electrical heritage takes a little bit to kick in sometimes but thank you for the opportunity to talk to you in the council tonight that kind of give an update in terms of where we are in the city of schenectady and to talk a little bit quickly about the history of what we do what it cost in where we should focus our resources and efforts that schenectady is two hundred fifteen years old two thousand and thirteen it's got a long distinguished history we've seen that we've lived through a civil war two world wars a great depression this community his always risen to the challenge it solve problems in it's created a proud heritage in i could sit here tonight and talk about all the things that have significant in this community and it would take all night but i think that we just have to continually remember that proud history and heritage but i'd like to talk about the things that we do so community if you look at our police department that the number of calls for service last year were over eighty one thousand calls it said two hundred twenty eight calls a day it's over nine an hour now the significant thing in that number is that we saw decrease of a little over five percent and a tribute that really to some of the leadership from former chief chairs commissioner bennett in chief kilcullen where we're starting to use com stat x approach where we're taking the police in deploying them in a manner that is most cost effective in it is driven by statistical data in that we saw that auto accidents were doing that d d x which is part of it's the traffic component were down thirteen percent in our part one crimes were down over eight percent or just under nine percent while that statewide trend was up in so that one year in and by itself doesn't set a trend but we're going in the right direction and again i would compliment commissioner bennett chief kilcullen the command staff and the men and women to make up the police department that we deployed twenty seven new cameras in the neighborhood we have a total now one hundred twenty two that are out there but if you look at just the numbers that is a very busy department there are calls that come in all the time some of them are simple some of them are routine a lot of them are very complex that require the deployment of more than one car and a lot of resources from this community there were fifteen thousand calls for service in two thousand and twelve that number was up about four percent then again i think as we start to do some of the things that we have done in the police department and we start to apply these in a more coordinated and comprehensive manner across the city we'll see some improvement with our fire department also our code operations but we have an extremely busy fire department of those fifteen thousand two hundred calls over sixty four percent of them were e m s calls of those twenty three hundred were for advanced life support people who live in this community are truly fortunate to have a quality delivery of medical emergency medical services that our fire department provides we're always busy we're always on the go there and again it is a department that we're proud of the does a great job when you look at just the number of fires that we had in the city it's five hundred thirty seven so there's a fire a fire and a half of every day fortunately the real serious fires are few in number and that's because of the swift response that we have from our fire department our code enforcement operation we're seeing some results we full year ago had brought in tom wilson from t w a did a review of the department look how to restructure it how to  make it more effective and we're starting to see results from that if you look at our actual results just in terms of just under twenty five hundred building electrical permits the revenue we're generating from that you can see there it's just across the board with just one exception everything is up what i would call significantly and that's because of the work that is being done every day eric schilling the team in place they're doing a great job we want to continue to build on that as we look to automate it and again integrate the analysis that is done in terms of the problems with police fire and codes so that we are responding in a comprehensive and results oriented manner in the city our general services in engineering last year we did about nine and a half miles of  city streets resurfaced them rebuilt i'm finally got the area boulevard project underway that will be completed this fall that will open up development opportunities along area boulevard and again from state street going down to the community college we really rehabilitate the surface of the central park pool the engineering department put together a grant application conjunction with the school district and we were awarded three hundred seventy nine thousand dollars for safe routes to school program and that will provide sidewalks from the rear of the high school going up to a long it's worked on in the body shop begin working in conjunction with the county refurbished equipment last item there we did the a culvert replacement project on edison avenue that always working i left out all the work they do in terms of preparing resolutions and stuff for the city council but i know that everybody's been counting each one of those every night so you've got that total right on the top of your and that tip of your tongue to be able to repeat it if we have a question and answer period at the end say that a yes or no or but performed hundred sixty text foreclosures hundred twelve aries collection for property damage that occurred on city property collected twenty six thousand dollars there are eleven hundred prosecutions for code violations over one hundred thousand dollars revenue responded to in excess of one thousand feet of information requests and two hundred twenty three subpoenas we currently have eighty five open and outstanding claims in these forty eight pending lawsuits that will you can appreciate the counsel's efforts in working on those and resolving them in the manner that is in the best interest of the city or utilities department helps with power points when he's not out solving the traffic and lighting problems of the city but again all these things that shows the activity of the city we do a lot of things every day the generally the employees and staff don't get recognition for unless something goes wrong then we all want to know why we want to look for problems and who's at fault i tell everybody course that when things go right somebody else takes credit for it when it goes wrong it's my fault and fortunately we have a few just a few times where things go wrong but they were just work orders so one hundred  twenty eight they were for the replacement of signs performed one hundred fifty six work orders for posting of temporary parking restrictions hundred ninety five calls for traffic signal fire a dispatch issues and again we encourage people to always report when a street light is out there's a number then call directly a national grid but we will route them through the department and again  six hundred gallons of paint to keep our lines and parking in the street who replaced eighty sets of street name signs some of that's driven by budgetary considerations that we probably like to do more because it does reflect on the image of the city and keeping their streets properly marked our development department going our homes programme to talk about little b t key to the city we just announced the closing of our hundredth there in wildly we're fortunate to have had key bank is a partner in that program which provided a fairly aggressive mortgage package to applicants in the city of schenectady and we begin a little over a year we've done one hundred houses there were approximately another hundred houses we know people looked at the key bank financing option they chose to go with another bank or another institution and while we've given credit to key and done that we have full partners with n b t looking to work with bank of america trust co has some products here and we're always looking to expand that to bring it in again to make homeownership possible here in the city of schenectady our consolidated plan received a little under two million dollars in community development block grant money is three hundred thousand dollars in home money in two hundred thousand in the s g money from hud consolidated plan we monitored that twenty one sub recipient organizations with fifty eight different projects going ninety seven percent of that cd b g money goes to benefit low and moderate income individuals or twenty two housing units that we rehabbed for homeowners we had five new homeowners there are h d f c assistance  four hundred twenty seven homeless individuals were sheltered and receive support services our total outreach reached about ninety six hundred low and moderate individuals were assisted through our funding here fortunate that last year the state legislature passed the tax increment financing law which believe will be a key component as we get our land bank up and running in two thousand and thirteen again as we look to create homeownership opportunities here in the community but also the staff completed the liberty park study and hopefully will be able to start construction on that soon our department have a little bit of water there we produced a little over five billion gallons of water so thirteen three quarters million gallons a day is the average part of our ongoing efforts we redevelop one of the wells at the field in rotterdam pala fund runs a great operation there a number of fairly large valves were replaced there were ten emergency water main repairs by city crews last year we repaired approximately fifty damage fire hydrants and part of the ongoing maintenance replace twenty five old fire hydrant s stalled thirty new water valves and replaced twenty one hundred feet of water lines in the city part of the maintenance operation that again is done in conjunction coordination with our street rehabilitation program so that we train more on a site do everything it wants our sewer department maintains three hundred twenty miles of sanitary in storm storm sewers last year we had over three thousand calls for the inspection of sanitary lines removing blockages and other specific related problems we responded to twenty seven hundred requests for locations through the underground facilities protective organization where people are doing construction other work we will come in and mark our pipes that are underground so that when people are digging  hit it or damage it in the five thirty eight truck as it's referred to responded to over a thousand calls for assistance that crew will go out and put up road barriers other emergency things that after hours it shows that there are things always going on in the city and when it happens we have the people and resources that are able to deal with it we inspected forty eight thousand feet of sanitary and storm sewer systems that's part of the ongoing maintenance again we camera that we do that in house so that we can determine where there are problems defects and try and stay ahead of major problems our wastewater treatment plant which was the first year that we brought it back under city operation  pleased to read port to you that when we finally close out the books relatively confident that our overall savings will exceed a million dollars in two thousand and twelve and again our cogeneration facility there were burning the gas that was created at the plant and generating electricity that saved two hundred eighty thousand dollars in electrical cost the big facility it is a regional resource an asset because it serves not only the city of schenectady but glenville parts of southern saratoga county  a four billion gallons thirteen point two million gallons of waste water a day all that was done where we met all the regulatory requirements and we had no permit violations in two thousand and our finance department can please to report to you in relatively confident that we will close out the books i can't quote your number because they're still doing  some of the accounting but we will have a modest fund surplus in our general operating account for two thousand and twelve but again the finance department does always active think of the budget preparation some of the more high profile things that they do on a day to day basis but the routine things that are done their payroll checks processing the purchase orders other things the number there we collected fifty one percent of the property tax liens in two thousand and eleven it's a number we want to continue to work on look to improve sometimes we've talked on an ongoing basis about you know going to a bi weekly pay roll and  there's contractual issues with that getting everybody on board with that to actually make it work we're moving in a direction where we're going to i think have the same results by being able to email individuals their stuff for their paycheck individuals who sign up for direct deposits this was the first year that we e mailed w to say to employees we've got six hundred employees sixty seven people signed up for it so i would encourage members of council who haven't taken advantage of that to consider it in we also start to try and market that the rest of the workforce because that saves us from printing the actual pay checks in other related tax documents look at our two thousand and thirteen budget you know where does the money come from thirty one million dollars forty percent is from our real property tax other revenue includes our state aid which were a little bit on the low end of that formula gives us thirty million our sales tax revenue the share will give us a little over eleven million seven hundred thousand of some out of our operating reserves some of our new initiatives with housing and other things will be about a million and a half dollars and that's where the money comes in to take a quick look at actually where we spend it our police and fire department cost us forty six million forty six point eight million dollars if you look at that again that is more than we were raised in property tax to fund those departments and these numbers include fringe benefits but it outlines where we spend the money in the importance of it in it's in those initial slides we look at some a reduction of calls for service in the police department and some of those things that we're doing in the fire department i can't overemphasize the importance of looking at these things statistically and how do we better manage those resources when we're deploying police fire in our code operation to make sure that when we're going to a problem property a problem place or problem individual we solve the problem the first time in a lot of times it's not solely the police department's responsibility it's not the fire department it's not codes but it's when you work comprehensively and it also requires us working with other levels of government or county the school district other ones to deal with those issues in problems but it's a lot of money we spend we want to make sure that people understand where we're spending the money in that they feel that they're getting good results for the dollars that we spend on their behalf in looked to work with the council in terms of identifying some specific goals we talked about things in the police department where we wanted him prove mintz measurable of items  i think we should look at that across the board not only in police but in fire in all the other services that we deliver he compares to our neighboring towns in the one thing that stands out again is our level of vacancies in property we run you know seven percent higher it's  underutilization of the property that is one of things that we have to address is a community and if we're looking to create long term value that's one of things we have to eliminate in this from the two thousand and ten census these numbers have shifted a little bit since then but i believe it's a fair comparison a lot of the housing stock is the same in all the political subdivisions and communities but the value of schenectady property is at the low end of the scale and it's been part of our marketing through the homes program where we talk about individuals buying a house in schenectady get far more for their dollar than they do in other communities and at the same time we have the greatest potential to see that number rise if we do some of the things we're reem prove the delivery of service we continue to contain the taxes that are imposed on the residents and create value here that the property values will rise here in this community our biggest liability our biggest asset it's our real estate we're in the real estate business now as we do the foreclosures in it's challenging we all know the problems with derelict property  where you have absentee landlords things are run down things haven't been addressed it creates a negative influence on the community there's a lot of potential and therefore we can turn that around in that's why i believe it is our biggest asset it's why i look forward to working with the council with the staff and other community leaders while we put this together to make a difference in the community  marketed that on the under the label of homes homeownership made easy in schenectady that doesn't happen overnight and this is the umbrella label that have been using want to continue to use and we have to look at all the things that are the components of homeownership how do we improve on those how do we do in many more cost effective manner how do we just make it easy for people to live here how do we make this community more attractive than other communities you know we've done the financing with key banc where they had an aggressive mortgage package we have other banks that are coming up we have to look internally terms of our permitting process our planning processes how do we do those things that make it easy for people and create a friendly atmosphere here for buying a home to maintaining a home and just again adding value in this community it doesn't happen alone it's again it's a community so some of the responsibility is clearly mine some of it falls on us members of the city council but i believe that it's a broad based effort from our neighborhood organizations businesses working with metroplex to connect to the county our industrial development agency our new land bank the school district which has been a key component in our partnership you're marketing the community larry spring the new superintendent it's really a great individual and  we have many of the same problems that overlap and how do we work together to make those things happen it's a multi year effort we have to have just steady incremental improvements in really our best game plan is just to do it house by house we've seen the downtown turnaround but it was by building by building we're doing that now we talk about one hundred houses that were sold to key to the city another hundred houses through other financing mechanisms we now have one hundred fifty properties that we own will take another hundred some in the next round of foreclosures we have to go out in market those in bring people in to deal with the properties and a lot of them again are distressed properties so they're not easy deals they're complicated we have to work through him we have to find innovative ways we have to have people a vision of what i call we're looking for urban pioneers people who want to move into schenectady want to be part of the turnaround of this community who want to again take their place in history while we do innovative and exciting things we're going to get real long term results it won't happen overnight you know we talk about downtown that's been a full eight year undertaking and there's still a lot more to do in downtown there's a lot to do in our neighborhoods and i look forward to working with the members of the council to make that happen to build a track record that if we go back to the first slide will marcus down as a place in history that when they look back at this period in time they said you know while those people did what was right they made a difference they work together in they made things happen and so i thank you for this opportunity to talk to you tonight look forward to working with you and do appreciate your consideration the time and effort to put in on behalf of the city all right i'm going to call the city council caucus to order we have one public hearing and then we'll go right on into the agenda of park ridge number one and going to the discussed in committee without objection on consent and number two item number two in ordinance amending chapter ninety three of the city of schenectady relating to the civilian police review board also discussed in committee without objection on consent item number three for original consideration in ordinance re appropriating various items within the two thousand and thirteen budget and also discussed in committ did number four an ordinance to amend the zoning ordinance to include provisions for medical hospitality houses 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 zero nine schenectady city hall one o five j street schenectady new york that objection and consent number five item number five a resolution authorizing the sale of city owned property located at one five one lafayette story discussed in committee without objection on consent number six item number six a resolution making confirming and extending appointments to the board of city of schenectady downtown special assessment district operations and development committee also known as downtown especially downtown special assessment district board again discussed in committee without objection and consent i right item number nine item number nine a resolution honoring buyers first and this will be taken out of order item number ten item number ten under contract and supply a resolution auth zing the mayor to enter into a contract with j c i jones chemicals inc for the purchase of chlorine gas discussed in committee without objection on consent i am number eleven item number eleven a resolution authorizing the mayor to contract with that your company of new york for the purchase of hydro for sellick acid also discussed in committee without objection and consent item number twelve a for unanimous consent a resolution recognizing and commanding the historic achievements of african americans in declaring february two thousand and thirteen african american history month ok entertain a motion to move that onto the agenda second is porterfield all in favor i and then a motion to put it on the consent of gen the mr erickson thank you ms porterfield all in favor i thank you there's nothing else to come before the city caucus i will adjourn that and call the city council meeting to order for february eleventh twenty thirteen please rise for the invocation member emanuel adams from new bethel community church of god in christ joint the business as a partner and in the mid one nine hundred ninety s became its sole proprietor and where as buyer for years is now located at one thirty three wall street now therefore be it resolved that the city  that's pretty amazing one hundred seventy six years in a city that's great ok and then our second out of order resolution assignment twelve amos porterfield if you're going to present that one chicago during the late summer of one nine hundred fifty when carter g woodson an alumnus of the university of chicago and many friends traveled from washington d c to participate in a national celebration of the fifth the fiftieth anniversary of the ema proclamation and whereas woodson a harvard trained historian believes the truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice he envision the study and celebration of the negro as a race and his hopes to raise awareness of african americans contributions to civilization he sends out a press release announcing that negro history week in february one thousand nine hundred six and whereas the black awakening of the one nine hundred sixty s dramatically expanded the consciousness of african americans about the importance of black history and the civil rights movement focused americans of all colors on the subject of the contributions of african americans to our history and culture and the celebration was expanded to a month in one thousand nine hundred ninety six the nation bicentennial and where as african american citizens of this nation continue to create a legacy for future generations through their contributions in education literature writing law and philosophy government and politics in service to our nation's military and also interfet disciplines in music dance in the arts and athletics in space exploration and in every conceivable field of human endeavor and service and whereas throughout the year we must reflect we must reflect upon the achievements and contributions of african americans a race of people that has endured adversity with peace and courage a race of people who fought and died with the nation nonetheless and where as the city of schenectady proudly shares the top students of its own african american community past and present now therefore be resolved that the mayor and city council of the city of cincinnati declare february twenty third scene african american history month in the city of schenectady and celebrate the many achievements of african americans in the city of  to accept this resolution and you know we thought it really be fitting because mr boyd has lived through a lot of this history at the age of ninety four so mr boy communications presented to the city council for monday february eleventh two thousand and thirteen under the official category from the mayor a list of appointments dated monday february eleventh two thousand and thirteen to two thousand and thirteen operating budget a letter received from ball of fire on the director of water and waste water recommending sodium hypochlorite lowest bid be awarded to surpass chemical company of albany in the amount of sixty six thousand and sixty dollars to be charge of the two thousand and thirteen operating budget a letter received from qualified the director of waste water and waste water recommending the chlorine gas lowest bid be awarded to jones chemical link of warwick new york in the amount of twenty thousand and seventy five dollars to be charged the two thousand and thirteen operating budget under general that letter received from the schenectady veterans of world war two mccarthy in the city council extending gratitude for a check received on january twenty second two thousand and thirteen a letter received from the american legion post one zero zero five address to the disconnect the city council dated january thirtieth two thousand and thirteen extending gratitude for the money that was donated to the post a communication received from julia louis announcing the bellevue preservation inc monthly meeting scheduled for thursday feb fourteenth at seven p m at st paul's opus google church nineteen eleven fairview we have a new guest speaker will be william frank director of the schenectady county veterans service agency under petitions there of health and recreation met and we just we had a couple things on our agenda one of them was the dog park there's a committee that has formed headed by marion and they they want their you're looking at trying to do some and upgrading and you know doing some fund raising around that so we're going to be meeting with them as well as the appropriate city staff to take a look at that and also we heard from the folks at woodlawn preserve about what's going on there and they'd like to meet with us as well and i know it's february and there's a lot of snow outside but soon enough we will be in the parks so we're getting started now to take a look at what needs to happen so that when the weather is appropriate and we can be on the parks meetings superintendent schools larry spring spoke regarding the findings of the school district in is the mayor even spoke of tonight you know coordination between all the different government governmental entities what goes on at the school district whether you have kids in the system or not impact us here in the city and so i thought of the information he had would be very informative to us in the council as well as our audience here so i'd like to ask mr jerry springer to come up and speak to us for a few minutes just to kind of give us some highlights from some information yes welcome thank you thank you very much for having me you should have got some some handouts here so you've got some things to take away with you because i've got lots and lots of numbers just so first of all thank you very much for allowing me to be here to speak with all of you and second of all i want to make sure that i talk about some of the really good things that go on in the school district and you know so as we talk about  partnering with the city in helping ourselves do what we need to do with bringing residents into the city i think it's important to recognize we have some phenomenal students and some phenomenal staff in the school district we send  kids to the best universities that this country has to offer every year we have kids who get scholarships in things that i never dreamt were possible to get scholarships and drama in  dance and things like that so we have some some really top notch programs but we do have some significant battles in the school district particular we have some equity issues that we're wrestling with and as i have dug into those i find that most significantly we have some financial equity issues so as we talk about what that means and i have been working hard with the state education department with our local representatives our assemblyman and senators meeting with the governor's office trying to help to rectify the situation but the city school district receives about fifty four percent of the state aid that it is supposed to receive by the formula that the state has developed so that formula says kind of here's how much it costs to provide a sound basic education for all children in the state adjusted for you know lots of different things including the region how much poverty exists in a school district and all of those kinds of things we know that's connected he has a fairly high percentage of youth living in poverty and that that requires some simply special care from staff in order to help those children and lots of times kids who are walking into school living in pretty intense poverty they're walking into school suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and so they're presenting with some pretty significant mental health needs that we need to address before we can even begin talking about helping them learn to read  this this number that the state has come up with this you know how much it cost to provide a sound basic education they take from that number the ability of a community to fund its own schools and they use the combined wealth ratio for that one point zero being the average combined ratio of school districts around the state and they manufacture that formula so that one point zero is always the average the highest combined wealth ratio in the state is about forty five so there is a school district in the state that is about forty five times as wealthy as the average school district in the state around us the wealthiest school districts are about average they are about one point zero earthquake of that or a little above that none even approaching to schenectady is point three eight so we are not nearly as able to pay for as much of our own programming as many other districts and that is supposed to funnel additional aid to our school district that factors into the formula except that there's a floor on that formula and eight ratchets up until it gets down two point six five in anything below zero point six five the a does not go up anymore so that means that intensely poor districts are treated just the same as moderately poured strikes that doesn't seem to make sense and i've asked that we consider that at at the state level but more significantly than  then as the state settled their campaign for fiscal equity lawsuit or not that they settled it but that is the courts decided it the created this formula this state has been unable to equally fund all districts according to this formula and there are some districts that are getting much more than one hundred percent of the funding prescribed by that formula the highest funded district in the state is getting more than two thousand percent of aid according to that formula  and schenectady is getting fifty four percent of the aid prescribed by that formula the median district in the state is getting about eighty two percent  here's what that means for a school district the size of schenectady we've got about ten thousand kids we've got a budget of about one hundred fifty six million we are being shorted by the state about sixty two million dollars every year make up that shortfall we have done two things over the years we have cut significant services to our kids and in doing so we've got these things that are not mandated we've cut mental health services we've c electives one of the funny things about education the minutes that we have to teach p is prescribed in legislation so assemblyman senators and the governor  many years ago all approved a law that said we have to teach b e one hundred twenty minutes not in law and not in regulation is there anything that says how many minutes we have to teach reading or even that we have to teach reading and so a number of years ago to be to try to begin to adjust to this shortfall we cut our number of reading teachers in half that just doesn't seem it seems like we're having to cut off our own feet in this race that we're trying to arm our markets with it just doesn't make sense i think at the core of what we're about is literacy so as i begin this perhaps quixotic battle with the state about you know how is it that one of the poorest school districts is getting one of the lowest percentages of implementation of state a i begin to collect more data and dive into it and i found something that i found even more disturbing it's not just that one of the poorest districts in the state is getting a smaller percentage of state aid but when i took all of the demographic information of students in all of the districts around the state and i integrated that with the state aid that what i found is that the whiter the student population the more likely it is that a school district receives all of their state and so school districts that have  minority as majority of the student population they make up only fifty five districts in the state there are close to seven hundred districts in the state so they're about eight percent about eight percent of the districts are minority is majority however they make up thirty percent of the districts that are being funded at sixty percent or less of what the formula says that they should be making if we go to the other end of the scale districts that are getting ninety to one hundred percent of their aid they represent only one point five percent of those districts districts that are minority is majority of better than a fifty percent chance of getting eighty percent of the raid or more if you have a minority as majority you've got less than twenty percent chance of getting eighty percent that didn't seem possible to me it didn't seem like that was in the year two thousand and thirteen in new york state it just didn't seem like that that could be going on and so as i talked with some folks about that what i found was this was relatively new information people had not seen this before i spoke to the lead the lead attorney in the campaign for fiscal equity case hadn't looked at it before people had not  really taken those two sets of data integrated them and put them together but i think that it's significant because even though the aid formula is intended to drive a towards poor school districts withholding aid from people who are not wealthy we might say that's wrong but it's not as early illegal when it happens  race we know that we have a civil rights issue and so there's i think there's so i believe there's an additional level there for us to be very concerned about all that disparate impact now why do i think that this is important for the city and folks who do not have kids in school to be concerned about because at sixty two million dollars and let's not even dream about being fully funded you know certainly not that district that's getting two thousand percent of their funding but let's just dream for a second about being funded at the median if schenectady got eighty two percent of the aid that we were supposed to get that would mean approximately thirty eight million dollars additional revenue here's what i believe that would mean for both the school district in the city i think that for thirty eight million dollars we would be able to do three very significant things within the schools we would be able to address the mental health needs of all of our children who come to school hungry with anxiety and with depression who are unable to really participate in school because they are living in  very uncertain circumstances outside of school i think that we would be able to intervene with academic intensity with kids at the middle level to make sure that they could get into ninth grade ready to earn credits right away and i think that we could provide enough support and services for our high school students to ensure that they persist in high school develop not just the core academic skills but also the work experiences that they would persist and get a diploma i think we could do all of those three things in we should be able to lower the tax bill from the school district for everyone by a third if schenectady received only a median level of the eight to which there are law in title so i know that we've got some of our local assemblyman on board with this they're working hard to help us fight this battle we've got some other folks very eager to help us with that as well i've asked not just parents within the school district but all residents of the city because this is not just a school district issue i think that this is absolutely critical to the renaissance of the city if we want to bring new businesses in if we want to bring new homeowners in i can't think of a better way to help us with them on a sense of our neighborhoods then by being able to say we can lower the tax bill  significantly merely by allowing the school district to be treated reasonably and fairly in the formula so i've got that information there for you you can look up the numbers and i'd be happy to answer questions about it either right now or later on the phone or in another meeting i can talk about this ad nauseum but i appreciate the opportunity right now very much thank you so i want to highlight that the three items two of them with the city staff doing a great job changing the way we do some of our procurement we are using the electronic billing system coronating with the county utilizing the system they used were we've obtained two of them had competitive bids more than one bitter and both of those items interestingly enough have deflationary cost meaning the price is less than it was the year before the one item that you know we put out line we only had one better the price is higher than it was last year so again just proof that you know we're moving the right direction and you know using the tools that we have available to  certainly would like to really give great thanks and admiration for all the work that carl falla teco did on this piece of legislation not only working with the council of us certainly working with members of the board listening to other members of the community and trying to solve the issue of many times not having a quorum in also getting new names in for members and i think the two significant changes on this piece of legislation is reducing the number from eleven members to nine which we are hoping will help us continue to keep a quorum of individuals so they can be there so they can vote so these complaints can be reviewed in a timely manner and secondly certainly to make it more inclusive of all community members and community groups by not specifically naming out many of the groups that we had named out  before many of whom have come and gone whether they were neighborhood groups or other community groups so i think that we're looking at two really great changes in terms of number of folks on the board there for stablish you know for the most part and secondly the inclusiveness of other community members who may want to become involved and would like to be serve on the board we would love to have a number of people waiting in the wings to serve on the board so we're hoping with these changes that that's something that will occur and i would encourage those people who may be interested or like to be interested in serving on the board to send their resumes to the mayor's office and we'll look at them collectively so thank you very good thank you anyone else committee reports clear that portion of the meeting closed and we will go on to privilege of the floor related to the legislative agenda and i have five people who have signed up to speak on that raises and so forth and therefore it doesn't need to be discussed any further i took the half of that i agree and half way down that statement it is the up to us up to this board the city council to take a look at pay and whether or not if it is justified or not nickels back to where that the mayor does the negotiations with the union contracts and brings it back before the city council for final approval now there are two positions that were up and you've got significant pay raises in one city council member says oh no they're not pay raises it's their job to motions to different types of jobs i hate that big a difference to pay raises and what we need to do is that on a union contract when the job  descriptions are empty the positions are empty you're able to change the job descriptions but if they're filled then you have to go back and it has to be a union negotiation or to change the job description so not having job description is what the mayor said what we're working on jobs tips if we just went with these people in there that's backwards we need to do the job description now we need to make the changes make sure we have an a t m manager or a da coordinator to make sure the wages are fair to drop in a fair housing coordinator down to thirty nine thousand who's got the same goals as an eighty eight cornered that's going to take sixty five thousand dollars a year for and you've got the heat and then you pay a contractor the county affirmative action is making nearly almost sixty four thousand there's a peg difference between the two all three of them are needed all have the same goals so there's a difference between it then you're turning around you're giving a four thousand dollars they were come we want to offer you jobs we're going to be four thousand dollars again that opens up a precedence for the unions can come back and say hey look we want a four thousand dollars pay increase for each new job that we get so if we transfer from job a to job b we want a four thousand dollars pay raise union contract is up for negotiation now because you set a precedence this thing this whole entire financial budget is totally wrong the city council has to go back and take a look at it actually you gave you an idea what he wants now it's up to the city council to say yes we're going to approve the funding or not approve the funding or how we're going to be able to get over it i mean you're just in these people's pay raises that it's to affect pensions down the road i mean you've got one person that's make a forty nine thousand dollars and all sun you're going to come up to sixty five thousand dollars you know i mean and then that's going away that's got now we've got to pay taxes and  our biggest cost is our pensions and our employees our employees that four percent pay raises when medicare didn't i didn't get a pay raise in two thousand and ten two thousand and eleven but you gave employees four percent pay before all of us this evening appreciate the breadth of it there are occasions shows and hope with the merrill put up on the website make it generally available because as a wealth of information i think it's nice to be available for all of us appreciate the focus of housing because  housing is clearly named as both a liability and asset thing glad to see that that's happening and many of us stand ready to help you and to assist in partnership on that and number two i'm glad to see the superintendent here this evening in my many years of coming before the city council i have not seen the superintendent here and i believe that should be a headline for you guys tonight this is a kodak moment this is a you know very significant moment in life for the city it begins a new day so that really should be your headline for tomorrow number two christian being here in terms of the review board to talk to a couple weeks ago thank you for moving this ahead appreciate your your willingness to upgrade this and to make unnecessary changes there was a lot of hard work is going to preach it all that effort on that the membership is indicated fully support that i would indicate to you some other parts of this legislation that really need attention not to change but to implement section ninety three eleven is about mediation to my knowledge that has not been implemented section ninety three twelve powers and duties the ability to hire independent vesta gator that was implemented for a while and became an exercise in difficulty and was abandoned and that also needs to be revisited and finally section ninety three sixteen the mission to recommend changes in city policy and procedures i believe the board has done that sometimes in the past there are a number of those recommendations that are still available that need to be looked at are new ones that need to be reviewed so even though there's been some discussion that i mean there's some talk now that the lawsuit is that with the federal courts where there is such a need for a board there is still a continuing need for kind i just like to say thank you very much for working with those we appreciate the change you said you made and i think it will help us make a stronger board and i hope you will continue to work with good evening their counsel president city council members and fellow city residents my name is linda caliber and i live and own property in the city i'm here tonight to speak on the plant elimination of two neighborhood associations from the civilian police review board at a time other quality of life issues by removing rest representation from both of these neighborhood associations from the board leaves this area without fair and just representation and without a voice i am in full support of your efforts to strike to reorganize the board fully understand some of the past issues need to be addressed and resolved in order to reenergize the board granted there are and will be representatives from other organizations who may address some of these concerns from the residents however these represent representatives from these organizations are not the voice nor they represent the people of these neighborhoods so she sions to silence these two important aber so she's inspiring moving the representation their voice is not an appropriate way to reenergize the board takes a more time and don't rush this legislation through tonight the board is an important avenue for the public to be involved in police matters as such it is just as important that one of the most and impacted areas and largest areas of the city hamilton hill be represented thank you thank you mary mclean that the lobbyist convinced congress to go with the program now let's fast forward to the packet that city council received at the committee meeting under the gas and fluoride chloride gas is a new york state department of health mandated chemical for the treatment of state the city's water fluoride is not mandated therefore albany has never used the fluoride in the water and many nearby towns stopped the pr years ago schenectady insists on spending the money on this toxic chemical last year the cost was fifty four thousand dollars with the fluoride this year forty five thousand six hundred dollars that is an eighty four hundred dollar difference what does the difference mean is the surgery putting less fluoride in the water this year or was the city overcharge charged last year for the for its all water the seventy one no regarding the ethics board salla should not be appointed to the ethics board he is a past president of the teachers union he chaired the teachers committee he chaired the teacher's negotiating team his pro union stance would not make for a very objective committee member select someone else thank you thank you all right i have no one else signed up for this play this portion of the meeting closed and i'll move to approval of the consent agenda item number three an ordinance re appropriating various items within the two thousand and thirteen budget yes i'd like to explain my vote on this i'm having some problems with some components of this re appropriation we can call this job changes job description changes pay raises call what we want but this council we've taken a pay raises at the mayor world into this thirteen budget from some people that worked in other departments of the city and to the best  my knowledge they were taking out duties from other people that retired sole fade to job description doesn't say it's something different they're still doing more work for their money so what's fair is fair and as far has  can call it a pay raise some people don't like the word pay raise call it what you want they're going to make a lot more money this year than what jason said is absolutely correct their pensions will be based on this this is fair to the other people that worked in the city that didn't get pay raises this council took the pay raises out that have any problem with that and as far as the compensation i mean to pay somebody a bonus to come to work here we're not the new york yankees in my estimation so i don't know what to say about that but there was a referendum two years ago and about who has the power to determine anything and basically the past and i think mayor you were one of the proponents of this and ephesus and the city council the sole exclusive authority to determine the number of all city office for its employees of each office and department at the fix the salaries compensation and benefits of all city officers employees schulthess local law be approved that was forty two seventeen to thirty seven twenty seven so i just want to let the rest of the council know contrary to what the mayor was quoted as saying maybe was misquoted i don't know that power does lie within the city council and we all agreed whenever we talk we say the one thing we heard going on doorsteps when we were campaigning was taxes taxes taxes wealth we moved money out of finance our other development put it in finance well then why weren't those development positions at a lower rate to start with why wasn't that done to start with i mean there's a lot of things i'm skeptical about with this year's campaign contributions that were made to the people that are getting job upgrades now i don't like the whole thing i can't put my stamp of approval on it i was going to put it out two weeks ago and i'm not going to put it on the tonight thank you know it's these guns illegal guns on the streets if they have to be removed you know my grandson is in albany m district and i know the superintendent did mention that i know he was trying to get punching and you know that is very much disturbing of the information and on the records and if it's on the web page i'm urging everybody to take a look at this documentation and that i'm hoping that this city council will take up its next meeting to do a resolution requesting keep the thing positive i think they should take it up at the next meeting and set a resolution out i mean when we when you have nearly seventy two percent of the children who are eligible for free lunch you know if an individual cannot read or write how in the heck can they apply for a job so i mean you know i've always advocated for rights of person disability and minorities and jobs on the top priority we've got to be able give people hope and we've got to raise their income if you want to cut food stamps medicaid their income based you give somebody a job they can't qualify for so you don't need it cut medicare medicaid you need to do is give people jobs and give  doing it and also one final thing i want to say when he said one third of your school taxes will be eliminated that's is represents your tax bill so that's fifty percent so that means about twelve hundred dollars out of a seven thousand dollars annual budget would be cut some it's a twelve hundred dollars pay raise for you if we get this thing done the way he wants it and i want to emphasize next twelve hundred dollars thank you very much thank you h city we have to go to the federal government we have to go to the state for funds what happens if you got nothing from them what are you going to do we're out of business this city has to operate like a business but when our school district and our city employees they must start living in this city and in their fair share in taxes we cannot exist anymore like selling one hundred two hundred homes to low income people it's a wonderful thing but the homes are coming more pretty good people are leaving the started what happens when people get out of work or working for the city every road out of the don't leave it on the school system the same thing every pub road going out of the city they're going why we don't have a foundation here where people can stand on their own two feet and make a decision it has to be the unions it has to be the party we don't we got one person representing us in all honesty one person that could stand up and vote no what time no secret meeting each that's a lot of  employees made nine hundred fifty eight thousand eighty three dollars five hundred sixteen thousand eight hundred forty dollars and over time ten employees but cola will be one million four hundred seventy no business could possibly exist that way one employee making maybe one thousand six hundred seventy one dollars made eighty nine thousand seven hundred fifty two dollars in overtime for a total one hundred seventy one thousand four hundred twenty three dollars what does he have experienced city made our businesses are leaving the people are leaving and it's time you get your feet on the ground the piece of the for the citizen thank you thank you  i'm drawing office connected hey i say one thing we can do oh cut down a lot of accidents for one thing as put up signs saying do not turn on  ok thank you i have no one else signed up for this portion of the meeting closed and moved miscellaneous business of the council  to thank karl for inviting superintended spring that's now several times that i've heard that compelling discussion and i can't seem to hear it enough because it's a good remove minder but i want to give him a little more credit than just uncovering this i took part in a community study of the school district in the direction that it's going in several saturdays ago and the room was filled with i would say seventy or eighty people from all different areas of the city in all different positions in the city and it was an amazing process to go through very dynamic and  very open to new ideas in uncovering the needs of our population so although superintendent spring is doing a really good job uncovering the issues that we have with funding he's not stopping there he's also uncovering how we can do more with what we have now and i think that's to be commended as well in addition to that i was very happy to see that mr pappas has joined rejoined our homes program i realize it was a little bit of a bumpy start but i believe in three things i believe number one that our homes program is solid and safe for the city i believe that mr schilling has a good handle on the program what takes to be successful in the program long of course the mayor and i believe that a person can make a difference in their life when they've gone down the wrong road so i mean i thank mr pappas for rejoining the program and we're all going to be watching his progress i saw the dumpster outside of the property full of stuff that they were taking out of the building and i wish him only the very very very best success in rehabilitating that property lastly just so the mayor can sleep more peacefully tonight i want to assure him that i do get my paystub the e mail thank you all right anyone else believe she passed away yesterday morning and i like to think of grace as the matriarch of bellevue because she loved bellevue more than anyone that i can think of she was a great lady she introduced me to help her spark when i was about six or seven years old because i lived kind of over little ways from elders my mother to mommy crossing streets so she brought me over there to the little wading pool that was there that's all we had back then and i've been on the telly and i was introduced to a liver or sandwich for the first time in my she was a great lady and she's going to be missed and a little bit of a lighter note i'm going to say that we're maybe it is when we watch the weather forecasts and we listen to ten thirteen six whatever your preference is all these meteorologists they had the doppler radar going and all these things and we were gloom and doom nobody leave the house don't do anything retail must have been going crazy but i'm going to say mayor you have the best meteorologist in the world work it right here at city hall i talked to carlos and friday morning it he says vents he said i'm going to tell you i'm looking at all that they had and all i see here is no more than eight inches and you know i put a ruler in in the high side lot before i clear the snow and it was just a little under seven inches so carl was right on the money so i want to tell the people out there maybe give carl a call when you want to good weather forecast because other than that nobody will ever leave their their home madame president might know we talked about this we've got the ethics board going we have some some inroads with the police review board going i'd like to see to residents board up and running because we do have some people that can be affected by that that could have a ruling f residents board and he has some waivers that have passed the floor on aisle so that has to be revisit this is waivers only good for one year i think that's very important that we we get that going and mayor if you could when you speak because i had some phone calls about people and i'd like you to explain why a snow emergency would be called by a snow emergency what would be called them what's the benefits either way in the benefits to the city and the cost of the city because there's talked about a few of them and somewhere along the line there was a list that somebody put together where there's literally hundreds of first in schenectady and pretty impressive list you know just our own meteorologist with accuracy update we got from the superintendent schools i think is is really important i mean he said a lot a lot of information there and about the disparity between minorities about income  but i think anybody who you know has cringe when their tax bill comes in which i think it will be anybody in the world who pays taxes it's the biggest opportunity we are going to happen and as a city of pioneers  sometimes it's a matter of taking the right action at the right time and there's probably no time in our history will we have the most opportunity to impact what is on your tax bill so  citizens especially if there's one thing you can do is contact your senator or your some women and tell him what you think about this and tell him you just want to be treated fairly i think we have a big opportunity  change the landscape and that's a huge opportunity so i hope that everybody contacts or senator or assemblyman at the state level that's that's all advertising thank you thank you and helped them to resolve the issue very quickly so i just you know i feel like above and beyond and so it just gives people that much more to you know to look at city hall they if they are doing things right down there so i just want to thank mr f to go for the work that he did on the mount pleasant neighborhood association has asked me to announce that this thursday at seven p m at the faith deliverance tabernacle church ten twenty eighth place which is  and the fifty fifty raffle will take place also i just like to remind folks that it is tax preparation time and he does participate in the free text preparation through vita volunteer income tax  assistance it's a coalition of folks headed by the united way there are a numerous locations throughout the county city and county it's connecting for people can go and get their taxes done for free as long as their income is below fifty one thousand dollars so it's a wonderful service a lot of people believe it or not leave money left on the table in earned income tax credit and the good work that's done by the by the program captures that money we did get started a little bit late no fault of ours the i r s was a little bit behind believe it or not in getting legislation out but tax preparation is underway and again i encourage folks who used to buy the program to get their taxes done and the turnaround time is very quickly especially if you have  also heart disease awareness month so you know the symptoms get checked if you're having symptoms and remind the folks that you love to get that done as well thank you thank you anyone else professional services which was giving us that detailed update and there are going predictions turned out to be fairly accurate just on that note there's t wo things there's a state emergency of urgency and then a snow emergency so in this office i've declared a state of emergency twice that coincided with irene in lee that gives broad discretionary power in the office of the mayor the command staff our mergence the services chief dollar aco who i designated an ongoing basis as any incident commander when we have these type of events a snow emergency so the lower level vent but it triggers some of the change in local law where we have the alternate side parking and other things really designed to assist in the removal of snow i did not declare that this time we have our snow emergency routes the priority streets that after three inches of snow falls you have to move your vehicles off those that those can be plowed we monitored that we prepped for the  snowstorm looked at the options if we got a significant snow storm if there were other things we were prepared to react and whatever happened but the again the weather was somewhat favorable to us we ended up with the seven or eight inches of and following up on that with larry spraying you know he's put together a great message and it's part of the reason people talk about high taxes here in schenectady we've also had contact with the state legislators and people larry has a little bit better leverage than we do for our direct municipal aid because there is a formula that school districts in theory are supposed to work from with the municipal aid there's not a formula it's just it's out there or it's well you know you get this amount of money and there's different stories why communities get things we're at the low end of that number if we got as much as utica got which is a difference of five million dollars for a community that has a smaller population we c do some numbers and translate that almost into an equal tax reduction so if you look at the potential from the school district taxes in the city taxes it his been largely driven by that state aid formula for again whether it's the school district whether it's municipal aid in we've always tried to work politely with the leadership in the legislature sometimes they listen to us sometimes they don't but it this point you know again senator farley is the most senior member of the new york state senate it is a system that is dominated by seniority he one time and i don't know the full committee assignments the cycle but he chaired the local aid committee and you have to look at the performance in why are we on the low end of all the formulas i don't begrudge other communities getting help or assistance when they need it but when schenectady again is just systematically at the low end of the scale in we're expected to deliver the same level of services whether it's picking up the garbage paving the streets or educating our kids in the school district we've still got to pay for it and that burden has been shifted back down to the local taxpayers so i hope out of this campaign is being run by the school district things that we're doing here in the city who will be able to get that message out and look for some structural change whether it will happen all in one year or be part of an ongoing process again to just bring some equity into that formula and then we look forward to working with the members of the state legislature and the council members