6.15.26 Community Preservation Committee

Uh welcome to the community preservation committee meeting. Uh we're here at one government center uh the hearing room.

Uh it's uh June 15th uh 2026 at 6:00.

Pursuant to the open meeting laws, any person will 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 unpersceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible.

We'll start roll call to my left.

Do we need to do roll call? Alexander Silva present.

Kristen Canar Oliver present.

John Grant.

Rick Many present. Chris Benvites present.

And we're missing Joanne Bentley. Uh Jim Hornsby and Mike Ferris.

And our new member John Ferris.

Silia.

John Sylvia. And uh we also have tonight uh Sandy Dennis, our uh uh administrative assistant and Craig from Forward TV. Uh I think we have citizen input tonight.

Yes.

Okay. Uh personal list uh three minute uh citizen input. We're during this we won't be asking any questions till further on we discuss it. But we're not going to go back and forth questions.

I I'm not opposed to answer any questions.

I was kind of want to stick to the our agenda.

Okay, I hear you.

Just state your name and address.

My name is Mike Herod, lifelong resident of Forever 453 Staffing Road.

Hello. It's a pleasure to be here tonight because as a lifelong resident of Forever, I completely understand how important it is to protect and preserve our history and culture and I want to thank you guys for dedicating your time to that.

I believe that your work with such pride as a Vietn Vietnam wall, the San Shrine, the B Reserve, Lafayette House has been fantastic and critically important to our city's past and future, especially when market rate housing seems to run the day and dominate city planning.

former history and culture is what makes it such a special and unique place. It should be unequivocally protected at all times and at any moment. Defunding organizations like this and any others that perform similar responsibilities like this is reckless and irresponsible and can do unreparable damage to our history and our culture.

However, there is an issue that I feel uh that could put all your hard work and mission to preserve and protect uhh what you do at risk. It is the ineffectiveness of your body to inform the citizens of forever adequately of the great work that you do.

With a declining influence in traditional and local media outlets, the information game has changed radically.

Whether you like it or not understand or understand it or not, the world is now being dominated by the digital media space locally nationally and internationally. And you must do a better job at adapting to this.

For example, in my research when talking to John Bre about this about this committee and his the work he does, I did some research and the fantastic work you've done at the bio reserve, Lafayette House, Vietnam, Vietnam, St.

Dixie textile mills amongst them. And in that research on former government TV and the social media that provides for it, something is significant. and as dynamic and as important and as beautiful as the Vietnam memorial wall only has 135 views.

The bio reserve video 121 views. The Lafayette House 180 views. Stan Shrine 227 views. And Drifty Textile Mills 75 views. And these have been up for years.

Recently myself and and and John Brand did a quick digital content video that was a minute long at the cook house. We left his shop, took a walk. He told me the story about this fantastic piece of real estate in house that provided shelter, medical treatment, and a safe harbor for slaves in the Underground Railroad.

Uh uh after that video after 3 days we have documentation of that got close to 10,000 views with no editing, no boost or no sponsoring completely organic in three days. We decided to do it in five minutes. It was John's idea.

the the ability to create a strong creative and informative social media strategy can make to move the needle and inform the and inform and influence public opinion and most importantly educate all the people about the important work that you do. I know this because the last time I did something like this was about the Briari which had a 63 vote to go all in with democracy housing and do damage to the

structure and affect that the integrity of it. Okay.

One minute. I'm going to make a motion to extend the time.

I'll second that. Second. You want to take a vote?

Take a vote.

All those in favor?

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Okay. After after that video was done, okay, which there were two videos done, 93,000 87,000, it turned the city council vote around by moving the needle the needle publicly informing the people a place that had not only historical significance but an emotional pull on many of us who spent time there as a child, right? It moved a 63 vote to to to to do the market housing project to a

90 vote to table it and that's been well doc that's been well documented.

Okay.

I appreciate the work that you do all of you. Okay.

But without a strong social media presence, okay? And I've decided because me and John discussed this to step away from this. I'm going to raise funds privately, which we've done multiple times to take up this initiative. Okay. I am not a paid operative like was suggested by some trashy negative space in in this by by the CP. I haven't got one dime. In fact, I put my time and energy into this

uh for nothing. I did I do it because I believe in it because I love where I'm from. And also we started a hashtag campaign that many of you may be familiar with called for a food city and some of it is documented right here where we went to pre-existing eeries no change no fast food nothing like that that have served this city for 125 years like hot pork pies like all the others

and in one year and three months we got 2.7 million views and dramatically in increased their bottom line. That is what a strong informed creative positive social media strategy can do for the eeries for the Bag Street Army, the PR and for you. And I strongly suggest, you know, whoever it may be, that you guys find a way to better inform the taxpayers, the voters, because if this were to be defunded

and and you guys don't win the the public opinion and you don't move the needle, that could happen and that would be a tragy. if it did. Okay.

Our history and our culture separate us from the rest. And while mocking mock housing is running the day, it could also ruin the day for us in the future if it puts our historical buildings and other things at risk. Okay. I thank you for your time. I appreciate the work that you do. Okay. And it's an honor to be here. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. You're welcome. I have some information here that I brought for the from the council. They can look at some stuff. It's well documented. I'll just put it right here.

Look at your leisure if you'd like to do.

Thank you.

All right. My phone number very public.

You guys can contact me. I'll see you later. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else on Sandy?

Okay. All right. Um on the next one, the approval minutes of March 16th. I think we already did that last time.

Okay. So, can I have a motion to approve the minutes for March 16?

I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes for March 16th of 2026.

Second.

Roll call.

Okay.

All in favor?

I uh I guess we need an extension for May's uh minutes. I'll make a motion to um move the approval of minutes from May 18th to our next meeting.

I'll second that motion. All in favor?

I Okay. Uh next I to recuse myself for this. I'm a member of the preservation society's board of directors.

Uh we probably aren't going to be able to take a vote on this tonight.

But no, but uh you can go ahead and state and then next month you don't have to Okay. My name is Connie Soul. I live at 577 Rock Street in Fall River and I'm here representing the Preservation Society. I'm the secretary of preservation society. I'm just going to pass. I only have that one pictures in the back of um the window project that I'm here about.

So, uh good evening to all of you. On behalf of the Preservation Society of Fall River, the board of directors respectfully request one final sixmonth extension to complete the remaining work associated with the FY22 and FY24 uh community preservation act funded window restoration project at the Dr.

Isaac Dis House which is located at 263 Pine Street. Um, these projects encompass, as you know, the restoration of historic windows on the front, east, and west facade of the um, Underground Railroad site. While we regret that the need to request one final extension, uh, we are pleased to report that the substantial progress has been made over the past years, and you can see it in

the pictures that I've passed around.

Two phases of the window restoration have been completed and the remaining phases are currently scheduled for completion this fall. Um to minimize the disruption for the tenants that uh reside at the uh Dr. Fisk House, the preservation society elected to coordinate both the CPA funded projects as well as other work that we've been doing um on an apartment by apartment basis versus on the facade, you know,

each facade so that we could include the tenants and decrease the disruption to their life as much as possible. Plus, during the winter months, it was difficult to be removing windows um during the real cold times. So, the restored windows are now fully operational. They're weathertight and equipped with historical appropriate storm windows that preserve the building's historic character while

improving energy efficiency and functionality. And they look amazing.

For your review, we'll include photographs that I've passed around documenting the restoration work completed to date ahead of the committee's meeting. So, thank you for continued support of this preservation effort and um in the city of Fall River society. Any questions?

Connie, question.

Yeah, Connie, refresh my memory. How many more windows need replacing?

Uh, that's a good question. Um, I think it may only be I think it's two apartments. I can't remember. I can't recall how many windows exactly.

So, we're looking at probably 8 to 10 to 12 windows at this point.

I mean, it's truly I think the six months is Yeah, there weren't a lot. That's so that's my project and so I've been following the project and and the ones that are done I can't remember how many are left. Um but the ones that have been done look amazing.

They're just like really they're beautiful.

We're all very familiar with the project and it is a good looking well worth um Scott's windows that that's doing the project and they also had um they had a death in the business and um so there's been things that have delayed it but the work she's doing it's been pretty it is amazing yeah and again just to sort of publicize as Mike Herren was just talking about that was an underground railroad site so the history

it's certified exactly all certified of that particular building is, you know, truly an amazing option to this Friday, right?

Yes, we do with the black coalition.

That starts at what time?

Four.

Is it four? Yes. Sounds Sounds good.

John, yes, it's on Facebook.

Yes, it's on the Society page. Yeah.

4 p.m. on Friday, huh?

Yeah, it's I've done the Underground Railroad Tour and it's pretty amazing.

really is close to heart. I mean, it was a project that Jim started. It was one of the final things he had his hands in.

And so, um, yeah, it's a it's a good project. And so, I know you can't vote tonight, but um, uh, like I say, there's only a couple windows in six months.

Take a vote in August next time we meet.

Okay.

You shouldn't have to picture stuff.

All right. Okay, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Connie.

Okay, Alex.

All right, before I get into the next uh item which is CPA marketing and public relations. Um I don't normally like to uh at a a board meeting discuss what social media remarks on us, but the the one thing I I don't want to stand for is somebody that says our board is a political that would just take uh direction from a mayor, the city council, uh we lie. This board will you'll never see anyone lie.

We do our individual votes. We take uh advice from the mayor, city council. Um anybody ever has a discussion, we have citizen input. That is where you come down and put your input in. and uh just sharing that kind of information saying that uh we're political is just not going to that's not how you go about getting results and the group that put that out is a lot better. I I expect more out of

them because I do listen to their show.

So um feel free to give us a call. All of our information is on the city website. You can go on and research any project.

Uh who put in for the project and when you even attack citizens for putting in projects like Miss Briger for the uh children's museum that could have been anybody we would have passed that it's a great project for kids in the city restored an old building by attacking citizens. That that's not the way to go about that. So I hope in the future we won't have those kind of things. Um there's also a lot of misinformation

that things that are just absolutely not true actually in some of in some of what's been put out there yesterday.

I I mean you you discussed uh the narrows uh having funding. Uh I know Patrick Norton he's never applied to us.

uh has I don't think he's received any Fall River money because the narrow was survives mostly by outside traffic. Uh Fall River hardly uh helps them.

I think he's gotten grants from mass cultural mass culture. Yeah.

But uh they they've never got funding from us and u they do a great job. So attacking somebody for not even doing anything I think is uh uncalled for too. Uh I just wanted to go over that and body's followed us over the years. We've always had post during this time of year. We're promoting the uh September 2nd for new uh applications. So, you will see more stuff coming out of us. It's nothing

we've uh done in the past, anything different. Um and in the past, we have said where uh this year we're going with open space recreation. A couple years ago, we did something, you know, else.

The reason we picked open space recreation is because two of our members here were on the board for the open space recreation and you know it's a 10-year commitment but the thing is some of this stuff has been on that list year study after study so that's why we thought we'd put a dent in it so like I say any questions feel free to give us a call go on our website it's all there I

don't want to get into a political war where you're calling us liars and that That's not how we don't call me and I'll tell you about a project and if you don't believe me then you can go from there. But they watch the meetings every I'm not going to sit back and let you uh defame my board by saying we're liars.

We just vote what the mayor wants us.

I've been serving on this board under five mayors and I've turned down a lot of projects that mayors have presented us. So, uh, I'll end with that and we'll get to, uh, uh, what we thought we'd do is have like a little maybe threeperson committee just to share, um, ideas that we've already u, you know, projects finished. I mean, I just put on our site uh, I was down at the um, Vietnam war. Beautiful day and

our park is fantastic. I mean, uh, the department. It was clean, nothing, nothing, grass, cut, everything. I mean, gorgeous day. Uh promoting u Junth.

Uh those things I think it's it helps.

Uh the Lafayette House, they do some events. It's I think not necessarily a job we should do, but I think it helps them. It helps people see where your tax dollars are going to. And uh just to let people know what we have done, what's going on, and what our projects are doing, and why we're doing it. I mean, you got 250 years coming up. And uh the Lafayette House is a great place to go.

Uh take a walk down by the Vietnam Memorial Wall, take your kids for free rowing lessons on Tupper Pond. These are things I want to let people know that the Bio Reserve is open for hikes and stuff. There's a lot of things to do in summertime.

I want to get those out there. So, if uh I think Chris wanted to head up the uh PR committee if maybe two want to like I got extra.

Okay.

So, we'll put these three and you know just you know just to keep people aware of what's going on and uh and as far as uh projects like um I've heard a lot like uh the need for soccer fields, uh it's stuff going to neighborhood meetings, but if there's a group out there of a soccer club, uh a neighborhood association, how you go about uh we have approved projects. We don't put projects in. So,

you want to get a soccer field, you have to go to the park board to have them okay it submit a uh application to us in September and that's how you go about getting a um a soccer code. I mean, we're looking for it's in the open space recreation plan. So, anybody out there kicking around ideas, these are things that uh give us a call if you don't know which direction to go and we'll help

So I had a thought um and I Rick will remember this because I'm pretty sure you were Yeah, you were on the board at the time on the historical commission.

Um when I had put together sort of the the um video Oh, sure. You four of them together for the neighborhoods and for the different neighborhoods. And then I went around to all the different neighborhood associations and I gave a presentation on who the um the historical commission was and the difference between historical commission, district commission, preservation society and so that people

would understand and maybe part of our strategy in this would be for some of us to go out to the neighborhood groups and say, "Look, for those of you that aren't aware, this is what we do. This is this is how it works. these are the categories. This is what qualifies you for the categories. We want good projects. We want to support the city.

Things like that. And I think maybe that's because it's a way to reach out because a lot and I found out by going to the neighborhood associations. They didn't know anything about the historical commission, what we did, who we were. So that made a major impact on it was the neighborhood associations and there was nothing but good questions. Uh a lot of after the meeting involvement with the

folks uh it drew a really good interest.

It was they were nice and they would the particular presentations Kristen would gear them for that neighborhood. So the north end would be getting photos of the north end and projects that were uh in the north end historic items in the north end. So they were geared for the various neighborhoods two years ago quite like five years ago.

And how many neighborhood associations did you present to? maybe five or six.

Okay. North end islands, but I did there was one I think that I didn't do. But what I did was I I made a PowerPoint presentation and it was geared toward the whole city. But then when I would do each neighborhood, when I would show examples of befores and afters, I would take buildings from that neighborhood, like historic buildings, and this is what a before looks like, this is what an after looks like. So

people could see the difference of like this is what preservation does.

Yeah.

Do you still have the powerpoints? If you do, we could maybe just Oh, I still Yeah, I still have them, but I think I have some hard copies.

They were up too on um the city the historical commission city page. They were on that. I don't know if that got taken down, but the actual I can't attest to that. I don't know.

It's I know. I have it on my computer.

So, okay. But there are hard copies around also so we can see what it was and develop our own.

We can connect offline off of this offline off of out of this committee and we can reconvene on specifics.

Yeah.

Y it might be good to uh develop a schedule to get it out to the neighborhood associations ahead of time.

We can even announce it at meetings and then perhaps Sandy we can make some nice new for preparing materials.

Okay. Well, John, we'd have to maybe get some new trifold poster boards with some images of the projects.

Yeah, we can do that.

Good ahead of time.

Okay, that's sounds good. Cool. Uh, let's see. Uh, any other discussion on that? So, we'll move on to project updates.

Any turfy block? We're just waiting on the approved um renderings of the files or documents that they're supposed to have for the Windows. So, it was told to us that it's supposed to be coming multiple times. Um Monty included his architect on our email thread and we're just waiting feedback now. So, this is 8084 North.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Address I'm not as familiar with, but yes.

So, that's what it's called. Derby block. Is it derby ball? Yeah.

I always known as 884.

All right. Um, but anyways, yeah, that's the 884.

884.

Okay.

I I know I was talking with Al from uh city operations. Uh the fire museum is uh the windows are almost complete, but they're going to need an extension just to wrap everything up because it doesn't look their extension ends next month.

So, but Hopefully by the time it gets in in August it'll be completed.

Um that's about the only update I have.

Um you know most of most of the projects that I'm watching right now are just at a standstill. Nothing new except for the little theater. They have encircled the building but at least better than half of the building is encircled with staging. Nice project. very well done.

Have not seen the slate installers there yet. I'm sure they'll be because they're just finishing up the the staging project. So, uh, but Gail Pow has been keeping in touch and on the phone and yet to give us but shortly more written breakdown of what's happening and transpiring.

Okay.

Okay.

All right. And I guess moving on to new business. Uh we do have our discussion on our annual meeting. Uh we came up with uh three different layouts of uh we thought we put on the sides of the building and I think uh layout number two would probably be the better size to uh have it in brass and then on they attach it to the side of the building or

they could put it in the inside. Can we uh discuss the font and stuff like that still? Okay.

Uh it might even be more uh appropriate to use the town the city seal logo versus the new logo for the historic nature of the properties.

City seal.

The one that says we'll try the seal historical seal.

Yeah.

The one that's been used for most of the city's history and probably will once again.

Yeah. Okay. We can Is this not the new city seal?

It's a new city logo.

It's just a logo that's irrelevant to them.

It's one new logo in a chain of I kind of like it.

What?

I like I kind of like it.

Simple.

We don't have to nitpick it right here.

Yeah.

So, what kind of fonts did you want to like change it to? Or just something maybe a little bit smaller and thicker.

uh like so it doesn't hug the the borders as much, but it's a little bit thicker in terms of density for people to see.

Okay.

I don't know if this is going to be carved in or printed on or printed on yet.

All right.

Uh we wanted to have this for our annual meetings to pass out. So, uh, this could be something where we could email out and like pass out the the signs you wanted to pass out. Okay.

So, we could just, you know, get back to Sandy which lay out we want and we'll go with that.

That way, we'll have them for our annual meeting because we're not going to meet in July. We take July off because it's just nothing really going on.

So, the annual meeting is going to be August.

August.

August. What? uh the third uh third Monday and then we're going to invite uh director of finances because I think we told her it was going to be June at the last Okay.

She'll get an invitation. City council will get an invitation August 17th.

17. Okay. Thanks.

We'll invite all the dignitaries. Um and the public's welcome to come. Um we're going to have some refreshments and stuff. Uh the thing is we uh I was wondering if we should move the meet our meeting up till 5:00 because we are going to have to take uh we have some extensions that we have to go over that day. There's I think what six or eight extensions.

Um do we want to start the meeting at 5 or 5:30 to kind of wrap it up this way we can go right into uh our annual or maybe would work and then say meeting then either meeting to start at six o'clock or immediately following the other one if it runs over I'm just not quite sure how many extensions how much questioning we're going to have sometimes it's pretty quick and easy

usually we do the annual meeting first and then the the regular meeting the reason I suggested that John is what

in the do because people like to Yeah. People like to talk with us after the annual meeting.

Yeah. I I think that's a anybody that might have like like one talk this way we're around and available.

Yeah.

So that's why we thought it

so our regular meeting 5:30 and we'll say 6:30 we'll wrap that up and at the annual you just say six or immediately following.

If we did it for five, could everybody 5:30 probably be 5:30 is easier for me, but I could try and leave, you know, work early and stuff.

But there's other people, too, that we don't know. So, I think 5:30 is okay. It's not like we have to, you know, drag everything out.

5:30 is good. Okay. So, for 5:30.

Okay.

And then you'll get a new copy on this, email it out, and we'll have everybody get back that way.

like I like the layout of number two better.

I agree.

Yeah, I think maybe shrink the logo a tad to give the text some breathing room to move it up so it's more centered.

I'll I'll send my ideas. We can decide.

The thing is that I mean I won't die on the hill.

This has a clean usually you want the text in the center of the im like the plaque for where people are going to be reading. So you try to just orient it a little bit higher that one.

Well the seal will be smaller.

Yeah. Well that's what I'm saying. You shrink it. You can move it up and then you just kind of shrink it. It'll be nice. Yeah.

And this is only for historic preservation projects.

Okay.

Yeah, depending. But yeah, then

we did. We really did.

All righty. So, can I have a motion to adjurnn?

I'll make a motion that we adjourn.

I'll second.

Roll call.

Alexander Silva, yes.

Kristen Caner, yes. John, yes.

Rick Mancini, yes.

Chris Benabites, yes.