The Fall River Redevelopment Authority convened on May 24th at 5 PM, addressing a range of financial, operational, and development matters. Key discussions included the approval of minutes and warrants, and an update on the Amazon facility project, which was tabled due to emerging legal issues regarding plan revisions. The Authority completed its 2019 audit and authorized a combined 2020/2021 audit for $35,000, aiming for a September completion. They also approved the acquisition of a credit card with a $5,000 limit and the transfer of $32,000 from a closed bank account to a six-month CD at Bristol County Savings Bank to establish a banking relationship. Additionally, the board approved a contract with Able Associates to pursue a temporary administrative assistant. A significant portion of the meeting focused on the City Pier at 600 Duval Street. The board approved revised rules for the pier, including the installation of security cameras and an amendment to remove the 'dawn to dusk' operating hours due to public access rights. A change order of up to $15,000 was approved for power outlet interface panels to facilitate sound equipment for concerts. Concerns were raised about unexplained corrosion on the pier's stainless steel railings, with the board directing Beta, the project consultant, to fund an independent corrosion specialist to investigate. The Authority also discussed progress on the Chapter 91 license for City Pier Phase 4 and the revitalization blueprint for the Pleasant Street Flint Neighborhood. Finally, the board authorized the chair to sign three land disposition agreements for properties on Innovation Way: two with Vitas Management and Development Companies for 23.2 acres ($4,162,800, 200 jobs) and 53.19 acres ($9,542,286, 600 jobs), and one with Bristol Tape Corporation for 5.499 acres ($564,540).
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Council
City Officials
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uh calling to order the meeting of the fall river redevelopment authority tuesday may 24th at 5 pm 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 unperceived by those present and are
0:28deemed acknowledged and permissible i'd like to start by um having a roll call attendance john erickson here joan medeiros here louis gonzalez here joe marshall here ann keane here okay and then also with us is uh sarah page our executive director john coughlin our council council and then uh i looked up and then uh ken fiola our administrative services consultant uh first item for me is to
1:05get an approval of the open session minutes from april 27 2022 are there any any discussion additions deletions i move we approve the open session meeting minutes from april 27th all right is there a second second second joan uh all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye okay so moved uh next item is the um approval of warrants we have a copy is there any discussion on payment of the warrant any um questions
1:49hearing none i would entertain a motion to approve
2:00all in favor signify by saying aye aye anyone opposed so moved the next item is the amazon facility innovative way um we were going to have a guest but he said today that basically he and i have been talking and john has been talking with me about um what was um recorded at the registry for the amazon project originally and if we're going to revise the plans we need to be
2:42revising them based on plans that were approved and are recorded and so that raised a whole legal issue that we all agree he they're going to hire an attorney to work on and they're still working on their plans and so he just all of a sudden this morning said he wasn't coming but he said it was because of these kind of detailed discussions we've been having that identified more issues than anyone had foreseen so i
3:16would just put it on the agenda for the next meeting okay good all right thank you next item financial update completion of the 2019 audit so the audit is complete joan and i had a call with um the auditor do you want to say yep we did a call with uh jennifer from clifton lawson allen last week um despite the delay it looks good we've dealt with um the issues because they had the transfer
3:51of the parking garages back to the city back in 2019 so all of those entries have finally been resolved and they're now ready to do 20 and 21 in the same audit for us and that's a little further down on our agenda to um to vote to authorize them to do the audit well we could we could probably do that now let me just see so it's 35 000 and i compared it to the 2018-2019 audit
4:24and they charge 20 000 each for those so they're combining them yeah which we i asked them and they said that they would do that and we will be up to date after yes yes that will be really good um do they have a date when they believe that order would be completed they share that with you remember correctly i think she gave us like a september time oh this year then
4:49because yes oh yes this will definitely be done in 2020 all right good all right so my challenge is that she wants the information right now because things get really busy in a couple of months and i want her to be moving this thing forward so i reached out to carla at um our firm that does our bookkeeping and asked if she would be available to work with me on the audit since paula isn't here
5:23and we even if i'm able to hire somebody they're not going to have the background that paula had or that carla has since she's been doing our books for a couple of years so she's looking into if she could um give us some time okay and that would be a huge relief all right let us know then um i would entertain a motion then to authorize myself as chair to execute a engagement letter
5:54for a combined 2021 audit at a cost of 35 thousand dollars motion to approve second second by john all in favor aye aye anyone opposed so moved the next item is a plan to obtain the fall river redevelopment authority credit card through bristol county savings bank you want to bring us up to date with that also well it sounds as though that can move forward smoothly and um i'm proposing that ib assigner on the
6:37card for now when we got an administrative assistant add that person you know after they've been here a little while and um i think we'd all agreed on a spending limit of a thousand dollars not that we would typically spend that but did you think it was 500 no i thought it was five thousand for a maximum i thought it was right a thousand dollars is nothing no it isn't that's no
7:00because if you need to do you know an equipment purchase or something i i think 5 000 is reasonable excellent all right and we um you know we wouldn't have a problem with that in order to do that though we need to um and you can back me up on this sarah we need to have a banking relationship with which we don't have now with bristol county savings so
7:27we want to look into six months i think you and i talked about a six-month cd that we have monies now aside there in the amount of about 32 thousand dollars so we had agreed at the last meeting to close the bank account our second bank account at baycos so there's about a little over 32 000 so we'll we can move that over and buy a cd okay all right that makes sense
7:57um any discussion about that all right uh that being the case i'd like to entertain a vote to authorize a credit card application with sarah as the signer on the card and in the future the new administrative assistant with a spending limit of five thousand dollars and joan you should probably i'm standing on both folks oh yeah yes um is someone um i move we approve to um i move we
8:29approve the chair to pursue the five thousand dollar credit limit on the credit card okay is there a second to that second okay um all in favor aye aye and i need to be recorded as abstention for both folks and miss madirus is uh abstaining so do you need a second vote for the 32 grand for the account the next one would be voting to authorize us to purchase us the rda to
9:00purchase a six-month cd at bristol county savings bank in the amount of 32 000 with funds from the rda bank account that is being closed is there a motion for that i move we approve uh the chair to uh to uh transfer the thirty to thirty four thousand thirty two or thirty two 000.
9:22from bay coast and bristol county okay uh is there a second to that uh just one question are you going to need to get some signatories on that so you may want to i don't know if you need to add that to your vote now or or not but well we actually actually yeah we voted at the last meeting to close the other account and then all the signatories would be involved
9:48do we want to redo that i think the the bank that you're moving the money to may want to vote right as to who the authorized signatory right yeah makes sense because you're moving to a whole new bank right yeah so i don't know who's authorized on the current account should probably just do this all of us so just do the same vote so why don't we amend that motion just to include all members as authorized
10:12okay all right and still uh as amended by uh by council and then uh we're still uh john has uh made the motion to purchase the six-month cd uh with the funds from the uh coast closed account is there a second to john's second second by hand all in favor aye and then no miss madeira says abstaining i'd like to add something under the financial update um last time we talked about the administrative assistant and
10:56i've looked into attempt to hire opportunity joan gave me a really good lead and i've talked with her a few times i talked with joe about the provisions of what that would cost and um i'd like to pursue that um so that i have backup while i'm looking and i don't know the all the details are complicated it depends how many weeks you have the person i think the most expensive piece of it is if
11:35she found the perfect person and we wanted to just hire them right off the bat then we would have to pay 10 of the annual salary but that that's she's acting as a search right at that time what about the temp uh so with the temp we'd have to we would have no fee if we had the person for 520 hours and then we would be paying 30 dollars an hour which isn't significantly more than what
12:09we think we're going to pay someone and um that would uh then we could just have that person working for us the piece that i confirmed and i'm really happy about is we can keep looking if we find somebody we can say we don't need you anymore and there's no um no fee no um issue with that and um if we decided halfway through the 520 hours that we really wanted to hire
12:44them then she works out some difference between what you've paid at 30 an hour and what you would have paid so it sounds really fair and yeah i'd be more inclined to go that route than the uh you know i mean we can do our own search right we're going to but you know there's always the possibility that we're struggling and she finds an amazing candidate and we might want to go with
13:13that so i just want to make sure you know that that you know that would be a wonderful thing but it could be more expensive than if we just find someone ourselves and i'm putting more ads out and just going to keep looking yeah so for the 10th position would it be the same hours that you're looking for for a permanent position so you would be getting the amount of help you you need so
13:38okay and that would get us to the 520 hours in a reasonable amount of time i think it was like 13 weeks all right well it's an ongoing process so i don't think we need to vote on it other than you would come to us and say this is what i found and do you agree correct well what what i'd like to do is know that if next week she found to me attempt that i could
14:03move forward on it under these you know these um provisions so do you want to vote on that yeah we can what's that i think we need to i don't know john i don't think we can well you'd be signing a contract right yeah well then we would have to we would be signing a contract with this agency oh okay so i would say if you're gonna do it a vote to authorize the chat
14:29a contract with the temp agency you know if it comes out then at least you've got to vote in between yeah we don't have to scurry around to get it right yeah so i believe that we approve the chair to pursue a contract with the what's the name of the agency able able associate the associates yes yep under the conditions that sarah just described okay is there a second second second all in favor favorites
14:58anyone opposed okay so move thank you anything else on the financial side no no thanks all right next item is the city pier 600 duval street we had a subcommittee or whatever you want to call it this morning consisted of sarah myself ann and johnny to discuss the peer and the the proposed rules uh for the peer going forward in signage um you want to recap that for us sarah
15:36do you want me to read them or you can read them yeah because we all have a copy so we did a number of things we talked with our insurance broker uh we talked with the head of the parks department of the city um paul burke and our insurance um broker uh said that he thought we should mirror the city's rules but the city's rules are two pages long and are
16:05incredibly complex so i did my best to hone them down and gave you all in your board package a long list i want to add though that we did have i thought it was a great discussion yeah because we did add subtract and and we got down to what you just printed for us right so now we have a much more simplified list um so it says city peer rules open from
16:33dawn to dusk no skateboards bicycles or vehicles beyond driveway do not climb on railing or jump off pier no fishing pets must be leashed and pet waste removed no open flames or grills no alcoholic beverages dispose of all trash and proper receptacles do not feed or harm wildlife for information call the fall river redevelopment authority with our number and then we also said about having signs
17:05put up that support what we just said right so we've johnny was out there with me a few weeks ago and we worked with beta and they've told mas to put the footings in for a sign at the point gloria end of the pier it's near the transformer and the wheelchair accessible spaces so it's in a little bit and then one quite close to the boardwalk so when people are coming off
17:41the boardwalk you would see it and that seemed to be the most visible we could get them for drivers and walkers and then they're going to be on both sides right so they're going to be on both north and south oh but you're saying they're also going to be um oh okay yeah they're a two-sided sign where you're going to see the same information on either side and um
18:16i thought there was a chance one of them was not going to be two-sided so i'm not told one of them seemed like it might not be very visible on the back side so when you enter right when you rent it you probably wouldn't have it on the back side of that yeah maybe the south one yeah yeah yeah so um so that's that now the other thing is there are no parking signs going up
18:42um there are going to be numerous signs that have some language about don't dive don't jump don't climb on the railing and those will be up and down the piers and we'll have to figure out exactly how many we want but i think paul burke wants two per pier all right well right we'll decide on that that's consistent with what is in westport or tiverton at grinnell's beach's big pier they have them you know
19:14periodically and it does grab your attention if you were thinking of doing that but that how many we need is still up for debate but we will be getting some of those okay how are those going to be attached that's not deciding either we have to figure that out and um i think their free standing ken is what wasn't that what nick was showing us i thought they were free footings and everything else
19:42well yeah i mean not a huge one but i thought that's what he said didn't you say that well i don't think that he really dealt with how many signs we might want for the jumping issue and grinnell speech puts them right on the railing but i don't think we want to do that so that is an undecided piece okay exactly what we wanted to accomplish was the rules and that there would be signs yep
20:09and there will also be a waste station a dog waste station but it won't have a trash barrel nancy at the parks department said that it's um they fall apart and you really just want people to put it in a regular trash can so we will have one of those signs with bags and she said that the bags the city puts in got taken all the time and so you know we may have a hard time
20:38keeping it filled with bags but we will give it a try right and sarah and i also ran into i just for observation purposes um in the south end at south main and east main is um a plot called kashishka square which is a monument to polish veterans they have just installed a station for this purpose right right there just within the week so i'm amused that she's telling you this oh yeah well because
21:11they have this barrel there and the bags and so forth and the square is so small it must occupy thirty percent of that i know it's just off to the side oh okay no everybody feels these are something you really want oh no absolutely yeah so sarah and i also ran into glenn hathaway on the way out and um he just wanted to make sure that the signs weren't close enough to the
21:37streets so that when people were pulling out they couldn't see and and uh we that doesn't appear to be the case so i don't think that's going to be an issue that was a good point joe you had wanted me to ask him and so we did okay that was his answer good okay um any other discussion about the peer rules as proposed by the work group from this morning here's a question
22:05yes who's removing the trash that's still to be clarified at one point we thought that the city had agreed to remove it yeah we talked about that this morning too about the receptacles and we i think in the past at least we discussed it again having the redevelopment authority having our own landscaper to take care of the land so we're okay with that um but um we were hoping and we have to
22:35get clarification we were going to send a letter i think requesting that dcm or the city put that on their route because as an example i know the state is heritage park but bicentennial park they're on the route for the dcm to pick up the wall committee takes care of the landscaping so it's a similar situation if we can get dcm to take care of bicentennial as well as a city pier
23:04then it's a city park yeah yeah so it's a they both are well as it's not right but we're going to make a request yeah well i'm going to make a request did you look at the solar compact i did look at the solar compactors i haven't researched where to get them if people want to go that route oh because i know they're inherited shape yeah i think it minimizes the
23:31the number of times you have to pick up your good okay well the thing is you're still going to have to police the area yeah but i might walk that i don't find a lot of trash in that area i want that pretty frequently the boardwalk yeah but and now we're going to have a whole park to walk around so even at the heritage state park is that a lot oh that's good yeah
23:51and actually you don't have many bicentennial either to be honest with you in tune with that yeah i think that's still sporadic but yeah all right but that's still ongoing that's a situation we want to make sure we have the rules down uh that we all agreed on the rules and then um we did agree this morning to submit a letter to the administration to to cover the uh that area because we need to know
24:17what we're going to do when we're going to do it now one other issue that i want to bring up is nancy said that you want these rules are enforced except when you have permitted events of course right so um she felt that you would want to say that on your side but we're not saying it because it just got too complicated and so you know the fear is that somebody come you know somebody complains and
24:51says you made me get off the pier at six o'clock but you get had a big vent that went to nine o'clock so that's not fair well we don't have that here other than open from dawn to dusk but i mean we may have concerts events we may have an event that has alcohol yeah but those permits will state that that's and that would be the exception right so so we will develop a permit we'll develop
25:20um all kinds of criteria for people who get to use the peer and so that's all to be done but um her concern was that you are making exceptions and you should say that on here but i don't see other people doing that ken you were going to say something so is that onto dusk you can elaborate on this because i think i know i'm not under sexuality is that for congregation or is that
25:54going to be preventing people from walking the perimeter that's that disturbs me because we have all these expensive lights and you know in the winter that means at four o'clock you can't be walking i don't think that's legal i think because it's funny chapter 9 so i don't think you can prohibit people from going out there right okay so i'm not sure so should we leave it open not have
26:24anything in there can you can you walk the boardwalk at night yes oh yeah yeah heritage park tips but they closed down heritage the parking lot right but what about what are the times that the lights are going to go off couldn't we say we don't know set a rule around the time the lights are off i don't think normally i think you could with the exception of the fact that that's filled
26:47in time land which the public has a right to go on the right away yeah if you shut off the lights you may be having a liability issue right but are they going to be on it 24 7. they think they'll probably be doing just doing that yeah so you know they made it yeah i'm assuming we might dim them to save electricity i don't know you know it might be responsible well
27:15you could put them on my only concern is people hang in there when the lights is off and right when it's dark the lights will be on yeah they'll be whatever what's that yeah when when the when it's dark the lights will be on right three in the morning yeah yeah somebody could walk the boardwalk on the wall street at three yeah same thing at vengeance memorial yeah we have lights that yeah
27:37and there's solar lights well i asked that because if there's if the rules are saying it was open from done to does i think that's what ken's raising up we should just leave it right so he's going to leave the lights on all night well we did we would anyway right so i guess i can guess it's like street lights yeah yeah so so we'll omit that then that was that was a good discussion so our
27:59parking lot will always be closed unless somehow we open it for something and nobody goes and closes it yeah but the parking lot is always going to be closed no one's going to be there police in the parking lot well that's a question i don't think you can so you can close it you can stipulate hours right of when it's open but i don't think you can just close it because you have handicapped pocket
28:30there's an ada issue right now would we be able to put um something uh where the police routinely go check this check the area they'll patrol no they're not opening close gates but they are they put on their route to patrol it yeah yeah we had asked that already joe the lightsaber heritage or bicentennial yeah those stay on for the memorials yeah everything else yeah yeah it stays on it's it's on all night yeah yeah
28:59it hasn't been an issue not at all it's like people are down there at three in the morning yeah the only the only other thing no i have cameras too like i was just going to say you may want to you've got that to further cause more expenditure but the placement of a couple cameras may be right on each side it's gonna have to yeah paul burke really thinks we should have
29:20cameras what worries me is it's an awful lot of space to cover with cameras well no no not really yeah i would too yeah i would too i mean two might not be no no but i'm just saying we have eight down at bicentennial park yeah i mean yeah and then i think i think that um putting on a signage that that being recorded will keep the place safe well they'll they'll see the things
29:45anyway yeah but let people know that they're being recorded you know what i mean no one's gonna be doing things there because their license plate will be there their face i think that has to go on the signage yeah i think it does too good so the security camera is in use or something yes perfect yeah no that's good so based on this discussion we'll omit the open from dawn to dusk i think that
30:14solves a lot of problems creates minor ones but it solves the bigger ones well what worries me and we may want to talk with the police is you know what about congregating and that's hit or miss though they're not gonna so i know i know this for a fact that when there's congregation somebody usually complains and the police will then address it you know because there was a lot of congregation in front of the iwo jima
30:44monument at different times so what that becomes a problem get out of control and ask people and the camera will support that because like i say i can access the camera down down at bicentennial and we've got three people that kind of monitor it but if we saw that on any given day you could call the police and they'd take care of it you don't have to have it in your rules i mean
31:14people are allowed to congregate if
31:30you know if they got a book club i don't think the police is going to say but you know right so that's what they're reading yeah okay all right so again i'm trying to circle the wagons yeah uh so we will remove the dawn to dusk um and insert the security camera and put if security cameras will look into and again oz was a private uh development down at the park so we
31:58didn't have to go out and get bids and we did get bids but those cameras are fairly inexpensive oh yeah remember you can buy up to 10 grand with without going out to bid so oh yeah no they won't even come close won't even come close great so that's one of my questions back to what ken said it seems like we may have to just leave the gates open all the time you can close your parking
32:21just parking you can close your parking with prescribed dollars but you can't leave them closed all the time i think some of this is you got to just see how it plays out you can always come back and adjust it after a while see what the use is see but the problem is who's going to open and close the gate we've got other issues too about emptying the trash i mean those are
32:40things that we still have to settle so we're going to have a gate open and close the gate three inches we're going to have a gatekeeper so yeah there's a gate in the contract yeah so who's maintaining but like oh we're talking like these guys were just saying there's a couple of handicapped spots there so somebody wants to go out and appear they i don't think there's handicapped spots
32:58on the street no that was a concern of mine handicapped your puck anyway you don't need a handicap on uh oh can you okay there must be yeah and i think that the city would have to deal with that and you know i think ada and i'll check with my friend who's an ada lawyer um if you're closing it to all cars i think you can close it you can close the wheelchair accessible
33:32spots because none of it's open but yeah because if you just only open it for events or weekends or something then you're not discriminating against people with disabilities because that's what you're doing as a rule for everybody i just don't know that we can open and close the gate every day so if it was a mechanical gate it was on time well the fear about the sensor that once it goes to close like a garage door
34:10which i was having a problem with before i got here you know how it's something's in the way it stops and it goes back up it can be on a timer the problem with that is that even if you put signs all over the place you could lock people in right but if if they come they probably can be like a manual button they push it the gate goes
34:28up they get out they get so much time i'm just thinking who's closing this gate who's going out i mean we're all thinking that we're not closing you're getting you're getting tuesday and thursday night yeah yeah and then that's from there you get your friday we're each getting a week a month that's some best to do i don't want anyway i think that it's serious enough i mean we will deal with it uh we're
34:54just not there yet do all city parks close the gates at night right no no parking no they do is there a need to close the gate maybe it's going to be light maybe you can drive right through that that road in the middle of the honestly yeah i forgot there was a yeah yeah you're right so maybe we leave some problems yeah if it's a problem maybe yeah yeah maybe
35:19we'll have to get leave it open and if there's a problem because that's what was up it hurt for a long time they were the parking lot was open and when there was a big problem they closed those gates last year yeah okay but i think it helps us if we leave it open first because then when we go do put a gate then we have reason for the game well there is a gate
35:45there'll be a video we can leave it open leave it open when we close this it swings yeah when we close it we have a reason that close right right yep all right so i think we solved that you're off the hook then there's a good thing it's close enough to the wall street it's not hidden right right right right it was at four spaces right right right right two spaces three strikes yeah it's
36:07a good idea to leave it open six or eight when you really get down to it yeah thank you all right that's good we accomplished a lot on that i think so we need to vote we need a vote actually to approve the city peer rules because i don't think we've done that yet i know we appreciate the work group i move we uh approve the revised rules i believe we have nine
36:31now right but we're also adding security cameras uh done actually
36:45yes okay uh that's okay that's a motion second second second by joan gutierrez all in favor aye aye anyone opposed so moved one other vote has to do with city pier opening and operations we're looking to approve a change order for two power outlet interface panels that will facilitate connections for sound equipment for concerts at a cost of 14 904 and 10 cents you want to add to that discussion or is there any um
37:28no no just that this was um we discussed this um earlier on it's a cam lock like quick disconnect system that when when functions come in audio visual whatever um they just plug and play as opposed to having to manually wire it so um that's what that's but it is a change order so we need to vote right they do have to modify the cabinets a little bit um but uh that that's what that entails
37:58all right and that's in in the package somewhere isn't it then we had it somewhere oh i didn't actually put the multi-page change order in i just um yeah if i'm not mistaken i believe it was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty no it's fourteen thousand four fourteen thousand nine o something i think unless are you i'm i'm just going by memory sarah so you're probably right 14 904 okay um maybe we should say
38:30in the range of 15 000 because you know it i don't know if any i think that that's exactly what it is but um i mean that's a pretty explicit number i would agree to change it to fifteen thousand up to fifteen thousand yep yep okay so did i hear a motion to accept that and do that um i move we uh we approve the ad for the cam locks at the two locations okay
39:08is there a second to that a second second all in favor aye aye anyone opposed so much uh liability insurance you wanted to discuss that i didn't actually want to discuss it i just wanted to say that we're getting quotes and good that's another important issue that we're working on okay all right so are they going to want to see our permits or are we issuing the permits that the city
39:37is how is that going to no we're going to issue them so we're going to have to be coming up with some sort of contract for right that they'll probably the insurance will probably want to weigh in on or at least c i would think so we'll probably have to start on that process too soon yeah i think i think we should have it even even if it isn't the finished product it's
39:59like a prototype yeah that's another instance where i'll get the cities and then you can work from that and maybe some others okay next next item is city peer phase four um chapter 91 license update
40:25um i don't think that there's there shouldn't be too much to update yet no we're cranking on getting um applications in one went into dep today a notice to the conservation commission went in today so we're moving forward on those and trying to aggressively do that so that we'll meet the goal of getting the pilings in ken and i went back and forth with folks at beta about the design of the docs and
41:04we think we're pretty satisfied with that what i want to ask you to approve is my going out um we want to get a proposal from beta to design um the docks more substantially so that we can put them out to bid and to do a bidding process so because we want to get the pilings in by the end of december we need to actually put it out to bid before we know we have
41:38all of our approvals and so that's that's a piece you need to know we could do the design which we'll need no matter what but we could spend money on putting it out to bid and then find that we didn't get the approvals in time and we'd have to rebid it in the spring but we are doing our best to make sure that that doesn't happen but it's short change yeah right
42:10the real money is in the design and preparation correct right yeah all right so that's for information purposes only then what what yeah because i'm not asking you yet i'm not bringing you the bid yet so okay i will bring that to you i hope next meeting okay um the rfp for beta you know oh yeah i actually want to say a little bit more about working with beta
42:42um mary lou called me today so it wasn't a bulleted item on here but she is giving us a new um proposal to extend their contract the extremely good news is that they had done their contract through december and it's lasted through april so now we just need a new contract to finish construction and the other thing that they're adding in there that i think we all will be happy about is they're going to um
43:20add in a um i wrote it down somewhere a um independent corrosion specialist which could cost between 10 000 to 15 000 because we're having absolutely unexplainable corrosion on the railings and it's been put out to a test by mas and the company that did the railings the other thing that makes it really unexplainable is the stainless steel components were made in three very different places
44:02and so the fact that they're all showing this odd brown on them um is mystifying to everybody and so we want to get a specialist out there you know to try to help us understand what's going on and we may you know we may have issues about getting it resolved so we need to really work on that okay yeah why why is the redevelopment authority's cost well if she didn't say it was scotland
44:39we need two ten thousand dollars yeah twenty fifteen thousand yeah you're right they're the ones who designed it they're the ones who put out to bid they didn't give us a finished product when we say they who are we talking about uh beta ms the product was constructed in accordance with their specifications it seems there's some sort of issue there which means that they don't know what the issue is but
45:18why is it what are ten thousand dollars to figure that out when it's their product their spec right i didn't i i didn't realize they were expecting us to pay for that yes she just called me today and but she's concerned that we need to it's like buying a car that's rusty and then those having the paid to figure out why it's resting right and isn't there any warranty on this this is brand new right um
45:54you know she's there we need the corrosion specialist so that we can assert our warranty and defend it because they need the special right data does we don't need it well are we even under warranty yet we're not because the project isn't done so we're not even under a warning we have to accept and pay for it before we're even under warranty so we need to find out what the issue is
46:21but we haven't accepted the whole pier yet that's correct right but it almost seems like the contractor should bear the cost of that well it's whoever supplied the material made it well exactly right yeah so can you pass that word on and see how happy they are with that so the railing companies that fabricate have been out or to see it and they cannot give no they're they're a very reputable
46:54very experienced company and they have never seen this and have no idea why it's happening and mas feels the same way and johnny feels the same way but yeah he's still responsible right yeah i noticed it quite a while ago and brought it up and it's called tearing what does that mean that's just what it's called tearing because it looks like tears on the um yeah but it's tearing on the bolts and on the cords
47:26cables it's gonna be a lot more cherry are you uh so you'll pass on what what the board discussed yep and then the gc shouldn't pay for that i don't understand they would think whoever manufactured it yeah i mean i know they they're looking into it but it seems like if they were going to get a consultant that they would do that i don't even know why beta would have to do it
47:51and charge us well i think that's what that was the easy way out you know justin will do it right pass the ball i know you were more excited about the extension of the contract but but yet there's things that have to be done right i you know i guess the concern that beta has is that while mas says they'll stand behind it and shepard steele says they'll stand behind it they've done testing and they're saying
48:24you know it tests fine it's the right stainless steel we were supposed to put in it must be an environmental contaminant i mean there's there's that potential that everybody's saying there's no reason this should be happening and so if they're going to claim that it's absolutely not their fault because it must be a contaminant we need our own this is where beta is coming from we need our own independent
48:57you know expert saying what and doing more testing so if we were going to do that it seems to me we would withhold that amount would ever withhold that from paying the contractor right right hold it from the application for payment right yeah yeah and rylan's until it's reserved for the it's going back to the fact that we haven't accepted this right but yet we're defending it and i don't know why we need so shouldn't
49:28step one be to ask the company that installed the railing wherever that was to to hire an expert to do a test and give us a report other than them going on and looking at it saying we have no idea shouldn't the ass be to them to they hire an expert and issue us a report now we may or may not agree with their results but i think i think where beta was jumping i want to
49:50be careful in open session but i think where beta is jumping to is if we have to sue them we may need our own expert witness and i get that and as part of a trial if you're suited for damages we'd have to hire our own expert witness but i'm not sure we're there yet so right why not so i think we should be asking the company to hire that kind of expert
50:10to come in and look at it and give us a report because obviously they don't have the answer so somebody with more expertise needs to give them an answer yeah i know because initially the first i'm not sure it's beta's fault i mean i have no idea that the design could have been perfectly fine right but i i have no idea but there's got to be a reason why it's
50:28happening there has to be a next because i had talked to nick today about some other things and i don't think they actually got back to beta yet with specifics they i remember the day we went out with them and they were like we don't we don't understand this well they did testing and beta has the results okay the results don't satisfy beta and they can show us the data so i think what what beta was
50:53recommending for whoever this what was the title of the expert independent corrosion specialist so i think we should be asking the company to hire one of those okay and see what they say if they say no we'll deal with i want it disagree with you however you can get consultants to say a lot of things right to depend on well i understand but if we're not going to pay for it ken
51:18somebody's if somebody else is hiring them i think it should be beta that pays for it as part of this and if there's a problem then they take it off the contractor but you got to get something that's really independent here yeah if your contract is hiring a general consultant i'm not saying that right there's a possibility that you'll get a skewed report but i would feel much better with an
51:40independent completely independent analysis so we're going to ask beta to pay for that okay i will so you're saying that they already did this no they weren't getting a number no no what i mean there has been testing when we were out there they said we're sending it off to labs for testing that was done they have data beta says that it doesn't help them resolve what's going on so more needs to be done
52:12so we're telling beta to take the next step yes yes and we're telling them to pay for it okay okay yeah we can but ultimately we do there's no reason why we should have to pay for it no no no the only time we would any circumstance well if we sue when we need an expert witness you would have to then we will right but we're not but that's a different story yeah we should also
52:36figure out what invaders should figure out what the methodology of testing was what they were looking for and who conducted it right and we don't know if there's a floor in the design or the manufacturer no not yet that's the problem we don't have an environmental issue that's just that's i don't know what that means it's like during the process but the same thing if it's a design and beta high is the expert how
52:58do we know that that's i mean no matter who we have do it the contract is probably less likely but no matter what we may have to do our own independent at the end if we don't like the results but we can stop there because it isn't even if it's ten thousand dollars in the contract that you're taking five thousand dollars off the books to do it we could withhold it from payment under the contract
53:27you have retainage there should be a retainage for that line item is that more than i don't know what the retainage is
53:42wouldn't that be a valid reason to use retainage probably not under the contract why don't we try the vader approach first and see what happens but we're asking them to do it but at some point some expert has to give us an answer is it i haven't i fully saw it is it everywhere or is it just in certain areas it's expanding yeah it's it's in different spots it originally it was like one little area
54:10that i saw yeah i saw it on the south side yeah and we just when i first looked at i thought they used to do last week i thought maybe they use the contaminated disc that somebody was using on mild steel and then used it on stainless because that's what happens but then it started showing up like a couple months later all over the place and it's strange i don't know what it is have you seen
54:33that before johnny no no not like that and and you know they said they used 316 uh on all the uh parts so it's it's bizarre but to get to the bottom of it it's there it's still there so something has to happen yeah i mean it does clean off but the question is will it come back right you know was it five percent changes in the country i forget i'd have to look i actually
54:59don't remember it's probably five okay but i mean we shouldn't like i said we shouldn't have to bear that cost okay it just delays things up all right so does she still need that contract if she takes that piece out do we need to approve that contract or well she was going to bring us the contract for the next meeting because she didn't get it done for this one
55:27i don't know if she needs to we need to take a vote if we eliminate that piece for the chair to sign that contract or well we didn't get the next one i'm not i don't think we're back they're going to keep working because they trust us and they will have us sign a contract that will include may at our next meeting right okay okay thank you project updates the revitalization blueprint and urban
55:55renewal plan for pleasant street flint neighborhood the meeting was well attended um when did that take place joan you were there right yeah okay it was may 4th yes and um we got lots of input um emily is compiling the input and we will have our uh kind of core team meeting the first wednesday of june and she's going to get us her compilation before that so that we'll have time to review it and then
56:37we need to set up a meeting for the citizen advoca advisory group and we will um send the comments to them ahead of their meeting so um i i'm not sure if we're going to wait until we uh meet on the first wednesday of june to come up with a date for the next group meeting or whether we may want to start getting dates for the group meeting because we think we probably should have it mid-june
57:17okay good do you want to add to that no no i'm with you okay good uh district management planning for the tdi district in south main street so ken is talking with the consultant which i'm really happy about she's coming on to meetings that we're having unbelievably every thursday which i hoped was going to be every other thursday and um the plan that i wanted to specifically invite you to
57:57come to is we're going to central square which is a really dynamic business improvement district and we're going june 7th the challenge is it's an entire day because we're taking a bus we're going to talk with lots of businesses city folks take a tour and try to learn from that now uh what we talked about on the phone the other day was if we could get it video graphed really really well we could come back with
58:34a video that people who cannot spend a whole day you know can really use to see what happened so people on the call were saying oh who knows how we would pay for that so i said tell me what it might cost and i'll ask the board if um they might be willing to pay part of it or all of it if we want to make sure that we get a really good video because
59:02we're clear we're not getting the people that we want to go for an entire day and i totally understand that i'm not clear are you talking about central square in cambridge yes right yeah and central square in cambridge is an interesting um case study because they were they were a um volunteer group for many years and then they became a bid and they became a bid before covid and they just went into
59:34high gear and they created all these outdoor events and um just did a lot of things to keep businesses and activity happening in central square and they have a lot of leaders who are very excited about what they're doing and so they're kind of a prime example if what we're also going to do is have some bid representatives come down and do a forum so we're going to get three or four directors of bids that
1:00:09are maybe more comparable to ours but it's hard to find um a bid that's exactly comparable to our size our type for example we probably will have someone come from hyannis but their bid is very seasonal and um taunton's bid is very small and so you know i think we may have taunton in hyannis we may have the one from springfield which is a really old bid very successful um so we
1:00:45you know we may have another one or two so that we'll have a forum and we'll really hear from people so two questions so you mentioned um the videographer yes yes so what are you talking about for a number on that i don't have a number yet so the question is is there an amount you know i'm sorry i don't have a number but um is there some kind of amount that might
1:01:17be okay could i have a couple of board members i'm just going to check my phone because it's possible it's come in so what do people think about that i think it's a good idea for people who don't go yeah and if it's within reason financially secondly if so what would what would be the rate what would be the area under the bid for fall river uh we're we have all different maps we're happy that
1:01:58seth is working on the committee now seth being the new um city administration city administer administrator and he's gotten the assessor's office to develop it's still under development but a really interactive map we believe that it will be the tdi district which is a very discreet district that includes no it was expanded for the rapid recovery plan from the bid from the tdi district that was really
1:02:33south main street and we expanded up into some of north main street and it then expands a little bit in blocks off of main street but it's a really discreet downtown business district other people have suggested we should look at going up to portugalia for example and including that area or including over to plymouth street and that other side of plymouth street so i think that there's there's a lot of concern
1:03:11about trying to do it too big to begin with because it's a lot of work to get the number of businesses and property owners we need to have sign on so um but people really wanted the data and seth was willing to get it from the city to see if there's some logic to expand it a little bit here or there and the map will let you click on properties and
1:03:40see their value in their owner and so and there's a group looking into that now yes okay yeah right right so you want to get an idea from us if we all think it's a good idea to have the videographer in fact you probably would if you're bringing that home and we have a forum we could show it yep and mass development is spending a lot of money on this consultant and you know
1:04:12there's there's a lot that's being covered so i think the concern was they might not be willing to go further and um i didn't want to just let it not happen because people weren't did anybody ask anybody no i got the sense though that for some reason that wasn't really an option but how long do you think we should ask you what we should ask video would be yeah we should ask yes development is
1:04:51not spending their money to spend the money that was appropriated and if that could be included right i don't think that's a big deal if it's a thousand dollars or something like that and that's something that they can use again for another bids in other areas right once it's done yes right right exactly okay i do have numbers a full day of shooting is between 800 to in editing is 600 a day
1:05:27he would cut his day rate to 600 um he thinks it will take two days to edit which is great to get it really edited so he thinks it's 1800 total yes okay so the first ask is to ask mass development if they'll do it yep and the second ask is uh do we yes and the second would be if they won't do we want to spend up to two thousand dollars
1:06:01and we keep the film is that how it is keep the rights yeah the rights the films would it be like six hours sarah you think okay well the finished thing is 1800 anyways he's saying that he won't be filming the whole day which i'm saying how long the video would actually be i would imagine well in the end six hours right the finished product oh my goodness 45 minutes yeah i've never
1:06:37so you know i think the committee might not want it as edited we may ask him to do a two-hour version and then a 45-minute version because some of us are going to want more detail than two hours i mean without popcorn without popcorn well what i'm thinking of is to be able to go back you know if we all say did he say this or did he say that you
1:07:09would have the record but we could keep the raw food so again we're back to um asking uh mass development uh that if they'll pay for that and if not we could do a uh up to two thousand dollars great is that good is that a good motion yeah do we need a motion job sure we do could we have a motion that uh to direct sarah to make that offer i move we um
1:07:43approve sarah to pursue uh 2000. yeah up to up to up to 2000 on the central square video all right first with mass development and then right and then you'll let us know what the next meeting with development does um is there a second to uh johnny's motion second second by john madirus all in favor uh signify by saying aye aye anyone opposed so moved the next item is the historic district
1:08:19rfp revised plan and scope of work so we got a response when we put the rfp out from the person at the mass historic who deals with national register nominations and it was a two-page letter saying that we needed to think differently about the process so i've had two really good conversations with him john's question was is there a law that we have to go by and i have looked at national register
1:09:04you know rules and regulations and the issue is that we have to have the state historic uh commission approve what we then send to the national park service you can send it without their approving it but the chance of the national park service approving it without the state historic commission approving it is unusual you know it's unusual that they would approve it so um what we said was that we wanted to expand
1:09:45our downtown district by quite a bit in down south maine and troy street in various places and what they said is if you have a historic district it's over 40 years old which ours is typically buildings have come down and things have changed and you have to re-nominate the whole district now my first fear was does that mean we could lose our district and he said no in massachusetts we never remove a
1:10:18district they might say this street no longer qualifies so we have to take pictures of most buildings or at least streetscapes of the entire existing district and how we want to expand it and we then have to have the historic commission or the office approve the map and so one of the people interested in our rfp sent me numerous questions which also got at these issues they said you know
1:11:01do you have the map approved you know so we have to really go back and forth with the historic um commission more than we had understood so it's a lengthier process and i need to now rewrite the rfp and include answers to this person's questions which were good questions the other issue is that in talking with them it looks as though we would be much better off expanding the existing historic district
1:11:36and then creating a new one for south main street because the there's no real reason we need to extend it over to south main and he said that you really have a disjuncture there you've you know it's where 195 came in you've got buildings that are modern buildings in there you could conceivably argue to continue it but it seems as though having distinct historic districts is a fine idea
1:12:11and that it seems an easier route to then create a new south main street historic district and i don't think it's any more expensive to to nominate two districts rather than just expand the one you have if you expand the one you have you might as well make the whole city a historic district well we already have a lot of historic disney no i mean but you're extending the whole porky row so the south main
1:12:40street one that where we could propose will bump up against the corky row district there were places where we thought we might want to include a block and they're already in the corki road district so i've talked with um john about this a couple of times we've extended the deadline already but every time we extended it we found it was more complicated so i need to make the time to really
1:13:11rewrite the rfp and get it out there tammy our purchasing agent is being very sympathetic and supportive and we've come up with two dates at the end of june that would work for her to open the bids and so i'm now trying to figure out can i get it done this week am i getting it done next week and depending on that then we'll have a date and we'll move forward but it may be more expensive
1:13:40than we'd originally thought because we're talking about a lot more territory but it's kind of where we need to go and they see seed the person who's head of the fall river historic commission and joan and i saw her at the pleasant street event and i said to her you know i know you were cc'd and i'm wondering if you want to talk about this and she didn't have a real concern she was surprised
1:14:07she'd been ceced and didn't quite know why and so i've kept in touch with her and she's fine with whatever we figure out okay any other any questions all right at this time i'd like to unless there's something else for open meeting i'd like to entertain a motion to go into executive session with the intent of coming back into open session at the end of executive session i would just read the six items that
1:14:49we're going in for we are going in oh into uh for uh executive session uh voting to approve the executive session of april 27th to discuss real estate transactions on innovation innovation way real estate transactions at 45 aniwan street real estate transactions at 72 bank street real estate transactions at 191 thomas drive and then we will return open session for potential votes for sale of property on
1:15:27innovation way joe as chair we need you to make a finding that an open session would have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body yes you make that fine i do make that funding so we need a motion to go an executive session for those reasons to return to open session and we need to roll call vote yes um so i my move we move into executive session to discuss these uh four
1:15:52mentioned five items okay is there a second to uh to that second uh we'll take a roll call vote uh john erickson yes joan medeiros yes yes joe marshall yes yes okay so moved do we have to make a motion to come back to open yeah i think i did that but we need to make the motion though no we'll do that when we're in executive session we just need to check with the what the
1:16:20vote is the first one would be based on uh vm uh sale of the bmd right so we have we have three land disposition agreements the first one is with vedas management and development companies that's land on the east side of innovation way this would consist of the land on the south which is 23.2 acres plus a minus purchase price is 4 million 162.80 with the creation of approximately 200 jobs so that's the first
1:16:53land disposition agreement so we would be looking for a vote to authorize the chair to sign that land disposition agreement for the 23.2 acres at 4.162 million okay so i would entertain a vote so i move we uh direct the um the chair to um proceed with the south parcel and execute the land disposition and execute the lda is there a second to that second second by john madirus uh all in favor signify by saying aye
1:17:29aye aye okay so moved so the next land disposition agreement is also with vidis management development companies uh this is also on the east side of innovation way it's 53.19 acres plus or minus purchase price nine million five hundred and forty two thousand two hundred eighty six dollars for the creation of approximately six hundred jobs so we would also need a motion to authorize the chair to sign that land
1:17:54disposition i move we authorize the chair to sign the uh lda for the north parcel okay second second second by joan medeiros all in favor aye aye anyone opposed so moved next and then the third one is a land disposition agreement with bristol tape corporation this is on the west side of innovation way 5.499 acres approximately purchase price is 564 thousand 540 dollars on that one we'd be looking for
1:18:27a vote to authorize the chair to sign the land disposition agreement and also to sign the deed and all closing documents because that closing may occur prior to our next meeting so i move that we authorize the chair to execute the lda as well as the deed and the respective closing documents second second second by john all in favor aye aye anyone opposed okay um the only other open item i have is maybe rescheduling
1:19:02the june and july meetings the june meeting i had the 15th but maybe we could make it the 21st is that okay and then july was scheduled for the 27th making it the 26th yes both at five o'clock good uh both at five o'clock in the year okay um yeah that's just information is there uh any other discussion any other items joe i thought you were still hoping we might
1:19:45do it for the 15th well if that i am hoping but i'll wait to hear from joan and if that is possible i will notify everybody in the room so we think it's the 21st but it could be the fifth right and the 15th we'll have more people here that's the only reason i say that yeah okay um again is there anything else to be discussed okay hearing nothing uh i'd entertain a
1:20:12motion to adjourn when we adjourn second second all in favor signify by saying hi all right thank you