[0:02] Good evening. Welcome to the city council meeting of September 16, 2014. I'd love to get started

[0:11] and thanks again for everyone coming.

[0:14] Since we have no public hearings or presentations this evening, I will ask for a roll call.

[0:20] Present.

[0:22] Present.

[0:23] Here.

[0:24] Present.

[0:25] Here.

[0:28] Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

[0:48] Thank you.

[0:52] We will go now into the public comment period, and if anyone would like to make a comment to the council as a whole,

[0:59] Please approach the mic and give your name and address and do try to keep your remarks to two minutes. Thank you.

[1:08] Hi, good evening. My name is Charlie Morrison, 88 Court Street.

[1:13] I have a little statement here to read that we'll just take a minute or two and I have something to hand out to you.

[1:20] It was all heard of the 70-car disaster in Locke-Mogantik up in Quebec last year, with

[1:30] on July 6, 2013.

[1:34] 47 people were killed, many more injured, and the whole downtown was totally destroyed

[1:41] by a huge fireball.

[1:44] In this resulted from four cars derailing from an oil train, the whole train was about 70 cars.

[1:59] That train was hauling the same volatile oil that comes to the port of Albany from North

[2:05] Dakota.

[2:06] That particular train was going over to a refinery in St. John's, New Brunswick,

[2:13] but that same

[2:14] oil is coming down through here. Past Lake Champlain, through the Adirondack Park, through

[2:20] Fort Edward, and over through Saratoga Springs on its way to the Port of Albany, where

[2:27] it's then redistributed to refineries throughout the Mid-Atlantic and other places.

[2:34] It's coming

[2:35] through our watershed, through Luffbury Lake, across Spring Run. It's coming down behind

[2:42] the middle school and is coming past the back of Skidmore College and then past the medical

[2:53] buildings on Carolina.

[2:58] And these cars are only going to increase. Some of these trains

[3:03] are 100 cars long. Chuck Schumer, Senator Schumer, has been trying to get the US DOT to

[3:13] approve new cars with double skins because the single skin cars, among other things,

[3:21] this oil is very corrosive and it can eat through those cars very easily.

[3:28] But the most-

[3:28] Two minutes.

[3:29] I'm sorry.

[3:31] That's two minutes.

[3:32] That's two minutes.

[3:33] Believe it or not.

[3:34] I know.

[3:34] Holy smoke.

[3:36] All right.

[3:37] It sounds like a pretty complicated topic.

[3:39] I'd love to.

[3:39] Well, it is and I'll just hand out my hand out which has the same paper on it and I just recommend that we the county and the city should both take a good look at their emergency plans.

[3:56] Governor Cuomo issued an executive order at the beginning of the year to five state agencies about this whole thing that they should update their plans.

[4:05] And I think it's serious enough and potential disaster that could happen any place.

[4:13] And so just let me hand these papers to you and then I'm out of here.

[4:17] Thank you so much.

[4:18] You can put them right on there, Charlie, on the table, we'll get them at the end then.

[4:22] Certainly a topic that my colleague in Albany is dealing with on a daily basis, so thank

[4:28] you.

[4:51] Bill, I'm in a 55-year-old place, Saratoga Swings.

[4:55] Every once in a while in this town, we have

[4:57] arguments if the commission form of government is better than the strong mayor form of government.

[5:05] And I've always defended the commission form of government.

[5:09] However, the last election made it quite obvious what's wrong with this form of government,

[5:17] the commission form of government.

[5:19] Once in a great while, as we did in the last election, we elected a mayor who wants to do the

[5:23] right thing who realize that she works for the tax payer and she just wants to do the

[5:29] best job that she can. However, coincidental with her election, we elected four commissioners

[5:37] who have no idea what the right thing is, who have no idea that they have to work for

[5:41] the tax payer and they seem like they don't want to do the right thing. The city attorney

[5:47] She wanted to do the right thing.

[5:49] She was a very good attorney, one of the best we've had for a while, but the four council

[5:56] members put so much pressure on her that she had a resign to protect her own integrity.

[6:05] I am convinced that now that we need a different form of government, we need a stronger mayor,

[6:13] we have to elect a mayor, like we did in the last election who wants to do the right thing

[6:17] who works for the taxpayer and I implore the mayor to keep working for the taxpayer, get

[6:24] a re-appraisal of that column a lot and keep fighting for the taxpayer.

[6:30] Don't give in, let's see what we can do to prevent that land swap.

[6:35] I also notice that there is an item on the agenda, the Finance Commissioner's Agenda for

[6:44] a resolution about the city attorney.

[6:46] This is an obvious power grab, which should not pass.

[6:51] Thank you very much.

[6:52] Thank you.

[6:55] Yes, Bonnie Seller, 73-5th Avenue, Saratoga Springs.

[7:00] Thank you for your time.

[7:01] I was wondering about the item on Commissioner Madagans agenda about the resolution, because

[7:08] it's my understanding that the charter gives the mayor under the Commission for a Government

[7:13] that the responsibility to take care of labor negotiations, labor language, and all the other.

[7:19] So I was kind of surprised to see it myself.

[7:22] I have a different issue than Phil does.

[7:24] Thank you.

[7:25] Okay, thank you.

[7:26] Hopefully we can explain that later.

[7:42] Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council.

[7:44] Dave Brown and Roe Henley-Court Saratoga Springs.

[7:47] Tonight, I must unfortunately go back yet again to the land deal.

[7:52] And the problem I have tonight is the Public Safety Commissioner took the time

[7:55] an effort to write a Reader's View here recently on Thursday,

[7:58] 4 September in the Saratokin, have it right here,

[8:02] to explain the recent land transaction that occurred.

[8:07] And, you know, pretty good effort on his part.

[8:10] However, when you read this article, I was struck by the fact

[8:14] that there's no mention whatsoever in this Reader's View article

[8:18] about the $1.1 million offer that was made by a developer

[8:25] from down in the Latham to buy that life. There's no mention of that in here. It's totally

[8:32] excluded from the article and you just have to ask yourself why? Why wouldn't it appear

[8:38] here? So we have the whole story, you know, as Paul Harve used to say, or the rest of

[8:43] the story, because we don't have the whole story here. We have part of the story. The controversy

[8:47] this has really been surrounded by Mr. Suppone's offer and a contract to pay 1.1 million dollars for that lot.

[8:59] And you know, it's never been discussed at this table.

[9:01] There's never been an explanation of it to the taxpayers of the city as to why the council just totally decided to disregard that and not discuss it.

[9:13] You know, we still need an explanation of this and I was hoping to see it in this article, but it's not there.

[9:19] You know, maybe the Pope saved the commissioner like to explain that, but it's not there.

[9:23] So, you know, I have a problem with that and so do a lot of taxpayers in this city because we don't know if we get or get any fair market value for that lot.

[9:30] And I would say the same thing that Mr. Diamond just said we need to get another appraisal on that lot.

[9:37] Mayor, you ought to go do that.

[9:38] That could not appraisal and settle the issue.

[9:41] Now I was happy to see, and I know I'm probably over my two minutes, that we are moving forward with the defibrillators.

[9:46] I got an email last night that we're going to buy 10 defibrillators.

[9:50] It's being put in the budget.

[9:51] That's all fine and, Danny, I'm glad we're doing that.

[9:53] I hope there's some other things we can do to increase the safety response for everybody in the city,

[9:58] not just the people on the East Ridge.

[9:59] Thank you.

[10:00] Thank you.

[10:12] Good evening.

[10:20] First of all, about the people that ride bikes, there are no different than people that drive cars.

[10:25] cars as far as the law goes with traffic.

[10:28] People 14 and under, you wear your helmet right on the sidewalk

[10:32] that's fine and dandy.

[10:33] If you're older than 14, 15 and older, that's what the streets are for.

[10:37] That's what the law says.

[10:40] I have this up here because also I want to be seen when I'm walking or riding my bike.

[10:46] I'm not part of traffic enforcement like some people think I don't work for

[10:50] price shopper or anything not bullying them, but it's so I can be seen. We need to have

[10:56] something more enforcement so we can be seen. Albany, colony, they're starting to get

[11:01] on the ball. The state needs to bring it all over. It's not unique to any city. Also,

[11:07] code blue, people don't have homes are sleeping out on the street. I walk all hours of the day.

[11:13] I see them. I've been there. I've done that. We need to put funds or something there for

[11:19] them. The people that come to our city, they're like, oh, look at this trashy city when

[11:24] they see people like that out there. They think they're drunk. They think they're drug

[11:28] addicts. That's not always the case. That wasn't the case with me. Thank you for going

[11:33] to the events I've seen you at. I appreciate that. And the city is not mine. It's not yours.

[11:40] It's ours. Everybody.

[11:45] Darlene McGraw, one South Federal Street, Saratoga Springs.

[11:49] Thanks.

[11:50] Great.

[11:51] Thank you so much.

[12:02] Anyone else?

[12:06] I'll close the public comment period.

[12:09] I just would make two comments regarding Charlie Morrison's comments.

[12:13] Yes, that is a very serious problem regarding the railway and our public safety officials have

[12:19] been in contact with the rail system and are looking at what needs to be done to update our emergency

[12:26] preparedness for any such event.

[12:28] In terms of Colonel Bronner, some of the issues that you raised tonight about $1.1 million,

[12:34] I raised in my response to a gazette editorial that is in the paper, you can read that, and

[12:40] if you have any questions, please come to our public forum.

[12:44] Next Thursday night, September 25th, 7 p.m., anybody has any issues about city government or

[12:50] our stance in any issue or any resignations or any of that sort of be glad to discuss things

[12:54] with you.

[12:55] That's why we have these public forums to try to be as transparent as possible and answer any questions that you may have.

[13:01] Thank you.

[13:05] Okay. Moving on to the consent agenda.

[13:10] This point I will move to accept the consent agenda as listed and described as there is second.

[13:16] Second.

[13:17] Any discussion?

[13:18] I want to point out that the September 14th, the second warrant is again, unusually large, $680,000 is the third county sewer payment.

[13:28] 2,300,000 is the 3rd county tax payment and 540,000 is in capital projects to the county.

[13:36] No, not to the county, just capital project payments and 3,500,000 is what that total,

[13:42] so I just wanted to point that out why they were so large.

[13:46] Thank you.

[13:47] Any questions or discussion?

[13:50] All those in favor say aye.

[13:51] Aye.

[13:52] Any opposed?

[13:54] Abstentions?

[13:54] No matter passes.

[13:55] Thank you.

Sep 16, 2014 City Council

Transcript