public hearings were the first claim on the agenda item number one in ordinance amending chapter twenty four to regulate the use of skateboards in the upper union street business improvement district and to increase the penalties associated with violations related to skateboard use and certain prohibited areas item number two item number two a resolution calling for a public airing on monday november twenty eighth two thousand and eleven at seven p m at council chambers room two zero zero nine schenectady city hall one o five j straight of adoption of the upper union street business improvement district two thousand and twelve operating budget entertain a motion to move this the consent agenda member blanchard all in favor of item two appearing on the consent agenda signify by saying i any opposed item to appear on the consent to genda item number three number three a resolution calling for a public airing on monday nov twenty eighth two thousand and eleven at seven p m at council chambers room two zero zero nine schenectady city hall one o five j street for adoption of the downtown schenectady improvement corporation two thousand and tw appear on the consent agenda item number four i did number for a resolution authorizing the fire chief to request that the schenectady county civil service commission approve additional language regarding the candidate physical ability test item number five item number five under contract and supply a real resolution authorizing the mayor or his designate to enter into a contract with carver construction incorporated for the award of the snow and ice control plowing and five appearing on the consent agenda signify by saying i and he opposed it in five will appear on the consent agenda so any other business to come before the caucus tonight not entertain a motion to a meeting for november fourteenth two thousand and i then asked that everyone ri what is praying almighty never loving god of the future we pray for what the future might hold we pray for people who are worried about the future who way things are these about it help us to understand your presence that meets us in all circumstances be with those who worry about what their children will eat whether their job will be there we pray for those who make decisions on our behalf we ask that you would give them courage insight and wisdom be with all of us as we meet you in the future in your holy name we pray  you have to public hearings wait for the sign up sheets to come up or doing that want to just entertain a motion to approve the minutes from here to meetings the october eleventh and twenty six in the recess city council meeting entertain they have to public hearings of the court could read the first one public hearing on a review of the contract terms and fee structure relating to the operation of central park music cavan in clerk read the second hearing second hearing increasing the minimum penalty in chapter one section fourteen point one of the code of the city of schenectady and imposing mandatory surcharges for code violation  and that the scene when hearing gary i wanted to say i'm thinking that that's talking about i think the garbage disposals and things like that that that that as part of it and also the traffic with the you know turned to communications and petitions communications presented to the city council for monday november fourteenth two thousand and eleven under the category of official from the mayor a list of appointments dated november fourteenth two thousand and eleven from the commissioner of the office of general services a letter recommending the award of the snow and ice control plowing and hauling snow two thousand and eleven and two thousand and twelve to harbor construction company under general there is nine hundred petitions there are no when the floor up for any committee reports you don't speak on the legislative agend ok we have no one signed up to speak on the legislative agenda of endeavor and we get to her under the less privilege of the floor at this time i would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda we've got two contracts that are coming up we've got the r f p process for the community on the block grants that normally goes out the end of december every year that you have asked to be included in this process and we should be having a public hearing on it and we need to have some discussion of what direction of that and how it's going to meet the five year and consolidated plan each year it has not complied with that and we need to call for a public hearing on that also the end of the year is the contract with the county for the affirmative action office or we need to discuss on what kind of goals and so forth submitting documents in just saying cut and pasting and just not really accomplishing anything is not really doing anything in saying that we all work we judge our job results by how many people take the civil service exam that's not at we need to start looking at diversifying our workforce we need to start looking at how  dollars it was just reported in the newspaper that this unit had lost their credit rating some of that money could have gone to this unit probably would have helped them not lose the credit rating so that's up to next year the end of november  twelve we need to start looking at that i know that you said you're in negotiations but we actually need to actually have an open discussion that actually get the county to crack open the books and actually show us what are the actual  figures you know because we need to take a look at all revenue sources and you know that's basically what we need to start looking at is how we're going to be able to korea jobs over the next six months also to is just reported that the state is looking at between a two and a half to three billion dollar deficit coming up so that means going to be more deep cuts coming down the pike what's going on they also just did a two percent reduction in medicaid going back to april first of this year for the next two years they're going to do a two percent medicaid reduction so that's going to more cuts and more pressure onto the county the reason want to mention is some of the stuff about the counties because the county of come back and try to say we can't do this on sales tax we can't do this on other things i think we need to come up with some kind of solution we need to come up with some ideas and actually have an open debate and have an open policy of what's going hello i'm i was talking about the garbage cans issue that said that people are now saying they get to put the garbage can in the back of the house i think that's unfair for a lot of people that have disabilities such as myself putting those garbage cans way in the i think that my landlord happened to have had the garbage cans right on the side of the house there where he was keeping everything clean and there's a house that's right next door to my house which i made it clear to you gary it's fourteen two state street i was telling you about that terrible place where one has a garbage can you know and it's and it's really horrible is like in a lot of like an alleyway where was just full of garbage in the you know that can bring rodents that can bring things that we don't want to have in our part as well you know and i was saying that they needed to do something about that i've been complaining about that for about two months nothing's been done about that but they found a reason to cite my landlord who has been keeping his property relatively clean and gave him a fifty dollars charge for because they said well we can't not you can't discriminate where they've been discriminating all this time by a g those people to keep that garbage over there that they're saying that because it's a vacant building they can see how they can do anything about it but they need to find a way to get that garbage out of there and they they come in and take the garbage all the time so why not come and pick up the garbage get it over with but them to leave that garbage there was nothing there now i also want to talk about the tickets to if you're going to give people tickets make sure that all of the machines out they took a picture of my vehicle on both sides and they did take a picture of the sun house so you know that that seems to be rather silly if you're going to say that a person was caught in a wrong place take a picture of the sign to show the person where you  be seen with the sign says here to sign says you should the park here or whatever and the person can understand things better as opposed to you taking a picture of a person's car on both sides that's ridiculous and i also want to know i'm talking about a lot of different issues but i want to talk about this issue as well the article seventy eight that people are always telling people that when they deal with social services and and section eight you have to every don't agree with these people set for you do you have to follow  article seventy eight that is extremely hard to do even lawyers find article seventy eight very hard to do and to ask the lay person to do something like that is very unfair expression when you're going through something and you're having a hard time as it is and then you can accept people do article seven you know i had to i had to death during the time when they were asking me to do article seventy eight i was in the process of trying to move when they would ask me to do article seventy eight i think it's unfair that they could look into that and should rule that unconstitutional thank you that i've been meaning to say and i just go over the wayside first of all i'm always hearing that cornell's is a problem that closed in all this and that here is an at most recent newspaper saying cornell's is open  down having another moment in  this was in the tabloid the daily news one of the freedom fighters wearing a new york yankee hat after they had taken down khadafy so it happens thinking i wanted to mention i'm reading a book about john law financier from britain who coined the word millionaire very very long time ago and he was talking about how he does business he find special economic zones of newly sprouted private businesses all were illegal who survival depended on attaching themselves to state controlled enterprises and a crooked party official to connive he was glad to connive knowing that all would turn into a state run business the whole system depended on swindler's backhanders and corruption the party stance of retain ostensibly retained control  then there's something from the new york times paul krugman from reich a big iceland and how they survived where everyone else failed where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social say safety net where everyone else was fixated on trying to placate international investors iceland improved temporary controls on the movement of capital to give in itself room to maneuver but it will has managed to limit both the rise in unemployment and the suffering of the most vulnerable the social safety net has survived intact as has the basic decency  thank you maybe mr mayor very few got find though vince for you campbell ave you know i'm really concerned about the events have taken place the last couple of days few days with the shootings one hits home because the bar on fifth avenue that was my wife's father's bar hears ago and it was there was quite a nice place as mere fact the nice your dad used to go there you know for the for yeah yeah it was well known and it's very sad and she grew up next door and the neighborhood there was certainly suffering the house her mom's house and all that that sold for forty thousand dollars a year before last so things are not good there but the shootings if if the election results hold true i'm a member of this council i certainly want to work with the council on the mayor wherever it may be we have to get a plan in place we have it's a shooting gallery out there i mean there was another shooting the night afterwards we have to certainly maybe revisit the safe schenectady safer program that's something that the council and in two thousand and three agreed to and i think we have to look at so we have some kind of plan in place to address some of these issues because it's it's one of my office is there to say we can't have this it's like dodge city it's not good we have shootings from cars cars shooting at cars but that's true and shooting at cars we can't have this and have a nice livable city it just isn't going to work so i look forward to working with you and i hope we're all going to have open minds and put politics aside for the betterment of the city and look at this plan or any planned anybody can come up with it's a better plan let's look at that but let's look at something so we have something in place i think in the late eighty's we had a clean sweep and that certainly did a job for a while you know maybe we should put aside code violations for a while and look at crime violations and clean sweep that it's got nothing to do on racism i've been called a racist because i want zero tolerance has nothing to racism i know where i am what i am and what i'm not and i want to see schenectady safe and clean if we have law breakers they have to be dealt with this is simple as that and we have to do it as a body we have to do it some common sense but please i'm looking forward again if the election results all hold and we'll be discussing this next year i hope thank you thank you very but twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money to people in this city and to give a twenty thousand dollars salary increase the only thing i can think of is properly possibly is the reason that he doesn't take a city vehicle home if you can estimate that as twenty thousand dollars a year and you can do about thirty five thirty seven cars go on home my goodness you can't cut the budget for the taxpayers you can raise fees you can raise taxes and you don't know how to figure that budget there's something definitely wrong in the way this city is being wrong now they come up with a poll do you want to hire twenty twenty two people to run the sewage plant we had that before and we lost an awful lot right there i'd like to see it turn up all the parts that disappeared over there maybe the union wants to kick in and pay for it and now we're going to have twenty twenty two thousand people twenty twenty two people with salaries their benefits the holidays their pensions we can't afford it plus the parts and the material and all the things that disappear over there under city employment you tell me how you're going to control things do you go around inspect all the city properties even once a year let alone two three times a year or four times a year what are you doing for our taxpayers you knew nothing about the fire station up on third avenue that was a shock the condition of  that i don't know where you're coming from or what you're doing when it comes to looking out for the taxpayers i hope all lot of this stuff isn't a kickback for the people that big contributions to the democratic party that's wrong i don't like it and i don't care what party it is there shouldn't be any within the city i've just read the paper how many people gave sure they got a ten year reduction in taxes to further business they could spruce up their places they bought new trucks and we the taxpayers are paying for it because you give ten years reduce taxes all these favors and these contracts going out it's got to come to a stop you've got to start working for the taxpayer not the city employees not yourself but for the people in this city good evening my name is mary maclean i live in the city i wish that i could stand here and say to the voters we won this election for ourselves but such is not the case the moderators for the candidates forms were more interested in making nice than getting important information out to the voters asking every candidate to answer the same questions does not give the incumbents the necessity to defend their records and the three incumbents who ran in this recent election have records that are as long as they criminals rap sheet they voted give fire chief far stad seventy four thousand dollars they still in a document that dead not applied to the position from which he retired i filed for they voted to pay mastro thirty thousand two hundred eighty five dollars and forty three cents in return for his resignation mastro never paid a dime in city taxes he refused to live here council voted to spend thirty nine thousand dollars for the comprehensive plan study the study could have been funded with a federal grant for years council has voted to give jobs to people who do not live in schenectady such as teachers firemen policemen department heads collectively these nonresidents represent more  taxes than the restored houses on seward place or the takeover of the ramada inn by a nonprofit schenectady has a street named after roger hall it is called roger hallway and runs perpendicular to seward place the area that was so controversial in the last election when city council voted to honor the union president with such a distinction they thought he was swell for fifteen years parents and trusted the minds of their children to president  why would anyone think he is not capable of running our city lastly there is one record unique to miss brucker she is always late for the committee meetings her glens fal job is too far away to get her to the city on time for the five thirty meetings no one poirier in the private sector would tolerate the systematic tardiness practice neither will i accept such a responsible representations tardiness is a poor work ethic thank you it concludes all the speakers for tonight would know open it up for miscellaneous business of the council recently here and i asked that some point you know the council and maybe the police commissioner of the police chief we could have some kind of a meeting going to talk about strategy and the  luncheon but you know and has certainly been a great citizen in this community i think most people know her through the schenectady today show but she serves on numerous boards and very very active and very involved so i said i just wanted to congratulate her reminds me of days that have gone by when we really really had problems and i thought some of these problems were being addressed because we have a commissioner and the chief and  i notice where one of our police officers are going got arrested the other day for i guess it was d w i so that hasn't changed we still have to ensure that our police officers abate the law abide by the law and are outstanding citizens of our community and it's a shame and it should not happen hopefully we can involve the state the county and our city police to resolve some of these these things i still think that a lot of these people that come here with guns and are shooting are not schenectady individuals and they come here from queens brooklyn manhattan bronx and hopefully we can adenovirus some of these people the thing that gets me is that the people that i see that is hanging on the street i mean as as not like they they work or they don't work they just hang out on the street and it's unfortunate i think if we could identify some of these people who are just hanging out on a porch or hanging on a sidewalk or hanging out in front of different businesses i think we might be able to address some of these problems over having unfortunately you have to be tough with some people and i don't like to say that we have to limit their their rights as i'm not for that but i think if our police and the county police in a state police start addressing some of the problems that we have our communities are just people just hang out and people walk around with guns were it's amazing that all of the guns that are on our street and it's like how do they get these guns what do they pay for the we had once we pick up a person who's had a gun do we try to find out where that gun came from i don't i we don't wake up and schenectady i don't even know if we make them in the in the state of new york so somehow we're getting so much to make guns and escape this area and worry is being responsible for what happens here and it's a shame a disgrace of all the shootings that go i i had some bad news today a good friend of mine and i said good friend i mean a good friend of mine passed away yesterday he and i went through a horse washington irving mom pleasant and he was a real good friend we were we were born as the same year so i guess i'm real blessed to be still here and i feel blessed to be here and his name was joseph vaca he grew up on us street i grew up on strong street i'm still on strong street but i grew up with his brothers he had three brothers  ray jimmy dick they are all outstanding athletes at that mom pleasure and it's a it's a real shame and it's and it's unfortunate but i think i can say i'm blessed that i got to see him about a week ago two weeks ago maybe now went up to king's way arms and he was there he looked great we had a long conversation talking about different things and then he passed away yesterday so i i feel real bad about that because when you have friends i mean real friends that you cover a lot of years together played basketball together went out listen to music together did all the kind of things that friends do when you go to people's houses and they come to your house so and of anybody you know joe baca when he lived out in fort plain i think it's scary county now and so all his brothers and family will be coming into town because he's the only one that lives close by but i just want to mention that you know i usually get here a little late but i have a real good reason for being late today so joe vaca one of my best friends thank you thank you joe the sympathy goes out to his family and friends and the other members of the  who did vote and a great campaign and look forward to the outcome just to get on the wastewater treatment plant that comes up we're staffing would increase those are people who are paying for already the city had brought  consultant in by bringing that in house we would save as much as four hundred thousand dollars at least three hundred fifty thousand dollars we're still negotiating with the vendor to get the best deal and position the city to utilize that facility to its maximum we're not going to do it in any way that creates any negative or detrimental condition in the north and you know with a lot of this information going around in positions of convenience that are based on engineering decisions are not based on appropriate financial analysis but with that would entertain a motion to adjourn by mr erickson seconded by a council member king all in favor signify by saying