6.12.2024 Commission on Disability

is a meeting of the Fall River Commission on disability for Wednesday June 12th 2024 um did I just give the right date yeah June um okay pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make any 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 UNP perceived by

those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible I'm sorry um roll call chairman Dennis Pauli president Vice chairwoman Debbie Pico present commissioner Lisa Silva present commissioner Ann O'Neal Souza president okay next item is public input um I'll ask three times if there are any public if there's any public input so is there any public input is there any public input put and is there any public

input okay hearing none I will go on to the approval of the minutes for the meeting of May 8th 20124 I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes for May 8th I'll make a motion oh go go ahead I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the May 8th 2024 meeting this is Debbie Pico okay any second to that I'll second that Lisa okay um roll call vote chairman Dennis Paul S yes Vice

chairwoman Deb Pacho yes commissioner Lisa Silva yes commissioner Ann O'Neal Souza yes okay um next item is updates I don't have any Ada updates for this month next is policies uh deput Pico no updates at this time all right and next item is finance um we I'm just going to give you uh and and Debbie you can jump in if you if if I miss anything but um we did meet with the mayor on May

20th um and I hope I didn't give them the mayor's office Co because I got it the next day but anyway um at the meeting you did not thank you present at that meeting uh was mayor Paul Coogan uh City administrator Seth aen um City's CFO uh Bridget Alman and Ken fet from the corporation council's office um and um debban and I sort of gave an update of of the history of this

program um and some of the issues that we we noticed the past couple of years and particularly in the last year and I don't you know I don't want to go into all the um all the things that we had noticed and things that you know the meetings that we had with Chief govin um we did inform the mayor that um we yeah we did inform everybody that at our last

meeting I think it was the May 8th meeting we had we had voted not to accept the memorandum of understanding um and the mayor reminded everybody present at the table basically it's it's up to us um we could he kind of reiterated that we could go back to having one full-time police officer um and um which would be 105,000 and change um or we could we could go in another Direction and that's entirely up

to the board and the mayor reminded everybody at the table that that's up to the board my uh my question here today is we did vote last month to reject the memorandum um so do we still want to let that stand or do we want to make a more um definitive statement that um we want to go in a different direction than than than paying a a a specific Sal salary or

part of a specific salary CU I think in rejecting the memorandum we already did that but I just want to get everybody's input

here Dennis I think I'd like to recommend that we consider going back to a detail and um presenting something presenting something to that effect to the police department and the chief I don't know who exactly is in charge of um that that's the direction we'd like to go in and asking them what they what did they think would be reasonable in regards to um having a detail going back

to a detail and whether or not we can find a previous agreement because there got to be some one somewhere because we used to do details before we went into um paying you know the the salary of two police officers anybody else I'd like to throw out a suggested timeline um if if you will what I'd like to suggest is that I will send everybody the proposed memorandum I know we

rejected it last month but there are some things in that memorandum that I think would be good for a new memorandum that would govern um going back to police detail um things like um recordkeeping um Communications letting us know month either on a monthly basis report um things like uh training keeping up to date on any changes in the handicap parking regulations I think those are good

things that would go into a memorandum I've not been able to locate a memorandum of the police detail prior to 2012 from 2009 to 2012 is when the commission um I was not inol at that point I but from 2009 to 2012 the commission did have a police detail program and in looking at the revenue um it was it was much better than I thought when I took a look at how

much revenue was coming in from the period of February 1st 2009 to um March of 200 I'm sorry uh June 30th 2012 um really wasn't as bad as I think we all thought it was at the time um and I would I I would insist that any police detail be done through a memorandum similar to what we had with the police department um so what I'm going to suggest is I'd like to send

everybody or resend the proposed memorandum and ask for everybody to make suggestions and send them to me by June 28th and then what I'd like to do is forward them to the mayor's office and the mayor can send it to the appropriate people that were either at the last meeting to put together a me an appropriate memorandum which would be approved by the commission I would say in September with maybe a starting date of

October so hello hey commissioner Dan so just over at City Hall Benn both my personal phones are down there's a big issue with Verizon okay that's what we all go ahead that's what everybody thought because I think there's a Verizon systemwide issue going on it sounds like yeah thank you you're very welcome so um Dan um uh Debbie had just made a suggestion that we go back to the detail

system and I suggested that um that I give everybody till the end of June to come up with suggestions that they would like to see I would hand out I would forward to everybody the um proposed memorandum and that would give everybody till the end of June to um to give me suggestions and then I would forward them to the mayor's office and they would determine um who would best write the

new memorandum that would come before the full commission in September yeah that's fine is there any do you have anything that you want to add to that Dan not not necessarily I mean uh I I will review are you sending out uh copies of yes the the last mou that was rejected yes that's what I'm going to do I'm going to send out um I'm going to send out the memorandum that was re jeed

resend that to everybody and they can look and everybody can look at it and make make a s and forward suggestions to me on what you would like to see in it and then I would send it on to the mayor's office and um they know exactly you know who they would like to see working on it um Dan I mentioned in in reporting on on the May 20th meeting with the mayor there was the city

administrator Seth aen there was Bridget alond Who was the CFO um and Ken fet who is the from the corporation council's office yeah and I'm not sure if I'm missing anybody else well of course our vice chair depo and myself I think those were the participants at that meeting yeah the only the only thing I'll say now Dennis uh before reviewing the the former M that we or the proposed

mou that was rejected by this body is I wholehearted we agree with Vice chair Pico a and uh anyone else that feels of the same uh opinion that I do not want to return to a uh salered position okay uh I I I I think if we're going to do anything at all the only way to go is the detail um uh well let me just say one thing if I could

about the salary position because I think at least from some of the perception uh I just want to clear one thing up for the record in my mind this commission was never uh never intended to pay the full salaries of any police officers I've heard time and time again over the years uh since we we started with the offices that the 128,000 052 or 056 whatever it was didn't cover the the

salary of the officers it was never the intent of this commission to cover the full salary of either of the officers okay this started with Dan reine and uh you know uh we paid a portion of the salary it was never the intent I'll speak for myself as one member who voted against uh the the way we did things I voted against uh all of those uh contracts except for one in

2017 uh because I didn't like the way it was structured I thought the amount was too high and and so I voted against it but it was never the intent of this Commission in my opinion to pay the the full salary of any offices and uh no police officer would ever be out of a job because they're under contract the union protected So for anybody to think that this commission was supposed

to or should have been paying more to cover the full salary that's just wholly inadequate in my mind with that I yeld okay um and actually Chief Dan rine and and I do remember the meeting back in 2012 when this was adopted he did emphasize that if we decided not to go this route we wouldn't be taking anybody's job away so you know could I make a followup comment on Mr chairman

sure thank you uh we would we the commission would never have the ability to take any uh job from a police officer away their Union protected uh so right there uh anybody that would thought that any changes by the commission was going to put a police officer on the unemployment line that's just a a a scare tactic and should have never been used and I think the portion of the

salary that we did pay uh for uh approximately 10 to 12 Years $128,000 A year uh is is more than sufficient uh it was a two-way partnership we're looking to change direction but I think the commit uh paid more than sufficient amount of money uh for the services we received with that I yield okay um so is this okay with everybody until the end of June just forward me your suggestions and I'll make sure you guys

get the memorandum and if you just forward me suggestions of what you would like to see in it then I can send it all to the mayor's office probably by the beginning of July and then hope hope y we can have a have a a uh um have a um a new memorandum um stressing you know the the direction of going in through a police detail uh to be voted on by the

September meeting Summers is usually people go on vacations and stuff like that so I really don't think that we're in a rush um to do anything and I just want to make sure that you know that everybody works at a comfortable Pace because you know where in the end it's going to be other people that will be writing the memorandums and I want them to I don't want them to feel pressured or anything

like that so does that make sense to everybody yes um and again um I I just want to reiterate um that on the whole um this partnership has has worked for us and the things that we've been able to do we're going to be doing our fifth annual scholarship next year and so we can't underscore the importance of what we've been able to do without a partnership with the FRP without a partnership with

the Fall River Police Department so you know I just we we always need to keep that in mind that what we're doing is is we're not foregoing the partnership we're just going to go in in another Direction in a different direction and actually it it might give the chief a little more Flex ability if he needs certain if he needs a certain police officer on a certain day you know he's

not taking him away of from something specific like this so um does anybody have any more comments before I move on to Mr chairman yep thank you i' just like to say uh that none of my comments were directed at any member of the floor of a police department they uh the the uh hired officers that we had uh in quoting officer riy who's probably been the most long-term one who I've

personally known uh for quite a few years and and others that we've had since we've had uh two dedicated officers have done an outstanding job serving this commission um my issues with the program have never been uh with uh related to any of the services provided directly by the offices I've had issues uh that had nothing to do with the members of the police department so I want to make that clear

uh the for River Police Department has served this commission admirably and and outstandingly in my opinion my issues with the program have nothing to do with any member of the fora Police Department with that I yield okay okay I'm going to go on to D Outreach so um we need to hear from uh I need to get four students ID numbers and once I get those we will be able to send

all the scholarship monies out to the appropriate institutions so it's a little bit of chasing down but we are we are um um we're we're very much ahead of last year and the year before and um it seems like we get better in managing this each year so I just need to hear from four students I need their ID numbers I'm not going to mention their names here but uh I do have their

I do have their uh uh appropriate contact information so um so does anybody have any comments or questions or I'm I'm sorry Mr chairman yep uh thank you very briefly uh what happens uh if those uh those four students uh don't re reach out uh in time would they then would they then forfeit the award well you know no money no money goes out until no money goes out until we hear

from them including their ID number all right so I mean obviously I think if we don't hear from them by the Fall um then I mean I I don't know if we've ever if we've ever discussed what if they decide to take us from me I we've never really got into those variables I don't know if um if the work group or if the full commission wants to set a policy if you know does this go

through the entire year if somebody were decide to start decide to decide to start in the second semester do you know I don't I don't think we've ever discussed those variables before because we've never really we've had returned scholarship monies that we've had but we've never had um you know issues where someone decided to take a semester off or anything like that that I I think um

I'm trying to think I think we had an incident where somebody wanted to go into the service this or something i' take a semester yeah that that was last year or the year before and I think we said that that couldn't happen or something like that as I as I recall uh they they wrote a letter to us chair that that matter was brought before this full commission and and that uh uh that that money was

was fored as I recall the vote I can tell you that three of the four and this is all I'm going to say from and I'm keeping it very general three three of the four three of the four are from one institution and that one institution confirmed that all of those particular students are going there so that I can say you know and then there's one inst there's one student that's going to a different

institution but three of the four are going to the same institution and that institution has already confirmed that those students are there um and when I entered their names they asked me to enter their names and I entered their names to the um student accounts office and so nothing's going to happen you know they're not going to lose even if they got the money in late August or September they're not

going to lose anything from their account they're they're they're they're they're there's a notation in their account that there's scholarship money com from this coming from this commission so I can tell you that yeah okay and maybe that maybe that's something we discuss at an Outreach work group but I I'll I I'll I'll just say this generally generally I like the policy that uh you receive the

you receive the scholarship and you start the following semester if if we allow if we start having people starting war or two semesters later I I think that that becomes a logistical Nightmare and I for what I personally as one member would not support that if there was a move to to ever give somebody one or two or even three semesters I like it as we have it now you're awarded the scholarship and

you're expected to start that the following semester right away that's my opinion is is everybody okay is everybody okay with that I mean maybe we come back and do a formal policy eventually I don't think that's on today's agenda so that's as far as I want to oh that's true that's true we can't do a vote anyway okay all right I I can I can put it on the September Comm um agenda if we want to

formalize it so that's what I'll do okay I thank you okay so that's all I have on uh Outreach sorry the next item is old business is there any old business is there any new business our next meeting is um we have the month of July off which I hope you all have a good month of July off our next meeting won't be until Wednesday August 14th um this but does anybody else have any new

business which if if needed if if if a vote is needed it would be if a vote is needed to be taken it would have to be um it would have to be put on next month's agenda I mean know the next meeting's agenda but does anybody have anything they want to bring up under new business not at this time okay hearing none um do I hear a motion then to adjourn motion to

adjourn second the motion de poo Okay uh I'll take a roll call vote chairman Dennis pelli yes Vice chairwoman Debbie pachico yes commissioner Lisa Silva yes commissioner Dan roard yes commissioner an O'Neal Suza yes we are adjourned all right thank you everyone yep have a good day