Common Council - Special Meeting

All right, let's go.

Good evening and welcome to the March 11th meeting of the Ethica Common Council in committee of the whole. We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Um, since there's at least one member of the public, I will paraphrase the emergency evacuation notice. In the case of an emergency, you were to take one of the two exits, the door that most of you came through or the door that's over my left shoulder. We are to wait on the same side of the street at Green uh and CUCA. And we are not to cross the street unless strictly necessary. Uh those with restricted mobility, please uh wait in the stairwells, and first responders will arrive to aid you. And in the event of other emergencies, you'll be notified on how to proceed at that time. Uh ah there we go. We want everyone to be aware of their own surroundings and offer help when it is not to your own detriment as you're your own best advocate. I know I was forgetting something. Um any additions or deletions to the agenda? Seeing none, I will invite up Supervisor How for a report from the town of Ithaca. Thanks for joining us this evening. Okay, I passed the test. Uh, for those members new to the council, you might not know that I have a unique role uh within the town. I am both supervisor, but I also manage the town. Uh, and all department heads report directly to me. So, so I'm kind of a blend between those two gentlemen, but not really because you'll never see me wearing a tie. Um, uh, we have two new board members this year, Diana Cinton and Dave McHune. I'm assuming some of you know, uh, them. We were very saddened by the death of one of our board members about a month ago, Rob Rosen. Uh, and at our meeting on Monday, we've, uh, reappointed uh, Rich Depalo to fill out just the rest of this year. and then there will be election uh

in the fall for someone to fill out the last two years of Rob Rosen's term. But Rich Depal has come back. Obviously, I can't mention everything in a few minutes, so I'm offering a few highlights. Uh we value our partnership with the city. Some collaborative highlights include we're undertaking a sanitary sewer joint interceptor study to get a better handle on our collective ability to handle future development. People forget how important infrastructure is, but those of us at these seats know how important infrastructure is. This could be a topic on its own. The Ithaca area wastewater treatment facility. I'm sure you've been tracking some of the requirements that DEEC might be uh putting before us. Um the good news is we are working with Barton and Legudas to develop long-term capital improvement plan and continue to work with DEEC on what their permitting requirements will be. Funding challenges are ongoing. Uh even today uh there's some funding challenges that emerge as to how we might meet medium-term improvements. The town has a staff liaison on your new city zoning advisory committee. So we appreciate that both municipalities are committed to enhancing trail connections and two example examples are the Gateway Trail and the Black Diamond Trail extension. By the way, if you don't know it, and I think you do because many city residents avail themselves of um a robust set of parks and preserves in addition to the trails, and we have just added 137 acres on South Hill as a preserve, and it will be named the Sage Preserve. The newly signed fire contract is a key example of our partnership and desire to

collaborate. For years, the city and the town have been working together on community choice aggregation that also has a distributed energy resources component and together is called Tomkins Green Energy Network and we're pleased that finally education and outreach have started on that and other municipalities in the county are interested. So tomorrow we have a Zoom meeting to just update other municipalities in the county on that. Moving to training, I'm just going to mention one thing because I believe many folks from the city have signed up. Uh it's the Ithaca Energy Code training. It will happen on March 17th at town hall. There's been an overwhelming response. In fact, I see our code enforcement officer keep measuring uh the town boardroom. We know how many people we can accommodate, but he's trying to see how many seats he can fit into that safely. There's no more room in our boardroom, but it's also available via Zoom. So, if you know anyone who might be interested, I think there's 250 people registered uh between in person and Zoom. Uh there's information on our website for that. Housing of course is a concern for all of us and Southworks is a huge collaborative project. Uh the town, I think you know, received a 5 million grant from Empire State Development for Beacon Woods Community. It will involve approximately 160 housing units and we're very excited to move forward on that. Uh Dominic can attest to this. Uh we have been going back and forth asking each other for letters of support for various grants uh that are due and coming up. We thank the city for a letter of support for our grant submission to the New York State Transportation Alternatives Program for a Route 96 Trimmansburg Road sidewalk

that would go from the city line to Hates Road and is very much needed. It's been something we've been trying to get to for quite some time. It's about a 1.3 mile stretch. The town was awarded a pro-ousing communities grant that will utilize GIS technology to envision new housing and help us think about infrastructure, what it would look like. Uh, and we will certainly share what we learned from that experience. Uh, GIS is a great technology. I know you're all familiar with town hall. Uh, we continue to seek funding to make our magn magnificent historic town hall more energy efficient. I don't know how energy efficient this building is, but we have a ways to go on our building. This year, we are focusing on the core offices and the mezzanine. Few other things. The town hopes uh that the city might reconsider having a joint ethical landmarks preservation commission. Five years of effort went into developing language and concepts for a joint commission ordinance andou. So, I hope that the city might reconsider that. Please allow me a little bragging. The town received an award of excellence from the New York State Association of Towns at their annual statewide conference in February. And wrapping up, I enjoyed meeting Joe Kirby earlier this week. And if there are other new council members who would like to meet with me and or have a tour of town hall, feel free to contact me. I don't know if there's time for questions, but I'm certainly open to questions.

Thank you. And I'll apologize in advance. I have a 7 o'clock meeting, so I will not be staying for the rest of your meeting. So, that is quite all right. Okay. I'm sure we will end at the exact same time. Um, thank you, supervisor, for the update. Are we required to wear green to town hall at the uh There we go. No. And and privately, I will tell you while you'll never see me in a tie, but it's a private conversation. Understood. Uh, older person for Britzio. Yeah, please.

Thanks for coming and thanks for for the information. Um, can you can you tell us with regard to the um ownorous uh compliance issues that that have been put before us with the wastewater treatment facility? Are we um plugged into like do we have any state representatives who are advocating on our behalf?

Believe me, we uh have uh looked at Yes. Um, it's an ongoing conversation and I will give Rich Depalo credit for delving into documents from 20 years ago, for really questioning DC deeply about this. So, yes, we've done everything we can to it's not a done deal yet. That's still an ongoing discussion, but we probably will have to treat for nitrates, uh, which does add about $150 million onto the cost of what will need to happen on top of other improvements that need to happen to that plant. But it it's an ongoing discussion.

Thanks. Yeah, I I just want to say I hope that we I hope we fight it hard as we can before we give into it. Other questions for me, Mr. Zul? Where's the sage preserve at? So, it's um do you know Comfort Road? It's a dead-end road. Uh so, it borders where the um monastery is. Um uh it's it's on that general area. Yeah. Thank you. Any further questions from colleagues? All right. Supervisor, thank you so much for joining us. Very much for having me. Take care.

Take care. All right. We will move to statements from the public. Uh, my first speaker is Teresa Alult. Welcome Teresa. As you know, you have three minutes once you begin. I'm Teresa Alt of 206 Eddie Street in College Town. about housing. You should tell us what has happened to the people who were evacuated from Asteri. Are some people still living in Asteri despite the danger? How are the ones who were supposed to get supportive services getting them if now they are scattered about snow removal? There was a very bad property on East Senica Street just above Stewart Avenue. They never removed the ice from the sidewalk. In the end, warmer weather cleared it. Last month, I chatted with a council member and we both were using a different street to walk down the hill. Sometimes I just walked out in the street which the city had cleared. Perhaps there should be more publicity about how to report such situations. Ideally, the city would take over clearing the sidewalks rather than leaving the job to the unreliable property owners. About public safety, don't accept that tactical team grant. that SWAT team equipment makes police look like a threat to the residents. It will interfere with developing relationships with the population

and the feds could order the police to go somewhere far away. Also, with regard to the arrangement with Syracuse, I'd say Syracuse is too far to respond in an emergency. If they rush here, there will be severe traffic accidents on the way. Thank you. My next speaker is Anne Sullivan.

Hello. Hello. Good evening.

Be a quickie. Um I'm here about snow, which thank god we don't have any of right now. Um, and first, my criticism is not going to be levied at the Department of Public Works. They have a lot to do, and I think this winter we got soft, but it was bad. Um, and I want to talk about snow shoveling in particular. My block is great. We have great espree decor. If my neighbor is gone, I'm not known to pick up a shovel and shovel for them. We're very conscious of the fact that kids walk up our street every day to go to school. We're very conscious that people walk to work. So, I think we're a model. Um, because I'm an old lady, this costs me a lot of money. I pay someone $100 a month to shovel my sidewalks as a minimum. Um, but to me, it's money well spent is part of my civic duty. Um, on the other hand, this has been a real I'm a walker and this has been really bad this year. The two houses that live on the that are on the corner of Delaware and Mitchell didn't shovel at all this year. So, I had to walk in the street or walk in the sidewalk, which was dangerous. So, I drove, which is really kind of stupid because I only live a 10-minute walk downtown. Now, what's the cure? I don't think the cure is for the city to do the shoveling. I can. My neighborhood does it well. And quite frankly, people, the two houses that didn't shovel were all purchased this year. If you can buy a house in Bell Sherman in 2025, you can frigin pay for a shoveler. I don't think someone in the flat should be paying for that. I could choose not to shovel. And my total fine for the year, I figured it out. If I didn't shovel for six months, I would owe the city $175 if they chose

to enforce it. We have, quite frankly, a problem with enforcement here. The 10% of the people of the city who do not shovel should be fined. They should be fined a lot more. The fact that I can pay $500, but would only have to pay 150 if I didn't shovel is absurd. So, the solution, enforcement. Enforcement. Give us flyers. We'll distribute them in our neighborhood so that new people will know. Um, and third, and I think this is really, really important. You've got to raise those fines. You've really got to make it hurt. This is a matter of public safety. Um, I already have a broken thumb that I can't use well because I fell and broke it on an unmaintained city sidewalk. I can't knit anymore. and anybody with hand injury. Um, I was petrified this winter with the sidewalks. But the key is to make the 10% of Ithacans who are bad actors pay the rest of us, you know, it's like cutting my grass, you know, we'll get it done. But the idea the city can't shovel for everybody. Okay, that's all. But thank you.

Thank you very much. At this time, I will welcome up our representatives from the Department of Public Works for a conversation about snow removal. You're all set. Covered it pretty well.

Presentation up there. Perfect. Thank you so much. and um Mark, give you the opportunity to just introduce your team who I'm not sure has met all of council yet. Adam Potter is the superintendent of public works. Um all of public works. I am Mark Forbanic. I'm the department head for streets and facilities. This is Hank Bennett. He's our supervisor of streets and Urvey is our stormwater engineer. um within all of this and Mark just just for my two friends and my dad who are watching if you could use the microphone. Thank you. We have another mic.

So that's just a brief overview just an overview of what we cover. Next slide of the divisions or sections that are covered within streets and facilities. We have the highway section which covers streets, bridges and storm water. Uh building services and solid waste. Uh we have fleet services, urban forestry, construction management, Newman golf course, electrical services are all covered within us. Next slide. Some of the basic functions of us, our core function as a division is to provide the basic infrastructure services to the city minus water and sewer. Everything above ground is the responsibility of our division. Um, quick thing of the city, 5 point square miles of land, 70 center mile lane miles of road, which is just a two-lane road. Uh, we've got 140 mi of curb, 57 bridges, 2700 catch basins, around 500 miles of storm pipe, um, 10,000 trees, 2500 street lights, and 25 traffic signals. Just some of the brief basics of the city that is our responsibility. Next slide. Now within each of our sections in our division overview, you can see that I got my glasses. What each just briefly I'm not going to read every single one of them. Uh highways cover street repair, street cleaning, pothole repair, chasing, bridges and guide rails, storm water, the catch basins and storm piping. Um all of the city buildings and park facilities are covered by us, custodial coverage. Um some of the snow removal adjacent to buildings. Um the fleet services is the 450 city vehicles and equipment that we have. Um some urban forestry, they cover 10,000 trees of tree trimming and removal along with management of the contractor tree

removals, citizen pro pruners. um project management under construction engineering, management of reimbursement for water and sewer repairs and coordination with our sidewalk uh program. So that way our division is covering some of the coord in coordination with the sidewalk district. When we do a road, we're also handling all the curb ramps and everything is being done at once. Um electrical services is covering our traffic signals, our street lights, and some of the internal building uh electrical services that need to be done. Next slide. Now we're getting our snow removal operations, which you all came here for, the fun stuff. So city is broken down within the snow routes. We have the east hill, south hill, west hill, the heights, and the flats as our main areas of concern. are during the storm. We are concentrating on these main routes of traffic and the areas of concern from emergency dispatch when IPD and they're calling us and letting us know there's an issue at a certain location. We also have a maintenance agreement with the near state DOT that covers all the state routes within the city. um another crew. At the same time, parks, bridges, and sidewalk crews are being dispatched to handle all of the uh bridges, all the parks, all of the anything adjacent to a park and inside of a park is being cleared and any city-owned sidewalk is being taken care of. Some of the city- owned parking lots are included in this operation. Um, which includes the youth bureau, IPD, IFD. Um, all these buildings are covered by our division to clear the snow so that way the first responders can get to work and get where they need to go when it's appropriate or when they're dispatched. Um some of the after we've well unfortunately Cass Park waterfront trail

and the downtown business district are covered by uh separate operations than us. Uh the common crew covers downtown while the waterfront trail is covered by Cass Park crew. Uh after we've done our initial clearing of snow, depending on the storm, uh we'll go into backing the backends, which is to clear the road back to the curb line. That may involve move having cars posting and getting the all the out of the roots back to clear the road completely. So that way you have your parking and everything is from curb line to curb line is clear as much as possible. Next slide.

On some of the existing sidewalk snow removal, um we have a map and we've mapped out the certain sections that we do take care of during the sidewalk. um it's all the bridges and then there's some private properties and stretches of road um sidewalk that we do clear up all through up Cliff Street, Hector Street, there's spots that we do clear uh over on Steuart A. There's some uh spots that we do clear over there. Now, some of this does intersect with private property owners and it's just things that we've inherited over the years that we continuously still do. Um so currently we are covering 15.25 miles of sidewalk which is 20% of the city total sidewalk network. Um as I said streets and facilities is clearing the bridges, walkways and stairs with multiple pieces of equipment around the city. Uh this is all being done with uh during the highways crew which is the main crew that is doing the primary snow removal for the city. Um we have seven on the dayshift, six on the night shift. Um four for the bridges and sidewalks. Uh six for the parking lot and park adjacent sidewalks. Um some of the staffing that we identified that would assist with doing this is if um 10 for the day shifts, seven for the night shift is uh just increasing uh six to eight for bridges and sidewalks and maintaining the six for the parking lots and park adjacent sidewalks. Um just as a note, the highway night crew only works from November 15th through April 1st and they work from 7:00 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. from Sunday through Thursday. Um, parking lots, like I said, are included. Uh, youth bureau, Cass Park, and Gak are also included in that

parking lot as we continuously clear those. So, no removal and the Ford thinking. Um, we have implemented asset management software and we're able to monitor the actual costs associated with the snow removal tasks that we would take. It would take a couple days after the storm to figure out. This is instantaneous data that we're getting at the end of the day or the next day that we're able to see how much we are spending on certain tasks of clearing a certain lot or clearing for sidewalks or whatever the task may be. Um so we're also analyzing and updating the existing routes to maximize our snow removal efficiency during storms. Uh the basic storms um we first hit the hills. That's our main concern along with the main routes and in the flats. They're running the main routes north and south and east and west just to make sure that everyone can get through the city and that we're still maintaining our contract with the DOT because um that's essentially the main routes. Um we're also ensuring that all crews are effectively utilizing utilizing the equipment for productive removal of snow. We're ensuring that the personnel are proficient in the operation of new equipment and attachments. Um, some of the things that we're looking at also is analyzing existing parking regulations to facilitate adequate accommodations during snow events. Um, we're also looking into streamlining the snow removal operations to some operational restructuring so that we just have a few u individuals that are responsible for making sure the crews are hitting what they need to do and when they need to do it. Um, we're also at the moment identifying and procuring equipment that

provides the maximum efficiency for existing infrastructure conditions. Now, when I say that the sidewalks are all not the same size, um, some of them are four and 1/2 ft, some of them are 5T. So, some of them have a retaining wall next to them. Some of them have a mailbox in them. So, this is not you cannot just simply just take a piece of machinery and run it up and think you're it's going to be fine. It's at certain points they may have to stop, get off, turn around, clear the snow, hand shovel around the mailbox, and then continue on. Um, we are looking at uh new trackless snow removal equipment. We which is around 175 200,000. We're investigating to see if uh the state chips reimbursement funds can take care of that and the EWR funds. So that'll that that has essentially helped us in the past few years uh procure equipment on a on a needed basis without burdening the city with in the budget season. Um interesting fact since January 1st of this year we have spent $453,000 on snow removal just since the first of this year at each event. I think um for six guys to come in and do four hours of work, it was around 15,000 a pop thousand dollar. So if you add that up, we had a very strenuous winter compared to last few winters. Um, so it it it does add up and we spent each and every day maintaining and trying to keep up with the snow and the constant barrage of freezing weather as you guys were all here too. I hope so. Um, if you have any questions, I

know we got some last minute questions here. Um, I don't know if you'd like me to go through them or I Okay. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for that overview. Um, I like the owl. Um, but I'll uh I'll turn it over to council. I'll begin to take questions. Katherine on that owl. I stole that from her. All right. Well done. Um, older person for Britzio, you're recognized.

Thanks so much for being here, everybody. Um I walk everywhere. So I I do get to go through all those cross all those um crosswalks and I know that they pose extra challenges and um so I have two specific questions related to that and and how we can improve that operation because I know that this has been a perennial problem for many many years. you get to the corners, all the snow, you get a big heap. And I know that um some people have said, well, you know, it's up to the to the people who live there. They need to clear that. I think their responsibility, my understanding is their responsibility is to clear the ramp that gets to the road. But then when you got this big pile of snow in the road, I think it's unreasonable for um frankly for people to be expected to do that, especially when it freezes and and turns into ice chunks. Um, so I think, you know, this year it's really I I saw people with um strollers like kind of do a wheelie to try to get through all the snow and these were in like the central business district. So my I guess my question is how um how do how can you think about improving the crosswalk areas specifically and also ensuring that the roadways are actually cleared? you mentioned the term curb to curb. Um, but I did see this year, you know, there were many, many roads uh that were not cleared curb to curb. And so I'm wondering what you see um as changes for both of those areas going forward.

Our biggest problem with getting the curb to curb is the parking, not even parking. um create out even parking continuously and enforced that would help us to get the machine uh plow truck along the curb line and to be able to swing around there and get that cur uh access ramp, the ADA ramp. Um during the summer um with our construction engineer working closely with the sidewalk, we are fixing the drainage so that way the drainage is not ponding there and creating a freeze hazard during the winter. So it's a twofold situation. um sending out a crew just to purposely do the ADAs. It'd be it's a lot more efficient if the parking is not there and that truck has enough space to ride the curb line, swing around and then continue on. If you can see if you see them now, we have the parking is maybe 20 ft back. That truck is not big. It's too big to swing in without making even more of a mess to clear that. So,

sorry. I can definitely see that. But then there there's, you know, 2 days, 3 days later, I still see some I've seen this this winter areas where it looked like they would be able to get in like especially in the corners where they're just not coming like really super close enough. But I'm wondering does that um so there sounds like there's a limitation with the size of the equipment. Are you envisioning that we need some other thing to be able to do this? because I think, you know, so many people live here because it's a walkable city, but it becomes totally unwalkable in a snow event.

Yes, we're looking into new uh different ideas on the equipment. We've looking into um a different one that has a a plow halfway back on the truck and sits closer to um and there's also another one that sits on the back of the truck with a smaller vehicle. Um, we've seen other municipalities that have instituted them. So, we've checked with them and we're looking to procure a new piece of equipment like that to see if we can get a smaller piece in there and take care of that now. But the parking it would be with a that would be okay with until you get a big 12 to 18 inch storm and then that larger truck is what's going to be needed for to clear that spot at some point. I'm going to quickly uh I know you have many questions, but I'm going to quickly recognize myself because I remember uh when uh Mr. Defendini and I were on the city administration committee many years ago. I uh at the time asked whether or not the city should re-evaluate how it does out even parking. And the then government was a gasast that I would inconvenience drivers in such a way. But I'm going to wrap both my arms around my war on cars and ask the department again. uh what do we think about being like many other cities and just like what is the department's position around this because I frankly think as we heard from one of our speakers of public comment today you know this is a significant problem and I I talked with all the person for Britzio a little bit about this in preparation for this meeting and you know I am aware that y'all can't um when people do not have 100% compliance on the street you can't get right up to those curb lines right and it exacerbates the And I think that um I'm sure there was a reason that the city decided to suspend odd even parking in the way that it does only implementing it in the case of emergencies. Um, but I

think as we've heard from one of our speakers this evening as well as from the older person, um, there's a serious walkability uh, implication from doing this. And I I I would welcome feedback from the department as to uh, what your professional recommendation would be as to what the city should enforce. Go for it. And it should be year uh, year round too, we think. Uh because that would help us with street cleaning. We wouldn't have to tow any cars. Thank you operations to go from one side to the next and it would be a continuous clean sweep. And I say that as someone who I'm the mayor and I got myself towed for not moving during street cleaning once.

Yeah, we know. So yeah. Yeah. So like well aware everybody should be everybody should be responsible for following the rules. Um I just you know it's a voluntary donation to the city. Um I think Lori, did you have something to add? Yeah, I was gonna That's okay. Um I just wanted to add too besides, you know, the odd even parking for the reason of snow removal is cleaning leaves of course and being the storm water person, you know, this is a big problem going into the winter.

Yeah. And you know that everything gets clogged up and because of the odd even parking this was also a part portion of the problem because there was still leaves left there from cars that weren't moved and those just blocked up those storm catch basins and hence more of a problem ensues. So having it year round would also be good for that aspect and plus really the city is very flat. there is not a lot of flow and the infrastructure is very very old and a lot of the pipes are partially full of sediment because nothing can push through. So now you're adding more leaves because we can get those things taken care of. So that is just what I wanted to add on that.

Thank you. So, and then Adam that as well or did

Well, you brought it up so I wasn't going to mention it, but so so we've had that this discussion about the odd even parking you know obviously and um you know I'm not choosing any sides or anything but um it appeared to me from what you were saying I I guess my estimation was correct that there was a lot of apprehension to instituting that. So there obviously was a history of not doing this and and again you know being fairly new one of the things that I I I realize that probably people that opposed it would I mean it's it's multi-tered in that um you obviously have more cars in Ithaca now it's more people more cars so where are you going to park them art even well now I can park on both sides of the streets you have more bike lanes which there's only so much roads now you've taken up that so I understand the resistance to it and I understand why they were resistant to it so It wasn't as if like it all happened in some sort of vacuum. And I feel that if there is some sort of decision to be made or backing in some direction, then we'll follow that. You know, if we want to do it, we'll follow it. And and it's not a magic bullet, but absolutely makes a world of difference as far as hitting those turns and everything else. And and yes, I agree. It could be three, four, five days later, you still don't have that stuff picked up, but also realize that even a plow can't necessarily always move ice, you know, so it so it'll ride over, you know, so it's not anyway. So enough said.

I appreciate that. Sure. I had uh Miss Moss, Mr. Defendini, and then I can uh Mr. I have several new hands and then I'll return to all the person for Britzio. Mine's Thank you, Mayor. Mine is quick. Um I was just wondering um and this is this might be to you, um mayor, how we go about um requesting that DPW bring together bring us a a sidewalk snow removal removal proposal for the budget. Um and if this is sort of like the start of that or can this be the start of that request?

Um so procedurally uh what I would recommend would be if there were appetite among council members to pursue this is just sort of general policy agnostic guidance just to clarify the process. Um, I would ask a member bring forward a resolution directing the city manager to provide a timeline and cost estimate for any substantive change. Um, I would invite that resolution to not be prescriptive with respect to time as I think this may be the first one of these things that we do, but there may of course be many and we want to make sure that the administration has the ability to prioritize and triage those things. Um, and then conditional on that resolution receiving a majority of council approval. Um, I would work with the administration uh and our uh and our sort of agenda setting meetings to bring something back um when it could be uh sort of fleshed out in a um in the in the sort of level of proposal that we're used to voting on here. Um and so I think it is possible that something like that could be well timed for next snow cycle. Um, but I wouldn't want to I I would want to give um depending on how long it takes council to coales around that idea, I'd want to give discretion and time to the administration because um we don't know what might else come up. Yeah.

Yeah. So, just for clarification, in the resolution, you wouldn't want language to direct it to be for the 2027 budget, but like a budget proposal overall. I think that that would I mean certainly the members got the prerogative to do what they think appropriate. Um I think I might start with a request to the administration for the budget and cost analysis in general. Um because I think with starting any new program um there are always going to be startup costs. there are going to be uh perhaps equipment or capital expenditures that might be necessary. And I think for things that we want specifically funded in the 2027 executive budget, I would ask council um sort of in the same way that last year I think it was all the person for Britzio who led us on this resolution requesting that the budget come in under the tax cap. I would want a sort of master budget resolution guiding the administration about council's priority rather than things that might be peacemeal. So I think when we look at starting a new program, it might be best to do it in a vacuum and then we can and parallel have a conversation about whether we want to put it into the next budget to be a recurring expenditure.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. David. Thank you, Mayor. Uh thank you guys. This was a fantastic um presentation. Uh, I appreciate the answers you guys have been giving and in general I appreciate all the work that you guys uh have been doing. I just had um a conversation with constituents over at McGra House uh with some senior housing there and um snow removal was a big concern for a lot of those folks. Uh our elderly population really gets hit hard uh during these times when uh snow can kind of isolate folks. Um and so the work that you all have been doing um has been really really appreciated um by myself and by uh constituents at large. Um mayor kind of beat me to my initial question around how can we empower you guys uh to help with um snow removal um as specifically around crosswalks and curve cuts. Um assuming we have the political will to pursue this and go down a route of you know year round or more aggressive auditing and parking. what type of um and maybe this is more a question also for um for senior administration um and city manager uh what type of capacity would be needed uh in terms of to do that enforcement and then uh yeah that's my first question and I'll have a follow-up later on but like what type of practical capacity would be needed if we had the political will to do more on parking uh to sort of enforce that in a way that would allow you guys to to do the job that we're asking of you.

Unfortunately, enforcement is not under our purview. So, it would have to be through IPD or the parking cso officers. I

was going to say, excuse me, there are three types of enforcement I think that I've heard. I think you're asking right now about enforcement related to odd even, but I want to acknowledge that there's also enforcement related to people who are not uh clearing their sidewalks and regular exterior property maintenance enforcement um as well. on the odd even that question around capacity is one that um and perhaps Adam has some insights as a supervisor for the sort of commons and parking arm of the department of public works. We have um community service officers who are frequently walking the streets in Ithaca and um I don't see why they couldn't in their current structure give the right tickets for odd even parking and enforce that. Maybe there's some growth if there's a true additional amount of leg work done and and a lot more tickets that slow them down. I I can't answer that at this moment, but I believe that we have capacity in that division, including, you know, if we know what odd even is. IPD is going to be more more uh likely it's going to be a little easier for an officer to say, "Oh, yeah, that car is a standout. We should give them a ticket because we know that today is an odd versus an even day." Um, I won't go into detail on the two other layers of enforcement other than to thank Lori uh specifically and the team at DPW for their work on the um requesting or billing uh local property owners who did not shovel their sidewalks this winter. Um, I think that was a great effort on behalf of the city and the public information that we were able to send out, I think is a part of that enforcement, too, letting people know that we're um following through on our ordinances. So, thank you, Lori.

Mr. Su, you're next.

Thanks. Uh, I'm hearing a a bit about enforcement and it that's not your department, but it does sound like this is something that council should uh maybe take some time to discuss in a future meeting. throwing that to the chair, making sure that we get because both sidewalks obviously it has to do with enforcement and this odd even thing. Um the couple of questions I had um so can we get your PowerPoint? I I always like those particularly I had no idea that y'all did sidewalk clearing at all frankly. So I saw that picture. So if you don't mind just sharing that to that common council um email that'd be great. Um love getting those. And then um one of the slides on there talked about your staffing equipment and staffing slides. Is that what your staffing actually is or is that what you were hoping for?

Existing. It's existing. And then bottom was what you were hoping for. Okay. So yeah, it'd be good to have that what we have now. Okay. Thank you. And then the um the last question was about uh I'd never heard of year-round odd event parking. Um do you guys have I think the city might have had it in 1999. I'm not one correct on that, but yes, they used to have it all through. Wow. Okay. It was switched in 99 when I was 11. Contextualize that for you, Mr. S.

Um, yeah. Okay. I It just seems like that is a lot um for for for a city to do, but um that's interesting. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Trumbull's next. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, and thank you guys all for coming today. Um, on the odd even thing, I'm pretty confident Syracuse still does odd even parking there if we ever do want to look to a neighboring city. Um, having gone to college there. Um, as far as emergency responses, one of the coolest programs I think that I learned about this year is in New York City, the Department of Sanitation has emergency snow shovelers. Um, which is basically you can activate people. I think there they pay about $20 per day. During the blizzard they got, they pushed that up just to get people out there and they were able to clear all the sidewalks within like basically like 12 hours. It was pretty impressive. Is that something that you guys think um would benefit you? Could you see like yourself working with these kind of like volunteers so to speak? Um and if so um I guess more directed to you guys, is that something that we could look into trying to set up? Um, yes, that was tried done in 2019 or 2020 by Dan. Um, he had the snow angels. It was a app that people could automatically go into an app, shovel a corner, and then they report this this thing's done. Um, we could easily work with the seasonal volunteers and stuff like that. That wouldn't be a problem. That would also help because the amount of snow that we get is very intermittent at times, especially with the lake and our weather. It could be snowing up by the airport and it's raining down here. So, it's it varies. There is no typical storm. It's very And as you know, if you've been in Syracuse, they also have another program for out of even parking is having fire trucks go up the road and blur their horn and let people know to move their car anytime it's in the way, which is a different enforcement. It's pretty much get out of the way now. It's

ass. Mr. Win, um I did. Thank you for the presentation. I did a snowplow ride along several years back and back then the drivers had a decent amount of autonomy to decide where they go. Uh but now that you have software, are the trucks tracked and and is there a more top down direction for what to clear or is it still kind of up to the driver?

Uh 50/50. We do have GPS on the trucks to monitor where they're going. Um the main autonomy is to clear the routes. we kind of leave it up to them to monitor the conditions uh without just telling them you're going to hit this spot, this spot, this spot. So, if it's snowing really heavy, they're going to go up and down that main route a couple times before they start hitting the adjacent routes. Mr. Ritzio,

I'm not going to ask all my questions because I don't want to make everybody do this. I will set up an appointment, but I do want to ask a few more. I just want to follow up first on Ducks. Um, is there any thought to using like some kind of, you know, uh, AI to determine like the most efficient way to to like clear the streets and then actually have like a strict kind of, you know, pattern that's used. Just something to throw out there. Um, currently the city had implemented the asset management software. Um, and this is one of the reasons why we have the actual numbers, the actual sidewalk snow routes. I I actually implemented put them in there myself after speaking with and getting roots from the current crews. Um I know that when Hank um tells you know assigns people the different routes um where to go I mean they're very proficient on the places that they go. Um so asset management software we are actually working right now in uh with the GIS team in creating separate routes um and utilizing AI in that within that software to get the most efficient route.

Thanks. Um I I think this is a question for Adam because you've gotten like new eyes on um on this whole thing and I'm just wondering based on this winter's experience. What what observations uh would you share with us about how you think the system is working and how it can be improved?

I mean I think we touched on some of it. Um so again there was as the mayor has mentioned you know there was a resistance to the audience so that created an issue and we had that discussion. Um there were certain uh sidewalks that throughout the years just kept accumulating on their task list while they probably should have never they're not really street you know they don't really belong to the city. So that created even more task upon the people that were clearing these 15 miles worth of sidewalk. Um, and in the past, you know, past few years, you didn't have as much snow. So, so the effect wasn't as dramatic. So, that kind of, you know, so so it wasn't like there was one thing. It was just a number of things. The other thing is that No, I mean, I don't know how many years it's been, five years, six years, but they haven't had that much snow in in quite a while. So, the newer people, they weren't even used to like how to deal with, you know, such such an amount of snow. They have to like get used to it and understand like what this is going to take. So, it wasn't as if there was one thing. It was just a number of things and I think that, you know, the different ways that they're going to attack this are really going to make a difference. You know, and then just you mentioned the equipment, you know, when the equipment isn't quite that great, but you only have, you know, I'm making this up, you know, you only have, you know, um, you know, let's say, you know, 15 inches of snowfall that year, there's not that much impact to you. So, you just kind of keep quiet. You deal with the piece of equipment, move on. But when you have, you know, 60 inches of snow and the piece of equipment isn't working that well, well, now it's like, all right, we have a problem. We have to deal with it. So, yeah, we probably could have dealt with it a few years ago, but now it's like everybody's like, "Yeah, I agree. We better deal with it." But there's not as much will to move forward on something when it's not snowing, you know? So, so there's so it's not like there's one thing. It really is there there's multiple things. And I mean, again, I'm new here, but I will tell you that these guys actually are pretty darn good at what they do, and they understand it very well. and and they do have like reasonable, honest, like real answers, you know, to make this better.

And everything that they've, you know, presented here, we've talked about for weeks and and and they developed it and and I I I think they're all good ideas. I mean, I I there's nothing that I would add to it and and if I wanted to, we would have already discussed it. So So like I said, there's not as if there was one thing. It was there's multiple things,

right? And with regard to staffing, can you can you speak to that? Um, like I guess specifically I'm wondering is all of our equipment in these snowstorms that we had this year was all of our equipment being used. No, I see a no. So we have we have more equipment than we have people by how much? Just curious.

Um, currently we have uh 10 plow trucks in our fleet. So, if we're utilizing seven of those on our day shift, six of them on our night shift, that's uh um that's if everybody shows up, you know, if we don't have any call-ins, any vacation time, anything like that, that's if we're fully staffed, we still have plow equipment. there are kind of like emergency like other people that we tap that are in related departments who are who are cross-trained who are able to like come in like if we have a snow event and we have a couple people who are out sick surgery whatever like instead of not getting the the roads plowed like what what is our plan? We've currently been discussing that maybe trying to draw in some of um possibly water and sewer employees if they're not busy with their own water main break stuff like that that we might possibly be able to pull them in.

And so you would need to do training ahead of time obviously because they haven't used the equipment. Yeah. Not going to just throw somebody out there in a plow truck and right for the best. So let me just ask one last question and then I'll I'll close up and catch up with you guys at some other point. But um I'm just curious for the uh go back to the cross walks again. Do we have like a small piece of equipment that can just like get in there, scoop it, and get it into a get it into a waiting truck and take that snow away? I mean, I'm just wondering. So only only shovels. We don't have like small snowblowers.

No, no, not snow. Well, I don't know about snowblower, but I mean, I did see somebody snowblowing, but maybe that was Town of Itha was on that corner. Um, you know, like small, what do you call it? You know, trackless machine. Like a machine with a, you know, a shovel. A bobcat. Scoop. A little bobcat. Thank you. Little Bobcat. You You go in there, you scoop it up, and you get it into a dump truck and you take it away. Do we have the capacity to do that?

Yes, we do have the We do have those equipment. Um, but at the time, our guys are also maintaining on a daily basis with the way this the winter was in the morning. They're going out and doing ice and snow watch. They're going out and they're re-checking all the routes for icy conditions. Um, so every bridge and sidewalk is rechecked on a daily basis by a crew because it it'll warm up as you know I will warm up and at night it's cold and has refreeze. So they're they're redoing their route on a daily basis. So that is something that we'd have to uh have another crew that starts in the morning and then starts to go around to the certain sectors and would attack each thing.

Yeah, sounds like Yeah, there's a lot of organizing that that to do. Um and it's so all the more reason to get the properties that are not city properties off your list. Right. Thank you. And getting the the homeowners to also not just push it out on the road, also take care of it themselves. Absolutely. Tyog and Buffalo. the town and they do a good job. So, Verizon does an okay job on those corners. So, this year was a little rough. Yes, it was. People got back to it's another winter. It became a winter again.

Uh next I have all the person defendini then old the person win. Um thank you guys for your answers. uh in the presentation and in some of the subsequent questions, you uh guys may mention that there could be some possible um equipment that we could get to assist with some of the snow removal. Do you think that it's feasible to have an idea of like a including that in uh your guys' upcoming budget? Um, I know that's a much more involved conversation as we've talked about that involves the city manager and and all of us. But, uh, is that more of like a long-term, short-term, medium-term possibility in your guys's estimate?

Uh, both medium long. We're going to check with the state first and see if they pay for it. Smart.

That's the EWR. They it takes care of all the equipment. Have to keep it for 10 years. It's this best route that we've seen in the past nine years I've been here. do uh use as much uh state money as possible to get the equipment. When I got here, the fleet was really decrepit and we've managed to upgrade it to an adequate level by using CHIPS funding and state funding. Yeah. Post it away. And then in terms of trying to, you know, build the case for getting support from like the state to do this, um, in addition to getting more compliance from the public, uh, with, you know, uh, moving vehicles and, uh, exterior property maintenance, are there possibilities, do you think, and this is probably like a longer conversation, but possibilities of maybe direct um, interactions or communications with like older older persons and members of public works to uh like communicate like what the rules are whether it's in like videos or um you know specific messages that we can send out directly to our to our uh ward through list serves and and town halls and things like that. I'm just thinking about ways that we could help you all get the message out there and and do our part in terms of community relations.

I think there's an FAQ on our website, the city website already that hand answers a lot of those questions and direct people to Cool. Thank you guys. do a video cover that there. Great. Mr. Win, uh, quick question to build on what Margaret asked. You actually do, um, use a backhoe and put snow into dump trucks. I noticed you do it on Cascilla Street at least at night, usually a few days later. So, what is the goal of of doing that?

Um, those are the meter parking. We're trying to clear the spots for uh, people to get out of their cars. It took a few days because we had to post it, unfortunately. So and posting also requires us to get the CSO officer, get a towing company, and it's an additional process that also adds time to the the whole operation. It's unfortunate when we could just gone through and just kicked it back to the curb. Uh and also um I mean you can think about this if if we do um like Kayla was asking, have you come forward with the proposal? But if we do staff up, I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of things throughout the year that additional staffing could do for DPW outside of snow removal, even though that's what we're talking about right now,

right? Absolutely. Potholes, Miss Moss.

Um, so I know what from the sounds of this conversation that there might be like a staffing shortage issue going on and I know through conversations that we've had that um one of the biggest barriers have has been like uh folks having their CDL requirements. so on so forth. And I know for internal employees, we offer like CDL trainings and programs, but I'm wondering for community members who do don't have like their CDL license, but are interested in these types of um uh job opportunities, is there any opportunities or workforce development opportunities for them through the city or like partnerships that you guys have with any local organizations that can kind of allow for them to get in? Um, I haven't seen anything since Tomkins County, the town and the city got together for a DPW workforce back in 2020s before the pandemic shut that down where individuals were able to go from uh the highway department at the county, the town, and us and kind of get a exposure to each of them. There is no Yeah, there is I haven't seen any uh kind of training program that we have for any city residents to just come on board and plow a truck which which might be a liability issue. You have to talk to Katherine about that.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. Oh, actually all the person followup you said. Okay, follow up quick and I'll then I'll recognize myself. Uh, I'd be uh interested to learn more about that uh that program um as it was proposed prior to the pandemic and if you guys have um any considerations as to what barriers besides like a political one uh to to potentially trying to rein rein uh restart it. Uh that was typically run through Tomkins County I believe and town. Okay. Has a partnership in it. Cool. Thanks.

Um, in the time that we've been sitting here, I have in fact confirmed that pursuant to the city charter, council is authorized to pass a resolution overriding a decision of the board of public works. So, expect that. Uh, I'll be introducing a resolution to get to reinstate odd even parking. Um, with respect to time, thank you all for joining us this evening and for providing this information. Um, we will ensure that any follow-up questions are emailed to Adam and Mark with the city manager on copy within two business days and we will give the department a reasonable amount of time to provide answers to those based on the level of detail that is required. uh the city manager and I will discuss if there are any particularly detailed questions that might need more time, but thank you very much for joining us. We really appreciate it and it was great to hear about a little bit more about the work you all do.

Thank you.

Um our next items are public safety related. The first is uh the authorization to accept a tactical team grant. May I p first first have someone summarize and move that resolution. Mr. Deandini, I wasn't ready. I just didn't see the the courage from my colleagues. 4.1 um the city of Ithaca was awarded 75 grand in federal funding for tactical team um equipment and uh other uh related uh services. Um and uh this is an author uh authorization to accept that funding from uh

Thank you, Mr. Defendini. Is there a second? Second by seconded by Mr. W. I'll invite up the chief to speak to it. Mr. Keely, you're recognized for comment. I'm going to I'll wait till the chief just have a question. Uh may I recognize the older person for a clarifying question? Sure. all the person is are we voting on this like would we be voting on this in the April meeting or is this question this is a special meeting of the common council so I'll amend the incorrect thing I said on autopilot at the beginning as the agenda clearly states this is a special meeting not a committee of the whole so uh any votes this evening are uh binding thank you older person uh Mr. Shil, you're recognized.

Um, thank you for being here, Chief. Um, it's good to see you. Um, I'm just pulling up the right document here. Um, of course, it's the fourth one. Um, so, uh, this is federal funding, correct? This is from the federal government.

It is federal funding. It comes through the New York State, uh, Department of Homeland Security. Um I'm interested in on the letter we received from uh the commissioner Jackie Bray. Um uh the third paragraph of the letter says, "Additionally, all capabilities developed through federal FY2022 SHSP funding are required to be deployable deployable regionally and nationally per the federal guidelines. Um, I'm And then all funding through this grant program is subject to New York State and federal guidelines and regulations. Um, I'm interested in if you have any more information on what that means. I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that um, uh, our police officers could be requested to other parts of the country without our um, without our authorization. So this is a grant that we actually have used yearly. Uh the last year we didn't get it was last year because of some uh technicalities and other grants that we the city didn't failed to report on. So it's it's a grant that we're also eligible because of the accreditation standards uh that our regional uh team uh in our partnership with the Tomkins County Sheriff's Office. uh our team has been has backed up other surrounding agencies but this has been around public safety. This team's not been utilized and will not be utilized for anything to do with immigration or any programs of that nature. And we have uh anou that we're currently actually looking to update with uh with our partners at topics county sheriff that outlines like I have authority for the team in a city. the sheriff's department. The sheriff has authority for activity in the surrounding county and you know you're

aware of the sheriff's standards and and my standards as uh as you know we discuss uh what's happening in a in a federal government. Um, just as a followup on that, do you have a list of federal guidelines for this grant funding? And like I know we don't like speaking hypotheticals here, but hypothetically if uh and let's just put aside immigration like I I think it I'm thinking more broadly than immigration. Um, but like if the federal government said uh you know we want this team to respond to um you know San Francisco for for some reason. Um, again, immigration unrelated. Um, do what what is our opportunity to say no? What uh what does that look like? Is that do we just have to do that or yes, I I would say no. We're not sending our team to San Francisco. Uh, you know, this this is a team that supports regional uh public safety, enhancing community safety. The equipment that we're looking to purchase with this grant has to do with back filling to to pay for the the training uh for helmets, for ballistic shields for interior uh robotic uh aerial systems. Uh so we're not sending officers uh into unknown situations where we, you know, we use robots, we use the aerial vehicles to clear a structure. uh so we're able to deescalate, communicate, negotiate uh withever, you know, whatever the subject or objects are in uh in a structure. So this is about um officer safety and supporting uh an essential resource uh that we have within the city.

Um well, I'll maybe follow up with further questions and maybe motion later today or later this evening after more people get hands. Uh, next is not JD all the person defendini. That'd be that's an ill-fitting nickname these days, but um Oh, yeah. double double apologies. Thank uh hi chief. How you doing?

I uh wanted to thank you for uh the documentation that was sent over to us. A um a question I wanted to ask you regarding the tactical team um as we've used it in the past um is how often it's been used in if you have numbers or or could obtain numbers uh for how often the tactical team has been deployed in the past 3 to 5 years and what the context has been and how sort of connected to the specific points around counterterrorism which are the parameters for the for the funding. um those deployments are.

So this is a a question and a uh in some sense is subjective because there's so many overlaying benefits uh that the city enjoys uh from this team. So, for one, the additional training that these officers that are on this team in conjunction with the Topkins County Sheriff's Office, the additional training, the confidence, uh the technical skills that they bring are not just utilized in a in a critical incident that they're called for. Um that training uh is used day in and day out to support officers on the in the street that don't have that level of training. And oftent times uh serious uh incidents are deescalated because of that communication confidence clear uh response to incidents. Full team activation uh last year I could get you an exact number. I can tell you it's it's a handful of times. Uh it was a an armed robbery uh down at the Dunkin Donuts a few months back. Uh there's been three high-risisk warrants for armed uh known shooters that we've utilized the team for and you know recently uh just to bring attention to it's it's an active investigation so I really can't get too deep into the details uh the Cornell student that tried to bring a rifle back uh on a bus uh from Syracuse. We we like we like Syracuse. the uh you know a a caller see something say something a caller called saw activity saw this gentleman carrying a rifle at the bus stop made contact with them there's a lot of details in the investigation I can't discuss um but these this is what uh preventative response is and you know we do have concerns as this continues to unfold of what the plans are and why he was

bringing that gun back to the city. Uh so you know it's not it's not the fearmonger. Uh we have had instances where you know people have done very very serious crimes. Uh and this is the grant. This is the training. This is the technology that sets our officers up for the best possible outcome for not not just for the community, the officers and the subjects that that they're interacting with. And just a quick followup that this is uh the funding as you're intending it would be to backfill previously purchased equipment as opposed to purchasing new equipment. Is that correct?

It's to backfill uh the overtime expense, but it's to purchase and update this equipment. This is equipment we we currently use, but you know, helmets and ballistic equipment typically have a you know, five year shelf life. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Um, I do have a list and I know who's next, but keep your put your hand up really high if you think you're on it because a lot of these See, this is how you know someone's been on council for more than like a couple months because the hands are high so I can see them. Don't everyone try to copy Deandini with his little like little wave to me. He He's earned that wave. Um, all right. Next is all the persons Schvvetsz and Kirby and then others.

Thank you. My answer was or my question was mostly answered but um I wanted to ask so when a grant like this is provided um was IPD given like a list of applicable technology and these were the things identified from that list that we needed or were requesting?

Yes, there's with the grants uh there is things that can be purchased. There's things that cannot be purchased. Things like vehicles, guns, ammunition, you know, there's there's specific things you can't purchase. These are things that our team commander has identified as essential based on like I said the the life of equipment uh when things expire. Uh so these are things that you know we're going to be looking to purchase regardless of use of the grant to protect the officers. Thank you.

I'm going to I have a lot of folks and I have you all but I'm going to quickly recognize myself because this might ameliate some of your concerns. Um, first of all, this is federal money that passes through New York State Dishes, Division of Homeland Security. Secondly, a term of the grant, which want to be clear, the letter from the commissioner, not a grant term, just a letter. Um, the my understanding, and I will preamble enough so that the city attorney can attempt to wrap her mind around my wanderings. Um, if the grant might require some of the things that some of y'all are concerned about and we just choose not to do that because under the 10th amendment, we're not required to be an adjunct to federal law enforcement action, we would just invalidate the grant, worst case scenario, and owe the dishes and the federal government as a consequence of that $75,000. conditional on what I'm saying. Yeah,

I believe so. So, conditional on what I'm saying being correct, which is conditional. Um, if we were asked to do something we didn't want to do, we could just say no. And the worst thing that would happen would be give we'd give we'd be in breach of grant agreement and have to give the money back. That seems correct. I've never been in this situation. I would counsel you after thinking about it very thoroughly. I will try phrasing that one more uh way, which is, can the federal government compel our law enforcement officers to do something? No. Groovy, thank you. I don't know if there was more to sorry.

No, no, that was the end of the that was the end of the question. Um, great. Now, with that, uh, Miss Mtos, you're next. Thank you, mayor. Um, so I guess my question is what is the rationale behind applying for the tactical team grant especially when reimagining public safety initiatives has called for the removal of our SWAT team and these other essentially I don't want to use the word harmful but uh essentially other militar thank you for militarized um tactics and methods util ized by the police department.

There's a lot of conversations that have come out of reimagine, a lot of really meaningful, thoughtful conversations. At one point there was a slogan of defund the police that kind of fell flat on its face and we realized the essential or necessity that it is to have strong relationships with the community that the police are caring about the business of the community and working to enhance community safety in ways that each community supports uh their police department. There's a reason why I mean a few years back there was also a call for a national police force. That would have been a great idea. There's a reason why we don't have a national police force because the founding fathers didn't have trust in the federal government operating as a whole. They gave that power to each community to police their communities as as guided by their communities. And so when we talk about reimagine, there's a lot of things that came out of reimagine uh public safety in the city of uh Eithica. There's been a tremendous amount of work done around building out our outreach programs, building out the lead program, building out the care teams, bringing a new program with a violence interrupter, doing an overdose response and recovery initiative uh and work and develop a uh a roots program to bring everything together and to really truly provide uh deflective uh police services or deflective away from police services, harm reduction. But at the end of the day, like there are still people regardless of whether they're bad, whether they're evil, or whether they're just caught up in a bad situation in trauma where we need to have the additional resources to make sure that we can provide safety for the officers, for the community and, you know, the public at large. So, I mean, it's it's something that I mean, I'd love to stick my head in the sand and pretend that everything's always nice, but unfortunately, that's just not the case.

I know we've had a lot of conversations and we'll continue to have conversations around this, but we we have done a tremendous amount of work around reimagine and we're committed to continuing that work. Yeah.

Thank you. And I agree that you guys, the the department has done amazing work around reimagining public safety. And I think I just wish that the the time spent on searching for grants like this could also be spent to support to and to continue to support those efforts around reimagining public safety, especially during budget time when we're having tough conversations about which armed responder programs and which outreach programs to fund and to not fund. And here we go. We have a $75,000 grant opportunity in front of us for a tactical grant. And then in the memo are is are told that if we do not decide to fund this grant that you guys will go ahead and still include include these items in your budget which I do not appreciate. Um thank you.

Seed money came from the give program to start the violence interrupter. We recently applied for an officer victim services grant to bring around additional services. We have been in con in constant communication around how to bring more money in to support the roots program. So there are many other grants that have been in the works and unfortunately we don't choose the grants that we get accepted for Mr. Trumble.

Uh thank you chief for coming. Um I do think too for the budget implications part that might have been talking about because we have to pay that back fill of OT already. So I didn't know for sure that's how I had interpreted it. Um the one the most confusing part here or maybe not confusing but what do small unmanned aerial systems to deescalate high-risisk encounters entail? Like are these weaponized drones? Are they more just like for um for you your guys ability to like survey a scene? Um cuz I was pleased that everything else wasn't really like weapons so to speak and more just ways to keep officers safe. Um, but that one I was just kind of trying to like Google it and there's a bunch of different versions. So, just didn't know if you knew that specifically.

So, this grant and like I said with with the guns and and certain things, weaponized equipment is something that it's not authorized to be used for. And these drones are specific for uh cameras, sound, communicating uh with people. So we're not sending officers into a situation where we do uh escalate to an force encounter where we can actually see what's what's happening inside of the structure. Yeah, that makes total sense. Thank you, Mr. Ke.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I just sent everybody uh the updated this year uh general grant requirements to the Department of Homeland Security uh section IX communication and cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Officials for all grants uh from the Department of Homeland Security. All recipients and other recipients of funds under this award must agree that they will comply with the following requirements related to coordination and cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Officials. The first two are pretty legal uh mumbo jumbo which I think we already apply uh comply with. And section C is that they will honor requests for cooperation such as participation in joint operation, sharing of information or request for short-term detention of an alien pursuant to a valid detainer. A jurisdiction does not fail to comply with this requirement merely because it lacks the necessary resources. Section D that they will provide access to detainees such as when an immigrant officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien. and section E that they will not leak or otherwise publicize the existence of an immigration enforcement operation. Uh it goes on for a while. This is updated last year uh was not in the Biden version. Um I think for me pretty uh pretty cut and dry. Can't vote for this. Sorry, Chief. I'm happy to consider it as a budget amendment and probably will vote for it then.

Mr. S. Yeah, I mean I just want to reiterate what the mayor was saying. Uh we can't be compelled to do anything. It's this is pretty set uh legal precedent in the 10th amendment. Um we can break our contract uh and we should break our contract if that happens. Um I think that um the IPD just lost a tool that they really liked uh and they felt was very useful for them. Um I understand that there are situations that arise where people get put into risk and I think as um older person trouble pointed out a lot of these have to do with basically protecting people. I I I'm not familiar with un unmanned aerial systems but I do know that occasionally in standoffs we try to use nonhumans to do some um you know negotiating or something to try to limit the amount of harm that people are receiving. So, um, I'm I'm definitely going to support this. Mr. Kirby,

I'm going to ask a dumb question. Yes, we Yeah. And maybe Katherine I if we say yes we're using 10k for training 65k for the materials the product. Uh would we only owe 10k if we just mailed them the helmets and the shields and the drones in the event we were in violation of the grant. Bingo. Probably not. But

is it possible to get a copy of the grant? I don't see that in the materials and that's probably why I'm mumb I am the mum mumbler jumbler

related to that. I mean I'll just I'll just sort of reclaim for a moment. Um I think an important interaction point for us to understand. Um first of all I appreciate and I forwarded to the uh acting city attorney. Um, I appreciate these terms and conditions being shared. These are for fiscal year 2025. We are in fiscal year 2027, I believe, for the federal government. Uh, I I appreciate that that's probably the most recent version that's available. I'm just don't know. But the other the interaction piece that I'm concerned about is this is a subawward from New York State. Now, I recognize that what Mr. Keel has shared with us says that this obtains through flow down to subreients unless a term or condition specifically indicates otherwise. I might be interested to know if we could get a timely opinion from the attorney general's office as to what they would do in the event that we were that there was an attempt to hold us to comply with some of these terms and conditions given that they run contrary to what state policy is. Um, and I don't I no, not I don't think I know for a fact that nobody at this table knows the answer to that question right now. Um, so I want to appreciate what council has as a concern here because while I am fairly confident uh that being in violation of the terms and conditions of a grant award typically just means you give back the money and we can't be compelled to do anything. um if it would make my colleagues feel better. What I might suggest is that given that this is not

this is not a special meeting of the common council for this item, right? The intention was for this to be referred out of committee to be adopted in April. What I'm going to do at this time is call for is look for a motion to uh refer I I'll recognize you in one second, Chief. Um uh I'll look for a motion to refer this to next week's committee meeting. Um and hope in that intervening week we can get a copy of both the grant agreement in in detail as well as ideally an answer from the attorney general's office about what they would do in the event that a sort of uh problematic provision were to be invoked. Is there a is there a specific motion to my Mr. Keel is moved. Is there is there a second? Mr. Kirby has seconded. We can discuss. Chief, I'll recognize you and then and then Mr. Britzio and then and then others. We we received the original letter back in August first. And this is this was supposed to go on a meeting last month that was pushed back. We received an email when we were expediting to get it to that meeting that, you know, basically asking, are we utilizing this money? Are we forfeiting? Uh I'm looking through the email here quick just to see what date that that was. Um I mean realistically at the end of the day for the dollar amount that we're talking we we know what happens. We don't comply with grants. We didn't get this grant last year because of another another program that didn't report the use of their money in a timely fashion. Uh I have no problem saying no that this grant is not and our team is not going to be deployed to do immigration services. I believe the sheriff has been very clear about his intention uh on you know his you know what his requirement is to to work with immigrations. So I mean I'd hope that we'd be able to to move this forward and and move on with city business.

I I completely understand that, Chief, and I I think m correct my understanding if I'm wrong here, but again, this is a special meeting so that council can vote on something that may come out of executive session this evening. This was intended to be a regular committee meeting when these items were put on our agenda. I do appreciate that we received this letter in August. I'm sure there is a very good reason as to why we were not able to move it forward until now. Um, but given that this was otherwise intended to be a committee meeting for a final vote in April, my contention is that moving this just a week to get clarity on this and some council members may still be unsatisfied and council may still decide to adopt or not. I don't I don't want to prejudge the outcome, but I don't think this materially impacts what the planned deadline prior to two days ago was um when we set the agenda uh last Wednesday. Um but I do appreciate and I will I will ensure that we will not push it any further and we will get the department a a final answer uh of course it will have to be actually adopted in April but a final answer uh by next week. um Miss Fabitzio and then Mr. Keel and then Mr. Trumble.

Yeah, I was going to just ask if we had the luxury of of putting it off. Um so the question is just like when is when are we supposed to give an answer by if we know that? Probably October of 2025 just knowing how federal grant response timelines tend to work. So I think we'll fall into the classic beg forgiveness not permission category. So, having having done the um little training exercise up on South Hill, older person just just

No, no, no, no. Ju just cuz just cuz I I love to be able to remember to do we're speaking on the motion of moving this to the agenda for next week, not the material substance of the actual resolution. Mr. Keel,

um I would just um I would just encourage people to to support this. I I understand that there are um you know it it might jeopardize the grant funding uh for us to push this a week. I I think it's you know happened to line up on on a special meeting and so that's why we're even considering voting on something we've never discussed before. Um that said, I also don't think that we should be in a position where like like if we are in violation of the grant terms, right? We're basically making a commitment to add $75,000 to the the potential to add $75,000 to the city budget. And I think that should be the real consideration if we're if we're thinking it that way. And in order to do that, I think we need

steering us back towards the motion to Yep. I know.

I just want to be consistent with all the person for Britzio. Um, in order to do that, I think we need the full information and and I I think, you know, I've obviously sent around the standard terms, which I just checked anything after fiscal year 2025. These are the updated and most current. Um, it says on the website, this is what you should use. Um, and I would love to see if there's a provision in the New York State contract that says we're not we're not in these. Um, but until I have that information, I don't want to take a vote on this. Um, because it could easily mean that we're just going to add another $75,000 to the budget without real discussion on it, assuming that we won't have to pay it. M. Drum. Um yeah, I mean I I definitely think it would be useful to have this extra week. One thing, Chief, um that I think would be interesting would be to see if because I know at one point Tomkins County was getting u money from the Department of Homeland Security through the cyber security grant program and Sheriff Osborne um would have you know violated the terms of this um and I don't think lost any grant. So, it could be worth reaching out to him um because I mean it seems to me like yeah basically you know hopefully he could maybe give some clarity onto this.

All right, seeing no further hands on this motion. All those in favor of the motion to refer this to committee next week. Those opposed very confused carries 10 to one with all the person for Britzio against. Wait, it's fine.

All right. May I have someone summarize and move what I think is a much more straightforward resolution, the intermunicipal agreement between the city of Syracuse and the city of Ithaca. Mr. Keel, I'll move that one. This uh establishes a 5-year uh intermal cooperation agreement between the city of Ithaca and Syracuse. Um it's got a lot of great provisions in there that make sure our officers are getting compensated uh fairly. Um I'm happy to see that you put this together, chief, and and thank you for doing the work on this. And is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Kirby. Um and then uh I'll turn it over to questions. I'll just start with Chief. This is just memorializing an existing informal partnership that already exists. Correct. Yes. Okay. Uh Miss Mtos,

um is there a reason why it's Syracuse Police Department? Just being that they're an hour hour away and it seems like a lot of the reasons why we would call one another are very urgent matters that an hour can make can definitely be make a difference on. Yes. And and Syracuse is a uh department that we have a long-standing relationship with from academy training to uh co- uh tactical response training. Uh we have been called to assist them for planned events. They have come down here. Uh most recently a subject from Courtland uh committed a homicide, came back to his residence in Topus County. our team was was activated. Uh you know the equipment we we don't have uh the armor that's required really to negotiate with somebody that's armed with in that capacity. So what that equipment does and them bringing down their their bear cat gives us the opportunity to communicate establish you know rapport and you know ultimately lead to a a in this situation a peaceful outcome. Any further questions on this item? All those in favor? Those opposed? That carries 823. Um, thank you, Chief. Thank you. Uh we'll turn to the city manager's report which we of course received last week and had an opportunity to review but we also had a 4 and a half hour meeting so we punted this discussion to this week. Um I will uh I will blank on what I was trying to say. I will I think I was about to recognize you in the middle of a sentence. Um I will look for questions from uh colleagues and I will not um uh

I think the city manager can provide um specific personnel related things in his executive session briefing uh which is forthcoming. Uh Miss Fitzio and Miss Monttos.

Thank you so much for for the information Dominic. I really appreciate it. Um I want I have two totally unrelated topics. I just two questions to ask. Um, I wanted to better understand um about FEMA and what our involvement is at this point in the um in the fight to to against the against the map. So, I'm specifically wondering what the our federal representatives like what is our involvement with our federal representatives? How are we how are we tapping them to get them to help advocate for us? So, I I I'll I'll have the city manager address the first half of your question. Um the latter half about federal advocacy. Um that is something that my office was handling. Um and the guidance after many conversations with senators Jillbrand Schumer and uh Congressman Riley is that we really have no choice but to go through the conditional letter of map revision. um that there isn't a political cure to uh the issue at hand. Um and the LMER issue or the Clomr is directly related to the first half of your question which I will I will let the city manager respond to. In between other questions, I'm going to search for a document so that I don't uh misspeak and I wish uh Adam was still here from superintendent of public works uh because he has been our primary point of contact working through the letter of map res revision uh process. I believe that we received the requested extension on some of our um documentation related to that which would be sort of good news for what we've been what we've been looking to do. Um, but it'll take me a second because there's a lot of emails in my inbox with FEMA. And I just I don't want to misspeak on Adam's behalf since he's been technically more deeply involved in that process and I think that we can expect um other

decisions related to the letter of map provision um you know soon is what I've been told recently. So, the the we've been granted an extension is on the use of our our money and being able to hold um for when we're ready to use the uh grant money that the city has been re uh has been granted by the federal government. But on the um on the end around the letter of map provision, I think we should anticipate some answers from the government on that sooner rather than later. I wish I had a more of a direct timeline for you and No, that's fine. I can get that. Is there um is the process like is there a I don't know how do they do it? Is there like a hearing or is it all just written materials submitted?

May I interject please?

Um very good question. Um there was a review of the technical documentation on the basis of the materials that we submit. Um, I would, uh, note that, um, city manager Rekio and I have been discussing a number of briefings for council, like the one we had tonight about snow. One of the ones that is in the scheduling and planning phase is an update on the flood map issue specifically. And so, these are certainly good questions. I encourage you to ask them, but like I think we're just not quite prepared on the administration side to answer those right now. Glad to hear it's it's on the agenda at some point. Um and then I just specifically wanted to ask um with regard to the roots planning that's underway. Um just I wanted to ask what the involvement of IPD is in the groups that are meeting at this point.

Uh thank you. I've given some detail to this in the past. So I'll reiterate some answers that I think I've I and I want to make sure that the public and council knows this. Um the Ithaca Police Department is intimately involved in the planning around the uh community responder unit. Um I in the leadup to the kickoff meeting that will occur next week for internal city staff. I've requested from Chief Kelly directly whom from his team he would like to have at the table. I believe there will be at least chief, deputy chief, sergeant and lieutenant invited to that meeting. So that's uh four different ranks within IPD specifically. Um and I'll note that that's that's more than any number of staff members in other divisions. So I just want you to know how how seriously we're taking their involvement. I see the area for their direct uh insights to be provided are around policies and procedures um when people are on the scene or other types of response activities. that's an area that they have uh uh very many insights that can be uh sort of embedded into that documentation as it gets developed. I will also say in the resolution that you passed related to setting up the um the roots program, it instructs me to to put at least a representative of Ithaca Police Department on the search committee uh along with community representatives from at least two community representatives. um the community justice center and the deputy city manager.

Yes, M. Schvettz. Um is there an approximate timeline for when that search committee is going to start and end?

Excellent question. So, uh related to how we're standing up the uh community responder unit that we're labeling roots responders offering outreach, trust, and support. The first step that we have to take is to draft the job descriptions related to setting up that search committee. So we will have representatives from the human resources department at that internal kickoff and we will have a crossf functional group including for example uh Travis uh from the lead program Lesl from GK uh who also you know involved in the lead program since that's through GK the Ithaca fire department um the Ithaca police department our grants administrator I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others who are going to be at that information technology community engagement few others at that table really trying everyone to see this as a unique opportunity to stand up a new division and we may have one of my goals is to have sort of a subgroup peel off of that initial kickoff and help the initial drafting of those job descriptions led by human resources. They will then score those positions, bring them back to council for the normal adding of positions to rosters. So you will all have that to look at at some point this year um and approve and have discussion on and and then we will get to the posting of the positions. So um I I am hopeful that we are able to get those positions posted um sometime in the third quarter of this year. That's my hope. I don't know what other crises will sort of come about and and move meetings from one place to another, but that's my that's my goal is that we'll be able to post it and and fill them um in that time and and have people operating on the roots team by the end of the year.

Mr. Dini beaten to the punch by Alder person. Thank you, Dom. Yeah, Miss Moss. Um just wanted to offer the public safety advisory group in any capacity that you might um need um and the team might need during this time of developing the roots program. That is a great idea. We'll come to you for initial feedback on things. I think that's excellent. Thank you, Mr. Su.

One second. I lost the document. Um I I it was really interesting in here um that your report on the um Oh, I'm so sorry. the parking um what are those things called? Um no um the the things that people downtown wanted. So you go in the validation.

Yeah, the validation and the survey on the validation. It sounded like it wasn't, you know, universally desired. And so I was just curious um what you you know what are you guys thinking about that? Thank you. Last Thursday our commons permit coordinators who are in the department of information and community engagement um myself and Nan from the CEO of the downtown ethical alliance. We met uh to to specifically discuss the results of the survey and how we might move forward with the validation program. Um, and so it's not something that we want to say no to, even though the survey results don't point to it being a strong interest of um, community businesses sort of helping to subsidize the cost. Uh but what we did want to offer was make sure since it is a priority of the DIA to make sure that the ball was in their court to help us design a program that they may actually as the downtown alliance participate in helping set up the the sort of subsidy for the that parking that would come back to the city. Um I think with the validation program we entered that conversation really thinking about the consumer the the customer for the business. But one thing that we've learned through the DIA and some um other stakeholders, and the survey didn't quite bear this out to the way we hear, but I still think it's important to recognize, is there are several um sort of businesses who have staff that they'd really like to do some of that validation work for. So, I don't know exactly how that program will will finally roll out, but we've invited the Downtown Ithaca Alliance to help set up the parameters around it. Um and I think Nan will come back to us with a sort of smart proposal on how to do that. and our team will spend um the appropriate amount of time building it based on community interest. If we had all 59 of those respondents say yes, we want to do this, the city would likely have put

significant resources toward making it happen. Um but in this case, it was just a lower response, positive response than we expected, so we'll invite the DIA to sort of lead or co-lead that with us.

Thank you. And I that's a really smart approach. And then I think I remember the college folks talking about possibly doing a similar sort of thing with the whatever the name of that group is. Um are you guys going to look into that as well? Possibly. It's absolutely something that we are willing to look into. Um I think once we learn some of the things from the downtown parking experience, we can then apply them more thoroughly to College Town. It's two very different Yes. Uh parking ecosystems. So, I'm still learning one of them and and we'll we'll apply some of that there. I think we also have a natural partner in the business improvement district who's operating as an advocate. Doesn't mean we don't get advocacy from the Collegeown Community Collective or or others um in that area, including older persons. Um and I think it's important to make sure that the parking experience in Collegetown is a better one. So, I hope that we're able to take several of the items we're doing on parking and then reapply those in College Town as well. Um, so that's on our on our radar, but it's uh it's moving forward at a different pace due to this nature of having a business improvement district downtown with a squeakier wheel, I think, perhaps.

Thanks, Mr. Ritzio. Yeah. Can I just ask two more things about since we're on parking? Sure. Um

I wanted I've heard from a number of residents just in the last couple weeks that um they've noted that they've gone into the parking garages and the lever is up all the time and I'm just wondering, you know, we have we the last um our former city city manager was filling some holes in the budget with with increased parking and I'm just I'm worrying about how much parking we're missing collection of at the moment and I'm just wondering what the plan is for remedying the situation.

Thank you. That concern is frequently top of mind because I also received those complaints. So I'll tell you a little bit about what has been done on that. We have parking lot attendance um at each of those sort of gate houses that exist within the garages and uh sometimes we have some staffing issues uh in terms of if someone calls out sick there's not an easy way to backfill all of those positions and the systems work best when someone is in the gate house and we uh I have asked our team to continue to look into how we can keep them staffed as robustly as possible throughout all active parking uh times people are entitled to breaks as well that don't get covered. So sometimes the gates are up during someone's uh break time that they will use um one of our employees break time. Uh and additionally there are times when this is just an example of something that might happen based on uh a recent recent experience. Part of the system at the Senica Street garage may be broken and require two staff members to work on it. So knowing that the Dryen Road garage sees less individuals sort of leave during the daytime hours uh leave the parking garage because usually they come in the morning and leave at night. So the midday traffic isn't as high coming out. They will reassign someone for a 15 or 30 minute block to leave the Dryen Road garage, leave the gate up because it has to be manned, come down to fix the Senica Street garage, and then go back up to Dryen Road. Um, I will also say I've asked our director of parking operations um about this specific issue as we were exploring a new revenue system that sort of is all this technology and he indicated to me as recently as uh late January that we're receiving at least 95% of expected revenues. I continue to remind him of that statement and sort of set the

expectation that we should be uh meeting that when we hear that the gates are up. I'll also add that I think we hear those complaints anytime a gate is up and I don't always have the information of how long is it is up, how long it has been up. So sometimes I do a little sort of soouththing when I hear the the concern from someone and I find out an answer that's acceptable in terms of someone's break or other things that we can't cover for. So it's a multi-part question. I'm trying to understand that issue well because we need to capture those revenues and provide a consistent experience across everyone. We need people the costs to be equitable across all people who are using the city services. Um but there are a lot of complications across technology and staffing that uh change quite frequently.

Yeah. No, it sounds like uh you know just one of many areas where we need some like we need cross capacity you know community service officers or other you know being able to pull people from other from other places um to be able to solve some of that. And my other my other question that I just wanted to ask is also about parking and it just has to do with um parking garages as I I think that there's still a lot of lights out in um at the Senica Street garage and there other issues with the other garages and I'm wondering um how we're doing toward improving the state of the parking garages.

Thank you. Uh I am looking across with several key staff members. I'm certainly not don't want to indicate that I'm doing this on my own. I'm working across um all of the different capital assets and projects that the city has ongoing and trying to sort of assess where do things live, how much money are left in certain projects, what projects are, how far into completion, um what repair work would be sort of normally done through different parts of the budget so that I can best understand when we receive a complaint about a light exactly how to direct the work to get that light fixed. So, um, that's work that's ongoing. Uh, each garage, I think, is a very different story. And I know that's um I don't mean that to sort of wave a responsibility for applying the we need to improve across all of the garages, but each one is sort of its own has its own user base, is in a different location, um is used more frequently or less frequently. Um has different lights or different materials that go into them or different neighboring properties or construction. Um so it's like a I could give that answer four different ways. And I can also say on the Senica garage, uh, council will be receiving a specific update related to that property in the coming um coming months directly from staff. All right, with that any questions? Just want to make it explicit. Um, we are also discussing the financial reporting for the month. So if there are any questions, there doesn't have to be, but if there are any questions, please, Mr. Um, I just I just wanted to I said this uh last time too, but I just wanted to thank you again for taking the time to put all this together. Um, I know uh putting a report like this together takes some time. So, um, thank you.

I just want you to understand how meaningful it is to have a a city administrator who's who's giving us a lot of information. I'd like to extend that thanks to Wendy and Jamie for their efforts helping to pull this together. And I know it can feel like there's a lot in that first meeting of the month. Even if we have the Q&A in a second or third meeting, I I feel that the financial report is important for you to have when you're voting on items. So even if we don't discuss it, you should have that information in front of you uh when you're being asked to vote on items related to city operations.

Just one comment about Thank you. Thank you, Wendy, uh, for it's really like such a an improvement in the um, in the reporting and it's it is really appreciated. All right, with that we have an Could I just add the the financial the audit um, update timeline update,

please? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, one item that um is more recently come up since I submitted the report is you'll remember that the Bonado group that we have contracted to work on our financial and reporting cleanup. They have prepared for us as part of that contract our draft uh request for proposals for audit firms to conduct future audits for the city. in that I want I want you to be aware in this setting before that RFP is published so that you understand the timeline that Bonado is proposing for upcoming audits to be completed. This is not a hard and fast absolute. What this is is their their projection based on the information that they know. So they're indicating um and the city will then be doing so when we when we issue this audit um the sort of initial expectation with the interest of doing it faster uh to the firm who would sort of be the successful uh respondent to the RFP that the 2022 audit would be completed by December of this year 2026. The 2023 audit would be completed by April 30th, 2027. The 2024 audit would be completed by December 2027. The 2025 audit would be completed by April of 2028. And I can send this after in writing so you don't have to scribble the notes down. Um I think this will probably be something that's reported in the news as well because um people are very interested in this. Um, and again, it may change and we're interested in as aggressive of a timeline as possible. So, 2025 audit complete by April 2028, 2026 audit complete by July of 2028, and the 2027 audit complete by December of 2028.

Thank you very much. We'll now be taking questions on this. We'll get a copy of the RFP to you. You haven't seen it yet, so you can't you can't even know what will be addressed yet in those. Plus, we have four executive sessions. So um with that we are going to have one that we have a prospective voting item coming out of and that will be the first one which is I am going to entertain a motion enter into executive session to um discuss a personnel matter. Uh Miss Moss, Mr. Su your hand is up so you're seconding the motion. All those in favor of entering into executive session those opposed that carries 10 to one. Uh, we'll be right back, folks.

May I have a motion to exit executive session? Moved by Mr. Trumbull, seconded by Mrs. Miss Moss. All those in favor of exiting executive session. That carries I've been recording all these votes wrong all evening. Deputy clerk, I hope you have caught that cuz Mr. Shapiro is not here. Um, that carries with Margaret not in the room. So 90. Um, Mr. Kirby. No, it's a it's a it's a it's a she's not in the room, so it isn't recorded at all. Um, may I have a I'll I guess normally what I do is just do this myself. Um there is a resolution uh resolved that the common council hereby approves a salary grade adjustment for the director of planning and development from grade 11 to grade 12 as recommended by the human resources department. And be it further resolved that the city controller is authorized to make any necessary budget modifications to implement this salary grade adjustment. And be it further resolved that this adjustment shall take effect today and shall imply to the incumbent and any future appointees to the position. Is there a second? Mr. Defendini, all those in favor, that carries uh unanimously nine to zero with Miss Fbritzio absent and Mr. Shapiro absent. Um now we're going to go into more executive sessions, but there will not be a voting item. So, we will thank the deputy clerk once she finishes recording this vote. Uh, and I will both entertain a motion to enter into executive session followed by immediately followed by a fivem minute recess. Um, you don't even know what for yet. Uh, to discuss is this the public safety one?

We're going to have several. Uh, but personnel will be the first per. So to discuss the personnel issue moved by Miss Moss, seconded by Mr. Trumbull. All those in favor. Now we've passed by eight because we're just bleeding council members. Uh we are in executive session and we