City Council - workshop

Welcome everybody, this is Binghamton City Council work session and it is Monday, July 27th. It is 6.06 p.m. I'm calling the meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Madam Clerk, can we do a roll call please?

Council Member Murray? Present. Council Member Middleton is absent. Council Member Cavanaugh? Present. Council Member Hotchkiss? Present. Council Member Matavetsky? Present. Council Member Rathmell is absent. Council President Dundon?

Present. Thank you. So our first presenter tonight is Tanya Thompson. She's the Binghamton City School District Superintendent. This is RL26-140. It is in the Committee of Municipal and Public Affairs, and I'll hand it over to the acting chairperson, Council Member Matavetsky.

Hello, welcome. so uh are you the chair councilman oh well i'm the acting chair okay i'm sorry i missed that part um so yeah so uh talk us through any changes from last year this is something that's a reoccurring one the

Over the past few years, we've looked at our support for safety relationship building across the district. And as I've shared with council in recent years, we do survey students and families and get input from faculty as well. And this past year I wanted to go a little deeper in kind of formulating a report, not just on hearing from people, that's very important, but also looking at impact in terms of, you know, connecting it to outcomes and the work that we ask of our memorandum of understanding. So we again got really similar support across the district. We had a new school resource officer start at the high school mid-year with a change and Jake moving into another position and happy to have that addition who came with us with experience as an SRO, I believe from Middletown. So that was really helpful. It transitioned really, really super well. And of course our officers at our East Middle School and West Middle School remain consistent. Really appreciate having a voice in that selection because it's important for us that anyone coming into our buildings are representative of our students and they can see themselves in them. So we do have individuals who have varied background. both in ethnicity and in gender, so that's been very helpful. In the report that I submitted to the mayor and to council, and I was shared with council, there were a couple of recommendations for the officers, and then I'm going to go into changes for next year, and one of them is making sure that our officers, and this is partly our responsibility, but I would also lean into the police department for whatever they're offering their officers, maybe in onboarding, but is it a regular offering around restorative practices and trauma-informed care? That's important. We do that training annually, but it's upon us, not just when they start, but to continue that training, making sure every three years. So that's a recommendation. I'm going to work with our professional developers to ensure that they can be released internally and participate in. We were collecting data this year, and that was new. So I asked for reports that were being sent to Lieutenant Flanders. to contain some specific information, like how many contacts were you having during the day, and were they complaints, and try to categorize them. I'd like to kind of firm up the complaints, because they came in and was just a number of complaints at each level. What does that really mean? Were they complaints in terms of concerns for their own safety, from students, from faculty? Were there complaints that they were addressed from administration? There may have been a community member that was wandering on the property and rather than calling the police to come, having an officer address them for trespassing and being able to handle it that way. So I'm asking that that information be shared in the future with a little more granular so that we can really understand the information. And then I think probably most importantly for myself as superintendent is that part of the relationship building is also communicating on a regular basis. So this year, through a lot of the work of Deputy Mayor, And our team, we were able to work with the traffic bureau to get a permanent crosswalk just outside of Binghamton High School, which is fantastic. But we also recognize that many students aren't taught how to use a crosswalk. I know you may have witnessed this as you walk through the city, right? And jaywalking to how to use bikes and so on. So we had our officer at the time go through our physical education classes and talk about the importance of using the crosswalk properly and looking at traffic and so on. So those types of opportunities are incredible. And so thinking through administration and faculty and students, what would you like to learn more about? that has to do with public safety and school safety. So I'm hoping that the report next year comes back with more of those types of presentations, not just at the middle school and high school level, but also in addition to at the elementary. And then just kind of encouraging more community engagement. There was a time when our school resource officers would be at a hockey game and I would be at a hockey game and I would see them and our students would see them and like, oh, you know, running up. And so just trying to encourage them to be part of just community activities as well as our school run activities. They are offered the first opportunity to work maybe a football game or be at a basketball game or at a concert. So to see them as members of our community, not just our school community, is something that we would encourage. And so, for the past few years, talking informally to our elementary administrators, the conversation started there, they asked, you know, other elementary schools in the county, as a matter of fact, pretty much all of them, have dedicated school resource officers, why don't we? And so, well, primary purpose is we're 10 square miles, right? These other school districts in our area are 120 square miles. The time to get to a school in the event that's needed would be significant, and we have great response time from our police officers. But more importantly, equally important, is our students looking and seeing, as they do in the middle school and high school, our police officers, our school resource officers as part of our community, and developing the relationships young. We also have had an increased need in asking a middle school or high school SRO to start their day off at an elementary school. primarily for safety concerns surrounding disputes between family members, threats to faculty, threats to the school, conflict is occurring, and language is used that has not resulted in anything significant, but you just don't know, and so faculty and administrators, could we have the SRO start the day off to help support in the event that a conflict does occur? And sometimes they've also been called to help deescalate situations, which has been fantastic. It's not sirens coming to the school, it's an officer arriving. And to have somebody who begins to understand our elementary schools, how they function, I had originally approached previous administration of the police department to consider a program where parole officers could stop in on a regular basis, like a parole officer would kind of adopt a building and stop in on a Tuesday and then maybe on a Thursday, and that was not met with a lot of enthusiasm. So then I shifted to this model. discussed it with the board of education and said I don't believe I would not be advocating for one dedicated person to each elementary school at this time because I don't feel that that is necessary to invest that type of money. However, to have one that could be in a unpredictable way, the officer would know, and the administration would know, but kind of an unpredictable way, rotate across the buildings, could create a safe environment, a safer environment for the community surrounding the school as well as helping our school safety officers who are our greeters in our buildings learn and understand what it means to be watching cameras and walking the grounds and looking at the playground. We like to have as many playgrounds open to the community, but sometimes there are things left behind that our custodians may find or throughout the day can make sure that's a safe space. So that's the new piece for next year, and in addition to just the report format, and so I'd love to hear questions or any thoughts on the format of the report, other things you'd like to see. It has been through our Board of Education.

Great, thank you. Was there anything that came up of interest when the Board of Education was discussing or?

The idea of not saying every Monday the SRO will be at Thomas Jefferson every two, and not having that actually came through the discussion because the idea was, first of all, there may be a building more need due to some kind of community concern or supporting a family, supporting a particular teacher. But also, if it was predictable, then a community member would get to say, oh, they're at Monday, so maybe I'll go to another building, you know, if they're on a certain building. It's not to be predicted because they aren't there every single day. So that was part of the board's input on that. It did go in the budget newsletter, so people in the community knew they were voting on the money to be dedicated to the additional SROs.

So with adding a fourth SRO, is that to have two full-time then at the high school, is that the idea for that, and then one at each of the middle schools?

Yes, one full-time at the high school, one at each middle school, and then one dedicated to elementary, yeah. Gotcha, okay. So the secondary configuration wouldn't, you know, would not change at all.

Okay. Does anyone else have any other questions?

Is the fourth officer funded the same way as the other three?

The report? Yes.

No, no, no, the officer. The position is funding, is being funded by the district.

By the district, yes, yes.

We pick up the fringe, I think. Is that how that, if I recall it correctly?

The benefits, I believe, yes.

We've looked for grants, but there has to be a new hire. You can't, the ones we've looked at, the STOP grant, I think it was, that you, oh, let's go for this, and we can have some grant funding to support and scaffold in the district support. but it would literally have to be a brand new, first of all, we'd have to get the grant, and that would take time, but it would have to be a brand new hire, so in other words, you couldn't put it out to the current union, who has processes and procedures for people going for training and putting in bids, if you will, I don't know exactly how it works, for positions, we'd have to usurp that, which is not what most unions could do.

So you'll notice there's no transfer request or anything at this point. The budget addition would be reflected in the 2027 budget. Since we wouldn't have an ability to backfill the patrol position because of the timing of the academy, we will just wait to do that in 2027, but be prepared to assign an SRO once council approves to the elementary schools.

So I do have a quick question. Thank you for that information, Dr. Thompson. I know you mentioned that your request is for the complaints handled section to be to include a little bit more detail in the future. And I'm curious or I'm wondering if that could also include more specifics in terms of complaints that are handled that has like additional like legal implications. Right. And and I don't know to what extent we could be provided information to let us know if as a result of a particular complaint, a student is, you know, dealing with or being impacted by, you know, ongoing I don't know, legal um issues um as a result or a family member right i'm just curious to know um what that looks like and and what happens after those interactions right we know that you know it's a partnership between the school and the city and so you know a police officer addressing a concern is one thing but i'd like us to kind of follow it through to better understand what that looks like on the city side as well

Sure, absolutely. I need to go a little deep, like I said, a little deeper. I listed them in the notes, the buckets, if you will. Harassment, welfare checks, sexual incidents, domestic violence. And many of these are referrals, but we get the officers there to support that referral or that connection to the, along with a, depending again on what it is, a social worker and so on. Yeah, and then the non-students, we were able to, you can see at 14, we're in that category, 108, we're in assisting with fire alarms, public lewdness, parking, public disturbances, disputes, the vast majority are things that are happening around the campus, because we're right down Main Street. Thank you. Like if there was public lewdness resulted in an arrest or a call for a car to come for arrest, those kinds of things, I can see what else I can find out.

Does anyone else have any other questions?

Well, I mean, I feel like I wanna say thank you that you're following up on some of the things that council had concerns about the data and getting more info and I appreciate that you're prepared to speak on that. You're very welcome, my pleasure.

I guess I've been combing through this, and one of your findings is that some of the survey data suggests that younger students report higher levels of comfort with SROs than secondary students, particularly at the high school level, and I think that's been consistent since 2023. Do you have any explanation or just what the report indicates that it just needs to be explored further?

So if I understand the question correctly, the comfort level of the students, how it shifted?

So the younger students at the middle school level have a... The SRO program scores higher at the middle school level versus the high school in terms of thinking that students the students perception of resource officers whether they think it's they keep kids safe or that the the officer is Working to build positive relationships with those in the school and I guess Is there any further explanation on your end for that?

Yeah, I do. Because I ask that question too whenever I see shifts in data. So I think it has, what I understand and I kind of observe, at our middle schools, the physical size of the building, the S rows movement throughout the building, you're greeting kids. being available, being accessible is more significant than at the high school. The high school, they're pretty much on the first floor looking at the doors, the safety of the doors, not being on the fourth floor unless they're going up to speak or if there's a concern that they need to be addressing. where and how they interact is different at the high school in terms of frequency. So if I see somebody every single day, I'm gonna, hey, good morning, good morning. If I don't see them after I get into the building, it's probably not a resource I'm gonna necessarily develop a relationship with. Secondly, last year, Cesaro at the high school was out. They were attending training for in and out throughout the year, so I think that happens. There was one year where the support for the officer at West dropped, and I was like, it's the same person. What happened? Oh, they had a baby. and they were out. And so we may or may not be able to get secure a replacement. We have to work with the police department to see if they do. And so you stop seeing someone and then they come back. So I think that's what it has to do, not the personality of the individual or there were incidents where they weren't feeling like, because I've witnessed That same level of engagement, when they're engaging with the student, I think it was just the times when we have somebody in and out of a building, we see that dip because they're just like, I don't know. Especially because your sixth grade who's coming in didn't know them for the two years, your seventh or eighth grade, there's no.

Thank you for that explanation.

Yeah, and that's something that we will share with the current officers, to say, here are the questions that are asked explicitly, and so what does that mean to you? What if your score was really super low? Why would you think that, and how could we improve it? Because it's perception, in reality, if you're helping in the moment.

Anyone else? Well, I know all four of my kids that graduated Binghamton always had great relationships with their SROs, so it's a program that I definitely support. Hearing no other questions, thank you so much, ladies.

Okay, thank you so much, appreciate it.

So we're moving on to RL26-41. This is in the Committee of Public Works and Parts. I'll hand it over to Councilman Hotchkiss, and our next presenter is Thomas Brown, who's the Acting Water and Sewer Superintendent.

This is RL26-141, a resolution authorizing extension of agreement with Ramble America's Engineering to finish the design for standby generator for the water sewer complex. How are you doing?

Good evening. so you want to take us through this please so uh as sitting next to me kurt he's the new superintendent everybody knows i put this in prior to him getting the position uh in 2022 we had uh ram ball doing a uh design plan for standby generator and water pumps and motors. They got 90% through. Funding was pulled. Rumors were, I'm not gonna say, but so the work stopped. They got to about 90% complete on the design. So then last year I had it put back into this year's budget for the finish of the design and get the project done.

Okay, so this is going to be the final allocation that's necessary to get the design stuff done? Yes. And I know we did the capital allocation for the generator.

Yes, which this is being paid out of.

Okay. So there's no generator there right now, waiting to get hooked up? Nope.

We just have a generator. Yeah, I do have a generator. The new one, right. The new one is to supply the whole complex with power. and then the existing one will be a backup.

Now I know there's been a lot of electrical upgrades to the plant over the years. Do you guys have the transmission lines coming in from NYSEG that are gonna be capable of the kilowatts and stuff? Yes. I know sometimes NYSEG moves at their own pace, I guess is the nicest way to put it.

Yeah, they actually, we get it from Montgomery Street substation where they've upgraded their three-phase capabilities for us. So the other way, not so good. We have two separate service lines coming in.

Yeah.

So why did the work stop on this in 2022? Funding. Just funding? And it hasn't been a priority since then to finish this work?

I don't want to say that. I think it was just left out.

Let me ask the question in a different way maybe. So there was an incident in 2022 that took the plan offline. Yes. That the current generator couldn't handle. Were there other interim steps that have been taken to

Kind of in a stopgap fashion improve redundancy or well we found out that we can get standby generators from the through a authority in pretty quick time to Be able to hook up for the extra Well, it's gonna take work in order to get electrician there to change the wiring and then we're gonna have to change it all back So we really don't have anything in place if something were to happen tomorrow and So we've just been lucky for the last four years? No. No. The only thing we've done is the outside one for the . So we've updated drives and motors and all that, but nothing on the generator end of it. The transfer switches that we had downstairs, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. They're not worth repairing. So this whole new system's gonna eliminate all that with one switch.

And maybe this is a question for the engineering folks. The plan system, does it have some future proofing to it? Do we have extra capacity in the system for Any future, I'd say PFAS filtration systems that get added to the plant?

Well, we don't have any issues with PFAS at the plant. We do at the well, and we have grant money already from settlements to pay for that.

Well, at least.

To be clear, the money has not actually been set aside or protected in any way for handling that, and it is not enough money to actually handle the problem, but.

Well, what I got from an engineering company is $1.5 million for the Olmsted Well for PFAS treatment. That's all I can tell you.

I wish. Okay.

So who do we talk to to get more detail on the quotes for the fix?

For the generator?

No, for the PFAS.

Well, I spoke with Brown and Caldwell, but we're not under any agreement with them for that that I'm aware of.

Thank you.

Does anybody else have any more questions on the generator?

When is the design and design work anticipated to be? Oh, here it is. Never mind. It's on the last page.

There's a timeline in there.

They got everything broke down pretty good. I mean, to me, it's a standard contract with an engineering firm to come in and get everything designed they're going to do all the public notice uh lowest bidder go through the awards and everything so and include an inspector i don't have any real questions like other than i was worried about the nice like transmission lines so nobody else does i'll say thank you so much gentlemen well tom don't go i guess you two aren't going too far never mind So we'll move on to RL 26-145. This is in the Committee of Finance. I'll hand it to the Chair, Council Member Cavanaugh, and the same two speakers will continue speaking. Okay.

So we have RL 26-165, right? No, 45, sorry. RL 26 145, an ordinance made in 2026 sewer budget to eliminate the sewer bureau chief and add a sanitary sewer supervisor. So we have a little bit of reorg going on here. What's fill us in on the what's happening?

yeah so the bottom line is I have moved from the wastewater department up into water sewer superintendent my assistant supervisor will be probably more than likely taking over as head of the sewer department his qualifications aren't exactly meeting the wastewater bureau chief position but he does meet the supervisor position which is the same thing I did when I took over So in time he will be able to move up to bureau chief Just not right now. So we're just looking to defund the bureau chief position and fund the supervisor position so he can Right, so we're not eliminating the position altogether.

We're we're defunding one and refunding the other. Okay, so Which we've done, I think, with trainee stuff before. Yes.

We've done it with this position as well back in 2013, I think.

Okay. And it's slightly less salary. Okay. I don't have any other questions. That's pretty clear. Anyone? All right. Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you.

I did notice it says an asterisk next to it.

Yes, it does. All right. I will motion to expedite. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on expediting? Hearing none, let's vote on the expedition, please.

Council Member Rathmel is absent. Council Member Matavetsky? Aye. Council Member Hotchkiss? Aye. Council Member Cavanaugh? Aye. Council Member Middleton is absent. Council Member Murray? Aye. Council President Dundon? Aye. Thank you. That is 5-0.

Thank you so much, gentlemen. Moving on to RL26-142, our presenter tonight is Franco. Franco, I'm not gonna try your last name. He's our Assistant City Engineer. This is in the Committee of Public Works, and I'll hand it over to Council Member Hotchkiss.

Looking at RL26-142, an ordinance authorizing an agreement with LaBella for South Washington Street pedestrian ridge load rating. What can you tell us? I think you got to turn your mic on.

Here we go. The South Washington Street Bridge hasn't been inspected in over 11 years. It's not part of the New York State inspection routes because it's only a pedestrian bridge, so that's why we haven't had it inspected. so therefore um based on the uh event that's happened in september with the blues on the bridge we would like to get it inspected and to see what the load rating is on that on that pedestrian bridge i know uh public works has used equipment on that bridge in the past if needed So we solicited four companies. Two would not be able to do it. One was going to do it at the end of the year. And the only one that was able to do it right now was a firm that's selected there on the RL.

So what's best practices for inspection for a pedestrian bridge?

So I would probably say at least every five years. I believe for the New York State DOT bridges themselves, they're right on at three to five year. All depends what they find in those. And if they find something more serious, they'll increase that inspection.

Yeah, from looking through this, it states that it looks like they'll be using a drone-mounted camera to confirm the current condition of the floor system, which hasn't been replaced since 1997. And then if the drone identifies any deficiencies, deterioration, or significant section loss, then it would probably be a hands-on, I'm guessing, getting up underneath there with a work platform and stuff like that. I know CP Ward does a lot of them with us laborers going around doing bridges for DOT Region 9.

i'm just curious what the barrier was if the best practice is typically every five years is there a explanation or a reason why this went on for so long um it's a pedestrian bridge sometimes they just get overlooked you know you go over in cars all the times and you can see it but if you don't actually go over the bridge a lot of times

we don't get the calls or we don't get you know there's either something loose or something doesn't look right but yes this should be on an inspection frequency so it will be moving forward yes okay thank you

Yeah, so Council Member Murray, because it's a pedestrian bridge, it doesn't fall under the DOT inspections, because traffic doesn't go on it, so it's one of them things the city's gotta kinda implement to keep an eye on it on its own.

just to make sure I have the right understanding you said that there's an event coming up pretty soon that we want to ensure that the bridge has the to be able to manage that blues on the bridge concert on the two bridges and this will happen prior to that event to ensure that we're in good standing for that okay

All right. Do we have a sense of if we're paying, like you mentioned, there are other companies, but they weren't available to do it in our timeline. Do we have a sense if we're paying a premium to do it in this kind of more expedited manner than if we weren't working to a particular event timeline? I can't answer that right now.

I wish I could, but yes, since it's the only one that ended up giving us a scope and fee, I'm gonna have to go with, I'm gonna say it's probably the going rate.

Yeah, seeing the total cost being 31,000, that seems about right from what I've ever seen for bridge inspections, at least starting off with the drone as you gotta get up there if you find anything, obviously the cost will go up.

Is there, in terms of how you keep track of these things, some sort of annual or quarterly report that the engineering department generates on what's been inspected or what's scheduled that could be shared with council so that we're aware of what's?

Answering other council's concerns, yes, we do want to put that on every five year. All depends what this report comes, it could actually be even,

I'm saying internally in your office, do you have something where there's a clear, these are the ones that are coming up, and something that council can see, and so we know, oh, okay, hey, it's been X number of years since this was reviewed. yeah a running to-do list yes with dates assigned that I don't know it's revisited quarterly and some sort of engineering department meetup where you look and you say where are we at on all these things did anything get missing so the Department of Transportation provides that for us it all depends there anything that they find if it's more if it's more critical

it'll get inspected more frequently, but if you want any of those, and we could also end up making those available.

Okay, thank you.

So, Franco, this is coming out of your engineering design projects line. Is there anything that's getting put off or shunted because of this emergent need?

I am not aware of that right now at all. I mean, internally, it did not come up at all. Something else would get.

Okay.

If we did this something else is gonna get caught it did not come up.

Okay Anyone else have any other questions Make a motion to expedite second. So we have a motion and a second to expedite any discussion on the expedition.

I

So we already stated that there's blues on the bridges coming up rapidly, and this needs to get done before then for public safety.

Yeah.

So can we do a vote for the expedition, please, Madam Clerk?

Councilmember Rathmel and Sapson. Councilmember Medevetsky. Aye. Councilmember Hotchkiss. Aye. Councilmember Cavanaugh. Aye. Councilmember Middleton and Sapson. Councilmember Murray. Aye. Council President Dunn.

Aye.

Thank you. That's 5-0.

Thank you so much, Franco. Thank you. Have a good evening. So next is RL26-143. That is in the Finance Committee. I'll hand it over to Council or the Chair, Councilmember Cavanaugh. And our presenter tonight is Josh Pelluti, the DPW Commissioner.

Okay, we have RL26143, Norton instrument, the 2026 DPW fund budget for over budget items. And I just have a transfer sheet here, so what's up?

Good evening, everybody. Doing some budget transfers within City Hall, central garage, and construction materials. Here at City Hall, we've had some problems the last few months. We've had generator issue that I've had to get straightened out. We've had some pipes burst. We've had chillers go down. We've had air conditioning go down. A whole lot of stuff that needed corrected and cleaned up. So I'm looking to refund a little bit so I can finish paying some of these bills and get us through the rest of the year. At Central Garage, the fire panel is malfunctioning. and I'm actually paying more out to have it maintained than it's going to be to replace it. What's happening is it's calling the fire department for no reason. They're having to come out, and it's typically when I don't have anyone in the building. They're having to go through the whole building, check it when nothing is really wrong. That panel has been phased out, and to get parts for it, we are to the point where we are looking at eBay. It's just, it needs replaced. It's a whole safety issue. It's just a waste of resources if we don't. And as far as construction materials go, we just need more in the line so we can continue doing patchwork. Potholes are still out there. As much as the guys try and keep up with them, they keep popping up. We've had more sinkholes than usual this year, as Councilman Metavesky is well aware. We're trying to keep up with those digouts and keep going.

So with that malfunctioning electrical panel, is this just to get you whole to do something and change that out next year? Is that gonna be the plan with that or?

I'm gonna change it out as soon as possible. Okay. We're just getting too many false readings and the fire department's got enough going on, they don't need to come check our building.

This is the alarm panel, is what you're saying? The fire alarm panel?

Yes.

Does anyone else have any other questions?

Yes, Chuck. You're trying to rate our contingency line again.

yes there's not much else to take from at this point in the year I just wanted to tell you that Josh came to me earlier we put some numbers in the wrong spot the on the RL sheet the 30,000 goes into the a 1640 line and then the 15,000 goes into the a 1620 line from the items that he just described I have something right here that the correction I can give to you

I mean I guess I might like to chat a little bit more about some of the City Hall issues in particular sure infrastructure wise but well we know about the frozen pipe one that took out the If that's the one we're talking about.

Well, there's more than one. Well, we know at least about the one that impacted all the female officers and made it so they couldn't shower.

Yes. This also replaces the ceiling on the fourth floor where we had the other leak where the ceiling is still open.

Okay. All right. So anyway, again, I might want to have some follow-ups there, but nothing that That would mean I don't want to expedite this. Okay, any other questions at the moment?

Yeah, it's been a trying year with asphalt prices.

Yeah. I had a pothole on Clifton today that nearly took my tire out. What's the address? I'll go back and check it the next time, so I'll get you a photo.

On motion to expedite.

Second.

We have a motion and a second for expedition. Any discussion on it? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, can we do a roll call for the expedition, please?

Council Member Rathmell is absent. Council Member Manabetski? Aye. Council Member Hotchkiss?

Aye.

Council Member Cavanaugh?

Aye.

Council Member Middleton is absent. Council Member Murray? Aye. Council President Dutton?

Aye.

Thank goodness, 5-0.

Thank you so much, Josh. Thank you, have a nice night. So next is RL26-144 that is also in the Finance Committee. I'll hand it over to Council Member Cavanaugh, and our presenter is Charles Robinson, the Comptroller.

All right, so you have RL26144, an ordinance to amend the capital fund budget to increase the fiscal agent fees to account for increased costs of bond council. That's sort of self-explanatory. Is there anything that you'd like to fill that in? I mean, we did some extra bonding this year.

Yeah, that's a very minor part of it. They didn't charge us a lot for that. The rest of it is just I did not do enough inter-fund transfers. That's usually where it comes from, from each of the funds between water, sewer, ramps, and general fund. I JUST MISCALCULATED THE NUMBER I NEEDED TO TRANSFER FOR ABOUT $30,000.

SO WE'RE MOVING FROM STUFF FROM, WE'RE MOVING BETWEEN THE H AND THE A FUND, BEN?

YES, BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE ALL THE BONDING, THE PHYSICAL AGENT FEES AND THE BONDING FEES ALL COME OUT OF THE CAPITAL FUND, AND THEN EVERYTHING ELSE COMES OUT OF MY GENERAL FUND BUDGET, THE AUDITING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES LINE. because the band sits in the capital fund for, and the serial bonds sit in there too. To be honest, I did an estimate based on the last time we did a bond, and I increased it a little bit, but obviously, I think lawyer fees went up a little bit more than I thought they did. And also I do call on them a little bit more than I have been in the past, probably than my predecessor did. I don't know if they're charging that time or not. I do ask a lot of questions of physical advisors and bond counsel.

Okay. I mean, they... There could be a discussion about doing a little, I mean, Fiscal Advisors is like one of the biggest games in town as far as like I. They are. Yeah. It's interesting, there's not a lot of comparison shopping to do as far as.

No, and honestly, I don't know if there is another game that's near here, because they're pretty widespread on this side of New York.

Yeah. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Chuck. Okay, have a good evening.

You too. Yeah, you too, Chuck, thank you so much. Next is RL26-146, also in the Finance Committee, so I'll give it back to Council Member Cavanaugh, and Robert Heary, Corporation Counsel, is our presenter.

All right, this is RL26-146, a resolution authorizing BLDC to enter into a lease with Curious Kids.

Take it away.

Take it away. So if you'll recall, the city and the BLDC entered into a management agreement whereby the BLDC manages the Binghamton Plaza property. As part of the agreement, the BLDC can't enter into a lease without city council approval. So the purpose of this would basically be to get an extended lease in place with Curious Kids for a year so that we can kind of arrange or figure out what to do with that piece of the parcel that's there the city is not interested in really owning that parcel long term and so trying to find some sort of arrangement where ideally the the daycare is able to stay there and either as the owner or under some sort of new property owner is kind of where we're trying to push this towards. But we're looking for some time to do it, and it kind of got pushed off. We were dealing with getting some of the work done with the main section of the plaza, which is what we're gonna actually demo, since this is an outbuilding.

I wanted to make sure that I noted and thanked Director Glose who did reach out because this was expedited as soon as, you know, well before this meeting to get us some intermediary, intermediate information. So I appreciate that.

And this would be on the existing terms that they have.

So just legally speaking, the proper entity for them to make a lease with is the BLDC and not the actual property owner is the city. And then the rent I'm assuming is going to go to BLDC for their ongoing expenses at the Binghamton Plaza under the management agreement.

Correct. So I mean, we kind of went back and forth on structuring it, you know, obviously, as the managing entity for the property, they can be authorized center into a lease. And that's the setup here. And then yes, the the funds would go to the BLDC to offset the expenses of continuing to maintain the plaza, and mostly with that particular outbuilding.

You wouldn't happen to know off the top of your head how many families actually utilize that daycare, would you?

I do not. Again, ideally, we'd like them to stay there.

When I toured, there was just like a lot.

I don't have a number, but I know it's a lot.

And it would be a major impact to the people that utilize those resources, and there's also a lot of people that work there. So I am in favor of giving them as much time as we can with this lease. If they want to stay there, that's all.

Okay, I'll motion expedite.

Second.

Motion and a second, any discussion on the expedition?

The sheet says effective date of lease is August 1st, 2026.

We gotta wait a second.

Oh, okay.

Councilmember Rathmell is absent. Councilmember Matavetsky? Aye. Councilmember Hotchkiss? Aye. Councilmember Cavanaugh? Aye. Councilmember Middleton is absent. Councilmember Murray is absent. Council President Dundon?

Aye.

Thank you. That is 4-1 with Councilmember Murray absent.

We are moving on to RL 26-147. This is in the planning committee. I will hand it over to Councilmember Hotchkiss and Robert Herri, Corporation Council, is our presenter.

RL 26-147 a local law increasing New York State real property tax law section 467 low income senior property exemption maximum income ceiling Tell us everything

So I think the executive summary probably sums it up pretty well in terms of currently Broome County's maximum ceiling is set at $32,500. Ours is currently set at $31,500. Broome County increased their cap. So this is just to increase our cap to match the county's. um otherwise we have a weird gap where people qualify for the credit off their county taxes but not city taxes it affects about 30 people in the city so that's about it is just to match it up so that we're the same as broome county so can you describe um just more context around the

this tax or yeah because I okay I understand we're modifying it but what is the intent of it initially

So we already have the exemption in place. So the exemption is for people over 65. If they fall into a certain income range, then the exemption applies. And there's a sliding scale for the percentage exemption that they're entitled to, again, based off of how much income that they make. Basically, if you're lower income, then your real estate taxes will be lower because you'll get a larger percentage exemption off of it. um so we already have all this in place it's just that our scale caps out at 31 500 versus what it's at for the county which is that 33 500. um it periodically gets increased because of inflation

How do you know that there's approximately 30 people that will be impacted?

So the city assessor was the one that initially put this together because she got notified by the county. So she's able to look through the assessment rolls and figure out basically how many people are affected. I'm assuming she crossed it against the county's list.

Okay. And does that, I don't think it's like a huge deal, but it does it, how much does it affect property tax revenue? Where's that? Is that not really a,

It would be negligible because, again, you don't have that many people. And at the bracket where this is getting adjusted, it's like a 10% to 15% exemption. So again, unless someone has a very high assessed house, you're just not going to have like a huge amount versus other types of exemptions that come into play or like other tax breaks that are available. It's probably, I mean, I don't want to guess in terms of what the amount is, but it's got to be like, Maybe low tens of thousands, if that. Maybe 10,000.

Okay.

I'm not too worried.

But that's all I have. Any other questions?

This is local law process, right? So it's got to marinate in public hearing, right?

Yes, and it won't go into effect until 2027, so it will be effective as of March of 2027 for the next year's tax.

Thank you.

All right, next is RL26-148. That is in the Committee of Rules. Okay, so this is in the Committee of Rules and Procedures. I'll hand it over to the Chair, Council Member Matavetsky, and Samantha Costello, the Deputy Clerk, is our presenter.

Great, talk us through it, Deputy.

Hi, good evening everyone, thanks for having me. So this is RL26-148, a local law authorizing the city council to use extraordinary circumstances video conference voting. This local law would amend the code of the city of Binghamton to allow city council members to participate in meetings and cast votes remotely by video conference. This process has already been established under New York State open meetings law. It's been adopted by several municipalities including Albany and most recently Troy. It's a pretty simple change to the open meetings law but it does have to be opted into by the municipality so that's why I presented this to you in this RL. Specifically, this is to accommodate extenuating circumstances like an emergency, an illness, something that would prevent a member from being able to appear in person. And so the details of how this works are outlined in the supporting material, but if you have any questions, happy to answer them.

I guess I'm curious how you were alerted to it, whether it was through your clerk's network or other city council members.

The clerk bat signal. No, so it has come up a number of times that even though we had quorum, we did not have the ability to allow members to conference into a meeting, specifically members that wanted to vote on a particular issue, we're not able to vote. And due to an emergent circumstance, it felt like that didn't really square with the spirit of the law of members being able to attend, especially in the post COVID world where we know we have the ability to do that. And so in starting to research what the options were, we spoke with corporation council and found that other municipalities had already opted into this and that the state had made it available. I will introduce a couple of important caveats, which are to say that we still have to have a physical quorum of council members present in order for this to take effect. So it can't be the case that we have one council member here in person and everybody bops in from a remote location. The definition of an emergency or an extenuating circumstance is sort of outlined broadly in the sample legislation, but we could establish an internal policy by which the council president, for example, would be able to determine if the extenuating circumstance met the qualification under our local law. And another important caveat here is that the public must be able to participate in the public meeting as well.

Do you have any concept of how that would look in this space physically?

Yeah, so we had a really successful public meeting last week regarding the flock legislation wherein we were able to zoom in some outside presenters. People were still able to watch the recording and the live stream of the meeting. We had back and forth participation between members on the floor and folks that were joining remotely. I do think it would require obviously some coordination with the IT team, but I think based on the success also during Binghamton's own COVID time, I think the technology is very accessible, it doesn't cost us any additional funding, and I think it really creates an avenue of accessibility for public meetings that I think we should be exploring more broadly.

And we've already spoken with the IT department about how to turn that model of a meeting into a more permanent fixture as an option, because it is not only important for potentially remote voting, but there is a potential for increased remote speaker participation that we might wanna plan for.

You mean like not paying for engineers to travel in from far away cities to come present for work session?

For instance, yeah, and I think especially particularly relevant with a council that does have outside employment, often has family members that they need to be taking care of. It's really just preparing for an eventuality that we know is going to come.

I can speak for myself on this, but I know going through my recent health issues it would have been wonderful to be able to chime in and vote when I was laying in a hospital bed healing after my spleen removal. So I'm thrilled for this and I'm looking forward to moving this ahead.

Yeah, I mean, I love the overall concept and I would be interested in having further conversations about what an internal policy side might be, but the concept and the idea to opt in

is wonderful in addition to this other municipalities state legislature uses this too this sorry the state legislature also follows this ball yeah um and i would also just caveat so one there does need to be a public hearing about this so there's also an opportunity for the public to weigh in about their view of your responsibility as council members and how you show up to meetings um but i would also just caveat to say to your point council member matavetsky The legislation is adopted from the sample resolution and my recommendation as the deputy clerk would be to adopt that legislation as written and recommended by the state. But there is a lot of flexibility in the internal policy. So I would just caution that I think this is a great example of what Corporation Council has told me before can be worked out through internal policy making rather than over legislating.

And considering that extended timeframe that you pointed to with the local law and the hearing, I think we would have time to have those conversations while that was going on.

And we might get some ideas on that during the public hearing.

Does anyone else have any other questions on this subject? Hearing none, we'll move on to RL 26-149. This is in the Committee of Municipal and Public Affairs. I'll hand it over to the Chair, Council Member Matavetsky, and Samantha Costello, our Deputy Clerk, is still our presenter.

This one made me smile, so I'm gonna let you present it. Thank you. Can't wait to be a council to reduce laws on the books.

Yeah, so I am starting a new initiative called Samantha Activities, which is me bringing down little bits and pieces of the charter that are so obviously outdated and hold no resonance or relevance to our current way of life in the city of Binghamton today, because I think that it calls attention to a broader need for an examination of the charter writ large. There are so many pieces of our charter that unfortunately are very outdated and no longer hold relevance to the way that we conduct activities and business in the city of Binghamton. So I am starting with a bang. RL 26-149 is an ordinance repealing chapter 363, Sunday activities. In your packet, you will see a description of chapter 363 lifted directly from the charter, which notes that the exhibition of motion pictures on Sunday after 2 p.m. is prohibited, as well as baseball games at which no admission shall be charged are permitted to be played at Recreation Park and at the baseball ground on Front Street only after 2 p.m.

Happy to take questions.

I love this so much, thank you.

So was this flagged by general code as part of the work that's going on there? If not, how is that work going and how does this initiative align with that initiative?

So general code is actually just checking our existing legislation for discrepancies with local state and federal law. So it's sort of comparing things like what is here is not necessarily in conflict. And if we wanted to enforce it, I would be happy for corporation council to jump in on its enforceability and the feasibility of that. I don't know that it is in conflict with other laws that we have on the books, but I would say that at least in phase one of General Code's project, they are mainly focusing on trying to find those sorts of discrepancies between our municipal, local laws, and state and federal laws, and or some kind of contradictions that might exist between laws that we have there on the books. which is not to say that this might not potentially be flagged. This particular chapter stems from what I believe are called blue book laws, which was an archaic way of ensuring that folks were resting on the Sabbath. I'm sure that General Code would have a position on these types of laws, but they have not flagged this one in particular. That project is going swimmingly, but I'm happy to provide additional updates in another conversation.

I think General Code would have flagged if there was a direct contradiction within, and we have received a lead analysis. I'm happy to talk more through that. If there was an internal contradiction, but I don't know that they're there to flag extraneous laws at this point.

Are you accepting recommendations for different chapters that should be modified or repealed? Yes, happily.

I have a huge whiteboard in the clerk's office and if you'd like to write things down, please feel free. I have some thoughts about things you can and can't do in cemeteries on my mind up next. So stay tuned. Every Monday. Every other Monday. I'll be here.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Nobody has anything else? I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion. Second.

Motion, second. All in favor of adjournment? Aye. Meeting adjourned.

I did. Yeah.