9.22.2026 Fall River City Council

Good evening.

This Fall River City Council Committee on Finance meeting will now be called to order at 6:00 on Tuesday, September 22nd.

Madam Clerk, roll call please.

Councilor Skadeem?

Here.

Camara?

Here.

Canuel?

Here.

Dion?

Here.

Hart?

Here.

Peckham?

Here.

Pereira?

Here.

Raposo?

Here.

President Ponti?

Here.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

First item on our agenda this evening is citizens' input.

One person has signed up to speak.

It is Tiberio Sardina of 985 Cherry Street regarding trash.

You can come right down.

You can sit right there and face the council for 3 minutes.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

As the president said, my name is Tiberio Sardina.

I live at 985 Cherry Street.

I've lived there since 1950, except for my time in the military.

I've seen this city go from, I don't know, We are in pretty bad shape right now.

All right, we used to have an airport.

We don't have anymore.

It's a bunch of used tos.

Okay, we used to have an airport.

We used to have an incinerator.

We don't have that anymore.

And I came before the city council for this incinerator to suggest that it be taken over by— not taken over, but made a regional incinerator.

By Somerset, Westport, uh, Swansea, and surrounding towns that could come in and upgrade the, you know, help upgrade the thing so it could continue to operate, right?

Forget it.

We don't have it, uh, an incinerator anymore.

We used to have a dump, and I guess because of mismanagement, they, they figured they couldn't operate it, and they ended up selling it.

I think it was like for about $250,000.

And the individual that bought it kept it for a year, a couple of years, ran it, ran it profitably, and then turned around and sold it to BFI for millions, right?

Quite a bit, uh, pretty good, uh, profit on that deal, right?

Now, we used to have— we used to have our own trash trucks.

We don't have them anymore, right?

Because city council decided it was too expensive to be trucking our stuff to, I guess, uh, out to, uh, I don't know what that town is where that has the incinerator, right?

We don't have trucks anymore, right?

Now we're down to— and, uh, we're at the mercy of the companies that are hauling trash for us.

And I think it was a 10-year deal that they— that somebody signed, uh, you know.

Now somebody's talking about— and I saw it on— I was channel surfing and came across a, uh, an ordinance meeting, an ordinance meeting, and they were talking about 4 and 5 and 6 family units that should be paying more for trash, should be paying for trash.

Now why should that— why should 5 and 6 family units be singled out if everybody is producing the excess, uh, in, uh, trash?

If you can come up with a formula for 5 and 6, you can come up with a formula for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and whatever.

Come up with a formula then, if you have to do it that way.

Come up with a formula for a one-family house, you're going to pay an extra little bit.

A two-family house, you're going to pay a little bit more.

You know, this is sickening.

You know, every time you turn around, the city's picking my pocket.

You know, I've had my car parked out in front of my house for too long, I got tagged and I got towed.

All right, it cost me $250 to get to retrieve my car in the same hour that the thing was towed.

Plus I paid the fine, right?

You, you leave a piece of something that's pretty good that's still— you put on the sidewalk for somebody to pick up, you know, a free item, right?

The city picks it up, you get fined for that.

You get fines for everything.

I mean, you guys could come up with ingenious ways to pick my pocket, you know.

It's a little bit tiring, you know, especially this thing with trash.

My family— my house is a 5-family.

And there were 5 individuals that live in the whole house.

I've got 2 apartments that are empty, one by choice and one that the tenant moved out.

Even then, it was like 7 people that were in this house.

Right across the street with a 2-family house is 10 people in that bloody 2-family house.

So how do you equate this?

How can you justify singling out 5 and 6-family units?

If everybody's producing trash, everybody should be paying for it.

And that's my spiel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I hope you take it into consideration.

Thank you.

Whoever the genius is that came up with a formula for 5 and 6— 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 can fit in there too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sardina.

You can go right there now.

Ryan Duarte, 372— I think that says— what does that say?

Brock Avenue in New Bedford.

Is there a motion to waive the rules?

Second.

Motion to waive the rules has been made by Councilor Peckham, seconded by Councilor Raposo.

Discussion on waiving the rules?

Hearing none, all those in favor?

Opposed?

Councilman C4 opposed.

The ayes have it.

3 minutes, Mr. Duarte.

Hello again, Council.

Um, I'm not sure if I'm speaking later today for the agenda that's been put on, so I'm just going to give a brief statement.

And I got to be careful again because I do come with a peace offering.

I don't I don't want a problem.

That's what I'm trying to have— reason here, an opportunity to be meaningfully heard.

We didn't get that opportunity, and we're going to go back and forth and say this citation and this ordinance, and we're going to go back and forth, and I want to so you can hear it, because your own corporate counsel has made claims, factual assertions on the record, especially for the pending case going on.

Not on the merits of the case.

He's attacking my character.

He's saying I'm evasive, I missed 6 hearings, I'm just playing games.

Why would I waste my time?

Why would I continuously try to reach out to you guys?

Why would you agree with what VEDA has done and attempted to do with the committee, which has changed the ordinances that caused grievances for those residents and agreed that the citations were too ambiguous to even understand what the procedure word was?

And again, your counsel has made a factual assertion on for the record.

The statute that governs your delegated authorities for the parking department is not Chapter 90, subsection 28.5.

He stated that on for the record.

He not only misinformed us, he misinformed all of you.

And that's the whole argument.

You want us to follow the letter of the law, we do it, and we try to find clarification.

And when it comes to the point of clarifying Not only does he disregard it, he makes a statement on behalf of all of you in the city that the governing procedure you're purporting to is made up by AI.

You bunch of kids are just trying to get out of tickets.

Again, I beg you, just listen.

Not just to what I say, not to what Mr. Fredette says.

Look at the record.

I implore you, please just look at it.

If you do, I promise you, you will see the flaws It's not individual.

I'm not claiming you guys did it.

It's a couple agents, Stephanie McArthur and Mr. Fredette.

It's, it's, it's very easy fix.

We— I don't want to go through litigation and then come here and say I'm going to put all of you on notice, I'm going to get all your surety bonds and O's.

I have legal credits.

I understand how the system works.

I ran for mayor in 2023 in New Bedford.

You can look up my credentials.

I'm clean as a whistle.

I'm not an evasive person.

I can promise you that.

My record shows it.

Don't just take my word.

I had thousands of people show up to vote for me because they believe I'm a civil rights activist.

I advocate for stuff like this.

For the ones that feel like they're getting bullied or not heard, I stand up, even if my voice shakes and I seem a little shaky.

I'm Portuguese.

I understand— I come from a household that taught me values and responsibilities.

I understand responsibility is nothing more than the ability to respond.

15 seconds.

So I ask you, respond to this just like I saw you guys do when you wanted to go and investigate Mrs. Furtado, your former, your former chief of police.

You guys have it in you to be honorable.

I don't think you're bad.

I really don't.

It's just, I'll call it a miscommunication.

So I ask and beg you, look over the record.

Let's do this like gentlemen.

Let's do good business in good faith.

That's all I ask.

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Just to be clear, I want to make sure you understand You started your deliberations tonight by saying you haven't been heard.

This council is— will continue to hear you.

We will continue to get your communication.

We'll continue to add it to the agenda as long as the proper process is followed.

And you were heard because I believe the person that isn't here had a whole meeting before the ordinance committee after sending me an email.

So there's been plenty of opportunity for you to be heard.

And I— and that's why I told Veda, I said don't be discouraged because they actually— you guys did do You were supposed to when she asked.

She— when you went to the— when she went to the committee, you guys did change the ordinances.

You even changed the language on the citations themselves, which is what she was asking, right?

So just— I just want to understand the, the power between the executive branch and the legislative branch.

You can continue to come to these meetings, continue to be respectful.

We'll continue to do the same thing.

But to be clear, you have been heard here.

We'll continue to hear you as long as you continue to obviously respect the, the chamber and the council.

That's all.

And, and just an earlier, uh, note from the clerk, there was a misunderstanding of how to properly formally enter my request, right, and the exhibits.

And we've gone through that.

You've gone— you, you got— I had a phone call today, right, Ines?

Yep.

There was a miscommunication because she had told me just send it through an email through a PDF because we can't accept the formal request with just an email.

Yeah, we have a process by adding to the agenda.

I sent her the, the PDF before the deadline she requested, Thursday before 4 PM.

She timestamped and printed Chelsea was the one that agreed and, and also messaged me saying we've accepted it, we've timestamped it.

And, and from my understanding, I relied on that to be entered into today's proceeding.

But then that changed, and they said no, it's only the package you brought in on September 8th.

Great.

There's no proceeding happening today, it's an agenda item.

But anything that— the clerk's office did call me, I did advise them of the process by which getting your information to the agenda needs to be followed.

I know she communicated that through email, so just follow that.

We'll continue to adhere to that policy.

And who can I speak out to just get clarification of what exactly it is and how— when I'll be heard?

Essentially what Beta did for the committee to be— have it— it will be up to the City Council when we have your agenda item before us if we want to accept it and place it on file or refer it to a subcommittee.

So today you'll judge it?

It's on our agenda today.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item on our agenda is a loan order of $10 million for the construction and improvement of city streets.

It was referred on 9/8/2026.

Is there a need for discussion?

Come on down, Mr. Aguiar, members of the administration.

Mr. Aguiar, introduce yourself.

Good evening, Dan Aguiar, Director of Engineering and Planning for the City of River.

Emily Arbuckle, Director of Finance.

Anne O'Neill Souza, City Administrator.

Ian Shackney, Treasurer Collector.

Councilman C4, Council Vice President Dion.

Yes, I just have one question.

Um, so obviously we're all on board with doing more streets are better.

The residents yell for more streets to be done.

We're trying to accomplish that goal.

I guess my only question is, um, So if this money— if this transfer is approved and this money is approved, um, will there be a list of streets that are going to be done?

Are there going to be streets that are identified?

How is that— how is it going to work so people understand what this process is and what we're actually trying to accomplish?

So yes, there, there is a list of streets.

There is currently a list of streets scheduled for the next 3 or 4 years utilizing Chapter 90 funding.

We had discussed that with this new funding mechanism that we'll have the ability to work on some streets that don't meet the criteria necessarily for Chapter 90.

So I do have a preliminary list specifically for this year and for next year that would— the streets that would be handled with that funding.

It may come to a time where we have a big enough project that we need to utilize the entire Chapter 90 allotment.

And the additional funds that, that you've appropriated to take on a larger project of, say, $5 million in, in total.

But for the current, the way I look at it is we will be utilizing it for locations that would not or don't need to meet Chapter 90 requirements for, for reconstruction.

So, so for example, and for edification for the public, so we're not talking about new developments, we're not talking about Route 79, we're talking about streets that are too short, too small to qualify for the Chapter 90s, or they're not within a certain dollar amount?

How does this work exactly?

So Chapter 90 dollars, when you utilize those funds, there are a set of rules that you need to follow.

So we often find ourselves dealing with resetting granite curb, replacing sidewalks completely, addressing some handicap accessibility issues new ramps.

If we have a street, for instance— so for an example, Copacabana Road, it's a paved roadway, has no curbing, has no berms, has no sidewalks.

It's really just asphalt.

It's a very long road.

If we were to utilize Chapter 90 funding there— so there are sections of that road, there may be a 600-foot section that needs replacement, then there may be a 300-foot section that is okay.

Then we may find another 500-foot section.

So through that entire, I don't know, mile-long section of roadway, we might need to replace 2,500 linear feet of asphalt.

If we were utilizing Chapter 90 funding, we could not break it up that way.

We would have to spend the money and replace locations that don't necessarily need replacing.

So this would be an efficient way to be able to respond to situations that are large repairs that DCM can't take on in-house.

And also when— if we needed the funding to reconstruct a road in the same fashion that Chapter 90 would allow us to.

So currently on this list, if you remember, we accepted a number of little dead-end streets off of North Main— Glendale, Wayland— streets that don't have a lot of infrastructure.

It's really just a milling and a paving of exactly what's there.

Projects like that and Copacabana uh, would be on this.

Trust me, I have a list.

I can't produce it until I know I have the money, because as soon as I produce that list, people call my office every day and ask when it's going to happen.

So I've been hesitant to provide that list of where will these new funds be spent on immediately.

Martine Street is another one where we have a section up at the top at Eastern Avenue, Brayton Avenue intersection where granite curb and sidewalks have been installed Once we get to the flat portion and heading off into the direction of Westport, the road is horrendous.

We were able to get DCM to go out there and do some temporary patches in it.

That's just a mill and an overlay.

There's no sidewalks that need to be replaced there.

There's no curbing.

So that would be another location where we don't need to do a whole street.

We need to go in and make major pavement restoration so we could utilize things like that.

I appreciate that, um, because I have had some phone calls and people asking those questions because they, you know, they're concerned where are these dollars going.

So I think the clarification is helpful, um, and I as one will be supporting it.

Thank you.

With that, I yield.

Anything further?

Councilman C1, Councilor Kadeem.

At the last meeting when we referred this, did we— we advertised, right?

Do we advertise the bond?

Madam Clerk, do we advertise the bond?

Yes, we did.

Okay, so we still need to— so it's been approved?

Have we approved the authorization?

We will refer it tonight.

So we only advertised Last week.

Okay.

All right.

Um, again, listen, I filed the resolution.

I think we need to do more than just the Chapter 90.

I think we've got enough roadways when we start talking about the pavement management report and the millions and millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars of roadway improvement.

I do, I guess, want to take an opportunity, uh, besides to say that you've got a wonderful jacket on with some elbow patches, that you are doing a phenomenal job.

I think I bought it in 1988.

Yeah, I can tell that.

You, you've done a phenomenal job with the road projects at Columbia Street and, uh, Bedford Street, as we start to see.

So, you know, I, I think we're starting to see a significant difference, especially with some of the work that the gas company's coming in, making sure that you're holding them accountable, uh, for the restoration of the road.

But I think clearly, I, I would think that my, my colleagues on the council support the fact that we need to do more than just the Chapter 90.

And, and I know the $10 million is not going to get you a whole lot, but it's going to get you more than what we have.

So with that, I want to say thank you, and then, you know, I support this moving forward.

So with that, I yield.

Thank you.

Councilman C2, Councilor Camara.

Yeah, will you be able to do sidewalk repair with this as well?

Yes.

So I was going to bring that up.

So maybe you know or don't know, but over the past, at least the 5 years that I've been here, Community Development agency has always put forth a sidewalk project.

Funding has become minimized for that department.

I want to say 2 years ago we put out a $400,000 CDA sidewalk contract.

Now that's in specific CDA areas.

This year we were able to only do a much smaller project, and they only had $128,000 for funding.

Having this money will allow us to put out larger contracts that are just for sidewalks.

So right now, if I want to use Chapter 90 funding to do a sidewalk, I also have to do the street.

So I have to take on more baggage than what I need to.

So this will allow not only my department but DCM for locations where— and they do an incredible job of concrete work, that's, that's one thing I must say, when they do their sidewalk repairs.

But it does get to a point where if it's a whole stretch of a street, it's really not something for us to maybe be doing in-house when we need 100 singular locations for them to be at.

So working with, with the director, we'll be able to encourage, you know, larger sidewalk implementation projects like that.

What about like on Eastern Avenue?

If you're past Lucas Street and you're heading south past the parish and the other Jehovah's Witness Church, there's guardrails there that are pretty much dilapidated and non-existent anymore.

Will you be able to repair those?

So We've had this discussion almost indirectly before.

So we currently have in design a portion of Eastern Avenue that gets us up to Bedford, I think it is, where we're spending some significant dollars on, on design.

And that MassDOT will take this on as a TIP project.

When you say get to Bedford, which direction are you coming from?

That's— so right now, to Bedford, but you're not going past Bedford.

The state and the TIP board with all of Eastern Avenue.

They said they can only approve projects in 5 signals, 5 light signals at a time.

So they recommended let's start from Martine and get to Bedford.

Okay.

However, we will concurrently be moving forward with Bedford to the rotary as well.

That doesn't mean that we can't take on a sidewalk project like that.

Don't like to go spend money on something that in 3 years or 5 years from now we're going to rip it out and build something entirely new.

But I do know that's been a concern.

What about the guardrails on Eastern Avenue next to Jehovah's Witnesses?

So that would be, that would be a DCM matter.

Um, I rebuild streets, DCM maintains the existing streets.

Can you have them look at that please?

I can absolutely do that.

Thanks.

What did I yell?

Thank you, Councilor.

Councilor in seat 6, Councilor Peckham.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Aguiar.

Roadway usage, maybe a better question for traffic, but increase in roadway usage over the last, let's say, 8 to 10 years, have you seen a dramatic increase in the, I guess, the wear and tear on our roads?

Absolutely.

Over the last maybe 8 to 10 years, because I've had conversations with you about roads, you can see a difference in, in 5 years.

So we had a, um, a call today.

We're in the process of a corridor study for Pleasant Street from Troy to Eastern Avenue.

I think you may have seen some traffic counters out there.

They've been at different events.

This is all through CERPIT, and they look at the entire corridor, what kind of improvements need to have made.

Part of that was coming up with traffic count numbers, and yes, they increased dramatically.

Plymouth Avenue and Rodman Street, for instance, we just had a roadway safety audit done.

Although it seems like forever ago, but when Plymouth Avenue got reconstructed maybe 15 years ago, I'm guessing, 10 years ago.

All those signals were redone, timing was redone, everything was reconstructed.

The problem is, at that time of reconstruction, they're working off numbers that were 10 years prior to that.

So once that project gets built, those numbers are now inflated dramatically.

So we had just done another safety audit with some additional traffic counts, and yes, I can provide those numbers to you you just so that you can see at some of our most significant intersections how many vehicles go through this area in comparison to what they were 5, 10 years ago.

And it is dramatic.

Thank you.

I think it's a— I had had a conversation with Councilor Kadim prior to the meeting.

Obviously I agree, uh, roads need to be done.

Um, it's something I bring up in every meeting.

We have no idea how many people are using our roadways.

Sort of put a number on something, um, and we're saying this $5 million or this $10 million is going to be adequate to service our people or benefit our people.

We can't say that because we have no idea how many cars are traveling the roadways in Fall River.

No, and I think, I think we'll all admit that it, that it's not adequate.

Uh, it's a number that we agreed to, that what in-house with staff that we have that's the ability that we— that's the amount of construction work that we would be able to take on and, and manage.

Um, if, if the council wanted to spend $100 million in the next 2 years and we were able to bring on staff of 3 or 4, we can spend it.

You won't be able to get from one end of the city to the other during construction, but $5 million is, is a comfortable number.

Um, so you see what we've been doing recently with just $3 million.

Look at the inconvenience that Columbia Street was for the last year and a half.

It got paved last night, thank goodness, overnight.

Striping, I think, is being done tonight.

So if you do that, that's a $2.5 million project.

If you do that 10 to 20 times in a year, how could you drive anywhere in this city?

So we also have to think about that.

Yeah, no, will we ever catch up?

No, we won't.

That's just inevitable.

We won't.

Understandable.

I just think at some point the city in general, the administration is going to have to sit down, look at what we have.

Let's use your best hypothesis, I guess, for a population and write it all down.

Like we've got Stafford Plaza, we've got the roads.

What is it going to cost us over the next, let's say, 10 years to fix all the roads in the city?

Like everything should be on a checklist.

It's just my opinion.

Miss Arpke.

Over the next 4 years, what's the plan for the levy?

Are we increasing 2.5%?

Is that your plan over the next 5 years?

At this point it is, because everything is increasing at a far greater rate than the 2.5%.

So if we don't keep up with that, we'll never have a chance of keeping up with anything.

Unfortunately, we kept the same taxpayers that we've had for decades.

We added a bunch more people on top of that, and we're going to keep going back to those same taxpayers every year now out of their pockets like Mr. Sardina to have him fix his street.

The guy's lived in the same house since 1950, but we're going to go to him next year and the year after and the year after.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

None of this makes sense.

I'm a no vote on everything for the rest of this tenure until we find out how many people live in this city and we go from there.

You can't tell me we're going to spend $10 million on roads.

I have no freaking idea how many people are using them.

That makes no sense.

With that, I yield.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

In seat 7, Councilor Pereira.

There's a lot more cars in the city.

There's a lot more people.

You can't go down a street that's a 2-way street with cars parked on both sides.

It's tough to get back and forth.

So I got to tell you, I know we're using the streets more because there's more cars.

When I was growing up, your family had one car.

You know, my own household, I had a car, my husband's got a car, my 2 daughters had a car.

There's 4 cars.

Of course now there's more, more, uh, usage on the street, and we've got to keep the streets safe for all of our emergency vehicles as well.

Question I have is some of this money you said would be used for sidewalks too.

Diamond just built a beautiful new school.

Additional children are attending the school.

But from Bedford Street, just one side even, just— I don't care, pick a side.

I would say the side to the north is probably better because we did Stonehaven Road in front of the water department building so that kids can cross.

They can walk up.

These kids are walking in the street, and because there's a lot of cars in that area now, more people are parking on the side, which there's plenty of room.

But then kids walk on the opposite side of that.

Lots of kids are young drivers, new drivers that attend the school, just getting their license, feeling cool.

Scary.

Locust Street is the same thing.

I mean, there's spots on Bedford Street that do have sidewalk, and there's some that have blacktop or whatever, but Locust Street, there's nothing.

And you know, we cannot put a stop sign on Locust Street and Eastern Avenue.

You know why?

Because there's no sidewalk.

You cannot erect a stop sign unless it's on a sidewalk.

I never heard of such a thing, but I was told that we can't do that.

I'll look into that, Papa.

What I will offer is, 2 years ago you brought up the Bedford Street.

Yeah, 2 years, I know, Dan.

I bring it up all the time.

Wait, it was part of the last contract.

It was awarded, and the work will begin within the next 30 days.

It's added to the south side.

We're actually narrowing up the street on that street because the grade in people's yards is too steep.

We would have had to cut into people's yards in their front yards, which everybody was opposed to.

So on the south side where the utility poles are, we're actually bringing that curb line in away from the poles to provide a new sidewalk on that south side.

So there will be a new crosswalk along on the top.

We're going to get rid of the crosswalk that currently brings you across the street to Mr.— drawing a blank of his name— that lives right on the corner.

What was it?

Krukowski or whatever it is.

Yes.

And I've had— he was elated that we were going to be having the kids cross and go down the southerly side.

Um, right.

He doesn't want it in front of his house.

He wants it next door because he had his shrubs right to the corner.

But I get it.

But I'm glad that he's happy about that because he does keep a very neat piece of property, I must say.

So he does— that is being done.

We try to get Diamond to include it.

So then if it's on the south side, they're gonna— they're gonna cross Stonehaven at the top, and then they're going to cross Bedford to get to that side.

Well, no, they're going to cross— yes, well, no, they're going to be on Stonehaven, they're going to cross Bedford while they're walking on Stonehaven, and then come down on the opposite side, Stonehaven onto Bedford, and then continue out to Eastern Avenue.

I mean, the water department, we don't have a lot of trucks that go in and out of there.

No, but I did coordinate this with the water department because they actually have 3 water lines in that street, some rather large ones.

So that's what kind of dictated how far in that curb we could bump, and we wanted to make sure we weren't removing any parking as well.

So, but that is contracted.

I just— I'm always afraid that— I know an animal got hit by a car and died or whatever, but I'm worried about kids coming out of there.

Understood.

And getting hurt.

And a lot of kids today too, they ride their bikes to school, and it's Safety is all I'm concerned about.

And the other side is the same thing.

But thank you, Mr. Agia.

I'm very happy to hear that.

And, uh, I don't mind the intrusion or that we have to wait a while because there's construction going on.

I haven't been able to drive down Beckett Street in a long time because they're always doing work, but I know the work is for the betterment, so you learn how to maneuver.

Sunday, October 3rd.

Overnight Bedford Street is scheduled, so it'd be the 3rd and the 4th.

So that'll be done.

Very good.

It's got put off because of the police station.

You know what's difficult though, uh, Mr. Aguiar?

You go and re— and fix a street.

Stafford Road looks beautiful.

Other street, nice.

Then you have cars flying down.

They think they're at Seekonk Speedway.

Yeah, that's concerning.

It's like the whole city needs to slow down.

25 miles an hour is 25 miles an hour.

Leave your house 10 minutes earlier, 15 minutes earlier.

I, I don't understand.

Everybody's racing around.

It drives me crazy.

But that'll be for another day.

But thank you so much for the work you do.

I appreciate it.

With that, I yield.

Thank you.

Councilor in seat 5, Councilor Hart.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Dan, just make sure I got this right.

The $10 million that's going toward Um, streets like similar to Martine, patches of streets where it's— that needs a lot of work, and we're going to take care of those particular streets.

That's correct.

Not the whole entire streets.

We save that for Chapter 90.

So, so Martine, luckily the curbing is in good enough shape.

Yeah, the westerly end of Martine, as you come up the hill where they had reconstructed that during the Meditech time, that section of it's fine.

When we get through the LePage section into the Westport line That, that's pretty rough.

But that's an easy— that's just a mill and, and throw 2 inches of pavement down.

Yeah, done.

That gets done in— you know, I, I live in Dartmouth.

When I drive through Dartmouth and Westport and I see how quickly they, they can redo a street, literally within a month, right?

Because all they're doing is sending through a milling machine one day, sending in the pavement machine the next day, and then they've moved on.

Here, sidewalk and curb— sidewalk and curb costs more than the street the pavement itself, um, probably more than double.

And the time that it takes to do all the sidewalk and curb is, is really what makes the project go on a long time.

Yeah, and that's why I'm excited to vote for this, because I think too, you know, when we're talking about not entire streets but areas where it's— and I get a lot of calls about, um, my street from this, from here to there is, right, is horrible.

And there's not much we can do about it right away.

But now there's some— hopefully those people that have called me are on that list.

I know there's one on Albany Street between Ray and Redding has been talking to me about that particular street.

So, so the discussions we've had is looking at the pot of money that we can now draw off of.

There will be specific contracts that go out with dictated work like the list streets that I had just told you, that's probably going to be the first year.

Then we're also working towards creating or splitting that money so that we have, I don't know, half of it available for on-call pavement services.

Yeah, through— when in coordination with DCM.

So if someone calls and says, hey, we need 300 feet of this street done, we don't have to add it to a specific bid.

We'll have an on-call contractor who has already been vetted and brought on that we can just call and say, hey, perfect, we need this done.

They can go out as quickly as they can.

It doesn't have to go through the bid process.

Will be done for procuring their services, period, with a minimal amount every year, whether it's $500,000 or a million a year that we dedicate towards that, that procurement, so that we can just draw off of that in a similar way that we're asking to borrow $10 million is so that it's available when we need it.

If, if we, if we're getting through the year and we see, oh, we haven't used enough of the on-call paving contractor, then we can put together a group for them to address all at once.

And you said that you were going to, you're going to start on Bedford Sunday?

Bedford is October 3rd.

October 3rd.

Um, when, so when are we going to, uh, exhaust the $10 million in funds?

Is it going to be all— it can't be all this year, right?

Oh no, it'll be approximately $2 million a year.

Yep.

We— this way we can plan and schedule $5 million a year.

The first $3 plus or minus comes from Chapter 90 every year, God willing that the powers that be continue to fund that.

The remaining balance to get us to the $5 will be drawn out of this.

We're not taking $10 million and putting it in the bank.

Emily's always instructed this to me.

Just because I see it on a balance sheet that says it's been approved doesn't mean it's been been borrowed.

Um, so it, it will, it will limp out.

So this will get us through 5 years of increased funding to get us to the— okay, that, that's fine.

Okay.

All right, thank you very much.

I yield.

Thank you, Councilor.

Councilor in seat 3, Councilor Cannuel.

Thank you.

I do want to say I support this.

Uh, there's not a week that goes by that I get calls concerning a condition of a specific road or a sidewalk.

So people want safe sidewalks, people want streets that, you know, they don't blow out their tires on.

And, uh, so I'm excited to support this as well.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

In seat 1, Councilor Kadim.

Thank you.

Just, uh, so I appreciate my colleague in seat 6 with his remarks in terms of, um, you know, the number of individuals that live in the city.

And I, I don't disagree with you.

I think we got to get a better handle on the census.

I mean, obviously the census goes out But the biggest piece is the fact that not getting the true, I guess, count of our population impacts our funding.

So Chapter 90 is one of them.

So when you look at the Chapter 90 formula, it's going to be your local road mileage, it's going to be your population, and it's going to be unemployment.

So 2 things, unemployment and population, which we would get from the census, could potentially impact how much money we get for Chapter 90, right?

So that being said, you know, we can't— I, I hate to see a project like this get voted down because we don't have a, you know, a potential or a good grasp of what the population looks like.

Um, just like, you know, 90% of the individuals traveling on our roads could potentially not live in the city of Fall River, right?

We don't know that.

We can get traffic counts, and you typically do have those traffic counts.

So I guess if you could share the traffic counts that you have for the local projects to the council so the council can kind see what those traffic counts look like.

In terms of the cost for these projects, we had a pavement management report that I think probably goes back to 15 years with Plymouth Ave., but I think it gave like $100 million to do— if we were gonna do all the roads in the city, would probably cost us $100 million to do.

So you could see what roads needed to be done.

Obviously, that's not the most up-to-date, but it gives you a good indication of what the roads look like, which ones were in bad shape.

You can also go through, see which ones we've done, but then you'd have to put an inflation factor on, you know, those projects.

And I'm sure we're well north of $100 million for, for some of these projects.

But I do use it, and actually Councilor Raposo had asked for it, and I was able to send him some usable portion.

It's not the most user-friendly, right, but it is— at least it's an accounting of the streets, the conditions they were in at the time, whether it's curb and everything else.

So I just— the reason I bring it up is I don't, I don't want folks thinking that we're just going shooting from the hip.

There's a report and a study that was done to show all our roads.

So what really dictates which streets get chosen now, it's streets that the gas company has just been through and them coming in to do their, their permanent patch, which is usually about 10 feet wide.

So first they do their little 2 foot patch for a year and that sits.

Then when it comes time for them to do their 10, if the remainder of the street is nothing left to it and that 10-foot patch is now the best part of the street, those are normally the streets that I know water's done, gas is done.

If I pave it, we're pretty comfortable with the utilities that are underneath it.

It happens, trust me, right?

Bedford Street popped a water line Uh, and that had to be redone.

But that's at least a good qualifying factor for when we do select a street.

So we look at all of the variables, but the gas company being done— I just came by, I had to go out to Bedford in the area of Walls, Stinziano.

I know I always pronounce it incorrectly, but they were set to do their temporary patch on Stinziano, if I— again, if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

The rest of the street is rubble.

So what I'm able to do in a situation like that is the gas company will say, okay, the next street over also needs repair, we'll take on Stinziano and go curb to curb if I take on their patch responsibility.

And that was kind of done in the past before, but it was never immediate.

So when I take it on like that, I immediately take on that street and and get it done right away, or as soon as we possibly can.

That's why you'll see some streets that have gas patches that are 10 years old.

It's because they were taken on and agreed to— oh yeah, don't worry about that one, give us the money, we're going to put it on another street— but nobody ever went back to finish that other street that had the temporary patch.

So there's— there were a few factors that go into deciding which streets get done.

Speaking of the utilities, have they given us an update on How far along they are with replacing all those pipes?

Is it another 10 years, 15 years?

Gas?

Yeah, probably another 5 to 10 years.

10 years.

And what happens is every year they, they start with what their funding is.

Like this year, for instance, it was supposed to be a slow year.

That's how we entered the year.

And then a month or two into the year, oh, we have increased funding.

And wherever their funding comes from, I'm not sure.

Um, and then it's okay, we want to bang these all out.

There are many locations that I will ask them to make a priority.

Like Central Street that I wanted to get done so that we could continue on the work from Bedford to get us down to the waterfront.

Pleasant Street, it's a corridor that we really want.

We have some grant money.

We've got a 3 or 4 year plan to get all of Pleasant Street done.

Well, I really can't go spend $10 million on Pleasant Street knowing that the gas is coming in 5 more years, right?

So they were able to make Pleasant Street a priority.

So Pleasant wasn't supposed to be done at all this year.

They, they listened to what we had asked them to make a priority, and they took on Pleasant Street to get moving through that.

Well, I appreciate it.

The only reason I asked to speak again was just one, make sure that, you know, folks understood that we do have some information, maybe not the most up-to-date information, but you are utilizing the information that we have.

And I, and I would say that, you know, again, from the census standpoint, we, we absolutely need to push that and try to get people to understand the impacts of not submitting the Census.

I mean, Chapter 90 is just one, right?

And when you start talking about a formula and all that, but when we're dealing with competitive grants, you know, population always comes into, uh, into effect.

And if you've got a certain number of, you know, 100,000 or 120,000, that triggers you into a more competitive advantage for, for certain grants.

So, um, definitely impacting us.

So I don't disagree with the argument that he's trying to make, but I just want to make sure that for, for this discussion, I know we have the, the information that's needed.

So again, thank you, and, um, great job with all the work that you're doing.

I yield.

Thank you.

Councilor in seat 6, Councilor Peckham, you yield.

Anything further?

Motion referred to full council.

Councilor in seat 7, Councilor Parra.

Just one question.

Columbia Street, is that going to stay a one-way?

No, school committee voted— school committee voted to have it two-way.

Okay, I wanted to keep it a one-way, but I was overruled.

But general consensus from the public was they wanted to go back to— yeah, I just got a text and figured I'd ask.

I thought it was going back, but see, all my ideas aren't the best ideas apparently.

So with that, I yield.

That kills me to say that.

Thank you.

There's a motion refer to full council.

Motion refer to full council made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Cannuel.

Discussion on the referral?

Hearing none, all those in favor?

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Mr. Aguiar.

Item number 3 is a resolution to convene to develop a comprehensive plan for accurate financial analysis of the cost and distribution of solid waste and recycling carts.

I'm going to be holding a discussion.

Mr. Thomas, Mr. Hathaway, come on down.

Mr. Thomas, introduce yourself.

Mr., Mr. Hathaway.

Sure.

Matthew Thomas, Special Counsel.

Chris Hathaway, Director of Community Maintenance.

Uh, any overview you'd like to give this council before we start questions?

Mr. Thomas, please.

President, thank you.

So, um, tonight we're here to talk about a comprehensive plan plan on carts.

I'm here to tell you that we've been working on a comprehensive plan since December 14th, 2022, and I'm here to tell you a little bit about what we've done, and then Emily's going to talk a little bit about some financial numbers.

In doing this, we were looking to address 3 basic issues.

First was to address the practice of prior administrations of freely giving out carts.

Now, some of that practice came out of pay-as-you-throw because the thought at that time was that if you had pay-as-you-throw, people were buying bags.

So it didn't make a difference how many carts they had, they were paying for the bags they were using.

When the career administration went away from pay-as-you-throw, that decision was not revisited.

Okay?

And so what happened was all the carts that were out there remained out there, and they continued to give out carts.

Now, each one of these carts turns into solid waste disposal.

And so for the purposes of tonight's conversation, this is not about reducing collection costs, this is about reducing disposal costs.

So clarification— yeah, Councilor, your point of clarification.

Can you just repeat, did you say that the carts were given out first and we had no idea?

Because no, what happened was initially There were carts given out by a formula.

A single family got 1 and 1, a 2-family got, uh, 2 and 1, right, a 3 and so on.

There wasn't as much— but people could ask for extra carts.

They could request extra carts, yes.

And there wasn't so much of a concern given to it because the idea was that they were buying purple bags.

But did the city know how many people— who was getting the extra carts or not?

No, at that point they really didn't have the information.

Because they were not that concerned about it.

I had the impression that they always knew how many cots were given out to who.

We originally did, from what I've been able to find.

So we did know originally.

Okay, so this is long before pay-as-you-throw.

Yeah, the cots were numbered, they were put out, there was a system, and they were never— that's— you're getting to my second point.

What happened is when they were being repaired and maintained, the old cots weren't being brought back Sometimes they were leaving them there.

And so what happened over the course of maybe 4 administrations is carts got left out there, and the system was not— it was broken.

There was no way to know.

When I first started working on this on December 14th, 2022, I asked how many carts we had, and we didn't know.

And the decision was made we had to find that out before we could do anything.

Now, we did it through something called cart maintenance.

Maintenance.

It was a euphemism.

We were going out to repair carts, and as we were going out to repair carts, we were taking inventory at the time.

And it was a matter of going place by place, and we tried to do it in-house.

But the city at one point definitely knew because they bought the carts.

I think this was under Bob Correa's administration when they went to carts.

So at that point they knew.

During Flanagan's administration, I believe they knew.

After that, after pay-as-you-throw came in, it was not something that was being— from what I've been able to find out from looking at the files, because I wasn't involved with it at the time, but it doesn't seem like it was something that was being maintained.

And so when we went to go look at it to start this process, the numbers were not— you could look at them and you knew they weren't right.

Okay, so that was the first thing we were looking to do.

The second thing we were looking to do was to address the practice of not maintaining the lists.

Okay, each cart has a number on it.

It should be scannable.

The scannable should— the scan should be assigned to a property.

And that is for a number of reasons.

One, it's to make sure that if there's a violation, you know who to cite for the violation.

Now, windy days will affect that when the carts go all over the place, but that was the purpose of it.

It was to know if somebody's garbage hadn't been collected Because, well, the idea was when this— when the numbers came out, they would be scanned as they were being disposed of.

So it was to cut down on missed collections.

That's why places do this.

The third thing we were looking to do was, as I mentioned, old bins were not being brought back in.

So if you had a 65 and you got— and requested an additional 95, instead of taking the 65 and leaving you the 95, you ended up with a 65 and a 95.

So consequently, there were more carts out on the street than there should have been.

Now, for context, the city has about 22,000 parcels.

About 981 of those 22,000 parcels are exempt parcels, so about 21,000.

Of the 21,000 parcels, there were 9,494 single-family homes.

This is as of 3 days ago, the LA-4, which is what we're preparing to submit as part of the tax.

Can you say that number again, please?

Sure, 9,494.

Thank you.

We have 1,867 condos, but as you know, we don't collect trash from the condos, so that doesn't affect this conversation.

2 families— we have 2,241 families in the city.

3 families, we have 3,217.

I'm going to jump a bit.

The 5 families, we have 300, which I've kind of reported to you in other instances.

6 families, we have 700.

We have a number of 109s.

109s are 2 buildings on the same property, okay?

Of those 109s, I've identified to you in the past that 4 of them have more than 5 units in them.

And we're looking at the parcel.

So you'd have the assessor's parcel, it develops in cities, you have a 3-family, maybe a 2-family, a 3-family, and a 3— one in the front, one in the back.

$700,000 for the 6 families?

Is that what you said?

$700,000 for the 6 families.

And then we have mixed-use properties.

So one of the things that came out of the audits that we've been doing every year is we identified commercial, how much was coming in from commercial.

And that's what led us to come to you and we all to decide to not collect commercial anymore.

But a number of these commercial are in mixed-use properties.

So we're still collecting from those properties, we're just not collecting the commercial piece.

So for example, in mixed-use properties, we have 72 in the city that have one family, a one-family unit above it.

We have 105 that have a two-family unit above it.

We have 63 that have a 3-family unit above it.

We have 64 that have a 4-family unit above it.

We have 35 that have a 5-family unit above it.

We have 38 that have a 6-family unit above it.

And there's actually 40 of them that have 7 or more residential units above it.

So looking at that context, we then came up with an assumption, and that assumption is a 65-gallon barrel While it can hold 150 pounds, on average, national averages are that a 65-gallon barrel will typically hold about 50 pounds of trash.

Now, that will change from time to time.

If you have a lot more food waste in there, it's heavier.

If you have a lot more non-food waste in there, things that you can't recycle, it's a little bit lighter.

But on average, it's about 50 pounds, and that's what we've used in our assumptions, in our discussions.

A 95-gallon barrel will hold about 75 pounds, and that's what we're using as— these are conservative numbers, but we figured it's better to be conservative.

So back in December of 2022, we started the process.

The enforcement division went out and they were looking at parcels.

We were working at replacing carts at the same time and starting to come up with lists.

The first real list came up in September of, uh, September 14th, 2023, and those first figures were predominantly talking about single families, 3 families, and the commercials.

And it's from that that we decided to come to you and not collect commercials anymore in 2024.

The period between May 15th and May 21st, we looked at 20— at 264 parcels specifically.

These were 1 to 6 families, 264 of them, to see in this sampling what did we see for extra carts.

And in that sampling, we found 52 extra 65-gallon carts, 138 extra 95-gallon cats, so 190 of them.

Now, my conversation thus far hasn't included the recyclables because it's usually 2 for 1 and whatever, but those are included in the mix, and that affects our recycling.

When we all first started this process, all of us years ago, you wanted more recycling because recycling made you money back then.

Then China Sword came in And when China Sword came in and they stopped taking all the paper products and everything else, everybody started to try to change the contracts because it was now costing us.

So we're paying about $125 a ton for trash disposal right now, about $115 a ton, I think, right, this year for solid— for single stream recyclable.

So it's not making us money anymore.

And that's because Massachusetts doesn't have the recycling markets.

Other states do.

Matt, with all due respect, Massachusetts— Massachusetts's zero waste policy is put it on a truck or a train and send it to Ohio, okay?

And that's what they do.

So there's costs.

But we also found out at that time that while we had 190 extra carts in there, we also found 65 extra 65-gallon recycling carts.

We also found 108 extra 95-gallon carts.

So there's 171.

So that led us to start looking at strategies.

We have to get control of these extra cards, okay?

And so we've looked at different ways.

We tried to do it in-house.

We haven't been able to do it in-house.

We can do it by bringing in ReRig, which is the company we originally worked with on this.

They have a— they have a scannable capability.

We can also add on a— on the workers cell phones, the ability to scan the codes and take pictures of enforcement issues.

And we now have— we would have the ability to maintain a list by parcel.

I mean, I have one here, but it's limited, of how many carts are there and what's extra.

Now, most municipalities allow you to get extra carts.

You have to pay for them.

In New Bedford, to get an extra cart, it costs you $300.

Okay, under certain circumstances only— when it's lost or when something else has happened, when you've moved in, when the house you moved to doesn't have an extra cot.

Just a point of clarification, $300 for one cot, one annual fee, one cot, one cot, and that's it?

That's it.

Okay, the ability— but municipalities also understand that solid waste contracts are going out of control.

Mr. Sardina was right.

There were years ago when it was all done very well in-house.

Those days are long gone.

So for example, municipalities that are negotiating new contracts are cutting back on yard waste pickup.

For example, in New Bedford this week, this is no longer a yard waste pickup day this week.

Neither was last week.

The next one will be 2 weeks from now.

And they're cutting back wherever they can on these things because there's extra costs associated with it.

For our purposes, our way of trying to address a reduction on the solid waste disposal side was to present back to you a conversation we've had with you a number of times, and that's the 5s and the 6s, which has led to a lot of discussion.

And I know that it's a lightning rod, I understand that, but the reason we brought that back to you at that point in time was— and maybe it was a misunderstanding on our part, and I'll take part of the blame for misunderstanding it— but I thought that there was actual strength in the belief that we should cut back on the 5s and 6s.

Now, I understand that there are some people that are exceptions, some people that are running rooming houses basically, and they have a lot less.

I get that.

But the fact remains that by reducing the 5s and 6s, we cut down on 53% of our enforcement problems, which we have statistics on, and we cut down somewhere in the $300,000 to $500,000 range on disposal, depending on what you're looking at being put in there.

But for tonight, that's not about tonight.

Tonight was talking about this comprehensive policy and method, which I'm here to suggest to you that we have been trying to do, but we've hit a stone wall and we kind of need help.

The help that we're looking at is ReRig.

ReRig can come into the city and in 90 days can do a full audit of the city, of all the cats that are in the city, creating up-to-date lists that we would then move forward from.

To do that, it's going to cost $202,500 to have ReRig do it.

We've tried to avoid this cost by doing it in-house, but we can't do it in-house.

We don't have enough people in-house to do it.

We don't, because the people that we have doing counting are also doing enforcement.

So that's why in 2005 we went closer to enforcement instead of the counting.

We had— we can only juggle a certain number of things with the staffing they have.

Re-rig would come in, 90 days, do it.

Now, that cost has a cost-benefit analysis to it that you're well worth asking.

And so Emily's going to talk right now about what that cost is, what it gets us and what the savings would be over a certain period of time.

So we are taking it based on the current tonnage and again staying on the idea of just talking about solid waste.

Obviously there could be savings within recycling as well, but just talking about solid waste for this point in time.

So there's $125 per ton right now.

When you take that 65-gallon tote and average 50 pounds per week, the 52 weeks, it's about 1.3 tons, 1.3 tons annually per tote.

For the 95-gallon tote, it's 1.95 tons annually per tote.

So remember, in a single family you've got 1 tote, a 2-family you've got 2, 3 you've got 3, 4, 5 you've got 3.

So if we take those numbers and assume that there's excess out there in these totes, so just, I mean, this is a very probably lowballed number, but if we're saying that there's 250 extra 65-gallon totes.

So we're not discussing anything with pulling 5s and 6s on this right now.

You could apply the math the same way, but that's not what this is.

So just assuming there's 250 extra 65-gallon solid waste totes in the city citywide right now, if we pulled those, we would potentially be saving $40,000 to $45,000 per year for the next 3 years.

Can, can I just make a point here?

So you just talked about a sampling.

How many properties were in that sampling?

In 2024, there were 264 parcels, okay, spread between 1s and 6s.

So 264 parcels had 195 trash carts, extra trash carts, 65 and 95.

And you're going to sit in front of me and tell me there's only 250 extra?

No, no, no, we're being conservative here.

The numbers could be higher.

No, and I was going to get to the 95-gallon totes, and I'm not saying that's how many extra there are.

I'm giving you numbers of what it could save by just pulling that number of them.

You can then take that and multiply it however much you want, actually.

Correct.

Right.

Okay.

But to be safe and to be— I'm going to say as realistically low as possible.

I just wanted to give a number so that I didn't want to inflate this and have it look— so I'd be conservative in the estimates.

So then I would call it as low as possible.

I wouldn't call it realistic.

So, so for the 95-gallon totes, estimating if we pulled 500 of them, it's about $121,000 to $135,000 per year for the next 3 years that we would save.

So you're looking at $160,000 to $182,000 each year that we would no longer have to pay in disposal costs by pulling those totes.

So if we're talking about paying $200,000 one time today, it, and then it's saving upwards of $160,000+ a year for the next however many years, infinite number of years.

It's, it's more than worth the cost of the $200,000 now.

There is no doubt there were extra cats out there, right?

There's no doubt that we're underestimating the extra cats that are out there because in spite of our best efforts, we haven't been able to count them.

By bringing in ReRig, we will do a one-time deal over the 90 days, count it and start from scratch, and then enforce it.

It's also, I think, the idea with lowballing this number too is as much as yes, we're pulling totes, in theory it should reduce the number of— amount of trash we're picking up, but they could also just be adding more into the existing totes.

So now those 50 pounds per week tote may be closer to the 100.

So that's why the number, lowballing it, is a safer bet for us to work off of because it could reduce the amount of trash they're disposing of.

They could be more thoughtful because they don't have a place to put it.

They— we could be using this as an education tool when they're losing the tote, but it also may not work out that way.

So, Councilor, in a nutshell, if you're disposed— if you're filling 2 totes right now and we suddenly take one away, you're not going to stop disposing 2 totes worth initially, but you're not going to fit 2 totes in one tote.

No, but you might put one and a half in it.

And so that's why we're trying to be very conservative in our numbers so that you might have that.

Okay, maybe you get the recycling, you get the reuse on half of it.

All right, so it could be a lot more, but to say that by pulling 1,000 carts means we're going to save $1 million, that's probably not going to be the way this outcome works out, especially not in the first year with just pulling the excess totes.

So that's why we want to be safe on saying don't expect a dramatic shift, but it should be enough that it's saving the cost more than the cost.

Yeah, so if we can— it's a truck on the track, the trailers go underneath.

Yeah, if we, if we can, um, I know councilors have questions.

Sure.

I'm sorry, is there— because I do have everything I just read printed out if anybody wants.

In terms of very quick information to the city council, uh, Madam City Administrator, what do you have?

Um, I just wanted to say that the other thing is too that some of these bins could have already been taken offline because when ReRig sends them to us, they scan them in.

But if they were damaged and then they're picked up and removed, a lot of them have not been scanned out.

So we wanted to be conservative because some of those might not be being used right now for disposal.

They could have actually been damaged and taken offline, and we don't know that.

Very good.

Mr. Hathaway, anything that council needs to know?

Because there's— everybody has a question, I think, at this point.

Councilancy for the sponsor of the resolution, Councilor Vice President Dionne.

Can I just point out, Councilor, your point of information so we're all on the same page?

I think you talked about the savings.

So the savings for the 5 and the 6 family was how much?

Well, when we met in an ordinance and talked about it, you calculated $500,000, I think.

If you calculate based on these numbers we just shared, it would be $670,000.

Yeah, I thought we were at $800,000, but I thought you had presented was like $1.4 million, right?

We're reducing it.

We're trying to be conservative in the numbers because we believe the trash is going to go somewhere.

Okay, so we don't want to sell something that we can't deliver.

The 5s and 6s would be different because they would be completely removed, but that's— that $670,000 is just solid waste, so you'd have to run the math the same way on recycling.

But I just— I— we weren't talking about that today, but I could get that.

So that's $670,000.

I, I just went back to the— I'm going to— I guess I'm going to give a shout out to Far River MA Civic Report or whatever it was.

I just, I just pulled it because you, you had mentioned the savings, but the savings we had, what we were told was $1.4 million, and then when we dialed down— it could be that high, right?

So then when we dialed down, we had said it was about $800,000.

So I guess when we're having the conversations for an apples-to-apples comparison, just to, to make sure whether or not, you know, what was being proposed by Councilor Deon.

It's, it's the target needs to be figured out.

We need to figure out where we need to get if, if we want to eliminate 5 and 6, or we're going with that, we need to know where we're trying to— I think it's the tonnage difference that we were talking about.

The tonnage difference, that's what it is.

Yeah, we talked about the fact that the 5s and 6s could hold more, right?

And they probably are filling them more than that 75 lbs because they're only getting 3 totes for 5 and 6 families.

So in theory, that same size tote that's for a 2-family essentially one household is filling it.

It's, it's just a different fill level most likely, so that's why it could be higher based on that.

But based on that 75 pounds, it would be the $6.70.

So again, probably the lowest end of that.

But I want to caution everybody, these are estimates.

There is no way to know this right now.

These are— we'd have to weigh every single cart as we're picking it up.

Thank you.

Are you good with your point of information?

No, I'm sorry, I went long.

No worries, no worries.

But I just think for the conversation.

Yeah, you know, very good.

You said that.

Councilman C4, you have the floor.

Um, what did— how many carts did you say there were for 4 families?

You skipped over that one.

Yeah, um, it's, uh, no, I didn't say how many carts there were.

I said how many— you know it because I didn't give you carts per unit.

Well, you said single.

Oh, I'm not carts.

I'm sorry.

I, I— that was— how many parcels?

I— how many parcels?

Oh, I believe— I'm sorry.

One second.

Thank you, Councilor.

Um, I believe I had a cart on the brain.

I had it in— I think it's like 295 or 300 parcels, maybe 295, I believe.

All right, so we'll put it at 295.

Sorry about that.

Okay, so let's— so let's back this up.

So yes, everything is an estimate right now.

In part, it's an estimate because we don't know, we don't have accurate numbers.

We don't— the reality of the situation is, and, and I think even when the carts originally went out, we thought we knew how many carts were out there because we supposedly were going by a formula, so you were able to come up with a number.

But that quickly changed.

But at that time, we did not have the capacity or the technology to scan barcodes.

Not with— not with readers on a truck, not with handheld.

So, respect, I disagree.

You did.

We just— it was very expensive, but it was there.

But we didn't— okay, you didn't use it.

All right, so we didn't use it.

So the reality was I could take 5 neighbors' trash carts, put them in my yard, and you would never know where those came from, right?

Which is part of my argument as to— we— and the reality is we have no idea how many extra carts are out there.

I think we have an estimate, Councilor.

I don't think we know exactly.

I think you're right.

I'm not even sure we're close to an estimate.

Um, you know, when you're saying 195 came out, out of a small sample, and we're talking 250 across the city, that, that, that's like completely illogical to me.

I wasn't estimating the actual number.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I was just trying to run math on what I was saying.

I, I, I understand.

Council, that's the argument why we think we need to bring re-rig in, right?

So you know what, I don't know where my estimate is accurate, if your estimate is accurate.

If I'm on— I could be way under, I could be close to the target number.

Same thing on your side.

The prob— that's the problem.

We have all kinds of variables, all kinds of unknowns, and we have no solid numbers.

And the only thing we can do is estimate Everything unless we bring re-rig in.

Correct.

And that— I think that's my problem.

That's my— where I'm coming from.

Um, we need to know, will we save $40,000 a year by pulling in the extra carts?

Will we save $400,000?

I don't know.

You don't know.

Nobody knows.

And everybody has to admit they do not know.

But I will tell you this, If we can save $900,000 pulling in 5 and 6 families and another $400,000 pulling in trash carts, do you want to save $1.3 million a year, or do you only want to save $900,000, or do you only want to save $400,000?

That's why, yes, a comprehensive plan.

We need to, we need to address all aspects of this.

I agree.

And, and, and I do have another question.

Oh, you know me, I have a lot of questions, especially on trash.

Um, so we need to work on it, which we— so just so people know, I met with you on last Tuesday.

I gave you my concerns then, so you all know where I'm coming from.

Are we going to send down an ordinance for a 3-strike rule?

Yes.

Yes.

When?

I have held off doing that because I wanted to have a conversation with the ordinance committee rather than send you something and have you pull it apart, right?

Well, when I ask, are we going to— are you going to send out an ordinance, I don't mean to the full council, I mean to ordinance, because obviously it goes there first.

Then I was going to send an outline down to them for the next week for their next meeting.

Okay, he's been waiting for it.

I know.

Excellent.

We've been waiting for a long, long time.

I get it.

But, counselor, that the important thing about this is I've said all along, I said we were going to do it in August.

All along I said that.

Then I held off when we were going through this 5 and 6 issue.

And this is me, I've— my— I was the one who recommended this.

I said rather than write something, we have ideas of what we want, let's go down to ordinance, have a conversation with ordinance, see what they're willing to do, see what we're willing to agree to, and come up with an ordinance.

That is actually a collaborative effort rather than us sending you something and you pulling it apart, or you sending us something and us pulling it apart.

And that is fine.

And I think we're attempting that tonight, to have a discussion, see what both sides stand.

It will have 3 strikes, and it will have 3 strikes in it though.

Um, that we also address the privates.

Are you going to allow them to come in on a day, on 1 day as opposed to 5 days, to make it cost effective?

They would have their own schedule.

Excuse me?

They would have their own schedule.

They're not going to be about— what we would propose is to not make them abide by the street pickup for that day, right?

So again, when are we going to create that?

All part of the same thing.

This ordinance is going to address all of that.

Okay, very good.

So we didn't know that before.

Um, have the unpaid fees been added to tax bills yet?

And if not, when are they going to be so people know they actually have to pay these fees?

In instances where the property ID has been put, where the parcel code has been put on it, they will be going on this September— well, this October as part of an assessment.

What happens is when you do a municipal charge from that prior fiscal year, the municipal charges don't come on until the 3rd quarter tax bill for the following year, the same way that water charges come on, sewer charges.

And so we're looking at those to come on this year for the ones that we can identify property IDs on.

Okay, my another question I have: are we still— because I don't think we should— are we still picking up trash and recycle for nonprofits?

We still are.

Why?

Because we haven't stopped.

Why not?

We haven't stopped.

You know, that's the reason.

So, so I know, I know some people aren't going to like this, but you know me, I shoot from the hip.

Okay, they don't pay taxes, they don't do pilots, they don't pay for services.

They own more than 50% of the property in the city of Fall River, so we lose taxes, tax money on more than 50% of the property.

And we're going to pay, and we're still picking up their trash for free.

I agree they should be doing pilots, but out of 22— the facts are the facts.

Out of 22,000 parcels, only 981 are tax-exempt.

Okay, okay.

Now, how many, how many trash cots, what size do they— do those parcels have?

And multiply by the number.

And I agree, they should be making a payment in lower tax.

However, of those 981, a huge piece of it is the bioreserve out by Copacabana.

It's owned by the state.

That's included in that number.

Okay, when you look at what the hospitals own and what the the churches own and things like that.

Yes, I agree they should be making a pilot payment.

They should be paying 25% of what they would otherwise pay to cover some essential services.

The argument back, which I don't necessarily buy, but it's the argument back, is that the reason that they are nonprofits are they provide services to the municipality that could not otherwise be provided, whether it's dealing with homelessness, whether it's dealing with Um, uh, other types, social services or anything.

That is what makes you a nonprofit.

Now, to willy-nilly stop them, I gotta tell you, I proposed that and the decision was made to not follow that proposal, to try to continue to collect them for now and to go from there until we could really address it better.

Okay, so I will say that I don't consider it willy-nilly, A.

And B, I get they provide services and I appreciate their services, but any nonprofit that can pay their CEO $250,000 a year to be the CEO of their nonprofit well can afford to get dumpsters and take care of their own trash.

I'm sorry, this could be a debate we could have for a long time, and I would welcome the conversation.

Another component, but my point is we have to be careful to not paint with a broad brush.

Every nonprofit doesn't pay their CEOs that.

Some of them do.

When you think about it, there are health— there are health providers that are nonprofits only because of their structure and are making more in surplus revenue than any for-profit company can make.

So I understand that.

But there are some nonprofits that are also mom-and-pop nonprofits, smaller ones that actually do a lot and they don't have that money.

But you're right, it's something that has to be looked at.

So, and I agree.

And, and you know what, and I, and I probably shouldn't throw this out there, but can anybody— Emily, perhaps— can you tell me how many properties in the city of Fall River that People Incorporated owns?

Oh, I, I can get it for you.

I don't have it right now, but I can get it.

Can you throw out a roundabout number?

I know it's more than 2, more than 5, probably more than 10.

That's not the type of data that stays in my portfolio.

And what are those?

Huh?

Less than 900, right?

It's less than 981, I can tell you that.

Yeah, yeah.

So you know what?

I feel like this conversation is kind of like the business trash.

Everybody was up in arms.

People couldn't agree.

People didn't know if we should stop it, not stop it.

Guess what?

We stopped it.

And guess what?

Everybody lived.

And we didn't get many complaints.

And you didn't get many complaints.

Well, I think this is the same thing.

I agree, but I also agree we need to have a better idea of what the carts are.

Okay, so let's get a better idea.

And that's what we— how many carts they have and what that translates into.

And that's what we would help to the excess carts that are out there.

And maybe we will be talking $500,000 or $600,000.

We don't— I mean, I think all of us would like to see that number of the savings be as high as possible.

I agree, I agree.

And I'm not trying to be— I know I'm a little bit crazy and I'm getting a little bit excited here because it's an exciting topic.

And you talk about the property though, Councilor, are you talking about like the residential homes that they have for the adults with disabilities?

Are you talking about their actual business properties?

Their business properties.

So we're not collecting the business properties?

We're not collecting there anymore.

The only properties that we're collecting are residential homes for that particular business or for churches.

But don't they get— don't they get paid for the people that live in those homes?

Yes.

Well, I mean, it would be a charge to a person's insurance because it's more.

And okay, so, so I hadn't even thought about that.

Now you got me on another roll.

I hadn't even thought about that.

Oh, 15 properties.

15 properties we get no real estate tax on.

That's— are those 15 residentials?

I don't know, it's both.

Okay, but I guess the point is, okay, the residential, okay, but they're not running them for free.

They're not allowing the people to live there for free.

They get paid for that.

It's still a business.

It's still a business of sorts.

Ah, I don't know.

All right, I'm going to try to stay on track.

I know other people have questions, and I know I get a little crazy, and I don't want to be too overboard.

Um, let me see, anything else?

What about— what do we charge on a citation?

What's the fee?

$100, $200, $300?

Yeah, $100, $200, $300.

And you, and you feel that has enough of an impact to, uh, No.

Okay, that's going to change too.

So send it down, send it down.

And this is what I mean, we've been talking and talking and talking for years and years and years, and you're not all at fault, we're not all at fault.

This has been going on for years and years and years.

So I guess that was part of the point of my resolution.

Stop, stop spinning our wheels, stop talking about what we're gonna do and get it done.

And make it as comprehensive and as equitable and save as much money as we can so we can move the city forward and, and have something right.

And with that, for now, I will yield.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Just so you're aware, Councilor in Seat 8 is going to talk next, then I'm going to acknowledge Councilor in Seat 2, Councilor in Seat 3, Councilor in Seat 7, Councilor in Seat 6, and then Councilor in Seat 1.

Councilman Seed, Councilor Raposo, bring on the fun, shall we?

So I'm confused.

We know that trash collection is a problem.

We know people continue to violate it.

Chairman of Ordnance is sitting here saying it should already have been in front of us.

Why didn't we come down already?

Yeah, because we were waiting to try to get a better handle on the cats.

Sure, that's a, that's a moot point.

No, that's not.

That, that's what drives the whole conversation.

We can't— we can't say— we were trying to get a handle on 2 things.

Yeah, the enforcement, which we now have, and on the cards, because we were looking to see what were we producing, and we haven't been able to do that.

So we had said all along we were coming down with a comprehensive number.

We didn't want to do it mid-year.

But it doesn't change the fact that violations are happening and they're being addressed, correct?

So they are being addressed.

It's just not being addressed as aggressively as we can address them.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, and to Councilor Dion's point, I said this last year, that why aren't we liening properties for violations that are not paid?

Because we weren't putting parcel IDs on the tickets for a while, but we have since changed that.

So when we started this conversation last year is when we stopped right there and started putting the parcel IDs in at that point in time, and even took the time to backtrack as much as we could and go back and put them in at that point.

But the timing of that just didn't make that lien process because we had, we had done it probably about this time last year.

And so when that happened, it just was too late to catch it.

Well, because I asked the question last year to Miss Olivera.

I said, how many, how many citations have been issued?

How many have been paid?

Right.

And there were, there was an ambiguous number there that said these are the amount that have not been paid.

And then the question was So what's the status on them?

And nobody really could answer because we didn't have parcel IDs, Councilor.

Okay, so you need the parcel ID is like the property Social Security number.

We need that in order to put it on the tax bill.

Okay, can you, can you commit to me to get me that ordinance in the next 2 weeks?

Yes, the 3 strikes.

Yes, the whole ordinance.

Absolutely, the whole, the whole enchilada.

2 weeks.

Great.

I have a question, and I don't know if, I don't know if I completely agree with the statement that while we're out enforcing, why we can't count them.

Okay, so, Councilor, I'm, I'm not going to disagree with you on that.

I kind of have the same question, but I didn't go out and actually try to count them while we were trying to enforce.

What I have been told consistently, and not by Mr. Hathaway but by predecessors of his, is that as they were out there, they were starting to count and then they got pulled off to do other types of enforcement.

Okay, or they got pulled off to do other stuff.

We had the enforcers doing the counting.

So what would happen is we basically said, walk down the street right before— pick a street, walk down the street right before the truck does, and walk back up another street.

And if you really look at it, there's 20,000 parcels, let's say.

Okay, if we had taken 4 years to do it, we could have done 15 parcels a day and we would have been done.

That's not what happened.

I can't speak to how.

I wasn't the one trying to do it.

But we were meeting monthly at that point in time.

And I think if you talk to anybody that was in that meeting, I was not very nice to them in a lot of ways because we weren't getting numbers back.

And then it became clear that they couldn't do the enforcement and the counting at the same time.

I think it's the coordination organization that it takes to do all of that too.

The system that you would have to map out.

These are the exact streets.

These are the houses we went by.

This day they had carts out at all, this day they didn't, which ones are we going back to, then while trying to do all of those other things.

So it's a large project to figure out management of, which you could do, but on top of everything else, I think that's where it started to lose organization.

I guess to me— Emily's being kinder about it than I am.

Sure.

Because I can't believe that there's a reason.

I mean, I guess, you know, can the IT director make a database and we start building a database to build all this in?

Yeah, we have it.

We do have that.

We have it.

But then to map that to what they were standing in, it just We were using assessor's maps.

We have the database.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's a matter of actually doing it.

And then we were hearing people were hiding carts.

People were— it was because you can't go on the property to look for them.

Sure.

Okay.

Which may be something that we may be addressing in the next ordinance.

There may be a way for us to do that.

So, uh, there's questions I'm not going to even go into because I know you don't have the answers for.

So, um, The pink bins that are still looming around the city.

Those will be coming back.

I heard the same thing last year.

Councilor, I can only tell you what the intention is.

I can't tell you— But answer me this question.

The pink bin goes out, the pink bin gets picked up, nobody says a word that the pink bin got picked up.

That's my issue.

Okay.

The truck drives, picks it up.

Nobody says, all right, this is not— doesn't belong here anymore, it should be removed.

Why isn't it just removed?

I don't know.

They paid for it.

They paid for it.

They paid for those bins, that's why.

See, for those pink bins— so they shouldn't be picked up anymore.

For those pink bins to go somewhere, they paid for them.

And by paying for them, they in essence paid for the service to pick them up.

That was implied in paying for them.

So it just continues and continues.

No, it's not going to continue.

They're going to come back.

We just have to jump through some hoops to do that.

It's not that simple.

It's not like us giving out a blue or a green.

Those are mixed-use properties though.

They are, right?

Those are mixed-use where we're still picking up residential, not commercial.

We're not picking them up at commercial businesses.

Well, if you see them— I would disagree with you on that statement, but that's not a Not a— shouldn't be.

Yeah, yeah, we're not going to go into that right at this moment.

Um, Mr. Hathaway, as far as the policy that is how many carts go out to a particular parcel, is there a written policy at DCM?

Yeah, we have, um, Chris, speak into the mic.

We have a list that sits in the office, okay?

And this is the list.

And as capital is out there, if they see more in a particular household, they call us right away.

And up since I've been on, Joe's been actively going out and pulling cots.

Okay.

As they have, um, excessive amounts.

Fair.

Um, the pilot program for cardboard, we— last time we talked about it, Mr. Oliveira said that it was not happening anymore, and then obviously Chris took over.

So the pilot program is done?

It's done.

And they're pulling those cots?

We're pulling those cots actively.

Pulling?

Um, they have not been pulled yet?

Yeah, any, any cart that was already— that was out there for the last 2 weeks have been pulled.

Do you know how many, how many part of the pilot were issued?

Do you know how many carts were, um, put out for the pilot program?

I believe there was around 350.

And how many have you received?

I think we got about 300-ish.

So you're still missing about 50?

Yeah.

Okay, I can get an accurate count tomorrow.

Yeah, please.

So I'm gonna request 2 things if we could, and through the— to the president through the clerk.

Can we get an update on what I just asked for?

So how many of the cardboard pilot carts were issued?

How many have been returned to this point as of today?

Also, can I get an update on how many fines have been issued in the beginning of the calendar year to today?

And how many have been paid and what the status of the unpaid ones are, please.

You said calendar year?

Yes.

Or if you want to split it up into fiscal years, that's also fine.

Councilor, it might be easier if you did last fiscal year and, and to date.

These are on a fiscal year basis.

Yeah, so let's do that.

Last fiscal year in total and then this fiscal year to date.

From day to date.

That would be fair.

That'd be a better number.

Yep.

Okay, more accurate number.

I yield.

Councilor in seat 2, Councilor Camara.

Thank you.

So, um, just want to make sure I understand this right.

We're trying to put carts and take carts off the street that don't belong there, correct?

Yes, Councilor.

Mr. Hapgood, you know how many carts a single-family resident should have?

Duplex 3-family and so on.

So as we're driving, we're going down the street and picking up the trash, can't we remove the carts once they're emptied out and another cart behind us just eliminating them?

We are doing that currently, but there's not enough staff to do that, right?

So it'll take time.

It'll take time.

Yeah, right.

I don't think we're doing that for something to happen overnight, but I mean, we've been trying to do something for 4 and a half years, I guess, and we don't even have the numbers.

There's a lot more going on right now, Councilor, than there was before.

So Okay, that's great.

So why don't we just take baby steps and pull the cuts as we go, so then we'll have that all set above and beyond what else is going on, whatever?

That's what's happening, Councilor.

So why are we hiring this company that— I don't want to mention their name again— Free Rig, 15 times?

Councilor, the reason we're doing that is because in order to get a full count of what's out there— why do we need a full count?

Because that's how you know how much you, you're disposing per cat, how much, how you, how you Monitor it.

Monitoring what?

The houses, Councilor, because what's happening is, although they're pulling cats— yeah, what I'm going to tell you is what I've been told is that people— you're going to tell me what you've been told?

That's what's happening.

I have not gone out there, Councilor, to actually do it myself, so I can only go off of what I've been told.

Okay, who's telling you this stuff?

Just curious.

The department.

Mr. Hathaway is brand new, so he can tell you what's going on.

So, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy, prior to Mr. Kennedy Um, uh, Charlie.

Okay, what we had been being told— yeah, okay, this is going back that far.

Okay, so no, go ahead, you're going to tell me what's— so what's happening is we're being told, because I asked the same question you're asking, why can't we pull them and why can't we know?

We can't pull them.

And what I've been told, Council, I'm only telling you what I've been told, is that it's taken 4 years to tell me this.

What I've been told, Councilor, is that they can pull them, but people are hiding carts.

Okay.

Which I don't know if that's true or not.

And they can't pull them out fast enough because they don't have enough people to do it, and they can't count them.

I, I, and I agree.

I'm just telling you what I've been told.

Okay, so, so let's, let's think about this.

I agree they probably can't pull them out fast because there are other people to do it, but I'm not asking for this to happen overnight.

So this week we do trash collection and we pull the carts if they're extra.

If they're hiding them, I don't know how many they're going to have to hide, but if we go back 3 weeks from now or 6 months into this program and they got 6 carts or 2 more carts show up, we pull those too as we go along, right?

So I mean, how many do you think these people have hidden out there?

I don't know, Councilor.

I think that's a great idea.

But if there's supposed to be single-family resident has 1 cart and 1 recycling and they have more than 1 and we pull them And 4— 2 months later, we go down there, now there's 2 carts there.

And we know that they didn't request an extra cart because they haven't paid for it.

That's what the plan is in the ordinance, that you want more carts, you have to pay for monthly.

And we know that on that— they're not on that monthly list to have extra carts.

We pulled that one too.

I understand you're going to make mistakes no matter how you go about this.

We're going to pull carts we shouldn't have pulled, put carts we shouldn't have.

So it's not going to be like we do this one time and now it's resolved and fixed.

You're gonna have to monitor this as we go along every time we're picking up trash.

Because we've been doing this for 4 years that way and we're no closer.

No, we haven't pulled any carts.

That's not true, Councilor.

Yeah, we have.

We've been pulling carts for 4 years.

Yeah, okay.

And more carts keep— just not enough of them, but we've been pulling carts once we started.

Once we got to 2023 and we saw what was there— remember, we started this in '22— we've started pulling carts.

Not as many as we should have, not as fast as we should have, and not as consistently as we should have.

Okay, and point of information, and 4 years later everybody thinks I'm overestimating numbers, but we still don't have enough people to pull in carts.

How many carts can be out there and not have enough people in 4 years to pull in carts?

I, I don't disagree with you.

Thank you for your point of information.

Councilor, you have the floor.

I, I mean, I don't think, you know, we have to hire— what's the name of the company again?

Oh, thank you.

I don't think we have to hire those people to tell us how many carts we have.

That's your opinion.

We're going to have to pull— are they going to pull them for us and show up?

Are they going to pull the carts for us or just give us an analysis?

They're going to give us an analysis.

They're going to take an inventory of all of the barcodes that are on them, and they'll be associated with that policy.

And then we have to go and pick them up?

We will, yeah.

Yeah.

So we're going to pay them to tell them how many carts— I think that's ludicrous.

So not only, not only do the compliance officers where are they picking up carts.

But they also drive through the city every day to find the bulky items that are left behind, dumpings, illegal dumpings.

So that's, that's also what they're doing.

I'm not saying the compliance folks aren't doing their job.

All I'm saying is that it's very simple.

We should just be pulling carts as we go about picking up the trash.

We, we should, but we don't have— with the 4 guys in compliance, with them doing the entire city, um, for the illegal dumps and the bulky items, they don't have the time to do compliance pull cots, inventory cots, as well as— well, then shame on us.

We should hire more people and give you the manpower you need to pull those cots and get it done once and for all.

And we should just take care of that.

I mean, if we're going to pay a company $250,000 to tell us how many cots are out there, we're going to go pull them, we're still going to need the manpower to go pull those cots.

And if we don't have the manpower now, how are we going to get it later on?

We just spent $250,000 for someone to tell us how many cots we need to pull.

It's $200,000, to be clear.

How much?

$200,000, not $250,000.

202.

So I, I just— what is it?

I think, I think while they're doing that inventory, that company, while they're doing the inventory, we could follow behind to get the excessive amount of carts.

But they're inputting it into the system to give us a, an idea and a database of what each resident has.

All right.

And, and I mean, if someone initially when they got the carts felt that there wasn't— they were producing more trash, they needed more carts, And also, we pull a cart from them, they are going to have the same amount of trash, I'm assuming, because they felt they needed that trash back then.

That's why they have the additional cart.

So the trash isn't going to go away.

For us to know how much trash we're producing, can't we just go back and look at the tonnage from the month?

Part of it's the 28,000 tons last year, Councilor.

So you think that's going to eliminate because you get rid of some carts?

I think we— I think if we do the enforcement, we can probably reduce that by maybe 10%, 15%.

$28,000 is a lot of tonnage.

Part of it comes with the education piece and people being— and not knowing what shouldn't be in it and knowing how to manage that better.

Once they don't have a choice but to manage it better, they will start to figure that out.

Yeah, once they were told they didn't have to recycle anymore because now they have to pay for bags, that changed everything, right?

So it's the same idea with the— with the totes in general too.

It's— it's an education piece that will come with it.

I don't think it's that complicated.

And maybe I'm wrong, and I appreciate the fact that we've been pulling constantly.

We just continue down that path and pull as many.

If we need more manpower, let us know and we'll try to get some people to do it, because it's just unorganized and ineffective.

It is unorganized, right?

But I think, I think by this company telling us how many we have and where they are, we're still not going to have the manpower to go do it.

And maybe, I don't know, maybe it's a much more targeted approach at that point.

You know exactly where you're going and have a schedule and a plan, and you're not just driving around looking everything.

We're not driving around, we're going down to picking up trash, right?

So we don't pick up trash, but we're already doing it.

So as we pick it up, if there's 2 or 3 bins, we take up the excess ones.

The trash trucks can't pick up the bins.

I understand that, but if there's a bin following them, they can.

Well, we— with all due respect, Councilor, we could have the e-truck go out with ReRig and they would follow them and they would pick up the cots at that point.

The problem that we have is with the limited number of individuals we have in litter enforcement.

Like they said, they're constantly being pulled for other things while they're doing that audit.

And a 90-day audit is going to turn into, with all due respect, 4 years, because we haven't— they haven't been able to do it to this point.

And the work is only getting greater and greater now that we've tightened up illegal dumping situations.

We're fining, we're We've been like enforcing a lot more than I appreciate ever was done.

Now they have to look up partial IDs.

They're getting all that information on— not to interrupt you, I'm sorry, but will we be picking up these carts on days that we're not collecting trash?

No, no, we have to do it on trash collection.

Empty them out and then take them.

So that's my point.

If we do it while we're picking up— yeah, because we can't go into their properties right now without an administrative warrants.

I didn't think it was that complicated, and I'm not sure we need to pay someone to tell us what it is, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've been wrong before.

With that, I yield.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

And C3, Councilor Canuel.

Thank you.

So this $202,500 re-rig, you mentioned that people hide bins.

Would they be able to tell us who's hiding bins?

For that money?

I mean, not unless on the curbside.

Yeah, they can, but they would have the capacity to go back to the— they're not going to do this in one, one swoop week.

This is going to be a 90-day— it's going to be multiple trips on the same, um, trash.

And because they're tracking the barcodes, they would know if it's a different bin at that property than the one that they saw previously.

So even if there's only one out, they would know if it's a different numbered one.

So it would— so if somebody was replacing— clarification, please, sir.

Councilor they won't see any barcodes on my trash bins.

They're wiped out.

How are they going to track?

So at that point, they're going to replace it.

They'll be relabeled.

They've done it in the past.

They'll be relabeled with a new bin.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, Attorney Thomas.

Yes.

Um, you worked on the most current contract with Capital, correct?

Um, were there new trucks that were coming that had better technology, smart technology?

The new trucks have to be 7 years or younger, and the idea behind that is that they have the ability to have readers on them.

Okay, so if they have readers on them, why wouldn't we engage with Capital to see what potential they have to tell us how many stops, how many times they're lifting at a particular stop?

Because the readers are typically on sidearm trucks which we can't use on the Tuesday/Thursday pickups.

Those would have to be handheld type situations, and that's a little bit more difficult to do from what we've been told.

I mean, I just feel like for a company like Capital, they, they have to know how many times they're raising that lever at a particular stop.

And if Mr. Hathaway says, I, I know how many bins we're supposed to have at a single-family, how many bins we're supposed to have at a 2-family, you can just do the math and and say, you know, single-family times this many bins, and then if capital just tells us how many bins they picked up in a particular week, we should be able to see from that data how many bins in excess we have.

I agree, actually.

And if we did that over a multi-week period, you know, obviously one week's not a sample size, but if we did it over a 3-month period, I think we'd have all the data we need.

And is this something we could just ask capital rather than dropping $200,000 for, because I feel like a company like that probably already has this.

We can work with Capital.

I'll talk to them and see where we can get.

Okay, I think that's a starting point before we ever talk about spending $202,000, uh, just to get data.

So, okay, uh, with that, I yield.

Councilor C7, Councilor Pereira.

Thank you, Councilor.

Okay, welcome.

Thank you.

First of all, we had no idea that the cardboard pilot was shut down.

I got calls from people about— they terminated it, and they're told now to put the cardboard in trash.

Is that what they're doing?

But isn't cardboard a commodity?

Not as much as it used to be.

Not as much as it used to be, but do we get paid for cardboard?

No, no, we don't get paid.

Well, we're getting something, but nothing like what we were.

It's not even carrying its cost.

But in the council, they're telling them to put them in the trash or in the recycling?

In the trash.

No, they're supposed to be telling them to put them in the recycling.

Well, okay, so now I have one recycle.

I'm single family, I have one recycle.

You know how much shopping I do online?

Council, I understand.

You don't have a clue.

No, I— my wife is— I have a map that says if you're from Amazon, deliver next door so my husband doesn't see as much.

But I mean, you're gonna remove somebody's cart, but if they're using it and they're putting 2 carts, you have to think that due to the price of housing, etc., there are numbers of people living together.

Like Mr. Sardina said, across the street in that house there's 10 people.

He's got 5, so maybe they do need 2 carts.

What is the total amount that we are paying capital right now?

Because we haven't seen that.

What is the total amount, Emily?

I don't have that with me.

We were under an amendment with the capital because of the fact that we didn't have a budget for the year, so that amendment ends next week.

I can send it to you, I just don't have it.

Give me a ballpark.

$12 million?

$16 million?

I have way too many numbers in my head.

I'm so sorry.

Well, I, I think that's the bottom line.

What does it cost us to get rid of trash?

And you know, well, Councilor, it's not capital, it's the disposal cost.

Exactly.

So figure 28,000 tons times $125 a ton.

I understand that, but you're worried about— it's not the pickup.

The pickup, we're going to pay what we pay for pickup, but then when we go dispose of the trash is what we're paying.

We want to try to reduce that.

That's the one thing we can address.

How much trash— when we got rid of bags, how much trash did we pick up more in the North End and the South End?

Because Tiverton has bags, Freetown, Somerset, Swansea, they all have bags.

They bring their trash.

I don't have exact numbers, but what I'll tell you is that typically when a community goes to purple bags, there's a 30% reduction.

This is statistically— there's a 30% reduction in the disposal.

That's right.

I would argue here that when you got rid of bags, you probably picked up about 45 to 50% more garbage.

We did, because I was at DCM.

We looked at those numbers.

That was years, years ago when Jaisal pulled the trash bags back.

But that's what I think happened after you got rid of the purple bags.

But we still are having that issue.

Because the carts are still out there, Councilor.

You still have people bringing trash to Fall River.

And to me, when you're saying that you don't want the 4 and 5 and 6 families, they're going to pay for their own trash.

They pay taxes too, like we all pay taxes.

That's a different conversation than this.

Well, I'm going to converse on everything that's in my head.

Okay, Mr. Thomas.

So thank you.

Sure.

Um, but now the other thing is I had a woman call me.

I think she might have even come to the council, I'm not sure.

But she's got a 6-family, 6 people live there.

They're 1-bedroom units, 1 person in each unit.

She called around.

Do you know that there's not a lot of companies that are picking up bins?

There are 3 of them for Fall River.

Which 3?

Javi is one.

Javi, uh, Waste Management and U.S. Bins.

And how many are they picking up?

Because they're limiting— they're limiting how much they're picking up.

I think they're limited because of our schedule.

They're limited and they're charging people more than we would even charge them for a bin if you wanted to charge people.

To be very frank with you, let me address that because that's a point you brought up.

If we were going to charge— because I know there's been talk about charging the 5s the 6s for extra, whatever.

If we were to charge for a bin, it's not just the charge for the bin, it's the charge for the disposal.

I understand.

And at the end of the day, what it would cost for all of that is probably going to be equal to or more than what they're paying the private sector to do it.

But here's the thing, a few people, a few companies will pick up.

Some of them are limited on what they're going to pick up, like Waste Energy or something.

They had a few more bins here, right?

After that, they're not picking up more.

Republic is not picking up any bins.

What they're picking— they're not picking up the, the carts, but they are picking up the bins.

You know, not the bins, the, the, um, containers.

Containers.

But then we end up with a problem with that too, because there's not enough room on a lot of these properties to put a cart.

That's why they would have to use trucks like that.

They have to use carts.

So, but they said it's not feasible and it's not cost-effective for them to go around and pick up the bins, that they can't do that.

So it's just the big yard waste things, and that's going to be a problem too.

And I think, like, Councilor in seat number— I don't even know— 2 said, it's true that if you're going to pick up bins, why are we spending over 200,000.

Have somebody follow the truck now.

If you need more people, then I say hire more people for DCM.

Councilor, I've heard this now 7 times.

We were doing that.

Forgive me for my frustration, but what you're saying we should do is what we have been doing for 4 years, and we're no closer to knowing the number.

You're not doing it for 4 years consistently.

You're not doing it consistently.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

Okay, so because he doesn't have the manpower— I'm not going to argue with you about this, but you're right.

That could work.

We've tried to do that, Councilor, and it hasn't gotten us to where we need to be.

It's also a temporary project.

And I'll tell you, as far as going by and scanning, you know what that was put for initially?

What bill of goods was sold here when we first did the carts with Bob Correa?

And we did the carts because there was a rat infestation, et cetera.

We thought carts would be better.

And what they did that for was for recyclables, that when they went by and picked up those carts with recyclables, they would be able to scan it and they would know how much tonnage was in the recyclables.

And the homeowner would get a gift certificate for someplace as an incentive, really, to keep— as an incentive to keep recycling.

And if it was a multi-family house, the owner could give a gift certificate to somebody, one of his tenants, to get people to recycle.

That's, that's what was sold to us on why they were doing that.

Okay.

I just think that we need to look at resolving the trash issue, and unfortunately somebody's got to pay for it because the tonnage is out of control.

So let's not kid one another, and let's not take a specific group Well, you're gonna pay and you're gonna be on your own, but you're not gonna pay, you're gonna get it for free, but you can only have 2 barrels, or this one can have 1 barrel.

Do you wanna charge by the barrel?

Do you wanna go back to bags?

You— something's gotta give because our people are taking it on the chin with disposal from Tiverton and Somerset and Swansea and Freetown dumping here, especially if they own a house here.

They're dumping here.

If I may, Councilor, that's what our litter enforcement officers do.

That's what they've been concentrating on, is going around to the parks when there's been illegal dumps.

When we find bins that are— basins that are overflowing, going there, ripping bags, trying to find out who is dumping.

When we've done a very good job of it, we heard from the court that they've had a number now of criminal complaints that are filed by the city of Fall River addressing illegal dumping in not just bulky items but just trash.

So that's where if we take our enforcement officers and we put them away from that, that's only going to get worse.

And I understand that some people are doing that in our parks because you go and the barrels are filled downtown.

I get it.

However, they're also putting it at private homes if they own a home here but they live in another community, or they have a relative that lives here, they're coming here too.

What I do like is the police putting on their website people that they're picking up who are dumping illegal tires or mattresses or whatever, and they should be fined, and they should also pay for the cleanup that has to come along with it.

And I think Chris's department and the guys there are doing a really good job with that.

I'm just looking at the facts.

Let's not kid each kid ourselves.

Every other community is paying.

Somerset is, Swansea is, Dartmouth is.

And what, we, we can't take a tough vote?

It's better that we all share in how we're going to dispose of trash and not just selective people that are going to have to pay.

And I think if you have a certain quota of bins you're supposed to have If you want an additional one, you should get it if the circumstance is that you have family members living there or a larger family.

Because if, if I'm using 2 trash barrels a week and all of a sudden you're going to take one, but I've got 6 people living in the house or 7 people, where am I going to put that trash?

Am I going to go put it in a barrel at the park?

Because you took my barrel, or am I going to pay?

I mean, we're going to run into the same problem, Councilor, if we go with a bag fee or a trash fee, and then those who don't want it go to privates.

And if, uh, if there's— it's going to be the same situation.

Fine, let them go to privates, but they can't put dumpsters in their yard.

They have to get bins.

Yeah, they don't want to get bins.

I mean, that's the only thing.

We, we're trying to be creative with options for waste diversion right now with what we have.

Um, we hear a lot that there's too many fees and things that are being put on the homeowners and the residents.

So this was one idea that we had until the waste diversion in 3 to 4 years expands that we can regionally— that we can participate in it— was just to try to remove what we're told by the company that's our vendor.

Our litter enforcement tells us those are the biggest offenders, and they also tell us that that is the most trash being disposed of.

It's the heaviest that those bins there where Matt was using an estimate of 75, they're telling us through capital it's anywhere from 125 to 200 pounds in those bins that they're dumping because a lot of those apartments have food waste which weighs the most and they don't have the ability to do something with the food waste.

So it's just a kind of way to be, you know, creative right now until other alternatives can come up.

So, and that program that I, I believe it was, uh, who was here that wanted that mulching thing or whatever, put in— how many people are doing that composting?

Not many.

No, that was one of the ideas.

There's pilots that we can look into.

To do composting.

And, and Emily spoke about, you know, we need an education piece.

We're going to do an education piece.

I've been talking about and hearing about that education piece.

How many, how many meetings do we go to that they talked about that?

Is it done?

Are we doing an educational piece now?

We're going to start working with the green team in the schools.

Yeah, not your fault, Chris, because you just got here, but they've been wanting to do that for the last 5 years.

And I just think we need to bite the bullet.

Yeah, I don't like to pay either, but if I'm going to say to the city, I don't want you picking up the trash, I'll hire my own company, it's going to cost me anyway.

So you want everybody to just get their own company?

I don't like being selective, and I think my colleague in seat number 2 was right.

If it's going to take time, take time.

I hate spending $200,000— $202,000 for somebody to go around and scan carts that they're not going to pick up.

They're just going to scan them.

I mean, a couple of us are retired here.

Give us a thing, we'll go around and scan them for you.

Come on.

I, I just— is that a full volunteer option?

I'd volunteer to do something.

We've, we've been on committees.

We volunteered, you know, to do things.

And I'm sure you'd get some people to help out with volunteering.

I don't know.

Trash is something that needs to be addressed.

And Republic, they're shipping all their stuff to the train we talked about.

That's all going to Ohio, you're right.

So, not gonna cost, it's not gonna save you a whole lot of money.

Your Crapo's already full.

They used us for a little while.

They're not taking anymore at Crapo, right?

14 more years.

But are they taking outside?

No.

No?

Well, very little.

I don't blame 'em.

I don't blame them for not taking outside because then Dartmouth has it, New Bedford, they have Frapo, so they're not going to have to worry about it.

It's longevity for that community.

Smart thinking on their part.

With that, uh, I frustratedly yield.

Thank you, Councilman C1.

Councilor Licatini.

Thank you.

Moment of silence to pause.

Um, crazy.

So I don't, I don't know that we're any closer to any solution.

And quite frankly, I don't even know what the purpose of the conversation is anymore.

So is the goal savings, reducing tonnage?

What— what I guess— what is the purpose of tonight?

Tonight's purpose was to respond to the thing, to the question of the resolution about a comprehensive method to look at the financial impacts of the cuts and everything.

And so what we were trying to do is explain what we've done for the last 4 years on that.

Yeah, let's not rehash that.

I heard that.

I know, that's what we tried to do.

But the bottom line is, in order to really cut back on, to create savings, the only place we can create savings is on disposal.

You have to drive the city no matter what.

So by reducing the number of bins, it reduces the number of disposal.

Maybe not 1 to 1, maybe 1 to a half, something like that.

All right, so can we just— okay, so it's savings and we think it's tonnage.

So first we were talking about 5 to 6 families, then, uh, Councilor Dion brought in, you know, if we've got extra bins, if we start charging that potentially, that there's enough of those extra bins out there that if we start charging a fee, then we could potentially see the savings and not eliminate the 5 to 6.

So at the end of the day, I think if we're talking about a savings and trying to reduce, then we need to talk about fee.

That's, that's the real issue.

So we talked about pay-as-you-throw.

We had pay-as-you-throw.

We eliminated it.

Tonnage goes up.

We're one of the only communities that doesn't have pay-as-you-throw.

I don't see us going back to pay-as-you-throw, quite frankly.

I mean, we can continue to talk about it, but why we're not having a conversation about a— and maybe this is not popular, but whatever— why we're not having a conversation about just a trash fee.

I mean, we, you, we have 10,000 roughly 10,000 residential properties.

If you're looking to save $800,000 from 5 to 6 families, that's $80 per property.

So, Councilor, I'm not here to recommend a trash fee.

That's not my purpose tonight.

But the fact of the matter is, most communities that have trash fees— not bags, but a trash fee— do cover a substantial amount of their trash fees, of their disposal costs and collection So, but that's part of the conversation.

So, you know, the $80, we were just talking about eliminating 5 to 6 families.

So that wasn't bringing in significant savings.

It's some savings, right?

So we've had this conversation before.

So if we want to create an enterprise fund and we want to, you know, start charging a fee so that we're fully self-sufficient in terms of that, and if there's a rate fee, then that's one conversation.

But I think we need to know what the goal is so we can have these conversations as opposed to of these back and forths and having companies.

I don't disagree with my colleagues.

I think— and maybe I don't understand re-rig or whatever it is, but $200,000, that's a third of, you know, a year savings of eliminating 5 to 6 family, right?

So if we've got $800,000, you're paying a third of your savings from that to have a company come out.

I make an argument that it costs us probably $50 to $75 per cart.

You could get almost half the city with brand new carts and say, okay, is the color, we're all— this is the only carts that we're picking up.

Leave all the other carts, we collect it, you know.

So $250,000, you throw another $250,000, $500,000, the entire city has brand new carts.

I'm sure some of the carts need to be fixed, so we don't even have to worry about it.

I'm sure there's an additional cost to rolling them out, but that's, to me, is the easiest way to do it.

So if I can respond to that, if you're looking at a fee, you're probably looking at about $100 to $125 a year unit fee.

Something like that, if carried out through the whole thing and done in a situation where a single-family pays a certain fee, a 2-phase something, a 3-phase something, so on and so forth, could get you enough revenue to zero out the general fund impact.

Right.

And listen, maybe the conversation is we're not looking to zero out the entire service itself.

Maybe it's half of it.

So maybe it doesn't have to be 100, right?

So I, I think part of the conversations that we had heard, I don't know how many years ago, when we're talking about pay-as-you-throw, the biggest part of the pay-as-you-throw was the fact that buying the bags was a pain, having to do that.

I think if we had a flat fee, we would probably have less of any type of issue moving forward.

Now, that doesn't, that doesn't translate into people recycling more, but let's, let's be honest.

I mean, I know we're supposed to be pushing recycling.

Recycling is costing us more than solid waste.

So I would defer to Mr. President about this, but is it the sense of the council that you'd like us to come back to you with a fee?

I would say the council asking us to come up with a proposal for a trash fee.

I can tell you what I'm asking for.

I'm asking for— if we're looking at an analysis, if it's saving— if it's saving money for the city, give us options of what it is.

And a fee should absolutely be on that, because to me, all this other stuff and going back is going to cost us more money, more manpower, and at the end of the day, the cost is still going to go up.

We, we can't burn trash, right?

We don't have that ability to do it.

No, you can't do that anymore.

That's banned.

So I know there was discussion about incinerator.

We can't do that, right?

We have a transfer station that's still in the works of being built and all this other stuff.

Yeah.

So from my standpoint, I think— I forgot which one of my colleagues said it— like, we've, we've got to take tough votes, right?

So I understand that you and council Herrera is saying that, but I guess my question continues to be, is it the sense of the full council that you would like us to come back to you with an analysis on a trash fee?

If that's what you're asking— to be clear, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomas, if I can, because we're going around in a circle.

Councilor in seat 1 clearly articulated it's the purpose of the resolution is for the administration to provide an accurate financial analysis related to the cost and distribution of solid waste.

That should be an option as part of the analysis, or options for analysis, that you give the city council.

I don't think the council's prepared to make a vote right now on if we want to do a fee because there's a lot of unanswered questions.

I'm not suggesting that.

Yep.

So let's make sure we get a financial analysis done with options that we could debate on.

I think that's what we're talking— that's a fair request then, Councilman C1.

That was not something that we actually thought was going to be part of the conversation.

Well, that was the purpose of the resolution.

The resolution said the cost of the carts not necessarily at that disposal.

So we were just— we can definitely do that.

Thank you.

Okay, well, it also said comprehensive plan.

We can definitely do that.

That's what it says.

That's what I read.

Councilman C1, you have the floor.

Sorry to interrupt.

No, and, and, and I— listen, I, I don't think it— we, we shouldn't be working on this in a silo, right?

So it's the— it's a totality of the financial picture, right?

So we've got some significant cost increase coming in, whether we're talking about pension, healthcare, whatever that cost may be, right?

So we're trying to minimize, and right now there's a way to minimize the cost for trash, right?

So I get it, people don't like fees.

We're in government though.

We don't create products, we provide services, and the only thing we do is taxes and fees.

Those are our 2 options to generate money, right?

So we need to figure out how to reduce tonnage, and the best way to reduce tonnage is a pay-as-you-throw program, which is going to force people to buy bags and start recycling more and putting less in the waste, right, in the trash bins.

So if that's not an option, if we're looking at from saving money, then let's just do a fee.

It's an easier, probably more palatable— I don't disagree with you.

Stands from anybody.

So I just— but I think we need to know what it is that the administration is looking for, how much we're looking to try to save that would be beneficial.

Is it 100%?

Is it 80%?

Is it 50% of the cost?

And then we can finally have some some discussion as to what it is.

Because I think— I, listen, I would support removing 5 and 6 families.

I've said that before.

But there are my colleagues that don't feel that way, and I can understand it.

So if there's a different way to go about it so that we're not impacting individuals in the 5 and the 6 families, then let's address it.

All this other stuff about, you know, 4 years ago, 5 years ago— okay, no, it's fine.

I just— we wasted an hour and a half.

And from my standpoint, let's, let's bite the bullet, because in 2 years we're gonna come back and we're gonna say we don't have enough money, we need a fee, so let's, let's just do it now, right?

So, but let's make sure it's reasonable, right?

Okay.

So, and we know we won't get it next year because then it's an election and we won't want to take fees and all this other stuff.

So let's, you know, I've said it before, if you don't want to vote for me, don't vote for me.

So I'm one council that says you don't want to elect me, don't elect me.

But at the end of the day, I think there's a reality to the situation.

We should never eliminate the page to throw, but we did.

We have an opportunity to get fees in here, a flat fee across the board.

I would tend to think that we could probably have a proposal to you in about 2 weeks.

Yeah.

And then I would, I would say instead of this, uh, re-rig or whatever it is, what's the status of these carts?

I mean, I'm sure a lot of these carts are broken and people had them since they were first rolled out.

Well, actually, those carts have been repaired.

That was what came out of cart maintenance.

We repaired them, I'd say probably 90% of them.

Yeah, we're at a good We're at a good level right now, and capital has taken over a lot of that since July.

So the carts are in much better shape than they were.

That has been— same thing with replacements.

Yeah.

All right, so maybe we— I mean, what do we got for storage?

How much do we have in inventory for carts?

Do we have a lot?

Um, just about 100 of everything except for 95 trash.

95 trash, I think we're down to the last couple.

So we might just want to consider— we're looking at change of color, change of top color, whatever, whatever the case may be.

Well, we're looking at changing the top covers on what we can get.

We're looking at that, right?

So that, that would be the easiest play instead of, you know, buying— they're probably cheaper, right?

So that's just, that's just my standpoint.

Um, so I, I'd support if you, if you folks want to just identify like how much you feel like we need to save us about, again, 100%, 80%.

Give us 2 weeks.

We can get something back in 2 weeks.

Yeah.

Okay.

Just a quick point of order.

Councilman C5.

Matt, where, where's ReRigged, the company that you're talking about?

We know where they worked out.

That's the manufacturer of the totes.

Of the totes.

All right.

But what they're gonna do the audit for them?

We pay them monthly right now for their software, for their software.

And that was the point for this was trying to get a handle on the carts and where we stand.

Because if you go to cart fee and someone still has extra carts that we're not aware of and they put them out when they're picking them up, they're not really sure whether you paid for one cart or 2 carts.

Yeah, as part of that software, so we can, we can implement— there's a work order system as part of it, and they're going to come in and do that audit if we approve it.

Well, we would have to— that would pay the additional— where have they done it before?

What other municipalities?

I haven't, I haven't got that information from them.

Can you get me that information?

I'd just be curious.

Thank you.

I yield.

And Constance, you still have the floor.

No, I'm good.

All right, out of curiosity, if I may, what's the point of the software if we're not monitoring?

What do we— what does that do?

At one point they were keeping track of it.

Up to a certain point they've— is it doing anything right now, out of curiosity?

Uh, currently we're looking into utilizing it for the work order, for the cart maintenance repairs, the replacements, so on and so forth.

There's a work order system built into it.

So that way when a resident calls in, it goes to that parcel, and then that work order is sent to the person who does the actual repairs, and then they can put the repairs on it, and now we have a record of it.

Councillor in seat 3, Councillor Canuel.

Thank you.

I'll be brief.

Um, just on that, um, you said we were using the software for a period.

At one point it was being news here.

Can we find out when we stopped and why we stopped?

Absolutely.

Okay.

And then just— I'll be brief.

I just want to speak to the purpose of this because I do want to remind my colleagues that there's potentially an ordinance in full council related to eliminating the 5s and the 6s.

So this resolution by my colleague in C4 was— there's a hypothesis, and based on the conversation, I think it's becoming more of a probability that if we understood how many excess carts we had out there, we could get to that level of savings you were seeking to achieve by implementing this ordinance eliminating 5s and 6s.

So I think, you know, this continues to come up.

I think we should be potentially killing this ordinance tonight till— rather than tabling it till we come up with this comprehensive review, because I think just based on the discussion, if you have, uh, Capitol calling all the time, you know, we have an excess card here or there.

Well, we still have some work to do, and I think this resolution that we've been discussing at great length demonstrates that we need to do this first, do that analysis before we proceed.

With that, you— thank you, Councilor.

And C4 Council Vice President Dionne.

Yeah, just as a point of reference, so while everybody was talking, $120 a year per household is $2.30 a week, less than the price of one big purple bag, times 22,000 properties will generate $2,640,000.

So just a note, just a thought, which is way more— I know that's bad English— way more than taking the 5 and 6 families Right?

Yes.

No, but it's okay.

I'm not going to debate it with you.

I thought you said earlier you've taken the 5 and 6 families.

No, because by paying for it isn't going to reduce the trash.

It doesn't reduce the trash, but it reduces the cost, and the cost is going to go— it's a, it's a, it's a wash.

The number has to be a little bit higher, but I understand what you're saying.

Oh, okay.

I thought cost reduction was part of trash.

It is, but having people pay doesn't make them dispose less trash.

I get that part.

And waste reduction is something we're going to work on.

We have to work on that.

That has to be part of it.

So this would be one part.

Oh, I'm not just— that would be— that's better than nothing.

But we need to do— that's just a point of reference.

Gotcha.

That, that's a good savings right off the bat without hurting anybody.

With that, I yield.

Thank you.

Hearing no further discussion on the item, what is the will of the council?

Motion to table.

Motion to table of the Committee on Finance made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Kadim.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Item number 4 is a financial review, uh, financial fiscal year 2026 quarter 4 budget report.

Discussion?

Councilor in seat 4, Council Vice President Dion.

Hi.

Hi, how are you?

Great.

Can I have like 30 seconds to shift gears?

Sure.

Okay, and I won't even time you.

Okay, I'm ready when you are.

Okay, so I'm going to start with, has the cash from the audit been reconciled?

I know from the audit.

Has that been reconciled?

Yes.

I don't have that with me, but I— yes, we found where the discrepancy came in, and it was just a bad entry that made that number that far off.

One bad entry of $240,000?

Yeah, it was in— it was in EMS.

It was the way something was accrued.

It was hitting wrong, so we found a receipt that matched up near to that.

So there was— I'm sorry, there's probably still a couple of thousand, like $3,000 left outside of it.

But yes, for the most part, yes, it's from one entry that was done.

And the way it was— I could— I can get all of that for you.

But the way it was done, it just didn't cross the years right.

And the timing hit weird that it couldn't be reconciled right.

But he found it in going through all of this.

So, OK. Second question.

Did you receive the pension breakdown from Per rec?

No, we have not.

Why haven't we received that?

So they— what I was told was stopped providing it like that.

Okay, solid response.

I agree.

So we have not received actuals for all indirects either.

What do you mean?

So are we talking— can we— sorry, are we talking FY26?

No, FY27, because we reduced indirects.

Well, quarter 4 report, that's what I was— well, yeah, well, I'm sorry, I just am trying to understand where I'm at.

That's my bad.

It will come into play, but I just wanted to address this because you had said that you had put in as per rec to give the actuals, so I wanted to know if we actually got them because it's important in the budget now and moving forward as to where we are.

All right, sorry.

So this is what I want to, um, as far as quarter 4, I'm a little bit confused, and I did email you.

I don't know if you saw it.

I did, I saw it.

So January 28th, 2025, we transferred $2.5 million.

May 13th, 2025, we transferred an additional $2.5 million because you had explained to us that in previous years before you were CFO, the, um, Employer Trust Fund was underfunded, correct?

And this $5 million was going to bring that up to where it should have been.

That was what we were told.

So that was FY25?

That was FY25.

That was FY26.

So FY25, we transferred $2.5, $2.5, and 5 and 4, 3, sorry, and 2.

It was, it was 3 separate ones.

So that though we've done 4 transfers, so those 2 dates were in 2025.

May of '26, we transferred $3 million.

And May— I mean, May 12th, '26, we transferred $3 million.

And May 26th of '26, we transferred another $2 million which was supposed to be bulking up the employer trust fund.

So in 2 fiscal years, we transferred $10 million.

But in the 4th quarter report, we're showing that the employer trust fund is short $1.2 million.

How can that be?

So FY25, we were just trying to break even and stay afloat at that point.

It was underfunded.

So none of that was supposed to build a balance at that point.

FY25, we were trying to— no, it was supposed to bring us to zero, correct?

Yep.

So it's $5 million that we did last year that we are starting to build the balance.

It's still taking time.

We, we've agreed that we need a balance base of closer to $12 million in there.

We need 2 to 3 months worth of bills in there to get it to where we need it to be.

So we're not, we're not there yet.

What you're seeing in this report is timing.

Is the majority of what you are seeing that's short, it's timing.

I have already from this report that was printed, I think the Munis reports are 8/7, so August 7th.

I have $1.6 million in receipts that have come in since then that aren't reflected in this report.

So $1.6 would put us at a $400,000 surplus even though we put in $5 million to bulk it up.

So there's more timing that's missing.

We have reports from Gallagher.

If you read the reports from Gallagher that I shared, 'cause we didn't have it when this book was printed, which I apologize, but 'cause we have been trying to keep them in the book to make it consistent and clear, we're probably missing upwards of another million to $1.5 million from receipts that we just haven't received because of the timing of when all of these bills hit and when we get the stop losses, usually a much bigger lag than what we're reported with.

We're— we get the reporting pretty live because we know when somebody's gone over the cost, but the actual processing of the reimbursements don't happen anywhere near that timing.

Okay, so assuming that comes in, um, that still only puts us right around the $2 million mark.

So we would still be $3 million shy of the $5 million we put in to bulk it up.

So when we had set the budget for the year, I think everybody remembers vividly the back and forth on how much we were budgeting for it and how far off we were from the Gallagher estimates and what we should be fully budgeting for and not.

So if you recall, we, we were about 1.5 short at the time of the fiscal year starting from what Gallagher had said.

We— I have the reports to show you that I had shared at that point for FY27, for FY26.

Okay, when we started, yeah, '26.

So '27, we're up, we're right exactly where they said and then some.

Okay.

In '25 and '26, we were still a little bit short.

We have actually had savings.

So if you look at what they told us to budget, we did come in just under that budget, but we were going in a little bit short.

So some of the costs were still evening out.

So it's some of it's just the timing of it.

Some of it's the fact that our, the other part that we had budgeted in there for So Aetna and KNRX, we had budgeted $8.2 million, came in at $8.6 million.

So there's a lot of different pieces that are ebbing and flowing in this at one point.

And again, it's just a bad snapshot in time.

If you look even at the last quarter 4 report that we did for FY25, the number that was reflected there to what the final number is in your book currently has a $2 to $3 million swing as well.

So it's a lot of it's just the timing of when this is getting recorded.

And the fact that it's not going to be a perfect $5 million balance in there right now, but it should be closer to that.

And it's just not all in.

We don't close that receipts receivable until September 30th.

So after September 30th, will we get an update?

So what you're telling me is we're not in reality going to have a shortage, and we don't have shortage.

We don't have a shortage, correct.

I, I already have $1.6 million in receipts, so right there we're at $400,000 to the good.

And again, I know that's not the number we want to be at, but we're— it's definitely not short.

That's not— and when— and those receipts were recognized when?

So I actually have them printed by line item because I saw this coming.

So, um, we have one that was recorded effective date 7/1 instead of 6/30, so super convenient timing.

There's 2 actually on 7/1, one on 7/31 1 on 813-838-3949494.

Okay.

All right.

With that, I'll yield for now.

Before— on your— thank you for yielding.

What did you say, Ms. Arpke, about what PERAC said?

They said we're not— we don't do that anymore.

We don't provide it like that.

So we were asking for a detailed breakout of how— of what the departments look like.

And exactly what makeup of the liability is theirs, right, of the whole plan cost.

And they said they don't provide it like that anymore, in the sense of in that level of detail with spreadsheets and information.

Who pays PERAC?

That's the state.

And we have no ability to ask for that again?

So I responded to that email asking for more information, and I, I haven't received anything yet.

There are private actuaries out there, so not everybody uses PERAC as their actuary.

It's actually probably not that common that it's done that way, but our retirement system currently does that to save money by not paying what you would pay a private actuary to perform this work.

Can you follow up on that email and copy me on that tomorrow, please?

Yeah.

Very curious.

It doesn't make any sense, but I understand what they told you, but again, I don't— I'm not really buying it, quite honestly.

Anyway, Councilor in seat 8, Councilor Raposo.

So just a few quick questions.

As far as the water and sewer enterprise accounts, both ended up as of this report in very well in the positive.

Is the plan to move that money into their stabilization accounts?

So right now we can't do anything, right?

So we have to wait for it to be certified and free cash.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Later on.

Um, so I, I can't say yes or no.

It would be the same thing that we probably did last year.

We would come down with, um— so I can— let me just take a step back.

A couple of years prior to now, they hadn't been doing anything with their retained earnings that was being certified.

It just kept sitting and kind of rolling over.

So this year they finally went in and they, they appropriated it out.

They put some into stabilization, they put some into capital projects.

The goal is probably to keep doing that now.

Um, so I would assume that they would do the same thing.

They would take some of that and put it into capital projects again to reduce what they need to bond and authorize for that, and then they would put some of it into stabilization because I don't think they're at their full, um, I don't— balance goal.

I don't know how else to say that.

Okay.

Um, on the school transportation piece, it looks like it's pretty close to 100% as far as budget use according to this report.

It's about 102 $2,000 left.

Would we be safe to assume we've expanded that budget completely at this point, whatever remaining bills you probably had?

No, that is final.

That was their final number.

Yeah.

Okay.

I actually checked it today.

Excellent.

So ahead of probably what will happen in October with the ad hoc committee, could you provide a breakdown of that line item?

You know, it's obviously $13.135.

Can you provide a breakdown of what that number actually comes out to per the subcategories, if that's possible?

Because that will definitely be a point of conversation as we move forward about school transportation.

Yes, I will say that it is in the Munis reports technically, line by line.

It's not very clean and pretty, but it is in there that backs it up.

But I can get a report prepared for that.

That would be excellent.

And then just a general observation of of expenses across the city.

It looks like most of the departments didn't hit 100% as far as expenses.

So do you have— and this may be a very premature question— do you have a sense of what may be rolling over later on?

So anything that's in that encumbrances column is what's rolling over.

Okay.

So everything that's in available budget is what's truly left, and an encumbrance— it's— is that what you mean, or you mean in excess that we get certified?

So yeah, the second part of that question essentially.

So yes and no.

It's a much more complicated calculation for free cash certification.

Part of it, what you look at is your starting base of what were you over budget in revenues and what were you under budget in expenses.

That is the base of it, but it takes into account a lot more with existing fund balance, prior year amounts that weren't used, prior year encumbrances that have since been released.

So There's a lot of different factors that calculate into that, but this that's in here, I can tell you that when I re-pulled the report today, the number— I'm sorry, the number at the end is $8.5 million in encumbrances.

That number is already down to about $5 to $6 million in encumbrances, so it has already started to change pretty big, which just pushes it over to the available budget side of things.

So it's already just continuing to change.

Got it.

Just the last question, it's not a question you probably answer now, is the miscellaneous revenue.

Oh, I did.

I brought the detail line by line.

I learned my lesson.

Can you just prove— can you— I don't, I don't need the explanation.

Can you provide the breakdown, um, to us?

Yeah, just so we understand what exactly— I mean, I can go over at the broad view just so that everybody has an understanding of that.

So supplemental tax bills, um, that's a recurring amount.

It's about $50,000 per year that we put out in those supplemental bills.

That's always included in this line.

We did receive about $40,000 of that.

There's a pro forma tax that we don't budget for, but we have about $25,000 in that.

And then we have the sale of Flint Street, that's $130,000.

Sale of Hartwell Street, that's about $180,000.

And then we have Massachusetts unclaimed property that came in at about $250,000, which was a very high amount for us this year.

So that was a I'm going to say a big win in that column.

And then for the insurance recovery for Sylvia School, the insurance recovery, there's about $400,000 in that line from that.

And then the rest of it is for— it's proceeds from debt issuance.

So it's, it's the amount that we set aside from the premium to cover the costs of the issuance based on the numbers that were provided by our financial advisors to use to cover that and help offset that cost.

Excellent.

Thanks for having that prepared.

If you could just provide that physical copy, yeah, that would be great.

And then the last question just goes to the library line item.

Was there anything— they took in some more revenue, which I think is great, but is there an explanation for exactly that?

Is there something that came in that wasn't anticipated?

The library?

No, I think that there's just been— I think working with the new director, she's been a lot more consistent with tracking and recording some of the fines and the fees and making sure that we're charging things that were already in there and available.

But I can get a detailed breakout from her and a response on that to these.

That's great news that they get more revenue coming in, so nothing wrong with that.

Thank you.

I yield.

Thank you, Councilor.

And C3, Councilor Licaniol.

Thank you.

My first question, the snow removal, the WRAP state reimbursement of $604,000, has that come through yet?

No, it has not.

Do we Do we know when it'll come through?

Is there any— all right, is there any exposure that that won't come through?

I guess no, no, it's definitely coming through.

There's no concern about that.

The state has told us to move it from the account and set it aside, and there's not a concern about that.

So the $604,000 is a given.

It's the, um, any additional amount that's not given that obviously we don't know about.

Okay, but that's not factored into this.

And then my second question We obviously overspent our budget by $3.3 million.

How do we pay for it?

Because obviously we've paid the bills.

Where do we get the money from?

So, um, I think that we're— I'm gonna— my goal is to have for the next meeting, if not the one after that, a full plan of approach to cover that with the council, um, to act on a way to cover it at that meeting.

So we have options with it.

Um, it's the only account we're allowed to have a deficit in, meaning it's technically fine as is, we are now going to be required to cover it or raise it in the taxes.

This year we were given— the state was given permission to amortize it over 3 years to raise it in taxes.

So you would break that out, we would come up with a schedule.

It doesn't even have to be a set even breakout.

We would adopt something at council level saying this is what we're doing and how we're covering it, and we would cover it over those 3 years.

The big key with that is there still has to be room within our current existing levy limit.

So if we are already at our limit with the budget we have, we would have to reduce expenses somewhere else to fit it in each year.

It's not something that would be added on, on top in that sense.

The other thing that we can do is we can appropriate from free cash once that's certified this year, or we could appropriate from stabilization to cover that amount.

So there's things that we could do to you know, cover it and options in the way we want to approach it.

So we just have to, um, make a decision as a body and move forward.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I do want to continue the discussion that my colleague in seat 4 was talking about with regard to the employer trust fund.

So we finished FY25 with an ending fund balance of just under $1.2 million.

And we kind of knew then that we needed to quote unquote bulk this account up some more.

Now we finished FY26 at $1.2 million in the hole.

So my questions are specifically, in May the council authorized 2 transfers, $3 million and $2 million, which is total $5 million.

Were those transfers completed prior to June 30th?

Yes.

Okay, so if those transfers were completed by June 30th, then the reality is if we didn't make those transfers, you would be reporting to us on this Q4 an ending balance of negative $6.2 million, correct?

Yes.

So this is not an ending fund balance.

I want to be very clear.

This is a snapshot of a point in time of the fund balance.

It's not certified, it's not finalized, it's not audited, it's not complete by any stretch of the imagination.

But would you, would you agree that if we go back on past fiscal years, we haven't seen a negative balance of, say, more than a quarter of a million in any prior year prior to this?

I could not tell you that, no.

Just looking at FY23.

So FY20— well, so, but again, if you look at the FY25 that's in here, I showed you what was reported at this same time for quarter 4 FY25, and it shows negative $400,000.

If you look at that final balance that's in there for that fund balance for FY25, it's $1.3 So it does show negative at a certain point in time sometimes and then ends up not being negative.

So that is, that it does change.

This is not the number that it stays at.

Yeah, I just, for us to potentially, if we hadn't taken that action, to be showing a negative $6.2 million is obviously very alarming from my perspective when I look at that.

I think this— I'm just going to say, I think this account specifically, I would like to see this really broken down further and what's going in and out.

And because this timing thing, I just want to be able to track this.

I think I've never seen, as I go back, as I prepared for this and looking back over all the fiscal years that I could get my hands on, we haven't had a year anywhere close to a negative 6.2.

And if we You know, so for us to be potentially already having that had we not done the transfers, um, I'm just alarmed by that.

So, okay, I can provide you with whatever data you— I mean, we have a lot of detail.

I mean, it's a massive account of, you know, $50+ million a year, so I can provide you with whatever you're looking for.

'23 forward in an Excel sheet potentially?

Yeah.

All right, thank you.

Be able to get that to Councilor Canuel.

Miss Harkey, you said?

I didn't hear you.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman in seat 1, Councilor Kadim.

Thank you.

I know we had this conversation yesterday, um, when we met, but I guess Michelle's question, line of question, kind of got me thinking a little bit in terms of similar to what, uh, Councilor Canuel had pointed out, just the, I guess, the, um, the discrepancy or I guess timing of, of the reimbursements coming in and just, I guess I'm having a hard time just following it.

So the, the document you provided, the email you provided us from Gallagher, so they're showing FY26 with a loss ratio of 97.3%, which means that we have a surplus of just rounded to 3%, right, or 2.7% if we want to be exact.

Was that, was that funding ratio based on what was actually funded in the operating budget?

So is that a true— it's based on what they told us to fund.

So it wasn't a true surplus of $1.5 million?

No, correct.

And if you look at what— so I don't know how many of you actually have it, but I have the sheets that I provided during the FY26 budget where I broke down exactly how we were budgeting for the year and exactly what documents we had from Gallagher telling us what to budget.

You know, yeah, I recognize, I guess, because— and I'm glad to hear that because then I was— I would have said that we got $1.5 million on top of everything else that we had transferred, right?

So if we were taking the $5 million plus the $1.5, that's $6.5 million like that.

So how much was the actual savings based on what we budgeted for the '26?

So based on what we budgeted, zero, because we were about $1.5 million short when we budgeted for it for FY '26.

We are now fully, you know, budgeted to what they told us to, but in '26 it was— we already had to make a huge jump up to get to even being that much short because there was such a big gap to begin with.

Okay, so there was no additional surplus.

So we, we essentially came in net zero, right?

Just— right.

Okay.

From what they had said from their projections, what it would have been, it should end up being more of a break-even.

All right.

So, so the, the $5 million from FY25 was just to clear out the deficit for '25 itself, correct?

And that we did transfer more than that $5 million.

We did $7.5 million in '25.

Okay.

It was— I think there was one even earlier than what the dates you had pulled.

So did that, that— so did that clear the deficit in the employer trust fund or just the deficit for the plan year?

FY '25, it cleared the deficit for that plan year.

Plan year, right?

Right.

Okay.

And then the transfers we made in '26 of the $5 million, right?

$2 million and $3 million.

That was starting to build a balance so that we have time for these timing things to, to work out better and to have a balance and a safety net within there so that if we have a high claim month, it doesn't, it doesn't get felt the way it currently is.

So then you're, you're saying that your, I guess, your working capital, for a lack of a better word, is, I guess, to Councilor Cantu's point, is $6 million?

So our working And I don't know if working capital is, is really the right terminology to use.

I know you've got a working capital for Blue Cross Blue Shield.

What I guess what I'm saying is by the time you— we get reimbursements and what we have to pay the bills to get that timing to where it needs to be.

Yeah, um, I mean, we do have a working capital deposit with Blue Cross for $7.5 million.

It's probably not the best terminology to use because I don't want to confuse the two.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is the discrepancy by the time you you got to put out cash to pay the bills and then you get a reimbursement, right?

So you're saying the difference between that is $6 million.

So you've got essentially like a— you're running a deficit.

If we do nothing else, you're running a deficit of $6 million until you get all these reimbursements and the payments in.

That's what, that's what it sounds like.

I think that's the question that Council— right.

So I, I, I don't have it to be up to to $6 million.

I don't have that amount, so I'm not sure why, why it's that far off.

It could be, but I know that, like I said, we have the $1.6 in receipts that we've already received that should have been part of it.

So, so I guess I'm trying to figure out where's the $5 million.

And I know we talked about it, like how— I'm trying to understand where the $5 million is, how it's captured in the, in the trust fund.

If you— so we, we transfer the $5 million thinking that we were given a surplus of $5 million.

So if you're saying that the difference between our expenses and reimbursements to net out, I'm saying that you— it sounds like you're playing with $6 million, right?

So you're floating, I guess would be the better terminology.

The city is floating $6 million of cash to get the reimbursement.

That, that's the question that we have.

So yeah, I mean, if you look at the additional revenue, so the total max-wear rebates and stop-loss reimbursements That totals $10 million for the year.

That's a 75/25 split.

So that is literally $7.5 million in the employer trust fund each year that we don't get.

So we pay a bill for a cost of a claim the month after the service is received.

We don't see that stop-loss reimbursement for upwards of 3 to 6 months.

The prescription rebates is 6 months to a year, to a year and a half afterwards.

Yes, but the amount that's in the rebates is, is less estimated.

They kind of capture more of what's happening then, but it is that far off in the sense of that, especially with the stop-loss, the timing of those reimbursements to what we're paying out does not line up at all.

Right, but, but I guess it's all— I guess what I'm struggling with is, is that you have— and I know they're not dollar for dollar, right?

But if we've got prescription rebates coming in And so if it's 6 months to a year, which I don't disagree with you, if we're just— let's call it a year.

We're capturing that in the next fiscal year.

So we've already— we've already— we're starting— we should have started '27 with '26 reimbursements, right?

And we're going to start '28 with '27 reimbursements, right?

So to me, it's all— it all equals out for the prescription rebates.

Yes, but not for stop loss.

No, no, I get the stop loss, right?

That's obviously got to wait for claims, anything over whatever deductible rate is, which is— I always forget.

I don't know if it's $250,000.

$250,000.

$250,000.

But we would get that within— and those are usually pretty quick on the turnaround time, right?

That's a 6-month.

That's not a year.

Yeah, it's 6 months.

Right.

But you have to think people aren't hitting their cap until the end of the fiscal year.

No, no.

Yeah, I recognize that.

But I But even like stop loss, so when I'm looking at '25 to '26 stop loss contracts, it says that we had already, there was approximately $2.5 million in estimated reimbursements due back to the city, with $1.5 million already reimbursed and $1 million pending, right?

So that would carry over, you would still think that that's the same thing moving on.

I just don't know where we get to that $6 million float, I guess.

I don't have a perfect, easy, on-paper answer to give you right now for that.

Okay, no, that's fine.

Maybe it's just a conversation offline that we, we have.

Uh, it just seems like the deficit is larger than we anticipated, I guess, is where I'm going, that initially.

So we threw in $5 million, right?

And it's especially from the reports that we have and the, the trackings that we have and the where we were falling with what our expenses were each month.

It's also bigger than what we expected it to be because everything shows that we've been having good months and good months and Granted, June was a little bit bigger than the other months had been, but we were doing very well to what we had budgeted.

So I don't have— I guess we had talked about this yesterday.

Is it— but I guess to put everybody at ease in terms of— because we know we want to get to a point where we're carrying at least 3 months of claims, right, as a balance for us to be able to again float any expenses, wait for the reimbursements, the timing, so we're not running any deficits in the in the, uh, in the trust fund account.

Would it be possible to work with Roselli and Clark just to, to get a snapshot and go through what we have, where, where we are, and then get a true bottom line deficit number so that the council has got a better feeling for what that deficit number is?

And then we can come up with a plan like we've talked about, whether it's a percentage of free cash going into the employer trust fund, just moving forward, right?

Just— yeah.

And, and like I said, we're— we are planning on it.

I know that we've all— we also had a conversation briefly about working capital.

So there is something that we are recording each year that we have to increase, and it's been at almost $1 million a year that we've been increasing it.

And it's a working capital deposit with Blue Cross that is hitting this account in here as an expense, but it's really us just putting money to them early that we don't get any credit for on the balance side of things.

So I'm worried that that's something that's starting to affect all of this too.

As we've been putting in that more money, there hasn't been an entry to make a credit towards that since 2019 here.

So I'm working through figuring out what we're doing to make sure that we're getting that proper credit back in our fund balance the way we should be and not just taking an expense hit.

Yeah.

And listen, maybe it's not Roselli and Clark, and maybe I'm going to throw this out there and I might get yelled at for it, but even if it's— because Roselli and Clark are outside audit, they may not want to do it because they're going to audit it, so they may have a conflict.

But even if it's Mary Sahadi, which would be great You know, I know some people have hot burn about Mary Sahadi, but no, uh, she, she actually came in and actually did the audit under Bob Corriere of the trust fund.

So she's very familiar with it.

She was our auditor for a while.

She was the CFO.

So even if it's just bring her on and, and, you know, consult— have her come on as a consultant quickly just to give us an analysis of the, uh, employee— the employer trust fund.

Just that way we're all comfortable.

I agree.

I've— we've been having that conversation lately about figuring out what's missing on the accounting side of things, because everything in the reports shows that we should be moving in the right direction and everything's working out well, and it's clearly not showing that same way right now.

So, yeah, it is much better than we were.

I know it doesn't seem like that with the negative amount that's in there right now, but it is much better off than we were last year at the end of the fiscal year.

I can guarantee that.

But we just need to figure out what's still missing, that the balance is not quite— and I agree, and I don't want anybody walking away thinking that we, we don't appreciate— at least I appreciate— I know there's a lot of factors that are outside our control— claims, things like that, um, you know, type of prescriptions that are, that are issued, how much, how expensive those are, whether there are reimbursements.

Like, so I, I recognize it.

Um, I just want to be able to get to a bottom line number and say, okay, this is the exact number we're dealing with, and how do we just address it moving forward.

So with that, I yield.

Thank you, Councilor.

Councilor in C7, Councilor Pereira.

I just want to say I agree with my colleague in in seat number 1.

Mary Sahadi's done this before.

Get her in.

I would feel more comfortable if there was an audit done on that because I don't feel comfortable with the— with these numbers that we have.

With that, I yield.

Councilman C2, Councilor Camara.

Same thing for here.

I'm all for it.

If you can bring in Mary Sahadi to get some help, I'm all for it.

All right, she's done it before.

Thank you.

Anything further on the fiscal year quarter 4 budget report from the council?

Thank you very much.

Item 5, City Council President's Communication.

And a revised policy to the City Council for outside legal counsel as referred to this committee on September 8th, 2026.

Discussion?

Councilman Seat 8, Councilor Raposo.

Thank you, Mr. President.

So I, I just— I have a series of questions and I guess I'm just looking for clarification on them.

So if— I guess I don't know if this is a back and forth between you and me, I don't know.

But, um, so as I go through the policy, there are just a few questions that I have.

So first of all is number 2, um, which is the— talks about that every councilor has 2 hours of consultation that does not require approval by council leadership.

So I guess my question becomes, how do we avoid, you know, councilors asking the same questions or the same topic if it's just everyone gets 2 hours?

I don't know.

I, I didn't— is this new, Madam Clerk?

Uh, from the draft communications?

That— no.

Or was that from the— we— so we didn't make any changes to this last time from the last, uh, city council?

No changes made from the last meeting.

Um, okay, can I get clarification on that?

Because it's my understanding that there was.

That since the last meeting, no changes?

No, no, no, no, not to the last meeting.

I'm asking from the— the council's asking the last time the city council adopted a policy for outside counsel, there was a policy.

The question I believe the council has, which I could pull up.

I don't know where it is on my desk.

Point of information, so you put out a thing that if people wanted to make changes ahead— is this one of them?

That was simply a suggestion by one individual.

Okay, that's what I wanted to know.

Yeah, it's not the current policy.

It's not the current policy.

This is the new one that's before us today.

This is the draft policy.

Yes, absolutely.

So your question again, Councillor, to me is what?

So, so to whoever— I don't know who's suggest this, but the reality is, how do you ensure that everyone gets 2 hours, right?

And how do you avoid where I ask a question, Councilor Pereira asks the same question in a different form, we're just regurgitating the same thing without any sort of oversight by council leadership to avoid wasting time, essentially?

Because that's billable time, right?

It is, yes.

Okay, so I guess that's my— I'm going to put that out there as a conversation piece.

Because I think we're missing something in that to avoid regurgitation or just wasting money.

Which brings me to number 5.

I guess my question, if the idea is that getting outside legal counsel is supposed to be after we try to achieve getting an answer from Corporation Counsel, correct?

Yes.

Wouldn't we have to do number 5 before we do number 2?

Yes.

Okay.

Number 6, um, when legal— when legal, um, sorry, I'm looking for the words here.

If legal opinions are rendered, shouldn't they automatically be in writing?

Uh, so your— is your question is if a city councilor has a specific question for outside counsel, there request should be in writing to the outside counsel.

I would venture to say yes.

Okay.

And simply because if any of my colleagues seek a legal opinion, it would be helpful.

And just a point of information, just so everybody is on the same page.

So there are times that you call Corporation Counsel and have a conversation, but it's not a quote unquote legal opinion.

If you ask for a legal opinion, it should be in writing.

So you just got to differentiate between having a conversation, getting their unofficial opinion on something, versus a written legal opinion.

Got it.

Yeah, good point.

Absolutely.

Um, and then 15, um, which is the— in the event of an emergency, I guess I want to know what constitutes an emergency under this policy, if there can be some more clarification on that.

Um, I mean, ultimately council leadership decides what an emergency is, but what do you classify an emergency?

You know, an 11th-hour request is not an emergency, for per se.

So I would, I would ask to clarify what an emergency is.

And then 16 is the talk about outside legal counsel being at the Committee on Ordinances legislation.

So as the chairman, I guess I'm confused.

The reality is, and I know we had this conversation earlier, in the situation that Corporation Counsel is not available, the idea is that his designee would be available.

Are we in— are we in suggesting that outside legal be present for every ordinance meeting and Corporation Counsel?

Because now it gets a little confusing.

And on top of it, I don't know if I need outside legal at every ordinance meeting, because again, the budget is small.

We're going to blow through that budget in no time, the amount of ordinance meetings we actually have a year.

So that would be my other point.

And again, going back to number 5, assuming we've exhausted Corporation Counsel and the 2 assistant Corporation Counsel to be present at the ordinance meeting.

So again, it's, it's more food for thought and, and maybe looking at some revisions, but those are just some of my, um, some of the things I, I looked up and considered, um, for my colleagues to also consider as well.

Understood.

I yield.

Thank you, Councilman Siegfried.

Council Vice President Dionne.

I say make this as simple as possible.

If somebody wants an outside opinion Bring it to the floor, the body votes on it, it passes or it doesn't.

And as we go along, if we think we need adjustments, if we think we may need to make modifications because things arise that we didn't foresee, we do it at that time.

Can't agree with you more at this point.

Just make this majority rules.

If the majority thinks it's legitimate, we do it.

If the majority thinks it isn't It isn't.

End of story.

And just make it that simple.

One sentence.

One sentence.

Totally fine.

If, if, if, just so we're clear, um, we could totally just strike this entire policy, uh, and the, the communication— that's fine.

The city council, just like we would ask any item to be added to an agenda, would just need to follow the normal process by which we would have to add the item on the agenda for the council vote.

I'm totally, totally fine with that.

There's no hidden agendas here.

So I just want a copy for my attorney.

Sounds good.

Uh, so is it, is it the will of this council to give this item— we do.

Yeah.

Okay, totally fine.

Madam Clerk, can you just clarify you understand the motion on the floor by our Council Vice President, please?

Yes.

Um, So in essence, you're referring— the closest item that matches what you're saying is item 12, with the exception of just removing if the request is denied.

So not counting that, but the motion would be the individual city council may request that the full council consider a vote upon the request for outside legal counsel, which will require a majority vote of the full membership of the city council.

So, point of order, that's not what I think she's saying.

No, you're going to look at all this from 1 to whatever.

All we're saying is scrap this whole— yeah, that's what she said, the language within it.

No, all she— hold on, hold on.

All our clerk is saying is she's offering a kindly suggestion that we get rid of everything and clean up number 12, which says exactly what our council vice president and you suggested at the last meeting, and which is a city council— a city councilor may request That the full— one paragraph, which is 12, right?

Uh, that the full City Council consider a vote upon the request for outside counsel.

Retention of outside counsel may be authorized by a vote of the full City Council at a properly posted public meeting.

Approval requires a 2/3 vote of the full membership of the City Council.

So do we want 2/3 or do we want majority?

What is your motion?

2/3 is good.

I don't know, I'm good with majority, but it's up to the body to decide.

Do they want majority?

Do they want two-thirds?

You're, you're about ready to make the motion, which we would need a second.

My motion was majority.

Majority.

All right, Madam Clerk, you have that for the record?

Yes.

Discussion?

Is there a second to the motion?

Hold on.

Second, Councilor in seat 3 for the second.

Discussion, Councilor in seat 5?

Councilor, just a quick thought.

I mean, we're— do we have to go by like any rules of the council, the Roberts Rules, or is it to require 2/3 for that?

No, this would just be a policy.

And if you want a legal opinion, you'd send it to the city clerk before our meeting, it'd get posted, we vote on whether or not we go outside for this opinion.

Majority's fine then.

Majority motion on the floor for discussion continues.

Councilman C3, Councilor Cannuel.

Thank you.

I would just add number 20 and just to update the date as well, uh, with the effective date of the policy.

Oh, tomorrow's date?

Yeah, which would be the 23rd.

9/23.

Yep.

As a friendly amendment, Councilor, my resolution— my resolution— your motion— my motion to reflect that.

Noted.

Any further discussion?

Hearing no further, Councilor Siede.

Councilor Raposo.

Yeah, so I don't disagree with just making it very simple, but there are— I think there are some subsections below 12 that probably should still be included as far as the processes, tracking the requests, how the bill's being signed off by Corporation Counsel.

So— and we also have an immunist report showing what is available as far as funds is concerned.

Like, I think those are just kind of catchalls of things we want to be aware of so we can keep track of things.

Because so hypothetically speaking, council council puts forward an idea to get a legal opinion approved denied no matter what.

The office can keep track of those opinions to avoid again six months down the road asking the same question for same vote of the same thing.

But on top of it, just tracking of the actual fund itself.

If I may, yeah, of course.

On that, so if if since it's coming before the full council, yeah, and we say item A is discussed, we go outside council, I'm sure most of us hopefully will remember that we did it 3 months ago and we would maybe say no, I don't want to go for an opinion on that, right?

We would have that, right?

Maybe.

And granted, there's every 2 years we get reelected, so there could be new people here.

So sure, I hear what you have to say, but I think it's the will of the council to make this as simple as possible.

There's no, there's no issue at any point the council could readopt a new policy if it's not working for us.

We can certainly relook at it again.

Don't mean to come at you just trying to make— No, no, no, no.

I mean, this is honestly a brainstorming activity.

But yeah, OK.

I mean, I, I'm OK with simple, but I also just don't think just putting number 12 essentially as the policy is enough to cover what we need to do.

So I mean, I'm not going to support it at this time.

I yield.

Thank you, Councilman Sieck.

To Councilor Camara.

So we just have to make sure that we don't exceed the $40,000 in the course of a year, right?

Correct, right.

So maybe we should put that in there too, just to be safe, so that there'll be no discussion on that later on.

We'll know that we can get legal opinion not to exceed the amount of the offer, $40,000 in, in total costs at the end of the calendar year or fiscal year.

Councilor, would you be okay with the authorized amount in the city council budget?

Because that could change from year to year or whatever.

That's fine.

Okay, there's a motion by Councilor Ntse to amend the current motion on the floor to have it not exceed the authorized budgeted amount that has been made by Councilor Camara.

Is there a second?

Modifying my motion for that as well.

Would you like to withdraw your motion and reintroduce your motion for the record?

Yes, let's start from scratch.

Let's do that.

And can I also comment on the keeping track?

If you can, just one second.

Councilor 2, do you yield?

I do, sir.

Before I do, Councilor on seat 3, Councilor Canuel.

I was just going to say, uh, she took, uh, everything I was going to say earlier.

That was it.

Thanks, Councilor.

Councilor on seat 4, Council Vice President DeAngelo.

In terms of keeping track, yeah, just the fact that we have to go through the city clerk and the city clerk has to, uh, put it before us— everything we do, the city clerk and the city council secretary keeps track of.

So it's as easy as picking up the phone and saying, hey, or at a meeting saying, hey, did we ever address this before?

And they're going to go, well, hang on, let me look.

Oh yeah, we addressed it on May 1st, 2023.

I don't— are you speaking about a bill per se or an item?

I'm addressing, um, Councilor Raposo's worry that we're not going to remember if somebody presented something or we're not going to know when it happened.

Sure.

Just the fact that it goes through the clerk's office, it's automatically logged.

Right, we can track it through our index when we do our minutes.

Correct.

All right, so I will make a new motion.

Here we go.

Number 12, we're going to modify it to, to read the way it was described.

It's going to be not to exceed the authorized amount in, um, the budget, and the effective date is September 23rd.

That's my motion.

So you've withdrawn your motion, therefore it has no second.

A new motion is on the floor, as you've said, has been made by Council Vice President.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Councilor Peckham.

Discussion on all that?

We're good.

Hearing no further discussion, roll call on amending the resolution.

Councilor Skadeem?

Yes.

Kamara?

Yes.

Canuel?

Yes.

Dion?

Yes.

Hart?

Yes.

Peckham?

Yes.

Pereira?

Yes.

Proposed?

No.

President Ponte?

Yes.

And for the record, any— if this goes on and we seek outside counsel, I will make sure that any bills are on our agenda and adopted by the City Council before I would authorize the City Council office to expend that out, like I've done with other bills in the past, like the audit and everything like that.

So we're aware.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh, zero motion to adopt as amended.

Yes, thank you.

Motion to adopt the item as amended would be appropriate.

It.

Motion made by Councilor Peckham, seconded by Council Vice President Dion.

Discussion?

Hearing none.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Councilor McSeedate opposed, and the ayes have it.

Motion to adjourn finance made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Peckham.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Make up stickers.

A good-sized sticker with a serial number and maybe even the address of the house.

Barbara City Council meeting will now be called to order.

Madam Clerk, roll call please.

And the time is 8:53.

Councilor Skadeem?

Here.

Camara?

Here.

Canuel?

Here.

Dion?

Here.

Hart?

Here.

Peckham?

Here.

Pereira?

Here.

Raposo?

Here.

President Ponte?

Here.

If everybody in the chamber can please rise for a moment of silent prayer.

Thank you, and a salute to the flag.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and they're deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Madam Clerk, good evening.

Good evening.

The first item before you is a communication from the Board of Election Commissioners and the warrant for the state election to be held on November 3rd, 2026.

Motion to adopt.

Motion to adopt has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Kadeem.

Discussion?

Hearing none, all those in in favor?