EP City Council 12/10/24

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good evening I will call the meeting of the Provident city council to order for uh December 10th Madame clerk could you please call the role of the council Council Lawson yeah Council vice president R yeah councilwoman Su councilwoman Suza has contacted me she will not be able to make it I think councilman fogy is on his way but we do have a quorum so uh we'll we'll be begin begin the

meeting President I'm I'm present thank you sorry about that not in too much of a rush

we'll ask uh a guest here tonight from the school apartment Mr Craig enus would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please Al to the flag United States of am

thank you all Madam clerk if you would proceed with the agenda executive session the city council of East Providence may meet in executive session consu to RL 42-46 A2 liation thank you I'd like to take up this item at this time time uh item letter B discussion and possible vote on collective bargaining agreement between East Providence school committee Rhode Island Council 94 askme local

2969 I would uh just give my uh annual Preamble about this I I I think it's really strictly a school dep Department school committee uh task and Charter was changed a while ago to say that the city council must either confirm or not confirm um it's just something that we have not been party to in a negotiating basis but we we are confident that the process is finished and maybe in the future this

will go back to being just solely a school department issue but having said that uh finance officer uh Mr Craig enus is here from the school department U Mr solicitor any concerns on the city's part as you said the school department negotiated this uh it's the role of the council under the charter to ratify or not ratify the contract um you have been provided a summary of the tenative

agreement um of and the changes of the contract I don't think we provided the full contract yet because I think they just um provided us with the uh underlying changes in the current contract there weren't many uh Provisions that actually were changed and then of course the financial impact statement which was the last page which is also requirement indicating that the under the fiscal year 2025 the increase

of the school department would be 161 525 uh F fiscal year 26 would be 137 515 fiscal year 27 would be excuse me fiscal year 26 would be 137 515 fiscal year uh 27 would be 120 216 for total increase over those three years of approximately $420,000 thank you is there a motion motion to approve second motion by councilman Lawson to approve seconded by Council vice president weo all in favor

I are there any opposed there are none the motion carries unanimously thank you thank you Miss denus do we want to bang out the executive sure we might as well make make a motion to go into executive session second according to uh Red Island lore and as outlined by the city clerk uh we will um recess for a few minutes to Executive session to complete that agenda we shall return

shortly that was a vote of all three members to go into executive session yes all three unanimous thank you

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we coming out motion to seal the executive session of The Proven City Council on the 10th day of December 2024 so we resume the regular meeting from executive session Council vice president Rigo makes a motion motion to seal the minutes of the executive session seconded by councilman Lawson all in favor I any oppos the eyes have that three to zero thank you next item consent calendar for discussion and

possible vote 2025 annual regular meeting calendar make a motion to to approve but I would like to discuss moving up the time but that's another discussion at a later date especially in the winter when it gets darker okay but for now the motion by councilman Lawson is to approve the meeting dates as listed second second by Council Vice President we go all in favor I I any opposed the IAB thank you

that will be available if anyone in the city interested uh eventually will be on the city website or get in touch with the city clerk's office next item Li but discussion and possible vote make a motion to bundle second which ones C1 and C2 so the motion is to bundle the licenses as listed C1 and C2 yes second by Council vice president rioo all in favor I any opposed the eyes have it

they make a motion to approve licenses C1 and C2 motion by Council vice president to approve the bundle licenses C1 C2 seconded by councilman Lawson any comment anybody know what the perky turke is is it a food truck it's a food yes at the city ceremony uh all in favor I I any oppos the I have thank you next item appointments East Providence Water Commission Waterfront commission you want to say anything or

I'll make a motion is there any public comment I apologize yeah one second second we'll go back to um there were no Communications but there is a public comment if you would like to read that name and if the person is here Giana Lewis phy hi come right up to the podium to your right there thanks and just give your name and address for the record push that button in there so

it's thanks hi hi I'm gaan Lewis Fairley I'm a physician assistant in Rhode Island I'm opening up a business on 274 pcka da at Aura Salon suits um welcome thank you um I will be um doing Botox and filler and skincare for cut clients so thank you are you um have you started um yes I was in Johnston so I moved over here to be a little closer um to um family work on physical appearance of

the two gentlemen right or is they are they Beyond men clients too for B okay I have very nice soft skin yes I can see from so you had a license we just approved yes awesome and when you plan on being open um hopefully soon um whenever it gets approved and going hopefully this weekend so well email the administration they'll do the proclamation Facebook stuff for you okay

get the word out and I met the um the newspaper lady too today so awesome welcome thank you guys wish you Lu thank you thank you thank you thank you yeah your request is for next Tuesday I believe the 17th okay great I'm sure we'll be be fine but you're welcome to come back and thank you for being here good luck what's that one for hers is for the license oh she's on for uh Tuesday no

worri okay thank you any other uh public comment no okay now we can go to appointments of council vice president uh yes thank you Mr President um first I'd like to start off by thanking Manny Barrow for his time on the waterfront Commission in W one uh because of his professional Daily Business and family obligations he thought it was time to move on and I again I want to thank him for his

leadership and filling that role for people of w one I am very happy to appoint Kevin roach as the new W one appointment to the Waterfront commission Kevin has lived in the city for over 25 years very active in Community uh past president of runford little league involved in the toy sports athletic program and a lot of uh other activities in the city of East Providence Kevin has a great background in

banking and he will be a valuable asset to the people of wad one on the waterfront commission I move passage of Kevin p roach to the Waterfront commission second motion by Council vice president Rigo seconded by councilman Lawson and I want to concur with everything that uh Council VP said this will be a welcome addition not only for w one's representation but Citywide on the waterfront commission thank you for

bringing that forward all in favor I I any oppose the I have it three to zero thank you other appointments don't see any next item Madam clerk council members a for discussion request for total amount of arpa funding left overall and discussion on how to allocate the fund so this is more a statement we don't need the number but um I want to give a shout out to the city council by us locking up that 14

million we were able to make sure Kent field gets funded because we didn't have the money for that the business incubator the uh concession building the parking lot and part so many good things happened because we work together and we said listen it more important things than just one single so you know we're at the end uh this is December 24 um pretty much we allocated what needed to

be allocated I think we did a good job that there's a lot of positive things for the city that came from this funding um I do believe if there's any left over Frank you mentioned Glen line is that all funded ready to go at the last meeting and meeting with the administration in conjunction with Dan uh we secured the funding for online Bor and back stops for Kim bilan Rock

correct awesome yeah I do I mean if the council so wishes I do have a presentation just to give a brief update on sure why don't you give us an updatea funds in in general which that is obviously included so I got some uh documentation here that I'll pass

out for

um okay so um you know before you you have three documents uh one is one is the presentation um that you see on the screen here um the second is what uh we are calling the PO detail U the the document that is uh landscape with all the expenditures on it um and then the third is what we're calling kind of a category breakdown and this breaks down um expenses to date as well as where

uh future funding will be allocated um so I worked closely with uh Glenda and Malcolm previous to to kind of get all this information uh together for you so um if you could to the second uh yep go uh back one please uh so this presentation will just cover um you know a rough overview of the arpa funds and categories and expenditures to date um summarize future allocation breakdowns

and then we'll highlight you know some key Investments and you know impacts that these ARA funds have had um so to date we have um we have allocated uh 25.9 million in in round numbers um in in allocated POS or encumbered POS um the city received a total of 27 million 27.7 million from the federal government um and an additional 1.6 million from the town of Baron inton um to assist in

uh it's a reimbursement payment for the water pollution control facility um lining project so in total the city received uh 29 point just shy of 29.4 million um of that of those allocated funds uh the PO allocation you know to date is around 26 million um and we've broken that down in your uh kind of that PO detail into a number of categories those categories are broken down by Community Development and support

city-wide asset and infrastructure improvements city-wide placemaking Public Safety improvements Community Recreation Center City it city-wide it improvements payroll and benefits um and as we get further down um we will break each of these categories up into further subcategories to better Define the work so of the 25.9 25 no 26 million you go to the next slide um I've kind of broken that out in a pie

chart to kind of show uh where the funding has been spent so 17 million in asset infrastructure and these are all round numbers um 1.1 million for Community Development and support payroll and benefits is just over a million city-wide it improvements 1.3 uh Community Recreation Center is uh 1.57 to date and keep in mind these numbers are um strictly what we have encumbered in posos this does not

include the the remaining balance of what is left in the ARA fund um Public Safety improvements at 3.5 million uh city-wide placemaking at $28,000 so of that Community Development and support um the 1.1 million if you go to the next slide um we've spent or we've had encumbered in purchase orders 75,00 in Ready Set play money uh stor fund Improvement program has provided around $820,000 to the community uh and

then additional you know miscellaneous expenses that are all broken down in that yo detail of 250,000 just over 250,000 a question for the solicitor I think on this one uh the Star Fund Improvement have we been getting all the receipts that we need from the businesses so just in case we do get audited by the federal government that we're in compliance so I'm aware that as part of the program um they

usually give out the receipts in two TR the monies in two tranches the first one is they sign a lease or whatever they need to do and then they they don't get reimbursed until they actually show the actual expenditures I don't do that but the the um Department of planning does that I believe that yes we've had a couple of issues I'm not going to Sugar Cotter there have been at least two

people that we've had difficulty with with but we're in negotiations and we're trying to um plug that hole what we have it but the program overall has run well thank you right so to keep uh moving on for encumbered purchase orders uh for city-wide asset and infrastructure is's around 17.1 million that's been spent to date either spent or still open in purchase orders um I won't go through

every single one of these it's an extensive list but uh just to kind of name a bullo Park improvements Pierce Stadium um Splash Pad at Providence AV we're just about to undergo uh actually I'm sorry that's that'll be later on the presentation but uh Citywide GIS and asset um management development um sewer s sewer system improvements uh which include improvements to the treatment plant um

vehicle and Fleet improvements and just general um transportation improvements um so if you go to the next slide that kind of breaks down a pie chart of you know what um where that money has been allocated to date the next slide um city-wide placemaking so of the 200 shyia 280,000 7200 has gone to the utility box art project um Bill big belly receptacles that will be um distributed throughout the city in the spring

133,000 um Citywide street sign improvements uh we had the ability to purchase a vinyl printer for the highway for the highway shop a laminator um and a fair amount of uh new aluminum blanks and we're going to start uh implementing new street signs throughout the city come to spring so we've purchased a lot of that um a lot of that material and hope to to start you'll we'll start seeing some new fresh

street signs throughout the city um and then in addition there will was also uh just kind of a catch-all number of 67,000 um and that is broken down into more detail um in that PO that PO detail that moving on to the next one we have uh Public Safety improvements just shy of 3.5 million um as the council's aware the police department is um the building is under renovation at $2 million with

the additional funding coming from a grant received by the police um anal shelter improvements to date we've spent around 73,000 on improvements the animal shelter you'll see um in the coming slides where some additional funds will be going um but in addition to that the public safety uh Dispatch Center just uh 457,000 a public and then General Public Safety improvements of 884 th000 again

that number sort of broken down more granularly from that um and then some addition additional Investments that uh were made that didn't really have any subcategories so I kind of bundled these all together was the the rec center um so to date we've spent uh or have encumbered 1.5 million city-wide it improvements 920,000 um in payroll and benefits um we've we've spent a million dollars uh so moving forward um of the

29 million there's rough 3.4 million of uh funds that need to be uh allocated essentially excuse me obligated excuse me so um of that 3.4 million um we've provided you know a breakdown here of where these funds um you know will be will be invested um so I'll go through these because these you know in a little more detail here but um we have some outstanding invoices for some additional

park benches throughout the city so there's uh $122,000 there that will be uh utilized to purchase park benches to replace you know old and throughout the city um Additionally the council approved a $100,000 uh change order as part of the Kent Heights Improvement project that money has not all been uh spent to date however uh we're earmarking 100,000 that was passed in that resolution um excuse me to purchase

uh excuse me to cave the parking lot do some line striping um install um a shed on a on a concrete slab there so that will uh cover the cost and install some solar power weap as well um in addition there was 975,000 allocated for the Crescent Park carousel uh con the Crescent Park uh concession and then the community center um Dan can you explain 975 that was the that was the or the the

monies that was we allocated 1 million by ordinance or resolution 1 million towards that project okay I'm I'm not aware of yeah we allocated 1 million did you get the rfps are they starting to roll in are we no not yet um we have a bit I don't have so if there's some overage this 3 million could cover if it's more than what we have I know for a fact because I wrote it it

was a million dollar allocation no counc the only my only question was going to be um and goody Council um was whether or not the verbiage on all of them said up I don't have it in front of me but I can check was it up to 1 million we allocated a million dollars I don't know what yeah I think a lot of the language like for most of them mo most of the uh

Council um arpa suggestions were there should be 25 25 more added to that 975 or even 1 million plus we had I believe 500 th that we spent on The Architects that was previously allocated through capital I can double check but I think the Lang language was up to one there was about 1.5 million towards this project when we started and one million of it came from Opera funding yes so we

can certainly look into that um I as as long as we got enough to pay the building I don't care if it's 900 or whatever yeah I mean we won't unfortunately we open but it was originally so if it's a little over what we have we can dig into this 3.4 because we already have this project that's where I'm GNA kind of leave that to Marcelo so we're we're kind of in a little un Uncharted

Territory because of the the deadline of December 31st and as I explained to you when we had the your train um resolution for that trackless train the federal government I guess within the last year or 10 months came out with um new rul rules as to what obligated means and they basically said that because everyone's approaching this deadline an obligation is more than just passing a

council resolution or an ordinance they will actually want to see either a contract a purchase order or whatnot by the end of the year however recognizing that and every town is doing this right now scrambling for unspent money because a lot of a lot of the um a lot of the projects couldn't be done because they didn't have enough people Manpower professionals to do the thing do these

studies or whatever needed to be done they have come out with a rule that basically saying that um as long as it's obligated through a memorable Rand of understanding between the chief executive and the department that's going to have these monies and so that's what we that's why it says mou the last couple weeks I've been writing Theseus so that hopefully that these will be solid that the US Treasury will

recognize these as obligated funds because honestly there is a fear uh across every city in town because of the change of administrations in Washington that any January 20 left money left could be could be swept away so we're hoping that the this these are the rules we're playing under the rules that they um put out and we think this is good enough to protect it and so again some

of the stuff we couldn't go out we still have to follow all the bidding requirements and we just wouldn't have the time to get competitive bidding by December 31st and all that other stuff that's why we're kind of in this no man's land but we think based upon the rule that was prolongated by the treasury that this is enough to allocate and obligate and really it's word is obligate these remaining funds we've

been I've been working with all the Departments and making sure that this is hopefully Crossing all our teas and Dot on our eyes and the bids close what in a week roughly or bear with me in a minute I can pull up so to the extent that there are things that are Bid and ppos those are good and we with contract signed and went up but some of this stuff obviously we don't have my only

concern is that the concession buildings funded that that's it so the word is concession obligate is obligated OB it's obligated whatever lawyer speak you want to put as long as it gets done we believe that this obligates those funds the the bid opening for the um the new building will be the 19th uh a week from Thursday you hav't thought we saw that you guys already put it up bid opening

so they will open the bids yeah it's B put out at the end of the process here y um all right so just to keep kind of moving along here we have uh Community Rec Center allocation as the council's aware there was 3 million allocated uh this figure of 1.4 and what has already been encumbered um of the 1.5 brings us to that 3 million um the Citywide hydraulic analysis uh we did

receive three bids for that work um the bid theow bid um and the selected contractor came in at 130,000 um we actually just learned um yesterday or the day before that we we are will be receiving $325,000 Grant from uh the USPA um to to conduct this work um so that's actually really good um we'll utilize that funding to cover the cost of this um $130,000 study but that will also allow

us to cover um essentially design projects so this study would get us to a point where they're making recommendations um as to what would need to you know be completed in the city um but this 325 will allow us to you know go to the next step um so we've air marked or we've obligated uh 75,000 which is uh a grant requirement for a match for the 325 um we've also obligated $40,000 for the Riverside

Splash Pad there's already been purchased ERS um um encumbered for the installation of the splash pad however there is some drainage improvements that need to be made um in order to make that project a reality so so Qui question for you um we allocated 200,000 we don't need the full 200,000 because do we have to do another vote to unallocate whatever resolutions all resolutions said up to 20,000 so the

expent that that dropped off that it got reallocated somewhere else that's so similar to oldum school you know the repairs that have been made um you know we didn't utilize the remaining funds and those have been sort of distributed between the projects you see in front of them how how far I saw they start at the roof I've been out of action a bit slope the slope DRP is complete um all the trim all the

trimworks uh been done best this is out all that awesome was uh repainted and um they are currently working on the flat portion of the roof in the back of the building uh so so hopefully within the next few weeks they should be complete lot of excitement for that project um so then the next project we have here is uh you know as I mentioned before about 78,000 been spent to date

but we all we have um obligated 200,000 for the um Animal Control uh facility the the facility will be receiving a new roof uh some new flooring um new uh waterproof uh furniture for the um for the areas to clean the the dog bowls and Cat bows um and some new appliances that will better serve that building so that that will Encompass that um we've also obligated 65,000 to complete uh bpoint Park

there's still some uh electrical work that needs to be completed um and we've decided or we're going to attempt to um submit to crmc for the John Lewis Park and actually have that paved uh rather than just regraded with uh Stone so I think that make that big Improvement there um in addition we have um obligated 75,000 in placemaking Citywide uh for signs to the city and just some

general other placem U banners and so on throughout the city so we've obligated that and then lastly um the the number is not a perfect round number because uh we had obviously a few cents of remaining funds left so um um we added some additional funds to the original 445,000 that was obligated for um Park improvements at ly Bourne Glen line and Kimberly Rock um and we've um put the

balance of the remaining funds there for just shy of 460,000 um we'll we'll be undergoing some uh basketball uh Court resurfacing tennis court resurfacing at um Glen Lion Kimberly Rock will received some back stops as Council mrio um suggested and borne ly will also get looked at for some some improvements there awesome ball CS at both B and Glen L cor correct well Glen L will installing a a

brand new pickle ball court and then uh at ly Bourne they will be striped within the tennis court I see them putting a blue structure up at the wreck today yes that is uh composting bathroom so that's the uh bathroom facility um for yeah that part yeah you're not breaking it in no comment so my my my observation is that from the tip of Rumford to the tip of Riverside and everything in between

duu Opa and some other efforts for for those who have questioned you know his was oper needed or what was it all about we have provided infrastructure needs in from Soup To Nuts and all kinds of different areas small projects to fixing a seaw wall cres park and other things to the tune of $29 million which we otherwise did not have in this city right this is not coming out of a budget

per se um I I think this has been WID wisely utilized and you know we've had give and take we've gone back and forth and that's what government's all about you know we've differed some things and we've came to a final plan and that's that's what uh debate is all about and in the end I would say to our citizens we've got almost $30 million of needed things some things you know maybe you

could do without a Splash Pad but public wants some things like that they they want to have them in different parts of the city so we'll have three now and we have all of these other projects fixing um important infrastructure so and it's going to end yeah that we would otherwise you know we would otherwise not be doing any any of these things without that utilizing that those monies

and I certainly am not confident that there'll be more coming down the pike in the next several years um so and then maybe that's the way it should be okay but this this was a great effort and it's provided our community with a lot of necessities and it wasn't like we could just take that 30 million and throw it in a budget that that wasn't the intention of from the federal

government and if we did it would only be a one-time fix anyway so this some most of this stuff is going to last for a long long time so I thank you for putting together this is a comprehensive report and thank um the the mayor and Patricia and others and mostly uh my Council colleagues who've been on top of this from from day one and I've pulled and Shrugged and got it

got it done uh thank you if there are no other questions on this we can move on thank you next item Madam Clark update on the $1.2 million allocated for financial relief for businesses affected by the Washington Bridge closure councilman and I think B and C is kind of combined that somehow got yeah we probably we we um from the last meeting and we so anyway go ahead mine again basically a

statement I was very very very happy to see that the amount of the grants got bumped up um from the beginning the small business loans didn't do it $500 wasn't going to do it I'm glad it sucked we had to talk about getting a lawyer to protect the small businesses but I am happy that they're going to be restitution for the failure of ryot and I was a little disgusted with the governor's and lv's thing today

basically they don't see any problem with their job well when you're in charge you take the good and the bad and r dot failed us and for them to be up there saying well it wasn't us it was just the contractors well they failed e provs they did and but I'm glad that the money's going to be I very much against any kind of gimmicky gift card thing I'll still be voting no but if there's

left over after restitution if we want to talk streetscapes or whatever we could do to help these businesses in that way I'm all in um but you know it was said oh these people never made whole but now I'm hearing yeah they it was enough to cover what they lost so I I had happy we're moving forward like that and I hope everybody who was affected get your paperwork in you got

to quantify your loss you can't just say I lost money you got to show us you know you got to show us that you know loss and I hope we reimburse them for the full amount that they lost I think 1.2 million based based on the number of people applying we should be able to do that so I'm happy that it it took that turn you know um it sucked that we had

to do what we had to do to get people to pay attention but I'm just happy that these people are getting the compensation they deserve for the failure of R out yeah thank you councilman so I would ask the uh Chief of Staff um comment briefly so the businesses now will be receiving up to 10,000 right if if everything is appropriate and that's correct so what we found was from the beginning our in the

administration's intent was to get the $1.2 million in the form of Grants and or uh The Gift Cards into the hands of residents and business owners um but it's a process right so we had to go through the process with the applications what we found is surprisingly is that we had 264 so applications uh more than half of those were fraudulent so we did vet them uh we worked with skills for Rhode

Islands future on that process and again more than um of the 264 over half or fraudulent so it it everything takes time and what we weren't what we did not want to do is commit to making all of these businesses whole because some of them had you know 40,000 you know 10,000 in losses 7,000 in losses so it was difficult for us to commit to that until we vetted and and saw how many

applications came through um in the end we had about 111 um application excuse me not applications but actual approvals after being vetted uh vetted excuse me and of those roughly 92 of those um uh have been notified and 19 of those are being audited so what we were able to is based on that um because there there weren't as many businesses that we thought were going to come out and

request or apply for the grant funding we were able to calculate and some of those businesses who um had 8,000 in losses or 10,000 we were able to give up to 10,000 um to make and I want to say 41 so a little over half of um or just under half of the businesses were actually made whole like they got the full amount back and and I will say that

I I know that uh fraud and scams did cause some delays for instance there was a business right here on toron Avenue and the request came in and of course being the city that we are we're not that big but we're not small but people here in City Hall knew right away that's not the owner of this business that's correct so when checking found out well that's that's some outof country scam basically and so that took

a little time but so what's left now how much money wait a minute before we move on from the fraud yep any local business that committed fraud are we going after no no they didn't outside of the local busund and something outside people this business on tooren Avenue had no idea that's correct somebody used them that's what the fraud was so the people that committed this Ro are they identified I

don't think they it's it's like the FBI it's like scams on your phone and I don't give a if they're trying to steal money from us I want to go out well I'm I'm sure yeah the all right is the attorney general in the loop are they aware so I don't know if they were told about but it was stopped you know and they didn't fine but somebody still tried to take

money from these people I think yeah oh yeah all right all right thank you I mean how I know I've had my accounts Through The Years a few dollars missing we could never the bank would go after them but they still have that communion money yes so is there a number of of what's like is it too late also so we're still technically in the process it is too late for applications but we're

still we're still technically in the process um at the moment because as I mentioned 19 of those businesses are being audited so um to give you I you know we could give you a final number once who who does the auditing uh we we're working with Commerce and um our department is doing that um excuse me our the city is doing that with the skills for RI and with um and with

Commerce so there was vetting through through uh the city of Providence did their vetting Commerce did their vetting and of course us through our partnership with skills for Rhode Island fut how do we vet can you explain that there was a number of things that were done so obvious obviously when you pull up the spreadsheet we used um a third- party application if you will and the applications were submitted that way

they had to show documentation they had to show an ID so I can give you a basic example without going too deep in I don't want to encourage any more fraud but I can give you a basic example so for example if you were submitting um saying that you were XYZ business and you're going to send a photo of yourself or your or your passport then you also applied for ABC business using the same

passport background with a different photo so they were there were things that were very obvious in terms of fraud um and uh they also used a system which would like Software System which would you know pull out the those that were um fraudulent so it was very it was vetted through software it was vetted through and then we took the finalist that we received from skills for Rhode Island's

future and as the council uh president said we know that that person on that photo is not that local business owner so some of them were quite obvious and there were a lot of repeats as well so do you think if we re-advertise that the it's not just a $500,000 Grant maybe more people will apply because I did hear some people say why am I going to waste my time for

$500 I'm sorry I don't know the is there uh any talk about reopening the application process we're still in the process so at this point we we want to be able to provide the checks to those who have applied get that final number and then see what's left from that so we we're so not yet at that point we don't have a balance that's correct we did extend it twice as well

so you know other applications like councilman says now that people know they could get up to 10,000 instead of 500 they may be more apt to come forward well what we were doing is we asked what your losses were so people who lost who had a loss of 2500 2,250 they all applied whether their loss was $1,000 or $40,000 they applied for it because money is money and you're if you're a business and you're struggling you're

going to apply for any of those uh proceeds to offset the amount that you lost that's just any smart business person now we absolutely have to they got to qualify they got to quantify their losses but how honorous is this application how much documentation are you asking how much they had to submit um identification w9s they had to show uh losses over a certain period of time I want to say December of 20123 in

January and February so they actually had to approve all their losses with documentation so it wasn't like a 10 15 page application that they had to go through and I don't know how many pages were in the application I can I can check and find out get back to thank you okay thank you thank you for the update it's basically good news next item Madam clerk public hearing ordinance second

and final passage for discussion and the vote an ordinance an amendment of chapter two of the revised ordinances of the city of East Providence Rhode Island 1998 98 as amended entitled Administration this ordinance creates a new provision related to the establishment of an East Provident school department Capital Improvement revolving fund council president Rodricks and councilwoman SE so this is a public

hearing final passage um an of discussed uh item quicker we we get this done the the quicker we can start with with the fund uh before I open it up to public hearing any comments on the council again I just want to I can't thank you enough for your leadership I know I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to the schools and um funding of the schools and you and I talked at nauseum about

how historically the city kind of didn't do what it should have taken care of these schools so we're kind of playing catchup a little bit and some cases but we're making awesome strides and this is awesome I can't thank you enough for your leadership for helping C me down at times um I know I get a little passionate and sometimes my Italian thickheaded can get too much but um I strongly support this I think it's

awesome I'm glad there was money left over to seeed this fund um I look forward to continuing to find ways to feed it whether it's through the yearly Capital um grant money whatever Craig and Sandy can come up with um I I just I think it's a good thing I think it's important that we invest in our schools if we want to build these Providence we got to remember that schools need to come along even though

everybody keeps oh nobody's having kids anymore well some are still having kids that we got educate so um so that's it I and I thank you so much from bottom my heart I I appreciate that and uh you are never a pain when it comes to supporting our families and education in this city as well as fixing potholes we we we're charged to do it all and this is a a

great step forward to supporting uh our Public Schools um this point I would would ask if anyone here in the meeting would like to speak on this final passage for this this fund it is been discussed often has the support of all those on the school administration school committee and on the city Side the city could have opted to just earmark this money for non-school item in a way but you know the choice was to

let's let's keep it there ask one more time hearing and seeing no other comments at this time I'll close the public hearing any other comments from the council is there a motion motion to move passage second motion by Council vice president weo to move passage seconded by councilman Lawson and and all in favor I any opposed the eyes have it passes 3 to zero thank you all for your hard work on that next

item new business mayor communication yes uh Chief of Staff rendi okay this will be quick and simple so you didn't put the yes out that's awesome that's right I I answered to just about everything these days um so I I we do have Jim Marvel our director of water um here this evening who'll be able to talk this was um a little bit more time sensitive for the last council meeting um but to

discuss Le awareness and our letters that the letters that went out in regulation I good um fine I don't you guys need a full presentation on it yeah just a quick quick summary no sure thank you for for your patience you want to just give us a summary on that letter that um yeah some good um have good evening and the um welcome there is a federal law called the leaden coer rule was amended about a

year ago um we sent some letters out um try to do I lost and um as of the end mid I guess of October we had to submit to the state a um status of our inventory um we have 29 known Leed services in East Province out of 15,200 we have another um 29 or 30 that are galvanized on um which really aren't bad numbers unfortunately the language in the letters was drafted by the

government and which caused um lot of but we really didn't have any choice in in that language I think what it's important for people to know is that we've never had a lead level violation in City be's problem and we meet the current standards through all of our testing we test every year so folks should um they don't know this yet but they should you know realize that this is a data

collection effort on the part of the federal government and it was all brought about by a reaction to Flint Michigan years ago and it had kids with with high Li level um this is a data collection don't know what some of these pipes are we have to find out um have a company that's going to be going into people owning um some of the calls and we've been taking tons of calls every

day out our staff to check so I think the thing to realize is that we don't have a substantiated issue but the government says that if you have service line and you don't know what the material you have to count le as far um necessary anxiety to the best of your knowledge um heard anything about the schools within the city any issues there should not be any issues but the rules also been

amended that in 20 see the 25 26 we're going to start testing schools um the issue with lead in schools you know really is related to the age of the pl um there was a um reduction act that passed several years back that PL material and that was in the 80s and that's slowly getting rid of everything that anything the issue with lead in stools primarily do the water

coolers do we know if I didn't think the infrastructure act that Congress passed if there was a cutout specific for lead well there is and um as you may recall we have a $26 million bond out right now that's doing some water meter replacement and um cleaning lining and there's also money in there to replace Le services that okay so we'll be okay we we got the funding take a timing issue um Noe as

long as it's funded that's our rle oh no it's there awesome sounds good okay thank you for your time and the update appreciate

it and uh we also have the um appointment of our new Finance director who has been working with our um previous and longtime director in the transition but I wanted to be able to introduce to the council Glenda Delgado if haven't had an opportunity to meet her he has jumped right in and uh she's been very busy and um we're happy to have her so uh Miss Delgado I'd like to

ask you to come to the podium please so any viewers can come acquainted with you and officially welcome you here I know you were here for a prior meeting and it happened to be a a public hearing we had on on the Myrtle there were no seats here and I thought I saw you in the back but we we never got to introduce you and um so thank you for your patience but uh

welcome to the city uh are you going to stick it out you're not going to run away yet to run away thank you um I know that uh Malcolm is physically done right he's good so you're here did he leave you a box of keys and things we hope yeah yeah he did some most of them I'd invite you to make any statements you'd like to say I say um thank you for welcoming me I'm

excited to be here and I'm looking forward to Great Well best of luck and you know you can contact any of us if we can um answer anything for you or be of be of any assistance did you want to add something I I've had one meeting with the new director and it you know I'm very impressed with her uh skills and uh look forward to uh her finishing off our

term and hopefully more terms with us thank you great good luck and thank you for stepping forward and lastly for uh our mayor Communications agenda is obviously we discussed the Washington small business grant program payout but I also wanted to invite the Council on behalf of Mayor Silva to join us on December 23rd as we are going to have all the businesses come here into the council Chambers so

that we can provide them with um their Grant check and and all of the the process complete the process with them and that'll be December 23rd 23rd is that evening time or what time at 3 pm from 3 to 5: p.m. we them M dress up as Santa for that day um he does have a burgundy suit but I don't know if he'll dress as Santa for that evening thank you thank you next item mam Clerk

reports of other City officials city solicitor thank you madam clerk as you know the city council met an executive session as a claims committee uh on the following claims which were approved the claim of M Mr Octavio Kuna in the amount of $515 which was unanimously approved claim of Victoria Victor Sylvia in the amount of uh $900 uh was approved in the up to $900 was approved claim of Julie

colleti in the amount of50 515 was also approved the claim of Barbara fry of $100 was denied uh as well as the council as you did earlier the uh ratification of the contract for the uh School ask me local 94 Local 29 excuse me 2969 was approved an open session there were other there was also an approval of two settlements um that were on the agenda by a vote of two to one

the uh amounts and the uh terms of those settlements won't be disclosed until we get all releases signed by all part but we'll do that at a different time and I appreciate the council's support and help on that thank you thank you for the report next item resolutions for discussion and possible vote resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement for fure techology to perform

GPS council president motion to approve second motion to approve by councilman Lawson seconded by Council vice president president rioo all in favor I I any opposed guys have it three thank you resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Shi for update Access Controller software and Hardware sponsor so we've hear stories nightmares of cities being held for ransom with

various things move into a cloud-based system is best practice for security and stuff and I think this is a great step forward um this is what I do all day every day and so I make a motion to approve second motion made by councilman Lawson to approve seconded by Council vice president and again we have approved Capital funds for these upgrades so this is not any surprise funding at all um

all in favor I I any opposed guys have that 30 thank you resol authorizing the mayor to Department of Public Works division move passage and for my buddy Bill McMahon I second that motion by Council vice president Rego seconded by councilman Lawson to approve all in favor I I any oppos the eyes have that three Z resolution authorizing the pick up trucks for the Department of Public

Highway division move Passage same thing this is for you Bill second motion by Council vice president weo seconded by councilman Lawson to approve all in favor I I any opposed the eyes have that three Z introduction ofin for the discussion ordinance in amendment ofter is as amended summary ordinate

is this uh first passage first passage okay I I move motion for first passage second motion Council vice president weo seconded by councilman Lawson all in favor I I motion to adjourn second motion to adjourn by Council vice president weo seconded by councilman Lawson all in favor I meeting is adjourned we will be meeting next week Tuesday 17th thank you