City Council - Regular Meeting

2006. The time now is 6:03. I now call this meeting to order. Can we please all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? The clerk may now take the role. Council member Murray is absent. Council member Kavanaaugh present. Council member Rathmemell present. Council member Matavitzki present. Council member Hodkus present. Council President Dundan is absent. Council President Promp Middleton present.

Thank you. Thank you so much. We will now begin the discussion of legislation in the planning committee which chair Rathmill will be introducing RL26-116. Thank you. Council President Protemp Middleton. Sure. Should we start with 115 instead of 116? I think we're okay. Yeah. Go ahead. You okay with that, Council Hear? Okay. This is RL26-115, a resolution authorizing the purchase of 15 FET Street. And our presenter is Corporation Council Bob.

Wait, hold on one second. I think Mayor Cra's coming back. Okay. Okay. Do you want to do you want to come back to that one or wait and wait for her because we just introduced another one. Yeah, the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. Okay, go right ahead.

Sure. So the the two RLS are basically one is for purchase of the property. This is for use of the CDBG funding that was reallocated some months ago. Um and uh then one is for the lease with Bingington University for the Tubman Center to utilize that building that we will buy. A little bit about the purchase of the building. Um we did an asbesus survey. Um didn't uh identify anything that was of real concern. We're able to get St. Mary's to drop the price by 10,000, which Councilman Kavanaaugh had encouraged me to seek any uh anything that we could do. But basically, this will um allow the city to own that parcel, which is next door to our existing recreation center, create another neighborhood node in the Holly FET kind of area. Um the lease with Bingington University, which um you know, Bob can talk a little bit more about, is still in draft form. basically some legal technical uh wording has to be worked on. Um dealing with the state of New York and the ultimately attorney general's office that sets a lot of language. We don't have a lot of wiggle room, but the key business points are that uh they will be paying a dollar a year uh per lease. They will be responsible for all utilities, water, and electric as well as basic maintenance of the building. Uh it will uh go very much like our lease is with the Leearda Community Center where uh we uh are responsible for any major capital systems upgrades if the building needs a new roof, if the HVAC fails, but ongoing maintenance is done by the the the tenant, which would be Bingington University. So um Dr. Bailey said that she would be here tonight. Um she may be a little bit late but uh basically this will be for the Tubman Center to do educational programming uh to expand

their expand their footprint within the Freedom Trail which has already been established uh through the markers um provide them a lot more flexibility in terms of space. There's Dr. Bailey. Come on down. Come on down.

Yeah. I was just setting setting up the conversation. Yeah. So uh so the purchase of the building uh is the first first thing to happen and then obviously the city needs to enter into a lease agreement. A draft was provided. There will be some slight changes to that but the the key business points I just outlined uh would remain the same and I'm sure Dr. Bailey would be more than happy and I'll turn her mic on to talk a little bit about the vision for the Tubman Center at the 15 FET location. She may give me a minute. Sure.

If there's any as she gets their notes up, if there's anything from the legal or or operational standpoint on the city's end, I can answer. Well, yeah, I read through the lease and I I'm um I can see the city taking responsibility for keeping and maintaining, you know, the core of the building, the building shell, roof, etc., whatever. But, um I have not seen the interior of the building. I don't know what the layout is and and and sort of what facilities are existing there. Uh the university tends to be a little bit more used to things jued up jued up than the city.

So um I'm I'm just concerned we're putting ourselves in a place to have some capital expenditures that

we might not be ready for. I mean even you know in the discussion of in the lease of of you know electrical suitability like they're probably not running rooms full of computers and stuff out of there you know for St. Mary's Church like so does the fabric of the building or the interior of the building really meet what the Tubbin Center wants and is there room to negotiate for that or or what you know what what's our shortterm you know getting this up to up and running looking like? Yes. So the responsibilities of the city in terms of the systems will be enumerated in the lease. So plumbing, electrical, HVAC, things like uh tenant improvements or what you're talking about making the space suitable for uh the the level that Bingmpington University would want would be the responsibility of BEu and as tennis and I believe you have some grant funding that could support that. But ultimately the way that we should think about it is not that this would of course ever happen. But if if the university said at the end of it lease term, you know what, we're we have other needs. We're kind of walking away that the city's investments would kind of be able to stay with the building. And that is very similar to what we do with the Discovery Center as as well as the Leearda Community Center. In the case of Leearta, we pay for some of the electric and heating costs which would not be the case in this lease. the letter of support when you first shared with council the potential sale and partnership uh back in January. the four activities proposed. So, visitors center for the freedom trail, Harriet Tubman statue, community and public education meeting place, visioning, mentoring and workplace development center and residency hub for entrepreneurs of the Kaufman Center. Are

is does that summarize do those intentions for main activities remain or has that changed or been updated?

So, great. Thank you. First of all, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak before you today. I'm very uh excited to share a little bit of what the vision is and it will help to it will incorporate your question and um and if there are further questions, please feel free. Um as you know, I am a professor of history at Bingmpington University and director of the Harriet Tubman Center for Freedom and Equity. And it's probably helpful just to remind, you know, remind the world, so to speak, how we came about in 2020, um, the Harriet Tubman Center for Freedom and Equity as an organized research center of Bingington University, and they only commission a few of these every few years. It's it's a it's an honor to be one of the OC's, as we call them, an organized research center. and it came about in part to mark the 400th anniversary of the presence of people of African descent in the United States of America. Um, it also, you may remember, 2020 was a very tough year for the country in terms of the George Floyd murder and a lot of things that were going on around the country that really concerned um all of us who care about freedom and equity. And I think there was this idea that a center like this could use research use researchdriven solutions to address issues of civil rights or race or what have you. And not only of course having to do with people of African descent, but all people, but this was something going on at the time. And I think it really um it it there was a lot of support for doing something like this then. And thankfully that has continued. It has not been something that BEu and even our city has pulled back on and

we're very including yourselves. We're very thankful that you have stayed committed to these issues. So that's our genesis. Let me just say that one of the things that we have noticed and I've been at BEu for 20 years, been in education for much longer. Um and one of the greatest things I think and a number of us think who are associated with the center is to have a sense of purpose. Um another way to say purpose is vision to have a vision for your life. Um but to really for young people and the young at heart um in center city and beyond our dream is for them to have a very strong sense of purpose. And this is something that we see as important not just for the college students that we of course represent at BEu but also the whole neighborhood and Bingington at large. We have been as a center we have been working with Bingmpington High School's system over the last few years when uh um Councilwoman Mari was previously employed there and so forth. You can attest to the fact that we have as a center been trying to connect with the public school system in a very concrete way whether it's through helping with curriculum development and so forth and just encouraging uh young people to see that there is a future and that there is a concrete future that awaits them. So I want to say that as a connected to that is the mentoring piece. So that is a key component of what we plan to do. In fact, it's probably one could say almost a major component. There are 1,000 plus uh university professors at our institution and they represent a full area from myself as a historian and

public preservationists, public history preservationists to engineering to nurses. We, you know, business people, school of management, we represent so many different fields and we're in your backyard and young people need that connection between town and gown. not whether or not they come to BEu, whether or not there are students there, we would like to be a a real force for strong mentoring, one-on-one type of mentoring, group mentoring, what have you, for our public school students, particularly those going into those in high school, and obviously for our BEu students. And trust me, you may think that students who graduate from BEu, oh well, they must they must know exactly what they're going to do because they're surrounded by all these people who who could mentor them, but it's not necessarily built into the system for that to happen. There are aspects of mentoring that take place on campus. So, the Harriet Tubman Center really wants to not only be helpful to the city at large and students at the city at large, but even also our students as well who graduate with a degree and I'm sure some of you have seen this and they're like, "What am I going to do next?" You know, and they did get the degree, but they're not quite sure what are the next step steps to take. So, we see that as really critical for students both in college and not yet not quite at college level yet. And we might say, very important to say that we're not just interested in um getting people to go to BEu or to a four-year institution. We absolutely support I've made contacts already with Boom Community College. Um we are absolutely supportive of the trades. It's a very important thing for us to be able to say as an institution like BEu, R1 institution, that we are just as committed to people entering the trades if that's what they want to do and if that's where gifts and talents are. Um

we just want them to have a future and a purpose really a purpose- driven life. I cannot say this enough. Um what we find that's happening um maybe you've seen this too is that are in the absence of very concrete steps that we're helping students to take or figure out and not tell them what to do but to share with them what the possibilities are. They are finding out who they are on social media, on Tik Tok and Instagram. Um they are some of them, not all but some of them are not really trying to figure out what their identity is in places and spaces which obviously cannot really give them a very strong sense of who they are. And we're concerned about that. We're greatly concerned about that. And so this is why we want an intervention like this in the community and having our professors be and others of the staff being an incredible um role models for them. Now you may say you know that we've done the work with the downtown freedom trail and that you might say well what's the connection? Well, part of the connection is that the markers are all around and we have visitors from these days all over the world, you know, that are coming to see Harriet Tubman statue and to read and share these markers and so forth. But if you think about who do the markers represent, they represent a multicultural group. Black and white in this case of abolitionists on this trail are people with a purpose. If they are nothing else, if Harriet Tubman is nothing else, she's someone who knew who she was. She knew what she was here to do. First, free herself and then free others. And look at the purpose-driven life that she had. That's why we're still talking about her 200 years from now. I want that for our students desperately. Not just my child, your children, but all students. And I think it's another story. It might even help

with crime prevention. mayor, you know, in its own way. Students who have a sense of purpose don't end up doing, you know, don't end up doing all kinds of crazy things just because they don't know where to put their pal talents and their and their gifts. Um, notwithstanding the fact that our public schools, I think, are doing a heroic, amazing job. It's not their fault. It's just a question of needing those extra extracurricular um, nurturing support that I think we can bring and we want to bring. So, last but not least, and I hope I'm not going on too long, we'd like um for these students to like the people on the trail, have not only have a sense of purpose, help them to step into their purpose um and like Harriet Tubman, be a guiding light to others. And we'd like the center to be a guiding light. Otherwise, we are really we do not want to do too much uh prescribing right now. We'd like to do a community community needs assessment and we want to join with some of our partners like Reimagining Center City and other partners. I have to tell you like every other day we get an email from someone that says, "We'd like to partner with you on this or we'd like to, you know, we think what you're doing is interesting. We'd like we get this on a regular basis and we've been trying to slow them down and say we want to go through this process first and our al also our process would be you because those are our employers at the end of the day. They're the ones that are facilitating us to make to make this happen but we want to work on a community needs assessment. We do not want to just, you know, so there's mentoring major, but we do not want to just impose a bunch of things that we think would be a great idea from our point of view. Um, obviously, as you've said, the visitor center, that's an important thing. Community space, those are easy things, but we're not sure what

else that community needs, and we want to find that out. We do not plan on doing anything in terms of housing in terms of a resident residential residential hub. That was an early part of the proposal. At some point we don't have any plans for that. So you should just have a comfort level about that. We we decided that once again maybe that was jumping ahead of ourselves and also very difficult to do I think in many ways um and kind of overextending ourselves in many ways. But the community needs assessment will tell us what exactly this community needs and we hope to plug in again we are we've got a lot of resources and when I think of resources you know it's not just money resources it's human resources you know I mean often we think oh we just need more money we need more money I'm telling you from our point of view we need a lot of human resources we need people and that's what we've got the Tubman Center can access anybody anywhere on this campus and many other campuses Um and we'd like to bring that to bear for center city and the rest of the city. And that's really it. I want to just thank in advance um um Mayor Graham. Um obviously the governor has you know she helped us get started with this process uh with that early grant and we continue to work you know she continues to be supportive um not necessarily financially but just in general of our efforts. the city council, you have been very supportive and we want to thank you for that and hope we can have your continued support. Um various members and you as a group and definitely um my bosses at BEu um this is not a small thing. Universities across this country are pulling back

on these things. just so I can give you the context and people actually there are the people who call me every now and again and say are are you still doing what you're doing in Bingmpington is Bingmpington University still supportive of these types of things and I'm so happy to be able to say from the governor to the mayor to the city council to our university yes you're committed to freedom and equity and we can still do the work that we do out loud out open in the open not in some hidden way and um we're really grateful for that. So that's all I'll say. Other than that, I said, you know, I want to I hope that everyone will be patient with us in terms of the timeline because we do have to work with Bingmpington University and that is its own uh uh you know, they have their own pace in terms of working through all these different issues and we feel confident though that the support is there. I hope that's helpful. Open to any and all questions.

Thank you so much, Dr. Bailey. Uh quick question. So when do you um what's the start line for everything to to go through there? See see that's the back to the timeline issue. You know I'm not I won't can't tell you otherwise. We would we would love to start anytime anytime soon. We are going you know through that process with the lease and I don't know if they've given you a better idea yet. Yeah. I think we're at the five yard line with the lease again. Um, you know, we there's certain things when you're dealing with the state of New York and doing business with them that you don't you can't negotiate. So, that's okay. Yeah.

Um, the the biggest short-term step is getting the building under the city's control. Um, we know that Bingington University will have to do an analysis of their buildout. Uh, as the Tubman Center does some community needs assessments, there are basic things of the building that Bingington University architects and their facilities team are going to have to do. Um it's important that we do uh do close on it. Um you know, Bingington University has has their commitment. Uh we've gotten it this far with the lease and we're confident that we can uh enter into an agreement with that

and then um a lot of that pressure is off both the city and the Tubman Center to focus less on the logistics and bureaucracy of getting the building and then on, you know, what's going to be programmed in it. Uh so that would be kind of the next step is to close on the building and then um sign the lease. Once those two things are done, a huge hurdle has been uh passed and then we'll go from there. There will be some rehab of course, you know, as been as you would expect, but actually the building I think it was you were kind of hinting what condition the building was in. It's in actually pretty good condition, I would say. excellent condition,

you know, and so we're not we not that long ago, a couple months ago, maybe it was, we were there with a whole team of from the from Bingington University, our facilities team, mayor had folks there. I mean, there was just we were all there going through every nook and cranny and seeing what needs to be done. and there really are not there's not anything major but of course Bingmpington University has a standard and they're going to want to you know spend some time um and some funding and put some funding into that as well. So I would say maybe maybe four to six months after we have solidified a lease. And then does that sound

Yeah. What I would say is and I don't I think you can share them publicly but the the grants that have been secured um from the different sources kind of where they're coming from and what they're doing if if they can be shared publicly.

Absolutely. I mean because they've made it public as well. State Senator Leah Webb has committed um and she's literally just been waiting for us to identify a place. So she's committed 100,000 and um we also have some commitments from um the secretary of state again and through the governor's office but effectively directly from his office for less funding but it's it's possible we have a we have it's possible to increase the funding that they have suggested they would give us for capital you know re rehabilitation of any building that we find. So I think And again, having said that it's in great shape, we're not looking at um a major major rehab, but I think, you know, Bingington has some standards about how they want some consistency that they want their buildings to look like and so forth. And we're happy to we're happy for that. That's going to be good for the community. It's not going to be uh it's going to be something that they really they find um hopefully they find, you know, they find themselves feeling very comfortable in the building, in the space. So, four to six months, I would say after we've gone through and finished up the lease and the sale process, which could be maybe by the end of the year, we're hopeful. We're hopeful, you know, November. Um, we're ready whenever. So, we are very prepared to move in at any time.

Good. Make sure you invite us to the opening. Absolutely. Absolutely. We hope to have a very big um very big opening when it happens. Thank you.

I can I think speak for all of the folks on the reimagining center city um group very much looking forward to your engagement, the cent's engagement in that work. I appreciate that since council member Middleton and I were able to connect with you in January that you've stayed engaged. Um, and we are just embarking on those community conversations and direct feedback from residents about their experience and what they need in center city. So, it's it's perfect timing. The center is a perfect partner.

We're looking forward to working with you. I will say that before that process started, we had, you know, we developed a community assessment tool. We'd actually spent months working on it. And then when we started to connect with reimagining, we said, well, you're doing the same thing. So, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. And that's really exciting that we can work, you know, we can pull that together. Um, and that's partly one of the things I think that's great about having community partners is that we don't have to have several people doing different things. Um, we can kind of work together. And as I said, there are others who also are interested in pouring in to this part of the city and on these projects. So that's that's always good news, right? That's always good news. So thank you. Thank you for that.

Sorry. Thank you, Dr. Bailey. Thank you, Mayor Cramp. Does anybody else have anything? I was just going to say, um, I'm hopeful once it's all launched, I will certainly be bringing it up for Bingington Bridge Pedal as a stop. Um, this year, I was pushing for the Tubman statue to be part of Bingmpington Bridge and I believe it was selected. Um, so wonderful. Um, so yes, I'm looking forward to keep tying in the center to these kind of larger efforts to bring people that might otherwise not stop by to come by. We love that. Luma, I think, is also interested. I know that's a big

uh city initiative and we just couldn't do it timing wise. Um, but we will be able to do it again at right the right time and once again we are open to those kinds of ideas. I think it's great for the economics of the city, too. I mean, people come, they take the tours, they go to the rest, the local restaurants, they, you know, they look at what else Bingmpington has to offer. So, and we encourage that. We absolutely encourage that aspect of it. So, we'd love that to take place. Thank you. Anybody else?

I'll just say basically, you know, out of this meeting, we will communicate back to uh St. Mary's that owns 15th FET is that um the authorization for uh the purchase will be at the I guess the first meeting in June. So they have a kind of a timeline and then likewise with Bington University, the president's office and their council that you know we can continue to work uh in the weeds, but that authorization will be provided in in early June as well. And then once that's authorized and the attorneys sign off, then we will execute those agreements and and get that building under city ownership just as you know as kind of a next steps.

Sorry, I just had to ask council question. Okay. So, so basically you're saying it should get voted on soon then you would like to see that. as that. Yeah, you know, obviously from a standpoint of the building owner knowing that we have authorization and then, you know, the quicker we get uh approvals and the quicker we can execute those agreements. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor Graham and Dr. Bailey. Good seeing you. Absolutely. It's great to see you, too. Hope you guys have a great evening.

Next, we have a P public works committee member Hodkus. I will now introduce RL26- 110. We're looking at RL26-110, a resolution for terminal pump station, amendment number three. Ron, you can tell us what we're looking at. Good evening. Before I start, I'd like to introduce our new deputy engineer, Dan Me. Hey, welcome.

Thanks. I thank you for him. This is his second week of work and but I I served on the COD commission prior to this. So, good. I sat over there where Robert was. Oh, good. Good. Well, welcome. So, he pretty much knows the city and bad enough. He's been he's been a big help in the last week. And I think part of the part of what he will help us in the future is with economic development and working with the developers to make sure they submit what we need and it goes in a much smoother fashion than it has been. I think you can be engineering's designated representative on call if you still want to come and hang out at meetings.

It'd be nice. So anyway, this RL is for the terminal pump station to hire EDR, who is the design firm for the pump station. It has been bid. We have contracts ready to go. So now we need uh project administration and construction inspection. And that's what this is for. so that we make sure we get built what we've put out to bid.

So there seems to be construction phase services but then separate from that a whole full-time engineer that is in addition to the construction phase services. Yes, there will be the construction administration is all the paperwork and stuff that they do even though we look at it and approve it but then there will be a full person on site to observe the construction and make sure it's done according to plans and this is nothing that we could hope to ever bring in house at this scale or

we just don't have personnel enough even though we have Dan it's still not enough we have so many city projects so but but but just on this one project so just just in keeping in mind the consequence of that or what we could trying to bring, you know, if we could recruit another engineer at a decent salary. This alone, it's $244,000 for that one engineer on this one project. Well, yeah, it's it's it's not just one. There's a staff that goes with it,

but yeah, that's for almost a $5 million project. That's well in line with expectations the other engineers And you said EDR did the design phase work too. So this is kind of continuity of Yes. of everybody. So they should know it inside out and it's going to be a tough project.

Anybody else questions? What is the reason for expedition? What is the So, this is marked for expedition, but there's not a reason because in a couple of weeks the contractors will be ready to go. So, we do need to get them on board. Anybody else? So, um like council member Rathmel said, it's marked for expedition. Do I have a motion to expedite? A motion. A motion. Do I have a second? Second.

Any discussion regarding it? Clerk, can you please call the role? Council member Murray. I. Council member Kavanagh. Hi. Council member Rathnau. Hi. Council member Matavitzki. I. Council member Hodkus. Hi. Council President Dunan is absent. Council President Proep Middleton. I. Thank you. That is 6. Thank you. RL26 uh-10 is now expedited for Wednesday's business meeting. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's nice meeting you all. Thank you. Have a good day. Welcome to the city.

Up next, um MPA committee member Metavveski will now introduce RL 26-11. Hello. We'll be looking at RL26-11. uh a resolution authorizing free parking at all municipal ramps. So, we've had many discussions on free parking and uh whether or not that's the best use or whether or not um downtown businesses have been consulted about other options. Um were any conversations had from the last free parking vote until now? Um, so we we did do a poll back um this was before the December free parking where pretty much every business I think there was maybe one um said that they didn't want to have free parking. This is um only for the garages and the Kier Street lot. Um so we didn't want to do the on street again just because we did get some a little bit of uh negative push back on that with people um sitting outside of businesses and kind of overstaying their welcome with that. So we were we are just looking to do the garages with this one. Um, and then what I thought was was probably the most noteworthy was um I was able to get the numbers of parkers for 2025 compared to 2024. And so for those weekends in July in 2024 at the lots and garages we averaged uh 200 parkers uh versus in last year it was 475. So a very significant jump. Um I can't say for sure that that's all because of free parking, but I I'd like to believe that that did make a some impact in that large jump.

Yeah. Um so just for clarifying to folks, the the poll did not actually um express any alternatives for the downtown businesses for that use of money. So they weren't, as I remember that poll, it was just do you want to offer free parking to your customers, which I think you have to be questionable to say no, I don't want free parking for for my um customers. But it doesn't take into account, hey, if we were to use that money in a different way for downtown businesses, would it be conceivably a there's no option, right? You can see like Yeah. Yeah. I definitely I see what you're saying.

A leading poll, I would say. So, we did ask about other things in it um and also offered people the the option to submit their own ideas. for for downtown activations. Um but free parking was the one that was essentially unanimous from folks. Okay. So there was there was other other Yeah. Yeah.

Um I remember I think it was the December one um that the the signage wasn't super clear. I brought up I think I don't know if I brought it up with you or not. Um I think it explicitly thanked the mayor and not just city of Bingmpington. So, if we are to move on this, I will state clearly that if it's the city of Bingmpington paying for it, it should say the city of Bingmpington is paying for it because it's the taxpayers of the city of Bingmpington that would be I believe the December one was like that if I'm not mistaken that it just said city. Yeah, I don't there was one of the ones where I was Yeah, the July one, I believe. Yeah,

that's is not an appropriate sign. Um, and then there was also some chaos in Bosovs because people were queuing up and they didn't realize there's free parking and then you had to get all the way up there and they're like get out of this line. This is, you know, there's free parking basically. So, um, somehow the we got to if we're going to do this again, we have to improve the communication um, relating to the the free parking and the the signage on that. Yeah, for sure. And that's part of why I'm here today. I looked back last year when I came down, um, I presented on this on June 30th, so we were going to be starting it in a few days, but now we have basically a month and a half to prepare. So, great. Definitely hope to see a lot of improvement this time.

And I'm curious what Councilman Kavanaaugh has to think uh, since he does a lot with the finances for the parking garages. I mean, I I think you're right to think of it as it's essentially money being put toward a purpose or, you know, and that it's money that's not coming toward, you know, so it's it's a resource is being used even though doesn't seem like it from one perspective. Um, but I without a concrete alternative, I think it's a relatively kind of benign and nice thing for the city to do for a few weeks during the summer. And I don't

So, how does, you know, I I don't think we should be automatically doing it without thinking about what else could we be doing, but yeah, I also don't think it's a terrible idea. Um, so if I understand it right, and maybe I'm don't understand it right, um, some of the businesses are paying to be able to validate parking. Yes. And some businesses are not paying to validate parking. So offering the free deal, are we doing anything for those businesses that are supporting our parking garages by paying to validate beyond giving the people who have opted not to do that free parking?

So when they validate, um, they're just paying by the parker. So they're not They're not losing anything by having this. Um they're essentially if somebody parks in one of the garages and then comes into whatever business they may it may be that business is essentially paying their $2 or $3 or what whatever it is. So they're not losing anything through this. They so they since they're paying directly for that parking that means that they're not going to incur that cost. So every every every business will get the same deal out of this. I think Bosovs is a separate agreement corporation council. They don't pay per parker, right? They pay a flat fee, I think.

Yeah, Bosovs has a different setup for theirs. Just for the record.

Anyone else? Anyone else? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Next up in the finance uh committee, Chair Kavanaaugh will now introduce RL26-112.

Okay. RL26-112 is an amendment uh to our uh 2026 bond ordinance uh that's going to shift uh costs around. Um, we originally put in uh $5.1 million for Shenango Street reconstruction. Um, in in this year's bond ordinance, that authorization to borrow. Um, we are now faced with having to tear down a State Street parking garage uh which we had set aside I think somebody can jump in $800,000 for something like that. Um, and due to the nature of the structure and specifically the depth of the structure down into the ground, uh, bids came in more like 2.5 million. Uh, so we have to come up with this somewhere. Um, what sort of makes sense and is not pushing our uh our borrowing further uh is not not stressing that out. um is to uh kind of put the brakes a little bit on the Shango Street reconstruction. Uh get the design phase done and out of the way this year. Then we know what we're in for uh for that project. Um and so it's moving forward. Uh but reallocate some of that borrowing authority to this emergent need of the State Street parking garage and uh you know get that done. And I know there are several city officials that are losing sleep nightly uh because of the state of the garage before it closed. And uh still now that it's it is closed. And it is if you've been walking by and driving by, it's already become uh kind of a a magnet for trash and graffiti and and and un kind of unpleasant behavior. So um uh I think it it's in the best interest of the city to get it done as soon as possible. And this is a way to get it in this year's

budget and paid for uh without ballooning uh city city borrowing and city indebtedness further than it has to go. And uh so it just kind of slows down Shenango Street a little bit, but still moving forward with some deliberate steps and would the mayor of the controller or corporation council like to fill in? Wouldn't have said it any differently. Thank you. That was very succinct. I think the only piece is that it's not quite putting the brakes on the Shenango Street revitalization. I mean, we're still going to be moving forward with design, slowing down, putting it down into first gear. Yeah.

Exactly. Being, you know, more conservative on that. And then we actually have a net reduction in borrowing uh authorization due to this. So, uh that that is a positive as well. I'm sure Chuck would say that that's a positive. Yes, that that will help us out. Yes. And again, it's marked for expedition because the sooner we get the wheels in motion for everything, the sooner we can get the uh the demolition underway, which Did they figure out what how the tunnels stuff is all going to be handled?

So, basically, yes. Uh they will terminate the uh the bridges. We're safe. Um the biggest issue with this garage, which is different than um Water Street, different than Collier Street when that was up was the fact that the garage structure goes 40 feet roughly below grade and that when you are removing materials that deep um if there is not some sort of engineered um replacement of those materials, you basically have State Street being held up by the side of that that garage. So um Gorick, which was the low bidder, did extensive work to determine exactly what they would need. This will be a six to eightmonth demolition. Uh this will be extensive and so um that will be again appreciate the the expedition so we can get that contract awarded and have them underway. Um but the the air arterial uh bridges that connect will be terminated at a safe spot. Um there will probably be through uh demolition some additional legal work that's needed. There are some some street easements that are there. Um their goal is to maintain emergency access during the entire demolition. Uh and it will be more complex than the other two parking garage demolitions downtown. Do we have a sense of what we're going to put in after? Is it going to be surface parking? Are we going to be putting it out like we did with the parking lot across the street to see if we can lure in somebody to do some housing or some new development there? What are what are we looking at?

I think that there there stands to be development interest in the site. um and would like an opportunity probably to brief council maybe even an executive session at some point about that. Um but the demolition has to happen regardless and so um this is advancing that piece of it. Um so I think that the the sky is the limit in some ways. Um in the short term if there is not development interest or nothing that uh advances I think a short-term uh use of the site would be for surface level parking any urban planner will tell you that that is not the highest and best use of a site like that in in the downtown. So I would like to see something different than that in the in the medium to long term. But if you know at the time that this demolition uh gets through, maybe call it early part of the year before uh before springtime. If it looks like that in the short term, I think surface parking would be at least a a somewhat of a benefit, but I wouldn't want it to have be that in the long term. And certainly we are not putting up another parking garage.

Um Rach, if it's a surface lot, will it be u metered? Will it be laws? what like what would the the plan be for that or would it be leased out for a private company to deal with it? It would be public parking if anything. So what manner whether it's gated or if it's a kiosk style um but this would be something that would be open to downtown the way similarly that Kier Street lot has worked. But again I want to emphasize that that is not the highest and best use certainly for for that strategic site.

Thank you. Anybody else? Looks like this is uh marked for an expedition. Do I have a motion to expedite? A motion to expedite. Second. I have a motion in a second. Any discussion? Clerk, can you please call the role? Council member Murray. I. Council member Kavanagh. Hi. Council member Rathnell. Hi. Council member Mavetski. Hi. Council member Hodkkins. Hi. Council President Dun is absent. Council President Promp Middleton. Hi. Thank you. That is 6.

Thank you so much. RL26- 112 is now expendited for Wednesday's business meeting. Thank you. Public work public works committee member Hodkus will now introduce RL 26-13.

Sure. This is RL26-13. Ordinance to amend chapter 265 to facilitate the removal of junk recreational vehicles. Our presenter is corporation council Robert Huri. So similar to how we have on our books already the ability to go on and do like trash cleanup, snow removal, uh um cutting grass. This would allow us to go on and remove abandoned RVs from properties and then build the owner of those properties when those vehicles aren't removed. So, similar to how it works now, the owners would get a notice that there's this abandoned RV or vehicle on your property. It needs to get removed. They would have the opportunity to have it removed before then. If that doesn't happen, then the city would be able to go on remove it and charge for the cost of doing that removal. Um, and this relates to the contract that the city recently bid out and signed uh with Contentto to be able to go on and remove and dispose of these RVs. So, knowing your dislike of duplicative legislation, why is this a special case where we need wording for RVs versus regular vehicles or versus just declaring them trash? So part of it is that for a lot of regular vehicles, um there's separate like BTL provisions that we typically use for going about removing and addressing them. Um, the big issue with RVs is they tend to be a more attractive nuisance than just a regular abandoned car. Um,

there tends to be a lot of trash that accumulates with them. Um there tends to be um more criminal activity that comes from properties where there are also abandoned RVs located at. Um it's also harder to get regular tow companies to remove RVs because they tend to be very they tend to be kind of like money pits. um they don't have a lot of resale value, particularly ones that aren't they're just like trailers or that have become very dilapitated. People don't like the the towing companies don't like to transport them because some of them will fall apart. And so that's why we had to go get and bid out the contract for someone that specializes in RV removals so that we could have someone that we could call and come do it. And with that, there's the additional cost that comes with it that isn't there with just towing regular junk vehicles.

So, off the top of my head, I think I can think of four properties with boats that are abandoned and deteriorating for decade or more on trailers. Do we need a separate law for that? I think we could probably Can we wrap that into this? Can we, you know, you know, um, I'm trying to say if there's anything else we can capture or need to capture with this sort of, you know, rather than, oh, we can remove your your junky popup, but not your junky boat next to it, you know, and bill you for it. Yes.

Or anyone else want to jump in? any uh I can check and see whether abandoned swing set. I don't know. So something like an abandoned swing set. I think that was a joke. This is going to be a little bit easier in an example. Like if you have a swing set that's falling down, we're going to call it trash and rubbish. Okay.

I think that that's the So to to touch on this, um I think that's a bit of the rub for me, too. So starting out comparing it to snow removal, garbage disposal in context, but this is presumably private property. What is the how does one determine that a recreational vehicle is abandoned or junk? And I would extend that to I mean any vehicle that we end up including in this potential ordinance. How what is the protocol for determining that it is in fact abandoned and what are the I mean does it come strictly down to if it's against these ordinances it's okay to like remove private property from private property

and before you answer that can we just broaden this right just to include regular vehicles right because I'm a little like I'm just looking for clarification I know this is focused on the um RVs and similar to what uh council and um Kavanagh mentioned with the numerous boats, right? As I drive around the city, I see properties with vehicles that are deteriorating, folks living in them, rotting. And so if we could just broaden that to what would the process look like if we're just talking about general vehicle and then you could kind of go down the road and if there's any difference with the RVs. I'll be interesting to hear that as well.

So again, the big piece for why we're targeting RVs is because we you tend to lose money with them. you know, if we're having to deal with other junk vehicles, a lot of times tow companies willing to take them, they can get a lean against them and eventually turn around and sell them. So, they the tow companies will kind of front and recoup the costs on those when they have to tow them. For the RVs, they just tend to cost more money to transport, hold, and get rid of than what the vehicle is actually worth. And so it's tow companies don't want to come in and take them. And so with having a company that's willing to come in and do it, we need a way so that we're not just eating the cost every time we have to go and remove one of these recreational vehicles. And that cost just isn't there in the same way that it is with regular personal vehicles like an SUV or a truck or whatever. Um, when it gets to the abandoned piece, for the way this is set up, it's basically for an RV to be considered abandoned, it can't be basically roadw worthy. Um, meaning that it would require some sort of major repair in order for it to run again. This isn't like a oh it it's parked for the winter and you know in the summer I'm going to you know re reinstate the registration and drive it. We don't we're not looking to go after those RVs. Similarly, if it needs some sort of minor repair work and that's why it's parked, we're not looking to remove those RVs. you know, if it needs a battery, if it needs something like that where it's not a huge fix, we're not looking to target those vehicles.

What we're looking to target is a vehicle that's been left sitting there and basically isn't drivable. Um because again, you know, we go and site one of these things, the easiest thing the owner can do to show it's not abandoned and a junk vehicle is to drive it. uh and kind of establish that no, this is still usable. I'm still using that. It's not abandoned. Um so the the trigger for this is that it's it can't be driven immediately without like major repairs.

I I figure I want to zoom out just so I understand the pro problem better. So is the expectation that the vehicles we're talking about are owned by the people whose properties they're on, or are we looking at people dumping these things in people's properties and charging the property owner for some I I just want to make like I'm not even sure the the kind of the context of the complaints. This is more targeting people that have permitted the vehicles onto their property or are just completely absent and refused to remove them. Um, again, there's already provisions like within BTL where if someone came and dumped a recreation an RV on your property, you could call and say, "Hey, this was abandoned." and then the police can come out, certify, and get it towed off as an abandoned vehicle. But most people that do that, it's like the vehicle is not there for 6 months. The vehicle's there for a few days before someone's calling and saying, "Hey, someone's abandoned their vehicle here." Again, the the idea behind this is to target where these vehicles have been sitting for a long time and haven't been moved and aren't being moved either because the the property owner has allowed them to be there or they're just completely absent and refusing to do anything to have them removed.

Can you give me a sense of it? It sounds like I guess I'm curious how often this is happening, right? I am more aware of again properties with abandoned vehicles that are problematic, right? Um can you give me a sense of how often or through your account how many conversations are happening with property owners regarding an RV that is in question of whether or not it can be driven or is abandoned or not functioning? Um, I know that the mayor's office gets more calls about abandoned RVs and I can get a longer list of properties from them. But I can think of at least two, possibly three properties where we have issues with an abandoned RV being at the property. um including one of those where we're looking at doing a lockdown at that property. Um and that's all the ones that I know of the properties have come up within this year within 2026.

Has anyone on council gotten a call about it? I I haven't. No, I haven't. Or an email. I mean, I haven't. And I mean, I I understand that this RL is focusing on the RV. I guess my biggest concern is that there are it feels like there's more work to be done on the vehicles that aren't going anywhere and to add another layer when it feels like there are so many gaps related to that process and maybe I'm just not as familiar with it as I should be. Right. So for me it's a it's very common on the north side for the artist complaints about this. Yeah.

Okay. And I get more about abandoned vehicles, right? And property. If we think about Quinton Street, if you drive down Quinton Street, I think everyone, you know, has a sense of of what I'm speaking about. Um and it's just more prevalent that I'm seeing lots with abandoned, rotting, deteriorating vehicles that feels like it's been there for years. And so to focus and then to not see those vehicles be moved and then focus on RVs where there are, you know, three possible instances. It just feels like a disconnect to me.

I just wanted to respond to um your question from before if that's okay, Councilman. Uh is that okay, Council Middleton? Um, our office does get a good number of calls on the RVs, um, the abandoned RVs. I think, um, we have a junk vehicle system through code enforcement that works a little bit better. And Bob might be able to kind of walk through the process for that. Um, like when someone calls our office with a junk vehicle, we can direct them to code enforcement. If you get constituent, you can direct them to code enforcement and we can follow up with them. And there is a process for that that seems to maybe take a while as code might, but it it does work its way through the with the RVs. There seems to be um almost a loophole like Bob was alluding to because there's not there are no co tow companies that are um that were previously interested. There wasn't um there wasn't kind of a role for them. But I'm not I I walked uh I walked out briefly before. Could you explain like the the typical junk vehicle process?

Yeah, I mean the typical junk vehicle process is similar to kind of what's outlined here where owner gets a notice that hey we think you have a junk vehicle assuming they don't do anything and don't respond to it in any way. Then you know we start escalating that up into city court and eventually you can get a court order saying that you can remove it. and we've done that before um with multiple properties. Um and that's typically the the process that the junk vehicles follow is they go into that that court setup and then we get an order allowing us to go in and remove it. Um, but again, like the junk vehicles, a lot of times it's easier to get someone on board, one of the tow companies on board to come and remove it versus what's involved here. And the cost to the city is a lot less or non-existent for those toes versus here where we're going to have to front the money for it. So it's um I just think an important perspective is that by this legislation won't take away any focus from junk vehicles. It just sort of closes what can be looked at as a loophole with the RVs where we didn't have that ability to as easily tow them. Oops. So when I still don't see an answer about boats or or trailers, I don't just mean boat trailers. I mean, somebody's abandoned horse trailer or their abandoned food truck effort or what have you. So again, some of it depends on what exactly it is and I have to look and see because you have again like this interaction between BTL and some of the requirements that are in BTL versus what

we can do locally. Um, I don't know that there's any opposition to expanding this on the city side to incorporate some of these other ones. Um, it was just viewed as, hey, you know, this is an issue that we're getting calls about. We have the ability now because we have a contract with a company that'll come and remove them. You know, let's pave the way to get this moving. Um, but again, if if the interest is to create this and make it more expansive, I don't I don't think you're going to get any opposition to that.

Yeah, I think we'd be supportive of that. Councilman, I'd be interested in I don't know if you've talked to um code or the traffic division about if if the trailers and uh boats run into that same kind of block that RVs have been. And if they are, I think it would make sense to include them.

No, I haven't. I mean, this just came down, so I haven't This is my first crack at it essentially. But um you know, I and I I will mention I I've seen the junk vehicle uh provisions. I have seen them what I would call abused by code before where whereas you know situation where the neighbor's upset with another neighbor and a car is is literally just a few months out of registration and codes issuing tickets. So there's there's always that aspect of we we have these tools and they're not always used for what I think in the best interest of the city of what they should be used for. And I just want to add not always used equitably either, right? And so I I would prefer to have more information. Again, I know that this is focused on RVs and expanding and I know um we're saying that it's not taking away from um you know, what's already happening, but again, similar to what Councilman Kavanaaugh is saying, you know, where um you know, someone in a dispute or whatever with a with a neighbor. I've also seen where those vehicles have sat for a considerable amount of time. Right. So, we're on both end of the spectrum and I'm just curious about what the process looks like for what we already handling and are we handling and managing it well before we're adding on another layer. Like I'm curious about that. I want to know what the numbers look like. I want to know how are we um determining right whether or not this is a property that we're focusing on right where some folks may be under a microscope and others you know may be

there for a long time I want to understand what that process looks like who's making those decisions and what are the factors that play into that decision before I'm going to be on board with adding anything else so that's how I feel about this

and very to give a little bit of couple pieces to respond to that. So, one of the pieces is that our code already sets out penalties for junk vehicles. And that's part of why we did this carve out is there were there was already that penalty set up within our code, which again, I don't think there's any opposition if there's interest in changing that or making it more uniform, but that's kind of why this was broken out into something separate. curious to know what that piece looks like. Sometimes it's difficult to get information and have a conversation. Um, and I think that this would be a good opportunity to unpack that process a little bit further.

Sure. And then um, one of one of the things I noticed though was uh, that the definition of abandoned did not actually mean nobody's living in the RV. It just means that it's not drivable. So, I just wanted to circle over to that to make sure that that's my understanding of what you said is accurate in terms of in terms of the definition of abandoned being that it's undrivable, not that nobody is living in it.

Correct. It's that this I guess. What do you mean by someone living in it? I mean, the these aren't supposed that you shouldn't have someone living in one of these. Like, they're not they're not permanent structures or permanent living quarters.

To make sure I we all understood what abandon means. Um, and part of the definition is to address some of that registration issue where it's not just that it's not registered, it's that it's not operational.

Councilman, if you have specific data or numbers you would like, if you want to just send that request in an email to myself or Bob. Absolutely. I would really appreciate that. Sure. Yeah, they can work with code to get that. I think it's worth committee conversation as well. Sure. Once we get that information. So, do you do you want to put this in the committee? I'll make a motion to send to committee. We have a motion. Do I have a second? Second.

So, this is going to go to committee. Okay. Looks like I'm the committee chair. Okay. All right. Um up next uh in the planning committee we have um council member Rathmel will now introduce RL26-114. Thank you council president Middleton. This is RL26-113 an ordinance 14 sorry 114. in a resolution authorizing the board of contract and supply to solicit competitive bids for the sale of 312 Main Street. Corp council is again our presenter. So, uh this is one of the properties we acquired as part of um the Ansoot settlement. It's commercial property, so it's not like it's something that we can really do anything with in terms of like housing or a sidelot program. So, the idea is to put it out to bid and basically try and get this back on the tax rolls for whatever we can get it for in terms of having offers come in.

I think I have two timeline questions. So, we got an email from Director Glo on May 12th sharing a link to the RFP, but that RFP, as far as I can tell, was issued on May 11th. And now on the 18th we're authorizing it. Am I missing something in how that protocol moved forward? If it's so for I mean what I'm looking at is it was issued on the 11th and the deadline for response is June 3. and that was publicly posted.

Um, let's see. So, we got an email. council members being we got an email. Um, okay. And it well, and I guess I'm not sure, which could be the crux of my question, if the link itself is for 312 Maine or if it's for just the general downtown anchor project. I know the anchor project is up. Are they two? Okay. This would be separate. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

The Okay. So, thank you for that. The other actually no. My other question would have been related to the downtown anchor project. So, I don't think I have a question on 312. Is this is this the only property that we did this for for an RFP out of that settlement?

Yes. And like I said, we're doing this one because it's a commercial property. Um I know with some of the other ones, we've tried to do things like we're supporting housing projects or nonprofits when we're doing the transfers and selling them or we're doing side lots. eligible. Obviously, we demoed a bunch of these properties, too, such as the ones that we talked about last work session going to have to have for humanity on FEAT.

Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else? Well, thank you. We'll move on to the next uh rules and procedures and rules. Rules and procedures committee chair Metavvesky will now introduce RL26-17. Okay. Um, so we have RL26-1 uh 117 local law to establish anti-jarmandering standards for the redistricting of the city of Bingmpington council districts. Pass it over to Shakti. She's um been my intern this uh semester working on this topic.

Hi. Hit the hit the green button. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all today. I want to talk to you about how right now we have no clear binding rules for how the redistricting process gets done. Four years from now after the 2030 census, someone is going to draw the lines that decide which neighborhoods share a council member, which communities say whole, and which are split apart. Those lines that are being drawn will govern this city's representation at least until 2042. With Councilwoman Mavets's guidance, I spent months researching this. I interviewed professors, former council members, and studied how other cities handle this. What I found consistently is that redistricting at the local level gets done fast behind closed doors and in ways that protect whoever holds power at that time. This is what we call gerrymandering.

And Bingington is not immune to this. This legislation that I'm proposing today doesn't take power away from council. It doesn't draw any lines. What it does is establish in writing the standards we must follow when we are exercising a power that we already have. Redefining what we consider gerrymandering. Setting the criteria for how these lines are getting drawn. And laying out a timeline for doing it in a nonpartisan way. None of us will know who's sitting in these seats in 2032. None of us will know which party will be in control then when those lines get drawn. So I'm trying to set the rules now. So when that time does come, none of us will have a stake in the outcome. So then whoever is in power in 2032 has no choice to diverge into it.

That was beautiful. Thank you. You're welcome. I just wanted to add on to what you were saying. I think it's very important to have this um legislation come forth like we we see what's going on right now in America and just to have some type of clear guidance here. You know, we're just kind of doing it the right way. So, thank you so much for the work that you've put in for that. And um so I'll throw out there um that this is not a final version. This is, you know, we're very much here to incorporate feedback from everyone, council members, public. Um yes, uh I did email out um to our um

Democ Democratic commissioner and Republican commissioner. Um

and so they have copies. The Republican commissioner has messaged me back CCing in the deputy commissioner over at the board of elections. Um and they will be providing uh feedback. I have if for people who like to foil um there is no email between me and the conservative party because I didn't have a direct email. So I sent in through their website contact us form to try and see if I could get someone there. Um and I emailed um Mary Clark to find the appropriate person for working families to try and include all four active parties, make sure that they're aware and can provide um feed inclusive feedback. Um, so that work we are we are waiting and gathering information from all parties

and also trying to make it as clear as concise as possible. I think there are about three papers in front of you. One of them is like 40 pages, a giant compilation of all of my research I've done, the pros and cons of every single decision, why I came to that decision, everything, and then a very short form version of exactly what is currently in place and what I'm proposing. And then one more which is kind of like a very rough draft of it in legislation format. Thank you. I think I um I really think this is a good idea. Thank you so much for working on that. Did you learn anything while working on this? I learned a lot. Met a lot of cool people. Had a lot of good conversations. Yeah.

Well, thank you. Thank you for your work and I'm excited for the public. This is the first intern that we have taken on since we passed uh Councilman Hodkus' uh legislation to get interns. And um I I hope that the everyone reviewing this sees the the quality of of her work. Um and uh I'm looking forward to having her stay on. Um so um do you want to just quickly talk through at least the um the high level the the changes and see if anyone wants to dig into anything? Yes. Um and then maybe we'll throw out there um

one of the pieces is kind of a discussion about how we prioritize different things that could make a map good or bad. Yeah, I could go like a quick through of the giant paper that I have. Um, part one is just defining what gerrymandering is. What do we define it as? Now, what is the problem with this popular definition? And then what I'm proposing as the new definition, going further into it, why this definition, the pros and cons of it, what are the boundary lines, why should this like important for us to have that line to begin with? What is Jerry Mandering? So then only when we know what it is can we actually combat it in progress. Then the next part is the framework behind it. The municipal home rule law which is already in place. That is what we're going off of right now currently. So I'm talking more in depth about this law. What's already been put in place? How are we going about this and then what is it in hierarchal order? Because one of their things is they established a hierarchy of these five redistricting criteria and they must be applied in order. So I go more in depth into this. How is it used? What are the requirements under this rule? And then how can we kind of go around that? The part three is about the population base. One of the parts in the home rule law says that population shall mean residents, citizens or registered voters. I propose that it should just mean residents and we take out citizens and registered voters so that we are accounting for anybody and everybody that lives in Bingington. So then I go more in depth into it, the reform that I'm proposing, its pros, also its cons, the explanations for every single thing. So every all the information is there, everything I've compiled, and then going more in depth into it, I talk about the unhoused population that Bingington has. a very

big number of so I go more in depth into it. How is the the census counts right now these people by going to the homeless shelters and doing an average scale. So say like there's like seven people that come in on a weekly basis. That'll be their census counting for the homeless people in that area. So one of the things we proposed after um rules committee meeting was doing a pre-ensus outreach to other people. So that was something I thought would be good to help get more and more people to actually know accurate numbers of these unhoused population and then more go more in depth into it. Why are they trying to do this? Why are we trying to count for everybody? The ge geographic reality. Where are we really at right now? Where are these shelters located and why does it matter? And then for part four I talk about the population deviation. One of the parts in the home row law is the we can deviate 5% 2.5% above and 2.5% below. And based off of history and the way we've done it, I kind of propose making it a much shorter number to 2%. And how the 2% will help count for every single person and also ensure that we are more creating equal districts and not one that is more big and one of them is more small or any unproportionality. And then again talking about the pros and cons. Every single section has a pros and cons and explanations with that as well. Um the next one is part five the redistricting criteria and I talk about these criteria again in order and the hierarchy that we have and why we should talk about it in that hierarchy and not go um differently. A very specific part in this is compactness that the home rule law has in place. And this is kind of where I

did the brunt of my changing with the home rule log. I have three proven methods to like math mathematical proven methods that I discovered. Well, not I didn't discover I like did research on and that measure compactness in these districts with math and all sorts of stuff. So I propose that when we do I'll go more in depth into it after but when we do do the redistricting then um two of the three mathematical formats will have to be used and put in place to prove why their map is kind of the best. So going more in depth I talk about the actual map drawing process. Where do we begin? How do we keep going back into it? One of the things I went into research about was having an independent redistricting committee. I believe Syracuse and a few other cities as well, some places in Arizona, California, Michigan, they have an independent redistricting committee. And I ultimately decided against doing that, mostly just for commission and why it'll be really hard for us with a small city to establish this and put it in place. Um and then I went more in depth and talked about the method in which we will actually go about it. First, when the census happens within 30 days of receiving this census information, we must publicize the information. All information that is available to us about the numbers of people in each area. We're trying to keep it as public as possible. This whole thing is be as transparent as possible to the public as well. So the public can have as much involvement as they want. So, first we're doing sending out as soon as we get the um census data, sending it out within 30 days. And then we have a public submission window of 45 days after that. 45 days, anyone and everyone

can submit a proposed district map and that'll be through the city's mapping platform that we already have put in place. Any council member may submit a map, any resident may submit a map, any former member, anyone can submit a map. Um, and each map that is proposed requires a written explanation of why they believe their map is the best and also highlighting the priority order that they used in creating that map and then why they believe that that priority order is the best. And this is also to help us like choose a map at the end so we know what their priorities were. And in this written explanation, they also have to talk about the compactness and doing two of the three mathematical parts to just show that it and prove that it is compact. And then after the 40-day submission window closes, the council will review every map submitted and then also publish them on the city's website if um more than 50 people or estimating number of depending on how many people actually submit maps. If the same one was submitted by a large amount of people, then that map will be published and then other people can also put in their input on why they believe that map is good or bad. And then after that, after it must be published in after at least 21 calendar days before the council actually votes, they will um do two public hearings during this 21-day comment period so that people can come in and talk about their map, talk about why they believe that's good, why they don't like the other maps that are kind of in place right now. And then after that there will be a voting and then they will choose the map. And yeah, when the council does choose a map, then a written justification is required. And in terms of council, it

doesn't have to be you guys. It could be anyone. I think I specified it could be NPA or rules. Really, anyone that wants to take it up can do it.

Yeah. Thank you so much. So um so again this is a draft. We are looking for input. We wanted to get something down to start the conversation. This is for 2032. So this is not expedited. Yeah. So we really we really wanted to make sure we had something with some meat to it to start a conversation. Um so please reach out and email me and I can share your thoughts. Um over um Shi also presented at the last special rules meeting y last week. Um so there was some

uh back and forth and suggestions and and some more in-depth stuff there if anyone is interested in watching the video of that meeting. Um were you able to create a timeline? That was something that came up in that meeting.

Yes, I was. I created um the timeline of I think it's specified in the legislation like the draft of legislation. Yeah, it's all under review, submissions, publication, public hearings and council vote. So it's like directly like back to back exactly what is what what is needed, what days.

Thank you. So, we're going to go, it's going to go to a committee meeting then from here. Um, so we we had a first committee meeting. I think if people have specific things, we can start by emailing my wonderful intern is going to be going away on vacation as the semester has ended. Um, this is not a rush. So yes, we can have a a committee meeting, but it won't be like within the next few weeks. Um, so but yes, so I would start with emails. Um, and then we'll once we have kind of enough to discuss at a next committee meeting. Um, we'll probably schedule one in the early fall probably when when she's back for school.

Okay. Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Perfect. Thank you. And now and now we'll move on to our discussion with the CDAC budget for FY52. Leading our discussion is a council's representative on CDAC and chair of the planning committee, council member Raph Mau. Thank you, Council President Proamp Middleton. I'd like to welcome down Justin McGregor, the chair of the community development advisory council, who will actually be leading the discussion. Uh, and Shannon Oh, you're not you're not talking, Shannon. You're still welcome at the table.

No, I think we all have one. Carla, you have one. Okay, we all have one. So, I will kick it to you whenever you're ready, Justin. Hello. Hello. Good evening. Good evening.

I'm Justin McGregor, the chair of the CDAC. Um, oh boy. So this is the first time I've presented um without Stephen Carson here who has guided us for many years. All 10 years I've appeared on the CDAC and uh the previous three that I presented to you as chair here in council. Um so if I seem nervous or a little disorganized, it's he's usually pushing me. So, so all right, let's start things out. Um, we had a full committee that uh has been um one of the most thorough that I think I've worked with in the the 10 plus years that I've been on the CDAC um since uh city council um or since leaving city council in 2016. Uh I want to start first with our first page. Everyone has this. Yes. Okay. Uh our first page is our service programs.

Actually, Justin, yes. Just one preemptively. Um our the total total CDBG funds this year. And then I don't see anywhere on here kind of the stuff that's set aside for for admin and code and staffing those deductions or th those pieces. Let me look to see if it's on the spreadsheet that I have. Sorry. Go for it real quick because I think she's dying.

Or you folks can work on that and you can just go back to your regularly scheduled program and we'll figure it out later. Um, she'll grab it. Um, usually it's just here and I do it. Uh, see the AC here it is. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to start out first with the service programs. We will run through what administration costs, what um streets, different things the city um has that that meet uh CBGB fund requirements and that we can um how we lined out that money for the city services and and the departments because I don't see the departments at all in these. So we will get those pages and uh it was a full spreadsheet and there I think there's six pages altogether. I only see three here. But in the services, this is the groups, the stakeholders that came and and um requested funds from um the city's uh CDBG funds um and spoke to CDAC committee. Um most of them did show up. Um we had uh a few that didn't then uh didn't request any additional funds. Um as you can see, we In this sheet, we have what we gave them last year in fiscal year 51, which is the fourth third column. Dollar sign threw me off. Third column. Our temporary line was what we were building on. And as we were going through and aligning um the monies to um get to our cap and see where we were moving things around. And then the CDAC recommendation is our final number. And I'm pretty sure we just pulled that over to there. Um, so that you'll see that.

And then in the final column on the right is the their requested aotment um going forward or for for fiscal year 52 rather. Uh the mayor had requested that we try to increase our um recommendations to $25,000 minimums. Um, for some of those, we just felt that that was not something that we could do and still fund the programs that we felt met our five-year goals um with the CDAC that we established last year um in helping homelessness uh youth in our community, elderly, uh cleaning up blight. Um there was no way to attack those four and the other six without um getting more programs involved. Uh question.

Yes. Um so what did the RFP look like? Did the RFP say 25,000 despite CADC and I think previous discussions on council not being on board with that amount or was like was that communicated to agencies ahead of time because it gets confusing when there's kind of guidelines that aren't hard

rules. they the recommendation or the uh requests did go out with $25,000 in them. Um that's why a lot of them, you'll notice, say 25,000. Some of them didn't request 25,000. They requested more, they requested less. Um they didn't stick to that number. They were all over the board. Some of them they were uh requests were extraordinate. Some of them were were lesser. Um, some of them like the Attain Technology Center, that's the actual lease amount for their facility. So, every year we've been basically funding their lease and that's what we do and and we did recommend again uh in fiscal year 52. Uh, so we got them up and we did get to a point where we had most of them at 20,000, which is what the mayor tried to get us to last year. Um, and then we started um I don't want to say haggling amongst each other, but we we were really um playing off uh what they had said, what the community said, what we've been hearing from our own constituents our past years on the board and and who's been able to spend down their money. Uh given uh some of the stuff from last summer, uh spending down their money became one of our priorities. We wanted to make sure that we were using organizations that were was spending their money that um they didn't have to spend countless hours trying to track down the receipts for and and when they did use the money and that everything was being reported properly. So if if agencies were not responding to them, it kind of uh gave us a pause on whether we wanted to fund them. There were some agencies who have funds still existing several fiscal years back that is is still there given

last summer's stuff and um some of those agencies we know given what they told us in person the number of people they can assist within a summer within a building season like the first word action council uh there there's just so many so little time so little people they can help there's no way they can go through their back funds that they have and any new funs we'd be giving them this year. So, you'll notice that when we get go forward that um their funds are are limited. Um so, do you want me to just start from the beginning and go down or do you want me to just ask for your questions on any of them from the first page? Um I can tell you about their presentation and our mindset on how we came to that number. Or do you want me to do each line by line?

I'm up for the line by line. I don't know how my colleagues are doing with time tonight, but line by line. I love a line by line. Line by line. Great. Okay. If we could do line by line, but move it up just like fast. Fast. Thank you. Yes.

Fast line by line. All right. Okay. So, action for older persons. There's senior health insurance counseling. That is a program um that we have funded yearly through my tenure. uh every year we get uh numbers from them. They come in and present to us and they tell us the number of seniors that they help in the city of Bingmpington uh utilizing their uh getting them on the proper health insurance, making sure that they're, you know, being taken care of, making sure they're on the the the uh path that makes it cheapest for them to do their stuff. It's it's counseling. It is important. Um and um although we didn't meet their request, we did match our Oh, we didn't actually match. We gave them $20,000. We didn't match last year's money. I thought we had matched last year's money. I apologize. Um,

wait. 25,000 wasn't last year's 25,000 was I thought we I I'd said we matched it. The

the temporary column being in there is throwing me off. I apologize. Um, the 25,000 is what we gave them last year. We gave them 20,000 this year. The request was for 244 27. Um, we, like I said, built in the money at 20 and then tried to maneuver stuff around to get where we thought we'd get the most bang for our buck. There were a lot of changes to the systems last year um, with healthcare and there's less changes this year. So, we felt like if we um, got them close to their number that it would be better than not delivering what we could. um but not delivering their entire budget. Um I very few have get their entire request uh the the funds are too limited. The Aster D Rice Foundation they're fac

I have a I have a process question. So um previously when there was uh like a calculation error and we had to go and trim um trim the whole budget last time. I think Councilman Kavanaaugh brought up the fact that for some organizations if you just do a flat cut across everyone even though it seems fair that'll make it so they can't actually do the thing that they're proposing versus other organizations where it's like okay well we'll just serve five less people or you know so um do you go back to the organization when you're coming in under their request to say like are you still going to be able to do the thing if we don't give you the full request. You do not. Okay.

Uh we do not go back to each one of them because very rarely do we actually get them their full request. They know that coming in. We make that clear when they're presenting that we try to get what they're get them near what they are doing, but very rarely do we get the total amount that they So, I was going to raise that exact point with the the car's dad's program, which is a was a one of it looks like six new asks versus stuff we funded before and they were asking for almost $70,000 and we gave them 20. Is that a new program? Is that something that's going to actually now be able to get off the ground or do they have other funding sources? I I don't know.

So, that is a program that is off the ground and running already. It's a program that um has been working outside city schools, especially the middle and high schools where um they're not on the school grounds per se. the dad's program. They are um in the vicinity in the neighborhoods around and they are basically um not I'm not going to say father figure. I think I've seen them in t-shirts. I can speak I can speak myself and council member Murray can speak onto it. So the dad's the dad's program they they are sitting outside of the high schools and middle schools.

They kind of um well they do they they prevent a lot of fights. Yeah,

a lot of issues that may go on. They encourage kids who were not in school at the time to return to school, like why are you out? I can I can vouch for them. Uh last year when my daughter got hit by a car before anybody else called me, one of the dads reached out to me on Facebook and was like, "Hey, your daughter is so they do a lot of community work outside of the the schools, Binghamington schools." So, yes, it's up and running. So, yeah, it is a program that is up and running, but it's a program now that they're trying to um get more involved and get um what was the word that they used for that?

Are they trying to expand the amount of dads that they can compensate as well as increase the amount of hours that they can be present um after school? because currently it wasn't all days and dads will go from the high school and then walk over to the to the middle school to be able to support right both both buildings. So my understanding is that the fund is connected to being able to expand the reach of what's currently happening with the with the program.

Correct. And it's a way of uh making sure that the the dads themselves have means to get from one location to another that um if they're out there during a lunchtime, they have some means to pay for food, etc. It's just a way of um compensating them for some of the work that they're doing uh for our community. Um, and although there was a specific 68,89 number, their startup program for this type of thing where they're going to be re not rewarding but, um, compensating the dads, um, giving them a starting amount we felt was better than letting the program still where it is, try to get it to start going to the next level and see where we can go from there. um we all believed in that program enough to do that. Uh we did talk to the program um about um making sure that they have all their records in order, making sure that uh the compensation is recorded properly and and etc. for for records uh purposes and um that their dads are all they have a file on each one of them and that you know the the system um is thorough and complete because they are working with children and we felt that that was important. Um, so we we're basically setting up with them um their next step on where to go from from where where they're starting into where they want to be and um giving them partial money we hope is a is a step in that direction.

That make sense? I hope. Okay. Next. All right. Um the Oh, wait. We jumped down to CARES. Do you want me to go back up to the beginning? Boys and Girls Club. Yeah.

Okay. Boys and Girls Club of Bingmpington. They have three programs. The after hours teen program, the teen center, and the summer program fee. Um we gave them 20 grand for each of them last year. Uh or we recommended 20 grand for each of them last year. Um they requested 40,000 20,000 and 26125 this year. Uh we again recommend the 20,000 20,000 20,000. Um the Boys and Girls Club of Bingmpington. Um, as you all know, as part of the uh Clinton Street stuff, there's going to be some expansion. There's gonna be some changes in their programs. They're also a major national organization um that has a lot of fundraising capabilities um and a a name that can help raise them money. So, when when we talk to them that yes, they have great programs. We talked to other um stakeholders that work with them. Um the one biggest concern we continue to have at the Boys and Girls Club is the three programs that are there. A lot of the people

same folks over and over again. Yes, there's there's a lot of redundancy in those that they're helping and our goal is to help as many kids and and people as we can across the city. Um so that's why we're we continue to be stuck at that 20,000 number for the Boys and Girls Club. Um now speaking of across the city though question um did you get a sense of like how like spread across this the kids that are going there are are they coming from all across the city? I mean hypothetically they are but did you get a sense of

we did not we um I don't believe we got a list the followup of even how many kids this year. No we have not even received that. We I think we're it's one of our site visits. we will be visiting them this summer as one of our site visits. So we we utilize it um even though we're done recommending for fiscal year 52 uh the CDAC members even though we don't have official meetings throughout the summer do visit all of our sites and all of our um stakeholders and we learn more information each time each year and that helps us when it comes back around for next year when their recommendations so we can see um how it it's assisting. So, if changes are happening with expansion and stuff at the Boys and Girls Club and they plan on doing some other programs or an expansion of programs, that will be stuff we will take uh into consideration for fiscal year 53. Uh I mean, there's obviously been a focus on teen and children programming lately with with some of the unfortunate events in the community and it would be nice to have some data to to go with,

hey, we're not just throwing money. These are the these are kind of the neighborhoods that we're helping and that the number of folks we're we're helping and targeting are limited resources towards and and how many are unique. That's what we'd really like to know. How many across the three programs are unique? And this goes not just the boys and girls club programming but the programming across the Yeah. Across the board.

Yep. But that that's something important that we ask. Um, and one of the reasons we found out that there was redundancy is we actually asked the Bington Police Department who does stuff with their after 13 programs and after school programs and summer programs and they're like, "Yeah, we see a lot of the same people." So, the police department even told us that. So, um, that's why we've stuck at that $20,000 number. Uh, we do believe in the Boys and Girls Club. We just think that of a lot of these organizations, they have the means to fund raise beyond CDAC. um funds. I guess a great question to be able to answer would be who are we missing,

you know, and what program could we somehow encourage to form that that catches missing, you know, folks from missing? Anyway, I just want to jump in real quick. With every reimbursement request that an agency sends in, they do have to provide a demographic report of how many have been served, um race, ethnicity, and all of that. Unfortunately, it does not provide names. So, we don't know, you know, if it is the same for each program. Um, the kids' names.

All right. The Broom County Urban League, the Attain Technology Center. Uh, again, I briefly spoke about that before. This is their lease. It's physically the the lease amount that we uh have offered forward every year that I've been on CDAC. Uh, the Broom County Urban League. Is there reporting on who's using the their equipment there. The attain lab we did not get I didn't I don't I wasn't here for that. Again they have to provide a demographic report as well. Um they just don't provide names but it does say how many have used um the facilities but no specific names.

Thanks. So, um, at that specific meeting that the Taine was at, I was not, um, I was in Florida dealing with the family death, but, um, all my other, uh, committee members, um, wanted to maintain that and that their numbers have been consistently growing again since, uh, this the lab was closed for COVID. So, that was one of the things precoid and then postcoid, we were paying the least, but the numbers were down. The numbers have been growing again. So we were encouraged by that. Um

are we able to change the form or like to add for example just like the district that they're from so that we have some sense of how things people are spread out across the city without having their address or their name or anything just to get some sort of ability to visualize who I mean I can do that for the future. I mean, I can go through the form now or not like not right now, but when I get home and then email it all back to you. Yeah, if you'd like me to. Well, I just I'm just trying to get a sense of I think you mean from the folks that are accessing the service when they're when they're

when because she's saying that there's dem a demographic report and yes, I mean, I don't want children's names particularly. I don't want anyone getting my children's names put on government documents and reports, right? So, I I I get that. But if can have some sort of context of what neighborhoods um and even at like a zoomed out district level. So I can try see um the lab is at Carile, right? Was that the attain lab is at Carile? No, it's on Yes. North Street now. Yeah, North Street. Sorry. Okay. Um, I can look about seeing how I can revamp the demographic report to maybe just include uh what district or do you want something that isn't going to trigger people?

Do you want like north side, east side, southside, west side? I mean, yeah, that could be helpful. I would recommend not by district like not asking folks that accessing the service which district they're in because most won't know. East side, west side, north side. That would be And I um I was just going to say something because I'm I have to leave shortly. So Rebecca, if you could finish, but I I am suggesting maybe after questions we could have a follow-up meeting like kind of if anybody else has any questions, maybe it could be via Zoom like a committee meeting if that's okay with you guys. If anybody else has any other questions, you can still go on, but I was just thinking that in my head before I leave. That's fine. Okay.

Are you thinking you're thinking high level here more in depth at a committee meeting? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, like he can get over it because if not, you know, it'll take forever. But if anybody has any other questions, like a more, you know, like a study, we could we could do that in a committee meeting. Sorry, she asked for a pen. It's okay.

All right. Um the after school and summer programs um we have continued to um fund them at the level that we did the previous two years. Uh they're requested go up to $20,000. Um, but uh I don't remember why we didn't go up to 20 with them or did we start at 20 in and pull for the uh after school and summer program for Broom County Urban League. Um so John Brunza uh one of our committee members put together a chart of all the service organizations and utilize the dollars per person it assisted. It gave a score number of people it helped number of people this um how many dollars per per uh person that it assisted etc. and gave kind of like a ranking that he gave to all of us and um we worked with and I believe that the reason they didn't get the full 20 was they didn't score high on uh dollars per person they were assisting um and that we were concerned that a lot of the people not a lot of the people but some of the people who were utilizing the afterchool program we knew were not city residents so only a percentage of who they were helping the money would actually be able to assist because there were only so many Air City residents. Uh CARES backpacked program um they requested 25,93566 up significantly from the past. Um we had previously given them 10. Uh we did up we doubled their number to $20,000.

It's a program that um we believe in and uh that we have assisted and helped grow over the 10 years that I've been on CDAC by helping fund them. Um we did already talk about the dad's program. The city of Bingmpington Park Rangers, um we have funded them again. I think the this is the third year in a row since CO um they requested 10. We did give them $10,000 for the park rangers. Again, that meets one of our requirements of assisting the youth in um um the city of Bingmpington uh giving teenagers and um a job at the parks as Rangers.

Quick question. I'm sorry to cut you off again. Is there is there a way we could get a copy of John Brunz's that system that he set up if you could send that over? Yeah, I can email it to all of you. Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. Samantha, do you want me to send it to you and you can send it out?

Okay. um Mothers and Babies Paranatal Network, uh the PAL Family Resource Center, uh they requested $30,000, um which was an increase significantly over their request last year. Um we did up their request from the 15,000 we funded last year to 20. Safe Streets NMA. Um they requested $37,800. Um in the middle of our negotiations, there was a shakeup in leadership. Um and what was listed as part of their funding um was services provided back to the organization by a gentleman who left them. and uh it raised concerns with us. Um and uh we're not sure exactly how that's going to impact their organization going forward. We did raise the money from what we had given them past year, but only nominally. Um but they had requested in previous years like a near $100,000 and they dropped that request down to 37. Um we're funding nearly half of that. uh the stack program didn't request and still is sitting on their money from last year. Uh triple cities

I'll ask I'll ask in our committee meeting. I was just wondering why and is there a timeline on when they have to there's a timeline on when usually within the fiscal year. So they had two asks last year. One was for a building on Main Street that they were trying to go into and then one was for their startup stuff. Um this was for one of their startup programs. Um, and they to my knowledge, they still haven't spent They got the bill. Yeah. Didn't they just get a DI? They got They got DRR. They sure did. Yeah. So, they haven't spent any of their CDB funds. All right. I got I got to have a little talk with them.

Triple C's maker space. Their steam for all. This is a program that I thoroughly um believe in. Um, and it saddened me that we didn't fund it this year. um with an asterisk. Um at the time we were doing this and passing our budget, we did not know that they had spent their funds down. We had previous reports, we get updates every so often. And their first report was they hadn't even spent all of 51 yet or 50 and then they uh Shannon was trying to hunt them down for receipts. They finally got their 50 stuff in and then it took them till basically the day before we were voting to turn in stuff for 51. And at that point we weren't sure if it was spending all of it down or not. And they've uh the gentleman who'd been running it has been uh not well.

And the the people who were assisting put a great presentation together, a very good presentation. and I believe in this program and I will probably donate my own personal funds to them. But a lot of the stuff they were promoting to us that they were helping with um that the the current people are doing um was less hands-on in our neighborhood, more outreach, but they were programs and things outside the city of Bingmpington. Stuff at BEu, stuff at BCC, stuff at high schools out in the suburbs. There was stuff in town, but not like they had previously presented to us. And it was a great packet, but we were concerned that giving them assistance this year when their leadership was in a shakeup um and their presentation was so outside the city of Bingmpington that we would be assisting people outside the city when our funds need to be more detailed to residents of the city of Bingmpington. uh especially in in the north side center city north side corridor. Um but if this is one of those where now that we know they have spent down their funds our vote might have changed and it this is something that you city council can make changes and if you believe in your district or in those things maybe throw them some funds.

Yeah. Well that's good. You know, we we only can give you our recommendations with the information we know at the time that we are voting and we find out stuff afterwards. All right, let's see. Next up, um Vines Grow Bingmpington. Uh we have given them $10,000 the previous three years. They requested $45,000 this year. We doubled our uh number to 20. um they are a fantastic program, but they also have uh tremendous fundraising capabilities. So, we're hopeful that this can be a seed fund to keep them going and and and uh growing in Bingmpington. Uh YMCA emergency housing code blue did not request funds. Um the HCA uh prevocational training requested $12,500. Um did they not present? They did present. I'm I'm blanking on why we didn't fund them. Let me look at his thing here quickly. Oh, I don't have internet. I can't give you John's thing right now because I don't have internet. Um but the the numbers were not good on the number of people assisting per the dollars requested

for which program? Uh HCA the prevocational training space.

Uh Salvation Army the hygiene pantry uh requested 17,250. Um we funded them with $10,000. Um then there was a request for uh $110,451.50 from the Southern Door Committee Land Trust, the home program. Um this was one where um Council Kavanagh where you say, you know, you have a big ask if we give you a little bit, is it going to help you? And this was one of those ones where we felt that um our 10,000 or whatever dollars we could have given them was going to not make what they need, not assist in in any way of uh meeting that goal. Um and that thus um did not fund their program. achieve summer program fee uh $10,000 they requested um achieve this was the one where they're recently their fundraising was in the millions and based on um their fundraising goals recently uh the committee said that they have the means to reach out to the community and that with the limited pot of funds that we have um that we weren't going to fund them this year. Fairview Intensive Care Navigator $55,000. Um we gave them uh recommended 30 last year. I think it ended up being like 267. Um we recommended 25,000 this year. Uh this was a lastm minute entry. Um they had not completed their paperwork timely and came in late um in our process and we weren't going to fund them. But then they came and made their pitch and told

us the changes in their programs and things that have going on and we felt like we needed to help them push uh in their new direction. Was remind me is this funding is this funding like half a position and money was coming from somewhere else for another half of a position? Yes. Okay. I think you were sitting in the audience that day when they presented. I might have been. Yeah. Okay. So they have the other half of the funding I believe. So they had a bunch of funding because the positions are changing. Okay. So they were not sure of how many positions there was going to be. Um the 55,000 total was the original position. Um

so are they I mean on that kind of dollars per person serve metric are they

seem to meet that? So, they're one of those programs that has multiple stages and their first stage is fantastic. They talk about it all the time. They they sell it to us when they're here. It's a second stage where there's less um not accountability, but less true metrics of success. Um and that's where we um hesitate on totally funding them because they're as their program is in transition um they're opening up a new facility up there and people who usually went out on their own after the program and then had this counselor watching after them. Some of them are going to now move into transitional, I guess, which will change the positions, which is another reason why we didn't fund fully. All right. So, that's services. And again, I will get you John's matrix. Um, oh, wow.

Just keep in mind again, those are just John's. That's what he comes up with on his own. We Oh, we have the adjustments we made in the meeting. I'll try to get to the adjustments. We did go through his list and make adjustments based on stuff that was going on. So, um, but we all signed off and pretty much I think it was unanimous when we said, "Do we want to enter his stuff into the record?" It was unanimous because we all believed thoroughly in the work that he did on that. Oh, you might not have been. That was last meeting. Okay. Um, this is really small print. I apologize. Um, I'm going blind in my old age. Okay, here we go. So, uh the second page is um capital projects uh and the agencies are to the left starting with the family enrichment uh network. Now, the mayor gave us some specific um guides,

strong suggestions, suggestions, strongest that we don't just continually fund little things that help little groups of people and try to fund things that

um advance more and and affect more people's lives in the city of Bingmpington. um like stop paving back parking lots of a business and stop paving doing an elevator or what whatever. So there were some things that just the sheer number the request basically um made it pointless for us to even try because we couldn't assist them in the numbers they needed anyway. The family enrich network elevator is $224,000. We learned in that process that they received funding elsewhere. So, we did not fund them from from us. We we Yeah, you guys funded that.

Um the Broom County Council of Churches, the Ramp It Up Youth Initiative, um $25,000, they still have all their fiscal one funding from previous years. So, we if they if they're not spending what they've already been given, we weren't going to prioritize them for funding um going forward. First word, action council. And this is where I was talking about before with their home repairs for seniors. They come and talk to us every year and they tell us, you know, how many people they can assist in that construction season. Um, and they still have funding now available from the last two fiscal years.

So, they have a contractor bottleneck, not a customer bottleneck, right? Um, a little both. They had a hesitation where they thought that the CBDGB funds were going to disappear and they didn't want to do work that they didn't weren't going to get reimbursed for. So they had a fear and they stopped.

Uh and then they started again and then they stopped again over asbestous and then they have a contractor back up. So there's been a whole bunch of things but the reality is they can't do more work than they already have funding for for this current fiscal year. So hopefully during this summer they can spend down their previous years and then next year we can give them funding again for fiscal year 53 if they request funds. Um but we want them to spend down the previous two years before they spend any further. Uh Phelps Mansion roof replacement. Um I can't see the number 57,866 I think it says. Uh we didn't fund them because we felt that they were an organization that's considered more of a destination like a highpriced wedding venue now in the back rooms and they're um part of the organization. And although they're very educational, they are uh a tourist facility um that could raise funds elsewhere with donors and etc. Um Robersonson Museum, basically the same thing. Uh AVRE, their HVAC, um they told us how much each different unit cost and how they could assist and what it would be with. So, we gave them enough to I think it was to fix one set of their HVAC units. Um, or we recommend that you give money to fix one. Uh, the Discovery Center is another one of those organizations where we said it is a um it sits different. The building is a regional destination for tourism and um have major corporate

sponsors and and and things beyond what they just do in services. So, we were hopeful that some of their work would come and and they also said they were working other grants um to get that covered. So, we were hopeful that they would find uh those other grants or donors that would cover their stuff. It's also ultimately a city building though. Did that come up in discussion at all? That didn't um but they did say that they were a regional destination and that they actually weren't even sure if they were eligible for the funds in the specific building. And I'm not sure if that's because they're a city-owned building. I'm not sure.

Um let's see. AB or ACBC two parking lots. Um, we weren't going to be able to fund them towards what they wanted. So, we did not fund the parking lots. The first congressional parking lot at the church there at 30 Maine. Now this is one of those services or places where we felt although it's a backside lot to the church. It is a facility that is utilized by so many including overflow for the next door ACA their own services their own things. The NMA community center is there. They have their weekly food um meals and things where people park and pull in there. Um, so we felt that that was one that was helping um multiple organizations that assist and and broaden the lives of more people here in the city of Bingmpington. So that lot we assisted with um the American Legion roof replacement. Last year we had a successful um tweak of their roofs. I'm going to call it. We uh requested that you or recommended that you uh fix parts of the roof. Um in that time, they've now utilized their rooms on the second floor that had been severely water damaged and and not readily usable have now become things that are being used by the community again. And these are some of these rooms can be rented cheap or for free depending on what your agency is. Um, and that just again is another thing that helps improve our community. They had a dress swap in there for prom dresses before when I was there. They had um an organization coming in that was going to uh help tutor kids in math in one of

the rooms. And I I felt like these were just programs that were beyond um what we can directly assist, but if we can put the roof over their head and allow them to utilize the space more, um then um we thought that was a good idea. Um, so we're recommending uh further fixing of the American Legion just because it's a a city um you and by city I mean residents used facility on the west side in a neighborhood that severely lacks facilities for people to go to. Um, oh, and the bowling is fantastic by the way. Uh, City of Bingmpington park upgrades. Um, we went through and funded.

Do we have details on on what that 200,000 is going for? I just got notification today. Uh, Juliet sent it to me. I know, uh, Sher Lindsay is getting I don't want to put you on the spot, but can you send us the list? Yes. So, um, originally there was it was questions between three different parks. Um, and then again, I just got word today an email that Sherry Lindsay is definitely on there. Um, they're getting extensive work done and then I'll find out the others. So, we made these decisions. You may make different suggestions depending on what the requests

Yeah. are. Um this is where my asterisk I was talking about earlier about where you might find well it's not it's a different line but um there are certain ones that we funded more than others both in the services that you can distribute and in in capital where we funded near fully things um without knowing we've been given pretty solid notes the last four years on what each thing was going to be, which road, which park, what features, and we were very confident in giving that money to the city to do that. Um, besides knowing Dickinson, Kolfax, and May, we didn't know anything on street rehabilitation. We didn't know if it's curbs and all. We don't know if it's just skim and pave. We don't know. We didn't know any of that at the time of the vote. We also didn't know which parks, just that there was three that they were looking at. Um, and demolitions, we didn't know how many. We just knew that the the mayor wanted to create a slush fund for demolitions. And we funded those things because um we wanted to assist. And part of our plan, action plan that we put forth last year was improving parks, helping kids, get rid of blight, um, and that and rehabilitate our streets and make sidewalks and entryways easier for handicap. And we felt that funding those would help reach some of those goals within the city.

You first. Um, I' I'd appreciate that you have highlighted that y'all do what you can with the information that you have. You've got a total amount to work with and to navigate through and ultimately you have to vote uh by the 30th so that this can move forward. and then it's our opportunity to do the due diligence and maybe utilize some of the information you've gotten since or that we can access in uh the meantime prior to a final vote.

Yeah, definitely. I can get um to the clerk's office uh all the stuff that I've received since. And some of our votes and some of our allocations would have been significantly different if we had some of the information we had on May 20 or April 29th when we voted that we now know in May. Um it's just um I've never had the lack of information that I we were dealing with this year. And some of that is transitioning and some of it is we lost um internal knowledge. You know, Stephen was there for a very long time and knew who to ask and questions to ask that the rest of us had no idea. I didn't know. Shannon didn't know. Juliet didn't know. Different things. So, we're finding things out after the fact. Um, and I will know more now going forward next year and who to ask and what to do and but um like setting up this presentation, the mayor reached out to me, have you voted? I was like, yeah, weeks ago. And um I just that was one of those things where I've always just been invited and told when to show up and I didn't realize that I needed to do more stuff. So, I apologize for that delay because we could have probably done this two weeks ago. What's your stipend? 500 bucks.

What's my stipen? Your stipen? Yeah. I don't remember. Actually, most of the years I don't get it because I forget to fill the paperwork. Oh, okay. I'm not here for the stipen. I We know. We know. Is the Sorry. Just saying maybe we should throw seed a pizza party or something. They did have three. Pizza, tacos, cookies. Tacos, cookies. I brought it all and then other people assisted. You You've got I'm sorry to bring it right back, but there's 180,000 that's remaining budget. Um, no, that's what they had to give out to organizations after the $800,000 set aside to for the city stuff.

Yep. The remains is a hyphen. It's a slash. It's nothing. So the blue down at the bottom, the set aside,

100,000 American Legion, 30,000 first congressional, 50,000 um AVRE I think it is, uh is the 180,000 that we had for community and then the rest is set aside for city. Okay. now on our ESG. Um, so the first thing is a big glowing error on the front page or the top line, sorry, that uh really disturbs me. Um, it's Outreach Ministries of the Southern Tier, the Showers of Hope. Um, their request was $60,000. We gave or recommended 25,000 last year and um we're not recommending anything this year based on the COC recommendations. Now there's a big asterisk on that. Um part of the application process requires a letter of approval from the COC. Um, and things got crossed in, I don't know, emails, conversations, whatever. That original letter did not get to us to be included in the packet. So, Showers of Hope Outreach Ministries were not included in because it wasn't a complete uh packet was not included in the applications to COC for review and COC then reviewed without um the outreach ministries of the southern tier

thus giving them no money. um they must have that letter for an application to be complete. It wasn't found, the letter wasn't found until after our vote, but the letter had been created. It just did not get to um Pling's office to be included in the packet to be sent back for review. Um we've already recommended based on the numbers from the COC. Um, but if there is a place where you want to adjust, um, there is a cap limit. Uh, you'll notice it just above the bottom of the box where it says 94,400 of a maximum 94,425 of the funds between these two boxes. Um, so you can't take money from family enrichment down in the second box and move it up because we're already basically at we're $25 short of that cap. Um, it would have to be money move within if you decide you wanted to fund um, showers of hope. Um, that's the stuff at St. Cirros and that is um, an amazing program and um, one that just kills me that we uh didn't have a recommendation for but at the time we didn't think they had a complete um application and thus needing needing that application to um fund. We we didn't um now we know that that letter does exist um but it was after our vote. So that's up to you guys now if you want to adjust those dollar amounts and fund um showers of hope. And for the records, they did not provide that letter. I had to reach out to CLC to see if they had a record of the letter. Um,

so again, like Justin said, it was an incomplete application. Um, and because we didn't realize that their letter was missing prior to the vote, I had to reach out, which was I think two days prior to the vote. Yeah. to COC to find out if that letter actually existed because they did not provide it.

We actually called a special meeting um to get COC in here directly to answer questions about it and things to try to sort out before we did our final vote and she was like there was no letter at that point and we were like that's why it wasn't included and we followed the COC's recommendations. I have a a few additional comments on that one, but I'm going to loop them into my comments on the YW.CA street outreach program as well. These are the only two under the street outreach component. So, is was this uh letter from the COC a HUD requirement or a local requirement or

It's a local requirement. Okay. I'm just if we make a change, we're not running a foul of something. What's that? If we make a change, we're not running a foul of some federal regulation of some sort. Well, the letter does exist. But the letter does exist. Yeah. So, basically, it does exist. it was found and just didn't properly get forwarded to us to be part of the packet to be then sent to COC for um I did reach out

I did reach out to Joe Carpenter um and just haven't heard back um Joe submitted the application uh works with showers of hope and the outreach ministries team I am curious what their absolute Again, not everybody gets it. It's in fact rare that everyone gets full funding, but what is their absolute baseline is the number that I uh that I reached out to Joe for. Um I can tell you what our recommendation was going was what is that?

Sorry, there was something floating saying. Come on. Yeah. um our recommendation before we realized that it wasn't there because we started working on this before we got the COC recommendations in our hands and when we were starting it we were going we basically were looking at last year's funding and making adjustments. So, we were going to again give them the or recommend the 25,000 and we were pulling that 25,000 from the YW.C.A's emergency housing line um which would have funded them just a little bit more than they got last year but well under the 78,000 request. That was going to be our adjustment. Um and then down at the bottom, family enrichment network cares homes. Um their request 65,000. Um we gave them uh recommended 61,000 last year. We're budgeting 62975. This year basically because of the cap. So they're is I

I was just curious about AC. Did I miss that? YW.C.A. Street Outreach and ACBC Comfort. I was going to talk about that if you want. So, all right. Go for it. Why is the cap so different from last year? It seems like we we've lost $50,000 or so of cap. What? The cap is a percentage. Yeah, that number. Last year we did we held the number at 94,000. This year it's up to 94,425. It's up slightly.

No, but if I look at the fiscal year 51 final budget, it adds up to like $150,000 worth of stuff, right? So, it's the top box here, the big one added to the bottom box. Oh, we didn't have a thing in the bottom box last year. Yeah, we did. And so then the the that is a federal regulation. So it is federally capped to the street outreach emergency shelter compon component and then rapid housing and then the rapid rehousing homelessness prevention is a separate um but those have to follow the federal guidelines and it's a percentage

but 25 35 45 no if you if you add 50 fc year 51 final budget of top box stuff it's well over $100,000 What? Oh, ignore me for a minute. Let me calculate stuff. Do you want to cover YWACbc? I feel like one of these isn't supposed to be on here. One of them wasn't on last year, right?

So, if you add fiscal year 51 top box stuff, you end up with just under $140,000. That's Yeah, one of those is not there. AB ACBC wasn't there last year.

So, even though it says it was, it's not. I don't know. We stayed under $94,000 last year, but one of these is not right. This is the same problem we had and why we found when we were having our our session. Oh, um because COC didn't have outreach ministries and we originally didn't have somebody else. remember there was something one of them's in the wrong box. This is the old one and let me think about why. Anyway, let me finish the funding of this year and then we'll figure out last year.

Okay. But um it was under the cap was under 94,000 last year and we came in I want to say at like 93,000 and change and then you added this the 62 or whatever to it and got the 157. Um but we didn't fund this is a program we absolutely adore. We love um they come in they're very responsive. They give us not only information about their programs but the other programs that they work with. Um they're very helpful. Uh the street outreach program from the YW.C.A. um we fund them regularly. Um the COC says that they have funding that's available to them from NOFO and um that it would it would be easier for them to get that funding and to full uh fund more the programs that we are funding. Um and then when the upcom center

I'm sorry can you remind me what no means? It's it's the it's HUD's notice of funding opportunity. The Do you mind if I add a little context to the YW1?

So, under the new administration, HUD previously did not include street outreach as an eligible pro program component for COC funding. It's always been relegated to ESG funding. Under the new administration, it is now an active program component of the anticipated notice of funding announcement that will come out by June 1st. So, we're just a couple of weeks, this is the first time in recent history that street outreach will be funded through the no. The the challenge with the COC's representation of the YW being able to access that funding, however, is there's a gap. So, we'll get the NOFO by the end of this month. Awards will be announced in December. That funding won't be available until January 2027. So if the COC recommendation moves forward as is, there's a sixmonth funding gap for the YWCA,

which we didn't understand at that time. We were under the impression that those numbers would go out in Jan in July in June that the process would be in the summer and that that funding would be available for them for the for the fiscal year, not that the their fiscal year starts January 1. So that's again part of this whole for this section. If you want to adjust funds, there would need to be a stop gap funding for them um just for the cold winter months really of end October, November, December.

I did talk to uh Terresa Boier, their chief operating officer to get their baseline number. Um, and I think the the opportunity does exist to transfer out of the emergency housing line down into the street outreach line. And I can share more in committee if we if we get there.

And then um changes in the administration again for ACBC um does not allow for um syringe exchange programs. So we can't fund something that has uh uh and that's our belief that they do.

So it's still technically eligible a harm reduction program like a syringe exchange program which is a primary component of ACBC's work. Um however again under this administration they've made very clear that continuums of care should not consider projects that use a harm reduction approach and include specifically syringe exchange programs. the the administration and HUD has made clear that they will rate COC's poorly in accessing funding for their annual NOFO and because it's the COC that makes this recommendation they'll be held accountable for that.

So we chose not to fund in protection of the dollar amounts. The the piece to add here though is that ACBC is actually going to cease operations of UpComfort at the end of uh June. So they don't still I mean not that I'm I don't want to presume to be speaking for Carmela in this moment, but theoretically given the timeline of what we funded for for United Presbyterian and what the YWCA is moving forward on double day, the they shouldn't have the need for these funds. They wouldn't even be issued until after they cease operations.

Thank you. This is when when she used to deliver her COC recommendations to us, it was just always so enlightening. Um, not that our current COC people are not fantastic. I just, you know, the wealth of information that you provide when you're explaining things just makes it so easy to follow. All right. Any other questions? And I'm still trying um

I think regarding 51 is they had ACBC had two contracts in 51. They had one for 27,000 and some change and one for 43. 36,000 um from previous monies. So again, I just took Steve Carson's number from when he did the 51 budget. So maybe he screwed up and that's supposed to be the 27,000 one. I'm not sure. I can't speak for that. Um of why it has the 43 there. That's the only thing I can think of.

Oh yeah, because up at the top of the page too in the middle of the bracket, the number is not updated for fiscal year 52. It says 90,000. Okay. And then the final thing was the was Fen's Rapid Rehousing. Are they the only requesttor that we got apparently or how does that work some special way or they're the only provider of homelessness prevention um in there were two other programs last year. Mothers and Babies had a program. Broom County Urban League had a program not ESD funded. Uh but they've lost funding. So I mean as much as we can funnel to fend for homelessness prevention the better.

Okay. So one of the question that the additional sheets that you brought down mentioned program income which none of this does. Have we accurately accounted for program income so we don't get in trouble again this year because that was part of the issue of having to restate everything last year.

Uh program income is pretty much a guess. It's an estimate. We don't know who's going to pay off, you know, rehabilitation loans. um stuff like that. So, it's a guesstimate and the guesstimate that is on here is based off of last year's numbers because we just don't know. And I think Steve took whatever's on here, I think 40 or 50,000, whatever's in here, I don't remember. Um again, is a guesstimate. Could be more, could be less. We don't know. And we typically get that final number. Is it midsummer? And and then if adjustments need to be made, that's why we end up seeing it here again.

Thank you so much for all your work and please express that to the committee to Justin. Thank you. Any other questions? If we have no other questions, I mean I have questions on the spendown stuff. Were there any concerns raised by organizations relating to challenges they fa faced uh filing and dealing with uh spend down

the ones who would talk to us about the money they've spent down it's they spend it down they just don't get us the receipts in a timely manner and then Jan has to chase them um and then the ones that aren't we're chasing them to spend their money now some of them aren't uh we have funed that haven't spent their some of their money, but that's because they are summer programs or where we don't expect them to do it until this good weather portion. Um,

like vines for example, they just provided their first reimbursement request. Um, obviously it's only because, you know, they can only plant certain time of year. Um, and they get reimbursed for materials like seeds and uh their farmer who maintains the gardens and stuff like that. So, um, they just send in their first reimbursement request, but but they're a program that regularly sends back their reimbursements. So, we're not concerned. The ones where we are concerned, some of them have been addressed, some of them weren't funded. Um,

is the spendown like communicated? Do they really understand what dates the reimbursements need to be in by or are they told a certain date and that date doesn't line up with the reporting back to you? How does that that work in terms of communication on I think some of it

no it's very set in stone. Uh it's in the contracts as well. Um you have September through December. Um first reimbursement request is due by January 15th. Then you have January through January, February, March, January through April 30th. Um with the second reimbursement request due May 15th um and then you have May through August with the final reimbursement September 15th. So it is there's a definite schedule.

They are uh notified of this prior. They are told this on the on-site visits and it is in the I think some of them spend the money and then aren't worried about it until they realize they have a gap and they haven't been reimbursed and it's now the end of their fiscal year and then they go into panic mode and send in the receipts and different things. So I think that's part of it where they're out of sight out of mind. I'm I'm so I guess I'm but that's also not true either because they are reminded. I actually hunt them down all the time. So January, May, and September. But you you were saying that certain organizations that are summer oriented don't do their first one until the end of summer. Yeah.

So So that would be the September one. So as long as everybody gets their stuff in by September 15th or they have to put something in for January to be considered in compliance. I'm just trying to understand the rules. No, they it is mandatory. They have to reimburse at least that. Some agencies reimburse once a month. Uh some agencies reimburse once a week. Um it all depends on how often they sit in their requests. So it's what drives us insane is when they spend their money in September and we don't get any receipts or further till March or April. Does that make sense?

So as long as their money is in by September 15th, they are considered in compliance. All of their receipts. They don't they're not absolutely required to submit by January or they like that summer programs. No, not the summer programs. No, you only are required to submit for what you've spent. Right. Right. Yeah. Thank you.

So, if you haven't spent any money, there's nothing to submit. But if we know you're spending your money or you're saying you're spending your money and we're Shannon's hunting you down for receipts and and etc., That's problem and we have organizations like that and because of the spendown challenge last summer, this is the first year that Sedak has really incorporated the spend down history in funding allocations and I believe the intention is to do so moving forward. Yeah.

If you're not going to spend your money, we're going to give it to organizations that will. Are there any additional questions for Shannon or Justin in the absence of our president promp? I get like real real quick. Sorry. Um in the do you give all your feedback to organizations when you tell them you're not funding them? I know it's like if they were watching this they'd have an explanation, but is there like a direct like this is this is what we were thinking with our final

they get sent out? I usually end up talking to most of them. I mean, I have the last three years. Um, we go to the visits. Um, they're some of them will be funded, some of them won't be because they're all currently funded. Um, so I thought you guys just had a public hearing as well. Oh, yeah. We had a public hearing. Some of them knew going in that they were we had reached out, you know, And then some of them didn't have the public there. Um they only had their people. Again, the public hearings work best when the agencies have their people and their

supporters in it. So I have a question on the noticing of that. So I we got emails with the the full official looking public hearing notice. Did each of the organizations get that or did they just get a notice saying that there was a meeting? uh Juliet was in charge of that. So if I could get a copy of that email, I'd be interested in seeing what was communicated relating to the public hearing to forward the email. Thank you. Um and it was that flyer. The flyer was attached. Was attached. Thank you. That's the main thing I want. And all of us on CAdeck had it and posted it on our socials um for our stakeholders and our communities that we see.

Thank you. It was actually the turnout was the lowest we've had, but it was also I feel like the latest we've had. Usually it's the month earlier. Any other? No. Thank you so much. I would make a motion to adjurnn. Thank you. I'll second. You can't because you're technically leaving the meeting. Thank you. Second. Seconded. All in favor? I I thank you.