hello i want to thank you today for
joining me for the 2022 state of the
city
dress for the city of schenectady i want
to specifically thank jen paluccio alex
sutherland jennifer clifford and amy
hill
provided technical and administrative
support for today's address
i want to thank council president
porterfield majority leader
members of our city council
i
appreciate the work that they do every
day on behalf of the residents of the
city
i also
appreciate people who are watching live
via webex open stage media or may view
this as a recorded meeting of the future
i want to thank our department heads and
the city staff for the work they do
every day for the residents of our city
it's really an impressive team that we
have of dedicated individuals who try
and make a difference in people's lives
every day
covent is still an issue in our
day-to-day lives over the past year i
have and still recommend people get
vaccinated
wear masks wash their hands and practice
social distancing to minimize the spread
of the virus
something that we're dealing with and
they're going to have to deal with into
the future
2021 was a pretty good year for the city
of schenectady
thanks to the american rescue plan act
just signed into law on march 11 2021 by
president biden
the fiscally proven work by city staff
and resiliency in our local economy s p
global ratings affirmed its a rating for
a general obligation bond and raised the
city of schenectady's outlook from
stable to positive
schenectady will end 2021 with a
balanced budget
our expenses will equal revenues
prior to the covid 19
pandemic we have cut taxes five years in
a row
and even with the pandemic driven
adjustments over the past two years our
property tax rate is more than six
percent lower than it was seven years
ago
to get into very good fiscal story from
the city
schenectady
the multi-year trend of property value
increases continued last year
there is and has been
real value in real estate in the city of
schenectady
we've received half of our almost 53
million
dollars of arba allocation as part of
that process i held several neighborhood
discussions and we put in place an
online application process to seek
community input on using the arc of
money
we now are in the process of evaluating
and implementing those projects which we
have to do in a manner that will be
compliant with federal guidelines
the infrastructure
and investment and
commonly referred to as iija
provides significant additional federal
funding on top of the american rescue
plan
this is the largest long-term investment
in our infrastructure in our nation's
history
this money will provide this will
provide money to states and local
governments through new and expanded
programs in the area of transportation
broadband energy resiliency and water
projects
we have now completed the conversion of
all of our 4000 plus utility pole
mounted street lights in this in the
city to smart led fixtures
as part of our
rev demonstration project with national
grid this also includes
smart city features to improve public
safety transportation
mobility
and environmental sustainability
our public wi-fi deployment in the
neighborhoods is also steadily increased
which has been critical to many
residents throughout pandemic
i remind residents of the interactive
wi-fi map we have on our website to keep
everyone posted on where we currently
have this expanding service
networking of all city facilities with a
fiber backbone
is a foundational part of this project
and we're approximately halfway through
the installation of this backbone it's
an ambitious plan
and different from other communities is
the goal is a city-wide and not just in
the central business district they have
the services available
to show
the importance of this network and how
it has affected residents over the last
year
we have seen
[Music]
770 million separate page views on that
network and this was driven by 45 000
unique visitors
the schenectady police reform and
reinvention collaborative was formed
with accordance with the governor's
executive order
we have put in place a nationally
recognized community review panel for
police hiring
school-based community engagement
officers and established a recruitment
and education partnership with suny
schenectady is part of our ongoing
efforts in this area
this county police department cares
program
is guided by the principles of police
assisted addiction and recovery
initiative this allows individuals in
need of assistance to simply walk into
the police station and connect with
services this program has helped over 78
people
in probably the last six months
we're fortunate to have new choices
recovery center catholic charities and
schenectady county community services as
partners in the delivery of this program
our total police calls were down over 11
last year's compared to the five year
average
this continues a trend that we started
pre-pandemically
uh we continue to develop the new
telemedicine platform of ellis hospital
mvp
cd php healthcare and united concierge
medicine and we're looking to expand our
partnerships with other providers
our paramedics can perform telehealth
consultation with ucm physicians
avoiding costly trips to the emergency
room with 115
certified paramedics the smokey fire
department is the first and largest
department in the region to offer this
service
we've updated our city website
and have
put in place secret fix is a new feature
it's to make reporting and tracking of
non-emergency problems or issues easier
i thank the city clerk and city council
members for adding the c-clec fixed qr
code to their business cards to ease the
access of this service for our residents
garbage collection is one of the great
services we provide to our residents
unfortunately we're facing two issues
one our recycled material which we used
to have it taken away at little or no
cost
today our cost is just under 62. a ton
and that compares to a little over 44.
for our msw msw is municipal solid waste
so it costs us 40
more to dispose of recycled material
than just regular garbage
the other issue is we deal with
individuals
depicted in this photograph who put out
extraordinary quantities of garbage
and i look forward to working with the
council as we look at these issues and
how we can
hopefully stimulate
markets for recycled materials that are
going to reduce our overall cost and
also balance out and put some equity in
the individuals who use the service and
find a way to restrict those people that
really take advantage of our garbage
collection and drive up our overall
costs
we received the clean energy communities
designation through nyserda last may and
in june eec gave's connect to the abroad
certification is a climate smart
community
these are given in recognition of local
climate action and clean energy
leadership
we specifically had significant
investment in electric vehicle fleets
our led street lights and our municipal
solar arrays
we continue to look for ways to make
schenectady more sustainable working
with a local company livingston energy
we added 10 new electric vehicle
charging stations on liberty street
this in addition to the 26 new ev
charging stations and soon he's
connected
and we're still waiting for the delivery
and the hybrid and electric vehicles we
plan to add to the police department
it's unfortunately some of the supply
chain issues
but we remain committed to reduce our
carbon footprint and add electric
vehicles the city fleet
we worked for the national grid last
year retreats connected the community
fathers and sjta to plant 50 trees in
environmental justice areas
the climate vulnerability and adaptation
report done by our staff identified the
critical role urban trees
play in combating air pollution reducing
the heat island effect and improving
overall mental health within the
community
dec has provided us funding to continue
our city-wide free inventory and
management plan
we're almost done with the 1.3 million
investment in orchard park
crane street
land bank under the leadership of county
legislator richard bruzo executive
director david hogan
coordinated the demolition of six
adjacent buildings to this site this
added over 35 000 square feet of green
space for the mount pleasant
neighborhood
and we've added a basketball court
playground equipment and we'll finish
this spring with the addition of an
outdoor fitness court
two additional park upgrades done last
year as part of the thriving
neighborhoods challenge
were the new splash pad at the
wallingford park and improvements to
jalen park on land and terrace
we look forward to starting construction
for jerry morrell park
this will include a new splash pad
basketball cart seating area improved
lighting and public art
this is possible because of the support
from new york state parks
in schenectady county
i appreciate the city council's early
support for a new pool in central park
this will allow us to deal with state
department of health compliance issues
with our current pool reduces our
overall maintenance issues and
compliment our past investments in music
haven the a diamond and tennis courts
central park again is really a great
facility
encourage people who haven't had the
opportunity to go in and see the things
that are there take the time
stop by and really enjoy what we have
we've reduced the number of properties
on our vacant property registry last
year from
over 800 to
386
cut it you know by half
it's significant uh again distressed
property still drives a lot of our
expense for code enforcement for
policing in the fire department and has
a negative effect than general city
revenue
it's an area that we have to continue to
collectively work on
and again it's one that schenectady has
a fairly good track record on but it's
still significant when we continue to
have to focus our efforts
since 2014 we've demolished over 200
blighted and vacant buildings in our
neighborhoods we're scheduling the
removal of another another 13 this year
we've sold over 100 properties last
through last year through our
award-winning homes program
home ownership made easy and schenectady
our focus continues to be creating
owner-occupied homes in our
neighborhoods just under 750 properties
have moved through this program in the
last nine years
the homes program also continues to be a
good source of revenue this program not
only puts properties back on the tax
rolls for continued and stable tax
stream
revenue stream but last year generated
over 3.7 million dollars in gross
revenue through our sales
work continues at the new northside
village on van branden avenue both
hillside crossing and albany street and
renaissance square just off eastern
avenue are open and fully occupied these
developments represent over 150 million
dollar
worth of investments in our community
the new depaul 60 unit housing
unit the 60 unit housing for senior and
veterans development on crane street is
moving through the planning process and
construction is scheduled to start later
this year
this will be a significant addition to
the new boys and girls club in the
county library in the bound pleasant
neighborhood
given
the revitalization of our community the
economic activity is significant we've
got the major development we've seen
the 440 000 square foot uh project in
the mill artisan district on state
street 67 000 square feet
work in the form of trusco headquarters
you know 66
500 square feet
the new apartment building at 501 state
street it's a 40 000 square foot
building the ywca facility on washington
avenue
we've seen uh work and renovations at
the old
gazette press building
renovation the former otb headquarters
and also
seeing the rehabilitation of the
building just across from city hall here
at jane franklin streets
the final testing and site work will be
completed this spring at the north ferry
street pump station this is a major
upgrade to this critical piece of
infrastructure and stabilizes our system
for high water events and positions our
community for future growth and
sustainability
in uh
rebuilding our infrastructure
projects that we completed last year and
some were still ongoing
there was a million and a half dollars
worth of work done in south church
street
the broadway
pavement preservation project uh
largely in bellevue was a million for
the 750 thousand dollars we spent in the
long awaited upgrades the stormline from
lancaster wine opening renaissance
it's done uh
done a substantial amount of work for
the intersection improvements at doc
wendell and rosa road
the intersection is done in forest and
francis that's just under 300 000
we have planned
a hundred thousand dollar improvement
for the intersection at that street
in mcclellan for stabilization
and modifications into the curbs there
this year
we have approximately 40 million dollars
of pending
projects
these include
uh seven
five point seven million dollars in our
general paving program
we're finally gonna be able to undertake
the million and a half dollar upgrades
to brandywine avenue between state
street in 890
got a million
one
for downtown pedestrian safety
improvements
this five million dollar project for
kings road bridge replacement
say 3.1 million dollars for francis
avenue bridge deck replacement
the upgrades for the crane bain chrysler
intersection 750 thousand dollars
a significant portion of that was made
available through assembly member angelo
santa barbara
the million dollar upgrades with bicycle
track on franklin street
uh 250 000
for bicycle path improvements on
washington avenue
in phase two and three we're going to in
veil park we're going to spend an
approximately 350 000 to complete those
the 3.1 million dollar francis avenue
bridge deck replacement
that was awarded through a competitive
program bridge new york
again it shows that we're able to put
together projects that
we compete with regionally and do it in
a successful manner and i thank the city
engineer chris wallin the team for
making some of that possible
uh this particular project will require
the francis avenue bridge to be closed
to both vehicles and pedestrians
from march 14th through august 1st
where we look to minimize that
inconvenience we're doing that so that
it speeds up the overall project and
reduces the overall cost
this project again
includes the complete removal and
replacement of the concrete bridge deck
along with the sidewalks and will result
in increased lighting
for that structure
we're
similar to other national
entities and other levels of government
we're
having difficulty filling some of the
positions at city hall i encourage
people to go
to the city website look and see what
positions are open consider joining a
great team of people that we have
working in the city is connected
we ended 2021 with a bright light
our first annual luminosity event
brought building owners businesses and
not-for-profits together to celebrate
the holiday season
i want to thank
dsic and national grid for making that
possible i also had the pleasure of
walking with our governor kathy pocal
while she did some christmas shopping on
j street here in schenectady
i'm proud of the record we have we have
a bright future and it's an exciting
time to be in schenectady again
appreciate the work that our city
council does our department heads and
the city staff so i want to thank
everyone for joining today
stay safe enjoy the rest of your day
you