4.21.26 Committee on Ordinances and Legislation

Good afternoon. The City Council Committee on Ordinance to Legislation will be called to order April 21st, 2026. The time is now 531. Clerk, call the roll, please. Councilor Kadim. Here. Councilor Canuel. Here. Councilor Dion. Here. Councilor Pereira.

Chair Raposa. Here, and just before the meeting, Council Member did notify us she would not be in attendance this afternoon. Pursuant to the open meeting, while any person may make an audio/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 deemed acknowledged and permissible. First item on our agenda this afternoon is citizens' input. Thank you, sir. We do have one resident.

Christopher Gordon, 150 Archer Street, Fall River. Subject is zoning and noise. Come on down, sir. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir. If you could state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes. My name is Christopher Gordon. I live at 150 Archer Street. I'm here today because our neighboring communities are currently facing the arrival of resource-intensive hyperscale data centers.

I would ask this committee to proactively review our zoning and noise ordinances to ensure Fall River is protected from such energy-intensive projects at the expense of our residents. I'd like to urge this committee to follow the lead of cities like Lowell and establish a clear definition for hyperscale data centers in our city code, one that requires a

special permit and mandatory independent studies on noise and water impact. Currently, companies that construct the facilities attempt to bypass review by claiming they fall under the category of light industrial use, when in fact they're a high impact utility that consumes millions of gallons of water, requires electrical loads that will strain our local grid, and creates persistent noise

through their use of industrial cooling fans. The community faces a financial risk through the infrastructure upgrades required for these facilities being passed along to Fall River families through higher utility costs. I ask that this council strengthen ordinances to specifically address the noise from industrial cooling fans and to signal support for Bill HD 5404, the Ratepayer Protection

Act. We must ensure that billion-dollar tech companies pay all their own infrastructure costs and are not subsidized by local ratepayers. Innovation in Fall River is necessary and welcome, but not at the cost of our quiet neighborhoods or the stability of our utility bills. Councilor Raposo, I hope the committee will lead the way to putting Fall River

residents first by studying a proactive zoning amendment. Thank you. - Thank you, sir. Councilor Deon. - So what types of companies exactly are pursuing this? - So I don't have the name of the company. I know that there's one pursuing it in Somerset.

Because of the access to the water. And it's strictly for cooling fans? Yes. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Anything else? Councilor Kinnion. Are you aware of any project potentially coming to Fall River or any type? Not at this point, no. Okay. This is just proactive. You're welcome, Councilor. Thank you, sir. If you could possibly provide your information

to the clerk and a copy of your letter, that would be great. We'll share that with the committee. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day, sir. Item number two on our agenda this afternoon is the minutes for the April 6, 2026 meeting. Motion to approve. Second.

Motion to approve made by Vice President Deon, second by Councillor Cagnoull. Any discussion?

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Item number three is proposed ordinance traffic handicap parking referred 4/14/2026, Hope Street South 39 feet east of Grant Street and Park Street South 113 feet west of Ridge Street. Is there a motion?

Motion to be accompanied by an emergency preamble. Motion for emergency preamble made by Vice President Dion. Second. Second by Councillor Cagnall. Roll call. Roll call on the emergency preamble. Councillor Cadeem. Yes. Councillor Cagnall. Yes. Councillor Dion. Yes.

Councillor Ferraro. Chair Raposo. Yes. Further motion. Recommend an ordinance be passed through first reading, second reading, enrollment, and ordination. Second. Motion to pass through all readings made by Vice President Deon, second by Councillor Kadeem. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Item number four this afternoon is proposed ordinance traffic

miscellaneous referred to the committee on 4/14/2026. Section one is parking prohibited during all times. These are inserts to Brightman Street North 30 feet of Lindsay Street and Pine Street South 244 feet West of Robeson Street. Section two is parking prohibited during all times strikeouts Brightman Street North 100 feet of Lindsay Street. And section

three is handicapped parking removals is Eddie Street West, 152 feet south of Locust Street. Recommend ordinance be passed through first reading. Second. Motion made by Vice President Dion for passing first reading is made. Second by Council O'Cannial.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it.

McElhinney director of human resources And O'Neill Sousa, Interim City Administrator. Thank you both. Mr.

McElhinney, would you like to speak to the committee regarding this proposed amendment? Sure. So this should have come down earlier. This should have come down at the same time as the building commissioner. It was an oversight, and then it was supposed to sync up so that it would be on the same agenda, but the blizzard threw all of that off, so that's why you're getting this in two pieces. So we have

made some changes to the health department in the last couple of years through Changing the inspectors, the food and milk inspectors, as well as the minimum housing inspectors, those all fall under health and human resources now. So in addition to adding several grant-funded positions that now fall under health and human services, so this is really just a

material change to the health director's job functions by taking on additional full-time employees in her department as well as additional responsibilities through the different grants that have been added. In total, it's about 10 employees that have been added since FY22. And that includes a regional inspector, an epidemiologist, public health specialist, shared services coordinator, the

two food and milk inspectors, director of minimum housing, two minimum housing inspectors, a minimum housing clerk, and an additional, sorry, the regional inspector, which is under the shared services. - I'll go to the committee. Councilor Cagnall first. - Sure, thank you. So the first question I have is relative to the title. When we were

discussing the building inspector, his title was updated from director to commissioner, I believe. But we're not looking to make a separate title change here. So what's the driving factor behind this? so the building commissioner my understanding is there's a certain weight that goes behind the term building commissioner so that's why that had to stay

as building commissioner director of health and human services there was just no need to change it i mean that was one of the things that mr hathaway had pointed out that there's certain authority that's given to him as a building commissioner so i think he was the director of municipal buildings prior and then designated as the city's

building inspector a building commissioner point of information um i believe that being uh It's a certain certification to be a commissioner, and as a commissioner, he's the only person who can authorize an occupancy permit. Without that, we'd have nobody who could do that. Thank you, Council. Council, can you have the floor? So if I'm

understanding this correctly, there's been 10 additional FTEs over the last four fiscal years?

Yes. Without a yield. Vice President Diem. Originally, minimum housing and the two inspectors and the clerk, weren't they under? Code enforcement. Code enforcement, yes. Why would they be moved out of that? I can understand the milk. I can understand a couple of them, but I don't understand that being moved out of that division. When we looked at it, it just made sense for it to go under health because of some

of the regulations that they were dealing with. So that's why we looked at it that really didn't belong in code enforcement to begin with as far as sanitation and their minimum housing issues. It didn't make sense going to code enforcement. But don't they also, let's say somebody, and I get it to a certain extent, it falls under health, but if you get complaints

of the grass is overgrown, somebody's not mowing their lawn, the building's vacant, I'm trying to think of other situations. That would be more code enforcement, wouldn't it, than-- - It falls under health code, though. - That are you. - Thank you.

- You ready, Councilor Kadeem? - I do. - Councilor Kadeem. - So just in terms of the, I guess the workload and the grants that are being managed, is there any additional salary that's being provided to the position of Director of Health and Human Services? Any stipends or anything like that? - No. - No, okay. Comp in terms of comp salaries. I know it's difficult, especially when you get-- - They're

a little all over the place, I think, especially because of how the Board of Health varies from community to community. So, I mean, I can run down a list here. Attleboro is 50,000, Brockton 110, Dartmouth 128, New Bedford 123, Plymouth 121, Rainham 93, Seekonk 93, Swansea 51, Taunton 99 and change, Westport is 123.

So the logic community is just saying roughly 120? Yes.

Like 118, 120? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Just out of curiosity, the ordinance is currently not to exceed $101,086. What is the director currently budgeted making currently? $103,525.88. Yeah. Yes.

I'm sorry. Did you have that right there? $103,525.88. $103,525.88.

$103,525.88. And the proposed ordinance here is not to exceed 120,000. Does the mayor have an idea of what we're looking at going forward? Moving ahead. I don't believe he's discussed that with her yet. Vice President Dionne. In the comparable, in the comps, do you know how many staff members that they oversee as compared to ours? I do not have that here. I could definitely

get that for you. so it could be more could be less could be the same yeah i don't personally i don't know if i'm comfortable with going up to the 120 i might be more inclined to go a little bit less than that but i'll leave that up to everybody else with that i yield we had kept that at the 120 just because it was going to come down at the

same time as the building commissioner but that's i understand Council can you just a quick question you noted that the current salary of person the incumbent is 103 five and change it's about 2500 more than the current ordinance that due to stipends or other incentives brought to the cap and then it was the annual two and a half percent that her class would follow as far as

it being rising with the AFSCME contract okay thank you the will of the committee for a motion I would make the motion for it to not to exceed 115. Do you like to amend it to read not to exceed 115,000? I would. Is that your motion, council? Yes, it is.

Is there a second for the motion? I'll second it. Okay. First, if the motion is to amend it to not to exceed 115,000, made by Vice President Dion, second by Councillor Canual. Discussion on the motion. Roll call. Quick. Discussion. Yeah, so... It's not lost on me back in January of 20 January 27th of 2026. I think Council of Canyon was first ordinance, meaning that the administration was down

before us discussing a potential ordinance with regards to leases versus license. And the fact that apparently a license was issued after the city council voted to not to approve a lease. And we were having a discussion about, you know, the council getting circumvented.

And if you go back to that meeting one hour and six minutes in the administration was down before us, attorney Thomas stated that, and I'll quote the power of the purse is with the city council. You deny the money. That is the ultimate control of the city council. So I, I've stated this before. I'm going to continue to state it. Until we get a proper investigation, an independent investigation from the police

department, I will be voting no. I am taking my lead again for, number one, doing the right thing, but number two, it coming straight down from the administration that the power of the purse is ultimately the ultimate power of the city council, and I'm going to use that power currently until we get an independent investigation in the police department. Thank you, Councilman. Okay, so we have a motion and

a second to amend it to $115,000. Roll call, please. Roll call to amend the proposed ordinance. Councillor Kadeem? No. Councillor Canywell? Yes. Councillor DeJong? Yes. Councillor Pereira? Chair Raposo? Yes. Motion passes. Make a motion to, following motion. Motion to adjourn? No. Motion to pass through first reading. I'm sorry. Appropriate motion to be passed through first reading as

amended. Motion to pass through first reading as amended second motion to make pass through first reading as amended made by councillor can you all second by Vice President Dion Discussion roll call roll call the pass through first reading councillor Kadeem. No councillor can you all yes vice president Dion? Yes, councillor Pereira chair Oprosa. No motion fails.

Is there a further motion of the committee motion to adjourn Appropriate to table the item motion to table Motion of table is made by Councillor Cagnall, second by Vice President Dionne. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

The ayes have it. Motion to adjourn. There is no other business of this committee.

Motion to adjourn by made by Councillor Kadim. Second. Second by Vice President Dionne. All those in favor? Aye. The ayes have it. Committee outreaches the legislation now. Adjourned.