Common Council - Regular Meeting

will now come to order. First thing we're going to review is the legislation and premeating conference and what you have in front of you. Uh the first thing is from the uh the Onidita Herkimer Sound Waste Authority. Uh attach to find a resolution to be submitted to the UDICA common accounts for its review. Um so it resolution authorizing adjustment to the 2025 solid waste service. Take a look at it. Uh I'm good with it. Uh Miss Ta is good with it. If we could just move it on today. Any issues with it? You good, Joe?

Frank, you good? Okay. So, we're going to we're going to vote on this. The next thing is a comment council change the ENA approved annual estimate uh in inter fund transfer of $2,150. 2 million. Oh, excuse me. This is 2,150. And this is for the budget. These are amendments to the budget and general fund contingency. Uh, $1 million. So, put this in committee. I'm going to have a special meeting where we'll

correct, but I I mean, I'd kind of like to explain. Yeah. If you don't mind. Um so obviously with the money that um we we have heard from the state I think that you know instead of having a tax increase obviously want to lower the tax increase and kind of change those funds um within the budget. The one is the inter fund transfer. The other one is to contingency. The contingency one is the one I have to actually work on um because we actually have to lower that 2.9% tax increase in order to get there. Um but the inter fund transfer one stays the same. So that's it. Put them in committee and then obviously when we have our next budget meeting. Sounds good.

Very good. Next one is a uh authorizing a fence permit from Councilman Birdmaster. Would you like to uh say anything on that? Councilman. Sorry. Um yeah. It was it was brought to my attention that uh we we have a fence there and uh they have the fence and they're going to extend their fence so we don't have to fix their fence. So I think that's a a win-win situation for us if we pass this so we don't have to adjust. Bob, did this go in front of the zoning board? No, not planning board. It did not. It did not. So that has to go in front of the board first. Correct. No,

it does not. Oh, so can you kind of explain how this got to us? And they want came to the engineering department. They were requesting to put a eight fence, I believe, up at Globe Mills. And we have to repair our fence. So, we said, well, if we have to repair a fence, you want to put a fence up. See if we can make a deal. So, we could vote on this today then, right? We're good. We're going to vote on that. Thank you. Now the next one is uh an ordinance extending the moratorum on battery storage facilities in the city of Udica. So I can talk on that. Um please.

So um if you recall at the last council meeting you passed a resolution um starting seeker. Um within the resolution it included language to extend the mortorium. Um I realized when we passed that um it didn't include an exact date and I just figured for clarity just have a date. So um again it's for a period of 30 days. Um it'll conclude on the 1st. Um we anticipate that seeker and everything will be done um by then and you should be able to act at your next council meeting. So we we can vote on this today, right? Yes. Okay. Any issue with this with anyone? All right. So we're going to move we're going to move to vote on that today. The next one is an ordinance uh moratorium on billboards in the city of Udica.

Yep. Same reason um again passer. Um just clarifying so that there's an exact date so we know when it when it ends. All right. Very good. So we're going to vote on that one as well today. Next one is a comment council uh changes. I can uh speak to this. This is going to be okay. Go ahead, Katie. Uh these were uh approved in ENA yesterday. Uh Councilman President uh Jerusi sponsored him. So basically we were just reorganizing uh the clerk that is under our title under the salaries for table of organization is switched to the actual clerk's office and we reallocated um yeah I think that was actually that's the only change that we have to do. And so so they're not pay raises. They're just salary increases.

They is that a difference? Just just out of curiosity. They're just salary increases. We took $10,000 for one of the positions, the empty position, and allocated across the team for director. Can you explain exactly what we did here on this cuz this is where you you took it out from took them away from the the council and put them on in your We have We have one clerk that is funded under our account. We have one clerk that is funded under the common council's um account. So, we're just transferring the money back into our line. So,

All right. Any questions on this? Everybody good with this? All right, we will vote on and the next one is the same thing and that's just the social security that went along with the uh numbers uh seven through 10 are the same thing and 10 is the same, right? And the last one is an ENA transfer. Can you talk on that Katie at all? Uh yeah, this one is a DPW had uh we were just paying for the parts I think it was. Maybe Mark can speak to it better, but it was approved in ENA 5 to zero. I can't hear you. Uh Mark, do you want to speak on this one? What the repairs? It's the repairs that we had over the winter for the the plows.

Everybody good with this? Yeah. And on that note, in our packet, our committee packet ordinances 9 through13 and 17 through 19, our ENA transfers we put in committee last week, uh corporation council came down, spoke with us. Those are all ready to be passed tonight. Can you explain what the difference was from putting them in into committee? Can somebody speak on that? I mean, yeah, you have to put them in committee. Yep. You can speak on it.

Yeah. So, I can talk on it. Um, so, um, based on the discussions at the last council meetings, I believe that there were some misstatements. Um, uh, it was represented that the transfers were illegal or unlawful. Um, that prompted us to, you know, do a review and and see what where that was coming from. uh the section of law that was presented only applies really in one context um specifically as it relates to um purchase orders and if there's returns for insufficient funds um and there's an additional request for a transfer. It's only in that instance can a controller make a recommendation to the board of ENA whether or not the um it should be approved or disapproved. Um and only then is it a recommendation the board of ENA um is free to act as they see fit. um the controller doesn't approve or disapprove any transfer. On the board of ENA um has that authority. Um obviously the controller as a member of the board in EA can um cast his vote, but again it's the entire board that makes that determination. Um so again those transfers are not unlawful. Um they are legal. Um there should be no issues with them or any other transfers going forward. Um so

okay, that's good. So anybody have an issue with this? So, we'll take out ordinance 9 through 13 and 17 through 19. Okay. So, now we're going to go over to what's in committee.

Everybody got your committee folder? Okay. Katie, do you want to pull something out? Yeah. We will be doing ordinances 9 through 13. The ENA transition. Let's take a look at them. We have a couple. You're going to want to just go to the back of the packet

because we have two ordinance nines.

So 9 through 13. Correct. 9 10 11 I got an eight here.

We have uh Yep. And uh 1213 and then ordinance 17 1819, the very last part of the packet Okay, I think I got So we said 9 through what?

9 10 11 12 13 17 18 19 I think I pulled them all out. If I didn't, just let me know. The first one is ordinance adding this is ordinance number nine. Ordinance ending section 2-29-136 UK city code of ordinance. Uh has to be an article signed regulation of the Yucas code of ordinance shall be amended.

Is this what you just pulled out, Jack? Yeah, you got the wrong ordinance. Nine. You got to go to the end of the packet. The very end. All right. There's two number nines. You're looking for all the ENA transfers.

Oh, yeah. It's the 225 date.

All right. This is a uh ENA transfer Uh, proposed ordinance number nine. Take a look at it. Let me know what you think. Any issues with this? We good? All set. I think I think it was just said that 9 through 12 are coming out of committee, right? So, who's bringing it out of committee? That's okay. You are. Yeah. Right. So, why would you bring it out of committee if you didn't know you had the votes for it? Well, I just want to make sure we have it. So, has has the questions been answered on on the contractual 811? Have they been answered? I mean,

was asking on that, right? Right. So, I don't know. Coming up. I mean, somebody's got to speak on the on the behalf of all this. Elmir, do you mind going through each of these?

Thank you. the $15,000 for contractual 811. Um Nick can maybe give you a little bit more detail if you need it, but it's uh every time anyone in the city does any digging for any specific reason, uh we get built for that and it's tough to budget for that. It's usually under budget. it's that line is going to continue to go up just due to cost for everything. Um that's the reason for this transfer. There's other uh smaller things uh memberships, repairs to the vehicles, um and just some supplies that they needed. Some of these accounts didn't even have a budget for it, but just due to trying to uh post expenses to the right accounts, uh that's why we're doing those transfers. Uh the fire admin contract services. That's the um Berlini. It's the uh fire department safer grant contractor that handles that and collects all the revenue. Um that's an $80,000 contract. That line um is not funded appropriately for the last two years. So that's the point of that transfer. Fire admin repairs. This has to do with the actual infrastructure of all the um firehouses. Uh all the firehouses are old and you know we try to control as much as we can but there are certain expenses that you just can't avoid that you need to address. Um the physician fee overage that's due to retirees that has to be paid out. Uh the assessment salaries in absence of a um full-time assessor were were um we hired a contractor to uh take over that job

which he just Yeah. the uh fire mechanic repairs. This has to do with two fire trucks that were ordered in 2023. I think it was uh Bonhorn's for I believe 900,000 a million dollars. And when we took delivery of those fire trucks, the invoices came in much higher just due to um just inflation over the years. Um so we had to pay it out of somewhere. We're not going to bond for you know bond for it again just to cover cover this overage. But that's this stems from

So doesn't this kind of attest to the ban that we just did or is this something totally different with the fire apparatuses? Uh the ban we did is has nothing to do with um I mean this is part of it. The ban just has to do with we get the last state payment in March and we we're incurring all those expenses throughout the year. Okay. Um didn't just tell us it was I thought this purchase was there was good news. We did receive a statement from um the state for our last draw. So we should be receiving it actually put it in our account.

So we Okay. So this is what I was looking for that we extended it and this is now for the rand. Okay. Thank you.

It has nothing the rand had had nothing to do with paving. I think that was stated uh the liability insurance account. Um this information is provided by uh an employee in the engineering department. Uh this is another account that's generally not funded enough. It's funded in the budget for 475,000. Um this budget year alone, we've got the estimates and it's going to be about $600,000. So the $80,000 is just to cover last year's uh the parks other equipment, obviously the electric account, the utilities are going up. The park's other equipment is maintenance on the lawnmowers. Just the parts needed to get these machines up and running. Uh the Nail Creek flood is to record the bond that was passed for the uh Nick can talk more about this for the separation.

Yeah, this is the fix the flood plane walls coming down the arterial. What? The flood plane the walls. Thank you so much. Are they going to put up more wells? No, they're just going to clean them up and uh clean out the bed, reinforce them so that we don't have flooding that we're having. That was one of the main veins that come down from Sequo and etc. So, any other questions on the on the transer discuss? Yeah. Yeah. Paul was here. Yep. All right. I go with this. Any issues?

All right. Here. Anybody got good on these? All right. So, we're going to move those forward, too. All right. All right. Does anybody want to take anything else out of uh committee? All right. I'd like to move to close this uh meeting. Second. Second. All right.

The clerk will call the role. Iello furmaster betar kone Irvin Wazluski Kalasimotea lamemed drudi all present.

Please rise for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for the deceased members of the common council. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Is there a motion and a second to dispense the reading of minutes from the previous meeting? Motion. Second. Thank you.

Call for a public hearing regarding annual estimate 2026 2027. The public um hearing is open. Our first speaker is Francis Brown. I'm going to keep this short. I don't think the mic's working. There we go. Essential services are a must to have the city expand to make public safety top priority. That means the fire department, police, DPW. Without the DPW, there'll be no roads for the fire department and the police to respond. Codes is asking for seven grand for overtime. I say give them 15. Let's catch these bad actors in act and make them pay and not the honest taxpayer. Thank you. There are no other speakers signed up. Public hearing is now closed.

I can go last if you want. Whatever you want. I'll go last. Okay. Okay. Public comment period um allows three minutes per speaker. Our first speaker is Mark Nichollet. Oh, go. Uh, Mark, hang on for a second. We're going to um wave the rules of order um for Jack Lamemetico. Councilman Lmetico would like to speak.

Motion to wave the rules.

Can I get a motion? Second. Ready. Udica firefighters. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Last week at our council meeting, while discussing our annual budget, I made a comment about our Udica firefighters that I truly regret for which I now want to apologize. After learning that our fighter fighters current turnout gear may contain carcinogenic material, I made a poor off-cuff remark when I said that's why they receive hazardous pay. It was careless. It was wrong and I take full responsibility. I understand how that comment was disturbing, disrespectful, and hurtful and very regrettable. Please know that was never my intention, but I know that intentions do not erase impact. And I fully acknowledge the impact of my words, especially to the firefighters here who are battling cancer, those in remission, and to the families who have lost loved ones to cancer caused by the exposure to this job. I think about the four members of our department who died from esophical cancer after the 1981 GE fire. I remember it. Fire Chaplain Reverend David Looney, Captain Lewis Jennady, Lieutenant Ed Brunie, Fighter Fighter Ed Bick. May they and all those have we have lost since rest in peace. We will never forget. We will never forget. We all know that firefighters face a higher risk of cancer because of toxic exposure. We know that cancer is the leading cause of death among firefighters.

These are not statistics. These are facts. These are our neighbors, our friends, and our family members. I have seen this kind of sacrifice up close. I served in the military and was assigned to assist at ground zero during the 9/11 disaster. I remember daily as a smoke and air as a smoke in the air and watching the fire department of New York carried the flag draped bodies of their brothers from the pile. I watched this daily while I was there. As of late 2025, more Fire Department New York members have died from illnesses related to that work than that were actually lost that day when the towers fell. The numbers are still growing. This is a reality of the profession. I was reading over 50,000 people since that time have gotten sick from that. I have the utmost respect from anyone who puts their life in harm's way. I've worn the uniform much of my life in the army, overseas, and later as a correction and parole officer. I know what it means to accept risks in service to others. And that is actually why I should have chosen my own words more carefully. Being tired of going through personal loss is no excuse. I'm an elected official. I'm an elected official. I should know better. And I must do better. To our fighter fighters, I'm truly sorry. I respect you. I value you. And in the past, as an elected official, as an elected official, I will continue to support funding for safety equipment and protective gear that you need in order to do your jobs as safely as possible. and anyone who was hurt by my words, I

apologize sincerely and I welcome an opportunity to sit down one-on-one with anyone who wishes to do so. Thank you very much.

Thank you, council member. Public comment period, three minutes. Our first speaker, good evening. My name is Martin Nlutter Jr. I'm the president of IFAF Local 32 UD Professional Firefighters Association.

I originally came here today to address the comments made by Councilman Medical at last week's budget hearing, but at this point, our positions made clear through both the media and our presence here today. What concerns me is that comment has overshadowed everything that was discussed that meeting beforehand. Chief Fingerstall was advocating for 140 members uh to our compliment to address the call volume increase. He discussed the need to um pursue grants in order to improve our firehouses and he addressed the need to invest in new turnout gear uh to address the long-term health risks. U these are serious issues and they deserve serious attention. We appreciate Councilman Lmedico's apology and at this point we're focused on moving forward. Our priority remains the same, the health and safety department, not only for our members and their families but for the citizens of Utica that call on us every day. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Brian McQueen. Brian, the common council has provided you a copy of section 3244 public comment period. Are you in agreement? I am in agreement.

Thank you.

Chairperson of the common council, distinguished members, thank you for the opportunity to speak here this evening. Be before I begin, I just like to show hands. How many of you people in the audience today know somebody that's been diagnosed with cancer? Raise your hand. Thank you very much. My name is Brian McQueen. I'm a local volunteer firefighter and I'm a co-founder of the past and past president of the Believe 271 Foundation, a local nonprofit that has assisted 154 firefighters in their battle with occupational cancer since 2015. But for the last 11 years, since December 24th, 2014, I've also been a patient at Memorial Sloan Ketarine Cancer Center in New York City, fighting occupational cancer linked to the very job I loved in the community I swore to protect. When my wife and I met with five oncologists who discussed their assessments of my diagnosis and their prognosis, we found the information shared to be deeply impactful. We didn't know that the outcome what the outcome would be. I didn't know if I was even going to see my grandkids grow up. I didn't even know if I was going to ever see my grandkids or attend a sporting event or a concert. I didn't know if I was going to be able to continue being a volunteer firefighter in my community. Those 11 years have been a battle. And I'll be honest with you, it's been true health. the continual tests, the trips to New York City. I would not wish upon anyone, including any one of you or your families. Because of the the intense treatments, I no longer have my saliva glands and my partial thyroid. I am here tonight to applaud the leadership and union of the Utica Fire Department for taking proactive steps to protect not only their firefighters, but their families. Because cancer does not just affect firefighters. It affects spouses. balancing work and treatment schedules.

It affects children who grow up visiting hospital rooms instead of being on the ball fields. It affects families financially, emotionally, and socially. It affects the brothers and sisters you walk into battle with. Cancer is now the leading cause of line of duty deaths among firefighters in the United States. It surpasses burns, trauma, heart attacks, and collapsing structures. That is the reality of the departments across this nation and what they're confronting. Trust me, this is no joke. It's not hazardous pay. It could never resolve the pain and suffering, not just physically, but mentally. The science is clear. Firefighters face increased cancer risk due to repeated exposures to smoke, soot, combination byproducts, and hazardous materials. Homes of today are changing. What used to take us 13 minutes to escape a home fire now is down to 3 minutes. Compared to the general US population, firefighters are approximately 14% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and at 18% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and dying. Just last year, the Sylvester Cancer Center at the University of Miami did a study using wristbands. Firefighters wore them for a 24-hour period on the job. Those results those results showed 24% increase in PHA chemicals from fires of today. Among the contributors to that risk are PAS, polyfloro alkali chemicals or what we call forever chemicals historically used in turnout gear because they resist water and stains. Now we know we know now that PAS does not break down in the body or the environment. They accumulate over time and are linked to cancer and other serious health concerns. The very gear designed to protect us can, if not properly modernized, contribute a longtime exposure. Governor Hathy Cavern Governor Kathy Hokll recently announced

legislation to ban the sale of firefighter turnout gear containing intentionally added PAS in New York State in 2028. The action recognizes the urgency of protecting firefighters from these risks. Your fire service leadership here in Udica has been ahead of that curve and I applaud them for that. Council members, firefighters in Udica run toward heat, smoke, explosions, and chaos so your neighbors can live safely. They show up every single day. Tonight, I am asking you to stand with them. One, support policies that reduce carcinogenic exposures. Two, support cancer education and early screening. Three, support modernization of protective gear, including PAS free alternatives. Because the cost of prevention is far less than the cost of treatment and no budget line can measure the value of a life saved. Your firefighters protect this community with their courage. I respectfully ask that you protect their health with your leadership. Udica is a great community protected by exceptional first responders. Thank you for your time this evening and I applaud each of you for the work that you do.

Thank you, Brian. OUR next speaker, Ron Vincent. Ron, the common council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes, Mr. president, but I surrender my time. Thank you, Ron. Our next speaker, Thomas Carone,

Tom, the common council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes, I am. Thank you.

Hi, Tom Carone, 20-year veteran of the fire department, retired in June, former president of the Local 32 unit firefighters. Uh, I had hoped never to step foot in these chambers again. Unfortunately, I find myself here, and it's only because I love the guys and girls that I put my life on the line with, and they mean everything to me. And I'm not here to talk about the comments made this last weekend or last week or Jack Lamemedico. For the last decade, he's already known that he's not worth any of my time or thoughts. So, I have nothing to say to him except the average life expectancy of a career firefighter 68 years old. Jack, I hope you live a long and prosperous life in full fulfillment. As for the leadership of this department, I heard silence with his comments. That's the problem that I saw. There's nobody in here advocating. We have a system systemic problem of of the desecration of the Udica Fire Department, the admirable service and work that we provide to our community, and the inevitably fatal job and career that we've chose. Those risks every day take precedent over everything and the only thing we try to do is get home safely to our family. This all began now in our second administration of the same things that have been embedded in this city that kind of justify the things Mr. Lametico said at the last meeting under Paul Mary. We had our last leader and true chief, Russ Brooks, walked out of this building. And Ross, who died of work-related cancer, acknowledged by the World Trade Center, acknowledged by the New York

State Compensation Board, acknowledged by firefighters of the Line of Duty Death, was denied here in Udica by the city only. That was the first line of disrespect from the same immoral, unethical attorneys that guided this city that they should deny him such benefits. Then it carried on carried on to a second administration that feels the same way and does nothing better regardless of their promises during their screening process and in their acknowledgement of the problems that we face. We have chiefs that aren't concerned. When they're asked if they need more men, they say that's not in the plans. They had saunas that take cancerous out of our pores offered by Maryanne Buttonshan, Assemblywoman Buttonshan for 5 years and refused to take them. No advocates for the safer grant. No advocates for our men and women. We have an assistant chief that has unlimited resources to the same immoral and unethical attorneys to deny our 207A claims every day. Our men and women turned to our mayor, ignored. We turned to this council. We made a public vote of no confidence and nothing was done. We've become the butt of your jokes. That's how bad it has gotten. And there's nobody in this room leading or silencing people that disrespect us. God rest his soul, if Chief Brooks was still alive, he would have been asking you to go outside on the split second following your comment and you know it. There's nobody here stopping you or stopping the city from abusing your most admirable employees that you have. We worked through CO 19. We we I talked about hazard pay for the $60 million that you were supposed to segregate our firehouses with and never did and are

talking about now. We didn't receive a penny of hazard pay and we were the front line giving EMS CPR to people facing and fighting COVID in the streets and bringing them home to our families. Not a scent of hazard pay for that. The real problem and the real reason I came today is because while cancer is a risk in a serious risk, it's almost a pandemic in our fire service. I've seen too many of our retirees die within 10 years of their retirement. At the time that I left as union president, we had four current members fighting cancer. But we face a risk that's even more dangerous than that. Currently, our assistant chief is convinced along with corporation council and anybody else that's not looking out for our city that the minimum staffing level should be something that they try to remove. Well, if cancer is a problem, I could tell you something. And if you remove that minimum staffing, I can guarantee that citizens will die and it a nightmare certainty that probably one of the men or women in this room will probably die fighting a fire. Our fatalities will be a normality and it'll only be a matter of time until something happens to one of these guys. It's not the union's job to make sacrifices in our negotiations to take that off the table. It's your job to educate them, chief. If they continue and put that on a piece of paper and leave it to a judge and an attorney to to to decide the public safety of our community and the safety of our firefighters, you might as well resign. You shouldn't allow the assistant chief to convince them it's even a decent proposal. And you shouldn't allow it to be proposed in front of an attorney or a judge to possibly have it taken, knowing the impact that it would have on the citizens and knowing the risk that it would bring to our firefighters. There's not a leader that I've seen in this room he could get away with a

comment like that without a person speaking up. I tried. Our members tried. They voted. They brought no confidence. I brought it to your attention. Nobody's willing to break the systemic problem. Who's the leaders? These men and women put their life on their line. They're dying at 60 years old. their their spouses left without a husband or wife, their kids losing their dad at 15, 20, 30 years old all to serve. and you guys deny their 207 a claims and give them you you hire an attorney firm that the the lead the the lead attorney and partner in the firm is already on over $100,000 pension with the city and you're giving them $100,000 more to obstruct a contract that'll bring benefits to the families that that serve you every day through these things that you deserve hazard pay for and don't get the risks that you don't face that we do. There's not a leader in this room. And if minimum staffing is gone, God saved the citizens of the city of Udica because they will not have services anymore. And God God saved my firefighters, my brothers and sisters. Because that nightmare is almost a certainty. And I don't want to see any one of you coming to us and saying, "Oh, well, you know, that was admirable this or that or this or that." Because you didn't lead when the time came. and your mission is is is is partaking in it. Somebody has to acknowledge the problem here. Somebody has to step up. Chief, you got to tell them what minimum manning means to this department and what it would do to this city. Mayor, you better wake up because you will single-handedly destroy the city of Udica.

You're going to have to finish and the and the public safety of the city of Udica. And that's all I got to tell you. Our next speaker, Francis Brown.

Francis, common council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement? No, I do not agree with 3-22-44 D2. Under the Constitution, it permits citizens to speak public to public officials with start criticism. No, you got to agree. And no, I don't. No, I don't. I know the law. Okay. The protection applies. We have a police officer in here, please. Uh, you are in violation of Sullivan versus New York New York Times versus Sullivan. Do not come near me. I have a right to speak towards the people. This will open you up to a lawsuit.

Okay. This is constitutional. Got to be removed. Francis, if you agree, Francis, you can speak. See how the tree us violation of bud. You just open yourself up into another lawsuit. You caught me off the last public hearing, that's a lawsuit. Touch me, I'll sue you, too. Oh, that's a good one.

We have no common council guest speaker. We do have communication from the mayor. Mayor, we'll just give it a minute. Think Ed's missing all this? Think Ed's missing all this?

Scott. Yeah, next week we're going to reduce. Mayor, you're up. Yeah, I'm all right. Yeah. Can the crowd please be quiet? Mayor.

All right. Thank you. Um, so I'm here tonight um to both make myself available for any questions that the common council would like to ask myself, the budget director, uh, regarding the budget. uh but also to address similar to last year I came in and addressed a lot of the things that were floating around in the public uh whether accusations questions etc. Um first and foremost salaries and overtime it's been stated multiple times that we over spent um salaries and overtime lines. Um second is healthcare. Um it's been stated that uh we've been overbudgeting for healthcare. Um I do want to speak to the fact that uh due to these accusations which after we go through this the budget director and I are going to explain to the common council that we'll all see and we'll provide um real data that's been accounted for uh to the council after the presentation so they can all see it that we did not overspend. We did not authorize overtime was not authorized and we've been managing the budget appropriately. Healthcare we did not over budget for. AIM I'm going to discuss because unfortunately I sent you all an email earlier um due to this and we all know the financial state of the city after the auditor presented uh this past Friday. It's pretty point blank that uh it's a reality at this point. It's not made up. It's not fictional. Uh, but due to the fact that we want to just continually go on a witch hunt of me hiding money and overspending, let's make it to Albany. And now I was asked to respecify why the $3.8 million we brought home is needed because they're questioning the fact that it should exist. Um, I do want to be open to overall budget questions

when we're done. Um, but then one small thing I wanted to lead off with. Um, I almost feel I can I can end with it because I feel like everyone's going to stay here for this, but I'm going to start with it. Um, this is a minor thing, very minor, but um, if anyone did go to the presentation when I uh, gave the budget proposal to ENA, what I let off with was the fact the last couple budget seasons uh, under my administration been very difficult. It's obviously uh, it's obvious they've been very difficult. So the way I compiled this budget was I literally took the common council's approved budget last year and that's where I started. That's where the mayor approved budget came from. It was all of the lines the common council passed all the lines the common council whittleled down cut didn't want to have in the budget etc. I did that because I wanted to start from where the common council left off last year, the budget they approved going into this year, even though expenses have increased. The second thing the budget director and I did is I said, I'm going to highlight all of the things that need to change that need to change. I sat there with the budget director and I went through things like national grid and all that stuff. And it's kind of interesting because what happened last week and this is why I want to speak to it. It's something very minor. Um, safety gear line A53 412 21301. Now, given what was said during public comment, sure I might get some chatter on this, but this is real. It's because I actually understand the budget, but I also understand the fire department. The budget director got to this line, safety gear, and the chief had pumped it up to

175, but the common council set it to 60 60 $60,000 last year. They cut it then. Um there's very few lines I increased because I wanted to stick with the common council's budget. This is one of those one of those lines. I bumped it up to 100 grand and I sat there and I said, "Listen, I did the math. That should be enough for um between 16 and 17 sets of turnout gear." Uh the chief and I also discussed it because typically what we can do is find other discretionary funds. We see we receive a lot of help. Thank you if anyone's listening from assembly people. Uh when we want to fill gaps like that, uh we bumped it up from when it was cut. was one of those lines I increased. And what's odd is the budget director who just saw safety gear, he asked me a question. He goes, "You know, the actuals are at 54. The common council cut it down to 60." 60. Um, why are you bumping this one up of all the lines? And there's very few I moved. And what was my answer in all seriousness?

Because the new safety gear does cost a lot more. Yeah. Turnout gear. Turnout gear. Those are my words. Turnout. Turnout. Yeah.

So, while I'm getting beat over the head for raising taxes, for having to manage a fiscal nightmare over the last couple years, one of the very few lines that went up was that specific line because I know we need to purchase that turnout gear and we need to make sure the funding is there for those types of resources because it's ridiculous that people would not even understand what that is after years of working with these budgets. Now, regarding all the other comments about who's spoken or who's been silent, etc., um, there's a lot of people in this room who I haven't seen Facebook posts from and little quips, etc. Um, I decided to explain where I was coming from because this is real. These are notes from when I prepared this budget two months ago, uh, based on the fact that you all need turnout gear and every single year it gets cut. And I didn't care that I had to raise taxes again. That was one of the things I had to raise it for. Um, so moving on, I'm going to go on to the rest of this. And given what was said, I'm not going to rally round someone's mistake, but I do wish one thing, and I used to have to say this all the time when I was council president. I truly wish people would think before they speak. All right. So, salaries and overtime. So, couple weeks ago, maybe a week and a half ago, council personello um sent us an email

16 days ago. Uh what's that? 16 days ago.

16 days ago. Thanks. Uh stating that we overspent $2.1 million of salaries. Um, at that time that was forwarded to the controllers's office to try and figure that out through the auditing. Uh, the $2.1 million we couldn't put an exact finger on when looking at the actual munis numbers. Um, that then turned into a discussion of the fact that we were authorizing all kinds of crazy overtime um, and that we were overspending in overtime. So, um, rather than just try and answer quickly, the budget director and I did an entire audited salary, uh, analysis. Um, part of the reason we were prepared to do so, similar to what I explained that I was going to start doing in 2024, is we keep a running spreadsheet of the actual numbers from every single budget year going back to fiscal year 23, which started April 1st, 22. We do that because we're constantly tracking how we could become more efficient without actually cutting services to this city. One of the things we've done over the last two years is maintain services even with the over overreaching expense growth. It's insane. So I'm going to go through salaries first. For the salaries I just brought one example. Now, council personelo was talking about the just recently closed fiscal year 25 budget year. That's where all the accusations lie where um we over spent etach one of you are going to get the spreadsheets which are just simply exports of munis. Nothing's been handone. It's exports of our actual audited accounting software, which by the way, the fiscal year 25 books just

closed last week. So, this is a journal entry. Uh, if you want, you can go through and you can talk to the uh controllers's office and go through all of the journal entries um from fiscal year 25 because this is one example of many things that happen. Uh, what you'll see is there's recclass evidence of recclass entries. evidence. It's there that didn't happen. This is the account to which salaries are supposed to be paid out. Now, what you'll see is that there's overtime being paid out of these accounts. Okay? That's not supposed to happen. It's supposed to be reclassed and the books closed in the in the actual controllers's office. If you go through and add up all of those reclass entries, what you'll see is a lot of those quote overages that I was accused of overspending salary lines were actually overtime that actually was not reclassed in the audited system and the evidence is in the books. You could just look at it. So that's one example. Uh the council is free to go through it. You all have access as we always have to MUN. This is a big deal. Um, and it's also not something I'm knocking the controllers's office for. One of the things I spoke about when I became mayor was the fact that this city was literally cut to a level of dysfunction. The controllers's office has been functioning for years with a part-time auditor. That part-time auditor also has been uh taking a lot of time because it is their right to take that time. The reality is we need to start doing more auditing and accounting in the controllers's office. And it's a man. It's not anyone's fault that this happens. But the reality is something very real is in the closed books exemplifying exactly why those salary lines were over and it's because no one bothered to perform the reclass entries

taking the overtime out of those salary lines. So that's that. Um the next one's a lot bigger of analysis. That's the one you guys are going to get a giant spreadsheet on. Um, and uh, this is going to be the budget director and I going through this. I'm going to start with the uh, analysis of actual overtime. Now, I did send an email back to the council as a whole because they were going back and forth with this about the fact that I overspent. uh before the ice storm um last Friday uh the common council was going back and forth about the fact that we over spent these overtime lines etc. So, I sent an email back and said, "Okay, well, um, if we want to cut overtime, uh, as a mayor, am I supposed to say they can't go out and salt tonight? Uh, when we had two working fires that were absolutely insane, am I not supposed to like allow firefighters to come back and call back? Uh, if there's crimes, are we not supposed to be able to fight those crimes and actually perform the investigations we're supposed to perform?" Now, what you're going to see when I go through this all the way back from fiscal year 23 is that one, we can account for every penny. Two, um, the only reason it looks like in the public discourse we actually overspent overtime is because someone wants to only tell people about the expense lines. They don't want to talk about the actual revenue that comes in. So, I'm going to go through every little last bit of that. The other thing that's interesting is uh police special services uh Captain Basner uh 2023 we did not have police officers working for uh the uh city in the schools. They were working directly for the schools. Correct.

Correct. So none of that money in the 2023 fiscal year budget existed in the budget in revenue or expense lines. Correct. Right. Yes.

All right. Cool. So 2023 original budget, uh, if you add up all the overtime lines, the entire budget, it's $1.5 million. Okay, 1.496. I'm just rounding up a little, right? If you look at the actuals at the end of 2023, it was $1.53 million. Now, what's interesting, if you go back to 2023, two years before I was mayor, the revised budget, for some weird reason was $1.9 million. Mir and I can't quite figure that one out yet, but we weren't the budget director or the mayor at that point. Uh, but the point is we had $1.5 million budgeted and before police special services was on the books of the revenue expense side. Yeah, of course we came in at about 1.5 for what was budgeted. Now, here's what's interesting. Before I move on, I want to note something. Okay, in 2023, that budget started April 1st, 2022, we budgeted for $1.5 million in overtime. Fast forward to the 2025 budget, my first budget, the overtime lines were cut down to a total of $1.2 million. Now, I've got a question for the council that's rhetorical. How is it that you put a budget together in 2022 and put 1.5 million for the number for overtime, but then fast forward to my first budget 2025, you're going to cut it to $1.2 million and expect that even if the same hours were used, it was going to work because guess what? Over the course of that three years, we settled the fire contract. Okay? Well, the reserved raises, absolutely. But guess what? that overtime that they're working right now, whether straight time or overtime on a mandated call back is now going to be 14 and a half% higher. That's just math. Same thing with the police department. Received multiple raises over the course of that time. So, when we want to talk about how we're going to actually fund essential

services like call backs for working fires, call backs when we have pending storms and we actually go over the minimum manning, which by the way, the chief does do quite a bit. It's in the actual annual report from 20 uh from 2025. Um DPW police, we had an officer involved in a shooting in that year. What are you going to do? Just say don't come in? That's not possible. Well, that's what the council asked for. Just don't don't come in. Don't come in. Right? So, uh 1.2 versus 1.5 back in 2022 makes no sense. So, now I'm going to walk forward and explain it. And this is all audited numbers. should all participated in the audit on Friday, right? All right. So, fast forward to the 2024 budget. This is what's key. That's when the police started working in the schools for us. Which means if you don't explain the revenue coming in from when we build a school, when you talk about the expense of police special services, you're effectively misleading people into thinking you're overspending. So 2024 original budget $1.5 million. Guess what? All of a sudden special services are in the budget. Overtime actual $2.13 million. Oh, that's weird, right? So now we're going to go to 2025, the budget in question. $1.2 million budgeted. And I have to say, I just mentioned the fact that we budgeted $300,000 less in 25 than we did in 22 for overtime. Makes no sense, but we did. Um the 2025 revised budget for overtime and the actual were both around $2.7 million. Okay. The actual was 2.6. You do a difference on that. It's $1.5 million. Now, initially, because I run these numbers all the time, that's part of the reason I couldn't make heads or tails of what council persona was accusing us of

because she kept saying $2.1 million. So, hey, there's $2.1 million over and over and over, email after email. Well, when we do the numbers, the difference between original and actual out of our audited closed books numbers and munice was only 1.497 million. So, I was like, "All right, we got to figure this out." So, we spent a few days trying to figure out if we made a mistake. The reality is we didn't. Nor did the controllers's office, by the way. So, I'm going to account for that now generally and then when I'm done accounting for every penny of that $1.5 million exemplifying the fact that I did not authorize crazy overtime with people sitting in bands I didn't overspend. What's that? Is that just the overtime? Yeah, it's over.

Just overtime, not the salary. Social. All right. So, first of all, I have the floor. Thank you. I just want I appreciate it. And if you'd like to ask the controllers's office to audit all the journal entries for you, you can look and find the rest. I guess you know we were talking about all the lines. All of the overtime lines. The whole Yep. Just overtime lines, not any of the other salaries.

Correct. Right. Which accounts for $1.4 million of the quote overspending you're talking about, but it wasn't overspending. Police special services $1 million. Okay. So now we're working with about $497,000 left. Okay. If you account for what came in on the revenue and account for what was expended on the expense, that is not something you budget for, nor is it something you call an overspend at the end of the year. If the school district contracts $1 million worth of services, we're going to bring that revenue in and the actual at the end of the year, the revised budget will be a million dollars more at the end of the year. It's how budgeting works. Um, parks. Okay. Now, this one was actually an overage. Now, I will note that what was cut last year, uh, the actual part-time parks employees to actually cover for the actual park services, cleaning up parks, that was cut out of the budget. So, that accounts for $157,000. Uh, parks and play and then playgrounds, $56,000. You can jump in for a second. When were those peaks that parks had to actually run over on overtime? June through August and January through February.

Okay. So, pools pools on pools, right? Snow maintenance

pools and then we've got actual uh clearing of sidewalks, plowing, making sure our thoroughfairs are clear on the intersections. So, effectively what I'm getting at here is if we didn't spend that overtime, sidewalks would not be cleared. Okay? Sidewalks would not be cleared and the pools wouldn't have been open. All right? fire line in case you guys want to hear this one. Right. Okay. $188,000. Okay. We're down to 152. Again, that is literally accounting for the fact that we bring people in during times of need, above minimum staffing, and have to do mandatory call backs when there's working fires and every other single thing in the fire line that requires overtime. The last thing is demos. $80,000. Again, if you look at demos, it was contracted services. We do demos in, I believe, water bill. There's all different Herkimer all over the place. Now, I basically stopped when I got down to accounting for $14,900 of the $1.5 million in quote overspending. The reality is it wasn't overspending. And if we were responsible enough to go into the public and talk about the revenue that came in to fund these actuals that were adjusted based on the revenue, Albany wouldn't be asking us if we actually need the $3.8 million that I spent two years fighting to get this city. Okay? It's completely ridiculous. Almir, I want you to go through the giant spreadsheet that they're all going to get that's exported on US. So when I look at the whole budget in its entirety, um there's going to be staffing changes. There's going to be uh uh staff and employees positions that are not filled. Uh usually things like that do lead to overtime when an

employee has to take on the extra work. Some of the things I will not mention, for example, is when we hired a uh purchasing agent, the person who was doing the job before was still being paid the stipment to train the new person. Uh so I won't mention things like that. Um one thing I want to mention is the engineering salaries. Over the course of a few years, the entire uh I think it's five engineer employees who primarily see paving during the summertime um was getting paid their full salary for the full year in the paving using bonded money and chips money. Uh we've had several conversations um with outside sources and we learned that it's illegal to pay an employee salary that's not directly doing any work related to paving. So in the winter time when they're working on a different project, you can't pay their salary using the chips. That's why you see $100,000 overage there. the IT salaries. Uh we we're paying an outside contractor $200,000 a year to basically just do a odd couple odds and end items here and there. And we made the decision to uh get away from doing that, hire two employees. you see an overage um in 2025, but those savings are reflected in the current budget year

and covered by appropriate transfers by the way. Yeah, the money was not overspent. We accounted for every bit of this. I'll get to that through that. Thank you. Um some of the items that we can't budget for because sometimes you guys don't allow us to is when there's vacation payouts. Um if an employee, for example, a sergeant, lieutenant, police officer, um changes any type of different position, they're owed any uh time paid out, right? We don't budget for that. So, let me jump in with you on that. Yeah. How much was that? What did that account for? It wasn't small.

This specific one was um seven grand. Seven grand. Seven grand. What was the total across the board in 2025? What exactly? All of the holiday pay, all of the uh buyouts for retirees, all of that. What was the number? How many hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Um I do believe it's $200 to $300,000 alto together. Now, the reason I'm jumping in on this is for two years, certain council people in this room for 10 years when I was council president have been discussing the fact that you cannot assume that the salary line is the exact same amount as the table of organization. And every time we try to rationalize that, we say we have to account for retirements, payouts, holiday pay, etc. And I'm not talking about the holiday pay that's in the budget. I'm talking about the things when people retire. The reality is we consumed between $200 and $300,000 of that in the actual audited report we went through. And by the way, the budget director and I just did a full audit on this ourselves. We're also going to be requesting tomorrow in great detail an equivalent audit going from 2023 till now from the controllers's office. Um some of the things that were not budgeted for that are primarily affecting the police and fire departments are retirees. Um they vary a little bit but it's on average $45,000 per retiree that's not budgeted for and I believe in maybe you guys can we try to budget for it. I think it was eight altogether retirees um that were not accounted for in the budget. the police special services line. One thing I uh when I was doing my research from 2022, the police special services overtime line was funded $225,000. That's worth of expenses. From 2022 to 2025, the budget was dropped to zero.

At the same time, the revenue increased $900,000. So that's directly translated to the additional overtime um done by the police department at the schools. Um and when those officers do that, other officers sometimes even have to fill um the work that they can't do at the time.

You know, the other thing that we haven't mentioned yet as well, for example, is gone intervention. Okay. So, same thing. If we get $500,000 of funding to run those shifts, we're going to run those shifts. When we run those shifts, there's overtime lines. We do not account for all of the overtime that in in an expense line that we're going to perform under those give shifts as well. This all adds up. If you don't look at the revenue and the expense, you're going to both mislead yourselves and the public. Uh the fire line. Uh one thing that uh the chief mentioned at the last meeting and we had a very extensive conversation on this um the partially it's due to misposting of the payroll journal entry. So that's why you see salary overages, it should be overtime overages. Um, and one thing that I realized is, you know, when an ambulance is at the hospital and the hospital is full, they can't accept any more patients. The ambulance is required to take care of that patient. That translates into overtime. And also this year, I'm seeing an increase in supplies used to take care of that patient. And the other problem we're going to have and we're going to run into, we projected our revenue for EMS to grow with how it's been growing based on the increases and the Medicare payouts we've been tracking. Unfortunately, due to the issues at win, we're very concerned that that line is going to be waning this year and we can't count on it being anywhere near the 3.43.8 8 million we've been used to because the longer those

ambulances sit, the longer they can't take calls. So if an ambulance is there for between one and three hours or all two or three of our ambulances are there for 2 to three hours, we're literally not performing EMS services. That means the people are less safe and the revenue you're projecting in the budget won't be there when we need it. So, mayor, I don't mean to interrupt, but can we cut to the chase here? Like, what what what is the point in in you trying to say what's actually going on? Yeah. So, go through. So, I mean, go through your email and kind of explain what the actual issue that we're running into and why we're running into this issue and why it needs to be explained. The issue is Well, we're going to keep going.

Just keep going. We'll only take five more minutes of your time. Thank you. No, it's not it's not I I have no problem with you coming to explain. We went through 12 years of the previous mayor not coming to explain a lot of the things that wanted which why we ran into the problems that we're running now.

The reason we're going through this with a fine tooth comb is two reasons. One, Almir and I absolutely know what we're doing. And at the last council meeting, I did not appreciate the fact that people were insinuating he did not. It's clear we do. The second thing is when we're asked 154 questions in an email in a row, and I'm obviously exaggerating, we take time to answer them appropriately. I'm demonstrating to you that these have been answered appropriately, and it's completely dispelled the fact that we've been accused of overspending, misappropriating funds, acknowledging and authorizing extra overtime. The only thing we've done is run this city and make sure the essential services exist. Is there anything else you want to hit on in particular? Because I want to move on to the healthcare.

Not anything specific, but I just want to say um as everyone saw in the audit, uh we didn't overspent in the budget line. We underspent by $1.6 million. Are you sure? No. There was that. No, that page that they said that the overages just Elmir, which page are you talking about though because the audit does actually reflect that we did. Elmir, hang on a second. I'm Hold your thought. We have the floor and I'm going to answer. Yes, this is also our council chambers and you are a guest here and that Thank you for this, but I just if he's going to speak on it, I'm just curious where we're going with this. Yeah,

I have the Robert's rules. So, um, Elmir and I are are trying to go through this because you've asked a lot of painstaking questions via email and I've gotten no answers. I've had zero answers. So, please continue.

You've accused us through videos and on the radio. Now, regarding the overspending and what council person Tester brought up, which we also had the floor, that's why I was trying to cut you off as well. I apologize, but I'm trying to cut to the chase here. Right. So, if you plan on having a deficit coming out of the fund balance of $2.5 million and you end up with $880,000, which is what the audit showed, we did not overspend. If you would like to make believe that all of the same things I just went through, which add to the revised budget, which will bring a $93 million budget, up to $95 million, and literally make believe you could only pay attention to the revised budget numbers while ignoring the revenue that came into the budget, which was appropriately brought in as a revenue to account for the extra expense. You again are misleading yourselves and the public. So, Elmir, can you uh continue yourself notes?

Guys, clarify, please. Let the mayor finish off that council members have opportunity to speak.

All right. Uh I just want to end by saying uh throughout the budget year, like the mayor said, we have a I prepare a big spreadsheet and I update it every month and I look at all the actual I look at the revenue and I look at the expenses. No decision is made without actually verifying that it's possible to do this. Now granted, most of this overtime is either contractually obligated overtime that you can't say no to regardless or it's something, for example, the pools. We had a hot summer. You can't chlorinate the pools during the day when people are swimming. You got to have somebody come overnight to check the systems to make sure everything is good for the next day. Sometimes you got to come twice twice a night if it's really hot.

We actually tried to call them on that one, but we had to let you do it. So, it's there's no overtime here. That's not justified. There's no salaries that were paid that weren't authorized. Um, and that's why I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention that the salary line is over because overtime is being um inaccurately accounted for. Are you responsible for accounting for that? No. Am I responsible for accounting for that? No. So why are we being accused of not accounting for that? Uh, I don't know, but I spent the last I spent the last six days including the weekend doing all this. Okay. All right. Anything else? No.

All right. Let's move on to the healthcare. All right.

So, I understand that this is taking a long time. The $93 million is nothing to be quick about. And I've spent I don't know 100 times more than I'm spending right here, right now explaining to this you preparing this to actually answer all these questions. All right. Um Oh, got locked up. All right. Uh if you go to this two-page packet, I'm going to explain how we budget for healthcare. I'm also going to explain a little bit about our uh self- insurance policy. What I'm going to go through is the fact that we are not arbitrarily putting numbers in the budget. The other thing I'm going to point out is that in fact we typically Elmir and I and in my first year it was just me um budget a little bit less than what the actuary firm weightely proposes. Now if you go to the budget pro projections for city of Udica bike plan you'll see 2425 that was my first year. You'll see 412526 that's the year we're in. And you'll see 2627, the one we're currently budgeting for. Now you see AFS, that's Aderand Financial Services, USC Excelis.

You're I'm sorry. Can you just repeat the year that you're Well, I'm going to reference. I know, but which one we were talking 24? Yeah. No, I saw that. I just didn't know which one you were starting at. I'm starting with 25. Okay. Cuz that's the one that was mentioned on the radio that we overbudget.

Okay. All right. So, here's how when you're running your own self- insurance policy, you set your premium equivalence. It's it's a riskbased analysis based on prior projections of the actual people within your policies. Now, before I was the mayor, there was only two lines in here, AFS and Excelis. We were relying on our broker and we were relying on Excelis to tell us how much we should budget for the actual premium equivalent. Now, I decided in 2025 that since we're spending 13 million some odd dollars on healthcare, I should bring in a third party actuary firm called Wake to actually do an analysis on this so I could get it from someone else that wasn't wasn't the actual Excelis Blue Cross Blue Shield, which we're renting the network from, and it wasn't AFS. Um, they actually recommended it be a little higher. So what I ended up doing was starting to blend those because now I have three opinions. We can take three opinions and actually budget for the premium equivalent. Now premium equivalent when you budget for that. When you're running your own self- insurance policy, you're paying all the bills. You want to target the premium equivalent as recommended by the actual risk analysis firm who's telling you what the probable cost is going to be for the people within your actual care and your insurance policy. The reality is if you budget for 13 million, you might be at 14, you might be at 12, but you have to budget for the probable risk. And that is how we budget for healthcare. It's not us saying, "Hey, we spent 12 last year, maybe we can get away with a little less." Now go to that first page. The first page is the important one. Teamster's health is separate from city NU, which is non-union, CSEA, police, and fire. The reason I noted that is you

have to look at the without teams. Now, I did as a mayor take a big risk uh in my first budget. I only budgeted $12 million for our self insurance that year because we had to raise taxes quite a bit. I came under a lot of fire. What you'll see is the actuary firm recommended $13.3 million, but I only budgeted $12 million. So the fact that I was just accused of overbudgeting for healthare when I budgeted 12 million is a bit crazy Mr. President. Yep. So all right. Can I have the floor? Can I have the floor for Can I have the floor? We're going to have the No, let me rip through this. Council's got to have the time.

So here's my point.

This is real. We're running our own insurance coverage and we're depending on three independent analyses to actually figure out how much we have to budget for. What you'll look at is over the years we typically, the budget director and I decide to budget for just a little bit less than what we need uh as in in accordance with what AFS Excelis and the actuary firm are calling for. What you'll see in this year's budget, you'll see 14 million the actuary firm at a 7.5% margin. I picked the cheaper one so that actually we don't have to raise rates as much this year. Everyone was actually on our policies. I picked the lower rate structure uh and they recommended 14.7 in the budget is 14 million. So what we're basically saying is uh hopefully we'll use the emergency room less go to primary care doctors more and hopefully we'll have a healthy year. But when you run your own insurance policy, if we end up over, you end up either having to garner that from all of the other accounts that aren't over spent and still have money left in them or worst case scenario when you're running your own self- insurance fund that overage if it happens, okay, ends up hitting the funds. It hasn't happened yet. We've been lucky. Part of the reason you go through and what I would suggest to the council is have AFS come in and explain all this. have Excelis come in and explain all this. You'll see stop loss that protects us against uh you know someone unfortunately obtaining a terminal illness like a firefighter for example and they don't end up on 207 for example. Let's say they're not on 207 yet, they might hit that stop loss. So we have an insurance policy against those claims that could run into the millions, right? uh the administrative costs that's actually renting the Blue Cross network. If we weren't running our own self insurance, the administration costs will be vastly higher. That is a

total of all the administration cost added up based on all the billings that happened. So that's how that works. It's not an arbitrary number. I'm not over budgeting, nor were we over budgeting. Um the only thing I do want to end on before some budget questions is the fact that here is my notepad. Let's see. Did Oh, you mentioned the engineering. You went through it and we talked about plays. So, we're good. So, if you guys don't have any questions, what I wanted to leave off on was the fact that I will be providing another resolution that reiterates why we support the AIM increase because unfortunately because of all these accusations, I had to meet an assembly person Sunday and had to have them tell me Albany is questioning whether Udica really needs that money because they see all the videos and they see all the press, they see the social media, and they heard the radio interviews accusing the mayor of overspending. I'm demonstrating that we weren't. I'm demonstrating that we're fiscal stewards. I'm demonstrating that we weren't overbudgeting for health care. And I've gone through and iterated all this and I'm going to give it all to you tomorrow. And like I said, the auditors are in the controllers's office. I'm going to be requesting all of those audits that replicate everything Almir and I do on everyone's behalf from the controllers's office. So, that's how I wanted to leave that. If anyone has any other further budget questions, I truly hope that if we do keep that 3.8 $2.8 million. We use it responsibly.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you. We'll go to report of city officers. We'll start with fire chief Angress. Uh yeah, I have a letter to address the council. Yeah, please. I'm sorry. Yeah, absolutely.

I was not a clear team. Council, I just uh you guys have all received a copy of this letter earlier. Um honorable members of the common council writing to address uh recent remarks made during the city's budget review concerning the fire department's request to purchase PAS free turnout gear and to advance long plan fire station renovations and replacements. These initiatives are not discretionary upgrades, nor are they matters of convenience. They are evidence-based occupational health measures intended to reduce firefighters exposure to carcinogens and to align our facilities and equip modern safety standards. Firefighter is obviously it's an inherently dangerous profession, but the greatest threat today to firefighters are no longer the immediate hazards of flame and collapse. It's occupational cancer. Multiple national firefighter health studies concluded over decades have demonstrated that firefighters experience significantly higher rates of certain cancers compared to the general population. These include elevated incidences of cancers of the respiratory system, digestive system, kidneys and blood forming organs. Firefighters are repeatedly exposed to toxic combustion byproducts such as benzene, formaldahhide, polyyclic aromatic hyrocarbons and other known carcinogens. These contaminants are absorbed through inhilation, ingestion and critically through the skin. In recent years, additional concern is focused on PAS, which is perr and poly floral alkal substances historically used in the moisture barrier components of turnout gear. These forever chemicals have been associated with increased cancer risk and do not readily break down in the human body or environment. Firefighters wear this gear for thousands of hours across a career. Transitioning to PAS-free protective ensembles is a proactive step to reducing cumulative

exposure while still maintaining the thermal protection necessary to survive a hostile fire environment such as the one that firefighters experienced a short time ago on Bleecker Street. Equally important is where firefighters returned after a fire. Udica's fire stations were constructed generations ago. Long before the fire service understood the dangers of crosscontamination, these facilities lacked the design features now recognized as essential to reducing occupational cancer risk, including the separation of clean and dirty zones to prevent carcinogens from migrating into the living quarters. dedicated decontamination areas for personnel and equipment returning from fires. Ventilated gear storage that allows contaminated PPE to off gas away from firefighters. Modern air handling systems designed to limit the recirculation of hazardous particullet. Without these protections, firefighters can be exposed to toxic residues long after an emergency incident has ended while eating meals, completing reports, or attempting to rest between calls. This is absolutely not theoretical. Across the fire service, cancer has become the leading cause of line of duty death. Nearly every fire department in this country, including our own, has members battling cancer or who have faced it during or after their careers. These are individual individuals who have accepted the risk of emergency response. They did not knowingly accept preventable chronic exposure inside their own firehouse or from equipment. We now have the ability to improve on the requested investments are aligned with national best practice standards and firefighter health and safety. They are supported by evolving building design standards, occupational health research, and recommendations from fire service organizations dedicated to reducing line of duty illness and death. Modern turnout gear and properly designed stations do not eliminate the risk that these firefighters face, but they materially reduce it. They represent the difference between

acknowledging a knowing hazard and acting responsibly to mitigate that hazard. The fire department is committed to protecting this community with professionalism and dedication. We ask the same commitment in protecting the men and women who perform that mission every day. These improvements are not about comfort. They're not about putting a name on a building. They are about cancer prevention. They are about responsible governance. They are about ensuring that those who serve the public are not unnecessarily placed at risk by outdated infrastructure or legacy materials. Again, I'm going to welcome the opportunity to provide different uh additional information, data, facility assessments, tours as you continue deliberations. I'm open for questions. You just got to pick up the phone. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Our budget director, Albert Caltech. Uh before he moves on, I'd like to note that that letter is uh co-signed by both the chief and myself. Um that's something we both feel very strongly about and um that's all we should be thinking about, the fact that this chief cares about the people that fight fires in this city. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Nothing to report. Thank you. Our DPW Commissioner, Mark Sakalowski,

just two things. Number one, we're going to start black topping hopefully soon and it's going to be 60 over the weekend. So hopefully that white stuff outside finally melts. That's all I got. Thank you. Brian Thomas, Urban Renewal. Nothing to report. The mayor's chief of staff, Becky Duval. I'm all set. Mayor, I'm good. Thank you. Thank you. Got about another 35 minutes if you if you need it. From the police department, Captain Brian Basner. I'm all set. Thank you, Captain. Uh, city engineer Nick Brandenbecker report. Thank you. I do have one quick thing. It's like you s I yield my time.

No, I want to acknowledge the fact that uh there's people in this room other than me and Eler that understand this budget. Some of them sit among the council desks. So, I hope that as you go through this budget and have your special meetings to figure out what you're doing to work together because there are people that surround me right now who can do exactly what Elmir and I just did and one of them is Samantha Colossal testing. So, I hope people listen to the fact that there's a lot of experience sitting here and if you don't account for things really, you can accidentally defund things and turn out the lights. All right. Thank you. Thank you, mayor.

Thanks. Cash report. No cash report. Petitions from offices and appeals. First district council member Katie.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, thank you, mayor, for coming here and speaking. And budget director, I put this email out to everybody 16 days ago. Continuously waited for a response. Still am waiting for all the numbers and answers because one thing that was addressed here tonight was I think one of the numbers was thrown around was 1.4 4 million. And I'm sorry for interrupting when I did, but it's because you were zeroing in on just an overtime line. And something I've been addressing repeatedly is every payroll expenditure that exceeded the lines. That's where my totals came from. We're talking salaries, wages, overtime, others, social security. Uh, and so that's why I'm really looking forward to seeing this. Go through the journal entries.

No, mayor. And you want to know why you're being um held accountable with this? I'm being very serious. You'll get it all. Don't be a journalist.

I ask such a simple question. If anybody wants to know why I make posts or push, it's because I ask and ask and we get nowhere until until we make it public. I wish it didn't come to that either, but here we are. So, one other thing I want to address, uh, please, special services, nobody sat on this floor and advocated more to put every penny that we're about to get into the budget. If we're going to get revenue, good, put it in the budget. If we're going to have an expense, put it in the budget. So, when this body voted to have only $300,000 in police special services that we were expecting, even though I came in here with checks showing you it was way more than that, now you come to me and say, "Oh, no, it's all police special services." So, which is it? Aside from that, uh, one of the other funny parts I think is, okay, you think you came in under budget technically because you didn't use all your fund balance. We had 800,000 left. By this logic, I don't want to hear anybody in this room ever again say we overspent on ARPA. the the auditor sat here and said, "We have $4 million left on ARPA." Sure, some projects went high, some went low, but we didn't overspend that. So, let's keep that in mind. Uh, but yeah, I think there's a lot to go through. I'm looking forward to this. Um, same way I'm repeatedly asking for the paving expenses for the last two years, and if I can just get those numbers, I'm not out to get you. I'm just out to help the city. And I just want to work on that. But it you keep waiting until these moments and then we aren't even prepared when you come in here for these impromptu meetings. Uh but yeah, other than that, the reason I'm asking the mayor's office is because when I asked what the overtime was for all of these salary, when I say overtime, I mean salaries, wages, everything, all the overages. There was no answer. That led me to believe. It wasn't being tracked. And I don't know how you can say we didn't overspend anything when this council had to spend had to make a transfer of $4.8 8 million in July 2025. We had the money in the other parts of the budget, but there were lines that

were well over spent. 2025 for what? You tell me. It was about 250 lines to 11 lines. And it was one and that's the point of this. We might need the money. These $2 million might be justified, but I'll never know because nobody came to us to request the approvals during real in real time. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, council member. Second district council member Robert Burmaster.

Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank everybody for coming tonight. It was a good thing that you see everybody's got the interest of the city and and and so do we. Uh um I do appreciate you coming and your input means a lot. And um next uh I think it's next Wednesday, we have a West Judica Neighborhood Association meeting. Uh we're hoping to go through the budget. Um but we're not completely done with it yet as you know. And thank you, mayor, for coming in and and trying to show us the light. I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Third district council member Joseph Bar, president promp committee of whole chair.

Thank you, Mr. President. My mic uh seems to be out tonight. Uh to everyone who filled the room tonight, to everyone who participated in public comment, uh Union President Mark, thank you. Thank you to everyone else who who spoke. Uh so last week we met several times uh with each department uh several times throughout the week talking about this budget, meeting with the departments, discussing the needs of the departments. Now, looking ahead, we'll likely schedule a few special meetings to introduce and discuss budget amendments, um, talk about the needs further of each department, and I encourage the members of the public to continue to come to these meetings because it is important. And to finish, just on a a lighter note, the monthly South Udica Neighborhood Association meeting is going to be March 9th. That's Monday at 6 PM. Otherwise, uh again, thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, council member. Fourth district council member Frank Ken.

Yes. Um when I hear everybody say the council, I guess I am part of the council, but I don't agree with a lot of things. You will never hear me say DPW, the police or the firemen are overspending or need more because they do need more. DPW's got way more parts to take care of, way less people. They didn't have the summer help. The firemen are getting stuck at hospital for ambulance. The police have more retirement. You heard what I said last week about the police. Four years down the road, you're not going to have to worry about their budget because you're not going to have enough police. And anybody that questions any of their needs should think really twice about it when they go through the budget. Let's look at their needs. And also last Friday we had a budget meeting and uh Mr. Evans came in and I thought he did a great job of making it pretty simple to understand that we were sort of going in the right direction with our finances and let's hope we could keep doing that. I was impressed with his. I hope everybody that was watching listened to him because he made it simple that people that don't understand a lot like the budget, like Samantha and whoever else thinks they do. Um, I would say that he made it very easy to say that we were going in the right direction. But if you're ready to do this budget and you want to start cutting DPW, firemen, and policemen, please think twice to their needs and think them over very carefully because they're very important. And down the road, we're going to be short on all of them. And that's not faction. That's not fiction. You can see the recruits they're getting. We're not getting any lateral transfers from any other police departments. And we're going to be hurting them. and people are going to be then you're going to be scurrying. You're not going to be worrying about a budget. You're going to be worrying about safety.

Thank you, council member. Fifth district council member Venice Irvin.

Um thank you, Mr. President. Um thank you everybody for coming tonight and um you had opportunity tonight for the second year row because um Mayor Galini came last year when there was questions and did a PowerPoint and explained some things and he did it again this year. So, anybody that came from the general public got an idea of um what he's talking about and what he's doing because there are a lot of questions out in the community over the last couple years. So, you might have got some answers tonight. I think he has open door policy for most people. So, if you need to talk to him, there he is. I'm opening up the door for you. Um and I'm pretty sure he'll let you in hopefully. Um thank you, Mark Sakalowski. You got the signs up over by um Head Start up on South Street. Those are up and people are actually slowing down um because that was a big worry of the staff over there and going through the budget process is tough. Um I've been looking at budgets for a long time at community action, but looking at a city budget is entirely different. So people need to know that, you know, even if you're an organization, you know, that what you're doing in your organization is entirely different when you're doing it um on a city or county level because there's a lot more um things and a lot more people involved. So, but I thank everybody for coming tonight, all the comments that were made and thank you. I'm done.

Thank you, council member council member at large, Heather Wlowski.

Hi everybody. Thank you for coming out tonight. Um, this is going into my third month of being on the council and, um, I've had the opportunity to really get to know the fire department more. I've had great conversations with Mark. I've started visiting some of the, um, firehouses, the academy. Um, and I'm learning a lot and I appreciate you guys coming and speaking today and know that you definitely have my support. Um, moving on, DPW. Um, thank you Mark for always answering my calls when things happen. Um, you literally I'll call him and in liter five minutes later I have taken care of. So, thank you for that lately.

Um, I do appreciate that. Um, Mr. Nazer um Bazer, sorry I am so I'm I'm so bad with names. Work with me. I would love if me. So, I will love if you could give us um a monthly statement when it comes out of like calls that you get and things like that just so we have an understanding of things. I mean, I could tell you that would be great for like we had 3,970 incidents we responded to um from February 1st to March 1st. Thank you. Um and uh 354 parking tickets we issued last month. I was one of them. Okay. Um so happy to provide any other information.

I don't know. I haven't gone in yet. Yeah. Second. Okay. So with um that thank you so much for that. Um and that's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Thank you, council member at large, minority leader Samantha Kales Maltesa.

Thank you, Mr. President. Um, a couple of things I just want to know. Um, thank you for the fire department coming in and speaking tonight. I know it's not um an easy situation um to come in and speak your feelings. Um, it is definitely something that uh touches home with me. With that said, I wanted to move on. Um, in regards to the budget discussions tonight with um, mayor, there was a couple of things that I wanted to point out. I think that you you had mentioned that the common council has cut budget lines and one of the things that you know we're tasked with I think is is cutting budget lines for the sake of cutting the budget to try and lower the tax increase and sometimes it's a game of chance and one of the things and I and I go through previous budget cuts and I noticed that some members presented budget cuts to the tune of $1.2 2 million out of a healthcare line. And sometimes we get looked at and we get thrown under the bus saying, "Oh, it's just politics." It's opposite. I think looking at your numbers now, if you were to take $1.2 million that we would be $1.2 million just on healthcare alone short of of what that was. So, while some people might look at us and say, "Hey, you know, you could have cut that an extra $1.2 million or you know, sometimes you have to be fiscally responsible in the things that you do." and you know we've taken hits is and I say we those that voted for uh not not cutting those healthcare lines um you know really did so that's all I want to say to the rest of the council is really you know be cognizant in the fact of of what you do cut because although overtime lines we cut 30 to $40,000 per budget line $1.2 million and $250,000 out of sailor lines are are really detrimental to the city and each department. Um, that's all I got.

Thank you. Thank you, council member. Council member at large, Jack Lamemedall. Thank you, Mr. President. And I'd like to thank the members of the fire department coming today. Appreciate your input uh as well as everybody else. One of the things I am going to be looking at in this budget here is that is the safety gear uh for the fire department. Right now, uh, the chief had requested $175,000 and the mayor reduced it by $75,000 to $100,000. I'll be I'll be looking to increase that through an amendment this year so we could provide the uh fire department with more turnout gear. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. I shouldn't have been so have a motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number one. Motion second

resolution authorizing adjustment to the 202526 solid waste service charge. Whereas said local law further provides that where an application involves the request for a refund plus interest or modification of solid waste service charge after the bill for the same has been sent. Such application must be approved or disapproved by the common council. Whereas the following applications have been made by Josh Alberries, executive director for the night of Herkimer solid waste management authority and acting agent for the city of Udica has reviewed sane and recommended approval thereof now. Therefore, be it resolved. The common council of the city of Udica hereby approves the applications for adjustment to the city of Udica solid waste service charge for the fiscal year 202526 as follows. your votes, please.

Sorry. Yeah, he's adopted. Go sit in your Mr. Chair. Okay. I have a motion and a second um to place proposed ordinance number two into committee. Motion. Second. Anyone opposed? Commit.

Um Mr. President. So, I just want to reiterate for number two and number three, the contingency fund is going to come with additional amendments for the simple fact that if the council chooses to lower the tax increase to 0% that we also have to follow up with the property um tax increase component of that. Um so, you might see the general fund contingency adjust a little bit. I just wanted to give the council a heads up that that could be a possibility. and and one person that gets failed to mention and he just looked at me, Brian Thomas. You sit at all these meetings and you just get overlooked sometimes. So, I just wanted to say thank you for coming to all these meetings and sitting there. So, appreciate it.

Like motion second um to place um proposed ordinance number three into committee. Motion second. Thank you. Anyone opposed? Commit motion and a second to introduce proposed ordinance number four. Motion second. Yep. Authorizing fence permit be ordained that department of codes enforcement is hereby authorized to grant a permit to the owner of 811 Court Street to erect an 8ft fence along the surveyed property lines. Votes, please.

8 adopted. Okay. We have a motion and a second to introduce proposed ordinance number five. Motion second. Thank you. Ordinance. Mr. President, oh yes, I apologize if I may make a brief motion to amend last be it ordained sentence currently reads period of 30 days months. Just move to strike months. Second votes on the amendment.

Votes on the amendment. It ys to amend

ordinance extending moratorum on battery storage facilities in the city of Udica. Current zoning law is silent on battery storage facilities within the city. Whereas new questions have risen have arising regarding the installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of such entities and the potential impacts on public health and safety. Whereas it has been determined that the locations of battery storage facilities require further study to consider the potential public health and safety impacts that necessitates that a moratorium be enacted that would halt the approval of such entities for a period of time to allow for a study to be conducted. be ordained. The Commissioner of Urban Economic Development, the Planning Board, the zoning board of appeals, Department of Codes, and any other appropriate city agency should not issue any permission, permit, variance, or other approval for the development and or establishment of any battery storage facility for an additional period of 30 days concluding on April 1st, 2026. Your votes, please.

It is adopted. Motion and second to introduce proposed ordinance number six. Motion second. Thank you.

An ordinance extending moratorum on billboards in the city of Udica. Whereas the city of Udica is in the process of a comprehensive review and possible revision of its zoning code as it relates to the location mechanisms for evaluation of billboards. Whereas the city wishes to preserve to the extent possible the current status of billboards lo located within the city pending final review and possible revisions such that necessates a moratorum be enacted that would halt the approval of such entities for a period of time. Whereas the moratorum does not apply to any application permits or permission to construct at a billboard that were previously granted before August 27th 2025. Be be ordained that the commissioner of urban and economic development, the planning board, zoning board of appeals, department of codes, and any other appropriate city agency should not issue any permission permit variance or other approval for the construction and or establishment of any billboards regardless of current current zoning classifications for a period of 30 days including April 1st, 2026. Votes, please. AA is adopted.

Mr. President. Yes. I hate to do this with ordinances 78 and N 78 9 and 10, but it says the common council approved ENA approved annual estimate. These should be transfers. Am I incorrect in saying so? I mean, it's the budget amendments. Oh, so they're budget amendments. Even though they say EN Okay, so this isn't from the board of ENA like it says at the top left. This is We went through this last year, too. Yeah, it's it is the ENA approved annual estimate as the title of the budget amendments, right? But also that they should have came as a transfer to us, not as an actual it's for the next following year. It's for the budget. So then what was the point of you doing that at ENA?

We we didn't do this at ENA. They're proposing transfers to the budget you have. It's just worded funny. You're right. It's weird how they're put together, but they're not trying to move money. We went through this last year too when we did ENA. Did you not just make a transfer at the board of ENA though to approve not this salary transfers? No, this is so we can correct it and put the person in the right category. So then that needs to be removed to the table of organization. We already took care of that. Now the council's budget lines will be off if we don't change the budget salaries to the table of organization.

Okay. All right. All right. So then I make a motion to keep this in committee and then just transfer those when when we when we do that just so that it's not confusing so I understand it and I can get the actual table of organization to see it. So you're right it's not a transfer right because that's but that's what so you'll have to adjust rather approved annual transfer. Okay. So I guess that we didn't get that transfer through ENA either if it was over $47,000.

No no there isn't just Can I have the floor for two seconds kind of as the chair board of ENA? So the board of ENA made changes to the table of organization very sim very similar to when we settled the teamsters contract right the table of organization right but then that table of organization has to change for the new budget year so we're talking about fiscal year 27 they are proposing transfers or not transfers they're proposing amendments to the budget to account for the fact that they modified the board modified the uh table organization

table organization. Thank you. I was tired. So those are budget amendments, not transfers. ENA didn't do those transfers. Those are budget amendments that are kind of just parallel to the table organization change. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. What are we doing? So I'm I I put it in committee and then just vote on it because all those those are Yes. Okay. That's it. I would just like to approve it all at one time so that we if you don't mind. Thank you. Everybody's commit. So, yeah, we're going to commit. We have a motion and a second to motion. A motion to commit. Proposed ordinance number eight. Anyone opposed?

I don't know why we don't and that was seven and eight. So, seven and eight and then same for nine and 10. Seven and eight. Nine and 10. Also, proposed ordinance number nine and 10 to be placed in committee. We have a motion and a second. Motion. Second. Anyone opposed? Commit. Okay. Have a motion and a second to introduce proposed ordinance number 11. Motion. Second.

ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026. Equip exclamation equipment repair complete 14,000 for spare parts monthly basin blanket for various supplies close adopted.

I think that um I have a motion and second uh pull proposed ordinance number nine from committee. Yes. Can I motion to pull number 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, and 19? Second uh DNA transfer uh fiscal year 2025 2026 um transfer of over number nine

8 days adopted. We're on ordinance number 10 that we're on uh in transfer fiscal year 2025 2026 explanation transfer of funds to cover remaining expense for the safer grant administrators burline 80,000 contract motion. What? Yeah, we already did all of them in a group. 8A's adopted. So

on the proposed ordinance number 10, um ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026. No, is that that was 10. Um number 11, ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026. Um transfers of overages. Your votes, please. 8 adopted. Ordinance number 12, ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026 assessment salaries and contract to services votes please.

8 days adopted. Proposed ordinance number 13, ENA transfer of fiscal year 2025 2026 exclamation transfer funds to cover two fire apparatus purchases that went over the authorized bond amount due to the rising cost to produce. Your votes, please.

8 adopted. We are on proposed ordinance number 17 ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026 um rise in insurance premiums for vehicles and city liability votes please adopted proposed ordinance number 18 ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026 overages votes Please. 8 adopted.

Proposed ordinance number 19, ENA transfer fiscal year 2025 2026. Nail Creek Flood Restor um restoration. Um your votes, please. He's adopted. We're not pulling anything else out. I just want to uh just uh what's that? Yeah, I just want to um council member uh Lmetico's brother passed away a little bit over 10 days ago. So, we just um give our condolences and um our prayers are with you, Jack. Thank you very much. Motion to adjurnn.

Uh one last order business, if I may. Um do we want to put down some special meetings now while we're all here? Sure. Thank you. uh requesting a special uh uh committee meeting uh to uh discuss and enter some uh amendments for the budget as well as any other material that might come up. That'll be again March 11th at uh 5:00. Sounds like a plan. Councilman Lomeco, do we want to um call a special meeting and then a committee meeting after so we could discuss what we we can introduce amendments. Commit or What do we need a special meeting for? You got to introduce. Oh, okay. I apologize. Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead.

You want to do a special meeting at 5:00 and then call a committee meeting at 6 so we can discuss. I'm good. That's fine. You got that, Roco? Yes. All right. Motion to adjurnn. So 5:00. Motion to adjurnn.