City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody. It is Monday, June 15th. This is the Binghamton City Council work session. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.06 p.m. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Madam Clerk, can we do a roll call, please?

Council Member Murray is absent. Council Member Middleton is absent. Council Member Cavanaugh?

Present.

Council Member Hotchkiss?

Present.

Council Member Matavetsky? Present. Council Member Rathmell is absent. Council President Dundon?

Present.

Thank you.

So our first RL tonight is RL 26-125, and this is in the Committee of Public Works and Parts. Council Member Hotchkiss is the chair, and our first presenter is Ron Lake, the chief engineer.

So we're looking at RL26-125, a resolution to amend agreement number seven, Deco District streetscape improvements. Take it away, Ron. Good evening. Or Dan.

This is for Deco phase two. and it's for the construction inspection to finish the project. The original timeline was estimated and we're going past that, but I need to have them do it because I don't have an inspector to put out there.

Does anyone have any questions for Ron?

Were they past the original deadline? That's what you said?

When we first signed the contract with B&L, it was estimated when the project would finish, and there's been some holdups, and it's taken a little longer.

Gotcha.

We did give, and we changed some things, so we did give VACRI some extra time, and we never did give B&L any extra time.

So Ron, and looking at this, is the extra time pushing you back to the first two weeks or August, or is that what the original deadline was?

That's when we think it's gonna get finished now. I think they've done sometime this month, actually, with the original contract.

Okay. Does anyone else have anything for Ron? Nope.

Guess what's being put in place to try and help us hit our targets or write our contracts to Include the flexibility or what are there any changes being made going forward to try and prevent the series of dominoes When we originally signed the contracts way back when we have to guess of the date and So that's that's what we use.

I

Yeah, sometimes with construction, they have a completion date, but there's always a little bit of leeway in case you have a hard time getting materials or if it's for paving and the asphalt plants close before you were anticipating them to close. There's a lot of variables.

And some of it we did add a few items that were in the original contract and we have that crosswalk between the State Street and Washington Street that wasn't there.

Okay. Anybody else?

Is this something that?

Nope, never mind. All righty, Ron, thank you so much. Thank you. Our next presenter is Sarah Glose, the Director of Economic Development, and Daniel Need, Deputy Chief Engineer. This is also in the Committee of Public Works. I will hand this over to Councilman Hotchkiss.

So we're looking at RL26-123, a resolution for supplemental agreement number one with Collier's Engineering and Design for pre-demolition design testing.

Okay, so I feel like, yeah. Oh, sorry.

I feel like we've already, it feels like deja vu and we've already like approved. Like Colliers is already doing pre demolition work. So what is this one?

Yeah, so I'll kind of set the scene and then Dan is able to answer some more technical questions. So Ron and I came down here in December to authorize the agreement with colliers that included the first portion of this project. At that time, we identified that there would likely be supplemental agreements that came down to this body. Once we did the first kind of tranche of work, Once we got on site, we're able to observe the actual conditions, take a look at what our potential demolition options are. That informs the need for some additional testing. So it was always conceived of that there would be an additional supplemental, potentially more, but we're hoping this is the only one, to allow us to proceed with actual demolition design. So that's really what this is. There's two pieces here. I think the collection of a couple additional samples for asbestos as well as mostly just testing samples that were already taken during previous site visits but not sampled at that time what that's going to do is it's going to allow us to rule out whether materials that are currently assumed to be asbestos containing actually are asbestos containing or not if they're not asbestos containing then we don't have to worry about asbestos abatement in those areas if they are it tells us what we actually have to abate before we do demolition but if they're not asbestos containing assuming that they are requires us to abate them anyway so if we can know that they're not it just saves us in a couple of situations hundreds of thousands of dollars in abatement cost depending on the size. There are some areas where it doesn't really matter whether we assume that there's asbestos or not because the amount of material we're talking about is so minimal. When we're talking about an entire floor covering in say the Kmart, the old Kmart building, that's one that we really wanna know yes or no because if the answer is no, that saves us a lot of money. So that's the stage we're at now. The other piece of this, the smaller supplemental that came in just today, and apologies for the delay on that, is accessing the crawl space underneath the slab. So I try to keep this as high level as possible because Dan is the person who knows the technical stuff. But we are planning as of right now to demolish the building with the slab in place. The slab is essentially the covering that acts as the environmental control for the Binghamton Plaza right now. If we were to remove or otherwise pierce that slab, it triggers additional environmental concerns and testing and compliance requirements. So at this time, it makes the most sense to keep the slab in place. We will have to abate any asbestos-containing materials that remain on that slab. And right now we're talking about whether it makes sense to actually look underneath the slab. There are access hatches, for lack of a better word. that would allow us to understand any asbestos that may be under there. We're not entirely sure that that's necessary at this time. I believe you've been talking with DEC about that.

Right, right. So a lot of this is kind of a value engineering, even with the proposals. So anything we don't need, we'll kind of back off on. But since we had, what, a month break before we could get approval and we want to move things forward, yeah, basically we need more information to prepare the bid docs.

So this is, we're presenting this really as a not to exceed. Our goal is to pull back some pieces of this. If there is testing that doesn't need to be done, if we don't need to access those crawl spaces, the DEC says that that's not something that needs to be done right at this moment in order for us to get the demolition documents together to go out to bid, then we won't proceed with that scope of work. But this gives us maximum flexibility over the next month to make those decisions in coordination with Collier, City Engineering, and the DEC so that we can move forward expeditiously and not have to bring something back to this body.

So Dan, I got a whole plethora of questions for you. I was an asbestos guy for 15 years and then with my background in construction. So I see that there's 225 out of 366 PACMs that'll need to be sampled. Now, in doing the sampling of this, are you thinking of doing demolition by abating it first or doing it as a full demolition building and all like Gorick does with the hydraulic demolition? And then what are the costs gonna be seeing that the Broome County landfill no longer takes any asbestos-containing material and you have to now ship that outside of the county?

Right. So, I mean, there's several aspects to that. I'm particularly not an asbestos expert, so I can give you at least some high-level answers that I've gleaned in the last month or so. So, initially, the idea was to get a variance, and then... take it out in pieces now there's class two items i guess identified so the idea now is like we have to abate them or else we're going to be surprised by a change order so that's one of the impetuses for this and then given the fact that we're going to leave this lab in place which saves us millions of dollars basically in trucking soils that are highly regulated back into the site so that it's six acres the slab itself so even just six inches of topsoil alone is more than any of these tests cost so But yeah, that's, I mean, I think there's gonna be varying approaches as well. We have a term contract with Keystone and they'll be helping us with the preparation of the specs. So somewhat defer to them with the specifics, but yeah, I think it's gonna be kind of a broad range of approaching the abatement, not just one.

Yeah, and just as the Broome County Landfills, we've been in communication with them over the past couple of months. They should have a new cell online. They are able to take what we are estimating is going to be the asbestos-containing material at this time, and it should line up well with when they get that open, but active line of communication because we do not want to incur the additional expense that comes from trucking it out of town like they did in Endicott with here on campus.

Yep, I know at Roosevelt Elementary School, the pre-bid, that was the big conversation about how are we gonna get rid of all the asbestos that's in the building that we're removing. And I'd have to say with that slab encapsulate and everything that was left behind from the landfill and stuff, even if they did use some kind of an asbestos protector around that time period, which it was known, I'm pretty sure as long as it is encapsulated, I can't imagine the DEC would give you guys any problems with it. But I do also wanna ask you, since not occurring more charges, it is in here that the city of Binghamton is gonna provide the aerial lift and the aerial lift operator to do any roof samplings. And if for some reason, when they go to do the samplings, we can't provide that, is there gonna be, I mean, it does state in here there could be associated costs. Would that something that you would assume would be extra costs?

Yeah, we have to look into that because we just got that this morning. So I've got to confirm with the DPW on that.

Previously, DPW said that they could provide a lift. I mean, obviously, it just depends on what their scheduling is, but they didn't see any issue with being able to provide it. Yeah, I assume if there was a conflict between Collier's ability to get there and DPW's ability

If DPW can't, I still have my aerial lift license, I'm still fully certified, and I know how to do all the PPE so that way the city doesn't have to incur any more costs.

Other duties that's assigned.

Yeah, that's great.

Anybody else have any questions? I'd make a motion to expedite. Second. Hearing a motion and a second to expedite, any discussion on the expedition?

It says in the packet, return demolition plans and testing to DEC as quickly as possible as they need time to review and pointing out the fact that there's a long gap between this week's council business meeting and the next one because of the 4th of July holiday.

Any other comments on the expedition? Hearing none, Madame Clerk, can we do a roll call?

Councilmember Rathmel is absent. Councilmember Matavetsky?

Aye.

Councilmember Hotchkiss? Aye. Councilmember Cavanaugh? Aye. Councilmembers Murray and Middleton are absent. Council President Dundon? Aye. Thank you. That is 4-0. Thank you so much.

So our next presenter is Chuck Robinson, the Director of Finance, or never mind that, and it's in the Finance Committee, and the Chairman is Councilmember Cavanaugh.

Okay. We have an ordinance to amend the 2026 personnel temporary services budget, which we seem to have blown through that line for some reason. And you want to fill it mostly out of our contingency budget, so... Why and why?

Why and why? From what I understand, yes, he has blown through this through engineering, has had a temp for a while, the treasurer's had a temp for a while, and a couple other departments, especially the neighborhood planning person that just became full-time. since she got her degree so yes it has been used up from what I understand and we need some more now for my assistant comptroller who left she's volunteered to want to come back and help me out during the budget which I am very grateful for. And we need, the engineering still doesn't have anybody in that department and they're trying to get somebody. They're not sure if their full-time person who is on FMLA is gonna come back. So we're anticipating a need there. I think that's the two biggest ones. And I think that the mayor's assistant is going to move to that line as well. Megan Hyman since she deputy mayor deputy mayor excuse me yeah deputy mayor so if that's the case then we shouldn't we have salary lines that are in these departments that are have money sitting in them it can't use it from the mayor's because the mayor's well that one I get okay but engineering should engineering I am using some of the engineering's from the personal services line that's what that is I'm using 7,000 of what they had available up to this time And then right now it's not quite sure whether she's gonna come back or not, but I do need the rest of that for the other people, for Kent.

Okay, but don't you have money accruing in the line in your office now?

I do, but that's part of the unused salaries thing that I'm trying to keep it there. I don't wanna use too many unused salaries. because it's pretty tight. Last year we came to the unused salaries. I didn't do it for the last payroll yet. But I think, last year I think we ended up in September using up all the 900,000. This year it's gonna be much later.

Where again does the deputy mayor fit into this equation for temporary services?

She is going to be a temporary part-time person, not just part-time in the mayor's office. She's moving to a temp position. She's not gonna be the deputy mayor anymore. I think the mayor came and talked to this about a couple weeks ago.

Yes, I'm not sure I understood it. that entirely, but.

You talking about the deputy mayor?

Yeah, but that reallocation was supposed to be revenue neutral essentially from his budget.

Right, but Kent does not have the budget in his budget to pay for the temporary services. I can't take anything from the mayor's budget because that was a neutral thing. He doesn't have any unused salaries in his line.

Right, but the deputy mayor is going to part-time in whatever capacity she's doing, so part of her salary is going to, it was supposed to be not increasing.

Right, because he raised the salary for his other person.

But not by the full amount of the deputy mayor's salary.

Right. Right. But she was only part-time. She was not using all of her salary.

no this is not what we agreed to a couple weeks no yeah we we we definitely talked about leveling out the the salaries between the like neighborhood person in the mayor's office and the deputy mayor and my understanding from that conversation was that Megan Hyman the deputy mayor was planning on leaving So the news of having the deputy mayor requiring temporary services, this is the first I'm hearing of it?

No, I don't think she was leaving. I think she was leaving the mayor's office. But she's still going to be a part-time employee. Excuse me, not a part-time employee. That's different. Temp. She's going to be a temp employee. Just work whenever she needs to be here. Same thing with my assistant comptroller. I don't need her very often during the budget. She's not like a part-time employee where she's actually getting benefits.

I guess we were all under the impression that the changes were all going to be contained in the budget of the mayor's office and that no additional funds would be necessary for the changes.

There were no changes in the mayor's budget.

Well, you're saying that there's, okay.

This may be a good one to stick into a committee and get clarification on.

Yeah, so my next breath was gonna be, I guess I'm gonna motion to send this to my own committee here.

And I'll second that motion.

So we have a motion and a second to send this back to the Finance Committee. Thank you so much, Chuck.

Okay, all righty. Thank you, and nice to see you.

Yeah, nice to see you, Chuck. So we'll just do a voice vote on it. All in favor? Aye. Aye. No opposed. So our next presenter is Council Member Robert Cavanaugh, and this is in the Rules Committee, and I'll hand it over to the Chair, Council Member Matavetsky.

So we have RL 26-127, a local law to amend the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and I've seen Councilman Cavanaugh hitting the archives pretty hard, so I'm looking forward to hearing a summary of what he's learned and what our options are. Maybe starting with what the Board of Estimate and Apportionment is for the public.

The first question is a great question. What is the Board of Estimate and Apportionment? The answer really depends what city you look at. One might assume from the name that they estimate things and apportion things, and they do to various degrees in different municipalities. If you want to look at New York City, they had a very, very powerful Board of Estimate and Apportionment for a long time up until 1989 and 1990 that was controlled by the mayor and borough presidents and such, and they essentially had funding power and kind of veto power over a lot of projects throughout the city of New York. Ultimately, this was declared to be not democratic or constitutional in the state of New York, and it went away. Many other municipalities from many of our kind of sister municipalities for our size and stuff, Detroit, New York being a very good example, larger cities like... Syracuse totally did away with theirs in their charter revision in the late 80s. Troy's got theirs down to basically nothing. Binghamton, the other ones, Utica I believe uses it to handle estimating salaries and stuff for positions. But Binghamton is one of the few that has a board of estimate apportionment that is nebulous and also very powerful. The way it functions right now is it contains the mayor, several department heads, and the city clerk is the secretary. And it is responsible for technically for assembling the budget and getting it to us and also certifies and approves most of the sort of budget transfers and spending that we do. In that function, it is sort of kind of an undemocratic mural veto because we don't even have a city council that doesn't even have a single person on there, which in the original form of estimate apportionment that was in the original second class city's law, city council had a person on there at least. Our city... went through a very convoluted process to get where we are. We went from our original mayor council form of government to a city manager form of government and then back to where we are now with a strong mayor form of government. And estimate apportionment got taken out and put back in during that whole process. Over time, there has not been a lot of consistency in what estimate apportionment does over the long haul. There are appropriations done by a council that Don't go through apportionment, estimate apportionment. There are ones that do. I was looking at legislation from a couple decades ago where two very similar grants came through, same meeting. One ordinance goes through estimate apportionment requiring approval, the other one does not. What it comes down to is that the Board of Estimate Apportionment, I think, confusing, nebulous, and undemocratic. And it doesn't fit with the reality, the way it's structured now with how we actually do things. Our budget doesn't get formulated by the members of Board of Estimate and Apportionment, it's the department heads and the comptroller and the mayor sitting down and formulating the budget. That should be what's reflected in the law, I think. Appropriation and spending should be publicly negotiation and solution between council and mayor with approval of legal and finance, not this, again, kind of super veto board. It's very much outdated. It needs some changes. Some of those changes can be... through ordinance or local law, some of them may require a referendum. If we get to a point where it requires a referendum, now is the time we need to start that process to get it done in time to get on a ballot. So that's why it's being up tonight. I'm gonna recommend this get referred to committee and we can hash all these things out and I can give much more detailed Explanations and possible solutions and planning or in in in I'm sorry rules rules and special studies committee and also look at some of what other comparable cities in upstate New York have done and and get some expert opinions, so It's been something I've been thinking about for two years now and it's time to get going and

You mentioned a potential need for referendum. Did you see anything relating to it ever coming into play because of a referendum?

In what sense?

Like the Board of Apportionment, like anything relating to how it functions?

Yeah.

I'm bringing that up because often in order to change something that was done by referendum, you need another referendum.

I'm actually going to hopefully schedule a meeting with Bob tomorrow if he has some time for one more of my things. The board was added back into the city by ordinance without a referendum after the city went back to the mayoral form of government. and has been amended a number of times without a referendum. So it's very strange. We certainly get into that gray area where are you adding or taking away the power of an elected official, which is where it kind of triggers referendums a lot of the time.

A power granted by counsel.

Well, that's going to be one of the discussions.

Great. So if I recall correctly, there's some thresholds that are associated with what goes to board of estimates and portionments. Was anything there done?

So those were, again, yeah, those were added by local law or ordinance, not a referendum.

So by a previous city council, those decisions were made.

Yep.

so okay thank you um any other interesting historical insights uh before we close on it oh yeah but not relating to e a it's amazing what you find just looking through history down there well council member cavanaugh made a recommendation to take it to committee i'll make the motion to take a committee do i have a second second a motion in a second to take it to committee can we do a roll call madam clerk

Councilmember Rathmel is absent. Councilmember Matavetsky? Aye. Councilmember Hotchkiss? Aye. Councilmember Cavanaugh? Aye. Councilmembers Murray and Middleton are absent. Council President Dundon? Aye. Thank you. That is 4-0.

And thank you so much for putting the work into this, Councilmember Cavanaugh. I know going down these rabbit holes isn't easy. So I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn.