item number one for final consideration an ordinance increasing the exclusive use fee for the central park rose garden from ten dollars per hour for city residents to fifty dollars for city residents per item number two an ordinance amending city code section twenty three dare seven entitled fee for copies for documents to establishing a fee for priority service for the handling of vital records again discussed in committee without roll call number three item number three for original consideration a resolution accepting a new york state occupational safety and health training and education  point fifty five dash for dash eighteen to michael marsh ok this was discussed in committee without objection on consent sure absolutely mr  there's a possibility mr march may be called by the city as a witness in a civil case and i wonder if there's any credence to that if that is actually going to happen e permit number five seven one to migrate america and for a sign encroaching on the city right of way at four eleven states straight ok discussed in committee i'm sorry sure number five  ok discussed in committee without objection on consent number six will appear on the consent agenda numbers seven item number seven a resolution honoring reverend lowery fill ups for his twenty one twenty nine years of service as pastor of a manu baptist church and congratulating him on his retirement are we taking this out of order ok this will be presented at another time without objection and consent then number eight item number eight a resolution honoring george westinghouse as a veteran of the american civil war and honoring all the veterans from the bellevue area of schenectady by renaming the george westinghouse park as the george westinghouse and bellevue veterans park ok discussed in committee without objection i'm consent this too will be taken out of order and read by mr and number ten scuse me item number ten a resolution recognizing the second annual robert j ludwick community service awards gala and acknowledging the ninety first anniversary of the j c c of schenectady and we tak and last but not least number twelve item number twelve a resolution authorizing the mare to accept a sum of one hundred thousand dollars in full settlement of a claim filed by the city of schenectady for a lost property suffered as a result of a fire on april i will declare that close and move right into the city council meeting for act over twenty second please rise and his excuse his broker here ok we have several items to take out of order first i do want to take out of order tonight is a certificate of appreciation from the city council in the mayor's office for emily kaufman and his kaufman could you please come forward we know you've been very active in this organization so it's nice to have these folks up here is support you as well these are all your fans tonight emily ok emily is with great pleasure on behalf of the mayor in the city council that we present you with a certificate of appreciation and i'm going to ask spiro to give us a little more information about all the things that you've been doing thank you first off i'd like to say thank you to the city council for taking the time tonight to honor this outstanding young adult emily kaufman is an exceptional person who we are honored to have in our mess as she works to improve our community emilie is a senior at schenectady high school and she studies at the high schools program the international baccalaureate program and one of the key key components of this program is service to the community and emily and bodies what it is to give of herself to the community  i gotten to know emily in the past year with her work with our work on the woodlawn park we have a woodland park redevelopment group that has been actively engaged with the city and emily has been a key component to that success in the past year emily has volunteered at several park cleanups and has taken upon herself to go in and not asked with her mom to clean up the park she actually did a video blog of that work and we featured it on our facebook page she was an exceptional volunteer at her pasta dinner fundraiser this past winter taking upon herself to service all the people who were at that event and making herself available to the elders as well as she attended our garage sale fundraiser at the park in the spring and she's a frequent attendee of our monthly committee meetings for the park  janet's got a few words to speak about emily's work with the preserve but just to let you know that her work goes beyond the community and it's something that we need to recognize as well takes it upon herself to do the work to make our society of a better place emily is a talented artist and singer this year sheep participated and performed at the first annual pride event in schenectady on j street which was a very well received of that so we think her for that she is also a participant one of the key components of the high school program is a commitment to the service of the community and she's taken an active role  n holding her organizing a series of dinner fundraisers for the world wildlife fund at his restaurant and there's something else i forgot what it was but it just goes to show you her commitment to community and we're truly blessed to have her and her miss janet and i just want to say thank you to emily for the work that she did with the preserves she didn't limit herself to soley to the park she organized a schedule of cleanups in the preserve and there had to be at least ten of them various times to allow different people in different groups a variety of times to show up and help us clean ups and that way she raised awareness of the preserve for us and we really appreciate her help emily and he remarked so or anything you'd like to say about all the work that you've done well one thing i would really like to say is that i do it to help improve my community i've lived in woodlawn my entire life and i'm really proud of where i came from i'm really proud of the city that i live in and i want to see it become the best thing possible for every one that's here and i just want to say that all the work i do i do for my city and i do so that the people in the generation after mine have the same things that they can enjoy thank you emily we're really proud of you and thanks to all of you as well a resolution honoring george westinghouse as a veteran of the american civil war and honoring all of the veterans from the bellevue area of schenectady by renaming the george westinghouse park as a george westinghouse and bellevue veterans park whereas george westinghouse was an american inventor manufacturer born in scary new york who established the westinghouse and company firm in schenectady which specialized in the manufacturing of farm implements and where as george washing george westinghouse enlisted in the united states army and subsequently served the united states navy and whereas george westinghouse served during the american civil war and whereas the george westinghouse park was originally named in commemoration of his memory his service and his contribution to the city's city of schenectady and whereas the city of schenectady wish to honor both george westinghouse and his service to our great nation as well as all the veterans of the bellevue area and now therefore be resolved that the city council schenectady and mayor mccarthy recognized in memory service and contribution of george westinghouse as both a veteran and an inventor from the schenectady area as well as all of the veterans from the bellevue and us further resolved that the george westinghouse park is here by renamed the george westinghouse and bellevue veterans park madam chair i move this resolution it's been moved to tears second second by ms present while those favor motion carries right thank you very much stay right here gentlemen we haven't something else where i am ladies lady madam and i'm very pleased to present a resolution honoring all veterans as an army brat this is very important to me whereas it is the soldier who has given us freedom of the press it is the soldier who has given us freedom of speech it is the soldier who gives us the freedom to demonstrate it is the soldier who salutes the flag who serves beneath the flag and his coffin is draped with the flag whereas americans devoted to liberty and to this country have for over two hundred twenty five years courageously answered the nation's calls to arms as best summarized by the words of president franklin d roosevelt you bear with you the hope the confidence the gratitude and the prayers of your family your fellow citizens and your president and whereas we still believe today that the blessings of liberty require constant vigilance and sacrifice and whereas every man woman and child in this great nation owes a debt of gratitude to those who served their country so selflessly and where as these brave soldiers sailors marines coast guard and airmen and women are the  daughters of our land and where as so many of these loved them but love and sons and daughters made the supreme sacrifice laying down their lives so other could live free and where as all citizens are asked to celebrate the contributions and sacrifices of these men and women who place their lives in harm's way protecting american values and preserving democracy for the world and where as the observance of veterans day is an appropriate time for all citizens to express their gratitude to those who gave so much for their fellow citizens now therefore be it resolved that the mayor and the city council of the city of schenectady pause in their deliberations to remember and honor all veterans and call upon its citizens to express their veteran and i know we thank you for supporting us and we need to support today but i just like to mention something else to veterans day is just around the corner eleventh which is a sunday ten thirty in veterans park i hope to you all come for helping us so i missed one yeah oh i'm sorry another air force lady that she stuck to boss here for saying kathy so i'm sorry i got all these names by first and  don't have their last names i pod ties for that so thank you very much for the resolution thank you all for being here yes and thank you for your serv ok our next lucia is honoring the ninety first in a verse three of j c c and recognizing the second annual robert j ludwig community service awards gala so anyone from j c c or involved with up on we'll just have that read that they're at their function next is a resolution recognizing the friendship baptist church as the oldest black baptist church in schenectady and many of its historical universities thank you joining me behind the rail is the reverend hamilton who is the pastor of friendship baptist church it's a resolution recognizing the french baptist church as the oldest beppe black baptist church in schenectady and many historical anniversaries and like to mention they just celebrated their ninety third anniversary whereas the first the first friendship church was a small shanty on railroad avenue the present site of the national guard armory and on the first sunday in october in one thousand nine hundred the congregation established a baptist mission and where as services were held by a host college street becoming known as friendship baptist church and whereas reverend robert redford barry became pastor in one nine hundred fifty nine remaining until one thousand nine hundred eighty two when he resigned to further his education being followed by reverend moore and where as one of the leadership of reverend moore and reverend raspberry french a baptist church became involved in denominational affairs serving as the host for baptist denomination meetings and where as the french a baptist church is the oldest black baptist church in the city of schenectady now and therefore be resolved that the city council and the mayor of the city pause in their deliberations to recognize the french a baptist church as the oldest black baptist church in the city and to congratulate the church the pastor and its congregation for their to do the work for the lord in the community and support those in the schizo disconnected so thank you once again if you ever need any assistance from the friendship baptist church please do not hesitate on your side and support you one hundred percent  office announces a free review session for the upcoming city of schenectady police officer exam and schenectady county patrol officer exam the free review session is going to be held he's seven at ten thirty in the morning at schenectady county community college stockade want to go to room one zero two i ask any and everyone who is interested in this free review session to call my office at five one eight three eight eight four two three three or they may contact me by email miriam could just be at schenectady county dot com this is a free review session if anyone had applied to take the police exam or the patrol exam they often attend this review session thank you thank you thank for being here tonight ok we have one public hearing and can you public airing number one on the proposed two thousand and thirteen budget for the city of schenectady right here fo people signed up first person signed up as jason plank they're on the city budget and self as as the years keep going by we still do not have in the correct accountability of the pilot programs you know these of the books were you've reduced to property taxes and we have got nothing in return for them you know you are required to under the economic development board to do an audit every april first to check and see if they meet the requirements of the job's requirements and it has not been done you know we need to we need to have and the correct accountability of exactly how much money have we spent and how much money we've got in return and we haven't gotten any of that the community of on the block grant money nearly the two point three million dollars of that which is the in house money you're supposed to regard to have a public hearing on it you haven't even done that the outside money that you've done you hold the public hearing and then issue the earth pete on the same day again you know we need to take a look at this also too as you're also with the school taxes you keep pushing that off each year and then this year you're looking at the state pension plans this is a bad idea and you know we need to be able to pay or our bills not procrastinating down the road you've given huge pay raises to city employees and renegotiated contracts out you've done retroactive pay raises to nearly three hundred of our city employees you know we need to take a look at going across the board exactly how we're going to actually move forward and we're stops in a sales tax agreement you know four years ago you guys said well we didn't know what it was we didn't know what it was and then blanchard asked to have the correct accountability of that never happened and when we ended up with is an eight year agreement and stagnated revenues you know we need to take a look at a complete entire approach of where we're going to go the affirmative action office has failed its job for diversify in the workforce it has failed and doing how many minorities were hired for the rebuild of art fourteen million dollars where the project how many miners were hired how many persons with disabilities were hired you know we have the big center city project that went through two and a half million dollars of federal money went into that the clinton street project over a million dollars we have five million my name is jason cuthbert i live in the north side in parsing through the city's budget this year and i think it's a kind way to put it would be dishonest three minutes isn't much time to go through it all and so just do a few talking points the very first thing that jumps out is that the tax levy exceeds the tax cap whoever figured the numbers figured it wrong they took a carryover exception to last year's li they the pension override just so you know it's not a lot it's under ten thousand dollars but it's lazy and it's sloppy and the tax cap form if you've ever seen it basically to it's like a ten forty easy form for the i r s it's it's a one page it feels itself in basically  entry it should take you five minutes to do it right and we need to get that right that's that's key secondly just going down through the things one thing that jumps out is we recently had somebody leaving the development office a woman who was very capable had been on the job for over twenty years knew what she was doing this comes at a time when the grant funding that position was cut by fifty percent last year federal grant funds it's the perfect time to take that job and merge in with another existing job there the work isn't there the grant funds are being cut but instead the mayor is proposing and i think it's already moved one of his campaign contributors into this patronage job that's going to pay seventy thousand dollars a year plus benefits another thirty five or forty using scarce federal resources to do this this is elderly or disabled or poor people that's what these grant funds are for not for jobs for campaign contributors in the same office the mayor is adding a five thousand dollar overtime bonus to his campaign treasurer this year we don't we don't need that we deserve better than that in the city other things that jump out in the budget the city property sales eight hundred thousand dollars budget in two thousand and thirteen in three different places i found that interesting it wasn't city property sales eight hundred thousand there was one budget line for three hundred one budget line for three hundred one budget line for two hundred it's eight hundred thousand if you remember in two thousand and twelve we budgeted four hundred thousand in property sales but we were told this time last year they would be one million in sales the city was going to keep the first two hundred thousand right off the top to pay for our expenses are legal fees property maintenance things like that that the balance of eight hundred was going to be split fifty fifty in the city where we're at the end of october the million dollars to date i believe is fifty thousand dollars is what we've actually sold so why should we believe an eight hundred thousand dollars figure for next year it's just it's ludicrous the police overtime budget is going to magically be cut by a million dollars next year every year we hear this it never happens it's it's a bit lonely number  you know there was one thing that folks might not know about the state comptroller's office was in here for six to eight weeks in july and august they left at the end of august they said they would have us an audit in time to implement the recommendations for the budget this year whereas the audit i mean we saw what happened with school district got it they tried to put in keep it under the rug as much as they could and here we are in the same boat my concern is that the audit is being pushed aside until after this budget goes through and gulf war i do need to summarize please certainly i'm just about there again these are just a few tipping points there's a lot to go over i also want to point out that this is year one of an eight year sales tax agreement this budget which counts on a million dollar reduction in police overtime eight hundred thousand dollars property sales which may or may not happen a use of three million dollars in reserves which will only leave about three million by the end of two thousand and thirteen that's all that's going to be left assuming all that works you're still looking at a four percent tax increase a ten and a half percent garbage tax increase and so at the end of twenty thirteen what he going to do the reserves are all gone you just did a tax increase a garbage tax increase your police overtime numbers are going to come in your property sales numbers are going to come in what are going to do in twenty fourteen are going to twenty fifty where's the plan it's an eight year deal this is your warning where's the plan we deserve that much thank you thank you very m such a move would assure the citizens of schenectady that the money would not be spent in twenty thirteen no one has advocated hundred thirty five thousand dollars if i knew billy's chief who moved to schenectady work to buy a home in the most expensive section of the city for an extra plus benefits over the course of all only three years the city could reduce this expenditure by more than four hundred thousand dollars the numbers are up against residency requirements at this time and in favor of good evening my comments are strictly focused on taxes taxes in schenectady have a terrible reputation i almost didn't purchase my home in schenectady because of the taxes i refused to look at the home i ultimately did purchase strictly because of the taxes my concerns were mostly because of the taxes and other concerns such as what the neighborhood would be like and other issues such as could i afford it with the vast about of student loans i have but after my other concerns where i trust i still refused to look at my home multiple times because of the reputation for taxes in the city of schenectady and the county of schenectady fortunately for that owner i had a very convincing  convinced me to look at the home and i fell in love and then i researched the taxes further and i was able to afford it but moving past my own concerns we need to look at other areas beyond just raising our taxes such as tightening up our welfare reform and looking at abuse are there residency requirements i know some people who have moved into schenectady gotten welfare right away are there any residency requirements i don't know the answer but perhaps that should be looked at is that a way to avoid raising taxes probably not but if that's a way to help save some money maybe that should be considered in the budget we need to look at other ways to reduce the budget not just raise taxes so perhaps we should look at britney and more businesses such as the ones like bombers or in other ways to help reduce our tax burden on the taxpayers what will the higher taxes really bring us as tax payers is it really worth it to squeeze out every last penny that we have i don't know that actually worth it at this point is that this really responsible to essentially wipe out our reserves at this point is that thinking beyond next year is that beyond twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen at this point i don't think it is if i as a homeowner did that and wiped out my savings account i wouldn't be fiscally responsible is the city being fiscally responsible i'm not sure that i can answer that at this point we need to look at other ways to attract people more homeowners more businesses like i already said with all that being said i have serious concerns about the fiscal conservative mists of our city and the impact to raising our taxes will have on the housing market and attracting more businesses and more homeowners to our city thank you thank you i have no one signed up no one else signed up for the public hearing so seeing i would clear the ok this is on the budget misremember no this is on the on the budget think the budget that you are doing is not fair to the people and it is harming people with the taxes it causing people to their properties make it impossible for people to pay their mortgages and pay their bills in this city and you know i just want to say i know that you believe in prayer proverbs chapter twenty two  not the poor because he is poor neither oppressed the afflicted we need to think about these things because now you're breaking up these taxes and making it very hard for people to live what do you expect to happen in schenectady if you continue to do this and try to give the police department a new police chief they don't need a new police chief bennett could do the job and giving out more money for the police department is just adding more problems to disagree and this city is already in a fiscal crisis as you well have heard here today the city is already in a fiscal crisis in to do to try to add more problems to this city by getting another police chief is that that's not is not logical has not sensible to do something like that in a time when everybody's in crises at this time so you might want to can consider your budget and make it one that can help the you need to think about your actions because you have a lot of boarded up houses around here you have a lot of houses that are in deplorable condition you need to bulldoze those places down that's the money that you should use to bulldoze some of these raggedy houses down as opposed to getting another police chief in here and pay him one hundred thirty thousand dollars that's ridiculous take that money and start bulldozing some of these houses down and bill proper housing so that people can have decent second by mr king all those in favor minutes are approved communications and petitions presented to the city council for monday october twenty second under the category of official from the mayor a list of appointments dated october twenty second two thousand and twelve general communications the bellevue preservation ng meeting thursday budget and asking lots of questions learning learning as we go what i put together and i've communicated some of things out to fellow council members kind of a running list of things we can do things we can consider and of course it takes four votes to pass the budget but i think you know with the communication i'm hearing the the line here in also phone calls i'm getting in conversations i'm having can't spend money we don't have and so i courage every one to take the list i'm providing some new things are coming in and you know different times and so i'll continue to forward ideas and concepts to you but encourage everybody to think long and hard on them  and make sure that the budget that we do ass proven past is as lean and fiscally sound as we can make it so i have some of the same concerns and i can talk about it later on i guess but some of the comments are there my name is tom fred and i am a city resident i'm also a licensed funeral director at the marco stone funeral home regarding the priority free i would like to respond with facts not in president we're going the recent quotes in a newspaper by councilwoman carousal and the city clerk first councilman them councilwoman perasso stated quote i'm sure in the last ten years funeral directors have had to raise the cost of their services in other areas and quote and my response is you are correct but here is the difference madam president when a family comes to us and says we are in a situation where we have to have this funeral done as quickly as possible  response is we will do everything in our power to accomplish what you want our charges are consistent no matter what the family circumstance if that same family comes to you and says the same thing and needed to death certificates as soon as possible your response would be if you would like us to act quickly then you will have to pay us double is that how you plan on going about conducting business in our city second the city clerk stated quote everything doesn't have to be done on that first day when are you applying for that life insurance policy when are you probating the will that stuff is not done before the funeral you will usually end quote really just because you've gone through something does not mean that now you are an expert madam president time does not allow me to give you the many examples of where families try to accomplish as much as possible in the days leading up to the beginning of services especially if they're from out of town doesn't that make sense my main issue is not the additional cost it is the way you are going about raising revenue trying to justify having a family wait for important documents in the name of efficiency or pay double before i conclude madam president i would like to thank you for your time and attention to this matter and finally are you aware that when we file a death certificate of a veteran the family receives a free certified copy i do not think that you are i also think that the city council and the mayor have received a vague and misleading information regarding this idea are you prepared tonight to tell the family of a veteran possibly the family of the veterans you honor here tonight that needs to file for possible v a burial allowances or  indemnity compensation claim as soon as possible that their once free certificate will now cost them ten dollars mr brett i need you to summarize please on a five minute transaction on behalf of schenectady families i ask for your no vote thank you sir jason rose garden committee much as say there was for the retreats connected in past years and it seems that the city is setting it up to to hype the revenue but not give out on the back into the rose garden committee so i'm hoping that you would throw in a line item basically that offsets the revenue for the rose garden committee and come back in a couple of weeks with a public service contract that just you know something very broad here for the maintenance improvement of the central park rose garden between the city and the committee giving them thousand dollars for the lot when the city foreclosed on the property the previous owner owed one what couldn't one hundred twenty five dollars and back taxes now the city is going to sell this law for five thousand one hundred twenty five dollars in other words the new buyer must also pay for the back taxes will this policy continue for all properties sold by the city the salt of the policy must be uniform for every  is not the key witness in the civil matter involving myself and that is news because since may eleventh he has been the key witness in a civil action involving myself and i don't know what knowledge mr poster has to say that he isn't so i would question that information because up until today mr marsh a has been the key witness on the witness list since may eleven h and with regard to this matter the question is if it's a quid pro quo or a something for something deal the topic of former city employee michael mar a who is requesting special consideration from the city of schenectady mayor for reduction of the price of a piece of city owned property he would like to buy unknown to most of the city council members that michael mar as a code city code officer before he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute last monday at the committee meeting when the mayor's appointed attorney mr posed to presented the city council members his proposal of a special deal for reduced price for parts of land for mr marsh a none of the city council members knew this and it was not mentioned by mr pollster to the city council members the case for which mr marsh a testimony was being sought by the city to testify involve involves thousands of dollars for damages therefore it is fair to question the timing of this proposed favor to mr mar the appearance of conflict of interest in this deal between the city administration and the disgraced employee needs to be thoroughly looked into before it is voted on to find out what reasons the administration is having for wanting to grant this favor to this particular person of all the people the city might do with favor for this proposed financial deal does not pass the smell test ok next move on to the legislative agenda and there are several items on the roll call and start number two i remember to an ordinance amending the city code section twenty three dear seven entitled free for copies for documents to establish a free for priority service for the handle of vital records ok can have someone move this to the  ten dollars but ultimately we're going to be spending a little bit more money because the the additional fees and now when you have to be mailed it's going to take additional time for the person who creates the certificates to do that so we're asking  hours to be a personal hour sorry to be used twice so all that given all that consideration as i understand it there's also some other things that we do related to or to pickett's when it comes to this deceased person that we haven't had taken a look at that we could probably take a look at it so i would really prefer that we take another look at this and you really give it a little bit more consideration and considering all that i don't know i also as well you know have some concerns i think you know there's ways around this that i guess the customers or speaker are going to have that would cause more work and so i know friend recently and so you know but take your time with those and so what that's going to do is cause the clerk's office to process that twice and so it's actually going to increase the amount of work and i think that the other thing that could occur is that people say you know what i don't need ten give me four and if i need more will come back in which case it'll just overall reduce the total amount of revenue we actually taken so i think you know in my opinion ten dollars is too low of a fee the state of new york limits us to charge what we would actually cost us to process it and i think probably fifteen or twenty dollars from maybe reasonable if we do you know do the math and try to see what it should be but we don't have that ability but i think that charging the fee for every every copy is probably not going to be productive that you actually be counterproductive so in this current format i'm not in favor of it so i don't know know to explain my vote mr erickson brought out some good points and as did mr porterfield i went with a funeral director last week as he picked up six certificates from the clerk's office and as mr burnett said the total was the lady was working behind a desk when he walked in and handed her paperwork she got up from behind a desk and the whole process took a total of five minutes and maybe twenty seconds i think that was the whole sum of the plus say an extra copy so it was seven certificates were process i don't see that as a of time personally if i was doing the job i would rather do it has they come and i don't think people are standing there for death certificates a lot during the day i wouldn't think so so if i got a pile at the end the two weeks to go through i don't think that's sufficient either and again as mr burnett brought out some good points about you know people when they're i mean i was the executor of a couple wells and in my lifetime and it's a daunting task and it's it's a lot put on the the person that's an executor and when you go through all these things you need certificates for this or to focus for so security six certificates for insurance policies and it's a lot to go through a task anybody to wait two weeks well taxes and death mystery this year things right you know my main reason for voting yes on this and i certainly have heard and i certainly do appreciate several conversations with mr remap and i do appreciate him taking the time to talk with these things about me but the reason i would vote yes for this is because any feed that we have in the city is schenectady that hasn't been raised in twenty years i really think we need to take a look at that and we are charged by being you know the individuals who are looking to be fiscally responsible for the city now is this ten dollars going to take to see in or out of a hole absolutely not  i really look at it as any type of fee that has not been changed in twenty years it's something very significant as people who look to budget for to city and set fees and set taxes and s rates this is just something else that has come along and has been red flag to us that said ok for the last twenty years it's remained the same there's very few things that have and the other piece of it is that if we are looking to get get  permission from the state of new york to raise these fees because as actually how it comes up i think we need to also send out a message to other municipalities who especially cities within our region physically in the same boat that we are as well so i'm again looking at it just strictly that it's a fee that hasn't been raised in twenty years i think it's something that we need to take a look at it's kind of a non vote this point because we're looking three to three so it goes down anyway but i would have i will vote yes three thirty zero zero ok thank you everyone and thank you for your comments appreciate them ok next roll call is number five item number five a resolution authorizing the city engineer to issue a revokable permit number five seven one to migrate america anchor for a signing project on the city right of way at four one one nothing personal i don't really know what they do but as we come up state street and we this is really a good problem to have believe it or not because we've got a lot of businesses lining to move in but the types of signs that we permit the types of signs that we permit on the front of our buildings is important because as we we've got a lot of these signs that buildings and so i think that just a style of sign where a few of them might be nice a whole bunch of them tend to get overly busy and confusing and create some i pollution i i prefer signs in the front of buildings  that are flush versus the standing out and so i think that we just need to consider how many of these we're going to allow on our streets and so i'm voting you know just to kind of bring attention to the issue certainly we can we don't need to move it back into many but we can certainly revisit it just through the regular committee cycle ok but thanks for that you need a motion to adopt the consent agenda i'm sorry present second by council member erickson i was in favor i thank you consent agenda passes and we will move on to privilege of the floor for city ars ignore the science and speed on the street my father howard goldstein is the crossing guard on the street in almost get these toys today crossing kids sometimes even school buses speed through there there are many kids to align my dad to s is also please don't ignore my message please protect us thank you nice job thank you very much are crossing guard it risks his life every day when he tries to stop cars or kids cross the street the cars are going too fast and don't have enough time to stop far and far away far far enough away from him some cars come close to hitting him and have to back out back out of the cast i doubt that they do not see as brighter factor jacket and a stop sign i would like to say something to the people who drive down gil dillon apa now please remember that children need to cross the street to go to school you have two options and speeding is not one of them you could either find a new route or don't drive or in effect i believe that if we got flashing lights the lights would remind people that it is a fifteen mile per hour council members mayor mccarthy my name is chris on his cock and i reside eight hundred fifty five gray street in the city these pictures are just handed to you are of my property earlier this year i notice a puddle of water coming from the ground of my property i call the city to find out what was happening come to find out this pipe has been leaving leaking for the past three years in two thousand and nine my neighbors in back of me got permits to tap into their maiden robin story because they had lost water pressure to their homes they were previously attached to this pipe that ran through my property needless to say the pipe was connected to the main on gray street running through the property running through my property to service the homes on three and seven robin straight was never shut off the job scuse me the job my neighbor had done was not done properly the blue lines were made by big safe new york i had to call them because the water department thinks that the water pipe there was leaking on my property was my responsibility to fix the water pride never served my house according to the schenectady city code chapter two five five desh three zero says the owner of the property into which water is introduced will be required to maintain in perfect order his own cost and expense said pipe from the corporation cock to the street main to his own premises since his price never connected to my home i am not responsible for the city water department sent me a bill for two hundred dollars for turning off the water at the main because the pipe was on my property i was in service by this pipe the homes of three and seven robin street were serviced when we told the water department about not servicing us they were billing the wrong home they said it was our problem that's like telling the city of schenectady that is their problem that if i set my tax payment to the city of saratoga mr mayor i been told that when this was brought to your attention you were very unsympathetic i would go as far as to describe you with that term by taking out the first five letters i suspect my family has gotten the runaround because one of my neighbors in question happens to be our city code inspector now with this information i just gave to you i have to say mr burch may be on to something when he says this city is corrupt i would like the whole council to look with the city's doing i would like the whole council to look at what the city is doing to our tax payers do you really want me to take this to court spend more money the city doesn't have on lawyers all i'm asking you is to bill the right people  that these people who need to be build are on three and seven robin street i would also like to thank councilman regie for going above and beyond everything he did  thank you thank you sounds to me like some of these are students learning civics and strikes me that's too bad they weren't here at the last meeting i thought the president of this body was absolutely eloquent and stating honestly how government really does work around here have it depend on money from and help of churches and not in the child director came in and they had a step they had a place here but they had gotten some money and they were moving to the so security building and peter i forget his name said they had gotten two million dollars to restore the building before they even got anybody in there and i got up before the council and i said you know i'm really beginning to wonder who's who's running the town and who isn't you know all this charity and grants from other peoples and it's not the money's not being produced here at all so it way i want to just say that in regard to this thing called prostitution i watch the police blotter and things are always a i have not least not very recently have i seen anything regarding prostitution and so that struck me first then i thought about what is prostitution if you ask most people they're going to say it's a woman selling their their body it's a woman is not a man but then again there are different forms of prostitution and it occurred to me that of all the prostitution that occurs in this city this temple this a crop acropolis when you get together when you have a problem how you can get together and totally bill by and destroy an individual and you have done it to me and i won't go into that it's been a long series of that i'm constantly being irritated by public people the only thing i want to say is this what i do need you to summarize please i just want to add that it's my impression from now on if you want  but i say one thing we need new sidewalks and curbs in schenectady because people are walking in a row hoarding should not be walking in a road it's got to be done you can't have people getting hit by cars and everything you gotta do something now that thank you ernest three did touch you take your time i moved in with and in one thousand fifty five still live there fifty seven years always paid my taxes of my taxes are paid up to date up am up by the year i don't pay them up quarterly or pay them up by the high pax's and somebody have to think about this seeing as i'm a senior you know not everybody could work go there and work some of the seniors there oh and we need the starts to go down you cannot pay these taxes and have some kind of consideration i mean these are old folks and we need some kind of hair thank you  violence and i think i think the prayers you gave the the solution i believe last week or something pertaining to violence and i think we should take that greatly in consideration  that we know that people are going through some things and we're hoping that we resemble one another rather than converting to violence to those that are out there they're hoping that you know to take the to considerations that you cannot handle the things in a violent manner especially our young people we know there's a lot of frustration that's out there reason i'm wearing well i'm wearing this purple and i was hoping that others would be wearing the  even going through this month that would let them know that we're encouraging those that to defile a peace with all men cause holding that without no man shall see the lord i have heard individual is the oh i was here before that's and therefore  of foreclosures but the churches are always available unto you whatever that you need then you just call we are there we call we are servants be a part of the neighborhood association group the many churches that are there thank god for friendship baptist church being the oldest baptist but also during the a member many of the churches that we have here we are praying and we do need prayer and these days in time thank god for the veterans being a veteran but we also be in consideration of those that have been in the wars as fighting for this freedom for which we have today and also on that day hoping that everyone get out and vote therefore you must vote because men or and women are losing their lives for you to have this freedom and we need to get out and vote we gardeners the rain god that is not sunshiny but really you need to get out and vote today to do some of these things i know you have problems that we had there hard to resolve a man but but prayer changes things and god is yet on the throne but the worst said that that we fail not trick knowledge and all that we say and do so if we ever needed anybody hear of you the clergy wasn't available therefore i would be willing any time that we do continue in prayer and ask for the divine guidance from him because we are a religious country we are free country everyone that is here so let us not neglect the prayer and love to one another in praying to one another  or the bad so i want to thank you for his opportunity and thank you mayor for being there showing your interest for the safety of our community and hamilton hill god bless thank you sir here to thank you for what you did for the city parks that you extended the back of free policy curb to curb on the parks the city is can actually leads the way between albany troy and schenectady in the coverage for tobacco free parks so thank you and the main reason i'm here is because i wanted to invite the council members and the mayor to an event that we're doing in mount pleasant next tuesday afternoon  tobacco marketing the surgeon general came out with a report that i passed around along with the invitation to the event the surgeon general found in the most recent report that the evidence clearly shows that the amount of tobacco marketing that kids see is the cause is a cause for youth to start smoking we know that if we can get our youth to be twenty five years old and not choose to smoke they'll never smoke we we have to get them to age twenty five ninety percent of kids start smoking ninety percent of people start smoking before they're eighteen years old and if we can get them through that youth without starting to smoke we can get them to be adults and they won't smoke so  surgeon general report talks about how tobacco marketing and the presence of tobacco in our communities increases the chance for kids to smoke so one of the things that we did was some mapping of the city of schenectady to find out where the retailers are and what we found the blue dots on this are the licensed tobacco retailers the truck the red triangles are the schools and what we found was that there are more retailers around the schools we're going to do the walk here in the hamlet by the hamilton elementary school we're going to start in the mt pleasant area we found that there's over nine retailers within a third of a mile of the hamilton elementary school which if you go the other side of crane street you have the pleasant valley and you have  pleasant middle school so within this within this area there's nine to ten places where kids can see tobacco and there's a huge you know there's there's many more retailers in our more challenge communities in our more lower economic you know arm our more chance communities and and i'd like to see that change there's things that we can do so we're going to have this walk i mean inviting you to walk they'll be we're doing it in collaboration with the boys and girls club and with girls inc word get trying to get organizations community members families anyone to come with us do the walk come back to the school afterwards and we're going to have some refreshments and then just talk about the issue and find out where we can go to maybe help change some things so thank you very much for your time thanks for being here a president city council mer one of the three citizens that just came out is that so security is going to have a one point seven percent cola crease and the rate of inflation for the state in new york is two point nine three percent that doesn't even cover the rate of place in for the state for the state and you know when we're talking with pay raises that are given out you know we have one job that the marriage is that a professional for seventy thousand dollars you know we need to take a look at are we duplicating services why are we sending a seventy thousand our job  know when you gave up pay raises for other employees the elderly and the disabled got none for two thousand and ten and none for two thousand and eleven so the rate of income is coming is not going up to match the amount and it also goes for your taxes your property taxes going through the county budget and everything else several of the grants that we're targeting are lower income neighborhoods are no longer going to be available they run their course the home the rat program is being is no longer being available which help pays zation and so forth that the county the heat money is being reduced food stamps is being reduced the amount all these things are coming down because of the economic stimulus money is coming is being reduced so when you're looking at and then also to tomorrow disconnect the county is going at five thirty is going to hold their vote on their seven point four nine percent property tax increase so when we're looking and when you're realizing that hamilton hill mt pleasant is a sixteen thousand dollars per year salary the average salary in the city is connected to sturdy one thousand the c s a's for the city is about thirty one thousand the county c s is about forty two thousand average salary were way out of proportion and this is where a lot of our problems are happening is that we're giving out too many darn raises to the city employees and we need to curb some and that's one of the things we need to take a look at we're also is that we have over twenty three thousand senior citizens that live in this county and over twenty six thousand person on disability you're expecting about a forty percent increase over the next twenty years in the senior citizen populations over ten thousand new senior citizens where are they going to pay for all this new taxes and were they going to go for so we need to take a look at the budget and you need to be aware of the rate of inflation in the cost of the colas thank you very  too much to talk about tonight i don't like to be up here more than once but i wanted to respond to the comments made by members of council during miscellaneous business regarding the sales  of church lanes and council member said it terrible mistake happened who made the mistake we have a right to know well that person be fired like jason after he told the truth another council person said quote the city does not want to take properties especially churches there is another entity involved as far as i am concerned there is no difference between council taking churches or having it happen on its watch there had to be a physical transfer of the time celine's to the american tax foundation the group d not come here to city hall in the middle of the night like the watergate burglars and still the documents the documents were stored in this building someone prepared them someone to type the list just like this one and to transfer all the properties in the counties in this area someone knew the contents of those documents someone handed them over to the so called other entity who were those somebody else want person many people is responsible for the transfer of the documents to the american tax wound ation period counsel lost nothing with the sale of those liens only mentioned unsafe situation in the mount place pleasant district in regarding a unsafe sidewalk and you know why it has been repaired and so i wanted to say thank you for that i know that will continue to have the issue of the vegetation which will come over that sidewalk and force may force persons to get off the sidewalk and that is a dangerous curve which can also bring habitat for humanity home dedication that we had on pennsylvania avenue and in reference to the home dedication i have with the program that we have trying to address the abandoned buildings and giving having more property owners in the city being recognized continuously in the news as being a highly taxed region verge it's always a hot topic over here but i am on c n n take a moment so reflect on what this older gentleman has said because i think it's really important that you know a lot of our older senior citizens you know i just want to let my voice to him and i think that they deserve at the bottom least a place to go and you know mingle and socialize with other people because it's not quite the golden years when you're dying in your apartment without cable all right especially when they were working the hardest you know like a lot of people that are around right now and they have a surplus  to whatever you want to call it of revenue or whatever and now we're in debt and we're taking things away from kids and people we need to get more like you know like boys and girls clubs and whatnot but anyway it was like this there was this scientific experiment but in one nine hundred sixty one excuse me that was crazy but yeah that was crazy mccarthy but in one nine hundred sixty want to scientists stanley milgram he basically devised like this experiment where they took a bunch of people and  they they basically gave them directions to do something which was brutal and it was on ethical and they were supposed to be under the guise of a job and doing something and it was really brutal they were like administering shocks to other people and they on knowingly just continued to do and they don't know if they even killed these people but four out of six people continued to do this and that was back in one nine hundred sixty one they've they've redesigned this past and did it again in two thousand and eleven now five out of six people were shown to just basically jump on the bandwagon and they did it out of fear just to fit in because we are social creatures in we will do what we necessarily might not agree with out of fear that we will we won't belong or will be ousted and if you look at the trend of schenect if you do bring anything up that's a little questionable to get fired like that one guy i mean i'll give obama cost him right now because he was talking about some really really you know just different points of schenectady where i don't know i don't know if it was about money or whatever it was but i know somebody got fired i know he did the right thing and he got fired because he did the right thing but here's what i want to say is that i've been here multiple times talking about real real important issues brutality me being abused no one not a nobody doing nothing about it and  basically for my cries to fall upon deaf ears that's obstruction of justice that's knowingly not doing anything when i'm coming to you but you're doing it because you're ordered instructed by corporation council and the mayor to not take any evidence from me so how is it that you can go to  a that or the news and say that i've never tried to share any information i got a i got a recording right here me trying to talk to a what is it an internal affairs officer who told me where is your evidence this and that bring it in i swear and he's now fired the guy that replaced them is worse than him i mean honestly it just it's getting worse and worse we're becoming morally desensitized and it's just getting more and more systemic and i'm going to stop last time and i do want to stop by saying i'm not directing any hostility towards me i just thought you brought me a little rhetoric i mean you know you seem like a nice person and stuff but you can you know from my past experiences i can only basically really look at the pronounce i know i made a mess of that name i apologize pronounce your last name for me please english or american or german or whatever german if you want one mouth her ok thank you so most everybody called me kurt and my wife has a few other names for me these the thing that i want to do address the body of his evening about the first thing is sign house member king for the recognition of the veterans and point out to her that you left out the merchant marine that supplied the troops they often get forgotten just like the women veterans do they deserve to be remembered also a main thing i wanted to speak about was what tom brennan from the marcos stated about the priority fees i don't know if you people realize or not but if they don't have their discharge for the funeral director and a copy of the death certificate they don't get their burial allowance from the v a they won't get a flag for their casket which is really disgusting somebody that serves their country deserves a flag on her casket and know at times we've had three funerals in one day for world war two vets and some three and veterans had as many as three funerals in a day and that's three families that are fighting in city you remain his far as getting one certificate for veterans as an exemption for their feet in that it be done for them for their service to their country if you want to charge other people for like if you need aid for life insurance isn't all that stuff like that fine let the veteran get his death certificate let him get his benefits because there is a limited time on that in presenting the or presented to the family by a veterans organization at the time of the graveside service by the veterans organization in available to be used at the discretion of the funeral director either posted near the casket in recognition for his service and without an extra cost to the family the the costs of they pay when they are in the service i spent eleven years in the service and i do it all over again and i do really believe that a lot of our use problems would be less aggravating if they brought back the draft let the kids get straightened out let them serve their country many foreign countries do it and it doesn't do them any harm whatsoever and bringing back the draft in spite of the number of wars being the police force of the world it's just the right thing to do give a death certificate to a veteran so he can get his benefits on i want to thank people came out for the public hearing tonight i wish it was more input is crucial during this process i want to reiterate what councilman eriksson's that they're sorry and that we have been meeting every single night about the budget we have been going through the budget line by line by line we have been looking at increases as small as one hundred dollars and thinking about what we might do to reduce the costs of the budget as well as increase revenues in the budget i take exception to comments like that we are not considering the elderly in our community or the people that are of lower income in car community i myself and the single income homeowner the taxes i pay are crucial to me i have no one but myself to rely on so i have skin in the game and i think we all sometimes overlook the fact that we dedicate a tremendous amount of time to our city because we love our city and we love the residents in our city and we all want the best thing for our city and i would like people just to take that into account it's a tremendous dedication of ours from all of us trying to find a better way and sometimes i think that we might be glazed over now having said that one of the things that we have discussed over and over and over again to the public is the importance of recycling to our community the city does get direct revenues from that and a couple of days ago when i polled on to gilder lynn avenue from my street i drove five blocks without seeing a recycling container out with garbage cans so what i ask our fellow citizens to do is encourage their neighbors to recycle because ultimately that will bring revenues into our city which will reduce the tax burden on us all i'm going to remind people how simple it is it's really just a matter of getting two plastic containers we have free stickers one for container products one for paper products they will go out with your garbage doesn't matter if you rent your home own your home i just encourage you all to recycle you can recycle tin aluminum glass bottles jars you can mix all of them together in the same container along with plastic jugs milk cartons drink boxes and then also mixed paper and now it has been increased to not only newspaper but catalogs telephone books i put my window envelopes i don't put my personal information in there but any junk mail that i get every piece of paper thin cardboard that you can put in the container so you'll hear more from me on this going forward because i don't think we can say enough about it it's crucial revenue stream once again to our city and beyond that it's a commitment to our community and our environment and to be socially responsible so  thank you madam chair lisa's right on the money with the recycling there's no question about that but on that note i'd like to see a line item in our revenues for recyclables we don't have when they're looking for and i don't see it i'm not sure why but i think that's kind of important and that may also help i think we're only going by our to brings fees going down that it's a good revenue stream but i'd like to see the revenue in life for recyclables the ethics board is it up and running i just have the question maybe the mayor cannot answer that because there are some people that are in need of decisions by it to move forward with certain things sand i'm not sure if it's  running if it's there but mayor if you can answer that when you speak i would appreciate it on the rose garden i agree that now that the fee is passed that we should we have to set a fee in place or we have to break it up so the volunteers should get the most of that money without the volunteers at the rose garden i think would probably be a weak bed right now it is the best part of central park without question so i think  us to walk to work on that make sure that we can set up some kind of program for them so they can get their money out of this fee and we take a little bit for ourselves not much more than we got before i say it is ok then give the rest to the rose garden people i don't know if anybody's aware of it but the hindu temple who's gone through so much they were vandalized i saw it on the news before i left for the meeting and it's pretty sad they had sound equipment was destroyed and a bunch of things were destroyed there it just sat a hostile warship can be vandalized i don't even know what the think about that but it's just beyond comprehensible comprehension about the crossing guards on the safety i can empathize with them as you all know my wife spent a crossing guard for thirty seven years in the city as connected and the saying that she's all that she's been the one of thirty seven years on make sure i can go home tonight have something to eat but it is a problem and a few years ago the city even had cone support out where the crossing guards they would have to put cones out while my wife had the post on campus have to laugh about it one guy took the cone to drag that all the way down campbell laughing about so fast he was going so it is an inherent problem there's no question about it and i think maybe a little more police presence at times and issuing some tickets for speeding especially in a school zone or when a guard is giving orders is i mean they would talk about put their lives on the line they put their lives on the line they're out there with a little square stop sign that said that's all that will make somebody stop or not is that little sign so you have to be quick on your feet and i think it's my keep my wife in good shape so i will complain about that but it is something that has to be addressed i i'm making a little light of it but it isn't of this and of a funny subject that it's it's our our children the safety of our children the safety of our city personnel so it's very important about the budget and i'm with all we've spent a lot of time on this budget and we are going through it as lisa said line by line by lin and we're looking at paper cuts and things like that but we've all found things in the budget we'd like to see addressed and myself i've i'm very concerned about some certain things and we have to get this budget down to bare minimum and that's the bottom line whatever it's going to take to do that and there is places that that can be done there were some places for anything to be over over budgeted that i so i hope we can get that and we're going to be working on i know in the next couple nights we have two more meetings and i will be discussing it amongst ourselves and hopefully we'll come together and something that everybody can will be happy with so i am looking forward to that thank you thank you mr reid anyone else whose party feels thank you first of all i'd like to say congratulations to the veterans on the recognition tonight and add to thank them for their service i have three siblings a sister and your brothers that are veterans as well so i really appreciate the service of all that is to our country i'd like to add my voice to what mr rickey has to say about the rose garden they did come up with the idea and that you know we should get a portion that we got before but the volunteers have been spending their money if they could get some of those fees to continue to be able to do that work because the rose garden is quite nice in terms of street paving i've been hearing from a lot of different citizens and when this street paving program came along which i think it's excellent to say because a lot of money and we're paving a lot more streets but there's a complaint that i'm hearing continuously and that is that there is somehow the gratings in the street the manholes the federal or so raise above above what the paving is so it's causing a lot of people to be hitting their cars and damaging the bottom there of their cars i did bring that to mr olson who told me to tell people that they're coming back to do another coat but the concern is that right now the other code isn't there so it is causing damage and i heard it from many people in different neighborhoods regarding that i do want to also mention the rally against violence that took place on saturday and to just say that you know th the minister who called in all the ministers that came have an ongoing commitment to address this because we just can't continue the way you know it's going on and i mean we could go on and on about it but we really have to address it so  violence and take a look at ways ways to do that in terms of our taxes well you've heard a lot from other council members so i don't need to reiterate what we're doing in the process that we're taking but i do also want to mention that there are citizens who are looking at our budget as well and coming up with ideas for revenue ways that we can bring money and so i have heard one from one person who would do just as information to me today but a project that we could do so i want to say thank you for that you know it's something we can take a look at  as long as we don't have to put out money to do it we can take a look at ways to raise revenue so i encourage other citizens to if there are ways that we can increase revenue in the city we're open so to ideas you know that are doable and to  from our community because all the ideas don't necessarily reside at this table we know that there's a lot of people out there with wonderful ways to get things done so we'd like to hear from you as well this is the city belongs to all of us and you know together we can make it happen thank you but the base levels been done but then there's a top coat that will go on it which will just those elevation differences on the metal structures did want to publicly thank pastor sanders for coordinating the nonviolence get together and saturday a reverend adams was there or in the hamilton who also joined us tonight and it's the type of thing that we have to do continually you can't just do it one day in let it go it is and i'm going message that we have to get out that we won't tolerate gun violence we had two individuals it was reported that they were shot saturday night and the police made an arrest on that today was quite different than the original fact pattern that somebody had a gun that shouldn't have had we're using a quite properly shot themselves and shot somebody else with them and then reported is being shot by somebody driving by in the street gun safety people just have to revamp the way they approach some things that where people reach for a gun to settle petty disputes that we just cannot except that and tolerate it when i thank the young adults for coming down and pointing out the people doing the inappropriate things and get that message out that we want people to play by the rules they thank everybody for coming down tonight and their input on the budget to look forward to working with the council in our closing the week or so as we fine tune that it is our last meeting ok well i hope everyone votes early this year and two weeks from tomorrow and again can i have a motion to recess