9.26.2026 City Council - Health & Environmental Affairs

The City Council Committee on Health and Environmental Affairs will now come to order.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Peckham?

Here.

Councilor Pereira?

Chair Cannuel?

Here.

Uh, Councilor Pereira did notify the council office that she had an engagement for Terra Firma and will not be able to attend tonight.

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 the agenda is citizens' input, and we do not have any.

Next is the minutes for the April 22nd Health and Environmental Affairs meeting.

Motion to adopt.

Motion to adopt has been made by Councilor Peckham.

I'll second that.

All those in favor?

Opposed?

Do we have a motion for item 3?

Motion so made to lift from the table.

Motion to lift item 3 from the table has been made by Councilor Peckham.

I'll second it.

All those in favor?

Item 3 is a resolution to convene with the Director of Inspectional Services and members of the administration to review and discuss current code enforcement practices.

This was tabled April 22nd.

If we can have those members invited for this item to come up, please.

If you can just introduce yourselves, please, for the record.

Uh, Fausto Fiore, Minimum Housing Director.

Anne O'Neill-Souza, City Administrator.

Thank you.

So this resolution was passed through the council earlier this year.

Really, we wanted to be here to talk about properties that have chronic code violations, absentee landlords, and situations that persist despite despite repeated enforcement efforts.

And I want to kind of understand and get an update from you guys.

When we have properties with chronic or recurring violations over the past few years, what type of enforcement are we doing?

What steps do we take?

You know, is there a progressive system?

Just kind of if you guys want to give an update as to how that works for us.

We have a nuisance property ordinance where there are violations, multiple police calls to a property, there's the potential that the person can be fined.

We do try to use that as much as we can in cooperation with the police department.

And as far as Faust's department, you know, he takes care of the minimum housing violations.

And the city has reinstated under the Coogan administration the Building Blocks program.

And that Building Blocks program deals with more vacant properties than nuisance properties.

But we are now, thanks to Faust and Mr. Hathaway and speaking with the police department, starting to move forward with some of those that are also chronic nuisance properties too, with getting administrative warrants and being able to go onto the properties.

Okay, Chief, if you can just introduce yourself for the record, please.

Sure, JT Hoare, Chief of Police.

Thank you.

You want to speak, Councilor Peckham?

Um, can you touch upon the Building Blocks program a little further?

Sure.

Well, the Building Blocks program was created, uh, during the Flanagan administration many years ago, and what it is is a collaboration between the city and the Attorney General's Office where there are properties that are identified.

They could be in tax title, they could be foreclosed properties that is just sitting vacant, or in many years ago there was a case of chronic properties, constant police calls, violations, and the city went after them in that regard.

We've been very successful in identifying properties with the Attorney General's Office that have been put back on the tax rolls.

Some have been demolished.

So it's, it's been a successful program.

We have been meeting over the last several months.

Again, why I spoke a few minutes ago about the administrative warrants and the ability, if we can get those to go in with code enforcement and the police department and the fire department, to certain properties to get them up to code and to get things rectified.

As we know, there's a number of properties in the city.

Years ago, I— if I was— you can correct me, I don't have the numbers with me, but there were over 200 properties.

Yeah, I think it was roughly 250.

And now we're down to under 100, I believe.

Is this tax lien properties?

What's— so what puts them on this list?

What's the— it's not just all properties in tax liens.

Some are properties that have been foreclosed of, people have passed, they have no living relatives, and the properties just have remained vacant.

So of course, we have to go through the court process.

We have a group representative from the mayor's office, minimum housing, inspectional services, the police department, the fire department.

Help me out, Faust, if who else is on.

Oh, Mr. Dion from Community Development.

He's the biggest part of it.

He works in cooperation with the Attorney General's Office in the city in the identification of these properties.

And we usually have one of the city attorneys there.

Always do.

So with these blighted properties, ironically, we're here today on the heels of this fire on South Main Street, which in my— obviously was a blighted property.

There was tax issues.

For clarity to the public, it's the first council meeting that we've had.

We own that at this time.

So did we take possession of that in a tax lien?

Yes.

Okay, so I thought so.

Court— that property was taken by the city.

I believe that the owners owed close to $600,000 on the property.

Property was assessed at $500,000.

The property came back to the city.

We were looking to put it up for sale.

There had been an appraisal done.

It came back to us in May.

There was an appraisal done a month or so ago.

The property was— there was one tenant, family of the former owner, and there was a business located on the first floor.

Both were given notices to quit, that the city was going to have them leave the property, and then the property was going to be put up for sale.

Okay.

Now, I don't want any of these other locations mentioned publicly.

But if there are any other locations that are blighted like that, before there's another fire, maybe— and I know this isn't— this is common sense.

I'm just saying this just to put it out there.

Can we go around and look at them?

Because I remember in 2020, I was complaining about the old coffin shop off of Brightman Street, the old theater, Palace Theater, Pilgrim Casket.

And I had a meeting and I said, that's a fire hazard.

And then about, I think it was a summer later, it was on fire.

So I would just like us to get ahead of these properties, because if it wasn't for the great work of the officers from his department and the fire department within the city, we've had 2 great fires.

I think I've mentioned it a couple of times in the public safety meetings, the need for the Emergency Operations Center, because we always have to be prepared.

I think where our preparedness starts now on the heels of that fire is look at a lot of our properties in the city that are similar to that and making sure that nobody can enter them, they're not fire hazards.

Because I'm going to tell you something, and this is at no fault to this administration, it's accumulated over the years.

South Main Street looks like a war zone.

It is absolutely disgusting.

So we need to get down there and do something.

I don't care what it is.

Talk to the business owners, take the fence down in front of Tonic.

Like, people come into the city and it looks grimy.

It just— I'm standing at South Main and Rodman today looking at the burning— the building that burned down.

It's not even the ugliest building on the street today.

Like, we have to get in there and do something.

It's hideous.

I mean, we have talked to Mr. Hathaway because we have a citizen who've talked about the fencing around that property.

But the issue was the top of the property and the fact that there were bricks that were falling.

And the property was in disrepair.

It is owned, it is current on taxes.

So I mean, in some cases, we're limited.

We can't cite individuals, but that fencing is there for purposes of safety.

There's got to be something we can do, though, to have these occupied and I don't know.

I know it's their property, but it just makes the city look awful when you drive down South Main Street and you have all these empty buildings.

Somebody was mentioning to me today, and this is something I brought up during the forums, the candidate forums, Taunton.

So they said to me, I was in Taunton this past week and there's people everywhere.

It's vibrant.

There's people shopping.

It's— you come here, there's nothing.

So I think we should maybe reach out to them.

I know I already have a few months back and spoke to somebody from Taunton about how they got that going.

And sit down and talk to somebody that can get the ball rolling and push us in the right direction.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of that property on Main Street has been marketed and again is purchased.

And then people purchase property, they run into financing issues.

And, you know, there are certain things that take longer.

I mean, those buildings are, are older and require a lot of money.

So we absolutely always reach out.

We have a list of properties that are available in the city on LoopNet, commercial properties that are available for sale or for lease.

So we— that is something that we do concentrate on, the downtown revitalization plan.

You know, we try as much as we can to market that area, and hopefully we will see that happening with the development with the waterfront and the city's goal for many, many years to link the downtown and the waterfront will finally come to fruition.

Yeah, I hope so.

I hope that is the plan.

And it's because I've said this before too, I just don't want it to be that our concentration is on that strip of land down on 79 and then the whole rest of the city goes, you know, I mean, you can see from the Flynn with the Love You block project and the revitalization of that area there.

I mean, that's the goal of the downtown as well.

While we're on the topic of specific neighborhoods, so I know Rodman Street, we're putting— I guess there's not us, but there's going to be a 6-story unit on Rodman Street now near the city garage.

Yeah.

So that's the plan for that location.

That is a property that went before zoning just recently and was approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Yeah.

Okay.

Reason I ask is because obviously that neighborhood itself— I grew up in that neighborhood.

It's, oh, one of our— how do I want to put this— Watapa— look, just look at Watapa Heights.

It's— the area needs help.

I just think there's nothing that tells the taxpayer I love you more than dropping a 6-story house right in the middle of a neighborhood that Nobody can— the rent for that apartment is more than some of these people have made in the last 3 months.

So I think there's gotta be a better plan than to just come in and say, hey, we're dropping this building here.

What do we tell them?

If you can't afford it, leave?

Like, there's gotta be a better plan before we're going into these neighborhoods, drop a 6-story building, and then go like this and walk away.

So I think there's gotta be more concentration into these neighborhoods, specifically the Rodman and Warren Street, the flints off of Pleasant Street.

So not just the strip everybody sees, this isn't Hyannis, all the side streets.

We have to start taking care of that.

When I see the tree program, they're not on those side streets.

I think we should be concentrating more on those neighborhoods, the Rodman Street, the Cambridge Street, the Baker Street, the Smith Street, all the way up, and make sure that those neighborhoods are getting what— and I don't want to go off tangent here.

But they're blighted neighborhoods for the most part.

There are blighted neighborhoods here in the city that need attention.

So I just want to make sure that these neighborhoods are getting the attention they deserve.

I know they are from the police side, I can tell you that.

Yeah, and I mean, he arrested half the city in one sweep.

So I mean, the city side of government, if it is property that's privately owned and people are, you know, marketing and developing it, I I mean, we've seen a lot of it.

We look to other cities up in the North Shore and different areas where the, the downtowns have become like a mixed use.

I mean, the commercial and the residential, but a mixture of also market rate, affordable, and low-income housing, because too much of anything isn't a good thing, and not enough of a little is, is not a good thing.

So I— is a good thing.

I don't want to keep keep the floor.

But, um, where I was getting at with that is we can't tell them what to build, right?

If the ZBA approves it, they can build it.

That's, that's— and I have my ideas for that in the future, because I would love to see the ZBA go to an elected position like Taunton.

And I think that would quell a lot of our problems.

But from our standpoint, we see that it's our zoning board that approved it.

So we see it, we're not dumb, we see these things going up.

A light should go off in here and be like, well, we know it's a tough neighborhood.

We know that people don't— our median income is what, $35,000 per family or something outrageous like that?

We know these people struggle.

We know that they need help.

Now that that building's there to make them not feel as bad, let's go in and throw some trees up.

Let's clean up.

Let's make a presence.

Let's make these people feel like they live here.

Because that's a big part of the problem now is there's no cohesion between The people, the government, it's like Fall River is not what it used to be.

And I think we all know that.

I think we need to get back in the neighborhoods to fix that.

And it'll solve a lot of these blight issues.

People will want to stay, people will want to spend their money here.

We get all these absentee landlords that let their— don't even get me started on the amount of people because I think I've mentioned it 3,000 times this year.

Our buildings are loaded with people.

There's trash out on the sidewalks.

I've called you how many times this tenure?

Quite a few times now.

For properties, Mr. Kennedy, because we just don't pay attention to these neighborhoods.

We let all these people live in them, they put their trash everywhere, and then we just go clean it up.

And then next week I'm calling Faust again to go back to another property in the same neighborhood, or I'm calling Mr. Kennedy.

We need to get in there and show a presence.

Like, if they're not going to keep their properties clean, we're going to tell them you need to do this, and then set a precedent, enforce it.

Division does do when they go out and they're giving citations, and there's the escalation in the fines.

I mean, so they're out on the streets quite frequently.

We have residents who will call all the time regarding a property.

You can ask, you know, Faust or Glenn or the police department.

I mean, the calls that we get— yeah, no, I know when there's a quality of life issue in their neighborhood, we're very responsive to that.

And get out there as quickly as we can and do what the law allows to be able to get them into compliance.

That's most of what I personally do, honestly.

Yeah, I got a property for you today after the meeting.

I'm going to show it to you.

That's— and I understand because I get them too, you know, sent to me, and there's a ton of issues.

Um, the problem is, is I'm not one obviously for taxes, right, and fees and all that, but I am one if there's common sense and you're stupid enough to break the law or break the ordinance and you get fined for it, that's not my problem.

Because if I get fined, I'm not going to go cry.

I've paid every ticket since I've been a city councilor.

I think I've got 2 parking tickets.

I don't ask to get my stuff fixed, right?

But if I go out of my way to do something wrong and I get a fine, I eat it.

I own it.

It's mine.

I don't feel bad for the people that get fined because they deserve the fine, right?

Um, I think me and the mayor have had a meeting about this, and this would solve a lot of our blight issues.

The concentration in certain departments.

So I've had a meeting with the mayor, Gwen, and Miss MacArthur from traffic.

I want to see the concentration— if we're hiring in places, it should be in these departments, the departments that are going to bring in revenue.

We're staffing in places that are costing us money when we could be putting people into these departments: the traffic department, the building codes enforcement departments, to where they're going out and bringing in revenue.

We don't have a lot of that, and we're too big of a city to not have municipal parking and all of that stuff.

We should have more inspectors.

So I think that's something that's— there's going to have to be a conversation down the line about that.

And I think that'll help the properties too, because the more inspectors, the more eyes that are out there, and the more properties that we're able to, you know, keep under, under control.

So with that, I yield.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I do have some questions.

I want to go back to, uh, Councilor Peckham mentioned the fence that's outside Tonic.

So who's paying for that fence?

Is that the property owner or is that the city?

The property owner.

Okay, but they're not getting any further fine or anything like that because they've shut down a sidewalk and are forcing people into the street to get around it, correct?

I mean, to the best of my knowledge, they are not.

Okay.

I think— do you think that's something we could potentially explore?

Like, if, you know, obviously if it's an unexpected thing, something falls and we have to fence it off right away, but, you know, give them, you know, I don't know, 30 days, 60 days, pick a period of time where they have to fix it.

And then if it goes on for 3 years, 4 years, or any lengthy period of time, maybe we could potentially have an ordinance that would allow us to issue fines for them for having shut down and inconvenienced the public, because then it might light a fire under them to actually fix the issue.

I, I mean, that's certainly something that can be entertained.

Absolutely.

Okay, maybe we'll— we can, um, can we, um, maybe request that the Corporation Council check the legality or something like that, whether or not that would be feasible for us.

Could we, uh, sure, I'll put that in formation to send a letter to Corporation Council asking if it would be permissible for property owners who have forced sidewalk shutdowns due to unsafe conditions and it's fenced off, if it would be permissible for us to potentially issue fines after a period of time.

I'll second that motion.

Okay, motion's made and seconded.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Okay, um, what is the— can you just talk me through, like, what is the process a little bit?

Because just a few minutes ago you mentioned, uh, we took a property court because they got to, I think it was $600,000 in back taxes, I think you said.

Um, So it seems like a lot.

Do we have to wait till the, the fines or what's leaning against it exceeds the value?

Is— what are the steps?

Like, I know we, we start with maybe warnings or fines, and how does it progress up to the point where we do take them to court?

I mean, depending on, again, the value of the property and the amount of the taxes owed, and then it's the right situation to get into tax lien, they usually don't go that high.

But again, you go to court and then there's continuances, continuances.

Some of these properties because of COVID and when the courts weren't moving the cases through as quickly as they were, and there was a backlog in court, that was an issue as well.

So that grew higher.

We don't— I think that was either number one or close to one of the highest properties with taxes owed on it within the city.

So they try to move it much more quickly than that.

Yes.

I don't know that there is an exact dollar amount to do so.

I'm certain that there is not.

But Attorney Thomas handles all the tax liens.

Now when we have a problem property, how long does it take?

How often are we going and readdressing them?

Do we go back weekly or going monthly?

If we have a— if we know we have a Big problem.

How often do we go back?

Are you talking from a minimum housing standpoint?

Yes.

Like Faust, you can speak to your protocol.

Well, the way that ordinance works, so I've just written a case last week.

So this is a repeat offender.

This is someone we've written up before, we've taken to court before.

So it's chronic, but it's sort of recurring chronic, right?

Once you solve, you know, solve that case, it's clean, comes out, you know, it comes out of court.

Then it's more of a recidivist, you know, he's back at it.

So, um, this new ordinance, a fairly new ordinance, the nuisance property ordinance, is very different from the old one, and it's very well written, and it's much more useful to me because the old one was really more towards to geared towards the police department.

So that states that— and this was really just a few days ago, I wrote this, I think it was maybe the end of last week— you have 10 days to fix it or you're subject to fines.

So usually in this case, particularly because as I know the person, you know, we have history, uh, I would consult with the law department, which I might anyway, because, um, fines don't always get the job done.

And so at a certain point, we form a strategy because it really states in the ordinance that if you don't fix this, you're going to court.

So that is not our— this is an ordinance, so it's not our usual minimum housing court, which is different process.

We seek— the bottom line is we seek injunctive relief.

So you do wanna show a judge that you've tried some things first before you go running to the judge.

So typically, so to answer your direct question, or your question directly, 10 days from the time I wrote that, I'm gonna go back to the property.

Kind of expected a phone call from the gentleman.

We have his phone number, so at that time I'm gonna, I'll call him.

Because those conversations can yield as much or more than just a— it's easier to ignore a piece of paper than it is a voice on the phone.

So we're gonna have a conversation if I can.

I did this just yesterday and today.

I called somebody and said, I'm gonna fine you every day until this is cleaned up.

It's a different case.

Just letting you know, because the point is to get it cleaned up.

So you're gonna get a fine every day.

Until you clean this up.

So we have the conversation, put 'em on notice, fine 'em, and then at some point in time, it's determined that this is not working, so we file a civil complaint, and then that property owner risks a contempt charge, which is more than we can do to 'em, right, without a judge.

So maybe it depends on the conversation.

Maybe he's gonna get started.

Maybe he's making enough progress.

You know, if he gets going and he's starting, you don't bring that to court because by the time you get a hearing, it's done.

So it does vary depending on, those conversations are to take that person's temperature, get a commitment from them while you state it.

So when you go to court, you say, This is what he— this is the conversations we had.

This is what we were told.

Now that's why I'm in front of you.

So we had a case a few years ago that the property owner actually was charged with contempt, but you have a chance to purge contempt when that happens.

And it brought— so that's rare, but it got all the way to that stage.

He had one more hearing to purge the contempt by cleaning it up.

And that's as far as— it's pretty far, but it can go that far.

So process depends on the progress that we make.

Now you mentioned you have the phone number of this individual.

I'm sure there's many times where we have an absentee landlord, maybe it's a new place you haven't been to yet, and just how do we get in touch with people?

Right, so yeah, a lot of what I do is outside stuff.

So a minimum housing inspection, uh, in other words, an apartment inspection, we obtain that information from the tenant because those conversations, same as I described, go a long way.

You don't just send out the piece of paper and hope for the best.

The water department actually has a lot of phone numbers, um, that some of them are not up to date, you know, they haven't been updated.

So that is one way that we do that.

Um, usually at some point in time, if we're sending them a paper, they're going to call us.

Um, if we can't have that conversation, then, you know, we still have court.

But I, I urge all property owners to make sure the water department has their up-to-date phone number because sometimes conversations can benefit them.

They understand, they know the rules, they know why.

We try to make what we write down very clear.

They don't always understand it.

Um, and but if we just can't find that, then there's other ways to do it.

You just go to— we don't— Your Honor, we tried.

We tried talking to them.

We sent out these, these citations.

Um, and this is for, you know, fairly serious— this is just this what I'm talking about here because we're talking about nuisance properties.

But it's the same process we use just in your average messy yard.

You knock on the door.

The case I'm talking about, the guy lives there.

Leave a card.

We make every effort to have those conversations.

Even though maybe in 3 days it's all going to be cleaned up, but we don't know that.

So we try to do everything we can to put whatever pressure we can on someone to comply.

And speed counts.

We feel that speed— the sooner something's cleaned up, the better.

I'm a data guy.

Do you have any numbers like how many citations you've issued, even if it's just from this fiscal year forward or anything like that?

Or is that something, if you don't have it, I can get you that.

We have a clunky old homemade access database that we use, and the reporting features are not very good.

So it'd take a little while to sort of ferret that out, you know, to, to— but I can— we do record them.

Okay.

Now you mentioned this ordinance.

Is this a proposed ordinance?

Uh, you're— no, the ordinance I was talking about is the current nuisance ordinance.

The current news— it's, you know, the property maintenance nuisance, and it's divided into sections.

So there's a section that the police use, the section that we use, section that the fire department can use.

The— one of the nice things about it is you don't have to establish chronicness.

You go to a property and it's a mess.

It's a mess today.

So the old procedure, which the police department still uses, that's the way it was written for them, was you have to have so many violations in a certain period of time.

They had to be assigned to a given unit in most cases.

One of the great features of Uh, and, and the administration afforded me all the input that I wanted to give.

And so there were things that I asked for, um, and I think, uh, everything was there and much more.

It was really— I've never seen a better ordinance.

So now we don't have to wait that— so speed counts to us, faster the better.

We don't have to wait to get 3 separate incidences, because if it's just the way the property is, I guess you can say, well, every day we wrote a ticket, so that's 3.

But it's— we don't have to do that now.

We just, um, say it's, it's blighted, it's a mess.

If we have housing code violations on the exterior, because there are such things, and ordinance violations, those are prosecuted, if you will.

Those are enforced in 2 different ways.

So we can combine them into one ordinance, say until all of these are satisfied, the ordinance is not satisfied.

So it is very helpful to speed things up.

We just say this, these are all the reasons you're nuisance property.

And a lot of times when you spell that out to somebody, they comply.

So you can, I've had occasions where I just explain this to them.

This is what I'm gonna send you, and I get a phone call 2 hours later.

Okay, okay, I'll do it.

It's a great— it's a very, very effective ordinance.

I think there's still an opportunity though, right?

Because I know that I was in touch with you recently about Short Street and a situation down there.

I know it's a— that section's not an accepted city street, but there's some concerns from residents down there about some overgrowth, about location of a motorcycle and things.

So there seems to be some gaps when it comes to the non-accepted streets.

Do we have any opportunity to update the ordinance related to that?

Well, that case doesn't apply because it's not a street at all.

But in other words, those are all— all of that real estate is occupied by parcels.

Yeah.

So that is unaccepted streets, paper streets, It's a little over my head.

I've never been able to quite understand what the law is on things like paper streets.

Um, and honestly, I've tried to understand.

The fault is mine.

I just don't, don't grasp it.

Um, I don't know how you would address— you mean an unaccepted street?

Yeah, yeah, that's— it is a gray area to me in law, and it may be that I just don't understand it.

So I can only answer you that way.

I don't know.

I'm told that people have control over up to the midpoint.

I'm not sure it's quite ownership.

I don't have too much trouble with unaccepted streets, but, or paper streets.

That's a paper street, I'm sorry.

Unaccepted streets, yeah, if it's in the street, it's tough for us because all of us, all of our citations go to the property.

They go to property.

Um, the, the process with the, the tickets we write is that if they're not addressed one way or another, they're not appealed and dismissed or paid, they get liened to the property taxes.

So if there's no— there's no real enforcement there, uh, if it's not property for what we do.

So there may be some room there for— so I know in this particular case it was like there's a motorcycle right next to a telephone pole, right?

Could we not potentially make an ordinance or update something that says you can't park a motorcycle, you know, directly, you know, within a foot of a telephone pole or something like that?

I would defer to the law department on that, Councilor.

I don't know.

That's fair.

Uh, I think just, you know, I can understand we can't issue parking tickets, right, because it's not an accepted street, but they are still a property owner.

They should be held certain standards as a property owner.

You can't just have, uh, you know, grass reaching the roof.

You know, there's going to be certain standards that because they are a property owner in Fall River, we should be able to enforce.

And particularly, it becomes an eyesore, just like these other properties we've talked about on South Main Street.

We got the big mill on Rodman and Plymouth Avenue that's fenced off.

And, you know, every situation is a little bit different, but it's impacting the quality of life of the residents.

And particularly for the, you know, these residents down in that area, they want to see this cleaned up.

They want to see that, you know, motorcycle off what would normally be, you know, probably a sidewalk or, uh, probably no parking area, just because, you know, if it wasn't an accepted city street, you know, we wouldn't be able to get a fire truck down there or something like that.

Um, yeah, I mean, so we may not again directly apply to that street, but I get your point on that.

You know, that— I know the complainant wanted that gone, but it would just be moved from one part of that property to another in that particular case.

But, but I, I understand what you— I guess my question is, is there any other— I know you mentioned this, you know, the current ordinance is, is good, you know.

Are there any other ideas, things that you don't have that, you know, we could arm you with to be able to do this more effectively to help improve the quality of life for people?

Um, as far as ordinances, um, I, I, um, can I, can I think on that?

Yeah, uh, specific ordinance about a specific thing.

Um, yeah, I'm sure there's situations that you've been like, oh, if I had this, I'd been able to do something about it.

Or, um, I think that that's what we're looking to do.

I know, um, Councilor Raposa and I I had a resolution that was passed unanimously by the council this week to have the ordinance committee look at addressing nuisance properties.

So this would be whatever you can think of from your experience, you know, your many years working for the city.

Anything you can think of to be able to share with the ordinance committee would probably be helpful to them.

Yeah, sure.

I think, I think the nuisance property ordinance itself, as I say, it came out so much better than I expected that I'm not sure I could critique that, but specific ordinances to define— so nuisance property is really you have a lot of— you have all these violations.

That does— I don't know if that would have to be amended because you could define those violations in another ordinance.

I mean, in other words, not— there are many of these violations.

So there's 6 violations on the property.

One by itself does not necessarily constitute a nuisance property.

It's just a run-of-the-mill something we deal with every day.

So I would suggest that it may be useful to look at a separate ordinance that certainly can be cited in the nuisance property but not restricted to the nuisance property ordinance.

Okay, you know what I mean?

Just one thing I wanted to touch upon.

You said the clunky old computer system or something along those lines for documentation?

We have a software.

Yeah, so what do you use, if you don't mind me asking?

It's an Access database.

This is a Microsoft product that you do yourself.

Yeah.

Is there any way to upgrade that?

Because it— see, a lot of— some of our issues— we had just had an issue, well, conversation the other night about this.

What's the name of the company?

ReRig.

And the documentation, the lack of documentation.

I know we had an issue a couple of years ago with bulk item documentation.

I would hate in a department that brings in revenue to lack the ability to, you know, efficiently document like up-to-date, like 2026 documentation.

Honestly, um, I never asked for anything because maybe I'm a bit of a peasant.

I've been called that before, but I just felt like there was no reason to burden the taxpayers with the cost of something that we can get by with.

We get by with things, you know.

But I, I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm just saying that's— it hasn't happened because I haven't asked for it.

No, I understand.

I just think at its— at the core of it, if we're lacking funding, if our budget was tough to structure this year, if we're looking at FY28 and it might be even worse, I would stop paying attention, like I said earlier, to the departments that bring in money and revenue.

And that would be the start of it.

If I was the mayor of the city, I would go to you and say, how old's your computer system?

You bring in money to the city, we got to update that.

Do you find that that system might hinder you, um, in your ability?

Like you just said, it would take you a while to get the information he needed, um, to go in there.

This shouldn't be— the computer systems in the city should not be archaic in any stretch of the imagination.

Um, if nothing else, it should just Again, that's my fault.

No, but it's not your fault.

We are asked every year what we need.

We are asked every year what we need, not specifically about that, but, you know, I believe the mayor asks the department heads and department— I know the department head of my department asked me.

I've never asked for it.

Okay, well, it is your fault, so ask for a new system so we can take care of the money.

That way we know what's coming in.

Um, I appreciate you, you know that, and, uh, I just think, like I said, there's got to be like everything else, a structure to everything.

And right now we are in the position that we need money.

So let's start looking at these departments and man them.

I mean, software for departments in most cases comes out of the IT budget as well.

So I mean, a conversation with Tyler regarding the software needs, he can start looking into things like that at any time.

Yeah.

And it's something that has to be built into the budget because because it's a costly item and the money isn't in the budget now.

I mean, that's a conversation, of course, for FY28.

And I want to be clear, if it's not within the budget realm, I wouldn't suggest buying it.

I'm just saying, if it is within a cost-effective measure, you know, where you have the money to just go purchase it and make sure that your computer system is compatible to the rest of the building, that'd be fantastic.

So Again, just ask for it.

I'd call him tomorrow morning and tell him you want a new computer system.

I knew I'd get in some trouble tonight.

No, tell him I told you to call.

It'll be okay.

Trust me.

Okay.

Okay.

I yield the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Does anybody else have anything to add to this conversation?

I mean, I can just let you know, I mean, when there are reports made to us, whether it be minimum housing violation, code enforcement violation, you know, a nuisance property from a crime standpoint or a safety standpoint, they're always reported to the departments.

And I know the police department worked very closely on a number of properties that where the owner is absent, but there's activity going on on the property that was affecting the quality of life for the neighbors.

I mean, the police department worked very hard, ended up coming up with a multi- departmental, one property in particular, effort.

And they went in there and there were a number of agencies, there were a number of arrests made and things were done.

So that's the goal, is to make every neighborhood where the residents have a good quality of life.

So anybody who wants to make a call always can call the mayor's office or Faust Department if it's, you know, minimum housing related, code enforcement, enforcement, if they feel like code enforcement issues, and we absolutely work on those.

There is a vacant building fee that the city charges.

If it isn't paid yearly, it's lien to their tax bills.

So how much is that fee?

$1,000.

It's, it's, I think it's still $500 the first year, $1,000 the second, then $2,000, and then $3,000.

Do we know the last time that was set up there?

I think it was initially $1,000.

And then there was some, some escalation put to that.

Well, it was combined.

Yeah, I think it was combined with the— so the nuisance property ordinance, I refer to it as a property maintenance It's a, it's a, it's a, yeah, it's a multi-part ordinance, and I think one of the parts of that is now where the, the fee resides.

It used to be a separate ordinance.

I think that was changed to part of that ordinance.

So that's— I don't know the number.

I use 10-331 because that's the section, but so it's, it's in Chapter 10.

Okay, uh, just from, uh, when you were getting data, um, and maybe It might be more appropriate for Emily to pull it for us.

Um, I'd like to know how much we collected in fines issued by your department.

Um, we'll say, yeah, I don't know, as well as the collection rate.

I'd be curious to see what the collection rate is.

May I ask you a question?

You're, you're, you're asking about, um, so, so, um, you know, trash, debris, that, that sort of thing, those fines?

Or all of, all the fines?

I would say specific to what you are issuing in your team.

Okay, just let you know that, um, many of, many of these citations for an unkempt property are actually handled by the, um, minimum housing code, partly because many of those are in conjunction with what you usually think of as a minimum housing code inspection, an apartment inspection.

So you don't want to have 2 cases.

So you would not typically use a, an ordinance to cite that part, the yard.

You would use the— you would wrap that in your, your— because you only— then you're doing— only enforcing it one way instead of 2.

So it wouldn't reflect everything that we cite for blight, generally speaking, because a lot of that is covered And a lot of it has to be covered by the housing code because we don't have ordinances that— the siding is coming off your house and they're flat, you know, something's flapping, it's dangerous, water can get in because the sheathing is exposed.

We don't have ordinances for that.

We use— we have to use the housing code for that.

So that wouldn't reflect everything that you would categorize as blight.

The, the ordinance citations will not reflect everything, and it might not even reflect most of it.

Okay, the only thing I'll add from the police side, obviously the nuisance property ordinance has a separate section that we've loosely used in the past, and it is because it requires 3 things of criminal conduct that occur.

But I don't think we're out of line when we have a significant criminal situation happen, whether it be a significant arrest or whether it be a drug investigation that leads to a search warrant, that the landlord is notified.

I mean, typically a landlord isn't notified unless there's a claim for their insurance because we had to, you know, kick a door down or there was damage subsequent to the search warrant.

One of the things that I was speaking with, with my command staff and some of our support staff, civilian support staff, is developing a template so that when we have these significant significant events, a letter comes from the police department kind of putting the landlord on notice, like, hey, this person was involved in a criminal incident, with respect to the privacy of that person and their criminal offender record information.

But I think a landlord, especially if they're absentee and not owner-occupied, they're not going to know.

And it's not until they get a phone call because the front door is no longer existing because we had to use a SWAT team to get in there, that's typically when we'll hear from a landlord.

So I think just that putting people on notice and the education piece I think that Faust was talking about is did they know about it, what did they do to fix it, and this is a stronger case especially when we take a multifaceted approach because I go back to Windsor Street.

We had a property on Windsor Street in a very nice neighborhood on Eastern Avenue, blighted, the homeowner was in jail, people were squatting on the property, it's which one of these isn't like the others.

Scenario and everyone was in an uproar, we came at that from multiple angles and essentially was able to flip that house.

But it takes a lot of effort, but it's a system in place.

So we're talking about computer systems, we're talking about being able to be consistent and tracking what we do, but documentation is key and king when you're trying to use the court system.

So we're kind of taking a step back after this year being extremely busy with proactive activity, and what can we do to not have the hard work that we did go backwards and try to do partnerships with the landlords, with the property owners, with the tenants, so that people that are the ones that care feel like they're heard and they can see the action that we're doing and it's maintained and not just a revolving door of criminal activity.

I appreciate your efforts, and especially those letters going out to property owners, putting them on notice.

I think that's going to make a huge difference.

Anything else on this topic?

Good.

We want to do it.

Motion to table.

Motion to table is made by Councilor Peckham.

I'll second that.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number 2 is another quality of life issue, to convene with the administration to discuss the progress of cleanliness, maintenance, and enforcement efforts throughout the City of Fall River.

Gentlemen, if you want to come join us.

Please, if you could just introduce yourselves.

Chris Hathaway, Director of Community Maintenance.

Hal Oliver, Director of City Operations.

Joe Kennedy, DCM Compliance Office.

Thank you.

Uh, so this resolution was born out of a, uh, citizen petition.

Uh, over 400 people signed an online petition just a couple days, uh, back in April.

Um, and, uh, residents deserve a clean, vibrant city.

They demand it.

And, um, I— we have a new DCM director.

Uh, you've had some time hopefully to settle in, and just kind of wanted to get an update on our progress of cleanliness throughout the city and, uh, maintenance and enforcement efforts.

I don't know who wants to go first.

I'll, I'll start first.

I, uh, right now I'm overseeing, um, in general the facilities and the capital improvement projects.

Um, Chris has been taking on a higher role of the, uh, the DPW, uh, DCM folks.

I'd like to present what we're in facilities overseeing, um, and it gives you just a quick brief down of what where we're focusing on.

You have some new municipal buildings, and in that I wanted to share what tasks are being completed at each location— the new government center, council chambers.

So we have the snow, the trash, the grass, the maintenance, and that's a breakdown of what we're actually doing at each building.

And it's a snapshot of what we're responding to as needed, but We also have a preventive maintenance program going on where we have guys just going around and doing typical checks up on parking lots, garages, so on and so forth.

That's all inclusive with all the renovations that we're doing, interior buildings, and keeping up with all the maintenance as best as possible.

And we do have lists for some of the work that we have ongoing and in the future.

Okay.

Then our city administrator did provide to the committee as well an update on August 11th related to resources to the parks.

DCM, what they're doing, the litter enforcement division, and the illegal dumping as well.

Um, thank you.

Um, Mr. Oliveira, since this is on here, sure, can we get an update on DCM incinerator and the output funding, the money that went into it?

Where are we at?

Because I think it's the 31st of this month that we have to expend the money and get the project complete.

Where are we right now?

So we're, we're at a point where we've We've gotten all the, um, the payrolls and, uh, the requests for payment.

We're in process of getting that completed, and we have it— we're going to be having a check ready to go for the vendor.

Okay.

We do have some punch list items that is inclusive of that.

That's with every single project that we are working on.

There's a couple other projects that we're working in-house to get some of the completion of the funding.

Okay.

I want everyone to remember this was initially a $30 million project was scaled back to about $16 million.

So not everything is going to be perfect.

So we're working on just making sure that the building had met all the codes, met— it is occupiable.

We have roofs, we have fire alarms, everything's up to speed.

We did work on gas lines.

We have— building is— I mean, I've toured with Chris on numerous occasions, and he's been at the meetings.

We're doing very well at this point to close out that project.

So there's no questions at all that this won't be finished by the— because I've obviously heard rumors that it's not going to be done.

So I'm just going to ask you publicly, is it going to be done by the 31st, or are we going to have a problem?

We're not going to have any problems.

We're going to be completed by the 31st.

All the items associated— clarification, there's only 30.

I forgot what month we're in.

I keep thinking October the 30th.

Yeah, it's a bunch of city employees.

It doesn't shock me.

Outside of that, the Vet Center, that was the other one I had a question about.

What is— has there been any talks about what we're gonna— and I don't want to get too far off track into facilities, but we talked about blighted properties.

I want to make sure there's a plan for everything.

And not that this is going to end up lighted, but let's have the conversation.

Has there been further conversation about what we're going to do with Pine Street after they move to Globe?

Well, there are a few things that we really need to do once the occupant leaves.

We know we've got to do a couple of things before we can entertain having anyone in there.

As far as who's going to be occupying that space, there really hasn't been anything not set in stone.

Okay, I yield.

Thank you.

Uh, since it's on here, uh, you have the water fountain at Highland Park that Facilities is responsible for.

I don't think the water's been running on that though, right?

Yeah, we had that operating all this summer and, and last year.

Yeah, all right.

I mean, we, we have to— we're going to get ready to wrap it up for the winter to protect it, but yes, we did get it running and It really looked nice.

All right, I'll have to make a point to get out there and check it out.

I think I must be too focused on the road when I'm driving by.

All right, um, uh, Mr. Hathaway, uh, you've had, uh, some time hopefully to adjust.

I know that, um, you know, a lot of the complaints I received earlier in the spring, uh, just around the condition of some of the parks, uh, some of the sidewalks, obviously the potholes too.

And I just wanted to get an update from you on how you're progressing with tackling and improving the quality of life.

With the pox, we had a program through, I think it was BCTC, where they would have a group of adults going through and kids.

So the pox were through the summer, they had the— I think there were anywhere from 10 to 15 years old, not 10, but 12 to 15-year-olds going through the parks picking litter, making sure that they were clean.

On the streets, there was another program as well.

We put the adults on the streets too.

We felt it was a safer place for them versus having the kids walk down the streets.

They were doing the same, picking weeds, picking litter.

They were focusing on the downtown area around the courthouse.

Around North Main Street, that area.

In the pothole situation, we have 2 trucks that go out every day, mostly every day.

Sometimes there's only 1 truck depending on the size of the crew, depending on the staffing levels.

They've been following— they've been following the trash route.

They do it a day off of the trash route.

So there's no backups, delays with traveling.

But the truck specifically follows behind— they're delayed a day behind the trash route.

But they stay within that route for the day.

So that way they can focus on, not have to veer off and waste fuel, wear and tear on the vehicles, they can focus on the areas for the day.

Do we have a count of how many potholes?

I can get you that.

I think there was an online tracker, I think, where we— Yeah, that was through the same system as the cloud.

But we have, every day we log how many potholes, where they were, so on and so forth.

Now, is the city, is your staff specifically engaging with that online tracker still that is out there?

We're looking into a solution.

For that, for the future.

Okay.

Now, um, our city administrator, and Onyeh Souza, you mentioned that DCM has 2 to 4 employees per day as available assigned to daily maintenance, such as cutting brush and overgrowth, trimming around sidewalks, city properties, as well as litter pickup.

That's a big difference whether you have 2 people doing it on a given day or 4 people doing it.

So what's the variable there?

I mean, they go and do other tests.

Vacation.

Okay.

Um, flex time, uh, that somebody may be off if they work like a weekend or, or something along those lines.

Uh, holidays, because their schedule is different than ours in a number of cases.

So it's, it's the personnel, you know, the number of sick calls per day.

Yeah, it varies too.

Yeah.

Um, it depends on what we're trying to get to a point.

I'm trying to get to a where we can have a set crew that handles just landscaping.

You know, we have a pothole crew, we have concrete crew, I would like to have so that way, we have 3 or 4 guys that that's all they focus on.

And then the other crews can fill in as we need.

But it all depends on sick calls, vacation time, and everything else that's going on.

So I feel like half the time we're reacting to things, right?

People send in— people might post something online, people might be sending in pictures.

I feel like, you know, there's never enough.

We fell behind this year because we were focusing on the cop maintenance and repairs, and then once July hit, that we had to catch up on some of the things.

Once July hit, capital took that over, but we still had a backlog from when we were supposed to be maintenance.

So we were catching up on that through July.

And that took us behind.

That delayed us significantly.

Councilor Pickard.

Yeah.

So I know me and Mr. Hathaway, we've spoken quite a bit since you've been in this position with the weeds and whatnot.

And you've done an excellent job.

So I want to thank you for that.

You always pick up and you take care of what's requested.

And I for one, appreciate it.

Mr. Oliveira, Stanley Street Fire Station.

What year was that built?

Let's see.

1930.

I'm probably gonna go with probably older than that.

No, 1930.

Or is that a generic list due to the fire?

A generic age?

I'm just wondering.

No, I— this is something that I This whole log is what I've started back in 2008.

Okay, so 1930 is the accurate date?

That's the date that I've been— that I received from the drawings.

I asked because the city told me my house was built in 1930, and it was built in 1825.

Okay, so I know these years on paper don't look like they make a difference, but they make a huge difference.

And the reason mine said 1930 is because of the last Great Fire of Fall River burned a lot of the records to the city, so they gave them all generic age of 1930.

So I would double-check that because I'm pretty sure they were drawing horses and carriages out of that place and not Model Ford Model Ts.

Let me, let me get back on that one.

But if it was on here, I probably got that from the drawings.

Yeah, I'm more about 1880 with that building.

Okay.

So the other question I had was, where are we with the movement for the Central Fire Station?

Because we did a ton of talking about it and then I haven't heard anything.

So absolutely, I'll bring you up to speed.

We, we opened up the bids last week.

The project initially was ready to go out to bid.

We added some windows, we added the pointing, we added some additional items.

The designer needed some additional time, we gave him that time.

We opened up the bid yesterday, we received a low bidder, and Low bidder has now requested to remove his bid due to a mathematical error.

So we went with the next bidder.

So now we have a company called Poolin, who's a respectful contractor, and we're moving to get a contract right now.

Okay.

All right.

I don't think I have anything else.

So with that, I yield.

Thank you.

Okay.

I want to talk a little bit about trash barrels.

So You noted that trash barrel runs are done on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays on all park property.

Do we know if that's sufficient?

Like, you know, when we get there on Wednesday, for example, we skip Tuesday, is the barrel overflowing?

Is it kept, you know, has it got room?

I guess I just kind of, there's a lot of trash.

And then the other follow-up question would be, do we have enough barrels?

I feel like sometimes I'm looking for a spot and I'm looking around and I go, You got walkaways.

And if I got walkaways, someone else— I'll do it, but not everybody will.

And on the barrels also, I think back in the day we used to have more on the street.

Maybe a street corner might have a barrel, things like that, some of the more populated areas.

Do we have an opportunity to potentially add some of that?

I know that if you go down to like Thames Street in Newport, they have recycling and barrel.

I know that when I'm looking at most of the barrels that are out, like I think of Kennedy Park, it's just trash barrel.

I don't see any recycling.

And I think, do we have an opportunity to maybe update that?

That would make your job easier, right?

I think right now we were looking into the compacted style barrels.

We were, I think, yeah, before I came on, that was talked about, but it's something that I'm actually looking at.

The solar ones?

Yeah.

Big bellies.

It's called a big belly.

Point of information too, I believe back in 2020, I don't know if it ever went anywhere because I took a break in between.

I believe Councilor Pereira filed the resolution that the businesses had to have trash receptacles.

It was going to be an ordinance, and I don't know if it ended up in there, but that might correlate.

So it might be something worth exploring too, is to make sure if it is an ordinance, that these companies are adhering to it, you know.

The trash cans that are on South Main Street are picked up by our vendor, by Capital.

Those are the black ones.

Yeah, we have a list of— we have a list in the contract that they pick up.

It's South Main Street, Duval Street, Cook Pond, Dave's Beach, Cash Street, Pleasant Street, Atlantic Boulevard.

This is Dave's Beach.

Yeah, those— this is a list of them that are in their contract to service, which are the decorative barrels that you're seeing along South Main Street.

Okay.

And the Park Department, when you mentioned barrels, I mean, this is how they set it up.

But if there's an event in the park, if there's like a concert in the park, when they do the neighborhood concerts, and they know that there was something there, they'll make sure the day of, if it's an off day, that the barrels will be emptied.

And then they'll go back the next day.

So I mean, if they're like on the waterfront, when we have, you know, an event coming up, I mean, all those barrels are taken care of prior to the event, and then they go back before it.

But in a number of cases, adding more barrels sometimes.

Again, people are throwing their household trash in our trash cans.

Yeah, absolutely.

That— and when there is an event, typically DCM goes out and we put out totes, recycling and trash totes for the event.

And then we take it back after the event.

That's been the practice for a while.

And it depends— that depends on the size of the event determines how many barrels we typically requested.

So if you were to give the city a grade right now for how we're doing cleanliness, I think the residents gave us an F back in April.

Where do you think we are now in terms of a grade?

That's a hard question.

I'm not sure, to be honest with you.

Um, we can do better.

We can always do better.

Can we, can we be an A by next spring, summer?

We're going to try.

With our compliance, we have the compliance officers take a drive through the entire city every day.

They look for bulky items, they look for items that are left to the side of the road, whether it's big, small.

They communicate if it's an illegal dump with the police department.

There's a process in place.

We put a number to the illegal dump, and they attach it to the file.

If there's somebody that is caught then it goes with them.

The associated costs go attached to them.

Chief, I know you're a data guy, so there's approximately 51 illegal dumping cases this year to date.

January or July?

January.

So calendar year.

And we're at about a 49% solve rate.

There's 11 cases that are cold.

We've exhausted all leads.

And I just reviewed them all individually myself this afternoon.

There's a few that I will be rekindling to connect.

There's some correlation with vehicle and likeness of dumping that there's a potential it's the same suspect from previous dumps.

So I'm going to have some eyes get put on that so we can vet back through it and maybe close the loop on a couple of those open cases.

But obviously, we're not shy to promote on our Facebook page when we are successful in this because I understand there are much more serious things in Florida that we could be going after, but the little things like this matter the most, especially when we want to take pride in the city and have a place that looks like we care about where we live.

And that's kind of— we're going to stand for illegal dumping and let that happen, then that's going to just be— the foundation of the place is going to be not good.

So our guys take great pride in it.

Not only Officer Medeiros that you see featured a lot, the rest of the EPO squad is out there, you know, taking their time away from the reservoir area and coming out into the city because they're very versed in using the systems that help solve that.

And we've also tasked our Major Crimes Division in helping with that, as well as our patrol officers.

In reading all the reports, there's a few officers that definitely have taken the extra steps to kind of follow up up.

But we can always be better.

But I think reviewing the caseload today kind of made me look at a few things that we could be better at in closing the couple cases.

Okay, now when I think about— actually, Mr. Hathaway, people dumping things, right?

And I start to wonder, why are they dumping it?

Is it because it's, you know, it costs too much to dispose of something?

Is it the access to— I'm going to get a sticker, how do I get the sticker?

Or is it the cost?

I think it's a flat fee up to 3 items, right?

Yeah, our costs are low.

So I don't think it's the cost.

I think it's just ignorance.

I think it's ignorance.

Yeah.

I don't think they care.

I think it's knowledge from what I've read in reports and debriefings that I've had the knowledge of what you're supposed to do.

Others are using it as a pretense to— I'll get rid of everything short of a dead body business.

And if you go on Facebook Marketplace, you could find someone that will do a clear-out for you for $75 and not tell you where it's going to go.

You've also seen people that we've exposed that own businesses that are doing it to save their own costs because they don't want to pay the fees to get rid of either the tires or the paint or the construction materials.

So I think it runs the gamut as far as that's concerned, but I think that when it's the business owners that are doing that, then I think you know why they're doing that.

When it's the general motoring public or general public, it's usually either they didn't know any better or they want to avoid the fee altogether.

Now, people put things out for free all the time, right, Mr. Kennedy?

You know, you know, this stuff is going to move like a free mattress or things like that.

And when that happens, you know, how— I guess, what's the mechanism?

Do we have to— have to call and say, hey, there's a mattress?

Your team— is your team out there actively patrolling the city throughout the week?

How does your team operate?

So I have a 3-man team that's out every day of the week doing a compliance run.

They start off their morning with a compliance run checking recycling, make sure everything, everything is good in the recycling.

After that, they proceed to a bulky run or compliance trip throughout that we covered.

We tried— it's impossible to cover the entire city.

They cover— they hit the north and south hotspots, we call them.

And just before I go any further, you're a numbers guy.

I happened to grab some numbers just before I came.

It's only from January to June, but, uh, my, my department has written, uh, almost, uh, 1,300 tickets in the 6-month period.

All right, so back to the point Councilor Peckham made in our last item topic, um, if you had more men, would you be able to issue more tickets?

Almost definitely, yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Because I think that's one of the biggest things people— you know, I constantly get someone will send me a picture, you know, a couch up on West Quarry Street, you know, tilted up.

And you get all these different— you know, there's a new one every— more than one every single day that's getting put out there.

We aren't necessarily able always to track it back.

How do you know, I guess, I wonder sometimes, like, how do we distinguish between it's in front of this property?

Is it this property's fault?

Or is this, you know, someone— well, it's automatic as far as I'm concerned.

Okay.

If it sits in front of your property, you're responsible for it.

If you cannot walk by or walk into your home with a mattress in front of it and not, not know that it doesn't belong to you, and you should be informed informing someone about that.

So I go with the approach that if you ignore it, leave it there, and it becomes— it's the property owner's responsibility.

Now, are you— you're, you're issuing something, sending it in the mail, I assume, right?

You're not knocking on their door telling them, hey— no, no, we don't, we don't, uh, the officers don't go on the property.

Uh, we just document and then issue citation to the homeowner.

Are you actually removing the items in those cases?

We are.

So after we document it, we have it removed within that same day.

Within hours of us seeing it, it's removed.

Okay, we have a truck with 2 guys that, that's— they follow, they do other things.

But towards the end of the day, that's there.

That's one of their roles.

Okay.

So there's over 700 streets in the city, I believe it's 700 streets in the city, and it's impossible to cover every street every day.

So yeah, but we— there are certain areas that it's a guarantee, whatever day of the week it is, we drive down, we'll find something.

Now, is there any coordination we could do with, like, Capitol, who do drive up and down streets every day, you know, that if they see, you know, something— you know, they're obviously stopping at nearly every residence, right— see something that they, you know, could just jot down a list and, or call it in as they see it?

Or is there anything we could do from that perspective to partner with them closer?

I, I'm in constant contact with the supervisor at Capitol, and, uh, we do have the relationship where if there's something there that didn't— that wasn't scheduled for pickup, he does, he does relay that to me.

And also to the, the tote issue, He also tells me when he's coming across a property that may have too many totes or not the correct number of totes and alerts me to that also.

Okay, that's good to hear.

No, after all the other night, that's definitely good to hear.

We need more people to go out and pick up trash carts.

So we're not spending $200,000 for it.

Do your people— do they participate in that aspect of it?

So So it's these departments here that are going out and picking up the trash bins.

Okay, how many people do we have that are picking up the trash bins?

I didn't ask that the other night.

Like trash bins within our department, the excess, the excess.

So if it's typically 2 guys, yeah, when we're doing— when we get a call that there's extra totes out there, it'll be 2 guys that'll go pick them up.

Okay, 2 employees.

Yeah.

And these numbers that we're at the table tonight, as far as employee-wise, I just want to— I want to give you guys accolades because it's not just our fire department and police department that does more with less.

A lot of our departments do, and your departments have been excellent lately.

So I appreciate you guys.

Thank you.

That I yield.

Okay.

I do want to bring up specifically Duval Street.

That area is supposed to be our next crown jewel And I think that there's been sometimes some overgrowth of grass over there, or bins or things like that.

Who right now is responsible for that?

Is that us?

Is it the state?

Contractor?

The contractor is, yeah.

And contractor responsible right now?

Responsible.

Dan is constantly in contact with them.

There was actually communication yesterday going with the complaints with the contractor.

Trash is picked up by Yeah, capital takes care of those barrels.

But the actual weeds and the maintenance of the lawn on the outer sides, the middle is masked up, they're taking care of the middle portion.

The shared use path area is the contractor still.

Okay.

Until that's approved and inspected, that'll be theirs.

Okay.

When we— I feel like when I see— go back a little bit to overgrowth, and some of this is sometimes some of the state stuff, there are some signs in the city.

I feel like there's, like, stop signs— I'm trying to— I had one recently where there's a branch kind of blocking the stop sign.

I almost missed it.

And, how are we addressing those?

Because I feel like that's something different that you're not always looking for, right?

I mean, it's— you see weeds growing on a sidewalk, you know, you guys are waiting to trim it.

How are we doing just going around, making sure the signs, the signage, the stop signs, whatever it be, are visible to residents?

So, any complaint that comes in typically goes— for something like that, typically goes to the traffic department, and then they forward it to the tree department.

I'm not sure that they're actively out there looking for that type of issue.

But they're responsive as soon as the calls come in.

One came in yesterday, actually, for a traffic signal, and the signal division went out and took care of it.

Because I know the tree department has their own.

They're doing cleanups right now.

They're making sure that they're prepped for the storm coming.

So the signal division went out, made the necessary changes or pruning to the tree to get it so that way the signalized intersection was also— I think the direction I'd like to see you guys going on, maybe it is the direction you're going in, is, you know, when I think about the snowstorm, right, and that tool that Matt Medeiros built and how effective that was, people were reporting, you know, my street's not done, and maybe it wasn't done to their satisfaction always, but for the most part, it was a reliable tool for us to be able to know which streets weren't done.

And I know he's He's got it for the potholes, and there are other hazards and conditions he's good on there.

And I think, you know, I really want to get— see more people utilize this because I think it's, you know, they shouldn't always have to call their city councilor to get something done, right?

There should be a central place for them to go and report a condition that they see because for the most part, it's probably going to be the neighbors right in those neighborhoods who will say, hey, right outside my house, this needs, you know, the stop signs covered or whatever it be.

I just want to see the city really advance in technology a little bit to the point where they can report conditions right on the city website or in a central place where you guys are responsive to it and seeing it and bringing it down and saying, okay, this is a new one.

You know, it's not one that was reported 3 months ago.

This is brand new.

Let's get this addressed.

Is that kind of the direction we're— Yeah, we're working on that right now.

Okay.

With Matt or someone else?

Else?

We're working on that in general.

In general.

Okay.

It's good to hear.

Yeah, it was actually talked about today.

So do we have an ETA on when something like that?

I would say within the next month or so.

That's great.

One of the biggest things with easy reporting is many years ago, we did have a system called C-Click Fix.

And that's what people could do was report problems like that.

But the issue that you have is you have to make sure that you have it set up in the system properly so that it's filtered out to departments.

Back then, it was one individual trying to handle requests that were coming in multiple times.

It's not just one report that's made of something, there were multiple reports.

Now this, everything is so much more advanced.

And the way, as Mr. Medeiros did with information for the snowplowing, and being able to clear things off the board and make sure that they get addressed.

That's just establishing it the proper way so that it's a useful tool, and not just people reporting things that are going unanswered.

Um, no, just one more thing, Mr. Oliveira.

Sure.

The main library.

Yes.

$18.99.

We got it at 1930 as well.

So I think that is your problem, is the, the assessor's cards might have 1930, but the actual build data was founded in 1895 and built in 1899.

Again, I'm just being a stickler because of the dates.

They do come back to bite us.

So absolutely.

All right, I got nothing further.

I yield with that.

Thank you.

And the idea with this resolution is to meet every 6 months-ish or so, uh, to see the progress we're making.

And hopefully the next time we meet, um, it'll be post, uh, winter, hopefully.

And, uh, we'll see.

I had to say that, right?

We're on the heels of it.

It's gonna be a very— I won't even say it.

Let's get through this weekend.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, please.

Absolutely.

I do thank you all for your efforts, and, uh, just know that the residents And I'll just circle back to what I said.

The residents deserve a clean, vibrant city.

That's the goal.

They demand it, and that's what we need to work towards.

So with that, I appreciate you.

Um, do I have a motion on this item?

You want to motion to table?

Sure.

Motion to table is made by Councilor Peckham.

I'll second that.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn is made by Councilor Peckham.

I'll second it.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.