i'm going to call the city council caucus meeting to order for december ninth two thousand and thirteen if the clerk would read item number one for original consideration item number one for original consideration an ordinance to amend chapter two thirty day ash two of the code of the city of schenectady introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing to him and two thirty day two of the code of the city of schenectady related to count consolidation of residential was discussed in committee without objection on consent item number two item number two an ordinance to amend chapter one forty four of the code of the city of schenectady introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing in funding in the first instance one hundred percent of the federal aid state marcelli program aid eligible cost of a transportation federal aid project and appropriating funds to therefore discussed in committee without  also discussed in claims committee without objection on consent item number eight item number eight a resolution authorizing the settlement of a claim by gale prost also discussed in claims without objection on consent and  have one item for unanimous consent i made a resolution calling for a public airing to authorize the approval of the budget for the upper union street bid on attain a motion to move this to the agenda and his all in favor hyde and then a motion to move this to the consent of genda and mr brady second demand is brecker all in favor i can write if there's nothing else to come before the reverend allen's of new bethel community church of god in christ let us be our heads merciful god our father it is once morning again that we humble ourselves in your divine presence we come this evening acknowledging you for who you are you our king our lord our god and our father the one that sustains and protects us you know god we realize and recognize that we have fallen short of your perfection we have said done and thought things that are not like you but as we confess these false we ask that you would create with us a clean heart and renew the right spirit and god as we supplicate you on this evening we ask oh god that you would give wisdom knowledge and understanding to all those who are responsible for the procedures the policies and the resolutions that govern this city give them what's required of god that the people of the city may be effective a positive way we ask you to continue to bless the mayor and the president council all of the city members city council members oh god we have these things in jesus name and we claim that it is so a all right tonight we are going to continue our monthly review of the economic strengths which enrich the city of schenectady tonight we welcome trans finder founded in one thousand nine hundred eight and headquartered in schenectady new york trans finder celebrated its twenty fifth year in business in two thousand and thirteen as a national leader in student transportation management systems and services trans finder products allow school districts across north america and the caribbean to manage bus routes and provide safe an efficient student transportation and founder president and c e o of trans finder corporation recently announced that the company has experienced tremendous growth in recent years expanding the organization to over seventy professional employees trans finder has been recognized as one of inc five thousand fastest growing private companies each year for the past seven years skag county legislator marty finn chair  legislature's committee on economic development said this fast growing company could have located their beautiful new seven million dollar headquarters anywhere in the region however trance finder worked closely with the city of schenectady and the county to keep this homegrown tech company here in schenectady creating new jobs and bringing new investment to our community in addition trance finder will be expanding to lower state street by developing a business accelerator program at two sixty three state street which will cultivate talent and technology businesses in the high tech sector by encouraging the startup and growth of related businesses the total project cost is seven hundred fifty thousand dollars some of which is funded by  regional county so grant antonio civic talent is a graduate of mount pleasant high school and sienna college and was recently recognizes schenectady patroon by mayor mccarthy at the company's ribbon cutting in october two thousand and thirteen we very much appreciate his being here tonight to be pretty to make a presentation as part of schenectady second omics thanks everyone this antonius of a tele thank you for being here again but sometimes good things need to be repeated of course we are actually we're a startup company here in schenectady twenty five years ago and this year we celebrated our twenty fifth year in business we are a market leader in providing software solutions to located at currently we have seventy five holy skilled employees and we plan to grow around a hundred twenty five the buildings actually can't house that many people as we mentioned in a my interest in the introduction and thank you very much for the kind words we have experience double digit growth and there is one thing that we could say about ourselves our growing but when you look at other companies are recognizing such as the ink five hundred they have at this time they recognize a seven years in a row that we're the fastest growing private companies united states and we're located right here in schenectady of course as the increasing market share we're now considered the largest privately held company solely dedicated to school districts in the success or  whether they're going to be there a math or computer field so we want to want to help local students to to do better and of course we recognize that technology has a huge shortage so we're trying to promote students to enroll in science and math of course next and of course this is our rendering of four forty states st it's pretty much other than the landscape and around in the we had a grand opening on october tenth and we had several hundreds of people walk through the facility and we really want to show off how it's a state of the art technology center and we really want to be had at the level or google and microsoft and classes to train students and ship to taishan personnel in our business of course through a sunni grant we deliver developed a curriculum using our software we offer three courses to our clients in their state one is proficiency to efficiency using our software and three how to be a man or a better manager using our software in our technology following the sexual completion of these courses our students actually took a natural exam and each received a our clients are located at this point considered fifteen or school districts in north america we are in about ten percent of school districts throughout this region and new york state alone or about fifty percent so fifty percent of areas and there's a large school district around houston that have seven high schools and one school districts they have one hundred fifty thousand students in that single school districts so of course you can imagine how large some of these operations we have the entire state of maine excuse for using our software so that was a great success from us a few years ago and from really a lot of several opportunities are calling upon us at this point that they're asking us to to visit other parts of the world so we're expecting to be global now nestle by our choice but really from what's going on in the market space next please and as i mentioned that as we're as we're considered an expert here in this country other parts of the world have asked us to be guest speakers we went to china now two times and went to dubai this year they recognize that in the united states we are really considered a golden standard so how can other parts of the world benefits from companies a trans fine or to bring the golden standards there so for us it was an honor but also we expect a really large business to come out of these and these small and all the big regions of course in china let me tell you about china  in comparison united states in our industry we have about four hundred thousand school buses travel roads every single day in china there's an expectation of being about one point five million to two million on of school buses on the road  the next three to five years why is this important to recognize that education is key so as we recognized in this country many years ago in part of the education is also making sure the kids get to school right we don't want to give us a student the opportunity if they live too far from school or it's a dangerous intersection let's drive in the school so we recognize this many many years ago other parts of the role realize that that's part of the education so we're we're proud of of been invited to these events next light police and as we mentioned an effort to really to spark an interest throughout this region of of the startups and of course promote an attractiveness of doing business in a downtown schenectady we are starting accelerator prepared for the groundwork to relive the resurgence of that whole area to to renew like you did the upper side where we're i'm located on four forty and we also know that in really in schenectady it really is the birthplace of innovation let's face it with in one of the first r and d from jian and other companies so this is really a hub for creativity in technology let me tell you last week i was asked to speak an event in troy a lot of fun there of course  by eighty leaders and a couple to ask and they asked me to speak few days before the event most people had about a couple months to prepare only a few days so i'm thinking how going to be any different so i spoke about well what farming right so i was trying to be a little bit funny about that so i said well how can we talk about so in the rice seeds right so how do you as a successful company have to decide how do you decide where the right seeds to sow and then to i talk took my headline and they use it on friday morning to talk about the event they talk about chicken it says i mentioned it's important to raise more chickens what does that mean in business it really means that we need to accelerate a business by tracting more people right raising chickens if you want to track people really if you wait for the whole an egg to hatch it's really too slow so if we go get more chickens in this area this i'm going to do it how me to do this is one way that i talk about this area and it's really the capital region is really a fountain of youth why is it a fountain of youth there's all these colleges and universities have all these students well guess what that is the true fountain of youth we need to figure how to keep them in here and it's really part place other parts of course we expect to really take two different directions in a company we have an education a leg which is we believe that there's other parts of education that we could expand and of course would logistics as other parts that we can expect expand our or our knowledge and of course our expertise so those are future areas and of course we expect to be in a downtown schenectady for many decades and of course we want to be in both lower and upper state street and much for giving the opportunity to speak about our success and really without the help of schenectady a lot of people in this room we really wouldn't be where we are today so i thank you very much thank you very much for some questions i would be happy to answer if there's any questions and he questions from council members now we've i think most many of us got a chance to visit your building when you had your ribbon cutting and it's a beautiful building and thank you very much a wonderful company so wonderful you on friday we were received the prestigious award this is before we were sent the power point on friday we received the best place to work award from business real so that was a great night is a great award so we to thank everybody congratulations thank you all right we have no out of order resolutions we have no public hearings tonight's all entertain a motion to approve the minutes from nov twenty fifth his record second  communications presented to the city council for monday december ninth two thousand and thirteen or the category of official from the mayor a list of appointments dated december ninth two thousand and thirteen under general there are none and there are no petition committee reports any council member committee report ok then we will move on to the privilege of the floor related to the legislative agenda i have five people who signed up to speak the first one is fred mullins me my name is fred mullins i live at one ten western parkway here in the city and here to address you regarding the concession at the golf course i presently work part time at the golf course as a seasonal employee in the pro shop and i've been  this is the growth that we've experienced has occurred despite a general downturn in the golf industry nationally the growth we've experienced can be tribute to many factors one is our location we're pretty centrally located the golf course itself has a natural beauty we have moderate pricing as far as green fees and restaurant and beverages and so forth but the major reason is that it's run by a team of professionals and when i say that i mean that we work together to offer the best product in the area and if you ask any golfers you'll find that through the team includes mike says the muse in charge of the mate and his crew and they do an excellent job maintaining the prices the three entities work together as a team to provide the best bang for your buck in the area with the exception of one year misspelt eric has been at the golf course since one nine hundred ninety five she's revered by our darlin you know everybody can come here to watch my support at the current management having the restaurant basically i've seen it for thirty five years to forty years people in and out of that place and not do what this team that's there now more good than you can believe in just creating a harmony which means a lot and people go for recreation they want to enjoy themselves and that's what they're being able to do there i remember they're doing this with a facility that was born built when fred flintstone was a hello my name is john mackey i'm a city resident i'm here to speak about the golf course concession also you know i've been playing schenectady muni for probably forty five years since i was eight years old i grew up playing there i worked in the pro shop for bob haggerty throughout the seventy's and i've worked other places in the golf business so i like to state i know the golf business i know the municipal golf course it's probably my favorite place on earth and over the last forty five years i've seen a lot of vendors come and go and over the last seven years jim poulter act has been there and she's provided excellent service and i think she's been a great asset to not only the golf course but to the city because of the prices and everything that these fellows of just talked about i do believe there's been an increase amount of play there so you've had a freeze in green fees revenue adding revenue except for outings are big up there they're good revenue generators and i know for a fact june has been at least in part a force in getting more outings up the reason being is her price structure is before the ball and a lot of guys have told me the reason they have their outings up there is because of that federal price structure i hope we don't lose sight that up at the golf course it's a municipal golf course and primarily you have working class people who patronize the place so you know working class people don't have a lot of extra money for leisure time activities and if you do put a higher bidder in there i do believe you risk pricing yourself right out of the market and you risk having the restaurant a ghost town again as doug has stated so i was privileged enough to attend your committee meeting last week i realize that five council members have indicated they're in favor of retaining i do believe it's a good idea i know that the two city employees oversee the day to day operation up there have recommended jim come back as head of the golf commission and many constituents who play the golf course have notified you to keep her there i think by doing so it's sound economic decision because june is in part a reason that the numbers for green fees and overall profits are up up there and i think that's very good for the city as a whole you know maybe more money in the general fund and so forth so anything else i say is probably read dogs thank you for the up to the speech here good night thank you very much  the range when you're dealing with hospitality and everything else read is normally a twenty percent of the total gross sales i have said that you guys have lost out nearly almost thirty thousand dollars per year you got twenty six weeks at bare minimum and a ten thousand dollars per week that's about two hundred sixty thousand dollars at least bare minimum that you should be bringing in and go sales at twenty percent of what about fifty thousand she's been paying in about twenty two thousand and weren t so you're losing out on that portion of it also to most restaurants when you if you include in the ranch electricity and water and sewer and so forth then that percentage will go up to about to the maximum thirty percent so you need to take a look at what you're doing here is that when one of the city council members said hey we're losing ten thousand in revenue yeah we're losing ten thousand revenue because another person came in and suggests that's what i'll do so we need to take a look at it another city council member said although the numbers the numbers of the ratings was skewed  know when you're going to wait something out on which proposals better than the other one you can't you can't take if gail and skew it towards one person that you want there that's wrong you need to take a look at a neutral position and i'm glad that we've got two great people that are qualified but what's going to happen in three years when they see the process today to turn around and skewed to the current proprietor that's already there and that you're not willing to maximize the rabbits and when we're saying twenty percent doesn't mean it's going to raise the prices of the golf course ok it doesn't mean you can raise the food prices to drive prices or anything else is that you're taking the twenty percent you're taking what is legitimately there a restaurant she may contain over twenty eight to twelve percent after all taxes of total gross sales your labor costs would be around fifteen percent your food or beverage should be around twenty percent your food cost twenty five percent across sales this is all different things of food and beverage cost contain x and then turn around saying we don't have the right to have access to that to the grow sales no it's a public place we should have access to it and we should know what the papers are at least the city council should have all that information thank you thank you very good evening my name is mary mcclain i live in the city from march twenty twelve through may twenty thirty three the police were called fifteen people who bid to provide services at the schenectady you know a simple golf course the issue on tonight's agenda involves broncho property owned by the city the building is currently occupied there is no intention on the part of the present tenant to vacate the building the building isn't available record she has given the city no reason to deny her a new contract her contract should be renewed thank you thank you i've spoken to a number of times about my feelings on this and i'm not going to go through the finer points again but for those of you who may not have been privy to my thought process on this there was a letter to the editor printed in friday december sixth so if you'd like to know the finer points you can just reference that letter but i feel like the contract process has been something that the council has been protecting and working on over the last really even before i got elected so five years now that i've been sitting in council committee meetings i've heard often you know why did we only get one bid you know look at the specifications let's make sure this is a fair process let's make sure we're inviting people to able all of those things so i think when we go through the process as it stands and we get to very equally qualified bidders and one bit is far stronger than the other but essentially we choose the better that's in place because as it's been kind of bandied around if it ain't broke or in proper english if it's not broken or if it isn't broken we don't need to fix it i think that erodes at our kind of our process and i'm concerned about that i have no doubt that the current people in place do a great job that has been said over and over and over again i also don't have any doubt that the other proposal was submitted by people who are equally qualified and have been in the hospitality industry for a long time it's not i honestly do not care who runs the golf course concession but i do care that we're protecting a process and as i said in my letter my suggestion is if we want to keep in place let's do away with the r f p process let's make it into an ending contract that's you know breakable by either side at any time for any reason and then when the contract is broken let's go out to bed because when we're going out to bid we have a stronger proposal and we're going with what's comfortable and known at ten thousand dollars less revenue and as the gentleman said in a building that fred flintstone belt also included in that proposal is capital investment mortar improvement then i think we're failing the process so for that reason in for that reason only and for no bearing on this poll tracks ability to run the to find that the people are interested and what's going on and want to hear their voice heard a couple of things have been brought up specifically about the revenue for the golf course in that one one concessionaire would bring in more than other but revenue is not just what comes in initially but it's also ongoing so if this initial investment but you're losing customers or customers you know because the people have succumbed to speak i've received letters emails etc about how well it's being done now versus how well it's been done in the past and that this particular concessionaire has increased business there and that's something we should take into consideration as well because that is part of the revenue there was also mention about  the process and it's true that we definitely need to make sure there are p process is fair to everyone there was reference to us using this process or comparing this process to if we're buying i don't know or something like that but something like customer service is really up close and personal as opposed to you know something like buying salts or purchasing fire engines or things like this is the way bit different  it specifically says that the city will select the proposal that best service is the public's interest and the public's interest it based on what we've heard in the input that we've gotten that not that the other concessionaire isn't  somebody who may do a good job but current concessionaire is doing an extremely good job this will go out to bit again and we can take into consideration a lot of things that were put forth i don't know that this is the time to to you know start all over an hour of peace process on this particular one as as also has been suggested so with that i vote yes thank you know lisa has made some really good points if we had no intentions of changing vendors we shouldn't have asked people to participate and to bid there's another company that gone out and spent a lot of time and effort and potentially money to put together a proposal to proposals for more money all the other things that we measure were comparable and we didn't choose  i understand i mean from tonight and from her committee meetings in the phone calls we've had lots of people who use the golf course say that the current concessionaire is great we don't want to change here's a great relationship with people you go in the beers already on the bar lots of reasons why you'd want to keep or however we shouldn't be exercising companies and giving them false hope that we actually intend to change and lisa was also right in terms of how our of p process says the  committee bunch of people who are appointed to a committee to kind of make decisions and have discussions on things pertaining to the golf course they were aware that this r a p was going out the party recommending that we weren't aware of this  was going out and so it goes out it gets done the council votes and apparently it's the wrong runway so we change course i think that one of the things we can do to improve things is before a piece go out maybe the committee that it pertains to would have an opportunity to review it and see what the p contains and if there's some points that we think would be valuable to add in that's our opportunity to do that before they are of picos out and it got me thinking  and i'm going off on a tangent here that for the other things that we buy and the other r p s whether we're buying a piece of equipment a fire truck or a pickup truck or a dump truck or whatever we approve a capital budget based on an estimate when we look at the capital budget we say well why is it a million dollars is a well it's a budgetary asked met right now we don't know any more until we really dig into it so we we approve a capital budget with an estimate and then before we get a chance to even learn more about it and see what we need in that product somebody goes out and puts an r p together that is based around that that estimate that estimate is generally a highest mountain estimate low and then for sure enough we get a piece of equipment that cost right about what we budgeted if we were able to catch this at some point before it goes out to bid then the council have an opportunity to make sure that we're not putting extra bells and whistles on on the on the goods that we're b so i think there's a lot of opportunity to change the r of p process i think the key is to letting the council know before something goes up to bed or before we prepare the therapy and this is a perfect example of why we should next for size people that we have no intention of doing business with so i will vote yes i've received a lot of calls from people that are tied to the golf course saying that they want to keep it this way so i think in terms of listening to our constituents it's valuable but i feel sorry service it isn't buying this picture here and we're going to put a bid out on who's going to sell us the picture at a at the best price it's a service so it's a little bit different and i agree with mr pereira's all that maybe it just should be a long term contract and it can be ended by either party at a certain point unless there's a problem that could all be written and this is something people are very happy where there's no question there's a really outpouring of people i wouldn't know any of these players if i walked into one right now who's involved with this but i do know that all the support that's come out for the people that are running this concession now is is really great and i guess we're going to go with the f p all the way we could have somebody let's say the person that's running the concession right now has been doing a lousy job it's terrible everybody's complaining about it but they bid more so then should we give them the concession this can go on and on and on but everybody's made real good points tonight but my mind is made up from the get go just from what i've heard from the people that are using the service and they're all very happy with it i vote yes  going to start with more of isaac adequate such as the fridge rate or door handle being broke and they are telling the newton it too bad just take it the way it is because the old tin it broke broke the door handle that is not acceptable because he's stating that basically these landlords are allowed to do this until they get a new tenet in the apartment that is ridiculous because when you go to look at the apartment and these and these landlords are allowed to show these apartments with vout or certificate their statistic it runs out in thirty days and the other  it's a very sticky complex situation and when the new tenant moves in the landlord can very well say that the new tenet did the problem that was previously done and accused the new tenet and then that can into being a problem for the new tenet when they go against the judge judge my ola in the court system that can harm directed it so what i'm saying is this these landlords  should not be allowed to show these apartment without the certificate in hand because by them showing this apartment and there's no certificate in hand they can accuse tenets of doing wrong deeds that they never do ok so that's what i'm warning and then of what he also says what mr schilling says in the end is needless to say this is a massive task to get this situation under control and try to get to a high compliance rate that will allow more comprehensive monitoring of the landlords renters and conditions of the buildings in this city we are way out numbered just by for housing inspectors well the whole city you need to change that thank you thank you twenty thousand dollars so me and my family can enjoy their thank you diana terry and i would like to ask the council to consider what is going on with three spreads eventually recycling in the city i wrote a proposal here that i'd like to give to you and basically what it says is that  we have lost the political will to find people for not recycling so that i think what we need is an incentive program an incentive would reward people for recycling and in order to do that we need to identify who these people are so what i'm advocating in the proposal here is that we adopt some kind of recycling identification program which could be done with something like a this could do is it could allow tenants to have an account for recycling so that tenants would have a reason for a cycle it could even be a teenager so that the landlord doesn't have to have a hard time getting them to recycle that tenant would have a reason for recycling the city could make it worth it to the tenants by if they show a constant habit of recycling never mind how many tons they recycle but just that they that pick up me and says oh this recycling bin has enough in it i don't load it and give them credit for a constant habit of recycling they could be given an incentive by the city and that's basically and then there's a volunteer organization schenectady recycles that could be out there also promoting this thank you very much all right thank you congratulate you on that secondly i'm going to go toward you mr mccarthy nothing bad if i drive the wrong way down a one way street i get a ticket i go through a red light i get a ticket go through a stop sign i get a ticket i cross double wide a left hand turn three cars back i'm going to cite street i can get a ticket bicycles don't get this i missed last meeting but a month ago i left the meeting here and coming out of broadway never stopped i got going to see him blew the horn he just kept on going is there something we can do about these people employ sickles i mean we've got to do something because they can get hurt when i hit him with my car it's my fault and he could die just like a car accident of people get in car accidents thank you thank you jason plank and a president city council member hotel one of the things this is that every year in january we can all that our pay for the community don't block grants every year you say oh we want to start the r of peace process we you guys have voted for five hundred thousand dollars to go to a developer and you got a three million dollar loan you're saying a hundred thousand dollars of that is going to take four out of the sales tax credit and fifty six thousand dollars is coming out of  which categories that coming out of you know that's a good question that we need to find out is that can be fifty six thousand dollars out of the fifteen percent category which means now the services that you're giving throughout the community the nonprofits are gay going to receive  our twenty hours per week affirmative action person said all there is no minorities no personal disabilities whatsoever at the at the early ball of our contract there's something i could do about it she's the firm of action officer and she's not going to do anything about it thirteen million dollars of federal money went into that project and not one job and not a job for minorities or personal disabilities you know we need to take a look at this of how we're actually doing our and we still come back to the same problems after everything else this is coming up next year he's got to develop a five year plan for twenty fifteen because our five year plan was done in twenty ten so that means in eighteen months he's got to come up with a plan for a five year plan and we haven't even addressed the job security in that five year plan and i doubt very short time of thirty seconds i want to be able to let people know we've got three weeks left and over twenty thousand people in the capitalistic area have not filed their star say well if you need to file your star there is not a thing that the city council can do there's not a thing that the county legislators can do or the state legislators can do if you don't file you're not going to get the star and you're going to go up are city i think i think i think he does that get a good job on their editorial in the cartoon they were screaming to the heads you need to let people know that this ne thirty pope francis you know him as called for a day when people around the world should pray for the end of world hunger for americans especially important to pray together and do so visibly and we're inviting people m and any and all are welcome and certainly invite to be there secondly a very different topic just very briefly to talk about the need for additional appointments to the civilian review board something that i've been involved with for some time and you've been involved with for some time but i understand your several members of the board at this point that there's a challenge with a quorum but not because of the interest of the board the boers are interested but because of the lack of appointments and i believe as i understand there are several appointments that are pending are due to be done and i would encourage the mayor and the council to move ahead on that perhaps if you have a minute and next a committee meeting be glad to share for part of that to see where those are read but some of them may require a small amendment which i believe may have been offered before but it still could be considered amendment to the ordinance that would say that if a group does not appointment perhaps in the spirit of their group who are you know reflecting maybe the concerns of their group but some way some mechanisms of the mayor and the council can move ahead and some appointments but i believe there are some also points that are before this body and so i would invite you to move ahead on that i know they'll be a transitional council obviously but it's still something that could be done even before that transition and want to course lingering question would be with john would appear and is currently on the review board  with him joining the council on how they could handle because otherwise the corm in that interim time becomes even more jeopardize so ask your consideration and support for the board thank you thank you we will put this on committee agenda for hoping to get support and some help from anybody who can provide it counsel's office or whatever with regard to some freedom of information requests which i have made with regard to the five hundred thousand dollars being proposed through the c d b g grant to hud if you'll notice what i've provided to you is my initial request back in september for information about this where is this five hundred thousand dollars how is it going to be used what is it about and that's five hundred thousand dollars going to the gleason corp i didn't hear anything there are two timelines that are established by the freedom of information act but those weren't observed i call counsel's office corporation counsel's office and immediately following that i was told a verbal e by the counsel's office the representative to whom the initial request is the directed that there were no documents from any officer of the city of schenectady which would include the mayor's office to police he or frankly see too many of the people who are getting the five hundred thousand dollars so then i did ask also for the and it started on page thirty two and i said were the first thirty two pages thirty one pages just thirty two that ok so when i got to the other pages it turned out that the pages  included very specific information about the lisi the five hundred thousand dollars what's being proposed be done with the five hundred thousand dollars and also that he's already made certain investments presumably in cleaning up the not street building so i won't could i see those documents what is the correspondence back and forth that you know where did this come from didn't come from ana no there are no documents so the last time i met with somebody was with the director of development after thanksgiving and i said are there any documents that say what is this about you know background information and the answer is they are not wont to say that the city of schenectady has gone paperless and does that mean that there can't be any documents around saying you're giving five hundred thousand dollars to some firm and there's no you can't have an agreement yet because you don't have the money but there's no m o your anything with regard to that my time is expired dr king thank you and i hope that somebody can help me thank you thank you joy hall and you go a lot of senior citizens so in that area something has got to be done before anybody else gets hit up there because they cut costs come down no race like crazy all the way from  stop now we've got or do somebody is bikers a ride all over the street and making it dangerous for is everybody else it's got to stop thank you mccarthy president king and city council members my name is sharon schmidt with mt pleasant neighborhood association i'm here to announce our annual christmas party which will be held this thursday night december twelfth six p m at express my concern over recent developments in mount pleasant as a neighborhood association we seem to be getting one curve after another in our attempts to reduce crime and in our attempts to bring in business in our attempts to encourage people to move into our community we support larry spring the superintendent of the city schools in his complaint to that he is going to be presenting to the education department regarding the inequities and funding i'd like to state some good news about mt pleasant we had a tree lighting ceremony at which the mayor thank you mayor mccarthy did flip the switch and turn the lights on and it's beautiful to the trees that stop of cranes tree hill the christmas wreaths will be appearing in the business district this week and i want to thank donna foley pat smith and john horton who have been our hard workers here and helping to do this they helped last year and we're going to get those out this week there was an article in the daily gives that highlighted the business district a school play and a toy drive during one thousand nine hundred sixty eight talked about christmas lights being strong along the crane street business district we're discussing plans to revitalize the business district go back to the positive energy that once existed we need people to get involved to have a passion to help achieve this  we've done work in the athletic park the little league park we're going to paint their fence with them this coming spring or summer we're looking for volunteers orchard park is a concern we are looking forward to having that opened up to the community with some demolishing of some buildings in the perimeter of that park and we will be continuing our work there this spring drought park the guy needs american association is working on our date for the present clean up will be may third watch for details of our workshops for all people interested in improving my pleasant to develop plans to revitalize it all those people have been coming to me over the past year and a half saying they want to help january's your time to come and help thank you thank you thanks for all the work you're doing up there f ascii get here early because it's such a busy time of the season for everybody this is for the whole public to get it on their calendars i wish to inform the public of an upcoming program being sponsored by the league of women  voters health committee that which is chaired by carol herman and that is important and formative in which everybody is and by this i hope everybody can come is the health disparities in schenectady the next step how will the community respond so for you counters is going to be january eighth six thirty to seven forty five at the mitch room main branch of the library and please join us to hear about the results of the you matter health survey as well as other county and state data which identify health disparities in schenectady as compared to stay in regional data here about the plan of action developed to address eleven of these key health issues here how other municipalities have address similar issues how can we as a community participate in this issue how can you as elected officials participate all of you in the public have a chance to brainstorm what can be done locally pup particular issues and you can participate in and judy wright meyer capital district tobacco free coalition so i hope we get a big turnout this has impact on everybody who is in schenectady and switching thank you  glory anyone who was familiar with this building was aware of her tremendous work for many many years every time you saw her she talked about dale i even remember taken several tours with her and i was so mind boggled impressed she knew she knew dale it like the palm of her hand she knew all the history and the surroundings i remember seeing her going around town taking pictures of all the wonderful historic and everything that was of value in a couple issues tonight first regarding the presentation made by proctors c e o at the last meeting ten years ago when mr philip maher scame to schenectady the city a christmas parade that was traditionally held on the friday after thanksgiving that day was taken away from the people in order to make dates available for procter seventeen hundred and twenty eight much was taken away from them when new shows were added to proctor's calendar procter c e o also spoke philanthropic he said proctors has twelve hundred volunteers why aren't the space and jobs i c e o earning a high figure income uses free labor to run his operation when some many people are out of work  proctors also has a monopoly for the wine concession on show nights and that council ground to permits that's fast some are for to bear concession trucks that operated simultaneously at two different venues in the city for the sake of so called economic strengths those firmaments should have gone to the running for public office the councilman elect said people have a fear to run for office due to negativity nonsense they have a need for there and occupy a council see who in his right mind would administer the oath of office to such an individual will counsel says here m r counsel  we would save eighty seven thousand dollars for six weeks prepayment six weeks say the seven thousand dollars to me that's worth doing but i know we don't want to make our balance sheet look bad but that's a lot of money that's somebody's salary and then sol on what jason planck said about the star let's just qualify it's the basic star because i know i'm going to get phone calls while people with the enhanced star especially seniors that are qualified for that it's the basic star must be done by the end of this month the enhanced star we have to march first so just so we get that qualified anybody gets the basic star you have to do it and it almost goes with we went to a ceremony friday night where we got certificates for straightening out this the mess with the not for profits and losing their status but it's almost the same thing those organizations were pre warned to file for that status and that you know it for whatever reason it didn't happen sometimes people either forget they don't think they have to whatever it is with this basic star you have to you have to do it if you want to get the exemption and i'm sure we're all going to get phone calls next year when the tax bill comes out and they don't get their star exemption but it's clear this is new york state this isn't the city it's connected it's requesting this is new york state's requesting this they send out the information it's also available on line betty body with a basic star you have to the end of the month and that's it this other gentleman that's come from strong street again and we've running into this over and over and over again and he won that by any property hire a lawyer if you have to be a have to do a title search that's the bottom line without a title search you're at risk there could be liens from anybody falling on that property not just the city is connected it could be anybody falling on the property the old adage if it's too good to be true it is well a lot of times that's what it is somebodies tax lien companies that have been liens they don't care they just want to sell the property they're not going to tell you there might be twenty or thirty or forty thousand dollars owed on the property so i emphasize if you're going to buy property do a title search you have to hire an attorney probably and that's ok but that's what that's what it's all about and that's why you do a title search so you can have a clear in clear possession of that of that piece of property without having all these things fall on you on the holiday no borders a lot of christmas parties to belleview preservation is going have christmas in bellevue this coming thursday the twelfth and it will be six p m a george westinghouse and bellevue veterans monument park for the placing of the reef in the tree lighting by the veterans then at six thirty st paul's church another tree lighting state power bills going to be going up in bellevue then seven o'clock will be a reception inside st paul's a possible church at one thousand eleven fairview avenue and there's going to  be there they're going to have games live music by kathy decatur games and prizes so it'll be a good time for all they're also requesting donations to help homeless animals at the end it will protect the foundation fifty two maple avenue thank you a couple of people came today and talked about bikers and pedestrians in terms of the lights and i think that is something we need to take a look at during the time when i was campaigning that was actually one of the things that was brought up  pedestrians not being able to cross the street and recently i was crossing the street started when the light actually came on and i got not quite all the way there and it changed i'm pretty able bodied you know i'm pretty quick steps so i can imagine what it is when seniors are trying to cross the street in the lights or are just going so quickly so that is if that's something we can take a look at especially across things where people where there's people are crossing a lot and you have a lot of  really think that something we should take a look at also i would like to acknowledge the passing of a world leader nelson mandela as we all know has passed and he was a great man and he brought a lot to this world and he will just one quick announcement the minority contractors technical assistance program also known as the app is offering a free business seminar on tuesday december seventeenth at six p m topic is insurance for contractors and small business will be presented by the merriam agency and it's great information for new businesses start up and existing businesses so again that's tuesday december sixth december sevent madam president and apologies for being a few minutes late with the paul mitchell school their graduation tonight and they're just exciting to see the young students who've spent some time in downtown and going out on their career could  just recap the want to wait loan and some of the activities that keep coming up we're dealing with the stress property here every day that people haven't paid their taxes they haven't invested in the property it drives up the costs of the city doing business and it has a negative influence on the adjacent property in the neighborhoods are police departments responding we get catastrophic events we have working fires in the buildings and look to ways of how can we deal with it looking to use the one oh wait loan program through to obtain three million dollars of that we would use forty thousand dollars would go for the community loan fun to encourage small businesses in the neighborhood half a million dollars would be used for demolition of the street old department of social services i find it interesting that everybody supports the other demolition of the building and broadway everybody's in favor of demolishing that they all w that's privately owned that c s exits and that if we're able to rehab that's going to cost of two million dollars most of the houses that we're dealing with in fact i think all of them originate with private owners and just have not invested it now the net street building was originally a school public building it was then the department of social services it was built in the late eighteenth hundreds the cost of renovating it or doing anything with it is dramatically shifted because of the lead based paint that is in it in the large amount of a specificity is in it so we've looked at that doing the  rehab the cost estimates are from just under a million dollars to just over a million dollars in subsidy to make the numbers work in a fair market deal the deal that we have moved forward after much discussion going forward with is to demolish the building but to demolish the building in put up a new building it still requires approximately half a million dollars in subsidy in that's what we're trying to line up so that we're not leaving just another piece of urban blight there so it's find it humorous how people focus on that i ask people anybody who has a better union college you said all of the college was going to buy it well if the current president and the team looked at it said no we're not going to have anything to do with it because the numbers do not work so we're moving ahead with a plan to deal with that and to deal with the worst of the worst property the one away loan will not solve all of the problems of the city we're still looking for other funding through the land bank and other mechanisms to give us the money eliminate the urban blight that exists we've got a lot of interest in this community been very fortunate putting together a team of realtors and bankers who want to write mortgages here who want to invest in property and it is a broad based long term strategy and so you know i appreciate the support of the council i appreciate the dialogue and the discussion that is ongoing and i appreciate the community leaders that have come out stepped up to look at suggestions on how we can do things better how we can improve our neighborhoods and i tell people it's not something that is going to happen overnight this is a long term slow systematic process that will get the community back to where we the console a recommendation which is followed by new york state it's followed by many minutes our knees and in the country any process that you use is not perfect and never will be and we certainly could do improvements on it like adding notification to the council about certain steps i'd be happy to work with a council representative to develop something that you folks can live with so if you if you want to come