7.29.2026 Redevelopment Authority

To the July 29th, 2026 meeting of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority.

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 recording and transmission are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, or are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

I'm going to start out with a roll call.

Johnny Erickson.

Ben Feidelberg.

John Medeiros.

That's it, I guess.

That's it.

Short and sweet.

I'm used to looking here and here.

Also attending, Sarah Page, executive director, John Copeland, legal counsel, Kane Faiola, administrative consultant, and Karen Martin, project manager.

First item, if there's not any, I don't have my second man.

Oh, Ben's got it.

Ben's got it.

Okay, so then, uh, if there's not any comments, I'll, um, entertain a motion to approve the open session minutes from July— June 24th, sorry, 2026.

A motion to approve the June 24th, 2026 open session minutes.

Second.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ben Feidelberg, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

Um, July warrant.

July warrant.

Joan has gone through the July warrant, and that totals $689,000.

I'm sorry, I was gonna say, wow, that's a lot.

It wasn't— didn't add up.

It's on the agenda.

Yeah, $125,229.10.

If everybody's good with that, I'll entertain a motion to approve that warrant.

A motion to approve the July warrant in the amount of $125,229.10.

Second.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ben Feidelberg, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

Let's see, Karen is going to talk about Northfield Point status.

Yes.

Northfield Point.

Well, first I want to thank everybody for coming out to the groundbreaking.

I thought it was— even though it was a hot day, it was a good day.

And I thought it was pretty well attended considering, so I want to thank everyone for coming.

And so work has started.

We have the water line is in all the way onto the property, all pretty much all the way up to where the yard hydrants would get installed.

The yard hydrants are not installed yet, he's waiting to get those in.

And all the granite seating and, you know, blocks that are to be placed, those have been placed placed.

And now there were just some grading discrepancies that came up as part of placing the granite.

So they did a re-review of everything, and the new grades came out today, actually.

So Tim will be back on site, if not Friday, Monday, and then he'll be able to just stay, stay with it till, um, till it's completed.

Um, and so the The only other thing that I have a proposal for that I want to talk about is I passed out to everybody an estimate from DaSilva.

Basically what it does is it shows on the proposal the addition of irrigation and sod in what we were kind of calling the outdoor classroom area.

So the extent of it is is in all the areas in green on the attached map.

And the reason I'm— I put together, had Tim put this together for us is because if we were to seed and try to procure getting a lawn there, it's going to take up to 6 weeks.

So that's going to mean that people can't walk on that or get in that area, whereas if we bring the irrigation and put the sod down, they can be on it in 48 hours.

So I think it's just going to be a much better option for us to be able to maintain the property and to also be able to open it to the public, at least for some time during the fall season.

And all of this, given the way that the bids came in, there is money in the grant to allow us to do this.

So I talked to the engineers about this proposal and everything seems to kind of fall in line with everything.

The sod price is a little bit more than you would, well, I shouldn't say it's a little bit more, it's just that there's more waste involved because of the contours of that outdoor classroom.

You're not putting in like straight runs of sod.

You've got to do a lot of cuts and there's some waste.

Whatever waste he has, he's going to try to lose on the site in some of the areas that butt up against the existing boardwalk.

So, um, but other than that, it's a reasonable proposal.

It's the Hydrawise controller that he's going to put in from Hunter, which is the same controller that we have over at City Pier.

So I know how to operate it.

It's, um, it should go It goes fairly smoothly.

I do it all on my phone.

It's quite nice.

And the only price that's not on here is the electrical price, and I'm working with the city and an electrician to get a final proposal for that because the city's bringing down some power down the boardwalk for us.

So we just gotta coordinate that, and then I'll probably have that price at the next meeting.

Karen, is that your writing or Tim's?

Oh, that's mine.

Does that say Black Beauty?

Yeah, so the sod that he had proposed is tall fescue, and I talked to him about it.

The Black Beauty, which is the high end of sod, aligns better with the mix that was in the specifications.

It's got— it includes the tall fescue, it includes some perennial ryegrass and some bluegrass, whereas the tall fescue is all fescue.

But he would put in the Black Beauty if Eric decided decided he wanted it.

So it's a— it's an equivalent.

What's your other, like, hieroglyphics after that?

Oh, that was just me figuring out the price.

Sorry, me, right?

It's the square footage plus the, the price per square foot.

I was just— my little hieroglyphics.

Sorry.

Karen, just out of curiosity, when the invitation to bid went out for this specific project, did any of the other contractors build in this change order into their— No, they would have bid just plans and specs.

We're still within the numbers though, aren't we, even with adding the $43,000?

What numbers are you talking about?

Yeah, so we would be— so there's enough money in the grant to cover this cost, and it's still within— but we put the estimate out at $750,000, and Tim's bid was $467,000, so.

So I would just need to— and it's somewhat more than 20% of the change order.

No, there's still about $45,000, $46,000 more if we ever needed it.

So, um, so I need you to approve this, then we need to approve change order number 1 to Da Silva and authorize either the chair or the executive director to sign it.

Quick question.

Yeah, the left of the green.

What's that there?

I see the trees.

Where are you?

Over here.

What's this other stuff here?

The white area?

Oh, that's all the native grass.

That's just— that's— they're going to grow taller.

Okay, so that's already there?

That's not already there.

They're going to be planted.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's— they're going to be established by— he'll be watering that.

They're, they're going to be, they're going to be the taller native grasses.

So that doesn't need irrigation?

No.

Okay.

No, that's my question.

You didn't think it was going to be— to irrigate the whole site was going to be closer to like double the price, and it didn't seem— this will be irrigated?

Yes, that will be irrigated.

And then, and then that's the sod area, and it'll be depending on how much use it gets, it'll be easier to maintain it with the irrigation as opposed to if we just had grass, it would end up potentially Never really looking great.

So it speeds up the time we can use it.

Yes.

Sod grows in pretty nicely too.

Yeah, and you can, with the irrigation, and once the project— you can get— we'll be able to get on it probably as soon as the project's really done.

Otherwise, it probably takes— it takes like 6 weeks for lawn to really establish before you can really walk on it.

And do anything.

And John Q.

Public will probably do their best to try to get on it as soon as possible.

So I'm just trying to prevent any bad wear and tear on the property.

Makes sense to me.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I would agree.

Thank you.

Then I'll entertain a motion to approve this.

It's actually a change order.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, uh, for the $43,650 to, uh, change to sod.

A motion to approve the change order to remove seed from lawn area and add irrigation and sod in accordance with Da Silva's estimate number 689 dated July 27th, 2026, in the amount of $43,650, and to authorize the chair or executive director to sign change order number to Da Silva's contract for this work.

Second.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ben Feidelberg, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

Mooring fields, Karen.

So we had the bid opening for the dinghy dock and the mooring fields at City Pier on July 16th.

We had 2 bidders.

Atlantic Coast Tug and Marine was low at $218,000, and Cavanaugh Marine came in second at $229,000.

Based on review of all the bid documents, it was discovered that Atlantic Coast didn't submit a good portion of the required documents that needed to be submitted with the bid, and Cavanaugh did submit a complete bid package.

So we considered Atlantic Coast and Tug to be a nonconforming bid response, so we sent them a letter and have not heard back from them, but we would like to proceed with Cavanaugh.

Beta did do a little bit of due diligence in calling Cavanaugh, and also we know Cavanaugh because they're the contractor that did the cathodic protection work, They— and just so you know, Toucavenant is going to be using Reagan Marine to install the timbers, and they're the ones who installed all the timbers along the dock that we currently have.

So— and that all went well.

What was that?

That all went well with them.

Yeah.

So I think it's— I think ultimately we're going to have a good team out there.

So— and this all came within the proposed budget, and we had a proposed budget of $250,000.

So this is all within the budget.

Okay, so I would just want to get the board's approval to proceed with awarding the contract to Kavanaugh Marine.

So I'll entertain a motion under this agenda item.

A motion to approve awarding the contract in the amount of $229,000 to Kavanaugh Marine Incorporated for the work associated with IFB number 2704 for the new dinghy dock at Norton City Pier 3 mooring fields and to approve the chair or executive director to sign the agreement.

Second.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ben Feidelberg, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

Any event updates, Karen?

Ron's 10 minutes out, just so you know.

Yeah, the only thing I want to— Ron's 10 minutes out.

He should be here any minute.

So on event updates, I just wanted to let you all know we did have the debrief meeting with South Coast.

Health event coordinators about their event.

They told us that they thought the event space is a great space.

There he is.

Is a great space, and their biggest concern, or which could, or recommended could go smoother, would be all the different licensing and permit requirements that the city has.

And I think some of that got lost in the shuffle between the transition between Sam and Sarah, the new city events coordinator.

So hopefully moving forward, especially for next year, you know, hopefully that will get a little bit, you know, more smoothed out.

And I'm going to make some edits probably to the application also, so.

But they were very happy with the event and how it turned out and all of that.

So that was great.

And then our only— we have 2 events, 2 big events left.

On August 8th, the Bay Coast Bank is having their anniversary celebration out there.

And then on August 22nd, the Narrows Take Me to the River concert.

And we have the Females in Action is doing exercise classes on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.

So that seems to be it for the event season.

So is that yoga?

It's— they actually do some like exercise stuff.

Like, I think they have some weights and stuff they all bring or something.

It's a little bit more than yoga.

It's more like HIIT type stuff.

How many events were hosted down there throughout the summer in total?

In total, we had the— we had the 3 big events, which have been South Coast Health— well, Fourth of July would be considered a big event too.

So the city had Fourth of July kite night, and that's really all the city had down there.

And then we had South Coast Health, Bay Coast Bank, and then the Narrows Take Me to the River.

So that's 5 big events.

And then the FIFA groups got August July and August for exercise classes.

So, okay.

Also joining us is Ron Rusin.

So let's see, what's next?

45 Anawan.

Cathodic protection.

Oh, cathodic protection.

Oh, cathodic protection.

So cathodic protection, I just wanted to say that we did the 1-year warranty inspection is complete.

I'm just waiting for the final sign-off from the engineers, but I was there the day of the dive and all anodes are still in place.

And secured.

And the cathodic engineer went out there and he said that it's— and he checked all throughout the whole site and everything exceeded the minimum requirements for cathodic protection.

The system is operating properly, so we're in great shape with that system.

So that's all, um, that is a wrap on that.

Are we going to be testing that every 5 years from now?

We used to both, so You— so every 5 years they're supposed to do a dive inspection of your bulkhead.

Okay.

So in doing that, the question is, do you want to do a cathodic inspection?

I mean, ultimately those anodes are going to wear away.

They have a 20-year warranty on them.

So as long as— I don't know if you need to do that every 5 years.

You could do it like that maybe every— on your 10th year you could do that just to make sure you've got continuity.

With the welds is what makes that whole thing work, the continuity of the welds.

So, um, I— we can talk about it as to whether we want to do the dive inspection and cathodic inspection every 5 years or not.

But you're supposed to, with the bulkhead, do it every 5.

So you'd probably be due with that.

And if that went in in 2020, we just did an inspection in theory.

So be 5 more years from now.

Oh, 5 years from now.

Yeah, because he— they inspected the bulkhead before they put the anodes on.

So, so 5 years from last year, so it'd be like 2030.

Okay.

So that's a wrap.

So Karen— and on Street— Joe and Karen got the keys.

I know Karen got the keys.

I can't say I was smiling when I got the keys, but I got the keys.

Congratulations.

Yeah, congratulations.

Careful what you wish for.

You should have brought champagne for that.

So 6 years on July 17th, we became the proud owners of 45 Anawan Street.

And, um, also I had MD Lock meet, meet us there.

We worked with the, um, the Liberty Utilities maintenance guy, and we changed out all the cores on all the gates and all the buildings.

I have a keying system because we don't know what we're doing with the buildings, so each building is keyed differently.

It's a little more complicated than I envisioned in my head, but I have it all straightened out and written down.

And so since getting it keyed, we've been able to have— I'm waiting for the fence guy to come over.

There's I don't want to say it's in public, but there's a big gap in the fence between the Marine Museum and the fence on the property.

He's going to fix that.

And then there's a frozen gate that he's going to unfreeze and make sure that we can get in and out of it if we have to.

And we— the cameras are now all installed, and we have full camera surveillance of the property.

And I have had DeSilva over there, they've been cleaning up all the scrub stuff that's in all the corners.

He's got along the fence line of the gates and the back corner by Building 4 still to clean out.

And he's also weed whacked all the high brush that's growing.

He's been getting that.

And once he's got his stuff all cleaned out, I've talked to DCM and we're going to have the street sweeper go through and clean the lot.

And I've also got an electrician going out there to check.

There was a charging station that ran just outside of Building 4 along the line where the gate— where the gates are, and there's a bunch of receptacles that come up, so he's going to kill those and cut those.

And Building 6, which we're proposing to put to keep and put our, um, like Wi-Fi and parking lot stuff and everything in.

He's going to put some strip lights in.

Right now it's an explosion-proof switch that's in there, and it's very interesting to try to turn a light on, and there's only these little dull lights.

So he's going to put LED strips and a normal switch on.

So, um, so he's going to hopefully get to that next week.

Um, so there's a couple things I passed out a— where'd it go?

I got too much stuff here.

Ah, so I passed out a kind of a Gantt chart of what we want to do on this property.

A couple of things we should think about doing right away.

So since our intent is to do demolition of buildings on this site, all these buildings, as I mentioned before, are listed in the, um, significant structures for the city of Fall River, which means that they have purview by the Historical Commission.

So what we— I think we should do is to immediately put the Historical Commission on notice that our intent is to demo the buildings on this property.

We should hopefully be able to get a 6-month moratorium where we can't do any demo for 6 months.

They could push it to a year, we'll have to see.

Um, the other thing that we can do concurrently, depending on if you want or not, is you can write to— you can appeal to the city council for an exemption.

It is supposed to be a hardship exemption, and we could discuss that, you know, delaying doing this work is just going to continually increase the cost of the project to us.

So we could do those kind of concurrently, and if we get the exemption then we could— you have 5 years to do whatever you want based on that exemption.

If you don't do anything in those 5 years, then you have to either reapply or go back to the Historic Commission.

So I'm kind of unsure.

I think we need to put the Historical Commission on notice for sure.

I think that we should think about whether we want to go for the exemption or not with City Council.

Any thoughts?

Can they think about meeting right away and say, don't need the 6 months, we're all set with it.

That's what city council would do, is they would— can the historic commission say that we have to give them 6 months?

Can they come back in one meeting and say, okay, we've talked about it, it's okay if you want to demo the buildings?

They could.

They historically have not.

Okay, they want to have a use for that.

I can see if they had a use for it or if there was something historical there that happened, there's a reason why we're not taking it.

But if there's no reason, why do we have to wait take 6 months.

I'm just— if we go to a meeting that they're having and we say this is the reason why we need it now, you think they would do it instead of going through the city council?

Well, I think in the letter that I think, uh, we would want to craft, so we would say that, you know, we would be more than willing to attend the meeting to discuss it.

Okay, so it's not— it's not just the one on Water Street that's historic, the other 2?

All 5 of— all the— all 5 of the remaining buildings.

Local Historic Register?

Yeah, they're not National.

They're not the national, there's local.

But the city— even 5, that's like a garage, isn't it?

Yeah, they put all the buildings— even the little shed is on there.

Is it because it's over 100 years old?

No, no, no, because they feel like putting them there.

And if the property owner didn't object, then they're on there.

Right.

And they're buildings of significance.

They're not saying that they're really historically significant.

But it gives the Historical Commission control.

Probably in the '50s, is that right?

'60s?

I'm not sure.

I think Building 4 and Building 1 have been around a long time.

Yeah, I think those are just looking at the construction.

Yeah, no, there's no criteria that you have to follow in order to be listed on the Local Historical Commission.

I may be wrong, but I think what happens is they determine that they may be historically significant, then they notify the property owner.

And then unless there's an objection by the property owner, then not having an objection, they're putting on the list.

As the new property owners, could we now have an objection to that?

I don't think so.

You buy it with that lovely stipulation.

You wonder why Liberty didn't object, but they probably never thought they were going to sell it, so it didn't really matter, right?

They probably never read the letter.

Depends on who got it.

The building that I think everyone agrees has some historic significance is the one on Water Street where the inside is very interesting.

Yeah, number 1, with all the rock.

Um, and that's the one that there is some interest in, and, um, we may not want to demolish that one, but we want to put people on notice that we may want to demolish it.

Is that something that we could work into the proposal with the Historical Commission, saying that Building 1 is something that we're looking to facilitate some kind of interest in, but our plans for the other buildings— I think the best way to approach it is say we want to take them all down.

And then depending on how things shake out, as we talk to people, develop a scope of work for the, for the property, then we can determine what's going to stay or go.

It's just a notice that starts.

Yeah.

You don't have to tear them down.

Yeah, it starts.

And at the end of the day, once you go through your statutory waiting period, you can do what you want with them.

So you can keep them or you knock them down if there's interest.

So the other concern— so just one question on Building 4.

Yep.

Is that those solar panels working?

So I have the contact for the solar company and I'm having difficulty.

I emailed him and said, you know, you know, let me know when you might be available to talk And this solar company I think they're working with now is like a— not the original one, but another one who bought them.

So one is definitely working.

When you look at that meter, it's definitely churning.

This one, one day I go there and there's nothing going on.

One day I go there and you see it blinking a little bit.

So I don't really know.

So because that may, that may also impact if there's contracts with be solar companies.

Well, that's what I'm trying to— that may impact their ability too.

Supposedly they don't.

They've— they're end of life.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't know how long they've been on there.

Supposedly they are 20 years.

Yeah.

And I think because there was that appraisal that was done and they were pretty much near end of life.

Yeah.

Um, but they are still supposedly generating some credits, and I don't know if one more than 4.

I don't know.

And who's getting the credits?

Liberty right now.

I can't even get National Grid to give it to me.

So it's not about the purchase and sale, it's about— Well, until we change the meters over.

Until we switch the meter over.

And I am on my 5th attempt with National Grid to get the meters changed.

So I now have someone, I'm going to have Jay, I'm going to have my buddy reach out for me.

Also, you better find out and get a copy of the agreement.

Find out whose cost it is to dispose of them.

It's very expensive to get rid of solar panels.

Well, so I— yeah, I have a whole conversation I want to have with this company.

So, um, uh, because that's— I'm going to tell them that that's ultimately what we may end up doing.

So what do we— you know, I want the copy of the agreement because I'm assuming they're going to have to sign a new agreement with us if we want to use them, because the old agreement with Liberty would be void unless the 20-year agreement says if you don't stop it It extends automatically, which most of them do do that.

Yeah, so I don't know.

So still more information to come on that.

Like I say, I think the one on Building 1 is still like cranking off some stuff.

So where's Building 2?

Building 2 is demolished.

So it's not on here.

Yeah, and the only reason I kept these— I didn't see the building number.

So I keep these same numbers because these are the numbers that are on the buildings when you go on the property.

I don't think we need to reinvent that wheel, so.

Um, and so that's how I've left— that's why I've left them like that.

No, you are not.

Um, so, and it— so next steps would be— so I'm in the process now of what you'd consider securing and cleaning up the site.

So that should pretty much be done hopefully by the end of next week.

Um, the— and then I'm going to sweep the lot, and then next week we have Beta coming out and they're going to do the hazardous materials inspection of each building, and that's going to take them 2 days on site, maybe a third depending if they find— if they think that there's, you know, if it's taking them longer than what they thought.

And then hopefully they're going to send some stuff out for testing and they'll get a report to us.

That'll roughly take 3 weeks to turn around.

Then we got to figure out, do we want to open this lot for free parking or not?

Temporarily.

Temporarily.

Did you do some legwork on the gate?

Yeah, so there is— so the automatic gates do not currently work.

The one that's on Anna Wan Street, when the people did the remediation, they ripped up the power, so there's no power to that at all.

The one that is on Water Street There is $220,000 coming out of the building that we could use to reliven that gate.

So I'm trying to get a hold of Richie over at Highland Fence because he actually did that gate for Liberty.

So I want to talk to him about what it would take to liven that gate up again.

Because if we want to do temporary parking, the question is, do we want overnight parking there or not?

My thought would be if we're going to do temporary parking, just open the gate on Water Street and let people park, and we'll just have that gate be open all the time.

And if we don't want overnight parking, then I would need signage to say that, and we would need an automatic gate that would open and close on time.

So I don't know what everyone's thoughts are about that.

Well, it's going to be tough to give it for free and then charge later.

So that's— so that's— let's go to this Gantt chart here.

So is there any reason why we can't accelerate the bid package to August as opposed to the middle of September?

Well, part— so part— I don't— I need an engineer to give me a proposal to work on this.

We don't have that right now, and that's what I'm— I can, I can jump right on, but I'm trying to figure out what we're doing and the timing of it, because we can't demo.

So the problem is, is that I can get the charging— you can— to get the charging system, the, the parking system is going to take at least a month once you get approvals and know everything you're going to do.

That's just to get the system, but there's more scope that goes with it.

Are we going to temporarily stripe and charge and then close it and then demo buildings, restripe, because at that point I'm probably going to have to take parking equipment off and put back on because we'll need access to, um, for bigger pieces of equipment to get on site that may not be clear.

Once you lift that gate, you should be able to get in and out though.

Depends on the width of what they want.

Like, I'm— I have a walkthrough, but you could also bring them in through the water channel on Street.

You know, on streets, smaller opening than Water Street.

I think that's pretty— they were bringing big trucks in and out of there.

Yeah, no, you could.

So I don't think it would damage the gate, if that's the question.

Not the gate, the equipment itself.

That's why I would be— yeah, I doubt it.

But something to look at.

Yeah, I just think that 2 things.

I think if you can accelerate the bid package, that may get us to a point where we could actually charge a nominal fee or whatever you're going to charge.

And then secondly, from free parking, I don't know what that does from an insurance standpoint.

Insurance doesn't care.

They think it's a parking lot right now.

I'd be surprised about that.

No, they think it's a parking lot right now.

So you're not going to have any additional liability once you allow the public to park in there?

Well, it's already insured.

It's already insured.

Overnight parking might change things.

No, she said it did not matter.

Okay, I think you want to get that in writing.

I think I have it in writing in an email.

Yeah, just to be on the safe side.

Have any conversations been held with the neighboring businesses?

Could you potentially lease that property for the time being until construction begins?

So if you talk with the Narrows and Troy City and Primo's, if they're looking for parking effectively now, there might be some some leverage there in that conversation to say we can open this space.

Well, they have free parking in that lot that's right next to the building right now.

I mean, we could ask, but we would still need to figure out about the overnight parking and whether we want to allow overnight parking and whether we want to gate.

Can we back up a second?

Why do we even want to entertain overnight parking?

It's just— I agree with you.

Can't you— I don't— I— couldn't we just have the gate shut it?

Whatever time.

We would need to put the automatic gate because guess what, I'm not going out every night and closing the gate.

Yeah, we could.

Yeah, but I don't— I think entertaining overnight parking has got trouble attached to it.

Yeah, because you could end up with abandoned vehicles, you could end up with it, you know what I mean?

It could be— yeah, I mean, I agree.

I don't think overnight parking is a good idea, but that's me and you're the board.

So I'll do whatever you guys want me to do.

The only thing I'm thinking out loud, but I don't know what time you would pick, but I think Primos on certain nights is open really late.

They're open till 1 on Saturday, Friday and Saturday.

Yeah.

So that's kind of where this whole question about overnight parking came from, right?

Is because you've got to have gates that are adjusting to close at different times and There was a question whether we'd even have those gates in initially.

So there's 2 different— so once you get the parking system in place, that manual gate's gone, right?

You know what I mean?

Because what will happen is the arm will just lock at a certain time.

So the question is, is that you really have to decide, one, if you're going to have overnight parking, whether it's going to be on a temporary basis or a regular basis.

So, but, so why, why would we have overnight parking?

I mean, there— I don't even know, is that next building even have people living in it?

Well, why would you have overnight parking?

Why would you, or why wouldn't you?

Why would we need it?

Yeah, I mean, for— that would be for people who live where we don't need overnight parking.

I don't think— yeah, I don't think we necessarily need it.

Yeah.

So then the question just becomes, when do you close that gate?

If somebody's at a restaurant, they drink too much and get Ubered home, they might leave the car there, and there's a stranger here and there overnight parking.

That's the only thing I can think of.

But the other thing you mentioned about, uh, you know, doing temporary— I would think about the whole project, what you might do, and then make believe it's done, and then drew the lines like that so we're not doing the lines all over again.

Like, we have to do the lines all over again when we demo the buildings.

Yeah, yeah, you're going to, you're going to, you'll put a new coating over it and then restripe once the buildings are demoed.

All right, that makes— then that changes the whole thing then.

I see a lot of really like brand new tar over there already, so I thought you were just gonna, you know, maybe put black, they seal it and then make it all look— it looks pretty good from this side anyway.

Yeah, it doesn't look that great.

Yeah, it doesn't look that great when you're there.

Well, I said, you know, the issue that Ben brought up is, I don't know if they say temporary license, and then have them responsible for closing it at night.

Who's that?

Say that again.

Temporary license with the Narrows or the Primo or somebody like that.

But we walked in there ourselves into an issue that, you know, down the road we're going to say, sorry, you know, this has got a limited life to it.

No, I think everybody expects that.

It's going to be— as long as everybody's clear on it.

Okay, I know, I know everybody down there expects it's going to be paid parking.

If they have a vent next door at the, uh, gates, how do you control that?

Where somebody would park if they're not— anybody can park.

Oh, I thought you said that you were going to the Primos and have them just close the gate at night or something.

Yeah.

Right?

And Aaron's already rents the Battleship lot behind.

Yeah, behind.

But we let Primos use it when we don't have a show.

But still, I was there last night, there's cars everywhere.

There's another show tonight, and Primos has no parking at all.

There are a couple of spots in the street there.

That's it.

The other thing is maybe there's a way on a temporary— the gate that's there, that could be on a timer.

Yeah, I'd have to just get it all hooked up and get it on.

I just got to make sure I'm trying to talk to— gate closes at 1:00 AM.

Yeah, that's what we'd have to do.

Doesn't open at 9:00 AM next morning.

Yeah, if I can— right, maybe that's the way to do it, just to hook that up temporarily until we get the— I think that would be better than trying to get— I mean, we'd get money if we leased it, but— no, no, I agree.

So, I mean, that's the way to do it.

Just have a big sign, gates close at 1:00 AM, 1:30, whatever it is.

But then if you're in there, you're locked in there to the next one.

So you're saying Ricky's looking at the one that— I'm trying to get ahold of him because I had it.

He was out there, but he said he didn't— he needed 220 and I found it.

Is that Anawan or Water Street?

It's at Water Street.

Water Street.

I think Anawan would just be like an emergency exit or something.

That's a chain.

Once it's finally done, yeah, but there's no power over there right now.

We wouldn't open that right now.

Yeah.

So now that I know that there's 220, now it's a matter of what— because Water Street's big enough for cars in and out.

Yes, absolutely.

Right.

And when these signs that we're not responsible if any cars broke into them.

Yeah.

So I mean, package on risk, all the disclaimers in the world.

Yeah.

So I've got no trespassing signs for all the buildings, which is correct.

Required by insurance.

And I have our name on them with our number to call.

And I would need being videotaped.

Yeah, so I have the cameras and everything.

And then I'll also have to put up signage about the lighting.

Is there enough lighting for nighttime?

There seems to be.

So I'm going to try to get out there at night.

I mean, when I look on the cameras, it looks like all the floodlights that are on the buildings are working.

And it seems lit up.

The cameras also have night vision.

Yeah, so I'm not totally sure how great it is, so I gotta actually get out there at night.

Are one of those lights on the Marine Museum?

There is a light on the Marine Museum, yes, but I, I'm not sure.

That's why I'm not sure.

National Grid over yet, or what was that?

Did we switch the account over yet?

Um, I've had made 5 appointments with National Grid and they have never— you're talking about Yeah, so today was day 5 and it passed.

So I am going inside now.

So the biggest thing is even if— so I can try to tighten up the scope of work and the final lot design, but the problem is— so I'm going to do it— so we're going to end up doing it twice.

So I'm going to do it on a temporary lot.

And no charge, right?

So we're going to do a temporary lot, no charge, which is fine, which is what this shows.

And then the paid parking for the final design is what I'm showing from develop scope of work and final lot design, because the final scope of work is going to kind of have to determine what buildings are coming down and what ones we're going to keep.

I don't know if we can do— so where's that?

Which line item is that?

Develop SOW and final lot design.

Yeah, so we can't finalize the parking lot until the buildings are down, right?

No, we can find— so if we know all the— we can't make the improvements to the parking area until the— right, but we can't— so the final layout you'll be able to know once you take all the buildings down.

The actual, you know, the black topping or whatever you're going to do, you can't do any of that until that's done.

Yes.

And then, so then we'd have to prepare a bid package, then you're going to have to give them a month to bid, and then we have to bring it to the board for approval.

I was assuming we'd bring it in the November And then we would do— and then we'd award it right after that meeting, kind of spilled into December, but we couldn't start demo until January.

So we would start demo in January, and then we would figure that we'd have a projected completion of the final lot like April 30th.

When are you going to the Historic Commission?

I'm going to get the letter out.

I'm going to try to— I'll draft it tomorrow.

I'll have John look at it and Sarah look at it and we'll get that.

I don't know when their next meeting is.

I meant to look at that, but I didn't get a chance to do that.

But they meet monthly, so.

I assume we'll go to the meeting after we send the letter because I'm sure there will be lots of questions.

How many parking spaces?

So if we were to put it in right now as is, Um, I'm meeting with the, the guy from Beta, um, Wednesday morning.

It'd be roughly— because they show 118 spaces, but, um, he's got them spaces that don't really work, so I have to— we have to walk through that.

But it's going to be somewhere around 110, probably.

That's with the buildings or without them?

That's with all the buildings.

So if we take out the buildings, we'll be picking up additional spaces?

Yes, if you take out all the buildings, you'll pick up close to, I think, like 180.

That's, that's a lot of parking.

Yeah.

How many spaces in the battleship lot?

If you clean that lot up, if you clean that lot up and stripe it right, you can get a lot more in there.

I don't think they got 180 now.

No, but if you clean that lot up and stripe it right, you get a lot more.

But you're talking about a different lot.

In the battleship lot.

No, we're talking about the one they lease from.

Yeah, the one they— the Narrows rents.

Yeah, yeah.

If they clean that up and stripe it, you'd get a lot more cars in there.

I was just trying to get a sense of— yeah, I don't think there's 180 in there.

I don't think it's that many.

I don't remember.

Are there windows on buildings 3, 5, and 6?

Not just the— uh, 6 doesn't— 6 has some, um, Glass brick at the top, because Building 6 is an explosion-proof building.

Building 5 and Building 3 have windows, yes.

Do we want to board those and secure them?

We could, but then it's such an ugly look.

Battleship windows next to the tree.

We're inviting trouble.

I hear what you're saying.

We can.

What are you saying, Jill?

To board the windows on 3 and 5.

You can make them decorative, make them— put boards over them, paint windows on them.

Yeah, even though we're not taking them down.

Yeah, taking them down.

I think you're right.

You don't want people— yeah, we're just inviting trouble if we don't do something to secure it better.

They got those buildings with the fake windows on them.

Yeah, yeah.

Would you— if you're worried about the aesthetic.

Yeah, I bought it from the inside, so it would still kind of look real.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but just do something.

Yeah, we're not inviting any situation.

Yeah.

So what, main level or all the way up?

There's only one story.

There's— there are— they're single.

Yeah, they're single stories.

Okay, so we're going to— you're going to check on the gate to see if it can be operated automatically.

Yeah, on some sort of— I'm assuming it can be because there's 220s there and it did work.

So I think it's just a matter of— so it'd be free parking until such time we take down the buildings and restructure the lot.

Yeah.

So we would— so in essence, we would be closing the temporary parking lot sometime like at the end of December.

Because if this— we have to wait for the to demo in January.

So we also may be able to get the— I don't know if we even need it.

But the temp— the finalized gate, there's no rush if we can control the gate now.

Correct.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

And we will not open the gate on Annawan Street.

That'll just be a dark gate.

So we— so are you saying like, we might have to stripe it temporarily?

Yes, we'll stripe it temporarily.

Can't be a humongous amount of money.

I can't.

I think it was $35 per spot last time.

Yeah.

So if you do 100 spots, yeah, so I'm figuring it's gonna be somewhere between $5,000 and $7,500.

So I just got to get some pricing on it.

That— I don't know if that'll be a true check.

Do it over again at the end.

It's not a huge thing.

Yeah, it's not a lot.

And I haven't spent much of the money that's been allotted for the property to spend it.

So That $125,000 that you guys gave me, I've probably only spent not even $20,000 of it yet.

So can we start getting bids to demolish what we want demolished before the 6 months is over?

Yeah, that's what, that's what this shows, Ron, but I have to get a bid package together and a full scope of work and all of that.

So that's what I'm— that's— I gotta figure out which building we want to demolish, right?

Yeah, so that's— so we're going to really have to think about which of those buildings.

So if anybody knows of anybody who's interested And any looking at any of those buildings, they should speak now or forever hold their peace.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So that prepared bid package was for the buildings?

It's for the whole— it's for the buildings, the resurfacing of the lot, any electrical that has to get done, because we're going to have to— when we take down the buildings, you have to move the electrical.

So about the gate, and it would be the parking system too.

Okay, so that's in there?

Yeah, that's all in there too.

Lighting?

What?

Lighting?

Yeah, so we'll have to— so we're taking down the building, we're going to have to redo the lighting, we're going to have to move the electrical service, we're going to have to demo the buildings, resurface a lot, restripe the lot.

Fencing will probably become an issue.

We might have to rearrange some of the fencing.

And what else was I thinking?

Who paid for the security cameras?

We do.

We do.

We can see if there's any grant money out there that could help us with any of the demo and all of that, but I'm not so sure.

Yeah, it's probably, that's going to be all on our dime.

Is that all of it that's in the water now?

Isn't there a number for the cameras?

It's half of the price.

$4,400.

Oh, that's just a deposit, okay.

But he's done.

So we have to have access for the gas department to get in there for his easement.

So I'm waiting on the final survey plans, and then I'm going to take them down to Dan in engineering, and I'm going to— one of my plans is to try to get that Pond Street extension re-established so that we can have Liberty access the high-pressure gas lines off of the Pond Street, so they won't have to come on our property.

'Cause it could be a nightmare if we have a full lot 'cause there's an event or something and they have to bring tanker trucks in to either raise the pressure, lower the pressure, or whatever they have to do to those lines.

So— I was going to say, is that area fenced off?

It is all fenced off, yeah.

So if we can get that reestablished, that'll make life a lot easier for us in their access to the property.

They would just need to put a gate in the little lot, and I'm pretty sure they could manage that.

I think.

Yeah, you maybe also, if you keep any of the buildings, you could floodlight them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you don't have to put poles, right?

Yeah.

And if one's on the Marine Museum, I think there's already one on the Marine Museum.

There is, and I'm just not sure if it's, if it's their power or our power that's powering it.

So, okay.

That building's a mess.

So, all right, so I'll proceed then with, um, getting it set up temporarily.

I'll look about getting that fence charged, and I'll look, um, at getting, um, uh, striping.

Are there any more events at the gates between now and— there's one August 8th.

Yeah, we won't have it ready by then.

Yeah, and they, they want the park if If they asked in the parking lot, we need to stay open till 2 in the morning.

I'm like, 2 in the morning?

Yeah, because the events go till 12, and they figure by the time they clear everybody out, it'd be 2 in the morning.

All right, so that is how I will proceed.

Okay, I suppose if we, if we give it a time on the lot They'll have access that we can change them for an hour if we want to.

Yeah, so when I, when I was talking to him about it, you— there'll be like an app you can go on if you need to change the times for any special event or something like that.

So it's an app for it.

You can just have it assigned to you temporarily for today, or we open it today, or they can work around your schedule.

Yeah, yeah, you just have them get out of there at 1.

Yeah, I mean, I can't— so my thing would be you'd probably stay open later, so that would really work in Parker's favor as opposed to our favor.

I can't imagine we'd ever close it earlier.

But I don't know, situation may arise.

And if you're going to snowplow it.

Yeah, so that is the other thing, we would— we will have to clear the snow.

But we need something there anyway, just so even if you weren't doing anything, just to have access.

Congratulations.

I wasn't doubting it.

So you all set with that, Karen?

I believe I am.

Should we have a groundbreaking when we have the gates up?

Uh, Sarah, you're going to talk about Pleasant Street, or if there is something to talk about.

Oh yes, unfortunately there is.

I chatted with Joan about it this afternoon.

So, um, I guess the good news is that Emily Innes sent in a final version of the urban renewal plan to, um, the housing department, EOHLC, and, um, we heard back from our staff person there.

There were lots of things mentioned that needed to be fixed, but I don't think anything is major.

So I haven't talked, it just came, I haven't talked with Emily yet to find out what she thinks.

But we already have an amendment that should include that work.

The bad news is that We had written a letter that we worked hard on to send to Secretary Tepper, the head of the agency that oversees MEPA, and we then decided to ask for help intervening to try to stop the project.

To be sure that we didn't get stuck in months of review.

And so Doug Guttrow, who is the permitting liaison for the governor's office, who's in the economic development office, had come and met with us and said, if you ever need help with permitting, I'm a liaison and I can help you.

So we talked with him and he said he would go to bat for us with EOHLC, well, with Economic Development and the Lieutenant Governor's Office to try to get the scope of work rescinded.

So basically, because we had a MEPA review of our environmental notification form.

We didn't necessarily qualify for the change in the regulations that we worked so hard to get changed.

There was a belief within MEPA that because we already had a scope of work identified for an EIR, an environmental impact report, that we still needed to do one even though the regulations had changed.

And our consultants had talked with MEPA and found that that was the director's belief.

So the intervention was to ask that, that scope of work be rescinded so that we'd be consistent with the new regulations.

Well, it turned out that even though Doug went to the Lieutenant Governor's office to ask for us to have relief, we still had to meet with Tori Kim, who said that we either had to do the EIR because we had a scope of work for it already identified, or we could do a notice of project change, which as Ken agrees is a pretty simple form.

However, Tory said that we had to still address every item in the scope of work that is in the— was identified for an EIR.

And so even though in the Notice of Project Change we're saying we want you to rescind the scope of work because it's no longer required under the new regulations, she still wants us to address all the items identified in the EIR.

So I've gone through this and there are some where we can say this is just a, you know, a plan that's prospective.

This is just a prospective plan.

It's not a real plan.

There's no definite project happening.

Some items we can say that.

And not have to do more.

But she expects us to analyze, um, the amount of utilities that would be used, analyze the number of parking spaces and how they're going to be addressed.

I pushed back on that with her and said, well, you know, we're talking about buildings that would be developed and built, you know, through a 20-year period.

All kinds of things can change that would make parking totally unable to be identified now.

And so there are some that we can address reasonably easily.

Others, she's expecting us to have— Can I just say something?

Yeah.

Can I intervene on this?

Yeah.

In Boston and speak directly with her?

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah, because what you're saying makes absolutely no sense.

I know.

I'm not saying that you're saying— right, I'm just saying the process makes no sense.

There's something that's being lost in translation.

Okay, so I'd like the opportunity to speak directly to them on this and try to get a better clarification.

Okay, that sounds great.

Yeah, you know, because this is— it doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't change the regulations.

And we're doing a notice of project change, we don't have to address all those other issues like they're part of the project because they're no longer part of the project, right?

They never were.

They're no longer part of the project.

Well, they're no longer required by the regulations or part of the project.

Stafford Square is no longer part of this project, right?

Well, Stafford Square is not an issue because we can say the plans haven't been developed.

Right, but that's in the EIR, right?

So there's certain things that I think we've just got to muddle through.

So this is— let me see if I can speak to him directly on this.

All right.

So, and you think you'll be able to get an answer in a couple of weeks?

I don't know, a couple weeks.

But see, that's my concern, is that we keep— certainly within 30 days, we keep, you know, pushing on them.

I know.

Only— and the only reason I'm not saying it's just my time in a couple weeks, so then 30 days will be— I'll stop it.

I'll stop the compensation shortly.

Yeah.

Should we just submit a simple notice of project change in the meantime?

Or you said you sent a letter in.

I don't know what the letter says.

No, we didn't send the letter because we found that we really needed to just have this conversation with Troy.

But if you could just put me— put together a memo.

Yep.

Highlighting where you think you are on this thing, and then this way I'll have something I can work off of and speak to them directly about.

To who are you going to speak to?

I'll speak to whoever I need to speak to.

Okay.

Um, you know, the other option is to just answer every question as this is speculative, but that's not what— that's going to cost time and money for the redevelopment authority because you're going to have your consultants do that.

Well, no, I mean, I can, I can answer every question very succinctly, succinctly, with this is not, um, this is just a speculative plan.

But that's not what she's asking for.

She is asking— so that'd be, that'd be exercise in futility, right?

I would think so.

Okay, so I don't think we wanna do that.

No, I don't think so either.

So that if we had to have consultants work with us on it, it would cost more money.

And I went to one thing that I'm not sure, the board is really aware of is that we have $60,000 set aside for us by MassHousing, which we've been using for some of these consultant costs.

And so I asked if we could use some of that $60,000 toward consultants if we need to go through this whole exercise.

And it really isn't workable because by the state purchasing laws, they feel that even though they funded us to have Innis Associates work on this for the last several years, because we paid Innis originally and we put it out to bid, they're working process now within MassHousing is that they wouldn't fund us to do it, they would fund the consultant directly and they would put them out to bid themselves.

So they would feel that they need to put it— put this project out to bid and we might not be able to work with Innis Associates, which makes no sense to start a new consultant on this project.

And we could let them talk with their lawyers and see if in a month or two we got an answer about whether they would let us work with Ennis Associates and they would pay for it.

But they're very— they believe it's unlikely and that it would take a month or two to get that that answer.

So that doesn't seem like a helpful approach.

Sarah, is there a deadline on that money?

No, there isn't.

Unbelievably, there isn't.

We're part of a hub program, and as long as we're in the program, that money is still available to us.

And so we go to meetings and I talked with her about what we could use it for, and we could use it for analysis of funding for different approaches toward buildings that we may want to acquire.

And there may be other ways that we could use it, and we really should figure out how we want to use it because we've not been using it because We've been focused on the potential we would need to use it to fund the EIR.

But the more recently I've learned that no matter how we approach the EIR, they would have felt they had to put it out to bid.

And we don't wanna start over with consultants.

So now we have to figure out how to use that $60,000 in a way that will really help us in Flint.

So that's something we should work on.

So any questions on that?

Congressman Auchincloss was supposed to come and take a visit to some of the projects in the Flint today, but it got canceled because of the rain.

And how he was going to look at youth painting murals and visit gardeners at the community garden, neither of which would be happening in the rain.

So we have that to look forward to probably in October.

So then the North North Downtown Historic District, NOMA, has a few things happening.

One is that on August 15th, there's going to be a Taste of Fall River.

The streets will be closed, a band will be playing, and a lot of restaurants will be having stalls and letting people have samples and probably purchase different specialties of theirs.

So that's the evening of Saturday, August 15th, and one of the scheduled events that was planned a number of months ago.

On Purchase Street?

Yep, on Purchase Street.

Now that we have this scope single agent.

We're applying to a number of entities that are support— have expressed interest in supporting the work.

And so we're sending out— Joseph Holdeman is working on it.

I think that Jasmine in the mayor's office is going to help, and we're getting a lot of applications out.

That we can fund bands and some of this work.

And Bank 5 would definitely like to fund banners with us along North Main Street.

They wouldn't fund all of them, all of them, but they would fund banners near their big building.

And so I've been talking with the city about they're allowing banners.

There's been a long time that the city's felt that banners cost— once they do banners in one neighborhood, all neighborhoods want banners.

And even if the neighborhoods pay for the banners, the expectation has been that the Department of Community Maintenance would put them up, and then if they ripped, that they would put up replacements.

And so what we're looking at and talking with the city about is that the banners would be put up by the company that prints the banners, which may be Baker Signs, and that we would have extra banners, and there, there would be a maintenance piece to it, and so that the city wouldn't be having to deal with putting them up or replacing them.

And I think the city in that instance will allow us to do banners on North Main Street, but I'm still waiting for the mayor's office to confirm that.

And then we'll need to work with folks in the neighborhood to finish raising money for that.

What we have been working on is that the NOMA had applied to the Southeast Visitors Bureau for the funding that is provided to visitors bureaus by the state.

And so $4,000 was set aside and it needed to be matched with $6,000.

And, um, thanks to Johnny, his firm and Johnny have contributed the $6,000.

So we have $10,000 that's now being spent for advertising, for a video that would be taken throughout the year of different events and then be able to be put on social media.

There would be— Viva is going to work on social influencers advertising the district.

And we're working on this big banner sign that will go on the building that Joseph owns that had the bank sign.

I guess it was Bank of Fall River.

It was a huge sign.

And so we have someone designing an interesting kind of billboard that would say NOMA on one side and Downtown Historic District and then have a lot of graphics that are being developed that kind of pick up designs in the neighborhood.

So he's working on some of the tree grates have these interesting designs on them.

And so that's all in process and being funded through this combination of grant and matching grant.

Sorry, the, the $10,000 that you referenced, is that directly to NOMA, or is that— who, who's using that $10,000 for that specific marketing budget?

It's a really interesting program where the state requires that the, um, Southeast Visitor— Southeast Visitors Bureau actually gets the funds from the matching funds.

So they went to our fiscal sponsor and are now in the hands of the South Coast Visitors Bureau.

And then they pay the invoices for the projects.

And all the projects have to be approved approved by the Visitors Bureau.

They have to have the Visitors Bureau logo, you know, they— we have to have graphics into them that show the Visitors Bureau and the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism's logo.

And so it's very much controlled by the Visitors Bureau and the state funds that are then being matched.

So we've had, and we're under this incredible timeframe, it all has to be kind of figured out by the end of July.

So we have been under quite a timeframe.

And it really was started before, Um, it was started a long time ago.

This application was put in in February and wasn't really something that, um, all of NOMA was totally aware how this all played out.

So, um, I've gotten involved and, um, really down to the wire to help make this all come through.

Because we were thinking we were just going to have to say we can't use the $4,000.

And, um, and that would have been a challenge for the Visitors Bureau because they had kind of set that aside.

So, um, so it's been an interesting process over the last month or so to figure all this out, but I think it's going to be advantageous for NOMA.

So that's pretty much the NOMA report.

Do you want to talk about the mural?

Yes, so Tracy had been to the last board meeting meeting and mentioned to a couple of folks that she needs more funding for the— FRAC needs more funding for the Tide Portal mural project.

And we asked her to send information to the board.

She was encouraged to put in a proposal So you've got a few different pieces.

In retrospect, we wish we'd, um, PDF'd all of them together because I realized that there were 3 different pieces which Karen numbered, and we hoped it would make sense, but I know that folks had, um, a hard time thinking realizing that these were all kind of the same project.

So you have the Tide Portal mural description and then one that really described the challenges of the project and why it still needs funding.

And so the history is that the city with FRAC applied Bloomberg Philanthropies for $25,000 to do an asphalt art initiative, which was envisioned to be on South Main Street by Kennedy Park.

And the asphalt initiative is a concept that you paint a part of the street in a way that's slows traffic and makes it a safer intersection.

So there are parts of South Main Street along Kennedy Park that are known to have a high accident count, and so the city thought it was a great idea to go for these funds to paint the street.

And when it really came down to traffic and other city departments looking at that, they decided kind of late in the game that it wasn't going to work.

So FRAC had spent money to have a mural artist design this mural that would go on the asphalt, and then it couldn't happen, and then it moved to another spot, and it was found that that wasn't going to be feasible.

So FRAC ended up spending money and a lot of staff time on 2 different projects that ended up not happening.

So ultimately— and that was even before— some of that was before Tracy was there.

And when Tracy got there, she understood that there had always been a plan by MassDOT for art to be around the underpass for the ramp that goes down onto Duval Street.

And so she pursued getting Bloomberg Philanthropies to allow her to, instead of have the mural on asphalt, to have it on the walls of the underpass.

And there's still a belief that that creates an inch, you know, it will create an interesting place right near the COVID Restaurant where people are going to be walking through that area.

It was already lit by MassDOT because the understanding was that art would go there.

So Bloomberg agreed to let them move the concept over there and paint the the 2 walls of that underpass.

So they're already partially painted.

She wants to have an opening with a band and really open this wonderful addition to the waterfront.

And so, so there's still funds to be raised because the $25,000 that should have originally funded the project was unfortunately used to some extent for these efforts that weren't able to be fulfilled.

And so she has a gap of around $17,000.

She's put out, um, she has crowdfunding out, she's applied to some other places, but she's sitting here with that gap And she was encouraged to put a proposal into us.

And so that's where it stands.

The other thing that she did do was over the last year, Sunrise Erectors has put in $10,000.

It shows $5,000 here, but earlier funds were, contributed so that she could just keep working on this, because it's been a challenge to keep moving it from place to place to place.

Have you guys seen any of it yet?

She's moving right along.

Oh, I, I haven't.

Um, but I just— slide 4, I think that's, that's pretty interesting, the safety benefits.

I think there's actual evidence that show the implication of this art.

I'm just curious, the— what is the design background?

It's like a marine theme because it's waterfront, or how did that kind of come about?

Is this slide 3, is that showing the actual artwork?

Yeah, that swordfish.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's gonna be dope stuff.

Like the peacocks, and it's like I read it as like a peacocks, and I don't get it.

What?

Yeah, no, I'm just I'm just curious kind of the background behind that land there.

It's a well-known mural artist too.

Oh, I'm sure she's very talented.

I'm not I'm not saying one way or another.

I'm just curious as to how we landed as to this is going to be the mural.

Oh, we didn't pick it out.

And the state already agreed to what was going to be put up there?

I don't think the state needed to agree to the actual art that was decided.

Murals were envisioned there.

And, um, there was no conversation of like, you know, fall over history or anything that involves the city?

Well, Fred Freck made the choice of it, and, um, the description of the meaning behind it is migration.

Um, draws from the inspirations of the South Coast's natural rhythms and cultural heritage, featuring hydrangeas, migratory species Flowing form and flowing forms.

It celebrates Fall River's maritime landscape, immigrant history, and connection to the sea while creating a bold visual gateway to the waterfront.

So yeah, that's that.

I'm not sure, is this the slide 3?

Is that the actual artwork?

I haven't seen— I don't know what slide 3 is.

Yeah, that's the actual artwork.

Those are swordfish.

I thought they were dolphins.

What?

Those are swordfish.

I thought they were dolphins.

Yeah.

So, you know, there was the question, are these really species in Fall River?

And they're migratory species.

So, you know, you can critique the art, but you'd have Talk with Frack about.

Yeah, I was just curious.

Just general curiosity.

I'm not obviously the idea.

That's the global gas sign.

Yeah, so that that's exactly it.

Yeah.

What is it?

Yeah, if you look at five to the far left, that's live because you can see the global gas sign on the far right of that image.

There's a guy standing here and there's a little Yeah.

Yeah, so I donated the lifts for them to use, and then, as Sarah mentioned, my company gave $5,000, and I gave $5,000 to try to help them because they were short trying to get it done.

But it's really cool looking.

I've been checking in on them.

I drive by it every day.

I've never even noticed them working there.

Yeah, they're out there.

Oh yeah, yeah, they're there at least 2, 3 times a day.

You agree with the— well, did you go through that?

Do you do the roundabout?

Do you go underneath that?

Do you do the— through the rough?

It's not— I go cold like this that my Vital Nutrition on Broadway, I drive by there every day to get to it.

Yeah, but unless you were taking that U-turn, unless you're taking that— yeah, you're not seeing unless you're on Duval Street.

Yeah.

No, no, I'm on the Point Gloria side.

If you're going southbound and you do the U-turn, you have to drive through.

Oh, so it's coming on this side.

Yeah, you got to go further up and take the U-turn to DeWalt Street, not Turner Street, the next one up.

Yeah, you have to go by the car.

I'm going from the highway, from North Main Highway, and then going on the whole DeWalt Street right to past, past the Larry and Allens building and past the cold.

Yeah, so you're not— you're driving over it.

You're driving over it.

No, you're going south, right?

I'm going south.

Yeah, to Broadway.

So you're driving by, you're not looking to the left.

He's not taking the turn.

Yeah, you're not taking the turn.

Yeah.

And the other thing too is when the, um, I call them the Russians, but Vitaly gets that building, there's going to be more I think, you know, walking underneath it.

The gas station's closed right now, but I mean, I think eventually there's going to be more activity.

So it used to be two-way, now it's only one-way, correct?

You can only come from the Cole side going across the other side because I almost took a left over there.

Yeah, I think I could go to the Cole.

Oh no, it stops on this side.

There's only one way.

That's where it is.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just did that the other day, go by Cole.

I almost turned into it.

I still didn't see it.

I guess I'm blind.

I'm offline.

So anyway, we just need to decide, you know, how much or whatever we're willing to give them as the board.

How much is this project here?

If you've got $25,000, you have $17,000, you have $10,000, it's a $50,000 project.

I think ultimately, let's see, I'm just putting quick numbers together.

Yeah.

Uh, $47,560.

Yeah, and they've raised $30,000 according to this.

$30,700.

Yeah, I'm assuming probably $7,000 extra.

That's for the band and a party after or something.

Well, they've got— we'll make sure you get there for that.

$4,860 for community engagement and the dedication event.

I imagine community engagement may be getting classes or people down there to look at it and understand the art.

They spent some money trying to raise money, which is always the challenge.

They have the lead artist and then artist assistants and then project management managing this.

From '23 to '26 because it moved from place to place and required renegotiations, redesign, and so— Have the fundraising efforts fallen short and that's why they're looking to the Redevelopment Authority?

Oh, we're just one of the many entities they're going to to try to fill the gap.

But you gotta recognize, FRAC is a little nonprofit that has to raise the money for every project and for their operating costs and for their executive director.

They get some state money, they get money from various places, but their staff time was invested significantly in this project, and it's been happening for 3 years.

So it isn't just for the painting, it's for all the organizational effort that goes into making a project like this happen, especially when it was kind of canceled twice, which was not their doing at all.

So is that what our job is, to help them?

Yours would be?

Yeah, I'm just wondering.

I don't know if— if I don't know if I should spend $17,000 out of our budget for something that's not— I don't want to say yes.

Okay, can I say something?

I, I think that's rather rich for us, and I think it should be a far more modest amount if we agree on something.

You can give any amount you want.

I'm just wanting to— I think the question is, are we allowed on the— as a board of directors?

The question is, does the organization need to have some sort of policy, right?

Because Now you're opening the door for other requests.

There's a Boys and Girls Club next to say I need money for this.

One distinction is you're in an urban renewal district, right?

Right.

Trying to take what was applied, right?

Right.

This is part of your urban renewal plan area.

So you're not just giving money to some agency that has nothing to do with this.

I mean, you're gonna— you're right.

No, there's some kind of— I would say that you should establish a policy because once you go down this road, other requests may be forthcoming.

And I say yes to one, no to another, right?

And there's just so— there'd be something, whether it's you're only making allocations in urban renewal areas or nonprofits.

I, I don't know what those criteria would be, but I just think you need to have some sort of policy.

And, you know, and to me, listen, this is I think this is a nice project for the waterfront.

But I just think you figure out what your comfort level is with regard to the allocation, then moving forward, maybe put a policy together just so that you'll have some criteria to measure additional requests as they may be forthcoming.

I think even beyond it being in an urban renewal area, it's right near City Pier, it's in the waterfront district that we've been investing in.

Investing enormously in.

So, you know, it's— we spend a lot on landscaping for City Pier and now for Northfield Point.

And that's property you own, huh?

It is, I know.

But this is all within the waterfront area.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

So everybody, I think I like to tie it to the Evergreen Mill plan, right?

Yeah, just got to be cautious moving forward out of this one.

Is that being a 5-year plan?

Is it what last 10 years, or they keep on, they keep on coloring it again, or is it just something that once it fades away, it's done?

Well, it's, it's undercover, so I'm sure it's going to last a lot longer than it would if it was, you know, on the side of the building.

I think public art is very important to a city, right?

Yeah.

You see, you see different murals throughout the city, and I think they're very becoming.

I think, you know, I think there's enough examples samples in the city.

I think it's nice.

This one here, you know, whether you like the mural or not, I think it's art, and art is always in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah, but not only that, but if you drove through there a month ago, you just saw concrete walls.

Right.

And now you're like, wow, you stop and look.

And then William Sylvia is doing another one on the building over here on Bedford Street.

He had to stop because he got called into the reserves.

He had to go to Texas, but he's doing one on the side of the building right next to the police station.

I gave him a machine for that.

Tony's building?

Recreation's building.

Yeah, he's got like the outline started, then he got called up.

If you went down there 10 years ago, it was a rusty highway.

Yeah, I guess the reason I was mentioning City Pier is just it's an area that we just care a lot about, and if it were somewhere else in an urban renewal area, I wouldn't necessarily— you know, I agree it's a good idea to have a policy, but I wouldn't advocate for a mural just anywhere.

I think you have to have a policy and a budget line item to move it forward.

I'm just a board of director that doesn't know the answer to the question, are we allowed to do it?

Yeah, I'm not gonna make a decision to vote on something if I'm not allowed to do it.

That's That's the only question I was asking.

I don't think there's anything we can give up prevention.

Yeah, you can give up grants.

We've done it before.

I'm trying to think of an example of something we've done.

Well, during the pandemic you gave grants to small businesses.

No, but I'm thinking more like physical improvements.

Like we've given money for— maybe it was the lighting outside of the building.

Like we've done different— I'm trying to think of one we've done.

You're talking about a physical improvement?

Yeah.

That's a judgment call.

No, how much should we give if we decide we're not going to give?

You guys make a decision.

I'll just agree with that.

I'm not honest when it comes to this much.

So you guys decide what— I would not pick out the mural either.

Well, it's like with Ben, I think Like, it's a lot more attractive than, like, if he was gonna paint, like, a mill building or something historical.

It kind of doesn't go with the waterfront there.

So, listen, you can have all sorts of schools of thought as to what a mural should look like, right?

There's some people that are more historically, you know, advocate for historical murals.

Other people have more esoteric.

Other people have more, you know, but we're trying to promote the waterfront.

So I think it's actually a good idea.

What is it?

Is there a formalized ask as to— well, I think there's— she's asking for $17,000.

Yeah, she's asking for $17,000.

From us specifically, there's $17,000, but is there— is that what she's asking?

Yeah, that's a total of all of our arts and cultural coalition respectfully request financial support of $17,000 from the Redevelopment Authority toward completion of this project.

That's the ask.

Yeah.

So what are you thinking?

I don't know if you've got to abstain because he's already contributed.

I don't think so.

He doesn't know.

Yeah, he does.

You don't know.

Real estate, or it's on public— I'm just saying.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Are you asking me what I think we should do?

I think we should do $7,500.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

$5,000.

We're opening, you know, we're gonna— as Ken said, we will get other requests.

And I think, okay.

$5,000.

That helps.

That helps.

That's almost a third of it.

So, Sarah?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay, then.

Works for me.

John?

Before that?

Okay, good.

John?

We're supporting the arts.

I don't have a vote.

I know.

I just could give you a policy.

Is this a wise use of our money?

I think so.

Okay, good.

I make a motion that we allocate $5,000.

A motion to approve financial support to the Forerunner Arts and Culture Coalition for the Forerunner Development Authority in the amount of $5,000 to the title mural project.

Second?

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ron Russo, yes.

Pat Feidelberg, yes.

John Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

Um, there's no further matters for the open session.

The chair makes a finding an open session would have a detrimental effect on negotiating position of the public body.

Purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session minutes from June 24th, 2026, to review prior executive session minutes and discuss strategy with respect to potential real estate transactions for properties located at 0 DeVos Street, Fall River, and the Duval Street corridor, Fall River.

I'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session, and we will not return to open session.

Motion to enter into executive session, and we will not return to open session.

Second.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.