City Council - workshop

This is a City Council work session meeting on Monday, August 10th. The time is now 6.04. I now call this meeting to order. Please join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Deputy Clerk will now take the roll. Council Member Murray is absent. Council Member Cavanaugh.

Present.

Council Member Rathmell. Present. Council Member Matavetski is absent. Council Member Hotchkiss. Present. Council President Dundon is absent. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton.

Present. Thank you. Thank you so much. We will now begin the discussion of legislation in the Finance Committee with Chair Cavanaugh. He will now begin with RL 26-151.

Okay, I think we have Doug Jensen from, yep. sewage treatment plant. Good evening. So did our sewage credit study get more expensive than we thought it was going to be? I don't think we have any details on that. And Councilman Dundon is the one that's tasked with meetings, right? Now going to sewage treatment plant meetings. Can you give us some context, please? Sure. Well, I can give you context that speaks to the engineering extra work that's being performed. Okay. Okay.

Now it is. How's that better?

So this would go towards MRB, the engineering company that is providing the flow monitoring and sewer model recalibration. So this would add some work to what they're doing so that we could satisfy the requirements of the consent order information we have to provide. So for the contractor, this would be some project coordination and additional meetings, data review, a CSO activation analysis, which is just overflows, and the supporting documentation review to make sure it conforms to what the DEC is looking for, and then a final report for that as well.

So why did the original contract go over budget?

This was provided to us after, I think we got this in May, actually after we had already put the sewer, yeah, the flow monitoring sewer study out to bid. So this is an additional scope of work that was asked of us by EPA and DEC.

And that's the consent order that you referenced?

That's the consent order, correct, that I'm referencing.

Can you remind me what the original amount was for?

$350,000 was the original study. Okay. And so this is transferring 25,000 from our professional services line to the flow management study line.

And that line for you guys is usually flexible? And this is the type of work that you expect to use it for? Correct.

I don't have any other questions at the moment. Anyone else?

Anybody else? Thank you so much. Thank you.

Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Now we're going to move on to Municipal and Public Affairs. Committee member Arathmo will now introduce RL26-152.

Thank you, Council President Prozant-Middleton. This is RL26-152, a resolution authorizing an animal control agreement with the Broome County Humane Society. And we have our animal control officer, Erin, here to present.

Hi.

Good evening. Do you have any questions? It's the same contract that I emailed out. I believe that we had had it mostly under works in June, beginning of July. It's a more concrete, more detailed agreement than we previously had with the county and outlines the responsibilities of the Humane Society taking over the Broome County Dog Shelter.

Would you mind sharing the highlights just for folks that are paying attention to the conversation?

Yep, so biggest thing is that the Broome County Dog Shelter had previously held on to redemption fees as revenue. The redemption fees as set in the agreement will now get a portion of those back. When dogs are redeemed, the numbers are up for negotiation. It's just currently modeled after what we had with Broome County because they had previously set the redemption fees. There's also now a set price per dog brought in pursuant to Article 7. So all of our stray loose dogs, unlicensed dogs that get seized. will be $250 per dog capped at $60,000. So once we hit that amount, any dog after that is kind of a courtesy of the Broom County Humane Society. And then there's also now an outline for animals seized pursuant to Article 26. So animals that are in rough shape, their owners can no longer care for them, animals who are abandoned in residences, things like that.

I don't have any other questions. Anybody else?

I don't think so. I think we are kind of familiar with this already.

see you got a new uniform I like wearing it since January okay I like it I just haven't been around as much but congratulations well thank you ladies I hope you have a good evening thank you you're welcome Public Works Public Works and Parks Committee chair Hotchkiss will now introduce our RL 26-153

This is RL26-153, a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Delta Engineers for design of Chenango Street reconstruction. And our presenter is our chief engineer, Ron Lake. How are you tonight?

This is for Chenango Street. We went through the... typical request for qualifications. I believe we had four firms and it ended up that the selection committee had selected Delta Engineering for Shenango Street. That's gonna be a complete street redesign with road diet and all the things that we have to do now for our streets. We're asking that you would give the mayor permission to sign. If you'll notice, we have not selected to go with their whole contracts submittal amount. We just want to go through street design at this time. Sometimes we pick a different firm to do the construction monitoring, but I'd just like to leave that open.

Ron, what's the overall timeline for this reconstruction?

for design or construction?

Both, I mean, scope to get the design done and then timeline to actually do the reconstruction.

We're probably looking at 28 or 29 to get it done. And is this gonna be- We may be able to go out to bid the end of 27.

Maybe out to bid the end of 27.

But there's two stretches, whether we decide to do it all at once or make two projects out of it, we'll have to determine.

Possible in one or two phases. So like one phase would be to the Viaduct and the other side would be next? Yes. Yeah.

We may do it as one contract, but wait for design to get almost done to determine that. and are we looking at any grants in particular on this or is it going to be bonding the design probably will be bonded we'll be we will be looking for grants for the construction and there's not much in the way for streets right now Sometimes we can get something out of BMTS and we'll try that. But if you've noticed, Chenango Street is kind of in a real bad condition. So what we're looking for in terms of authorization is for the $548,216 for design.

Don't have any other questions right now anybody else I think I've After the the Main Street like pretty pretty close to being done with construction and people are experiencing that I think that's I've had a lot of conversations with folks about how that looks so I would be if this moves forward I'd be interested in discussing some of the critique of that and how we might be able to design the streetscaping so that we don't invite the same criticism maybe um but that's more than more than willing to have that conversation excellent thank you that's all i have for right now councilman arathmo well thank you so much for your time i hope you have a good evening ron thank you

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Planning Committee Chair Rathmel will now introduce RL 26-156.

Thank you. This is RL 26-156, an ordinance amending Chapter 240, flood damage prevention, and we have Tito Martinez, our Assistant Director of Planning, present it.

So this is a simple text change that would allow the planning director to delegate floodplain administrator duties to someone qualified. So it would just give us more flexibility. We have someone in the department right now that was previously certified, a certified floodplain manager.

Who is that, sorry?

Stephanie Yezzi. Okay. The HUD manager. Okay. She wants to get recertified, I support that.

and this change would allow her to serve that that role for the city I had a quick question you know it says acting director of planning has it been formally a point are you being formally appointed to acting director and if so is that like documented

yeah I believe so yeah yeah I believe the mayor is he has some paperwork he needs to do but okay yeah no I was just wondering because it just it just said acting so I was just wondering it was a change so there is yep since Juliet retired the mayor appointed me acting director okay

I think in terms of process, so on its face it seems clear cut in terms of process, I would be curious relative to like charter chapters and given the transition within transitions that are occurring within the planning department, I would be interested in a kind of a broader committee conversation Again, not so much that these aren't clear on their face, but more just understanding the function of a designee and the legality of those processes and the protocol relative to appointments and their aspects there that I'm not clear on that I don't think we've seen represented or followed. unless anyone's opposed, I'd love to. Committee? To have a committee conversation.

I agree with that.

Okay.

I can just say that the only real official role of the floodplain administrator is to issue floodplain development permits. someone who's certified can do more for the city they could work with the county on the hazard mitigation plan they could work on the community rating system which affects residents flood insurance premiums but officially in the charter what the floodplain administrator is supposed to do is issue these permits

Is there, and I just briefly glanced through, but is there is a responsibility or the potential of granting waivers for floodplain work? Is that an element? And it's really those legalities that I wanna make sure we're not overlooking in considering a designee type situation.

Sure. Unless anyone else, I guess we're gonna take this to committee, correct?

Okay, well Do you I'm sorry one that do you have a time frame on this that it needs to be considered by just so I know for planning? Scheduling purposes.

Yeah, there's no there's no urgency This was just a sort of a procedural thing where she, once she was hired, she let me know that she was formally certified. And then looking at the charter, I thought that this would be a change that makes sense, that could give the city some flexibility. Okay. When you have someone who's more certified in the planning, more qualified in the planning director, I think the planning director should have the ability to delegate.

Okay. So thank you so much. I guess we're just gonna be sent to committee meeting. I hope you have a good evening.

Sure.

Thanks, Tito.

Good night.

Thank you. Finance Committee Chair Cavanaugh will now introduce RL26-157.

This is RL26-157, ordinance to amend the 2026 adoptive budget to increase the salary of the register of vital statistics. So I'm also the presenter, right? So, Our current register of vital statistics has been out on medical leave for a while and cannot continue with the job. We need to attract a new candidate into the position. The salary is sort of scheduled to go up in 2027. to reflect responsibility as a position and to differentiate the vital statistics registrar from the vital statistics clerk and to make that a little bit more distinct. We think it would be, I rather think it would be a good idea to just implement that increase with the job posting now. Because we've had folks out, there's plenty of money in that personnel line to do that. So this will give us hopefully a head up, kind of a leg up rather, not a heads up, a leg up on recruiting a good candidate and just give them a better idea of what their salary will be going forward and hopefully get it in place sooner than later. So pretty straightforward and asking for expeditions so that that position can be posted and filled, hopefully.

I have a motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

A motion and a second. Any discussion regarding that? Any discussion regarding the RL before we take a vote on that?

Oh, yeah. So the difference is about $4,000, by the way, for the rest of the year.

Thank you so much.

No, no. Is that the entire? Hold on. That's the total increase for the whole year. So it will be less than half of that.

Thank you so much for that, Chair Kavanaugh. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Council Member Murray is absent. Council Member Cavanaugh? Yes. Council Member Rathmell? Aye. Council Member Matavetski is absent. Council Member Hotchkiss? Aye. Council President Dundon is absent. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton?

Aye. Thank you. Thank you. RL 26-157 is now expedited for Wednesday's business meeting. Thank you so much for that, Chair Cavanaugh. Up next we have Municipal and Public Affairs Committee. Member Rathmell, can you introduce for me RL 26-155?

I certainly can. Thank you. This is RL 26-155, a resolution to designate an honorary street name for Major Barnett Sr. Way. Our presenter is Deputy Clerk Samantha Costello.

Hi everyone, thank you so much for taking the time. This RL was actually first introduced in a municipal and public affairs committee meeting, so it's been discussed. We just wanted to formalize the process. We were very, very fortunate to have Major Barnett Sr.'s son come down and talk about Major Barnett Sr.'s incredible legacy of service to the city of Binghamton. specifically to the Department of Parks and Recreation. And in conversation that the city council had with the Barnett family, it became clear that the best way to honor Major Barnett Sr. in a way that really celebrated specifically his legacy to the Parks Department would be to add an honorary street name to the section of Carroll Street between Holly Streets and Susquehanna Streets. So it's pretty straightforward. An honorary street name does not require that we make any changes to city maps or notify the USPS. It kind of cuts through a lot of that red tape that's typically quite difficult with renaming streets. Would just require an update to signage, and we do have a signage in the budget line, so if anyone has any questions, happy to answer.

I'll just jump in. First, I just wanted to say thank you so much, Deputy Clerk, for working on this with myself. We're also asking for expedition because the Barnett family has been asking for this for a long time, and we'd like to kind of honor that, but do it in a timely motion. so we can get it done also um we are we are also working on a way to honor other people so i think the time that it took for us to figure this out and we're still in the motion of this finding a a right way so that way people can be honored in the city of binghamton a lot of the times people ask and we don't have a formal way to help them out with that So myself and Deputy Clerk Costello are in the process of making a proper way how they have in other cities to honor someone from the city of Binghamton. So thank you for that. And I asked for an expedition. Can I have a second? A second. Okay, any discussion regarding the expedition? Clerk, can you please call a roll?

Council Member Murray is absent. Council Member Cavanaugh? Aye. Council Member Rathmell? Aye. Council Member Matavetsky is absent. Council Member Hotchkiss? Aye. Council President Dundon is absent. Council President Pro Temp-Middleton?

Aye.

Thank you. That is 4-0. Thank you.

And 126.155 will now be expedited for Wednesday's business meeting. Last we have tonight, the Rules and Procedures Committee Chair Matavetsky is out. And I guess I will... Who will introduce that? Who else is in there? I guess I will introduce it. It's RL26-154, a local law to repeal Chapter 383 phone booths in public. And our presenter tonight is Deputy Costello. Can you explain that? Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me once again, for taking the time to entertain my efforts to fix our charter. So up next in the charter chapter chastisation is Chapter 383 Telephone Boots Public. This chapter refers to when we still had telephone booths in the city of Binghamton and sort of the maintenance for those telephone booths, as well as the permitting process related to them and other various restrictions related to them. I did speak to the engineering department on advice of Corporation Council as the engineering department is the department responsible for issuing the permits and assisting with maintenance and was informed that they are no longer accepting permits for telephone booths in the city of Binghamton. We no longer have the necessary hardware or infrastructure in place to operate telephone booths in the city of Binghamton. And it does need to be repealed by local law because it was passed via local law. So you will be getting a copy on your desk to review for seven days before it goes to a vote. But if anyone has any questions, happy to answer them.

Anybody else have any questions? Well, thank you for that. If nobody has anything else, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. I'll second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Thank you.