Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the first meeting of the Ithaca Common Council. Uh it is January 7th, 2026. We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Um, first, since we have a full house this evening, uh, in case of an emergency evacuation, we are to take one of two exits. The door that most of you came through or the door that's over my left shoulder, we are to head west towards the corner of South Kuga and Green Street. Please do not cross Green Street uh, or South Kyuga Street unless it is strictly necessary. Those with restricted mobility, in the event of an emergency, it is best to move to one of the stairwells, and first responders will arrive to aid you. In the event of other emergencies, you'll be notified on how to proceed at that time. We want everyone to be aware of their surroundings and offer help when it is not to your own detriment, as you were your own best advocate. So, it's been 2 years, so I get to do uh a fun thing that I don't get to do too often. Um, if I could invite my five new colleagues to please stand. Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to uphold the constit or affirm to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York and faithfully discharge your responsibilities as an older person on the ETHA common council. Congratulations. Welcome to our new colleagues. Old person win. Will you join me up on the deis? Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York as you faithfully discharge your duties as acting mayor? Congratulations. Thank you very much.

Older persons, please join me on the deis and please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York as you faithfully discharge your duties as alternate acting mayor? Congratulations. And I've got these beautiful swang certificates for all my new members, which we can collect after we get through the business of the evening. Normally a pro-forma comment from me. Uh do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda? All the person mats.

Yes. I would like to add a resolution to the agenda um called the resolution of the common council opposing unauthorized United States military action in Venezuela and urgent congressional action. And older person, you are moving this to be the new 7.1 on the agenda. Yes, I am. Uh all the person requests unanimous consent. Any dissent? Seeing none, it is so added. All the person Keel.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to add resolution supporting Kaoga United CWA and Kauga Medical Center nurses to the agenda is 7.2. Any uh unanimous consent requested for this item? Any objections to adding it to the agenda? Seeing none, that is so moved and no further additions or deletions to the agenda. Um, we will move on to reports of municipal officials and I will invite our friend and colleague, legislator Pillar from the county. Ah, and a new face. Welcome.

Yeah. Hello everyone. Um, I think I know all of you. I'm Veronica Pillar. They them pronouns county legislator representing District 2, which is now almost the same as W 2, uh, which is an update for this year. And I have a fellow legislator with me. Hi, I'm Adam Vincent. I'm the new legislator for uh district 4, which is the same map as Ward 4, uh College Town in Cornell.

Um and county updates, we haven't done a ton. Um I we met our mid December meeting. Um the highlight I think was awarding the Leslie Napine Clareborn Strength and Diversity Award to two recipients. Hashonda Johnson um an outreach worker at Reach Medical and to South Hillider the business um for their uh various work on community diversity and inclusion efforts. And then we just had our first meeting of the year last night. Um so we've got eight new legislators, eight returning legislators. Um, that's two extra legislators compared to last year. Um, the the district boundaries that we all approved years ago, the new ones from the 2020 census are finally in effect. So, I guess as we both said, all five city wards that you all represent, correspond almost identically, not quite, to county districts that we represent, and the numbers match, which is great. Um, we elected a chair for the year, Shauna Black, who has been chair before, and a vice chair, Deborah Dawson, who has been vice chair before. All our committees and schedules are still to be determined. Can tell you about that next time. Um but we did approve our legislature meeting calendar for the year and it is as it always is first and third Tuesdays except um shifted for in late March for a county conference and in early November for election day. And there was one other thing. Ah yes, last night um big highlight of our meeting was that we unanimously passed a resolution supporting um the Kaunga United CWA Kauga Medical Center Nurses Union. There was a huge turnout there. I wish I could bring them all here too as I just heard you're considering a similar resolution. Um

but happy to take questions on that or anything else. Thank you, legislator. Congratulations to the new older people. Yes, very exciting to see you here.

Thank you, Legislator Pillar. Legislator Vincent Vincent. Okay, nice to meet you finally and uh welcome. Hopefully see more of you around. Anyone have any questions for our uh legislator colleagues? Well, thank you very much. We'll see you in the future. Um may I have a motion to approve the previous minutes that were included by the deputy clerk in our packet? I see moved by all the person Moss, second by Alder person Shapiro. All those in favor of moving those minutes or approving those minutes, that carries unanimously. Um, with that, I have two public hearings. First, may I have a motion to open the public hearing for the reallocation of HUD entitlement funds? Moved by Mr. Shapiro. Seconded by Mr. Defendini. All those in favor of opening the public hearing. And that carries unanimously. Uh, deputy clerk, no signups for this particular public hearing for either one. Good spoilers. Yeah. Um uh closing the public hearing moved by Mr. Shapiro, seconded by Mr. Defendini. All those in favor of closing the public hearing that carries 10 to zero unanimously. I did fail to note the absence of all the person for Britzio who is ill this evening. Um may I have a motion to open public hearing 3.2 farmer market parking agreement with CUGA medical. Moved by Mr. Deandini, seconded by Mr. Trumbull. All those in favor of opening that carries unanimously. Motion to close the public hearing that no one has signed up for is moved by Mr. Defendini, seconded by Mr. Shapiro. All those in favor of closing that public hearing and that carries unanimously. I have three comments from members of the public. Uh I will first invite up please uh pass that to the uh gentleman to your Yep. Oh, you could have assemblylined it down to me too. That works. But Yep. Thank you. Anyone before I call the first speaker, are there Thank you very much. Are there any other uh individuals who have comment cards that they're holding on to and they think they're planning to

speak? All right, I have four uh comments. Um Teresa, welcome Teresa. As you know, you have three minutes once you begin. [clears throat] So I'm Teresa Alt of 206 Eddie Street in College Town. I will just mention three things that I hoped for but don't see on the agenda. One, appointments to the zoning advisory committee. Two, that resolution to resend CAP proposed last year but it disappeared. and three, a resolution urging our state elected officials to support the permanently affordable social housing for New Yorkers bills. I hope to see these soon on future agendas.

Thank you, Teresa. My next speaker is Emily Fuja.

Welcome, Emily. As you know, you have three minutes once you begin.

All right, there we go. Uh hello. Uh happy new year and uh welcome and congratulations to all the new faces around the table. Um especially my neighbor Pat. Uh I'm going to have to find a new buddy in the audience. Um uh with with the new year comes new opportunities to make Ithaca the best version of itself that we can envision. Um I'm sure you all have your hopes on this topic and I'm going to share some of mine as it relates to common council. I hope the city's leadership with the various changes it has undergone will function well and be best able to serve constituents showing civility, open-mindedness, professionalism, and constructive productive um communication. I hope the council can take expedit expeditious steps to address the city's most pressing issues, of which there are many. housing affordability, flood mitigation, infrastructure without allowing the dialogue to be dominated too much by distractions at the national or international level. I wrote this before I saw the edits to the agenda, but it's still my opinion. Um, you do your job, demand that others do theirs. Um, but speaking of the national level, I hope that we can follow the adage that the best way to respond to your adversaries is to not be as they are. If lies, division sewing, and corruption continue at the highest levels, I hope that we can be a model for transparency, coalition building, and integrity. Uh, and of course the reason I show up at these meetings month after month, um, I hope that the city of Ithaca can get a fully staffed financial department and get caught up on its financial reporting. Um, I have a new target this year, so brace yourselves. Um, I hope we

can complete both 2022 and 2023 audits before the end of 2026. Financial reporting is one of the basic fundamental functions of any municipality. You owe it to your constituents. You owe it to our taxpayers. You owe it to the people who buy the city's bonds. And you owe it to yourselves so that you can make informed decisions as you pursue the causes nearest and dearest to you in the coming year. Thanks and good luck everybody. Thank you very much. My next speaker is Jordan Clemens

who has left unless that's him walking in over my shoulder. Yep. 2026. Good timing. Some of my timing could be ours a little bit more. Jordan, welcome. You have three minutes once you begin.

All right. My name is Jordan Clemens. Uh, happy new year. I'm the founder of a grassroots revitalization nonprofit called Unbroken Promise Initiative. Uh I've done work with the city now for 5 years. Been coming for 5 years. Uh inquiring about getting a services rendered agreement and getting compensated for the work in which me and my organization in the community had taken on and during the pandemic and racial upheaval. Um I've had conversations internally with the administration throughout many of the leaders throughout the time in the last five years. It's been a lot of transition. Um, currently right now, uh, you know, when I first came into it, I was a fool. You know, I was, uh, I was I took on a burden of the city and of my community that I had not yet been able to conceptualize. However, I was, you know, down for the task and to figure out, you know, what is best to be utilized during that space and time during a pandemic. And you know, if I was going to be sacrificing time with my family and my children, you know, what would be worthwhile? And nothing could be worthwhile than to, you know, bear the responsibility of my community, which has been oppressed, um, you know, against tyranny, you know, a lot of these things that were, you know, psychological. You know, I wasn't there in theory. I didn't test them out. But you know after the last five years after bearing the burden discovering a lot of things institutionally and system systematically uh that impeded on a lot of the of the you know humane and civil rights of of of a community you know I I I lent myself forward to you know support leaders such as you know the the the government and or you know nonprofit uh executives and or you know state agencies and departments into addressing some of these things institutionally and systemically that were not um yet

realized. And so at this point in time um that promise the unbroken promise initiative which was adopted by the city at that at that point in time and now you know iteratively is you know phase into year six. Um we no longer have a contract or a you know um working room agreement. And I'd like to work that out because currently right now things have evolved. The system and institution has now evolved and people now are uh now things are have ramped up. But you know thankfully we have positioned ourselves to gain institutional knowledge um local expertise as well as systemic and institutional expertise. And so we are able to identify some of the patterns of behaviors from a government standpoint as well as an institutional standpoint to push back or provide a support to ensure that the things of the past do not replicate themselves against the people in which I represent which I was born into and taken on the burden. So please reach out. I'll be in touch. Thank you.

Thank you. And [clears throat] my final speaker is Kathy Simpson. Welcome. You have 3 minutes once you begin. I'm Kathy Simpson and this is Ralphie. I wonder if you would please reconsider the short-term rental ordinance. To refresh your memory, this ordinance was voted into lawn by the Comman Council on April 26, 2024 and went into effect last June. It forbids apartment buildings to operate short-term Airbnb rentals, only rentals of 30 days or longer. Its intention is to alleviate rising house prices in the city, preserve a sense of community in neighborhoods, and address the city's housing problems. But here's a curiosity. It allows owner occupied two-unit apartment buildings, called duplexes, to use Airbnb, but not owner occupied fourunit buildings like my house. My building is in the East Hill historic district on the corner of East Court and Lind Street. It was first a single family home with servants living in the attics. A 100 years ago, it became a rooming house under Mrs. Fulkerson. After that, it was a dormatory for male college students. And in the 50s, the 1950s, it became a four-unit apartment

building. It seems a small thing, but the ordinance has left me fi fiscally anguished. This is me anguished. Just so you know, in 2024, I made almost 60% more in rents on the last seven months, June through December, than I did last year after the ordinance went into effect. I'm appealing to you, the common council, to adjust the ordinance to include not only two unit apartment buildings, duplexes, but also three, four, and five unit buildings. Here are the benefits for the city. My annual $100 short-term rental permit fee. Annual $400 permit fees for each of my three units. quarterly hotel occupancy taxes of around $1,000 per quarter and additional city taxes benefits for me easy for me to pay my property taxes which amount to about $15,000 the knowledge that I'm spreading joy to the visitors of Ithaca and more frequent access to the apartments for cleaning repairs and upgrades. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you very much. Uh that concludes our list of speakers this evening. I'll just very very briefly as we move into privilege of the floor note uh one for the speaker who requested information about the zoning advisory commission. Um that body I believe I can't see any planning staff though I suspect they're in the room. Um that [clears throat] will be announced uh next week. It does not require a vote of the common council. That is why it's not on the agenda. Uh and then with respect to the speaker who spoke about short-term rentals, council will be getting a briefing on that policy for discussion in February. Any other comments from colleagues? Uh privilege of the floor. Beautiful. All right. With that, uh we have no consent agenda this week, so we'll move to our regular order of business. May I please someone please summarize and move item 6.1, the res reallocation of HUD entitlement funds, CDBG. All the person m recognized. This is a recusal being that Southside Community Center is a part of the HUD entitlement funds and that is my place of employment.

Thank you very much. You may uh move into my office until uh the debate on this item is closed. Uh Mr. Keel.

Uh yes, this resolution uh moves unused uh funds from other projects that are cancelled or delayed to uh three new projects. Um one is Southside Community Center. Um, one is accessible bathrooms at Steuart Park and the third one is Cass Park and INHS. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Defendini. Uh, I know Ana is here to discuss. Um I will just quickly note uh as the chair of the IURA um the Cass Park project in particular is something that we will be um needing to address that cost overrun as uh as a as a government and so um I urged the agency to support reprogramming those funds uh to this project to help defay the cost to the city itself. Uh Mr. Spear, you recognized.

Thank you. Um, we heard from a few different constituents, uh, last year, uh, excuse me, about two different needs at Southside. One, I think, about fire safety and one perhaps about a kitchen. Is this money responding to either of those needs? Fire safety, it is to replace the fire and electrical panels. Okay, great. Thank you. Any further discussion on this item? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving this, that carries. nine to zero with all the person montos recused. Thanks Ana. Thank you.

Uh may I have someone please summarize and move Ithaca farmers market parking agreement. Y'all Pierre isn't here anymore. Uh all the person win. Um, this resolution authorizes the Ithaca Farmers Market who leases the property from the city to get into a parking agreement with Kio Center. Um, that is so moved. Is there a second? Second by all the person Matoss. Uh, any discussion on this item, Mr. Shapiro? Am I permitted to vote on this? Uh your interest in this I believe would be diffuse but you're an employee of I'm an employee of CUCA medical center.

Uh you may as well just recuse yourself there. Sorry. Fair enough. So all the person if you could just for the record though what you're doing and why. Um you're recusing yourself. I recuse myself because I'm an employee of CU Medical Center. Because of an existing or perceived conflict of interest. Yes. In terms of an existing or perceived conflict of interest. Yep. You may use my office. Thank you.

Uh any further discussion on this? So, I guess we can wait until the older person actually moves into my office, but I suspect the answer is no. I'll use this opportunity. In fact, I even wrote a note to recognize the youth council ambassadors who I know are here. So, thank you for joining us this evening. I've been noting you're all here and I wrote it down and I apologize for not saying it at the beginning of the meeting. Any discussion on this resolution? All those in favor? That carries unanimously. This time nine to zero with all the person Shapiro over accused. Mr. Keel, would you like to summarize and move 6.3?

Um, sure. Um, this uh is the rough contract agreement. We're authorizing the city manager to pass a substant for all intents and purposes the same agreement. Um, though we authorize him to make small changes if needed. Um this is after a long time uh for new members of council. Uh we spent a long time working with the town of Ithaca to try to get um a fire contract that recognized the actual cost of providing fire services to uh the town of Ithaca which surrounds the city as kind of a donut shape which makes it from my understanding difficult to provide fire services or at least more costly. Um and this is the final version. I hope everyone had a chance to read it and it includes significant increases in uh financial benefit for the city. That is so moved. May I have a second? Seconded by Mr. Kirby. Um all I will say on this is I really want to applaud uh the work of uh attorney Kesler, our city manager, uh Mr. Rekio, our acting controller, uh Miss Cole, as well as um Isaac Gaylord in the city attorney's office. Uh this was a very very long and involved process. Uh as Mr. Keel notes, this is a contract that much better reflects the actual cost of providing fire protection to the town. Um and and uh obtains uh more appropriate revenues both for the operational budget as well as the administrative fees. I also want to give a shout out to Chris Ibert in the city manager's office who did an enormous amount of work to compute the administrative uh costs associated to providing fire contract services outside of the city proper. And I don't believe I'm forgetting I I I do believe I'm forgetting a lot of people rather including uh Deputy Chief Moody who's here. Um you know the little thing of actually running the fire department. Uh but again everyone who was involved in this negotiation, thank you. It's was an

enormous effort and I'm really happy to see where we've landed. Mr. Keel, um I also just wanted to I don't remember what the old payment was. Do you know what that is off the top of your head, Mr. Kesler? A ballpark. Sorry, the actual uh figures or the way it's calculated? The old uh actual figures? I don't know the actual figures off hand. Okay. The new figures for 2026 5,317,000 2027 to 5,646 and keeps increasing to uh 2030 if renewed. So, a huge improvement. I think multiple millions of dollars um additional. Mr. Win, um I actually looked this up over the weekend. In 2024, it was $3.8 million. So, uh indeed quite a big increase.

Yeah. Including a 50% increase in the administrative fee. Um any comments or questions on the contract? All those in favor of its adoption. That carries unanimously. I believe it was ratified by the town already, so we just have to execute. So, well done everybody. Um, may I have someone please summarize and move item 6.4 uh the ordinance for uh the 226 parking fee changes. Mr. DeFendini, you're recognized.

Sure. I'll just read the legislative findings intent. Uh the common council of the city of Ithaca makes the following findings. Meter parking is necessary to regulate the use of parking spaces within the city of Ithaca and the collection of fees from users is consistent with the city's goals of regulating public parking spaces of city property and reasonably offsetting the cost to taxpayers of managing city parking. Extending metered parking hours to include Saturdays is consistent with the affformentioned goals. Updating the civil penalties for overtime meter is necessary to encourage compliance with meter regulation to disincentivize repeat offenses and to promote transparency and consistency by establishing fixed fines for offenses. Thank you, Mr. Deandini. Uh may I have a second? Seconded by Mr. Trumbull. Um any uh comments, questions or discussion on this? One thing I will just note is that I know I've spoken with both the deputy city manager, acting city manager and uh the executive director, president of the DIA who is in the gallery today. Uh there is ongoing conversation about what a downtown parking validation program would look like. Um and that will be uh developing over the coming days and weeks. Um but as we have the bureaucracy lurching in the direction of getting this moving forward, that's why we're bringing it to you now so we can continue the implementation. uh question, Mr. Shapiro.

Yeah, I mean, I I'm I'm sure I'm going to be in the minority on this position, but I think uh given what we just learned about the new revenue streams at the fire department, I I I thought last year and think continued today that we moved a little quickly with raising the rates, but more so with um um starting parking fees on Saturday. So, I'll just be voting no on that today. Thank you. do just want to clarify one thing for the older person which is just that uh with the fire service contract those those funds must be used specifically for fire administration. Um but thank you for that comment. Any further comments on this from council Mr. Keel?

Um thank you Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I've heard as as we all have uh from from many constituents over the course of the last uh week and a half, two weeks about their concerns with increasing um parking fees. I think I got 10 emails today from residents of residents and residents adjacents of collegetown. Um, and if for those of you who have frequented college town, uh, you will know that during the school year, it's incredibly difficult to find parking. Um, I still think that there is extreme benefit to passing these both for the city but also for uh business development, especially in collegetown where you have people who park on the street for literally multiple days in a row and and take up parking spaces for for business goers. Um, but that said, I I also heard some concerns um from business owners about employee parking and how if parking is $3 an hour and they have to park in a in a feed zone, you're effectively take giving someone a $3 an hour pay cut. Um, and so I I have some ideas about how to address that with some some new parking programs. Um, but those are far from blashed out. So I I will continue to be working on those over the course of the next couple weeks. And hopefully Robin will help me. [snorts]

Thank you, Mr. Keel. I want to just briefly recognize the uh acting city manager who has a brief comment on this. Yeah, one of the impacts for parking on Saturdays is related to um religious services observed in town specifically at Temple Bethl uh which which abuts paid parking area in the city. Just wanted to let you know that I've been in contact with their leadership and we're making sure that they have updates on our process as we move forward as well as you know alternate parking opportunities in the area as it's related to uh religious observation in the area. We're sort of considering that deeply as we move forward.

Thank you very much, Mr. Rechiel. I see you, Mr. Keel. Before I recognize you, I want to just make sure that there's no first time hands from colleagues. And I see none. So, Mr. Keel, um I'm just wondering, um first of all, it's my understanding that we haven't passed these regulations yet. Is that correct? That is why we are considering it. Yes. Um I am I am interested in the process by which we we got to this point because I do think that the parking rates have already been increased if I'm not mistaken at least in college.

The parking rates were adopted as part of the 2026 budget. This ordinance deals with Saturday parking and the um fines for exceeding the parking limits etc. Thank you very much, Mr. Shapiro. Well,

I just want to thank Don for his last comments. I actually did get a parking ticket on Yum Kapoor while I was attending Temple Bethl. And maybe it was one of the folks at the temple. I thought it was from the city. They had a bag on top of the parking meter that um said to me that parking was free for people that were attending services. Um unfortunately, it wasn't. I uh appealed it with the clerk and I lost that appeal. Um, so I'm happy to hear that you're listening to the constituents that attend attend Temple Bethl. Thank you for any further discussion of this item. Um, just cuz I feel like being spicy and it's everybody's first opportunity, I'll since it's an ordinance, I'll do a roll call vote. Mr. Deandini, yay. Smoss. Yes. Mr. Kirby? Yep. Mr. W.

Hi. Mr. S. Yay. Mr. Shapiro, no. Mr. Keel, yes. Mr. Rumble, yes. Yes. And the mayor votes yes. That carries 9 to1 with all the person Fitzio absent.

All right. Uh we're going to get into bond resolutions. Um I'm just going to do a quick deviation since we have five new colleagues. So these are all things just so you know that are in the budget. Uh we just the budget gets passed in November and we have to borrow the money uh on a semiannual basis in January and July. Uh that's when we authorize the city controller to go out into the bond and ban market to uh do necessary borrowings. Um so just very candidly, if some of this stuff is confusing to you because you're brand new, I would uh refer you to the budget deliberations of the uh for the 2026 budget from November. Uh but just sort of note that this is a sort of procedural step for something that council has already authorized spending on. Quick comment from all the person mot.

Yeah, and I was just going to say there's some that were from the 2025 budget year. So if if you if they don't see it last year's during last year's budget, thank you all the person uh with Mr. Su. And what happens if these bond resolutions do not pass? Um I believe the technical term is that's bad. Um no, we can't we can't move forward with the approved budget. We don't have the funds available to do what we've charged the administration with executing. Um, may I have someone please, you know what, city attorney? I'm just going to read what the actual line is in the amount. That should be sufficient, right? Yeah, that should.

All right. I will move uh 6.5 Stewart Avenue Bridge uh at approximately $5.2 million. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Su. Any discussion? All those in favor of adopting? Oh, we do need roll call on this. I even wrote it down. Um, Mr. Defendini, yay. Miss Matoss, yes. Mr. Kirby, yep. Mr. W, hi. Mr. S, hi. Mr. Shapiro, yes. Mr. Keel, Mr. Trumbull, yes. Mr. Vetsz, yes. And the mayor votes yes. That carries unanimously. Um, item 6.6, Cass Park, Bathroom Pavilion Improvements. Um, I so move uh to the tune of $938,000. Seconded by Mr. Devandini. Mr. Mr. Ney,

yes. Miss Mtos, yes. Mr. Kirby, yep. Mr. W. Hi. Mr. S. Hi. Mr. Spro, yes. Mr. Ke, yes. Mr. Trumbull. Yes. Betts. And the mayor votes yes. That carries unanimously. 6.7 North Cuga Street Bridge Project $200,000. I so move. Seconded by Mr. Defendini. Uh, Mr. Defendini. Yes. Miss Moss. Yes. Mr. Kirby. Yep. Mr. W. Hi. Mr. S. I. Mr. Shapiro. Yes. Mr. Keel. Yes. Mr. Trumbull. Yes. Mr. Yes. And the mayor votes yes. That carries unanimously. Uh 6.8 bond resolution for the Red and White Cafe. Uh $250,000. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Kirby. Discussion. Yes, please. Mr. uh Shapiro.

Um I know we've talked about this a lot before, but I've also heard from some constituents um about this as well. And I guess it's just not This feels very loud today. Um it's just not clear to me why the city is investing in um owning a cafe or in helping another organization quasi government department own a cafe. Um so I'm not sure how I'm going to vote today or if there's even a way to find out those answers while we're while we're in this meeting here today, but it just has never been made clear to me why we're putting money into this. Miss Reo,

sorry that I don't have a further update on this topic. Um, I would have to turn to whether Victor or Wendy have anything as they may have worked on this uh before me. But I will say that those questions are ones that I have as well just generally to learn and look forward to bringing those answers forward. Um, as this is something that's already been approved through the budget and the funding um, I believe is related to helping get this project off the ground. Um, I think it's fortuitous for us to sort of move forward with it, but if there's any other details from staff who've been working on it before me, I'd welcome those. Miss Cole,

I can add just a brief update. Um, part of it [clears throat] is to, um, support some of the, um, programming that the youth that GK already has, which is the hospitality program. So, um, they could use the cafe part to further, you know, the instruction and, you know, the programs. I I'm sorry I don't know all the details of the hospitality program, but that's one of the programs that can be run out of that space. Um, and I think in the initial plan, there was also some other youth programs for some of the older participants that go to GK that would benefit from the space as well. Mr. S.

Yeah, I remember this being discussed last year. Um, and it might have been through the budget process or something. I wasn't on common council at the time, but I remember I recall it being discussed also for entrepreneurial skills, uh things like marketing, also bookkeeping, uh service work, um just essentially running a business, which uh is an important function for students to learn. Mr. Win, yeah, my notes say that it will house specifically the teen catering program and as of October, they're aiming to open by fall of 26.

Mr. Ke. Um, yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I am going to vote for this tonight because I think that the programming that they have committed to doing is really important. Um, at the same time, I've heard um that this is not actually a city-owned property. This is owned by a nonprofit and we are investing city dollars into a non-city-owned property, and that really concerns me. Um, I think that we really need to make sure that if we're investing taxpayer dollars are going to city-owned properties. Um, and I don't know what the process looks like or if that's something that we can do or work towards. Um, but I also don't want us to be under the impression that this is a city-owned property when it's not. Um, so again, I think this is important. This is something we've committed to doing, but as we move forward, uh, I want to be making sure that we have a clear picture of whether we're investing in something that is city-owned or whether investing in something that's not city-owned. And I'll just add, I think that, um, there have been some tentative discussions uh, between the acting city manager and myself. Uh but broadly speaking, the city is going to provide an update uh to council and uh re-examine uh all of our umus with uh friends, organizations and partners that provide uh adjunct services to city departments. And that will be something that comes before council. Um it's tenative on the scheduling, but we will we will have a conversation about that this year. Seeing no further discussion on this item, uh, Mr. Defendini,

yes. Mtos, yes. Mr. Kirby, yep. Mr. W. Hi. Mr. Su, hi. Mr. Shapiro, yes. Mr. Keel, yes. Mr. Trumbull, yes. Yes. And the mayor votes, yes. That carries uh 10 to zero. Uh, next is 6.9 $1.5 million uh for a raw water main uh reservoir to the water treatment plant. I so move seconded by Mr. Defendini. Mr. Defendini, yes. Miss Mtos, yes. Mr. Kirby, yep. Mr. W, hi. Mr. Su, hi. Mr. Shiro, yes. Mr. Keel, yes. Mr. Trumble, yes. Mvetsz, yes.

And the mayor votes yes. Uh, moving on to 6.10. Uh, 510 First Street renovation for sewer, $600,000. I so move. Seconded by Mr. Defendini. Uh, I've missed this for the last two years. Always always seconding stuff for me. Um, uh, Mr. Defendini, yes. Miss Mats, yes. Mr. Kirby, yep. Mr. W, hi. Mr. Su, hi. Mr. Spiro, yes. Mr. Keel, yes. Mr. Trumbull, yes. And the mayor votes, yes. Uh, then we have bond resolution 510, first street renovation for water, $400,000. I so move and that seconded by all the person defanini. All the person defanini. Yes. All the person Moss. Yes. All the person Kirby. Yep. All the person win.

Hi. All the person. Hi. All the person Shapiro. Yes. All person Ke Trumbull. Yes. Betts. And the mayor votes yes. That carries unanimously. 6.12 bond resolution for the wastewater treatment plant improvements $500,000. I so moved. Seconded by Mr. Kirby. Mr. Defendini. Yes. [snorts] Person Moss. Yes. Person Kirby. Yep. Person win. Hi. All person Su. Hi. Old person Shapiro. Yes. Person Keel. Yes. Person Trumble. Yes. President Vets. Yes.

And the mayors. Yes. And our final bond resolution for the evening 6.13 improvements to the 60-foot dam the city share this is a very important project that council authorized in the budget last year I am happy to move this at $ 1.5 million seconded by Mr. When all the person, yes person, yes person Kirby, all the person win, yes, all the person Su, yes bureau, yes person Keel, yes all the person Trumbull, yes vets, yes,

and the mayor votes yes. That carries unanimously. Uh, I was wrong. 614 is a bond. It just doesn't say that. But I not only knew that, I in fact spoke to the sustainability director about that minutes ago. She's probably in a cold sweat watching this meeting. I'm sorry, Rebecca. Um uh $400,000 for energy sustainability improvements that is seconded by all the personvets and uh Mr. Defendini. Yes. Mtos. Yes. Mr. Kirby. Yep. All the person win. Hi. All the person uh Su I person Ke person Trumbull. Yes. Persons. Yes.

And the mayor votes yes. And the mayor will get better at getting all those names. A lot of them are new for me. So I keep stumbling over myself. Thank you for your patience. That concludes our regular order of business. We will now move to our two member filed items that were added. Um, may I please recognize the uh 7.1 Mr. Defendini uh Miss Moss who moved that resolution. Uh, please uh read the title of the resolution and read the resolved in their entirely entirety because these were not included in the agenda packet. the whereases you won't have to read and then we will make sure I believe for both of these copies are with the deputy clerk but just in case that copies are with the deputy clerk so that can be included in the minutes all the person you recognized.

Yes. And then for council's um edification I sent the deputy clerk the correct final draft that did not have the rough draft on it so that she can go ahead and post that online. Um but I am moving resolution of the common council opposing unauthorized United States military action in Venezuela and urging congressional action. Um and so resolved that the common council of the city of Ithaca formally opposes the unauthorized use of United States military force against Venezuela in any efforts to occupy, administer, or run an a foreign nation absent lawful authorization. And be it further resolved that the common council urges the United States Congress to immediately exercise its authority under article one of the constitution in the war powers resolution to require the cease of hostility hostilities and withdrawal of US armed forces from Venezuela and be it further resolved that the common council calls upon Congress to prohibit the expendit expenditures of federal funds for any military occupation, governance or administration of Venezuela or other Latin American countries such as Cuba not explicitly author authorized by Congress. And be it further resolved that the common council urges Congress to conduct immediate oversight hearings into the legality, authorization, and decision-making processes underlining the military action. And be it finally resolved that the mayor is directed to transmit this resolution to the speaker and minority leader of the US House of Representatives, the majority and minority minority leaders of the US Senate and the city's federal legislative delegation.

So moved. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Deandini. All those in favor? Oh, Mr. Shapiro, you're recognized. Um, just for the new members here, very briefly, um, our rules dictate that you have to vote yes or no. There's no abstensions. That said, I don't feel like I know enough about international politics to vote yes or no. So, I won't be voting at all, which means that it'll be recorded as a no. Correct. But, I just wanted to explain myself because I won't be raising my hand either way.

Mr. I also just wanted to make the point that I really dislike using uh council time for matters that are completely out of our jurisdiction or control. Um but I think this is an interesting exception because the agenda is very short. It's 6:45. We haven't been here for many hours. But but generally I would prefer we stick to things related to the city. Thanks. Thank you. Um all those in favor of the resolution has moved. Those opposed. The mayor recognizes that all the person Shapiro has not voted. As he notes in our rules, I must record that as a no vote. That carries 9 to1. Uh Mr. Keely recognized.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a resolution supporting Kauga United CWA and Kauga Medical Center nurses. I'll just read the resolve clauses as well. Resolved that the city of Ithka common council affirms its strong support for the fundamental rights of all workers, including healthcare workers, to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Resolved further that the city of Ithka common council encourages Kauga Medical Center to adhere to all labor laws and remain neutral in advance of the upcoming union election. Resolve that further that the city of Ithaca common council encourages all parties to engage in respectful, transparent, and good faith negotiations that recognize the essential role nurses play in delivering quality healthcare to City of Itha residents. And finally resolved that a copy of this resolution be transmitted to Kauga United CWA and Kaunga Medical Center leadership.

Thank you. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Trumbull. Mr. Shir, you're recognized. It's been 45 minutes, but I still work at community at Auga Medical Center. [laughter] So I do have a conflict of interest and I'm going to ask to be recused. You may use my office. Uh yeah, it was it Yeah, I'll email you. Yep. Old person. I just want to thank alder person ke for bringing this forward um for us to vote tonight. All those in favor of the resolution as moved that carries unanimously nine to zero with all the persons for Britzio absent and all the person Shapiro recused back David.

Um with that we have a few appointments this evening. Um we will uh give a moment to our youth ambassadors who are trickling out of the room. Thanks all for joining us this evening. Great to see you all. See you in March. I know. I know. I'm not offended. Um, yeah. Yeah. Nice try, Alan. Uh, I move that Troy Parish be appointed to the Cable Access Oversight Committee effective January 1st of this year with a term ending on New Year's Eve, 2028. Um, all those in favor of that appointment, that carries unanimously. I move that uh Donald Hton, better known as Jason to many of us, uh be appointed to the board of zoning appeals effective January 1st of this year ending on New Year's Eve uh 2028. Uh question from Mr. Keel.

Uh just a comment as uh my current colleagues know and my current colleagues uh probably do not. Um, I have previously stated that I don't like voting for appointments, uh, if there's no resume because I want to make sure that they're a good fit for for our boards and committees. Um, I know Jason, um, however, he did not submit a resume and, um, I'm not going to be voting yes for this. Mr. S, uh, does the current application for this ask you to submit a resume? It does not.

So, okay. Why has everyone else submitted a resume? Um any further comments or questions on this appointment? All those in favor of the appointment that uh those opposed. That carries 9 to1 with Mr. Keel against. Uh the ILPC appointments were pulled uh at the request of the planning department. They're not ready for a vote. Uh, and then my last appointment is uh that Rick Rogers be appointed to the community police board for three-year term ending New Year's Eve 2028. This is a reappoint, correct? Uh, I'm pretty sure uh all questions first. Everyone's excited to vote, but no. Okay. All those in favor?

Those opposed? Wait, those in favor? Sorry. Okay, that carries 100. Um, we will turn to report of the city clerk, Mr. Carrison. Also, again, great new layout to the room, [clears throat] except I realized we were a person short up front, but all worked out.

Well, hello everyone. Welcome. Uh, for those of you who have only seen me through email, it's nice to meet you in person. I'm Alan Carrison, city clerk and head of the uh Department of Information and Community Engagement. Um, it's my pleasure each year to be able to bring a few things to council's attention. And the one I I like doing most of all is the beginning of every year I get to announce for the IURRA that the annual action planning process for the city's HUD entitlement funds has opened up this year. That is uh for $97,000. Application deadline is February 20th. The full uh packet of information regarding to those funds was included in the agenda available to the public and off the city's website. Currently um as an annual process, we do request well request we request but we require a uh financial disclosure form uh sometimes referred to as the uh ethics form. It is is basically a state requirement that um your interests are noted in case there are issues of conflict. Not that they were financial tonight, but as we've seen, it does happen from time to time. Um the deadline for getting those back to the clerk's office is February 2nd. Uh as they become available, they are available in the city's laser fee system, same place where you would find minutes to all the meetings. So, you no longer have to come into city hall to view them if you're interested in seeing them.

I'll just jump on the clerk's comments here really quick. Yes, you have until February 2nd, I think he said, but uh more importantly, as council knows from an email from me, you will not receive your liaison appointments until you get this ethics form in. So, please do that at your earliest convenience.

Thank you. And then finally, uh the annual tax warrant has been signed and is released. that was also attached to the agenda. Um, for the members of the public or those who don't know, the tax warrant is the legal document allowing us to collect the taxes that were approved in the city the city's budget process. It has the actual tax amount, the uh dollars going for sideway sidewalk improvement and related items. That has a legal requirement every year. It says the exact dollar amounts that are to be collected. And just for the public, uh, for those of you who have received tax bills already, please note that the address has changed. It is a P.O. box if you're sending them back in now as opposed to city hall's address, which is a change this year. Uh, so please be aware of that. And with that, that's all I had. Thank you very much. Any questions for the clerk? All right. With that, uh, there is no report of the city controller this evening. Uh that will come at a future committee meeting. Uh there is no report of the city attorney for the public. Any public report from the city manager?

None today. Thank you. All right. With that, we are going to move into six backto-back executive sessions, some of which are going to have voting items coming out of them. So, the public is welcome to stay. We will just go into my office uh for I think all of these. I think they're all pretty brief. So for the first I'd like to move into executive session to discuss uh personnel matter uh seconded by Mr. Su all those in I need a second first so if that's not okay second by Mr. Cool. This is usually not a debatable motion. So, um Okay. This wasn't on the agenda, right?

Well, it is in so much as executive session if needed is section 10 always. Ah, okay. So, not the explicit except you said for personnel, correct? Thank you. Uh all those in favor of moving into executive session, that carries unanimously. We can just go into my office. You're going to stay here.

May I have a motion to exit executive session? Moved by Mr. Defendini, seconded by Mr. Kirby. All those in favor? That carries unanimously. Um, I'd like to introduce a resolution. Resolution authorizing temporary salary adjustment for acting city manager during the term of service. I will read the resolves. Resolved that retroactive to January 1st of this year, Mr. Reo shall be compensated at an annual rate of $167,000. And be it further resolved that effective immediately one week of sick leave shall be credited to Mr. Rekio's acrruel balance. Be it further resolved that Mr. Rekio's leave at acrruels and other fringe benefits shall otherwise continue to be governed by the fringe benefits for managerial personnel policy. Be it further resolved that upon the appointment of a permanent city manager or in the event that Mr. Reko should otherwise no longer serve in the acting city manager role, Mr. Rechio shall resume his duties as deputy city manager at the salary step and grade that he would have been entitled to had his compensation not been temporarily adjusted pursuant to this resolution and shall retain all leave hours and length of service time acrewed during the period of service as acting city manager and be further resolved that the funding for the adjustment be uh contemplated in this resolution shall be derived through administration salary which has an appropriate account number here which I will not read out uh for simplicity which shall be adjusted accordingly. I so move seconded by Mr. Defendini. All those in favor of adopting this resolution, that carries unanimously. May I have a motion enter into executive session to discuss a personnel matter? Uh moved by Mr. Shapiro, seconded by Mr. Trumbull. All those in favor of moving into executive session. That carries unanimously. We'll be right back.

May I have a motion to exit executive session? Moved by Mr. Kirby, seconded by Mr. Defendini. All those in favor of exiting executive session. That carries unanimously. I have a resolution to introduce. This is a resolution authorizing a waiver of the search committee process and the appointment of a permanent city fire chief. I will read the resolved. Resolve that pursuant to section 26i of the Ithaca City Charter, the search process for the position of fire chief is hereby waved and be further resolved that Michael Moody be and hereby is appointed to the position of fire chief effective January 8th, 2026 at step five of grade 12 of the managerial compensation plan which amounts to an annual salary of $151,500 for 2026. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Kirby. All those in favor of this resolution. Congratulations, Chief. That'd be a great high note to end on if we didn't have like four more of these. Um, may I have a motion to move into executive session for a I'm going to call it personnel matter. Right. That's Yeah, for a personnel matter. Um, seconded by or a move by Mr. Deandini, seconded by Mr. S. All those in favor move into executive session. That carries unanimously. We will be right back.

Okay. Um, may I have a motion to exit executive session? Moved by Mr. D. Vendini, second. Seconded by um um uh SMTOS. Um, all those in favor of exiting executive session that carries unanimously. Uh I have a resolution which I will not read in its entirety but I will summarize for the public and we will publish it in the minutes and make it available. Um this is a resolution that uh the the city man the acting city manager's spouse works for the city and this uh while there is no direct report here. This is just codifying that disciplinary issues should they arrive uh be handled by the department head who oversees the employee in question and uh cl just kind of reaffirms that there is no supervisory authority uh between uh the acting city manager and the employee in question. Uh may I have I so move this resolution seconded by all the person mats. All those in favor of adopting this resolution, that carries unanimously. May I have a motion to enter into executive session for I already forgot

contract negotiations. I knew it was Yeah. Mr. Defendini, Mishvettz, all those in favor unanimous.

May I have a motion to exit executive session? Moved by all the person Trumbull, seconded by Alder person Schvettz. All those in favor of exiting executive session. That carries unanimously. Uh I have a very I have a two sentence resolution to introduce. Uh this is a resolution for the approval and authorization of to execute the chief officers unit of the Ithaca Professional Firefighters Association local 737 collective bargaining agreement. Uh resolved that the common council approves this collective bargaining agreement between the city of Ithaca and the chief officers unit uh expiring December 31st, 2026. Be it further resolved, the acting city manager subject to the advice of the city attorney is fully authorized to execute this agreement on behalf of the city. I so move second of all the persons. All those in favor of adopting this resolution that carries unanimously. May I have a motion to enter into executive session to discuss both of these are under personnel matters.

Personnel uh issues. Uh we're going to do Yeah. So these will Can we There's no voting. Okay. Yeah. We're going to do two different things. There's no votes coming out for these two. Uh and in fact for the public edification um you okay? Uh we will have no more votes for the rest of the meeting. When we come out of council uh when we come out of executive session, we will go into council orientation. The public is more than welcome to stay for that, but this will be the final piece of business for the meeting this evening. Um with that, uh may I have a motion and a second moved by all the person Trumbull, second by all the person Shapiro. All those in favor of moving into executive session, that carries unanimously.

May I have a motion to exit executive session? Moved by Alder person Trumbull, seconded by Alder person Keel. All those in favor of exiting executive session. That carries unanimously. With that, council's business is concluded. We will not adjourn because we are going to just go right into council orientation. I Yes. Uh would someone like to make a uh Pierce St. Perez motion? All the person uh Sulie recognized. I make a motion to uh No. To recess for like two minutes so I can get

five minutes. Five minutes. Is there a second? Second by all the persons. All those in favor of moving into a fiveminute recess that carries unanimously. We will reconvene at 7:52.

this body. So, we are still in a public meeting. Mr. Carrison,

I thought our city manager was drinking, but I'll say I'll say welcome again to everyone.

Thank you. I was just sending Shenica with those documents, but I'll get back to that. Sorry, Chenica. I'll get to that in a moment. Um, thank you. I am uh glad to be orienting you and I am sorry that it's coming after the first council meeting, but um I think much of the information you have all seem to have gleamed from your uh previous interactions with council and understanding how the process works. So, um, in terms of the opens, open meetings law and procedure, uh, items, I think that, uh, we'll cover some things in here, but it's clear you're not noviceses as it relates to that. Um, so the packet in front of you, and this has been sent to all council members. It has also been distributed to department heads, and some facets of it will be distributed to um, all of our staff as it relates to communication channels with council. Um, this is slight deviation from what's been done in the past. Um there have been slideshows or or more in depth um but we had a a slightly um truncated time to put this together for you. So it is in word document format. Thanks for understanding. At the beginning of this is just a letter to the new alder persons. I'll let you read that on um your own time, but I will, you know, highlight the second to last paragraph just talking about how our staff are a real indispensable resource and that I hope you see them as a [clears throat] partner in your success moving forward. Um all right, so the first piece of the orientation um actually probably should be some introductions around the room because I don't know everyone. I don't know that our staff um knows everyone personally who are new council members. So uh maybe we could start with older person defendini and maybe just a brief background introduction what ward you represent and um just to get to know each other.

Sure thing. Uh my name is uh Jorge Defendini. I'm an older person representing the first w I think common council. Uh that is uh southside north side uh and the west hill. Uh I'm very brand new to common council. This is my first meeting ever. Um, I served on the common council representing the fourth ward, the second best ward in the city. Um, uh, from 2022 to 2023. Um, and I'm about now back and excited to be working with you all. Great. Thanks.

I am Joseph Kirby. This is my first meeting. Um, lifelong Ithacan attorney in town. I do that stuff. It's great. Um, you know, excited to be here representing W 2. Great. and served on one of the cooler judicial boards of the city. Look, I got ABIR and Board of Zoning Appeals. They were a great time. Got to see Victor a lot. You know, gonna miss it.

Uh Pat Su Ward 3. I appreciate Mr. Defendini recognizing that W 3 is the best ward. Um and you know, and um I've been here since 2007. Have a kid. I don't know, do stuff. I've been coming to common council meetings for a while. So this is it's really interesting being on this side than rather on that side. I'm uh Robin Trumbull. I represent the fourth ward. Um you know I've been in Itha for a long time. I finished high school here went to college and came back. Um and also my first meeting really excited to be a part of this.

Hannah representing board five raised ina now a junior um like my predecessor in labor relations. Great. Then we can do a brief staff overview. Um I'm Dominic. We've met serving as acting city manager. Um and am the deputy city manager here at the city. Uh before my time here at the city, I served as the communications director for Tomkins County uh for about five years. So um I have quite a bit of um experience in local government and I'm just looking forward to working with you all. And I'll turn it over to Alan.

Yep. Uh once again, my name is Alan Carrison. I'm the city clerk for the city of Ithaca and also the director of the department of information and community engagement. Uh I've been with the city going on 25 years this year. My background is in IT. So I was one of the hands-on help desk and crawling under the desk and in the cable closets people for the city for a long long time. Um, but luckily that's now handled by my team who does a much much better job at it and I get to spend my time doing wonderful things like this and I am looking forward to tonight's session. Thanks Sheniqua.

And I'm Sheniqua. I am the deputy city clerk and I've been here March will be three years. So I started with the uh council before you and the council before them. So I'm the one that creates the agendas. I get your agendas to you and make sure your materials are there and I'm excited to work with you guys. Very good. And Victor,

Victor Kesler, I'm the city attorney. Um I've had that role starting on an acting basis in 2024. Um and then as a full-time uh also in 2024, a little later on, um I was an assistant city attorney since 2021, I think, before that. Uh and I was in private practice for quite some time before that. Um, I think I've met all of you at this point. Uh, and I'm excited to uh make sure that you don't do crimes during your time at the city.

And uh, Victor, for the sections that you go over, if I could recommend you switch your mic with David's. We had an issue with that mic in YouTube earlier. Um, I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah. Anything, mayor, on your end before we roll in? Not at all. You all know who I am. Very good. Thank you. Thank you all for that. It's it's good to get to know you um, as we'll start working together. So, first bit of this uh document is related to important documents and procedures. Um you've all already been sworn in uh by the clerk's office and uh tonight as well. Um and I'll let the um Alan uh our clerk talk a little bit more about um the documents from human resources that you were invited. We'll probably just read through this section pretty quickly because it's um already we've already received the information. Yeah, I'm I'm really going to go very quickly through this because you you have had your HR packet since your swearings in. Um the one that tops the list is is what I mentioned in my clerk's report earlier. That's the annual financial disclosure uh disclosure form. Um we will ask for that every year uh starting in December and we'll collect them um hopefully in January um but certainly by the end of January, beginning of February. Um everything else is is what you need as a employee of the city of Ithaca. Your payroll information, um city ID request form, um all our policies, the all the same information that that all the other employees of the city get. Um optional benefits that you can sign up for. Uh, our human resources office is on the second floor here in city hall and they are excellent at answering questions that I couldn't even begin to answer for you tonight. So, if you do have HR related questions, I suggest you uh contact them directly. I do want to point out the the one the paragraph right after that bolded list I think is

the one worth noting. Um, if you plan on um entering the state retirement system, you are required to keep a uh work log activity of your hours spent doing your job. That is um as elected officials, there is not a quote unquote standard workday. Um what we'll do is we'll take those logs. Uh there's a state form we'll fill out and a resolution actually comes back to this body to approve the workday's hours for those employees that do tend uh want to sign up for it amongst this group that is a oneandone process I believe mean meaning once you've done the log you don't have to do that annually or anything um and just uh on behalf of Jamie the HR office the one we did last year does need a slight tweak in language. It will come back before this, but it won't impact anyone's approvals. Um, so there will be at least one resolution of that sort this year. Um, possibly a second depending on how many members of this body do that process. Um, there is a um a template form of the recording log. Um, if that wasn't included in your packets, I I believe it was, but if it wasn't or you can't find it or you want the electronic version, let me know and I'm sure um there's one on the state website in order to download. And

just jump in really quick, Alan, with a um personal experience with this. It's very much like billable hours. Uh if you are going to opt into this system, track your time to like the nearest quarter hour. Uh my sheet was like 20 pages long. So like start doing that now if you're going to enroll because doing it after the fact you're going to forget so much stuff that you are responsible for. Yeah. And uh I think unless there's any questions uh that really covers that whole section. Yes, Pat.

Yeah. Um I I know the ethics form is due February 7th. What's the date on the rest of this stuff? Is it the same time?

Oh, all of the HR information. I don't believe there's a an actual date for it. Uh the sooner you get it to them, the the sooner they can get your whatever you're signing up for, your things you have to do processed. I I would say your city IDs would be the one that you want to get in as soon as possible. That'll um help you with access into the building. And uh I'll mention it again on the on the next section of training and technology, but I I will say along with that, I don't believe there's an actual form for a parking pass um in the city garages, but if you do need one or want one, you can um visit our Chamberlain's office and they can set you up with one as well. Thanks.

I'll reiterate that a little later though. It's this financial disclosure packet that we need for committees. Yes, that's right. Yep. Okay. And that will only take you about 10 minutes. I turned it in today. Thank you. I I will say we've gotten about half of them already of the whole group and that's quite good. Yep. So, and actually if you don't do it by the deadline, not only do you not get your committee assignments, but you get referred to the ethics board.

Even better. Uh the next section is training and technology, which Alan will also take on for us. Well, at the risk of sounding redundant, I'm going to reiterate the parking tag information I just said. Again, it's not a standard process to to give out the parking passes. So, if you do drive a vehicle and you do want um to to park in a garage, and that would be a parking pass, I would presume in the Cuga Street garage, that's generally where they would come come out of. Um and also again reiterating that city ID form, that is your picture ID. Um, it is also a prox card. I don't know that it would Yeah, actually it would get you into city hall on meeting days beyond if for for some reason security is not sitting there um and you needed to get in the building in order to get to one of these meetings if they're in the restroom or something. That would also get you in. So, your your card is very important. I I highly suggest you get that one on immediately. Um, for some of these other items, I'm going to act as if we hadn't already had a meeting and you had your computers out and you've been functioning very well already. But all of our city buildings, in particular, common council chambers where our meetings are held, do have guest Wi-Fi, so you can bring your laptops in, connect them in. No special setup or IT um approval or process needed. We don't put any software on your computer um for that purpose. Um, all of our applications are available. I think the easiest way is through that that number three on the training and technology page, myapps.microsoft.com. That is your one-stop shopping for all things city. So, you can access your email through that page. Um, you can access um the basic Microsoft suite. So that does give you Excel and Word and

PowerPoint and the general um suite of software. Um that gets you your link to Granicus Media Manager. So that is uh I'm just curious, did did any of you use that for tonight's meeting? Great. Wonderful. Um you'll find that's a very useful tool. We no longer do paper agendas. Um there is the occasional piece that needs to come up uh or a resolution or something but in general that is where you will access your agenda. It is of course available on the main city web page available for public consumption. The Granicus system that you can log into has the advantage of it's a place where you can take notes in the meetings as well and the actual agenda items are linkable and the actual attachments come up as opposed to pouring through a sometimes several hundred page PDF document which is challenging at best and always hard to find the right page in the middle of a of a discussion or as the next agenda item's being called up. And then there's also a link to our code book, which is also on the city's website, but our our municipal code, charter, uh ordinances, legislation, new laws that you may may enact moving forward, ones that have already everything's in the E360 code book. Um, so that is a great one-stop shopping. No longer are you required to look in the back of the room at a manual this thick to try to find something. It is fully searchable and items are exportable, meaning you can pull out word documents if you really wanted something. And in the midst of a meeting, if there's a question, no one can pull up information faster than Attorney Kesler. So, he is excellent as a resource for you. His finger his fingers fly across that keyboard and you can always find the answer quickly, but

Yes, thank you. There is there is a smart app as well if you want to have a a little See, that's why we do these trainings. That'll teach our returning members for not staying. [laughter] There's actually a question. So, Grant you there's an app for Granicus you can get on your phone. Yes. No. Oh, no. No. I'm sorry. For for the e-code book. Okay. Is there Can you get Granicus on your phone? It is mobile friendly. It doesn't have an app that I'm aware of. Okay. We'll we'll double check with the support. Yeah, I was looking for one. I couldn't find one.

Yeah, it it is it is web and uh mobile enabled, right? But I don't believe it's there's a specific app for it. And then uh finally, I want to reference our intranet. I've put the full URL there. There is actually a

we call them the tiles. There's a link for it on that my apps page as well. Um, and as I'm saying that, I'm reminding myself in the back, I had to make sure that I did put that shortcut on there. And if not, it will be there tomorrow because our internet was uh unveiled um late in 2025. So, that is um all things city of Ithaca employees. So, policies um information about various departments, the outside of Outlook, of course, it is the full contact list. um if you need to get anyone's phone number, email address, anything of the sort. And that is a I'll say a a work in progress. So more and more will be added to that. Um HR information will be found there. Um benefit information will be found there and then that site will grow over time as we um are able to expand it out. But we're excited about that. It's it's a long time in coming and we're we're glad to have all that information for you and all our employees in one place. And then um for our city website, I'm going to use this as an opportunity not just for yourselves, but for our members of the public who might be watching to look at our general website and the the slew of communication tools that are available to you. That's why I have um Sheniqua, our deputy clerk, have it on the screen in the room for you. Um, are you and it's being shared out already?

Great. Thank you. If you could just uh scroll down to the help center. And I will add that the the look and feel of the city website is uh go back up a little bit. Just stay at those buttons for a minute.

Yeah. Um is going to be changing over the next few months. We're in the midst of a website redesign. Um the things I'm going to go over tonight will remain fairly similar. So, if you learn it now, you'll you'll easily find it on a new site. I do want to point out in those uh first eight buttons that you see when you go onto the city's website, our agendas and minutes. Um, and Chenica, if you can click into that, as I said, you have access to internal tool to make the meetings a little easier. This is if you need to find a agenda for any of our boards, committees, uh, commissions, etc. Um, if you want to go back and find an older agenda that might not be in Granicus, um, they're all here. Um, you can go in, um, [clears throat] actually, go back to the, uh, web page for a second, please. The, uh, City of Ithaca web page. I think you're in a you just have a different tab. There you go. And back in the agendas and minutes screen. The important thing on this one is as what Sheniqua had already clicked for us right at the top of the page, click here for meeting minutes. The minutes are not actually stored on the city website. They're in our document management system. So any meeting minutes, use that link right at the top of the screen and that's going to take you to all of them. And that's what Schneo is then showing that all the boards committees you can search by year and that tool will let you search by phrase, by topic, by date, etc. So, but the agendum themsel the agendas themselves all live here on the city website. If you could go back to the main page again, Chenikra, also in this list, the one I want to point out is our updates and notifications. Um, we have several communication Yeah, go ahead and click on that, please. We have several

communication tools. Um, all of which need you or most of which need you to sign up. Um, you do need to create an account on the city website in order to sign up for these mailings. Um, and that makes sense because we're collecting your email address and there are options of getting things through it via text and we want to protect that. So that's why an account must be created first. Um, we have civic send, notify me, alerts, um, news flashes, information about even odd parking. Um, if you want to get those proactive alerts, this is the great place to sign up for them. Additionally, and if you scroll down the page a little bit, Cheniqua, there's our emergency management system that we partner with the county on, Siren. that's going to be your police have closed off a road or stay out of this area due to police activity or border main break or the more emergency type communication. So between the ones directly on the website, our notify me, our civic send, etc., and the siren, I highly recommend to all members of our public to sign up for these services because that's the best most proactive way to make sure that you're getting the news that's going to impact you the most. Um, whenever something comes out, you'll get the good news, you'll get the press releases, you'll get the but you'll also get the more urgent items. Yes, Robin.

Run and operated by the county, the city, right?

Correct. Correct. The county runs a number of services that that we partner with on uh they're the host and we're just one of their member organizations as are other municipalities in the county. Um Laser Feast, as I mentioned, where our minutes are is another product like that and we're we're lucky to have good partnership with the county in that manner. Um, and then if you just go back to the main page again, and if you scroll back uh down to the city news, um, as I said, you can receive these alerts proactively by signing up for them. Um, but our news stories will also appear here on the the front page of the city website for a time. Um, as you see, we've got awarded our municipal equity index. You'll see things about parking rates. We got a new um trash truck, when we're hiring. So, various news articles. If you've missed them or did not sign up, you can find them here right off our homepage or click the view all news link to see the inventory of them. Um we want to make sure that all the information is uh readily accessible um as needed. Um main page again. And I just want to finish up this section by going to the very bottom where the calendar is. So all of the city's meetings. So this would be the city as an organization, not other organizations or the city at large. So our meetings, committees, boards, yourselves, other other um quasi judicial boards, etc. Our meeting calendars always right here on the main page. Um, if you see there's a common council meeting, there's a link to, for example, to go on and read more. You'll get the information about it and you can download the agenda directly from that

calendar link. So, everything in in one place for you. And I think that's a highlight of the items on the city website from our list for tonight that I wanted to highlight for you. I know a lot of it's not new, but it it's we we fail sometimes to to realize that we've changed things over the years and not everyone has had a chance to see them. Yes, Pat. Uh two questions. One, the City Guest uh Wi-Fi, that's okay for if I'm looking at, you know, confidential information. We're not concerned about that using this Wi-Fi.

It it is run through the city's IT department and internet. It is it is secured. That's fine. Uh second question uh regarding agendas, all agendas are electronic except or agendas and documents are all electronic except for those that are in confidential sessions. Um I usually like to read those. Um [clears throat] and would it be possible to to receive them at the beginning of meetings? No. Why? The the items for executive session

at the beginning of the council meetings. No, they're they're they're provided when we move into executive session. There's a number of reasons for that. Uh it could be that we uh something exigent happens between the beginning of the meeting and the session itself that we don't actually move into executive session. Um the items are confidential in executive session until they go to the floor and providing uh paper copies of those in advance uh is outside of executive session. Um yeah, just the difficulty is that we literally have no time to read them. Understood. Okay, that's okay.

I I I will follow up with that on non-executive session items. However, um there are things that like minutes that are yet to be approved that are not official for the public. Those are a confidential file within Granicus. So, there are ways of doing that, but not to supersede the executive session um limitations that the mayor just said, but sometimes there are just things that are not fully approved yet for public consumption that can be in there. Um, but those would not rise to the level of what the mayor was referring to.

The city attorney also noted uh that uh in the instance that there are things that are uh like we just ratified a labor contract today. Um, uh, if a member of council is interested in reading that, they may do so in the city attorney's office in advance. Yes. I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to this, but for things like um, the two resolutions that members brought up today, those are put into the agendas down the line, right? So like if I was to, you know, next week look at this week's agenda, are things brought forward by members added?

So, um, that's a great question. Um, what was done tonight was a large deviation from the rules. Uh, items that are added to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting require unanimous consent. they will appear in the minutes uh with the that the deputy clerk uh maintains. Um what you are thinking of is when something is in committee and then referred from committee to a future voting meeting. Um those two items that we voted on tonight will not appear next week's agenda because they were enacted this evening. Um that is only happening in this case because it's the beginning of the year and they were too time-sensitive matters. Um there is a normal process which we can go over. Uh actually we can go over right now. Uh if you would like something to be entered into discussion or for a vote um you may file that with the deputy clerk and [snorts] myself uh no later than noon on the Thursday before the meeting of the common council. Anything received after that would get kicked over to a future meeting.

So like if I did Thursday tomorrow, it would go on to next week's meeting. Um if you had a member filed resolution for something to go on to a committee meeting, it would get it would need Yes, it would need to be in because I sort those to whichever of the two standing committees, it would need to be the Thursday following the first common council meeting. If you had a member filed resolution for common counsel, that would need to be in the Thursday before the common council meeting. Um, it is also very probable if you circumvent the committee process that your colleagues would then refer it to committee. But but that is uh that is what the rules stipulate. Pat, it's a point of clarification. Do you want to go first?

Oh yeah, if you don't mind. Um, that is much louder than the other one. Um, I was just going to say it occurs to me that I should probably circulate to all of you the common council rules of procedure which are available online, but I'll just send them to your inbox right now. That has a lot of the answers to sort of the procedural questions. Yeah. Just a point of clarification, it's not actually a we're not we didn't divert from the rules, but from practice, right, which is different at any time. My understanding common council comment common council member can ask the body to approve adding something to the agenda. It just has to be universally approved. Unanimous consent. Unanimously consent. And And so they could do that at any time. I mean, at the beginning of any council meeting.

Uh I mean, you may vote against it, but Yeah. I No, I mean like that is that Yeah. No, that's a good point, right? And like it's it's it is technically speaking true.

Yeah. Um uh I think as an established practice colleagues only do that when the only time absent things like tonight where they it's the first of the year and the only time we really in practice ever put something under the agenda the night of is and there was reference to this earlier um if a department comes to me and says hey we have a grant application that is due before the next council meeting or timesensitive

time-sensitive exigent items um council as a matter of informal practice will add to the agenda and then people will vote the way that they go. Um, I think that as a matter of practice, colleagues will typically object to univer to to a yeah unanimous consent. If something is not time-sensitive or the reason it's being put on an agenda is because a member missed the deadline, half of the members of this body couldn't have made the deadline for this meeting because they were not sworn in yet. Right? So that's why we made an exception in this case even though even though the two filers actually are

they were timesensitive essentially. Well, one of them was We'll let that pass going forward.

Um I just want to say um as a uh common council veteran of the at the ripe old age of 26 um I think that the the website and everything that's been done recently has not looked better. Um it's really phenomenal what um has um been done recently with the new uh modifications and and revisions made. So, I'm really excited with everything that's been going on. Well, thank you very much for that. And in that case, you're really going to like the new look and feel of it in a few months.

All right, that is the training and technology section. Next is the open meetings law, which attorney Kesler will uh hopefully not lull us to sleep, maybe lull us awake with this one.

Open meetings law is fun. It's one of the most exciting things there is. Um, I'm just going to do a brief overview of the open meetings law, which is, uh, for all you law fans out there, article 7 of the public officers law. Um, and you can get into a lot of sort of hypotheticals. I'm happy to do those with you whenever you want to, and there will be time for questions at the end. Um, so the open meetings law uh, applies whenever there's a quorum of a public body that meets to discuss public business. For our purposes, our most notable public bodies are you all, the common council, our quasi judicial boards like the BZA uh and any uh sort of standing committees of those bodies. Um purely advisory bodies like working groups uh for example are not typically subject to the OML but they can be made open to the public to promote transparency which is a good thing. Mayor May mayoral exer advisory groups are in that that uh that category. Um the open meetings law the purpose is so that the public can see the deliberation process of how the government works. Generally speaking it requires two things. One is advanced notice of a meeting and two is an opportunity for the public to observe the proceedings. Uh it does not guarantee the public a right to comment or participate. It just to watch. Um that said we do have public comment periods fairly often and there are things that require public hearings uh where specified by state law or local uh requirements. Um the takeaway if you remember nothing else is that if there are six or more of you in a room talking about city business, it needs to have been previously noticed and open to the public. If you are there are six or more of you talking about city business and that has not happened, it will be very angry and there will be consequences. Um remote participation is permitted in limited circumstances such as unexpected illness, unexpected caregiving situation. Um there's a local law that governs that that's consistent with state law. Uh remote participation would not be available for a vacation or a work trip or anything like that. It has

to be a significant and unexpected u sort of health or family kind of event. Um if you have something like that comes up that comes up uh the mayor is happy to talk about that and so is my office. Um council as you all have learned tonight is can also enter into executive sessions for limited purposes. Uh this is a narrow exception to the open meetings law. uh the public is not entitled to observe executive sessions. Um and these are for narrowly circumscribed purposes. You can't have an executive session just because you don't want to discuss something publicly. Uh contrary to some perception from some other folks which I won't elaborate on. Uh and during executive session you need to limit the discussion to the topic of the executive session. Uh I'm usually pretty good about policing this. The mayor is pretty good about policing this and actually a lot of our common council members veterans are are good about policing this. So, we will stay on topic uh when we're in executive session. Uh just for your benefit, I'm going to now read the executive session topics. I usually don't like reading things to people, but it is important uh and I want you all to understand and the public to know how limited these exceptions are. And this is public officers law section 105. So, the executive session topics are matters which will imperil the public safety of if disclosed. You're unlikely to see one of those. any manner which may manner matter which may disclose the identity of a law enforcement agent or informer. We're also probably going to be doing those in common counsel. Um likewise information relating to a current or future investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense blah blah blah. Um probably not going to come up. Uh one that will come up is discussions regarding proposed pending or current litigation. Um another one that came up tonight already was collective negotiations pursuant to article 14 of the civil service law. that is collective bargaining uh you know contract approval sort of things. Um this one next one is often shorthanded as personnel but the actual exception is

the medical financial credit or employment history of a particular person or or corporation or matters leading to the appointment employment promotion demotion discipline sub suspension dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation. Um, just to elaborate that on a little bit, that one a little bit. These do have to be about sort of particular employment situations. If we're talking about a more general topic like the need for a position or um, you know, a roster amendment or something like that, that would be on the floor. But if we're talking about discipline or somebody's specific performance, that would happen in executive session. Um, those people

or a corporation because corporations are people. Um, next one is the preparation, grading, or administration of examinations. That's a civil service thing. You won't touch those. Uh, and the last one that you will touch is the proposed acquisition, sale, or release of real property or the proposed acquisition of securities, uh, but only when publicity would substantially affect the value thereof. So, if we're talking about acquiring a property and we need to talk about our, you know, what kind of offer we're going to make, that could happen in private, we're just talking about the general need to acquire a property, that would happen in public. Um, I'm going to pause there for a second to see if there's any questions on those exceptions. Oh, yeah. One one big big thing that cannot happen in executive session is you cannot appropriate money. Um, so you can't set aside public money to be spent in executive session. You can go into executive session to discuss the need to set aside money, but when you're actually appropriating it, you have to come and do it on the floor.

Um, could you just read out the uh the code if like I wanted to look this up down the line again? Yeah, it's section 105 of the public officers law. Uh this I'm curious about um communication online. Uh I saw in terms of during the Tearwolf thing, there was seemed to be an argument made that when common council me or when representatives for the county, there was more than like four of them communicating in an online forum. They thought that was subject to the open law. I'm curious about how that works.

I'm going to address email communications in just a minute. So I'll get And if you have any questions after that, I will be happy to follow up on that. All right, seeing nothing else, there's also another my favorite exception to the open meetings law is quote any matter made confidential by federal or state law that includes advice of counsel. Um, so if you are getting legal advice from me or receiving legal or asking for legal advice from me, that would not be subject to uh open meetings law at all. Um, so you wouldn't even need to notice that. Although frequently because you're all here, we have an advice of counsel session. It just happens as part of a common council meeting

and like in practice just as a lay person, right? When we do advice of counsel with you, the biggest distinction there is we can't we're not talking to each other. We're we're a we're asking questions of the attorney and that attorney is answering them to the body.

Correct. Yeah. So cross talk during those is discouraged. Although obviously if there needs to be some very limited discussion for the purpose of clarifying a point, we can do that. Um, but I try to keep those narrowly focused on kind of the legal advice and any background necessary to uh give or receive that legal advice. Um, okay. The moving on to what you were just asking about, don't get cute and try to work around the MU and meetings law because the freedom of information law also exists and presumes access to government records unless there's a specific exception that applies. Um, you can do a lot of kind of fun hypotheticals on this. Um, but generally speaking, if you are having discussions that are going to lead to a decision being made on the floor, you should be having those discussions on the floor. Is it okay for small groups of you to kind of talk things over? Um, you should not be a majority of the body kind of having those discussions uh in any other forum other than publicly. Um, the and I just want to this wasn't in your briefing materials, but I just want to talk a little bit about foil because I think it is relevant. Um, so foil presumes access to government records. Government records is anything that you're doing that creates some sort of paper electronic document relating to city business. Um, you all have city email accounts. If you're engaging in city business in writing, use your city email accounts. I do not want to have to track you all down and get access to your personal accounts because you have been doing city business there. Don't do it. I'll be unhappy. Clerk's office will be unhappy. It will be really unhappy and you'll be unhappy. So, use your city email accounts for uh for conducting city business. Um, and I would say generally speaking, when you're doing city business, don't rely on those exceptions to shield your emails from coming out in public. If you're writing it, somebody's going to look at it and there's a good chance that it will come out one way or another. Um, unless one of those narrow exceptions applies. Um, once again,

because lawyers write laws, the exception is if you're communing with communicating with me asking for legal advice, those are pretty much always going to be protected. But, uh, that's a pretty narrow circumstance. Um, if you have any questions about the open meetings law or foil, uh, I would encourage you to ask one of your friendly neighborhood municipal attorneys. Um, we are all around. We all like doing this sort of stuff and we're happy to address questions as they come up. Um the state committee on open government uh also known as Coug uh also has excellent resources on their website including all a bunch of advisory opinions on foil and the open meetings law. Um I normally don't like state websites but I actually really like the the Coug website. I think it's very accessible and it has all the laws there and it has a lot of the opinions on the laws too. So for example today we discussed uh like all of us we discussed the resolutions that were brought forward. Um and it led to a decision. Was that okay? Uh so in email we there a group of us you know all of council discussed these resolutions that were uh brought forward uh regarding Venice not the nurses.

You're referencing that uh colleagues notifying each other that resolutions are going to be moved forward. Well there was there was some discussion as well. Those are those are public records. Yeah. So that's okay. Well, so um that's what I'm trying to say. It is highly discouraged. Um I I uh have individually um

I don't want to say chastised, but I will uh don't do that. I I um the members should not be should not be um members should not be doing that. they should be that that's is part of the reason why I was like things should not be brought forward uh as a late addition to a council meeting when the public hasn't had a chance to see it on the agenda you know like and anything like that is is an error in transparency now these were frankly um sentiment of the body statement resolutions they are that's why you'll notice I added the clerk's office to that thread because there needs to be a record of that but we should not be having substantive discussion of anything over email. Thank you.

And if I can just elaborate on that a little bit, that ends up becoming extraordinarily fact dependent. If we were to get a foil for something that you all have been discussing amongst each other over email, um we would need to collect all those records, review the records, determine whether any exception applies, and if it doesn't, that stuff would get produced. Um, generally speaking, for the purpose of public transparency, which I think is very important and is the whole point of OML and foil, uh, I just as my personal opinion think that all almost all that discussion should be taking place on the floor. Um, unless there's some like compelling exception that applies. Uh, which we can discuss if that comes up. Robin,

um, just really quick, so it is okay if we're like, hey, this resolution is going to get proposed tonight where you shouldn't be doing it is like inputting any opinion. I just like black and white saying like this is about to happen without an opinion. Would that be okay?

Yeah. I mean, the the the only thing I would like sort of amend further to that is again, Mr. Su is correct. You may always ask for unanimous consent to add something to the agenda, but there should be no emails of, "Hey, I need to put this on the agenda tonight with the exception of when staff have something that is exigent that they bring to me and say, can you please put this on the agenda for council consideration, you will get a notification from me saying, Allan has requested this on behalf of the clerk's office. Here is the justification for why it is coming in the 11th hour."

Yeah. To reiterate one more time, a lot of this is very fact dependent. Um, and if you have any questions, feel free to talk to one of us first. Generally speaking though, I I would strongly discourage you guys having extensive, you know, things that would normally be public facing debates over the merits of positions in large groups of you over email. If a couple of you want to talk about something on the side, that's not going to violate either the spirit or the letter of the law. Um, but just don't don't get cute about it. Yeah. Although worth also mentioning that phone treeing is also illegal. If you were to all try and get around it by having the exact same like a script that you all read to each other, you know, phone treeing, it's before your time. That's

it is. Yeah. Also illegal, right? Um so it because for example like if I had a resolution and I maybe this is more a procedural question. If I had something I was bringing forward and I wanted to know how people felt about it and what sort of amendments they were looking for, that was sort of what Kayla was doing. Like how do people feel about this? The way that would happen traditionally would be it'd go through a committee process and we No. No. The way I mean either you or you do it on the floor. Sorry. It's okay. You finish your question. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Well, I'm just thinking like um Yeah. I mean I I want to make sure before I bring something to the body that the body's had a chance to look at it and I take their concerns into consideration. So what's a what's the process for me to do that?

So the the process as laid out in the rules, right, is that you submit something on the Thursday before at minimum the Thursday before it goes onto the agenda which is a public document that gets published. Right. Then you as the sponsor may have individual conversations with everybody if you want to, right?

Yeah. um they just can't be they can't be like a like the attorney said like you can't be like my flowchart script if yes move on to next like you can't sort of uh pre-arrange the outcome but if you want to say hey I have this really cool idea to you know mandate that corgis are the official dog of Ithaca um well you know um you know what are your thoughts on that you can have those conversations bilaterally with people what you can't do is try to pre-arrange change what the outcome of a vote is going to be. You can't try and you know and so like um that's why I was really so insistent on the it has to be filed at the appropriate time because it needs to also be that the public is not surprised that something is being brought to the floor and then hypothetically immediately unanimously voted on. And if I can, you said something that was important too, which is committees, right? It's very unusual that something will immediately go into a voting meeting. Um, usually what happens, it goes onto a committee agenda first. You may have talked to some people about it before, you may not have, but then council as a body has a chance to got to in committee before it even goes to a voting meeting. Um, and just to sort of uh go along that same line, you know, it might be like you and Joe want to do something, right? you enjoy free to work as closely as you want on on bringing something together to bring to a committee meeting, right? It just can't be all six of you sitting here who do that.

But in the Oh, I'm sorry.

No, that's it. I just But in the event of like even a subset committee, right? Let's say there was a five member committee of something that threshold now is reduced to three members. Yes. Gold star. All right. And and attorney Kesler did an excellent job going over everything. I'm just going to add one additional plain warning, plain language warning. It is in what he already said, but we've been talking about leading up to a meeting. During a meeting, we have something on the floor. It's open. You're debating. Can't be texting each other about it. So the de the discussion is meant for the debate that's on the floor. So, I know it's we're used to a text society anymore and we have to be very careful about that.

That's because of transparency. As much as I don't want to be getting your personal email accounts, I really don't want to be trying to get your text messages off. I don't want to touch your personal phone ever. Um, so just don't do stuff on there.

No, that's good. Yeah. Um, anything else on OML and foil? Like I said, there's going to be a lot of sort of individual fact dependent questions that come up. My office is all very well-versed in this. So, any of us are able to help you. And I uh, as you'll learn over the time, course of your time uh, here, I am usually pretty happy to talk to council members about whatever you guys want to talk about. I'll even say ending ending on a funny note on this topic. Um, the public is likely at some point to see what is close to, if not an actual quorum of counsel at a bar after a council meeting. Uh, it is a right of passage as a council member to get shouted down by the rest of your colleagues when you accidentally try to talk about business. We may in fact go get a drink together. We just police ourselves very diligently that you don't talk about business.

Excellent. Thank you. The next um we talked a little bit about some of this already so some of it will be repetition for you all but the next is the role of common council which includes the mayor and the chartered duties of you all. Uh so this the mayor is going to kick off uh this section and then uh Victor will talk about legislative equivalencies.

All right, great. Thank you Dom. Um so uh you all are members of the city's legislative body. Uh the common council sets policy for the municipality. Um and the chief agent of the council in executing uh its policy goals and the administration of the city is the city manager. Um my role as mayor is that I am the chief elected officer of the city. I'm elected at large. I'm just reading off your thing here. Uh and I'm accountable to the entire city for the overall direction, performance, and integrity of the city government. uh since 2024. I am a voting member of the common council and I chair the common council meetings. Um I provide executive and political leadership for the city. I'm responsible for setting the policy and strategic direction of the city in consultation with the common council. Uh I set the agenda, presside over meetings. Um I am also uh importantly the primary liaison and the point of accountability between the common council and the city manager. So, I have been um uh designated as council's agent in the day-to-day supervision of the city manager. You all obviously are responsible for that employment relationship and overall supervision of city operations. Um and this is sort of uh again the the mayor's office acts as your agent on the day-to-day because you all come here three times a month. Um, I am also responsible for representing the city's positions in intergovernmental relations with other municipalities, the county, New York State, and the federal government, as well as any foreign governments. Um, that, believe it or not, that happens more than never, which is kind of crazy to me. Um, uh, I also appoint members of city boards, commissions, and advisory bodies. It's a little weird. So some of the we have a charter commission this year which will streamline some of these things but um there are some bodies as you all experienced tonight where I make appointments

subject to the consent of council. There are other appointments that I make that are not subject to approval. And then there are other appointments that I make that I'm limited to the number of appointments that I'm allowed to make in a given year. I'm looking at you, community police board, which in the infinite wisdom of whoever wrote that charter provision, we're only allowed to appoint three people per year, even if there's more vacancies than that. Um, but as a matter of practice, I endeavor to apprise you all of any appointments that are being made subject to your approval or otherwise. Um, I'm also sort of like the only full-time person, so I'm here every day. So, if you have stuff that you want to follow up with on staff, this is kind of relevant to the rules of procedure, but and we're going to get into the communication stuff a little bit later, but like if you need if you have an outstanding inquiry with staff or with the administration, um I can easily follow up on that for you. Um I meet with uh Dom on a at least once a week basis. Um and uh you know we have a standing agenda for things to cover with respect to all that. And then uh lastly um I also am responsible for doing this last bullet here. Uh basically anything that you tell me collectively to do. Um so uh anything that the you know it says here all powers duties assigned by the common council or by the city charter local law ordinance or resolution of the common council. Um, if there's anything that the mayor's office uh I can't even think of an example, but you can tonight's Venezuela resolution.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. We directed you to send it to

Yes. Great. Thank you. Great, great, great points. But for both. Yeah. So, um, or like we Yeah, we recently did some home rule requests and Yeah. So, I'm I was directed to lies with the appropriate state offices on those things. Um, actually, thank you. that's jogged my memory for if there are also I serve um uh I serve on the New York State Conference of Mayors uh finance committee. Um and so uh relevant to that as by way of example if there are specific policies around uh fiscal policy or or tax reform or anything that the council wants me to advocate for in Albany. Um, you don't have to actually go through the process of directing me because we probably will agree, but council has the right to uh pass a resolution directing me to do that on your behalf. Pat,

procedurally, if council wanted to direct you, we would do that through a resolution and be public. That's correct. Okay. Uh, second, I just want to point out that uh the mayor is actually a part-time position even though you are deacto full-time, right? Um, I don't understand the commenter question. No, I'm just saying that you're actually paid part-time or your position is a part-time position. The mayor's position is a part-time position. Um, in in in the charter. No, that's not true. I'm paid $30,000 a year if that's what you're getting at. But no, it is not. You're compensated part-time, but you in fact act as a as a full-time.

But I want to be very clear. There is nothing anywhere that says that the mayor is full-time or part-time. I'm here every day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but I just wanted to just make if folks you wanted to just call out a little that you are working full-time, but you're compensated for less than full-time. You know, unfortunately, I think there are some people out there who work full-time and make $30,000 a year in addition to myself. But, uh, that's below minimum wage. Just Just saying. Not in New York State. Yes, it is. Uh, yeah, even upstate. Yeah. No, I said in New York State. Yeah. Okay. Uh this is just a joke about the federal government I think is still like what 7 72 725 right and the mayor is not allowed to accept tips. So

yeah I know. Wait like if you worked Oh sorry if you work no no no no I I'm not allowed to take tips for my uh don't get any ideas Robin. Right.

Any further questions on my role? I can get into y'all's. So the uh the responsibilities of this is actually super important, right? Council as a body is sort of the highest authority in the entire city, right? Um legislatively you can direct yourselves, you can direct me, you can direct the administration, you can direct the administration to perform outcomes that would in practice require the departments that the city manager oversees to do something. You cannot direct actual individual staff. You would do it through the city manager. Um that's council as a body. This is do not feel bad if there is confusion here because I have observed it. Um individual council members, you have a vote, but you do not act a request. Pat, I'm going to pick on you because I made eye contact with you. a request from Pat is is representative of what that member and possibly others wants to see happen. But a you know if you were to request something of Allen or Victor or Dom that is just a request of a council member absent a resolution of the body which directs action as the legislature. Um it is nothing more than a presumably and hopefully polite request. um council members, right? Attend all meetings of the common council. You act upon committees and uh liaison things as assigned. You report uh misconduct or neglect of duty. Maintain peace is wild. I did not remember that that was a you don't do that. Don't try to do that. That seems unsafe. Um but uh oh god. Um but so um yeah, I think it's just like really important to understand that like council as a b I know I've said this 15

times, but unfortunately I've had to. Um council as a body can basically do whatever it wants under under compliant with general municipal law and New York state law. Um council members uh need to remember that they're 11th of the decision-making power of the body. Um and then please um just on that kind of note, so are we still fine to make like you know national political statements to whatever regard we want things like that? Is there anything like because we're now representing council that we like have to censor ourselves on? So like legally the answer to that is no cuz the first amendment

be first amendmenting. Um, I think I would just as a matter of like professionalism just remind you all that whether you want to be representing the city in a given moment or not, you will be perceived as doing so as a member of the public and to just exercise your discretion in how you comport yourself. The council rules of procedure also contains guidance on when you can hold yourself out as representing the city, which is more limited than when you can hold yourself out as representing your own opinion. So there's specific uh provisions about when you can say you know hey I as the representative of the fourth ward think this uh which is a lot more predismissive than when you can say the common council believes this or most restricted the city of the city of ethical believes this. Um and those are all in there and I'm happy to work through those. Thank you

Joe or No. Okay. Um and then um I know Victor is going to speak I think at more length around the legislative equivalence pieces but again like I'll just note um most of the work that we do is resolution right it is very we will we will us as council members will colloquially refer to everything we do as laws but um most of what we do is a resolution which is sort of like a legislative direction being provided by the body to often most often staff, but I'll turn it over to you. All right, this is my other favorite topic. Is that actually my favorite topic? Um, so there are council, as the mayor noted, can only act as a body. Um, individually, you can all have your opinions and make, you know, non-binding requests, but if you want to actually do something that has force, it has to be as a body by voting at a properly noticed meeting that's available to the public. Um, there are three flavor flavors of legislation that you can pass. uh going from most to least formal they are local laws, ordinances and resolutions. Um you will do local laws very rarely ordinances with some frequency but not that often in resolutions all the time. Um the principle of legislative equivalency says that if you do something with a certain level of formality, it can only be changed by doing something of that same or greater level of formality. So, if you do something as a local law, it can only be changed by another local law. If you do something by an ordinance, it can be changed by an ordinance or a local law. Um, if you do something as an ordinance or a local law, you can't change it by resolution. Um, and resolutions can supersede and do supersede resolutions all the time. Um, just to go into this, there's a little handy little chart in the orientation materials, but to go over it just quickly, um, the local laws have very

specific procedural requirements that are set by New York State law. Um, you will be using these most often for things like charter amendments when those come up. Um, and uh, overriding the tax cap is another example. There's just a sort of a host of things that New York New York law says that or New York state law says have to be done by local law. opting into some New York state programs that are optional uh for cities has to be done by local law oftentimes. Um the requirements for local law um is that they require advanced notice. Um so they have to be uh it's called being laid on the table uh to the other council members a certain amount of time in advance of their consideration. They have to age quote age for that period of time and they are subject to a public hearing which means you cannot publish a do a local law and last minute no like at the last minute you have to plan it out in advance uh and the public has to have a chance to have input on it before you can vote on it. If it changes at any point during that process you have to start over. Um, so if you do a local law and then you uh talk about it and you say, "Hey, this wasn't such a great idea or I'd like to tweak this." Whole process starts over. You got to notice it again. There needs to be another public hearing. Uh, Don, uh, you mentioned overriding the tax cap. So, I think we should just talk about that briefly because that could, correct me if I'm wrong, result in a local law being passed that would allow us to do so if we so choosed, if council so choosed. Correct. but does not require them to override it.

It does not It sure allows you to override it. Does not require you to pass a budget. That is an excess of the tax cap is the way to phrase that. Okay. We'll get into the budget stuff in a lot more detail on budget. I just I just want to I just think it's a unique one where you don't have to follow the local law. I mean, you do because you're overwriting it, but it's not determining like you said that you must do so. Correct. Could you just repeat that? I miss what you're saying.

I'm probably explaining it with the wrong words because I'm running out of steam. Yes, mayor, please. I my my my kids are older than four months old. Um what what uh what Dominic was referring to is by way of illustration, overriding the tax cap is a local law. It requires a supermajority of the common council. What it means is that the body authorizes itself if needed to exceed the tax cap. What Dom is referring to is one may choose to override the tax cap and then still come in with a tax rate and levy that is well below what that cap is anyway. It doesn't obligate us to exceed it. It just allows us to. Okay. And the tax cap is a local law.

The tax cap is a state a state law in case we're treating it as a local law or Well, no. So what the the the the New York state allows municipalities to override the tax cap, but they have to pass a local law doing so. I see. Thank you.

Right. And that's a great that's a great example of something where New York state law requires us to do it in this very specific way. Um so if we were to pass an ordinance to override the tax cap, that wouldn't be any good. That would have no legal effect. It has to be a local law uh pursuant to New York state law. And part of the reason I bring it up is because it's um a procedural thing. I mean the conversation has changed in the last few years. So maybe it won't be like this this year as we go forward. But it tend tended to be a procedural thing where you know my experience at the Tomkins County Legislature they would before having all the information in hand make that vote in case it was necessary earlier on. conversation is is different here, but it, you know, it may come up in that context depending on the budget situation and I just want to make sure that that is laid on the table as early as possible so you're as aware as possible um because there are a lot of factors that play into those considerations. And to tie those knots together, what what I think you're um implicit to us but worth making explicit is um oftent times the council made a very deliberate decision this past year to not override the tax cap. Um, often times if it looks like it's going to be close, uh, we we have historically overridden it because waiting until we know for certain that we would need to is too late based on the timeline for both aging local laws and the requirement for us to have an adopted budget um, logged with New York State by a certain date, which I don't remember. And Wendy has gone home for the evening as as well. she should have.

Um the other point on local laws, just to bring it back to the bigger picture, uh is that unlike other things, a local law is not effective when it's passed. It's effective when it's filed with New York State, which usually takes I've seen it happen as short as a week. Typically, it's more like three or four weeks before they they do it. Um and New York State uh maintains a database of local laws that have been passed. They're the official they have equal dignity to state um to state laws, which is probably an academic point, but I find interesting anyway, so I said it. Um but they uh they just they're they're own sort of separate beast procedurally and they're subject to these very specific rules.

This will come up with the budget, but so in reference to the idea of overriding the tax cap, if it takes a week for that to or a month for that to go into effect, you need to have it filed at least a month in advance. Yes. Yes. because you need time to debate it and you need time to hit those aging requirements and more most importantly York state has to it has to get through the New York state system in time. Okay. Um okay so that's local laws. Um

just a quick very very quick addition to that. I don't want to draw this out any um the same way that as Victor just said the local law is not official till the state approves it. Local laws and ordinances will appear in our 360 online code book. um but as a separate section entitled new laws even though ordinances will appear under there as well. And then after it's approved and then quarterly they'll get folded into the general um code with everything else. Note resolutions are not part of the code book as they don't rise to that level. Only ordinances and laws would be because resolutions do not alter the city code. I actually think we need to pause because uh while it is not uncommon for members of council to walk out of the room, we are now no longer a quorum of the body.

Oh, because he's judges walked out. Yeah. Who can do math? So, uh we'll just hang for a minute. Take a tight five. But if this happened during like a normal meeting, we'd keep going because we'd have 10 instead of 11, right? He doesn't like it when this happens during a normal meeting. I don't. And I also don't like when a quorum of the council walks out of a meeting.

Yeah. [laughter] Well, you know, we didn't schedule it after council meeting, frankly. H we didn't schedule the orientation after council meeting. Oh,

yes. Thanks. It's been great so far. Yes. Great. Yes. be honest. The sleep has been has been quite challenging. It's you and all of 11 of our YouTube viewers. Uh yeah, this the sleep has been challenging.

Hi, Dad. Joe, you gave us a good example of how quorum works. We had to stop the meeting. No, it's okay. Um I'm just picking on you. Um, all right. We can pick it back up where we were. I think we were getting Are you done with legislation? I

I was just finishing a point on on local laws. And then just noting for more for the members of the public. Um, in terms of local law, the legal notices do appear in the IT journal. Uh, annually that is we the common council by resolution chooses the paper of record. At this point in time, New York State requires it be a paperbased paper, not an online paper. uh and a daily paper. Yes.

Although this is a this is this is real cool stuff. This is a big push by Nikon this year to try and get them to change the rules because publishing something in a physical daily paper is uh I believe the legal term is bonkers challenging I would say. Um it certainly adds to the time frame.

Right. Okay. Okay, so that's local laws. Um, ordinances will be a lot quicker. Um, ordinances are used for anything basically that needs to be codified or available for reference in the future. The majority of our city code is ordinances. There are a few local laws that have ended up in there. I don't like that, but it is true. Um, but most of the kind of the stuff that governs the local city stuff happens by ordinance. Um, so examples are zoning changes are a big one that happen by ordinance. um establishing local kind of violations or fines or penalties. Those are ordinance uh based um sort of non-charter structural changes. So, you know, you can establish a new advisory commission or something like that if you want that to be codified. That would happen in the um by ordinance in the code. Um ordinances uh sometimes require public hearing, sometimes they don't. New York State law defines when those are required. usually for zoning stuff, for example, requires a public hearing. Uh whereas a lot of kind of the internal other internal stuff doesn't. Um the procedure for passing an ordinance is largely defined by our local stuff rather than the uh New York state law. Um these are effective upon publication. Um and it's just kind of like a middle ground of formality. Uh these will come up from time to time. We usually get a ordinance or two a month, but they're not uh they're not sort of the daily bread of common council. That would be resolutions. Resolutions are kind of for oneoff council directives or um spending or receiving money. Usually happens by uh by resolution. Um roster changes that sort of like kind of the the the meat and potatoes of city governance happens by resolution. Um, these are

Huh. bread. It's bread, meat, and potatoes. It's a fully balanced meal with no vegetables. Uh, right. So, resolutions, they're one-off things. Uh, they're usually effective immediately upon passage, and they don't need to be sort of laid out in advance. I mean, they should be follow the normal agenda procedure as we discussed. Um, but they have the fewest requirements and will be the most common thing that you deal with. Um, any questions on the three types of legislative activities and the relationships between them?

We'll just jump in with a lay person's thing of um, I am more than ha if you all have a resolution you'd like to put forward. I am more than happy to help you write that. Um, if you have an ordinance or definitely a local law, you should be going through the city attorney's office. And procedurally, just cuz I'm going to preempt Pat's question because he's really good at asking questions. Um, typically the way that the body works if we're going to contemplate something that's an ordinance or a local law that's council initiated would be a resolution that the body then authorizes directing the administration and the attorney's office to support the creation of an ordinance or a local law. just because those things are more formal and they tend, you know, it sort of candidly matters more if they're done correctly than a resolution which is like uh more okay to be vibes based.

I don't agree with that. But yeah, there there are things that are more important, things that are less important, and the more important it is, the more likely that my office should be reviewing it. Um, and ordinances and local laws should always be reviewed by my office because they are permanent in nature and easy to screw up. Um, and I like to have uh some idea that it's going to be uh have make headway with council, which is why we like the resolution directing us to do it because I don't want to be working on 11 people's pet projects uh if they're not likely to go anywhere. Great. Uh, council members also serve as marriage officers. I don't think we need to dive into the details there now. I would recommend that you connect with Allan and his team in the future regarding that. Um, unless there's anything that you'd like to add.

Just the only thing is, it was relevant to Robin's thing earlier, you can't be paid for performing a marriage. Um, so, uh, if you do perform one and somebody like slips you an envelope of money, as I have heard has happened before, uh, you just you just donate it. you can't you can't be paid for um your work as a marriage officer. And just more immediately, I'll I'll add if you don't want to be a marriage officer, let my office know immediately and we'll take you off the list that we give out. But generally, most older persons do stay on the list and then it's up to you as to whether you do them or not as people reach out to you.

Not to spend too much time on this, but wait, do they so people pick off like a list? It's like, oh, I want Jorge to do my wedding. Oh. Yes. In practice, I think what they do uh is just going off of my time as an alter person for the fifth ward, I think they go alphabetically by last name. Uh oh, also you can only do marriages in the city limits of Ithaca. Thank you. That's I married them at the skate park, but yes. Yeah, it's very cool. Uh, one clarification for Attorney Kesler. I believe a potato is a vegetable. Um or you you said only now vegetables, but just had to throw that.

I'll try to have a little fun. Starch or starch is vegetables. Some pars. It's some kind of plant. A tuber. It is. Okay. I studied humanities. I don't

Yeah. Um well, that was a fail. Um we're in the final stretch. Thank you for bearing with us. Um next is the role of the city manager. Um, today is the seventh day I'm acting in this, so bear with me. Um, the city manager serves as the chief administrative officer of the city, responsible for putting those policies that council sets into practice. uh city manager appointed and reports to common council for the charter except what the mayor already went over is that he the mayor has been designated as council's agent to that effect for our current situation. Um and so even though what's written here is what's from the charter, it's um clarified further in the resolution. The city manager directs and supervises the day-to-day functions of the city. Um, I've listed below the 11 departments. And you can imagine the types of day-to-day functions that happen within them. Um, city manager attends all common council meetings, participates in discussions, and makes recommendations. Um, certainly intend to be at all common council meetings, maybe have a vacation or two that will coincide with a Wednesday, and uh we'll alert folks ahead of time as necessary and have staff present as needed. Um, appoint staff, though some are subject to council approval. um not currently an expert in each one that are subject to council approval, but for the most part that would include uh chartered officers and individuals who are department head level positions. Thank you. Um so you will have several of those likely this year. Um tonight was the [sighs] fire chief. So that's an example of one that was subject to approval from common counsel. Executes contracts. Um, so I signed plenty of those so far and will continue to do so. Prepares the annual budget for common council. I'm sure you watched this year's and past years and

participated in budget processes and have seen it. Um, and there's a calendar which that that follows that you'll learn more about this year. Um, but that preparation um, occurs throughout a good portion of the year and your kickoff uh, presentation will happen in May this year. That's my plan. uh reports on city finances and I put with the support of the controller. The controller is the is the fin chief financial officer of the city and is is truly in the weeds and able to to fully report. Um the city manager provides the highle um overview and and contributes to that. Um negotiates the labor contracts on behalf of the city and providesformational reports to council. that provides informationational support reports to council is really expanded to um any staff member with relevant subject matter expertise that's a part of something that's being brought forth to council um and I will support them from you know here and and sometimes uh sitting at the other end of the table um when theformational reports are sort of in conjunction with a staff member our 11 departments of the city manager's office city attorney's office DICE information and community engagement. That includes the clerk's office and it that's Allen's role. Finance, um finance includes both the controller and Chamberlain's sort of divisions or offices. Um Gak, the human resources, IFD, IPD, the youth bureau, public works, which has several divisions underneath it, engineering, streets and facilities, water and sewer. Um and then and what?

Oh, in the commons. um and parking. Um and then the department of planning, building and development. Uh yeah, most of them include various divisions. Um council hears frequently from our departments. Um they will report on various issues and bring proposed resolutions um forward for your review, regular council meetings. They typically appear before council um in connection with a specific topic such as a roster amendment or to propose a policy change. We do have some staff who will come to meetings and um observe and be available in case uh something is is necessary from them. Um but for the most part we are inviting staff to participate in council meetings when there's something on the agenda for them. Um you'll see you know for example I believe our police chief was here this evening. There was nothing on the agenda um that I can think of that was directly related. Um but uh you'll see folks attend um meetings. One thing for this year, and I'll make sure that all of council is aware of this uh likely in our next meeting when a department um brings something forward to council. Um in terms of your introductions to all of our departments and the relevant department heads, we've invited department heads for the first time that they have something to bring to council. We're going to make an extra 10 or so minutes um for them to give you an update about just a general overview of their department and a little bit of a Q&A. I recommend that Q&A not go too far into the weeds. We can sort of do that outside of that setting. Um but as a general update for you all to get to know our department heads um and the work of their departments, we're going to make that extra time when something comes up. So let's say there was a zoning change next month and Lisa uh from planning was going to lead us through that. we would sort of say, okay, we're going to start with a quick 10 minutes overview of the planning and development department from Lisa. We're going to try to accomplish each of those within the first quarter. Um, we may not, but that's our goal. And if you

want um additional communication with staff and departments, we'll go over that in a bit, but I just wanted to clarify that that's how we're doing the introductions because we're doing orientation on the 7th and rolling forward as fast as we can this year. Um, yeah, what what questions do folks have about the role of the city manager? if any. Great. Uh, council meetings. Um, I lean on the mayor for this section as well. Um, and fill in the gaps as needed.

Sure. I'll go quick. Uh, we meet three times a month. We meet uh the first Wednesday of the month as the common council where everything we vote on takes effect or begins the process of being submitted to the state if it's a local law. Um we meet in committee twice a month uh on the second and third Wednesdays. Um that is where we uh introduce resolutions um or other legislative items. We also receive our reports from the city controller. Uh there will also be beginning next month a uh I'm sorry beginning so the the there will also be in future a uh vacancy report about uh staffing in the city and what uh the current uh open positions are conceptually. We're not going to necessarily have an inventory of every open position but just you know a sense of where we are relative to full strength of employment. Um those happen in our committee meetings. Uh there are also uh occasionally special voting meetings. So [clears throat and cough] I may designate a meeting a special meeting of the common council. Um technically that can happen per our rules. Anytime uh a quorum of you can convene a meeting uh or I can convene a meeting as needed. In practice, I would say I can only imagine two times in my in my tenure with the city where uh a special meeting of the common council has not just replaced an existing scheduled committee meeting. Um because I can ensure that all of you will be there. Um while we currently only have three meetings a month, it is very important that you understand that

you are expected to keep every Wednesday open. Um, in almost all cases, we will not use that fourth Wednesday. Um, you will be proactively informed if you are expected to be here. So, you don't need to worry about like hearing that you don't need to be. The the major exception to that being budget meetings. Um, all of you I know are uh longer time council watchers. So, you know that like October, end of September through mid November is, you know, we're meeting multiple times a week. Um, and definitely every Wednesday. Um, with uh we covered open meetings law stuff earlier. I'm not going to really uh sort of belabor that point. Um, it came up tonight. I was very appreciative of the way that all the person Shapiro raised it. Um, you are not allowed to abstain. uh if you abstain your vote will be recorded as a no. Um that is that is in our rules of procedure but I actually think it's redundant with some other laws.

Yeah. So New York state law generally speaking requires that for any uh action of a body to be effective. It requires a majority of the voting power of that body to vote affirmatively. Which means for practical purposes if you're not voting affirmatively you're voting no. Um, one very small exception to that is when we're talking about committee meetings, it's the majority of the committee rather than the majority of the committee present rather than the majority of the entire body. But that's because those aren't final actions.

Yeah. Uh, and and and just for a little bit of uh, you know, seasoning on this point, um, old person Shiro was abstaining well voting no, but you know, choosing to abstain on an issue of foreign policy, right? that is not really a thing that is the jurisdiction of this body. If you attempt to abstain on a actual voting matter, I will make a strong point of highlighting that you are voting no. Uh because abstensions are not allowed. Yes, I'm hearing that abstensions are not allowed. One of the things that I often abstain on are uh minutes for meetings that I'm not present for. Um but in this case, it's either yes or no.

You may vote no. Um but yeah, I mean I think as a matter of practice, what you're what you're affirming is that the minute I would view the Victor may disagree from a legal perspective, and I may be wrong, but I think the like the best way to think of it is just like you're not objecting to the the deputy clerk's account of what happened, right? um and they need to be adopted. And you know um sort of a silly but real example was like two years ago a quorum of the body was brand new. So we couldn't like if we had people abstaining from uh sort of certifying the minutes they wouldn't have passed, right? And we need we do need to have them. So um

any disagreement with anything I said there? Yeah, minutes are actually kind of interesting and I won't go into the full tangent right now, but the minutes are the minutes regardless of whether they're approved. So maybe this is a bad example, but um true that yeah, for minutes purposes it gives the the body a chance to correct anything that's incorrect. But yeah, to to your point, if you were to abstain, it would just be a no vote. And you can have whatever reasoning you want obviously on any item to vote yes or no.

Uh Jorge. Yeah. Um so I know that from uh the previous year um or two maybe it was two years on council um with the introduction of the new system as we moved with doing committees of the holes the Wednesdays were sort of specialized as sort of special topics and new business second and third Wednesday respectively. Is that largely the same practice we're going to want to do for this session?

What a good preview. Um what you will begin seeing next week is uh you are all aware uh of and you will find out what your assignments are uh once you have your ethics forms turned in. So Joe will get his in the morning. Um uh there are four sort of policy domains um which are correspond to the mayoral advisory groups that you were all asked to identify which ones you want to serve on. um we're going to cluster each meeting on the basis of four and four. So you can expect that like where we see housing the housing issues will come up at the same committee meeting every month. Um and as is the case for finance and administration and sustainability so on and so forth. Robin

sorry completely unrelated but you keep saying the ethics form but is it the financial disclosure form we're turning in? Yeah, I do keep calling it the ethics form because we don't have to do the ethics form, right? Or I didn't get an ethics form. That is that is I keep calling it that because if you fail to do it, you get referred to the ethics board. Um I just want to make sure I wasn't missing a form or something.

Yes. Yeah. No, it is financial disclosure. You're right. Um and Oh, uh but but but you know there are also Right. So there are also authorized uh working groups of the city uh that would still function in the exact same manner. Um and those typically set their own convening schedules. Um we also may as uh and I know we talked about this today, but you know we may as needed create um ad hoc committees or special committees that work on project based work. Um and those would be authorized by the council. Um, and I think I've covered your question, right? Okay. Any other questions on this? I think I'll just take an opportunity again to just remind folks that um, you know, the open meeting laws and the quorum stuff is really important and like a meeting of the common council should only ever be taking place in this room. So like sort of don't get together and talk business in violation of OML. Very good. Next section is around communication channels as primarily related to council staff communications. And this is a section that I hope that the entire council um will take will um take attention to um in addition to the new council members we're talking to. Now, we've gone over this before, but to reiterate, policy direction to staff is set by council as the body. Um meaning to require staff to take action, council must work as a body to pass a resolution instructing such action. Um individual count council members don't have the authority to issue directives to city staff. Uh the city manager and by extension the department heads are responsible for administering the work directed by council. There's also ongoing regular departmental work such as just general serving the public

day-to-day in city hall, enforcing our laws and regulations, public works, emergency response. Those are things that, you know, you'll probably touch some resolutions related to them, but that's the ongoing work of the municipal city in in New York State, and it just um is carried out by staff. It's something we talk about a lot here, but it may not be a lot of legislative action related to those items. Um there may be some, but it's just that's the general day-to-day work. And you know, part of when our departments update you, I think they'll talk a lot about that day-to-day work. Um that may not touch the legislative piece all that often, but it is important to note. Um, council members regularly seek information from staff. For you to do your jobs well, um, and for you to have the tools you need, you're going to need that information from our staff, many of whom are real subject matter experts in that in the area in which they work. Any council member should feel empowered to seek the information you need and city staff will do their best to respond in a comprehensive and timely manner. Uh, my job is to support that happening. So um you know simple inquiries for information generally available uh to the public can be made directly to the staff member with the department head included. Um I will say and I re reiterate this later. I really would prefer to be included as often as possible in staff communications mainly so that I can ensure that you get the information in a timely manner and also so that I'm aware of the topic. Just in the past two weeks, I have been made aware of new topics through council staff communications that I likely wouldn't have had the background on before, and it's just been helpful um to me. I I don't want to seek to disrupt you getting the information. I I really intend to make sure that you do get it in a meaningful and timely way. um you know more complex time-consuming requests or those regarding city policies, I you come through directly through the city manager's office and I'll make sure that that information gets to you from those departments uh who report to me. Um, I will say even

though that email type regular seeking of information will occur, the primary relationship between staff and uh, council members occurs in this room at the meetings, which happens in the public, which is a great way to inform the public. I think we've been doing a pretty good job of making sure that our staff understand that when they're communicating with you all here, they're also communicating with the public. And I think that's a good opportunity for them in term of in terms of just public speaking skills and then understanding our constituents and how to communicate well with them. Um so that's been something we've been talking with them about and I think that's going well. Um you know staff like I said before participate in council meetings when their subject matter appears on the agenda and when they're called upon uh by council or to provide perspective etc. City manager and city attorney attend all the meetings. um controller is often here for all of the meetings as well. Um and you know it's appropriate to ask if this relevant staff member is not here for something. It's appropriate to ask the city manager and I'll do my best to provide whatever information I can during the meeting. There's some things I'll have to make note of and bring back in a city manager report or email you about but like to be able to offer the information directly in the meeting. So I'm doing my best to stay as informed on as many topics as possible though I cannot know them all. Like I said, I was surprised to learn about several things over the past week, and that's been good. I'm sure that will happen every week um while I'm in this role. Um outside of council, yeah, we talked a little bit about email. Um you know, I advise you to include the city manager on any of those communications to staff. Um keeping up to date on issues as well as ensuring that you get the information. And I've asked staff to CC me on responses back if that doesn't happen for some reason, so that I'm aware. um when possible and when more in-depth conversations are needed, I don't think you should hesitate to reach out to the

department head to set up a meeting. You know, I think that's something that can happen. Victor's alluded several times to, you know, meeting with him to go over something in depth and that's really an effective method. We have really great department heads who are w who are interested in showing you their facilities and their operations and introducing you to their teams. as long as it's not a quorum of the body, please take them up on that opportunity. I encourage you to do a ride along um with folks. I did a ride along with the garbage crew this week um solid waste and it was um you know really insightful related to one area of the community that had some trash pickup issues and just helped me gain a deeper understanding of that issue that I really didn't know a lot about. Um so I'd encourage you to do that. Fire, police, DPW are good cases with that. I know GK and the youth bureau often welcome uh elected officials to to tour or you know see how programming is going and they're really welcoming of that. Um so I highly encourage that um to spend that time with department heads. Um I think the other things are just reiterations. Uh so

go ahead. Uh yeah I just wanted to make one one small note. There might be times when you need to reach out to me uh where you don't for whatever reason want to copy the mayor or the city manager. um about, you know, sort of personal situations or or legal advice that might be particular to your situation, that's a fine exception. It's okay to reach out to me. Um and if I can't answer the question or need to loop them in for some reason, I would have that conversation with you. So, I'm I'm the one very small exception to that general policy.

Excellent point. Thank you. And and yeah, [clears throat] just to underscore um on the communication piece, uh the the current rules of procedure also require that members copy me on substantive requests in addition to the city manager. Uh and that is the entire purpose of that is so that when I meet with the city manager, uh I'm able to follow up if you haven't gotten a response. Um uh Pat had his hand and then Jorge. Uh yeah, just uh quickly [clears throat] to just confirm for me uh I mean it says we don't direct any employees but we also don't direct the city manager, right?

Um because I've seen that happen in the past that individuals have done that but that's really councils that should be doing that and you are the one we direct you to then direct the city manager.

Correct. I Yeah. Yeah. I act as your agent and so I can like I can communicate to the administration. this is what council wants. Um, and if you if you again most of it can really just be conversation like, hey, I requested that and and I would say in like 98% of instances if you've requested information, for example, and not gotten it, it's just because people are buried in other stuff. And so, um, you you you may as a member of council tell me like, hey, listen, I I really need to follow up on this thing because my constituent is asking XYZ. you don't need to have a resolution directing me to follow up with Dom, but you you always have that prerogative.

Okay. Yeah. Uh Jorge, [snorts] um thank you for for that breakdown. So, I think in general, if there's let's say hypothetically a uh constituent concerns or or what have you, I should reach out to relevant staff or department heads, CC um you do. And in this case, I would also CC you as well to make sure that that everything's staying in the loop there. But if I wanted to begin like exploring a conversation around as opposed to like you know street maintenance around like how the city approaches how we do street and sidewalk repair that's something I should start with you as opposed to uh superintendent of public works.

That is a great uh example. Yes. And if I can do one from from practice I think around um you know this trash removal example. I received a request from a common council member. Um it wasn't a request to do anything specific. it was alerting me of uh constituent concern and I'm treating those as they come in from individual council members asformational requests. It might result in us doing something different. Um you know and a council member could certainly ask us to consider doing something but my my job is to take it as in as anformational request. Uh consider the variables on on our end and you know address the issue as best as possible. might not be the way that specific council member imagined it happening or wanted it to happen. And certainly if the whole council as a body wanted to say, "Nope, we're going to do the trash pickup this way. You could pass something that would require us to do it that way." Uh, but generally I'm treating them asformational requests and then making the operational decision on what is within our constraints in terms financially, human resources, legal, um, etc. Um, so they can, you know, a simple information request. I I take them really seriously. I really like hearing from the public. I want to make sure people are served well. Um, so, you know, I hope I don't get bombarded with them because I do try to really follow through on them as much as possible. Um, but in this in the same vein, I think, you know, just I want you to know that I take them seriously as information requests and then we'll make that uh judgment call administratively as needed and update the council members who are requesting that information appropriately. One other thing that I uh I was treading water before when we were talking about council meetings and I couldn't remember why and I did just remember um it's not actually in this document but um consent agenda right so a lot of you have observed that that is a thing that exists the way that that works is we take very non-controversial items roster

amendments um designation of the paper of record uh approval of the city act we actually vote on every time we allow like a business to uh serve alcohol like outside of the physical building, um all of that ends up being put on consent agenda. The way that that works is um sometimes if it's in committee first, it just we we make a motion to move the item and we move it to consent at the next council meeting. Other times they'll be very like sort of wrote routine items that I just put on there when I'm meeting with the administration and staff planning the agendas for the month. Um you as a council member always have a prerogative to at the beginning of the meeting when we're doing the agenda review just request that something be pulled from consent. All that means is that it then just becomes a regular old voting item. Consent can't be debated and it has to pass unanimously. Um, and I'm I say this with some I say this with an attempt to be playful. Do not vote down the consent uh agenda. Um, because I will give you the stink eye. It has happened once. Um, because we then need to vote on everything on the consent agenda as an individual debatable motion. If you have something on there that you don't think should be there, just very gently request it be pulled and we will vote on it. You can table it. You can vote it down. You can do whatever the hell you want. But um just wanted to explain that because it's like a thing that we kind of do um mechanistically and I don't think we actually realize how uh esoteric that particular um agenda planning tool is.

Yeah. Just speaking along that, do you guys use traditional Roberts rules or do you have a modified version that's set up for council? Both. Both. Um, so our rules of procedure do specify uh it's in the Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, Victor has already emailed it to the group. Um, where where the rules of procedure are silent, Robert's rules, um, uh, the city attorney is parliamentarian by code. I'm not sure where that is. I am the parliamentarian though, which I am, especially with Clyde gone. Sad that Clyde is gone. applied as a deacto parliamentarian which means you're you're stuck with me for parliamentary questions now except for the next month or whatever right

right then you'll be stuck with my office um but typically you know I learn how to run meetings from doing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and so the best rule there is your your your folks want to do something you just adjudicate on the spot uh if I get it wrong uh you always have recourse to appeal the decision of the chair advanced counseling committee second edition.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are multiple D20s in this building. Um and then the last thing is uh it's in the last I sheet. We're not going to go into it right now, but there are mayoral advisory groups. Uh there's something that we kick cooked up uh last year to try and streamline um the uh policy formulation in the city. Uh they are all a sub quorum of the body. They advise me specifically on the policy direction of the city. They are they meet on Zoom on a bi-weekly um yeah twice a month. Yeah, bi-weekly basis. Um the scheduling for all of these can change because obviously all of you are brand new and didn't have your schedules in. Um they're also they're used to inform what the highlevel strategic priorities for the city are as uh by way of policy. And so um they are our policies are adopted keeping the cadence that we had uh for the for the coming year around July. So we have policy we have high level policy priorities already. You know what they are because they were publicly voted on last year. Um they are then used to inform the uh policy guidance that we want to give to the administration's work plan which is something we'll be discussing in committee this month. and voting on in uh February. Um that gives the staff the opportunity to understand what our policy priorities are at the beginning of the year and also gives us the opportunity to ideulate over those things in the summer when we are um pre-budget and also uh not trying to hold up the administration's work plan for one or two quarters as we try to get on the same page with each other. So, um, you'll get a chance to see what those look like in practice as we as we get into things, but I wanted to just touch

on it because that's relatively new. Any questions on that? With that, who wants to do the fun thing? By Mr. Kirby, seconded by Mr. Deandini. All those in favor of adjourning, that carries unanimously with six people.

Thanks everybody. organizational organiz. Yeah. It's not that at least.