9.8.2026 City Council - Public Works & Transportation

City Council Committee on Public Works and Transportation will come to order.

The clerk will call the roll.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Pursuant to the Open Meeting Law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such transmissions or recordings are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

I'll entertain a motion to take an item out of order.

Actually, so first we have citizen input time.

Does anyone want to come down and speak?

Input time.

Anyone sign up?

Nobody signed up.

It's on the agenda.

It's number 1 on the agenda.

Second, entertain a motion to accept the minutes from July 2nd, 2026.

Motion has been made and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Motion to take item 4 out of order.

Second.

A motion to take item 4 out of order.

Item 4, uh, motion is made and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Item number 4, Timothy R. Long, 1343 Newhall Street, removal, removal of 9 feet 1 inch of curbing for an opening total of 24 feet 1 inch at 677 Meridian Street.

It was referred on July 14, 2026.

Do you want him to come down, or— Oh yeah, wait, can you come down please?

Anywhere's fine.

Are there any questions?

Well, I just want to maybe just broach over real quickly what you— you know, you want 9 feet, but yeah, the full, the full opening would be 24-1, which, um, this is my 3rd hearing.

I think the first hearing went to traffic, then went to city council, no issues found, and then they motioned it back.

Back here, the reason was it was done after the fact.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, I was just gonna— I got nothing to hide.

I was just gonna get into that.

I mean, that's the reality of it, is that it is cut.

And, um, lesson learned.

First house I built and some mistakes made, and I'm just trying to come to a solution and make it right.

I'm not trying to bend any rules or operate above the law.

Make a motion.

Okay, motion to adopt.

Yep.

And you're gonna do anything else, or are you good?

As it's— whatever, you know, what God might— um, consistent with what we've done with the after-the-facts curb removals that are done after the fact, I'd like to make a motion that we send this back for approval to the full council with double the fee, which I believe, Clerk, is consistent with what we've done for other ones.

That is my motion.

If that's what we've done in the past, yeah.

Am I paying the fine or I have to come to another hearing?

It's going to get approved by the council first.

So it'll be on tonight?

We can't, we can't approve it.

It'll be on tonight's agenda for the council meeting, to tonight's meeting.

All right.

I thought that the way that the motion was is they put it back.

It's fine.

Yeah, the committee just makes a recommendation.

Every time it goes full body, they make a vote on it.

No, I mean, I'm trying to save you guys some sometimes.

I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Whatever the penalty may be, just 4 hearings seems a little crazy.

But yeah, so how it works is that the full council has to vote on it.

The 3 of us don't have that authority.

We make a recommendation in this hearing from what we hear from you, anyone else who wants to talk, and then we make a full vote in front of city council.

It's nothing different than we've done with everyone else.

No, no, I get it.

Okay, again, it's just— yeah, look, we don't want to have 4 meetings either.

I get it.

I'm learning.

So I guess my question would would be— let's fast forward to the city.

If they didn't approve it, what happens then?

What's the next step?

I'm not sure that they would make a motion.

I'm not sure.

I don't see why they wouldn't approve it.

Yeah, I didn't know.

I'm not willing to not support it.

I'll support it.

Okay, so I don't see why— yeah, it's just a procedure.

We can't vote on it, period.

It has to be a vote by the full council.

Yeah, understood.

If we could vote on it, we'd vote on it now and get it over with.

I wish it was that simple.

All good with me.

All right, thanks.

Stipulation, a double permit fee to be paid within 30 days of adoption, as the curbing was removed prior to council approval, city council approval.

That's what we've had in the past.

Yes.

So the $250 permit fee that I've paid already, and then another 2 fees on top of that?

No, it's just a $250.

It's a double, one additional.

Thank you.

Motion has been seconded.

All in favor?

Second.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Should I stay for the meeting?

There's no hearing tonight.

It'll just go before them on the agenda for a vote.

So it's up to you if you want to stay or not.

I do have another meeting.

I just didn't want to miss anything that I need to be present for.

That's all.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

A resolution conveyed with residents and the city engineer and Corporation Council to discuss concerns regarding the condition near Greenfield Street, Judd Street.

What's that?

Greenleaf Street and Judd Street.

Oh, it doesn't matter, you can come down.

Anyone who'd like to speak with Corporation Council, come down to City Planners.

Yeah, but I'm gonna come down.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, good.

Please, can everyone at the table just give their name and address for the records, please, one at a time?

Jan Riley, R-I-L-E-Y, 35 Judge Street, Fall River, Mass.

Thank you.

Jennifer Deacon, 91 Greenleaf Street, Fall River, Massachusetts.

Thank you.

Chris Hathaway, Director of Community Maintenance.

Daniel Aguilar, Director of Engineering and Planning.

Alan Rumsey, Corporation Counsel.

Thank you.

Councilor Kenyon, do you want to— thank you for coming down.

It was nice meeting with you and meeting the residents of Greenleaf and Judge Streets and being able to see the condition of the lane.

I was trying to— as I was speaking with you the other day, I was trying to find an email from Corporation Counsel, and I did, uh, was able to find it and print it.

So I do have some questions for the Corporation Counsel as it relates to that.

So he did send an email to the council and to the mayor on August 4th, which I'd like to read into the record, that said, Mayor Coogan, the City of Fall River is not legally obligated to maintain a route of lane a private way entirely situated in Rhode Island.

This remains the case even if the city previously made repairs to the private roadway.

Responsibility for the upkeep of a Ruta Lane rests with the residents who use the private way to access their properties in Coal River.

And so to that end, Corporation Counsel, first question I have for you is specifically, If I read your email, it appears to me that no maintenance rests on the actual property owner, even though this is a private way which is rooted in his dairy farm.

Is that correct?

You said on the property owner?

Correct.

My question was— I mean, I was specifically asked whether the city was legally obligated to pave the road.

The answer is no.

Okay.

Um, so if the— so based on your email, it looks like the responsibility of the route of lane rests with the residents of— you're saying Judge Street and, um, Greenleaf Street?

Yeah, I mean, typically in an easement situation like this, I mean, there's often a homeowners association.

I don't know if there is one.

It sounds like there's not.

Usually there would be some kind of a homeowners association, so it would be an obligation of the people who own property there to take care of the easement.

I mean, And for Fall River, it's even different in this case because there's 2 things that are different.

One, it's, it's a private way and it's located in a foreign state.

So those 2 things make it very difficult, which would be— I mean, frankly, it'd be pretty easy if the residents pulled their money together to do repairs on it.

Okay, okay, listen, sir, please, we don't need anyone from the audience making comments during the meeting.

If you want to speak, you're welcome to come down and speak one at a time, but let's finish.

Go ahead, Councilor.

So when I look like one road over, we have East End Sportsman Lane, which I think probably must be employing a situation similar to what you're describing then because there is properties in farver.

I think the key distinction there though is that is not an accepted street.

So my question to you is, if we had an accepted street, which we do in this case, Greenleaf and Judge Street, I did look at the acceptance.

The acceptance says when we accepted it to the Tiverton line, because we accepted those streets, did that also give us an obligation to then pave it from, you know, that Tiverton portion, just to be clear?

No.

Okay, so When we think about the fact that the city has done some maintenance in the past as it relates to, like, 2007, we fully paved it, and I know we've done some potholes, I think, over the years.

I think I saw some filled in 2020.

Does that pothole filling or paving obligate us to maintain that portion that we have been maintaining moving forward if we, as you've put it, not responsible?

No, I mean, that's what I addressed.

One of the things I addressed in the email— if the city did do some repair work in the past, it doesn't obligate the future actions.

Um, I don't know, so I'm not, I'm not calling into question what was done back in, I think it was 2007 if I recall correctly, but, um, you know, I don't even know if it was done properly.

There's a, there's a lot of things that would have to happen before that takes place more than just sending DPW down to do some repair work.

Okay.

Yeah, I think this is a difficult one because I think, you know, just looking at the condition of the rest of the city, our roads are in really bad condition.

I, I've seen as bad as this lane was that's sitting in, in Tiverton.

We have Copacabana, which I've gone out there and seen the residents of, and that's actually Fall River, and that needs to get done because I think I think that's actually even worse than Old Indian Town Road, but I don't know what to do with this.

The council obviously can't direct any city authority, can't direct the city engineer to go fill this, nor can we tell the mayor to do that either, and particularly, again, this is Tiverton and we're down on a private way, so I'll yield to my colleagues for their thoughts.

And I think they wanted to give a PowerPoint.

Okay.

Do you want to do that?

I have an opening statement that I can definitely read with the PowerPoint.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm having more connectivity issues here, so I had plugged in, it worked, and now my TV's made it just on.

Oh, okay.

Oh yeah, is that your— yeah.

Are you ready?

Just curious, how long is this presentation?

Just 2 hours.

Okay, no, that's good.

Took us that long to get here.

It's just a couple— it just Maybe 10 minutes.

That's fine, just curious.

You have 2 days.

Go ahead.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, city engineer, corporation counsel.

Thank you for bringing all departments together to sit down with us tonight.

My name is Janet Riley, along with my hubby Jim Kennedy.

Also, this— these are— if our neighbors could stand for a minute, we just wanted to show this kind of show of support.

Support that we have here to support this.

So we're kind of all are very interested in the outcome and what kind of advance we can get today.

So thank you.

I have lived on Judge Street for 44 years come this November.

Tonight, my neighbor Jen Dutra and I from Greenleaf Street stand here representing the 20 families within our neighborhood.

We want to formally thank Councilor Peckham for sponsoring this framework, Councilor Ponte for getting us to the table, Counselors Hart and Cannuel for their on-site inspections, and lastly, the mayor for viewing firsthand the safety hazards our families face daily.

One of our objectives today is for the city's, city's legal department to dedicate its time and resources to look for a legal resolution to fix this roadway and not the why it can't be done.

Every person at this table has been provided a complete physical package of deeds, layouts, road acceptance, and Fire Chief Bacon's warning.

This documentation was sent to Fall River's Law Department on June 26th and to Corporate Counsel Rumsey on July 14th.

We are not here tonight to debate abstract legal theories or further administrative delays.

We are here to establish an immediate cross-border infrastructure solution to an active life safety crisis.

The legal reality, Jen, governing this chamber tonight, as I see it, is black and white.

Let me take you through it.

You there yet?

Is that what we want?

I want the, um, matrix.

Okay.

First, the city of Fall River created this structural anomaly.

In 1977, the city council formally voted to accept Greenleaf Street and Judge Street as public ways, making Fall River the sole grantee of these residential parcels.

Under Massachusetts subdivision control law, specifically MGL C41 8.11 and 80— oh, 81L, I'm sorry, and 81M, And see Matrix B, a municipality is strictly prohibited from accepting interior subdivision roads unless adequate physical access to an existing public way is permanently secured.

Access means a practical physical reality, not a theoretical line on a blueprint.

By accepting our streets by leaving their single access mouth on Aruta's Lane entirely landlocked across the Rhode Island border, the city committed a severe planning defect for, for nearly 50 years.

Second, this city has a continuous non-delegable statutory duty to act under MGLC 84, see matrix item A.

Fall River is legally mandated to keep public ways situated within its borders safe, open, and convenient for travel.

As your constituents, we use the room and the door analogy.

Greenleaf and Judge Street's a public room that Fall River took 100% ownership of in 1977.

Arruda's Lane is the single door to that room.

If you allow that door to collapse into an impassable wasteland land of created ruts and frost heaves, you are actively breaching your statutory duty to keep that public— the public roads inside that room accessible.

Third, regarding the out-of-state private property concern, if the city's legal department stance is that spending municipal funds across state lines constitutes criminal trespass or an illegal gift under the Anti-Aid Amendment, We provided city's legal department with the November 15th, 1977 legal waiver from the Law Offices of Frank M. Silva, where original landowner Georgiana Arruda explicitly signed her mark granting Fall River permanent permission to fill in holes and spread gravel on her private right-of-way.

This permission directly coincided with Mayor Wilfred April 7th, 1976 executive paving order referred to the DPW, which is probably up there on the screen.

To cement this 50-year precedent of municipal care and residents' reliance, we have a notarized copy of a brand new voluntary maintenance easement and right of entry agreement signed directly by the current landowner, Tony Moniz Jr.

This agreement provides the legal framework for the city.

Under Section 2, Tony Moniz grants Fall River— which you have in front of you— under Section 2, Tony Moniz grants Fall River explicit lawful right of entry to pave the half-mile residential section.

There is no trespass, no annexation, and no land takeover.

Under Section 5, the landowner grants a mutual release of liability and holds harmless clause, completely shielding Fall River from any civil property claims while performing repairs.

Under Rhode Island law, Rhode Island General Laws 34-9.1-2, private agricultural landowners hold zero physical or financial obligation to maintain a right-of-way.

The maintenance burden falls 100% on the dominant estate beneficiaries.

This— that means Fall River Municipal's trash fleet, school transport, and emergency services that utilize this lane for ingress and egress are legally responsible for its upkeep.

We've provided the historical records: the 2006 Tiverton Town Council vote stripping them of responsibility of a road Lane, the 1991 Neighborhood Reliance Agreement, and now the explicit notarized consent of the current landowner.

From my research, it appears as though the city has the domestic statutory power to fund this repair immediately under the public safety exception of MGLC 46N, C matrix Item D, or via intermunicipal agreement funds under C40 and 4A, or environmental projects under Executive Order 569, see matrix item E. We are asking this committee to treat this as a standard infrastructure review, accept the signed easement, and achieve alignment tonight on these 4 points outlined.

Can you bring up the 4 points, Jen?

An immediate temporary structural grading and pothole remediation plan on Arruda's Lane to restore safe vehicle transit and emergency vehicle access.

Item number 2, removal of hazards.

The cutdown and removal of dead or compromised trees ready to fall across the right-of-way alongside brush clearing.

A clear timeline: a commitment to have this physical road and clearing work completed no later than November 1st, 2026.

A legally recorded agreement: a permanent legally binding maintenance covenant recorded at the Registry of Deeds to cement Fall River's perpetual responsibility responsibility for plowing and clearing the half-mile section by the city in 2007, with a failsafe clause protecting residents if the other half status ever changes.

Finally, we want to publicly acknowledge and thank our neighbors on the other half of the lane.

They have consistently kept up their section and have provided vital steadfast support whenever our neighborhood has needed them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do you have anything you want to add to that, or— uh, no, just that you can see that, um, we have spent hours of work.

Uh, Janet is extremely analytical, and that we have had to get our head around a lot of legal ease that, um, you know, I just feel like at this point I hope that we have satisfied every objection that we have received verbally from multiple people and multiple questions with this document and with Janet's ability to cite and reference, you know, the legality of this issue.

So I guess I open the table up and where— get your feedback.

Let's begin with in 1977, I don't think any of us were here.

So what they agreed upon and what they decided to do and why that we get away from that is, is beyond what I, I understand.

Do you have anything you want to add to that, or— I mean, I'll just add briefly that I understand the legal framework is there to give us the ability to fix this driveway or whatever portion of it you're speaking of.

It's clearly not the entire mile.

Yep.

So the property is owned by the Meniz family in 2 different entities all the way down to the city of Fall River line.

So they do maintain the portions that they're working on and they— that they work off the farm.

In some of the paperwork that you submitted and noted even tonight, says that there has to be access provided.

Absolutely, there is access provided.

Access is just not maintained.

There is a legal right of way that gets you to your house.

So access is provided.

Access and continued maintenance of that access, I'm sure is going to turn out to be 2 very distinct issues.

But we're going to respond to that.

Just— you spoke, let me get my little spiel.

Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

And then we're going to respond in writing.

So that's very, very important to look at what you're stating was in the quasi-general agreement and what do those words really mean and how do they carry forward.

So we'll review that and we will, you know, expound and give give you our, our representation of that as well.

That's my biggest concern, is that the fact that rights were given to go in and do it doesn't mean the city is required to do it, or that we can spend municipal funds to do it.

That is the legal aspect of it.

The ability to go do the work physically is there, and the legal entity that allows us to go do it is there, but that doesn't mean that we're required to.

So I think that's what the administration and the law department will have to work through in providing a response.

Um, may I respond to that?

Because I think that where, after going sort of round and round, I would look every individual here and the councilors that, and even the mayor that's come down, and ask, um, have you formulated your own opinion on this and do you support this?

Because if it's a matter of, uh, know and why, and that's what the city is pursuing for, for financial reasons, you know, we want to know that.

Um, I think that from the— we're not going to iron this out right now, so we're going to take what you provided, including the agreement that we just got 10 minutes ago.

And what is your opinion on it?

My opinion is, is that we do not have the legal responsibility.

We've given that opinion through Christopher Peckham before.

Through Councilor Peckham.

Let me finish.

Okay.

Alan provided his opinion months ago when we first dealt with this.

For months, Chris ran with this and we exhausted it.

The response was we don't have a legal ability or requirement.

The recommendation is to form a homeowners association and fund the repairs.

That was the end of the first goabout with this.

It's now come back through, through these councilors and brought to this committee tonight.

So if we need to look at the entire situation again and render an additional legal opinion, We will do that.

Your opinion is whatever legally— you don't believe that the city should work towards trying to find a solution to support the neighborhood?

I think everyone at this table is here for one reason: try to find a solution to this problem, one that makes sense for everyone.

So that's what I understand.

If I may, I think this might ask some clarification because I know we've heard some of the same arguments before, um, you know I think everybody here is sympathetic to the situation.

We, we get it, we understand it.

And but I think a lot of the reasons why we're here is because there's been a series of mistakes.

Well, it's 1977, which I can tell you, if that were before the city council today, I'd be advocating completely different the way than what happened.

And in 2007, when certain things happened.

But the solution that your group is proposing at this moment is is just a Band-Aid and it doesn't fix the big legal issue.

So for example, I know this sounds ridiculous, but right now we're just asking for a small little piece.

What happens when the farm sells and they don't maintain the rest of that private way?

What happens then?

What if Stafford Road, which is an accepted roadway in Rhode Island, is no longer accessible at this point?

At what point does Fall River's obligation extend when we have things that happen.

And as a lawyer, you play devil's advocate.

You always have to think of the worst-case scenario.

So in this case, what the law requires Fall River to do is in its border.

They are maintaining, I believe, everything you had on your PowerPoint is the roadways that exist in Fall River in the state of Massachusetts are fine.

I believe the trees— I would agree with you, the trees are in Fall River in the state of Mass that we would have an obligation to, you know, go in there and cut them.

But everything we're talking about occurs in the state of Rhode Island on a private way.

I mean, it's, it's not exactly the same, so don't distort the words.

This is somewhat analogous to having a very long driveway.

If I lived on a mile-long driveway in my big fancy house and I didn't maintain my driveway, I'd still have the same arguments for, well, the police can't get down there, the ambulance can't get down there, but it would be my financial obligation to maintain my driveway for those purposes.

Now, yes, if I went back in time, 1977, I would have said that we either do not accept these as public ways or we have a link up the north-south on the Fall River land, kind of closer to the, the, the lake or the pond.

Absolutely, I would have said that.

But, you know, that's not what happened.

So, you know, I don't think we can continue to make bad decisions because they were made in the past.

That's all.

Okay, so when I looked up these rules and regulations in law was.

The one thing you're saying is you're going to maintain, but it's not— you are maintaining those streets, but it's the public way.

The city of Fall River legally landlocked our parcels of land in 1977.

You have to provide a public way.

There is no public way out.

That is reality of it.

That is what The— that is what Howard— I think he agreed it was a series of mistakes.

So I agree that was a mistake, landlocked the property.

City forwarded it.

You can't— that was a mistake.

Well, if we're landlocked property, you have to provide us— that's what it comes down to, right?

No, we understand.

We're going in circles here.

You're saying that you don't have legal access to Stafford Road?

No, I— we don't.

We don't by that road because literally you've— you've— that road is at the point of deteriorating some land.

Legal rights to utilize a route is like, do you or do you not have rights to drive on how you drive there now?

Do you have legal rights to do it?

Again, you're getting it confused with— I'm not getting anything confused.

What is the legal access?

Education.

Engineer, I am not getting anything confused.

I think his point is, his point is there's a difference between the legal right and the maintenance of it and the ability to trespass, to go on it because of the condition.

So everyone understands your your argument.

It is a horrendous condition.

No one's going to dispute that.

No, and it's not that.

It is a safety— correct.

I mean, I agree with you.

It is a safety concern.

Of the 20 households there, 50 of them are over 65 years old, including myself and my husband, right?

And we had just another incident with, you know, a tree falling across the road by the trash truck that came down to pick up our trash.

So this isn't This has been going on for years.

Correct.

It has to be resolved, and there's no easy way to resolve it.

We're trying to come to that conclusion, and that won't be today.

I understand, but we're trying to figure out what— not to address it before the winter and have us keep going through this.

So I'm going to put this on the table.

If something happens to me or any one of my neighbors, who's going to be liable?

I, I don't know.

I don't have an answer to that question.

Do.

Maybe council would have that, right?

Okay, so how can we have a productive meeting?

What, what can we do here in this time where I can see there's still some more— what, what, what, from a legal perspective, is this like you're pretty solid on this, or has any of this information enlightened you to want to take another look at this?

No, I mean No, I'm pretty solid in the law.

So I mean, you understand that my role here is simply to say whether or not there's a legal obligation.

But you know, are there other options out there?

I mean, I've thought of a few.

I'm not saying I've thought them 100% through, but the options I see that would be available is option 1 would be what I've talked about, is if the group of homeowners got together and had an HOA kind of thing where they do an assessment.

Option 2 would be if the city did that.

And it would be— there's, there's something in the law that allows a special tax assessment.

So it would be the same result.

It would be the property owners there would all pay their assessment.

It would not be assessed to all of Fall River because it'd be specifically just for access for— we'll call it 20 homes.

I don't know exactly, but for ease, for those 20 homes.

Now that issue requires a lot more of legal wranglings because you probably need state approval, probably need dividend approval.

We— it sounds like we have the farmer's approval.

That's good.

And the truth is, the city— Dan knows better than I do, but I would guesstimate— would— if the city did it that way, the cost to the landowners would probably at least double because of prevailing wages and things like that.

So the homeowner's option, it would be a cheaper option than be the special.

Third thing is the city could unaccept the roadways, and that is an option right on the table because it's something that they can just unaccept it, and then we don't bring garbage, we don't bring those things to those areas.

I'm not saying it's— and I'm just telling you options.

And the fourth is the option that existed in '77, and I, I'm not saying any of you were part of this, but I remember reading something where the— they discussed bringing a public way along, as I said, kind of along the border of the pond, right?

Right.

All right.

My understanding was that there was— the people who lived there, they're at the time were opposed to it because they liked their tranquil area and they didn't want a public way that came down for access because they liked their peace and quiet.

So I mean, there's been a series of mistakes made, in my opinion, for, you know, 50 years approximately.

Um, but I personally am not in favor of a small Band-Aid that's just going to— another 10 years down the road, we're going to have the same problem.

Yeah, we need a good solution.

Um, do you want to say something?

Yeah, just a few things.

But I, I, I was there, uh, the other day Um, out there for like maybe 2, 2 and a half hours.

The part of the road that needs to be taken care of, Dan, is less than a half mile, not maybe less than that.

Yeah.

Okay, so there's about maybe about 40 bad potholes there.

So my, my, um, concern is— and I support the— I support the neighbors— my concern is the public safety vehicles going down there, um, police, if there's a call from one of these, from one of the people that live on Judge and Greenleaf, uh, fire, the fire trucks.

My truck had trouble getting through there and on certain pieces of that roadway, um, and a lot of it is fine because the, the farmer, Mr. Ruda, Is it a rooter?

No, it's Mr. Moniz.

Mr. Moniz, I'm sorry.

Um, you know, took care of it, except when I think it was that in 2007, I think what we did was we actually tarred that certain piece of the road there.

And also too, the last time we were there was this year fixing the potholes, I believe.

Yes, right.

But in the, in the regular the lane, um, right, that did have— that was happening.

That was before you.

Yeah, no, right.

But just my point is, we've been doing the repairs, um, at any given time when, when it's really needed.

I think that there's some way that, Alan, we can work it out and, um, in going back and maybe talking to the town of Rhode Island or doing something like that.

I, I just think there, there's no way there's not a way to do it.

There's got to be.

That's not my call to make, just so you know.

I, I can tell you that I did speak with the— I think it's the town council and the town manager, uh, when I first heard about this issue.

Within a week, we had a meeting.

It was myself, I believe the acting city administrator.

I know it was the, the town's lawyer and the, the town's manager.

And I can, you know, I'm not suggesting they have any legal obligation at all.

But their position has been pretty consistent from what I can tell, which is why would we pave a private farmer's driveway essentially, um, that for the only purpose of access for Fall River residents?

I mean, there's— I don't see a legal obligation for them to do anything, and I don't think there's any will for them to do anything.

I mean, because really there's not a lot that needs to be done to that portion of the road.

I mean, I think that— That cuts both ways.

I mean, I get it.

But by maybe doing something before the winter rolls in would be a smart thing to do for their safety and our safety of the firefighters or EMS or police who have to go down there.

Right now, it's not going to go— it's not going to be— they're going to have trouble getting down there.

Right.

Yeah.

I just say whether you have to or you don't have to, so that's not my call to make.

Would at least want to think about different scenarios.

There are many unaccepted roadways in Fall River.

In fact, I live very close to one, and they've been begging for the city to do repair work, and the answer is it's not a public way.

It's not a public way in Fall River.

It's not an accepted roadway.

So I think this could open up some floodgates because you'd be talking about expending city dollars on an unaccepted roadway that's not even in the state of Mass.

When other people are clamoring for the same help and they're unacceptable.

I mean, a lot of times you have developers come in, they build the homes, the road looks beautiful.

20, 30 years down the road, those homeowners haven't been paying into a pot of money so they can maintain their own work.

It's not the only time it happens.

I've seen it happen before.

The only thing that I would disagree with is that these are city residents and city property, and they are benefiting by that street being maintained by the city.

The city of Fall River, even though it's not— it's, it's an extremely unique situation, obviously.

But we, I, we understand it's not city street, it's town of Rhode Island, but it strictly is there to help Fall River residents.

The town councilor made it perfectly clear in a message that he left on my phone machine that this is a Fall River issue, not a Tiverton issue.

So to answer your question, they have no desire to do anything because according to them, it's not a Tiverton issue.

Even though it's property in Tiverton and it's a private property, this is a Foreham issue affecting Foreham residents, and that this— the responsibility lays strictly on the city of Foreham.

Just letting you know how that feels.

Again, 2 distinct issues.

One, up until now, do we have a legal obligation to go fix that street?

One issue.

Is there a path forward to correct that issue?

Completely different issue.

So We've been told repeatedly for 6 months, no, you have a legal obligation.

I disagree with that.

I do not disagree with finding a path forward.

2 distinct different things.

So I'll— Alan and I will speak, we'll speak to the mayor, and we'll, we'll address both situations because I, I think you would agree item 4 in your fall river ask is a new legally binding recorded agreement.

Which basically acknowledges that what's— no, no, but knowledge is that there is some gray area in what's legally required and recorded to date, right?

So you want to clarify that?

We would like some— yeah, something that we both— so we're going to establish what is our obligation now.

A November 1st deadline, it's going to be very difficult to meet.

I'll just be honest with that.

And then we can say moving forward, how can we address And I'll— I just want to say that this isn't— this is the one anomaly in the city of Fall River.

There is no other easements that are landlocked.

Correct.

That's it.

We wouldn't have this conversation today in 1977 if the city of Fall River did not accept those streets.

Correct.

They are public ways.

And that talk about illegal, that was illegal.

Right, right.

We're going to try to resolve it.

Yeah, no, I just want to end it with this.

I mean, I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

My, my number one concern, and everybody's number one concern, should be public safety and the vehicles getting down there, being able to get down there.

That's just my— that's my concern.

We all agree, Councillor.

Yep.

No, I know.

And I think that's— I think by just by that standard, we should probably do all we can to work it out.

And I know you're going to go back and Alan, you're going to go back and I have faith in you guys to do it.

But I think it needs to, you know, get done.

I just wanted to add that I know Jan and I both have professional backgrounds, and I've been in business for 32 years.

And sometimes when you get wrapped around the axle of these legal nuances that are just— they go on and on and on— we have to make a decision to what is the right thing to do.

And in my mind, and I really have the ability to see gray, I'm not black and white because I live there.

I'm— for a neighborhood that has been supportive supported by the city for literally over 40 years, for the game to be changed like that with no notice, nothing, and then be told this is illegal, we shouldn't have been doing it for over 40 years.

If you could please put yourself in the position, in the shoes of these residents.

And this is, this is like really a huge, very, very stressful thing for our neighborhood.

So I don't know if you could call on that part in your heart that says, what's the right thing to do and how can we navigate a path there?

That, that's where we want to get to.

Again, we are going to try to look at how we can do it.

I don't know if we send a DCM worker to go fill a pothole and he falls and breaks his neck and dies, I don't know if his insurance would cover because he's not in the city of Fall River or in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

These are things that we have to think about.

So liability and exposure is not something to laugh about on our side as well.

So these are all the things that need to be weighed when we take on liability.

And once you agree to that liability, you own it forever.

You're stuck with it.

So we have to make sure that when we put our necks out and extend it, it's done so legally and it protects the city.

Yeah, I understand.

That's what we need to do.

Yep, I get it.

And vice versa.

Correct.

Because the residents— 100%, we agree.

So as we said earlier, right, we're going to try to do whatever we can do to try to get this and make it right, because it was actually wrong in 1977.

And we'll do everything we can as a committee member, as the city engineer, and the corporation council, and the director of public works.

Everyone's going to try to work together to make that we can resolve this for the residents of Fall River, which are you people that live there.

I don't know what the solution is right now.

I mean, I've been on that road myself many times, and I know the condition, and it's a very unique situation, and we'll try to see what we can do.

So one anomaly, one anomaly.

Joe, what is our next step?

So we're going to have— we're going to table this meeting tonight.

We're going to have everyone do their due diligence.

Let's look into, see what we can come up with, um, and then we'll come up with some type of a solution or see what we can do.

And we'll have another meeting like this in the committee, I would assume, so that we can finally finalize what the intention of the city is and what the intentions of what we can offer you and what we can do and how we can fix it.

So the timeline for follow-up would be the next Public Works Committee?

We'll schedule a meeting once they're done doing the research they need to do to figure out what they're— there may be a meeting outside of the— this meeting to review that, or— no, it'll come back to this meeting.

Like, they're going to work on the project themselves.

And is that like— can we put a time, you know, a time definite?

Like, can it be for our next— it depends on how much time they think they'll need.

So I, I don't think we're going to do this a year from now.

We understand you want it done by November.

We want it before the winter, obviously, as well.

Winter is coming.

Yes, exactly.

So we don't want to make anybody wait for no reason.

But I mean, we do have— those gentlemen, their agendas are top full with a lot of projects going on.

They are going to try to work very hard to do this as quick as possible, but I can't put a timeline whether it be 1 week, 2, 3 weeks.

I promise you it's not going to be 4 or 5 months.

It'll be sooner than that.

You think— how much time do you think you'll need to get this than 30 days to come up with an answer or a plan, not a resolution, right?

But at least a plan.

So anywhere from 30 to 45 days.

I will pay to fix that out of my own pocket before I spend this municipality's money improperly or illegally.

Okay, okay.

So there's one solution though.

$1,000, you can go fill those potholes and you're going to get through the winter.

I live at the end of a 2,000-foot-long gravel road.

I have to fix it twice a year.

It's just what it is.

I bought the house It's at the end of a private way.

I incurred that cost, so we will fix it and make it passable.

But I can't— even if it cost a penny, I understand completely.

That wasn't as reassuring for me, but I get it.

No, so we will, we will work on it.

Okay, I just have one question.

You have— listen, you have 37 hours left, so take your time.

Yeah, that's it, actually.

It's to, um, Mr. Aguiar.

You're worried about workers coming down and being hurt and the liability, but we have inspectors that come down, we have trash vehicles that come down, we have school transportation.

If they get hurt on the lane, whose responsibility?

Well, they're driving.

No, I'm talking about— I'm talking about if Arguably on the homeowners.

And that's— I haven't looked into it, but that's one of my concerns, is Mass General Law has a cap on damages that, for example, Fall River, there's a maximum cap.

It protects the city of Fall River in case anything happens on a public way.

That's not a public way.

That's not a Fall River public way.

So I'm very reluctant to expend any money where all of a sudden we would potentially be incurring uncapped liability when it can just be done by the homeowners and it's not the problem.

That's double taxation, but we're not going to go there.

Okay, we're going to try to fix it, but you know, we're not going to go— there's a lot of legal issues that aren't even being discussed.

It is not as simple as you think, even if we're very sympathetic.

So any other questions from the councilors?

Motion to table.

Motion to table is made.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

Thank you for the time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.