City Council - workshop

This is the City Council Work Session meeting on Monday, July 13th. The time is 6.04. I now call this meeting to order. Please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Clerk, you can now take the roll. Council Member Cavanaugh.

Present.

Council Member Rathmell. Present. Council Member Matavetsky. Present. Council Member Hotchkiss. Present. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton. Present. Council Members Murray and Dundon are absent.

Thank you so much. We will now begin the discussion of legislation and Municipal and Public Affairs Committee. Member Rathmell will now begin by introducing RL 26-139.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Middleton. This is RL26-139, a resolution authorizing the cancellation of the City of Binghamton's FLOC contract. Our presenters are Neil Eldred, a resident who introduced the legislation. Welcome, Neil. Sure, you'll just wanna make sure that the green, if you press the push button on your mic, that green button should light up. And we will kick it to you to share context on the legislation you introduced.

Okay, what I'm here to do tonight is to ask council to cancel the current contract on FLOC, which renews August 9th, and to ban and remove future, well, to remove the infrastructure and ban future contracts with them. And the reason I'm doing this is asking this tonight is there are plenty of reasons to be against FLOC, but one of the main reasons is they don't live up to the terms of their contracts. In other words, they say that the city owns the data and that only the city can give permission for others to use it. But as of tonight, 86 cities have canceled their flock contracts because flock has violated that clause. And that clause sits in section four of the contract and reads, all rights, titles, and interests in the agency's data belonging to and are retained solely by the agency, the agency being the city. But however, What cities have found is that cancellations follow the same path. A contractor signs on the clock, cameras are placed, license plates get scanned, and then someone discovers the data isn't staying local. The agencies such as ICE and other federal agencies and agencies you've never heard of from out of state or nationally are accessing this data and using it. Abuse of flock data in the future could happen in Binghamton if it hasn't already. As we know, ICE was in town last week, and some activists speculate that ICE was using flock data to track the immigrants, learn their daily routines, and then arrest them. So unless you have any questions, that's all I have to say.

Okay, I'll start really quick. So I've been looking into this with Falk, but I had a question for you. Just thinking about this, one of the feedbacks that might come to council if something happens is, you should have had cameras, what would your response be? Like if something were to happen and we get rid of Flock, right? And then if something tragic happens and it comes back to council and it says, well, you had this, we had cameras, but now we don't have that. Do you have a response or a rebuttal for something like that?

My answer would be on a risk and reward. The risk to our own residents, especially our immigrant and less vulnerable neighbors, versus the reward of having a camera in that location. We might have had one in that location exactly anyway.

Thank you. And Council Member Middleton, I think that's a fair question. I do want to share just in response, there's data that the ACLU has put together relative to that inquiry. First of all, ACLU just broadly has stated and advised that if the police or government leaders are pushing for flock or another, and this is direct quotes, if the police or government leaders are pushing for flock or another centralized mass surveillance ALP, license plate reader system in your community, we urge you to oppose it, full stop. We don't find every use of ALPRs objectionable. For example, we do not generally object to using them to check license plates against lists of stolen cars, for Amber Alerts, for toll collection, provided they are deployed and used fairly and subject to proper checks and balances. such as ensuring devices are not disproportionately deployed in low-income communities and communities of color, and that, quote, hot lists they are run against are legitimate and up-to-date. But there's no reason the technology should be used to create comprehensive records of everybody's comings and goings, and that is precisely what automatic license plate reader databases like Flock are doing. I think relative to that too, and this again is just FLOC generally, prior to kind of narrowing down to FLOC in Binghamton, the University of Michigan also did a study and identified several concerns related to accuracy and privacy and misuse and disparate impact. Locally, however, we have June 2024 as the 2023 contract was was nearing its I believe the annual renewal Local activist Bill Martin represented and this is these are direct quotes pulled from the University of Michigan Study as well Indicated and I think there's a paragraph here, but I think what's most important to point out is they don't Prevent that they've been proven not to prevent crime as is so often claimed reported by many analysis and The new technology can now record the comings and goings of everyone in every community. So that includes trips to doctor's offices, churches, synagogues, mosques. To your point, Neil, I think it's clear that flock data is being used to pursue not just individuals with immigration status, but legal residents, because we know legal residents have been picked up by ICE as well. And there is no way that they would be able to stop them on the road on their way to their job site without knowing exactly what their routines and patterns are. Sorry that I went a little off topic to your question, Council Member Middleton, but just wanted to share some of the general context.

Thank you.

I think I would add, so the resolution specifically asks for the cancellation of the City of Binghamton Flock contract. We and council members have been discussing this. There are two contracts that have been shared with council, one that was executed January 17th, 2023, that appears to be the guiding terms for the city's general agreement with FLOC, but there's a separate contract that was executed on September 8th, 2023, which appears to be an expansion of those original terms. The September one adds seven FLOC safety cameras, and corresponding infrastructure maintenance to the prior agreement. And we reached out to Corporation Council about the relationship between the two contracts. He shared they are separate agreements, both agreements are for the same type of license plate reader, but they're under separate orders, are invoiced separately, with different timelines, invoicing, timelines, implementation costs, et cetera, et cetera. Two more things that I just want to note. Ithaca's Common Council is the municipality that I'm aware most recently moved to end their contract with FLOC. They also ran into the kind of layers of contracts and different agreements and timelines. The language they landed on was to suspend the city's use of FLOC safety services and equipment. immediately upon adoption while taking, quote, all the legally available steps to terminate the contract at the earliest possible opportunity to do so. Final thing, looking through that guiding terms document, there is a clause that allows for termination for convenience. And Corporation Council I'll ask for your input if I'm misrepresenting any of this but termination for convenience at any time during the agreed-upon terms So I don't think you mentioned this but but correct me if I'm wrong that the request for expedition is because of an auto renewal set to a set And so with a September auto renewal that 30-day or termination timeline is the August 8th that you've noted. The clause in the January 17th, 2023 agreement allows for termination at any time. And I guess what I want to represent with that is we did get, we sent some questions specifically to BPD, got some responses from them. There are discrepancies between what BPD sent and what the contract as well as the state policy. So there are layers to dig into for this, and while I understand the interest in expediting, I do think we have that termination for convenience clause, even if we don't hit August 8th, my understanding is we still have an opportunity to do our due diligence and terminate as soon as we know what the existing discrepancies are.

That's very good news, thank you.

Anybody have any questions? We don't. Thank you all.

Is this something we're going to send to committee?

Yes. Yeah, so it's going to be sent to committee. So thank you so much, Neil, for coming down.

We were reached out to by NYU, a nonprofit affiliated with NYU. I'm hoping we'll chat with them as well.

Okay, next up we have Planning Committee Chair Rathmell will now introduce RL26-126.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Middleton. This is RL26-126, a resolution for a pilot for Binghamton Saratoga Terrace Housing Development Fund Company. Our presenters are Jean Westcott, Executive Director of BHA, and Bruce Levine, President of 3D Development Group. Welcome back.

so again just make sure that that little light is green and we'll kick it to you good evening everybody we uh we last presented to you when we were beginning the redevelopment of saratoga heights and now we are coming to complete saratoga heights and we're getting ready to start saratoga terrace We wanna let you know that we received 597 applications for Saratoga Heights, the completed units. Everybody who was temporarily relocated has been rehoused or will be rehoused with the phase two coming to a completion. And we are getting ready to start on Saratoga Terrace, which is presently slated by the New York State Housing Finance Agency to close in March of 2027, just as we are completing out Saratoga Heights. We are here before you to request a pilot for Saratoga Terrace. The project being public housing presently doesn't pay any taxes. Well, you pay through it. You pay through a form of pilot. We're looking to continue that pilot structure at terms similar to what you have previously approved for Saratoga Heights. we are planning a 68 million dollar investment in Saratoga Terrace and that will be about a two and a half year construction schedule with the same methods we use for Heights where we do it in in sections to allow for the orderly movement of people or for tenants to vacant apartments we rehabilitate their apartments we move them back we move to the second phase

When is the current, the people that are in the Heights, when do they plan to move back to their apartments?

All the tenants who are in the first phase of Heights have moved back.

Okay.

We are now in the second phase of that, and tenants will be moving back as their buildings are completed, which will run from the end of this year to March, and then 100% of the people will have been rehoused.

And I know that you had set up, they had set up a different pay structure from what they were doing before. Can you give me an estimate of what the rent is like now for them?

So all the units have now Section 8. So tenants will still be paying 30% of their income towards rent and utilities.

The thing that was previously before the RAD conversion, there was a fixed payment option or the 30% option. My understanding is that the federal government who's kind of driving these RAD conversions, correct me if I'm wrong, that the fixed payment is going away. That's how this is, because previously people could have a fixed payment and if their income went up, their rent wouldn't go up, but now there's only the option for the variable rate based on income. Is that good?

Okay. So yes, in public housing there is two options. There is income-based rent or there is fixed rent. Fixed rent is based on your market rent and it's a percentage. And if someone deems their income is going to be higher, they may pick fixed rent. If not, they can pick the income based um it is recalculated every year they have an option for recertification and that's how it works in public housing this now being converted with the pbr they are like i said section 8 vouchers so they are straight up as the same as like section 8 and it's 30 of income with a utility allowance

My fault, I hit mute. And with Section 8, it's only for that apartment. They won't be able to take it with them, correct? They can.

They can, okay, good.

It's after 12, 24 months. After 24 months, they can request to port that voucher.

Port it, okay, thank you.

And also, if you haven't been out to the site to see some of the significant improvements we've made to infrastructure as well as the apartments themselves, there's now a spectacular playground which is heavily used by the children on the property. And we'll do all the same things on terrace, including the electrification. So we'll be abandoning or retiring the natural gas infrastructure, and it'll be a fully electrified project.

Thank you. Has anything been determined about the old basketball court? You're starting to think about it.

Yep, green space. Green space. We decided we're just gonna leave it. And if the tenants show any interest, we might do some gardening. But a lot of the tenants, we used to, if you're familiar, if you've seen the sites, they had areas in front of the apartments that were for gardening. Some of them have requested just to have that put back into the front of their units.

And also for Terrace, you may be familiar, there's a gymnasium on the property, like a community center of sort. Carve that off leave it with the Housing Authority and then the Housing Authority is going to make a significant investment To modernize the gym and make it more accessible to more of the children in the neighborhood That's a good thing.

Um, I know you said that how many applicants did you say you got from? 597 Okay, 597, and are you starting to call people yet? Yeah. Okay, good.

So as Bruce said, all of the phase one tenants have been moved back in to their units. We actually have at this point the tenants that are in phase two, there are some of them that are living on the terrace, they've been relocated. Some of them elected to actually move into some of the vacant units we had in the units that were already done. So we are also giving the option of some of the tenants in the terrace they are aware of this conversion that's happening some of them are moving into the heights so we're kind of filling a little here and there from the heights still um but we actually are now doing leases for the persons that apply to the lottery good the emphasis being no one's going to be displaced

Right.

Okay, yeah. Yeah, no, we have plenty of, we planned to have plenty of vacant units by attrition in order for there to be enough apartments to move the tenants within the height and terrace locations. Okay.

I'll remember that, too. No one's gonna be displaced. I'm just kidding.

I think we, oh, go ahead. I think we are interested in some additional discussion as well, so I think it's likely we'll reach out for a planning committee meeting to have a further detailed conversation.

When is the Heights project supposed to be completed?

Early spring.

Of next year. Yeah, like March, around March of 27, yeah.

And then what's your projected groundbreaking for the terrace?

Same time, March.

Okay.

Anybody else? Well, thank you so much.

I really appreciate that you've offered multiple times for the tours to council, that we've been able to see the project, the apartments before renovation, the state they were in, the conditions through the renovation, and the finished apartments. That was helpful.

And any time, well, vacant apartments, any time you want to see them.

Yeah.

Yeah. Some of the tenants might, you know, be willing to share, but I'd rather have you see them fake it.

Well, thank you so much. All right. Thank you all for your time. Good evening. Yes. Have a good evening.

Planning Committee Chair Rathmel will now introduce RL26-134, and the presenter is going to be Jen Lesko.

Thank you, Council President Pro Temp-Middleton. This is RL26-134, resolution authorizing an agreement with United Presbyterian Church for an operation of the warming center. Matthew Johnson from United Presbyterian Church will be joining Jen Lesko with the Urban League to present. Thank you.

okay thank you very much and good evening everybody um i'm jennifer lesko obviously from the urban league and we were asked by pastor kim to come forward and partner with them to run the warming center uh over at 42 shenango street we have you know been in this space for quite some time and i also had staffing that have lived experience that have worked with the league that i was able to bring over in this 90 day i guess period of of funding so one of the things that we you know are really proud of just just to show how important this warming center is we've been there two weeks and we've put four people in employment and found three people apartments um and we have three more people in line for employment and three more people that we're looking for for apartments. Most of these folks that are there work, but they need a hand up. I don't like to say hand out, they need a hand up. Some of the guests have come to me and said, we really love your staff. And I had one elderly gentleman who is a retired veteran that is homeless and we are putting him in housing. He said, they make me feel seen because they sit and they have dinner with us and they talk to us and we've really seen a new sense of life in a lot of these folks. We are hoping that you continue to support this initiative because it is so important. We are also, the Urban League has funding to help people get into apartments and pay for a few months to help get them on their feet, so we're offering that. We also have a workforce grant that we're gonna be generating some funds to put forward to help people with employment. We are looking for October 1st forward funding. I actually was very surprised. I had a couple donors call me and said, How much money do you need? Those are really good starts to conversations. So we're really working to do that because what we'd also like to do is have it really be a 24-hour drop-in center and do housing, employment, referrals, clothing, just kind of an overall community center for folks. um so we are hoping for that we did get some calls from other warming centers asking us what the competition will be and i'll just be very clear to me there is no competition if we fill all 50 beds and there's two or three other spaces that we can refer to we want to do that we want to be able to make this a partnership So we really appreciate you folks have worked so hard, I know, on this houseless issue, and we really appreciate your continued support for the remainder of these 90 days. And hopefully, you know, we can present some good news to you moving forward after October 1st.

Thank you so much, Jen. Just for your commitment, thank you, the UPC Church, and thank you to our fellow council members, such as Rebecca Rathmell, that actually really puts her life on the line for houseless people. So thank you so much for that. But I just wanted to say that, but you can go ahead and finish.

And just so folks know, we can house 50. Right now we're averaging, in these last two weeks, about... 22 to 23 males and 10 to 12 females. We seem to have more males coming through than females, but we can house up to 50. We actually also have a space. We did have a woman with a child who was displaced in an electrical fire. We put her in, and we do have a space for folks that have support animals that come in as well. So we're really trying to serve the greater need. And I'm super proud of my staff. I mean, I can't, you know, they're there on the front line just doing a great, great thing.

Well, it comes from the leader, too. Well, thank you. You're welcome. I had a question. I know one of the things I was really worried about, too, with the houseless issue, are we continuing to support them even though once they get their apartment, are you still supporting them? Because I always worry about that. I feel like sometimes people, the last place is an apartment. A lot of the times, people still have

other other things that they're going through besides not having a place to live right and part of the housing stability grant that we have we have the home grant from the city but we also got another grant and then we have with our workforce grant it's the workforce grant is kind of an overall grant that deals with housing child care workforce and we have case management built in that can follow these folks for 12 months because we want to make sure, as you said, you know, that we're like, hey, Councilwoman Milton, congrats, let me know how you make out. That's not why we do this. So we do have a mechanism built in where we can follow them for up to 12 months.

Thank you. It's a great thing. Thank you. I think what, oh, go ahead, Matt.

If I could just also answer that question, just at the church level, I'm here representing the church, and we've partnered, we have an MOU with Christ Episcopal as well for some of those services, you know, whether people are housed or not, including food pantries, community meals. Christ Episcopal is also starting some health clinics in their space, and so we're trying to build some folks in the community who are interested in helping along those lines as well.

And I'm sorry, one more. We also, the Urban League just got a large grant for food insecurity, so we are going to be partnering with some of the local stores to get folks $25 grocery cards at least twice a month for six months. So we also have that in place as well.

I like that, thank you.

What has been and is so beautiful about this, I think consistently has been the collaboration. It has been a collective effort from the moment that UPC found out that the warming center may not continue operations, late last year, to y'all taking over It's such a shared effort and the number of partners that have been mentioned, the number of collaborations that continue to be built, the forward progress looking at post end of September. I mean it has been really beautiful and it's also involved so much feedback from unhoused individuals. I mean the fact that you're offering space for individuals who don't want to part with their service animals and shouldn't have to. the willingness to accommodate needs that may not be typical. I mean, this is, I think we knew when the warming center was at risk that that was not something that we as a council could allow, but it took just as much effort and activity and commitment from all of you partnering together to make this happen, and I've been really, really honored to be a part.

Well, so are we we think this is super important and we're glad to be part of such a great team You know from City Council to the church and our other partners.

We're really glad to be And thank you so much I think sometimes people think when you think about work it has to be loud and it has to be seen but I There's so many things that we do every single day that everybody does in this room that it's unseen, and thank everybody for that, because I think a lot of the times people think when you're doing any type of work, you have to do it a certain way, you have to do it their way, and it's better to work together and form these partnerships, but it's also good to do things behind the scenes where people don't know what's going on, so I'm thankful for everyone that does the work, so thank you for that.

Well, and I think at the center, besides offering meals, people can do their laundry, you know, they can shower, they can study, they can job search. So there's really a lot going on that we're really proud of.

And thank you very much to the council members. We've interacted with many of you personally, and we really appreciate it. Appreciate the support very much.

And thank you for the work that you guys do. You're very welcome. Anybody else?

I'm trying to. Yeah, just in looking through the budget, there's budget items for cots and storage lockers and stuff like that. Is that stuff not pre-existing there from the present center, or is there a need to buy all new, or what's the?

I'm just kind of curious. Thank you for asking. The previous tenant, if you will, told us that they were going to be taking all that with them when uh when they left uh then at the very last um i think about two or three days before we opened they changed their mind and donated to us so i'd say that was good of them i think there's um at least the the I don't know if we have the same one, but we have a revised budget that was revised on June 25th once we were made aware.

I don't think that made it into our packet. If you could forward it, that'd be cool.

I can certainly share it with council. But yes, we were able at the very last minute to keep the cots and so we revised the budget to include some additional things. Most, to be perfectly honest, what we, moved into the budget where some of our utility costs that the church has been eating throughout.

I mean, we did have to purchase like a washer and dryer, some upgrades to the security system. I think we may have purchased three additional cots, I don't know, but yeah, at the very last minute.

And as far as the staffing level of giving kind of three people on awake staff overnight, has that been standard practice up till now with when ACBC was running it or?

Oh, I mean, I can't speak on ACBC, but for us with the Urban League, we always have two staff and usually a volunteer that's there from, you know, staff comes on at 3.30, gets ready, they check in the first person at five, and then, you know, we kind of go from there. But we always make sure there's at least two staff, awake staff overnight, and at least one or two volunteers.

Is there a mailbox set up at this time?

Yeah, they can use 42 Shenango as their address, and they all have their own mailbox. You're talking about for the guests?

Yeah.

Right, okay.

Yep, that's what I meant. Sorry. We also, as a church, we take a lot of mail for some of the unhoused folks in town beyond the overnight center, and a lot of folks use the church as their mailing address.

Thank you, and thank you guys for the work that you're doing.

I think the expanded hours are her agree.

Yeah, we when we first came in, we, you know, we were like, I mean, I don't think any of us like to get up at five o'clock in the morning. So, you know, we wanted to expand that we wanted to expand that time, you know, to give folks time to wake up, get their breakfast, you know, and kind of get on for the day. But yes,

So it strikes me as weird that during the very unpleasant heat we've been having lately that you're running less than half capacity lately.

We're mostly, the men's side is usually pretty full. Like I said, we average 10 to 12 women. I think the biggest evening we had was 24 men and 12 women. But yeah, we were ready for pretty full meetings.

Because one of the concerns I've repeatedly heard is that we don't have beds for women. And that's been a stumbling block.

Well, we can expand that, because the goal is 25 men, 25 women. But if we end up at a certain point in the evening where the women are checked in and we have additional beds and people come before 9.30, when we lock the door, we will take them. We won't turn them away.

So you're able to reconfigure your numbers, essentially? I'm sorry, say that again? You're able to reconfigure on the fly the number of people you're taking with you?

Well, because the cats are all separate.

Okay.

Yeah, we have a woman's room and then a men's area. And then all the cats are divided. So there's dividers between all of them.

Okay. Anybody else? Well, thank you so much. Great, thank you. I think, wait, was this expedited? I didn't see that, but I might.

I'll motion to expedite. Second.

Motion and a second, any discussion? Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Council Member Cavanaugh.

Aye.

Council Member Rathmell. Aye. Council Member Matavetsky. Aye. Council Member Hotchkiss. Aye. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton. Aye. Council Members Murray and Council President Dundon are absent. Thank you, that is 5-0.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It's gonna be on Wednesday's agenda. Good to see you. Okay, next up in the planning committee, Chair Rathmell will introduce RL26-137, and the presenter is Amelia.

Thank you, Council President Pro Temp. Middleton, this is RL26-137, a resolution authorizing Vines, application for New York State Climate Smart Communities Grant. Welcome, Amelia. and others.

It looked green. Okay, it was not quite green. I've also brought with me Johan Jelsma. He's our community garden manager and he supervises the staffing for the compost program that we're gonna talk about. shall I just take it great okay so we're asking for council to approve a resolution for us to partner with the city to apply for the climate smart communities grant which is a grant run by the New York State DEC the aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve climate resiliency and Our proposal is to continue our pilot community compost program to be able to scale it up to have more impact on the community, provide more service to the community, reduce higher amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, And to do that, we would apply for a five-year grant through this program to continue that community composting program by adding additional infrastructure, including composting tumblers, equipment, et cetera, and continue staffing for the program. We've presented a proposal that would be a have a total project of four hundred and twenty seven thousand and one hundred and fifty dollars of which Three hundred and thirty nine thousand two hundred would be from the climate smarts Smart community grant and an additional twenty percent would be matching funds and that's all coming through funds that we already Have for the project as well as some additional matching through in-kind volunteers and in-kind personnel through the City of Binghamton Economic Development Department, because they would be administering the grant and contracting with us, and then additional in-kind from Broome County Cornell Cooperative Extension. and we'd actually like to ask that we increase the budget to request a total of $389,200 from New York State. We realized after doing a little bit more work, it would be wisest to try to get some additional composting tumblers, and we would be able to cover the additional 20% match with our own in-kind support, so that wouldn't change anything from the city's end.

What was that amendment, just so I can write it down?

Yeah, it would be an increase in $50,000 total to what we asked from the New York State DEC Climate Smart Communities Grant, so $389,200.

Can you talk us through the existing compost project? Is there a pay, do people have to pay? I believe I heard that people need to be trained before they're allowed to use the bucket. We don't want things that shouldn't go in the compost bucket going in the, right. So if you could just kind of talk through who your current people are that are doing it, what they actually have to do to be a member and how that works.

yeah so just like all of our programming it's open to anyone and everyone who lives in our community um but we to make it a sort of legit program we did start an application process that way one we have just way of communicating and contacting all those who are participating and at all of our sites which include our all of our community gardens where we're renovating all of our composting systems as well as our site at our urban farm which is where the big tumbler units will go and we'll process a lot more material people will whoever's participating with the program will be able to drop their stuff there. So through the application process, yes, you do sign up. You give your information, et cetera. And then you have to go through a certain training so that you know exactly what the policies are and how to complete the task of getting rid of your food waste. So like I said, anyone who signs up is a program participant. we then identify community volunteers who dedicate more time to the process itself we call them compost facilitators so they really help us as far as sort of increase our capacity to actually do the process of composting there will be a dedicated number of those compost facilitators at all the various sites and they will oversee the process a little bit more they will help you know, bring in more program participants. They'll make sure that the process is being followed. They will help sort of be the first line of against like contamination within the compost product itself. So those individuals get a little bit more of, I guess, like training and then also dedicate a little bit more time per week or per month to help the process itself.

And we do have a sliding scale fee. People can choose to make a contribution toward the program, which is $30. And it's no questions asked sliding scale.

just like any of our programming we offer you know we try to eliminate those uh you know as many hurdles there are to participating with her programming including the financial so uh nominal fee of thirty dollars per year that fee is waived for anyone who is already an active community garden participant and they decide to become a community compost participant as well But as Amelia said, signing scale, if they can't afford it or don't want to, then we won't ask them to pay for it.

And my understanding is because the type of composting you're doing doesn't get that hot, that's why it's restricted to food and not yard waste.

Well, the goal is that we will actually be creating a compost that gets hot, that gets to the thermophilic stage, that causes the breakdown and reduction of pathogens and all that, makes it a usable product within a food production environment. including the systems that we're revamping at our gardens. They should, they could, as long as they're managed properly, which is why we're training more people to help sort of make that process function a little bit more efficiently. But the goal really for just food waste specifically is to also limit contamination. The more sort of streamlined we can have the message of what will be allowable can really help create less contamination within the process of compost production. It helps with the messaging itself. The ease of participation, all of that sort of stuff.

Anybody else? I'm just kind of wondering, Climate Smart Communities, the program itself, how does it compare to what other municipalities have been, what sort of other projects have been kind of awarded and granted, and how competitive is this funding source?

It's really wide range. It can cover a lot of different things from fleet improvements, replacing your fleet vehicles with electric vehicles to community composting. They have funded community composting programs in recent years, and that is a specific area of work that's identified. And the amount that we're proposing is in line with other programs that they've funded. And because we're in a region of the DEC that doesn't tend to get a lot of applications, we in Binghamton really at an advantage when we apply for DEC grants, whether it's the city or other organizations when we can apply for as a nonprofit directly to DEC, we're very competitive. So I think it's a very, If we were in New York City, we may not have as good of a chance, but we're in a region that doesn't see a ton of traffic through their grant programs.

Okay. And then my other question is that I saw the mention of mid-scale, ramping up mid-scale compost to... sites and bringing them into the mix, which seems very interesting to me. I feel like one elementary school probably generates more food waste than a good chunk of a neighborhood.

It does make sense for us, we think too, at the urban farm location, we're calling that our centralized composting site to take from higher volume producers versus just household waste or food scraps because it's a little bit easier for the community gardens to manage that type of a product, the household food scraps, and also it's closer to people's homes, so it's more convenient to them. So the mid-scale operation, we will be starting to focus on bringing in restaurants and other food waste producers.

Residents who live there will not be limited though. If they live around an urban farm, they can still contribute their food waste at that site if that's the most accessible to them.

So it'll be every existing fines garden in Binghamton has some sort of form of this now and will be scaled up, or is there selective neighborhoods that are scaling up versus not?

So we have a pilot of eight community gardens that we're working on renovating our composting facilities so that people from the neighborhood can sign up and bring their food scraps there. And then the urban farm is a central site. If we get this funding, we would expand so that every community garden within Binghamton can accept food scraps from the neighborhood.

And does Vines end up using the majority of what's generated or do people that contribute able to gets them back when they need to, or how is that working?

Yeah, first and foremost, any of the stuff that's produced at the community gardens is going to be utilized within that community space, top off all of the garden beds, et cetera. What we're aiming to do at our centralized site, because of the amount that we're anticipating being able to take on and produce, the first distribution will be to the site itself for vegetable production at our urban farm the next will be to help sort of offset the needs in other community garden spaces etc and then also distribution to any individuals who might want some for home gardening efforts or whatever we will try to have it be a system where if it's program participants want it and they're not engaged at a community garden, then they can get some finished compost product. And then if by some chance we're just producing way too much, I don't know, there might be a come pick some up from the urban farm kind of thing, like anyone in the community can use it.

So you had a pilot program in place, seemed to be. successful enough to now you're ramping it up, have a grant, what's the next way to, what's the next step for maintaining the program then?

Yeah, we're starting to do business planning so that we can identify ongoing funding streams to sustain the program. So including, you know, we're going to be working with the larger producers of food scraps for to pay for their services. So we're going to be. I'm hopeful that we'll have that by the end of this year and that will set the stage for how we move forward as we implement this grant. So we got a pilot grant through the funders network and that is for two years ending this year and actually going into next year. So we're right in the middle of the pilot.

All right. And I think this is listed for expedition as well. So what's the timeline for getting the paperwork in?

The application is due July 31st. Okay. Do you have something?

Yeah. So I don't know where things are at, but I remember at an environmental commission meeting, there was another organization or company that was looking to kind of Do this kind of, are you in contact? Is that not happening? Are we having multiple groups kind of competing over the same state requirements for big organizations to pay for compost removal?

There's a gentleman who is working on his own individual business. Where is that at this point?

I mean, I can't speak to Sean's business plan specifically. I just wasn't sure if there's coordination.

We have coordinated to some extent. I'm aware that there are other people that are trying to tap into the same New York State requirements for large businesses to pay to compost. And this was also pitched to us from some of the members from the Environmental Commission who were wanting compost pickup and for the city to consider doing composting itself as the stream to pay for it. There's only so much big establishments that make enough waste that would generate the revenue. I'm just kind of trying to understand the map since there's multiple people that have been talking about these ideas.

What I'll say is I think I've met and spoke with all of those stakeholders several times. We do collaborate. There's several members of the Broome County Environmental Council or whoever. We do discussions and planning revolving around waste reduction. I will say that at this point, Vines is the only organization that's actually doing any of the work. So like I said, I can't speak to somebody else's business plans and how far advanced they are. The one thing I will note is I do think that those were going to function on slightly different scales, or at least the sort of place where the one individual is trying to, anticipating that they would aggregate waste from was definitely on a slightly different scale than what we are aiming to do. So even though we will be looking to get some larger waste producers on board, it's not as if we're going to take all the waste from BU dining halls, which is just tonnage every day. I really don't think that there's any sort of like stepping on anyone's toes kind of thing.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay, so it looks like this is, if anybody doesn't have any other questions, it looks like this is marked for expedition. I'll motion to expedite. A motion, can I have a second? Motion and a second, any discussion? Clerk, can you please call the roll? Council Member Cavanaugh?

Aye.

Council Member Rathmell? Aye. Council Member Matabetski? Aye. Council Member Hotchkiss? Aye. Council President Pro Tem Middleton? Aye. Council Member Murray and Council President Dundon are absent. That is 5-0. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Next up in Municipal and Public Affairs, Committee Member Medovetsky will now introduce RL26-130 with Assistant Chief of Police Cory Miner.

All right. I guess I'll like to introduce RL26-130, an ordinance to amend New York State GIVE grant. And we'll...

happy to take it away explaining i believe we've had this one before thank you everybody for having me uh to my right here is detective kyle keymac he is the department grant manager i'm sure there'll be anything more granular than i need to ask him Starting out with the first one, it's a move of funds from personal services, $30,000 into the department equipment line. The reason for this was The civilian analyst position was unfilled for a portion of the year, which created the surplus. This money is being asked to be moved for equipment purchases, specifically police bikes to bolster the already existing community policing initiative that currently exists. And also for digital cameras for CEPTED, which is crime prevention through an environmental design to help document the different reports that are generated by the officers conducting those services.

So have we actually been able to get officers trained and certified on bikes? I know this is pretty out of date, but when I early came on to council, I got a tour. There seemed to be a whole lot of bikes sitting around, and there wasn't enough trained personnel to use them.

We just, earlier in the summer, late spring, early summer. I love bikes, by the way.

There's not a knock on bikes. I just saw a room full of them.

They put through about 10 officers through another bike school. And as new officers come on that need to be certified, they will go through the training as well.

Do we, so, and I know there are three requests for legislation on tonight's agenda. Two at least mention, and you just referenced community policing efforts and activities. Are you able to share, I realized in just looking through this in preparation for this evening, I'm not sure we've gotten any updates on the city's contract that was approved in April with CP21 Solutions for a community policing evaluation and support. Are you aware of the status of that contract?

Yes, that is ongoing. We are in the process. of trying to set a meeting where they are going to be coming for an on-site visit really at this point several dates have been scheduled it's been a scheduling issue they are obviously from out of the area but i can tell you that is an ongoing thing currently it looks to be potentially september to up to october in that time frame

Okay, I'll reiterate then, and thank you for that response, I'll reiterate that we did express strongly our interest in being involved in those conversations. So if ongoing means that the goal, the next step is setting a meeting for that onsite, then I think I'm comfortable with that. If ongoing means that things have already been happening that we're not aware of, I left a message for the managing partner earlier this morning, so I'm happy to chat with him too. But do wanna reiterate that that's a, community policing is brought up often with requests for legislation. We did support the agreement with CP21 and had some additional asks that expanded that contract agreement. We do want to be involved and I think as it relates to requests for legislation, particularly budget asks, I mean we're going to continue to hope for data to demonstrate that the activities and efforts are currently effective in order to support with any kind of budget movement.

And the assistant chief can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's, like, sort of the initial stage is they come in, they gather information from the department. I think that's kind of the face and part of the purpose of this meeting is to do that so there hasn't been, like, anything generated from what's gone on so far. That is correct.

I guess the best way to put that is we would be in the information sharing stage as far as how our operations, things specifically they need before they can even do the, they want the information before they even come here.

Thank you. Great. Can you just give a quick refresher with the GIVE grant, how these changes meet the overall objectives of the GIVE grant, the original GIVE grant? The shift of the funding from the GIVE grant. So the shortfall. Help with the original intended purpose, broadly, obviously, because it's a change of the original grant.

right so the change would be is that the civilian analyst position was unfunded unfilled for a portion of the year that's what created that that position the employee went to the strive initiative which left the give position empty we had to find somebody that was qualified to fill that position so it went unfilled as part of give community policing is part of that so that's where the request is to encompass so we're within the guidelines of the grant if that makes sense to you if that answers your question yes I guess I was I was

hoping it was more, like, because we accept grants based on a narrative that's put around the original grant, and this is a little bit different. Again, I'm not, this is not an anti-community policing statement or an anti-bike statement, but, right, the... agreements are made based on a bit about the narrative, and then this is a little bit to the side of the original. So I was just trying to understand if this was a different piece of some original thought process or narrative, or if this was, hey, this didn't work out, we're trying something different, and it sounds like it's the second.

correct and I can I can add to that too to clarify a little bit it would be for so it's adjustment for the give 12 grant which we received in 2025 or 2024 running into 2025 or I apologize, 25 into 26, so it's just ending now. However, like the assistant chief has stated, when we originally got that legislation and that grant, it funds an FIO and a crime analyst, as well as hotspot policing and crime prevention through environmental design initiatives. and we had an unaccounted absence in the crime analyst position, so that left a deficit of funds being expended. So then we spoke with New York State, and they allowed us to adjust the budget. We just have to adjust it on the city's side to reflect the changes in the budget to remove some of that funding that was for a analyst position into the equipment line.

Were we able to deliver on what we needed to without that position being funded? Were we able to fill from other people? Did other people take on overtime or extra work? I just want to make sure we're delivering on what we say we are.

Ultimately, during that time frame when that analyst had left employment here, we were able to kind of, in a way, spread the wealth and the FIO took over a little bit more responsibility during that time frame. We do now have that position filled and that analyst actually had experience as a previous analyst who just came to work for the city. So training them and getting them in line with the GIVE initiative actually was almost expedited in a way because they already had a lot of background experience.

Thank you.

Anyone else? So you mentioned the equipment need is to bolster police bikes to bolster existing community policing efforts. Is that the only equipment need that has been identified and will it be immediately applied because there's a, you have a gap currently in enough bikes or is this preparing for a future need?

I would say it's going to be both. The bikes, after time, they do break down, and we have two different types of bikes. We have e-bikes, and then we have the regular, now which we would say is probably adequate, is pedal bikes. There's a maintenance that has to go on with them. They have to be tuned. Sooner or later, they just wear out. And also... it more officers get trained we need more equipment to have them out there uh... we we do have to currently c r t is utilizing the blakes during the shift on a regular basis uh... through some of the the different initiatives uh... if the officer is bike trained rather than doing the walking post, he can take a bike out. It gives them an opportunity with those to, one, they're more visible, they're approachable, and they can cover more area. And really one of the things I've seen, it's really a talking point for some of the residents when they do see the officers on the bike, they like to come, especially the e-bikes. There's a lot of, these kids have a lot of knowledge in them, they wanna get up close, they wanna see what it is.

I've seen the bikes. It's not so much the purpose of the bikes that I was trying to get at. This is, unless I'm mistaken, requested for expedition. So I'm trying to get at, so if there's an existing gap and immediate need, but that sounds different than sooner or later the bikes wear out. So it wasn't a question about the purpose of the bikes.

I can add in regards to the expedition request. It's to meet the timeliness of the liquidation period for the grant since the grant is just ending and trying to get the budget situated on our end to meet those needs.

That makes sense. Thank you. Is there just like a list somewhere of like, because you get a lot of grants, which is great, and I'm sure this type of thing happens somewhat frequently where there's unspent things and things come up. Is there a list of things, like the police wish list that you kind of pluck from when there's kind of a need for a quick spend down, I guess, is that kind of what you were trying to get at?

No, I was just trying to get at the reason for expeditions so a timeliness requirement makes sense to me.

Okay, because I was thinking like why the bikes were selected as opposed to some other item that they need or whether or not there's some sort of ranking or thing that you pull from.

I'm sure there are is a list somewhere. I don't have a list but As far as it goes for the gift grant Moving the money for the equipment the bikes and the cameras were to help support that grant itself on top of other community engagement initiatives, but we also when working on and applying for the give 13 grant which is another rl that's in here worked in trying to expand community policing through the give grant at community events whether it's like blues on the bridge or anything like that here in the city utilizing bike patrols so that was kind of a combined effort

I've seen the bicyclists out for many running events and community events. I've seen them out, so happy to see that.

What is the spend-down deadline?

As far as the spend-down and the reimbursement is... It has to be done 90 days, liquidation period of the grant. So 90 days from the end, which would be June 30th. It just happened.

So I'll make a motion to expedite.

I have a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. Motion and second. Any discussion?

I wanted to ask if by Wednesday there could be a breakdown of how you anticipate spending the $30,000 itemized by camera, whatever else. Is that doable?

I believe so. Yeah, great. Thank you.

OK. And again, it just says here on the form, as it was explained, the life cycle for Give 12 ends June 30th, 2026. The funding had to be approved by the state to be reorganized. We waited for approval from the state, which was delayed. This delay created a short timeline to complete the approved purchases, as well as finalize the process with the city. If the purchase is not made prior, funding will be lost and become non-reimbursable. So that's the statement.

Anybody else regarding the discussion on the expedition? Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Council Member Cavanaugh.

Aye. Aye.

Council Member Rathmell? Aye. Council Member Matavetsky? Aye. Council Member Hotchkiss? Aye. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton? Aye. Council Member Murray and Council President Dundon are absent. That is 5-0. Thank you. Thank you so much.

We'll go on to still Municipal and Public Affairs. Committee Matavetsky will now introduce RL 26-131.

So now we have RL26-131, a resolution authorizing acceptance of New York State grant funds for canine detection team. Same speakers.

Introduce. This is a grant for $15,000 from New York State Department of Homeland Security for explosive detection K-9 teams. Binghamton Police currently has two K-9 teams trained in this manner. The money is for training and dog maintenance.

We recently had another K-9 one, or am I a year off at this point?

I feel like we talked about dogs recently. I don't know if it was in reference to explosive detection canine team, but usually New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services has an annual competitive grant for explosive detection canine teams. And it's a difference between a maintenance-style grant, which is this one, for the $15,000, or creating a team, which is a larger amount of money, obviously, get the dog and vehicle and equipment.

Okay. Is there anything else you want to share about this? I mean, or I guess council's aware of the fact that we have a canine team, and I know when I was president, I requested use of it, so nice to have in-house.

Yeah, so these are actually regional teams, so they cover the large area. They'll do sweeps at, they've gone up to Cornell University, Binghamton University for college graduations. If dignitaries come to the area, they're utilized for that as well, for explosive detection.

All right. Anyone else?

Okay, we'll move. Does anybody else have any other questions regarding this? Okay, well we'll move on to the next one. Again, in Municipal and Public Affairs, Council Member Medovetsky will now introduce RL 26-132.

All right, so we have RL 26-132, resolution authorizing acceptance of New York State Give the 13 grant. Please give us an overview.

So this is for Give Initiative 13. As we previously discussed, 12 is ending, or just ended in June, end of June. This is for $349,984. This is state funding. Again, it's to reduce shootings through overtime, personnel equipment, and to attack different part one crimes.

Can you give us a rough breakdown of how that 350K gets

Yes, roughly a large portion of that covers both the FIO and the crime analyst salary as well as fringe for those two positions. A smaller amount is then reserved for the two crime reduction initiatives being hot spot policing and crime prevention through environmental design. And then a remainder of funds is then utilized for training for officers in the department attending crime reduction style trainings. As well as a portion, like I said kind of earlier, is set aside for community policing with the bicycles that we have and are obtaining. And another portion goes for community youth engagement.

You don't have dollar amounts roughly associated with those?

Yes, so off the top of my head, without seeing the actual budget, I would say probably over, around 200,000 probably covers the personnel costs. Around 50,000 is for hotspot policing, 10 to 15 for SEPTED. I think around 10 for youth engagement and similar to 10 for the community engagement with the bikes and about 10, I think, ish for the training and travel.

Could you send that actual budget?

Sorry.

There was a request that you send the actual budget. Yes.

And then as far as the environmental design, the septet part, what examples of that has actually been?

Well, I know they did Southside Commons at some point, right?

Yes, Southside Commons. I wasn't able to get the report. Has been a somewhat recent project. I know 21 Exchange was another recent project that was completed. But there are other projects of interest that we can always meet up for. Collaborate on on that as well and any any requests that come in for City Council from the community or to the mayor's office in regards to Properties or areas that might need that as well.

We're open to receiving those I do appreciate that openness to request I think our challenge has been that we've not been given access to the reports after they've been conducted Which has been frustrating particularly I think for councilmember Matavetsky and I twice now

With the Southside Commons we're actively looking at working with someone outside of the city to actually do some redesigning and work and I've tried to work with the DA relating to cameras there and things like that and it's hard when we're kind of, we know work is happening and then it's not being coordinated and we're having to interface and try and tackle these issues without having access to the information.

The same is true for Woodburn Court. I mean, we had multiple meetings with dozens of residents, all who still have questions regarding any progress on the conditions or the design, and we just have not been able to answer those questions, and so it appears as if we're not engaged when really we're just being blocked from accessing the report, and they're also not getting responses through other outreach?

I mean, ultimately that's probably above my pay grade as far as most of that goes. I do know that some of it is more, I guess, law enforcement sensitive. So it makes it a little bit difficult in some ways and fashions. I could foresee that we could come to some sort of conclusion collaboratively on figuring out how to package or better present the information so that everyone's... Like I said, we're actively trying to figure out how to redesign and work with a third party on Southside Commons and

and how do we actually design a better environment if we don't? Yes, I am fine with having redacted. I don't need super sensitive information, but I do need information to try and make sure we're having the appropriate discussions and creating the right kind of contract as we try and move forward with improving that area.

That is something we'll look into to see if we can hire your request.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay, we'll move on to the next one. Back again in Municipal and Public Affairs, Committee Member Medovetsky will now introduce RL26-133. RL26-133, a resolution authorizing acceptance of BCDA funds for police overtime.

Give us an overview.

so i believe this has uh been done in the past funds from the broome county district attorney's office in the amount of eleven thousand five hundred dollars um same amount has been given to other law enforcement agencies in the area again this will be used for the community police community based policing overtime for different community events where officers are at Again, it is to increase public engagement, to make the officers approachable, and to get them out in the community as overall. I think the program has been successful and would like to see it continue.

And that includes the park walking, the officers that walk in the park?

The park is separate, correct? The park is separate. For the most part, we do receive separate grant funds for the actual, I guess, what we would call the park detail. So that is a separate entity. Not to say that this might not fund maybe an event or something like that in the park itself.

It's interesting you mention that We get the same amount as departments that are, what, a quarter of the size of ours? Yes. It's not so fair, is it?

Might have to have a word with our county counterparts.

Without, I mean, I guess I keep having kind of questions about the community-based policing and I always kind of have my hat as someone who has kind of borders to where I represent and others having those different borders. how are these just not, obviously not getting super detailed, but in terms of, so if we're not, if we're talking outside of the parks, where, what part of the city is getting our community policing? Is it, you know, or is it spread across pretty evenly, south side, west side, north side, south side, or is it like, I guess I don't have a, like, because there's a lot of kind of money and direction put into this, and I'm curious where it,

I would say it could go to, say there's a specific area recently Doubleday Street was a hot spot. It could be utilized there to put officers on bikes or on foot. Say that that problem moves up to Woodland Ave on the south side. You could potentially move them up there to conduct foot patrols. Obviously, the best place to do it would be probably high visibility where there's businesses, people where there's a higher likelihood that the officer is going to interact with the public. But certainly, you're not going to keep them all in one place. You're going to follow where that trend may go if that's where the need is.

I had a question. Can this grant provide officers for more events? Because I know we do, like, when we do private events, it costs a lot of money. Will this grant help with that?

Private events in what regard?

Like parades. Parades are like, yeah, like when we hire police for private events, like it costs a lot of money for organizers. So would this grant help with that?

uh kyle can you answer that um this would be if if when you have the event or if someone has the event and police officers are hired as city of binghamton police officers on overtime for this event it can help fund that yes but it can't be like a like a side job it's not going to fund like a side job if that's how they're hired but if it's an actual

police police department personnel because it's in our it'll be in our budget line to have to be paid out through this city okay yeah so it's gonna it's gonna help with the overtime for that okay thank you does anybody else have any other questions looks like this is marked for expedition can I have a motion I'll make the motion I don't see it. Hold on.

No, I was wrong.

It was the next one. Sorry. I was wrong. It was the next one. Anybody else? Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a good evening.

Up next in Public Works, Committee Chair Hotchkiss will now introduce RL26-129. It looks like our presenter is Deputy Mayor Hyman.

So this is RL26-129, a resolution authorizing the acceptance of a grant for Ely Park golf course improvements. How are you, Megan?

Hi, thank you. Pat asked me to fill in today. He is filling in for Shane at a baseball event because Shane is out sick. So I'll give an overview, if that works, and try to answer any questions. Okay, RL26129 is to accept a $25,000 grant from Broome County to repair a portion of the cart pass at Ely Park Golf Course. I think council is aware of some of the improvements and progress over at the golf course in recent years. It continues to grow as a tourism driver and remains an amenity for many city residents. The cart paths have been in rough shape over there for some time and are in need of repair. So this is grant funding from the county that will allow us to start making those improvements. There's no match requirement from the city, and it'll help us ensure that golfers of all ages and abilities are able to continue accessing the entirety of the course.

So this was originally for some public art over near or at the stadium, I think, and then that project is-

Not moving forward at this time. I think that was a decision of the Rumble Ponies as I understand it. Just deciding to devote their capacity to the day-to-day operations of the ballpark and the team. I think that they're open to public art going at the stadium in the future, but the timing of this grant was not something that would work for them.

Anyone else?

Is this, I mean, I rarely talk to people about golf, but when I did inquire, the complaint was the paths, but does this do the whole park, or is this just a portion?

It's just a portion. I think what Pat said is it's expected to allow us to improve about half of the paths that are in need of repair. That price may change as we go with kind of the prices of everything nowadays, but that's the current estimate. A little bit more than half.

Thanks.

And there's no. county restrictions in terms of like how the fees or anything are structured from from us you know budget season for receiving money into the parks there's no there's no like not to my knowledge we this is a I think it's the county's small communities grant fund that we applied to them for and the legislature approved so nothing flagged on that to me Thank you.

Anybody else? Well, it looks like this is marked for expedition. Can I have a motion?

I make a motion to expedite.

I have a motion. Can I have a second? I'll second. Motion and second. Any discussion?

It says allow speedy installation of cart path project during golf season slash asphalt plants in production That was the reason for expedition Okay Claire, can you please call the roll?

Councilmember Cavanaugh. All right councilmember Rathmel Councilmember Matavetsky. All right councilmember Hotchkiss Council president pro-temp Middleton councilmember Murray and council president Dundon are absent. That is 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I Up next, we have Planning Committee Chair Rathmel will now introduce RL 126-36. And the presenter is Sarah Close.

Thank you, Council President Pro Temp-Middleton. This is RL 26-136, a resolution authoring a New York State Homes application for the Main Street Downtown Anchor Program.

um quick correction i should have flagged this to sam so i apologize it's a homes and community renewal so the capital h-o-m-e-s i believe is a different program that hcr offers so i think it's in the municipal resolution template correctly but i should have flagged that error apologies so this is a new york main street downtown anchor grant application authorization from City Council you may recall that we did one of these last year for 121 court the property owned by Dave Whalen we were successful in getting those funds for a $500,000 downtown anchor award I know I communicated this via email we did reach out to homes and community renewal to find out if we would be competitive given that we still have an active downtown arts area grant as well as the downtown anchor they said that having two active grants does put us at a lower priority for scoring but that if the project was competitive that they would happily review it so that is why we proceeded with an application this year ben is here to talk more to the specifics of the actual project but are there any questions on the process or the grant itself before i pass it over to him no great

So as for the proposal itself, this is for 81 Court Street. The grant, as Sarah mentioned, would be for $500,000. The total project is $850,000 is what's being proposed. It would involve the renovation of the first floor commercial space, which has been vacant. for something in the neighborhood of 15 years, as I've been made aware. And then the upper four stories would be residential. It would be between six to nine apartments in them. That would be pending design and architects looking at this, but apartments up there. Any questions on that so far?

Nope.

Well, I think we've gotten the email with five projects, I think, that were submitted. And three of them didn't even have the bare bones of a full application. Is that typical? Is there anything we need to do to get more? Or were you happy getting two at least relatively complete packets? Or is that just the number of the sort of the given the area and the number of projects that might be available?

I think it's just a function of people needing to read the full RFP and then respond to each. I think being farther and farther removed from a classroom I think sometimes leads to a disconnect between what needs to be provided in order to be seen as complete. This is also not a standard RFP where we're going out to contractors who do this all the time and can pull a variety of documents together. people replied in good faith the one thing that's really nice about doing these kinds of rfps is it gives us now five projects we can look at whether they're eligible for this grant or not we have not done the outreach to the other applicants yet because we wanted to focus on getting this one out before the deadline we will reach out to all of them and basically offer our services and our other programs that are available to see if there's anything that might make sense for the other projects as well okay

The, so from the proposal, and Ben, you mentioned a mix of market rate and attainable rental apartments on the above floors. Could you share with council members what an attainable rental unit would be priced at?

So HCR has the requirement that these are at 90% AMI, the same with our other one at 121 Court Street. And as far as specific, what the rent would be, they haven't put those numbers out yet for this year.

Sure, and so that 90% AMI, we'd be looking at households making around 60,000, somewhere between 55 and 65,000 annually. I do also wanna note, so these apartments specifically are positioned to serve Binghamton University affiliated tenants, downtown professionals, and young professionals returning to a walkable downtown was noted in the proposal.

Yeah, he certainly left the door open to a lot of tenants. It wouldn't be necessarily specifically marketed at students. That would not be the goal as far as he's made us aware. So it's really meant to be for anyone and not excluding anyone.

It does specifically say that it's positioned for that particular market. So the proposal that was chosen, Mr. Liam Burns, was any, as far as I can tell, he owns at least 12 properties in the county under his name and various LLCs. He didn't list all of his LLCs. At least two were in my district. They've been vacant for over a year. Was any effort to ensure that Mr. Burns is appropriately maintaining his current properties conducted?

uh so i will say that was not part of the review um but this was the only there were only two successful applications we forwarded both of them to councilmember hotchkiss for review this was prioritized as it is currently vacant and has been for a while so certainly understand that concern but for this particular grant we did not look at his other properties throughout the city We do know that he did put in information about his previous involvement with the New York Main Street Grant at the corner of Main and Front, so he's familiar with the program itself and the requirements therein.

Yeah, so this was like my choice out of two that seemed viable, but I do, I know that he's like received the grant funding before and it kind of, it's sort of a pain point for me with the, some of the properties that had received funding and are, at least the facades are nice and I think there was improvements inside but it's taken, took a really long time to get a tenant and there's still some that are, the commercial that are vacant. So I don't know, it doesn't seem like there's an opportunity with an application to encourage that type of like We want to see activity in those other places.

i'll speak specifically to the commercial vacancy piece that's an issue in our downtown generally and in downtowns across new york state so even though we are always trying to encourage those commercial spaces to be filled and i know i won't speak specifically to mr burns's properties but a lot of our vacant storefronts come to us for assistance looking for tenants it is just very difficult to make the math work on those projects a lot of the time actively working towards it optimistic that the economy is going to at some point rebound in a way that will allow us to have more commercial spaces that can be supported but right now we're we're trying to position ourselves well for the future understanding that there are limitations in the market right now specifically for commercial spaces

My comments this year are no different than the comments I made last year when another Downtown Anchor program project, which at that time proposed to develop for high-end residential units was introduced. Attainable rental units are not affordable rental units. And those most in need of housing in this community are not the Binghamton University affiliated tenants, downtown professionals, and young professionals making $60,000 a year. Those most in need of housing in our community are individuals at the deeply affordable level. Without those housing accommodations, these are the folks that are being murdered on the street and that are dying in hotel fires. I did not vote on this last year, vote yes on this last year, I will not vote yes on this this year and I will continue to not vote to advance any housing development that does not include deeply affordable rates until we've at least demonstrated that it's a priority at every department level, economic development included, to dedicate a line item from our general fund to address this at scale.

And I will say we did not receive any applications that included deeply affordable housing, so they were not under consideration for this particular funding source, although they are under consideration for other funding sources.

I understand that, and you shared that last year. If the city is claiming to prioritize the development of affordable housing, then we need to be making decisions based on it as a priority, not just on the parameters that the state allows for us.

I guess I'm confused about how we should have adjusted this process if there were no property owners who submitted an application that included the type of housing that you're looking for. We did send it out to council for you to share among your networks. We also posted it on social media and sent it to our email list. So we did make a concerted effort to get this information in the hands of folks who could provide the type of housing you're talking about. It just, we were not, we did not receive an application that did that. And so I just, I want to reflect that it's a- Sure, no, I'm happy to address that.

I think what we're lacking in some of the outreach and what goes out is a priority or preference. So over and above just waiting on the state to give us parameters to tell us what our priorities should be and then to work within those parameters, we have the opportunity as a municipality to preference applications and proposals. And then we also have the opportunity, and you mentioned this last year, that subsidies are, that affordable housing really needs to engage subsidies, needs to engage additional funding. We have the opportunity as a city to dedicate that funding. If this is going to be a priority we claim, then every single department and proposal and outreach that goes out can work toward making that a preference. And that was not apparent in the application opportunity that was released.

I certainly understand that feedback hopefully if we put one of these out again one of those projects will apply I can't prioritize projects that don't come into the pipeline so unfortunately I was unable to do that in this case I know that the RFP that went out related to 182 Holly as well as the property on the north side did make a concerted effort to prioritize those so I hope that that will come back with the type of housing that you're looking for I will happily prioritize those projects when they do apply through public processes that are out there to allocate those funds

I would just add to that. It's not as if this is weighing these six to nine, 90% AMI apartments versus something that is deeply affordable. It's these 90% AMI apartments or we're applying for nothing. And I would argue that it's better to get some decent apartments than to not apply at all.

But what, nevermind, sorry. No, I do understand that point, but I honestly feel like the need, we still have Front Street that's empty. There's still a lot of professional housing that's sitting empty right now, so even though you're saying build more housing, why don't we fill what we have first? before we go and do that. So I understand that point, but honestly there's still professional housing that is sitting empty right now, and there's still people on the streets, there's still people in shelters, there's still people who are actively looking for housing, there's still families who cannot live in the city of Binghamton because they do not have a place to live that is affordable. So that is unacceptable to say that, is my point of view, sorry.

i'd be happy to look at the data about vacancies in professional housing because that's not what we're hearing from those providers but again this is really just looking at the five applications that came in the two that were ultimately made eligible and that we had to make a choice between those two neither of which included deeply affordable housing as i'm sure many of you know i work on affordable housing projects across the city including those that do include deeply affordable and supportive housing 100 a priority um hundreds of units that we're currently working on but just for this specific effort it's a 500 000 grant that was only made available to those two eligible applicants and to ben's point we have a decision to make about putting this forward to the state and potentially getting that property back online or not making this application at all in which case the building will continue to sit empty

i i know i understand a lot i just think right now with the current climate um people really hate us and i honestly don't feel comfortable with voting on something like this when the public already sees council the mayor already sees the city of binghamton as the enemy and i think that this might fuel more to the fire. I mean, you guys aren't elected, but in my point of view, people are already thinking these things, even though we, and like you said, you work with affordable housing, we're all, we all want that, but I think right now in this climate, that might not be the right thing. After the fire, after there's people, there's some other things that are going on in today's news that just came out. I don't know how that would look towards the public and the public eye when something like that comes out and they're like why are you doing this when I can't find an apartment on the west side of Binghamton where I live for my family if something happens. So that's just my, I'm thinking about what it's going to look like to others or someone on the outside. And I understand all those dynamics and how the building is going to sit, but I'm just saying, to me, it just doesn't look good and it doesn't feel good. So that's just my.

And that's a decision this body can make. Really, the question on the table is, will we put forth an application for a $500,000 grant or not? I have requested expedition because the application is July 31st. We would like to get a go no go from this body because it does require a municipal resolution. And if we do not have one, we won't proceed with the application and we won't kind of waste our time. Grant consultants, property owners time putting together an application for this funding. We will simply not apply this year. And that is certainly the prerogative of this body.

Thank you. And thank you for your work too. I'm not diminishing what you guys are doing and what you're doing. I just feel like right now with the current climate of what is going on locally around us, it feels kind of tone deaf to what is going on on the outside and what I'm personally experiencing as a council member, what some of us are experiencing as being representatives for the city of Binghamton.

Certainly understand the optics consideration and obviously my job is in the implementation and trying to get these things online and we all have to make different considerations in the way we make decisions.

Understandable.

Councilman, I agree with you that the optics are difficult and tricky and it's very easy for people to point fingers and say things but And we can do that too. We can sit here and say, this is how the state designed the program. The state did not include incentives or any focus for this particular program on affordable or deeply affordable housing. It's kind of a much more open thing. We put out the call. Can we improve on that next year? I think we improved This year, from earlier times, we've been trying to be more proactive about getting the word out there, and this is what the net dragged in. And it's from a fundamental kind of responsibility to good government and good fiscal sense, why would we deny an opportunity to help fund a business initiative in the city that jumped through the required hoops and is providing, reactivating a property in the city of Binghamton? you know, by the means that are available, and with their own private investment. I mean, I think we would have absolutely made an effort, a concerted effort, to prioritize any affordable or deeply affordable project that came in, but none came in.

So that's what I'm saying. So one, we had this conversation last year. This isn't at all about optics for me in any way, shape or form. This is about the fact that we have not developed deeply affordable housing at scale to meet the need over the last 15 years. So ten plus years, depending on how far you go back. But to be clear, The requirements of the Downtown Anchor Project are that the project meets a compelling need, quote, or, quote, is of importance to the neighborhood or community, and the city, the municipality, has the responsibility to set what the parameters of that compelling need or importance to the neighborhood or community are. And yes, the state allows for a moderate income 80 to 120% income for the residential units. The state allows for it, but that does not absolve us of the responsibility to prioritize. And when I said that we could have included but did not a priority or a preference when the application opportunity was issued, That's what I'm saying and that's what I said last year. So it's not that no proposal came in demonstrating that interest. It's that we didn't identify as a municipality that that proposal would be preferenced or prioritized for consideration in the first place. This is not a new conversation.

So if we put that preference in and we got no responses that were qualified.

That's not the situation we're discussing. We're discussing the fact that this has been recommended year over year. We did it in a few recent considerations. We didn't do it for this one and we didn't get a proposal that matches those priorities because we never named them. If we were having a conversation where it could be said, that the city identified a preference and a priority for deeply affordable housing because that is the most compelling need and would be of the most importance to our neighborhood and community, then we could talk through that. But that wasn't done. And so we're still offering opportunities for high-end residential or moderate income.

So you believe that there are affordable housing projects out there that would have applied if we had specified that in the RFP but didn't apply because we didn't specify that?

That's a hypothetical conversation. So it's yours. What we failed to do was indicate a preference. And again, this was recommended last year. And we're in the same position of discussing six to nine units for Binghamton University affiliate. Again, we know without any shadow of a doubt that we don't need more housing for Binghamton University affiliated tenants.

I mean, I disagree that we don't need, I believe we do need more downtown professional housing. Not student housing, but professional housing.

I think the 2024 Broome County Housing Needs Assessment is the most up-to-date and comprehensive representation of housing need in this community. And it very specifically identifies the number of units that need to be built at affordable, from deeply at the extremely low and very low through low through, and we have no, we have nothing but a surplus when it comes to anything above moderate income.

That's not true.

Take it up with the third party commissioned to do the market analysis for the housing needs assessment.

I don't disagree that we deeply need those units. But we deeply need the others.

And until we prioritize, we keep claiming as a city that we're prioritizing deeply affordable development. Are there recent projects that are putting units, that are breaking, sure, but we have failed to develop at scale, which is why we have the housing and homelessness crisis that we're in, and until we meet those numbers, I don't see why we would be considering alternative projects otherwise.

because it can never be just one thing. We must be taking advantage.

But it's been one thing long enough. We developed almost exclusively for students since 2012. Once we saturated that market, we moved into luxury housing. It has been one thing consistently. The fact that we have failed to balance that by also developing deeply affordable at scale is the issue that I continue to bring up over and over again.

I don't think anyone out there thinks this council is gonna put our thumb on the scale for luxury housing, pilots, or student housing. But to deny an application that is an open tender from the state essentially, and to deny a developer the ability to compete for that simply because nobody else applied with our preferred criteria just boggles my mind.

So is the thought that if this project gets funded by New York State, that New York State would then look negatively at our deeply affordable housing applications for other projects? I'm trying to understand how this is.

No, that's not accurate.

That's not, okay, all right.

And I just wanna, just two quick things. Just on the community and neighborhood need, certainly we had this conversation last year, Council Member. The neighborhood around that property would like to see it redeveloped, the downtown community. That is a community, that is a neighborhood. They also have a voice, and we've already gotten some letters of support from adjacent properties that are really excited about potentially seeing this come back online. So while I understand that we serve a broader city, and last year you referenced your constituents specifically, we are looking at the needs of the particular area that we are looking to invest in with this particular property. And I will say, aside from this and the 121 Court Street, again, which both came through competitive applications, I have not worked on a market rate project in my entire time in the city of Binghamton since 2022. Every single one of the projects that I've worked on is an affordable housing project. As you know, they take a long time. We're working on getting them online. I understand that it's not enough. It's not fast enough. I get that. This administration and myself in particular have prioritized the development of affordable housing in our community. We'll continue to do so. I do not think six to nine units at 90% AMI is going to meaningfully chip away at our need for deeply affordable housing i think the hundreds and hundreds of units that are coming online that we are working actively with hcr on to get funded are really what we are focusing on and what i spend most of my time on frankly this is an application that our grant consultants and the property owner will spend some time on and it will go into the pipeline and we will see if New York State even chooses to award it. Our time is spent on the larger scale developments that are moving the needle on affordable housing. And, you know, we certainly would like to see this application go in at the end of the day. The property owner is the one who is mostly impacted as well as the neighbors and the community in downtown so it's like I said a decision this body can make really at this point just trying to get a go-no-go so we can allocate resources in my department over the next month I wish I could I had a great memory for I wish I had a great memory for last year's discussion on it so is city council going to need to put

local taxpayer money up no to support this is there are we gonna get a request for a pilot or some sort of tax so they would be renovating it and then Potentially paying more taxes for that

I know there's ongoing conversations about assessments and things like that, so I won't pretend to know what the future holds in terms of those taxes.

I mean, if they're doing significant renovations, the likelihood is regardless of the reassessment discussion, permits will be pulled and they will end up paying more taxes, quite likely.

And they will make investments that they otherwise would not make in the property. contractors, furnitures, fixtures, equipment, supplies, all of the downstream impacts of construction projects.

But we're, so we're, reiterating again, there's, you do not, with this particular project, even if the state funds it, we're not gonna get a request for a pilot agreement to this body.

Have not been made aware that he would make a request this body for a pilot whether he would pursue that through other means I I can't speak to but no there would not be any additional requests for City of Binghamton local dollars to go towards this project.

Thank you for clarifying then the last just Request that I'll make for this presuming that the downtown anchor program isn't going away you mentioned that the The applicant and his current ownership history and the conditions of his dozen plus properties were not looked into. To me, that is what got us in a really difficult position with Isaac Anzarut regarding properties and projects that he continued to put forth and were accepted and supported without any due diligence on its existing properties or practices. So as this rolls, again, assuming this continues to roll out as a New York State HCR product, the looking into the applicant's existing history rather than just hoping that they're going to do what they say they do would be another preference and request for consideration.

I think that's a very fair criticism, and I appreciate you bringing it up. And this, it does not solve everything you're talking about. New York State does have a five-year maintenance on all New York Main Street projects, so they are able to audit those projects and ensure that they are being kept up, but very fair criticism and something we can certainly incorporate moving forward. And in fact, something we did for the DRI application, so I'm surprised that we neglected to do it in this case, but that's on me.

Anybody else? You have something to say, Nate?

I was I mean, I don't think we need to talk in circles about this anymore, but I just don't If there's an opportunity to make a vacant property Functional and useful I think that's like that's what I had to look at between the two applications And that's why I would approve this and maybe maybe we get it. Maybe we don't not necessarily my favorite project that I'm the most excited about but it's That's what we have before us. So

Council member just to add some color to that. I know you reviewed both and the other was an occupied building So I know that that weighed into your consideration about and I believe the other may have been specifically targeted to students as well Maybe that was not explicitly stated in the application, but I think reading between the lines So just to I know you did review both of those and I wanted to make sure that that was distinction was known as well.

I would support an ordinance or resolution, at least a resolution if we want going forward that are all if all RFP that go out from the city, they're going to require a municipal letter of support or something like this, that it's have, you know, have this requirement that we are that they prioritize or note that city councils prioritizing affordable, deeply affordable applications. I think That's the way we make sure that this doesn't, that this issue doesn't happen again. So I think maybe I will write that for next time.

Anybody else? I guess.

Then our issues are on the record.

I'll make a motion to expedite.

I have a motion, do I have a second?

I'll second.

Motion and a second, discussion?

Clerk, can you please call the roll? Council Member Cavanaugh? Aye. Council Member Rathmell? No. Council Member Matavetsky? Aye. Council Member Hotchkiss? Aye. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton? Aye. Council Member Murray is absent. Council President Dundon is absent. Thank you, that is 4-1.

And just to confirm, so that will be on Wednesday's agenda? Okay, thank you.

Next up, in the planning committee, Council Member, Planning Chair Rathmel will now introduce RL 26-135.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Middleton. This is RL 26-135, an ordinance authorizing the sale of 15, 17, and 20 to First Ward Action Council.

Thank you. Yep, as the Councilwoman said, this is authorizing the sale of three city-owned lots in McGat Street for a project by the First Ward Action Council to expand affordable home ownership opportunities. First Ward Action Council plans to build three single-family homes on these three vacant lots and make them available for sale to low-income residents.

Make them for sale? So they're doing a Habitat for Humanity slash land bank style project rather than managing them?

That's right, yep, so single family home ownership. They have, according to the executive director, they have some pretty extensive history in this going back. They did a couple of houses on Mary Street. They have one on Pine Street and one on Murray. He estimated that in our area, including outside the city, they've done about 20 of these over the years.

And where is he tonight? And renderings or plans or budgets or anything or a timeline?

They're in the very early stages. So they're in the process of working with a grant writer now to identify the best funding sources. So this is just step one, the transfer of the lots to First Word Action Council for a dollar as we've done with these types of proposals in the past well kind of go in as like a a sign of support of the city support for the project as they go out and apply for funding from New York State or whatever funding sources they find that are a match for this for this type of project

Are we planning to put in return or callback provisions on a certain timeline?

Yeah, we can definitely put that in if that's what council wants.

They'd be looking ideally to start next year. So just something to keep in mind. They will probably have a better idea of their timeline when they have their grant applications fully lined up.

Anybody else I mean this is gonna be like the same kind of argument I had against the Not against but it's just for the with the You just said it, why can't I think of it? Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity. You have adjacent lots, so it creates more opportunities. Like that would be a good opportunity in this R2 area to do multifamily. So to prioritize single family I think is a lower priority. And that we know that Jerry and their team has experience because they're doing it now I drive by it every day building multifamily and that is a higher priority so I'd love to have a conversation I think everybody here respects their the work of the first word Action Council and their ability to move projects forward but single-family versus multifamily it's a lower priority in my mind agreed

Jerry said any council members with questions or that would just like to discuss this further are welcome to reach out to him. I gave him late notice that this is on tonight's agenda, so he couldn't make it, and that's on me. But feel free to reach out to him directly to kind of learn more about his thinking on the affordable home ownership opportunities. I think from the administration standpoint, I can see your point, Councilman, but I think we also recognize a need for affordable home ownership, but I think Jerry can kind of get into the distinction from his organization's end, too.

I'm also wondering, I mean, the end of Magat there is one of the relatively few areas in the city that has townhouse-style housing.

Yeah.

when we have our new townhouse legislation, I wonder if that's a better, you know, even that would be a step up in density from just three single family houses.

Megan, do you know what their timeline is? Because maybe this is something that, if it's not. It's not expedited. Yeah, it might be a committee meeting. So maybe we can have a conversation, I think.

Yeah, he might be open to that. They're in the very, very early stages just exploring grant funding.

I think there's, I mean, to me I would see value in a planning committee meeting to discuss the options, to discuss perspectives and preferences. I mean, we might as well, instead of all of us calling,

Sounds good to me.

Jerry, which we could do, but I'm sure Carla will have similar, excuse me, Council Member Murray will have similar questions, so we can shoot for a planning committee meeting for this one as well.

Okay, any other discussion? Well, thank you. Thank you. You're welcome, Deputy Hyman.

Is there a specific, just because he's in the first ward, that's why he wants those lots? Or is he open to looking at other R1 single lots? We can talk about it in the planning. I know you're not in his mind. No, that's okay.

I'm sure he would be interested. He brought up to me the projects that he had done on Mary Street on the south side, close to Vesta Labs, so the lower portion. So... why those lots i don't know they've um i think the city acquired them almost 10 years ago now so they've um they've been been sitting there and it would be good to have something and housing on them certainly so thank you thank you thank you

Employees Chair Committee Murray is absent tonight, so I will lead the discussion on the clerk's salary. Deputy Clerk Costello will present the chair's recommendation for the 2027 clerk and deputy clerk salary.

Thank you, everybody. I am a notorious multitasker, which is why I'm here to talk about my salary. Thank you so much, Councilmember Middleton. Pursuant to Charter Chapter 124, subsection 40C, the clerk and the deputy clerk must request their salary adjustment at the first work session of July every year. So we are here to present our salary adjustment for 2027. I provided a one-pager to folks regarding our request this year. So the current salaries are $73,000 for the deputy city clerk and $80,000 for the city clerk. The cost of living adjustment is roughly around 5% this year based on inflation, which would bring the clerk up to $84,000. The city clerk and I discussed a couple of changes regarding the deputy city clerk salary, namely the deputy city clerk, so it's kind of strange to speak about myself in the third person, but this role has filled in for a temporary vacancy in the registrar's office as we have been understaffed there since January. I have been solely responsible for filing birth certificates as well as covering when the deputy registrar is unable to be in the office. That's added a significant workload to my schedule in addition to providing support to the senior licensing clerk in the absence of a second senior licensing clerk as we work diligently to fill that position, as I'm sure all of you know. So that requires not only work as the deputy clerk fulfilling legislative obligations, but also providing significant front of office staff support. In addition, you might notice that the compression between the city clerk and deputy city clerk salaries has risen over this year up to 95%. That reflects the relationship that the city clerk and deputy city clerk have in the office as a management team role, and that's a relationship that we find works much more effectively in the clerk's office. We really have developed as a management team that shares responsibility for legislative support and specifically for managing the staff in the office in a way that we find to be much more comprehensive and much more helpful for our staff. When one of us is out of the office, the other has cross trained to the extent that we can cover each other's ability in a way that we find deeply responsive to a variety of needs across the building but also outside of the building. and as well as being responsive to front of office needs. Happy to take questions.

I think not a question, but a comment, and I realize this is primarily the ACOLA adjustment that we're discussing, but I do find the management team approach extremely compelling and responsive is the word that came to mind as you were, I mean, the clerk's office is a public-facing office. And so it's not just a responsiveness to city council members and those demands which are abundant, but it's a responsiveness to residents who are coming in. It's on the only accessible department aside from BPD, but on the first floor and that public facing responsiveness I think has been critical. I have seen the value in, and I'm glad we're putting a kind of a name to that management team approach and I'm thrilled to be considering supporting the comprehensive scope of that work.

thank you i i um echo your sentiments council member rathmel i think that um due to the lack of staff you guys have really picked up on it and still tending to our needs too because i think a lot of the times um people don't really understand what the clerk's office do you guys do you guys are with the public but you also tend to our needs and you also write legislation help with that so I honestly think you know this is a good cost of living it's not asking for you know a significant amount due to that I also hope you do go back to getting the staff that you need so that way it isn't stressful you know as it would be you know especially if you have to take off time because I know a lot of the times if someone is sick or if you know someone is on vacation then basically it's really down to the wire there and I you know I know that is a big inconvenience for you both and Joanna also so I'm hoping that you know we can get the proper staffing that we do need

Yeah, and I will say, thank you very much, Council Member Middleton. I will say the staff has been incredibly responsive. They've risen to the occasion over and over again. They go above and beyond in their duties, but we also find the management team style to be incredibly helpful to retention and better and more consistent staffing over time when we don't have staff members that are cross-trained across all efforts and that goes up to the management level. we're not as best suited to respond to the needs of both the public and the council. So we think in terms of planning for the future, when the clerk and I are no longer the clerk and the deputy clerk, we find that this style of management is actually more sustainable over time and builds a better long-term infrastructure for the office, which has been a goal of ours since we came into this role.

Anybody else? Odessa, do you have something to say? Robert?

Process-wise, though, we're not deciding anything this week. We're just presenting.

It needs to be voted on by the first business meeting of August.

First August business meeting. Okay, thank you.

And I can provide additional data on department head salaries as well as the mayor's salary pool from 2025 and how that raised department head salaries that are not published in the adopted budget. Anybody else?

Okay, well, thank you so much for that. Thank you, everyone. Deputy Clerk Costello and I would entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll motion. Second. Motion and a second. I guess all in favor? Aye. We are all adjourned, thank you.