stores discussed in committee numerous times without objection and consent i don't number three i am number three a resolution adopting the two thousand and fourteen fifteen consolidated plan  item number four resolution authorizing an agreement regarding the oak street bridge also discussed in committee without objection on consent item number five did number five a resolution authorizing the city to enter into a consent order with the new york state department of environmental conservation discussed in committee without objection on consent item number six i did number a resolution calling for a public hearing regarding the new york state consolidated funding application also discussed in committee without objection i consent item number seven item number seven a resolution authorizing an intermediate simple agreement with the metroplex authority and the schenectady idea a relative to a number of eastern ave properties discussed in committee without objection on consent i don't number eight item number eight a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to settle a claim by michel l  claims without objection on consent item number ten item number ten a resolution authorizing the settlement of a claim brought by mark blanch also discussed in claims without objection on consent i remember eleven item number eleven a resolution authorizing the settlement discussed in committee this porterfield did you get are you satisfied with your questions the resolution that's on tonight is a request from actually be attorney general's office with respect to making a number of changes relative to the responsibility of banks for properties where the mortgage is in default on as the law stands currently the water requires that a bank after foreclosure take over all responsibility for the property and the specific legislation that came in odd concerns basically those specific issues of what the bank has to do  before there is foreclosure but after the property is in default by it was either three or four months ahead simultaneously there are a number of other bills we're the general counsel for the new york state conference of mayors came over to schenectady he went he has gone to a number of municipal bodies but came to schenectady to discuss those bills more tools to deal with properties that are abandoned and for instance right now the abandoned property procedure only applies to residential property and one of the bills has it applying to in addition to residential property of flying to commercial and vacant properties there were another number of other issues manners of service and procedural issues and what i have done in the resolution that is before you all of the language that was  requested or discussed by the attorney general's office plus additional language indicating support for everything both what the attorney general's office is doing and what new york state conference of mayors is attempting relief act i think is generally a good idea but i haven't had time to review it i think we as of yesterday hadn't received the details and so if they were sent today i haven't had time to look at them it is this a time sensitive issue and we need to move on it today or we're not looking to block it because i think it's probably a good thing i just would feel awkward voting on it not really knowing that you know what we're asking the banks to do differently right sporting field all in favor i write i will now call the city council meeting to order for may twelfth twenty fourteen and ask you all to rise for the invocation given by the reverend bill levering from the first reform church this is the first invocation since the supreme court of the united states of america has declared that it is legal by a vote of five to four for prayers to be set at city council meetings let us pray and ever loving god be with us be with our courts our legislatures our administrator is as we try to do and work for the common good be with us all at all levels of government so that we might strive for what is true work for what is just thank you for having us i'm actually going to get into right over to the kids right away these these are kids represent all four of our career pathways but they're going to talk about that when they go through their side spread the parker caitlin char program there are various classes in the cad program personally my favor is residential construction and this costs we get c because it's really and and whenever whatever we're doing we always design it on auto cad before we actually build the how to get customers and what kind of the old kind of food people are interested in the area and we also take a very big final at the end of the year which i just took currently last week we do a lot of catering jobs we've we've catered at the high school we've catered  school a lot of people they even order cookies from us and we got to make sometimes five to nine hundred cookies in two days so it's hard  these are a couple of the students working a catering job that we've done we've like i said we do a lot of the high school on the bottom right hand that's actually some that one of our teachers made good i'm currently an office manager right now i love it because it's all business like makes me feel professional but one of my favorite classes is powerful presentation what that is it helps you be a better presented and you already are or he is and it helps you be they help it helps you with the dos and don'ts of presenting something like making eye contact knowing your audience knowing who you're talking to and what your message you're trying to send to them and these are  hall so that's a good thing the friendly staff is also nice because you get one on one with your teacher you build an actual relationship to where you understand your teacher and they understand you and they get you through the day and if you're having a hard time pushing yourself  you any day they don't care they'll stay after you can say you need it two minutes before the last of the before the last bell rings and they'll stay after for it with you and she said if you give these are some of the events that we have catered we do back to school night which is where the parents are who students i want to come check out school you can calm and we do a whole bunch of the career fair thing we cooked a whole bunch of meals and food and everybody loved it business dinner where your family where you will what steps you need to know like certain stuff you need to know when you having a business  cultures that maybe in the school or maybe somebody you know field day that's normally at the end of the year where it's just about half a day where we can just have fun and you got to be good for it though  that's and i at the end of the year were all the students that had perfect attendance or perfect grades all throughout the year they all get awards for and we normally make like cookies or cupcakes something like that transportation we learned a lot you don't need to be something you can how do i put it there's a lot out there that you can be even if you don't want to be in  medical field or the business field there's something else out there for you and that defines a personality you can always go and find a job that you like and love job shadowing field trip is when we goal to like we went to the police station and job or career a job being you have to do it in a career meaning that you want to do it yeah the bank are towards is the recognition of a student pursuing a nontraditional career brenda parker hair is the first a they've got a great program there and i've been actively involved with the business advisory council for many many years now and we were just at a wonderful luncheon just a few weeks ago where we had about four or five different school districts presenting to more y it was a great presentation now that they gave and i was very very impressed so with this if i made madam a president i made the floor and we have cupcakes so they are fairly quiet so you can peel the cupcake back nice job so if i may we have a resolution honoring up brenda parker whereas the non traditional employment and training project net is sponsored by the state university of new york and funded by the new york state education department through the c the perkins grants and whereas the net project sponsors the vanguard award which recognizes outstanding secondary and post secondary level students throughout new york state run rolled in a career and technical education programs that are nontraditional for their gender but the same being presented annually to for secondary and to post secondary students and to stop it please don't forget my desk get away with that thank you whereas mr keogh has stated that brenda is one of my best tunes ever added that he taught college bound students at the maine high school campus for seven years and that brenda is more joining the ninety percent of the students i have had she willing to put in the hard work and it whereupon mr keogh's nomination brenda won the vanguard award for her dedication wisdom maturity and insight now therefore be a result that brought the level of my classes up because of her driving her ambition and her caring about her classes and she's a model st mr we should do this at least once a month ok all right we have our second out of order resolution which is a local law with changing the name of norwood ave to way we have mike's daughter his only child mary ellen so you can see mike wasn't in it for reasons like some of us got into like i did because we had sons playing or daughters playing which inhabits all the seventies mike was in it for the right reasons mike that so much for the youth disconnected i can't say enough about this man just what he contributed to kids a schenectady mike my dad and george rowe should have statues erected in schenectady because they really deserve it and i can't say enough about that but i'm going to read this shown by the thirteen district titles eight sectional titles six state titles and three regional titles his teams won during the fifty's in the sixty's which led to three trips to the little league world series in williamsport pennsylvania coach he stressed that baseball was about more than just winning and believed it taught young people fair play good sportsmanship and help them become better citizens of tomorrow now therefore be resolved that on the sixtieth anniversary of the hundred fifty four championship season that portion of norwood avenue between schuyler street and michigan avenue shall be renamed mike my ad a way to celebrate and honor a man who was not only a great coach but  president move this resolution their second stare all in favor i to my call to mary ellen i've been thinking about this a bit and in the fifty's and sixty's schenectady was really a hotbed for athleticism there was a lot of great athletes came out of the capital district area and i'm thinking well what was the difference schenectady did i mean all these these awards and the championships that they won the sectionals the state's all that and the difference was mike there's no question about it mike was a great coach a great teacher i learned a lot from him you know in my coaching days just just being around like he just was a wealth of knowledge and he really cared about the children of schenectady so mary i'm going to turn this over to you i'm so touched unveiling of the name and we're going have a celebration on norwood avenue for this ok thank you thank you all right we have one public hearing tonight and because we did not get it information about this i'm just going to ask mr pollster to briefly explain it for the city of schenectady with respect to parking meters has a series of provisions that require for instance a one parking meter for every to spots or a parking spots faces and the city is considering and wishes to start using the parking kiosks ah those are and i'm sure that everybody is familiar with them there are many municipalities that have already started to use them but that is one machine that service is eight spaces ten spaces and if somebody wants to they can and when being put cash in it they can put their credit card in it doesn't make any difference  the machine will then print a ticket that they can place on their odd dashboard and they can just say how much time they need and by that specific amount of time it's very convenient and less maintenance for the city and many of them in the ones that we are looking at are solar powered so it's a it's a very economical way to go and it uses advanced technology to the benefit of both those people coming to the city and the city itself and because the code sections that are in existence now only contemplated the typical old style parking meter the changes that are being proposed are those that would allow the kiosk to be used at least within various locations within the city thank you i have two people signed up to speak the first is joe ca evening city council mr mayor madam president my name is joe keller murthered resident the city and i know i spoke on this several times last year regarding the parking meters but once again i stress that getting these parking meters before their time is going to be more of a burden on the taxpayers we don't want to take out more loans i understand that monies have been set aside for this but there's still over three million dollars in unpaid parking violations that we can collect on this and pay for these outright without going into more debt and there's also plans if i understand correctly with this resolution on putting kiosks on upper union street where there's already great business up in that area this would has a potential to create less business in that area because part people are going to try to find parking where there are no parking meters and walk so and people are going to be reluctant to do so so i would we may want to look into a little bit more public input on this as far as placement of the meters where they're going to be place these kiosks and i have been in other municipalities they use them they're great opportunity but i believe that the public deserves and and needs to have more input on this thank you thank you next person is david jack alone public hearing was about to read out to be a strange situation and so basically this public hearing is a predicates what it's hard to know because that it wasn't about anything but i would have liked to have known john just told us what the purpose was but i would like to see the words i would like to have seen if it said anything about what the actual distance can be and as an example of that last year   action but it's just sloppy it's sloppiness and i don't understand why there's such sloppiness if you want to look in say other parts of the parking meter ordinance that might be inconsistent with our kiosk plan how about reading the whole thing because if you read the whole thing you'd see that there's a section two forty eight dash said that the true that says you may not extend the period of time that passed the original the maximum duration time by putting more money in a parking meter it sounds to me that many of the things you can say about what's great about this will in fact allow people to go back and put in more and stay longer so the issue of what is the duration going to be how much turnover are you going to cause or are all things that need to be talked about and they also need to be specified you need standards in guidance from the legislature which is the only body given the power to set rates in the state alleges the state legislation you need to select the mayor know what your policy is and what your standards are so that he can implement your standards and your policy thank you thank you all right i have no one else lined up to speak some of these public hearing closed we will move on to approval of the minutes are able to any eight twenty fourteen seconds it all in favor of communications and petitions communications presented to the city council for monday may twelfth two thousand and fourteen under official from the mayor list of appointments dated may twelfth two thousand and fourteen under general there are none under petitions there is one p containing fifty one signatures from emmet street residents protesting the opening of a convenience store at eight six five emmett str this forty thousand going there something you're saying well they're not meeting their goals or they're just barely meeting their goals the major problem is that matt is there to certify minority and women own and disable participation within contracts that are given by the city in the county and when you have one of the board members is the affirmative action officer for for this program you've got a big con giant conflict not only there but also too is that when he's not even in or seen we had every boulevard fourteen million dollar contract thirteen million of it was for federal funds and minority and women own and foreseen the current laws and trying to get participation into effect that was the whole purpose of it's there is a big mac tech is not there to be certified for minority participation the person who has to do it is  from the other piece is to give more money to snap well four years ago you guys received eight hundred thousand dollars you turned around and played a ping pong between snout and code for smith with eight hundred thousand and you keep putting it back and forth without any accountability without any goals or immune accomplishments and you keep throwing that money back and forth from each department so that you could just spend it any way you want to and that's the back of the house money we haven't had a public hearing on staff money and that's a whole thing whole thing and then you're trying to tell people hey you got a boat for the community but because you already voted for it in the budget in october you know i mean again what is this a three point three million dollars slush fund of communal block grant money where the staff can say this is where i'm going to spend it we don't care about public comment we don't care about the city council says and that's the way it's been and you know reconsider and look at some of this stuff next year thank you thank you daniel smith if i may the three speakers for the habit i would like to come up together ok they are not i'm sure and city council members thank you for this opportunity to speak with you the habitat for humanity for of schenectady county as you know is it has been around for about twenty years and over that time we've completed forty three homes that means we placed forty three low to mid income families into homes and we've created forty three taxpayers for the city of school for the county forty one of those were here in schenectady county and we fully endorse the allocations that have been laid out in the community development block grant and we'd like to point out that habitat is more than just a group of people that build houses in the process we bring the community together we bring in hundreds of volunteers they spend thousands of hours building these homes were teamed with organizations such as better neighborhoods and north especially north east parent and child to help build the community by help building people who are or rather training people who are willing to give their time and know have the skills and know how to put houses together and bring people back into the city  as as responsible taxpaying citizens we have a wonderful relationship with the north east burton show youth build and we hope for that relationship to continue and we ask for your consent in approving the community development block grant thank you mike our building a site selection of character and smith will now speak to the building rather to the houses where there currently are three derelict houses on carey street we would require money to demolish those houses and remediate the site and as you're aware  a fairly expensive proposition because of all of the necessary lead and there's specificity bateman with old houses and in schenectady so those costs are included in that and then from that we would build two new houses home fund the rest of the funds for those would be funds from habitat and from north east parent child and again all of the labor would be essentially volunteer labor except for that contracted labor and all of our contracted labor is almost always city of schenectady labor all of the purchases are get out under very careful  control of that process and go as is often required to local people so the money stays in schenectady the costs are borne by fifty percent by of what we're asking for from the home grant and fifty percent by our organizations we have the other half of the of our costs mayor madam chairperson and city council members like to make three points let me speak to the enduring nature of our partnership with habitat for humanity as you know we were crew young men and women eighteen to twenty four mostly from the hamilton hill neighborhood requires a special kind of organization that can work with those individuals not just any construction company and not just any community organization but habitat for humanity is the organization how do i know because they've been working with us for the past five years or more  number of projects they also share a vision of employability which in turn generates tax revenue for the city  homeownership for those of modest income an affordable housing project you need more homeowners that remain committed to their properties in the city of schenectady and remove remove all of urban blight consequently the demolition of the three blighted properties in the preparation for a way and use this is a creek key and critical component of our us federal d o well grant in fact i can tell you s department of labor has selected us previously because we've had meaningful construction projects with tap tap for humanity how do we work together well northeast funds out of other monies available to us our construction managers we pay stipends for the youth build students i mean they've got to be able to get there and eat lunch and we also are going to provide some support for materials through a three year a donation we have with one of the largest producers of environmental materials in the world the sun go bang corporation ged passing rate and six to nine months now they couldn't pass that test if they could relate math and science to construction work in the field better we've achieved an eighty four percent employed billeted rate how was that done because the skills that they acquire working with half of that using a national construction curriculum achieving osha training certification a national certification are what prepared them not only for construction trades but to enter energy efficiency advanced manufacturing and go to college both it's going to be community college which i always encourage them to do i wish i'd gone there and this is a great organization we're not looking for just construction activities our students learn by fixing shutters and painting porches we need the the complete and comprehensive work that comes with the new construction project the partnership is critical to the success of our youth build brand and it fulfils the objectives jointly held and vision by the city and support of its strategic plan and habitat for humanity thank you once again regarding item number three with the adopted consolidating the consolidated plan one of the things i touched on last week or rather two weeks ago was on the  half mile of road that were planned and being repaved to the tune of four hundred twenty six thousand dollars i have misspoke lasts the last meeting where i said square foot of road would cost one hundred twenty five dollars per square foot it's actually a dollar twenty five per square foot and that's for milling in paving both now taking a look at that alone thirty feet wide of the road by fifty five thousand two hundred eighty feet long only comes up to one hundred ninety eight thousand dollars half a mile would be under one hundred thousand dollars so in other municipalities where where this would only cost that much my question is why is it quadrupled here in the city of schenectady if we're just going to pave that you can cut that number in half that the hundred thousand dollars and only pay for about fifty two thousand dollars for half mile road so i'm a little concerned that if we're only paying what if we're paying this much for that much road how much other waste is inside this consolidate new plan that we can look to and restructure and rebuild and dig into deeper and i think that this that this consolidated plan is being jumped on too quickly without us looking deep and deep enough as a city regarding the resolution for the  metroplex thora t in the id a to the eastern ave properties in taking a look at some of these properties we still have properties that are owned under the i d s name that are were purchased by private entities such as the old d s s building that was purchased by this private entity for one dollar and still is not in the tax rolls because it's still being held under the i d s name that's another part where we have some very wasteful spending leaving revenue one regarding the number twelve the resolution on the new york state abandoned property relief tax i had to dig through a rabbit hole to take a look through this and i found the the resolution but at the bottom of the resolution it's just blank his saying here it is resolved there is no detail on it i've kept digging for detail and finally found a little bit of information up on the state's website but this is yet  again for me being a computer engineer and understanding how the web works and finding trying to find this information people that are not as savvy on the computer would have a very difficult time finding this information thank you thank you to the majority of the city council meeting without me present or the public present to discuss the nuts and bolts of what was presented last monday night i thought that stuff was over with but apparently it isn't it's in violation of open meetings laws and you can call it what you want you can call it a caucus call it what you want you're discussing city business or not discussing political strategy so i have a real problem with that i want to know how people come to their conclusion how they feel about things and when they come with these proposals and we don't know that the other thing that's come to my attention is there could be some at least an air of conflicts of interest in some of these proposals who sits on the boards whose department may benefit from this i would like to have at least before we vote have the council members have maybe affected by this at least disclose if they're involved on a board or what whatnot from somebody who may be getting some of the c d p g money tonight if it if it does pass but the process in my estimation has been flawed and it's flawed because your meeting to discuss things like this out of the purview of the public and that is not right it's illegal is what  so i will not be voting yes on this for sure but i will see how the other council people feel about this like you anyone else comment concerns with the specific item than there was three gentlemen that came up today to speak regarding the habitat funding in my opinion was that habitat funding should go to the land back and so as government should function that people are allowed to have different opinions and the way the vote falls the way the vote falls and i understand that i don't always win the vote just an opinion and the public really should have the majority rule what i found to be more frustrating than just not having enough people agree with me on the issue was more the method of how i was being talked out of it and i think that you know one of the things that were brought up in committee is  a car you can't do that because you're not a five zero one c three organization and i said ok well i guess that rules out and then i said was that a federal regulation no it's a policy it's not a federal policy know it's a city policy and so as i asked to in three or four more questions it's actually our own policy that prevents us from doing this and so to say that we can't is not necessarily accurate it's more of a will somebody in the city you know many many moons ago said a policy you know at this point i don't know it's a written policy it's more like an urban legend policy that says we can't do it that way and so after my comments on monday i understand that there were you know quite a few meetings called the city hall and in came habitat and then came the chairman of the land bank and lots of discussions were conducted and the i guess the director of the of the habitat is been removed for reasons apparently similar to my concerns were regarding overspending and budgets so it's ok let's you know i just underlines my concern that we are going to get more value out and they want money they're saying we're going to stay for money we're looking for funding anywhere we can get it and then all of a sudden they say hey here's an idea we could fund this organization and i believe in the chart of the land bank is this is a council of people who are on the council the time when a resolution saying we support approve this legislation to state level there was demand for it and so i felt we should fund it because we believed in the charter of the land and so now we get this one member of the land bank says no we don't want it which was a surprise because i talked to the other members of land bank they said well we didn't know that when it was going out and so it seemed like this tremendous political pressure to block this idea that i wasn't saying you know grab ever by the neck and saying you have to do it my way i was just saying hey i've got an idea it's something to consider and i would've been happy if i just was only one voting one way and i went for the other way it was just heartening to see the method in which i was talked out of so i have nothing against habitat for humanity i think that it was a lot of money to spend for two houses and i felt that we could spend it wiser in a different method and that's really the basis of my concerns so thank you for allowing me to express my my opinions and i we can't stand up here publicly make an accusation about executive director being released for overspending on the budget when that in fact we do not know if that that's true or not i'm sure i got the floor well i've got the floor i'm sorry excuse me i still have the flo we could rewind the tape if we want but that's kind of the just that i got to take the it was made ok thank you i do appreciate that because habitat for humanity is a tremendous organization and again their partnership with ne parent a child i think is second  these folks do as partners i think as part of our goal in the comprehensive plan it's very important that we have agencies working together especially when funding is very very tight out there the work that you've built does is again just incredible these youth that they work with again mostly inner city youth are walks of life in their cities all over the place but the most important thing is most of these kids don't have their g e d s they're working they have dropped out of high school they're working for their ged days they work right on franklin street they're in the old so security administration building northeast offers them a stipend and then these youth i call you their their kids for the most part actually go out into the field in the construction fields and we just heard from the pocket today who i had a nontraditional  occupation for herself we have men and women both sides are doing carpentry plumbing electrician and the work that they do on these jobs is incredible we're looking to partner with this time it's career center who was here  there's another grant that you build receiver whether ization program and are looking to get the youth build students involved with our students in schenectady high school at this time is career center to work and engage them in that building in a career field which i think is very very important we talked about the funding to for one and the cost the extreme cost that we thought was in here but if you again look at the projects break them out you'll see that this is a very worthwhile program a very worthwhile organization and again the partnerships i think are very important that we have here in regards to mr ranking within the caucus whatever you want to call ourselves that meeting you had plenty of opportunities less money or a committee meeting to state any reservation or any comments you had concern  applications when i submitted it in january twenty eighth of this year i was not yet on the city council my name was the applicant on the application and since then dennis packard who is a commissioner of social services who i report directly to is now the applicant on the application this is not the first year we've received funding this is in fact the fourth year that again the partnership is with the boys and girls schools of schenectady and schenectady job training agency the youth build does not get a single penny from that hill first and steinmetz park where the grants for again has just changed both of those neighborhoods mr you can attest to the problems we used to have in bellevue at the hill her school for many many years we used to get it was as bad as quackenbush for a long time where we used to have calls almost on a daily basis for unruly youth in the pool not here into the rules and guidelines we came in with the boys and girls clubs and partner with the sheriff's department with the safe child id cards now every student has a code of conduct that they have to sign off on with their parent guardian and they also have a photo id and or to use the facilities it has been tremendous we walked around bellevue and all the residents there say it's just been a tremendous tremendous asset and very very good programming  just qualification that we wanted to get the best bang for our buck as far as city policy i have no problem looking at city but not in the eleventh hour before we make a vote i think that has to be a very strategic and in depth conversation also last year during this process another council member did suggest that we reallocate funds to an entity that did not apply for  funding and ms porterfield feel very very strongly that following that process is key we have a process people apply we fund applications that are completed in full we haven't had an application this year that many of us wanted to support but the application actually rated low as a council even though i think a lot of us felt like we really wanted to go forward with reallocating some of the funds to them  e aborted that process because of a weak application so i think the process is key and i agree one hundred percent with mr porterfield i don't disagree with funding the land bank i fully support the for the land bank but the bank didn't apply and it's not a five one c three which right now is our city policy we may as a council want to take a look at that and change that city policy i'm happy to be part of that conversation i do not sit on any boards that have applied for funding get that right out of the way into the habitat issue it's to my knowledge that habitat put out a statement right to do and i think that unless the habitat for humanity to make a statement as to whether mr clarke was let go i don't think any of us should be making that statement in public i think we need to respect the public statement that's already been made by habitat i know that if i were released from my job i wouldn't want there to be they have a good track record and most importantly the city monitors outcomes which is part of the reason why we chose to encourage make tap to meet higher higher bars by decreasing their funding that was kind of our message to say ok it's time to really step up to the plate it's time to go forward in good faith and create some fund raising on your own little bit higher let's make this program  thank you well first of all let me say that i sit on the hamilton hill arts board and when all this discussion came about i did contact an attorney that's not connected with the city to find out based on our code of ethics if there was a conflict i am not paid for my position there and i don't get to decide what funding is asked for any of those things so i just needed to state that i am a board member just a regular board member and in terms of the c d g process we you know we're having a discussion about it now and in my recollection this is the first year where there's been so much discussion around the c b d process i'm not saying it's a perfect process i don't i don't think that anything is perfect and is there room to for some improvement things maybe we should look at i think absolutely we should as this president stated last year there was a group that they wanted to fund and i adamantly said no if they you know if the process is that everyone must submit an application then for in my mind that applies to everyone otherwise that means that is someone that i think should be funded and i have enough pull that i can get that to happen so i don't think that's fair to the people that are applying when they're always told there's a process and then we get into the process and say well let's make this exception i wouldn't want to be the on the receiving end of that and i certainly then would not be on the giving end of that so you know i we've had a lot of discussion regarding the c b d process and i believe that going forward we should discuss it more and about how which it maybe could it could be different it could change if having a five a one c three is absolutely necessary i mean this is brought up a lot of discussion and i think before the next process happens we should discuss these things and make sure that everyone's comfortable with  them there's been a lot of conversation regarding our public hearing and how we handle that on the c d g process and i think we should take a look at that because the public is coming to us and saying well you know i don't think the process is good change how you do that and there should be more public input so so when we go into this next year if we could get the information a lot further out we would have the time to discuss that to have public hearings in a timeframe where the public can actually come and give their input because ultimately these dollars come to the city based on certain demographics so they have to be spent a certain way and so i think that that needs to be explained a little bit better because sometimes people feel that money can be moved anyplace but that they can happen we say this is what we're going to do with the money based on these demographic these states these statistics and therefore we must spend it like that not get it based on that and then spend it someplace else so all of that needs to be explained and i again i say we should look at the process more closely and work with the department  development so that everyone understands and most especially the public understand what we're doing with the c d g dollars thank you ok mr erickson thank you madam for the second opportunity guardian to mr cocksure was speaking with the director you know leaving the reason why i mentioned it i was received a phone call from a board member saying that's what happened and then it was a situation it was made public so i did not know it was a secret and it was a relatively public comment and of somebody who's gone through a similar situation where losing employment being made public you know i could sympathize more than anybody else here i believe so  e again you know it was an idea i might feel that one of my main jobs here is what i have an idea of what we can do to make this place a better place to live out of my mouth and i talk about it i just feel that it was guns blazing when karl has an idea you know in terms of opposition all we needed is just a vote people said now we don't agree with you it would've been fine so thank you thank you mr cocksure mr reagan yes again i'm going to state what i stated earlier mr culture trying to justify that i had a chance to to discuss this and i won't be part of that that's for sure let's do things happen in the public like it should be this is a public mission this is what the public is for this is what it's about and it's a public forum but say i had plenty chances to talk but i didn't resolution in support of the new york state abandoned property really for act of two thousand and fourteen someone new that ok as a seconded by mr cocksure all in favor i discussion this field thank you regarding this we had some discussion about it at the committee meeting because of the legislation that was before us was a little bit different than the explanation that we were getting and was can you did ask me if i'd heard get an e mail from here but i have to tell you that i i was able to get the information from a different source regarding what the what the resolution was about so that i was able to find that out but i just want to be clear in my answer that it didn't come through city hall i had and if i got that i haven't read it hadn't read it yet because of the last time i checked my e mail it was not there and i had asked for that but regarding that i would i did have an opportunity to read to read it and i just ask that you know that we preference would be that the information would be there when we have it in committee in order to do that work so that we're not at the the day before or you know trying to figure it out and get the information so that is my like my comment on that i would certainly appreciate that was considering rio supporting this was last monday when we talked about it in committee and so i said well i'm not aware of it so can i please it's an information and as of yesterday was last my check my city mail evening i did not receive it  so not that i don't support it i guess i just don't know enough about it the property relief act sounds of a great idea but there's language that is impacting banks and financing and things so i think it's a bigger issue than that i can just kind of  truth he's really a solid citizen hardworking and as far as i know it i don't i don't know the other stores that well but i find this very offensive i think the i think the mayor all be apologizing to  i really think mr fabio do deserves and i know the hard won at the college but i think that the people in schenectady didn't know anything about it and we need to advertise this more when things like this is happening is not only for the rich and  for everybody schenectady is a place that's how they have flooding down and the stock down there and we need this training for everybody and i think we should have another training in schenectady that everybody would be able to go to it thank you thank  in for quality of life so you need to make sure that yeah it's trying to save you some money but you're also need to start still working on and you can can be sued under title two for failing to do so the next thing  is don't forget that assessments to grieve your assessments check with the claims department woodlawn hamilton hill semel central state street in the downtown area are the ones they've been hit heavily with the developers of contractors of nearly in between twenty five to fifty percent of their assessments have been reduced so there's no need or reasons that you should not be able to get your assessments reduced down also some of the city council members had asked me some other groups a disability groups that are in the capital stricken area or in serious connected a we have one that's the called the schenectady a r c self advocates they meet on the first wednesday madam president i'm hoping get a hold of their flyers and so forth when i can get to him hopefully that will help me out and again the community block grants we have got to in september to be able to hold some public  and to be able to take a look at some of the money in the background thank you  guess everybody here who knows who i am if you don't you will know who i am i live in emmett street for the past eight years i've built a new house there and i plan to stay there the residents in the vicinity of it sixty five emmett street where the proposal for a deli slash convenience store is in the works there's a concern that this store will materialize into a regular convenience store i was deli convenience store in a residential neighborhood decreases quality of life we talk about promoting homeownership this is not encouraging people to buy property and live in these neighborhood then you continue to approve these types of businesses homeowners are contemplating leaving emmet street area they are talking to me i am talking to down as you can notice you can drag on them a street now without being accosted by a drug dealer most of the time everybody here should know about that directly opposite this proposed convenience store do you care about our community in the hamilton hill area more or less that's where i live i'm very concerned we are asking to pull a why wasn't the resident notified of this daily being placed into developing neighborhood with so many occupied home owners but children these children would be subject to these types of behavior and fall victim to many del convenience store illegal activities we should not expose over children to these nuisances bear in mind we also have a school one block away and that's a fact allowing this would encourage loitering drug using littering fragrance and overall decrease in our quality of life we ask that you reconsider licensing does that mean we don't need any more convenience store in schenectady thank you i'm not finished i have one more thing we request a copy of the business application if this is going going to go ahead if possible the status of among the employees to operate the  e for only a deli and i have a piece of paper here that says it's a convenience store i need you to summarize your time is up ok we don't need another convenience store indicated on the site plan approval to be hard thank you and good evening once again and taking a look at the the appointments i notice that we now have an appointment for a deputy assessor to the tune of fifty thousand dollars per year there's been no information that i've been able to find as to the credentials for this this individual i am aware that the current person who is acting in the position of the assessor is who was only supposed to be there for three months is now just finally eight months later in the process of some type of an exit and is training this new person but it's my understanding we still don't have any information and there's a lot of controversy on this last year it be interesting to find out more information on this individual after all our talks tax dollars are going toward this person's salary and we want to make sure that they're properly qualified as to the be affirmative action advisory board there's been a lot of controversy over this i would just really really emphasize that diversity truly be maintained that we do have the right people for the job going into this position and that city residents take precedent after all it is our city that we're talking about for this advisory board lastly i i want to stress something very very important and  i'm not up here as as a city council candidate i'm up here as a resident i'm up here as a constituent my tax dollars just along with everybody else's are going toward a lot of these programs that are being funded the public funds and the tax dollars are being misused and the public has a right to know where all this information is going they haven't that there should be much more open government there should be much more transparency which is what many of the city council is is discussing and boasting about but we see a lot of things happening behind closed doors and don't find out about them until much afterward when decisions are already made oh it's really out of respect to your constituents out of respect to the city residents and the businesses that bring the money into this city and i encourage people to ask questions and be informed lastly and of utmost important a special thank you to our veterans who are celebrating and made this country what it is and give us the right and the opportunity to ask the questions for liberties and our freedoms thank you thank you david thank you again i want to think every single member of this council who has not yet been pushed or rushed into declaring declaring support for the covert casino right now the only thing you are hearing is from interested parties from the professional which development cheerleaders who have never seen a big project that they've said the new york state gaming task force did a major report to the to the governor after doing enormous amount of research and surveys it said over and they were for casinos in upstate new york but they want that stand alone casino will only have a smirk an area of about one hundred fifty miles and will have very few overnight stays and that five that most of the people at the casino will come from within twenty five miles of the casino and that means they are part of the local leisure market in competition with everybody else in the local leisure market report also said and warned of potential crime problems and they said quote including prostitution pan handling pickpocketing impersonating they also said that economic crimes would increase b atlantic city y a long shot and if you look behind those few blocks of buildings of lenox city it's not doing so well led specially would like to point out that the stockade is nearby where the casino will be the stock e his special protections under our law for it to preserve its residential probably that list of crimes that i just said to you are not going to help the residential quality of life of the people and there will also of course be a lot of drive more drive it's only people who've been drinking all day you should remember that despite what the so called community leaders have said fifty five point six percent of the voters of district tr thank you i believe i corrected mr keller her on this several months ago when he brought it up but i remind him again that the former d s s building was not sold for a dollar it was sold for two hundred thousand dollars and that is public record so just to clear that up also another point of clarification about the fifty fifty six thousand dollars in the cd and i don't want the public to think that that money is floating around that money is held on a line item for the possibility of having to pay interest in two thousand and thirteen the council openly and publicly discuss the fact that if that money is not needed we will decide as a body where to reposition that money so i don't want people to think that there's just money floating around that you know haphazardly because that's not the case i also want to congratulate the wastewater treatment staff management and the mayor because the new york state conference of mayors has recognized the city of schenectady ford's wastewater treatment combined heat and power project the program was awarded second place in the population category over fifty thousand by night comes twenty seventh annual local government achievement awards program and just to share with you more than you ever wanted to know about waste water the city installed a two hundred eighty kilowatt why waukesha walker well i know that word turbo charged lean burn gas engine generator and the project achieved a three hundred fifty hundred thousand dollar annual savings for the city taxpayers so congratulations mayor i know you spearheaded this at the beginning of your time as mayor and looks like it's getting back so good for all of us  announce that there is a course in self defense that will be offered at the hibernian hall in june seventh in twenty first from one thirty to three p m master michelle smith donovan will be teaching she is the owner and operator of michelle's way taekwondo in the crosstown plaza and as the e mail said she's super excellent and the total cost for the two sessions is ten dollars so apparently this is invite any ladies you wish  think it may be limited to ladies but if you're interested in going to the event contact me by may twenty fifth and i'll tell you how that how you can register and lastly we since last meeting had our  first covering a week ago last saturday we were up in mt pleasant along with the city neighborhood cleanup so it started we didn't finish up there and keep plugging away at it but it was it was a good day and the rain held off for the most part so thank you thank you doing it was wonderful and one of the young ladies said you know one of the benefits of what they liked about their teacher was that you know when those days when they felt like giving up their teachers were there to say no back to it you know it's all about so very similar messages that he mentored and taught and pushed the kids to keep trying when they were playing very well he probably coached them and push them along and it's kind of two messages tied together i think that's a  really run off wonderful thing to kind of highlighting today and i really want to congratulate all the teachers and the coaches and the mentors of children because that's really what makes a difference i think between a child's success in life is how much mentor presentation themselves as opposed to having one of the teachers do it so that was that was really nice to see them i'd like to announce that while we all know the capital community loans on has open an office in schenectady at nine twenty albany street and they're going to be use the community justice center in schenectady and they going to travel from stop to stop and just enjoy some refreshments and and talked about you know what the committee loan fund is doing here in schenectady people have questions about the different projects that they've done so this is an opportunity to go on the tour and to see some of the projects so again it was going to start at nine twenty albany street and on may twenty first and through four to six p m and please arrive promptly throw anyone is interested in that they can get in touch with the community on fun because they want to make sure that they have enough refreshments and they have enough to be able to accommodate all the people that show up so people should register for that also as our students are coming home for from college or students that are located in college i just want to just make note of a job opportunity and i won't say the name of the company but they can contact me so there's there's an opportunity for students to make up to thirteen fifty an hour so wearing the  the summer working first second and third shift there is something that you have to you have to qualify by being enroll in college full time and have something that says you will be returning next semester so this is an opportunity that's local for students and that's going to be from may to august so folks want a few students who are interested want to reach out to me i'll give them given that information you know that during the summer it's difficult a lot of students want to work and we don't always have job opportunities so when i came across this job opportunity i thought i would take the opportunity to share it again it's for college students who are full time and returning to college again this fall thank you thank you mr cocksure boy what a perfect segue let's keep talking about the kids here and you talk one this past couple of weeks we had over six hundred applicants youth from the ages fourteen to twenty one apply for summer jobs this year and we have funding for less than two hundred it's a very very sad situation we have we're trying to work as hard as we can with our businesses things are picking up right now the chamber is doing a great job sponsor you know getting the word out to our businesses i think we've got about twenty plus folks on board right now i think the mayor is talking about as well and we've got the  board with this so again if you can reach out that business we'd love to talk with them contact of the chamber sioux rank if anybody's listening out there small businesses large businesses we just are looking for sponsorships for our kids and a continuing on the kids the next tuesday  may twenty eighth that's a school budget votes very very important we get folks out there to vote the polls are open from noon until one thousand ppi m the board of education did a great job with a very difficult budget this year and they ended up with a two point five percent  impact on the tax levy but the good news is our state legislator our state leaders are offering a tax rebate for that increase this year so for example a home that's assessed at one hundred thousand dollars there's approximately a sixty dollars additional fee new york state is refunding that entire check back to you of course just before election time which is very convenient but it's being refunded back to you in the form of a rebate for those of us who have the star  apiece and other maps are also will be available that morning so again we had over two hundred homes participating last year so again we're looking for a great turnout so if you want to take a cruise to woodlawn and could grab some great items stop by for the garage sale and finally have received the purple heart and of course for all our veterans men and women who are very presented us but i've talked with other merrit with president king i'd like to put on our agenda next week or so of the fact to try to get the sea of schenectady as a purple heart of june and in fact to an official resolution when it's a national purple heart day on the august seventh so i hope we can get that on the committee cycle for next week if we may and finally get thank you this time it's career center for being here there are plenty of cupcakes left out in the hallway from what i understand so please take a mama with you and we want to thank all the students for being here today thank you something that i read in the paper and the reason the kind of caught me by surprise was we met monday night in executive session for quite a while in claims and then ten hours later i pick up the paper and on a one in big headlines is a notice a claim is filed against the city for sexual harassment i just like that i think it be the right thing to do is to apprise the city council on the claims committee when something like this is coming down want to read it in the paper i could see maybe if it was four days away maybe if it the story broke on a friday i can understand that but obviously it was known that the notice a claim was filed and i think it's only right that the city council surprised to this without reading it before they read it in the paper because i was flabbergasted when i read that and it's a serious allegation i hope we get to the bottom of it but anyhow that's my only observation without i'd like to know  when there is a serious claim like that file that is in the you know a little accident that something very serious thank you thank you an allegation in news that policy the city we don't comment on pending lawsuits but a full review will document i think an appropriate response by the city in that again allegation it was brought up these brain parking meters to upper union street that is completely incorrect there's no basis for that and it is just believe in appropriate rhetoric to try and shift the debate away from what we're actually trying to do to manage parking in downtown we had a fire this morning eight twenty two states street that a problem property that property has been demolished will get it i think they'll move it out of there tomorrow part of labor is a little bit slow sometimes in granting some of the permits but we do take those seriously and work in a manner that tries to maintain value in the neighborhoods it's what the overall plan is going to talk about the land bank and other things sometimes you have to acknowledge the land bank put in a week application for state funding and just have to deal with that to the attorney general's office has been very cooperative in working with the community he was the hundred fifty thousand dollars planning grants laying the groundwork for again a substantial investment of those funds in this community and again it's coordinating it not only with our section one hundred eight loan but with the land bank with money we spend otherwise and then with private investment or bringing in the community it's a complicated manner that we're doing the planning there complicated structures where there's title issues this one today i think the individual owns a number of properties in montgomery county may own as many as four in the city of schenectady think he's currently incarcerated state prison and all of them are commitments of resources where i know this morning push to benefit myself other staff members probably going to be doing other things but we spend a considerable amount of time tracking that down managing that and making sure the property was demolished and that it is dealt with in a timely manner so that we're sending out the message that we're not going to tolerate this that we're dealing with it is best we can and so i appreciate that the council's cooperation on this where you have issues or things are now at provided to you can i tell you got to call me in will turn around as quick as we can but i don't expect it sometimes it's hard to tell just what the priority of the council is and i expect the staff there's so many things we're trying to do trying to juggle so many things because there are problems and there are also opportunities there's a lot of good things happening here in that i expect the staff to keep all the balls in the air in this sometimes it doesn't always happen that way or we're not quite successful in that but if it doesn't i want to know about it in and this whole process i haven't that had one call from me or council members you know councilor porterfield sent an e mail around with chicken so back to staff and apparently the ma still slow in getting the information out to you but i want to make sure you have the information that you what allows you to make the appropriate decision function in your appropriate role in thank you madam president for the opportunity to address  council of community i the next city council meeting is going to be on a wednesday night wednesday may twenty eighth two thousand and fourteen because the council chambers are being use for the by the board of assessment review so with that i wanted