The Community Preservation Committee of Fall River, Massachusetts, convened on Monday, August 18th, at 6:00 PM. The meeting began with a roll call, confirming the presence of all nine committee members and administrative assistant Sandy Dennis. The committee unanimously approved the minutes from their June 16th meeting. A significant discussion revolved around the annual CPC Coalition dues of $4350. Members questioned the benefits of the membership, with John Brandt, a steering committee member for the coalition, explaining its advocacy, support, and legal aid functions. The dues were subsequently approved unanimously by a 9-0 roll call vote. The committee then discussed the review and update of the CPC plan. Members were asked to review the distributed copies and submit any suggested changes to Sandy Dennis, with the goal of a comprehensive review in October and finalization in November. A motion was made and passed to formally table this item and place it on the October agenda. Under new business, the committee noted upcoming deadlines for eligibility applications: September 2nd for package submission and September 15th for the eligibility round meeting, where projects must meet one of four categories: open space, historic, recreation, or housing. The committee also decided to be stricter with housing projects requiring additional funding. A motion was passed to add "project updates" to the agenda for future meetings. The meeting concluded with a unanimous vote to adjourn.
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Public / Other
All righties, welcome to the community preservation committee meeting being held at uh one government center in the city uh council hearing room. It's uh Monday uh August 18th 18th. Look at the right one.
0:14Good job. 18th uh 6 o'clock.
0:18Pursuant to the open meeting laws, any person who make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.
0:24Attendees are therefore advised that such a recording of transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible.
0:35We'll start with um roll call to my left. Michael Farius, Joanne Bentley, Christopher Benvites, Alexander Silva, Kristen Canara Olivera, John Brandt, James Hornby, Rick Manceni, BJ McDonald.
0:53Thank you. And we also have Sandy Dennis, administrative assistant here.
0:56And we're back from our month off, a little vacation. We have a full board here, which is nice to see. Uh we don't see any citizen input. Okay. Uh I don't know if uh we didn't get enough copies of uh the agenda tonight. So we have uh upcoming is the approval of the minutes CPC coalition dues uh review and update CPC plan new business and adjourn just in case you didn't get a copy uh that
1:22you downloaded. Uh so can I have a a motion to approve the minutes from June 16th? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from June 16th.
1:32I'll second it.
1:33All in favor?
1:35I.
1:36Okay.
1:38Next, we have uh CPC coalition dues. Uh it's our yearly dues. Um
1:53it's this.
1:54Oh, what do I do with it? It's probably under there. It's these two.
2:00Oh, yeah. Right here. Okay.
2:02Uh, it's the same amount. Uh, 4350.
2:08Uh, can I have a motion to uh I've got a question, Mr. Chairman?
2:14Sure.
2:15What do we get for this annual membership?
2:18We get the uh support of the coalition uh advice plus the uh coalition fighting for uh other things in the state house.
2:29I Okay. So, this is not a this is not a uh state this is not an this is not a a coalition of the commonwealth. This is a coalition of people who are working as Yeah. CPC is a a coalition. The state funds us but we are separate right but this D's group which is called community preservation coalition correct and what what did they and they were an advocacy group for us? Yes.
3:03Fine. Thank you.
3:04I I just I did the exact same thing. I wanted to see who they were and did a little bit of research to them and I just wanted to to let you know um uh this may be advantageous, but apparently they actually do some oversight on any type of legal kind of uh input associated with what we're doing and if we needed them for something, especially historical um that should be noted that
3:28they're supposed to give that type of aid as well. So, um, but besides that, it's there's a whole website, but I I wanted to find find out they're a nonforprofit co um yeah, coalition.
3:42They're they're nonprofit is a um I'm actually on the steering committee for the the coalition.
3:49Okay.
3:50Yeah, I know that.
3:51But, uh we fight for different projects coming up. Uh the state's always trying to do something.
3:58They're there for that. So, and they do have legal uh so it's a nice to have in our corner.
4:06Yeah. They also um on their on their site they actually show a bunch of things that they've done here in Fall River and added to the uh the overall context of why we're putting in the 1.5% increase in taxes for these these projects. Yeah. They helped 201 members uh in the coalition.
4:30Yeah.
4:32So, any other questions or comments?
4:36Motion to approve.
4:38Second.
4:40Uh we'll do a roll call on this one. Uh uh Michael Ferris, yes.
4:44Joanne Bentley, yes.
4:45Chris Benovites, yes.
4:47Alexander Sully, yes.
4:48Kristen Canara Oliver, yes.
4:50John Brent, yes.
4:51James Hornby, yes. Rick Mancini. Yes.
4:54BJ McDonald. Yes.
4:56Okay.
4:57Uh next we uh Sandy passed out the copies of the CPC plan. We do have some changes listed in there. Uh take a look over it.
5:10Uh we're not going to I mean we can discuss it tonight if we want to, but there's a lot in there that's to look over. Uh some things we don't necessarily have to make changes. This has been a a thing we've been working on since we started in 2012. We do like to do a little updating once in a while. Uh so uh take this home, do some uh homework unless
5:32you have questions tonight. We can go over it.
5:35Uh but we'll probably revisit this uh uh either next month or in October.
5:41When when is the finalization date of this?
5:44We can do it anytime.
5:45Okay. So whenever essentially we feel comfortable, right? you were aiming for the summer.
5:50What? What? Okay, so deadline purposes, what meeting are we aiming for?
5:54I would like to have it all wrapped up in October.
5:56So, the October's meeting up.
5:57Yeah, because all we're really doing is updating it and maybe That's fine. Yeah. I just want to know like it's better to have deadlines.
6:03Good.
6:03Yep.
6:06This way we can present it to the city council and update it on the site.
6:10Okay.
6:11This this is the same document that I tried to update through either our city planning office or or serp I mean that this is the one that that that the city planner asked us to No, that's open space and recreation.
6:38Okay. This is our plan for CPC.
6:41Let's see. I left the other one home and I I didn't review it for a couple weeks.
6:46I had a terrible time getting my information in on that. The city government, the city planning office told me to call Sured and Sured said that area was closed.
6:58Yeah, they they wrapped that up. Yeah.
7:02Well, you can still go on the site and download uh all the information. And if not, I can also email.
7:06I wanted to add some things and was not able to. I think that was unfortunate.
7:12Yeah, I can see if I can get an email on who you contact.
7:15I'll I'll try again. Don't just All righty.
7:19If you think of it, fine, but don't spend an hour on it.
7:22All righty.
7:24So, I'll make a motion um since we have it now. it'll give us time to look at it that we put this on the agenda um table it and put it on the agenda for October because September is going to be the eligibility hearings. So I think October would be a good time to discuss it.
7:42Okay. Chairman Br, are there any spec are there any specific parts of this that you or any other members on the board need to need to review? I see a couple of comments like add question mark like you know just just things that need input from us is should like I guess should we take a meeting to review those question marks in advance or should we do that offline and come back
8:08to the board on in October to have that finalized. Does that question make sense?
8:13Go ahead Alex.
8:14Those a lot I think almost all of those comments are from when we did the review last year. Those are my comments, I think, almost all of them. And it was questions to review at a meeting um that I think happened or was postponed or or so forth. So, uh the intent was to have them reviewed and then discussed uh at the meeting, but I mean they're just suggestions and questions. A lot of it's
8:37just updating numbers, you know, current to current numbers.
8:40So, I guess my question is if if we're going to do that, we should have a meeting to do that instead of finalizing in October. No, we're not finalizing it. What what we do is so between now and October, we're we're going to look this over. Any changes that we feel like even if it's just a little Yeah. Add things that you feel need to be changed. If there's if there's a spelling thing, small things. Sure.
9:06Yeah. Anything like that. And then you're going to send it to Sandy.
9:09Got it.
9:10And then Sy's going to put it together like this so that we can see on the side where all the changes that was suggested. And then as we go through it, we look and at at the changes and say, "Okay, I agree with this. I don't agree with this." And that then once we agree on that, then Sandy types it up as the final thing when all the changes are made. But
9:33what we're going to do between now and October is we're going to go through it and and write up whatever changes we want to see on it and send that to Sandy and she's going to put them in a document. This but with the added ones. And then in October, we're going to go through the whole thing in October.
9:50In October.
9:51Okay.
9:52And then that's when we want Well, so it Okay.
9:55If we're moving it to October, at least we'll attempt to do it all then and then Sandy will So we'll likely finalize in November.
10:04Okay. Yeah. Got it. How about Okay. All right.
10:06And then November could be your public meeting.
10:10It's on the website.
10:14Okay. To reverse engineer that whole question line. I appreciate that. I appreciate your answer. It was very helpful. We should set a date of a meeting that we are going to finalize and work towards that. So, if October is going to be the meeting we review it all, then the next meeting should be November. Does that all make sense?
10:30Yeah.
10:30I just want I just want to keep us on track because I feel like this is something over I think half of this.
10:35We did. Yeah. Yeah, we did. I know.
10:37It's kind of supposed to be like the last half, right?
10:39That's fine.
10:40There's new members since then, too. So, it's kind of like starting over.
10:43That's Yep. totally fine. I get that.
10:44Yeah. We're more of like updating like statistics uh forever the population this and that you know we look over that stuff and then if there's something you want to tweak I mean we've went for years without changing anything and then some years we add a little more and change a little more. So okay makes sense.
11:02But yeah and then just catching any kind of grammatical spelling spelling errors and things like that just before we put it out to the public.
11:10So yeah.
11:12Okay.
11:13Need a second.
11:17Oh, I made them. Yeah, I second.
11:20Second. Uh, all in favor?
11:23Okay. Then last is new business, which would be the uh September 2nd is the eligibility uh closing. So, we'll have all the uh packages for us to pick up. Uh then the 15th we're going to do uh the eligibility round to make sure they're eligible to move on. Uh not sure how many we're going to get, but they have to meet the four categories. So I don't see a long night that night. Uh
11:53all in one night.
11:55Yeah, I suggest.
11:56Yeah, I mean some projects are pretty simple. They're straightforward.
12:03So it's usually the deadline. Yeah, it's not something that we get a lot of details on as far as it it's does it meet the category for this, this, this, and this. And then after that, we tell them just make sure you have all of these things and you know, whatever we think they're going to need. And then that's they give those in for the funding. So, they have to meet either open space,
12:25historic, recreation, or housing.
12:27Yeah. And then we'll everyone will get the same spill at the beginning of the night uh uh that they can't start. They got to have the three bids. We'll cover all that before they leave and then it's up to them to get the final package in.
12:42And uh like I know last year we might have a little more housing come in this year. I know this year we wanted to be a little stricter. if they're coming in with additional funding, we want to make sure they have those funds and not just, you know, leading us on. So, we'll make sure everyone knows that as the process goes on before they come back in January.
13:07Uh, does anybody else have any new business or anything?
13:12Would we do project updates or No, it's not on the agenda.
13:16Is it on?
13:18It's not on the on the agenda. not on the agenda. I didn't think uh update can we speak about the where we are at some of these projects or no under new business under new business that's why we started adding project updates was because of that specifically okay so doesn't mean we can't talk about it then we can't we can make a motion to add project updates to next meeting uh
13:43I'd like to make a motion to add project updates uh for the next meeting Okay, I second.
13:50All in favor?
13:51I I That should probably be something we just keep automatically held on the agenda.
13:58We should have that just on there.
14:00Some people do get a little out there and you know Yeah.
14:04I would just throw out that I watch the uh Lata rowing club. It's been really active.
14:09Oh yeah.
14:09Lately and singles, quarts, eights. Just very nice to see them.
14:15That's great.
14:17Okay. Well, that is all I have. Um, so do I have a motion to adjurnn?
14:23I'll make a motion to adjurnn.
14:26I'll second.
14:26All in favor? I Nice quick meeting.
14:30All right. Cool.