The Fall River City Council Committee on Public Safety, chaired by Councilor Peckham with Councilors Canewel and Raposo present, met on April 21, 2026. The meeting began with citizen input. Colin Dias, a resident and School Committee member, questioned the whereabouts of the police chief, noting her absence from recent meetings and an out-of-office email with no return date. He asked the administration for transparency regarding who is currently in charge of the police department. Following him, Jennifer Dutra of 91 Greenleaf Street described the hazardous condition of her lane, which has over 100 potholes and crosses the state line into Tiverton, Rhode Island. She raised concerns about access for emergency vehicles and deliveries for the 20 residents. Chair Peckham reported that he had already contacted the interim DCM director, Mr. Sutton, who is investigating the jurisdictional complexities with the city engineer. The committee then moved to its agenda, unanimously approving the minutes from the April 7, 2026 meeting. A resolution filed by Councilor Raposo to discuss safety improvements at the intersection of Bay Street and Mount Hope Avenue was brought forward. However, due to the absence of any representative from the Fall River Police Department, Councilor Raposo made a motion to table the item, which passed unanimously. Citing the need for police input on the remaining agenda items, numbers four and five, the committee decided to leave them tabled for a future meeting. With no further business, the committee voted to adjourn.
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City Council Committee on Public Safety April 21st, 2026 at 5.03 p.m. Clerk, call the roll. Councilor Canewel? Here. Councilor Raposo? Here. Chair Peckham? Here. Fursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised of such recordings or transmissions being made, whether perceived
0:26or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. First item on the agenda is citizens input. And we do have two people that signed up for citizens input. Do you have their names? First on the list is Colin Dias, 560 Ray Street, subject to public safety concern.
0:52Thank you. I'm Colin Dias, 560 Ray Street. I'm also a member of the Farber School Committee and here in an individual capacity. The reason I wanted to come down and briefly come down, and just to give an overview for the public, the school committee pays for, in the district, partially oversees seven to eight SROs and a police SRO sergeant.
1:23The reason I'm here is just to get some clarity and I did expect members of the police department to be here for this meeting. Obviously they're not here but I still want to put my comments on the record. The other day the members of the committee, I believe members of the council did as well, received some inquiries related to a traffic matter at the Green School.
1:49The police department wasn't included in those discussions. So I CC the police chief on those emails and the deputy chief responded and it seemed like he was looking into the matter. I don't have an issue with that per se, but I just had to know it wasn't the chief that responded. And it got me thinking, just as a member of the public, I haven't seen the police chief
2:16We had a recent facilities meeting of the school committee. The deputy chief was there, and glad he was, but wasn't the police chief. I haven't seen the police chief at city council meetings or these public safety meetings and other meetings, public meetings in the last month, at least that I've seen. And when I CC the police chief, I mean the deputy chief, I'm sorry, when I
2:43CC the police chief, it says that she's out of the office without a return date, without a date of return. So that just begs the question as to why.
2:54Is the police chief, where is she? Is she on leave? The deputy chief actually just emailed me just three minutes before this meeting started. And he said that Mr. Dias, I will be in contact for anything related to concerns with public safety as far as the chief status. That is something to discuss with Human Resources Department. 20 seconds. 20 seconds, thank you. So it just begs the
3:21question, knowing that the mayor just recently signed, I believe, a two-year extension, where is the police chief and who is in charge of running the department? I believe that there is an interim appointment. That's something that would need to be publicly disclosed. So I would just ask the administration for transparency purposes just let the public know what's going on. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dyes, I appreciate
3:45you. Next for citizens input, Jennifer Dutra, 91 Greenleaf Street, safety concern, impassable lane. Okay. Can you just state your name and your address for the record? Thank you.
4:11Okay, well thank you first of all for the time, I appreciate it gentlemen. And I wanted to just come, I wrote an email and addressed it to you all as well as the mayor. I live at the end of a long lane and so I think really the blizzard and everything made conditions a lot worse. So there are over, documented over 100 potholes on the road. The end of
4:35the road has gotten so bad with the heaves, honestly, I have to just roll over. There's bottoming out of the vehicles. There's 20 residents that live at the end of this lane. Concern really, Condition of course, you know, kind of stinks, but really there is definitely concern if there was a safety issue in my neighborhood, it would definitely be impacted by the condition of this road for any vehicles that
4:59were coming down. We also have a student down there, so there's a bus that comes down, it's a car that comes down to pick up a student. And also I'm really concerned about delivery of, resources that we need with a lot of the homes use natural gas and oil and that kind of thing.
5:18I suspect there could be potential for them to not come down or say they can't make it down or affect those kind of things just so that we can live. So I just wanted to bring it up because the road condition has been this way for some time. It's just definitely gotten really severe just because I think because of the blizzard. And what I really like to see happen is
5:44just a plan, you know. The potholes can be fixed but it's kind of like we're putting Band-Aid on a kind of bigger problem so I think if there was some kind of long-term plan to get that road repaved I would love to see you know how we could get something like that at least some kind of timeline on it or some kind of plan for it so
6:06that's what I wanted to bring forth this afternoon. Okay I'll touch upon that so after we spoke today briefly through text because I'd read your email that you had sent to the mayor's office I reached out to the interim director of DCM Mr.
6:20Sutton and he was already aware so he reached out to the city engineer planning Mr. Aguiar. He's waiting for a response back. I believe they're supposed to speak tomorrow and then they're going to get back to me. I think the issue is here and I'm very familiar with Sawadee Pond Road and one side of the street is Fall River. I think Fall River owns the water rights and then the street
6:42rights belong to the state of Rhode Island but I have to confirm that. I think the issue is half the street is in Rhode Island and a section of the street is in Massachusetts. I don't know if an avenue that we could take is and I recommend this today even if we have to call a selectman in Tividend and try to come up with a plan. I have a question who plows
7:06that your road? The city Fall River plows the road and we We have all services down there as far as trash pickup, all that kind of stuff. All right. So when they plow, so a section of your street is Rhode Island and a section of your street is Mass. Yeah, as you drive, if you have a GPS on, it'll say, welcome to Massachusetts. Welcome to Rhode Island as you
7:27leave at a certain point on the road. So part of it is Tiverny. Yeah.
7:31Okay. I know there are quite a few areas of the city that are like this. One of them, I believe, it's still this way, is that little waterway behind that Chinese restaurant across from the old Lincoln Park. Fall River still I believe owns the water rights to that water right behind. So I think it's Judge Street and Greenleaf Street and there's a little section at the end of the road that is
7:51actually Fall River. So yeah, and there is a precedence from what I understand from the other neighbors. Fall River originally paved that road and has been servicing it as far as taking care of potholes and that kind of thing for some time. Okay, yeah, I'd like to clean this all up and talk to Ms. Daggett too and see, What other sections of the city are like this, such as 177,
8:13and see what the plans are for street repair, plowing, what we do with Rhode Island, if there is a plan at all. Because I'm not a big fan of sending our workers into Rhode Island to patch a hole and then one of them gets hurt. And now we have a workers' comp case and we're trying to explain to the an attorney somewhere why our worker was in Rhode Island, you know, so
8:35I would like to see it on paper as well. So I appreciate you coming down, I do. Counselor. Is there no other access road from Greenleaf? It's just one way in, one way out, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. All right, thank you.
8:48Okay, do you have anything, Counselor? No, thank you. All right, we appreciate you, thank you, and it is being looked into, so I will reach out to you as soon as I get an answer back. All right, thank you, appreciate it, appreciate the time, thank you. with nobody else with citizens input. Item number two minutes from April 7th of 2026. Motion to approve. Second. Motion to approve has been
9:08made and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Aye, no nays. Third item on the agenda is a resolution. Committee on Public Safety convene with the Director of Traffic and Parking and a representative from the Forver Police Department to discuss measures that may be implemented to improve safety at the four-way stop intersection of Bay Street and Mount Hope Ave adopted 1 14th of 25. Councilor.
9:35Councilor Pozo. So I filed this resolution back in January of 25 due to some increased accidents that were happening in that particular area as well as I had a resident reach out to me concerning an accident involving a vehicle and a pedestrian, particularly, and some speed issues going on down there. But we do not have a representative from the police department here to answer some of my questions, so I'll make
10:02a motion to table. Motion to table as we made. Second. And seconded. All those in favor? Aye. No nays. With the police department not being here and them being needed on the... last two number four and five on the agenda for tonight um would it be the will it a council to table these until a further date and i think they're already tabled so i'm sorry yeah just to lift and then re-table until a further
10:34date we don't even have to just hear them we just we can leave them leave them tabled um and then at a future meeting schedule them on an agenda would be the the will of the committee at this point all right well those items number four and five on the agenda will remain tabled there's no further business motion to adjourn this meeting made motion so made and
10:58seconded all those in favor aye aye no nays good night