4.27.2022 Redevelopment Authority

okay we're going to call to order the open meaning for fall river redevelopment authority thursday april 27th 2022.

first went 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 attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmission are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible first thing is a roll call joan medeiros present

wisconsin's president johnny erickson president and keane here we also have john coughlin council joe marshall could not be here for the meeting we also have ken fiola and joe good first thing we need to approve the open session minutes from march 30th 2022 do i hear a motion to approve those motion to approve the minutes from march 30th 2022 meeting and second second

uh john erickson yes yes luis gonzalez yes and keen yes next item is the warrant approval warrant i believe you all have a copy of it we have total disbursements of 132 254 and 32 cents do i have a motion to approve the warrant as presented second second you need to vote john erickson yes joan medeiros yes wisconsin yes yes okay um on our financial update uh it's been suggested to consolidate the checking account so

uh we we have two separate accounts correct yes we do one with a significant amount of money and one with 32 000 and that other one had been used for a loan program that's no longer in existence and we think it would be much more logical to have one account uh so we need a vote to approve consolidation of the two accounts but both counts are in the same bank yes

okay so it should be easy to yes um so we need to authorize the board member to execute the transfer i'm thinking joan that's fine do you need just one or two signatures on those bank accounts or did they say yeah right because you're simply going to write a check and deposit it to the remaining account correct yeah couldn't they just sign a check you just wrote okay and the check just gets signed by for

some reason paula thought you needed to go in so maybe if you want to close it out but i think if you just move the balance leave it at zero it'll maybe maybe to close it yeah but i would go in and make the deposit write it write a check make a deposit and tell them you want to close the account with that crosser okay so you need signatories you need the

signature of all the signatories to close it right so i would just take a vote authorizing all signatories to close the account that way you've got it covered but i i think jones right i think you just move the money right and then just close the account with whatever paperwork you need after the fact right okay great okay so we uh so we need to vote to um to get that moving um

john erickson yes joan medeiros yes louis yes then ann king yes okay next item is completion of the 2019 audit uh we need to vote to authorize the chair to execute an engagement letter for a combined 2020 to 2021 audit and it's i believe with the same right so the same firm is going to continue and i don't have the engagement letter yet and i want john uh joan and joe to review

the audit with me as we accept this audit and then once we accept this audit she'll generate the engagement letter for some reason they don't do that until they actually published the audit so um so i don't want to hold that up they have almost all the information they need for those audits and um so i would like the board to authorize the chair to execute the engagement letter once we get it okay uh i'm voting

john erickson yes joan medeiros yes louis yes and keen yes okay the next item is our administrative assistant i added that to the financial update because it really is a financial issue we have talked about upgrading a position to an executive assistant position in and increasing the hours to 25 to 30 which then means we would be including benefits and raising the salary and putting and

advertising it is 20 to 25 an hour commensurate with experience i i think in this market that's probably where you're going to attract somebody yeah so i've talked with a number of you in the room and it seems as though that would be a really good way to go uh john erickson i'm in agreement yes joey medeiros yes louis condos yes okay next item on agenda is naming of the city pier and discussing the signage

we've we've had some discussion about naming the peer after senator tom norton and you'll have all the background information yeah it would be um we'll we'll be um coming up with a sign which we haven't done yet but uh that's on the list but uh we need to vote to approve that and i'm voting uh john erickson yes johnny i think on these we should have somebody make a motion in second just uh just to

make sure we're clear what we're voting on so i need a motion to vote for approval i think we were making a motion first to name the city pier after uh senator norton okay all right and i second anne's motion and then now we need to right so john erickson yes john medeiros yes luis gonzalez yes yes uh sarah did you want to talk about the uh the other signage well i was just

going to say that we're hopefully getting a meeting together next week to really go over the rules and the signage and i'm hoping we can pull that together next week and um so that was all on that i just wanted to update you here we were okay so for the next meeting do you think you'll have rules for us to review or and then we'll be voting on what's going on the sign is that yes

next meeting we would be voting um and between now and then we have still more research to do and i want to have a meeting of um the group that we identified to meet and discuss it yeah because there's kind of a lot of moving parts in terms of what to

sarah we don't know any uh updates on the curbing issue correct no there's an issue with the curbing um all ordered sitting in a lot and our contractor is um there's some legal issue and he's having trouble getting the curbing from this lot that is owned by someone who's not letting them remove the curbing that they have i think already purchased but at least it's what they ordered so

they think they're going to have it resolved and that it will go ahead but if in fact they can't get this curving then they'll have to order it and it will take five weeks and it will delay the project and you know it won't be a delay that would be allowed um uh as a you know covid kind of delay it really would be a delay that would allow us to um you know

charge them by day after they go over the contract period yes the liquidated damage yes if we decided to do that in what area is the curving oh it's the whole you know the whole driveway in and the circular um driveway is it just the radius curving or was it no it's all the way around okay so there's a significant amount of curving yeah and at one point we thought that kerbing just along

duvall street was holding them up and so we looked at city if the city had some curving we could use but they didn't actually have anything that would be very useful and um and so there's really nothing we can do we need to wait until they can access this curving when are we gonna um find out what the status is with them like well how long are we gonna give them

a week two weeks couple weeks three weeks to resolve it until we have to go into ordering the curbing from somewhere else because then that would be five additional weeks from then they are going to make a decision based on what they um you know they're going to make a determination um when they give up on getting this other curving i think they may have ordered i think they may have put an order in to back

themselves up because it will cost them if they go beyond our contract date and um so it's really kind of in their hands how they resolve this they're certainly not going to let it um i don't think they're waiting for this issue to resolve i think they've got a backup plan whether it's the contract date finish so we are getting close yeah yep yeah and the problem with the curving is

it holds other things up it's not as if you can just put that in at the end right so um so that's where we are i'm sorry i don't have a more definitive answer um i'm hoping to talk with our um contract manager tomorrow and get an update yeah i don't know if um if any of you have been by recently i went by i want to think it was last friday the last time and

uh they have quite a few of the uh the lights up i think i might have sent you a few pictures but they look really nice yeah it's really it's really starting to come together i've had a couple of people comment to me about how nice it's looking oh good yeah yeah and i guess the uh they were explaining to me that the lights have different they have a different pattern on the walk surface than

the grass surface which is kind of nice so the next item is the what we're calling phase four of the city pier and sarah correct me if i'm wrong but we're we're basically looking to break up the chapter 91 licenses uh one for the dockage and then one a second part for the land land based usage so what we do what we need to do is we need to vote to approve a beta scope of work

and amend the contract reflecting uh gliding that up into two actions so that we can keep the the one ball rolling at the same time so it's a very minor change in the scope of work and we don't have a scope of work for the next phase which includes all that public engagement and we'll have to redo some of the pieces but it allows us to not lose the six months of a public engagement period and

and and to move forward in applying for funds for the dockage right uh so we need a motion in a second yeah so i i need a motion to uh vote to improve that's this change motion to approve the change to d2 applications for the chapter 91 licenses correct then to authorize the chair to execute the beta amendment okay and to authorize the chair to to execute the revised beta scope of work for the project

we have a second second second actually so uh vote on that john erickson yes joan medeiros yes luis gonzo's yes and keane yes okay uh project updates uh revitalization excuse me revitaly revitalization blueprint and urban renewal plan for the pleasant street flint neighborhood sarah you can well elaborate on this so before i get into this bullet detail i just want to um remind everybody that we have a public

meeting coming up on may 4th and we got our flyer translated into three different languages and we've been getting it on social media and all over the place and i'm really hoping we get a good turnout at the public meeting and sarah for the viewers why don't you remind everybody the date time yes so it's may 4th it's at um the our lady of the light band and banquet hall

at 664 quarry street and so it's may 4th at 6 30 and our consultants will be there with lots of information about plans for the pleasant street neighborhood we're doing a revival revitalization plan for pleasant street and um and parts of the neighborhood and then that will be followed with an urban renewal plan so what i wanted to talk with you about tonight is the fact that we had a grant to fund this work

and the funder kept back 8 500 to begin implementation of the project and so well we all agree 8 500 is not going to go very far and we need to move forward on some pieces of it so the question is um and i'll so some of the pieces are that we think we need to look at expedited text taking so that properties that are kind of languishing in the process where they haven't become property zoned

by the city yet needs to really be a better process and we want to look at that we want to look at properties where landlord where owners are not maintaining the property and they may be paying their taxes and so that's kind of another area of how do we get them to um you know approve their property or sell their property to someone who will will maintain it so there are a lot of issues like that

and we really want to identify properties that we might be able to take to development by some developer and you know begin to match developers with properties and some of that's happening already but we think that we really need a consultant to help us work through a number of these steps and in talking with our team we wanted to propose that the redevelopment authority allocate some

amount of money to hire a consultant who could use the 8 500 but then continue along with some of these other and you know we need to come up with the scope of work and put it out to rfp that i wanted to find out if you would support that do you want to add to that ken at all hey so do we need to to vote for the well how do

i guess i want more your um input on this do you uh do you support the idea of 30 to 50 000 to go with this 8 500 to start this you know the scope of work i would bring you the scope of work to the next board meeting and we could talk about it some more but yeah i think that makes more sense so we have all have a better understanding so does

this mean that this funder for this eighty five hundred dollars will release the money for this absolutely okay yeah yeah and she said she would release it she was taking it to her board this week um but she said you know that's not we she was totally supportive of the work that we talked about needing to do and she said but 8 500 isn't going to get you very far and i told her that i would

i would bring a proposal to you and see if you know you wanted me to go further and will develop a scope of work and bring it back great um oh so the city is looking at applying for grants through this one-stop application process and they put in some letters of intent and i'm meeting with jane the grant writer and a number of other department heads to talk about what

grants the city is going to apply for in the meantime um emily ennis the consultant we're working with um for the flint neighborhood planning suggested that even though we didn't put letters of intent in you can still apply for the grants in the one stop and she thinks there may be a couple that we should apply for so i wanted to let you know that over the next few days i'm looking at

that to see if there's um if there are one or two that would really meet our need you know i would love it if i could find the money for this consultant and that's one goal um and i probably would call mary ellen at mass development and get advice on what we might apply for so i just wanted you to know that that's the other potential that we put some time into

that and apply in early june okay thank you and then in terms of the tdi district and south main street uh tomorrow is the first steering committee meeting for uh the district management planning process and you know i told you a lot about the ideas of creating a bid and you know look at least exploring that so we're beginning to explore that and that process is starting in the meantime

we put the rfp out for the historic district consultant and um that the proposals will come back i think it's may 10th and then we'll look at those and hopefully we'll have a good proposal and we can bring that back to you at the next meeting was there anything else sarah that you want to discuss in open session i don't think so ken do you have any updates you want to share um

no i could share a lot of stuff but i think we could be here for a long period of time i think just on the route 79 stuff we didn't touch base on that but uh the project you know they've received um they put out the bids and they're still i spoke to nasdaq yesterday um they're still excuse me it's still on track for a september october contract award with construction again in 2023.

so in the state uh the city is committed to its section of the project which is the non-participatory cost that will go along with this project so essentially the project cost now is about up to 112 million dollars with the city uh agreeing to um to was absorb up to 12 million dollars most of that is money that was already allocated towards the cso project so it's not necessarily new funding

but you know the street lights some of the other things that are not covered by the states funding you know the period the period lighting as opposed to cobrad lightings those types of those types of costs are now city costs so so yeah i'm excited that those things are moving forward so yeah good anybody

vice chair makes finding that uh an open session would have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body uh so we're going to take a roll call to enter into executive session also to approve the march 30th 2022 executive session minutes and to address real estate transactions at innovation way 45 and 1 street and 72 bank street and not return to a possession

so we need a motion and a second to go in for those three reasons not to return

to enter into executive session and not return to open session second

yes