A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 7:00 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman June M. Caron led in the Pledge
to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 13 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Harriott-Gathright and
Alderwoman Kelly were recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
President McCarthy
Before we begin, the City lost a friend and former Alderman Sean McGuinness. He was a consummate
gentleman in these chambers and he will be missed and | would ask for a moment of silence in his
memory. Thank you.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
First Mr. President | wanted to join you in wishing the best to the family of Sean McGuinness who we all
know served on the Board of Aldermen for a few terms. He was always gentlemanly, he was
thoughtful, he never had a bad word to say about anyone and it was a pleasure to serve with him. |
think we were able to keep him in public service right up to the end in the sense that after he left the
Board of Alderman, | appointed him and you quickly confirmed him for the Planning Board and | know
that he was happy to be able to fulfill that service right up to the end of his life. | again wish his family
the best and we have lost a really good man.
On the Agenda tonight | wanted to offer a little explanation about R-18-021. It is a resolution to transfer
funds to Harbor Homes for the purposes of the safe stations program. This matches a contribution we
made to them about a year ago. One of the aspects of the safe stations program is that they have
drivers available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to pick up any person who reports to a fire house within
about 10 to 11 minutes of the report. The purpose of this very speedy pick up is we don’t want to take a
fire company out of service while waiting for a pick up. What we did last year was help subsidize and
help pay for the cost of the pickup service because they do not currently have any grant or anything like
that for this. It cost them significantly more than I’m proposing which is $50,000.00 again matching last
year to provide the transportation. You will hear about the details in the committee. Peter Kelleher will
come in to talk about the details but | wanted to at least alert you to that, that is on the Agenda and why.
As we look toward the paving program this year | have been learning recently that the quality of the
asphalt, and this becomes very technical, is very important to the long-term durability of the work. It
has to do with the amount of liquid in the asphalt that is the oil-ish product that actually gives us the
black color and not too much so-called dust. So we may adopt additional procedures that are quality
control procedures that are used and advocated by State DOT which has to do with having an inspector
at the plant when the asphalt is mixed because it seems that is the only way you can be sure that you
are getting even quality matching the specs at all times. It will add a little extra money but in terms of
spending many many millions of dollars to pave this year 30 miles of streets, we want to make sure we
are getting the best quality and that three years from now we aren’t encountering problems with
potholes and other issues having to do with the fact that the quality of the asphalt was not right. So |
just wanted to mention the DPW, Department of Public Works is looking into that very carefully and
want to make that the quality controls are the maximum. No other municipality, or very few, take the
quality control to that step but | think we really need to do that to ensure we spend our money wisely.
Finally, there are some voter constituent citizen outreach efforts, we have the JajaBelle’s Coffee with
the Mayor tomorrow morning. If you'd like to get up early, probably earlier than many of you get up,
