The Fall River City Council meeting on May 24, 2022, featured extensive discussion on the allocation of Bristol County ARPA funds and several citizen input items. City Administrator Tony Aiken presented a summary of ARPA rules and various proposals for the $16 million in county funds, emphasizing the Mayor's intent for the Council to direct their use. Key proposals included $1.522 million for police body-worn cameras and tasers, $950,000 for street sweepers, and funds for pothole repair and graffiti removal. Councilors expressed concerns about ARPA fund categories, potential audits, and the need to prioritize water and sewer infrastructure, with Director of Community Utilities Michael Furland explaining how street sweepers could reduce contamination and costs. In other business, the Council unanimously confirmed Paul Gauvin as the City's Police Chief and Ryan Lyons as the Chairperson of the Board of Election Commissioners, despite citizen concerns about Lyons' past political involvement. They also reappointed John Brandt and James Cusick to the Conservation Commission. Several ordinances passed through second reading and were ordained, including miscellaneous traffic ordinances, the residential compost recycling program, and the historical preservation ordinance. Water and sewer rates were also ordained, with Councilors Dion and Lee opposing both. The Council adopted a resolution to discuss Durfee High School athletic field funding during upcoming FY23 budget deliberations and voted to send a letter to the Governor's office and MassDOT expressing disappointment over not being invited to the Braga Bridge lighting ceremony.
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2:05madam clerk counselors kadeem here camaro here dion here here here fellas here yeah pereira proposal yeah and president lolita lebeau here pursuant 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 that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or
2:30unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible first item is citizens input we have several people signed up to speak our speaker is brian curt 118 east main street fall river and the subject is proposed compost ordinance and when you already have three minutes mr carter good evening when i read the composting ordinance and harold recently i got a problem with it
3:03now you define food organic materials and that are deposited into the waste stream that's harmful to the environment creating a potential health and safety hazard for residents and for the general welfare of the public and constitute a public nuisance that for food waste it appears that that this ordinance is going to define food food and organic waste this hazardous waste therefore if it that is the case
3:35if a resident doesn't compost how will they get rid of it based on the definition of it the city council could refuse the city could refuse to take in and or reject solid waste that has food or organic waste mixed in it what is the public going to do about it if that's if that's enacted when i was a boy and a council pelletier can remember this because he was even older than i
4:01we used to separate our water our our uh our food waste into a separate bucket and was picked up by a contractor and his contractor recycled it i believe the recycling was defeated to the pigs that he owned a certain point in time the city decided they were going to save money if they combined it so it got combined and all those little cylinders that were in everybody's backyard we're removed after a while
4:31i don't understand why the city wants to have everybody have a compost bin in their backyard people will not most people will not do it the right way and that's one of the things i'm concerned about they'll draw rats insects and probably have a bad have bad smells now again the city keeps trying to reinvent the wheel i was watching channel 5 um recently uh chronicle may 3rd there's a company called bootstrap
5:04compost and they're not just in the metro area in the boston metro area they actually have got customers in attleboro and that's the closest one to us in massachusetts quite a few places in providence north providence pawtucket little central falls a whole bunch of municipalities in that area that um subscribe to the service and based on what they showed on the tv program you had a five gallon bucket about this big
5:32with a cover on it you put it out they if you subscribe to the service they take it they give you an empty one and you keep doing it it's kind of like what what uh mr jaravik did back in the day only we had him in the ground and this guy had to take it out and pour it into a bigger bucket 20 seconds okay the three-minute room for an additional
5:51three minutes maximum emotionally of the rules for an additional three minutes made by councillor kamara second seconded by councillor pelletier all those in favor aye any opposed proceed mr what i would like to the city council to consider is to contact brute strap compost have them come down and give a presentation because there's nobody in the former area if a big city like forever did it
6:14they might come down here start doing somerset swansea westport et cetera and and the stuff would be at their facility wouldn't be in everybody's backyard they have a central facility they bring it there they do it the right way and then the customers get some compost back it's a lot easier than having a whole bunch of these because the uh the enforcement's going to be a horror show
6:34i mean and if my neighbor happens to do it wrong i'm going to get mad at my neighbor i don't get mad at my neighbor you know do it simple the the way they did it when when we were both when i was both younger is to have a contract to do it it's easy on a contract to come pick it up let them compost it the correct way and then just
6:53give it back to us we'll get all this nice soil everybody'll have nice gardens and stuff instead of this thing that's kind of saying that the the stuff is is hazardous which i don't understand that part um but i really think you should do it i mean i'll be over there if you wanna if you wanna take this information you can contact them i got this off the internet
7:15but i can give whatever i've got here to somebody who wants it and you can check it out i really do think you should rather than pass that ordinance give it to the clerk and she'll disseminate it okay all right thank you thank you thank you did counselors have questions or comments yeah counseling seat six council pelletier i think uh he's absolutely right uh most of the people now uh ends up in the garbage
7:39they probably freeze it they hide it in their barrels and everything else and and when we had uh at the time was jerobak picking them all up uh and we had that bucket in the ground he'd come and grab that bucket and everything else now do these people charge for the service or well that that i i can't tell it it doesn't appear that they do but that would be something that you could
8:03find out for sure uh it doesn't appear to be it's just uh but you we can find out i would the other thing i'd say is try with the businesses first because you ran a couple of businesses you know you generate a lot of food waste yeah well i think it's a good idea to look at and and let me tell you i think a lot of people they don't have them uh food
8:26choppers there and in the sink whatever they call them garbage cans that's it yeah i don't have one i'm poor but uh you know they take it it'll just throw it in the rubbish and then if they happen to find the stuff that's illegal they give a 300 ticket and they call one of my colleagues to get rid of the ticket do things right that's all you know but that's a good idea i think we
8:49should look into it and uh whatever you got i'd like to see it uh and we can work on it i think are you thank you thank you counselor counselor and c3 council vice president dion okay sorry no no that's okay no i it's funny because listening to you i remember that i i remember the the buckets of the pails in the ground you're right so i guess my question would be why did it stop
9:13to save money because i think mr jarvik had to get paid to pick him up and the city said well let's just put it all in one bucket and then don't have to pay mr arabic and everything goes to the landfill to the incinerator i think at the time we had the incinerator which we don't have anymore right but at the time it was cheaper yep yep i mean uh and and now everybody's trying to
9:35do it have less in the landfill and to have a professional company do instead everybody doing in their backyard i mean somebody wants to do it you could probably do another for the few people who want to do it but um we all had those buckets and these tenement houses had them so i mean you're replacing the bucket in the ground with the bucket this big guy i would have brought one in there and you
9:55had the lid with the foot thing that you stepped on and popped it open yes exactly and then you felt you it was hinged and then you did it and slid the inside bucket they smelled a little bit but they were in the ground the worst was the smell from the from the truck itself but these guys are caught in channel five they just put them in the back of a pickup
10:12truck and they got a lid on it and then they just give you an empty one for you to fill up and uh i don't know how often they come but like i said i got this information off the internet i'll give it to the clerk and um they can get the information maybe they can maybe we could be the first one in southeastern mass other than um um other than attleboro on the first one in
10:32bristol county anybody's this part of bristol county has to start it we can maybe start something instead of following everybody else isn't it funny how so many things in life come full circle and that's pretty much yeah i would definitely be interested in seeing that thank you very much without a yield thank you anything else from the council thank you mr court okay thank you next person signed up to
10:57speak is colin dyas 560 ray street fall river and the subject is lack of transparency from mayor coogan and recall election you have three minutes mr dice thank you and um thank you council president and members of the city council first of all i think over these last few weeks we've seen more shadys that shady actions from this administration and from its mayor at the last school committee meeting the mayor
11:25and others voted not to fund durfee fields and if you listen to the meeting and if you listen to ken pacheco speak it's a possibility that durfee contact sports may not be able to practice or play on these fields next next fall and school committee ben aguiar and i'm glad he's here today wanted to use these one-time monies that are in the school department on the school side to pay for these fields
11:54and the mayor and other school committee members shot that down i think the the mayor's using his um influence to pressure some of these school committee members just my opinion and the mayor wants to move school these same school department one-time monies to the city and this mayor just lied to the community he said the city was flushed city was flushed with funds we have so much money but that was a lie
12:24he misrepresented the state of finances in our city i think he's deceptive and i think he lied it's shady and now speaking about that i hope the city does not accept any one-time monies from the school department if the mayor said the city's flushed and another issue now that's come up is the administration in my opinion is engaged in a cover-up with the john perry report why won't his administration release the
12:58report i know we will hear bogus defenses of personnel matters however when it comes to the misuse of city funds which the mayor knows plenty about the public has every right to know how their tax dollars were misused i think he crossed the red line in being disengaged in a cover-up what was his involvement what was the mayor's involvement in mr perry's actions why can't we see the report so the public
13:29can have full trust and full transparency that nothing happened and it's not not just me i know i'm here today and i know many residents in the city are fed up with this mayor his war on the taxpayers his lie about the state of our city's finances his misuse of city funds 20 seconds and we don't believe he should remain in office for another six months and i do have announcement for the city
13:5810 i do have 10 city residents and registered voters and next week and let the mayor be put on notice we'll have a meeting and we'll start the process to recall paul coogan from office that's three minutes mr diaz thank you thank you next person signed up to speak is kevin aguiar to crosswood street and the subject is school department bonding
14:28good evening councillors good evening thank you for having me so when we had the joint meeting here uh we talked about some issues and i feel like we don't get enough chance to throw things on the table so you all can get an understanding of where we're at and what's happening on the school side so i'm here as a citizen of foreign on my own not as representing the school committee or the superintendent or
14:49anyone so i just wanted to bring some issues to the forefront i think if anyone is paying attention to the school issues you know i'm real passionate about the finish in the fields at durfee high and i still am concerned with how we could even be at this point where we spent 260 million dollars and the money wasn't allotted within that for the fields but that's a fact that's that's going to be that's
15:11what it is what's before us though is how are we going to proceed with the rest of the fields to finish them so i've been working with the administration uh in the school department i've sat in meetings talking about the athletic fields the turf fields that need to be overturned as you know i was here before you to advocate for some bonding at one point for those fields for the baseball field
15:32since that time we still have around seven and a half million dollars of additional fields in order to complete that jeffrey project that was brought up at the last meeting i was passionate about us not shifting any funds over to the city for that reason because we still have outstanding payments that need to be made and things that need to be purchased so when we look at it to say how are we
15:54going to do this i sit as a citizen and i see where you're facing you're facing that the bill and the taxpayers are facing the bill philadelphia high school the council voted to fund the diamond project out of the school budget out of the city budget if i'm sitting where i'm sitting as a citizen and watching the decisions that you have to make and this administration has to make i can't in good conscience
16:16look at any of you and say let's go to the city council to see if we can bond for that other five million for to finish the fields or anything like that i can't in good conscience do that to any of you or the citizens of fall river the two big projects that you have to fund in your bonding is durfee high and the diamond project so i'm here before you today to ask that you consider
16:40working with the administration maybe calling the administration down or the school department down because it's not something that i can do as one member what my proposal would be is that we as a school department have some ability work out a mechanism within the city so that if we had ability to bond for those projects and we pay the bill out of the school budget our one-time funds uh esther
17:04funds can't be used for that but in school department funds so we're not here before you asking for 3 million for this another 2 million for that 20 seconds i believe that we should get to the point motion away of the rules second motion away with the rules made by counselor for an additional treatment for an additional call beyond that is that fine counselor thank you thank you so my proposal would be to have us sit
17:24down together and work out an agreement with the city so that we could we can't bond and as a school but if you authorized us to bond and have us pay the bill we could complete this project in the next year or two on the school department's time not the taxpayers and not the city council and not the administration on the sixth floor that we could do this within our budget now
17:45i've suggested this to the people in the school department i've asked them to go to the city administration and the mayor to talk about this to this date i think it's falling on deaf ears but i think it's time as we're preparing for the budget in june let's sit down together and let's work out an agreement if anybody watches the school committee meetings i've advocated for opening the indirect cost agreement
18:05between the city and the schools open that up so we can do some things like that once again that's fallen on deaf ears that it doesn't want to be changed in any way and my last point to the council is that within that agreement that is currently in place any uh purchases of capital of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more were supposed to be born by this by the
18:29mayor and the city council on the city side the school department over the last several years have chosen to fund a lot of projects that are over 150 000 to the tune of three plus million dollars on the school department's time so i'm asking for you to consider in the future however your rules are about getting some people to the table to discuss this so that we can figure out
18:50if it's possible which i do think it is possible that we would pay the bill but we can proceed with the projects we currently have two and a half million dollars in the bank right now from the one-time funds that the school department voted at the last meeting so if we need seven and a half million or thereabouts we have two and a half a car just like any of us would do with
19:10our houses we have that money let's if you give us some authority to bond in the appropriate way with the proper documentation we can get the turf fields redone and we can get all those fields done to the to make that you know the best looking school and the best-looking fields in the commonwealth of massachusetts thank you thank you mr counselor and seat for council gilbert yes thanks for being here
19:32and thanks for your advocacy because i know how passionate you are about that issue as i am council kamara as well um we're going to finish off that school the right way so my first question is and i usually don't engage in citizens input but you're an important person kevin um when was that action taken by the school committee because i remember a vote that we took and you supported it at our joint meeting
20:02well refresh my memory at the last school committee meeting why was that action taken to revoke the uh the plan for for the fields you mean the baseball field you mean the softball field right yes it wasn't revoked counselor so what happened is it was never in the plans so it was never in the plans for durfee high school so if you look at those nice shiny pictures of the whole grounds at
20:26the durfee high school when we went to the voters and we talked about spending 260 million to fix it if you look at all those shiny pictures there's some dulled out parts and that's all the stuff that wasn't part of the project so that means the baseball field which is why you had to help us which is why there isn't gonna there wasn't gonna be a second baseball field so we used to have two we
20:46should have two back it's only fair in order to make it equal there was no softball field similar to what the boys have so we we've been working behind the scenes to try to come up with a plan for what it would look like school department paid i think 100 000 for a landscape architect to figure out the best way but all with no funding attached to it so that's why i'm advocating and i've
21:06advocated for the school folks to say the same thing there's no money for that how was that vote taken at you at your meeting i mean what yeah what do you mean at the last meeting yes so at the last minute action taken so at the last meeting we had an ability for 2.2 million dollars the 1.4 that you recently gave based on the city and another 800 000. so we had 2.2 or 2.4
21:31million dollars that the school committee unanimously decided to put towards the fields so we have that now in the bank we have the 2.4 million that the council bonded for for the baseball field point of order we've gone three minutes i believe and that was his his he got to speak for an additional three minutes counselor is asking questions we should get into this if we're going to make it i should refer to
21:55that i won't prolong it but i'll be fine i think you're trying to ask a question i'll be final resolution if councilman wants a co-sponsor with me at the next meeting so to answer your questions we had the 2.4 so we voted for the 2.4 we were advocating for additional funds so we have an uh vote of 1.3 million that was on the table the mayor tried to get us to take that
22:17fund those funds and move that towards on the city side to pay for transportation knowing what i just suggested i was advocating no that 1.3 should be added to the pot of money for the fields rather than go to the city side my motion failed but the motion to table at the school level passed so that money didn't come back to the city a couple of councillors were school committee
22:40members thought that what they were told that there was money for the fields and when they realized that it wasn't it was like oh wait a minute i wasn't told the truth here we table it for next meeting so that money is going to come to the school committee again but it still will only give us half of the money let's say what i'm suggesting is in a budget cycle
22:57let's talk about a way that we can wrap this whole thing up so that we do it very strategically when the children are playing what seasons and then we know we have the money and then we can make this to come to fruition okay i'll stop there i'm not going to elaborate on the value in my opinion of these of these projects and what it means to our children and
23:16so on and so forth so um i'll leave their yield there and i'll follow up with i'm sure some of my other colleagues here and and hopefully get a dialogue going so thank you thank you thank you counselor counselor at c3 council vice president dion thank you um so my only comment is originally the athletic complex was a 10 million dollar project this council gave bond authorization for 2.4 million for the baseball field
23:43this the school committee has authorized 2.4 million to be added to that number and there was five approximately five hundred thousand dollars left from the durfee project that could have also been applied towards those fields which would bring you to just a little over that half of the five million dollar mark which would leave you at 5 million to finish funding the complex do you agree
24:06with that yeah the 500 000 is assuming that nothing else happens with the rest of the project like ledger so they have it on the side but if they as they're digging and they're finishing things up if they get alleged or some other unexpected that won't be there so it's sort of like shaky money but yes it's around 5 million yeah so essentially right about the at the half point mark so my one question is
24:31how would it affect your budget if you so if it was left that the school budget would fund the the additional 5 million does that inflate the budget at all either do you believe there are funds in there to be able to do it how does it affect the budget and how would it affect the city side speaking for myself as one member of the committee i'm sorry counselor it's just
24:57he's not a member of the community here right now he said he's a member of the community and i i have a lot of respect for kevin and what he wants to do i get it this is not the forum for it okay he has questions now as a school committee member he's in here on the citizens input as a citizen of foreign which he is and has every right to do it and
25:14that's why i said we should refer this to a committee so it's not just one representative of the community that's talking partially as a school committee member at the same time as a citizen so let's let's find out what we're doing here we're going to talk to the school committee members or one school committee member who comes down as a citizen but yeah we're going to ask them school committee questions it's just
25:32let's just refer to a committee and get everyone else involved and let's ask these questions there we can be here all night that's why i said refer for an initial three minutes so that this meeting doesn't get hijacked by anybody else who wants to come down and do this let's take care of that counselor i appreciate it let's take care of it i appreciate your point of order thank you mr aguero was given an
25:53additional three minutes for him to speak counselors have questions i do agree with you he is here he did say as a resident we should keep the questions to that yeah okay you're like answer the question as a citizen well i was just going to say look as a citizen kevin aguiar that that i'm telling you right now that if we bonded for five million dollars the school department can pay that out of
26:16our budget and not come to the city council or the mayor asking for any additional funds 100 absolutely okay and and that was my question as a citizen making a statement he made a statement i wanted verification of his statement plain and simple thank you very much and the city said i yield the city always gives just the minimum anyway so they're not giving us one red cent above a hundred percent
26:39within that we can do a lot of things council kelly you'll be putting in a resolution after the agenda yes yeah thank you anything further counselor in seat one but we ask a question so the you know budget hearings are coming up so i think it'd be an appropriate time to address it they are on our first meeting council thank you confidence one so i don't i don't have a question from
27:00a stag yet but i do just in terms of the resolution that's going to be filed so i believe that's going to address the issue for for bonding um can we just be sure that when we're scheduled for the budget discussions that the indirect cost agreements um are included in that so if we can give just everybody the proper notice so the city administration the school administration just to be prepared to to
27:20answer where we stand within the indirect cost agreements and if there have been any updates on that claire can we send a communication yes thank you and then on top of that if um because i think missed aggie i brought up several good points so um if we could also just do a quick discussion because i know this is budget purposes but part of the budget um i'd like to know if there is any um
27:45because i know mr aguiar is in favor of this but i guess establishing a stabilization account that would be very specific to the school department and then we can talk about the funding mechanism for that stabilization account you want to speak about that on their budget evening should be a quick quick discussion just figure out if everybody's in favor of it and then obviously we'd have to go
28:08through the process of establishing stabilization account for the school department for capital items okay do you want that as part of the resolution no just budget discussion i just want to make sure that it's all encompassing uh because it does tie into the to the budget so i just don't want to be focused on the operational budget just the totality of the budget for the school bond
28:25thank you all have a great yield thank you anything further thank you ms dagia next person signed up to speak is vanessa almeida 1227 dwelling street and the subject is noise ordinance
28:56that's presented at a household there's a car wash there on the side of our house on dwelling street i'm pretty sure everybody's familiar with the place i am an elderly disabled person and within feet from this gentleman to me not even that close i mean closer than this there's a vacuum that people vacuum their cars they go there to wash the cars and i don't really have a problem so much with the
29:26playing of the music it's the boom i can't even be in my own bed and it's bouncing off my chest making me ill so i know you can make noise during certain parts of the day but when i was growing up in the city and as far as i know still in the state of massachusetts there's a decimal water audience so those booms are more than the loud noise
29:52and the guy that owns the car wash he's making his little coin on my illness on my back and all my other neighbors but everybody's afraid to come and say anything about this guy well he's destroying and ruining my life because everybody who's there plays their music here's a sign smaller than a stop sign and it's on the side of the building not even on the front of the building and the people congregate there and i'm
30:19tired of calling the police every day our police officers have much more to deal with than they come by when the people aren't even there because by the time they get to that call it's it it's there's nothing going on i don't have a problem with anybody trying to make a living the gentleman has a right to have a business there but he needs to be either have some kind of
30:42security there to police the fact that these people are not paying attention to how they play their music or he needs to move that one vacuum from the distance of my house and i have pictures with me if anybody wants to see them because as in my opinion it's far too close you know it's open area everybody else's houses in the area is not as close as my particularly my bedroom
31:08and um it's just a real nuisance and it's impacting my health and i'm already recovering from cancer i don't need any more stress in my life would you like to see the pictures anyone you can show you can send it via email i'm sorry do you have them in person or miss almeida i'm sorry is it miss aruna or miss almeida i'm sorry i can't read your handwriting thank you what is the address of the
31:32business um the address of the business i have to look at and i apologize and bring my glasses um i know i took a picture of it his signs are so small concerned seat six do you have a yeah i'll let you know that uh is it at night no it do have a tall day it's all good it's at eight o'clock in the morning and it goes to nine o'clock at night all day
32:03every day and it's gonna be a long summer so it's constant it's constant like there was these four cars there today they're all souped up vehicles um and they're just plain it's not even playing the music it's the boom box it's an industrial speaker that belongs in a nightclub and it reverberates over the whole house my walls are shaking the windows shake my chest shakes it's i can't even hear my own tv i mean i'm
32:33on the phone with somebody and my friends will say who who's that who's playing that in your house oh it's not my house it's it's car wash i mean it's beyond ridiculous so he doesn't want to cooperate with you um well i brought it up to my landlords and they said that they've called for years and years and years and they there's the guy does nothing um you know and they keep
32:55saying just call the police now i've called the police i feel bad about calling them because to me it's not really a police um it's not a a police matter it's an ordinance matter like that guy's got a business there but it's a neighborhood we live in that neighborhood i pay taxes i pay my rent i'm a law-abiding citizen and i have to deal with people one thing we can do is notify the chief
33:24to go by the after get the loud music give a ticket i mean well you know we got a new guy there and they they know what the problem is we'll tell them what the problem is and let them go by if they hit a loud music stop and give him a ticket and it started maybe that will help and uh you know that's one thing we could do and you know if it runs after nine
33:48o'clock at night i don't think that place should be running all night myself oh it's open 24 hours so they can come in they don't really make noise at night i will say that it's not going on at night and it's not like i said it's not so much the music um it's the base yeah it's the base and that one uh vacuum area yeah it's so close to my
34:12windows and that's what i wanted to show you alan click you think if we could send a letter out to the chief of police ask them to look at the problem there if they go by they hear it stop and give them a ticket and we can stop from there and let's see what happens so this is the one vacuum right here yeah and that's my bedroom window you see how close it is
34:36and they park right now i believe it there's no problem there uh it's i mean it's yeah if if i went to this gentleman's house that owns this property and i sat there with my music on i i don't even own one of those base things and i did that i'm pretty sure he'd call the pl he wouldn't tolerate it every day i don't think anybody here would
34:56i will go not on myself and talk to the guy but we get the police chief probably to go down there i will sit down with the police chief myself let him know what the problem is i'm sure some of my colleagues will back me up to see if we can get the situation straightened out for you i appreciate that thank you folks thank you councilman thank you mr rita we have one
35:20other citizen's input metal clerk submitted madam president and members of the city council i would like to address a couple of issues that i consider important i would like to firstly address the appointment of ryan lyons as elections commissioner in discussions with several past elections commission chair people it is common opinion that mr lyons is allegedly not a good fit for the
35:47position of elections commission chair their opinion as is my own that mr lyons allegedly does not have the personality or temperament to be a proper fit for the position there is also a fact that mr lyons worked intimately with several political campaigns including local state and federal elections mr alliance has served on the campaigns for two city councilors who should recuse themselves from any vote on the
36:13issue of disappointment most recently a political candidate who was opposition to a sitting state representative had issues with fall river elections office and i made a suggestion that the candidate filed a complaint with the secretary of state division of elections and to the best of my knowledge such a complaint was filed by the candidate i know that i personally filed a request for an opinion from the corporate
36:36council from the secretary of state's division of elections regarding the recent handling of nomination papers mr lyons should have recused himself from the handling of nomination papers as the candidate's opponent has had mr lyons work on his campaign it is apparent that with mr lyon's past practice of working on any number of political candidates and campaigns his ability as an election commissioner may be impeded
37:02by the fact that he may have to recuse himself from the handling of an election and nomination process further the position of election commissioner is a vital position in the election electoral process and any inference of impropriety may be avoided as we have seen recently in the presidential election complaints will be generated if mr lyons does not recuse himself from the handling of the election if he has ever
37:29had a position in the candidate's campaign the elections commissioner must be neutral and must only represent the law and people and not his political allies i know i personally will have no faith in our election process if mr lyons did not recuse himself from the election vote or certification especially when a candidate has had mr lyons as part of their campaign another issue although minor where the
37:54two political parties in the city approached and were were the two political parties in the city approached in their support or rejection of the appointment while this may not have been a past practice it is a practice that would maintain the confidence in the election process lastly the issue of water bills has come before this council annually and right now i would like to address the needs of
38:17low-income residents the quarterly billing process of the water department can become burdensome on the people on fixed income or low income i would like to once again suggest that the city council look into the possibility of doing monthly billings of the water and sewer accounts it is not unheard of for community utilities to be billed monthly as it provides a monthly income stream for the
38:41community utilities and allows for proper budgeting for the community that is man manageable some bills as high as 500 and higher are not easily handled by many people especially property owners that have apartments as they may not be charging exorbitantly high rents in order to keep people in their properties i do understand that monthly billings will have a slight increase in costs to the city
39:06but the offset may be fewer delinquent bills and a monthly income stream more importantly it will alleviate some stress on the property owners thank you for your consideration in these matters cj ferry anything further madam clerk no my president next item on the agenda is a resolution the committee on finance to convene to discuss allowable use of the bristol county arpa funds that fall repeat will
39:30be receiving this was uh adopted may 10 2022.
39:35we have members of the administration come down
39:47resolution which was filed by myself and council vice president whereas the city of fall river will be receiving 16 million dollars in bristol county are for funds and whereas the spending of these funds requires signatures of five members of the fall river city council now therefore be it resolved that each member of the city council review the arbor fund's allowable uses and be
40:08prepared to make recommendations to the administration on how these funds are spent and be it further resolved at the city administrator and the director of financial services be invited to attend the committee on finance meetings scheduled for tuesday may 24th to discuss and provide guidance on the council's recommendations in order to ensure the final decision on the use of these funds is reached in cooperation
40:29with the administration and in the best interests of the residents businesses and the city of fall river tony aiken good evening uh it's good to be here this evening as you could see there were several exhibits included in the packet for this evening for this conversation one of them is a 44-page summary of the final rule for arpa distribution as you probably know since its inception arpa has gone through a number of
41:08different uh revisions and changes uh as of april 1 2022 what is being referred to as the final rule is in effect the final rule is pages long which is why the summary of the rule is 44 pages i've included that because as you consider uh ways that this council would recommend using county arpa funds that particular summary is very helpful in figuring out how the rules have been shaped over time and
41:43sort of what the final position of the department of treasury is on that i also included for your review some proposals that have full documentation behind them from different departments in the city as well as some other proposals that would require some additional research and information as is indicated on the bottom of that sheet that's entitled snapshot proposed follower expenditures
42:10the administration is glad to assist in preparing any full proposals that this council might be interested in sending to the county as you know there's just about a little over 16 million dollars in county money commitment of those funds requires five signatures of counselors so a simple majority of this body and the intent of the mayor is to ask the council to um obviously within the boundaries of the
42:41uh of the uh allowable uses use that money how they see fit and so with your five signatures and with whatever help the administration can offer in crafting proposals hopefully we can really use that money to do some some important things here in the city and then finally there is my list of arpa eligible uses by category uh it's important to identify what category and subcategory and eligible use might be
43:12when we're proposing it and i can certainly help i've read the final rule and read the summary and and i have a pretty good working knowledge at least for now until they change it again of how these things might fall into the different categories and then i've also provided a list of all the already committed arpa funds through the city arbor money which is that 70 million done in two allotments of approximately 34
43:438 35 million dollars so with that i would be glad to take your questions and and engage in whatever conversation you see fit about these funds thank you councilman c council vice president dion good evening thank you okay i have a few questions actually so in terms of the police department i want to start out by saying i have no issue with how funds have been allocated and spent in regards to the police department
44:13that i have there's no issue at all i am dismayed that there have never been any funds allocated for the fire department but i guess we are where we are would you like me to speak to that sure i would like you to please sure um so um i submitted uh only uh our arpa commitments um the thing that's important to note is that through the cda we are purchasing a ladder truck as well
44:41as an engine which is about two and a half 2.6 million dollars and there's also a commitment to purchase turnout gear so what we're trying to do is i mean i suppose somebody could take issue with which pocket it's coming out of uh but with regard to the cda they know mr diane knows that he can utilize some of his funds to purchase fire trucks for the fire department those are huge expenditures
45:10but that will significantly upgrade and improve the fleet that we have which is already a very good fleet but it does need some some upgrading the reason why what you see here is police expenditures without any fire is because of that because if you look at the amount of money that's already been committed to fire through cda we're essentially looking at a similar amount of money for
45:32police so it's an equal thing this is not leaving fire out for any reason do you have a timeline on that and when they might be able to expect these vehicles and turn over here so i know that the uh the vehicles um they generally take about eight months to a year to to build i understand exactly and so i believe it was maybe uh two months ago um maybe ten weeks at the out at the
45:54outside um that these vehicles that they settled upon what they wanted uh i'm not sure necessarily how long it takes for the order to go in and that sort of thing but i know that that was actively in process about ten weeks ago okay good that's great excuse me one question counselor attorney aiken could you just clarify i did reach out to the fire department when i was reading through the administration's
46:14snapshot of proposals and there i didn't see anything from fire on here and i was told that the fire department had submitted a list to the original arpa committee which had 48 items on it and it was not uh prior it wasn't in any type of a priority order do you have that i did ask someone to send it to me but i do not have it so i don't have that with me i apologize
46:38i didn't know you were looking for it madam president um and i can get that to uh the council um those are um um proposals that have recently been received have not been acted on uh or reviewed in any significant way for the city orpah committee and the reason they are not included in any of the documents that i submitted tonight is that we just haven't done the due diligence and as far as i'm concerned
47:04they don't have they're not fully documented proposals it's a list of proposals i'd like to see priorities for the fire department of what it is they're looking for and because everything else is through cda it wouldn't be included in this okay would you ask the fire department to prioritize that list that you received i have okay thank you now in terms of the uh monies that have been allocated for crime prevention
47:27training and equipment um it's it's in two on two separate line items one is 275 000 one is 287 thousand uh one in parentheses is police cars it might does that indicate that the initial 275 was to purchase strictly police vehicles and then the second line item was for the uh prevention training and training so the first line item it was an early arpa purchase of police cars um and so i
47:56believe was that five cruisers i think that's what they said um and uh so that was there's a certain number of of cruisers that they try to purchase every year and this was a way to offset that normal line item in the budget we purchased five police cars we're talking about how to basically flesh out the rest of the the purchasing that they might need to do around police cars motorcycles and other vehicles
48:23uh with regard to the 287 um the crime prevention training and equipment um i'm not exactly sure so there's a number of things that that we've done with the police uh that have been out of necessity um so you see from uh the proposed fall river expenditures the the sheet that isn't that hasn't been acted on yet the 911 communication system that was something that wasn't really anticipated as as what they would have
48:52liked to have spent harper on but they got noticed that the software company is no longer supporting software this is 911 computer system that supports uh ems fire and police so it just had to be done otherwise our 911 system would become obsolete so there's kind of a combination of things that were planned you know that might otherwise be capital expenses and things that uh were huge expenses
49:16that that were a little bit unexpected and needed to be active so it's safe to say that we don't right now this second explicitly know what the 287 actually purchased i can because i get that the 911 is above and beyond but it's not part of that number that's that is true and i'm absolutely not against it obviously i mean that's an important thing if you can't call 9-1-1 and get help we're in trouble
49:38that's a true story so um i don't have issue with that i was just curious as to what um that allocation did pay for especially moving forward if we're going to be asked for other things well what did we spend the money on already in terms of the police cruisers yes generally that would be in the capital projects um i believe we started last either last budget cycle or the one
50:04before to start putting cruises into the capital projects every year so that we could maintain our fleet of vehicles and and keep upgrading so this year uh projects were uh were taken out of the budget so i guess the opera funding compensated for the fact that that was pulled from the budget is that uh accurate statement not completely sort of so so the uh as you probably all know and i've seen at this
50:30point the budget you know was submitted uh several weeks ago and that budget did not reflect any capital uh projects we those were pulled out uh in order to deliver a balanced budget um we are talking right now uh similar to what i just referenced with regard to fire um trying to figure out what the priorities are for each of those departments given anything that's already been acted on
50:51with arpa and any conditions that might have changed for different departments including you know fire police but also the smaller departments uh and dcm and getting them to prioritize for us so we can actually go back and say okay you know what is eligible for opera expenditure and what do we want to do with whether it's city art of money or asking the council to do through county every month okay now
51:14on the um bristol county opera funds page body one cameras if memory serves me correctly and it wasn't so long ago only a couple of weeks ago i believe we had an opera meeting with the original allocation of funding where this subject was discussed and it was basically unanimously voted that those the original opera funds not the bristol county funds would be utilized to pay for for this so why now
51:44would it be under the bristol county if the opera committee had already basically committed by vote to paying for this so it was actually just the tasers so as you recall um we did discuss the uh maintenance and storage at that meeting we did but it actually came up outside of the proposal so the proposal was um i think uh 300 almost 400 000 for tasers and the reason that was important is that the
52:13age of the tasers that the police department has now are not compatible with body-worn cameras correct the idea and i know you know this but i'm going to say for the rest of the council the idea is that there are basically three ways we want a body-worn camera to be activated either manually where a police officer gets out of his or her vehicle engages with a member of the public and
52:35activates the camera to make sure that that interaction is recorded otherwise there are emergent circumstances where an officer may not have the time but because of the emergency aspect they're either drawing their weapon or they're drawing their taser we want both of those tools to work with the taser in order to activate the body worn i'm sorry work with the camera in order to activate the body
53:00worn camera upon draw the tasers right now are too old for that uh for that uh to work so what we were looking to do is upgrade the tasers in order for them to be combative with bodywork cameras now what happened in the meeting is that someone brought up well you know cost of body-worn cameras does that include storage does that include equipment and um what emerged from that was this idea of well what if
53:23we looked for arpa money to do both the tasers and the cameras as all single you know one single expenditure so the proposed 1.522 million dollars is it's actually really 1.73 because there's a 200 000 grant um that that we would be able to get to pay for a portion of this the balance of it is um really like one point one or two million dollars for the cameras which includes five years
53:56of maintenance as well as storage of all the information and then finally a an upgrade for the entire force of well for the majority of the force for tasers because what you don't have to do is have people sharing equipment because what you want is you want the footage from the camera to be linked to that single officer who's using that single taser and that single weapon that way there's no question as to who
54:22is behind the camera uh when that footage is needed for any purpose um whether it's to protect the officer to protect the resident and i think it can certainly go both ways um you know given the situation so the 1.522 it's just a proposal that that if the city council is not interested in funding that through county uh arpa money um i think that that would certainly be the proposal that would go
54:46uh to the city as essentially a revision of the first proposal which was just for tasers so that's why it's here because it's essentially a revision of the original proposal yeah because i do um recall that there was an individual and this isn't quite verbatim but i think i'm going to be close there was an individual who stated you know this is a one-time expense with one-time monies why wouldn't we just
55:10consider paying for the whole ball of wax why don't we table it send it back to the police department identify the dollar number and then um and approve to pay pay for the entire thing um which the funds are there i don't think i mean i personally because of knowing about you know that that the whole conversation uh that the entire committee was on board with that thought it was a good idea to do that
55:37and so do i i think they need the equipment um but i don't i my part i i can't support taking it out of the bristol county funding when i know the conversation already existed and the funds are there to take it out of the original opera funding i guess that's just my point and it's just me personally my stance yeah i it feels with respect kind of like a distinction without a difference but i
55:58know that this council was very interested in body cams i know that there's a resolution about body cameras so um you know i basically took the initiative to put this on as a way to possibly do this because we hadn't committed the money yet knowing that the proposal for tasers was going to evolve into a proposal for the entire thing but you know whatever this i mean like i said the mayor is committed to
56:23this council directing that 16 million in the best way it sees fit i think this is a very very um uh worthwhile way for that money to be spent but if the council wants to go in a different direction uh we can certainly do it through city arkansas yeah i i mean i i seem in my estimations monies that were spent that i don't know i won't get into that side
56:46of my opinion but i i just think the money was there uh the committee was on board with with paying for all of it that we can do something else worthwhile with 1.5 million dollars out of the bristol county funds again only in my opinion i'm only one vote it's all going to benefit the city so it almost doesn't matter what pocket it comes out of but i think i understand at the bottom of the
57:06list is 140 000 allocation to rivet to recovery i was a little bit again surprised to see that on the list only because that was a request that was tabled we were waiting for additional information it was tabled and supposed to come back to the committee with with the uh specifics that that the committee was looking for so i found it interesting that it's considered to be allocated when it didn't come back to the
57:36committee so i do remember when the gentleman from river to recovery came back a second time and i don't know whether because i actually had to step out of that meeting i don't remember if the full compliment of members were at the meeting if it was possible that you were not there first i was there it was tabled you did leave but the second time when he came back do you remember that um
57:58i um all right i'll get clarification um that'll be good uh but i i'm i'm i think there was only one meeting since then and i was at that meeting but whatever yeah if we get clarification on that and again it's only 140 000 but for the sake of argument let's assume it they decided it just didn't meet the criteria or or what they were looking for again there's another 145 140 000 that can be applied
58:22towards something i guess is my point with that one all right now i'm going to jump to street sweepers um i have three questions sure the first how many employees do we have that can actually be dedicated to street sweeping how many licensed operators do we have and where are we going to store almost a million dollars worth of equipment that's going to get ruined along with the rest of the vehicles everybody
58:52complains about that sit out in the weather so i'll take the questions uh the first one is it depends on the street sweeper so there are two kinds of street sweepers here one is a vacuum sweeper the other is a brush sweeper the vacuum sweepers are actually really essential especially for the water apartment but also for streets and highways because they're able to to essentially go below grade and
59:18suck out um uh you know catch basins and uh anything that isn't just a flat surface so you're able to go in and clean out a lot of the things that um you you this council has seen hundreds of times where um you know we've had claims come to the council because people say oh you know my area was flooded and if you look into the claim you find out that they claim
59:43that there was a a clogged you know grade or drainage piece these vacuum sweepers are able to clean that stuff out they're able to clean out catch basins they're able to clean out a lot of the water-based infrastructure and so it's essential in that way so excuse me i don't want to interrupt you but if i don't ask i might forget so and if that's the case who would be in possession of that
1:00:08particular street sweeper if it's more geared towards the water department well it's not more geared it just happens to be you know really the the one that they would need more than anything so currently we have three street sweepers that are in the possession of the city already already purchased uh two vacuums in one brush um and one of the vacuums is old and on its way out so for effectively in terms of dependable
1:00:34street street street sweepers we have one of each water department needs one on its own a vacuum and then we'd be looking for also uh brushes you would ask who is able to operate them the thing about a uh the brush ones is that it doesn't require a commercial driver's license uh with air brake or any of the additional um pieces whereas the vacuums do so we have a number of personnel within dcm
1:01:01as well as water that if they were to operate a brush it wouldn't be a problem we have a more limited number of personnel within dcm and water that would operate the vacuum uh but we have personnel that could do it uh and that already do do it and so a cdl is is um i'm not saying it's easy to get um but you know people are paid extra to have that cdl it is an essential
1:01:23thing we've talked always about um okay if you know if we need people with cdls can we run our own cdl and we have in the past we've actually in the city run our own cdl course gotten people qualified and they've wanted to do that because it there's certain equipment that they can do with regard to storage uh there's a couple answers to that one is that dcm over the last several weeks has been
1:01:45in the process of significantly sort of restructuring and cleaning out a lot of the facility that could be used for storage there's also a space building that's in pieces uh that's been there for six years in storage and uh that building uh would be sufficient to store five or six of our plow trucks i mean it's a huge building it's just never been erected um and so um i don't want to complicate the issue
1:02:09by by throwing that through you know about to fall out of my chair right um so it's it's been in the building um and uh it is about the right size to fit into the lot that's down behind the lewiston street facility that right now is occupied by a bunch of deadlined no longer usable fire trucks ambulances panel trucks things like that those are currently being valued for auction and scrap they
1:02:35will be gone uh in the next 60 days uh at which point the building will be erected and we'll have space additionally for whether it's plows street sweepers whatever it is so they don't get ruined because that's a huge thing we need to protect what we have okay take care of it a point of clarification i apologize uh attorney aiken did you say there is a space building building in storage this council has asked for
1:02:58a space building for equipment for the last six years we've been waiting for price and we haven't been directing and purchasing how does somebody hide a building i can't um this is amazing we stored it so it comes in pieces um so i just recently ordered about this uh when i was you know i've been doing tours of fire stations and dcm and everything else like that and somebody approached
1:03:26me and let me know about it um it's still apparently from what i understand in in boxes or packages uh never been opened um and could be erected and used effectively to store vehicles and the city doesn't know they paid for a building well i can't speak to to what happened six years ago yeah um you know at this point my interest it's certainly frustrating and surprising but my interest is in
1:03:53moving forward erecting that building gaining the storage space that we need and making sure that that facility is is running as well as it possibly can be and we're certainly moving towards that every day okay i'm sorry i'll try not to be stuck on that i'm just absolutely flawed and amazed so i'm going to ask my last question so other people can ask questions um it's been stated on numerous occasions
1:04:17and in the mayor's third paragraph in the budget book in his letter it states that arpa funding will be utilized to offset the debt exclusion for durfee high i don't see anywhere in either of these two pages where any opera funding is being dedicated to that and i never saw in the budget any line item that indicates that opera funding has been dedicated so essentially um utilizing pulling all
1:04:46of the capital out of the budgets and utilizing our funding will freed up some instead of putting the entire debt exclusion into the budget for fy 23 we're putting about half of it in but in order to do that we had to pull all the capital out and utilize opera funding okay you okay so opera funding is being utilized in which way that assists pulling gaining money from pulling capital funds
1:05:14because so instead of putting the entire almost five million dollars of debt exclusion into the budget are adding the entire amount we're adding only half of it so we're utilizing resources of opera funding to do the capital expenditures instead of adding the entire almost five million dollars of the debt payment for the durfee okay so in other words i could almost say that you used
1:05:39opera funding to purchase police cars so the money that you purchased police cars with could be put towards that subsidy actually that exclusion that's what you're saying that's how it's being so when you i wasn't here when you when the capital plan was presented but essentially we and then we've gone back we're having meetings over the next two weeks asking them to prioritize capital and the plan
1:06:00is is to i mean obviously to utilize one-time funding to buy capital items because you don't want to use it for your reoccurring operating expenses right so still that's well we're not on the budget but so essentially if we were to pull in the entire if i were to so what what dollar amount is being applied so offset so you can see it is it's two point two two five two million two
1:06:26hundred fifty thousand that the taxpayers are going to pay i saw that line item how much opera funding slash pull out capital funding how many how much in terms of monies is the offset is it 2.4 2.6 two point what's the offset um i believe the original allocation was supposed to be like 4.8 but i could be off on that so i know there was a couple i think when ed was explaining this to
1:06:52me he pulled out i think around two million dollars of capital expenditures so there's no capital expenditures for any department in any of their budgets currently okay so the intent of utilizing arpa funding to help fund those okay well i'll yield at this point we'll save this conversation for next week thank you thank you councillor councilman c1 council academy thank you madam president uh just in terms of the
1:07:21i guess the lists of items that we've already committed to are these being used i'm just trying to understand the categories so some of the categories are pretty clear but are we using lost revenue for these like just for instance there's four of our police department the crime prevention training and equipment 287 000 what category does that fall under my guess would be um that we would put that under uh 3.16
1:07:47which is social determinants of health community violence prevention interventions so there are um when you come to when it comes to police expenditures you said 3.1 3.16
1:08:24okay so there's there's a couple options well there's not there's two options with regard to police um uh i would argue that 3.16 applies to a lot of police programs um with regard to mitigation of violence in communities especially communities that have been significantly impacted by the affected covet um the negative economic impact piece um part of part of the documentation right
1:08:52so it's going to be similar to a grant but are you going to have to document that there is a significant uptick in in crime from covet not necessarily so if you look at the guidance there is some documentation depending on the amount of money that's that's being allocated toward that uh and then there are other times where uh the treasury has basically put out guidance that there is a presumption that within certain
1:09:15communities that are defined under the rule uh there would be the need for non-violence measures or violence mitigation which can include certain law enforcement expenditures so you can either go lost revenue like you said at the beginning or you can go in the third category so then just in on the bristol county like so the graffiti removal machine the pothole and asphalt repair the street sweeper what
1:09:43categories do those fall under so um it should be noted that there is no lost revenue provision in county money right um so that's that's something that everyone should be aware of that with regard to the seven categories that i put forth here um these are the general arpa categories but everyone should be aware with regard to the money that we're talking about tonight loss revenue is not one of those
1:10:08categories that's one very clear about that um so with regard to the pothole and asphalt repair and street sweepers within
1:10:25so the guidance under um section 5 infrastructure which is largely water and broadband as well as negative economic impacts of cove in section 2 the guidance is that there can be no large scale road projects but road projects which are ancillary and connected to water projects are allowed so the for instance the uh the pothole and asphalt repair um i mean that that's you know technically
1:10:57the idea of the hot box and the infrared array which which penetrates the pavement allows year-round uh repair of asphalt roads that sort of thing um is could be perfect for a spot water line repair what service removal anything else like that because you're patching even if your use of that is going to go beyond it if in fact that can be a significant use the guidance says that it's allowed
1:11:23so that was part of the research i did before because i said geez i know that road projects aren't allowed um this because it's essentially a patch road um it facilitates uh patch projects uh is actually allowed under the um under the guidance um they specifically talk about sidewalks um and then go on to say that in addition to sidewalks uh small road patches are are an allowable expense but large scale
1:11:52uh infrastructure roads or not uh street sweepers are a similar thing especially since they can be utilized on behalf of the water department but there can also be essentially a maintaining uh you know sort of city hygiene and uh and cleanliness it's different than a reconstruction or infrastructure project but rather a maintenance piece which is also an allowable use have we gotten any guidance from uh
1:12:22bristol county in terms of you know obviously we've got some the applications with the documentation surrounding it but i mean to me the street sweepers seem i mean i i appreciate the the attempt i i would think that that would get denied under the uh the category i mean that's uh like i said i'm not here to try to exercise any control over what the council does with this money um
1:12:45no i i guess when i'm looking at this i mean some of these some of these items i i think tend to be a stretch so what i don't want to do is commit monies that we think are going to be approved or we get a single audit and then all of a sudden we're having to pay back the federal government for because this was a concern of the council early
1:13:03on as to whether or not there was going to be artists and i know there were at least one counselor who was no longer here uh made a statement that somebody said nobody cares about audits well the dls has has been very very clear that you know there we have to follow uh you know the single audit in terms of the uh the funding that comes down so there's going to be some
1:13:21obviously some audits and and review by the the federal government to make sure that we're actually applying for the appropriate categories uh bristol county has already i mean they've got an accounting firm that's going to be reviewing all the applications so it's going to i think it's going to be more difficult to try to use the 16 million on the county side which you know i'd support this council
1:13:45requesting that the administration draft a letter to the bristol county commissioners and asking them to open up the lost revenue category uh because i i think it's the easiest way to to utilize this money and um and is the least restrictive as as you know and i think gives us more flexibility to be able to to do more uh with the community and i understand they they want to use it for the for their
1:14:04projects but you know i think even if it's just a percentage to the local communities right whether it's you know they want to appropriate 50 of their total and allow that loss revenue the other 50 of the lost revenue to be dispersed amongst the other communities and that's fine but i think we need to be a little bit more proactive because um trying to target these categories especially 16 million dollars which are
1:14:26very very um strict in my in my opinion i think we're gonna have a difficult time and just looking at this i mean i don't i don't disagree with that we need street sweepers we don't you know tasers things like that i just don't know that we're gonna be able to get through the uh bristol county um if we can then god bless us i i think it's a it's a
1:14:47good attempt but again i just don't want to be at the last minute where we're trying to spend all this money and then you know we're missing we're missing the boat on trying to either do more water projects or sewer projects and get more roads repairs or you know other items you know whether it be you know health and human service related items that we can get out there so i guess i would just
1:15:08in try to get some type of determination uh from bristol county as to whether or not they think some of these categories would fit the categories that we would be applying for and then i think the council can then just come back and say okay we've got this this pool of money how do we really want to appropriate it uh because if if bristol county is going to say yes to a
1:15:27street sweeper i think that kind of opens up a little bit more leeway in terms of how we'd be creative how we can be creative with uh spending some of this money so in terms of our portion we only have 3.8 million left is that accurate in which part are we talking about so i was looking at this this document here not the uh so it just says the city of four of our commitments
1:15:51that's the original uh 35 million that we received i asked them to provide us with a list of things that they've already used arbor funding on so yeah so i guess i'm just i don't know that i'm following it so we've got a city allocation of 69 million we received um roughly half of that in june we've applied 10 million for lost revenue then it says lost revenue provision balance so we have 9 million left is
1:16:15that right so we only have uh used about 700 000 of the lost revenue 10 million dollars with regard to um the rest we have um the commitments that we have uh leave us with a remaining so of the other 25 million uh we have 3.8 million left of that and then there's another 35 million that should be arriving right any day or may have already arrived i i didn't check as
1:16:45of press time so we got about 12 million on the city left of the 35 just rounded up 35 million that we originally received yes is that accurate and then we've got the 16 million from bristol county yes okay then the only other question i have is is one stage so it's the second that page i was just talking about uh second to last item one stage prod tuition assistance thirty thousand what is that it's uh
1:17:14um non-profit i can go through all of the ones that have already been committed by the city arpa uh committee if you'd like no some of them are pretty straightforward of that that one i'm just curious as to what that is this is a non-profit uh that does uh performance art uh dance um when i say performance art i mean you know uh vocal stage performance that sort of thing um it's uh actually a pretty good
1:17:42good-sized non-profit that serves a whole lot of kids i don't remember the the number off the top of my head but they were looking for assistance with uh basically opening up the program to as many kids at a lower tuition as possible so performing arts performing arts okay with that i yield thank you counselor counselor nc5 council lee thank you um just uh wanted to make sure i i think i live asked you a while back
1:18:12about um the fact that we voted for to approve the first half of the uh opera funding and um i'm not sure if we ever got anything back but i was wondering if we vote again for the other half or is it already did we already approve the entire 70 in that vote you know i wasn't here for the vote so i apologize that i don't know specifically what the terms of the vote were uh if
1:18:36the vote was to approve 34 34 million 799 000 in our funding i would imagine there it has to be another vote for them come to us again okay thank you next installment i just wanted to make uh clarification on that um uh regarding the um the list that you gave us i i don't have an argument against what you have whether or not you want to use it for bristol county or
1:19:00the original opera funding for body cameras to support i mean as long as it's done it's done in my opinion but i i would like to know i would like to at least have um what council vice president asked be answered as far as the clarification as to where it is going to come from because i think it is important and it would tell us where we can then you know use the other
1:19:21expenditure when it's sure if it's available i can just say just to answer that um because you know you know it's hard to know what level of preparation might have gone into this but i can tell you that i've read the 437-page final rule and also the summary um and prepared this with that in mind knowing what the guidance is that said we can certainly get confirmation from some other party that
1:19:45may or may not have read the final rule and get their opinion on what's um uh what's allowable and what's not yeah sure um i've expressed in the past that i feel as though the first 35 uh that was given um or that was approved hasn't really um addressed our sewer in water infrastructure issues and um i haven't seen it as well in this in this proposal for the 16 million from
1:20:11the bristol county side as well i'm i am concerned about that i really feel like we're wasting opportunities here to address some of the issues that have been presented by mr ferlin in the past and some of the reasons why we have higher wages every year we're voting to increase and i and i even know that the total that has been approved is still not enough because it's every single
1:20:34year we have to see it um but i'm not just focused on that i think there are legitimate problems when it comes to flooding in certain parts of the city there's houses that have been built in areas where there's been significant flooding issues i really do feel as though there needs to be a priority set for that and this is an opportunity to use those funding so with that idea thank you if i if i
1:20:55can just respond to the course yeah i'm just um so this is one of those situations where um you know i'm i'm bringing some proposals basically you know it's there's it's a vacuum right like this is the first time we're having this conversation um i think the administration is looking for the council to make whatever proposals it wants so so if you're looking at this saying jesus we really need to do more
1:21:19with water and sewer um you know you know the best part is probably to talk to mr furl and say hey what is your capacity because between the 8.5 million uh that's already been committed there's there's i think an additional 5 million in lead service reduction that's coming from the state you know he's probably out you know for a couple years the the money needs to be committed by december
1:21:4031st of 24 it has to be expended by december 31st to 26th so as long as we're imagining that this stuff needs to happen in the space of you know four years give or take and we know that mr furland's department is actually able to to do it um then uh i think that that all the the proposals and ideas that that you all have especially hearing from residents
1:22:08is is great um so so i mean i'm i'm certainly going to bring things you know that we've identified as as priorities that's certainly not an exhaustive list um i know that there are many other priorities out there and i will assist however i can to to create you know whatever needs to go to the the county to uh to do it can i respond i know i give the flow all right i
1:22:32i know that um mr phil has been on the floor several times and we've talked about several different ideas and um but i mean we're as and and i and i i'm just kind of i'm not repeating exactly but i know it's been said that we're legislative only we're not supposed to do the the mayor's job and in that kind of sense we all i think we all have ideas as to what we want to do
1:22:54with someone to separate funding but we do we did have some suggestions to bring down costs or to address infrastructure problems or to address um flooding problems in the city in the past and i i don't know if this is exactly the right time to have that conversation again but we have had those and i feel like i feel as though it's just there's an opportunity to have that conversation again
1:23:18um with the person who runs that department and to have him maybe perhaps come with a proposal with a cost or an estimated cost so that we can know if it's something that can be utilized for arpa in the section five area so i yield again thank you thank you counselor and seat council proposal okay um a few thoughts and i want to start with a question i think going back to council kadeem's point
1:23:46so attorney aiken in the summary rule it talks about capital expenditures it's page 30 as i'm referring to yep so what you were saying before is essentially if it's under a certain amount of money in this case less than 1 million no written justification is required to spend that money is that accurate well so so that's what you're referring to is specific to capital expenditures correct right page 30. yep um
1:24:15so the thing about capital expenditures is that uh if you look up at the top does everyone have the capital exp the uh the summary period okay um so recipients may use funds for program services and capital expenditures that respond to the public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic any use of funds in this category for capital expenditure must comply with the expenditure requirements in addition to
1:24:38other standards for use of funds what's interesting about the way they wrote this is they don't actually go into what the capital expenditure requirements are that is that is in the final rule and it's it's unfortunately significantly more complicated than this chart which actually makes it pretty simple it's like under a million is one thing over a million it's something else and then 10 million or more it's a whole
1:25:00other situation when i responded to counselor kadeem i was actually speaking about non-capital expenditures um because this is really a essentially going beyond the rule so what they're talking about here is if you want to go beyond what we've directed you or the guidance that we've given saying you can do a through f but if you want to go g all right or x or whatever you need to follow
1:25:34these guidelines it also has to be documented in this way what i was actually talking about is is there are things that require significant oversight just in the in the normal course and significant uh justification there are other things that it's more you know this falls into this category it's mental health it's you know fine and then um it's really not question and i would say
1:26:00the majority of the grants that we've given under arpa kind of fall into that lesser uh documentation and what we've done at the city um and uh we're gonna um we're sort of working through the process here but uh uh mr dion has done a really remarkable job kind of managing a lot of this for the committee um is he looks at the presentation he looks at the documentation uh and then helps to um
1:26:29figure out okay what needs to be submitted in order for the funding to happen and it's not always the entire documentation so this is a different thing it's essentially parallel to what i was talking about and it sort of speaks to bigger infrastructure projects that are not contemplated in the seven categories thank you for that clarification so i just have a few questions i'll kind of throw them at you one by one
1:26:53as far as the timeline for the expenditure of the bristol county opera funds what is that it's the same as as as arpa which is commitment by december 31st 24 um expended uh complete by december 31st 26th okay i just want to go through one by one and maybe some of this may be repetitive so excuse me for it um as far as the body-worn cameras have we come to a conclusion of how many
1:27:21officers will be wearing them at this as that process seen its way to the end um so we do not have a so if your question is with regard to a labor agreement is that or do you actually just want a number just a number i'm just curious so if we were to invest this 1.5 million into it what are we seeing as a result for how many how many cameras will be
1:27:44purchased how many will be out there do we have an estimate yet we do um and i don't actually have the full estimate with me unfortunately i apologize i realized as i was coming down here i don't have it i do have the chief here i could put him on the spot and see if he knows the number uh he's a very very capable guy there we go see that thank you chief
1:28:04um we should remember that later on in the full council meeting um how ready he was with that answer so 225 cameras are going to be purchased along with the storage for those cameras yep then as far as how many are going to be used in a day we don't know that yet so the idea is that we don't want guys sharing cameras yeah right um so you know you basically have different shifts
1:28:29um so i'm not saying that in a day all 225 are going to be used but you know however many guys are on each shift times the number of shifts um you know i think over the course of a week you're probably using all the cameras okay you know and i've i've said this to you many of times the whole situation with the graffiti removal machines yes and i want to kind of come to this
1:28:55and we've talked about this before that graffiti is clearly a problem yes across the city um but i want to kind of advocate in the sense that we can buy the machines but until we re-look at the ordinance that is in the books regarding graffiti it's going to be problematic so i mean i been harping about this since the beginning with you that we need to take care of the graffiti you look
1:29:18around it's not something we want to see and needs to be taken care of however i think we do need to and i'm a member of the ordinance committee um i would like to advocate that we look at that ordinance to see what can be done to strengthen that for us as well as you know kind of beautify what we're looking at so i support the removal machines but again we need to
1:29:38look at the ordinance because having machines sit there and we can't use them because we don't have pull to to do more can be problematic to me you talk about the pothole and asphalt repair if we were to go forward with that what is the turnaround time roughly to get those up and running couple months and we have the people to support it okay there's no special qualifications that would be required
1:30:03uh we have um two teams right now that are dedicated to that kind of work and um there are some holes uh personnel holes that we're looking at hiring for right now and we already have some other positions posted so by the time we got any of this equipment in i believe we would have a full complement of dcm workers to uh to not only staff these but to do the full mission of dcm okay
1:30:29on the street sweepers and kind of going back to the graffiti in the same way a frustrating thing for me is watching a street sweeper drive down the middle of pleasant street in the middle sweeping nothing to me it's a little frustrating because again it is hard to get to the sides of the roads to take up the trash that's there i walked some of the flint neighborhood streets two weeks two
1:30:56weekends ago picking up trash and i can't imagine a world where street sweeper would be able to pick up any of that stuff because i know in years past they used to have postings to allow the street sweepers to do their job so again it goes back to this idea that you know spending 950 000 is fabulous except if we don't have a mechanism to ensure it gets done properly
1:31:17we're going to have them sit in this storage shed that's not going to they're not going to do anything so so i mean there's an infrastructure issue there um without a doubt right because i would imagine that part of the issue that you're identifying is the fact that you know we have you know we're an older city with narrow streets a lot of cars that are parked on the streets uh makes it difficult for
1:31:37the street sweepers to uh to get into the nooks and crannies if you will um i know that uh uh mr furland is here he and i have actually talked at length about the street sweepers um and mr denmead is also here we've also talked at length about the street sweepers uh they might be able to offer some insight into whether the vacuum style street sweeper is a more effective tool for that
1:32:00or whether there is some other more effective tool you know given the issue that you just raised but i i almost think that you know while you're you're right we need to figure out some solution to it uh i don't know that that there's a solution i could think of that's going to get cars off the streets and that's kind of the difficult starting point yeah and i think we have to be mindful obviously
1:32:21different parts of the city there are more residential versus more commercial how and what technology we use to address that issue and also the timing of it obviously you know people who are working during the day the less likely their cars to be there and more accessible to do the job but on the flip side of it there are other parts of the city where we could focus on that cars wouldn't be around
1:32:41because it's you know the businesses are closed it's after six o'clock and you know the streets we can kind of drive down north or south maine a lot easier because there's no cars on the sides of it sure so point of information counselor there is an entire street sweeping schedule that was done four years ago it was started prior to covid i believe it ran a pilot program signage was done by laura
1:33:03correct there's an entire map and then covert came and uh they couldn't have more than one person using the sweepers and then we have broken sweepers and here we are so so can i ask falloff on that then is is that the plan going forward to follow that pilot program has it been relooked at since then it was just so when it was started and it was done here in ordinance it went through i
1:33:28think at that time four different dcm department heads because we kept having changeover before it finally got it got implemented and ran for two seasons and and it ran well okay yeah well that's and that's what i'm kind of alluding to the idea i remember some years ago it running and it from outside looking in it looked like it was doing a great job but then i see one driving down the
1:33:48middle pleasant street and i'm like well that ain't working so that that's my concern there thank you madam president um two more things as far as the i asked the last time about what's come out of the arpa committee as far as a list or or an idea of suggestions that have been approached by that committee i know i appreciate this list but i would like to see that list that i asked
1:34:14for last time of ideas because again i mean i can go on facebook and ask everybody in the world what they want to do with arpa money but this works already being done so why regurgitate the same process so is it possible to get that list of not only suggestions but also applications that have been sent out for maybe us to consider to apply for through this does that make any sense so all right so
1:34:38on one hand you're you are looking for any suggestions that might have been made during the original listening sessions correct okay if those exist i'll get them uh and i don't know necessarily what form they took when they were recorded um but uh if they if they exist i'll certainly get them for you um and with regard to applications so applications that were that are pending that were rejected like
1:35:03it's i don't understand so maybe maybe i'll clarify maybe applications that could be ready to be considered that maybe the city side is not has not considered or thinking about that maybe can be brought forward to us in something like this to say here's some other suggestions that we think of that people have brought forward that you may want to consider because obviously this is a small list
1:35:25compared to the amount of money that we have to talk about yeah i mean certainly the idea was and i i think i'm probably um going to fail at this one but it was the idea was getting as many ideas from the council and then helping but if you'd like me just to bring a list of ideas i can certainly do that and i'll facilitate this however i can um
1:35:46with regard to to this list this is these are just uh proposals that have been developed enough to actually know what the real cost is um you know there's a few down the bottom you know where um they're either they don't necessarily have a fixed cost because you're not buying a thing it's more you know hey forever paz does amazing work with you know with rescue animals i have a
1:36:07red tick hound from kentucky we got from forever paws and chief is great he's a great dog um so they do wonderful work you know do we give them you know some money do we give um you know youth in action uh you know i think we talked about that at some point in the past money to do uh some of the resource work that they're doing i mean
1:36:26there are a ton of ideas out there and i'll i'll see what i can do to to get whatever resources we already have um of suggestions so the city council can develop that okay and and i'll just make my last comment you know in one of the subcommittees the other day that i was on um discussing the impact on youth obviously through the pandemic and at least in my opinion um
1:36:49using arpa money to support our youth because of the effects of the pandemic is a perfect reason to expend some of that money so i know we had discussed with christian murkowski in the group there that was with us talking about them developing some sort of number that we could possibly go forward with to help support their initiatives which again you know i know there's a lot of
1:37:11support within the schools and all that but now we're talking about programs outside of the school so you look at your list here for example the 65 000 of city opera money spent for the boys and girls club for social emotional programs which i think is a great start but i think we need to do more and there are a lot of organizations that are supporting youth outside of the
1:37:328 to 2 30 school day that could really benefit from support from our end because again we're supporting the youth of our city which essentially will be the future us hopefully going around so i mean i'd like to publicly advocate for them i know i've asked mr murkowski to come with some sort of number that we could possibly work forward with and i just i think that's an important thing to note uh going forward
1:37:59and that'll yield thank you thank you is there anything further from the council before i recognize counselor three attorney aiken i think the best course of action would be as counselor kadeem suggested would be to get um approval on the items that you've sent from bristol county um and then we could talk about them are any of these time sensitive uh i mean everything in the city is sort of time sensitive
1:38:27it's i mean it's it's always uh you know helpful if we're doing a lot of stuff sooner rather than later uh but if it seems that that none of it is is going to happen uh quickly because you know maybe the county is not able to respond as quickly or they want to get another opinion uh you know we can you know move forward with with city art of money so
1:38:46i don't think we should i'm not we're not i'm not too too worried about the timing on on any of these yet uh but i'll just get the opinion from the county and um and get that to the council so you can have a better sense of what they're willing to uh allow and what they're what they're not inclined to uh to allow okay counselor at c3 council vice president
1:39:09yeah just uh one more statement and i meant to say this earlier um you know sewer and water infrastructure is the only item that can impact this community and save the taxpayers any significant money it's in terms of um i mean you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars that's been that the taxpayers have been burdened with to complete this project and we're still so far away from that
1:39:35um you know we can we can affect the rates moving forward if we make a significant contribution to future projects i personally and people may not agree with me and that's fine but for me it's in the best interest of the city and the taxpayers when you look at the two the three parts of money we're looking at like 85 million dollars in change and i get they already gave 8 million dollars um
1:40:06fear for the water main but essentially that money also just circumvented the fact that we couldn't put it into sidewalks but sidewalks got done because it happened to fit into the project again my personal opinion um but with that said there are new projects i personally would like to see a concerted effort i would i would like to see 15 million dollars dedicated to the water and sewer
1:40:31infrastructure i'm sure it's not going to happen but that would be my number to make a significant impact on this community and with that i yield counselor is that on top of the 8 million already committed or total yes on top because just on the lead reduction i believe that in itself is a 20 million dollar project and that's not and we're not even talking about other federally mandated projects that
1:40:56we're facing it's it's like the numbers are astronomical so somewhere somehow we have to affect uh do something that that that's going to help this city and and you know would it be helpful to the council to have mr furland down to to respond as to whether or not we could actually get that yes can we wave the rules and have him come down like this for this meeting or or moving forward any either all
1:41:23is that a motion away of the rules oh we don't need emotion is he here i would also like him to respond to the street sweeper for the water department seeing he's here madam president just tell us i guess a point of information i i know mr furling wasn't prepared unless maybe he is prepared but i agree with console and c3 i think that's information we need um counselor and c 8
1:41:48has already requested a list of projects that have been put forth so maybe we get a separate list from mr furlands to projects that he feels he would be able to do utilizing opera money now i don't disagree i support the 15 million dollars but maybe it's 20 million maybe it's 10 million whatever the case may be i think we've said this before as a council um that that truly is the only way to
1:42:10you know help the taxpayers and then in this case the rate payers um so as opposed to not saying that he would drag this meeting on but just to kind of move it along if he could kind of put together a list of projects that have already been submitted maybe ones that you would have liked to have submitted and didn't submit so that we can get that and have those conversations uh in
1:42:28the future meeting agreed mr farrell yes so thank you very much counselors um so just to uh touch a little bit i know the street sweepers was something that was talked about earlier um one thing that was actually a proposal that was submitted by uh myself um which will benefit dcm as well as department of uh community utilities mike palman street sweep is uh most people think that it's go out there and pick up the
1:42:54trash that's on the street a lot of times that's what it does you know it makes the city look better but the real essential function of a street sweeper is to be able to pick up any contaminants that are on the ground dirt debris rock sand and stop that from moving into our drainage systems uh moving into our sewer system having to be treated at our wastewater treatment plant or being brought out into uh into
1:43:20the bay uh or any other streams rivers or or ponds or lakes uh essentially contamination so to limit the amount of contamination uh it helps a lot uh in the fall with picking up leaf litter that's on the street um that's a that's prime source of phosphorus and nutrients that run off that's one of the major effects of algae blooms in the southwest tougher pond and nutrients in the monavie bay
1:43:47so street sweepers as we think of them as a an aesthetic thing uh they're also a uh sewer in stormwater infrastructure uh benefit so that's my little tool so you would get a return on an investment with that yeah i feel that uh again that that would be a great return on investment it would uh reduce the pollutants that go into uh southwest of the pond as well as mount hope bay uh
1:44:13reduced impacts down on our wastewater treatment plant of sand and other contaminants that run off uh and make their way into the combined sewer system madam president point of point of clarification so you're essentially saying that it reduced costs at the end of it all overall overall less that goes into the catch basins the less sand that goes in there the less we would have to
1:44:34clean catch basins and stuff like that uh the ones that i proposed uh for my department would assist us in cleaning catch basins and other infrastructure being swales and other uh stuff that we do need to clean throughout the system to again improve the water quality of the runoff that goes off uh into it and you're not able to do that now effectively uh effectively we do have large factor trucks um so the smaller
1:45:00street sweeper would be able to you know assist with the back to trucks on smaller manholes but it would be a more efficient use of our staff's time to be able to use a street sweeper rather than some of the other equipment that we have so yes and in terms of infrastructure um you're confident that you would you'll be able to come up with a list of projects that can could be allocated by 24
1:45:26um expended by 26 and would significantly help this community yeah without a doubt so uh currently we're under um i know everybody hears about the cso project uh essentially that's mandated by a federal court order as well as uh a consent order with epa so we have mandated projects that need to be done within our sewer stormwater infrastructure those projects are eligible underneath
1:45:54opera funding those projects do have timelines within those orders where they needed to be completed most of them prior to 2025 so you know again a lot of those projects are going to need to be done and when i look at the capacity of our department um i i anticipate though that work that's mandated to be done you know as well as another thing that's uh also talked about down at this council before
1:46:21uh is the lead services throughout the whole entire city and the the revised led and copper rule that's going to be enacted within 24 and 25 that will uh have a great impact on uh you know removal of lead services and how we've been doing it in the past and that those would be bonds that your department would wouldn't have to pay for and therefore would help to stabilize the rates
1:46:46yes uh you know if we are using this one-time arpa money to be able to do these projects we wouldn't have to go out for authorizations for loans which means that we wouldn't have to pay back those loans there's other funding that is coming down the pike as well bipartisan infrastructure law has been uh talked about there's been uh some real uh early briefings on how that money's
1:47:12gonna come down and when it's gonna come down um but there hasn't been any uh formulated calculated way to say what type of savings it would be for uh for us the city and the ratepayers in the long term thank you i yield thank you counselor and c5 council lee not going to take long because i really know that we really need to know what you have like i
1:47:32was in my head i was going up to 25 i was yelling 25 million i thought people were gonna say i was talking too much the way the way i look at it and you know i've been here a million times now with this the way i look at it is there's public safety and water are the main things we need to look at these this opera funding for from from the from the
1:47:52gate from right from the beginning i'm not saying that the other entities don't matter at all but when we look at what fall river specifically needs and the problems that we've had when you look at the cso project looking at many other things we just we just have a golden opportunity i believe to to try to invest in something that can make this most of this go away or some of it go
1:48:13away or at least mitigate some of this that's coming our way when it comes to water and sewer so um i i just i don't know why i have no idea why but there just seemed to be a reluctance to invest in that from this current administration and i'm not sure why and maybe it's just in my head but just feels like that so i'm hoping that we take advantage of this opportunity so
1:48:33i'm looking forward to seeing your list and i yield on that thank you very much thank you anything further saying nothing thank you chairman thank you mister motion major and finance made by council kamara seconded by council proposal all those in favor aye still voted against the jury two minute recess fall river city council and now come to order madam clerk council's kadeem yeah camara here dion here kilby
1:49:03lee here fellaini yeah pereira raposo yeah and president la liberty lebeau here with everybody in the chamber please rise for a moment of silent prayer and if we would keep the family of rebecca and jim cusick and ken pachico in your purse
1:49:24remain standing for a salute to the flag
1:49:39went 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 that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible adam clark the first item before you is the mayor's request for the appointment and contract
1:50:01of paul goffin as the city's confirmed second a confirm made by council kadeem seconded by council kilby any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye any opposed medical clerk do you need roll call i have no money can i just get a point of information do we need a motion to adopt the contract as well as is it a separate question madam clerk the order will approve the appointment
1:50:26and the contract okay i just want to make sure congratulations i didn't want chief government walking away without a paycheck yeah appreciate that no problem congratulations chief
1:51:05we're
1:51:38item number two is the mayor's request for the confirmation of ryan lyons as the chairperson of the board of election commissioners motion to adopt the appointment second by counselor kelvin seconded by counselor pelletier any discussion counselor c3 council vice president dion yeah i just want to say that um i did receive some phone calls however i went through city ordinance i went
1:52:01through the charter i went through mass general law and there is nothing that precludes um mr lyons from having this appointment nothing that precludes him from being the at this point temporary um elections commissioner the only requirement according to mass general law would be let's see as designated by the board of registrars of board of western commissioners shall attend an annual
1:52:31training conducted by the office of the state secretary and offered at no cost the municipality of the individual on the applicable state and federal election laws and regulations so as long as he were to do that training nothing precludes him from being appointed with that i yield thank you i just want to make mention of the uh the letter that we received um mr lyons has been in the elections
1:52:56office since 2019 and and he has not worked on any campaigns since just before taking that office i mean fall river is a book very political city i think you'd be hard-pressed to find people that haven't supported one candidate or another over time but that shouldn't preclude anybody from um doing their job and and doing it to the best of their ability you have a motion to confirm is anything
1:53:21further from the council what you made all those in favor aye aye any opposed so voted congratulations
1:53:38no kissing the girls don't kiss me
1:54:07item number three a is the miz request for the reappointment of john brandt to conservation commission motion to approve second motion approved made by council vice president tian seconded by counselor raposa any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed so voted item three b is the mayor's request for the reappointment of the uh james cusick to the conservation commission second
1:54:31motion approved made by councillor kilby segregated by council raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item 4 is a traffic commission's request to amend traffic ordinance motion refer to the committee on ordinance and legislation made by counselor kilby seconded by counselor pelletier any discussion all those in favor aye still voted committee on ordinances and legislation
1:54:57at a meeting held on may 17th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed ordinance accompanied by an emergency preamble be passed through first reading second reading passed to be enrolled and passed to be ordained with consularly absent and not voting this relates to handicapped parking motion so made motion adopt emerging second motion made by councillor pozo seconded
1:55:20by councillor kilby any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted we need a vote on the emergency preamble motion to adopt second emotional job emergency preamble made by council kadeem seconded by counselor poser any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted we need a roll call um motion to another councilors kadeem yes kumara yes dion yes kilby yeah lee yes pelletier yes pereira
1:55:53proposal yes and president-eleven yes and to pass the ordinance through all readings so moved second thank you oh she made by castle kadeem seconded by council vice president dion all those in favor aye aye aye opposed committee on human services housing youth and elder affairs at a meeting held on may 17th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying proposed resolution be granted leave to withdraw
1:56:23this related to the um use of a platform by that committee to announce youth violence prevention week to be held april 25th through the 29th motion i'll make the motion grant leave to withdraw motion made by council vice president dion seconded by councillor raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted have a proposed ordinance um for passage through second reading and enrollment as
1:56:52amended and there are a number of miscellaneous traffic ordinances to adopt as amended second motion to pass through second reading and enrollment as amended made by council he'll be seconded by council raposo any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted
1:57:17we have the um for passage through second reading and enrollment the water rates so moved second promotion that passed through second reading and enrollment made by council kadeem seconded by councillor kelby any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed post counsel and see three opposes okay for passage through second reading and enrollment we have the sewer rates so moved
1:57:46second millisina passed through second reading and enrollment made by council kadeem seconded by councillor raposa any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed post counselor in seats three and five opposed item 10 is in ordinance for passage through second reading and enrollment and this is the residential compost recycling program motion summit motion to pass through second reading
1:58:17environment made by council of kadeem any discussion seeing none all those in favor any opposed so voted and item number 11 for passage through second reading and enrollment is the historical preservation ordinance so made motion to pass through second reading and enrollment made by councillor raposo second second by council vice president dion any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed so voted
1:58:52whereas many residents of the city of fall river have served in the military and made the ultimate sacrifice in defending our country and whereas memorial day will be observed on may 30th 2022 and whereas a flag has been procured that was flown over the united states capital now therefore be resolved that the director of cemeteries be requested to fly this flag at oak grove cemetery in honor of those men and women
1:59:16option to adopt second mushroomed out made by council vice president dion seconded by council kelly any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted that flag raising ceremony is at 10 a.m on friday of memorial day weekend there is a whole flyer of events all weekend long item number 13 is a citation for judy collins motion to adopt second promotion adopt made by council kadeem secondary
1:59:51counselor proposal any discussion all those in favor any opposed about it and 14 is a citation for christopher blanchett second motion or adopt made by councillor camara seconded by counselor raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted 15 is an order scheduling a hearing for mass electric for an underground conduit motion made by council kadeem seconded by councillor kilby any discussion
2:00:24all those in favor aye any post so vote 16 is the police chief's report motion adopt second motion adopt made by council kadeem seconded by counselor raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted 17 is an application for an auto repair shop license renewal motion to adopt motion adopt made by council vice president dion seconded by counselor raposo any discussion all those in favor
2:00:53aye aye aye opposed so voted 18 is the transfer of an auto repair shop license located at 410 second street motion adopt second motion dot made by council kadeem seconded by council raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted 19 is the application for the transfer of an auto body shop license located at 410 second street motion to adopt second promotional job made by raposo seconded
2:01:21by council of pellets here any discussion all those in favor are you opposed so voted uh item 20 or claims second ocean referred to corporation council made by councillor camara second by council opposer any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted 21 are applications for drain layer licenses motion to approve second motion improvement by council vice president dion seconded by council raposo any
2:01:49discussion all those in favor all right any opposed so voted item 22 is a request for a structure on or over a public way um on behalf of kevin santos motion to approve second motion improvement by counselor kadeem seconded by counselor raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item number 23 our planning board minutes so we should just accept and place on file motion accept and place on
2:02:20file made by council vice president dion seconded by council kadeem any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted 24 minutes of the city council public hearing held on april 26th motion to approve motion improvement by council reposes second by council vice president dion any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted we have minutes of the regular meeting of the city council held on april 26th
2:02:48promotions second promotion improvement by council proposal second by council kadeem any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed so voted motion to take items 26 28 together second motion to take items 26 through 28 together after reading made by council kadeem seconded by council raposo all those in favor aye aye motion to approve uh motion except place on file second second
2:03:12medal clerk would you read 26 27 sure 26 through 28 are notices of casualty and loss um those locations were 3865 north main street 79 woodlawn street and one 23 knights away motion acceptance place on file made by council kadeem seconded by council vice president dion any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted you need a brief recess to sign ordinances do you want to do that before we do the resolution
2:03:45either way the resolution that was filed earlier this evening um whereas information has been brought forward to the council's attention that completion of the durfee high school athletic fields is in question and whereas there is an educational and civic importance for the projects to be completed now therefore be it resolved that this issue be discussed with the school department
2:04:07during the council's deliberation of the fiscal 2023 proposed budget and be it further resolved that the school department be prepared to discuss the status of inter of the indirect cost agreements as well as the feasibility of establishing a stabilization account for the durfee fields second motion adopted by councillor kilby second by council vice president dion any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed
2:04:34so voted now you need a recess mountain clerk we'll take a freeze precess
2:06:06so
2:06:24do do
2:07:18do
2:08:41item is the uh proposed ordinance for a final reading miscellaneous traffic promotional dot made by counselor he'll be seconded by counselor raposo and discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed so voted the next is the are the water rates for passage to be ordained so moves second mostly in a passage through ordination made by council kadeem seconded by councillor any discussion all those in favor
2:09:16any opposed opposed seats three and five opposed we have the sewer rates for passage to be ordained so moved second motion to pass through ordination ordination made by council kareem seconded by council raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed opposed counseling three and five opposed
2:09:48we have the residential compost recycling program ordinance for passage to be ordained motion to pass through ordination tagging motion any discussion all those in favor aye any of you what i didn't hear you i can't say that word any opposed so voted and lastly we have the proposed ordinance uh relating to historical preservation for passage to be ordained a second motion made by council raposo
2:10:26seconded by council kadeem any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed so voted motion to adjourn no i'm sorry councilman see what kyle said uh thank you before quickly before we adjourn i'd just like to make a motion that we send a letter to the governor's office in massdot with regards to invitations and express our disappointment in terms of every time we talk about you
2:10:56know the state delegation the local delegation we always talk about a partnership and yet um there was the lighting of the bragger bridge and none of the councils received uh an invitation to the press conference the lighting ceremony whatever you may want to call it every year or every two years when we have um the inauguration we invite the governor we invite the federal delegation we invite our local delegation um
2:11:26you know we we have state of the city the local delegation is invited i just think it's a it's a slap in the face when we've been having conversations especially from economic development talking about the lighting of the of the bridge and there was zero communication to the city council which is the legislative body for the city to be invited as part of the ceremony i just think it's it's an unfortunate situation
2:11:49if the local delegation wasn't invited they'd be upset so i would i would hope that they would be um you know articulating their uh concern and frustration with the fact that the city council uh was not invited i'm sure that's not going to be the case so i think we need to take it upon ourselves uh and share that with the um you know the governor's office and and mass d.o.t
2:12:08uh in terms of the the slight that we felt uh with the lack of imitation to such an important important project and quite frankly i didn't even know about uh the project going on i don't know why it was such a secret um that we were lighting a bridge i don't i don't know why that is such a top secret initiative i think it's something that should have been discussed i wasn't
2:12:27aware found out about it on social media um and i think it's just an unfortunate situation from my standpoint um so with that i'll make a motion whether or not it gets supported second motion made to send a communication to could you list that again counselor the governor's office so to the governor i would include the lieutenant governor and then mass d.o.t mass d.o.t do you have that madam clerk yes motion
2:12:53made by council kadeem seconded by council vice president dion any further discussion councilman seat six councilor pelletier a different issue any discussion on this letter seeing that i do want to say counselor as you know i did send an email to our state representative viola who was working on this with the lieutenant governor for several years i also did not know it had had come to be
2:13:21and i know you sent an email as well the night of the lighting but there was one counselor that was in attendance that that didn't know about it yep yes council prayer was was that the lighting eleven percent of the counselors were there all those in favor aye aye any opposed so voted adam clerk do you have that yes counseling seat sixth thank you i thought we all agreed that we're gonna do
2:13:52the budget hearings from six to nine and you snuck into ten there for some reason last year it wasn't somebody ratted you out it was going to be 5 30 um to 9 15 and then there was some folks that were gonna have trouble getting here at 5 30 i don't want counselors to feel like they were coming to each meeting late so we did bump it to 10 but we are taking a
2:14:18dinner break at 8 o'clock and i'll be providing food does that make it better
2:14:3815-minute break so it's 6 to 10 and a 15-minute break at 8 o'clock we also have only have certain amount of days to have meetings and needed to work around all of the counselors schedules as well as some of the administration schedules so that we could all be here on the appropriate nights so we'll have a 15 minute recess 15 minute 8 to 8 15 counselor all right i have to bring my gyrator
2:15:05the old man's going to settle 10.
2:15:08motion to adjourn adjourned by council second by council vice president dion all those in favor council is adjourned
2:15:38you