Common Council - Regular Meeting

all right good evening everybody it is uh 7 p.m on august 3rd and i'm calling this caucus to order um so we don't have such a long agenda for this evening but we're going to start with resolution 119

THIS IS ESTABLISHING A TRAFFIC CALMING CAPITAL FUND AS AUTHORIZED BY GENERAL MUNICIPAL LAW FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENHANCING PEDESTRIAN SAFETY BY DETERRING DANGEROUS DRIVING. I WANT TO THANK COUNCILMEMBER MARISSA MARVALLE FOR INTRODUCING THIS AND I THINK THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE SOME DISCUSSION ABOUT IT TONIGHT IN RELATION TO THE AMOUNT THAT'S IN THE FUND AND POSSIBLY INGREASING IT. SO WOULD YOU LIKE TO?

SO I WANT TO THANK EVERYBODY FOR helping give this proposal this far. I believe most of you have hopefully had a chance to look at your inboxes today and see my communication with Comptroller Chewy about the capital reserve fund and that it does not go away at the end of the year. It continues on to the next question. So we don't have to worry about spending all the funds in one year. And we can allocate funds as we see fit. And also that... that the school safety traffic cameras, these cameras, sorry, have bought in about $350,000, which are $250,000 that we budgeted for this year. So I would like to amend our resolution to increase the amount of allocation appropriation for the new capital reserve fund to $200,000. Andrew? I'm going to read

Iterate what I mentioned about the committee. Is there still no appetite to just say all profits, probably the revenue that we gain from that, all of it goes to this fund? Yeah. Why shouldn't it? Well, that's what I'm asking. I mentioned that at the committee meeting, and I think we were just maybe being a little conservative. We didn't know what.

What the amount, how many tickets would be actually be paid?

If we could word it in a way where it's wherever, you know, whatever we get should go to this fund is what I would advocate for.

I'm going to say I would support that because we can't, if we name an amount and they don't get to that, well, I think that seems like it.

Michael? The only thing that we caution is that we budgeted a certain amount and that was revenue going towards our general fund. So for $220,000 or much we budgeted for in the 2026 budget, we may have to drop our contingency and go for any shortfalls because it was first going into the general fund to just pay for operational expenses in the city. So that would be my only caution. I would be totally in favor of putting everything beyond the original budget.

And then could we, maybe for 2026, change that and say everything? 2027. Yeah, some of you will be fine.

How much did we spend on the 50K that we put up two years ago? Did we spend it all? Is there some left? My memory is we didn't spend it.

Yeah, we bought a bunch of signs. I think that there was, the last time I asked, which was a while ago, there was still funds left, but I'm not positive that that is still the answer.

We didn't create a shortfall of $50,000.

We did not.

So I'm with Michael. I think anything above what we budgeted for a certain amount, anything above that should go to the book.

Just a point of information, the point of the capital reserve fund is that the mayor would need to come out, come to us to ask for that, to draw funds for that. And since I've been here, that hasn't come up from the original fund.

That wasn't a capital reserve fund, no. That was just part of the capital project through budget season that we set aside $50,000. That was $200,000.

Could somebody refresh my memory on what exactly the money is going to go for?

I know that the 50 went for speed humps, went for feedback signs, stuff like that. Stuff that he couldn't, stuff that he didn't have budgeted, that he wanted to calm down traffic. So I gave him a high-level drop. I just want to put it out there for clarity.

You have a list, yes, Marissa, from Complete Streets of Life Ideas. Yeah.

And I know it's in Communication for the Finance Committee in July.

It's an impact rate of sight for time, too.

Yes. Richard? I'm in favor of providing funds from what's already been budgeted for this year, for this year, and then using all of it for next year and future years, whatever we've got in it to go to traffic on capital projects.

And this is totally like remitted funds already. Like these funds have been remitted

we have at the moment. Yes. We expect this is going to drop off.

Yes.

Theoretically, it's not going to be half a million. That's the goal. Right.

I agree. I agree with the plan. I expect the funds will drop off, and that's why I feel like this fund needs to capture them now so that we have money to do these traffic calming projects.

So get back to the question of you know what sort of improvements we're talking about in the initial idea i think still the idea is uh quite easy to implement strategies that we can see have an immediate impact that are uh you know the danger of intersections especially those in the school zone and broadway in light of um what happened over the weekend even though yes that's seems like no bank signal is going to stop that vehicle from sliding into the pedestrian, but still Broadway has been problematic.

This is a question in terms of how the money is and what the priorities are. I seem to remember reading in the memo from Complete Streets, they were talking about or it was a reference to another community setting up sort of just a review commission that would make priorities or would we decide as a as a committee, what the priorities are from the fund as they come up to it. So that's the question is what would, how would we determine how the money's spent when there are unlawful priorities?

Well, part of the nervous system resolution had the, you know, who follows our normal traffic. And it just has engineering and PPW. Okay. So we would know, and with the advisory.

With the advisory. Yeah. Yeah.

But it would be driven largely, yeah, it would be put forward by the police chief, by the council, yeah. Perfect.

Thank you. But the money for the higher crossing guards cannot be in the fund? Like, if we wanted to allocate money, that would have to be in the general fund. Correct.

I would take the position that it should be done by the engineer and the DPW people, You know, we're not the experts. You know, we don't want, you know, we want them to be, we want to make sure that what they do is effective. You know, when we did Stefan and we did the speed and upside gauge, we did it with data. We, you know, we recovered how fast people were going. I mean, you know, it's a careful process that doesn't result in a mistake, which we don't want, you know, we don't want that. We don't want people out there just kind of doing stuff because we think it's a good idea.

Mm-hmm.

I think you should stick with our policy.

Michael? To just add to that, anytime that they want to draw money from these funds, that requires council approval, so we will have some oversight of the projects that are chosen. They would come to us with projects, and we would say, yes, that's a good use of the funds, or no, that's not a good use of these funds. That's the advantage of a restricted reserve fund.

Okay, so what is the amount we should vote on for 2020?

So, I would use language, it was $200,000 in the budget that's going to the general fund. I would say anything, if I could please jump in if I'm saying it incorrectly, but anything, any revenue that is over $200,000 budgeted for 2026 would go towards this And then in 2027, is everybody good for all revenue from the speed signs going towards the fund?

So is that the 2027 allocation need to be in this resolution now? Are they planning on the 2027 budget that they're being aligned

Is it already planned?

We don't know that yet. The budget isn't there.

We haven't been presented with the budget. So I think this is important because it tells the administration what the council wants out of this money, because otherwise if we wait and there's a line, I think this just shows our intentions. Yeah. Yeah.

So I would make the resolution indicate.

Great. Tara? So I do have one question, Bob, related to what you guys said earlier about involving DBW and engineering. What would be the impact on their activities? Like would it end up costing them more? They should be on the chart. Right, so would it come out of these laws?

But, yeah, so, I mean, yes and no, but it's still, we know DPW is short-staffed. It's not a secret. But they could still use it as in-kind, but you don't think that they're short-staffed?

No, I know they're short-staffed. It's not what I'm saying. I'm just, my gears are spinning here, because once you bring this policy into effect, this resolution passes, okay, you're going to need somebody to maintain it. So, you know, the thought process that I'm having right now is, you know, is there room to add a dedicated person from the DPW on to something like that, Mike?

We can't add staff.

Right.

We can't. And I think that's something that we should talk about during the budget season is to add staff where we think, you know, some departments need it. And, you know, DPW is short staff. But we also talk to the committee. the committee meeting, Tyrell, that we are aware of the short-staff issues, and so we don't, like, we're just going to pick the stuff that might not be as big of a problem for them, because we don't want to create more work and pull them from other work, because yes, we could use it as in-kind, but that still doesn't save, like, if they're doing something for this, they're not picking up your waste, or they're, you know, they're not doing something else when you're so short-staffed, so we're We're aware of that, and there's plenty of stuff I'm sure we could do.

But Bob is also correct because it's part of the traffic calming. Therefore, you need people to work it. So how can't they charge their time? How are they expected to take that out of the budget of the DPW where they're going to be asked to reduce it 10% right away out of the gate? And how are they going to allocate the time to go do the traffic calming work without being imbursed?

So just to clarify, the installation of the traffic calming capital thing requires labor? Correct. Okay, so that's what you're interested in.

Or even those engineers and superintendents evaluating that project beforehand.

The process that exists today, for example, we put up the feedback site, we measured how fast people were going, We determined that they, in fact, were not following the 25-mile-an-hour speed limit. We looked at the right location for the speed limit. We talked to DPW, and DPW said, okay, that's the spot. And they went and installed. So the process, you know, so you have engineering looking at, you know, what they should do, and then DPW implement it.

So can their time for that specific thing be considered part of the capital?

It can. Because there's a couple of questions. One question I have is how do they keep their time? You know, is that going to be a burden? Are we putting a burden on them about keeping their time for these projects?

Because we'll have more projects coming.

Yeah, we don't want to do that necessarily. The other piece of this is, you know, how much time is involved? You know, the speed, you know, tables are not an incredibly heavy lift for staff ones. You know, we can do it in a couple days or a day. You know, you don't want to You don't want to make it more difficult than it needs to be. That'd be my fear. So the question is, is the staff going to be significant enough to make a difference?

I think that we're kind of going too far down the rabbit hole. This is basically mirroring, not to speak for mirroring in the ways of John and the way that the city budgets the rec fund. It's like the rec fund does not mean we build more parks and that we have more staff. It just means that there's a pool of money sitting in, honestly, the same bank account as everything else. It's kind of a fiction that it's a separate fund. But all it is, it's a different pool of money to be drawn from so we don't have to bond and pay or increase tax. is and the advantage is that for us and for the public that they can't just say putting in a stop sign or a speed camera here here and here they need to come to the council and by extension public to ask us for that and that's why it's it's valuable but i think you know this turns about step time and time charging time that's all an operational kind of thing This is really just breeding the farm to ensure that there is that resource. The argument would be had at a later date. Is that project worth using the farm from?

Perhaps it would be more of an issue if it was a super time-consuming endeavor to install the speed.

It's not going to rebuild the road. And you shouldn't. These are minors, they are small.

I'll give you one example of a street improvement project we're talking about. I think it is one, but it's an example that was benefited by the Complete Street Advisory Council. It's art pavement.

What's it called?

When you paint the intersection with artistic, what is that called? Passport work? Passport work. Thank you. And that would be a great thing to have at the school intersection. It's really the gateway to the school. So, I mean, how much DPW time did that take? No, I mean, definitely an artist's time. So, kind of all of it. That's just an example. Or we could have Stansion put out corners, put outs, stuff like that.

And I also saw striping. They have striping corners, too, but you can go from parking up against the edge of the street, but back further.

So, in the same sense. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's figure out the language, please. Would this go into Section 3? Oh, we can work on this. Okay. Okay.

All right. Thank you. All right. Great. You guys are okay with that? Yeah. Just somebody sign it for motion, please.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So we'll amend it on the floor. It does not need to go back to committee.

Okay.

All right. Moving on. Resolution 120. This is requesting a transfer of funds from contingency from the fire department in the amount of $938 for ambulance vehicle maintenance.

This is unexpected maintenance to the older ambulance that we have that kind of serves as the backup. It's coming from contingency. Just as a heads up, the chief did indicate that they are looking at purchasing another ambulance. But at this time, the cost is only $9,300. I think it's a differential.

Everybody good with that? Okay, thank you. Resolution 121, this is a budget transfer from the building department to cover the expense of retirement accumulation in the amount of $20,624.60. Exactly what the title reads. Okay. Resolution 122, this is a bond ordinance in the amount of $450,000 for the grant match related to a $3,000,000 New York DASNY grant for the Albert Brown Community Center Improvement Project.

Similarly, exactly what the title says, we have a match of $300,000 that will be also provided by OCFS and will be on the hook for $450,000. I believe that next month's finance committee meeting or the month after they're gonna present on the respondents. I think the RFP is out right now. So we'll see the award.

And just so everyone knows, OCFS is Office of Children and Family Services from the state.

Can someone clarify the difference between resolution 122 and 127? There's a lot more background material in 127 than some of the actual bond?

I think they separated out the resolution. This is a grant application that requires a bond ordinance. So that's the vote for the state requires a different kind of vote for a bond ordinance versus a grant application. It's five votes to pass a grant application and six votes to pass a bond ordinance.

So just to clarify, 122 is us approving doing a bond ordinance for the grant application and 127 is approving the actual bond ordinance. Is that right? Yes. Okay.

Any further questions? Other one? Okay. Resolution 123, this is recommending approval for transfer to the 2026 Corporation Council budget.

This is to cover outside counsel, right? Right.

Yes, and we're transferring with one line from another. We're not paying any money outside of our home.

Okay, great. Resolution 124, this is requesting a budget transfer in the amount of $200 in the mayor's office to cover the expense of office supplies and travel reimbursement.

Mayor's travel law.

A resolution 125, this is authorizing to expend $31,172 from contingency to fill gaps for project budget for the New York State Zoo's Botanical Gardens and Aquarium Grant for Forsyth Nature Center Storage Building. Is this the one that came back?

Yes, this is the, we were originally going to fund this for the solar project. We're going to take it out of the REC funds. We voted last month to send it back because we didn't think that was necessarily an appropriate use of REC funds. So now it's coming out of contingency.

Annie, everyone good? Any questions? Resolution 126 is authorizing the expenditure of the City of Kingston's annual 2026-2027 New York State Department of Ships paving New York E-D-W-R Street and Pop allocation. It doesn't actually have the blue mountain. All right, but it doesn't have a bid year. It's $3,386.68. We'll take it. As well as rollover funds of $7,448,736.79. So we are flush with...

And we should use it. They are.

We like paving. Yeah, we do. Okay, then this brings us to Resolution 127 that Ruth brought up before. This is the actual bond ordinance authorizing the financing for the Alabama Community Center. So an issuance of $450,000 for bonds. And that's a long-run vote that Andrea will call everyone's Yes, this is the what public safety just voted on. It's a handicapped parking sign on Franklin Street.

Franklin Street? It was a handicapped sign. And it was everything about... It was actually your house. It's 84 Franklin.

Oh, but that's across the street, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I didn't suppose.

Yeah.

I'm having one removed. There you go, Pam. You take it for one. Okay.

So we'll start with updates of anyone for their committees, although we usually go to my left, but I'll go to the right.

Sorry. Actually, don't. I want to live well.

Listen, I don't really have anything to report back myself.

Tree Commission, I haven't, I spoke with Frank earlier in the month, in July, and he, they are making headway on forming a community advisory council to community advisory committee to move ahead with it. A new approach to providing the tree, the original ordinance, I will do anything I can to support and move that initiative ahead. And then the preservation, HLPC, Historic Wildlife Preservation Commission, issued an RFP for consultants for the city-wide historic preservation plan, which, amazingly, given how important history and historic values are to our city, the first city-wide preservation plan we've ever undertaken. And we also have the they have a good pool of candidates to serve on the Projected by 3 committee.

Thank you. I was a lay for the planning board, but Sarah and Ben attended. Thank you. And the Eastern Waterfront Goodness Association, they didn't leave this month. But I've been in touch with a lot of the businesses on an ad hoc basis. And I'm drafting with feedback from them. And we've got a different way of approving event applications so that they can provide a little bit of feedback that may agree to the benefits. Hopefully, it'll improve a little bit. That's it.

Zooming Board of Appeals. No update. Everyone slowly is unhappy. Okay. Along those lines, I did take sidewalk advisory on public hearing. Emily did a great job. She was very informative. She had nice maps. She did a very good job that night. And we've changed the date because we got rained out on the physical walk. through a couple areas there with the wheelchairs and everything. So she set a new date, and it's on your calendar, so you'll see it on the website. And if you can attend, you should come on up and attend.

So honestly, I have nothing to report this month except that I did for CFA's. So, yes, I did have a conversation with Mike Gilear, but nothing to be caught there in particular just yet. And the library, as far as I know, is still looking to open in October.

That'd be great.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Like me too, really. Thank you. Chugging along.

Oh, my goodness. The KOC did not meet last month. The Recreational Commission did meet, and I think you probably already know what was discussed at that meeting, and that's that Lindsay Timbrook is leaving. She's gone. She's left. I know. She left, but yes. She was leaving. As of the meeting, she was on. And the one thing the commission did talk about was whether they normally meet quarterly. And there was some discussion, I guess there's been past discussion, about whether they should meet more frequently. And now that Lindsay's left, the group is thinking that they'll meet in September, just to sort of figure out the transition of the issues that they want to bring to the table. And also, do they want to meet every month? Because there are a lot of issues that come up, and there are a few people who would like to meet every month, which I think would be a good idea. And then as far as the Arts Commission, the International Museum of Dinnerware Design gave a presentation. And I don't know if you've ever been there.

It's pretty cool. It's really cool. And, yeah, I mean, it's not what you would think.

You know, you think it's just going to be what's so special about dinnerware, but it's not.

There's this little room that you would pull the tablecloth out.

And do you know that I have been trained to do that until last week. And I actually did it. And it worked.

Take me two times, but I didn't.

I know.

Anyway, they have a new exhibit that's up, and they were just sort of talking about the fact that they have a three-year lease in their current space, and now one of the things they're looking at is, where do they go from here? So that came up, and there are a lot of good questions. And then there was some discussion about 61 Broadway. 16 Dogway about the deep listening set, you know, deep listening plaza, what that might look like, and the consultants from the backers were there sort of looking at where there might be mural options and what were the preferred sort of, you know, sort of sites for where there might be some public art there, so there was discussion about that and they're going to continue that discussion, but there were some good comments, so

I forgot to mention that Emily also did a listening tour at Lark Park, and it was very interesting when she came with the pickleball people and the playground people, and she had a table, and she took comments, and she did a great job there. She's got a summary of it, so it's an interesting

Yeah. When Emily will have events in your work, listening sessions or things for the parks, I promised her that I would forward it to each of the honors, the respective honors for that work.

May I just follow the question? Yes, you may. So Lauren Park, relative to the playground, there's some people I know who have asked about this. the status of the playground and that it might need upgrade? Is that something that might come up?

That came up and it was discussed and there was two or three people from the neighborhood who went there and told her that, the little kids. It's probably 20 years old, the playground equipment. It's not in horrible shape, but it should use an upgrade. And then it's got, you know, the stuff on the ground is, you know, wood chips, which is no longer... No longer recommended. You know, in the priority of park stuff, where does that fall? They're thinking about stuff, and they don't like the compost toilets, and they'll be like, that's just a little cave. They kind of smell bad. Did they take the old bathrooms down at the entrance? No, the old bathrooms are still there, but they don't use them. They use the compost ones in the pickleball. People don't seem to like them.

They might not be using them in the right way. Okay. Marissa has one more thing.

This happened after the Landlord's Commission meeting happened last week. We have our new Wilbur Homestead State Registrar of District. And Wilbur you know, definitely be listed on a national register within 30 days, which means all those bucks will be eligible for historic rehab tax credits. Nice.

Awesome. Good.

Thank you. Police Commission had a special meeting that I was able to attend. Normal meeting was canceled. I was out of town for the NBA, so I was able to attend that. But CAC, big takeaway is The Kingston Army X program is slowly becoming a thing. Buckets were delivered, still waiting on trucks, and then signage requests and lettering and all that good stuff. But the week that the buckets were delivered, 200 more people signed up, which brings the total to 870 families. So still gaining a lot of speed there. And that's all I have.

Thank you. All right, so I have a few. Well, I guess it will not be as easy as July. I did want to give a heads up on a couple of the committees that are involved. I thought it was just going to be long, nothing major on it, but it's going to be a long night. It'll bring snaps. Public safety and general government, I've been working with our district attorney, and he's going to be coming in to give a little update on his office. So that's something that we haven't done in the past. And so I'm excited for that. So if you want to partake and be there. In laws and rules, we received a, not a recommendation, but a draft of ideas from the zoning working group about best. battery energy storage system. Thank you. I'm a good liaison for the zoning working group, and I had promised them that this, to make it clear that this is not something that we're just going to pass right away, that we have to do our due diligence on this. So this will just be the beginning of the conversation I want to have, but that will be, so it will begin at Laws and Rules. Charter review. So I sent you all an email. Did you see that? So I don't have to reiterate that. I do have the flyer here right now. So I'll send that to you tonight. Actually, if anybody wants to look at it now, we also have, I dropped off the check to color page on Friday and they do have some leftover postcards. Everything went out already, but there's a leftover postcard. So I'm going to, me or Summer, we'll pick them up from the color page. And then I'll figure out with Summer how we're going to get some of these flyers posted and then distribute to you guys. I told the charter commission consultants that we would help them out by making sure that they get up in Kingston. And they gave me some ideas, but of course I gave them some ideas too. And everything else was in an email. And then lastly, one little thing, just in case... You're not sure if these little updates are helpful. Every time I talk to the department head and explain that we do this now, they think it's great that we have that little bridge between the commissions and boards and the council and the boards and the public, too, because the public probably listens to the council committee meetings or council caucus meeting more than they do the boards and commissions. So they're grateful the ones I've spoken to. And then lastly, I know that there was some, well, we all know that there was a horrific crash on Broadway. And I saw some of the emails going through. I know that there were some questions. I did speak with Chief Tindy this evening on My Kingdom Home. He didn't come here, but we shared what I can speak publicly about. The investigation, of course, is ongoing, so there's a limited update because they need their space, but I... Yeah, I'll leave it at that. I can tell you a few things. The pedestrian was crossing Broadway in the crosswalk coming from Elmendorf heading to Liberty Street. The impact was on the Liberty side of the street I want you to visualize that the driver failed to stop and the investigation is a hit and run because they didn't stay. So failed to stop at the crosswalk and then strung the pedestrian and then left the scene. The driver was heading, so obviously on Broadway, heading from Uptown to Downtown at the time. Any more information from besides that, will be released when it's appropriate. But again, because of the ongoing investigation, they haven't caught the person yet. As much as I could share, but the chief and I talked, and he will make sure that we stay connected and all sharing updates when it's appropriate. That is all I have for right now.

Any status on the person that was hit?

They're in serious condition, and I think Westchester. Yeah, sorry, I'm shaking. I'm sorry I'm ending with that. I wish I had something later, but yeah, just be careful out there and tell people to be careful driving because great consequences when you're driving in a vehicle and you don't do what you're supposed to do. And I'm grateful for you guys all for, you know, caring about traffic calming and all that so we could make the city as safe as possible. But drivers do need to be more courteous.

Yeah. So leaving the scene of an accident beyond their seat. So. Yeah. Okay. Anything else?

No, I was just trying to get something to look at. something like them okay um and everyone knows shannon payments have officially retired from sydney's service so i do have a new confidential sector with them her name is laura boy and she'll be attending tomorrow um so that she can see what um council how that operates and what that looks like in the public meeting so you all get to meet her tomorrow Great. She's lovely.

So I think it's only to be scary.

All right. If that's all, I'd like to call for a motion to adjourn. Okay. I'll stay here. Good night, Alisa.