[Music]
uh
remember when your kids
used to smell it the little paper
exactly
did i miss it no i owned it
[Music]
for us
so
we just started
is
hmm
okay
basically
hmm
um
[Music]
thank you thank you
[Music]
council committee meeting for death
tuesday january 18 2022
and so we'll start with the public
safety committee
so i'd like to call to order the public
safety committee on tonight's agenda we
have one item there's a discussion for
reducing barriers to the connectivity
fire department i'll be spoken to by mr
harlow okay thank you okay so currently
in schenectady the firepower cars all
happen it's the complete
college credit course which means that
right now the requirements in order for
them to be a firefighter you must be a
paramedic um after talking um with the
assistant chief
moreno here and and having some pretty
candid conversations and he just has a
wealth of knowledge um we're trying to
kind of look at this and say
we want the highest skilled
qualified people working in these very
important
positions
how do we
um be intentional about increasing
access
um an opportunity to become a
firefighter in scenicity
um and we're kind of thinking about
and having some conversations about how
do we open up the access but at the same
time maintaining and increasing you know
the safety of residents that live here
in the city is connected
um so like i said we're just kind of in
the early parts of the conversation but
i want to bring it up i'm here and get
um get some input uh and invite you know
everyone else to into the conversation
about how do we do that
in a way that um
maintains that standard because we're
not into lowering standards that's not a
place that we can afford to do so but
maybe um look at
the order of of
you know right now you can't even you
know part of the parts like to talk to
you unless you're apparent right now how
it's written but you know there are ways
that where you can kind of maintain that
expectation um throughout your uh
employment uh
and time here with the firefighters and
there's also some um
interest uh from our schenectady city
school district and
sec about doing some um pilot uh public
safety tracks um to kind of uh
expose some of the youth to uh what it's
like to be a
firefighter and or you know law
enforcement in the city of connecticut
so
that's just kind of where we're at right
now but um
assistant chief fatigue yes yes
and i want to acknowledge our assistant
chief don here um again we're just in
if you wanted to share anything any
thoughts about that
yeah could you come up and explain what
it currently is
to become a firefighter
in the city
[Music]
is
okay so currently uh the process is
uh simply request civil service to
make an announcement for another
uh test
of the civil service exam which we
currently have one active that's going
to close in january january 31st it's
been open since the 1st goes january
31st
the test will be march 19th
in order to take the test you have to uh
be a resident of
connecticut county or the contingent
counties
that's number one number two you have to
be 20 years old
and number three you have to be you have
to hold an emt card
and then you'll be able to sit for the
test
after that you take the test
um
you bring all your
qualifications to civil service to keep
track
and you won't get an interview with the
city with the fire department unless you
have 60 college credits
and
you have a paramedic card
and also you've got the physical agility
test those are the three qualifications
at that point if you're still
qualified then we would invite those
people in
after the interview if you move beyond
that
we send you for a physical
for a mental health check
and uh
fingerprints
and a
background check
and if all that goes
well
then we'll talk about
employment
thank you
are you any questions from our fellow
counselors in schools
um
chief could you tell us a little bit
about um
in terms of the
for example you had the open house a few
weeks ago um and some of the other
initiatives that you currently have
underway to
try to um be recruiting especially from
within
our city yeah
we prefer to hire within the city for
numerous reasons
so we target all our recruitment efforts
within the city
we use facebook footage they go a little
bit outside city libraries
so we use facebook we've had an ad
campaign
billboards we've spoken to the media
many of our media partners have run
different articles we've done interviews
that way
spoken to all neighborhood groups
talking to other groups um
that operate within the city so all our
efforts have been targeted with this
prior to covet i think i mentioned this
from the last time i was here
that this is all short-term or
short-term plans
long-term plans we want to get in
within the city schools
to kind of plant the sea
for
young people coming up that then think that this could be an
option for them
uh that's more of a long-term game
and because the colbert that got
sidelined we're now
in conversation with several people to
try to
make that uh
that's long term
any other questions mr
yes mr williams so um chief
the qualifications that are set now how
long have they been in place for
firefighters paramedics here in the city
exactly where we're doing it now i'm
going to guess about 20 years
and and what do you where do you think
our ranking is statewide or
nationally even as far as us being such
a
great fire department paramedic unit
with the qualifications that we set for
our
third parties and paramedics
i think we're
not only originally
recognized
state recognized and then also
nationally
we've had there have been articles about
us
within some of the uh
career
magazines fire house and fire
engineering uh so we're very well
respected
it's a very efficiently run department um
we can go into details but i'm not going
to get deep into what's here
we do nearly 20 000 calls
and we have 117 paradox when you start
comparing that to other departments
um
they don't compare they do a good job
but they don't compare to what we're
doing
which
on certain calls may be a very recent
call
it's extremely important
to have that level of care
when things are going south things are
going bad you want to make sure you have
your highest level of care
which we did
on the call i'm thinking about
thank you for all you do thank you so
much
so right now you have so every
firefighter is a paramedic
so when you were initially talking you
said in order to take the test they only
had to have their emt card right they
could be 20 years old 20 years old right
to be appointed
21 years old
have a paramedic card
so okay between taking taking the test
and actually applying they have to
finish those 60 credits which a lot of
people don't take it as an emt as
they're pursuing their paramedics
okay
and um
the other question is um
because i talked to this to ben and i
can't remember his last name ben
do you or um we talked about perhaps
having a like a cadet program sort of
like the police do but for
younger people who want to um
who may want to become firefighters
like a cadet program today yes
so is that something is that what you're
talking about when you talk about the
schools or is that something different
no that would be
i wouldn't call it that program but it
would be
an opportunity to speak to young people
have them see us on a regular basis
so they say you know i'm not firing down
i'm just dying and this is what i do for
a living
and you plant the seed
that's a long term goal because those
individuals would be 16 17 18 they
couldn't take the test but they
could go to emt school paramedic school
and get their
you know get exposed to it and see if
there's something it's curious out for
everybody
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again students so it's my understanding
that hudson valley i'm sorry hudson
valley community college has um the type
of program that someone would need to go
through
the paramedic so let's go
there's lots of scholarships there's
lots of financial aid available to folks
that choose to
go to hudson valley so in terms of the
affordability
of going through the paramedic program
that sort of
is helped by the financial
you know first of all the low tuition
but secondly i know that i know the
scope of the scholarship potential that
the community colleges offer
so
do we get a lot of folks that go through
that program are there folks going
through other programs and then could
you also speak a little bit about the
kind of
the physical the physicality
of what also is required um
in terms of you know i'm certainly not
going to be someone that's going to be
able to get on a week or two o'clock in
the morning a nice storm
um you know kind of thing but the kind
of physical training
the mechanical ability in terms of some
of the i know when i did my ride along
and and toured the fire departments just
the kinds of things that our
firefighters have to do to maintain our
equipment
um so
basically the program
access to that program at hudson valley
just your your thoughts on that as well
as the physical nature and the
mechanical aptitude that someone would
need
we had our open house i think it was
december 10th i remember right now and
at the open house we had a
representative from hudson valley
gentleman came
they've been very good that's very
helpful or
they assist us in the way that we need
and when we came in
uh
we asked specifically because we have
some people come through we have
specifically about opportunities
financial opportunities
and he did confirm what we thought that
there are those but those are in an
individual basis a person would have to
go and you know they talk about us to
see exactly where they would
those opportunities are there being told
there are other opportunities maybe for
people that need assistance
and i don't know all of them
hudson valley
and culpa skill rhino paramedic program
there is a day course and a night course
the day course
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takes approximately a year
the main course is a little slower pace
will take two years
and both hudson valley and
cocoa skill
about the physical nature in terms of
that training as well and the mechanical
aspects yeah
um
so this is a little college
um
there are many aspects to the gym to the
career just besides
you know putting the wet stuff under
itself
oh yeah
and if a person has
mechanical ability it's going to assist
them and we get people from all parts of
like all
always you know all different
they're in different places right
some people are very strong here
when we get them we them to where they
need to be we work with them
some go quicker so we can take a little
more work
but to get somebody that has that
mechanical skill
or or
you know whatever
we're dealing with heating
um
issues furnaces right we're dealing with
water issues we're dealing with
medical issues we're dealing with um
asthmaticians weapons of mass
instruction
and not everyone's going to come in with
all those skills so we have to train and
we do that
um as far as physically it is a physical
job it's a young person's job
you go from
zero to 60 in a matter of seconds
several years ago one of the news
stations did a
study they put somebody on a monitor
and they just work with them all day
long
you know all the different things they
were doing and they watch your heart
rate be at about 55 60 64 whatever
we call it the bell it's not the volume
or but when the call comes in
this person's heart rate went from 60 to
120 in about 20 seconds that i'm not
exaggerating
it's just
so that alone takes its toll
so now you're
doing whatever
complaining about mourinho's chicken
farm
and the next thing you know three
minutes later
you're crawling through smoking flames
going for that child that's opening the
second floor
it takes a toll
so there's
physicality is is a major part of it
so um definitely appreciate all the
comments chief marino simply put not to
belabor the topic over the course of
your tenure as a firefighter would you
say recruitment has
risen stayed the same or declined
in
numbers correct
that's declined great so um
i definitely appreciate our
conversations that we've had on the
topic i think it's apparent from
everyone that's been in the room that
something needs to change
i appreciate mr farley's comments and
also bringing up this agenda item
but i think you hit it on the head chief
moreno what we have to measure our
short-term or long-term benefits and
what direction we seek for this
connectivity for the safety fire
department
i definitely understand that
unfortunately there may be some adverse
impacts that are prohibiting people from
submitting their applications
unbeknownst to
scholarship grants or opportunities i
know for me personally working in
employment sometimes takes an illness
over individuals career aspirations
but i appreciate all the efforts you've
done to get in front of this issue
because we need to make sure that we
continue to stack our fire department to
the best of its abilities especially to
meet these demanding
criteria that you alluded to tonight so
what i would love to see is having
members from our local institutions come
to include our colleges
and also
high schools to be able to
collaboratively get around this issue
and make sure that we have a pipeline in
place so that we are targeting
individuals
to also include potentially curtailing
some of the initial
uh requirements not from the standpoint
of lowering our expectations but just to
make sure that we have the people and
the right people skilled to perform our
duties so
i would like to see this put back on for
another two weeks question
is there an upper age limit sorry is
there an upper age limit that you can
like after you get to age
35 you can no longer so it's as long as
you're physically fit you can you can
actually and have everything else in
place at this moment there's no cut off
age limit as long as you can pass the
physical damage i use myself as an
example no but you're already here
no no i don't mean i don't think is
there an age do you have to age out at
some point but no there's no way no
there's no okay
well that's good to know
carl
mccartney
just when you're talking about
recruitment you have to
where the numbers have gone down you
know one time we staffed the department
within excess of the think of 150
people today we have
budgeted 117 firefighters from the
command staff
we're normally looking for
three
four five people a year
to fill the slot so it's not necessarily
quantity it's quality and matching up
those individuals who have the interest
and the skill set to do the job
uh because at covet and other things
where we put a hiring freeze i think
we're down now nine
firefighters we're down right now by
the end of january
some retirements have been coming out so
it's a little bit unusual now
but
it's to again reach out and
get people to come in
and
it's how do you identify just the one or
two individuals sometimes the shotgun
where you want 100
is not really what you're looking for somebody that has
that skill set
and schenectady was
the first really to offer a paramedic
program we're right now the first that
is doing some of the
telemedicine
so
we're putting more responsibility
in doing more and
it's also look at the revenue side
to get reimbursed for some of the work
that we do or some of the stuff that's
not today reimbursable
uh anything we get some
als calls advanced life support
the bls calls the basic life support
just under the insurance reimbursement
we don't get anything we're looking now
to leave patients in place
and do other support
diagnostic treatment
evaluation
it's how you shift that model for
reimbursement in
improving not only the outcome
but
just the convenience of treating people
so that they're getting the appropriate
level of care
or they may not need the full suite of
services in an emergency room it may be
an urgent care center
maybe getting it scheduled with a
doctor or some other medical provider in
a reasonable period of time and so
uh you're looking at recruitment it's
also where the whole delivery of service
model is starting to shift here in
schenectady is leading in that
and it's a substantial commitment when i
look when i hire a firefighter i'm
making a commitment on behalf of the
city's connection for about three and a
half million almost four million dollars
in today's dollars of what they will pay
during their career and retirement
benefits that we provide to them
before you know my my response would be
similar to the military and their
recruitment platforms you would
traditionally go to the high schools
that
recruits just to save time and just
economics of scale but what
systematically happened is you would be
uh
not appealing to other communities so
just looking at the situation from a
different perspective to ensure that
everyone is given the opportunity
because communication is
dual responsibilities to make sure that
we're doing our part to make sure that
these announcements and opportunities
are afforded to everyone
but i think this type of credit first
oh no i was just i was just kind of
gonna figure back on that to say like
you know as we um i'm really proud of
the steps that the city's taking you
know and innovative ways of service
delivery i think is something that is
going to be key um moving forward so i
think that that just really uh amplifies
the importance of partnering with
city school district and other
educational institutions you know so
we're casting a wider net um at the same
time we are not only maintaining but
really we're increasing you know
that uh requirement of skill level skill
set um and we get a larger pool of
qualified uh
applicants um to select from and i think
that that just really uh
makes us a stronger safer uh uh
community so again i i commend the
efforts and i really appreciate the
steps that we're taking as a city i
think this is something that we should
continue to do
patrick i just wanted to say as a
closing comment that i think that we're
just so fortunate here
in our city and in the county because
obviously we're also out on all those
calls as well and the fact that when our
folks
show up and most you know a lot of times
it's a medical call
we're going to have all paramedics
that are going to be able to provide
those services those are life-saving
services
and at that level as opposed to an emt
which i mean
there's just so many more things that a
paramedic is allowed to do in terms of
administering an iv administering
medication i mean they are really saving
lives and we're fortunate for that i
think the telemedicine piece again
you know to be able to have a paramedic
on the other end of that is going to
benefit all of us as well so i
appreciate that we have on the standards
that we have in place and i am
happy to not see any change
in that as we continue to do the kind of
recruiting that we do so i just wanted to commend
you for that and say thank you to all to
all of our fire
fighters because it really is to our
benefit that we have such a such a
highly skilled
uh
force
thank you so thank you so much
can i just ask a question though because
you said the paramedics i thought don't
we have doctors on the other end with
televisions well
paramedics are in the field right but
the doctor is the guy answering the
questions that wherever he is okay uh
depending on the fact pattern the call
yes oh i'm sorry
i just wanted that our folks were taking
those so i think the mayor said our
paramedics work with the doctor
on the uh on the other side of you guys
gotcha and they want paramedics
on our side
um
training level schooling in emt is
approximately eight weeks
and a paramedic is very
close to here yeah so
it's night and day yeah
and if i may say one more thing
um
every solution
creates other challenges
so we've had some really good
conversation we've talked about that
there's no one panacea to this
there's a lot of ways chief likes to say
we know we're here
here's where we want to go how are we
doing
the challenge
i guess i'm just imposing our i want to
just reiterate for anyone to to be clear
that in no way are you looking to lower
up here
this is one of our you know strong
points of the community that we want to
build on um so it's quite the opposite
of that so i just want to make sure that
we're all clear to understanding that
it's it's a right to point to we know
where we're at we know where we want to
get and where we want to get there's not
include a lower standard of care it
includes a higher standard of care and
so how do we get that and that's where
the direction of the conversation
involved so thank you for your time well
thank you thank you thank you um so
motion what's up
here
right uh if i can get a motion to
redress
of this question to come forward the
committee
motion to
if i can emotionally adjourn seconds
second almost in favor
and we are trying to thank you
all for the finance committee on the
force item is a 20 22 hot emergency
solution grant for the 90
players of new york king
that's kristen died
um this request is in relation to our
emergency solutions grant that was
awarded through the cares act as part of
the coronavirus pandemic
um
uh you know the cares act so this this
request is coming from the ywca
and they are looking to
basically just remove funding from what
was allocated so originally when this
was allocated it was kind of speculation
on what was going to be the highest need
so they've seen an increase in need for
emergency shelter here
and so the request is basically to move
forty thousand dollars
um to the emergency shelter line from
the rapid rehousing line
um
and so we are just requesting a
resolution accepting this change
to
the funding to emergency shelter
any questions
come in
we have a motion
second one second all a favor all right
the next item you are requesting
um
okay thank you the next item is
authorizing the mail for answering to an
agreement with saratoga associate for
design service
related to the construction of the new
pool at central park using our perform
mr mayor
thank you mr chairman uh
general discussions on this uh swimming
pool this would be to retain
saratoga associates
and have uh
aquatica who did a presentation function
as a
subcontractor
with the architectural firms to start to
do
the design work and preliminary layout
for the pool this would include
community engagement
uh some of the other uh
ancillary
potential projects that may
happen
with the a diamond
with uh tennis courts
and uh i don't know chris or any other
things that would be in the scope of the
works
yeah we're looking at
access
parking pass uh particles yeah
it's it's it's not just the uh the scope
of work is not limited to the pool
itself um this is in cooperation with
the our application that was submitted
by myself and the mayor
for not only the pool but the ancillary
features that would uh would help pool
better acclimate to the park into the
surrounding areas of the community so
that is why it's just uh where the
presentation was you know the pool
itself we had an estimate of three
million dollars however when we wanted
to really bring it into everything else
the cost was closer to a determining
cost of five hence the fee was based off
of that desire of
is this 450 part of the 5.5 yes
okay and that's
forfeit this point not to exceed so
they would do the community outreach
design workup so that those numbers are
kind of vague at this point
just this will enable us to have a
firmer
estimate in terms of what the cost would
be in the scope of the work for the
actual project or
getting the ancillary undertakings that
we may decide to do
so aquatica is acting as a sub
contractor for design
specialization on the uh
swimming pools oh sorry associated
design will be
[Music]
all the code requirements any features
that are
interior to the pool walls so to speak
but once you would get out of the pool
out onto either like the concrete
surface or the area that would still be
within the fence that's where the
serotonin associates would take off with
a landscape design and the site design
of it so the two of them will be working
just like this because you know
the pool is something the pump house
there's a lot of components there's a
service associates would do the bath
house that's not a pool portion that's a
norman architecture portion and then how
it integrates with the tennis facilities
the rose the fair and the parking hockey
agent and all that that's stereotype
associates for the black cup they have a
substance also be in here there's also a
need to have a survey that's another
sub-consultant fee so this is a it's a it's a layered project that would
have several different people working on it
and this is like the mayor said to get
moving on the first part is what you saw
everything that you saw was a high-level
concept so that we could show you what
there is
possible however we really don't know
what
we would like to do until we sit down
and talk about sizing and programming
and really the space of what we what
we'd like to finally see
is this going to be a design build
with saratoga associates on the
iphone
this would be a design build not a
design better than traditional sense of
what it is that we would design it and
then we would fit it
so we are but that's the next thing this
is getting that jump start on getting
designed because if if everything goes
through the applications and the
schedule is as we talked about that the
goal would be to have
some of this ready in the ground for the
end of this year so that it can be
wrapped up at the latter part of the
early part of 2023 for possible use in
2023 um so that's why
the mayor elected to get this ahead so
that we don't lose that time
so with respect to the 450 service fee
with respect to the 450 000 uh service
fee uh can you speak to mr wong or
american carpet how this entity was
selected and then if other bids were
taken into consideration because there's
no way with this is one estimate to
understand that they're
being asked too high or too low
sure uh this is a professional service
the state typically does not
bid professional services so for this
particular service what the city usually
does under engineering is
i put out what we call term agreements
i have a term agreements with a
multitude of firms
each firm is pre-selected so right now
i'm working with mr holden in the
mayor's office i have term agreements
with approximately nine firms that are
pre-selected we have
two architects traditional we have three
civil engineers we have two landscape
architects and i have a mechanical
market
those firms are all working with me to
supplement my staff or lack thereof
to get the work done that i need to get
done here
so when this project was presented we
wanted to find a specialty
pools are very special there are not a
lot of pool contractors so the mayor
asked me to reach out we reached out to
aquatica who had done some surveys of
our existing pools in the past and we
brought them in
uh aquatic met with the mayor myself and
our staff and they said listen we are
ready and available to do this work
as a professional service for the pool
design however
they said that you know we do the pool
we do not do the ancillary
so then i started looking at the best
fit for doing the ancillary work
saratoga associates we've engaged them
already previously under a previous
contract the contract was for central
park way finding parking signage and
pass
that project we worked on with the
mayor's office uh chris vanzano who was
here and we actually have a report
that's already done with some
recommended features i don't know if
you've seen it before but had some fair
acting parking some paths
and the reason that that project kind of
ran up was it done right before covent
which is difficult and it was done with
a funding issue which was how do we
actually build it there was a lot of
discussion about how to do it but it
wasn't a priority with everything that's
going on so now in this to circle back
to this project when we got to here it
was they were kind of a natural fit to
bring in so that we weren't redoing
things because we're talking about a
location that's central to fair avenue
central to the a diamond where we
already had them
and their skill set
already being for this kind of thing and
we already had them on a term agreement
so that's how we brought them in but to
your point you're exactly right
we do not have this bid
a typical thing that we do is when it
comes to that to design services and
this we use the rule of ten percent
so when i put in the arpa application it
was we know that we wanted around five
million dollars based off of estimates
10
the most usually see is 500 i talked
with them we worked out you know they
said do you want us to do the survey do
you want us to do this and said i said
you have to do it all i don't have time
to subcontract yourself
so then we talked about when we came to
this fee of 450 000 which is slightly
less than the 10
and that's i mean honestly you're here
you're going to get that fee right
around there regardless um that's kind
of where that is uh aquatica is in there
aquatica's fee was roughly 80 000 for
the pool because the pool was a lesser
cost and their design is less
so
and that's usually how we work with
professional services because to do
everything with a bid for the
professional services we would quadruple
my my workload
so just to bring it up that's how we are
and like i said i do have that service
list and it's a three-year contract
uh that we do with the professional
services issues and the supplemental um
and then we have a whole different thing
which you see which is federal or state
which we follow different requirements
other than our own
i put in a lot of time in working with
andrew and the mayor's office to to
really get to this so that we're we're
above board with everything that we do
my following question to understanding
more that the services that they're
providing are with the pool was that
correct
with the pool
and hillary clinton and and so that's one of the things i just wanted
to make sure
this is not just a hole in the ground
we're talking about the pool it's going
to have utility servicing that might not
service it already we're talking about a
pump house a separate building because
that's kind of one of the layouts that
we had thought about
a bath house that's a considerable size
compared to what we don't have a
bathhouse now um ancillary concrete
around the area to service it concrete
as you know is expensive there were
parking lighting
possible cameras you know some of the
things that we're looking at access past
so all of that design um so that's where
we're segmenting it but there are a lot
of components that are going to go into
there and then as part of this if it
once again as part of the discussion i
would like to roll into that ancillary
cost outside of the pool
some of the work that we've already done
which is way finding signage you know
where you come into fair avenue how to
get to the pool how to get to parking
where music is because we've already
done that work and i think it really
blends itself in nicely to have that
done at the same time
um so yeah and everything's going to
we'll discuss it as a group once we have
a committee everything comes to bid you
guys are welcome to see any of the plans
that we develop and this is a new thing for myself it's a new thing
for you know this group the city has not
built the pool in quite a while
so we're looking forward to it
but it is it is specialized and uh
yeah i don't have much to say about it i
think we're going down the right back so
seeking clarification were these uh
resources taken into consideration other
pools that are in the city i would say
that because we received a
uh
not a complaint but but an email from a
local resident just asking for us to
evaluate
another local pool resource and i'd just
like to know if it's appropriate to
potentially extend
this
initial
investment opportunity to include other
areas of the city so that we're not
duplicating expenses and resources
entirely if that's us
defensively
this
is moving forward though because of
issues that we have with the current
pool in the central park
uh with the county department of health
where it doesn't meet the current
standards
so that if we don't move forward in some
manner show them good faith we're
looking to correct that
is possibly just get shut down and
wouldn't be able to use it at all
the other pools in the city
have
and we put splash pad woodlawn
front street
you have to look at each one in terms of
what the needs are
and
this again would use more as an example
of what we can do or can't do and then
roll it into other projects
is we're going through the not only the
arba
process but capital projects that we
would look to entertain
this year next year and a year down the
road
if you want my honest unsolicited
opinion without bouncing it off everyone
else uh to that end to what you're
discussing i think it's a it's a great
uh path to go down but i would recommend
that either you know the the health and
recreation committee become involved
with also the parks and rec committee we
have the budget that we're bringing on a
parks director
and that yourselves and the two
committees
work towards
june
when we do the budget for 2023 because i
think that what you're going to find is
when you go down the avenue of looking
at the other pools
it's going to it's going to blossom into
a larger task than we think that for
this you know this is a i think trying
to keep it singularly focused
and on trying to get these deadlines so
that we can get the pool designed and
out and ready and then meet with those
groups and reinstate them so that we can
focus a little bit better i mean we find
a need that we could you know attack it
with more of the capital budget the
mayor saying these are
the front street pool you know that pool
we have discussions with development
about other other things in that area we
have you know hillary's pool we have we
have some pools and they all have needs
and i think if we start you're going to
see these costs just skyrocketing you're
going to realize
we're not ready to take all of that on i
think
this is the focus on this one i think is
a
worthy endeavor on its own
just a quick question tell me a little
bit more about the deadlines you're
speaking of
trying to get this done
yeah um i mean these are all
i guess at the time they're they're
[Music]
superficial deadlines but we're really
trying to as you know we work backwards
so one of the things that we're going to
be once we engage with saratoga
associates in aquatic officially is uh
we always work backwards so it is when
do we need to have this awarded by and
then you know you subtract the months
for council you subtract the month for
bidding you know so if we needed to have
someone in the ground let's say in
october let's say we wanted to have
someone there october 1st to dig a hole
and that's probably too late so you say
september that means we're bidding in
august
and if we're or we're bringing it to you
in august so if we're bringing it to you
in august we're bidding it in july
and that if we're bidding in july that
means we have to have the design done by
mid-june
and it's january so that means that we
really have february march april
to get this done to get all the
community involved to get the buy-in and
get it designed so our window gets it's
very small
um so that's how we usually work back
because you know we're a government we
have a bureaucracy to follow you know
and that's if everything goes well
one of the things we started to do was
really delay things so that myself and
aaron and ron we could all review and
sit down and that's actually why we
started to delay certain things just to
make sure that we have everything so
we're doing one time and not twice back
so
you know
it sounds like to have something ready
in september is september but when you
work backwards you have to be ready to
go june 1st i would say with design
documents
uh
imagine you're going to ask for a motion
my only reservation is just making sure
appropriate considerations are made
towards the other pools i would only
hope that time was built for this to be
delayed another two weeks just to allow
and i can accept bonus for that just
ensuring that individuals that voted for
me uh
understand that i ran on a campaign and
just making sure that information was
provided to the members of the community
and i took the time to actually delve in
make sure that when i did
move this forward or second this i did
that with every
consideration and support of this so
with that
i would just like to hold off to allow
me the opportunity to do some research
so you're asking for us to hold off on
this until here at least two weeks
[Music]
if i can speak to that i i clearly
understand what you're saying and um
perhaps you are coming at this meeting
but given the timeline that um
mr walden has given us in addition to
that we can't we can't do what you're
asking and have people be part of this
is what i'm understanding
the so the front street
whatever pool is uh if we need to look
at that it wouldn't we would not be able
to look at it apart at as part of this
just because of what it would entail i'm
not going to tell the council or the
mayor what you can or cannot do what i
what i'm saying is that an arpan
application was submitted
by the deadline
for an amount of money and at the
mayor's request we wanted to
you know accelerate the design portion
of that ahead of the process that you
will be going through so that we could
potentially meet these deadlines
i did not have it on my my agenda or my
radar to do the other pools
which it's perfectly fine if someone
wants i just it's a separate
project it's a whole separate
idea and in the front street pool in
particular gets into
a lot of larger conversations because of
a fema project that we have going on
down there and some of the other things
that we've talked about so i'm just
trying to make sure that we're not
muddying waters with things that help my
mass broke but without the things that
we're talking about and holding
something up because of that but i
understand if you made a commitment to
it that that's perfectly fine i just
especially the front street pool
it's it's a complicated it's a
complicated situation with that
particular pool
no please go ahead my only consideration
is we already have a company that's
doing assessments
wouldn't it be prudent upon us to make
or give assessments for other
individuals not saying that we're going
to take a step and move forward we'd
have those figures just for assessments
so
to bring aquatica on ask them because
they've done this once before but it was
about 10 years ago to have them to come
in and do uh new assessments for the
other three pools right that's what i
know that's what i'm delaying the
considerations on scene
well if you want i'll have them go out
and look at
what a ballpark figure would be to do
those and come back
in two weeks but this would still move
as a separate project
is that something that
you want to see happen
so you're telling me putting out two
weeks is going to entirely derail the
entire project
i don't want i don't want to
no
but what i'm understanding is that this
project would still move forward but
what you're asking was still happening
as well okay all right
is that what you're saying but i'm not
gonna go to them and have them
this project right define the scope and
works if you want the other ones
evaluated i'll commence get a price on
that and come back to you in two weeks
and this one is still going to move
forward
as a separate project and this is not
again has been outlined it's not a
simple it's not just a swimming pool
because there's going to be work done in
conjunction with the a diamond with the
parking lot
the
bath house will service the needs for
the work that we've done at the tennis
courts
and then looking at putting some stadium
seating another the tennis courts on the
back because we're eliminating the
tennis stadium for the site for this
pool
and there's some modifications for the
disc golf course
that plays
through the park
want us to probably understanding that
um in two weeks we'll have a price
analysis on the cost to fix repair
well i don't know
the ability to go out and do the
evaluation i don't know if we would have
all the
scope works
in the detail of analysis in two weeks
where
yeah it's uh
it's hard to do some of it
now where there's frost in the ground
and other things are shut down
goodness so so i just for
my own clarity here so
we're not suggesting that um in two
weeks time
that all of the other
uh tools are assessed i think or you say
like in two weeks time
to uh
get a commitment or understanding with
uh
to see if they have the capacity and the
ability to to do it well come back and
have them give us a price because we've
asked him to do this evaluation so come
back and say
is that going to be
uh ten thousand dollars is it going to
be
20 000. whatever it is to go through
and look at those as they have started
the process on
the woman's central park
and we'd be dealing directly with
aquatic for for that type of evaluation
that would not be uh saratoga associates
so we would have
because we're talking about specifically
the pools
and what might the cost of that be
for the evaluation yeah anything can
come along i think the mayor was and the
mayor was fairly accurate um you know we
had them look at the central park pool
um it does not take them long to look at
the deficiencies they they check pumps
and encode
so
i i don't think it would be a huge
number i think under 20 000 would be
totally reasonable for we're just know
about three pools central park we've
already kind of looked at
and i wouldn't be surprised if it's it's
under that
quite a bit but would you like to have i
can get a proposal they're a small
outfit that's locally
um
i think if we're going to do it though
we should include you know those places
that have um the uh
the splash pads because i think splash
pads are a great alternative
as well so i mean this is this is sort
of a longer term evaluation
i'm just saying no i mean i think
opportunities for you know
i think the second thing because correct
me that aquatic use is a term water
features right so it could be a swimming
pool it could be
a slide that has water on it there's
things that are
quite creative
well i'm just saying i mean rather than
put pools or you know there might be a
broader project of getting their
analysis of what they might because
part of this package is going to do the
outreach
for like working with the boys and girls
club current users neighborhood
associations get the community input in
terms of
what people are looking to have at the
facility
so that can be done
we moved a little bit on this
so we feel comfortable with what's
before us but we have to go back and get
other numbers
and
better define a scope of works whether
it's just the other swimming pools
whether you would look at other places
where we put
or evaluate uh potential either what's
there now or potentially place water
features
[Music]
okay just for clarification my attention
was just to see if we could maximize and
see if there were other abilities to
just benefit from the entire city but i
completely understand thank you for all
the input
um so i can make a motion to
program sorry you know go ahead go ahead
yeah if you're comfortable with let's
move over to
the understanding that these things are
going to be happening in the next couple
of weeks and i say
two weeks it's uh actually because of
the
when the fifth monday it would come back
to the council in three weeks
i'll leave it
[Music]
have a second second all in favor
aye
thank you thank you
the next item is the 2022 contest
reappropriation
that's the ferrari
and you're going to stay there for a
while
for president council in there
um the first thing on agenda is a 2022
budget uh reincorporation and what we're
requesting here is uh because of the
time to manufacture products in the 2022
capital project we have uh
requested four garbage structure packers
and uh street sweepers where they have
estimated the manufacturing of these to
be of 18 months or longer now usually
what we do is
we
go out to
fund these projects uh through the uh
through uh of bans or bonding by
anticipation though and usually that
doesn't happen to me
what we're asking is to uh to speed this
up by moving money to our appropriate
fund balance to cover that up until we
borrow the money in may so we can order
these trucks now so that we'll get them
in sometime in 2023
and if we wait to make we probably won't
get into these trucks till 2024. so
we're just asking
us to up until may to move money from
our front balance into the
uh the budget
of you know transfer to other funds so
we can uh start the process of uh
ordering these uh five vehicles four
garbage trucks and a street sweeper
[Music]
we can't spend money unless it's been
budgeted
and
the
normal process would be go through the
bonding process
before i can order the garbage trucks
make sure we have the cash we want to
make sure we have money before we do
that so if i ordered the garbage trucks
today
and then the council decides not to bond
in the spring
then we're stuck so what this is saying
is that we're going to pay for this one
way or the other because of the long
lead time on these vehicles
we're hoping that you pass this so that
we can do that
so we can get this problem is there any
commitment on a timeline excuse me is
there any commitment a form commitment
on the timeline
is there to get these uh these problems
that's the minimum so we know what we're
trying to do is save five months of time
to get it within 2023 instead of 2024.
and we plan as recorded we do plan to
borrow uh capital project money this
year anyway so once once we get that
money in we'll just move it back into
fund balance yep
any questions
comments
i'll move it
like that all in favor
aye
thank you
the next item is the
2022 budget reallocation person for
agreement between the city of
schenectady and csea i'm going to pass
out though i'm going to pass out
the cost of all these reallocations so
that you can look at them but you can
use that smile so they'll put them over
there
so you can look at what we're talking
about
[Music]
so uh
as you recall uh uh
[Music]
the console the console itself has
passed uh
several uh
you have enough no it's one feature
do you have a mr holden i'm multiplying
right now i can always yeah
all right we're good okay so
this picasa is already uh passed and
appropriated uh uh monies for uh uh the
different uh unions that we had in
agreements to so we're looking to uh
to appropriate those funds
uh for the agreement so the first one we
have here is the csaa for 2022.
uh but let's go back to csa for 2021
which is how far is this if you look in
the patches i sent you uh i essentially
would have the cost for the total for
2021 and 2022
for 2020 and 21 because these are retro
payments that we've done in uh
the negotiations and the contract went
back to 20 uh 2020. so what we're gonna
do is uh do retro payments to the union
members from 2020 and 2041.
and but uh you know according to
government standards we have to show
those expenditures and those costs in
2021
so what we have to do because that money
was not appropriated through the budget
process because we're negotiating all
that time this is the requirement to uh
appropriate those funds
uh
from uh
[Music]
our bounces to the to the budget to pay for them um this is the plan uh the
plan that we use uh you know is to use
uh our lost revenue through our
professional monies so as you can see
uh with what i sent you in in that uh
little package over there
we have for uh 2021 we have retroactive
payments for management for csea for
2020 cse for 2021
10 37 for uh 20 21 and operating
engineer for 20 21.
the total amount with the uh fica that
is a process that i met and i
put it on the sheet can we put that in
the resolution with the fico amount
that total for uh all of those budgets
for 2021 is 617
689 and 94 for all those
budgets for retro payments for 20
through 20 21.
[Music]
now for 2022
we have a
reallocations for uh the management
csca for 2022 and operate engineers now
when we're when we're doing the
negotiations and the budget for 2022 we
had anticipated the budget can we do
each item individually because we want
to ask them yeah we have to pass them
individually sorry yes i'm sorry
this is not explained the whole
uh budgetary allocation for city
schenecta
according to the budget pass
that total for 2022
uh is uh 347 994
plus uh uh
30 thousand and uh
oh thirty thousand at five guys so you
have to have the total budget right
there that
man that thirty thousand covers more
than just cse oh yeah you're right so
it's the csca 2022 the 347 944 plus
whatever that fico percentage is sorry
about that right yep i do have that
number here someplace
whatever that percentage is 7.65
absolutely that's what it is any
question on item number five
i haven't moved it
all in favor hi
item number six number six is uh the the
amount we talked about for cse
for 2021 for the retro payments that
will be charged at 2021
uh i explained uh the amounts there
any questions on that
a little bit second all in favor
number seven number seven is uh this is
uh the 2020 allocation for the operating
engineers again was passed
for retro payment for uh 2021 uh came to
18 000 plus
point the 7
percent for uh
fica
any questions on that i'll move it
thank you favor
item number eight number eight is the
2022 budget allocation
for city schenectady and the operating
engineers for 2028.
that's a that's a 41 478 plus this fico
uh
budget
second all in favor
number nine and uh uh the 2021 budget
reallocation for the 1037
uh
that again as you recall is up here that
is a total for 2021 for the retro
payment of 296 000 390 plus the
7.65 for uh fifa
question
second
call in favor
is the agreement between the city of
schenectady and the city budget of the
city management team
uh those that was a two percent increase
from september through december that
came to 18 000 353
65 plus the 7.5
the city is connected into city uh
management benefits for 2022.
uh
that uh uh came to a total of nine
thousand four hundred nine dollars that is the uh the difference in the the
reallocation of the longevity numbers
that'd be nine thousand plus a point
seven five
seven point six five percent for fica
21 and 22 is gonna be a million
forty seven thousand all thirty one
point fifty one i'm gonna probably even
come back to you another two weeks with
the fire department
uh you think these numbers are big
oh stop
so yes i do have questions yeah other
than the fire department or all the
contact settle for all the labor unions
all labor union contracts are settled
the only uh uh one that's close to being
finished is the police department is
december of 2022 which will start in
2023 the next
negotiation probably earlier but but
everything else everything else is good
through uh
2024 just a lot yeah
and yeah yeah
question you said that you'll kind of
come back with the fire department
yes yes yes and so there'll be are some
using our funds as well so this is the
total amount of our no this is not total
amount uh this is uh like i said where
our plan is to use the loss revenue from
our funds which uh which uh which uh
later on i'll give you the whole uh breakdown of that but our federal
funds allocation for uh lost revenue is
eight point
eight million nine hundred twenty two
thousand six eighty three
so that's a million of that right off
the bat right there okay so eight
million something okay all right
any other business before finance
second holly favor hi thank you
okay so i'd like to call the government
operations committee
um today we have three items on the
agenda uh the first verse is we're going
to have discussion
uh about
carl williams
thank you mr farley uh so my subject
line is hosting quarterly city hall and
city council and community outside of
the city since attending um these
meetings i've never once seen them build
outside of special resolutions or
considerations for individuals which is
understandable i also understand that we
are currently in the middle of a
pandemic however i think we need to
address certain transportation issues to
include time restraints from individuals
like myself who wasn't able to get home
and i understand that we have our time
set and that's something that we need to
work around however i think
identifying locations throughout the
city to traditionally host quarterly
meetings i think that is something that
we should research to potentially have
news in other areas of the city so that
we are moving city hall to the people as
opposed to having the people only be
able to come here if they receive
information although it includes a
virtual component there are some members
of our communities that do not have
access to internet so i think if we're
truly being here to provide a service to
the community this should be something
that we should uh take on
in partnership with osm to make sure
that we're able to still host a virtual
component for individuals that prefer
that long term
so yes and you know i've had other
people also talk about this and i i
really don't think it's a i think it's
actually a good idea that we're well we
come outside outside of city hall walls
right now we do it when there's a
special thing when we just had to win on
like a tour of sorts to do the arca
um presentations so to do this quarterly
is to me it's not not a heavy lift and
um you know there's a lot of
municipalities or elected individuals
who do what they're called they're
called town halls so i think that it's actually a good idea to you know i
know that um some of us attend um
meetings for the uh for different
neighborhoods but however that's the
agenda that they're putting forward but
so i think it is a good idea for us to
be able to bring ourselves to the people
on a uh like i said this are you
suggesting a quarterly basis so just you
know four times a year i don't think
it's a i think it's actually a good kind
of a public relations kind of thing in
terms of us as uh elected
any other discussion on that um
i guess i would just add i think that
it's really um
i was uh we were sending a strong
message around making plans with people
and not for people and i think that this
will you know as a way to demonstrate
that commitment that we're not only i'm
going to be
uh we're going to honor and be who we
say we would be but we're being flexible
and responsive to the needs of the
community um so i think it's definitely worth the
discussion to have
and i'm interested to hear if anyone
else has any
um i'd like to ask if we were to pursue
this um
i'd want to make sure that we were
also including security issues around
the well actually we just left i think
we have police officers or off-duty
police officers or auxiliary police
officers
as well as the metal detector
and other types of security
as we have access to here i think is
important as one of the considerations i
also have to say that i do think it's
important as sort of city hall as the
center
government as the center of our
democracy here in the city that
personally i like the idea that we're
here
for our meetings i also will throw up
just as another consideration if this
discussion continues
um to return to the discussion about the
time of our meetings which we did start
earlier we discussed the idea of you
know perhaps having all of our meetings
at 5 30 which would give people the
opportunity to be able to come
right from work rather than go home and
have to come out
late at night
on a winter's night for example to go
home and then come back i think is
really discouraging to a lot of people
but i think that mr williams's point
about kobe
certainly has affected
our attendance because i think at least
before coded we definitely had more
people at our meetings um so i think
that there's probably that aspect too so
we'd have to also ensure wherever we
moved the
meetings if we were choosing to do that
on a quarterly basis that would be able
to do the distancing and have the checks
and all that kind of stuff as well
so those are just my comments
my initial thoughts
i don't think this is something that we
can do
right away i mean but i think it's
definitely something we should consider
and
um
i understand the seat of government but
i also understand engaging the community
because when we want to that's what we
do so i think that this this allows an
opportunity for us to do both because we
will continually without question have
our meetings here that's that's not even
an option we will definitely do that but
this is just like four times a year
let's you know let's do something and
let's be out there and i think that
we do see we do see
specific people let's just you know if
it comes to our council meetings it's
like generally we know who's going to be
there who's not going to be there and
this probably will i believe will open
it that more people will see more people
than we would normally see to come here
if we were out in the community so i
think it it
would work discussion and maybe even
trying to implement
um i understand the security issues i'm
just not sure how we address them in
terms of metal detectors i'm not sure
how that happened
i don't know that they're portable i
don't know i don't know
i guess they use wands
so um but i'm certainly open to
continuing this discussion and seeing
how we could um plan that out
yeah as to
for example we've tried some meetings in
the past in the community and pretty
poorly attended
have council meetings been done in the
past
outside of city hall um i think that's
perhaps has happened
mary would have maybe better regulations
before i
there have think times when they've
gone to other places but it's been more
of a rarity than they regularly
scheduled
and
generally
when things are going fairly smooth
everybody's doing a pretty good job you
get poor attendance
when
uh you get a point of controversy or
something public debate that attendance
goes up
and so it
tries to keep that in the back of your
mind of where we hold the meeting we're
going to have a
bigger event that there's more things
going on
uh you have to be more selective
the other side could be more informal on
some of them may allow for just better
discussion and more interaction with
people
sorry i have a couple other questions
but
go ahead oh
um
in concurring with miss patrick
um
i think um
an earlier
time especially for seniors
and we did discuss
before we we got on the console you know
of a 5 30 for for everyone something
where again maybe even six o'clock
people are on the way home from work
they stop they don't have to come back
out
i think that's a that's a good idea
um
and city hall being central
to schenectady
um and on bus lines walk within walking
distance should we
enter a facility that's
not on a bus line
um
where someone from the north side
couldn't get over to bellevue
so at least here we're central i mean
those that's my only take on on
everything so i just say we remain where
we are and we put ourselves out there to
the constituents every day via our email
they can email us they can call us they
can send a letter to sam which is she's
written and all those things can be
addressed and i understand that and i'd
love for our meetings to be i would like
the whole city to come to be honest with
you and tell us what they want um but
anyway that that's my take on it right
now is that
back to the security issue that's one of
the things that people
for years we're complaining about is a
lack of security here and now that we
finally have it
you know i think that's an important
component but the other questions i have
is how many people does negatively
impact because
this is a central location so if we move
a meeting to
you know i don't know woodlawn
will people who would traditionally come
here go to those meetings
how many would be negatively affected i
think is something that we really need
to
consider
um
yeah is there a real want for this um
you know i've seen this
building packed with people
and people will show up when it's
something that they're
fired up about i guess for a lack of
better word
and
so i think those are all things that we
need to
have in place before we even
consider something like that
on top of you know
are there legal issues
yeah if a
employee goes and gets hurt
off location
you know what's the ramifications for
that
so i think there's a lot of things that
really need to be buttoned up
so when we had the opportunity to invite
the belmont football team to celebrate
their accomplishments it was so
inspiring to see that many young people
in city hall
growing up in the city i i couldn't tell
you where city hall was
and it wasn't until i began um going
through my professional career that i
understood that it didn't require me to
become a homeowner to be vested in my
city politically that it was important
to be involved
from the ground up so i do think that
having these meetings
in snappy high school and the boys and
girls club where there are individuals
from the community that feel comfortable
going to those places
that this is appropriate for us to at
least make another attempt
and i don't know
if
community organizational leaders were
collaborated with
but i ensure you that we are with this
coming year having these arpa
conversations
having these police reform conversations
that we are working in unison and i
think it is prudent i'll use that word
again for us to re-engage this topic
when we are all vested in understanding
according to working together this year
actually i actually like to directly
respond to that because
that particular meeting with those those
young people that were here from the
beaumont top one or in the cheerleaders
um was pretty much my favorite meeting
so far while i was sitting there i
really thought about the fact that it
was so great that they had that
opportunity to come to city hall
and understand
that we have this place
that is part of our civic engagement and
i remember sitting there thinking this
is really awesome that all of these kids
who maybe would never ever have stepped
foot into this building
are getting that chance to be here with
their leaders with their political
leaders at a low below
um and be able to embrace and understand
i mean when they when we all start stood
together and did the pledge of
allegiance for example i mean it made me
start to cry to hear all of those kids
um in unison in this sort of
not you know i don't know the right word
sacred it's not the right word but to be
in the chamber
um for me was was really impressive and
i was thrilled i mean i went home
actually and said
it was so great to know that they
probably never would have had that
chance
um on a day-to-day basis to actually be
at city hall and hopefully that would
inspire them to think about
coming more or getting involved maybe
running for office
et cetera
but i also want to
[Music]
comment on something that ms porterfield
said which i think in thinking about the
site i'm getting ready for tonight the
idea is also that we do have all the
neighborhood associations and we do have
a number of other meetings
um that many of us attend on a regular
basis
um and i i hear
so i think that was a good point as well
that we are out there in the community
trying to listen to our neighbors trying
to
get their input
at a recent
i think it was upper union street
neighborhood association meaning they
actually invited the mayor and mr lafon
to come in and talk about
issues that were affecting that
neighborhood which actually ended up
being a lot of the central park
issue as well um but it was great to be
able to be there and be so you know
listening to all of their input about
what they wanted to see happen um in
their neighborhood so i do think that
that's another opportunity at least in
the short term for all of us and i know
that we all do do that we all go out and
attend these meetings so
um that that is also another avenue for
getting the input and being being around
our community in our community
so i just want to add a point of clarity
in terms of the um
the kid young people coming down here
and the reason that they came here is
because there was a council member who
was engaged with the community that
somebody reached out to and said this is
what's going on so it's not like they
just decided to come so so so to to to
mr william's point i i think us being
out there more
allows them to see we are out here and
then there's opportunity to come here so
i think if there's definitely an
opportunity for that give and take for
us to be there where they assemble
wherever that is and here as well so it
didn't happen just out of the clear sky
they thought oh let's all accounts it's
because
a council member who's engaged with the
community
was contacted by a community member
because of engagement so that i think
that's where we're trying to get here is
that we make sure that the community is
engaged is with us on a basis where they
feel that comfort level because i've
asked the question of the young people
have you been here some had and some
hadn't so i think that we're trying to
get that kidney engagement that we talk
about so very often and just this is one
of the other ways we can consider trying
to get there
so if i could share her thought around
all this i think that um
this is common with situations where a
few things can be true and i think that
you know um
to your point if
those young people this was their first
time coming to city hall um i think that
you know that just highlights uh area
where you know we have to be not afraid
of better to how do we create
opportunities for our younger people to
walk through city halls um and and they
don't necessarily have to be able to
receive a resolution but to just because
they feel you know because we're
intentionally being inclusive um and
making those efforts and i also think
that you know
the the heart of our city is in our
neighborhoods
so the more that we
as a government body are present in the
neighborhoods
then that doesn't just you know foster
um um just engagement but what it does
is it demonstrates and it helps us i
think it helps us have a better picture
um
of what's happening in the neighborhoods
and that present
that presence right there works on a
couple of different levels so i think
that um
we're not uh
if i understand correctly we're not
saying that we're going to not meet a
city although we're not going to um uh
you know it's not an either or type of
situation it's more of a yes and so
we're going to continue um to meet here
but we want to be able to not allow the
tradition to stifle innovation we need
to get out there in the community and i
think that there's a lot to be said to
for us doing that so
any other uh discussion on that
i think we're just continuing into
visiting this and seeing how we can do
it considering all the things that have
been brought forth as concerns and so i
think we'll just have to continue to
discuss it i don't know that needs to be
i mean it's up to mr williams this is
about two weeks but but i think it it
warrants more discussion
i mean i guess uh it should highlight
what we saw in our belief
conversations or around our funds and
he's going to all the neighborhoods that
was like you know i i i was there for
most of those conversations and they
were extremely well attended and i think it you know
the mayor the staffer did a wonderful
job um and you know doing some q a um
got some real authentic conversations
happening with city residents so i think
that and i don't know that that same
level of organic exchange of ideas
happens in in city hall and it might
kind of change
the dynamic a little bit but i think
that that was some really valuable
interaction that was happening with uh
with city residents so i wanted uh to
amend the mayor of the city team for
doing that and i think that that kind of
led to your point calling that this is
something that we should really be
considering um so thank you for that
okay so so next
um
i would like to put forth uh
a ceremony ceremonial resolution to
acknowledge black history month
um black history is world history um it
is american history and it certainly is
city schenectady history so i know this
is something that happens every year and
i just um think that oh
that's something that we need to
acknowledge in a very meaningful way not
just
though this is a ceremonial resolution
um not just from a performative space
but really as we acknowledge um and um
black history how do we uh make sure
that our
the decisions we make today on
a range of different um items that will
be before us as a government committee
that we um uphold the principles for the
people who have come before us and um
and made of such great sacrifices uh
people of color so
um
all in
all favor
okay so next on the agenda uh
i'm gonna give this over to uh mr andrew
here so you can talk a little bit about
june and the section 138-30 of the code
the city is connected
thank you
i know there isn't anything attached to
this
[Music]
i did have a chance to speak with the
city clerk earlier today
i believe and i know some council people
reached out to me with questions
concerns that they may have related to
amending this section of the code
there was
one written
submission
for the public hearing from
the concerned citizen
i'm happy to address any questions or
concerns that any of the council people
may have
otherwise i would
request that the
ordinance as
presented in the public documentation
move forward
so i just have a question hopefully it's
appropriate for this uh
room right now would you mind clarifying
the post and pre declaration that was
highlighted as an issue the the what
sorry the post and pre-deprivation that
was highlighted as an issue sure
from a practical standpoint
when a code enforcement officer goes out
to a property to do an inspection
he or she obviously does
an inspection
and may see
conditions that rise to the level and
condition when i say conditions and being violations
which rise to the level of the necessity
to issue an order to vacate
at that time the officer doesn't just
provide you know a notice of the
violation and a notice that i'm going to
be issuing in order to vacate which
could potentially give rise to what we
would consider a pre-deprivation hearing
instead the
officer
issues in order to vacate because the
conditions rise to that level of
putting uh people in peril
and issues the order to vacate
what we would be doing is offering a
post
a post-deprivation hearing
in which within the time frame given in
what was presented uh
an aggrieved party could be the owner of
the property could be a tenant
uh requests uh a review of the order to
vacate um
i think we have it now the the way was
proposed within three days they can
submit their request
and then within a certain amount of time
the city would provide a hearing
uh to review the order to vacate
that would be a post-deprivation now it
should be you know mentioned that
generally when the city issues in order
to vacate and we placard a property and
provide a notice to the owner and any
tenants we don't physically you know
unless
uh in maybe a rare circumstance would we
physically remove people from
a property we're providing them with
notice we're providing them with
information related to services so that
they can get the housing that they need
in the interim
but a lot of that you know
falls on the responsibility of the
property owner to make sure the tenants
are are leaving
and the tenants themselves to leave um
generally
uh code enforcement
contacts social services to see what
type of temporary housing might be
available but again this is more of a
post-deprivation opportunity um for
you know we're going to provide help
we'll try to assist in providing housing
but also the hearing that would be in
place would be post-deprivation not
pre-deprivation
you got to address that
clarification was warranted for anyone
that might be listening sure definitely
so um so when someone is uh there's a
notice to vacate right now and when in
that three-day period for on them to
kind of um request the hearing loss
they are
once you have noticed a vacate the
expectation is for you to vacate
immediately the right or spirit it's meant to be immediately it's meant
to be immediately because you know when
an officer sees that where to vacate
it's because
there's a condition at the property in
which there's it's dangerous for
somebody to remain there
uh you know and certain conditions you
know may
necessitate certain actions by those
tenants some people take you know
uh
may take a chance and continue to stay
there you know we don't chain up
the property so somebody may leave and
then come back
and also there's an opportunity for
people to
go and try to correct correct the
violations the property owner can go
back and correct the violations
we allow for that because we want them
to abate the violation so they can go
back in there the idea though is we're
not keeping tabs after necessarily after
hours to see if people are going back
and staying the night
um
that's a tall task for us to accomplish
uh given you know our limited capacity
so
any um
on the uh notice the ak or any of the uh
paper that's given to a tenant or a
property owner for numbers to vacate
does is there any like you know kind of
like leaving like well the recourse what
happens if i if i'm a tenant and i don't
um vacate is there like you know
in order to vacate is lawful order
you know so when a code enforcement
officer or the building inspector issues
in order to vacate it's a lawful order
uh the way the code's written and this
is the property maintenance code
somebody could potentially be
um removed from the property now that
potential exists
the city
as far as i know since i've been working
for the city i don't know if we've
exercised that in my time where we've
you know removed somebody but the
potential exists because if a property
is unsafe we want to make sure that we
are protecting people
[Music]
which is why you know there's this
opportunity now we don't it's the
balancing here right protecting people
giving them the opportunity making sure
that they're safe and also
recognizing that you know people could
potentially be getting kicked out of
their home because of this unsafe
condition so we're trying to balance
that in a way by giving people this
opportunity to be heard
after the orders is issued
one more question
so
and and right now it's written if
someone's um well you know it could be
not conditions right now i think uh are
pretty demanding but it'll say like if
you're in that and if someone uh is in
the middle of the summer and someone's a
power is cut up for a failure to
pavement power is that right now does it
do i understand correctly that that
would be a reason to vacate
a cold the cold enforcement would say
right now you don't have power in your
home and
this rises a level for you to vacate
departments i i can't speak for
the code enforcement department and you
know
what would trigger in order to vacate
um i generally would be of the mind that
if there's no power to a house that in
order to vacate should be issued there
are certain you know minimum
requirements that are
a necessity for living in a hop in a
house right so right now in the middle
of winter for example if the heat
doesn't work i would suspect that in
order to vacate should be issued
however if that condition existed in the
summer time
it might be a different determinations made given
the circumstance right
so mr cullen so if um
for um
legality if we issue that
and
does it take away
um like code knowing about something so
we're not held liable should the
building fall down on top of people so
the idea behind the
issue in order to vacate obviously um
there's a protection to the city you
know when we issued a vacation right
the idea is we placard the property we
re we recognize that it's unsafe
um
somebody decides that you know after the
order is issued i'm going to stay here
i would submit to you that they are
assuming the risk in staying in the
building after we placard the building
and deem it unsafe
the idea with the hearing is to
obviously uh give people those folks who
are aggrieved an opportunity to be heard
on whether or not the ordered vacant was
properly issued if it should have been
um you know
maybe
it should have affected maybe the entire
building but only one of the units for
example it gives them the opportunity to
be heard
as i said i think our code enforcement
department errs on the side of caution
to protect the public
and given the circumstances you know at
three o'clock in the morning for example
uh to or to issue in order to vacate for
an entire two-family structure
but then give those folks who are
aggrieved an opportunity to be heard
maybe a couple days later to say you
know i live on the second floor this
shouldn't have impacted me you know it
gives us enough it gives them an
opportunity to be heard and if they feel
um you know even after that hearing
that
the order to vacate
let's say the order of vacate is
uh by heard by hearing officer who says
no it was properly issued
there's a next step and that they can
seek you know uh
they can seek redress in supreme court
which would be filing an article 78 it's
an administrative process so you know i
don't want you to think that you know
after that initial hearing giving them
this hearing that that is all that they
have they have an opportunity to be
heard beyond that
so
you know we're trying to provide again
the opportunity for people to
uh you know
i guess seek redress seek review of
an administrative decision that happens
you know
in a moment you know so to speak right
where something gets called out in the
middle of the night because there's no
heat for example uh officer goes out
issues in order to vacate there's no
heat um
and then redress can be sought you know
by
a tenant or an owner saying no no no
it shouldn't have been issued because
you know whatever the example is or it
should have been issued on the entire
property so this is just creating a
roadmap for people to have their voices
heard
give them an opportunity to seek redress
and
really i think foster better
communication between the city and why
we do what we do
and and those people who are impacted by
the decisions that we make out in the
field
second
development and planning we have 13
items on the agenda
um the first uh this diana's dumpling
first four actually the first one is
lead agency for a seeker and 30 day
comment period regarding the rezoning of
bear street and south
[Music]
is avenue the rezone of approximately
3.9 acres of land um from our 2-2 family
to this c4 downtown learning district
obviously is passing out a map that
shows this area which
the r2 um the currently zoned r2 area is
directly adjacent to the c4 downtown
zoning
um
we are we're making this request because
there are constraints as to how these
properties can be used
and just given its proximity to downtown
there's a lot of non-conforming uses
within many of the parcels within
the zone
so when we're trying to look at a
comprehensive development strategy for
this this area and some of the projects
that are
um you know happening and some of the
things that are currently within
um as non-conforming uses
that is what is sort of behind this
request
it's also kind of mid-block where the r2
kind of comes in
um
so the block is kind of split between
the c4 and the r2 so we're just
requesting to basically extend that c4
um
as it's outlined and i don't know if you
want to explain a little bit more this
is obvious
um so the first page on the maps that's
just an avalanche
where the zoning is what you see in the
yellow hash marks there is what we're
proposing to rezone the c4 that's
currently the r2
you can see the south of that kind of
where the alley is
that's about the block where the zone a
changes from the c4 to the r2
the second
page in that packet
is um it shows that conformance with the
lab races that this one is talking about
um
you can see
the ones in blue do conform with what's
currently permitted the ones do not
and then on the third page this is the
performance with development standards
so that means things like the
setbacks the required front-end
properties how large the properties have
to be in general to be
uh to be buildable so most of these
structures are
pre-dated the existing
block development standards so if you're
trying to build something now you
wouldn't be able to in most cases
by changing it to
the c4
it would allow for
a greater use of the properties and just
really just maybe easier for uh
comprehensive developments it aligns
with the
zoning distance out of it
so
anytime there's a reason it's kind of a
process you know the city council kind
of
can declare the intent to act as lead
agency there's public hearings and then
you refer
to the planning commission to make their
recommendation so it's kind of a little
bit of a process this is the first step
in the process
but before we ask for that is there any
questions
i think sam were these made available on
the site okay so i'm not sure you can
pass these down at this late point
is
[Music]
oh in relation to that first map that's
in our packet where it says that um aik
proposal so where is that on uh so
that's a proposed
um project so where is that on again
what the highway is okay
yeah thank you
all right
[Music]
so right now you're requesting for us to
become the uh you know you have to
concerns regarding that
technically i don't know if this was
made available 24 hours
the first map wasn't this
the second two pages is the question
yeah
and that was just additional information
that
we thought might be helpful but if what
you know
the first map is really what the request
is
correct so the second map is more of
just supporting information that shows
conformal uses
so we're so this is what we're
acting on
okay
all right
so are there any further questions or
comments or concerns
i'll hold this second
all those in favor
say yeah on the second i'm going to get
the apollo public hearing yep so in
relation to the same thing this is for
the city council to call for a public
hearing for the results
rezoning of approximately 3.91
any questions or concerns
okay third item agenda is ferris street
and south street avenue rezoning
planning commission referral correct
a resolution referring the zoning
amendment proposal to the city's
planning commission for a recommendation
so once we get through our process
you're just asking now that
you'll be ready to move it on to the
planning commission
correct okay
any questions yesterday
thank you for coming quickly
[Music]
is this solely being done
for
the development projects there kitty
corner
on south and barrett
that's definitely part of our
that's part of our part of the
discussion on this
um
but it's it's beyond that it's it's
looking at what makes sense for this
area that's so close to downtown with
the changes that are happening there and
how
you know we can just have a more appropriate zone
for it
i guess my follow-up question is
why not
like this has been
forever yeah so why not
this has been something that we've
discussed um
previously you know in relation to
just some of the there's there's
barriers to kind of like infilling some
of this area and as you know with the
limits and equity projects and a lot of
the voids in the neighborhood we want to
make sure that we're able to do the
in-field development there that we don't
continue to have noise um where they're
you know
there could be potential um
you know benefits to the neighborhood so
nice
oh mr voodoo
um i have a question related to item
number two that we just passed there is
no date for the public hearing
in this resolution no yeah well but
are we are we setting in standard yeah
are there other questions regarding
rezoning
and referring to the planning commission
[Music]
okay uh fourth item on the agenda to
accept thirteen thousand grant award and
uh to create historical
oh okay
thank you mr epstein that's okay
um so this is this was a 13 000 grant
award um to create historic design
guidelines through the office of parks
recreation and historic preservation um
so these guidelines will be used to
provide information and guidance for
residents who live in historic districts
on the different criteria that's
evaluated when they you know make a
change or
make repairs to their properties so it
kind of would just give more guidance
for the historic district commission to
i think kind of be less subjective and
have criteria and guidelines around the
way of intermission decisions and also
making that information available
to the property owners and residents who
live
within historic districts
so
the recommendation here is a resolution
from the city council authorizing
basically just the acceptance of these
grant funds
not to exceed thirteen thousand dollars
and authorize the mayor his doesn't need
to enter the agreement to effectuate
this resolution
and just further clarify the only food
private is the like the sixteen hundred
seventy hundred dollars in form of staff
so there's no there's no past math
correct match
so
if we move forward with this
we then would probably though have an
opportunity it would come back to
council to approve whatever the design
guidelines are that are developed the
design guidelines would then become part
of its own poem
and
i believe we
have to come back to get those adopted
so this would just be to kind of start
that process and then they would have to
be added to the zoning code
that's the farthest
yeah i was just microphones aren't
because there are existing guidelines
right now right so and how would that be
yeah there there are and obviously a
little bit more about this it's just
very broad so a lot of the language
that's currently used is really just
like from this
it's not specific to schenectady until
it's the things that we have here what
we have in the code right now is fairly
general uh really specifies of what's
you know certain terms but it doesn't
define everything it doesn't um provide
as much context i'm sure like what
characterizes certain
uh historic areas within the city the
design guidelines um
so we have design guidelines for like
upper union
corridor so
they are referenced in the zoning code
so that they apply
um but the
body of that language isn't actually in
the code so we just have a section that
says
you know these
guidelines
are applicable
so something similar would have to
happen after we were created the design
guidelines where
there's a sentence that refers
in the zoning code to the design
guidelines themselves
other questions
okay
and 10 motions accept the ground
so we'll second all is in favor hi
thank you thank you
yeah so i'll tell you that
okay
all right the next item on the agenda is
the discussion of the review committee
for the arba applications
so just uh i'm sure you all know that we
you know got it uh we're getting 53
million half of the money
we have already received
um and part of our when we weren't doing
our tour we um well i'll say i but you
know
continually advocated to try to have
people included from the community in
terms of our review process
so um that's so this is what this is
about putting that um committee together
and what that looks like and um and how
we do that so i'll ask mr just to tell
um from the development um department
where they are with the applications
right now the number
the the amount being requested the
amount we basically have to expend in
this particular round
sure so we've been kind of going through
an american probably explains you know
more along the lines of like the amount
of funding and stuff but right now we've
received i think it was just over 70
applications and we've kind of just been
categorizing them into different um
basically just different categories so
we have like the arts youth workforce
and economic development
facilities and infrastructure
food and health and then housing
um so we've just been kind of working on
getting those into categories to be able
to evaluate internally um so we did come
up with an internal kind of like just
criteria to start to look at the
applications and do that internal
evaluation that we can then use to make
recommendations
um around you know projects that we
think are are suitable for the funding
um
in terms of
the amount available i would defer to
them
allocated with the city council and what
we have spent
uh i did this really quick so that's why
there's not too many
titles on here
okay
passed out
the first cop the first columnist you
can look at that's that's the amount of
the budgeted amount that was uh
allocated it's 8.9 million the lost
revenue
uh the 2021 uh uh job allocation budget
boys and girls club on and on that's a
and uh the bottom line 4.6 million
that's for the 2022 budget that was
allocated
so that total right there is 15 million
255. the second column 784 000 is what
we actually have spent so far from uh up
to today
uh i put a balance in there but that
balance is really you know
back there because like i said
like just today we just passed that at
one point you know he's not a budget for
the loss of revenue
and uh the what do you call the covid
job for 2022 we you know we haven't even
started yet so that balance uh the one
really to look at is the
2021 budget cal allocation for job
retention because we actually went
through we so far we've uh designated
1.4 million
we definitely know we spent 523 000 but
as we go through the period for audits
and stuff like that when we redo it so
this is a kind of like spurt of moment
thing so that 900 000 is
we figured is about available to move on
to next year
for the next process uh so so far we did
receive 26 million dollars 485 at 899
and we're we're due to receive another
26 million in um
in may of 2022
uh so we figured totally uh between
those those two amounts we should have
about
38 million 646
to uh to allocate
so this year
yeah after we received the money in may
of 2022. for this year you know with the
26 million we got right now uh we're
looking at uh
11 million two hundred thirty thousand
one hundred fourteen plus the other nine
hundred eight thousand where i think
we're going to have available after we
do that gives us a total for that first
thing of twelve million one hundred
thirty eight thousand
one hundred and fourteen dollars
okay
so that's um you know what we're talking
about in terms of these um applications
but the application amounts are well
over
[Music]
right so right now there's 80 million
and asked so just wanted to uh you know
give you that
background and also every all council
members received an email on january 6th
which gave us
links to go to what the final
recommendations are or final ways that
we could use the money so there was you
know everybody had had access to that
and i believe we all actually
also got the um the email with listing
from mr sutherland listing um the
projects did everyone get them right so
listing the projects and what they were
so this is where we are now and so um
getting back to and obviously once we
get there we'll that'll all be go
through finance in terms of us
doing the funding but working with the
department of development
um so
having said that we will try to get
community engagement on this um mr moody
aaron do you want to talk about the
steps that you've taken so far well yeah
thank you madam president yeah i had the
opportunity to reach out to this
united neighborhood uh president
tom kerry
and he was
willing to help us to get all the
neighborhood leaders a representative
from each of the neighborhood
we're actually compiling that list now
we should have it in a day or two
and able to present it to the entire
council in a couple days all the names
from each neighborhood that will be part
of this advisory group
that will help us to review this
application
i encourage on the council if you have
any names please please submit it so uh
not a president
yes because at those meetings there were
some people right in the room that said
i'd like to be a part of it that aren't
necessarily um connected to neighborhood
associations so what mr um
mr kerry has submitted to us and let me
just say he couldn't come tonight he was
wanting to be on his own to have this
discussion however he was um
he was uh
some he came in contact with someone who
was uh positive with toby so he's in
good quarantine and chose not to come
here which i'm very happy about
even though he tested uh he did he did
test but he wasn't positive but uh you
know airing on the side of caution he's
quarantined so that's why he is not here
tonight um so i'm not sure if you're
here okay so um
so that's so but he did he did reach out
he did submit some names there are other
people who also would like to um
you know be a part of it um some of the
questions that he said there's a number
of questions that came through what
their uh what their role would be and
there's just a number of questions so
there's a lot of things the council have
to work out along with the mayor and uh
developments who worked with the
parameters of review would be
um
so i think that's where we you know
that's where we are now just developing
this committee and um and how the
application process in terms of review
would work how many people would be on
the committee
and with their roles and
responsibilities i had some brief
conversations with the mayor so you know
we would work with the department of
development how we make sure that we not only have people that are
interested but also people that have
that skill set and i i mean you don't
have to be um have a degree in reviewing grants or have
done it you know forever or something
like that but you know having input from
the community i think is vital and
important which is why we're going down
this road
so right now we're just trying to
develop that committee to um to move
forward and and us to
you know i'm not sure what our timeline
is going to be in case that's the
question but uh as quickly as possible
to organize the committee
to talk with the council and together um
us you know be able to review the
applications and allocate the remaining
funds
are there questions concerns mr calamity
yeah a couple things first i find it
very troubling that
the
organization
was approached before the council even
discussed whether or not we would put
together a committee to look at the
applications that to me is very
troubling
that
the council as a whole did not discuss
and approve that
so that's the first thing
secondly
it's my understanding a committee list
has already been submitted and is going
around
there's some names that have been
suggested that's not that does not make
up the committee that's what we're here
discussing those are names that were
submitted and at the last committee
meeting we did talk about it and so no
that we did not take a vote but
certainly there was discussion that
there will be a committee put together
it was discussion but the idea was for
all of us to come together
and decide whether or not
and i don't really have any particular
problem with having committees
but it was decided based on one or two
people to do this
and that
in my opinion is incorrect it's just not
right
and so moving forward hopefully those
discussions do happen in public
so that the entire council can
make that decision together so that we
can have a stronger
process going forward and i will say i
have received the email
that the committee has been deciding
maybe not fully but there's certainly
neighborhood representations that have
been suggested that this they call the
committee well they they can put
whatever name on it but that decision as
i'm saying here today is the decision
that we make
because there are some people who have
asked to be on there who are not on the
list of people that have been suggested
so that is not a done deal it is
absolutely not the first step is to even
decide whether or not we're going to
have a committee before we even decide
who's on the committee and that had
never been done so if you feel like that
i feel like that we were through that
process but if you feel like we haven't
there's a certain discussion we can have
it's uh something that was advocated for
so
um and i think we should move forward
but if you feel like we need to make
that official um motion in order to do
that
then certainly let's do it yeah i do
because it wasn't this we talked talked
about possible things that we might do
that was one option it was never decided
except for in the minds of maybe two
individuals and that that is not
appropriate in my mind well i think
there's a mind more than two however so
if you want to at this point discuss
whether or not we need to have a
committee we can have that discussion
now and we can
um
yes detour
field so anyway if it was discussed in
the mind the more than two
council
um persons
who were the more than two um because i know i wasn't approached at all
regarding if um and
regarding well i thought
i know the mayor um said something like
well that's up to the to the council
that was all that was said and then the
last meeting i said we'll go ahead we'll
go forward and start looking forward and
i didn't i didn't hear that i'm sorry
but i was never approached um so who was
because here's the opportunity at this
point what i said is
people there as some some other people
have come to me and what i'm saying that
this is not a done deal and that there's
names mr mcvaren said if there's names
that you would like to submit let's do
that
yes
will you actually have your hand over
there
well i do want to say um
seeing a list of names that have already
been submitted
via email as a committee and i hear what
you're saying
um
i want to make sure i think that we're
way a few steps back before we do
actually have a committee because i
think there really has to be guidelines
i'm not i think i expressed after our
meeting
last last time after a committee meeting
first of all that i thought that it
wasn't really appropriate for city
development and planning that it was
more appropriate that this agenda item
go through finance i know that mr
muniveron agreed with me on that but
that was after our committee meeting
last time just because it is the
appropriation of money
i felt that it was more appropriate to
go through finance but i also feel
that given the fact that
among all the projects on that list are
many city projects that
you know i know i'm going to advocate
strongly for
some of the city projects actually
happening
right now we're at about
i forget what he just said um a little
bit over 12 million dollars that google
have left um in the first round i think
there's close to 80 million dollars on
that list
um i think we have to really take a step
back and make some decisions about
if there is a committee which projects
are committing to look at
if there is a committee
i want to really make sure that there's
nobody on that committee who has you
know already submitted letters of
support for certain projects
um
might be involved with certain projects
i mean i think that it's
right what's the word right
with the potential for conflict of
interest among that so i think we have
to really be careful about that as well
and then i think that there's projects
on the list
that don't fall into the guidelines of
the funding
and which also might overlap with
potential for cbpg funding
so i want us to really have a
conversation around that as well so that
we're not putting out to
a committee
um all these projects when in fact some
of them wouldn't even be projects that
we would consider funding so through our
yes so that is not that's not the plan
just saying these are all the things
i've been thinking about with and which
makes sense absolutely all it makes
sense which is not the plan we
understand that in-house we will have to
make those decisions and once we decide
which applications will be considered
the committee then reviews the
application so we would do that work and
as you said you've looked at the
applications and some of them clearly
it's not going to be 70 70 will not be
the number because some of them clearly
even just looking at it
um quickly you'll realize like well no
we can't fund that so that kind of work
would be done as it is done in-house but
the committee would then look at
applications that met the criteria based
on we know what the criteria is we all
have the documents the the developer
department of development has the
documents and then they would be
reviewed so this discussion today is
just talking about how we put together
the committee together to do that part
of it the committee does not make the
guidelines and stuff all that belongs to
the city the committee does not do that
so i just want to be clear on that
mr farley yeah well you kind of
clarified the point i was going to make
what the city owns
that i'm so i might um i i don't know
that this is the um
appropriate time to kind of raise this
uh
concern kind of request for some
thoughts around um the extending the
length of the application process
um i just think it's important that um
we recognize that this
was a really tight window um
during the pandemic and during the
holidays
for a lot of people
and um so i you know think that as we
figure out
you know is there going to be a
committee or not that's something that
you know we should probably factor in i
also uh uh think that the the final um
guidance was
released on the 26th i think
[Music]
the email came on january 6th january
but and that was after the application on the
initial application closed so i think
that you know
thinking about
the public and as they get information
and kind of determine whether or not
projects
that they have in mind
um fall under the uh
what was permissible for these funds
then i think that we really need to um
be really really intentional about
considering extending the application
process as well
so
this way
so i can speak into address just the
previous issues that were spoken to i
think well i've been recalling i think
i'd like to miss two or three of the
neighborhood meetings and conversations
regarding this topic um looking at the
final rules that were put in place with
this money one of which is fighting the
pandemic and supporting families and
businesses struggling with its public
health and economic
impacts
similarly one of the issues that was
continuously brought up at every meeting
was the involvement of the community and
having oversight from individuals
outside of our chambers
that was the expectation that i
continuously heard
so a theme without a further review i
would expect us to adhere to the
public's cry to have a voice on this
council or have a voice in these
conversations
addressing the second concerns where if
issues were
noticed
with the creation prematurely i was
having these conversations on the city
council
i would only ask that
when those were recognized that i don't
know if opportunities were made to reach
out to council president portfield to
provide some clarity before this
evening's meeting
but definitely i don't find any issues
or
ill will with them seeking
recommendations i understand that there
may be displeasure with individuals
choosing a different language that is
not in line with their
intent which was just getting
recommendations to bring forth to the
council unfortunately i imagine they
can't speak for what someone else said
but definitely the topic was to review
the committee assignments and i am
confident that
mrs porterfield was here to review any
issues or entertainment issues but
any recommendations that they are
bringing forward so
to answer mr pauline's question i again
[Music]
one way we can kind of like come be a
little more efficient and process look
at what's done look at the facts is
there a committee um have we have we
formed the committee right now no that
hasn't happened people have submitted
names all right so so then
something clearly that that hasn't that
hasn't happened that decision hasn't
been made so i think that that can kind
of alleviate any concerns around um
decisions being made even or every more
um but just wanting to uh counseling
that didn't happen
all right hear what you're saying man i
appreciate what you're saying
however the email that was going around
was they were asked to create a
committee
and they have done so
this was never decided by the council as
a whole i don't have
an issue
particularly with a committee being
formed
the issue is we did not discuss
and agree to that as a council
it was done by a few individuals
and those individuals contacted son
and son was asked to create a committee
they sent that out with individuals as
here's the committee now there may be
additional people
but that's what was going on that's the
problem i have
just to clarify i do take your
um comments
um
well attention and i yeah i agree with a
lot of what you're saying
but there's an appropriate process
and it wasn't followed that's the
problem so let me ask mr munimer did you
ask them for names or did you ask them
to make it specifically asked to submit
names
so the council could review
so if there was a misunderstanding for
ask as opposed to what was given that's
a different conversation because my
understanding there is no committee
there's simply names being
um submitted put it forward and as i
said there are other people whose names
are not on that list that i know that
have reached out to me that have said
i'd like to be a part of that so that to
me is not the committee's not being
formed and um
to miss patrick's point the there's this
will be a two-prong process as i said
we're working this is city development
playing so the city development planning
committee is working with development to
make sure that we get the process in
place and then the applications
themselves will be financed that yes
so
it's you know
let's just be clear that this is uh
something that's never happened in this
city before so are we creating
guidelines that we as we go for some that we have to so if there's been
missteps i apologize for that however
there's no ill intent
the only intent is to make sure that the
city residents
voices are herd
and that we try to to our to the best of
our ability to make sure that that
happens
so
um
so at this point in time i will have a
roll call and for those who are in favor
of creating or not committing to
creating
a committee to review the our
applications so that we make sure that
everyone is on record to where they
stand on this particular issue can i
just ask one more question
um so
and i know i'm jumping the gun on a
straw pole here but um
because i also would love to be able to
if we are going to have a committee then
i think each of us should be able to
also
submit names and
um absolutely you know of people that
would be on the committee
uh as well so i just wanted to make that
clear as well that was that was made
clear that was stated and in addition to
that i if i didn't say it it certainly
was in my mind that we also have to we
made it
40 names are we going to have reported a
committee of 40. chances are absolutely
not so then we would have to look at the
names they're submitted and say
this person i mean yes or no so we would
have those are decisions that we would
make based on what's the information
that's provided to us and just one more
comment again back to mr williams i mean
we did all attend all the neighborhood
meetings that were very productive
meetings as mr farley noted on that the mayor and and city staff ran and got
a lot of input i mean i took pages of
notes
um on what our community members want to
see happen with the arbor funding so i
think we all and i know i missed one of
those meetings i think probably all of
us missed maybe one meeting
but for the most part we were all we
were all there
and heard and heard from that plus we
had the survey
um as well that was done to also solicit
community input so
um it's not like we had a closed process
even to this point um in terms of what
we what we did to try to solicit
community
and i shouldn't say we the city the
mayor
i think you could say we as the council
attended and we certainly encourage
people to come and put the information
out there so i think we is appropriate
so is there further discussion if not
i'll have uh the clerk called the role
on this particular issue point order
here this
it doesn't this isn't a roll call but
we're in a committee meeting so it's
within yourself
did you have something to eat yeah
because i'd be remiss that i didn't
highlight his previous comment hopefully
you didn't feel like i just
over emphasized it with potentially
reopening the application process uh
i've had
considerations myself i want to put it
on on record that i definitely
appreciate everyone who was able to meet
those deadlines they were definitely uh
during uh the heightened stages of our
pandemic they were during a holiday
season and i want to applaud everyone i
was able to submit that on time however
i think
having it
unfortunately a link to further
discussion i think we should open to
understanding potentially having it
extended
to incorporate individuals that weren't
able to meet those
expectations and what i want to say is i
don't think it's done added a service to
any projects that currently were
submitted because i don't want it to be
seemed as if we're competing against
each other this is community this is
money for the community that's going to
benefit the community and if we seem to
look at it as us competing against each
other i think that will negatively pit
us against one another which is
essentially uh what could potentially
happen so i think if we look at whether
extending it
even if it was only done from the
standpoint of
for the duration of the creation of this
committee
my recommendation would be opening up
for two weeks
if that uh is a cause of a concern
definitely understand i don't want to do
it uh to the detriment of people i've
already submitted projects but i
definitely agree with mr uh farley's
comments of some people missed out due
to unforeseen issues
and i
wanted to again highlight that the final
guidance for what the money um it can be
used for came
after we closed the um
the uh
for for uh people who want to submit so
once again you know if we are in a
position where we're getting new
information the public has more
information then there could be
potentially some people who might have
put an application in
um due to the uh
to the final direction of the guidelines
but
before that information was made
available to the public just didn't um
didn't think that their project would
fit in and i also had a question
this like what's the usual
length for like uh
for our community block grant one like
what's like usually though
yeah there's usually five weeks so five
to five weeks because we put it out and
the january is usually in by march
and then we have the review period and
all the public hearings so all right so
and that and how long was the
for the performance
it was the month of december i believe
yeah
so i think so kind of highlight the fact
that uh the community blocker and money is
something that happens annually so
there's like some expectation um um that
this happens um this right here is a you
know a one-time
opportunity for us so i think that it
would be you know
really wise of us as a council to say
that we at least give the same amount of
time that we give to the community for
something that is um
where people are
relatively can expect that to happen um
and i think that this is a really good
opportunity to uh make sure that we are
casting the widest that we can and look
for opera opportunities to collaborate
with the members of our community mayor
but just in terms of that window of
opportunity we went out to the community
meetings we're telling people telling
groups what
the potential
areas were
wanted them to think about it had them
talk about some of their goals desires
uh and i think we were actually live
before december 1st so it was
you might be arguing about days even
though we had talked about opening it up
it was getting the site up and making it
live
and effort this is the first round of
monday that's right so
still looking to do this
one more time
uh when we get the money uh
expected in may
so i don't want to
i'm
not quite sure how to
position it
so we get other applications who's going
to process those who's going to rank
them the city council are going to take
care of that
i've put
criteria in place assigned staff to do
it i have other things you know i have
to manage the day-to-day operations so
somebody brings in
an application now
is that going to get
talked about people who are going to be
mad because everybody else did meet the
criteria and this one is out there in
the fine guidance
it was not a dramatic deviation from
what the preliminary guidance was so
that i don't think there was anybody
from what i saw and i had not read every
application
uh
that would have been precluded
or
opened up
and based on that final guidance that
came out of the treasury part
that's
um
i have to say with all due respect and
just now putting my professional hat on
as opposed to the council hat um having
been a grants developer for you know 40
years
um
it's
common to have that kind of a length of
time in order to be able to submit a
grant there were many other grant
applications that were also due on
december 31st to nonprofits
the united way for well no not the
united way but there were other
applications that we had to get in by
december 31st i think
folks
i think it would be unfair really
honestly if i was somebody that put in a
grant application and i heard the
process was reopened i would really be
upset um because i think it would be
like
you know basically oh you guys all got
it in on time but now we're going to
open it up again we already know that
we're not going to be able to fund
most of the applications um so now we're
going to be even like trying to get even
more applications in that we'll have to
say no to
um so it's
i just i mean again all due respect i
hear what you guys are saying but i
think it would really um
be unfair
we tried to make that application
process fairly simple
and straightforward so we weren't
looking for reams of information other
things
you know we may go back to some of the
groups now and ask for more
documentation as you go through this
review process
to make the final decision but again it
was to
get things in there conceptually
and be able to work with groups
some who were
maybe more informal this might be their
one and only time applying as well as
other ones who
on a routine basis either apply for cdbg
money other uh
money from uh city other entities and uh
i think all in all it went
fairly well
uh
you know it's a
number of
applicants there that
put forth some interesting ideas and
concepts and
i think it reflects well
in the community as a whole the problem
is now there's always never
the newcomers of the council will learn
that
there's never enough money to fund all
the things and you have to
put down the that narrow path of trying
to keep uh as many people happy as you
can
and leverage the dollars to get the
biggest impact
mr moto baron had did you have a point
two part question um
did you receive any application after
the deadline
no i don't think um well we officially we closed the
portal on the monday
so there was there was a complication
over the weekend
next year
this year you know
yeah for the for the next round but i
mean
i think
i guess you just kind of i don't know
from my perspective i think that i'm
also
if we have 80 million dollars in ask
right now we know we can't fund most of
the applications i am concerned about
that um not to say that you know
whatever the process is the process but
whatever is decided is decided but i am
worried about the amount of ass the
amount of good products there's not that
many that are disqualified i can tell
you something that wouldn't qualify for
the funding so you know it's going to be
a question of how we make those
decisions
um because it's already
just just a question of that we talk
about rolling somebody's application
into cdbg or they can qualify under the
cdbg
may or did we receive a number in terms
of how much we're going to receive with
regards to infrastructure money
no because some of these applications
i've gone through you know scan across
some might fall into that category
it's possible and we don't have enough
time
so we have to look at that as well so
the cdbg and also the infrastructure
money that was recently passed
on this application here
mr berlin so a few things so you're
saying that when after the uh portal
closed monday you got a couple
applications in
we told you it wasn't closed december
31st we didn't actually close it until
um january 2nd 4th february 4.
so we didn't receive something during
that period of time oh there's nobody
that called up and said we did not
submit our application we spit it at
this point in time
if we have we would have taken it and
then referred to
the group here
of whether to accept the application or
not but we did not receive anybody
stating that they were not able to
submit the application right no my
question was more specifically so the
communication was that that portal will
close on the 31st but it didn't close on
30 hours and we refused when we received
a few applications after the 31st
if you look at the spreadsheet the date
that we received was noted there so you
see that did we did receive a problem on
january 2nd and first
okay
my question is if
the application came in after the time
that we
communicated to the public that we were
going to close the portal we did accept
those applications though we did we did
good we did we didn't
have any applications
um
there was a couple people there's
somebody did call about some things that
were located far away from the city we
told them i mean you can apply them
so are you suggesting mr farley that if
it came after that we just we say you
missed the call update and not accept those applications
what i'm
kind of trying to note here is that
we're saying that
you know to economist uh carmel's points
that if i'm somebody who got my
application in and then somebody else
does and i feel like it's not fair i
don't think it would be unfair for me
and you know i i think that
the larger point that i'm trying to make
is that this this is common you know
working in a non-profit for a long time
myself i know that this is a common
timeline um but as a governing body we
have a obligation to recognize that
these are uncommon times
so when these these these being uncommon
times our opportunity to be responsive
to the community um and to
ensure that we're casting a wide net and
even though we have
i think
uh mr marriott point is well taken we're
never going to have enough right
so
but when you want to be equitable does not matter how much you
have it's it's it's the process of what
you allocate and distribute so we could
be equitable with 10 million dollars or
one dollar and i think that what we need
to do is just make sure that we're uh
considering the fact that this was
during a pandemic this was a short
timeline and there was further darkness
that came out after the portal folks so
even though it wasn't maybe a dramatic
shift there was still more information
how can we expect the public to make a
determination of whether to submit
something if the guidance came out after
we closed the portal
but i have to say to the mayor's point
that that didn't change a lot it was not
a significant a significant change and i
don't know which applications you're
talking about if anything's particular
um because i didn't see a lot of change
in in the guidance i don't know if any
of you had an opportunity to look at it
there was not there were not major shifts
no mr williams uh so just i don't know
if it was mentioned or if it was implied
but i thought we should at least credit
your staff mayor mccarthy for taking uh
ownership of this huge ask
hopefully my comments did
not recognize that this was like a
monumentous project that you guys did
successfully and i appreciate all the work that he did and if we choose
him before with another application
process it's going to be these lessons
learned that improve it moving forward
so i just wanted to know
so at this point in time so we can kind
of bring this to a close i think there's
a couple of questions that we have to
ask the first one and just get the the
pulse of the council
if the first um that we're um in favor
of creating a committee that includes um
neighborhood representatives to review
the application so just want you know
so we'll just call the council uh mr
williams
yes
mr farley yes
miss patrick i would say yes to the
applications except for the ones that
were submitted by the city
mr mitsubaran
uh yes but uh you know this is something
that when we uh when we went through the
city when mayor mccarthy had the
meetings the harper meetings it was
something that the community wanted all
the neighborhood it was echoed across
all neighborhoods community
involvement
how can we participate in helping the
city council the administration in terms
of coming up with the ideas how we spend
this money
so i think it's it's not new what's
happening
it's something that we were they were
asking for and we're actually doing it was something that was discussed some
of the council remember were not here it
was thrown out but it's something that
we
brought with us from all these
neighborhood meetings and it's something
that we're trying to put in place
together
and you know i encourage everybody to
get on board and submit names and you
know we can come to the table and flash
names out if we want to select so like a
workable group not 40 names you know i'm
just using numbers but something that we
can all work for and
towards and
get a group that help us you know manage
and able to discuss and come up with
ideas on how to be able to look at each
of these applications
and come up with ideas on how we can
able to fund that
and i have you know i agree
after
mccarthy that we can open up the
application process when we receive our
funding in so there will be
opportunities for others to to
resubmit or submit applications during
that process we have to be look at the
logistics too i mean be fair to the
staff and you know going back
applications already and paperwork with
us
let's move on what we have
and when the next round come we'll
encourage who didn't submit on time to
encourage them to reach out to them and
to make sure that they submit
application on time
and full support of getting this
advisory group together to help us move
this forward
thank you mr toro um i'm supportive a
committee but i would really like some
guidelines before we even up on what the
committee's
job java bay um absolutely you know
we're our neighborhoods we all live in
our neighborhoods we want to spend our
money in our neighborhoods but again as
the mayor said we want to get
the most
uh
money
we want to get the most out of what
money we have sure
so as much as i would love to help
everyone i mean
you know a lot i want to know more about
what what this committee is going to do
and who's going to have the final say so
you know
and so if there's if i bring 10 there's
already 10 12 on it on a list submitted
20 30 40 60 100. who's gonna who's going
to interview these people i don't feel
confident enough to interview someone
and say you're not
qualified enough to make this decision
when none of us really are at this point
because everything's so new so i'd like
some guidelines on what what this
committee is absolutely
that's part of forming committee so as i
said this is all new territory for all
of us
but we still have an obligation and so
we're going to put together
a group so we can make that obligation
all right
mr coleman i want to be clear i have no
issue with public involvement in the art
of money
absolutely not i mean it's been said
many times
that at the meetings
people wanted to be involved and that's
a great thing and i'm happy for that and
i want people to participate
however
this was decided before this meeting
and the email says we have as requested
we have put a committee together
we have assembled this committee with
nine names
and are ready to work with the council
to make recommendations on submitted
projects
that's just not right for any of us
i don't care who we are it's just plain
wrong so i'm voting no out of principle
but i want to make clear i have no
problem with
public
input
yes and as i said before the committee
to me has not been determined names were
submitted so
um
again if there's a misunder
communication on what was asked of the
people who were asked
but
there is no committee that has been
fully completed that's why we're having
the discussion tonight
so we can move forward with that
yes mr mayor and also
remind the council who's uh pointed out
by mr wall and that we have
over the last few years put together
lists of professional
individuals groups who
they're not on a formal retainer but we
have agreements that if we need them
it's a predetermined rate so if we need
an engineer they'll provide a
certain rate we need an architect we can
get it and so
those
resources
can be made available
and we're not quite that far in terms of
the internal review do we need some
technical assessment and so i don't
belabor because the meetings running on
a lot of these are very good groups
well-intentioned projects
i worry
that some things where they've made
they've had ideas and thoughts out there
before
where there were cost estimates that
they had come up with a couple years ago
those may not be valid today because
we've seen costs go up the disruptions
in the supply chain
and so
again you may have something that
looks good on paper you think it's well
thought out
and then when you actually go to
implement it it won't be
the numbers that the assumptions were
there and we have to make sure that
we're going to do things that are in
fact going to be
meet the goals under the federal ranks
but we'll also be able to make the
timeline to put them in place and
some of those outside firms we may have
to bring in to do
uh
again that assessment to make sure that
uh
everything
will move ahead of the smooth and
straightforward man
well thank you and i'm sure that we will
need those resources as i said as we go
through this uncharted territory so
thank you so it looks like there's a
majority of the council who's
uh ready willing to move forward with
having this committee
um the second question that was raised
by mr um damon mr farley was whether or
not we should we have an open
application process and i'll um also ask
the council to weigh in on that
mr farley yes
is patrick no
mr winterberg
i'm going to vote
i just mentioned that you know we got to
get referred to the staff who did all
this process and get it to us where
yesterday
the process is going to reopen back when
we receive our second
set of funding
so i encourage and i will do my part to
make sure you reach out to who didn't
submit so please submit
and get your application on time and we
can you know consider those applications
in the next rounds
it's tutorial no
mister palomini
this profile
so um i you know as we discussed this i
have to first to um you know for the
people who put their application in and
get it on time you know i think we
definitely have to respect that and even
if this request had come several weeks
ago before we really closed the portal
then i could i could support it but i
just think uh to for people who did
their due diligence got it in
and did what they're supposed to do to
open it puts them in a disadvantage and
i'm going to be frank if i were on the
receiving end of that i would not be
happy so
just have to be 100 and um and i
understand and so we do we need to do a
better job of maybe getting the
information out there whatever it is we
need to do we need to do that again it's
a learning process for us so but i um i
would have to go no i could not support
reopening the process the staff has
already done a tremendous amount of work
and putting the applications together
and all of that so at this point in time
i cannot support that um i will however
say that we um
we should really look at it considering
opening our next process earlier so by
the time the money hits the application
is already there and reviewed
and we can move forward on a more
expeditious manner
if somebody is aware of
uh somebody who didn't
meet the timeline
i'm more than willing to review it and
the other thing is that we're debating
or i shouldn't say debates we're all one
big happy family
we're
discussing
uh
the options for this one
chunk of money
there are other funding streams that are
out there as mr motavirin pointed out is
the uh
infrastructure money there's other
things in the state so
money and so if somebody's aware of
somebody that didn't meet the timeline
here that doesn't mean that there
wouldn't be other scenarios that we
might be able to point into
to
again
have a worthwhile concept project or
idea
flushed out and
developed in a more
robust manner
so it looks like you know there's not
enough support to open the process but
there are other opportunities to do
other things
all right so we will um
move forward um on you know sending out
information to uh i'm sorry mr coleman
sorry i just want to um
i know there was a strong a strong vote
on the advisory committee
um but there wasn't a if there's a
request or resolute for a resolution
here uh there wasn't a motion for one
okay in a second
so
let's do that let's uh maybe so i'll
need a motion to uh
if you're going to establish a an
advisory i would recommend that that's
the process that you do so that's clear
all right
so okay
you know this is to establish an
advisory committee
um
and within that you know obviously
you know you're not establishing a set
number
um you're establishing you know that
you haven't actually established
you haven't really
you're establishing a committee without
actually saying what that committee is
going to be made up of
so i think we just generally say to to
review the our applications we would you
know we would have to leave it very open
and not put in numbers because we don't
know those numbers yet
correct we just know we want to uh
establish a committee
so i'm a little confused i mean are we
should we be moving it or not
this this actually the legislative
request form
was that the recommendation would be the
city council work with some and other
community groups to identify individuals
to be part of a team that works with the
city staff to review the application my
recommendation is if you're going to
have these outside groups or individuals
review applications that were submitted
to the city for the purpose of providing
advice to the city council and it's done
by resolution
because this information is something
that
given what could be in the applications
in terms of identifying information and
so forth
i would suggest that it's set up
through resolution and not ad hoc
so
anyone opposed
okay
thank you so we will um get those emails
out and we'll get that resolution done
and get the emails out and work towards
uh developing that committee
so thank you for that very robust
discussion
and hopefully mr truman you'll reach out
to the mayor and to the department of
development to see what other
opportunities there are
to to get funding
all right uh the final remaining items
are all on property sales and will
therefore be an executive session
so members of the public will
make a motion to go to
all those in favor all right
thank you we're here
hmm