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here here pursuant to the open meeting any person may make an audio or video recording on this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings are being transmitted
and are being ma made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible this is the city council meeting on Human Services housing youth Elder and Veterans
Affairs the meeting is now convened uh do we have anyone that signed up for Citizens input in the audience with citizens input no okay uh item number two minutes for September 10th 2024
motion to approve the minutes second all in favor I and item number three do you have a motion to lift from the table um yes motion to lift from the table sorry
and I will second that motion and the motion all in favor I okay thank you sorry um is from a resolution filed by Brad Kilby that's been tabled several times motion was filed on November 8th
2022 the motion is whereas the winter months are approaching whereas the city council should be concerned about the homeless in the city and now therefore it be resolved that the Administration provide an update on the estimated number of homelessness in the city and be it further resolved that the
administration provide amount of funding received from HUD to address the matter and what steps are being taken to address the issue um I will say that they've come down on multiple occasions and we've had discussions it's been taed
and um but at this time I'd like to have the individuals come down from the city um and from the agencies that are providing services to the homeless [Music]
yep well that was very kind of [Music] [Music] hello hi holy all right if we can just go around the table we'll start with Nikki and everybody could just State their name
and their address for the record Nikki Fontaine director of ay services for the city of Far [Music] River the city's one government Senter um Deputy Beth uh Beth F Deputy Chief of
EMS and one government center Bank tan director of Community Development one government center Seth aen City administrator one government center hi I'm Rosa maderas the director of homeless services at stepping stone hi I'm Alissa kapis I'm
The Clinical Director of Behavioral Health Services at stepping stone I'm Laura Bradley uh executive director at Thrive for Humanity 40 quy Street uh Pastor Doug Goodson uh director of chaplain Street
corps1 fav Drive 7 perfect just in time to state your name there uh all out of breath I know it's a new last name I think or maybe not but Stephanie Perry Community wellness program South Hospital
perfect uh Maria Al Hills Behavioral Health hi Maria and SAR Point South Coast Heth well this [Music] program all she's going that way all right so I think I uh will start off with some order here with
um Nikki Fontaine the city Mike Dion who is here to uh they provided us with an update of what's going on what they're doing and I will let you guys get started um just want to bring you up to
speed of what's happening in the city of Fall River um um right now the first step in has the 30 year round beds 20 winter beds they also have 20 beds at the motel the Tomato Center is doing 30
winter beds overflow beds we have a uh weather dependent um we don't like to uh advertise it but First Baptist Church has been opening up their doors uh during cold weather uh times and storms
um that's another third 30 to 40 beds we're also been having a warming shelter um when we need it at Christ the Rock Church and we've had 30 to 40 uh residents there um in crisis Services uh we opened January 20th through the
23rd from 4 a.m. to uh 400 P p.m. to 8:00 a.m. uh with an overnight prayer service at First Baptist Church we averaged about 40 people um and then we did an 8 to4 warming Center at Christ
the Rock Church during those days um we also opened up during the last snow storm this past weekend which was the February 8th um from 4: p.m. till 12: the next day at uh First Baptist Church
and we had about 34 residents um right now we're working uh to put the numbers together for the point and time count you might have seen some numbers that were put out there um today they're not right um those numbers
have not been finished we have not finished with that um so we're working on that right now the programs the fast team is still going to the encampments uh we had the program enhancements with encampments uh Nikki can talk about that more it's been very
successful we've had 38 people went into sober living two people left the program that were in the the you know we spent the money on so 36 people have stayed in the program 17 people have graduated and right now I believe Nikki
we have 11 people in treatment which includes the detox uh they in either detox or they in the step down program um right now we're going out to get current uh obtaining currently bids for
the cleanup of encampments at Plymouth a Middle Street and quick Shan River River Trail so we're working on that as we speak and I gave you a little bit of funding uh knowledge down below um so
far we've we've got about $4 million between homeless and Mental Health Grants um we the first one you'll see is the for Continuum of Care which is a large Grant it's a one-year term it's a competitive grant that we apply
for every year and uh you'll see as you go down emergency Solutions Grant we're in the middle of that samire is a 4-year Grant uh we're in our fourth year which is a one oneyear term Grant um we have some rollover from the previous year and
uh We've also applied for Opia abuse funds which we received around 90 $90,000 for the first year that's a that 320 is a three-year term and we also uh got approved for the protect and connect Grant which is $550,000
over three years so that's where the city stands right now um in terms of what we've been doing um I think we should be very happy because we been very successful um and like I said we take one at a time one homeless person
out a time so Nikki if you have anything more that you want to say in terms of no I mean if it wasn't for the fast Team FAST team's done an awesome job everybody at this table's done a great job you know we we can't uh we do a lot for our homeless in the city so well I I
will add one thing actually um as far as the enhancement without encampment Grant we just went over the numbers today and I actually I knew that the program was successful but I was actually shocked at how successful that only two people and
what he means by that is some people go into sober living and we spend a month or two on them and they decide to leave only two people never returned so we've put in about 80 people now directly from the encampments and only two people are
not still trying which is pretty amazing to me um 17 graduates the others are still they still are at within their six month protocol um and 11 others waiting to get back in and um you know to me that's just crazy like we're talking
about the people directly you know in need on the street in the tents and um the other thing is the peak that we had when we opened First Baptist Church uh one night there was 49 during that
January 20th uh stay you know and that's people that obviously the hundred beds are full this is 49 people that had absolutely nowhere to go and the numbers as we know like we we all see it right like it doesn't feel like we're making a
dent but when you actually break it down the amount of people that we help and don't advertise it like we're making a difference in a lot of people's lives but we're competing with the rents rising and we're seeing a lot more people in the vehicles of SSI doesn't
cover an apartment anymore you know so as many as we're we're we're seeing out there we're quietly placing all these other people you know and it's a day at a time a person at a time an example is is today we we found a landlord that
has nine units available that are about anywhere from 750 to 500 00 500 being a room on uh so I'm working with Nikki working with her um we've talked to that person uh they uh have some uh
contingencies no evictions they're going to do a credit check and they're also going to uh the rent uh they have to have two uh double the income of the rent so if you're making 500 you got to be at $1,000 so we're working on that um and we're also uh working with the mayor
to identify some other funding sources so that we can keep ENC enhancement with encampments going because it is it is uh um we're using up all the money um and we're also looking for additional money for um our homeless Prevention Services
in the city we have money for Rapid rehousing services but we're looking for that so hopefully by the end of the week we'll have the answer for that and we can move on fantastic do have any you have any questions
so the 17 people who have graduated from the program have they been placed um a lot of them uh got jobs and are choosing to stay even longer um some of them have moved on further um but I would say the
majority are still in over living um by choice you know um we are trying to work to set it up so that this is considered a homeless program and work with psh um permanent support of housing with Sheila chassis we we met today about that again
um so that's the end goal is if they can work and get apartments on their own we also provided job training with mass hire they were all given recovery coaches or rsns and they did a three-week training the first round of people um did a 3-week like budgets
resume building that type of stuff so we're trying to make it all encompassing and not no one is just left after the six months of funding is up we still provide a lot of wraparound support in terms of um you're talking about
contingencies and pretty much it's always been that way I believe that if you've had an eviction you're like one the last person anybody talks to or anybody deals with um but I think we've seen in the last year or two that there are people who have been evicted who
weren't evicted because they chose not to pay their rent or because it there were U extenuating circumstances they couldn't afford it anymore no fault of their own um so we haven't developed anything or we haven't been able to convince anybody that you have a certain
group of people who really don't deserve that black mark on their record uh to make it easier for them to to get housing yeah we I talked to the uh the person that had Property Management that had the management um with with those
units and we talk to them about people who have um evictions that don't help their own um they're going to work with us very closely um also the bright lights through this whole thing is is we finally finally agreed to um the
boarding house that we were looking into and we hopefully will'll have a closing done by the end of February so that'll open up even more units for us um also my office is is uh working on that
property to bring another nine units on board um in that property so um we're working on it how many units are on that property now right now there's 16 un it's a commercial building commercial and residential there's 16 units on the
uh second floor and commercial on the first floor we're not doing any commercial whatsoever it's not allowed we're just going to do housing so that's where the extra nine would go on the first floor yeah I wanted to do Apartments but um it would require us to do a variants um there's a parking issue
um so it's best to do um what's there now so we're probably going to just um you know make it a little bigger just build on that okay I'll yield for now I you had mentioned the fast team do
you want to just talk is fast team here is that no that's they're not here they went home for today it's been a busy week um what do you want me to talk about what we do just briefly what you do it's a I the city does a lot for the
homeless and so I just want to we talk about these acronyms but people don't understand what they are so just qu briefly yeah so the fast response team is far Riv addiction support and treatment it consists of right now currently one clinici two recovery coaches data Outreach coordinator police
leaon and myself however we did just get the connect and protect Grant which will add another clinician and a uh certified PS specialist for mental Health we do answer 247 our hotline that we have um
and that is for any mental health substance use or homeless call um and our services really vary from someone needs treatment we'll bring them find them a bed bring them or you know uh right now yet this week I was at an
elderly hoarding house to prevent her from being uh removed the city inspector went and it wasn't safe for her to to stay due to a hoarding issue so yesterday my team was bleaching the rooms you know to like prevent this from
happening um the daughter was severely disabled mentally um you know so honestly it's anything where we feel we can prevent homelessness um assist them to get out of homelessness or get them into any kind of
treatment I I wanted the record to reflect that there is a 24-hour hotline that I know is answered on a regular basis to get out there and help these people um so I appreciate the work that you do um First Baptist Church do you from the First Baptist or First Baptist
Church is not here okay I seen God on your shirt I thought you were there you are a preacher though did I did you say that correctly work for the same boss so the same okay that's right respect that um I guess I'll turn it down to Steph you came um boots on the ground in the
camps um you are the boots on the soldier are in there in those camps so I'd like to I think there's a lot of soldiers around this table for sure at one point speak into the mic at one point or another we're always collaborating whether Doug's out there in the camp calling and saying hey I
found this can you follow up or myself doing the same for him Laura has a BRI brick and Mora building now which is amazing where we can go we go every Thursday and we kind of sit down in there and just kind of case manage like how can we make the lives of people who are living outside a little bit more uh
bearable and sustainable and with the goal of getting them out whether that's getting them in ID connecting them to health insurance Maria is from Seven Hills she has a dropin center that's more of like a wet dropin center right so different than a Recovery Center where you you can
you have to be sober to be inside there are uh Supportive Services in that building from A to Z so we also go there and kind of Hit the same people so I think it's hard and and Dr Myers is from the M Mo from Stars mobile Outreach so
we we can refer someone to Medical we can refer someone to SSP Services we can refer somebody to transportation we can refer somebody to essential items so like we are on the ground every day important to note that the community wellness program doesn't just serve as
Fall River I think a lot of people think that's oh it's just we're just Fall River eccentric um I service new Beford and weham right so anywhere where our hospital system is is where we are I obviously this is my community so I spend a lot more time in this Community we have a lot of great providers that
are easy to work with but we're kind of Here There and Everywhere um and we are in those camps what we're trying to do more of Now is really come out so like good sheeper has a dropin center so we're now there every Tuesday from Wednesday well we switched it to Tuesday
no Wednesday Wednesday sorry we're there every Wednesday from 11: to 1 it was 11: to 2 so again this is places where people are coming out to get food they're coming out to get services and we're there with our computers and our laptops and our resources trying to connect them and plug them in wherever
they are um we're at Thrive every Thursday and every other Saturday um and recently we've been going to the Tomato Center since it's been open through this winter uh you know the Overflow shelter just trying to get people where they
need to be and I think just the stats like Sarah is new to my team so until Sarah came I was kind of just plugging away and not keeping track we have a very beautiful Excel Street sheet now right which is amazing so I think just in the last not even a month
it'll be a month on the 13th we have touched 150 people and I don't mean just hey how are you which maybe sometime that's all they need right is a hug and a hello and hey we're here you ready for treatment because it's my favorite question they always say that to me but you know 13 people in detox 14 referrals
to ewe 10 IDs five people and the other person I didn't mention is Mary canine who works out of the health department here in the City so she's an certified Insurance connector through Mass health she can actually get in their system so if we have people who are without insurance she can fix that if there's
questions or mail that they missed or something where they lapsed she's now at Thrive she goes to Seven Hills she's at CTC um so just Insurance 10 PE five people were connected just through our program PCP six referrals just in the last month to Dr Myers wound care we had
to Narcan someone call a medical emergency the other day like you we have two youth people from 20 to 24 require Youth Services which sometimes is easier so we're dealing with that um vets five vets that we're not working with but we're we're finding on the streets and
referring them to where they need to be so it's kind of amazing when you look at it that way how many people we're touching that we weren't even thinking about before and I think people also think that it's a simple process to like oh let's just get them off the street but like Steph just mentioned there's a
gamut of things that they first you know the IDS the social securities the birth certificates now someone's from Dominican Republic and they need a birth certificate or you know a passport or whatever and and it's so many steps to actually house them and that's really
where this collaboration comes in amazing because we all pretty much have everyone on speed dial yeah pretty much amazing um the 30 to 40 beds the so the First Baptist church was birthed out of
a need right because we needed more beds and so what and are they filled to capacity I think they're only for weather related issues okay so if it's snowing going to have a snowstorm if it's going to be really cold those open
up that's shocking to me so these are just more people that are coming out that they're not at the 50 beds at stepping stone they're not at the 50 beds over at the Tomato Center they're just another the mot rooms too like we added the motel rooms that we would
have Clos yeah you slide it okay thank you there you go right so we started off with the winter beds that um added to the to the first St pin which made us have 50 shelter beds and then we um also do all the intake and screening for the
Tomato Center so we fill those beds um us the Tomato Center um takes care of that we so all the all the homeless people seeking shelter come from them to us or they come from calls and we we sort of put together our
own little winter system to be sure we utilize all the resources that we're able to manage um like proficiently so basically um we had the 50 beds at the first step in we also always have two
male and two female emergency costs for emergency situations that sometimes we need to utilize when everything else is already filled um and until until um until we are able based on funding
that's really all we uh try and we never end our services with the winter beds so the winter beds stay at 50 we don't have an end date for those we try to keep people in because those permanent beds are where we house them and clarifying information I know
everybody's puzzled about some things so so let me just going to stop you right there so you're 50 beds year round we have 50 we have 50 beds that we expand at winter so in November we're usually down to our 30 but we will expand to 50
in November and keep them until we've housed most most of the people or they leave we don't just say it ends here and we go to we go to 30 okay so I think there's that's where the confusion lies because we were fighting for 50 beds or I wouldn't say we I think
the city were looking for for to increase from 30 beds to to 20 add another 20 beds so what you're saying and we'll put on the record is that we're going to stay at the 50 beds we don't have to worry about that decreasing because it looks like we're 100 beds short so we're our goal is to
go to 50 beds year round what we've been doing for the last five years is we don't have an end date to the 50 beds when we open them up in the winter what we do is we don't admit new people until we've housed them and and we tend to get
to 30 right before like octo usually June you see our reports monthly right Mike yeah so usually around June or that's when we start decreasing in beds because it's summer and people go out so you go from like 30 to then you house some when you go to 49 beds and you go
to 48 beds and maybe so but you're not going to keep it at 50 beds that's all that's been our goal for years when we moved down to uh uh dery Street our goal was to have a 50 bed shelter we just didn't have the funding to do it so we've um managed to get different kinds
of fundings and we've gone from 20 to 30 and our goal now is to go to 50 but we keep the 50 as as long as possible okay I I know that that's something that probably had needed a little clarification um and then from uh
December to March we have the 30 tomato beds um so the Tomato Center and the first St bin work very collaborative Le and in the P this is the way the system sort of works we fill our beds first we fill the Tomato because they get
screamed through us and we and we send them there once we get to the 30 as soon as we someone vacate shelter we take them from too so that we keep the resource available for the next person this year we knew we were going
to be in a tough situation and we went for the um State's um shelter capacity expansion Grant which allowed us to um get uh the motel rooms in Dartmouth those motel rooms we actually requested a lot more than just the 10 rooms but so
many people um in throughout Massachusetts requested funding that they asked us to look and re work our budget and ask ask for Less so that's how we got the 10 motel rooms and and we can go we can uh get two people in a motel room the motel rooms have already
um put 34 people in there and the way we're utilizing that so to keep it like sort of efficient and try to always keep the resources and it's a tricky situation to evaluate so every person calling in is is like almost like a mini
assessment because we a low threshold shelter to Mayo is not um we'll I think you can just Define what that means for the public that's listening so basically low threshold is that somebody could apparent
be under the influence it's not a wet shelter but we assess whether an individual is safe for shelter so low threshold means that they're safe and self can self- preses like they can if there's a fire we you know they can get
out they're not in danger of Overdose basically that's what we look for if we're able to um you know have them come in and sometimes they come in and they shortly after they appear like they're overdosing and we call uh 911 and let them come back I um you
had a question Council clarification go ahead so is the First Baptist Church a low thres threshold shelter are they able to go in there if there're is it a wet shelter do we know what they're what they're doing there it's a prayer service first pray service fantastic I'm
on board with that shelter it's not a shelter a lot of so it's a Praying that's right so they're praying all night and they get to fall asleep if they pray a lot right with the paramedic there I love the creative way to care for people okay it's it's what it is
it's a it's a and many of the people so like staff from Seven Hills volunteer their time stepping stone peer-to-peer people volunteer the time we volunteer at time like we're Doug volunteers time so we're as a community making this work because of the need and a lot of
agencies that donate the food and all these things like it's amazing how many step up for that um we don't test we don't do breath wizes or you know as long as we we do regular checks in the bathrooms EMS is on site so even if they're highly intoxicated as long as
they're not a threat to themselves or someone else you let them and that's the tomatoes that's first bapti that's the first bapti well my father was a preacher so I know it is sometimes you fall asleep in praying so it's a perfect needed thing especially during the winter councelor Dion yeah just just for
some more clarification because I'll be honest I'm still a little confused here so this is the way I'm understanding it and and so at the present time you have 50 beds are the 50 beds full yes they are and on and on most nights we have
emergency clots okay and tomato has 30 beds at a full right and you transition them out of tomato if a bed empties where you are you take one from to Mayo then you replace that bed in to Mayo if necessary
y so we're trying to like sort of evaluate who needs what so because we have the motel rooms as well and I understand it comes down to funding so that you need the funding to have 50 beds that's your
goal to have 50 beds year round so what changes I don't I don't even know how to refer to it in the off season that there isn't funding for 50 beds in the warmer weather I don't know how you want to well like we have an annual budget and the annual budget accounts for a winter
Staffing pattern and it accounts for more food and it accounts for more things for those months okay so you divert more funding in the winter ENT your when we're allocating we already sort of project what the winter expense is going to be for the annual budget and
then when you reach that transitional month when somebody leaves you don't fill the bed because it brings it back down to the 30 right okay thank you that I Y yeah and and the motel rooms um so
the the motel room so when somebody calls in the motel rooms are our expansion of shelter but we've actually run to uh across some barriers there as well because um Dartmouth requested that um people do not stay
long uh there and establish residency so we needed to um work on an agreement where they're um you know staying in the motel room for a certain amount of time they'll come to shelter a couple of days in return just to be able
to keep dmouth happy so we can utilize um the uh the you know the motel we haven't had any issues um even though the other day somebody poked a hole in the wall but um we've we've utilized all those rooms
we feed them the case managers go out and we're already working on housing them actually I think we're uh working on WE transport a lot of people back to their community ities where they originated from as well so we've done about six people um in the last couple
of months to to transport back to communities where they're fully connected um we've a lot of the research we've done um when we're screening individuals is also that um they that we have a lot of individuals here in the
community that um have sort of come here because it's affordable more affordable than other communities so a lot of them were doing a lot of Engagement with about where is home um where's
family and that kind of stuff so we're trying to do some of that um but everyone is an assessment so if someone calls and they can and our shelter is full and Tomo has an opening because there's a lot of there's a lot of moving
on actually happening from tomato to the motel to the uh to the thing but we we have to sort of evaluate if they don't have an ID we'll take them and work on an ID but too cannot because you know they're based on volunteers
and that's where we're going yeah council do y do you have another question go ahead in terms of the veterans the five veterans have they been referred to our vso or he's behind you that's why I'm asking sorry I can speak to
that so the veterans that we've encountered we refer to vth just because we've had a previous relationship so they're out of New Bedford but they service our area as well so we have actually we counted as actually nine in the last couple of months that that individual is helping and have they all
um acquired housing no I can't speak on that fully but I know that two are in process as of last week that we referred to Dolly mellow at vth and In fairness um there are some of there there's a couple that for whatever reason don't want to go
into the vth program right whether they've been there or they yeah that happens uh Tor feris director of veteran services one government center so I work very closely with Dolly greay um we've actually been able to house several
individuals and families I'm not loud enough oh okay uh we've been able to house several individuals and families um well over 10 actually um some of those are residing here inside the city limits of Fall River some of those were able to get housed inside of the uh New
Bedford area uh but for the most part we're able to get as much as we can done utilizing Mike Dion's Department uh the CFC and majority of the people sitting around these TBL probably don't even realize uh some of the people that you see come through me or through Dolly um
but we've been able to partner with the vet center over at Pine Street as well utilizing veterans Inc their ssvf program uh and several other things that just try to get people off the street Street uh we've got two individuals right now that have criminal backgrounds
from their many years on the street and substance abuse alcohol abuse that makes it extremely difficult to get them in anywhere uh one of the biggest problems with that particular group is that not only will they have an eviction which is that black mark um a lot of these guys
are actually older now and not really a threat but because of their history it makes it difficult to get them in anywhere um and then you have that small contingent that no matter what you tell them they're not coming because they don't want to deal with the rules over at vth getting sober is a major issue
for some of these guys not everyone okay we want to dispel that myth it's not everyone it's a select few um but with the cooperation of everyone here in this room and some of the folks also not represented we've done large amounts of uh of good work here so I'm grateful for
each and every one of you by the way thank you so with with with the number of homeless that we've had what percentage of those homeless would you think um are the veterans the sliver yeah it's a small
percentage very small I I wish there were more because we can actually connect them to Services much easier but you know what I mean I don't wish no no no I get no no no I understand what you're saying um so how many how many um
in these winter months right now today are still in the encampments have any idea oh God there's a lot still yeah we well with this point in time count I know that we're at least like Mike said it's not finalized Mary's still going through the numbers um and we're
updating stuff but I know it's going to be over50 as far as encampments at least a hundred of those yeah I mean Laura has active numbers because they're coming out of the camps to get the services she has and she counts them so what do you have just for
the since January or whatever so since January for 5 weeks we have now encountered 101 unduplicated wow um homeless so the end of 2024 we have service
323 unduplicated um homeless and I think the trend we saw right with the that shelter day that was really busy is we're seeing people that we've never seen they're from our community absolutely but this is their first time being homeless and there's
I'm this third night when I walked in to bring stuff I was like I don't even know where these people are where's the 40 something that were here last night because yeah there won't even be room for them with all the new people so it just keeps compounding and compounding so just speaking um because I um I I do
um primary care and addiction medicine on the van but also at stars brick and mortar Clinic just yesterday afternoon I had two separate patients in tears they've been housed their entire life in in this area and both are very older and very close to homelessness so that was
out of like eight patients that I saw two of them are on the brink of of homelessness as senior citizens Y and if they don't refuse to leave and they leave they now have an eviction against them and an eviction or a foreclosure on an EV forclosure one thing that I set up
with an O'Neal suer uh Friday was to meet with Mike suer I believe at housing this week because because we are hoping that at least if we can get our trifolds and information to the people that they are they they always give like a second chance before you get evicted with
housing to try to make the payment plan or something so we're trying to get that information to them because a lot of people don't know there's all these Services you know they don't know where to start so uh this week we are actually doing that and I'm supposed to sit and meet with Mike because we are seeing it
a lot I just had somebody that you know they gave them two or three chances and was behind $110,000 and just had no way to come up with it so now he's evicted with nowhere to go you know but they don't come to us till after they're evicted and the
demographics of the older population is like almost doubled in the shelter setting and and they don't always um follow through with what like due process allows them they will say I can't do this I'm evicted I leave I've
had people I've uh you know we've found tons of um all the older population that's coming through that's what's happening they're just leaving because they fail they have they feel they failed it's so it's so sad because you know they're older they've worked they think that um you know they just didn't
do it do you so my here's my concern the shelter has 30 year round beds 50 20 extra as needed beds but we close
and you say that you don't get rid of the beds until a person is placed how long can someone stay in the shelter until they're placed they can stay there until they're placed so you have people there for how long like what's the longest resident
that you have and the problem the reason why that is is because our shelter's in the business of um housing individuals we don't want to cycle people in and out of shelter we want to resolve their homeless Cycles um and
um basically that's our reason for deciding on that operational system um but on an average every year there's an average of about 200 people that are served through that shelter and if you look at the months that we really
operate this the 50 beds it's about seven months so it's not three months I know you know that that's what it feels like because in the winter there's this urgency to be able to you know um get everybody sheltered and we're the shelter provider but um that's the the
truth of it we and and the goal is to get to 50 but 50 is going to be added for uh a few months when when we can do it I do think that's one problem that we discussed though in the past is you know like the need to not cycle them out but
they're also staying for two years plus you know and then obviously that minus people that stay two years and the reason for that each each individual has a story so we had one gentleman um that needed a a birth certificate that was
burnt down in Puerto Rico it took us forever to just get him the birth certificate so that he could get housed that's one gentleman and then we have an older gentleman who I can't do anything about his income and he was evicted from housing he's not going to get subsidized
housing and he get $700 a month so those individuals are difficult to to try try to figure out so those we're trying to get into subsidized housing yeah and that I think is part of the problem is there's not a place to move them either but it does we
all know that it it the residents stay stuck there for a while because there's no place to move them on so really I can't get anyone in if they're not moving on and then there's nowh to move them on you know what I mean so how do we focus on that piece of the next step
for these people of course we don't want them back on the street but we all also do need to figure out a Next Step solution you know so we can get this process functional and the only way to do that is to be able to look at what the housing gaps in the community are
and decide who is who is being left in the cold and who are we not housing um you know it's one of the reasons for years I've been talking about sober living and what you guys have done is amazing because that is contributed to that that population as we're continuing
to battle each day to try to house individuals to try to do all the things that you're all doing together well the one thing that's not changing is that there's more people becoming homeless and the numbers that are becoming homeless is going to grow I've
been doing this for 28 years in 1996 we solved the homeless problem here we opened up several housing and we did we did you know analysis we did analysis of the individuals that were homeless what are their service needs what are their what are the housing
needs we opened up tons of um housing we filled them up and then suddenly we needed shelter because they were it was growing and it kept growing and it kept growing this problem is not going to be solved by having a shelter that is a
rotating door and having them either be safe one night unsafe another night safe one night and unsafe another night it's going to be the only way to solve this is to house them oh I definitely agree with that but on Stephen our side of it like you get
to see the people where they're safe there you know what I mean but once you guys and tomato close the winter part of it and then we start to you start to wean down to 30 that means that for the rest of those months we really can't get anyone in cuz you're going down you know
what I mean it's not that's your yeah that's your you have to follow your process right I'm not put putting it on you guys I'm just saying it's a huge barrier for us in the rest of the months that it's not winter overflow and we only have 30 beds that are full you know
what I mean the rest of the months we struggle to get anyone in yeah so what I'm hearing is that we have the city of Fall River has only 30 permanent sober beds shelter beds and there is 30 but
there really is not 30 because those 30 people have to get placement and so do we don't have enough beds and we call it the we call it the summer months but they're there these are people that are homeless and intense and the boot the people that are the boots on the ground
are in these camps so how many shelter beds would we say we need in well I well right now I can tell you that we need 150 shelter beds I mean it's we need there you go 200 and so
there is a hugee problem with that and we need to um if uh stepping stone cannot raise their beds and they do not have the funding I think we need to go and look at that creative way that you guys are doing things to look at to have
yearr round shelter beds there's just no we can talk in circles people are doing amazing work but the city is hurting there are people that are praying you know 10 hours a night to be able to sleep inside during a snowstorm and it's it's not okay and we need to look at
expanding beds and uh if other agencies want to take that task on and look at that but we have to grow our shelter beds no if ands or butts about it um Talos and so I I want to make sure that I also help paint the picture um a
little bit better so a large portion of the population here from the veteran side of things are the elderly okay um some of these folks have VA disability monies that they get um but that only lasts up until a certain point in time when they start receiving Social
Security and then that that benefit takes a hit um and so if anyone here is well versed in Social Security that's a very fixed income and it no longer covers the cost of rents in this city okay a majority of the phone calls near
the end of the summer going into the winter months that I receive were from that demographic of people people that have lived in affordable apartments and housing for many many many years and then all of a sudden they incrementally
watch their rents go up 100 200 300 $500 and now they can't afford their rent food lights and gas they just can't do it and like she spoke of earlier they're older they're not used to having to go through a bunch of changes and
when they see all the paperwork coming in that they're being forced out of their home for whatever reason they pick the paperwor they look at it and they say you know what I can't do this and they make their way to those shelters and they don't realize there's other resources out there um and some of these
people have cars so they choose to stay in the car because they can afford that payment and they try to make it by living in their car they go into the shelters they go into CFC the vet center to get get food pantry and things like that just to try and make it through the
rest of the year until they can figure out a way to solve that problem that is something that will not change that fet population is going to continue to get older here and it's going to continue to be an issue as long as rents do not come down so um and do you have anything you
want to add councilor I feel like I'm going out on a limb a little bit but I'm I'm as I'm listening I'm thinking and so we do have some homeless people that do have some form of income okay part of our problem
is you can't get enough funding what does it C round rough and tough one person one month to house and feed in in these um shelters well so the the real problem is
staff is Staffing uh a shelter safely so the ratio that the shelter sort of guidance says is that you have a ratio of for 10 individuals one person
I don't so well I guess what I'm getting at and this is where I say maybe I'm going out in a limb and people are going to think I'm nuts or something but so if we had a population of people who are homeless who do have some form of income and were and we established a
shelter where they contributed to in addition to the funding they contribute money which makes it more viable to have your staff and have more B heads so we're not putting the full
responsibility on them but we would be adding to the amount of funding and it would relieve some of the problems that exist I mean would that make any sense brand idea is this like a mix of like section eight and like an SRO or something or a boarding house and like a
Section 8 model or something I guess we could call we could name it whatever we want because it's a brand new con but to me I'm sitting there thinking it's a no-brainer you know if you're short if you if if you can h house 30
people and they can each contribute $300 a month that's considerable yeah so it's a it's actually not a Brand New Concept there are a couple of places that um from the veteran side of things there's a place of improvidence I can't think of the name of it right now I think bth
uses a portion of this as well where they have folks in their program or in their temporary housing that are contributing a portion of their income to stay where they are so it's not a brand new concept and I absolutely think that is something that we should
Explorer yeah would be brand new to Fall River so is that something we can do Mike are you looking at me you're the Creator you're the Creator but no but but legitim all that's what we're that's what we're doing um with
with the with the purchase of a rooming house you're you're making a person responsible for their rent um um at a very low cost okay um those tenants when you start charging people rent they have
rights okay so to to turn a shelter into a permanent support of housing program I don't think that's something we need to do okay um we have permanent Supportive Housing now I have about 200 units in the city that's scattered um that's why
we decided to look at the boarding house and to have 25 units available so that we could take people out of the shelter and put them in a in in a lowc cost environment that's what they need they
need a lowcost environment you need need the rents to be cheaper or you need a subsidy those combination of or or they need to go back to work or you you you need to have a better job one of those I mean it's it's either an income or a
cost item you increase the the person's income decre go ahead so so um it's something I'm not going to tell you we're not trying we're we're going to try it it's going to happen I mean um those PE you
know you feel bad the days of the days of a $750 apartment are over oh that's not going to happen anymore um uh those those apartments now for a one-bedroom apartment we're talking you know $
131,00 so we have to find low low cost or or or a subsidy one of the things too right so we only we don't have a lot of rooming houses right so if there was an incentive to have more rooming houses by the city whether that's a tax break or
whatever that might encourage more people to you know or I don't even know how many rooming house licenses we have issued in the city I don't think there's many in new Beford they have a ton in far we don't have many so that's we're already behind the eightball on that one but also the permanent support of housing M talking about we have all
those units but these are people who own these buildings who decide I want to be part of this right so giving may be thinking it from the back end give them incentives to say I own a three tenement I you're essentially leasing the building out to the people who are overseeing that whether that's Catholic
Social Services or not but it would give if we as a community we hear it on social media everybody's up in arms we're not doing enough this isn't happening and I think a lot of them don't know what's happening which is why this is great but if they knew hey maybe I can be part of the solution and I'm going to get a tax break I don't know
like I'm not political I don't know how this all works but it just seems to me as a simplified process if I owned a building and you told me I'm going to get some sort of incentive to be part of the solution maybe I'm going to be and it's not just we're throwing people in your building who are going to make a mess we're putting people in your
building who are going to have more services than any of your other tenants whatever Happ it's just a thought you know like counil a lot of the L no they won't refuse they won't refuse housing they won't want to stay in a tent right what I see what I see right now with my
office is there's a lot of investors there's a lot of people who are coming in who can do so much better a in terms of market rate housing than affordable housing yeah so you know when when you can get like I
said6 ,700 for for a two-bedroom they're taking that they're not going with my programs um I've seen that happen i' our first time home buyers have gone down to nil I mean I haven't been able to help a person um
it's very challenging out there um uh I don't have an answer I I I appreciate we have three minutes left um do you yield councelor so um the good news is and why we're talking about this is because you guys are meeting
regularly uh Steph you meet every the last Thursday every month we have a Street Homeless Coalition so it's the people who are really boots on the ground who are coming and we're trying to figure out Solutions at that ground level every Thursday every Thursday this is being worked on talked about you have
this last Thursday last Thursday of the month and we hosted at good sheards church Parish 3 P.M last Thursday of the month and you have your city that's involved in that your City Electric you have all everybody that you need so it's being worked on it's being talked about
I do think that um we need to look at um opening those shelter beds but I I do appreciate the work that you do you people are in the camps doing a lot of work and I greatly appreciate that you hopped in um you got work can I just add one thing you you
got like 30 seconds that that's good I'm I'm thinking when you spoke up about like an out of the box idea um another out of the box idea is to really get a working group together and figure out what the data tells us does the data
tells us we need 100 beds for shelter 200 beds for shelter does it tell us the people that are housed priced out of housing does it tell us all of that because then you can actually make a good point my recommendation is you have a working group that's meeting and the
data iscome so I would join that working group get the data from Mike and um do that it just makes more sense than just talking about it yeah well I think there the the action is there and they have the numbers so um
perfect thank you guys for coming I'm so sorry I just I wanted to say something earlier and I didn't have a chance just really quickly um I I very much believe in long-term Solutions um but this winter has just been so tough um I think Steph has seen this as well in terms of toes with frostbite with Gang Green um
there are people who can't wait who need shelter um I think most of them have kept most of their toes so far through the help of um South Coast hospital and and St an's but um it it's really been just so brutal on on people's bodies this winter Dr Myers and I want to thank you personally for the work that you're
doing out in those camps you are doing amazing work with the people in there I I greatly appreciate the work that you do um with that motion to adjourn second adjourned thank you all in [Music]
favor other is's probably don't Part: 2
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we call the Road Council is kadim Dion here Hart here Kilby here Perera Pony here raposo here Samson here president CRA here before we begin I just want to note that Council kadim and Council prayer won't be attending tonight's meeting they have further
commitments um and one's not feeling well se's sick yes pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised such recordings or
Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present not deemed acknowledged and permissible motion to open the public hearing second motion to open the public hearing has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed public hearing is now
open item um item number one is John D Costa 209 Adam Street for removal of curbing as follows at 209 Adam Street the existing opening is 20 ft curb to be removed is 8 ft there is no curb to be
added combined opening proposed after alteration is 28 ft the existing parel is currently serviced by a 20ft curb opening the applicant proposes to extend the existing opening by an additional 8 ft the total opening for the location will be 28 ft it should be noted that
the driveway apron within the right of way shall be concrete Pavements of any kind are not allowed within the right of way are there any proponents to this public hearing any proponents seeing no are there any opponents to this public hearing any
opponents seeing none we move on to item number two ICC Investments LLC 78 Melvin Street for the removal of curbing as follows at 146 18th Street existing opening is 24 feet 6 in on Orchard
Street curb to be removed is 15 ft on 18th Street there is no curb to be added combined opening proposal after alteration is 39 ft 6 in the existing fil is coverly serviced by a 24t 6 in curve opening on Orchard Street the
applicant proposes to create a new 15ot opening on 18th Street the total opening for the location will be 20 39 feet 6 in are there any proponents to this public heing any proponents seeing none are there any
opponents to this public heing seeing none we move move on to item number three elen Cino soua 371 High View Avenue sumerset
Mass doing business at CNA Auto Body for a license to operate an auto body shop at 83 mberry Street on lot 1-5-6 zero on the assessence plans there are restrictions with this public public
hearing for the license are there any proponents for this public hearing any proponents at all seeing none are there any opponents to this public hearing any
opponents seeing none we move on to item number four which is capital Improvement plan five-year Capital Improvement plan are there any proponents to this public
if they want to see okay what was that please state your name and what the wi for the record uh Bridget Alman uh director of financial services Seth aen City
administrator counc to you have your hand raised you want to ask question yes um I actually have quite a list of things here um I was actually quite dismayed when I went through this Capital
Improvement plan and I'll explain my comment so on what would be I guess page 10 we're looking at 1500 GPM fire engine FY 26 another one in FY
28 another one in fy3 to replace East and West windows at centa station total is 68 Windows replace windows at the globe 44 windows and this
is we had 70 million dollar in arer funding and I know there's nothing we can do about it and I know it's people might want to call it spilled milk but I can't help but the fact that it upsets me so we had wants and we had needs that
we used Opera funding for we had a want that was a four million want and completely disregarded a 3,832 $800 need the need being the three
fire engines and all of the windows so instead down the road we're going to dip into the taxpayers pockets again which was completely unne necessary we're going to use CDA funding we're going to bond we're going to use CPA monies we
could have paid for all of this and had money left um when when we first got Opera funding the turnaround time if you ordered a fire engine was somewhere between 12 and 18 months at this point from what I
understand the turnaround time is two to three years I have no idea what this is how old is I how old is I our newest fire engine so we can call the fire chief down to to give the most accurate information but I will say um that one
of the limitations on arpa funding um precluded us from buying fire engines which is why even when we had the arpa funding we we did go through CDA but we could buy police cars we could buy ambulances so the police cars uh would have been under um curbing uh firearm
violence so everything we bought the arpa director uh coordinator had to find a category that it would fit in and then get it accepted um so unfortunately for reasons that I don't totally understand because fire has legitimate needs um
there were things that there just were no category even with the most creative way of describing it that we could fit those into fire engines was one of them I can also Jeffrey bacon just we know who you are but just name so uh one of the reasons that we
this is spaced out is because we are not in need of a fire engine today right so um we we spaced it out so that we can have a replacement plan of the fire engines moving forward so that we're not
purchasing six fire engines every 20 years and running them to the point that they become um mechanical issues and repair nightmares so going forward we would like to have a spaced out program where every 5 years
four years were're purchasing a fire engine so it wouldn't have been prudent to purchase them all with oper money even if it was available because that would that's kind of what we've been doing for the last 20 years is buying them all at once when CDA money becomes available so one of one of our plans was
to kind of space this out okay so it would have been over a four-year period and with the turnaround time it would have taken years to get all the engines um yeah well here the other thing is we just replaced our Fleet in
1718 so during the the span of arpa money it wouldn't we wouldn't have been looking for three apparatus so what's the useful life of of a fire engine so traditionally we've gotten about 20 to 25 years out of a fire engine front line
um from everything that uh other Fire Chiefs are telling me from other communities um and uh apparatus mechanics are telling me the these newer fire engines aren't going to last that long just for a lot of reasons there's a lot more uh electronics in them there's
a lot more just like your car there's a lot more that can go wrong in them except this is a 25 ton piece of apparatus that's driving through the city of Fall River and stopping and going it's pretty much the roughest miles you can put on an apparatus and asking and and we do a lot of fires and
a lot of you say t not to interrupt you well when you say 20 years we're talking end of life so you wait end of life to replace we're talking about 20 years front line and then five to seven years we try to get out of them uh as as ready
Reserve apparatus uh before we retire them um so I highlighted it so it shouldn't be hard to find so we could purchase electric vehicles for department heads but we
couldn't purchase fire engines correct I can't wrap my head around that neither could I in fact when I first got here um within a couple six months or so did a tour of all the firehouses and one of the things that became clear is um there was this emerging question about pasas
and the gear um and so we we started to look into could we use arpa money to buy new gear for all the firefighters um and even that uh didn't fall into a category that arpa allowed uh I don't know whether it's a hole in how they created arpa or or what it was
never remedied at all uh it was never changed it went through so many variations uh that one was never really changed it was fire apparatus fire gear was never part of what ARA could really be used for um you know maybe you could slip one by them uh but it just you know
with the way we did arpa we could never get anything like that qualified and they wouldn't have comeing in time and then that the other piece is the more sort of uh functional technical piece is that given the amount of time we had to spend the arpa we wouldn't have been
able to actually get what four years um don't we have till December 31st 2025 to to identify where we're spending it and December 31st 2026 to expend the money yes but if the fire trucks don't come in by then then you'd have to then just return the money to
the government because you wouldn't have if you can't expend it by then and the backlog but you couldn't use it for fire trucks anyways but the backlog of it is if you can encumber it but the cash actually has to be out the door by next December correct so correct most likely the way the fire trucks or the way
they're ordered in the backlog of it you most likely wouldn't have been able to actually had the cash go out the door in time and if that happened then you'd just be giving the money back to the feds so our first allotment came in 2020 or
2021 not until 21 I believe it came I think just before I got here so it went in 21 2021 it's not a 5year around I don't you know what there's no point in going round and round and back and forth I get it um so one of the arer items was a top
mount pumper truck [Music] forestry truck was that purchased with ARA yeah so that was purchased by EMS in arpa then yeah so that because that had a potential ambulance component uh it could be used out in the forest in the reservation I think that's how we were
able to get that one qualified I'd have to look just I you're you know I'm I'm committing the cardinal sin of trying to answer a question uh you know without uh a little preparation but um that's what I would guess that was yeah because there were four um EMS Acquisitions with
arpa funding um air quality improvements met cat ambulance medical rescue vehicle silent dispatch system um so yeah that's definitely listed as the fire department well with in any event that
was my dismay um and the other thing I'd like to point out we went back and forth with this I have it right here 76,000 in change from the globe fire station that we repurposed and we're using it in the parking garages I know we've had uh that
discussion on multiple occasions so now in our Capital Improvement plan we need 44 windows at the globe fire station for $224,400 well that number could have been reduced by almost
$77,000 again tax payer dollars um I don't know why during discussions that that that those didn't come up that we were going to be needing the windows um I'm going to move on to page
11 so cost versus lease I see that EMS is going to be leasing a lot of vehicles um is there that much of a cost savings with that huge cost savings um the deputy chief I believe actually she may
not be here um significant cost savings uh purchase versus lease um also because of the the operational tempo of EMS those vehicles are going you know 24/7 um so a lease purchase agreement
actually and they basically begin to uh show their wear fairly quickly um the idea is that we do lease to purchase them I think we do it on a two-year sometimes a three-year lease uh and then we're able to purchase and then sell them back credit against other vehicles
so it's kind of a pipeline um that they have going and it does save EMS significant money uh to do that it's essentially just a short-term loan but long term it will it's it's going to be more cost effective it already is yeah it's much more cost
effective to rather than purchasing them outright because these are 500,000 and up vehicles um and that's you know the the actual build is always a custom build uh because of how ambulances are are built there's only a few suppliers that do what we need them
to do uh there's not a ton of uh uh not a ton of Supply out there for ambulances and what's the difference between a lease and Lease F the Frontline medical rescue and uh our our leases and then they have two
Frontline medical rescues lease uh no Squad yeah and a front yeah medical rescue lease and then then uh parenthesis F why is there a designation you know I'm not positive we can ask the uh the EMS Chief and I'm sure they'd be
able to I can find out I don't I don't know the answer to that okay the other two things I have with the EMS are um number 14 storage building at the center uh storage building center Station Renovations $1.1
million again that couldn't have been done with some other type of funding rather than we're going to have to go out to bond that was what you so you approved that Bond that's part of that whole project that was approved um so the 3.2 million that's part of that yes okay so that 3.2
is going to cover this so we aren't going to go out and bond for it there's not a new Bond of 1.1 or whatever it's this the 3.2 covers that entire thing okay um because it shows over a five year
period or sixe period all right the other thing we had a lot of discussion on was initially it was a two point believe a $2.7 million Bond before it was increased to the 3.2 it was we're going to put a metal building up at the
main fire uh at Central no we're not now we're going to move into the central fire station you know what I mean when I'm saying um now on here it's showing two uh 1.5 million for an EMS metal building yeah this is the same as the
conversation we had a few weeks ago where um and you remember months ago I had asked the council to approve the bond um but I I identified two locations one was the remediation Rehabilitation of the center fire station and the other
was a location that I at that point didn't have the authority to discuss um and it was the old Auditorium from dery um the idea there was to to actually create um kind of an emergency management facility and facilities for EMS up there
at that point there hadn't been the appropriate discussions with other stakeholders in that building including the school department to be able to put that out publicly um so at that point the council said no we're not going to agree and I think uh council rep
pelleter you know said I was a liar or whatever um and uh well that really stuck with me I guess um and that's right it was even in the in his retirement movie but that's neither here
nor there bottom line is um that changed so the the pivot was um rather than try to shoehorn what EMS needed into um the the old Auditorium up there they could do the metal space building up behind
the fire headquarters as well as the uh the refurbishments at the center station so that's consistent with what I I explained a couple weeks months ago when I asked about the bond okay so my last recollection and understanding and maybe shame on me I'm wrong and and
misinterpreted the conversation was the 3.2 million was going to be re to refurbish sent to station yes do a lot of repairs etc etc and we no longer were going to have a metal building that the
metal building was off the table now I don't know what anybody else thought and I'd like to know but my understanding was the metal building was off the table so we were going to have use the 2.7 from that original plan add another 500,000 for a total 3.2 to do everything
house everything and fix Central Station accordingly that was my understanding um I apologize if if if I wasn't clear and led you to that understanding um what I had presented to the council was there's two projects in
that single Bond um three Hustler MOA Replacements what page I thought that was already a done deal as well we had the discussion about that and what we heard was well we're debating do we want gas powered or do we
want battery powered because the battery powered are cheaper and that's what we're trying to figure out and that was going to be funded through oper and I also believe the park Department already paid for a lawn mow that I don't know if they've received it
yet so I was a little confused and I mean it's $35,000 does that need to go on a capital Improvement plan so this is uh just page 14 just to make sure that's okay um and this is FY
28 and FY 29 MH okay um so there were hustler mowers in the arpa probably last year I'm thinking um and this would be to replace further parts of the fleet uh because they
they've got multiple Hustler and other mower so did we did we purchase and receive three hustler mowers with arpa funding I don't think we received them but yes they were they were part of arpa they're part of the purchase I don't know where they stand in the receiving
um you know mowing grass I expect they'll be in play this spring when the grass starts to grow uh but these are something different uh these are additional mowers to continue replacing and refreshing the fleet so we don't have to do it all at once and then my last comment and I'm
sure you'll be so glad um this kind of baffled me so I I understand and this is on the school side I understand that playgrounds are important um we have two schools um for playground Improvement
improvements one one uh we're looking at $1.2 million but down further down this list is asbest removal at the resiliency
school and installation of fire suppressions but that's not happening until FY 2027 why would we put playgrounds before asbestos removal and fire suppression in a school that children attend every day
so I think that's a question for the school department and come just want to remind my colleagues they are the proponents in this open hearing I know some of you raised your hands and want to speak on it but I at one point I'd like to hear the proponents of why they're in favor
of this this was my last question and statement Pico do you want to answer that good evening Kim Pico for public schools um so if you look up and down um if I put my glasses on I may be able
to actually read the document but if if you look up and down the document you will find that there is a multitude of items such as um what you are looking at maybe I don't
have my glasses so um the fire could you please speak into the microphone the the um bares maybe see looks all right um the the first of all the RPA is
undergoing quite a bit of work currently the RPA is undergoing um quite a bit of work um currently we're putting in um $8 million worth of Windows in that building um about a year and a half ago we replaced boilers all the new
roofs so it's an ongoing project and um the reason for the Staggering of this work is is a functioning building so there's some work I can't do I to inconvenience the building one right after another right after another so
there the district has 18 and a half buildings um that we are trying to upgrade and playgrounds are one of the major pieces so we've spent a little over $2 and A5 million dollars on playgrounds so far at four of our
schools and that process is going to continue um other than dery High School in Morton we don't have any more new schools our schools are 20 years old 22 years old even though some of them just come off the the borrowing um they are already re going to be needing roofs
things like that so the reason for the RPA piece to answer the the ASB bestus piece and the fire suppression is that both of those are very intrusive work that can't be done over the summer um so we are spacing out the work
doing Windows this year um after that we would be looking to try and get some of that other work done but it it cannot be all be done at the same time and it's it's not a point of priority because the the list is made up of priorities that there's not a lot of
things on this particular spreadsheet that isn't a priority both of those items are high priority um but they are being spaced out so that we can have an opportunity to do the work um and not put the building um and the students out
of place cuz I don't have any swing space and I do understand their priorities yes but when I look at the nature of the priorities I understand the fact that it's ASB bestus the fact that it's fire suppression um that just for me is it it
was serious no I agree I agree and and it's which is why it is on here and and um there are a a bunch of other ADA Compliant pieces that the building requires um and all of those items are
are being spread out so that we can keep functioning in that building moving students up and downstairs the the fact that the building is watertight right now um with the half watertite as far as the roof goes but those windows are going to take care of the rest of the envelope and once that work is done now
the building the boilers were not concerned with there's a while where we had temporary heaters you know to keep that building alive um so as all of those things are happening um in RPA it's a it's a 55 to70 million
renovation project for a 100 year old and something year old building and it it has to be placed in this in this method and some of that work obviously we're trying to get everything done that we possibly can through msba funding where the city is getting 80% of that
paid for um by the state we're trying to spread that work out um and some of it obviously isn't covered fire suppression and um the um abatement is not under msba okay thank you with that I yield thank you coun I'm sure there a safety concern with the students and the
teachers as well in the building councel seat six counc P you yeah Mr President I'll allow the administration to do their presentation I think you have one quickly and then I'll reserve my questions after I do have a question for the chief but I'll wait until after they give their appre fair enough CC thank you Council SE 7 do you want to wait as
well just a quick question to Mr Pico if I could um on the bottom of that page it mentions a new pre- of 5 Elementary School to be named yes can you just elaborate on that a little bit so um the district is is
always cognizant of the fact that the population is is fluctuating in the city and currently we are getting concerned um that um as I just said we don't have a lot of Swing space I don't have
options so with 251 being put into play and that new building it it allowed us to um take allowed us to open up a building that used to be an elementary school which is the westall and move the stone school to
that new building um by opening up the two of those buildings we have taken the edge off of last year and and this year we don't see this major population growth but what we're concerned with is size of
classrooms so we're always looking to get classrooms class size reduction has always been a priority probably for the last last eight years and as we fix few two or three buildings we have two or three buildings that start to bubble and we do have a couple of
bubbles in our lower grades and we know that that they do have a tendency to work their way out by by middle school but not always so looking ahead um and and looking in in the area of class size reduction
somewhere along the line um if we go back to the report um that was generated in the late '90s um that report had all of the construction in the city we fell short by one building building one new
building um in the city to complete that report everything else has been built um and there is one more building that needed to be built the ideal location would have been downtown um but um there's really not a lot of space
downtown so we do have the the globe Street property that used to be the stone stone school that's been closed for quite some time it's it's a large enough piece of property to put a 600 student Elementary School two to three stories depending on how it lays out
we'd like to maintain the old building so as a centerpiece work around that build from that particular piece that building is over a 100 years old um it is um relatively good shape considering its age uh and um the site in the South
End would work for us we have two schools that that are on edges you know we have the 2501 that's on a a property Edge it doesn't have a lot of population to the South plenty of population to the north we have Henry Lord zero population
more or less to the South plenty of population to the north so what this would allow us to do is put a second Elementary um and it may have other by then we may be evolving into other things the district is always looking at different models um but for sure um
class size reduction is always going to be something that we need to strive for and um building an elementary school on that site um it's a site that's not on the tax rols now so we're not looking to take a piece of property and disrupt you know numbers it's a piece of property
that is already um in the control so to speak between the city and and the school department and um with that being said it was which is why it's there uh there's a small dollar amount that that's um in fy2 7 um and and the reason for that is
that's the feasibility study so what we'd be doing is um we wouldn't be applying this year but if this is something that the school department um and and the school committee wish to um get engaged into we would be looking to do that um feasibility study or
application next year and um if we're fortunate to uh get chosen then we would be moving ahead a process is about 6 years 7 years depending on on um how quickly things are and um the guesten is
based on an escalation um that we've built into it um so we think we're going to be pretty close with that number however until the feasibility study is is uh completed we really don't have that hard number that's I think you question so so then just to clarify
again so that is a new build but 2501 is not on this list at all so is not 2501 is already in our 2501 is already being occupied by us okay but there's no Capital Improvements for that building it's completed it's good okay thank you thank you counc you want to present
proceed with your presentation then the council can ask questions afterwards sure okay so I think we're all um aware of why we look at building a cal Improvement plan um we work with all the departments because we want to create
and and preserve all the spaces besides building new infrastructures we also want to be able to maximize all of our resources to sustain the public infrastructure that attracts the development the purpose of a CIP is to build um to systematically address all
of our Capital needs in forecasting infrastructure and public services over a 5e horizon it will play a crucial role in ensuring sustainable development and maintaining of essential City assets such as roads public facilities and sewer systems through careful vetting of
proposed capital projects we aim to optimize our funding allocations and project timelines I think we all know that there's a lot of work that needs to be done and there's limited resources and so every year even though we we do it out five years but every year we sit down and we're still focusing on that
year what we can do and what finances and funding is available um so the capital budget is derived from the capital Improvement plan outline specific projects that will commence in the upcoming fiscal year it is important to note that while some projects begin in a single year and as you know many of them will spend over
multiple years the city's commitment to investing in facilities equipment and vehicle underscores its focus on delivering highquality services and supporting the community it's a strategic approach to capital investment and it's essential not only for maintaining Current public infrastructures but also for enhancing our overall Community
well-being so we have several funding strategies um free cash it can be put into the operating budget or using stabilization funding all of which require city council approval and that is generally used for reoccurring equipment purp purposes and those are linked to usually specific City
Department goals there is state and federal funding available this chapter 90 funds um hopefully the governor's budget that will come down and will have significant uh increases to chapter 90 funding the msba funding which is used for the schools which Mr Pico referenced
um we're all very aware we try to use um cdbg funds for what those can be used for the state will earmark funds for specific things generally like parks and some specific spots and the CPA Community preservation funding we do have some loan forgiveness
programs that we try to work with mostly that's water and sewer and the last thing that we try to um use as the last resort is our bond authorization and we have slowed down our we did do new we did no new money borrowing for the general fund this year the the only new
borrowing was Enterprise funds so to try to give us to give the city some room so the first is the police Improvement plan um and this was done um with the police department they you know they looked at what they had requested in the prior
Capital Improvement plans and they have now um made some adjustments I don't know I think the intent is to try to put theirs in the budget again that might be difficult as we as you start to look at your 26 operating budget I don't know if any counselors have any questions on
police if we want to just kind of stop and go we keep going we keep going less questions at the end and the fire department budget which we did touch on just a little bit again every year the fire chief works with his um departments all of the fire stations and they work
together to come up with what their needs are uh EMS I will note that so Em's plan all of the Em's plan is paid for by Enterprise funds so that is not hitting like your operating budget or your tax
dollars and we have um the planning in the engineering department which is most of theirs is funded through uh chapter 90 funding and then we have um the city operations Capital Improvement plan so again we noted the EMS building which that will be paid for with um the
Enterprise fund funding and paying for that Bond there's a bulock street metal building that's estimated and fiscal 27 and then some other small equipment P purchases we have Capital Improvements for City operations listed again some
these are very just needs needs based with some uh equipment we have the parks department again that has been paired down to just try to keep you know needs based and keep things um moving along in
their budget and then again with schools which did go two pages so at this point all of the Esra funds have been utilized and I um any remaining projects will be either funded with the school operating budget or from City bonding for large projects so altogether there's over two
and a half million in projects identified for fiscal 26 excluding identified Enterprise funding ex also excluding chapter 90 and known grants this will need to be uh kept in mind as you start building the general fund budget and that is the end of our
presentation thank you counc coun yeah thank you Mr President thank you for your presentation um so first off can can you give me a little bit of a in the public a little bit of a update in terms of how the fire
department and EMS work in collaboration from a budget perspective is there any or are you working as two separate departments we work essentially as two separate departments and the fire department in no way shape or form is able to Leverage
the EMS when it comes to their Enterprise account correct correct the exception of just the EMS Department buying ambulances and whatnot right that that's all done through the Enterprise account correct so yes but then the city so there's indirect costs that are charged to Enterprise funds that comes
back to the general fund right okay so here's my question I'm looking at the EMS uh projections um well before I get into that in Prior fiscal years I know that in the fiscal year that we're in now you started Ed to add some more Capital needs into the operating budget
previously you pulled a lot of that out because you had the ability to use oper money to fund a lot of the capital needs correct correct in the fiscal year that we're in now is there more Capital that was included in the budget or is 2026 going to be the year uh or future years
that we're going to really start seeing 2026 2026 okay so that explains the reason why if you look at the future plans for each and every single Department that an FY 26 we're starting to see a lot more Capital needs in
comparison to the Future 5 years like if I look at EMS I look at police I look at fire does that tell you that the needs are more demanding now than they're going to be in five years no I mean so there was still Capital being purchased there was a there was the ability to use arpa funding so it was used I understand
that that which allowed you know some easement on the budgets right I think it's just the cycle of how when they're they're going to need these particular needs and that's just how it's falling all right I've always had this crazy idea I've I've spoke to you about this
Chief I believe when it comes to it drives me crazy that if you are to sell a single family a five family a three family or a six family you are going to have a an inspection done and you're going to charge that seller or that
homeowner $100 $50 $75 however if you have a 40,000 ft facility anywhere in the city of forever that requires to have sprinkler systems and it needs to be in compliance they get charged zero M nothing the fire department goes in looks at their sets
of plans doesn't need to issue a certificate correct we actually wouldn't even be involved in the sale right you wouldn't be involved in was a change of occupancy right redesigning of a system in that case it does generate uh plans review generates um generates a bill
generates a permit understood but if but there but again if I have a 40,000 foot facility correct I don't I am not required in the city of Fall River to call a fire department we are not involved in the sale okay do you know or if you can have you spoke to other Chiefs and I'm gon to get to my point on
why I'm ask I'm going to say this uh in terms of what other cities and towns do for similar commercial transactions so I have not I'm more than happy to um and I can I could find that out it would probably be like a New Bedford T
Brockton um but this this comes down to cmrs an ordinance right no and we'll work on that's our job that's our that's our that's what we can do to help so so and I I don't care if we're the first ones to start it in the state right but so here's my thoughts every single year
every year and in the next five years 10 years we're always going to be tasked with the with the daunting task as a legislative body the fire department needs more fire trucks and then we're all going to sit there depending on the financial outcome that we have and say I don't know if we can do it maybe we can or we need to use onetime money in case
there's an urgent need within your department Department why not utilize commercial real estate transactions and charge a fee and that money be put in a revolving account for the for the primary specified use to
purchase and maintain fire equipment so it's interesting uh Seth and I had a discussion today like really ground level of uh my fire prevention fees roughly $350,000 a year go to fund so
Seth and I were um just spitballing today just really base level of how we could generate more funds and have that go towards apparatus replacement and repair saying that for years um so I think that there's an Avenue to do that
and I I just it's obviously one a union issue right and two my fire prevention Bureau is strapped what is the union issue uh well just because my fire prevention Bureau is trapped right so putting more of a workload on fire
prevention on those inspectors um I would need to bolster the fire prevention Bureau which kind of contradicts once you stop paying salaries sure the money that you're going to bring in or I would have to have my line
firefighters do some of those inspections District Chiefs District Chiefs uh listen Frontline officers engine company officers would have to take up some of the slack from the what I'm trying to do chief is to try to find a creative Innovative way where we could stop
having these every 5year discussions the fire department needs more apparatus and we don't know how we're going to pay for it our CFO clearly articulated and I believe what she's saying when she says in her presentation that we have here the city will continue to face
substantial Capital needs with limited resources available the city must be strategic in prioritizing not only do we need to be strategic in prioritizing we need to be in ative and creative to try to find different ways where we can raise funds to help offset some of the
expenses that we have so if I if I may I would like um to ask the administration to work with the chief to do some kind of a study to see what other cities and towns are doing from a commercial perspective and you can identify commercial as six plus units anything
industrial anything commercial and let's have a discussion with the council about trying to find ways to increase fees because you know if you're selling a a a industrial building for $15 million or a million charging x amount for that sale to go through to go to your fire
department to make sure that your building is safe I don't think it's a crazy ask when you're asking for a homeowner who's selling their house for $250 to give a75 or $100 fee to the fire department for them to go into your dwelling check all the smokes and make sure your cosos are done I'm not saying
that that isn't something that we should stop I'm saying that it should be Universal and fair all across the board so I'd like to do that with the primary focus the primary focus is to have a reserve account set aside for fire department apparatus that needs to be where we're at because we need to stop
pulling away from utilizing our our our budgets when it comes to to these things in my opinion and and I I know we have no choice because we either have to use free cash stabilization or we have to budget I also recognize that budgeting putting Capital back in your operating
budgets which has hasn't been in for the last 3 or four years is also going to be a daunting task going into next fiscal year um so if you can do that um maybe hopefully by the next quarterly update or by budget season if you can get back to us I'd really like to see what this council could do to help the fire
department um EMS um I recognize that that that Enterprise account is a revenue generator obviously um and I'm noticing that in FY 26 you're expecting to raise
uh or or lease to some degree $1.4 million explain what lease is again under financial services financial sources I'm sorry oh um so the there's a there's a lease to purchase so many times they'll do a
capital lease yeah where they'll do it over two to three years and it's not just EMS I mean a lot of municipalities utilize that for they'll they'll do fleet vehicles for police and buy do them like that so they've used that as a way to get new
trucks and then keep the payments so that they can budget them it like fits in their budget so they can keep routinely replacing what they need to replace and it fits in their budget so if if you have something like Frontline medical rescue for $200,000 is that the cost of the
payments for multiple vehicles or is it just one no that's that's payments on multiple Vehicles payments on multiple Vehicles so how many front line medical rescues are you expecting an FY 26 for $200,000
leasing I think that's only one that's two so the FY 26 estimated cost for adding two Frontline medical rescues is the 193 475 um I believe that actually includes
ongoing leases in 26 um in addition to that because if you look down Frontline medical rescue um and it says six of them it's a lower amount 175 471 um not all Frontline medical rescues
are the same there's some more compact vehicles uh there's fullsize rescues there's these these kind of I don't even know how to describe them but it's somewhere between kind of a contact truck with a utility body and a fullsize
rescue um so those could those could be various different kinds of vehicles uh important to to note um that um starting in October of this year uh EMS um came to an agreement with Charlton Hospital
to to be the primary on all their returns um which is kind of a critical need um folks coming out of the hospital being returned to whether it's a rehab or their home um or going to another facility um our EMS um unit part of the
mih is doing that work um mih is mob mobile Integrated Health just to not engage in too many acronyms um the thing about the mobile Integrated Health is not only are they doing that but there's also a home visit program for people that can't get to the hospital they don't have transportation it's a
significant number um of people living in the city um they do vaccines for school children there there's a whole bunch of non 911 services they're providing this is all part of that expansion and that's going to bring Revenue in in approximately how much uh
I don't have that number of the top of my head you're but you're expecting additional revenue for that Enterprise account I am however uh home visits are not covered um so that's something that is is being done just because it's it's really the right thing to do there's an earmark that Senator rodri's helped with in order to get that program started um
the returns which there is revenue generated from that is going to help fund uh the home visits because we we just have a need in the city and if anybody's everever tried to get a primary care physician in the last year it's almost impossible to get in to see anybody so okay on a capital needs
perspective um within with our fire departments is EMS through their budget or the fire department budget allowed to assist or have they assisted with upgrading and updating and maintaining the fire buildings that some of them stationed in so there are some things that EMS has done I think it would be
disingenuous to say they've done nothing right they did contribute to I'm not saying that the high speed doors no no I but I I I think I think it's important to note that one um I urge the mayor to pull the out of fire because I wasn't confident that we were managing the Enterprise fund correctly not to say
that anything untour was going on but it did seem to me that they were being leveraged in a way that didn't allow the city to have any real transparency as to what the Enterprise fund was generating this is not under this Chief I know what the Enterprise fund was generating and how that money was being used um it was
it it was a concern to me that we had an Enterprise fund within a department and that we didn't really have transparency as to where that money was going as a result of that um EMS has continued to assist in certain ways probably not at the same level because there's
certainly more um ownership that they have over what they're doing more Direction uh but at the same time they've also been able to grow and make moves like the the Charlton uh piece that I think do does uh benefit the residents of the city M I'm just curious
are the EMS individuals who are in EMS stationed in our fire departments they are and they pay a they pay an indirect to fire for that but not is it Ade is the indirect so they can pay so when you have an Enterprise fund so they can pay for things that in the fire in the fire
department that are for EMS purposes but when you have an Enterprise fund they can't you can't steal money essentially because and I'm just saying that sarcastically I know that okay so the the Commonwealth is that's why those indirect calculations have to go to do
every year because they don't want you to do that like water and sewer you can't take money from water and sewer and do and pay for other General funding so to pay for an Enterprise fund it has to be very strategic in what they pay for but H how how is it that EMS is stationed in our fire departments but
their contributions to updating and upgrading the facilities that they're stationed in are not at the same level as the fire department is well I think recently it has been at a higher level I mean they're paying for the center they're going to pay for the center Station upgrades because that
because but a center station they're occupying a majority of that space But I'm just saying generally speaking in the past EMS has been positioned and stationed in the fire department buildings but their contributions have been minimum but they're generating much more money much more money than the fire
department is so we've also increased the indirect cost back to the general fund by by what what what we you have to do it you can't just say oh they're making more money and so we're just going to take more money unfortunately I mean you just can't that's just how it is I'm not saying that we should use
that rationale what I'm just the point I'm trying to make as you as you position yourselves and preparing the budget the burden on the fire stations have always been generally speaking on the fire department's budget to upgrade
and maintain their facilities and EMS do does a fantastic job but they're not they're aren't saddled with the financial burden as much as the fire department is and I'm trying to find a way where it could be equal and fair so
that both the fire department and EMS could could utilize the facilities since they're both essentially occupying most of them in a way that it's fair so that the fire department isn't burdened with all these overtime and all these other Financial
issues when EMS isn't burdened as much so I think equal and fair are really different things in the situation equal makes no sense at all right the number of ambulances in paramedics in a firehouse in depending on the firehouse are not as many as the number of firefighters and apparatus but this
shouldn't be a tit fortat thing but but that that does need to be called out that equal equal doesn't make sense okay um Fair that's a different thing and I would argue that we can certainly look at what um EMS pays with regard to their use of firehouses and what their offsets
are for that uh they also fund a number of firefighters um there's a number of things they do that if you sort of look at the big picture we can we can have a reasonable argument as to uh whether or not it's fair um but I think you know
and I don't necessarily know what numbers you've looked at or or you know what sources you're relying on for your position but it it sounds to me like there is somebody that has an opinion that EMS is sort of skating free uh and living in the firehouses and that's just
not the case that's just not true uh there are a number of of things that that EMS does to offset the cost of that uh whether it's voluntarily or by an agreement and we can supply all that and you can take a look at it we can have a real conversation just yes summarize for me because first off nobody's telling me
anything other than just my basic understanding of what what what doesn't pass the straight face test in my opinion there's a large number of EMS individuals occupying the fire stations and I just wanted to make sure that it's equal the burden is equally shared maybe not equally maybe quarterly maybe fairly
shared to your point with the fire department and that's what I'm trying the point I'm trying to make as we go into next fiscal year with seeing the tremendous burden that EMS is going to be having for over $14 million in capital needs uh haven't even talked
about the police department yet so I'm just I'm just trying to get it be creative right we all and I know you guys are you're working every day to be creative to try to find ways to limit a possible $3 million budget deficit in FY 26 but I I just want to try to move that point along final question is there
anything within um Capital needs with within any of the Departments that have been raised to your attention right now that is in dire need of repair that the council should act on any department heads that are saying I need this Mr Aken it's impacting the ability to do my
work there's there are certainly things that are that are important um and need repair you know as soon as possible there's nothing that is not being addressed so so the for instance the library comes to mind right um the
library has a water incursion problem that from that roof well the roof was repaired uh and there's a possibility that it's the pointing of the brick it's an old building um the way in which water travels through a stone balloon frame building um is is almost crazy to
you know if you were to track it so the roof is is repaired right there's a legitimate question as to whether or not the repair is the issue or whether or not it's the pointing and that water is being is seeping through problems in the the spaces between the stones and
Through the Wood interior framing the building and down through ceilings so that project um is almost done with design it's going to go out to bid um there's money to to do it uh critically important um we uh I've met with the the
new library head multiple times I know she's meeting with Mr Oliva um there's active activity on that if you will um and that's critically important because that building is critically important um it's a beautiful building it's a precious building it needs to be uh you
know uh saved not even saved because it's not in it's not going to fall down but it needs to be preserved at all costs um you know locen Street great example of something that uh has needed imminent help for quite some time and uh
tan bond is the design build firm that's working on that right now so those things are being addressed um but there's nothing from a day-to-day operations point of view that you need the council to assist with from transfers from stabilization or whatnot to help make sure that our department heads aren't saddled no with impac day
today I think I the only the only cost that I think we're going to have to come down soon to talk to you about uh is Municipal Solid Waste and Recycling so we'll talk about that probably at our budget quarterly update short and and so I'm I'll be prepared to talk in depth about that I didn't bring any numbers
but but I think you're going to see that the cost in that industry are absolutely out of sight um we are doing everything we can to try to mitigate and keep things where they are uh and I'm going to present that uh to you probably in the next couple weeks all right I I'm looking forward to seeing
what you can come up with um when it comes to the commercial aspect of it um candidly I think you could probably find uh do it in a way that where if you add a Personnel to fire prevention that should probably pay for itself with new growth with lots of other these commercial sales that are occurring and
all the things we're doing I if building permits are public record you can see how many commercial building permits were pulled and and and if you're going to if you're going to task a homeowner to do something specific when it comes to reselling or selling property or refinancing or whatever even going into
a restaurant right like you should be able to do that on the commercial side and and I think it's only fair no especially with market rate housing like out of curiosity my final question I promise if you have a 40 unit market rate housing facility are is the fire department going in and issuing a
certificate of compliance if the entire building sells no e at any point if I if I if I own a mill yes and I go in and I make 40 Apartments yes we're a big part of that you're a big part of the design pH review and site
plan review but after that's done what does the fire department do to make sure that the building is in compliance so we uh we just partnered with a a company called Bryer um so our compliance in commercial buildings as far as uh the requirements for their fire alarm and sprinkler testing our compliance was
about 40% in the city so what Bryer does is they track down and make sure that everybody is doing their uh their inspections they required inspections okay so um so that building that you're speaking of whatever it is whatever one
it is is required annually to have their fire alarms inspected by a professional company sprinklers the same um so now we will have those in hand uh electronically through the through but after I'm done building this 40 unit
building that's in a mill yep is the fire department going to charge that developer or owner a fee for going to the to that building as many times as they have and making sure that everything is up to fire compliance so that's not our that's we don't make
those uh we we do not go on site visits for that that is done by a professional fire inspection company that comes in inspects the fire fire alarms inspects the sprinkler system if they find deficiencies and we have to get involved then it would generate permit fees and
and review fees I just think this is an error of opportunity no I listen I agree with you and my fire uh the city fire marshal Neil Fado has mentioned that to me several times that he thinks it's absurd that we go in for a single family and not for commercial building so it's absolutely something we are open to
exploring and I'm I'm looking forward to uh reaching out to other fire chiefs of larger okay for for to lead for for for a time to to set the example on the state that this is what we're going to do within yeah I totally age within the law within the law thank you I yield Mr President thank you thank you
counc do you have a followup councelor yeah I have two questions so my first one is um we have four fire stations if you don't count Center Station we have six fire stations counting the fire St the sent we have
Stanley Street uh we have I'll start north to south we have the North End station near me Stanley Street Center Flint candas clob okay um which we've pretty much established that Center Street is more EMS than fire at this point you don't have nearly the equipment you used to have in that
building correct correct okay so I'm asking this because we have a huge Waterfront development M Upon Us yep starting in 2026 I believe we should start seeing some movement and should start growing do we have enough
equipment and apparatus to take on that much more area at the dire buildings at the direction of uh Seth um it's actually interesting you mention that I'm meeting tomorrow with a private con consulting firm that's going to come in
they take our actual call volume um and actual calls that we've had over the last five years and they will plot it on a map they can anticipate the calls that will be generated by the MBTA station coming in it's a proprietary software that they have they will be able to
anticipate when other communities have opened up a residential mixed use area like the one that we will see happening in Route 79 and they will be able to tell us based on that if our stations are adequately placed if we need to look at opening new stations if we can combine if we can need more apparatus if
we need more manpower based on NFPA and based on runtimes and uh it's a it's a very intuitive software so I look forward to being able to have that for you I believe we signed the contract last week and I believe it's uh it's
three to four months we will have a number of results we're going to come up with six scenarios between the city Fire Marshall the deputy of operations myself and my chief uh staff we're going to come up with scenarios based on uh like
we said potentially moving apparatus uh increasing Manpower and how that will affect us efficient efficiency why so I will have that for you and as soon as I have it I plan to put together a PowerPoint presentation that I'll be able to bring down and and discuss with you well I would very much appreciate
that because that potentially could blow our Capital Improvement plan out of the window uh based on the projections at this point in time and this hasn't been done in a very long time we've had a ton of residential uh developments on the
other side of the wapa uh in the North End between engine six and engine 12 off a Highland a so it's going to allow us to really do a deep dive on this and see where we look yeah because this this Waterfront development um you can't even compare it
to any of to any of those developments just because of the concentration of people the concentration of buildings the height of the buildings and we're talking A Whole New World here and I don't think a lot of people realize it agree and it's a huge call volume for both us and EMS and police yeah and and
obviously Public Safety is number one concern and uh we need to be on top of it and not behind the eightball on on this one so that's why I asked that question we're on it thank you uh my second my last question is Eastern Avenue
reconstruction to $20 million project why is that in our Capital Improvement plan when it's a state road it's Route Six the state paid for the road outside of South Coast marketpl because it was
their Road why are we looking at $20 million for State Road that's on page 12 yep so that would be bottom half stand here I'm not sure um so that would be a question for Dan agar I mean that might be a combination
because he does have I mean that's going to be I don't believe that's going to be City dollars it's going to be um oh it says Bond Grant and chapter 90 funding I mean how many streets can we repair with $20 million using that combination of money a lot well I don't know that all
that 20 million would come to you for it it there may be some specific requirements for that particular Street and I I don't know that so we'd have that would be a question for Mr agar yeah we'll get the breakdown yeah that would be uh because that's just crazy that that I mean Eastern Avenue it's a
state road so yeah I I would really be interested in the answer to that question thank you that I yield thank you [Music] councelor that being it for the proponents I'm not going to entertain are there any opponents to this public hearing any opponents [Music]
motion to close the public hearing seeing none who entertain a motion to close the public has made and seconded all in favor I any opposed City counc public hearing is now closed [Music] I would
[Music] [Music] city council commune Finance please come
to order clerk will call the RO council's kadim Dion here Hart here Kilby here Perera PTI here Rosel here Samson here president here pursu to the open meeting law any person may make an
audio or video recording of this public hearing May transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised at such recordings or trans Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present not deemed acknowledged and permissible we have one individual that
sign up for put time krio subject matter HUD three minutes Mr R thank you sure [Music] I'd like to start off thanking the lord and savior for giving me the time to um try to see if I could set this up
whatever um just thinking for the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ uh forgive me this time all right HUD there's got to be some kind of Hud reform
um you have all this homelessness you have all this market rate housing that you guys were speaking about and um something's going to be done where um how do I put this they're not sometimes the greatest place to live in
because you're putting a bunch of people with with mental illness and and and certain health problems in public housing and and that in its own issue has a problem um the only thing I can say for that is
like I said HUD reform and um there's going to be some kind of Hud task force in our local area since everybody's been plagued with public housing and the crime in public housing um I don't know why this mic's turned on
really loud um certain people you know what happened to the saying see something say something and then get targeted and harassed for it um I don't I know if anybody's familiar with the term gangstalking um you get attacked whe
whether you're um political you know gender anything to that affiliation you get attacked for um I'm here basically because I've been censored um on various social media platforms for trying to get talk about hard your conversation was about hard yes and this is about the the
censorship of why I'm I'm there's a lot of mental health people got a lot of mental health problems in in public housing okay and um there's not enough help and not a lot of people give a crap about the poor living in HUD
you know we're talking about market rate we're talking about housing we need to talk about HUD and how we're going to reform HUD okay um why people um why is it no HUD Advocates why isn't
the for of a Housing Authority can correct me if I'm wrong um where it's not there's not advocates for people with their civil rights that get infringed upon inside of Hud Mr council president um people that are getting
gangstalked inside of Hud um the elderly disabled and veterans are getting attacked inside of Hud okay um and this is not being talked about okay and I'll repeat this veterans disabled and elderly are being attacked and and
persecuted in HUD okay we got to figure out something how to help each other how to stop attacking each other okay I have no hitting agenda the only hidden agenda I have is coming with
the truth and I know a lot about what goes on in housing and the dirty little tactics to provoke people and harass people and to viate people's civil rights and I will be heard and I will not be let down or quieted down by
anybody the three minutes are up thank you very much by the way we are in a Medical Health crisis our medical system is collapsing okay and can somebody explain to me why I'm 45 years old I'm losing my
teeth and I got a 4-year-old family member that her teeth got pulled out there's a lot of shady and Corruption and fraud in this city and it needs to be exposed and I'm going to do it if nobody else is going to do
it your time's up your time's up sorry oh let me take my excuse me maybe that time's up too you people know what's going on some of you people excuse me please don't point to the councilors and talk to when your time is up you need to look it
thank you so much thank you C city council reconvene we have item number one fiscal year item number two fiscal year 2025 quarter 2 budget report was referred on January 28th 2025 we're going to hold
discussions please come down thank you what was that take a picture of what what's going on IDE good afternoon again it's good to see you nice to see you evening though Seth aen City administrator Bridget
Alman uh director of financial services I got a question do you want to go into the questions first why you have another presentation or well I was going to talk oh yeah all right I'll yeah let them let them begin and then we'll go questions afterwards so I mean I did so I did
reach out I hope you all got um the request I asked um the city clerk to reach out to see if anybody had any questions I haven't didn't get any but I just want to say that um so right now we're if you look at it we're pretty much on target with our revenues and our expenditures the revenues are tracking at about
49% um but the large one of our largest local receipts is motor vehicle size which those just hit the street we should be they're getting those payments in um usually around now through the end of February so there'll be a better update of that in the third quarter and
I just want to say that our tax taking was the lowest in over 10 years and our tax title um the new tax laws have made it harder to collect those so we do have a slight uptick from last fiscal year last fiscal year we were at 4.8 million in a receivable now we're just at about
five 3 million but I want to note that our um city that's the next closest to us that's similar New Bedford their uh tax title is $14.8 million so I just want to note that our collector's office is
doing a phenomenal job and there's um as you know we have we've seen increases in health insurance we did you approv that appropriation transfer last meeting and I just wanted to uh make a note that that's going to
be watched and as I depart um the auditor and our HR Director are watching that very closely and all of our expenses right now I mean it's still kind of early I know it's halfway through the year but it is still early um but you'll notice that all of your
expenses expenditures in all of your budgets are between 40 to 50% so everything seems to be running right on Target and if anybody has any other questions we can right C6 Cy thank you um inactive
capital projects we chatted about that I think the last time we had a uh quarterly update and um we're sitting on 283 $283,000 of idle money what is the plan so again I mean we talk to the
Departments where that money is and try to reallocate as we can we've done a really good job in reducing that over the last three years but you have yes so we're just I think the story is you got to just keep working at it and that's still the plan it's a little bit of a kind of 8020 thing uh I think we we were
able to to reallocate most of it and what's left is is probably going to take 80% of our time to deal with that 20% or less of what was there in the first place just because of either how it was awarded how it was appropriated what it was for any
limitations on it so we are working through that uh it just that happens to be the the more difficult the biggest of the 283,000 as you know is streets and highways at $24,000 have you spoke with the Department about reutilizing that I know
it needs to be a like project with similar longevity and all that other stuff but I'm sure you can find a place to to position $24,000 for streets and highways absolutely uh you know part of it just weather um so at this point you
know everything we're doing is in the planning stage in terms of actual execution we're still a couple months away um so I have no doubt that we're going to be able to identify a project that that can either be part or all of um or you know multiple small projects
uh depending uh but at this point um I can't report that there's a specific project and as soon as I have the information I'll let you know all right I I'll ask again um as I'm sure you know go ahead so I do know that the parks and when last budget season when I
don't know what her title is Miss Smith came down and then we she I mean I don't know that there's been a plan that's been brought from her to use up those funds but that is I know being worked on from the parks department yeah part of part of one of the ideas is is
augmenting an earmark uh to actually redevelop walkways walking paths uh because that amount of money is kind of right within that wheelhouse um that spec was just completed today uh and that will then go out uh for design bidding uh to actually figure out what
the what the real cost of that is is and if we have enough money in that light Adam to to do it I'm sure you've done this but is is our grant writer looking at any matching grants like if we put up 200 the state will put up another 200 or something like that when it comes infrastructure pretty sure she's actively looking all the time yeah okay
yeah um that's something we' we've talked about uh with regard to you know not just streets and highways but Brown fields and a number of other things um trying to figure out if there's if there's um inactive money that we could put to uh to use as a in a matching Capac to try to make more out of that
okay um Street Scapes on Bedford Street um this has been in the design phase for quite a bit this was when jel ker was here authorized this project I believe what is the plan with this Bedford Street Street Scapes there is not a plan
right now um okay I respect that and um for a bunch of reasons and I can if we can sit down at some point I can kind of get into some of the other stuff a lot of it's kind of there's a lot of just intangible like what was this intended for you know how much is there here that
we can actually do what we want with can we make it part of another project as you know Street scrapes was sub subject to some litigation a number of years back um so there's just there's a lot of I don't want to say strings attached but there's a lot of issues with that money um we're trying to employ it Bedford
Street being one of the biggest carers Central City where you have lots of manufacturing from marrow to EP parug G to everything that's up in that area um I I I'd really like to see us this would be with Mr um agar Mr agar to come come
down and and kind of working on a plan with this I mean we have the funding for it do we not two $2.4 million of funding for it yeah and we we've definitely talked about it and and talked about you know is there a way to leverage that as part of a a bigger project try to
minimize disruption uh when you're doing the project there's other work being done um so we've definitely had conversations especially since uh you've brought it up and I think it's an important conversation to have uh at this point it just it's we're not ready to uh to announce a resolution I'll file
a resolution at the next meeting to just have Mr agar come down with you so we can work on developing a plan uh when it comes to Street Scapes because I think we need to find something to do with this or this is just going to eventually end up in the inactive capital projects that's right um and uh you'd be looking
at uh $3.6 million of inactive capital projects just for streets and highways um so I I'd really like I think it's I think it's important for us to start having those discussions now especially as the Waterfront is getting developed so if there's a way we can connect which
I believe that's what the original plan was I I think now is the time to start having those discussions certainly can uh question uh net School spending are we on track um uh to meet that school spending are you expecting any additional appropriation orders coming
from the school department so they they did um submit their year end I believe that's probably going to be about a million dollars um that'll be coming down and that comes from it's going to have to come from free cash right but what is that where is that million dollars coming from is that coming from
insurance so that was um so we they didn't we didn't change the methodology of doing the health insurance until fiscal 25 so yes it's from the health insurance okay and what do we have in stabilization right now ballpark about
17 2 million 1.2 million my goodness okay I yield thank you thank you C speed questions here we go um General government abatements it's 131% just curious on explanation for that why it's
above it's good it's a good thing the revenue piece first literally first page so I believe there's still um the actuals are great so that's a good thing a general under understanding of
that so that has to do with the cherry sheet um the abatements and yeah I mean I think I I mean i' have to look at the details of that I but I we may have gotten a slight adjustment that came in so going back down to local
receipts the recurring and you won't probably be able to answer this now but maybe some information on what those recurring local receipts are which is almost double what it was originally budgeted so some information on that if possible get your break down on that yeah and then and lastly and and
something I think should be celebrated the investment income looks great so I'm just curious just looking forward you know the next six months do we anticipate that's going to continue to grow at the rate it's been growing what do you what what's your thoughts on it they're already reducing interest rates I mean we're already seeing I mean we
were at over 5% a year ago and now we're seeing they're starting to go like 4% and lower so no I don't I think that you know we did a good job we were able to you know sock it away and but no it's not I don't think that that's something
that you should like count on it's kind of like one time money so really it's going to it going to hit the brakes on it yeah you're going to probably go back to the way it was you know over the prior previous years but kudos job well done on that thank you very much I agree I yield thank you
councel C to CC yeah um couple my questions were touched on so that's fine the marijuana excise um we're at 31% is that typical at this time do you think we're going to realize the full 1.4 million uh by the end of the year so the
marijana so that comes from the state and we're always a quarter behind the way they they distribute it to us I do know that and we've talked about that is there's you know there's a saturation I mean there's now you have them in Dartmouth you have them in you know all over the place they're in Rhode Island now RH Island legalized it so I don't
see you don't see the influx of people traveling to Fall River to buy you know their marijuana as much anymore so I don't know I mean you might just make it I think that's going to have to be something as you budget next year's revenues um but how many facilities do we have in the city even at this
point in terms of so there's there's a difference between the number that we're given authorization and the numbers we actually have off operating right now correct I I think it's 10 or 11 that are operational there might be two or three more that have unresolved
letters um and we went on a campaign starting about a year ago to revoke all the ones that had done nothing with you know five years of opportunity to do something um so I think the ones we have are at this point are the only ones on the Horizon there's no more on the
horizon that I know of yeah cuz in light of what you just said I mean we've reached a saturation point for ourselves I mean some communities and you know throughout the Commonwealth have even closed some like in you know out in the western Mass and certain
areas okay that's that's all I have thank you okay thank you thank you there be no further questions thank you for coming down and explaining that I'll a motion to ajour finance motion to adjourn Finance second motion to ajour finance second all in favor I any opposed city council
committee Finance is now [Music] [Music] attended for city council please come to CL will call the RO councilors kadim Dion here Hart here Kilby here Perera
Pony here Roso here Samson here president here will everyone in the council chair please rise for a moment of Silent prayer please remain standing for salute to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and
to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may
transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible Mr President we take 15 and 16 out of order
please motion to take items 15 and 16 out of order has been made in second all in favor I any opposed motion carries is order to adopt motion to adopt 15 and 16 second motion to adopt do you want to take 15 and 16 together for the adoption pleas any a motion to take motion to
take them together motion to take item 15 16 together as made in second all in favor I any opposed motion carries motion to adopt motion to adopt items 15 and 16 has ma second second second all in favor I any opposed motion carries do you want to come up and Madam clerk do
you want to read the well first before I go yes so um we have uh citations being issued to the student Veterans of America chapter of Bristol County and officers of the student Veterans of American chapter of Bristol Community College thank
you if I could have the director of the veteran Center at BCC come down and join me hello sir nice to see you of course um so just a quick word for myself and then I'll let the director kind of speak more about it um so the director from the
veterans BCC Center had requested some official recognition from our city council for our student Veterans of America chapter and they're individual student veterans that have contributed greatly to its success uh they recently were in Colorado Springs for the 17th annual student Veterans of America American National Conference and there
are many many members present uh over 1,600 chapters Nationwide on college campuses and over 2,000 members attended the recent Conference of the 1600 chapter Bristol Community College was a finalist for the 2024 SBA chapter of the Year we'd also like to recognize
military connected students at Bristol for representing their college and for the city of Fall River with our honors tonight so I'm going to turn over to you director to give a little more explanation to us uh thank you councelor thank you to city council uh the city of full River
Bristol Community College is definitely a gem educating the not only the the citizens of Fall River and Bristol County but the military connected students here in the room and are leading on campus their Future Leaders of Industry they serve their time their
military spouses their National Guard members their children of veterans and they're going to be Future Leaders of Industry future elected politicians and um future entrepreneurs future lawyers and future uh uh doctors so as mentioned
there's 2,000 student veterans in Colorado Springs 1600 chapters our military connected students here in Fall River are student veterans went against Baylor University with over 10 times our size out of Texas and Cornell University
which is an Ivy League institution so Bristol Community College a small two-year Community College the student veteran leaders on campus are on par with the student veterans at Ivy League institutions and that's all because of the leadership of the student veterans in this room and those that couldn't be
here uh so thank you for [Applause] this job well done so first we have a group citation which I'll present to you as the Director and it states that it's official resolution from the city
council be resolved that the city council s its accomodation to the student Veterans of America at Bristol Community College for their outstanding achievement of being ranked as a top five National finalist for the 20124 SVA chapter of the Year award representing Bristol Community College and the community at large I'll present that to
you sir thank you congratulations a job well done thank you very much and I don't want to butcher any names here so I'm actually going to have you read them and then present them to the individuals do you want to come the recipients can you come come down and stand down here
on the floor that's perfectly fine any parents wants to take a picture you can come up front as well and take pictures and and just so we can facilitate this um all the resolution state that be resolve the city council extend commodation to the individual for student Veterans of America chapter
Bristol Community College in recognition of your dedication to the SVA chapter of Bristol Community College ranked as the top five National finalist for the 2004 2024 SVA chapter of the Year award be a resolve of the city for city council extend best wishes for its continued success the resolution be entered in the
records of the city council adopted today February 11 2025 by myself and signed by our council president thank you uh not present CJ kamacho he's our policy leaz on Mr TS
[Applause] Ferris Miss Kayla [Applause] Harvey Miss Sylvia
[Applause] Jones uh not present Mr John montiero he's our Career Services lead on Mr Joseph [Applause] shrunk uh not present Mr Jerome
Harper and president Mr Maximus P thank you very much thank you appreciate it thank you very much folks appreciate your work if you just want to greet the councilors as well please thank you [Music] AB
Madam cirk the first item before you is the mayor's request for the confirmation of the appointment of Ben felberg um it was originally received as an appointment to the zoning board of appeals but we do have an updated letter this would be an appointment to the Redevelopment
Authority motion to confirm motion to confirm has made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries you have a request for the confirmation of the reappointment of Joseph Pereira to the zoning board of appeals motion to confirm second motion
to confirm as a made in seconded all in favor any opposed motion carries item three is a communication from the mayor in orders declaring the following Municipal properties as Surplus to allow for disposition the first is 112 Flint
Street which is the former dval School motion to adopt motion or refer to the committee on real estate whatever the will of the council is motion has been made to refer to committee on real estate is there a second what would your I'm sorry Mr
President what was your comment he said motion refer to Comm whatever the council decides to do should we uh make a motion to um to advertise and publish or not yet adopted to to dispose on okay
second he's refering to the command real estate okay second okay motion has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries and the second property would be located at 138 Harwell Street which is the former Sylvia School
motion to refer to the committee on real estate second motion refer the committee on real estate has remain second it all in favor I any oppos on a motion CC seat for cc I understand it's going to my committee real estate which is good because it's uh really not overcrowded
right now so um um should we also with that motion authorized request for proposals because that's what's going to happen in the real estate Comm meeting I don't think we can request for proposal C until we know what we're going to do with it I don't know we've done it before but not before it gets referred
to the committee if you could if you supposed to okay just um I it's usually more beneficial if we're able to do it now than it'll um you know the meeting will be once the request for postals come in because that's what's going to happen at
the real estate meeting meeting as we're going to ask for request for proposals why I just follow the normal call the commit just a question okay thank you thank you councelor motion toer commit on real estate has remain in second all in favor I any opposed motion
carries item four is a communication from the mayor in an order accepting a donation in an amount not to exceed $25,000 annually from Deborah and Richard Danner to the Fall River Public Library motion to adopt second motion to adopt as made in seconded all in favor I any opposed
motion carries item number five is the mayor's communication and a proposed um proposed zoning amendments that relate to the A2 apartment District motion refer to the planning board second motion refer the planning board has been made in second all in favor any opposed
motion carries item six is a communication from the mayor in an order appropriating 1,816 444 from Community preservation act funds for the FY 26 Community Mo refer committee on finance motion refer the
committee on finance has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item seven is a communication from the mayor and a request to establish ordinances creating positions of Museum security officer at the fora
Public Library services in a pro processing archist of Public Library Services motion refer the committ ordinance a second motion the Comm legislation has made second all in favor I any opposed motion carries item eight is a communication from the mayor in two
orders the first is a quick claim deed conveying property from the full River Redevelopment authority to the full River school committee motion to adopt second motion to adopt has made and seconded all in favor I I any oppos motion carries and the second is an amend Amendment to the lease agreement
between the full River Redevelopment Authority and the full River School Department motion to adopt motion to adopt has been made and second all in favor I I any opposed motion carries item number nine is a communication from the deputy police
chief JT in a request for revocation of the secondhand article store licens for Joey a Pico for a business located at 255 South me motion to adopt motion to adopt has been made point of information uh I I heard correctly this is uh revocation correct
correct yes okay thank you motion has been made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 10 is the traffic commission recommending amendments to the ordinances motion committee on ordinance a second motion committee on legislation
has made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries committee on health and environmental Affairs at a meeting held on January 28th voted unanimously Rec recommend that the accompanying resolution be granted leave to withdraw this relates to the gates of Hope under W Street motion so made
second motion Grant Le to withdraw has remain in second all in favor I any opposed motion carries committee on health and environmental Affairs at a meeting held on January 28th voted unanimously to recommend that the accompanying resolution be granted leave
to withdraw this related to a issues at city parks motion so made motion to Grant least to withdraws made in seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries be it resolved that the capital Improvement plan is hereby approved by the city council motion to adopt second
motion to adopt as me second it all in favor I any opposed motion carries where is the current ordinance to implement a parking ban during a a weather related event is currently at the discretion of the administration and whereas this can cause confusion among
residents as to whether or not a parking ban is in place during a weather event and where certain condition conditions should warrant an automatic parking ban based on various anticipated weather events and public school closures now therefore be resolve that the committee on ordinances and legislation convene
with City administrator director of traffic and parking director of community maintenance and a representative from the for of the police department to discuss potential amendments to the existing ordinance related to emergency parking prohibitions due to weather condition motion to adopt second motion to adopt
has been made and seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 17 is in order granting permission to John dasta for the removal of curbing at 209 Adams Street motion to adopt second motion to adopt has remain
seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries item 18 is in order granting permission to IC Investments LLC for the removal of curbing at 146 18th Street motion to adopt second motion to adopt has remain in seconded
all in favor I any opposed motion carries 19 is in order granting permission to aen coutino Souza doing business as CNA Auto Body for permission operate an auto body shop at 83 malberry Street motion to adopt motion to adopt has a remain in
seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries have the police chief's report on licenses motion to adopt second motion to adopt has remain seconded all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have claims refer to Corporation counsel second motion refer
to Corporation coun Mee second and all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have minutes of the committee on finance motion to approve second motion to approve the committee on finance meeting has been made and seconded all in favor
I motion to any all in favor I any any opposed no motion carries we have minutes of the regular meeting of the city council held on January 28th motion to approve second motion to approve has a me in second all in favor I any opposed motion carries have the
Department of Environmental Protection regarding a license application for Donald Scott and Mary L Church southw UPA pond at 10:40 Dickinson Street motion accept place on file second second motion accepted place on file has meeting second and all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have the mass
development Finance Agency um informing the Council of a public hearing that was being held this evening for the issuance of taxes exempt revenue bonds for Seven Hills foundation and affes motion accept the place on file motion accept the place on file second all in favor I any
opposed motion carries the Department of Environmental Protection regarding the issuance of draft Water waste permit within the Mount Hope Bay motion accept place on file second motion accept and place on file has second all in favor I any opposed motion carries we have motion to adjourn motion to adjourn
remain seconded all in favor I any oppos motion cash Council now J good night everybody good job [Music]
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