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so
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meeting for monday december 6. the first
item on the agenda is a presentation
about the central park pool was the man
thank you mr palamini
said
you know we have a facility in central
park that's been there for a long time
and
been
putting money in it that requires some
maintenance each year painting the
surface
unfortunately it
doesn't meet the standards today
the department of health
and just some of the upkeep so it went
out and uh
brought in a consultant uh
just this excitement the council's
inclined to name the facility tonight we
could call it gary's pool
but it's not because of me but it's
because of gary schultz
consultant but if you wanted to take
that game
probably
we have to do something with the central
park facility because it just doesn't
meet standards today
uh it also
somewhat of an attractive nuisance for
the ducks and geese that are in the area
that get in there and that becomes more
of a challenge to just maintain the
quality of the water
but
again
brought in
aquatica which has done some work for
the city before in terms
of the evaluation
not only this facility but other
facilities
in the city so
gary had some general background
knowledge and also saratoga associates
and so we have a presentation tonight
uh
submitting
to you for consideration as we start a
process of
relocating the pool within central park
and build a facility that will serve the
needs of the community for decades going
forward with that i'll turn it over to
dan
and he'll also talk about why you should
call it gary's pool
i didn't have a vote now just so you
folks know uh we're just trying to
gary's pool um
hi everyone my name is dan sharon with
saratoga associates um we are
landscape architects we've been working
in the capitol district we do a lot of
parks work on the municipal side and
also on the state side we've been doing
that for 50 years so we really
appreciated the opportunity to come and
provide our insight into the central
park pool we're joined on this project
by my friends kevin schaefer and gary
schultz gary will be the one you know he
may want to plaque put in his honor
we'll see we'll see how the budget goes
but aquatica brought us in
um to help kind of direct this but the
real experts with respect to the
evaluation of the pool
and the needs for a new pool would be
acquired so gary i don't know if you
want to speak for just a moment in terms
of aquatic's experience in the pool
industry i'd be glad to again i'm gary
shells my company is quadruples and
water parks
and we have pool consultants kevin is an
mvp engineer with our firm he's a senior
engineer
and all we do is renovation and a lot of
renovation and build new public and
municipal pools
all over the uh
the northeast and
southeast
as well
we've done a lot of renovations like
this we're working on several right now
and our expertise is to understand
the codes the code requirements
the
swimming
habits and
procedures that we've seen take place in
other communities and and uh
that we are just experts in the swimming
pool itself
okay
thank you very much i don't care if you
want to say anything or do we speak for
you today
all right very good so we understand
there's existing pool facilities as gary
has a background in um we looked at
obviously the central park pool but we
understand there's hillhurst front
street and quacking bush
so when you evaluate the central park
pool there's there's some real
challenges specific to it it's right in
the flight path
of the east uh and the docks we were
there two weeks ago the day before the
day before thanksgiving it was about 20
degrees out and it wasn't stopped in the
east because they were literally
breaking through the water on the
iroquois lake and in the swimming area
and just continuing their their patterns
they don't look like they're going
anywhere they look like they look at us
like what are we doing
a challenge specific to this swimming area is it's it's almost
an acre and a quarter that's a very big
area that's a very big health and safety
concern when you're looking specifically
at lifeguards those sorts of things
getting too
specific areas because it's it's so
such a large mass
gary touched on something that was
specific to code compliance and
maintenance i'm sure you folks all know
better than we do the issues with
skinning filtration circulation this
generates it takes a lot of water we met
with
polython out there on the site a couple
weeks ago we were talking about the
needs in terms of flow rates of water
and how it was handled and the amount of like
chlorine or other materials that needs
to try to
address kind of the bacteria levels and
stuff that's a huge challenge everywhere
because temperatures are getting higher
and when you have higher temperatures
you need more chlorine
we looked at the maintenance costs with
mr lafon
and in this area
you know you're pretty
isolated specifically from like
restrooms changing facilities those
sorts of things and also we discussed
the
water quality issues with waterfowl i
know i know we discussed it out there
specifically a couple weeks ago
how one of the big jobs for the
lifeguards was going out every morning
and cleaning up all the goose waste
before people get out there and the
problem is is cleaning up that waste
isn't all that easy
um just because of the type of what it
is so it's it's a health and safety
hazard frankly
well before we before you pass up let's
just say one thing
in general
there is no it's not a cool spot
there's no filtration we're just popping
chlorine in there
and there's no filtration there's no
chemical control
and it doesn't mean any uh code
requirement in the state of department
health that i'm aware of
so i mean it's been a beautiful facility
for a long time for people swimming i
understand that but it's not cool
it is
on this slide just uh sort of
delineating the code requirements and
how that would apply to this body of
water
you know public pool would require that
water to be turned over every six hours
for filtration and
biological contamination control
right now that facility doesn't come
anywhere close to that there's no
filtration
and we would need
3 500 gallons of flow in there and i
think we're probably getting about 400
gallons of flow
in that facility right now
so we would need to add proper treatment
and also one of the requirements is
surface skin
and in a public pool there is no surface
skimming there's one drain at a low
point and we're not quite sure if that meets
safety requirements for entrapment
so
you know we
look at the cost to bring this up to
code it would just be uh it would just
be a monstrous cause
one thing i wanted to touch on kevin is
here's some of our friends
with their pre-thanksgiving activities
right here they were breaking through
the ice to get the law and no matter
what we do we can't fix the flight path
and
right now the deck
slopes right into the pool it's a low
point in that area so everything it's
really a watershed for the whole area
and that's that's a really that's a
really big challenge in terms of how
it's set up
everything drains into it so there's
going to be all the nutrient loading
there's always going to be a challenge
there with water quality
so we looked at the proposed new site
which is in this area here
um
kind of taking the footprint of the
existing tennis stadium we looked at the
infrastructure and the amount of earth
moving that would be required and it
would be minimal because we have more
than an acre here and you'll see
superimposed kind of where the pool
would fit on top of it you can see how
this is kind of a neat central location
with respect to the tennis courts here
the a ball diamond here music haven in
the fair park
so the proposed new site as i just
touched on before
we're looking to at this area and one
thing that would be an advantage for
this over
the existing
site
is just the topography of it having some
real foliage around it it inhibits geese
it's not a normal flight pattern nothing
stops them but this helps inhibit it
because they would have to come in and
go down and they're very gradual in
terms of waterfalls
yeah so part of that uh part of the
scope is to add a bath house and one of
the key features of this location is
that there are other needs in the park
and locating the tool here enables us to
have a bath house that could be shared
by multiple users the tennis courts
are one major user
right now they have to walk into a bat
to get to facilities so this would give
located so so both
users have easy access to the facility
and
like to build in
shade and some seating
uh it's important that the new
facilities want to encourage inclusive
play so we want to provide
ada access and
so that everyone in the community can
take advantage of that
yeah if you look at some of the some of
the things that are the
greatest interests for people right now
it's splash parks
people love them
when aquatica and saratoga started
discussing this opportunity we were
looking at potentially having a pool
with a splash apartment alongside it
it's splash parks are very popular kayak
launches are very popular
things access the water is really
important and that is from space yeah
and and our plan actually does have some
space set aside for us
go ahead okay so so here's actually
where we went with the concept
and it's developing a lapse a lat pool
here as as kevin indicated a future
location for a splash pad this is on the
footprint of the
state
for the the tennis courts and so what
you would have is access coming off from
the north through a bathhouse where you
have to access this and this would all
be defense
there's there's things you can do with
respect to programming
you know you want to keep a good chunk
of foliage around but maybe you can put
in some more uh activities on the
playground
um you know some pavilions
folks for people who have you know lunch
picnics those sorts of things when the
kids have a play game at the pool
and it's tying in with the existing site
it's just there's a there's a there's a
lot of potential here and and don't
think this is gospel this is this is a
concept that was pulled together for
discussion purposes because we wanted to
kind of see what this what you could put
here and get a cost estimate in terms of
so if we can wrap your head around
what's the bill going to be
i might also point out as i slide to the
fifth house
the new bath house
is orientated in that fashion so that it
was somewhat near the tennis courts and
became the
toilet facilities became available for
the tech stores as well as the pool
that's that's exactly right thank you
for bringing it up
it is in this location so it is in that
proximity so it could be get maximum use
there
and
let's see
you want to touch base on this
sure these are these are this is again
this is a concept so we really have to
sit down and go through all the features
we would include these are some of the
things that municipalities are finding
you know that are favorable right now
they have the beach entry
uh that it's
made for
ada accessibility next for
all you know even elderly to access the
facility
there's also uh
there's like a kid zone and you see in
the upper left hand corner that there's
a wall
that slopes down gently to about an 18
inch deep area
the families find that you know really
popular for the young tops
and then there's a kind of a flatter
area in the center that's really great
for programming
we do all kinds of things we include
different kinds of
like splash pad features toys
and that's really the sky's the limit
there
a lot of creative solutions
and then uh
we have a little resistance walk there
at the end that we can create a flow
through there and that's popular
elderly and you know they get some
exercise
and then we have the slide feature and
then you know some so many spells like
to include that and that's something
that we
can discuss during during design yeah i
think i think the one thing i did want
to say it's just that this is you know
like i said this isn't this isn't in um
stuff
an iterative process getting feedback
from the community
the stakeholders that would be using it
we want this to be something that the
community will use and enjoy
um and that's why you know it's great to
have kevin and gary here so that we can
help program something that is specific
to the needs of the community we want to
make sure it's going to be used
absolutely
and
i'm sorry also
remember to put things in direct
perspective that lap pool area that
you're looking at is
right on top of the old pedestal
just that's the
thing put it in perspective that's all
the toy features and the elements in
there are the result of
many tools that we've done that we found
people like communities like communities
use
you're not limited no money is limited
to any one of them or all of them the
only prescription we have is creativity
and
money
i mean at some point there's things we
can't afford
the community can't afford but
the
you know if one thing i would say if you
could go back just for a second chris it
was just the elements of the bathhouse
there's the office check-in
uh men's and women's room uh restrooms
and change areas a break room first day
and then a separate pump house which
would all be as people access it and
they can also access that quite readily
from the tennis courts
and if you look at the long range
concept this was the this was the first
image
and this is kind of ties in other things
and you look at what you improve here
with respect to expanding parking let's
say this is a big success you come
around and you tie in
off of fair avenue towards gulf
and you look at the you're going to have
the future improvements of the fair lot
you have a lit walkway to music haven uh
you also love to
create a traffic circle so it's more easy in
easy out specific to getting into the
park access to the tennis courts
you potentially could narrow down the
current uh ashford or is that the name
pedestrian walkway down towards the
iroquois lake um and the restrooms but
there's a lot of potential i think you
look at
what can happen here putting the pool
here can help tie things together
it help it can help with traffic it can
create
more
connectivity specifically within central
park and obviously
if you get more connectivity you're
going to have more traffic and you want
these walkways lit and it makes it a
little more coherent in terms of the
wayfinding on central park
anything to add guys
no i like the circle creates sort of an
entry
into the part it it it kind of
formalizes it a little bit
and so as we discussed
this the long-range concept would
further increase parking which would be
readily accessible
for
the
a par a field
the music haven the tennis courts it
just enhances and creates easier access
to parking down by the fair parking area
potential for the splash pad
i'll be right here
right in this area
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all right does anyone have any questions
we can talk we can talk about this stuff
all night but we don't want to pour it
in so we'll just ask you those to give
us give us any uh
questions that are relevant to the
presentation
feel free
yes ma'am um so someone mentioned about
money so
are we talking do we based on your
concept is there a dollar amount that
you uh connected to this that's a fair
question yeah what we were looking at
before was the original step
was and actually if you advanced it
another couple more slides chris we have
the cost in there it's about three
million dollars for the new pool
and the upgrade
basically
and doing retrofitting yeah we have
three million dollars here
for that as a cost estimate the other
one to basically try to get it up to
code was between eight and ten million
dollars
and that still doesn't solve a lot of
problems you have infrastructure issues
over there at the current swimming area
this is you bring everything in new you
have the infrastructure and you start
thank you
go ahead um does the three million
dollars include the lighting and the you
know all the all the things that we just
talked about the parking
it no it accounts for the stuff right
here the
other pieces are probably it wouldn't be
more but we really haven't quantified
that yet that was beyond the scope of
what i asked him to look at
we have to do the lighting
coming along the a diamond going over to
music haven
uh what do you do with the parking lot
on fair avenue
uh is part of the
uh ongoing
review
because we're getting rid of
this tennis stadium which the city never
put any money it was always otb that
brought it there
the money dried up it's gone into
disrepair
we have put money in the
tennis courts
and i think that we should probably look
at putting some bleachers over those
tennis courts
uh there's nobody in the city today that
wants to play tennis that's denied the
opportunity
to play tennis
and
it's how do you look at this relocation
of the pool at the same time to
deal with some of the other uh
amenities that we need
in the park to make sure people are
using music haven using the pavilion
uh using
both the baseball courts basketball
courts
and other things and again
the numbers actually surprised me i
thought
their estimate i believe is good for the
basic
uh site for the pool at roughly 3
million dollars
and then
it's what do we spend on the additional
modifications for
lighting and standpoint enough
connectivity with walkways and other
things that
just allow the other amenities to be
used at the level we'd like
to
mayor to the presentation point chris
and i've been working on this with the
consultants and i've been working with
the tennis group for
almost my entirety here about 10 years
and one of the things that they've asked
for has never been more tennis courts
necessarily but they have wanted a
bathroom with a changing facility and
the cost of that have always been well
how do we do that so when we sat down we
talked about okay this location which is
great and centralized and a bath house
with a changing facility the tennis
season is longer than the pool season
so by having it in a more central
location we're really hoping to
incorporate some things so that we'll
you know meet two goals with one
investment because we can we can
restrict you from coming into the pool
area we can allow you into the bath
house which would have changing
facilities to do and i think that i mean
they have very large tournaments at the
tennis facility so i think we'd have a
lot of reciprocity with that and you
know really show that we're making a
smart investment and similarly uh
christine and i are 100 aware
that this investment will put a lot of
bonus on ourselves to connect to it with paths and do intersection
improvement project effective shows and
make the park and make this location
more accessible to everyone and we've
already taken one step we've put in a
tip-ass location to encourage biking
from state street into this area so it's
now it's at the forefront
if you're not aware of saratoga
associates they work on the golf course
with us previously they also worked on
our central park signage uh package that
you've heard about so we have a plan
together we're kind of waiting for
certain things to happen to put signage
throughout the parks people know where
things are and that's where they've done
some concepts with fair app in the
parking lot because that's one of the
parking lots we want we've been working
with uh mona and music haven so this is
a next step but i'll be it will never be
the final step i mean this is just the
next step
with parks the the faces never really
ends because the programming constantly
evolves i think kind of the work we've
been doing today with the city has kind
of helped inform our opinion in terms of
the location and how it ties into the
other programming elements of central
park
john
um what would be the timeline on this
construction project yeah we we actually
discussed that with i don't know mayor
if you wanted to discuss that he won't
be able to bring it up
better grasp it you know
probably over
like two construction seasons yeah i i
honestly think you know
there are still a stakeholder
process that needs to occur to finalize
the design and we're in december where
at the end of 2021 you really get to the
point where the first
three to four to five months are the
design development process
until you get to
the architecture and
the pool design so we're really looking
at probably getting started in doing the
design from like the second to the third
quarters of 2022 and then starting the
construction
in probably the end of the third quarter
into
early 2023 with a target start date of
say june 1st of 2023 i think that would
be a good target
thank you
and of course you have
to supply you know things that we may
not be able to so that's
it is difficult because we have run into
that with a lot of projects yeah it's been a real challenge and and i
think the more time we have the better
so we can start putting things in the
queue but we're hoping some of the
supply the supply line issues get
resolved hopefully
there any other questions
all right well thank you thank you very
much folks have a good evening thank you
thanks for your time thank you everybody
next on the agenda is the government
operations mrs porterfield call to order
government operations there are five
items on the agenda
uh the first item for discussion is osm
broadcast of city council and committee
meetings thank you uh so we as you know
we've been having difficulties with the
transmission of uh council and committee
meetings
we
asked that
if
here he is there is back there uh if he
would bring a quote and some information
so you all should have received the
email with the quote and zeb if you
could uh
just present to us
what the findings were
we asked
technologies who's a very
good standing reputable uh company in
the city to give us a quote on what they
would do to upgrade all of the
issues with the sound the video and
everything like that with the not only
this room but also the um the commercial
chambers
and what they came back with um
i had some questions for tom who's the
chief
guy over there who
looked at our space
and explained to me each one of these
because i wasn't even unsure about some
of this stuff
um
and uh i come to the territory this is
actually really good this would
put us in a very good spot quality wise
there's a lot of issues with um
buzzing noises i mean you can hear it it
just
moves right into the mics
and uh
tommy's a real good expert and uh
and these mics that he outlined in this
system would um
spot in terms of audio and video and
broadcasting the meetings i mean things
like um
noise cancellation on mics
uh having sam in the room
with a slider so she can turn down the
audio in the console chambers because it
gets loud
it's very tough for us as the production
to know if it's too loud in the council
chambers
you would be able to just kind of tone
the audio down in there
and also
you know mute likes when you need to
and those sorts of things
those
cordless mics that we use
those are those are on a signal that's
not really used anymore so
they're just they're on their way out
so um
some new ones that actually meet
code
yeah i don't know is there any questions
so i have a few um
let's say we went down this road uh how
long
do you think this technology would be
i asked that exact question
he said it would be at least 10 years
because you know obviously
technology changes and things evolved
but i mean um
you know
uh he said at least ten years on uh
on the audio video i'm sorry i think
that the cameras are so i mean i want
some of these things last longer than 10
years i know that somebody's a really
good company
with video
and if we didn't do live transmission
with the cost being the same or
yeah this does not this is this is just
improving the audio and video quality
overall
uh
on the video side so you're recording
the actual transmission is a kind of a
separate uh thing
that um
it just that depends on um
you know the internet and he did
actually
uh include uh
internet boosting signal to the
amplifier to actually uh make sure that
the the internet signal that's coming
out is a little more secure
so the stream will be a little more solid
um
i know that you've identified um a tech
some a business so we would have to go
out to bid for this just to find if we
were their competing bids
i need to defer that to you guys and uh
you certainly could put it down
we may have to uh a lot of
this type of equipment is on state
contract or consolidated supply of the
federal
vetting process so we would be able to
purchase it directly okay
thank you
are there any other options that we
might have to
get the meetings out there i mean
uh we just put
i'm gonna say we i mean i think it was
two or three years ago probably put 10
or 15 000 in
and
i guess we thought it would take care of
the problem
are there other options of
transmitting the meetings
um i mean the the transmitting it and uh
capturing good audio they're kind of two
separate problems i mean the the
transmission is just to determine what
you're putting out there this would give
us
everyone's audible i mean these these
bikes they just they just pick up a lot
of the ambient sound the air
conditioning a lot of things
the um this would give us a solid ground
to put out
a really clean good-looking
committee meeting council meeting
um and then also uh help us with the
streaming that this
the internet stream would be a little
more stable
so it kind of really solved both of
those problems but that interesting
question
i think it's something that we need to
think about and obviously the
transmission is a major problem we get
complaints every single week
and
but
50 000 is a lot of money too
but it should last 10 years hopefully
but
mayor uh
do you have any other options or your
staff have any other options of
possibility of
getting these meetings out there
we haven't
looked at it specifically other than
uh it's
packaging all the information that's
available where
uh it's likely has the long history
we're the first to broadcast
city council meetings live
it's been
probably 40 years
maybe longer that
they've done it
but today it's just not the
a
simple visual of
council members
talking being at the meeting it's how do
you get the additional information up
it's you know where you have
presentations like this to be able to
merge it
the more recent change in state
legislation that requires
information to be made available
prior to the meetings
and again
you know that's all good but at the same
time you don't want the public to be
overwhelmed with kind of what i'll call
white noise where you're putting out so
much
that they don't have time to sort
through it
and how do you manage that so
i think the discussion has to be
not only the streaming of the meetings
but it's packaging all the information
that goes out
the data the photographs
other information the council or city
staff may be
using to make decisions or come to a
conclusion in terms of legislation or
other actions that you're looking at
do you think you could have your staff
look at this and
maybe make a proposal or presentation
you know in the future
most certainly we can work with zev and
take what he's put together and look at
other things that
may be applicable and it's out at city
council meetings you have other
bodies you know it's a zoning board
planning commission
that
have equally important roles i should
say
nothing's as important as the city
council but
that
people want to know what's going on and
how do we get that information out so
that they can understand it and
again understand what's going on at city
hall
i think that's a good place to leave it
let the mayor's staff hopefully poor
nate was that and
when they have something and we'll bring
it back to the table
and open any questions at any time
um thank you okay thank you mr feldman
thank you
okay the next item on the agenda is
resolution to appoint carl williams and
during tutorial to vacant council seats
as we all know there was an election
for two unexpired terms and the um
you know we have the people who won the
election car williamson during the toro
who are at this point we can appoint
them to the vacant council seats which
will you know means they'll be able to
govern for like two weeks of 2021 but um
you know again you know that's what's
before you today for us to make those um
to make those appointments
so i'm opening up for discussion
did you measure
are you raising your hand i am raising
my hand okay um i would like to go move
forward with appointing them even for
those only for a few weeks i don't see a
reason not to appoint them
anyone else
okay
do you want to
i'd like to make a motion
a second okay all those in favor aye
okay then just be on the agenda for next
week
um
the next item of the agenda is the
procurement policy for january uh 2022
to december
23. mr colton thank you um in the packet
tonight
um
is more i want to say it's a legislative
request
it was something that will eventually
turn into a legislative request
potentially
every two years state law requires
review of the procurement policies of
the particular municipality here
obviously the city of connecticut
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our two-year period is coming to an end
i've included the resolution
from the last period january 1 2020
through december excuse me um should be
through december 31 2021
um
that the council approved
obviously it's open for
discussion for
the council members
from my take on it from talking to city
staff this procurement policy has worked
pretty well
i haven't heard any significant issues
obviously i believe there's been a bit
more accountability
because certain things have to go to the
council
[Music]
obviously happy to address any questions
that the council may have
in terms of you know uh passing a new
policy
so
it seems like there's thank you it seems
like there's not there's no change from
what we passed last year or i'm not
proposing any changes that's not up for
me to propose obviously the council can
do what the council would like to do
all i can tell you is anecdotally from
speaking to
the departments they've been
i think pretty happy with the current
policy i think we did change it quite a
bit from the last time
in terms of
purchases that are less than a certain
amount we changed that threshold so it
didn't have to
come back to the council because i think
it was
a bit of an older policy and the costs
have gone up for certain things
making it
i think less feasible when we had to
make decisions
i know that was something that came from
i believe general services engineering
and development
but you know obviously it's up to the
council in terms of what it wants to do
but that time is coming where a new
policy is in order okay
so
[Music]
on on here we have individuals names i
thought we changed that to
do you have to have a um
you're right it has to be an
individual's name in there um that's
what came to be obviously there are
certain things that are going to have to
change with regard to that commissioner
edens is in there for example yes um
and there may be other changes
yeah they said no you hadn't put
individuals
so those people are specifically
responsible for it so you can't do that
i thought we
right that's what we tried to do okay
all right
like purchasing supervisor obviously um
aaron gallagher's now the purchase
supervisor so things along those lines
those are the obvious things i have to
change
um but in terms of you know the lack of
a better phrase the main potatoes of the
you know the bulk of the the purchasing
policy that's obviously something that
you know the council should discuss um
as i said my perspective on it it's a good policy but you know things
need to be fine-tuned or the council has
no other considerations and wants to
address
and that's obviously within the preview
of the council
uh any other questions or
so at this point i i am i'd like us to
actually maybe have a presentation by
those who
you know do the procurements like to
hear from from whom you mentioned
and um
to do that before we just go ahead and
say let's just uniformly pass this then
move forward so that's what i'd like to
see okay
you know i i can't that's not my
one presentation tonight oh no no not at
all no i would have asked for that number
okay and again if you have
specific areas that you'd like
because some of the stuff they can talk
all night i know
[Music]
if you look at this resolution that
passed it wasn't passed until march we
were working on the old policy for a
while obviously it's one of those things
i was waiting for after budget season to
bring this forward but i wanted to
obviously be on the council's radar
um otherwise we would be operating
within this purchasing policy okay
fine yeah we need to review it
okay
all right any questions
okay the next item on the agenda is just
a reminder of the public hearing on next
monday december 13th to amend chapter
87-11 uh for the city code to add
juneteenth as a declared holiday
just a placeholder
and the final item on the agenda is
discussion of the legislation
legalization of marijuana and the op out
option
so as we all know that um and
in order for us to opt out
um we'd have to make a decision by
december 31st or we would opt in in
terms of having cannabis lounges and
dispensaries in the city and um opting
out means that you still have an
opportunity to opt in
uh however if you do nothing then you're
automatically in
and you there is no opportunity to opt
out
um so
you know however it happened we just
this didn't get on the agenda months ago
when really it would have been a great
opportunity to do it but it was i know
that i'm not the only one we received
emails i had an informal discussion with
mr colton and i really thought that it
was something that we need to discuss
and
um you know asked mr mutaveron if we
could have it on the agenda so we're here to discuss that tonight
um
and i also have to say that since it's
on the agenda there's been emails
there's an op-ed piece there's i
received phone calls and text messages
so people have a lot that they want a
lot of input and that's just in that
small window of time so clearly there's
a lot of public um feeling of one way or
the other regarding um having uh
dispensaries and lounges within the city
of schenectady so you know we we as a
council have to decide whether we would
opt out and then give this further time
to discuss it and really see if it makes
sense or where it makes sense and if
zoning is part of the issue
which um i'm told that's that's another
thing that you know we could we could
discuss so um bringing you here tonight
to get input um from the council so we
can make that decision because again we
um the opt-out deadline is december 31st
so
is there any comments or concerns or
questions or
what are your thoughts
well i would like to opt out but i was
allowing other people the opportunity to
say that i would like to opt out i don't
think that a decision such as this is
something we should make in a very short
time frame um because if we even wanted
to have a public hearing it would mean
that we'd have the public hearing and
have to vote on the very same night
which is not a true public hearing
so
um if we this is a decision that's it's
it it includes revenue and it also
includes other social issues that go
along with it so rather than to
hurriedly make the decision because we
did not do this in a timely manner it
makes sense to me to spend the time
really discussing it to really get
a lot more public input input from the
police department input from there's
people that
have set information regarding business
opportunities that they would like to
pursue so there's a lot to be considered
and in my opinion not all of that can be
considered this very short time frame
which is also a time frame when people
are doing a lot of other things and
distracted i won't call it distracted
but giving their attention to the
holidays so my opinion is that we should
opt out take the real time to discuss it
and make a decision based on
a lot of information just not a short
amount of information in a very short
timeframe
so um
in regards to waiting for the
meeting
i'll speak for myself i was hoping and
waiting for the state to come out with
some regulations and
some rules and there's been nothing
and
so i think at least for me that's why
i haven't looked for it to be earlier
and
i think probably for many of us on on
the council
in regards to a public hearing i have a
question from mr colbin
it's my understanding we could have a
public hearing on monday
we just need to have like three days
notice is that correct
yes i mean
there have to be a resolution to call
for a public area
which would take us to next monday
because there'd have to be a resolution
to call for the public hearing
um so you can't there has to then there
has to be notice
i know i see city clerk shaking her head
because
even if the city council next monday
were to pass a resolution to call for a
public hearing there has to then be
sufficient notice to provide
the public an opportunity not just to
have a public hearing but to review any
materials
that would be considered for that
hearing
because i
wanted to clarify because my
understanding was if we called for
public hearing on monday we just needed
three days so thank you for that
clarification
but what is patrick well so
i didn't hear whether you were thinking
um three days was enough if we had the
resolution
we the resolution wouldn't pass until
next monday right but i mean then if
you pass a resolution calling for a
public hearing um and then notice has to
go out but you know
generally the mayor has to you know sign
the resolution and there's a
it'll have to sit problem cycle because
you're calling for a public hearing
then
that's going to be the 13th then you're
going to have to have the public hearing
and then
either pass it that night or the next
you know meeting night
so it's not just three days it's what
you're saying okay
so um
i would uh recommend a compromise here
um i think the dispensaries
are
you know there's some dispensaries that
are already like
in process throughout the city i think
they're going to be coming before
planning a development
i would want a lot more information on
what they would be wanting to do from a
lounge standpoint so my recommendation
would be that we opt out on any
lounges but go forward with dispensers
i i didn't know if we could if we could
do that i would have to look really a
little bit yes yes i believe we can from
the reading that i've read i believe
that we can opt out
on the lounges and move forward with
dispensaries
well i would like to be able to be able
to read that and see that and have that
in detail without making that decision
again for me it's about making sure we
have as much information as possible and
not um
not just making it based on this quick
decision tonight because i think this is
a very quick turnaround
and we should really take the time to do
it and we've already heard from
people that don't want dispensaries so i
think that i think public input is an
important part of this process
before we make that decision
yes ms patrick
i'm sorry
well i did have a chance today to
go to the office of cannabis management
website uh which i just found out today
existed um and did some reading before i
came here and you can actually make that
choice of
just dispensaries or dispensaries and
lounges or just lounges
i
do feel that we need more time to really
look at rules and regulations
i have had a conversation
with our police chief as well
my feeling is that i
would like to see us be able to have
dispensaries
i do think that that will help us to cut
down on some of the illegal activity
that's happening in the city in terms of
um
i think that we'd have more control over
the quality of the product that was
being sold if it was being sold in
a
in an environment that we get to decide
you know who's doing that so i think
rather than you know is it going to be
laced with fentanyl are we going to have
more overdoses et cetera that's one
thing i think it also gives
um us the opportunity for our police
force to have less
and i don't know that i'm completely
accurate on this but less
minor offenses that they would be having
to
review and
go after um and so therefore there'd be
more focus on the things that we know
that they're focused on
you know all the time in terms of more
major crimes um so those are those are
two aspects of it um i think for me the
sales tax aspect which i actually found
out some more information about that
today as well um is part of the decision
but it's to me not the uh focus of this
discussion i'm more concerned about uh
people and neighborhoods
in that regard so i do feel
luckily i know that we can opt back in i
made sure of that because one of the
calls i got today from a business person
um i got several calls from businesses
that do want us to be able to uh have
the dispensaries um
and like all of us we got obviously
emails and calls from people that don't
want us to do that as well
um but one of the business people that
called me today didn't feel that we
could opt back in so i really did some
research to make sure indeed that we can
opt back in uh so i feel comfortable
with that so
those are my feelings mayor
just uh asked chief clifford to be here
tonight the council so desired
would provide you some background
briefing that it would involve sources
methods and operations within the police
department which you would have to move
into executive session for
so at this point in time um i mean we
can hear that discussion so i what
happened with this is right now we're
the only two on uh right on this
committee but it also sounds like we
have to go into a session before we can
hear from the chief right
absolutely absolutely so i mean
does anyone else want to weigh in on any
other council member mr palamini um i
think there's a number of considerations
that
we need to think about
some have been articulated others not
for instance
what about all these tobacco shops that
are setting up with the
thoughts that they're going to be
selling marijuana
that's something that's in our
neighborhoods
yes there's stores that want to operate
and there's business considerations
but those are largely in commercial
districts whereas these tobacco shops
are in the neighborhoods we already have
enough problems in the neighborhoods so
what would be some
solutions to that problem
um
you know there's i think a variety of
considerations the
i don't buy sorry miss patrick but i
don't buy the argument that it will
solve the
illegal issues and it'll just create
another market
and that's typically how these things
operate
so i think there's a number of
considerations for us to consider
um
you know the neighborhoods to me is the
big one um
you know
we have many many issues in our
neighborhoods already
so
i think
we'll go into executive session i'm
assuming that's what you're looking to
do we'll hear from the chief but
i just think that's some things that we
need to consider
as we move forward
whether to opt in or opt out but
i think
we we have a number of issues also
think about the pharmacies
you know pharmacies popped up
20 years ago every corner
and now they're going out of business
and we're left with these empty things
so there's i think things that we need
to think through a little bit
and
maybe we'll get some answers
uh in the discussions of some of the
things that that will hear
but i think it's uh
not quite so simple
well i just want to respond i don't i
didn't think that it would solve our
problems with drug killers or illegal
drug activity um at all but and i want
to hear more about that from from the
chief
but i also think that it seems to me
that we would have
uh well first of all there's also zoning
and planning et cetera that that
businesses would have to go through but
i think in terms of what you're bringing
up around the neighborhoods i think we
also will be able to make some decisions
about that as well in terms of where
uh in the city we would you know and how
many et cetera et cetera i mean we we
can make those kinds of recommendations
around the number of dispensaries and
that kind of thing i think from what i'm reading so that's
sorry mr paul ready but those are just
to respond to that so with all of this
discussion i think with this one thing
that's pretty clear it needs more
discussion and i also think it needs a
lot more public input there are well
philosophers currently who are you know
talking about making a decision that's
going to impact the entire city so
um
i i again think that public input is
important we talked about neighborhoods
and where would be and there's going to
be a lot of limiting not my backyard i
believe that so you know those are all
things that we need to consider so i'm
not i'm not
from my perspective willing to rush into
it and then have to then kind of back
out of it and consider all those things
i think we should have a have it really
done well
and once we roll it out so i know that
we need to go into executive session to
discuss to hear what the chief has to
say so uh at this time i'll just
entertain a motion to recess but we will
then have to come out and make
and vote
okay all right oh i'll make that motion
success okay we're going to reset uh
government ops and discuss the rest of
the an executive session
[Music]
so caught order finance committee first
item on the agenda is a review of the
downtown um schenectady assessment
district there's a public hearing on the
22nd
are there any questions or comments
have a motion
a second always in favor aye next is
review of the 2022 upper union street
business improvement district again uh
public hearing on 22nd any questions or
comments
emotionally second all
development and planning there are 13
items on the agenda
the first item on the agenda thermal
imaging camera for the connecting fire
department aaron gallagher
no
so
are you gonna think that she's gonna
take that are we gonna put that on for
two weeks
just the purchase of some equipment
which i think is detailed
it's on page 15.
someone's thinking the same thing
so the
council
has already approved
we are going to propose a purchase of a
thermal imaging cameras
in the capital budget
then there came an opportunity for a
grant the general
assistance of firefighters training
which we applied and we were fortunate
enough to get them so we're pulling that
off of the capital budget
and it's been approved to accept the
grant the council has already approved
that
so what this is here is just to
uh it went to bid there was
one bitter garrison
uh fire apparatus
a company that we dealt with and now the
proposal is for the council to
accept that date okay
and it's for
the total
that's for 60 000.
yeah
62
sorry sixty two thousand five five
hundred and sixty dollars right
um
fifty six thousand and change is going
to be from the grant okay and the city
is
uh
over about fifty
but i guess the question on the table is
can we go with garrison
are there any questions
no i'll move it
[Music]
all right uh the next item on the agenda
is into municipal water agreement with
the town of rotterdam it's philippa
the request you have for planning for
approval tonight for consideration
is the um
updated and renewable lottery
intermittent water agreement
we do provide water and certain parts of
rotterdam that are convenient to our
water mains
this agreement has been in place for a
number of years but it was time to
update the agreement
and we entered into a five-year
agreement with the counter-run and the
five-year-old
the rate is the current uh obviously
rate and the
budget
so that would be the new rating
any questions
okay second all those in favor aye aye
thank you mr obama good evening thank
you it's insane
next time on the agenda uh to authorize
the mayor to enter into a supplemental
agreement with new york state department
of transportation for
broadway mill and phil fourth street to
each street
uh so as you're aware we are in the
process of pause right now
of the preservation of broadway between
890
and newport
so what we're looking at doing is like
we did a last session we have two
agreements this one's the first one this
allows us to
enter an agreement with the dot where we
can get reimbursed for up to 95 percent
of the costs incurred for the project
so
looking forward this we've already
increased some money but you can roll
out the current now we can go back and
get reimbursed for it
thank you
okay uh the next item on the agenda is
the
department of transportation for rich
new york and it gives the bin number
francis avenue over 80 90. mr wallace
yep so this is the same thing different
project we have not started the francis
avenue bridge yet we haven't even
see it here but doing it this way
is what finance would actually prefer is
that we do them at the same time so that
we turn around the reimbursements as
fast as we get the bills
so
due to my kind of capacity it's not
possible to usually get everything there
but we're going to try it with this one
because it's a little slower in the
winter so um
it's a little out of order
is francis avenue deck replacement
between
hamilton hill and mount pleasant we're
going to be doing that project next year
with this company tioga hopefully
it's awarded and that project is going
to start first thing in the spring go on
for a number of months possibly three
all new deck we have a lot of problems
and
all new deck lighting radio defense and
then this will reimburse us
any questions
i'll move it second all those in favor
okay and the next item on the agenda
number five is to authorize the city
engineer to take steps necessary for the
right-of-way acquisition for kings road
over amtrak
if andrew was going to touch on this for
me yeah this is actually something that
came before the committee um at the last
committee meeting um only it was a call
for a public hearing um it shouldn't
have been a call for a public hearing we
didn't need it we don't need a public
hearing for this
there is that property so kings road we
need access to certain properties in
order to complete the bridge work there
the issue is we had reached out to a
number of the property owners there's
one person if you recall had passed away
another one we had trouble locating i
think the owner
another i think another one just was not
interested but in order to get this work
done we're not taking a large piece of
the parcels it's a very small strip for
the purpose of doing the work um it does
technically de minimis uh based on
how much property we're actually
accessing
therefore we don't need to have a public
hearing so be the recommendation from
the law department and obviously from mr
wallen from the engineering department
to move forward with this resolution so
that we can um seek uh the properties um
through eminent domain
are there any questions
second always in paper
okay and uh fighting number six
award-winning contract for the francis
avalon bridge deck replacement we'll
talk a little bit about that somebody's
gonna talk a little bit about that i'll
just get into the a little bit of the
detail that we have in there is that we
did uh design this for a better car
this was a bridge new york project
yesterday where bridge new york is a
competitive statewide project
solicitation where
i had to make a
application for the state it was
reviewed by a group that is unaware they
actually have different regions review
um and it's based on merit and awarded
it is a hundred percent uh
it's 100 funded however the work was
more than we wanted to but still we want
to get this work done because 80 percent
it would have been there but we need to
get this bridge done we put it out we
got as you see five bridges um for the
most part the bridges bits were very
close
um and tioga we have not worked with
taiwan we've been working with d.a
collins and beth but we did call uh i
did call some references they are
rapidly confirmed reasons we don't do a
lot of bridge work in the city um but we
have no reservations moving forward with
it and i really think this is going to
be a great project to get the bridges
done we're really
making some improvements with all the
bridges in the city which is great okay
any questions or discussion
i'll obtain a motion
in a second all those in favor all right
thank you mr wallace thank you
welcome
uh the next time on the agenda is
award-winning contract for the
demolition and
select making properties in the city
through jackson demolition services mr
thank you good evening everyone so as
part of our five year consolidated plan
we always look we set aside funding to
remove blight and to complement some of
the investments and redevelopment that's
happening within the neighborhoods um so
this is basically the recommendation is
that the
city council authorized the mayor to
enter an agreement with jackson
demolition services for the demolition
removal of debris of the
vacant buildings that are listed in the
amount of 422 700
um jackson was the lowest bidder and
these are some of our most troubled
properties uh in the city
any questions or discussion i'll move it
second all those in favor all right
thank you yeah
okay
um all the final items on the agenda are
for executive session
so this time i'd like to attend emotions
to go into executive session so moved
second
all's in favor high
okay the public
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