 Allenten Housing Authority annual meeting at 6.50. I'm gonna turn, it's Thursday, April 21st. I'm gonna turn it over to John Greco who will run the elections for us. And then after that, we'll go right into our regular meeting. John? Mr. Wilco. Oh, I'm sorry, good point. So Fiorella? Here. Nick? Here. Go in. Here. Car? Here. And Brian is here. So everybody's here. Go ahead, John. You're muted, bud. You're on mute, John. John, you're on mute. I'm sorry, thank you. We wanna have nominations, so do we wanna have anyone move to open nominations for the three offices of chair, vice chair, and treasurer? Does anybody move to open nominations? I move, so moves. Move by Nick. Any second? Second. Second by Joanne. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Five and zero all in favor. Okay. The first office will be the office of chair person. Are there any nominations for the office of chair person? I nominate Brian Conner, the chairman. Brian, nominated by Nick. Is there a second? I second. Seconded by Garth. Are there any other nominations for chair? Hearing no other nominations, do we have a motion to close the nominations for chair? No, I'd like to hear from the nominee, just a few words. Go right ahead. Because he's accomplished a lot this year and I think that should be brought up. Good, thank you. Thank you, Joanne. First of all, it was an honor to serve as chair for the past year. And I would welcome the opportunity to continue. I think we did a lot together as a group. It was a tremendous year, COVID year, new director, new director of maintenance, multiple changes in staffing and now we have a new assistant director for operations. So it's a, you know, I think it's really an opportunity for the Allenton Housing Authority to really begin again and go in a direction, certainly the direction we've gone in is great, but we now have some great leadership and we continue doing that and hopefully we can build upon it. You know, I think one of our greatest achievements is a board to agree to start the charitable foundation even though we didn't see any press on it, but this new charitable foundation really will allow the board, the members of the board to go and really do a lot more great things for the tenants and the developments for the social health and wellbeing of our tenants. Because as we all know, we don't have a lot of state dollars to spend in those things and hopefully we'll be able to get some grant funding. Maybe we can even get houses donated to us and condos and so forth and expand our footprint. So I think, you know, going forward this year is an exciting one. And I welcome the challenge. I work very closely with Jack as we all know during the transition days and I think we'll get a great director. So thank you, thank you for your confidence in the past and thank you for your confidence today. That's satisfactory Joanne or do you have anything else on that? No, no, I just think that we don't wanna just vote for names. We wanna know that we're voting for someone who has done and will continue to do a lot for the household authority. Okay, hearing no other nominations. Do we have a vote to close nominations of chair? So moved. Moved by Nick. Seconded? Seconded. Seconded by Joanne, okay. No, I think it was a no. The nominations of chair. I'm sorry, say it again. I think for Urella, seconded. I did. I'll second it, I'm sorry. I said for Urella. Okay, we will now open nominations for vice chair. Are there any nominations for vice chair? I nominate Joanne. I nominate Joanne. Okay, so we have, let's have a second. So when the guy is nominated by Nick, is there a second for that? I'll second that one. Seconded by Brian, okay. Any other nominations for vice chair? I nominate Joanne. Joanne by Urella. Is there a second for that? I second it. Seconded by Joanne, okay. Are there any other nominations for vice chair? Okay, we'll move motion to close nominations for vice chair. No, I think we should hear from the candidates. Oh yeah, okay, all right. You want to hear from candidates, that's good. Okay, I guess Gar was first nominated. Gar, do you wish to go ahead? So this is my, give a little history of me on the Arlington Housing Authority. It's, I was, my first five year term, I was chosen by Governor Deval Patrick to be the state nominee. And then I ran an election after that for my second five year term, which I am currently serving. And I think I have about two years left. I think my expertise through the banking field and obviously we manage property for the Arlington Housing Authority. Much of it is construction and rehab and property. I just feel my expertise with construction lending and building plays well with what we do at Arlington Housing Authority. Among other things, budgeting, very adaptive budgets, look at numbers all day in the banking world. That's why I feel I am qualified to be vice chair. And I guess I should mention over the past, I mean, eight years I have been on the board. I have been chairman of before and vice chair and treasurer. Thank you. Joanne, do you wish to make a statement? Oh yeah, so I do. I was elected two years ago overwhelmingly by the town of Arlington. And I ran on serving the tenants, bringing them closer to the board, forming a working relationship and bringing in resources. My first act was to get the tree committee to donate a number of trees and to pay for having them installed in several of the housing sites. I encouraged the gardens, which were already there and got a number of volunteers and donations. I attended all town committee and board meetings that related to the housing authority. Just lately I went to the five-year plan, which the first 100-page draft of the five-year plan for affordable housing did not mention the Arlington Housing Authority. So I've been working on that for several months, including going to the select board and writing all the things that needed to be corrected. I was glad to know that some of them have been made because the five-year plan will be used in funding decisions, so it's very important to us. I worked with Fiorella to bring Jack Cooper from the Mass Tenants Association to Monotomy Manor so that he could help them form or reform their tenants' association. Fiorella and I visited a number of the sites and let's see. What I would like to continue to do is to improve the relationship of the tenants, make them more participatory in the work of the board and vice versa and the staff. And I'm now working on grants. I've already talked to several banks to bring in more resources to the Arlington Housing Authority. And last year I was voted by this committee to be vice chair and I'd like to continue in that position. It would make it more likely I could bring in these resources. Thank you. Thank you, Joanne. I having heard no other nominees, nominations and with the assent of all, we'll close nominations and we'll have the election for vice chair. So what we will do is we will ask persons who wants to vote for Gar as vice chair, signify by saying aye and identifying themselves. Any votes for Gar or vice chair? Aye. Nicholas Ropoulos. Nick is one. And I just wanna, Ryan is two. And Gar Talania. Nick, Ryan and Gar. Okay. Okay, just so for the record, are there votes for Joanne for vice chair? Aye. Fiorella. And aye. Fiorella and Joanne. It appears that there's three votes for Gar, Nick, Ryan and Gar and two votes for Joanne and Fiorella. And so Nick has three votes and it will be the vice chair according to the votes. No, Gar. I'm sorry, Gar, I'm sorry, Gar will be the chair according to the votes. Thank you. Okay. Anyone want to make nominations or move to nominate anybody for the position of treasurer? Yeah. I'll nominate Nick. Gar nominates Nick. Is there a second from Gar's nomination of Nick? I'll second it. Seconded by Brian. Are there any other nominations for treasurer? There are no other nominations with the assent of all. We'll close the nominations for treasurer. Any objection at all to that? Okay, we'll close nominations and we'll have a vote now for treasurer. All of those who wish to vote for treasurer please signify, identify themselves and who they wish to vote for. Nick votes for treasurer. Nick? Yes, for Nick, yes. Nick votes for Nick. Okay. Gar will vote for Nick. Gar votes for Nick. Brian votes for Nick. Brian votes for Nick. I abstain. Who's abstain, I'm sorry, is that Joanne or if you're already done? Joanne, Joanne abstain. Okay, yeah. Any other persons wishing to vote? I fear Vela will vote for Nick. I fear Vela will vote for Nick. Thank you for your vote. Don't we want to hear about the candidate though? Sure, we can, absolutely. Go ahead, Nick. Joanne, you didn't ask. All right, a little history about me. I've been voted five times by the town of Allington to be on the housing authority. I've an MBA in finance from Babson College. In the business world managing budgets anywhere from five million to 200 million. Understand the budgeting process, understanding the expense and profit side of the business. Been working with the housing authority for 20 years now. And I think I'm the most qualified to be the treasurer of the Allington housing authority. Thank you for your support. And thank you for the nomination, Gar. Thank you to the board for voting me in. Thank you, Fiorella. Thank you, Gar. Thank you, Brian. And Joanne, thanks for abstaining for some reason. So, got it. All right, thank you, folks. I guess that's it. That should wrap it up. Do we have a motion to adjourn the annual meeting? So moved. So moved by, was that, who moved that? I'm sorry, didn't pay who moved that. Brian moved it seconded by Gar. Seconded by Gar? Yes. Seconded by Gar. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Five in the affirmative, none in the negative. The meeting of the annual meeting is adjourned. And we'll go right into the regular meeting. Okay, thank you, John, for helping us out there. So now we move into the regular meeting. No need for call to water as we've already done that. A roll call, I mean, so we'll move right into the executive directors report, Jack. Yup. The ADA bathroom projects at Winslow Towers and Chestnut Manor, as well as the AC project at Winslow Towers are complete. Work is underway and the unit's affected by the fire Chestnut Manor. The bid for the fire alarm system upgrade at the Hauser Building has been rejected or we have rejected it due to the low bid coming in well over our budget for the project. I've requested CDBG off cycle funding to fund this difference so we can rebid the project in accordance with CDBG guidelines and move forward with its completion. An engineer from DHCD has been out to the Hauser Building and the Great Cottages to start the planning process for the electrical panel upgrades and fire alarm system upgrade projects. The Allenton Housing Authority's funding through the town of Allenton, ARPA was endorsed by the select board last night. This includes the $2.5 million in ARPA funding for the WINDOW project of an ordinary manner. I look forward to hearing from Reese and Tilly in the town soon just to determine what the next steps are. Who updates related to LEAN, ABCD has scheduled site visits to determine if there are energy savings and efficiency opportunities at Winslow Towers and the Hauser Building. They've already been out to Chestnut Man regarding this. We look forward to continuing to advocate to LEAN for our other sites to be scheduled for this too. And I hope to have more updates related to that at future meetings. Additionally, in regards to the DHCD ARPA, we are waiting for updated information from DHCD related to when and who will get targeted ARPA funding. We are hopeful that we will be able to receive some of the targeted awards to some of our fire alarm system upgrade and electrical panel upgrade projects. Additionally, as part of the state ARPA, they've indicated that every housing authority in the state will get an additional year's worth of formula funding. So for the housing, I like the housing authority that'll be over $900,000, which we are excited to get and anxious to get so we can determine the best use of that funding and move forward. But obviously some of that will be determined on how many targeted awards we get because we're definitely very anxious to get some of those electrical panel upgrades done and fire alarm system upgrades done. So we're hopeful to be able to fund as many projects as possible throughout the funding. An update on the resident services coordinator and some of the property managers and other staff that are working with, tenants working on some different initiatives and programs. We hope to have some additional updates at future meetings. We wanna work with the tenant associations to work through some of these ideas to determine what's the best fit for the different developments. There's few really great opportunities that we think could really work well for the residents and we look forward to sitting down with the tenant associations to look at those. Chris Potridge and Roli Demers, the director of maintenance and the assistant director of maintenance did an excellent job working without Mahams which is the state entity or advocacy group for maintenance staff and housing authorities across the state. And they just give a little bit of information on them. They are the ones that provide a lot of the maintenance training and some of the different conferences directly for our maintenance staff. So Chris and Roli who are on their board worked with Mahams and was able to bring their first in person and training event to the Allington Housing Authority and over. And this is any training event from Mahams I think that over two years and it was well attended and went very well. I believe over 60 housing authority management staff were present including our own. I don't know if I already mentioned it but it happened at the Houser Building which was a really great site. We got a lot of really great feedback from other housing authorities related to the grounds and our building. So it was a positive all around and the training included pest management, procurement and plumbing which were all very important items and obviously our maintenance staff and some of our administrative staff were able to attend which is a major benefit. In regards to staff updates, the family self-sufficiency coordinator job is not fulfilled and we're still receiving applications and then obviously in a few minutes we're gonna introduce the new assistant executive director. Thank you. Great, any questions for Jack? You wanna introduce the assistant executive director? Yes, let me just, I'm gonna promote her. Already have haven't you? I know. I promoted her Zoom. While he's doing that, I'll just share that Jack conducted an exhaustive search advertised accordingly, brought in a bunch of candidates and then had an interview process that I participated with and the LTO presidents participated with and interviewed three top three candidates and all great great candidates and I think Ira will be a fantastic addition here but go ahead Jack. Yes, we're very excited to bring Myra on board. She has extensive experience at housing authority which includes at Boston Housing Authority, Cambridge Housing Authority and then also in a compliance management company Oprah Farkan. She's gonna bring extensive knowledge and expertise related to not only our programs but management of our staff and we're really excited to bring her aboard and work towards some of our goals and initiatives. And I'll let Myra, I'll let you guys talk to Myra and ask any questions and you might have add related to a resume or anything else. Myra, can you give us the five minute speech about yourself and why you chose Allington? Well, first of all, I wanted to say thank you very much for inviting me to the board meeting. It's a pleasure to meet all of you or to see you again. This is a great opportunity. I'm very excited to work alongside Jack with the board, the tenant associations, the residents and the whole team and Arlington, I embrace diversity, affordable housing. I'm very passionate about affordable housing and I just look forward to being of assistance and helping in any way that I can. Anybody have any questions for Myra? Welcome Myra. We're excited to have you joining us, man. Yeah, welcome. There's a lot to do and we're really excited with your background. And anything we can do to help, just let us know. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. We expect big things from you again, so. I'm ready, I'm ready to roll up my sleeves. I'll put you up. Way to go. Welcome. So I think Jack has got, if Jack didn't send out his new corporate chat at some point in time, you see Myra is in charge of all the operations types things as we have Chris in charge of maintenance. I gotta get rid of this up. So Myra will be in charge of operations and her resume is in the packet here. So as Jack said, tremendous amount of experience in years of business, both private and public, mostly public, right? Cambridge, which runs a phenomenal operation and which is huge. So I think it's a great addition. And I think it should be a great help to Jack taking some things off his plate. So I think we're looking forward. So any other questions? Okay, let's move on. Number five. Thank you very much, Myra. Welcome. Feel free to stay on. So number five, grievance procedure. In the last meeting, we had a discussion about the grievance procedure and I think Jen thought it was approved. I heard it was approved, but I just wasn't approved, but now it is finally approved. So it's in your packet. It's very interesting. I read through it myself. Jack, do you need to comment on it before we vote? Yes. And this is, sorry, I lost my train of thought. This is for the grievance procedure. Yeah. The revisions. So DHCD contacted me after the last meeting and indicated that there were some revisions they needed to take place for them to approve the grievance procedure. Some of those being in, I think it was part B, section three, which indicates some of the exceptions to when there shall not be a grievance and they wanted some additional items added in there in order for it to be full accordance with the regulation. So we had to add some of those different items, which are now in the grievance procedure. And then additionally, they had some minor mortgage changes. Some of the original language that was in there talked about, I think there was still some language related to tape recordings and outdated technological references. So we updated that to digital recordings and things like that. Great. So we do have to take a formal vote to accept this. So do we have a motion to accept that? So moved. We have a second? Yes, I second. So we have a motion by Nick, second by Gar. All in favor, voice of Gar. Yes. Nick? Yes. Pierre Ella? Yes. And Joanne? Yes. Okay, motion carries. So we've now accepted that. And Jack, I'm going to distribute that. It's on the website. Well, it will be on the website. It will be on the website. And then we're going to work to distribute it to the residents. Okay. And just one last comment. The number of language, the census data that's in our report here. The language is spoken. Is that just specific to the Allenten Housing Authority or is that to all housing authorities? So it's organized on county and municipal levels or in regional and municipal levels or town levels. And so what they asked us to do, one of the requirements here is we had to look at, I think it was a four, they call it like a four tiered approach or four tiered review of our high degrees. And one of them was we had to look at census data, which was relative to Allenten and then relative to the region that we fall into, which I think is the Boston, Cambridge area. And then we also had to look at our CHAMP data, which is our application platform to see what types of languages are needed on there. And then we also had to look at some of our own internal data that we have. And so we used all that data and then determined and then had to determine if any of them, any of the languages exceeded the 5% threshold. If they exceed the 5% threshold, then that requires us to take some additional actions with languages. However, because Spanish is such a widely spoken language in the Commonwealth, and that language is automatically included in that. So, certain types of documents need to be available in Spanish and in this document, it indicates how we are going to achieve that. Many of those documents that it references have already been translated by the Commonwealth, the applications and certain types of different procedures. However, we'll work to try to find ways to make those available if needed. And then- But when I, so this document here that's in there, do I read this as that, we have 122 Spanish speaking tenants, 295 French, 50 Creole, do I read it that way? Or is it more of a country based? No, it's not the Allenton Housing Authority. That's so the census data you're looking at, that total number, is it according to the census data there are 222 people in the town of Allenton that speak Spanish. And there's 3153 that speak Spanish in the whole town. I was wrong, I said the region of Cambridge Plaza, but it's Middlesex County. It's county data, not regional data. Okay, that's quite interesting. And if you folks haven't read it yet, 506 Chinese speaking, 261 great, the data's pretty interesting. And it won't be, not to get off topic, this is another reason why it's so important for residents and members of the community to complete their census. Joanne, did you have a question on that? This seems very exhaustive, but I know we have, I met him, at least one resident who's blind. And not that we have to have everything in Braille, but I think there should be some way of checking to make sure there's someone who can read the documents for them. Usually they have people, family members, or neighbors, or spouses in this case. This man has a spouse who reads documents for him. I don't, Jack, do you know how many people have these vision problems? I have an idea off hand. I would, I can think of maybe under five in the portfolio. And those individuals are known by the property managers, especially ones that won't have a spouse to help them, like in our senior developments. And we, you know, we typically make sure, like if we issue out a notice, we'll give them a call or call their family members to ensure that they're aware that say maybe we have to come in for something, some sort of an inspection or some sort of notice is going out, we just want to make sure that they're aware. Well, I just want to add, Winslow Towers has two tenants that are blind. So, yeah, sorry. Yeah, and they definitely could change and it could increase. And yeah, we'll continue to try to accommodate those residents wherever we can. And then, so the other part of this language access plan that I, you know, because we did already have one and the major reason why we need to push forward this is number one because this does provide a lot of additional information and resources and methods is how we're going to move forward with providing language access for residents and applicants and participants. However, it's also a requirement for DHCD as part of the performance management review. This in addition with the reasonable accommodation policy that you approved maybe not in the last month but the month before this. And then we're also going to be working on a fair housing marketing plan policy. That's going to be the next one. And so ideally I'd have that for you for next month but it is, there's a lot of plan that needs to go into that. So hopefully in the next couple of months. So that brings us to the approval of number six, the language access plan. Any further comments on that before we take a vote? Simple. All right, do we have a motion to approve the language access plan that's in your packet? The policy? I'm motion to approve LAP. Do we have a second? Second. Viarella second by Nick. All in favor? Gar? Yes. Nick? Yes. Viarella? Yes. At you in? Yes. And Brian is yes. That's unanimous. Now we go on to number seven discussion of the SOS heat pump and center of program and chest, let me add a Jack. Right, I wanted to add this just for discussion because it's in not necessarily early stages but it's early enough that I felt like it was worthy to bring it to your attention. Then also because the next item on the agenda requires an approval. So I do want to provide some understanding as to why we're going to be doing that revision. And so what we're doing right now is part of what I mentioned earlier with lean and ABCD and this entity that they contract out new ecology is that we're working on bringing air source heat pumps to chest not manner. The benefit with this is obviously there's going to be energy savings and it's going to provide both heat and AC to residents there, but it's also not going to cost the housing authority any money. Besides maintenance costs, which we're already working with that with Winslow towers and we'll have a plan in place as far as some of the different types that we need to do as far as changing out filters and things like that. But it's a great opportunity to provide a new heating and AC source for the residents at chest not manner. Obviously it's early enough in the stage where at some point in the future I hope pending what the structural engineers able to find and what their eventual decision is being ABCD and lean and new ecology and some of the contractors evolve. Then hopefully I can bring an actual treatment to the board for you to be one and approve. Just for everybody's benefit, if you don't know what these things are, it'll be a device on the balcony with many splits inside of the units. One in the main room, probably one in the bedroom. Many splits of those heating systems that are up high on the wall. Very soon, I've got them in a handful of places and very simple to use. It's new tech. So it's not electric heat. It does use electricity to do it. But so that's maybe when we're proposing that Jack put a picture in here so they can see it just in case or something. Absolutely and what they've quoted us at so far when we've had conversations is they think of you give us 20 to 30% energy savings. Never mind the price tag that they've indicated that this is probably a million dollar project which won't cost us any money besides this structural engineer evaluation. Great, Joanne. I just wonder what impact, I know it's, well, first I'd like to know what year you think they might be installed in an anatomy manner but what impact this would have on the cost for heat which the tenants pay for a monotony manner. This system is a chestnut manner, not monotony manner. I thought you said you had- This is for chestnut manner but we do hope to carry this conversation to monotony. Where we're advocating for other sites to be considered, they're in the beginning of their funding cycle so there is a lot of potential funding available so we're really, we're hoping that we can include as many of our developments for some of the different types of energy efficiency projects that could be on the table. This moves into number eight in terms of, it's in your packet of hiring a structural engineer to evaluate the balconies to ensure that they handle the weight that actually there's not a lot of weight in these things but this is the process we have to go through. So number eight, we need emotion, approve, expand. I have a question on this. Go ahead, go ahead. So I think it's by Alaris architects and engineers, right? That's the one we're talking about. Yes, yeah, they provided us the quote that has given us the information we need. Yeah, and is this quote specific to chestnut manner or is it all the buildings? Does it seem like it says all the buildings? It's specific to chestnut manner. Okay, it just doesn't say that. I thought they might say that on it but it just says of the existing balconies in Ireland. So that's a lot of balconies. Yeah, but it is specific to chestnut manner. Okay. Makes sense. Yep, yep, good pickup. So do we have emotion to approve number eight, the expenditure of $6,500 for the structural engineer? I move to approve the proposal for structural investigation. We have a second. Second. We have emotion moved by Gar and second by Nick. All in favor, Fiorella? Yes. You in? Yes. Nick? Yes. Gar? Yes. Brian is a yes. That motion passes, we moved to number 10, approval of certificate of substantial completion. Number nine, Brian. I'm sorry, number nine. I'm sorry, thank you. Approval of the OWL engineers design services contracting the amount of $25,800 for chestnut manner, the electrical panel upgrades. I know we've talked about this many times but anything you wanna add to that, Jack? Yeah, so we're obviously excited to bring this to the board because this is the next step in us being able to move forward with the first electrical panel upgrade that we wanna do. So getting this designer approved means they can get to work and hopefully we can get this project bid as soon as possible. Yeah. So do we? I agree, this can't be fast enough. Right, yes, absolutely. So do we have emotion to approve? Yeah, I move to approve the work order for electrical panel upgrades. Do we have a second? Okay. Nick, so moved by Gar second by Nick. All in favor to approve number nine. Bella? Yes. Joanne? Yes. Nick? Yes. Gar? Yes. Brian is a yes. Now we move on to number 10. Approval of certificate of substantial completion, the firepump replacement project at Winslow Towers. Anyone add to a check? Yeah, not much to add. It was a pretty easy project. They came in and were able to complete the work in a couple of days and we're happy with the results. They were an easy contractor and design team to work with. Great. Now we have to pay them. Do we have emotion approved? Number 10. Yeah, I would move to approve the certificate of substantial completion for rustic fire protection. Do we have a second? A second. So we have a motion by Gar second by Fiorella. All in favor of Fiorella? Yes. And Joanne? Yes. Nick? Yes. Gar? Yes. Brian is a yes. Number 10. Number 11. Approval of off-cycle CDBG funding requests for the Houser Building Fire Alarm System Upgrade Project. Jack, you want to comment on that? So this is the off-cycle CDBG funding I referenced earlier. That's going to help us move forward with the Houser Building Fire Alarm System Upgrade Project that we want to and need to do. We were short of about $300,000 from the little bit, $350,000. So I requested $350,000 from CDBG. And so we're hopeful that this, that they in this is an appropriate project and they're able to fund us so we can move forward. So we need to approve that process. Do we have a motion to approve? So are we approving the request? Request to CDBG. Yeah, okay. Yeah, we don't have the money yet. Hopefully we'll get it, but we have to approve the request. I would move to approve the CDBG request for the Houser Building. Right. Do we have a second? Second that. So we have it moved by Gar, second by Fiori. All in favor, Gar? Yes. Nick? Yes. Ryan? Yes. Viarella? Yes. Brian, so yes, that motion carries. Number 12, the Jack, the update on the Verizon disconnection of the copper line set to the senior public housing developments. And I did want to provide the board an update on this. We've been working pretty hard with Verizon to try to find a solution here. The unfortunate thing is that Verizon does want the Allington Housing Authority to incur a significant cost related to asbestos or other pavement in quarrying and grilling. As a result, we just, we couldn't come to a consensus on them being able to pay or the state being able to cover the entirety of it. So due to the number of high priority projects the Allington Housing Authority has, we just, we couldn't justify utilizing that money to help Verizon install Fios. We're hopeful, we're keeping the lines of communication open with Verizon. So hopefully, as technology improves and other processes improve, there'll be options to move forward and get Fios into our buildings. Obviously, maybe some of you have heard or seen, but that Verizon did issue out a disconnection notice to our residents as they did previously. We've also issued out a notice to residents indicating the options for them related to Astound, which is formally RCN and Xfinity. So that they have the reps number so that they can seek out what options they have for that phone service. Astound has also indicated that is that they'd be willing to come out and do some presentations and meet with residents. So they've already come to Winslow Towers. I believe they might have already come up come to another resident, another resident yesterday and they'll be visiting others. And I think they're open to coming back again to be on site to help residents and answer questions related to some of the services they provide to them. And obviously if Xfinity ends up in a position where they want to do that too, we invite them. And while Verizon won't be coming into our buildings now with Fios, we do hope that we can come to some sort of an agreement in the future that doesn't incur the housing authority that type of cost. Well, it's important to understand that there are options. There are two other providers that can provide the service. And Jack, you have notified people I saw a comment that maybe not everybody's been notified. So maybe I wouldn't just double-check that. Absolutely. But all the residents will be notified that there are other options in town that they can take. So any questions on that? Just a quick question on the copper wiring. Where's the asbestos? Is it in their wiring or is it in the old wiring? Casing or something? It's, when I've talked to other housing authorities not to go off topic, a lot of the ones that have moved forward with this, they have lower-rise units. If this was a request for the cottages or from an auto manor, it would be a different story. But because this request is for the Hauser building, Chestnut Manor, Two-Sec Terrace, Winslow Towers to run what they need to up the building and then to core inside the units and go down the halls and core through the cement block in those buildings, that's where the trouble is. Makes sense. Okay. Yeah, I spoke to the engineer, we went back and forth. I couldn't understand why couldn't just go through the hallways. But no, they wanna go right through the top to bottom and go right through the floors and core all the floors and this with the potential of the tiles and that sort of stuff. So I think, and they wanted us to pay for everything. So I'm sure in a year or so they're gonna come back and offer to do it. But at least there are options for the tenants to change their phone service. So that brings us on to number 13, update on the gardening policy procedures, thoughts and stuff, Jack. So what were some of the updates on that is we were able to secure some additional funding through Arlington Eats, which we're very happy about and very grateful to them for. So we did receive $5,000 from Arlington Eats, which we are currently utilizing to bring rain barrels. At least to some extent I'm not a man or I know there's been some mixed reviews. So we're gonna definitely look into that and see if that's an appropriate option for residents that want gardens down there and work with the residents related to that. But we did wanna secure some of them so that we, we could definitely work to see if it is a good option. We also have been building and securing raised bed gardens and so that funding will also help us pay for some of the materials needed for that. So we're doing some, taking some steps to prepare for gardening and we're hopeful it's gonna be a good process. And you're gonna come up with a policy for this, right? That we have pretty much standardized. We can look into that and work with the board on that. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool. Joanne, Joanne. Thank you. I just wanted to say that raised gardens aren't always handicap accessible that even we need some for people who need to be in wheelchairs, but we also need them to be at a length that some person with arthritis doesn't, I mean, some raised gardens are only about two feet. That's not enough. If you have back problems, they need to be much higher. No, these are the ones that, Joanne, the ones that you forwarded. You forwarded some designs to them and I forwarded some designs. These gardens will be high enough for wheelchairs to get under and they'll be far off. Wheelchair ones, the wheelchair pulls in and the gardens around it. It's not just the height, but it's the structure. But there are also people when they get to be 80 and so forth, they have arthritis and they can't. Some raised gardens are just a foot or two above the ground. That's not high enough for some of our tenants. They need to be higher. In fact, this one at Drake Village, quite an old one off to the side as you go in on the right, it is quite a bit higher. It's almost, well, I wouldn't say at the card table, but it's quite a bit higher. Then people don't have to lean over all the time. No, I can assure you that any raised garden that we build is gonna be such that wheelchairs can get underneath them and it'll be high enough so people won't have to know all the way. So Jack and Chris have a bunch of designs that I forwarded to them. So they'll be such that somebody in a wheelchair could participate in this process. Yeah, otherwise it's a waste of process. So that's why we went down this track. I also would like to say that in visiting, taking care of the trees, I found that in at least four of the sites, there are tenants who are avid gardeners and are, let's say, wonderful activity for them and for the community. And I think it would be important to consult with them about which, not just Chris and Gar and you, but to consult with them about which model to get. I think someone who uses a wheelchair would have a much better idea of which model of the wheelchair accessible ones would work better. I think. We have it, I know at Winslow Towers, as I met them, there's some women who take care of all the flowers and everything in there. They, I think we should use the resources of our tenants. It actually works. I think more importantly, you forwarded a design to Jack and I that was handicapped accessible and that's the design they're gonna use. So that's the one that you forwarded. So I mean, it covers all the concerns that you have. So I think. I'm not a tenant. It was, it would be good to ask the people in these buildings what would be, I don't know if we need one of them anatomy manner, we might, but certainly Cusack Terrace and Chestnut Manor have people who have mobility problems. Yeah, great. They're right out there gardening right now. They're easy to find, ask them or ask the tenant association if they could ask them what model that they would fit them best because it's too bad to just order things if we don't know. We have worked with the tenant president at Cusack Terrace, Mike McGinty and I'd have to confirm with Chris but we may have worked with some of the other tenant association members there too. And he's provided great feedback and helped us kind of fine tune a raised bed garden for there. So we look forward to working with the other tenant associations or residents as you indicated. Great. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to 14, a complaint concerning outdoor play equipment in the common spaces at Monotomy Manor. Fiorella, do you want to add to that? I think you brought it to our attention. What do you recommend? I mean, I just wanted to discuss the fact that there is just people that work different times during the day and have children of different ages and people dealing with medical problems that we don't all know about and to assume that all of this property over here wants to make it accessible to children. Although noble, I think that there's just, it's too biased. And at the end of the day we do have Thompson School right at the corner over here that have several options for basketball, baseball, the playground on its own. I think that I do know that there's only like one basketball court, I believe. Maybe discuss, I don't know how that would work but maybe discuss with Thompson like an addition to more basketball courts. But yeah, it just tends to get loud, things get destroyed and there's just like a certain amount of disrespect along with like the noise pollution and property damages. So I just wanted to bring that up. Well, if I remember correctly, we did not develop a policy down there for trampolines or things to be put up in the grass area. Is that correct, Jack? No, we don't have a specific policy for those types of outdoor play for it. We have discussed it before though. Yeah. Well, anybody, how many thoughts? I mean, I think starting with just like games and activities should be like kept regulated in a sense, you know, avoid setting up courts and would setting up trampolines, you know, avoidance of large setups that are technically in public areas. Well, Uriela, what's your concern? Well, when the gardens come along, there's gonna be a lot of the stepping into the gardens and all of that along with that. When people start playing baseball or soccer, they tend to hit walls, windows. People are walking by. There's that, I mean, it happened to me that I have to avoid a whole section because there's kids throwing the ball around and the mic doesn't work. But doesn't that promote sort of getting the kids together and really enjoying life a little? I don't understand your concern, man. When I was a kid, it was all about playing in the yard, playing in the school yard, playing in your backyard. I mean, it was your backyard, you weren't sharing it with a bunch of people. That's my point, this is a shared space. No, that's incorrect, by the way, because I was playing in someone's backyard that we shared multiple backyards and people were okay and we were building camaraderie, we were building relationships, we were building teamwork. I just don't understand why you don't promote the young kids getting together to work together, to play together, to really understand and build relationships that they... Well, maybe we should be a designated area. Maybe, maybe that's the right spot. My point is that there are people that do not have children that work at night and they need to sleep throughout the day. There are different lifestyles here and we can't just cater. It's the same thing in any neighborhood, Gerella. People always work different hours. People always had different things they needed to do. It's a neighborhood, Gerella. You should try to build a neighborhood and a camaraderie around it and a key. I'm telling you. Go ahead, go ahead, Joanne. But I just don't get it when you're trying to distract. I was talking. Yeah, I guess not, Joanne. What? Hold on a second. Go ahead, Joanne, go ahead. Ah! Well, first of all, Joanne, you didn't let me finish. Like, go ahead. Well, are you finished? Well, I just wanted to say that the problem that I've observed down there is just in terms of getting together and come up. Is there are 15-year-olds playing ball and there are four-year-olds playing with each other and they get, it's dangerous. It really is dangerous. Because you can't form a neighborhood group with four-year-olds and 15-year-olds. Why not? Why not, Joanne? Please solve their activities. Why not? So I think that's a concern that I saw. That's just a typical neighborhood anyway, Joanne. I don't get it, but I'll leave it up to you guys, but I just don't get it. I'm just going on record that I don't get it. Well, could I go now? Joanne, I grew up in a neighborhood that had kids from four-year-olds to 18-year-olds and we all played together. So I just don't get it. So I'm going on record because I just don't get it. So let's say like a window gets broken over here because it's playing baseball or soccer. Is the housing authority going to pay for that or is the tenant going to have to pay for that? I don't know. When we broke a window. Well, let's answer that question because I think that will have a lot to do with that decision. Okay, let me finish. When we broke a window, we figured out how to pay for it. And is it the authorities? I don't know. I'll leave it to Jack. But when we broke someone's neighbor's window, someone figured out how to pay for it. You know what we did? We went to work and I cut lawns to go pay for the window. That's what I did. But I'll leave it up to Jack. Maybe it's the authorities responsibility to fix the window. I don't know, Jack. And maybe we should, if the kids are playing and something breaks a window, maybe it should be the authorities responsibility to break the window, to fix the window. All right, so let's bring it back here for a minute. So I mean, I would hate for us to have to adopt a policy that says you can't put anything. Damn. It says you can't put anything on the grass or you can't play on the grass. So what if we did this? What if we, as part of our new going forward public participation, as you know, Jack and Chris and so forth are meeting with each LTO president and the boards, not immediately after this, but within days of this meeting. So what if we asked Jack to discuss it with the LTO presidents and the group down there and Fiorella and then you guys work out something. I mean, like I said, I hate to discourage what Nick's trying to build. I hate to discourage kids don't play, but you know, there is a park up the street, but there's gotta be some happy meeting. I think as a parent, I want my kid out front so I can watch my kid and not at the park. But let's, what if we, how's that sound? If we let Jack deal with the LTO presidents, Fiorella, you go to that meeting and see if you all can work something out. I mean, it's better than coming up with a policy that says you can't play out front. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, that's definitely not what I'm trying to get to. And I completely agree with Nick, the sense of community and children playing on all of that, but there is a fine ground between just letting this be like a free for all and having a little bit of respect and awareness of this is a shared space. Let's, let's try to respect everyone's space. I understand we're next coming from absolutely. I grew up in that same way too, but people, a lot of people do not have discipline and a lot of people do have discipline. Therefore, I grew up knowing that I had to respect other people's spaces. Not a lot of people grew up with that environment either. So I think that's the real world, Fiorella, right now. I'm highly aware of that. That's the real world, Fiorella. Yeah, can you put that on your agenda item for when you, with the LTO presidents down there? I'm sorry, Fiorella, I just get passionate around it. I mean, don't be sorry. You're making a point. I don't understand what you're sorry about. No, I just get passionate around it, Fiorella. Okay, great. So then let's put it on, put on the agenda for next meeting, Jack and see if there's, I hope there's some resolve and we don't have to come up with some very strict policy. Let's move on to number 15, approval of the minutes for March 16 in your packet. Do we have a motion? First of all, are there any changes or additions to the minutes? If not, do we have a motion to approve them? No, move. I second. The motion by Nick, second by Gar. All in favor, Fiorella? I do not vote for approving the minutes. You're not there? What? We are not there at the meeting? No, I was at the meeting. It's just like, as I go through the minutes, there's like information that is not put through. I remember at some point at the last meeting, you said that's not what we're here to talk about when we were discussing abacus architects and I made the comment of, well, isn't that what we're here to discuss this stuff? And it seems like what you said was completely taken off but what I said is still there. So I don't feel like that's an accurate depiction of how the actual conversation went. And that's along with like the tenant comments too. Like there's stuff that was left out with Jen. And when Pam ended up coming in at some point, it was just like off. And I just, I don't feel comfortable with that. So you're free to offer an amendment or changes to it. Why don't we table it and the omissions can be corrected? What? I don't have a problem with that. So why don't we do this? Why don't you, if you really, you work with Jack to identify, and these meetings are recorded so you can rerun it. You work with Jack to identify any of the omissions that are on there and then Jack, we can repropose them next week or next month. That sounds fake. Anybody have a problem with that? Okay. Public participation. So LTO presidents online, I had emailed you all last Saturday, the new guidelines. So I'll just paraphrase them here. So going forward, which changed in the game a little bit, we're gonna become a lot more detailed oriented in terms of the facilities. So instead of discussing any building or maintenance or things like that, I, we don't wanna discuss them in these meetings because you're talking to the wrong group here. Ian, more importantly, Jack has certainly agreed to set up meetings with each facility, with the each LTO president and their board or whoever they wish to invite at a meeting following this meeting. So he's already established a calendar of meetings. So some people he's meeting with on Friday, some Monday, some Tuesday, so that you will meet every month. That'll be our individual meetings with the executive director, the director of maintenance, as well as Myron, now the assistant director, and he could also bring in Rolly or somebody else he sees fit. So there'll be individual meetings for the sole purpose to discuss maintenance, building issues, other issues at your facility. So that's your opportunity to bring them there. And truly that's the opportunity where, if we're talking on floor tiles, that Jack and Chris are gonna say, okay, let's go right now and show me the issue with the floor tiles or show me the issue with the door, the windows or the playgrounds or whatever. So it's a great opportunity to address the issues right then in the end, come up with an action plan and move from there. So I think that's a good move. So at our board meetings, truly we wanna hear the presidents talk about tenant activities, social activities. What have you done for the tenants? What are you doing as a group for the tenant social health and well-being? What is planned? What's the future? And how can we help you do those things? So that's truly what we wanna hear about here. And that goes for the same thing. If anybody in the general public wants to speak, they have to now go to the website. As you saw the website is an area now where we post our agendas. There is days before the meeting. And then you fill out that particular comment form. It goes to Jack. And then we, depending what you wanna comment about, we recognize you to speak. So there's two factors now. So LTO presidents, and you don't have to comment, but if you wanna comment, we'd like to hear about tenants issues, social health and well-being issues. All physical plant main issues deal with that at your face-to-face meetings. And general public, if you wish to comment, you need to fill out that form of which nobody did for this meeting, but, and then we would recognize you depending on the subject matter course. So with that said, let's move on to, can you get your hand raised? I've got my hand raised. Go ahead, Joanne. I just wanted to say, I could see there's no utility to bring to us that a window is broken and everything because Jack and the maintenance crew take care of that. But I do think that tenant president should talk about, for instance, a need for a vaccine clinic if they think that's true. Yeah, that's a social health and well-being. Activities, but issues, and they also should be, Jack's doing a great job. I know he would work on it, but there should be a way that after that, if it still has not been resolved, there should be a way that they can talk to people about it, whether it's you or me or someone on the board, so that there's always sort of a fallback. In terms of putting it on the webpage, I have found out how many, especially in the senior residents, they are not adept at using the computer. So then that denies them the opportunity to put this in in advance. And we already, as we already can see on the chat, there are a number of people who are blind and with low vision. And with at least my point of view is to try to make it accessible to all the tenants, not just some of them. So could they put it? Well, they can't do that, but at least on the chat, they can say what the topic is. Well, I think anybody that's on this Zoom call is computer savvy enough to get on the Zoom call. So I think that that audience is able to do this should they wish to speak. I think any senior person or somebody else that wants to speak could certainly get help from their LTO presidents and or property managers. So I think there's a way of doing that. I mean, certainly it's a given. And if the LTO presidents have brought things up in maintenance meetings or face-to-face meetings and things haven't been done to this satisfaction, absolutely. I think the way to address that is to send an email to myself. And I'm more than happy to meet with Jack and deal with it, bring it to the board if we feel it needs to be brought to the board. So I mean, there's always another opportunity if folks think there's a problem there. Same thing with the tenants. As you see in the policy, you know, it does say if the tenant doesn't feel their issue has been adequately addressed by the LTO president or their privacy concerns, they should send an email directly to the applicable AHA staff member who will follow up with you personally. So there are means to do that and bring it up. Let me see if I can go ahead. Often in the public comment, people want to address something that's part of the meeting. So they would have to get off of Zoom, get onto the webpage, and they have to do it very far in advance. Wouldn't it be better if they just on the chat or to you, they say, I'm Joanne Preston, I'd like to talk about the garden policy. If then you have the topic and the person. That's right. And that's why the agenda is posted, that there is the before, and they would fill this out saying I want to talk about the garden project. So we only discuss what's on the agenda. So if they want to talk about some of the agenda, it's right there in front of them. But they have to, for instance, they didn't know that the policy for more access didn't explicitly talk about blind people. So in the chat, we've had a number of people who've put that they know some of the blind people who are there and they might want to talk about that, but it only came up in the meeting. That's what I'm concerned about. Well, I don't... We would have to study the agenda in advance, which often comes out, and I know it's a necessity to do it 48 hours in advance. Then they have to study it and try to guess what issues might be there if they don't see an apparent one. It just shuts down public participation, which I think is a problem. I think we ought to have an important topic or something germane anyway to the meeting, but during the meeting, we could come up with that. Well, again, anything discussed at this meeting is on the agenda. So if somebody here for tonight, for instance, because we're just starting this, if you feel you want to present something then tonight, yeah, put it in the chat, I'll take a look at it, but anything we're going to discuss is on the agenda, and it's there for them to submit if they want to comment on it. We don't go off the agenda officially. But let's take it a day at a time. Let's see, let's see. Brian, isn't that because of open meeting law? We follow the open meeting laws? That's right. So we have to follow the open meeting laws, which obviously we got to post it two days in advance. We're going much further than that. We're posting it Thursday before the meeting, which is, I don't know, five days in advance, or maybe longer, I don't know my math, but so we're giving a lot more advanced notice. What you saw Jack add on was an approval of a building something, which really wasn't germane to anybody, I'm sure, objecting to that. So I would say, let's move forward with this and let's see how we go. Hopefully we can, like I said over and over, the LTO presidents should welcome this because now you truly have a face-to-face meeting once a month with the senior management team and that's the perfect time to show and tell anything you need. So... Do we have a president at Drake Village yet? Jack, nice to see you. I lost my camera here. I can still hear you there. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry, Jan, what was that last question? Is there a president at Drake Village yet? I don't believe so. I know they're dealing with what's his name, Jack, to commit and speak. So I think at this present moment, there's no president. Okay, so let's move on to LTO presidents and I know Alan is on and Alan is speaking for Chestnut. Alan? No. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Oh, yes, am I unmuted? There you go, yep. Yeah, so these changes were unfamiliar to me. I didn't know about having to submit anything. Michael McGinty had mentioned that there's going to be a meeting, I think tomorrow morning, I believe, where he is gonna raise some issues. So I don't have anything in particular because I know that he is gonna address those issues. I was just kind of responding because I'm interested in what's happening and learning about what's going on. So I made some comments. I hadn't been aware that you needed to submit way in advance. So I was just responding to some of the issues that were raised, but... No, let me explain. I didn't email Michael, it's too bad he didn't forward it to you. Well, he said he's gonna be participating in this other meeting. So I regularly do participate in this meeting as because I'm secretary for the board here at QSAC. But what I'm saying is I didn't realize that other things, like separate from what a president or someone on the board might bring up would need to be submitted. So this is like a great thing. No, no, you're not understanding. So the LTO presidents, we want the LTO presidents to tell the board members, what's been going on in your facility? Are there any social programs going on? Are there any activities that you planned that you had done over the past month? Are you planning in the future? And how will they be intended? You know, social health and wellbeing type issues. That's what we want. And is there a way that we can help you? Do you need help? So that's what we're looking for the LTO presidents to talk about at these meetings. Yeah. So for you, are there many programs that have happened over the last month that you used to have painting and things like that? So are there any things that happened over the last month or that are planned for the next month? I know some activities have been added. There is a paint night and there is a karaoke activity that's been added. But I guess I'm looking at wellbeing in another way, just in terms of the issue of boosters. I mean, boosters is something that has been recommended for the elderly or for people with medical conditions. And so I was wondering if there is going to be anything planned to help make it easier and more likely that residents do get a boost that that would be important. I also noticed that in our building there have been these very loud. I guess there have been filters, I'm not quite sure, but it's sort of they just started going blasting and it's a little bit disconcerting because we're not really sure why they're there exactly. And if there is some problem, I know that there was a discussion, for example, about Verizon and the copper lines and asbestos abatement costs and so forth. So it doesn't make me wonder, is there an asbestos issue? Is there, before we clear out the HEPA filter, is there any kind of monitoring about what is in the air? If something is trying to be filtered, what might be in the air that's getting filtered to have some help? So that would be a classic that you bring up at your meeting on Friday. I think I'm not sure, are they scheduled Friday Jack? That's correct. Yeah, so that's a classic. So the first thing about the vaccine, absolutely that's a good thing to bring up here. So basically you're asking the board, can we try and facilitate a vaccine clinic? And I think the answer is yes, we're gonna look into that, we'll try and do that. Great, thank you. So I can, you know, the fans in the hallways bring that up on tomorrow's meeting so they can talk directly with the potters to be, potters to be, yep. Okay, thank you. Hi, great, Pam. Good evening. First of all, I will hope everybody had a pleasant Easter. Found lots of eggs, I hope. I have issues, but they really don't pretend we, we did have an Italian night here tonight. In fact, Jack, if you were in the building, I was gonna say come down and grab something to eat, but you weren't here. But that's the first thing we have had that has a gathering since the pandemic started. We had 42 people out of 139, you do the math. Nice. But that's more than I get at a tenant meeting. I get about 25 at a tenant meeting out of 139. I have a lot of issues, but most of them I will bring up with Jack on Tuesday. You're not gonna like me after the meeting. I'll pay you that right now, because there were a lot. I have a couple of staff problems and a lot of them are maintenance. And it's not. That's the perfect opportunity to do that. So I will be seeing you Tuesday, Jack, at two o'clock. Be prepared, you're gonna want to drink afterwards. Is Jen on? Okay, there we go. Yep. Jen? Am I muted now? Yep, there you go. Okay, great. Thank you. We just want to welcome Maya, Mayra Cruz to the Housing Authority and look forward to working with her. Congrats, Brian, on your reappointment, I should say, and Gar, on your appointment. Thank you to the Housing Authority for the scavenger hunt today for the children. It was appreciated. We're having a spring egg hunt for the kids, zero to 12 this weekend. We will have about, probably, I think about 1500 eggs to put around the property for them. All to run around and find, so that should be fun. We have other things in the pipeline, but one of the things that we're pretty set on is having an end of the school year kickoff summer cookout for the children. Should be exciting and fun. Yeah, so the maintenance survey, it's taking longer than anticipated to come back, so everything that's back has been tallied and we're just waiting on a bunch of the duplexes, so you will have information as soon as I have the majority of them back. Excellent. So, as far as grievances go, Jack, if you could send me an updated revision, the revised grievance policy, that would be great. And just to touch on that, all grievances that are submitted need to be responded to regardless of the issue, whether it's to be grieved or not to be grieved, whether it's an issue that is grievable, if it's not, then we respond to too. And that's according to the policy. And the policy that DHCD goes by as well. And just some food for thought, if we could maybe work together and come up with a policy regarding tenant harassment. We're experiencing some problems, an anatomy manner with that. And it really needs to be handled so that we have a better way of taking care of these problems before they get out of control, especially since we have children involved and some of them are little. And in order for it not to drag on and people to not be at risk of losing their homes that shouldn't be. So. Yeah, I know Jack is all over that issue. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely more than one situation, but I think that maybe if we come up with something that would maybe make it easier for you guys to be able to discern what situations are valid and what's not and be able to maybe work through it faster or more efficiently, I think it may just, may help. Yeah, I think feel free to bring that up in your meeting with them, you know, you know, feel free to do that. Yep. Anything else? Great. Jack, I don't see any other presidents online, do you? No. No, okay. Okay. That's all we have in the agenda. We have to attain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Sorry, I was on mute. Okay. Moved by Nick, second by Gar, all in favor of Fiorella? Yes. Nick? Yes. Joanne? Yes. Gar? Yes. All right, myself, yes. Okay, thank you all. And we'll see you next month. And good luck, Jack. And thank you for you and Chris and Myra. Welcome on board and thank you for meeting with the tenor presidents. And I think that's a, as I said before, in drilling at home, I think it's a very positive step for us. So all right, good night, everybody. Good night, everybody. Thanks.