3.3.2022 Special Fall River City Council Meeting

the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible would everyone in the chamber please rise for a moment of silence and would we keep the

residents of the ukraine in our prayers thank you and a salute to the flag of the united states

first item on our agenda citizen's input we have several people first person is kelly dewart a.d warner street and the subject is diamond

good evening as a lifelong resident and homeowner of fall river it is beyond frustrating that we are repeatedly asked to foot the bill on new projects however i feel that funding a new diamond is not footing a bill it's actually an investment i've heard some arguments against the new diamond the most common one is that the school is in such good condition but to that i say diamond has already

shown the city that is it has the ability to maintain a new building and they should not be punished for it while the structure of the building is in good shape it is outdated and far too small to accommodate the needs of the students and staff every year the application lists the number of students turned away gets longer a new building would allow more students to be accepted keep in mind that not only does diamond

house grades 9 through 12 they also house a postgraduate nursing program in adult evening classes i've also heard that we invest money in students who don't stay in their trade i myself graduated from the health careers program and then from the diamond lpn program and i'm still a nurse my son is graduating this year from auto technologies and will be attending lincoln tech's diesel program in

connecticut and wishes to return home to work in fall river my husband who graduated from the carpentry program worked in his field for several years and even though he is no longer able to do so i can tell you his skills are invaluable he has remodeled our home has helped friends and families with their home project and saved us thousands upon thousands of dollars because of his skills he got at diamond

also the people in the city of florida are rightfully concerned about the housing market the skyrocketing rents and our low-income crisis which is making people slaves to slumlords would it not be in the best interest of this current in all future generations to be able to have a skill that can earn them a decent living when they graduate and keep them in our city as productive citizens

a newer bigger diamond will allow more families and students that cannot afford a traditional college experience the opportunity to acquire an occupational trade that will allow them to compete in the workforce in our housing market market what a disservice to the community and to our students if we didn't take this opportunity to build a new diamond when the board of education is willing to pay 80 percent of it

diamond has been forthcoming with all of the numbers there are no surprise items in this budget and if anything they have over calculated and overestimated the funds needed as a diamond mom who voted for a new durfee knowing full well that my son would never even see the inside of that building i now ask durfee families and all of my fellow constituents to please vote yes on a new diamond thank you thank you

next person to speak is attorney greg brilliant 111 oprah of avenue subject is diamond good evening members of the council i'll be brief um at some point in time i'm not exactly sure of the procedure but um at some point in time after i think attorney ramsey and mr aikens make their presentation i would like to make some comments not exactly sure if i'm going to have to based on what they state but i would

like to make some comments especially as it relates to the ordinance that is being discussed so if i may i don't know the procedure but at some point in time um however it is uh i would like to make a um have some comments along those lines possibly thank you attorney brilliant i i plan on inviting you to the table i think it's very important that we get your perspective as

uh council uh for for the regional school uh okay i just i just didn't know the procedure mr kilby so i just wanted to declare and i thought just during uh we served together for many years but i'm looking at tonight i want to know my options okay i want to hear legitimate options what we're going to be facing with the taxpayers going to be facing in order to make an informed vote on this

thank you mr man thank you council vice president yeah i was going to wait to make these comments but seeing that you came forward i would be happy to hear your side um the two of the main points i was going to make this evening was number one i want clarity number two i feel the last time the conversation got very convoluted people were confused we have people on two

sides of or three sides of some of the issues and i think we need to hear from everyone involved without a doubt city side diamond side and like i say we have you you're right we have the ordinance issue we have a funding issue we don't have anybody's against diamond issue nobody's against diamond i understand it's these other issues that are the problem and like i say my main thing is i want clarity and i want

people to feel that they have a full understanding of exactly what's being voted on exactly what the ramifications and meaning of the vote is and that we can all move forward as a community to be very honest with you that's the reason why at some point in time i may want to address that to bring clarity to it from our end as well so i thank you for your time thank you next person to speak is

montour 344 dunbar the subject is diamond

thank you and good evening and thank you for this opportunity to address the importance of diamond building project dr ferreira and others explained the structural need for the new building the cost the msa msba reimbursement i don't want to repeat what others have already said but i do want to touch on why diamond is important to this community diamond is a public school and contrary to some claims it is not

exclusive and it does not skim off the cream of the crop of the eighth grade students from the sending districts minority students make up over 26 percent of the student body 50 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged fifty five identity percent of the students are identified as high needs it also shares second language learners and students with disabilities approximately two-thirds of

the freshman class enter below state expectations that's approximately two years below grade level what's remarkable is that given the targeted assistance supportive learning environment and grade levels classroom expectations ninety percent of all ninth graders pass their ninth grade classes last year alone ninety seven percent of tenth graders passed their ela matt ela mcas and 91 past their math and

casts that's just the academic side the vocational side has even higher standards after all you wouldn't want the brakes on your car fixed to 80 percent proficiency would you or your house wired to 90 or you don't want a house that leaks you want it to be 100 leak proof do you really want to consider the person drawing blood from your arm settling at eighty percent of getting the right vein each time

vocational teachers don't teach to a second best standard they can't their students are taught and held to industry standards they're held to industry standards in their work their behavior and their attire diamond's four-year graduation rate last year was 98 percent almost 50 percent went to some kind of college most of them right down the street at bcc because they already had bcc articulated

credit when they graduated from diamond the other 50 percent went into apprenticeships military and employment diamond does not encourage couch potatoes the next time you call a plumber an electrician ask them where they went to school when you have your car fixed ask them when your dental assistant your health assistant your office assistant all of them ask them where they went to school

look around the community and see all the businesses owned and operated by diamond grads why would you not support a school that brings out the best in its students provides so much to this community i know there is a tax burden but i strongly strongly encourage you to look at what diamond does for our students and our community and give your full support to the diamond building project thank you thank you

the next person to speak is carl hedsler 195 north ogden subject is diamond

thank you not sure how i follow our past superintendent that was uh very well said and i did have some prepared remarks but after the first speaker and uh the superintendent um much of what i would have said has been said so i'm just going to talk about what diamond has meant to me and how that translates into the community i grew up in the flint kukushan street

when it was time for me to go to high school my parents made the decision that they thought that diamond would be a good choice for me boy was i lucky i was lucky that they had that wisdom but i was also lucky that we had an outstanding school like diamond for me to attend at the time it was state of the art back in the 70s i'm giving away my age

but it was state of the art today it's not as state of the art as it was back then so the young people growing up in the flint today or the south end or the north end or any other part of the city deserve the same opportunity that i had so what does that what did it mean for me it meant an opportunity to open my own business at the age of 20.

two years out of diamond today i own and operate one of the largest machine shops in the area i employ 35 people pay them very good wages and we own a building in the industrial park that pays 75 000 a year in taxes to the city of fall river the people who work for me in turn own homes that pay taxes in their community several from fall river some from somerset swansea westport the other signing communities

so this one boy from the flint has generated a business that in turn has generated revenue back to the city of fall river and back to the community in many many ways that is what an investment is all about an investment is meant to get something in return so when we think about six million dollars a year don't think of the cost think of the benefit think of the return

on that investment so often we just we just think about cost and we don't realize that when we make those investments there's a return the return on a diamond is astronomical it already has been for many many years a new diamond will be even more of a return on this community to my fellow citizens that are listening please i voted for durfee 15 seconds i voted for durfee because i understand the value of education

i would hope that if this does go to a vote that my fellow citizens in fall river will give the same consideration to diamond that the citizens of the city gave to durfee diamond deserves it as well thank you all for your time thank you yes

to the members of the fall river city council the city administration and all citizens of fall river as a member and chair of the diamond outreach committee i respectfully ask for your strong support for the opportunity our district has before us as many years of waiting and making do the diamond regional vocational technical high school has the opportunity to receive up to 149 million

dollars in state funds to replace our old entire building this is an amazing deal for the district and will benefit our students and our economy and all of us as taxpayers for the years to come there are many reasons to support it here are just a few number one major repairs for the roof the heating system and asbestos removal is estimated at 156 to 161 million dollars the cost for repairs would be

entirely borne by the district which will result in increased assessment to members of the district there will be no state funds available for these required repairs these repairs will not address the deficits of space safety or the educational program number two diamond provides direct support to our region's economy because it produces the skilled workforce local businesses need the graduates are the

healthcare professionals electricians plumbers machinists carpenters and more that we depend on our local businesses rely on diamond grads who have the training and experience with the most up-to-date technology your support of a new diamond invests in all our futures number three if we say no to this generous grant from our state we start the process from the beginning abandoning the years invested to get to

this point and pundits say that grants will be smaller and even more competitive in the future and we will still have to pay for the major repairs the building now needs with no help from the state as we have said in many different places it's our turn the south coast's turn the commonwealth has supported school buildings all over the state and now they're offering diamond this great

opportunity we can't afford to let it pass us by the new diamond was carefully designed to maximize the state funds and provide this region with an educational facility that will address our needs for years to come this is the smartest investment we can make don't let it pass us by thank you respectfully deborah kenny chair of the diamond outreach committee the next one we have is greetings i

represent some of the senior property owners that reside here on stonehaven road bedford street we are part of the senior population that have limited financial budget to ensure we have enough of money to pay for increases in water sewer storm water recently approved by the city council never mind for the increase in the cost for food medical electric and oil to heat my home we cannot continue to approve the

expansion of diamond regional vocational high school without exploring options of a satellite campus elsewhere and securing more grants state and federal funding we need more financial responsibility to protect the property owners so the elderly can keep their homes our mayor city councilors state representatives diamond regional school committee members administrators must secure private funding from

corporate businesses amazon run by jeff bezos apple melinda and bill gates foundation tesla run by elon musk comcast cumberland farms home depot t-mobile wind and solar energy companies we cannot continue to burden our citizens and elderly property owners please consider the financial impact to the taxpayers in fall river sincerely stephen korowski that's all we have thank you item two is the mayor and veto the city

council vote taken on february 22nd 2022 regarding communication from diamond regional vocational technical high school relating to construction of a new diamond regional vocational technological high school madam clerk i ask that you read that video for everyone watching and for the council this item needs to be by charter laid on the table for 10 days madam president and members of the

honorable council please find attached to this communication my disapproval and veto of the february 22 2022 vote taken by this council relative to the communication from the superintendent of the diamond regional vocational technical high school i am exercising my prerogative to disapprove the vote and return the matter along with the reasons for my disapproval to the city council for reconsideration

as grounds for this veto it is the position of this administration that any vote for the city to incur a debt obligation in excess of 5 million dollars must be ratified by a majority of the voters i do not believe that the vote that took place on february 22 made provision for such a city-wide vote as a starting point please understand that personally i categorically support the mission of diamond and i support any

initiative including this project which helps to advance that mission however as much as i support diamond i also agree with the sentiments expressed by many council members during the february 22nd debate that the process of approving and funding the diamond project must be completely transparent and accessible to the residents of fall river this veto reflects my firm belief that the voters

should have a voice in how this project proceeds and gets funded as a matter of law under fall river's form of government the process whereby a regional school committee seeks approval for a project such as this one necessarily bypasses the mayor's office as such on february 22nd my administration attempted to refrain from taking any position that might have swayed the council's position one way or the other

for the same reason i did not send down an order on which the council could have voted unfortunately those restraints imposed on the administration by this unusual process led to some confusion and resulted in no provision being made for the subsequent special election necessary to ratify the vote of the council because fall river's proposed share of the diamond project is in excess of five

million dollars the city council's approval to support and fund the construction of a new diamond necessarily requires ratification by a majority of the voters for that reason along with my disapproval of the february 22nd vote i am submitting to the city council a proposed order asking the council to disapprove of the diamond appropriation in order to authorize a special election on april 11 2022 during

which the registered voters of the city of fall river might decide the matter i am also submitting a proposed ballot question to be used in the special election the question asks the voters to approve the diamond project by also authorizing the city to fund its share of the cost of the diamond project via a proposition two and a half debt exclusion it is the opinion of this administration

that even with certain now existing debt coming off in future years there is no way to fund the city's share of this project without a temporary additional assessment on fall river real estate taxes i believe that any attempt to pay the city's share of this project without additional revenue from a debt exclusion would require cuts to city personnel and services sincerely paul e coogan mayor thank you

counselor seat one counselor kadeem thank you madam president can i just ask the administration and uh attorney brilliant to come down corporation council and so justin and i know we need to lay on the table the the veto that is before us and i know just you know after after our meeting our council meeting last uh last week there's been some confusion as as one counselor i'm not confused at all i've said it at

the council meeting and i'll say it again i thought this was a pretty straightforward vote i think folks are getting things a little confused um and convoluted and i think potentially we need to get some of the the items straightened out but however the first matter before us and the only matter before us was whether or not we supported the diamond project that was the vote the vote wasn't to go bring it to the

back to the taxpayers it wasn't any of that so i've got some specific questions because quite frankly i said this before um and i know councils say this all the time but i'm going to be quite honest and i'm going to be quite frank if we're going to continue use the catchphrase that it's about the taxpayers and we care about the taxpayers then we can't support a debt exclusion a

vote to have a debt exclusion go on the ballot okay that flies in the face of the argument that is being made by those counselors who say that they care about the taxpayers because the average voter does not understand nor do they have the information unless they're paying attention to our meetings the financial implications of a debt exclusion okay the city of fall rifle was incorporated in 1854 168 years

do you know how many dead exclusions we've had in 168 years one and we expect the voters to understand what a debt exclusion is and the implication when the questions before them for a debt exclusion does not allow for the financial burden or the financial cost for any project to be on the question we are not a town towns are very used to having debt exclusions that's mostly how they fund

their their debt for the most part but the cities do not do debt exclusion there's a specific reason for it i do not support a debt exclusion but i support diamond i'm not changing my vote i've got questions to clarify i also think that this whole discussion about debt and the ordinance and whether or not it it requires um voter approval of the voters i disagree with that i'll ask the

questions and hopefully we can get some answers and get some clarity on it the other piece is if we just want to bring it to the voters because we feel we want to be transparent well i want to be transparent i think the folks at diamond want to be transparent i think the administration wants to be transparent i think every member of the city council wants to be transparent however

we've received a letter from the mayor and i've got a couple of questions to it but in this letter one two three four paragraphs down and i'm not going to read the entire statement it says as a matter of law and under fall river's form of government and then it continues so if we're gonna reference under fall river's form of government we need to recognize what the form of government is we have an executive branch

we've got a legislative branch we are the legislative branch it is not an open town meeting we are elected to take votes so then to skirt the issue and say that we just want to throw it to the voters because we don't want to make a tough decision either say yes we support diamond or we do not support diamond is unfair so i for one just want to get some some answers and i got very specific

questions but i want to get answers to my to my questions and i i hope everybody bears with me um i understand that this is somewhat of a contentious issue and it's not intended to be but i i think we've got competing interests going on and i respect all sides and unfortunately we have to see both sides of this but i will say that you know we we've been building schools since the late 90s

and i said this to council president the other day how do we now say after every single four of a school has come before us the most recent durfee high school the last school that we have is going to come before us and now all of a sudden we're going to turn our backs and say no we support diamond we do and i truly believe we do however we're not going to take the

we're not going to take a vote to support the project because that is the only issue that's before us right now that is the only issue there's not a question about whether or not we're going to go out to to bond we're not bonding anything and i maintain that we're not bonding so why are we having a conversation about what the ordinance says with regard to bonding when we're not the ones we are

not the legislative body who is taking a vote to bonds there is no vote coming down before the city council authorizing the city clerk to publish the fact that we are going out to bond for the diamond project not one not one so unless we're getting and then i'll ask the question but maybe there is some there's an order that's coming back before us that's going to require the the legislative body the legislative

body right here the city council per the charter to take a vote on authorizing a bond then okay i would agree at that point we've got to go to the voters because that's what the ordinance says however it does not say we've got nothing coming before us for that again i think it comes back down to do we support diamond i support diamond so with that attorney berlion uh brilliant i got a

question with regards to and maybe and some of this is a financial question so maybe you you don't have the answers but if there's somebody in the audience that you feel has the uh has the answers and you want to kind of kick them off to that that's fine you've been with diamond how long 30 years 30 years and you're in your 30 years has diamond ever gone out to bond before

i believe we have you have okay has has that ever required a city council vote as to whether or not we needed to approve the authorization of bonding

superintendent says that we can go before this excuse me let's ask an authority excuse me can you just put the mike lowe with so sorry thank you um superintendent forever says that we did uh go out to bond for the feasibility study which was 1.5 million up to 1.5 million and the city did uh vote on that yes we voted to approve it right feasibility studying all right not been and anything

pursuant to that statute audience i think you're talking about but we approve the bonds the actual bonds no no you approved us the ability to bond right you came back before us saying that you were looking to bronze because you're going out for so you were looking for the approval of the project not the actual authorization two bonds correct right i just want to be clear because it's a very specific

line of questioning and there's a reason for it um can i just get a can i get a clarification on that that's when diamond came in and wanted the soi the statement of interest to go out was it we already had the statement of interest in place it was the feasibility study feasibility study all right thank you thank you okay so you've never at least in your 30 years or you i

forget how how long you've been there but in all your years you've never come back before the city council looking for specifically a request to have the ability to go bond for anything my knowledge mr kadeem has never been before this council at any point in time so can i ask if if if diamond decided today that they wanted to go out and this is just a hypothetical they wanted to go out and and

you know bonds 10 million dollars to replace all the shop equipment that's that's in diamond would you be coming back before us yes for authorization to we would have to bring yes to borrow correct the regional agreement has us anytime we deal with debt uh for construction purchase land whatever the case may be we need the unanimous input from all four sending communities before we can actually do

that it's a bond correct the board is selected from the three towns and the city council so and that's but it's not the author it's just the authorization to go at go ahead and incur that yes okay with that in terms of to incur that for diamond or city forever for diamond no debt to the city forever no we just need approval from the council so the diamond can incur that correct for a

project that's going on correct thank you appreciate that and then in terms of that debt that debt how is that get that actually charged off to the uh to the city yes through the local assessments based on the ratios that are connected to the regional agreement so it's an assessment charge no different than the transportation assessment that we've given and then the assessment for all

the chapter 70 monies that need to go over and the contribution from the from the city okay do you do you folks have a bond council we do you do um for the for mr dean that bond council was acquired not the purpose of answering that question bond council was required to run us through the process of the msba to make sure everything was correct it was paid for through the feasibility study specifically for this

particular project um and i and i sent to um counselor pereira his not a resume but uh a document which gives his class his credentials as well as his opinion oh i'm sorry as well as his opinion okay in terms of bond bond council do we does the city have its own bond council

i'm not sure you're asking i don't know whoever wants i've never used bond counsel but i you know i've heard that we do could you please speak into the microphone so i guess the answer is the city does have bond council when required there has been no bond council um consulted through the course of this uh process so in terms for the all the debt that we've we've done in the past what what do we

who reviews all the borrowing we've used bond council for for durfee we use bond council for different things so we we have we have the bonding company we use as hilltop securities um so obviously there are there are people there that we're using uh as um as our analysts and consultants for the bonding that we do because i specific attorney i don't know that person right so i would

hilltop is the fi our financial advisor so when i was here rick manley from uh fr from lord lochlord is that locked up so i guess i'm assuming that that's the same box okay so so rick manley was was on council so anytime we had anything any debt that was going on obviously we would have to refer to bond council for that um i guess and i don't know who wants to answer the question but

so we do have a bomb council um i'm not we're not sure who it is but what can can somebody explain what the responsibility of bond council is just for us who are you asking counselor i'm actually i'm asking for forever i'm just curious from the foreign is quite honestly prior to any action being taken we run everything by bond counts to make sure the votes are proper everything's in

order to go out to properly secure debt and so forth and so on in this particular project that rick rick manley looks at everything to make sure that everything is appropriate from the msba standards to get out to get our funding so rick is essential to this process and obviously i've been the attorney for diamond for quite some time but in doing the project we made the decision the

school committee made a decision to dot the i's across the t's and rather than me make those decisions we got somebody who was obviously well-versed in this area to make all those decisions for us my sake decisions to check all our decisions to make sure every i was dotted and he was crossed and we were doing things correctly that's what he's done for us so in terms of for forever

so first of all just imagining that any folks watching may not entirely understand exactly what we're talking about in this particular scenario the way i would imagine this is going to happen is that diamond is going to bond for their portion of this uh and then fall river would have to bond for their portion of that portion which i think we've all agreed is around 111.9 million dollars for me the

role of the bond council at that point would be to review every aspect of that transaction to ensure that it's you know the eyes and the t's but but that that's really what it comes down to to make sure that the authorization to bond is valid uh and was done with all of the proper authority by all of the the people involved uh and two that the um

uh terms uh of the bond as well as the agreement that the bond is supporting are clear okay point point of information may sure bond council will ultimately determine whether the bond is approved or not approved is that correct they'll make sure procedurally we are doing everything we need to to make sure the bond is appropriate moving forward yes so my one question that i need and in line with that is is it possible

that bond council could deny the bond if our financials show an inability to pay our share of 110 million dollars i do not believe so now our bond council would not make that the bond council's responsibility for us is to make sure procedurally we we are following everything we need to follow to make this project move forward i don't think he would make the record any sort of recommendation based on fall

river's ability to pay can i just thank you can i just clarify that if anyone doesn't know what a bomb council is they just advise the administration or whereas borrowing money the proper procedure that you would have to go to bond so that everything is put in place it's pretty simple they're like a attorney for that particular thing for bonding that's all it is just going to give you advice and tell you all of

where you are where to stand how to get it done and then how to pay for it is something totally different do you have a question i do i and council kane might completely understand this is your meeting could you please speak into mike um it's just a lot of the communication in advance of this meeting was just there was confusion there was confusion so you know one of the main purpose i'm

here is to prevent the confusion i know exactly where you're going with this or at least i believe i do and it can get somewhat complicated but frankly i don't think it's even necessary the conversation unless we go through a few hoops first and as i said i'm not trying to hijack your conversation but if i can give just a very brief conversation i think it will clarify everything and we

may never even need to discuss two 131 it may not be relevant to the conversation i feel like we're kind of getting into the weeds here when we're we haven't gotten there yet but as i said i'm not trying to step on toes at your meeting well i guess i just got one more follow-up question on bond council then i i'll turn it over to you um counselor just to

really kind of make sure that we're not going down the road that we don't need to go down so i i i would just ask maybe it's it's two questions so um did we at any point seek the opinion of bond council from our standpoint to see what the requirements would be for um you know borrowing that would be related to the to the diamond project no and then you folks said that you have yes absolutely

i sent over just particular to the issue of the ordinance um 2-1-3-1 i sent over a email we asked rick manley specifically the question as to whether or not that particular ordinance um was applicable to op uh our situation and he adamantly said no it does not pertain to this particular situation and he was just very clear and very basic because the district was the one incurring the debt and the city of fall

river is not incurring the debt city of florida will get an assessment as a result of us borrowing the money we will then send you a yearly assessment like we do already it'd be much higher but it's like we do already the same process so rick manley said that the that particular ordinance had no applicability to what we were doing into this discussion i know my brothers don't agree with that but that's what

rick manley we saw council opinion because obviously we want to do things right and and again i just want and the reason i'm asking these questions is because i'm very familiar with the process and you know even in in the town of c conch when we we go out to to bond we've we've got kp law who reviews all our warrant articles and it's a town meeting so they establish and review that even when it

gets to the question that's going to be posed to the legislative body which in a town is uh open meeting uh town meeting they did they did all so they did all of our votes i guess what i'm saying is that kp will also refer very specifically to ensure make sure that we are looking and going back to bond council to make sure that number one the language is is

accurate so that when we go out for debt there is nothing that's uh could be misconstrued as illegal or invalid so with that and and i'm not saying that suggesting that rick manley is the uh bond council currently but i can tell you that he is familiar with the city of fall river in the ordinances because that ordinance was in place when i was here so and attorney manley was bond counsel for us

when i was the city administrator so i would then suggest that if we have a bond council who was at one point hired by the city of florida if he is no longer hired by the city of florida to be on council who understands the ordinances saying that the ordinance is not applicable i think that needs to be taken off the table immediately and then we're back to the situation of the very first question

which was very clear to us from the very beginning do we support diamond my response is yes i support them and already took that vote in terms of i'm sorry i i said coverage council i said i'd give you the floor i'm sorry all right so just everybody knows i'm alan ramsey i'm corporation council for the city of fall river and for people who don't know what that means i'm the city's lawyer i represent

the city of fall river my purpose here is to make sure that the city council is aware of what the law is my job is not to influence you one way or the other it's to make sure you understand what you're voting for and then once you take your vote my job is to make sure that it goes forward as you intend to so just a very brief overview the diamond regional school committee

voted to approve the construction of a new high school cost is 293 million dollars in change okay the msba has agreed to subsidize approximately 145.7 million of that which means there's a remaining debt of 148 million approximately fall river is typically on the hook for about 75 percent of the bills from diamond which puts fall river on the hook for about a 11 million dollars so the msba played has agreed to pay

approximately 49 50 just under fifty percent of my calculations of the total cost of this school so the annual bill and this is i'm relying on the financials to my right i don't get into the financials but we're talking about an annual built a fall river of approximately 6.5 million dollars a year every year for the next thirty years okay so what we have here is the diamond regional school committee

the way the law works is they can proceed with this project incur this debt unless one of the participating towns or cities disapproves of the project within 60 days so the key word here is disapproves okay so tonight what the city council has before them are three options two of which are very easy and one is a little more complicated one is and it sounds like counselor kadeem is probably in favor number one

is to disapprove of the project we'll figure out a way to pay for it we want the school we're going to vote to approve the project and essentially at this point fall river is out of it the hands are going to it's going to be in the hands of the diamond regional school committee to go for it option two is to disapprove of it um meaning you don't do not want this school you're against the project

option three is what i'm going to call it contingent approval and as i said it seems like this is what a lot of people want questions on so that's going to answer i'm going to say in advance so we're clear about this this third option i'm calling it contingent approval but if we choose this option it will be my legal advice to my clients to the city council that we have to use the word disapprove

in the order only for legal purposes everybody in this room has to understand this third option i'm talking about this contingent approval to avoid lawsuits to avoid litigation i'm going to request i'm going to advise you as your legal counsel to use the word disapprove only because that's what the statute requires but the reality is we all have to understand it is a contingent approval

so what that means is if you are in favor of the diamond high school project but for example you think that it's too expensive you're in favor of a school but just for a lower cost you must disapprove of it today as i said the contingent approval but i'm going to use the word disapprove if you are in favor of the school but only if the voters are in favor of

it you must disapprove of it the contingent approval and if you're in favor of the diamond high school but only if the residents of the city agree to a tax exemption to pay for it you have to vote to disapprove today so what i'm saying is in a nutshell that today if fall river wants any say as to the fund if we want to get the funding in place beforehand you have to

vote disapproval today and that's that's not i need the public to understand that's not saying you're against the project it just means the word disapproval has to be used in order to go down that route point out notification please do we need to use the word disapprove because we already approved of the project at the last vote we have 60 days the train leaves the station and it can leave the station

if if there was no vote would we have to use the word disapproval using the word disapproved strictly because we've already approved this project no no it's it's sorry um doing nothing means approval saying approval means approval the only way to to have any kind of say in the matter in the future is to use the word disciple has nothing to do with the prior vote so you know as i said fall river has 60 days

um to take some to to voice a disapproval without that voice of disapproval diamond regional school committee that train leaves the station day 61.

so can i just get some clarification on part of that well we just want to so if i just quickly just can ask a follow-up question because i think we might be asking the same one so you're saying if we decide to disapprove that it automatically goes to the voters or is it disapproved and then diamond has the option to take it to the voters oh as far as fall river is concerned the disapproval it

puts the ball back in diamonds court because they can decide to lower the cost and resubmit they can decide to have a regional vote there's many options diamond still has yeah i just i just want to be clear for that because i don't want anybody to think that we're going to do a disapproval that automatically goes to the to the voters of forever it just goes back to diamond and diamond makes the

determination as to whether or not they want to go and have an election for straight forward over mr good evening if it's a straight disapproval and everybody who's here today voted to disapprove it then we would have the option under chapter 7161n to go for a regional vote for all four communities just as a part of clarification all three communities that's fathered and forward have

approved um either either by way of vote or inaction which they if they take no action it's approved so the proposed order before you i mean it can be changed any anything this council wants to do i'll make sure the order is written appropriately but the reason why that proposed order is before you and this is you know i'm just going to say it for clarification usually i'll stay away

from administration opinions but i've been authorized at least to say the mayor's opinion is he's in favor of this project but he wants the voter approval of the project and he wants the tax exemption from the voters so that's why that's the only reason it's written that way but it can be written any way this city council wants it to be listen and i appreciate the the mayor's stance on it

unfortunately my frustration comes in it's you know it's a week late right so i know in the letter he said that he doesn't want to sway the city council but that's a and and i'll get the exact verbiage but sway the city council or get the city council to to vote in any specific way however that's exactly what we're doing now with the with the veto you're coming back down before the uh city council and

trying to sway the city council on a vote that was already taken right so to me the only thing that truly has changed in this entire dynamic is the fact that now that the mayor wants to come back and say that he supports diamond with the caveat that we need a debt exclusion because counselor and c day asked the question in terms of funding and where the and where the the mayor stood and

why we didn't have the information prior to it and we were told just like the letter said that we were trying not to sway the city council so that being said that is the only thing that has changed in what's before us the only thing so i will i will say this again a disapproval vote only puts the ball back in the core of diamond so it's up to diamond diamond can walk away and say

they're not going to do the project so that's not what it is if i may that's it does give diamond options but the reality at least you would you would think i mean anything can happen but you would think that if there's the contingent approval with a special election on april 11th i imagine that diamonds council would advise diamond just wait till april 11th it may pass if if the voters disapprove in a special

election on april 11th then of course diamond has all sorts of other uh weapons in the arsenal so the the the homeworld chatter that i've seen that was approved back in 2017 on the very front cover it says defining good government and then it says right below and this is just my copy might not be the official but the proposed chatter will be voted on tuesday november 7th 2017. so am i

accurate that in order for the changes to the charter that that was made back in 2017 that it had to go to a ballot the voters of the city of florida voted for this document here is that accurate i don't know the answer that sounds like it's accurate i haven't looked at it uh what would be the i guess okay so if if we don't know that question what what what is the process

for getting a charter home rule charter approved that's already in place or amended my understanding well a home rule petition is much simpler right that just goes to the city council and then goes to the legislative body i believe the home rule charter actually does require the voters and from what i understand there probably were many voters that thought they were voting for a charter school

they saw the word charter and didn't entirely understand home rule as it in itself is is incredibly obtuse i think we can all agree uh with that i guess i guess my point of the question is is that it went to a ballot and voters voted on it to your point whether they knew what they were voting on whether it was a charter school or the home ruled charter which is the laws of the city

is and i would i would contend with you that and agree with you that probably a good majority did not know what they were voting on i would agree with that okay which is also my concern about a debt exclusion you put a debt exclusion before you're going to have the same exact issue so again but that being said the whole room shadow was approved by the voters of the city of fall river and in the

charter the form of government is is identified and outlined so we have an executive branch and we have a legislative branch so the voters decided our form of government and we are the legislative body we are the ones that need to vote on any decisions whether tough easy and to then circumvent and pass the buck to the voters and say that we want the voters to really kind of ratify something

is not what the charter says and if the voters at least those who understood what the charter had contained and what it stands for did not like the form of government they could have rejected it and then we would have had to go back and change the form of government which potentially could have been a town meeting for a legislative body would that be correct yes okay so that did not occur so the legislative body is

the city council so you know to my other eight colleagues we are it we put our names on the ballot to be to run for office for the legislative body so now the vote's before us okay this is the document we keep on saying that we want to follow the charter we're talking about let's make sure that we follow the ordinances i agree so since the ordinance is off the table per bond council i

will leave that out to debate okay but i i would suggest it may be irrelevant depending on whether you approve disapprove or contingently approve i i would i would have this i guess this is this is my statement trust me if you want to believe me if you want to listen i've been in the business i'm still in the business you know you go to bound council for bonding purposes so if bomb council

comes back and says you need to do x y and z you need to change something in a warrant article or you need to change something in in an order that comes down before the city council you do it right you make the changes because that's their area of expertise they are attorneys that are dealing with bonding making sure that any instruments that are going out to the public for investment purposes are met in our legal

eyes are dotted t's are crossed again i will state that mist and i didn't realize that um rick manley was was your bond council it happened like i said was was the on council for the city of forever so he understands it so if he's saying that this ordinance doesn't apply then it doesn't apply so that's off the table so now where are we left-handed i i respectfully disagree listen i don't

want to that's that's fine that's why i want to disparage another lawyer there's no need to but i speak for the city i speak for the interpretation of 2-1-3-1 we don't need to get there yet so i don't want to make arguments either for or against mr manley um i can tell you he's made mistakes i'd be happy to prove it to you but we don't need to go there but that's that's fine but

do you unless you're telling me that you approve all the documentation for the authorization of bonds and that we don't use bond council then i'm also gonna i wouldn't do that just telling you that okay he doesn't get to interpret two one three one i do well well of course of course he would because he's he's counsel whoever the council is is going to review the ordinances to make make sure number one

that all the ordinances have been followed because if not that would negate any authorization for bonding that's part of that's part of the job if i may so i certainly understand that your starting point counselor is that this attorney manly is somebody that you've had experience with before and that you trust i understand that and and um we build trust with the people that counsel us well i i didn't say i trusted

him i just said he he happened to be bond counsel he's an attorney i just i just kind of listen i punt to them i'm not an attorney you have you have you have the right you went to school you you've got you've got the title i don't get to put the title in front of my name so i always just kind of punt to them and i ask them the questions they are smarter

than me and that that's the the subject matter experts in in bonding so if bond council comes back to me and says that hey listen you need to change language that's in a warrant article or you need to change language that's in an order or something like that guess what i say okay sounds great guess what i'm doing i'm making the change but i will tell you that they review ordinances i

don't disagree but the presumption you're making is that um diamond's bond council is not going to give an opinion that's in the interest of diamond and i think that's the concern well it would be a little unethical to suggest that they would just do something in the interest of diamond but that would also negate what they would really have to do right so i i would i would have hoped that an attorney who

was obligated by ethics would not say wink wink we really don't have to follow this ordinance because you don't want to have a very big malpractice policy right so i i don't i don't see it so from my standpoint and it's not neither here no there i'll let my colleagues figure out whether they agree with me or they agree with you but from my standpoint the ordinance is off the table bottom

council we have bond council saying it's not a somebody who is a bond attorney saying that is not applicable we have a charter which was voted on by the voters we have nine city councillors who were elected by the voters of forever to take tough votes and at the end of the day the vote is whether or not we support diamond that is the end of the story that is the only thing

that's before us again the changes now that we're hearing the mayor is saying he supports it the projects but he only supports it for with a debt exclusion that is the only change respectfully sir that's a mischaracterization of what the mayor said supports it but he supports it with a vote of the people for the project and a debt exclusion so i i i agree with you that that two of

the three things that the mayor supports were in your statement but leaving the third out which is the vote itself supporting the project i think is an important part of it so maybe so okay so if we take it to the to the voters and the voters agree to to vote for diamond but redu uh reject the debt exclusion he's still in support of diamond the mayor is in support of diamond

that's not what i asked you so the question you're asking is if the voters say no so if we bifurcate the question all right that's the proposal you're making right well you might ask the question two two questions one do you support diamond two do you support a debt exclusion one i think that leads to a legally incongruous illogical conclusion unfortunately so i don't think you can

buy for quite the question but if you did of course you can i can't see how you can combine the questions so we would agree to disagree on that point because i would argue that having the two separate questions leads to the possibility that the city of fall river is bound to pay for a project without understanding how it's going to do that no because now now what you're doing is you're you're you're

not giving you're not truly giving the voters the opportunity to say whether or not they support diamond you're saying do you support diamond with a debt exclusion yes but there's another option though right so so we can't say we can't take options away from the voters if we want to go to the voters then we've got to give the voters all the options right so the option is do you support diamond

and second question do you want to fund it because now it becomes funding via debt exclusion and if it's a no on a debt exclusion that means it's going to be funded within the tax levy and that's all predicated on whether or not the voters support diamond that is the very first and fundamental question that is before the city council one point of clarification of mr kadeem that's the only question in front of the

council do you support the project not how to pay for it that's not the question we put in front of you the only question for this city council is do you disapprove of the project right that's that's and i'm going to say exactly what you're going to say i know and i agree with you unfortunately as as the legislative body we also need to deal with the appropriation right so i and i get that

so the fundamental question is whether or not we support diamond that vote was taken at the last meeting okay so now the the only change like i said that came before us is that we've got notification from the mayor that he supports it and i will clarify it he supports diamond as long as it goes to the voters and the voters support it and there is a debt exclusion for it that's correct okay

excuse me point of classification do you agree with that statement which one you said you disagree with the prior statement i disagree that the only thing the city council is here is to be in favor or not it's not that easy the the point is whether or not this city council an approval vote today means that we'll figure out the finances somehow somewhere but we're we're bound to pay for this school no matter what

and the contingent approval gives the city council additional time to get funded in place and as you said it's the will of the city council but that's the decision that's the hard decision has to be made and that decision that decision was made last last meeting but the decision that was made okay if we could we could not do that the decision that was made at the last meeting

i would argue on behalf of the mayor was an incomplete decision because it bound us to something without really understanding how we get there yeah because the administration never gave us anything we asked for the information the administration was not in a position to give you anything because this process bypassed the administration as soon as the vote came back to the mayor for his approval at

that point he was then he was then in a position of standing to do something prior to that i would argue that the mayor had no standing to give an opinion to give an order to do anything and i and i know you don't agree with that i understand because when the counselor in in seat eight asked me the question you very kindly answered it on my behalf saying that they should have brought a and i

don't disagree we absolutely need to talk about how to pay for this and also talk about what the finances are in order to figure out what the right direction is and and i think very reasonable minds can disagree as to what that is i don't i don't disagree with you but i'm black and white right i understand there's some gray here but let's just it is what it is let's call a spade a spade okay

the mayor knew diamond was on the table so to say that you know the process if you know if you want to get technical was the process did he i don't know i don't i don't know exactly what the process was in terms of the letter how he received it all i know is that it was before us he knew it was coming before us he did not provide any information we

now have it after which we have to have a special meeting to discuss this you know there is you could have had this exact same thing nothing has changed between last tuesday and now that's that's what i'm saying so he knew he supported diamond i would hope he would know because he knew that it was coming so if he did didn't support diamond he should have said if he supported diamond he should have said if

he supported diamond and it had had you know an asterix next to it that i only support it if if the voters support it and if the voters don't support it i no longer support it and if it doesn't get support for a debt exclusion i don't support it like we should have had all of that you either support diamond or you don't support diamond that's the first fundamental question okay then the second question is we

should have had it and i think this is where a lot of the conversation and the questions come from the the legislative body is how are we going to pay for it right because and we can keep talking about affordability because i've said this before it's not about an affordability it's about the priority there's a difference i agree right and i understand that if we and i don't disagree it's not that

it's not going to be challenging if we have a if we support the project and we and we build diamond and we get the assessments that we get and we do it within the tax levy it just means that we have to reprioritize reallocate our resources and the first thing getting funded during the project would be the debt okay everything else has to shake out we've we've got a pie of money and you've

already got to take a portion that's going to be whether call it 15 million dollars 16 million dollars 20 million dollars for debt and interest coming out of out of our budget that we appropriate everything else shakes out what i what i also will say is is that we have been internally trying to keep a 10 million dollar debt in interest line okay as a minimum and the reason we said that

was because we were trying to make sure that we had capital improvements and as debt started to retire that we were adding into it so that we knew every single year we were going to fund and get more more bonding out there the city's line item for debt and interest has been over over 10 million dollars for years okay and we're we're already over the 10 million dollars so we have done it we

have we have funded projects we had four now and i'll and i'll turn over to ask my colleague in c2 because he sat on a number of uh you know school comm building committees all of them we had at least four of them going at one time right two in progress and two approved four weeks all right so four at twenty like i believe they were 26 million dollars at that time call it 30 million dollars

even if it was at 50 you do the math okay let's just call it 20 million dollars and we and say that we got 50 reimbursements which maybe we did maybe it was higher but let's just say 10 million dollars that's still a 40 million dollar bill that was that was handed that was handled within the operating budget we never went back to the taxpayers we never asked for a debt exclusion but we

were able to fund it then so how did we not be how were we not able to do it with two and have a debt an interest line at 15 million 16 million dollars whatever the case may be with by the way an approved debt exclusion for durfee and forecasts that we've already received by the administration and i understand it's a living document but the dedic the the five-year forecast is

showing that we were going to the full amount of the debt exclusion to the tune of five million dollars so we have five million dollars of additional revenue coming in to offset debt for durfee which by the way on the record i did not support i was one of the only counselors who voted not to have a debt exclusion go to the voters for the simple reason that the voters do not understand what a debt exclusion

ends is and the implication it's going to have on the taxpayers and the tax bill on top of going to the tax library every single year so that being said i will yield i'll leave it you know give the floor to my my colleagues but i again stand by the vote i took at the last meeting i support diamond i do not support a debt exclusion so i'll be voting no on a debt exclusion and i

think there are options i think we need to have a conversation about how we fund it but that needs to be had internally and we need to have some discussions but the first question and the fundamental question is do you support diamond if if i may i get it but this vote is not to approve or disapprove diamond it's it's to approve or disapprove the debt so i mean i just know that counselors are very

worried about you know showing support for the school but worried about funding it so the vote has nothing to do with therefore against the project it's whether or not you approve the debt that's really what the vote is approve what that approve of the debt that is going to be given to the taxpayers of fall river which my understanding you know seth will speak to numbers my stance about

six and a half million dollars annually in the next 30 years if i may would this be an okay time to talk about the numbers that i've prepared uh there's a spreadsheet on everyone's one question though i have why isn't mr capone here he couldn't make it tonight because of the special um the quick scheduling the special election i apologize there is he would talk about the numbers and he would and

i i certainly understand that there is a fairly comprehensive sheet uh showing debt that's on everyone's seat and i don't want to break any rules if if it's okay with the council i would like to do a brief overview of those numbers just quickly because i want to i want to yield the floor just quick but you mentioned that there's an order before us but the order is disapproved i was just going to ask that

question isn't there where is the order for debt there's a ballot question my understanding is that as part of this mr kadeem is what i was going to ask and have my hand raised is in there isn't part of the order to disapprove the project i know you're saying it's contingency but it's to disapprove the project madam president through you we had citizen input we had the veto that we've got to lay on the table

we've got an order and a warrant scheduling the special election we've got in order designating polling places and then we've got an order for a ballot question diamond regional vocational technical high school i don't see anything for authorization of debt it wouldn't be an authorization of debt the only i mean as i stated before if this city council does absolutely nothing after 60 days it's a approval of

the debt right so you don't have to have an approval vote doing nothing is the same thing the proposed order if that's what the will of the city council is is to disapprove the proposed appropriation nothing about disapproving of the project right so so the so the again the vote that was the question that's before us is a veto which is going to be laid we'll have a uh a conversation later on is whether or

not we support the project diamond project then we've got an order that we're going to be dealing with tonight about a special election and that's whether or not the city council wants to give away its authority and not be the legislative body and have town meeting which is not our form of government so that to me would be like okay let's let's pay attention to the charter sometimes but not pay attention to the

charter and all the times then if that's the case if that gets approved in number three then we're talking about where the polling places are gonna be and then number five is whether or not we want to have a debt exclusion which in my mind should be rejected if you care about taxpayers so if i may and i don't i don't want to further convolute things because i'm getting confused because the question

that we have that we submitted to the council last excuse me on february 22nd that you took the vote was to authorize us to go incur the debt that's the question before you the second question which we all acknowledge the fact is you're funding mr kadeem being against debt exclusion i'm not going to speak for everybody else but the the question that we are concerned about for purposes of bond

counsel of bonding for our purposes and acquiring debt is does this legislative body authorize us to go uh incurred debt of 293 plus million million dollars that is it so to say that that's not before you or doesn't have to be taken until you do that you don't have a debt exclusion to deal with you don't have money to go find in your budget so that is the question and maybe i'm

wrong and i don't know your protocols or procedures but that is the question we have to have answered for purposes of msbn whether you authorize diamond regional to incur the debt so if you want my answer yes thank you i support the project i support diamond i rejected that exclusion with that i yield thank you counselor and c3 council vice president dion so again for clarification purposes

the vote that was taken on february 22nd yes do you approve the project the yes vote would be yes we approve the project we approve diamond bonding for their project would everybody agree on that yes that is exactly what was taken that so on the city side does that go hand in hand with if we're voting yes for the project which means we are saying yes to you bonding for the project

does that mean on the city side at the same time we're also saying we're going to have to fund the project yes that's correct yeah the city will be on the hook for it one way or another we agree with that the funding position is the secondary yes right that's what i'm trying to clarify because because honestly we had people who i personally thought that's what it was and i felt like we had 60 days to

discuss a project to discuss funding to discuss a lot of things just like durfee durfee didn't happen in one night in in 90 minutes um i've seen people take longer to purchase a car than than a 110 million dollar project in my world that's what we were doing uh yes meant we approved the project we approved you applying for the the fun the bond to pay for the project and we were saying that

the city now has to pay to fund that bond and that's where my issue was how are we going to fund it why aren't we having a discussion on funding first not to deny the project but have a reasonable sensible conversation and how do we do this moving forward i mean how do you buy a car if you don't know what your car payment is or where you're going to get the money from

it was that simple so i think when people say the question was simply do you approve of the project and if you voted no you just don't approve of the project that that's not showing the full picture and i think at this point people see the full picture it was a three-part question in essence it was one question but it encompassed three different points do we all agree on that much

yes point of clarification counseling through the chair to my colleague in c3 are you looking to have the administration provide you how we're going to pay for this project for the next 30 years because it's 30 year bond correct correct so do you want to know how we're going to pay for for the next 30 years or how we're going to pay for it and to win it there because two or three years from now

i just want to have a discussion on funding and and how how we go about the funding can it come out about operating budget if it can great if they can't do we need the debt exclusion and honestly at this point i think the voters are being cut short because i think after durfee they're well aware of what a debt exclusion is now yeah they weren't then but they are now so i just

want to clarify one thing from my point of view and what i've seen happen to other schools that we've built no one's ever come up with a 30-year list of how you're going to pay for us for the next 30 years and to her point it all depends on who the administration is and what the legislative body here is and the counselors how we decide to pay for it whether it comes out of taxation

whether it comes out of other forms and then what we've always done is just made it work we knew we needed schools back then council kilby had a press conference and i was there the tangy school saying we need to build schools well in 1997 we talked about building a casino in this city i was the only council that says instead of building casinos we should be building schools in

90 reimbursement that's when the schools began to get built on the headlamps administration so no one ever said for the next 30 years you're going to take this amount of money it's going to come out of this fund it's going to come out of that fund they're going to get money from the state going to get money from federal government no one ever put that in place we made it work because we knew the need

was there we knew there was a need to build all those schools today there's a need to build diamond and the process is the same you build you vote on the whether or not the school needs to get built and whether they're going to go she's going to go forward and take advantage of the reimbursement advantage of sba all that everything that school of building system program is putting in place

and then we work on the funding mechanism as we go along every year and we've been very lucky and very successful that up until today it's been working fine and we've got a lot of money that we've saved from taking advantage of this program i see this is no different there's nobody in the city is going to say we don't need another a new diamond high school everyone is well aware especially

if you walk the building for the need now it's up to us and people are going to be here when we're not here and the administration after this administration goes or who knows how long it's going to be therefore to make the decisions how we're going to pay for this as we make decisions how we're going to bond for a 10-year five cruises for the police department we bonded out for 10 years no one says

this is how we're going to pay for it we find a way every year you get the budget shows what you've take taken on and how you're going to pay for it so it's you're never going to get a 30-year proposal but you will make it work if you want it to work and if the project has to be downsized they'll downsize it before it goes into place so

put that out here for now just point of information counselor um point of information on concussion has the floor it just clarification for because counselor and c3 asked the question it's very simple so we all have this and i don't know if everybody has it but this the document the quarterly budget okay so where's the money going to come from so if you go to page one we've got uh revenue

so real estate taxes which is a tax levy 116 million 846 571 dollars coming from the taxpayers okay that's going to be a two and a half percent increase okay total revenue for the for the city 330 million dollars 167 865 that's for fy22 so there's going to be increases where is the money going to come from it is going to be funded through debt and interest there is a debt and interest

line item that's exactly where it's going to come from paid for through the revenues that are here okay so it's not about a question of where it's coming from we know where it's coming from it's coming from the tax levy which is here stated can only increase by two and a half percent plus new growth and it's going to be appropriated to debt and interest now what happens to and that's 16 million dollars on

everything that we see here what happens to the other 315 million dollars is going to be up to us if if we are saying that diamond is a priority so there it is it's all here thank you um and that i think that that and i don't want to speak for you council vice president but is what we were looking for from the administration at our last meeting what are our options to pay for it

you're the floral counselor thank you because again it was an all-encompassing question and i believe there were individuals who didn't think it was that they felt it was strictly do i approve the project but it wasn't that simple that's the clarification that i wanted in term yes please i think when i came down to the table i actually you tried clarifying you absolutely did that that

that there was a two-pronged issue and that the second part was the funding that you guys were going to have to deal with at some point in time i made that crystal clear because first of all this is not going to come online in terms of a payment until 2025. and for example one of the towns and i'm not going to say which one they took a town meeting but it didn't included an exclusion a

debt exclusion it didn't include how you're going to pay for it they answered the question now in that particular town in 2025 they're going to figure out how to pay for it that's a much less a bill though it may be a much lesser building mr kilby and i understand that but how 1100 kids 1200 kids and they got 20. so i do understand that but the benefit coming to fall river from diamond as

opposed to one of those towns is far greater far far greater and i'm not suggesting i would never suggest and be a hypocrite that i don't realize that this is a a a large bill that will affect you absolutely but again we as a diamond obviously think it's priority it's a priority for us because the the school is bursting at the seams so i'm not suggesting that you don't whatever you do

uh madam vice president or members of of the council is your decisions but i'm just saying that's how one town happened to take take take the issue they said we want diamond we're going to we're going to vote tonight in a special time meeting for diamond and when it comes due we're going to figure out how to pay for it and it is just much smaller number for a much smaller amount of kids 100 agree

attorney killed me but i'm just saying to answer your question ms dion maybe some people didn't realize i can't speak for them but that is why i came down and i i believe and i know you did and i was going to get to that that you sat there and you and you truly tried to be extremely transparent and say this is the ramification of your vote i just don't know that it resonated with

everyone okay i just want to make sure that i apologize i just wanted to make sure that we were trying to be as transparent as possible that's why i left my seat correct a little presentation and madame president said she was here journey brilliant i agree there's another portion of this which is funding so thank you or you have a point you have a clarification we've had two people speak on this

one particular counselor come see one very passionate about this over close over an hour so i think we have to move this along there's a lot of the council have wanted something to say i have something to say um so that's all i want to suggest to you madison thank you councillor i mean this is a this is a how much time have i had with i've had four she's been she has had two point of

clarifications as she was trying to speak every council will get a chance this is a uh a lot of money and i think councils need to have their questions answered and know exactly what it is they are voting on because to me the vote was not as simple as supporting diamond every single counselor here said they support diamonds yes usually an individual will speak and if other council president council

members have their hands up then you go on and let them rebut later on so there's

i'm sorry with all due respect i had points points of information and points of orders during my time as well you did okay thank you all right let's be fair council vice president you have the floor thank you um so and i know this is out of the box but this is something that somebody else that somebody brought up that's been nagging at me and and this is in terms

of i guess the scope of the project when you came down and discussed over 300 uh 330 dollars give or take is what is what they allow for reimbursement this is at 600 and change per square foot so it's not reimbursable those numbers were those pre-covered when two by sixes were twelve dollars aboard or during covert when they went up to twenty eight dollars aboard during those estimates came in

between april of 2021 and october of 2021 okay so theoretically that number could go down because the price of lumber has come down could it could happen okay because i mean i think that's an important question no it is because because we're probably going to be able to be on the budget but that's the number we were given that's the number with the mspa dealt with and that's the number we present to you to be fully

transparent that that's the number right now do we hope based on the fact there was a a substantial inflation of those particular products you and covid and we'll get a you know mr camarino know that better than anyone in his practice but we do hope it goes down and save everybody money yeah because that would go for all uh materials whether it's electrical whatever the case it doesn't absolutely

but just i just wanted to bring that point out and honestly i'm going to yield and let other counselors speak and then if i have more i'll come back after thank you thank you counselor counselor and c4 counselor kilby thank you very much just a couple of points could you please speak into the microphone counselor microphone counselor uh just a couple of points and i apologize if i uh

um insulted counseling i know he's very passionate and uh he's a great counselor but um this is this vote we're potentially going to take is just not a for or against diamond it's not it for me it's whether it's reasonable and fair to have the voters of fall river also weigh in on this question that's how i look at it i support diamond oh my gosh i already

talked to mr hetzel i want to sign in my yard and i'll do whatever i can to to make sure that this happens but and and council camaro has a very good memory uh council camaro and i uh many years ago um when the adelaide mayor was mayor one of the spearheads and both of us and building all these new schools and you know something that took an election to do it

you know what the election was to create the ordinance that stated 51 percent you don't have to go to the voters prior to that it was five hundred dollar great year on the school committee as well at the time five hundred thousand dollars are over you have to have to go to the voters and that was a result of the 70s when the city hall was built when durfee the old durfee was built

people were just very frustrated it did not trust the government with big projects like this people went to jail over it so lambert ed lambert spearheaded an election he worked very very hard to get that vote passed at the time it was not popular to change the ordinance that anything over 51 percent does not have to go to the voters so i guess my rationale is what has changed since then

i i think if we have an expense you're my opinion an expenditure of this amount we have to get input from the people who are going to be paying the bill and you use an analogy with a normal council down you're absolutely right you know do i want to go out and buy a a ford or a nissan altima or am i going to get a new mercedes i think i should talk to my family first

right i'm not going to independently make that decision arbitrarily so again i said this before my daughter graduated from diamond it's a wonderful school and it needs upgrades you kidding me with the new technology that's developing we're a trades community we need it we need it directly but in all conscience i really feel that it has to take an effort on a part of all of us the people sitting in the ordinance

in the audience elected officials the mayor to mount a campaign to convince the voters that this is the right thing to do for our community i feel strongly about that and nothing's changed and uh council camaro triggered that memory nothing's changed in the last 20 years or so we went to the voters before to build all those schools and it's beautiful and a voter said yes and each and every school that's been

successful the people see the value in the investment but i think people again i'm repeating this is all i have to say tonight my opinion as one counselor who's in total support of this school will work as hard as i can to make sure it happens i think we have a fiduciary responsibility to allow the voters to weigh in on this in my opinion it'll pass because people who feel passionate about

something about an election are going to vote for it those who are against it the naysayers who want to stop mounting the campaign against it good luck people are going to sit on their hands the people who do not want to aren't going to vote the people who aren't going to vote so let's energize this community let's have a vote and let's build a school so i yield thank you counselor counselor and seat

five councilor lee so um i just need to i need to give people some people some credit here in this this whole night to tonight because i think that the word passion has been used quite a lot um information has been used quite a lot and it's it's very rare to see so much passion and information at the same exact time without people being so disrespectful and you know how heated

these things can get and to be honest with you i think it's been a very productive conversation productive meeting overall i need to give the representative of diamond uh so much credit for being so transparent and informed right at the top um following the process the way it needs to be followed um i don't think i don't think i've seen that too often in these kind of situations and be honest with you i

and i don't have the experience that other counselors have maybe they can say some other stories but i've seen a lot of uh misinformation purposely thrown around in a lot of these situations and i'm just appreciative of the fact that you need an answer you got it you need some straight shots you got it i appreciate that and and it's just it's just rare in my opinion so i had to say that council c1

he set the tone um for for an hour and a half and i don't think i think it was i think honestly he made his case not just based on passion but information as well but i do disagree and obviously i disagree that i don't think voters are too ignorant to be a part of the process in general in principle i don't think that have they gotten it wrong sometimes yeah have they

got it right some point of clarification yeah i've never said that the voters were ignorant correct so misinformed i did not say that either no i'm asking all right no what i would what i would suggest is that you please don't put words in my mouth agreed i said that the voters do not understand a debt exclusion and quite frankly half the city counselors did not understand what a dead exclusion was leading up to

it so please do not put words in my mouth right okay so if we want to come back about talking about how long i've been speaking on this stuff that's fine we can continue to have that conversation i'll continue to debate anybody on this floor and okay so but do not and i'm being quite frankly i'm being frank with you right you can go send text messages all you want but do not do not understood

put words in my mouth the thing the thing is the thing is in this situation i'm actually giving you credit for this i think you did make a a good point on on all of these things however i do disagree i do disagree that when it comes to voters being a part of this process they should be if they have an opportunity to be and granted i mean overall i think that you know the the

i'm in support of diamond i'm in full support of diamond and i also at the same time wasn't in support of the debt exclusion i think that that allows the people to be a part of this process however i'm not going back on my vote i'm not going my back on my vote last week i feel as though the administration did not take a position in this in this situation last week and it kind of left

everybody here to say yes or no they're going to vote for diamond or not and without without the conversation of having um the information on how the administration was going to pay for it we get it this week again point made by council c1 we get it this week after the fact and i and i agreed with that i don't really feel as though the administration took the leadership role that it needed to take

knowing that this was coming and knowing this was on the way and you know at the end of the day when when we're sitting here we we're we're we're put with this with this question from from groups of people that i believe are have nothing but the best intentions that they they want to produce a school that produces people who are ready when they graduate to be a part of the economy that that the occupation that

they're job ready that i mean i i just i have nothing but respect for what diamond can do for our community for and for the economy so when we when this is presented to us and the mayor doesn't have a position at all to me to me it's like he gets what he gets out of this if if we are if we're presented with do we support this school yes or no then that's what it is

we didn't have any conversation about a dead exclusion until after the fact we didn't have any conversation about how i think the last pages states that he says we can't pay for this without a debt exclusion in some in some degree we should have had that conversation prior to our vote last week i think now we're where we are and where we need where we need to be as far as

showing our support for the school and and learning in the in the next few steps as to how it's going to be paid for and and again constantly one i do apologize for saying the word ignorant i that that that's on me so i apologize for that thank you thank you you're healed attorney brilliant did you want to represent that i just i just want to make sure i appreciate those comments to

attorney kilby i know it appears that you know you have a different opinion than you did on the 22nd is it because of something we didn't provide well i can answer yes yeah i can get text messages saying that uh messages saying you changed the vote i can't believe you changed your vote i haven't changed my vote oh no i i apologize because i was just saying about the dead sounds like you'll be

excuse me because of kill because you're speaking to the microphone as counselor dion quite uh articulate said i looked at it as a two-prong thing as well she said three but do we support it yes and how do we fund it do we fund it through the budget going forward or do we fund it through a debt exclusion okay that that's was my take when i left the meeting so i didn't change my vote

and to be a little conceited here i think uh i'm the most one of the most passionate individuals about education that served in a long time with me as well i just wasn't sure if there was a situation now that it was something we didn't do in terms of notifying the council on the 22nd relatives that vote was exactly what it was that was no slight against you my friend okay

i wasn't sure because when i say change your vote i apologize to tony kilby i just wasn't sure because it i mean i don't know if the approval or authorizing us to have the debt is one vote and then the the matter of funding get a second vote i'm just wasn't sure but i i apologize i want to support it however yeah are you thank you a councilman seat seven councilor he wants to make a point

just just to echo attorney brilliance remarks and perhaps answer the questions from seats three and four we are our position is not that you shouldn't go to the taxpayers for debt exclusion that that position is is your decision whether you choose to or not but the two points aren't necessarily connected i know some will argue that they are but they're not because you can approve this project going forward

show your support for it and and everything that happened last week that continues to happen today and secondarily figure out give the taxpayers a voice once you've supported it you're moving forward with it then go to your taxpayers and say how do you want to pay for it do you want us to use operating budget or do you want us to use an override that that is well within your right you absolutely have the right

to do that by showing support for the project that there's no doubt about that that is your option 100 giving your taxpayers a voice does it tie you in to the project by proving yes i'm not going to sit here and say it doesn't that that piece you'll have to figure out if you show support for the project if you approve it then you figure out from your tax base

if they want to raise their taxes or if they want you to figure it out through the operating budget the point of clarification i'm sorry no it's fine i'm going to kill council c one and i think i'm talking too much now well so we're able to take a vote could you use the microphone council kilby excuse me thank you so we're able to take a contingent vote approving the project then framing the ballot question

whether they want a proposition to a two and a half override or that exclusion or funded out of the municipal budget is it capable of doing that i don't i don't think the second part would go through that if i may um a contingent approval um they said it would be my request even if we all agree it's a contingent approval we'll have to use the disapproval language if

we only want to go forward if x or y happens if you want to give the voters an opportunity to either vote for a debt exclusion or the the one the two one three one then that's separate yes you're right once it's approved we're stuck with the answer so you can you can ask for the voter's opinion and be stuck with it or you can ask for their opinion but no one it won't matter

if they disapprove of it i'm just asking whether or not i'm looking at the proposed ballot question yeah with a contingent approval could this question be changed to give an option whether it's a two and a half override would you prefer a two-and-a-half override maybe that'd be the second question or pay it out of the operating budget it's totally happy with it it's it's the will of this council i mean that's

that's one of the things i'm here for whatever this council wants to do we'll make sure i believe that's a legislative function right the city can make you tell you how to do your budget that's right i'm just sorry to speak out of turn but i don't think that the citizens can tell you how to appropriate your budget whether it's the diamond or something else and on a ballot question i came into person

council what's what is what the administration has sent down only accounts for a debt exclusion yes i guess it was just a question i had trying to to give options have this as transparent as possible and have the voters have a say as much as they can and give them options so are you great councilman seat seven council pereira yeah oh first of all i'd like to say that when the vote was taken

at the last council meeting i knew what the heck i was voting on i was no confusion whatsoever on my part this is the confusion that we're looking at now is about how we're going to pay for this other communities have either not voted which was an approval or did approve and they will talk about the funding yet in 2025 as time goes on if you're asking the voters to vote and

put something on the ballot for a debt exclusion then you're going to have some people saying yes and no if you say yes as a council we're voting for diamond and it's going to come out of the budget and we're not going for a debt exclusion people aren't going to complain about that because they're already paying their taxes and we have to figure it out and if some of the members of this

council want to worry about what our taxpayers are paying then fine let's dig a little deep and let's make sure that we do a budget that includes this amount of money and keeps the taxpayers with just their regular tax bill and the the exclusion of the plane paying for durfee they're going to have to pay that and you know let's worry about that let's worry about not increasing water and sewer as much as

they need to have done and maybe this year we won't have to because we put some opera money in there so that's our job to figure out how the budget can be done to be to pay for this new school so i'm gonna not waste a lot of time i'm gonna tell you straight forward i'm voting yes for diamond i'm voting no on the debt exclusion and i think counselor kadeem

made a hell of a lot of sense tonight we don't always agree on stuff but you did a good job tonight uh kadeem i appreciate it and i don't have to go on and on and regurgitate everything that he said that i support so with that i yield to whoever else would like to speak thank you madam president counselor and cd counselor poso i just want to answer my question from last time

very simple can we put in the operating budget and afford it yes or no no can i explain would you like to explain why yes okay please and for some this may be an incomplete explanation but i'm gonna do my very best on each of your uh tables uh i've provided a copy also to my brother um is a legal size piece of paper that says five year debt forecast does everyone have that yes okay so

first let me acknowledge that one could drill much much deeper with all of these numbers uh and i would specifically reference the debt coming off we can spend quite a bit of time talking about exactly what things are coming off and what things are coming on what constitutes that the purpose of this is is to give a sense of the numbers and how those numbers compare versus the actual anticipated debt the budgeted debt

what that looks like when you add durfee how that changes over time and then finally what proposed debt looks like so without taking a ton of time on this and i'll answer whatever questions you have the top several rows goes for nine years 2000 fy 23 through fy31 showing city debt which is um i would i would characterize that as sort of the cost of doing business it's the debt that is part of the budget that

we anticipate having the debt coming off is how that debt is reduced by things being paid off by no longer having to service that debt there is new debt and i put in parentheses the february of 2022 bonds there was some short-term debt which a lot of the folks in the finance team will refer to at least some of it as bans all right which are bond anticipating notes all

right i would liken this and it's not a perfect metaphor to um we use our credit card for short-term things and then sometimes when you realize that the balance on your credit card is is not something you can pay off you take out a loan that consolidation pay the whole thing these bans which are usually for a term of one year can then be combined and we can borrow

for a much longer term to spread out the payments reduce the cost of carrying that debt and that new debt that indicates uh the february of 2022 bonds is that and then finally long-term debt that's actually bans that have that have been in fact um and those are uh those are anticipated numbers but i think they're they're quite accurate um and they include both principle and interest

um shows some of the short-term debt that's been consolidated and then made into long-term uh debt without getting too deep into what comprises those numbers because each of those numbers you know eight million eight hundred fifty three thousand nine hundred and fifty nine dollars in fy23 is really comprised of a bunch of much smaller debts that combined together just as a matter of the of course

the city doing business paying for things borrowing in order to pay for things and sometimes borrowing on a short term in order for cash flow to be positive for us to be able to do the things we need prior to certain revenue coming in all right so if you just take fy24 which i think is a good example because it has the long-term debt in there we have an actual budgeted

debt that's not supported by a debt exclusion of a little over eight million dollars and then when you include the durfee debt which comes on uh in the next fiscal year you have a four million nine hundred eight thousand nine hundred and ninety five dollar debt for durfee now the number that's thrown around for durfee frequently is 4.5 million there's actually an additional 16.5 million that

is going to be spread out over 30 years 550 000 per year that's going to get included in that debt exclusion which brings the number up to 4.9 million now i there's i can feel my own eyes rolling in the back of my head as i go through all those numbers it's it's not meant to be a treatise on on the math but i this is where i'm getting to

when you add durfee and you add the budgeted debt you come around to that 10 million dollar mark now councilor kudeem reference the fact that we look to carry 10 or less 10 million or less in debt as essentially the mark that that there is a belief that if we if we carry that much debt or less we can service that debt pay on that debt without asking without either cutting costs or raising

revenue because we all understand that that's really the only way to service debt and to pay for the things we need we either need to cut costs if we want to increase what we're paying or raise revenue if we want to increase what we're paying and so if you start with that number in the middle that says total actual city debt those are real numbers those are numbers that we anticipate paying

through fy31 and beyond and what's really interesting about that those particular numbers is you can see how in the seventh or eighth year the durfee debt actually gets to a point when combined with the normal city debt that that whole number could more or less be absorbed into the regular city debt so there was a lot of conversation about at some point seven or eight years the durfee debt

essentially it doesn't really come off but it becomes manageable and less all right so there is a burden on the taxpayer for that period of time that is quite significant around 58 dollars per 100 000 of assessed value and we're having an assessment next that'll go into effect i believe in the next fiscal year which will probably increase property values because of where property is gone

so that 58 dollars per 100 000 could become a significant amount of money in those middle years and then what i finally done is is the proposed debt those are kind of those are they're not pretend numbers they're real but they're not they're not in place they're not for sure this is what could happen what i've done is i've looked at capital projects for each of those years and you

can see in the last four years we don't have that's past the five year plan all right so i don't have an actual number so we put a three million dollar placeholder in there that represents not the entirety of capital projects but 45 of the total value of anticipated needs all right so as we went through a couple weeks ago capital projects can include everything from security software to the kubota tractor

that the parks department wanted to um upgrades to facilities there's any number of things in there and certainly there is there is a live question as to whether everything in there is a need or whether some of those are wants so if we look at those and say you know what let's imagine that we're only going to fund less than half 45 percent of the capital projects over those five years and that 45 is

around three million dollars looking at the trajectory in years um uh six seven eight nine when you add on in 25 and an estimated and this is a this is a guest number an estimated four million dollars sort of the start of the diamond debt all right full-fledged in 26 and this could all move one year all right it could be full-fledged in 27 of 6.5 million dollars our total debt goes up

as you can see in the bottom line now i'm not here to tell you one way or the other what to make of that number but i will say that the conclusion that the administration has drawn is that when you add all those things together the real numbers as well as the projected numbers beginning in fy 25 we're four million dollars over that 10 million threshold that we want to stay at

it just goes up from there 16.895 million 17.98 million 16.17 million now it becomes much more manageable in fy 31 there's no question about it but there is sort of a middle five-year period in there where the burden on the taxpayer if there is in fact a debt exclusion no doubt is significant but i would also argue in this position of administration that the burden on the taxpayer would be

more if we have to shoulder that 6.5 million dollars by essentially cutting out capital expenses because i would ask you to look at just that 45 so not even half of the capital expenses in fy 26 27 28 29 the first four years of diamond doesn't even come to half of what the diamond debt would be so then the question is where do you get that money from and that's why in the

last sentence or the last paragraph of the mayor's letter he believes if you get rid of all capital projects that are in the plan right now reduce that to zero you still have some money to make up and so then the question becomes do you have to make reductions in personnel and services and there is no part of me that wants to try to scare anybody because that's not the

goal the goal is is simply to say that when you look at the math the the money to carry the diamond debt has to come from somewhere and if it doesn't come from a debt exclusion a temporary increase in property taxes approximately 69 per 100 000 then whatever is not whatever you would take out in that 45 of capital projects so two to three million dollars once you take that out you still need

three and a half million dollars to find somewhere and uh so our conclusion is that that would be a significant number um of very difficult choices when it comes to city services and personnel which is why my answer to you sir is i don't believe that we can take it out of our budget reasonably thank you for giving me the time to do that just i'm the only non-lawyer at this table

so i don't i don't claim to know everything but the vote we sent to the three towns in the city was a vote of disapproval on our borrowing whatever action you folks take we're going to have to notify the msba of if you vote to disapprove we're going to have to tell the msba fall river has voted to disapprove this project will pause if not stop that that's a point to fact that's not

my opinion if we don't have unanimous approval by our regional agreement this project cannot move forward and i don't see a need my opinion not a lawyer i don't see a need for you to have a debt exclusion vote if you disapprove the project if you've disapproved it what do you need the money for i need to step in here sorry i mean i i keep quiet other than making sure that

this body understands the law that's where i step in i mean we can do anything that this city council wants to do i'll make sure it happens but you just have to understand doing nothing or approving it means it's with out it's outside your hands this as i said before the train leaves the station on day 61.

uh contingent approval which will be written i will craft it which will include the word disapproval but a contingent approval allows safety nets and a decision from the voters would be within that 60-day time frame i don't see how it could possibly blow up the msba because come april 11th if there were a special election on april 11th it's going to be within those 60 days it really shouldn't slow anything down

if there's voter approval just i just want to make sure the city council realizes the disapproval right point of clarification you can't do anything the city the city of fall river has absolutely no say on this project unless they voice a disapproval they can't ask for a lower amount they can't ask for um you know a debt exclusion that's not true that it's absolutely true once the 60 first day comes by

point of clarification point of clarification you're talking about they can't lower the amount but it doesn't mean they have to go to borrow the full potential the full amount they can borrow less they can bond for less i'm saying if you wanted and i'm not saying you should but if you had a conversation like i love the school but it seems a bit expensive that conversation is over once the 60th day

happens unless there's a disapproval counselor and cd you still have the flaw so to counsel kadeem does it come down to good budgeting and what our true priorities are yes it does so is it the priority of administration to build a diamond or should i take that back is it the priority administration to fund the new diamond out of the operating budget in general it is a priority of the administration

to build a new diamond yes will it be a priority if we need to maybe adjust our budgeting to make that happen which we talk about that ceiling of 10 million dollars right is the administration willing to raise that ceiling a little bit to make this school happen respectfully i don't know that it's a question of raising the ceiling i think it's really a question of this sense that over

significantly over the 10 million dollars you have to seek either reductions or increase revenue somewhere so it's more so if you actually look at our our debt to budget ratio about 3.75 percent of our budget is debt and of that 315 million i think it's also important to note that about 130 million goes to the schools to begin with so there's not i mean there is a significant pot of money that that we're

dealing with here but it gets chopped up very very quickly and when we increase uh what amounts to three and a half four percent of our budget up to five percent six percent that becomes a a significant need to either reduce expenses or increase revenue now i think from you know just the proportion is is actually kind of interesting we use this 10 million dollar number the diamond data of 6.5 million dollars

is more than half of the total amount of debt that we believe that we're able to carry without doing something to either find the money in our budget by cutting by reducing or outside of our budget by increasing taxes more than two and a half percent because what's being proposed is by the administration um is an override of that two and a half percent limit which is not really an override because

that's a permanent increase just the debt exclusion which is a temporary increase but of course that temporary period is certainly long enough where it makes a difference if we're talking 30 years that's not as that's not temporary for a lot of folks uh i will say that um when attorney rumsey says that he'll do whatever the council wants to do the council is well within its ability to recraft

that language whether it's against council's advice or otherwise to to have something that is more palatable than uh than a disapproval that in the eyes of the diamond school committee ends the conversation or at least creates a much much more difficult conversation with msba so there's there are certainly options here from a legal standpoint not all of those options feel as safe as

attorney rubs and i would like them to be they don't necessarily secure the position of the city as in as stalwart a manner as i would i would like but they certainly are options they're out there and and we can have a meaningful conversation about what those are but i will say to you counselor that it's not the city's tolerance or appetite for raising that amount of debt it's more that we believe that it's just

a question of math that once you get above a certain level you have to find the money somewhere and that's either reducing expenses or increasing revenue attorney brilliant i just want to the point of getting clarification complete transparency and not as a again not as a scare tactic but i think we made our presentation on the 22nd and we said this very specifically so i don't want anybody to not hear this again

as part of the feasibility study we were told we have 160 plus million of repairs to do to that building to make it ada compatible so somewhere along the way when you're looking at these numbers and forecasts of numbers if we do that roof you are going to get a huge assessment if we do our mechanicals you are going to get a huge assessment if there's no question about it and this is not a scare tactic

but it's a fact because it was part of our feasibility study if it's not if if it's not granted we don't get a new school there's going to be bills coming to this city no matter what and on top of that i just want this committee to know and they said it last time so i'm saying it again and being fully transparent if we try to make it handicapped accessible and put in

elevators expand bathrooms farv is going to lose kids and pay more money then the building's got to shrink there's no two ways around it so when we're talking about money and we're talking about expenses that has to happen because we will not be able to stay open i don't think you want to lose diamond in its totality quarter clarification point of clarification the money that we have to do in repairs is that

reimbursable no no i think it's very important for people in full transparency correct the repairs that need to be done are not reimbursable at eighty percent sixty percent fifty percent zero and it's not repairs that we're saying oh we're gonna go do now these are repairs that by our ada compliance we had an order we have to do it's gotta get done at some point in time and again if we're forced to do that

not only does it cost the city money truthfully you'll you've got to expand the handicap bathroom you're probably going to lose the classroom you have to expand and put in elevates you're probably going to lose the classroom so you're going to fall river swansea somerset and westphal all going to lose kids and pay money so i want that to be known to them to the council that when you're only going to deal with money

i don't want anybody to say after why is diamond center is a huge assessment it's going to come it has to come so with that i apologize miss no president thank you councilman c all right it's okay the percentage is is the issue the 80 is just so misleading it's just not true okay and that's that's not diamond's number just for complete transparency we didn't come up with 79.77 the msba gave us that number and

what is acceptable in that 79.77 and what's not is again msb it's the state regulation it's not ours i do have a question if i have a second yes the order that is being suggested to you to disapprove based on the ordinance do a vote and then come back if the vote passes that you're going to approve has this language been vetted by msba legal every time we have a warrant

something that's going to be voted upon we have to send it up to msba to make sure it cuts mustard there you don't have to answer that question just something that popped into my brain so the answer is no uh and the reason the answer is no is that the way we're looking at this um is that if this were a region-wide a four-town or three-town in one city vote uh well then certainly you

know msba might have you know a say there but we're just talking about something that we believe is triggered by a fall river specific need and i would argue ordinance although reasonable minds can disagree as to whether the ordinance applies but the the language we would not have msba vet that language because um even though there's been a lot of conversation about this 51 percent and you know

that that number that comes out of the the ordinance 231 if you really think about it msba is is subsidizing diamonds debt diamond then gives us a debt of 111.9 million dollars and no one is subsidizing that that's that there's i would argue that that even though i originally was thinking in terms of well that's really you know 48 or so in reality the subsidy that we're receiving on our share is zero percent

the that subsidy sort of happens much farther up the up the stream if you will um so it has not been uh it's not been reviewed by msba uh because we think of it as a follower specific piece and and i only ask only because i know on our end for if we have to run a referendum if the vote doesn't pass we can't decide to have an override vote get that passed and

come back to msba and say well the first vote didn't pass but now we have override so we change their mind and we are going to do the project they're not going to let us do that so it would just be interesting from my perspective if this language would be okay to disapprove a project you make a decision you are disapproving it go find funding and then come back and say oh we changed our mind

we would like to consider this again even though we already disapproved it now that we know where the money is going to come from we're going to approve it i i don't know if that is something that would work or not again not an attorney so a good question counselor i mean i have a response the response is you know the statutory language is clear all they're looking for is a disapproval vote

that's the word they use disapproval so you don't have to do anything for approval yes it's approval or disapproval so the question is how can fall river make this contingent upon right okay um and the only way is to to do it in the negative which is disapprove contingent upon the vote now the city council wouldn't need to come back here i think the language and the proposal or strong enough to say if the

voters approve then then the approval is automatic so they wouldn't have to come back here the concern is this and you'll see guidances out there you can find guidances where they say a contingent approval acts the same um it would be my advice if it does act the same then let's get the language as strongly in favor of the city of fall river and not take our chance of having it litigated

if they're truly saying that can and as i said there are it's not the statutory language but there are things out there that say contingent approval is the same thing well i would say the opposite which is okay if it is the same thing then let's say disapproval and then that that will change april 11th possibly and that's as i said that's just to protect the taxpayers from lawsuits

now it might be the right time to get in the weeds slightly on you know 2-131 and you know if we go the tax-exempt route i think it's irrelevant we don't need to discuss it any further but if it's the will of this council that um we're not going to seek attack exemption and we do support the project then i will disagree with attorney manley the bond council has to the

application of 2-1-3-1 i'll just be very brief on it and if we need to go there later we can get a little deeper in the woods but despite the wording of this the ordinance not being perfect the intent is clear and the tent is clear as day i think attorney kilby probably said it better than i can right now he was he was dead on that the intent was to make sure that the

residents of this city don't have to bear the burden for any debt incurred by this city council in excess of five million dollars so we're talking about a debt of 110 111 million dollars and to suggest that we don't have to go to our taxpayers that this ordinance somehow if you want to pick apart certain words here and there that this this ordinance does apply i would disagree

and on top of it i mean just to show you how the wording isn't perfect here but if you really take a read at it all it's really requesting is a vote of the people it doesn't even it doesn't even say that the voters have to approve i mean that's how non-specific the wording of this order is um but to suggest that the intent is not clear i think that's disingenuous i

think the intent is extremely clear you're gonna burn the taxpayers for more than five million dollars they get a say so you know if it is the wildest council to go forward with the project we still have to have a special election on april 11th the wording will be different the wording will be limited to 2-1-3-1 and what i what i cannot speak to is how this affects this is where attorney manly comes in you know

what happens if the voters disapprove of it you know does that does that mean that they're not going to get the bond that they desire i don't i don't i'm not bond counsel i i want that's something attorney manly can discuss but i think the voters do have to have an approval if we go down that path or could be challenged well i mean honestly i think based upon the decision of this council

the ball would be in my quote whether or not to decide if 2131 applies as the corporation council i'm telling you i think it does apply so we'll have a special election and i'll draw up the ballot question that has the wording it won't be debt exclusion unless the city council it'll be specifically as to just approval of uh indebtedness of over five million dollars you know i'll get the exact

wording later but it will be we'll have to have a special election that will be my decision okay superintendent again not being an attorney do we have to take the language as it's written or do you have to take the language as it's inferred we can have this discussion if you want but it says in order authorizing the issuance of bonds yes i understand it's not fall river's bond i understand it's

diamonds bond but a bond will be issued for 111 million dollars approximately that are the fault city of falvor will be on the hook for so in order it will be this city council's order or you know once again if you want to this will be the argument i understand this is slightly a gray area i'm not going to tell you it's black and white because in theory the city council can do

nothing and i'm sure diamond will argue well that wasn't an order but the point is by doing nothing the city council will be authorizing a debt of 110 million dollars to the residents of fall river i don't think that we can somehow parse words to skirt the intent the clear intent of 2-131 can i ask you a question are you familiar with the bristol aggie project i'm not 7.5 million dollars

city council did not vote on that we get an assessment from them every year for two hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars what happened there it's over five million dollars wasn't a part of that i can tell you mistakes have been made in the past i'm not saying it works i'm not saying this is a mistake but i'm saying there are many things i've seen that were done incorrectly prior to my employment

should we stop paying it if it wasn't voted on by the council can i get a point of information yes so we keep talking about debt there's no requirement for the city council or the the city of florida to even bond we've got local receipts correct we've got taxes coming in so there is nothing requiring us to go to bonds nothing but i think the there's two other items in the ordinance that i

think would cover no i don't disagree but that that's about death there is nothing right now that says that if we approve diamond we have to go bond so i'm telling you the ordinance is off the table we do not have to bond we don't that's a valid point counselor um the the issue then becomes whether or not the executive branch decides they need to bond for it right is it wouldn't that

be their function or that probably pay for it that would be their function to see if you what are you bonding so yes i agree if we had but you're going to go to bonds and you're going to say hey we're going to go to bond council we're going to go out to the market and we're going to bond for an assessment to education because we're not bonding for a school

so i'm not quite sure if i'm an investor in bonds okay and i listen i don't i don't i'm not the greatest investor okay i put money into my 401k they do all the work but i will tell you that if i'm looking at local government bonds and i look at it and i says bonding for the assessment of education then i'm not going to borrow that like and what's what's the useful life of an assessment

one year mr mr kadeem i don't know this and i don't pretend to know this but i do know it's a big number that the city of florida builds the city of florida for transportation i i think it's over five million dollars and we didn't go for that do you guys take a vote every time they send you a bill no 10. i mean it's over 5 million they

send you a bill we're only going to send you a bill so do you take a vote every time the city of florida sends a bill for their transportation budget i don't think you do and i all we are going to do is send you a bill so i i don't see the differential one from the other and maybe i'm wrong and i'll stand corrected but my logic is asking that question because i used to

be on the floor of a school committee and that's why i know how high that bill is i just listen i just want to get the the bonding discussion off the table because we there's no requirement for us to go out to bond that's that's my point it's very clear we've got 117 million dollars in tax levy we could use that every single year to appropriate six million dollars

we don't need to go to buy and quite frankly i don't know that you can go to bond because you need to have a useful life on something you're going out to bond for and you can't give me a useful life on the assessment because you're giving me an assessment a total assessment so i i don't know why we're still talking about debt and bonding and the ordinance associated with counselor and see they

used to have the floor clarification yeah i just asked how we're going to pay for it that's what i asked so thank you no not yet um so attorney aiken i guess i go back to you now and say if the answer to my question of can we put in the operating budget the answer is no correct the answer is no okay so clarification that's your opinion it's not a factual answer

based on the revenues that you're projecting absolutely you put this together mistake you put this together just curious i put this together okay thank you all right i mean mr i capone ms argo and i put this together all right and i just want to make sure that people understand that it's not a factual statement that we can't afford it's what opinions based on what you're guessing the

revenues are going to be and based on what you're thinking the evidence is going to be and based on what you believe the capital outlet projects are going to be so there's so many moving parts to this no doubt about it i just want to make sure this is not something where these numbers are all locked in just want to make it clear and i'm not trying to say that you're off

but i just want to make sure that there's so many moving pieces to this that it can change drastically it can change minimally depending on what everyone does that is very true and answer your other question the bristol aggie thing is a home rule petition it's something it's a whole different process it's kind of not relevant to this particular thing but i can certainly get into it at some point if you'd like but

that's going back to council proposal um so let me pick up where i left off no thank you yes sir so i you know i read this letter and i i'd reached out to you and said the biggest concern i have is the last line of this letter yes sir i believe that any attempt to pay the city's share of this project without additional revenue from a debt exclusion would require cuts to city personnel and services

the guy who sat in december over there listened to the former cfo mary sahari say we have to prepare for the diamond project that was in december did we do that did we yeah and i think i alluded to this last time and i think council could demand my question did we envision or prepare for what this could possibly become i would say no so i think the new guy sitting here saying

we need to start doing that because to counselor camara's point schools have been built over the many of years and correct me from counselor camara we didn't went to a debt exclusion right only for differing only for durfee so over the years we've been able to build schools support education within our budget over the course of years is that correct yes okay i personally am not a fan of the dead exclusion myself

because i think there are better ways to go about it i think the city needs to take a responsibility in that if we knew this was coming and to dr ferrara how long has diamond been involved in this process 10 years for my first statement of interest yes with this project 2018.

so did at any point we say we need to plan for diamonds project and it's going to come out of the budget we didn't do that that's correct so i mean again sorry for my freshman ignorance here but so dead exclusion doesn't happen it needs to go into the budget the automatic response is we're gonna cut stuff in the city again i go back to my statement of priorities and i echo

what i believe council kadeem said when we go to the budget and say what are our priorities we all need to agree that if we're going to move forward with this diamond is the priority education is the priority but diamond is also in that list so respectful if i may yes um i would say that the the response is far from automatic um automatic suggests an unthinking reflexive response and this is not that this is um

an analysis of what it might look like even if you cut down all of those capital expenses to in a significant way would you be able to afford diamond and those and i think as a starting point the answer would be probably not that you'd have to pick one okay that's a starting point so the capital projects go away entirely and um uh i would concede that there there's probably a significant number of capital projects

that could be delayed for something as important as this no doubt and that's assuming that no revenues increase that's in that's assuming no revenue is increasing right so there's some things i'm willing to speculate on because i actually think i have enough information to guess at what that number is going to look like all right however uh the idea of revenue increasing we certainly know

that it's going to we certainly know that it's there's likely a two and a half percent increase year over year um what the assessment is going to yield is a is a little bit of a mystery it's a little bit of a question mark mystery is too mysterious um a little bit of a question mark as to what that's going to look like when the assessment comes back so i i did not admittedly

speculate about the stuff that i didn't think i had enough information to speculate on but what i would just ask you to consider is that the only reason my conclusion is that it is more than we would be able to just take out of the budget is that once you take out the most obvious thing which is the capital projects piece you then have to start looking at the ordinary line items in the budget

that may have been there for some period of time and that doesn't necessarily mean they're the priority and it doesn't necessarily mean they need to stay there but it does mean it's an effect on somebody or something whether it's in how people receive services or the person who you know is trying to manage a department and they got to do it with one less there is no part of what i'm saying that

is a qualitative analysis of that it is just saying that my speculation my my subjective opinion is that because the smaller percentage of capital projects are less than half of what the diamond bill would be that you need to find money elsewhere um and then finally i i will agree with you that that we certainly need to start thinking about this um in the future we need to start

planning in this way this has not always been a city where that sort of planning was always possible but i'm not saying it was impossible all the time there's certainly responsibility that i think the city probably bears in in not planning schools should be they should be palaces the teachers should be the highest-paid people on the on the on in the budget there's no question about that i think

we all agree with that it's just that uh getting in the mindset of planning that way and being able to anticipate these things is certainly easier said than done i'll i'll end i appreciate this tremendously because again being new to the process and sitting here and listening to the meeting last week i just scratched my head and said wow because we're talking about a very big important thing with no

outside of your presentation which was fabulous nothing zero nothing and i sit here and go how can i make a good choice a good vote when i know not a lot about it so i i think my call going forward and again it may not affect this but my call going forward is that we need to do more of this because i think we make a lot of short-term decisions to have long-term ramifications

we need to make long-term planning that will help us move forward that's my only call for success that i yield thank you councilman seat six council palatia thank you a long night but you know uh we built many schools and we got a lot of money from the state 40 50 60 percent uh i couldn't 11 schools maybe this comes in at a bad time with the turf it's just really bad timing although

you say you got six seven years into this and when you talk about uh the school and the repairs and i say to myself well there's 140 million i don't know if you're going to spend it all right away or when you're going to do the work but ada uh i'm sure is going to be crawling all over you uh we've done the watson school up up to flint and uh

they spent a lot of money up there but it seems like they speak you're right the school shrinks because you put the elevators in and and everything else so uh does the public want to spend possibly 140 million i mean do you notice we have to spend this how soon do you think you'd have to spend that kind of money uh before you get yourself in a situation we would have to start and mr excuse me

dr ferber can speak better than i can but i think such things such as the roof mr pelletier things such as the mechanicals i mean it's a 60 year old building it's 60 years old it's it's outlived its life it's it's treated fall river and it's surrounding communities very well many people on the board have sent children there and grandchildren it it's but it's it's old it's tired right now we are not

handicapped accessible in any of the shops none none i mean people are too close there's it's right now they came and did an audit and we have numerous violations they realize we're in the msba uh pool they know we have been and so obviously they're working with us but if we get a denial i mean i think almost immediately we're gonna have to put a plan together to begin the process i mean the roof leaks

if you go there it is at certain storms it's it's just we're trying to do the best we can i think a couple of people have taken the tour and i think odd maintenance people have done a great job but it's a 60 year old building in all due respects i know this is i'm saying this biased we just need a new building mr there's no question about it

and if we have to go that other route i personally think a personal opinion the amount of money spent the amount of space is lost it's going to completely be have that's going to have a devastating effect on that there's no question there's no absolute no question that's going to have a devastating effect and in turn i believe going to have a devastating effect on you people on the council and

the administration because the bill is going to come it's got to come and and again i just want to hop in back to this proposal i think that's why the msba starts this process with we come to the city council mr kadeem said it last i think was mr kadeem last meeting some of you may not have been here but we're required to even tell you about our statement of interest before

we go anywhere to let you all know that this is coming down the pike it's going to be a big number probably nobody thought it was going to be 111 million with the economy but that's why we got to come to you first and say to you we are going to do this please prepare for this day and and it's a shame that we now have to come before the board looking like we're

trying to burden the taxpayers that's obviously not our intent we understand the bill that was never our intent that's why when we started 10 years ago trying to put our statement of interest in trying to put our statement of interest in because this day was going to come but we always have to tell you guys we don't do this on our own and then say hey you guys you always this huge bill

so i i just don't want the public the city council and the administration and i've told the administration this today this is not something that diamond is trying to shove down anybody's throat not be transparent but the day has come day of reckoning has come with diamond and and that's the truth that's not a scare tactic it's the truth some of you went and visited you went business proposal i was with you

and you saw you saw how packers were using we're using closets for like offices i mean it's it's that bad so therefore i mean i don't want anybody to think we're trying to shove anybody anything down anybody's throat we're not we believe the day of reckless here we believe that we adequately notified prior administrations when this began and that's why we're here before you asking for your support in in getting

this done we do believe it's a priority it's a priority for us so i just wanted to answer that about planning because i agree but that's why we're going to come to you with a statement of interest i apologize no problem we're a little bit off on that i apologize and you know like i said most of the schools we got a lot of money to do it and to leave the building up

it was infeasible and it's the same thing here i mean at the state i got two figures 149 and 145. what is the right figure the figure goes from 140 to exactly i supplied this to mr excuse me mr rumsey today so i'm going to just read it off of my text message so i give you the exact figure it could range depending on the building from 145 million 772 694 that could go up to

million 671 dollars 938. all right i got the point that's a that's a that's a lot of money oh it's a lot of money a lot of money and uh if you weigh it out uh if you spend that other money you don't take this uh it's going to cost you 111 million uh to put the the new school up i mean you know i don't know too much a rhythm

and tick but i know this is a good deal you know i i don't i don't know what the people think about it but you know you got to shade this is what we got to do this is what we got to do and you know everybody that talked tonight in front of the council and their passion with the diamond school and what we've done for the kids for river somerset westport and

everything is fantastic i mean that's a great school and uh being a counselor i always get calls to try to get kids up there i probably got a few up there but it's been tough to get the kids up there maybe i didn't know the superintendent i got to know that guy you know but uh you know it it's crazy it's it's uh i think it's going to be done uh you know people are complaining that

eight of nine of us is going to decide uh for the people of fall river uh without no vote i mean i don't think that's right well you're gonna push that through you ain't gonna give us a chance no i think we ought to give the people of forward of a chance and the people from the surrounding towns to speak on it although you pretty well think that the surrounding towns are all set but

now the vote we have to pass anything tonight to put this on a ballot or does that go to the next meeting uh we don't need you to do anything that's a true statement no i apologize because point of clarification i don't know who at some point something needs to be done i don't understand i don't know all of the procedures aveto does what brings it back to brings it back to status quo yeah

so right now at some point in time mr pelletier and i don't want to speak it's either override of a veto or it is a new vote the veto vote take place tonight i know i know that it has to say i know there has to be i i know the state statue said seven days but it's ten days ten business days ten businesses if i make sure to click ask the president of the council

uh that is was told by her that we would have to a vote for the next meeting it'd be too late to have a special election uh is that the case uh madam president we can vote for an election tonight if we wait until tuesday we'd have to actually um the clerk would have to submit it to the elections tuesday evening it would have to count as the first day the elections office needs 35 days and

that brings us to april 11th so we need to be within the diamond 60-day deadline so to get it on the ballot we would have to vote tonight or tuesday and hand it to elections tuesday evening i was cutting it kind of close yeah well i i think yeah well i really think it's gonna need to go either way it's going to need to go in a special election either way a counselor

the question is what the wording will be which is fine which is why we need to vote tonight so i know what to put on the special ballot question as i said it's the will of this council but i'll write it according to the wellness council point of information that why why do we need a special election it's my opinion that interpretation of section 2-131 that by taking no action or by approving

this project that this council is in fact authorizing the issuance of a bond in excess of five million dollars no so we already clarified that there we can pay this we can pay the assessment without having to bond we are authorizing diamond to bond for this project yep diamond diamond but the payment from us is not coming from debt i really would like to see it come out out of the budget absolutely you know

the mayor is professing that we've got all kinds of businesses coming in all kinds of restaurants coming in all kinds of marijuana marijuana shop coming in uh you got the meal tax uh the money's gone a lot of restaurants every time you look at the papers there's a new restaurant opening somewhere they're gonna pay a meal tax uh you only want three four pot shop i think we're gonna

end up about seven eight nine ten who knows that money's going to come in two so uh in all the new businesses the way he talks is a bunch of businesses coming in so i think he should look at the budget and try to squeeze it out try to squeeze it out give the people a break you know i'm bad enough we get bmc turfy and i i want the school i want the school

uh because i know what i went through when i was a kid i didn't get much education and if i went to durfee maybe i could have been a plumber today who knows instead of a politician you know but i'm here and i got to do what i got to do i got your backs i want to see it and whatever i can do uh whatever avenue uh i gotta do it i'll take it with that

man i'm vice president are you attorney brilliant yeah i just it just has a point to go back to this and i agree mr kadeem i think it should be off the table but even reading the veto letter in paragraph two it specifically says as grounds for this veto is the position of the administration that any vote for the city to incur a debt obligation in excess of five million dollars must be ratified with

injuring the voters i think the initial question is is the city of fall river incurring a debt yes this is a debt it's an obligation but it's not a certificate of debt of indebtedness which is what's in the language i just have to say that i can't and i'm not going to argue with the point other than say school department can give you an 11 million dollar bill and that's not

considered the debt you know it's coming every year then how is this a debt well first of all that's a contract for services but but that's neither here nor there the bottom line attorney brilliant yes i'm sorry is um at least as far as we're concerned that if we don't pay you do you have legal recourse to to try to force us to do that we'll do a job then it's a debt point of information

so we've got a pension assessment we've got an unfunded liability we've we get those every single year over the over six million

dollars 31 million 276 195 total pension costs yearly if we don't pay that we're obligated to pay that like if i may as i said before this provision is in there to protect the taxpayers but i understand the opinion of this city council in the past to have this protection afforded to the taxpayers there will be a new bond issued well in excess of 5 million we're talking about a bond for 148 million dollars

that of that 110 111 the fall river taxpayers will have to pay over a 30-year period it will be bonded by the diamond school committee the this with this body will be authorizing a bond that will then cause the taxpayers to be on the hook for 110 million it may very well be a great decision i'm not suggesting for or against it but 2-131 applies point of information though what we're

authorizing is diamond to move forward and if they choose to go bond for a new building they could choose to do so what they're giving us is an assessment it's just going to be we're we're authorizing them to increase our assessment year over year it's semantics the the the well everything's responsible the pension was semantics too i mean that's still a requirement that we're we're obligated

to pesos health insurance so is everything else that's going to happen only one obligations it's not an act by the city council authorizing a new debt it's not a new bond all those things you're talking about what we're talking about here the reality is it's the action of this city council authorizing a bond to be taken out that is going to put the taxpayers an obligation to pay a debt well in excess of 5 million

point of point of clarification he's assuming the taxpayers will have to pay the debt unless it comes out of the operating budget

theoretically even even even the budget is the taxpayers money right but there won't be there won't be a need for an override correct correct conservancy too do you um you want the floor before i recognize council and see what's going on long enough i think i think we're ready to vote and leave them where it is but that um i just have one quick question is diamond regional vocational technical

high school a public school of fall river the former superintendent said it's a public school forever is it it's an independent it's right it's a reasonable it's a regional school right to understand that is it can we say it's a fall river or not no no it's an independent organization it's great technically the technical creative foreign okay and there's totally different state statutes that govern how

they do everything it's it's a very separate that's why we're doing this because it's different i get it thank you thank you thank you for watching clarification before i'm i'm final and i'm ready to more vote president has this president is going to talk he'll be quick attorney ramsey um right so if we vote to approve which i think we all want to do what will happen it'll still go uh before the voters yes but if

unless the will of this council is to also include language as to tax exemption and truthfully that could be their i'm sorry debt exclusion the tax exemption for the debt exclusion that could be that could be there for them to vote for but it doesn't matter meaning they would still pass even if that portion is not passed by the voters i'm having trouble understanding okay let me let me start if if we don't want to go

we approve we overwrite the veto whenever it's still going to have to have a specialist they'll still have an election no we don't think so you don't think so i know but i get to decide the interpretation of this time that's not what i'm about to say okay if you vote to approve without taking a vote for a special municipal election a an approval automatically doesn't mean an election so

misunderstanding my foundational question is i don't have this my foundation question is what will happen will the mayor's office have control over whether to put it on the ballot or not and if we do will we be challenged that it doesn't apply we don't want to get into litigation well but but i don't i think you have to decide as a as a body and if and if the city's against your

vote they've got to take action with all due respect i think the questions about interpretation the ordinance should be directed to me not counsel for diamond this is this is where i come in and i represent the city i represent the taxpayers i represent the city council i represent all of fall river in this in my opinion this ordinance is perfectly on point it's it's no different to suggest that somehow

this is inapplicable because it's diamonds bond versus fall rivers bond because if that were the case you could subvert the purpose of this ordinance very very easily you know suggesting we're just paying a bill it's not really fair to the taxpayers it's not just paying a bill we're authorizing diamond to take a bond out extremely significant bond we're talking about 148 million dollars

110 million of which fall over taxpayers are on the hook for it may be the right decision but we have to go buy the ordinance it's not an opinion i mean it's not something i want to happen it's what the ordinance requires to happen okay so looking at our our agenda um if we item number two we over over overturn the veto say that's a yes would you like to do that today but yeah

this is hypothetical right yes item number three we order a warrant for a special election say that passes yes so um we are our designation of polling places yes um order the ballot question yes so we can support the school and still vote for the election right that's my point absolutely i just want to clarify what is it that that vote with your options saying contingent vote no because if you once you occurred it's

approved now let me let me put it this way if you want to go you think his opinion differs to mine not an approval if he's saying it does not really confused even even an approval will have to go before the voters pursuant to two one three one okay thank you counselor and c3 council president thank you i wanted to thank you for clarifying uh tony brilliant last week and again this

weekend being very uh transparent thank you um you know the sentiment of this council last week and again this week is that we we want to support diamond we want to get this funded um i couldn't good and conscious because specific to you even saying that that the weight of that vote carried an approval for funding it wasn't just a uh you know feel good we support diamonds and you're correct you're correct this

is the conversation i wanted to have last week um i have um just a couple of comments and then i have a a question for my counselor in seat two um i think we would also all agree that the best use of funds is certainly not for repairs um they're not they're not reimbursable it's just not the best use of our funds is not the best idea for diamond i think to me that's

completely off the table counselor in seat two i'm curious i miss what you said when the city bonded for all of the schools previously do you know what that total amount was it depended on the cost of schools as we got further later on the years the schools get more expensive that's one of the reasons that we have to increase the amount to borrow to the 500 thousand because this school's getting

more expensive but what do you mean there were several done at the same time yeah to what was the i don't remember the totals off the top of my head but we can get that for you i mean it was it was amazing we didn't i forgot what it was what's this we bought it for what hit school was going to cost so i'm sorry councilman c one did you

say four six months it was like 40 or 60 million at the time per school the schools were cheaper back than with smaller schools right but per school but we did multiple at the same time so still the same amount as what they're asking us for correct we did if we did four schools and they were 60 million dollars well i mean we didn't do four in one year we did two

and then a couple years later we did another two we did these first schools that we did with the henry but they were overlapping henry lawrence prior to this prior to it took pride in me behind the council they did overlap yeah they all basically left they were 30 years 28 bonds but we did them very close together yeah we did two one year then a couple years went by we did another two

um i want to say was the uh the green school and the vera school and then we did the um the dormant school

yeah but i don't remember the total months but the schools were not as in as large as durfee high school was in diamond high school woods but the quantity of them is the same long time ago a lot different prices mr pachico's here he might remember i don't so but but the quantity of them how can i add it all you know i don't know that the quantity up together was this amount of money but

i can tell you this as i said earlier they don't get cheaper the longer you wait to build them to get more expensive like the cso project it gets more expensive and i understand everyone's argument and i do have to say as some of my colleagues have said i want to thank each and every one of you being as honest honest and transparent and upright as possible because i think this is a

great conversation to have this way and you've all been extremely professional and we've acted so far i know it's going to continue but you really can't compare those schools to these schools because it was different tax base it was different it was a different time but do i believe we can afford this one i think it's going to be difficult i don't think it's going to be easy none

of the decisions are easy for anyone but my point is the need is just it needs to happen and i think we can absorb it in the tax base and i think we can make some changes and you know address and it's not just us because we're not going to be here for the next 30 years i don't think it's prior administrations and prior counselors who want to see are going to

have to make the same type of decisions whether we get the money for to pay for it as we've done in the past and we'll continue to do you know just look at what a gallon of milk costs when we started these projects a long time ago look what diapers cost look at what the cost of cars were everything homes it's gradually always going to go up and up and it's a matter of decision you

have to make do you want to pay to do repairs and no reimbursement in the near future or do you want to bite the bullet and put a brand new school down wouldn't the state's willing to take up a large portion of it so it's a decision that we have to make it's not easy and everyone's going to make tough decisions the administration's you know um not the only administration that hasn't prepared

for this my colleague in city brought up a good question why to prepare for it it's not it's not their fault that they were in office in short appearance prior administrations should have prepared diamonds working on this for a long time probably should have been been built prior to dirty being built because it was an older school and it wasn't but it didn't happen they just didn't didn't fit into the timeline then

now we have an opportunity to do something about it and i was never confused by it as some of my colleagues who were never confused to buy it either and i think we should just rip and vote on it because it's getting later and it's going to get more expensive by the time this meeting is over so yeah i can't answer your question what the exact comments were but council

camera if i if i may just want to let you know i mean although my colleagues and i may disagree on interpretation of uh 2131 i've dealt with them behind the scenes both attorney brilliant and dr ferreira and they've been a pleasure 100 percent i understand i think everyone's well aware of that you guys have been outstanding um my only final piece is if this does go to the voters whether it's the will of

the council that they want the voters if they agree with the audience or not um and if they do agree with the audience to me the spirit of the ordinance and i had this conversation with attorney rumsey is just do you agree with do you support diamond i don't think it should be do you support diamond but only if this is the mechanism of paying for i don't think that's fair to the voters i

don't think that gets their true sentiment of support and i don't think that that's fair to diamond i think it should be a you know a yes or a no vote and then i don't know if it's a possibility to have options on there but if it's not it's a yes or a no vote it shouldn't be that i think that's for the council to decide i know the what's in front of us

is what the sentiment of the administration is because the administration believes that it can only be funded through a debt exclusion but i don't think that that is fair and i don't think that that's the spirit of the ordinance i think it needs to be yes or no if that is the will of the council and with that i yield thank you councilman c one thank you madam vice president for the administration do we know if

there are other building projects from the four of the school department coming before us we do we do will we be supporting that will we be funding those so i know you're not a lawyer but lawyers only ask questions they know the answers to and i think you know exactly what the answers to those questions are counselor um obviously uh we all know that there are going to be building projects for

schools coming before the council soon um and we will be doing what i would argue we're doing here which is supporting this but with each one i think there are different pressures that those put on our budget and likewise on the taxpayers so would we anticipate with those projects coming down from the school department would be also looking to take votes on debt exclusions for those projects or

i can't speak to each of the projects i don't know the cost of each of the projects yet i know there's going to be savings of interest from what i understand on several different projects obviously you know makes that timing challenging uh but um i think we would have to take them case by case okay so for my colleagues just i hope you heard that so if we support diamond we support diamond

if we don't want to fund it just know that there are other projects coming back from the school department that we've already funded a ton of projects for so just getting that on the record um in terms again and i'm going to be very very frank i truly don't believe the ordinance applies that's me personally we can disagree however it's an assessment we've got pension assessments that we're required to

fund and i've have it here we can take it from the revenue the tax levy that already comes in we can minimize the impact to the taxpayer by making sure that it's coming out of our tax levy we control that so for the counselors who continue to say that it should still go to the taxpayers i would say that we are a little bit hypocritical just a little bit um and i

don't i this is no dig or trying to uh throw anybody under the bus however we're talking about six million dollars per year okay that's two percent two percent of our 330 million dollar budget we've got a 500 page document here 500 pages 330 million dollars we never bring this to the voters every june every june we make decisions on items that are way more than six million dollars we never

go back to the tax to the voters and ask the voters to take a vote if we did we would have an open town meeting the charter again which was voted on by the voters says that we have a city council form of government it's funny i see uh mr hessler in in the audience every time we go to vote on taxes for the tax rate and the tax shift he's always coming down before us

advocating for us not to shift the burden onto commercial property do we ever take that vote because there's significant impacts to the taxpayers at that point do we ever take make take that decision and bring it back to the voters and say please tell us what you want the tax shift to be in the tax factor or is it understood every two years in november when people go out to the ballot and

vote for their city councilors to represent them that they are going to be making decisions difficult decisions not easy decisions difficult decisions that impact their wallets on a daily basis and i would argue to you that that is yes i would ask the attorneys also in law and i'm not an attorney when you get documents and there's disagreements because there's always disagreement with documents

you get an arbitrator or a mediator before you does intent come into play the intent of the document the intent of the wording in the language so i would argue then and i'm not an attorney i would argue that the intent of the ordinance was dealing with debt associated to the fall river to the city of florida that that is going to be taken out by the city of far river

i would take it one step further that the language that is in the agreement for diamond regional the intent was that they come back before us before they increase their assessment to get authorization for those communities and that's what they have done two different intents i got to be honest with you i don't think there's any city councilor who said you know this is exactly going to

be applying to diamond or to bristol aggie that was never the case the case was always about what the city council is going to authorize for direct debt okay so we can't ignore the intent so from my standpoint the ordinance has to be off the table and i forgot about a conversation that i had with the former chief financial officer and i just had it with her the other day we were having a conversation about diamond

she told me that she had a conversation with the mayor and i and this is what i forgot that actually rick manley what is bond council for the city of forever she reached out to talk about the exact process and was told at that point that it did not apply so i think that's important to note as well now just let me briefly interrupt you and i just wanted to make this and i forgot as well

i was told today and i'm not putting anybody on the spot because we have a very good relationship that the ballot question that's in your packet is the same ballot question that durfee high school had they said they they give it to it they gave it to us for the purpose of saying that they wanted to be consistent and i appreciate that but if you look at that it's only a tax debt exclusion

it's nothing about the statute now excuse me the ordinance doesn't ask for the people who say durfee's okay that was what the ballot question was that's what i was told today so how can it be a valid question for us to to satisfy 2-131 but it doesn't have any mention when jeffrey high school did it and that's a substantial amount of money and i was told that and i could be 100

wrong but i was told that they wanted to make sure that they were fair to us and give us the same battle question they didn't want it the administration and i appreciate that didn't want to put a different ballot question on there just so that it was no so diamond wasn't treated any differently in durfee that's not a that's not a question and and i know my brother has told me today that something about a tax

debt exclusion vote is an implication that you're complying with 2-131 which i adamantly don't agree with but but that's there's the question doesn't mention and i wasn't i didn't i wasn't involved with durfee i i voted for durfee but i can't see how that was the question back then that they put on the ballot why are we being treated differently why why does that ordinance all of a sudden pertain to diner

i just i i have though i don't want this like like this but but i just really have those questions and and on that i yield that and i was saying that because what what mr dean was alluding to i i don't think it applies i don't think it was applied to durfee i don't think it was mentioned when durfee was built um and now it is that exclusion you have every right in

the world to take a vote on the debt exclusion obviously i don't have to tell you that that's a whole different vote that can be a ballot question you're not at the fund the front door if you did it if you guys want to take a ballot question on on on a tax exemption or override a proposition two and a half based on how you're going to pay for this you have the right to do that

but i don't think we should be treated any differently in durfee high school i really believe that i think we we we service the the children of fall river in a different way than durfee but we we present a value to the city of florida that's as great as dirk and and i apologize it's okay and and again i i go one step further i mean so if the intent is to ask and i'm not

trying to avoid questions to the to the voters but i also don't need to circumvent what my responsibility is so if if i take a tough decision and the voters of forward want to not re-elect me then that's on them the choice is on them but i swore an oath to do my responsibility and this is the responsibility so if we've got if we've got additional building projects that are going to be coming before us from

the four of a school department then we need to support diamond because they've never been before us except four years ago when we gave them the authorization to move forward with this this letter of uh the notice of intent to support them so again and if we are going to go to the to the voters because we want us we want to skir our responsibility then i would make an argument that we

also need to put on the on the ballot a change in the charter so that we change our form of government because we got to be consistent if we want the voters to have a say then we need an open town meeting we need to eliminate the city council and we need an open town meeting where every registered voter has the right to approve budgets bonding ordinance everything that this city council does so let's let's do

let's go to the voters and let then let's also change our form of government and let's support both because that's what we need to do with that if if we disapprove this diamond will go back to or request i would assume a request an actual vote of the communities we have that option okay we have to take it up on the vote in our next meeting what happens what happens if all the other communities

support it but the city of florida fails it fails absolutely okay so just focus with the regional vote it's the same thing it's majority vote of the everybody in the region all told thank you so just recognize that so our decision not only impacts the city of fall river but it impacts westport somerset and swansea okay it's not very often that we have votes that impact other communities as significant as this

and again and i agree my colleague in c2 you know diamond has been very very good they've never come before us for funding or any type of other financial mechanism outside of of the assessment and i think we owe it to to the people here and i don't think we need to veto this i don't think we need to change anything i don't think we need to vote on uh approve a special election

or anything that's before us i think we've already taken our vote and we should let it be mr kadeem i just want the board to know that diamond has never assessed far or beyond minimum could you please speak into the microphone i apologize diamond has never assessed forever beyond the minimum required never we've never done we've never gone beyond that we'll have to go beyond it

if in fact we do those repairs as stated but we've never done that to the city we've always tried to keep it at the minimum without a year thank you council right before i um go back to cancer the seat five counselor on seat two has not taken the floor counselor come here i just want to get one quick question now council you pointed out at the um and i'll be real brief

that the ballot question for durfee was the exact same as diamond but it's not after they took out i was told that today well no no it's only two words that are different so called is there a purpose to take so called out or does it because it hurt my soul to include it is terrible it just was i i was trying to keep it as consistent as possible but the word and so was so

unnecessary that it hurt my soul to include it so i took it out okay so i make sure that's the reason i'm not attorney and i know sometimes there's certain words that mean a lot different so i just want to make sure that's fine it feels like so-called when it was originally included yeah sort of you know in a lot of ways underestimated the voter and their ability to understand what was being

talked about when you said propositions shouldn't have so called and and that's just that's a little experience i was just looking at both of them and i'm saying this is the difference with that thank you and and we're ready to go again thank you councilman c5 council lee the um the 110 estimated debt that that was mentioned before attorney ramsey right um and then comparing it to uh

if we if the vote failed as it was asked just a little earlier um we're talking about 110 to about 148 at the most estimated so far 140 million yes yes estimated so far correct in repairs we would be looking to bond yes oh the repairs are between 156 and 165 million so that should be 165 million without any reimbursements correct and that's all and that's just based on that's a

rough estimate that's not that was part of the fee we didn't do it the architects as part of the feasibility study that we paid the 1.5 million dollar we paid just so you know we're already on the hook for 1.5 million okay and we haven't assessed anybody for that either we've in year one we've taken that all on within our own budget to not go back to the cities or towns to

ask if any money to help us with the with the feasibility stuff we even create that and part of that feasibility study they did an assessment of bringing us up to code and handicap accessibility and that number became between 156 million and 162 million that's straight repairs so mr aiken yes sir um it's the administration's word on this document basically that a debt exclusion is the only way it

could pay for this 110 in debt correct am i wrong on that so as was established before it's a subjective opinion but when i look at what the numbers look like it seems to me that we'd have to find an additional two to three million dollars a year to pay for the diamond debt once we took out all the capital improvement projects if it failed let's say it goes to the voters and it failed

it comes back it comes back to the repair number the 165 without the reimbursement so it's actually just again opinions but it's actually in the best interest of the taxpayer to just just you know they're more than just that option and i just want to be clear here okay i mean diamond has a number of options and you know i wouldn't suggest tell them how to do their job but you know you you look

through how it's happening in other communities if it if it is a disapproval or a true failure where you know it's not approved by the voters they have the ability to reduce the the cost and resubmit and starts over they have the ability to have a regional vote and those seem to be the main two options or just you know scrap the projects which doesn't sound like that's going to happen so

but yes but if it lands if it landed like you know just if it did land that that where they said now we have to go into the repairs because every other option failed or whatever would the city be ready to pay for that it would be a challenge to the city to pay for that um now i would say that well hold on i got you i'm with you actually i'm

going to stop before i say something inappropriate it would be challenging the entire 165 wouldn't be entirely the city's debt right understood so 76 of that thereabouts would be so it's still it's a significant number uh i would argue that similar to the need to do repairs on one's own home there's certain repairs that you absolutely have to do that you can't live without and i

think there's this portion of that that are those and there's going to be other repairs that would happen over a period of time does it make it any better no and it's a terrible solution the only thing we're advocating for is a vote not not doing it it just seems to me that just with all this information it just seems to me that going for this approvingness is still the better option

than disapproval just in its basic element form you know that's that's the way it looks like to me i know i know and i'm just saying it out loud i think that um we've talked about the taxpayers a million different times in a million different ways tonight and i think at the very end of it you know we don't want this to fail not just because we want diamond to be

successful but i think it's in the best interest of the taxpayer that the project go through as well when we look at the ultimate ramification if it ultimately fails may i just give you another possible scenario because attorney runs he's right let's assume that you said this was all contingent i'm sorry this was all contingent on a debt exclusion vote okay and you went for a debt exclusion bill and it failed

it failed okay so that would be a disapproval you guys would say that you're not gonna we're not gonna do diamond we would still have the right to go to 61 and have a regional vote if we win the regional vote you have to find it in the budget because you can't go for that exclusion again one way or another it's going to so so yeah you're talking about a scenario that this city

yeah you gotta you gotta take the you know the good with the bad i mean if you want if you want a priority prioritize diamond and you know keep in mind keep in mind the one thing we have to distinguish there is under uh subsection in that would be based upon the regional vote of the people so 131 wouldn't apply it wouldn't be this city council that's causing the

debt it will be a regional vote for the people so 131 wouldn't apply so if the regional vote passed it's done but you're still going to have a bill of 111 000 that's absolutely right but the point is but the point is the ordinance doesn't prevent that from happening the ordinance prevents this body from causing it to happen because i mean honestly the regional vote is the voice of the people so it'd be be

ridiculous to then get the voice to people a second time oh there was a lot of you know a lot of conversation this week about who was confused and who wasn't confused and things like that and i think that ultimately one way or another this is going to land in some kind of taxpayer vote some one way or another and you know whether it's through your you know recommendation or otherwise so i you

know i feel as though um i think we should all just approve this this is the way i think this the best way it is financially and for the taxpayer and just for the fact that um you know diamond's a great school that can do a lot of great things for our community economically and educationally so that i yield thank you thank you counselors council camara thank you well

i just want to wrap it up with this um turning point i have to ask you this question you've been a diamond for so long how did it get in that much disrepair 116 million dollars i mean i don't mean to be very honest with you when you say that they came up with a number we didn't okay but but if you walk to your school you would see that it's fairly

well maintained but the things in the foundation that are that are completely rotting our roof needs to be totally repaired our boilers are 60 years old we're keeping them together every day that maintenance staff every day is doing a job to run the the building on a day to day basis okay so that number came from the feasibility study and i'm not going to sit here i'm not a contractor and say is

it a mill is it 100 million and not 160 million it's in it's in grave need one of the biggest issues we've had and dr ferreira can speak on it you have to have certain when you're going to a shop they're working on on the on the um machines okay for instance you have to have a certain space if somebody's handicapped to get in and out we don't have any of it and none of them

all all of the shops have to be totally totally retrofitted i mean it will be a have a devastating effect a school that has 1400 kids and i'm not i'm not gonna speculate but maybe i can we're gonna lose a vast number of kids that are gonna lose out on a vocational education just by virtue of meeting the ada and your compliance ada compliance exactly and i don't think it's because i'm and i

and i say this i don't think it's on maintenance staff not doing a good job i'm not saying it is i'm just no i know because but it's a lot of money there's no question and and i think one of the other things and andrew was there linda i think went um the space itself how many lunch how many lunches do we have now five we start lunch at 10 30 in the morning

to have kids eat because we can't fit them the school was built for 800 kids we have 1400 plus children we have almost double for what it was built for it's it's given us it's giving fall river swansea somerset and westport a great life trust me a great life it's just time it really is and i can't say it any other way it's it's time all right with that idea thank you thank

you counselor counselor c3 council vice president i have just one more question so we're still in disagreement as to whether 2-131 is in effect well we're not an unanimous agreement but right you you say it's in effect we don't have the the ability to take this vote on the other side we have the ability it's not an effect well if it's not i'm going to ask a question and how diffies bonding is wrong then

somebody better check on it because your bond council already said it wasn't when you bonded because it never came up if that's the vote let's deal with the issue before us we're not going back to durfee high school i i have to respectfully say we're not going to solve all the city's problems today let's deal with the diamond high school right now i'd like to have an answer i'd like to hear

johnny i was just told that that i was just told that that was what the duffy vote was that's what he told jeffy i'll take a shot i'll explain it to you remember the purpose of intent in the intent of 131 is that the people have a voice it actually limits the legislative body's power to some degree you can vote up to you know 4.999 million and you can

vote much past that if you have a state subsidy of over 51 percent problem is here we don't have a 51 subsidy despite the numbers that are thrown out there it's actually 49-ish 48 percent it's not 51 or higher and number two it's over 5 million so to suggest that a ballot question for durfee high school where the voters authorized increasing their taxes to pay for that somehow didn't authorize a debt is to me

disingenuous clearly they voted in a favor point of information point of information and this is where this is where i struggle because we are not listening to the facts if if we authorize diamond we could not saying that we want to we could not go to the to the levy next year two and a half percent okay and we still have tax levy of a hundred and seventeen million dollars zero percent increase year over

year let's assume new growth never comes in okay we have revenue revenue disposable money money in the bank that is coming in of a hundred and seventeen million dollars we at no point need to go out to bonds an assessment is coming in from diamond to us we are going to take six million dollars from the tax levy zero increase in this scenario zero increase to the taxpayer okay zero

of the hundred and seventeen million it was 116 rounded up to 117. 117 million we're going to take six million dollars that leaves a 110 million dollars of the tax levy so when we talk about intent we did not we did not put any burden on the taxpayers we did not add any additional debt to the budget we paid in a assessment it's an assessment it's our portion of funding for a school okay

which happens to include debt from the school just like it includes transportation we do not have to at any point i will say and i don't disagree with the administration that means we have to make some significant decisions internally and reallocate and maybe reduce and maybe cut staffing whatever the case may be that that's a reality of the situation but there's a hundred and seventeen million dollars there

my suggestion is this um to make it clear for what the ballot language would be if this city council would take a vote one would be whether or not to include the ballot question will include 2-131 at a minimum now if we have the proposition two and a half one there we don't necessarily need 131 it depends on what the role this council is but my my suggestion is you vote whether or not

number one you want to include the proposition two and a half language and number two you can vote whether or not that's binding so for example the voters could easily vote to approve a bond for greater than five billion dollars for the new diamond high school and then they could vote number two if you wanted to add number two whether or not a proposition two and a half would apply the same language for

durfee high school but but whether not they agree to proposition two and a half it doesn't have to be implemented i mean in other words it wouldn't necessarily fail if they rejected proposition two and a half once again that would be up to you so that's kind of the third vote would a voter rejection proposition two and a half is that an advisory thing or or does the whole thing fall apart

if you understand what i'm saying there so if this if this council decides not to have a proposition two and a half language then i'm going to require just this is straight 131 language yes yes now if it's already going to have a special ballot with the 131 language in there does this council want to have a second question to see if the voters will approve two and a half that wouldn't necessarily kill the project it

wouldn't necessarily be a disapproval while you have the voters voicing their opinion on it why not get their opinion on whether or not they they agree to the the proposition two and a half exemption but i mean that's that's what this council has decide i'll make sure whatever this council decides happens so with one exception it'll be it'll be my mandate that this language it'll be my opinion that this is

action or inaction on the part of this council is authorizing diamond to issue a bond in excess of 5 million which will require voter approval so how would the motion be written and what exactly would it be to include that in the vote i would start with a motion whether or not to include the language that is before you about proposition two and a half on a ballot question and once that's done a second vote

should be whether or not that the response um i'm trying to get better language i mean in common sense whether it kills it or not it could be just more of an advisory meaning if they reject it we're still going to go forward but if they vote in favor of it then that's how we're going to pay for it if they vote in favor of it it's we know how we're paying for it

if they decline it then we're going to have to figure out a way like uh counselor kadema suggested but we if they pass 131 then we can still do it so i don't think i understood you to include 131 in that ballot question okay let me the first question is whether or not this city council is in favor of approving the funding for diamond high school um only if the proposition two and a half

has passed or regardless of whether proposition two and a half is passed that's the first question because if it's the vote of this council that the only way you're going to approve of this the contingent approval is based upon the the voters uh saying we can be exempt from proposition two and a half then i do not need to include the language of ordinance two one three one okay now

if it's the will of this city council that they want to find out whether or not the voters will approve the exemptions for proposition two and a half but it's not binding it's more we just want to know if they are willing to then if that's not binding language if that doesn't kill the project then i have to include 131 because 131 sayings we're approving the debt they might not want their taxes raised

but they're approving the debt just like any other project over 5 million dollars

so really the first i think the first vote taken by this council is whether or not this goes forward if it's required for the voters to vote in favor of the proposition two and a half exemption that's all we need and then from there we take that exclusion that's right if that's a requirement for this approval the board is the debt exclusion that's that's the question one that i would need to know

and i'm not suggesting this but that's what i would need to know can i just so what you're saying excuse me one second yeah then you'll be free so what you're saying is that we would be adamantly saying the voter has to say yes they approved the debt exclusion it's the only way they're willing to fund this project no i'm saying if we're not giving them the option i'm asking

just a bond no my point is i'm asking you that's that's the question posed to you that's not a question i can answer the question is whether or not it's the will of this city council that this project only goes forward if the voters vote in favor of the debt exclusion and if the answer is no it sounds like council camaro says no that we don't want that i'm not speaking for my

colleagues right i understand that but i think we've been over here for a few hours already said that we feel that i know people say that but when it comes to a vote sometimes it changes oh not me in the budget corporation council if it is the will of this council to um send it to the voters but we don't require a debt exclusion if this council wants to go forward whether or not the

there's a dead exclusion what is what does that look like well i guess the the the second part of that is you know we have to have the 131 language which is very easy do you approve of you know a debt in excess of five million dollars to pay for the donation it can be that generic you got to do something different because it's not your debt it's odd debt so it's got to

be worth definitely we can work but it's easy enough to take care of so my question is if we're paying for a special election we're having a special election on april 11th even if the the debt exclusion is not binding would you like to add the second question to see if they agree to it even if it's non-binding it's it's it's we we're having a special election at a great cost is that something this city

council wants to include as a second question it's up to you i take no position in whether it should or should not be included okay first and foremost diamond regional submitted a question to this city council it was could you please speak into the world diamond regional submitted a question to the city council the question is simple do you authorize us us to go out and borrow 100 and 200 excuse me 293 no yes

the total number and then we get reimbursed i apologize do you do you authorize us to go and get the 293 million dollars that's the question we need answered attorney rumsey's saying i i think and i don't want to speak for him because he's very he's capable of speaking for himself that you under 2-13 a vote has to be taken as to whether or not he's he's proposing a special municipal election to say

will you allow diamond to go borrow 293 million dollars that's the only way you satisfy to 131 and then the next question is do you want to have a debt exclusion the two 2-131 is an authorization type of ordinance authorizing i again don't think it applies and i think ron counsel has said that and and didn't happen in different for all those reasons i'm not going to regurgitate

those but that's the first question that we need for the msba do you approve and authorize us to go out to borrow 293 000 if you're going to say if i don't think it applies but if you're going to say 2 excuse me 2-131 applies that's the question then the funding is a separate and distinct matter like i told president lebeau on february 22nd that's the question we need answered

that's it how you fund it i don't mean to be disrespectful about this it's up to you guys either that exclusion or through your budget that can again one of the towns is going to take it up next year they're not even dealing with it they voted yes in a town meeting and they're not taking the issue up okay look at it it makes sense as i said i i don't have a position i

really don't care but it makes sense if we're going to have a ballot question and i'm telling you we will and we have something on april 11th that if the administration is giving information to the city council you know i'm not a part of that but i heard it as well as you did that they don't think they can pay for it um the question is you know what's the harm of including that second

question that may be non-binding it can be non-binding but if they agree for you know the tax issue then we're fine otherwise you know and if they don't vote for it assuming some worst case scenario where people get laid off well that's that was the will of people that's what they voted for they wanted the school i don't they didn't want their tax to go up but they do went to school

so again how would that be framed what would be the motion exactly i guess i'll ask the president well so we're only on item one so we're not actually on that we still have to uh lay this on the table move to item two which is the order and the warrant and and then we would deal with with that then okay move the agenda kelsey vice president still has the floor are you going you're yelled

anything further from the council yeah on item i'm sorry i don't want to lay on the table emotionally on the table made by council kajim seconded by counselor kamara do we need to um we don't need a vocal number all in favor aye any opposed so voted item three is an order and warrant scheduling a special election for april 11 2022

either oh and madam clerk yes so the first is the order um i'll read the order as it was drafted upon consideration of the greater fall river vocational school district committee's vote to approve an appropriation in the amount of 293 million four hundred seventy nine thousand seven hundred sixty dollars for the construction of a new diamond regional vocational technical high school the city council of fall river

states as follows pursuant to section 2-131 of the code of the city of fall river the city council must disapprove of the greater fall river vocational school district committee's proposed appropriation until receiving approval from the voters this vote of the city council will automatically change to an approval of the project if the majority of voters approve of an exemption from the provisional

excuse me from the provisions of proposition two in one half a special election will take place in the city of fall river on april 11 2022 for the sole purpose of determining if the voters of fall river will approve of an exemption from the provisions of proposition two in one half which is deemed necessary to pay for the bonds issued to build the new diamond regional vocational technical high school

corporation council if the council the city council agrees that this needs to go because of the ordinance however if we just want it as a yes or no question without a funding mechanism applied then the second sentence and the second paragraph would come out correct would that take care of that

that's correct or what it still need to say will automatically change to an approval of the project if the majority of the voters approve but take out an exemption from the yeah voters approve of the issuance of a bond and we could put by the diamond regional school committee and that would take the and we can just put a special election will take place in the city of fall

river on april 11 2022 and just put a period at the end of that

any discussion from the council i'm going to click it could i have it read back as to what's proposed do you have the order yeah i do okay so what my question was because i my position is if we can i just move this forward whatever the motion is i'm going to object so it's going to lay on the table so it doesn't matter so can somebody just make a motion to approve

well then we have to have this conversation again at the next meeting doesn't matter that's i have the right to vote so i'm i'm objecting so if we want to waste time it's already temporary i i think we should probably get the language correct before he has to object during a vote correct madam clerk he can't object during conversation he has him checked during a vote someone objects can you still converse no clerk

we need to take a vote he has to object during a vote we're not voting right now we're having a discussion after objecting the roll call vote during the vote he would have to object let's i'm just being transparent so but if counselors have questions and i just want to let everybody know that we have to have uh this vote by monday what's the deadline it's monday tuesday so tuesday if this vote is not taken

until tuesday they would have to have the mayor sign it after the meeting and hand it to elections on tuesday why don't we have the special elections i mean a special meeting why did i cancel all my plans to come here tonight is with my question when we have a meeting on tuesday because you got to be kidding me i'm going to be honest i said that i wasn't available for tonight i rescheduled things

and now i'm being told that we can wait until tuesday okay all right then that that would happen all of those other things would have to happen kind of sounds good so it's par for the cost we know exactly what's going on okay we don't have a motion on the floor motion to do that correct i would like to benefits it would be a motion to adopt or emotion

to deny this order that's in front of us counselors second washington tonight made by councillor pereira seconded by council lee i don't know do you need a roll call now he can object and you can moses to tonight so he can object you're doing a motion to deny the election yeah yeah okay i want it to be that i want to i'll second that the voters hey

i make the motion do it i want it to be that it comes out of taxes make the motion i'm sorry counselor what did you say i didn't hear what you said you want it to be what i don't want to put a question on the ballot for an override correct i'd like it to come out of our budget okay people are already paying for school if anybody on this council wants to help the

taxpayers then take it out we'd like to be able to hear council don't speak please they want a new school but how are some people going to afford it we have a terrible problem with housing and there are people that are struggling take it out of the budget we got to work we've got to work with it with the people of the city so my motion is to deny motion it deny made by council

foreign second by council lee madam clerk do you need a local yes i would suggest just for clarification it's a motion to deny the order to have a special election for april 11 2022. that is what is important that is correct so a no vote would be there would be no special election no no yes foreign right okay okay thank you counselors kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby no lee yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal

yes and president la liberty labeau yes what's the tally madame 7-2 thank you next what our business we have the warrant which would call the special election on 11 excuse me april 11 to cast uh the votes which would fund the fund funding to build a new diamond regional vocational technical high school wasn't that what we just voted on it's the order separate in essence

pereira i'm granting the item leave to withdraw counselors kadeem yes camara yes dion yes kilby lee pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes and president libyan above yes have the order designating polling places motion and grant leaves a withdrawal second motion group made by councillor kadeem seconded by councillor pereira final clerk council is kadeem yes camara yes dan yes kilby yes lee

pelletier yes herrera yeah proposal yes and president libby lebeau yes and lastly we have the order uh placing the ballot question martian grant solicitor would leave with grant leave to withdraw second motion grant leave to withdraw made by council kadeem seconded by councillor camara council is kadeem yes camara yes dion yes kilby lee yes pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes and president le libo yes

that's all we have motion to adjourn mostly jordan made by councillor pozo second by concept kilby

you