3.26.2024 Fall River City Council

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city council committee on finance will please come to order clerk will call the role C Dion here Hart here Kilby here Carrera here Pony here reposo here Samson here president here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings

or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledge and permissible we have two individuals assigned up for Citizens input time first is Richard Barlo subject matter I don't know what to say come down Mr B thank you that makes two of us Mr B thank you want to remind everyone since what time you have three minutes good afternoon Council council president

Richard Bala 50 Anderson Street good afternoon how many of you know how long I've been coming down here complaining about my flooding issues two years longer than that a longer a lot longer than that longer than that and I'm pleased to say thanks to Mr furland we came out there he went out there with me we took a look it took me hours and hours but we found the pipes that would

been blocked since 2010 wow so I just like to say thank you to Mr pH and his team I'd also like to thank the mayor who gave the funding to Mr fing to do the studies that are needed for um for getting back there because this project isn't is far from being over um it needs to be done from Downstream up I mean so I mean if everybody can see the

presentation that he put on it it's it' be it'll be good because we need the funding to get that whole entire thing done it's not only going to improve my yard it's also going to improve Dickerson Street and Spencer Street because now all that water that was all combined over there trying to get through that one pipe is it just do didn't work and for some reason the city didn't know those pipes were there 50

they're about there 50 years one of the pipes in 1975 so I'm figuring almost 50 years that those pipes have been there three pipes Unfortunately they keep getting clogged up because of that there's so much debris in that water we pulled out ties I call Mr Fillin he got the crew right back out there again and cleaned it up again that's one thing I can say about him um he's been you know

right on the ball if I ever called him you know he's does everything he can so I have no um uh trying to say a word I'm uh I don't know what to say I guess you're right you didn't know what to say I'm not upset with with this Administration I'm not upset with Mr fand because this was way before his time so as far as you know he knew

that's just the way it was supposed to be but as was I was always saying it was that water is not inside the stream it took a right hand turn Albuquerque Like Bugs Bunny would say you know but when he said that I'd be more than happy to go out there with you I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning so I got up Saturday morning with my chainsaw and

everything else and I made a path all the way back there that's how I know nobody's ever been back there so I dug and I dug and I kept going until I found the pipes and I found them and he came out there with me and the next day it was cleaned up and I'm very thankful for that three almost three inches of rain and no water in my yard good I'm very

happy and I want to thank each and every one of you who always supported the resolutions um that were set forth uh councelor Dion and Council Camaro who put the last resolutions in and got the updates on what was going on so I appreciate that very much so that's awesome for not knowing what to said you said it very well counc C4 counc kby yeah really quick no questions but um it's really nice to see

um a citizen like yourself who's been AG grieved so long over an issue like the come to say thank you because 99.9% of the time we have people come before us with um obviously complaints some well-founded some that have to get SI sifted through so I'm really really uh smiling that uh this got done council president and kudos to council Dian for pushing for pushing this um and you finally receive some relief and Mr

furland that's what department Ed should be doing uh listening to the council and and uh and pushing an issue and and I'm really happy I'm happy for you so hopefully the city and the legal department council president will do some type of subreg to maybe recoup the funds um through anyone uh any developer whatever that that that maybe caused this problem or I think it was only from

2010 that storm just wiped out it just clogged that up and what they did over there looks like they put a bunch of big rocks down there so it doesn't wash out again and like I said they did a they did a great job and it still needs attention but um but really quick I'm so I'm sorry I'm I'm so uh we all are it's rewarding for us to see that um a

citizen like yourself who's um you advocate for other people too well seen it before so I try I I got a big heart and I always try to you get some Rel and thank you so much think here for help each other thank you for saying thank you well if I have something bad to say I'll say if I have something good to say I'm going to say it I think it's only

great thing thank you counc president thank you councelor I just I don't want to get the credit for this this is credit toe to the hardworking men and women at the water department they deserve all the credit for solving your issue kudos to them C Council D do you have to add something real quick yeah I Echo the sentiments of counselor in seat 4 but um it's nice to see a good outcome

for a change it really truly is but I want to thank you for your perseverance and for you not giving up and you finding the problem um I never give up I know you don't but because you not only helped yourself you helped your entire neighborhood right and uh thank you to Mr furland for getting out there and following up on on what you what you found thank you but one more thing I

just hope that the um the council will support the um I mean you seen the um presentation that he showed um like I said it needs a lot more work still it's almost 50 years old not designed for what the amount of water that's getting dumped into it today right I mean 50 years ago I mean to now so if um we can get that funding together and that' be

great so we can get this again and the water department needs an excavator their own excavator so if we can get one of those for those guys too the Ed one maybe you go you're going to be on 3 minutes now thank you I heal thank you thank you very much next we have Nelson Vasquez subject matter proposition two and a

half uh before my time starts I would like to kindly respectfully request a waiver of the rules most wave the rules because um given what was said on Saturday on the radio uh required me to do a little bit of research about proposition 2 and a half and I think think that the public should hear about this because um you know he uh the mayor stated he wants a a two and a half

override for Diamond so I think given the information that I have um I'm I'm kindly requesting to wave the rules and and I won't take too long either if I'm granted that you have three minutes Mr okay all right so it it turns out that uh if a community uh gives the exemption from proposition to an and a half uh it gives them two options and and basically in pack in your package that I gave you

Pages 9 and 12 uh basically it says uh a majority vote of a community selectman or town or city council with the mayor's approval if required by law allows an override question to be placed on the ballot override questions must be presented in dollar terms and must specify the purpose of the override overrides require require a majority vote of approval by the electorate now the second option is called an underride

now what is an underride an underride is the same thing but in Reverse basically the underride results in permanent decreases in the levy limit of a community because it reduces the base upon which Levy limits are calculated a majority vote of a community selectman town or city council same thing again with the mayor's approval if required by law allows an underr an underwrite question to be placed on the

ballot and basically it says the same thing here and you can see it in Pages 9 and 12 so why is this important is because that's the process and I took the liberty of printing out the specimen ballot for dery and basically it says you need to put two questions and not one because in the first question back in March 6 of 2018 it says shall the city of Far River

be allowed to ex to exempt from the provisions of provis two two and a half so-called the amounts required by law by law to pay for the bonds issued in order to build a new dery high school so basically what this law is saying is is that if the community gives the permission to be exempt the mayor cannot choose the override and the underride says it can be placed on the ballot or the voters

can go out by by a local initiative procedure to get it placed on the ballot so what what I'm saying is if he's asking for a 2 and a half uh an exemption from Two and a Half for Diamond then we need to go back to dery and ask them how they want to pay for it because there's only one question here and the public did not have the chance to vote for the

underride and and given the fact that they still haven't put the the taxes on the bills you all saw my presentation last time there is no excuse why he can't put it on there you all have it so and again and that's want say real quick um you know for some time now when it comes to nickling Diamond the taxpayer and it's it's going to be up up to the

voters if they want this or not but we need to do the process right and we need to revisit the the the dery question but when it comes to the to the taxpayers and niggling Diamond him for so long my question is when is enough going to be enough because not too long ago he did a speech and said that this city was in great financial shape and then last

Saturday here we are Groundhog Day has a has arrived and now he wants another exemption override thank you Mr for D so we need to do the process correctly c c to C the yeah um obviously we'll be discussing this at a at a future meeting so you'll have time to get deeper into this yes um I want to thank you for this because you saved me some research yeah the library was very uh courteous it's

obviously it's a lot of paper but I do want to mention the one thing that bothers me and it's the only I haven't read much of this but is the fact that a community an override a community can permanently increase its Levy limit by successfully voting on an override the amount of the override becomes a permanent part of the levy limit base that's disturbing I can understand an override for an item for a short time

but it but that part bothers me so I'll have to do more research and uh think about before our meeting and the reason why the underwrite exists is is is because it's it's supposed to protect the taxpayer and they're supposed to choose what they want either to vote on the override or underride so if we're going to talk about Diamond then we need to talk about dery too thank you thank you how you thank

you item number two we have the fiscal year 2025 Enterprise fund budgets for the water and sewer divisions it was referred on March uh 12th will hold discussion come down

please council president may I ask a question the flo before you do that Council you may but I just want to have everyone at the table please uh identify themselves name and address and what part are you would please yep so Paul furland administrator of community utilities one government center uh Zack arenson uh project manager with Woodard and Kern environmental engineering Consultants

evening sorry based in C uh Dave Fox vice president ref Tellis NAC Massachusetts thank you very much counc C4 counc k um so anyway this um has not been to ordinance is that correct prer so at this point it has to go to ordinance and come back to the council for further discussion so this is mainly presentation for we're going to hold the discussion councelor we'll have of course we'll have the discussion but

just to clarify this is their budget Council that they're presenting right there there's two portions there's the budget and there's the rates the rates are set an ordinance those would need to go to ordinance budget is TP typically handled in finance and then voted on by the council cor it's always what comes first the chicken or the egg the rates or the budget uh again we're here uh to

pres to you on our budget which the rat support um but within Mass General law the budget needs to be acted on within 45 days of submitt to the council so that's why we're here so that that can be sometimes we need a refresher and I just need to refresh my memory with uh where the process is and it's an important vote going forward so I I thank you Mr Mr C5 C vice president per

I just have a question I'm sorry I got your first name is Zach not your last name or where you were from could you speak into the microphone and I know you're Mr David Fox but I don't know where you're from I don't know if my hearing is worse than my colleagues or but if you could repeat it i' where were you from no problem uh it's Zachary

arenson uh a a r o n s o n yep um we I'm from Woodard and curtain environmental Engineers okay um and we're based out of Canton Mass C Massachusetts thank you Dave Fox vice president Raph Tellis r a f t e l i s however you say it I will have heard worse pronunciations of that um it's my Founders name so you're not going to offend me and we're out of NAIC

Massachusetts ni thank you you're welcome so uh thank you very much Council is uh presented to you uh prior to the last meeting was this year's fiscal year budget uh FY 25 for water and sewer uh also the uh rates to support that budget um this year uh as we have seen in the past uh this year is a uh is is a tough year there's a lot of factors that go

into this year's budget uh that we haven't had to deal with in past years uh and that's uh why the budget was structured the way it is and the rates are structured the way they are uh I have both uh D Zach here because uh they I had them come in at through one of our projects that we did uh the Leed service project uh and also uh evaluation of uh

nifty's permit and other um impact that the Regulatory Agencies have on us and do a financial evaluation of our Bud budget uh look at our budget uh that's really what uh what Dave does and his company does they uh they oversee and and I'll let him explain a little bit to you but they basically work with utilities and they look at their rates they look at their budgets that's that's

what they do throughout the nation uh I really wanted to have somebody to come in look at our budget look at our rates look how things were structured to make sure that we're in the right spot to make sure that we're doing the right thing fiscally um and uh Dave has uh put together a presentation which uh I'll let him go into uh just about the rates in the budgets and how it's structured I

think the TVs have gone to

sleep great thanks Paul good evening everyone um I'll give a little bit more background yes my firm rais is the the largest firm in the country predominantly focused on Financial Planning and rate related matters uh for water and sewer utilities we do some other things but that is our bread and butter it's certainly my area of expertise and what I've spent my entire career on um I've performed over well

over a 100 rate studies at this point in my career um it's been a pleasure working with Paul and and the entire Water and Sewer Department as well as W are and current on this project so um I do have a a handful of slides here uh I'm going to try to get through them as efficiently as I possibly can but I really want to set the stage for what we're talking about this evening so to

do that um really just wanted to give an overview of what a rate study is to to Really set that stage um the purpose of this is to uh evaluate the existing Financial conditions of the water and the sewer funds um understand where they are financially currently uh and then we we take that in the future and I'm going to talk about that in a little bit um we're really trying to ensure the the

short and long-term Financial sustainability which in turn ensures the operational sustainability of the water and sewer funds for the city of Fall River um ensuring that the water and sewer department has enough revenue on an annual basis to do what it needs to do to keep up with operating expenses Capital reinvestment uh ensure reliability quality and safety of service for residents uh not only today

but well into the future um and unfortunately we're in a very Capital intensive industry uh especially here in the Northeast where we have a lot of Aging infrastructure um and the need to renew and replace that infrastructure to ensure that uh we are keeping up with uh you know ensuring that reliability and that quality of service for um for all residents of of Fall River um but it's not lost on us um I've gone

to too many public hearings at this point in my career to understand that there are impacts on customers of generating additional Revenue so we want to understand what those impacts are um and we have a bunch of uh slides of the tail on of the presentation would break this down into a dollars and cents basis because when we talk about percentage increases it doesn't really translate in

what that's going to mean for a um for customers in terms of the bills they're actually paying um a little bit of context just want to let you know uh water and sewer rates have increased across the country by about five and six per perc uh respectively over the last 20 years or so every single year they've gone up by about five or six per um twice more than twice the rate of

inflation over that same period um that's predominantly due to just what I was already talking about aging infrastructure the need to renew and replace that replace that um increased regulations on Water and Sewer which seem to be changing and updating and coming you know coming out almost on a daily basis at this point um certainly recently inflationary impacts right it's not just hitting us at our at our homes

and our wallets and pocketbooks it's it's hitting Water and Sewer utilities as well um and if that wasn't an uphill battle enough in terms of cost increases our Revenue base has been declining um pretty pretty much Nationwide due to just uh reductions in consumption you have water and sewer has a very high amount and we're going to get into this a little bit the revenue is contingent

upon the amount of water customers are using um and if they use less water that's less Revenue that's coming in the door um and just by the you know the Advent of of high efficiency fixtures low flow toilets low flow shower heads low flow washing machines things like that there's been reductions in per capita consumption reducing the revenue base at the same time that cost are increasing by a a significant amount on

an annual basis uh and the City of Fall River is not alone in that boat um it's very much an industrywide issue uh hitting every single one of my clients in most water and sewer util across the country um to to talk about that and I'll I'll turn this slide over um to either Paul or Zach is just um this is showing some of the historical me material costs going back to 2020 and

you can see some of the you know the astronomical increases through 2024 you know some in the the triple digits but most in the high double digits um Zach paaul I don't know if you wanted to speak to this a little bit more yeah if you want I'll talk a little bit to it so this is just some standard items that we go go out to bid for every single year

um you know 10-in duct liion pipe back in 2020 the bid price was 29 UH 60 per foot uh last year the bid price was up to $526 per foot typical fire hydrant um back in 2020 uh $1,825 and I do apologize for not having printed versions for the council I'll make sure in the future I do um last year's bid was uh was $3,042 so uh close to double uh we were

just informed by uh a current low bited supplier that they expect a $600 uh increase per hydrant this coming F this coming fiscal year when we go out to bid um going on to uh there's a number of other things up there one of the big things sodium hypochlorite which we used both on water and wastewater side uh that's the chemical that's added to on the water side killing the parasite

sites or anything within the water to disinfect it uh as well as on the Wastewater side when we discharge it out into the bay to kill any of the bacteria that's in that water before we discharge it into the bay that went from about 7 cents per a gallon uh up to do $2.14 per gallon and those are last year's numbers just on the bids um so again these are just some of the

increases that we're dealing with uh with just the raw materials that we have to do and it's not like we can add any less sodium hypochloride into into the water or into the uh sorage to disinfect it uh we need to meet those minimum standards by by uh the federal requirements thanks Paul um this slide is is representing did a couple councils raise their hands you guys mind if they ask that questions now or I'll wait

until I'll let roll through do you want to wait too you want to ask now if you don't mind I'd like to ask now so you can ask a question so I believe I understood you to say that efforts have been made to reduce water consumption by having showerheads that use less water in different which affects the revenue for the water department because the consumption is lower because we're conserving water which is what people

want us to do but everything else has gone up in price so the increase in rates is compensating for lower water usage am I understanding this correctly so in essence we're penalized for saving water uh yes it's a double-edged sword um with with a predominantly volumetric Revenue stream which I'm about to get into here um on this slide uh yes as customers if uh Citywide if consumption declines

and it persists it's not just you know we see fluctuations from year to year predominantly due to weather and those ups and downs Peaks and valleys um that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about persistent reductions in consumption if we continue to build based on water consumption which is the the industry best practice for billing for Water and Sewer Service there should

be a fixed charge component we'll get into that in a little bit um yes as consumption reduces it is increasing rates more so than it would be if that consumption stayed flat thank you then I thank you counc counc C5 counc back one slide because the percentages that I'm see on here you're not going from what it was look at the 10in duck pipe in 23 it was 7529 and in 24 it's 52 you're you're

showing the percentage of increase from 20 to 24 not what the increase is from last year to this year some of them went down you know what I mean we we're showing the increase from 2020 to or 2021 if we don't have data for 2020 through 2024 yes okay have for 23 and 24 you have up there yes but we're showing over the last five years how those prices have changed over the last five

years not what the increase was from like last year to this year what your materials go up the different chemicals that you put in what they were from last year what they were to this year because last year and I remember Mr furland coming down and the years that we had Co it was difficult to get stuff so much so that we don't even put fluoride in the water anymore which some people look at

that as being good other people look at it as being bad it's kind of one of those things supply chain um you know some of the cost of chemicals now have come down I don't know if they'll go up again if we have yeah you're right this slide is showing the percentage increase from the first year that we have of data either 2020 2021 through 2024 uh sodium hypochloride for example that's showing

a two 207% increase from 2021 to 2024 if we look at the increase from 202 3 to 2024 it's about a 31% increase in one year yeah the comparison the percentages I was just thrown off because the percentages that you're showing is from you know 2020 everything from 2020 has gone up everything I totally agree and that's still a even with a five a fiveyear set of increases a 76% increase

over five years is still significant yeah I'm sure yeah everything's gone up a loaf of bread has gone up a do of eggs have gone up so I used to get them for 69 cents on sale or 89 cents now it's over $2 yeah I got rid of my backyard chickens a little too early from last year to this year what have my price of eggs gone up you know what I mean so to

have those percentages just I was confused thank you you're you can continue any other questions before I keep going you have a print out of this for us he said he didn't bring one C he'll get he'll get we'll get one I do apologize I'll I'll get the apology necessary C has a legitimate point but I mean if she gets a copy she can just do the percentage increases had an eye exam

and they dilated my eye so it's difficult for me to see why I have my back thank you for your concern please proceed gentlemen thank you um fix versus volumetric both expenses and revenue on the uh left side here is water and St Department's expenses about 90% of the expenses that they incur on an annual basis are fixed which means they do not it does not matter whether customers use no water consumption or

they use all the water consumption those costs are are predominantly staying the exact same um there's very little that can be done and by that I mean nothing that can be done to reduce those expenses we're talking about things like salaries um Debt Service um there's you know about 10% of those expenses which do uh change slightly with with water consumption the amount of Demand on the

system things like electric and chemicals and things like that um but they don't they don't change very much and if we compare that to the revenue side of things this is getting back to my point earlier um it's actually the inverse where about you know uh 80% of our revenue is coming from volumetric it's contingent upon the amount of water customers are using so as that water declines potentially in one year that's

going to be a more significant impact on the revenue than it would be if that was an entirely teal uh uh bar chart or sorry pie chart on the revenue side um where all of our revenue is coming from fixed charges now I would never advocate for that um I think there's more equity in the system if you're charging customers based on the actual demand they're placing and how much water

they're using um by using a fixed charge you're disproportionately impacting low volume customers and subsidizing high volume customers by doing that but it's very reasonable to have some of your Revenue coming from fixed charges but it is very much an inverse I just wanted to to point that out before we we got too deep into this presentation um I I'll talk just really briefly about the financial planning

process uh don't worry too much about what's on this slide I'm going to talk through it conceptually here um we have developed a a short and long-term financial planning model for the city's Water and Sewer departments um we look at operating expenses how those operating expenses are changing over time we take into consideration the city's Capital Improvements plan what uh projects need to be undertaken how much

those projects are costing um and how we're going to pay for those projects uh the city has done a absolutely wonderful job of going out and finding grants um finding outside money to subsidize and and not have to burden the rate payers more than they would have otherwise I'm going to talk about that and actually show the impact of that in a little bit um I think you know U I have some of my

clients really going out and finding a lot of money but the city has done an absolutely fantastic job of taking advantage of of Grants and and other funds that are not having to impact Rays so we take all that into consideration and that outlines a forecast really focus on the next five years once we get outside that window the crystal ball gets really hazy um focusing on the next

five years trying to understand how much revenue needs to get gener generated annually to be able to keep up with inflationary impacts reinvest in the system do what needs to be done so the Water and Sewer Department have the revenue it needs to do what it needs to do in terms of renew Replacements and maintaining that quality of service um we all we compare that against the revenues currently that are being

brought in under the rates that are on the books today um and see what the Gap is and how much more of those revenues need to increase to be able to meet those expenses annually um we also take into consideration something more along the lines of financial viability or financial um uh Financial policies which is um retained earnings or Reserve fund balance right um you know I think it's

it's a good thing to have a savings account as a household it's a good thing to have a savings account as a water and sewer department things are popping up um on a on a daily or monthly or or annual basis that are not planned for um those very cool wet spring summer Falls where the consumption declines and and revenue declines accordingly it's nice to have a bucket of dollars sitting

there so you can not have to deviate meaningfully from the financial plan that we're hoping to set forth um and just do more moderate increases going forward and that fin that that Reserve fund balance allows us to do that so we take that into consideration as well you're going to see that here on the coming slides so I'm going to start with the the water fund um the revenue requirements or the costs associated

with the water fund refer to revenue requirements or the overall cost are increasing by about 14% from 2024 to 2025 um this is largely due to increas administrative costs treatment plan costs um and Debt Service again um almost entirely fixed here um we do take into consideration this entire forecast the Capital Improvements that need to be undertaken the timing of those magnitude

how we're paying for them um any grants that the city is getting in and it's um our plan here is contingent upon the city's water master plan um and there are no use of retained earnings or that Reserve fund balance um in 2025 to offset the budget so if we were able to dip into a reserve fund and offset that the need for rate increases um that is not assumed here in fiscal year 2025 so

we need additional Revenue immediately I'm going to show you that on the next couple slides and what that means in a more graphical format to to hopefully drive that home president C C4 coun kby thank you those numbers look really conservative will you agree I me the number from 2024 right projected to 29 um can you define conservative I just want to make sure we're we're talking the same thing fiscally conservative

conservative meaning modest um no that's one right we got 24 one two three four five it's five years from now uh it I'm just saying that the numbers look pleasing to me as a a councel going to vote on monetary issues but they look very conservative and and I again I think uh the conservatism of this is partially due to um and and maybe maybe more than partially due to uh the city

doing a great job of getting grants and outside funds to offset what you know would be additional Debt Service that Debt Service would have been going up significantly more if that grant money wasn't there if those outside funds were not there to be able to supplant or supplement the the revenue requir I'm not a negative counselor trust me negative person but it's it's yeah I hope those numbers Mr froland stay true

yeah without doubt because it doesn't look going forward it doesn't look like there's any um any um 2019 increases as much yeah you know and again that that's how this was structured this this year uh is is a year with it with there increase um a lot of that is due to uh both water and sewer and we'll talk about this we do not use retained earnings which we always have in the past uh to subsidize

our budget and subsidize rate increases um so that's one thing you know and again the other thing with the water too when you build out these larger models like like we do now and you look at The Debt Service and uh Debt Service coming on board and starting to see some debt service you know we started the water main replacement project back in 2000 uh with 20-year loans that came on in

2003 2005 um you know so you're starting to see eventually some of that shed off so that's really when we when we looked and built this model we looked to see how that was structured to be able for new debt service to come on when old debt service was coming off yeah well I I won't keep you what I meant I I look at it as in a positive light right

hopefully the numbers hold true what I'm trying to yeah I I thought when you were asking conservative you meant that they were overly aggressive and like we're we're assuming the worst case scenario cons fill up my gas tank continue understood I'll uh put $10 in gotcha um so again to to represent this just graphically here uh this the the bar charts of the columns going up and down on the chart or the revenue

requirements of the overall costs broken up by different um different categories of expenses operating expenses obviously uh the teal the light blue pgo which is Cash funded Capital Money Getting generated out of rates on an annual basis to pay for Capital Improvements um any existing Debt Service in the whatever color salmon we'll call it salmon color um and then uh proposed or

new debt service to pay for New Capital Improvements in the in the in the yellow color there um and then the line going across with the diamonds on an annual basis is the city's Revenue if rate increases were to not occur over the forecast period now what you can see there if we take that a step further um not you know that is an unsustainable position we can't run a meaningful

deficit like that every single year um and we certainly can't do so uh with no money sitting in a reserve fund um very limited funds in in retained earnings currently that's why they're not being used to offset the the budget as they have been um anytime you're using retained earnings or Reserve fund balance to offset a budget and you're doing so year after year after year you're just building a larger and larger

structural deficit that's a deeper hold to get out of um I'm not opposed to using retained earnings to maybe smooth out rate increases annually but to do so every single year um and building that structural deficit is is not supported by me and it's not uh financially responsible in my opinion so we need to start doing something to go in the other the other uh Direction here um to to

build this this financial position so uh what we're showing is a uh increase to the the volumetric charge of 18% in 2025 now this is uh differs slightly from the recommendation from Mr furland is I have some additional uh cash funded or payo capital in 2025 that he has uh removed to try to negate the this rate increase a little bit um and try to maybe spread that out over the out years um but this

is fully funding what I perceive to be the the necessary budget of necessary Revenue requirements in 2020 25 um with no increase of the fixed charge um and then although we're not talking necessarily about the implementation of rates in 26 through 29 again I think it's best practice to look and and determine with the best information we have today of where we're potentially going and we're looking at about 5%

thereafter in 26 and 29 um with that 18% increase in in 2025 c c I just have one question can you go to the slide before this please nope again one more that one so I don't know if you can comment on this or not we had the ability recently in the last couple of years to invest $20 million in Opera funding into sewer and water infrastructure had we done that what

effect would it have had on this um I can't answer that on the Fly I don't know I'd have to to run an analysis to to tell you um but it would have impacted it sure does yeah um um off the cuff knee-jerk reaction that yellow portion of the chart the proposed Debt Service um it's potential that that could have been reduced if you would invested that $20 million and not had

additional Debt Service coming on board I don't know that to be certain but that that's my knjk reaction to that without being able to analyze it for you and and know exactly how that those funds would be used and give you an exact a yield thank you councel okay um move here towards uh that same chart that we were just looking at but with the increases factored in an 18% volumetric increase in 2025 and then 5%

thereafter you can see that line instead of um being well under the top of the revenue requirements or the cost bars every single year is immediately jumping up and meeting where we need to be in 2025 and then sustaining over the the next um the next four years in 26 through 29 now I will say this I cannot predict the future with certainty um the only thing I can tell you

certainly is is that our forecast is going to be wrong we're trying to minimize how wrong that is um and that's why I would uh I I advise Mr furland to look at this annually update the model that we have uh we have developed for them um and just you know update it with the best information year after year just to make sure this plan has not de been deviated from significantly or

there's nothing that new that has popped up um with that those increases you can see that our Reserve fund balance starts to build back up and getting to a more reasonable level um this is not anywhere near what I would like you to be in terms of the uh the target level of about 90 days of Revenue requirements or about you know three months or so of of Reserve funds sitting in a reserve um

but it is moving in the right direction um starting to build back up some Financial sufficiency we are talking about U some meaningful increases already um to to in all one Fell Swoop or even over a five-year period to get those Reserve funds up to that Target balance would be mean significant and meaningful increases on customers which I don't think is necessary given some of the other um you know decent amount of

fixed charge Revenue coming in um there's there's ways to mitigate the risks and by just having more in a reserve fund balance than you currently have um I think is sufficient and something that we can continue to analyze um on an annual basis going forward I'll move over to sewer and storm water I'll try to keep this going as best as I can this is going to be a little competi uh repetitive um the

revenue requirements of the cost on the storm water uh sewer and storm water side are increasing about 12 a half% from 2024 to 2025 um largely due to increases in treatment plan expenses uh again not uncommon in the industry um our Capital improv this is also taken into consideration the capital Improvement plan and the the um capital projects need to be undertaken over the next fiveyear period which is contingent

or based on the city's sewer and storm water integrated plan um and very similar to the water side there uh there are no use of retained earnings assumed um in the 2025 budget which has historically been done um same exact story here at least from you know from a conceptual standpoint running a deficit every single year without any rate increases um an unsustainable financial position especially when you take into

consideration the sewer fund balance again starting at pretty close to zero uh obviously not able to dip into that much further um and without rate increase that would go negative require a general fund subsidy it's as an Enterprise fund that should not occur we can't allow this to happen we can't have negative money in reserve account as as much as uh it would be great if we could

do that um that's that's not sustainable and not something we can we can produce so we need some rate increases to be able to get us out of this the same same uh story as the water side um our recommended sewer rate increases we have uh two options here and I'm going to show you what these kind of mean in terms of of customer impacts they're going to have different customer impacts on different types of

customers low volume versus high volume um First Option here is a 23.1% increase to both the sewer volumetric charges as well as the storm water fee um and then going up about 5% thereafter uh the second option here is leaving the storm water fee alone at 2024 levels not increasing um and to generate the same amount of Revenue these are Revenue neutral scenarios the sewer volumetric rates would need to Inc increas by

33.8% instead of the 23.1% if the storm water fee were also increasing so can I just ask a question 21 23% storm water fee increase what is that increase to the every homeowner do we have that Mr yeah we're we're gonna get into that um if you can just give me two more slides yeah maybe maybe two or three more slides we're going to get how many slides you have total uh we're

getting close I promise I'm just curious I can't remember just curious I'll go fast take your time explain it well just curious how many slides you have uh the sewer cash flow here with the rate increases uh that we just looked at on the prior slide again remedying the financial uh situation no longer generating a structural deficit in in this fund um being financially sufficient reinvesting in the system the

way that's necessary and then you can see that further indicated on the sewer and storm water fund balance here and starting to build that balance again not quite getting up to our Target level of and I should say there is no industry standard for what should be maintained in the Target this is just based on my uh my professional opinion I think moving towards that Target over time as

long as you're moving in the right direction is is fully sufficient and and the rate increase is necessary to be able to get up there in all one Fell Swoop um would be meaningful and something to be undertaken in the future fiscal year and not this fiscal year to try to remedy that immedi so we'll get into the rates and customer impacts here um I'm going to skip over this slide actually this is just when

you see it in your packet just for your informational purposes or when Mr furland gets you this presentation prints it out um you can see how the rates are actually changing um from current uh to to fiscal year 2025 the proposed um but what's what's a better indication is actually looking at the customer impacts themselves and what a customer would pay in terms of a a Bill increase in a dollars and cents basis um

so I'll explain this slide um this might get a little repetitive here because I have I think five different types of customers um this is a low volume customer using 800 cubic feet 100 cubic feet or a CCF is about 748 gallons with a 5/8 inch meter this is your most common meter size in the city um this is your single family residential home this is your uh your smaller multif Family

Properties duplexes triplexes with one eru of storm water um this is about 18% of all of your bills fall at or below this amount um 8 CCF um what you could see is this customer is currently paying about $571 per year for Combined water sewer and storm water service you can see it broken out by the different components light blue water um greenish sewer and then the red storm water um with option

one um in both of these options the water rates are going up by the same percentage about 18% on the volumetric side um option one and two just to refresh your memory option one is sewer volumetric and storm water are both increasing by about 23.1% and in option two only the sewer volumetric charge is increasing the storm water fee is not increasing what you can see here is um in option one

where both components sewer and storm water both increase that same customers bill with increases we're talking about would would go up by about $113 per year $28 per quarter a little less than $10 per month or about 31 cents per day that's a combined increase of about 20% um in option two where the sewer volumetric is the only component going up not the storm water fee um that same

customer bill would only increase by $87 per year instead of $113 per year about $22 per quarter $7 per month they 24 cents per day and that's about a 15% increase rather than a 20% increase why you're seeing the difference between options one and two is that storm water fee is a fixed charge um that fixed charge a low volume customer has no ability to control that a high volume customer has no ability to

control it but that low volume customer a greater portion of their bill is made up by a fixed charge um so as we're pushing more into the volumetric it's putting more of the onus on the higher volume customers rather than the lower volume customer customers and as we're um as we're increasing only the volumetric and not the this storm water which is fixed that's why you're seeing a lower Bill imp impact here um in

option two compared to option one do you have an option where if you had a storm water increase it would show what the rates would be for the low volume that that that's option one sir right so option one would be uh 23% increase to uh storm water in sewer rate the option two is just increasing the sewer rate itself no increase to the storm water and again the reason that we went

through when when we built the budget this year and you look at these slides um so this is 8 CCF per quarter per year so this would be a a single family household potentially two to three people living in this house uh you know a small duplex with maybe two people living on each side 18% of our bills and this was from last year's bills analysis 18% of our bills fall within this

category so again that's that's the smaller residentials and um you know things like that so the people that may be uh you know two people that uh you know retirees that that are living in a household together this is most likely what their bills going to be that's why we you we went with option two it's less of an impact on those people Mr Phil why am I under the impression that when we created the

storm water f it would help the residents because a lot of businesses that are very low users are paying a storm water fee at a much higher rate than the residents same rate much high volume yeah so again and as as as Mr Fox said when you get into the fixed cost those impact the lower rate users by a higher percentage than when you get into the so when you look at the storm water fee and

you look at the how it impacts a large user you may have a large user that has a lot of square footage of impervious area they have a large building they have a large parking lot and they use very little water they use very little water so that's wouldn't that help the residents overall the if we increase the storm water it wouldn't it but you'd also be impacting the resident on the

lower side too so if you increase the storm water you'd be impacting them because you're just in their fixed charge which is a lower percentage of their bill when you implement a storm water fee for the first time and you're pulling Revenue requirements away from sewer and you're charging it based on an eru basis which is very typical for storm water it typically has a positive impact on lower volume smaller

properties the typical single family correct you already have a storm water fee when we're talking about both components going up by 23.1% that's having a greater impact on that lower volume Customer because that fixed charge or that new storm water that storm water fee isn't new for the first time we're not pulling costs away um it's having a a impact there rather than pushing more to the uh the

volumetric which is being encompassed by those higher volume customers I get it thank you you're welcome um C C4 C I'm sorry just top of my head what what's the option if there's no increase is that feasible just thrown up there hypothetically same do we have I'm sorry Council there's no increases the same as is this year in terms of the ramifications of that the ramifications would be that the

uh water and sewer department would uh run a structural deficit need a a general fund subsidy to be able to cover its it's operating expenses and Debt Service payments that are absolutely fixed and cannot be you need to pay your your debt service unfortunately um there you know if we go back to this slide um in 2025 this is the sewer fund without rate increases that sewer fund balance

would go negative by in the millions and that would be millions of dollars that would need to be somehow found within the city okay well I I can ask you off you know a after this meeting but U it was $25 when it started right Mr something 35 35 per and we all know what it was for it was to clean up our responsibility through all that contamination um so it's so I get I

think I have my answer so this was as a result of um finishing off the project I I would assume because it's not finished yet right no it's it's not finished yet again the stor the storm water fee is still in place we're still moving forward uh on CSO abatement projects uh and we will be for a number of reason is okay and forgive me if you already answered the question how much longer do we

have so right now we need to make all of our csos meet the three month storm which they all do not um the latest uh push from The Regulators uh a is to reduce that to zero discharges um that's not what our federal court my the simple question how long Mr furland the taxpayers going to have to be paying for this fee until the pl project is complete maybe it's an impossible

question yeah I would maybe when the Project's completed then it can be could be eliminated yeah I don't I don't don't see it going away thank you oh me I thought it's never going to be eliminated Because by the time you finish the CSO project you're going to have to spend the money to go back and redo what you started in the beginning so it's going to be never ending but I

think what the council president said I I agree and I'm not sure that that slide um showed that Mr Fox but when we had done it initially with the storm water fee um the storm waterer fee businesses paid like 5 cents per square foot or something of presious soil whatever and the homeown is paid on the amount of water that you use so it was different so when you did this analysis did you

get a schematic of the entire city with what business is and what percentage for example hospitals Bristol Community College big supermarkets with big parking lots are they separate than what the homeowner is paying nonprofit or nonprofits we have the city's entire billing file every customer in the system no matter it's your largest customer a small single family residential home right but if you're

looking at the large customer uhhuh that large customer the water that they use is not going to be a lot it's more um the the land that they have like a a big shopping lot or whatever a parking lot uhhuh so but their water bill is not going to be this is what they pay in water and this is what they pay in storm water like homeowners so when you did

these figures did you look at these are all the buildings in for river that we have that have large lots and they're paying for storm water based on 5 cents or maybe now it's it's more but are those the statistics that you use are we lumping everybody together I'm not sure I'm understanding your question um we if you PA counc what what he explained to me was that those are the statistics he used initially

when we implemented the storm water Fe right we received a large sum of money from people or from corporations that never paid into it therefore it was an advantage to do that now we're already receiving that money so if you put a 23% increase they're just going to pay 2% more but the homeowners are going to pay 23% more as well so the the the difference in cost is going to be

absorbed by both people by 23% yes so a homeowner that initially is just going to pay $35 and Stop and Shop that's going to pay $5,000 that's not going to it's going to occur but you don't get the savings as much because it's not new Revenue we already have that Revenue inre Stop and Shop let's say their revenue is not going up on storm water no in under

option one yes it is it will but so is but not an an option two an option two the storm water fee or storm water bill on any customer would not increase so any customer so in option two any large parking lot area BCC the hospitals they wouldn't pay correct is that what you're saying pay more than what they're paying today they would pay more no they would not pay more they wouldn't pay right

they wouldn't pay more not going up why would they pay more they're going to pay what they're currently paying they're not going to P they will pay what they're currently paying you're not just getting rid of it they're not getting rid of it we're just not increasing the Fe no we're not getting rid of it in option two the storm water fee is just staying at the same level as it is in

today in 2024 it's not increasing I thought when you said they weren't going to pay I'm like that doesn't make sense why they thank you continue let's just hold off for the question now till the finish the presentation going forward just make notes if you have to ask any more questions pleas we're getting close uh average volume customer um using about uh 13 and A4 CCF 5/8 inch meter again

this is probably your typical single family residential home this accounts to amounts to about 35% of all of your bills are at or below this amount um same exact story here where not increasing the storm water fee would benefit this C customer um not by as meaningful amount as the low volume customer um about a a you know $12 difference or so in terms of the overall annual Bill increase um this customer is

paying about $777 per year for water sewer and storm water service combined under option one were both uh sewer volumetric and the storm water fee both increase by 23.1% that same customers bill would increase by about $156 per year $39 per quarter $13 per month or 43 cents per day in option two where uh only the sewer volum metric is increasing and the and the storm water fee is staying the same as

it is today in fiscal year 20124 that same customer bill would increase by about $145 per year $36 per quarter $112 per month or about 40 cents per day so those those two options are getting closer here as we're adding more consumption um to a property so just one thing I want to say about that that's the you know and you've heard me say here the 53 CCF per year what the average customer uses

um you know we've gone back last year we did a full evaluation over uh over 16,000 uh accounts um and we uh averaged out what the average household uses uh and it came in under the 53 CCF that we that we use so this is what we've always historically used uh as the average household um and that's what uh we proved out last year is the average household is typically below here uh and

I use household household is talking about you know a single family or a three family has three three households in it um when we look at uh when we look at this particular slide and we say 35% of the bills are below this amount that is bills so a three family has one bill a single family has one bill so 35% of the bills that we bill out are below this this uh this

amount if we look at a high volume customer using 32 CCF per quarter um this is about the 75th percentile of all bills um so all bills are are you know 75% or 76% uh of of all bills are at this amount amount or below um this is encompassing the the low volume that we already looked at and the average volume here is where we see the the tide turning if you will where option two

where we're pushing more on the sewer volum metric and nothing onto the storm water actually goes in the opposite direction is causing a greater Bill impact for these higher volume customers um so instead of a $312 per year increase on this customer where both components sewer volumetric and storm water increasing that same customer bill would increase by about $349 per year um if we only increase the

sewer volumetric because we're recovering more from that volume this is a higher volume customer using more rather than having you know just one eru increase so we're seeing at this point um the the tie turning or kind of the break even point for where the amount of consumption and again um it's not unfair to say that the vast majority of your customer would benefit from not H in

terms of Bill impacts would benefit from not having a storm water increase in 2025 and to get the additional Revenue that you need solely from the sewer volumetric um for the sake of not being repetitive just quickly here's a commercial customer using 100 CCF per quarter um a 2in meter here with four eru um very similar story as the the high volume residential customer um slight in a slightly higher Bill impact

uh in option two where we're only increasing sewer volumetric and not the storm water fee um but very very close again um but it it does move in the other direction I'm talking you know about a 20 21 to 22% increase here you know right right a little over a, dollar under both options in terms of an increase um for that bill and that's 7% of our total build accounts yes very

very low percentage of your total bills fall into this category um and even lesser degree you're institutional customer using about 800 CCF per quarter with a 10inch meter and 8 eru of uh for storm water infrastructure um this is less than 1% of your total bills um this customer would see about a uh anywhere from a $9,000 increase per year to a $112,000 increase per year option one

option two comparatively I mean again because of the magnitude of the high volume the magnitude of water consumption here on this customer it is pushing more um towards this customer by going by option two and only increasing the the sewer volumetric charge and not the storm water charge and again um this is you know less than 1% of your bills uh just to reiterate uh option two would

be preferable by the vast majority of your your customers and I I believe that's why Mr furland made that recommendation um wanted to look at a an annual combined water sewer and storm water bill compared to other communities um what you can see is currently this is a uh an average residential customer that we're just looking at paying about $777 per year um right in the middle of

this chart um going up to the 933 with the rate increases that we have uh I've just walked you through um in 2025 the third from the right um You can see that does move up on this chart but I do want to caveat this with that the rates for these other communities do not take into consideration a rate increase that they probably will or very much should have also in fiscal year 2025 um so although

you do move to the right here in terms of uh of uh comparative purposes um to other communities that is not taken into consideration any increase that these other communities might have I also want to cave out this with saying um I don't like doing bill comparisons I think a community should do what's right for that community and not look to what another Community is doing um especially

when I work with enough of them in the Commonwealth to know that there are even though there shouldn't be uh for Enterprise funds there are general fund subsidies and some of water and sewer dep departments are being subsidized and so they're not billing their true cost of service um because money is coming from taxation um could be another thing where you know a community has a very

very high volume institutional um or industrial customer that is you know subsidizing the you know the rest of the customer base or a meaningful amount of Industry um that sub izing there's a lot of things that could make a a bill comparison of this nature very much an apples to oranges comparison so why do you use it because I'm always asked to produce it um everybody at every rate

hearing I've ever been at or or public hearing asks me how do we compare to other communities and I wanted to ensure to just be uh forthright and and outcoming um about you know what the the the picture looks like but I wanted to ensure that caveat yeah I I because I agree with you you can't compare communities different towns can't compare what that of for based on their water consumption because we don't know

how they're paying how they're getting it I agree with you yeah no and like uh like M fox says you know other communities there are a number of other communities that take and actually the general fund pays for a portion of their water and sewer so with an Enterprise fund you can subsidize from the general fund and pay for water and sewer Enterprise funds you can't use the Enterprise I age fund to pay the general

fund but not not that I think I don't think Fall River should do that Fall River should self-support itself within its Enterprise funds okay thank you next um comparison to other essential Utilities in fiscal year 2025 um this is just more for comparison purposes if if you're asking me um what is more essential you know water or potentially a cell phone or a cable bill um I think

it's just a biological fact that water is more important um and you can see the the percentage of uh you know an annual makeup of of other essential Utilities in fiscal year 2025 you know cell phone making up 133% cable making up 24% and water and sewer making up um three and six perc respectively for a much more essential service at least in my opinion on my Soap Box um just again like to to

put this in P into perspective um you know it's it's always good to to have these conversations and and talk about all that goes was into providing water and sewer service to Residents um I think a lot of people just think um certainly I did before I got into this industry that you just turn the handle and water came out and you turned it the other way and water stopped and you

flush your toilet and it just left um without any knowledge of of all that really goes in and the all the expenses and and and time and effort necessary to be able to provide that and doing so um with I'm going to go to this next slide here which I think is also informative um doing so for less than a penny a gallon is is pretty incredible um so this is a cost per gallon for different

liquids um starting all the way on the right um a gallon of of Duncan coffee at about $25 per gallon gasoline um hover around $3 milk around $3 um that's certainly if you're not buying the organic stuff that's on the low end um being conservative here um bottled water you know more than a thousand times the cost of of a gallon of water you know you can you can turn on your TAP at your

home fill up a gallon jug for for less than a penny um that that's pretty incredible and then have it delivered to your home 24 hours a day 365 days a year um and it's good clean safe reliable and quality um that's that's pretty incredible service only the city of Fall River can produce that for for residents really quick Mr President this is the most poignant uh a slide in a good way I'm gonna hide this

okay but uh that really puts things in perspective because we take water and SE for granted very much so we do yeah it's no self-gratification yeah it's just thank you um do you want me to jump to the the impact of yeah uh we had just some some slides here on the the water funding and the sewer funding that has been um uh has been secured I wanted to to show you

I know we're running out of time so I just wanted to get to this punchline um those supplemental funds Grant funds use of arpa use of other funds um to offset the need for rate increases it did have a meaningful impact so if we look at what um a combined bill is going to be under the recommendations that we just talked about for an average customer about $933 per year and we compare that to

what it would have been if those grants and those outside supplemental funds were not present um that same customer's bill would be about $118 higher per year um about you know $1,051 instead of $933 in my opinion that's that's not an insignificant savings to the rirs and I applaud the city for doing such a wonderful job of going out and find these supplemental funds um rather than

just saying ah this is what our costs are um it's it's apparent to me that the city is very much trying to to maintain its quality reliability of service while at the same time trying to ensure that it doesn't overburden the the residents as much as possible um and I think this is this is very much an indication of that so that being said I know is very long-winded uh thank you so great job c

seat six party Mr F go ahead yeah so just a little bit on that too so we looked at the last five years of those impacts and it was over $70 million uh that we got in Grant funds into the water and sewer department between grant funding arpa funding which is Council and the administration helped provide to us principal reduction in our low through our low interest loan programs so so I I

I just want to comment I thought that was a phenomenal presentation I think it was very detailed and to bring a A New Perspective into how important our water and sewer infrastructure is and I want to just make a comment I think we should recognize as a community one thing is that our rates are too low that's what it comes down to this presentation clearly indicates that right now I know

that's not politically popular to say but the audit that I would like to see the analysis and presentation as one cons that I want to see isn't a rate assessment analysis while this was really really good and very very thorough what we really need to be talking about is a performance audit in terms of where we can save efficiencies where we can save money where we can find areas of

opportunity here the the city of Fall River since probably 1995 has been using one-time money to balance their water and sewer budgets for years you've used retain earnings you used Opera money it's it's just been a consistent theme because that well that's the most politically popular decision to make right but the the true decisions that we need to be making as a community right now is recognizing our

rates are low just like our tax rates were low up until we started raising our taxes for years the problem that we have is we have to really know what efficiencies we need to see and it when it comes to your department Mr furland that's the that's the presentation that I want to I want to see so where are we at with possibly doing something like that so that's something that we can put

together I can tell you on a regular basis um we audit throughout our departments um you know internally uh we haven't had a formal performance audit done by anybody uh in a number of years I think the last time was probably 2,8 potentially um but I can tell you we're doing that on a regular basis you know as far as electricity usage and things like that we work with National

Grid on a regular basis we get uh we get them in here to to look at our equipment see where we can make improvements and you know we've done a number of projects over the past couple of years uh down at the water plant replacing all the finished water pumps was a subsidized program through National Grid uh to improve performance on those so we're always looking at those uh uh all the

time how much would a performance audit cost um I would not know that off the top of my head you know that's something that we would have to your experiences as as great as this presentation was what do you think something like that would cost us caveat this with uh ple please don't hang your hat on this or or to do it fully it wouldn't surprise me if it was $100,000 right so we we

have $23 million or something like that I think the mayor said at the state of the city address uh address uh and onetime money I think when it comes to our stabilization account so I think if we're looking to try to find cost savings I'd urge you Mr furland to send a communication to the mayor as the department head asking for some money to do a true performance audit because if you haven't done a performance audit

within your department since 2008 that tells me there H you could do all the work you can and you're phenomenal at what you do but you're only one person and maybe because you're the boss coming down to one specific Department that area might be cleaned up a little a little bit better and there are efficiencies that you might not be able to see that we could find ways to save money because how many times are we

going to continue to increase rates which need to be increased because the rates are too low because people have been supplementing their the the this account for years I mean we abolished the trash Enterprise account years ago because it wasn't self- sustaining is this Enterprise account truly self- sustaining the answer is I think I can tell you no it's not it's only self- sustaining if the city of Fall River

uses onetime money to balance its water and sewer Enterprise accounts which is the same exact discussion that we were having when it came to trash in 2016 so do we abolish the water and sewer Enterprise account I'm not saying that we do but I there's one Enterprise account that I'm going to be screeching at and it is our EMS Enterprise account that brings in lots of money every single year which is self- sustaining

that I think the city might be able to let a little bit more so I I I don't want to get into this because that's not what this was about but as one counselor I I I would urge you to please send the mayor a communication and if it comes it's a matter of the city council taking a vote urging the mayor to authorize your department to spend $100,000 on an actual performance audit I think we're

going to find a lot of cost savings measures there no without a doubt I would be more than happy to do that because if there are some fund they would be implemented you know immed mediately uh again with that if we're going to do a performance audit I think our indirect cost as well with the city should be audited as well I would agree with you on that iel thank you Mr thank

you good point councelor one thing is I've already heard the turn the amount $100,000 to do this performance order that the gentleman fox said don't hold me to that number so let's try to I'm not goingon to hold you to that number let's try to get Mr fing a more accurate uh count of how much it will cost put out there so we'll know to do both the on the audit

um and the um the second one that you spoke of indirect cost indirect cost udit as well yeah because I think those are both crucial and if there's money to be saved there let's find out what it's going to cost us to find that result because I think it's a good point counc six counc vice president Pera um there's only a couple of questions that I have when you did this Mr Fox I know that um

the SE did we fix a did we get that contract with suya violia did we has that been signed that has not been signed uh it's uh in the evaluation it was still going through we've interviewed uh one of the companies and so we're not sure what their cost is going to be for the coming year correct both of both both of them were very close within within budget uh

the one that I did plug into the budget was uh was the higher cost to make sure that we were covered I believe it was uh only I did hear that there were two that had uh applied for that Y and one of them I know there was an issue in in the state of Ohio cuz I Googled it um with being sold to somebody else after whatever so I I did um caution on that

the other thing is um I know the salaries in the water department many of the individuals who work they have to have certain licenses Etc and the way that the contract were with apme I believe and they were connected with maybe um some of the dispatches or or different clerks like they were out of rank did they figure that out to to so do something there so that their pay was

to the point that we could keep people yeah in I think you're talking in relation to uh licensed water treatment oper it is uh as well as our distribution staff uh we did go through uh last year with last year's budget budget there was uh there was a side letter that uh that addressed some of those you know um is it some that everybody's still climbing the ladder regionally other communities and other

places yes are we getting to a more stable Point uh with our staffing uh you know two years ago you heard me down here right and we had two shift operators filling four shift operator spots management was covering shifts I was covering shifts uh we're in a lot better place now um you know so that side letter has been negotiated that's done was implemented with with last year's bud so those figures when we

looked at salaries those salaries were included in the figures that Mr Fox showed corre and the last thing is um when the new building was built up at the water department we suggested at one of the meetings that I was at that we put solar panels in yep do they have solar panels so the building does not have solar panels the building was constructed with the structural load rating to have solar panels the uh

internal electrical system systems were designed to be able to put solar panels in I'm working with National Grid right now uh looking at the best option they're evaluating it we're looking at solar panels on the roof and then also potentially solar panels behind the building like the Cort ones that you can park underneath well especially for the wastewater treatment plant and that uh

you should be looking at solar panels for everything because it's going to cost you less money solar wind whatever because that is a big cost savings I know just regular home owners is our electric bills have skyrocketed because the Department of Public Utilities not the state legislature but dpu they plug in all kinds of things we're paying now for people who have electric cards

electric cars getting a station for them why am I going to pay for that but we're all paying for it so it really saves a lot of money so those are some of I just wanted to know what some of these statistics were thank you with that I Mr President than basically it's just a comment and I don't I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate can't help it no disrespect but because you put the chart

up I sat and I thought to myself I need gas for heat I need electric I need water to survive in this life I don't need Dunkin Donuts and I don't buy it I can reduce my cell phone bill I can throw my cell phone away not me I um I'm trying to think my cable and internet I reduced it by $100 a month so so we as individuals can control a lot of expenses in our

lives it's the things we can't control that make it difficult and then coupled with the fact that we found out tonight trying to be good citizens and consume less water has cost us more money everything else we conserve and we save money so it's just a comment I needed to make when I saw the graph to to your first point though that you just conveyed the point point I was trying to

make that a lot of these other things that people just purchase on a daily basis they don't actually need and it was more of trying to put the the cost of water into perspective versus things that are are a commonplace purchase for for home owners one legitimate question when I looked through the paperwork uh Mr furland it appeared that the base fee is not going up is that correct correct

okay thank you that that is how I structured the budget again looking at the uh looking at the graphs that were presented with those low volume customers and average volume customers trying to impact them less okay cuz I did look for that thank you with that I yeld thank you CC C6 counc P did you have your hand up yep thank you Mr President um how much money and Opera money do you have remaining 140,000

130,000 something like that uh remaining so no so most of it's committed right now um remaining left uh we have the water main project that's still out uh that's still undergoing I believe we have I think there's about a million left to spend on that project okay um but it's already under contract there is some Capital unused Idol money that I thought I saw in the quarterly update

that your department does have utilizing so I I don't want you don't have it and you weren't prepared for that to so Mr President I'd like to make a motion um that um the council uh urge Mr furland uh and the mayor um to begin the process of conducting or putting an AR R FP out for a performance audit of the water department with an effort behind improving efficiencies and trying to

find ways where we can C save money within the department from a performance perspective um and uh hopefully we'll be able to get that done in anticipation by the end not I probably not by the end of the fiscal year I don't know how long they take but hopefully within the next six months that we have an actual performance audit by Way by way of you using your onetime money in offer or you

take money out of the stabilization account it should be done so and that's in the form of I'm sorry Water and Sewer both yes absolutely yeah and and you also want to include the indirect cost I do want to Mr ferland's Point into to your point yes and including the indirect cost as well I make that in the form of a motion I'll second it motion has been made in second it all in favor

I any opposed motion carries thank you councelor is that it thank you I think there's no further questions I want to thank all of you for coming down it had a great presentation as the council had mentioned uh we learned a lot um great job than Youk thank you very much and I will get you hard copies yeah thank you and I'll have them in the future too thank you can we refer the matter to full

Council I entertain a motion to refer to full councel can someone make that motion second second motion for the full Council has been made in second all in favor I any oppos motion carries

item number three in accordance with the provisions of chapter 44 section 32 of the Massachusetts general laws I recommend the following appropriation to your honorable body that the sum of 1,627 be and the same is hereby transferred from the school appropriation from fiscal year 23 Surplus Revenue motion full coun second motion full Council has made in second on a motion Council 7 Council proposal

it was just a quick clarification question on the change of the amount it was amended um yeah you want to tell them why manam CL we re we received an amended um I believe that the um CFO received communication from the school department that it was not 1.1 million um and so the um the order has been amended to reflect the new amount got it thank you thank you C motion has a me in seconded

all in favor I I any oppos motion carries right city council meeting will begin in motion to adjourn Finance motion to adjourn Finance has been made in second all in favor I any opposed motion carries city council will be convene in two minutes for the regular council

meeting

regular city council meeting will come to order clerk will call the RO call say kadim Dion here Hart here Kilby here ferera here ponti here Roso here Samson here president CRA here everyone in the council chair please rise for a moment of Silent

prayer please remain remain standing for salute to the flag to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one na godis andice for Madam Clerk pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting to any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or

unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible M clerk Mr President the first item before you communication may we take item 10 out of the agenda motion to take item 10 out of the agenda has been made in second all in favor any opposed motion carries item 10 will come out of the agenda Council prayer you please come up to issue some citations Mr mclusky will you join her

please I'm going to let um is this on it is I'm G to let uh Mr mclusky who does a marvelous job with the Youth of our community he along with others um put together this program and I want him to let you know what this is all about for our wonderful students that are here from dery and diamond and Atlantis chter she should have told you gonna do that first

right oh I wanted him to say go ahead good good evening in 2007 partners for a healthy Community wanted a way to recognize the contributions and successes of Youth in the community so we developed the Youth of the year based on the America's promised positive Youth Development framework um so this is the 17th year that we've done it and we always try to do it on absolutely incredible kid day which is a call to

action for adults in in the community to tell youth in their lives how important how special they are it's a three-part process it starts off with a caring adult uh wrs and nomination of a youth that uh highlighting some of their accomplishments the next step is an essay by the youth and then the third step for those who make it to that level uh is an interview and tonight we have

eight of the nine finalist for Youth Of The Year good Julia okay we'll call them up we'll call them up one at a time and I'd like them to be able to tell you a little bit about themselves because when I was at this award ceremony last week I was a astounded at what some of these people are doing um let's get Asia royes from Atlantic CH

School hi my name is AA royes I attend Atlantis Charter School I'm a part of National Honor Society I've been on volleyball team for four years and I was learo for two of the years after after school I read to second graders in a special education class I plan on attending wher poly Technic Institute for architectural engineering and mathematical Sciences wow thank you so much I'll read them at the end the

citations are all basically the same be it resolved that the city council hereby extends its Commendation to you to all of the youth here for 2023 for River Youth Of The Year finalists for outstanding accomplishments and contributions thank you so much Maggie odono BMC dery okano not odonnell okano and I read last month to the kids good evening I'm Maggie oconnell I go to dery high

school I am the found in leader of cow cares and I'm involved in other various clubs including NHS I am captain of the cross country team and captain of the basketball team and I also play tennis next year I'm going to seen Hall University and I'm St studying biochemistry and running cross country and I plan on being a dermatologist Iz madas Diamond Regional Vocational Technical High School

hi good evening everyone my name is inz Medeiros I attend Diamond Regional in the graphic communication shop um outside of school I'm in NHS and THS and I'm also part of a track team and cross country team and I've been Captain for three years um I have volunteered at my local church as a Lector and I've also been teaching kids Jiu-Jitsu for a while too um took a break because of track but

going to get back at it afterward but yeah um I plan on attending Wheaten college or Bridgewater State to be an elementary school

teacher Rachel Leeman Lima from BMC dery High School hello I'm Rachel Lama I'm a senior at BMC Dey High School one thing about me is that I really love music I play in five different ensembles at dery high school I wanted to talk um a little more about voner because I really like it means a lot to me so at first I started in NHS so what I would do is I would

just go around the city doing like little things like you know the Earth AC cleanup or maybe I went and helped wrap Christmas presents but eventually I became president of interact club and through interact Club I like started my own projects so one thing I'm really proud of doing right now is we're going to have like a cultural show inel so we're going to have volunteers of um from diverse backgrounds go to Spencer

Bardon and we're also planning to do it at dery as well and just have people present about their culture so that we can help promote just like multi-m minded thinking and that the whole purpose of it is to help um what's the word to prevent like microaggression in the classroom so that you know maybe you're not hurting someone's feelings if you're asking like oh what's that like like at lunch so it's supposed to help

um just educate everyone so yeah the one thing you forgot to tell them was your dream is to be a backup dance of for Beyonce I remember

that next one yeah Elizabeth Canan from diamond Regional Vocational Technical High

School hello my name is Elizabeth canine I'm a senior at Diamond in the advanced manufacturing program and I've been involved in uh several clubs and sports at Diamond I'm the president of student government and I've played on the the soccer basketball and tennis teams uh next year I plan to go to Mass Maritime for marine engineering and pursue a career in the Coast

Guard yeah Eva bandari am I saying it correctly okay BMC dery High School hello I'm Eva bandari and I'm a senior at BMC dery High School um I'm a part of National Honor Society I'm a member of interact Club I volunteer at youth court and I'm also part of theiry screen team my dream my college is undecided but my dream is to get a PhD and be become a professor thank you so much

I love her she's so softspoken she'd make a great Professor like me I'm not is Zara did I say it right and Iselle is from BMC dery high school and she was the runner up this

year good evening everyone my name is AA and I'm currently a senior at dery high school I'm part of National Honors Society interat Club skills USC and African teaching Foundation my goal is to attend Georgetown University actually hear back from them tomorrow so my yeah my intended major is finance and minor is international relations to go pursue the dream of working at White House thank you you'll get to the White

House you may not just be working there you may be running the place and the winner is Emma McDonald from BMC dery high school yay Emma good evening everyone thank you for having me my name is Emma McDonald I'm a senior at dery and I'm part of the National Honor Society um dery history abroad club I'm one of the founders of Kyle Car dery cares Club um I'm also a player for dery girls

varsity soccer swimming in track and field and I will be attending the University of South Carolina in the fall where I will be majoring in marketing you you know none of these ladies could do this without the support of other people so to the village that has helped these children along the way the teacher at dery and the parents at home I really applaud you all for doing such a wonderful job and I know that these

citations took a little bit of time and I'm glad that the council indulged me but I think it's important for us to know these are the Youth of Far River these are the youth that live in Far River and this is what they're doing how these individuals can stay up with all their grades and play on like three different sports Sports my only sport was a cheerleader so I just showed up

for games track I'd only run if a dog was chasing me you know what I mean so I give you credit for body and mind and spirit and we are I speak on behalf of all my colleagues we are also very very proud of you keep it up come back to for River when you're done graduating we need you here and Christian thank you for all the work that you do great job CHR

M clerk that was so nice I know it took a little bit time but they deserve it Mr President the first item um on the agenda is a communication from the mayor requesting confirmation of the appointment of Nicholas Christ to the Fall River contributory Retirement Board this was objected to at the meeting held on March 12 motion to adopt the appointment I have to step out because I do collect a FL of a retirement so I

thank you second what was your motion I missed it motion to adopt the appointment oh do you have to lift uh or is it automatic it's motion to adopt appointment second motion to adopt has a made in second on the motion coun seat to uh would it be appropriate to have the people that were invited come down to speak at this time as long as they don't violate any open mean law quorums

and if one representative wants to come down that's fine if the we have three members of the board that's here we can't have all three here and speaking we can have one possibly two depending on the cler can we have two man CL you can have two sit at the table at the same time the sitting vote is four no five the sitting board is full yeah but the board is are five we understand what

the board is but I'd be comfortable with having one individual come down and if you have to have another one come down then they can leave and switch seats but I who do we have in attendance maybe is the question I believe we have the director of per I believe we have three board members um director per can come down one of the board members can come down and then anyone else come down I as

a point of information we have to wave the rules first of all too motion W the rules second motion W the rules me second all in favor I I any opposed motion carries Mr President information I believe there's an attorney that represents perak that's here as well I would like him down to the table come down please y that's fine there's no open me law violation

there I also think the administration needs to have a seat at the table as well at some point night

okay hi good evening can you hear me okay yes um members of the city council my name is Bill Keefe I'm not an attorney I'm not quite as impressive as the students we here uh I am the executive director of the Public Employee Retirement Administration commissioner or Pera the state agency that regulates and oversees the state's 104 public Retirement Systems I'm joined by uh my colleague assistant deputy

director Patrick Charles who is an attorney um was most recently a deputy general counsel um I'm here to speak about the fifth member selection of the follow of her Retirement Board as a Retirement Board member one is a fiduciary by Statute and by Statute must discharge his or her duties for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to members in their beneficiaries paric has granted broad

statutory authority to oversee the Public Employee Retirement System which includes issuing memoranda to interpret and fill in the gaps in retirement law there is case law that supports this likewise there is case law that supports that retirement boards must follow these memos because of the statutory grants of power to Pera to issue such directives to ensure that the 104 Retirement

Systems operate efficiently and apply uniform rules and policies Mass General Law chapter 32 section 20 subdivision 4 sets out the composition of retirement boards for City and town boards such as Fall River the city auditor accountant or similar position serves as an ex officio the mayor makes an appointment there are two members elected by the membership of the system and a fifth member who shall be chosen

by the other four who shall not be a retiree employee or official of any of the governmental units in the retirement system if the fifth member is not chosen by the other four members within 30 days after the expiration of the term of the fifth member said members shall be appointed by the mayor subject to confirmation by the city council in February of 2009 perak issued a memo to interpret the statute to

ensure uniform application it stated that each of the other four four board members must be present voting for a fifth member selection to be valid in September of 2017 parak issued a second memo relative to fifth member selection this memo states that the selection of the fifth member is a duty owed to the board's members and beneficiaries and every effort should be made towards an

open competitive process pursuant to this Duty and general Law chapter 32 sections 20 subdivision 4 and 23 subdivision 3 the board should actively solit solicit resumés of interested candidates through a public posting or announcement the period this period should be followed by a documented review process and interviews of interested candidates finally a board should not abdicate its authority of the

board of Selectmen mayor or city manager by simply opposing a candidate in order to force a tiebreaking selection this is a board function and every effort should be made to perform its fiduciary duty only in the event that the board can't ultimately agree on a new fifth member should the process move forward pursuant to the statute there is case law that is supported parx's position that all

qualified candidates must be interviewed according to board agenda and meeting minutes the January Fall River retirement board meeting included revisiting the November vote for the funding schedule and then the fifth member the November vote had supported a schedule that increased by 7.5% per year at the January meeting the city appointed members proposed changing the schedule to 6.1 for fiscal year 25 and

then 7.5% there after the vote did not carry with the former fifth member voting against it the former fifth member then proposed a figure in the middle 6.8% and the vote carried 4 to1 a notice of fifth member applicants had been posted in December no applications were received according to the board administrator when the former fifth incumbent fifth member expressed interest he was nominated and seconded

for a new term as fifth member the vote deadlocked in a two two tie no further action was taken before the February meeting another notice seeking fifth member applicants was posted according to the board administrator and the February draft minutes that the board will vote on tomorrow two applications were received one was a letter and a resume from a current longtime Retirement Board

member who had once served in another Community prior to that in addition the candidate is a career Municipal Finance official the other application was a letter of interest without a resume from a current assistant director of a Retirement Board according to the administrator and the draft minutes neither candidate was interviewed both appeared to be qualified candidates so per parak memo 28 of 2017 they should

have both been interviewed the applicant who is a current board member in another Community was nominated and seconded by the elected members of the board the vote was 22 that was the end of the fifth member proceedings for the meeting based on the information provided it appears that this F fifth member election was a flawed process no candidates were interviewed it appears that two c candidates were simply

opposed rather than there being a stalemate between two candidates it does not appear that every effort was made by the board to select a fifth member as the issue of funding has been raised I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss this point uh municipality's payments to a Retirement Board is to be made in full by October 1st if there is a different agreed upon payment plan it should be reflected in the funding

schedule to account for the retirement board's last investment interest for the period after the due date it is my understanding the city makes its payments to the Retirement Board and installments in October November December January and February and the funding schedule does not account for this timing of payments uh this has cost the Retirement Board about $600,000 in fiscal 24 will cost about the same

amount in fiscal 25 and it will cost close to 650,000 um in fiscal 26 uh a Retirement Board May charge a municipality interest for leite payments not saying they can or they will but they can it's it's possible um so I hope this information is of assistance to you and be happy to try to answer any questions you may have thank you con2 good evening sir thank you for coming um obviously not being familiar

with all the rules regulations Etc um it's very helpful that you're here so I guess listening to you my first question is part of the process is if qualified individuals apply it's it's um they have to be interviewed yes and nobody was interviewed they chose to interview nobody according to the minutes that we were provided okay and both I actually I have a copy of the letter um for one of the

individuals as to their credentials Etc and that's the one I believe that uh you pointed to with the um retirement experience who's been retirement boards would there be any good reason not to elect somebody of this stature he's a qualified candidate I can't speak to what how a board member would vote uh but he certainly is a qualified candidate question I just have a question did you say earlier that both

candidates were qualified yes okay so you're both qualified candidates yep thank you um but it's my understanding that one of them ended up not moving forward no that's incorrect okay can you clarify that and oh sure certainly please try to speak into the mic as close as possible so we can hear you pull the mic it'll come closer to you if you pull it to you there you go that you

can hear me yes okay thank you can you just state your name and address all of you please for the record y my name is Michael Pastak I'm the board administrator um I live at Fairway Drive in Somerset Massachusetts thank you can the other two gentlemen do the same please please Bill Keith mayard Street Arlington Massachusetts I'm the executive director of parak Patrick Charles from perak I'm the assistant

deputy director and I live in Lawrence on Steiner Street thank you very much all right thank so regarding the two members who applied at the um February meeting um after our fifth member failed reappointment in January I posted the opening to um the perak website as we always do with the fifth member um in the meantime we had received two we received um a letter of interest and an resume from Mr Spelman I

believe that might be the one you have that bill is speaking of the other one was from a miss madaris it was just a letter of interest and when I had tried to reach out to her via email to you know arrange a potential interview for the date of the board meeting um she indicated she was unavailable to do a meeting by phone because she was on vacation and out of the country so it was pretty

much impossible for her to um interview that day but we did have an arrangement for Mrs Spelman to interview if the board decided to so interview so there was really only one um interview arrange for the day because the other person was unavailable to be interviewed so I I believe the director just stated that the selection process um if for no other reason just the fact that no one was

interviewed uh created a a flawed process you all agree on that yes okay so if the process is flawed um I've heard Rumblings of potential litigation does this process subject the retirement board members uh to breach of fiduciary duty litigation it's possible um from all the information I have um I think people have turned this into uh being against who's being proposed as opposed to concentrating

their efforts on the process and I believe if the process was flawed um they acted within the 30 days initially would that be correct to say they didn't complete it so at this point are they outside of the 30 days yes even yes so the only Avenue would be um to litigate the process and would that enti would they be able to start over at that point how do how does that how does that

work it really rests with the mayor at this point and the city council if if if I may the the statute says that if the person the fifth member is not chosen by the other four within 30 days the appointment goes to the mayor and city council it does not have any options for the board to revote or to re uh do the process they have to go with whatever

the original process was and so it is now in the hands of the mayor and the city council but it does have the ability to be uh litigated meaning that somebody that vested in the system could allege that there was a breach of fiary Duty is that possible yes okay because I I have difficulties with a flawed process uh you know did people not take their responsibility seriously why wasn't the

person interviewed for me there's a lot of questions but um for now I'll yield thank you councel counc T4 counc K yes just uh for the record um the Retirement Board does has an have an attorney so I'd ask the clerk to read uh his opinion um into the record I've done some research on this but but on my own I am not Corporation Council not the attorney for the Retirement Board but I think it's

important in a matter of fairness to have the opinion from the attorney from the Retirement Board which cites the appropriate statute in terms of um and and as you said sir you're you're not an attorney you but you I mean you did a wonderful job you should be um so but I would like uh that right into the record Madam clerk please and I AP well I didn't write it

but it's it's a little lenty but I appreciate everyone's patience as a point of information this is the communication that we all have uh that we received on our desks from attorney Michael Seiko I believe yes Sako Sako yep C we read

it this email was um presented or emailed to Mr Pastak um good afternoon Mike as requested what follows is the statutory and procedural process for selecting a fifth member to a Retirement Board can you speak M speak up a little bit General Law chapter 32 section 20 subsection 4B sets for a retirement board's composition for a non-plan d or plan e City and with respect to the fifth member it states a fifth member

who shall not be an employee a retiree or official of the governmental unit and shall be chosen by the other four for a term of three years if the fifth member is not chosen by the other four members within 30 days after the expiration of the term of the fifth member said members shall be appointed in a city by the mayor subject to confirmation by the city council or in a town by the board of

Selectmen there is no other statutory or regulatory requirement for the fifth member's selection perak recommends that retirement boards advertis to seek fifth member candidates and to interview prospective fifth member candidates but there are no there's no requirement to either advertise or interview fifth member candidates a Retirement Board possesses the power of the appointment

for the fifth member only during the 30-day window that follows after the incumbent fifth memb term concludes for example if the fifth members term expires on March 31st a Retirement Board has until April 30th to appoint a fifth member the vote by the other four retirement board members need not be unanimous rather as with any other vote that a Retirement Board takes only a majority vote of the other four members

is necessary for any motion to appoint a fifth member to pass as noted above if the Retirement Board does not select the fifth member within 30 days after the term has expired the power of appointment transfers to the mayor who then may exercise that authority to appoint an individual to be the fifth member subject to the city council's approval in my view section 20 subsection 4 B's qualifications still

apply to the mayoral fifth member appointee that individual cannot be an employee retiree or official of the governmental unit which which in full River means the city which includes the school department the Redevelopment Authority the housing authority and the diamond School the fifth member is intended to be the neutral member of the Retirement Board as the four other members are comprised of the ex offic

officio and mayoral appointed members and two elected members who must be a retired or active full River retirement system member and who are elected by the active and retired system members as you know since the board was unable to reach an agreement by and among at least three board members as to the fifth member during the aforementioned 30-day window the mayor now has the authority to

appoint the fifth member subject to the council's approval let me know if you have any questions or concerns thank you m thank you are you thank you Council Council C Council Samson so I just want to make sure I understand this correctly and for everyone watching at home the process was that the board takes a vote they took a vote the vote failed correct within that time frame they took another

vote that vote failed we are past the 30-day window had that vote passed we for the first time wouldn't have been questioned if there was fiduciary responsibil that would have passed we wouldn't be sitting here but we're here and it is in your opinion and you are an attorney sir I'm correct right yes I am you're an attorney it is in your we are here to vote on the appointment for uh Nick Chris if you

know he's appropriate you're saying that his credentials you know we've all looked into him if he's appropriate is the process one that we're taking a vote on a legal process and I think that's what we were concerned some people were concerned about it are we doing what we're supposed to do legally I don't I don't we didn't question that the selection is now with the mayor and the council as that letter

just said from attorney Sako yeah the the selection is with the mayor and the council um you mentioned the current appointment before you I don't know who that is I'm not privy to it um it doesn't make a difference it's not my selection to make um I would just counter what was said in the letter that um that the requirement to interview isn't in statute or regulation that's true but as I laid out perak is

empowered with the um authority to issue memos and boards are bound by those memos and in those two memos for our fifth member every everybody's supposed to be interviewed um and the the posting is supposed to happen as did happen to solicit applications so that part of the process to us is flawed and those are things that we come up with in audits of retirement boards and those are audit

findings um that would be an audit finding when we come do an audit of the Fall River Retirement Board but in terms of moving forward in terms of your uh selection now that's within your rights it's the mayor's selection with the city council at this point with that I thank you very much thank counc Council C6 counc thank you is there um who who here represents the Retirement Board so that would be myself okay just

s people at home might not know that yep okay so and and you were you at that at the meetings in because I believe he's the chair of the Retirement Board is that correct no I'm I'm the executive director I'm not a board member okay kind of like the administrator but okay so you so you're here as a representative yes from the Retirement Board correct so in your experience in

your because this is pretty cut and dry at this point I'm going to be completely candid with everybody we can belabor this should the process have been better but before I get into that you are at the meetings correct and do you agree with the consensus from perak that states that the 30 days have elapsed and the and the and the decision is with an appointment from the mayor verified and

confirmed by the city council correct I I believe that to chapter 32 is fine um the 30 days were triggered when author failed reappointment which was January 31st um the clock started ticking that day um we had our next meeting on February 28th 28 Days Later kind of just went through the whole process that failed reappointment so by pretty much March 1st um we're here where we are so why didn't we interview

people why didn't that happen so all I can say is well for one we were only to arrange one interview um since the resumés were presented at the meeting um everyone had time to review him uh Mr Kamar who was chairing the meeting because he is normally the vice chair but Arthur failed reappointment so Mr Kamara chaired the meeting he kind of read through the resume he kind of stated he found it

impressive um he made an offer to to the other board members to interview and it just kind of fell silent what does it what does it mean fell silent does that mean that vot there was a vote you know I think chairman Kamara um Robert Kamara asked the other board members if they wanted to to you know conduct a phone interview and um I believe James Machado said yes and that was kind of the only response

he had so there really seemed to be no indication that that an interview not yet they going discuss a lot of action from a lot of people let's finish what you saying please go ahead you can finish um so when there seemed to be no interest in having an interview um Mr mashad to the best of my memory um reiterated a few of the points that um Robert kamarra had said and he

made a motion to appoint Ed Spelman and uh Bob Kamar seconded that motion and then it just deadlocked that two to two um can I CL she C C6 has a flaw he's producting it so please be patient raise your hand I'll call on you accordingly sorry was there anything else Mr to clarify that go ahead what's the clarification so there was a motion made for another candidate that wasn't interviewed and it

failed correct well yeah it just stal made it I guess yeah so it failed yep it's just AO of information okay thank you for you leway mr6 I'm C there was a motion made to appoint a member who was not interviewed and it failed correct so now is's an objection from some members hanging their hat on the fact that Mr Chris I don't care what his name is Santa Claus wasn't

interviewed and then we have that's why we're all here we have made Point clarification C thank you so much I would like I think it's appropriate for very briefly for Mr CRA to come down to confirm what Mr Pastor Act is saying very quickly please you want to make that motion make motion way you can stay please stay there's plenty motion on motion has been made Mr President motion to wave the

rules for Mr Comm made in second all in favor any opposed motion carries come on down right there Mr just clarify what we said about you mrar I just want to give a the

city uh that's he's got the and we can call in uh attorney Sako for this and and James masado who's the other elected member was there that's actually uh a little backwards what happened was we first I'm not sure I'm just going to say one thing very clear I'm not sure we have to go back into to what happened I think we yeah I think it's it's important because the chronology speaks

to to what the whole thing is because it's being let me ask you one question before being mischaracterized so let me ask you question the facts the facts was there a vote to nominate someone and it did not pass yes or there was the first there was a first we got on it and Mr Mado actually said commented on the the depth of the resume then attorney Sako and when when

they get the court was there a vote attorney Sako um actually talked about the the fifth member being neutral and before I took a motion on what were we going to do to consider that individual um I hesitated the two City members didn't say anything not at all and we have two attorneys of both of those that will testify they said absolutely nothing and they advocated their their authority to push this into it and it's

got nothing to do with Mr Chris this is about procedure Mr Camaro this ised hold on this is about procedure absolutely right and the procedure right now is very simple question yeah was there a vote well let me finish I haven't began how can you finish was there a vote to nominate someone and it did not pass yes or no there was a motion to consider someone's and then I then there was

silence I hesitated and I offered the board the opportunity for a telephone interview I said this individual candidate is prepared to have a telephone interview and then come in for an in-person interview at a later date and there was nothing okay so Mr masado and I are not going to go forward to procedure when it was obvious that the city appointees were not we going to vote no to abdicate their Authority this

was a this was a conscious decision to get a mayoral appointee and as Mr Sak said in his letter the fifth member is supposed to be new neutral and Mr Sako I asked him a question and M and and asked the director of the board when we got to this point I looked at attorney Sako and I said are you telling me that if you have any kind of appointment and I by

the way if you want to read that decision it's the dala decision about interviewing people and it's C and it's CR 19-13 which says that the it's a crab decision actually the point of inter says we have to qual we have to in we have to okay you have to you and I we I offered them that option and they didn't take it thank you okay was there a vote

taken to not anyone yeah there was a there was a vote taken with no interview which tainted the process and that's why that's why we were going to this is going to be litigated this is not about the appointment nobody is contesting the mayor's ability under that part of the statute okay but there's a thing called you know information from a poison tray here the fact is the process was not

followed correctly this is all about the process it's not about Nick Chris and I'll tell you right now the individual that we had as a candidate has the most impressive resume I've ever seen and if he wasn't interviewed I would be arguing about the process whether it's Nick Chris or anybody this is about process this is about due process all right thank you Mr Comm appreciate it

so I want to bring this into perspective for a moment sure okay to me there was a clear um lapse in judgment or a lapse in decision making from the Retirement Board that's the reality of what happened here okay I remember years ago there was there was play on words when it came to to the city council acting uh on uh passing or taking action on a budget hey mayor got us we had it it

passed that's the reality of where we're at right now the Retirement Board had the ability to make a decision and they didn't do it under their time period that's what this is about right now and C candidly that's really not even what it's about because what it's about right now is a city council making a decision on who is going to be appointed from the mayor's appointment we don't send people up to the

mayor right we have a decision before us now on an appointment that the mayor sent to the city council that says vote on my appointment if we say no to this appointment it's just taking the person who is whether you call him qualified or not doesn't matter who it is to council Kilby's point that a decision needs to be made this is a flawed system and it's a flawed process that isn't our problem

it's a problem of those who were on unfortunately call it not politically popular to say I really don't care it's black and white okay and and there was an epic failure in communication there was an epic failure in the way this board conducted its business you had until December to figure this out we are in March the mayor acted within the mayor's purview and within the mayor's authority to appoint this person am I

correct when I say that Mr P uh to some extent I I don't know about the December but in December we did post the fifth member for the first time with Authur when Authur VI was still there um and we received no applications to that first posting um so once author failed reappointment at the January meeting and there was and there was no no other candidates brought forward at that meeting we then post it again

the second time and like I said before it really Narrows the window with the 30 days so I agree with you it's uh you know it's an issue really with the law to some extent like 30 days is not a lot of time but how do we fix this going forward well if if I may sure yeah um so one of the things that city or county can do is they can adopt a supplemental regulation

that would allow parak to appoint the fifth member where maybe it would be more neutral or follow a slightly different process unfortunately the Retirement Board does not have that supplemental regulation and that would take a combination of effort between the Retirement Board um the city council and the mayor's office whenever you know if this were happen and I think one of the good things about

having that supplemental regulation is to some extent it would protect the fifth member who really is the key member of the board be it Nick Chris I mean it would offer some protection to him 10 12 years from now I mean I think it would be a very wise choice of the board and the city council and the mayor to you know look into this and consider adopting the supplemental regulation and we probably wouldn't be

here right now if if we had that um but again any supplemental regulation would need to be pretty much passed by the city council and I and I and I respect that position I really do we wouldn't be here the redevelop if the Redevelopment Authority if the Retirement Board did their job since January to today before the mayor's appointment in February you could have called they could have called

a special meeting look I tried it was my second that got this to even be had right now because I wanted to get the facts and I'm getting facts from perak I'm getting facts from the attorney that represents perak in a clear letter like we got to do the right thing here and the right thing is to make a decision on the facts that are available to us and

I'm going to be honest with you I am I we're all going to sit here and pontificate for a little bit as councilors sometimes do I'm going to be completely honest with you I'm very nervous about the retirement system I'm very nervous that this the that there's three essential possible maybe votes from the from the mayor at that time that says we're going to re uh refinance your schedule but you know what you

should have knew it was coming like like how did how did we miss this so I I I I got I gotta be honest with you we have an appointment we're not here to vote on policy this isn't an ordinance we're not here to talk talk about supplemental regulations either that's not what's before us either what's before this body is a decision as to whether or not Mr Christ is a qualified candidate to accept from mayor

Coogan that's it the process and litigation is on the on the Retirement Board and should the city have to Pony up cash because they didn't follow that in litigation hey we're all subject to litigation listen I'm sorry that's just where we're at and and I I'm very disappointed and I'm going to be completely honest with you I got friends on the Retirement Board I've Got Friends that go to those meetings and I hear

from them they've caught me in restaurants they've caught me at at the gas station I got somebody that was talked to me this morning this is wrong but what's wrong is the elected members of the Retirement Board didn't do their job under the under the under the umbrella and under the time frame that they have hold on please no stop please stop we're conducting a city council meeting

if people are going to shout out from the stands I'm going to have you removed from the chambers we are not we something stop no no stop I'm sorry they're talking about the elected M he one councel is making a statement right now please stop Mr Kamar because it's not you know better he can make comments he wants he talk about one council member we're in a city council meeting I

will tell people to leave if there's another outp there more than one I know people want to say things I appreciate it I understand it it's difficult for everyone but we cannot control what the councilor says whether you agree or not not every time a council says something you disagree with you're going to able to come down and make it peace it's not the way it works in these council

chambers not dur in city council meeting and I apologize for that but it's not my fault those are the rules that we have here and here we try to obey by the rules as much as possible information please what's the point of information point of information there's four members two appointed two elected there five members no right now there's four correct two appointed two elected I think we're confusing when we say the

appointed members did this the appointed members do that did that I believe it was not the appointed members that voted no it was I mean it was not the elected members that voted no it was the appointed members that voted no regardless was a two whether it makes but just to clarify the council just make statement he's not trying to insult anyone trying to humiliate anyone he's trying to make a statement I

understand that I get what he's saying I get his point the Retirement Board in his opinion didn't do his job it's pretty simple it's not complicated please continue I I've said enough thank you Mr thank you councelor anyone else are we all good because I think we know this is a pretty much where it stands I think it's been pretty clarified counc C to um can I make a motion to wave the

rules to have Mr kamaro come back down please for what purpose please to ask him if he if if the board is planning on moving forward with litigation it doesn't matter they can do what they want it matters to me move the question please it matters coun move the question it a second second second second roll call Mr President I had a point of information here yes is there's a lot of

noise okay I want to make it crystal clear this is to vote on the appointment of Mr Christ correct that is it we are not here to make an opinion or make a vote as to whether or not this is a policy issue or an ordinance issue correct we are here to decide whether we as an honorable body believe that Mr Christ is a viable candidate to serve on the Retirement Board that's it don't we

we can't money these Waters I just want the record to reflect that I don't think it's been clear so clear to me from last council meeting okay just want wanted to make sure thank you motion has been made and seconded roll call the motion is to move the question councilors kadim no Dion no Hart yes Kilby yes Pereira Ponte no reposo no Samson yes president Kar yes what's that the motion fails motion

fails do you still have the floor councelor proceed with uh excuse me I want to I want to um well now we're like that we're at the Retirement Board stage now councelor now we're right back at we're right back at where we were the we we're no better than what they did so the comments you made ear about they failed to do their job you put it in the same situation well it's not necessarily true the

motion was to call a question to end the discussion and as a point of parliamentary procedure that's what we just did right that was it was a motion Madam clerk to and to call the question was was it that is not the that is not the motion that is before the council right now to approve or not approve Mr Chris the motion to call the question was to end the discussion and not

approve that's not what is happening right now so a point of parliamentary procedure is my motion now is to approve the appointment of Mr Christ to the Retirement Board we had that motion prior well I'm making it again I'm just letting you know we just had the motion to adopt the ordinance before us and so the motion was just to it was move the question vot on the issue okay fine Mr

President I making the Parliamentary procedure very clear when you say move the questions vote on the item before you which was to nominate Mr Chris it was voted on and seconded then we had discussion okay well I'm motion to reconsider second second motion to reconsider made and seconded all in favor all right any opposed see to opposed motion carries motion to adopt the appointment motion to adopt the

appointment Nicholas Chris has a made and seconded roll call on the confirmation council is kadim yes Dion no Hart yes Kilby yes Pereira Pony yes Roso yes Samson yes president CRA yes motion carries m c item number two is the mayor's request for the transfer um originally submitted as $1.1 million it has been amended that the sum of1 million 6277 B and the same is hereby transferred to the school appropriation

from the FY 23 Surplus Revenue motion to place communciation a file and adopt the order as amended seconded motion accept Place communication on file adopt the order has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item number three is a communication from the mayor in an order to accept donation of 14 cameras motion to accept the donation secondly motion to accept

communication and file and adopt um and adopt the order as made in seconded all in favor I any opposed do you wish to speak on a motion councelor yeah I just want to say that um with the Vietnam Wall we did put a lot of cameras down there the war committee paid for them but I will tell you we have caught people that had painted graffiti under one of the benches and the eima it was

through these cameras and the assistant of the police department that people were held accountable so I'm glad we're giving them to the city motion remain in second all in favor I any opposed motion carries clck item number four is the mayor's communication and the proposed fy2 budget for the Emergency Medical Services for the committee on finance motion the committee as made and seconded all in favor I any opposed

motion carries have the traffic commission making recommendations to amend the ordinances uh motion to refer to ordinance committee second Mo refer committee has been made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on March 18th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance accompanied by an emergency Preamble be

passed through first reading second reading passed to be enrolled and passed to be ordained with councelor Kadeem absent and not voting motion adopt emergency Preamble second motion to adopt emergency Preamble has been made and seconded roll call on emergency Preamble on the adoption of the emergency Preamble councilor is kadim yes Dion yes Hart yes Kilby yes Pereira yes Pony yes Roso yes Samson yes

president CRA yes motion to pass through all readings motion all reading has remain seconded all in favor I I any opposed motion carries committee on ordinances and legislation at a meeting held on March 18th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance be passed through first reading with councelor Kadeem abson and not voting motion to pass through first

reading has a me and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries where is ongoing violence with firearms within the city of f river is a public safety emergency and whereas these tragedies negatively affect the emotional and physical health of those who are directly or indirectly involved and whereas Community safety is one of the highest priorities of all residents business owners and elected officials

who serve the city of full River now therefore be it resolved that the Committee on Public Safety convene with the administration and the chief of police to discuss on glowing Community efforts to reduce gun rated crimes identify any funding deficiencies that are affect affecting the progress of these efforts and to review information that the FL of a police department offers to the public regarding firearm

saf second motion to adopt has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries whereas in the past there were reports provided by the for of police department to the public regarding crime data and Analysis and whereas there have been no reports after 2021 posted on the full of a police department website or received by City councilors And whereas there have been multiple violent crimes

committed in the past few months in the city of f River now therefore be it resolved that the city council requests that the chief of police provide an updated report of crime statistics to the public as soon as possible motion to adopt second motion to adopt as a made second on the motion sponsor resolution Council C8 Council Samson I just I put in these uh two resolutions because it

feels that we have an uptick in violent crimes um but we just don't know we don't have we have no data we have a a police department has a data analyst who does that for the Department that's her job and we don't have any updates since 2001 not even on the website I looked just before the meeting started to see the department the police department had it and we don't have nothing since 2001

we historically the city had gotten um one in the middle of the year and annually and we haven't gotten anything so we don't know what so we can't tell our constituents if crime has gone up if it's gone down if it's wor we have no idea because we don't have that and so I put that in um I did receive communication back that they're working on uh 2022 is but you know anytime we

should have this soon it should be available to the public for people to read um I just find it um I'm a little bit beside myself that we haven't had any data from the crime analyst since 2021 and so I think that at this point with what's going on it's highly important that our community members need to know people are I know that I get calls I'm sure everybody gets calls

what's going on what's Happening so it's important that we're informed if we're not informed then we can't inform anybody else so we need to be informed so I thought these um given in light of everything that's happened in our community in the last couple of months it's very important that we stay informed and we know what's going on um it's just uh it's to not be informed to

be in the dark is is not okay for us and it's not okay for the public with that I yield thank you Council coun C 6 counc thank you Mr President so um commend our colleague in C8 for two fantastic resolutions um I just want to just make a quick comment here that I don't want to lose sight of the city council's subcommittees right so what I think we should really start doing the purpose of

the Public Safety Committee would probably be to have this meeting within their within their within their department on a quarterly basis right and any report would be uh submitted to the city council for accepting and placing on file to actually get that so if it's a quarterly basis like we have our quarterly updates it should it should maybe be something through ordinance or something that is created

that it gets referred and stays there for a quarterly because what's going to happen is you know God willing after you know this vote we just had we all might not be reelected ever again so you know there's a strong possibility that um we have new people that come through and who knows who's going to be the president or who knows who's going to be the chair of the Public Safety Committee

so we want to just make sure that this is something intention is to make sure the council and the community are updated on the um specifics to crime data and I think it needs to be something on more of a quarterly basis so whoever that chair is should be consider doing that keeping it within the committee yeah the only the only reservations I have with that is that if we're going to be every quarterly

talking about crime and crime in the city I don't know any other community that does that and I'll tell you we do very well as far as crime in this community I don't want to be sending out the wrong message that we have a chronic crime problem that we have to have L updates on crime so the the chairperson of the Public Safety Committee is more than welcome to have a subcommittee

meeting and have the police come down and explain what's going on anytime and if we want to do it by annually or whatever but I just don't want to have the where you have to have a meeting about crime in this chamber in the subcommittee on a regular basis because it just it's going to just trigger the wrong effect that if we have overburdened with crime but you make a good point

councelor coun C4 councel h uh C3 c three no problem I I did talk to Chief Garin um and we do we do plan on having a lot of Public Safety meetings coming up uh mid April and then and each each month after that at different locations throughout the city so um I talked to him and we were going to get together last Friday to talk to discuss the meetings but there was a maybe a week

and a half ago there was a shooting and the chief had to cancel our our appointment so I'm going to get back with them this week so you're saying in a couple of weeks we should be seeing a meeting yep absolutely perfect thank you on not just what we're discussing tonight but all overall correct and I think that's what the counc is talking about overall yeah Council T1 Council kadim thank you Mr President so I'm just

curious so we've got the crime statistics in front of us was that as a result of the resolution that was put forth okay I just I just wasn't sure if it was a timing situation that we automatically get this and no I think that's what we're trying to get more of okay all right thank you I yield thank you Council Council five Council vice president pero you know I mean I look at

the crime that's going on in the city and the shootings and the staffings and and people are alarmed by it because I've gotten a lot of calls what else can the police department do how else can we help them I mean years ago few years back every morning at roll call you had a Daily Bulletin kind of told you everything that was going on the night before does that still happen does it

not happen you know once a month you got the statistics on how many guns they took off how many warrants they served that's not in this statistic that he sent I'd be curious to see that and if the chief needs more help in doing things then how do we do that we've got a lot of people retiring this year you're going to have more retirees you have people leaving going to other

departments I heard seven people went to the academy five didn't make it I don't know if it was Physical Agility um and they had somebody in the police department I think gvea was even helping recruits to get that physical activity to see if they could pass what else can we do because the summer is coming and it will be worse you know it will be worse just because it always is in the

summer and I think the police department does the best that they can do with what they have so what else can we do and I don't know if I want the chief to come in here and talk about strategies Etc but maybe a meeting with us so we have a better understanding of what are the needs what are the problems what does he see and what can we do as a community to help

because we need to do more I mean I just feel we need to do more a lot of people that are coming into Far River really are invested in the community and that's heartbreaking to me crime is everywhere councelor and but I will say this of all it's all over of all that has taking place lately the police department is done a remarkable job of apprehending all the individual involved so that's to their credit they

have what else can we do to to help out I don't know you're talking about you're talking about preventive crime for that for that matter listen I agree with working with f but if we're going to do that let's bring in the district attorney's office as well that works with as well so we can say let's let's make it a regional thing and say Hey listen what can everybody do that's

helping to get this along I would love that so I just think that you know maybe there's something else that we can do or maybe there's something else that the chief needs and you know he certainly doesn't want to ask more in the budget because we know that we're Bare Bones about I don't know I'll tell you whatever other other say like to have a oneon-one executive session and put it out there

you y councelor just my thought with that I yield Mr President thank you councelor CL motion C see two yeah I just wanted to point point out that I think it was approximately a month ago the chief held a public meeting in the community room at the police department for anyone in the community who wanted to go for this specific reason to have the conversation so that people could ask questions so he could

explain he could answer all the questions and let people know what was going on what was being done um it was pretty well um attended actually um but that was done just about a month ago right at the police station and um I know that you had a commitment because he said he had called you and you weren't able to make it but I was out of town yeah but anyways he did have

a meeting so I just wanted to put that out there so people could realize he he is doing things other than publicly and to that point I've been to Neighborhood meetings where the police department is also present there given the statistics on what the shootings are and what they're not and who they've apprehended and what they they they have the the data do you y counc thank you Council T4

Council kby I I'm not SP on this I realize how important this and I will confess I uh I see an uptick um but uh Chief gvin did call me on that but he called me like uh gosh I think it was like five six hours before the meeting started um and I know he's a busy busy man our police are super busy but I I'm I'm going to recognize it there is an

uptick there's no doubt about it there's no doubt about it especially at this time of year um and it's alarming it really is so um I've been down this road before I think we all have um and it's uh Council hot is on top of it I have numerous conversation with them nearly almost every day right and uh with the mayor as well and so it's an important very important issue and a communication probably with

the chief and the city council through the public safety committing will uh will bear fruits so I thank you thank you we also anyone else want to speak no but I didn't get a call cuz I would have been there okay so he called you should have called me told counc one counc so I guess I just want to Echo your your statements I mean the crime crime statistics are important but I but I

think it's also important to note that you know a lot of the crime that we have is targeted crime right which is a lot different than not targeted I would be a lot more lot more concerned if the crime wasn't targeted overall though just looking at the you know crime statistics from 20 22 to 2023 and there's only a couple of months left uh in the fiscal year you know crime total crime is down by 23.

61% um less than 700 um incidences and and there it's all broken down violent crime versus property crime so crime is down right so we can't ignore that fact I don't disagree there's been a lot uh in terms of when we start discussing murder um so 2022 three murders compared to you know this year four murders uh that's increase of 33% so anytime we have a murder it's a a significant

concern for us right so um but when you start looking year-over-year right for for the most categories that we we have they're all negatives we have a negative 4% negative 23% negative 11% negative 65% 12% 15% um arson are up you know and I'm sure that's probably due to a lot of the uh homeless encampments things of that nature so you know overall I I think we need to make sure that when we're having

these conversations that we we recognize um how the reporting is done some communities do not to your point do not report uh their crime appropriately right so uh we do a very good job of reporting our crime so so that in comparison to other communities uh could potentially be a little bit higher too so there's a lot that has to be said um during these discussions with with uh I

guess revolving around the crime to make sure that we understand it and and we're getting the message out to the community um to ensure that you know every body I I think in a world where there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of just a lot of animosity and craziness that's taking place whether it's on social media or whatever the case may be um when you start looking at some of

these statistics it could be a very it could be a lot worse different story you know and we could be looking at other communities so you know I and that to Echo the administration the city council that has been always supported Public Safety the police department um and and the other the other piece to it is when you start looking at this profession you know especially with the um police

reform you know the industry itself has has changed significantly and it's become very very difficult to find individuals who want to serve in the capacity of Public Safety whether that be police Fire EMS um and it's a challenge and when you start looking at a lot of these um departments they are getting younger and younger and younger um so the experience that you see in these departments uh that becomes a

challenge as well so I I got to say even with I I think you know probably um I think when I was talking to the chief uh by chance it was like a third of the department is less than five years or something like that so when you start looking at that statistic that's that's significant right so to to know that that's taking place and and to see that

you know where we are with the crime is is a is a good thing but I I don't I don't disagree I think it's a good resolution I think these conversations do need to take place um I think we need to make sure that we we ask the questions of what's needed in terms of resources and the support and then you know we figure out how we can make that

happen with that I yield thank you coun counc Council Samson no I just think that Kade just prove the point having that data proves I mean I think for a lot of us you turn on it feels like you turn on the news and like Fall River is always on the news it's just always something lately and without that data you can't really back it up you can't say anything you can't really say if

it's targeted crime or not because we didn't have the data so to be able to have that data that just came out just I think it was came out after the Rel resolution um um is very very important for us to be able to speak to the community and the community to be able to have that so with that I yield thank you it's an excellent resolution motion to adopt has been made and seconded all

in favor I any opposed motion carries have a number of citations motion to adopt motion to adopt the citations as a made and seconded all in favor the citations what was that coun that's the the we're voting on The citations but I just want to add that Julia hog Graves from dery also um won with one of the uh contestants and she was unable to be here tonight a lovely lovely girl you

know her so do I yeah you know what sure okay motion to adopt the citations has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries mam clerk have the police chief's report motion to adopt motion to adopt Chief's report has been made in SEC is there a second second seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have applications for the renewal of oer reper shop licenses at 697 Pleasant

Street and 2608 South Main Street motion to adopt second motion to adopt has a made seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 13 is in order um reappointing Alexander Silva to serve as a member of the community preservation committee motion to adop to adopt as a seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries I have a number of claims motion to refer to Corporation councel

motion refer to Corporation Council has made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 15 is a letter that we received anonymously regarding parking issues in the Danforth Street neighborhood second motion accept and place on file has a made seconded all in favor I I any opposed motion carries item 16 is an application for a license to conduct a one day Bingo on behalf of

we love children fund organization motion to approve second motion to approve has been made and seconded Madam cler I just want to State just for people who are interested since this is a fundraiser for we love children in the organization the location will be I believe at the Liberal Club yes yes at the Liberal Club June at the Liberal Club 20 star Street for people interest and it's supporting we love children

it's a wonderful organization motion has been made to approve has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 17 is a communication from New England power company um regarding the SEMA 2 projects introduction motion accept place on file motion accept and place on file has been made is there a second second second all in favor I any opposed motion carries have drain layer

applications motion to approve motion to approve the drain L application has been made is there a second second second second all in favor I any opposed motion carries motion to take 19 through 25 together please second motion takes item 19 through 25 can the clerk please read items 19 through 25 before we vote on it yes we have minutes of the city council public hearings held on February

27th the committee on Finance on February 27th the regular meeting on February 27th The Joint meeting of the city council and school committee on March 12th public hearings held on March 12th committee on finance held on March 12th and the regular meeting of the city council on March 12 motion to approve motion to approve 19 through 25 has in made there a second do have to take the motion to take them

together first we did we did no we didn't I I made the motion nobody seconded it I second we did second it and we vot okay all in favor that's why we did it and she read we can have it motion now will be to approve is a motion to approve approve yes to approve so moves principles do make mistakes he's asking again approve motion to approve is made

in second it all in favor I I any opposed motion carries that's all we have Mr motion to adour motion to adjourn is me seconded all in favor any opposed motion carries meeting is now adjourned good night everyone we have anything to sign heyy hey hey hey

heyy