like to call to order the city county caucus for august twenty seventh two thousand and twelve the clerk well please read the agenda item number one for final consideration in ordinance  mending chapter one eighty six of the code of the city of schenectady to ban smoking within city parks ok this was discussed in committee we had the public hearing ok that would be a roll cow number two please item number two for original consideration in ordinance amending chapter one eighty six their one eight of the code of the city of schenectady to increase permit fees for the use of the central park rose garden introduced only with a resolution calling for a public airing on the above proposed ordinance for monday september twenty fourth two thousand and twelve ok discussed in committee without objection and consent this is only calling for the public hearing on september twenty fourth without objection number two on consent number three number three a resolution authorizing the implementation and funding in the first instance of one hundred percent of the federal aid and state marked marches sally program aid eligible cost of a transportation federal aid project and appropriating funds therefore ok again discussed in committee without objection and consent number three will appear on consent number four number four a resolution authorizing the assessor of the city of schenectady to grant exemption from taxation to certain not for profits located in the city of schenectady again discus committee discussed many other places without objection on consent number four appear on the consent agenda number five item number five a resolution honoring male and jane goal of ok do you want to take that out of order you just going to bring it to the event ok so again without objection consent and now we have five a there was a resolution that we discussed in claims but didn't get on the agenda seconded by council member of those in favor ok number five a will appear on the consent agenda is there anything else to come before city council ca seeing non close caucus and moved on to the city council meeting we'll open up the city council meeting for august twenty seventh two thousand and twelve please rise for the invocation reverend bill levering is with us this evening let us pray almighty god we confess that we are all frail as people and as institutions we thank you for the ability to respond as people and as institutions to correct problems in our government we thank you for redress and for responsive government we thank you for the he and the clerk please call the role his garage has porterfield mr erickson ok we have no public hearings this evening no resolutions out of order next we will move on to approval of the minutes of a motion to approve the minutes for august thirteenth moved  by council member king all those in favor minutes are approved move on to communications and petitions communications presented to the city council for monday august twenty seventh two thousand and twelve under official communications from the mayor a list of appointments dated august twenty seventh two thousand and twelve under general there are none and there are no petitions from taxation to certain not for profits located in the city of schenectady i thought it would be helpful just to read a memo that all of the council received that kind of clarifies where we are with this first of all there are sixty not for profits on tonight's resolution of these six are not involved with a t f and appear to have had their taxes collected adjusted erased internally a few years ago for these an f p s the resolution tonight is just officially adopting the new york state legislation these six and f p s are home furnishings program faith deliverance tabernacle cavalry author orthodox presbyterian church ancient order of hibernian mount olive at madrid missionary baptist church and tabernacle of new hope three are not involved with a t f and paid the taxes when they were originally billed probably just to stave off any future problems these three and f p s are schenectady day nursery union graduate college and planned parenthood mohawk hudson two are not involved with a t f but are on our books as owing taxes to the city these two and f p s are state street presbyterian church and schenectady light opera company five are involved with a t f and are subject  does have new york state legislation however the state adopted legislation that listed the wrong assessment roll years as a result the council can adopt the new york state legislation to exempt the taxes charge for two thousand and nine but the unitarians don't have any new york state legislation to exempt the taxes charged in two thousand and eight that's why this not for profit is included in tonight's resolution and also listed under the remaining issues piece of the tax overview the c t a was charged in the spirit of water bills from two thousand and four to two thousand and eight the original liens total one thousand six hundred ninety six dollars there is no new york state legislation for c t a and they are not part of tonight's resolution amtrak was incorrectly assessed a d s i c charge in two thousand and seven the original lien was for six hundred fifty five dollars there is no new york state legislation for amtrak and they are not part of tonight's resolution during a memorial was correctly charged water sewer fees in two thousand and five and two thousand and six which were never paid the original liens totaled seven hundred eleven dollars there is no new york state legislation for jury and they are not part of tonight's resolution and lastly daughters of sarah nursing home was correctly charged water sewer fees which were never paid the property is located at fifteen twenty three states street is still owned by daughters of sarah and now appears to house the center for his disability services the original lien was two hundred five dollars and dates to two thousand and three there is no new york state legislation for daughter's a sarah and they are not part of tonight's resolution so as i said for any of the folks connected the there is a negotiation in the city in the county for the sales tax and since the agreement is still or discussions are still occurring i can't go into very many details but what i can say is that this is a significant opportunity for the city it's a big deal and it's a good a good moment in time for us to make sure that we do our best to make sure we understand things fully  so i can't give a lot of details in terms of where these negotiations are but at this point there is no no agreement and as something presents itself we will we will act on it and make a public closed and we will move on to privilege of the floor on the legislative agenda first person signed up is robert c enders you're just going to vote yes on this and i find it to be a little bit on the awkward side that when you were talking about fire pits and have been fires in your backyard and  she came up here and you spoke about how that could cause long damage to your neighbors next door and things like that when the council and the boating he asked for that and you know or actually it was defeated or whatever but in this situation when it comes down to taxpayers and people in the city having a choice ok the same council member here is driving the same legislation in the exact opposite direction which i totally don't understand councilman blancher is totally against people being able to have a freedom of choice one hand she wanted to have a lovely fire in her backyard but a person can have a freedom of choice to be able to have a cigar a cigarette in a park that they pay taxes on should you have it near tiny tot land should you have it anywhere else no you should have it should you have where there's going to be a fast or anything like that no you shouldn't have it but people pay taxes here and i really think like this it's not nanny state as it was put in the paper but the city you council members have better things to be thinking of than these little my new shift things smoking cigarettes what about the assessed value of houses and things like back i walk around the city i go campaigning people say even if i was to sell my house i can get the amount that they say it's assessed for that's a major i'm concerned and we're talking about being able to smoke in a park right now today that's just not a concern it's really not a concern it's a concern if you're sitting there is a whole bunch of people smoking near children and that's a major concern but that's not we're talking about we're talking about taking away the rights of people in the park in parks and that's what you're talking about what are you going to do next and what are you going to do it what rights and liberties are you going to take away from people i'm not saying that's how you're going to vote but it seems like that's how you're going to vote i mean to my point if you do vote that way i invite you to go to woodlawn park because i will go there and light a cigar ok and i want to see you arrest me because i would call the attorney and i will challenge you in the appellate division and i will have you waste your city tax dollars on that as you did as you challenge my petitions ok and i will win again because this is this is an issue going nowhere your body that was elected by the people of schenectady to pass laws for the people of schenectady thank you thank you good evening and evening my name is lowell cole going to uni to the mayor and to the city council members my name is lola kohl i live in schenectady and i'm the chairperson of the board of directors of the carver community center i just want you know carver has been in existence since one thousand nine hundred eighty eight this coming spring will be celebrating our seventy fifth anniversary and as far as i understand where the only organization on him milton hill that serves the entire family from the ages of eighteen months up to seventeen or eighteen years old and the family members as well we strongly urge you to do whatever you can to resolve this issue of the taxes between the city council or the city and american tax fund we are not for profit organization and have been for many years and had it not been for that one year when the papers were not filled out we would not be in this particular circumstance but we soon as we found out carver led the  oh we went to senator farley and he had legislature legislation passed not just for carver community center but for many of the not for profits that were listed in that first comm report and so we're not sure how we got caught in the middle once that legislation was passed but we're urging you to do everything you can to resolve it and we thank you  for your efforts and for your support thank you thank you ms cole dunbar good evening mayor good evening sent council members i am also here representing bethel church where i am a trustee i am very sure that the city will go ahead and do what is right i believe in the city i have trust in the city and i know that our city still is yet to be one of the greatest cities in america we can show and be an example for other cities by doing what is right what you do within your heart and not into your mind don't look at the circumstances as being all who are in debt or in this look at the circumstances that we're going to get out of this and we're going to be blessed and we're going to be a great city so i ask each and every one of you when you do vote on this to search your heart and not the confusion of your mind of what and looks like and i know that the right thing will be done so i disease in the schenectady county including disease caused by tobacco use so i came this evening to share with you the best of what we know and what our experience tells us as you consider expanding your tobacco free parks policy one thing we know and that's what second hand smoke is a class a carcinogen it's the same classification as benzene and a specified us it's a classification reserved for the most dangerous cancer causing chemicals that's not supposition that's science we also know secondhand smoke levels in outdoor settings can reach comparable levels to that in indoor settings the main difference is that the rate it dissipates and outdoor settings depends on how long a person smoke we further know that even brief exposures and outdoor settings can cause nonsmokers to suffer immediate symptoms including difficulty breathing ira taishan headache nausea asthma attacks and these mere annoyances or bothers for those folks these are serious of facts serious health effects for real people the legal status of tobacco should in no way diminish what the science tells us and the science clear secondhand smoke is toxic dangerous poses a serious health hazard even in outdoor settings with brief exposure so tobacco free outdoor public spaces do protect people from involuntary exposure to second hand smoke but they have other benefits as well there's an established connection between youth observation of smoking behavior and their perception of how socially acceptable that behavior is restricting smoking in family friendly spaces spaces designed to enhance physical activity and healthy activities can go a very long way in reducing the visibility to young people and subsequently impacting their perception of the se acceptability of tobacco use with five thousand people in the five thousand young people in this country between the ages of eleven and twenty who try their first cigarette every day with a third of those kids dying prematurely as a result of that experimentation that leads to addiction changing the social norms around tobacco use is a life saving goal and these kinds of policies have tremendous public support nearly two out of every three schenectady county residents favors tobacco free parts including one of every three current smokers the more than three hundred municipalities and sixteen here in the capital risk district that have done this don't rely on the strong arm of government to enforce those policies but rather the voluntary compliance of the citizens who support them smokers and nonsmokers alive implementation is cost freedom municipalities since we will provide signage at no cost to municipalities to help communicate that pro help message to the community i thank you for the time and attention and the opportunity to speak with you to see thank you reverend richard parson one day falling to x taxes for and i'm asking for leniency at this present time so we can rectify that thank you thank you sir the other officers of the board john rafalski our secretary and leonard our treasurer and other board members and members of the congregation as councilwoman king described our church is one of a number of not for profits which inadvertently neglected to file timely applications for exemption from real property taxes we own two buildings our church building and an old home across the street which houses our sunday school program between the two buildings there are six tax liens four of which have been sold to american tax funding to our great dismay we received official notice from a t f of intent to foreclose on or after all guests thirtieth two thousand and twelve this coming thursday we know that the lien sale to a t f was an action taken by a previous administration and we very much appreciate the efforts of mayor mccarthy and his administration to attempt to relieve us of this burden passage of the resolution in front of the council tonight will help by relieving approximately thirty percent of our total tax lien burden voiding one lien held by the city and one held by hundred thousand dollars passage of the resolution tonight would only relieve us of twelve thousand dollars of that i thank you in advance for your consideration of this resolution and ask that you work quickly to repurchase the three remaining liens from a t f at the moment those total eighty eight thousand dollars of which fifty one thousand dollars is principal and thirty seven thousand dollars is interest a t f has told us that if they institute foreclosure proceedings they may also add legal fees to that amount as foreclosure action may be only three days away time is of the essence thank you very much for your help thank john good evening thank you my name is john and i am the secretary of board of trustees of the unitarian church here in schenectady and also a small business owner in the city hollyhocks has laid out the depth of the crisis facing our church she is asked the church to make all a t f leans on our property go away i have here two letters dated october tenth two thousand and eight sent by our assistant treasurer of the time allan brower a senior and well respected member of our congregation to senator farley and a so when meant to disco alan had just spoken to city attorney john van norden and he had been assured that the city was diligently working with state legislature to pass a special bill to make the tax liabilities go away in these letters allen simply asked to legislate tours to make sure that the church was included in the bill unfortunately we can't go back and change what happened next no bill to save our church was ever requested by the city and two months later the liens on our propert f now i'm sorry to bring these facts up i don't want to dwell on old history but i bring them up because in the next several days we expect that this issue will be resolved one way or in the or the other the unitarian church in schenectady a stunning architectural treasure in our city is the pride of our congregation we will save it but we need help we also believe that the council in the city council and the administration are committed and will act wisely and decisively to do the right thing and remove all the liens we are grateful for their carriage but if they fail in this very difficult quest to find th will to do what they need to do the burden will fall to our members in what can only be an extremely painful at multi year financial commitment involving our for all of our four hundred members and their families these are good people in our community with a legacy of volunteer ing in schools neighborhoods and nonprofits in schenectady w compassion for the less fortunate and a keen sense of justice they will some how bear the incredible burden that they must if they must but they will ask their leaders us and you why did this happen and they will not forget so mr mayor members of the council please do the right thing please remove all of the liens on our church thank you thank you sir marriage city council members i just want to reiterate what misc lol had said earlier i'm the program director of carver community center we've been involved with this for roughly almost five years now thank you not one time that it was resolved unfortunately it was that we know how hard the city has worked on trying to resolve these matters i can only say that in speaking to several city council members everybody understands the importance of these not for profits in this community in the role that they're playing this community so i can only ask that this resolution be passed so we can get this behind us and we can move forward thank you thank you good evening my name is harold west i'm standing in stead of four past eloy been in and the new creations for christ and they passed a ben and says to tell you thank you for resolving his issue with the new  with the tax liens and concerning new creations for christ and his property he said you know that he desires that all the other situations that are going on with this be resolved quickly  three cancer deaths death that are completely preventable annually tobacco leads to the premature deaths of more than twenty five thousand people every year in new york state and secondhand smoke kills twenty five thousand new yorkers every year and i would say this is no small thing new york has been and i would say schenectady as well a leader in reducing tobacco use in the state to historic lows and acting legislation to prohibit smoking in parks makes good public health and environmental sense and would maintain that leadership hundreds of municipalities in new york have banned smoking in parks playgrounds beaches and other public property we encourage the city of schenectady to join this important trend to protect its most vulnerable citizens every year thousands of nonsmoking adults in the us die of lung cancer as a result of breathing second hand smoke so we echo what the surgeon general's report clearly said there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke not inside not outside not anywhere many people think that encountering secondhand smoke outdoors is not an issue of concern this is not the case a recent study from stanford university show that even brief exposure to second hand smoke outdoors can be harmful also there's a cumulative effect of being exposed to second hand smoke that can affect the body over time and as it's been pointed out it's a class a carcinogen  never accept as best this being thrown into the air in a public area we just never would everyone wants to keep children safe children deserve to be safe from the harms of secondhand smoke and all the public parks and beaches where they play according to the e p a children breathe in fifty percent more air pollution per pound of body weight than adults as a result they're more susceptible to to the danger associated with secondhand smoke even outdoors in addition to providing protection if implemented well with signage these types of politics policies discuss decrease the prevalence of smoking and or can be a powerful have a powerful effect on you laws that create smoke free public areas are the most effective approach to reduce the harms of secondhand smoke schenectady residents deserve chance to take their children to the playground or spend an afternoon without being exposed to the dangerous effect of tobacco smoke the american cancer society urges your support for this important ordinance thank you thank you sir porti good evening mayor city council thank you for allowing me this time i really don't have anything new to say besides that i know that the city has or need finances but we do have not for profits in the city of schenectady like the carver and bethel a m e church that provide services for a lot of people in that community and being in hamilton hill there's not a lot of resources there to begin with so to even consider taking what's there that the residents do you see they do go to are very active in carver there are members that attend bethel a m e church the church is needed there in that community and that's why it's there and i just ask that you consider the taxes that are due and look at it seriously i think something can be done you know what some point in time if they need to file paperwork and it needs to be timely somehow notify them if you think that they've forgotten or i just think that there needs to be something done so that this is not happening again and again and again because when you're talking not for profits you know if it can add up to be a lot of money and hence the word not for profit you know unless they're funding or or support from some outside source then they kind of stand on their own so i'm just asking that you consider really consider the taxes that these not for profits oh and i think you in advance for your consideration thank you  ennobles mayor good afternoon council members i used to go to carve a community center as a child is still only thing left standing there now that people recognize and know as carver community center if you close nothing left there for anyone to come to people that come home they have moved away no there's always carver community center if you take it away or don't help was there will be nothing left there everything else has moved on and gone away and the only thing left standing is carver community center where i ask you for your help thank you thank you ms nobles i have no one else signed up for the legislative agenda up for getting here late but i was listening to the churches in the not for profits speak about their pet tax dilemma and it really saddened me and i pray that there is something that the city council can do my grandmother were to help open carver in the early one nine hundred thirty s she did fund raising and she continued to do up until the day she died to help sustain the settlement house this settlement house is really important to the community without carver our children our youth and we have we don't have enough of these programs as it is so i'm just asking you to consider you know forgiving their taxes or whatever is necessary and i think not for profits need a they need technical assistance they need to be informed about what they need to do in the deadlines so it slips through you have a change of staff and everything like that so sometimes these things slip through and it's unfortunate but we can provide technical assistance because too much is too much is given much is required so i'm asking the city to think about that we have got we can't afford to lose these people these churches we can't afford to lose these not for profits i was looking at a quote from him and the my it says i do not understand the mystery of grace only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us so i truly believe that you're going to pass through a resolution forgiving these not for profits and work out a way so they can pay their bills on a regular basis and that's all i'm asking for is that you all give them a imagine carver that seventy five years old not to be in existence we already lost the freshman springs child care center we don't need to lose this valuable service to the inner city community thank you thank you ok that portion of the legislative agenda is closed and move on to approval of the legislative agenda and you have one item that's for roll call was for field eighty six of the code of the city of schenectady to ban smoking within city parks browser go ahead ok thank you i have to admit this i have done a lot of thinking about this legislation because we've gotten  feedback from both sides and i can see both sides in some respects i respect the fact that smoking is legal and i also have concern about enforcing this legislation this law but that being said i think we've also come a long way when it comes to smoking in our public places at the time when we when we removed smoking from restaurants and bars people thought it was the end of the world but all that time we were subjecting our service personnel to secondhand smoke w important exposing our children to secondhand smoke when they don't have a choice is something that needs to seriously be considered so although i have concerns am also a person whose maternal all the males on my maternal side died before they were sixty years old due to the cigarette smoking so with that being said i would like to make a motion to move this forward to ban smoking in our parks ok thank you it's been moved is there a second second by council member porterfield thank you thank you ira and i have to agree with my colleague has said about all the you know all the reasons that we should consider enacting the span and i know the question has come up in terms of how to we enforce that as well no one runs around forcing the pooper scooper law but we just expect that people will do the right thing because it's the right thing to do so that's our expectation of our citizens and we've heard people from both sides we've heard about the harm that it does to people's health so you know we take all that into consideration and some people of different people have called and said well are you legislating that we can't smoke anywhere we can't smoke outside now we're not saying that you can't smoke outside we're saying that it's just not in park so it's not to that degree where we've said that there's no place outside that you c smoke so considering all these things and the health that's involved we're talking about our youth like to vote i on this thank you thank you and explaining my vote i cannot vote for this because i am too emotionally attached to this issue i grew up with three sisters right now i have one sister left four years ago i lost my youngest sister to long cancer she was a heavy smoker is an awful thing to watch someone gasping for their last breath is something i'll never forget and it's just too emotional for me and i can't give an unbiased vocal on this i am too biased in this issue i would like to see smoking banned everywhere food was up to me from what i witnessed it's just an awful thing and again i have two of my sisters are gone one died at forty six and one died at fifty six so less far has this being one show or more important things to do no this is important there's no question about it this is an important issue and i'm not legislating morality or anything like that i am not voting i am abstaining from this vote but i just want to make it perfectly clear the dangers of smoking was already brought up here by to smoking nonsmoking coalition and i thought about this long and hard and i commend councilwoman blanchard for bringing this to the forefront but i just have to say that i cannot vote on this because of my emotional attachment to this issue and i hope everyone understands bu six zero six zero ok moshing here thank you thank you iris williams  carthy members of the city council good evening my name is iris williams and i am a resident in schenectady i'm here because i have a genuine about the traffic and the safety situation treat speaking to some of the long time residents that have been living there much longer than i have the issue of hewlett street becoming a one way street has been risen from what i can see and understand nothing has been done it has gotten far worse they are speeding on that street the safety of our children the safety of elderly are in jeopardy just tuesday five thirty in the morning my family and i were sleeping my neighbor over here was also in her home sleeping my house was crashed into by a jeep fortunately my grandchildren were not on the porch which they often do when it's too hot to sleep the entire porch is  the foundation of the house is cracked not just my house but my neighbor's house who's been there for a long time a veteran resident of hewlett street and schenectady i'm here to appeal to you as family people as residents of schenectady you want to be safe just as well as we want to be safe please i am here to you put some sort of sign on street between dewayne and strong we have a stop sign there there stop lights but that doesn't work because they still they speed around that corner when they speed around the corner from the way or even coming up late and they they lose control of the car this is the second time in two years my house has been hit oh you'll sign a you'll light something to make them slow down so that our families are safe our elderly are safe our homes are safe and our children are safe please consider putting some sort of slow down stop sign something on that corner i thank you for taking the t listen to me to hear my concern and i hope you consider making the correction on human street that's been going on for many years now is the time to make the change thank you and have a good evening thank you girls club it was one of the first miscible housing boys and girls clubs which were supported at the time by i believe gary mccarthy and sharon jordan and tom belich i moved away to go to school at the age of twenty one up to you to good new york and i received my bachelor's in computer science in my wife received her or are in degree in two thousand and five we we  are unfortunately my grandmother passed away and it's been five years later the family has been trying to deal with the actual housing issue there were a number of taxes that were actually on the property we did decide to acquire the a property in two thousand and ten and we then moved back to the city of schenectady one to move into the home and to to you know offer recreational educational programs and things of that nature to you know city  youth unfortunately the house is actually on the two thousand and nine or closure list my wife and i and my family we feel as if we are victims of time because now that we moved back to the city of schenectady and we have you know you know a very good promising careers and we make enough money unfortunately we only have about three or four days left i think i bombarded your e mails and your mail boxes with letters pertaining to this issue and i know some of them are long but you can understand my sense of urgency that i do apologize for that i know there are a number of different things going on within the city of utica but the only thing that i am asking for and my family is asking for is i'm sorry  moving from utica to schenectady i'm sorry the only thing that we're asking for is an extension of five months you know when we well there were a number of american tax funding that were on the property of a thirty sixty six albany street and the amount of twenty thousand dollars we paid probably about sixty percent of that give or take it's down to seven thousand dollars left in which we still have an agreement with them and but now we are here fresh and the city has connected a we moved back  wife is now in our in at ellis hospital serving the schenectady residents and i'll be doing computer science work in the area as well so we're just asking for an extension of five months if we could pay off american tax funding and you know paying off almost thirteen grand in two years on a twenty eight thousand dollars budget i'm sure we can do that with the city of schenectady you know sixty the seventy five plus range i think that's the big red light so i was thinking term you so thank you for listening enjoy  accident i was just talking with her house why does it take three days four days to get a police report back in time that you needed to help you out i need it because i have to get around the transportation  my daughter back and forth to school and i can't get a simple police report and i can you call them up they give you such an attitude on the phone when you go in and they give you an attitude why is that why we deal with whole bunch of attitude when we need t name my name is mary mcclain i live in the city i was away for three weeks and i came home to this sex settee cars taken away from police chief the cars must be sold not taken away and where are the other twenty nine the count i was given was that thirty five city cars are driving by city employees this is all about unions the commissionaire is management the police chiefs are management why aren't the cars being taken away from union members union members who do not live here union members who do not pay taxes here union members who were not your constituents but who we from the cities have a legal aid and  table was disconnected nice taxpayers get the crumbs last month for council members voted to spend one hundred fourteen thousand dollars on a now the unions own their souls instead of saving money council plants to raise the feast for events howled in the rose garden the money will go into the general fund and used for more foolish expenditure all in tears we want the money to maintain the central rose garden central park rose garden volunteers also staff the central park greenhouse council has not been forthcoming with money for either operation why should council help the volunteers walang tears don't make indorsements volunteers don't pull their money to give to political campaigns volunteers don't put people in office they just work hard to beautified the city because it is the right thing to do and he was anything good happening in the city has been done by others the city budget is the mayor's and the council's responsibility so thank you mr brecker on behalf of the first unitarian society i'd like to thank the council for their action tonight in approving resolution number four and encourage the council and the mayor and his administration to work expeditious repurchase liens from a t f to stave off our foreclosure thank you so much thank you cars removed from being taken home you've got about twenty twenty five more don't waste any time we're in a recession and it's time for our city council and our mayor to use their intelligence and  backbone and strength to stand up to these city employees and stop rewarding all these people that live outside our city to take a vehicle home i don't care what their title is they should not be we need every dollar spent in this city you want them to sell homes in this city they don't care about the homes in this city or they'd be living near themselves to your kid stop it get some back home and stand up for the citizens and taxpayers we need you that's what you are like that for every single one of you and it's time you start going it you can't get the cars away from city hall we got a parking lot down here they can't walk all day long you've got city vehicles parked around this hall i don't care where they work or what their title is let them walk a couple of steps and put meters in here if you're after or give the privilege to the people that come here to do business at city hall you're gonna start stand up for the citizens here and stop this for around i don't care if it's party or what it is but the citizens need you if you can't do it that we've got to get somebody else and the next thing is you want to check out the county about repairs of our vehicles that  of them for maintenance that we are not overbuilt that we have a form that go through them and tells them exactly what we want done and that's what's gone one inspection a year and that's it and i we being overcharged i feel we are i think it's already just what the county is charging for work and adding to it possibly let's look into this i think you got something there that you really need to take a deep look at it's one thing the body material from with a county that's another thing that they work for you and you pay them and not know what you're paying for i don't know if there's a form that goes on the work for me but only what i got work for is what should be done and nothing more thank you very much thank you sir good evening everybody my name is a reader and i live on carey street my properties as one of the properties mean foreclosed on as a for next week i have came to the city and i have spoke to almost all of the city councilman the mayor in a few other people from the law department i haven't had any hope i've been willing to work out a resolution i'm just x king for a little time my property is unfortunately not one of the ones that qualify for the homes that program even though i do have a two unit home i have another unit in the back of my house and my property isn't qualify for that is classified as a two eighty one i don't think that's fair i do live in my home and my home i have a disabled child so my home is set up for my son and haven't the city to take that away and not given me an opportunity to to pay the city back which i'm offering to make a payment plan or at least until the deadline like everybody getting which is december fourteenth to bring my taxes to a zero balance i haven't had any luck so far i have been told by one of the city officials that because my house is bought and i don't have a mortgage on it it's one of the main reason why i'm not being helped i'm being kicked don't around all different directions and nobody's working with me because the city doesn't have to fight with the bank over my house i don't know how true that is but everybody just sitting up here have known my concern and what i'm willing to do in my payment plan moving forward and stuff like that i was told that i needed proof that i do have a disabled child which i do have so if you on those papers or show you how much i bought my house for and you can imagine paying that amount for my house i'll leave it up to magination to figure out what it's like the city had to give me ten dumpsters just to take household trash out of the house when i purchased it and i have spent every penny me and my husband have worked into that home and i am willing to pay to i am just acting for a little bit of time and i was told by everybody here when i first big to them but it seems like this it he's working against me for whatever reason i don't know so i'm just asking for time if you can't do a payment plan and you can't give me five six months that's understandable i'm just good evening their city council members my name is ellie pepper i'm the assistant director of better neighborhoods incorporated also known as b and i i'd like to take this opportunity to say a few words about the impending text foreclosures the neighborhood preservation coalition of new york state was able to map all of the addresses being foreclosed upon and we were able to determine that seventy three percent of the foreclosures will be happening in the poorest neighborhoods of the city we understand that owners are being given the opportunity to pay off their delinquent taxes but we fear that the majority of the foreclosures will still take place in the poorest neighborhoods we also realize that probably half of the foreclosures in these neighborhoods are on vacant lots are boarded up buildings however that still leaves many occupied buildings in danger man i has more than forty five years experience helping homeowners in trouble and working in distress neighborhoods in an effort to avoid further decline of neighborhoods that are already in danger of deterioration and i would like to offer its services to this assist the city in any way it can be and i homeownership advisors could review  budgets to guide them in developing a realistic payment plan our staff could lend a hand with property management for those units that revert to the city with tenants and residents who are willing to continue paying rent it is our wish to keep as many units as possible occupied to avoid continued blight in these distressed neighborhoods thank you thank you mr pepper fr good evening everyone i'm friendly i'm president of schenectady neighborhood watch and i came here this evening to give you a little crime tip and it stems out of an event that happened the other night right in front of my house and right in front of my eyes one of our neighbors came over to talk to us about some advances happened at saratoga that day and she was pulled her car up about twenty feet away from the house and had her back to her car door her husband was sitting in the passenger seat my wife and i were standing on the front porch talking with her so we were within feet of this particular about two young men walked up the street waved to her husband must have spotted the handicap sticker in the car waved at her husband the husband waved back and we were disarmed at that moment because we assume that he knew the two young men they went up the street about ten or fifteen minutes later they came back she still had her back to her car door and her husband was in the passenger seat and the one young gentleman got directly behind her so she couldn't move and the other one reached over grabbed the door and grabbed her purse and pulled it out of the car boom like that and in a split second they were down the street and around the corner it highlights how quickly crime can happen in the city and here she was sitting there with her person the car where you can imagine the pandemonium that came after that her phone her credit cards her identification she even had her social security card in there it was a nightmare she was very emotional which one would expect and the reason i'm coming here this evening first of all i want to commend the schenectady police department they responded very quickly even though it was a busy evening there wasn't much they could do because the perpetrators were long gone we gave them a thorough description obviously but  recommendation is is to stop and think about this think of the things that are in your purse or in your wallet how do you shut those credit cards off now that the information the eight hundred numbers and so forth are dialed gone down the street  what are the other personal items that you need to make phone calls on if your social security card is in there along with your driver's license now someone could start the very next day beginning don't bring up credit cards unless you can shut them all off and get that replaced and so forth so i'm going to suggest everyone through neighborhood watch that we begin as part of our education process to keep a list of those items so i'm aware other than your pers rather than in your automobile and other than in your home computer because it has to be in multiple locations so that if this event occurs to you you can get on the phone and shut this off how we were able to help or are as i mentioned she was very emotional she made all the necessary phone calls we use the computer to research and we help her out so it's part of surviving in an urban existence th regarding the smoking ban i want to say i have no protection from my brain tissue because of malpractise i cannot tolerate second hand smoke i cannot tolerate a sprays i cannot tolerate the exhaust coming from ours and i can not tolerate the tons of toxic chemicals that explode many too many times around ask about the masher really only because i thought all those papers had been signed and that you had the engineer for the project and everything it been established including who was going to pay for who i'm very confused by this legislation that passed tonight in which doesn't even name the preliminary engineer i have a card here that i'd like for each one of you have i'd like you to keep it in your wallet not like for you to talk about it with your children but it's your choice it's about the first really big outlaw called john law and he's said he find special economic zones of newly sprouted private businesses all were legal to survival depended on attaching themselves to state controlled enterprises and a crooked party official just one to could not he was glad to can knowing that all would turn into a state run business the whole system depended on many years decades went from europe all the way to the louisiana purchase it is an organ and all organs can work in reverse in order to stay alive you have to pump in and pump out so keep this in mind this will always be sage advice to whoever wants to do it then i want to talk about  last week's the last legislation about the northeast parent and child situation the legislation is drawn up in no way corresponds with the agenda that says that a dollar they paid a dollar for what they got and that's not replicated in the legislation the real legislation says the city's going to get fifty five thousand dollars that's in back taxes six months down the road if they can still pay that amount so i think it's poor legislation it's got a hole in it and if i'm wrong i'd like you to tell me that another thing i noticed is that there are about fifteen in entries in the newspaper about the police force i need you to summarize please well criminal of fifteen of them were arrested for criminal mischief and second degree of drug and governmental administration and what i'm implying here is that you taking out the landlord has no payment of taxes on people that he possibly rented to and i think that's what's happening ok thank you for your comments ok no one else signed up for privilege of the floor closing back and move to society's responsibility and i just want to encourage a representative from your group to contact mr poster tomorrow and let he will he will work with you to try and see what we can happen here the other thing i wanted to make note of was again an e mail we got today i've been in communication with a lot of people who have been expressing concerns about s e c c students crossing the street you know from the new student housing to the the classrooms and this this e mail said that this week water street which runs from washington avenue to state street a church in liberty park will be closed off at washington avenue a temporary fence will be placed to direct students to the intersection of state and washington to cross at a controlled intersection all costs will be assumed by metroplex this stance will remain as metroplex it's negotiates with d o t to install a permanent barrier in the center median of washington avenue permanent closure of water street is recommended in the liberty park plan which will be presented publicly on nine eleven at s c c c and i neglected to write down the times but look at that out and then later in september after the public meeting a formal presentation will be made to the  regarding trash and litter in our city and the letter writer was somewhat upset with some of the language that was used and kind of you know trashing the city saying oh the city was a dump and it looks bad and it's you know kind of the be harsh words of people are using to kind of explain of the litter situation and it got me thinking in the real reason i brought it up is is i kind of had similar similar feelings that you know the community is ours and then the day we all benefit from more people moving in and more people living here and creating a comfortable community that we can all be happy and prosper and by people kind of you know being so passionate about it they're kind of tearing apart the most making advertising look how horrible we are when in fact we do have a letter for city i don't think there's very many cities that don't have litter problems but  you know these are some of the quality of life issues that i think locally we can solve within our own neighborhoods that you know it would be great if you know the mayor could send the the crews around and clean up every piece of litter that moments after it's dropped but that's not   participate in knowing that we are helping our community and i feel for the letter writer who maybe their feelings were hurt and i said my mind got to get her to sometimes when people speak so broadly about the saying oh there is litter everywhere and reality there is so i wanted to bring that up and kind of address that along with other quality of life issues that we have some of them are difficult to resolve some of them are things we can take care of ourselves as  a residence and litter is one of them i feel that we can do and if it's a bigger problem if you talk to your neighbors and it might be a good way to meet somebody new maybe you didn't think that in the in common with them you find out that you both don't like litter  because i was an excellent segue because i actually would like to college tension to one of our neighborhood associations who has been doing a tremendous amount of work and to be honest i think we have a lot of neighborhood associations that do great work but this particular one keeps in close contact with mason oh i'm happy to to tout the the efforts of all but the mt pleasant neighborhood association has today painted approximately ninety fire hydrants throughout mt pleasant and that's working with the city they come here and get paint and then they go out and they paint their fire hydrants in their area along with picking up trash  they have a very very active association at times their meetings can get up to fifty fifty to sixty people and so now they've painted most of crane street in chrysler they're looking to move onto michigan and avenues they're also going to be planting perennial flowers in the grassy areas along michigan avenue they have coordinated the repair to the welcome mount pleasant signs at michigan chrysler and at the st hill and they're going to be cleaning the areas around those signs and also painting planting perennial flowers there and then there are marking on where he would retreat to start to get some trees planted in their neighborhood as well so kudos to them it's a lot of work they work tirelessly and also announced their next meeting which is september thirteenth seven p m at the faith deliverance tabernacle which is ten twenty eight zero stranger place in mt pleasant  also want to bring to everyone's attention and september eighth if you feel like we don't have many things going on in our community this is the day you might want to pay attention to because we have a day just fall of amazing actually a weekend full of amazing things stockade our show is on september eighth the little italy street festival is also on that day and the greek fest is at clinton in liberty  the franklin area and that's friday saturday and sunday so lots of wonderful things and then apparently the fire plug walk is also going on in central park so we do not lack for things to do here in the city thank you anyone else support field pleasant because one of my first comments is that i received a call from a woman who lives on seventh avenue and one of her concerns was that things some things were going on in her neighborhood in terms of people destroying signs etc so i will tell her to get in touch with the association and perhaps they could help with that so thank you very much i'd also like to talk a little bit about the for the closure on residential properties not the not for profits that we already passed a resolution i've gotten calls from a number of people regarding this and what can they do and how do we handle it and so we heard from two people that came here tonight and really i just want to assure people that our goal is really to help people through this process and to make sure that you know we do the what's best for people i have people who have called me who have said not that they're being foreclosed on but if properties in their neighborhoods get foreclosed on then they end up with a boarded up property so you know i've talked to the mayor about this and he's assured me that's not you know what's what's going on here and that some of that's what's going to happen and i've also talked to the council president and that we would talk a little bit about how we could we could come together and let the public know what's really going on and inform them because sometimes people think of things because out of fear as opposed to not knowing all the facts so that we could come together have a form explain what the facts are but we can't tell we can't say what will happen with exactly everyone because we know it's an individual situation so individuals will have to come and i has come tonight saying that they're willing to be a part of the process so i think we're on the right track there that we should move forward in doing that and letting people know that you know the city is we're trying to work through this with our residents and not trying to put people in the situation that would just be bad for all of us actually and not just for so that's that's good news that's something to sort of like going out on the a together really get your schedule out there there was a letter to the editor written last week about an officer in the police department result which was a complimentary letter i have to say that i was so impressed by this officer at the national night out i met him and he's the an officer in goose hill and he's interacting with the children i'm going to sell he goes to the kerry street party plays basketball with him on his off time he knows who the kids are the kids know who he is he is and that builds trust in the community and they trust him and they'll share information with him i'm sure this is a good start this young man who i have to agree with the letter writer says he doesn't look old enough to drive and he doesn't but he really has the right approach to a community policing and i think if we have more that will certainly add to you know our quality of life issues in the city and speaking to that i understand what councilman erickson is talking about but there are things going on where i think our youth they're just not being taught what's what it is to be a good citizen of the city of schenectady especially a lot of the year with just this morning a friend of mine who i walk with said there was a gang good youngsters came down the street and they were throwing stuff all over the place there was just a debris field where they were walking now i've offered two or three times to the school district i talked to superintendent spring about it i'm willing to address especially the younger classes in our elementary schools about what it is to be a good citizen and a good neighbor in the city  schenectady maybe that will help maybe it won't but i think it's worth a try so we can maybe get it get at the problem where it starts because there was an extraordinary amount of litter in the city of schenectady i'm not saying it's on every street but when i walk every day i picking up so i'm going to start bringing a bag with me because it's all over the place and it is distracting so it's a minor thing but i am going to meet with the lieutenant by tomorrow night about somebody's quality of life issues and see what we can do about it i'll bring it to the council hopefully we'll have some ideas that we can brainstorm with and maybe come to some resolution to to get at least start getting a hold on some of these things on the not for profit status issue i'm glad we're finally making headway and i thank our state legislators for passing the the proper resolution so we could move forward with it so we took a big step tonight moving forward on this everybody as the mayor said in his letter to get it or everybody has some call the bill that he and this issue everybody was a little bit to blame for what happened but as the mayor said now we have to fix it that's the bottom line now we have to fix it we can point fingers and say all these things it really doesn't matter at this point we have to fix what's happened and we're going to do our best to do that and i also think for the residents two of them came tonight be to an aaron graham i think all of those are little different stories to tell when we have to look at them maybe and see i mean i hate to displace people that want to be good citizens in our city so i think we should look at this individually some of it and see if we can offer for people like that because it's an important thing to i have people in their homes if they want to stay in their homes and they're willing to pay what they have to pay i think it's something we certainly should look at so with all that i'm holding up hope and i'm glad that at least we got a good start on getting a handle on what happened with the not for profit status people they do perform for the churches and carver they perform you know good to the citizens of schenectady  and that you can't measure in dollars so how this all happened it just happened and it's over with so we can fix and i'm sure we're going to work hard to fix this i think we can come to a good resolution hopefully everybody's going to be happy and we'll all be smiling thank you member king pointed out looking to do a temporary solution for the crossing issue at the community college in washington avenue putting of probably be a chain link fence up on the one side in the permanent solution is really a fence or divider in the median but unfortunately to work with the state their process is much slower and time consuming to get the approvals and actually get something in there that would be permanent and of quality so that it were just reflects well on the construction that's going on in that area also we took delivery yesterday of e xcuse me on friday of truck to a new ladder truck from the fire department we're doing training on that personnel that will go in service shortly so that you know again it's a big expense but it's a quality piece of equipment quite impressive and you know we're lucky to have the men and women of the fire department that when they are needed to perform at such a high level and quality of service in the city they thank everybody for coming out tonight for their opinions their patience and as we work through some of the problems with the foreclosure in the not for profit issue that again we are trying to work together and bring it to a conclusion that makes everybody happy or at least we try  get almost everybody happy but i thank you thank you madam president thank you mr mayor i'm just again just to reiterate some of the things i want to again thank everyone for being here this evening thank you for your comments with regard to nonprofit s for those individuals with foreclosures on their homes i would encourage you if you haven't already to please contact better neighborhoods they have a tremendous amount of resources as you heard our assistant director ellie peppers are speak tonight they've been doing this a long time and they've got some great resources in probably a good point of view in the right direction and we'll be looking to them further down the line for their guidance as well and also the community land trust certainly want to congratulate officer rizzo on the great letter and need to encourage more of our public safety people and i think a lot of them probably are doing things that we don't even know about so it's always good to know that they're out there in the community there working with our young people so very very important and i would be remiss if i didn't also mention the fire department who every friday during the summer we're up in central park serving lunch to all of the young people for the lunch program so we've got some really good things in the city of schenectady we talked about our person who e mails all of us and tells us all the wonderful things that they're doing in mount pleasant we certainly would like to hear more about the great things that all of the neighborhood groups are doing and we promise we'll give you as much press and t v time about all the great things you're doing because if it wasn't for you we wouldn't be here so again i want to thank all those groups that do everything that they do thank the nonprofits for being here this evening we're working as hard as we possibly can to help get all of this resolved in and that being said i would ask for a motion