but the city council caucus for september twenty fourth two thousand and twelve and the clerk will read the agenda resolution calling for a public airing to be held on october ninth two thousand and twelve administration to close certain capital projects as of december thirty first two thousand and twelve again this was discussed in the finance committee without objection on consent number three item number three a resolution terminating a contract with our capital management l l c for the collection of unpaid taxes again discussed in committee without objection on consent number three will appear on the consent and gender number for item number fo item number five a resolution authorizing the request of an additional grant funding for about environmental remediation at the south broadway parking lot discussed in committee without objection on consent number six  item number six a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to enter into a partnership with the schenectady city school district to apply to the new york state department of transportation for a grant for the safe routes to school seven a resolution authorizing the settlement of attacks or she wary concerning two seven one state street and two seventy seven state story again without objection and consent number seven will appear on the consent agenda number eight item number  resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to settle a claim by john fallon reno against the city without objection on the consent agenda number eight will appear on the consent agenda number nine item number nine a resolution recognizing i told her seventh two thousand and twelve as the polish harvest festival to be held by st adalbert church and recognizing the polish experience in schenectady ok this will be taken out of order and who's going to read  it council member porterfield number ten please item number ten a resolution recognizing october two thousand and twelve is national breast cancer awareness month council member king out of order item number twelve under contract and supply a resolution to amend the contract for the two thousand and twelve street paving programme with carver construction company to include alternate one c vale cemetery road and increase the amount of the award by the sum of thirty three thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars and sixty six cents for a revised total of one million three hundred fifty two dollars one one million three hundred fifty two thousand if not asked for a motion to adjourn mood and second all those in favor were journey right we're going to move right into the schenectady city council meeting for september twenty fourth two thousand and twelve could we dressed us in our right mind start us on our way father we want to thank you for this opportunity even to come together at this designated time a lot we actually got if you look up on us as you look upon this assembly oh lord help us that we don't become disagreeable nor for we know there's a resolution and there's hope in everything lord if we just come to an understanding and law we are sure god even as you look upon one of the members that are missing or as you look up on b ok i'd like to call on our excellent public servants to schenectady firefighters to lead us in the pledge of allegiance brocker present all right we have a few items out of order tonight on the agenda and first i'd like to call up to the real marion could use key from department of civil service to talk about  the firefighters exam or the police i'm sorry the police exam sorry about that fire in front of you tell me why you're here again thank you madam my name is miriam i'm with the affirmative action office we are located in the civil service office i'm here to announce the police officer exam for the city of schenectady the announcement went out earlier the filing deadline is october first for this cd exam we have had a couple of information session we were at the college we all go into the colleges telling everyone about it in order to apply for this exam you need to  submit your college transcript you need at a minimum thirty college credits you have to have that college transcript on hand with the name of a college in your name and the amount of and the degree earned if you've earned it you need also to put you berth on the application applications can be dropped off at the civil service office it's at six twenty state street if anyone need any more information about the exam they can contact my office at three eight four two three three extension four four one seven one or they may go to disconnect the county civil service website and get some more information if anyone needs any information they need their application or they need to speak with someone about the particular at the particular of their application the can contact my office it's at the real eight four two three three extension fo four one seven one you must be between the ages of nineteen in thirty five to apply to take the exam thank you matt thank you ok the next item out of order is a resolution recognizing october seventh as the par polish harvest festival ok you have the floor thank you a resolution recognizing october seventh two thousand and twelve at the polish harvest festival to be held at the same church and recognizing the polish experience and connecting whereas records indicate that job john lansing's a brit ski was the first pole to settle in schenectady in seventeen ninety two and by the one nine hundred twenty s the polish community in the city of schenectady had grown to become the third largest polish population in the state of new york imposing brick church with one thousand six hundred seats was a wrecked erected on lansing street in one thousand the eleven and whereas church was and remains an inviting parish with a congregation consisting of fifty percent polish americans and fifty percent of the schenectady in capital regions melting pot and whereas poll october is poll show american history heritage month and october seventh two thousand and twelve sane adults church will be holding its twenty seventh annual polish harvest festival and whereas the day's activities will culminate in the honoring of polish culture and the fall festival now there therefore be it resolved that the mayor and city council recognize and commend cena delbert's church and its congregation and express gratitude for their contribution to the community and is further resolved that october seventh two thousand and twelve is recognized as the twenty seventh annual polish harvest festival to be held by the same church in schenectady new york thank you his team council members and mayor mccarthy on behalf of the polish community of say delbert's church in schenectady we thank you for this honor in hundred ninety two as you heard the first polish person settled in schenectady in the one nine hundred twenty s connectivity was the third largest polish population in new york state only buffalo new york city surpassed us for over one hundred years the church of st albert on crane st hill in the mom pleasant section of our city was and is the center of our polish catholic community we thank you for honoring us the polish people and culture in our city on sunday october albert's church will have its annual doe's inky polish harvest festival it coincides with polish day in our city we invite all city council members mayor mccarthy all the people in schenectady to come join us for the harvest mass will begin at ten thirty a m with the festival t hours of our beautiful church food games and prizes and fun for all please remember to day october seven and we hope to see us at our beautiful church on crane st hill thank you very much thank you for being here ok the next resolution is recognizing october two thousand and twelve as national breast cancer awareness month i'd like to invite chief dollar aco one of the members of the fire department to come and join me inside the real this is a to me a very exciting project that they're involved with related to breast cancer awareness and i think as many of you know i'm an eighteen year survivor so anything people can do to better educate folks and get the proper care has wonderful ok whereas october two thousand and twelve is breast cancer awareness month and whereas schenectady firefighters will be joining firefighters across the country during the month of october by wearing pink t shirts rather than their traditional blue shirts to help raise awareness and to raise funds to fight this terrible disease and all cancers and whereas in two thousand and eleven the international association of firefighters began a collaboration with susan g komen for the cure to introduce a passionately pink for the cure campaign during which firefighters would engage in efforts benefiting kallman and its affiliates and where as according to the national cancer institute one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime with over two thousand one hundred thousand women being diagnosed with breast cancer this year and where as all firefighters experience a greater prevalence of cancers than the general population and female firefighters have a greater incidence of breast cancer than women in the general population and where as in two thousand and twelve schenectady firefighters developed an affiliation with the firefighter cancer foundation working to extinguish by a firefighter cancer and where as schenectady firefighters formed the schenectady firefighters cancer cancer foundation with a stated mission to provide the schenectady fire department members and their families with an opportunity to receive assistance when dealing with cancer and where as the schenectady firefighters cancer foundation strives to provide comfort strength and hope in dealing with the devastating effects of cancer through education advocacy and providing financial assistance to cancer victims and where as the best way to fight breast cancer is by creating and following an early detection plan the chances of detecting breast cancer in its early stages are greatly increased and whereas when breast cancer is detected early in the localize stage the five year survival rate is ninety eight percent and by following the recommendations of the american cancer society and the national breast cancer foundation women can learn about early detection the cause of diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer as well as support for survivors now therefore be it resolved that mayor gary mccarthy and the city council of the city of schenectady offer their endorsement and encouragement to schenectady fire fighters and their very worthwhile efforts to raise awareness motion carries congratulations thank you thank you very much council member king and all members of the council and mayor mccarthy this is really an effort which was started by a group of firefighters that you see here tonight they took it upon themselves to start initiative they came up with a very positive plan with and i think we will see some very positive results from their activities but i'd like to turn it over to amy amy parla tori one of our firefighters cancer the members of our department did a phenomenal job of banding together in raising funds to help them with travel and treatments we realize with the tremendous increase in cancers that we're exposed to and unfortunately being diagnosed with there was a need for a proactive plan so we developed these connect to the firefighter cancer foundation in at this time we like to disseminate some of the shirts that we're going be wearing to the council members of the mayor firefighter adam colvin and lieutenant then miner sagan and as i said they took it upon themselves to come up with this idea they paid for these shirts out of money that they've already raised through their foundation efforts but they will be selling more of these shirts in hopes to raise some money and for the month of october as peggy said our firefighters will be i could ask the representatives from the orchestra to come up please and whereas the schenectady symphony orchestra is a group of more than seventy talented musicians with ninety percent of these musicians living within a forty five minute radius of schenectady and whereas it's getting to the symphony orchestra has contributed to the cultural enrichment of our community by enhancing education family life and social development and whereas this great city symphony orchestra will probably celebrate the start of its seventy ninth season on sunday october twenty first on the floor seconded by council member ricky all those in favor graduations on your seventy nine year the board member susan shelters our secretary board member larry di angeles who is our vice president funds development and one of your own or also on our board member peggy king i had all kinds of good things to say but there are in the resolution we've been here since one nine hundred thirty four we were actually founded in the depths of the great depression for two reasons number one to bring some employment opportunity to musicians in the community and number two to provide a musical outlet for people to help them cope with the with the bad times we've seen many good times and bad times in schenectady but after seventy nine years we're still here and we look forward to being a continuing part of the c community in schenectady there aren't many communities of this size that can boast having a symphony orchestra and it's very it's very much a cultural gem for us to celebrate so please join us in proctor's sunday october twenty first for beethoven's ninth one of the most popular things you're ever going to hear it will be wonderful they'll be two hundred fifty people on stage so again thank you so much we appreciate it greatly great thank you for being here and now we have a resolution and honor of the fraternal order of police and that will be presented by mayor mccarthy those of you that don't know sergeant foti the guards the courts here and his enthusiasm and just overall excitement about life is just one of those great things that we have in this community and he's run a program in the summer here some softball games in is our baseball season is coming to a close this year start to lay the groundwork for next year's event which will be bigger and better  under just started off with a proclamation whereas sergeant christopher foti of the new york state courts who has been supervising schenectady civil courts and city hall since two thousand and seven for the past five years has run a charity softball tournament in our cities central park and whereas this terminal terminal tournaments has benefited the order of police lodge number thirty five as well as the various local charities such as hope for vision in two thousand and eight in two thousand and nine to help a local boy who is losing his sight schenectady inner city ministries in two thousand and ten whose programs help feed hundreds of local children each summer in things of my very own in two thousand and eleven in two thousand and twelve a program that trimmed tradition that transitionally aids thousands of local children each year in whereas this year's event featured teams from the new york state courts the schenectady police department the rotterdam police department the colony police department the schenectady fire department the public defender's office the won't deal runs the last firm and the city hall trashers these teams together helped raise a five year total of just under twelve thousand dollars and whereas the city of schenectady service host of the fraternal order of police softball tournaments since two thousand and eight and have proudly sent there were representatives of the city hall tri shooters this group of men comprised of city workers and their families team came together to represent the city and they have won the championship in two thousand and eight two thousand and ten and again this year in two thousand and twelve twenty council members would like to sign up and still do they represent all city employees with their ideals and belief in participating in charity events in doing so with integrity now therefore i carry mccarthy mare of the city of schenectady do hereby proclaim the third week in august of two thousand and thirteen as for eternal order of police softball tournament week in the city of schenectady and urge all residents of schenectady to come support this worthy event sergeant thank you graduation that was very very nice let me just say i very rarely get awarded anything but i love taking pleasure in and helping as i'm sure everybody here knows i just want to say thank you to the council for giving me the letting the mayor of chile thank you without your support of things like this without your help from the buildings and grounds department which is run by that man right there mr caldwell said everybody please give  along with jeremy power these things would not happen the crew that they have the buildings grounds of parks which is if you don't know i hope you would is like the lifeblood of a city the things that happen in our parks mayor as well or their support you know the countless trips i take to the stores they're always in the car the participation they do it every event for another teaches them something it teaches them on you street we have nikos we have phil down there at state street we have newish launched dean in albany street we have state street subway made all the bags with cookies we have the east in avenue price shopping that gives us the benefit the fraternal order police which we have so you feel rozza from the new york state courts with us today he is the vice president of the memorial lodge in thirty five as well as we have rain bond say here from things of my very own which was the local charity that would also benefit with the fraternal order police i would just like to say and introduce them thank you guys  well since i've been up running the lodge upstate where a satellite lodge of a court office a lodge in manhattan because we're so spread out we can't really have our own logic here we just don't have a people enough people to show up but since i came up and we started to try to figure out a way to raise money so we didn't foti just jumped right up and said let's run a softball contest we'll do tournament i'll take care of it i have to worry about it and every year we go to before he gives me a call and says well can you get a volunteer would to everything is done by sergeant foti and i'm actually very surprised that the first thing the mayor said was an introduction of sergeant foti because i've joked with him endlessly that i'd bet him that i could walk up to any house in schenectady knock on the door they would open the door see sergeant foti and say chris what are you doing here he is invaluable he's and i know the mayor mentioned it but he's so positive which is directly we also fun things with the logic we've given that we have a scholarship every year we give to these sons or daughters of court officers we also have we've done several ten thirteen's in the past with the flooding last year and an officer or a sergeant who got hurt an accident we have benefits for them we have recently done a  blood marrow testing for a in offices on who has leukemia and that's some of the things we do but none of it would be possible that organ foti and none of what sergeant foti does would be possible without the mayor and the people here and i have to say i don't live anywhere near schenectady i'm over by the vermont border i work in glens falls i know no one here but i have to tell you that in the five years we've been doing this the people who work for the city have been fantastic they are they're so giving see i am c e o and founder of things of my very own incorporated we incorporated in two thousand and eight to bridge the gap between what social service entities and provided and what children needed  are two bit biggest services are when children are fleeing an abusive or neglectful situation often times they leave the emergency situation urgency situation wearing nothing but a towel were pretty much the red cross of abuse children within four hours of contact on a referral basis we provide and deliver up to seven days of everything they could need and do programs to increase self esteem and promote self confidence we serve approximately five thousand children  this past may we found out our biggest funder eliminated the grant program and we lost our funding so all of our employees decided to give up their salary to make sure the children didn't suffer so currently we are a one hundred percent volunteer run corporation that operates three hundred sixty five days a year twenty four hours a day the fraternal order of police has been very good to us financially it's been very difficult for families other larger nonprofit organizations have cut and or eliminated funding and we've picked up their clients i  he's reminding me to give the internet address which is w w w t o m v dot org i can't say what what this means to us and what this means to the community to have the financial support of the fraternal order of police it's not the children that we work with are not and never will be case files they're individuals they're not people of tomorrow they're people of today and so thank you because i think because of your generosity we're able to provide emergency food clothing and services and we will continue to teach these children that what they've endured does not define who they are this will happen because thank you thank you thank you ok we have one public hearing scheduled for this evening public care for the proposed change to chapter one eighty six one eight for the court of the city of schenectady to increase permit fees for use of central park rose garden care to people signed up to speak this public hearing first versus p fifty dollars an hour and for non city residents from twenty five dollars an hour to one hundred dollars an hour the reason we feel that these fees need to be revisited is that the rose garden restoration  hundred fifty nine by colonel brown and through the sixty's and most of the seventy's the garden was quite a location it hosted rose queen events and whatever but unfortunately in the eighty's the city had some budget constraints there master gardener retired and the city was unable to sustain the cost to maintain the rose garden and so the group of concerned individuals and bill sieber and some other individuals from the city formed the came together and eventually the rose garden restoration committee was formed and i can remember one of the articles was called the war the we this and there's a picture of david gage who is currently our operations manager was there with a watering can and taking water out of one of the ponds to water the few roses that were still and there was great concern about this because the rose garden was one of  hundred twenty five test display gardens in the country and we were at risk of losing that status and so this group has been really dedicated in and has continued to work tire committee of eight members and we have a volunteer workforce of twenty to thirty individuals and we begin working on the garden in april we meet on saturdays for three hours and then in may we switch over to tuesday evenings and work two hours each week taking care of the beds there's a lot of work to maintaining the roses there's over four thousand rose bushes and there's about two hundred variety of rose bushes in speaking with our operations manager the other day he brought to our attention that and one of the things that's really in the rose garden is that we're not all knockout roses and it's becoming increasingly difficult to get the variety of roses  that we've had in the garden so the costs are going up we need to replace about seventy five to one hundred rose bushes each year due to disease or frost or vandalism every now and then somebody sees a beautiful rose bush and we ask them not to cut the roses but sometimes they literally take the rose bush so you know we need to do that the rose garden has done all of these improvements on their own we hold a number of fundraising events each year of which many of you have attended in as a supporter we have done a lot of fund raising to do the major capital improvements in the garden such as a new fountain a brand new entrance into the rose garden we refurbish the spring pond and we have plans to do some additional improvements but our feeling is that we do a lot of this on our own and one of the things we find is the city gets quite a lot of recognition for maintaining the rose garden but it's really the rose garden restoration committee that maintains the garden and we're very dedicated to doing that and we see increasing as the gardens become more beautiful  many more ceremonies are being held in the garden i was talking with mike burke and he said as of mid august there were seventy five events planned in the garden there sometimes two three wedding ceremon back to back in the garden and we just feel that so many of the city residents love the garden and when you kind of see what the costs are for weddings ten dollars an hour doesn't seem too significant or too much of a burden and we think raising that feet to fifty dollars an hour isn't going to be too much of a burden for many of our city residents you know given some of us so at this point we w he has done a great job of raising money everybody lies in the garden and that there was no financial assistance from the city for the project however the rose garden is surrounded by city maintained infrastructure the park itself the newly paved and sidewalk right avenue that leads into the park there are also new bricks in the roadway and a lovely archway at the right park avenue entrance if none of this existed neither would the rose garden to recognize the good work by the committee i think the rose garden is to keep seventy percent of all revenue generated by the new fees and turn the remaining thirty percent over to the city of schenectady thank you thank you i have no one else signed up for this public hearing so i will declare a close petitions communications presented to the city council for monday september twenty fourth two thousand and twelve from the mayor a list of appointments dated september twenty fourth two thousand and twelve under general there are none and there are no petitions ok thank you committee reports to see the thing are there any committee reports saying no committee reports are close that yeah and move on to the legislative agenda i have no one signed up for the legislative agenda  the business with metroplex that cynics a lot of money is going to be put into effect how much is the city responsible for and so much as metroplex i think is up to three hundred eighty five thousand grill it doesn't say here that it's been passed along through the planning department and i was just wondering if that happened or if it's going to go from here to the planning department  oh yeah and how much is the grant for that the school schools are applying for for their department of transportation and i was wondering if you did have the figures that are on in the budget right now for being allocated for transportation  i probably won't even think about the polish and their their day because i don't have any fish in there that i know of but i have ever ever since i moved here been aware of the monument or plaque to pet a roof ski that never seems to get mentioned here it's off of eastern avenue where the old school is there's a polish catholic church on that highway and several of the places i've lived have very nice said choose to head a risky i know it was a small man but i think the stature in schenectady is where too far under i too i'm a breast cancer survivor from when i was in my early twenties and i've had three surgeries because of ok that's it the legislative agenda now we'll move on to the consent agenda and we have one item that remember six a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to enter into a partnership with the skin to skin equity city school district to apply to the new york state department of transportation for a grant to the safe routes to school you really did you want to address this ok ok i need someone to make the motion moved and the second thank you miss king i was in favor against children i'm going to say fruit to school of course but with this grant the city's going to have to come up with about two hundred thousand dollars if i remember right from what our engineer explained to us and that will come from c b g and chips funding now if i'm not mistaken the mayor suspended all sidewalk and curb programs throughout the city from those funds so i don't think it's fair that we're going to use this for certain sidewalks and not for other sidewalks or chips and c d b g money and i agree with the mayor that our streets were more important to be paved so i have a problem with that but more importantly the big problem i have with  explained to us that with this grant the city has to maintain these sidewalks now by maintaining the sidewalks i truly believe we are opening up one big can of worms for everybody else in the city sidewalk which is on city right away so if we're going to clear sidewalks of snow from only certain sidewalks and not other sidewalks in the city every place else we have to clear our own walk so this is a major problem it's not fair i don't believe it's fair to the other property owners in the city so if we're going to do it for one we're going to have to do it for all that's the only way things can be fair i don't see how we can say we're going to clean the sidewalks on mcclellan street and around glenwood boulevard near near the high school and not everybody else's sidewalks in the city so to me this is it's it's just something that i can't put my arms around to say this is fair for everybody in the city because it's not so school district so the clearing of sidewalks are things that need to be done certainly we already partner with the school district for a lot of clearing we do a lot of their snow plowing of their of their parking lots and we've been assured that we will have will have the partnership in the participation of the school district along with this grant and certainly as indicated certainly to make a safe group of schools to children sell the not walking in the street and we'll have a sidewalk to walk on so with that i will  member or the field all those in favor i thank you consent agenda passes and now we'll move on to privilege of the floor on city business this individual i ha their president city council there mccarthy last week you had approved the sales tax rate it nearly four years ago you had two city council members that stood back and said that you must come up with accountability over the sales tax or be right back again arguing with the county where we're out argue with the county over how much money  taxes we still need and the correct accountability of how much else tax to the city is actually taken and you also approved an eight year contract and eight years that means that's that's two full city council election cycles because every every two years every four years the city council change over everyone has to run every four years you get three in two years  in another two years so it's a two fold cycles that's too darn long to have a contract that stagnates our revenue a situation we also have a stagnated portion of twenty years of the pilot programs which we have no accountability whatsoever on these pilot programs every april you're supposed to be having a report on these pilot programs and you do not they were all supposed to have jobs targeted towards their one two three zero seven area code and it has not been done there's a lot of things that we needed to do in order to bring accountability and transparency to this city and its finances and next week i guess the mare has to present its budget for here which also brings me that the county is proposing their budget next monday night and they're also calling for a public hearing this friday september the twenty eight six o'clock in the evening yeah six o'clock on a friday to call for a public hearing to override the two percent property tax ca you know and they're looking at probably in the neighborhood of a nine percent property tax increase for the county you know we need to start looking at our finances of how we're taxing and spending in our accountability for these finances and until we do that we need to we won't be right at the same boat so what we need to do now is to take a look at how we're going to a correct accountability the sales tax and then also come up with the pilots we own first of all the sergeant there was here if anybody says no to him for volunteer and agrees that man is big he walked by me to foreshock let me tell you i missed last meeting because i went to  school athletic hall of fame and i said i saw the replay of the meeting and i felt real bad for this young man jason was in schenectady being fired i mean here's a man that's working for us and he's showing where we can save money probably and he gets fired and i went to breakfast the morning that it was in the paper and it was one friend of mine  union i don't get the times union says that this man contacted the state to find out how to save money for us and states that's not i don't understand that but i understand that we were supposed to be saving money that i'm not sure and i just don't understand it i mean believe me in a grudge the city grudge the interest was unlocked and i read in the paper that the interest is more than what we originally paid it doesn't make much sense when i saw on the news that the governor sent a memo to all his department heads that they're not going to get any extra money to share what they have they have if you need something you take out what's in there to get what you need so it doesn't look like we're going to get much money from the state if we're that far behind the money and we have a contract with time warner let me tell you i had two of the most miserable days of my life trying to contact them i had a box go one day on my television couldn't contact them i brought it up there to gave me another box and i couldn't get one channel on it and try and call them on the telephone and said you had a fifteen minute wait and then the phone went dead and then monday the same thing happened again all over with another television and i call tonight to see if it was a change still have a fifteen minute wait you cannot get a hold of these people anymore i had to make two trips up there and it was miserable i talked to supervisor she send someone over the house and i told her exactly what had to be done to it because it happened before and she sent someone over the house had to waste my time and their time so i think someone should look in to see was going on with this time warner i know we're under contract with them thank you thank taking on and so finally sargent foti that's another great venture that he's he does i'm here tonight again to speak about our city finances as i stated two weeks ago at the last meeting i was extremely disappointed to hear that we agreed to what i believe was a lowball sales tax agreement with the county i feel that it was a prime opportunity for our city to finally get its fair piece of the pie and we let it go right by you know there was talk about that it was a fair deal i don't know if it was a fair deal to do to us as the taxpayers in this city having that extra money could a void the talks of layoffs  extreme budget cuts after doing some more research on the issue mr jason caught bert's analysis was right on the money the charts were exact and his figures were to see i'm too disappoint to hear of his terminations because i think he could have been effectively used during this problematic financial state that we're in now and as mr been home just said now comes the issue with the bureau of service complex on foster  were we thinking where was our long term planning when it comes to our finances when the in this case why wasn't public knowledge that we're just paying interest all of this time you know the statement of only making the minimum payment on a credit card is exactly right this is out of control when is the bleeding going to stop will it stop finally when we have to go to a review board or we get taken over by the state when are thing to change because the taxpayers of the city cannot take it anymore we need drastic changes and we need them now i don't like to come here and just complain so i will always try when i come up to this microphone to have some type of solution when i offer a complaint again as i stood back in early may and said that i was going to be a candidate for city council i offered some ideas and one of them was to appeal to the state for some spin up or dance monies of our state aid all city of albany did it city of syracuse that city of rochester did it why can't we we need some changes and we need them now because i believe in the city i know that all of you believe in the city but we really got to do something different and get taxpayers some relief thank you thank mayfield evening my name is cindy mayfield ny lived and worked in schenectady have two questions one are there any guidelines or rules about high speed chases in our city the high speed chase on broadway and other streets on september fifteenth of this year at about one thirty p m concerns me on behalf of the safety and lives of my four grandchildren and all other children who live on broadway nearby or anywhere in our city to has the training of police officers responding to our family members with mental health issues that nominees roy and noble myself bob correlates and others have been asking about for a few years as this training started chad thank you thank you joy hall before somebody gets hurt because it's been a few people have been hit already we don't need no more that we need a straight no the the signs out  not all the city council knew nothing about the facts of life and to sign an eight year contract i feel that is terrible eight years that we have to live with a fixed amount of money with  council has a long ways to go in improving our finance these people that want tacos to drive to lake george area weather i don't care what the partment there are and there's an abuse of our vehicles in the city going home you made a decision a limited five or six did you stop there are you going to get rid of more we have other employees in this city that don't even deserve a job here in the city and the benefits and you know of some of them i'm sure you have to know by now they've been with the city for a number of years deadwood abuse of people and you've done nothing about it and i'm sure the mare knows about these people and nothing was done about it it's a shame there really is that one individual had to get zapped with the way things are going here in this city no matter how much money we have you'll never have enough the taxpayers want something too they to reduce taxes we'll never see it the way you're given money away pay braces gifts ten thousand dollars to mr bully no money to other people promotions how can you do this we're over a hundred million dollars in that sewage plant was posed to bring us a million dollars you need money there now we are in the going to get no million dollars from the sewage plant for cash coming in what's wrong how could you ever sign a contract the people around the city council under mr our previous mare for taking vehicles home for the individuals up there in the lake george area i just can't believe that that our city council at that time would have agreed with a contract with those people to take vehicles home that's leadership not for the things of this city i'll tell you we've got a long ways to go here to improve things and i think you better start now and take a look at every single department and where you have a weak employee no matter how many years if they have him or her then they need to be removed thank you thank you sir d no you know i'm just i'm here again talking and talking and talking about the same thing but i just really want to talk to the people i'm not looking at you but i'm really talking to you because of already and talk to the heads i really do come here with respect  you know i'm still emotionally mature and can really understand what's going on in your head but when somebody comes to you and tells you that they've been abused multiple times by the police our officials and been tortured in jail this and went th the the magnitude of what i went through and then you know this is happening multiple multiple people and everybody talks about finances and sees money well here's here's a thought here's food for thought think about the premium of the insurance that we pay because of all the  on lawful actions of police officers and all the suits that are brought all the settlements that are paid out that money dwarfs anything that we're talking about and even worse it creates a resentment of authority for young people like me i could've went you know down another path and been mad at police but you know i'm there i'm not bashing police there are good cops over here you know but there's bad cops and it's become systemic and when other cops see the cops in schenectady getting away with murder it starts happening in rotterdam and it really does spread it's viral and are like you know what we're cops we can walk between the raindrops we don't get wet i could be my wife i could do this and they're going to fail to prosecute me because they're basically through interoffice politics they know each other they're biased they don't really hold them accountable and i mean i've been to crazy stuff and everybody behind me please just listen for this when you see that i see charlie rangle you know in the federal government and whatnot that are supposed to be in charge of taxes and they're not even pain or taxes and they're rich people we've got all people that can't even afford taxes and they're losing their houses and this guy doesn't get arrested he gets censured and then he smacks the american people in the face by not even apologizing you know he just basically acting like scoffing ass like we should be doing it and on another note you know this is a little off topic on digressing but i think this is important as a little to the best of my knowledge is a little nuclear power plant or not power plant a reactor right on your ebola bar next to the river and it's for r p i and it is on a small scale but if we get a really bad flood and it washes up in like you know jeopardizing the integrity of the structure down there we really could get sick like and it could be a really big problem is they paying any special fees to schenectady city for having that there because i really think that's a big problem but another problem is you know you've got schenectady county correctional facility which is like hell on earth pardon my language but you know in the context i'm using it in this it's quite appropriate how can they get grants from the federal government for cameras up in the in the facility when they don't even work in the jail oversight committee how they supposed to really you know like hold people accountable for torturing you know inmates when they don't even have you know digital you know part of me when they don't have a digital video or audio to basically reference to and there's huge lawsuits that are coming out of that there's lawsuits all over the place and these cops you know are just getting away with murder and i came here i know i'm going over i'm going to really try to summarize this because this is important and i got evidence and i was basically struck down by mccarthy you know and said that i was mentally ill and i'm not mentally ill and i'm going through a battery of tests right now and getting database personality indexes and whatnot to burch and to really define how stable i am and i'm going to i'm going to publish that and i'm going to give it to everybody  i should be more transparent and put out there of how much money is being dealt out in lawsuits i guarantee these people's heads would spin all right mr burch i'm just same and somebody needs to do something about my complaints and i really appreciate it i'd like to set up an appointment and i have a bunch of evidence that it's just it's horrible and somebody needs to be held accountable and they should get leniency they should get double the penalty because they took an oath to be to up hold justice  long as the council president scrambles the names of the speakers before she calls them to the podium disregarding the sequence in which they signed in and her colleagues said here and say nothing this musical chairs ritual has been practiced by the current council member the former council president mccarthy and the man who now sits on the bench judge blanche felt there will never be a democracy in this chamber as long as city officials take the time all the time they want door and miscellaneous business for their nonsensical jibberish while at the same time allowing the limited speech for those who pay their salaries not only is the mock receipt lacking in these actions even though mr wrigley voted no for the sales tax agreement he was directly responsible for its successful passage this porterfield sits on this council who went to school to learn his skills he was the one who had the experience and finance it should not have good necessary for jason  city council members councils should have requested the information on the night of the public hearing for the state sales tax agreement speakers with financial savvy told eight years was too long for the agreement to people came forward with figures one was a conscientious city employee who worked with the city's financial figures every i have no one else signed up so i will declare pillars of the floor closed and move on to miscellaneous comments from the council thorne he told me last week that everything about meetings is on line at five o'clock and five o'clock today i was online trying to pick him up and i couldn't find anything nothing at all that even came close so anyway and then i decided you know you do all kinds of fancy things i even went in and clicked on adobe and i still got absolutely nothing so somebody has got to come to you going to be you somebody is will again somebody is not well so i want to speak about that but one thing i did pick up on was a news release by the mayor on friday september twenty first which was a friday evening announcing that the housing council was going to have a meeting is saying rose and release some kind of data for those people who are in stress about losing their house and then the it said that the meeting was going to be held monday well i don't know how that you know shuffle not many of these people are going to have computers and be checking them but the release was on friday evening and the meeting was to be held at eleven o'clock on monday at saying rose now i don't even know that the every one of these people in stress has a kind of transportation so i found that it's just another one of these incompetent things that happens around here and so i wanted to bring that up also i want to remind you before that i don't know when you going to do this with all this new firings and everything but there needs to be an update on this municipal telephone directory mine came from the offices and is dated two thousand and ten so maybe january to thirty we could get something that'll help us  i buy a newspaper to check the classified ads i'll go to the editorial page i usually don't have much to do with anything else but i do go to the editorial page i read what you say and i read what the syndicated people say but when that's over with the real excitement for me is going to the classified and checking off all the  was the only one there and they don't like it and there are fewer and fewer about meetings i think i'll just have to stop there ok thank you i went out signed up for the public here and moved couple things tonight what to remind everyone that sunday september thirtieth we're having our homes showcase organized by our mayor they'll be a bunch of resources from ten a m to two p m right here at city hall and they'll be financial institutions real estate agents u s department of housing and urban development not for profit housing agencies fair housing office the school district will be here c eight c d t a home depot and we'll be having a list of open houses there are open houses all over the city from one to four p m so really excellent information if anybody needs initiative that has been taken up by a local resident it's called the clean sweep sunday and that's going to take place also this sunday september thirtieth one p m sharp in va park they'll cemetery they ask that you bring your own water gloves rape they'll be a sign in sheet so that we know who's at the event and event will only be cancelled if it's really pouring rain or there's dangerous storm conditions parking goes along the roadway there to enter via the state street entrance by the caretakers cottage to vail cemeteries so call to action for our citizens to help clean up failed cemetery also i want to i want to just say that great news and the vale repaving this comes at no cost to the city we did our men and our paving contract but it's being covered by the county's capital research corporation but more than that it's part of a larger county effort to improve the park in a key neighborhood one that i grew up in i grew up on prospect street right on the outskirts of vale park in addition to being a community we're now also part of you know the hike bike trail community which is a great thing because at this point you can pretty much ride or walk from the town colony town line to his kuna and rotterdam and the vail trail now conne or union street with central park down backer through a nice wide bike trail through the veil park and into downtown so we're really connecting our shopping districts as well which is which is a wonderful thing so i just wanted to raise everybody's awareness because i know that the agenda item didn't really explain that but but it is a it's a good thing so that's all i had ok thank you anyone else ms can i just wanted to address the reason carl erickson is not with us tonight because i think it's a pretty big event and i'm not sure how many people know about what's going on carl is participating in the fireball run which is to benefit i think forty missing children and i'm just go read an e mail that he sent because i think it explains it pretty well join local fire wallers carl erickson and richard russo as they compete with forty teams of celebrities movie stars nasa shuttle  sports figures and a few billionaires at the two thousand and twelve fireball run as they come to schenectady on wednesday september twenty sixth this movie and streaming live events from universal studios will bring together these teams as they compete to find six historic sites in schenectady it's going to begin at the starting gate in front of city hall at three p m on wednesday it will end at the for initially when it glenn sanders mansion in scotia at five p m and then on thursday september twenty seventh he asks us to join them to send off all forty teams to their next destination and that's going to happen at ten a m in front of city hall carl says bring the whole family and tell your friends to watch them compete and see a car that costs a million dollars the delorean from the movie back to the future i have million dollar lamborghini and more i get your picture taken with the celebrities and get autographs at our local team they call themselves the electric city hollers or they're sponsoring craig free or missing child from scotia again pointing out that everything is free a second email that we got today he said just wanted to give you guys an update from the fireball run we've seen some pretty interesting things in our host cities so far and i think carl started in ohio but i'm i'm not positive of that but i know schenectady is amazing history was surely impressed the participants there been a large crowds at each location cheering us on as we raise awareness for forty missing children i hope you all come down to participate and see what the fireball run is all about the cars the people the cause truly amazing reception at east coast each host city so hopefully there's going to be more press about this in the next day or so but i'm going to try to come down here on wednesday so hopefully all of you will too like a thank you thank you i just want to talk a little bit about the school board meeting which i attended last weekend on this past wednesday and at that meeting the superintendent larry spring talked about the entry plan that for the school and if you you know  i have to tell you that it was a really really very well thought out plan and i appreciate the fact that he also went to see when two people who work for the school district he were to resident here at the lot of people about what they thought the schools that they needed to do differently how could be improved it was a extremely well presented plan and it's on the inner it's on the school website it's the at the power point is there you won't get the experience of him having delivered it but i was extremely appreciative of how he  together and also the fact that he was asking the community to be involved and talking about what the focus point was from the child from the time a child enters school and that is graduation so i encourage everyone that can to try to be involved with the school district because they are our children and we want them to have a very bright future and again i commend the school district for choosing this ring to be the new superintendent and for him to him for the work that they're doing and encourage people to be involved with have children in the district or not it is the city is it's all over a city so that was it was just very interesting it was a late night we were there till after ten but it was certainly worth the time spent there also an addition to the school district the following day had  take your child to school day and there were five schools that were involved in martin luther king central park keene lincoln and mt pleasant middle school and so they were dead all over the city taking their children to school it was a nice event to watch to  that the children you know exist having just being glad that their their fathers were there with them that day and i thought i'd like to commend the office of children and family services in the york state and also the connect the city school district for putting that on every year it's growing and  so you know if you've never had an opportunity to to go in even if just to watch you know to spend some time in the hallways with the principals and the teachers and all that it's really a great time and i again commend them for doing that and look forward to of the many great things to continue having our school district thank you thank you an that on the end of the park it's not take your dog off the leash and let them run it's an accident waiting to happen and it's just it's really sad that people don't get it that there are some rules that they should be following that they don't follow but anyhow we had a good one interested resident that witness this and unfortunately doesn't know who the person was that let their dog loose but it's an ongoing problem and is probably in all their part so i think mayor i know you had an idea about signing off the parts with all the rules well the parks you know when the park opens when the park closes because there's activity i know  park after our soul these are things that have to be addressed and we need someone foresman whether we lease or you brought up the clean sweep sunday which is great they need bags the whole that's one thing they don't have so if anybody can supply trash bags or anything like that if you drop them off i'm sure i'd fail at the caretakers house or get a hold of a mcevoy's or lease or myself we could certainly get the bags to the people that's one thing they're going to need and there in october i think maybe october fourteenth there's going to another cleanup this is a volunteer group you know that that's putting this together so we want to encourage that and they're going to clean certain areas of the city which is good so if we can somehow provide trash bags i think for the long debris i talked to mr olson he said they can pile it up in the city will pick it up so he could supply some kind of garbage bags while they're walking they can now they pick up litter they can have a place to dispose of but that would be a the part about insubordination i can realize all of that but i have to tell you as a council person i want to glean all the information i can get when it comes to voting on something so with that i commend him for giving us the  man of immense integrity something that you know the is really a breath of fresh air so i commend him i commend him for supplying information to us and i wish him all the best thank you thank you thank you and just look quickly go over the sales tax again that in new york state cities are counties have the ability to impose sales tax the city of schenectady was the first one to impose sales tax here in the locality ratio or or number at that time was three percent the city had only imposed a two and a half percent sales tax which was generating eleven million dollars the county moved to impose a sales tax so they could take roughly half that amount of money away from the city of schenectady and county originally entered into negotiations and the city of schenectady was held harmless at that eleven million dollar level even though it was approximately fifty percent more than it would be intitled to by its preemptive right under law now over the years the sales tax who's grown in the debate becomes how much it's grown where it's grown in the city or in the towns new york  not keep data based on cities unless they have exercised their right in imposed a preemptive sales tax they only collect the data on a county wide basis so you have to do some analysis and a little bit of a guesstimate on that no if you look at some of the census data that's available which looks at retail sales growth it has shown during that period of time that the sales tax agreement was in place holding the city at the eleven million dollar level there been some years where there were declines in the city there was moderate growth in the city but most of the growth had occurred in the towns so even if you use the numbers that were in the letter to the other today by former do see where he says that the city should be getting twenty million dollars that's the number at the rate when the county was not imposing any sales tax so that the county could direct them and take half of that money or approximately half of it so i could take the twenty million that cuts it down to ten million is what the city would be entitled to get if you take some of the other numbers that other people have used about number might be twenty four million you're still cutting it in half to the twelve million which is where the sales tax agreement is that we have in place in in that period of time where we were held at the eleven million dollars again that was more money than we were title to get and by well call a fair estimate the city got only sixty five million dollars more than it would have been entitled to under a preemptive sales tax agreement but over the lifespan of that there has been growth and we're now at the point where those lines cross where if the city imposed a sales tax we would be able to get more than that eleven million dollars and we can argue here doing different analysis it's slightly more in that slightly less than that there's no way that there's six million or seven million dollars on the table in that agreement anybody that looks at those numbers just foolish and it's overly simplistic in incorrect analysis so we now have an agreement that's in place where we've got some growth this year we'll act in some other money and we share the growth on a county wide basis which historically has been the big growth engine for sales tax and sales tax then to be driven by big box retail stores and if you look at the sites that are available for development again they tend to be in our suburban neighbors so that this deal is not a great deal but it's a good deal it's fair you know some people come here and have a lot of people who have ties to union college that do different analysis and reclaim other things one of the simpler scenarios would be of some of those entities and i just you union is an example would step up to the plate and pay its fair share towards the city it costs us terms of what we deliver and public safety cost other things were really structured real estate deal where they took a lot of property off the tax rolls but they've had it structured in a manner where the city would have been received those the college could have been reimbursed from the state prior leadership college chose not to do that but those are examples we have to work with and again some of this debate will go on i welcome review all of it welcome continued discussion but again it is a fair deal for the city of schenectady and when you look at it down the road we're going to share the growth on a county wide basis we in fact over the long run will probably come out better than we should under a simple emptive deal where we would have gotten our fair share our preemptive right of one and a half percent to councilman prazosin talking about the home show this weekend again it's we do that monthly to promote home ownership here courage people to look at the opportunities that exist within the schenectady real estate market going to have the city hall open there will be twenty five or twenty eight vendors dealing with that different aspects of  potential home ownership and i also don't want people to forget the green market which happens around city hall on sundays and people stop by to take advantage of the last few weeks where they're still outside before they move over to the proctors arcade and on the last point just on that grant with the city or with the city in the school district for the streets that's a grant application where we're again not sure we'd get any money or how much money we would get so that there is some element of negotiation still in that in as we move ahead but it will take care of a lot of call a long and obvious problem and the rear of schenectady high school and grand boulevard kids are coming there every day but there's no sidewalks and if you come up mcallen street and we're looking to go to zoller it will provide a safer environment for children to walk to and from schools and also just the residents in the neighborhood to avail themselves walking around and mr grant keeps talking about a million dollars at the wastewater treatment plant in the number we used in the budget this year was for hundred fifty thousand  savings i hope we had a million dollars but if we don't hit a million we're still going to be well over what our budgeted number was but we may not quite get the expectations of some of the goals of mr branson but i can thank t and will be able to see them as they work daily on a daily basis really living part of what they want to do by wearing these pink shirts so i think it's it's really important to put schenectady on the map it shows that we care  and speaking of carrying also with chris fabi who was here tonight forty and the fraternity order of police he was amazing and the things that they do for and with in the city and county of schenectady we should all be proud and hope we have a lot more of those folks out there doing those kinds of things lastly it's with regret that i we all received a letter today i think many of you if you watch any of the any of the recordings on television or see any of our meetings have seen em peterson peterson who's been the homeownership coordinator for the city of skanky for many many years before that she was municipal housing doing a similar type of job she is resigning to take another position with the state and again it's in and it's within home ownership is a wonderful opportunity for her i certainly will miss her personally and professionally and i think certainly a lost of the city is scraggy was certainly again to the state of new york and i know she won't forget where her roots are so i think we've got her in a good place but i just want to wish her all of the best and with