Common Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. All right. All right. 611. Sorry about the technicals difficulties. You're still not able to get online, but we'll record this meeting and uh close it that way. You can call the meeting to order, please. Roll call. Council member Tobin here. Council member here. Council member here. Council member Lane here.

Council member Conlin here. Council member Carpenter here. Council member Beckwood. Council member Michaelisibley and justice for all. Thank you.

Public comments. Uh Donald Chu. Yeah,

thank you very much for the uh indepth and very candid discussion last uh meeting about the new $8 million bond. Um, you know, I I I learned a lot that I didn't know. And uh um one comment that director Shaker made that, you know, stuck with me is that that extra Oh, yeah. I understand now that uh the the work or the DRRi was uh originally kind of not known to be as complicated as it was. and very understandably it was finished you know once you you got into it not going to leave it you know half done so it was finished um but yeah I was saying Mr. Shagger commented, "It probably should have been approved by the council, the extra spending." And um so that made me wonder, was it not detected or realized that we're going over a cost or if we knew it and we just nobody thought to bring it to the council. And then if uh either of those is the case, what we would do or what procedure we might change to, you know, avoid it in the future. Thank you, Name's Mike Dexter. I've lived in the city my entire life. My most recent position has been on the landscape trying to get this right about what I've seen lately, the landscape planning and

design either commission board or committee. Uh a little bit of my history is I got on the uh landscape and design commission almost 25 years ago because of some of the and trimming that national time it was Mohawk. Today it's National Grid. Uh we had some big concerns about what they wanted to do. They did some pruning on my street which was totally not acceptable. Um Church Street out here was going to be completely cut down and started over again. We were able to through some persistence of talking to Niagara Mohawk. I personally delivered a hand uh delivered letter to Mr. Edwards at Niagara Mohawk at the time asking him why the trees had to be removed. He kept saying there were power outages. We kept asking how many power outages were there. They didn't tell us. We finally found out that there were no power outages, but they just wanted to prune the trees or not prune them. they wanted to cut him down. So since then we've been very uh honed in on work that Niagara Mohawk has done in the city now national grids. Uh, it started when they came into the city and I guess that's the reason I got on the landscape and design commission unofficially the tree commission and it looks like I'm right back to where I was in square one 25 years ago because it was brought to my attention obviously I saw it first trees on Central A from numbers 130 through number 15658 were totally removed except for one tree in front of number 134. I talked to the person that requested the trees 10 years ago. He said he got a letter from the DPW. It was his understanding that the DPW took

the tree down. I found out yesterday from Mike at the DPW that National Grid actually took the trees down, removed the stumps. The letter that was received by the homeowners was directed to the owner of 1321 134. No, this was addressed to 130 central. The city of Portland is part partnership with National Grid in removing the tree in front of your property per section 273-7 section A of the city's chartered code. This work is being performed to ensure variability of the power grid serving your property. All work will be performed at no cost whatsoever to the property owner. If you have any questions, call the DVDW. It also said, "Please check the appropriate box of an authorization form if a replacement tree is desired." Having talked to Dan Williams, who lives at 1321 134, owns the property, uh he told me that the tree was in pretty good shape. Since then, I've been able to take pictures of the trees that were removed and particularly the trees at 134 136. 134 was left. It's a horn beam. It was planted in 200 I know that the one that's in question that was removed is in front of 136. It is a white shield oge orange which was planted in 2016. It's 10 years old. Uh I've got pictures of it. I'm going to show you the pictures. And our big concern with pruning the trees for the most part was that they were concerned about trees being in their primary lines because this tree that was planted was accepted by National Grid to be planted in this space. We submit all the trees that were planted from year to year and National Grid rebates us $50 for every tree that's planted under their wires that

they find acceptable. Now these are primary lines. I'm going to pass this around. You're going to see this tree and you're going to see a lot of cables going through the tree. Nobody prunes those wires, okay? They're cable TV. They're cable uh uh they could be anything other than the primary lines which are on top. I can tell you that the telephone poles are probably 45 ft. That's what I was told they need. I'm going to pass this around and show you the tree that was removed at 136. The tree at 134 was left because it's only in the lines that are underneath. U the misunderstanding that a lot of people have is that when they see trees planted and they're going through cable TV, secondary uh telephone lines, that's not a problem. Like I said, they don't prune those branches. What they prune those uh lines. What they prune is lines that are up on top, which are the primary lines which carry the power up and down the street. The lines that you see on that picture at the lower are, like I said, telephone, a cable TV. This tree in particular, if you're looking at it, could have been very easily pruned. First of all, I don't think it was in the wires. It only gets 35 ft tall. This tree is now 8 and a half years old. It's 10 years old as of today. Obviously, it doesn't it's not there, so you can't see it. But that picture is a very very good uh description of that tree and the way it looks. 2016 it was the only year that we planted this particular tree. They've done very well in this climate. Since the city has no trained certified arborist on staff, it would have been, I guess, a good idea to have somebody that is certified to look at that tree as my friend Jim Maloney would have done if he was asked. As far as I know, nobody was asked in the city to look at the tree before they took it down.

This isn't the first time I've been here on trees that have been removed for not a good reason. I planted that tree. It's very, very tough to see trees that are very, very healthy that are cut down because somebody thinks that they're a nuisance tree that could have been pruned. I could have pruned that tree with the proper equipment before it was removed. He did get asked if he wanted another tree. I don't know whether he wants another tree. And for the most part, people that have trees taken down, and you're going to find out with the ash trees that have just been removed that most people after suffering through with an asht tree over the last five, six, seven years are not going to want another tree in their front yard. That's almost a guarantee unless the city somehow works to say you will get another tree in your yard. And this is one of the thing I talked to the mayor about when they did Arthur a most of the trees that were up there that were old were taken down. What the city needs to do when they redo a street is not to ask the people that they're taking the tree down. They would like they should be asking what kind of tree would you like being replaced? We got too many streets in the city that are rebuilt. trees are taken down and no trees are put back up. At one time we were falling behind as far as trees being taken down, trees being planted. We're pretty close to that right now. Not in my lifetime, but it won't be far from into the future that trees will be removed and our streets will be barren of trees.

Mr. Dexter, yes. If I can interrupt you, is Mr. Maloney a certified tree? Yes, he is. So will you get that information to He's got it. I mean Jim is retired. Jim has retired. Jim was a consultant on my tree commissioner for 20 years. Jim is the reason that the trees on Church Street are still standing. This would be a good name and number to get to the DPW so that they they sorry they know how to get a hold of Jim. Okay.

Thank you for that comment. But they can get they know how to get a hold of Jim as far as I know. I might be wrong. Um, Mike's not here, but I don't know if anybody from the DPW went and looked at those trees. I've got some other pictures here of there were five trees taken down totally. This tree at 130 probably should have come down. If I was the homeowner, I would have wanted the tree down, too, because of what National Grid has done to that tree over the years. This is the tree at number one, Mr. At 132. Mr. Dexter, also not by any means. And uh I don't mind asking because we who are a little hearing if you've got this microphone closer to your faces so we can hear the

speak out for Mr. Dexter. I'm not National Grid by any means but also National Grid does not have tree service anymore. Everything through National Grid is now sub. So there's probably some comm lack of communication through National Grid and whoever they hire out. They do not cut trees. They don't have tree service anymore. Everything is sub. That that's true, Troy. But Jim Maloney, there's still a responsibility by all means, but I'm just, you know, show up in

Jim Maloney was in charge of Nelson trimming trees. I do know that on this particular power line a few years ago, I was going down the street. Nelson was there. I stopped talked to him. They were pruning some of the trees that were that were then removed either 154, 156, and 158. Two of them were removed. I don't know what they were. I'm assuming they probably were a Norway maple or sugar maple. I stopped to talk to him. I said, "Uh, do you know Jim Maloney?" He said, "No." Okay, enough of that conversation. If they don't know who Jim is and they're working for Nelson, that Jim isn't in charge of that crew. The crew that probably trim these trees comes directly from National Grid and they worry about these particular power lines because people that trim trees have to be certified for one thing. A lot of the people in Courtland that prune trees were not certified to take trees down that the city contracted for. I know one in particular that didn't either bid on the contract or when he got to a tree that was in the wires, he couldn't take it down legally because he'd been caught once before without certification from Jim who trained these people to be able to work around the high power lines. You can't take there was a guy got electrocuted up in telly a few years ago because he was pruning trees and he didn't know what he was doing. He got into the power lines. So my thing is I am once again devastated that that tree has been removed without further consultation. I've been resigned from the tree commission. Dana is now in charge of it. I would hope that next time that they come into the city and Jim always told National Grid or Nelson when they were trimming trees, get a hold of Mike. Okay. Let Mike at least know the trees are being pruned so when the neighbors start calling up I can say yes. Jim notified Nelson to let Mike know to let the city know that people will be on your street pruning trees. So, I just ask that the city be a little bit more cautious and a little bit more uh

adventuresome in getting people to look at trees before a tree like this that's 10 years old is removed from our landscape. That tree probably is 15 years old because it's in the nursery for five or six years before it's even taken out of the nursery and we get it. We only planted these trees one year and they done very well. They were recommended to us by Nina Basset over in Ithaca who was a certified arborist. The other thing is the city doesn't have anybody. They're training people but they don't have any certified arborists on staff. And anytime anybody had a problem in the city, call Mike. Mike will know who to get a hold of. Mike's not there anymore. and Dana will have my number, but I'm more than willing to go out and help. And when Jim comes back in town, we probably will go out and prune trees that need pruning. But please don't let this happen again.

We'll make sure we make Mr. Nichols, Chief Nichols.

Good to see everybody. I'm Jim Nichols and I want to just thank the DPW. The Courtland Royal Cemetery on Topin Street established in 1853. As you some of you may know, we've been struggling over the past several years because of the the decrease in burials, the increase in expenses. We've been fortunate to Mike Dexter to meet Jim Maloney and every year in September nationwide they do saluting branches all the arborists in the United States and they'll go into a cemetery that has a military section and work on the trees. They have saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years removing bad trees in the cemetery. So along that line, um trying to reduce expenses and maintain the cemetery so the city or Corville doesn't end up owning it. Um the dirt dirt from projects in the cemetery had grown to a humongous pile of dirt. And last summer we allowed the people paving Top Street to park their vehicles in the cemetery. And as a result of that, the DPW showed up here a couple of months ago and cleaned all that dirt out.

What happened?

Once again, saved us a fortune. And they did it without any begging or screaming at the mayor or the chairman of the DPW board or anything. So, there's an example of once again Portland stepping up to save the cemetery. And along that same line, we have many, many people who offer services to the rural cemetery. And one in particular is uh Steven Capag economy paving. And one of our big problems is we can't afford to buy a fancy pickup truck. And Stephen has given us two pickup trucks over the past several years to help us uh maintain the cemetery. So we've got economy paving, we've got the DPW. So, I just want to thank the board, the council, and the DPW and these other entities for the service they provided. And one last thing, as you know, I'm the one that created two way street.

Thank you. Why'd you land then? I had to bring it back. Uh, well, you I was here in ' 68 out of 69. It was one way. Yeah. Well, anyways, I I've been We won't hold that against you then, Jim. I've been keeping an eye on it and I do believe it's a success. Yes, absolutely. It looks cleaner. It's vibrant. I see traffic up and down all the time. Um, yeah, big deal backing in, but I think people are adjusting to that. So, I want to thank the mayor and the council uh for what they've done. So, thank you.

Thank you. Real quick, Scott, on that, since you brought Main Street up, just I wanted to comment Mr. Choose thing on Main Street. You know, you go in for an open heart surgery, they cut you open. You went in for one bail. We have to make a decision. Now you need two bails. So, we don't have time to make, you know, we got to move the project along. Things got done that maybe wasn't rightfully so, but cost us more money. So, I just want to bring that up. I'm not questioning the decision. I just thought jumping through the hoops.

Yeah. Um, all right. Thank you for everybody's comments. We'll move to the finance report. I'll just start off again to talk about Mr. Chief's comments about the the finance uh or the overages and bonds about that. Um, so when that bond resolution were done, it was there was bonds for Main Street, Clinton, and um

Ron. And when that was all done, there was a a confusion on the bonding of REIA and some of the bonding on which ones went over top of the others. And so the uh 7 million 8 million was for the combination of all those different ones. So uh it should have been avoided that uh those grants should have been it should have been caught that they were all separated relied on council to help that bond council couldn't work out. That's why we did it after the fact.

All right. With that, we'll do your finance report next, please. I'm not going to go through and read uh word uh for word of the uh finance agreement I sent out, but the 25 closeout, we're still uh working on that. Uh it is my plan to be able to send you a fairly up to date. I won't say it's 100% final because it won't be at the next meeting of where we stand for 25. Um at least that's my goal at this point. We're still going through making entries and finding things that we got it correct and what years they need to go in. Um but I'm still hopeful that the original number I said at 2.5 is still good good number. Um in this uh package today there's a 2026 we made a budget adjustment. When we did that adjustment there was two line items that were incorrect. Uh when you do a look at the uh documents that Jade sent out to everybody there's two highlighted items. There was one for $2,000 that I didn't move over and there was another one that I think we did for 30,000. It should have been 31,00037. Just when I gave that over to Jade, I gave her the wrong information. Uh this is the corrected information. I'm giving you the whole transaction again uh with the corrected items, but only the two items are different than the last meeting. Um the 24 audit um I'll speak a little bit more on that um than what was written here. I had multiple conversations uh with the firm. Uh it is not going to be done by the end of March like I anticipated and hoped. Uh I do not have a good date um from them on it. Um I have been on the phone.

I sent emails. Um vital that we get this done before April 22nd. Okay. They are very much aware of that date. Um, it's sort of out of our hands. I've actually threw an email out to them. If you're going to say it's going to cost me extra money to get it done, I'm willing to pay extra money if that's what it takes. Okay. But I have not uh gotten a good date back from them. Um, what happens after April 22nd if it's not done?

There's multiple different things that happen if it's not done. We have two things that require it to be done before the end of April. If we're going to go to the financial review board, everything has to be done by the end of April, which includes the 24hour. Uh number two is we have a bond and bank going out in May. Anything done after April 24, uh we cannot release any audit information for basically a month. So that pushes it out to the end of May. So, um, every piece of information they have requested, they have had now for at least 10 days. Uh, I've got no new requests from them. Um, the person in my office that's working with me on it, uh, she's staying on top of it and, um, it's in their hands. And I wrote a very clear, concise email to them telling them the importance of this. Would you agree with that, Mayor? I mean there was no bones. It wasn't a mean letter. It was very to the point why we why we have to have this done.

His response was somewhat vague with that. Emergencies they had to deal with but they would get make it a priority. So we hope for the best.

Um it projects are moving along. Um I still anticipate us everything up and running into the second quarter of 26. Our credit card machines came in uh probably 10 days ago now. We can't get them updated till we get everything up to speed, but uh we have a meeting tomorrow morning uh on this process and they're going on weekly. Um other financial information, the bonds and notes, as I mentioned, the issuance is going out in the May time frame. Uh in this uh letter I stated to you that um we would probably be looking at a negotiated sale. I sent everybody a copy of the Moody's uh report that we got. Uh even though that is downgraded, it's still at the same level. uh if you were looking at Fitch annuities reports and our adviserss have gone out to the uh financial community and they feel that there's at least two or three people that will bid on our uh offering come May and do not believe we need to do a negotiated sale. So that takes that out of the picture which will make me feel better. Uh and I basically the comment that I got back is that uh there's many communities whether it's municipalities or school districts that are now being downgraded into that type of ratio. So we're not out of the ordinary. Be nice to be better, don't get me wrong, but it's not like a a situation where there's not going to be people bidding on it. The sore exclusion, I'm still waiting on that. I've had a couple uh answers. uh questions come back from them. I supplied the state uh the answers on that. Uh I would hope I would get that before the end of the week. And the H medical expenses through uh from January

through March 20th. This is what we've actually paid out is 192,432. Uh I'm working with uh the consortium to try to come up with a better report to send out to everybody uh to better it give us where this is what we actually paid. There's another report that shows what what's been incurred. Okay. I'm trying to get that one so we have a better picture where we are more up to date. The lag from the time it it's incurred to when it's paid maybe three four weeks. I'm not 100% sure, but no, we're working on better than that for everybody. I don't know if anyone has any questions. I have um a few. For starters, the Moody's downgrade reflects 50.1 million in debt for the city, which is the same as last year's. And I believe it actually noted that the DRRi and other bonds are not factored into that equation. about your understanding as well.

$50 million worth of bonds is what we have on the books as of the end of the last borrowing time period, which would have been last May. Okay. That would have been what we would have had is bonds and bands. How close are we to the constitutional debt limit? Not close at all. Do you have a percentage on that, Tom? I don't know off the top of my head, but I'm going to say it's in the mid50s. I'm I'm guessing when I say that. Okay. I'm just doing it in my head. I did it before to see where we stood. And is that before or after the DRRI? That would be before the DRI. Okay. Um

Tom, just so you understand this too, the constitutional uh limit is as as well as the tax limit has changed dramatically in the last two years because all the assessment values have gone up, right? And that's what everything is based off of. as the assessment value goes up, all these ratios have decreased dramatically for every municipality, right? Um I'm guessing you also and it's all right if you don't, but the tax cap, how close are we to that? Do you have a sense for that?

I don't I have not looked at that. Um the three dou or uh reasons for areas of concern for the downgrade from Moody's in 2025 were material excuse me material operating deficits and weaker reserves in fiscal year 2025 which we saw saw happen uh inability to provide timely financial statements with unqualified auditor opinions and sign significant increase in long-term liabilities in related fixed costs. Um, those three indicators of a future downgrade were repeated in this report. So far, it we're at a $2.5 million deficit. Um, it sounds like the audit may be running late. What constitutes an unqualified auditor's opinion? If you go back and look at the 23 audit, basically there was not all information supplied to the auditors that satisfied their needs. Okay? The biggest one being cash. And what I mean by that is I'm making these numbers up. You have $10 million cash. What is general fund? What is water fund? What is sewer fund? Okay. um that was not documented to where the auditors felt comfortable that they should put that in the financial statement and feel good with it. Okay. I can tell you that as of today um that 23 information has been supplied to them. Uh I've reviewed it. I believe it documents that uh to get to remove that because they can't move that forward without having substantiation for 23. And um I believe it's there, you know, but that was the main reason for that book called adversarial opinion.

I appreciate that. And the Moody's report also indicated that the credit rating could be withdrawn if the audit isn't completed by July. That's correct. Or excuse me, June. How big of a concern is that in your book? What would that look like if if the rating was withdrawn? How would that impact the city's ability to borrow? It would be after the fact. So, we basically have a year to get it taken care of. By pushing it out to Junar, borrowing's taken care of in May. So, it won't have any effect until next May.

Okay. Doesn't necessarily mean it's good. Don't get me wrong, but I'm being honest. It's out of our hands right now. I mean, as they call up and ask for anything, they're getting it. Okay. I'm on the phone with all the auditors on my ride in or on my way home making sure they have everything. Uh it's important to me to get it done uh for multiple reasons. Okay. But just to get it off the plate is, you know, one of the things I might and there's a lot of different things. Sure.

And I do appreciate your work on it. So thank you uh Mr. Sheer. Um governance was noted as a material driver in the rating action. Um as was depleted reserves, limited flexibility in terms of the city's finances, deficiencies in internal controls and oversight. Given the path we're on, uh we currently have a deficit, our reserves. Do you think we're likely to get in the positive in terms of reserves this year? No.

Um, and it sounds like we may end up running into some issues despite your efforts and I I appreciate your efforts with the audit. Uh, and we are adding, you know, the DRI alone is another $8 million to the debt limit or the debt the city has. How likely do you think our future downgrades moving forward given where we stand now? I

I don't think they're going to be downgraded from here. I really don't. I mean, I think we have a lot of work to do, but if we do the things we're supposed to do uh to get this the budget balanced and going forward, the 7.9 assist us in this screening, although it doesn't necessarily say it, it gives us the ability to pay off some of the bills we have to pay off and have cash to to operate going forward. What factors make you confident we won't have another downgrade? This is the fifth consecutive year that we have had one. And as I outline the three causes for a downgrade, it seems we're on track to meet. So I'm curious what makes you

the biggest one is really our operating deficit. Okay. That is the absolute biggest problem that we have is that you have a series of deficits uh that put it in uh to a deficit balance. We have to stop that. We have to stop the bully. And I would just say that we are doing that every day, okay? In the office, okay? Things are coming in. Nope, we can't do this. It could be a $500 item. It's being questioned, okay? Think everyone needs. You guys don't see that. But if you talk to some department head ads, you know, small items are being bought and one small item might only sound like $500. It may actually be $200 or $3,000 in the end. So everything is being addressed on a daily basis.

And I thought that we as a common council last year um recommended and approved an austerity budget, right? So is that still in place? Oh, I mean I mean everything's looked at. Everything was going through uh budget finance as a review. Everybody's filling out a spreadsheet and they were being approved

based on what was what was there and what was not um that was being approved by the during their financial time. So there were some items that probably shouldn't have got. So look at looking at what you shared with us from Moody's um follow up on what Tom said the continuing multi-year trend of structurally imbalanced operations deficits and narrowing reserves. Um looking at the annual report in terms of mun is it currently are the numbers currently up to date in Munice? Are things being inputed in an appropriate time frame? I'm going to answer that, Ryan, and tell you that yes, okay, but I'm not going to tell you everything is entered in there 100%. It is better than it was in 25. Okay, we are going through a different process and things are getting in there in a timely basis and bills are getting paid in a basis.

Very good. The um part of the concern council is supposed to be a check or a balance. are supposed to be able to come back and check on the numbers and make sure that the numbers reflect where we think the budget should be. And if the numbers that are provided are not accurate, that's a problem because then we can't do our job. And if we can't do our job, then at the end of this year, we're going to have more problems. Um looking at so we're provided original appropriations, a revised budget, and then available budget. basically what's being spent. Um it would be helpful. This is why the previous year's numbers are important because if we had a comparison for this time last year, then we would have a better understanding where the actual numbers are. So for example, um there's transfers from water and sewer funds that go to the general fund. And if those aren't done till the end of the year, then we know there's revenue coming in. But if they're done quarterly, then you know that some of that money, some of that revenue is coming in. some of the expenditures in terms of personnel. You know that sometimes people are cashing in time that they can cash in at the end of the year. So it might look like there's a lot of money but there's that large bill that's coming due. Um, you know, the recommendations that we're looking at in terms of the finance committee is to talk about what policies and procedures are we following to make sure that the numbers are not only kept up to date, but we're not just looking at our expenditures, but also the revenues and having a better idea before we get to the end of the year of where things will be. Um, we don't have the luxury of reserves, so we can't look back and say, "Oh, we can dive in a little bit." Um, so I'm saying this because I'm encouraging council and I've shared some of the thoughts and we're going to bring them back I hope not just to the committee but also to the whole board here. Hey, these are some of the things that we need to do. And I was going to

say in my war report, but we've shared some information from the office of the state controller about different things that we can and should be looking at. And I would encourage us to take a stronger look and say, hey, these are the numbers that we need to have. Um, in terms of Moody's, I appreciate you sharing this. It's not all great news, but it's important to see. And when they talk about what the credit challenges are, they also say factors that could lead to an to an upgrade. So, basically, they're saying, "Hey, here are some of the things that we need to do. Multi-year trend of structurally balanced operations, improved overall governance, including a demonstrated ability to provide timely financial statements with unqualified auditors opinions. So, it does put a lot on that annual audit in terms of, hey, we need to make sure we've got things lined up. So, that's going to get done in a timely manner. Unfortunately, where we're at, going down worse could be more than just a little bit detrimental. We need to make sure that we're trending upward in terms of our credit rating. Friday night. Basically what they said is stuff that I believe in personally in my prior community places I worked at. We may have been late filing stuff. Okay. When I left every single facility I worked at, things were done on time. Audits were being done on time. Um, you go back and look at the city of Bingington, which I did download this information. I'll share with you my 10 years there. Okay? You can see how we got from point A to point B, how fund balances changed or went from a deficits to positives. Okay. How audits were done. Okay. I will work with the mayor and council to get that be in the same situation here. I think uh everyone here understands the issues we have. Okay. I was very clear the biggest problem that we have is that there's one

line item in two budgets that's over $2 million. That's our problem. I can't fix that this year. Okay. It's what we what was out there as a revenue. It's not coming in. Didn't come in in 24. It didn't come in 25. We fixed it in 26. Uh $700,000. We have to now start peeling back the onion and figure out how do we get that $2.5 million back, right? One item you're going to do. I mean, unless you want to get rid of the police or fire department, I mean, that's your only option to get $2 and half million dollars back. That's not going to happen. So

um you have said that you think that you have a plan in mind and that in 3 to 5 years we could be on the right side of this and I think as much as you can reveal hey can you talk into the voice right so You're not the only one who came here.

So, um, Chuck has said that in three to five years he thinks that we can be in the black and have this period behind us. It's going to be really difficult, but he thinks we can turn it around. And I think that um the news that we were so in over years was really alarming. and what you're hearing is all of that concern. Uh, and if you could if you could be as uh transparent as possible about the plan as we go along, that will help put people, us and the public, at ease. I have a lot of faith in you and I know you did great work at Bington and I'm really glad that we have you on board just from the meetings that I've been in. Um you're very experienced and I think we can do this. We just you know you you've mentioned we have to do the right things. You know what they are. I don't necessarily know what they are. Brian has some great ideas. You know what I mean? So, as much as possible, if we can if we can outline what we're doing so that people know and have faith that we're headed in the right direction, that'll be really good. Katie, to summarize it real quick, there's really nothing I can say right now today that's going to answer that question 100%. That's going to be everyone's input and over the years of doing budgeting and trimming back different areas, keeping the revenues where they need to be, bringing in more

revenues, you know, where we can. Okay. Um, but it's going to be, you know, small steps, not nothing real big that's going to make it all happen. And, uh, it's really going to be everyone's input into it. But the most important part is that we have accurate numbers that are receiving 26 up to date and keeping them accurate. We were told that 25 was the same and it wasn't and we weren't not getting necessarily a true message. But I think that's the most important part to see I agree with Brian that comparing the 25 to 26 to see where you're projected at. Although at that time period it should I don't know that it would be if they made the entries at the end of the year for wastewater it's not going to be accurate because it would be the same. with those explanations on the things that are big items that should be in the financial report that we're asking for monthly and say why are we having such a lag or why are we s ahead so much or why are we anticipating that is this a good thing and taking that extra time but to have that once a month that's going to be helpful. So I think that's the the focus we need to get once you you know get closer to getting arms around it to get to that point where it's getting in sync getting the auditors to keep pushing them politely and diligently we appreciate that professionalism that's difficult balance too because they'll jump real quick so we may 100% you understand this is to do any of that real job of trying to get there we have to get everything caught up to speed with all the data in the system so you can analyze it efficiently and understand it all. Okay, there's so many different things that aren't up to date that we look at say, "Oh, this isn't right." You know, I found stuff today from 23 and 24 that wasn't accurate. You know, so when I just look at it, I'm not just saying what's here and stop.

Why did this happen? Okay, but we got to bring it all up to speed. That's what we're working on doing. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. receiving the financial report and then we'll move to mayor's report. I just have a couple things. Um we had a couple uh fires, one on Topic Street was at 2:30 in the morning and that building is down and cleaned up today.

Uh South Main Street, we had another fire at uh on Sunday at 12:30 in the afternoon and a four unit, but two of the four units are back occupied. So again, we appreciate the diligence of the fire department in both cases uh handled as as we would always expect. A great job and well done and got you know aid from I think I saw Virgil there um and the one uh Homer was there uh one of our police officers in Homer fired gear so he was there backing up too. So uh it was it was great to see everybody working together to make sure that that was all safe to do that. uh you know attended occupy corn county occupancy tax disc discussion. The county is looking at doing something different in the occupancy tax. Uh we had a kickoff for the NAS parks uh for the dog park and that that construction and the dirt bringing in for that area. Um and I had a meeting today. This is I'm directing this at Mr. Chu because I think he was be excited about this one. We hive met with hive today and uh they're looking heterracks is an organization that sets up bees and pollinators within solar fields. So there's a it's a kind of a program we're looking at and it goes into a biodiversity monitoring program. They keep really good track of it and take care of setting up those beekeepers. So be great to use that brownfield as a you know habitat for that and they have dashboards and it's pretty intensive stuff. So there'll be more to come on that. So that's uh uh exciting news for sure. Our in the wastewater our uh generator is now running full function which is the first time in a while we rebuild some items in that to make sure that that's running which is a good cost savings and a good way to generate power off our gas usage. So that's a good thing to have up and running again. And the youth bureau Easter egg hunt is

10:00 a.m. this Saturday at Saget Park. summer camp registration is open and those camp dates are July and August. Uh we're working on the concert series up to a a big event in August with the county. Uh Birch Building had some upgrades and then the the community community beach thing in Gaming Park is going to be up in this. Then on Main Street, uh RZ Riz Eats opened up which is next to uh Woodman's Puff. They opened up um 10 days ago. Nano's Chicken will be opening up in the next four or five days. And Maxwell MK's artwork is being installed uh as we speak. And uh we have the he gave me the remote control for the lights that are inside that so they can change the colors of the lights that are inside of that. But that's a beautiful piece of art and uh really art is always what's in the beholder. So I challenge everybody to look at it and tell me what it is. So, so, uh, it's, uh, but it's it's exciting to see those come together. We have one more piece of artwork that has to go in and certainly some more benches and, uh, trash cans that have to be put in after this winter, which we hope is over. So, that's what I had. So, with that, we'll move to um, board one.

Thank you. So, um, as I stated, we had a finance committee meeting last Tuesday, which was on St. Patrick's Day and a good robust discussion in terms of where we're at and some of the things that we can do. Uh going to continue to meet and talk about recommendations, what we can do as a council to better monitor and fill our obligations. Um actually had a concern called today about the DPW website. It talks about brush collection for 2025 asking for it to be updated. So I'm going to follow up with Mike about that. Um and he helped me out. We had a resident whose one of the totes was damaged during collection um and helped address that issue. Um also not two different items video from the last meeting Mr. Jwick is not up on the YouTube website. Is there anticipated time when that might be available?

Uh right after this meeting. Very good. And I do have an interest in not sure where we're at with Parker School and future plans, but I've got a strong interest in being involved and engaged in that. So that's it for my report. Scott, real quick, Brian, I had some concerns about DPW people. This weekend I went down and used the conference file. I guess it's gated now or something. You are I don't know who's on that committee. Are you on that committee? I just brought that up because you were talking about Okay.

It's been very quiet in the second ward. Um, a lot of our neighbors were gone for spring break. Uh, quite a few were left behind, but it's a density issue and when there aren't as many, they're as quiet as anybody else, which is really lovely. Also, the cold this winter has been rough. Um and so when it is nice, we expect that people will be outside enjoying the weather. So we get that. Um I went to the finance committee meeting and I also attended a meeting for codes. So that's about it for the second board.

Thank you.

Okay. Couple of issues. So, I had my first ward meeting. The mayor was there. Kathy Bishop, who's our legislator uh for the ward, was there, uh about 20 people showed up. Uh it went very well. There are major concerns and Mike Weiss was there and he's aware. Um it was at the waterworks. major concerns about the state of several streets that were torn up and repaired and repaved last summer. Belrose, Melvin, Lwood, and Gwen. So, Mike is in conversation with Suko and I'm going to have another ward meeting, but I'm going to wait until uh we see what Souco can do to repair the streets. Okay. So, the other issue is I received a letter. I'm going to read it and I'm going to hand out copies to all common council persons. I was asked to do that. Um but I'm going to read it. That's one for Brian and so uh from Grat Nav. Dear Mayor Scott, Steve, Common, Council members, and DPW, we are writing to you regarding manhole covers located on the street in front of 174 Rottnap as well as 181-1 184 Grotap. These covers have recessed below street level asphalt and have become a big concern and issue to us. When 18-wheeler trucks, lawn and snow removal trucks, trucks with trailers attached, and other large vehicles travel on Grat Nav, they go over these manhole covers. This makes an extremely loud slamming noise and actually shakes our homes and windows. This has progressively gotten worse since Grat Nav was resurfaced. This is not a quote unquote once in a while

occurrence as it happens 24/7. We are actually very concerned about our home's foundations, structural stability, and windows. 18-wheeler traffic is more prevalent than it was for many years, and the traffic on Gratav is at times extremely heavy. This issue was discussed in the past with the prior DPW superintendent. We are requesting that this issue be addressed and fixed to resolve above concerns. If you would like additional details or wish to speak to us, you have the person's name, Christa Stark, and her phone number, and it's signed by several residents of BroNav, and I have their signatures. So, I know Mike's not here tonight, but I want to make sure he gets a copy of this. And um this is a major concern. A major concern. And and Christa had shared with me that they're literally their house shakes when the 18-wheelers go by. Literally shakes. So, just bringing it and that's it for me.

Dave, that's a trucker, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the the good news is those manholes are adjustable. So, um once the construction season gets clear and the ball plan opens, they'll have to cut that back out. So, that can be taken care of. So, not a good solution, but we'll put it on their list. Thank you. or

um on Friday, March 13th, I received a text from Chief Freriedman at 3:34 in the morning. Um, thank you. And it said, you know, call me when you get this. Well, he got a call about 8:00. Um, and it was it was about the uh structure fire at the former King's Den. Um, I went up and he was able to fill me in on what was going on and the the fact that the fire inspectors were there, what they were looking for. Um, and then I I was able to go back a little later and the family was there and so I got to meet them and and that was good and to, you know, offer any any assistance I could. Um, I've gotten calls from several people on lower Pearl Street uh toward the college. Um, problems continued with parking on uh on Pearl for I think it's a 2hour limit, but but they are there longer than two hours. Sometimes blocking driveways. Um, one uh one lady had uh I don't know, she said it was last year, I don't know if it was water, DPW had come along and and done some work and left a couple piles of rocks on her lawn. And I did go down, I took pictures. I went down, they were there. And she's concerned about when she gets the lawn mowed. um and debris at the very end of the street. Um Betty or was going to go out and try to clear it away, but she said it's too heavy for

her. Um and and I spoke to Mike about all these issues and he said he would take care of it. Um I also attended a a code B meeting, actually two. Um and that's it from the board. Thank you.

Um, so I also received a call from the chief. Mine was on a Sunday afternoon, so a little more reasonable time frame, but I appreciate the communication uh on the fire in South Maine, as well as all the the work in putting it out. Uh, I've been in contact with uh Mike uh about some issues on South Main with trees where the grates are obstructing their growth. uh and he and I will be working on getting those issues addressed. I need to get in touch with him with the addresses. Um had a ward meeting a couple weeks ago. Um good attendance, good discussion. Uh I did have a lot of people um who asked questions about what's going to be going into the CP cash and carry uh lot. I I know you had mentioned, Mr. Mayor, that there was a a plan for that. Do you have an update on that front?

Um there's still Yep. Okay. Um, when you do have updates, I think it would be great to to share those with the board. A lot of folks are curious about what's going to be going in there and u there's uh some concern with the lack of communication with the folks in the ward on the plans for that storefront. Um, beyond that, I will be having another ward meeting uh coming up Monday uh April 13th again in Bodry Park from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. So, looking forward to that. And that is it from uh the fifth ward.

Word six. I'll call it a six word. Uh a lot of calls from people excited about agenda agenda item number one. um they're concerned about obviously the the building is dilapitated and that the fact that we have resources and there's funding there that we should move ahead on this and we've had a lot of discussion and we'll discuss that in a few minutes but a lot of people are excited about that project. Thank you. Couple quick things and Courtland are doing their annual 11th annual communitywide service project. I don't know if it's on our website. Yeah, yeah,

it is. Okay, just remind that you got to have your stuff in by the 27th for the uh April 19th cleanup day. It's 11th annual. Um Scott mentioned about the art on Main Street. Looks good. And uh got some calls from the not my board, but some residents on Hyatt Street. Like to thank DPW for getting a new fence up behind the compost pile. We're very happy with that. Um, there was a fundraiser at DAV this past weekend for the uh K9 unit, the police department. I think they raised almost $8,000. Am I correct? Just over just over $8,000 for the K9. That was huge. So, other than that, uh, I think the fire department, they always do been pretty busy. And I also got a call from Main Street. I went down there and helped him. I hurt my finger putting the ladder back on the truck and he told me, "What are you doing?" But anyways, uh, no cap case, so you're all good there.

Wish police would call me once in a while for some help. They know better. But

we appreciate both department, all the departments in the city that for what they do for the us, we, the constituents, everybody. So all set morning.

Just a couple of items. Uh parking committee met again last week. Uh we went over the the fees. Uh some stayed the same, some went up, some went down. All these be uh posted at some point on the the city's website. Uh if they already haven't been posted already. Not sure when. Uh, I think that kind of concludes uh this committee meeting. Any further? This actually went pretty quick. Um, Mike Dexter, I got a question for you regarding pink ribbons on trees. I had a constituent asked me, "Are all these trees being taken down?" And I said, "I don't think that's the case." I think uh what the mayor and I concluded was that uh there's a tree survey in the process and these trees might have been marked as uh being already counted for. Are you aware of anything like that?

Which trees you talking about? All trees in the city. I I drive around but I guess I don't see all the trees and I don't see the ones with the big rib ribbons on. I'm I'm thinking that maybe u certain ones have already been identified and accounted for. So they might be in the early process. I'm still trying to find out exactly why the pink ribbons are there. I guess I'm not the right person to ask. I don't know anything about it. Okay. All right. Tom, were those ribbons on branches or on the trunks? On the branches because we had some limbs taken down. It might be DPW. And I understand that when the plow goes through, they were trying to trim back some branches. That's possible. Yep.

Were they branches that were hanging over the road? Uh I wouldn't say a lot, but yes. Uh I don't think uh some of the ones I was seeing weren't going to come any closer to the the truck in question, but that's a possibility that uh that was that was also brought up in the conversation. Uh, are they still doing the fiber stuff for the city? They might be marking them where the I don't know. I just We'll have some answers for you anyways. I appreciate the question, but I guess I'd rather have somebody tell me about trees that are being cut down first,

right? Yeah. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Um, approval of minutes. Everybody get a chance to read the minutes. A motion to accept. Mr. Carpenter, Mr. B. I'm sorry. M. All those in favor? I

I just would like to make a comment. I'm not sure the u all the points that were discussed for some of the agenda items were thoroughly included. I'm not going to ask for things to be added, but um might be weighing in a little bit more in the future. Okay, that's why we approve. Thank you. Resolutions. Agenda item number one, bond resolution of the city of Portland, New York, authorizing issuance of 4,796,965 zero bonds to finance the cost of the reconstruction improvement in the bath house and pavilions at Demon Beach.

I'll read section one and section 12. City of Corland, New York is hereby authorized to undertake related government improvement of the Bad House pavilions at Gan Park whether or not including grading or improvements of the site, original furnishings, equipment, machinery or apparatus required at the minimum cost of $4,796,965 and to issue serial bonds in the aggregate principal amount not to exceed uh that same amount pursuant to the provisions of the local finance law to finance the established cost the estimated cost of the afford said object or purposes and uh section 12 city director of administration finances chief fiscal officer of the city Mr. by authorized enter into an undertaking for the benefit of the holders of the bond from time to time and any bond anticipation notes issued in anticipation of the sale of the bonds requiring the city to provide secondary market disclosure required by certain securities and exchange commission rule 15C2-12 as amended. I get a motion. Miss Lane with any questions.

Just real quick, I know years ago Mr. Yeman put up a million dollars ago when some funded. I don't know if it's still active. I don't have a lot more detail. Just brought to my attention. I don't Maybe Andrea knows anything about it or Yeah, we get money from them every year. Andrea, what what we some of the the blowup items we got this year is from that. I don't remember the exact amount they pay us every year based off the dividends otherwise it wouldn't go away. But it's about we get about $15,000. I don't know. I was just curious. I'm throwing it out there. I don't have any more information that in the trust fund somewhere that we could tap in offset this look into that.

It's a trust. It's a trust that we have and I did address did not go to that as well. Sure. If Mr. still alive there, but they still actively giving even this year giving towards the law put that goes into the I'll try to do some more research on that to see if what it was. We meet with the executives if you will about that and about what projects we're doing every year. Um I have a question. It says in here that the bath house is expected to last 15 years if I read that correctly.

That's the ppu that's the bond. That's what the bond you can't obviously the building would last longer than that you know year but the bond rate you can only bond the building for 15 years. Okay. But then we're expected we expect to pay it off and bond. Is that correct? that I read that correctly. I don't know that I would necessarily say that. Okay. Okay. We could pay it off over 15 years. It could stay on a ban for five years like on the note for five years then go to a bond. Okay. For another 10. It could be there for a total of 15. Okay.

Tom and Brian, you talked about funding sources possibly for the future. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. So the uh one of the concerns and this goes back to our conversation earlier about managing the finances is that there is a 20% city match that's approximately 900 possibly more $900,000 uh possibly more depending on whether or not we can do some work in kind and the question is where do we come up with that money and I think this is a perfect example of things that we need to answer the question now as opposed to trying to figure it out when the bond comes up in another year. Uh during the finance committee meeting, one of the discussions had been about user fees, but they are already there's already user fees in place in particular people outside non-residents. Uh so another suggestion um properties talking about trash and recycling collection. So properties that have more than one set of totes charging a fee and then the revenue from that to come towards offsetting the cost annually of the bond. And in previous discussions I believe the estimate was that annually might be about $60,000. And if we can come up with that revenue um we have a way of saying hey we have an offset here. I think that puts us in a good position. And I think we all agree this is a great project. uh this is something that can really benefit us. It's a lot of opportunity coming from the state, but we still need to be accountable for our portion of the of the costs here. just uh just to add some uh this August is going to be the first time that we've had an event that's going to be coordinated with the health department as well as well as our youth bureau. Uh we plan on having uh health department having many booths set up food vendor

movie night and also uh tank banner will be playing that night. This is all combined in the in one day. So just to give you an idea of uh what we have planned this summer just for this part and u you know charging more people uh to attend these events. I don't think that's the answer. I think you're going to drive people away, especially when it comes to swim passes and stuff like that. Um, I say let's stay the course. Uh, let's do a due diligence and and trying to u find revenue sources to cover the uh 60,000 for the for the bond. But other than that, these these parks u are totally being utilized every summer for a lot of events. and Yam Park just want to thug it together. So many of these parks are a big playing portion of our city government and people look forward to coming to these events. So I just wanted to point that out.

So I have an idea. What if we just like the state does with the state parks issued a season's pass to Yemen? And so that could be anybody, not just the city of Courtland residents, but anybody could have a season's pass. I mean, I don't know how much revenue it would generate, but it's at least worth considering. It's at least worth considering. Um, so it would generate some revenue, but it would be a season's pass, right? And it's to regulate that. How I don't know people pulling in the code or parking lot there. I don't you know, our police department is at the swim place, right? You're not going to be going down there.

Well, it would be like a sticker, you know, just like the state does. It would be a sticker on the car. Anything's a possibility. Yeah. Anything that can be state park anytime I go to a state park, there's always so many in the garbage truck. Yeah. I like I like the idea of charging for the extra totes as an income generator and I wonder um how quickly we could get that up and going.

Well, uh we based on that discussion in the finance committee meeting which set up a trash meeting in the next couple weeks. So the trash committee will look at that as well as other areas as we continually need to do to crunch these all these numbers. I mean it's just that adds to the bucket of 2.5 what which we got to crack. So um we'll look at that that number and I think that is going to be an easy sale to people personally the knowing that extra to's going to cost you this and this is where it's going instead of just saying your toe's going to cost you $5. It's going in general fund and we can just go buy coffee and donuts, right? Which we don't normally do. what I'm just saying, but we never do. But

it's true. A good point that you know, everybody everybody can use this part, right? I did when I was a kid and I didn't, you know, back then I didn't live in Portland, but it's going to come to a point that the buildings are going to be so bad that we're going to have to, you know, close it down, right? And then we have this opportunity that we can't take advantage of right now that you got to have a bathroom. when we when we had contracts with um surrounding villages and municipalities, we didn't have to charge, right?

But they backed out of those contracts and so that's why we're charging. It's one count. I was really proud of having the only free pool in the county, but you know, back in the day, they used to charge 50 cents to go to the main park when we were kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's why there we lost the one in Homer. I don't know. McGra still got their wreck pool that, you know, I did my swimming thing over there. I did the lifeguard for years over,

you know, or years a couple summers. Yeah, countywide game parks is used. We need to go back to those municipalities. That's another another revenue generator. We need to go back to those municipalities and and put that emphasis on that. And I think they'll see some of the impact of these large fees. And unfortunately, they're going to be disgruntled with the youth bureau employees this year, but I think we can probably fund some of that money back next year. And I know it was 80,000 60,000 to cover this bond would be an easy one, too. So, I think there's a couple different great ideas. I, you know, pass to the tots to um you know other municipalities to I think we should look at our

and believe me when the weather gets going to ring off their hook from Portland residents because you know right now nobody thinks about it because there's snow on the ground or not snow on the ground you don't think about residents don't think about that Cville didn't fund Palmer it's going to be a big surprise right be a bigger surprise probably warms up and then all of a sudden they can't get in to use our parts without paying. Well, it's projected to be a warm summer this year. So, we'll see how things shake out. But this is a this is a project that's definitely needed and wait any longer.

Uh we'll be paying a million plus down the road to do the same thing that we can do now for a fraction. be paying a whole bunch because we have a grand. Yeah. Thank you. Is there any objection to the idea of charging for the additional totes? Something to look into. Definitely. Long as I don't get charged for the ones I have. Do you have two sets? One set. Currently, we do charge for anybody that does have more than one set.

Yeah. One one other question section 10 and it talks about grant funds and any such grant funds applied to pay the principal or interest on the bonds or bands in anticipation of the bonds to the extent obligations shall not have been issued under this resolution. U I think this is more towards Mr. Shagger. Can we have assurances or can we work to make sure any grant monies that are received do go back to pay down what is whatever is taken out in terms of debt. So we're going to have that. Yeah. Well, just to make As long as I'm here, I'm going to tell you it's a given. Okay.

Well, just to make sure we're clear, I want to make sure I'm clear for the general public. The idea is that the city borrows money and then after we borrow the money, we're doing the work. for paying the bills and then the city gets reimbursed afterwards and for the reimbursements, the grant money coming back in that should go to pay down that front end borrowing. We will not bond by we will not be bonding. We'll be banning banning for 4.7 million. Oh, we won't even We don't have to. Well, we're going to ban whatever we're going to pay for the engineering right now. Then we deal with it. But if we have to, we have to we can ban up to that amount. So we don't end up with that. But we will not I guarantee you will not put on for that for sure because all that reimbursement will go back to you.

Okay. Same with the the money that we set aside for the city share uh in kind services through our DPW and other our other department would probably bring that down even more. Right. Okay. Yeah, let's call um the when is the date you're looking at is to start the project. We would like to started this fall. I think it may back a month or two. Okay, but the season ends August 16th. August 17th. Okay, good. I'm hoping to start after that. Okay, with that, we'll call the bill, please. Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Silivan. Hi. Council member Panela.

Hi. Council member Lane. Hi. Council member Conwell. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckwith. Hi. Member Michaels. Hi. Agenda item number two, appoint Jim Dempsey to the Corland Housing Authority Board. Resolve that the city of Corland County Council hereby appoints James Dempsey to the Corland Housing Authority Board for a term expiring December 31st, 2033. I move it. Second. Oh, thank you. Any questions? Please. Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Silman. Hi. Council member Canelo. Hi. Council member Lane. Hi. Member Conlin. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckler. Hi. Council member Michael. Hi.

Agenda item number three. Amend resolution number 170 of 2025 relating to the wastewater infrastructure engineering planning grant.

Resolve. The resolution number 170 of 2025 is hereby amended to designate the director of administration finance as a primary contact for the grant. It be it further resolved that the local match for this project shall be funded in an amount not to exceed $6,560 from account G 8110.510000 Stewart Professional Services and $3,40 from account number 132500 finance uh personal services. Be it further resolved that all other provisions of resolution number 170 of 202.5 shall remain in full force and effect. I got a motion back. Any questions?

Council member Go. Hi. Council member Sen. Hi. Council member. Hi. Council member Lane. Hi. Council member Conley. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckwood. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. Agenda item number four, authorized mortgage subordination and agreement

resolved to the city of Portland subordinate with mortgage instrument number two 018-04959 reported on August 30th, 2018 with the court county clerk sordination to facilitate a new home equity line of credit with Guinness Credit Union in an approximate amount of $40,000 for said owner and further authorizes Mayor Steve to sign subordination agreement for the same motion. Thanks, Mr. Beckliff and Mr. Michaels. Any questions? Please. Council member Tob. Hi. Council member Sil. Hi. Council member Panel. Hi. Member Lane.

Hi. Member Con. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckley. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. Agenda item number five, amend the 2025 adopted budget to reallocate funds for the parks and recreational vehicle. Resolved that city for Portland County Council does hereby amend the 2025 city budget as outlined in the accompanying table. Read that one request. I get a motion lang. Any questions? What what is the vehicle? What is the need?

She's already gone.

Uh it's a uh it's a big it's a 450 pickup truck that uh has the hauling capacity to haul the show mobile and the following capacity for the um as well for the youth bureau projects for uh hauling equipment and mainly the show mobile too. It's big enough to handle wheel and doing the other one's uh I think there's a foot of rust around the wheel gone. So replacement for that one. Anybody else? Council

member to nay. Council member Sivan. name. Council member Pelo. Hi. Council member Lane. Hi. Council member Conlin. I. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckworth. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. The resolution passes 6 to2.

Agenda item number six. Amend the 2026 adopt the general fund budget. Resolve that the city of Portland County Council does hereby amend the 2026 general fund budget as outlined in the comment table. We'll read it if requested. I got a motion to car Mr. Beck with any questions you just did earlier, please. Council member to

I'm sorry. Can we should have asked a question. Uh, in terms of the consolidated highway aid, um, can you explain for myself again what we're doing here? In the original budget that was passed in December, there was $720,000. There was $720,000 in CHIPS money in the budget that was above what the expenses were in error. Okay. I I think there was $800,000 worth of expenses and 15 point 1.5 million in revenue that they should match. Okay. This was that was part of that correction. Okay.

So again, that's a spended and reimburse. Yes. Anybody else? So these are all legitimate numbers. Yes. Like I said earlier, the the two that are highlighted when you passed the one the last meeting it was 31,000. It should have been 31,037 and personal service emergency call in. I left that out totally. It should have been 2,000 in there. It was just my mistake. I I gave it to mayor secretary. It was an error on my part when I was entering the date in. I realized I knew it wasn't James. Please. Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Silon. Hi. Council member Pelo. Hi. Council member Lane. Hi.

Council member Con. Hi. Member Car. Hi. Council member. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi.

Agenda item number seven. Authorized agreement with Plan Technologies for information technology services. as well that the council of the city of Corland hereby authorizes the city to enter into an agreement with plan first technologies for the provision of managed information technology services under the pricing structure described above. We had further resolved that the director of administration finance incorporated council are hereby authorized to execute the agreement on behalf of the city. Be it further resolved that the expenditures associated with this agreement shall be charged to account number A1680 point 541500 gradual professional services or such other appropriate account is determined by the director of administration finance be further resolved that the agreement shall become effective upon execution by the authorized parties. I'll move it.

Mr. Canelo, I'll second. Men, I have a question. What have we been doing up to up to this point in terms of this service? Uh, we have ABS solutions which is based out of Rochester and um which brings some difficulties. I just want to clarify one thing before we go any further. I want to disclose that I'm on their board and with the plan for technologies. We did put an RFP out and um you know Randall was part of that RFP opening process. I never installed all the RFPs, but maybe you want to just address those RFPs and then we'll go back to your question.

Yeah, we had um nine I believe it was vendors put in for the RFP. Um plan first was by far the most competitive bid. The current vendor ABS did not bid for the project and there was a um company that's headquartered out of Udica but that has an Almyra office that would have been the second one but they were about $40,000 a year more expensive than plan first. So other ones went up as high as being $700,000 more than plan first. They're out of New York City. Oh,

so um if you look at our ABS projects, we've had a lot of improvements that we've had to do over the past few years. One being we change our servers. Two being we had to change our how we Microsoft Office and how we handle that. You can't have licenses any you know had to do the 365 version which changed our emails and our email service. So we've done a lot of projects it related projects over the last few years. Uh so that's increased that cost but their um the charges that we get from ABS has been um you know somebody has nickel and dime I guess is probably the best way to say it or this is more of a totality it covers all the majority of the costs that are there anything that breaks obviously just different but it covers the the day-to-day issues that people have on their computer like we did today before the meeting.

Does it handle it? So it sounds like it's about mostly about security.

Um they're they're I they're doing the IT. So um their security is one process of that. So they'll do an audit for our security. There's been a security breach since Iran for PLC for example and a waste water and water. We have to be aware of that. So we have to pay attention to those items. So the security is an important part. But now we have the Wi-Fi system downtown, the cameras, the all those communications back and forth, the phone communications that goes through that's voice over IP. So that goes over the computer uh as well. So they're all IT generated, but they're more local in house and be able to help do that. They were the backup plan if so the county so we immediately go to the county if they can help, but they're running behind so they weren't really a lot of help. Then we went to plan versus the third strike after ABS. ABS has handled the city outside of Dave's status for many years. Uh they basically they were doing it all and Dave was in front of it. He was part-time at the time. So, but it's kind of been running away. So, we put an RPL to try to get something more reasonable.

So, this was part of our getting up to date in all of our systems up to date.

They're up to date. It just a different person to manage them. You know what I mean? and make sure that you know so basically they have software that they put on part of this cost is they put software on the PCs and then monitors to say you know if somebody's computer's running slow or if the switch gear is going out and the Wi-Fi is not working or you know they it does that automatically now and so they can send them a message back and then they'll deal with it a lot of times they can deal with it remotely and if they can't have to deal with it but as our system gets more and more complex it's better to have somebody available for that but it's not enough to warrant a full-time position to do it, which is big enough to not need that, but small enough to need something.

What's the price point on this? And how does that compare what we're playing with uh excuse me, paying with ABS? Um, do you remember what the total bid was on this? I don't remember. I think it was like 70,000. Yeah, that's what I had in my head. 60 to 70. High 60s, I believe.

Yeah. um 60 to 70 70,000 is what this is. But again, because it's if you look at the bills that we get from ABS, they're three pages long and if Chief Herrera calls them or you know or um Jay calls them for something to be addressed, you know, we get charged for that period of time where a lot of those would not be charged because they're all under the opos of what this coverage is. So, it's hard to say, but I think it's a good point to be looked at as we monitor these numbers and they're accurately there, we can see where we're at. But we did a, you know, we had capital projects that we did last year to deal with computers. I think we did 15 computer replacements and then uh some upgrades. So, there there's it's pretty pretty in depth, but I think uh there's definitely a huge savings huge. I think we'll see we'll stand up. You know, I I would say easy an easy $60,000. See,

so the budget line for that for this year is more than what the contract is. There there's enough budgeted to cover this. Yes. I even have to pull that 16. I'm not sure how because you've separated out computer assets to software

so and that's just a software and then there's software would be a savings as well. So there's 93 96 96,000 and this is 60 to 70. Anybody else? Are personnel going to have to learn new software? Is there going to be a big training? No, they just help desk pretty seamless. Help desk at Corland. I mean, it's not seamless in their their world handing off a big football like that. But but but from user standpoint, the help desk is what we use now and that will be the same effect to me.

That's great. So how large is your typical staff? Um they have uh eight level 3es and I think 10 level twos and then then people above that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. in Japan. No, I mean techical support for this council. No, I know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else? Okay. Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Silan. Hi. Council member. Hi.

Lane. Hi. Council member Conley. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beck. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. Agenda item number eight, authorized memorandum of agreement with police benevolent association for compensatory time use. Resolved that the city of Corland County Council hereby authorizes the mayor to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Corland Police Benevolent Association members to utilize approved contest time through December 16, 2026 in L of payout at the end of the first quarter of 2026. Any motion? Miss Sman Carpenter and any questions? You want a little explanation or you understand? I

got it. Good. Okay. So, ultimately because of the increase in staff for recruits, we got graduation next month, right, G? Three weeks. Three weeks. Yeah. So, uh next month. Next month. We gota be on the 24-hour time. Uh so, without that, they'll need that extra training. So this just gives us that time to give them accounts. So every time their contract says they have to pay it out in the quarter, this will give it extra time. So cash is well cash is king, right? So cash is what needs time off is will be awarded. Anybody else have any questions? Move it, please. Council member to council member. I council member. Hi. Lane.

Hi. Council member Johnson. Hi. Council member Gar. Hi. Council member Beckley. Hi. Council member Vers. Agenda item number 10, approve special events permits for porch vest on August. Sorry. All right. So, please still on vacation.

Agenda item number nine declare police department vehicle surplus and authorized sale by auction. Resolved that the council hereby declares the 2018 Chevrolet Tahoe at a surplus and grants permission for the agency to sell the vehicle at Auctions International with any proceeds from the sale being placed in the budget account a 3120.4265 sale of equipment by Miss Mr. Carpenter is going to jump here. Anybody have any questions in the north, please? Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Sman. Hi. Council member Melo. Hi. Council member Lane. Icon. Hi. Carpet. Hi.

Council member Beckwith. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. Agenda item number 10. Approve special event permits for Porchfest on August 16, 206. Resolve that the city pro council does hereby approve the issuance of permits as described below. Porchfest event. uh on August 16, 2026, noon to 6 pm on Vancusen Street, Harrison Street, Joy Street, and Chestnut with permits to close those streets with sound device permit without feed and special event permit.

I'll move it lane. Just real quick, we missing a stream here. Am I thinking about an issue, but I thought there was trying to get my bearings over and joy. Joy's right there. Okay. Throwing it out there on the street. I walk them every year. Maybe I just go around in circles by the end of the day. That whole area should It's a great event. excited on the northwest side. I get a motion. Motion second. Motion second. Please. Council member Tobin.

Hi. Council member Silman. Hi. Member Panelo. Hi. Member Lane. Hi. Council member Conlin. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckwith. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. Agenda item number 11. approved special event permit and sound device permit for corn ducky derby on May 2nd, 2026 in Suget Park.

Resolve that the city of Coron County Council does hereby approve a special event permit device permit for the corner derby be held at Suget Park on May 2nd, 202.6 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Be it further resolved that the city clerk shall as you said permits condition on fulfillment state requirements. Colin, I got a second. Miss Silman, wipe away.

That's it. Thank you. Chief Nichols is part of this, too, I think. Right. You're a jock. I think you're dressing up this year. I can't tell you anything. Tickets for sale. Okay. And I'm also selling crispy cream donuts for the PBA to raise fun. All right. Thank you for that. Okay. Move it, please. Please. Excuse me. Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Silus. Hi. Hi. Lane. Hi. Hi. Carpenter. Hi. Member Beck. Hi. Council member Michael. Hi.

Agenda item number 12. Approve special event permits for Rafilia Latina at Sunni Courtland on April 8, 2026. Resolve that the city of Corland County Council does hereby approve the issuance of permits as described below. The event is a march by Laia Latina April 8th, 2026 from 5:00 p.m. to 700 p.m. Uh it's going to begin at Core Union, end at Core Union, go down the New S uh service road to Broadway and back up uh New Lake Road to Core Union.

Okay. Motion, please. Mr. Collins, Mr. Beck, any questions, please? Council member Tolen. Hi. Council member Sil. Hi. Council member Melo. Hi. Lane. Hi. Council member Conra. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Beckworth. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi.

Agenda item number 13. Accept and recognize donations to the youth bureau. Resolved that the city of Corland County Council on behalf of Mayor Steve and the youth bureau expresses its gratitude for the generosity of the donors below and be further resolved that the county council hereby accepts donations listed below and appropriates them to the council for the purposes below. a donation from Jita and uh community members in the amount of $6,477 for park improvements to go to through the Sharp Trust Fund. Tom and Cheryl Michaels, $500 for center field trip, $100 for Porchfest. Uh, also for porchfest donation from the Walsh law firm for $500 and from game real estate for $250.

Thank you, Mr. Michael. Yeah, you're welcome. This something my wife and I have been doing for a few years now. Uh I was a summer camp participant uh growing up so I know how much this means to the uh some of the kids in our youth bureau that don't have an opportunity to do things like Well, thank you for that. You're welcome. I got a motion. Mr. Tobin, what's that? 827, right? Yeah, that's good. This is easy one. Yes. Yes, that's a good one. Okay, please. Council member Tobin. Hi. Council member Sil.

Hi. And thank you. Council member Panel. Hi. Hi. Member Con. Hi. Council member Carpenter. Hi. Council member Becka. Hi. Council member Michaels. Hi. Randle. Do we need executive session? I see that on here. I don't recall that. I wasn't here. I think we That's what I thought. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Uh, anybody else have anything else? I just want to thank everybody for their support. Be exciting to have it done. Be nice to All right. With that said, Mr. Con second. All those in favor for adjournment I I won't