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thank you
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oh yes
okay Thursday
I'd like to call the Schenectady city
council committee meeting to order for
Tuesday January 17 2023.
the first item on the agenda
is the New York State excuse me I'm
sorry Public Safety please call the
order so they've called out of the
Public Safety Committee we have two
items on the agenda tonight first of
which will be New York State DCJS or
infancy prevention Grant and I'll be
discussed by Chief Eric Clifford
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thank you very much
Scentsy Police Department is seeking
legislation to accept a grant from the
New York State Department of Criminal
Justice Services
the grant is for a pilot program
that will support programming for
runaway and homeless Youth and youth of
color develop a framework on alternative
to arrest policies and practices and
build trust among communities
the grant is in the amount of 514 064
dollars
and although I did put into legislative
request I did not have included timeline
um I realized that I made the mistake
that the period of performance is listed
as January 1st 2023 through September
30th of 2026 which is roughly four full
years
and we have partnered with Schenectady
connects for our proposal that includes
a budget of roughly 122 thousand dollars
per year
that that budget is dedicated towards
wages for the youths
salaries and fringe benefits for the
staff at scanty connects
fifteen thousand dollars a year for
police overtime dollars and then
programming expenses and some
administrative and indirect expenses
I will open up questions at this time
any other questions comments around the
table
I would just say that it sounds like a
wonderful program and I love the aspect
of being able to get our youth employed
um I support everything that was in the
Grant in terms of then it you know is
one less opportunity for them to be
doing something that perhaps they
shouldn't be doing and at the same time
learning such amazing skills for future
employment so I completely support it I
think it's great
thank you
is there any questions
so we're talking about 10 units
four years over four years
looking at the the attachment here
proposal
this is a one-year estimated here this
is a one-year estimate before four years
for roughly four years
um and it's a it's a rough it's a rough
uh it's a rough budget right now it's
not it's not in solid that's why it's a
little bit short I believe that comes
like 488 000. for 10 years for a year
and it will cover 10 units per year
that's the target
and you mentioned 10 weeks
per year no okay yes
Sergeant Lanier uh was delegated this so
he has more more information
as the chief said that that's a fairly
rough budget Network
so it was thought out casting a wider
net for referrals
um through the police department
so if
those individuals deemed appropriate for
the program
um that that number of 10 would be 10
youth to go through the program for a
full year of wages so
um you know that's just a rough budget
but if if that if those 10 youth were
employed for the entire year through the
program
um that's what that number okay thanks I
just want a clarification thank you so
um so you're planning on sending you
then we know that we have people that
fall off so what would the plan be if
like let's say like a quarter way
through you all lost a couple you've is
there a process will there be I'll just
ask you if something you fell off like
halfway through a third of the way
through the program and you're not at 10
any longer um is there a plan for that
yeah so the referral process you know
it's
um the youth that qualify you know via
offense a low-level non-violent offenses
um within the school district they would
all be eligible to go into the program
um
so you know we I try to maximize the
funding to to support a program that was
currently in place
um so you know there's a lot of Youth
that's eligible but again that factor is
to tell you that go through the program
if one youth falls out
um if there's plenty of other eligible
candidates to to take their place it's
in your own recruitment through the
school district
um well primarily it will be school
district kids that come to the attention
of of the police or pre-arrest diversion
program
um but my hope would be to obviously
limited to our community
so they will be
school students okay
any other questions or comments Mr
Coleman just clarifying Point here I
know it was to accept the grant
agreement that's the legislative request
obviously part of this is going to be
contracting apparently with the county
on this so I request that it just the
committee look at it from not just
accepting the grant agreement but also
authorizing the mayor or his design need
to execute all necessary contracts to
carry out this program
makes sense thank you uh so thank you
for your time if there are no other
questions or comments ask the motion
thank you thank you thank you very much
the next item on the agenda will be a
presentation for the school bus stop arm
camera safety program and I'll be
delivered by municipated oh thank you
very much so we have some folks here
actually do the presentation on this for
those of you that haven't heard about
the program
um it's too you know to create a more
safe environment for our youth as
they're getting off the bus you'll hear
more about what the statistics on bus
accidents when children are trying to
get off the bus and how this can help
um with that part of what has to happen
in first of all is that the school
district would be the one to implement
this as we know the school districts are
the ones that actually use through the
buses
okay and so what our role in this is
that we have to pay past the local law
in order to do that
and I'm sorry we have to work past a
local law I'm sorry that's okay I'll
speak up and at this point in time
there's already been a presentation done
at the school district level so uh
during the presentation they'll tell you
how that went and um what our goal is
for at this point in time so I'll turn
it over to I'm Steve Francis
okay nice to meet everyone I'm going to
hang out over a few years I'm going to
move the presentation can you move the
presentation for him yeah I'm sorry can
you move the presentation slides for him
or Juan could you do that
okay so we'll ask we'll ask the head of
our I.T Department you're getting the
top size
oh yes if you would please
that's really for the audience out there
okay okay hey everyone so I'm Steve
Randazzo I'm the Executive Vice
President of bus Patrol America
um in a past life I was the deputy
county executive of Suffolk County New
York down on Long Island and
um I'm a father of two young kids and
just really passionate about
Transportation safety and school bus
safety
so
back in 2019 late 2019 the folks in
Albany passed the law that enabled
municipalities all across the state of
New York counties cities towns and even
Villages where all you have to do well
there are a few steps but at the city
level you basically have to enable the
legislation uh locally so that if
there's state law floating out there
that you know City councils for example
through the state legislation can bring
to the city of Schenectady through some
local action
um next slide please
so I do I do want to tell you a little
bit about pest control so there are a
few vendors in the space but we have a
pretty unique Mission we believe it's
important to put the safety technology
when communities do uh choose to embark
on it to to make it available to all
students on all of us so our mission
really is in line with that philosophy
that we want to make the ride to and
from safer to and from school safer for
all students in the communities
so what we do is
um we outfit school buses in communities
with
artificial intelligence enabled camera
systems that help monitor traffic with
respect to school bus stop animals so
essentially if a car right now passes a
stop School Bus they more or less are
getting away with it because it just
generally now not how we police our
communities you almost have to be
unlucky in a sense to have a police
officer sitting behind the school bus
witnessing the incident and then going
after the driver writing him or her
ticket so this is a really efficient way
to enforce this really critical law and
help students when they're getting off
and on the onto the school bus
um you know just
ensure that that's done a little bit in
a little bit of a safer manner
so we look at this as
an interesting place to invest in
because
I was I went to school back in the 90s
and went from from what I hear from
folks who went to school back in the 80s
and 70s and 60s that the school bus
really hasn't changed at all that much
and you know they maybe added some seat
belts but other than that
um
it just hasn't been a place
traditionally that we've seen much
investment in so this is a really
exciting opportunity that New York state
has afforded communities to add some
wonderful safety technology and help us
make the road safer
in the problem in the process of doing
it next slide
so I just want to tell you a little bit
more about bus Patrol so we are the
number one provider of the service
across the country and particularly in
New York so our customers already across
the state are places like Suffolk County
Rocklin County
places down in Orange County downstate
New York Dutchess County Albany County
Nassau County Monroe County we were just
recently awarded the contract we're
implementing it now we're up in the city
of Niagara Falls city of Rensselaer accounting and then awarded
the contract in the City of Buffalo
we're implementing city of Jamestown and
city of North Tampa Wonder right now so
it's really kind of spreading like
wildfire in a sense so we've had a
couple of preliminary conversations with
the mayor and as
president Porterville mentioned we did a
presentation for the school district
leadership
my understanding is that the
transportation leadership is very
supportive
because it's just a great opportunity to
make the road safer and to help kids in
the progress so next slide
so I just want to talk a little bit
about the problem take a step back so
school buses are actually the most
widely used form of mass transportation
in the country by far they're over half
a million school buses roaming around
America every day and that represents
roughly 26 million student writers and
over the course of the last 10 years we
have seen over a hundred thousand School
Bus related injuries over a thousand
fatalities with respect to school buses
so certainly a problem that is
statistically backed up and if you just
go to the next slide please
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um so what you see
um with respect to the way school bus
drivers and parents see this situation
is I don't know if anyone has school bus
driver and their family if you know one
but um ask them if this is a problem and
they will tell you unequivocally uh yes
so and and a lot of parents share an
experience that I that I hear from
community community around dropping
their kids off at the at the the local
school bus stop and seeing lots of cars
whiz past and just blatantly
disregarding the bus
and I think that's happened
for a number of different reasons I
think one people are just more
distracted behind the wheel than ever
before people are texting and driving
and people are people just distracted
behind the wheel in general because cars
are built with lots of bells and
whistles that are kind of distracting us
and and then lastly this just
inefficient sense of enforcement
um
that compounded over years and years and
years I think has led to this pervasive
driving culture reckless driving culture
around stop school buses people just
don't you know if you're late for a
meeting or you know you're just don't
want to stop for those 30 seconds while
the kids are getting off and on
you look around you see if there's a
police officer and if there isn't you tend to whiz off so school bus
drivers are actually asked on an annual
basis to manually count with their eyes
how many passes happen in like a given
period of time maybe a day or two and
then that's aggregated up at the state
level and then even the national level
so it's estimated that
um in the United States 17 million
illegal passes every year in New York
state the the governor's traffic safety
board estimates that roughly 50 000
illegal passes are happening every day
in the state of New York so it's a
pretty serious problem next slide
here's some footage from actually some
neighboring peer programs in New York
that permitted us to share with you
tonight so this is a problem on single
Lane roads on multi-lane roads on roads
that have
um opposing traffic
um and you know what we like to show
or draw attention to folks when they're
watching these videos is just sort of
the lack of brake lights like to me when
someone breaks it's almost like a symbol
of maybe someone contemplating whether
they're doing something right or wrong
but only very often see is just an utter
blatant disregard with us and that's
really what's what's troubling and what
I think a program like this is really
meant to address is what we really want
to see is and it's hard but a change in
driving culture the the there is I mean
I can tell you just from personal
experience if I see a you know state
trooper you know a 100 couple hundred
feet away from me I tend to be on my
best behavior I slow down I make sure
that I'm making sure I'm doing all the
right things we want to create them why
not create that same that same Instinct
in drivers around school buses school
buses are actually
they're very large they're yellow they
have huge red flashing lights they have
a stopwarm that comes out when kids are
getting off and on it is arguably the
most visible thing on the road when it's
on the road and yet
people are just blowing right past them
every day and Schenectady I can tell you
just in talking to folks in law
enforcement parents folks in government
that it seems to be an issue here as
well
next slide
I just want to kind of crystallize this
sense of traditional enforcement where
versus this photo enforcement world with
respect to this one issue and that's in
the state of Pennsylvania so
Pennsylvania passed this law a few years
ago we just went live across the state
of Pennsylvania in numerous communities
in from the Philadelphia area all the
way out to Pittsburgh Pittsburgh is one
of our customers
and back in 2018 when this was not yet a
law in Pennsylvania
police officers can cross the entire
state issued 667 violations for
illegally passing a stop School Bus
um we did a pilot program in Allentown
Pennsylvania I don't know if everyone's
ever been to Allentown but
um we did it on just two school buses
across just 47 school days and those two
school buses captured 205
two school buses
on a shorter period of time than a full
year in one community so it just
it's absolutely dramatic what the
cameras are captured capturing versus
what um you know police officers again
there's no fault on their own but just
are capturing on the roads it's not the
way we we traditionally police our
communities next slide
so um unfortunately what really led to a
lot of States enabling this legislation
to permit photo enforcement on school
buses was a tragic incident in 2018 in
the state of Indiana a family actually
lost three children to um
unspeakable and an unspeakable incident
where a car illegally passed the school
bus
absolutely devastating
it's hard to talk about but it did lead
to action so you now have dozens of
states that because the the U.S national
Transportation safety board recommended
to states to
um to do something about this and to
think about photo enforcement as a
solution we now have dozens of states
that do it so we we are actually in New
York Pennsylvania
Connecticut
Maryland Virginia
Georgia North Carolina Illinois
Washington State so it's really kind of
like I said even in New York I said it
was spreading but it's also spreading
around the country as well
next slide
so I want to tell you a little bit about
the state law it's it's called 1174a and
it was always illegal to pass to to pass
a stop school bus if it's letting kids
on and off but a the a and the law
allows for this photo enforcement
um mechanism to take place and
essentially like I said that's those
four levels of government so in your
case it would be the city of Schenectady
and the first step is to pass this local
law enabling the state legislation if
you could just hit next
and
it's actually so once you if you pass
the local law
generally speaking there's already
conversations with the school district
but that's then the step where the
school district has the ability to
decide whether it wants to participate
or not so like I said conversations
always generally happen beforehand but
the steps are local law
then you usually select a vendor and
then the school district
will ultimately agree to participate and
they have to pass a board resolution at
an upcoming school board meeting
um the interesting thing about our
business model and and way of doing this
is that we will pay for all obligations
so this is actually zero cost to
taxpayers as a zero cost of the city
this is zero cost of the school district never has to budget
for this we will outfit every single
school bus in the community at no cost
um we will install on buses that are
either District owned or owned by a
private operator I believe that the
Schenectady City public school district
has I think four private operators so
they're already in talks with those
operators because they really want to do
this at the transportation level
and the way we are
um able to recoup our costs over time is
that we negotiate a um like a split of
the revenue that comes in from the
collected the collected revenues from
the tickets and that enables us to
um service the program in perpetuity as
well because sometimes school buses or
school bus companies will decommission a
bus and they'll have to buy new buses so
we're we provide the service and
perpetuity on an ongoing basis and there
is literally no cost no labor on behalf
of all of the entities involved other
than at the city level
we would need someone to agree to review
the violation so we really ultimately
are like we create these evidence
packages the videos coming from the
cameras
um
that are artificially artificial
intelligence enabled they
um they're the ones that um that collect
the video and then it's reviewed by a
human level uh review at our team like
for quality assurance purposes but then
ultimately it sends over the cloud to
um in your case the city for review and
it is not required to be a police
officer New York allows civilians to to
be approvers of these these photo
enforcement violations but it's really
up to the city and your discretion about
who would be the ones making that final
decision about whether to issue the
ticket or not and then we then support
the back end effort where we pay for the
mailing and the printing and the postage
and we collect the revenue from The
Violator and then we send it over to the
city and then even if someone wants to
contest this we also support the
consistation process we help with the
scheduling the docket preparation and
the evidence uh preparation and the
expert testimony in the event that
and test this and before
next slide
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I do want to show you the uh what the
camera what the technology looks like so
it's not very invasive it just installed
on the outside of the school bus it's
painted yellow so you could really
barely notice it if you didn't really
know it was there and and it's
essentially monitoring traffic in the
very narrow use case of when the school
bus is stopping to let kids on and off
so it really the cameras are really
wonderful I you've probably heard this
term artificial intelligence thrown
around a lot but it's actually
um incredible how efficient the
artificial intelligence is it's actually
gotten to the point where it's they say
it's 11 more accurate than a human being
and it's uh because it's monitoring
traffic on an ongoing basis it actually
gets more intelligent over time so we
expect our artificial intelligence
engine who we call Ava kind of like
Amazon has Alexa we have Ava Ava is
monitoring traffic and just can discern
really well what a stopped car looks
like what a bicycle looks like what a
car in motion looks like
um and it's just really efficient at
helping bus Patrol create these quality
evidence packages for for for
communities like yours to review to hold
drivers accountable who would endanger
the life of a child
next slide
um and we really feel like knowledge is
power when it comes to our programs like
we
if you look at this very simply like the
Casual Observer might say you're just
the ticketing platform we in no way
really want to position ourselves like
that we want to be your community safety
partner where we and we're doing this
all across the state already where we're
providing the data to schools and cities
on an ongoing basis about where the hot
spots in your community because that
should be an ongoing conversation with
the school about how you plan your
routes in future years right because if
we tell you that this is a dangerous uh
location right like if we give you the
top five or top 10 most ticketed
locations in your community
you should take that and have energy to
Foster conversation about well maybe we
should move the school bus stop here or
over here to make it a safer Journey for the student getting on and off the
bus so we provide that to you as a
standard service we provide data um in
line with just some of our other
contracts that we have in place with
local municipalities across the state
next slide
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next slide
so here's another distinguisher about
bus Patrol and so the way the revenue
flows I do think it's worth spending a
second on that is that it actually flows
through the city the school is not clued
into the revenue per New York state law
and the school generally speaking in my
experience all across New York in the
country generally speaking is really
just happy about the safety but what we
like to do to to Really make this
program about comprehensive school bus
safety is we will offer the School
District
No Charge internal cameras for all their
buses
so
um you know in just preliminary
conversations with school district
leaders and transportation leaders
locally this is really viewed as like a
game changer because you know in the
event there's a bullying incident or a
fight
um
their one is I think there are limited
internal cameras on your on your city
school buses but I think
there aren't folks who are super happy
about the quality of those cameras so
these qual these cameras are HD really high quality and we're paying for
them and servicing them on behalf of
your community in perpetuity so and
there are different ways to access the
footage first the transportation
director or the school leaders call it
the principal or the superintendent
would have actually access to all the
school buses from a live feed
secondly there's a way in the event of
an emergency to go pull the footage from
the school bus using a they call it a
down ball and there's a little tablet
that goes along with that and then the
Third Way is let's just say there's an
incident on bus 7 this morning someone
says you know there was a fight or a
bullying incident
the the district could contact us and we
can just send them the footage from you
know eight to 805 which really captures
that full picture of what happened on
the bus and send it to the appropriate
School official for review
so right now that's that from what I
hear that is not the experience that the
school transportation leadership has so
I think from that perspective
um alone is is really makes this program
worthwhile for the school and the beauty
of it is the enforcement program helps fund this this is why when we
click the schools the the cameras on all
the school buses and again no cost of
taxpayers no cost to the school district
no cost to the city one completely 100
percent violator funded it enables this
pool of resources to become available to
fund really wonderful additional
technology that we provide at no cost to
the district for being part of the
program next slide
and that's just really our Mantra I just
want to restate it because it's so
important to us so we do have some
competitors in the space but I will tell
you
um they haven't really taken off in New
York because their model is is really
one-dimensional it's more about becoming
this
recurring ticketing platform and they'll
do that by doing traffic analyzes of
your of your routes and they'll just put
cameras on like the four or five buses
that they view are going to just ticket
the most we feel like how are you going
to tell a parent that your kid didn't
get the safety technology because you
didn't make the city or the vendor you
know enough money so we feel like the
most ethical the most efficient way to
go about this is No Child sort of Left
Behind so to speak
no kid or no parent should have to to to be told that you didn't get the
safety technology provided to your bus
because of Revenue reasons so we we
subscribe to the philosophy that all
children should be afforded this this uh
this safety technology partner so
schools are really gravitating towards
that model and and we really stand
behind it because we believe in it it's
part of our values next slide
what I will say is in my experience both
as a Suffolk County official and now
rolling out these programs all across
the state and all across the country is
that public education is critical the ticket of course is a it hurts in
the wallet a bit and it's a but it's
also a form of education and you
definitely learn your lesson once you
get one but we would like we like to
create an environment where people are
really given a heads up that this
program is coming so what we'll do is
we'll work with the city to design
Public Service campaigns and press
opportunities and we even sent work with
the school to send out parent writers so
that essentially everyone in the program
and the city knows that this is coming
we don't want this to be viewed as a
gotcha we even in the first 30 days of
the program and this has become a
standard for us across New York is we
won't even issue a a monetary violation
just with the city's permission we would
say for the first 30 days let's send
warning notices out so about the folks
who are not accustomed to being held
accountable for this sort of have that
one last sort of heads up that this is
coming in a month
we provide wonderful educational
materials even at the student level
because we feel like students even have
a role to play in here as well so we
have age-appropriate content for young
children for middle school students and
even for older students who are you know
going into driver's ed because we really
want to ingrain us in children very
early to watch out for the bus I'll just
tell you that I have a younger brother
I'm the oldest of six children actually
and my youngest brother happens to be on
the autism spectrum and in this in the
special needs World
some students with autism there's really
this they call them Runners there's this
like instinctive trust in the bus that
when the stop arm is out and the red
lights are flashing and the buses stop
that a lot of kids just they're not
looking they just run Acro across the
street and particularly students on the
autism spectrum it's known in the
disability rights Community to be an
issue but I will just tell you that um
you know I like to pull out my smoke my
phone for special effect but you very
often see lots of kids just sort of
walking across the street like best
staring at their phone and not looking
so whether it's a student with special
needs or not there is this instinctive
trust that kids have when the bus is
stopped that
we really want to make sure that cars
are on the side of caution when the
buses stopped for those few moments to
make sure the road is safe
uh next slide
as you approach it so this is a PSA we
did in Suffolk County what should you do
if you were in this car
but in every case
The Cutting Edge cabin technology
Suffolk county is launching a program
that can serve as a national model for
school Transportation safety stop for
the class it's New York state law for
more information visit
suffolkcountymy.gov school bus so we
create a landing page so that there's
public information available and we did
it in multiple languages we did radio
ads and Spanish radio down on the island
we really want to make sure that folks
again before we ever issue a ticket that
the community has this sense that
they're bought in their voices are heard
and that they're ultimately given a
heads up so that they know that it's
coming and that they're bought into the
concept of
next slide
so I I guess what I would like to just
close by saying and I'm sure there might
be a few questions but we really fashion
ourselves as a safety service we we
really kind of support the program on
the city level and the school district
level from Soup To Nuts we have a whole
field service technology team that comes
in and installs the cameras on the buses
throughout the community and we work
with your school district and your local
operators on scheduling so the School
District transportation operations are
never impacted we work nights and
weekends and holidays and over the
summer
and we service the cameras in perpetuity
so like I said things happen like
sometimes the bus run you know kind of
brushes up against a tree or you know
just things happen where we're always on
the scene servicing the cameras that's
Our obligation as being the city's
vendor we issue the citations we don't
approve the citations the city does that
but we issue them in terms of mail and
postage and printing
we also collect the payment on behalf of
the city we usually work with if you
have like a city controller or a CFO
something to that effect to make sure
the flow of funds are smooth
if people want to contest it we actually
there's like a little coupon that people
will kind of rip off and nail back to us
and then we're helping to schedule the
core contestation so it's really trying
to be almost no burden on the city we
really take the labor part out of it on
behalf of the school district and
sitting
we also have a call center that's open
every day so that when the violators
have questions about the program or just
have certain issues about payment we all
we also offer payment plans so that
folks who have some financial hardship
can pay over time and we coordinate that
through our call center we provide
training to law enforcement or folks who
are approving the violation so that they
can get accustomed to the technology
which is super easy to use to begin with
we we provide like I said media
campaigns and Reporting so really just
we really fashion ourselves as your
community safety partner again next
slide
so I'll save the best for last
really cool data we're on I think over
15 000 school buses across the country
at this point I think we'll be over
around near 20 000 by the end of the
summer but across all of our programs
about 98 of folks who receive one
violation in the mail never get a second
one so really dramatic low dramatically
low recidivism
um and we've just our sense is that
because we do these full Fleet
deployments
um it really sends a strong message to
the community that this law is now going
to be enforced in full force and once
people know that that's the case they
generally
kind of change their behavior and that's what we're really proud of
ultimately is that that behavioral
change that instinctive behavioral
change around the way people behave
around stop school buses
and the last slide please
again to reiterate
um completely 100 BioWare funded so
there's never a point where even if the
program didn't really let's just say it
didn't realize certain Revenue in line
with the car costs to support the
program the city had never never owes
the vet house the vendor pest patrol in
this case the Delta between them so it's
completely from a financial perspective
risk freedom to the city of the school
district and coming to
happy to answer any questions that we
have
any questions Patrick yes um thank you
very much for your presentation you did
actually answer some of my questions
during your presentation and we
certainly know that that change in
driving culture has to happen we've been
talking about traffic safety and other
traffic calming measures throughout the
year but this is a huge issue and one
that I think all of us you know
understand and see this happen quite a
bit
um the contract that's in the packet
that we were given indicates that the
city would be responsible for all the
costs so I don't believe we were given a
contract
a draft it's a draft it's just a sample
language so I just want to clarify that all would have to change because
I'm hearing what you're saying there
thank you
um the language that's in here reflects
what is in 12 74.
that is what is in the law of the
nearest law certainly the city would be
on the hook but we can always contract
out and any way that we would like to to
make it you know cost effective for the
city and obviously there are other
factors that will come into play
potentially in terms of
um you know the technology being used in
terms of a competitor who may take you
know potentially a lower cut so to speak
in terms of what would be best for the
city
um okay yes but you're right the
language from the state law says that
the cost is born I think really is to
distinguish between being born upon the
school district versus the municipality
okay I got that okay thank you very much
the state law out clarify
um never permits the school district to
go out of pocket so in theory the state
law is written in a way that says the
city has to compensate the school
district if it has any costs but what
I'm saying is that supposed to patrol is
we take that proposition out for all
parties and we Bear all costs for the
program okay so um a couple of things so
the automated in 4 enforcement I want to
hear a little bit more about that you
know because that was one of my concerns
reading this just in terms of Staffing
around some of the redaction
of the video I guess I call it video
it's probably not called video in AI
Cloud world but I'm an old old school
person
um so
does when you talked about your Staffing
would be the first
look at the video at the
discussing infractions and then you'd be
sending us something
um does your team do all the redaction
of the video in terms of other license
plates and other you know exterior again
that was in part of the state law around
that as well but if I can just touch
base on that first
these vehicles are out in public so
there's no need to necessarily redact
because you see a license plate you're
seeing it from public View and if we're
using it for you know prosecution of a
violation we wouldn't provide that
redacted in any event okay all right
everything here is public all right
this is there's no privacy concerns
explicitly related to this certainly
somebody can potentially foil for
certain types of video which is separate
from the discovery that we would have
for a prosecution and
even that would be redacted because it's
all same being seen from the public
there's nothing in the private setting
here okay the violation goes to the
registered owner of the vehicle so
really the camera's job is to capture a
clear picture of a license plate from
um and they're actually in 1174a it
talks about how the cameras are not to
be used for any other purpose and they
also have to be destroyed within I think
um
or 90 day time period
um so there's a there's and just to tell
you about our staff they're certified
we're stock to compliant so we have the
most stringent of cyber security
protocols so we've never had a breach
but
um our job again is to produce quality
evidence for you to review and then
ultimately once a driver is either held
accountable or that the ticket is
dismissed or you disapprove it it
essentially goes away and is destroyed
it so the automated enforcement again
that I just want to be really clear in
my own minds that all is coming through
you it sounds like right I mean or
yeah
we're we're creating the evidence
package the cameras are capturing what's
happening on the road and then we we
have a set of quality assurance agents
who are just checking Ava's work to make
sure we send you a completely quality
evidence package product and then
ultimately that's in line with your the
state law standards and the standards
you impose on us and then
that's transmitted over the the cloud
through essentially like a portal so
we'll give let's just say you have the
USM folks from the Schenectady PD to
review these I'll just saying
aesthetically we would give each officer
a unique login where they can log in
from their computer or even phone where
they um the queue populates every time
more violations are ready for them to
review so they might show up one day at
you know eight o'clock in the morning
and there might be a queue of 20
violations potential violations for them
too review Once they finish that it
might populate again later in the day or
the next yeah depending on what's
happening on the roads
Mr President yeah um so first I won a
second Mark we
the issue a very important one
um so I just kind of want to get more
clarity for myself as well it's like so
you're saying that this is 100 violated
fund fun funder funded that is the
technology and the installation or is
that your entire like company model or
essentially yeah I mean it even go down
to probably my paycheck like we the way
we are
company uh has its Revenue come in is
through these programs but we partner
with with communities in cities like
yourselves and school districts
depending on the way the state law Works
um and it's just that's that varies from
state to state but
we that's the sort of our business model
is that we feel like we're coming into
your community and
we're not trying to sell you cameras
like we're not a hardware reseller we we think this best works as a service
because in Theory the school district or
the city could buy cameras and then you
could hire staff to install the cameras
and then you could hire staff to service
the cameras you could hire staff to
review the footage you could hire staff
to lick the envelopes and print the
postage every day and collect the money
it just doesn't really work all that
well that way so we really have
positioned ourselves as this One-Stop
shop service so that it doesn't it
doesn't require you to hire 20 people to
perform the service of that for the city
we'll do it for you okay so so
the idea the goal is prevention right
ultimately preventing so and with this
model like I guess all good
non-profits I guess I would say we're
working to kind of work ourselves out of
business here right and if you have like
that really high percentage of or low
percentage or recidivism then that would
essentially that's what would happen
hopefully yes
um
in Schenectady I know that there's
agreement or Transportation where we
work with our with the cbta buses and
city buses
um who do transportation for kids to
school and how would this would this be
applicable to that type of agreement
because we're not talking about yellow
buses here
so unfortunately as of now the state law
only permits this to go on a yellow
school bus that has a stop arm although
certainly makes sense and certain cities
have lots of students that are taking
Alternative forms of public
transportation so you know happy to
engage in that conversation but for the
time being that's what the state law
permits is the yellow bus and then I get
this question a lot about the
um you know working yourselves out of
business so to speak what I will say is
I'm not really promising that the
violations will ever get to zero I don't
know if that's realistic it's because
you have folks who come from out of town
you have folks who are new drivers you
have folks who
are distracted even though they know
this program exists so but what you do
see is initially pretty higher level of
violations and we you usually see a flat
towering effect where they're a lot more
manageable and there's awareness around
the entire community that the program
access so school bus drivers and school
transportation leaders and parents will
say oh my God this this used to be a bus
stop where people flew by all day and
now I'm actually seeing people stop so
that's that's sort of what we see across
the programs that we serve
well to your point um I was definitely
having the same thoughts on being a
self-defeating thing so
um
based on your previous comment though is
there a healthy amount of violations to
expect uh take into consideration
um new drivers and visitors where you
can identify where your city is compared
it to like best case scenarios if that
makes sense and I understand I want to
say this even one violation is an issue
once you identify a statistic if you're
then responsible for really lowering it
so I want to make sure we're having yeah
that's a great question I look I I would
say roughly speaking we might see you're
a pretty dense you're small City but
you're pretty dense so you might see
somewhere in the vicinity of
I'm just doing like back in the napkin
math here but like 0.2 or 0.3 violations
per bus per day so let's just call it
one let's say roughly speaking one
violation per bus every five days you
have about 30 days
school buses in Schenectady across all
your vendors so you know let's just say
it's 40 times 0.2
so you're looking at maybe a couple of
violations per day which is what I would
say is happening on
so I just want to be clear so the bus
Patrol collects the revenue we collected
because just to make it easier for the
city we have a payment portal where
people can pay put their credit card
information or mails check and then it
really goes we work with your controller
to make sure that's then securely
transmitted to the city well I think
that's actually a good thing we would
have to do so if you would select the
money and so you said there's this 50 50
split and it's it's roughly 50 50. I
have to check what so what and there and
this um to the point about procurement
is so we do
um very often times when competitive
rfps and I'm very familiar with the
procurement in my former gig at the
County Down on Long Island but we've
been awarded so many competitive
um you know competitively procured
solicitations or procurements that we
now now have a bunch of contracts that
exist all across New York that have a
Cooperative language so like a community
a county or city could say because it
was competitively procured they could
put in the contract we permit other
municipalities in New York and Beyond to
they call it piggybacking so that's
totally at the city's discretion but
there are ways to utilize our services
without having to do an RFP at this
point because like Dutchess County and
Monroe County and Rockland County all
have this this Cooperative piggybacking
language in their contracts that we'd be
happy to share with you
any other questions
so
um
outside of like the violation data I
could see like where you're saying that
we kind of that might Peak and then kind
of start to dwindle off as it was which
is good
um is there any other data around like
um actually like uh you know maybe like
a reduction accidents or students being
like you know hit by drivers or
something like that in any of the you
know that you could share with us yeah
that's a good question
um and I can dig back with my team to
try to get you something I can't really
speak to Schenectady specific statistics
I mean I would imagine your PD might
have some of that housed within their
department but what I will say is just
this is why we believe so strongly in
the full Fleet model as opposed to like
if we just didn't if I just said
let me do it on like three or four of
your muscles like I'll just put it on
the ones that's like we know people are
gonna pass a lot because it goes in a
really dense part of town where there's
lots of intersections and things like
that
and then people start to think like oh
well now I memorize where the buses that
have the cameras and I know the ones
that don't we really want to avoid that
so we we do this full Fleet approach but
we say let's put it on every bus so that
everyone knows that any school bus in
the city is connected have you passed
the school bus you're going to get a
ticket
and what we found is in in cities that
do this
we feel like it's it's especially when
higher traffic parts of the day like
your rush hours like when the schools
are on when the school buses are on the
road that we see a comprehensive traffic
calming effect right because when
they've all been 40 school buses are
roaming the city at the same time
there's a good chance that like if
you're driving around Rush Hour you're
going to see one and it creates this
calming effect I think comprehensively
to your point
so
um
but I'll try to make a double question
here so have you um has any of the
municipalities that you've worked with
have been like increased the uh the
ticketing fee in order to kind of
support the program
um as that happened
in um in New York it cannot be the case
because New York state law sets the fine
and 250. so it's 250 dollars
for illegally passing a stop to a bus so
you would need State legislation and
Albany to raise the fine or lower the
fine
um and that's generally the case in
other states too because it's the finest
set by the state
does it violator have an option to say
um I don't know I'm not using the right
terminology here but to say like okay if
they pay within the first 10 days that
this ticket is issued is it like
graduated uh
intervention models within Europe
right now yeah so the state doesn't
require this but I will tell you that we
you know we we want to make sure that
people are afforded the opportunity to
pay overtime if you know if you have a
financial hardship so we have built in
our system a mechanism for someone to
request the payment plan so I think it's
maybe might be like four or five or six
I'd have to get back to I'm actually I
think it's like a few payments over like
a few months spam and we're very
accommodating when it comes to that but
that is not required by the state law
that's something that we specifically do
um I think you had another part to your
question too yeah it was just around
like so I the law was like kind of I was
a little fuzzy on that is this
um footage is this footage can this
footage be used
um for any other purposes outside of
um traffic uh infractions or violator in
other words like who has access to this
footage and has law enforcement or any
other agency contacted you to use this
footage for anything other than that
um so New York state does not permit it
to be used for any other purpose
um the even the school district is not
in the state law 1174 is not permitted
to access the outside camera footage
that you can use the inside camera
footage because we're giving that to
them as a big part of the program but
the outside camera footage is only for
us to send to you and then the city has
certain designated officials who review
it whether it's law enforcement or
civilians and then I would say in the
rare circumstance a true crime is
committed and like a judge orders that
the the footage being turned over like
they're really like high levels of
standards and protocols that need to be
followed I have seen it like I have seen
an incident where a child is actually
hit by a car had a hundred thousand
dollar medical bill and
PD actually found who that driver was
because it was you know a 250 hour
ticket probably wasn't enough to hold
that person account so we've had very
rare instances where legitimate crimes
are committed and through proper legal
protocols
um
the footage can be obtained on a very
young differences
oh thank you thank you for presenting us
to us um very important topic and with
safety for students have schools we have
received many companies Through The
Years about school bus and and you know
users of a motor vehicle
a couple things I want to touch on in
terms of my hours I've seen some section
here deal where the city has to review
the violation the city has to enforce it
yes and then it has so many houses to
certify sorticate sort of Affidavit of a
statement of the document is true and
then it has to go to court and our city
staff has to defend that in a court now
we have to take into consideration that
all those little bits is going to factor
in for us a lot of manual from the city
and we know of a fact that we are
shortage of Staffing right now so if you
go to implement this we don't want to
implement it and then we don't have the
staff
to review this documents then it become
useless so we want to make sure that
your company you are working with a city
to make sure that we have adequate
Staffing to enforce this and if your
agency can help the city in terms of how
do we work collaborate between four days
or something like that the other
question I want to talk about in terms
of code is this work to present support
on the judge or to say that the person
plead guilty and was to reduce the fine
do you have accommodation for that okay
great questions so your first question
is and I get this question in
particularly like from a lot of police
genes because it seems like oh my God
like we don't have someone that can
spend someone's going to spend hours
doing this what I will tell you is one
we will pay for that if you need to hire
someone or if you need to repurpose a
portion of someone's day who works for
the city whether it's at the PD or a
civilian we will reimburse you for that
so you're never coming out of pocket for
the administration of the program
second
in in our experience across the country
doing this generally speaking a thousand
school buses in a community requires one
full-time equivalent so you're probably
looking at someone at the city needing
to spend
at most
maybe a couple hours a week and I would
say it's probably going to be less than
them to to Really administer this
program so very light lift
and thirdly again
um you know we ask you within reason to
you know not create a you know 500 000
job and is that what he's doing this so
someone with a reasonable salary and we
would uh reimburse that uh person for
the time spent on the program so like
let's just say
you have someone who works 48 hours a
week but they spend five hours a week on
the program we would reimburse the city
for five hours a week for that person's
salary on the back end with the
administration in terms of defending the the citations in court like I said
we provide all the
um the requisite Corp support so we
schedule it we do the docket preparation
we help provide evidence for the city to
defend
the citations successfully and that
usually winds up being a pretty
diminished cost
um you know just to to defend it in
court
you know what usually we'll have like
maybe a monthly traffic court where the
city will tell us this is the day we're
doing the bus stop camera tickets and
we'll just you'll give us time slots and
we'll slot people in so that people know
when to come and when to show up I mean seeing courts do
um contestations over Zoom uh across New
York as another option to make sure that
people don't have to you know maybe take
off a whole day of work to go to court
the second part of your question was
induced the reducer fund penalty okay
yeah so that is our interpretation of
that is that that is not supposed to
happen because the way it's written in
New York state law I think it's some
distinction between whether the law
calls it a penalty or a fine but
whatever they call it in the state law
1174a judges are are not supposed to
have the discretion however you have a
lot of elected judges in like little
towns and Villages and cities and
counties all across New York and I
actually have seen some judges doing
that
um and you know at this point we just
abide by themselves
so whatever the judge decided in terms
of the penalty you will take that yes
the entire violation the fee for the
violation close that violation yes we're
going to abide by what the judge says I
do think it's worth having conversations
with judges about what's right and wrong
and some times there are supervising
judges in counties that have those kinds
of conversations but I want to make sure
that you're not going to take that
whatever was decided before the minute
relying the city for the original oh no if that's what you're where you're
going with that the answer to that right
if the judge says 100 we don't build the
city the other one yeah that's that's
not what we do I'm just
I just I just have one more question
um and I was just wondering I saw that
the data on one of the slides with the
data it did talk about the national
Pupil Transportation Association yeah I
was just wondering if the New York State
Pupil Transportation Association has
expressed support for okay
I'm in New Albany and all the
conferences and just talk I don't I'm
not sure off the top of my head who your local knife corrupt is but like
they know bus Patrol really well they
they're actually the ones who are like
on the front lines and already getting
the law passed like they were the ones
who got it over the Finish Line okay
thank you
I was saying Christopher's here okay
well we love Dave yeah Dave is the
executive director I was saying I don't
know who the oh I know you have an owl
is your transportation director in
Schenectady City Public Schools Outback
she's a great guy okay but it's not a
really question for you is if and when
we usually when they assign more things
towards that we're going to need support
Staffing from the police department and
the Law Department because this
primarily is driven with the police
reviewing the violation the Law
Department ready to take the case
increase medically not guilty right and
so so you want to disting between the
two agency that primarily going to be
involved in this implementation
I just have a quick question if I manage
um
since prosecuted right the burdens on
the city to right should the violation
happen all right
um in terms of your support for the city
in terms of Prosecuting this
obviously the cloud material is just
that in the cloud the city gets that
information I assume there's a date and
time associated with the violation yes
um and we would receive an affidavit
from somebody at bus Patrol stating that
yes and indicating that there was no
deficiency in the video it was what it
purports to be now if somebody wanted to
I can tell you right now we don't do a
Bureau for like to adjudicate these it
actually goes to court and we have to
call our Witnesses you know like we
would in you know for a parking ticket
trial we're calling you know the parking
attended to come in and testify do you
if it was required if it was necessary
for the court do you provide somebody to
come in we will come in if someone wants
to challenge the technology in our
experience that sometimes happens and
then usually it creates precedent where
the judge will just refer back to those
early you know
um you know objections to the technology
the New York state law says the video is
prima fashion evidence of a violation
occurring so you actually don't need to
call in like the police officer who
reviewed the violation that has not been
my experience across the state of New
York to this point so it would be it
would surprise me if the judge required
it here and and generally speaking you know
people show up to court and then the
judge looks at their video and sometimes
the judge has the video screen up like
in a room like this and it comes up and
people generally walk out of the
courtroom they're ready to kind of you
know end their end their fight because
the evidence that the video is pretty
black and white around what happens
one more related question
um in the event somebody doesn't pay
pleads not guilty so they're not doing a
pavement plan with with bus Patrol
records you know fines that they're
guilty let's say they issue a 250 dollar
fine fine call penalty call whatever you
want City gets a civil judgment order
which we file with the county clerk's
office we're now in the collections
phase and we're probably not getting
paid you know we're chasing after people
but we're not really I mean for 250 are
you looking for the city to pay you half
of that if we have not collected on the
250. no it's all we only get paid out of
collective violation robots so that's I
want to make sure that folks appreciate
that so that's one two is I will say
that depending on the state there are
mechanisms to incentivize people to to
pay their unpaid tickets
um
uh in New York
uh so they don't have registration
tagging in New York I know like in
Maryland for example you need to renew
your driver's registration every two
years and that's usually they don't let
you renew until you pay your your
parking tickets and things like that New
York has a I think it's like if you have
two or more
um the cities or communities can have
certain mechanisms at their disposal
like you could use a collections agency
some some of them your car
I'm not saying I'm advocating for any of
that it's really a public policy
decision for the city about what you
know what what you want to do to
incentivize people to to pay who have
been found liable
would reimburse us for the costs that we
incur whether it be staff or all of that
correct but I want to be clear
let's say do we get 50 of what's
collected regardless let's say um we get
50 and our costs are lower than that are
you determining our our reimbursement
based on what we use
or is it exactly 50 of what's collected
it's
so we our standard deal I want to just
be clear is generally 60 40 in in our
favor 60 40 in our favor and it's
because it's really expensive to operate
this program and we really are providing
all the staff all I really just Soup To
Nuts so um I want to be upfront about
that sure um and
um you know that's that's our you can
file all of our contracts or we can
provide them but that's our contract in
places like dutches and Monroe and so
but
um
yeah there's no I think what you're
talking about is is not what we do is
whatever it costs you to administer the
program we make you hope for that so and
but of course that's in good faith right
like I said it says
even if you have to like for example
like let's just say you don't have a
place for the reviewers to review the
violations and you do desks or computers
or Furniture like we will we will
support those administrative efforts um
as long as they're reasonable
all right that's my question thank you
is there any other question or comments
so
um my understanding is that mayor is
aware of this that you've spoken with
mayor so I'm not sure where they uh
where that is at this moment and if
we're going to need staff that's
certainly something that needs to be
discussed with the mayor's office and in
addition to that the police department
as well because they're they're going to
be involved in this on some level so at
this point in time I would say that we
really can't move forward until we have
those further discussions but I do
appreciate you coming in as I said at
the beginning
um
they I ask that they speak to the school
district first just to see where they
were with this before we spent this
level of
um time discussing it making sure the
school district had mine and it's my
understanding correct that the school
district that was buying at the school
district level all right I've seen bio
for sure I think at the transportation
level and you know I addressed the
school board I had wonderful questions
just like I watched it just all of yours
work so
um
so long as there was a local law in
place and that's that's sort of the
balls in the city's Court um
so at this point in time I think we
should have those discussions with the
mayor of the police chief and then we
could talk about um passing a local law
okay so I have any back on the agenda
later date any other questions or I'll
leave some business cards I have my
cells on and then my email
um I know lots and lots of questions
come up afterwards I'm always here call
me text me email me I'm happy to answer
more questions as they come in all right
thank you very much
we have a public hearing that was held
on January the 9th
and unless it's too great for any update
that you may have some Department
development that you can share with us
[Music]
um at this point in time we haven't
received please
[Music]
foreign
at this point in time we haven't
received any public comments
um I've come up with a tentative plan
it's on our website on how we intend to
categorically allocate the money on the
next steps for our purposes will be to
work with cares to get our P process out
which agencies can apply for
thank you are there any comments from my
colleagues with regards to this
thank you very much
Excuse Me Miss uh Diaz said that we
didn't need anything well we didn't need
anything but there's just one clarify oh
we have to wait on the alternative
oh yeah okay okay all right so we didn't
need to take any in no actually I
understand it I'm sorry all right any
other business before Finance
second all in favor all right
call the order of government operations
we have four items on the agenda the
first one being regarding the frequency
of a collection of white goods and that
is
[Music]
excuse me
I'll legislative request form you have
on Instagram it's just a call for public
hearing regarding the frequency of the
collection of white foods like goods are
defined in the seacoat and as our
refrigerators washer dryers
dishwashers
frequency is weekly and we'd like to see
a vegan that changed to monthly just
because of the we really don't have a
lot of ointments being collected at this
time to have a truck out there riding
around so um but they've had that put on
the frequency of schedules scheduled for
the trash collection as a monthly event
for the collection of those kids
questions and comments on that and they
were just calling for a public hearing
so how often how many trucks do we have
to do this with we have one rack truck
that goes out with one
okay for the entire city well for the
route for that day to Rob okay so yeah
but we have one talk period so on this
day this route the one tracker okay
and right now it's weekly correct in
this week okay
when you when you say when you say we
don't have that many white goods could
you give us the Scrappers are taking
away Goods right now also we don't by
the time we get there our normal route
most of the time they're gone
um you know they're
the scrap prices are very low right now
um and you know they're out there we
just like to do this on a monthly event
put it down on the third collection week
and and we'll get them picked up and if
we do get a call we may have enough to
make it worth our while to go to the
scrap yard and get some type of scrap
value for them going out every week and
picking up a single unit
you know if we do get that call it's
there's not a value that's really a cost
of the city so looking at rescheduling
for monthly it's appropriate so we're
fine you're constantly uh looking to
operate our systems more efficient and
effectively I appreciate that and it
seems like this is just based on you
know you have the truck out there
that's labor and
you know funds and things that could be
kind of directive or different more
that person's pretty much on standby
gets a call from the Packers around the
waste collection guys are out there to
go to certain address and then we'll
pick up that and they go back it's just
it's not efficient you know we can do
you know when I pick up that month we
can go out and collect you know truck
fall if they're out there for us it's
efficient to do one that whole day it's
not efficient foreign
two questions one is
um how do you plan to communicate this
out
um in terms of that it would be once a
month instead of weekly and the second
part of that is in giving up garbage
schedules uh in my neighborhood I'm
actually on the garbage it is on the
garbage schedule but um people were
contacting me back and saying what's a
white good so I just I know those
garbage schedules are so packed with
information is listed in the city code
currently and you know if if you go to
seaco you'll know what a white bit is
the only reason it's brought up is
unfortunate because we mentioned it yeah
I'm on the card yeah we brought it up
and people can call in we do explain
what the white good is could you refer
them to the city code but right now we
are picking up weekly because obviously
we had a schedule that we had to meet to
get the new 2023 cards out right right
so we did put it on there uh it's a
circle wait to pick up so we want to go
through the public area
and we'll be on the schedule but we had
to really start the schedule back in
late November to get into the printer
again no no no I get it
yeah they're like gold and again
um you answered most of my questions but
again thank you for your efficiency and
this will actually help The Scrappers
and cut down on them
every night in every neighborhood
um rummaging through
um waking people so I think it's a great
idea
maybe we can well they're gonna wake you
up more because they're gonna have more
now this is gonna be once once a month
now
yeah seriously yeah
we'll keep that truck loaded we'll move
that to the scrap yard and scrap yards
actually they just send the check to the
city skyview's followers office
the scrap is going to meet you too that
they threw up during the night
but so my other thought is that in terms
of the word white goods I mean why don't
you say stoves and refrigerators because
it's a whole and then you know like in
parentheses or something so people have
understanding I mean I get it but you
know and that's it's not a city's
connectivity term yeah look at Albany
yeah that's what they Define you know we can call household appliances no just
something in front seats I'm not saying
that just so people understand Clarity
is always good and when we do the card
again yeah when we do the card okay we
have to find a room on a card yeah we
have trouble trying to make it small
enough
to them I'd love that there's so much on
that card to you know start going bigger
and a lot of people want to I mean like
the size of the car because it doesn't
take a lot of room off exactly exactly
just just two more ones that's all
so if they put it out on a not white day
um will it stay there until the next
cycle
so what happens is
garbage is supposed to be put on a
specific time yeah not before after two
o'clock right and we all know
um because of our Halloween schedule
people do get confused it's a real look
outside and say Mrs Smith just put their
garbage out so it must be garbage and
they see you know the whole streets
after garbage truck it's Friday and
there's a Monday holiday so it's out for
the whole weekend plus the Monday we try
to be sympathetic with regards to citing
people but you know you know one of the
things is you know to enforce because we
are in the midst of talking about their
different things in the city of sanctity
and the way that
just like we just heard a presentation
that if you don't enforce something
school buses and violators then we don't
enforce our own codes it's never going
to change so unfortunately you know Law
Department we're talking about some
things that the city codes with you know
honor me for a certain time than that
after
um you know to have garbage out there
it's picked up it's not out there on
Friday and we're not doing the money and
you know there's some things we'd like
to talk about
further with regards to waste
collections but right now we're starting
just schedule all the way Goods thank
you
just a follow-up question so if someone
were to put out the white goods on a
regular garbage day but it's not
designated for white goods They will
receive a violation They will receive a
notice it's capabilities
it's going to be a violation it's a
violation they're gonna have to pull
them back in your yard you know one of
the other things we've talked about is
and when we write a nuisance violation
or a
you know they have so many days to
correct that violation so if you put
your garbage out two days early and you
get three days to correct the violation
input opportunities you're never going
to get to the violation so there are
some things we have to look further in
our trash collection
um regulations in the city code to make
some changes that will help to see
overall with with later in the
collection
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school as I say technically we do not
have to issue a notice of violation when
somebody's in violation when it comes to
matters that Mr Lafond just referred to
just been a habit where we issued where
yeah
employee one of the snap guys will issue
a notice of violation so Mr lafon said
you can put your trash out right now
after 2 p.m the day before right so if
you put your garbage out even the day
before that so two days before after 2
p.m and where it's out and even let's
say it's the morning two days before and
a member of snap goes out and issues
that notice of violation saying you have
one day to correct this well you wait 24
hours and it's now after 2 p.m the day
before you're in compliance now without
having done anything that's the issue
now you know it's uh as Mr Lafond
indicated was something we're talking
about to address because I think we've
all
seen the sushi were garbage is out too
soon and it's a lot of stuff we're not
talking just like a couple garbage cans
we're talking about trash right
Furniture mattresses white you know
these these white goods
um so we're obviously looking to address
this issue I think more comprehensively
with something that you know we're
working through to you know hopefully at
some point come to the council to you
know for consideration
so so is there a grace period
um whenever we change what the way we do
it is there a great Superior for people
not getting this violation immediately
and is there a cost
um connecting device so you give them a
violation in like with code enforcement
I know people come out for certain
things you get a 50 fee fine
is there is this attached and fine well
there will be you know I mean there will
be what we'll say thanks but there's
gonna be a period of transition okay
like right now the schedule says it's
scheduled and people call them right now
it's not been approved but we have to
prepare the schedules in advance
um and you know if there's any confusion
and it does need change but we're going
to collect on a weekly basis because the
code right now says you know see code
and there's also you know
and you should know that you know if
there's something on there if you look
at the city code it's defined in the
city code and we can't Define everything
on that card we just have to do a quick
jump start on the car to get it in there
for 23 season and I
you know we are not out there to just
you know start to penalize everybody but
after you know a couple months there
should be no they got to be picked up
yeah we don't we don't get one and this
is one reason why it's not like we're
out there every day picking up a truck
of um appliances and we don't get a
truck load anymore I mean they're just
not out there and appliances will ask
people buy new appliances typically the
applied saying Lowe's they'll take them
all away the old ones for you so they're
moving them it's usually the person the
homeowner goes and buys them themselves
and they'll put they're all going to get
outside and it's not too frequent
um you know most of the time I mean the
people you buy your best one they'll
take the old one away
so it's
they don't see a big impact or a lot of
confusion on it and you know because of
this change we're going to work with
everybody thank you
being responsive to the easier Community
um
yeah so I'll accept the motion I'll move
it second what was in favor
thank you thank you thank you so just so this is called for public
hearing yeah
it's going to be
um so the council will pass the
resolution next week yeah that'll be the
next council meeting after that which I
believe is in February now so February
13th okay our next item on the agenda is is
the authorize the mayor it doesn't need
to enter into an agreement with New York
state division of Homeland Security and
emergency services to accept fifty
thousand dollars on federal funding
um under the FY 2020 cyber security
grant program uh senior McCarthy
um
I think we received this cyber security
grants from Homeland Security and
emergency services
and this uh 50 000
we can use it to strengthen our cyber
security so you can get some you know
like software for The Incident
Management and training the staff and
different things what can be worked on
that's ever seen it
okay just a reminder
um
that the public hearing was held on the
9th around article two of the city code
of garden businesses certificate of use
in our
any questions or comments around that
from my colleagues
I'll just move it that we um put it move
it to the agenda
second second no I was announcements
okay
what was the paper hi thank you
okay and last but not least is a
discussion of the queen State act
follow-up of Mr Williams thank you so um
last meeting we discussed having the
initial conversations and then we told
the council that if there were any
questions or follow-ups we absolutely
addressed those things to see if there
are any
such comments
[Music]
if there aren't any I would like to make
or suggest a motion to
do the stigma support no no
did you
yeah
but any questions or comments before so
okay okay
I'll move it a second that was in favor
okay I'd like to make a motion to it
you know the business to come for
government operations on the agenda okay
so at this point I'd like to make a
motion to our general operations
so second what was a favor
thank you I'd like to follow the order
of Community Development and planning we
have six items on the agenda actually
three are going to be pulled uh the
first item on the agenda is to request
the for authorization to purchase sodium
chlora rights 2023 for the wastewater
treatment plant Mr Lafont
okay
legislative question I'm funny is to
purchase organical part which is used
for disinfection the wastewater
treatment plant it was out to Great
competitivity bids we had one no big two
bidders responded a little bit because
surface chemicals they were also the
supplier last year the unfortunate thing
for the economy was what's going on
because it roughly 91 increase in the
cost of sodium point before I eat along
across the board we'll flash your work
paying the 1.027 per gallon we are going
to nucleus we need 1.966 with another 13
increase in the 13th after the first
quarter
so it's unfortunate where things are
going
um cost but it is here it is
charging for the river
that was below
any questions
um
thank you very much
okay item number two um
Mr wall asked that we pulled that item
from the agenda for tonight and item is
number three and four of the department
head is here has also asked that we pull
those items from the from the agenda
we've not gone through all the public
commentary at this point we want to make
sure that we're through that before the
council takes any action on it
properties
okay just want to be clear that um my
understanding of items number five and
six because these are public entities do
not be need to be excuse me executive
session that's correct
um
1025 Congress Street is a private sale
the other sale is
um the the offer or here is Habitat for
Humanity obviously there is a purchase
offer certainly within the council's
discretion to
um do both in public there's no
requirements that you do both an
executive section it's certainly
possible that you can do particularly 10
25 Congress and executive soccer and you
can do the other one the vacant lot of
Avenue a
um in public if you'd like
because it still does involve an offer
price and a good potential negotiating a
sale price for a property okay so I'd
like to err on the side of caution
executive sessions
all right we're recessed
Miss Patrick oh now I'll make a motion
to go into executive session
oh I'm sorry I was just knowing that we
probably were going to go into I would
now like to open claims we have three
items on the agenda and we need to
discuss those in executive session so
I'll entertain a motion to go into a
secular session
thank you
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