9.9.2025 City Council - Committee on Public Safety

Uh good evening everyone. The uh city council committee on public safety September 9th, 2025. Um there is no uh citizens input. Oh, I'm sorry. Roll call first.

Council Dion here.

Council Kilby here. Chair Hart here. Uh pursuant to the open meeting law, any person make 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 unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Anyone for citizens input? Uh number two is the minutes. Is there a motion to accept the minutes?

Motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor? I. Uh the third is the uh resolution committee on public safety conven updates. You guys want to come down?

Mr. Aguia, Michael Dion. Yep.

And Mr. Ramsey, you're on on deck if you need it.

Okay.

One more.

How are you?

Hi.

Hello. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome. If we can just go around the table and introduce ourselves. Starting with Chief Fittado.

Chief Fat Kelly Fittado for Police Department.

Michael Dion in uh city administrator and executive director of community development.

Jeffrey Bacon for Fire Chief.

Beth Florence, EMS chief.

Richard Aar director, chief of special services.

All right. Thank you all for coming. Uh we really have a uh this is a good opportunity to to show the uh for the public and the community um on these quarterly reports. Uh why don't we just maybe start with uh Chief uh Fittado?

I would have picked another seat first.

Okay. So why don't we start with uh our manpower which is at the back of that.

Okay. So obviously we all know I think everyone here is in the same position. Uh manpower is a u major issue for the police department. Um we've gone through a lot of retirements. A lot of people on what you'll notice in the last pages is uh terminal leave. Um there's people on terminal leave. So what we have now in the pro patrol bureau is um the different divisions. The aid division has 25 uh officers assigned to

it. Where we would like to be is um ideally ultimately in a great world 40 officers per division. Um we would settle for 36.

Please the uh patrol bureau.

Thank you.

Same thing. Uh the B division is 26. The day division is 30. Um that's because we just got an influx of the kids that just the officers that just um graduated the academy and just finished the FTO program. So we put them on the day division. Uh that's where it was lacking the most. So we're up to 30 right now.

We are keeping them there for uh a little bit because we're going into firearms training season which will be over the next month. Um the night officers have more opportunity to go um during the day to the range to qualify.

Uh where it's lacking is in the day division because they only have two days to go. So we felt that leaving the um the uh new recruits on the day division will make up for we'll be able to send more of the day guys and get that done. We've tried to uh it's been a month or sometimes six weeks or two months to get that done.

We've really tried to um bring that down to three to four weeks where the fourth week is remedial training and the retirees.

So if you see on that you'll see there's seven new um I always want to keep saying kids but I know that that's not politically correct. the author kids to me, but they'll the new right the new officers um they're in admin week right now. So they just graduated on Friday, seven seven of them, which is great. So they will be starting their uh admin week.

We'll have the swearing in next week and then they'll start the FTO program. Uh they should be good to go sometime in December. So that'll be an additional seven people to patrol. The major crimes division has nine people assigned.

Ultimately, I'd like that to be at 12 where six officers work during the day and six officers work full-time at night. The evidence room um right now is one. We need two there, which we will get that right after right after the range and the qualifications. We'll have a second person there. The crime scene unit is at two. They're totally depleted. We'd like to be at four. The cast team is actually at six. I have

eight there, but it's actually six. Um, we'd like to be at 10. The neat is at six. We'd like to be at 8. Hoba patrol, it says two, but that's only because one person's in training. Once uh he's done with this training, that'll be down to one. And and that's fine. SRO's are at seven. We have one SRO's out on maternity leave, but ultimately uh we feel 10 would be a good number um to adequately

to adequately uh cover not only just the we're getting a lot of calls for not just the public schools, but we also have um many of the many of the charter schools, the Catholic schools. So we we do cover a lot of those. The EPOs are at three with we we would definitely like to be at six and what would we would change about the environmental which takes care of the waterways.

So part of the six would be the harbor master would count in that. But what I would like to do is have them not just patrol the reservation but also take over the parks like the old park police.

Um the parks really need some attention, you know, and we would we would have their hours that coincide with with the uh park hours.

And chief, just to interrupt you for a minute with the SRO's, you said we have what seven right now?

We have seven right now.

Okay. And does that so they still go from some maybe spend some time at like three hours at one school and go to another school?

Yes.

Is is it too is it would be too much to ask if we could have I mean I know it be it'd be a tough tough task to do but I've heard a lot maybe of maybe just one officer in each school but that's yeah that would be fantastic. No, but yeah, we can't I mean we don't have the numbers for that, but is that something maybe that So ultimately what I would like to do is

have the two at Dery like it's always been right. Two at Dery, one at Diamond and that's sufficient. One permanently at each of the middle schools. Right. So that's Right. Exactly.

Right. So that they're there, but now they're covering the middle schools and all the elementary schools. Um, and then they're getting pulled for for other things too.

I mean, they're all they're all important, but I think the middle school, right? And I would like them to be able to spend more more time there, you know.

Um, in in this um packet, you'll see a breakdown of what the uh SRO's have been doing. Um but the uh the motor vehicle units four.

Obviously you'll see in some of these stats accidents are like out of this world, right? We would like to have six officers where we could do a lot more traffic stuff. But the problem with the motor vehicle unit um which we ran into this summer is that they're pulled a lot to do um processions. We've had 41 processions and they just keep upping and upping. So now instead of out there doing traffic

and monitoring traffic, they're being pulled to do to do these parades. We were able to uh with the mayor cut that down to one mile. They used to it used to be three, four miles. They I would need like six, seven officers to shut down roads. Um, so working with the churches in the different groups, we have gotten them down to a one mile.

That's the that's you you cannot go farther than one mile. You can't go on main main roads, but still we're up to 41 now.

Is there any way perhaps moving forward that somehow there could be some consolidation of of um I'd love to have one big long procession once a year, right? one lot. So the churches have their feast but then they have the Holy Ghost. So each person each person who has the Holy Ghost wants to do then they have their band clubs then they have they have their their committees and each one wants to do

their own procession on that. Oh, you go right ahead.

It's uh Yeah, it I think it's culturally it's very very important and you know this probably better than me and um shorten them was a I think was a great idea.

Put some restrictions there. Um so, but that's going to be tough territory to breach with those clubs because Oh, absolutely. Yep.

Because they're they're very internal.

They have, you know, it's kind of it's not private. So welcome to the public but what gets generated from that is fundraising uh for for their membership and for the pay the bills and things like that.

So how about the um environmental not environmental the voluntary police that we used to have? So, right. So, the auxiliary police were disbanded. Um, yeah.

Union issue or was it No, no, that wasn't a union issue. So, post came down. So, basically what happened is post said that you cannot have auxiliary police. And the reason why they said you can't have auxiliary police is because so around this at Bristol County we call them reserve police officers that have like part-time police officers. The towns have reserved police officers.

They are police officers, right? But they only work part-time. Well, like out in Western Mass, they don't call them reserves. They call them auxiliary. So post said you can't you can't have they said auxiliary police have to be certified police officers. Right. So our auxiliary police were not they didn't go to the academy they were just volunteers. All we should have done was change their name.

Yes.

Instead of disbanding semantics.

But once they were disbanded they did not want to come back you know. So um okay I don't want to interrupt your presentation too much but um but that is but we do have five people. Yep. It's with the feast with the processions.

Yep.

To preach with the various clubs and it's a good thing for the community.

If we could just get them to have like So here's where we have the problem is when there's more than one in one day.

So that's what happened with our motorcycle accident. You know, the officer was uh hit and hurt. they were they were going from one to to another to another, you know. So, we we're working on um we're working on the permit process with with the um with the mayor's office as far as you know, you can only have one or you know, blackout dates, different things that so there's not multiple, you

know, or you have to you have to step off on time, you know, that's that's a problem. They don't step off on time.

Like nine o'clock is your permit.

They're like, "Yeah, at 11 we'll we'll go, you know." So, but we are working on it and and the churches are very good and they understand. It's just we don't want them to go up more, you know. But, um it is a nice thing to to have things like that in the city. You know, people like it and we're not opposed to it. It's just that we would like more

manpower so that we can handle it so that the city can enjoy things like that. Right. Is it too late to uh change the label reserve now from the auxiliaries and get and get recruitment going on for Yep. So so we so we have a volunteer service unit. So we we are up to we did another uh drive this summer to try and get more and we're up to five you know

but ultimately to to make a difference you need like 20 to 30 because not everybody can make it every Sunday or every Saturday. So Okay. Thank you. you know. Um, so, okay, unless you want to go on that.

No, no, that's good. Um, the housing unit, we're at two now. Uh, the housing pays for up to, uh, five.

Now, they're just paying for two because obviously we don't have the manpower for that. So ultimately what I where we would like to be is 192 officers.

That's that's like the best, right? Um obviously that's probably not realistic.

So 180 is where we would like to be as far as manpower goes. Right now we're at 153 uh total officers. There's 12 in the academy right now. And so that brings us up to 165.

The problem with that we have is there's 153 officers, but there's only 132 that are active. Right. So there's 12 long-term sick. Um two on administrative leave, four on light duty right now. So that's right now today. The long-term sick, that's a couple of guys got hurt.

And you said 12 right now are in the academy.

Yes.

And when do you So what's the So where do you see them coming on onto the force?

So they just they just started the academy. So you're looking at really like eight, nine months. Okay.

You know, that's that that is also the problem. It's just so uh long long term.

It takes just the hiring process and going through the academy, then the FTO training and everything that that entails. Um, you'll see the calls for service. I just had our crime analysts look up the from January 1st to now. That's uh there's been 30,449 the beginning.

Oh, right. At the beginning of the packet.

Okay. Thank you. Sorry.

That's okay.

uh 30,449 calls for service, which is actually down from last year by 400.

Mental health calls for service from January 1st to September 7th is 900.

2.44 decrease in mental health calls. Um we can skip over the uh Gabriel House fire. That's just a breakdown for uh all right if you want to take a peek at that. So officer initiated and proactive enforcement uh which is which is important.

This is proactivity um not just reactive policing. So there was 6,580 proactive calls in 9 months uh compared to last year's which was 5,421.

So over a thousand uh more proactive calls but we have less officers. So that's makes makes a difference. Also the homeless encampment calls uh also be is a you know uh we speak about this often uh there was total of 614 calls regarding homeless encampment since January 1st. of the 614 there was 424 w were proactive patrols and enforcement. So the uh that included the rail trail behind Taco Bell, bottom of

Kennedy Park, um Bessie's Beach, which we don't have too many problems down there. Uh 1205 Brighton Avenue, which is the um down at the bottom of Brighton Avenue near near the water there, the Davis Beach area. Henry Street boat ramp uh rail trail again bottom of Birch Street and then behind Talbot Middle School which that was uh very quickly taken care of that do we have a uh an idea of speaking to the mic.

Do we have an idea of the numbers of individuals that were in the cameras?

I do not have that number. Mike, I don't have that number. I could I can get you that number.

We are going out to the uh Kennedy Park um encampment next to clean up there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I could get that for you tomorrow.

And and chief, is is the next page the arrest arrests in the encampments or just over No, no, no. Overall arrests. So the as far as the encampments, excuse me, as far as the encampments, have there been um with with the calls that maybe neighbors are complaining or whatnot, do those are there do we know how many arrests have been have occurred at any of the encampments from any kind of any kind of disturbance?

No. No. Okay.

No. So I didn't differentiate between places, but I can get that to you.

Okay.

Can you explain? So of the 614 614 calls was 424 that were proactive patrols and enforcements. Can you define proactive patrol and enforcement?

So whenever uh let's take Middle Street for for example, right? Or or the rail trail. So um we call them code 41s. You have to do code 41. So, they're required to, if that's on their route, they're required to check in on those encampments, right? Um, most of them are probably warrant arrests. Um, people dealing drugs, the cast units always in those encampments, guns, drugs, uh, assaults. So, they go in there and

proactively and come across crimes.

Okay. You know, so the arrests for January 1st to August 31st, 2025 were 2332 9006 was summons, 1426 was physical arrests. Um, compared to last year, the physical arrests are up.

warrant requests were 431 compared to 424 last year uh field interviews that's just um documented like community action that's 295 for uh up to August 31st to 306 last year the incident reports were 633 reports All reports crime incidents were 1849 and no crime incidents were 41.84 for this year. That's no crime incidents.

That's missing persons. Uh things of that nature that are not a crime but like a a domestic incident where there was just verbal a verbal argument. They somebody called accidents.

Accidents are 1931. They are down from last year, 1970.

The only thing I'm going to say about accidents though is that we take accident reports. The police department takes accident reports. If you go into a lot of other communities, they do not take accident reports. So, their accidents are probably like it looks like nobody gets into accidents in this town. But we take even the m the most minor accidents because we realize that um that helps people, right? There's

nothing worse than dealing with insurance companies and having a police report is um it's easier to jump over those hurdles when you have an actual police officer documenting uh stuff. So that's part of the whole taking accidents is really part of the community policing. We're providing a service for the community where um after the layoffs in in '09, a lot of the departments stopped taking accident reports and then

when they got their offices back, they still continued on that layoff low number model. We we didn't do that. We always provided this service to the community. Good.

Yeah. I I think that's a policy because I see that in what I do for a living.

Yep.

The um you love that we take accident reports.

Well, no, don't get don't get me joking a little bit here because I can play around a little bit.

So, um it's ironic. I say, you know, I got a good case, but it's not a good case for the person. Right.

Right. Yeah, that is true. Yeah.

But, uh but anyway, um so you probably go on a criteria as if there's injury and the amount of damage to the car.

Right. Right. But even if there even if there's um in this day and age any little bit of damage is a huge amount of money right so even it used to be like under a thousand we don't take a report well I mean you scratch a car it's going to be over a thousand you know with the prices of everything chief um with these accident reports do you know uh where most of them are

occurring like there's usually bad spots in the city where bad intersections and the other are occurring at those particular intersections or is it pretty much there? There are a lot of uh different intersections that are hotspots like Plymouth Avenue and Rodman. That's always a hot spot and I think that has been the worst place because people have to wait for the light because there's a lot

of different lights there. So they uh try and hurry up through the light so they have they don't have to wait for the whole cycle to go go through again.

Um there are a couple of hot spot areas.

Um and most of these accidents are minor accidents, you know. Um some of them are at four-way stop signs because they they're like, "Oh, the other guy's going to stop." So, and so that's and a lot of it's people on their phones distracted.

So, we'll move forward. You all set with the accidents?

Yeah, I'm good with the accidents and we just a lot to get to.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe go through maybe some I want to get the uh the chief the other two chiefs going. So the the rest of the stuff is um just basic but what I do you know merge is that we've only had one this year thing thank knock on wood thankfully but um these are just regular stats that are broken down so but one thing that I do want to get to is the confirmed shootings so the

um in 2025 we've had seven 15 total. Right. So, we've had driveby shootings where uh we've had seven of those. Property damage only was just four non-fatal with three in one fatal.

That was at the beginning of the year with the um the the domestic.

So we have changed for just so the where you just see casings and or target located where there's no malicious uh there's no damage to anything, nothing's been um damaged, nobody's been hurt. We still send out major crimes now. And because we have done that, they have been able to solve some of those drive by shootings, you know, and been able to to locate people who are doing that. Um,

from January 1st to September 7th, we've seized 97 firearms.

There were 27 individuals responsible for them.

And we're gonna uh go over the DA for 97.

Yeah. So well, exactly.

Well, yeah, apparently.

Yeah. So, some of them we we stopped a car the other night that had like four guns in them. So, some of these are some of these are individuals that they've done like the cast team has done or MCD has done search warrants on the house and they've had a cache of weapons, you know. So, that's how why those numbers are are off. Um part this year we really worked hard at reestablishing our partnerships with the

DEA, the FBI, the ATF. And because of that, this this DEA task force officer being assigned to the DEA just in Fall River or investigations that stemmed with Fall River uh people, 84 grams of methamphetamines, 3,322 grams of methamphetamine clandestine, that's 3 kilos of that crystal meth, which is uh becoming a major problem here in the city. That's a kilo of that.

Fentanyl, 5 kilos. Uh fentanyl liquid form, 15 milliliters. Fentanyl pill forms 520 dosage units. CO the cocaine um which is that's what we're seeing more now. Um the fentanyl is dropping off. We have uh a rise in cocaine and crystal meth. 22,58 grams, which is which is roughly 22 kilos that have been seized since since um January from the DEA, the firearms, three complete assault rifles, 39 ghost guns,

22 machine gun conversion devices, three rifle suppressors, one 50 round drum magazine, and 10 31 round magazines.

So, the seized assets, you can see it's broken down. The total value of uh US currency is $564,925,000.

Um some vehicles, jewelry, and virtual currency, which we're seeing an uptick of that. Um people paying for drugs through uh virtual currency.

we get a portion of that. The average of the average we get is 20% of what they take in. So this it's in it's important to keep those relationships with the outside um partners because we they do a lot of work here. If we have somebody assigned to them, then they'll want to come here and assist us. This is just uh raw data after that with the um yeah we'll we'll we'll take we'll take a

look at that. We want to get the other uh other chiefs involved here. But thank you very much chief for this. This is very uh it's very news good newsworthy alarming.

Um but very yeah absolutely. So thank you very much for that Chief Bacon.

Sure.

So uh just to keep you aware of our manpower situation um we just started this week. We accepted our first two laterals that I can remember on the department. One from the Stoen Fire Department, one from the Norton Fire Department. Uh so our manpower right now is at 178 as we stand. Um we have uh four new recruits starting on October 6th. Um we're anticipating four more retirements

in January, so we'll be looking to fill those spots proactively.

And um we're anxiously awaiting uh the safer grant, the announcement on the safer grant uh where we hope to be awarded. We're optimistic that we'll be getting 10 positions through safer. Um just this week we signed with the uh civil service the local register option which the police have been using to great success. Um and that allows uh the the uh the chief essentially me to establish a list that we can hire off

of. And what I'll be doing with that is looking to hire people who are firefighters uh who are firefighter one and two trained at the mass fire academy and EMT basic so that we can eliminate the uh the six to ninemonth uh process of onboarding and get those people in the company within a very short period of time hopefully within a month or two from when we uh we start hiring. Um

and how does that relate to the civil service list? So they're not coming off the civil service.

So this is through civil service. So there'll still be So the way the local register option works is there's still a civil service exam. The traditional civil service list still exists. So you can take the exam and get on that list.

But the local register option is a list that the community and the authority uh the appointing authority has to put whoever they would like on that list within certain parameters. So over the course of five years, it's a five-year contract with civil service. over the course of five years, you can hire up to 50% off your local register and the other 50% have to be from the standard civil service list.

So potentially there could be people on the civil service list who have been there for a length of time and they and these this other group would be hired before these people waiting on a civil service list potentially. Yes.

Yep.

People who took the exam. Yes.

Absolutely.

Really? Mhm.

They have to be 5050. It has to be 50/50 like equal equal amounts from the civil service list to the um yeah over the course of five years.

Y I understand it's the 5050. It's just um the civil service list to me just exists for a reason and to bump people who are on that list waiting for employment.

um just doesn't seem fair.

Yeah, it's a it's this is all done through civil service law. It's all been vetted uh and it's an attempt to uh streamline the hiring process. It was designed more for police because I think police have have had uh shortages on their civil service exhaust the list all the time, right?

Like we just civil service list.

We just had a new list and we exhausted it already, you know.

So, but in that case, I can I can see it. But if the list isn't exhausted and now you're taking other people who that just doesn't seem I I get they they're allowing it, but it doesn't mean that I or other people think it's the right thing to do.

If I'm on that list, I certainly would want to be hired before someone who's not on the list.

I mean, that that that was the whole purpose of the civil service. If we were exhausting it, if you were exhausting it as well, then that would be a different issue. But I don't know. I have a hard time with that. That's something I have to really think about. But thank you.

Yeah, I could appreciate your concerns and it's something that was intriguing to us and something that um we certainly, you know, we signed the five-year contract to see how the system worked to see if it provided us a a better product. But keep in mind, we are still going to So, let's say we get this safer grant and u with the four that we're anticipating, we hire 14 off the local register. For the next four years,

we're going to be hiring all off that civil service list. So for those people, it's really just going to it's not going to mean that they won't get hired. It's just gonna they're going to wait till till the next hiring process to get hired because we won't be able to hire any more off the local register for the next five years.

Now on the civil service list, do they designate for for example, let's say four four people took the civil service test and scored well?

Do are you aware of where they're where the people are from who take the exam who are on high on the list?

Yeah. So um you get residency preference. So, the first 50 or so names on that list are all Fall River residents.

All right. So, a Fall River resident wouldn't be by bypassed using this process.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. But then they would have to so they would have to move to the city as part of our as part of the civil service rules.

The other thing civil service did is with residency is starting um and this is for police and fire for any civil servants uh starting in November. Um, you can either live in the city for a year leading up to the exam, which is the traditional way to establish residency, or if you graduate from a public high school, if you have graduated from a public high school in Fall River, regardless of when that was,

you will be considered a resident, which I really like because there are people who, you know, who have family roots in the city, who grew up here, who lived their first 18 years of their life here and maybe moved for a job opportunity for the military or for anything and then come back to the city. They want to come and serve the city. Then they are given that that opportunity.

So we have residential preference. Yep.

Yet we can hire somebody from outside the city who's not a resident before the resident who supposedly has a pref has preh preferential uh That's correct.

That makes no sense to me.

Yep.

That makes no sense to me.

Y to to to bypass residents of the city does not make sense to me. With that, I yield. Thank you.

All right.

And Chief, before you get going again, the uh SAFE grant for the 10 positions.

Yes.

Um when did you did you say when you anticipate those coming on?

We actually anticipated any time. We've been checking um they were supposed to have started awarding those as of Octo uh sorry, August 18th, but um in checking the website, it doesn't look like any have been awarded. So um I was I'm not surprised. Uh the uh assistance of firefighters grant that we put in for earlier this year was supposed to be awarded in July. Uh and we haven't heard

anything on those either. So there's a there's a delay at the at the federal level. Uh they're awarded through FEMA and I know that they've they've experienced cuts and challenges um over the last six months. So I'm not surprised that that there's a delay with the announcement of the uh the awards.

So, um I think in working with um the administration, I think we're going to be looking at um we're we're budgeted at 182. As uh as you all know, um we recently signed anou uh with the um the IIAFF and local 1314 to uh increase our staffing to four firefighters on uh six of our apparatus. Because of that, we're going to increase our staffing level. Um the number we're looking at is um is to

to begin with I believe is 195. Uh looking to get it closer to 200. I think the 200 number is something we've been pushing for. That will get us somewhere where we we'll still require overtime.

Um but it will be a less burdensome number of overtime than what we've been experiencing uh since I became chief.

That's that's dude. It's about time. You get that?

Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yep.

To me that doesn't sound unreasonable.

The um the 182 right now then the the the grant that'll be 10.

Mhm.

And then then the city would be will be for the for the remainder. So yeah, I think it's very doable. So um hope we get that done for you guys.

Yeah. And then we'll we'll assess and see because we're we're constantly um trying to figure out what makes more fiscal sense to hire more and pay less overtime or to hire a certain number and and backfill with overtime. So, we'll we'll reassess those numbers as we go and and see what makes the most sense for the firefighters and for the city.

Um the other thing the only other thing I really want to talk about is um uh I I was listening listening to the radio on the way in this morning and there were a couple CO calls in the city this morning. Uh we've experienced our first uh cold spell at nights and I just hope anybody watching this realizes we we always get space heater fires at this time of the year. Um people who have

decided to use their space heaters as storage for clothing, for Tupperware, for anything. Um most of the time those heaters aren't off and they kick on when it gets cold and we always every year will have that happen. So, um, I would encourage people to be vigilant about CO detectors. Uh, get those changed. We're heading into that season where carbon monoxide is going to be a problem. So,

get the batteries changed and and and check all of your detectors. U, fire prevention month is in October, so you can get a leg up on that and and make sure you're good to go with all of your your detectors. Um, and uh and and really make sure your heating units, any whatever you're using to heat your apartment is good to go. So, thank you.

Awesome, Chief. Thank you very Thank you, chief.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Oh, sorry.

Um, I put Sorry, I put together like a brief overview a little bit of um what we're looking at for um the next five years for EMS. I know there's some confusion with the changes and increasing in some of the programs that we've offered and I just kind of wanted to go over it's not really um perfected yet that I feel comfortable hanging out.

I will give copies at the city council meeting if you want it, but I'm I still need to put it together. It's really a rough draft.

But I do want to start out with um a week ago we did talk to the architect who um is working on the center station uh re rehabilitation and they said that they're in the construction document phase of the program. Um we've we've uh we've the plans have been approved. So they're um drawing up the construction documents. They said that will take approximately three months, maybe four.

And once that's completed, then they'll go out to bid. So that project should be able to get started hopefully by the end of the year.

So that's good news.

Absolutely is.

We'll see if it we'll see how that goes.

Um so um obviously the primary focus of our our service is the 911 portion of the program. That's where we focus our biggest priority is on public safety and um taking care of the citizens of Fall River. Um uh public safety um we um at some point may want to increase to another medical rescue, but we're kind of waiting until the um 79 um renovations are done to see whether there's some feasibility to have

more public safety. I think each and every agency here at the table may have to increase some of their um staffing and 911 support of that area.

No question about that.

But it's a big cost factor to it cost um just about $800,000 just in staffing and that doesn't count the truck and everything. So, we kind of just kind of want to wait and see where that goes.

But right now, we seem to be doing well with our 911 program. Everybody has been kudos. We have had some mutual aid calls in the city, but nothing in excess of what we haven't seen in the past. We're still way lower than other surrounding communities with the same um base of numbers of population. So, we seem to be doing pretty well. I know the area of concern mostly is our IF

program. That seems to have been a big topic of conversation. So, I just want to say that um that program is currently where we want it to be. There's no um no inclination with the EMS division to increase that program. What we want to do is we want to refine the what we currently have. We're happy where we are. We've increased our revenue by 38% and we're kind of providing a good

service. It's a comfort zone. So, we just want to keep right where we are and stay where we are with that program. So, that way we can continue to provide good service, but we don't we just want to take care of our community. We don't want to expand beyond Full River. We just want to make sure that we're able to take care of our own and that's what our big priority is. Our NIH program um

the mobile integrated health program which is where we go in and do home visits for the elderly and we take care of them so that they don't have to go to the hospital and we do antibiotics and prevent admission and prevent um multiple ET visits. The program is loved by our elderly. They think it's great and especially with upcoming flu season, keeping them out of the ER is is great because then we prevent them from

getting sick. Um, South Coast and both Lifespan are both interested in the program. So, they've actually come on and we're um getting some backing from them so that we'll be able to be able to fiscally res support that program without any accountability on the city side and we'll still be able to um provide that service to our elderly which is really um kind of important.

And the other thing too, as uh the chief talked about fire prevention, we're going to talk about flu and COVID season. and we'll be back out in the community in the highrises in the senior centers offering flu and COVID vaccines to um our elderly population.

Great.

So, how many how many uh people are you servicing right now with that?

With what the MIH program um and and how do you determine where you go or or who who requires the assistance?

So, it's um people people with certain medical conditions, co-orbidities, congestive heart failure, diabetes, uh congestive heart failure, the people that end up in the hospital over and over again. So, what they do is when they get discharged from the hospital, they will create a referral and then we'll we'll make an appointment with them and we go in and we we see them so that if they're going in like, you know,

every 3 days or every 5 days, we can go in and give them a breathing treatment so that they can stay at home. Sometimes the elderly people will go into the hospital for a urinary tract infection and they'll get discharged with an antibiotic and then when the culture comes back it's not the right antibiotic and they'd have to go back into the hospital and get readmitted. So we go

into the house and we we are able to give them that antibiotic. So it prevents them from having to be admitted for two days.

So ultimately the individuals reach out to you.

The hospital gives us the referral. We call them to see if they and we set up the appointment with them. Yeah.

Okay. You you reach out to them. Okay.

Thank you. that I go.

Any other questions? I was going to go to Mr. Agu. Yeah. Good sir.

Thank you for having me tonight. So, in lie of the um Gabriel House fire um normally I send out a questionnaire form to all the high-rise buildings, day care centers, nursing homes, and after that I followed up with a letter. So now what they're doing, they're sending me um all the residents who are disabled in the apartments um whatever floor they're on, they're sight impaired, hearing

impaired, walking impaired. So we have a copy of that now.

Um and once uh I already gave some of the stuff to the fire department. So once they continue to come in, which they're all coming in now after the letters I sent out, um we're going to have a better idea of where these people are in these high-rise buildings like the Gabriel House. um we don't know what anyone was, but now we will know in the high-rise buildings, assistant living

buildings, um particularly the high-rise buildings in the city. Um so it's going to be a benefit to the fire department if somebody is in a building such as the list states here, they'll know where to go right away to get that person out if he's walking in per second period. So that's just the update on that that I've been working on.

All right, any questions, Mr. Yeah.

All right. Um, also too, you I think I think Chief E might have mentioned the uh uh Route 79 project and once it's uh developed and that's probably in another 10 years. Um, did I hear right maybe at the last public safety meeting or meeting before that everybody is are you starting to look at that particular area and seeing what is possibly needed in the police department for fire, EMS, and

and is there any planning going on uh right now? Um, or is it just pretty much you're going to start making uh plans to to see what kind of u because it's it's going to be a very difficult task with those many buildings up and uh the population uh down there.

So, it's challenge because we don't really know exactly what it's going to look like right now, right? Or exactly what it's going to be. So, until we know exactly how many units are going to be, is it going to be commercial? There going to be restaurants, there going to be bars, like what's going on? Uh we we we're using um so we have a uh the city had hired a consultant as you're aware u

meeting with him. We're putting the finishing touches on um on what we had hired him to do. And one of those things was to kind of simulate what it might look like down there and create a call volume for that. So we're hoping to to have just that kind of base model.

That's just fire because they only used our our runs for that. Um but uh so we're hoping to have a better idea of what that might look like, you know, just uh so so that we can we can plan accordingly.

All right.

Go ahead, council.

Um have you been given a uh copy of the master plan that was um made for the RDA um with with somewhat of a visual of what that will be? Is has that been incorporated in this? We kind of went off of that and and the best thing that we could do was find buildings in the city that most look like those and and actually place those along that corridor to give us

what that call volume would look like down there in those in those facilities.

Um, we can also, um, once we know better what it's going to look like and once they decide, you know, how it's going to be developed, we can look at facilities that are more similar from other communities, get their call volume to those facilities and then use that to get a more accurate read on what it's going to look like.

And Chief uh, Fado, um, in terms of the police department, because I mean, obviously there's no doubt we're going to need uh, all departments are going to have to increase just because of the number of people that are going to be coming in. Are there any is there any discussion or thoughts about um the possibility of perhaps a substation?

Well, my concern um for that area being uh developed is the waterfront, right?

So, we would have to right now we do have a hoba master, but our harbor patrol is not up and running and uh we would have to consider that. Um, I've mentioned uh several times about we actually need a harbor master station down on the waterfront and we're trying to find a spot for that. Right now they work out of the station, but that's not feasible as boating traffic um becomes more prevalent down there. They're

putting in more moorings and there's more restaurants opening up on on the waterfront. More complaints are coming in. We'd like to be very proactive to keep it safe uh in that area. So that uh like New Bedford that is eventually going to have to be a whole unit down there.

Plus we've increased um the number of docks significantly and then yet to increase again. So, um I think one of the one of the things we're looking at and I spoke with Sarah from the redevelopment authority about um a lot of communities now and and it's been done in the past are looking at um challenging the developers and giving them a benefit to putting some sort of a station

as part of their building. Right. So, we looked at one I believe was in Somerville. Uh it's a new a new section in the city where they took a parking garage underneath a residential building or it might it was probably a commercial space and they put a twostory fire/ EMS station as part of that and then the city pays rent and gives them you know some benefit to to doing that. So it gives

you the benefit of having that down there including a police sub whatever we needed to do we can look at that to get that right in the heart of what we need.

So that's that's an interesting thought.

Yeah, it is part of the the large development um that yeah that that is a uh because I agree with Chief At that that waterfront is going to be a different animal in 15 10 15 years from now and the more crowded it challenges down there that's an interest the more crowded it gets the more important it is to have your people right there and not having to respond there already is there already is a

major uptick in uh floating already on the waterfront, you know, with the uh different um restaurants that are opening up and they're adding docks to their restaurants for people to come and go. So, you know, uh it needs to be we need to keep an eye on that before it gets out of control. You set the standard before it, you know, it gets out of control.

And I mean, there's nothing wrong. I always say we look to other cities that that are our size and maybe look for other areas like Newport or um I think we're going to be bigger than Newport, but um maybe look to those particular areas and see what they're doing. Um you know, there's nothing wrong with doing that as well, but um it's going to be definitely a big task and we're going to

have to increase a lot of the department size.

I think New Bedford has a tri station, right? They have a police station and a fire station and an EMS station and they're all located in one in one area like a public like if you just had a little bit of each, you know.

But I would add that I mean New Bedford is different. It's it's a fishing portly, right?

I'm just saying that the idea is I know what you're saying, but I agree.

It's uh this is going to be more commercial leisure pleasure voting. I'm just think anyway I don't think a thorough is going to change into a fishing village the size of Bedford but I know what you mean it's the same but it's unfortunately but no but you're still going to have you're still going to have a significant influx of of people residents um require patrols which require the recreational boating

would I would think becomes a lot more dangerous than fishing vessels coming in and coming out you know uh they start getting a little reckless, you know. So now um Mr. AA, do we have your uh folks down? Are they here?

I don't know. I'm going to go check.

Okay. Might want to maybe ending soon.

Boston.

Yeah. But um as he's checking, I just wanted to also uh say that um through all the departments during the uh tragedy for the Gabriel House, um everybody stepped up and uh it was really uh very good to see and we're all very very proud of uh of all of you as as much as you stepped up and I can't begin to think how thankful I am. I just want to end with that as well.

Um but I don't think we're going to have that person here.

Yeah.

All right. So, um I make a motion to table.

Okay. Yeah. Second.

Second.

All in favor?

I.

Motion to adjurnn.

Second.

All in favor?

I.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.