um
[Music]
so
[Music]
there's
july 5th
2022 okay
first committee is finance
mr motaveron thank you call to order
finance committee first item of
discussion city towing service request
for proposal
thank you very much
all right so a couple things uh the
first one i believe you guys all
received the city
towing proposal
we
have been on the contract for about two
years now so we met with the finance and
law department to put together
this rfp that we want to set up it's
there's a few changes in here that the
city is looking for we'll be able to tow
larger vehicles be able to store larger
vehicles right now we're going to have a
spot for those
we
we're looking to have as many um
co-agencies that are willing to
put in protocols so we have some options
and choices
they put a point system in place for how
they would be
graded as far as what their services are
available
open up for questions
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so
are you looking for us to move something
here because i have seen that discussion
no no this is just that you guys think
we want to put this out we just wanted
to show you guys if you guys any
questions or anything
go ahead please
this doesn't have to be approved by the
council because we're not paying any of
the tow companies um this is more of an
fyi we want to bring the council's
attention
because as
assistant chief whipple said
there are certain fees that we're going
to start requiring are charged
particularly those larger vehicles have
been an issue
boats rbs things along those lines that
it's very difficult to store
also we didn't have anything in our
contract specifically related to
um
the off-road vehicles the motors the
dirt bikes and the four-wheelers
so we're looking at obviously
incorporating that which obviously leads
to that second piece which is on the
agenda
any other questions come in
thank you
the next item is called for public
hearing amending the code of the city of
connecticut section
248-100
regarding redeeming
of off-road vehicle
okay so right now it was passed since it
was last year um right now that the
set
by code that's 70
for a total fee and twenty dollars a day
for storage fees
and we want to open up the public
carrier so that that can be changed by
resolution if you guys decide that you
wanna change the fees any time
we
in our current contract we run into is
uh we the regular toffee i think was 165
and then when this was passed the tow
companies didn't want to tow for the 70
so that um came back to the city as far
as we had to make up the difference
between the two so
yeah the issue with this um
the council set the fee amount for the
tow
however the tow companies need to use
the same type of vehicles that they have
to tow
you know dirt bikes atvs and the problem
with that is it's still the same cost to
them in fact they've said that you know
because
they have to make sure it doesn't fall
over
particularly a dirt bike they
may actually take additional work to
make sure that it's secure which is why
they're charging
the higher fee so it's strictly to
change as ac whipple said the fee
structure to remove the set amount
and
instead modify the code to say to be set
by resolution so that in the future the
council wouldn't have to have a new call
for a public hearing to change the code
instead you would just pass a resolution
other questions
comments
so may i have a motion on this item
all in favor aye thank you
motion to adjourn
all in favor aye thank you thank you
so i'd like to call the board of the
public safety committee we have two
items on our agenda tonight the first is
the civilian case review board
appointment and i'll be discussed by
grand park
thank you mr chairman uh did you know
that the civilian police review board's
made up of individuals recommended by
different entities within the community
and the chamber is recommended
during volunteer
so i've forwarded that name for your
consideration
any questions or comments
download this
second awesome favorite all right
the second item on the agenda tonight is
discussion installing speed humps and
i'll be discussed by council president
porterfield and mr long mr weldon
um as you know the last um committee
meeting we talked about this and mr
wrong said you've done some research and
you've come back with some information
for us so that's what we're gonna be
hearing today
and the feasibility of doing it sure
so uh we had an internal meeting last
week after we discussed it with myself
uh you see what will john flute show
regarding what we talked about here
about speed bumps in the city of
magazine we looked at some locations
kind of based upon criteria that we
talked about here at priority streets
not private streets uh parallel roads
where we think we may have issues based
off of some of the police data and what
we'd like to do is we don't have
anything formal yet one of the reasons
is that we have been trying to also loop
in the fire department we just got some
of their comments back today
as we want to make sure that this isn't
an impediment to fire trucks as talking
with our the vendors they have said that has come up in the past so he is
okay with these particular locations
what we're looking at is two test
locations uh the first being duane
avenue between craig street and
brandywine and the second rugby road
between wendell and mcclellan
these locations are both feature school
zones they're both non-priority roads
and specifically with duane avenue it
was on a pde list of areas that they
have had speeding
issues so
with those two areas what we look to do
is
purchase three temporary units which
would be within the budget the units
that we kind of spoke about before
they're large rubber mat units we are
working on it they are through a
purchasing operator that we have source
while contracting
and we have just as recently as last
week
ac whitman has contacted them about
availability in lead time looking at
trying to put some measures together
where we're going to record the speeds
in the area
duane avenue for a period of no less
than two weeks
using some incognito things things that
aren't willing to draw attention
themselves
uh possibly either being we have new
speed recording devices being purchased
through a grant by pd or i've been
working with john deluccio on
some of the optical sensors that we have
in the city can also do speed detection
so we've already pulled some of that
data
to see how that would work
then
once we have those in you know maybe we
just do
dwayne this year because we like to put
the installations out for a minimum of
you know
eight weeks couple of months because it
does take some effort to put it in when
you take them out you have to do some
road repair because they get driven into
the ground with essentially spikes so
they will you know they will mark up the
asphalt because they can't be shifting
around as they're there
once we have these two locations
we kind of come back to you with some
data
but for a permanent during that time i
think we like to internally work both
with ourselves over the council on what
the long term program is this like are we going to model the
city of rochester where they use a
petition you know or are we going to
have it be you know the council is going
to decree where they want to put these i
mean we would still under some guidance
we would still advise that we don't have
them on priority roads in certain areas
but when you start using the guideline
no parallel roads
and no priority streets the streets get
really whittled down very quickly to
only a select few we did talk about is
this a program that we try to use only
maybe in school zones
or these two are both in school zones so
we want to focus on areas that have
school zones in them or is that you know
the school zone technically they're
supposed to be driving 15 during their
anyways
so
the other thing that uh john did do is
he reached out to the city of albany did hire uh craig and
manning put together a memorandum
and the memorandum we talked about speed
hump specifically and they did invest
almost approximately half a million
dollars in installing permanent speed
bumps uh on first second and third
avenues in the uh harbor hill
neighborhood
so
we have some details on that the uh the
memo
uh we just got an approval that you know
to share it we wanted to share it so
next time if i put together a whole
package i'll include that memo because i
didn't want to share it without you know
just being said that we could because i
didn't want to put them on the spot but
um you know that is the next level
you know these speed bumps that all when
they put in are milled paved painted
permanent signage half a million dollars
so they had a issue
that they dealt with through an
engineering solution i don't think we're
there yet but it's not to say that we
couldn't be i don't think we have an
issue that's
at least not to my knowledge or any of
uc whipple's that has brought to itself
to that level where we're looking to put
something out here like that
so um that's where we are right now
where fire chief just said that we are
okay to put him at these locations so we
are going to work with the vendor and uh
our purchasing department on getting
some orders in in the meantime they are
looking at getting the detections for
the speed cameras and then you know
prepping and getting ogs and everything
but these are only two locations i mean
they could change if you think that you
know they were kind of looked at from a
just from our perspective
we could move them around afterwards but
right now that's where we're headed
oh will there be signs to let people
know oh yes yes that's john
we have a sign department so john is
going to be making signs we're going to
have signs that say
bump ahead and then bump so for each
pair there would be six signs there'll
be 12 12 new signs in general so
six one way six the other for the three
so one more question um so um how how
many would be you said um um like so a
length is like from what you said on
dwindling from craig craig to brandywine
so how many would be on that stretch
and we're looking at space and there is
a stop sign there yes so we are looking
to space them so that you know uh you
know the stop sign is acting as its own
as a speed determining device um you
know there is a school zone there so you
should be slowing down
but you know we are kind of looking just
to use this as a record we're gonna have
a couple of protection units to see
where we are you know there is always
the
fear of people you go over it and you
speed up
so that's why on the longer stretch
ongoing we want to have two
um because we really don't want people
being like well i have to make up time
which is always a concern with these
type of devices and also you know we
would pull them out prior to that
we won't have them down for the power
season but if we go permanent like
albany and town and colony you know they
use indicator posts on either side so
the plows know to lift their blades and
go over thanks
yes i just have a couple of questions
thanks chris um
if someone doesn't lower their speed
and goes over the bump and
causes damage to their vehicle is there
a chance that that would have any
liability for the city that was brought
up to me in i'm not 100 on that
i'll have to look into it with andrew
and he's you know
about what liabilities that we have
someone that just keeps going keep going
doesn't mind the signs doesn't mind the
speed limit goes over the speed bump
does damage to that yeah i'd have to
imagine this is something that is you
know played out a hundred times you know
we're not going to be the first city to
put speed bumps clearly so we'll we'll
try to get something in place to find
out what it is okay thanks and then in
terms of removing them as you mentioned
um especially you know these are going
to be temporary and trying to pilot and get some data and some results
um what would be can you also tell us
what the cost will be
um if we don't if we decide not to put
them back or you know in terms of
removing them if you're putting them
into the ground if you're having to do
repair to the to yeah what i'm hoping is
we get a clean install i'm hoping that
we can use we have a
like a hot in place epoxy truck it's the
patcher that you see where the oak in
our roads we have a really kind of a
slick looking pothole that looks like a
different than an what i'm
hoping is that working with mike cerrone
and our streets department will be able
to infill them with with that material
almost like a hot glue
i don't know how well but they didn't
point out i think it was that i just
want to usually they hear the concerns
when they put them down like you know
they hit them in uh these are
considerable size units i mean there's
going to be a fork truck is going to be
involved or a front-end loader you know
because we're talking about the entire
width of the street they are i believe
14 it's 14 feet in width
because where you know we have to go
with a 30 mile per hour
if it was a parking lot and you said the
speed limit was 10. it could be a little
smaller but because of the speed they
actually are wider more of a more of a
speed uh hump than a bump right so uh so
we're i mean we're learning kind of as
we go too we've i thought we made some
good steps we have some good information
uh you know before and then you know as
we go just to tell you about other
products there are other products if we
wanted to do like priority roads if
somehow that were to come up they make a
product where
emergency vehicles
could straddle the product
they're called uh they're more of a
they're more of these smaller faults so
instead of having one you put like three
and then a fire truck would straddle the
issue with that that we see is that
people may try to straddle it and that
will cause more issues than we would
think without a uniform you know it's
similar if you go to a parking lot that
has a speed bump and there's parking
spaces on either side you usually just
go around it yeah you don't go over it
so that's what we're kind of trying to
avoid
uh thank you thank you chris for doing a
lot of research i i actually read up on
it because i really think you know this
the speeding that happens not only in
our city but
everywhere and i'm really concerned with
safety so i i thought about those rumble
strips you know
like when you fall asleep and you
go to the side of the road and it wakes
you up but um in in researching that um
it's
it it can work for
um speeding just bring your attention
you know to the fact that oh something's
going on but not recommend it for so
that kind of threw that out
but there were quite a few lawsuits that
i read about with
speed bumps
um municipalities were facing with
damage to cars people falling over them
just people walking and falling over so so i saw
that as well
and and it basically came down to the
best thing for traffic calming is
lowering the speed limit which miss
patrick
did bring up i mean you know um but
anyway yeah so um there's a lot
of research you know to do between
andrew and
you know what what liabilities it might
bring on the city so yeah
okay yep and i'll i'll loop andrew into
our into our discussions as you see and
like i said we have a good direction for
all of you we'll see how they get out of
this button
yeah could you share the information on
the what you wish
so he doesn't have to like do that work
over absolutely
any other questions or comments
so in support would you like to
keep this on the internet for after two
weeks
let us get a little bit and i'll touch
base about when we put it on just
is there any opposition to the first
test location i guess that would be the thought is everybody kind of on
board these are not permanent locations
so if that's
we have that buying i think that's the
first step and we have the money and we
have it on contract so we can move
forward
great yes
yeah i think instead of asking us you
might want to ask the neighborhood
because they're going to be the ones
hearing the noise and most impact
well i mean i guess that's the the next
part of it is that do we want to get to
that level i mean
you know the city of rochester that's
where they start they start with more of
a neighborhood petition and the petition
starts more like uh the sidewalk program
but that will undoubtedly add some time
so but once again this is more about i
don't want to push it back to the
council but it is a kind of a council
initiative that we're working on if we
like to because that was one of the
things uh i wasn't in this era but uh mr
culture did tell me that at some point
there were speed pumps uh dipped dips at
eastern avenue and they were removed due
to noise complaints
those were permanent because they were
actually in the asphalt or these are
temporary but there will be some
substantial labor to put these in
um so i know for me personally i
definitely agree with trying something
it's been an ongoing issue and there's
been a lot of work and effort that's
already been invested in this
alternative so or at least a trial list
and like you said it's not permanent so
if there are better options we'll have
the ability to uh remove the address
so if there are no further items to the
following i'll see can i get an
error so second favorite all right thank
you
so uh i'd like to call a government
operations
we've got two items on the agenda
um first of all discussion around philly
positions within the city workforce
discussed by um
thank you so we talked about this a
couple of weeks ago because we talked
about how many openings we have
and um whether we should do something a
little bit permanent in terms of
expanding the residency to the county
and not just people who live within the
city
so there was there's some who were in
favor of that and some who weren't with
what the discussion was is that the
mayor uh if we
um
submitted someone who lived in the
county and did not live within the city
then it would be up to um the residency
board actually to um that the mayor
would have to convene in order to for us
to give away or not
so at this point
time what um
i'm recommending is that we um look at
putting our making sure that we
can be in the residency board and i
would have to ask the mayor when's the
last time the board um met
because i would know i don't know the
answer to that because it doesn't meet
regularly
it's
called my discretion the last time it
met was to entertain the waiver for
commissioner islands
so and
so we have so the members of the
are board by me
and corporation council and
the council presidents what i understand
all three of us have um opportunity to
be a part of that
i think like i think the code speaks to
who's
uh
who's on the other hand
i don't think that's correct
well mr colvin gave us the code last
time and that's what i found okay that's
what it says
so um
so what i would like to us to at least
have the the board
ready when people start um submitting i
know that at least one council member
has told me that he submitted
someone sending an application who
doesn't live within the county and so
when that person comes forward that the
board be already the time for us to be
able to um to look at that application
i don't know where it is at this point
i don't think they wouldn't send it
directly to you they would go through
the normal process to see if they met
the criteria if council members have
names send it to me i'm the appointing
authority some people they'll get hired
unless
well they want to make sure they qualify
for the position first and then
okay so um again
we could talk about that mirror but i
would like first to have the board ready
when that opportunity comes
um so we can appoint people
um but
i mean doesn't that just assume that we
are indeed going to um
convene the residency board instead of
what the practice has been in terms of
the mayor appointing his own
hires
i mean why would why would we jump to
that step without first
thinking again about whether the council
was in favor of changing residency
requirements it's not changing anything
the residency board is already written
into the code it exists
so what the mayor said is that if there
are people within the county
who did not live in the city and want to
apply then he would have to then then we
would have to look at giving them a
waiver and that waiver is
the mayor convenes a residency board but
the residency board is one that actually
um votes on that
so we haven't changed anything
okay that hasn't been the practice right
i think that the mayor has been able to
use his discretion
on whether he wanted to waive a
requirement
no you can hire anybody wherever they
live for six months then we have to go
to
the presidency review board i have not
done it for part-time positions or
temporary
positions have been some that might have
gone over the six months
but they're more
technical issues than you know a
permanent competitive position within
civil service
so
i'm scientifically
i don't know what our current job
announcements state but we'll be able to
update it to say that
pending for the review or there's this
residency board that is willing to make
a determination
i'm sorry i can say that one more time
so if there's if there's a cohort that's
going to review residency requirements
so is that outlined on job applications
or job announcements that this is an
option if you go outside of the city
just people aren't aware of it
it's i think the
general emphasis has been
that you can be appointed but within six
months you have to move to the city and
i have not
advocated for the residency review board
because i believe people should live in
the city
their employees
and i i
that but i'm you know i'm looking at the
big picture in the real the reality is
we just really understaff and many many
departments are
um
so as and i know it's been said that
it's happening all over the country
however it's happening here so it's up
to us to figure out a resolution for
that so um for that reason i think that
we should really consider
expanding the residency to the county um
if we're not there at this point in time
and i definitely um which i would
definitely want to revisit make sure
that we make a final decision on that
but that we should um at least make sure
the residency board is prepared if
someone meets all of the qualification
gets hurt referred to the mayor and um
need that waiver because
some if they're not willing to move
within the city for in six months um
then people aren't going to want to take
a job that at any given time they could
lose so that to me is the reason that we
want to make sure that we give them that
waiver
is
so we have with us
okay yes
we have with us david hogan camp uh
mitchell
and richard tierney all
to our two county legislators and
the land bank is going to actually uh
before he um asked about the appointment
just wants to give us a little bit um
background on what the land bank's been
doing for the last 10 years
so thank you are you gonna talk i'll
talk a little bit if it's okay with you
it's fine with me so good to you very
good madam president mr mayor council
members i thank you very much mr
chairman i thank you for having us here
tonight we do have two um
items one is a request for a
reappointment of one of our board
members but we thought because it's july
in july of
2012 we incepted the land bank
some former members that were here
within this government body
and we've had a pretty successful
10-year run and i thought it would be
helpful educational and
insightful to show you what we've been
doing over the last 10 years with
dollars that we have recovered or that
were awarded from the 2008 foreclosure
crisis in which our attorney generals uh
took the action to go after financial
institutions and recover some of the
damage that was done to our communities
so um
just to start off right our mission
statement it's all about strengthening
neighborhoods through removing light
and removing structures that are as mr
merrill would say the worst of the worst
right so improvement of those existing
structures and returning vacant and
abandoned property to productive use
and we've done quite a bit of that over
the last 10 years
we've got a
10 minute excuse me two four six seven
member
board
you can see how we're appointed and what
the board is made up of you'll note that
there's the city of amsterdam presidents
there because back in 2012 2013
it was thought when we were one of only
three land banks which there are over 20
now
the strength of our application line in
the fact that the city of schenectady
the county of schenectady and the city
of amsterdam all cities that uh are all
communities that i think suffer
greatly through the foreclosure crisis
um and we were awarded that council
that's why you see some city uh of
amsterdam folks that
um
i've said this a number of times to
leadership to council members uh to
individuals or just a tool in the
toolbox right i serve uh at the pleasure
of each one of you
and that the community at large
as a chairman we have taken this tool we
keep it sharp we keep it sharp with
dollars that we've gotten from the
attorney generals with dollars that
we've gotten from the city and county
and from the city of amsterdam
and we really put this thing
into high gear when we
put it into frankly into our unified
economic development team which is our
metroplex david hogan camp i know he's
sitting in front of us but without his
leadership without his commitment
without his ability to really manage uh
i think we would be
doing a good job we're doing an
outstanding job so we've put over um a
number of projects uh have come to play
uh hamilton hill neighborhood uh in
particular the electric city barn
depaul's joe allen apartments coco house
expansion demolition
of a number of properties to make way
for community builders right
eastern avenue one of the first
corridors that we worked on right we
have a corridor strategy it's not
individual houses it's how do we improve
corridors throughout our community to
create uh momentum so
in the eastern
neighborhood we've done well over 25
demolitions we created our first pocket
park in almost 25 years back in 2013 uh
2014 tribute park uh we improved
numerous buildings and what was saint
mary's 25 million dollars in investment
renaissance square was a 25 million
dollar investment by
homeless home leasing on a rochester
university so talk about leverage right
uh we probably put a million in change
into that project a little less and 25
million was pulled through from
um independent developers that's about
investment confidence so
we continue in mount pleasant mount
pleasant library crane street
thriving neighborhoods challenge orchard
park
wallingford splash pad a great ribbon
cutting on friday night lots of
attendance thank you madam president mr
mayor for being there um boys and girls
club uh
and then depaul has committed and they
put an application in for another 22
million project on green street
so this is as a direct result of what
the land bank has done whether that's to
remove properties to do the demolition
to create the momentum and the
investment confidence i've already
talked about because we take out that
portion of the project that makes it
work for these developers right and
they're very sophisticated in what
they're doing
but we have created that momentum that
engine and we want to continue to create
that momentum in that engine
some of what we've done in the city of
amsterdam just so you know 22 vacant
bladed properties were completely taken
down if you've come through route 5
corridor driven into amsterdam that
portion of the neighborhood that was in
decay was in decline
uh we took down all of the buildings
depaul came in uh and with the help of
amsterdam housing authority by putting
in
24 million
20 20 plus million dollar project that's
enormous we believe strongly that in the
city of amsterdam alone because of the
momentum that we put in play
they got the dri they got the downtown
uh investment grant and they got
developers that have come in and said
this is a community that's worth
investing in
so what have we done we've taken
we've received and taken anything we've
received almost 10 million dollars uh in
support of funding through the attorney
general uh through enterprise and
through a number of other grant programs
we've partnered with you in the city and
in the city of amsterdam and over 200
demolitions i think we probably still
have a few hundred that would be
considered worthy of of a shovel
uh but more importantly we've put over
250 units of either planned or renovated
housing in play right affordable housing
commitments to our community how do we
revitalize we make it real for the
individuals who live in these
communities that's a hundred million
dollars of leveraged investment
10x in my book is a wise investment 10
million equals 100 million in leveraged
investment so we've got great partners
with a better community neighborhoods
with habitat we've done a number of
projects with them
and
we've gotten those results because we've
got a great board we've got some of our
members here we've got rich maternity a
fellow county legislator in the city of
schenectady we've got joe berlant who uh
came out of housing and urban
development and has been with us for a
number of years uh and i regard him very
hard with high regard as our treasurer
and the fiduciary of all this money uh
that we've received and we put in play
and again i just want to reiterate we
are a tool
we are we are efficient we run on a
staff of 1.5
unlike some agencies that need multiples
and i'm not casting this down i'm simply
saying that david here in the city of
connecting in the county we have a
project manager in the city of amsterdam
we've executed
extremely well and i appreciate my board
members and the commitment that we have
from the community from leadership
and from a human president
so more to come lots of great projects
happy to answer any questions we do want
to celebrate our 10-year anniversary we
think we've earned the strength
of saying job well done but it really
has to come out of the community
and
you know like i said i'm happy to answer
questions i am here formally to ask for
a reappointment
of one of our
i just want to say that over the years
working with mr hogan camp and working
with legislator russo has been a
pleasure on any project that we've been
involved in and i mean obviously
you are just a tremendous resource and
have great both of you have great vision
but i mean the work that you put in to
these projects over the years has just
been phenomenal it's fun work kristen
diaz is on our board as well uh it's a
lot of division maurice brown has been
very helpful and thank you mayor andrew
smallwood
thank you very much i do want to
reiterate kristin on our board maurice
we went to a new york state housing
land bank conference not too long ago
we have committed people in this room in
this community and i'm grateful to be
part of that kind of momentum and that
kind of leadership
you should also have
the fact that the leadership of this
group has brought in the news
it's our hundred million dollars and
it's also brought us continue
every time we applaud you get money
because we produce results yeah joe
brings up a great point it's all about
the performance about skill
do you want to come up so that the
council who has not met you can meet you
sure
so as joe comes up i will say it is that
right it's not quite hunger games but it
is
absolutely if we are not effective we're
not going to win in those grant rounds
and i will tell you that i went and
stumped a little bit with senator richie
50 million dollars is being pulled
through to the land mix that doesn't
excuse that i have an arpa application
and for land management so it's but 50
million is getting pulled through
that'll be applied to those 23 land
banks offices being one of them and
another 250 million
or 400
oh just a housing community renewal
programs they want the land banks to
continue
to be supported so that they can come up
with other projects like the default
project
so that's that's the focused uh
in partnership
and as joe pointed out past performance
definitely drives whether or not you're
going to continue to get some of that
support
for those who don't know man the retired
deputy director of development for the
city uh was here in the 1990s
well aware of that and then
we had a household division at that
point we were doing housing activities
we didn't do as much as what the land
bank has been able to do
because it's an effective use of funding
without having to go through some of the
red tape that a government agency has to
do
and
it's been a great time to work with all
the folks that are there we've got a
committed group we've only had a couple
of changes on the board and that's also helped i think uh quite a
bit that the people have experienced now
what they're
doing so and i'm going to point to you
at the city council so i hope that
you will reappoint me but if not
we have somebody
in mind who also will be able to
contribute to the little bank
it's an active board it's not a it's not
a show up once in a while it's
definitely an active board but we run
very efficiently and we appreciate joe's
participation we appreciate thanks for
the attorney's participation
kristen diat
and we're open to continuing to see that
board live
what i'd like to first say is thank you
for the work that you're doing okay and
i think that is important you know we do
base future decisions we make informed
decisions based on results but you guys
are clearly getting so you know this
isn't just about beautification this
really does change the material
condition of people that live in these
neighborhoods options so um i just want
to extend my appreciation to you and the
team
thank you i appreciate that constant
problem
at this time i like to make the motion
second
[Applause]
[Music]
back and go on any of these projects um
at your request or individually thank
you for coming thank you
like to call to order city development
planning we have nine items on the
agenda
the first item is a revocable licensing
agreement with indira prasad for a patio
and handicap accessible rent at 1570
state street mr wallen
hello hello
uh the property of 1570 state street
constructed a patio with handicap
accessible ramps the patio is what i
would call a seminar semi-permanent
patio
is a
wall
filled it is not something that would be
revocable similar to a planter or a sign
a pond inspection was found that the
wall and the ramp are in the city right
away on this corner by about five feet
in each
uh so it is not
exactly off the sidewalk but it is
within there is about seven feet and ten
feet off the grid respectively for a
obstruction like this in the right of
way uh a revocable licensing agreement
is required for the properties
all right so
this was put in without coming to the
city for permit
that is what i believe is they don't
there's no such thing as for this i
think what we think is through a
building permit for a patio and
it was
a bit of a miscommunication of where the
right way was usually it's on the back
side of the sidewalk in these particular
cases it was a little extra wide so it
was actually five feet off the back side
of the sidewalk and on state street we
have an exceptionally larger right away
so when they came in i don't know how it
was actually brought to my attention but
when it was and we looked at them we
found that it was five feet in both
directions
for a patio wasn't necessarily something
that went into planning and planning
usually if a newer building is being
built and there's a site plan we would
make the comments of what would be
required this was an existing building
with a patio being built like almost
like a deck
so i don't think it went through the
same procedures as most so it's
something that we are internally going
to have to discuss on how we kind of
close that little loophole if you will
but
it is there
so
and does the side work
i know the application came from
indira prasad i believe there may be two
people who own that property i believe
it's indirect
i think there's another prasad that may
be the owner of that property so if the
council is to move forward with this
legislative request i would request that
it be the owner of the property indira
prasad and if there's another owner
right i want to make sure that both of
them enter into this agreement that it's
not just
you know one of the two owners okay
so we need the other owner's name you
know do you do you know that i do not
have it on me but i don't have money but
we can we can get the most recent deed
and we'll have it in time for uh i'll
put it in for the resolution if it does
pass tonight okay it's not obstructing
the sidewalk okay uh we are working with
them on making sure that the sidewalk is
off the coast
on the uh
on the one particular side not the state
street side i came up with the cross
street at this time but on state street
it is off but we have a particularly
wide right-of-way going upstairs
are there other questions
i'll second it with the idea that we'll
put the name amazing yes
all those in favor all right
thank you mr wong
uh the next item on the agenda is a
discussion of uh hosting quarterly
meeting city council meetings outside of
city hall uh thank you madam president
um i know you've had this on the agenda
a few times so i'm looking forward to
announcing some updates that'll
hopefully uh get this ball
moving forward
looking at the idea of where to host
this type of engagement my two thoughts
consistently came back to the boys and
girls club and also potentially
partnering with the scranton high school
just thinking of menu size and volume of
getting people
from the community into a room and talk
about a potential topic
uh second can be more about a date i
think being in the summer it's important
to recognize that people are still
vacationing so looking to have something
in place after august
the time frame that i kept coming back
to was 6 30 to 8 30 at night just
thinking of corporate time people get
settled in
and then also understanding that mondays
don't necessarily work for us as a
council members and also fridays maybe
too late in the week
we'll need to do some investigation to
make sure that we're not scheduling
something that is
in place with other meetings that are functioning throughout the city
so i resonated on tuesdays so i was
potentially thinking of september 20th
september 27th or october 4th and then
all this information i can go back to
the council members and email
next
thinking of the format and i think it's
important to footstomp that compromising
is important
and taking into consideration all of the
council members feedback so that we can
make sure we're actually items for the
benefit of the community i think looking
at how to best
create an agenda around this i think a
town hall would make sense
and i think as long as we can build an
appropriate agenda establish creative
guidelines for people to speak that way
we would have the opportunity to respond
back i think as long as we're
intentional and have a clear objective
around what the meeting is i think we
can keep our comments focused and use
this as an opportunity to again
bring the messaging bring ourselves the
community which countlessly has been
vocalized as an ask in the community
and this brings me to what potential
topics so our last meeting
ended with miss
ms portfield
and
ms patrick recommending community
banking and noise ordinances which i
don't know if anyone else experienced
that last night i did myself
however there's been continuous
conversation throughout our community
about
rent
and how some people aren't able to
make rent and also listening from the
other angle which is from our landlords
which are
vocalizing just continued discomfort so
i want to make it clear that
choosing a potential topic would not
mean that we are taking anyone's side
just using this as an opportunity to get
more information and provide people the
opportunity to vocalize their issues or
stances which is why i would recommend
our first topic being rent stabilization
which is a nice subway it's what mr
farley is going to be discussing
so i'm all ears
week after week i've been coming back
with some updates so i'm willing to make
any adjustments and adapt around what
the council members would request think
at this time
i think it is just choosing a topic
collectively and then i can
fine-tune some details and selecting a
future date to announce the community
well first of all thank you for doing
the work and for coming back to the
council and considering all the things
that have been put forward so i do
appreciate that it sounds like we've
landed on it's going to be more of a
town hall as opposed to a city council
meeting based on
what you've said so um
i'm certainly open to that plus moving
in that direction and
i'll have a particular day
just glad it's after the summer
so
um
and he must have me mr
so i just think anytime we get
opportunity to integrate with the
community
and you know i think sometimes change of
settings
um can kind of lend itself to a more
robust conversation um and so so i'm all
for um
are you asking like all the council be
there i mean how do you how are you
taking into consideration what a true
council meeting outside of city hall
would look like i think a lot of the
uh discomfort is we don't want to bore
people around what we do we're trying to
make it exciting and integrity for the
community and
but being
aware of just the nuances of what we do
it might not appeal to everyone so i
think creating the format uh to make it
more of a meaningful conversation but i
think it is a very strong message that
needs to get sent to the community that
we all collectively need to be out there
present um
and and and
available and i know that things happen
i know that emergencies arise but i
think if we have the time to coordinate
a date i would hope that all the council
members can find there
find the final the opportunity to put in
their schedule and make a conscientious
effort to impress them
you know causing further complications
of demeaning laws
it depends
i mean i i wish i could give you a
better answer than it depends it depends
what actions you're going to be taking
you know if you're resolving to take
some type of official action that's you
know obviously
you know open meeting if you're there
for town hall to allow people to just
kind of give you know a piece of their mind maybe or
just you know their input and you're not
dealing with open meeting law
stuff so to speak right you're not
subject to open meetings law
right
so i thought well based on like a town
hall just thinking we're there to get
information from people and get their
input
we heard a man come to the rail the
other day and you know
unsolicited he was his situation so he
came so i think that's one of the
reasons this
came about that particular topic
regarding rent so i really just would ask the other
council members where they are with this
in terms of participation or dates
you know it's going to take all of us to
do something
all right
mr toro thank you car mr williams um i
like the the town hall um mr farley just
brought that up so we probably wouldn't
be able to interact or give advice
so i
well that leaves me a little bit
confused right now as well you can give
advice you can't give formal you can't
do a formal action exactly okay all
right so we can answer okay so i was
just thinking
again like i say we can all be there i
like the idea of listening to
the constituents and what their concerns
are in individual neighborhoods
and um
again with dates
you know i i don't know you know we all
get invited to the neighborhood meetings
um i don't know who posters on a tuesday
so i'd have to check because we do like
to go to all the neighborhood meetings
again i don't know if we if we might
just want to travel there we're in each
neighborhood
and again not asking everyone to come to
us but we're going to them
but again thank you i think it's very
important to hear what they want
that's my my job
so
yeah other
let's test it um i think that
again with the date i think maybe doing
the doodle or something to see
i think we can just send that email it's
only seven we're doing all right we just
send the email out sure
and
i think in terms of format
again even if we had if we knew the
topic was going to be housing for
example um we'd probably want some
landlords and we probably want you know
i mean
it might be important to have
somebody speak even you know for or one
or two people speak and then people
responding but i'm just saying
um might not be else but um i think the
idea of listening and hearing
constituent concerns is is great i think
that is why we go to the neighborhood
meetings
as well generally town home format doesn't
have a speaker necessarily it's just for
everyone there whether it be landlords
or lieutenants or everybody just to
like this we introduce the topic and
then people give their input right i
guess opposed to having somebody
introduce the topic
or somebody that's an expert or whatever
i think is
a good a good thing
like like the meeting that we had with
the office of cannabis management where
you know we were able to hear some of
some
information
i don't know but well it depends on just
two cents on format just two cents on my
two cents yeah because it depends on the
topic
necessarily
on one
right so you said to check the dates for
um
the neighborhood association to make
sure that
they start up in the fall again
to make sure that we're not hidden up
against theirs okay yeah
that's a good idea i know a reunion is a
tuesday but i'm not sure which one i
think it
must be the second
other input
questions comments
um
willingness to participate or not
does everybody need to date i mean yeah
i mean i'd show up if
the date was
we'll give you our input on our dates
you know i think the idea of doing it in
the fall
summer is
so if you could um
are we gonna
i guess we're gonna need to settle on a
topic and are you gonna send out the
dates that
okay
so or did you want to start setting on
top of the topic tonight or do you want
to um just
send that out in the request when you
send out the email
uh so i don't know how appropriate would
be to
comment after we close while i'm
speaking or mr probably speaking but i
think hearing out his
next agenda on the actual topic of
wednesday education will probably assist
to get people's heads wrapped around it
but i think overall just using this as a
platform to hear from the community i would like to
select the top of the right
stabilization and take into
consideration what uh
ms patrick was mentioning around trying
to capture uh something that has already
been discussed i think in our current
just
traveling throughout the city it's an
issue that's growing regardless whether
on any one side or the other so i think
as a council is our opportunity to be at
the forefront of these types of
conversations and
the only way we're able to make
appropriate judgments is having an
injectable understanding of what's going
do any further discussion on this topic
again i think
i like what you had to say mr williams
about trying to make sure that we
weren't coming out in
favor or not in favor of something so i
think
even perception wise i think if we if
the topic was
housing issues or something like that
but to say and i want to hear what mr
brawley is going to going to talk to us
about on the next item but i mean to say
rent stabilization might
um
make it seem like we're skewing in one
direction
over another
but i don't know what the kind of better
word it but
it's williams and absolutely messaging
matters these are just to capture what i
was going to be talking about when we
actually rolled out the community and
definitely take into consideration those
types of elements is important and
that's why i think it's imperative of us
all to be together because although
we're one body that represents the city
at large we're being honest and
intentional we all have
nations that we kind of cater to
naturally we all don't travel together
in
one group um so i think
taking in all of our feedback and input
i think we'll be able to naturally hit
all of those corners of the community so
that we are taking into consideration
everything and not seeming to
any other discussion
okay so we'll wait for the email from
you on the date so we can get some
feedback on that and come up with a date
and move forward with it so thanks for
the work you've done on this um our next
item for discussion number three is rent
stabilization mr farley thank you madam
president so
um
one of the
benefits of living in the community
that have you know getting such a great
financial audit you know once you get
close to the team here to the mayor and
your team for
diligent work
is
tax stabilization
can and should
correlate to housing on
price stabilization so i guess i just
wanted to open up the conversation
with the council because of all the
feedback that we've been getting um
and i've been you know
listening to people
uh and i really want to see like how do
we
is there a way for us to create um
to incentivize you know um
some housing stabilization so that's
really where i wanted to go with this
conversation
um people in the community are really
hurting um you know
we're doing some of the research you
know i realize it says that uh a hundred
dollars in an immediate
equates to a nine percent increase in
homelessness
so this is a you know this isn't a
conversation that we can just have like
you know in abstract ways that this is a
real
way that
is impacting people in their
material conditions of people live so i
think that you know i i look forward to
just kind of opening up this
conversation and getting feedback from
fellow council members um to see
what your thoughts
mr toro
can you tell me a little bit more like
what are you looking for us to say
uh
i'm sorry i just didn't
i couldn't follow along sure
tell us what you're thinking
so what are what so what i'm thinking um
and what i'm hearing and what we heard
in our last city council uh meeting is
that people hurt
right
and we um often talk about our tax base
being pretty stable right so what i'm
saying is that when you are living in a
community um that has a stable tax base
that should correlate to stable housing
prices for people
it should
i don't know that that's necessarily the
case right now
so my question is
what are your thoughts and should we be
thinking about ways as a counselor that
we can incentivize
of
rent prices
to to be more stable because what we're
hearing are now and people are
losing their houses and their housing
and
that's something that we're hearing in
every corner of the city and i think
it's something that we need to talk
about how can we address it
so just to
bring you back to when the gentleman
came to the council meeting um last week yes and um he
his rent went up 200
that's pretty significant
and he made it clear that it was almost
his entire monthly income so
now he has a place to live but now he's
got to figure out how he's going to eat
and uh so i i think that we'd be remiss
if we didn't and he's not the only
person i've heard had emails etc from
people um that have said the same thing
my rent's gone up like 200 and i i just
didn't know that rents went up like that
so um i think that it's that we should
be considering that and i know that
currently currently the city does not
have any kind of rent control or rent
segregation we don't they do have that
in new york city so there's no cap we
don't can't say this is the most you can
charge for somebody to rent your
apartment it's up to a landlord um
so
you know what do we do about that do we
create more homelessness i mean how do
we address that so i think that's the
conversation that's before us now
or do you think it's not something that
we don't need to address
mr mayor
madam chair just want to recap you know
some of the things that
we've seen
for a long time the value of property in
schenectady was very low
so we've seen
the things that we've done collectively
with economic development investments in
the neighborhood that have increased the
values and have also
tied to the national housing market
the taxes here
we cut them five years in a row
last two years have been
no increase the last year is no increase
in
that restriction is really put on us by
the arpa money which says you can't use
it to lower taxes so i think people are
happy that we're keeping the services up
doing it
but you have to remember that the
tax bill that people pay
roughly half of it's the school district
a little over 30 percent is
the city's tax bill a little under 20
is the
county's portion of it
people tend to focus for
it's always the city is the point on
property taxes even though we're
a smaller component of that
in terms of housing just what the land
bank had outlined
those
units that have been put up in other
projects here
are
income based
so that tenants in that basically pay 30
of their income so if they're making a
thousand dollars a month they're paying
300
there can be a little bit of variance in
that depending on the timing and
the exact nature of the unit they're in
there's been a lot of
in that there's a market study for
what's fair rent
but a lot of people who've been quoting
those higher numbers
for those units and saying people are
paying
the fair market rent which is not true
those projects are designed to create
safe and decent housing for individuals
who are not
income
don't have the income to
afford to live there it's how do we do
more of those projects how do we work
with the housing authority to get more
section 8 vouchers
again that individual who
would have the chance to talk to you
since the last meeting you know probably
qualifies for
a
section 8 voucher and
there's a waiting list for that even
though sometimes
you bypass the status on that if there's
hardship or extreme circumstances that
come into play and we're seeing more and
more individuals that
are in
that set of circumstances which are
really beyond their control and are
adversely affecting them and so how do
we
again
work with them to them being the housing
authority to match those people up
to get more vouchers or create some of
this additional housing that is income
based that allows them to have
safe and decent housing
well so um
that i mean not everyone has section 8
and and some of it so i think
some of this is is not just
housing developments it's people are
running from individuals which is i
think
this gentleman's situation and i didn't
ask him about his personal thing and
then i even if i knew i wouldn't talk
about it here
and and then with that even some of the
private housing
people
are
reluctant
to accept section 8 i've heard that time
and time again people look for housing
and they and i know that you're not
supposed to be able to turn people away
based on their spillway
somebody is doing it i do know that
um true but it but it happens
and and if you've ever even looked it
and i've helped people look for
apartments if you've ever looked it
specifically says in there no people say
no section 8. they will say that no dss
so i've seen those
um people advertising and saying
we will not accept this type of payment
for your rent
so i know it's not it's illegal but it
does happen
mr problem yeah so and i would just add
that
you know to the mayor's point there are
you know interventions and things
happening to address um you know
find people safe and accurate housing
um i would just say that like the
section 8 waiting list can be extremely
lengthy
um so and you know just because there
are the programs in their art
doesn't mean that
the programs are going to address the
problem and what i'm saying is that
is there a way that we can
kind of work
and create the setting conditions to
where people
don't have to
seek out
some of those
programs and make
the pressure off some of those programs
so they can work a little more
efficiently and you know because that's
something that is within our real house
to do
again 100
in medium rent increase
correlates to nine percent uh
increase in homelessness that's pretty stark numbers and i think that
we have to look at this with some level
of urgency
um
because it's impacting our community
mr toro agreed agreed mr farmer
absolutely things are things are they're
tough out there mr palmetti speaks every
council meeting on you know how bad
things are getting
with our economy um but on on the other
side of that you need to look at the
landlord situation you don't know what
they're
facing at this point maybe coming off
the three years of covet with no rent
um that they haven't gotten so so
there's a lot of variable variables here
that that we need to think about and
talk about i don't think there should be
rent caps at all for personal property i
just
don't think that's right you say they do
it in new york i don't i don't know any
of that but again people have
everyone has their own
expenses that they need to take care of
and we don't know anyone's personal
finances on that but again this
gentleman and so many people and i think
our city does a damn good job of taking
care of our people
i really think we do there's always room
for improvement but i think you know out
there in the community you see it at
school we all see it we're doing one
hell of a job
we're going to just keep going
and that's why i think it's really
important to have a town hall because
i would have to disagree i've heard from
both sides and i've
had conversations with people who are struggling
however i'm glad you did make the point
of there are two sides to every
narrative i've been to uh being
landlords influencing change meetings
and i know that there are other
components of this conversation
but i think it's it's necessary to
look at our options
and i think absent having this
conversation are we starting or
recognizing that this is an issue
part part of the the analysis is
are raising the rents effectively being
what landlords or homeowners are
attending it to
so i think unless we admit that this is
uh affecting members of our community
i don't think we'll be able to actually
get action on some of the discomfort
that people are feeling
mr
so and i i want us to be mindful that
two things can be true right people can
you know there are there's a lot of
variables
in this conversation
but i don't think that they're you know
i wouldn't rush to say that we should be
talking about it from like two sides
right like a landlord and a tenant i
think that you know
there are you know we should be looking
and exploring ways that where we can
incentivize it for landlords um
to to uh have some sort of uh rent
stabilization um for the people that are
renting their properties i think that we
you know
there might be ways for us to look at
how do we give some you know as a
property owner so maybe some cost
insurance right that they know you know
that their uh taxes going to the mayor's
point um and there's other entities that
have to be involved aren't going to
spike you know here and they know that
okay well i know that this is what i can
make this projection a couple years out
that i'll be staying within these
parameters and then
i pass you know somebody that saves
along to the person that's that's
renting it so i you know
again i i don't think that we're gonna
come over all the answers here i just
think that i wouldn't want the
conversation to go in the direction to
where something like it's you know that the outcome or
willingly it couldn't be mutually
beneficial because it can it can be so i
do that's definitely the direction i'd
like to see the conversation
yeah
i
try to recall this something the state
statute which
i think it's units
built
for 1974 having more than six units
you have to do a study and if the
vacancy rate is below 5
then there's some things that trip
within the locality if it's above five
percent then you don't have the option
right and i
apologize i can't remember all the
details or mechanics of that but that
something again that that wouldn't
happen overnight if
actually do the study
i
don't know
if that information is compiled
in the annual census so that it might
have been done
fairly recently we would have a
fairly accurate baseline to work from
mr colton yeah the mayor is correct um
it's the emergency tenant protection act
which
is passed in 2019
you have to have a study as the mayor
indicated to confirm that the applicable
jurisdiction has less than a 5 vacancy
rate
and it does not apply to buildings
containing less than 6 units rent
control departments
non-profit units housing supervised by
the government which would be you know
obviously those people with housing
choice vouchers
um and substantially rehabilitated
housing and housing uh within buildings
completed after 1973. so when you look
at it it's probably gonna be a very
small number of units that would
be a part of it
seems as though we'll wouldn't apply to
two family homes single family homes
which you know looking at the numbers
across the city i think that's primarily
what we're seeing right two family homes
and single-family homes that are being
rented out
so stabilization even if the vacancy
rate is under
five percent it would not any
stabilization would not apply to those
units
you know if we're looking at you know a
small amount of
units you know even if it is a very
small amount of units you know we look
at it as to how that translates into
somebody's actual you know the lobby of
people living in the city that makes a
huge difference you know so i responded
i appreciate that clarification with
that you know
definitely
it's something i still think that we
need to be
[Music]
when you think about a place like new
york city i mean you know most of their
housing is
above six units right so
the idea that larger you know
municipalities like that that have rent
control
you know
i understand that now
i guess that was required of this insane
code
so
right so that was legislation that was
passed so i mean does that mean that we
couldn't consider something i mean i
know understand that we don't have many
six house units well we have a few more
now than we did a few years ago units
that are above um above six but we many people rent from um
either two family or one family homes
even up to four actually
so
i think it's it's still a conversation
that we have to need to have and and how
do we address it
it's gonna cost homelessness it's gonna
cause people to not be able to eat
we can't just say well okay you know and
i'm not saying that i have a solution
clearly i don't
um
but i think that we do need to talk
about what a solution could be and we
should also um hear from people and we
would need to do our a lot of homework
initially and also i was thinking about
who we could have come and speak in
terms of the housing um i would just you
know give some suggestions if that's
what we're going to do
and um but has that conversation and
include
landlords as well as tenants because
as i always say how you see it depends
on where you sit and so i know that
landlords see it one way in tenancy in
another way but to have someone's rent
increased by what amounted to it over 30
percent that's significant if we ever
raise taxes 30
people would just go out of their minds
so you know we have to look this is like
you really increased it by a significant
amount of money
a person's income
i'll misspell and also but again you
know a couple meetings back you know we
had uh land rovers come to rail and
something that i heard in saying
multiple times
was you know some of the rough
conditions that they're in um and
speaking with them you know how they're
struggling themselves to make them you
know to make ends meet and uh it seemed
like a lot of that was you know
based on the tenants that are living in in their
housing which is
ridiculous um for someone to have to go
through some of the things that they
were going through
i
the point
i want to make sure that we're i'm
intentional about focusing the
conversation in the way
of a solution that can be mutually
beneficial and i don't just think that
you know if i heard the landlords can
continue to say affordable housing right
and i think affordable this is a
relative term right um but you know
if we can
look at what is out there and to see
maybe um that's something we could apply
here that would be mutually beneficial
even if it's only for a small
number of units um
if you know
every unit
that is safe affordable
and someone lives in here that's
somebody that's not
homeless somebody that's somebody that's
not you know
on you know section eight winnings which
i don't know
how many of the council members are
familiar with the length of those
you know waiting listings so i just that
it's something that even if it doesn't
look like a large amount of numbers of
units it is a large amount of impact
it's something that we can find on that
yeah that's useful
mrs williams i think one of my final
points is
i look at the direction our city is
moving towards where we've had
conversations over the past few years
about community policing and community
schools that the idea of looking at a
situation from multiple angles to
understand what
an approach can be i think allows us to
just look at things through a critical
lens and not pigeonholing ourselves to
only responding through
tried and true measures so i think
having a conversation with this thing
that we made our mind up and just opens
up the dialogue
anyone else
so um
so am i understanding that
between two of these that you want to
have the town hall and have rent
all right so
you can send it out that would be one of
the topics and then we'll all respond to
that um i definitely you know i said it
before i said it again i'll say it again
i think that's definitely a conversation
that we need to have in and hear all aspects of the conversation and um
just do it in a mindful way that people
know that we're listening both landlords
and tenants know that we're listening
to the problems of the community mr
mayor i i
don't want to create the controversy
because i believe
that mr williams comes up to go out to
the town meetings
on this path if you're going to have
that as a topic aren't you better off
having a city council meeting where it's
recorded in the minutes of the meeting
and it may then create a basis for
legislative action or if you do it the
town hall it's all informal it's a nice
narrative but
it may not give you the full weight that
you
want from it
so
i guess this is a question for you so mr
upholding if we do a town hall format
that's like
we just like got together
um or do we call it a special meeting i
mean what can we do about that i can't
advise you on what obviously what to do
i mean you're certainly you know could
have a town hall meeting as a council
i think what the mayor's
driving at is if there's some
legislative action that takes place at
some point in the future
you obviously you know afford to be
you know to take action there has to be
some basis generally a lot of times you
know maybe
you know
you can take notes and all that but if
there's legislation that's going to be
happening at some point in the future
i would advise the council to have some
type of basis for taking that action and
if you know things are
informally done at a town hall
and you don't have minutes and you don't
have you know some type of record of
what took place it becomes more
difficult
to legislate with that informality
so i
you know
why not do both right like why can't you
know what people do i think that
having the town hall format
um
gives people um
a chance to you know
participate and give us some information
in in a different setting
and you know i i don't think
a special meeting or whatever you know
what recognition that approach
can do
i'm not texting anyone i was just
looking up special meetings to see
if that was an option
um so
um i think that we have to to i mean we
don't have to make the decision tonight
but i think you definitely have to um
make some decisions um i just pulled it
up but i don't think it's enough here
for me to um
okay so it looks like if we call the
special meeting we could call a special
meeting one topic
and that would it could be a city
council special meeting based on that
and that would capture
the information as well
so that's another option
as opposed to found off
so mr charlie this is your topic um
i guess it's kind of both of your topics
what what is your would you like to see
the next steps on this were you asking
at the council yeah so i think the next
steps will be
we're just going to send um some things
um
and i think that
i i fully you know i wanted to
introduce this um conversation here um
but i think that it definitely uh
lends itself well to uh
you know whatever format you know you
ultimately decide on but i think that
this is i would just like to see this
conversation happen
and i'd like to see our welcome
counselor
but
this is people's lives that we're
talking about here and i think that's
just something i want to continue
so i know we had a lot of conversation
whether she did a town hall meeting or
in the mayor brought back before that if
it's not official then it doesn't do
anything so chapter 28 does speak for
special meetings so that's another we
could have a special meeting outside of
city hall that um in a larger venue
um that would
for that particular topic and then you
know still capture the information and
that would satisfy
everything
so
yes ms patrick or we could i mean or we
could do a city council meeting here
where we have the reporting we have the
city clerk we have you know office staff
et cetera right in this building um and
do it as part of a city council meeting
right
public hearing or
we already i mean we obviously had i
think there were 16 different
individuals that spoke
um
from the landlord
we did hear from the one person last
week obviously at the rail um
but
i don't know again i don't know that we
need a special city council meeting that
we can
do it during a city council meeting if
that if that to fit with the idea of
reporting and that type of thing
well we can record wherever we go and
so
um mr williams do you have any i'm sorry
so i think part of the wanting to get
actionable on this is i feel like we
keep having a circle circular
conversation
the intent is to have a conversation in
the community what's an appropriate
topic to find an appropriate topic and
if it somehow comes back to
it would be easier to maintain it here i
didn't kind of miss the overall intent
of wanting to meet the community where
they are
i understand that there are other
already established meeting settings
such as neighborhood associated meetings
but i think we need to be intentional
with having a designated time to go out
whether it is a town hall or whether
it's a special meeting which i did
recommend first rose recommended that we
did not need that
i am in favor of doing whatever as long
as we can get to the community that's if i'm going to be being very
transparent that's what i want
and i understand that i'm not it's not a
council of college lawyers
so i recognize the importance of
meeting everyone where they are but
without any other input from the council
i would absolutely recommend having a
special meeting
at destiny location and i can put
together all the homework assignments
that were
given to me to get the proper message
get the menu products and outlines and
counselors for us to discuss
behind the scenes and that way we can
out we can roll this out to the
community the appropriate way so people
are aware not so that they can come in
full force posturing just so they can
come with their stories that we can hear
and be able to have a validity with how
we should respond
or is that just thinking what's that
and i don't even know what you're saying
yes so again um i think we keep having
this conversation because i think two
meetings ago we did decide that we
didn't want to do city hall meetings
outside of city hall
i think that was the decision um and
that that's how we got to the town hall
meeting place
so
i personally would like to stick with
that idea
i don't think it was a final decision i
think it was a discussion i don't think
we finally said yes absolutely no city
council meetings outside of town and if
somebody else heard it differently
let me know
um
so
all right we just you got to get some
things out of here right tonight
so are we going to have a town hall and
the city council meeting to address this
because
the whole purpose of mr um
is bringing this forward was that we
actually engage the community outside
the community we go to meetings
often um and we
sort of hosted one with the um oh um the
cannabis events we just kind of like
helped them but they really did all the
work there so that we we've done that so
i i'm not sure why we're opposed to
doing more things like that where people
clearly
people came to that meeting that
probably we've never seen in the city
council meeting because it was a topic
they were interested in
so
i don't see why we are objecting to
going meaning outside of
um
these four walls or however many walls
they're off
so i'm not sure why there's a major
objection to that
and um
i think i heard from every council
member except mr moon do you have any
thoughts on this
no i'm okay but i had a title
either format
so the discussion is like how do we look
forward to you know
do we just take do we do the special
meeting or do we do the town hall and
city council meeting which is more of
the same and will people come to vote
right right right um yes and i was just
reminded that we went out to the
community when we talked about arthur we
presented ourselves to the community so
disable the needs what's that
neighborhood meetings
no we created those meetings those
meetings were created by us you know i
think the i think the mayor and the city
development office but that's what i'm
talking about those neighborhood
meetings were really effective but they
weren't just for they weren't they were
specifically for arka it wasn't like the
neighborhood association is meeting
right no no i i know what you're saying
right um but i'm saying that's what i
think we talked about in terms of this
idea of a town meeting was the exact
same thing we even said that two
meetings ago that those neighborhood
meetings were a perfect model of a way
to solicit and the idea was for us to
not say anything
as city council people but to go and
listen and i think we all did pretty
much go i know i missed one i think
maybe each of us missed one out of all
the united
uh
of those meetings
and they were really informative so i
think that that is a good model this
town hall meeting neighborhood meeting
whatever you want to call it is a good
model to solicit input
on a topic i think with the cannabis one
again i mean if we had said we're going
to have the cannabis office cannabis
management come and do that meeting here
at city hall those folks would have
showed up at city hall i mean i don't
know that to be true it's right across
the street i know what it is
right that's what i'm saying though i
think that nobody else
would have would have come to this
building just as they did to the library
which is another good setting for a
neighborhood meeting by the way
um
but what i'm saying to you what i'm
saying about that is i
know some people that were meeting i
personally invited people i had people
invite people who have never and i've
invited some of those same people to
city hall
who have never shown up so for some
people
um not there's anything wrong with city
hall we all love it here certainly um
but there's some people that just feel a
little bit more comfortable outside of
what they consider very formal
environments and so um so that's where
we're just trying to meet people where
they are
mr i think
this is a very certain conversation
and i think it's it's pretty clear that
this is just about
accessibility and we should be thinking
of different ways
to be
um you know where tradition shouldn't
stifle innovation here we should be
thinking of ways to create more entry
points for people to be involved it
sounds like a good idea to do that so
can we just do that so we can do
something or we just come keep into our
circular conversation
and i again support the
issues that i brought forth as far as
residency organization i support that
being that so my
let's
do a special meeting
in the community
on rent stabilization
that's my position
okay
so
i'm i i could support that but i guess
we would have to kind of take a straw
hole because it's going to need at least
four of us who say that we're willing to
do that
so i'll start meeting mr feldman no it
should be a town hall
the idea of a special meeting i think
there's restrictions that we want to be
able to hear people
and to get to the what we're trying to
achieve
just in my mind it doesn't accomplish it
and secondly
when we have a center of government
and people aren't coming here that's a
problem
because we want people to come here
and be able to
address us
to be able to
bring their concerns and be comfortable
here
and we're out in the community all the
time i'm even gonna say we i know i am
and several other people
so this this notion that we're not going
to people except when there's an
election is this false
but we need people to come here in order
to be comfortable
it doesn't mean we don't have other
arenas like a town hall in order to
uh hear what people have to say
but when we're conducting official
business there's a reason we have city
hall
and we want people to be comfortable
coming here and if they're not
comfortable coming here
and having something intentionally
outside just for the comfort level
that's sending the wrong message we want
people to be comfortable coming to our
meetings
and by doing this we're sending the
wrong message
mr tara i'd be in favor of a town hall
at a special meeting i think if we have
to have a special meeting we'll be here
in the council chambers
but a town hall for sure
assuming to them so mr williams you
started out this evening discussing that
you're in favor of a top hall
and mr mccarthy just stepped in to say
take official action you need to do it
so kind of like
based on your research and everything
that you put together you're more in
favor of a tom hall
forces on the special um
committee meeting is that
what you were discussing earlier today
i was looking forward to hearing some
input from the other council members
that is the first time mr palomi has
said that during this discussion started
hearing that
absolutely i would be willing to go back
to having a town hall meeting my whole
and my old uh intentions with that
compromise was trying to figure out a
way to collaboratively work with each
other
but having made that calm so late in the
conversation
if i had the opportunity i would have
done what i wanted to do first because
of special meeting
but hearing this now i can
have a ton of me but my vote's not now
true
yeah i'm
since basically a discussion earlier i'm going to be at this point if i'm in
fayetteville
it's patrick i'm in favor of town hall
whether we call it town hall or a
neighborhood meeting i have expressed i
think we did express a couple meetings
when we first had that first discussion
mr williams i think we all did say that
this is the place that we you know want
to develop an official business at least
i think that i i think that mr coleman
didn't say that i don't know i know i
said it um but i do think i'll go back
to i'll go back to um you know the
event that um
miss cornfield and miss de toro and i
had with um some young women
young girls and young women
from the school district here i do think
that i like the idea of opening our
doors even in that way like having girl
scout troops or boy scout troops that
come in and you know meet with folks and get to tour the place um you know so
i think to the question of how do we
think outside the box around those kinds
of things i think i think starting to
have tours or whatever i mean the
history that we talked about that day
was informative even to me um so i think
that there are ways that we can do that
but i i do appreciate the fact that this
is the seat of our government here and i agree that
we have to figure out ways to make it
comfortable but in this regard i say
town hall name of the meeting
so
again
i just i'm in the favor of doing
something
and i think that you know
and
making things accessible to people
i am not married to being a special
meeting i would fully support being a
town hall
um and
you know not either or but yes and so
yes town hall and we you know we are
being intentional about increasing
access and hearing so from our
non-traditional voices that don't come
in the city hall because we do official
business here at city hall but we do the
business of the people at city hall so
we need to be going to the people and
finding ways to do that
so i'm all for the town hall that's what
we want to do um and i again i think we
should talk about rent stabilization um
that's what i got there for today
mr
so without
trying to beat the dead horse i think i
think looking at something as simple as
our green market which is an awesome
resource for
our community to showcase to the capital
region
there are often times where i'll walk
around asking people do you live in the
city and more times than not they don't
so i think that is a case in point that
how if we expected people to have to
traverse down here to get any
governmental access i think that's wrong
and it's not to say that this shouldn't
be the focal point because i agree with
you
what i'm saying is if there are
opportunities for us to take this
vehicle into the community
why not try it
and we're not marrying ourselves to
doing this on a
quarterly basis which is what i
recommended first
about understanding that this is a
process and having gone through several
drafts of this conversation this is
where we're at and i'm excited so i look
forward to capturing all the notes that
i compiled so that we make sure when we
do engage the community and a town hall
site which we'll be putting us to it is
appropriate and we'll take the lessons
learned and we will discuss whether this
was a benefit
or
so
it looks like it's settled town hall is
the direction we need to go in but i
think we do need to capture it somehow
mayor so we have to we will have to
think more about how we actually get
people in again
to talk about this and um so having
people come in to talk as you made the
point this time it's not the tour was us
telling them and describing them this
time with them telling us
so
i meant that i like the idea of trying
to
that was a separate thing okay that was
me digressing into the way that we can
start to make people feel comfortable
about coming here is maybe talking to
young people and having young people
come here um and
sharing with them what this place is um
i mean i think we heard that day that
somebody that came didn't even know that
there was such a thing as the city of
all of where to see it all was so i
think the more that we can do those
kinds of things as well
um
i'm not play something okay what we're
talking about i'm saying okay kids i
didn't quite get it yeah no it's a nice
way to get people to come down here we
can do
i'm sure they're able to post coffee and
donuts for adults maybe even that
haven't been here but i'm just i'm
joking but i'm just saying i mean i
think there's ways to to to introduce
people to city hall as well
so um just to like
return the focus to this so we're going
to do a town hall meeting
with the
you want the discussion to be rent
stabilization i think we do have some
homework to do um before that
um mr
williams send out the dates and then we
can all decide oh well can you just
check to make sure none of them fall on
the uh neighborhood association dave
email has sent out the date and then
we'll
say yes no
you know which state works for us
and take from there and then and just as
a reminder we still need to do something
so that it can be
because the mayor said it needs to in
order to if we're going to move forward
and do anything we have to have some way
that we officially capture
what we're doing here so and the town
hall does not meet that particular
need
so
we have to record it
right
take
oh
all right so um
so mr um williams will send that out
we'll head back and hopefully sometime
in september or early october
we'll actually move forward on this and
in the meantime um
if we can keep the council just updating
in terms of
you know where we are with that
um
mr farley i need to hand it back to you
because you were the this was your topic
of discussion
i'm just glad that you know we're
talking about this really important
topic
for um
making
decisions
you know
informed decisions and making people
access to the hard conversations
okay
thank you thank you all for your input
and uh the next item on the agenda is an
amendment of the bargaining agreement mr
poland does that need to be an executive
session um i'm requesting that it'd be
an executive session
okay and all remaining items for
property sales also need to be an
executive session so at this time i'll
entertain a motion to go in the
executive session
second all those in favor