right i'd like to call the city council caucus meeting to order just a couple of announcements to begin with i'm actually going to be pulling several items off of the agenda to put them back in committee these would be items number  which is the city as board of ethics and in each case we either need to get a little bit more information or just need to to review a couple of things so i should also make  note this was going to be the night that the mayor was going to do his state of the city speech he has asked to postpone that for two weeks because he potentially may have more information to share with us then so we'll hold off on that for two weeks so back to the caucus so the first item we'll be looking at is item number three the clerk would read that agenda item number three in ordinance amending chapter one thirty eight of the administrative code of the city of schenectady regarding fence permits introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on monday february twenty fifth two thousand and thirteen at seven p m at cal's council chambers room two zero nine schenectady city hall one hundred five j street schenectady new york again discussed in committee without objection on consent item number five item number five an ordinance amending chapter two twenty eight of the administrative code of the city regarding paving permits introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on monday february twenty fifth two thousand and thirteen at seven p m at council chambers room two  nine one zero five j street schenectady new york again discussed in committee without objection on consent item number six item number six an ordinance to amend the fee structure for park billion rentals introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on monday february eleventh two thousand and thirteen at seven p m council chambers road two zero zero nine schenectady city hall  committee without objection on consent and you will note that we've tried to sort of spread these out a little bit so that we don't have all the hearings on one night's number seven item number seven a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into an number five seven three to zen for a sign encroaching on the city right of way at four sixty nine states street discussed in committee without objection on consent item nine item number nine a resolution authorizing the city to enter into a contract with disconnect diddy county department of social services for the purposes of receiving county funds to support child sexual abuse investigations discussed in committee without objection on consent item number  item number ten a resolution authorizing the city to commence the sale of a property located at eleven o eight albany street as part of the homes contractor program you know we had asked for more information which i know is just given out tonight but  item number twelve a resolution authorizing the settlement of a tax or surely concerning linux development l l c again discussed in committee without objection on consent item number thirteen a claim with richard steese for the amount of nine hundred twenty nine dollars and seventeen cents discussed in claims committee without objection on consent item number fourteen item number four resolution authorizing appointments to the city of schenectady is planning commission and just to make note that there was a correction on the original legislation so that it should officially say the planning commission i forget what it was before right this point that you want to take that out of order ok item number seventeen a resolution on honoring fire for i may ask us to hold this for two weeks i don't see krista here and i'm concerned that the weather could have impacted her ability to get here so we hold it in for two weeks item number eighteen a resolution recognizing the great contributions of david all liquor and congratulating him on his retirement this resolution will be presented to him at his retirement erickson seconds it so all in favor all right i will call to order the city council meeting for january twenty eighth unfortunately reverend adams who is supposed to be here is scott disick so we will not have an invocation will move to the pledge of allegiance i'll ask schroeder to lead us in that you we always have to remind people the cameras are on the side so you have for thank you a resolution to recognize vale cemetery as a member of the national park service underground railroad network to freedom for the burial site in the african american and sister burial ground whereas on seventeenth two thousand and twelve vail cemetery was added to the national park service underground railroad network to freedom in recognition of the moses viney burial site and the african american ancestral burial ground section of ale cemetery and whereas president not brought by his freedom after sending him to canada to escape say slave catchers and left him a bequest at his death and whereas moses viney invested the money and became a prosperous businessman and livery owner in schenectady and where as research by neil yet winds connected a high school history teacher uncovered the moses line the story and where is walter simpkins executive director of fathers community fathers incorporated transformed the sites which present winter by listing schenectady african american youth and mentors to do the landscaping and restoration and whereas the african american and burial ground is the site each year of the commemorating the emancipation proclamation whereas in vail cemetery the site in vail cemetery has become a resource to educate people on black history literature archaeology and to develop in them reverence for an african american contributions in history and their struggle for freedom and equality and i a destination for heritage tourism now and therefore be resolved that the city council in the member and the mayor of the city of laws and their deliberations to recognize bail cemetery as a member of the national park service underground railroad network t was there also to enter mz of dr mcavoy opening up for us to come there i think that i want to also mention the fact that we used to have disconnected the promises and that's when we began the cleaning up  m cemetery itself and that particular program that help us to get involved in our community was a very very important program that we dealt with also i'd like to think was our way in price chopper because every year they've donated all the fighting trees and anything that we needed to to make the grounds more beautiful than it was when we found it and i'd like to thank the city for its support in terms of what we've done thank you so much in the  school as well as the teachers we did a teacher's workshop last year and made the teachers from the obvious choice here there is a prices have read notice even exist in schenectady and mary mccarthy was there to give the opening marks to teachers over thirty teachers and so on we're going to do that again this year but this time with students only it's really been an honor for all of us to be involved in the work at a bill cemetery and you know all of us are always talking to our not our own peer group but younger people about the the value of bill cemetery  not just as a natural of the story treasure for the city of schenectady but also through it's going to be county the capital district and and nationally know that it's gotten this recognition so i want to thank everybody here for their support union college helped considerably professor last in the history department work for the student intern at the future and she really did the application and it went through the national park service so we have something to union college also right we have one public hearing which is on abandoning streets in the cheltenham avenue landfill and in the area between cal bergen steinmetz park i have no one signed up to speak on that public hearing so i will declare that public hearing closed and i'll move on to the approval of the minutes communications presented to the city council for monday january twenty eighth two thousand and thirteen from the mayor a list of appointments dated monday january twenty eighth two thousand and thirteen under general receipt of an american legion letter of thanks for running money received from the city of schenectady under petitions there are not ok thank you committee reports any committee reports now all right then i'll move on to privileges a floor related to the legislative agenda and i will entertain comments related to the items that i pulled two people have signed up reverend feel gr above particularly since the really you said today tried to say some things about the review board it's probably worth saying a few things i want to say two things joe first it's important to keep the board there is various talk about it not being needed because the city was no longer under federal review every committee needs such a board we need to because of the history here every system is watched gets better because they are in place things will get better or at least it is a helpful influence by its very existence even though it is the operating of the public limelight hopefully the board of the future can be strengthen secondly as a community historian and last one around to work with les commissioner charlie mills on setting this thing up i also would remind all of us that much of the reasons you're about difficulty with the boarding forms etc have been administrative issues they are often not problems with the ordinance itself without repeating issues in the past let me simply say that is if this administration is committed to act in a timely way and both resignations and new yeah the article today says members aren't showing up for monthly meetings forcing the board to cancel day after day i think there is one meeting in last year that was cancelled by lack of form that happened several years ago there's not a current issue the problem is going so bad the city council as we discussed have charges of we're not sure things are so bad it's a matter of of dating the ordinance with people who are on the board there's another reference to a council member i think will probably be clarified at some point what is helpful with the oracle says is reminding all of us an investigator was called upon to be hired at one point but there have been some blockages for that to occur and i hope that that could be rectified in the future secondly it's good to hear the police chief to weigh in on this because for such a board to function it really needs three bases of support it needs a police chief that he's a council and he's the mayor and i believe all the stars are aligned at this point to make this ineffectively function board i'm glad you brought up on the  decide to make reference to some of the things that were in the paper and our last meeting is the only meeting that we've been here we have been having for the whole time and as mr reverend rivers we said we do need to fill the vacancies have been made by a few of our members that left and i also would like to just figure out who's representing who so i can you know we help you know mayor who needs to be appointed right and there we also i have been good cooperation from the police department and we have worked very well with them and that was ok thank you very much all right i have and that was item number ten which is a resolution authorizing the city to commence the sale of a property located eleven o eight albany street as part of the homes contractor program would anyone like to speak to that now or do you want to discuss speak to it when we call your name pardon i'm happy to have this opportunity to actually express some things the holmes program is something that i think is wonderfully innovative and something that has extreme potential and that i believe in to benefit our city that being said there was a lot of publicity around our first homes project and it was stated that the council wouldn't have supported that person taking on the project as a general blanket statement by one of our council members and i want to clarify that i believe strongly that mr schilling and the mayor and the code's department has put in place a very safe and cerro program to protect the city of schenectady i realize that mr pappas had some a troubled background i don't believe that would hinder him from moving forward in life and going in a positive direction he was vetted both financially and there is a lot of safety nets along the way so the worst thing that could possibly have happened is that mr pappas started construction and was able unable to finish it and in that case the house would have been reverted to the city that being said it you know ended the way it ended and mr pappas didn't want to go forward and that's certainly his prerogative in this particular case we have another unique situation that's just barely outside of the guidelines of what was originally proposed i trust in the situation that once again mister  done the proper vetting in this process and i'm happy to support this moving forward and i'm happy to support this program in however i possibly can and i trust mr chilling to do the job in the follow through to protect the city and protect background of what happened prior to this for this particular one when it came before us there was no there was no backup legislation and for me that's extremely important too if i were asked to make a decision we need the information that goes along with it so i'm not basing this on the prior case but on its own merits which i think everything should be based on so fortunately we able to get it and mr schilling did explain everything about it but again what i asked for was that we actually get to see the back up of what what was being said actually in writing i believe a reasonable request we did get tonight and i vote and but what i would like to say that going forward as we go through this it is a new program these this is very new and we should be able to have that back up the information with the  legislation when we're asked to look to vote on it and so therefore we're able to make an informed decision that was what the taxpayers would expect of us so having gotten the information tonight and heading that an opportunity to read it before hand i will vote i am sludge solution but again in the future we'd like to be able to see it along with it when it comes to us in committee thank you have a good point mr archer to tag on to something that is process said you know i think for this this program the home program there is no typical me each one is going to be a unique situation with its own quirky set of circumstances so i think we have to be prepared for a lot of you just a bunch of one offs here so we've got to roll the punches we got to see you know each ones to be a little different we're going to figure out you know creative solutions to each one of these because they're not houses that you could just drive for sale sign on and someone can buy it move in the next day they need a lot of work and it's a unique program we have so i am in favor the program i think i think we're doing well in terms of coming up with them some cribs aleutians i'm in favor of this i just want to state i have always been in favor of this program then the mayor can say that i've been to all the most of the press conferences when i'm not in favor of his i'm not getting enough information i have to make decisions based on information this hand the to me just as a council meeting started is not good enough this was asked for by mr porterfield a week ago tonight we get it one minute before the meeting starts that doesn't cut it with me i have to make an informed decision on things that concern the city of schenectady has nothing to do with those poems program has nothing to do what mr schilling what i want to sin from ation i've been asking for this before and this information just is too little all right then we'll now move on to religion the floor regarding city issues i have three people who have signed up to speak donnie birch the first one hello everybody you know i've been thinking a lot about this three minutes here and you know keep it concise and when i'm i ramble on a little bit hopefully everybody cannot ascertain what i'm trying to say here but i've been doing a little bit of like research into a petition so you know i'm not  waste my breath down here with a lot of people because i'm seeing a lot of weakness and i say that you know respectfully but it is what it is like come on if an old man came in here and was like you know all i want to visit my brother in law in the old folks home he's be abuser overmedicating on this and that now we're here here in here and i went through the proper procedures and protocol to ensure oversight would be you know effective it hasn't worked and then they're asking you to help them and you basically turn a blind eye and tell  hallway that well what do you want me to do i mean you know i'm a city councilman a woman or whatever it's like c'mon you know you know oh my goodness i just i'm just like banging my head off the wall with commonsense type stuff i need help you know i got a bunch of on evidence to back me up even though you know i was ridiculed by mr mccarthy and one obviously we know i did that on another another note like i really really am still comprising in compiling evidence as far as these mechanisms and facets that i speak about within the procedures and protocols of you know this oversight this whole that you know the nature of the beast is in mazing so on going to hold that till the next time you know but on as today one of those mechanisms and facets is the issue with the minutes and i mean do you guys know what a minute is i'm not trying to be condescending do you know what a minute is a minute is a transcription that supposed to reflect what you say verbatim it's not a minute at all so you not vote on a city summary you know also vote on a summary list just basically minimize everything cut it out and just subtract all the intricacies in the value substance matter of what people are saying so then you know in lieu of people this you know i've been getting with along with a lot left and right my whole life my face is really red i'm really trying to you know engage everything professionally but somebody that is as well spoken as me going through all the channels with the knowledge that i have and getting absolutely nowhere just speaks in volume to anybody that would pursue and seek justice in our city and i'm talking about the circumvent you know the circumventing of anybody that tries to seek justice you know it's just crazy it's wild you will just basically get ran through a perpetual door and get nowhere i do want to say that you know i want to clarify something as far as corporation council this corporation council has been professional with me but the last corporation council john van norden hasn't done anything and i'll be back all right this is to be continued folks but i'm going to start manhandle people petitions we need to get an intelligence i know i'm going to wrap this up some summarizing now but we need to get a civilian intelligence we need to strap cameras on these cops heads we need to be able to have access via internet to see these cameras so neighborhood watch or people that are bored can space at least see what's going on take the time down that they see something going on index informative the f a a you know i mean you don't need people patrolling all the time if you want to make things available to ok thank you very much  aside perceive it first the mayor hired a new finance commissioner her salary is the same as the one  thousand dollar one time hiring bonus was all so offered to car because the poor thing stood to lose her union or mean high taxes for the rest of us one another item at the last council meeting a council member said he would go to the press who are transparenc let's look at one of the articles that has already been printed in the press this article states that the councilman cause a time when city in the family's ethical issue which involved sixty thousand dollars of taxpayers money where was the background check for this one regarding the consequently an innovative city project was aborted why didn't someone bother to find out why a wife wanted to rat on her husband was she told one more thing the democratic caucus if i were sitting in none of those council seats i would have pressed the issue it may be legal to caucus in new york state but the constitution doesn't mention democratic caucuses it does say representation to the people a duly elected official has the authority and the right to participate in all aspects of the political process i could go on and on with this report but my timeless up folks i don't make the negatives i just talk about them  thank you all right i have no one else signed up so we'll close the privilege of the floor regarding city issues and move to miscellaneous business of the council its present just a little point of clarification in the paper today there is a quote about abolishing the police review board that was attached to marion porterfield and i was actually the person that opened that discussion to clarify just a little further my point bringing that up was for the council to have healthy discussion on whether that should be an option that we consider i don't want anyone to misconstrue that i and thinking that the police review board is a needed but i think it's a good time to bring up conversation to say ok you know original reason the review board was created has now been a matter that's closed and we have a far different police department and we're struggling to keep this board active let's have some conversation about it my colleagues are all in support of keeping the board i'm certainly in support of keeping the board as long as we have civilians that want to participate in a look forward with working with the council moving forward to keep it alive and healthy thank you anyone else mister thank you m chair i just like to take an opportunity to thank all the city workers that worked outdoors as this especially this past week and especially the our fellas that do trash pickup it was awful out  there and i can't say enough for them just to be out there picking up the trash and again i got another compliment for mr griffith toots just doesn't outstanding job and he's even with all the cold and everything somebody called me and said he was very carefully put all the cans back where they belong and it was bitter cold out there so i think we give our hats off to all our city workers especially those that work outdoors especially this past week thank you could point  from the agenda tonight so it's actually been back to committee whether the final product that comes out is you know something that she you know agrees with or not it's going back to committee for more discussion so nothing nothing on that that wanted to just to bring that information today just just there were several contracts after the obviously for the city they had to do with but particularly they were asked about harbor construction so let me just say there were two contracts  this is go through november two thousand and twelve and one was for two thousand seven hundred seven seventy six dollars two thousand seven hundred seventy six thousand five hundred seventy two dollars sorry about that and they met first of all let me say the criteria is at  twelve percent with women and minority and that particular contract they met eleven percent of that was achieved the next contract that they had which was for paving was about one point three million dollars and on that particular contract schenectady is kind of the umbrella over everything we do whether it's the financing whether it's getting a building permit we want to create the atmosphere an environment here where people want to own a home in this community and as we're moving through the foreclosure process and disposing of city property these are distressed properties if these deals were easy we wouldn't be involved with it and every property has title issues environmental issues structural issues and so we got to go through and format it in there isn't thing kind of a set package yet you know we do fifteen or twenty of them hopefully that will narrow it down to what information the council wants what's appropriate what isn't appropriate what works what doesn't work and so i look at this is a dynamic process and as we  go through these first houses it's going to be some bumps in the road but we are going to continue to plug ahead in try and make it is seamless as we can in is the council looks for information once information  there's something you don't get you've got to call me and we'll make it happen but i do appreciate your support on this and as we look to move down the road it's i think it will pay off over the long run even though some of the bumps in the road or in the short term in and the police community review board i think we're somewhat of a turning point in that where the board in the past has been viewed more in an adversarial relationship with the police department i can almost see it evolving into more of a role of an advocate for the police department that we want police officers to do their job i want him to be viewed as community leaders and want him to be respected and we're going to do the internal discipline if there's allegations of impropriety or people believe that the police department or individuals are not performing in the manner that they believe they should i want to know about it i want the commissioner to know about it i want the chief of police to know about it and we will deal with that but those are more of the exceptions the work that the officers do in a day to day basis really is a high quality level of service and some of that because of the past history that apartment the public image still lags the reality in that we have to every day continue to reinforce that that we want him to do a good job we hold him to high standards in that the public deserves and is getting the results of better police performance doesn't mean it's perfect but we want to again continue to improve on that and i see this board evolving as a component in that role again more of an advocate for proper and good policing is post to an adversarial role of criticizing the partment and trying to find fault with it in an atmosphere that again we don't want to be combative i want to be results oriented and reflect well on the work and the service of the department does in that the money that the taxpayers pay to support that department and with the snowstorm tonight again i think we're going to get a little bit of snow i think it's turning to sleep now and it will warm up so most of it will melt here in the next couple days but i mean people shoulder sidewalks and that if you do get a little bit more snow than it's predicted one shovel on each side of every fire hydrant makes it accessible for the fire department in the unfortunate set of circumstances where we have to use the fire department draw on the water supply but thank you madam president and i just want to congratulate you on the one