6.13.2022 Redevelopment Authority

i'd like to call to order the meeting of the fall river redevelopment authority uh monday june 13 2022 i'd like to read a statement to pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transfer 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 i'd like to start by a roll call of members johnny erickson president john medeiros president joe marshall president and key in prison thank you also uh participating is uh sarah page our executive director john kaufman our council and ken fiolar administrative service consultant i'd like to start by asking for approval of the open

session minutes from may 24th 24. if you've read them and if you have any additions deletions or it entertain a motion to accept we accept the meeting yes second second to accept the minutes from may 24 2022. uh all in favor signify by saying aye aye all opposed okay so moved the next item on the agenda is the approval of the warrant we all received a copy of that is there any discussion anything at all no

all right is there a motion to accept that we have approved john erickson makes the motion second second second bodyguard yeah king all in favor aye aye anyone opposed joe can we talk about this invoice from innis associates yes um yeah that's on yeah yeah uh so she's a small consulting firm with subcontractors and in her contract she said she needed to pay be paid uh each month and because we moved our

meeting schedule um she couldn't get her bill in it's complicated she gets all the invoices from her subs and then puts it together so um so i told her i would ask if the board could agree that joe or john or someone could approve it and i'm assuming it will be very consistent with her contract as they always have been and you know pretty much consistent in price will it appear on the next one

well that's the thing a new one will appear but we we're not having a meeting that will deal with her june invoice okay so you're suggesting or asking that um without it being on the warrant that we approve do we have an invoice no that's the thing i would have put it on the warrant um so the question is could a couple of board members approve it um knowing that it's in a contract it's

going to be consistent with similar invoices have you gotten any other bills from them yeah i get them once a month okay so this amount is going to be the same well it's based she's pretty diligent about basing it on exactly how many hours she and her consultants worked it will probably be in the 25 000 range is that appropriate to do that john i think you could take a vote authorizing the chair to

approve payment of the bill between meetings there's nothing that says it has to be on a warrant at a meeting but what i would do if you're going to do it authorize the chair to approve a bill between now and the next meeting based on the hourly rate in that contract and then put it on the warrant for ratification at the next meeting so the board knows what it was

yeah that's what i was getting at i think we should also have an amount not to exceed as well yeah if you could come up with a ballpark on that i don't know we say not to exceed 30 000 i doubt it okay all right and i don't think you need multiple members i think you just have the chair all right so is there a uh we still should take a

vote on it yeah so it should authorize that you had to approve that bill yes

anyone opposed okay thanks for bringing that up sarah thank you the next item is city pierre 600 to wall street um beta contract amendment construction completion do you want to explain that yes so um beta had originally given us an amendment that would get them through december it actually got them through april and this is now they think we hope their final amendment and because construction is

continuing a bit um for a couple of reasons they need to keep going with us into july or so so i had her give us an invo give her give us an input an amendment for um for through jul you know through at least july 50 and it includes all the typical people who've been working with us so far what ken and i when we reviewed it wanted to

kind of push back on is we don't think that we need the clerk of the works out there full time now um maybe for another week or two we do but after that we shouldn't and um there's going to be a punch list that will need to be managed so we know that we really need beta services but we think we don't need quite as much and the last time we um

worked with them to reduce the the course you know it's a it's an estimate it isn't uh absolute amount so what we want to do is ask you to approve up to what they have put in their amendment and we will do our best to cut that back let me ken can you weigh in on that police sure um so i think this amendment that's before you goes from march excuse me from may yeah

through the middle of july so there's always associated that have already been expanded so what i've asked sarah to do is get accounting get an accounting of those hours to date to see how it it juxtaposes against the number of hours that are being proposed here both for the construction uh super i mean for the clerk of the works as well as the oversight uh person from beta and then once we get that baseline we'll

know how many hours we have left you know to uh in the contract itself and then we should be able to cut back those hours once a punch list is live now the funny thing is when i went down there today they said they have a punch list already who that that mas or nick alex so i haven't seen that punch we haven't seen the punchline so you said they're working off a punch list now so

if that's the case we can start pulling him off you know probably within a week i don't think well i think what he means by a punch list is things that are obviously wrong they're saying address this now while you're still pouring concrete and those kinds of things so i think they have preliminary punch lists that they're trying to get done before the official punch list gets created and

there isn't an official punch list so i was just he just said punch this hose yeah but for instance like they got the electrics going off tomorrow night from 10 to 3.

there's no reason for him to be there that's right it was he was going to be there right it's a national grid situation national grid can certainly lock the gate when they're over or they're complete so they don't need to be there so i think we can cut back the hours there's also uh hours in there for i don't have it right in front of me but in lsp there's some additional uh hours in

there for 300 categories that i don't think we're going to take advantage of or if we do it's going to be very minimal so i would imagine that figure that's before you will be reduced how much it's going to reduce i'm not 100 sure but it's certainly going to be reduced and then they're aware we're watching this and we're concerned about it yeah okay and i also we also have some for a

break i think they got 12 500 on a project close out as i would say yeah we want to get a breakdown of what that is okay good

any questions of the board of either ken or sarah and if not you're looking for a vote sorry right to authorize the chair to execute the beta contract amendment for up to 130 131 498 right did you make that motion change is there a second to that motion second second by ann kane all in favor aye anyone opposed thank you uh the next item can i just say something one thing i think you should

i can't as a consultant i can't communicate directly to them in terms of things that should be done but um this past weekend a lot of people i you know i was at the days of portugal around to a lot of people and they all loved the city pier but the one question i heard over and over how can we have a dead tree there yeah they're taking it out can we take it out

sooner as opposed to later like tomorrow maybe i will push on that because you have this beautiful sight and you have this dead tree in the middle it's a dead pine tree and it's like why do you have a dead tree there it was beautiful two weeks ago when it was planted and it's really upsetting but it's what catches your ride when you look at the project it's like it just looks like jolly grounds so they're

taking it out and they're waiting until the fall when it's a better time to plant pine trees and that's fine you'll see nice plants there and then eventually we'll have a plant in the middle again in the fall yes in the fall and i had a talk today with nick about i mean i've been talking to them almost daily about the landscape materials that went in before we had electricity therefore before we

had full irrigation was put in as irrigation was going in so they didn't get the water they needed and we told them and told them and we have some plant material that's going to have to be removed and we have given that experience we've told them that until the irrigation system until we have electricity and we have an irrigation system that's working we don't want them to hydro seed

even though we wanted the grass planted a couple of months ago so that's where we are okay um we're still on the uh on the city pier uh next item is proposed city pier rules and signage so the only update i have on that is at the last meeting and in our task force we talked about needing signs that said don't jump that were all out on the ends of the pier and

we now find we don't actually need to put those now an insurance company could down the road change their mind but it's right now not seen as a requirement and we were having a really hard time figuring out where we would put them that they wouldn't look bad either changing the look of the railings or sticking out in our grass and so i think right now we can eliminate them

so that that came that decision came as a result of talking to the insurance company yes okay and he said he deferred to john and i know john that we need though good and we have two signs that's safe rules are at the entrance yes yeah okay all right so back to the beta contract did we finish that vote i'm just going to yeah oh yeah that's the question oh yeah we did it we're good

oh okay yeah and so that's uh that's your report on the rules and signings yeah we're good with that uh any other items relative to the city pier the opening and the operation yes so there were questions recently about the need to have procedures and policies related to events and how we were going to manage events and i'm i want to suggest that we put that issue off until the fall when we're actually working on our

chapter 91 license that will allow us to really have events and really focus now on all these other operational issues in terms of getting a landscape company working well security system trash pickup going smoothly and let the event issue just yeah but you know sarah i submit that you can still have that ongoing conversation we have a subcommittee that has to do with it i think that should be part of the

discussion so we're not starting in three months right we're continuing to talk about it okay so is the signage committee going to do that i think so okay great i think so i think because there's so many different ways that that could go and i don't want to start three months from now i'd like to start the conversations eliminate some of the ideas that we'd be eliminating three months from now okay okay yep great

that's part those are what no i was saying that we have to really focus on those very operational issues right but joe is saying we can also start really working on the policies for um people applying for events and doing that in a way that's fair and equitable and that we're realizing more and more we have to do a lot of thinking but we should do that okay great and then the only other thing under that

is we have talked about having an opening event in september that's right does that seem right well as long as the trees

so just between now and then i think we spoke about this but we've got to get trash bottles right yes yeah so how are we doing are we ordering those are those a big procedure is that less than ten thousand i don't know how that's going well if you're under ten you're okay yeah between 10 to 50 you need three okay because we're probably i don't know when you're planning to open up here but

you gotta have trash yeah are you thinking about the solar ones yeah we're thinking about the solar compactors but then the other thing is you may want to talk to alex from beta because once they hydro seed this week you may want to get an estimated time frame for your first cut which means that you're going to have to have a landscaper on board right after here right right so barrel's landscaping and then

collectively as a board he's going to keep the area fenced off until the middle of july to give this grass fight yes and mas is just leaving their fence up because they agree they don't want people in there before that and oh i think it was john maybe i talked to so many people today uh you mentioned that we should have a police detail there on 4th of july i'm just warning are they doing the

fireworks at the waterfalls yes they are i can i just if there's thousands of people down there we just got to make sure that that place doesn't get overrun people are walking on the grass i think that's a really good idea because people are getting in people are in fishing and i saw them getting in friday night and called nick and they went out and wired one of the um

fences and then it was unwired by monday morning so we're having a little trouble keeping people out see if that grass gets destroyed they are they they were putting a lock on today and they may have to put numerous locks on because there are numerous places where you could pull it out so they're working on that and um okay now now getting back to the landscaping again based on what you said john that's

another thing i think we could start working on right now because i don't want to wait till the last minute too so but we don't know the scope will work yet that is going to be required do we we're going to write it okay once we do that and what approves then we should get it out there and again i don't know what it's going to cost 10 000 or 20

000. i'm assuming we have to rfp that one okay but let's get the scope of work ready and then uh because again i don't want to wait till just just working backwards if you have to repeat that right so by the time you put that rp together yeah best case scenario it's two weeks that takes you through the third week or almost the end of june you gotta advertise it for what 21 days

two weeks two weeks so it brings you to the middle of july and so you probably want to have somebody on there until you know third or fourth week of july if everything goes smoothly and i'm just wondering yeah we wanted to start that sooner as opposed to later because that grass could be growing i don't know too much about hydro seeding but i know it grows quick oh yeah

that's the whole purpose of it right so we could have a lawn full of bushy grass that needs to be cut by the time if we're opening up in the middle of july so we gotta we got to move that as a priority we got to move that up if we're going to need again i don't know the cost yeah or you could do it short term that's what i was saying

just a seasonal contract for now i would hope you know and get another five to ten grand and then we'll do a longer term contract you know year one we really don't know we have to get some prices i think so to see how much it's going to cost well that's what i was hoping even if it's for the rest of this year yeah even just through july august september and then that that company could

uh reapply when the rfp goes up so i think we just let's get some prices just to see the wall park so as long as we're under 50 and we just have to solicit and it's only it's not a full you don't have to do a full ad it's just three written quotes i don't know so i don't know what this i didn't know if you were throwing in snow plowing and trash

whatever the scope is let's put something together but even if you're up to 50 grand you only need three quotes so and they don't have to be formal they just right you know yeah three written quotes you wouldn't have to go to a full rfp unless you're over 50 grand like on a three-year contract right or not it's 30 but it's that's less than 50s but it can't be like it

can't be 30 for each for three years right no you'd have to just i think means collectively i think for year one we'd have to just get some short-term contract just to open up and then do something long-term yeah

we get the short term going and then in the fall we can work on the rfq for the winter in the spring and we can decide if we want to do them to the plowing or if we can keep that separate but if you put it out in the fall we'll be in good shape your spring yeah yeah that's right yeah all right i'll talk to you further about that okay that's good

and then the snow plowing has to be a consideration too but how much of there's not going to be a lot to plow there i don't think oh yeah it's the one walk you have to oh the boardwalk that's right i was thinking of the parking the circle is no big deal that's what i was thinking yeah i'm worried about that well that had to be part of the overall

any idea who does the boardwalk now the problem is nobody does the worldwide okay so just melts and so the only boardwalk that's done in the winter is heritage state park which is a shame because from heritage state park you know no have to choose by called ventures and waterpark you really you can't walk that because it's all full of snow well the wall committee uh we pay for the veterans you know we yeah

we pay for the snowplow or the maintenance as well as the landscaping right so yeah and i some point gloria does these ideas so it really is our section yeah but before point gloria they sort of see if our section's done

not just the landscape because you also have that walkway behind the electric right that's already there now that's under problem

in fact why don't people fish off of that i mean really well they're sitting out on our benches they've got bags of you know wine and i think maybe some bait and but the other piece right there on our railing yeah so it's a big set up there we made it comfortable i think that's good yeah okay i actually don't have any signs up yet right we do it but i think the fence will be here

well everyone told me this was going to be an ongoing issue

all right we'll move right along then thank you is there anything else relative to the city pier opening operations or you want to go right into phase four so numerous applications have gone in um we're preparing um one now for the army corps of engineers uh we got approval from the conservation commission for the audience yes you want to define phase four sure phase four are docks that will go around the pier

and we're getting we're going in with a design that would allow us to have docs on many sides of the pier but we're focusing right now so we're getting approvals from all of these entities for a broad plan of dockage but what we're focusing on actually building will be the north side which is the most protected side close to point gloria and there will be a wheelchair accessible ramp that goes up to the

walkway that exists there now and down to the p down to docks and so what we're trying to do is get pilings put in by the end of december and then next spring we would put docks attached to the pilings and it would be possible for people to stop for the day and enjoy the waterfront and have tied up their boat there but it requires numerous purpose numerous approvals so ultimately we need a chapter 91 license

from the mass department of environmental protection and right now we're working on the army corps of engineers

because it was advantageous we do it in the fall and not in the spring because it's some mating season or something right sturgeon may uh be a problem one of the approvals that we thought would say you couldn't uh put them in between january and june actually did not say that so it may be that that isn't going to be a problem we are operating under the assumption that we have to get it

done by the end of december until we hear otherwise next item project updates number one is the revitalization blueprint urban renewal plan for pleasant street and the flint neighborhood so we reported on our public meeting the last time i thought this time i would report more on our work with our funder which is um the mass housing finance agency and they were funding a maximum amount of around 120 000 and

now they've increased that so we're getting 200 000 and um a lot of that or some of that will go toward um emily innes work but their goal in increasing it was to really fund the beginning of implementation and as we talked with our project person at um at mass housing um she has really encouraged us to press forward on the goal that we all have really highlighted which is the need for really good inspections

and for code enforcement to really be carried out there and so the city needs to make their code enforcement process electronic and give really have a database that involves standard databases for code enforcement and we're pretty much in the sea still working on a paper system to some extent so mass housing would be willing to fund some tablets for either consultants or staff and fund the purchase of a database and

help get the city system more modernized but really focus on trying it out in the flame and um we talked about trying to do really targeted code enforcement and inspections one strategy that's often used in neighborhoods like this that monica at mass housing was encouraging and i really agree is that you can find out where the most police calls are and then send your code enforcement

there and kind of start there as the priority and so she would love to fund us to really get going on that process and i think it would not only benefit the flint but benefit the city so you're talking about increasing the funding from 120 to another amount it's going yes so she's giving us a contract now for 200 000 oh that's available to us now yes right and so you need to sign that so that

that's the vote we need um for us to sign a contract increasing our contract amount from 100 000 to 200 000 and increasing the term of the program from two years to three years because they found that lots of organizations were doing great work but to do this work in a two-year term is not really realistic so they increased everyone from 100 000 to 200 000 and increased it to three years which is great

and she really wants to come out and meet with our citizen advisory group when we meet in july and we need to set up a time she would love to come tour the neighborhood and meet with our committee and you have a date yet for that no we don't have a date yet so um her name is monica pacino and she worked for the attorney general's office before this in their vacant and abandoned housing program so

she has an incredible background for doing this work and it's really a delight to work with her because she knows exactly the issues we're working on and you'll appreciate having her come to our meeting any any questions on that subject no uh so i i would entertain a vote authorizing me to execute an amendment to a memorandum of understanding with the mass housing finance agency which increases the contract amount

from 100 000 to 200 and increased the term of the neighborhood help program from two years to three years ending may 1st 2024.

does someone like to do that extension of the contract has proposed an outline okay is there a second to that second john uh all in favor aye aye anyone opposed so much thank you that was good very good district management planning for the tdi district and south main street so i think you all knew that we went to central square with a good number of people from fall river and toured around

central square in cambridge and saw a very impressive business improvement district and you may have seen the article in the herald news yes it was good good and um we learned a lot we also had a videographer and we are really looking forward to having that video available um uh a follow-up on that is that i mass development already is funding lots of things and jim needed to take it out

of funding for small businesses and he was going to do that but i told him that we had agreed we could pay a thousand and then he'd pay a thousand because it wasn't money that he could get from mass development it was money out of a fund that we've supported and wanted to see thriving so um so we had a someone who's going to cut a cut and edit the video um

hopefully by the end of june and we had really amazing business people there talking to us about the benefit for them and i'll just give you a few examples one owns a hotel he is a lawyer he owns a hotel and he does construction on his properties and he was really uh colorful and interesting and he said that he's getting ten dollars for every dollar he puts into the bid that was in the article too

right yeah it was impressive and from what i understand he's paying about 40 000 a year into the bid now this bid has properties that are valued very high and you're not this is cambridge right this is cambridge but central square is a challenging part of cambridge and they talked about how they have numerous shelters lots of people who are unhoused and they have a team an outreach team

that kind of addresses those issues and they really talked about how before they had the bid they were out cleaning streets themselves they were dealing with all kinds of issues they were individually talking to the city and that the huge difference is they're working as a group connecting with the city and saying we as a group need this you know we're putting a lot of money into the square

we need you to do this piece and that they have people they can call when an issue arises so a business person goes out and there's a bunch of trash and they just call and someone shows up and takes care of it and that that was huge for them because otherwise they'd be out there or their staff would be out there and so it just is a way of dealing with things

quickly and it's in their control and that was huge for them any questions i mean we had a million questions and uh you will hear more for sure and then the last item on the meeting agenda historic district rfp revised plans i just wanted to let you know that's just about set to go out this week and we've extended the deadline and um it would be good to get those in um so

is there anything else to come before the board before we go in yeah okay uh not hearing anything is there a uh vote to go into executive session and i think there's gonna be a vote so i think we're gonna have to come out also yes

on the negotiating position body correct so you chair makes that funny yes and then we need a roll call vote to go into executive sessions we should probably just read the four items items yes so we are going in or we're asking to go into executive session to for the approval of the executive session minutes discuss real estate transaction on innovation way to discuss a real estate transaction at 45 anawan street

to also discuss a real estate transaction at 72 bank street and to discuss a real estate transaction at 191 commerce drive so that's the request to go into executive session is there a motion to do that and move we move going through executive session is there a second second to return

roll call next yeah yes yes joe marshall yes and yes okay they will come back thank you thank you welcome back um the only other item i have on the agenda has to do with uh vhp contract amendment for the flagging of the wetlands at 191 commerce drive to be done for fifty fifty three hundred you got that i did okay um i think it's a good idea to get the flagging anyway but

if uh somebody could i'd entertain the motion to authorize me to execute the bhp contract amendment number four for flagging the wetlands at 191 commerce drive for the amount of 5300 uh

all in favor aye aye anyone opposed okay so moved uh i would entertain oh the next meeting is scheduled for july 26th uh and at this time i would adjourn i would uh entertain a motion to adjourn john second second by jones all in favor aye aye anyone opposed thank you