objection on consent item number two i remember to it under original consideration an ordinance authorizing the reappropriate sion of the two thousand and thirteen budget regarding moist and street demolition discuss finance committee without objection i consent i don't number three item number three an ordinance authorizing the avery appropriation of the two thousand and fourteen budget regarding capital equipment also discussed in finance without objection on consent item number four item number four an ordinance amending the administrative code of the city of schenectady introduced only with a resolution calling for a public hearing relative to proposed legislation deleting obsolete boards and commissions from the schenectady city code again this is just calling for a public hearing without objection and consent i don't number five item number five a resolution authorizing the city of schenectady to settle a claim by a make a mutual insurance company a s o a state of donald sophia against the city discussed in claims without objection and consent i am number six item number six a resolution authorizing the settlement of a tax or share wherry concerning seven hundred fifty two and seventeen fifty two through claims without objection on consent item number eight item number eight i'm actually going to hold that one for two weeks that we can the war awarded propre appropriately item number nine item number nine a resolution supporting senator  requiring the state to reimburse local governments for the cost of running a second primary election this is also discussed in committee without objection on consent item number ten item number ten under contract and supply a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with erdman anthony for the design of improvements to the schenectady municipal golf course ok and understand we'll have a roll call on this one and fourteen tonight is a special night and we are going to begin the meeting with the fire department promotional ceremony right if you would please rise for the invocation give my father richard carlino who is the chaplain for the fire department community thus we thank you for honorable mayor mccarthy and the distinguished members of our city council in a special way this evening we thank you for giving us the new head of our city's fire department chief ray senekal and for his willingness to be at the helm of the ship whichever strives to safeguard our people so dear lord please continue to bless him in his immediate i'll ask our recently retired chief michael bell rocket to come forward and lead us in the pledge of allegiance ok you can be seated thank you madam president for allowing us to put this on the agenda this evening the sorrow a new podium which was crafted by the carpenters within the city employment doing at their spare time that they thought that they should have something that was bigger and more fitting so we all have to make our speeches now longer and more detailed and i won't put that in place until next time so things will be fairly quick here tonight but i feel fortunate to be here tonight to be able to make these promotions when really have such a tremendous pool of talent within this department that they do things that it's how you make greatness routine that the level of service that is provided to this community that we're just so fortunate to have the command structure that has been in place under the leadership of michael bell or rocco as we transition now to ray senekal the people of schenectady are well served in it so i'm just proud tonight to formally administer the oath to race on a coal chief i notice in the all the press had by stories they seem to leave out your long and distinguished career as an assistant ch and get a little chuckle with that but i remember the first night that he was assistant chief we had two second alarm fires a car fire and oh by the time i got to the one cycle on fire there was nothing available to be deployed which we always think in the city you know you put down the phone and they're going to be right there but there are times when the resources are challenge and but ray just exhibited that cab level of walking through the one fire scene freeing people up getting apparatus redeployed in the community and it's when he did that you know i said it's been day one but made the right decision and so chief if you'd step forward  for father would like to join us inside the rail to bear with me i have a slight cold tonights my voice and working exactly as we should be i would like to say welcome member carthy city council members commissioner bennett three four years later as a captain for department been my history it's my blood i was born in sixty two so i was a year old when it came in a job so i have an idea what this job phone ring have to go christmas day telephone rings have to leave so i say thank you my family for understanding i appreciate that be for department entered a call day in and day out you are true professionals your effort does not go unnoticed they say thank you i appreciate that my office staff i've been downstairs for as mary said total about five weeks that short time and it helped me every single day only to say thank you all that being said i want to take a few minutes and tell you what your city fire department does and who we are just what these men and women accomplish every single day last year closer to thirteen department did over seven hundred thousand calls that's twenty two thousand pieces of apparatus responding in one year think about that twenty two thousand runs are rescue company one was a six busiest rescue company medical rescue company in the nation  think about that six thousand to forty berman's engine one was top one hundred truck one was twenty six that's no small accomplishment we hire we handle lawyers in a city we've been in this appreciate their help the national conviction rate for arson is seven percent our department had zero arson solvability rate in two thousand and thirteen of forty percent event police officers injured while conducting their special operations and we're happy to provide a service as we respect them acknowledge a dangerous city police officers face on a daily basis we're happy to be the fire prevention program works with families educating him on the fire safety we also have a juvenile forces program addresses children at a young age the dangers of fire excuse  occupations where the number one most dangerous occupation in the world that's right four forty that being said with the information just presented six business rescue company twenty two thousand calls it's clear to me the people clearly that our people are faced with an even higher level of danger than the average for the part i acknowledge that and i understand that i see a daily basis therefore as my focus is my platform if you will as a chief of this department my folks will be the safety not only for the citizens but the safety of men and women of the second floor apartment the forest service will always be a dangerous profession there's no way around that however through awareness prevention training i believe we're able to reduce some of these risks reduce we're going to be reducing for years to fire moving forward we have a very young department better than half of the partment has less than ten years service therefore training we want to my top priorities not only classroom training but hands on industry i'm going to be on any given month here at sixty two years old i would say to better than half the men and women in this department between basically twenty's or thirty's forty's and like myself in my  fifty's their goal is not to let chief del rocco beat him that's that's the truth and there's a lot of people trying to train hard if they don't want a sixty two year old fire chief make him look bad like he has in the past so chief they're continuing to train i'm sure he'll be there i will strive to bring the best equipment to our people's part of my plan to help ensure their safety i would like to say congratulations to our new fire officers being a proto tonight and in closing i would like to say thank you for the opportunity it is respect to wander in great pride they look forward to leaving this group of true professionals as a fire chief  united states that i will support in uphold the constitution of the state of new york i was a foreigner all the constitution of the state of new york in the charter in the laws of the city of schenectady in the charter in the laws of the city of an activity and that i will much raise your right hand repeat after me i state your full name do solemnly swear that i will support in uphold the constitution of the united states that i will support in uphold the constitution of the state of new york and the charter in the laws of the city of schenectady and that i will faithfully discharge the duties is fire captain in and for the city of schenectady to the best of my ability so help me so if you raise your right hand pete after me i state your full name i do solemnly swear that i will support in uphold the constitution of the united states all right we'll have a slight pause in the council meeting while those of you who want to get down to the reception can do so present all right we have one public hearing tonight regarding proposed ordinance amending section two twenty eight dash eighty two of the code of the city of schenectady relative to the regulation of sidewalk cafes i have one person signed up to speak to that and that's jason  narrow and you have to add other if if the five feet is to the edge of the curb and it's got more than a six inch and you need to go another foot so you need that foot because when a wheelchair turns it turns and some people don't have a  you have to have a foot off of there a lot of the stuff is in the regulations set forth and i've got a copy of it here for you also too is there's an i r s tax credit of fifteen thousand dollars a somehow i didn't bring the paper with me i'll get it to the deputy clerk and also i've got to get it to john poser and to the city public works person grandfathering klotz so we've got to be able to interpret that also a couple years back the new york state incorporated title three into the human rights law of physics of law to ninety six so it's also a violation under two ninety communications and presented to the city council for monday february tenth two thousand and fourteen from the mayor list of appointments dated february tenth two thousand and fourteen under general received a letter from the american legion posts one zero zero to extend their gratitude for recent donation from the city also received a letter from american legion post one thousand five extending their gratitude for  also a letter from the american legion post fourteen eighty five extending their gratitude for recent donation from the city under petitions there are none and thank you i'll move on to committee reports medical program it's has one of the only ones in the region for women's heart disease there's a screening program this past friday was go read for women but we weren't there friday but i asked the members of the health and rec the gentleman to wear ties and thank king also wearing ties wearing red i think it's really it's extremely important that we take care of my health and heart disease is one of the things that people sometimes don't know that they have and then things happen at the medicine they have a specific program a community wellness program where people can go to have their hearts checked it specifically is just a heart failure and there's information here who can go i mean where you can reach people and how to get in touch with it so i think it's extremely important that people pay attention i know that it's only during february that we really talk about it but it's pretty significant and women unfortunately often die of heart disease than men in my own personally i know two people who actually suffered a heart attack within the past ten days fortunately one of those people survived but the woman that did not so it for me really rings really close to home to have lost someone that i know because of this so i just again want to remind folks you know when we talk about health and recreation we mostly talk about recreation but in order to be able to  have recreation you have to be healthy so i just want to mind folks to get their hearts checked thank you thank you any other committee reports all right part of the meeting cause we will move to privilege of the floor related to the legislative agenda i have one person signed up that's very mclean need to hold more than one primary in one year a second primary is forced on the city and the state should pay to hold it i support the bill and while the council is considering the in support of raising the minimum wage i personally think the minimum wage perpetuates poverty and also own a house resolution to stop the practice of padding pension benefits with overtime money for the last year of them point that is what i would do if i was sitting in one of those seats for me a council seat means a platform to effect change and means access an openness it means the availability of official stationery per writing letters and so forth not bad it doesn't mean paying touch spader using taxpayer porterfield second by ms present all in favor i and we have one item that is a roll call vote and that's the resolution authorizing the mayor to enter an agreement with erdman anthony for the design of improvements to the schenectady municipal golf course thank you so this item which is the improvements that are proposed for the municipal golf course which i think in terms of the work that is considered worth considering doing i think is important irrigation for the course so it's something that we need to do however my objections is more to the the process in terms of how we conclude who we choose to do the work  and we talked about it quite a bit in committee but kind of summarize you know one of my major concerns with the process and it's the scoring and we had a good group of individuals who are very familiar with the golf course are on the advisory committee and they filled out a matrix of scoring matrix to evaluate the multiple proposals that we received and i find you know after doing a little bit more looking   it's not very subjective and however i felt that the scoring of pricing was objective were firm who has a higher price would get less points for school or price and a firm that had a lower price would get more points for price and that's a fair way to do it however the scoring to indicate that some got a forty percent some got a ninety five percent so they seem to be all over the place in terms of  people scored and it was not linear to how the pricing actually came out so that's one of my i guess main concerns with it and so by looking at the evaluation i'm not sure i can determine who had the best proposal by looking at the scoring of the five individuals that were on the board so my opinion that we need to go back and re score them and then whoever's the best score firm could be chosen at that point but the way it's been done now i'm not sure i have the confidence that it's sufficiently accurate data to make a decision thank you anyone else vocal about the process and i was uncomfortable with the way the process worked with our last hour so i took it upon myself to spend quite a chunk of time with mr while and  winkler an hour and a half along with eleven proposals and we talked about the process that was used for this particular ascii we talked about a process going forward i felt very comfortable with the reason the ratings fell the way they did i think price is certainly an important component but i also feel like a full  proposal meeting all the criteria is also a key component and comparing to apples to apples is a pretty important thing also so in culling through all of the information i think that the end result was a fair end result i think that we can tighten up on the process where we're in the midst of doing right now so that it's clearer to people  easier to understand and it doesn't take them an hour and a half meeting of going through a piece by piece by piece to feel confident that the process was fair and complete and i also think that as a council working on that process so that we are allowing the best information to go out to the public and also allowing the best process for our city professionals to rely on is key and ultimately i do believe in our city professionals and i we're not voting but that's why i will be voting i will leave out thank you thank you right yes his thank you i just want to remind folks that this is actually the second time this is come back we actually had it come before the council before it was pulled from the agenda because we received some information that someone had concerns about the particular r p so we revisited this and i also met with mr walland and spent a great deal of time talking about it going through it we've as a council you know discussed it and the process so we are revisiting the process and tightening up at you know many of the things that mr also has already said but i also feel that the we have given the task to our review team including people the employees of the city of schenectady and i feel that having worked with them on this particular thing and talked with them about it i should say that they really did a good job on this and so i feel comfortable with the outcome i know everyone will not be pleased with the outcome but i also wonder why folks that one of the things that we want to make sure that we're doing here is he's connect you that we want people to walk away feeling that they received a fair and equitable treatment so you know all the things that have gone into this particular one i feel that you know the review team did an a good job the task that we asked them to do yes just briefly i appreciate all the hard work that went into this discussion about the hour of peace but i too have some concerns about the process it seems to me that it's certainly subject of the best  and an arbitrary so i can in good conscious say that i can make a decision with the information that i have and it was the information was out there but we still are we're going to prove paying forty thousand dollars more for for this project i'm not sure what the answer is for this but it leaves it leaves room for more discussion i think process but i think our job is counsel people is to listen to the recommendations that are given to us and if we're satisfied with the recommendations we vote aye if we're not satisfied we vote and i'm just not satisfied with this process from what i mean even if we were told we were told is very subjective but the c scores all over the board it doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling that's one of the problems that i'm having with  to go with a little bit the low bit yes but they have to submit all the requirement that attached to it there a lot of paper that was submitted that it on meet the requirements and to require documentation and i trust that they did a good job and the you all right now we will move to privilege of the floor regarding city business i have seven people signed up to speak the first is jason  a president city council mer february is also jewish disability awareness month want to let people know also the end of this month is you need to file for any tax credits for property taxes and so forth and then get your assessments ready again we have it engendered where the assessment for pieces of property was reduced down from almost eight hundred thousand down to six hundred thousand over a twenty percent reduction and that was at the at seven thousand eight hundred block of the state street so again we need to have a complete full reassessment because if we keep reassessing these properties at twenty to fifty percent off then that means everybody else needs to be done it so just not a group of a selected of developers and so forth need to have this access to this everybody needs to have access we need to be able to level the playing field so of claiming they had five hundred new jobs so they've gone up from sixty two hundred to sixty seven hundred still don't see where the jobs are at and we still don't see where the minority and disability participation is one last final comment was on these are of piece i've sat through a lot of the hearings and they are right for a civil rights lawsuit you and carl are absent is hitting on the nail that and so i they're supposed to have and exactly the times and frames and so forth and then they come back and you take the low is better because if you turn around and let staff sit here and say well i'm with a judge four points this why five stars this way or this point to this way all asked for is an economic disparity study we need to be able to start moving forward towards that direction to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to not only receive jobs but also to be able to receive jobs  appointments for their businesses for thin that within the city we've got to have diversification we've got to be able to increase jobs thank you thank you p d force force and i live in the city i want to comment on the vacancy that's being this remaining open in the council i think was a very unhealthy situation that we went through before and  address issues because of the conditions that exist in this city and she was very self deprecating when she talked about its se a secret and we don't want to talk about it and i think that's the way it was handled i think it was obvious to a lot of people that we were not going to be really presented at the conditions did not exist for representation of the public and i'll stop there on that i'm not pleased with what i'm hearing but i think there is public record of who should be replaced and i think you're looking to put it into code a lot of what's happening is means testing of the charter that exists right now and i'd like to see a change to where if there is a vacancy the next vote getter automatically takes that position regardless of party thank you thank you joy h that to happen so we've got to get those walk lights up for the people to get across the street the seniors are having a hard time getting across the street and i want t god you guys get a lot more papers they go through a lot yeah look pick up those heavy cans and everything else and crime and heavy snow i think they do deserve a little more pay but i want those lights put he can't have people getting hurt and it's not easy thing to do but i tell you when somebody gets hurt them much you got to come down the fire trucks wherever it some i live in with long i went to business and with long i'm kind of an activist for the woodlawn area and the fact that we lost the niece who lived in woodland and the they have put up a suggestion that cocksure would be that replacement kind of urge the city council to consider that as something that would ban people would like very much as very dedicated he is a person who gets things done he's he can work with anybody he's very open to every situation if you've ever been up in the park when you see the kids that he's got organized up there it's unbelievable i want the couple times last year just to see how it was run he runs things very well of course he's very active in the woodlawn community but when you get ready to to do that as the woodlawn residents would like very much the city and cocksure representing the would l section on the city council thank you very much thank you chris morris evening everyone i'm chris morris and they were director a slick schenectady landlords implicity change in november of two thousand and twelve slick proposed to city council that it resurrect the long dormant housing standards review board we felt that this board would provide property owners and landlords receiving code violations relating to permits or causing the denial of renter sticks rental certificates a valuable opportunity to have a fair and balanced review of their situation councilman for councilwoman perasso took on that focus and subsequently requested a wishlist from us which we did submit last year i we were very happy to hear actually it was today that that to learn that the council has recently decided to resume the workings of this board and we want to review this wish list that we had number one we would like to have to schenectady landlords included on that five member board number two we want to make sure that code officers uphold the constitutional rights of all persons at all times number three we want to make certain that code officers follow standardize operating procedures number four we want to hope that it there will be a process of accountability and remediation should a landlord claim with a course just pick a sion that a code in force or a did not act professionally number five we want to be certain that the correct party is cited for that violation who is for example really responsible when the garbage isn't properly handled is that the tenant or is that the landlord number six we want to mediate have issues mediated related to permit three requirements certain that the requirement is valid and not necessary number seven we'd like to see that all the citations include the specific regulation that is considered to have been violated number eight that statement should also include right on the form the option for for the violator supportively contact information and how to appeal the violation through the housing standard process and we'd like to have an a program instituted to assist financially distressed landlords who struggle with an excessive burden of repair costs now in conclusion we look forward to the implementation of this housing standards review board and we want to offer the counsel any assistance of any kind any collaboration any connection with us that you wish we would be happy to provide we certainly appreciate every all your consideration and them off with some pink marks one that i'm going to concentrate on first of all we do have this thursday night february thirteenth seven p m faith deliverance tabernacle church we have a free family health night dr pratt medical consultant schenectady county public health services aaron buchan meyer community health outreach coordinator ella smell medicine who also did the u mater schenectady survey coordination judy right meyer capital district to bac coalition there topics to my knowledge are going to be including tobacco marketing anti smoking and the guy and he's west indies genetic diabetes connection we are putting these door hangers on doors in the pleasant neighborhood to try to bring attention to this i did have a neighbor personally with a lovely lady to the neighbors passed away last year because of this a genetic disorder  this will also include suicide prevention and mental health and we're going to be announcing a health fair very soon i'm going to get to some of these other announcements as was stated the star applications are due by march second that's r p for six seven hour and on the internet real property tax grievance day is may twenty seventh the fourth tuesday have to submit your r p five twenty four by march second so hope all mt pleasant residents will take not that and that the r p five twenty four for the start deadline is due in the office by march second police review board we are looking for pleasant residents to submit their application and if they could would like to seize the moment pleasant neighbors join up and i've already put in my application to fill out emergency management you're interested in that let me know upcoming events of course the family health night rise training for retired citizens the his capital project and the twenty six cecum day i believe that is the day they're going to have the cleanup reach a schenectady we need volunteers and we're going to be announcing a sports day and we're having a crosswalk in mt pleasant on good friday march eighteenth come to our meeting and learn all about these things thank you thank you good timing mary maclean at the less council meeting talked about negativity mr mayor they concede a positive for the community i consider it an assault on the that the democratic mayor has allowed this to happen the democratic party operatives have allowed this to happen the democratic counsel get along have allowed this to happen you all knew about it and the departing democratic councilwoman made it all possible if the departure had bid for fourteen years of voyage in her bill that council passed a few minutes ago she specifically says in her press release we cannot allow  disenfranchisement of our soldiers who fight for our right to vote on quote she needs to come down here take a look at that see and understand that her party has done this to the you i have no one else signed up some going to clear that portion of the meeting closed and we move on to miscellaneous business of the council well i just want to say congratulations to pleasant because not being able to fit everything in in three minutes because you have so much good going on your community and so at much activity thrills me i think that's just fabulous when you have to talk fast to fit it all in and i also want to say that you know i think the general duties of being a council member aren't always pleasurable sometimes it's really difficult making decisions gathering information can be difficult and stressful but tonight was a pleasure it was a pleasure congratulations to our new fire chief and the support staff have come up for the through the ranks and just on the side you know i was sitting here proudly kind of looking over everyone and just thinking what a wonderful fire department we have and i thought oh it's so hot in here and i hope they're all ok in their uniforms because they were standing so close together and then i went to minot this is probably the lightest clothing they have on in the coolest comfortable room but it could be a bear do what they go through every day for the citizens in our city and i just want to once again offer my congratulations to everyone and just tell them how very proud i feel of the people that are in public safety in this city who care for our citizens was  such great professionalism thank you anyone else avenue speakers will be john watrous will speak about recycling and laura brown about ruth's place the new thrift shop from broadway the public is invited again congratulations the chief senekal and the other  fire department personnel that were sworn in tonight and i'm proud to say that chief senekal and deputy chief auclair they're both graduates of bellevue a little late back when i was coaching back in those days so they've come a long way from them when they were twelve years old and their little league uniform so i could have i can really you attest to what chief santa clause saying about missing his son's homerun because his father had to do the same thing when when he was playing in  it's nice to see these kids grow up and become you know what they are and it's really nice to see so that's congratulations to everyone and just quickly to mr grasso statement just so everybody realizes i'm sure maybe he does too we are all console people at large we represent the whole city bellevue was lucky and many years since dom gallo we have to represent are some bellevue with doesn't mean that mr president and i are only representing bellevue we're representing the city has our all the other council people here so just to make that clear whoever gets appointed doesn't get appointed to the seat it shouldn't be based on and the captains and lieutenants and the deputy chief look at the last council meeting a person can speak or came up and they were talking about a program that was in hamilton specifically and that perhaps after since the program was no longer working or there that maybe nothing was being done so i just i want to take this opportunity just talk about the things that are existing and going on in hampton hill and when the things that the neighborhood association is working on very diligently the neighborhood association has meets regularly the original labor association meets regularly and has various projects going on one of the ones right now is we're working with the merchants on albany street to keep the corridor clean to actually get garbage cans there so that you know we work on that particular the traffic issue trash issue union college students have come to help us with the clean ups and and the business owners are also very involved with that as well we had a day that we gave awards to people who helped in the community awards dinner last year very well attended we're working on bringing back the himmel to hill improvement corporation and looking at creating a bid most recently the capital the capital district community loan fund moved into nine twenty albany street the business center so there are some things going on in hamilton hill and i have to say with the business center coming in that was there were people within the neighborhood association who actually helped to make this come about so i just want to let folks know that there are some positive things going on a lot of the people who are involved in these things were involved and we concede and just because the program is no longer there people did not feel that they would just let things go away and go to the wayside and not anything happen so i just want to make sure that folks are aware of that i also want to congratulate to the women who work for the y w c a unsung heroine celebration which was held yesterday to laura's edmonds mackintosh and joyce swanston so that was there was a very nice event a yearly event those are the two women that one it is black history month and there are there are black history month celebrations going on all over but specifically it's going to be county community college they have a month long celebration and various things going on and you can find them on the web site there is at least tomorrow there is a movie that's being held the butler is being helped all of these are free to the public so people can come out they can access this on the f c c website and come out so all the events honoring and recognizing people from f of african americans if that thank you very much thank you anyone else all right mr mayor ok and i'm going to ask mr pollster to address the issue of the council vacancy he did send all of us a letter today subdivision easy of charter section thirteen dash two which is a political will to any of the various forms of government that the city is going to be could be operating under states specifically that  if a vacancy exists or curbs in the office of mer or councilmen the council shall appoint a qualified person to fill such a vacancy until the first day of january following the next general city election at which a successor shall be elected for the full on expired term and given that the word shall is in there it does not leave the council any discretion it should exercise its duty and fill the seat which on whatever is selected by the council would in this case fill the seat until announcements one is the ok mystery for the american made movie event which was hosted by the city of schenectady and we're virtually happy to announce that they raised more than one thousand dollars for the schenectady base based use build scholarship for a participant pursuing a manufacturing technology approach and manufacturing technology program at a c c c we want to thank all the sponsors supporters the attendees for their support and i would particularly like to recognize chad putman who is the deputy city clerk who really coordinated and pulled that whole event together as most successful and steve strike me as me to announce that there's going to be a public presentation this thursday at six o'clock in the mcchesney room at the library for schenectady new york rising plan new york rising is a community reconstruction program available to communities that sustained damage by hurricanes irene and lee schenectady and rotterdam are each eligible for up to three million dollars for initiatives that will prevent further damage during future flooding events this meeting the third of four public meetings will review proposed community projects in the downtown stockade and east front street neighborhoods as well as the city's wells and water treatment plant and rotterdam's projects so we hope some of you will be able to join us this thursday at six o'clock at them a check mcchesney room and there's flyers downstairs look like this if anybody needs mor