Common Council - Regular Meeting

Okay,

welcome to a very snowy night of council meeting. Um, first resolution, resolution 2526-83, resolution adopting the minutes from the public hearing. Um, resolution carpenter resolution 2526-84, a resolution adopting minutes from the last common council meeting. Me Resolution 252685 resolution adopting minutes from our special common council meeting last Monday. Resolution 2526-86 resolution by the city of Amsterdam approving and endorsing the Capitol Region Land Bank and its application to New York State Home and Community Renewal for funding under the Move in New York program. Um Pam, do you want to elaborate on this one?

Um sure. It's exciting. Um the state of New York's opened up funding to build homes um within land bank areas that they operate within. So the land bank is going to be applying for funding to build 30 homes in the city of Skenctity, Skenctity County, and um city man. So how many homes here? Um, I mean the exact number hasn't been established yet, but we've identified between seven and 10 lots that would be viable. Okay. Anybody have any questions for Dan? One family or multi uh single family house. They're going to be uh homeowner opportunities for for new owners

income. Fantastic. Great. All good. Resolution 252687, resolution authorizing municipal home rule request by the New York State [clears throat] Senate and New York State Assembly relating to the ES to the establishment of the school speed zone camera demonstration program in the city of Amsterdam. This is exciting. All women so exciting.

Yes. So, this is a a necessary step to continue to explore um speed zone cameras um much like the city of Albany did. Um we need leg state legislative approval, pursue that. Um we've worked with a couple vendors [clears throat] and spoken to the companies that are already operating in the state with good results and uh this would just make us one step closer to having speed zone cameras in the school zones. But right now speed is just for speed zones in the state of New York. So this is just a necessary step. This legislative process is a long one.

It is it goes with the the flow of the legislative calendar. Um usually they sign it I believe they they tend [clears throat] to sign it at the end of their session. Um very last minute. Yes. [clears throat] So but we understand it and like I said working with people that are have already done it has been very valuable. So, we're we're right on time where we need to be. What input does the school have on this? The board of education, do they have any participation in this at all?

We can loop them in on it, but it's, you know, the city maintains the street. Um, and the the code, much like we're going to do with Julia Street. Um, that's a state DOT rule. The a school zone can only extend a quarter mile from an [snorts] entrance to a school. So it would be like most of them have already been established um and it would just it would encompass their campuses [clears throat] and the uh the only thing I want to point out is that it will only be on during school hours on school days. Yes,

it will be we can establish a buffer. Uh you know we can say if they go this fast if they go a few miles over we you know we have that sort of control. So, it's not as ownorous as you might imagine it to be, but it is going to be a very, very effective tool for our city and our school zones are going to be much more safer because of it. But, it is going to be a long process uh to get all this done. But I want to thank the chief for jumping on it and getting us a good vendor, I believe, and uh we'll move forward. Excellent. Thank you, Tony, for getting this done. Any questions [snorts and laughter] for the chief or the mayor? Resolution 252688, resolution authorizing contract with New Wave Energy LLC. Um, Mayor Suani, do you have want to explain this one?

Uh, this is our uh I I actually have Louise to talk about this more than I do, but we pay we we we deal with a consortium to buy our gas. Uh, the prediction of the consortium is that the gas price is going to raise uh pretty significantly over the course of the next three years, Louise. Yeah. And so this will lock us into a price which he feels will be a good price. It's really not a good price right now, but it will be a good price three years from now. I hate the whole thing. Uh but literally I you know that's what they do. That's not what I do. So we pay attention to what they say to do and we're passing this resolution tonight.

I'm asking you to pass this resolution tonight. But this is to lock in on a price for our gas. Any questions for release of the mayor? Okay. Resolution 252689 resolution approving audit. All the woman counts. The audit is we have one consent resolution. Resolution 252690 consent resolution to award demolition contract for cityowned structures. Alder Marcel.

Okay. [clears throat] We received a million dollars in award to the city to knock down 20ome houses and the bids came in today and Gore construction is the lowest bid of 889,000 and congratulations to our team the engineering crew and uh who got the grant. I appreciate that. We appreciate that. And Nick Sabowski who wrote the grant, right? Thank you. Nick Sabowski wrote the grant. He did. Thank you. He did. Go ahead. No, I'm just I didn't I knew you make sure they got

No. So, if you remember, like you said, uh Alderman, uh million dollar community development block grant, uh specific for a demolition project. Um we identified last year now 23 houses that we wanted to get demolished. Uh we set it up so that we could select them all cart. uh depending on how the numbers came in. We were lucky that we are under um our budget amount, the grant amount. Uh I recommend we do them all and that also leaves us money for the we can also cover the air monitoring which is a requirement from department of health or department of labor um on the project too and [clears throat] should be able to still stay within that uh under that 1 million.

There will also be 23 less lead line replacements, [clears throat] right? Is that part of Yeah. I mean, generally the ones we're taking down, they're going to have, but uh you know, I know Grant and the fire chief um and you, Mike, you you put a lot of thought in picking the 23 houses. So, I you know, it's going to be a much uh cleaner city. It's going to make a a dramatic impact in a lot of the areas where these lighted homes are making stuff really [laughter] miserable. So, we're excited about this. Um, [clears throat] mayor, this ties in with this other resolution with this cross mod cross mod housing. Am I right, D? So, you can knock these houses down. Um, I mean, no,

not not necessarily yet. I mean, if we do another round of crossmods, we might be able to think about a little more. Oh, so you have the that's what I was going to ask you. So, you have the area like earmarked where you're going to put these cross mods homes. Uh they've looked at some blocks over kind of by Union Street in that area. They need they need flat land that's currently cleared for the grant. So it needs to be they just they want to be able to come in and drop a house in it. Now criteria for this grant, Jim, was that we do not right that do not redevelop the property that that we're knocking these houses down. It's these right Mike. It was I don't know if that was CDBG or if that was the other one that just knocked six down. Remember the six or eight? No, it was CDBG. I believe the CBD. So there is a requirement

down. We picked them and we picked the ones where we are probably not going to redevelop because that was one of the criteria, but it's going to again clean up a lot of the neighborhoods. Oh, this will clean up a lot. Thank [clears throat] Thank you very much, Mayor. 21 second is not on this list. It's not on the list. Should be on the list. It'll be on the list. 21 second is on this list. It is not on that list. It was on as the properties given to them um for because we had sold originally we had given them a list and then sold a few off of it and we gave them some to replace it and it was on the replacement list but it does not appear on this bid list. Okay. I'm sorry Chris. [laughter] I just want to get cleaned up so I can get the neighbors to stop screaming at me.

Right. Um we have Go ahead. Sorry. No, go ahead. I'd like to get the grant if we can. We can you want to talk to Grant? I'd like Grant to make a presentation on the um local law establishing moratorum on the submission of cash on the submission of the president building. Um that's in the I'm sorry. What are you talking about, Tony? The moratorium on the battery plants, right? Yes. We got Grant here to discuss that. I mean, that's coming up, right, Chris?

Yeah. Let me let me read this one first and it's the next one. Ordinance M of 2025 to be known as Ordinance 9 of 2025 if adopted. Voting on it. [clears throat] An ordinance modifying Amsterdam city code 228-47 schedule 13 parking prohibited at all times to the west side of Lark Street. Um I believe this is the public hearing that's at 550. No, [clears throat] we're voting on this one. We also have a public hearing. We have a public hearing about it too at 550. [clears throat]

Okay. So, this one is um large street. As we discussed before, we have tankers. I go down that street and if you park on both sides of the street, they can't fit and they can't make a turn. So, I went I've been going down on large street just to check and there's three houses u on that west side of L Street and I've been noticing where they park in there driveways and I went on today just for see what happened with the snow. They parked in the Bedsburg apartments. So just in case there's no place to park, there is ample parking for these people. So we're okay. Any questions for Marcel?

All right. Local law A of 2025 to be known as local law one of 2025 if adopted. voting a local law establishing a temporary moratorium on the submission and processing [clears throat] of building permit certificates of occupancy certificates of use of land and use approvals for industrial solar and battery energy storage systems in the city of Amsterdam grant.

So currently our zoning is silent on battery energy storage systems as a standalone use. It does cover them if they're included as part of the utility scale solar project um but but not as their own use. So we'd have to look at, you know, where they would be allowed [clears throat] as their own use in our zoning districts, setback sizing. There's been some public safety concerns, some environmental concerns as, you know, them on their own. So it would allow us to get it into our zoning somewhere with regulations on it. And if they catch on fire, there's no they they just don't go out that easy, right?

No, not the battery uh storage ones, the lithium batteries. There's there's a couple different things out there now, but some of these are Yeah, all you can do is sit there and watch and set up a perimeter. The the utility scale solar is pretty thorough on its own. Um, you know, as far as when they become obsolete and all that, but battery energy storage systems are not included in any of that. So, we come up with regulations on all that. What happens when they stop working? How are we going to handle if there's a fire? You know, any performance bonds, things like that. So, so this is to protect the city and the environment from such fires. Yeah. the public. Basically, technology just went faster than our zoning updates. So, we also made a home noise, don't they? [snorts] Yeah. Um I've never heard one, but I haven't.

I'm sure. I mean, I think that during moratorum week, we put all of that. Yeah. We just want to make sure that u it's not next to a Have there been any interest in this? There was a company who did present informally over the summer and then it was the question is whether it fits as a public utility, whether it fits under the utility scale solar where they're mentioned, but this is just them as their own use and it doesn't fit under those. So, we'd be adding it as its own subsection and you'd be taking like our current zoning blocks and just finding the most appropriate section of that like industrial or whether it's a certain zoning district or certain properties. Um, we'd also be looking at setbacks, safety features,

and there's also no jobs associated with these facilities, correct? No jobs. I don't think so. I think just regular maintenance of them. They're remotely. They're pretty much standalone. They operate themselves. Yeah. Like storage units. Okay. So, you all just be working on this and then present it to us again in about six months. I can't even imagine it would take six months. Okay. But I think we start working on it here. Any more questions for Grant or the mayor or Chief Augusta?

Thank you. That's it for the resolutions. Um Mike, would you like to go over your report? Thank you. Um short report tonight. Uh the southside boardwalk is substantially complete. Um there's some still some punch list work to do. Some of the the um restoration of the turf around the area will take place in the spring. Um I believe we're going to keep it closed to Did you do the water? The Yes. Okay. So, we tested the the the splash pad.

It's it's in it's in service and it's winterized, so it's out of service, but we we are the lights working. I believe they are they I know the the electricians been back there. I think they had one other issue to correct but at least uh I know there's one issue still remaining but they did correct the others. So that's Would you just follow up on that for me? Oh yeah. No, that's got to be done. That's part of the punch list right now. So it it it uh they've got to get it done before they're free and clear. Um,

the general consensus, Mike, when I was there for the Christmas tree lighting was that everybody who walked in that boardwalk was generally impressed with it. Um, they think it's a real good uh it's going to be a real good attraction for the city. We That's why we're hoping the lights are on. When the splash pads going, it really will be a a gathering spot. So, it's monumental. It's huge. And you had mentioned before that there was some interest in development. What type of We do. We showed somebody property there uh Wednesday and um you know they were very impressed. I'm not saying they're going to build there, but they certainly were impressed and could see why it would be a good spot to build, but it is one of their considerations. [clears throat]

Thank you.

Anything else, Mike? Uh, I'm just going to mention that I mentioned last time of course that we're done with the our paving program for the year and I am uh my staff and I are pulling together a draft for a program next year. I'd like to get it going as early as we can. Um, so sometime after the first of the year, I'm going to uh float some ideas behind the council with um potential streets for 2026. Um, as always, you know, we don't know what our actual chips commitment from state do is [clears throat and cough] generally late April, but um I'd like to have things teed up uh before then. We did have a surplus this year. Um and so that will go towards whatever funding we are allocated in the coming uh state fiscal year. Uh crossing a bridge. Yeah, I don't think it's impacting anybody too much right now, but they are doing uh they should be finishing up pile driving soon and then probably the shortly thereafter when it's shut down and other than that I'm happy to take any questions as always. Any questions for Mike? Okay. Mayor, are we going to we should go into an executive session tonight to discuss the poll of the consent resolution you had earlier?

Oh, if you want to. Yeah, I guess we can do that. [clears throat] What section of executive session we going in under? Yeah. Why would it need to be executive session? contractual pertains to collective bargaining contracts, not these type of contracts. [clears throat] I'm not see I mean there's nothing jumping off for me thinking this would be executive session material. Well, we had a resolution and it was pulled. So, I guess we were just curious why

it was pulled because there were items in the RFP that were not transmitted into the agreement. There were items that will be no problem for her for our concessionire, but they were not they were left out intermittently. They include an attach the attachments on the back of the agreement. They include um just the type of stuff that she's not going to have an issue with. We would hope, but um we did not want to put forth the agreement in an incompleted state and have to do, you know, do it over again. Okay.

We tried to we were rushing it. We were trying to rush it and we, you know, we missed a few things, but we'll get it straightened out. We'll get it back in her hands and back in your hands and by the 16th we should have a a resolution that we can pass. Okay. Oh, good. Mayor, public hearing. Um, yeah. Call the public hearing to order.

Public hearing on ordinance M of 2025 to be known as ordinance 9 of 2025 if adopted. An ordinance ordinance modifying Amsterdam city code section 228-47 schedule 13 parking prohibited at all times on the west side of Lark Street. [snorts] Anybody want to speak on that? I don't think so. That public hear.

All right, we're done. If we go back to the concessionire's contract that was previously pulled, um, you know, an eighth hour window for the council to review something like this is not [clears throat] big enough. Um, I I don't think it's acceptable that the golf commission would think that we should turn around on this. I don't think it was acceptable that our that her proposal was not shared with us directly and that we didn't have time to give feedback. you know, I we work during the day. Um I don't always have a lunch break to review these things and even if I do like this this time period was this is not

No, I I agree. We rush something. If it goes to the 16th, that's plenty of time for us to Yeah, but we did rush it initially. Um and you know, I do apologize for that. Well, I don't know that it's necessarily your apology. No, but again, I understand your concerns and you should have had, you know, you should have had more time and to to look at it and now we will have more time, but it's totally by accident instead of by intention. So, you know, we're happy that you we're going to have this time for everybody to take a look at it. You should have time to to review.

I mean, we have a commission report here. Like I mean any update from the two of you about these negotiations, about this proposal, about what the commission because we didn't vote on anything two weeks ago because the commission didn't have time to review things. So are we getting a report from the commission as to why this is their preferred vendor? Are we getting any information? Um I think it's significantly missing a lot of information on what the expectation is for running a concession at a golf course. Um there's nothing about working with the pro. There's nothing about working um you know covering the tournaments and what the expectation is of that what buildings get used for what what's allowed you know what the expectation is for what the clubhouse hosts versus what the Morton building hosts and those types of things. I mean it's very vague. I'm I'm very concerned that we're going to have a lot of conflicts between the golfers and the public um in the future if we don't iron these things out. Um, I think we we uh we we we will earn them out. I think that some of the things that were in the RFP that were not included in the agreement will help. Did you see the RFP?

Yes. Did you have problems with the RFP in terms of what it was request, you know, in terms of inputs by it had more input? Yeah, I think it had more input on that like RFP that we were going to put out. Right. Right. What happened, but it didn't go out. So what happened was um we took her response and we took our RFP and we had a a a checklist of things that were different between the two. And then when we finished the ag when we when we finished the agreement, we based it on that checklist of things without referring back to both documents. So we left some things out. I don't think anybody has any problems with those things, but we'll see when we put them back in and we'll share it with you.

Yeah. So, we could have that prior in the regular packet. That would be great. But we have to give her time to make sure it's okay with her. She verbally said, "Were there any other questions or concerns, but no one said anything at that time. So, um she doesn't have she's got to have the ability to take a look at it. But I don't think there'll be anything that um that's going to She said verbally to who? Pardon? when she said like, "Are there any other questions and concerns?" She said that too. Yeah. There was when we had the the meeting with the golf commission with Alderman Martisello. Okay. The other day. Okay. When we were trying to nail it down. Gotcha. [clears throat and cough] Unusual, but we're moving forward.

Any other questions about that? Thank you, Mayor. 10 seconds before 5:55. call you want to call next public hearing to order. Public hearing for local law A of 2025 to be known as local law one of 2025 if adopted. A local law establishing a temporary moratorum on the submission and processing of building permits, certificates of occupancy, certificates of use and land use approvals for industrial solar and battery energy storage systems in the city of Amsterdam. Was there anybody that wanted to speak on that? Please state your name and your address.

Hi, I'm Tom Holt, 37 Kingsbury out of Hville, Massachusetts. I'm with Amaresco, a renewable energy developer. Um, just want to say, uh, as far as this moratorum, we think you guys have a really robust solar policy already. That's pretty restrictive. Um, but we do think it is light on the battery energy storage stuff. So we'd encourage you guys to drop solar from it, especially given there's not a whole lot of land in the city of Amsterdam that can accept utility scale solar. Um, but to move forward with moratorium on the battery energy systems only. Um, that's it. Who do you represent?

Amaresco. We're a renewable energy developer based in Framingham, Massachusetts. We have an office in Long Island. Um, we have a large company. We do energy efficiency, solar, batteries, wind. um renewable natural gas kind of everything in the clean energy sector. Um so you think we should take the solar part out and just the battery. Is that what you said?

Yeah, you guys have a strong solar bylaw. It's pretty restrictive as far as setbacks. It's pretty comprehensive. Um and it [clears throat] covers everything we normally see. But looking at it, it is light on the energy storage systems. I think there are real concerns, legitimate concerns, and it makes sense to develop a as comprehensive a bylaw on that. But yeah, we'd encourage you guys to drop solar from that because we in our opinion, we think you have a good bylaw. Being that you're from Massachusetts, what's your interest in Amsterdam, New York? Um, so we develop all over the country and we've got like 80 offices. We've got an office in New York. Our solar team sits in Massachusetts. Um, we are looking at some property in Amsterdam. So, we do have a we have a vested interest in in the town or the city. In the city. In the city.

Yeah. Um, yeah. We think like we think you only have maybe one or two properties that could even take like a true utility scale system like 5 megawatts or above. Um you have like a 200 foot setback from parcel lines I believe. Uh see you guys cover height, you cover noise, you cover viewhed. I think your commissions have a lot of um a lot of authority to accept or reject or and to shape the project. So um yeah, from our standpoint it's pretty good. We think you guys are pretty well covered and have a lot of have a lot of authority over it, but it it is just like a very brief mention of battery energy storage system. So like it makes sense that you'd want to you want to focus on health and safety there.

You wouldn't be on that would you? No. No. And we haven't applied for anything here yet. We're like very early stages. Okay. Um and we just brave the snow to say this. Yeah. Are you looking at something in the next six months? Because I mean that's kind of our timeline for when we wanted to get this ironed out anyway. Yeah, we probably would want to apply within the next 6 months if we could. Um, we're still doing like preliminary diligence and like geotech and wetlands and and things like that to see how real it is. Um, but you know, time kind of kills everything. So, the sooner we could move the the better. And um, yeah, just wanted to share that with you guys.

In your experience, how long does the application process take? Um from application to being granted probably six to eight months. 6 to 8 months. Are we not accepting applications at all during a moratorum? I'm grant right. Yeah. So you would be able to accept applications. Okay. Yeah. Not building permits stuff like that totally fine. But if we could like get the process going, have community meetings, hear you guys out, work with you. 6 to 8 months answer. That wasn't the city of Amsterdam. That was just your dealings with other municipalities. Correct. But isn't the basis of a moratorum to investigate all those issues? So, I think we need to stick to that.

Yeah. And we just think your your bylaw covers it. But yeah, I guess we'd be interested like where how much further your bylaw could go or like what else it would address that hasn't been addressed unless you guys have issues with it. But um yeah, the battery stuff like is very very much like batteries aren't covered the way solar is. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's public hearing. Why don't we stand for Is there anyone else that wants to speak on this public hearing it? You drove two hours. You might as well save something. [laughter] Yeah, it took us seven hours. I think we're stuck on the pike for two hours just not moving.

Oh my gosh. You could have called us. How many people would you be employing? How many people we employ? [clears throat] Yeah. Uh we've got a we're looking at a 5 megawatt project. So it probably be 60 to 70 people overall. Probably 30 at its peak, 30 electricians at its peak. But once it's built, once it's built, it's um it's like a maintenance crew going out there a couple times a year probably. Yeah. We we'd hire local people to cut the grass and fix the electric bill. All right. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Alderwoman [clears throat] Christos here. Alderman Holiday here. Alderwoman Collins here. Alderman Carpenter here. Alderman Martisella here. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda with seven resolution, one consent, one ordinance to be voted on, and one local law to be voted on.