for original consideration an ordinance proposing changes to article forty eight of the code of the city of schenectady as it relates to the city code of ethics is introduced only a resolution calling for public airing concerning proposed changes to chapter forty eight of the code of the city of schenectady as it relates to the city codes of ethics ok this is actually just a call for a public hearing and we moved much into this to the consent agenda would by council member blanchard seconded by council member regi all those in favor number two will appear on the consent agenda number three a resolution authorizing the city council to appoint john moved to mary and to serve on the city council this is obviously something we've all been you know thinking about what a bit the last couple weeks or months here and doing a little bit of research on this and we've been getting you know conflicting stories or s look for an answer and on the procedure on how to fill a vacancy in the city council the only specific advice on the procedure that it gives us as they can see exists and the office of council the council shall appoint a qualified person to fill such vacancy and that's that's still instruction we have and so when we don't have anything more specific than that i believe we resort back to new york state law for second class cities and so when i go to look at that section and i look at new york state city's law section thirty four powers of the council talks about a couple different things but the section that pertains to appointments is says all appointments or des nations made by the council shall be determined upon a vote taken by a roll call of its members and a statement of the choice of each member or the azan nays if any shall be entered upon the journey and so by that i feel that are probably in best position to ask for a roll call vote and have each member of this body state who they want to be on the council and i think that it's a appropriate way  because it allows each member to have a voice and it allows us to do i think have a cleaner way of doing this now that he said the appropriate  for motor vehicle rentals we were supposed to have figures on this for this evening i believe this is coming for  from the police department regarding the  receive i followed up this week and asked for more information and the one bit of information i did get was the the vehicles that would be sold from our fleet in exchange for  a kind of going a different approach with getting vehicles i did get that list so there's an impala and acura pathfinder and a jaguar which are for vehicles that were confiscated through the forfeiture program o will be then removed from our inventories or speak and sold the assets would then go back into the forfeiture program i'm not sure if you had another one just original resolution that they have gone up not to exceed twelve thousand dollars everyone else have that king i was in favor their second homes member ok number six moves to the consent agenda number seven a resolution authorizing the settlement of a claim by martin b schenectady as the urban renewal and land bank area moved by council member parousia second by council member king i was in favor i was thirteen appears on the consent agenda number fourteen resolution of our joining the board of board ok journeying in the bond ordinance public hearing previously scheduled for february twenty seventh two thousand and twelve and authorized the clerk of the city is connected to publicize a new known or spore public hearing on this matter ok so that's going to be moved from tonight to another day motion to put our motion to go on the consent of gender mr erics are gone if you stretch out your mighty hand it touches touch our hearts and minds to give us wisdom knowledge and understanding nor there's things that we may disagree but lord help us that we become not disagreeable father we have a lot to touch each and every one one by one  battles to day oh god are over seas law touch them and be wrapped their arms around them a lot to keep them in our law we actually are blessed this council blessed the city and bless its people is best we ask in jesus name thank and i have no one signed a for  real checks of jewish war veterans post number one zero six schenectady veterans were war two korea and vietnam chapter seven of the american gold star mother members of the schenectady community land trust will speak the public is invited one priest to sion requesting safe crossing psychos at the corners for erie boulevard liberty of yes just gusted in government operations we received concern expressed by citizens near the treatment plant about a way of making sure they could still get in touch with the city and the powers that be a treatment plant regarding borders if there you know if one should occur and mr lafond is producing a flyer to remind the citizens that the same numbers are in effect that have always been  hotline at the treatment plant that number remains active and he also will offer them his cell number amongst other contact information and that will be going to the neighborhood doors within a week to ten days also discussed in committee was the addition of the national grid outdoor lighting outage report which is now up on the city website and the home page and you can known that the city putting out a bid noticed a better supplying sound proofing equipment for the police interrogation rooms so the city's calling for people to provide beds they could get specifications you know what specifically we that but i encourage minority contractors majority contractors big contractors small contractors anybody who feel they could radically provide this service or product to the city to participate i'd like to see lots of participation on this and hoping that this communication will make all those things happen so thank you thank you very much for that information anyone else ok as i usually do i've also forgotten out of order resolutions something wrong  come up behind the real so you can be presented with this resolution all over each other's faces and clothes this reflects exactly what happens in nature with all the gorgeous flowers of different colors blossoming by celebrating this event we feel oneness with nature and where as with all its fun holy like other festivals has its own spiritual worth because it builds love and god would correctly follow like other hindu festivals holy detaches the person from material enjoyments to spiritual development wholly teaches us to forget the hatred of others and start the new year with law in whereas it was a festival that commemorates a good harvest in the fertile land in addition to celebrating the coming of spring holy has even greater purposes hindus believe it is the time of enjoying springs abundant callers and saying farewell to winter and whereas the social element and holy is the uniting of different groups the powerful the weak the large the small the rich and the poor and whereas behind pagasa liberation brings love compassion truth and forgiveness and it is hold people will show goodwill towards each other celebrate this new year with love cooperation and equality with all and where as pod well holy tells us that we must always keep god lighting in our hearts spiritual light as holy is according to the the lord manifest in the spring season holy represents the lord soul now therefore be it resolved that gary are mccarthy mayor of the city of schenectady do hereby proclaim march eleventh two thousand and twelve as pablo holy hindu spring festival day in the city of schenectady i moved t members distinguished does friends i would not get into the significance of i wrote that solo but i'm honored to be here to be selected it seems to me that the city has done us a great favor and be really appreciate your support and by giving us your support on this significant this festival for us makes us happy but more importantly for the community as well the hindu community what you have done you love me and us more comfortable in that you will support us in any of our spiritual undertaking i'm not the only doubt you probably will before that in helping us with any operational dealings that we may have to do so for all of that we are very grateful and so we trust that we'll continue to have this type of relationship and this is this is a very good start here for us so we will do our work in  i requested this resolution because you build is just a wonderful program that i firmly believe in it it's truly teach a person to fish program and i think it's very very powerful and you should all be proud of how hard you worked to reach the achievement that you have because it's not an easy program to complete sell whereas youth build schenectady is a twelve month program that helps young adults ages eighteen to twenty four from schenectady county while getting paid to build affordable housing participants receive six months of classroom instruction in construction training and six months of job placement  thousand and six and wells the program held a graduation ceremony on friday february third two thousand and twelve where twenty three risk young adults from the city of schenectady graduated successfully and where as the graduates demonstrated commitment to improving quality of life for themselves in their community through personal growth and performing thousands thousands of volunteer service hours to projects in the city of schenectady the students work and affordable construction projects and sustainable energy retrofits in the city of schenectady and by completing internships at local businesses such as mohawk ambulance services in zero draft whereas seventeen of the students focused on a career in construction while the remaining six graduated with a focus in care and c n a all graduates secured employment or enrolled in college courses following the completion of the used build program let me read that again all graduate on behalf of ne parent child it is real honor for this to happen tonight thank you thank you city council working with the city has been a tremendous blessing for our program the city has helped us grow and has helped us do a lot in affordable housing but also been able to work on our community service projects and these young people represent some of the people who worked on service projects this year totaling over ten thousand hours as you said so i'd like to turn this over at this time to some students who may want to talk about having us and all of them as always go good to home rebuild and improve the quality of life in our community and it just feels even better to be appreciated by the city so just thank you thank you thank you thank you graduations thank you for being here tonight of order a little bit because last year the state approved a two percent property tax cap and what is the effect of what's tonight's resolution is doing is putting one point one million dollars of the of the city budget out of balance you don't even have ossets here i mean you budgeted a budget without any of this money coming to the to the county for this fiscal year and you know and then last so you know now you come back a week later you're not but now you're saying well we don't need to cut the budget so therefore we don't need to go into exact of session so i mean there's a kind of a backwards to this is that last year you didn't put an issue or a budget that you owe of over four and a half million dollars to the school district pay taxes where's that going to come from how are you going to pay for that so you know i mean you've got some and balances going on here and you know just having a resolution sand a we didn't do we didn't do it enough time we all the taxes pay for but you've got to have some way of balancing you cannot run a deficit it is illegal you can't print money so where  were the budget cuts i mean and so tonight resolution is out of order it's not in compliance with the city charter so you know i mean we'd like to know what budget cuts are city council city city council a democratic committee service award for work as a community activist and she has the distinction of being named a delegate to the two thousand and twelve democratic national convention ms port and truly valuing our citizens the second concern i have is underlined by an article in the times union paper today this article stated there is a religious resolution to appoint someone to the city council seat tonight without having a quorum of the city council members as required by the city charter as a result such a vote would be illegal also the article refers to the newly elected non democratic city councilman r let me say to you since you are the only independent party member of the city council the people of this city for the most part chose you because of your ability to think outside the box but you must work within this box and be a part of the issues before this body not add subterfuge to them i think this brings up another issue this ideal of having city wide elections as opposed to district elections for city council  begs the question what communities in the city are not receiving representation in city government the very model of our election process in this instance opens the door to the possibility of lack of representation i think what you call me a bad name sorry resolution five but these cars that we're going to be leasing mentor for the police department from not mistaken and your mama twelve thousand dollars i don't know if that's for all of them or each one of them but each car from what i understand for a police vehicle has to have certain qualifications to be a police vehicle they have to be have certain things on him and i think they would run more than twelve thousand dollars so maybe i'm wrong but her that would be something to look into now here's where i become a bad guy resolution three these people who come down here to run office we don't see them dernier i tend most of the meetings i mean i have nothing against these people but they're supposed to be doing good for the city they're not down here during the year to to look at see what they could do for the  city election time come they got their name on the ballot they're here one person wants to go because i've heard this and i don't know how true it is this person's going to do good for this neighborhood if we're going to go what person is doing good for the neighborhood let's go back to the running then all of a sudden you don't see them so if these people don't get on the ballot tonight to to fill the seat we'll see how many meetings that they have to thank us i'm very surprised about this making whole business i thought that was discovered and taken off the agenda for ever but two years ago some really surprised about that i'm really really glad to see this business about drawing up new codes for ethics and i hope i'm i hope i'm under the right i kind of information that this is going to be in conjunction with the county that at least most of it i hope all of it is the same for both the city and the being replaced it's just happening it's become a pattern so i hope that the ethics committee comes up with a  bethen numbers on the police equipment to that should be tabled they promise promise and never come back and i think that should be tabled i think that's about all that i have  good evening i'm mary maclane i live in the city with all due respect to the designated ap pointy to the council seat he is a nice man but what counsel is about to do tonight is a kid in two thumbing their names their noses at everyone who went out to vote or no election day the very same conversely when someone loses by thirty nine votes it's a big deal he lost the apt point feels that council needs his financial the voters felt otherwise they elected a mechanic and of restaurant or to a council seat that us who they'd like that is who they want it the broders have spoken council has several options regarding the empty seat one leave it vague it and let the two front runners fight it out in the primary they are young and have time on their side it is not unusual for someone to run for office more than once john glenn ran three times before he was selected to the u s senate number two council has no obligation to full full and he wants a promise unless like council member also a candidate part of the process the democratic executive committee is comprised of elected officials of those officials the candidates made a promise along with the members of the other committee then there has been the breach who took part in the promise the court needs to summon the individual and get to the bottom of it the laws are very specific all running for office a candidate cannot make promises to anyone for jobs or other perks counsel three counsel can employ a compromise candidate until the next election that's  only nine months away and i'm interested in the seat when the final note citizens must remember why we are in this situation the mayor positions for himself and once again we have been disenfranchised thank you ok i have no one signed up for the rest of the privilege of the floor on the legislative agenda so i will close that portion and move on to the passage of the consent agenda have a motion some other number is needed can you speak to the the part of the second class of the law that says that all appointments are dogs nations are made by the common coun based on the amendment to the motion what we'll do is a roll call and i would ask that each member speak to the individual that they would like to have a pointed to the city council and based on that number we'll look at the vote and go from there of the choice of each member of the yeas and nays if any shall be entered upon the journal so the progress of the council for the appointment the appointment to the city council is made by the city council and it is made by vote again according to second class city law and so there absolutely no reason unless somebody can find me one in writing that we can't do th so i would ask her to call the ro well i think it's clear that this was a very difficult decision for all of us and i spent you know what i was campaigning i said over and over again and i'll say it again my promise was that i would listen with an open mind that i would proactively gather information and that i would have integrity at the center of my decision making process and i'm happy that we took the time that we took to make this appointment because it was crucial to gather information from the citizens and i kept a log i had discussions one on one with people i had phone calls and e mails and i continue to invite discussion as to why i'm making the decision that i'm making at any given time come up to me i'll talk to you about it i am voting for john the i also i'm glad we took the time right because i think that this is a big deal we have several people quite a list of people actually they were interested and i'm glad we gave everybody consideration  for that though i think that we need to pick you know each of us needs to get a state publicly who we feel would be the best candidate for that vacancy and for that i put in community i feel it's important to have representation from the hamilton hill area you know we've had for sixteen years i think that she continued my vote is in no way a negative vote for john i campaigned with him i think he  i mean i've heard some things tonight that all the candidates will give me consideration that is not the case i am very disappointed in everything that's happened here tonight we have a corporation council giving us one opinion we come up with something else and i ask all of you to keep your voices down because this is a constant vote right now i know this is a very emotional issue and it certainly has been for us because if you will remember back times when appointments were made nobody had a decision over it other than what the majority party was we have tried to do something different here we have tried to gather information we have tried to topps the citizens in th little disconnected my information came certainly that and this is not a vote against marian this is a vote for john because of the feedback i received from him from the six months that i campaigned with him on the streets i had the opportunity to listen to him i had the opportunity to see what he was about i watched john raise funds i watched john campaign and a the candidate to run for office again that being said we are all here as a democratic process we are all going to have differences so whatever turns out with this and whatever happens i hope that all of us are going to be able to get a lot get along with it and over long because if we can't we're going to be back in the same place that we were but again that being said aspect two weeks ago i came in other members of n y c see minority contractors spoke to you about the need to improve employment situation we are here again speaking out on the need for the city of schenectady to balance the playing field for all residents the city workforce he was musing great need for improvement we as a city need to set goals on the higher end of people of color for city we are willing to work with city officials on figuring out a plan that would get the city closer to me responsible expectations along with the hiring or on beds is a very important where call in the city of schenectady to go above the legal required goals are reason is that we have minority contractors hi locally we spend locally and we invest greater insurance for ensuring work for people of color with deeply invest  would deepen the investment in our communities and translate into home ownership and decrease in crimes in addition the city of schenectady should take a closer look on whether or not metroplex is m goes set by the state if not we need the city to voice their concerns and not sit by and allow the metroplex to be held accountable to residents of schenectady thank you council president city council mer pro tem we just witnessed one of the fair reasonings of how the city does operate that city attorney just gave a complete ruling and then the city council president wanted to override the city attorney for a legal opinion you know thanks parents for being independent or that really showed that you were being independent even though you were trying to abstain  this is the vote the voters have spoken it's a city council process but i wanted to clearly show that the distinction of the city council in violating federal laws state laws and so forth and you know i mean it goes along with what i've been asking for which is affirmative action we have no affirmative action and we need to start addressing these issues of providing jobs and providing access to the program services and activities of the city and we must do it in an opportunity for both minorities and for a person with disabilities we have over twenty two percent population of minorities in this city and we have well over twenty three percent of persons with disabilities and of that thirteen percent of it is the working age of sixteen through sixty four you know and where the worst county in this state and hiring a person with disabilities with a seventy percent unemployment rate this city keeps taking community bill up block grant money and funneling in it to elsewhere that other than what it's supposed to be really doing it fails to od it the pilot programs still give out big huge multimillion dollars worth of federal money in state money and county and city without any accountability or even jobs to the local city we need to start addressing these issues and we need to start moving forward there is a process within the federal law says we must have public hearings we must have a project goals outcomes of how we're going to achieve it when you're saying you're going to have a five percent minority participation under your contracts where do you come up with that figure that's where an economic disparity study comes there are over sixteen different entities in this county they're required are mandated to have an economics study you pool their resources you're looking at less than fourteen thousand dollars per year for three years that come up with sixteen six hundred thousand dollars to pay for an economic disparity study where i mean fourteen thousand dollars you can't even come out come up with fourteen thousand dollars have a budget of one year to set aside for this you know you need to start planning for the future and start planning what's going to happen with the jobs in the city and not just delegating it to multimillionaires and developers and contractors that pay the democratic party for their political campaigns thank you  training where to double business training ben and what action do you do in these people that are involved in accidents you have a policy of a memo discussion for bad employee a warning nor does just charge without  what's going on here i think you need to look after the city employees like you never did before they need to live in this city you would need all these surveillance cameras and pay for these hundreds of thousands of dollars and nobody to watch what the heck how do you act here i thought you had some intelligence because the union gave you thirty thousand dollars you're going to give the employees everything do they run this city or do you have a city that's what i'd like to know there's a lot of openness here and we need some answers that we need some action if a city employee doesn't want to live here they should be here or be out wonder to younger and we wouldn't need all this nonsense we wouldn't get hurt by the ceiling fall on you but this is no joke this is serious i live i think that everyone should be responsible and the city council and the mayor to inspect every piece of city property at least three four times a year and report on  condition of them and get them fixed up or close them whatever you need to do but this waste of money with overtime going to saratoga county and buying big four wheeled vehicles and given a contract with what you do to our fire department two years no pain crease you give the police department a salary increase where's your common sense what do you think's going to happen when the next contract comes up for the fire department we're going to get burned they're going to set a fire and  the taxpayers are suffocating with your increases in taxes and fees pretty soon the fees will be more than our taxes the way you're going we need to control this and get it reduced and get these employees in the city no preserver however i was shocked to see that there terry a good condition of this preserver so i was glad to hear that the city council is adopting a management plan they really look they should in the woodlawn preserve and the large number of volunteers and who are attempting to bring the area back to of the few inequal freezers in all the united states they'll be a draw from around the capital district thank you very much i'm chair city council members the last time i made a presentation i talked about the lack of attention to mount pleasant and at the end of this session miss brooker you mentioned that you welcome suggestions indoor solutions to concerns facing residents of schenectady so my comments are basically to the residents of schenectady and i don't mean to offend anybody who is already doing some of these things but as reminders they would be nice if a group of people on each and every street came together to deal with problems facing them on their particular street for instance on port their new between crane st in congress we have worked with city officials to get the street and sidewalks paved of a building i think some of you swear that that was taken down and hopefully something will replace that so the transients are coming in there already we stopped the frat house where forty to fifty kids were  so what i'm saying is if and each street we had it only takes sometimes a handful of people we can bring some civility at least and then course working with all of our city officials the code  enforcement garbage collecting we had somebody we had a big in house and some buddy from outsiders bring in thirteen of port that is the garbage every week we finally handle that and if the after numerous requests and nothing is resolved then i guess there are other avenues to address and i would like to say about the vacancy i feel that mr of right and miss porter field are both both put their time and effort in their own way with the seat i don't feel anybody else should be considered as my own feelings hamilton hill and mt pleasant we shouldn't have to keep coming here and asking for help but beans we don't have representation i think both of these are real in the they remember back in two thousand and four hillary clinton came to union college and i believe there was a twelve million dollar grant that was supposedly for hamilton hill and mt pleasant unfortunately mr stratton and the metroplex  city hall took me three years to get it so let's get down to city hall and sign up for and about this eerie boulevard with these cross annoyance i feel for these people b you know people are crossing against the wards tool i mean drivers are taken responsibility that they have to put people across and against a light sometimes they don't even see i'm not an incident where that young lady got killed that was that was bad that was someone was off the wall book i was coming up every boulevard from mom g e one night and had to wait for lloyd on state street and the traffic across from me was stopped and the car in the right hand waving was going to take a right hand turn and this person was crossing the street against the light almost walked into that car i mean the person didn't see him it was at night and it was a s u v next to him and he didn't see the person crossing so i mean yes i understand the lights have to be changed but on the other hand people have to obey the lights if the you don't obey and they're not doing any good thank you  version artists a local contractor and i live in a city city contracts this association n y c c i read an article last week when they were up there speaking you guys are playing games with them it's very simple the contracts are there and there's minority participation involved to tell them to try to get together a bit on the whole thing i mean i've been fighting this for a while and not only in the city and these are the same type of the feedback they were getting is the same stuff i've been getting for years and that's not it's not and would need to go on it's very simple we pay for our  people who work up there are officers and make sure these people follow the guidelines and everything they report directly to the mayor i had a meeting when stratton was the mayor and it was quite straightforward to me they answer to him so if the mayor is not going to do anything that nothing can be done if you don't give them the power to stop these jobs because people aren't in compliance and skin to keep going on if you guys don't ask the question have they filled the minority participation before her you vote on them get in the little bit of job i don't care a little bit or if they don't do it if they don't fulfill the contract why bother with them you vote for yeah let's go with it whoever at the time it was strategy and now it's kerry i mean i voted for kerry i believed if it was written down in paper he would follow and you guys have it written down to say they're supposed to be more minority participation it's a good gesture what you did announce in the job but all you have to do is ask that question before you vote did they fill the requirements for minority i'm sorry laurie with her the i reiterate what she said the streets all trashy this is the worst i've ever seen it it looks disgusting and i also wanted to talk about the fact that  the merry import of phil and john position i think that you should have two positions instead of having people fight no fighting amongst themselves about that position you need to just smuggle over that the both of them sit up there and clearly the day thank you lake about ten years ago and i bought one of the lap of aged home paint peeling in that setter and i brought it back to present will parents and i'd like to see the same thing happen to resume which he had recorded when he had volunteered delegate forty empty council see some of his accomplishments and experience he's an insurance broker and that real estate person he has trained property things and he has college education from new york city long island he went to st john's university and recei bachelor's and master's degree in computer science and mathematics i also received a master's not i but i'm reading from his resume at a master's degree in operations research and management from the state university thank you thank you s thank you ma'am i'm here to make several announcement i mean could just the affirmative action manager for the city and the county else connected in there are several jobs the present moment the city estimated he is looking for a line o someone with electrical experience again as the mayor stated preference is always given to the residents filing deadline for the line worker electrical is february twenty ninth applicants ha the option of turning the application in my office at six twenty state street or bring it down stairs to the human resource office the city also announces there is a temporary one full time temporary motor equipment operator this person needs to have a class b c b l license the application deadline is march first and again they can join in the application to my office at six twenty state street or downstairs and the human resource office this city our schenectady also announces eleven full time seasonal labor a position that is a ten dollar and our position the minimum qualification is a high school diploma or a ged they can turn in their application to my office at six twenty states street or downstairs in the human resource office this city  announces the public safety dispatch exam this particular exam the minimum qualification for that exam is a graduation from a high school graduation from high school or possession of a english section of the exam if you are a spanish speaker you are invited to take the spanish proficiency exam and also be placed on the english and spanish list for this particular exam i mounted applications have to be turned into six twenty state street which is also the civil service office the application deadline is march twelfth the affirmative action office is going to offer an exam a review session for this particular exam if anyone is interested in taking the exam i'm sorry if anyone is interested in taking the exam they must file by march twelfth and also let me know so i can lead them so i can inform them when the review session is going to occur the public says kevin more the director of that program will be doing the review session for us so if anyone is interested in scoring high on this particular exam i would strongly encourage them to contact my office as well the process for a way we did this in the advice of a corporation counsel and there's kind of some different things that are going on here that the the discussion that we had kind of changing the format here was really just a piece of the law that we got from new york state second city's classed law in it and we read it once but i'll read it again because i think it's very important people understand that all appointments and dozen nations made by the common council be determined upon a vote taken by a roll call of its members and a statement of the choice of each member or the azan nays if any shall be entered into the journal that was the statement and that's why i think we changed the format in which we went around and everyone had to say publicly who they endorsed whether three is the majority whether four is the majority whether you know whatever number is majority that is a different side of this discussion this change that we made was essentially to allow the voters the people out there to know who each of us was for and why so give us all an opportunity to speak now in regards to the tie on the council you know some people might categorize this is a catastrophe that might categorize this is like the worst thing that could possibly happen and i would venture a guess that maybe the two people that each got three votes tonight might view it that way there's two very good people two people who care a lot about this community that are on the edge of their seats waiting every day that something might change that might put them in a position that they've been working hard to obtain view this as a good thing in the past we've had people come up and say it's political it's rubber stamping it's already fixed it's behind closed doors why we have just gone around this table and discussed who we want and so it's a tie i don't think you could accuse it of being rigged if it's a tie i don't think you could accuse it of people you know playing games if it's a tie this is how each of us feel and as it turns out these two candidates are probably relatively closely matched there isn't it a runaway candidate there isn't somebody who's wow so wonderful another person who do you have i don't know why we're even considering there's two people who care about the city two people who really are working hard to be able to make a difference in our community and so for that i think this is a good thing it's frustrating it's it you know it grinds on every day i think about this i've been thinking about  but it's a good thing for the people it's connecting yes they don't have a seventh council member but they should at least be comfortable in the fact that the six council members that are here are thinking long and hard about the decisions that are being made especially on this appointment and i think for that this is a good thing for the city is connecting i've got a couple of things i want to talk about and people brought up the rental of the police cars these are undercover cars right now when there's  a drug bust or something like that we confiscate of the police department confiscate vehicles and then the law allows them to sell it and then use those funds to you know use in the additional resources for  in catching bad guys sort of speak what we're doing is we're selling vehicles and instead of having a car that for undercover purposes everyone knows what it is right because it's on the city list of vehicles that we own we're going to have our guys go out and rent cars from a rental car place so that each time you go and rent one it's a different license plate it's a different make a different model so it's helps in the undercover process and so it's going out and renting them from a recall place instead of keeping them in  the car accidents people talk about car accidents when i heard it i was outraged and i think everybody was it was more of a gasp when i heard the number and what we have determined is that there isn't a clear policy and how the mayor or any mayor in the past has had to deal with this and so what we're doing is pushing to implement a policy that covers automobile usage who gets to drive one when they get to drive one where they get to drive one and what happens if there's an accident in the requirements for that nothing's documented this point and i think that we're overdue for documenting that kind of activity and so shortly in the coming weeks  the public can expect to see an automotive use policy coming and into the committee genda and lastly the repayment of the county we really didn't have many options in terms of whether we pay the bill or not legally we are obligated to and we pay our bills in terms of how the budget is balanced it is my personal preference but i think we need to make adjustments to how we spend our dollars and account for that  that being said there is a reserve a rainy day fund the coffee can on the shelf in which the city can float payments via cash flow and so that's how we can do it it's not my preference and we went into closed doors executive session to discuss about specific removal of specific employment you know headcount reduction  and for that as we discussed specific titles and names you really don't want that in public because it has a major effect on morale and as you toss names around and consider them you know i don't think it's good for the function of the city  council was not able to come to a conclusion or resolution of what to do we will continue to work on that we'll continue to discuss it but again getting seven people to agree on exactly what to cut is a difficult thing it's a so regarding first i want to give my thanks to the city fire department they were kind enough to host me for a number of hours on monday and yes i did go to fire station three and yes i did go into the kitchen and fire station three and it's my understanding that the roof is funded to get repaired and repairs are being made to the building so we're very very happy about that because of course our firefighters are very very important to us all of our public safety personnel we all serve the city at large and i take that responsibility very very seriously and i have actually in the past several weeks been to hamilton hill a number of times one first of all i stood on the board of quest which serves a very disenfranchised population and at my suggestion and also at the agreement of council member regie we are starting a public forum through quest  to listen to the concerns of the residents of hamilton hill from the youngest member of the organization to their parents in addition in the sunday i went to a couple house because they were let me just back up and tell you that cocoa house stands for children of our community open to achievement it's located on stanley street they took a very a house in very very bad shape terrible disrepair and they've upgraded it to now a beautiful property and they mentor and give homework ass you on a very small budget i just also want to say i would like people to seek some information additional information about this program and they can do so at koko house inc dot org so as i said i take the fact that i serve the city as a whole very very seriously focusing on the hamilton hill neighborhood because it was stated that we are not seen there and you may not see me but that's just because we're not in the same place apparently at the same time some good news because we all know i like good news and i think although we deal with a lot of difficult issues here there are also wonderful wonderful things happening in our city  i was recently made aware that as of this ring semester at the new downtown s e c c campus we are serving more than twenty two hundred students in more than eighty eight different classes and i think that along with the paul mitchell school is bringing young people in our downtown we're filling our own pipeline talking about the best cities for jobs number one was washington d c two was do more in des moines iowa and three was the poughkeepsie newberg in the albany schenectady area so in a quote from our own chamber president magazine so i was very very happy to read that today and lastly although it's already been mentioned tonight i don't think we can mention anough the fact that the deadline for all exemptions is due by march first which is this thursday very very very very important date so thank you system like they haven't all been and we still have your schenectady years ago so it's not about id or not that would be up to the voters to decide if we can have that charter change obviously the charter revision committee which we talked about and that's another big can of worms  we do take that at least i'll speak for myself only support for self we take that seriously that charge to sort of the city at large so i'm concerned about all neighborhoods in the city about the trash in our streets and cleaning up the streets that's what i campaigned on and i'm planning on sitting down with the mayor and i want to sit down with the council and see how we can implement a program to clean the trash up off our streets along with graffiti and other things this has to be dealt with if we want to sell the city we have to sell a clean city and it's an ongoing problem and people come up here and talk about it it's something that really is happening so it's something we really have to deal  with another thing that came to my attention from mr chair says and we heard it at the qwest meeting aliso is schenectady street there's open drug dealing i mean i know what's out them a lot of parts of the city but people brought chairs outside with heaters so they can stay warm where they're dealing off the curb i mean something has to be done about that correct i mean that's what we heard in my eyes all of them like this when i hear that and you know somebody said look drive by there will  probably you know some people try to sell you some drugs but this here that their point chairs out to the curb and with heaters in a skin up to the street which is schenectady street is is just unbelievable i will speak to the commissioner when he's back and i'll speak to the mayor about this but we have to deal with this for sure another thing that came to my attention i got an e mail from a lady a borrow solicitors with permits and she had a good idea because somebody knocked on her door kind of maybe six o'clock on a saturday night and she was wondering when somebody close a permit is there are certain hours involved when they could come and knock on your door and i see our clerk is not  whatever so they know that they belong there so i think that may not be a bad idea if we can do that in this lady had a real good idea but i heard this from a couple people about solicitors coming not in authority and especially older people are afraid to open their door and i don't blame them so that's something we should look into my lastly about the appointment i made a promise to both the candidates that were being considered that i was on a level playing field because being appointed to will see is a leg up on when you're wrong the next time if you're going to run there's no question about that we have people here that have been appointed to seats and and obviously that is an advantage and i said i would not give any wanted advantage now if it was either through abstention through voting no or whatever but i could s the political part of this which i won't get into kind of made me go the way i did and i feel good about it because now it's level now whatever happens from here if there's going to be a primary if the so come up again right ever but i think we need a unified way i mean if we're not going to listen to the corporation council his opinion we have to figure out a way what we're going to do if this comes up again if it comes up again next meeting  comes again in six months i personally think that the way this has gone so far the best thing to do live to see it open the cigarette fell apart it happened in the early ninety's this happened when vince was resigned to see the was not filled the city didn't go into a catastrophe mode or anything like that right the voters decide and then the day after they're elected we appoint that person to the seat so they take the seat a little bit early that's probably the best way to handle this but that will be up to whoever greater minds than i but i only know one thing that we need to make the playing field level this was pitting one community against another in the city it's not a good thing it's not good for anybody so it shouldn't happen that way i have my own opinion about appointments but if we're going to see him now a change yes john got four thousand votes he only lost by a few well for him was that kind of thinking i had fifty five hundred votes when five hundred i had more than anybody in this past election if you were here is that analogy when someone offers i lost i did not get appointed to the next open seat which was within that year so but basically you know the best way is let the voters take care of it i really convinced about that let them do it in with that i think i covered everything i have a my one other thing and harry brand brought up about the cars the ad sense where the reason the public didn't know bob is it was talked about and executive session did that belong in executive session i don't believe sol it was something that came up when we were executive session we have to be mindful when we start discussing things to make america come out of the executive session so people get to know about things like this even the more we discussed about the one point five million to the county there was only a tiny portion of that that was executive session we haven't had  corporation council said i think we should combine executive session now it was over ruled on that i think the public has a right to know a lot of things we have to be very mindful about when we go in executive session when we don't know what's discussed when we're in executive session if it's stuff on the agenda session and not in the executive session thank you fact that we had a tie is not necessarily a bad thing i think we had two excellent candidates and i think both candidates knew that that would be the possibility of this happening and that's what happened and so be it in terms of anyone trying to do and i know you're not going to agree with me but i'm telling you right now this came to us late in the day and it was a different way for us to find another way to put this vote to a vote and also to really emphasize that it is a council appointment and that the council has the final say in making appointments this was not a resolution this was not a motion it was an appointment imp your unique unto the counsel and as i said before many other times and we've had appointments is a political you bet it is of course it is and that's why with your five hundred fifty votes you didn't get appointed because you were from the i mean let's call it what it is whatever you know fifty five hundred let's call it what it is we tried to do something a little bit different i think we interviewed other individuals and i would like to say that those individuals whether or not they got their name mentioned tonight they certainly have their name and their recognition to us tonight and they also as we can tell by some of the individuals who came in here tonight also recognizing them that is what we want here in the city of schenectady we want people to participate and we want all of you to participate and thank you very much for being here tonight again whether we agree or whether we disagree please participate and i'd also like to for talking about what she does in her neighborhood the because there's many people who will on their street see a piece of garbage that didn't get that fell off the truck i see it all the time on my street i live in a cul de sac things blow away the next person walk through out smog not my garbage can i'm not picking it up where you well you know well and good where it belongs or the orange juice container that's flying down the street and nobody wants to pick it up so for three days it just kind of whispers around around the street we all need to be responsible for the garbage in our street sometimes whether it's ours or not because if you walk by your own was as bad as that person is threw it out the window or off their porch or just is totally ignoring it i'm not saying that we all take up the position of being garbage collectors but i do think we have to be responsible for our own neighborhoods because if i don't know who's going to be you know most of the people who come up here tonight and talk about those issues you're not the ones we have to worry about you're the ones that are here be responsible talking about hoping that someone down the road is going to hear you or get your get your drift and begin to take perhaps a lesson from you or each one kind of teach one that these things don't and shouldn't exist in your neighborhood because if we walk over it like i said we're just as bad as they are  in terms of the other thing i wanted to mention the charter review committee and probably should because when we were looking for a rule of law over the past two weeks around this appointment is very very vague it's three it's four it's this or that it depends on who you talk to but there was nowhere where it actually came out and said four votes three votes three quarters two thirds and so you have to continue to look for those laws that speak to that and that's what we thought we found this evening in terms of tax exempt status in march first you heard a few people talk about the cvs thing i can't tell you how important this is because many of you in this room belong to organizations that may or may not have been affected by a t f and the tax laws that are going on right now because someone didn't file that exemption and it went year to year to year and now all of a sudden tax and penalties have piled up on nonprofit organizations even if you don't belong to a nonprofit organization if you know someone in especially if you know the treasure please please tell them that they need to do this otherwise those organizations and we're looking at places like carver who serve youth they are under the gun for all of these things and it's because those exemptions were filed and i don't know what else we could possibly do the city sends out letters you know some people don't think it's their job and then by the time the treasurer gets to it to write the check or to sign out that tax exemption form it's too late so please take it very very seriously churches nonprofit organizations ask them whether or not they file that tax exempt form because it's very very important and i think that said thank you all for coming tonight thank you all for voicing your