good evening everyone i'm going to call to order the city council caucus for october ninth two thousand and twelve and the clerk will read the agenda item number one for original consideration a resolution calling for a public airing to occur on october twenty second two thousand and twelve to receive public comment relative to the proposed two thousand and thirteen budget for the city of schenectady ok this is only calling for a public hearing on the twenty second number two item number two an ordinance to amend chapter two sixty four of the code of the city of schenectady with regards to waterfront zoning historic district review five thirty four king's road and technical corrections to the zoning ordinance introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on tuesday nov thirteenth two thousand and twelve at seven m council chambers room two zero zero nine schenectady city hall one zero five j street schenectady new york ok again the resolution calling for a public hearing discussed in committee without objection consent number three item number three a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to enter into an agreement with c s c a strategic benefit trust in an effort to decrease cost while maintaining the same level of benefits to employees and retirees again discussed in committee without objection and consent number three will appear on the consent to gender number for item number for resolution authorizing the city to enter into a contract with the new york state division of homeland security and emergency services office of counterterrorism to secure grant funding ok discussed in committee without objection i'm consent number four will appear on the consent to gender number five item number five a resolution recognizing the goals of disability access laws and declaring the month of october as a national disability of employment awareness month ok this resolution will peer out of order in council member porterfield will read it thank you item number a resolution recognizing the achievements of italian americans and declaring october two thousand and twelve as italian american heritage and culture month again i also bought a border  ok without objection on consent item number seven a resolution declaring the month of october as stop domestic violence month he and without objection on consent in ms council member  item number eight a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to settle a claim by guido loyola against the city ok discussed in committee without objection on consent side a more pure on the consent agenda and that's it anything else to come before the city council c and move into the city council meeting please rise for the invocation  miracles in your works a lot and we thank you for your marvelous work we thank your god a lot as you looked over each and every one that is here is your blessed him as he on their way that cause i mean no harm or danger we want to think you are not all that we are here ok we have three agenda items out of order the first one is number five you know that will be read by council member porterfield real resolution recognizing the goals of disability access laws and declaring the month of october to as national disability employment awareness month whereas the month of october has been designated as national disability employment awareness month and whereas the diverse workforce and experiences every day the value contribution of employees with disabilities and where is the city of schenectady is committed to ensuring that everyone it serves enjoys equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from its program services including employment opportunities and whereas to meet the challenge of the twenty first century it is recognized that everyone must continue to work together to help ensure that each member of the community with or without disability must realize full an independent lives contributing to their local and regional communities now and therefore be it resolved that the mayor and city council of the city of schenectady declare up to two thousand two thousand and twelve as disability  is one of the main key sayings of independence the person has a job and they can be able to feed themselves put a roof over their heads and we must realize that jobs are got to be the number one also to use this month we have several other different things that are years reality are you going to believe disability history week is the seventh through the fourteenth in two thousand and twelve october is divorcement by the little people of america association of course we've got breast cancer awareness month we also have domestic violence month and i just wanted to put out this one little in one thousand sixty one when president kennedy put together the food stamps act it was based on to try to prevent developmental disabilities make sure that children went to school had some stuff but the un just put out the food an agricultural organization the u n just said that one it eight people goes hungry and you know and i know that victim is doing a good job during the summertime and everything else but we've got to realize that if a child goes hungry or a mother who goes is going to have more odds of having developmental disabilities and be able to increase the disability population so again it goes right back to the part of jobs we've got to be able to feed ourselves but are of overheads so i want to preheat the council in looking at this thank you resolution number six while so be taken out of order this will be read by council member ricky recognizing the team and some of the italian americans in declaring october two thousand and twelve as it's now you know american heritage and cultural month  call members from the sounds of it lee italian american cultural social and the other italian americans you're welcome to come up front advanced to a much higher economic level in this day and age and whereas the talian americans are the fourth largest european ethnic group represent no they need knighted states in new york state has the greatest population of a telling americans represent of the united states of america and where as the anniversary of christopher columbus historical journey to the americas is celebrated worldwide on october twelfth one thousand nine hundred two included in the state of new york in the city of schenectady in for the year two thousand and twelve the observation of columbus day occurs on the second monday of the month in october and whereas the city of schenectady probably celebrates the italian american heritage and culture each year during the month of october now therefore be a resolve that the mayor and the city council the city of schenectady declare october two thousand and twelve to be a talian american heritage and culture month in the city of schenectady and celebrate the many achievements of italian americans in the city of  in colony and it's open monday through sunday in monday through friday it is open from eleven to two if you haven't seen it please do yourself a favor be part of telling for the day go visit learn about the italians and what they've done for this country ok our next resolution taken out of order will be read by council member parousia so it is a resolution declaring the month of october as stop domestic violence month say representatives here except as aleutian ok well i think it's i'm going to read it anyway because your being is a very important recognition whereas the month of october has been designated as stop domestic violence month in whereas did mystic violence permeates the lives in compromises the safety of thousands of new yorkers with tragic destructive and often fatal results in occurs within a wide spectrum of relationships including married and formerly married couples couples with children in common couples who live together or have lived together gay lesbian bisexual and transgender couples in couples who are dating or who have dated in the past and where as domestic violence is recognized as a pattern of coercive tactics that can include physical psychological sexual economic and emotional abuse perpetrated by one person against an adult intimate partner with the goal of establishing and maintaining power and control over the victim whereas domestic violence destroyed lives undermines self esteem and exacts a tremendous toll on the lives of the persons it directly and indirectly effects and whereas in honor of this cause the city of schenectady recognizes the goal purple initiatives that encourage people to wear purple in support of the important of stopping domestic violence now therefore be a resolve that the mayor and the city council of the city of schenectady declare october two thousand and twelve as stop domestic violence month in the city of schenectady and recognize the tragedies caused by in associated with domestic violence encourage members of the community to wear purple in support of the efforts to stop domestic violence in the city of schenectady and i know that our own city hall is let purple have one public hearings scheduled for this evening clerk's office is recommending that the city discontinue was issuing on demand vital records certificates for the ten dollars so difficult feat and instead it's a ten dollars priority charge for the on demand service and president members of the council my name is tom fred and i live in the city of schenectady and i'm also a license funeral director at the markle stone funeral home come here tonight to speak against the proposed priority here a few facts for your consideration when a death takes place in the city of schenectady whether it's at ellis hospital private residence nursing home or any other place within the city the death certificate must be filed by a funeral home in the city clerk's office regardless of where the deceased or their family lives when we're making funeral arrangements with the family information is gathered about the deceased in order to complete the death certificate it is then filed in the city clerk's office and the funeral home will purchase certified copies for the family in order for the family to begin applying for life insurance pension death benefits probate court etc these certificates are sent out immediately by families in order to receive monies to continue paying for monthly bills day to day expenses and funeral expenses at this time certified copies of a death certificate are ten dollars per copy and on average families initially purchase four to six copies and it is not unusual to purchase more for the family in the weeks following the funeral because we all know that there are an unforeseen  things come up if an acted the family that needs five death certificates and needs them immediately to accomplish what i stated before would be charged one hundred dollars instead of fifty or they would have to wait up to two weeks to receive the certificates at the fifty dollar price is that what you want to do to families in their time of ne then if the family realized they needed three additional copies they would be faced with the same dilemma pay sixty dollars to receive them that day or wait up to two weeks and pay the thirty further the city clerk's office generates one hundred twenty thousand dollars per year with death certificates making up the lion's share of the amount due to the numerous copies needed throughout the year versus needing only one birth certificate or one marriage license this fee could realistically reduce the hundred twenty thousand dollars in annual sales by families initially purchasing fewer certificates with the priority phoebe and waiting to see if they will need more the city will lose the future sale by families waiting to see if they need them versus families now will buy a couple more certificates just to have them in case something comes up and they will already have them in conclusion currently speaking for demarco stone in my colleagues here tonight our families receive superior customer service from the city clerk's office and we do not want anything to change that i appreciate your time and your attention thank you sir well you know american but also a licensed fuel director here in schenectady also an owner of a funeral homes here in schenectady also the president of the capital district of new directors association which encompasses multiple counties seventy five funeral homes in the city of schenectady and the surrounding areas here to oppose your fee increase i echo what midst of a red has said surcharge or anything to get these certificates we chase these to to fitzgibbon doctors to hospitals to doctors offices then come down here to and get them filed by the city clerk's office there's no extra fee for that but ten dollars that we receive from the family goes right to the clerk's office to reiterate one thing that tom did said families do now us select three or six or so certificates in just in the drawer at home sometimes our counseling going forward will be don't get those six get the free save yourself the extra fifty dollars thirty dollars whatever it may be there has been  on a state level there has been introduced an electronic type of deaths certificate filing where we wouldn't use the county clerk's office we would probably still you would still get your fees for the copies but we would do that locally at the funeral home on a computer and that is done in other states than in the city of new york and it would be of no added cost to families these fees are putting in would be at a cost to the families  charging more and giving less service is because basically what this fee would do to the families thank you thank you sir for your comments ton want to echo what these two gentlemen do said but what happens a lot is they need your certificates for insurance a lot of people can't afford funerals and they depend on the insurance and i know a lot of funeral homes now are taking credit cards so if they're taking credit cards these people need you church to pay off the credit card so they don't need all that interest i know myself when my father passed away in number my mother excuse me in one thousand nine hundred one the undertaker was a friend of mine i went to school with his wife from kenya guard right on through they said whenever you get insurance we'll take it so i got one check and i brought it up right away and i said geez if when i get the other one i'll bring it up and i heard words out of her mouth were don't worry we're in a hole for about two million dollars that people always so that's why these funeral directors  credit making the people use credit cards now to bury their family and the families a lot i'm like i said can't afford it and it's extra money is coming out of their pocket so i do so hope that this doesn't go up thank you thank you priority see one of the things that i'm really opposed to as is is service and it's it's a photocopier which is no farther than probably for media way that we're making these copies on and you're charging an additional ten dollars each which puts an undue influence on families and i'm opposed to that so that's my opposition it's to communication kitchens communications presented to the city council for tuesday october ninth under official there are nine general is an announcement from the bellevue preservation last time around we had discussions about the just the budget mayor proposed budget went out were having meetings all this week we had one just more today before this meeting at six o'clock we read sewer and water tomorrow we've got the closed and move right down to privilege to the floor on the legislative agenda and very mclean i live in the set a i want to go on record against the resolution to authorize the city of schenectady to enter into an agreement with c a strategic benefit trust this agreement well eventually go the way of the time slayings those who will benefit from such an agreement are at the very center of the proposal in other words the ones who will receive the city's contract to do the work it was obvious when the pair left the committee meeting with the big grins on their faces after council voted to put this item on tonight agenda the word savings is used a lot by city officials but it means nothing because what is saved today is spent tomorrow if council and the mayor were serious about saving money they would sell the thirty five city cars remove the bought in july and so on and so on the list of expenditures goes on and on thus far the mayor and council have saved  ok this is on the legislative agenda and i have deborah roberts signed up are you on the wrong spot deborah ok city business you can when city business comes up ok we have you down here for us again this is on the legislative agenda ok think that that in regard to number six there are three groups have just received automatic attention around here every year for no particular anniversary or anything and i think thank you thank you mr morris ok that's all i have signed up for the legislative agenda i was all that closed and moved on to moving the consent agenda i have nothing calling for roll call so i would ask for a motion second to approve the consent moved by house member king second by council member all those in favor of consent agenda passes now move on to privilege of the floor and city business mr da in the state of new york that is door and what is happening here in schenectady for revenue purposes i feel that that is not necessary to  to to padlock will close the doors for the people in this community as to what is a result of a place where a safe haven that we can go and i think of is very unfair know is not good and i am one voice that is going up against opposition of them thank you thank you sir joe rodriguez know approve the minutes from the last city council is crazy because my minutes i've noticed that consistently their minimized and like i mean how can you will prove something that isn't even a complete record that's not just bottom line and ironically the same thing is happening over at the schenectady you know court system there's so many people that try to appeal cases where they were abused and judicial abuses were you know occurring and you can't get you cannot get the record i got record from eight years ago that i'm trying to get justice for near like i'm sorry we we've lost them but we can attempt to reconstruct them what reconstruct every little intricacy of things that were said and it's not just me i know multiple people unfortunately i grew up on you know the wayside but i'm coming up  that going to give up i'm not going away i got tenacity i'll do this i'll do this for the rest of my life and mrs blanche but i want to tell you this i respect you as a person but when i had seen you out on stage street new encouraged me to just give up you're like you know you've got so much you very articulate used to positives in a negative i'm not you know your psychology is elementary to me i'm serious i'm not i'm sometimes i come in here i get a little flustered but i'm telling you that i come here with good intentions i'm trying to tell you people all the money that they talk about it's it it is dwarfed in comparison to the money that is getting doled out to people through getting beat them by police in tortured in the jail i mean i literally had to rinse pepper spray off my face  you've got these psychiatric facilities where they get all these kickbacks and stuff go on trips because they can just kick out prozac encircled everybody and you see people out there dragging their feet you really think that they could productively in officiously convey a message an in complaint to the police i mean i feel incredible you know intimidation by i'm not going to give up because for good man to do nothing that's the only thing that allows evil to perpetuate and i'm telling you right now i got to do something you very much i appreciate that and i really appreciate that because it does really help you know a little bit of my cause and another thing is that you know we should make the p b s a pay back money excuse me we should make the know and with the late latest of things going on with taxes being raised all these businesses that are opening is not what we really need we need people with jobs we don't need more bars any more restaurants and we certainly don't need higher taxes it is hurting the city dramatically and you are on a road to bankruptcy and everybody knows that whether they say it come up here and say it it is there it's the undertone of the whole city and you know what we need to stop it there are solutions there are other solutions it's very easy to say well we'll just raise taxes well how about if we work a little bit harder and come up with some better ideas and they're out there but they're going to be some changes in the hard to ages and i do respectfully ask that you look at these changes and see them because they're there they're all over i don't think any any employee throughout the county the city of the state should have a race i don't care what test you pass but pay grade your ass no raises period until we can get the city under control taxes should not be raised this nobody wants  nobody wants to bring a business or buy a home in a city with taxes that are outrageous most of the time the taxes are more than the mortgage and to make his changes you is the government work for us we do not work for you and we are not see and bowling around let's get down to the serious business is here let's create some changes i want to see a better prosperity stable economy something and it is our job to work together to do this and i would appreciate you really thinking about some of these changes and take a look at th webster street there and it's sink in and it's not a small hole it's about three by five or behavior and i haven't called the city i want to see you have people that are pauses whatever not they ride through that street they see that how come no one reports that i mean i waited i says let me see how long it takes before we're getting close to winter now sold something should be done because people running around the city are foremen or contract don't get a raise and from what i understand we're going to be losing our police chief too we need a police chief we could run a commissioner in the straightness department  why do we need a police chief so i don't know if that's contract law or whatever dares maybe we can save that one hundred twenty hundred thirty thousand dollars for a while but whatever it is another thing is that two million dollars on that parking thing they say that there are up parking tickets or according to the paper parking tickets they're behind two hundred million dollars that haven't been or two million i'm sorry two hundred million it's up to two million dollars that unpaid parking tickets and then they want to get enough somebody outside to go plectrum try to get people outside to collect their taxes didn't do any good but two million dollars in parking fees i mean that's that's a that's a lot of money in i don't think that's right and those people that are paying our taxes on time or paying our parking tickets we're getting punished for whatever it is people aren't doing so in other words maybe we shouldn't be taxe planting flowers in their neighborhoods the needs of bill hers park are been addressed and god bless the mcavoy is and all their helpers who care for the vail park so on someone told me that in new york city every day before the merchants opened their businesses the owners cleaned the street and sidewalk in front of their stores for a while on my branch at space in an antique co op in saratoga it was in my contract that on the day i was two were i was required to go into the store early and clean it my husband did the outside i did the inside the comprehensible plan states that the goal of each district is to have clean neighborhoods it hasn't happened yet but this summer the mayors of fulton and montgomery took the initiative to address the litter problem in their community recently c n n really poor did that in rwanda a third world country citizens spend the fourth sattar day of every month cleaning up the litter in their country the suggestion came from the countr president city workers only to do the work to they we can expect volunteers to clean up after that the area they work in should be completed before going to other places for instance grass around preacher angst signposts and especially fire hydrants shouldn't be manually cut and not left for someone else to do and speaking of city workers this council should meet with the mayor and reinstate community i want to say that everything that everybody has already said has basically said what i want to say as the next thing he is going totally down is being completely ruined by the christmas time everybody gets fired so i mean we're really suffering here i said years ago why do you have all these abandoned buildings to the mayor that was the mayor that thomas said what is all these abandon buildings do around here which well they say we can't do anything about it now you found something to do about it to raise everybody's taxes and to make sure that people have to pay for your blunder not really doing your job and making it possible for people to have decent living here i think it's an absolute shame really wanted to say be user friendly off of the businesses the be user friendly with what's going on here we need you to start recognizing that it's not our fault that out taxes have gone up is your fault by you making sure that the police officers have all these cars that the that  morning ok and disturb people sleeping people have to get up and go to school go to work or whatever i think is a disgrace now i also want to bring to your attention that i know that you're going to have at least three three seats available i want to run for i think that the mayor wants me to run pacific council so that i can help out this city because i see that you really need me sitting there because i'm sitting there i know i would really fly for the right of the people and i know you want me to do that misremember what i want you know i was wrap it up well i'll wrap it up no one but the fact of the matter is you need to change what you're doing to this city i brought it to your attention years ago good evening my name is heather dukes and i live in the city of schenectady i urge the mayor and council to take swift action to save schenectady churches and not for profits from the foreclosure proceedings involving american tax funding i speak tonight about the churches over a dozen churches and religious organizations will be forced to close their doors once american tax funding for closes on their properties the churches were wrongfully added to the list of properties with delinquent tax liens since churches are by law tax exempt organizations many pastors were shocked to learn a t f intended to foreclose foreclosure proceedings will devastate this community schenectady churches participate in gun buyback programs serve food to the poor provide clothing for children operate daycare centers and provide a sense of family for children that live in dangerous crime ridden neighborhood last year i spoke with a pastor who operates a church on brandywine avenue just minutes away from one of the most dangerous communities in ops new york this pastor classified his church as a refuge for youth being actively recruited by gang leaders and drug dealers he conceded that some of the children do in fact run the streets but they always return to his church their safe haven my husband was one of those children who rode his bicycle through hamilton hill as a child and sometimes found himself in trouble his church ever was always his home base a church that nurtured him and instilled in poor and lifelong values that church was refreshing spring church of god in  they are now embroiled in foreclosure proceedings with american tax funding there are many people hurting in our community and my professional career i've represented hundreds of people who've experienced crushing pain abuse trauma throughout their lives a lot of them of turned to drugs and alcohol to numb their pain some have unsuccessfully wrestled with addiction for several decades and others attempted to take their own life others though who participated in faith based recovery programs and received support in unconditional love from their pastors and church family successfully broke the shackles of addiction they will tell you that the church was where they finally found healing we cannot afford to stand by and have american tax funding padlock our church doors just as they did to the schenectady hindu temple hebrew chapter seven of the bible states let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approach council members the day approaches when american tax funding will for e we encourage you to stand with us in stop a t f from destroying these institutions that richly contribute to our history and social and civil rights movements and the livelihood of this electric city good evening i'm hollyhocks at president of the board of trustees of the first unitarian society of twenty one wendell avenue and as you know our church has faced tax liens solely for our inadvertent failure to file exemption from property taxes in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight we're fortunate that on august twenty seventh the city council took action which excepted filing for retroactive tax exemption for two thousand and eight and we appreciate that thank you for that effort we still have four outstanding tax liens three year which have been sold to american tax funding and those total about eighty nine thousand dollars we asked the city to continue to work with american tax funding to buy back the liens which are there we are also working with the state legislature to try to gain legislation in two thousand and thirteen i understand that there are a number of other churches mistruths a spoke about them which are in similar situations and i encourage the city to do what it can to assist all churches and not for profit organizations which have been connected he was built on the churches for the you to go after the churches he's discussing as far as i'm concerned i represent the southern christian leadership council of the capital district  and there's many people behind this and signing petitions as we speak on stopping this from happening and we're going after hundreds of people's places to worship and places where people go to find ref the street as other people here is already talked about and as far as i'm i got a few more this is say about the churches and what they provide for the city is connected to that everybody should be aware if they happen to  especially the people schenectady or the assessors or wherever that actually went into these places and thought that ok these these places need to pay taxes even though there have been services every sunday now everybody knows he's a church is is over doesn't know it couldn't have been overlooked does not receive proper answers and gardens in these areas decide that societies will begin to live selfish lives based soley upon personal desires and wreck churches provides a stable influence in our community the history of america's family in the west demonstrates the truth when churches were built in the new communities the west was tamed churches continue demonstrate disprove when churches were maintained in the community the community was blessed but when churches close or become rundown the community suffer churches provide a more employments in our society fathers are taught to love and provide for the children's mothers are taught to love and care for their families and children are taught to love the spectacle their parents teaching received and sunday schools and churches services teaches people to do right churches produces a society that respects others and people who have self control lives i where they dissipated and started holding the meetings outside of the appointed room the room that was on the board and started meeting in coffee house so anyway since he called for it nothing has been done and i said last time i spoke that i didn't go to these public meetings because i was invited by notices in the paper so but the thing is i would probably be in most cases the only person from the public and they are but the people holding the meeting didn't really want anybody there and that's the situation as it stands today no one has been appointed to this advisory group on technology  set them apart they've been blessed by the entire county legislature to hold their it bias or even meetings wherever they won't there's been no list is of the advisory council is just something that kind of can grow you know and but they do it's a social kind of  democrat thing you know it can end up being soft money and it can be a lot of legs but the community is not welcome to them there they are resource and you just summarize chaos for only the young people and so now everybody's looking for committee to be on and they're forming all kinds of strange committees including this place called patty's place is it workers read the most of them could not be here so i'm here and there we have to share so finding some initial results of a neighborhood outreach initiative and there will be more outreach sessions association members went through a strong street interview eleven residents ar october there were three key findings i want to share with you one is all the residents have a great pride in the community feel very strongly and positive about living in the neighborhood they want the neighborhood improved and strengthen this kersey welcome any city initiative to increase home ownership and hope this can be available to all number two they were very serious concerns about the some policing crime issues and that's on the back side of what you have there residents are very supportive of police who do not see enough of them they  number of call the of life issues or take away from the neighborhood they create the police with a good response some important areas where the association is sure the list with police representatives and third they waste a strong concern over speeding in the neighborhood this  and strong street were too many cars ignore stop signs residents want to ask you the city can stall speed bumps or have some other strategy to address the speeding is next it waiting to happen given the number of youth that are on the road so want to share that with you for your consideration the other thing very differently is not all of you get the times union so sharing with you the article is on sunday's paper the kids on the edge sorry lawrence not here no media there tonight so laura and i could sign autographs afterwards just kidding but i wanted to put this out for you in case you have not seen it all over a very serious problem with childhood poverty in our community it doesn't always follow the purview of this committee by think it's all bodies  women need to be aware of the issues it's worse than what we suspect it was it plays out of number of people who come to our food pantry and also come for summer lunch and you might say well it's not always been falling in this body but it falls in all areas of government we don't have the kind of government where it's all unified if you're in chicago and iran emanuel you're on the school board is not the case here in our city and the danger in our community is people are poor and sorrows the time really is ahead of the partnerships and i learned here the mayor has reached out to a school system i applaud that i encourage all of you to put this on your agenda there's more than three minutes worth of time to think about what can be done so i hope we could be on the council with john to perhaps as soon as the budget good evening i speak as a pastor in the community working professional such as king abuse counseling a community of hamilton hill a wife a mother resident speaking against a tax levy against the nonprofit organizations most specifically at the school time the church it seems like the city is desperately trying to keep your aid money that is needed in his turn to focus towards the church and i see a lot of changes being made in dress up downtown in certain areas of the community but it's the heart of the city must be right in that this time i don't feel like the heart of the city is right with all the changes that has been m is important the role of the church is very important to the community nation the world at large is important for the cities connected to hear the voice of guy reminding the people that they are not forgotten the church simply in simplest form is about one is about members a part of the fort therefore the church is about community and is community and that the first church had all things in common and all was given each was given importance each had need the church is important  in doing this by the grace of god i've been placed in a vineyard in the cities connected the most specifically hamilton hill with other cable laborers who are just as concerned about the attack against a church the role of the church is important to provide a shelters to scare after school programs clothing pantries food pantries computer labs vocal skills offering ways of jobs is important for the church to be remain in the community is important for the city of schenectady to appreciate the role of the church and allow the ministers and those who serve in the church and a part of the church to focus on spiritual matters that is critical turning around the city of schenectady much less the world itself so i want to say i'm hoping that the city would hearts would be touched and would understand the importance of god my daughter was surprised that we began this meeting with education and so with that then that is the indicate that the role you acknowledge god in you are in right now is fa and with that we cannot attack the church and we need to find a different way to work together in order to address the financial state of the city understanding there are better ways to raise money the foreclosures  gave it to a t f they're trying to sell it to someone out of state we need to allow people the opportunity to become business owners here and keep it within the community of schenectady thank you church in the heart of the city with the people of the city instal several years ago probably almost twenty now this same governing body lauded it and applauded refreshing spring for its accomplishments along with pastor george addicts the late pastor lord and applauded to the point where you change the name of the street and now can i really believe can we really believe that the same governing body is moving to close that same church that you claim it was a pillar of the community  beacon of hope something on the heel that people can believe in the bible says and i'm alluding to the can any good thing come off or out of hamilton hill i say yes and refreshing springs again since nineteen fifty five has touched the lives of people that we can't even number the number is the numerable there's people who are in japan who talk about  there are people in germany who talk about refreshing spring church and wait till they hear what you're trying to do to refreshing spring is concerned according to long history of the taxes churches everyone knows this but they don't really look into it not a pastors are not familiar with the tax information lo church that i have here i have several of the churches in new york state around the world according to the i r s in their laws that have been updated continuously even to date this year it's plain in black and white english that says church is need not file for exemption you're automatically exempt from taxes the provisions in that of course stipulate certain things which churches are exempt churches don't even need to go and get a five a one c three when churches do that we give you our power we don't need your power and that's and that's that's that's in the  that churches don't need to file for violence even the texas state status were automatically example with the exception of if we do something for profit then that's separate but not for profit anything of that nature we don't even need a certificate this is put into place under and the city meeting with a bunch of people concerning the city of schenectady because they had no idea that this was happening and by closing if you're going to take churches and close churches then don't call on us mr pollster to jump in here because i don't have my notes for this but i know we have tried to address the issue with the churches it was unfortunate that a former assessor did it require them to file the form i believe once that happened they had four months in which to charge challenge that and when they didn't do that again many of them just didn't know then and we legally cannot forgive taxes unless they get legislation from the state and in the case of the unitarian church when they could went for that legislation nobody picked up on the fact that it was only for one year as opposed to have believe it was three i don't remember the specifics with refreshing springs but  believe me we do not want to close churches we are doing everything we can and i would encourage you know each church and i know the unitarians to argue with done this to work directly with mr pollster so he can you know help you do what you need to do so that we can then take action mr poster do you want to comment very good job of summarizing it very briefly i'll just go through a little bit of the  history i'm not sure the exact years i don't have all of the notes in front of me but at one point and time on the assessor not the current us us or but the prior assessor in a process that required not for profit and to please including churches to who file an application to obtain their exemption aaya it turns out that that process was incorrect nevertheless happened the issue has gone up to the highest court in the state of new york the court of appeals and they have reviewed the situation and they said yes for churches a municipality may not require an application for them to receive their exemption however the process that a church can go through to have the exemption removed is called an article seventy eight perceiving there is a ferry short statute of limitations under new york state law that says that an entity in this case the church could have come in within the four month time period for the statute of limitations and brought an action to have the exemption granted without  any need for an application being filed on the law the church would have been absolutely entitled to that relief what happened was that once the application was required by the prior assessor on there were a number of churches and other not for profit entities that did not file for their exemption the four month time period passed and when that passed even though it was improper the taxes became fixed that were going to do and calling and writing to any of the not for profits that they could become or that they were aware of informing them of the necessity to file the application b taxes became a under the law valid lien because they were not challenge to all of the entities had an opportunity to go to the state and obtain from the new york state legislature which does have the authority to grant legislation on enabling this body or providing the city council with the authority to grant the tax exempt status retroactively and there were a number of not for profits that took that action and i believe it was on august twenty seventh of this year the city council depass a resolution granting the retroactivity a retroactive exemption for to the best of my knowledge of every entity that obtained  legislation there are a few and i apologize off the top of my head i'm not sure the status of refreshing springs church but there are a few entities and that church may be one of them that never acquired the legislation from the state the city will support you there have been a number of requests that the city provide a letter supporting an application being made and in every case the city has assisted but the process is that any entity that has not yet a pain the legislation from the state they should go to their state legislator on for whatever district there in and apply for the exemption it is only the state legislature that can give this body the legal authority to forgive in essence forgive taxes on so if there are any of you welcome to call my office will provide whatever assistance we can we cannot represent you  we are precluded from doing that but we can give you whatever information we have to assist in your application to the state for the tax exempt status i think thank you i'm a totally different subject i just want to once again thank our fire department for all their efforts or breast cancer awareness month i'm wearing the t shirt they gave me and i'm a breast cancer survivor so this is very near and dear to my heart but i our i'd like to thank all the people that came down this evening to represent the churches and i just like to say that the city is not against churches that had that was it was a terrible mistake that happened but the city is not against churches and so the city is willing to work with whatever church is having a problem to make sure that the paperwork gets filed i personally know the value of my research to me just address i personally know the value of what we're going to our church and what the churches do in this community so our goal is to make sure that that continues to happen because they bring a lot i personally went to refreshing spring for a number of years so you know our goal in the city is to make sure that all organizations who are contribute to the city  viable so you know if we are where we are right now but we're working to try to resolve this to get this situation ended so that the churches can continue their work here in the community thank you state newly formed assembly district one eleven candidates for the city council also to be present and those in attendance will be occur encouraged to submit written questions for the candidates and the public is invited i also just  broadway behind proctors as many of you might remember there was a very long term proctors volunteer that was hit by a car in the preexisting crosswalk and killed it is a highly traveled area and many many people coming to and from proctors cross that street on a daily basis i can tell you for one i cross it several times a day and never continue to cross across the walk into i've made eye contact with the car because regardless of the yellow side in the flashing lights people still travel very quickly through that intersection and you know for instance for the lion king we had eighty thousand people over the course of a month crossing that street flynn it was of no cost to the city it's an experimental crosswalk i can tell you that it's made a difference already it's nice and bright and it really now looks like a crosswalk so i just wanted to chair there's a lot of stuff that came across to real tourists and it's disturbing the tax increases disturbing we're hearing firsthand people can't afford any more we may know we're going to say it's only four point one percent it's too much it's incumbent on this council to really go through this budget line by line and spend some real serious time  this i have some ideas of my own and there's cuts have to be made and i agree with one of the speakers anything but contractual raises i'm not even crazy about that but i don't think there's anything we can do about it but as part of steps or anything like this no i am not going to vote for anything that's going to pay anybody more money when we have people that are losing their homes their homes are being foreclosed on people are losing their jobs i can't go along with that there's no way i can go along with that in my heart now we go back to the a t f thing this is been going on since forever i've been on the council since january we've been meeting we've been hearing there's offers we've been hearing all these things well worth the resolve what this people are loosing their place of worship there's nothing more important to anybody than that what can be more important in their place of worship  speaker say it's a sanctuary for many to go sanctuaries are being closed down this just isn't right i don't know what we can do i'm waiting we're telling there is going to be there may be a resolve there's not a resolve could be before the next meeting whatever's happening it's not happening fast enough for these people i don't even know what to say i apologize for myself anyhow because i'm part of this council and i'll apologize for myself that i'm not apparently not doing enough and i don't know what else i can do but i'll do whatever it takes to try to get resolved to this so there's a lot of issues we have before us right now and it's our job to do these things to fix these things the budget it's it's our job to fix this budget it's too much the garbage fee increase the other increase of the percentage increase it's too much people can't pay their taxes they're having trouble paying their taxes why would we think that they're going to be able to pay with an increase i don't know how we could think this so everything's been created over being creative with a lot of things but i don't think we're being creative enough so i charge myself included took the most best to trim this budget down to bare bones because that's what we have to do with god scott's our job so i just i hope you know it's very emotional things like a forward tonight i'm sure it touched all of us into certainly touched me so we have to work hard and i think i know we all know all that but i think we have to work maybe just a little harder i'd like to thank again the speakers for coming down tonight unfortunately i believe there's been some miss under miss information given out to some of the churches in terms of the city looking to take churches the city doesn't want to take anyone's property and especially churches and the city is not taking property unfortunately you heard the explanation and as complicated as complex as it sounds it is even more complicated than that and i would like to say that mr riggs even before you came on the council we have been dealing with this and unfortunately if we just had the city and the churches to negotiate between we probably would have it resolved but we also need to consider that now all of a sudden there's a whole nother tax entity and tax collection individual individuals involved in a company involved that may not be looking towards the way the city is looking towards helping the churches in the churches helping themselves and i think we can all understand that they don't live in the city is schenectady they don't have any interest in the of schenectady the city of schenectady has never been and never will be in the business of taking churches or non profits for that matter a lot of the work that gets done in the city we recognize gets done in the  churches in the non for profits in speaking for not for profits i'd like to say congratulations to the boys club and girls club that just received one hundred fifty thousand dollars grant from eighteen t for our youth mentoring program and we can't say enough myself and council member porterfield were there the other night those individuals those adults that work with these young people they are the heroes of our community and to see these young people respond to their mentors and i would certainly say that many of us all of us should at least consider either doing it or helping them out with the work that they do because those are the people who are going to make the most influence in a lot of our young people's lives along with the churches along with the non for profits but is so very important that we recognize exactly how the important these programs are they have done the statistics and studies just in the city of schenectady and attendance in the second year of youth being involved in these mentoring programs increases over eighty five percent for these young people you know we talk about jobs and i we have people come to us and talk about the city of schenectady needing jobs but what goes right he end in the end with those jobs is an education and we have to be very forceful about you know making sure that we send a message to our young people that not only do they finish high school but they go to college and they find a way to do that that will leave e a a lot of the jobs problems whether they're in the city as schenectady or anywhere else that education piece is key because without it you can elevate yourself we want to bring the middle class back into the city of schenectady one of the reasons of the city of skin he is in the dire straits that it's in is when people don't pay taxes and i am not talking about the churches and i'm not talking about the non profits the rest of us bear that burden so keep in mind that some of the one of the largest reasons that our taxes are so high that there are people out there who aren't paying their taxes and when they don't pay their taxes all the rest of us do that's how it happens it just doesn't fill a void somehow and just go away i would encourage the churches to work together and to speak to those other churches that have received the legislation from the state and find out how they did it and certainly to car our law department to how resolve these issues also to remind people that friday is the last day to register to vote please let your voice be heard whether you like us or you don't like us or you like me or you don't like me then fine this is your chance to make your voice heard it is so very important to be able to vote especially in this election year when we're electing a president and lastly i just want to say that knocked on october thirteenth  jewelry on union street having a toys for tots kick off again we've all heard over and over again about the economy being so bad let's try and support these programs that offered to try and make a young person's a young child's life a little bit better around the holidays and so with that i think you all for coming tonight i thank you for your comments go ahead  animals in the park and if anybody would take that the nuts in the peanuts they're donated she has the whole list chic i can hook the person up with this lady who will turn everything over to them and they will it will be at no it'll maybe take maybe fifteen minutes a day to do this i just want to send that out there to the public they can contact me and i'll put them a touch with this lady so if anybody can do that she's unable to do it anymore and that's the bottom line so if anybody could take that