calling to order the city council caucus for november thirteenth two thousand and twelve and the clerk will read the agenda please item number one an ordinance amending the for original consideration an ordinance amending the city code relative to the senior aged exemption introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on monday november twenty sixth two thousand and twelve at seven p m at council chambers room two  nine schenectady city hall one hundred five j street schenectady ok this is calling only calling for a public hearing on the twenty six this was discussed in committee without objection to appear on the consent agenda ok number one will appear on the consent agenda number two item number two a resolution authorizing the approval of the two thousand and thirteen d s a d budget introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on monday nov twenty sixth two thousand and twelve at seven p m at council chambers room two zero nine schenectady city hall one hundred five j street schenectady also discussed in committee but again calling for a public hearing on the twenty six without objection consent number two will appear on the consent agenda item number three a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to accept title to various city parcels from the urban renewal agency number three discuss committee without objection on consent seeing now number three will appear on the consent agenda number four item number four a resolution expressing the support of the city of schenectady for the adoption of gender legislation again discussed in committee without objection on consent number formal peer on the consent agenda number five item number five a resolution authorizing the settlement of attack search or wary concerning one hundred  claims committee without objection number five will appear on the consent of gender number six item number six a resolution authorizing the settlement of a tax or sure wary concerning sixteen seventy one crane st discussed in claims committee without objection the consent to gender number seven item number seven a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to settle a claim for the demolition costs for a fire at age six eight m at st discussed in committee without objection on consent number eight item number eight a resolution authorizing the settlement of attacks are surely concerning thirteen seventy three union story without objection on consent number eight will appear on the consent agenda and number nine item number nine under contract and supply a resolution awarding the bitten contract for the maintenance of the roofs at the rice road water pump station they spit in alternate swan and two to mid state industries ltd in the amount of thirty one thousand six hundred eleven dollars again discussed in committee without objection on consent number nine will appear on the consent agenda anything else to come before  meeting for november thirtieth two thousand and twelve and ask that we all rise for the invocation we have with us reverend richter with us this evening let oh god of one creation source of eternal hope and love we pray this day for the newly elected leadership in our nation and for all who govern in the interconnected nations and states and cities of the world as we move forward from election day may we place our full attention on serving the greater good of our community this evening we pray that this council governed by working from wisdom wisdom from open minds and hearts wisdom from facts and figures wisdom from knowing the community that they serve we pray this citizens and office holders from all neighborhoods as people of good will commit to working for the prospering of the whole city and always may we trust one another to work together in hope for a brighter tomorrow in your infinite love guide us in your ways of compassion grant us courage and strength for the challenges we face we pray this in the many names by which you were known amen with regards to waterfront zoning historic district review five thirty four kings road and technical corrections to the zoning ordinance ok i have one person signed up for this hearing is that is mary della sondra to approve all of the minutes communications and petitions communications presented to the city council for monday november thirteenth from the mayor of veto of ordinance two zero one two approving and adopting the operating budget for two thousand and thirteen and a letter stating his objections from the mayor a list of appointments dated november thirteenth two thousand and twelve from the director of water and waste water a letter recommending the award of the maintenance of the roof said rice road water pump station bass bit an alternate one into to mid state industries ltd of schenectady new york in the amount of thirty one thousand six hundred eleven dollars under general communications there are nine hundred petitions from the schenectady a r c self advocacy groups say r c speaks out a petition signed by fifty eight people requesting repair of the sidewalks in the area of state and south ferry streets appointments to the land bank property disposition committee and this this is set up to help plan strategically for the land banks operation the bylaws require create creation of a property disposition committee the committee helps guide the board's acquisition and disposition of property they will help develop strategies but not be involved in each individual decision the council does get to appoint six people now the mayor will appoint three in the conversation a number of names are presented to us a but we agreed that we would like to give this another couple of weeks in case people out in the community might have an interest in serving on this and if they do i would just ask that they get me their name and brief biographical information within this next week because we will revisit this in the next committee cycle so again anyone who might have an interest in this just please contact me through the clerk's office thank you so our i just want to speak to our agenda that has been moved to the consent agenda at this point for passing later in the meeting genda for those who may not have seen a cut the committee meeting is legislation that is kind of stuck at the state level right now that adds transgender to a protected class which is currently not the situation this is particularly near and dear to my heart because i have a stepson who is transgender chris who is here tonight i'm really happy that he's here and so i'm thankful to my colleagues i'm thankful peak to people at schenectady county human rights commission for lobbying to have this passed at the state level because i'm certainly we want all of our citizens not just some of our citizens protected from discrimination so i know that there are some people in the audience that will speak a little more eloquently to it during the legislative agenda but i  folks there's a couple living options we have at this point one is to override the mayor's veto one is to reconvene other council meeting or another committee cycle and come up in there seems to be some interest in overriding the veto and there is some interest and have been for the discussions and communications with the mayor's office city finance cities are are facing right now so i would i'm not sure if you're asking for a motion at this time but i would be willing to make a motion i am going to ask for a motion but not at this time right when we get ready to do the a legislative agenda ok seeing now and then i'll move committee reports closed and move to privilege of the floor on the legislative agenda and the first person i have signed up i are asking good evening mayor council president city council members we are asking tonight for this body provide leadership on the most pressing civil rights issue facing the lesbian gay bisexual and transgender community at this time each and every day right here in the city of schenectady trans gender in gender nonconforming residents remain at risk of discrimination in employment housing public accommodations including health care because they have the courage to be who they are the city and county of schenectady are under the auspices of the new york state human rights law by taking a supportive and affirmative step to support the passage of gender or the gender expression on discrimination act this body sends has an opportunity to send a loud and clear message this the time is now to add gender identity and expression to the protected list of classes under the new york state human rights law on behalf of the schenectady county human rights t committee thank you for taking the time to to discuss and vote on this important step which will help to inform our legislators on the state level in the words of our forty fourth president of the united states i think what you're seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the american people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers our sisters our children our cousins our friends our coworkers and that they've got to be treated like every other american thank you very much for your time thank you for your comments joyce which good evening my name is mary mcclain i live in the city i'm going to talk about two items tonight number mine and number four number nine maintenance of the roof of the water pump station council wants to spend thirty one thousand six hundred and eleven dollars to repair two roofs that are fifteen years old in order to keep the city should remove the old roofs completely and replace them with new once what happened since three years with the  chamber i have expertise on this topic i did an oral exam for my oral for my abnormal psychology class that the male female or female to male sex change involves a private surgical procedure the topic of trance central set transsexuals has no place in this chamber my research did not indicate there was discrimination against those who underwent the operation i found there was an element of curiosity the general public and a sense of urgency from the medical community that wanted to perfect the percy chair in order to prepare rooms on soldiers coming back from the second world war a sex trade interests a private issue putting the topic on a council of judge agenda is a stretch it doesn't belong here thank you have no one else signed up for the legislative agenda next we'll move on to the council's consent agenda for this evening there are no items on here and see the need for roll calls i would ask for a motion to move the consent we talked about just a few moments ago i'd like to put forth a motion that the council override the mayor's veto of the budget that we passed for time ago  king i have some concerns about this which is not to say that i want the mayor's budget to stand as it was originally presented but i know we have thirty days before we have to make a decision you know on of overriding his veto some of the information that has come out since we made the changes to the budget concerns me that we're being irresponsible to many cuts that you know were ground running the risk of major layoffs in the city were running the risks of cuts in species serious regular services that people have come to count on my preference would be that we not take action tonight and that we put it back in committee next week and then go through and see if we can come up with a compromise of you know some senate where we can put some monies back and yet still keep the tax rate lower than the four point whatever percent it was so i too feel as if we should override the veto this does not mean that we don't want to work with the mayor and that we don't want to continue to look at the mayor's concerns in the financial commissioner's concerns but i do feel like we work very very hard along with mr brady at the table for every open budget meeting of which there were i think eight or nine of them including the final budget meeting where we asked for his recommendations and concurred with them although not quite as deep as he suggested which we're thankful for because right now we have the possibility of having made cuts a little too deeply which we have to go back and look at but because the council is overriding this budget does not mean the council does not want to work with the mayor the council just feels as if we've made groundbreaking changes that we need to con r yes i'd like to say that we have taken and we took a lot of time looking at the budget and as a council we feel that we did a good job i understand there's some concerns from the finance committee from the mayor that you know that things aren't going to work out well and we're going to run out of money sometime early earlier than the end of next year however one of the things that we discussed in putting the budget together is that as we go in through the year like quarterly we will take a look at the budget and see where we are and make amendments as we needed to so having taken that in consideration that yes this is groundbreaking and we're making cuts that have not been made before you know we're we're going to monitor that so that we don't end up at the end of the year looking at the budget saying oh you know we have more year left than we have money so you know we did a lot of work we feel like we've done a really just job working with the finance committee on this and taking a lot of what she had to say into it and bringing it to us and explaining it to us we took all that into consideration in terms of coming up with his budget so i would agree with that we would override that and then take a look and make any amendments that we needed to made after or after the budget comes back to us you agree with a lot of things are said here you know i think set some of the things that we did in this budget we cut a little bit further the mayor made some significant cuts to spending our problem is back to the is a revenue issue our revenues are decreasing and our expenses of course there's always upward pressure on expenses with inflation as the earth rotates things get more expensive but he cut quite a few things out we made additional cuts and i think those cuts are difficult i think the what cuts of the mayor made the cuts that we made there are all things that we wish we didn't have to cut because of in the day that cut the quality of services we're able to provide and we're trying to maintain those services as leanly as we possibly can  one of the things i feel was really important in the way that we constructed this budget or amended the mayor's budget is that we set some money aside in these contingency accounts and so from what i understand and maybe  some of the discussions will have next cycle will be more legal luan says in terms of or financial nuances in terms of one of those accounts called what can they be used for things like that so are they surely set  so we've got some discussions to do and i think that we all agreed when we were at least most of us agreed when we passed the the budget that this would be a constant going back and reviewing the throughout the year not just pay one time we're done let's move on to this another stuff and let the mayor deal with it this is a team effort we'll be working alongside of the mayor for the rest of the year to make sure we get through this situation some of the things i'm concerned with is that we follow the proper protocol and procedure and in terms of passing legislation we were all part time folks here and we're trying our best to make sure that we understand the nuances of passing legislation so you know if we step off the line in terms of what we need to do in passing this i hope that our cooperation council be there to to keep us on track in with that idea kind of asking for your nod or approval that we are administration have a mutual goal and that mutual goal is not only strengthening the physical piece of the city of schenectady but certainly making sure that our tax payers in our residents of the city of schenectady are also sound and that's something that i believe we share a mutual goal and i would have to say though at this point we're just looking at a different route in doing that this in no means and we've had extensive conversations with the administration with our mayor with the council members regarding this procedure and how to go about it and i believe that the time that we spent on the budget also listening to our fiscal administrators talking to us letting us know that we were in feel that we are on solid ground with this budget that being said certainly and i have heard it all from my council members and i certainly want to assure the mayor that we as a council myself as the council president certainly stand ready to work with the mayor and his administration again to make a sure that our our mutual goal everyone's goal probably in this room in the reason that we all do this is to make sure that we make our city of schenectady a better place and a better place for people to live i believe that the fiscal monitoring of this budget certainly is  basis probably on a monthly but starting out even as a bi weekly as we meet in our finance committee in our other committees this is something that we cannot lose sight of it's just that important so certainly without being said and expressing these concerns and expressing my confidence that the council has done their job and has done their job diligently  his retirement of him first and to greatly appreciate that it was very well received and i thank you for that he will be missed he's served this community for twenty nine years he has not often at all been to this rail but also he has been very active in various parts of the community and so we will miss him secondly as our reverend richter knows the thanksgiving service all are invited to it's a community thanksgiving service perhaps others will announce it the clergy associat others are hosting it this coming sunday at five p m at the first reform church it's in jest thanksgiving service but you're encouraged to get tickets ahead of time but will be very probably very different and distinct and i think a very good  thanksgiving service and all are are welcome to attend on the community side want to thank members for opening up of potential looking at members for the land bank as a very important committee as one who who are on that would be happy to share with members of this new committee what is he went through or not you have to do it that way but we certainly have some experience that may be relevant and appreciate your openness to consider others for that import committee of finally there's obviously a concern or community about gun violence and what can be addressed i know various people are doing various things i just were encouraged to council take a look at what some other communities have done and a couple years ago i provided material the cycle of violence by looking at a more therapeutic model and i'm not sure they've been able to implement fully what they hope to do but they do have a pattern that we could utilize and leapfrog some of the stuff because many people have looked at this very serious issue it's a very serious concern our community there are no simple solutions unfortunately but i think if people pull together the some of the issues can be addressed and some of the effects can be ameliorated and then people can also be in to look at some of the underlying woman on a me on a different subject side but i guess that selling the city sales tax to the county really came back a bit as a little bit but besides that i spoke with the mirror one meeting at a place shop somewhere i don't recall where but this was late august into september they dumped to ask what to do whatever they dug up on the middle of the street if you look at the pitcher and you walk into come center reporter if you remove the dirt i have extra friends be more than glad to put a fence up because it's just it's sad that when you turn onto that street there's no fences on the lot there that the city owns there's no sidewalks there's no drainage there's no sewage there's nothing and it's really sad because you're going to spend thirty one thousand dollars on repairing roof but you can spend ten dollars now to i'm just guessing ten thousand dollars a person curves in a fixed history i mean you talk about quality of life and you want people to take appeal to the neighborhood what do you expect you want to get back what you put in council members did a great job in fixing this budget and when you do something good i will say do something good but we have to think about the seniors this budget cannot go higher than this we have to think about seniors who live on a fixed income that's all and i we need to do think about the seniors thank you good evening mayor and the city council members my name is chris morris i remember a slick schenectady landlords influencing change we want to point out that we come to you tonight in the spirit of cooperation and concern but we see  landlords and landlord agents what we see is a rental system that is very conflicted is going to be we have tenets versus landlords we have landlords versus the city schenectady seeks to grow and prosper we all we all want people to come to this community to live and work we want to encourage businesses to invest here however the multitude of challenges in the landlord business in schenectady tends to do just the opposite more and more landlords are giving up on their properties either attempting to sell or just walking away those wishing to invest to learn of the difficulties in our city choose to go elsewhere they do not want to deal with the problems even the court in the addition system here seems to cater to the derelict tenet at the expense of the landlord we seek accountability on all sides as a cohesive group facing these challenges we are committed to working with the city to help make changes that will ensure a more positive acceptable approach to the business of rentals and stimulate growth and prosperity in schenectady following are a few of the changes we are proposing particularly in the area of code enforcement number one no inspection is for owner occupied properties of up to three units as these properties are not classified commercial number two reinstatement of the twenty five dollar inspection fee with no charge for inspection for these minor repairs rental certificates should not be denied for cosmetic issues only for safety issues calls to conan foresman from dysfunctional tenant should be referred back to the landlords to be of these are really tenant landlord issues and we'd like to see any will trade for code enforcement officers to include a focus on verbal communication skills and legal boundaries when dealing with landlords and their ten we ask for the implementation of the already planned housing standards review board and asked that two of its appointed members be from our landlord group again we believe that positive change will help create a more reasonable equitable rental system is connected to a system that will not discourage but instead will encourage investment in schenectady future and thank you thank you currently the city's rental certificate ordinance applies to buildings with two or more rental units each rental unit is supposed to be inspected before every new tenant moves in when a rental certificate is granted no further inspection is required until there is a change of tenancy recently it has been proposed that there be a yearly inspection of every rental unit in schenectady this proposal would mean that the cost of the inspection for each rental unit every year would be fifty dollars and in the event the rental unit should fail the inspection for whatever reason there would be an additional twenty five dollars reinspection fee after further necessary repairs were completed our landlord's group objects to these proposed increases in fees and the frequency of rental certificate inspections put together with the schenectady county increase in proper taxes the increase in city property taxes and the increase in garbage fees schenectady is becoming an undesirable place for landlords and investors to do business these increases will affect our rental business in a negative way and will force many landlords to increase their rents ultimately this will make it more difficult for skin that to the tenants as well we feel the basic inspection fee should be no more than twenty five dollars with no further charges for the reinspection code enforcement has further proposed that they inspect all rental units in owner occupied properties these are mostly two or three family homes we believe that inspections should not be required for owner occupied properties up to three units these properties are not considered commercial in nature they are classified by the city assessor as residential properties we want to emphasize that no inspection of property can take place by law without the owner's consent if the owner does not consent to the inspection of his property code enforcement must then get a warrant signed by a judge to enter said property use when i need you to summarize please this is it ok increasingly more landlords are becoming informed to their constitutional fourth amendment right to be free from illegal search and seizure and realize that they are not automatically obligated to consent to the inspection of their rental property thank you thank you ma'am a good evening my name is mohammed happens and i live is connected i'm also a landlord and i belong to live in those groups i'm going to talk about almost the same points that julie just mentioned but let me just start with the rental certificate by landlord is around twenty five percent for the approximate ten thousand units it's connected in the interests of increasing income for the city the building inspector has proposed the hiring of additional quarter foresman officers to do is factions on a  basis has been proposed that called offices where they inspect the thousand units per year accordingly ten court offices would be needed to cover all ten thousand units we believe that these proposals impractical and costly to the taxpayers most landlords do not comply because they believe that the law is on their side and opening their properties for inspection is a violation of their constitutional rights the new proposer will only a city's financial problems because of the hiring of a new employees and paying of their salaries and benefits the strip proposal out taxing to landlords and may result in the abandonment of properties by their own as a bandage more city properties will all increase blight and increase the city's tax revenue therefore we suggest that city council does not vote for the proposed changes to the ordinance or hiring new quarter force one officer instead the city should negotiate with landlords  agreement whereby specially can be done for those landlords who wish to voluntarily participate and open their properties for inspection thank you very much thank  sixty eight of the current city connected eco calls for creating the housing standards a review board to entertain appeals from violations issued by the building inspector and his representatives including the denial and revocation of rental certificates there was no board appointed by mayor bryan stratton and there still is no board of appointed by the current mayor or land landlord's group calls for the creation of the appeals board which according to the city code book consists of five members and we we request that two members of our group be appointed to the board and that group is the schenectady select i'm sorry to ensure landlords viewpoint is being considered in all board decisions according to the code book the board holds public hearings to review the submitted appeals and has such power as modifying or withdrawing the notice the violation issued by the building inspector or cordon foresman officer we believe that the existence of such board is essential as it will be as it will mediate resolve many disputes that take place between property owners and code enforcement officers furthermore serving as an intermediate step it will save the city the cost of defending many legal claims before they go to court thank you thank you numb a landlord in the city and have been for over twenty five years i would like to summarize with this group and this group that i belong to schenectady new landlords influencing changes is really a positive thing here in the city i think one thing that we never once on the same page was yes we need to get owner occupied properties in the city but it is not going to happen unless we improve the quality ridiculous the city in my opinion right now is in the worst shape it's ever been i really feel that  with so i've totally on board with forming this housing committee i think i can call me i'm willing to come down in volunteer my time but we need to reach out to the residents of th city to get ideas from them but we've got to get people to come back here live in the city but we have all these scousers we foreclosed on and it's not nothing's going to happen until people want to come back here and live in the city so th oh i have to thank you you know you can reach out to me any time i'm willing to come down here and volunteer throw some ideas around but there are good landlords in this city they're not all bad landlords and i think the city to work more with the landlords and in not label everyone is saying because it's ridiculous so i you know i want to see things in through here i really do love this city truly and i want to see things get i have one more person signed up from your organization come on up sir i'm sorry i couldn't read this first name m dari obviously i can't see either can't read can't see tonight that evening manager here mayor mccarthy he pronounced name for me well ok ok so anyway i'm i'm actually here on behalf of the gaieties community in schenectady but i'm also a landlord in schenectady a i have secondary residence here so and i also pay taxes so my taxes across my five properties is over forty thousand dollars and my true love connected and i i was excited when i purchased my property five years ago but today i'm actually here to present to you the complaints that the guy and his community have no one's here from guyana because they have a holiday today so that's why they're not here so i'm just going to read here the excerpt from what they're communicating to this council because they're looking for change and one of the their major concern there a major contributor to the city they feel that they've suffered in the past from what they feel is by its treatment from some code officers who unfairly apply the city building code against the guy and he's landlords this is their words ok i haven't experienced that in their stead but i'm pretty confident based on some conversations i've had with them i understand what they're saying it is common knowledge that the guy  community works diligently to improve their properties whether owner occupied or rental most of them feel that the let that as landlords they perform the work inside their properties themselves they feel that code enforcement has a ras are these landlords by requiring permits to redo work that has already been completed by the property owner it is their opinion that code enforcement simply cannot gana guarantee that no officer will ever appear to be biased in his dealings with their community community having a number of different colored officers the application of building code standards tends to vary it has been reported that some landlords of different racial backgrounds have felt bias and unfair treatment in their dealings with code enforcement they're looking to move from a subjective to a more objective enforcement of the building code they wanted to be consistent it caught officer m more readily deny a rental certificate to a landlord who he might have a problem with and he could easily find a justification in the building code for unfair actions resulting in a complaint of discrimination in the enforcement of a city ordinance are requesting that a board be implemented to address their complaints they feel that one way to avert these issues is to have the of the option to present them to a housing standards review board designed to look into these complaints and they have this board would work to resolve disputes between the landlords and the gaieties landlords and code enforcement before they wind up in court and become costly and so i just wanted to somehow by saying that after reading this i did speak to them and i can say that alienation is a major risk right because i see some areas where the guy needs have invested and they've done some some really good upgrade to the properties around and he just summarize ok so in summation ok i have a petition on line and also some people signed here and you already voted to override the veto but i want to read it because i want to give the people thanks for signing the petition the petition we already pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation we have the highest crime rate per capita in new york state while millions of dollars are pumped into downtown our neighborhoods are deteriorating our houses are extremely over sassed due to the overabundance of non profits in our city the homeowners are being burdened with yet another tax increase in regard to tree increase people are trying to sell their homes to there are no jobs here because there are no retail stores businesses are closing we as citizens of the city schenectady asset the city council override their mirrors and put a stop to higher taxes the citizens especially the elderly and those homeowners of fixed incomes are suffering and it's time for the city council to do their job and work for the citizens as they were elected to do s events cost anywhere minimum seven thousand up to thirteen thousand per night that's on weekends in the paper and i'm getting my paper reset here  fix other sidewalks in curbs nothing gets done you don't have control in this city i don't know who's running the city but our city council in our marriage doesn't run it you can fire people that speak up you can do things but you cannot to have a meeting with all the city council members is wrong i to plan increases that should all be included in our taxes we can even declare it as a property owner something's wrong here and it's up to you people to fix it or get out of office four year contract is good enough for the present united states it should be good enough for here for you to for your terms in office here is what we need we need a change we need people  and to taxpayers that tbilisi building down on broadway you're going to have the why move in and how many storms have been written against mr gleason for broken windows and a and a shabby looking piece of property there i'd like to know how many you've written compared to a pretty sad here in the city and it's time to get off your duff and take control of this city and and run it the way it should be run and stick up for the citizens was my next door neighbor i have seen some very very sad things going on here when we first moved here our garbage trucks were included as a factor in our taxes so we were paying for  privatized garbage collection it works it works everywhere else now i don't think yelling is necessarily the right way i'm upset about a lot of things with the city council i want you to think about some things expenses are the problem now maybe you can increase revenue some of ways but being repressive see when you increase taxes people have less increasing taxes now with median income down forty three hundred dollars per household in america is wrong see a moral which we don't because it's not there i go to the gas pump it's over four dollars a gallon why did we go to the gulf back in ninety one the saudis should be providing us each our own oil wells for just  reason we forty eight seconds left i want you to think about you can curb expenses you can cut expenses and you can eliminate some totally with respect to the police department i want you to consider this show what a lot of patrol officers have told me that it's very top heavy i don't see the union giving back anything or no why do you choose union had your back a whole bunch of stuff i also know that unions at the state level had to as well streamline the police department to make it more effective to get those guys out a part get a walking on hamilton hill and good evening thank you for having me here i'm here because i'm very excited this sunday we are having our ninth city wide open house it will be sunday the eighteenth and it'll start with a press conference and kate a list of open houses for that day along with banking information will be available for anyone who is there but it really does not start there a prelude show in conjunction with the city open house and it was so well attended we have not stopped planning and creating interests and it has paid off to date key to the city key bank has ninety five closed loans since the onset of this program over a thousand inquiries and eighty active loans pending right now when i was here last i spoke to you about the city wide open houses which was through mayor mccarthy's initiatives constant participation along with the hard work of commitment to revitalize our neighborhoods has grown to also include philip morris proctors home depot c d t a restoration jamie for our regional director of hud and creating why media in addition there are two subcommittees which are task force committees jo reed hammer from key banc chairs the financial committee who include bank of america prospect lending homestead n b g bank and citizens bank mike marigot so who's president of the north and business association and religion from the great restoration we're planning a realtor day and event in the city a day day of education for  realtors about selling real estate in schenectady followed by a tour the key to the city program with all its growing partners continues to grow i will pursue the quest of revitalizing our neighborhoods in addition the program is enabling the city property disposition committee to make it more seamless for people to purchase a city owned property i invite all of the city council to come this sunday and participate i do have a revised cost comparison with living in schenectady which still states by this example that living in schenectady is still less expensive than any other surrounding areas and i did just speak to someone at the bank and whatever people i came to schenectady because my wife lived here and she loved the city and wanted good things to happen here i came from colony and  since we've been here for over twenty years it really hasn't gotten any better it's gotten worse we do what we can to help things along but i do commend the  include raising property taxes of the two percent cap so called that was instituted through the state is really a joke because it can be overridden by the county at any time so i just want to make sure that they really think about what's good for the city and what's best for the people who live here because if they don't it's going to continue to get worse and it's just going to drive people away thank you thank you concern to me not only with proposed budget a four point one percent tax increase the video of the council's revised budget of one point seven percent tax increase the termination of jason cuthbert and the ultimate exclusion of labeled caucus meetings by the way four thousand three hundred seventeen schenectady voters place mr ready in that chair and you have no right to take that actions of the democrats on this council are killing any shred of decency and democracy the city has left instead of playing party politics you need to realize that this taxpayers of the city should not continue to suffer because egos are running poli you need to leave your pride at the door and start doing the right thing for the taxpayers the fact is every time you raise taxes which is more than surrounding towns and counties you force prospective buyers to go elsewhere you force current homeowners to at least you did right by the taxpayers and you placed our needs first and you can always amend the budget was always an option the good thing about tammany hall was that my favorite president f d r took down boss tweed and replaced hardworking independent councilman who could be in charge to run the city based on sound business principles and return the morality back to the city hope you do that on purpose that steroids ok thank you i'm just i'm a plumber in the city schenectady all my own business for sixteen or seventeen years i've been working in the city for over thirty years and my concern is with the articles i've read in the paper about the city wanting to water services for the residential housing i believe that the numbers that they're using are inflated for any  never done work at the cost that they're using and i believe the city is just going to mask additional costs to the taxpayers to observations jason burke is not a rabble rouser on the contrary he is a very low key the city has done and justice to this young man and the and justice must be corrected the youth of the city cannot be left with the impression that if they are own honest assess integrity are educated have valuable skills and so forth there is no place for them on schenectady workforce at the last council meeting two children spoke at this podium as they spoke i couldn't help to think there are the  hertz of the future they saw a problem and spoke up jason cuts bird also saw a problem and wanted to full benefits and all other interrupted service thank you heart city council meeting the last city council meeting and i spoke about the parcel of land that mr paul stor is interested in selling to michael marsh a former city employee mr poster was asked a question at the meeting a direct question as to whether or not michael march was going to testify in an upcoming and upcoming lawsuit that i have against the city mr pollster stated no michael march was not going to testify since that time i got a e mail from another attorney with the city gillum owes us who contradicted what mr pollster told the city council three weeks ago mr poster has not responded to my e mail seeking any kind of explanation and i had  raised the question at the time whether mr march was being offered a deal to testify in exchange for a deal with the city i think the fact that mr pollster misrepresented the situation he gave the direct false and misleading statement to the city council he has not explained to them at all i think that that leaves the question wide open as to what reasons mr pollster has for not being to react in forthcoming and open and i think it implies that there is indeed a quid pro quo deal between mr pollster and mr michael march who was a city code enforcement officer before he got in trouble by soliciting a prostitute and no longer works for the city i would also like to question as to why mr michael march was ever hired as a code enforcement officer with the city here's a police report about mr michael marsh a from the papers where it was quoted that he was arrested on charges of discharging firearms within the city limits after police surrounded his home where neighbors reported hearing shots being fired officers were called to his house in the woodland section of the city after nine pm when neighbors reported hearing an argument in sounds of breaking glass when officers arrived they heard the gunshots neighbors had also called the police to report gunfire coming from the rear of mr marsh a shard when police arrived at his house the police arjan involved heard the shots being fired he did not know where the shots were coming from or who was shooting police were able to get mr marsh a armed with a twelve gauge shotgun and a thirty thirty and a twenty two caliber rifle to surrender shortly after they survived arrived a witness the writing near his bike nearby heard someone yelling at a car crashing through something he heard a woman screaming to another man get in the car he's got a gun and saw that the car with the woman in it  any policies or procedures to train their employees we haven't had a meeting in three weeks and some of the things are in the paper really bug me i know what a secret is if i grab one you people want the whole way i don't want anybody else to he if you're going to have a caucus and leave one person i know you had one person that was appointed that went to that caucus because she was a democrat ok but then they're saying that a secret meeting is that if no one knows about the meeting and we have a that's a secret meeting well you had one last night and it's a secret meeting but they call it a caucus so what i'm getting at is if this person is sitting in there you don't like what he says just tell him we don't like what you say but let the person be there to know what's going on him i voted for him and i voted for some you other people that are sitting here so it's not that i just voted for him it's just the idea that i cannot see it and another thing was brought up a couple  weeks ago they brought the commissioners name up that we were thinking of get rid of them now here's a man that straightened out the police department we paid the president of the union to work five days a year we're paying to get these people off the street that are bad two hundred sixty eight thousand for the last one million and a half or five before the police that we had to go through arbitration and everything it cost that kind of money now the man is trying to do the best he can and he straightened a lot of it out in the city here but police if you're going to have hearings on these budgets again please include all six of you if you point someone all seven of you please thank you that really writing things down and read them because i'm horrible at it but i would like you know everything that i say here tonight at the rail to be duly noted in its entirety and if anything that i say is left out and not fully transcribed to the i'm speaking about and i want somebody to be able to investigate and go back and see exactly was said you know maybe even you know put some facial expressions and whatnot on the differ interruptions i have to go through broker but i just basically  i'm not going to read this thing once again this is the botcher real cynical opportunism that you guys call your government here is ridiculous i've told you guys about all this money that gets spent in just shuffled around dover now lawsuits i filled out a full request just to see like you know some sort of figure of how much money has been spent on defense attorneys settlements and everything in they they want to down payment of thousands of dollars to even begin processing this so you know what that means that means that's a lot of paperwork and that's a lot of money if you think it was a bunch of money to just get these bad officers out here and cleaning up the police department is pleased to come has never been cleaned up they're just getting smarter and more effective silencing people in just  you know doing damage control like i mean i was beaten like and i'm just i'm just still trying to come here and talk to you guys like a broken record to help me and my cries are falling upon death ears that's criminal that's criminal and as far as secret meetings how can anything be secret when you guys are elected to serve the public there should be no in secret bottom line nothing should be secret i mean what you guys are privy to some information you have some innate ability to just like shuffle everything and let the chips fall in place i doubt that all right mr rigby i really do like your energy and stuff cheer up i don't know what you go into in life but you know cheer up there because i really do like you know you do have like a sincere intention but on i got to say like you know you know we've all routinely accepted and allowed authorities and officials to abuse their power violate our rights and break laws themselves without being held accountable or again and he cautions and waste our time and money you know and you look at charlie rangle e holder nancy pelosi you know i mean all these guys they get away with it all the time but let your kid get in trouble stealing a candy bar he'll be prosecuted to full strength of law and brought in bring some revenue in for the city but when we got guys that are saved me in with people like you know all mr mccarthy if you want to know what drives me it's not mental health issues it's the american spirit you know sometimes it's the holy spirit for people it's the american spirit for me and that's why no matter what i get and i do respect  i wasn't trying to you know i know i know hold on please let me say this i do respect you i was in china label you as somebody that was trying to basically you know shirk my attention and whatnot it's just that i really have been coming here and i don't long hospitalization just because i'm an elaborate person that can effectively bring the intricacies of what these police do to people in the money that is spent it's insane somebody needs help me i'm not going to keep coming in here look at my neck i'm red and purple i feel like i'm  k i just want to give you an update on savage new york which is a statewide automated victim's notification network and that is to assist domestic violence victims across the state soon they will be able to receive a it's been proven that the highest risk time or the hours and days immediately following when an order of protection is issued this is a pilot program and it's covered through grant funding at the federal level and it will allow the family court judge who grants the order of protection signed up for savin and get notification via text message e mail automated phone call or fax as to the process in which their saillant is going through when they're released things of that nature so if anyone needs more information on that they can contact me and i can offer that to them secondly my crusade regarding recycling we have a lot of people come to the rail talk about cost to the city talk about revenue to the city and yet i leave my home in the morning and drive down the street and see many of my neighbors that do not recycle which is a direct revenue stream to the city and our moral obligation to our world so i just want to remind everyone that you need all you need is two  containers they don't need just two plastic containers we have free stickers here at city hall one for paper products and then you can comingle tin aluminum glass bottles jars plastic jugs milk cartons drink boxes  again this is revenue to the city and it is the duty of all of us to recycle not only for the city's sake but also for our environment so i would  strongly urge my neighbors as well as my fellow citizens to do so again and be happy to deliver stickers to anyone's house that they'd like finally i believe it is the duty of every citizen to protect one another's human beings and that that belongs every where our thank you to my colleagues tonight  passing supporting legislation to encourage this state to pass legislation to protect all of our citizens and it is most certainly appropriate for us to take that action i am proud of my colleagues and i thank you thank you anyone else down tonight to express their concerns about many things in the city about the budget which as we said before will continue to work on i especially want to thank the people from slick that came down to talk about  their concerns as landlords working together to influence change i think i firmly believe in community engagement so it's really it's really nice to see a group that sees the problem and comes together to work on it to bring a solution and that's what we'd like to see it would like to see more of in the city i'd certainly like to meet with them at some point and to you know we may not be able to do everything that everyone wants but you know we can talk about what needs to happen we can you know come to a meeting place in the middle so i want to  say thank you to this group for bringing this to these things to our attention and when a group of individuals they can also work together like that they can also police people who belong to their group who may not be doing the same things something we may not necessarily do to be two hours in length it's going to be in the main sanctuary we've got some wonderful schenectady musicians and we all know jazz in the city is just terrific but we've got nat phipps we've got  to know there's there's probably about fifteen or eighteen musicians i think that are going to be playing so and it's an interfaith service so i encourage anybody who's interested the tickets are ten dollars ahead of time twelve dollars at the door so you know reasonable and it just is a lot of fun we did this last year and is that i really encourage folks to come down for it  deliberations all the hearings going to all the department heads but it's not unlike that when you're on a team and you work out with the team you do all your cows statics you run your laps you take batting practice you feel fly balls but then when it comes time for the game you're on the bench you know and there's just the legality wise i understand that but there's always spirits to every rule that's out there is that the true spirit of the rule i think not i want to be part of talking about what's going to go want to make changes in the budget i don't think there's anything wrong with that i don't think i would have heard anything that would have made any big difference is and obviously you could do what you want without taking any heed from what i have to say so i just again i just want i don't want to make it's not a the end of the world or anything but i am here to represent the people you know just like we all are in the room i have to be involved you know it's just that part of it it's been a tough couple of weeks for me because of this and i have to say that because that's from the bottom of my heart i work hard for the city council and for the city of schenectady and i just asking to be part of the that like i said what bothers me is yes i was part of all going to all the meetings like you all were but it's kind of lousy what happened after that i have to say that because that's the way feel about it i'm glad the ideas that were brought forth were considered and taken into consideration and eventually were voted on but again there's things that happened there when you're talking amongst yourselves that i don't hear i don't really know who was cut out of the budget who wasn't cut out of the budget i had to find out by looking through the amendments that were made so anyhow i'm just here to be part of the city council and you know  don't all agree on everything obviously and that's what makes a good that's the good part of it so i'd like to be part of the hundred percent part of the city council that's what i asked for thank you landlords can help i think that every vibrant growing good city needs good quality rental property and we have that problem of you know some of it's good and some of it's bad and  so asking the landlords in this group seem to be an organized bunch of people who have the passion for making strategy a better place let them come up with some of the solutions that for one i think will get better solutions and t gentleman who came up and talked about the laterals was a plumber in the city and talked about the estimates that were provided to the council now you know we're vital information and sometimes we feel you know i feel our estimates are good some times are not good so there's a plumber out there who who would like to give me some averages in terms of how much it cost to replace laterals i would be welcome to get some e mails on that at least understand from a different perspective meetings there's been a lot of i guess discussion let's say about whether mr regie comes to our meetings he doesn't come to meetings which meetings he's invited to i think it's it's kind of ironic that you know this is lucian's that we're going to find in our community are really going to come from communication we need to communicate more the more we talk to each other the more we brainstorm the more we you know get input from more sources the better solutions are to come up with when we're going over this budget as the chair of the finance committee i listen to just about everybody who i listen to every person on the council i listen to people from the public i listen to experts i listen to so called experts and i try to get as much input as i can process it and know disseminate across the council that i don't have a problem the mystery being in all our meetings interestingly enough if it's a meeting that is not announced with advance notice  which sometimes is not always possible mystery attending the meeting would actually make it in illegal meeting which you know is i guess an unfortunate circumstance of the law i mean i would propose in inviting you to every meeting we have whether this if you showed i think i would be breaking the law so i am not sure if we could invite you and then give you the notes of what happens i'm not sure there's an easy solution to that except for giving advance notice to every meeting we have now i had a lot of questions i'm struggling finding that balance between what's considered a caucus between democratic leaders or republican leaders or independent leaders and what is just a conversation you and i have had one on one meetings is that considered a caucus i don't know if they weren't invited so we're kind of in a funny situation i'm not sure if there's a clean solution to events but i think the more we communicate well i think  important to the public is that the voting is done in public and so at the end of the day whether i have a convert a conversation with one of the fellow council members or several of them we vote in the public hears our votes and they judge us based on that i think that's the most important thing so and if anybody ask me i'll tell you how i came to my decisions thank you very much mayor and president bush aide everybody coming down tonight been talking on a wide range of topics i appreciate the discussion and dialogue from the council that's gone on with the budget and as we continue to move forward in implementing a balanced unworkable financial plan for the city i think it's somewhat interesting today that the air controllers office released their stress analysis which  think does a fair summary of what's going on in city and even across the state schenectady is not in the horrendous shape that many people would like to talk about or project we are a urban area that has a number of fiscal problems but is the controller's report points out we've acted in a fairly prudent manner in dealing with that  out of it this year will we have the ability to sell those houses and other things to actually balance it and something the comptroller's office points out that want to make sure that we have the revenue to begin balance our expenses in schenectady he has our friends at the state level they also point out where we don't get our fair share of state aid when you look at other communities they get more money but our expenses are relatively the same of our sister cities across the state and as a result of that we're other communities get more state aid we don't get as much for their expenses are the same our property tax rates are higher and it's part of it and i'm going campaign that we have to continue to lobby and be more aggressive getting that message out to the state into seek equity in that you know we look at our friends within the community union college of fine institution gr organization but it has a very large net cost to the city and we do not get anything to offset that and it just becomes us a message of again fairness and equity and i look forward to working  council as we continue to analyze these things implement the programs that we need to continue to redevelop the community and create interest here and it's a very dull sandro pointed out that this saturday night is our forty fifth annual schenectady holiday parade it will strut state street down and approximately four o'clock in the parade will begin at five o'clock starting down at the community college coming up state street and then across lafayette street in the in the forecast for weather is for a cool evening but a pleasant evening so i hope everyone will be able to come out and enjoy the festivities and take advantage of the good things that are well organized developed landlord association and usually the way things happen are those individuals who organize and who pay attention and take care of their property are not the only on the words that are looking  through code enforcement to be find or anything like that it's it's more those landlords that we have in this city that are not taking care of their tenants that are not taking care of their property that make other people's property look blighted right along with theirs as well that lower property values and i appreciate you coming down and certainly giving us another side of that and knowing that we're certainly willing to work with you as well mr ricky want to dress you straight on i'm sorry that these last two weeks were stressful or sad for you but i think too that you know that if you reached out to any one of us we call you back we will talk with you in terms of the caucus it is what it is and you and i have had conversations about that you know we've you known and i've told you that we're going to caucus you're welcome to stay but it will be an illegal meeting you decided to leave which i don't blame you i wouldn't want to be put in that position either but  sometimes being the odd man out certainly has its advantages because you're your own person you don't have to answer to anybody you can and do and say whatever where whatever you feel and don't need to take other individuals sometimes into consideration it's a little bit different part of this is public service and let's face it let's call it what it is in part of it is a political party that's how people get elected and  you know maybe you want to talk to jim burm asked her over at the county because i know he feels a little left out as well sometimes but i don't think there's anybody i don't mean it that way i i am not meeting it that way i'm just trying to let you kno what my feeling is and also to let you know that you know if if we're all honest aroud take a look at yours ourselves you know very well that i don't think there's a person on this council that you haven't called that hasn't called you back or hasn't reached out to you when you reach out to them and if we haven't i can only speak for myself made more of an effort to do that but there are going to be times that we're not going to be able to agree