6.28.2023 Redevelopment Authority

all right I'd like to welcome everyone to the uh Wednesday June 28 2023 meeting of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority recording of this session can be viewed in Fall River government television uh first order of business is a call to order a person went to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting throughout

any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmission are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present in our deemed knowledgeable and permissible um rural call John Erickson present for Wisconsin Joan Medeiros president Ron russin present and Ann uh Keane could not make it tonight also participating or Sarah page our executive director John Coughlin Council

Kenny friola administrative services consultant and Karen Martin project coordinator and executive assistant first item is the uh approval of May 24th meeting open session meeting minutes any comments on those or if not I'll entertain a motion to improve them so move second John Erickson yes those consoles yes Joan Medeiros yes Ron Russen yes uh you guys got the warrant and I think

Joan already went through it yep and was good with everything any questions on that it's a total of um sixty thousand eight Twenty Eight twenty eighty seven everybody's good with that yes motion approved the warrant for June 2023 of sixty thousand eight twenty eight eighty seven second second John Erickson yes Joan Medeiros yes Ron Russen yes project update City Pier no no Administration sorry to skip that

um oh okay you guys gathered um you guys got the uh this brief description here on um basically enabling the executive director to assign delicious just seeing this I'm just is anything on this change is that why we're redoing it no no okay John John and he drafted this and we're proposing it because a number of times we've had the need to sign a small contract between board meetings that

really is something the board has kind of known was coming for example that tense for the Mass DOT um uh dedication groundbreaking um that kind of came between board meetings we were very committed to it and we needed to sign a contract and and it's an instance where we didn't have the contract at the board meeting our recent one is we talked about the need for electric Outlets outside of our electric boxes

for all of these events and because we have Fourth of July coming we needed to sign a contract with the electrician so I called um Johnny and Joan and Johnny signed it but he really you know we didn't have a board vote to sign that contract so really the issue is they need to sign small contracts between board meetings for things that are generally approved by the board but we didn't have the contract to be approved

so that's the thinking that it would be very helpful if I could sign it and then bring it to you at the next meeting and say for example um you know Johnny signed this uh contract for the electrician we put it on the agenda for you to approve but we've actually got the electrician moving because we need it for Fourth of July okay on this would you be if let's say

you had a contract with eight thousand dollars or something we weren't aware of would you call a couple of board members and of course ask permission before you did it I'm assuming well you got to be careful under the old meeting law you can't be doing roll call votes by any phone so she could call the chair maybe do something you know run it by him it really is a delegation of limited Authority

yes she then has to report back to the board every month if she signed a contract so you keep track of it if for some reason you don't think she's exercising her discretion properly you can withdraw the approval at any point but it's it's kind of typical practice I mean another government entities like in some towns I have like a Town Administrator the one I represent can sign contracts up to 50 Grand okay other

than that it goes to the select board so to me it's a reasonable way to run the operation it's a limited delegation of power the 10 grand I picked only because that's under the threshold to bid so those are like Sound business practice contracts so to me it makes sense but it's totally the boy it's called whether they want to delegate that Authority and before we actually hate it we

I'm thinking if you talk to the exact director maybe the treasure two out of the five not three out of five and maybe just get an idea if it's something that we would go forward with I think that would be I'd feel more comfortable with that not that open comfortable with you sign ten thousand I'm just saying that I don't want to sign a contract that when you brought it here you said we signed

in we don't want it right that's why I don't wanna you know I can't even Envision that happening because whenever there's been an instance instance where I wished I could just to prove and sign it it was something I knew the board was excited about like the massdot groundbreaking you know and or we all know we need these electric Outlets so you know I have been very careful to usually come to the board and say hey

this is brewing are you behind this so that's the instance I can imagine and I kind of kept it I kept it simple and under she has to comply with whatever the procurement laws are she has to comply with the conflict of interest loss you can't do contracts with your relatives you know those kind of normal procedures so I'm comfortable with it but it's the boy's class I'm comfortable again I would just make

a couple phone calls maybe to treasure exactly just just especially if it's like eight nine ten nine thousand nine ninety nine right on something like that I think you get a couple of ideas if it's a 300 contract items right I mean this is the big ones we have towards ten thousand maybe a couple and then this does require monthly Sarah would have to give you a list of everything she did

during that month sure you can track in if you're not comfortable you can revoke it or reduce the dollar amount you can do whatever you want okay perfect right so then I'll entertain a motion to adopt the the attached procurement policy motion to adopt a procurement policy as proposed second second yes Louis gonzos yes Joan Medeiros yes Ron Russen yes okay sleep here um

karenwood um yeah um I'm not familiar with the pergola what is it because somebody else so um Patty from the Fall River they had bought a Pergola I guess I don't know a year or two ago it sits out on by the shed there over on Granada Place and she wants to donate it give it to us to put over on City Pierre and we looked at it we think it's dirty enough to be

there and the measurements would all fit like probably in that location we're thinking with a Conex box you know reinforced lab is for the time being and I think they're going to potentially use it during the summer during the events when you know they want like a little quick photo booth you can hang up like a front with you know kids can put their face in and they can

take a picture of it so we were going to get coordinated with probably DCM to get that moved over onto to City Pier at some point down there yes yep yeah it's pretty sturdy and blow away no I don't think it's one it's pretty exposed it's exposed there there is um a short little three foot wall behind it but in general it's it's still pretty out there and in a windy location so I think it'd be

um it'd be okay down in City Pier the other potential benefit is we've always worried that someone could be out there in the middle of the summer heat and be struggling with heat stroke and they could go in this Shady little uh pergola or uh if you're caught out there in the rain you could go get cover it would only be a couple of people but um it it might be handy

it's more like a like a canopy structure it's got like a roof but it's open on the sides four legs and then it's got a brace in between and it's heavy it's like a solid unit so no seats no so do we need to move in there we're going to see if we would get um the guys from DCM to move it over there they they tend to handle all that stuff for Patty anyway so

however that our intern works I'm not sure but do you have concerns about it no I'm just waiting from a liability standpoint so what do we use it it's gonna be bolted down right it's all going to be bolted now we weren't going to bolt it we so what about that like that can be moved like um it could be moved but it's really heavy that's like super heavy right um Viva Fall River

they are kind of using it the reason she's thinking about it is partially because it's just not used and she went to the effort of buying it or getting it built um but they're sponsoring the children's activities at all of our Thursday night events and she'd like to be able to have kids go in it and get their pictures taken and um she thinks it would be useful so what

about one of those kind of the sample license agreement for anybody who wants to use

it's basically there it's their problem we could do it that way yeah property they're using a lot well she wanted to give it to us because it's not well because she it's not as mobile as she had hoped it would be in getting it around to different places so her her initial thought and use for it hasn't panned out so that's why she was saying right now it just kind of sits there and does nothing

it's right over by where the shed is um you know where the shed is is a little yeah it's very non-descriptive yeah where's it going on a PS like um not on the but you've it's cut off right there yeah there's um uh right to the right of where you would be like where your index finger is is a little pad that's built for a contact yeah and it would go there it's probably it's

right near the beginning probably like it as you're pulling in around the circle probably at like two or three o'clock we can certainly ask our insurance agent if yes I can definitely check with them sure yeah I mean they will if they're donating it we own it I mean if somebody steals it we have no obligation that's being given to us as a gift yeah yeah I can check with um Paul and see what um

what his thoughts are around that anybody have a picture of it uh I was thinking it was something different I don't think I took a picture oh sorry we didn't it's not that pretty actually I mean it's you know it's wood um it's a little wooden Hut circular

those things detrimental well it's a problem we can have it taken off it's small enough and transportable enough so we could just decide no this isn't working all right let me talk to Paul and we'll go from there okay um so the electrical work that you guys the puzzle is in there that Sarah mentioned we just needed to get some additional 120 volt boxes on the outside for simple

things going on uh we have the hand lock setups for the music and video and all that stuff but so that's what that was um and he's supposed to start not to interrupt but he's supposed to start tomorrow and have it done on Friday so we'll be ready for the Fourth of July we need a motion to approve them yeah so so that was 20 uh six hundred dollars I

need a motion to approve that then the jayroid 25.95 yeah he's going to have a box over and we can put a lock on him so motion to approve Jay Roy electrical estimate for 25.95 the electrical work being done on a piano second second yes Joan Medeiros yes Ron russin yes I know I talked to him once about something in the past like he's an electrician the city uses a lot and he's

the one who put the cam locks into the gates and people really liked working with him and he was really helpful to us when we were trying to get the cam locks he gave us a lot of information and uh he's just really responsive yeah so then with that would that be the same key events that is the other key that's what I'm going to do yeah I just need to make

sure I just want to see where the final position is so I know the throat on the lock so I don't end up with too big of a throw or too small to throw um do one of you two want to speak to the uh summer oh the only other thing I was going to say is um we've had some calls about fishing out on the um Pierre and um I'm working with a local Sign Company

at pricing to furnish a couple um probably three signs that say no more she's working on the design of it but it will it's going to likely say no fishing surveillance cameras in use and they're going to be at the end of each Pierre and then where that Center walkway is right there too so no one just throws their line over and whether that will stop it I don't know but at

least it's clearly it'll be clearly marked and it'll be attached with u-bolts just like the um the city sign is for the drainage that's at the end you both u-bolts through the sign over one of the um the um posts for the um for the for the railing so um hopefully that will deter the fishermen from throwing in their hook we got a call well me and the mayor and

DCM got calls that there were fish guts on the pier and fish heads and people were all upset and by the time Karen got out there she went right out and she found one little tiny bit of stuff on the um on the walkway so you know it may be that there had been and the nice Walkers just picked it up and threw them out or seagulls got them or something but there were fishermen out

there and people were upset about it they're also fishing on their little Jetty yeah oh are they going to that little rock huh I've always wondered it's supposed to be really good fishing there most ah we'll put them on the other spit across from the pier so they can get out on the land there um I only know that because we met with the Harbor Master today and he told us

that oh yeah it's funny because you still get another portion of that view to develop yeah right yep

I know I think that could make a lot of sense there's a lot of brush to clear I mean you could just make it a natural walkway we looked at it years ago and I think what would do is clear and put like them

out there yeah so this is what's happening this summer these are all over the city we've got four Thursday nights from six to eight it's free live music The Narrows is organizing that uh food trucks the family fun or things like a kite night uh games uh Viva Fall River is organizing those um and there's going to be free yoga every Monday night starting July 10th and people are really excited about this and um

it was really great after the discussions we had that everybody stepped up and uh Senator rodericks is providing some funding to hosted and the mayor's hosting it and it should be really fun what was the budget for that nothing to us I don't know I thought he said he had like 50 000 or something that was set aside potentially Oh I thought it was more like 25 yeah no I don't know the

budget because we just happily let everybody else plan it forms this activity uh the the city gave us a um the city gave us a document saying they're accepting the liability accepting liability for all of this these events including the 4th of July

and then there's also two signs put on either side of the gates right at the City Pier entrance to that advertise the activities so hopefully people seem excited about about things down there they're going to break down each week like July 13th this is I don't know if you have to bring a coyote kite's going to be there but if it's kite night they probably should know before they get there so they can

bring kites with them if there's like a breakdown of each each uh week yeah I think that's going out on social media that's the thinking and even for the kite night they're going to have kites there for anyone who doesn't bring them and they're making sure some people who have gorgeous exciting kites will be there to show them off okay I think the Viva Fall River thing that she sends out weekly also details each

of the events in some more you know she lays out more of the the groundwork on it I would imagine that her old news May cover it too and and give details about what's happening you want to talk about the dock installation uh Karen's going to cover that she's been all over it so with the dock installation we um Coastal was going to start the land work what was going to be likely this week

prior to the 4th of July but based on discussions with them we've pushed that start till after the fourth just didn't want all their stuff and kind of in the way so they are likely gonna probably do some mobilization after the fourth and really probably jump on it the week of July 10th the actual um the submittals are coming in and being reviewed by Beta the actual doc the docking gangway submittal was

received by Beta last week and that's under review and they're hoping to turn it around pretty quickly so we can get that into fabrication but it looks like everything is still on schedule the manufacturer structural Marine has reserving a slot for those for the docks in the gangway so that's a um that's good and we met today with the Harbor Master and went over just a few logistical kind of questions and got

some perspective on he gave us some information about signage and stuff so we're going to be coordinating he's going to get a final copy of the drawings and everything the of the the docs and the gangway and then in the package also is and your board package was The Proposal from the security camera outfit TST to provide three cameras along the docks one focusing on the um the gate and the entrance one

focusing on the um other end of the dock the far the far outer end and then the middle one will be like an Optics one that picks up movement and everything along the dock and that proposal was five thousand nine yeah yep and he just needs a deposit to order the cameras the camera is going to take probably five to seven weeks to get in stock and we're doing it

all solar because we have no power out there and it will all tie in to the camera system that we have on City Pier so um yes yeah I would just notify him that the one starting July 10th that there's a picnic or there's going to be a performance day on the 13th and 17th not to leave too much stuff out on the 13th uh yeah I was going to I talked to Gareth their

superintendent and um I told him once he's out there I'll give him the lay of the land with the programs and stuff so um and our landscaper already knows and um DCM knows of the events so everybody's kind of in the loop when the events are going to be out there okay Karen refresh my memory what do they get mounted on what does what get mounted on the cameras if they get right on the pilings

yeah he like uses a stainless band around the pilot yeah um yeah so I just uh I need a motion to approve that the the proposal for the deposit of uh 2900 of the six thousand motion move to authorize the 2900 as a deposit and also to do the drop of 59.85 second second John Erickson yes just one discussion of are they high enough where they can't reach them yeah okay I don't know where

they'll be up near the top like top people so they'll be under there's going to be a pile cap put on top of each of those piles and he'll adjust it just he'll install it just under where that pile cap um end is so not reachable no it's not reachable okay but stir enough where you can see the camera wherever it will go okay I'm all set now I'm sorry he's done

a lot of them on docs he said and that's not how he's done it and those Clan those stainless bands are adjustable basically because all the pilings are different circumference so or diameter so it should work at Lewis gonzos yes Joan medaris yes Ron russin yes Pleasant Street so on Pleasant Street we um had a um let's see um we had uh a presence at the event the Festa that espiritos Santo uh church and school put

on a few weeks ago and the idea for that came from our citizens Advisory Group meeting that was really pretty well attended um probably a month ago and we brought to the membership the fact that we need to have another Well we thought we might need to have another public meeting to get input into the urban renewal plan and the revitalization plan and we were really worried about just the challenge of getting people

from the neighborhood to come when we had one before we had about 60 people but a lot of them were from all over Fall River and um so the group came up with the idea that we should just go to the people and so we went to the Festa we're going to have some of the members of the group walk Pleasant Street and visit businesses and talk with business owners

about what they want to see for Pleasant Street and then we'll probably go to some more events um like the park you know there's a Park event this summer um in uh Lafayette Park that would probably involve a lot of people from the neighborhood and we may go and talk with people at one of the playgrounds and just stay out there getting more input so I wanted to tell you the things that

I learned at the Festa it turned out it was raining we had planned to be out there with a tent but I went over to the church and said can I be inside and they said sure So I was in where all the food was being served and lots of people just wanted to get food and not talk with me but we had a big poster up and it was a

poster that kind of had these questions and then we had these survey documents and some people didn't want to fill it out but they were happy to talk with me so I wanted to share some of the input that I got and where we've gone with it so a definite concern is litter in the neighborhood some people feel it's increa it's an increased problem uh they really want a larger police

presence and safety is a big concern a question we had asked that people some of the city staff had suggested that we try to link Pleasant Street to the red the quickest and real rail trail more than it is and people thought that was a good idea there's a definite concern about sidewalks on Alden Street not being safe they're they're trip hazards there's broken concrete there are lots

of seniors who live in the curtain Lofts and lots of people and children walking to the school on the street and so we brought that to our meeting that we had afterward with Dan aguiar and Chris Perino the assistant City plan and Dan the um the city engineer and Ken was there and Karen and Mike and I and um the group The City Staff feel that uh Alden Street can be prioritized for new sidewalks and

so it's really helpful and achieving our goal that we're identifying the neighborhoods concerns about infrastructure so that as we can apply for money we know where that really should be dedicated so that was really helpful and um the other uh major concern that has come up is visibility at the corner of pleasant and quickashan now in our um in our meetings there's been discussion about the fact that all of

the side streets that go from Alden up to Pleasant are often difficult to see people coming from Eastern Ave you really kind of have to pull out into the road sometimes so one of the issues is people are parking too close to the corners so I've talked with Lara in traffic and she said well they're by state law supposed to leave 20 feet to the corner but I really don't think they're doing that and there aren't

signs there the way there are in some other parts of the city saying don't park from here to the corner so they can put signs to deal with that but the other option and I think we should pursue this is to go to the traffic commission and ask a couple of things one is they can you can ask for there to be more than 20 feet um that are allocated and you have a sign

that says don't park uh from here to the corner and so you could ask them to double it to 40 feet or whatever you want to ask and and therefore get more visibility that way but the other option that people are suggesting is a stop light at um the corner of quakashan and the reason that one's especially difficult is it's angled and so it's just especially hard to see so what Laura

said is that we can go to the traffic commission there's um a police Lieutenant who sits on it and he'll go and research how many crashes there are at that intersection and then the traffic commission can decide if it warrants a light more stop signs in some way you know they'll then be able to look at it so I think that I should deliver this message to the traffic commission at one of their

upcoming meetings and see if they can help it with us the only thing I'm thinking is there's either from let's say Quarry Street to Eastern Avenue there's probably nine or ten streets you're talking about four corners now that's going to take 40 parking spots out of Pleasant Street which is tight as I know safety is more important but if you're trying to get businesses down there and they don't

have nowhere to park yeah now you're taking 40 parking spots out as it is that may be a more difficult situation because there are a lot of streets and you have two sides you'd have to do 20 feet on each one so you're taking away about 40 spots on in that small area that's a lot of spots yeah I wasn't actually sick over I was I was going to ask about quickashan and

then we could see if there's some other Street and I don't think the issue is so much coming from it's more the cars coming from Eastern Ave down and the streets that are on the Alden Street side that are really having the problem so you know if we work on quick cash in and we find that that's successful and it needs to be applied somewhere else we can look at that

because when you come up with a Chance of Pleasant Street it's like pleasure streets a little bit out so you can't see who's coming unless you creep out right right yeah it goes like this yeah I'm on the street all the time you know taking away 20 feet you got to get out to see right and so I'm not sure what the answer is there you know I don't know it may you know if

it's if it's a big enough issue yeah maybe the city should commission a small little parking analysis or a traffic analysis there to what the best remedy would be so I think that may be where we're going it seems as though it's an issue in a number one because I think you start taking more spaces our pleasure that's not good the purpose yeah well the consultant said recommended bump outs for that reason but no one

wants to see us do bump outs so um so it's an issue we need to keep working on and I was happy that residents really raised it and helped kind of raise the concern so we are in the process of finalizing the potential acquisition list it was really helpful to have our um meeting that I just mentioned with City staff and we're going to send that off to our consultant and we're hoping that this whole process

begins to wind down so that we have these plans approved and can get them approved to buy the city council meepa DHC dhccd that just changed its name and I can't remember the new initials but um uh we're hoping that we're kind of winding down this process and starting to really look at implementation you had said something about giving it send out a questionnaire or a and you want to give some gift cards out I know

I volunteer them and I haven't heard you're doing it yet so we ended up switching our strategy and going to the Festa oh the other thing that's great I gave you all this revitalized the Flint little sticker and because we decided we would go out to these events um the Community Development agency agreed to pay for some swag for these things so we have bags that say Revitalize the Flint and some of the

especially older people took them when we were at the Festa and we have uh Flyers that are like Frisbees and um they say Revitalize the Flint we're giving those out to kids so I do still want to take you up on that but we ended up kind of strategizing differently in the meantime okay great

sir do we need you to talk about um Andrew at all yes so and Ken Ken jump in on this we had you know um sent a recommendation into the historic Commission State historic commission to expand the existing downtown historic district and we wanted to extend it from where it is along North Main down South Main and the staff at the historic commission had warned us that they thought that City

Hall and some of the modern buildings around City Hall were too much of a break and um that we couldn't just extend the existing historic district because too much can too many contemporary buildings were in the middle that broke the historic nature of Main Street and we gave our best shot at arguing that this is a historic building it's internationally recognized as new brutalism but none of that worked and

they came back with what we were quite surprised about that they didn't even suggest we create one new historic district for South Maine but that they would propose three separate districts so one would have seven buildings one would have 12 buildings and one would have fifteen and so they were set apart and so we're going so our consultant Andy um at our direction is writing back to

them saying can't we link these three separate districts into one South Main Street District we recognize that you're limiting us to really um the edges are the historic buildings but we're going to push back and see if we can at least get one District rather than trying to create three Ken do you want to add to that yeah just um in those buildings that are not contained in the district now

we think we can have them classified as non-contributing buildings so if you have a historic building here and a non-contributing building here and another historic building here rather than having separate districts going this way that way just classify this is a non-contributing building and have them all contiguous which means that a non-contributing building would not be eligible for

federal or state historic tax credits but we'd have one contiguous geographic area as opposed to having this this crazy hodgepodge of two or three districts in this area I'm not sure it makes sense and I guess there is precedent for including non-contributing buildings in historic districts I would guess specifically for that point right so that you can find some continuity of of approach here that's

the case with our existing historic district and um that's usually how it is that's how our consultant um you know proposed it and so he's going to give precedence in a number of places and we don't quite understand why they're being so conservative about it in that District can we explain that the one that's non-traditional would that still be under historically let's say somebody wanted to take it

down would have to wait six months to take it down so that would not make you eligible that if it was if it's a newer building some reason they want to take it out and put a different building up yeah I don't think so um that's a good point yeah initial gut reactions no but we'd have to clarify that sure the buildings that we're looking at along the main street as being non-contributing are um

bought in board and East in the courthouse right sure so those are non-contributing buildings West on Main Street right and what's that means people yeah yeah and the courthouse is not contributed buildings and then if you go further up and there's a few buildings just south of Columbia and uh Main share like um the little Variety Store in the corner and alvaro's barber yeah but then we hit the um

Alexander then you hit that little fire station which is contributing yep ta so again it's just that small separation right so just see if we can clean it up in a plaza across in ta yeah we're not even going to touch that site because there's really nothing on that side that's really of his dark brown I guess I guess anything else on that sir I don't think so stay tuned I said stay tuned you guys have

had her Municipal agreement for 60 days so I just need a motion to authorize me to sign the extension so motion to sign the extension of the intermunicipal agreement for 60 days second yeah Joan Medeiros yes Ron russin yes

cheer makes a finding that an open session would have a detrimental effect on negotiating the litigating position the purpose of the executive sessions is to improve the executive session minutes from May 24 to 2023 and discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation regarding the city peer project 2501 South Main Street and 45 anawan Street projects I need a roll call to enter into

executive session and return to open session as a conclusion on Erickson yes Joan Medeiros yes Robin yes I need a motion authorize the chair to sign beta proposal for Environmental Services in 45 minutes Street for the breakdown to June 14th proposal motion to move forward and have the chair signed the 9300 proso project number 7198 for 45 in one Street Fall River second second John Erickson yes in Wisconsin

yes anybody have anything anything else second yes Louis yes John Medeiros yes Ron rouson yes