City Council - workshop

All right, welcome everybody. This is Binghamton City Council work session. It is Monday, September 14th at 6.07. I call 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? Present. Council Member Cavanaugh? Present. Council Member Hotchkiss? Present. Council Member Medvedsky? Present. Council Member Rathbill? Present. Council President Dundon?

Present.

Thank you.

So our first RL, RL 26-158, we're gonna strike. The presenter could not make it tonight. So we're gonna move on to RL 26-61. Our first presenter tonight is Pablo Escamilla, who's a LA LAZ representative, and this is in the Finance Committee, and I'll hand it over to Council Member Cavanaugh.

Okay, what we're looking at here is an ordinance to amend the 2026, that would be this year, capital fund budget for equipment upgrades for the Collier Street surface lot. So I think we're looking at a new arm and entrance and exit system to replace staffing there, yeah?

An automated system, yeah. The same at Water Street.

So we're talking about...

$75,000 from within the ramps budget and this is from the Water Street ramp because it has little money left is that the yeah it has a lot of money left but we're using that to fix the Water Street ramp but he hasn't this how he has this is enough to buy this equipment

And I've asked this off the record, but I will ask this on the record. We, I think, had originally toyed around with the idea of using the gate and system from the State Street Garage. The one we're tearing down. No, the one we're tearing down. No, the one we're tearing down. That is State Street, right. The one we're tearing down, right, and moving it over to Collier Street lot as a way to save money, essentially.

That was the hope, but unfortunately, it is an older system, older than the one at Holly. It just wouldn't work for that application.

Okay, that's the answer. Do we have any projections of cost savings from spending this $75,000 versus keeping it staffed?

Yeah, we're seeing about 20, 25% increase in revenue, roughly.

And this would presumably be adjustable for event parking and say also free parking for council nights, for example, things like that.

We'd be able to accommodate the council meetings.

Yeah, it's a little bit more programmable than the other one. To do events and what have you like that, right? And there will also be a savings in personnel, too, because we wouldn't have to have somebody there.

All right. But you'll, this will still, you'll still go in and you'll get it, it'll be like one of the ramp ones. You'll get a ticket. It's not running off of Flowbird, right? It's a ticket system, same as we use it at Hall Street.

Correct, yeah, and the validation system would be similar to what Boscov's has now.

Okay. Is there potential for businesses to get in the validation game if they want to with this one?

I think that's up to the budget lines and the rates.

But the technology, it would be the same platform we could, whatever. Say, I don't know, Mabel Orr wanted to, or Tom and Marty's wanted to validate parking. The potential exists with the system.

The potential exists. My only concern would be just validations would take away from people being able to park there freely. It services a lot of the city hall and a lot of the local governments around here, so.

Okay, all right, thank you. Mabel Dior does validate the shop, the parking garage on their street. So what happens to the staff? Are they gonna be able to be repurposed? Is there attrition?

There's gonna be restructuring, of course, and then there is another lot coming online soon that we're gonna have to reallocate resources.

I have a Chuck question. How much money is left in the Water Street Garage Fund if we're able to pull 75,000 from it?

I think last year it had, off the top of my head, I'm not sure. I know it has about, right now it has money in it, but there's things that are being paid out of it. All told, I would probably say about $200,000. Okay. That's not accounted for right now.

Oh, so you're saying there's an excess of $200,000, but it's earmarked for... Oh, yes, there's about $700,000, I believe, right now.

But most of that's accounted for, like for Ron Lake for fixing the Water Street garage problems. Okay.

Like the elevator or?

Hey, whatever he has on his list. And I'm assuming it's the elevator too. It's a lot of things, water, water stuff. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm just kind of curious, and I know, Chuck, you can't answer these. That would be some wrong questions, but with that ramp being as new as it is, why we're continuing to invest money and we're not going after the contractors to get some of that back or to make them come back and make it right, that just seems kind of like the rec park tennis courts. We just keep throwing money to people to fix problems that they're not actually fixing. I mean, it's not like that ramp's been there 10 years or 15 years and been salted to death. I mean, I started my career in the unions doing the parking ramp right underneath here, so I know all about parking garages. So I don't have any other questions. Does anybody else?

I mean, I guess I'd like a little more information on restructuring. I don't know how much I want to stick my nose in it, but I'd like to know if people are going to land places.

I think the reality in this situation is that the position's being automated away, basically.

what's the life expectancy on this and what's the maintenance on this like is it is it really 75,000 and then that's it for the next however many years or is it no there's a meeting there's a maintenance and service contract on it and we pay for just like we do on the other ramps those would be costs within the ramps fund they'd budget for it every year So are those going up to cover that new device, or are the maintenance of that new device would then be a new cost?

With this new equipment, we would be handling a lot of the maintenance. A lot of it is swap-out parts, so we don't need a service contract like we do with Burr or the Designa system.

Okay.

anyone else have anything all right thank you so much gentlemen moving on to rl 26-162 the presenter tonight is owen bligh and this is in the planning committee and i'll hand it over to council member rathmel

Thank you, Council President Dundon. This is RL26-162, an ordinance to authorize the sale of 229 Court Street to Owen Bly for $15,167. And our deputy mayor will be joining for the presentation. Owen, welcome. Thank you. We do have a couple of questions, but happy to give you the floor to provide a summary to start if you'd prefer.

Oh, sorry. So months ago, I started a project across the street from 229 Court Street at 226 Court Street. We're building a handful of apartments at 226. One of the comments I got at this table when I started that project was they wanted additional parking for the building. And so that's when I started engaging with the city to perhaps buy this surface lot that's across the street. In my experience, and I spent a lot of time downtown.

I just want to slow you down just a little bit. By they, was the planning commission?

I believe so, yes.

Okay, thank you.

and so you know and spending a lot of time at at this project site 226 and generally downtown i you know uh got the sense that the lot wasn't being actively used so i went to the city and approached them about purchasing it such that i could use it for additional parking in in the you know the apartment building across the street truthfully the the existing apartment building has 10 apartments and it's got six parking spaces and we're adding five apartments. So it's going to be 15 apartments when we're done with the construction and the additional parking across the street, I think makes for a nicer place to live for the tenants.

I'm sorry. So 226 is the property that you own.

Yes, I currently own 226 and I'm looking to purchase 229, which is directly across the street. It's just a surface, a surface lot.

Okay. Right next to the gas station.

Yeah, next to Morabito.

Okay. Sorry, I'm just looking at it, just trying to figure it out.

Yeah, and so right now it's not lined. My intent would be to purchase it, line it with parking spaces, and provide them to the tenants across the street.

Oh, and I typically like to review ownership history, but couldn't find properties you own using your name in Brooms GIS. What LLCs do you operate under?

I have a different LLC for each property, and that's just for liability purposes. I could tell you the properties that I own. Is that what you're looking for?

We could do so I was able to find three I've got 168 water to elect in partnership with Dave Whalen 211 Washington in partnership with Mark Yannotti and I believe you're wearing your shirt for jog 33 for 33 court under CB enterprise are there other Properties or LLC is that you could represent?

Yes several

Okay, if those aren't properties you're comfortable representing tonight, would you mind following up with those listed, just so I can take a look at ownership history?

Yeah, that's fine.

Thank you so. What is the projected so just to understand the trajectory planning Commission identified a need for additional off street parking that not but you've not yet opened up to 26 to residents or that is that they did that was not a requirement of you getting permission correct.

uh no but as part of that feedback i did source uh a few parking spaces about 400 yards away which was within the limit that that can be available to the tenants but at the end of the day that's a much longer walk than directly across the street and so uh and even so with directly across the street i'd be able to have a parking space for every single tenant not just you know the 70 or whatever planning commission LOOKS FOR SO NO YOU KNOW PURCHASING THIS LOT WAS NOT MANDATORY BY THEM BUT I THINK IT'S BETTER FOR THE TENANTS AND YOU KNOW MAKES IT A BETTER PROJECT ALTOGETHER THE AND AND COUNCIL MEMBER KAVANAUGH AND HOCHKIS I'LL LEAN ON YOU FOR THIS AM I

And just because you mentioned 400 yards being within the allowable, I was under the impression that off-street parking, at least with residential, was supposed to be within 250 feet.

I could have the yardages wrong. It was a long time ago. They gave me a certain amount of distance, and what I sourced was within that distance. It was then reviewed in the second meeting.

so it's been reviewed no variance or special condition needed correct okay so preferred not required when do you anticipate 226 court leasing well 10 apartments are already existing and leased i'm building five new ones and those are imminent This is actually a general internal question as well. Just because we've received a number, at least to me, of VEG references in terms of circumstances that require E&A, would this be a property sale that would also be required to go through E&A?

Yes.

Correct, okay.

i have a question and this is probably more for you court counsel who determine that this lot is only worth fifteen thousand one hundred and sixty seven dollars when to grade a lot to make sure you have the proper drainage to make sure you have your proper levels and layers of asphalt could cost a lot more than that. So I'm kind of curious on who determined that was actually the value of this property.

So the proposal was reviewed by the assessor before she left, and she signed off on it. Again, I think she looked at the value of it as a vacant lot that the city's not using. I don't know if she necessarily looked at the grading piece. Obviously, if there were grading issues, those have to get addressed.

well what i'm saying is there's a big difference between a vacant lot that has grass and vacant lot that the city has invested money in to actually put asphalt down that's a huge difference to me especially being a construction guy sure because i've done asphalt and i know the amount of work that it goes to grade it yeah any any site whether it's a small site or you know thousands of acres so that's why i'm just curious on how that was assessed to be that amount

Yeah, I can perhaps shed some light on that question You know, there were several other recent sales that were used as part of that assessment including 126 Henry Street and 159 Conklin you know both of those are Similar properties obviously in this case. There's no income cap approach that can be taken to value the property so it's more of a comparisons approach and

and those were the most direct comparisons within the last year okay i mean i mean owen looking at this it says you dated this january 5th and this is the first time we're seeing any of this was within the last couple days so we're trying to play catch up to get information on this it's not like we knew that you put this offering back in january to do any due diligence

So that's what we're asking as we're going could we get the? Assessors, I imagine she sent that in writing if we could get that to confirm the comparison as opposed to Does the fire department use that lot for On his form it says I would also allow city of Binghamton fire department to continue to use the lot.

I

So my understanding on this is that they were using it in the past, but they don't foresee a need for it right now or in the future.

So what we're going to do with this?

I'm not sure what that is, but I'm happy to look into it and I can follow up with you.

Yeah, I'd be curious to know why it was being used and now it's not gonna be used.

Sure.

So part of it that we're going to include a provision that the fire department would be able to continue to use a lot on notice. It's for some reason it came up where we need the space because we have a train or something we're doing there whatever.

Yeah, I was generally open. I had said that the fire department could continue to use it as they currently do. Again, my understanding just from experience and in speaking to the mayor's office more actively is they've communicated that they're not using it. And so, You know, if they're not currently using it, I would want to get rid of that stipulation that they can then use it, you know, in the future given that they're not using it now. But I was open to them using it as they currently are because, you know, I think we would probably be able to work something out there was my original thought. I've just been, you know, communicated with that they're not using it, so.

Then just for future reference, it would be really helpful to have this when the resolution comes down the offer to purchase. I did wonder in reviewing why we didn't have this. So this does provide pretty immediately answers to some of my initial questions.

Better Bob, do either of you know how the city ended up with this property? How long we've been holding on to it off the top of your head? Pardon? How we end up with this property and how long we've had it?

I wanna say this was, might have been a tax foreclosure back when we used to do tax foreclosures. If you give me a couple minutes, I could probably find out.

I can bother you tomorrow if it's,

Just to touch on the timeline of this Michael. I'm not sure You know ultimately the most recent conversations. I'm just looking started in July. I think there were conversations Stemming from Sarah Gloss back in maybe in January, but there was not much progress in terms of finding the right people to talk to, just some initial conversations, but more, you know, as far as the assessment goes, which was your initial question, that's all very recent dating back to July. I just kind of looked it up.

Yeah, I mean, like we just stated, we didn't even get your offer to purchase until Ben just handed it in front of you. So all we literally had was an RL with an amount. That was it.

And so, you know, when I engaged in those conversations, they asked me to, you know, make an offer. And so I then sent an email, which it seems maybe you all have, outlining, you know, hey, this is my offer. These are the property comparisons that I found.

No, I don't think we have that.

Gotcha. We don't?

Yeah, that's...

Well, in any case, that's what the email said, and those are the property comparisons that we're using. Gotcha.

Council Member Cavanaugh, 2004. Oh, sorry. Were you doing the same thing?

Yeah, tax foreclosure in 2004.

I suppose my final thoughts would be I feel it's a win-win situation. Puts the property back on the tax roll for the city. It provides a fairly valuable amenity for the tenants who are living across the street perhaps even tenants you know in in neighboring buildings that that don't have a parking lot because depending on how I stripe it you know I might be able to get more parking spaces than just those tenants need not by much but but a few uh and so from that perspective and generally speaking I know the city has been parking focused in terms of trying to provide that amenity to People who live work, you know spend time downtown So this is an instance where I don't think many other people are interested in that lot.

It's you know location Doesn't serve a purpose for many people but for me and and in particular the tenants across the street it definitely would Just to add to that it also saves the city the cost of plowing and other maintenance of this lot throughout the year So Owen would be taking that on so that's a cost saving for the city as well

No, I appreciate that. I just want to double check and look over the assessor's notes and what they said because the last thing I'd like to do is have this be an unconstitutional gift and just, you know, I want to do my due diligence before I sign off on anything.

Agreed.

Anyone else?

Yeah, I just want to get clarification. So the Planning Commission said that they would like to see parking but it's not required, more parking?

So the very first meeting, there's two meetings with planning. The first one.

If you can send us the dates on that, then it'll be a lot easier for us to pull the minutes and the meeting. I can follow up with that.

Yeah.

So the first meeting, they evaluated the project and gave feedback that they would prefer for me to have more parking it wasn't they didn't present it as a mandatory but they said they would prefer it so then going into the second meeting i did actually source a lease where I can lease parking spaces to hit the minimum that they were hopeful for. That being said, had I not gotten that lease, it still would have gone to a vote. I can't say what the vote would have been, because I did get the lease, still have the lease. But that lease is not nearly as advantageous for the tenants, and it still doesn't provide a parking space for all of the tenants. It just meets the minimum threshold. But in the winter, and you know what the winters are like here, it's 10 degrees in January, February. It's a walk that no one would really want to do back and forth to their house, but it did meet the written maximum distance. It was under the written maximum distance. So then it became a non-issue in the vote because I had that lease. At that point, though, I started trying to source a better option because they brought it up and there was this parking lot directly across the street that really was a better solution. It's just going into that second meeting, there was no way to have that solution in place. It takes time. So I guess I would describe it, I got a short-term solution and I'm now pursuing a more long-term solution or better solution, all of the above.

Thank you. So I think the pursuit of parking makes sense and is good for folks that live there. But at the same time, we relaxed parking requirements through zoning for specifically affordable housing so that developers wouldn't have to necessarily think about these things for different projects.

You know there's not many situations and I've done a good handful of projects in Binghamton where this option even exists right most most of the properties are lot line and you look across the street and it's another building and so I think it's a fairly unique scenario where you know I'm able to perhaps. provide this as part of the project. And I said, you know, we're getting close to being done these five apartments. We're actively showing them and tenants are asking, you know, especially tenants who might be moving to the area and they're not as familiar. You know, do I have dedicated parking or not? It's certainly a question that comes up. I believe I can lease them without the parking. You know, I just know tenants would be happier. I would you guys would be if if you can park right across the street.

feel comfortable that you come home from work and have a place to park and you know it's safe and comfortable anyone have any other questions thank you very much gentlemen we are moving on to rl 26-163 our presenter is robert heery our corporation council and this is in the planning committee and i'll hand it over to council member rathmo

Thank you, Council President Dundon. This is RL26-163, a resolution authorizing a lease agreement with Security Mutual for 50 parking spaces at 6365 Carroll Street.

So this is a lease to pick up some more parking space at Security Mutual. The thought is that this is going to give us some more economies of scale. Security Mutual isn't really using the spaces we can underneath our inventory to use either for employee parking or to have as paid parking. We're able to do it as a dollar lease where we pick up the rights for it.

Do they, and this is in addition to the parking garage that they have under their building, has that proven insufficient?

No, no, we're getting spots. We're picking up the tickets. Oh, we're getting.

Releasing them from Security Mutual, yeah.

That changes it.

So if you have the time, I recommend looking through the parking study and all the areas that are underutilized parking, since this whole, since our whole work session is gonna be about parking, I think we should all be on the same terms about what's available downtown, but.

Yeah, and part of the idea is that this then opens it up where the public is able to access and use those lots easier than they are now because currently they're reserved for tenants of the security mutual building.

So since we just spent $75,000 on a gate for Collier Street, what's our plan for this lot? Are we spending another $75,000? Are we putting a kiosk in? Or how are we controlling this lot? And maybe let Pablo go too quickly.

from what i understand i think they were gonna put in a kiosk that was my understanding is that they were gonna do a kiosk and it's gonna be like on street parking but in the lot like if you go to somewhere else, you have to walk up and used to put money into the little slot, it's gonna be a kiosk, just like we have. So there won't be any personnel there.

So, so then presumably, there won't be a gate, I will be relying on parking enforcement to take care of it. Correct.

And that's really a quick, quick parking enforcement for the parking enforcement officers, because they just park and they can just walk around in five minutes.

So it would also abide by those hours then too, probably, same as our on-street parking, I would guess.

Yeah, I'm not sure what the hours are gonna be there. Probably just the same as on-street parking, because it's a business.

Because our parking garages are 24 hours, right? We charge at night. Am I correct on that?

I can't remember.

I thought once we automated them, we started charging at night.

Well, the Collier lot is free at night from Tuesday through Tuesday, like 2 a.m. I did some weird hours. Yeah. But with the automation, that's correct. That goes away.

So we'd be creating a free lot to compete with our paid lots. Because it'd be free after our parking enforcement is done for the day, right?

I mean, we don't have to. We could make that lot.

Yeah, I mean, except to us. Yeah, I mean, we can do whatever we want. I don't think that's been determined, what the hours are gonna be for that.

Yeah, so I mean, in terms of like setting the hours for operations a lot, that's something that we can decide. That's not dictated by the lease.

So this looks on the face of pretty favorable to the city. They are maintaining some of the infrastructure, electrical infrastructure and such and paying the electric utilities on it. And we're maintaining the looks like the surface and plowing and such. Correct. And then do they get a tax advantage out of this or how does that work? I'm like, or they just don't, they just get the benefit of not having to care for it or I don't.

Mostly it's not having to care for it. Um, like I said, currently it's, it's kind of being underused and it's kind of just sitting there for them. Um, So even if we're just going in and maintain it as is, like you said, they're not having to pay for the cost of plowing that area, salting it, in the event that we have to restripe it or something, that kind of thing.

Do we have any idea of, for example, the insurance requirements on here that are beyond what we normally carry on our city-owned property, yes? yes do we have an idea of costs of this like five million dollar umbrella policy i don't know that we've i mean part of it is we could self-insure it um I'm just I'm asking like It seems like a very good deal for the city and seems like we're gaining a nice parking lot for public use But I'm actually wondering what the cost per slot is gonna be for us so I know it's only a one-year commitment, so maybe we just you know, toss the dice and see how it works out for us. But I was wondering if we could get some sort of idea of what a slot it's actually gonna cost us.

Are you talking like insurance and maintenance and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, basically, yeah. Same thing with the garages, because the garages, it's basically like $26.20 for a spot for insurance.

That's what the garages cost us. For insurance. For insurance, okay. And we can do the same math, because we have a management contract, so we can figure out costs. But with this, we're, city's gonna handle plowing and stuff, not LAZ? We don't know. TBD.

As far as I know, we would probably do it. All right.

We being the parks department, just to be clear, right? We being the parks department?

Yeah, either way, parks or LAZ, because they have the equipment as well. They do the surface lot at Collier.

Does it make sense to have that ironed out before entering into a lease, even if it is only for $1? It's $1.

Well, I don't know. Maybe.

It's a dollar until there's a car accident there.

So you're not going to have, whether it's Laz doing it or us doing it, in terms of like your actual cost, it's not going to be terribly different. Laz already plows other lots here for us, and obviously we have plows that we use. I think most likely it would end up being Laz that would handle the actual plowing of it rather than us doing it. Because I think part of the idea is to run the kiosk through Laz as well and basically have it rolled into the management contract. In terms of the insurance, like I said, some of that goes back to how much you want to self-insure versus going out for insurance. I don't see insurance being super expensive on this lot. Parking garages typically have higher insurance. One, because you have more risks involved with it versus a surface lot. And two, I mean, if it's going to be limited to like more daytime type parking, again, you have some risk parameters in place when it comes to things like loss or theft.

Anyone have anything else? All right. Thank you, Bob. We'll move on to RL 26-164. Our presenter is Charles Robertson, our comptroller, and it's in the Finance Committee, and I'll hand it over to Councilmember Cavanaugh.

Okay. RL 26-164, an ordinance to amend the 2026 General Fund Budget for the additional retirement funds. So this is...

related to firefighter retirement yes yes this is related to an RL that we did late last year and I did it too early so we did it again this year and resubmitted it and they have accepted it and they they have now sent all the paperwork to the firefighter and this is just to pay the extra portion of the bill this year and then obviously they would add the additional portion on every year for a while on our retirement bill the large portion is the current portion and the prior earned benefit and then the I think it's $1,100 yeah that will be added on this year and every year afterwards

And did we determine that this is like the last possible one from the fire department able to make this?

I believe there's one more that can do it. Okay. Not sure if they will or not.

And they're apparently not sure either. They haven't done it yet. All right.

Could we just, for folks that are trying to follow along with documentation, I know there's not a lot of them outside of this circle, but for these budget transfer requests, could we get the appropriate department on top of So this, I think, again, has joint sewage treatment board budget transfer request.

Oh, yeah. Robert's brought that to my attention several times. I don't know how these got mixed in with my city's ones and the joint sewer ones. I'm going to try to clean up my files so it doesn't happen again.

Thanks, Jack.

Any time so Chuck any time that there's a fund balance involved. I'm gonna ask you again what's Going on with a general fund balance policy for the city I Don't know. I'm assuming it's still in review Sir Corp Council have any idea I Think he Brought it up last time

I think there was a red line version that got circulated. I can get with Chuck and see what the status is of that version.

That would be great because we're pushing at least nine months here. Thanks.

Does anyone else have any other questions or comments on this RL? Okay, we'll move on. Moving on to RL26-165. Chuck Robertson is still our presenter. It's still in the Finance Committee, and I'll give it back to Council Member Cavanaugh.

Okay. This is Norton's to amend the 2026 capital fund budget to close out some unused grant and serial bond lines. Do you want to give us a description of those and what projects we're closing out?

Right. The first one is the fire department. They bought a vehicle and the garage lift for their garage and they didn't spend it all. So obviously I'm closing that out. Also, they didn't spend $14.51 in the DPW department on a dump truck. And same thing with the snow plow. So whatever they didn't spend, I take back and not borrow. So even though it's minimal, I still do it.

So this reduces the amount you actually borrow because they haven't gone out for a long term.

Right, the bond ordinance was for the full amount, and then we borrowed, probably we spent $14.51 less, so I can use that to pay back part of the ban. Doesn't help that much, but it helps a little.

I have no other questions on that.

Okay.

Anyone else have any other questions?

Okay, we'll move on.

We'll move on to RL26-166. Chuck Robertson is still our presenter. It's still on the Finance Committee, and I'll give it back to Councilmember Cavanaugh.

All right, so we have RL26-166, an ordinance to amend the general fund budget for a budgeting error in the 2026 budget in the amount of $737,999. This was an error in the ban principle payment line. Yes. A ban, for those watching, is a bond anticipation note. That's the short-term borrowing we do before we go out for a bond. So, Chuck, this is a fairly large error. What happened, what's going on, and how are we fixing it?

Right. I mean, obviously it was transposition error, so how it happened, I do not know, because both myself and our assistant comptroller at the time reviewed all the bonds last year, and we both missed it.

So... So when you're saying a transposition error, so in our printed budget that we received, that we worked from, the band principal payment was supposed to be something like 1.19 million. And in reality we had to pay, or we're supposed to pay, we did pay, supposed to pay, supposed to be listed as 1.91 million dollars. And that escaped everybody's notice until when?

Well, we paid it in the middle of April. So the band payment was due in April. Right. It probably didn't get the wires. It probably didn't get posted until the end of April. And nobody I personally didn't notice it at that time. We were doing starting the audits And doing my ARPA stuff. I was doing a lot of stuff And we didn't notice I didn't notice until I ran the financials for the quarter in June.

So end of second quarter so that they're Right, the reports were gonna review tonight.

Yes, I And I brought it to the mayor's attention immediately. We had several meetings and went back and forth on how we were going to fund this.

I mean, there's not a loose... $737 $737,000 in the budget right now.

No, but we did get extra money in the temporary municipal assistance this year, which is going to be continued in next year's budget from Kathy hokal. But we did not we decided, ultimately not to use that, that buffer and keep that in the budget.

Could I just pause and get clarity in saying that you decided And this may be either Council Member Cavanaugh or Corporation Council directed more appropriately to you, but can you walk us through, so I'm absolutely very interested in how certainly almost $750,000 managed to get overlooked, but could we get clarity on the process by which this transfer is or was to be made in particular made without being brought to council for authorization?

Um. That may be more of an executive type session question. I just don't know where exactly it's going. And I don't wanna start walking down that path before we get too far.

Okay, I hear what you're saying. Just to make sure that I'm hearing what was reported tonight correctly as I took notes. So we have a payment that was made, a transfer that was internally authorized without council review discussion or authorization which would typically and has typically been the process. So five months ago in April and it is now September and we're being asked to retroactively authorize a payment that was already made without our review. Just to make sure I'm understanding what we're being asked correctly.

Was it auto payment? Is that what I was gathering? Because you seem to have no knowledge of the payment while it was being made.

No, it's just like a check. We just do a wire. We set up a wire through the bank. It's the same thing as a check. It's like a check run. So this has already happened, though? It's just like a check run, like if we had a claim for payment and somebody paid it.

So who makes it? Who physically makes that check?

Who makes the wire? Yeah, who makes the wire? It's a two-step process. Someone in my department makes it. I don't know if Rachel did it at that point or the junior accountant, and then either Rachel can approve it or I can approve it.

How long ago was this payment made?

So it was in April.

I think the bans were due April 16th.

Maybe if I could ask my initial question slightly differently, Corp Counsel. Could you please possibly point to any circumstances in which advancing this amount of money without counsel review would typically be allowable?

So, this example isn't, let's take this example, right? So, and let's, again, I'd be easier in an executive session, just throwing it out there. There's certain payments where, you might see the city advance the payment and then bring an ordinance down because for whatever reason, like there was a short notice piece, and not making the payment would result in some sort of penalty, so you would do the payment and then have to go back and do the ordinance to paper it over and address the fact that the money had been moved and that payment had been made. And the justification would be that, hey, you know, there are these other penalties that might come into play, so it makes sense for us to do it and then go back and address it after the fact.

were penalties identified or anticipated in this instance?

So not making a ban or a bond payment would be a large problem, both from a fiscal health perspective, in terms of like credit rating, as well as triggering potential penalties or additional interest payments.

I'd like to make a motion to go into executive session because I have more questions and I'd like to get to the bottom of this.

I'll second.

All right, my motion will be to go into executive session for exactly 10 minutes.

Okay.

All in favor? Aye. All right, we'll go into executive session.

Chuck and Bob and the clerk. Is there? It's not Friday.

All right, I'd like to entertain a motion to exit executive session and come back into regular session.

I'll second. I'll motion. And I'll second.

It's all in favor. Aye. Aye. So Council Member Cavanaugh, would you mind giving a little synopsis about executive session, and then we'll move on to the comptroller's quarterly report.

Sure. I'll try and just give a synopsis of the whole situation here. So again, I'm going to slightly be repeating myself from when I first started here. In last year's budget was included a payment for our bond anticipation out of $1.19 million. The actual amount due, for that payment was $1.91 million, creating this over $700,000 difference. It was a significant but innocent transcription error that was not caught by the finance department in preparing the budget. This payment came due near the end of April. The payment amount came into the finance department, a wire was set up and paid near the end of April in the amount of $1.91 million. That was not immediately reconciled with the budget line in Munis. That did not become apparent until the budget reports were run after the second quarter, so sometime in the beginning of July. I think, The consensus of council would be that this is where problems kind of arise. A mistake was made, payment was made, payment that hypothetically council would have consented to make anyway because there are significant financial consequences to not making band and bond payments on time that we would not want to put the city in. But we were not informed in a timely manner of this error, which would I think have been as soon as possible after it was made, so we could have been having this discussion in July instead of September. And the issue for us lies in the financial decisions and considerations we've had to undertake in those intervening months. And that's, so on one side we have a process and policy, issue which I think has yet to be resolved in that we need to be assured that we are getting timely financial information as soon as it's possible. And then we have an internal process question as far as not having a mistake like this slipping through again. And I think we've made some progress on that, at least in looking at having transfers of this nature, which normally don't fall under the purchase order system, become purchase orders so that lines, spending and budget lines get reconciled and caught faster if not immediately when they happen. So I think there are internal controls that we can do better at, that finance will work to do better at, and we can keep an eye on that process. And then we have the larger question of keeping counsel informed in a timely manner so that we can do our job in an effective and timely manner. And I think that's what we need to continue to work on. What we have presented with this RL is a necessary fix to the budget. I think we need to spend a little time and consider whether dipping into fund balance, into reserves is the right way to do that. There are other possible options, but we have a budget address coming up tomorrow, so we'll have a clearer picture after tomorrow of what finances are looking like next year. And we have to continue to press the administration and the finance department to not, to keep up checks and balances, to not allow something like this to happen. I think. And yes, that's my little synopsis, but please jump in anyway.

Council Member Kavanaugh, I think the, possible amendment I would just propose to that summary you offered. So this was a budget error in the amount of almost $750,000. And the decision was made internally without council review, discussion, or authorization to approve an internal wire transfer for which we are now five months later being asked to consider, discuss, So you represented that there is a policy process issue. What I would try to clarify is that there is absolutely an established process by which budget requests, budget transfers are considered. A RESOLUTION IS INTRODUCED TO COUNCIL TO CONSIDER REVIEW, AUTHORIZE THAT TRANSFER AT WHICH POINT MONEY MAY BE MOVED. THAT PROCESS IS WELL ESTABLISHED, HAS FULL PRECEDENT IN EVERY EXPECTED TRANSFER THAT COUNCIL HAS BEEN MADE TO CONSIDER, BUT WAS NOT FOR REASONS WE HAVE NOT been made aware of followed in this process so it's not so much that the policy doesn't exist it's that the policy is well established and was not followed and we are now being able or we are now being asked to to review for authorization so certainly agree that additional uh discussion and digging is required post our executive session does anybody else have anything they'd like to add

Well, I think another point that came up was that if this council hadn't been enforcing the charter, clauses that require quarterly financial reports. My understanding is previous councils had not been enforcing that. We would not even have this information now. It would be months later.

So I'm, I wanna thank our- It's possible that those reports wouldn't have been run until later in the year when they would run expense reports previously.

Yeah.

We might not have seen it till October, November.

Right. So anyway, I just wanted to thank Council for staying on top of that.

Thank you, everybody. So we'll move on. This is the second quarter Comptroller's Quarterly Report. Chuck Robinson is our presenter. I'll hand it over to Council Member Cavanaugh as this is still in Finance Committee.

Okay. So, actually, hold on. Sorry. I took my printout home a while ago. I'm sorry. So I'm getting a fresh copy. But okay, CR, do you want to walk us through how we're looking on receivables and income as far as tax collections, water sewer collection, sales tax payments? What would you like to know? Well, are we matching projections?

I'll be honest with you, I have not had a lot of time to review this, so I will do my best.

Do you want us to put you on Wednesday?

No, this is fine. So if you'll notice in the general fund, I can look at it right here. I printed them out today, so there might have been some adjustments back to June, maybe some bank reconciliation adjustments. The percentage used is 51.86. so basically we're right on schedule for 50% of the year people usually tick up their expense spending in the general fund in the last quarter that's typical for most of the departments so it looks like we're on budget if you're if we're at fifty one point six percent and halfway through the year so I'm not gonna argue with that The lot of numbers that are in the general fund right now that are in advance are a lot of debt service payments. Debt service payments, a lot happen in the first half of the year. So if you look at the debt service schedules, I think probably our debt service is probably around 60% spend in June for the general fund. Yep, serial bonds are at 83% and our band principal is at 100%. So yeah, most of our bands, we pay before June. So actually, we're doing pretty well in the general fund. The fund balance right now in the general fund is $23 million. We started out the year at 18.2. uh which means we're doing pretty well but like i said most people spend most of their money in the last half of the quarter of the year excuse me uh so i imagine we'll go back down to our 18 or 19 million dollar fund balance by the end of the year and then what's actually

truly unencumbered fund balance at this point.

You mean the unappropriated fund balance? Unappropriated, yeah. Subtract out about three million of reserves, so that'd be 20 million, and the $1.1 million we appropriated, so 19 million.

19 million unappropriated.

That would be unappropriated in the general fund. I did print out a balance sheet. Let me look at it here real quick. Yeah, 23 million unassigned reserves, revenues minus expenses. It's more like 14 million.

Okay, that's a big step.

Because we have more expenditures than revenues at this point in time.

Okay.

Can you send us an updated balance sheet since you have it handy? Sure. Since you ran it, thank you. HOW ARE, AGAIN, I KNOW YOU DIDN'T GET A LOT OF CHANCE TO LOOK AT THIS, OTHER FUNDS AS FAR AS RAMP FUND, HOW ARE WE LOOKING ON? RAMP FUND. REVENUE.

REVENUES ARE ON PACE BUT THEY DON'T KEEP THE FUND, THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE THEIR MANAGEMENT FEES PLUS A LITTLE, BUT OUR DEBT SERVICE IS SO LARGE IN THAT FUND THAT UNLESS WE FUND IT WITH MONEY FROM THE GENERAL FUND, IT'S GOING TO CONTINUE LOSING MONEY.

SO WE'LL HAVE THIS DISCUSSION OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR the fiscal watchdogs to correct that fund to be in balance?

Well, the fund will be in balance, it's just how we balance it, either by, we can't raise fees any more than they are, or we'll be out of balance with the local economy. The only other avenue we have is to fund it by other funds, fund balances, especially inter-fund transfers from the general fund, mainly.

So that's gonna be an ongoing...

It's gonna be an ongoing issue.

To the tune of what, a year, do you think?

Well, we had our first payment on the bond that we got in 2025 for the Water Street Garage. And a payment on a $19 million bond is rather large. So I'm not sure what the payment is on that. I think it's like $300,000.

Golf Fund looks like how do Looks like they're not meeting it looks like they're not meeting projections from Revenue projections is it is there a delay in that money coming in or you're reporting? Okay.

Yes, I believe we're at that point in time when we printed these they were we were a month behind um because i the the entry to do is is uh convoluted uh due to their financial system we have to import that import into that our system and we have to do some calculations to put it into our lines and uh since my assistant comptroller left i'm having my junior accountant do it uh he's struggling

So this is, I mean, obviously it doesn't have July or August, but it doesn't have June in it either, the ones we're looking at.

No, June's, well, it's in there now. I mean, I can reprint it and send that to you, an updated copy. I did not print out the revenues.

Well, we're presumably gonna get budget books the next day or so, and those are gonna have, as of what date, 831, or?

As of probably tonight.

Okay.

Whatever, yeah, whatever we printed today.

So the budget books haven't been printed yet?

Printed them today.

Oh, so as of today, so you ran, so that whole column is gonna be?

That whole column will be as of 9-9-14. 14, okay.

That will be good to have as fresh as possible numbers. All right. I mean, I, I don't think anyone else has the appetite to wade through this anymore than I do.

The water and sewer fund are doing well. That's one good thing.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think maybe I don't need to. My only comment is that I think these quarterly reports are valuable. Chuck, I don't think you should be the only set of eyes on these. I think different department heads should have a little bit of responsibility for their respective department budgets, and they should get used to reviewing them. if they're made available, and I think that could help with some of our internal controls over how, and spread responsibility over who's, people's different budgets. I think that's.

I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Okay, that's gonna be my theme of this budget season. All right.

Department heads responsible for their department's budget.

Partially.

All right, so not gonna wade through everything. Any, being mindful of what we just went through tonight, any thing that needs to be highlighted, notable events or discrepancies or under fundings that are happening?

Well there are, I mean there are several smaller accounts that are under budget, but we've got resolution, I've got RLs out there for those. Especially in personnel that we're waiting on. And then a good highlight is the new fire chief has held down overtime. And his overtime is going down considerable on a payroll, on each pay basis. So that's going to look good towards the end of the year. It's basically due to the Safer Grant and to bringing on his new class earlier, which we thank you for that.

Speaking of overtime and tracking overtime, I am very much in favor of city support for large civic events like Lumen, which we just had, like Porch Fest, like Blues on the Bridge that's coming up. But I would like to have more of a sense of how much those city resources are actually costing us. And... With what kind of overtime tracking tools do we have to say, all right, XYZ employees are working this weekend extra, can we not have that be recorded as overtime for I'll just use Luma since it was the most recent example. How hard is it to track that?

So you want to track over time per say event?

If it's for an event or even if it's just for, you know, This much plowing over time for snowstorms. This much for, you know, we'll say.

Well, for snow.

Extra downtown trash pickup.

For snow, all the overtime is in one line. That's an A5182-5100.

So we know when we're spending money on snow?

Yes, that is in one overtime line. But like for board ups of property or anything outside of that realm, no, it's not tracked. I mean, it may be tracked in the department. They may know who worked such and such, but I don't know if they're tracking it on an individual slash project basis.

So I know for like board ups and property cleanups, time gets tracked.

for that, because it gets billed in theory back to the property, right?

Correct. For events, I don't think there is any sort of comprehensive time tracking. And part of it has like, so a property cleanup is one, maybe two departments if it involves a board up typically DPW is doing the cleanup. And then if we have to do a part of the board up in its parks. with events, particularly like large events, you might have, you end up having multiple city departments that can be involved in those. And so there isn't, unless you go to each department, you're not gonna have a universal way of tracking time across all of those the same way. It doesn't mean it can't be done. It's just, it's not how it's currently done.

I get that. We do have one department that recently, we're recently checking over time, and that's the EMTs. When we have recent events like the Black Bears party, or when they go downtown to be at an event, and it's from a specific business, black bears mainly is where we get them from we have an emt there they we build them based off the fee schedule so all that is over time and they pay us the fee for it so i can meet with you later and talk about this but like how i

you know, let's just say, keep using Luma, DPW person goes and works an extra shift for Luma, that over time, I mean, they're, somebody's putting in their pay stub and improving that over time, right? Is it that much harder to add an extra something? A note, a flag, something we can track? Or do we have to create separate budget lines for every event? I don't.

I don't think it makes sense to do different budget lines for every event.

It wasn't my first inclination either.

I think the answer is that it's trackable. I think we have to wrap our arms around how we do it and whether it makes sense to do it at the payroll level versus the department level.

Yeah, there is two ways to go. It's department level, which would have the expertise, and then if you went the payroll level, that adds a layer of administration I would say because they still have to track it at the department and code it and then we have to do it as well but yeah that's a conversation all right I mean I again I'm generally very in favor of this sort of action it would just be a matter of

It would be nice to know how much the city's actually contributing to these events.

It may help in actually leveraging other monies because we can show if it's a significant amount, which I would guess it would be, that people like to see that the city is putting up a significant amount.

All right, so if you have nothing else to add at the moment to No, I mean nothing out of the ordinary You'll get a good gist of it tomorrow and then I Mean what's other big stuff hanging out there tier six implications for us I

You will, yeah. Tier 6 is very costly.

But things that we're going to have to amend the budget for this year, or everything is sitting next to you?

No, I don't think we'll have to this year. I mean, it'll be close, but from looking at the projected invoice that I got, we should be okay.

Okay. I don't have any more questions.

I just want to tell you, health insurance took a hit this year. We've had individuals, two individuals with over a million dollar claims. And since we're semi-insured, or self-insured, we have to take up a significant portion of that. minus our stop-loss and everything else so health insurance yeah it's going up everywhere and it's just not going away does anyone else have anything they'd like to add thank you so much Chuck okay thank you

All right, so our next RL is RL 26-167. This is in the Committee of Public Works. I'll hand it over to Council Member Middleton as I am the presenter.

Thank you. This is RL 26-167, a local law requiring contractors with the City of Binghamton to have apprenticeship training programs. And our presenter is President Michael Dundon. Can you talk about that, please?

So yeah, anybody who's ever lived here, grown up here, knew this was an area for industry. You had EJ's, you had Singer Link, you had IBM. We were known as the Valley of Opportunity. Our county is currently one of the poorest counties, poverty level, across all of New York State. with this law and it requiring contractors and it's not a union non-union thing it's department of labor apprenticeship program that they can utilize but it causes contractors to be able to bring young people into the trades that is going to be the biggest growing need of employer employees coming up in the next few years on their estimating like five hundred thousand construction workers in the next five years across america But with a program like this, you can direct and denture kids in an apprenticeship at the age of 16 and 17 years old. So even though they're a junior or senior in high school, they can work up to 48 hours a week, eight hours a day, Monday through Saturday, on a job site. That way they can start learning the trade. It's an earn while you learn program. And then they can go back to school, which for us, anybody who's recruiting in construction, that word of mouth of the amount of money that they make is huge when it comes to recruitment. With a law like this, it states that any, it would be, wow, you guys can't hear me? I've never been told I've, okay. Never been told I wasn't heard before. Kind of dumbfounded. So a program like this would be for any project over $100,000. There is exemptions in it, just like when we have to hire certain specialty contractors to do video surveillance of sewer and storm systems, if it's a specialty contractor to do lighting, light pull, and stuff like that, or if it's a quick maintenance project for under $100,000. Any contractor, as long as they are a resident of New York State, can apply and get an approved New York State Department of Labor apprenticeship program. So it really has nothing to do with union or non-union. What it does have to do is it has to be a New York State contractor. So actually, a lot of now our city contracts will go to more New York State contractors instead of Pennsylvania contractors coming up, low-balling us on the bid, and then taking all that taxpayer money home. Any dollar that you earn in a local community is spent and reused seven times over. So to keep young people in the area, to offer them actual middle-class jobs, to offer them an apprenticeship, which as far as I'm concerned is just as comparable to a four-year college degree, then you have a trade, and you can also retain people to this area and actually probably strive to pull some of this area out of poverty. I mean, our three biggest employers at this time are UHS, Guthrie, and Walmart. So I'll take any questions.

Compare other cities that have implemented jumping off points for your draft.

So I know I took what the city of Buffalo is using. There's has been held up in court. I have case law sitting that I can show behind that I figured this would just be the initial and we would do a committee meeting But I do have case law showing where this has been upheld. I don't like to reinvent the wheel I just like to throw some new rims on it and Take a law that's already been utilized and has been shown to be how they built the Buffalo Stadium was with the utilizing a law like this It's definitely needed for our area

Have there been any other local stakeholders that have been brought in on the conversation? I know the Chamber's been really championing apprenticeships, for example, recently.

I know the president of the Binghamton-Oneana Building Construction Trade Council said he had a meeting with the mayor over this and that the mayor was really ecstatic and going to be behind this.

Anybody else? And this only, I think we've discussed this before, but this would only pertain to city contracts, not necessarily state money that we approve through?

No, it would be all city contracts, whether it's renovation, rebuilding, demolition, anything in the forms of construction that would require this law to kick in if the project's over $100,000.

So can you, I'm not as knowledgeable about this as I'd like to be, but when a young person starts an apprenticeship, like how many hours do they need to kind of lead to like that certification? And then are any of these opportunities, like it's kind of like on the job training. So are there paid opportunities or it's just like learning the trade?

So to be an apprentice in a New York State Department of Labor registered apprenticeship program, you're paid while you're due the hours on the job. So depending on the union, I know the electricians are 5,000 hours of on the job training, the laborers, the carpenters, the painters, tapers, and glazers are 4,000 hours on the job training. but apprentices also have to do 300 hours of classroom training or more, and they cannot take that classroom training and they can roll it over to college credits to someday even be a superintendent and run job sites. So literally starting with no experience right out of high school, and they say the average union laborer in their career makes between five and seven million dollars of wages and benefits.

And then the collaboration, I know earlier we talked about this connection with BOCES or any other programs to be able to help to funnel or partnership to help.

Yes, I actually sit on the Trade Advisory Board with the introduction to building trades with BOCES. And I know the laborers union, the carpenters union, the plumbers union, and even the operating engineers utilize kids and direct and indenture them. So we can bring them right in from BOCES, and if, like I said, they're a junior in school, they can work all during the summer, which is our busiest season anyways. go back to school for their senior year their junior year any breaks they have off we can put them to work and then all that hours accrue until when they graduate out of high school and then they can pick right up where they left off and it's an earn while you learn so instead of four years going to college and you owe this money you made money the whole time and our first year apprentices coming out of high school are making $25 an hour in the check thank you

I like that. Just kind of with the last thing you said, I think now we need to start really talking about trades. A lot of times people, my daughter's graduating, and so people are always pressing the college issue, but not everyone's college material and this is a way to make money and to survive in the world with a trade and a skill because sometimes you can do that and for free too, not with a bunch of debt.

yeah I mean I've spent the last 15 years banging on every school and BOCES door and it's like they finally are coming around to where we partner with Binghamton High School we partner I sit on the trade advisory board with the broom Tioga BOCES the DCMO BOCES I used to sit on the board with the Cooper's Plains BOCES bringing kids into the trade is it's huge because some of them don't want to go to college don't know what they want to do and then you put a tool in their hand and all of a sudden They find their niche in life, and they could just be happy to be a construction worker, or you always have people to be the next generation of organizers and union reps or people that are overseeing the contractors and superintendents. I mean, the average age right now for the construction industry is 48 years old.

yeah that's I think that's great you know like you said there's other you know avenues with them with the Union so it's good and a great thing too I think you missed was you know we do have a high poverty rate and that's another way out of poverty having solid training and career so that's another way to kind of build yourself and out of that same

and let's be real if we need to build affordable housing why not use the next generation of the kids who live here to build it so then they actually want to stay in this area kind of seems like one hand washes the other absolutely i'm sure thank you so much when it will come up um do you have any sense of what kind of cost or is is there a cost to bear on the taxpayer for adding such a program You mentioned other places have implemented this. Have they seen reduction?

Honestly, so we have New York State prevailing wage law, which means you have to pay the same rate, union, non-union, no matter what. Apprentices is the only place in prevailing wage law where you get a discount because you're actually paying them a less rate because they're learning on the job. So in implementing this and requiring 10% of the man hours to be utilized by apprentices, we actually save the city and the taxpayers money.

Anyone else? This is just... I think it's long overdue and I think this demonstrates your experience and your expertise. I think the conversation regarding apprenticeship has been in workforce discussions for years without any actual action toward making this a, like we have the actual opportunity to legislate this into city policy. My dad was an organizer and eventually the general business administrator for District 51 IUPAT down in DC Baltimore these are the kind of things that they were doing 20 years ago honestly 30 years ago and and it's I don't know that we can call it innovative anymore but locally here absolutely it is and and I this is exciting thank you

so the funny thing is is when we took office and got our file cabinets downstairs my apprenticeship packet that i gave to bill bird was still there whole with the bob and everything that had all the background information on this so i've been pitching this since 23 or 2015 to the city and this is the only way i ever figured i'd get it done so congrats thank you mike all right well We'll move on to RL 26-168. Our presenter is Samantha Costello, our deputy city clerk, and this is in the Rules and Procedures and Special Studies Committee, and I'll hand it over to Council Member Matavetsky.

Welcome. Good evening. So this continuing part of our series here, and I'm glad this is moving along. I'm happy to see the number of things in our code that are not in charter or not actually enforced or enforceable or relevant actually get cleaned up and removed. You want to introduce this week's installment?

Sure. Thank you so much for having me tonight. This week, we're going to talk about RL26-168, a local law repealing chapter 318, public assembly. This is an outdated chapter from the charter that contains licensing requirements for bowling alleys, dance halls, and theaters. These are remnants of the charter code revision from 1970. These particular regulations are currently better regulated and duplicatively in some cases regulated through modern zoning, building, fire safety, occupancy, and other types of laws, including state law. So the chapter really has become redundant at best and kind of contradictory at worst. And I'll take questions as they come up. What's your favorite piece to delete? I do not think that the office of the city clerk should be the judge of good character. Furthermore, nor do I want to judge. Yeah, that's just one piece. You know, furthermore, the conduct of a dance, like I wouldn't want to unpack on the floor what I think that should or shouldn't be. But a lot of these things, right, like prohibit gambling at bowling alleys, that's already covered under different laws that we have on the books. The fire code.

Work with Kelshi.

The fire code is really the dominant and the building code sort of reference point for how a lot of these are regulated in the status quo. So really it's just about going back to cleaning the charter up and I'm coming for chapter 173 amusements next.

I would really not like to be judging the character of dance hall participants, folks.

Also, just to flag, most of these don't have a place in the fee schedule anymore anyway, so it's not like I could give a license if I tried. If we get desperate in the budget, no? No. No, I mean, I will say even no, actually, because if you wanted to open a theater, getting a license from my office would still require you to go to FIRE. Building and Code, there are significant barriers to entry related, like whether or not I gave you a license, so very different.

We are also talking about a maximum of potentially one licensee within the entire city of Binghamton. I'm not sure it would be the revenue stream we're looking for.

And it dovetails nicely with the updates to Chapter 410 in zoning. So, you know, land use, operating permits. Can't just open a theater because Sarah says you can.

Thank you.

All right, having nothing else, can I get a motion to adjourn? Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned.