The Fall River Housing Authority held its monthly meeting on Monday, August 15, 2022, at 5:00 PM. The meeting began with resident input, which included updates on tenant elections at Homes and Aloe Vera, a well-attended Bill King Memorial dedication, successful farmer's markets, and the upcoming start of two new tenant assistants at Mitchell and Capella in September. The board then moved through several routine approvals, including the minutes from the July 11, 2022 meeting, various vouchers, eight management reports, and financial statements for April, all of which were approved unanimously. Executive Director Kevin outlined several initiatives and achievements, such as a new photo/film workshop for youth at Heritage Heights, the honoring of a 100-year-old resident at Doolan Apartments, and a successful employee appreciation cookout. A significant portion of his report focused on security enhancements, including additional services at Doolan Apartments and the installation of ID-copying machines at Cardinal Medeiros Towers and Beressi. He also reported positive results from a DHCD pilot performance management review, noting only one minor finding for a late financial report submission and praising staff for achieving a "gold standard" in tenant selection. The board also acknowledged the retirement of two long-serving employees, Mike Freitas (27 years) and Rick Cody (14+ years). New business included the approval of several modernization certificates for fire alarm systems, tree removal, building repairs, and roof replacement across various developments. A change order for the fire alarm panel replacement at Raymond D. Homes Apartments increased the contract by $940, and another change order for elevator modernization at the same location increased the contract by $11,206 and extended the duration by 185 days. The board approved changes to the Self-Sufficiency FSS program, an AT&T cell tower lease extension for five years at Mitchell Heights, and a 15-week security guard contract for Doolan Apartments not to exceed $15,000. Personnel matters included accepting a resignation, ratifying a job posting, and approving the appointment of Timothy McCoy as Deputy Executive Director. Finally, the board approved a three-year contract with AFSCME Council 93 Local 1990 Unit B and a corresponding wage increase for non-union employees, both including a 3% annual raise retroactive to April 1, 2022. The meeting concluded as the board entered executive session to discuss union negotiations and a non-union salary cap.
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welcome everyone it's monday august 15th 2022 it's five o'clock pm and it's the floor of a housing authority uh monthly meeting attorney souza the opening law please thank you madam chairman the open meeting law language is as follows first went to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting to any medium attendees are therefore advised that
0:30such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible thank you martha chairman sahari yeah vice chairman on the hill here commissioner burns here commissioner bentley here commissioner medeiros here thank you do we have any citizen input this evening seeing none resident input thank you
1:03good evening really quick we're planning on having a couple of elections one at homes and one aloe vera to get some new tenant leaders at those two locations the bill king uh memorial i understand you'll all have it in your packet of the uh dedication we're getting extremely good turnout from folks we're up to about 30 or 40 people going to attend actually oh good we've got the music we've got
1:27entertainment with the administrative dual invocation for moving forward excellent and the farmer's markets are going well i don't know if you've been yet married i have not oh but i will make it this friday don't be late okay because they're landing up in florida at quarter after 10th no sir yes david wow they're landing up the quarter after 10 we've got we've got a line of 20 people waiting so
1:52the 11 to two looks like it worked really well and it allows the employees to come to us and we look like we're gonna have two new tenant assistants starting with the september time frame one at mitchell replacing the one left and a new one at capella excellent so we're moving forward with that we'll have one in every development except bateson towers okay yeah thank you any questions oh no no okay thank you
2:32next item on the agenda is the minutes of the regular meeting that was held on july 11 2022 the recommended action is to accept the minutes do i have a motion to accept the mission minutes please emotionally accept the minutes second any questions or concerns about the minutes all in favor all right item two is bills and communications a are the vouchers that are included recommended action is to accept the
3:05vouchers as presented have a motion second any questions with regard to the vouchers hearing none all in favor item three is the management reports the eight reports are included in your packet one is the applications two is the occupancy reports three is the tenant accounts receivable report or is the work order report five is the monthly section eight voucher activity report six is the monthly personnel report
3:42seven is the director of monetization monthly report and eight is the bank investment and bond debt balance reports do i have a motion to accept the reports as presented i make a motion to accept the reports as presented any questions with regard to any of the reports as presented seeing none all in favor the next item in the financial reports from the director of finance what's included in your packet is the monthly
4:19financial statements for the month of april and the recommended action is to approve the reports this is a one month because it's the beginning of our fiscal year we have a motion to approve the monthly report for april motion to approve the monthly report for april second any questions hearing none all in favor all right item b is the state quarterly modernization report for the period
4:53ended june 30 2022 the recommended action is to approve the report
5:07do i have a motion to approve the report second thank you any questions with regard to the reports hearing none all in favor the next item is the update from the executive director thank you madam chairwoman so a few things um first the far river housing authority collaborated with fall river recreation um for a photo uh film workshop for our youth uh they're utilizing the community hall at heritage heights
5:53and that started on august the 4th it runs for eight weeks and it's for our youth residents and neighborhood kids that want to participate so that's a good program that's from five to eight uh next we also honored one of our residents at doolan apartments with a citation from the city she turned 100 earlier in the month betsy the site manager deb marsett and myself went down to present the citation and
6:31very grateful sprite young 100 year old woman so that happened earlier in the month the employee appreciation cookout went really well we held it this year for the first time at oak village we had permission from the school department to utilize the parking lot at fonsica so there was ample parking food was good lawn games we had a raffle joey and his crew did another great job this year but it was nice to have it
7:07over there a little different uh security we procured additional security services for dueling apartments as everyone is aware there's been an uptick in complaints and concerns at doolen it's it's a mixed population site tim mccoy procured some additional services we just need to work out the details as far as hours and days but hopefully that will deter some of the issues that have been on the rise there
7:46we're also going to be uh placing copy machines at cardinal madeira's towers and beressy so when people come to visit some of the residents there the security guard can copy their id and have them sign in just another measure to try and take to stay in control of the activity that's going on in our buildings so we know which resident living there is responsible so then now we will be having
8:22security services at three of our mixed population cardinal peressi and doolan we held interviews earlier for the deputy executive director position which will be on the agenda just to inform everyone we tried to emulate what we did for the executive director we had a union rep a tenant rep attorney suser and myself um strong strong qualified candidates it was a difficult decision
9:05for the committee but we unfortunately we could only select one um so that's on the agenda dhcd conducted a pilot performance management review last week it's something that they would do yearly it was suspended during covid they've made some changes and now they're piloting a new program this year we won't be scored on it but it's in preparation for next year's which we will be scored and
9:43they come in and they evaluate our financial reporting our work order system our tenant selection uh process and i'm pleased to say that he did extremely well um fine there was one finding under financial for the fourth quarter we were one day late in submitting reports the first quarter we were fine the second quarter was fine the third quarter was fine the fourth quarter holds a little more weight
10:19we were one day late so it was a minor minor finding work order system uh ed majewski and his team joyce pereira the clerk work order data entry clerk did a great job with closing our work orders the reports were accurate there were no findings in our work order system as well as our tenant selection the champ system is an application online application through the state and it's very very difficult and um
10:58marie souza amy warren and their team did an outstanding job there were no findings in fact um mary farrow from the state the housing specialist said that they and we were the gold standard for that uh there are much smaller housing authorities across the state that are having a difficult time us being a larger one and there were no findings she said that that was incredible so compliments to
11:31kathleen povar who oversees that marie amy and that crew really an outstanding job and the last thing i have is i would like to acknowledge two of our former employees who have retired um mike freitas 27 years and rick cody 14 plus years of service to the floor of the housing authority so i would like to present them with a little gift on behalf of the board michael if you want to come up rick
12:21congratulations thank you thank you congratulations congratulations and that's all i have for this week's this month's board meeting thank you thank you okay next item on the agenda is new business item one is modernization it's the certificate of substantial completion for the keltron wireless fire alarm communicator at seven federally aided developments the recommended action is approval
12:51do i have a motion to approve the substantial completion i make a motion to approve second any questions with regard to this hearing none all in favor aye item b is a certificate of completion consolidation for the keltron wireless fire alarm communicators at seven federally aided developments and the recommended action is approval i make a motion to approve second all in favor item c is a certificate of substantial
13:26completion for the tree removal and building repairs at your bishop joseph e apartments the recommended action is approval second any questions with regard to this certificate hearing none all in favor item d is the certificate of substantial completion for the roof replacement phase 4 at sunset hill recommended action is approval any questions with regard to the roof replacement hearing none all in favor all right
14:10item e is the change order number one for the fire alarm panel replacement at layman d homes apartment the change order number one is an increase in the contract amount in the amount of 940 dollars for delta beckworth labor changes and state elevator inspection for the fire alarm panel replacement the recommended action is approval second any questions with regard to this change letter hearing none all in favor
14:45item f is a certificate of substantial completion for the fire alarm panel replacement at raymond d homes apartments recommended action is approval item g is change order number three for the elevator modernization at raymond d homes apartments change order number three is increase in the contract amount of eleven thousand two hundred and six dollars for the remote mobilization of extensive
15:25of the extension rather of the warranty service for the downtime due to the fire alarm panel replacement duration of the contract will increase by 185 days the recommended action is approval do i have a motion to approve second any questions with regard to this extension hearing none all in favor aye aye item two on the agenda is missile missile miscellaneous item two a is the self-sufficient fss
16:04fss program action program the recommended action is to approve the changes motion to approve second would you like to give us a summary of what those changes are by any chance sure so hud has made several changes to this program one being it used to be the head of household now any adult member of the household is eligible for for the program and it just the household has to determine
16:48which person would receive a check in that household it traditionally was the head they were the only person but if there are other household members that are eligible uh only one check is cut um it's it's a five-year contract uh for the participant but they changed the start date uh so if someone started um august 1st of 2022 it normally would be five years from there now it's five years from their
17:23re-examination of their income so it extends the time another change um if somebody forfeited or went off the program uh the monies then escrow would go back to the housing authority now hud is proposing distributing those funds in escrow to other fss participants so those are uh some of the the changes the major changes and it has to be approved by the local board before hud will put it into play thank you
18:05any questions hearing none all in favor item b is the a t cell towel lease extension for five years at mitchell heights the five year lease extension is from august 29 2022 through august 30th 2027 is the first of two five-year options to renew the original contract term was eight twenty nine twelve through eight twenty nine twenty two the recommended action is to grant preliminary authorization to extend the
18:40lease for a five-year period subject to final approval by hud do i have a motion to grant the preliminary authors authorization i'll make a motion i when i get a second i just want to ask a question so somebody's got a second all right one second second second questions so thank you obviously uh attorney susan for preparing uh this i don't know if anybody else got it but it's a safety
19:10plan so uh history will tell you i have a concern with some of the rf uh electromagnet waves and potential negative impacts on the health of the people that are around it so we've seen that around the country and fire stations uh i can only believe that there is similar concerns at you know the towers that we have so um just this is increasing how many is this increasing how like what is up
19:35there what the output is it's not increasing any output it's going to maintain currently what they have so just to give you a little background here hud changed some regulations as uh cell towers they call them encumbrances on public public housing authority properties we have a new regional director director in boston and i've been you know instructed that i have to have the board
19:54approve any contracts so if you go back to when we originally discussed them we had contracts for cell towers for 20-year periods and hud put out an advisory in 2017 or 18 stating that they don't want anything to go over five years and it's subject to hud approval the board must approve it first prior to it going to hud um just to give you like a basic work where we put up like
20:18like chairwoman saha sahabi said that this has been a 10-year contract already with two five-year options for renewal um the income generated is significant on the property um and uh commissioner burns we've made sure that the radio frequency waves are well below the fcc guidelines and standards but you know when you put several towers up there you don't want to make sure that definitely so there
20:40are two on mitchell um there's one on holmes one on o'brien and um um one other one i don't know what that uh uh cargo cardinals so we have we have uh several they are all 20-year contracts so we're we're kind of winding down um what the period is but um we are currently in the process of inventorying all the equipment because i have a desk full of old contracts that
21:06are 20 years old of the amount of material that was up there so i discussed that with uh kevin and we had we were currently having all that equipment inventory so anything that doesn't need to be up there is taken off we've finished five buildings already um out of i think 10 so that we can take any inoperable equipment off number one but with regard to this you know we the
21:30monthly use and occupant the monthly use fee for at t would be 32.54 so over a 10-year we've almost made 400 000 and that so if we extend it for five years it's going to be another 192 000 at one rate and at the other rate that we're asking for would be 234 000 for the next five years however i don't know if hud's going to approve it because they are they've become pretty adamant about
21:58nothing over five years they want us to bid five-year contracts in five-year increments not a 20-year contract so the first step on doing this this is five years uh the first step on extending this would be to approve it by the board and then it goes up to the regional director uh regional director um who i've told has been a stickler about this so i don't know if it's going
22:18to get approved but um anything that we do um from in the in the future will be uh procured or put out the bid but i think your question commissioners so i i definitely appreciate what you prepared and it's safety related right i care to take about care about people the workers who are around the equipment the people who live at the upper levels of the floor i want to make sure that
22:36they're you know not getting any you know negative health effects from it so the money is great um following fcc you know regulations and guidelines is great but i've also seen in my world where some of the standards that were set by these agencies who are the overseers were set too high at times until people like me complain a lot they lower it to a more rational number so just keeping an eye out making sure
22:59everybody's safe we're not getting you know numerous complaints about negative effects that's all otherwise i think what you did was great your plan looks great and you know summarizing it for me i appreciate it so thank you for the good work thank you now appreciate it we'll just stay on it going forward and if there aren't any complaints we'll just find a way to look at it or if they
23:16change that regulation that that level in the meantime then we'll figure out what we're going to do we'll make sure that those um that those levels aren't well below i mean the priority here is the safety of the tenants obviously before any monetary gains so thank you thank you any other questions all in favor aye item c is the security guard services at edward and doolin apartments the
23:41recommended action is permission to award a 15-week contract for security services to u-s-e-n-t-r-a security in the amount not to exceed 15 000.
23:59we have a motion to award the contract emotion reward second any questions or concerns yeah i have a few questions uh we have security now at cardinal and beresi both high-rises we know how that works it's the you know they check people in as they come through the door at doolin where there is no main entrance how is the security going to be where are they going to be located what
24:35is that going to be their job so for doolan will set them up in the community hall and part of the language in the contract they'll have to do a walk-in beat and also if in the vehicle drive around however if we have a particular building where there may be an issue there is enough room in the hallway we can set the security person up with a small desk and chair
25:05and they can monitor who comes in that particular building if it's a problematic building but if we don't have one particular building they'll just they'll be on foot and they'll be in their vehicle going around okay uh it brings me to my other point i know commissioner medeiros and myself we talked about having a safety and security item on the agenda not only about dueling but about all the
25:37you know high rises and that's our biggest complaint that i get as the tenant leader lieutenant commissioner and the chairman of the joint tenant council i know you guys have been getting phone calls from various people about problems and that's all i'm glad we're doing that at doolan that's fantastic but that's not helping what's going on in some of the other developments and i i know
26:04mike i can bring your name up right about at sunset hill they go to uh empty the trash and people are blocked parking residents are parking blocking the way of the trash truck to get in there and they're told apparently they're told time after time and they just keep doing it and i guess what i'm saying is that money that we're paying to the police department i would hope that they would be there
26:32you know patrolling more than they are to all the developments because that the girls at the buildings the everybody that works for housing is doing their best to try to maintain law and order but when you don't get any backup so we do have the housing police unit that's assigned to us deb morrissette our associate property manager is in constant communications with them there's movie night tonight at sunset
27:08hill which i'll be going after here i'll i the police are always there for those events i talked to them i was at one at heritage heights there was an issue at 40 they were leaving to go to fordney they don't give us the contract doesn't specify specific days or hours it's random your concern um if someone is blocking a fire lane then they ha uh the police can have the vehicle towed
27:43if they're blocking a dumpster that's considered private property then that's up to site management and the housing authority to address which we do uh and the site manager will try to find out who's whose vehicle it is that might be blocking a dumpster but unfortunately if it's blocking a fire lane it's instant towing if it's the dumpster that's a little different that's more of a nuisance for us not a safety thing
28:12um i respect what you're saying and we're constantly looking to improve as you can see uh what what we're doing at duelin um everybody is doing their due diligence unfortunately there's never enough funding to put security at every site uh you know i think but that's a good concern uh attorney souza is coordinating um a meeting with eucentra and yourself to discuss some of your concerns it's it's just my
28:52and i would suggest um and i'll definitely bring it up to joey who coordinates the breakfast and serve with the police maybe we can get the remaining schedule and we can go together and we can pick their brains and it's you know not to beat horse or to prolong this meeting but my background was in retail and our biggest problem like any retail is shop with this and we found that the we we tried undercover
29:25you know people trying to get we always found the best deterrent was to have a uniform at the door that way it stopped most people that had the thought of shoplifting they put it in their head that hey they got security here all i'd like to see is more security at the developments i i often brought up the uh idea about auxiliary police if they could come and just even just
29:51for a few minutes just patrol you know the the different development especially the troubled ones because it's it's there's a lot of stuff going on and you know we're told as residents that oh if you see it get right get a license number we get a license number and then they're like well we can't do anything about it because we didn't see it happen well you know that means
30:19i'm not i mean trust me i love the police my father was a you know state cop for 30 years and i just i don't want to get it you know bad about that but we're paying 450 000 or so and but i uh i mean they're showing up for movie night and things like that they're not that's right but as a as an advocate for the residents i also think we've got to get
30:51the word out to the residents if they see something suspicious just just report it to the police it it can't they do with all due respect commissioner it can't be i know we had an issue at cotell where there was somebody right i spoke to the police about that they were already aware of it but all that was was a call to you a call to me and i called the police when they
31:19could have just called the police there's got to be some responsibility with the resident that if they're seeing something that might be suspicious just just call uh to say well i'll let my manager know and then the manager is it's just another layer that's not needed it's just no different if somebody was living in that tenement house across the street they don't call their landlord if they
31:50see suspicious activity they call the police so i think we've got to get the message to the residents especially the elderly uh that if they see something just just call a lot of them are afraid afraid of what though reprecaution but if they're in there in the privacy of their own home and they see something so what is the difference if if the housing authority calls i don't i don't i'm not understanding that
32:22if you're in your apartment looking out the window seeing something you call the police what's the difference between calling the housing authority to call the police it's it's the same phone call no one is seeing that person in their window calling the police i and i i'm not disputing the issues commissioner please don't take it the wrong way but when you say they're afraid of something
32:50what are they afraid of no one's knowing that they're calling so i i just i'm i'm having a hard time understanding that it's a tight-knit community depending on where you live and they know the people there are people that will call the cops and those people you but they're never afraid to come out of their apartments after because they think something's going to happen for them because they call the cops so
33:21if we've got let's use dueling we've got uh multiple apartments there so if i'm living in one apartment and commissioner medeiros is in another apartment and i call on some suspicious activity he has no idea that i'm calling out he walks out of his apartment that's what i'm i and forgive me i'm just trying to understand i don't maybe i'm missing something no it's just when you know when you're living there they know
34:00they know who's calling who it's just it's just human i mean and we're happy to call and assist the residents in any way we can i know and that's what i try i just think still um so uh director spardella you mentioned about getting the message out to the tenants about what actions they need to take what steps have occurred or will occur to get that message out there to them so that they know precisely
34:36what what they need to do uh i mean obviously while we're talking picking up the phone and calling the police is pretty obvious but um to know that we're um conscious of these that's part of the breakfast and serve program that we're promoting the police serve breakfast in our elderly buildings to reach out to them to hear their concerns advise them what to do and that's what they're telling me that's
35:07the message that they're giving the residents and are those well attended i wouldn't say they're well attended but they're attended but again we we do our we do our part yeah we can't force people to come down to the community room to attend it we flyer it we we inform them joey in our resident services does a great job but attendance can always be better right but that's the purpose that's the theme
35:47of that program is to give them some comfort that they are there and this is what you should do in this situation and this is what you should do in that situation um i mean if something happens on the weekends the offices are closed i mean yeah someone's got a call i i know it's it's scary and intimidating but you certainly don't want to wait till monday when the office is open and then
36:16let your manager know that hey there was an incident here on friday night call the police i i i if there's a better solution i'm all is i i mean what we're we're trying i just don't uh we definitely can sharpen up as commissioner underhill's concerned that contract with the police and the services we're getting we'll definitely go over that with a fine-tooth comb as it comes up for renewal but in the meantime
36:50and have we seen improvements at the locations where the added security already exists at cardinal and uh beresi i believe well that's been existing in existence yeah yeah um i'm sure there's issues that happen and then there's there's good days and bad days and i think um attorney souza as far as incident reports from the police could say if there's stuff going on at certain developments but i don't think there's
37:26been an uptick uh an uptick but i think what under what commissioner underhill is saying is that there are concerns for people to call the police and i think what my my main thing that i tell people the residents that have obvious problems outside of their units they're afraid to say so you have a grouping of people outside of a building at sunset hill and there's another tenant that lives there
37:46they're going to be reluctant to call the police because the police these people are going to know that they called the police on them so what what i tell them to do is you need to make sure that there's some sort of a record that we have so we tell them to file a complaint with the office so there's an incident and they can put it in a draft form and we don't we don't release that
38:02information so that we can in turn call the police for them that might be a better solution but the other thing that we're going to probably no i don't not probably but we're going to we do plan on meeting with the housing police again and we had a really successful meeting with them the last time and i'm more than welcome to actually express your concerns about that but i do understand what you're saying um
38:25the courts also right now have have uh issued complaints against certain people but they're only in a preliminary stage where they go before the clerk magistrate and none of the none of the information becomes public until a person gets arraigned so if they go before clerk magistrate for a probable cause hearing it either go there either is probable cause and the complaint goes forward or there's not
38:46and um i don't know why this has been you know a new procedure that they're doing but i think it has something to do with covet but it takes a lot longer to process a complaint because we can't do anything until a complaint is made public so i would just close with we our continued efforts communicating with the police residents reporting issues to the office if it's something on a weekend or a
39:11holiday and it's something of concern that they somehow discreetly call i wouldn't just let it go without taking any action and certainly if they're that fearful of it they don't call they don't call but and that's what we're hoping with the uh additional security at doolin is now you have an independent person that if they see something they'll call to that point um i don't know if we make it a regular
39:46practice to watch the watchers if you will do we follow up to see what security is doing do we think they're effective do we have someone who in our organization and leadership who is saying hey listen i went by there on thursday night and it didn't appear that they were doing what we wanted them to do you know kind of a surprise if you will but just to kind of periodically check in and
40:11make sure listen we're handing over a contract to do security i'm not saying they're doing anything wrong right there are times where crime happens and people have complaints and that's something we've got to find our way through but if it's because they're not doing their jobs appropriately i want to know about that and i think one way is this is a guess if we're not already doing it let's start let's do a drop in
40:32some time and see what these security officers are doing well we had just an idea at cardinal a couple weeks ago right where one of the security guard i guess was a resident that called or made the complaint that he was drinking on the job yes and mike followed up and went with ribby and the the outcome anyway was that the gentleman from rippy looked at the tapes from cardinal at what he supposedly couldn't make out
41:05what he was drinking but he said that he spoke to the guy and the guy has claims he hadn't had a drink in over 20 years and that he drinks only gatorade on the job but that the bottom line that's well and well guy didn't think the guy was a drinker anyway but the bottom line was and it's a fault of ribby is they said the guy had worked 60 some hours that
41:24week and he was working a 24-hour shift at cardinal which i mean i would have fallen asleep too so that lies at the at the foot of ribby that they're they don't have the proper staff to break it up into three shifts of eight hours or whatever you know they're expecting a guy to sit there for 24 straight hours and and you know i mean it's a 24-hour job because the doors are not locked
41:52people are coming and going and this guy was sleeping or he you know so i think we got to have a better contract you know a better understanding of the contract with review
42:11and most of their employees are from that area and i don't believe they pay them for gas so when they get assigned to come to cardinal or beresi that's a you know quite a ride from warwick or that with that area and with the prices of gas these days they're not making that much money and they're like i ain't going there i'm not traveling yeah unfortunately though we have to follow
42:36procurement laws i know i understand it i'm just saying yeah i think it's not the housing it's not our fault it's like kevin i have a question will the tenants be given the security company's phone number so that they could call the security company if they're concerned about calling 911 and they see something so for for instance aunt doolin could they call the the number of the person who's there
43:08is that an option i think we would have to follow up with that attorney souza with uh and uh mr mccoy um when we iron out the hours and days and what we can't ask of them just i know you know knowing the layout of dueling something could happen at one point right right there yes they're patrolling but they could be at the other end yeah so like yeah if we're able to person to come
43:36over if it's like a company sell that they're assigned i'm sure we'll be able to give it out but we'll have to find that out if it's the personal sell probably not but um we'll we'll follow up with that for sure but i think as i'm just thinking they may feel more comfortable calling the security guard who's there than perhaps calling the police i don't know i i feel commissioner underhill's pain
44:04because he's there but the positive is when we meet he lets me know what's going on and if i wish there were more residents at other places the like the association presidents would let us know then we could do more but unfortunately sometimes we find out things after the fact and uh we're reactive instead of proactive it's just the way it goes sometimes but we will definitely uh when that contract
44:37expires we'll work together uh if we can through your voice with the joint tenants council if we can get these building leaders to attend this breakfast and serve and express their concerns to the police when they're there and just keep trying right keep doing that fight in the good fight so to speak anything else we have a motion in a second do we have all in favor of the permission to award
45:13the 15-week contract for security services item three is personnel a is the resignation of an employee the recommended action is to accept the resignation of christine jordan um a clerk interviewer effective july 29th 2022 a motion to accept her resignation oh should i accept second item b is a clerk interviewer position for public housing the recommended action is to ratify in-house posting
45:57and outside advertising on the website you have a motion i make a motion thank you hi i am three is the deputy executive director position the recommended action is to approve the appointment of timothy mccoy do i have a motion motion to approve the appointment of timothy mccoy second yes commissioner underhill yes commissioner burns yes commissioner bentley yes gentleman sahari yes congratulations tim
46:46item d is the proposed agreement between the frhas the four of the housing authority and asked me the council 93 local 1990 unit b for a three-year contract from april 1st 2022 to march 31st 2025. it includes a three percent wage increase each year year one is retroactive to april 1st 2022 year 2 begins april 1st 2023 and year 3 begins april 1st 2024.
47:21do i have a motion to approve this
47:39yes item e is a proposed wage increase for non-union employees it's three percent retroactive to april 1st 2022 3 beginning april 1st 2023 and 3 beginning april 1st 2024.
47:56do i have a motion to approve the wage increase for the non-union employees ocean tour second
48:19a comment that went towards rd as well but when the agenda is out you know people see the raises and you know some people have concerns about the three percent you guys dutifully negotiated it that's the collective bargaining process that's how it works i think sometimes i don't know if you could describe it but sometimes people look at the city in the city funds and they look at the housing authority
48:44and they kind of intermingle the negotiation process we get our funding from do you want to go into that we talk about it on the phone yeah just just really for people who are tuning in and just really to kind of explain it so on many fronts we're a quasi city agency so to speak but our funding is is totally different most of our most of our funding comes from hud the federal government
49:17and a smaller portion from dhcd uh the state unlike the city where there's taxpayer money so obviously we're a much smaller group um based on the funding received and amber burns and myself working on the budget on what's affordable and what's not affordable this was factored in in putting the budget together i did speak along with attorney souza with the deputy with the executive
49:57director from the new bedford housing authority today and his approach is somewhat different on wages he only does one year at a time and when he wants to change language that's every three years previous to this year that's what was going on here it was wages only and his theory is he bases that yearly increase on what he's getting from hud so it's a sliding scale he goes anywhere from three to seven percent
50:34but if their funding is cut it can be less than that i like the security of a three-year we know what we're paying out for the next three years this proposed contract for all three units had some what i feel and uh bargaining team good financial incentives but that was also to get job descriptions more in line at what our trades do get our sick leave policy more in line get our overtime powerless policy more
51:14in line two issues that uh the housing authority has been struggling with over the years so when amber and i worked on the budget we factored in hourly increases we factored in stipends we factored in cola and it's affordable based on the funding that we received so that's what dictated what we could offer in our proposals and what we couldn't so it is in line with the new bedford housing authority uh
51:53higher than the city we realized that but uh we know the city funding is much more limited than what we get here at hud through hud from dhcd it's unfortunate um but i don't think the housing authority employees should be penalized because city workers are getting less and vice versa right i just i'm always one to be fair and reasonable uh an honest day's work for an honest day's pay um we all have to live
52:29we all uh endure inflation and and increases so if we can be fair to our staff and and get a good day's work out of each person i'm okay with that yeah but that's really what i wanted to get at the the ability to pay is different for the housing authority than it is in the city and i'm sympathetic to the city workers but my conversation with city workers is that you know i
52:54think the city could do better with city workers but um you know they're two different accounts if you will and i do not think our employees here have done a great job deserve to feel the pain that city employees are feeling for a completely different reason so i did support it i do support the work that you guys did a collectively bargaining contract it's just really more about edit you know
53:16edification of the public who kind of uh had some concerns so i appreciate it good work and uh thank you
53:34yes item f and item g are for executive session item f is um union negotiations update the anticipated executive session pursuant to mass general law chapter 38 section 2183 is to discuss with discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares item g is removal
54:11of a salary cap for non-union employees again anticipated executive session pursuant to mastermind law chapter 30a section 21a2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective marketing sessions or contract negotiations with the non-union personnel at this time we will be going into executive session and we will not be coming out of executive executive
54:41sessions so this will be the end of our regular meeting thank you everyone for coming tonight