i'm going to call the city council caucus meeting to order from may eleventh two thousand and fifteen the first item we're going to hold for two weeks spending a little bit more discussion on a little amendment so if the clerk would read item number two don't number two under original consideration a resolution authorizing commissioner of finance to deposit and increase the capital budget code h y four one seven zero eight three zero two three that has been designated specifically for the chips in our fund by the amount of one million three hundred three thousand three hundred nine dollars and forty cents discussed in committee without objection on consent item number three i don't number three a resolution adopting a twenty fifteen twenty nineteen consolidated plan including the twenty fifth two thousand and sixteen consolidated plan action plan also discussed in committee without objection on consent item number for five place discussed in committee without objection on consent i don't number seven i am number seven a resolution authorizing the sale of twelve twenty four crane saint discussed in committee without objection on consent item number eight i don't number eight a resolution authorizing the sale of twelve fourteen chrysler ave discussed in committee without objection on consent item number nine i don't number nine a resolution authorizing the city of item number twelve i don't number twelve a resolution honoring the twenty fifteen schenectady women of this think this will be taken out of order mr porterfield will present that item number thirteen the number thirteen under contract and supply resolution awarding a contract for the purchase of sodium hypochlorite book liquid chlorine for the twenty fifteen full season to surpass chemical company and the amounts of nineteen thousand and thirty two dollars and zero cents discussed in committee without objection on consent i don't know fourteen i remember fourteen a resolution awarding the bid and contract for the pot in place for recycling pursuant to the county wide bid to highway rehabilitation corporation also discussed in committee without objection on consent item number fifteen i don't know or fifteen a resolution awarding the bid and contract for the city of schenectady police station for placement industries ltd discussed in committee without objection on consent and item number sixteen a number sixteen under original consideration a resolution authorizing the sale of twenty forty ben franklin avenue it was discussed in committee this evening without objection on consent if there's nothing else to com that he represents he sent out you know a request for a nominations and sell six women were nominated for them the lived or worked with in schenectady county so tonight we're going to we also want to offer  our community again congratulations and thank you for all you  corporation a letter from christopher wall and city engineer dated april thirteenth two thousand and fifteen by commending the contract for the city of schenectady police station replacement be awarded to state industries ltd a letter from germany howard dated and fifteen recommending the contract for the liquid chlorine for the twenty fifteen full season be awarded to surpass chemical company under general there are none under petitions are not thank you do we have any committee report s the finance committee actually is moving to approve the chips funding which is good news for everyone because it's paving it helps us pave our streets so  good little bit of news after this difficult winter because i know everyone has had to be patient with the way the the terrible winter we had impacted our streets sell something to look forward to very good thank you anyone else of slick schenectady landlords influencing change according to the latest draft of the housing standards review board section sixty eight ash ten hours regarding the view up come plate and i quote any complaint about a specific incident shall not be reviewed by the board until any prosecution or other legal action taken on behalf of the city of schenectady is deemed final and complete by the corporation council there in lies our problem from  onset we understood the ultimate purpose of the review board was to hear in a value a case as a violation upon request before they went to court trial and prosecution we do no prosecution we're not criminals most of us are just law abiding citizens trying to live a decent life and hope to be treated as such it would seem that notices from code are issued with the goal of getting problems resolved we would expect owners to comply with reasonable remediation demands and schedules and we emphasize that we would not be asking the board to skull or mediate violations regarding serious serious health or safety issues we realize that the expense of repairs can be burdensome burden the burden some but unavoidable however if it were felt that fines or fees accompanying a violation or aspects of the violation itself are excessive this would justify a request for a hearing by the neutral review board we are concerned that we don't see specific guidelines for the board to follow we have questions well they have to reinvent the wheel is it expected that they design and determine their own format or function how often do they meet or will it be as needed how is the hearing process made known and applied for will it be an application that requires acceptance in order to schedule a hearing what determines which cases are eligible for review and what will be required for deliberation we feel the redesigning of this review board still needs work and further development substance in order to provide an effective mechanism for its intended purpose thank you thank you  good evening there in city council my name is chris morris and i'm the director of slick at this time we are aware of a certain case involving a vacant house registry violation amounting to eleven thousand dollars based primarily on a technicality upon notification in february the owners took immediate steps to clear up the codes issues here we are three months later after numerous interactions with code and the completion of some required minor repairs this case still drags on circumstances along the way gave cause for frustration and upset with no final outcome regarding an anticipated reduction in this excessive fine old recently the owners were informed that their situation not only hasn't been resolved by code but has been passed on to the law department the conference is finally scheduled eventually they hope to find a resolution that makes some kind of sense their situation needs to come to an end perhaps the housing review board as we envision it would have been the answer again we address the prospect of a slick candidate for the housing standards review board who we feel is amply qualified to contribute both twenty five years of experience in the rental business and knowledge and credentials even struction repair and home improvement this candidate offers common sense and good basic reasoning along with a professional aptitude and a willingness to donate the necessary personal time to the review board process it should be noted however that there is some skepticism expressed regarding the actual functionality and effectiveness of the board should it be implemented without establishing specific guidelines of operation and purpose we also feel it should focus on mediation and fairness given the dramatic changes we've seen in code procedures and enforcement in these recent years including the increased levying of fees and fines we do feel that there would be benefit in having a review board to provide an unbiased assessment on an individual basis but only if it is given the ability and the provisions to actually make a significant difference we do thank the council for its work and attention to this review board reinstatement but we manor president city council mare item number nine attacks earlier to case for for a one state street most people don't recognize this the this is our major developer that owns this property he also divided this property into two pieces of this building one into the center city and this one off to the side not only into this property has been reduced from two point eight nine million dollars down to two point three this is totally wrong and in the heart of the downtown area if you move from this person also received a facade  dollars and in gratis from the state from the city taxpayers said that he create twenty three jobs never did create twenty three jobs and never would have because this was a commission on quality care which is a combined with now the center for the justice on for the disabled if you move down from center city he received almost two and a half million dollars for center city plus the facade grant moved down a little further he also owns the clinton street project received over a million dollars for a grant for that project move across the street which is the hampton inn building there paint zero in property taxes and zero in and a pilot program there valued eight million dollars moved down you've got the new building at four forty move down the got proctors keep moving down you've got schenectady holdings which is the which is the cinema they're paying and pilot nearly forty six thousand and receiving nearly two hundred eighteen thousand on tax free from the taxpayers that's a thirteen million dollars building he owns the building across which is now the workman's comp building he got a free gratis from the city on the parking lot of five million dollars of the people to park in that building move across you've got the of right next to the radio city i'm building then on top of because it's state street  sidewalks all paid for snowplows he gets flowers put up on the thing nice will benches and everything else this is all value to the building so if you take that building you move it to blocks over it may not get that value because it doesn't what wonderful downtown and everything else and now you're saying the property values are not there i mean this is a slap in the face of all the multimillions of dollars of the taxpayers have given and no jobs and you know we need to we need to stop these  and start actually doing an actual assessment thank you thank you muhammad h good evening mr mayor city council members my name is mohamad houses and i live it's going to city i'm here to voice my objection to this new version of the proposed housing standard review board one of the original powers of the housing board was the following very a modified  now giving a car blanche authority to conduct inspection and acquiring permit with or without any type of safeguards that appeal process was needed because the current enforcement procedure allows no avenue for appeal in court officer  prosecution of the matter is the and final and complete which is so funny is ridiculous after the whole matter was with the court system then and you know the board with some common might as well have cocksure all in favor i will now move to privilege of the floor regarding city business i have three people signed up to speak anthony mor because seeing is i mean the facts are here if this were to happen crime would be down and people shifting and life would be a lot better off if we negotiate a shit down with because i believe if we did this crime would be down think thank you jason plank council president can you please ask the city clerk to put the backup material for tonight's agenda and all the other night's agendas when you go into executive session on the cla s and then you come back out none of us are here that information now becomes old put into the public not what you've said in the executive session but that information to come out and when you put it on the agenda tonight all you'd say is  a one state street it doesn't tell us how much to do reductionist we actually have to come down here and actually have to pull the sheet out and actually see what's going on you know we've asked this for several months  and over the last year we need to have this backup material to comply with your public media law i mean that information is now available want you come out of exact a session now that becomes open event you made your decision and everything else is finalized now becomes public record and we need to be able to have that most people don't even know who for a one state street is who even owns it and doesn't even realize it's the major developing there is received tens multi tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers money and you're giving a of tax reduction in the downtown schenectady area and you're saying that that that the assessments in that area are not going to hold any water after you spent multi thirty forty million dollars in the downtown area  come in around saying we spent eight hundred million dollars in downtown and you're going to say that we're get we have to lower the assessment on one building that's totally wrong you need to be able to have be much more open and i'm hoping that you'll be able to do it  on the community block grants i was really surprised well not really surprised just wished you guys started to look at the jobs i understand the benign aunt is great and everything else but how can someone qualify for a home if their make him an wage the most that can qualify as a forty thousand dollar mortgage so put more money into benign to do more home counseling how's that going to help somebody we need to be able to g good quality jobs if they could be able to make fifteen twenty dollars an hour then they can qualify for an eighty ninety thousand dollar mortgage and then be i would have a whole lot of people lining up on the doorsteps there are a great program and that's all what it is we have to be able to give somebody an opportunity for a job and that's basically what we need to do and we need to rework it there are two proposed hearings that are required and we're not even doing that obvious ones are crime traffic quality of life issues in general other communities have signed with casino owners what they call a community host community benefits agreement before a casino was even built in their cities and before they even granted any permit or zoning law changes to casino develop in springfield massachusetts the city signed an agreement which m g m resorts international guarantees a city prior to the opening of the project a fifteen million dollars a year in payment following the opening of the casino springfield would get twenty five million dollars a year the agreement outlines where the money would be spent for example property property taxes well i have eliminated well you know property tax matter which i think we have one issue here with property tax money is going to community impact payments and grants for golf course parks river park improvement at this from a commitment like ongoing cost entertainment traffic train station trolley skating rinks or anything the city asked for and the allocated some money to it again in the city of brockport massachusetts a thirty one page agreement was just published last week by mr you know signed by yet the agreement addressed the impact of negative impact and to maximize the benefit to the community again payment will be made to address property tax issues with a ministry point two million dollars a year in addition there would be created a special service district consistent for neighborhood at jason to the casino this group already received one point one seven million dollars in funding and it will increase to one point five million dollars a year thereafter reman also guarantees water from public access to water from public access that this going to give away to the casino developer for free i have two questions and a whole bunch of other people will or will have the same questions where is the community benefit  agreement disconnect the sign with rust free gaming and the second question if there is no such agreement at this point is it too late to demand one from a development of this point thank you  evening my remarks were prepared for the last meeting for two thousand and seven and it has to do with two items absences and letter number one absences no on objects to city officials taking a vacation but if individuals are absent or city council meetings and committee meetings because their primary jobs call them  away then they should not hold public office because they do not have the time or constituent service that i'm president in the future when you excuse your colleagues will you please tell the voters why they are absent from here number two letter who was responsible for cleaning the main streets of the city i attend city council meetings and neighborhood meetings i hear parks parks parks steinmetz far as a beautiful place but it is off the beaten path not too many people see it every day on the other hand when i drive to church on easter sunday and eastern ave looks like a pigsty i find such a situation problematic states treat as deplorable the letter q moonlights and as left to said on the ground after day other main streets are just as bad i realize that the slobs put the trust there but the slobs cannot dictate how the rest of us should live there for someone has to clean up the mess after they make it i know if i had one of your seats the city would not look this filthy even if it meant cleaning it up myself that is the difference between what is and what could have been litter conditions have gotten out of control over the past three and a half years in my thirty seven years of involvement with the community i have never seen as much trash on the city's main streets especially the corner of not street and ran rampant avenues i am convinced said no one in this administration has the very dirty face please clean it up thank you thank you i have no one else signed up so that portion of the meeting closed will move to miscellaneous business of the council we get a sheet and it tells us what the house was assessed for the building is assessed then we get a recommendation from our assess sensors department and i don't think any of us here have any expertise  assessing so we take the word of our department that's in place to do this now if we don't do it it may sound good we can say ok we're not going to go along with that then it goes to court and we're told that we don't have a very good chance of winning some of these in court so it's going to add to the cost when all is said and done and the verdict could even be worse than it is now so while it is simplicity we're granting the east because it's the right thing to do somebody assessments have dropped in a city we have a twenty three percent hundred twenty three percent equalization rate so that tells you that so to equalize this this is the way the system works it may not be palatable to everyone but it's just the way it is sand again we settle claims so they don't go to court when they become more costly if it's a frivolous claim that naturally we fight it but if it isn't there some validity and we have our own department of assessment saying this is the the figure that they put on this property then we're kind of bound to go along with it because i'm not one to argue with the assessors department i don't think anybody else here is either so we're all on the same page with this and i just want to explain that i'd like to take note of the bravery that we showed at this brett bradley street fire from our public safety personnel the police department and the fire department there were some real heroic actions that when on there and it should should go with great notice that these people do put their lives on the line there's no question when something like that happens it's a tragedy yes two lives were lost but they did their darndest to try to save as many as they could and it's really when you think about it that's not saying a lot and my hat goes bellevue preservation meeting is thursday may fourteenth seven p m at st paul's a possible church nine eleven fairview avenue guest speaker will be fired chief ray some of the bellevue flag raising a memorial service will be held on saturday may sixteenth the leaven am at george washington and bellevue veterans park hopper broadway helen guild hall in avenue and he one who has flags that need to be discarded may bring them to the surface and they can be disposed of properly the public is invited to both the bellevue neighborhood wide garage sale will be held saturday june sixth and sunday june seventh applications are available for any of your resident missions to participate by calling three seven four zero two eight one three seven four zero two eight one it's spring cleanup time so i think it's a good time for people to get rid of a lot of the stuff you know your trash or somebody else's gold so get it out there you can make a few bucks and clean your  out thank you thank you anyone else is porterfield thank you i'd also like to add my thanks to our public safety for all the things i mean we've just had a lot of tragedies lately in our city and so they've just done an outstanding job and i understand that that's what they get paid to do but you know it's got to be trying considering what we've been going through so thank them again for their service and also like to say thanks to everyone who participated in i love to connect the parts to i think the mayor has a little more detail on that but it was just a great effort people but that were at the park where i was i was in jaipur so they actually had a good time cleaning up and doing that so we're going to try folks come out this tuesday may twelfth tomorrow from six to seven thirty p m at the harmony fellowship church on hammond the part of hamlin and albany street to hear about the project to hear about the developers and to  voice their input and ask any questions that they may have been talking a lot of to a long time about there has been a lot of development in that particular community so it's starting to happen so i'm asking that people come out and hear about it and support the effort because this is pretty exciting you know it's revitalization it's extremely exciting we've been talking about the neighborhoods and we hear about other parts of the city and you know it's starting to happen and people have a lot of questions about that so time to comment and participate and support veterans park and along with that this year there's going to be a memorial display so people can purchase a flag for it's twenty five dollars and they would purchase a flag and that flag would have the name of the individual that they're buying it for a person that has a veteran that is to see used and they would their name would go on the flag pole what branch of service that they served in and their right and also they wear their tour of duty was and that display will happen actually inventions park when we get to veterans park so there will be a form that will look like this that people can complete come to the clerk's office and do everything it was a great turnout a wonderful event they're well organized into committee chairs but what stuck out the most  was it was professional after professional part of the millennial council that stood up to the microphone and said how energized they were by our city how excited they were and how proud they are  energy to keep going forward so congratulations to the millennial council for getting off to a great start and i'm really interested to see where they go thank you anyone else and it was great to see the young men and women come to the rail of the monday previous to speak on behalf of their organizations and i'm really talking about the disconnect the youth boxing in it's going to be basketball i had the privilege of going to disconnect the boxing a group on a watch straight last week and us saw firsthand how they had well over thirty to forty kids there participating in the workshop there with the with fence and some other mentors there and  really appreciative of what the group is doing with us some great young men and women in the city and i appreciate my colleagues for supporting both that organization and of course the scout good basketball as well that just one of the quick piece  regarding the hill first time its funding and that program there again we talked about we did surveys a couple times during the summer and one of the concerns of the bellevue community was the lack of schooling opportunities on saturday and i would plow proud to include that in our city b j application this year and so starting on saturday july eleventh the boys and girls club will have the whole hospital open on saturdays as well so it'll be a monday through saturday program being closed on long neighborhood for their neighbors association and then in conjunction we're also working with the hybrid community in rotterdam for the first time they're actually having their neighborhood grads in conjunction with us so it should be a great weekend and hopefully the weather to a very beat up property on council road in our woodlawn area there's been some major concerns from our neighbors for a long time and it was cleaned up by the snap crews and coding for but again the neighbors are very appreciative that coming down and again i think it's just a good way of seeing the city and all are agencies working together for the good cause and again to clean up some of that blight that was quite obvious in that in that area reminder the school budget vote is next tuesday may nineteenth of board of education there's a few seats available there are only two candidates so i guess both of those are went rather easily but again the school budget vote is very important please support to our youth and the school districts in the city they've done a good job with the budget this year as our have our raw state assemblyman and sen they've come through with some additional funding from the governor's office and we want to thank both assemblyman stacked in santa barbara for the support for our children but again it's next tuesday from noon until nine pm and finally our last day of our summer youth employment applications is tomorrow so those teens ages fourteen to twenty one who have not got their applications in you can access the application on line it's going to be county dot com and again it's a lottery system but we have approximately three hundred thirty positions open for our teens this year and to encourage our businesses to participate in a buy one get one free we're up to about two almost thirty positions right now from the local businesses so that's going to be a nice and has been for a program and again any body woods interested press ferrari's restaurant or for a funeral home or ferrari's tax whatever else you got there john we certainly appreciate the support comparing apples and oranges in massachusetts the communities were given the designation for the casino and then the individual communities got to negotiate the host benefit fees in new york state those fees are set  statute and so it is a function of revenue you know the casino in schenectady they had to pay a million dollars to make their initial application when the background checks are completely given the final authorization to start construction they will have to write a check to the state of new york for fifty million dollars and then the city of schenectady and the projected revenue will get four point one million dollars  benefits in schenectady county would receive an equal amount of let's begin that will vary depending on what the actual revenue is but that's eight point two million dollars a year which i think far exceeds any of the things that were outlined at the rail tonight but again the it's a distortion and billion correct to say that that was the ability for us to negotiate host benefit fees and we look forward to working with them as they develop that site and we continue to do things downtown and improve our neighborhoods the opportunity to welcome governor kathy hochul was in town last week had a brief tour of some of the businesses downtown dr study mono taking over as president of the scraggy county community college we look forward to our continued relationship with the college and thank  for the work that she did is in term president last week and we had the parks clean up in over one hundred volunteers that came out i think over fifteen different organizations  waste department tells me we collected a little over one point two tons of debris that came out of the parks so it had a big impact and i want to thank people thank the council for their assistance the staff and just the community  for making that such a big success thank you madam president thank you if there's nothing else to come for the city council on again a motion to