number joe or resolution eliminating previously budgeted positions for the two thousand and tw number three number four item number four resolution authorizing the city engineer to issue a revokable permit number five six nine to kacey creations l l c for a sign hanging over the city right of way at eight to schenectady community action planning for a sign handing hanging over the city right of way at nine thirteen albany street sorry about that also discussed in committee without objection on consent number close we'll move on to schenectady city council for september tenth could we please all rise and have a moment of silence in recognition of september eleventh thank you with a click please call the role as perasso was porterfield mr erickson and his gang mr we have one eye out of the order of the ricky you have the floor thank you i'd like to invite chief del rocco judge christine clark and any others who are involved with the nine eleven activities to come and this is a resolution honoring the victims in the first responders it's your sponsors of nine eleven it's already the resolution whereas on september eleventh two thousand and one and unprovoked and her endless act of terrorism was committed against the citizens of the united states of america and whereas nearly three thousand innocent men women and children both civilian and military lost their lives at the world trade center in new york city the pentagon in washington d c and in western pennsylvania and whereas more than four hundred firefighters police officers and emergency personnel died in an heroic effort to save the lives of the men and women who were caught in those terrible attacks and whereas among those who lost their lives on september eleventh two thousand  former schenectady police commissioner charles and mills james matthew patrick and pavlo ortiz and where as many of the survivors of the horrific attacks continue to suffer from health conditions directly relating to those attacks and where as the destruction devastation and grief of this event forever change the united states in the lives of its citizens now therefore be it resolved that the city council wishes to pause from its deliberations for a moment of silence to acknowledge and honor the memory of all the victims of september eleventh two thousand and one the great sacrifices of the community volunteers the police officers the firefighters the medical personnel and all others who became heroes through their courageous aftermath and i appreciate the continued remembrance by the city council and the community of schenectady so thank you we thank you for being here tonight thank you as i talk to people  the past ten years there really isn't anybody who hasn't been touched in some way by the events on nine eleven and it's it's tough for me to talk about it in some ways because those firefighters who died were my brothers sorry i'm sorry and all those civilians who died were everyone's brothers and sisters so thanks counsel sorry it is very emotional for me still it's still very we have no public hearing scheduled for this evening we will move on to approval of the minutes moved by council member ricky seconded by council member browser i was in favor approved communications in petitions to the council communications presented to the city council for monday september tenth two thousand and twelve from the mayor a list of appointments dated september tenth two thousand and twelve general put to general communications a letter from reverend ted ward date it august twenty eighth two thousand and twelve regarding the tax lien on christian ministries from the schenectady county council of veterans organizations a letter now a letter announcing the gold star mothers services on september thirtieth at evergreen cemetery at two p m from the schenectady counts schenectady county council of veterans organizations a letter announcing the veterans day services on sunday november eleventh a ten thirty a m at veterans park from the bell be a president sion announcing their monthly meeting on thursday september thirteenth and the bellevue green market will remain open on no committee reports from the discussion was carried out and partially public session partially executive session regarding retirement incentives there's no nothing was passed out of committee so what we've asked some more questions administration they're going back in is more answers and so there's been no decision on that if issue at this time so i'll let you know was as things progressed thank any committee reports saying no committee reports that portion of the council is closed we will now move on to privilege of the floor on the legislative agenda first person i have signed up is richard grieving mayor council president brucker members of the city council meetings which the tourney lifelong resident of the city of schenectady as i sit on the steps on the steps of city hall in early may to announce that i will be a candidate for this year city council c i stated the need that we need to recognize that the city has a very large financial problem and the longer that it waited to act the more drastic the corrective actions would be i offered numerous possible solutions that included negotiating a better sales tax agreement now here we are faced with possible layoffs at least the five million dollars deficit the potential of a tax increase upwards of fifteen percent if we don't act on our problem now i don't want to see anyone lose their job and the thought of that happening in this economy makes me very uncomfortable the combination of layoffs and tax increases will only mean that city taxpayers will be paying more for fewer services we need to explore options before we put someone on the employee unemployment line at a time when jobs are so hard to come by and before we raise taxes on those struggling to keep their homes and manage their budgets fewer city services affect all of our city residents homeowners and renters for the good of our residents we need to pursue the negotiation of a better sales tax agreement after reading the times union article this morning regarding the city budget analysts review of the mayor's proposed tax sale deal with the county i have doubts in my mind as whether the deals in the best interest of the city taxpayers are we getting what we really deserve why is this an eight year agreement when officials are elected every four years why has our portion of the sales tax revenue up till now gone up by only one hundred thousand dollars since the early ninety's when the total county sales tax revenue has more than doubled since then what those the finance director the analyst boss think of the deal and is she in agreement with what mr cuthbert has had to say too many questions not enough answers here's what i have to offer renegotiate look at twelve and a half to thirteen million come into the city ask the county to front load this money to assist us with our financial math now enter into a four year agreement not an eight year  after receiving the front loaded money focus on reducing government smaller percentages of monies in the latter years can be offset by consolidation of services such as unifying command center in two thousand and fourteen countywide assessment and fifteen and more to come ladies and gentlemen the county of schenectady is in much better shape than the city of schenectady to our county leaders please realize this and help us get us through these tough times we are in immediate need of an influx of cash so let's look beyond political party affiliation and work for the people of our city thank you for your time tonight we hope that we can come to an agreement that it is appropriate for the city of schenectady avoid layoffs and reduction of services and work together towards resolving the city's financial mess thank you thank you consummate ladies and gentlemen you're a plant from st schenectady i'm also waiting for a better deal with the county sales tax on you know one hundred thousand dollars when you look at it just for demolition for the eight hundred plus structures that we have her whether or not all are going to be demolished but still one hundred thousand dollars just drop in the bucket you're going to get two buildings that are going to be taken down with that much money you know and also you know we should make sure that you know the status quo and political expediency aren't the only things that are guiding this because really the times article woke up a lot of people that's why i'm here tonight i seen it in my own community i live on front street we have our issues down there but also a lot of things have not been addressed there are the growing on funded mandates throughout the county but the city has the largest population we in order to get rid of the bloody and the poverty you know that's the only way we're going to do is to really clean up the city it's too bad that mr gardner who wanted to sue the city earlier in the year because he wanted the city to make niskayuna whole for their school taxes got an eighty nine percent graduation rate we have sixty percent graduation rate you know these problems didn't just happen overnight they've have been you know for a long time i've been here twenty three years and you know we still keep going to the same thing that you know there's no money for demolitions or cleanup and you know those are the most important issues for the funded mandates property taxes sales taxes etc if you want to consider an unfunded mandates now unfunded mandates look out for the people who support the funded mandates you know the people who work in city hall the people who protect us the people who clean our streets look out for them first but we need more money to really clean up the city so that people will stay in the city and furthermore you know help the people out there through the unfunded mandates that they get let them know absentee landlords are can be tolerated people who don't pay their property taxes or clean up their properties are going to tolerate it we just got a situation that's been going on for several months in my neighborhood that a man had to drive in for an to clean up property on front street was too bad you want to own property and make a lot of money off people don't have a lot of money but guess what clean up your properties but we need more money from the county sales tax we allowed it to happen so that it be higher to support metroplex i buy in the city and i'm proud that i do i don't have to go to albany county any other county to support the city of moore to hear first so that the monies will go to help people like myself who support ourselves who support others who support the city who have done is a volunteer out of our pocketbooks we're still doing it and we care to do it so let's tell chris gardner next time that he wants us to fund the lack of making excuses school a hole for the taxes guess what we won't help you if you can help us i don't care what the state mandates also say we have to get our cities under control thank you for your time property enters moved into schenectady my house was assessed at sixty nine thousand dollars now it's assessed at one hundred forty three thousand dollars ok what i'm getting at is how much money is the city collected in mortgage recording tax and other items and has gone into the county building that this should city should be collecting and you should get you should get way more than one hundred thousand dollars i mean this is the county is getting a lot of money and just to give you just one hundred thousand dollars is a token chip it's ridiculous you should be getting a lot more i mean i would like to be paying sixty nine thousand dollars it's a nice house house was assessed that for how many people sense the last time houses were assessed that have been giving fees over to the county building and paying off a lot more money it's been a lot and i think what you got to do is take a look back and see how much you're really owed it's not  hundred thousand dollars it's probably three people that amount and so i got to say any council member of folks rich is voting against the taxpayer in the city of schenectady you know i don't know the exact math but all these other things we voted on b of the fire smoking and all this is what i was trying to get down two weeks before ok got a little things this is a big item right here ok the real argument that affects the taxpayer in the city is skin activity and this is what people live for so i gotta say it goes right down to number two what are we going to lay people off and they go on an unemployment stamps and so on and so forth the two really go together we don't want to lay people off that's that's probably the worst thing you could do to a person i mean you know i were in tough times but actually you know when i go to a house people want to live in the city of schenectady they like this city schenectady like the environment of the city it's going to activity i don't want to be a person saying we're going to be laying people off in the city it's good i think we don't need to do that in the city of schenectady thank you evening ladies and gentleman my name is mary and i'm the business manager for the animal protective foundation scotia this past saturday we have the five fireplug five hundred our largest annual fundraiser hosting over a thousand people and six hundred dogs we hold our event at central park because of the space it provides the beautiful atmosphere and mainly the assistance of the parks director michael burke saturday the gates were open when we arrived at six a m electricity was provided to several of our fifty vendors and the event went off without a hitch another successful fundraiser and we thank mr burke and his staff for all their assistance i'm here this evening out only speaking for one of the many nonprofit organizations that michael deals with but also as his wife michael loves his job as parks director for the city here ferd's to it as his park he was born in schenectady and grew up going to the park every day as a child he was caught by the park security catching the fish in the lake and putting them in the rose garden pon even on his days off he drives through the park making sure everything's in order from in may through october he works saturday through wednesdays each week he's at the park before each event begins and stay still it's close often working ten to twelve hour days michael has been instrumental in developing the guest disc golf program with the schenectady discomfit so she asian he's worked with planes and brought their mountain biking group races to the park holding up to twelve races per year and generating funds for the city he works with us soccer groups baseball and basketball leagues park dealing with officials league management and parents he worked with tom adams and the hudson mohawk road runners club in designing the curtain making the pavilion a year  venue michael takes calls from groups who have never planned five k races helping them to choose courses contacting proper authorities such as the police and mayor's offices and providing in mistreated and logistical support he works  with the youth fishing program as well as a r c and their special needs clients providing needed supplies mike is on the schenectady high school athletic advisory committee and keeps them informed about insurances and making sure their paperwork is up to date for the use of the baseball fields tennis courts and cross country trails they use at the park michael burke is the eyes and ears of central park last year on the fourth of july mike saved a little girl's life when she stepped off a concrete culver saying to the bottom of the lake this story could have such a tragic ending had michael not been there watching over his park urge the council to vote against the elimination of michael's position as director of parks for the city this position as an essential part of making each and every event held in the park a success as well as acting as community lately as found with the public and needs to be filled by someone who holds a great attention to detail knows the ins and outs of the functions held at the park and shows genuine concern for the organizations and people he works with and the success of their efforts that person is michael burke evening mayor members of the council reverend phil very speedy city resident live on avenue i was not planning on coming tonight to talk about the sales tax but then i saw the article this morning that time period so it seemed something that concerns very much the welfare of the city of which people seem to be deeply divided i have major economic sin college and was five beta kappa so i know that at some point i could probably delve into and understand the numbers that are here but using the kind of thing that we look towards the experts i think the dilemma in this case is the experts appear to disagree the experts seem very strong on one side the experts seem very strong on the  other usually in that kind of situation what a group is counsel to do is take a lot more time i understand there are some deadlines here but perhaps you can figure out it was a legislative body how to take some time to sort through what appears to be some last minute information where the information is true or not i don't know it's certainly very unusual for this kind of information to come forth in the way it did and so it once at least needs to be taken seriously and should be part of the public conversation so i would certainly encourage some way to take some additional time on this over there can be done and number two it certainly seems like it's the kind of agreement that should be not be locked into such a long period of time i think even that is that when i was looking for the time period which county would be offering i also think the details of this agreement could be made public sooner than a week before the council is to vote on them thank you thank you mr wertz jason my name is jason cuthbert i live on the north side of the budget analyst for the city's earlier this year the city council passed a new code of ethics for all city employees this document begins officers and employees of the city it's going to hold their benefits hold the positions to benefit the public this makes it very clear that all of us council members staff all of us employed with the city are here to work for the benefit of the people of schenectady our job is not to do the easy for most expedient thing or to do it we have to to get reelected or to keep quiet and do as we're told to keep our paychecks coming our job is to do what's right for the people of schenectady this is why they pay us right now the council is considering a new sales tax agreement with the county for city our size the current agreement is the worst sales tax agreement in the state likewise the new proposal would be for city our size the worst sales tax agreement in the state this proposal would be an albatross around the city's neck for the better part of a decade there's absolutely no reason the city our size warrants less than twelve million dollars out of a ninety million dollars sales tax pot in front of you you have two chars they show cause and effect the first chart shows that since one thousand nine hundred eight the county take of sales tax has grown from twenty five million dollars to sixty million dollars while the city's share has remained at eleven million that is the cause the second chart shows the effect a near forty percent rise in city property taxes while at the same time the county has reduced its property tax rate to levels not seen since the one nine hundred fifty s this disparity between the haves and the have nots between the county and city has existed for far too long it does not have to be this way and for the sake of the residents of this city it must not continue we deserve better our residents and our city deserve better the sales tax proposal before you tonight keep our city on bended knee for another decade our residents the people who pay us the people for whom we are here to benefit would be subjected to another decade of rising city taxes increased water sewer in garbage rates reductions in city services in layoffs and city staff we must do better we must negotiate a better sales tax agreement a fairer sales tax agreement that allows our city to tackle our many problems an additional six to seven million dollars per year and amount which can be achieved by the county just three story in its property tax rate to its two thousand and six two thousand and seven i two i'm going to talk about number one the sales tax an item number three the operating deficit and i'm going to request a little more time it's impossible to talk about these two items three just three minutes according to yesterday's assess the film a place beyond the sun i'm in a place beyond the pints as a gift that keeps giving don written or estimates the production brought more than two million dollars an economic stimulus to the area the crew and cast spent more than three hundred fifty dollars on hotel rooms alone during filming so now i must broker are prepared to vote to lock this city into a contract that will limit revenue to the city for eight years who is to say there won't want more films produced in the area in the next two four or six years three council members are perfectly content to let the county have the under reasonable contract go for three years schenectady gives the county too much already era recall of art as a fifteen million dollar project not one dime of that money will come from the county but the county will reap the benefits that carter is the gateway to business schenectady won't see any new revenue because those who have been elected for four year two or term will vote to give it up what has happened to logic with regard to the operating deficit council and the major have already an operating deficit fourth the following reasons the previous city council and the mayor voted to approve a ninety five thousand dollar a year salary for the new deputy mayor the mayor earned thirty thousand a year the city refused to stop paying medical coverage for part time elected officials they also voted to spend fifty four thousand dollars to put more road in the drinking water even though other communities stop the practice five years ago and  that did not apply to the job he was leaving our four year old for that document council made that bogus scrap of paper legal and now he has back never carthy an honorable members of the city council my name is gary hughes i'm a county legislator representing the city of schenectady and i'm also the majority leader of the schenectady county legislature i would start by saying that all of those of us who are public officers or elected officials in this room have taken an oath of office and we have all sworn to uphold the charter in my case the charter of schenectady county in your case the charter of the city and all of us the laws of the state of new york in the constitution of the united states so sometimes we know that we have to take actions that may not seem popular at the moment but when they're based on fact are the right thing to do and i'd like to make four points about the agreement that is on the table tonight and i'd also like to answer a couple of questions that have been raised this negotiation involve give and take by both parties and has resulted in proposed agreement that is a good deal for the city i believe under at the city gets guaranteed revenue and more revenue than it could get on its own and i urge your support for this agreement tonight for the following reasons first the agreement is for eleven point seven million dollars in the first year plus four hundred twenty five thousand for a total of twelve million one hundred twenty five thousand dollars and that members of the council is an increase of seven hundred twenty five dollars over the current agreement seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars second the agreement guarantees annual payments of the four hundred twenty five thousand to the city each year for the life of the agreement for hazmat public safety and new funding for demolition those items here to four have been discretionary matters that the county legislature to has taken up each year with its budget under this agreement they are locked in the agreement also provides a one time payment of one hundred thousand dollars to the land bank and that brings the total revenue increase next year to eight hundred twenty five thousand the third point is that for the first time in history this agreement guarantees the city growth in sales tax based on county wide sales tax receipts so that the city can gain the benefit of economic development not just when it occurs in the city but when it occurs anywhere in schenectady county applying a fairly conservative growth factor of two percent per year to sales tax receipts the city's share of sales tax in the last year of this agreement will have risen to thirteen point four million the fourth point is that this is a better deal for the city than going it alone through preemption u s census data shows that from one nine hundred ninety two to two thousand and seven retail sales in the city grew by only fourteen percent while retail sales in the towns grew by more than ninety percent using that as a basis the county has calculated that the city could collect no more than ten point five million dollars in tw thirteen through preemption due to the city's smaller retail tax base and lower average income the total amount of revenue from the county to the city over the life of this agreement is in excess of one hundred million dollars that's an increase of fifteen million over the term of the agreement and this is in addition to the more than one hundred million that the county's metroplex development authority has invested in the city of schenectady already now allow me a moment to address the concern that has been raised tonight that the mayor and the council have left money on the table that is not the case the county is experiencing significant increases in mandated costs over which the county has no control you are provided two tables by our finance department tonight the first is a bar chart which will show you increase in sales tax and will also show you increase in mandated expenses without taking  that that chart shows you that since one nine hundred ninety total mandated costs for the county of increased by more than seventy million dollars there is simply no more revenue available from sales tax to share with the city because sales tax retained by the county during this same period has only increased by forty five million dollars some examples of mandated costs thirty four million per year for medicaid twenty five million for public assistance in child welfare five million in community college support and chargeback two other counties those costs alone consume more than the fifty eight million in sales tax the county retained in two thousand and twelve and the vast majority of these costs represent programs that directly benefit city residents now the county in the city have a long history of working together there are enough votes on the legislature to approve this agreement but due to rising mandated costs and the prospect of a tax cap there is not support on the legislature to go beyond the dollars that are included in this agreement the second table that we've provided you with tonight shows line there shows you the eleven million and it's pretty clear when you look at that that the city has been the beneficiary of somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty five million dollars in sales tax that was not earned in the city that was provided to to the city by the county during the previous years of this agreement as i said the agreement is the best and fairest way to ensure the continuation of valuable services to the people of the city and also the continued strong partnership between the county and the city it would be very easy for me to stand here tonight and say take more time do something different there must be more money out there but in reality there isn't and this is the best agreement that we're going to get between the city carry forward this partnership i urge you to approve this agreement and i urge you to do it tonight thank you mr his i have no one signed up no one else signed up on the legislative agenda therefore i will consider it closed knowledge of something that caught my attention and which i don't judge people frankly are the stories in the gazette and the editorials refer to the county doing x y or z no where is the county identified money or is it legislature was there in fact a resolution introduced in the legislature that the six city representatives said this is the best deal or is mr that was done in public news johnson mr pena mr fields mr hughes and mr mcdonald those of the six city representatives there are one more person and one other person but there was no public discussion that i'm aware of and i also notice you should be complimented on the number of people that come to this meeting but not very many go to the county meeting and they don't speak congratulated in that you're getting close to the same amount the city gives and you will lead to metroplex when mr hughes claims one hundred million dollars has been given to the city i don't know that i called the city government did you people get one hundred million dollars or did it go to corporate welfare which is what the metroplex does it is which is what the editorial people at the gazette call it and they favor it they say that's bad as a matter of fact the critical of malta not providing the same sort of corporate welfare to the park out there but you know there is no resolution that i'm aware of that was in public as part of a public transaction allowing input and hearing where the sixth largest players from that represent the city stand what proposal what give and take was there it's all done if you know well ok it's just short of white smoke coming in we have a deal that's not it's not a good way of running i wouldn't very very much encourage you to families where there is mental illness and we try to educate people in the community and advocate and see that services are better for the people with the illness in this community where concerned very much with  shootings by police several people just like just somebody stop me for one second if this is on city business i'd be happy to sign you up here but this is the legislative agenda it's only items concerning the on the legislative agenda now if that's what understanding ok privilege of the floor on the legislative agenda is closed and now we'll move on to the consent agenda so may i have a motion to approve those items thank you that consent agenda carries glad you are here to help me along i did number one a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a sales tax agreement with the county of madam president as we've discussed in committee and i think in public and i think in just about every venue we can imagine it was my opinion i made it clear that you know i am not in favor of passing  this resolution and this deal with the sales tax or the county and i would ask if there is support in the council to please send this back to committee for further consideration i think that as we continue there is constantly changing facts i would like to know why we precautions and if we have ample time to send this back to committee of if we have any extreme tight timeline for this or you have a second before we can start t session ok well i'll second it to start discussion anyway ok so my opinion on the topic is that the state in new york you know if we if we decided not to enter an agreement the state in new york prefers ninety days but from what i understand they usually give waivers up to thirty days and so we do have time well to do something different so we're talking about two year from things here as we are ok if you're talking about how whether or not to move this back to committee and whether or not that's time sensitive that's one this evening and i think that it warrants further discussion on behalf of our constituents and i don't want to push this off long term but if we can push it through a cycle and the legislature can also push it through for once i thought we would still be within the ninety day time period and i think that as i stated prior our job is to also take into consideration feedback from our constituents so that is why i'm interested in putting it off for just two weeks and keeping it you know i'm just concerned that the law in this jeopardizes everything that's good about this proposal and i definitely will not support that thank you you know recess and come back together publicly before the whole cycle goes through well the county legislature meets tomorrow at seven correct ye corn field i have to say i have to support what mr also saying i would really like to you know i came in here and i you know i felt i know where where my vote was i've heard a lot so that i i would like to take at least if we could meet tomorrow at five and have the opportunity this crisis and come back in public session again i think it's important to consider what what's been said so if that's a possibility i would i would support that we would go ahead and do that i know that you'll be out of town starting tomorrow ok so i don't know where that puts us but that that is my request as well matt think in respect to the budgets budgets are just that the rest of it's i think that the city and county should plan and their budgets for what they into separate and as we all know we make amendments to budgets every once in a while and so if the fiscal situation changes you could modify your budget to adjust i think that you you have to plan communities these these are real life issues and this is a large swing in dollars and i think for us to rush and vote on it because we want to hurry up and make the budget and commit ourselves to eight years of potentially a mistake i think is that is irresponsible so i think that we either need to you know bring this back discuss it and if it takes more time it takes more time we have options if we do not vote on this and have an agreement with the count the alternative is right in new york state law the alternative is preemption i know you don't like to hear the word preemption but we are allowed to preempt for one core i've never had any say in that but that's not what we're talking about right but it is what we're talking about we have options right now we're told we're out of time you have to make a decision today or raul don't we don't we have the option of preempting for one quarter and then deciding if you want to come back and have agreement i understand that but our on the table on our agenda tonight is a roll call to either authorize the mayor to engineers agreement or not and we all knew that coming in today as a council  i have some questions i want answered ok we're in executive session discuss further negotiations with the sales tax agreement so there's a motion on the floor for this to go back to committee what we need to do is vote on that or or i could amend the motion to go in executive session to discuss the contract further either way i'm ok with that ok that so we're going so i believe what we the procedure recall is that we need to go into executive session to discuss negotiations for the sales tax agreement with the city  i and mr thorne will call the roll was well i've never felt so lucky to be able to start things off  thank my colleagues for the time i needed to get my questions answered they were very important questions to me one of the things that was said tonight that was a little caused me to think a little bit was that someone referred to the experts figuring this out well i can tell you that a lot of experts and i can also reassure our constituents that we have spent a multitude of hours asking questions challenging examining options a lot a lot of hours so i think very often only a small portion of what we do is seen so that it is an executive session but i for one can say that i have exhausted all of the questions that i have as of this evening my main question  asking to go into executive session because i also want to make it very clear was only in the length of time of this agreement because it was a common thread and also something i considered within my own self in the constituent started bringing it up i thought ask questions now i do want to say that there is a lot of data that needs to be considered a lot of which again the general public doesn't see and in asking all of the questions that i wanted to have the experts i know understand advantages to us as a city in entering into this agreement in eight years it's financial stability issue for our city it's our credit rating that in this in this agreement bolsters the stability of our credit rating which is in these fiscal times so i'm not going to go on and on and on about this but i will invite anyone at any time to call me or email me all of my contact information on the city's web site be happy to have a one on one conversation with people as to why i feel absolutely completely and one hundred percent yes i also had some questions regarding this hand we heard a lot and again the gentleman said about the experts and someone also talked about our prior agreements and you know the reasons why they thought that we should enter into this agreement and i just want to clarify that our prime prior agreements were flat we agreed to a flat rate for that number of years and there was no growth involved and that this rate this new agreement does involve growth over the eight year period i had some concerns about the length of time but again the length of time has to do with our credit rating and so when they look at that they look at you know over the lifetime how much stability there is and also the fact that there is no data to talk about what the city's sales tax if we were collecting our own as opposed to what we're going with the county would go in knowing this i'm not sure why that situation is such that the information is a collective but i know i understand that it isn't so this because we would back time and time again i personally gathered data and spoke to were involved in this type of agreement to make sure that i was big making my decision based on what i thought was the absolute best for the constituents and for the city is connected he got eleven million dollars while the county got twenty five million that's approximately forty four percent of the revenue fast forward fourteen years the city is connected he still gets eleven million dollars and the county gets sixteen million it's over two hundred percent growth while we've seen zero percent growth that's a lot of lost time to make up if we still got forty four percent of the revenue that it would be twenty six million dollars now people will say that the city has less growth in the county they'll say that the people in the city are poorer and so they spend less money and generate less tax revenue i disagree with so many of the arguments on so many points this deal is not good enough for the city is connected it just as it we earn more money that comes that there are different opinions there are different charts that contradicting information i believe the charts i see in the data from the state of new york i don't believe the other charts this is a sad day i  it all this chart says everything before you can figure this one out it's for sure thank you jason for providing us with this thank you i'm tired of being in the dark with this stuff but all i'm going to say is we have subsidized type programs are all for the growth of the city well apparently the city isn't growing then we're not being told the truth if that's the case it can't be worried about the stabilization of a city we're stable is that we're saying this is going to help and everything is going to help us with everything well to me we're being shortchanged we're being low balled and unfortunately this is going to pass tonight and it's a sad day for schenectady is what i'm going to say this is a sad day left with and that's what we're going to be left with here i vote no me start out by his thanking the people who came tonight and spoke you helped us generate yet another conversation that we actually needed to have i'm very proud of the council members and the time that we took  these were at times very contentious discussions that we had but i will have to say for the most part we all respect each other's opinion and everyone is entitled to it and you can look at numbers from one side and be skewed one way or you can look at numbers from another side and be skewed the other we had extensive talks with our representatives from the city right from the beginning  and i will have to say that again keep in mind that these folks that are on the county legislature that represent the city of schenectady are taxpayers and residents of the city of schenectady they are six members of a fifteen member board they have talked to us at length about the negotiation is the fairness the growth of the city the growth of the county in terms of sales tax let's just make this clear this is about sales tax does it affect property tax in some respects it does but the the main concern right now is our sales tax revenue or lack thereof i think the deal that was negotiated would be like another five million yes who wouldn't but when you look again and someone mentioned over and over again unfunded mandates by the state much of the unfunded mandates from the state that happen in the city of schenectady and that are funded by county dollars all over dollars because we all pay taxes certainly represent a lot of folks in the city of schenectady and certainly these are services that represent a lot of people in the city of schenectady i do not want to see those services discontinued nor do i want to see the services of our county public library our schenectady county community college that is so desperately needed especially for the residents of the city of schenectady many people come here or a lot of the rail and talk about the opportunity for jobs for people the opportunity for education that we need in the city of schenectady if we're to grow and scanty community college is a huge part of that as is the county as is the city one of the biggest decisions for me was around or one of the biggest indicators of my decision was around the growth factor and i know we talk about that out loud but it's significant i don't see many big box stores in the city of skin and today that growth is occurring where there is room where there is space and it's occurring now in our suburbs so our ability to share in that growth along with having the extra money to do some of the things that we want to do as a city you know we look around at our properties as many that need to be demolished they can't be because maybe they don't fall within federal guidelines in order to give money to demolish that we've been given the opportunity to do that now we've been given extra money in the land bank is it enough is it ever enough probably not we want to make more money we all want to get more money but again having spent time with michael leagues having spent time and i also want to think the administration of the finance department for is mad simple but jason for your input but for the input of the other individuals that work within the city and also that work within the county this was not a deal that was negotiated lightly so based on all of that and i've gone on long enough i'm voting yes ok let's move on to number two i don't number two a resolution eliminating previously budgeted positions for the two thousand and twelve budget this is never an easy thing to do and not certainly an easy decision and to be perfectly honest i know several names on this list and that's not comfortable either  are in the times in government and public and private sector where every penny counts and leaner thank you and regard to this piece of legislation my biggest concern is that people got notices before this ever came before the council and i'm really troubled by that i got many phone calls and e mails and you know that  i just find extremely troubling in addition to that i not sure about the process where i went by which was this was done and i know people but more importantly i know the years of service which is that that's important to me the number of years of service that a person has given to whoever they work for in this case the city so i think that needs to be taken into consideration one of the things i was asked when i was interviewed for this seat on the council was what would you do what was one of the things that you would do and one of my answer to that question was look at the services that we provide and see if we have any overlap or how things could be done differently and when it comes to this particular piece of legislation i think in terms of looking at this that's something that should have been considered we should be i believe we should be big picture in this and look at all the positions there are in the city and see how this is how this is done so you know again those are my concerns and i'm not comfortable with you were talking about eliminating positions here some of them are positions that are vacant some of them are positions that are held by individuals i think that each one of these individuals that hold these jobs form a service for the city form of service for all of us and i think we really can't live without these services and we've cut them and cut them and cut them to the point where we're we're not receiving the services that we need we could have had the money to keep the services but unfortunately the resolution we voted on just moments ago made sure that we wouldn't have the funds to support these positions we're talking about laying people off talking about eliminating somebodies job we're talking about letting some of these job who we all need their services i believe we're between a rock and a hard place on this and value these positions i value the people in these positions but i also again know what we're dealing with in terms of budget realities unfortunately going to vote hi we don't have the money for these positions we're cutting positions and we could have solved a lot of that by taking another route but that's water under the dam right now i too and i agree with marian i don't like the way does process came down people were called in the office they were giving a notice that their jobs could be in jeopardy then i come to a committee meeting goes on the sheets put in front of me that something we're going to vote on well something's wrong here where's the discussion we didn't discuss this as i was told and a prior committee meeting there was like a two hour executive session over all the f stuff which is still up in the air and a sheet was thrown in front of us for the last five minutes to look at things to consider then the sheet was taken back i didn't take it home with me to look at these positions or look at anything else so i'm sorry but my photographic memory is long gone doing business like this is not good is it that this is being done the correct way i don't know i can't tell you this but it looks like certain people have been targeted for what reasons i can't tell you but i certainly have more information than this before i'm going to be eliminating anybody's job i agree with councilman erickson there's going to be some tough things to look at and as budget process we're running a body shop and i'll go back to that a person has been there for only two years he's going to have a job and somebody what eighteen years are going to be out the gate this isn't right that it's a simple as that is not right we are going to be going over a lot of things budget process for sure and i want some answers for a lot of these things but on this thing i cannot in any kind of good conscience vote yes on this  well these are unpopular votes that we had to make tonight and i can tell you probably just having been sitting on the council for fourteen years that it's probably the first time in my life that council that we've had to vote for layoffs that they actually came down to that it's an indicator to me that this is just the beginning it's not something that is just particular to the city of schenectady in terms of people being laid off having jobs and lemonade it and i believe and again we live with and some hearts thinking that this may not be a very popular thing to do i'm sure i'm not going to get in claps after i make this decision but i do predict that this is just the beginning of other eliminations of positions within the city of schenectady within the counties connected me with his state read the papers look around look at what's happening and unfortunately it has to start somewhere and again having known many of these employees that may face either layoffs elimination of their jobs or at least the bumping job and bumping down of a job and will still be able to at least keep a job in some respect  on the floor in any city business and the first person i have signed up is joseph rodriguez remember that one close in i just want to make it short and brief i want to thank mr harwood jeremy from all joel services for the paint and everything that he gave me to correct to clean my street up i keep cleaning my street up i care about my freedom only one person but i am a vile a loud voice said through all the sanitation department clearly and his coworkers who when they come on our street to pick up our trash we pick up the trash and they spill on the ground where the others will just leap to trast where i have pitches right after they leave and leave it on the center of the street so we got to pick it up not them but these two gentlemen every time they seem to come on the neighborhood they face and all these revenues and figures that they're doing to charge destroy people's livelihoods even worse i mean it just continues to get worse and worse religion like the apocalypse here you know there's like pulling stuff that's from nowhere and we're not going any better schenectady is not getting any better if we continue to go the route we're going on fortunately poor people have to suffer more and more every day living here in the city we can't get jobs we can't pride in our communities we can't develop ourselves and our children's future we're struggling we are living on on social services is that a dream no let's do this this is just terrible thank you i i started to say before i'm with the national alliance on mental illness in schenectady we're concerned about shootings by police of a mentally ill person typically on the street but in setting these make national news and you must read them the last three that i've read about or in saginaw michigan and in new york city and in california and they've happened in our city as you know they're always tragic because they have a victim and they are they jeopardize the lives of the police officers involved and of other citizens close by and we have a we have a proposal and we've put this to several of you on the council and to the police chief mark chairs and the commissioner and various people over the years that there is a special police training called crisis intervention team training c i t that's well known and lots of other cities do it and this city should have it and it will protect the offices of lives and protect people and we think  people are more rational way to handle these encounters c i t is well established begin ten does it troy white plains rochester hempstead and maybe other cities and new york state and where behind other states so it's a forty hour training for police we're hoping your move on this you realize ships police officer faced with these crises if so and those things happen and war suits result we think the best training you can get here is an insurance policy so we've tried to make his point to you was this is a  reminder and i understand we're going to talk to the commissioner and and police chief chairs in the next couple of days that's our that's our nabby group and it involves people concerned about the mentally ill and and the whole good evening mayor city council members my name is jim levinson i me president for the c a c a university is connect the employees speaking on behalf of over one hundred members i have grave concerns over the layoffs that have been announced by the mayor's office more concerning him or the rumors for potentially more layoffs to come i feel strongly that even one layoff is one too many for a city to provide so many important services to his residence furthermore these layoffs can be avoided if the city council or the mayor's office work together with his employees to find alternatives to layoffs it is often a difficult to coordinate such discussion but i am here tonight to assure you  mayor's office is yes yes it myself and our members will make ourselves available to work together to avoid any and all layoffs i would like to thank the council for its continued support of the public employees look forward to continuing working together of before you got here that's great i've been in this city all my life i was born and raised here let's not forget my time in a military and this is one of the poorest conducted meetings i think i've ever seen any place when a person comes to visit you got to three minute limit here that should be for everybody whether they're a minister or a legislator or anybody else when they signed up to speak here three minutes would be for everybody to the employees or anybody else i heard your pledge to the city of schenectady and the citizens of this city and that's what you should be working for you came unprepared for this meeting tonight and it was an insult to our city what took place here tonight we were not prepared for in any way shape or manner and that's no way to come here to the city council meeting for you can't tell our commissioners you can't tell our chief how to operate in  city you can't tell the union you can't tell your party you've got to support everybody else except the citizens and that's wrong get with it now and support the city end of citizens and put them over the people in their plates you can stop cars from the city park around city hall you don't know what to do about violent dogs what's going on here what do we like you for we didn't elect you to take care of everybody else you're the obligation is here and that's the way it should be and should always be that way i was very disappointed with this meeting tonight in a way or was wrong and it's been run that way for a while and it shouldn't be we are all equal i served in the country for my country for the purpose of having this privilege here freedom and liberty and by gosh we needed to a new city more than any place else that was a shame with the t v crews and everybody here tonight and the citizens that had to wait and put up with this nonsense it was ridiculous and i blame all of our elected officials from the mayor right on down you can't keep all these money you give away bonuses or we're in a recession for five six years and now you come to layoff six and union people eliminate six jobs five six jobs what's the matter with the union people i will promise to keep it short tonight and it's been a long night please and i am i am a little disappointed in the outcome of the vote on resolution number one tonight i think it was a disservice to the taxpayers i think we could have gotten more out of that and we wouldn't have to worry about the the layoffs with the with the extra monies we're getting from the county it's almost like we're being held hostage there but i'm not going to dwell on that council member regie and erickson i think you guys hit it right on the head and i'll just leave it at that what i did promise a resident to that i'd bring forward tonight is on granite side avenue which is offer rosa lancaster grana side comes down they have a major problem don't know if anybody has looked at it yet with the deterioration of the road they're very serious a resident can vary it goes down about that much if not more runoff is filled it up a little bit more so we're we're a little better off but  it's a major hazard where somebody can really twist an ankle even a car tire can go in there and do some serious damage so if somebody could possibly take a look at that residence there would be greatly appreciated  not going to go into why i just think we could have received a lot more money i don't know what happened downstairs but it is what it is i just want to remind everybody about thursday thursday is primary day it's a very important day for democrats to go out and vote it's a vote very important day for  and and for myself democrats got elected some type of leadership so i would like to remind all democrats to get to go out and vote and i think for the main reason is you saw a display again of lack of leadership and what's going on today people didn't know what the boat how to vote what motion to put forward what they were voting for and it and how many are we giving back today and you know there's a big difference between you know people running for office now that are going to be running on thursday and you saw the ball when people went to traders and when they came back up i mean we should be receiving a lot more money and that's why i decided to run for office i'm not going to give a speech on it or anything like that but that's why i thought primary system is a good system ok about me i hope so it's about the facts talk about how we can move this city forward those type of things are not good ok when it comes time time for this primary people want to talk about the issues of schenectady what's going to happen what you voted on today and that bo should have been brought forward months ago ok the smoking ban and all that that was what i would call the little minutia before they didn't want they really didn't care about that i think ms porterfield happen here this evening as well and i came here on behalf of the hamilton hill carver community center of radio could make it here this evening our executive director and lowell cole she is the chairperson of the executive board and we just wanted to say thank you because we know you are very busy in los wanted you to know  shit everybody's concerns about that the community college and students walking across the street and the fact that we were able to get it at that fence put up and i just wanted to remind people that tomorrow night at in the stockade building from seven to nine is the public design presentation for the schenectady gateway plaza this is the you know what they're going to be unveiling the final plans and renderings for its connected his new gateway park down by the community college and i know i had gone to the earlier meeting so i have a pretty good idea of what's going to be in this but i really encourage people who have an interest in that to try to attend thank you great thank you anyone else privilege of the floor a lady who had a dog come on the leash dog all she did was ask the lady to please put the dog on a leash she was free for grandson and all sold that dog that she had on a leash this is ongoing at least in horse park and i'm sure it's other parts for some reason people think when they get to the park they can only show their dog and let it wrong and it's just a tragedy waiting to happen so i have alerted our animal control officer and i asked john kalu cio if he could put some strong sign park to let them know that the dogs have to remain on a leash when they're in a park so anybody listening out there it's not there isn't there and that isn't a dog park over there or any of the other parks are other than one that is a designated dog par k so this again this lady was scared to death in the way he also threatened her she said she had a clock underway spanta was going to shoot or so later ran out of the park and i don't believe i don't blame or i follow i try to follow they went down fairview avenue but i couldn't pick her up i try to find out who this lady was that was doing it but she had a german shepherd and i'm going to keep my eyes open but this nonsense cannot happen so i alerted the proper people hopefully we can get some good signage i think in all our parts we should have it let people know that when they bring their dog that a park you've got to keep them on the leash it's a simple as that one other thing and i'm very happy to announce this i worked with lieutenant  and i think it's already underway and we're calling it operation quality a life there is going to be a designated patrol i'll issuing tickets for these quality of life issues that i've been talking for a long time so i'm very happy about this and it's going to basically be targeting litter people walking in the street graffiti loud music the quality of life issues that we're all concerned about so i'm very happy that the police department is going to deal with this and it's going to be random patrols so no one's going to know when they're there when they're not there but just you know be aware that they're out there and i hope people will behave themselves but this is a really good start and i think it's a good start for coming the city clean back along with the mayor's key to the city program because this is certainly important of a point to a lot of people so i thank our anyone else privilege of the floor thank you i really want to address what mr brant said he was concerned about how the meeting with tonight and i know that was unusual and i've never seen it happen before either but i believe that we came prepared for the meeting tonight but as residents of constituents came in they had things to say that made this you know want to discuss with a little bit more i know it's unusual but the fact that we were willing to take that time to the skies that i i think you know made sense and it also brought us the ability to come back and answer questions that were asked at the podium so maybe in the future we should have that possess that public hearing first and then it could go that way so i have to offer an apology if he found that disturbing but i think that we did it because we felt that we need to do in the best interests of all the people that were here today as one of the members of the audience noted there is a primary this thursday and i won't go into any further decisions i feel is the best for the citizens of the city of schenectady and i guess i suggest to everyone i've always suggested that people investigate more come out more to the public meetings and hear more about what's going on because i think that it takes all of us to work together to make this city a better place so i'm a appreciate the number of people that came out tonight they gave information they came to the rail and again because those people came to the rail we felt it's necessary to take a little bit more time to discuss that so i thank you the finances of the city or interesting times and it's not any one action is going to give the solutions or the end products that we want and we started out this year with eighteen million dollars in uncollected property tax over the course of the year we've collected about six million dollars of that sword down to twelve million but that again there's twelve million dollars out there that individuals have chosen to pay that are many cases just thumbing their nose at the system and that drives our costs up for the rest of us that reside here our state aid formula is the lowest of any major city in upstate new york and it's that inequity and that state aid formula that translates into higher property taxes the example everybody tends to references utica where their population is slightly smaller than schenectady but they get five million dollars in unrestricted state aid more than the city of schenectady coincidentally our tax levy in those cities are about the same size our tax levy is roughly five million dollars more than the city of utica again if we had that money we could reduce our property tax levy by five million dollars the sales tax agreement tonight was debated discussed it is a fair deal it's not a great deal but it gives a stability it gives us growth and believe that there have been overly optimistic projections that talk about possibility of getting six or seven million dollars that is just not within the realm of reality if you look even mr eriksson's comments where the percentage of tax revenue that was in place that the city got in the original deal that was based on really twice what the city was entitled to because the city had done the sales tax before it was imposed countywide if you take those numbers through where you talk about would be in twenty some million dollars well if you cut that in half we're right down to the neighborhood where we've signed this agreement so that those numbers are not out of whack and there are approximately what a fair were numerous block parties and it just shows the vibrancy of this community a lot of good things are happening a lot of good people are out here and i just thank everybody who participated in that and also we had to shut some of the stuff down a little bit early because of the thunderstorms that moved through but i think everybody got to enjoy the day and have a very good time mr riggins point but signage with the  dogs might be appropriate not just to look at dogs but our overall signage in the parks were posting just their fundamental rules the hours the parks are open and some of them are posted more clearly than others and i think if we looked at that in book to standardize it it might help us get some of the results that we are looking for thank you madam president thank you mr mayor again just wanted to thank everyone says night the council for the great debates we had well can i tell you democracy in action is messy sometimes and i can't remember maybe a few times we've had to go into executive session but i think it was important enough because people came up to the rail and they gave opinions and they talked about things that we thought we could we should consider and the only way we could really have done that on a vote like that is to leave and go into executive session it was more discussion it was more information gathering sure we could have voted we could have made it nice unscripted and just gone ahead and did what we all thought we were going to do i don't think that's the right way forward to respect people who are going down here and voice their opinions every single one of us are elected here at large and represent the citizens of the city of schenectady you may not agree tonight with the way you thought our vote should go the way we represented it but i can tell you that i know from my colleagues on the council that each one of them had their heart in their own in their vote and believed in what they were doing and that's what democracy is all about but again i think all of you for bringing these questions to his night for bringing us your concerns and it's good to know that people are listening out there so with that again i just want to mention the primary on thursday get out and vote it's usually a election that's very under represented and i'd really love to see schenectady pull out those numbers this year in voting in the primary to show again as you come down here that you're interested in government make sure you get out there on thursday and also show your vote shows that you're interested in government and what goes on in your own community and with that i'd ask for a motion to a