so i'd say we'll probably get out of here in plenty of time okay do you wanna wait for denise or just get started michael will be home tomorrow actually he's back from saudi arabia but he's coming home tomorrow for a week he hears bang bang yeah oh yeah bang bang bang yeah a lot of this stuff's goin on anyway all right i'm gonna call to order city development and planning committee first item on the agenda is entitled schenectady's economic strengths and this was the brainchild of our deputy clerk chad putman and i'm gonna ask him to tell you about what this involves sure thanks peggy so i'd approached peggy and the idea is to have the city council at the direction of the city or the city council president would host an economic strengths review in a public structured and scheduled way the presentations would take place at the beginning of the city council meeting once a month and last about ten minutes or so and the presentations would feature locally based leaders in corporation industry area business districts healthcare education and nonprofits and the presentations would focus on the industry or businesses generated revenue the number of jobs the business or corporation creates or offers here in the local area the innovation and production that's taking place along with a review of the businesses history and future planning so it's an opportunity to bring in a lot of the great economic strengths that we have and have them do a quick presentation at the beginning of the city council meeting over the next twelve months i figured it'd be a good chance to show off some of the positive things that are happening and highlight some of the good stuff so i think it's a great idea and we're gonna start on we have scheduled for november phillip morris from proctors has agreed to come in and be the first presentation and we're working on finalizing plans to have transfinder come in and speak to city council in december so we're underway okay i just wanted this for information purposes good thank you all right ceremonial resolution for john senisi ms brazzo are you gonna ask for that yes we just recently got an email that mr senisi which was one of the founding partners of synthesis would be retiring after many years of service in the community and also commitment to the community and we thought it would be nice to recognize him with a ceremonial resolution very good so i will entertain a motion to approve that i will move it okay second all in favor aye okay the next two items deal with the alcohol waivers that we've had a public hearing about that and just needed to get it back on the agenda ms brazzo anything else you wanted to say on those no actually it's funny because i was just about to email and say look what's to this and i opened up the agenda and it was there so do you have an update mr pelisepo on the two you were going to go to get support to put a cross at central park pavilion alcohol waiver and also the closing the streets off regarding the side that we saw that we had on the agenda i should have i'm sorry i don't have any specific information about that today what we were talking about before the situation is kinda different but we put it on the agenda for two weeks for two weeks i'll make sure that we something to and i know that mr erikson was just looking for maybe some more specific costs associated with the closing of the streets so we can make sure that proposed and we're looking at somewhere around two hundred or so but i have to make sure that we at least covered our costs with what we have and then the park fee we had a public hearing on it already didn't we yep but nobody came no no so just what we proposed to do okay so we're holding this for two weeks then okay i'll call for a public hearing regarding the zoning change mr shikeman thank you when we adopted the new zoning ordinance in two thousand and eight we made a change in the way information goes out with presenting a zoning ordinance the r3 district which is multiple family district basically and you can see in what i handed out it's intended to accommodate new and existing residential development at a moderately higher density and it's intended to permit subject to a special permit higher density residential development so that's what's in the intent but when you get into the actual language there there's no mechanism by how we'd do this or anything that sets guidelines for it so it's probably the planning commission about it and they made a recommendation that basically and the other thing they say is that the r3 district which is supposed to be at higher density the density is the same density as what's allowed in the two family district okay so basically the proposal that the planning commission would like to do is keep the residential density at two thousand two hundred and fifty per dwelling unit the same as the two family but also allow it to go for lots that are larger than a half acre up to one unit per one thousand two hundred and fifty subject to the issuance of a special use permit that gives some kind of a mechanism by how you get this higher density it's only for larger lots and i should also state at the same time this came to light when there was a proposal to redevelop the lot across from home depot on cambridge so they wanted to go to a higher density that was free but all they could do was the same that was allowed in the two family district that's the first piece so if anybody has questions on that before i get to the second piece is there a specific area that you're talking about right now is there a specific area that has to be developed well this one here i mean it came to light because of the r3 district which is the area around wait loopy towers on cambridge over by same golf course there are many multiple family zoning areas netherlands village netherlands sheridan village area there's also along the union street corridor multiple family districts but most of those wouldn't be allowed because those are smaller lots under twelve acre so mostly this would impact the larger areas all of kings road on the same side as the development the serafini development and the parkland senior housing so that's another area where it would be mr erikson would it also play in like alcove or any developments going on there or not really no alco is commercial and it makes use of development and that's already allowed at a higher density the one thousand two hundred and fifty as of right there was talk of doing residential right high density residential areas they can do that oh they can do it under the current they can do that i mean it's within the guidelines but alco allows for higher development than r3 oh downtown allows for higher development than r3 any questions and the other one is just a clean up of uses requiring site plan again with the two thousand and eight ordinance the special permit changed from the zoning board to the planning commission and language was put in there that basically says that any case where a special use permit is required no separate site plan review shall be required what that was supposed to imply was that you didn't have to come in twice you could come in at the same meeting but what it implies is that if you come in for a special use permit you don't need to come in for site plan review so we just want to strike that language which means you're gonna be doing both so this is a call for a public hearing any other questions or comments i'll entertain the motion to move that okay second by ms brazzo all in favor aye okay a revocable permit for tie tie inc this is a revocable permit for the tie tie bistro formerly the bangkok bistro on the corner of erie and state a little unique to the tie tie bistro is that it is on a corner and that this is for both a sign and an awning both were existing however they will be new now due to the building's name change and ownership change i went out to the site and examined where the awning currently is if you see here there is lighting already installed and it looks kind of bad right now because it's not covered by that so this is to replace it like you see in the rendering with a new front awning and then a new sign on the erie boulevard side where there originally was a sign that said the previous business questions generally though the same dimensions yes yep everything is generally the exact same setup i'll it okay and second this board appeal all in favor aye okay thanks thank you and then the one hundred and eight brandywine will pull that for executive session so i'll entertain the motion then to recess city of oh wait we have one more resolution go ahead yes the working which is we put i just want to remind you that we'll go on the 15th yeah that's already been passed yes we've already approved that yes and also friendship baptist church i believe are having their 74th anniversary and they want a ceremonial resolution but to be given at the church not city council meeting okay i move that all right second all in favor aye okay so now i will entertain a motion to recess city development planning okay movement is processed second is supported all in favor aye all right health and rec call to order health and rec meeting to breast cancer awareness month yeah this is an annual resolution we do and representatives from the fire department will come you know with their pink shirts and also from their foundation to accept it all those in favor aye okay italianamerican heritage month mr riggey yes we did that last year for the first time in a while i think so the same resolution designating october as american heritage month i move i second all those in favor aye okay domestic violence awareness month is again that's another one i think we've done we do annually so i would just recommend we do that i'm all in second all those in favor aye okay and next we the woodlawn reserve they have a hundred different topic but it's going to be pending so miss peraza okay if you remember the city is holding some grant money that belonged to the woodlawn preserve and the woodlawn preserve strategic plan and things of that nature and the officer vinny he looked at me and he said you know it would be great if we could have that money and i said well we will give you that money we just ask you to please provide us with some documentation as to what the land is gonna be used for what would going out of the preserve that kind of thing and i just say here you go this is for you know so in your packet is a tremendous amount of documentation as to what they've accomplished along with receipts from and i think it actually exceeds the amount of the grant money we need to find out the exact amount of that and i know you think it was twenty i think it was two thousand and something if i remember right but i just wanted to put it in there for you to review because you know it is technically money that's earmarked for the woodlawn preserve and here has been doing a tremendous amount of work so i wanted to put forth the council consideration to reimburse the committee for your work that's already been expended well i'm not sure there's money left ms digenova was looking into that did you yes so took a look at this and it appears that the grant was quite a while ago and the city did apply for mr ritner particularly did apply for a three thousand grant but the state only allowed for twenty three thousand six hundred of grant funds and the city actually along with and supporting woodlawn disbursed twenty nine thousand five hundred already using some of its own funds so not that this should stop the council if you wanted to do something other than this but the grant has been exhausted okay that's good to know if you could just send me word of that and then i'll get that out the last week we had a balance hanging out there but that was probably based on the thirty thousand yup okay thank you very much anything else from the board of health and recreation if not so moved second all those in favor say aye aye adjourned all right i will call to order government operations we're gonna talk about setting some parking rates it's my hearing and then at this point in time the council didn't address for what the parking meter rates could be either set by the mayor or his deputy so i guess if you just tell us what you were thinking for an upper limit you could rewrite the legislation have you this question now have you thought in terms of what you would recommend as an you know like a range i mean like are we talking something like five dollars for an hour i don't think there was you know off the top of my head how many times it would actually go up that high but i'm not sure only five dollars too little power i know in downtown like in the theater district right around capitol rap it's one hundred and twenty five for an hour so it's you know that's at the highest rate that i've ever paid anywhere in the city i mean my thought is you know if we can do it this way to have kind of a two tiered rate one is the general rates right any day of the week do you want to go down there and we should set a limit of like you said one hundred and twenty five whatever our current downtown premium rates are maybe you get a little bit of room for movement on that and then a special event rate and we say okay special events can be no more than x number you know x amount that way it would kind of i think the resident community people that were coming here are sure that we're not gonna jack up the rates to three a minute or something ridiculous because hey we got up to five so maybe if a two tier for two different situations one is for events and then one is for regular non event day so whatever those numbers are i guess we'd have to figure that out but i think the two tiered approach might be maybe more appropriate well we had originally talked about setting a maximum and letting the parking people use their professional discretion as to anything up to that maximum so i mean i don't know do we want to limit it totally two tiers what if there was a third situation and you know what i mean i mean there could conceivably be times it'd be free too sure like you know right but i think essentially what we with pop limit right setting a maximum so if we said five just the number that was thrown out for an event that might be too low but for an average tuesday at noon it might be too high and so they're two different scenarios we have especially events are clearly times where the rate is probably going to be higher you know and then personally i think you know from someone who pumps money into meters on a regular basis you know it's that act of putting in a million quarters that makes you feel like oh my goodness you know and differently than a new parking system right but my personal opinion is the one hundred and twenty five an hour is a decent maximum rate i mean when you're putting five quarters in you're watching the change drop twelve minutes you know it's but you know that's just i'm just throwing it out there what are their current highest areas one now is it one now one yeah one i think is one and the other thing in conversation with the mayor he used to say rather than designating him or his designee that he would correct me if i'm wrong that you would like finance commissioner and i forget which the other one was it was between the police chief and fire even though the legislation was worded so it would be me or my designee that seemed to generate a level of controversy just the nature of doing business here so would you like us to officially change that or at this point it's the product of the council except the rate to determine who's gonna sign it i and already asked we should make a decision yeah i personally think it could be the mayor the council should decide what it is in this case i think the mayor would have the ability to make you know adjustments as needed right that's the job i don't know i wouldn't know if i'd be comfortable delegating that to you know somebody one layer two layers below the mayor on a hierarchy i think either the mayor or the town should be doing it right now it's our job we're saying hey we'll let somebody else do it we'll have the mayor do it if that's more efficient as long as we set the limit well i think that if we set the high limit having it be the mayor or his designee is if the mayor is gonna designate somebody who's going to designate someone who has the ability to set it in a proper manner right he's not gonna say you know hey yeah i agree with you joe what would you like partner today you know so my opinion is we set the maximum because it is a function as capital and then allow the mayor or his designee as he sees fit as the business person overseeing the city to change the rate within that structure i agree i agree is there so is there any other discussion or does no we're gonna go with the one hundred and twenty five does that one hundred and twenty five accommodate for events cause i know there was concern with the special rates i don't believe that we're in a to have to do it separately i mean for us so this is just for regular parking correct back in business all right so do we want to handle both of them do we want to address both of them tonight regular parking days and then special night parking rates what are we going to do what will be done with the existing meters right now they're talking about setting all of the meters that way well i think the existing meters we're looking to just leave as is and as we phase them out and put the pay stations in we would adapt the new flexibility and are there police stations in already yep okay when do we anticipate they're going in i have an order coming in what did you have til the end of the month because you have to do something or we're gonna have meters that are programmed with the existing rates that we're gonna have to turn around and pay to have them reprogrammed for something different so if we set a maximum rate why would we have to have a different rate for special events i mean it would be at your discretion to adjust the meters whether it was an event or not an event or everyday parking the police have if you set it at one hundred and twenty five an hour and we decided we want to charge in the evening where it's now free parking we wanted to charge for an event or on a saturday or something else i'm not sure the one hundred and twenty five would okay so what we're talking about right now is within the parking limitation does connect to the say from eight in the morning till six at night or nine in the morning until six at night on monday to friday that's what we're talking about right now so you're talking about off hours it's the total unionization of eight or so if we want to do an event evening or some time there's multiple things happening i think some places are getting up ten for off street parking most department proctors are downtown so you want the ability to be able to charge up to ten and at this rate it wouldn't get you there for i want an event rate so council so as the chair of the government operations committee there could i ask that you put a proposal together of what you would like to see happen with the parking and then we can work out we've gone back and forth a couple of times you're done hearing so it's really the decision of the council at this point it sounds like we're going with one hundred and twenty five an hour and then special event ten that would be the maximum mr walden i just wanted to check with you what would be the rate and what would the procedure to change the rate because if we wanted to change the rate for the mayor then we want to change it quickly or would it be via resolution or be a while they're talking what's on the table right now is that the council will set the council would set the maximum right excuse me the council would set the maximum rate and then the mayor could use his discretion up to that maximum thank you if he wanted to change it five times a day you could continue to get five times a day one of the issues that came up before was something that and i talked about i don't know if it was it wasn't an email regarding downtown specifically the main corridor station and it is a dollar right now but going without one of the discussions was about getting the the word was the items you rate you wanted a certain vacancy rate and you don't want the downtown in front of the property and that lot being constantly filled and what i would like is to doing this with the mayor and his designee being able to set up the rates would be if we move it off just in that particular area we're seeing a lot of camping out parking to a woman of one hundred and twenty five and then observed for four months and possibly one hundred and fifty and observe until we're getting that opening an attorney because that parking is meant for two hours it's meant for people coming in is not meant for people to just feed the meter so you have to find that balance i just want to make sure that we're putting enough flexibility into that specific rate where we can find the balance because the new meters will allow us to zone the city a little bit easier and that particular zone is what we're seeing a lot of low term and other areas we're going to be able to keep it right in that but i just want to make sure that we can bring it to where we can find our baskets well i for one feel like the council certainly isn't our specialty is not parking rates right but our specialty is oversight so that we make sure everything's fair but i think we always want the department leaders and mayor to come to us and say this is what we propose and this is why not necessarily that we want to make it up from scratch so if it's your recommendation that we start at one hundred and twenty five but that we keep in constant communication with one another i certainly feel comfortable with that and then it seems like the special event issue is something different correct so do we need to take a vote on this and then put a special event with a special event on for two weeks is it something we want to talk about tonight and put legislation together for i wouldn't refer to council make a recommendation for legislation so we can put those upper limits in place and go forward again we're basing us in to where you have i call a small footprint which will initially utilize the pay station but where we have the base stations we will have a lot more empirical data in terms of utilization of those parking spaces so as we phase those stations across the downtown we will better be able to see some of those points was talking about where people were staying there were getting higher turnover and again trying to create a user friendly atmosphere in downtown okay so i take what a hearing is that we're looking to pass a resolution that maximizes the parking rate at one hundred and twenty five an hour and then we're going to revisit this with mr weill as we go forward well you're going to come and we're going to have you feedback yes mr i mean everybody wants to keep it low but the maximum rate's one hundred and twenty five right you have no vacancy and nobody knows what price you want to set until you have some experience that you should probably set it a little bit higher then it's a maximum break you want to give some flexibility that's higher than what it is now okay mr mcgee did you ever make a comment no i'm thinking because i've seen it i think you can start in one hundred and fifty then take it up fifty cents more than what we're currently charging and then we can revisit that after we see cause i'd be willing to not think twice about it how you program it for a minimum for fifteen minutes i'm going into the post office to buy stamps i don't know enough about them but they have might be for you well we're talking about these kiosks you put in the amount of time that you want credit card so that's how you get the amount of time that you want but the amount that you're getting could be you're getting fifteen minutes that's going to be like twelve and a half ten minutes right at the beginning of the first phase i'm looking to have these have to be programmed remotely as we get more of the base stations in place our ability to just program them inhouse would evolve with those right now you'd be set up for the vendor would have to program for what we have them put in place one set of criteria and then once we go down the road modify it based on new data and utilization rates mr harrison did you have something you wanted to add i just think that this whole conversation started with this request to the public hearing there's something on the books to that limit that we council sat that at some point in the past we've been requested to change it and then we said hey let's instead of changing it every other moment as we try to figure things out we said hey let's do a limit and so at this point short of what it set at today we need somebody from the administration to say we suggest the limit to be set at this number going forward for regular parking and a limit to be set at this amount for special events because right now we don't have accommodation for special events and so you need to accommodate special events right i said it before that so someone just needs to roll down a number yeah so i think just in the conversation here i'm hearing like maybe ten limit for special events and one hundred and fifty for the meters and again can go back and revisit as as we get more data i think its yeah i think i'm fairly comfortable with ten an hour for special events ten flat fee yeah that i'm okay with because we do have all all of our and lots are charging the premium ones and state students premium parking ten the other the surface lot down beyond garage five and keep in mind that the parking garage for event night so we are talking about keeping the parking space on state street okay so it sounds like we are looking at a maximum rate per hour on nonspecial event times of one hundred and fifty and we are looking for a special event rates of ten for a flat fee in separate legislation so is that what everybody understands okay so i left that might be able to be incorporated into the legislation yeah i was about to say okay okay in same legislation so that'd being okay i'll do it thank you do i have a second i will second excellent an all who's in favor aye i now feel very powerful good excellent anything else come before government operations i ask for a motion to adjourn second i'll second okay we were all having so much fun all those in favor aye excellent all right i'll call into order public safety one item on the agenda is the citizens this is the recommendation for legal women voters right excellent i think it's wonderful i'd love to move that i'll second it all in favor aye motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor aye adjourned okay call to order public service and utilities couple contracts mr olsen and mr first the weekly cover okay the legislative request form we have in front of you to cover construction they go out to bid we had three responsible bidders respond a carpet construction that gave us the lowest possible rate of seven hundred and fifty five thousand nine hundred and ninety to replace the should cover it we talked about this for a couple of years now and we have an advantage of doing it this year because national is doing their portion of the in their property up to weaver street so they're actually handling all the bypass parking so we don't have to do any bypass parking if we move on this project there's also a restriction currently that runs through the culvert of a lane which is thirty six inch center in addition to the replacement of the culvert or something base and put it in for the culver for the flow of water we were trying everything to try to minimize the flooding that exists in here broadway that has been an issue in the past this will not completely solve that issue this will not completely solve the issue of flooding on weaver street or this but it should help not every time but there's no guarantee you have that colvert runs underneath the railroad down and in fact gary you and i saw that pipe one night you can only just get so much water through there which has caused it to backup these improvements will help they will not put the salt in the problem but they will help and we are taking advantage of the fact that national grid will be providing the bypass pumping of that which is significant that's that's a lot a lot of money we get to match our systems together as well so it is if there's ever a time to do it this is the time construction would begin it takes four to six weeks sometime first week of november hopefully yeah it takes about four to six weeks to get the precast material for the sections of the culvert it would be be very similar to the work that we did on it's all covered yes is this in the capital budget is a capital budget project so i'll cover yes would be a budget how much are you budgeting for we had six hundred and sixty eight thousand there was some remaining money in some of the old capital loan so we're fine any idea why we came in over budget in terms of why yeah well this was a budget that was done a couple of years ago we did put an escalator in there it was budgeted at just under six hundred thousand with an escalator in here for today's prices there's an inverted siphon in that road which is going to be a little bit of extra work and then we also did the engineering came out of that budget which was not allocated for in the original budget to be an issue we always anticipate national grid doing the bypass break and all that kinda stuff or no they're under a consent order to box that prick in other property because of the contamination on the property so what they had to do was they had to bypass to put that precast in as they go through their property so we're going to just piggyback on that bypass we do ours but i mean if they weren't new we always anticipated that being tied in no we saved a bunch of money by having them do the bypass no on the originally the budget with the first set we did the six hundred thousand okay we did anticipate we'd been looking for them to make this improvement for probably nine or ten years we have leads that go into that crick that are salted in we can't do the maintenance at the end of our outfall which plugs up those stormwater lead in front of seven hundred and forty five seven hundred and ninety seven and eight hundred and forty five broadway so we want clear passage of that water into the culvert so this is the methodology that they chose and negotiated with dc for their consent so did anticipate them putting their culvert in when paul originally set the budget but that was some time ago in the works in the past few years now but that's it thank you carl this has been a recurring conversation regarding this particular contractor and they're hiring the women and minority so i'd like to know how that's been addressed in this particular contract they have affirmed actually the requirements for this contract i know this contractor has offered to have a job fair he would like the opportunity to be able to hire more women and minority if you'd like i could set the time that you sit down and discuss that with either he or his hr people but he did offer that to marian quite some time ago so he's trying i had a question when is this going to start this project hopefully first part of november first part of november we got to get shop drawings in to get shop drawings turned around and approved and the precast stuff to be ordered the sections of precast culvert have to be ordered that'll take four or five weeks so this this will go on until the winter the good part is that we can close project i guess that's my next question three months yeah will there be much destruction that's my next question well that section of road you can easily bypass that over so we can afford to close that section of weaver street for an extended period of time without really hurting anyone trucks will come in from the one side for the transportation and local traffic on the other there's only two businesses the machine shop the engine shop there and another small car repair shop they'll be able to access their businesses there'll be someone where we had to close the road the the advantage of weaver street is it's only an eightfoothigh inch overpass so you don't get a lot of truck traffic through there all the truck traffic goes on so it'll just the only inconvenience will be people have to take avenue rather than weaver street to cut over to which isn't much of an inconvenience any other questions i'll entertain a motion i will move the vote second all those in favor aye unfortunately it's that time year we should discuss specifications again this year for for assistance with from private contractors with our snowfall cover construction was not only the lowest bidder but the only bidder and the rates i believe are the same as last year we put this on bid net and we had a couple of people we had like like seven people view it a couple of people picked it up but we didn't get any additional hits this also includes bidding for snow removal this contract we usually activate our private on average about five times a year we usually get twelve or thirteen storms that we had to go out about five times a year this average in cost eight thousand nine thousand a year the bigger advantage to this is the prebid removal contract and the volume of equipment necessary so that if we do get a big storm or when we get a big storm similar to that if we had about twelve years ago we have the opportunity to be able to mobilize equipment very quickly to remove shelters in the streets which is really important so we're fortunate that we have a bidder that has that capability well good news is were only getting a few this year so well you're getting the forecast well i appreciate you bringing this to us a little bit earlier than before it literally snows right on us so we'll talk about at the other meeting good good obtain a motion i will move it second all in favor aye thank you okay anything to come before public service and utilities i motion to adjourn i second all in favor aye so i will move to a second