Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone.

We are going to start our coming council meeting. It is July 14, 2026, and we will start with a Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilman Dominique.

Now we will go to public comments. We ask that you keep it to a three minute.

And anyone here would like to address council? Please.

On my notes, my son Doug would even be Mayor Palmer, but obviously that's not correct. And members of the council, I am Cheryl Van Hels. I live in 14 Hudson, here in the city. And I have a couple of issues that I would like to address with you. First, I have a question on the North side of Park Street, west of Elk. Some of the tenants had 14 house in Harlem and below ground parking where we actually have to pay for the privilege of doing so. I myself pay $100 a month in order to park underneath the building. There have been cars parked near the entrance, the entrance rail. And it makes for a dangerous situation. Building has hedges, so we have to get up be good before we can see to the left to make a left-hand turn. And there are cars parked there, whether they're from a dispensary or I'm not sure if they're not one of our tenants, I'm not sure, but you get a car parked there. So you got the hedges and then the car parked there. And it's really absolutely a problem. It's kind of very sometimes. So I would like a no parking sign.

That's a matter for the Board of Public Safety. They are the ones that oversee the traffic control devices. Board of Safety. Yeah, Public Safety.

Okay, very good. Second thing I'd like to address is that many of us, our senior citizens and younger people as well, love our city and we love to walk around. There are a lot of places where the sidewalks are dangerous. a partial list of the areas that need repair in a timely manner with all the new apartments downtown and the addition of many more people potentially walking downtown. This, I feel that this should be a priority. But the efforts of road crews in Windhorn for keeping the roads and the sidewalks as clear as possible for the north country is difficult. But keeping from a sidewalk choose a crosswalk is sometimes almost impossible. There's no exit from the sidewalk to get into the road across the road. Again, public safety.

It is a public safety issue, but it's also the landowner's responsibility to keep those areas.

These are city sidewalks.

Yeah, the maintenance and clearing of that area is assumed by the landowner.

How would I know what the landowner said?

I mean, they're all commercial buildings. You would say to the city that the city's police officer would go and cite them to have them clear it, or they could escalate to being fined.

Let us know that 751. I'm sorry. Let us know that it's done, that that happened. I'll win the ball. So, yeah, I'd be glad to do that.

Yeah, we passed the law a couple of years ago to be able to get somebody in to do the clearing and then bill a landowner. But it's just for one. That sort of thing. So it's not the first thing that we do, but when we know we have somebody who's caught a clean plate, and then you're saying these are problems. Yeah. Never cleared. So then we would go, we would have an identifying contractor come in, do the clearing, and then we would assign a bill to the landowner for the cleaning. And then if they don't pay that, it'll escalate, and then it'll go under test.

All right.

okay very good thank you very much thank you for your time thank you thank you but yeah we we also need to know that in order to get the uh forces involved very good okay my name is kate russo i live at 14 hudson and i wasn't planning to speak to you this evening but after listening to the previous speaker i'm motivated to do so because we took a walk downtown. We walk every day. It's good for your health. We don't want to drive a car. And the sidewalks downtown should be very walkable. And we made a list of nearly 10 dangerous spots downtown, two blocks away from here, where you can easily fall and injure yourself. I have fallen. I have been to the hospital with damages that I've been hurt. from falling on the sidewalk downtown, not where people are living. If the owner of the business is responsible for keeping the sidewalk safe for pedestrians, then the city needs to do a better job of going after the owner of the building to make sure that they're repairing the sidewalk. This is a very walkable town. Businesses depend on people walking around downtown and looking in the windows and stopping at the bar for a glass of beer or whatever. It's important for the economy of downtown Lunsfall. And so you need to clean up the sidewalks and make sure that businesses get them repaired in time for all of the people who come on weekends, during the week. It's important for health, it's important for the economy, and it says a lot about the city's commitment to safety to do so. Thank you. Do you have a list? Can you give us a list?

Do you have a list? We often have.

Thank you.

last turn to the gftc which is the uh the adirondack glen smalls transit council and they did an inventory for us we are looking at as the city replacing some of my boss especially ones near schools and uh and other public places like the library and you know the parks uh we had a council uh a an appointed uh um complete degrees to ask for us under the previous mayor, but I need to follow up to see where we're going with that. But there's also a transaction plan for ADA that the city has where we're supposed to be going through and making sure that we have acceptable accommodation. So we would like to take this list to help update what we have in our engines for you and make sure that we have a policy in place that prioritizes and establishes for the mayor to report back to the council how we're prioritizing the list of conditions.

I understand and I appreciate you doing that. Let me just say that my neighbor and I would be very happy to accommodate that person so we can show them not only where the damage is done on the sidewalk and is in caroling safety of the pedestrian, but we can actually show them what it's like to fall.

Well, I wouldn't say you need to show how it is to fall. I've personally fallen enough for everyone else on this council.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

i received an email from ann fuller um she made a suggestion um that the city could look into moving the police station to the override aid site um and she thinks that would help free up parking spaces in the bridge lot um as well as create more space that's what she was suggesting thank you

Okay, we'll move on to the committee report.

Councilor Lueb.

Thank you, Mary. Audit and Finance met yesterday at 5.30 p.m. We looked over approximately 40 invoices from the Water Transfer Fund, General Fund.

We found a bit of an understanding. Good order. And our next committee meeting is 7-28.

AT 5 30 ON MONDAY POLICY COMMITTEE MET ON JULY 14TH BRIEF UPDATE WE THINK STAND COMMITTEE ADVANCED TWO ITEMS CITY OWNED VACANT PROPERTY SECURITY PROTOCOL HAS BEEN FORMALLY ACCEPTED IT'S A POLITICAL STATE ITEM TO GET TO APARTMENTAL INPUT PETTY CASH POLICY HAS ADVANCED VERY QUICKLY THANKS TO WENDY BEAR AND WE ARE MOVING INTO RELATION PHASE ON THAT FROM THE TREE COMMISSION POLICY UH WE'RE AWAITING A LEGAL OPINION ON CITY COUNCIL'S CITY ATTORNEY BASKET ON THAT BOARD SHANNON GOVERNANCE QUESTION BEFORE WE CAN FINALLY ASK THE RECOGNITION UH BANNER POLICY AND THE CORROSION POLICY ARE BOTH CLOSED AND TRANSMITTAL THEY ARE READY FOR TRANSMITTAL TO CITY ATTORNEY BASKET BUT I EXPECT BOTH TO MOVE TO THE DRAFT SOME DAYS BEFORE OUR NEXT MEETING uh we are also continuing my work on the city vehicle fleet life cycle policy um and we are still having some departmentalities without that before we advance that the emergency meeting authorization item the scope is expanded to also address a mechanism for calling a council meeting with both the mayor and the council at larger are available and that item will continue to develop uh the next meeting is on office

Thank you. The Technology Committee met on July 2nd to review key technology initiatives, assess project performance, discuss cybersecurity infrastructure priorities, and align upcoming investments with organizational objectives. So for cybersecurity, we reviewed the current security things and kind of went over with the vendor passing over a recommendation to the mayor's office for extending the contract. We kind of discussed some of our network and systems requirements for the upcoming year and going into next year. There's some servers that are getting decommissioned. That actually reflects on the agenda. There's a server by our department that was recommended. Then beyond that, I talked about getting some other things off of local servers and into the cloud and talked about different sports tools for decision making. and uh budget and strategic planning just kind of weaving in through those things uh one of the problems we have with kind of a technology budget so we don't really have a technology budget and virtually season we go by department so it's really a technology department so they get nested into other budgets general. So next step, we're going to meet in August, first Tuesday of August, 5 p.m. here at City Hall.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm so excited that one of the i am on today's council's the first uh disbursement of the recommendations for the uh tax funds um for 13 organizations which is lovely um and the great thing about this is continuing ongoing then we uh see president just mentioned that the city is receiving more um clock tax grant funds so we're gonna have more organizations to come in um on our next event on july 20th to talk about the their own locations and based on the information around what you need. I think I'm going to ask them if they would want to come to the Quality Planning Committee on July 20th to talk about those 10 issues they found. But welcome. I'll see if she's available. Our next meeting is the July 20th at 5 o'clock on Monday.

Thank you.

In my committee report, the Planning and Development Committee will be meeting this Thursday at 5 o'clock.

Okay, now we'll go to the consent agenda. So now we'll go to the consent agenda.

Is there anything anyone would like to pull from that?

I have a large number that I would like to discuss, but I do not ask people to pull them off. have a time period where we can kind of discuss the items that drew my attention. I've had an issue with the consent agenda not having full discussion on things where I think that it matters and having an ongoing conversation. But that's just so I'm not asking for anything out. Okay. Just having a question and answer kind of discussion amongst us over multiple, like multitude of items. So if it pleases the chair or the mayor, I could just walk through those and then turn it back over to you, which sounds good. I just want to make sure I'm not breaking anything. So 5.7, and this is for the 5.7 through 5.10, we're setting a public hearing. If we go through the consent agenda, we wouldn't really have said it. So I feel like if we're setting a public hearing, let's say we're setting a public hearing and read what the law is about. So that was one item. And then I can read these if we want to. We can go around that route.

Okay. 5.7. Senate Public Hearing for Local Law 2026 to amend City Code, City Code Chapter 196, Article 7 concerning persons with disabilities and limited income tax exemptions. Senate Public Hearing for Local Law 2026 to amend City Code, City Code Chapter 196.40 concerning senior citizen tax exemption. Set a public hearing for local law. Amend the City Code Chapter 220 of the City Code Concurring Zoning to Mint Farmer stands in certain zoning districts and tenants. Set a public hearing for local laws 2026 to amend City Code Chapter 208, specifically code City Code 208-25, the time and limits of parking, and code, City Code.

That should be 208. Okay. 208. 60 days.

Okay. Schedule the parking to repeal City Code 208-75, Central Business District on the streets.

Thank you. And I just, this is an opportunity now for anybody who's listening or watching or, you know, speaks about this somewhere to engage with your council member if you have a strong feeling one way or the other about any of those things as well. And we'll likely be voting on them next council meeting. approved creation of capital project for the connect all capital project development so that is

Yeah, Ben, I believe that's the resolution to put more internet connectivity in the downtown region, especially the Harding and Masadi arena and whatnot. If you've ever gone to the hockey game or any sort of event there, your phone doesn't work. So I think that is kind of a bit of a problem. And the upfront cost of this, it may look like a large sum of money, but at the end of the day, with reimbursements from a state grant, We're probably only looking for a little over $5,000.

I think it makes perfect sense. It's guaranteed for like three years and we don't pay into it. The state's kicking in at $2 million in between here, Warren County, and Lake George. And that's a lot of value. And the sure fact is another one of the benefits from that. Absolutely. know it allows people to do the uh to do the mobile transactions which is very helpful yeah before we move on from that resolution i would like i would recommend for the council's minutes on that to reflect that uh

which is New York State's economic development agency issued an advisory opinion to terminate this project to be a type 2 action for purposes of state and environmental quality review.

Thank you. No, that's excellent.

Well, if that were to be something else, we would have missed that if we didn't take a moment to talk about it. And then 518. this one's to uh that's what i just discussed before about the story tech computer server for the fire department um so uh we're also for 519 in this council we're proving a payment to the irs the amount of under $1,500 more than $1,400. And I just wanted to raise with this, this isn't from something that happened this year, this was on prior administration. Yeah, so that was to clear that from our debts. Right.

Actually, could I note, I think The IRS never actually told us the reason why the mistake we made, right? We're just paying attention so it doesn't continue to grow in the interest.

That is a section that I'm not familiar with, so I couldn't say yes or no.

I just think, like, we're making a statement that way. It doesn't keep growing in interest.

We don't have a reason.

And then 521 to endorse and approve the grant application for climate improvement to the Ratchett Center ice cream. And this one, I believe, with some of the other things going on, it's going to be picked up.

Maybe this is the one for, yeah, this is for climate. Okay. Yes. So that was like, it's good to go out and get a grant.

Going out and looking for grants is a good thing for people to know as well. So another one is we're updating city zoning code, which hasn't been updated in more than six years.

That one, oh, sorry, I didn't.

Okay, sorry, 522. There it is, 522, sorry. Okay, thank you.

523 approved local law to change some of the parking around the city, and a time limit for the .

Authorize a change order to increase the total value for the sidewalk curb and sidewalk accessibility improvements and we just heard later about you know how important it is to have a lawful downtown so i'll just leave it at that it is a change and i think that that's important to know we've passed this previously we're amending it now aware that we're mending it and we're aware we're also amending a uh a budget increase for that home street and streetscaping. Kind of heard from Jeff Flagg about that, you know, a couple of sessions ago, but we knew this was coming. I just wanted to point that out as well, because this change has helped our budget since last year. And these other ones are from 525 through 527 all under that same brush. 52080 is about a conceptual landing with the town of Greensbury on the Peggy Ann Trail. I've had some concerns with how the Peggy Ann Trail fits, so having this open discussion about that I think is a great step forward on that.

And... Can I make another? It's actually, it's... not change in the um the halfway trail it's actually connected in the canal trail to uh halfway up uh basically created three and a half miles of walkable invite to bolt lanes all the way from richardson street all the way that's an adult conception so we're just authorizing it so you're you're talking crazy because we're just authorizing conceptual so here so anyway uh that's

yeah that's that's what i did thank you for thank you councilman for you know helping us be a little bit more transparent um oh i guess yeah okay could i just talk about the uh 5.9 to

5.32, which is another big end of all of the new water and construction improvements that the water and sewer commission got going to get from New York State. So we're about to fix a lot of our water and sewer issues through New York State grants.

Is there anyone else who'd like to pull anything? So I have a motion to accept it. So moved.

Second. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. All right now. To the regular agenda.

And as you can see, 6.1, we're going to have a discussion and approve a temporary approachment permitted for 27 Prospect Street. As you see in your packet, the board, the planning board has voted against this. That's why we have pulled this to be separate.

Any discussion?

They are saying that they're against it.

They voted 5-1 against it.

Well, I guess I could just say I did speak with the owner after that China board meeting. I think we should accept because the parents are going to be moving to the other side of the building. So this would provide a safer way for them to be able to pull into the house and get to their front side of the door.

The application, I don't believe it had a . The application does not have sign-off from the building . The approval lines on the application were blank, which I'm assuming indicates .

The city engineer specifically gave his opinion to the planning board, and that's what we'll be reading as to why . The city engineer is not in favor of a secondary driveway because it's a single-family home and there's added parking.

Okay.

Thank you.

I guess if it's a single-family home and the parents want to move to the other side, I guess they would have to change how the home would be occupied to families, maybe. I guess that's how they could be able to do it. I'm not sure how they would

change how it's that would be a huge variance experience which is highly hard it's hard to get so that would be the sona board of appeals or would that be a new experience i mean they would have to create a two-family home which would it's a whole other it's a whole other game if that's what you're saying yeah

So this is a request for 27 Prospect Street for additional repair. As Councilman indicated, they are doing this as a possibility that the parents may move into their home. They are not moving into the home. It is a single family home, which only requires two parcel or two spaces. There's adequate apartment space. This is in the single-family zoning district, so a two-family home would not be allowed, and the applicant did indicate that they had no intention of creating two units within the house. For discussions that it is very close to the Warren County Bike Trail, the secondary parking area was proposed, and also city engineer's recommendations that we don't allow two curb cuts for single-family

Those are ultimately the considerations of the plan.

Thank you.

Any other comments? I guess we wrote to the client, but it doesn't mean they can find a way to get what they ask for in the future. They can always just be advised. Thanks. you make a motion second no no no no and you know So we don't need a sex obsession. All this is just a quick kind of question that we probably need to be thinking about is like what committee is handling

community market concerns. Is there going to be a quality of life?

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting one.

Planning and development. Policy. So I just have to think that we probably work with that on our way of who wants lead on this, if that's even how we want to accomplish it. Because I think that I don't know about you, but the bulk of concerns that I'm getting right now are part of it.

so just i'm getting a lot of the noise actually definitely with all of them because i think it went a little bit into the audit finance committee but there was a potential change in the uh the uh parking um

I just want to congratulate the farmers market. The last three years celebrated 50 years. It was an incredible, incredible achievement, especially learning the history over the past 50 years, especially when Ms. Scoville read the letter from her father, who is the owner of the jewelry store on the corner of Ridge and Flint Street, who sort of talked about all the merchants did not like how the commerce market began at 7 a.m. in 1976, but eventually they grew to accept that point a little earlier on Saturdays. And then I just wanted to congratulate recent show from the Adirondack Film Festival with Trevor Schrader, the show Trapped, which was a beautiful sort of show weaving his life story growing up as a gay man in the 90s and 2000s with this very funny situation of being trapped in the megabus. It was a beautiful, beautiful show. And one of the quotes that I want to leave for everybody that is struggling is when light tracks you, the key to finding a way out might be closer than you think hidden in the darkness.

Thank you.

No business. No business.

No business. Just go to the council and let me know if you're planning on going to the Nighthawk office.

Oh yeah, that's great.

That's coming up pretty quick.

I just got something in a Facebook message earlier today, so I don't know how official it is right now, but it sounds like there's going to be like an anti kind of thing going on at the head. people who are crafty or organtic.

Somehow I suck on that.

But I just, it's very, you know, nice to hear things getting connected and used with the center. So I was just happy to hear that. That's all. Thank you.

When I have like a little show and tell that I'm going to go to the next recreation commission to see if they would be willing to post this and have one. I got a really cool sign, a little sign made to showcase the history of Haviland's Cove and direct people to a little website that shows the 100 year history of it. And I'll see if the rec commission approves it. So sometimes I think, where's the records?

It's next Wednesday at 4 o'clock.

Next Wednesday at 4 o'clock. Try to be there. And I was really excited that the Warren County Historian is going to publish what I learned about, what I found about Pamela Stone on the Warren County Historical Society's website at wcnyhs.org. Perfect. Exciting.

okay um i don't see anyone from public housing um i have no old and new um our mayor's on vacation and must much eat at rest um and we hope she enjoys her family her daughter's graduating and so um this is just good thank you all for coming out and

Do you have a public comment? Yeah. Do you have a public comment? Any public comment? Yeah. Any public comment? Sure. Come on. Yes. I introduce myself.

Yes. Yes. My name is Hannah. I've been a resident in Glens Falls for about six years now. I do. Me and my fiance live in the apartment complexes that are in the Elm Street parking lot right next to Downtown City Tavern restaurant. So we just had concerns about the changes in the public parking because we and a lot of our neighbors are having issues with getting like continuous parking tickets um throughout the day throughout the week when we're at work and not able to move our cars in the three-hour increments that is recommended by the signs and the parking tickets are starting to you know get to a value that is sometimes larger than our rent and we are struggling to you know, come up with reasons and ways to pay fees and to avoid them.

So part of it is avoiding at the same time that we were addressing the parking downtown. We did make it so that if you go outside of the downtown area, you can park on the other side.

Okay, and where would that be?

There is, we're going to get it back. I was going to say, we'll have it back. say right there if you go up past the street that cuts over before the hospital and we're up there on Hudson Union Park uh there's also like along Broad Street past the light where the uh where Union Square is and where Pat is building the point there once you go past uh I think one o'clock and out that way then it becomes Clark um So there's just inside a couple of lots downtown where you use the street parking for three hours. Other places, when you get outside or downtown area, they've got unlimited so you can park there and then bring it into your shift. And then in the evening, you shouldn't have it there. Okay.

Yeah, maybe on the website or something.

Yeah, we'll get something for that sooner. it's not that far from anywhere you know you'd be able to get there within a few miles so like uh sherman and uh uh washington just passed the uh whole cna building uh that one it's an unlimited park that one always had okay yeah okay so anyway um just to give you some ideas about There will be areas. And we'll get them out.

When is the next meeting that we're talking about this? Two weeks. Okay, great.

Yeah. So we'll be there. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.

All right. That's kind of a good question. Is there not resident permit from you to someone?

Well, there's a permit that you can obtain, but Elm Street lot specifically does not have a permit. It's a three-hour long and private.

yeah i think what councilman rice is referring to is just in some cities that there is an area that is restricted to resident normally parking so that wasn't really hard on these streets this is being that there are some blocks that do have residential parking for residential events

What lot allows a residence such as this to get a permanent apartment?

All the other municipal lots, so Bridge Street, Warren Street, and Exchange Street lots, all sell permits where you can park there.

Bridge, Warren, and Exchange. So basically anything except L. Correct. And to get that permit, it becomes a good service. Correct. um any other public comment okay

I see anything on my Peter. OK, can we have a motion to adjourn? I will read them. Are we not doing executive session?

Sorry about that. Yes, thank you. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you so much.