City Council - Regular Meeting

As far as City Council public hearing will now be called to order. Madam clerk roll call please.

Councilor Skiddeam. Here. Camara. Canual. Here. Dion. Here. Hart.

Here.

Peckham. Pereira. Here. Raposo.

Here.

President Ponte.

Here. Pursuant to the open meeting, Laura, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. Motion to open the public hearing. Motion to open the public hearing. Second. It's been made by Councilor Raposo. Seconded by Council Vice President Dion. Discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. First item on our public hearing is Bridgestone Retail Operations LLC, 204th Avenue, Suite 100, Nashville, Tennessee, doing business as Firestone Complete Auto Care for a license to operate an auto repair shop at 748 Pleasant Street, Map M1082 in the assessor's plan. I'm calling all proponents wishing to speak on this item. Calling all proponents. Hearing none, is there any other proponents wishing to speak? Calling all opponents wishing to speak on this item. Calling all opponents? Hearing none. Item number two, McDonald Street Realty LLC, 317 Lindsay Street for the removing of curbing as follows. The existing parcel currently has no curb opening or driveway. The applicant proposes to create a new 20 foot curb opening driveway. The total opening for the location will be 20 feet. Calling all proponents wishing to speak. on down right to the floor and just state your name and address for the record please you can sit right where their laptop is just to see the city council thank you if i can just have you speak into the microphone please mr harvey bob baraby bob baraby proline engineering 190 goddess nick road swansea representing the applicant

What they have is an existing residence on McDonald Street. They have about 50.2 feet of frontage. It's all curb. They'd like to provide off-street parking. It's a two-family dwelling, and they wanna park on the side of the house. There's about 22 feet from the property line to the house, so they'd like to open up a curb cut and then put the cars off-street into their parking in the back of the property.

Thank you very much, Mr. Farabee. Any Miss Barry, thank you so much. We're good. You're all set. Thank you. Any other proponents wishing to speak on this item calling all proponents hearing on any opponents? Anybody opposed to this public hearing? Hearing none. Thank you. Item number three, Stephen T. Gomes Living Trust 721 Oak Grove Avenue for the removing of curbing as follows. The applicant proposes to create two new 16-foot opening driveways on Salisbury Street to provide access and parking. The total opening for the location will be 32 feet. This project has received site plan approval. Calling all proponents wishing to speak on this item. Calling all proponents. Harry Nunn calling all opponents, wishing to speak, calling all opponents. Hearing none. Item number four, 87 Aetna Street, LLC. 87 Aetna Street for the removal of curbing as follows. The existing parcel is served by a 16 foot curb opening on Vale Street. The applicant proposes to create a new 16 foot curb opening on Aetna Street to provide improved access to the existing parking area and parking. The total opening will be 32 feet. Calling all proponents wishing to speak. calling all proponents. Harry Nunn, calling all opponents, wishing to speak on this item, calling all opponents. Harry Nunn, item five, Biswas LLC, 80 Jensen Farm Road, Braintree, for the removing of curbing as follows. This is on Walnut Street, 386 High Street. The existing parcel is served by a 14 foot opening on Walnut Street. The applicant proposes to create a new 20 foot curb opening on High Street to provide access and parking. The total opening for the location will be 34 feet. Site plan review has been completed. Calling all proponents. calling all proponents hearing none calling all opponents wishing to speak on this matter hearing none item six the massachusetts electric company doing businesses national grid in verizon new england for one jointly owned poll location this is on bay street this petition is proposing to install one jointly owned 45 class 2 pole P88-50 on Bay Street approximately 200 feet northeasterly of the center line of the intersection of Bay Street and Mount Hope Avenue between existing pole 88 and pole 89 in accordance with plan number 31292208. Calling all proponents wishing to speak on this item.

Good evening, City Council President and City Council members. My name is Aaron Roy representing National Grid, 1250 Brayton Point Road in Somerset. Tonight I have four poll proposals in front of me, three of them being company asset requests and one being a customer request. This first job on Bay Street National Grid has requested a new mid-span pole in line in the sidewalk. I've been here a few times over the past couple months over an ongoing reliability project that we're working on in the city. This is part of that. This new pole will allow us to install one of those reliability devices.

Thank you very much. Calling all other proponents wishing to speak on this item. Hearing none, calling all opponents wishing to speak. Hearing none. Item number seven. Massachusetts Electric Company doing business as National Grid and Verizon New England Inc. for one jointly owned pole location as follows. This is on County Street. The petition is proposing to install one new jointly owned 45 foot class two mid-stand pole P53-50 on County Street beginning on the point approximately 45 feet northwest of the center line of the intersection of California Street. in accordance with plan number 3, 1, 2, 8, 5, 7, 0, 3, calling all proponents wishing to speak on this item, calling all proponents.

Aaron Roy representing national grid, 1250 Brayton point road, Somerset. Um, same situation, national grids requesting a new mid span pull in line. Uh, this will be installed in the sidewalk up against the curbing. Um, this is on the north, this would be the north, uh, east corner of California street and county street.

Is that it? That's it. Thank you very much. Hearing all other proponents? Hearing none. All opponents wishing to speak on this item? Hearing none. Number eight. Massachusetts Electric Company doing business as National Grid and Verizon New England for one jointly owned pole location as follows. This is on Eclipse Street. The petition is proposing to install one jointly owned 35-foot class four pole P2 and one jointly owned anchor on Eclipse Street, approximately 130 feet of... of existing uh i'm sorry existing p31 on tucker street and between the property lines of 81 tucker and 190 eclipse in accordance with plan number three one three oh seven one seven five calling all proponents aaron roy 1250 brain point road somerset representing national grid

This is a customer request. Customer is constructing a new home at 190 Eclipse Street. In this location, there are currently no poles or any power lines. So the proposal here is to set a new pole and acre and extend secondaries to feed this house.

Thank you. Calling all other proponents. Hearing none. Calling all opponents. Wishing to speak on this item. Calling all opponents. Hearing none, number nine, and finally, Massachusetts Electric Company doing business as National Grid in Verizon New England for one jointly-owned pole location as follows. This is on Jefferson Street. The petition is proposing to install one jointly-owned mid-span pole P... 9 dash 50 on Jefferson Street approximately 100 feet northerly of the center line of the intersection of all men Street and Jefferson Street. This is in accordance with plan number 3, 1, 3, 0, 4, 0, 0, 8, calling all proponents.

Aaron Roy, 1250 breaking point road Somerset representing national grid. Um, another one of those requests for our reliability projects. Um, We're requesting a new mid span pull to install one of those devices.

Calling all of the proponents hearing on calling all opponents calling all they think it was right. I think you're in opposition. Calling all other opponents hearing none. Is there a motion to close the public hearing has been made by Council repose of second by Council of the team all those in favor I oppose the eyes have it. motion to adjourn a public hearings would be appropriate made by Council repose a second by Council vice president the on all those in favor I pose the ice out. Time is 6. 0, 8, is for the City Council committee on finance meeting will now be called to order. Madam clerk.

Council's could be here. Can you will hear the on your heart here at home. Pereira here proposal here as a party.

Here pursuant to the open meeting or any person to make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting for any medium attendees are therefore advised such recordings are transmissions of being made where the perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. I just want to make a small announcement Council of Peckham is on his way he did get into an accident on his way to the council meeting he's OK, but he is on his way and he is running a little late. First item on our agenda is a presentation of citations. Councilor Pereira.

First and foremost, this isn't on, is this on? Can you hear me? I used to teach, so I tend to talk loud, and I have hearing loss, so I tend to talk louder. First and foremost, I would like to have Dr. Sedwick Harris, who is the president of Bristol Community College, and a dear friend to Fall River, and Kristen Pavo, who is the principal at the Argosy Collegiate School. founding director. I helped you when we founded that. I thought you were doing a good job there. I remember that. Those were tough days. If you want to explain a little bit about the program that you have. And I just want to say, when I was at the graduation at Bristol Community College and you spoke, Dr. Harris, I was shocked when you said that you started out at a community college and all the way to your doctorates. Good for you. It was inspirational.

Well, good afternoon or maybe good evening to the folks here. I'd like to thank Linda as well as the city council for having us here today. It's really important what these young people have done and having the opportunity to celebrate them once again is always a fabulous opportunity for us as well as the founding folks who started the program. I'm just lucky enough to be the fifth president at Bristol. And it's an opportunity for me to share the wonderful things that these students have done. As Linda said, I did start my academic career as a community college student. So when I sit down and talk to some of these young folks, I tell them it's not just a community college. It's the beginning and it's an opportunity for each and every person that walks through our doors to start their educational or their career path in a fabulous institution that gives them a promising start to wherever they want to go. To be able to provide the education and the workforce opportunities that we're offering is something fabulous for our students and then the state to take the opportunity to make free community college is another step in the right direction. I was talking, actually leaving my home and coming over here this evening, I was talking to my mother, and it's really a fabulous thing that these students have done because at 18 years old, some of them, I think one or two students are even 17, to walk across the stage on May 16th at Bristol Community College and then walk across the theater stage just a week ago, for their high school diploma puts these individuals in a very, very good position for career and actually educational pathways. You see, they're gonna walk away saving, and a total group has saved nearly a half a million dollars. I think that deserves a clap. Half a million dollars they're going to save. Their parents are going to be really thankful for that as well. And I think that's one thing that I really appreciated about my time at community college. I was a student athlete, but my parents walked away, and I walked away with no college loans. Not a dime. And I went on to get my bachelor's degree, my master's degree, and then my doctorate degree. But as I tell all these students all the time, the one degree that made all those other ones possible was my associate's degree. Without that one, none of the other ones would have been possible. So being here tonight is really special for us, and we want to take the opportunity once again to celebrate each and every one of these students and to remind them that your journey started where? Started at Bristol, so never forget that. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Harris. So I wanted to take a minute just to explain to folks here, in case you don't know, Argosy Collegiate Charter School was founded in 2014 to offer all of our scholars the opportunity to be prepared for college, career, and life. And at that time, there was not a single public school in Fall River 100% focused on college preparation. So in the beginning, when I wrote the charter, I'm born and raised in Fall River, and I'm very, very proud of Fall River. But at the time, as a parent, I could not find a true college prep program in Fall River without paying thousands of dollars in tuition. And so I became affiliated with an organization called Building Excellent Schools in Boston. I learned how to write a charter. I learned how to build a board of trustees, built a staff, and launched a school. We are now grades six through 12 on two campuses on the south side of Fall River. We refurbished two closed school buildings. One was the Wixon School, that is where our THAT IS WHERE OUR MIDDLE SCHOOL RESIDES, AND OUR HIGH SCHOOL IS THE OLD ST. PETER AND PAUL SCHOOL. AND WE NOW HAVE A WALL-TO-WALL EARLY COLLEGE PROGRAM, WHICH MEANS THAT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR SCHOLARS ENGAGES IN COLLEGE-LEVEL COURSEWORK FOR FREE, EARNING COLLEGE CREDITS. AND THAT COULD BE THREE COLLEGE CREDITS OR NINE OR 12 OR A FULL YEAR. THIS IS THE FIRST YEAR. OUR ORGANIZATION, OUR EARLY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT, OUR LEADERSHIP, THE SCHOLARS THEMSELVES HAVE DONE THE WORK AND THEY KEEP, AND WITH OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH BRISTOL COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND UMASS DARTMOUTH, WE KEEP RAISING THE BAR ON WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN A HIGH SCHOOL SITUATION, PREPARING SCHOLARS STARTING IN SIXTH GRADE WITH THIS IDEA THAT THEY CAN AND THEY CAN BE SUCCESSFUL GOING TO COLLEGE. THEY CAN EARN THE CREDITS. they can secure a college degree. To Dr. Harris's point, the vision was to get our scholars on the other side of a college degree as quickly as possible and owing as little money as possible, which is a gift to the scholars themselves and to their families. We all know when we hear in the news college debt can be crushing, and so now we have 19 scholars in front of you who not only have their high school diploma, they have associate's degrees. There are a handful of scholars here in the room that not only have 60 college credits to secure an associate degree, there are scholars in this room who have 70 college credits, 75 college credits, 80 credits, 85 college credits. SO IT IS A TESTAMENT TO THE HARD WORK OF OUR STAFF, TO OUR PARTNERSHIPS WHO TRUST THAT WHEN OUR EARLY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT SAYS A SCHOLAR IS READY TO ENGAGE IN COLLEGE CREDITS, THEY START. SOMETIMES THAT'S THE SUMMER BETWEEN 8TH AND 9TH GRADE. SOMETIMES THAT'S 10TH GRADE. SOMETIMES IT'S 11TH GRADE. IT'S ABOUT OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE. AND I JUST WANT TO MAKE ONE MORE SPECIAL NOTE THAT ARGOSY COLLEGE CHARTER SCHOOL IS AN OPEN ENROLLMENT SCHOOL, MEANING THAT THERE IS NO SELECTIVITY. So there's no application in which we look at grades or behavior or attendance. We literally pull names out of a hat, ask a family if they would like the seat, and then we begin learning about that scholar, that student, how they learn, and what we can do to help get them to where they need to be. So I'm very, very proud of the scholars that are here, very proud of the parents who are brave to say yes to a charter school, to a brand new charter school, which is a groundbreaking transformational program that continues to grow every year. So thank you to Dr. Harris and Linda Pereira, who was one of the very first to write a letter in support of Argosy Collegiate because it is an arduous journey to get a charter school started and launched and grown. So thank you for all the support. I appreciate that.

i will tell you my three granddaughters my three granddaughters attended one attended a little later because she didn't get picked she had to wait there was an opening and she ended up going so the three of them but then they didn't have the high school yet and the graduation that i was at may 16th was one of my granddaughters so both of my grandchildren have certainly AND WE VALUE EDUCATION VERY MUCH IN OUR FAMILY. BUT TO THESE TWO INDIVIDUALS HERE, THIS SHOWS WHAT COLLABORATION, COMMITMENT, DEDICATION CAN DO WORKING TOGETHER WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR OUR COMMUNITY. AND I WOULD LIKE TO APPLAUD THEM SPECIFICALLY, BECAUSE THEY HAVE DONE AN OUTSTANDING JOB. I'm gonna have someone read the names of all the students as we give out the citations, because I do not want to say anyone's name incorrectly.

if you just open the book.

You can just come up, get your citation.

Can I read it before you do that?

But this citation is given in recognition participation for the early college program and the subsequent receipt of also an associate's degree from Bristol Community College. So that is one heck of a pathway to excellence. And I will reach out to the teachers, the parents, the families, the mentors. You can't do it alone. There is a village. You people certainly had your village to accomplish this. So we'll call each one at a time. Ian. Ian. Gabriel Booth.

Leonardo DeMores.

Brianna Frias.

Monica Gardner.

Caleb Hanley.

Isabelle Keith.

Nicholas Kelly.

Anaya Longchamp.

Samantha Pierre. I remember Samantha from St. Michael's Church with her mom. I do. Evan Raposo.

Chloe Rodricks. Good job, Chloe. And Jimmy Hsu.

Congratulations to each and every one of you students for your outstanding accomplishments. We celebrate your success, and we look forward to what achievements you will make ahead. Whatever you do in life, come back and do it in Fall River. We need good workers here, smart people, and I think you're the crew to do it. Thank you all so much. And again, to the family, the mentors, the teachers, If you people come over here, short ones get in front. Your parents want to take a picture. Come on. You're short. Come on.

That's all right. I'm short, too.

I have high shoes, but I'm short like you. Short is beautiful. I'm in a little cabbage.

Everybody look over here. Look at Mrs. Pavo, smile. Okay, I'm gonna come in too. Go ahead. BCC. BCC. Go around this way, Mr Chu. Go this way.

Dr. Harris, thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Is Mrs. Kendra Soares here?

Come on down.

I don't know how to say your last name.

So, Councilor Peckham, who is running late because he got, unfortunately, into a small accident on the way here, was inspired by many of us who attended the Memorial Day ceremonies here. And Evolve Academy's services to our local veterans during the Memorial Day events around the city obviously grew lasting impression on Councilor Peckham and the city councilor. Council here tonight wanted to recognize the organization is what I have here. So if I may just read it to the record that the city council's official citation, be it known that the city council hereby extends its accommodation to evolve academy in recognition of your dedicated service to our local veterans during the 2026 Memorial Day week ceremonies and be it further known that the four of us city council extends its best wishes for continued success and that this citation be entered into the records of the Fall River City Council. It's by Councilor Peckham, signed by myself. And would you like to say a couple words about the organization and all that went into it?

So Evolve Academy is a different way to engage students in their learning. It's a competency and project-based pathway at Durfee High School. And our classes are called Transformative Learning Experiences, which really try to help our students become more involved with their community. And we work with a lot of partners that help engage with that and just show students that they make a difference and they have a voice. this was a great opportunity for them to really do something great for their community they took four hours out of the day to help and I'm very very proud of them it's the second year that they've done it and it works very well with our memorials unit which is a history class and they learn about the importance of memorials and making sure they know about their history

So thank you Evolve Academy like Kendra was just saying is a competency based project based high school option for students in Fall River. We are very happy this upcoming school year that we will be our own standalone high school in Fall River and expanding opportunities at the 290 Rock Street building and growing up to 200 students for this upcoming year. So we are very grateful to engage in a lot of community um volunteer opportunities just like this and we look forward to expanding those in the future so thank you so much congratulations

All right, thank you very much, Councilor Pereira and all of our councilors for that. First, next item on our committee on finance agenda is citizens input. One person signed up to speak, Joshua Silva, 325 Pine Street, regarding Walsh Pharmacy. Three minutes, Mr. Sylvia.

Good evening, councillors. It's been a long time since I've been here, about 10 years. I'm here tonight to express my concern for the final destruction, as I call it, of my neighborhood. I've lived at 325 Pine Street since 2005. In that time, I invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to improve my property as well as the neighborhood. In that same time, many property owners around me have done major improvements to their properties. New construction has been completed as well as the work the city has done on Purchase Street. But unfortunately, this administration lacks the vision or compassion for the neighborhood to continue that work. Months ago, there were articles in the Florida Reporter as well as the Herald News stating that the building on Rock Street containing Walsh Pharmacy, several offices and single room residential rooms on the second floor would be completely changed from a mixed use building into complete residential units for people, in quotes, transitioning in a bad domestic situation, people on the road to recovery or people who need some support, whatever that means. Although I have compassion for these people in those types of situations, I also have compassion for my neighborhood as well as the hard-working neighbors that i have over the years there has been many issues with this property the list is long but in the last few years that has been rather quiet because there's only about six people living there and they all seem to keep to themselves and were always friendly to myself my family my tenants My concerns are that this project is completed that the issues moving forward begin to take shape as well as we see all over the city such as crime, homelessness, drugs, everything. Furthermore, from doing my research, I believe there are many questions I have about what may came to be. One, how does this building that is assessed for half a million dollars, which seems very low for a commercial mixed-use building of that size, yet is bought by the city using CDA funds for $1,055,000? Supposedly, the bidding process was followed for the construction that's being performed, but the contractor doing work is a close friend of the mayor's chief of staff and the interim administrator. YA variance was not required for changing the use of the building. I don't know. Yes, it was a licensed rooming house, but only for 16 rooms on the second floor. Considering most of those 16 rooms have been empty for years, one would think that there would be some kind of renewal process in order to just move a bunch of people into the neighborhood. The construction being undertaken will add 10 more rooms from what was the pharmacy and the office spaces. I spoke with the building official and he admitted that it was a change, but the neighborhood was zoned for it. Considering the change of use of pharmacy to residential, I do believe all about it should have been notified. This property has zero off-street parking spots. There is little parking in the neighborhood now, especially with all the parking meters on Rock Street as well as Purchase Street. Adding 10 more units is certainly going to be a disaster. I doubt all the people living there are just not going to have cars, and if they don't, I'm sure they're going to get Amazon deliveries, DoorDash picked up for their appointments, all the things that we see around the city. Also, there was a daycare that was denied recently on Rock Street at a former dental office because of parking was one of the issues. But it's across the street from attorney Ramsey's house, so I'm not really surprised that it was denied the crime. We all 15 seconds. Could I have some more time, please? If the counselor was like, wait a minute.

Motion to waive the rules has been made by Council O'Cannula for another three minutes. Seconded by Council O'Hart. Discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have another three minutes. Thank you.

Crime. We all know that crime in this city is out of control. This project has the potential to bring more crime and congestion to the neighborhood considering the clientele that is proposed to be located there. We already deal with a multitude of issues with being so close to RPS. I have called countless times over the years about kids doing drugs before school in the alleyway next to the pharmacy. Not much has changed. It happens all the time. And you have to deal with the abuse from the kids who we all know, some of which are carrying firearms. And this has been proven when a child was murdered on his way to school last year and my wife was harassed by them last Thursday. uh compassion i have been accused of not being compassionate towards the population that this type of housing may serve considering the neighborhood already has its fair share of this type of housing i don't think more of it is going to do anything to help revitalize the downtown even though according to the mayor and i quote the downtown cannot be revitalized because retail is dead even though we have plenty of retail in the city and people who live in the downtown according to the mayor don't have any money to spend in businesses in downtown That was stated to me by the mayor in Anne O'Neill's office while she was present. I can understand how someone who claims to be a vice principal when confronted with actual mayoral duties, who also lacks any type of vision for the city, could come to that conclusion. I have spoken with many city officials about this project, the mayor, Anne O'Neill, Mike Dion, who she said would call me, but according to him, he was never notified that I wanted to speak to him. I reached out to him myself about last week and it seemed as though he felt bad about the project and the effect it would have on the neighborhood, but he was just trying to be a good employee and do what he was told. I feel really bad for him to be put in that position. I spoke with the tax assessor. He said it was a change of the building. And I asked when the abutters will be notified and he had no answer and told me to call back and speak with somebody else. I was notified by the building official that he was the one that made the decision as the zoning official. That changing the mixed use building into 100% residential did not constitute a variance. I disagree a thousand percent. He said he took a long look before he made the decision. I question what did he even look at, because I know he didn't look at the parking, he didn't look at the congestion, he didn't look at the crime, he didn't look at all the other issues in the neighborhood. so uh excuse me i just lost my spot i question where he looked at the parties involved because everyone involved is connected in some way the building official told me i could appeal this decision to the zoning board of appeals all we'd have to do is write a letter to him and it would go to the board i questioned that it seemed odd considering he was the one that made the decision that i had disagreed with After that, he said I could call engineering and speak with Dan Aguiar because he was the city planner and he would walk me through the process. So I called the engineering office. Dan wasn't available, but the woman I spoke with informed me that I could file an appeal and it would cost me a $600 fee to do that. which would probably go to waste because the board is stacked against the residents but considering the circumstances of the neighborhood never being notified I believe the fee should be waived at this point I'm at a loss I've started to reach out to neighbors and none of them seem to know about what was going on the property I've been shuffled about through city departments disrespected by the mayor there have been issues during construction parking cleanup all of our property values will take a hit this is completed and And if I choose to sell, that's when I'm gonna really feel it. And even if I try to rent, I'm gonna take a hit there. But I doubt any of that will reflect on my tax assessment. My rental income, as I said, will take a hit. And I already have safety concerns for my wife and my child. Not sure what can be done at this point. I'm seeking legal consultation to see if there's any type of compensation that can be had. But I just wanted to be on the record that I believe this whole backdoor typical insider fall of a fraud being played out in real time with nonprofits involved, contractors, politicians all being funded with taxpayer dollars. And that's all I have on that. Thank you.

one last thing i'm against the purchase of pictures bishop conley thank you very much thank you thank you uh hearing no other uh citizens input before us this evening next item on our agenda is a uh fiscal year audit uh 2025 with rosella clark and associates please come down to the table member of the administration or members of the administration please join Counselors have had this audit in their possession a little over a month now. And before I acknowledge my colleague in seat one, if you can please just introduce yourself for the record, please. Starting with our interim city administrator.

Ann O'Neill-Sousa, interim city administrator.

Emily Arpke, CFO.

Terenzo Volpicelli, representative.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

Terenzio Vopicelli, representative of the firm Roselli Clark & Associates.

Chris Murphy, City Auditor. Thank you. Councilman Lissette I, Councilman Licketing.

Is there a presentation or do you just want us to get into questions?

Well, I have some comments to make just to discuss what happened during the fiscal year.

Perfect.

So as more fully described in our engagement letter dated July 13th of 2025, we were engaged to perform a financial statement audit for the city's fiscal year of 2025. This was the second of five audits under the 2024 RFP for audit services. The objective of a financial statement audit is just that, to audit the fairness of the financial figures contained in the city's basic annual financial statements. A financial statement audit is not a forensic audit.

I don't mean to interrupt you. Could you speak a little closer to the microphone? Council is having a hard time hearing you.

Okay.

Thank you.

You should have a number of documents in front of you. One of them is what we would call a required communications letter. The next would be the actual audited financial statements themselves, which are roughly 70 pages long. I'm not going to go through the whole contents of the required communications, but I do want to touch upon a couple items. First, management, which includes the folks in this room, are responsible for the selection and employment of appropriate accounting policies. Accounting estimates and their related disclosures are integral parts of the financial statements. The most sensitive estimates pertain to the determination of the total pension liability, which is actuarially determined. The determination of the total OPEB liability, also actuarially determined, as well as management estimates on the allowances of adult accounts, which are detailed on pages 36 and 37 of the audited financial statements. We did not encounter any significant difficulties in completing the 2025 audit. We did not have any disagreements with management on any accounting, reporting, or other auditing matters. The city's 2025 audited financial statements are issued on February 19th with an unmodified or clean audit opinion. The city's financial statements include the financial position and results of operations of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority, which is presented as a discretely presented component unit in accordance with accounting standards generally accepted in the United States of America. The RDA's financial statements were audited by another accountant. The audited financial statements themselves consist of several parts. First, we have the audit opinion. That is then followed by management's discussion and analysis, which is an attempt to put in plain English what happened during the year. We then have the government-wide financial statements. That is a depiction of the city's financial operations and financial position as if it were a commercial entity on full accrual basis. We then have the fund financial statements. That's on a modified accrual basis, and that most closely resembles your internal accounting records that you maintain on a human basis, which is what you're running the city on. We have proprietary fund financial statements, which are also full accrual for your sewer, water, and solid waste operations. There is a fiduciary funds financial statements for your OPEB trust and your retirement system, as well as a number of private purpose trusts, which are primarily scholarships. And then we have the notes of the financial statements. Finally, there's some required supplementary information on pension, OPEB, and budget. After two consecutive years of robust growth in the fund balance of the city's general fund, the general fund, as reported in the financial statements, which is slightly different than what you may have internally, it was pretty much a flat year. I believe the fund balance went down about $27,000, so essentially break even performance. As a percentage of the general fund's expenditures, the city's unassigned fund balance exceeded 9% in 2025, which is consistent with 2024, and a marked improvement over the 2022, which was only at 5%. In terms of budgetary performance, on a statutory basis, actual 25 revenues exceeded the final budget by nearly 10 million, I'm sorry, 10.8 million, while actual 25 expenditures were over $4.7 million less than budget. However, again, on a statutory basis, the fund balance decreased $4.7 million. This is primarily due to increased employment employee benefits and sanitation expenditures and these were funded primarily through free cash and general stabilization funds Revenues in the general fund primarily are concentrated on property taxes which are roughly 32% and Intergovernmental revenues which are 61% and those ratios over the last four years are virtually identical. I On a statutory basis, again, expenditures from the general fund are primarily for education, which is roughly half, personnel benefits, and public safety. And those three are very consistent with most of the cities that we work with. Outside of the water and sewer enterprises, in 2025, just like 24, there was a very light year in terms of capital projects for the city. You finished your Durfee project a number of years ago. The city issued over $14 million in general obligation bonds and $3 million in MCWT notes, all on its water and sewer enterprises. And the city maintains $17 million in bond anticipation notes or bands, and about $200,000 in short-term borrowings through the interim loan note program with the MCWT. Sometimes they refer to that as the SRF program. You have an ARPA fund, which maintained a remaining balance of about $25.8 million at June 30th of 2025, and the city has a dedicated resource managing that multi-year federal award. Your non-major governmental funds primarily consist of state and federal grants, CPA, and other revolving funds. That fund balance increased nearly $3.7 million, and that's primarily a function of timing of revenues and expenditures. The city reports a number of significant long-term liabilities associated with its debt, as well as personnel-related obligations, such as compensated absences, OPEB, and pension. In the governmental activities, which do not include your sewer, your water, or EMS, those liabilities approached $689 million at June 30, 2025, and that's down about $20 million for the prior year. Of that total, 390,000, I'm sorry, 390 million represented the net OPEB liability and 299 the net pension liability. Collectively, those two liabilities represent nearly 74% of the city's long-term liabilities. The long-term debt exceeded $372 million, for which $145 million is in the form of general obligation bonds in the city's general governmental operations, and the remainder is being held by its enterprise funds, which are primarily funded through user fees. Moody's continues to assign a credit score of A3 to the long-term debt that is still considered investment grade. Your net OPEB liability continues to be your largest long-term liability. And with respect to the net pension liability, it approached $299 million. That's down from 321 in the prior year. Your retirement system was roughly 55% funded at December 31st of 24. We haven't started the 25 audit yet, but that will probably be starting very soon. And that's an improvement from the prior year of 52%. Barring any changes, material changes to your actuarial assumptions, one would expect that your funding ratio would improve again this year. The S&P 500 did roughly 18% in calendar year 25, and the print fund that you folks are entirely invested in at this point did roughly 12.5%. So all your calculations are based on a 7% rate of return. So that's a significant improvement over that. So again, barring any significant changes to any actuarial assumptions, one would expect that you'd have an improvement. The city entered fiscal 26, for which we are near complete at this point, with a number of financial reserves. You had general stabilization funds of about $25.5 million and certified free cash of $15.6 million. And that concludes the analysis of your financial position and results of operations for fiscal 2025.

Thank you.

Councilman C1, you have the floor. Thank you. So I just have a couple of questions. So the first is just, I guess, the elephant in the room, the cash variance and reconciliation issue that was stated in the I guess the letter that you have. So in the letter, it states that the city's reported cash and investment balance is approximately $218,000 greater than the reconciled cash and investment. So for me, this is probably the single most important issue because obviously reconciliation of cash is probably the most fundamental financial controls that we have. So I've got three questions. The first question is, How has that variance been resolved? Two, how long has the variance existed? And three, what corrective actions were implemented to prevent this from occurring again?

I believe that's best addressed with management.

So sorry, can we go one question?

Yep. So variances have been resolved.

So we have not, sorry, finalized our reconciliations obviously through the year, of course not, but through, um, even December at this point, I think we're mostly through December right now. Um, So I don't have a full answer on that 218 being fully resolved in that sense. We do expect that a lot of that will wash through the year. This 218 is saying that it wasn't identified in just the July reconciliation that the auditors reviewed at that point. So we are still working through that to show a full proof out. But the problem is it's a point in time grab that Even if the 218 washes out, all of these other things wash in. So it's hard to show you a clean point in time grab saying that it's fully cleared.

So do we not reconcile cash on a monthly basis?

We do. But you then have every month there's variances, right? That's the way it kind of goes. There's things that roll into the next month and things like that. So it's a variance not in a sense of we don't tie out. It's a variance in sense of timing.

Do you agree with that?

As I indicated in the letter, we were unable to determine the exact cause of that variance. So I just, you know, I'm hoping, many times I go into communities and these things do resolve themselves. I think it's important to note that the reconciliation variance has to do with the cash book to the accounting records, the underlying accounting records, not to cash itself. So many times these things do resolve.

So those two should tie out though, right?

They'll have differences because the cash book will not always match the underlying accounting records because of timing.

So is $218,000 in your, I guess, professional opinion significant, immaterial?

It's not material enough to say that the financial statements were materially misstated. Otherwise, we would have had to book an adjustment. But it was just significant enough that I needed to report it to this organization. Had that been, say, $50,000 less, this would have just been a management discussion.

So we do have some level of reconciliation that we provide to the state on the same number. So we do have a significant amount of it that's shown through what we have that it's from with payroll and other deposits in transit and accounts payable. So we do have those numbers. But to show you statements that I should say documents that proof out the exact number that you're looking for, we just don't have that to provide at this point. But Like I said, we have identified areas that we believe it's coming from, like where the variances lie within the different items.

So we don't feel that there are any need for any corrective actions or I guess financial controls that need to be implemented or anything like that?

Not further than what we already do. I mean, we do do monthly reconciliations and we do have these different checks and balances. I mean, the whole idea of this cash book to the general ledger, to the bank statements, Is already a control system that's put in place for this so it's set up to do exactly this.

Okay, then us the school lunch fund deficit so in the letter you say that the school lunch funds exceeded $9.6 million which represents more than. eight months of the average expenditures. So the, I guess the federal school lunch regulation requires that the balance not exceed three months, so.

Yeah, so this is really, in terms of fund balances, there are two fund balances that we always take a look at. One is the school lunch, because there is federally mandated that it's only three months. By the way, this comment is in virtually every single community. Once COVID hit, the state was funding a significant amount of monies for school lunch. I have this in probably nine out of ten letters. So they just need to come up with a plan. So between this, again, we look at circuit breaker, circuit breaker, we only have a one-year reserve. Then there's a number of... you know other uh 53g type things that we do take a look at but this was significant enough and and we have previously reported this um i guess i guess that's my my concern so the previous reporting so do we have it so that's the ultimate i believe in the um school budget hearing that we had

They did reference the fact that they do have some plans. I think, obviously, in the scheme of the budget conversation, it wasn't that detailed. But I know that they did start to discuss a plan. So we can get you something potentially in writing that gives you more of that answer. But they did discuss it in that Wednesday, Monday night meeting.

So as CFO, when you when you see these comments, what what type of conversations do you have with the school department to have those discussions?

So I know that this conversation, I haven't had necessarily a specific one on it, because it's, it's been here. So we've been having conversations. So with this being in the letter, again, it wasn't, I'm gonna say a new conversation. I know there's plans to use it for capital needs within the school lunch programs. And I think that that's the plan for it at this time, I don't have an exact timeline to provide. But I know that that's what they're working towards.

That's probably the best bet of using as for capital.

So how far can we can we go before the federal government comes back and I guess what's the ramifications associated with having excess.

I don't know of any ramifications other than you're just out of out of compliance compliance but I don't believe there's any financial ramifications I have not seen any at least in my 18 years or 20 years of doing this.

And then I got one more question. I've got a couple other questions, but I'll, I'll be yield to my, my colleagues, um, in terms of the, uh, Massachusetts clean water trust interim loans. So this either in the letter or the audit, it states that adjustments were required each year due to breakdown in communication. So, um, I will say that a pet peeve of mine is having consistent findings year over year and then having nothing happen. similar to the use of the word irregardless when the word is regardless. So my question is what type of breakdown in communication is there and how large were the adjustments that were being made?

The adjustments themselves were not, again, they had crossed over a threshold that we had to report them. The net between the water and sewer, I believe, was roughly $150,000, but it was, give me a moment here. It was roughly $600,000 going one way and $450,000 going the other direction. The actual liabilities themselves were done on accurate. What it was was there is a recorded receivable and those needed some adjustments. This, by the way, once again, as a way of introduction, Roughly two-thirds of my clients, we have to make these adjustments. It's not something that's taught very well, whether it be at school, the accountant's associations, the treasurer's associations. And the city's got a significant volume of these transactions, so it's a matter of determining how are you recording, which I actually love the way you folks record it, where you record a receivable and a payable the day that you are awarded the interim loan note. And then as drawdowns take place, you're increasing cash and you're reducing that receivable. So at any given point in time, management can sit there and say, oh, we're going to have this much back. But then you take a fund like 5620, which I can actually know the fund number off the top of my head. I lose sleep over it. Where you might have many years ago seven of these And they were all in one receivable as opposed to, say, seven individual receivables, each labeled ILN 2104, 2132, which is the numbering scheme that the MCWT would use. And then when somebody receives a payment that is not one of those receivables, INTERIM LOAN NOTES THAT SPECIFICALLY CALLED OUT IN THE ACCOUNTING RECORDS, THEN A COMMUNICATION WOULD GET MADE, HEY, YOU KNOW, I RECEIVED THIS MONEY, AND SOMEBODY COULD LOOK IT UP AND SAY, OH, THAT'S A STRAIGHT-UP GRANT THAT GOES RIGHT TO REVENUE, OR WE NEED TO CREATE A NEW RECEIVABLE AND PAYABLE. SO THAT'S WHERE THE INCREASED COMMUNICATIONS CAN COME IN BETWEEN THE WATER AND SEWER DEPARTMENT AND THE CONTROLLER'S OFFICE.

Okay, with that I'll yield. I got a couple more questions.

Councilor in seat 7, Councilor Pereira.

My question was asked on the $218,000. It wasn't answered to my liking, but it was asked. I guess we just have to wait and see. I would just hope that they would reconcile monthly, then reconcile. We're almost at June 30th. We should have an answer to that $218,000. And you said you did have some

Yeah, we have some stuff identified. It's not a I'm going to call it a final answer. That's what I would like to say. It's not a final answer. I can't necessarily confirm it at this point. So that's why I don't necessarily have documents to give you on that. But we do have, I'm going to say areas that we had identified things that were off, but we're trying to get through the months. I would like to remind everybody that we did lose, you know, the two people in auditors that were doing this other side of it for, you know, two months, and then had to transition to somebody new. And so we are definitely a little bit further behind than what we typically would be. for the reconciliations at this point, but we're not concerned about getting them and getting them done on time. But even so with that, I don't know if we would have a full final answer until we were kind of closing the year just because of the constant ups and downs and ins and outs that we're carrying through the variances.

But that was a question that was out there in the media. So that would have been something that I think would be a priority for the council to have so that when we're responding to constituents, we have that information. The sooner you get that, the better. I realize that a lot of people leave and you're short staffed i get it but no matter what the finances i don't care how short staffed we are we've got to make sure things are kept up yeah yeah and i know you're doing the budget so i understand all that but the sooner you can get that in my opinion, would be the better for everyone that we know where that money is. I'm sure it's there.

So to be clear, the money isn't missing. It's an accounting entry that's missing. So the cash, none of that is a concern or missing. It's just where it's recorded in our accounting system. So I just want to make that clear for you guys and the public. It's not that cash is missing. It's that an entry is missing in our accounting system. accounting system.

I understand that. But I think for the public, when they hear that, they may assume that, which isn't the assumption that I had. But the sooner you get that to us, the better so that we have answers for our constituents too when they ask. And why isn't it being reconciled month to month? With that, I yield, Mr. President. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor in seat for Council Vice President Dionne.

Good evening. I know that the number of years I've been on the council, your firm has been doing the audit every year. So this 218,000, that's not something that's happened before. We've always pretty much been close to a zero dollar amount in that category.

Council Dione, I don't remember off the top of my head, but if there were any variances, they did not rise to this level.

Yeah.

That's all. Okay.

Well, I know we were never notified. So I have a question. So it's not reconciled. You think we're close. How then did the mayor go on record telling people there is no shortage, everything is fine. As a matter of fact, we have a surplus. How can he make those statements when it isn't even reconciled and you don't have all the answers? Now. So I find that disturbing. We have a surplus. What kind of surplus? It almost sounded like, no, instead of having a 218,000 shortage, we have a 218,000 to the good, which would be a $436,000 swing. So I don't know where his numbers are. I don't know what he was alluding to. But how could that statement publicly be made and emphatically be made?

So I can't speak to the statements that he's, I mean, I clearly was not there for those conversations.

It was a school committee meeting.

Right. So I'm not aware of what transpired to have that conversation in that way. But like I said, it's not a matter of money not being there. It's a matter of an accounting entry not necessarily tying out to what is in the bank statements to what is in the cash book. So it's not that money is missing. It's that there's something not tracking between the two in that sense. So I'm not. I don't I don't have an answer for why he said that statement and why he said it in that way. I don't have a response for you on that. I mean, like I said, the variance is not a. I don't I don't have a response that you're looking for right now.

I know that's satisfactory, but so typically wouldn't that be reconciled once monthly?

Like I said, it is. done monthly in that sense. So the problem is, is that we are not all the way through right now. And the fact that every month, there is a level of stuff that's carrying over, we're constantly tracking things that are in transit, we're constantly tracking, you know, checks that are outstanding. So there's all of these ups and downs that are continuing to carry through each month that you go into the next month, and you're waiting for the next one to clear to see what your now balances. So it's, it's a constant moving target that it's hard to grab and say, Okay, now we've cleared it, because if that number becomes zero in one moment, The reality is it doesn't stay at zero because it's going to change again. So then to find the final number of what's outstanding because of the items in transit versus because we're done and we don't have an answer, it's just a hard thing to grab in the middle of doing all of those.

So at what point in the fiscal year can you say that all these numbers have to be known, no more unknowns, everything... where everything can be reconciled and we can recognize what the problem is? Or are you saying never in a fiscal year that you can ever come to that conclusion? When you're going from one fiscal year to another?

Well, Councilor Dionne, it would be definitely June 30th.

Okay, so by June 30th.

The books have to be closed. You have to report to the Department of Revenue that does have ramifications to possibly free cash. So June 30th would. If I were management, that's what I'd be doing.

I mean, and that is when we do have a hard, because at that point we do full on start cutting things off. Like there is a cut off. There's not a month to month carry over. It's a, there's an actual deadline. So in that sense, that's, that is the typical timing and, and that's.

So we can expect that within 21 days we should have the definitive answer.

So to be fair, the reconciliations will not be done on June 30th, but yes.

If I may interject for a moment to our Council Vice President. Are we talking about fiscal year 2025? Yes. Okay, so what difference does it make between, out of curiosity, the end of June 30th of fiscal year 2026 entering fiscal year 2027 when this audit is in fiscal year 2025? Did I miss something? Did I miss an answer to that? We're still not reconciled for fiscal year 2025?

No, that's not correct. So from the reconciliation for fiscal year 25 is this variance that we are discussing at the 218. The discussion is that that should clear by the end of this fiscal year that we are currently in. But to say at one point in time, like I said, we do take July into consideration. I say we, the auditors take July into consideration. And if it hasn't cleared through those timelines, that's what then gets published here. But there's no saying that that won't clear in the following months, but for us to now provide something that says all of this stuff is cleared things have stopped moving around and this is where we're now at it's hard when every month there's things that are rolling over and carrying over and clearing between the different months that does stop come the end of the fiscal year because we have another line that's drawn saying okay this is where we're at and this is what should be in there and what shouldn't be in there.

I'll yield for now. Thank you.

Anybody else? Consulate seat three consulate can you

Thank you. You mentioned that this cash variance only was mentioned because it rose to a certain level. Are there any other issues that didn't rise to quite the reportable level that maybe you're getting close or things I should be concerned about? I'm a newly elected counselor and just kind of this is my first time going through this and want to understand what the risks are.

Well, the things that keep me up at night have to do with network security, which I've talked about this before. You haven't had the pleasure of hearing me say that, but those are the things that keep me up at night. Again, network security, phishing scams, things like that, but those don't show up in the numbers here. Yeah, future pension appropriations. That's something that really, really needs to be taken a look at, potentially start getting teed up with some special legislation. Because when you take a look at those payouts, that's going to be very unruly and disruptive to corporations.

You're talking about the increases in the pension that we have to get to by 2034, 35?

Yeah, technically it's supposed to be funded by 2040, but every amortization schedule runs through 2036 to give yourself a bit of a cushion. But if you went on PRX website, you'd be able to see what the funding schedule looks like today, what it would look like. That's going to change because you're going through evaluation I believe it's a 1, 1, 26 valuation right now. So that will definitely change. But you can go to the website. You can see the approved funding schedule and see what the impact is going to be in 2033 and how you can afford that.

When you say special legislation, what exactly are you suggesting?

I'm not suggesting anything. That's really a legal matter. But at some point, you're not the only organization that's in this boat. There are dozens of pension systems that are below 60% or 70% funded that are going to be facing significant increases in appropriations. I don't have a crystal ball to say if PAREC will extend that date out to 2050. When I first started doing this, it was 2028. Then it went to, we had the crash in, was it 09? And it went to 2032 and then 2040 almost. almost instantaneous. So it's possible that that may change or it's possible that there'll be a way for a number of communities to opt into something. I just don't know what that is. I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not an attorney.

And to be clear, our current schedule technically goes only to 2035. The last biggest payment is actually in 2034. There's a very small portion that's carrying into 2035. So we do, I'm not suggesting that we do it. I'm just saying that we do technically have room still to even get up to that 2040 at this point as needed. So those are conversations that we kind of have with the retirement board as the new studies come out.

And you are going through evaluation right now, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then just back to the $218,000 question. If I'm understanding this correctly, we have $218,000 more than what the paperwork is showing. Would that be a correct interpretation?

I think it's the opposite.

It's the opposite.

Yeah.

That's a rich man's problem.

OK. Thank you. Anything further on this constancy one constantly.

Yeah, so I just want to go back to council parties question so his line of question was what difference does it make if it's $218,000 in fiscal year 25 versus 26. I mean, you're you still had a deficit and 25. Right?

Not it's not a deficit. It's a cash variance. It's not a deficit.

So does that not hit you free cash? I didn't mean deficit. Does it does it not impact your free cash?

No, because of some of the, I'm going to say, reconciling items that we had identified, we only got hit for $80,000 on free cash.

So we were impacted by it.

Yeah, they hold back $80,000. Oh, my God, I'm saying so many numbers now. They hold back $80,000 in the free cash certification.

Okay.

So it's still in our fund balance in that way. It's just – No, no, right. So you just – But it's $80,000, not $218,000. That we can't use. Yes.

Right. And so I guess I wasn't following the logic that by, I guess, the end of this fiscal year at 26 that you'd be – all squared away and reconciled. So you're saying that all this, this is a constant thing that's moving, right? So you would still have that movement if there was consistency from 25 to 26, right? So you'd probably have some discrepancies still, right? Because you'd play and catch up. Or are you saying you can completely be fully reconciled by 26? You're going to catch all the variances from 25 and then?

No, I'll be able to speak to everything from the 218 of what is fully reconciled and what is not at that point, if there is any of that variance still remaining.

So not speaking to 26 reconciliation, just the 25? Correct.

Correct.

OK. All right. The other question I had was in your reporting, you had mentioned in the letter that the audit references a separate report on internal controls and compliances. Were there any material weaknesses with regards to that?

That was actually just filed today, and there were no findings.

OK. And then I did send a letter, and then now that the school committee's here, to the CFO, which still has not gone to be, has not been responded. So I sent it on May 31st, sent a follow-up on June 5th regarding a special revenue account for the Peg Access account. Have you audited the Peg Access account?

The Peg Access account is just, it's part of the city. So I don't want to individually audit individual funds. So it is included as part of the audit.

But you want you want to have checked to see if there was any I guess appropriations that were made by the Council so my concern is is that we've got a special revenue account. That requires appropriations of the City Council has not appropriated that are paying for school department employees on a yearly basis, so I asked the question back at the end of May. The fiscal year is running up we've got individuals who are getting paid a salary. there's never been an appropriation by the City Council to utilize the PEG access.

So this function has a receipts reserved for appropriation fund?

Right.

It's a revolving fund, yeah.

It's not a revolving fund. It's a special revenue account. You can keep saying that. DLS does not allow it to be a revolving fund. DLS allows it to be two things. It's a special revenue account that needs an appropriation because revolving accounts don't.

Yeah, I still clearly haven't answered you, so I'm not speaking on it. I'm sorry.

So revolving accounts, you get... Spending limits not an appropriation. So we've never issued an appropriation through the City Council. I asked on May 31st I followed up on June 5th haven't gotten a response to that and we are about two weeks to the end of the fiscal year Appropriations have already been made and I don't know what we stand and we've got individuals who are being paid without any appropriation from the City Council and And I'm only bringing it up because I haven't gotten a response. I wouldn't have brought it up. But this is the forum. Not sure if you know, a week a week and a half without any type of acknowledgement on an email is when do you think we're going to get back to our counselor with these questions?

I know we had some follow up emails today. Is there going to be a response?

Yes, I'm working on it. I thought that after Wednesday night there was a conversation about outstanding council requests and council requests that were coming in and that the getting the budget resubmitted was the priority. So that was my mistake and my misunderstanding. And I should have acknowledged the receipt. It's just a simple acknowledgement. I sent the second email. Like I said, I was out on Friday. So that was the misstep on not responding on Friday. So I am very sorry. And I'm hoping to have something by the end of the week.

And technically, I mean, it's still budget related.

I didn't think it was in my opinion. It's not actually in the budget in that way. So I didn't it's it is something outside of the general operating budget.

I didn't think of it at least $150,000 for one employee. I don't know how much the two individuals who are getting paid behind in the next room over there. Recording this TV that it's significant amount of money that hasn't been appropriated.

I am. I don't have an answer for you right now. I'm sorry.

When do you think we'll be able to get said by the end of the week?

All right, look, I'm going to just be completely candid with you.

This isn't the first time this council has asked for information, and we get these platitude-type responses with some cockiness attached to it, okay? Yes, I'm referencing you.

Okay, sorry.

So I understand you're frustrated. I know I had a conversation with you after the council meeting on Thursday. Okay. because i was hoping that you'd get us an appropriation for this meeting and that didn't happen so that was the conversation i had with you after the meeting so we need to get counselors back the information and a response back timely when it comes to these type of issues please

The appropriation I mean to come back down to the council that was that's our first I'm sorry sending the budget back the appropriation order for the meeting for this evening that was the man's choice he wanted to take some more time review it with the finance team in the administration before sending it down this up he was I mean all set to work on it throughout the weekend and get it back it's just a little bit more time.

I get a lot of calls from people that want information. Just ask. No, absolutely. Give this body some respect. That's all I ask.

Absolutely.

Council you have for yeah, some I'm just frustrated I I don't send many emails so when I send an email on May 31st asking for backup I included it was included a school committee. It included. The chairman of ordinance I followed up on June 5th said maybe this got lost in the shuffle just putting it back I didn't get any. acknowledgment whatsoever so that I've got to go contact the council president and maybe maybe that's what we're looking for I mean maybe I'm blowing things out of out of proportion here and that's the expectations from my expectation is just to get some type of especially when we have legitimately individuals who are being paid utilizing monies that have not been appropriated by the city council that require an appropriation. So that's all I was trying to look for to make sure that one, we don't run into any issues. And I know it's been a while since we've had an appropriation if ever. So I'm not blaming blame on this current administration, but I was, I highlighted it based on a conversation I had with a school committee member. And I just wanted to get some type of clarification on it. That was all with that.

Anything further on the audit? If I may, there's a lot of outstanding questions with respect to this. So would it be appropriate that this gets tabled in the Committee on Finance? You said a couple times when you're going to get back to us, we can table this and get the correct answer because we're talking about $218,000 here. What's the will?

So first I would like to thank, I'm not going to pronounce your last name right, but I can come close, Mr. Vopicelli.

Beautiful.

All right. Thank you for coming. Thank you for the work you do. And on the other issue, I would make the motion to table.

Motion to table on Committee on Finance as made by Council Vice President Dion, seconded by Councilor Peckham. All those in favor? Aye. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Motion item has been tabled and financed. Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda this evening is a loan order for $29.8 million for the purchase of the former Bishop Conley High School located at 373 Ellsbury Street. Members of the School Committee want to come down. Before I do that, I'd like to acknowledge our council in seat eight, Councillor Raposo.

Thank you, Mr. President. Excuse me. So my employer is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Fall River. So I've been advised by the Ethics Commission to recuse myself in the conversation. So I'm going to go in the back room.

Thanks, Councillor.

Thank you.

Is there a presentation or is there, or we've already kind of had that presentation, I know, but is there questions or anything brief? And before we do that, introduce yourself for the record, please. Starting with Mr. Shackney.

Ian Shackney, treasure collector.

Ian O'Neill, Susan interim city administrator.

Oh, I'm sorry. Emily, our PCFO.

Deputy superintendent is legal.

Kevin Almeida school CFO can the Chico chief operating officer.

Chris and various director of early childhood.

Is there anything that you want to discuss briefly the city side. I know we've had this presentation before us before. This was discussed at our joint meeting with the school committee. I know a number of us asked the question for the purposes of introducing this item on what the city's obligations are going to be from a debt service schedule. We had this before us tonight for the first time. Is there any kind of a presentation that we want to have?

So I don't necessarily have a presentation I did share with everybody draft debt schedules. So there's The numbers were already included in the capital improvement plan, just to be clear again. What is shown here is essentially what is making up that capital improvement plan and those calculations, but it is pulling out everything else that's included in the capital improvement plan just to show this specific debt piece and what the impact looks like compared to the already outstanding debt that we have on the books. I know it's small. I will send out electronic copies as well, but there is also a copy of the that schedule that Hilltop has provided to us. So those numbers are what are in the bigger printed schedule. But I just wanted to, I'm going to say show proof that it came from our advisors. It's not something that we just in-house make. for me for this so we do have that for you. And then from there like I said we are we should in the past the full debt schedule that you know what's dropping off so I didn't necessarily bring that again for tonight, but that all still stands as accurate. For what is current outstanding before this is added in.

Councilman see one consulate getting could I just ask for clarification based on that schedule impact analysis that was sent out what is the difference between less retirement and less new estimated retirement.

So that that lines that are in blue is what I'm going to say those are existing amounts that has nothing to do with Conley at all. That's exactly what is in the general fund as on the books as the outstanding amount, what would be retired each year through principal payment, and then the existing debt payments. So the difference between the retirement and the existing debt service is interest essentially. So then the lines I'm going to say in between, so the new issue, the estimated retirement, and then the projected debt service, that's all I'm going to say the Conley estimates being added into our existing amounts.

So I'm sorry. So the someone got the first page. So FY 28. So the less new estimated retirement of the negative 490 490,000.

That's interest is that we say no, that's the first principal payment on the debt that would if it was issued in FY 27, that it would come off in FY 28. So you would be then taking it back out to get your new outstanding debt amount of the 142.

I'm sorry, you lost me.

I'm sorry, I know this is, so that number there, so the 122 is the existing outstanding debt. That would be an FY28 with no new issuances at all. If we do issue this in FY27, you would have that full amount outstanding in FY28, I'm going to say July 1. Then by June 30th, you would retire the $8.8 million and then you'd retire the $490. At some point through the year, you'd make those retirements. So by June 30th of that fiscal year, those would be retired. So then your new outstanding amount would be the $142.

But what are those retirements, though?

It's annual payments on all different debts. So the $480. The 510, the 535, that's the Conley retirements. The other stuff is the whole list of debt schedule that we currently have outstanding in the general fund. So the details of what makes that up is in the full debt schedules that I've emailed before that I wasn't obviously going to print for this.

I guess the retirement, I guess I would just anticipate seeing the $122 million, and then the difference between that and the $113 would be your retirement, retired debt, right?

Right. So that that 122 under the 113 should be the 8.8.

So you're just pulling that out and showing it?

Yeah, it's just showing the math that walks you through how the stuff is retiring. And then same thing with the debt payments, kind of how the debt payments are rolling each year. So.

Okay, thank you.

Do you yield? Yeah, anything for the constant C three consulate annual?

On the schedule the payments are by annual do we have the option to make monthly payments to us.

No that's these are general obligated debt amounts that we I'm going to say issue through the state and this is kind of how they work over this is a normal statewide.

Understood thank you you can see for council vice president the

Yeah, I just have one question in terms of outstanding debt.

Now, none of this includes moving forward. And so in our budget book, at the end of the book, we have capital improvements, et cetera. We've identified particular projects, the school on the school side. I can't think of the name. The school's off the top of my head. But anyways, for Windows, HVAC, different things. So none of these numbers include those numbers. I want to do it as one piece if I can. And also you had numbers for capital improvements in other areas as well, public safety, police cruises, et cetera. So none of those numbers adding to the debt is included in any of this.

Correct. So it is in the capital plan in that way. The capital plan includes these numbers plus all of that other stuff that you referenced. But because you already have that, I then just wanted to pull out and show the exact Conley portion of that in this. So it's not that it's necessarily any different in that sense. But because you already do have that information that includes all of those pieces, I wanted to pull out just what this piece of that makes up. And then I obviously just went further because it was just the one item. I just showed you the full 30 years. I could do the same thing for everything in the capital plan. I just...

Yeah, so that makes sense because again I mean amortization for this is important, but the big number right so that all of that stands in the in the what's in the capital plan it still stands as it is correct. Okay, that's it. That's all I have thank you. I yield.

Consonancy 6 consular Peckham.

Diamond included in this number.

No diamond doesn't get included because it's very technically speaking not our debt. So it's not technically part of our outstanding debt.

Yeah, but our taxpayers and our city are going to have to pay for it.

Our budget does. And then in the capital plan, if you look at, so there's this outstanding debt analysis that's in the capital plan, but then there's another page that shows the whole budget and how all of these numbers fit into the budget. That does include the diamond. But this specifically in the sense of the outstanding debt doesn't because it's not ours.

What's our yearly, what do we pay yearly for diamond? 4.5?

It's going to be probably about 5.2. 5.2.

For the debt piece. 4.5 for a half of the student portion too, correct? Correct. So we're talking 9.7 just for those two.

It's about 10.2, so maybe one of those numbers is wrong, sorry.

10.2, just for Diamond alone. So what's this note going to be, 1.8?

Correct. I'm going to call it the high-end comfortable estimate right now is 1.8. Okay.

Where are we getting the money to pay for all this? That's just a direct answer. That's all I'm looking for here. With our receivables dropping over the next four years, where are we going to make up on the back end to afford all of this? Sorry, what was the part you said without what dropping? Our revenue over the next few years is tanking. It just doesn't look good. So what's your projection over the next four years that's going to make us able to afford this?

The biggest answer is the debt dropping off. So if you look at this, I mean, we go from 13.7, 13.7 to 12.6, 12.2, and then we go to nine four. So we, I mean, we're having a huge drop off at some point coming. And I say at some point it's in, you know, two years. So it's, there is a significant drop that's coming in this at all. I'm going to say make room for it.

Okay. And what was the interest rate on this?

So what's in this estimate right now is 4.5%.

And then what does that come out to after? What is it, a 25-year note?

So you're saying what does the total payment come out to be? So I have it here. Sorry, it's very small. It's $54.8 million.

So that's the real number. $54.8 million is what the taxpayers are going to pay for that. I just wanted to clarify. All right. So I can't support this. I've been vocal about it since the beginning. I just can't. We need fire stations. We need roads. We need a lot. The city needs a lot. And I don't think our priorities are in the right place. And this doesn't take away from the school. I think it's a fantastic idea to get kids in younger. We get to them younger. We just don't have the money to afford this. And if I have to be the bad guy to say that, then so be it. But we just don't have the money to afford this right now. I don't know what the appetite is for the rest of the council, but me as one council cannot support this. And the first go-around, I will be objecting to it. So with that, I yield. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you. Councilman C7, Councilor Pereira.

Mr. Pacheco or anybody that can answer. If we do not purchase this... for this amount, what are the alternatives? Because you've been mandated by the state to educate three and four year olds. So that's a mandate. I love when the state mandates and then doesn't give us any money for their mandates, but they do. So what would the alternative be? The only schools that we have We have Wiley School.

That's about it. But you couldn't use that one. Yeah, we wouldn't be able to. The two schools that are currently available that are decommissioned schools are not decommissioned. are not schools that we would put pre-K in. The amount of time it would take to renovate those schools, and again, schools that are shuttered for a certain amount of time, buildings that are shuttered, need to come up to full code standards. So that would mean elevators, every bit of upgrades that a building would need in today's standards, those buildings would have to be brought up to it. They're too small in size to accommodate anything that It wouldn't be worth the city's money. It would be a very poor investment to try and do either one of the buildings at 1207 Globe Street, which is a building we have, and also at the Wiley School. Neither school would be beneficial, nor would it be prudent for the city. That would be a total waste of money.

You know, I sit here and I think, my goodness, I know we didn't want to spend the money to keep the city dump. And look where it got us. If we would have spent, everybody thought it was a lot of money, but if we would have spent it, we'd have been saving now on the long run. If we can't, and I don't want to equate the school to the landfill that we lost, but that was huge for the city. Huge, stupid mistake.

If I could, Council, I think that the issue is, and again, it's in the narratives here, but the Conley situation takes care of what we have. we have coming what we have our issue is going to be that's going to expire our lease will expire when is your lease expiring 27 so july july or august of 27. between now and then we have to come up with a plan it's going to be in a building that we would have to have enough space to put 33 classrooms in

You wouldn't have enough time to come up with something and refurbish it and do.

We wouldn't have a choice. It's not a choice thing. We wouldn't have a choice. So we would go into something rental because there isn't anything that would be big enough for us to purchase.

Point of clarification, if any. How long have we known that we've needed this?

We just moved most of these pre-Ks out of buildings to make more space in buildings for programming. So this situation would have been evolving. This one currently is pre-K. But pre-K, by having the Bishop Connolly available to us, what that did was allow us to have a lot of space in the district that we currently didn't have that we currently don't have today that we will have in in september in obviously august and september so with that being said i the programming us us having the ability to go backwards is going to disappear once we fill these classrooms in all of these buildings. So we will have a need to have, and if Conley wasn't available, if Conley wasn't for sale and the diocese was interested in continuing to lease to us, then we would have more time down the road. I don't believe that that's in the plan.

Okay. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

So I don't know what that point of clarification was. It was so I could get clarity on. It was so I could get clarity on something. Excuse me.

Excuse me. We're not going to go back and forth, please. Council in seat seven has the floor.

Thank you.

I will recognize you. You can ask all the questions you want.

Thank you. And Mr. Pacheco, with that school being used for a pre-K, all of the land around it or the fields around it, what is the potential of that being used by the entire community, being expanded? I don't know if they have a soccer field there or not, but I know that that's something that people want, and we don't seem to have gotten that yet. But in the auditoriums, et cetera, to rent space out, what do you see as possibilities of

Yeah, I think we've heard the council along with the school committee loud and clear that they're looking for community space. And that is what Conley will create. And again, the cost for us to maintain Conley could be a shared cost with the city, park department, DCM, whichever group could help out. But at the end of the day, What we have there is not gonna be duplicated anywhere else, right? We're not, we don't have 55 acres available of open space in the city to do that. We do have parks that have individual playgrounds and fields and playing fields, but Conley is, is a situation where everything is in one place. And as far as maintaining that facility, there's ways around some of these dollars, as we talked about in some of our small briefings of creating open space and recreation, conservation land. There are some possibility for lots, house lots, that would bring this cost down. or put into some kind of stabilization account to do what we need to do. So I think Conley creates that piece. And again, it's difficult at the high school. And again, I want to say this because I hear it a lot in the community when someone says we built a high school and it was public money and those fields should be used by the public. we have a safety situation, right? So I really couldn't have people walking on the track at Durfee High School while students are walking the track at Durfee High School or while phys ed classes are happening on the fields or just in the sense that they are in the back of Durfee High School in an area that we really don't want people that we don't know or haven't been Cori checked and all of the things that we do on the insides of our building. So that piece is different than a Bishop Conley where we could do a controlled use of the area. We also have little ones who are going to be in controlled areas, not playing in open fields, not unsupervised. So it's an apples and oranges comparison, but it is a comparison. So I think that Conley offers a multitude of opportunities for the community to use or for events, a beautiful auditorium, a gymnasium. Again, there's tennis courts that could be converted to pickleball courts. There's a whole bunch of amenities in that building besides the open space, a trail at the edges of the conservation land that we could use. So the Conley property is unique in this package. which is how we'll procure it. It's a unique piece of property that can't be duplicated anywhere else within the city limits that is currently for sale or available to us. So it is a unique opportunity. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And again, with the debt coming off, it is not hitting the tax rolls. so to speak so it's not going to hit that taxpayer immediately in the future I I really don't it's not my game the gentleman sitting next to me is um the money guy and um he can explain where this will all sit along with Emily um but I I gotta say that this this opportunity um

If we miss it, it's gone.

Well, when it came up, it was unexpected because the intent was it was never going to be sold. And then the conversation was had, and it became a very serious conversation over the last maybe six months. And at that point, that conversation has changed to what you see here today. And we, Kristen can give you the value of what's happening on the inside of that building. I just gave you a brief, you know, explanation of the outside of that building.

And I would like to hear from Kristen because you have how many children up there now?

So currently we have 18 classrooms there with slightly over 300 children there, ages three to five. This coming September, over the course of the summer, we are relocating 15 classrooms that are currently in our school buildings.

You'll have over 600.

And we will have over 600 students ages three to five with 33 classrooms.

I think what I like about that particular area as well is that it's easy for parents to drop off and pick up. There's a lot of space. There's there for parking. We go to any one of these schools and it's congestion and people are not polite to one another. There's arguing and I hate to see the younger kids, you know, trying to get out and maneuver that.

It definitely creates a safer transition environment because it is not on a road. It is completely off of the main road. And so the only traffic that we are dealing with are the parents of the children.

I think. Kevin, what's your thoughts on this?

Honestly, I think it's great just for the fact that there's no other building like this that is available. And with us, programming-wise, especially on the special needs side, our special needs population continues to grow with higher needs. And so we're going to need more and more space within our buildings to build those programs. And so this opportunity provides a lot for the schools.

Well, and as a former educator, I am encouraged by children who do have daycare opportunities because it really advances them. I think Head Start had done a whole program on it one year on the advancement of children who were in a pre-K school and then entering school versus those that were not. Not all, but the majority, they got a kickstart. They came into kindergarten already knowing a lot. and I think if we're looking to advance children, I just think if you don't get Conley, then you're gonna have to look for a building somewhere else, and the classes that you're gonna be bringing in in September, those are gonna be filled by other students, so you're gonna have smaller classroom sizes, better education, and everybody wants smaller classrooms. So if you open up more classrooms, then I don't know, Ms. LaGault, if you have anything to add. I know you haven't been here that long, but your thoughts on your educational experience and this.

I think that what's been said, and we continue to say it, that if we can grab a new building, and to have all of our early childhood students in one place. It's so advantageous to the district. It's advantageous to our teachers, to our students, to our parents, to the community, to have them all there, to have the resources there, to have the supports that many of our students need, and they'll all be in one place. AND SO WE DESIGNATE THAT AREA AS AN EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER. AND SO THAT BECOMES A FOCAL POINT FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD, WHICH WE KNOW THAT STUDENTS WHO GAIN EARLY LITERACY ARE MORE APT TO GRADUATE AND GO ON TO COLLEGE OR CAREER READY, MORE THAN A STUDENT WHO DOES NOT HAVE EARLY LITERACY. AND IT IS ALL THE WAY BACK TO PRE-K AND PRESCHOOL. I THINK IT'S A GREAT MOVE FOR THE CITY, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, IT'S A GREAT MOVE FOR THE FLAVOR RIVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS, AND THAT THE SUPERINTENDENT AND MYSELF ARE SUPPORTING THIS. WE'VE ONLY COME IN FOR SUCH A SHORT TIME, BUT I CAN TELL YOU, YOU KNOW, RENTING A BUILDING FOR 7 MILLION, I BELIEVE IT WAS, AND THEN ON TOP OF 7 MILLION IN PERSONNEL AND STAFFING. different buildings and located in the district or in the community and then putting them all in one and having I think it's advantageous because We're gonna it's kind of come out of the budget someplace if we're gonna have to rent another building and I understand it is a big nut to pay for I understand that I think we're looking at different ways and funding ways and I I It's on both sides, educationally and academically, and a community support. It's a great thing. And then people see it, geez, how are we going to afford this? How is this going to be good for the community? But as we know, the future to this community is your children. And you just said a little while ago, come back and work for us.

I did, I told the students.

Yeah, I need teachers.

Yeah.

So we have a lot of places to fill. And so we want kids to stay here. We want to build houses. You want people not to leave and to come back and to support the community. This is one way to do that. I will tell you that if you have a good school system, more people will move into your community and into your city because you have everything here. It's a beautiful city. It's wonderful. And with good school systems, especially Fall River Public Schools, you had Argosy, you had Diamond Oak, you'll see young families moving in, buying homes, and creating access and opportunity for young people and the city of Fall River.

Well, with all the homes, the apartments that are being built, I anticipate that the school department is gonna be busting at the seams, getting more and more children moving in, and that you're gonna need to use those 15 rooms because of the additional students that we're gonna be getting.

If you look at enrollment across the state, enrollment is dropping off in many and declining in many other communities. But in Fall River, you're gaining enrollment. It's one of the only districts that we've seen or one of the few districts in the Commonwealth that you've seen a gain in enrollment.

Point of clarification. Do we know why? And that's so I can understand what she's saying, Council Perera. Do we understand why?

Because more people are moving in.

I asked the deputy superintendent here.

I would think that people are moving in, but I also think that people from out of the country are moving in. So you have a very eclectic population. We have a large MLL, multi-language learner program. We have a large special educational program. So ultimately a bunch of new people. Yeah.

Okay, so our tax base stayed the same, the same people are paying the bills, but we have a bunch of new people to pay for. That's fantastic.

You still have the floor. Thank you, Madam Vice President. People move in and they're living and paying rent and buying houses and paying taxes. Not everybody is coming into Fall River and living here for free. I wish I knew where you could live for free because I know people that could use the help, and I would tell them where to live for free. Everybody that comes in has to pay something. Kevin, my concern is the dollar amount, what it's going to cost us. And the way I look at it, this is a better deal to buy this than and what we're going to spend on this and pay off versus getting other buildings, which is not going to be one huge building. It's not going to be a building that has community space for members of our community that are taxpayers that pay for this. I did have somebody tell me or ask me if that would be a good place to have a carnival. I won't say who it is, but they're very much into carnivals. And, you know, Maybe we can get some money from that. And I just think if there's a possibility to make money there, even the apartments that are there where people are going to rent them, teachers from out of the country. Because now at Derpy, there's what, 14 languages spoken? 14 different dialects of different languages. So people are here. With that, I yield. Thank you so much. Does anybody else have anything to add before I yield? Mr. Shakni, you have anything to add?

I'm just here to answer questions.

No? OK. Thank you, Ian.

I yield, Madam President. Thank you. Counselor in seat one, Counselor Kadim.

Thank you. That was the best answer I heard all night. So first of all, I support the project said that from day one. Just a couple of quick questions. So the schools that we have built, so all the brand new schools, did we do 20 year debt service or a 30 year debt service?

Typically 30.

Yeah, I mean, it's not exactly 30.

Because at the time we do the interim loan notes for that, you know, the band payments and then it but it's till technically a total of 30 years.

I just thought we were around 20 years. I guess what I would suggest since we do have retiring debt, and I just ran the numbers real quick, I would suggest that we do a 20-year and not do the 30-year. So if we do the 20-year debt service level debt, you save about $8.3 million on the overall principal and interest for the project.

I want to be clear, and I probably should have started with this. This estimate that you're given is the worst case scenario. It's one assuming all of its debt paid that it's all debt funded, that it is a 30-year, which is a higher amount. So when we start moving forward, if there's other funding opportunities available, like we've kind of been hinting at, but we don't actually have confirmed yet, you know, we could reduce that cost. We could use free cash. We could go for 20 years. So all of that is a variable, but we wanted to be up front with, I'm going to say what the worst case is, so that if this is what comes to fruition, it's not a surprise. So there are other things that we can do and are trying to do to mitigate this and to reduce it and to change it, but we have to be honest with what the full thing that you could be getting into is, but we are looking at those options to to change those cost levels.

I appreciate that. And the interest rate potentially could be higher. Four and a half is pretty high. Yeah, so it could be lower. Sorry. I meant that it was high. That is pretty high. I meant that it was high. It could be lower. Yes.

We asked for a concern.

No, no, I recognize that. From my standpoint, I think just the 10 years, that's an additional roughly $8 million, or just under $10 million, however you want to describe it. I know we had, we were talking about Plan B. Is this the presentation that you folks shared with us? Can you just show Plan B for, I guess, the folks at home? Because I think it's important. If this doesn't happen, what does Plan B look like for the school department? I think it's pretty significant in terms of what you've outlined. I guess while you're getting there I will state that obviously this debt service is going to be built into the general fund so it's not a debt exclusion so it's not taxing the residents above and beyond the two and a half percent so we're staying within the tax levy in order to afford it obviously there's going to be some retiring debt and then obviously this this becomes a priority for us in future years so and I guess I'll turn it over to whoever wants to speak to plan B sure so

Obviously, we wouldn't be if there was a possibility of purchasing a building big enough. I'm not quite sure that that's available. But to rental space, for instance, approximately 20,000 square feet of building needed. We're estimating that to build out It's roughly $350 a square foot, which is a very conservative number in today's market. It's $9.88 million to build out to a piece of property we don't own. So that's throwaway money. We will get nothing for it in the return, and that's not counting, obviously, the, you know, the space.

The freestanding building

We're looking at, for lack of a better term, a metal structure building, a space building, so to speak. And that's where we sit there. The first floor mill space build out's a little different because we're not building the four walls and the roof. But it's $6.3 million for the build-out. Again, the build-out costs at 225 square foot because we are using, we're doing a different operation there. But again, money that's disposable because we're not going to have any return on that other than while we're renting that space. the classrooms are you know the ratio of 15 to 1 as far as students in those classrooms and that number obviously decreases to 9.1 on a substantially separate classroom so and then the other portion of all of this with not owning the building we also do have the fact that this the pre-k funding is not a hundred percent so we're not getting a full reimbursement, so that the cost to the district is much higher than it is for any other group of students, which is a big number. That's, the plan B would be stop looking immediately for some place that we could go into and obviously provide the inside space. We'd also need some outside space for students in the course of the day. And then the transportation piece would be filled in, fitted into this particular building depending on where it is. So where it's located in the city obviously changes transportation costs, but it also changes how the parents get to the building, the traffic situations. There's a lot that's considered here. Now, I'm gonna say that Ellsbury Street is not the easiest street to diverse between certain hours of the day. But it is, as Kristen said and everyone understands, it is not sitting on a major road, so to speak. Students are safe once they get into the property. The parents are in the property. The drop off is only our own traffic that we create. And 50% of the students that are coming to more or less 50% of the students that are coming to us are being driven by parents and the other 50% obviously is by our transportation. The Plan B piece is an extremely expensive piece which the school department would bear the burden of the rental piece of it, but the construction piece would obviously come back to the city to be built out.

I think part of our conversation when we met was Stone School, one of your options as well. Is that still on the table?

So no, the pre-K is moving out of there.

Yeah, but weren't you talking about demoing that building and then building there? Oh, I'm sorry, Globe Street. Globe, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, 12 or seven, so that building.

Is that not stone? That used to be stone, right, at one point? It was stone, yes. Oh, okay, sorry. I'm dating myself.

So 1207 Globe Street is right now a shuttered building, and the school committee has a desire to keep that building for expansion. Wiley is available. Wiley will be available completely to the city. Mid-July, we'll have it completely emptied.

But even those are going to be significant investments in terms of renovations or demolitions.

So for us, yeah, for us to do it, you're talking probably in the vicinity of 10 to 12 million. And again, they're very small. So as far as pre-K, we could probably put 10 pre-K classrooms in Wiley and maybe a few more at 1207 Global. Okay. And we can't go all the way up because the third floor would be too many stairs for evacuation.

And just for clarification, I don't want to assume and I think they've already taken a vote. The school committee is in support of this. Is that correct? Yes.

Yes.

I know we had talked about appraisals for the property, especially if there's going to be a Form A or subdividing the property for potential use of CPA funds. Have we begun that process or? We have started the process.

So we just, it seems that everybody's busy doing appraisals and it's tough to get somebody to. So you don't have an actual. So I don't have the actual stuff. The only thing I have is what we have for the property from Patriot, which is a little higher than.

Okay, thank you, I yield.

Council in seat four, President Pott.

Thank you, so I wanna just dig into a couple of very quick things on this contract that you executed real fast. So under page 22 of your purchase and sales agreement where it says lease license agreement, the parties agree that at least 10 days prior to closing, the parties will enter into. You have a lease agreement for four years, uh to allow the residences of cardinal maduras to be able to vacate the premise four years uh the lease agreement that'll for a dollar that allows uh the catholic schools to use some space um with the gym because that's important to me which i've indicated to you at that walkthrough to make sure that um the um the cyo can continue to operate there yes i see that being an item for only 15 years though so

If I could, so obviously, you know, it's a draft, right? So this, we haven't touched this document in, I want to say, two and a half to three months.

Okay. That's fine.

In the process of where we're going, right? So there are things in here. In fact, if you look at the front page, it shows that the Cardinal Medeiros property is excluded. Yep. Because that was the original agreement. Okay.

So that clarifies a lot.

So that piece is not... Okay. So the document itself needs to be updated. We didn't want to either side did not want to spend time until we knew that we were actually moving in this direction. So the conversation has been had with the diocese attorneys. And what we'd like to do is now start ironing out some of these particulars in there. We have no problem with the longer term on the on the gym. We do have some other items that we are in conversation with. And I don't have the details from the diocese, but I do know that The process for the Cardinal Medeiros residence is probably not going to be anything close to what is here, that timeframe. But a starting date and obviously a purchase and sale executed document is going to get their process started.

Okay, so I personally and I think I don't know what the ordinance is when it comes to leases and licenses. But I believe this council still needs to approve leases and licenses citywide. I believe if after a certain year, I forget what the ordinance was.

If we are leasing or licensing any space out as a city, it has to come no matter the term, right?

So I guess my question is more for Maddox is that This contract will be executed. There'll be terms. It's going to need to come back before us to just to execute this lease and these licenses that you're intending to do. Correct. Right. So I'm just going to say that the contract could have the amendments to it, but the licenses need to come back before us to approve at some point. So let's not lose sight of that, of course. Right. And, you know, personally, I just I'll just say that I think. cyo should be there indefinitely not 15 not 25 years i'd like to see 100 years personally i don't i think that program has done some greater good for the youth of this city and for them to only have a 15 year or a 20 year mark that goes by really really fast i'd like to see that in an indefinite period i know nothing's indefinite but maybe 50 years 100 years or something like that I'd like to see that I think that's important because I don't think unless you're going to grant them Durfee high school or another building I think that does a lot of good so that's just personally my opinion counselor in seat one asked my question when it came to CPA funds but that's really it with the contract Are you gonna be getting us an updated contract after you get our approval to move on with the process? Okay. Now, a lot of questions were asked tonight, and I'll be brief, on indirect cost agreements with the city. Or not really, no discussion was had regarding indirect cost agreements. So when are you gonna have your indirect cost agreements done that we've been talking about for like eight years?

So it is on my desk. It is the first thing I'm going to do once I get a second. But we have been talking about it. I did ask Kevin, Mr. Almeida, for it. Mr. Assad, our attorney, is leaving the school district. I mean, he's not leaving his practice, but he's leaving the school district. We had our second law firm in today. We have one more law firm next week. We have a special meeting for the school committee for the 23rd. ONCE WE HIRE THAT NIGHT, THERE WILL BE AN APPOINTMENT FOR A NEW CFO. MR. ALMEIDA IS LEAVING THE DISTRICT. ONCE A NEW CFO IS PUT IN PLACE, OUR NEW ATTORNEYS ARE THERE. OUR GOAL IS I CAN SPEAK FOR THE SUPERINTENDENT, I BELIEVE, ON THIS. that the CFO of the school district will call the CFO of the city and start having weekly meetings so that they can start having these conversations so that many of this the information they were looking for tonight we I think both sides would know and that's the indirect cost should be a conversation that should be had sooner than later and we are talking about it yes all right and because Mr Pacheco indicated a lot of great

i guess ideas at this point when it comes to open space and recreation and all these other things and this is all great because the facility could be certainly used because it's a large facility um but like we can say all these things are all great to hear but unless it's memorialized somewhere in any kind of a document with administration changes and whatnot we want to revert back to something right which is obviously subject to change but i just want to make that clear like i know we we can say we can have open space i know we could probably redo the football field in the back and let organizations use it. I get all that. That's great. But I want to see something that we're able to turn a dial to 15 years from today and say, this is where the council said 15 years ago, and this is what happened then. So that's just my position when it comes to that.

And I actually do have knowledge of doing the indirect cost with my previous school district. We had to do a contract because the auditors brought it up a couple of times while I was there and said, do we have to get this indirect cost? We have to get an indirect cost agreement. We have done that, or I have been a part of that.

You have your hands full, and I recognize that. So I just wanted to now pivot very quickly before I yield on the debt. So we had a capital improvement plan that we had discussed earlier in the year that spoke to numbers that are just confusing to me with respect to that. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I don't know, because I'm confused, Ms. Arpitian, your answer to our council vice president about whether or not the capital improvement plan that you presented to the city council is those projects for the next five, seven, eight, nine, or 10 years are included in your analysis or are not?

They are in the capital improvement plan. They are not in this separate document that was shared with you tonight. So the capital improvement plan document has, sorry, everything in it. The document provided tonight is essentially pulling out Conley from that.

Okay. So why would we do that? I'm just curious.

to just give you more information because, because this other number was already in front of you. And there was conversations about what exactly Conley is of that I wanted to show of what you see already in front of you how much of that is con.

Yeah, and that's fair. I see what you're trying to do. I guess my question, though, is, if I look into a fiscal year 2028, you say our total estimated debt payments are going to be 14.4 million. Is that is that only that that can't be for only Conley? Right?

No, the payment for Conley is 1.8.

I get that. So here's my question. What's not adding up to me is the capital improvement plan that the city council reviewed earlier in the year. You indicated to us that this does not include debt payments for future capital projects that you have outlined in the capital improvement plan.

Correct. So I see what you're talking about now. It's a different spread of the payments is what you're looking at in the capital improvement plan, the 1.7. Is that what you're referencing? You're not referencing that?

No. What I'm referencing is in our capital improvement plan that we had earlier in the year, we talked about in fiscal year 2027, we were going to have $57 million of infrastructure, $4.2 million of vehicles, capital improvement items, a little over $2 million for a grand total of $63 million. Correct. That was in the capital improvement plan that you did a good job presenting to us. So I guess what I'm trying to understand is, how am I going to be able to fully understand and grasp the actual debt with Conley included, as well as the capital plans for the future?

That's in the capital improvement plan. That's all within that.

So that's what am I going to add this document in this document?

So this document

is subtracted from this so it's all included in here and then this is just pulling out what's in the capital plan for it if i may can i interject for a second sure see if i'm understanding it i think we're looking at actually three sets of numbers we're looking at what conley the 1.8 for conley we're looking at the 14 million is our present debt that we're paying every year. And then if you go to the capital improvement plan at the end of FY26 budget book, that's where it becomes all inclusive. That's where the items you're talking about get added in. So it's present debt, future debt, and Connelly debt. Am I even close? Because that's the way I'm getting it.

You are close. The $14 million is not current. Our current debt is technically the $13 million. There are some I'm going to say short term notes that are not necessarily included in this number that is on your screen that is on your schedule that we do have that get us closer to the 14 million that you're referencing in the budget. But the 13 is long term debt that is in the budget that is as is. That tracks through both these documents to the pen.

Okay. So, and that's what I want to bring this back to, okay? In fiscal year 2027 in your plan, you have $13.7 million of what our debt would be with retiring up debt. In your budget book, you put 13.7. It's off by a couple thousand dollars. It's not that big of a deal. The budget book for proposed 2027 is 13,719,946. You have 13,713,728. not making a big deal about it it's off by a couple of dollars that's not what i'm trying to to delineate what i'm trying to understand is did you put in this um no because it's not going to be until fiscal year 2028. so in fiscal year 2028 if conley is approved we will see in our expense detail under our debt service 14.4 million dollars

Correct. With this current schedule. Again, this schedule may not be what's issued, but yes, that's how it would work.

I respect the conservative nature of a higher interest rate and higher payments.

But also the timing. So if we go to, right now we're talking about you guys approving it. Let's be clear on that. You're talking about approving it. This debt being added on in FY28 is if it is fully issued in January. If we long-term it in January of 2027, so seven months from now, which may not also be the timing depending on if we do a short-term note because of when the closing is planned for and all of that. So that could even push out a year, but yes. Otherwise, if everything stands as is, we fully issue the full long-term debt in January of 2027, it would be that 14.4 number that you referenced.

Does that include the capital items that you presented in the capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2028?

I'm going to say yes, because what was scheduled in that capital improvement plan was only for this long-term debt to be issued in 27 for Conley. The other debt we weren't planning on taking on until 28 because there wasn't room for it. So yes.

I'm talking about fiscal year 2028. In fiscal year 2028.

Correct, but in fiscal year 2028, when we issue that debt, we won't have our first payment until 29. So then it just keeps popping out a year.

I know that, but here's what I'm trying to determine. I want to make sure... because I'm in support of this project make it clear I want to see this go through I think it's an impact to our students I think it's going to make a huge impact for reducing class sizes I think is a number of positive things and I also want to commend your administration for listening to what we've had to say over the last couple years this is the first time in 10 years I've ever been into the ad building for briefings with the administration that's interested in hearing this council's opinion and from my standpoint I appreciate that I have had my ability to ask a number of questions before that a little frustrated that tonight is the first night I'm seeing a debt schedule that I've been asking for for about four months but that's besides the point I'm able to improvise and adapt pretty good what I'm trying to determine is in fiscal year 2028 and beyond we are not going to see any reductions of our current capital improvement plans that we have forecasted out correct

because this is already fully included in that, so there will be no reductions by taking this on. That is correct.

All right. That's what was important to me to understand, and I maybe should have just asked that directly, because the numbers don't jive when I look at this analysis, plus the capital improvement plans that we have.

The numbers just... Because it's included in it, that's why. So this is just Conley, and this is everything. That's why it's two different numbers. They don't jive, because it's just a piece of it.

All right. We can get into why the numbers are totally off offline.

I'm just I don't understand what you mean by totally off.

I'm looking at I'm looking at a clarification.

Are you trying to say you separated them?

Yes, yes. So it's it's fully in the capital improvement plan. This whole thing is fully in here. And then I just showed what it looks like on its own.

Why I think the numbers are off, to be clear, is the capital improvement plan in fiscal year 2028 shows $21.9 million. This is before shows will be 14. the numbers in my opinion don't jive i think you're just looking at different lines but we can talk through that offline and show you why you're looking at different lines i'm just going by the capital improvement executive summary on the financial aspect right but that's not a debt payment that 14 million is not the debt payment it's a total debt assigned in the capital improvement plan right but that gets issued the following year all right right so unfortunately I know I've been critical tonight this is what happens when we get capital we would get debt scheduled payments the night of a City Council meeting because I would have had all of these questions asked prior to I was asking mr. Pacheco this for a while even though he doesn't prepare this for a long time these are the questions I had because I don't want to lose sight of other projects as the city has because to my colleagues he sixes point we can do a lot of stuff with thirty million dollars a lot we can pay a lot of streets We can fix a lot of buildings. We can do a lot. And I just want to make sure that the proper vetting went through the processes here because I don't remember a time that a city council has authorized an administration in the school department to approve a $30 million bill. And this is important. And I want to make sure that we don't all of a sudden, like for example, Diamond shows up and now it was supposed to pay five. Now we're going to pay $9 million, right? I just don't want any wow factors. And a future council is put in a corner saying, well, if you don't approve this, this is what you're going to do. I don't think that's fair. And so I wanted to properly vet this. I'm in support of this project. The numbers don't jive for me. Whether they're right or wrong is important. But you've answered my question on the record that says that there's not going to be any capital projects. in fiscal year 2028 and beyond that are going to be impacted as a result of this Council approving a $30 million bill for the for Bishop Connelly right for its miss miss miss is that you agree with that as well have you had any discussions with the mayor from the mayor's perspective, I'm hearing it from a financial aspect, but I want to just make sure that we're in the same. Yeah, you know things.

Council seat to console come out.

Thank you so my see why your question. Council president brought up is going to remain how do we put that in place because I agree 100% If you recall, we used to have PAL in the city of Fall River. Do you remember when that was played? On the fourth floor of the police station. We built the new police station. They didn't bring the PAL over. PAL had to go to Hottwell Street School to play there for a few years. And then that school closed down. Where did they go then? Nowhere, none existed anymore.

great organization great lot of kids played hockey there a lot of kids play street hockey it vanished I don't want that to happen to CYO how do we keep that in place for more than 15 years well I think that has as the council president said licensing and you know and prior to us making this commitment right so it can be all-inclusive okay I'm going to assume that the diocese is going to want the document to be all-inclusive, so. Even if they don't, I do. No, I get it, I'm just saying I think they will also. Absolutely.

Because there's a lot of good that comes out of that, and I think it's in a great spot right now, using Bishop Connelly, and I don't want to see it end, because we decided to take advantage of the school. Another question I have, you talk about safety, are we gonna put a fence around the entire facility, so the students don't wander off into the woods, and there's a river in there, and there's a water?

The little ones?

Excuse me? The little ones, wandering off?

Yeah, exactly. Stop the teachers from running into the woods. Well, there is a river there. It can get dangerous.

In terms of the spaces that the children access regularly, they are fenced. The additional playground space for the older children will be fenced. And then other than that, the children don't walk in those other areas. They're straight from the building to the bus, the building to their parents' car. So there's no outdoor time where a child really has the ability to wander on the property.

Unless their parents are not paying attention and they walk into the woods because the car's parked next to the woods.

So the car's parent drop off is in the front of the building in the large lot that is directly by that access road in the front. And so the children, the side parking lot where the woods are is for staff only parking.

So I take it the answer is no, there will not be a fence around.

There will not be a fence. But our experience being there now for two years is that we would not need one in that area, just in the areas where the children are playing.

Glad to hear that. I think you might want to put a fence up, but that's okay. Keep certain people out and sit people in. Other than that, I mean, I it's it's not an easy vote, by any means. What is the appraised value of the property? Mr. Chico? I don't know.

The city of the city phrase property is the assessment, the assessment, I'm sorry. It's 299 and change.

OK. So to one of my colleagues who said, what are we going to do if we can't afford it? I guess we can always sell it and get our money back, right? We can't afford to pay for it? Sure. By then, it might be worth more money. Yeah, no, look, it's not an easy vote, but it makes sense to do what we want to do long term and to stop paying the money we're paying now in rentals. And, you know, that can always change as well. That price can go up and be out of our control as well. And when we rent a facility like that, is it a triple net lease or do we, do they have to pay or is that just?

No, right now we're just paying the lease.

There's no, right. Okay, they take care of all the maintenance. So I just want to make sure that those things were in place, and like I said, it's not an easy vote, but it's a vote that I think is worthwhile, and I think you seem to have a good plan and idea of what we're gonna do there, and we've been there for two years now, and it's worked out all right, and I can see the need. The location is gonna be very hectic with that intersection right across the street from the high school, as it was when Bishop Conley was there. You had all those students driving a number of cars and stuff, and it worked out. Just have to up the ante on maybe having someone out there controlling traffic. Some to consider.

With that you thank you thank you come to see one comes looking.

Thank you Mister president so just regarding the debt schedule so I know in the past we've talked about maintaining a level that service about 10 million dollars 15 million dollars in the general fund correct so is that still the goals that just I just want to I guess alleviate some concern about the fact that we might not have enough capacity for any type of capital items moving forward.

Correct. The goal for me would to be to keep it, um, I'm going to say around the 13.5 to 14 number. So the only year that we're even close to being out of that range is that very first year of 28. Um, and again, that we have so many options of flexibility that that may not be the case, but I just want to be upfront with the worst case scenario. But I think, especially if our budget can't handle that, we will, we will handle it and address it. You know, the way we are able to with our financial advisors to, you know, make sure that the debt is done in a manageable way. And like I said, we do still have the opportunity for other resources to be available. So all of that could change very quickly.

I appreciate that. I just don't want that to impact people's vote one way or the other, thinking that there's not room or capacity to be able to afford capital improvement projects, whether it's for police, fire, or any other department. Clearly, there's enough of a room in here between, just looking at FY30, $11 million to the $13 million, so there's at least $2 million in that fiscal year that we can we can adjust for so and that's just that's just payment so we can go out to bond let's just call it 20 million dollars for that fiscal year so there's still enough capacity there for us to do what we need to do internally uh if we support this project moving forward which again i do so that yields council and c3 consulate annual

Thank you. So just back to the Plan B, you had shown the cost for the build-outs. Just touching on what my colleague in seat two was mentioning regarding we would still have to continue to pay rent if we were in a Plan B situation. What do you estimate the rent to be, we'll say annually on average?

It's hard to say because I know we're on TV here and the diocese is going to hear me, but we have quite the deal. Right now, we're not going to see that deal. I really don't believe that we will. It should be all bleeped out. I don't believe that we should... We should expect this kind of deal. So I don't know what the going rate currently is for the space we're looking for. But we will, yeah, and existing in one place. I keep saying mill space just because of size-wise, you know, what we'd be looking at. I know we do lease some mill space, about 30,000 square feet in the city for our distribution center. And again, it's another good lease that we have, but it's also industrial. site with with no parking needed with this particular piece we would need parking for 70 cars teacher wise not not counting not counting um you know our in and out traffic and and space and buses and yeah staff members were looking at just speaking to the microphone please

For staff members with the 33 classrooms, we're looking at slightly over 100 staff members. And then drop off for parents, this is not a roll up drop off. Parents walk their children to the building. Approximately 300 children being brought in by parents over the course of the day.

So we don't have a space right now. We would go to as a backup plan. We'd have to identify.

No, we have not identified a place. I continue, like I said, I continue mentioning mill space because of the shared square footage that we need. Um, and some of the mills have have parking that we, you know, might be able to accommodate this. But again, the space is raw space that we would be looking at and the build out is, you know, it was pretty expensive.

So I think when I think about the rent and what it could be, just in terms of rent over that same 30-year period we're making the payments, the amount of money we would spend in rent, never owning it, is probably at least half of the total expenditure when we think about principal and interest, in addition to build-out costs.

Just really, go ahead. If I could, so when we were renting the Montessori School on Northeastern Avenue, we were at 237,000 for seven rooms. Those seven rooms probably equate to three rooms at Conley, size-wise? Yep. We had plenty of parking at that facility, but this is a considerable amount more than we're paying at Conley or equal to what we should be paying close to that at Conley for the upcoming year. So it's apples and oranges. So again, I said earlier, it's throwaway money. The build out itself is money we'll never get back, we'll never recoup because it's a space that we're gonna be renting and then someday not renting. And then again, the annual cost every year is gonna be substantial.

My second question is around the residences. What is the current plan for the residences?

I would say that that is in flux.

I think they certainly want to rent and continue to rent so that they can find the retired priest's homes to move them. But I do believe that sitting at the table and starting to negotiate this and having these conversations that we have young children there and that it would probably be more advantageous for them to find something sooner than later. And I think going into a purchase and sales agreement, we have a little bit more leverage to have those types of conversations with the diocese so that we could say, hey, you know, For us, I'm concerned as well. We wouldn't do it, I mean, we have houses next to schools and we have apartments next to schools. However, we don't house apartments in our schools. So I certainly understand your concerns and I understand everybody's concerns. So I think if we had leverage and we were to be able to purchase this and to sit down and have these conversations, I think we would have more leverage. And I think there are places that the diocese has in the Commonwealth to look for.

Long term, has the school department considered relocating the school department from Rock Street to where the residences are and maybe selling off the Rock Street property and getting that back on the tax rolls?

Not in my two months that I've been there, and I don't think not in the month the superintendent has been there. That could have been conversations prior to us. I have not heard that conversation.

It's an idea.

It is an idea, yeah.

I do believe, if I could, I do believe that the property was a gift at some point, and I'm not quite sure that there's any kind of revert of clause that we would have to look at.

Thank you.

Back to what the council president was talking about just around page 22 with the leases and licenses. Just around, are those one dollar amount per year things placeholders or are those actual amounts that when we talk about specifically allowing the seller to continue use of the space occupied by the Catholic Schools Office? Are those placeholder amounts, or is that?

I think this is placeholders, as again, the first draft, we have not responded to anything in here. It was just the first look at a document, putting it together. As the conversations have been had, there were some things that they wanted to be sure that we could accommodate. So some use of the auditorium the gymnasium some use of possibility for their convocations in those spaces for the for the entire diocese and then obviously the residents In this contract, the residents are not included. There's gonna be a separate parcel, but that's not the case. The residents are included now. There is a build out. There is a plan that the diocese has to make new residents available to the occupants of this building. I don't have any details to that. Obviously, it's not part of this agreement now, Again, all of these items that are on there currently are placeholders and that we will sit down with the diocese and negotiate those.

Thank you. When it comes to the timing of it, I think my colleague in seat six mentioned he plans to object tonight. Which an objection?

No, he didn't.

He can't object to this tonight. This isn't the first time it's been before us. I think he said he wasn't in favor of it.

and said he was gonna object.

I guess I'll just go with my question. If somehow there was a valid objection to it by any counselor and this vote was delayed tonight, does that impact the timing of this or is up to a two week delay an acceptable delay?

Yeah, I believe obviously time is of the essence. We'd like to get this thing that the process of this thing moving along is a little cumbersome because we do have a little bit of work here to do both to satisfy the council and also to satisfy the district's need for the building that's one piece of it that the fact that this is not going to be a document that stays in in the city it will it will need to go for higher approval and and then when it returns back to the city as an executed document then we would obviously go through the closing process I would really like to have this building in our ownership by the first of the year just because I'm going to need some time to do some of the things we want to do. We also have the process of MSPA that we would like to take a look at to see if that's a viable option. and some other opportunities, grant opportunities. And the way cycles in some of these grants work, it would be advantageous for us to have this in our possession by that time. So time is of the essence. We're trying to keep moving along. We are doing the work that we need to do to get the last 15 classrooms into that building. That's gonna happen whether the purchase goes through or not. but it would be nice to know that we're making an investment in a building that we are going to own as opposed to not own.

Thank you. And I just want to say, I think I've heard from a lot of people who haven't been supportive of this, who would like this to go back on the tax rolls. I think it's been kind of hinted that the likely buyer, if this falls through, is not going to be someone who would pay taxes to the city. This would be likely fall into the hands of another nonprofit as well. So this isn't going to be falling back on the tax rolls, I think, which is one of the big things I've heard that people want to see. so you know to that extent I think you know this is an opportunity um for us to um get something we you know I think it was a I'll go I'll say I think it was a mistake when the city didn't take you know the land on Highland Avenue next to St Vincent's for a dollar and keep that as open space um and this we're not going to see I think another opportunity for 55 acres and I think there's a lot of opportunity here so I will be supporting it and without you thank you Constancy for Council Vice President Dion

Good evening. I don't have much, because everybody's been asking lots of questions. I want to follow up with council in seat two in terms of the safety of the children, the thing not being fenced in. So I'm looking at this, and it's showing card access. So that would lead me to assume that anybody entering the building would have to have something that allows them to open a door. Somebody just can't randomly open a door, number one.

Yes.

OK. There's going to be camera upgrades so that you'll be able to see what's going on in all areas of the school.

Yes.

And my third question would be, are there going to be any type of alarms? Let's assume a child does push open the door. Is there going to be some type of system in place for the doors that an alarm will go off and you'll know somebody just opened a door that shouldn't have?

Yes. So in most of our schools, we have what we call chirpers. But it sits on the door, and as soon as the door is opened, it sounds an alarm. So if a student is trying to elope, that's usually what happens.

Okay, that's important. So that was just a follow-up with that, which makes me feel a little better about the security and their safety. The conservation. So how many acres are going to go through conservation? And I think that's important for people to know as well, because everybody who lives in the city knows you're not supposed to build on wetlands, but how often have we? Many times. And it creates a multitude of problems. The developers go in, they build these houses, they walk out, and then the city's on the hook with all the problems and all the aggravation that goes along with it. And some of it has been costly, some of it hasn't.

So in the packet, there is the wetlands report. It's approximately 24 acres of wetlands on the site, mostly as you come in, closest to Ellsbury Street. in the probably in the north in the northwest corner and then right in front of the building in the front when you drive in that area is pretty wet in the center there so there's three acres I think of wetlands there a little bit on the side so It's scattered across the property the wetlands but it is significant amount of land and then the flip side the other side of that would be there's plenty of open space so usable space for Recreation that's also available the fields, you know in just some open open areas there Yeah, but I guess just so people are aware that nobody will be ever building once that goes into conservation.

I Because as we know, in the south end, they drained a pond and built houses. Like, where that ever made sense. This would be a tough pond to drain. Which is, so that's another plus. Now, in terms of revenue, because there is the potential for revenue with this site as well. So for instance, seven to eight house lots selling those house lots, which is going to put property back, not back, but put property on the tax roll that hasn't been there before. Will we have the ability to rent fields perhaps to outside people looking for a baseball space, a baseball field or a football field or something that they don't have? We have that ability also?

Yes.

And in terms of the auditorium, is there any potential for revenue with the auditorium?

There are so many dance companies out there that want to rent auditorium space. There's not enough around.

So I'm going to tell you why I'm asking these questions. And honestly, it was not my idea, but I'm the one that's going to throw it out there because somebody brought it up to me. So people also worry about Fall River has property. They never maintain it. Fall River does this. We let everything go, whatever. In terms of these revenues, if we sell off these house lots and we create revenue, would there be an interest in creating a special account that those monies would go into that could be utilized if needed for maintenance, for future unforeseen necessities. And I guess if there was a special account, also it would have to be with the approval of the city council. The school committee wouldn't be able to, and I don't mean school committee, school side, wouldn't be able to just randomly say, we're gonna spend whatever, and it would be a joint conversation. Just curious on people's thoughts on that.

Yes, W. Thompson.

Okay that so again is all right that's it's all I have with that I you thank you very much council and see one consulate team.

Thank you just bear with me quick story time so to my colleagues and see 3, 4, I don't know how many people recognize this but Kevin Almeida and Chris Peckham is to play baseball together and Three degrees of separation, I played baseball against Chris Peckham. He retired me in Little League when he hit me in the face with a baseball and put me in the ER. One thing about Chris Peckham, he used to steal signs. I'm notorious for that. So him and Kevin Almeida stole signs. Kevin Almeida is wearing baseball socks tonight. I don't know how many people can see that. He's communicating to me that he's willing to guarantee $250,000 that they pay for rent towards the debt payments. So the indirect cost agreement that's on the superintendent's desk Mr. Almeida has agreed that he would support $250,000 coming over to the city in direct cost agreements for the rent. With that, I yield. Thank you very much. Is he leaving or?

Thanks for asking. Councilor Camara.

It's a lot easier to steal sides by the drumbeat. You can just ask Alex Cora. Poor guy. He won a World Series that way.

Just make a note. There was rent at some point, so $250,000

I hear you loud and clear.

Just a drop in the bucket.

So at this point, would we make a motion?

Councilman C2 still has the floor.

Yeah, no, and I just wanted to. Sorry. That's okay. My colleague in C4, when she started talking about the security, We're definitely not going to put a fence around it. I think you need one, quite honestly. Well, there's a lot of wild animals there. There's foxes. I'm just saying.

So if I may, the first thing I wanted to say is thank you. On behalf of the school district and the superintendent and our staff, we want to continue a robust collaborative partnership with the city and the city council. We want to come to you with our issues, with our strengths, with our weaknesses, with the good and sometimes not so good. to hear your opinions, your thoughts, your feelings, so that we can make the right choices for the city and for the students that we all work for in this community. And so the more collaborative partnership that we can engage in, the more conversation that we can have, the more I can understand to support the school, the department moving forward. The negotiations of talking about a purchase and sales with the Bishop Conley and the diocese Those conversations to have a purchase and sales agreement really tightened up, I think is a fruitful conversation to have and to sit down, especially about the residencies. The fence, that's something that we might not have thought of tonight, but you bringing it up, my head is now saying, you know, maybe we start at one point or do this area and then another year you do another area and we continue to go around the entire field. or the entire acreage, the selling of the houses, the lots, looking for, I don't know how much a house would go for. Many houses were being built with five bedrooms in them in the last couple of years. Do we need five bedrooms? What are we looking for? Are we looking for a $450,000 house or to a $750,000 house? So those are conversations that I think that we can have together that make us better. as a community and oriented around a great school district and a great community so that people do move in here and to support the community so i appreciate you having us here um i know that you're about to take the vote and you're getting there and maybe there's more comments um yeah i just had i sort of had a couple more things mr pacheco when you say that there's opportunity to lease some of the land or have someone to play baseball we're going to rent them the field or whatever

Are they going to have to get security, custodian? Because I know you have a place in Polish now, and sometimes it prices people out of it.

All of those pieces are part of our rentals. There's a base fee. We break it up into non-profits, city non-profits, outside of city, and then for-profit, for-profit on both sides. There's also all of our costs that we're not going to rent. If we rent an auditorium, normally it comes with a sound person, so someone from the technology department would be working. A custodian would be working. Security would be working.

What if there was a professional team that played forever? We have a semi-pro soccer team. They want to use the high school. They've got to pay all this. It gets very, very expensive.

It may get very expensive, except the fact that they are going to have a gate, I'm assuming. A game? A gate. They're going to be getting paid.

But not for their practices. They're going to pay for their practices. I'm sure we do, yeah. They cost a phenomenal leg, so they can't even practice there because at the practice, they're not charging people to come watch them practice. Of course, if they're having a gate, I would expect them to charge and pay for it. But if they're going to have to have a practice and it says, well, you have to have a custodian, SECURITY, YOU KNOW, OTHER EXPENSES THERE.

THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE CAN WAIVE ANY FEES THAT THEY SO CHOOSE.

SEMI-PRO TEAM THAT REPRESENTS THE CITY FROM THE CITY, PLAYING IN THE CITY, WE SHOULD MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO HAVE AT LEAST THEIR PRACTICES. IF THEY ARE GOING TO CHARGE MONEY AT THE GATE, I COULD SEE ADDING ADDITIONAL COST TO THAT BUT NOT JUST FOR PRACTICES. THEY HAVE TO PAY THAT MONEY NOW FOR PRACTICES SO THEY DON'T PRACTICE THERE. to struggle.

But I think those conversations need to be had.

Right, but if we don't bring them up, they're never gonna be heard, they're gonna be overseen, and we'll never know about it. And we're gonna be doing this, so when do we have those conversations? You're gonna come back to us for more opinions and ideas of how we can help sports communities or people in this area Well, no.

In my former district, I sat with the rec department and said, what do you need from us with our fields? Because they needed our fields. And those are our students. They come to our schools. So we want to support them. And we just got to figure out, how do we do that?

But in this case here, above and beyond supporting our students and people who go there, what about the community itself? I want to support the community itself.

That's what I'm talking. The community is still a supporter of the schools. Right.

you know at some point someone in this community has someone had gone through our school system whether it's themselves or someone in their family i think we'll try to do the same thing yeah i just think we need to get to a point where we can say hey look this makes sense and we should try to waive some of the fees for some situations to just promote more of what we can do here But thank you for coming. I think it's a good plan. Like I said, I'm going to support it. Thank you for your time here and all the answers that you gave us. With that, I yield, Mr. President. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman. C-5, Council Hart.

Thanks. Real quick, Mr. President, thank you. I just wanted to thank you guys for coming here and talking about this project. I think it's very important. I think, Liz, what you're talking about as far as how important pre-K is to a student, to a kid, it's not even, I mean, it's so vitally important that if we do, we've got 300 people there and their kid's there now, He'll bring it up to 600. That's going to be huge for them and for their families. And as far as like, you know, with the pre-K around the city, there's a pretty big hefty price on that. So this is going to be free. You know, but what I wanted to talk about was Council of Camaro. I was just talking to Kenny. about the not just the year of the fence, but the fields. And we're going to have to do a lot of work on those fields. The football field is in tough shape. What do you have? And I know this is all down the road. But what do you have in store for that? I mean, what the price tag? Are you thinking of turf there? Or what do you think?

Yeah, I would say that it should be a natural grass field. I mean, we don't If we're going to try and make it a community use field, we'll have to limit, as we used to do at Britland Park, for instance. Britland Park was a natural field. And we never let anybody play on it when it was raining. We never let anybody practice on it when it was raining. The day after the rainstorm, nobody would go on it. So there's a price to pay for the natural field, but it was free, as everything is in the city, all the fields. We don't get any gate for Britland. Britland's an artificial field, and there's no dollars exchange. So it is a public field that's available. the same token would be here if if the school department doesn't have a cost and we we obviously have to think about that and again the school committee is the ultimate decision maker as far as pricing on these fields but the goal would be that we do bring them up to standards um and we've set the standards pretty high on what we currently have i would say natural field there the baseball field is a is a very nice field it needs work again um the softball field needs work the tennis courts are cracked a little bit and you know they could use a little bit of of help so depending on how the agreement ends up being written up between the in the indirect cost agreement of how much we're gonna we're gonna take care of on our side and what's gonna be taken care of on the other side. It is a large piece of land to take care of on top of what we already have for square footage to cut and acreage. And we would need to talk about that, because it's a lot for the eight employees that we do have.

Also too, it was talked about as far as the, not just the security, but the traffic. That is obviously in the morning a hectic, crazy area. I'm just, I don't know, when do they actually start there, Kristen?

So there is a substantial gap between our start and end time in Durfee, so students arrive at 8.35 currently, and they dismiss at 1.50. There will be a little bit of a shift next year with the larger population that will be starting at 8.30, and last students will dismiss at 2 o'clock.

2 o'clock, can you make, I mean, can you change the times?

So are we set the times basically based on transportation because the buses are tiered and so we wait for bus companies to give us windows of time that work with the tiering and then we set our start and end times from that. But we do share buses with Durfee and so that's where tiered with them.

No, it's gonna be tough to do. But it's gonna be like we when the new therapy opened up, it was for the first, maybe what Kenny, maybe 45 minutes in the morning, it was crazy. It got hectic. And then it thinks I'll calm down after that. We are.

Yeah, we are staggering start and end times next year. So about half of the classrooms have one start and end time, and then we offset it by 20 minutes. So we won't have all 600 children coming into the property at the same time.

Right. But they will leave at the same time?

No, the beginning and ending is staggered by 20 minutes.

I apologize. Okay. Yeah. And then all the other alternative maybe is if it's possible to go out the back way.

So the buses do the buses come in and out by Langley Street. Many of the parents use the Ellsbury Street entrance, but some do also use the Langley Street exit.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, everyone pretty much asked all the questions and answered them correctly. I'm just been I've been for this. From the outset, I think it's something that we you know, this is the increase in the daycare was huge. To get it to 600 is fantastic. Are there other gateway cities in the Commonwealth that are doing what we're doing for numbers wise? Yeah, okay, what they do, how they actually?

Yeah, a lot of our numbers are really dictated by students with disabilities and their eligibility. And so children age into the public schools on their third birthday as they exit early intervention and become eligible for special education. We then set the number of seats for community peers based on the number of students with disabilities so that we have ratios that allow inclusive environments for students with disabilities.

Okay. All right. Well, that's all I have. I yield. Thank you all very, very much. We appreciate it and look forward to voting. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Hearing no further discussion, is there a motion to refer to full council? Motion to refer to full council has been made by Council of Pereira, seconded by Council of Canual. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Is there a motion to adjourn the Committee on Finance? Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn the Committee on Finance has been made by Council of Canual, seconded by Council Vice President Dion. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. We're gonna go right into full council.

I almost forgot you were here.

I hope you're giving your stipend back.

I forgot you were here.

This forever city council meeting will now be called to order. It is 8.47. Madam Clerk, roll call please.

Councilor Skidin. Here. Kamara. Here. Canual. Here. Dion. Here. Hart. Here. Peckham. Here. Pereira. Here. Raposo. Here. President Ponte.

Here. If everybody in the chamber can please rise for a moment of silent prayer. Thank you and a salute to the flag.

I pledge allegiance to the

Pursuant to the open meeting, Laura, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. Madam Clerk, good evening.

Good evening. Motion to apply item one from the table.

Motion to lift item one from the table has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Kamara. Discussion on lifting the item? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Madam Clerk? Motion to override the veto. Let's just have the clerk introduce the item if I can, please.

Thank you. It's a communication from the mayor in his veto of the proposed ordinance authorizing the city council to hire outside legal counsel.

Motion to override the veto has been made by Councilor Kadeem, seconded by Council Vice President Dionne. Discussion? Councilor in C4, Council Vice President Dionne. Did you raise your hand? I was just letting you know I was seconding it. Hearing no discussion on the item. Motion to override the mayor's veto has been made and seconded. Roll call, please.

on overriding the mayor's veto by passing the ordinance again to be ordained. Councilor Skidine? Yes. Camara? No. Canuel?

Yes.

Deon? Yes. Hart?

No.

Peckham?

Yes.

Pereira? No. Raposo? Yes. President Ponte?

Yes.

Motion carries, six yays, three nays.

Which a minimum of six votes was required so the item passes. Next order of business.

Item two is a request from the Mayor for the confirmation of the appointment of Nathaniel Roberts to the Cultural Council. Motion to confirm.

Motion to confirm the appointment has been made by Councillor Raposo, seconded by Councillor Pereira. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Item three is a communication from the mayor and a grant order to accept $10,000 from South Coast Health for purposes of a state of the art advanced training mannequin for the EMS department. Motion to adopt. Second.

Motion to adopt has been made by Council of Camara seconded by Council repose of discussion hearing on all those in favor, I opposed the items.

I am for the communication from the mayor and the M a memorandum of agreement for the labor advantage for workers.

Motion to adopt has been made by Council of Camara seconded by Council of heart is their discussion. Hearing on all those in favor, aye opposed the eyes have.

Item five is a communication from the mayor and a proposed ordinance amending the chief of police ordinance as it relates to appointment, powers, and duties.

Motion to refer the committee on ordinances. Second.

Motion to refer the item to the committee on ordinances and legislation has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Canula is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Item six is a communication from the mayor and a proposed ordinance amending the salary schedule for political appointments in boards and committees.

Motion to refer the item to the Committee on Ordinances and Legislation has been made by Councillor Camara, seconded by Councillor Rapposo. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Item seven is a communication from the mayor in a proposed ordinance amending the salary schedule for executive officers, department heads, and non-union personnel.

Motion to refer the item to the Committee on Ordinances and Legislation has been made by Councilor Camara, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Item 8 is also communication from the Mayor in a proposed ordinance amending the solid waste collection and disposal ordinance.

Motion to refer the item to the Committee on Ordinances and Legislation has been made by Councillor Camara, seconded by Councillor Raposo. Is there discussion? There is not. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Item 9 a proposed amendment amendments that traffic ordinances from the traffic Commission sure for ordinances motion or for the item to the ordinance and legislation committee has been made by Council or pose a second by Council can you lose your discussion hearing none all those in favor. Opposed the eyes of it.

Item 10 is a communication from the Fall River Redevelopment Authority regarding the Deval Street corridor maintenance.

Motion to accept the item and place it on file has been made by Councilor Camara, second by Council Vice President Dion. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

The next item item 11 is a communication from the Commission on disability regarding changes to pulling police. So the police are from.

Motion to accept the item and place it on file has been made by Council of tomorrow seconded by Council or pose a discussion hearing on all those in favor. Opposed the eyes have it.

Item 12 is a proposed ordinance for second reading and enrollment as amended regarding violations and penalties for traffic.

Motion to second reading and enrollment.

Motion to pass the item through second reading and enrollment has been made by Councillor Camara, seconded by Councillor Kadeem. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

I'm 13 at the citations for evolve Academy.

She looks to accept and place it on file has been made by Council of Peckham seconded by consular repose of discussion hearing on all those in favor I posed the ice have it was you think I was 19 through from signed a 14.

I'm part of 40.

Item 14 are citations for the Argosy Collegiate Charter School for the early college program participants. Motion to accept and place it on file.