foreign
[Music]
on saturday
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no she's not she's smart
[Music]
okay
that's it you're going back down
i'd like to call to order the
schenectady city council committee
meeting for monday june 6 2022.
uh
the first item on the agenda will be a
presentation by the office of cannabis
management um as you all know we next we
decided to opt in and so it's something
that's going to be happening part of
that is that there will be something
called conditional adult use dispensary
license opportunities that'll be first
and before regular licenses are um
given out and so tonight we have with us
neveleen white from the community
relations for external affairs and phil
rumsey who is the manager of inter
governmental outreach so if you'd like
to come up
okay
hi how are you i have some um
materials and some information
my name is neville white i am the
manager of community affairs we will be
conducting a
grant and presentation on tomorrow on
wednesday wednesday at schenectady public library that
presentation is geared towards um
individuals who may be eligible for what
we're called calling the conditional
license um phil will be doing a
presentation right now just a really ten
minute presentation um giving you an
overview of what that presentation will
um look like but it's we're really
excited to get connected to the
community so people can get ready um and
get their documents in order for the
economic opportunities that will um will
be opening up very shortly we are
looking to open up the first
dispensaries december of 2022 so by the
end of this year we should have
dispensaries open up in new york state
so um we're looking forward to really
excited about this and this is a
continuous conversation we plan to be in
schenectady county continuously as more
and more information gets out so that we
can stay connected to the community
yep right here okay perfect
um so yeah my name is philip rumsey i'm
the
manager of intergovernmental outreach
for the office of cannabis management
and um
i wanted to give a
um a brief overview of what some of you
might be hearing if you attend the
community outreach event
as neverland said this wednesday
um so i'll kind of start at the
beginning and
kind of walk you through
how we how ocm has gone up to this point
and where we might be headed moving
forward
um march 31st of last year
the
marijuana regulation and taxation act
was passed
i'll be referring to that as murder
moving forward
um
myrta outlined the basic structure of
the cannabis industry in new york
um
excuse me um
so it laid the foundation for um what
we'll be dealing with moving forward
first and foremost it brought over the
um
cannabinoid hemp
aspect of the industry it brought
medical cannabis and recreational
cannabis under one roof the office of
cannabis management
we also have a board it's a five-member
board i'm headed by uh chair tremen
wright
since um since the passage we've been um
very busy on many different fronts
um first and foremost we are writing the
regulations for murder there are nine
licenses in murder
the two you're probably most familiar
with are the um
dispensary license and the on-site
consumption license those are the two of
the nine licenses that communities could
opt out of
uh there is a um
taxation rate um there's it comes in
three different
uh phases the first is the uh thc
uh tax
and we're focusing on the thc tax
as opposed to a weight tax which you see
in other states
so for example there's a three percent
tax on edibles there's a five percent on
the flower or the bud and there's an
eight percent tax on concentrates and
that's the fate pens or the um
other forms of concentration and that's
to push individuals towards a lower um
thc amount
furthermore there's a
nine percent
um state excise tax that kicks in at the
retail level so at the dispensaries um
there'll be a nine percent retail excise
tax
and the one that you might be more
interested in here is the four percent
excise tax
communities that have dispensaries
within them
will have the access to the four percent
excise tax three percent of that will
stay with the community where the
dispensary is housed one percent will go
to the county
once the tax is collected it's going
into what's called the new york state
cannabis revenue fund
and from that fund it's going to be
distributed in different ways
40 of that will be going towards
education
another
20
will be going towards
um uh
drug uh therapy and
drug rehabilitation part of our health
outreach campaign
uh 40 will be distributed to
community organizations in communities
that were disproportionately impacted by
the war on drugs so that's how the tax
revenue will be distributed when it's
collected
um
if anyone does have any questions uh
feel free to jump in if um there is
anything you want to ask i will be
taking some at the end as well
i have a question
only the council can ask questions oh
okay um
the nine license types again the the two
i discussed earlier were the
dispensaries and the on-site
consumptions
the other one is a micro business that's
a fully integrated one
there's a nursery license a
manufacturing license a delivery license
the reason we have these nine licenses
or one of the reasons is it creates
multiple entry points into the cannabis
industry
we know from experience and looking at
other states
that individuals with large amounts of
money or
corporations with large amounts of money
they can come in and instantly take
what's called the seed to sale
which is everything from putting the
seed into the ground all the way to
selling it and they can very quickly um
gobble up the industry so what we're
doing is creating these license type
which again creates these entry points
and
an individual we do need to wait for the
regulations to come out however an
individual wouldn't be able to receive
all nine licenses or multiple licenses
you're captive what you're able to get
so that opens up an opportunity for more
individuals to come into the industry
what you
will be hearing on wednesday about card
the conditional adult use dispensary
that's really a
second road or second path so we
currently have two paths the murder
licenses the nine license that i
discussed
that came from the legislation the
second path are these conditional
licenses
that includes the conditional
cultivation licenses the growing
and then the conditional retail
dispensary licenses
we have been giving out the board of the
cannabis control board has been issuing
the conditional cultivation licenses
over the past month and a half
and we just finished the public comment
period for the conditional retail
dispensary licenses
and i do want to emphasize again the
difference here the murder 9 licenses
although there's similarities with a
growing and retail are separate from
this conditional these conditional
retail dispensaries are going to have a
maximum 200 individuals who can apply
and receive them
and the individuals who could grow or
were also there was a different criteria
than what you'll find in the murder
licenses
murda the legislation
did
set a goal of awarding 50
of the licenses to social equity
candidates
and the conditional ones do have a
social equity
element to them but again they're
separate two different lanes to get
these licenses
as i said we did just finish the public
comment period for the conditional
retail
dispensaries
and
right now our lawyers are going through
those comments to saying what needs to
be incorporated and responding as we do
with all legislation
and i want to emphasize again there's
200 with a conditional where uh 200
possible um
retail dispensaries for the
conditional retail
and there's could be three to four
thousand in the murder licenses so again
these are these are two separate paths
to two different
entities that you would be dealing with
if you wanted them
for the most part i think that
sums up where we're at with a lot of
moving pieces here i will say that we
will need a little grace with answering
questions
unlike almost any other new york state
bureaucracy or agency we don't have the
regulations governing our industry so
for the murder licenses we
are still in the process of writing
those and getting those out in the
coming months
and with the conditional licenses
we have
the
cultivation licenses already being given
out and again we just ended the public
comment period for the
retail dispensaries the conditional
retail dispensaries so
we we don't have everything finalized so
there will be some questions that i
would um
would be problematic for me to to answer
just because we're not that far along
with a lot of the detail
um
i think for the most part that's you
know the summary i i kind of wanted to
give and um
if there are questions i would certainly
like to dive into those and
see what uh
what i can help clarify before
wednesday's meeting
i just wanted to add that the um the
condition um the car there's two
criterias and you have to have um have a
marijuana configuration or a family
member family member is defined as
mother father
uh child guardian people believe garden
or spouse at this present time you know
again the um the proposed regulations
are not finalized as a gift and you have
to um have had a business for two years
it could be a
current business it could be a
pass-through business with a net um
net profit so i wanted to be clear that
there's two um criteria that these 200
people have to meet in order to get uh
this the dispensary and it's a turnkey
dispensary there's money set aside to
help folks um so basically they're
giving you a business um already you set
up location everything and you are to
run the business with um loans of course
that you do have to pay back for zero percent but again these are all
proposed to change once we get the
comment period and people um you know
real disagree and maybe we might have to
make some changes so they're not really
sure of that just want to add that so
yeah just a question about that so um
there's two criteria can people like a
partner can there be a partnership form
a partnership where one has the
conviction perhaps the other one has had
the business are people able to do those
kind of partnerships
in order to make that happen
you can um yeah you can do that however
the person with the conviction had
passed with the business has to be 51
so you can do some partnerships however
the person has to have 51 percent
majority owned on the business
thank you and just to emphasize that one
point is that
the criteria for the conditional are
very different than the criteria for the
murder the um
the nine myrtle licenses so
again i just want to keep emphasizing
that i know there's some confusion out
there but um
to neverland's point they're those two
criteria you know is not found in murder
um the murder licenses they're found in
the conditional licenses
but the conditional licenses you've
already closed the public comment period
right so there really is no
ability to have additional public
comment on
that
those two criteria right that is correct
however we've just received it closed
may 31st so the attorneys have not
incorporated any of those possible
changes yet so we really can't speak on
it we just give me what's proposed but
we really can't speak on it once they do
that then we'll come out with the
finalized regulations and then that
would be the guidelines so may 31st was
the ending period but we are still
supposed to still get ready get set you
still need to get your conviction paid
there's certain things that you still
can't be doing right now to position
yourself so that you're ready when the
applications come out when you don't
mean there's certain things that you
have to show id you have to show um
proof of where you live so those kind of
things that you take time sometimes when
you're going to places to get
information so we want people to just
get ready get set and again it's an
opportunity for us to establish the
relationship because that's really
important the office of cannabis
management wants to adapt to a
relationship with the community so that
you know we could they have clear um
information right because we see a lot
of misinformation coming up so we want
to make sure that people have great and
clear information
any other questions from council members
mr palmany i have a couple questions
what's the 20
for education to be useful
um
that is a 40 breakdown
from the campus rather than going
towards education that's going to be um
in addition to
the regular state funding going towards
um schools
as far as are you asking like the
specific what what it would be used for
or no i was just curious what that
education component is if it's for
schools if it's for
it is for public service announcements
what's it used for um for schools but we
again i think waiting for the
regulations to maybe um iron that out a
bit more
would be
good in murder it does say that it's
going towards um
education funding it's similar to the
new york state lottery system where some
of those funds are also put into school
funding as well
but again it is in addition to the
regular state funding okay and the
second question is is there going to be
money
available to communities for from what
you receive
for
training in law enforcement for driving
under the influence because that
training is very specific it's very
expensive and that's going to be a
problem yeah and i
you know i think most people realize
unlike with alcohol with a breathalyzer
you know you blow into it there's
nothing equivalent to that when it comes
to cannabis you can't blow into
something and realize if someone um is
under the influence
um so we do have
drug recognition expert training and
that will be made available towards
local law enforcement and
state law enforcement as well
and we do want to help assist localities
in getting that training done
um
so so some of that will be available
um
again it's
you know i've been asked many times if
we're moving too quickly because we
don't have the equivalent of a
breathalyzer and we do have steps and
are working with law enforcement to make
sure they can properly test and identify
individuals who may be under the
influence of cannabis but that's what we
have there is a mandate in murder that
asks the office of cannabis management
to be on the lookout for new technology
that may allow individuals to detect
cannabis
or someone being under the influence so
it is an ongoing
technology that that we're looking for
but currently it does not exist so the
drug recognition experts or the dres
um are um is really the front line of
detecting individuals who may be under
the influence and driving and it is a
similar test to what you've you know
seen um
with individuals being tested for
alcohol whether it's walking or counting
and kind of touching your nose things
like that so
um there is training and funding will be
available to local law enforcement for
that and lastly how much this money is
going to be put towards
health care since
we know there's going to be
significant increases in respiratory
disease and other things that that
result from this we do have a robust
health outreach campaign you may have
seen some of our signs wrap around on
some buses around here or on billboards
we are reaching out to you know make
sure individuals understand the um
health risks associated with this what
steps to take
we have quite a bit of information on
our website as well
including you know making sure
individuals are
locking up these products when um
so their kids don't have access to them
and
the the health outreach campaign started
i think a month ago or so i want to say
and we are trying to get the word out of
the precautions that people need to take
when dealing with this
and a lot of research as well a lot of
research in terms of public health
outcomes it's a we have a robust public
health
component to this
to get a better understanding of what
the outcomes would be
we don't really know so there's a lot of
research money being put into research
for that as well
other questions
mr wings uh so first i'd like to say
thank you for being president and i
really appreciate having this
information and i'm uh
definitely looking forward to the social
equity component and how that's going to
benefit
communities that have been
disproportionately affected by this
i wanted to expand on your one comment
about the research that's been going
into the development of murda definitely
to council member paul means point we
want to make sure this is rolled out
appropriately so can you expand on some
of those considerations to research that
are being
taken to their account
to make sure that whatever product is
finalized accurately reflects the
governor's intent with this program
so
when i spoke about research sorry when i
spoke about research i was talking about
publics i don't think i understand your
question but i was talking about public
health so about um you know marijuana
and breastfeeding marijuana and
respiratory problems i was speaking
about this research we're looking
closely in terms of public health
outcomes um so i'm not really sure if um
if that is what you're asking or you're
asking a different question so as the
regulations and taxation act is being
finalized are you looking at how this is
functioned in other states or under
other countries or and then kind of
pinpointing the equity component
what other
elements have been considered to make
sure this like intently reflects the
aims well new york state is right now is
really the leader when it comes to
social equity a lot of other states have
um fumbled um you know we're gonna we're
trying to do this right um we're trying
to make sure that we're impacted people
who are we work that we're we're
bringing in people who are impacted on
war drugs we're trying to pull back
these businesses we're doing a great job
i believe of holding back big businesses
because we're not allowing them to come
in we're allowing um people who
again who don't have a lot of money i
think that um the application fee is two thousand
dollars proposed two thousand dollars in
new york state and other states two
hundred fifty thousand i mean a lot of
money so i think that in itself is
showing how new york state is trying to
do it different um we have got a lot of
criticism about the um criteria of
having a business but again that's
proposed we don't know if that will
change if it doesn't change um the
thinking behind that is that you know
you're giving someone um
a million dollar business and so you
want to make sure that you have a person
who has the business aptitude we know
that owning a business is not easy so we
want to make sure and these folks are um
really the industry's on their back it's
very important that these individuals
are successful right because they're
gonna they're gonna fund the industry um
we are you know we look definitely
looking at other states and see what
they did what they may have done wrong
so that we could do some you know to
make sure we do it differently um i
think the micro um the nine licenses but
the micro business license is really important because it allows but
not allowing any company to come in and
own it all right we're not allowing that
you only go on one license you might do
the micro business but it's on a smaller
much much smaller scale um anything else
um
murder does mandate that we work with
other states and reach out to them so we
have done outreach to other states and
we've certainly been reading um
what other states have gone through and
where they had to recalibrate
different aspects uh specifically and to
nevaline's point
with the conditional licensing system
with the cultivators and the
dispensaries we have the potential to
leapfrog virtually every state in the
country
when it comes to
providing assistance and actual
businesses to social equity candidates
one thing we've seen in illinois and
specifically in chicago
was
virtually every dispensary right now is
owned by what we call a multi-state
operator or mso and those are very large
corporations they're in virtually every
state that has legalized either
recreational or medical
cannabis and
they're able to again when the licenses
come up they have the resources the
lawyers the money to
grab onto those license very efficiently
as other people are attempting to figure
that out so with the conditional system
we have the potential of having more
social equity candidates owning a
dispensary than other states who've been
doing this for years um so that's just
one element of what we're trying to do
and again to your point for the roll out
myrta does um ask for 50
of the licenses to be given to social
equity candidates
and um so that's that's an automatic
built-in goal so so both of these
systems that we have
i think are very geared towards social
equity candidates again you know working
with other states we can see a lot of
the problems other states have had their
social equity programs are
built from the tax
revenue um and in order to get that tax
revenue they need dispensaries up and
running in order to get the dispensaries
up and running they go to the
multi-state operators the gigantic
companies to start funding the money
they will use for social equity
candidates we're doing this in reverse
we're using the conditional licensing
system
to start to feed money into the
new york state revenue fund and using
that fund to help with murder licenses
and we have the 200 million dollars set
aside um that governor hope will put in
her budget
um to help the conditional applicants
so i i think in a lot of ways you're
going to see us leapfrog other states
who have been doing this for years and
are nowhere near the social equity
numbers that we hope to have
by the end of the year
um so i
um yeah i think we're doing we have a
phenomenal plan which is built on the
issues we've seen in other states
thank you oh mr mayor and president i
don't think he gave the time
oh i was going to do that for the forum
yeah
so i think she did actually say it
though but um this coming wednesday for
the for audience members uh that will be
your opportunity to ask questions at
schenectady county public library right
here at 99 clinton from six starting at
6 00 pm 6 pm on time shots
sharp 6 pm sharp and then you'll have
your opportunity to um ask any questions
can you give them a website where um
if can they go just to cannabis.ny.gov
so if you have any uh if you want to do
some research before the meeting on
wednesday you can go to
cannabis.ny.gov and it'll give you any
updates at that time
i will say if you end up going to our
website under adult use tab you're going
to find a lot of faqs
and
it will help leapfrog you with a lot of
information you're going to jump ahead
of a lot of individuals we have faqs on
a lot of different topics subjects it
breaks it down very very well so
if you are interested in getting a
little bit more information
the faqs are very useful
so thank you for coming this way mr
ramsey we'll see you on wednesday
thank you
i would like to call government
operations together first item is
special assessment district board
appointments mr mayor
chairman you've uh submitted
six names your consideration it's been
the process
through the recommendation
uh
dan can you move that down again process
has been developed by dsic in terms of
recruiting
individuals with the experience skill
set
and vision to keep the
organization in downtown moving forward
that's your favorable consideration for
those names any questions
i don't have a question
there's a board member who's leaving who
i wanted to speak tonight um
i'm fine with that
please
thank you very much uh
city council members mr mayor thank you have been submitted some bios for
the four candidates that we hope you
approve we have a board of nine
therefore coming on we have chris
berrigan who's coming off who's been a
long time board member and we have
richard antipal coming off who's been a
long time board member what i just
wanted to do is just take one moment and
breathe a little life into the four that
we're proposing if you don't know them
already personally we have two with us
um andrea cordeloo
she has
crazy amounts of energy and an ability
to rally troops
during a luminosity this year
she had no problems with going into
businesses
and getting them motivated to
participate in
something that never existed before with
a very short amount of time to do it
so we want that sense of more community
downtown from business owners and the
apartment dwellers
andrea being with highbridge development
has the access to this and she certainly
has the energy enthusiasm and
personality so we would like her
consideration we also have phil wide up
who is here with us he's been at union
college for more than 15 years we're
blessed to have two
major schools downtown within the dsic
footprint no less
we want those young people
to become a bigger part of our community
and we want them here not only to learn
and leave but to stay and so in order to
do that we need to find more ways to
engage them through volunteering
internships and find out what what do
they want what do they want in their
city to
help stay so
phil we're hoping you can help us with
that
who is not here this evening is paul
ambrose with paul he really walks the
walk paul's building is down on broadway
and he really gets it he gets
the uh importance of continual upkeep
and beautification of the business
owner's property he's well traveled and
he has an appreciation and he's very
observant of what other cities are doing
with
urban beautification and also place
making he's passionate he wants it
downtown here and he wants to be a part
of it and the dsic wants to be a big
part of it as well
and then we have mitchell ramsey who is
there oh
hi mitch how are you snuck in there okay
so so mitch is really in tune with the
younger demographic of the city um
i was recently told that the j street
pub is now to the younger generation
what the manhattan exchange was to the
older people in town and she looked at
me right in the eye when she said
so mitch wants to bring new and creative
entertainment downtown that focuses more
on music not just bars not just
restaurants
he gets it we need more diverse
activities and interests uh he also has
a pet peeve for graffiti and oh we're
gonna go there mitch
so um those are the four that we were
hoping you would prove to come on board
but due respect to our retiring uh
richard and paul he just wanted to take
a moment and address the council if you
would please
um i'm here in support of the candidates
for sure
but what i'm also here about is to say
thank you i i've been on board
i think something over 21 years
and
there comes a time that enough is enough
and one should step aside and i'm at
that point
and i
said to the board you really need to
move on to a new group of people because
the people of my generation i think i'm
the last of them
on our board
in any event it's time to step away and
i really wanted to thank you and the
mayor and the mayor before that
um the support we've had from
this council
many of you are rather new here
but
the council itself is an entity has been
extremely supportive of the dsic for
many many years
uh we've played i think a very important
function in
i mean i've had a building down from 19
i don't remember 1970 something
uh until i retired and sold it not long
ago
and the change that has come about
is just so dramatic
and the dsic and there are other
agencies certainly metroplex in the city
in the county
and and there are other agencies who've
done a great deal
but uh
the dsic has been an integral player and
i'm very grateful for your support all
this time so thank you very much
thank you thank you for your service
thank you thank you any comments
just mr chen there's four new names but
there's actually six
whose terms are
six terms are up four new names and two
bulldogs
i just want to say that i had the
pleasure of serving on the board of dsic
until i was elected to city council and
needed to retire from the dsic and so i
served with both richard and chris for
several years and i just wanted to thank
you guys i mean so much progress was
made
has been made is being made all the time
by the dsic and certainly i know
the work and the effort that both of you
brought to the table
at the board meetings every month
and i just wanted to thank you for all
that service over all those years
that's it one more thing
this
and most of you know him
but as a retiring board member
i leave us
leave you with a comment
um
unless it's the times square corporation
which is the business improvement
district in manhattan at times square
unless it's the times square corporation
calling for him
you would be very foolish to let this
man
[Music]
thank you for your service mr ann
collins mr farrigan thank you
we have a motion to move these
appointments
government
oh i'm sorry i was working until my
operations yeah i was looking at it i'll
move it
second all in favor aye aye thank you
the next item is planning commission
appointments yes
as we go down through the uh the rewards
these vacancies or uh
any comments
second all in favor all right all right
we have a motion to adjourn
second all in favor aye aye aye
cult order finance committee the first
item is a 2022 budget amendment by
department chief
moreno good evening everyone
all right so we're here tonight uh to
make a proposal
um
when chief senator left an appointment
was made for chief
i was the assistant chief i moved up to
typically normally what would happen we
would have a list for assistance
potential citizenship candidates
and we would do interviews and they
would appoint someone to assistant
unfortunately
we do not have a list right now we
currently have requested
a uh
an exam that's going to be
given probably in december
and by the time that is
graded and certified
probably won't be until the beginning of
2023 the first quarter i'll open the
2023.
in the meantime all that work still
needs to go on so the proposal is to
make a
another an additional deputy chief that
would
take up some of those duties that the
assistant chief would
be handling because
that person is not going to be an
assistant chief
he would be deputy chief
in the first quarter when someone is
promoted to assistant chief there'd be
no need to make the deputy chief because
we're prematurely doing that
so that's the proposal
uh anthony will tell you it's um
it's financially it's uh it's uh budget
neutral uh what we're doing is taking uh
the balance of the
assistant fire chief salary and we're
creating the new
deputy fire chief so nothing will be
changing on that
any questions
just get into my intent to have the five
deputy chiefs
when we make the appointment for the
assistant chief we go back and abolish
one of the uh deputy chiefs
that's correct
second all in favor all right thank you
the next item is the amendment to the
2022 2023 action plan allocation
an adoption of the 2022 2023 final
annual action plan this year
good morning everyone um a couple weeks
ago we brought the annual action plan
for adoption
at that time we didn't have the final
numbers from hud
um
just last i believe wednesday or
thursday we got the final numbers
overall
we
saw probably about a five thousand
dollar decrease
um but it affects each pot of money
differently so with cdbg we went down
about five percent
for the home funding we went up a little
over 11
and for the emergency solutions grant we
went down about three percent
so the budget that we have here reflects
what we put in the public notice we
basically decreased the cdbg categories
proportionally um that's because we have
to stay within our public service cap
and administrative cap um so that's what
the budget reflects and we're here to
just adopt these amendments based on our
final allocation um from friends
questions
definitely
as a
new councilmember understanding the
amount of work that goes into making
sure the funds are dispersed
appropriately across the city is
definitely a tireless uh appreciate what
your office is doing one of the
questions i had was
as these funds are dispersed to their
specific
organizations or entities is there
auditing procedures to ensure that those
funds are used appropriately
yeah yeah so we have a program monitor
that actually works with the
organizations each year to monitor the
programs
we also get monitored by hud who comes
in and picks a select number of projects
usually each year that's going to be
happening in august um so there's a
number of different and then there's our
internal audit that happens through the
finance department
um so there's a number of different ways
that the funding is you know is is
sought over i don't know if you have
anything else to add dan
but
yeah pretty much you know every time
anybody sends a payment after we also
check in
we get verified that they
that's the one thing that's difficult
about the funds is that they're actually
they come with a lot of regulations you
know and so they're hard to spend as we
kind of see in different scenarios and
really we try to do our best to position
people and to provide updates to the
council when things change um you know
some projects are more complex than
others some things are programmed some
are more construction related so there's
a wide variation of the things that we
fund and we
[Music]
thank you
the next item is the amendment to the
cdbg contract with miracle on price
stream with dm
so this is um in relation to our
contract with miracle craigslist we have
ray frazier here tonight um from the
organization um just for a little
background um for some of our newer
members in the 2018-19 action plan we
allocated 150 000
to the marathon craig street project as
the former carver community center
and the organization has a use agreement
with the city that was executed and also
at the end of 2019 for the parcels here
um so far a lot of work has happened
it's been a slower process due to
probing and other you know delays with
things
but the electricity has been hooked up
to the property a feasibility study was
completed there was asbestos and lead
assessments and a lot of other work that
i'm sure ray can fill you in on um
as we're reevaluating how to continue to
move the project forward and some of the
difficulties with getting the original
scope was around the mechanical
electrical plumbing um i think we're at
this point we're looking to put some
funding towards architectural drawings
working with um tap i believe that's
official
um who's gonna come in and actually do
um architectural drawings we can get
updated updated class estimates on the
project
and they have other things that are in
their scope that i'll also
allow ray to speak on but this is just
an approval asking for approval from the
city council to extend our period of
performance with the contract with mayor
cole credit street
until july of 2023 and to amend the
budget to include um what has been
attached um
as as the scope of work to complete the
use of that funding
um so i'll turn it over to ray for
anything else you want to add or
uh just to kind of catch everyone up to
speed um for some of the new faces here
um
since 2015
we've been operating
strictly all volunteering and raising
funds on our own um funds that we raised
were from interfaith church grants um
gofundmes
um
also we got a grant from united way uh
which was directed specifically for by
poc organizations um and that's how
we've been able to fund our operating
budget uh and raise funds for our
capital budget um so
carver does have you know bills that we
have to pay every month
so those have been being taken care of
based off fundraising
um i'm sure you guys got the budget so
i'm just going to go down the list and
if you guys have any clarifying
questions feel free to ask
i do want to mention that uh two of our
board members are president we have uh
raishia turner who is our uh governing
chair and uh nick who is our board
secretary um i just couldn't make it too
short notice and we wanted to get on the
agenda as best possible so we go down
the list we have our
tap budget
which consists of
preliminary design municipal approvals
design development construction
documents
those documents will get us up to
standards to start the actual
construction phase
um as i said um
you know the condition of the building
and i encourage you know you guys to
come to a walk through just to see
um how far we've actually gone or we've
come
with just volunteer-based um labor it's
completely gutting we still have some
floors to rip up and some paint scraping
which we'll see that
we plan to hire seat center um as
volunteers for all these years is
incredibly overwhelming so we're in a
position where we need to you know hire
some help some professional help to
get us moving
um
we also have gotten three different
estimates for fencing
we've had a problem with um
parking and we need to close that off so
that we can start you know when we start
the construction and nothing's in the
way and we can protect the property
so the budget's there for that this was
a pina construction our opinion fenton
was the lowest
uh
bid so we decided to go with them as
opposed to the other two
uh
and then lastly we have
consultant work from rosa rivera now
consultant is just an umbrella work
she's really our in-house project
manager
and her duties consist of organizing and
managing a volunteer professional
construction renovation at carver
with community stakeholders
making purchases for construction
renovation supplies
we live in home depot
support development of capital expenses
budget and budget projections support
development of construction grants and
reporting networking interface with
construction project contractors
professional services and consultants
oversee current capital utilities and
systems use on site support community
engagement around construction project
support leadership development and
training of stakeholders and the
leadership of construction projects
so yeah our main focus right now is
construction so any funds that
you know we're going to spend is
for moving forward with construction
and i would just add that you know i
think getting the actual construction
documents and getting accurate cost
estimates is going to put the
organization in a better position to
you know get the additional funding
that's needed to complete the project i
think without those things it's really
difficult to move forward so
i think it's really important that they
take this step to
get that work completed to move the
project forward
so do you have a full board at this
point in time absolutely yeah so can can
this board organization
consultant be done in-house by the board
rather than paying someone that's a
great question no one knows this project
better derozan
no one um
and
it just makes sense for her to be
the site
operator or project or operator because
she knows the ins and outs you know it
would take a lot for it again
volunteering for so many years is
incredibly overwhelming
and you know it's
every organization has an insight
a project manager every single one it's
kind of unheard of to not have a paid
employee to take care of these things to
make sure that things are moving or
progressing in an appropriate manner
so we wouldn't feel comfortable with
anybody else but her because no one
knows the project best
or more i should say
when you're going to hire you're going
to hire prime contractors you're going
to hire a design
company you're going to hire
contractor they got to have people their
engineers also to see the projects
so why spending twenty nine thousand
dollars for someone to
tell these professionals what to do
well it's not really her telling them
what to do right
it's her assisting them because she
knows the project so any questions or
documents that need to be prepared and
any trainings that need to happen would
go through rosa right so again as i said
right now we don't have any funds to um
manage
the project or see the project correct
right so as i said i invite you please
come see it yourself to so i can speak
better to what i'm saying since 2015
it's been us completely volunteering
right and we've been able to raise
funds to
pay rosa to
keep us afloat
without her it's i don't know where
we've been
but like i said the building has been
completely gutted under her leadership
and we want to keep making headway on
that
is this person a board member currently
board member she's not
kenny
i don't think i distributed it as part
of this but if you want to see that i
can send it to you
go ahead please my question actually is
probably for um for you
um kristen
how does this particular position sl um
the money that this category this is
coming from does that fit under that
because i know that there's certain ways
we can spend money in other ways that we
cannot so i have some concerns around
that to make sure it is a public works
project and we do have an admin cap for
certain you know things um and dan would
probably
he kind of knows the guidance better i
don't think that it's if it's as long as
what we've said as long as it's directly
related to the management of the
construction
um it's something that is eligible
through
the public works funds um so as long as
it's that it can't pay for things
outside of that and we would you know we
would need the documentation in order to
pay
um
to pay any invoice we need you know the
things that show
well i was going to ask you you read
from
um you have all the other documentation
in front of it but we didn't have the
what you whatever you read in terms of
what the responsibilities for this
individual would do i think that's
important that the um we'll be able to
have that documentation to review
absolutely i did provide a contract and
i sent it over to kristin um and we can
listen since 2015 we provided everything
that has been asked of us and we have no
problem continuing to do that whatever
appropriate documentation needs to be
presented we have no problem doing that
but yeah he did send me the contract i
didn't know if he wanted me to send a
contract but because a lot of people
send us a lot of documents we don't
necessarily send everybody if that's
something you want so no i wasn't
i'm sorry
i wasn't asking for the contract but i
was asking for um just a list like the
duties that you scoped the work that
you'd be doing not not too necessarily
your entire contract and then wherever
it is but just how we have here we know
all this other stuff that's going to be
happening so under this particular piece
absolutely and i was reading from pretty
much the contract
it's okay it states all the duty that
she would be doing just so everything is
all organized and make sure we can send
that script along as well yeah
those are my questions
go ahead please
just a clarifying question so i
understand this if you were to pass out
a committee tonight
the cdbg funds that
are being supposed to be used what
funding year is that
what funding year what funding year 2018
19 19 from that year okay yes okay thank
you
any other questions
yeah i also have a concern about the
29 000 i understand rosa does an
incredible amount of work
but multiple times it's been stated that
it's a construction project manager
and
at least to my understanding
that's not what she does
uh
and to mr mutaveron's point it would
seem to make sense to maybe
hire
someone from maybe seat or somebody else
that could supervise the construction
management
you know it would be
cheaper
but also
someone with knowledge of construction
and that's not
meant as an insult to miss rivera she's
quite good at what she does but
i don't think she's a construction
person
yeah i think there is a construction
management would happen through tap once
the car once the project got funded um
you know we were talking about a similar
thing and from my understanding i think
it's also just some of the grant writing
and the things that need to happen to
get the funding for construction
that is a critical piece of this and i
think that
along with
you know the other things in the scope
that were provided um
so but yeah based on my understanding
there would be a construction manager
for the project it would most likely be
tap
yes
and then rosa's role is different from
that but still related to getting the
construction done absolutely again we
can send along you know um
exactly what she'll be doing so that you
guys can read it
but
as kristin just said there's going to be
a specific person dealing with no she's
not a construction expert
we are going to hire someone
specifically for that and
rosa's going to be working with them
so
go ahead please so where is that in the
budget
just so we can understand
so again it's not on the sheet of paper
that you have in front of you
but we will provide it i did send an
outline contract to kristin that states
all of
um rose's rules and responsibilities i
meant the construction manager person
that you were gonna you said you were
yeah so that was that was part that's
basically what you're seeing here from
the project manager for tap that's up
through the construction documents
um because once that's done we'll have
the cost estimate for the project and at
that point we would you know that's when
they would go out to bid and actually
get a construction manager on board it
would be
it would require additional funds
to move to that step um beyond the 100
000 that's currently um
that's currently left in this budget so
that that would you know we know that
once this part is done there needs to be
some fundraising and there needs to be
more money to construct the project and
at that point that's when
the construction management and
administration services would would kick
in once they're actually moving towards
construction
so so some of the description here on
the tab is almost similar to what you
just read to us
for the board organization consultant i
think it's very different are we
different yes i mean like design
development construction documents those
are things that we're going to be paying
for that people don't oversee
so i just mentioned that under you know
the responsibilities that rosa would
undertake and has been undertaking
her role is not that we wouldn't want to
spend money on two roles doing the same
thing right
so her role is co-managing
with tap
alongside
managing volunteer days
to continue gutting the building again i
encourage you to come walk through so we
can walk and talk so you can see all of
the progress that has been made thus far
without funding um well with just our
fundraising
you know um
but in order to get ahead we we have to
understand that this is a kind of an
untraditional project if you will right
um
it's a dilapidated uh community center
and we've been working on it since 2015.
we've attained ownership in 2019 and
then a pandemic hit which kind of set us
back
and then now we're back on track and
we've been able to
continue to progress but it's incredibly
difficult to continue to progress
without funding this is a multi-million
dollar project right and we're talking
about 100k right now
and especially with
a position i understand your concerns i
don't want you guys it's just
frustrating because we've been at this
thing
and volunteering is overwhelming and we
have one employee
just one in in-house site manager
um that we would love to keep because
like i said no one is more passionate no
one knows this project better than rosa
no
so no we don't want to hire anyone from
seat um to do that we would have to
teach them everything you know they
would have to relearn everything all
over again
um so it makes sense for her to be the
person continuing to take charge and to
work side by side with tech to make sure
that they have all the things that they
need to progress and bring the building
that's called and
progress with the construction
so again whatever you guys need we can
provide you with
hi i know good thank you how much money
has been raised so far in fundraising
you mentioned through facebook and
grants and other things
since 2015 a little over 100k
i can get you that exact number if you
would like but since 2015 a little was
over 100k and that's like i said solely
based off of fundraising sure and how
has that been spent
up until this point sure um it's been
spent with different community
organizations um there was a
construction group in
washington urban who helped us stuff the
building
also with
like i said we have utilities that we
have to pay for there is electricity in
the building so our operating budget has
to be taken care of landscaping and snow
removal so that we don't get fined
during so there's you know things that
we have to pay for you know the budget
doesn't mean the funds don't just stay
there you know what i mean right so um
yeah
thank you of
ahead please um
just to go back to um ms rivera's role
sure she has been employed by miracle
and craig right yeah i think and is the
29 000 her total salary or that's based
on a six-month contract so
that she was was had a higher salary
remember from previous years yeah
implementation so where does the rest of
the salary
come from i think did you get a grant
perhaps from a different organization
united way oh yeah okay so that's
helping to pay for rose's salary well
it's it did but so this would be a pay
cut honestly um
well it'd be six months like i said then
you wouldn't have to figure out how to
you know continue funding when we get to
that point but and just related to the
construction too
um but yeah it's definitely less yeah okay
yes
um so multi-million dollar project
that's big and so we might have put this
200 000 into it what's the
length of time
you plan you know on completing this and
that's very hard to say without funding
you know um i wish i could speak better
to it um barb couldn't be here it was
too short notice for her um but you know
she's the professional in terms of you
know construction and what it would take
to get a team in there right um but it's
hard to say without funding i understand
your passion for it yeah
that's
you know
i think cool um you know this this we're
looking at by the end of the year we
have the construction documents they're
put out you know we have cost estimates
and
you know we have a clear picture of what
is needed
um
and that's really the only point that we
can determine what's going to happen
from there and i think a lot of the
other funders that have been talked to
like the metroplex and the community one
fund they want to see that
before they make a commitment
so
this step
is critical
you know if it doesn't happen the
project doesn't doesn't move forward um
but i think that yeah they're very work
to do and
it's it's not an easy project it's
obviously going to take a lot of
continuous effort to get it done
um
so from the inception was this
individual
been getting paid
throughout the entire program say 2015
all the way to today
one more time i'm sorry
getting paid all the time from 2015 so
no she wasn't no she was only getting
paid once we raised funds um well
so it was a lot of volunteering yeah it
was a lot of volunteer work so we
weren't just raising funds to pay to
rosa so again we have an operating
budget that we have to take care of um
so yeah no
you mentioned united with funding came
from united way correct that didn't come
until later i believe 20 just 2019 or 20 19 yeah i believe i can get you that
day too
um
yeah no my concern isn't like i know i
can speak i think everybody wants to see
this project up and running and complete
as fast as possible but we just want to
make sure we have the right people to do
the right to work we don't want it to
fall apart my concern is that we should
give this to this
consultant work to the project
management tab and let them oversee this
work they are i'm sure they're going to
put people with experience
who has the knowledge in engineering
construction to carry out to make sure
this project is successful
so i understand what you're saying i
feel like there's a clear
misunderstanding
on rose's role she's not going to be in
there
working with so you have to understand
when we hire a project manager right so
when we hire tap on
tap is going to need to be in direct
contact with someone who knows the
project
and who can make decisions on behalf of
the organization exactly in terms of
really anything that happens so we're
talking more time and more commitment
um
we're a board but again there's no one
who is
who has committed more than roseanne who
knows the project more in addition to
that we are still doing volunteer-based
work in the building so we are literally
prepping the building in safe spaces
where we can have community members in
the building continuously prepping the
building for construction so that we can
save on costs who who's organizing that
rosa
that's just one of many things that
she's doing you know like i said we've
been at this for six seven years now
and
it's a lot of time and commitment and
rosa is the sole person who has been
dedicated and committed to
getting us to a point where we're ready
to have this uh to
have the building being worked on
constructively
so you're telling us that rosa is not
currently a member of the board she is
not currently
she resigned so she was the executive
director in the past
and and now they because they the lack
of funding they don't that they don't
currently you don't currently have
that right so the board is kind of
operating to make decisions
and they're trying to
you know consult with rosa to
oversee
um
correct and she can't play both of those
positions right so we have to be ethical
about the decisions that we're making
into your point um
again someone who's going to work with
the construction company has to be able
to make decisions
um
for the board and has to be readily
available to do these things
um
but again
the two roles are very very different i
don't know how much more clear i can be
on that
i mean you guys know us right
you guys we're you know who we are we've
been very familiar
our question here is not to be like anti
against this project we want the best we
have seen over the last five six years
seven years the struggle to get this
project where it's coming and
funding is not available we have the
funding here we can't spend it and here
we are making accommodation to spend the
fun
but there are some line items that are
questionable
and then they are not cute they are
supporting documents that was not
provided to us
so i don't know if we can
i'm inclined to hold it unless the
finance committee wants to provide
i'm inclined to hold this until you
receive all the other documents i can i
can send you what you asked like tonight
if you know
i mean it's really just the scope that
ray read
i just i think there's too many
questions and it'd be nice to get the
information and go through it and
hash this out once and for all to make
sure we can move forward and make sure
the project is successful
and and get it headed in
a
more
steep trajectory of getting completed so
i would be in favor of waiting on this
yeah go ahead please
so i hope my silence hasn't been like
off-putting just listening and making
sure i have
each of the fellow council members kind
of perspective
definitely i would agree absent having
uh just a document in front of us
a lot of words are getting thrown around
so i definitely understand wanting to
have something on paper would help be
able to differentiate between
uh what is the position or
responsibilities of a project manager
through tech and like you're mentioning
how there are differences with rose's
role with this project so definitely
having the contract but then also um mr
munibrand was mentioning having the
additional time to allow members to come
out and see the project and have a
hands-on understanding of the the work
and magnitude of what's been coming on i
think that'll put everything into
perspective so
i think having the document the contract
uh allowing the members the time to work
through it and then also uh challenging
us to come out and see work
yeah so please uh provide the documents
not requested and we can register two
weeks
so i would um you know the challenge
part i like that
i do i do because you know we've been
challenged since 2015 to provide thing
after thing after thing um you know
which makes sense you know you guys want
to see this happen um
so we would love to see you guys come
and see all the hard work that has been
happening because it's incredibly
daunting for us to continue to show up
right and then to we have to kind of
wait you know it almost feels like you
kind of don't trust us you know i
understand having supporting documents
and we can give you whatever you guys
need as we always have um
but you know i've only seen uh miss
porterfield and mr carl williams come
out and actually see physically the work
that has been done so i understand how
it could be difficult for you to
understand all the work that has been
going into it and
the lack of understanding of rosa's role
without really seeing
the project physically or coming out to
one of the renovation saturdays that we
hold every single saturday um
of the month aside from winter um
so yeah please come out and show us that
you you know would like to see this
thing and i don't mean to be aggressive
or anything i'm just passionate you know
what i mean um i'm from hamilton hill
you know we've been here for six seven
years and we're still presenting and
we're still showing up for community uh
as they continue to show it for us so
you know we just really look forward to
you know continuing support
so can you email some of the dates that
the center is open to the entire console
and we can try our best so thank you at
the time
i'll send it to you please send it to us
to be there surely so i just want to be
clear it's really it's not about us not
trusting but we have to be accountable
to the people who give us the money for
how we're spending the money so
we have to ask those questions so we
have to be able to answer so we have to
get the answers from you understood and
you'll get it okay okay all right
because i'm a fan of the project as you
know i do know
any other questions comments all right
so we'll get the information and we'll
have this back in two weeks
so i'm sorry what was the time frame
once we get the information
we'll come back we'll come back to the
next committee meeting in two weeks
thank you
the next item is the 202 budget and
position reappropriation department of
development
mr ferrari
also president city council mayor uh
you know the city finance department in
the 22 budget had a
position of administrative assistant
but during uh during the year that
person has uh has
gone back to her previous job
and as our department reviewing the
needs that we have we
realized what we really needed was an
accountant or junior yeah
i think we're doing the um i think oh
please do it oh department i'm sorry
good
again
the city development department
kristen's here uh you know the the department itself
lost uh two positions uh housing uh
person uh person and uh the zombie
administrator who uh who was uh with a
grant avi
so uh as you know the projects that the
development department is uh coming up
with uh you know what's happening on
crane street in mount pleasant and all
the areas uh it came to
talking with kristen that she would love
to get an additional assistant planner
to help complete these tests uh once
again this is a a budget neutral effect
we take the part-time salary uh
the person who had left
and her budget and now it's more than
enough to help the assistant planner for
the rest of the year
uh if you have any questions so you can
ask
kristin
so this part-time seasonal salary is
from the department of development yes
dear genter who worked with us for
probably over 40 years she retired a
couple months ago okay um so that was definitely lost to the
department
and we did have an assistant planner
previously i believe she left the position in 2019 and we
never filled it
um so this would just be really helpful
with the things that are coming up and
what we're doing go ahead please um so
which is a civil service position it
and
follow up is there already someone in
mind or do you have
will this be a position that has to be
advertised this would be it will be
posted okay yeah
thank you
any other questions
go ahead please and then you said this
has been vacant since 2019 yes
you have questions
may i have a motion to move this remove
bit
all in favor
the next item is the 2022 budget and
position reproduction finance department
thank you again i'm sorry for the
inconvenience of speaking earlier again
uh as our department uh we realized that
what we really need for a position as an
accountant uh again uh the
administrative assistant only lasted a
you know uh a few months and so there's
available budget about over 42 thousand
uh we were going to go out advertise for
an accountant but hopefully we can get
one uh we're thinking right at the
school year a lot of graduates or we're
hoping to grab one from the from the
pool of graduates uh we will be uh
posting uh for again this will be budget
neutral
and
we're hoping that to get a good person
in that position
yeah and just as a reminder please when you're posting this position please
copy the console so yes
and we're going to be doing that more
often now yeah
go ahead please um so the
salary for the accountant of
42 578 is because we're six months in
yes but in a 2023 budget it would be
double that probably no uh we're looking
at the probably uh between 56 and 60
probably in 2023 okay
yep
any other questions
comments
may have a motion on this
section all in favor aye thank you very
much
the next item is a 22 golf budget
amendment and
so what we have is a budget amendment
for the golf course uh several months
ago we awarded the construction of a new
maintenance building at the golf course
we did a budget amendment to increase
the budget when we awarded that project
this is as you can see uh we've made
some
uh changes some change orders here as
you see we
put in a bigger overhead door we
insulated a couple of doors we decided
to
line the ceilings with these ceiling
liner panels uh something that we didn't
think of as that
we lined the heated side but the
non-heated side but at the maintenance
garages we tend to leave the doors open
and if birds were to get into the
non-heated side they could get all the
way into the heated side and roost in
the in the rafters so we decided to
put panels there to prevent any roosting
of birds we also double the insulation
and and put some hardier partition walls
up just some plywood and things so the
total of all those change orders you see
is 14 000
in addition you might wonder where the difference is because we're asking
for 45
um we are also looking to have our
electricians
do the electrical service so what we
awarded was a building if you were to go
there the building is a shell
we actually have plumbing stubbed to it
but it doesn't have power yet we have
power at the facility but just not to
the building
our city electricians are
licensed and capable of doing all this
work they have started some but to
actually buy the panels the led lights
the outlet boxes and things like that
we need to appropriate the money over
it's something we didn't anticipate we
have a pretty healthy reserve in our
capital project
so we're saving a lot of money in labor
so this money will be put into
essentially a supply line where then
we'll build and they'll go to one of the
local stores and we'll buy the supplies
to put into the building and something
that we'll do over the course of the
summer
so this is going to be done in house
the electrical work is going to be done
in-house uh with the exception of the
connection which we're going to work
with national grid on and then the
change orders that is with the
contractor um and and they'll be he'll
be installing all those things actually
a lot of them are ordered and ready this
is just and you know
it's just difficult because we keep
you know you've seen our operating
budget we keep our operating budget um i
would say then you know we put in there
what we need we don't put in there a lot
of fluff we do keep money in our capital
reserves and in our others uh so when we
need access to that money
you see me okay
so it's transparent i guess in a way
that you know we do that but
any other questions
may i have a motion
all in favor all right hi thank you
i have a motion to adjourn
all in favor all right
so i'd like to call to order the public
safety clinic we have two items on our
agenda for tonight the first one is a cr
about gun violence awareness month
that's by myself
uh definitely it's a saddening time
throughout the country and globally
where gun violence is something that's
becoming more rampant throughout our
communities i think it's important for
us to intentionally recognize
that this issue is going to require
active engagement from our communities
and also recognizing the steps that our
community individually has been making
to
actively work to make sure we're
protecting the safety of not only our
students and our high schools and
our other academic institutions but also
making sure that we're recognizing the anguish that exists outside the
city's connectivity and also talk to uh
some of the power that's required
um of individuals to pick up their very
good platforms
and and use their voices for good so
i think i was getting too preachy at the
end um
but definitely it doesn't take someone
very very hard or long to recognize the attachments to why gun
violence needs to be addressed i know we
are at the local stage and i'm not
proposing that i'm not promoting that we
try and
reach out to the state legislators but i
think as a community we need to send a
powerful message that this is something
that is
not going to be tolerated in our
communities and that we need to be
together as well
so is there any questions
i'll move this
a second
the second agenda item is a grant award
for the community trust building
conversations that's going to be
discussed by acc
we're going to make a nice opportunity
to form with brian
here to ask you guys to accept a grant
from dcjs the amount of twenty one
thousand five hundred dollars
we will reach uh dc js reach out process
a few months ago and asked us that we'd
be part of a pilot program
for community trust building
right now we have two procedural justice
master instructors in our department
they took place
through some virtual trust building
throughout different communities
throughout the state and now they want
to bring it to communities so we were
chosen as well as utica
so they are paying
for members of the community as well as
for the backfilling for officers and
for a location to host the events that
be closed off to the public
the finn institute will be there to
document
the conversation that they have and to
evaluate how the conversations are going
and
then report will be generated
thank you any questions
how many offices will be involved in
this up to eight officers um
i believe they are
i know that we have the kind of master's
overseeing
from the police side
and as well as attending antinovic
and then i believe there's six
actual officers taking part in the
conversations
so that's who the eight attendees are
yes
so the public
is this to create uh trust with the
public so there's public attendees as
well yes there's there's gonna be eight
from there there's something what we're
seeing from the public side and then um
there's community members that uh we
were selected already um that would be
taking part in that well then that's
kind of my question so how were because
this is the first i've heard of it so
how were um community members chosen to
be a part of this so julia holcomb is
the person that was chosen from the
community
um i don't know how she was selected um
and then she was reaching out to members
of the community
so i
was not part of that okay
and how many members from the community
as well
i i guess maybe this answers my question
i'm not sure so i see so there's eight
officers eight community members
which i think is kind of a low amount
really but um for a time of community
conversation that you want to achieve
i thought that was a low amount for
trying to achieve a community community
conversation however um that's the
number that you know that you've chosen
how many people have yeah
20 attendees how do you account for the
food
how do we count for them
i understand that it says eight maybe 16
eight officers eight people 20 attendees
for the food oh sorry we're just trying
to figure that out be personal so okay
so so there's two other people from the
financial sixties okay i'm sorry that's
all yeah that's why i wanted that
if the council president wanted to
attend
i wasn't invited clearly they knew who
they wanted in the room
i'll make a call for you
are there any questions
well i think it's i think it's fantastic
that we were selected by uh by the
organization and that we're getting the
grant um it certainly was part of our
reform and reinvention process to
be doing what we could
to
look at how we can
develop trust so the fact that this is
going to be a little bit of a pilot
research study will help pave the way
for those later conversations
um that we also have included in the
reform so i congratulate the department
on another
grant
as well as being selected so we're
excited to get started with it okay good
job all right just wanna start any
questions and have a motion solo second
favorite
unless there are any other items that
fall before public safety and utilities committee service
services
first
agenda is
the award of municipal water
supply well project
i don't see mr lafon he uh unfortunately
has a tested positive for coleman
this
is an upgrade of our wells or some of
them are at the
end of their useful life
went out for bids for
three new wells
which is the
million three
that's before you
and
it's also an error in the second sheet
for the alternative one which is listed
it's actually twenty one thousand
dollars on the one side that says it's
21 million dollars
that
is decommission the old wells when we
take those out of service
we've worked with this company before
it's a highly specialized area
and
recommending the council that uh improve
it and move ahead with this project
any questions or comments
this policy so i understand that we just
had this one company bid on this
particular although other companies did
download the um
looked at it again it's highly
specialized work they've
done work here before so
uh
they don't say it too loud but they came
in under what our in-house
estimates were for costs so uh
any other questions comments
i have a motion i'll move it
second
motion to adjourn all in favor aye aye
now i'd like a motion to address that
second
almost favor
i'd like to call the order of city
development and planning we have 12
items on the agenda
the first item award bid and contract
for the 2022 schenectady tips paving
program
mr wall
so the first one is like we said warping
contract 2022 paving uh my apologies for
getting it to be filled now but i wanted
to get something together that's also uh
to give a summary of what we've been
doing because to someone in schenectady
they may wonder how we're awarding the
paving program we've been paying them
all year
so what we've been doing is this is a
list of all the paving that we were
wrapping up this year because our paving
program went out late last year so as
you see uh we've already done almost
seven and a half miles of road this year
we have also started
actually we're starting next week what
we're calling the cdbg paving program
which is the list here
these are cgpg fun page roads
which is a mile these are specific to
our focused neighborhoods primarily
around hamilton hill
so this project will be getting started
in june and then the project which we
are actually looking to award today is
actually the third sheet which says 2022
chips program
which is five miles um five miles for
similar amount of money
prices have gone up for asphalt also a
big chunk of this one is eastern
which is a long road um we estimates did
come in where we thought they would
and we are comfortable with the number
that we got the contractor is the same
contractor that was working
on our 2021 project in the city of
schenectady um we also had a second bid
from callan and kalanine is doing a lot
of our federal work right now so you
will see
at kalani
not wendell you'll see counting in
around city hall callanan was on
broadway and broadway roosevelt and city
hall they are not included in these
lists because
it's just another project and it's
another list so we have a lot going on
in the city right now
um the big project i know we've been
getting a lot of complaints on it was a
ten night for 2022 and we are
looking to do uh
tennis
in mount pleasant that is a main side
street i would call it the problem with
tennie is it's one of those streets
where not many people live on it goes through and everybody lives on
the cross streets so it's always kind of
been neglected
but national grid has been in there we
have had a lot of complaints about the
condition of tenik so that is on there i
know that some people will be happy
about that
and in addition we have other streets
that we are working on we're doing them
separately again
so i'll just give you a heads up we are
looking to put a contract out in the
next month
to rip up and replace all of the
concrete near the michigan avenue
baseball field
[Music]
that interchange is falling apart we are
contemplating with the cost of asphalt
if we put concrete back or not so we're
doing a little cost benefit similarly
over by grandview concrete
on altima
we have a section there that is in bad
chase
we're
looking at that section and then we are
looking at doing a slight road widening
at gulf road and route seven
um because if you're familiar with gulf
road route 7 right by the babe ruth
field it is essentially one and a half
lanes wide depending on where a car goes
so we're working with the dlt and making
it officially two lanes a straight left
and a right we really think that's going
to improve traffic flow
to have that there so that's going to be
another contract that's coming
this is a little bit more vanilla we did
not want to
kind of mix up a large project with a
mill and fill project but i just wanted
to give you a heads up that that is
coming as well
so
is there any questions i
you know feel free to ask um this
project is all chips money chips is our
state assisted money you'll be hearing
about it a little bit because we got a
little bit more chips money so we really
need to start drawing down on that
because we are
we have quite a bit of it so we do have
the funding to pay for this and the
other projects and
we did we're in a good spot i think mr
baldwin uh chris this is related to
something you said not necessarily this
project with the cement projects
um if you remember when they did part of
the crosstown group seven they had
pre-poured
this last slab
is that something that we could do and
maybe it'd be a little bit more cost
effective
i haven't seen it done much with the
prequel i mean whenever we're doing it
i have seen it done we were looking at a
raised intersection in a couple areas
where they do put panels in to save time
with that but i haven't seen it done
with roads because they now make very
efficient actual concrete machines to
pour roads where the trucks come and do
it i'm not saying it can't be done
but uh usually you're they're poured in
place or they're whether that but for sections yes i have seen panels and
we were looking at doing that that's why
just like brandywine avenue um we put
that out to bid if anybody was wondering
whatever happened to brandywine avenue
that's been you know kind of out there
for a while we put it out to bid and it
came in over almost 100 of the budget
and a lot of that was the precast panels
and everything associated with a raised
intersection so we're going to try
moving forward with that as an alternate
because
at the time race intersections were kind
of something that everybody was like you
know how does this work and they're
found to be effective but not half a
million dollars effective there's other
things that we can do that are better
for taxpayer dollars so we'll be doing
that but i'll look into it but we're
really trying you know the mayor and i
have had a conversation about where that
tipping point is with asphalt and and
concrete roadways there's plenty of
studies out there
yeah and the problem with the roadways
that we have right now they're older and
they're hard to patch we just look at it
each
hole that you see would need to be saw
cut into a square
and then repaired and then there's
cracks and so we went started we just
said you know what we've gotten our
money out of this road but especially
the michigan ave intersection i mean we
get a lot of cars that come through
there every day and we really need to
you know put our best foot forward on
that one but that's not this this is big
with the road
unless i get my project screwed up here
uh with the road that you said you were
going to tear up
uh have you looked at the numbers for
making that cement instead of asphalt
which road the one i don't remember you
went through so much michigan
because yeah those are their sections
they're high volume um especially
michigan probably not ultimate when we
get to it because altamonte is just such
a simple straight line shot
um but with the michigan one definitely
a lot of turning movements a lot of
trucks well we're definitely gonna we'll
reconsider what we're doing there
so this is the this is the pavement
program here i just wanted to give
everybody all the information
any other questions
so i know previously uh you mentioned
that you're unfortunately at the expense
of having managers so having enough
engineers to facilitate these projects i
know for me before getting on the
council you would assume it's funding
but i know your office does really well
at acquiring grants is there ever a
position where you get to the end of the
fiscal year you have to return money or
do you project that you'll be able to
spend down um the chips money that we
can do so the chips money rolls over
okay so
we're we're fortunate in that um but
what ended up happening was during covid
we actually got some of our money but we
weren't really spending it so we ended
up with a little bit more than we would
have so now we have it and also as
you've awarded before we're getting this
touring wrap money which is the second
year of that so uh no i mean what i am
doing is you know i am using chips money
for
many more things than i've ever used it
before i have now
we're doing designs for
maybe almost a dozen different roadway
areas we're doing signal replacement
designs roadway designs and we're using
chips money to pay for all that because
it's eligible
and so um for instance this interest
this interjection while we were out
there at hamburg and um altima you know
kind of by that pizza shore and the
point of auto repair
the signal is terrible you know and it
was like you know what if we're going to
be here so separately looking at the
signal which is chip's electricity you
know so we're going to do is it can be
done separately but we're going to do
the signal because if anybody's driving
up broadway and guilderland we did that
intersection over and it's been really
successful and that hamburg intersection
is very similar in geometry to that so
we're going to look at replacing all
that there's you get to the point where
the auto storage you'll notice that you
actually can't cross
it's just there's just a point and then
you're just supposed to cross on your
own so we're going to make that so you
can actually cross flip the pet heads
there but that's all in design so yeah
we're
we are using the chips money as fast as
the staff can and we're also paying a
lot of consultants and we have you know
we're using consultants to supervise
this so we have a consultant
all day when the consult when they're
out there looking at each one you know
they're taking slips they're making sure
the projects are getting built to spec
if there's questions they're calling and
then my assistant's going out to meet
with them or with mike cerrone or paul
so there is a lot of coordination going
on and all that is chip's eligible
thank you green
since you're talking about that also you
might want to mention francis and willit
was down there
with that intersection oh the
intersection the intersection
yeah great project
okay so like we can go on about this all
day
francis and that that intersection was
one of our best projects we got rid of a
just completely obsolete intersection
that had no business being in a
neighborhood we removed almost 40
percent of asphalt we increased our
grass and what we are doing is we're
working with another consultant on chips
and we are as part of the craig maine
kind of overall plan for mount pleasant
we're now looking at uh forest in maine
and forest and holland because those are
similar very large odd intersections
near a school so we're looking to narrow
those up as well yeah we really think
that forest is yeah and what with the timing of couldn't have been better
because i am nervous about when the
bridge is completed
um the speeds on the bridge
prior to it being repaired were high
and so we are concerned about that
bridge being
you know fast and so having that stop
sign there and that hopefully that helps
to slow but
that bridge is very long and very
straight and you know people like to ride on
any other questions or comments
second all those in favor
all right thank you uh the next uh item
number two transportation uh new york
city d.o.t to pave our potholes yay
program funding mr wellington sure so
this is a new program i believe booked
by the governor called pop favor
potholes it is a additional allocation
of state money that will go into our
trips account
so it is
no different than emergency winter
recovery paid new york or the new york
state touring money it is just the
latest acronym
so this will go into our pot of money to
go for our projects
and um you know we welcome any new money
that we get
any questions i'll move this second all
those in favor
and uh the right amount you've done a
discussion of north college street um
i hope everybody had a chance to kind of
look at this a little bit i would really
like this to be a discussion so that can
lead to an action item
um i've been working a lot with mr
palmini and the neighborhood
specifically diane runkle who lives on
the block who's organizing everything
i did not have time to include this but
she did send it to me i made enough
copies for everybody which is you know
their petition which is really the first
start and andrew i don't know if you had
time to
review everything but uh you know that's
really the first part of it is the
petition of the residence and she has on
here you know
the percentages the church
is the former church and the historic is
the historic society museum that exists
so
the issue with those two particular
properties and why she has those
highlighted is that
the church and the historic society have
sidewalks that are compliant
the church itself actually has a nice
curb and a sidewalk um
so
they aren't interested in paying
to have their sidewalks replaced because
they have sidewalks that are in good
shape
however in order to successfully
complete the project to the level that i
think everybody at this table wants to
see
i do think it's going to be necessary to
take out at least the churches because
it is extremely high compared to the
notes of the road because they built up
when we're probably going to take the
road down
and so the two action items that i kind
of wanted to discuss with you
is one
the possibility of
setting this program up similarly we
have in the past which is
at a rate
and not based off of market value
and second
that we would be okay with in principle
the city
um bearing the cost of replacement of
that compliant particular sidewalk
so that we can do the project uniformly
so i included in here to camp avenue
it's the last page to camp in hartsley
we did them similarly but the camp is
more closer in a project
to north college because it was with
curb
um and what you'll see is you know we
set a price we said it was 55 44
uniformly applied it now i'm not saying
we set the price at 55.44 this was a
couple years ago and i know everyone's
aware there's inflation and costs but i
think it would be better for
the residents
and for us pushing it if we were to
set a number
and this i hate to use the subsidy
program but essentially be is these
neighbors and these residents of the
street are willing to put forward this
amount of money as degree and then the
city will you know i've already you know
we pay for the curb already we pay for
the pavement already um the only part
that i included that gets a little
complicated is as you see in some of
yours the you know behind the curving
behind the sidewalk i'm sorry and some
of the other areas
this is a very complex project but i
know that not only the residents but the
members of the stockade association are
very interested in seeing you know this
is their stockade streetscape plan
really interested in seeing this being
their first
uh step at it
so
questions comments how we can how we can
sexually do this
um
so um miss brunkel has been working on
this
very diligently for quite a long time
because of the complexity of the project
as mr wallins spoken about it has taken
a long time um
i would the stockade association is very
much in favor of this i'm sure they'll
be out
at a meeting to speak in favor
um
but i would encourage us to try to move
forward with this
we have set aside
a chunk of money i believe there's
several hundred thousand dollars 550 000
left in the program left in that program
it would enable us to do this
and to mr long's point i think it would
be
beneficial to set a
price and
perhaps a proportion of what the prices
were
when we did parsley and those
and we can get that percentage and do
similar for
these individuals because the road was
just paved it looks beautiful it gets a
lot of pedestrian it was not we did not
pave this particular block yet oh all
right we actually stopped okay because
we didn't want to pave it and then rip
it off right it does get a lot of it
does get a lot of pedestrian
usage um and it is a
actually a very key component of the
walkability of the stockade association
believes this is one of their most
traversed by pedestrian corridors
because it is the gateway from union and
then people trying to get to the parks
and so this is the route you would take
i don't know the situation that led to
it but the second block has been done uh
it is in much different condition than
the first block but the first block is
i guess the word would be like a
potpourri of different things it is you
know era of houses setbacks uh curb
reveals and it is not the camp it is not parsley it
is a unique beast unto itself which is
why you know i think you know if we
could set that value and then understand
that it's going to that target's going
to move a little bit as we go to try to
get the the product to look like what we
want it to look like i don't think this
is something where we want it to look
like quilt work necessarily
leaving things
because it is such a gateway
and i would have to work with the
stockade association
and the residents about
just how the street is going to be put
together when we do it there's some
options that we have which would be you
know do we try to
limit the green space and increase the
width do we want to
keep the width and hold the green space
and there's some of the pictures i have
here you know there's trash cans there's
a lot of
it's an urban stockade it's a little bit
different it's very much different than
the other projects that we've done in
the past
um would this require taking any trees
down
yes there would be what the trees that
are coming those trees that you see in
this picture obviously
so these trees right now as it's
currently constituted will not have to
come down
this tree most likely and then all of
the trees on the other side we would
take down but those property owners are
asking us to take them all down because
all the sidewalks are i'm not
recommending you put any trees
on
the odd side of the street the side
opposite uh
i don't want to say it i think it was
the south side just because there's
utility lines that run right above it
the trees are growing right into it and
the sidewalks are all pitched so if we
were to do it i would
the reason i can't push the road that
way though is where the utility lines
are so
i'm not really looking out on anything
when we when we build it but if trees
are desired we're going to try to leave
those trees those aren't affecting
anything but there are some trees that
are very much affecting what's going on
down there all right is this the type of
place
no that one i'm going to try to work
with
um because in this one they left
no this one this one's very new when
they did it but this one they left this
buffer so i would be hoping that i could
make upgrade in this buffer the church
one which i don't know it's a very nice
looking brand new sidewalk
they ramped up
and i understand what they were doing
but yeah this is it right here you can
see so what happens is they actually
ramp up oh i see that and by ramping
up
they have six inches reveal over how the
road is if i were to keep this reveal
all the way around the road on the south
side of the street the odd side of the
street the curve would be higher than
the first step
and i would pitch water back to the
homeless
so what i need to do is take the road
down
so that i can have a minimum curb reveal
and if i do that the chance is i'm gonna
have a 10 inch reveal here and we don't
want that whereas out here see i don't
have any reveal i could make that work i
believe
but i'm probably this road has already
been scanned as part of the gis program
that i did so we're probably going to
have to work with that it's like a 3d
survey
because
it's kind of a nightmare you know like
we have steps and we have drives
you know landings that we have hit we
have to hit all these things but i guess
i will deal with the nightmare
if we can come to some agreement of you
know how we're actually going to go
forward you know i've kind of worked
with john and diane and we've gotten to
a point where now we need your support
of not only the project but of you know
the percentages that we have and uh you
know i can work on this and we can even
do the public hearing and get people's
input
but i don't want to go any farther
without the support of the council
are there any questions
so just some clarity so we said uh the
four highlighted in yellow are we saying
that the church and the other buildings
and one of the city of property
are you going to redo all four of these
or it's just that you're going to do a
man
so
down here the vacant lot of the holes is
it the old charge
the cottage rose what's that
oh
i'm not 18 and 16. so the old church in
the vacant church lot those are those
are the ones that we would have to take
out those are the high ones and they're
wrong in an old church because it's no
longer a church it's a stained glass
company i believe
and then the american society one that
was the other one but that one we would
try to leave i mean i would it'll it'll
pain me in the
some of my head or add you to have a
different color because the stock cave
moved to a standard where now they want
this like dark slate color
but if i can make it work it's such a
nice piece and it's there or the trees
that you know i i wouldn't say so we're
going to keep the
i right now the idea is everything goes
but the american decor historical
society
and everything else would but we have to
uh from the entire cause for the other
three for the only for that cottage
rover it's just copper
okay
because they have a newer curb they made
the investment i mean it's not you know
we have
500 some thousand dollars in there it's
nothing and then remember
the 500 000 i'm using that only for the
sidewalks
so if you were to look at my estimate
you know we are talking about
roughly let's say
120 000
out of that that's the max and then the
curve and the
asphalt and all that that comes out of
my paving program
you know i'm not putting that out of the
sidewalk because we actually have
almost three other streets that are
looking to entertain this program so we
do have some money for them as well and
then when we get to a level we might
have to come back and
rebond for more we're not there yet but
if it goes forward
sorry
yeah you talk about the reduced price
in terms of setting one at a standard
price and not what is
the estimate
what's the and you're looking at what
you mean but it's also big bidding
and a price that comes back from the
contractor you're asking us to take a
portion of that
in-house
i'm asking that if we were to
almost set you could set the price today
i could give you an estimate based off
of some of the numbers i have because
we're doing a lot of work right now
and we would say that this is the number
that we're comfortable with this is a
number that the neighborhood's
comfortable with maybe it's not 55 maybe
it's 65 and that number works out and
tell everybody and then whatever the
bids come back and they come back in and
we do the work and we don't we don't go
okay well you owe us 20 more because the
bid came in higher we just use it as
some kind of a subsidy some of the
models used before where
the city just made up the difference
where the numbers
and i was getting there because uh we
had the problem and we subsidized
portion of this it was not sell
correctly across the city people were
complaining about why am i paying for
the camp taxpayer paid for the camp or
parsley
those residents should bear the entire
cause
yeah
i'm not an elected official my argument
always is that these are residents that
are putting skin in the game
you know i mean this is not this is not
free you know if they were to put it in
this is this you know sixty five dollars
times forty feet you know it's what is
that twenty three hundred out you know
that we're we're not giving things away
but we're trying to subsidize to try to
make the program work and you know mr
palmini's been working on this for years
we've been trying to come up with some
way to improve our sidewalks so that is
it i mean
prior to mayor mccarthy's administration
remember it was a lottery you know like
for instance
wright avenue got all brand new
sidewalks for free and to camp where i
am we'd pay you know i get an assessment
every year so how did that get decided i
just wanted new sidewalks and it seemed
like a good program because it was done
uniformly
um but i understand that from from that
but that's what
yeah
well no i
so when um i think i think that's the
old holy cross church and countertrove
whatever so when they went ahead and did
their sidewalks i'm assuming they had a
permit and
why didn't someone at that point just
wanted to know that
so i don't know when they when they did
it now number one is that the current
owner didn't do it so i can't ask them
the church did it but what they did is
they put in the curb and they put in the
sidewalks per our plan based off the
road but they didn't do it based off
across the street
you know they didn't do it based off of
anything else so
i think in hindsight yes they shouldn't
have they should have put the curb in at
two inches
but uh i i think that's that is
difficult i mean and that's why i
included you know just so you guys so
you see you know this this picture right
here the first picture this is the curb
reveal across the street from the church
you know it's it's smooth so that's
where and then and that that step
right there that is one of my control
points so i have to build almost the
entire road
i have to build the entire road based
off of that step
because if i go too high and i pitch
water into that window
that and we had that issue at the camp
where we were being a little too
stubborn to our city specs
and we started pitching water
and so now everything revolves around
water we have to get the water where it
needs to go because it results in a lot
of reworking complaints but the idea of
subsidy that's for you guys i mean we could say
no when we can pass it right to them
that's perfectly acceptable it's just
it's a big variable that i don't have i
can't give anybody a number based off of
the bid right now
miss patrick so if i hear what mr
mcveiron is saying and certainly we did
have um conflict when uh
we ended up
we were going to have to charge the
residents of um to camp and artsley more
than we had originally told them but i
think in this instance
we'll have a realistic price hopefully
that that mr wall will be setting but if
we go into it understanding that we
might have to subsidize on the other end
if that
estimate
uh ends up being a little low would be
communicating that in advance to the
residents so i think we would avoid the
problem that we had before so i want to
thank mr paul many for working so hard
on this with ms runfield as you have for
a while now been working on this um but
i like the idea that
if we
i want to see this happen more and more so
um i i definitely am in favor of
actually having a subsidy as well as supporting paying the
current owner of the property that put
in the new sidewalks and that we would
love to tear up um i'd support that as
well
so mr rivera mr bellamy so so question
here uh mr ferrari would this
neighborhood fall under the city
then you
[Music]
to your point miss patrick the the two
roads where we did have issues we ended
up subsidizing them right we made right
by them with a higher cost and it ended
up turning out very nice um while it
wasn't the
intent
the fact is it ends up being a
public-private partnership with our
residents it raises property values
it increases the attractability of
families to the city um
you know i think it's something that we
should really
look to try to do and try to help out
residents with their sidewalks because
they are so expensive and
costs have gone up and
we have that 500 something 000 set aside
for this purpose
and to your point regarding the trees
it's an excellent point
but i believe the stockade has a tree
program
in place so that would kind of fix some
of that
all right so
mr rivera
so can we go to the homeowners with an
estimated price and let them know that
when the final bid
comes in
there will be a revised price and the
cost will pass pass on to
the difference with a revised
so go to them with an estimate
but with the understanding that after
it's good that it would be revised yes
my
question is just go out for the bid so
that we've got actual numbers
right then go back and talk back to the
council and say
you're going to set the fee at
50 60
yeah some appropriate number and to see
what the
you know
yeah i can't agree with that because we
need to give them the the true number uh
i think we have learned from the streets
and we did the complaints that we had
and things like that passing on and out
of taxpayer complaining if it was in the district of cdbg yes we
could july cdbg funding that will set
aside and they also push in that subsidy
right in the car should pass on directly
to all the homeowners because the same
thing we had done for the
central parkway we passed on the
estimate we didn't tell them there was
going to be any subsidy so they put it a
hole right now trying to
get the additional homeowners on board
and everybody board with that price that
estimated price that was presented
and we did not tell them that we're
going to subsidize the camp i'm sorry
central parkway okay so we wanted to
appear across the shore central parkway
has uh i understand that but i don't
remember that uh even coming to the uh
public hearing
and to allow for a discussion to
subsidize that price no mr wally give us
an estimate to present to the group
right i understand that but the public
hearing would allow them to comment and
then it would have came back to us to
either
say yes with this price or
okay i'm making up a number it's 80
dollars
you know you pay 65 will cover the 15.
that's all i'm saying is that yeah so
long just last year when we were doing
this and we were just passing on the
console and you were mentioning that
it's 45 days it's valid for 45 days and
they were like
they were asking for subsidy and we're
like no stop sitting true cause my my
recommendation it's in conflict with
yours but my recommendation is that we
come to some agreement in this program
and have a set number
because we have so many people that are
interested but they don't have a cost
and that always stops everyone because
the people that are on the fence always
say well how much is it going to cost me
and then we kind of hit a standstill and
then the prices vary so much and when we
do the bid and the bid number it could
be substantial i mean i look at it as
like i guess we you know
um is that these are people that are
they're putting skin in the game to get
something back the only issue i can see
as a taxpayer is if you were happy to be
on the street where you wanted to do it
but the street wasn't amicable to do it
so you got caught in a catch 22 because
we're not looking to do individual
properties right so then that person can
be shut out of the program right
there i could see some conflict but i
can get a bid i can put this i mean it's
going to take me a little while if
that's the direction we want to do
because this is a like i said we're
going to need a i'm going to need a
design on it but if we want to go that
right it's fine are we okay with these
numbers moving forward because these are
the numbers that you know the
percentages i just want to make sure you
know there's that because that's kind of
the step one if you're comfortable with
that i think then
that's good i don't want it i don't want
to come back and you say well there's
not enough people that are in favor of a
project because yeah what's their percentage
some
six
seventy seven seventy
one i think that's fine
okay yeah all right then i will
well just as a footnote i think
if we move forward in this regard and
follow mr walt's recommendation we could
always go back to the residents of
central parkway
and just say here's what we now
apologize
because again remember that um
it was a new
program i mean i wasn't on council when
it first
started um
i got to be on council when we got the
complaints from the residents on the
other end but um i think
you know we can always go back to
central parkway people and maybe they'll
do it but i just think the more that we
can grow this program we hear about it
all the time i'm sure we all do people
calling about about sidewalks
so i think it's i think it's a great
program so
what are your next um i'm sorry
so what what are your next
our next steps here well i guess
if it sounds like the recommendation is
to go forward with the design in a bit
and get numbers and bring them back to
this group
um the only thing i will say about that
is i understand that that is the most
time-consuming way possible
for
me for you so i just if we don't go
forward you know like like if we if if
we had something in the paint no so now
what we're going to do is we're going to
get the numbers we're going to go to the
people and we're going to there is a lot
of time in other words so if they say no
i just spent a lot of time with bids and
documents
and it's always
just what the final number is and what
the uh so what we'll go for i just if
that's the way we're gonna
it makes sense because hopefully we'll
have a realistic number exactly i'm
sorry in this sorry
the cost
estimates and the allocation over
financing again the homeowner is given
the property owner is given the
opportunity to just pay up front they
can pay the number and be done
or they can finance it this is the 5 10
15
you can go up to 20 years with this it
creates more
paperwork in the finance department
but the sidewalks are going to last over
20 years you know it's a major
investment it's a long term
improvement in
sometimes that can make a difference
people look at what's
actually going to cost them every year
you know and if it's
a couple hundred dollars
they're much more amenable to it than if
it's a couple thousand now yeah
okay okay
thank
approximately are we supposed to
replenish that um
okay
um there is at the last on the
spreadsheet you provided chris
van dyke law you don't have any footage
on that are you planning to replace the
sidewalk no okay i saw the costs
associated all right no i'm gonna leave
i was planning on leaving the van dyke
car okay okay okay
all right
so any other questions comments so mr
wallace it's clear that you'll do some
work
well thank you for all the more thanks
for having me i appreciate that and
thank you mr palomini along with miss
uncle yes she was here she must oh she's
back
for all the work you put into this so i
appreciate that yeah so
do some work
all right thank you guys all right thank
you
okay item on the agenda is the resulting
of 12 76 78 and 88 uh belmont avenue we
had a public hearing on
may 23rd and um
i don't think anybody actually signed up
for that public hearing so right now we
just need to move this out
so second all those in favor hi hi
and uh item number five the application
of the uh overlay historic district
zoning on 145 barrett street public
hearing again was on may 23rd and i
don't believe anyone signed up for that
either so we have no comments
in motion
second
all those in favor aye aye
okay item number six ceremonial
resolution for flag day miss patrick yes
um we did this last year i'd just like
to do it again flag day
is a national holiday that has been
around for decades and
recognizes the importance of the flag as
a unifying
symbol of our country so i'd just like
to do this again um and we will have
somebody coming so this will be at the
council meeting yes okay
oh instead of motion so
second all those in favor
okay uh ceremony resolution for pride
month june 1st the 29th
mr turu yes i'm sorry my tangent i
couldn't figure out how to type it on my
computer and print it in the little
spots that needed to be
up printed
but i did it as best as i could so i
would like to um
uh present have a ceremony resolution at
the council meeting um to celebrate
pride month um i think it's very
important that we
with our culture we recognize everyone
who is involved in our community and um
plan to have a few
people present there to get the
presentation
so again at the council meeting this
coming monday all right thank you okay
emotions so moved
second all those in favor aye aye
[Music]
okay uh next item on the agenda is a
ceremony resolution
recognizing june 10th
so this week this year as we know that
juneteenth is now actually a national
holiday um and locally juneteenth these
celebrations will be on the 17th and the
18th of june
so i would like this uh and we've always
done this particular resolution but the
resolution would be presented at the
actual juneteenth celebration in central
park on the 18th that's the two o'clock
i think i saw on the schedule
okay i think it looked like it wasn't me
yeah do that
and uh so i'll move this second all this
in favor all right
okay ceremony resolution for caribbean
american heritage month mr mutaveron
thank you yes june is recognized as
caribbean american heritage month and
i'm requesting a resolution to recognize
the contribution from the caribbean
american
towards our city
all right the draft was presented and
this i am
pushing to have this presented at our
next meeting if uh at the council
meeting yes okay
we got a few
yeah
okay it's like notion
all those in favor
okay our next uh agenda item is a
discussion poet laureate mr williams oh
thank you
council president uh so i'm excited to
bring this forward uh definitely poet
laureates i think to my knowledge we
haven't had one within the city and they
exist on governing bodies to read
poetry to also extend to selective
readings during just ceremonies hosted
at the council meetings
um
they are put in position at the federal
and state level however there's a lot of
legislation online that speaks to
cities or townships being able to elect
these types of positions
there are different caveats as to what
makes
a polarity
and they have stipulations such as
living within the city uh having
published various works
and then also demonstrating a commitment
to be behind the artwork of of being a
poet uh and being over the age of 18.
so some of the reasoning as to why
electing this type of position i think
as we
spoken and then actually had discussions
about sros it's understanding the
importance of working collaboratively
with our school district and definitely
this position there can be expectations
put in place to help support literacy
efforts
within the city and also combining this
individual to work with
libraries
and functioning as a city official to drive
being aware of programs or projects
partnering with those individuals and
advocating for
poetry
just trying to keep my thoughts together
so
i saw this position
honestly just being able to collaborate
um across our libraries uh with our city
with our school districts and um being
able to formalize a process for
nominating this individual
i definitely have come across a lot of
individuals that
embrace the art form of being poets and
i think as we intentionally deal with
incidents such as gun violence i think
taking the moment to recognize the
talent that exists within our
communities
to allow this position to
function
collaboratively with the city council
kind of serving more or less you have
individuals that all don't believe in
god so i think having a position that during our ceremonies is able to
read a poem or so that captures the
essence of an unveiling or
of whatever
ceremony comes
before the council i think this can be
an opportunity for us to just provide an
outlet
for this individual
okay
so um mr williams tell me about this i
told when i think the first time i got
uh when i was sworn in i actually had
someone they wrote a problem for me so
you know i have a real polar glory but
that's supposed to be every guy so um
do you is there what if there's a
methodology for
you know how to go about this is it
something that needs to
um be part of our code
how does this
happen
based on what your understanding is from
other places that they have it so this
would more or less be just a discussion
item now to see if the interest from the
council is to embrace this uh very much
it'd be a nominated a nomination so an
individual would come before us
either being self-identified or being
recommended by someone else
we would need to put in place a
committee again i think would be
important to have an advocate from the
library to have an advocate from the
school district to also include a
member of the community
and these individuals would kind of
monitor this role
but there could be various expectations
with uh how many public forums or events
that this individual was meant to host
uh how many uh readings they would need
to come before the council with uh so
again this being a new position we could
make it whatever we wanted to but again
this would be someone that could come to
our council meetings um introduce a poem
based on a special item that comes comes
up uh or they can just be a quarterly
accordion but it honestly can be a
little bit like it
were you considering
that
this person would receive an honorarium
because there would be the expectations
i'm familiar with this position
especially through the new york state
writers institute which is the
organization that names the poet
laureate and the writer
the state writer
and they have a big ceremony every year
in which they do that
there is a lot of expectation in terms
of when i think about
some of the previous united states
politics for example they either did you
know weekly poetry that would be in the
newspaper or
certainly working
with
youth
to try to increase literacy so
it does have work that will come with it
and i was wondering
about an honorarium i'm also wondering
if you've spoken to the libraries or to
the library or to the school district to
assess their interest in in this is the
school district
obviously the mission of the library
system is literacy um it's something
that's part of the both the adult
librarian as well as the youth services
librarian's job
but also within our school district
there's a huge
literacy
uh
area
i just
blanked on the name of the woman that is
our literacy coordinator for the school
district
so i think you know i just was wondering
if you'd had an opportunity to talk to
any of them
about this
so i'd say uh to your live point i think
it's important as a council that we're
all on the same page i never want to get
ahead of myself and also kind of speak
for a topic that the council hasn't been
able to
dialogue over so definitely this is the
first time i'm bringing it up as you
mentioned there are advocates that exist
in those other areas that are doing this
work so i think putting it in place
around an actual role
similar to your previous point of view a
lot of expectations that's why i think
it's important to have those
requirements of you're already doing
this work you're already posting and
being visible in public you already have
a number of works already published you
want to kind of empower an individual
that's already in place this very much
is not a position for someone who is
thinking about becoming the poet you're
very much looking at someone that is
already a pillar in the community and
using this as a title of his designation
to assist them in their efforts i don't
know if you would recommend or
referencing a
moratorium with like compensation um
or an honorary with compensation uh i
think
mr ferrari whenever you talk about like
adding a budget line out of season it's
i think it's important to make sure this
is
a position that that is well received by
the council in the city and then if it
is something that works fluently
potentially having that conversation but
i think at this point very much it would
be based on volunteer terrorism
any
questions or comments from other council
members
um
so i think it's i think it's a good idea
we actually have an official song and we
even actually got a new song from
like a few years ago then we had our
official song and then someone else did
a new song so we have an official song
so um i i think it's a good idea um and
yes no honorarium right now but i think
that um
just based on what you've said and also
what ms patrick has said that it does
require a lot of duties and so we should
consider putting something in the budget
and i don't know what that number would
look like if we um
if we move forward with this
um so
i i personally would say that it's
something that we should you know look
forward
look into and then the entities that you
mentioned we would see how they would
once would be able to embrace that
is anyone yes mr williams so i'd say if
appropriate i can reach out
to those individuals who try to talk
offline about who is already doing this
work and then getting their opinions and
having them come back to our next
meeting
did you have your hand up
mr toro oh no i didn't but
that's a good idea so you know as far as
carmel's point i'm not well versed in
this myself i think she is with her
history and her past work and of course
her husband um so if you want to you
know reach out to the school and the
library and then present it again um
you know
in the times that we're in i i think
it's nice to have a little peace and
tranquility but there's so many other
important things that we really need to
focus on
as far as our city
but if you want to go ahead and do that
i
absolutely go ahead
yes
would you mind clarifying what you meant
with that well just i mean you spoke
earlier on the gun violence i mean you
know that's you know things that we
really need to concentrate on and um but
then again bringing some peace in with a
poet and you know making our meetings
you know
more peaceful and you know things so but
again you know that's you know if you
want to do it that's fine
mr williams i'm sorry
just for response i think
highlighting the component of addressing
literacy within the community is
definitely a very strong um point
we deal with uh
what are this true origin of mental
health and it definitely comes from
various
elements so there's no one-sided
approach and i think as a council we all
have our niches
so i think allowing members to
broad branch off and then address
multiple things but then collectively
work on a number of issues make sure
that we have a diverse approach
so definitely this is not the only thing
that i'm considering or being aware of
however i definitely understand the
power of reading and i think having an
advocate that is already doing this work
and supporting them as a council will
have
monumentous benefits uh for for not only
our youth but also households right yes been working on behalf of the
city with the library and the city
school district
and let me add to that that um you know
a lot of people are impacted by poetry
by songs and there's you know so it's
not
maybe for some it's really just another
form of art and right now we're seeing a
lot of public art in our city so i think
that as we embrace um different things
in different ways to reach different
people and communicate with people is
important so um and whatever ways that
we can do that and become a more united
group of people within the city within
the country and all of that so i i think
it's worthwhile exploring and i would
support it and if there's
is everyone pretty much in support of us
moving forward and looking into this
just want to gauge the interest before
we have mr williams do all this and then
come back and say
no
so
please reach out to the agencies that
you mentioned
and get all the information needed and
bring it back to us and we'll move
forward
i think it's one thing we should do mr
maybe
i really don't see it a big purpose for
this um i think maybe it'd be better for
the county level
with the dealing with the school
districts across the county as well as
the library system
that might be the better arena for us
and i think
if we were to go that route that's
something i could support but
certainly no honorarium as far as i'm
concerned
poetry does have an important place in
our culture in our society
as does all artwork but
given everything that's going on and all
the issues that we have
um
just have a hard time getting behind us
when when we have to tackle some of
those issues um and i think again i
think it would be more appropriate at
the county level
uh well we have at least five people are
in sport a bit today so um
look forward and bring it back to us
thank you all right
thank you for taking time to look into
that
all right the last two items are
for executive session for property sales
so it's actually three years
okay no wait one second i'd like to so
the last two elections are going to be
executive so i need to recess
um
development planning third item will be
executive sessions right as well but i
need to open claims so i need to recess
the development plan
all those in favor all right all right
we're recessed
somebody has a call i am going to do
that
i'd like to open flames
okay so
it comes down to you and i tried
so
we'd like to
go into executive session for planes
could i get a motion to do so
and i'll second it all in favor okay
public has to leave