[Music]
he's supposed to be here
meeting for tuesday september 7th 2021
and i just would like to apologize for
the delay with the technical issues but
we're now back tonight
and this evening we're fortunate to have
this connect the school district
superintendent annabelle solar junior
with us and his cabinet
and we are fortunate to have him full
presentation to talk about the school
district and the services that is being
conducted at the school district so i'd
like to invite them so it comes up my
presentation thanks for everything
uh will you sit standing here
okay
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well first of all thank you for having
me i did have my mask so many students
and families watching i was prepared uh
but uh here the rules are a little
different so
since i'm vaccinated i'm gonna be an
option um so i first want to thank the
city council for allowing me to come and
speak i'll try to be brief but i've
learned early in my career that two
people you don't give a microphone to
and that's pastor and superintendent so
i just want to learn um
you know in all seriousness uh
grateful to be here and hopefully this
is the start of a uh very much a
collaborative effort between the city
school district and the uh city council
and the mayor's office um and those
individuals in the room so i'm gonna
jump on uh next slide
so i always start out everything i do in
the district with kind of our uh our
vision our tagline and our values i
think these things as an organization
guide us they should ground us i'm just
sharing them to you i'm not going to
read them to you here but the three
things that i think are the most
important as an organization are our
values and that's focused on equity
collaboration and learning that's kind
of our three major pillars
and that's going to see that evidence
and everything we do as an organization
next slide
um we have a strategy plan that was
started prior to my arrival um but i'm
of the belief that you don't
throw everything out just because you
have new leadership uh there's a lot of
work done here a lot of stakeholder
voice a lot of community voice a lot of
staff members are part of it and our
strategic plan is around four pillars
there's going to be some similarity to
those values so they're going to be one
is not student and graduate success
another one is on passionate people
another one is on partnerships with
families and community and the last one
is on efficient systems and equilibrium
resources again i'm not going to read to
you but all the stuff is on our website
and i can make a copy of you available i
didn't send it to the city council
president
next up
this is uh my got my kind of entry plan
into the community into the district
into the work here in schenectady this
is available online but i just wanted to
share with city council so you kind of
have an idea of kind of my focus and my
charge um i do want to point out this is
week eight of me in the district um so
i'm still in phase one where i'm looking
i'm listening i'm learning um but
unfortunately as a superintendent you
have to do kind of the other phases even
though you're looking at listening
because you know we're trying to open up
schools uh come thursday so we're also
making some decisions making some
changes
bringing freshman talent to the district
hiring new teachers to the community but
i want to focus on kind of four
different areas there there's district
community staff and students as my focus
and so as i look listen and learn i'm
engaging with each of those uh pieces of
the circle um i have kind of like
smaller subgroups listed around them i
have my goals listed there for you to
see so my first goal is to return to
full in-person learning
i
came into a district that had not
brought students back since march 13
2020. in most cases people had choice
whether or not they had to come back
last year so what did that translate
into less than 50 percent of your kids
came back
and so to me
that
you know the borderline criminal in my
mind because we had kids who haven't
seen a caring adult in almost two years
and we were okay with it
and so one of the first things that i'm
not okay with is continuing their
practice so we want to bring uh students
back to be with amazing teachers
principals uh school support staff uh to
full on personal learning so we are
doing it come through that's our opening
day so if uh anybody who's watching uh
please please make sure you help people
get to school on time on thursday we'll
be excited to see them back
again the only dress requirement we have
is a mask obviously along with their
regular school clubs
also want to focus on graduation rates
college readiness which is uh that's our
business teaching and learning
we're about outcomes for kids graduating
within four years getting them ready for
college ready so they're ready for
college and obviously they're ready for
career
uh increasing student attendance is
another big one because of the pandemic
because of remote learning we know kids
didn't engage we know screens didn't
turn on for many of our kids that's a
conversation we gotta have we gotta be
okay with having it
remote learning
creates some additional barriers one of
them was student attendance student
engagement
because we can't always ensure that
there's a a parent or an adult to make
sure a kid logs in that maybe that
parent or adult has to work and we can't
you know fault our families for that so
again that's why we got to bring them in
so we can attack this chronic
absenteeism that we have in
the most common in early settings and
then the last one and probably i think
the most important one is i have to
guide a community that needs some
healing you know obviously there was the
car chair from previous leadership um
and i need to reunite the district and
the community
you know this is the first time from my
understanding that a superintendent has
spoken to city council which blew my
mind when it has
city council president moon america to
come speak he was like really
he was like thrilled so um you know i
have to rebuild confidence in our
district in the schools and our staff
and our programs
and i think again if we're really all
going in the same direction we're doing
great things and the last thing is in
2025 the goal would be that we're a
district in good standing what that
means is we don't have any schools on
any nautilus we're not in receivership
none persistently dangerous none low
performing so we you know i have my
charge and
you know that mirrors my contract so the
goal is the year by year floor i should
be in good standing if not i don't
expect to be renewed
next one
so i'm coming to you to share my three
commitments that i've shared with
administrators i'll be sharing them with
teachers tomorrow when we open up to our
teachers and i get to address all of our
staff uh one is i'm gonna commit to work
hard every day for this community for
this district always for the betterment
of our district never about myself but
for the kids for the opportunities for
families and for those who live in
cities connecting
i'm always going to commit to being
transparent
that does come with
some consequences sometimes you may not
get the answer you were looking for
that goes for families that goes for
staff that goes through my leadership
team and that goes for the community as
a whole
but i will always try to tell you why
give you some background give you an
understanding um and so
i'm going to commit to transparency and
my last one is i'm going to always work
and be from a support model meaning that
i know i cannot do this work alone or in
isolation so i'm always going to have to
figure out how i support my principles
i'm of the belief that great principles
give you great teachers great students
who really big schools right so if i do
my work at the district level and make
sure our principals are supportive
they'll make sure our teachers are
supported our teachers will make sure
our kids are supported and it'll go on
and then the other day we'll have a
great school this year
so if you haven't subscribed i encourage
you to subscribe i put out a weekly
brief uh our chief communications
officer is here um so if you need
details or if you have an email like us
she can sign you up um she is the
mastermind behind us i just help provide
content she works her matches makes it
look really pretty and then gets it out
uh but i encourage you because this is
my effort to be transparent it's my
opportunity to let you know who i meet
with what am i doing with my time right
everyone says what's the superintendent
doing are we paying this much money
what's he doing all the time so this is
my hope to show you where i'm at who i'm
meeting with what's our focus as a
district uh what am i doing and the
latest coolest thing is people want to
get in the brief right like hey you
can't just meet with me i need a picture
with you so i can end up in debrief so
you may have seen our mayor in the brief
uh recently uh two weeks back when we
met with him i know our release chief
clifford and so i keep doing that not
just to show off but to really let the
community know that we are having
conversations we are collaborating we're
trying to figure out different ways and
then most importantly we figure out
cool ways to highlight our kids and so
you'll see in this one we highlighted
one of our own students who did an
amazing mural at our elementary school
so if you get a chance to go to page
elementary check it out
i found this picture online and you know
when you're trying to uh talk about the
work and change a very simple symbolic
symbolism i'm really going into visuals
as a former art teacher i would believe
pictures sometimes tell the story better
so this picture really stuck with me and
what do you see here right you see a sun
rising above the electric city right you
know and uh next one
and so
you know in my infinite wisdom i thought
of this hashtag that we could use to
kind of bag our work so this has been
our theme since i've been here for the
eight weeks we're going to continue to
use this for the year and hopefully
beyond
and it's schenectady rising so if you're
on social media all city councilman i
invite you to tweet us
and join the movement and
it's our commitment to reopen rebuild
reignite the district uh with the
commitment again to excellence and
teaching and learning equity
engagement and efficiency
and so
as a superintendent you tend to think of
things in larger systems
this is a systems thinking type of
diagram
i feel from my assessment from the
assessment of capital region boces and
feedback from meeting with key people in
the district board members um that we're
at the bottom of this pyramid this
compliance repair and upgrade this is
kind of how we can not operate right
we'll just do the bare minimum make sure
we check off the boxes and we'll just
repair things when they get broken and
we'll upgrade them when they need to be
upgraded and if we're going to do this
work well as an organization my job
would be to move our organization to the
top of the pyramid where we're effective
or efficient or sustainable and so
that's going to take some time so again
you notice that 2025 timeline next one thing that i uh did coming in was i
reset the organizational structure and
so i'm just showing you some of the
boxes here um so you have an opportunity
to see what we've done it is a little
bit different so
this is a district of almost 10 000 kids
but we didn't have an assistant
superintendent or a deputy
superintendent which again
no judgment but i just didn't understand
the logic and so we've changed that
dynamic i now have a deputy
superintendent joining me and i have
assistant superintendents that are going
to lead certain silos of the work we
have chief information officer chief
technology officer and we have
some dynamic individuals joining us to
be the work of our elementary schools
and we're still recruiting for someone
to do our secondary school so next time
they're in the room some of these
individuals so i want to take them
because they're new to the organization
um so i'm emphasizing some of our new
people so if you can just stand by uh
say your name and your role and then um
if your picture's not up there stand
anyway because you're still part of that
so our new deputy superintendent uh will
be joining us in october she is
currently the superintendent of lake
george uh which i think is a big win for
us is lynn rutner uh she'll be joining
us in october towards the end so she's
coming on board uh carlos cole dr carlos
cotto is our new assistant
superintendent for innovation equity and
engagement he'll be working on a
community schools initiative our
migratory skipper initiative athletics
uh innovation in terms of anything new
and exciting to bring we're going to
launch the parent centers so that'll be
under his charge dr sean mason is now
here he's the african-american gentleman
in the middle he's coming up from
baltimore so he'll be here tomorrow for
the board meeting and he starts next
week so he's in transition moving his
family to schenectady and they're
getting settled uh this is the
superintendent for student support
services andrea tobe freeman um
long-time district employee does
everything for special education uh
counseling behavior specialist
everything on the student support side
of the house which is a very big house
that i'm learning so thank you andrew
and then um
he's more familiar than anybody i've
ever met in the in the area so far and
he's our new executive director of
elementary schools he'll be charged with
leading all our principals with joe
dicaprio which i believe many folks know
his father was a long-time uh officer
often yeah so everyone knows joe's when
i figured it out
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or his dad and so joe's joining us uh
we're bringing him back home is what we
him principal and he left to go work in
was tell
the neighborhood district but now we're
bringing it back home we're excited um
we also have our chief uh
information and technology officer chris
is right now he's manning our he's our
human remote over there
he's everything in the technology side
and last but not least obviously karen
corona our chief public information
officer and so these are the individuals
that make up my team
for an organization again 10 000 kids 17
18 campuses
and a little bit over 2 000 employees
and so i mentioned the word equity
earlier and i want to make sure i make
this point there's a lot of polarization
around the conversation of equity and
race theory and things of that nature
and what we're focusing on is diversity
equity and inclusion and so i always use
this graphic because i think it helps
people who may not represent certain
groups have the conversation and feel
safe enough about the conversation
versus ostracizing people and so you'll
hear us ask these questions who's in the
room
who are we talking about
who's it we're trying to get in the room
but can't get into the room to have the
conversation
and the last but not least it says
everyone everyone's ideas been heard and
if we approach this work around
diversity equity inclusion i think
everywhere
maybe in the city maybe across other
areas i think the conversations can be
more productive
versus more polarized right now when you
just focus on um other aspects of
diversity of inclusion next one
so obviously we're in the business of
teaching and learning and i just wanted
to point this out to the city council we
have uh required areas every year to
assess our schools uh district
comprehensive improvement plan we're
required to do some of our schools need
improvement we're not going to shy away
from that conversation
and these are the areas that they focus
on leadership and systems curriculum
instruction social emotional learning
and obviously
probably the most important piece is
family engagement because we cannot turn
our schools around without a reciprocal
relationship with our parents and
without them helping us kids are only in
school about six and a half hours
the majority of their 18-hour day they
are not in the building so we got to
figure out ways that we can support we
can create opportunities for extended
day
after school program and saturday
programming but also we're going to need
our parents to do some of the things
that we do in school like reading to
your kids you know things of that nature
next one
our priorities this year are focused on
three kind of major things um
culturally relevant and
rigorously responsive curriculum uh the
same thing with instructional practices
culturally relevant and responsive
instructional practices so how do our
teachers work with our kids when we know
they come from a variety of backgrounds
and then obviously removing barriers to
increase attendance and engagement and
so
you know remote is a great thing to
remove that barrier but it does require
uh
you know accurate participation you know
accurate engagement so i often hear like
well that's a way to get attendance it
isn't the same when someone's in front
of you when someone's on the screen and
so i always tell people that it's a
different type of engagement
next one
so uh everyone hears we got a lot of
money right hey you got a lot of money
industry's got ton of money so
all of our money comes with strings just
like it does when it gets to the city
right when the government gives you
money there's strings and people just
here total dollar amount so i wanted to
show you that we have this american
rescue plan that's your ad funds from
for the next four years it's about 41
million dollars but there's certain
things that the money must be
allocated in use for so currently we
have an extension to the end of the
month we are looking at feedback from
all of our principals all their billy
leadership teams and we're going to put
together an itemized kind of plan on how
we plan on using this money but i want
to emphasize the next slide that this
plan was specific it had some strings
and some directions it has to be used
for non-reoccurring expenses why because
the money will run out and what we don't
want and what the government doesn't
want is to hear that schools can't do
certain things and you took money away
so they're telling you right off the bat
you've got four years to spend this
money but you have to focus on
non-recurring expenses so i won't read
all these to you but just to know that
you know maximizing in-person
instruction was a reason to use this
money meaning they want kids in the
building not remote construction the
other thing was looking at technology
what other forms of technology can we purchase safely returning
students in person supporting early
childhood we know so much happens in
those you know if we're going to be
reading by third grade we've got to do a
lot of stuff at the pre-k um and even
birth really working with families
around how do you read the kids early on
exposure to vocabulary words
sight words things of that nature next
one
so we're reopening schenectady strong
it's been something you guys have been
doing since last year something that i'm
going to continue to do this year it's a
real one's connecting strong and so
we're going five days so i don't want
anyone to be surprised so if you see
your youth out there get your butt to
school you're supposed to be in school
now everyone's open get a glass and get
in school um but we've shared again in
an effort to be transparent the document
on how to contract tracing works with
our department of health disconnecting
department of health has been fantastic
around this team they've been sharing it
so this is how you know if you're close
to somebody this is going to quarantine
if you're 12 and up again i'm not here
to fight personal choice but the
vaccine's available you don't want your
kid at home consider getting a vaccine
because if they're vaccinated they
always are allowed to stay even if
they're
within contact with somebody who is as
long as they don't show symptoms so
that's a great way to keep your child in
school is to consider them
the reopening plan is what we shared is
a summary of kind of all the key areas
and then the chart with the blue
yellow orange and red is depending on
what zone we are for transmission those
are the rules of engagement so if you're
allowed to have visitors not have
visitors in school how much distance you
should have when you eat
you know things like that the other
thing i want to emphasize is that
physical distancing or social distancing
is not supposed to be an inhibitor to
in-person learning so the
kathy hulco's been very creative
governor the
education commissioner for the country
has been very clear uh dr cardona in
personal learning um it needs to occur
and you can't use social distancing as
the excuse why you can't bring everybody
back so you do the best you can
and that's why we're having masks in
schools um when you can't stay you know
less than three feet or less than six
feet depending on the situation
excellent
so any questions
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appreciate
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yeah so we're trying to get back to the
way we used to be so all of those things
hopefully will be ignited and the people
who ran like then she works at mount
pleasant people does the girl's day out
so i think i met her one of my favorite
social workers so yeah
so you gotta put that together quick
well i just also want to
welcome you and i too appreciate the
presentation and i really as i mentioned
before i think that idea of
collaborating
is
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going to be um and electrical
and is there any kind of
focus on that
possibly um
yeah so we currently do have kids go to
capital regional season participate
there but we also have the science fair
radiation academy which has a culinary
program as a business pathway so there
is some
cte in in terms of the district as well
um so yeah we have both options that's
uh steinmetz is uh creation is right
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it's nine to twelve but in in middle
school they're supposed to take exposure
to technology they get family consumer
signs so they are getting exposed to
some of those things as well at the
middle school level
it's not so much cte or in terms of what
you're thinking you know starting in the
culinary capital again you know
i have pretty good money but i didn't
really know what i wanted to do in
middle school to commit to a pathway so
what we do is more of an exploratory
option which i think is good yeah
so the goal is they they should maybe
choose going into 9th grade if they want
to start that pathway but most of the
pathways start more like 10th or 11th
grade because there's 22 credits and we
have to get kids ready for the regents
exam and get them out so some of that
starts in freshman year and then they
kind of walk into a pathway
depending on where they are but yes we
do leverage capital both so we gotta do
that already we gotta get more kids
exposed to that um but you know i think
for us is we have to show all the
pathways and so recently i had to meet
with dr
um muno over at the community college
about how powerful would it be everybody
who graduated from schenectady cities
with research already had an acceptance
letter to the community college and so
that we told kids hey you can don't worry so much about this explore
these options but also by the way at the
end of the day this connective community
college has an option for you just in
case some of those things don't work out
so stay tuned
it
is
yeah i think these opportunities you
know i remember the mayor you mentioned
that as well
you know to public wi-fi he's really
ramping up the efforts anything we can
collaborate on and i would even say you
know maybe some shared services that we
could think about departments different
things that we do um you know that we
can explore i think facility is another
thing we got to start talking about you
know obviously we have all these
buildings that are getting older and
older how do we think about
projects where we can collaborate
whether it's maybe a public library a
school
maybe a recreational program figure out
how we can really get more because
school everyone knows how to find a
school right and so how do we make our
schools more the hub to the community so
yeah we're open to all that nice
question
once again i want to thank you thank you
for a wonderful presentation and i hope
that we can have this more often no
problem right thank you so much
thank you
we're not gonna be rude
remember if you see the students
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my brother dated amy
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july 1st through june 30th this year the
total awards 75 000
354
142
this is all for
gun violence and gun violence i also
attached the budget as you can see right
now with us um
the police traffic service program brand
new york city
traffic safety committee
yes this is a statement also towards our
traffic division this year's three
thirty nine thousand four and forty
dollars um
but again i catch the award that are
support experience like
questions go back please
uh so if you mention that you're one of
the things is to reduce aggressive
driving behaviors
of aggressive driving certain areas will
address it um high speeds um from that
miracle or at certain times of the day
it's people leaning in on traffic trying
to kind of get ahead in the next
person
from the intersections that light turns
red standing lower the state-of-the-art
intersection entire traffic other ways
participating
flowing and
changing
we also use our
cameras as much as possible to
receive patterns
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thank you sir thank you
the next item is
what we have here is a federal aid
project funded through
what is called psat protector and safety
action plan
the work is what was discussed for
around the downtown area around city
hall liberty street j clinton and
clinton franklin also an intersection in
the stockade
the project is
hoping to be awarded the caline
industries there is also a city share
and a metroplex share
it's not specifically mentioned here but
we are partnering with metroplex as they
have an interest in as part of this
project converting j street to two-way
firm proposed office so since we were
improving the signal there as part of
this project we bundled those together
and we'll be doing the project so as a
conclusion when the signals are all
upgraded the measurements are
incorporated j street in front of the
post office will be two ways
the project will start this year however
most likely won't conclude next year the
state gave us an extension actually all
projects under this forum and extension
because of supply chain shortages having
a very hard time getting the signal
actually just the material so we're
probably going to be out here starting
trying to work around we're coordinating
with the farmers market which is a big
concern because we're going to be in
their areas of work
but we're looking to complete the
project start this year complete it by
june
what was your
listening picture
for the project it was 1.6
is
so
i just put this together so i didn't
have time to give it to sam so if you
would like to look at it
and then
discuss it at the next meeting that's
perfectly fine
it is a package of kind of
all the information related to sidewalks
so i'll just briefly go through it
starts with central parkway on the west
the outside of the street
then we move on to the
even side of the street then i i took
some pictures
uh with a tape measure
just to show um you know we're gonna
have to either
reconstruct the road and bring it down
or go on the private property more
because what you'll see is we don't have
curb reviews
and what happens is
this estimate if you were to look at it
i would say that i'm making sure we
don't repeat mistakes that were made in
the past when we did this project the
first time so one of the things that
you'll see on this estimate that weren't
on previous estimates by some of my
associates in my department
is i've
kind of assessed is there a driveway
is there a lead walk what's the material
that the driveway or the leaf walk are
made of because what we were running
into the problem of was escalating costs
on barnsley and the camp and the reason
is we were a little robotic
with our estimates saying is we're going
to replace the sidewall it's 40 feet but
when you replace the sidewalk it's five
inches higher and their lead lock is low
we were getting complaints when i had to
replace my leak walls what about my
driveway so now we're putting asphalt
so we were doing all these hand work
items and the costs were going higher
and we were incurring them or were
passing them on and there wasn't this
i'm not going to say it wasn't
transparency it was just that we hadn't
dealt so much with a private owner
before so i tried to take into account
those uh and assess you know you see
here where it says alleys on the first
page
all of these properties do not have
driveways onto central park they have an
alley in the back they have it out there
so you'll notice that the costs vary
because we're not going in there with
bar mesh
so i'm trying to show that same thing if
you go to the third page of the pictures
from the street view
you can see
these walkways that lead down he's walk
basically down you're probably
two inches
off so i have to be smarter and i'm not
going to say i'm going to have to be
smart when we design this and do it
because typically what we had done is we
would put a four inch curve in
and the sidewalk would be here the lead
walk would be here and we'd replace it
but we would get complaints in public if
you remember so people would come back
and say now we're getting in public
right and it was like okay well this
isn't a project to go all the way back
on your house this isn't supposed to be
you know was supposed to be a sidewalk
public works project so we were around
this weird line of where we were those
projects so then
i also put in the resolution that we
passed before we showed that you know we
subsidized partially became 55-40 and
then the last page is the bid document
or a summary from the camp when we did
get it which showed that the actual
price was 83.55
and then going back to the first sheet
just because it's a little different
you'll see that
there's two ways that we can kind of
look at this there's the totals which
vary
and there is the cost per foot which
varied so that's trying to account for
maybe a little asphalt or a leaf off or
something different but if we wanted to
do it uniformly that's the orangish
golden box on the bottom which would be
okay we understand that you know let's
just uniformly assess it and that's the
cost there so
you know look over what you have you
know we could walk the street if you'd
like to um i know that i believe i'm
gonna be walking the street with someone
on south college street in that country
i don't know if it's yourself but
they're looking to do a petition there
and they like to walk the street because
they have some more questions about curb
heights and drainage and how it affects
other properties you know
so it gets a little a little complicated
when you start affecting it but
this is a i think it's a good start
for information
i am not looking to go farther i am just
acknowledging that there is a potential
so what i'm looking to do is
if we're going to move forward and i i
am encouraging the council to go forward
that we do it similar to camp and the
city take on a share that is curves and
it is a road even though we just paved
the road to go back in because what i'm
seeing is where i have to go out maybe
take some shots and find that maybe
instead of a two inch mill i have to go
down five because there has to be some
happy medium because some places there's
four inches occur some places there's
one inch
and if i go through and i just go
robotic which is what we did in the past
we're going to end up with a lot of
problems and
the problem with a project such as this
is you are affecting the property
ownership pain so when i show up at a
job site where you show up to talk
everyone may have their little
fictitious about
what's wrong and a lot of them on the
camp came to drainage because we put in
this beautiful five and a half inch
curve
and we didn't look so much at the
driveway ten feet back and how it would
affect it so you know we we held to our
standards a little too much whereas i
said that there's certain standards that
we can take some leeway with uh that we
have to do so that's why i've made sure
on this particular one not to repeat
that i went out there i took
measurements i took some photo just to
show you i changed the way this looks
it's a little bit more detailed than the
past one which if you look at the canvas
it was very just concrete
so what is what is the actual
curve that is supposed to be
we like to curve anywhere from four to
six inches depending on the surroundings
we prefer four to six inches
that's a that's a nice set curve you
don't if you go lower people start to
try to drive up on the curb to four
inches it's kind of more of a
we're preventative the island also
okay
so that is going to
deter people from parking on the street
correct
because the curb is going to be too high
for someone
and we're also going to similar to the
cam make sure that we measure and have a
uniform
somewhere in their own 20 20 to 22 feet
to make sure that you can fit a car
handsome and and have a traveling some
areas of central park but especially
that curve
they feel very tight so then people
just tarping on the sidewall right and
you also have to remember too is you can
put it there but somebody is so you know
inclined you just put your tire over the
driveway and then you ride up or you
don't have to just
i'm just
yeah so that's something we're cognizant of
because of the curve is does feel narrow
and luckily most people i think you can
see have driveways but still people like
down the road
please i just want to
clarify something i heard you said so
where you're going to encounter
the city does pay for hurts yes so this
is this is everything that focuses on
the property owner right and then
there's another component which is the
city share which is the pavement and the
curbs and we pay for that usually with
either a chips fund or a bonded fund
that's that's different so that's that's
within what we usually have what's that
we'll be doing this yes oh no there's
similar to the campaign like arduino we
could get away with not doing the curves
because we had to grasp medium here it's
inaccurate we have to do the curves the
issue is going to be is to find that
happy balance where i'm going to cut the
road down so that i'm not raising the
curve so high where everybody's going to
pond that's where that's where we like i
say and on one side if you're familiar
with central parkway on one side of
central parkway which i believe is the
east side
if you have a hill
so you're great but on the west side you
have ferris flat
and we have issues with puddling in the
alleyway we have issues with puddling so
we want to try to mitigate it as best we
can so is there
but we're talking about more private
property issues you know i'm trying not
to
keep the water on their property to make
sure
it does
get this
thank you for this this is a
big improvement over what we first do so
uh well done and thank you for that
and uh secondly just the information
easy talk about the stock aid and their
positions were turned in today okay um
so um
i guess the next step is to pass them to
uh
yeah i mean i still would like to walk
with ms rompo i believe she reached out
to you or
how we can all make it happen to make
everybody happy which is difficult
i want to thank you for doing this
together
several weeks let's go that's a
wonderful
presentation here detail
we'll present it
and setting up the special assessment
history sure there any questions
absolutely
the next item is not
um
yesterday afternoon
um
i think it's extremely important that we
continue to
support our police department
and i find it extremely
when there is a city school board member
that has
taken a stance on defunding the
connecticut police department
and i think it's
important that we continue to support
our police department
um
you know chief secretary
tonight
presenting the um
you know the gun violence
you know once again illegal guns in our
city streets and around the capital
region and the state
needs to be addressed um i know there
was no support for it but i would once
again follow my council
of people
it's a way to start a conversation
something needs to be done
to support our police department and
i think that you know the gun violence
and the fact that we have
activists calling for defunding
especially an elected official on the
city school board
i think it's very troubling
and it's decisive
and
it ends up
really putting a divide between
what
and
i think it's important that we as a
council need to take a stance on
supporting our police department and the
changes that's cheaper is going forward
and
you know i think the leadership here is
necessary to ensure that we
maintain regulations with our police
department and our city schools
so i
am
not supportive of
his mild stance
any other questions
and so i think that's where this really
belongs and um and thinking that for my
time on the council i can't take the
time when we were asked to fund
something that was part of our forward
and he said no we're not doing it i mean
often they come
today but there's no match but they
still needed to come before the council
and we still supported them and when
there has been a match we had supported
that so um i
am not aware of any petition that has
come forward
at this point that says we want you to
do this and so i'm not really sure
what's his response to so that that
comes to my
question
um
and in terms of fighting from here
specifically you say that a person has
the right the first amendment of
constitution to protest um and assemble
peacefully there's also reading speech
that's included in this so
i'm not sure if as a council we can take
a position
against an individual as an individual's
name here because they chose to exercise
their freedom of speech
i don't know how we do that and say we
support freedom of speech and
we have numerous people that come before
the war before the council and the rail
i don't think we all agree with
everything they say
so it becomes the point where we start
um to
create resolutions because someone said
something that we don't agree with
i can say from my personal standpoint i
support the police do does any group
agree on everything absolutely not and
that's what's exactly where we really
disagree um
and
so to me to
start first of all to choose an
individual to call them out and to say
because she said this and and just just
for the record just be clear any
statements you made was prior to
becoming a board member was before she
was an elected official on the city
school board so people heard what she
had to say and she's still got the right
thing so i just want to make sure that
that's very clear and um so
i don't think we have the right to to
call one person a person out because
they exercise their freedom of speech
and say hey we know that it's it's in
your first amendment rights but because
we don't like what you said therefore we
have no resolution we have a three
elected body who say who supports the
constitution are going to put a
resolution against you personally
because the resolution is therefore
being resolved and then there it clearly
states that person's name
um so
um is this language divisive i won't
disagree with that there's a lot of
language that is divisive uh if this you
know this is a slippery slope where
people say something we don't like it
and then we start saying well we're
going to create a resolution that they
said that we didn't like i think that's
a dangerous path to voting i also think
it invites the aclu to come to our
council meeting and say how can we do
this not only them probably other youths
as well so this is uh in my mind more
resolution against a person
as it is in favor of
um a budgetary issue which again i think
that's where you know funding goes and
that's where we get this aside we on
this council it's our role and
responsibility to say well
the americans are getting the votes and
we're just clear about that so we say to
the mayor you know we you know do this
and not that so i think that you know
this belongs in the budget and i have
again to just reiterate to the point
that i've not seen any specific calls
without the police and
are we do we really
have a right to
um
let's to say to someone you um exercise
your constitutional rights but we're
putting out what resolution that say we
don't believe what you have to say
i think that's
not something that we can do as a
counselor but something that we actually
shouldn't even do
so we're talking about funding
as opposed to being against an
individual because of their speech i
think this is two very different things
so i know that um what's put on the
agenda says becoming the police but this
resolution is really not reflecting that
at all it really is reflecting that
person said something and that person
should not have said that and we're
saying you shouldn't have said it and
we're taking
putting a resolution out that says
[Music]
a few points first of all miss miles did
say after she was on on the board of
education
and it was in the newspaper that she
wanted to define the police
typically
and for longest time the school board
and the city council remaining two very
distinct bodies
and here we have a school board member
crossing that line
so
secondly the resolution itself as i read
it is very much about funding the police
and not something about a particular
individual
how i read it was the individual's
mention because she is a public official
and we have that right to
make that distinction
third the
just as
cities have done resolutions to defund
the police
we can very well do resolutions to fund
reports and call against it
and
if there are weaker questions
people can certainly come and speak and
have their
say at the council meetings
and that doesn't take away from their
freedom speech so
i really don't see any particular issue
on this
i think it's something that we
i would support
i understand the issue with funding and
we will take that up in october
but
this uh
i think sends a message to our residents
who complain about
lots of stuff
in particular with regards to quality of
life issues that the police can deal
with
and they're understaffed and defunding
them certainly
and quite frankly to say she said she
would like to abolish
that doesn't go anywhere i mean
everybody knows some of the key pieces
to
a healthy city is this excellent school
district which hopefully we're on the
right track
a safe community where people want to
move
and that entails having
a police department
that
is engaged with the community
becomes partners with the community and
so much of what we've done in the
community outreach and the steering
programs that we've had with the police
reform
was related to the police getting out
into the community and they can't do
that if there's
public officials calling for defunding
the police
so to me it's a real distinction here
we have two separate boards that largely
stayed in their own
areas
how i was always told as a member of the
city council we don't interfere
with the school board we can go to the
meetings and we can certainly have our
say but that's as a personal
uh
individual but as a school board
remember saying you want to defund the
police
i'm sorry i
disagree with what your concept is and
i would support this resolution
my appearance when it comes to i don't
think any one of us
is
individual members of the public
i don't think really as a possible
police department we need our police
department
we need a police department
and we have been providing the necessary
funding over the many years i've been in
this council and it will continue to
happen
so having a resolution i don't think
it's needed i don't want to do it
everybody knows we are probably
supporting police departments
that they're doing and we thank them
every day
i mean putting a resolution i don't
think it's needed i mean
we have a budget to deal with uh at the
end of the next month and we'll address
all these things and look at how we've
been able to
maintain the funding and increase the
funding
providing us a resource to them
we can't just go about
you know keeping information from the
public
and doing this thing and it's leading to
a dangerous path
and so mr probably said it wasn't
directed at a specific person but the
part that the resolution department says
therefore be resolved that this
connecting city council cannot with
clear conscience supports the cause of
community activist schenectady city
school board member jamaica miles stands
for defining the police department nor
her calls from lobster police department
we are specifically talking about the
specific person we're not even that we
so we say we don't agree with it so
therefore we put together a resolution
that says and therefore it may be solved
that's connected to the countless that's
considered such data to be divisive and
detrimental to the state and security
both are residents and law enforcement
officers this is a this is directed at
an individual
[Applause]
and history of all models we had a
chance to look at it but um the way i
read this is that you put a person's
name in here and you're saying you
clearly did not support that person
because of what she said
that's what this is
in plain english
so that to me is different than nazi
funding police again which is a
budgetary issue which we'll be
discussing in just a couple of months
and and so
you know as mr mcmahon said as i've said
that has
[Music]
but without a real call to do this i'm
not sure what we're answering here
or the rel really really what it achieves
so um
on city store
we are trying to build
a collaborative environment it's a
cooperative environment and we have a
board member that is
[Music]
not thinking about being inclusive
and you know it was a great presentation
for tonight from the new superintendent
and i think
you know that needs to be carried
forward i know that he's met with the
chief
i know that you know things are going to
move forward in a good manner but i need
to understand
that it's not a school board member
thinking that defunding employees is
acceptable we need to support our police
we don't need to defund our police and i
just think it's wrong that an elected
school board member is
stating that she wants to
have she represents the school
[Music]
i think that
if you feel that way in terms of school
work but i think this is a conversation
to have and with the superintendent if
you feel that way about school whenever
or with before the um chair at school
i don't think at least the council
speaks
that we don't like what you said
and therefore we're putting the
resolution together because there may be
things that that uh council members say
that people don't and we didn't come
back
i think we need to
i agree we should support our quotes and
we do support our focus but on
disability where we should not come
against an individual because of the
statement that they made because they
exercised it to the first amendment
right that is where i draw them on that
we come against an individual that says
where does that end
somebody support something else that we
don't agree with but we don't think it's
appropriate we don't think it's
currently politically correct
so where does it end so
supporting police is absolute but going against individuals because of
something that they said that we don't
agree with and again she is one member
of the board so even if she says that
the school board member and they had any
control over which they don't
it's one member
we at this table
that we do live appropriately in terms
of funding our police allocating
whatever community resources that are
needed all of which was talked about in
part of the police reform and
reinvention so we put all that in there
but we talked about all that so when the
budget comes from we have the
opportunity to do that because we we
decided on budget so
you don't have to say oh we support it
and we we are against you saying that
because we can do this alive
but
people say what they feel
and
if you live in america and you have a
right to do that
and as long as you like screaming fire
in the filing room
yeah i think we're
just really missing
the vote here i mean
and you have a public official who's
come out and said that there's nothing
wrong with taking a stand
particularly when we've had other
vendors calling for
diverting
budgetary money from the police
department um while they're abolishing
things these are all things that are
then discussed publicly
in the steering committee meetings
themselves
and now we have school board member kong
to
defund the police it just doesn't
vote well for the city
when we're trying to build relationships
in this city and purposely is creating
decisions
um
i i think that's why
the resolution is necessary
but again that's committed so
it's too
immersive so
people have a right to say what they say
whether you agree or disagree it's a
newspaper um
then you have to know
but it happens people say things that
like we disagree with all the time that
doesn't make facts just because someone
said it
again we we're we're targeting one
person because we don't move this
person's stand because they are a public
figure i don't think this is the first
public figure that's ever said anything
that we've already done
so um i just put together a resolution
to attack someone personally
i think it's not what this body is
called to do and if we feel this level
of disagreement then plus we have to
visit down and discuss it and talk about
it and work through it
with um the individuals that i don't
know that's even been made an attempt to
do
but i think just putting together a
resolution because we didn't like what
somebody said things like bring our
passes
and
mr collins like that we
when we do the budget we
are the ones
with the budget we haven't wanted to say
this department gets this much money
based on what we want to call it that is
what happens here
so because someone says something
contrary to what we believe in
or what we're comfortable with
doesn't change the fact that we still
get to decide on the question
and that's where this belongs police
funding is a legendary issue whose
department will present their budget
this is what we need to do our job then
we'll go through
[Music]
you it the mayor will do um you know
either change whatever it needs to
change and then basic council will get
it this is a budgetary issue you can
deal with this with a budgetary issue
and i think anyone on this council has
come forward and said let's discover
this
you're asking for a resolution to
celebrate their 100th anniversary
in this visiting as a council on the
city we recognize the contribution
towards the city
item on the agenda is the 2021.2
hud continuum for ymca is dior
um
next item on the agenda is a call for
the public hearing for the 2022 budget
mr ferrari
thank you
as you know the mayor's proposed 22 the
2022 budget will be delivered to the
city council uh honor before october 1st
and pursuing to uh second class uh
city's law
and the charter of the city of
schenectady
uh the ordinance to approve and adapt
the proposed 2022 budget
needs to be announced by november 1st
and one of the
necessary components uh to pass this
proposed blended is a public hearing so
we're requesting uh that the
city council at their uh september 13th
uh council meeting approve
of the call for the public meeting to be
held on october 12th of
2021.
any questions on this
paper uh thank you
next is the update on the request
funding on the mayor
just uh
for
three four five community meetings with
counseling for uh
neighborhood brooks community groups
to
look at some of the
needs that they have
give us a chance to outline some of the
options and as we move forward with
just the
formal
alignment of that money to be very
expensive and hopefully we're going to
be able to do a coordinated and
complimentary fashion with the other
levels of government
any questions
like throughout the city of various kids
[Music]
some of the criteria to use it to
replace some of the money that we lost
we put some staff back in from that and
then look forward to working with the
council to come up with that final
document not only for
2022
to order city development and planning
we have seven items on the agenda
um the first two will be a public
section
first one uh licensing room with mental
placement construction south street
south church street
as part of the continuing redevelopment
of
downtown
the city in partnership with metroplex
or vice versa i really want to look at
it um saw two redevelopment south church
street between fuller and state street
i'm sure you're familiar with this area
if you were to go down the road you can
definitely tell it's one of the last
areas to be developed um leaving
something to be desired we've seen a lot
of investment as
in my uh as i said requesting this
metroplex put in there
between gary boulevard and state street
and gateway park for public
infrastructure and on top of that the
private infrastructure that we've seen
tested there
this is kind of one of the final
pieces to complete our lower downtown
development
so the city and metroplex going forward
with cooperation with a design and then
a bid
the understanding was the city would
contribute for the roadway and the
curving while metrobus would take care
of things such as scccs actually partner
on this with a parking lot they're also
helping contribute towards lights and
sidewalks and things the city usually
doesn't get involved with so we think this is a good project
another example of us working in
partnership with them to get
progress done it's going to be a
terrific project it's in coordination
with we already making the rope in one
way you know it formally has not been at
the conclusion of this project and
during the project will be one way
it will increase parking it will look
literally like a million bucks it's
going to be terrific we're eliminating
over a dozen utility poles
most of which were there were
unnecessary
defeat infrastructure that hasn't been
there in years but we are cognizant of
future development we are leaving two
polls to make sure that the larger lots
that currently aren't developing will
have utilities
so this is the project as as it is
i would recommend
authorizing the mayor to be able to
enter into the agreement
um
there will be a public hearing on next
uh um evening i'm chuck marshall from
stewardshops uh we have under contract
the sunoco at 1501 union
and the funeral jones general home of
1503 union
however those two are both in the c2
which allows a convenience store with
gasoline filling
10 20 mm street which is essentially the
green
landscape strip between
the r1
use
and the c2 district is
actually zoned r1 and is not allowed to
be incorporated in our use so what we're
here tonight to request
is rezone of the parcel at 1020
um palm street
[Music]
with um it's rear to the residential
district
and put the gas in front
i just wanted to figure out where we
were with the planning commission so
forgive me for that so the planning
commission issued a favorable
recommendation i think that there's
going to be some
cycling concerns elevation head things
as there normally is
i think we've done a pretty good job
redeveloping stores
throughout the city um
is
so with us is jennifer howard she's
actually our property manager um and
she'll be the one at the
meeting next week so because of the
tenancy situation we've been unable to
redevelop
the upper union street store as we have
um ben franklin brandywine and broadway
so what this does is as you look at
where we are in the city the union
street
portal um where
the upper union street store is it does
not have a side street traffic that
matches on the column track
so here we would see effectively
50 more cars than we're currently seeing
and we do think that that will be a
longer
you know that's the longest lasting
point in the market
while the upper union street location
has
more viability
both as
[Music]
the layout will be effectively the same
um the side door uh on mcclellan on the
front door that will face the gas cam
i just you know one of the things that i
want to show is just to show you the
amount of space we're actually talking
about
this is the existing parking so
i'm sorry
yeah thank you
we're literally talking about like a
couple of feet of usable area um our
real intention is to leave that green
space area
between us
and the residential district that it
butts it
these homes don't have windows on the
back of the residence so one of the
things we're able to do by
rezoning this property
we can keep lights off the back of the
building
so effectively the building becomes a
stream from the
residential district to the commercial
district with the majority of commercial
activity kept to the front
yes
any other questions
so thank you for coming in again
republican uh
thank you
on