6.28.2022 Fall River City Council

city council public hearing will now come to order madam clerk council is kadeem here camara here dion here kilby here pelletier yeah herrera proposal washington here and president of liberty libeau here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised

that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible you have a motion to open the hearing motion open second motion open the hearing made by counselor poses second by counselor pelletier all those in favor hi any opposed so voted dba dnm junk collector 889 grinnell street fall river mass for permission to

operate as a junk collector and operate and maintain a secondhand article store located at 889 grinnell street used vehicles to be sold are there any proponents wishing to speak any proponents wishing to speak your proponent if you would like to come down and speak

you just go to the table and give your name and address for the record please the table

if you sit down sir and speak into the microphones everyone can hear you thank you i mean there is a 1889 grinnell street did you want to speak as a proponent i speak portuguese okay okay we have a translator on c2 oh thank you

a

so basically he wants to start a company where he's buying cars and junking them taking out the parts from him and he was bringing him to his house before and he didn't realize that he wanted he needed to have a license and do it the right way and pay taxes so he's here for that purpose to get a license so that he can continue his business that he just started of

buying junk cars and taking them to the oh not just auction taking to the junkyard pretty much he takes them apart and gets gets rid of the waste and junk something that's pretty much the nature of his business

yeah no problem all right so he basically that's what he wants to do he's going to get a license so he can jump kaz and store him there and then get rid of them okay thank you thank you thank you council camera any opponents wishing to speak any opponents if one at a time if you come to the table give your name and address for the record sure you're not gonna need the translator correct

you might have to translate me i don't know how you speak for a river my name is al naruta 869 grinnell street forever mass i've been a resident probably 20 years and let me start with saying i don't mind someone making a living that's fine but it's a dead end street with a lot of kids they've been trailers people backing them in backing them out cut uh taking the cosmopot on the street

his driveway is very narrow i don't know how he's gonna be able to back the trailers down there with cars parked people had their driveways blocked my wife has a gouge in the side of her car right even with the trailer i cannot prove anything i spoke to the gentleman before and if it gets a license i don't think that's going to improve it's a residential street uh the houses have all been fixed up

everybody tries to keep up with it and i just don't think it's going to add anything to the neighborhood so that's just my opinion but i'm sure other people speak too thank you any other opponents wishing to speak

you give your name and address for the record please jason arruda 869 grinnell street there's been plenty of incidences where they're actually doing welding on the street without any welding curtains or anything you have little kids they don't know not to look at the light that's going on i have pictures of the parking spots with giant oil stains and we're constantly picking up pieces of metal

so that we don't get a tires uh the other day like the other man mentioned uh the driveway is very narrow he had to have his trailer parked across the road and he used a cable in to pull the car out and there was a woman on the end she probably sat there for a good 10 minutes before she could even leave the street because of what was going on you get incidences where some of his

work is aren't very experienced with driving trailers and we're constantly having a lm to stop because it's very close to hitting cars and i'm just worried about too the environmental thing with all the chemicals where's all the oil going all these pots i mean we've seen them grinding on the street and the spots are going all over it nothing's getting no i mean i'm a welder by trade

and before i do anything i have to have the area blocked off you're not supposed to weld without having curtains up because you're supposed to protect other people and if it this has been going on now it's if you give them the go ahead it's kind of 10 times worse it's going to be more traffic on the street half the time that there was one point where there was two trailers parked

uh a car with no license plate on it and then his truck my wife came home she had to park on the other street and walk at night in the dark i mean and i know there's other neighbors that are gonna say the same thing it's dangerous it it's just it's too small of a street thank you very much thank you thank you any other opponents wishing to speak

you give your name and address please um alyssa daley i'm property owner of 80 grinnell street um so i second pretty much everything that they said other than so there's little kids that live across the street as well um there's tools left on the street there's the biggest thing that they're doing that i've noticed is switching plates so they're saying that they're using these vehicles the police are

aware i have contacted them um they're taking different vehicles putting different plates and i literally have a video of it i called the police they addressed the issue right then and there he said that he wouldn't do it no more he didn't know and um but it was on three different vehicles literally within 30 minutes went from like a truck to a different car and that's what they're doing is they're just switching

plates and driving the vehicles away um we've we've witnessed i want to say like other than the tools being left on left there there's no parking on the street whatsoever um you know i have a lot of tenants here as well and there no parking for them um it is a very very small street you can't even go down to the end of the street and turn around you actually have to like pull into um

excuse me somebody's driveway and to turn around on the street i'm not sure if you're familiar with grinnell street but um if there's cars parked over there there's going to be no way of anybody to pull out you know dump trucks they obviously back up into the street like they can't they complain constantly that there's the trailers with no plates blocking the street blocking driveways and it's just it's

more than just the little leaving the stuff and you know all of that it's just there's no room for any of these vehicles down there thank you thank you counselor and c3 council vice president did you have a question yeah excuse me just one second so while people were speaking i went on patriot properties it doesn't appear there are any businesses on grinnell street there are no businesses no ma'am so i

guess the first question would be what is that neighborhood is it an r8 an r6 is its own business not his own business because it sounds like he wants to uh have a business in his honest in his home on his own property i guess those are my first concerns the zoning and with that i yield thank you thank you um real quick so on that too i did speak to

um a woman i cannot remember her name for the life of me but um regarding the end of the street where they park most of the vehicles they have like four lined up and i want to say she said something about an easement i'm not really sure because one person told me that there was an easement then there was no easement there was a private way on like literally like an inch of the

end of the street so like they were trying to figure all that as well with the police department and they still can't figure it out so they obviously told me to come here and we'll figure it all out together but um they even with an easement if they did have that small spot of a private property it's not enough for the vehicles they have because it's also as the woman was

saying that it split so it'll be for the house on the side and house of them leaving them a position for one vehicle but there's so much traffic going up and down the road now with people like coming in and out and for that apartment and it's just there's just no room there's no room for any vehicles on that street so i don't know too with the easement or anything like that if

that has anything to do with it but it's not a private way and that's what they keep on saying is it's a private way it's not it's a dead end but it's not a private day thank you madam clerk you have a note on this um yes i just want to mention that the building inspector signs the application but his note says it's okay for office only no cars are to be stored on the site

thank you so he wouldn't be able to bring cars and take them apart keep the parts in okay so i think we have our answers at least five cars on his property right now thank you do you know if that was related to the gentleman the applicant do you know if that note from the building inspector was relayed to the applicant oh yes this is on the application this is b

first of all there's no license on the property now so there should be no business operating there so this is the application that the applicant delivered to our office okay so yes he will notice to us this was on the application when he brought it to our office thank you yes any more opponents wishing to speak you can go right on his facebook page and see the cause thank you thank you counselor too did

you have your hand raised no so madam clerk basically the license if he does get a license it's going to have to have an office inside his house to conduct a business that's all right no car work it doesn't sound like it's zoned properly for it okay emotional closing second counselor kilby council vice president dion all those in favor aye any post uh the next is an auto repair shop do

you have a motion to open motion second motion open made by councillor poses secretary council vice president dion all those in favor any opposed so voted jonathan manchester 398 kennedy street fall river dba manchester automotive for a license to operate an auto repair shop at 45 dover street on lot b-21-4 on the assessor's plan are there any proponents wishing to speak any proponents wishing to speak seeing

any opponents wishing to speak saying none we have a motion to close emotionally closed i'm sorry counselor in seat seven yeah so similar to the sim before situation 45 dover street is a house so is this madam clerk i can help the order was prepared incorrectly the address of the auto repair shop is actually 67 k street there was a previous license there which lapsed only recently um

the advertisement for 45 dover street is actually the property owner's address so when the advertisement was prepared by the office okay it's prepared incorrectly so this will be re-advertised and the public hearing will be held on july 12th okay what what's the actual address okay 67 k street kka yes did you say there was an automotive shop at 67k street prior yes there's been a license there for a number of years

um it only expired um within the last month or so but it did in fact expire so this gentleman had to file for an initial license if you have to re-advertise do we need to give this leave to withdrawal when we get to vocabulary until we do it grant this one leave to withdraw thank you oh does anyone else have a question motion to close motion second to close the hearing made by counselor poses

seconded by council vice president dion all those in favor aye aye any opposed some move do we have a motion to adjourn motion second emotional adjourned in the public hearings made by councillor pozo seconded by councillor kilby all those in favor aye so voted

city council committee on finance will now come to order madam clerk counselors kadeem here camara here dion here kilby here pelletier yeah pereira raposo yep washington here president la liberty labeau here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings

or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible first item is citizen's input mental clerk do you have citizenship we do

hey first person to speak is richard barlow address is 50 anderson street and the subject is mini splits mr barlow when you're ready all three minutes good afternoon council council president i'll try to get this in three minutes i doubt i will but i'll get as much as i can is i gave you each a copy of these mini splits and this is mainly for our fire stations we have four stations that are using window units

um if you look at that first page that's just a very high end that's a three ton unit 36 000 btus um that's a double zone uh we could probably just put single zones in most of the stations which will probably save another thousand dollars but as you can see that unit right there is a diy kit you don't have to have a plumber come in and install it um any one of you can

install a system they're very easy to install i'm very familiar with these systems because i use them plenty of times the only thing is we have to bring an electrician in to wire it up and that's it but for a big savings a quick solution for these men and women who go out and fight a fire come back sweating uh to be nice and cool or comfortable in their living quarters

i think it's a very inexpensive way to go for all four stations would be probably less than four uh twenty thousand dollars i think the administration can come up with twenty thousand dollars for the four stations i think it's a very uh inexpensive way to solve a problem that so many stations have i know one one station a few years ago their unit broke they took the money out of their own pocket

to pay for a unit but unfortunately that unit failed so now they're using a used unit which is inefficient for the station so i'd like to see this administration maybe spend the money i also gave you some comparisons with a non-diy kit and you can see a big difference in it when you're going to a big major brand name on one of the pages and you know five thousand dollars and the other one is

over five thousand dollars so for the best bang for your buck this unit here like i said a diy kit anybody can install it the men themselves will probably install it if they'll be probably that happy to install it um we could probably get a volunteer electrician in the hook them up if worse comes to us and if the administration doesn't want to do it then i'll go beyond my means and have

fundraisers to raise this money for these men i think they deserve it i think they need it so i'd appreciate you know the support from this council to maybe push the administration into purchasing these units for these men and women and anybody have any questions i'd be more than glad to answer one thank you um i can tell you mr barlow that the the ac the heating and ac is on a list of items that were

requested when they sent items to the arpa committee that being said they they should have those and they should be working appropriately i know one station in particular has has been an issue on eastern ave i know some of the councils like to speak counselor and seat eight council washington so what are the life expectancies i think this is more than reasonable what are the life expectancies of these units

these units have a very good warranty with this with this company here um the warranty is very long on them and what's nice about these units is they're very easy to disconnect move them so i know they're talking about replacing the stanley street station so west comes to worship they knock the station down you disconnect the unit you can put it someplace else it's not something that's going to go to waste i

mean we do waste a lot of stuff in the city but um it's something that can be used in other places but not maybe just for this you know just for a fire station but you know these units can be used in numerous places not just this brand but i mean this is the only brand that i know of that makes a diy kit that our own uh guys can hook up themselves except like

i said like the electrical workers somebody has to come in and do it so you were saying earlier there are four stations from what i understand there's four stations who have window units i mean the chief can probably speak a bit more than i can but from you know talking to a lot of these guys i mean some of you know i've been supporting these fire departments for years and so

i do talk to a lot of guys and from what i found out is there's four stations with window units and one station is as council president said on eastern ave it needs work it definitely needs work so for a quick cheap solution i think it's a no-brainer really to get these units up and going and we can put them in very quick and you know keep these guys comfort this weekend was very hot i'm pretty

sure a lot of those guys were having a tough time sleeping especially at window units i mean i don't know how many of you have window units it's much easier to sleep with these they're very quiet you don't hear nothing when they're running so and very energy efficient one unit would suffice the entire building or just not the entire building would do that uh living quarters so this here is a dual

zone so we'll do two zones if you want um so we'll do maybe they're living you know their living quarters and maybe um their lunchroom whatever you may call it i just went to a higher unit just to show but they do make a one head unit a one zone unit which is like a thousand dollars cheaper well i think that this is very reasonable i'm just wondering if it's enough i guess my questions is that

enough do they you know well this is a three-ton unit so i think a three-ton unit will satisfy any living quarters you know to remove these window ac units and putting these units in and like i said these do do heat and they will heat to below zero degrees so they will work through most of the winter and i think will save the taxpayers a lot of money in the long run

as far as energy goes yeah thank you i yield thank you counselor and seat five did you have your hand up yes i did you have the floor counselor okay um i'm familiar with them type of units i got one in my house but there's no way you're going to put one on bedford street to cool the whole place off no no these are mainly just for their living quarters that are using window acs

all right you go around they're all over you got a guy like andrews he's got three of them to cool that place off and some of these stations are big i mean you know how many you need you can get uh three wall mounts on one that's okay too i mean if it's going to work i mean the prices you've got to hear my daughter paid ten thousand for three room on on the same unit

and uh right these were like two units two but uh to say you're gonna cool off the whole station you couldn't do it one there's no way no way but it's good to look into it no like i said this was mainly for their living quarters the living quarter okay that's what their main thing is because that's they're using for their main living quarters now is window air conditioners yeah and this is a cheap

under electric these are very energy efficient this unit has a 21 and a half seer so it's one of the higher energy efficient units out there and since it's an energy star maybe we can get rebase on them yeah i mean a lot of people put them in it's it's way putting them in well the new units are very very energy efficient yeah and these are wi-fi so you control

it from your house if you want if you think they're using too much electricity there's a lot of pipe work to it you know this comes everything complete these these units here one must be a different unit yeah these here units they come complete that's why they call it a diy kit the lines come pressurized already so all you do is hook it up the two the lines hook up the lines and

put electricity to it that's it i don't know if it's that easy the guy took a day and i have to put mine there that's why these are the best ways to go these diys that's why i gave you a lot more uh literature to read up on it and you'll see okay maybe you use a lot of money for the sun you know that's what i am thank you counselor before i recognize

councilman seat three i know when we spoke about the station on eastern ave having issues with their ac um the former chief had told us that whoever is in charge of each station puts a report together of anything that's wrong with the station and it gets forwarded to maybe the deputy chief and then the chief i'm sure that our fire chief can let us know what stations may or may not have

working ac for the men and women counselor and c3 council vice president yeah i just want to follow up on counselor and see date she asked what the life expectancy was you said there was a good warranty but i i either i missed it or i'm not sure if you um said what the actual life expectancy is well it's tough to see a life and expectancy on any appliance nowadays i

mean i have a refrigerator it's three years old and it bit the dust so it's a samsung it's you know it's a very high inefficiency good thing i got the extended warranty but um it's very tough i mean but these have a five year warranty i believe it is on um parts and labor um i think it's a seven year or ten year warranty i believe it was

i'd have to go back and read it up again but if it was a 10 year warranty on a compressor itself so they're good very good warranty on them not just on this unit but a lot of these units they have a good warranty on them that's it thank you with that idea thank you is katherine c5 yeah i was totally the last 15 years because uh my my daughter's

we now put the boiler in or putting another unit in her other house and i said hey how long these last it says that lasts about 15 years since i got a boiler at 26 27 years and uh no problem with it why should i make that it only lasts 15 years but that's the way to make it today to make it to last you buy another one in 15 years i won't be around so whatever

i got to train at central 18 it's 22 years old it's still working but it eats up a lot of electricity how are you thank you anything further from the council thank you thank you thank you madam clerk is there any more citizens input we have one written citizen input dear members of the city council i'm writing you today with my concern of the horrendous verbal attack that happened

at the city council meeting on july on june 14 2022.

as a resident homeowner and an active voter i feel the verbal attack on the city's madam president by brad kilby was out of order inappropriate and not called for the exact final words from mr kilby's verbal attack were i've lost faith in your leadership but the meeting before that he made a statement to add to council pereira's comment about demeaning people and citizens input councilor pereira made a

statement in the june 6th meeting before citizens input that if any citizen stops to demean someone that she hopes madam president would hit her gavel and take control of the inappropriate comment she also stated that we don't want our kids to bully and that goes for the adults as well with that being said mr kilby added at times it gets embarrassing it becomes defamation and personal attacks are made

and no name calling to which he adds after that he knows that madam president will do the right thing he even emphasizes she will moving forward to the june 14th meeting mr kilby does that exact same thing but this time toward the city's madam president i feel mr kilby needs to reevaluate his action towards city council's madam president and publicly apologize and resign he's not

fit to serve the citizens of fall river with his hypocritical comments radical behavior and outbursts i also feel that mr kamara needs to stop his bullying attacks on the city's madam president as well at every meeting he must belittle the way she runs the meeting and the mind reading comment is getting old he mentioned at a previous meeting that he was uncomfortable talking about how

many police officers go to each school in a public forum but he has no problem bullying a woman publicly for all to see these two men seem to have an issue with the second and third highest position of the city being occupied by women they have made it so obvious from the beginning if i were to act or talk that way in a meeting with the mayor and or city councilors i know i would be

escorted out and told never to return but these two men continue to act this way at every meeting i understand counselors need to agree to disagree on matters of the city but these two men cross the line with their consent verbal attacks on the city's madam president we all need to do better especially these two men if if they care enough to get anything from or get anything from this citizen input

i hope a change in behavior and an apology is made i would also like to add this statement directly to mr kilby that if you come at me with she's a cliff ponte supporter comment like you have two other citizens and therefore is why she wrote this no sir you are wrong i just pay attention to what goes on within my local government and where my tax dollars go all year long not just during election

time thank you lauren semayo 567 smith street anything for the medical clerk no miss i'll make one comment now i feel bullied oh god i've been married 35 years joe i had to keep america dirty right 22 32 35 next week the first time i've been called a bully i'll yield there thank you thank you item to the resolution to discuss funding for construction of storage area facility this was back from i'm sorry metal clerk

was there any further assistant input no thank you storage area facility this was tabled back in december of 2020 this was put in by former councillor trotley whereas the city of far river is seeking to decrease in or eliminate its spending on storage rental fees now therefore be it resolved that the committee on finance convened to discuss funding for the construction of a storage area facility

we have members of the administration mr dunmedin mri can come down

and we do need a motion to lift from the table motion lift from the table emotionally from the table made by counselor poses second by counts like kilby all those in favor and then he opposed so voted i know that this is about um decreasing storage fees but this council has also spoken repeatedly on funding capital items and equipment and then it being left outside and has often asked for a storage

facility during the budget hearings or actually prior to the budget hearings i believe we learned that we actually have some type of space building in boxes at um dcm i know council pereira unfortunately she's not here this evening had mentioned that she wasn't sure if that that is useful i know she goes down there a lot so i'm not sure what she's seen or hasn't seen but i did hear mr denweed say

during the budget hearings that um he would put it to use so if we could speak on that and then if that's going to take care of any of the issues that we have with leasing facilities and our equipment being outside well good evening uh madam president and uh council members uh we uh we did find and locate the uh it's a tent uh a canopy pretty much canopy that was purchased back in 2016

from an auction in a large commercial auction in new hampshire in fact uh one of we've recovered some more information on it uh just recently um one of the members of an employee actually went that still works at the cemetery department actually went to new hampshire and uh picked it up had one of the uh auctions up there we paid three thousand dollars for it at that time and after it was purchased

uh they come to find out it would cost more than the purchase price to have it assembled by a vendor a contractor so it sat in the dcm complex all these years in those crates one of the reasons they figured it would would cost more than it was worth is it is it would it serve the purpose to be a permanent structure maybe not would it be a supplementary structure uh to supplement storage

uh more than likely uh it was uh mentioned that it could possibly be used better if it was used at the cemetery to store some of their material and that you know but uh for some reason or another it was never assembled um at this point where we're contemplating whether we're going to have our concrete crew and some of our members assemble it one of the problems we're having is where

because of storage issues and because of lack of any empty space at the complex or anywhere else that we own there's just there isn't any space we have uh right now uh multiple vehicles stored in the back property we're actively selling them at auction in fact we sold one of the old salters last week one is about to be sold off this weekend we just continually post them posting them there with miss martino and um

so they're selling out but we have no room we have no room in uh we uh we use uh seaberry street storage for uh materials that we have carts seasonal uh items that uh we uh christmas christmas uh uh decorations that we use in numerous places throughout the city um things that no longer are of use that departments have that they put there while they go on auction um things like that

what we really need is a permanent structure and funding for that and to put a permanent structure up somewhere is finding the right location and i think and even in that is maybe be putting the cop before the horse when you look at our facility maybe at the facilities what we need with larger storage so funding and that's where we need to find funding to put a facility up so as for the structure itself the tent

we do plan to you know erect that uh structure at some point when staffing allows once we get the place to put it and it'll be a supplementary structure we can put uh you know outside items cots in there we could take the cots from somewhere that seabury street structure put it there but uh as for items that can't be outside or can't have the uh uh take the chance of them giving being wet

or damaged by the climate temperatures would have to keep them in the inside of a firm structure so which is not to say that the uh the canopy tent whatever we're calling it is useless um it's just uh upon investigation of its history and and starting to unpack the thing because it's in many many different individual boxes and the frame and the cover and everything else like that has been

stored away for quite a while the conclusion that we're coming to is that it may not be as good of a solution as we had hoped when we first discovered that it existed and the progress that we're making in auctioning off the vehicles that are down behind the lewiston street facility um is a helpful first step because that lot down there is actually a very good potential location for space building

for some sort of metal uh space building where we could store things um but of course before we do that there are fire engines ambulances um and other dcm vehicles that have been deadlined um and that have been allowed to sit for a number of years they all have some value either for scrap or for some sort of collector but it's just a matter of getting them out there and we've been making quite a

bit of good progress on that so once we clear that out obviously that'll be a location that we didn't have before that i think could be really helpful that's already paved thank you counselor and seat five councilor pelletier thank you it really doesn't make sense to me that we're gonna sell some of these vehicles because we've got no place to put him to be honest with you uh we we had a

deal on bay street that some of my colleagues remembered that we traded off for a piece of land and they built about 10 12 houses there already and then we got the land and they say we can't put anything on it because it's not right for that and uh we end up giving this guy all the land and they give us the business and uh i still can't believe it till today that we can't utilize that

but uh you know what how much land do you have around the incinerator what could you put up there so so the two the two parcels that we'd be talking about there there is um a small piece that would have to be cleaned and probably repaved yes uh between the the sand uh the sand shed uh and the old incinerator there's there's a portion that um yeah you could probably put a decent

size uh space building there you could uh put maybe three to five uh trucks uh full-size vehicles uh in that area uh and then the space behind uh the incinerator which is where the uh these old deadlined uh vehicles are and we're not we're not selling vehicles because we have no place to put them these vehicles have no value to the city um they they these are almost obsolete they are totally absolutely and

non-functional um so we're selling them to people that that want to buy them either for scrap or for collectors value somebody that just wants to put a fire engine in the backyard and those people are out there and that that parcel is actually significantly larger that could could house a pretty decent sized space building you know i got somebody that talked to me today about the vehicles

in the garage they're all sweaty and wet and it's you know it just happened to tell me this today and here i am talking about this tonight uh would it be feasible to uh a lot of some of these stores these big stores and they're closed uh could we buy something like that with a parking lot that'd probably be cheaper and uh just turn around fix it up and pop the trucks in there that make any

sense so i think the simple answer is that it depends and i know that's a super lawyer answer and i apologize in advance for it um but the problem with a lot of the older buildings right um first you gotta find one that's available in fall river you know because i can think of a number of those sort of abandoned type uh big box type stores not necessarily in the city but

um you know even if you go to older buildings and mills and things like that you know you got to deal with you know with any of the potential environmental issues that exist in those places i mean the old police station's a great example right um you know the environmental issues you know in that building are is one of the greatest challenges to selling it and getting it redeveloped i think you're going to have that

challenge no matter what if you're going to look to use that space for something where you know fall river city workers are going to be there working on vehicles storing vehicles parking vehicles you have to be looking out for their their health and safety that's always the first thing you look at so i don't know if it's feasible i think we'd have to look on a site-by-site basis so uh

what are we doing we're looking for something so it is a priority there's no question i mean we need storage and it would be better not to have to pay for storage um but i think that there's it's it's one of those kind of dominoes things there's a number of things that i feel like have to uh or or can be resolved first before we have the space you know without having to buy a space

you know the space we already own before we have space clear that we can use and then we can build on um and i think that goes in conjunction with a much larger vision for you know what does what is the hit with the the future of lewiston street um what do we want to do with that facility you know can we uh put money into upgrading that facility making it safer and better uh

and then you know any of the the past dep orders that have to do with that facility how would that affect our ability to make change and improvement at lewiston street so i just feel like there's a lot of consideration it's certainly not something we're ignoring uh but there's just there's so many other issues around it what uh the water department putting the building up stonehaven road

and uh what kind of land they got left up there it was i have some land up there they may i don't know the answer to that i know that they're doing something up there i don't know how much room they will have left when they're done because you know they're buying properties here and there not that we want to take anything away from the watershed but if they got room up there that's i

think we should look into it they put the big building up there now on much more land i don't know but maybe we could find out maybe good work starting out with that idea thank you thank you counselor and see one counselor thank you madam president just in terms of space and building i think it was about two years ago that we had requested a feasibility study for the um facility on lewiston street

originally it was just going to be the incinerator then it specifically requested that we put a complete visibility study for a whole new building on that location that also included central fire station feasibility study full feasibility study plus the stanley stanley street fire station with the potential of taking over the baseball fields asking the housing authority to allow us to

erect the baseball field in front of their property so that we can expand uh stanley street station so that was i know that predates you but that was two years ago you know and we haven't seen any of it on any of this stuff and it's the same conversations um that just kind of get recycled over and over again so we're talking about space again so i i think you got support

of the city council we just need to see feasibility studies for those three projects um at least at minimum i think that's um what the council had voted on so i'd still support that and i i think lewiston street really needs to look at a true facility um complete facility for that not just the incinerator portion but the entire building which would encompass you know garage space buildings things of that nature so

without a yield thank you madam clerk will you make sure the city administrator has those requests for the feasibility studies that the council had sent sure thank you madam president i'd appreciate that thank you i actually just became aware of that request um i think it was a conversation with mr oliveira from ems we were talking about different places um where they could have more ambulances

and that of course led to a conversation about stanley street and and i didn't know that the uh council had asked for that uh but that came up and and i think that's certainly those three properties specifically are very important places for us to really understand what the possibilities are there so i'll certainly look into that work on that thank you anything further from the council

see nothing thank you we'll make sure that you get that your emotion at the table portion of the table most the table made by council raposo second seconded by council washington all those in favor aye any opposed so voted item two is transfer i'm sorry item three is transfers and appropriations so uh with regard to um the requested transfers and appropriations drawing your attention um to um let's see

the first one is um fifty thousand dollars uh from the fire salaries to the fire expenses uh this is um just to safeguard within the last week of the fiscal year fire from some bills that expects it might have fire at this point has more money in their salary line than they have in their expense line uh so we want to transfer the 50 000 from one to the other just to make sure that

um they have the money to pay the bills that they may have coming up in the next day or two uh prior to friday and they were able to end the year without having to scramble and look for a transfer so this is a prophylactic measure but i think it's going to be needed and i would ask that you approve it subject of course to your questions anything from the council on this one

say nothing thank you and that's in full council item four is the mayor requesting approval of seven proposals from the bristol county arpa funding so you oh i'm sorry i'm just going to raise my hand after you so you've seen most of these before and there were some certainly reasonable questions as to whether or not they fell into appropriate arpa categories so it seems to be the nature of my timing

a number of things happened while we were dealing with the budget and having budget meetings including um the the mayor brought on uh and our coordinator who started in the midst of the budget meetings uh using arpa money her name is cara hum and she'll be at the the next meeting to introduce herself to you all and i know she's met some of you um she's an attorney and her first job was to

do a comprehensive study as to as to all of the requests that were made within meetings public meetings neighborhood meetings as well as in surveys and anywhere else that we got any sort of formal suggestion and then to differentiate those from suggestions that manifested into actual arpa requests and proposals and then how those were acted on and and what the results of the proposals were

whether they were acted and funded in full uh or partially funded that was distributed to all of you i think you all have that and uh the next step was then for um ms hum to take a look at all of the proposals out there and do a deep dive into the arpa final rule and see if those proposals could be in good faith supported by arpa categories so the proposals that we have before you tonight

include body worn cameras and tasers as you know uh there is a strong likelihood um that uh body cameras are very much the way of the future they create both accountability and i would argue protection for the police as well as accountability and protection for the public body cameras are are very much good for everyone and most importantly body cameras are most effective when they don't require a manual activation

can be manual activated but would automatically activate upon somebody drawing their firearm or their taser well tasers that are being used currently by the fall river police department are not new enough in order to do that activation and so the proposal here for 1.522 million dollars which would come under category 3.16 social determinants of health community violence intervention um would

give would put a body camera on every police officer so each body camera is tied to that police officer so there's no record-keeping issue there's there's a a perfect and consistent accountability between camera and officer as well as supply those officers with tasers that work with the body cam so if a taser is drawn the body camera automatically activates um this includes uh the equipment the

maintenance and the electronic storage of the information for a five-year period um so i think one i mean one could certainly argue that you know well this is one time money it's only good for five years but at the end at the the end of the day um once the five years is up the reality is that a lot of this equipment is going to need to be updated from a technological standpoint

not a mechanical standpoint uh so five years is pretty much uh the expected i don't wanna say lifespan but the the best usable period for these uh for these body cameras this covers the entire five years and would make sure that our police officers have the absolute state of the art both tasers and body cameras in order to begin this with uh do you have any questions about that request

any on the body cameras council killed you had your hand up is it on the body cameras or just in general just on all seven go ahead i'll just give my input here um um i i just thought these requests just have questions could you just speak into the microphone so i just can't hear you thank you um my comment's going to be basically that um most of these items enough to

all these items are things that have been requested by the city council in over the last couple of years uh i remember accounts former council trotley resolution with regards to the body cameras um someone recently sponsored a resolution with regard to the excuse me the um well that's the first one number two the graffiti removal machine at least outsourced that from the sheriff's department

many many times and uh there was another residuals filed i'm not sure recently who it was i think it might have been risky reposa uh with regard to that and i see an update uptake in the city with regards to graffiti pothole repair council pellets here did you you know his yearly pothole resolution many many times street sweepers i find um seeing them around the city they're very effective

blue water project the city council discussed that on many many occasions and we've also discussed the 911 dispatch communications center so um i don't want to you know step ahead here i know you're just on number one mr akins but uh number five uh the bodysphere discovery center i know it seems it's a seems like from what i write a great educational piece i think it could be for uh you know for uh

our forestry our open land are really un i want to say untouched but yeah somewhat untouched but um unused recreational area for kids so if you can just embellish on that one for me so this uh as many of you probably know was a farm we are purchasing the property which goes right up to the watapa reservoir as part of a way to protect that body of water but at the same time the existing

barn and house could very easily be transformed into a discovery center for kids um we've talked a lot about different partnerships potentially uh with um you know there's been um you know whether it could it be a veterinary school could it be you know a you know uh an animal behavior um program in any of the local colleges and universities it could be any number of things um where uh school

kids from fall river could come out to a beautiful largely untouched piece of farmland right on the water and experience all sorts of outdoor totally immersive learning opportunities those could include opportunities about animals and trees and plants that are indigenous to this area as well as why the sort of overall protection of that area is critically important to our water supply and to

you know everything we enjoy about about fall river in this part of massachusetts so i think there's a lot of things that can come of that the the structures already exist it would be a rehab of those there are other grants and other monies that would be combined with the proposed arpa money in order to do this and so we begin with the purchase of the land and it would conclude with the

development of this discovery center that i think would benefit both private and public schools across the city yeah i agree it's um it's such like i said it's such an untapped area um that i think a lot of our children will just um you know be amazed and these items mistakens that all seven i think touch up on quality of life issues i'm making forever a better place to live more attractive place

um so you know i'm totally supportive of all seven so i yield with that mr president thank you sir thank you counselor c3 council vice president so good evening good evening um i guess my my biggest problem is the fact that um the city council is a body has had no input no discretion um on any spending of opera funding so we had an initial 34 million dollars um you know we even requested could

you know the administration come down when they had thoughts present you know just keep the city council informed as to what they were thinking um you know the only thing we were told was as a body we could make suggestions i feel that suggestions have been made over time and nothing has come of any of that i know i have been pounding and pounding about infrastructure for sewing water which is

something that would significantly help the city and help the taxpayers to no avail and this 16 million is the only funding that we have any input or say on um i believe that there's still 12 million dollars left of the original 34 million in opera funding based on the paperwork that was given to us not so long ago so we've received the other 35 million so i would there's really probably total

um close to 50 million 40 to 50 million okay i don't have the exact number but there's well i was just thought about the original allocation because the second out the second allocation hasn't come down for acceptance to the city council yet right so that was only yeah but in terms of availability but almost 50 all right so almost 50 million dollars okay that actually i'm i'm kind

of glad you even said that in terms of the body-worn cameras and compatible tasers absolutely we need that absolutely that should be funded but the opera committee unanimously voted to do that with the existing opera funding so to me to take a million and a half out of 16 million when there's almost 50 million there that money should be utilized for that that's something that serves that serves the city that's

something that helps the taxpayer at least in the initial five years so i support the purpose i don't support the funding source i think that should come out of the other opera money so that would be the number one bio reserve i have no problem with that one supporting that from this funding source the 911 dispatch communication system i have no problem uh voting to agree to take that out of this funding source

can you tell me what category the street sweepers fall under sure so as you can see in the um in the write-up and i have to give all the credit to attorney hum for her write-ups we have um category five which is infrastructure and it's 5.1 and 5.6 which is centralized wastewater treatment and storm water so the way the street sweepers work and i didn't realize this when i first presented this to the council

where you know as you recall the purpose of that presentation was to invite the council to make whatever recommendations it would like to make because as far as i believe the mayor's concerned um and the city's concerned it's this 16 million the council can direct however it would like because we want we want that input we think that's important and just as an aside uh i i think the mayor really wanted uh

because he's very much in favor of body cameras but he just wanted to create an opportunity for the council to be the body that actually supports the body cameras because it just seemed like the right thing to do for the city but that that funding can come from either pocket and i don't think it'll matter even a little bit with regard to the street sweepers a brush sweeper and a vacuum sweeper

work in tandem so the brush sweeper breaks up the hard pack salt sand uh debris uh whether it's uh you know from roads breaking down as they often do in the winter from potholes and other things to sticks and whatever else you find on the road over the course of the winter that gets kind of packed in and the sweeper itself breaks it up the vacuum goes behind it sucks it right up

and then the vacuum also is able to open up drainage um um the uh the drainage apparatus the swales and culverts and and um and all the different um uh drainage systems that exist the vacuum can actually go in there below grade and clean that stuff out too all of that together works to keep all the debris on the road from running into our water supply so it will essentially reduce the contaminants in our water runoff

it'll i think ease our water treatment it will limit the amount of contaminants going into the actual supply itself and ultimately uh keep less debris from being so soaking into the ground specifically chemicals and salt and um uh and the results of automobiles and other kind of pollution that eventually does settle uh from them becoming part of the groundwater so the idea here is that the street sweepers working in

tandem by keeping the streets clean uh do have a significant measurable effect on water okay um so basically i guess what i was looking at was the category under which the they would be purchased which is infrastructure i don't believe cleaning streets qualifies as infrastructure i believe the opera funding was meant for future projects only we couldn't use it for existing projects

for example mandates from the government that we have to remove all lead piping in the city which will be about a 20 million dollar project that would be infrastructure um street sweepers aren't infrastructure and their their their purpose isn't infrastructure so my issue here is i don't truly think that fits in an opera funding category as defined in the um in from dls and again every time the question came

up in all the discussions we had in the past we were always told it has to be a new project a future project it can't be something that exists now and it truly has to be infrastructure so i'm a little bit concerned whether that even fits the category and i certainly don't want to approve something that isn't going to fit and that some they're going to come back on us um in regards to that so

that one there i i can't support for those reasons and i don't even know in terms of pothole and asphalt repair graffiti machines i don't know how if those actually truly fit the opera funding categories um and basically with that i yield attorney akin are you able to clarify does bristol county approve these prior to us purchasing anything they do so the way it works is is actually going to be very similar to the

way the city money works which is that if you you put a application in that they don't feel um complies exactly with what they were thinking they'll come back and say geez you know can you support this a little bit more can you add to this can you you know tweak this a little bit um it's not you know it's it's really not a binary uh type uh analysis uh you

know up or down yes or no uh there is uh give and take and we've um you know i i know it's sort of easy to look at these things and imagine that we're just kind of you know throwing stuff out there seeing what sticks but in fact there's actually quite a bit of research quite a bit of work with uh the county uh to understand their process and also research what um

uh what good supporting uh analysis would be for each of these uh projects that are before you uh tonight so i would respectfully disagree that they don't uh satisfy the categories they they do and with regard to the way bristol county does it is they do have a panel that looks at these and considers the application in addition to what's here there's actually a fairly substantial application that gets submitted by in

this case our opera coordinator and then there's also a an auditing firm that bristol county has employed to take a look at all of this so they do employ a fairly stringent set of standards uh but again we're not gonna you know uh ask them to to do anything that just has no good faith basis of being approved so i guess i was just asking you to clarify would would we be waiting on

their approval before anything was purchased oh of course yeah i mean we're not going to spend money we don't have so so they have to give us the money to uh i mean the the giving us the money is is part and parcel with the approval so um yeah we certainly won't purchase anything um and couldn't purchase anything that would be really irresponsible um until this was approved and we had the money from the county

council in c8 council washington so i just i wanted to add to um counselors kilby that i'm so excited for these um seven to come down so i i want to say that i've met with kara on several occasions with questions concerns that i have on how does this fall it's not my expertise so i don't know the laws of regulations she is the specialist so that's what she does she

knows and help me to understand what falls under that um these are this is this the citizens deserve this in my opinion we have been waiting for this money when are we going to get this opportunity to get a graffiti machine um to have extra sweet uh street sweepers i mean body cams for our officers i don't think anyone could deny that cleaner water um the explanation behind these things once i sat with um

cara and understood because it doesn't make sense how is how does this fall under infrastructure but again that's her specialty she understands those laws and regulations that she does all the research and helped me understand that so you know i i i am excited to to support these i can't see how we cannot support all these things the citizens of fall river deserve this that bio reserve

i my children grew up going there that is the most beautiful piece of property that the city has for us to be able to regain that property and preserve that property and keep that property in the city of fall river is such an opportunity it is one of the most amazing opportunities and if we can move forward with having some type of vet center down there whatever just to be

able to own that property back in the city and preserve that is amazing just the citizens deserve to be able to have these things when we have the funding to just go ahead and approve it and i and i do i do say listen i've poor cara i've sat with her i can't even tell you and i come up with ideas all the time and she will tell me i will look that up that's

a little absurd nope that fits that doesn't fit but i mean that's that's what we do so you know my experience has been maybe different i don't know but you know i'm shouting out ideas all the time i'm so excited that we are able to have this money give ideas and if you know i'm i don't have a final say but i look here's an idea it's never been shot

down it's been looked at and said you can't do that but you know nice keep going or you know let's look into that so i just want to say i am excited that we have this in front of us that we have the ability to give something to our citizens when are we going to get this opportunity again so and you know i i i trust the opinion of her i've sat

with her quite a bit poor thing i feel bad that she's had to listen to me and these ideas but she's very knowledgeable and with that i'll yield thank you thank you counselor and see one counselor thank you um first of all i commend you on the uh the write-up i think it was really really well put together um and very descriptive on what you were looking to do and how it kind of met the guidelines

the only i guess the only issue i have and i guess i disagree with my counselors is item number five the bio reserve discovery center um so to me i feel like that project is one that's uh perfect for cpa so we start talking about community preservation i think you know we should be putting putting aside our community preservation monies for that and freeing up 1.3 million dollars for something else that could be used

whether it's infrastructure or something along the lines is there a reason why we haven't considered that just because when i start seeing the cpas cpa monies that we approve it's a lot of um private work that's being done i'm sorry i know there's a there's a lot of discussions i'm sorry with the rest of the council can't hear you thank you thank you i apologize it's okay um so i know that prior to this being

proposed as an arpa expense uh mr furland who is you know the director of water and the persons behind this particular project uh had talked to um cda and uh also redevelopment and looked at a number of different options i don't know what the reason is that this is was not directed that way and i can get that information for you could you um sure yeah i just wasn't part of the initial

conversations um because i think he was he really wasn't considering arpa as a as an option yeah um for this um and then i think that uh there was just a conversation where the the healthy childhood environments piece you know might be a perfect match but i can certainly find out the reason okay because that was uh the purchase of the property right is that so there's the purchase of the property i believe the

property is about an 800 000 purchase and there's other water monies that are um would be used in conjunction with the 365. and then the renovation itself is is the million dollars okay so i mean at least the purchase of the property i think we should consider the cpa um and i think some of the renovation obviously depending on what type of renovation renovation we're doing and i i know that

there is other monies being used for the purchase uh in conjunction with with the money on in art but this may just be the balance but i'll certainly find out perfect appreciate it thank you thank you counselor in seat seven council proposal so a few things um on the graffiti removal i've been kind of harping about that for a little while now and i'm looking for my colleagues to

support this but i think it's important to know and i've spoken attorney aiken for a few times already in regards to the ordinance that is going to need to be addressed to really handle this the right way because as you can see across the city there's just so much graffiti and i'm sick and tired of looking at it and we need to handle it but we also need to hold people accountable for when it's not being

handled so this is a good step forward obviously the ordinance is going to have to be addressed i know i put a resolution to handle that so we're going to be working on that shortly and on the street sweepers i'll just add as well and i've shared this with the administration that it's nice to have nice shiny things however we've got to make sure we do it right and i've gone back to my point of a

street sweeper driving down the middle of pleasant street i don't really know what it was sweeping um because we're not putting the signs out as we should have we're not doing the process that should be done so i'm in full support of getting these these items however we want to make sure that internally we're doing the right things to make sure it's done right the last thing that i had was about the bio reserve

is there a plan a plan of how they're going to go about this so i recognize they're going to buy the property they want to do the renovation but do they have a plan as far as what they're going to put in it what they're going to renovate anything further than what we have here on this i would characterize the plan as several parallel plans okay um so i think there's a number of possibilities

um there is not a plan in terms of an architect that's actually talked about what the renovation will look like and and what the exhibit and warning space would be right now there are at least three to four different um paths that i think are being pursued to see what's going to be the the greatest effect and greatest sort of learning opportunity for for kids whether that's a partnership with a

local college or university um whether it's a partnership with a non-profit what the focus of that would be whether it's indigenous plants animals and other things whether it's animal rehab so there's a lot of moving parts there that i know are being actively worked on and i think the idea is that we know that we want to do something because this land is too good not to do something with

but what that something is i think is evolving yeah because i i think you know the educator part of me loves this idea but i want to see what are we going to get for what we're going to put into it what what exactly is the plan from what we read here it's great and i love it but what what's really going to be in there you know there's a lot of

community partners attached to this um as well so i would like to see more of a maybe a presentation and it's necessarily on you i think it comes down to the water division community utilities to come down and say this is what we're planning these are the ideas with your support of this funding this is what we're going to do i think i'd like to see that would you be inclined to support the concept

in order to make the application knowing that they're as as this as this developed there would be a presentation as to exactly what it's going to entail i think i would be inclined to do so but i i would like to see a plan more than again more than what we have here of where this is going to go because i think the other the other part of this too once this is all set in

stone that has to be a further plan of how this facility is going to function yes how is it going to operate who's going to staff it how is it going to work with local schools i think there's a lot more to be had on this than just buy the property fix the building now what sure so i think that's that's all i'm looking for but um like i said great concept and it's just

want to see a little bit more on it better yield thank you thank you counselor at c2 council camara thank you mr president um seth quick question graffiti machine paddle repair asphalt street sweepers we hiring more people we what are we going to do these machines are going to be able to have them do what they're going to do on top of what they're doing right now they're telling me they're

working doing more with less um so there are some open positions uh and we're posting those and hiring people for those and we're struggling to fill them we are struggling to film there's no question about that and and as we i think all agreed during the budget conversations uh the best way to do that is to be competitive in how we pay um and i will say that especially in dcm the majority of those folks are

teamsters we are actively in negotiation with teamsters um and my interest um is making sure that anyone in dcm is making like my interest was in every other negotiation is making a living wage that allows them to support their family allows them to enjoy their work and look forward to coming to work every day and and that's something that's ongoing so my hope is that it will be less difficult to fill those positions

um but i agree uh that especially those three things that you mentioned they obviously require uh the power of again three streets you're getting three sweet sweepers so just those so some of these are going to replace existing things right so we do have some aging um fleet uh so with regard to the uh the pothole uh which would allow us to do essentially open up the street do water

projects year round and be able to do a seamless patch uh that because of the uh the infrared and the hot box has no seam so it and i don't see much means no seam but it it reduces any sort of water infiltration which actually allows the road to stay in near perfect condition much longer uh it's an aesthetically better looking patch and so you know just you know for the benefit everybody

i appreciate that um and so we have a hot box um right now this would one of these would replace one of those so it's not necessarily a total edition it's an addition with some subtraction yeah well i think the one that we have now we don't use it enough that's right so we need two of them is would be much better my point is if we're going to do this stuff

we need to hire more people to to make a significant impact in the community people are looking to get does not just get machines some of these i can see and we've done it in the past we bring the machine in great now we don't have an operator and it sits for four months it's true then it goes out a couple of weeks and then that person leaves now we

have no operator so it sits for another five months and by the time you turn around it's time to get another machine because this one it's falling apart it's not being used you've got to use these machines if you want to get it absolutely out of them so yeah the maintenance is even worse if they're not being used there's no questions about it they crumble right so i'm just curious are we looking

to hire additional people apart from what or was this part of what the budget was focused on with those positions that are vacant were they to satisfy this that that was kind of the focus is that we have the vacant positions we believe we can fill the vacant positions we believe that uh with the ongoing negotiations we will be able to fill those positions and because we're going to be replacing

some apparatus not just adding we'll have the the the employees to do this work and because of some of the seasonal nature of it graffiti machine specifically obviously that that can have a maybe you know eight to nine month application but in the colder months where it's not going to be as effective to use a sandblasting water blasting machine uh could create a mess and a dangerous condition on the roadway um

so we feel that we we will have the employees to operate these things okay um i don't mind supporting them i just don't them sitting there yes sir i understand collecting dust i don't either not this dollar amount no we got to be good stewards of it we're good if we're going to do it let's do it right let's get the manpower to make sure that we can do it right and

make a significant impact in improving this community roger that i don't mind supporting that i just don't want it to sit thank you thank you 300 thank you counselor c3 council vice president yeah i just want to make one more comment uh just for clarification purposes i don't want anybody to assume or think that my objections have anything to do with the acquisition of these things or

that i think anything is a bad idea that has nothing to do with it it's the pot of money it's coming out of um you know i haven't yet heard anybody on this council who have come up with ideas that we can vote on to spend the county money that that's the only monies that we as a body can make that determination so maybe somebody has an idea maybe a couple of people have ideas

and who knows how many millions of dollars those ideas would cost for instance if i said i'd like to see 10 million dollars go to the water department for real infrastructure for mandated projects from the government well guess what we if we spend this we only have a million and a half left but then i'm sorry i wasn't looking at you but the administration has 50 million that's the point i'm trying to make i'm

not saying that things aren't good i'm saying i want to utilize the money we have jurisdiction over to the best of our ability because we still are sitting on another 50 million dollars and i just wanted to say that for clarification purposes may i respond briefly absolutely so just just for whoever's watching and the record um there is there already has been eight and a half million dollars

of arpa money um designated for water projects um i think up until maybe this week there was the belief that there was another significant amount of money just for lead abatement there's some question as to whether that's going to come from the state if it doesn't that's certainly a priority there's no question about it another great use of arpa i know that mr furland did come down

here um and i appreciate his desire to to you know take as much as you're willing to give him to do work with uh and said that they have the capacity to do you know 100 million dollars in our work but the reality is that in order to spend this money uh and actually have it spent because there was some question as to whether the the december 31st 2026

um deadline was it has to be spent or has to be committed and then the work can finish up it really does have to be spent that's right um and so um the idea that you know we take 40 million dollars total county and city together and give it all the water is an amazing idea as long as we can spend as long as the work's going to get done um and the the possibility that

there isn't capacity to do all that work whether contractors uh people in the water department all of that stuff we would just need to be sure and so i am fully in support of of that kind of infrastructure work because you know lord knows you know the city uh you know needs that and many other things uh you know we want the quality of life and the experience of living here to be as good

as it possibly can be i do believe these are part of that um but i also believe that there's certainly room to add to the water thing but maybe not at the scale that everyone thinks because at the end of the day they just need to be able to do the work uh i respond to that certainly so in terms of the lead project that the mandate that would be completed

by december 31st of 2026 because the mandate drives that it's been mandated that it has to be done prior to the to december 31st 2026 and it is a 20 million dollar project um obviously the city would otherwise have to bond 20 another 20 million dollars that the taxpayers would have to pay that the water and sewer rates will continue to go up because we have to pay down the bonds

if 20 million dollars of opera funding were dedicated to that mandate instead that would affect future rates for the taxpayers the water and sewer rates wouldn't have to go up to cover another 20 million dollar bond and yes that does fall within the time frame um in terms of the 8.7 million dollars opera funding did not allow for sidewalk repair however the 8.7 million dollars in water projects just happened to be

where sidewalks would be affected and therefore the monies could be used to repair the sidewalks as part of the water project just to be fair um and again not mandated projects and yes we've had many pots of money and we've had money coming in grants coming in from all angles um you know and again to say you know we're waiting for the state maybe the state's going to pick up the bill maybe they're

going to pick up part of the bill i don't know i i just i just have to i can't give up that fight especially knowing there are projects that are future projects that completely qualify that will have helped this city that will help the taxpayers and they're within the time frame um that has been set forth by the government um and that's that's just where i'm coming from and and i i just can't stop

fighting that fight um i do have one more question on opera funding and i'm not even sure if i if it's kind of it's way off track it has nothing to do with here but it's just the fact that we're discussing opera funding three thousand dollar um bonuses premium pay is that coming with opera funding because i didn't see in the language that opera funding was brought into that dis to that

so there is a category of upper funding called premium pay so it's it's not um it's not lost revenue it's premium pay um there are guidelines as to who can get premium pay and there's a minimum number of hours that one would have to work between march uh i believe 20th of 2020 and march 20th to 2021.

um the mayor did make a statement the other day that was published in the newspaper i believe ms goode was the writer regarding what his intentions were with regard to premium pay and i think he was looking for a certain amount of money to be paid to firefighters ems first responders first responders and the people that were supporting first responders for our for using arpa money premium pay and then the balance

of employees city hall would have another level of premium pay for their coming into work and so at this point one of the sort of challenging parts to to the accounting of that is you got to figure out who was actually here uh who was working who wasn't you know who's left since and all that sort of thing so we're in the midst of doing that um i think what had happened is that the

premium paper vision did make its way into the superiors contract and um it was never our intention not to do it it was just you know the timing uh you know we wanted to just kind of get a sense of you know where them you know when we're going to do it you know who was going to get paid how much it was going to be and all that sort of thing

and and that's been a little bit of a moving target because obviously uh you have to verify who was here um so that's something we're that's ongoing uh something we intend to do uh it'll be uh sooner rather than later okay so part of the reason i asked that question is yes with premium pay the people actually had to work had to be on site not remotely or anything else

and you're right it was it wasn't in the agreement and this is where my concern came in so in recognition and appreciation of the work performed and health risks incurred by unit members during the pandemic the city will remit a one-time payment to each member of the bargaining unit and the amount of three thousand dollars payable in the payroll following funding of this moa by the city this shall be paid

shall to any member of the unit who was a member anytime between march 10th through the funding of this agreement correct me please if i'm wrong but when i see that that tells me whether you were out on workers comp uh comp time you're getting three thousand dollars because you're a member of the unit period so if that's the case we're going to have people who don't fall again under opera it's that they they don't

they're not entitled to the premium pay so the city is on the hook for anybody who doesn't fall within the parameters of opera again would that be a correct statement so the problem is if i say yes to that right if i say you read that correctly right i don't want the public to be misled and believe that we in fact are going to be paying people that didn't work because

that's just not true that's not what's happening now we do know that in that bargaining unit which is a quarter of the police department superiors right um there would actually be nobody that wouldn't qualify for premium pay so all so deputy chiefs are not in that bargaining unit so this is captains uh lieutenant sergeants and uh there's actually nobody that didn't work at least 250 days i'm sorry the 250 hours

during the period and that's actually the minimum number so it's about a six week amount of work during the 52-week period that's identified in orbit and so i suppose uh i you know there's probably a public appetite for hey you had to work the whole time but you know the arpa guidelines came out and they were 250 hours um so uh we didn't choose to try to modify that or try to play with that or do

anything with it we said all right if you qualify you qualify and everyone in that bargain you're going to qualify i will say the language is not in any of the other agreements because our position is that every single other bargaining unit except for janitors law there's two of them right every single other bargaining unit was just too big in order to make that determination so in this particular one

everyone would qualify because they did the 250 and there's nobody that would be getting paid that has absolutely no right to in all the other units there would be exceptions there'd be issues there'd be things we'd have to figure out so that language is not going to be in any other collective party agreements so moving forward we should be anticipating some type of transfer or some type something

coming down in relation to opera funding funding this yes once so we'd like to do it all at once i don't want to do it piecemeal so what i'd like to do is is you know once we set all the contracts which should be hopefully somewhat soon um do a single payment everybody all on the same date i think it would be uh concerning to some folks to feel like you know this

group just got theirs and when do we get ours and you know i would like to happen all the same time so everyone feels a certain level of equity there okay can i just get a point of information on that yes so the language is silent on opera so you can get the funding sauce from anywhere that is true right so i just want to make sure that that's out there does not necessarily

have to come for opera that's true it could be just coming from fundamentals could come from the 2.6 million in the reserve fund right okay so that was going to be my next question so right but the intent is arpa the intent is our premium okay thank you that i yield thank you counselor in seat eight council washington so i just want to say in my very long four week tenure here on the

council um i have um had ideas and you know to bring them forward and i think this is just for all of my colleagues you don't want to bring ideas forward without even knowing with this opera funding if it can't even be used for that i'm sure i'm not the only one with you know ideas that will beautify the city or or be a great idea for the city but you there is a process and i

recommend that people sit with kara um the opera director and find out if what your idea is can be used it's not like she doesn't she doesn't have all the answers right there it's a lot of research that goes into it to find out what can be used what we have before us is a lot of research that went into us to find out if the funds can be used for

this so you better believe i'll be calling tomorrow to see if mr barlow who spoke um this morning if we have funds to fund the fire department to have guys with acs in their bedrooms i mean it's crazy um i don't know the answers to that but she will find it so i mean i think that's the route to go um we don't have final say in everything

but we do have a say here's an idea go research find out if we can do it and then we'll present it there is a i mean i've only been here four weeks but i can't tell you i ideas are coming i know i can't be the only one getting constituent calls of ideas how to use this money we have ideas in front of us they have been bought through the law department or cara is a

an attorney so that's what i'm just saying so um i haven't sent any ideas down because the ideas i have may be outlandish they may be great in my head but they they can't be used through opera funding so but i i do recommend that people sit with the opera director who her sole purpose is to research funding for opera money so our citizens can use it thank

you i yield i can speak to ac real quick if you if you'd like yeah please sure so um the president of the of the firefighters union uh who's a really wonderful advocate for his his people um has asked about this uh this is something we're already looking into there is a ventilation provision in arpa uh that you can use money for ventilation the thing i'm trying to figure out i think cara is

trying to figure out is um if the ventilation piece is has to be an installed sort of infrastructure project or whether it can be something that's temporary like these mini splits um because you know if we could i'd i'd you know spend the money right now and get them ac uh but if we can do it with arp and have it be a little more permanent i'd love to do that so that's something

we're looking at we're serious about it i think it's important a lot of people don't know that the niagara uh candelas fire station when it was built just before it was completed actually had much of the whole ventilation system and and driver you know whatever the engine would be in the basement that would drive the ventilation system removed doesn't exist so there's chases and and stuff throughout that that entire

building uh that are that have nothing going through them or to them uh and that place just bakes uh and that you can say the same or tell somewhat similar stories about a lot of the stations it's incredibly important uh and i would love it if the council made that suggestion as a uh as a arpa proposal uh and i think we can support it but i'll know in the next day

or two yeah thank you i mean and i just want to say to that um i think that just the general public wouldn't even know that the fire department is sleeping with window acs in there you know so just another example of here's an idea can you find out if we can use it if not where can we get the money from but if opera can be used let's get these guys something

immediately and that's why i had asked earlier to mr barlow if what's the life expectancy because is there something better we can do for for these men and women i yield thank you thank you council you are correct people some counselors myself included have sent their ideas to the administration i know that they have them and they're working on them but anybody is welcome to do so a counselor and seat seven counselor

pozo yeah real quick question is there any plans for any more public arpa meetings there are no plans currently for public arpa meetings okay i yield thank you thank you anything further counseling c5 yeah hello sir how are you i didn't fall asleep i know you didn't always watching yeah i know listen the seven projects i did they were all good they're all good and uh how does this work now we're

going to spend 4.5 assets in the bristol county to fund this is that the way it goes yes sir and then that means we got left how much um well so it's it's about 15 and a half million it's not quite 16. yeah um so you'd have about 11 million left that's what i thought i took a ribbon now that goes in how long does it take before they decide whether or not

they want to get the money up is that what four to six weeks four to six weeks and then we can move on this yes sir sounds good you know we and they're right we've always talked about just about everything on this and the one i mean it's all important but the blue water project it's like we talked about it they sit across about a quarter of a million and

put salt water upon and it comes clean they'll be able to go swimming it's fantastic with what they got these days but like i told the man we have to find out where uh the waste is coming from the houses from westport in fall river and that certainly should be done before doing this project but as the mayor said they're going to run something up route 6 and try to connect

everything in westport how long is that going to take i don't know the answer to that you know so so what do we do do we move on it or not i believe and this is i don't want to get too much into the science because i'm not a not a scientist but um i believe part of the treatment does suppress the algae down at the bottom and i believe some of

the research suggests that the algae itself is largely uh generated by leaves and other organic debris as opposed to inorganic or human-made debris so i'm not necessarily sure exactly how this solution works or or whether or not uh the the pipeline that the mayor was talking about is is the also works in conjunction with that i don't know enough about it to know but i believe at least suppresses the algae

kind of at the bottom so it's not making the water toxic and then can be treated so okay i'll get my bathing suit ready so when when we get this done and we spend the other 11 two or whatever it is what say do we have on the other 50 million none no nothing no sir so who decides that well there are there is a member of the city council on the arpa committee um so the

city arpa committee meets every several weeks um they look at proposals um and so that committee does have a member of the city council and uh the say would be the committee obviously the mayor is is chair of that committee um it's more of an advisory committee uh but the uh in the interest of transparency uh the committee votes and those proposals are then uh sent through the application process so we have no

counsel you do you have a vote the the whole council doesn't vote but one counselor votes as part of the committee and i think the the legal opinion i believe this is from attorney rumsey this is before my time but the legal opinion was that um the administration is not obligated to seek the approval of the council uh to spend the arpa money but i think in the interest of fairness and transparency

the mayor put together the advisory committee uh so it's not a it's not a public you know committee or board i don't think it's right i think we should have also the final say you can say what you want we've got nine and we have a job to do i understand and you're just eliminating us from the 50 50 million hey we'll take care of 15 we'll give you 16 million you'll do what

you want with that and then we'll take care of the 50 i don't think it's right thank you so to tony what i get to say anyway with that are you thank you anything further yes from the council council thank you now just one question popped in my head the uh the body warm cameras is that going to bring us the full capacity on the police department i spoke with the chief and i think i

might be wrong but he said it'd be more like 3 million or whatever but is that i may be wrong with the figure but is this appropriation here going to outfit our entire police department with uh with the cam this will outfit everybody and it actually has two refreshes during the five years where it will get brand new equipment throughout um and so i think there's an opportunity there to make sure that if there's

additional police officers if they're more up to full compliment we can make sure that they're uh outfitted as well but right now i believe it would outfit everyone okay very good hey thank you thank you anything further say nothing thank you mr aiken thank you very much do you have a motion to adjourn finance motion second motion to join made by counselor poser second invite counselor kilby all

those in favor all right finance is adjourned take a two minute recess

so

do

do

do

do

do

fall reverse city council now come to order madam clerk counselors kadeem here camara here dion here kilby pelletier yeah pereira proposal yep washington here and president law liberty labeau here everyone in the chamber would please drive rise for a moment of silent prayer and remain standing for a salute to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the

republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are

deemed acknowledged and permissible clerk the first items before you are appointments to the newly formed historical commission the first is for christian cantara oliveira motion confirm second motion confirmed me by councillor kilby seconded by counselor raposo any discussion counselor c5 yeah there was a i got a call that that address they used wasn't right and uh said aikens was checking it out aloe vera girl

was right you were supposed to be checking it out i apologize which one the historic convention historic commission kristen oliveira it says shaverson street sheila rosen i don't have an answer to that yeah i apologize i didn't hear the first part of it i'm sorry i'm totally like out of order here should i come down no well then the thing is we talked about it then you were going to check on it i

asked i don't have an answer yet i'm sorry i can confirm it with her tomorrow yeah and then there was a thing said that she got installed maybe a week ago we're doing this tonight is tonight's the night that we vote for it right right so that's it correct okay so the two boards merged the historic commission and the historic district commission it's been ongoing for at least a year if not two so all of

these members with the exception of one we're on one of those two boards and wanted to continue on okay okay yep thank you thank you madam clerk will you just confirm her correct address tomorrow i will thank you so we have a motion to confirm any other discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted counselor c3 yeah can we make a make a motion to just take b c and d all together

motion to take items one b c and d together after reading has been made by kel's vice president dion seconded by councillor kilby any discussion all those in favor any opposed adam clark sure b c and d would be the appointments of richard mancini maria connie sewell and elizabeth a d block motion to approve second motion confirmed made by councillor raposo seconded by council vice president dion any discussion all

those in favor any opposed so voted item two would be the mayor's communication and orders authorizing the appointments of the um seats on the same historical commission these seats would be appointments of the city council emotional approved made by councillor kilby second second by councillor washington any discussion counselor in seat five how many people on this board seven should be seven and three councils

no no no no no those are our appointments the council of points three and the mayor appoints four oh okay okay okay thank you these would be the appointments of reuben amarill joyce rodricks and jason bouchard in iraqi so we have a motion to adopt maybe second all those in favor any opposed so voted

item number three is the mayor's request for the confirmation of the appointment of scott alves as a member of the sewer commission motion to approve second motion confirmed made by councillor kilby seconded by council pelletier any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item number four is the mayor's request for the approval of the proposals for the bristol county arpa funding

counselor c1 can we just uh remove item number five just table until we get an answer on the community preservation act monies check it so we want to take these in can we take these individually madam clerk sure we'll take them individually that will delay is that what you're going to ask for counseling yes anything further medical clerk would you take them individually sure do you want a roll call on them no

if you just take each of the seven items

so the first would be for body worn cameras and compatible tasers in the amount of one million five hundred twenty two thousand eight hundred seventy seven dollars motion drop second motion adopt made by council kelly seconded by counselor pelletier any discussion all those in favor post seat three opposed item two would be for graffiti removal machine in the amount of seventy five

thousand four hundred dollars motion to a proof second motion to approve made by counselor poses seconded by council washington any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed pose seat three opposed item three free pothole and asphalt repair one hundred twenty two thousand five hundred sixty eight dollars second job made by councillor kilby seconded by council washington any discussion all those in favor

any opposed seat three opposed item four would be for street sweepers in the amount of nine hundred fifty thousand dollars second motion drop made by councillor pelletier saying it by councillor washington any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed post c3 opposed item five would be for the bio reserve discovery center in the amount of one million three hundred sixty five

thousand dollars motion table motion table by made by council what's the purpose of tabling i didn't i didn't pick that up i'm sorry so i i think this i think all of the 1.3 million would be eligible for community preservation act monies for preservation so i think it would just free up some additional monies for the opera to be used so i just waiting for the administrator to come back saying whether or not it's

eligible or not eligible okay thank you for the clarification thank you counselor stay tuned yeah no i just agree with my colleague can see one i think that it's it would be a better use to use if we'd have to take it from the opera money would free up opportunity to do other things and it could come from community preservation thank you thank you uh we have a motion at the table

made by kelsey kadeem cited by council camara any other discussion on this one all those in favor any opposed survivor voted item six would be the blue water project in the amount of 241 275 motion to approve second motion improvement by council proposals second by council washington any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed still voted and item seven would be for the 911 system in the amount of 305 thousand

dollars motion to approve motion improvement by council proposal second by council vice president dion any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item number five is a communication from the mayor and a request from sanford spinning mills llc at 206 globe mills ave to amend the waterfront downtown hd zone to include globe mills avenue and surrounding areas i'll just refer to

planning board second motion referred up planning board made by councillor kilby seconded by councillor pozo any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted item six is the uh mayor's request in conjunction with the fire department to accept periodic donations of smoke and co detectors fire extinguishers cleaning supplies and other like materials from amazon motion to adopt second motion

adopt me by council vice president dion seconded by council washington any discussion all those in favor any opposed thank you item seven is the mayor's request in conjunction with the fire chief again in the order accepting gift of two natural gas meters and calibration kits for the fire department command vehicle cars two and three from liberty utilities motion to adopt motion adopted by council vice president

dion seconded by counselor raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item 8 is the mayor's communication in an order establishing a career vocational technical education revolving fund for durfee high school with a spending limit in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars motion to approve second promotion approved by council kadeem seconded by council proposal any discussion all those in favor

any opposed so voted um item nine is the transfer order that the sum of fifty thousand dollars be and the same is here by transferred to the fire expenses from fire salaries and the amount of fifty thousand dollars motion adopt made by council kilby second second by council proposal any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted item 10 is the mayor's communication in

an order scheduling a special municipal election on november 8th to designate the city of fall river in mbta district relative to south coast rail motion to adopt motion adopt made by council washington second second by counselor pellets here any discussion concern seat five yeah i'm just wondering uh i see we can vote by mail this year september massachusetts we do have the elections office here would you like to

have them come down yeah just answer the question i guess it's something new i guess you need a motion away from girls now with motion wave of the rules made by council kilby second second second have by counselor good evening all those in favor aye mr alliance well i haven't heard too much other than the tv saying you can vote either way you can vote by mail and we haven't heard nothing from your

office so i'd like to you know give us an idea what's going on and that's it okay well governor baker just signed the votes act into law on june 22nd which allows for no excuse vote by mail it's comparable to what the commonwealth added in 2020 during all three of the state elections it just makes that permanent okay so if you're interested in voting by mail just contact our office so we can send you the

mail application yeah all right so we expect more people voting i'm hoping we had a turnout well it's different because we had a turnout in 2020 of about 62 percent it was about 36 000 residents who voted about 16 000 elected to vote by now i don't expect anywhere of that for a state for a midterm state election how many voters are getting foreign as of today it was 54 523 what

was last year it was probably about 51 000. wow doing those all new residents um most likely yeah okay are you thank you counselor counselor and seat seven mr lyons in reference to the special election what are the effects if it fails i don't know the answer to that i just found out about this referendum question from attorney rumsey on the end of april um all i know is that a decision has to

be made by the public if the citizens reject it i'm not sure what the end effect to that might be listening administration mr

so we were just talking about this before the meeting started and that was kind of the questions what happens if this fails and the people voted down either because they don't understand it or just don't want it um and so i was trying to do a little research to see if i could find the answer to the question i don't know the answer but it does seem like that this is a necessary

membership in order for us to have the benefit of the train coming to the station that's being built as we speak so i think the potential outcome would be a train station with no train so we had the trainless station unfortunately the trainless station station just to be clear this this special election will take place in conjunction with the state election correct simultaneously with november's general

election two separate ballots though yes okay thank you i yielded thank you uh counselor and seat too did you ever end up coming so giving back to the trainless station um just on my colleague in c5 he brought up a very important question about voting by mail what is just i don't want to go on too much because it's no we're getting away from here now but what's the deadline that people can request to

vote by mail because you have to they have to make a request you send them a form they fill out the form send it back to you so what is the difference two weeks prior to the election one day you request the application it's now five days before election five days before the election correct and that'll give you that's actually to correct that it's five business days so the weekends would be excluded so technically

the tuesday before the election so someone puts in a request for you you don't send them the ballot you send them a form to fill out and then you get that form you open it and you send them the ballot and that's going to happen within five business days well they have to submit the application to us within five business days of election in order for us to send them a

vote by mail ballots okay so if it's four days prior to election then it's not gonna happen and how do you keep track how do you monitor who you send ballots out to well we have to process the application into the commonwealth vri vris system so we know we have a list that's printed of people who elect to vote by mail we print out the labels and we um put them

and when you send them the ballot do you record it as a ballot being sent out oh yes it's already marked up on so the chance of someone getting two ballots it wouldn't happen wouldn't happen has it happened in the past um it has happened in the past because we've had in 2020 unfortunately when they had put it through i think during the pandemic there were people who had submitted

absentee ballot applications as well as the vote by mail applications because the duplication an error on two ballots was sent um to um registered voters yeah i know three bouts were sent to one individual okay i'm not aware of that about what the moment all right just curious what did i yield thank you thank you counselor c1 thank you uh so it seems like we're a little delayed is is

there i guess there are a reason has the state not notified us that we had to adopt this all right so i mean i would have thought we would adopt it prior to them constructing a facility over onto wall street yes the most common sense though okay um yes this is one of those things where it does feel like the train has left the station uh literally and we're just asking i think this this was discovered

uh late in the game by attorney rumsey and he notified us and we put it forward that was deep rooted i'm glad you remembered that means a lot thank you uh so so in terms of the general election so there's gonna be two separate ballots there's gonna be a municipal ballot and then a state ballot correct in november okay all right thank you i yield thank you anything further the motion to adopt has been made and

seconded all those in favor all right any opposed so voted thank you john what's that all set

adam clerk have the traffic commission recommending amendments to the ordinances ordinance made by council camaros seconded by councillor kilby any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed so voted item 12 is the order granting permission to denylsen de freitas januario to operate as a junk collector and operate and maintain a secondhand article store at 889 grinnell street i also wanted to

mention that the police chief did recommend denial of this license motion grant leave to withdraw second evidence promotion grant leave to his joint by council vice president dion seconded by counselor kadeem fortunately there's no uh discussion on that all those in favor aye any opposed to voted can i just get a clarification madam clerk you said secondhand article store but it was supposed to be for an

office only if if he was going to anything his application was for a second-hand article store okay but he was never going to get in second hand article star he was only going to get an office at best and still doesn't belong there which is fine thank you that is what his application was for item 13 was the order to grant permission for jonathan manchester um as i said at the public hearing this was the um

the advertisement that was incorrect so i would suggest that this also be granted withdrawal motion grant leave to withdraw made by councillor dion seconded by council raposo all those in favor any opposed so voted item 14 is the order um designating the polling places for the special election of november 8th motion to adopt motion without maybe vice president dion seconded by council

raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item 15 is the um is an order granting the renewal of auto body shop license at 1033 pleasant street motion to adopt second motion adopt made by council vice president dion seconded by council proposal any discussion all those in favor any opposed voted item 16 are is an order granting permission for the renewal of auto repair shop licenses

motion to adopt second emotional dot made by council raposo seconded by council washington any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed it's about it item 17 is a claim motion to forward a corporation counsel solution referred to corporation counsel made by council raposo seconded by council vice president dion any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed so voted item 18 is a

drain layer application for jdq excavating listening to a dock once you approve maybe a council kilby second second by council washington any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed so voted we have minutes of the zoning board meeting of april 21st accept place on file second motion accepted in place on file made by council kadeem seconded by council proposal any discussion all those in favor

any opposed so voted motion takes item 20 to 23 together second motion to take items 20 through 23 together after reading made by counselor kadeem seconded by counselor kelby all those in favor any opposed adam clerk those minutes would be public hearings held on may 31st and june 14th committee on finance held on june 6th and special meeting of the city council held on june 6. motion to approve second motion

approved made by council kadeem seconded by council raposo any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted item 24th is a communication from the disabled american veterans william s greene chapter 9 of the indicating the september 23rd celebration dinner celebrating 100 years of empowering veterans motion accept place on file second motion acceptance on file made by kelsey kadeem seconded by council vice

president dion any discussion all those in favor any opposed i voted and we also have the matter that was received after the agenda was prepared communication from the mayor in the orders of taking for the mbta south coast rail program off-site traffic mitigation improvements at the intersection of president ave and north main street

any discussion all those in favor any opposed so voted motion to adjourn motion certainly by council raposo seconded by councillor kadeem all those in favor all right council's the jury

you