5.26.2026 Fall River City Council - Ordinances and Legislation

The City Council Committee on Ordinances legislation will be called to order May 26th. The time is now 4.33 p.m. Clerk, call the roll please. Here. Here.

Here. Here. Pursuant to the open meeting, while 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. Item number one this afternoon on the agenda is citizens input. We

do have two. First individual to speak is Matt Madera, 63 Woodland Street.

The subject is FRG TV recordings. Sir, you want to come down?

Sir, if you can introduce yourself and feel free to speak. Sure thing. Matt Madera, 63 Woodlawn Street. Just a small remark. Good afternoon, City Councilors. I wanted to attend tonight and to open with a statement on the upcoming agenda item regarding city meeting recordings. Earlier this year, during the blizzard of 2026, I shipped a web app for citizens of Fall River to crowdsource

information about the status of their streets, plowed or not plowed, a simple solution to a complex problem. During that week, I experienced what it was like to be you, a City Councilor. Citizens were messaging me, asking for features to the app, asking when the streets were going to be plowed, and even left me with their complaints that my app wasn't helping them get out of their house any sooner. When I worked

with JT of the Fall River Police Department, he was looking for a way to empower his team to interact with the app, giving updates to the streets, giving citizens a way to get instant updates, and to witness city taking action in real time.

I learned that citizens want to be heard and that at least some city departments want a modern way to respond, which led me to another passion of mine, city meetings. How do we compress hours and hours of weekly city meetings, often over three hours long, onto a platform citizens can discover, search, filter on topics that they're interested in? How can we make it accessible to all, like in multiple languages, and to

provide a way for them to learn more complex topics and systems that make up our local and state governments? I recently created civicmeeting.net, which has aggregated over 1,500 city meetings that FRG TV has distributed to the YouTube channel with timestamp topics, searchable transcripts of those meetings published to the channel. So I'd like to commend

the work FRG TV has done, and I'd certainly advise for all meetings to be recorded, but I'd also like to encourage the distribution of city meetings across more open platforms. YouTube offers a fine platform for video distribution, but it's not meant to be a searchable archive that will help educate and inform citizens. Local media either doesn't have

the manpower or the budget or the interest in covering all of our meetings. For instance, On civicmeeting.net, I found out that chicken coop approvals are a thing that the health board debates in their meetings. I would have never found that if I wasn't able to click into the health board meeting and quickly see the topics that my platform provides. Not only would I love to see all meetings recorded by FRG TV,

but to move beyond YouTube into openly distributing this content via RSS platforms as well. I'd be happy to offer additional advice to FRG TV if they need it, to make the recordings available without YouTube, like RSS and video podcasts, so citizens can have a different option to consume the content. At the end of the day, I think the more that the meetings are accessible and available to our citizens, the

more educated and informed they will become. The more we can help them understand the process and what goes into decision making, the less tense the discourse becomes. I encourage you to take a look at civicmeeting.net and fallriverbudget.com as an example of what we can do when information is readily available. Thank you sir, appreciate it. Councilor, Vice President Dion. Civicmeetings.net.

Civicmeeting.net. Civicmeeting, okay.

I'm gonna put it in the budget, we need pens that write.

That's why I bring my own council.

I have a drawer full over there. I remembered the glasses.

I agree with everything you said, actually, and I'm really happy about it. And I'll be honest with you, there's been times that I've tried going on YouTube to go back to a specific meeting for a specific reason, and you're right. Sometimes it's not easy to do. So I know that there are people out there who would probably like to do it, but especially, and I can say it because I am that

population, especially the older population, some that have probably virtually never used computers, they would have a really difficult time. So this is something I'm definitely interested in.

And yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with having extra tools, and especially ones that are easier to navigate. So even I myself would be really happy with something like this, and I thank you. Yeah, YouTube is a great option.

And it does help people, because YouTube does transcripts, which is how I get the transcripts. If we look at somebody like, or a city like New Bedford, they don't distribute on YouTube any longer, which is actually harder now, because now we don't get transcripts. Their platform doesn't get transcripts. We can't download that content. So I just think

with everything, the way technology is moving, having more access to this content will be better. I agree. Thank you. That's it. I'm done. Councilor Canguil. Thank you, I just want to personally commend the work that you're doing. I know that I've personally been using that civic meeting. I use it largely during the CPC research, being able to just hit the drop down and go to their hearings and being

able to kind of even control F and find through the transcripts. It's been really helpful even in preparation for today's meeting I used it. So thank you for the work you're doing. I think it's a tremendous asset and tool and keep up the good work. Cool, thank you. Thank you, anything further? Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time. Second citizen to speak is Andre Lopes, 64 Hunter Street. Subject,

City Council and Mayor.

Name and address for the record, sir. And feel free to speak. Andre Lopes, 64 Hunter Street. So I'm just here to speak about the city and general city council as well. Accountability, transparency. Each week I watch it on Facebook, as this man said. It's on YouTube, Facebook. We can watch it, we can repeat it, we can play it. And we don't get any results. I understand these are all rhetorical.

Rhetorical questions I'm gonna ask, and I don't expect you guys to answer them. Like one of you guys said during one of the city council meetings, you talk, you guys listen. You guys listen, but you guys ain't hearing us. Because, again, taxes are going up, salaries are going up. Our taxes go up, and your salaries go up.

You guys might ask like that, oh, the law budget goes up to the city council. $650,000 wasn't enough. You guys need an extra $50,000. For him to tell you guys what to do, I thought his suggestions are theoretical. Most of his suggestions are theoretical. That's crazy. Theoretical isn't law. It's theoretical. You can't use it in a court. So his theories don't matter. Why isn't something being

done? Coogan's stopping at every chance he gets. City Council's arguing and we get nothing. We don't get no results. We just get a spin around or legal moment of trouble. I don't have a speech written.

I'm just here as a concerned citizen. And again, we all talk. You guys listen.

We're not being heard. I hope if this is recorded, citizens are here. Hopefully they come in here Tuesdays. This is my first time. I'm sure as you guys know, if you guys have never seen me before. I came because I'm and it's starting to get agitated. I got my parents moved back to Portugal, my sisters moved to South Carolina. They're moving out of Mass. They're moving out of the country. Fall River's

not a problem. It's the politicians that are a problem. You guys are the ones who are working for us, and you guys are working for yourselves. Now, there's nothing being done in the city. You guys are making the boardwalk nice. What about downtown?

Nothing being done downtown. You guys are worried about one community, the Flint area. It's horrible for years, of course. The city's a city. It's not just one community. It's not just a cork through roads. It's not just town. Everybody's being affected, but again, nothing's being done. When do we get our results? Do we have to wait 20 more years? Does my son got to come up here when he's old

enough to come up here and speak his mind? Can I change it before my son gets old enough to speak his mind? Can you guys help me change it before he gets old enough to speak his mind so he doesn't have to come up here agitated? That's it. That's all I have to say. I appreciate you guys.

Appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. One second, sir. Vice President Diem.

I would like to say that there are many things you said that I totally agree with. I think people get confused. We don't build the budget. We don't decide how much money is in the budget.

We don't dictate who gets paid how much money. that we, so what happens is, so we're starting, and you should watch the budgets. I would encourage you to watch. I've actually been doing my research as well. We can reject the budget. We can ask for changes to the budget. We can reduce the budget. That's all we can do. And just because we make a motion to reduce

it and agree to reduce it doesn't necessarily mean that they do.

So I will accept criticism where it's warranted. I will take any fault that people feel I have. I'm okay with that. But I can tell you that I have done nothing but fight for the taxpayers the entire time I've been here and have fought against a lot. If you feel offended. I do not. I absolutely do not. I appreciate your citizens' input. I appreciate you coming, and

I wish more people would. I wish too. So honestly, no, no, I thank you for coming. I think you did it very respectfully, honestly. And you have a right to your opinion and a right to your feelings. And hopefully moving forward, you will be able to see some results. And with that, I yield. Anything else from the committee? Thank you, sir, for coming down. I appreciate your time.

Item number two this evening is proposed ordinance traffic violations and penalties referred to the committee on 5-12-2026. May I have the director of traffic and parking come down, please?

Good afternoon, Mrs. McArthur. Good afternoon. Stephanie McArthur, director of traffic and parking.

You want to give us a short presentation on your proposed ordinance? Sure, absolutely. Can we put two and three together since they kind of coincide with each other? So councilors made a motion by, by, um, counselor. Oh, Jesus. Good Dean. Thank you. Too many CZ. Second by counselor. Can you all any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. And opposed the ice habit. So we will take items two and three

together. Item three is proposed ordinance for all night parking of commercial vehicles. Refer to the committee on 512, 2026. Mrs. MacArthur, please. So this request was actually brought to the traffic commission. Um, from the committee of public safety that was held on march 19th. We have received numerous complaints on especially in the congested residential areas of

these large box trucks taking up anywhere from 6 to 8 parking spaces.

As we all know parking is an issue. Parking has been an issue so when we have vehicles as such like this parking on a public wide taking up spaces

The complaints do come in through the police department because of how the ordinance reads, that the vehicles can only be tagged from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. So parking control is not working during those hours, and unfortunately we know that the police department is extremely busy, so unfortunately they're not always able to attend to these calls.

When and if they do, the ordinance also reads that the vehicle has to be parked for longer than one hour. Unfortunately, not the same officer always gets sent back, so the clock stops up again. So when it was referred to the traffic commission, we received some input from Councillor Peckham, who chairs the public safety community, public safety, and the discussion was had at traffic, and this is what we came up

with. We're looking to increase the fee. Currently it is $25. I know the ordinance does read $35, but it has been issued at $25. And what's happening is these vehicles are being tagged but they're taking the $25 parking ticket and paying it and then moving on. But unfortunately it's not alleviating the parking issue.

So we're also looking to amend the ordinance to remove that one hour time frame.

If the police department does go out to the call they can issue that parking ticket immediately and also increase that fee. Just a quick question for you, Mr. Garth. What exactly defines a commercial vehicle? Is it based on the RMV plate that they have? Correct. So the commercial plate, and it'll also be in the registry system if it's two ton or more, which the ordinance does read

that as well. All right. So I know sometimes we have what is labeled, at least on the decals, a commercial vehicle, but they have personal plates. Would those vehicles fall under this? They will not because it reads two ton or more in the ordinance. Okay. Again, it is based on officer's discretion. I will say that if an officer goes out and it's a Ford F-250, it does fall underneath that two ton

or more. But that's mainly what the complaints and the concerns are currently, is those large box trucks. Understood. Start with Council Pereira. I've heard other complaints as well, Stephanie, not just these big box trucks, but especially now this time of year when you have landscapers that are out. So they have a truck and they have a trailer behind it and the trailer behind

it has all of their equipment that they would use in landscaping and they take up three, four, five parking spots too. So if they're not commercial or they don't go over two ton, they can't be tagged and they can still park there? Correct. But chances are they do fall within that two ton. I mean, you'd be surprised. on how much the equipment weighs. But I think the ordinance should

be clear of that. The other complaint I get is so many vehicles in the city with plates from other states. They're not paying excise tax for us.

I know that on one street these four cars have been there for about five years. I've said it again and again and again, we need to tag them and that doesn't get tagged. If you wanna bring that to traffic, I've tried to bring that to traffic and see. I'd like to tighten this up a little bit more so that vehicles over a certain size can't be on the street and no hour

limit. If you've rented a U-Haul or a budget rent-a-car because people are moving, they're with that vehicle while they're moving. I think you need to let them park to be able to move things in or out. But they should not be parked there, period. I don't think the hours should be in there. With that I yield. Thank you. Vice President Dion. I may be incorrect but I thought we had an

ordinance that trailers can't be parked on the street either. Unattached.

or what your thoughts are on that, but. So I think the difference of with it being attached and unattached is with it attached it can be moved. With it being unattached it cannot. Yeah, I guess unless somebody backs up to it, puts it on their hitch and then it can be moved. Yeah. I don't know. I think, I don't know. I think that becomes an issue with these businesses, these, especially these landscape

businesses. I mean, that they have to, they have to make their money as well.

So I think that's where it becomes an issue of how do we determine which ones we tag and which ones we do not, especially if we remove the hours.

I know that he moved away, but after he retired, but the landscape that I had years back, He used to always park his vehicles in his driveway. Never parked them on the street. Unfortunately, that becomes an issue of not everybody's that fortunate to have a driveway. I get it. I'm the only one in the neighborhood who doesn't have a driveway, so I understand that. All right, with that,

I yield. Thank you. Councilor Kadim. Mr. Chair.

So just along those lines, can we add any language that would include any vehicles even though they're not commercial with trailers? Because I share the same concern. So I think any trailers on any vehicle, whether they're commercial or not, should not be allowed to be parked overnight, especially when you start getting into the narrower streets, you know,

the streets that are two ways that people need to pull over. You know, I see a lot of those trailers being parked close to the mains, So when you turn it into a secondary or a side street, that's where it is. And that becomes somewhat of a safety hazard turning into the, to the streets. So I think along the same lines with regardless of where the trailers are, overnight trailers shouldn't be

allowed, whether it's just a passenger vehicle or a commercial vehicle, that would be something I would support for a change. Cause I, I think it makes the most sense. And I recognize when we start talking about landscaping, but at the end of the day, they have the ability to either rent a garage or a facility. I know there's additional costs associated with it, but when we start talking about the scarcity

of parking, especially on residential neighborhoods in the South end, I don't know that you want two or potentially depending on how they park three spots that are taken up by a truck and a trailer. So with that, I yield. And Councilor Pereira. I just think that the ordinance needs to be tweaked a little bit more.

before we vote on this. And I think if we're voting on an ordinance, we pass a lot of ordinances, but then you don't have the manpower to enforce the ordinances. And that gets very frustrating. You know that there's been so many complaints around Maplewood Park. People want to go see kids play, and they should be allowed to.

How much parking is there? Where can people park? If they have to do additional parking somewhere along the area there, then maybe we need to look at that. But, you know, I've had people call me, they want resident stickers for parking. That doesn't work because then if you have a guest that comes to your home, there's no place for them to park. That really doesn't work. But if you don't have traffic

people working different shifts, you're not going to catch all of this. Yeah, so that is something that we've actually just recently started. I have been assigning some parking control officers. Unfortunately, it is on overtime, a four to eight shift. And just in three days, they issued just that specific violation, 76 parking tickets. Then maybe you have to

hire somebody else. Is it less expensive to hire somebody else part-time for those hours during the week? Or is it more cost-effective for us to do overtime? I don't know. That's your wheelhouse to see. But if we don't have the manpower to enforce ordinances, then why the hell are we here writing and creating ordinances, that becomes very frustrating to me, just my personal opinion, because

I have had lots of complaints. I mean, I've even said some of these two-way streets that have parking on both sides, people, you can't get by there. Two cars cannot get by there. We need a whole traffic study just on that. I know you have a lot of work cut out for you, but I would say let's table this. My motion would be to table that. and let Stephanie come back with

another alternative to some of the suggestions we've given. We might if Vice President Dionne speaks first before your motion, Council. Sure, she can speak. Thank you, Vice President Dionne.

And I agree. And I believe that with this increase, it's never going to cost an overtime what your return is going to be at the price of the new ticket. You probably could have two people out there, four to eight, and you'd more than cover the overtime. And I think it's like anything else, when you hit somebody hard enough in the pocket, they start to listen. And

then if we see it tapering off and people are adhering to the rules, then you can also reduce your overtime. So I think that's a moving target and something that's doable. I definitely agree with what you've done and what you're already proposing.

But yeah, I too would like to see just a little more added to this and see if we can put something in place that kind of addresses everything. And with that I yield. Thank you Vice President Dion. So just for the committee's sake here, do we want to entertain the increase in the fine or do we want to just table both proposed ordinances at this time? I

would table both until it comes back. Is that a motion? Motion to table both.

Okay. Motion to table the proposed ordinance for the violations and penalties and the all-night parking of commercial vehicles made by Councilor Pereira. Is there a second?

There is not. An additional motion. Councilor Kadim. No. So I was just going to say, I think it might be advantageous to at least get this passed so that we can increase the fines and the revenues so it's more impactful at least for for this portion and then we can, if we feel like we need to make an adjustment to anything else, then we can come back down when she has it.

Okay. Without a yield. Is there a motion on the table? Vice President, yeah. So I was basically going to go down that same road because essentially, yes, it's going to be the same chapter, probably same section, but a different, like this is 70-311A where this next thing might, B311B, so I think they can be addressed separately. And yes, I think getting this on the book sooner than later will

be advantageous. And I will support the motion to table if we go that way.

So I yield. Is there a motion from the committee on item number two? Motion to recommend ordinance be passed through first reading. Recommended ordinance be passed through first reading for the violations and penalties. An increase in the fine is made by Councillor Kadeem, second by Councillor Canuel. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Councillor

Perera opposes. I'd like to see it at 250. I'm sorry. Well, he didn't say that before. We might have gone wrong with it. Motion to table item three. Second. And item number three, it's a motion to table made by Councillor Perera, second by Councillor Kadim. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you, Mr. MacArthur. Good evening.

Motion to reconsider the vote of adopting the $200. Second. This is for item number two, Councillor? Yes. Motion to reconsider made by Councillor Canual, seconded by Councillor Kadeem. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Is there a motion for item number two? Motion to amend number two to increase the violation of $7319 to $250. Second. So we are... Second. So we're...

Motion to amend the proposed ordinance to... Just get in front of me here, a quick second. To amend the violation of 70-319 from 200 to 250, Councilor? Correct. Motion is made. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilor Pereira. Discussion on the motion, on the amendment. Roll call. Motion to amend item two. Councilor Cadene? Yes.

Councilor Canua? Yes. Vice President Dion? Yes. Councilor Pereira? Yes. Chair Reposa? Yes.

Is there a further motion? Motion to recommend that the ordinance be placed to full council as amended. First reading. First reading as amended. Okay. Motion made by Councillor Canyle, second by Vice President Dion, discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you very much, folks. Okay. We have item number four needs a motion. We need to lift it from the table. Yes. Motion left.

Motion made by Council of Prayer, seconded by Vice President Dion. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. We're going to invite the director of former government television, Fred TV, come down, please, and the interim city administrator. And just for the committee's sake, I do need to step out for like three minutes. If we can make a motion to have a temporary chair of the committee. Motion. Recess. Recess. Oh, never mind.

We can do that then. So we'll take a, can I just make that? We'll take a five minute recess.

I'm René Kochman, Director of Operations for FRED TV and FRG TV. Ann O'Neill Sousa, Interim City Administrator.

So just for the record, I am the author of the resolution here, essentially looking to making sure all public meetings are recorded. And I've spoken to Mr. Kochman already, so Mr. Kochman, do you want to speak to the proposed ordinance. Sure. I've prepared a comprehensive list of pretty much everything that FRG TV does, either live or taped, as well as FRED TV.

And I had a couple bullet points at the top of this that basically kind of give some clarity to how we operate. We're both administered, both FRED TV and FRG TV are administered, managed, and staffed through the Fall River Public Schools. We have our studios up at the beautiful New Durfee High School and we're funded by a grant from Comcast.

The core mission is to provide community service to the citizens of Fall River and to give our students the experience of civic engagement and teach them media literacy. I've had about 30 plus years of having the honor to run FRED TV and more recently take on FRG TV. These are part of the PEG channels, the public access channels that Comcast offers on their cable basic network.

So, you know, as Councillor Raposa asked me to kind of see if we could take on additional meetings. We've always made a point of never saying no, right, to any of the community initiatives or things that go on. That's what we live and breathe on. That's the core of what we do and to be able to provide that information to the people of Fall River, we're honored to do that. So I think there was

a question as to, you know, which meetings still need to be done and as you can see, as you go through this list, it's not just meetings, it's special event coverage. My crew was downstairs yesterday doing Memorial Day Parade coverage. We cover pretty much anything that is going on in the city whether it be sports up at Durfee High School or Diamond, graduations for all of the middle schools and even the

elementary schools. So we are basically canvassing the entire city in a lot of ways. I just wanted to make a point of what Mr. Medeiros who spoke earlier said about the organization of meetings and the length of some of these meetings. Yeah, some of these meetings, as you well know, are extensive. He had some great ideas. I gave him my business card, some ways to maybe keyframe the meeting so that if

you want a topic, you can actually see what's coming up on that meeting. I mean, maybe there's some ways to actually condense those meetings into a little highlight reel. I'm not saying that we have the staff to do that, but that might be something that we can explore together. So that pretty much, like I said, if you go back to the list, you can go through in

terms of everything that is taped and currently what is not regularly covered or by us are the retirement board meetings and the cultural council meetings and there may be others that you all know about. We can only cover what we find out about and what we're given some advance notice for. So if we know about it in advance and we can staff it and we can get to it, we certainly do it. You know, again, what

I did on the following pages after the school department initiatives and all of the city initiatives was provide some analytics because I want people to understand that our resources are basically split in half. We have two instructors that are up at Durfee High School teaching media literacy classes at a high school level. that are pumping out these students and like I said I've had 30

years of former graduates go on into the industry and really do some great things. But even if you break it down to our programming resources you can see that there's pretty much a half and half split to Fred TV stuff and Fall River government television stuff.

We don't choose sides. We are in this together with all of you. We want the best for the city and for the school department and for our students and young people. I did say and I will be quite candid about this, the resources that we get from Comcast, you know, for all of these meetings that we're doing both on the city side and on the school department side,

sometimes can take away from what we want to do with our students. So there's only a certain amount of money. We try to manage that. You all know the reality of cable television and people are cutting the cord and going to streaming services. Our funding comes from cable subscribers that pay for basic television only. So we do not get any money from streaming. We

don't get any money from, you know, YouTube views or from Facebook or anything else. We operate pretty much as a non-profit.

We cater to all of the nonprofit agencies in the city whether it be the United Way or Citizens for Citizens. Those of you who have been here a while know we used to do the Operation Christmas Telethon with Barbara Travis. You know we take on anything if it's going to help the city and the people of Fall River. So that's kind of it in a nutshell and I'd be happy to answer

any questions. Council Perrier, go ahead. You want to say something for us? I have a series of questions, but I'll let you go first.

One of the things that I see, and I looked on here, it's channel 95 or whatever, it's not that anymore on cable. People have called me and they changed it around and people were upset. It was 18 and 9 and that was confusing. However, I have worked a lot with not only you but others in the studio. And they have always done a great

job if you let them know something's happening. It covered the whole Vietnam Wall era.

They've covered lots of things for veterans. I didn't see so much like Father Rob's this year wasn't done. I don't know if they didn't get a handle of that.

Corky Ro wasn't done this year, which usually they do. But one of the things that I have is, If I'm watching a school committee meeting, like I don't come to enough meetings that I, my life is busy, I watch a school committee meeting and when they go into executive session it's a blank screen. But yet I have seen students from Durfee that you're teaching and they do different skits and different

things to be utilized at that time. I'd rather see that than blank screen. Or could we do it where We have a list of events going on in the city over the next two weeks to just have those flickering on so that people who are watching it then know what events are upcoming. And the other thing I have a pet peeve with and I will share with my colleagues,

if you are on the school committee, you can zoom in. If for some reason you can't attend a meeting, you're able to zoom in. And I did call Rainey because I had an award for my granddaughter out of town, and I was not allowed to Zoom in, although they have the capability of doing it. And I don't think that's right. And the discretion is up to the council president. And my feelings

are, and I said it, there are nine counselors here. We should vote on that.

It should be a vote of everybody, not one person making a decision for everybody else. Because if the school committee can do it, the Board of Health has Zoom meetings. Why can't the council? We spent money on these TVs and everything else.

We can't zoom in. Those are the two suggestions that I have. Well, one is a pet peeve and one is a suggestion. But with that, I yield. And thank you for all the work you do. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Perra. So to the interim city administrative, I will share one point that I think is a little bit of a frustration for myself too is that in my conversations with Mr. Kochman

and others as part of FRG TV is that notification is not always sent for certain events. There have been instances where I've gone to the public to go to different events and they're not there because they weren't notified that something was going on. So I don't know if there's a process in place where, you know, is there a calendar that's shared with government television? Is it just simply the press releases

that are sent out? Maybe just a suggestion maybe to look into to see how we can We want to obviously highlight what's going on in the city as much as possible, but I think it's also important that everybody knows these things are going on. So I don't know if that's something you can look into for us. I mean, FRG TV, FRED TV, FRC media are all included in our media releases, so

any press conferences or events that are going on that we send media out on, they're always included. But do you have an example of, like, what type of event?

Yeah, there was one last summer, I believe, and I'd have to look back and get back to you on it, but I know it was particular, and I was kind of surprised that nobody was there from government television, but from what I understood, they weren't notified. It was after the fact type of thing. But I can look back and find out which example. I mean, if it's an event like the concerts

in the park that were done in collaborations with the Narrows in the city, those would be announced at the press conference in a schedule of events. We may not notify them if that's, you know, for every event coming up because there are numerous events. But other than that, I mean. So I guess the question is, is the way that they are notified is via press release? Yes. Like everyone else? Or an

email. Okay. Yeah. And that's just the policy in which we do it? Pretty much.

So we work off of a combination of the city's calendar press releases which we receive by email and then sometimes a text or a phone call and You know the city is very good about They have my number. I think most of you have my number and have reached out and given us a heads up on stuff and we really try to respond to that and obviously We only have

so many staff, but it's something that we feel if we can get to it, we will be there. Okay, thank you. A few questions I have, again, filing the ordinance, proposed ordinance here. As far as the last two meetings are concerned, do you feel that you'll be able to cover those last two to fill the list up of meetings recorded? So according to the list, the last two meetings

were the Retirement Board, and the Cultural Council. Yeah, I mean, it's the Retirement Board is one of those meetings that we have tried to record in the past and we go there and they open the meeting, go into executive session and then we sit there for an hour or two and we don't have anything to show for it. That becomes a staffing issue if there's

conflict with something else. I believe they also changed the time of when they meet, and I don't know, I think it's during the day now. 8.30 in the morning.

Yeah. So, obviously, I mean, if we're able to cover it and we're able to get there, we'll send staff there to do that. And then the Cultural Council, absolutely, that's right up a rally, like I said. As long as we know when, where, we can plug it into the and make sure it happens.

Okay. So my next question, and this was part of the, as I was thinking about the actual ordinance itself is that the locations of the meetings themselves, like in one of the suggestions I had and I shared with you is that these meetings that are not happening, but most of the meetings happen either here, the school department

happens a variety of different buildings, but some, most of our board's commissions meet downstairs, but not all of them do. Does that present a challenge for you folks as far as set up staff, et cetera? I would say that every meeting that we take poses certain challenges for us, even meetings in here, as you know, there are

technical issues sometimes. Sound doesn't work, mics don't work, presentations don't work. That's the nature of what we do. However, the moving around of meetings into areas of the city, like neighborhood meetings, things like that, become very difficult for us to cover.

for a number of reasons. You know, audio-video setup, you know, the regular meetings that travel around the city, sometimes, you know, it's a matter of having not only the production time, but the time to be able to set it up and then break it down afterwards, turn it around and get it on in a timely fashion. There are a lot of times, and I joke around with my staff about

us being roadies, you know, for like the Grateful Dead removing gear especially for some of the meetings that travel in the school department a lot when they travel between the middle schools and back to Durfee and stuff. I mean ideally one location is great for us because that limits the amount of potential technical issues that we'll have. We have a controlled environment, in other words, that we can manage. So

I don't know if I answered your question. Yeah, it did. And I guess to the interim city administrator, I guess the question is, is there a reason why we cannot, at least on the city side, centralize a lot of these board and the commissions here at City Hall where the setup is already available down in the first floor hearing room? I mean, to the best of my knowledge, the majority, other than

what Renee's already mentioned, which are, and Councilor Pereira mentioned, the Board of Health, which is a Zoom meeting, The traffic board meets there, the zoning board meets there, the planning board meets there, licensing board meets there. So the council hearings room is actually the prime location for most of the boards and commissions.

Because I'll give you an example is the Board of Trustees of the Library, right?

One of the first meetings they recorded, I think it was in March or April, it seemed, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think it was just that one camera setup and that mic built into that camera and you couldn't hear a bloody thing. People, you know, everyone's talking, it's just muffled over one another, which is really not an ideal situation for somebody trying to watch and listen to that meeting. So

my point is like very much like here, very much like downstairs, the setup is there, the microphones are there. Sure. It really opens up for the best possible ability to hear everything that is being discussed. Yeah. So again, A mere suggestion, I think it would clean up things a little bit. And I think it would probably easy things up for you guys as well as far as the production piece and all

that. Absolutely. We are very much about quality control. We instill that in everything that we do. And obviously, if a meeting has bad audio or video, it's not really worth anything to us. Correct. Vice President Deanna. Yeah, I think my only thought on that as well as that yes, the majority of meetings are held downstairs.

I believe most boards, most commissions, committees meet once a month. There's 30 days in a month. How many boards, commissions, and committees do we have? Do we have so many that it isn't even possible to plug everybody into that room every month? Because we do have a significant number. And I think it's more than people realize. Yeah, and keep in mind too, like the Commission on Disability meets via

conference call, which is recorded and posted online as well. So that's that one and there's the other one, there's one less too. But that's a good point to consider.

Yeah, I think that's something to look at when you're trying to reframe this. Well, the city clerk handles the scheduling of the council hearings room, so. I mean, we can check with them on the dates and times that certain boards meet and see if there's a steady availability of that room for that time.

Thank you. Mr. Kochman, a few more questions for you. To Mr. Medeiros's point, outside of YouTube, are there any other platforms that we could utilize to distribute our meetings? So we can look at putting the meetings on other platforms, certainly. It's really a matter of what people have access to. And I think if, and I'll speak to my technicians and my technical manager about where else we can

put them, and we'll look into that. I'll coordinate with Mr. Medeiros as well, maybe he has some ideas. Okay, yeah, because I know Facebook sometimes can be a little bit tricky. And the quality of it sometimes gets kind of hindered by Facebook's behavior, I'll call it. Yeah, and one of the reasons we really went to the streaming platforms was the fact that people are gravitating away from

cable TV. So obviously we want the audiences out there. Absolutely.

You mentioned Diamond in this conversation. Is that just done out of goodwill, essentially? So when Diamond has an event, you guys just go cover it? Yeah.

One question in our discussions as well as far as the recordings themselves, who's the holder of the recordings? Who's responsible for, for example, this meeting right now? Where does the tape eventually go and who's responsible to maintain that? So these are no longer tapes. They're digital files and they reside up at Durfee High School on the servers. We have no storage down here at Government Center.

And that's the nature of a few things. Obviously a brand new multi-million dollar Durfee High School that afforded us the ability to have computer storage space. That was actually part of the build of the building when they built our studios they provided us with those hard drives to store the meetings as well as the history of cable TV in this city when Colony and Comcast ceased their operations of local cable

news and all of the historic news footage that was covered over the city's lifespan dating back to the Big Dan's trial and Kerr Mill fire. We received all of those tapes up at the high school as archives.

We basically, and I still believe today that what we do documents the city's history, present, you know, and past. So we've, over the course of years, you know, Pamela Martin and some of our technicians, Alex and the whole crew, they've worked very hard to transfer a lot of those old tapes, those old magnetic tapes, the VCR tapes as you would call them, to digital files. And those all reside at the

high school. Obviously, if somebody needs a copy of something, I mean, the beauty of a YouTube is that we're able to create a playlist of all the council meetings and all the Council on Aging meetings or all the Board of Health meetings so that when you go to YouTube and you you type in You know council all of them will come up on one page So it's an organizational thing So

yeah, you know in terms of storage. That's that's where all of all of the files are kept I just have one last statement I think as you mentioned we've discussed before that cable subscribers continue to drop and So I'm going to make kind of a statement toward the Interim City Administrator and also to my colleagues in the school committee. I think at some point we're going to have to have a discussion

on funding in the future years to continue to support a program like Fred TV, like Forward Government Television, not only for the kids' side. And the educator in me says, you know, first and foremost, we want to make sure we don't in any way affect that program because of the lack of cable subscribers and time, but also for the sake of transparency purposes that we continue to have for government television to

do these recordings and post them, what have you. So I don't know if it's a discussion in the next year or so that we start talking about what that could look like and does the school department, does the city council, does the mayor's office all gonna have to work together to try to make sure that funding is secured to maintain the quality of the programs that they offer. So

we'll put that out there for a discussion for another day. Counselors, Councillor Pereira. How much did you get this year, Mr. Kochman, from the cable contracts?

I would say we receive $160,000 in capital payments. A third of that money goes to BCC and their public access corporation that they have there. It's not BCC runs it.

And then our numbers, we're trying to get a handle on working with the city on getting actually not only the amounts from this year, we get quarterly payments and I have not seen the checks because out of those checks, a third of those checks goes also to BCC to operate their programming. So I don't have an answer for you in terms of definitive numbers. Like maybe three

years ago was about $800,000. It's slowly gone down. I think last year was maybe around $700,000. This year I'm trying to get the numbers to see where it is. And the cable contract is for how long? 10 years. And we just signed it what, two years ago? Two years. So we have another eight years on that cable contract. And that's why I think the cable contract should have already

been signed. It wasn't signed. So the money that we had there was the money that they were getting as we went along. Then they did the contract, they ended up getting less. There was no public hearing. There should have been a public hearing before the contract was signed again. So that was just a kerfuffle that I talked about back then that we should have done public hearings on that.

And I think also if you feel that there is a meeting like the library, then that's calling Ms. Damaris at the library and saying we prefer that you conduct your meetings here in the public hearing room because it's easier for cable. That's all, very simple. Caller, we have it here. It'll be better for them too. They'll have better parking here to come. YouTube, I think, is great

to put everything on YouTube because it categorizes and I don't know how many other platforms there are. I'm old. I've figured out YouTube. I'm good with that. The other thing, is with the library, I talked about the YouTube thing, just to make sure that you have on that executive session stuff, throw something on there that the kids are doing. And

as far as people, something not being televised, if you are putting on an event, it's up to you to call cable. I have called Pam, I have called Mr.

Kochman, I've called Evan, hey, we're having this event on this day. can I get you there, whatever it was. If it was we're going to dig for the wall, we're going to put up the first panel, that's part of who's organizing to call and to say we're going to have this. And if you can't call or don't know, if you call the mayor's office, I know Sam's not there anymore, the new

girl, I forgot her name. Sarah. You call Sarah, she will call or give you the number to call. And they have always, been there for us but you as running it whoever is running an event has to be the one to call so that's how it gets done. Do you yield counsel? I do yield thank you very much. So I would like to just throw out there and I have mentioned this

to the mayor and to Ann about potential house bill that they're looking at using streaming services and from streaming. It's House Bill 91 that hopefully we'll get a look at and we'll get approved to potentially look at using those streaming revenues to support the public access channels around the state because we're not the only ones that are in this.

I mean, you know, all of the cities and towns are facing the same issue that we are in terms of people cutting the cord. I mean, 10 years from now when the life of the contract is done, cable TV is not going to exist the way it does, maybe even sooner. least we still have a contract to get us some monies in terms of the capital revenue

but the operating monies those are disappearing for everyone. Councilor Kadeem.

Thank you just in terms of the revenue coming in I would suggest probably this is going to be the last contract we see you know the capital and the revenue what they like to call revenue sharing even though it's not revenue sharing it's a it's a Pass-through. Pass-through, exactly. It's an additional tax to the individuals on the bill. But to my colleague's question with regards to the funds coming in, can you

just confirm whether or not we've got a special revenue fund for a – We do. We do. We do. And those checks, when they're received, go right to the law office. And then deposit it right into it. Then they turn it over to the treasurer's office and there's a special account. I actually talked to the clerk in the law office today to ask if we could get a printout of what

we've received, say, in the last 10 years, you know, or at least since the new contract began. So we've got the fund. We don't have to go searching for it. Exactly. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. I yield. Thank you. Anything else from the committee? So I think I would like to revisit this once you look at those last two boards and commissions, and then maybe

we can have a further discussion, Ann, about possibly scheduling and utilizing the technology setups we already have more. So I would entertain a motion here. Motion to table made by Vice President Deion, second by Councillor Canyle. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? The ayes have it. Mr. Kochman, thank you very much for your time.

Appreciate it. Nice seeing you again. Okay, item number five on the Senate's agenda is a proposed ordinance reorganization of the City Operations Department into the Department of Community Maintenance and the Department of Facilities Maintenance. It was referred to the committee on 5-12-2026. I'll invite Mr. McElhinney down to the table please. Mr. McElhinney, good evening. Good evening.

Nick McElhinney, Director of Human Resources. Would you like to begin with a short presentation, sir? Yeah, so I handed out a folder earlier after last meetings we went through and scrutinized what was submitted further. I think some very valid points had been raised to us that we didn't catch or didn't consider so we took a closer look. We did send out a blue lined version of

suggested amendments that we're making to the ordinance and then obviously we've continued to say we want to do this in cooperation with you so please go through it, point out anything that you think should be changed or we tried to make this as clean as possible. Also in the packet is a proposed, the current operations org chart and the proposed organizational chart.

And then draft job descriptions, so the current director of city operations job description.

A chart showing the financial and FTE impacts, sorry, there's a lot of papers here.

And there's a lot of text for what amounts to be a very small change.

and then draft job descriptions for the director of facilities, director of park cemeteries, trees, and the director of community maintenance. Anything else, sir?

Right now. Okay. Vice President Deon. Okay.

So I appreciate the changes you made. They certainly, I think, you covered what needed to be covered in those items in terms of traffic engineering.

So, but I do have a couple of questions. So we have a director of community maintenance and we have a director of parks, cemeteries and trees.

Why aren't those two separate divisions? Why do we have a director of parks, cemeteries and trees who is answerable to the director of community maintenance who's overseeing apparently parks, cemeteries and trees? I don't quite understand that.

The powers and duties of the director of parks, cemeteries and trees shall be such as are designed and assigned through the director of community maintenance by the city administrator or the mayor. So it's gonna start with the mayor, the city administrator, go through the DCM director and finally get to the director of park cemeteries and trees. To me that doesn't seem, I don't know. I visualize it as just

two separate divisions but that's one question. That's technically how it's set up right now.

I mean, we had discussed that we could go either way with it at that point, but we felt that it would be more beneficial to have it under DCM right now and have just that working relationship through the director of DCM to be assisting with whatever duties that parks needed. So we did discuss that it could go either way. Okay, because part of why I asked that question is it's my understanding

that... Mass General Law, under Mass General Law, parks does not come under DCM. Parks is a separate entity. So I guess that's maybe part of where my question comes from. And then the other thing is, and I didn't notice if it was revised. I know in the original, when you originally sent, sorry I kind of missed it, but we had, so much today under DCM and parks there's a reference to

fees etc that would be under DCM because parks under DCM but in reality parks are the ones who set fees DCM does not set fees so why would any fees be delegated under DCM I don't know if I'm at am I asking that question clearly yeah yeah just for point of information so Parks and cemeteries have always been a division under DCM or DPW at one point.

So there's nothing prohibiting from having it as a division and I think it makes sense from an internal organizational standpoint for parks and recs and I actually like the combination of parks and cemeteries because it looks like there's a cost savings which is what we like to see. I like parks, cemeteries and trees together absolutely, I have

no problem with that. So in terms of the fee setting, so the only difference as opposed to the mayor making recommendations to the city council for fee structures. The park fees would just go to the park board. So, you know, the director of community maintenance would have to work with the director of parks and cemeteries to set

those fees. So there's just two meetings that you're essentially attending city council meeting and then obviously the park board, but there's nothing prohibiting you from doing it. It just, I think it's a cleaner way of just having it fall under one department, which essentially you would think if you get a call for cleanup at a park you

would you would essentially call DCM that's where you would probably most likely go so vice president you have saw before yeah let me see so let's see so under this real We're going to have a director of facilities and a director of community maintenance. We are no longer going to have a director of city operations, correct?

Correct. Okay. So why aren't we removing director of city operations from ordinance and getting rid of that position entirely? That was created originally because of a RE-Aug and to bring somebody here. That has now changed.

We're going back to an older way that apparently worked better than the new way which that happens so to me I would want to just remove that altogether from ordinance and just put it back mayor city administrator then you have your facilities your community maintenance and everything else underneath that is the proposal okay that's what we do yes we can look at the team on the real

sense that you that's your current I inundated you with paper tonight I'm sorry you know what I didn't have another sheet. Uh-oh. All right. It's stuck in my pocket. Yeah, it's stuck. There it is. It's the humidity. Humidity. Oh, okay. So good. I'm already corrected.

That's already corrected. So that's one last thing I'm going to talk about. So for now, I'll yield, and then I'll have one more thing after. Councilor Kadeem. Thank you.

So the proposed organizational flow chart, I think, looks good just... One question from my standpoint. So the working form and maintenance, is that maintenance for vehicles or is that maintenance for the buildings? Vehicles. Vehicles, okay. All right. I was just, I wasn't sure where that was and then seeing facilities trying to figure out why it would be

in DCM versus. There are going to be some additional tweaks that are union related, so I'm not going to discuss them now because we are negotiating some things, but there is going to be somewhat of a change to that structure as well. Right. Hopefully. Okay, so just to do a quick snapshot, eliminating the city operations director? Correct. Just having then two

essential department heads, director of facilities, which currently exists, and then director of community maintenance, and then just the combination of the director of parks and cemeteries and trees into one division. And then bringing the signals division over to... Right, right, right. Signals coming over from police into DCM. Okay. All right, with that I yield. Thank you.

Counsel Perra. Yeah, I don't agree with putting lights and signal division. Signal division was under the police department. It should be there. They're going to work out of DCM?

Or are they going to be at the police department? Right now they'll continue out of DCM, but the intent is to bring them over to, I'm sorry, continue at the police department. The intent is to bring them over to DCM. But that's what they should be, in my opinion, because that's what Al Mocks used to do, was lights and signal division. If you look at Robeson Street, those lights have to be

timed better. They're not. The lights there are too long. You have people going all the way up Robeson Street, as far as Pine Street or even Locust Street. The lights don't switch enough. They've been working on those, too, because of just the recent change in the signalization in that area. So just like we see on Duval Street, they're trying to work on getting those traffic signals in a

pattern that's gonna accommodate everybody. I thought Duval Street, the lights had not yet been handed over to the city, they have? No, the state does that as well. I mean, when we notify them, yes. When we notify them of an issue down on Duval, they send their group down there to take care of any changes. There are some signal boxes there that are ours, that our signal division does deal with. but

some of the newer lights. What was the rationale for bringing lights and signal division over to DCM? What's the rationale for that? The new director of DCM is the head of the signal division right now. So because we hired this person, now we're bringing this over? Well, no, not necessarily. I mean, it also is work within the community. I mean, the lights and just that's part of the community.

So it was kind of a natural fit to have them come over onto DCM.

I mean, the police department has a lot of other divisions within them that this is more part of the community. Just a point of information. I think you would find that probably 99% of the other communities have traffic signal under DPW. So it's no different if you compare it to the state. your traffic and your boxes are going through MassDOT and not the state police. So it's very

rare that you have your traffic signals being conducted or worked with through the police department. I think Fort River is just unique in that. So for example, if there's an accident and somebody hits a traffic pole, DCM is better equipped to get the money from whoever hit the traffic light like some that we have, one right here.

For the insurance? Absolutely, yeah. That still have not been fixed. It's been a couple of years. Yeah. One near St. Mary's Church. Yeah, I mean, as far as pot hole claims or any other issues with asphalt concrete where there's an issue, they work very closely with the law department, I mean, to file the necessary claims and to make sure the insurance money comes in before things are

taken care of. All right, with that I yield. Thank you. Thank you. Counselor Cano.

Thank you. I think just largely the question I have related to this reorg is what measurable outcome or metrics would improve as a result of this reorg?

So I think this, or I know this partially allocates manpower so that there will be less people being supervised as far as city operations coming down and having everyone under that umbrella. So it does pull off the facilities department and will allow the director of facilities maintenance to handle the capital projects, all the buildings and grounds. I think that'll help on

that end. I also think it's going to help us leverage some of the manpower when it comes to parks and cemeteries and to be able to use those. They're both in the AFSCME union. That's something that we could utilize them based on what each department needs. There may be certain days that we want to, you know, from one department to the other and I think that'll help us do that if we've

got one supervisor that's overseeing that. Financially, I think, you know, I did provide just the maximum potential savings. I'm not saying that that's what that savings is going to be. I know we will need to discuss with parks and cemeteries or parks the additional responsibilities there. But I think this just from a general supervision standpoint is cleaner and allows us to leverage those resources better.

So what residents are concerned about, excuse me, will potholes get filled faster? Will sanitation, missed pickups improve as part of this?

So I think what you're going to see is the new director of DCM come in and start to take a look at the efficiencies within the department now to kind of evaluate things and see what we can be improving on. I can't answer that question as far as how potholes go because I need someone down there who's going to come and say this how are we doing it now, how can we

do it better? So I would say regardless of the reorg, you're going to see the new director of DCM go down and start doing that, looking at that. By breaking this down into two chunks, where we'll have someone focused on facilities directly, someone focused on community maintenance, I would hope that our facilities, particularly our buildings, things like

the Central Fire Station, hopefully once we get that back up to R, would we maintain better moving forward with someone slowly focused on that. I think that's our goal.

Thank you. I yield. Thank you, Councilor Cano. So I'm going to, a few things from me. On your proposed here on the Excel spreadsheet, you mentioned a maximum savings of $22,926. Again, that's not assuming because you noted that a discussion will need to take place with the current director of parks to assume this additional responsibility.

I, as one person, will not support this if there's an increase. There needs to be a savings or a net zero. If there's an increase of any sort, I'm not going to approve it. The other thing I will say, and I've been here a little bit now to go through the reorg of the per contract situation. I'm not in favor of making any of these positions per contract. It needs to go

to ordinance. It needs to be a reasonable set maximum. So this way that can be overseen. I'm not comfortable at this point with a per contract situation going forward.

So that would be something that would be a kind of a no stop for me as far as that's concerned. Would you like us to come back with a recommended not to exceed amount? Personally, yes, and as one counsel, I would also like to review this blue line item a little bit more along with the organizational charts.

But just as one person, I would like to see the proposed director of facilities maintenance come back as opposed to a per contract be a maximum of an ordinance. But the other thing, too, and I would want to see somewhat of an idea what this would be, for the new director of parks, cemeteries and trees. Now when that is done in ordinance, is that also

going to be to an exceed? Yes, it is. So that would be changed as well. So what is currently 89 could be not 89 because the current ordinance is not to exceed 100. Is that correct? Yes. Is that what the recommended was?

Yeah, section 8, the second to last page, it's the current ordinance. Yes, not to exceed 100,000 was the recommended. What is the current one? 89,000 I believe. There's like three different titles for those positions in there so that was one of the other changes that we were putting in there. They'd have to be merged to the one and then that's with that number. And just out of curiosity, where did you come

to the not to exceed 100,000 for parks, cemeteries, and trees proposed? Through those comps.

I don't have those comps with me. I apologize for that. But in reviewing...

where he was at now or where the current director of that position was at now with some of the other comps. That's why we had come to the 100,000.

But I can come back with comps as well. Yeah, I think that would be great. If you could supply to myself and my colleagues some additional information how you got to that, I think that would be helpful. Vice President Dion. Yeah, so that was going to be my last point. I agree, especially with all the conversations we've had lately around contract personnel and contracts being... we've done, et cetera,

et cetera. I'm not feeling it either. What was my last point I was just going to make on that? Oh, so in terms of the not to exceed 100,000, assuming that would go through, is there, so we know, because we've seen it. It's happened over and over. There's a not to exceed, then the person's at the not to exceed. The next year, the not to exceed, it goes up. You're exceeding ordinance, so you're violating ordinance. We

just had it recently again. Does this not to exceed 100,000 allow movement? Because if it doesn't, that's a problem because that means already next year, if there's a CPI or something, now we're over the threshold. And again, we're back to where Councilor Canual wanted to say, okay, we're going to back this up. And this person is not going to get the money they have received

because we've been violating ordinance conversation. So that's my question. Something to consider before this comes back. Who is that allowing for movement? If this is approved as submitted, it's a hard cap of $100,000. It is our intent, and I know I've said this, and we need to get it down to do a comprehensive assessment. salary restructure that will address this going forward with some type of escalator

with longevity factored in so that we're not playing this game every two, three years where we're up against that cap right away. So this is a short-term fix.

Once the ordinance is in, I do believe that we're going to have something to you and that we can address this before the next budget process so that this is an issue of the past. Okay, and it's a hard number for this year, for this FY27 budget. It is a hard number not to exceed 100,000. The mayor has not had a conversation with the current person in this position.

Right now they are the director of parks, so I don't have a number to give you right now, but I can tell you it would not be over that not to exceed amount. Okay, because obviously this also is going to need to be changed just for budget discussion purposes, because now in the budget we don't have Mr. Hathaway, as the DCM director, we only

have the director of city operations to speak on everything, as opposed to this RE-ORG fitting into the budget conversation. Yeah. All right. With that, I yield. Thank you.

Thank you. Counselor Kenyon? Thank you. Just one quick question as it pertains to the RE-ORG. I'm very familiar with RE-ORGs in the business world. As we shift people around, typically those positions get opened up and posted. Will the Director of Facilities maintenance position be openly posted for others, or is this just a lift and shift from one position to the next? It would be a lift and shift. So right now,

Mr. Oliveira, as the Director of City Operations, is also the Director of Facilities. Okay.

All right, thank you. Councilor Kadim. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just in terms of the salary changes that are before us, so you're only looking to change the Director of Parks and Cemeteries and Trees and then the Director of Facilities and Maintenance with us also? Yes. Is that correct? Okay. So in terms of the Director of Parks, Cemeteries and Trees with the not to exceed, just in

the comps that you have done, I just caution you because a lot of parks departments and other communities are programming. So you might see higher salaries because they're programming.

This is not a programming function. So I would just caution that when we're pulling comps just to make sure that we isolate those. And you're probably going to be wanting to pull from Public Works in some cases because they have a lot of facility managers that are dealing with their facilities. It's the same thing I've dealt with on the other side with the director of facilities. Okay. So, yeah, I'm...

Okay. And then with the, I guess while we're here, so I know we've got not to exceed numbers, but it looks like they haven't been updated since FY23. So do those need to be adjusted at all?

In the ordinance that was sent down to you? Yes.

No, because it's striking. Oh, you're striking those. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. So you're striking all those positions, taking them out of ordinance. Okay. All right. Thank you. I yield. And just a quick clarification. As far as that section, the Assistant Commissioner of Cemeteries and Trees, Commissioner of Recreational Facilities, and the Commissioner of Recreational Facilities and

Cemeteries, et cetera, et cetera, those positions aren't filled, correct? Correct. So they're just there.

Vice President Dion. Yeah, one more question. DCM, Director of DCM, is that presently in ordinance not to exceed? No, I believe that's a per contract position in ordinance.

Okay, that kind of presents a little bit of a problem here. All right, with that I yield. Anything else from the committee? I think we have some additional information to get in some... future meeting motion yes

um that would be correct before we can i just before the motion council akadeem uh probably a little bit of a side note so if we start moving all the i guess individuals that have contracts to not to exceed, do you have a standard language in terms of benefits? So if somebody comes in and they're in this position for not to exceed, what are their benefits? So is

there a document that the city has in terms of time off, sick leave, all that? Cause I mean, we run the risk of obviously, I mean, we have a number of those individuals that don't have any of their benefits negotiated. So it complicates things because typically we follow, our management would follow the AFSCME contract, but there's certainly some wiggle room with that when it is a contract position. So, I mean, that

would definitely be a wrinkle there. Okay. I guess can you send out something, I don't know, next week or something that how we handle those individuals that currently have the NTEs and where they are compared to other individuals? Pros and cons for having contracts versus not to exceed that we might not necessarily think about? Yes, absolutely.

Thank you. Those individuals are people who are coming on board, not necessarily someone who's been here that's just necessarily having a change in the job. Perfect. And Mr. McAleen, when you have all this information squared away, you'll let me know so we can revisit this at a future meeting? Yes. Okay. Councilor Daniel, did you want to make your motion? Motion to table. Second. Motion to table. proposed ordinance

as amended made by Councilor Canuel, seconded by Vice President Dion. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Motion to adjourn. That is the end of our meeting this evening. Second. Motion to adjourn made by Councilor Perrera, seconded by Councilor Canuel. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. The Committee on Ordinance and Legislation is now adjourned.