetland aspect will be you know completely off the footprint of the house lock so that's um you know that's we're going to optimize i guess that
1:37:35division um and um you know that has to get approved by planning of course but that that's our objective he's got he has 18 acres we can give him the the minimum um uh conforming law and still have 100 of the wetland resource on the parcel that we're going to protect and this does already connect with bike trails and hiking trails so it's going to be added to the public use they'll be able to
1:38:03enjoy more open space yeah it'll be open to the public and just just as every other parcel that we've um we've acquired with cpa funds has been open to the public okay does the board have any questions alex i was just wondering what the third party you were envisioning monitoring the conservation restriction would be that's a great question and um we've been fortunate to have three different partners on the
1:38:34four projects that we've you know used cpa funds the first was the department of um the department of fish and game um the set and then the next one was uh the buses bay coalition and uh they're a private non-profit based in new bedford but they operate over the whole buzzers bay uh watershed area and i remind you that coppercut reservoir is actually in the buses bay watershed it's whereas the
1:39:02water reservation itself is in the narragansett bay so there's there's a watershed divide in fall river um and um so so buzz's bay holds conservation restrictions on two parcel on yellow hill and a parcel on indian town and then our last uh acquisition which was on copica road uh was held by dcr so we we have we have three uh bioreserve partners you know it you know in the bioreserve and
1:39:29i think what we try to do is optimize the conservation restriction holder with the part with the parcel which with the kind of parcel it is if it's adjacent to um if it's adjacent to a fish and wildlife holding they're announced they're a better and a natural fit for us but um we've got three different partners so we haven't landed yet on who the partner will be with this
1:39:51um but it's likely going to be um it's likely going to be one of those three yeah we've had great luck buzzards bay coalition recently has been an excellent partner um they've actually worked on uh i think they just acquired some other lanes out here and uh so yeah between between the three of them we don't feel that there'll be an issue getting a uh getting up to hold the conservation restriction yeah thanks
1:40:19okay any other questions all right well paul and michael like thank you for uh joining us tonight explaining everything all right not a problem thank you very much good night guys we appreciate the opportunity and thank you again for your support anytime good night good night so next is any new business anyone have anything they want to add to new business i'll just add that sandy sent over the
1:40:55second video of our project featuring the veterans uh the veterans memorial wall the vietnam veterans memorial wall um and you should check it out it's on youtube frg tv youtube and it's on our facebook page and it's great also make comments on it i mean when we did this to publicize cpc we wanted to highlight us but in return i don't mind highlighting fall river because that's what we're
1:41:22here for is enhance fall river but the material should be uh marked with cpc on it every time it's viewed people should know who produced it and who put it out so put comments anything you might want to add or you might not think anything needs to be changed but uh in the email just send it back to sandy this way we can uh let pam pamela martin know from fred tv while you're on that subject
1:41:47carolyn and alex maybe we can do a zoo meeting um to do an update on that project because it's really moving along because they're going to be working on ten more um one being the historical society and one being the dr fisk house so i'd like to update the two of you on the progress of that project and some of the future um events to bring them out to the public
1:42:12john uh it's probably not new business but i will draft the letter to the mayor and the appropriation order so it can go down to the city council for approval um and once it gets on that agenda i'll let you know and i'll also let planning know so they can attend that city council meeting okay and i guess the last thing i have for new business is um when we did the uh christmas uh tours
1:42:36went pretty well was well perceived by the uh the public uh we're looking to do some more of that uh but what i was looking at is tying into groups that i already have successful means of getting people to attend and caroline i don't know if the uh historical society is going to do um uh the bands outside like you did last year um i'm not quite sure i know we have
1:43:00some work going on um in the building both interior and exterior um so i i think it that's a little bit far-reaching right now for what we're doing um but i know that the hope is that we'll be having it again okay well we would like to maybe participate whatever we can do to maybe sponsor a ban or however we can work it in so yeah i'll definitely i'll reach out
1:43:26to michael and talk to him about it john i'll find out i'll find out from the other projects what's going on with their agendas like lafayette derpy house any of the other museums if they're doing anything and then i'll i'll put a list together um i'll work on that over maybe the next couple well it's kind of hard with the funding hearings but i'll work on it um to see what everybody's doing related to our
1:43:50projects you know maybe um i know alan mccumber i got an email today that they have their first tenant moving in there i don't know if anyone's been in there i went in there last week whenever yeah the apartments they're doing a beautiful job so i'll i'll research all our projects and see who's doing what and let the committee know i actually spoke with um i was at lafayette durfee house i spoke
1:44:14with dave jennings on saturday or no friday i was there last friday and um right now they're not doing anything they had a couple of events planned and because of covid they had to uh nix their plans so everything there is a little up in the air and i think that's part of the problem is unless we um unless we're going to plan on doing outdoor events i don't know how
1:44:39many indoor events we're going to get um with people wanting to do that because i know even for them and he you know they had a lot of stuff planned and they had to cancel a lot of stuff so i think that we have to keep in mind we really should focus on outdoor things right now maybe what i'll do is i'll talk to mike and see if he can coordinate a couple of
1:45:01tours that we can sponsor okay i mean i don't want to create a lot of extra workforce but something that would be nice and easy that's already well like a soil side they get 3 400 people outside they used to do the uh reenactment down at the uh the waterfront heritage state park uh lafayette you know ideas excuse me got cold so i'm running out of uh air here uh so you know just something
1:45:32like that so keep your uh thinking you know on and uh so that's it for my new business if there's anything else if i have um i'm not sure if it's new business than that but i have a recommendation and some feedback i'll start with the feedback from the holiday tour just a couple of visitors said they had some issues where they were trying to pay through our online system
1:45:57i'm not sure if that can be looked at it wasn't user friendly um so that can be looked at for for this year coming up um let's see how we can make it more user friendly for folks to go in and be able to um you know purchase their ticket and then the recommendation is um on our facebook page is there any way that uh that we can when when pictures are taken for
1:46:22projects we do it like in groups so like if they you know if the public goes in and kind of just clicks on the photos they'll show like all the pictures let's say for i don't know for the quickest sharing rivet trail from start to finish and they'll see all the progress i'm not sure if it's doable or if we just kind of just post pictures as we kind of go along
1:46:44so just a recommendation if richard if the applicants send me updated pictures i'll store them in a file and then i can post them on our page and i can post like 12 at a time and people can kind of look through uh the album on facebook so um again go ahead i was just going to say you should you can make we can make individual albums too per project so right right i'm going
1:47:11to write albums yeah that's a good idea well i i just think i mean it's just kind of for for myself just you know as a as a resident you know you you know folks always ask yourself okay where did my tax dollar goes and i think people have a vic when you see a visual see you know something from start to finish they get a sense of
1:47:31you know like oh okay i i you know they see the visual you know um and they see the progress from again from from start to finish you know so just a recommendation yeah like the water parks that we have when you show kids and they're going through it it really makes you say oh that was well worth spending the money because kids are enjoying yourself and you get to see it
1:47:51so yeah that's a good idea okay nothing else can i have a motion to adjourn i'll make a motion to adjourn have a second second second okay paul yes john yes christine kristen yes richard yes caroline yeah alex yes don yes so meeting is over thank you