[Music]
he
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
a
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
he
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
for
unless the mayor wants to do it want to
do the
invocation a
okay I'd like to call the city Caucus
meeting to order for Monday November
27th
20123 we have two public hearings this
evening if the clerk could please read
public hearing number one the 2024 uer
Union Street business improve
Improvement District
budget number two public hearing number
two the 2024 downtown SKC assessment
District downtown's connecti the
Improvement Corporation budget thank you
we have 10 items for original
consideration if the clerk could please
read item number
one item number one for original
consideration a resolution calling for a
public hearing to amend the city of Sky
code section 2341 to modify the annual
income amount for the tax exemption
discussed in committee without objection
on consent item number two item number
two for original consideration a
resolution authorizing an amendment to
the collective bargaining agreement 2019
to 2024 between the city of skincity and
firefighters local 28 I a AFL CIO
related to Firefighters trainees
discussed in committee with objection on
consent item number three item number
three for original consideration
resolution authorizing an amendment to
the collective bargaining agreement 2019
to 2024 between the city of skty and
firefighters local 28 I a AFL CIO
related to the drug and alcohol policy
and testing plan discussed in committee
without objection and on consent item
number four item number four for
original consideration a resolution
authorizing the reimbursement of
expenses by the Rose Garden restoration
committee discussed in committed with
objection on consent item number five item number five for original
consideration a resolution authorizing
the sale of 1908 Avenue B for
$107,000 discussed in committee without
objection on consent item number six for original
consideration a resolution authorizing
the sale of a vacant lot on Avenue B for
$2,000 discussed in committee with
objection on consent item number seven for original
consideration resolution authorizing the
sale of a vacant lot at 929 Cutler
Street for
$1,500 discussing committee with
objection on consent item number eight for original
consideration a resolution authorizing
the sale of a vacant lot at 149 Broadway
for $110,000 discussed in committee with
objection on consent item number nine for original
consideration a resolution recognizing
Army veteran private Raymond C zanta
discussed in committee with objection
and consent and this will be presented
at a later date item number 10 item
number 10 under contract and Supply a
resolution awarding the bid and contract
for the 2023 HVAC maintenance and
repairs to R&B Mechanical Incorporated
in the total amount of$
22,4 188 discussed in committee without objection on consent if there's
nothing more to come before the city
caucus I ask for a motion to adjourn
move by Miss Patrick second by Mr
Williams all in favor I we're
adjourned I'd like to call to to order
the city council meeting for Monday
November 27th
2023 if we can all please stand we have
no one to do the invocation if we just
observe a moment of silence for all
that's going on in the
world thank you I'd like to call on
councilman Williams to lead us in the
Pledge of
Allegiance I pledge
allegiance the United States of
americais andice for all thank
you if the clerk could please complete
the roll
call Mr muin is absent Mr Toro pres Mr
Farley here Mr Williams M Patrick here
Mr palamini here M bfield
here we have two public hearings this
evening and just a reminder the public
comment for public hearings is four
minutes and I ask people to respectfully
ask um any person that comments only to
the subject that that is re relevant to
the public hearing thank you public
hearing number one the 2024 Upper Union
Street bid
budget no one has signed up to speak
so I declare that public hearing number
one
closed public hearing number two the
2024 downtown connect the assessment
district downtown connect the
Improvement Corporation
budget one person up we have one person
signed up to
speak Betsy
Sandberg
greetings at this time of year when we
are all being so grateful for everything
it's Kismet that there's a public
hearing on dsc's budget as a board
member of the electric city arts and
Entertainment District which is housed
at 432 State Street uh and the electric
city arts district is who brings you
kids Arts Festival the jazz on J concert
series um to downtown we are so grateful
for everything that dsic does to support
us um it's instrumental to the success
of these events
people may think of
dsic I think that they think it's just
about hanging baskets and the plantings
and the Hometown Heroes and sidewalk
strolls and what else oh there's tater
tots and there trots and there's Wing
walks and restaurant weeks but they also
have been doing so much more the effort
to bring the blood sculptures to
downtown skincity the fall
Spooktacular um and one event that
already brings thousands of people but
DSi DSC coordinated the pre-parade
activities um on November 18th uh dsic
connected Monae with us and we were able
to print an image of the locomotive and
I've got it small here it's going to be
very big and and and larger than this
but that's the locomotive Monae painted
it in 1875 because he loved trains and
so the theme of the parade was New York
State of Mind and when I think about New
York what do I you know trains and
they're built here and everything so we
had people give us words and phrases
that were turned into a community poem
I'm just going to read a tiny bit um the
toot toot of the train in the snow
always arrives before the
steam the train in the snow is red and
black chug chug chugging through polar
woods on a winry track two Bright Lights
Shimmer and shiver through the ice and
snow on its way to deliver Travelers
craving for company in cozy homes
explorers anticipating a new way there
is much more that you'll have to come to
Proctor's arcade to read it perhaps
you'll come to see it when we have the
student showcase uh December 6th uh at 6
PM in the Rob Alley part of Proctors and
yes there is girl from the North country
playing there too so if you've got
tickets you can get some free music from
SKC City Middle uh City Middle School
and High School students and the faculty
ban um three of the high school or
middle school teachers as well as um Bob
HCK who is at Skidmore college so I just
wanted to say thanks so much um and I
really uh am looking forward to a great
year 2024 with dsic continued support
thanks thank you I have no one else
signed up to speak so I declare public
hearing number two
closed ask for approval of amends for
November 13
2023 moved by Mr Williams second by Mr
Farley all in favor I if the clerk would
please read any Communications and
petitions Communications presented to
the city CC Council for Monday November
27 2023 official from the mayor a list
of appointments dated no November 27
2023 under General there were none and
under petitions there were none thank
you thank you ask council members to
Prov provide any committee
reports any committee
reports seeing none this time we'll have
privilege of the floor related to the
legislative
agenda and I have no one signed up to
speak for the legislative agenda
so therefore I clo declare the public
comment on the legislative agenda
closed ask the council for approval of
the legislative consent
agenda moved by Miss
Patrick second by Mr Farley all in favor
I this time we're going to have
privilege of the floor regarding to gen
uh regarding General City business and I
have five people signed up to
speak just a reminder there only three
minutes for this uh per public comment
for um for City
business the first person I have is Ed
Leen
Jr congratulations Mr Mayor and
reelected council members I will be
seeking to have you all impeached a
mayor and council member swear an oath
of office I'm sure covering up for three
corrupt judges is not in that oath I'm
sure keeping me out of the news is also
not in oath to protect the Constitution
I'm sure having Daniel of New York State
audits falsely arrested in City Hall and
at police scenes while using his
constitutional rights to film is a
vindictive act by you Mr
Mayor because he did a video of me in
front of City Hall while I was
protesting you refused to meet with me
mayor as to the police sheriff and
everyone in New York I did speak with da
Carney he is right there is no
obstruction of justice in New York but
there is obstruction of governmental
Administration in the second degree New
York penal law Section 195.000 5 of
which Frost valo and Hoffman are guilty
of they are also guilty of conspiracy to
deprive me of my constitutional
rights and everybody in front of me is
complicit of that I have come to you for
help and you have done
zilch I'm going to read to you a letter
I sent to John de Augustine of The
Gazette president on 108 202
three Dear Mr D Augustine I've been to
your editor miles Reed four times in
person and a couple of emails I am on
YouTube New York State audit corruption
in City Hall and a recap of that video
I'm also on several YouTubes connected
to New York City Council meetings in
which I asked for the mayor and council
members help in dealing with these three
corrupt judges valti is seeking to
become a Supreme Court judge in my court
case sc002
8539 he vacated by default judgment
without proper service and 11 days
before the hearing he broke every rule
of court and several constitutional laws
I have filed 15 motions to reinstate my
judgment Pho refused to recuse himself
on 13 of them I am the pro protester in
front of city hall for two years and I
will remain there The Daily Gazette is
doing an injustice to the citizens of
skty and the voters and to me personally
how does The Gazette keep valo actions a
secret when he is running for Supreme
Court how does The Gazette keep the
mayor and city council members in Action
a secret the mayor is running for a
fourth term and city council members are
seeking reelection your reporters report
on speeding and garbage complaints not
mine I most certainly realize that in my
case 20 people didn't die in a limo
crash i al also realize that the limo
owner would have gotten off with
community service and a fine if the
first judge didn't retire the judge wouldn't have retired if there
wasn't TV and newspapers reporting the
truth I certainly hope you're not a
party to the corruption and conc and are
willing to print the truth the Times
Union wrote what foto spoonfed them not
the proof I showed Pete deola Yours
Truly Ed lvin Jr hope to hear from you
long before the elections there was no
response thank you thank you Judy R
Meer Hello I'm Judy wri Meer director of
the Capital District tobacco free
communities and I left a report on your
desk that
summarizes the data from a study that we
did looking at tobacco retailers in the
city of
skincity
um the biggest takeaway the two M main
takeaways from this are that lowincome
neighborhoods have more tobacco
retailers per capita than higher income
neighborhoods and that those same
neighborhoods have disproportionately
higher number of tobacco retailers local
located near schools we looked at 31
tobacco retailers that were within 1500
ft of schools on one day in October in
the zip codes of 12303 04 05 and
07 um all the photographs in that report
were taken at the stores that we visited
stores that violated New York state laws
uh have been reported to the skanky
County um Environmental Health
Department um and any other there's some
state agencies that we had to report to for violations that we found the
report is a visual tool of the tobacco
marketing strategies that tobacco
companies use in the city of skincity
briefly I'm just going to you know give
you a little overview of what is on is
in that report and I was supposed to
start my timer and I didn't but I'm
going to do it now and stop
me a minute more whatever um so page two
gives a background of the tobacco
retailers what they used to do which was
those Billboards and um Joe Camel kind
of advertising that's outlawed what
they've instead done now is to do point
of sale advertising and marketing page
three shows the location of the
retailers um if you live in a high
poverty community in the city of SKC
you're more likely to be exposed to
Tobacco marketing promotion within those
same communities tobacco retailers are
more likely to be located within 1500 ft
of one or more schools um there's a good
um piece at the end that summarizes the
distance in the different neighborhoods
of SK of skinc County the different
towns of SKC County um in the
neighborhoods um ex page four shows the
exterior tobacco ads you don't have to
enter a store to see tobacco marketing
New York state law says that you can't
advertise within um 1500 feet of a
school and there certainly are
violations of that that we found in
those 31 stores the wall of tobacco
products um which is shown on page five
is one of the primary ways um you know
there they have their entire wall filled
with tobacco products which of course is
disproportionate to the number of people
that use tobacco products but it gives
the impression that the more that's
there that everybody's buying
it um the interior there interior ads
too that's some of that's on page six
page seven shows the amount of flavored
tobacco products that still exist 94% of
the stores sell flavored cigars and
cigaros 84% of the stores sold U menthol
cigarettes and I think it's about half
of them sold flavored um electronic
cigarettes you summarize thank you I I
just noticed I'm at one minute so um the
takeaway is definitely that the stores
in
skincity um are
disproportionately higher amounts of
tobacco marketing and promotion o
especially flavored products in those
neighborhoods with the least number of
resources um we are here to answer any
questions share with you what other
communities have done to address that
and my contact our contact information
is on there so thank you very much for
your time thank
you Stephanie
Hayes good evening I just want to say
congratulations to my opponents that I
didn't win but you ran a good campaign
second of all I'm here because a lot of
my friends have reached out to me about
the budget and they're worried about the
police in the fire department overtime
being cut so I firmly suggest that we
revisit the budget and see what we can
do to get them their money that they
need and if we can't do it then I
suggest the Mr Mayor that you veto that
budget and go back to the drawing board
because at the at this time everybody
needs is scared of the police and fire
department being cut and not not having
services so I've gotten a lot of
feedback on that right now so that's
where I am at this moment thank you very
much thank
you Tom
Kennedy good evening
everybody uh I'm here tonight speak for
the Republican
Party um I'm also a resident in the city
of Sky the wood area uh I want to uh uh
raise issue with the fact that the city
council was 20 days late on the uh
budget uh I understand it's 27 days late
now waiting for the mayor to take a look
at it uh which is his
right
um but I got to revisit a little bit I
watched all the the nonsense that went
on during the budget heing and I do
agree with the mayor when he said it was
lunacy um
however a week before the budget
deadline there was a recess
call see so just we're going to call
recess whole week before the work on it
when we get back so when they came back
uh we find out that uh Mr mudaron uh was
down
in Guyana so he's down there on a little
Fiesta U while the budget was was late
uh it came in late um later on and then
when they came back you recess till
October
31st then Mr Farley wasn't here then on
November 1st Mr Muran wasn't here so as
I look at this as a city taxpayer I got
to wonder when the heck are you guys
coming to work what what rules do you
have on whether you come into to work or
just some Council are just Meander in 10
15 20 minutes late half an hour late so
we're doing right now is we're going to
go through the hall last year and every
time somebody's late we're going to put
a little report card out on you guys on
the first that first of the year so in
saying all these things uh we put a
press release out and we called on the
Miss Porterfield as the president you
know what rules do you guys have and you
get paid to represent us and when you
don't come to work you shouldn't get
paid and I think it's an absolute
travesty that you guys feel you deserve
a raise when you guys can't come to work
when you guys can't pass a budget which
in violation of the city Charter and yet
we do so much work so the bottom line
here is you have failed the city of
skety you failed the taxpayers and uh
now let's see what you passed you passed
a a staffing cut of over $660,000 of
police overtime when both a fire chief
and the fire police uh uh the the chief
of police came and tell you that is
directly Staffing overtime is Staffing
it's because of vacancies Staffing so
when you complain about response times
or you complain about other issues to
deal with the police remember now you're
cutting their Staffing so overtime
translate into Staffing I don't know how
anybody could have missed that uh the
chief Mareno and chief Clifford were
very clear on that
so I guess when we take a look at how we
look at the how this budget passed you
got people didn't come in you guys
called The Recess beforehand and
everybody you had some city council
members and I will I will uh you know I really appreciate your work here you
were here and you're willing to work
others weren't I need you to summarize
please oh very good so I think I can
safely say that most of the city
taxpayers think you guys are failing on
your job but I want to just leave you
with one thing and the the woman just
spoke about it was the the more a
atorium on uh excuse me the tobacco use
and close it so all you city council
members who uh want to complain about
being close to think the the where the the to tobacco places are one of the
councilmen had something to say about it
about how could buy an apple or whatever
it is I need you to summarize sir okay
and just want to say is if you vote no
on the moratorium if you voted no don't
get up now and say that uh oh you know
it's it's it's it's a bad thing to be
around kids it is a bad thing thank you
thank
you James
Nelson I'm going to try to be real brief
the Acoustics in here terrible my name
is James Nelson I own a property over on
Prospect Street I've got lowincome folks
in
there the nuisance committee took a
picture of my
house I I was notified at 4:00 on a
Friday that this needed to be resolved
by the following Monday which was a
holiday I had to pay double time and a
half for a truck and double time for
Laborers to
take the cuting and arborous put in
front of the building off of the
property somehow there's a $50
administrative fee that comes from a
nuisance committee apparently the only
person that is allowed to reverse this
$50 fee sits before us
here I attempted to I've been attempting
to contact you sir for weeks upon months
with no response from you your your
office has contacted me
um by that
Monday the problem was remedied Tuesday I came in here Monday I came in
here and Wednesday I came in here to no
avail to talk to absolutely no one I
don't know how somebody can have a
nuisance committee that is the
police the
judge the jury and the
Executioner when we're supposed to have
a system of checks and
balances I think this needs to be
reviewed this new committee to
summarize to the taxpayer is a nuisance
thank you thank
you I have no one else signed up to
speak so I declare the public Comon of
City business
closed at this time any miscellaneous
business of the
council Mr
Williams uh before before I begin I'd
like to first thank everyone that came
out and spoke uh I actively take notes
and definitely the packet that we
received on the tobacco communities is
definitely information I'm going to take
into consideration
um my comments come directly in response
to just the uh mannerisms in which our
last committee meeting ended uh anyone
can point out why something doesn't work
it requires a certain level of conflict
resolution and compromising to step
beyond our personal views and
perspectives to work as a collective at
any point when an individual on the C is
unable or unwilling to speak in a
productive or constructive manner I
respectfully ask them to reconsider
their purpose this Council isn't
comprised of seven individuals it's one
body set forward to Advocate
legislatively to improve the quality of
life for
sadian this budget as which has been so
carefully dissected and uh recognized
throughout our community uh reflected a
set of council members positioned
unwaveringly in support of the mayor's
proposed budget and another set of
individual ual making multiple
concessions to Advocate uh and
accommodate conflicting interest uh such
as approving large scale budget
increases and keeping the tax burden at
a marginal
increase there is truly nothing easy
about the tasks set before us as a
council and the infighting truly needs
to
stop however I personally look forward
to hearing the mayor's formal remarks on
the budget and will incorporate any and
all indirect andir feedback into future
annual related budget conversations and
discussions uh so that I can continue to
improve uh my manner of dialogue thank
you thank
you
mayor thank you Madame President I hope
everyone uh had a uh happy and uh
healthy and didn't eat too much
Thanksgiving uh was a good time uh here
in
sken uh hopefully we're going to have
fair weather for the entire winter but I
remind people that we might get a little
bit of snow at some point if that does
happen when it does happen remember to
take one shovel on each side of your
fire hydrant and uh the city
Crews really are working in your best
interest even though some of that snow
is going to end up on your sidewalk and
we do appreciate your patience in terms
of getting that off and uh working with
the crews in again the uh slight chance
that we might get a
snowstorm but uh again thank everyone
for coming out tonight uh enjoy your
evening and uh enjoy the holiday season
thank you madam president thank you
mayor I'd also like to thank everyone
for coming out tonight to give your
voice to how you feel about the job that
we're doing or not doing about your
concerns about the city and um because
it's your right to do that and we need
to hear from the public so appreciate it
um we know that we're not always going
to get compliments
but that's okay it's you know it keeps
you on your toes so um in terms of you
know people in terms of where the
charter speaks to and not passing the
budget on time I invite the individual
who spoke about that to really revisit
that and to just make sure they're clear
on on on how that really um is worded um
Mr Nelson our Corporation Council will
speak to you regarding your
situation okay uh I have nothing else so
it I'll entertain a motion to adjourn
moved by Mr Williams second by Miss
Patrick all those in favor I we are
adjourned thank
you