The Fall River Housing Authority held a meeting on Monday, January 24, 2022, at 4:30 p.m. The meeting began with a roll call and a motion to reorder agenda items 4a, b, and c to be discussed earlier, which passed unanimously. The board then proceeded with the election of officers for 2022, re-electing Mary Sahari as Chairman, Commissioner Underhill as Vice Chair, and Jason Burns as Treasurer, all by unanimous roll call votes. Following the elections, the board moved into and out of an executive session to discuss strategy related to collective bargaining or litigation. Key discussions included the acceptance of December 2021 meeting minutes, various bills and communications, and eight management reports, all approved unanimously. The Director of Finance, Amber, provided an update on federal program financial reports through October and November 2021, noting that while expenses were up due to COVID-19, they were offset by COVID funds, leaving the authority in a good financial position. The Executive Director, Mr. Barros, provided updates on completed capital improvement and agency plans, architect contract awards, union discussions regarding an unfilled painter position, and the Family Self-Sufficiency program, which saw four graduates receive a total of $44,000. There was also a discussion regarding pest control at Cautiouris, with an update on ongoing assessment and treatment efforts. Several modernization items were approved, including the DHCD Capital Improvement Plan for FY2022-2026, a $4,854 change order for elevator improvements at Cardinal Medeiros Towers (with Commissioner Medeiros abstaining), and a $22,544.88 change order for exterior repairs at James A. O'Brien Senior Apartments. A significant discussion arose over architectural services contracts, with the board deciding these should be for information only rather than requiring a monthly vote to avoid project bottlenecks. Personnel matters included the approval of Timothy Esparrow's retirement as Executive Director effective March 31, 2022, and the ratification of several clerk interviewer and maintenance custodial/floater positions. The board tabled discussions on a fiber optic internet consultant and a computer and security systems administrative position. The meeting concluded with a tribute to the recently deceased Commissioner Raj Attache before adjourning.
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good evening everyone i'd like to bring the forever housing authority meeting to order it's it's wednesday january 19th no um 24th oh 24th i'm sorry and it's monday yes monday's january 24th um and the meeting is being held at 4 30 p.m um martha will you take a roll call please yes chairman sahari yes vice chairman underhill yeah commissioner burns here commissioner bentley here mr medeiros here
0:28um because we have a number of or at least an individual that needs to leave early um i'd like to make a motion or bring to your attention that we could bring items for a b and c out of order to do that this before we do that should i read the open meeting oh yes so i just uh for the record the language of the open meeting law is as follows
0:52person went to the open meeting while 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 with that said do we have a motion to move items for a b and c motion i take
1:15it out of order second all in favor aye
1:26item 4 is on the election of offices for calendar year 2022.
1:34do we have a motion on the floor for chairman i made a motion for mary sahar tim a second that motion we'll call please yes vice chairman underhill yes commissioner bentley yes commissioner medeiros yes commissioner burns yes chairwoman sahari yes do i have a promotion for um vice chair motion for uh commissioner on the hill for vice chair our second admission commissioner burns yes
2:21commissioner bentley yes commissioner madaris yes vice chair underhill oh i'm sorry and chairman sahari yes and a motion for the treasurer please motion for jason burns as treasurer second vice chairman underhill yes commissioner medeiros yes commissioner bentley yes commissioner burns yes children sahari yes thank you everyone and congratulations again thank you thank you nice working with all of you again this year
3:00item 4a is the executive session the recommended action is anticipated executive session pursuant to master of the law authority a section 21 a3 to discuss the strategy with respect to collective bond marketing or litigation if an open meeting war may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and to the chair so deploy declares item b is a cola increase effective december
3:302020 for executive director and the recommended action is the same and item c is a cola increase effective december 2021 for the executive director and that is also the same for the recommended action do i have a motion to go into executive session second all in favor aye okay do we have a motion to go back into regular sessions yeah we keep that still perfect second is there any citizen's input this evening
4:11any residence input next month okay item two is minutes of the regular meeting held on december 13 2021.
4:24do i have a motion to accept any questions hearing none all in favor item three is bills and communications three a are vouches the vouchers are included in your packet the recommended action is to accept do i have a motion on the vouchers motion to accept vouchers second any questions hearing no questions still all in favor item four are the management reports you have eight management reports in your
5:08packet one is the applications two is the occupancy report three is the tenant accounts receivable four is the work order reports five is the monthly section eight voucher activity report six is the monthly personnel count report seven is the director of modernization monthly report and eight is the bank investment and bond debt balance reports the recommended action is to accept these reports as presented
5:38do i have a motion to accept the reports second any questions with regard to any of these we have some of our personnel here this evening that our staff here this evening that could answer questions if you have any hearing no questions all in favor aye aye item three i mean item five rather is the financial reports you have item a which is the federal program through on the period ended october 2021
6:14the recommended action is to approve motion to approve second any questions we have our director here this evening for the uh director of finance if you will uh just second year if you will maybe second plus with covid how how are the finances you know and how from what we expected and um so for our income we're in a really good spot because due to um i would say occupancy was down
6:51compared to last year over this year so our income is actually up our expenses are obviously up as well because there was a lot of unaccounted for expenses that weren't included in the budget however they're all offset with covent funds that we had so we're in a very good spot um for the financial reports there's not really anything to be that we haven't already spoke about everything's pretty much in line i've
7:12already started working on the budget for next year um and kind of just getting everything and out and making sure we have a little bit of additional funds for any expenses that may be tied to copen because we don't know if we'll end up getting additional equipment income so it's kind of just trying to make sure we account for any additional expenses and then seeing what the government decides to give us
7:34thank you perfect thank you before you leave we have no item b here all in favor for item a hi item b is the financial reports for november 20th do i have a motion to accept the november 2021 report motion approved second any questions while amber is still sitting in front of us no questions thank you amber all in favor aye aye item six is an update from the executive director thank you ma'am chair
8:14just a few items quickly the staff completed work on the dacd capital improvement plan and the agency plan for 2022 so much appreciation to the deputy executive director kevin spardella the director of housing operations kathleen polvar the director of facilities ed majewski and their respective staffs a lot of time goes into these reports as well as to the executive administrative
8:41assistant martha who does a lot of the compiling assisting with the signatures and whatnot it's a it's a it's a lot of work by the staff a very uh thankful job to them for for that among the other items on the agenda tonight we have three contract awards for architect services normally these don't go on the agenda and i just thought it was something that the board should be aware of and see
9:09what we're paying the contracts the architects for each job in the beginning of the year we approve a pool of architects to do the work but we never you never actually see what we're paying an architect for a specific job so i just thought it would be good to put that in front of you and you can decide going forward if that's something you want to keep keep or not the union has requested a special
9:35meeting to discuss the unfilled painter position so we've provided information to them on that and we'll be having some discussions later on we currently have one open position in that respective trades the auditors are completing work on the fiscal year 21 financial submissions and they told me that will be done by the end of march so that will be completed and all done by my retirement date which is which is good
10:07the family self-sufficiency program had four graduates they received a total of forty four thousand dollars which is quite admirable one of our employees is also a participant in that program and uh it's a great program helps them put away money to buy a house help with expenses college tuition day care whatnot so we're really happy to see that happen and just finally the the coveted
10:36omnicron has affected us but thankfully it hasn't hindered our operations the way that the sars cova did we've been able to maintain the operations although we've had i'd say on a daily basis 10 employees out and if you look at the quarantine time of five six days it's kind of a rolling basis but nothing that's uh then overly detrimental to our day-to-day operations okay and that's all i have
11:05any questions for mr barros i do have a question i'm not sure if it's appropriate for him or somebody else but uh you can forward it somewhere else i think last month we talked about either increasing or re-upping a contract for i believe we were talking about cautiouris we had an issue with whether it be bed bugs or cockroaches or whatever it was just has that contract been executed how are
11:26we doing is it improving where do we stand uh we did take care of that through additional services uh kevin you have more detail i'm sure on that yes so um tim mccoy our procurement officer put together an addendum to the contract or emergency contract if you will for added services and that started i believe on january the 10th a full assessment starting from the top floor on down that's been ongoing
11:59deb marissa the associate director of property management has been communicating really well with them and given us updates via email and so far so good they're getting into every unit they're doing the assessment and then i believe this coming week they're going to start treating where they need to treat maintenance has been working online so it was just eval for now yes okay yes and we had trouble getting
12:29into units we did i'm not anymore we're not having that anymore because it's both uh someone from the site office and from the maintenance they're making good progress compared to what it was they're there every day there's more than one tech there's two or three they have gone through all 14 floor all 12 floors that are occupied with inspections but i just received notice today that they're going to do it
12:54again starting tomorrow which i think is a good thing and they were much more thorough in this inspection than they have been there's new technicians that are doing it so i think we're on the right track good i appreciate it i yield thank you anybody else um adam chairwoman i just wanted to acknowledge tim mccoy procurement officer for his hard work on the procuring of the four items we were able to
13:26use the care act prevention for he is here in the audience i know he worked nights he worked weekends to get this procured and it was no easy task and it got it done for us new software programs kiosk for tenant selection section 8 phone systems a couple other smaller items so legal software legal software legal software a few other things so he did a great job with that yes he did because he was sending me
14:03contracts left and right while i was in florida to sign so can't see him from here he's blocked but he did a great job at executing all of those contracts and getting them out thank you tim thanks
14:24you're very welcome and thank you for the hard work moving on new business item one is modernization one a is the dhcd capital improvement plan for the fiscal years 2022 through 2026 the recommended action is to approve those cip plans do you have a motion emotional approval second all in favor aye aye item b is a change order number four for the elevator improvements at cardinal
14:59madeira's towers on the change order is an increase of four thousand eight hundred and fifty four dollars to the contract um amount for repairs to the fire service for the code compliance madam chair will not abstain from this rule sure i understand do i have a motion to approve this change order i make a motion to approve change order number four for elevator improvements second
15:33item c is a change order for the exterior building envelope slash balcony repairs and roof replacement at the james a o'brien senior apartments change order number two is also an increase of 22 544.88 to the contract amounts for repairs in the cracked exterior concrete walkways and the exterior stairwell slash retaining wall located in the parking lot at the east side of the building
16:02an upgrade lighting protection system so we have a motion to approve this change order emotional approve second any questions all in favor item d is a certificate of substantial completion and certificate of final completion for emergency replacement of underground gas lines and service meters at maple gardens do you have a motion so moved second any questions all a favor hi hi sorry slow
16:51item e is permission to advertise for bids for the building envelope improvements at heritage height the estimated contract value is 190 000 with construction to start june 2022 um roofing is planned for the summer of 2023. the recommended action is to approve the advertisement for these bids just for my own uh knowledge what is building envelope improvement experience it just means
17:28nothing okay i just never heard the envelope sure if you'd like them we're looking to do all the fascists and these soffits that have to be replaced they haven't been done since the buildings were remodeled in all exterior doors okay into that effect thank you sir okay thank you motion
18:08item f is a contract award for the fire alarm panel replacement at raymond d holmes apartment there were two bids that were received and opened on december 6 2021 the recommended action is to award the contract to the low bidders box company inc in the amount of thirty thousand four hundred and eighty dollars motion approved a little bit second any questions all in favor item g is the awards for the
18:38architectural services item one is a contract to williams stock architects in the amount of thirty eight thousand nine hundred for roof replacements of three buildings at sunset hill item two is a contract for william stock architects in the amount of thirty three 300 for exterior building work and homes apartments and item three is a contract to see a crawley in the amount of nine
19:05thousand eight hundred fifty dollars for fire alarm control panel replacements at the home's apartment the recommended action is to approve each of these three items looking for emotional improvement as a group or one by one as a group as a group emotional
19:36no hearing no second do we have any discussion i'm just wondering why is this what you were talking about earlier about right letting us know yeah yeah exactly exactly is this already yeah so um i respectfully disagree with the executive director i'm putting this on this is a daily operational function of the mod department this is their fee in conjunction with the project they're going to do so for example
20:13the first one 38 9 to do three building roofs at sunset hill that's going to come in anywhere from 360 to 400 000 to replace those three routes that's about 10 percent of the construction cost which is well in the industry standard it's the industry standard is anywhere from eight to twenty percent for a e fees and also when i put the capital funds program along with arthur together we always account for 15
20:49percent for aae fees and why it would be detrimental on a daily basis because if arthur anderson our director wants to put out one of these projects if he has to wait every month to get approval for a fee we're going to lose four weeks on every job as soon as we sign the fee proposal they start with the investigation the drawings and um the different phases to get the job done
21:20it's it's it's again it's a daily operational function the modernization department we've never put these on the agendas before it's just going to bottleneck the projects so at least i'm going to interrupt you but are these fees included in the contract fee contract that we do approve for the total project they are so we do a three-year contract with our ad services not to exceed 250 000 in fees okay so if
21:55a designer did five jobs and they met babe or came close to that then there wouldn't be any more projects assigned to that designer so this is information only is what you're telling it yeah and then certainly if you're concerned about the dollar amount when the director modernization asked for commission to advertise for a particular project that's perfect opportunity for questions
22:23and answers what's the estimated cost what's the design if he estimated on but it's just it makes no sense for being the accountant that i am then maybe what we should have is a running total so if you if we approve 200 in the beginning of the year for these types of services then we should be subtracting each time we do this just report back to us so we know what we're at yeah for information
22:52as well so both both of these companies are house doctors correct and a three year term or is it 18 months with an um 18 and 18.
23:03is it is it 250 for 18 or 250 for three 250 for three okay so as you know from experience we give a lot of projects to you when you were one of our house doctors for many years and you give a feed proposal and once your fee is gone it's gone and then you you're done for those three years or eighteen months whatever it's you're done what we do is and what what oppa does is
23:31he distributes the project based on experience in previous phases so for example stock architected previous phases of roofs down there so we're going to assign them they have all the drawings they already have a running stop they hit the ground running but if we have to put this on the board every month he's healthy he's handcuffed i mean unless someone disagrees the way i'm understanding this
23:59this should be information only and not a vote of the board correct so um i think i should we should change the recommended action to information only yeah if everyone's okay with that so i have to rescind my emotional approval about the appropriate parliamentary procedure thank you okay moving on item two is miscellaneous 2a is the core of a housing authority agency plan 2022 the annual plan and the certificate
24:32five-year annual plan it was executed by myself and the certificate by the state and local officials of the pha plan consistency with the consistent with the consolidated plan and that was executed by the mayor the recommended action here is make a motion to approve the agency plan second all is the fiber optic internet for hcv section 8 department the recommended action is procure
25:11procure consultant for rfp to provide fiber optic internet at cardinal madeira's towers can someone tell us a little bit about that please so we're going to be one of the chaos act spending we procured as a new software program uh pha web for our operating systems and it was discussed early on if the fiber optic would increase the speed of that and the efficiency of that but we don't know that it may not be needed
25:48so i think if we wait until the software is integrated which is not expected till march or april we can get a better idea if we should install the fiber optic rather than do it now and then find out so this is just to get a consultant to come on board to assess the situation yes so we should just table this no why well i think we need to procure the consultant that's what i'm understanding
26:23this to be correct if you get a consultant then you'll you'll know whether it makes sense to get the fiber optic cable or not otherwise but is it exempt from 30b or do we have to do an rfp for it i don't think it's exempt from 30b no correct so we would have to go out for bid for the consultant um hud won't let us take advantage of state exemptions even if there was once
26:56we would have understood i think the um i'm a little out of the move on this but i think the the um timeline though should kind of should be what kevin alluded to get pha web in here and get set up and then because until that's running i don't see how a consultant can say jesus should be running at you know i don't know the terminology but eight megabytes quicker or something
27:27to that effect um so if if the implementation is going to be in in march maybe when we're closer to completion do some sort of a um it may not rise to the level of an rfp because again into the threshold in mass is 50 000 to do an rfp process so it may be nothing more than maybe a sealed quote process but again i think we're going to be closer to the the you
27:54know the implementation and the operation operating of the pha web to see if uh before we bring the consultant in to see if uh any sort of an upgrade to fiber optics to increase the speed and connectivity it would even be worthwhile so it sounds like a table it sounds like a table so do i have a motion to table this item until the motion table
28:25item three is personnel item three a is a temporary truck driver position for permission to advertise or post in-house rather motion and post second all in favor all right item b is a computer and security systems administrative position the recommended action is to approve the description now this is a position that we haven't had in the past so again at this particular point is it something that we want to go
28:59forward with now or do we want to i don't know who's going to speak on this matter i know this has been discussed quite some time ago we discussed it um i think back in september and then at several department head meetings we thought that if we were going to hire someone it should be two separate positions um two separate concentrations uh network uh technology tech and security cameras however um
29:35i did ask mr mccoy last month we put out a proposal request for services for this and we received three the current vendor that we have whose contract expired and we did a 30-day extension a company from cranston and a company from fair haven mtsi um tim felt and little putting that on the agenda for a vote put the job description on there but i think with the turnaround time
30:15to fill this even if we're able to fill it at least if we put the um the vendor services on for a vote we would have someone in place uh it's a two-year contract um and we would we would have someone should there be an issue with with a network system of the virus crash or something right now the vendor we have the contract expires the end of this month and that was already an extension and
30:49as tim mccoy can speak this you procurement laws you can't keep extending someone's contract at some point you're gonna go out to a new process so as kevin mentioned last september the board directed us to come back with a position description which is here the board did not direct us to go out for quotes and procure a contract for two years for a computer administrator that was done without the board's
31:25knowledge and without my knowledge frankly so what is before the board is what the board had requested of the administration we talked about the need for a computer security administrator in september and it was everyone's thought that you wanted at least on the board you wanted us to come back with that position which we have you did not indicate you wanted us to come back with a two-year contract for services so
31:58um that being the case we took the rfp descriptions so there was no i mean the work wasn't futile because basically the duties and jobs descriptions that came out of that rfp are in here mary we've had a conversation with the city failed to hire someone but that was at a much lower salary we have a much higher salary in this position i believe 85 to 90 000 96 000 to have a staff member on
32:41board would be much more advantageous than any contractor you have someone managing processes not just reacting or responding to calls if if this position did not pan out for whatever reason whether the money's not enough whether there's um not a big response we can always go to the contractor but ideally i think it makes sense for an organization our size to have a full-time employee dedicated to that those needs
33:15so this item is just to approve the job description what about the advertisement for the job itself we would want to do that as well we would also request the board do that inadvertently that was left off the agenda my my sense is if i may it's that we're not really on the same page here and uh i'd prefer to table it until we get on the same page and this is an important
33:43position that's something we're looking for so in the meantime i i'd be in favor of tabling that's i'll make a motion second
34:02item c is the retirement of an employee the recommended action is to approve the retirement of timothy esparrow executive director effective march 31st 2022 to have a motion to approve his retirement do i need a real call for this sure i'll call please commissioner underhill yes commissioner burns yes commissioner bentley yes chairwoman yes item d is an executive director search in terms of discussion um
34:43at this particular point i don't know how everyone else feels we should probably move on advertising for the position and all of the professional guidance in publications does that make sense to everyone right should that specifically um be on the agenda like that it's only for discussion only here it's only for the discussion but you were kind of suggesting that we start the process of advertising for it
35:16my only question was do we have to put it on the internet yeah to be that specific should that have been on the agenda it should be on the agenda yes so this is only for discussion to decide what you how you want to proceed so at the next meeting we could have martha put it on forever correct okay perfect thank you item e is the clerk interviewer position three tenant selection department
35:41recommended action is to ratify the approval for in-house posting and external advertising on our website for these three positions emotional ratify second all in favor aye aye item f is a clerk interview or position two tenant selection departments the recommended action is to ratify the appointment of susan coster and john goldbrick motion ratify the appointments second roll call please commissioner burns yes
36:16commissioner underhill yes commissioner bentley yes sahari yes item g is the maintenance custodial slash floater positions there's three the recommended action is to ratify the approval for in-house posting and external advertising on the website for the three positions i make a motion to ratify approval for in-house posting second in favor and item h is the maintenance custodial slash floater positions the three
36:46positions uh recommended action is to ratify the appointment of mach amarenti's lawrence fossica and cody baderis motion to ratify second alpha please commissioner burns yes commission underhill yes pushing the bentley yes film sahari yes is there anything else to come before the board this evening yes just a note long time uh commissioner raj attache recently passed away providing a lot of time and effort and
37:23service into this board i'd like to thank him hopefully his family sees this for everything he did for us and i appreciated working with him we didn't always agree but uh we always had some nice debate so i'll miss him and just wanted to make sure he recognized his time here so thank you thank you do i have an emotion to adjourn motion to return second all in favor aye thank you