Common Council - Regular Meeting

This is a meeting of the Common Council Committee of the Whole. Councilman Beatrice requested this meeting, so we'll turn the floor over to him. Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you. So, I don't know about all you guys, well I do know that

I got a lot of calls about dangerous trees that aren't on city property.

They keep telling me over and over that Rome has an ordinance. Why can't we do it? So I had Marcus print me Rome's ordinance. He talked to the codes department out in Rome. I talked to council person, commissioner Sokolowski, And what I want to do in this discussion is to touch on aspects why we can do this, if why we can't do it. I also invited Parks Commissioner Short because he is our urbanist, but it doesn't look like he's coming. I didn't hear back from him. So I'll just open it up to Marcus if you want to start we worked on this so, you know, yeah sure the positives and then I'll let legal go in and discuss it and what Mark's does. What I could just tell you about this right off the bat, there's a couple good things that they do. Right off the bat, obviously, our tree department, I think, what do we have, two or four guys? Three. Three, okay. Obviously, we have a hard enough time getting trees down that need to come down. So they would not be able to do this. This would be something where... a tree would be deemed dangerous and the person's house, the person who owns the tree, um, would respond, be responsible to take it down. If they did not take it down, we would hire an outside person and they would be billed for it. The problem right off the bat is in Rome. I think they have 120,000 put into their budget for this type thing. Am I correct, Marcus?

Yeah, they have, it varies from year to year, but they have money to contract the third party.

And then they also have a professional arborist, right, that can go and say if it's dangerous or not. This legislation, a lot of it opens up their legislation I don't know how they do it, but to me, it opens up a lot of cans of worms for lawsuits for the city. But I just want to discuss all of it before I wrote a piece of legislation and it couldn't go anywhere. So I'll open it up to you. And then, Steph, you jump in. You guys all jump in. You're the professionals.

So first thing, Councilman Beatrice called me, told me Rome had a resolution. I have a good relationship with the commissioner of codes in Rome. called him immediately. He answered the phone and I asked him about their legislation and what they do and how it came about and what happened. Basically what they do, they don't proactively look for trees. They respond to complaints from neighbors about trees of concerns to the neighbors. When they get a complaint from a neighbor about a tree of concern, they send their arborist to evaluate the tree. if the arborist determines that the tree is a danger, um, for a variety of reasons, mostly it's dead. Um, then they tell the homeowner to remedy. The homeowner doesn't remedy. The city contracts a third party to remedy, uh, cut down the tree. And, um, they build the homeowner as if we would in an abatement to, to move what they consider an emergency hazard. Now, the problems with it, with enforcement that I can pick up right away, law talk about more from a coach perspective, um, kind of easy for us to enforce on those terms, but for the fact that we don't know where property lines are, if there's not a survey, um, I don't know whose tree that is. I know it looks like it's in the neighbor's yard. I know. So I could end up building the wrong homeowner and that would be my biggest fear or not giving sufficient notice to a homeowner that goes. And then, you know, it's not a cold concern, but to some extent it is, it's more DPW, but from a code standpoint, The right to access, right? Can you trespass on private property? And then if you're bringing trucks and saws and stuff on private property, they go. I asked Mark that. He said it's never come up. Doesn't mean it's not good. The law is relatively recent. He wrote it himself. but he said that he's had success with it and he likes it. But like I said, my fear is the property lines, it's not so much the enforcement, the ability to enforce, because if the arborist is doing all the work, we're just responding to a complaint. So it's not the work, it's the property issues.

I mean, I can just touch, I mean, I'm not familiar with Rome's. I wasn't sure what tonight's meeting was. I just, so I don't have Rome's in front of me to be able to know.

You just put it out there. It's right here if you want it.

But just generally speaking, I guess I'll touch on two things. Uh, we probably would have an issue as well with not knowing where property lines are and determining. whose property taxes it would go on for the abatement. That would be the first thing. The second thing, I know Marcus mentioned about obviously entering on people's property. Typically when we go on city property, excuse me, when we go on private property to do work, either the owner gives us permission in some way, shape, or form. So if we have sewer repairs or any other easements or anything else that we need to get on people's property, typically we go on and either have them sign a consent form or we have some authority to go on. But usually we're in communication with the with the property owner. Generally speaking, the only thing that I can compare this specific abatement to is much like we do our demolitions of houses. And generally speaking, when we do those, we also have some form of an order granting us the ability to do that. Either that's a court order through an order to show cause, or if there's extraordinary circumstances that allow us to go on the property, we have that ability to do as well. It's not the best because there's no clear order saying we can go on this property and remove it. I'd be a little bit leery about trees and making determinations because we are starting to go more towards, I'm gonna call it providing a private service, much like we have a lot of places within the city that want us, I want police to provide private security.

Um, but what I'm saying here, I need certain parcels. Okay. If there is a huge tree that's hanging over somebody's house, and it could fall and go through their home. You know, if the arborist viewed it as danger, okay, isn't there even something that we could even put in there where codes came in and they looked at it and said, you need to do this in 30 days, and then even if they didn't do it, they would start getting fined to force them to do it? Is there something we can do? You know?

The question is, though, Who's gonna be the person that's gonna go in their backyards and say, this is dangerous, besides the neighbor or the person that has the tree?

Okay, but my other question to that is, a lot of these trees are picked. When we go for somebody's property that the grass is high, we're not going in their backyard. You could see, in most of these cases, you could see the tree is dangerous right from the road.

But the distinction there is, we have specific laws for abatement that are really regularly practiced in a lot of municipalities across the country. And because of ticks, grass is one of them. Grass is not there because of the cosmetic reasons. Grass is there because of the spread and infestation of ticks. It's the same thing with unsanitary conditions, just like garbage, um, because it brings rodents that can carry diseases and things like that. So there's specific laws that are, that are trial tested that allow us to go on people's properties for reasons. Now, a tree in danger might be one of them. My fear would be if I got to sign off on that as codes commissioner is that I don't know how to determine which tree is more dangerous than the other one. And I'm afraid that, yeah, but here's the thing with the arborist, we're putting a lot of trust in that one person because what happens with the arborist is if he says the tree is not dangerous and that same tree falls the next day, we cleared that tree, right? So, so you gotta trust that arborist that every tree he says isn't dangerous, isn't dangerous. Now he probably, probably my guess is errors on the side of saying, take the tree down. Which, but then he's cutting people's trees that might necessarily need to be cut. So, and they're charging them, because this is thousands and thousands of dollars. It's not like it's a small charge where we cut your grass, it's $200.

Well, you're not, you don't necessarily have to cut the whole tree down. You'd have to cut branches off it. The part he said that needs to be cut. Right, depending on what he thinks is dangerous.

And again, just with respect to that point, and I don't know too much without doing a more deep dive as far as liability and all of that, but you're starting to run into the, you know, we touch the tree, something happens after we cut the tree. Is that our problem? Do we own?

It falls on the household where they're cutting it. Now we're liable. And we have the right of way. We own the easement for the aprons zone. Those trees are our trees. Those trees, we can have our arborist go say, yeah, it's healthy, or no, it's not healthy.

Joe, I had a question when he's done.

But if we're on private property, it's nothing like you or I taking down our own trees. The whole city's going to ask us to take their trees down.

My only thing, what I'm saying about it, I agree with all of it. I'm saying if we had some teeth in there to say your tree is dangerous, if you don't take it down, you're going to start getting fined every month. until you cut the branch off or did something. Even if you didn't, a lot of times these people are going to see that and know they're going to get fined and take care of the problems. That's all I'm trying to say.

Anybody who buys a house that has a tree on it.

No, but this is this is there's two concerns there. And look, this is a real issue. And I'm glad you brought it up because we get calls about trees all the time. And right now, to be honest with you, it's a relief for my office to say there are no laws that govern the trees. We govern the buildings. Right. But. The trees are the, the problem that you have with that is we can't impose automatic fines. So it would have to go to court.

Well, don't you, don't you do it right now? Like, um, what do you mean when you go to somebody's house and their grass is this high column, that's an action that we charge them for.

That's not a fine. It's not a civil penalty.

That's so long to do it where they're going to get charged.

Yeah, but it's not a civil penalty. It's not a charge as a penalty. It's a charge for the labor that we provided.

No, no. Don't you tell them when you first go, hold on, hold on Joe. You guys are talking about two different things. If we go and abate the tree, there's a specific, whatever the costs, whatever the abatement costs that we put in, we ask for as far as a court procedure and then it gets put on the taxes. If you're talking about just a code violation, whatever the figure is for a violation, if you're violating a code, so if the code says you can't ride the scooter on the street and it's a $250 fine if you do it and you're found guilty of that, then that's what that is. So if that's what you're talking about with respect to the trees, Those are two totally different...

Right. He's saying, though, can't we just put a fine on them? And I'm saying you have to take somebody to court and adjudicate it to put a fine on them.

Correct.

You can't just automatically assess a fine.

Correct.

That's not a fine with abatements. And so that's one concern. The other concern is trees always end up in civil court for these same reasons. Whose property is it? Whose responsibility is it? If the tree is hanging over into somebody else's responsibility... Like, I don't... You know what I mean?

And I mean, I'll just say, I mean, there are arborists. I mean, there are people who make determinations as to what trees are healthier and what's not. You can hire an arborist, and you can bring actions, much like you can for anything else, to settle trees and disputes against private owners, I guess. And I don't want to go too far into the practical sense, and I don't think Marcus did either, but you're talking manpower and ability, even if we're contracting to do it. be able spending those funds to do all of these things on top of taking on the additional liability, because I can almost guarantee if the arborist is making those decisions, even if we're contracting it out, the city is going to be assuming some liability to do that.

Can I ask a quick question? Did we not hire somebody to do a tree inventory on all the city-owned trees?

Yeah, but this isn't city-owned.

I understand that. So what I'm saying is that what the city is responsible for is the city's already done, and they did a tree inventory on it. I understand that you're talking about somebody's backyard and stuff like that and I personally and you know my feelings on this like I don't see how the city can go in they can't even go in somebody's backyard for a codes issue if they have chickens or anything like that so the the point to this and I understand what Joe's saying and it is a big problem and I don't know how the city of Rome does it I thought maybe because it's a bigger city and they might have more land and it's easier to see something on somebody else's property But I think that the inventory that we have is based on the tree inventory that we did as a city. We hired somebody to do. Anything outside of that scope I think is just too much for the city to handle and outside of their scope of the inventory that needs to be done on that behalf. I mean, and we've been criticized for taking down trees even with the inventory. So I think that that's another,

whole other issue that people are making a big deal about how many calls are you getting that this is coming about now that this is a problem are you just seeing what rome did and you thought this was an idea i got called people three or four people called me and told me about the issues and basically they're in south utica

and they were oh i don't care where they are i'm just telling you they called me and i read this article i i seen it and i'm just asking about it the reason i called this meeting was because they're telling me when i tell them everything you guys say wait they're telling me that rome doesn't so all i did if rome can do it let's see what it is i agree with what you're saying but in my eyes is

my job and the tree guys going out or just my DPW guys. There's always a liability of us going on somebody's property. Every day I'm getting a phone call, we're damaging a garbage can. We're driving on their lawn.

this would open up such a can of worms that we would not be able to handle number one we can't do it we only got three guys right if we're going around cutting people's backyards we're never going to cut the trees and that's why i said and why i said they put a hundred some odd thousand away they use an independent company and the reason i had this i didn't draw legislation i come to the people who know what's going on and i'm asking them

So that's it. It's totally a different abatement than what Marcus is explaining about every day what we do with grass, what we do with garbage before it's a cure. Because that's a hazard, like he said. This, I get it's a hazard, but it's the people's property that they own that that's their hazard.

Not our, and the more we expand that definition of hazard, the more I worry, because like I get calls about trees. I do. I get calls about bicycles. Are we gonna knock bicycles off of people's houses? They're an emergency, right? So I, I mean like what's an imminent danger. That's the biggest part of my job in the fire Marshall's job is what's an imminent danger.

Yeah.

So the only, and again, I don't know. I mean, Marcus talked to Rome. I don't know. Do they cut, you know, this just got passed. Have they cut one tree or is this in the last three months they've cut 400?

No, they do a lot. It did just get passed. No, no. It's been about, he said about four years. No, they got, they have a budget to contract it out.

That's what I would do. That's what I would say.

Well, the city, but they build the homeowner's tax.

Say it's a $40,000 job or a $30,000 job. If it goes on the taxes and they don't pay it? If they can't pay their taxes, they lose their house?

Yeah.

Let's transition here. We have Councilman Lamedico, I think, has a few questions.

Mr. DiGiorgio, isn't the current law right now, if your neighbor has a tree hanging over your roof that you think is a danger to your property, isn't the way it works now, you write them a letter telling them that you're concerned about the tree and that they're responsible for it in the event it causes damages and then you save that?

the city no as an individual as an individual you have you have that right entirely it's just it's it's your right you could send them a letter correct saying that that tree that that tree is a danger if it falls on the house but you make it it's it's the same thing if you if a neighbor said you built a shed on my piece of property it's the same thing if you know, anything with respect to a neighbor dispute, you can send a letter and you can institute any kind of civil action against them for that. You don't need, I mean, even some of the other stuff, I mean, you know, icicles, other things that we the city do, you know, you can institute action to force or compel things to be addressed.

Right, you could write, or your attorney could write a letter to them to make it, now would you have to send that to the clerk's office to save it, or as long as you have the letter holding it, saying that you sent it?

I'm not gonna give legal advice as far as a private cause of action, but as far as just being able to take action, you can, there's a number of ways that you as a private homeowner can take action against a neighbor that has nothing to do with the city.

And one other thing, if you decide to do this tree thing, It's going to go into where we put snow on somebody's lawn. It's going to open up where we're going to be doing everything for everybody instead of them doing it for themselves. But it's a hazard with snow banks when we do them in the people's driveway.

That was my point about we're becoming a private service, and the city is not supposed to be a private service. So, yes, we do a number of abatement things, but there are certain hazards that we do. But as Marcus said, the more you push that line of hazard – more you're expending resources to address private concerns that are not city concerns i mean a tree hanging over the you know a city right away or on in the street or on the sidewalk that causes liability in the city some of these other things are not liability to the city it's a danger but it's not a danger to the city and and we got to have a so what they told what they've told me is the

There has to be a reasonable expectation that we can fix the problem. And if it's, if it's gonna be out of the budget, then it's not a reasonable expectation. It's not in the scope of government. Once we start doing it, we start expanding that scope of what the expectations are. So let me give you an example. Um, there are, this happens twice a year, probably in the city where there's backed up sewer lines in people's houses that push human waste onto other people's properties. We ticket them. We bring them to court. Is that a public health hazard that we have to remedy? know what i mean like it's it's how dangerous do you want it like where do you go right and so right now our scope me being the codes commissioner house is unsecure there's people getting in it we have a lot of fires we can board it grass is too high got a tick problem we can cut it garbage outside rodents infestations we can do it those are the only three cases in which we do it now if we start doing that what about a porch that's hanging now can we fix the porch right like You're getting into scope creep.

So, if you don't mind, can I have the floor? No, go ahead. Is that okay? Okay. Very briefly, the only thing that I want to say is the difference from Rome and Utica is that there is a lot of open space in Rome. Rome's a city, right? And they've got fields, they've got this, they've got that. If you're trying to tell somebody that lives on, I don't know, Any random street in the city that their neighbor's got to take a tree off their fence that's in a backyard, that's when you go into a problem from what I see, the way this legislation's written, from anything that I can understand. With that said, Rome might be able to do it. I don't see how we can do that in a city our size that's as condensed as it is. So, I mean, maybe that's the only way that Rome's able to get away with it, but.

And I don't want to dunk on Joe. It's not, it's a good legislation. Oh, I think Joe's legislation is actually, it actually makes sense. I didn't draw legislation. I had a meeting so we could talk about it. Yeah.

but if you were to put it in legislative form i think joe's legislation makes sense i just think that compared to rome there's a lot of things that we can do that's comparable to rome just maybe this one's just because they do it don't mean we're too a little a little condensed compared to rome as far as as far as square footage and what properties might be able to be taken care of

And I worry about the property lines. Like we deal with this with fences all the time. And I just, I usually counsel me and give you an opportunity to see what I deal with every day. Somebody builds a fence. They say, look, the fence is on my property. What I tell them is coach commissioner is I have no idea whether it's on your property or not. All I know is, is the fence properly constructed. If it's properly constructed, they had a permit. Then you deal with the property issues in civil court.

Yeah. I mean, property lines, uh, my department can buy them. We have shots, dads, every property line has a pin.

from 100 years ago half the time they're buried but they're there so i was told they were estimates because of the age of the the survey that they're based on so we're we can still find we're going into an area that we're still doing things that we're providing we'd be providing a private service that is not addressing concerns of the city

So just on another topic, you talked about decks. So you go to somebody's house and their back porch is falling apart. What's a procedure on that that's dangerous that it's falling apart? What do you do?

Can we see it from the city? What's that? Can we see it from the street? right yeah if we can't see it from the street will one of the neighbors let us use our yard or with a homeowner give us access okay we see it we determine the deck is a danger okay if the back deck is unsafe um you're talking single family home or rental they're two different things so if it's a single family home um We usually send a notice to the homeowner, tell them that we think your back deck is unsafe. If you don't fix it, we'll bring you to court. If it's a rental property, there's people involved. We have to determine if not having access to that back deck makes their house unlivable. Because there's situations where you need two exits to get out of a house. And then we would post the house unsafe to be occupied. But either way, the ultimate remedy is a ticket to city court. And the problems that we have with tickets to city court are so much different than I think everybody else has. We hear about lenient judges and out-of-state landlords. Most of the problems we have in city court are people who show up to city court and say, I don't have the money to fix the problem you named. You told me I got to fix my back deck. My back deck, I got three estimates. The lowest one is $22,000. I got $400 in my bank. So the court finds him $200 and says, God love you. Now you got $200 in your bank. Right. So what happens with it? So it's...

that's that's what it comes down to what what used to happen is that if you couldn't afford a property you sold it i mean and that's that's really what it comes down to and you're trying to make a profit out of it you don't try and hold on to a property because what end up when what ends up happening is now you have people that are living there you're reimbursed possibly in the long way of of taxes being you know you're possibly gaining on rent and stuff like that i mean it's it happens all the time and that's not right either so i mean it's a double-edged sword and what the city said to deal with and

Yeah, but those are the judges. That's 90% we go to court in a single family homeowner situation. The landlord situation, right, is different. But if you own your house and we ticketed you for problems in your house, usually the judge tries to get you to fix it.

And you could even have a tenant that's lived in an apartment for six months that hasn't paid rent. So maybe you were gaining on having that money come to you. And then they don't pay you. And then you have to take them to court. So imagine what those costs incur because you have somebody that's living in your apartment that should have been evicted and chooses not to be evicted, so now you've got court cases, you've got somebody that hasn't paid rent, and you're still living in that apartment. So that's a huge problem, too. I mean, we see it all the time. I mean, it's right in front of us, and we don't choose to take action.

And again, the last thing, and I'll end it on this unless I say anything. My purpose of this was to get knowledge of what's going on. So when people are calling me telling me why can Rome do it and you can't, I took the professionals here and listened to what you're saying. That's all this was about, okay? Before, the way we used to do it, I would have had to put this legislation in when I didn't know about it. So that's why I wanted you here, and I appreciate you guys for coming to explain the pros and cons of it.

So the bottom line is... If somebody's got that kind of complaint, their job is to call a lawyer and get it taken care of.

Right, but the people don't do it. Yes, sir.

The other problem is, once it's on... You've got to take care of it yourself. Right. Once it's out over... If it's a neighbor's tree over your property, you could pay to have it cut, too, once it's hanging on your property, right?

If it falls, it's on the insurance of the person that it falls on.

I know that, but if you wanted to get rid of it, once it's over your property line, you could get rid of it, too.

Yes. If it's over on your property, over the fence line. That actually happened in my own backyard. Somebody had trees that were on my fence line, and it was over my property. We were able to cut them. I mean, we went and talked to the neighbor before we cut them, but it does happen.

Anything else?

This is Rome's entire ordinance on this. okay it's a tough sell with with reading this i mean stephanie it looks like there's an automatic lien on the property without any court order yeah 20 up charge for inspection i mean i can just i can just say even our when we do put liens on the property we do have a notice provision we have a yeah it's not a hearing it's kind of a hearing provision to contest the charges i mean

so yes yeah so i wouldn't i wouldn't copy this word for word i would have a lot of issues with the ordinance right but the problem is rome is a different breed than utica as far as linear footage so they might be able to get away with this on certain parcels all that aside i mean yeah just the language here i mean joe again we talk about what you're able to do you're not gonna you're not gonna find somebody if it's next door to somebody and don't forget that they kind of had a terminal response right exactly what trees exactly so i mean there is a little difference between so don't hate on rome who's your sister city in and try and benefit utica from that because either way they still deserve what they've gotten and obviously they've been able to get away with the legislation that they have they've had so that's all i wanted to say any other questions

All right, we can move on to anything else in committee that anyone has any questions on specifically, any pieces.

The only thing is, there's a couple of pieces, and I'm still working on some things, so I appreciate everybody giving me some time leading this stuff into committee. One of the local laws that's introduced is the registration and posting of owner and manager information. I would still like to see how passing the two ordinances that we had in regards to... the city being able to go after property owners. I would like to keep that one in there. Obviously the loitering, aggressive begging and soliciting camping, that didn't have any teeth. I mean, we could probably dismiss that one. I have sent Chief Williams a couple pieces of legislation in regards to our parks department. I'm working on him with a couple of things that might add that into it. So if we want to, we can dismiss, rescind and replace ordinance number two. um as far as ordinance number four i'm still working on that one ordinance number three can you give the dates associated with these multiple well i mean it's an order from what drew put it in there so you're starting at the top i'm not yeah i'm not i'm going in from so ordinance number two from 827. number four number three number 11 number eight so the agenda that drew gave us let's just go in order from that so you're starting with this morning So it was a rescind and replace. That one we could dismiss. I have something else that I'm working on that might be able to go from a different approach from that. So ordinance number two, we can dismiss.

So, and I just, I know you haven't gotten to it, but you were talking about proposed ordinance number four. Introductory local law? No.

Okay, so that was the first one that I asked that could be in committee, was introductory local law.

Then you just went through proposed ordinance number two. Yep, yep. Proposed ordinance number four, amending section 2-6-105. I'll just say, I think we talked about this, but I will say it creates a huge conflict of interest having corporation counsel make that determination because we ultimately do. Yes.

And this I worked on with the Public Safety Commissioner, so there was a couple of other things that I had talked to him previously that we want to work on. I just haven't had the time to sit down with him and kind of resolve what we wanted to say, and maybe it doesn't work out, maybe it does, but this was the last piece of legislation, and even Mark Chico was included in the meeting, so I would like this to stay in there just so that we can talk about it for a little more. Unless you have something else.

No, I just...

Okay. I just...

saying that we wouldn't agree, we wouldn't recommend it as drafted.

Right, thank you. All right, proposed ordinance number three in order to establish a district-wide garage sale. So I've seen Whitesboro do it, I've seen New Hartford do it, I've seen a couple other places do it. I would like for the council to work on this. I think it's kind of cool to designate areas to have a garage sale. So if you can have a North Utica garage sale, East Utica garage sale, South Utica garage sale, I think this is something that would be pretty cool for our area to know. If one part of the city is having a garage sale rather than everybody having one and having signs posted outside, we could know where that garage sale's going. um so this is something that i will talk about in the future with the council unless anybody else wants to add anything to that i still want to hold on to that one so how would that work so if this weekend's north utica's grad sale for example does that mean next weekend they can have a garage sale no it doesn't it does not it does not so say they didn't finish selling the rest of their items they could still have a garage sale but at least it's just for people to know what part of the city is having a garage sale and then the clerk's office announces it it's through the you know it's through a city-wide initiative and it can go from north south east west cornhill so on and so forth before you go i just have one thing yes which well it's already on the book so i mean i get like i said before i have no problem adjusting the fees i mean whatever's on the book i have no problem because everyone's supposed to get a permit now for a garage sale um so whatever that fee aligns from 1964 i have no problem i'm just confused what's the difference with a facebook marketplace So it's like one drawing thing. So say if somebody sold something that was home, right? And they saw it at a garage sale. They did not verify who it came from, where it went from. Again, I mean that's...

And just the way that we enforce it very, very hard because they get like, they get like two for free. We don't work on nights and weekends. We don't work on holidays. Right. And so we got to determine, is it their third garage sale? Is it the thing? So what we do with garage sales right now is if they become a neighborhood nuisance, we have the officer document them over a period of time. and we charge them with the zoning violation of using a residential property for commercial purposes if they're having a garage sale from a commercial property it's almost impossible so right now we we mostly prosecute garage sales out of zoning ordinances it's happened i'd say it happens twice a year There's people who just have garage sales all day, every day. That's where that came from. All that stuff. They have a garage sale. They put stuff in their car. Right.

I mean, I know my mom-in-law has a garage sale once or twice a year. Yeah, that's fine. She's putting out signs, and I'm like, maybe if they knew that you were an issue to God.

No, they're people that roam other people's garbage, clean up the stuff, and sell them in front of their house as a business. Yeah. Yeah, if it's misused, we stuck it. But I've never gone, sometimes neighbors call us and say, well, they're having an illegal garage sale. This is the third time they have one this year. I'm like, I have no idea. I don't know. If it ain't there Monday, then I ain't going to say anything.

Councilman, to be fair, as much as I would like your rules of order to be introduced and passed, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

So we can just bear with that as well. Looks like the subcommittee piece will die in the vine here. Discharge?

All right.

Anyone have anything on resolution number eight? Committed 120-126.

I think that this might be for another committee meeting.

Do people have questions? The person who wanted to, is this the railroad one? uh the woman she was going to come in and speak i forget what happened about that that's all right i mean that's off-premise outdoor advertising things i don't know what a billboard would have to do he just loves to vote can't stop him

The next piece is an ordinance amending the fees. This is something that we've got to talk about from the beginning of the year. So, again, if anybody has any recommendations that's other than free and they want to have justice, I have no problem. But I still haven't gotten anything from any council person. No, I just want the list of fees. I have a question.

What?

I've said it many times.

It has to do with the ski chalet. I guess we kind of got numbers. I'm not passing it. Maybe there are fees that are in here. in regards to what fees should be established and what points last year. So maybe we can ask Mary Delaney to give us a rundown on what the cost was. The next one is an ordinance amending section 2-29-7 of the zoning code in favor of battery energy storage systems.

Yeah, I'm hoping to get that wrapped up. So I'll check in with Brian. So I'm hoping maybe for your next council meeting, you can act on all those pieces.

It's six months.

When did the moratorium start again?

When did the moratorium start on this? We extended it again.

I don't have the last. The moratorium is coming up. I thought it.

We just extended it, didn't we?

Yeah, I thought it went through for another little bit, but.

I can confirm.

We've gone through this packet many times as a council, but not all council people were here for this one. okay we extended it on february 25th so july august september we'll we have we'll have to extend it again in september or visit by then so yeah we february 25th

For Corporation Council, 10 and 11 read together or separate?

Together. Okay.

All right, we can move on to resolution number eight. You want to keep it?

Okay.

right and this next one was introduced by councilwoman close and attested to ordinance number four committed to 2526. so this is something that we can't

i will yeah we can have a meeting on this i've been asking for the rates i don't like stating replace those seeds with the current rates established by parks and recreation i have the floor well i'm speaking right now can i let me know when you're done and i'll take the floor hold on can i finish my sentence on this Yeah, it's Councilman Bitar's meeting. Thank you. So, yeah, I don't feel comfortable. I've said this before. I want the actual fees of what everything already is, and then the council can establish those officially. I don't want to say replace those fees with current rates established by the Parks and Recreation Department because that is giving up our powers from the council to the executive branch, and that's not what we're here to do. So otherwise, I think we're going to be agreeing on a lot of these. So if we can just maintain the forum. Hold on, hold on.

If we want a committee meeting on this, our summer session is close here, so do we want a meeting?

Let's do it July 1st. You want to do it July 1st at 5? Yeah.

Hold on, hold on. We're going to call a committee meeting for the July 1st at 5 o'clock to discuss these.

That's our Wednesday. That's our next council meeting. To go over the legislation and buttoning this up so we can...

The fees, because I think our summer meetings are early July, then late August, so there's a gap there. Maybe we want to get this straightened out before the summer because there's swimming pool rates and whatnot. That's what we're calling it.

July 1st, 5 o'clock.

Does this... is this read together with hold on so ordinance number four dated 225 26. wait hold on we're talking about two different things we're talking about the next committee meeting what it addresses first so the next committee meeting is going to address ordinance number four committed 225 26 and below that ordinance number eight committed 225 26. we're going to pull out and vote on tonight resolution number eight committed to 426 that's councilwoman testa's class proclamation so so we can do that but the thing is with ordinance number four and ordinance number eight they take in a considerate they hold on they contemplate the hold on they contemplate the pool rates for the summer and the golf rates for the summer so that's why those two are specifically important i mean we i think we can but i think the others are more important because they're going to affect fees that for the summer and we're going to be out of session okay hold on let's let's move through this because we have a few minutes left we want to get hold on councilwoman we want to get through all this right so we discussed that we're going to have a committee meeting on ordinance number four ordinance number eight both committed to 2526 next battery storage ordinance number 14 committed to 2526 corporation councils this one to be read together with ordinance 10 and 11 that we discussed earlier is it separate yes together together all right next introduction uh local law number one of 2026 committed 318. yeah hold on come on let's let's finish this meeting then we could figure anything else out hold on hold on let's finish this we have two more to get through local law number one of 2026. I do want to amend the date that this becomes effective from April 1st, 2027 to January 1st, 2027. So there's time for people to apply by the March 1st deadline that's required by state law. That's all. So I'm waiting on the assessor. I spoke with Dave today to verify the number of households that are projected to be affected. so for are we talking about the same one where at first there was an okay so let's okay coming up next so senior citizen yes just want confirmation just want confirmation on the number of projected households to be affected by the raising income levels is there information you'd like from the assessor's office regarding resolution number five say again anyone else any other any other issues before we adjourn let's discuss um

raising ordinance some of the issues with it as far as three weeks when you have to have permits in different stuff like that that was sent out today um are you familiar with what i'm talking about would you like to discuss that i can um so i mean we we've said before we had some issues with the ordinance that the council passed

just as it relates to kind of that last portion of the application process. I mean, if you want me to go through the entire memo, I will. But with respect to the actual application process as it exists now, there has not been a new process that's been changed in accordance with the ordinance that the council just passed. So as you can see, we just recently got several requests for a flag raising. You can see based on the applications that we haven't gotten them three or four weeks in advance. And there's a number of questions of whether or not proclamations, you know, the process as far as, um, you know, chicken and the egg, the, you know, all of these things need to come before. Um, and then you're kind of basically having a, an application process for really just the date and time, um, of the flag raising. Um, because my read of the ordinance as proposed And as adopted, there's only three ways that an ordinance, or excuse me, that a flag can be raised. So having this application process is a little bit redundant. And again, it creates...

So you're saying it should be amended, some of the stuff?

So, yeah, last time I just kept the application part in as the sake of, like, formality-wise to tell people they're still going to need to fill this out so we know a date. So whatever language that can do.

Well, again, we made multiple comments that you should not adopt the legislation as a, you know, address.

Okay, well, let's get to the point, though. Like, we're talking about the First Amendment. We're worried about, like, this getting sued over something. An application date, I don't think, is really going to get us sued.

I don't think you're worried about that. You guys wouldn't let me pass something from the Parks Department because a lawyer came down and said that we could possibly get some liability.

Hold on. We have a few minutes left, so let's be efficient. The question from Councilwoman Aiello to the Rental Corporation Council.

We can amend it to take out the application part, but I just thought it would also be good. If you guys don't want to say that part, I don't see also how it hurts anything, though. Is it contradicting the actual expression of a city? Which part?

So having an application process as...

Which is what we already had before this moment. Which is... We had the application. It's not an application process. It's confirming. It's just submitting the request.

Councilwoman, can we do this? Please. Can Corporation Counsel, before two weeks ago, can you explain the process of how someone would make a request? Before anything was ever submitted. Can you take us through that process just so we all understand it?

Before this passed.

Before we passed this and overrode the veto. Okay.

So the mayor had a written policy that you could file an application for specific things, for a flag raising policy. The issue, and then that process, so they'd have the application, they'd ask for the date, there'd be a number of other things included as far as the flag raising, that would get approved by the mayor or not. As soon as you, right now, the way that the ordinance is written, you blur the lines between what is government speech and what is a public forum.

So can I ask this about the past policy? You mentioned it could be approved by the mayor or not. What are, what were those criteria that would be considered?

So the, I don't have what, I don't have our previous one right in front of me. But I believe it did not include, it was only for government entities and... Is it flags of government? Flags of government.

Recognized by the US?

And nationality, I believe. So I don't believe there was a request for any third party flag. So those are the, if you had one of these flags, you filed your application, And we did that. Right now, the application process, again, and you create a chicken and the egg situation because you need, based on this legislation, there's only three ways. You need to have a proclamation or resolution to then request a flag raising. You need to have an official event or a ceremony announced by a proclamation or resolution, and then a flag raising. Or the mayor can raise a flag for a specific professional sports team. So those are all the things that have to occur before you even do the flag raising so really it's not an application you're basically confirming a date and time to hang the flag once you start allowing for applications again the line becomes blurred that is this my application is it just a yes or no the application so i updated it like you guys said uh for some reason there was a

You guys said that the application wasn't updated. So I went ahead and updated and added numbers three and four per legislation. So now this flag application, the process is identical to what the ordinance says, which is other flags may be displayed in conjunction with official events or ceremonies as announced by mayoral proclamation or common council resolution or proclamation. And number four is flags of professional sports teams in commemoration of a significant achievement involving the city of Utica. Because those were the only two updates.

The problem with having an application, you are basically implying that you can apply and have your flag raised, and that is public forum.

But it's based off this criteria, which is city expression. So if this application process is wrong now, then we were doing it wrong all that past time.

I've got a point of order, because I've got a serious question that actually relates to the Common Council in regards to legislation tonight. So Ms. Ayala sent us a proclamation in regards to Juneteenth, okay? No problem with that, because usually you do proclamations all the time, no problem. She said, hi everyone, attached is a proclamation honoring Utica's role and significance in Juneteenth to be introduced and voted on tonight. Please let me know who would like to have their names added as a sponsor, and we'll get this ready for tonight's meeting. So I responded to and I said dear council members. I have a genuine question I promise it is not intended to be sarcastically Do proclamations simply serve to recognize a month or cause or does supporting a proclamation also imply support for a related flag raisin? I asked because in the past the pride month proclamation and flag raising seemed to coincide and I'm not and I'm trying to better understand the distinction if a council member sports proclamation recognizing a particular month or group and does that necessarily mean that they also support raising the associated flag or are those considered separate separate actions thank you for clarifying this for me and miss ale responded any and all ordinances resolutions and proclamations are deemed city expressions people and organizations can fill out an application for a flag raising ceremony for any number of city expressions now here's the thing i mean you're also now tying this to the flag because again in that ordinance it states that you have to have a resolution that supports that in order to have that race so again you're kind of misinterpreting it and i and i voted against the ordinance for the pride month because it coincided with the pride flag not because i was against pride month not because of anything like that but you're kind of forcing us to introduce a proclamation. It's city expression. No, no, no, no, no. Please let me finish.

That's what city of Boston is. Please let me finish, Ms. Al. It's hard to not finish. Please let me finish, Ms. Al. Go on.

So what you're trying to say is that now, again, in the ordinance, because it wasn't clarified that the last time that we passed that because we had zero discussion on it. that now I've got to put a proclamation in in order for another flag to be raised. I don't care what you guys do. You guys are going to do what you want. That's no problem. But please tell me that I'm not putting the city up for liability, that somebody could sue us if I vote for one proclamation, don't vote for another, and the flag's up there. That's all I'm asking, to clarify it. And Mr. Giorgio can explain that. You're not an attorney, Ms. Aiello. You have been to court more times than probably our own city attorneys in the last month. And you've won nothing, and I've had enough. Also not true. If you can, Mr. Giorgio, please explain it to me.

Let's stay on track.

Please explain it to me, Mr. Giorgio, because it's very confusing, and I cannot set myself up for liability because of Ms. Aiello's personal feelings. Thank you.

Do you need clarification on the question?

And if I can rebuttal, though, when we're done.

All right, hold on. Hold on. Corporation counsel, do we need clarification? Or do you feel comfortable answering?

I think I generally understand the question, but I may need some clarification. My answer doesn't suffice. Government speech. So, for example, every time the council adopts a resolution or a proclamation for anything, if it's for breast cancer awareness, if it's for the Harriet Tubman legislation you have in committee right now, that is government speech. You as a... body are saying that this is our our sentiments we're doing that so the same thing um when you know if you chose to say we are going outside we're hanging a flag that is government speech you are choosing to do that once you start veering into and i don't think if you vote or don't vote it's government speech regardless because the body is acting as a whole once you start allowing application processes You are getting into the realm of making it a public forum because you have to make a determination about those. So that is the concern that we have. We don't have a concern that the council is having applications, or excuse me, having proclamations and resolutions for various types of events that have a flag raising. That is not the issue. The issue is that component of having applications which you are implying that once you file an application, your flag can be raised, and that is where you get into public forum.

Here's where I get hung up on that, because my understanding, based on what you mentioned, is that was the process prior. There was an application process.

But it only referred to flags of national origin.

But there still was an application process.

There still was an application, but it was only flags of origin. So that was the set criteria. That was the set criteria.

So we're not talking about an application.

Based off the application.

Wait, hold on, hold on. So we're not talking about an issue with the application process. We're talking about the substance of what is in the application. Because that's kind of where I'm...

Yes and no. If you were going to allow any flag to be raised, having a formal application process... Picks and choose. And I'm not going to go into some of the stuff because there's language in there about being discriminatory. That also creates a problem.

So the application, though, that we're talking about, it says the city's flagpoles are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression by the public. Only the following flags may be displayed by the city as an expression of the city's official sentiments. And it goes into the four things.

Okay. But that...

So that's...

that expired as soon as you passed your orders we this is what the application is though so the old one sure but like the application multiple times if we can't i have to this is why guys i keep asking hold on hold on because i do want to say this we're we're we're we're creeping we're hold on we're creeping into the six o'clock hour for our pre-meeting is there anything well it does matter because we have we have we have legislation we have to discuss that's going to be either passed or not passed tonight so it does matter Councilman Lamedico, that is your 6 p.m. meeting. If you want to adjourn this one, we could pick up the 6 p.m., go through our legislation that's on for tonight, and then if there's any time left, maybe we could pick this up, but we should stay on track. Thoughts?

Can we finish this discussion? I mean, every time we put a point, you guys want to cancel a meeting or stop a meeting.

It's past 6 o'clock. We have a schedule that the public expects.

Does it also say in there that it needs to be presented three weeks in advance, the application?

The old one, yes.

Okay. So you had to present it. So you can't present something tonight.

Again, some of that is for scheduling purposes because obviously we, and it's happened in the past, we've had applications for flag raising on the same day.

Right.

And it's been accomplished.

So just to make it clear, it says that it has to be passed three weeks in advance. You have to apply for it three weeks in advance.

No longer. That was the prior process to do that. They changed it the day of.

So if there are, we have that, we'll talk about this, the Juneteenth proclamation at the six o'clock meeting, but it's a proclamation honoring Juneteenth based off of Utica significance. There is somebody who did submit a request to fly a flag over it. They did not request the council to do it. They requested the mayor. That application exists. I have no problems about it. I think it's a good thing.

Right, but what your legislation says is that a proclamation constitutes the approval of a flag. And again, that goes back on the previous legislation that you coincided the Pride Month flag with the flag raising. And that's not right, Ms. Allen. You have made this political beyond belief. And it's really putting the city in a rock and a hard place to wanting to support issues based on the fact that you are trying to force us to do things. This is not true. It is. No, okay.

This is a proclamation. It's based on city expression.

Hold on, everyone, please. It's after 6 o'clock. We're getting deeper and deeper into the pre-meeting legislation that we have to discuss tonight. If we have time at the end of the 6 p.m., I'll go to Council of Medical. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second? Second. Okay. Adjourned.

Five-minute recess? Adjourned.

I'd like to open up this pre-meeting conference on 6-17-2026. I move to open the meeting. All right, the first piece is a resolution approving the granting of an easement to Niagara Mohawk. Everybody good with that? Would anybody, would the legal like to mention anything on this, on this easement at all, or?

on this niagara mohawk uh an easement oh are you going out of order because my sorry it's number one oh um yeah it's uh it's an easement for niagara mohawk um i believe we talked about it engineering is more familiar um for the area um Yeah, right around Hotel, right?

Yeah. Yeah, Hotel Street. This is like a year ago they started mapping out running power for Hotel Street for all of this.

So Niagara Mall still owns all that, owns this, and they're still... Yeah, the poles are NIMO.

A lot of the poles are still NIMO poles, even though it's national grade. I'm not really sure how all that works, but NIMO is...

They're still an entity and they're still charging us, right? All right. Any issue on this, anyone going across? All right. I'll move that. Next one, authorizing sale of beer and wine to the Canal Cities Classic. That's on September 19th. Everybody good with that? Next one, authorizing sale of beer and wine to Olmstead City or Greater Utica. Incorporated it's Thursday September 10th between 5 and 7 p.m. So the rain dates if be on September 17 Everybody good Next one is a resolution to prove and endorse the city's New York play application for the Martin Luther King Dream Park in Corn Hill anything on that Venice at all there

I don't know I think we went through this before and we talked about getting it cleaned up a little bit before this happens and I know it's going to be a while before they get it if they get it because right now we do have a and the problem is lessening with they're not homeless people they're just people that hang out in the park and from what I understand they've been cleaning the park the residents that are in there. And DPW has been coming through on a pretty regular basis to clean it up. So I don't have a problem with it, so.

You all set with that, Mark, and everything? No issues? Okay. Next one, authorizing sale of beer and wine to Mary, mother of our savior. That's their annual bazaar. That's gonna be September 3rd, Friday, September 4th, and Saturday, September 5th. It's at 2 Barton Ave, Utica, New York. Everybody good? Next one is from Joe Vitar, celebrating the 100th anniversary of John F. Hughes Elementary School. Would you like to say anything on there, Joe?

No, it was actually an event that passed. It was a fantastic event. I'm glad to be a part of it and celebrate with the kids. I mean, it was full of energy, so I'd like to make this full council.

Full council, good. Everybody good? Okay. Next one is authorizing sale of beer and wine to Valley View Golf Course. It's a golf tournament and it's going to be Friday, June 18th Friday, August 17th, August 7th and Saturday August 15th And it's for the PBA tournament the comments tournament and the st. Jude tournament Everybody go with that going to be Friday, June 18th, August 7th and August 15th. So we need to make an amendment.

You know that's great. Well today's the 17th Friday would be the 19th.

So is it gonna be the 19th?

I'll confirm the date.

Okay, thank you. Next one is authorizing sale of beer and wine to the FX Matt Brewing Company, their summer concert that's June 16th at 811 Edwards Street. Everybody go with that? Next one is a resolution approving the intramural agreement with the school district for school security officers. Everybody go with that?

Okay.

Would the police department like to say anything on that?

Are we good?

Good enough. Next one is for Councilman Beatrice. Recognizing the heroic action of Iham El-Azimim and El-Kassam El-Tiri.

They'll be here tonight. That's Councilperson Colosimo. We'll make it full council with the three of our sponsors. Thank you. All right. Any problem with full council Next one is a resolution authorizing the application for safer grant Chief anything on that. No, I just the period of

Application is open. We have until Monday to get the application in. We're looking to pursue eight additional firefighters again. It's a 75-25 split. The first two years, then it's a 35-65 split in the last year. It gives us additional daily staffing, and that would be the goal, to increase the available resources and to just take some of the ease off some of the call value that we have.

Anybody would like to say anything on this? One question.

Thank you, Mr. Nicoletta, for allowing us to know that we had to put in a resolution very quickly. I appreciate that. I know you're busy, Chief, and I understand you've got a lot going on. Can you kind of touch base on what this has to do with the minimum manning clause, if any, and how that affects the department with eight additional firefighters to your staffing?

It doesn't change the minimum daily staffing clause at all, but it does involve a complement change, like we did for the safer grant that is just wrapping up you know the hope is is obviously the increase of daily staffing that's available and we're going through a hiring process right now to fill vacancies and You know, it will just really help to alleviate some of the burden that ambulances have seen. And, you know, obviously we've had quite a busy year. The calls do not slow down. We can show that we've had a positive community impact and it will absolutely have an impact on hopefully lowering some of the mandatory overtime that we see and just our overall operating expenses when it comes to overtime.

And from the last safer grant that we had, how does eight additional FOIA fighters help you again in your day-to-day operation? I know you said it helps with staffing and stuff like that.

The goal is organically is to increase our staffing every day. And if we get more staff out there, we'll have more resources available. We won't be missing calls the way that we are still missing calls. And it'll just really help enhance the amount of things that we can do day-to-day.

Anybody else, any questions on this? Everybody's good? All right. Next one is a resolution proving agreement with County of Oneida for the funding for the Dick Miller Basketball Program. Any issues, we good? Moving on. Next one is a resolution proving agreement with the County of Oneida for the funding for the Juvenile Aid Program.

anybody to speak on this anybody the only question i have is stephanie are these are these new or are these reoccurring um costs that the county is doing or just costs that the county is helping us with or how is that working out so i don't know specifically if these are reoccurring i mean obviously no i know our programs are recurring i just don't know about the funding um but we have the county had funding from the office of children and family family services um so they're going to be reimbursing us for some of the as part of their youth programming a portion for some of these um

program some of our costs so that's what each of these agreements there's three of them specifically for that so everybody good with this all right moving on next one resolution approving agreement with the county of oneida for the funding for the recreation safety program same thing on this right yes everybody good next and third one resolution approving intermittent municipal agreement with the county stop dwi program

This is a contract that we've had continuously in the past that we participate in, and they reimburse us for our participation in that program.

Thank you. Next one is City of Utica Proclamation honoring the Juneteenth event.

anybody have an issue on this again the only issue that i'm asking is that if this ties to the flag raising in regards to this how could the city fulfill it and and what obligation do we have as a city once this proclamation's passed as far as the application goes through if there's anything else that the council needs to do because again this just came before us today and i i just again like the last proclamation that we passed i want to make sure that we're consistent on what we do um as far as that goes

So this legislation doesn't state anything about a flag but just like the first 20 pieces of legislation here Anything that we pass here is city expression.

So if it's passed somebody does have the right and opportunity to submit for an application But according to your ordinance is for the flag raising it states that if you pass the proclamation Right, but you didn't you didn't finish the question with all due respect. I need you to stop because I still had the floor and Please. Because Mr. Giorgio was still explaining it at the last time that you cut her off to finish explaining everything that she needed to explain. I cut nobody off. Ms. Ayala was not our attorney, okay? Our attorney's right there, and Mr. Giorgio's there. So what I asked for was not Ms. Ayala's statement, was Mr. Giorgio.

All right.

Thank you.

So, Mr. Giorgio, can you please explain? On Johnson Park, West Street. I'm not going to ever interrupt my meeting.

Okay, so my meeting just obviously, my question didn't make a difference.

So we can raise another flag?

This is just a proclamation honoring Juneteenth and Utica's significance in it. There are people who requested to raise a Juneteenth flag. They requested the mayor to do it. It wasn't a Common Council request. I don't know where the application stands with that. But anything we pass, though, could end up being a flag raising at some point. Not just proclamations.

So my question is who makes it eligible to raise another flag?

If they wanted to Yeah, anything we pass Anything we pass the city expression and that's so we're not approving a flag Anything we vote on a city expression people have the right to do a flag application based off city expression This isn't this is just honoring. This is just honoring Juneteenth.

Mr. George. Yes Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Stop

joe you got to you got it yeah yeah i just want to clarify something okay that i was i want to clarify that i have no gripes about raving a flag okay that i was told that i didn't want to raise a flag what i have the problem with is following what is written when the old legislation said you have to put something down three weeks in advance we got all this stuff comes the day of everything i just want it to be right and just remember here when we approve this i don't have no problem with it but there's going to be a time coming when all of us don't agree on something and we don't pass it and we're all going to be open for a lawsuit so just remember that all i want to do is say that on the record so i have no problem june 9th juneteenth It's a federal holiday. Why would you have a problem putting that flag up? Okay? But there's going to be flags that we will have problems with. And once you say no, you're going to have an issue. Thank you.

Frank, did you want to finish your statement? I just want to open myself up to...

every other meeting.

Can you ask Mr. Giorgio for clarification? Okay. Let me ask that question. Thank you. Mr. Giorgio, can you please, since we were cut off at the last pre-meeting, explain your position on how this proclamation correlates to the flag ordinance that was passed?

So if the council passes this proclamation tonight, the council can tomorrow... If the council passes the proclamation for Juneteenth tonight, the council can choose to hang the flag tomorrow. What I was trying to clarify earlier is once you start opening that application process, which is separate from this, you create problems. But the council can pass a proclamation whenever they want in a resolution. And as a part of that, that makes it eligible if you choose to to raise the flag.

Thank you.

So if we don't have a meeting tomorrow scheduled, then how does that flag get raised, even though we passed a proclamation in regards to that? So I guess that's kind of where I'm kind of hung on.

Oh, you don't need a special flag meeting or flag ordinance.

In your legislation, you said that the council has to approve it. So is it by way of approval of the proclamation?

I guess let me clarify. If tonight we were having a discussion that we want to hang X flag, the council just said we want to hang x flag nobody approached them there was no proclamation there was nothing the council said we want to resolve to hang x flag and have a proclamation the council can do that that is the council choosing that this is the flag that they want to raise so the council is free to do that you don't necessarily need another separate ordinance to do that because the council by their authority under the ordinance has the power to hang flags that are done by proclamation or council resolution. So.

Okay. Go ahead. So which flag are they going to raise if they do? Did they put in an application for a flag yet?

I'm not aware of any flag raising.

So the city received an application under the old application process for duty was that today. You know, I don't know what we I don't know exactly what we got them but we they would they will. I asked that because I need to know before I hold on it.

This proclamation. Because I talked to some people last night.

So we got them June 16th is when we got this application.

And I told them I wouldn't vote for the flag to go up. So I need to know when they put that in. Because if they put it in today, I would not vote for this.

We got it June 16th.

Then I wouldn't be able to vote for it then. I'm just saying.

This proclamation is completely separate from anybody else's flag raising.

I talked to some people last night after I came from our settlement about the same subject. And I let them know they couldn't do that. I didn't want them to do that because there's a lot of different Juneteenth flags and they couldn't even tell me which flag they wanted to hang up. So and I told people I have a black American flag on my house along with the American flag. But I want to know what flag they're going to hang if they're going to try to hang it. So can I ask? Oh, no, I'm done. So can I ask a question?

Go ahead, Joe, go ahead. In the past, since Juneteenth became a federal holiday, has the city of Utica flown a Juneteenth flag in the past?

I don't know. I don't think so.

I can answer that, no. No? No. Okay.

I mean, the only other thing I will say is tomorrow is a holiday city hall will be closed. So they're expecting to hang the flag tomorrow.

Right.

or right to be.

Yeah.

I think kind of I didn't even know that they submitted for it until we got the call for this.

So we've been tagged on multiple posts on Facebook.

And I'm kind of taken back by the group approaching me last night, calling me on the phone. And then today we're talking about raising a flag. And when I told him we might be able to do it next year, if we have more time to think about it. So I'm kind of Because I was going to vote for this.

The resolution?

Yeah.

Well, the resolution doesn't approve. No, it does.

The proclamation does, Jack. And that's what you guys misunderstand on your own legislation. And I was tagged multiple times on Facebook in regarding to raising a flag.

It seems like it's a little bit entwined, Jack. So I'm going to. Definitely entwined. It's 100%.

Just like the Friday plague was when it had nothing to do with the proclamation.

And anybody that knows me knows I don't like that. So it seems like it's a little intertwined. And I'm kind of wondering where it came from. I'm sorry. Okay. Councilman Irvin, I wrote this.

Councilman Irvin. I wrote this. That's where it came from. Councilman Irvin.

I haven't.

I want to know who told you.

Councilman Irvin.

Don't tell me that.

Nobody told me. Councilman Irvin, was that stated? I was tagged on multiple Facebook posts.

I only got the phone calls last night. I want to think something was up about the urges because I did receive the phone calls last night.

No, I just went on the floor. Nobody told me. It's just Juneteenth, and I think there's a lot of really fantastic ways that Utica was a part of this movement.

Why didn't you put it in two weeks ago when you passed the pride ordinance? I mean, you knew Juneteenth was Juneteenth.

you know why would you wait the day up to submit a proclamation in regards to it so again it's just about Juneteenth enough of like the personal attacks hang on a second you can vote on you cannot I'm for it thank you all right the next one is no parking at all times on Johnson Park from West Street

to Johnson Park along the curvature of the roadway, which runs in a northly and westerly direction, ending at Johnson Park and Square Street. If it's 14 Johnson Park. Everybody good with this? Next one is no parking at all times. Windhouseville.

I have been following this...

Your legislation regarding certain things was sort of up in the air. I don't know that anybody knows very much about the process and what the process is, especially out in public. But you know, you are the Common Council of the City of Utica, you can do whatever you want. You can waive, you waive residence requirements, you waive a lot of things. If there is some good reason for you to raise, to waive a rule that just became an ordinance, because you wrote a veto, and you can do whatever you wish. And you don't have to argue about it. So if a councilman wants a certain group, because Juneteenth is, I think, a national holiday, so it obviously qualifies anyway, and I can't see how an application process would be denied to celebrate any holiday. It's like the Fourth of July. So if you think that you would allow something to happen because there wasn't enough prior notice of the process that you just put into law by overwriting a veto, you may do so. You make a motion, you second it, vote on it. If it passes, whatever the councilman from the 5th District wishes to tell his constituents, who are the primary parties in this thing anyway, then he could do so. I'm just offering that as a way of keeping the community of this council in order without having a lot of bad feelings over things that to me at some point become much ado about nothing. So I offered that as a suggestion, and I offer that to the Councilman of the 5th District if you'd like to take advantage of that. I can't really visualize you as a council not accommodating your 5th District Councilman and his constituency, and especially since you've got a national holiday about. I offer that. You, like everything I say, you don't have to do anything I say or even suggest. But I sit here and I listen to this and it's sort of, it bothers me that, because I like the harmony of this council. You've done very well so far, and I just don't like too much of that disharmony start creeping into your meetings. So someone would like to make a motion to waive the rule because of the time element involved and all that, and whatever the councilman from the fifth district thinks is appropriate for his group,

fine you can do that you have the power to do that because you are the common council city you can you have a great deal of power thank you very much for listening to me thank you judge all right the next one is no parking at all times uh wind house full 11 hospital drive on columbus street side and the cny cardiology 601 state street on the columbus street side everybody good with that right final is an e a transfer can we go with that and the next one is an e a transfer for chip funding everybody fine with that and finally we're going to samantha we're going to also pull your number all right thank you all right this meeting is ended thank you joe did you want first of all did you want to say anything before i close it officially on this petition are you going to talk about that at all all right very good

Come to order. The city clerk will call the roll.

Aiello, Burmaster, Bittar, Carcone, Irvin, Beatrice, Waslewski, Clasimo, Testa, Lamedico, Geruzzi, all present.

Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence for the deceased members of the Common Council.

of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Is there a motion and a second to dispense the reading of minutes from the previous meeting? Motion. WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO WAVE THE RULES FOR A PROCLAMATION.

MOTION.

SECOND.

COUNCILMAN PETRES, WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO INTRODUCE PROPOSED RESOLUTION NUMBER 10.

MOTION. SECOND.

COUNCILMAN PETRES.

YOU GUYS WANT TO COME UP OR YOU JUST WANT THE BOYS? YOU'RE MORE THAN WELCOME TO COME UP THERE TOO, ALL OF YOU. So, you know, we do a lot of stuff in the council chambers, some good, some bad, but it's a pleasure on a night like tonight to be a councilman and to be able to recognize these two young boys. This proclamation is recognizing the heroic actions of... Okay. Whereas the city of Utica is filled with people who take pride in their community and always willing to help others in times of need. And whereas on a warm day in May... decided to head to Proctor Park to cool off in the water. When they arrived, they found a group of young people already there and noticed a girl in the water struggling. And whereas others watched, the two young men decided to help. They jumped in the water, pulled the girl to safety and called 911. Their decision to act and bravery in the moment saved the young girl's life and set the standard for what it means to be a neighbor for all both young and old. And whereas the type of self selflessness is what makes the community in the city of Utica so special and sets it apart from so many other places. Now, therefore be a proclaimed the common council of the city of Utica does hereby recognize and celebrate these two young men, for their historic actions and thank them for the service they render to our community. Further proclaimed that this resolution inscribed upon the minutes of the Common Council of June 17, 2026. You guys have the floor. You speak, say whatever you'd like to the people out there.

So hello, guys. My name is and I'm with my cousin right now, . So we were having a normal day. We came to Proctor Park to cool off because it was a hot day. And then out of nowhere, we see a girl drowning. So we decided to help because it was the right thing to do. Even though everyone's standing there not doing anything, it's still the right thing to do. No matter what, if you don't know the person, it's like you have to help. You don't need to be a fireman, a cop, you still have to help.

Thank you for everybody for coming, and thank you for the police to come help us.

Last thing I'd just like to say, I'd also like to recognize their parents and their family and the generation that we live in today. We don't see, you know, we hear a lot of bad things, but you can see that these children are being raised the right way and that's a credit to you people and our community. Thank you very much.

Council members, votes please.

Okay? Thank you. You guys want to, if you want to say anything? No, thank you.

Thank you for everybody.

Thank you.

nine years adopted public comment period allows three minutes per speaker so we have a lot of speakers tonight so maybe we'll do it in a block Timmy Julian you want to start it off yeah Tim, who's in your block?

Well, we have several. I'm going to try to keep it under. I'm going to cut my remarks down, although believe me, I could go on for about several.

Common Council has provided you a copy of Section 3244, Public Comment Period. Are you in agreement?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Well, again, my name is Tim Julian, former Utica mayor, former Utica Common Council president, and current county legislator in the 19th Legislative District, and also the county minority leader. I'm here tonight to speak out against good cause eviction, which many people on this council may be considering and I know some people are looking for. I will cut to the chase and go past the point where I state that landlords are small businesses and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into the economy each and every year. I'm just going to talk quickly about the eviction process as my time here is limited. And as you know, we already endure several step process to evict someone, a process that takes months and costs us hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in service fees, legal costs, and we pay our own lawyers, not free legal aid attorneys, and lost income due to failure to pay rent. Most times after an eviction is finalized, we walk into an apartment that is no longer habitable and requires thousands of dollars of repairs. Good cause eviction will add to this time period and stretch the eviction process out longer, costing landlords or small business owners tens of thousands of dollars each year. A quick example. I was in court on May 26th for an eviction of a person that has only rented since February of this year. He has threatened the lives of my employees. He has threatened to destroy the property. He has used racial slurs against his ethnic neighbors. He has thrown lighter fluid on police officers. He has threatened suicide, amongst other things. I started the eviction process on March 16th of this year, and when I go to court on May 26th, I was told he wanted to stay until June 30th. I stated I wanted him out on the 15th. I was then told if I could not agree to his demands, I would have to have a hearing with him, and the soonest date for a hearing was September 2nd. So I had to go along with this request or lose two more months of rent at the very least. As I stated the last time I spoke, no landlord wants to evict a tenant that is good, and being a good tenant is not a high bar. Pay your rent, keep your space clean, and don't be a nuisance to your neighbors. That's it. As a landlord, I can reasonably say most of my tenants don't know how to turn a screw. And that's fine because not everyone should be a homeowner. For that, they pay landlords a fee to live worry-free, knowing their needs will be met. Enacting good cause eviction will force more landlords to go out of business and further exacerbate the housing crisis that you state this law will solve. I'll stop there. Thank you.

Tom Allard. Hi, Tom. Common Council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement?

Yes.

Thank you, Tom.

For those of you who don't know me, I've been the city marshal for 41 years.

I've seen...

Like I said, for those of you who don't know me, I've been the city marshal for four years. I've seen all the judges come and go, retire. I've seen the mayors go, police chief, fire chief, and everything. I also happen to be a landlord in Utica. I've got 110 places. And it's hard to follow what Tim just said, but that's right on point. And I happen to be doing the guy that he's talking about. I have to go there and remove him. and the abuse that we take, I handled it easy. But the biggest thing is, if we just keep ignoring what's going on, give me an example. A lot of West Utica is shot now. A lot of East Utica, deep East Utica is starting to crumble. What I mean by that is the student body of the city is not holding people liable for the damages that are causing. I did 13,382 warrants in my lifetime. There's $7.5 million of unpaid rents. The landlords are taking this brunt, not those people. There's agencies out here that get government funds from the government to the state, hand them down here. Helio, Shelter Care Plus, reentry program, all of these programs. Their job is to put these people in apartments. These are not all the people. These are certain people. And when they put them in these apartments, they have no repercussions on what they do. They move in. Now you've got the squatters that go. They bring in five guys. They all say they live there, but the warrant only has the one person on it. Some of the communities around here put the name of the tenant, And then they put any and all other occupants. We don't in Utica. So when we go to do a warrant and the police have to go there and they say, okay, John Q. Public has to leave. Well, that's my friend. He lives here too. He moved in here three months ago. You guys don't expect, when I have to call for support sometimes, they don't back me up. That person lives there. He says he's my friend. He can stay there. Now we have to do the eviction all over again on that guy. That's terrible that these landlords have to be put up with that. That's absolutely disgusting. So it's a much bigger problem than you think. And if we don't tighten down things on this, there's a lot of abandoned houses. Landlords are in business to try to buy a place, fix it up, rent it out, and make money. And this thing that Tim said about the fact shortage of housing no there isn't there's no shortage there's hundreds and hundreds of apartments that the landlords won't even rent because it's easier for them to be in a two-family home not getting rent but at least their place isn't getting damaged and they gotta spend a lot of money on it to fix it back up they have destroyed and again it's just a certain element of people then it's the same ones over and over again i had a couple that moved Every seven months, they paid two months' rent a year. They would go there. By the time they got through the system, they go find another place, and they bone that landlord. They pay rent twice a year, three times a year. That's got to stop. We've got to do something about it. I don't have the answer. I don't know. Maybe somebody can come up with an answer for this, but we have to stop it. And I'm gonna go into this, five-star Oneida Square. You gotta be kidding me. Major Dunkin' Donuts leaves. Kentucky Fried Chicken leaves. You wanna take a person down Genesee Street to go to New Hartford and show what a beautiful city it is, they gotta go by there? That would turn anybody off. It really would. Again, I don't know the answer. But as far as the good cause, that's just another branch for them to hold onto that's just gonna sink these landlords out here that are trying to do a good job. And it's the same thing over and over and over again. I see it every day they come in, every day. And I don't have much more to say than we've gotta start taking care of the city the way it's supposed to be taken care of.

All right, sorry. I'm good with that.

Thank you, Tom.

Yep.

Next speaker, Gary Heenan.

Thank you for your time. Gary Heenan, also a landlord, just about 120 units across the county. Got into the business to make money, a small business. And people sign a contract. The last thing I need to do to make money is evict someone. That's losing money. So to me, it's unreasonable. We don't start the eviction process until two, three, four months. when they're behind rent. So it's easy to start at day one. That's not the truth. That's not what happens. So somebody gets behind three, four or five months, that's when you start that process. There's already a system in place and that is cumbersome. And to say we need good cause to add a layer to the already difficult process, it's already in front of a judge and that judge rules whether there's good cause already. So why would we have to recreate a system that truthfully works? It's a little longer in process, but why are we adding layers to that? So, you know, we work with people. I need people absolutely in these places and we work with them. Single parent, that's kind of my wheelhouse. Christmas time, I'm losing thousands of dollars out of my choice. That's my choice because I work with them. It's going to cost me a lot more to evict them. So within reason, I'm just here to say there's already a process in place. There's already someone at the judge's table that rules whether there's good cause or not. I'm not sure why we have to reinvent the wheel in this city. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone here with the good cause? Jack Santacroce. Jack, you wanna speak?

Yeah, Jack Santacroce is up.

Good evening council members. My name is Jack Santacross. I'm a local property owner and also the owner of Urban Landlord Inc, a full service residential property management company here in Utica. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with all you guys regarding the good cause eviction law. Today Urban Landlord manages over 100 apartments between 35 buildings locally. We partner with a number of these local organizations like Catholic Charities, Helio Health, the Community Foundation, Domestic Violence Shelters, the Refugee Center, and many more to provide safe and habitable housing for marginalized populations. I wanna start by saying that I support safe housing, fair housing, and holding bad or absentee landlords accountable. Every tenant deserves a clean, safe, and stable place to live. That's the reason I chose to move back from Boston and start this business. However, I don't believe this law is the right solution for the city and this community for a handful of short reasons. Number one, our biggest problem in housing today is supply, even with all of our new developments in the city. I'm sure this isn't news to a single person in this room, but we can't regulate our way into more housing. Today as it stands, I have 162 inquiries from amazing members of this community all competing for four apartments. So this is gonna lead me to my second point, but we need more units, more development, and more rehabilitation, not additional barriers for the folks providing housing. My second point, the good landlords are gonna become more selective. When it's harder to remove these tenants, landlords are gonna, before approving applicants, they're gonna raise their credit requirements, they're gonna raise the income requirements, and they're gonna run rigorous verification processes. So this policy that's intended to help marginal renters can unintentionally make it harder for those same renters to get approved in the first place. Three, Tim already said it, small landlords are not large corporations. This law was designed to target institutional investors and landlords, mostly in our downstate markets. In our community, most of the housing providers are local families, retirees, and small business owners who are gonna feel this the most. Um, my fourth point is it's going to create more litigation, which has been said twice. Um, today I have two pending evictions that have taken over six and a half months from tenants that I've inherited from a local manager. Um, so this is just going to create more attorneys, more court appearances, more administrative burden for this city. And it, it doesn't create a single new housing unit. I respectfully believe this proposal risks creating more litigation, discouraging investment, and reducing housing opportunities and making it harder for local housing providers to operate. If our goal is affordability, stability, and quality housing, we should focus on increasing housing supply, encouraging rehabilitation of our aging properties, and supporting the responsible landlords and responsible tenants alike. Good cause eviction does not create a single apartment, lower a single tax bill, or renovate a single building. What it does is increase uncertainty in a housing market that already faces significant challenges. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Jack.

Let me ask the other two people.

You got more. Just state your name, please.

Are we coming up as a group?

You can come up, speak. I'll let a couple people speak. How much time do they have? They're going to give three, four minutes.

You guys can come up.

State your name, please.

Katie, they just yielded their time, and the block. We're unclear about the rule.

That's all.

There's 30 minutes. Listen. Before the meeting, she said he would have five seconds. I'm in charge of the meeting, sir.

Sir, I'm in charge of the meeting.

Okay, well, she was interrupting the question, so I would like to thank you.

Speak. You can come up. Three, four people can speak. They've had three, four people. Thank you. Three, four minutes.

Sure, thank you. State your name, please. My name is Senya Dequeer.

Diane Berry.

We represent the tenants in Utica. We've heard from a lot of landlords here today, but Utica is a city with over 50% tenants and we're here to speak for them. What good cause does is simply say that if you follow your lease and follow the rules of the lease, you have a right to remain in your home. You do still have to follow the rules of your lease. Nobody's saying that you can do whatever you want and avoid being evicted. It actually allows for all of the situations that were just listed are still allowed for evictions in that case. We've spoken multiple times about the need for the addressing of the housing crisis, not just here in Utica, but across New York State and across the entire country. What we need to do is fix that. Saying good cause won't create more housing is like saying Medicare won't build more hospitals. We need one thing to fix the overall problems. There are multiple solutions to the problem and we can be creative about how we do this. And we've seen the evidence of good cause working in multiple upstate cities across the state. We can give you all the data and I will pass to other people to speak up more. Thank you.

Thank you. Please state your name.

My name is Diane Barry and I just want to make one thing really clear and read it. I have a handout I want to give to all of you from the housing justice for all group and also local progress. I want to read this from this. Here are the good causes to evict or non-renew a tenant that Senya talked about that are actually in this law. Nonpayment of rent. Violating the lease. The landlord wishes to recover the unit for personal use. Causing a nuisance or violating the law. The owner intends to demolish or is taking it off the market. Failure to sign lease renewal or provide access to the apartment. So I think you've been kind of fed a little gaslighting about the reasons why they... can't evict. They can evict for those reasons under the law. One of the specific things that I am interested in is having landlords stop hiding behind LLCs. There is a unit number that applies to this law. It doesn't cover all, and it mostly is meant for multiple dwelling units or multiple units, but LLCs that just hide behind, you know, you have an LLC for one unit, and then the landlord can say, oh, I only have one unit. But one thing to put into the law is to make sure that they don't hide behind it So make close a loophole by setting the portfolio to one or you know If you think one is too low two or three, but that means that if a landlord has 10 LLC's 20 LLC's that's equivalent to having a 20 unit apartment and that's something I want to make sure gets into this law Thank you Thank you

Please state your name.

Sparkle Anthony. Greetings, everyone. It's been a while. It doesn't matter if it's a paid lawyer or a attorney. It matters if the person has integrity. and um the laws that matters how about the community and neighborhood that still matters i hope in the course of humanity for humanity's sake how about clearly seeing that there's something rooted with the person um i'm sorry these landlords have to go through this y'all are good landlords no you know it's not y'all right it's the ones who you know, evict people when the repair needs to be done, or there's something like lead, and instead of fixing a problem, you evict the person, and then, you know, it's not for the people who are here, the landlords here, right? So let me stick to the script. People with law and justice for everyone. So with the state of everything going on, how about providing resources? The Community Foundation is rich with resources in this community. How about kindness? It goes further than fear. Or finances. you know how about working together you know it's unfortunate what happens to some of these landlords but sometimes we have to put ourselves in someone else's shoes there's a bigger picture in this world if we open our eyes if a repair needs to be made some landlords dodge the responsibilities and put a new tenant instead of fixing the root of the issue so good landlords don't be afraid don't feel like we're attacking you it's just that If you feel you're a good landlord, hold everybody accountable. Put everybody on the same level. You shouldn't have a problem with saying, yes, the good cause. So that means you're holding yourself accountable along with your fellow landlords because we all have to live in this world together. There's no getting around that. So and for humanity, open our eyes, think bigger, work together. There's a solution. Just tap into the Community Foundation, which is a wonderful organization here. Thank you.

Thank you. Last speaker.

Can I split my time? Okay. All right. State your name, please. Clara O'Brien. I'm with Legal Services of Central New York. We're a non-profit law firm with offices at 209 Elizabeth Street. Most of our work is representing tenants facing eviction, residential tenants, and we also do repair actions. Just a few points that the four landlords who spoke tonight brought up. One, I would say just check your portfolio. before you go out against good cause. There are 15 exemptions. For example, new building, new developments, COs, you have a 30-year exemption from this law. So it encourages new building. It also encourages people who have really dilapidated housing to bring it up to code. Why? Because you get a C of O and you're exempt for 30 years. So check the law and check your portfolio because I want to know how many of your properties are actually covered. The reason also that evictions take a long time, in most cases, it's because the landlord is making a rookie mistake in their filings. And that's just the truth. And there is something city council can do to help landlords who are making rookie mistakes. My office is budgeted almost 70 hours to this project, to this campaign. Invite us. We do landlord trainings all the time. We spend half of our time advising tenants on what their obligations are. Not enforcing their rights, but it's a two-way street, right? Tenants got to stand up and do what's required of them, and the landlords have to meet them. This law is not going to interfere with that. Sparkle said it's going to raise the level of play in Utica so that anyone who's making money collecting rents from someone for their home is going to put some of that money back into the property so the family has heat so the kids aren't being lead poisoned with you know lifelong brain damage I, you know, I support small businesses. Landlords absolutely have a right to make a business. That's not what this is about. This is about do you make it on the backs of your tenants? Are you exploiting them? Because if you're a good landlord, you run your business professionally, you meet your basic, basic minimum obligations under the law, like satisfying code requirements, good cause is not going to slow you down.

Thank you.

Please state your name.

Hi everybody, my name is Desiree Gaines. I would just like to know in the crowd how many people are landlords that are here that are really concerned If anybody wants to raise your hand, thank you, sir. Thank you. I want to bring attention to the fact that during COVID, Utica, New York itself was facing a housing crisis, okay? And the fact that the landlords, because of our failed government, was not promised any contingencies to allow them to operate and still, this is how they make their money, right? They make their money for housing people in our communities. But the government literally said that the people in the communities are going to live rent free. They did not think about the people that are housing these people and that are landlords when we were suffering a literal housing crisis in Utica. due to the lack of housing in our community. This is a community problem. It's also a shade to the government that did not think of the people that were housing these people and how they were going to sustain their economic rebuttal to be able to make money back. from the system that was designed to make them money to support their families, okay? That's one. They were not promised any indicated relief, and I feel that that is a big part of the issue. The marginal of the community that was underrepresented due to the lack of that decision, I feel that it brings shame to us, okay? It brings shame to the people that just want to find housing, and it brings a shame to the people that are providing housing. You're basically saying that when we're still trying to find our way back to get back on track, you gotta understand when the government said during covid that you didn't people in the community didn't have to pay rent they did not think about how it would affect the landlords when we come here today to stand here and say that We want people to also regenerate income, but we also want people to have sustainable housing. We were in a housing crisis and it was devastating. I will be short. We struggled as a whole and it was not helping us move forward as a whole. Um, the state of our community, we want to solve this issue, but we keep bumping heads. So I want to have everybody to have the opportunity to, and I thank everyone for being here to be able to express their concerns, but we also need to have an outstanding resolution. Um, the LLCs that are hiding behind political ties to the people and even to law enforcement. They're enforcing codes and martial evictions and everything. I want people to also just keep in mind that there is a humanity problem.

That's it. Next speaker will be Ron Vincent, please.

Thank you for your time.

yes i am my name is ron vincent i'm here tonight to speak about this flying of the flag a few weeks ago i was here And there was a group of people that got up and wanted this gay pride flag flown. And I'm looking at the crowd tonight. It's a little bit more diverse than it was that night. And I have nothing against gays or straights. I'm very open-minded about everything. But when it comes to this flag, if you're going to fly a flag that represents gay people because it's a month of pride, I think we ought to equally have a flag that represents straight people. I'd like to see a white flag with a male and female emblem on it. And I blame this Common Council for not doing their job properly. All nine of you. When every two years you people are out knocking door to door to all your constituents getting signatures to sign you up to run for office. If somebody has a problem in their neighborhood or something, they call you, you take care of it. But when it comes to voting on something after a few people get up and talk one way about it and that night it has to be voted on, why aren't you people talking to your other constituents? You have more than just the people that sign your papers to get you on a ballot. In the city of Utica, I'd say there's probably 10, 15% of the population that's probably of the gay nature. And I'd say there's probably 80 to 90% that are straight. But you take their consideration into account. consideration no you don't you just voted for what you wanted to do and when it comes to the next election I hope all your constituents that are hearing about this remember it and think about you. Say, gee whiz, you voted for 10% of your people. I'm part of the 90%. I don't need to vote for you no more. I'm gonna vote for somebody else, even if it's a different party. Maybe we oughta do away with the Common Council in the city of Utica. Do we really need it? You people come here, you vote on beer and wine things. We got a room over here full of people that handle all that, marriage certificates and everything else. Yes, I'll cut myself short. Thank you.

Thank you, Ron. Is there a Sherman, Stein? Sherman County Council has provided you a copy of section 3244 public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you.

That's going to be a tough act to follow. My name is Sherman Stein. I spoke last month in protest of the city signing a contract with Flock and was surprised and disappointed by remarks made by Councilwoman Colosimo-Testa in response to mine and others comments during last month's council meeting. Across the state and the nation, municipalities are canceling their contracts with flock and similar companies over data and privacy concerns. It would be naive to think that Councilwoman Aiello is responsible for the massive pushback against unregulated corporate overreach. I had never met Councilwoman Aiello prior to speaking at last month's meeting, neither did the majority of my fellow dissenters. It is extremely insulting to the public, your constituency, to assume and accuse anyone voicing a dissenting opinion as a political plant being fed a script rather than concerned members of the community struggling to stay informed.

Thank you. Raven Wormwood. Raven, the Common Council has provided you a copy of Section 3244, Public Comment Period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Raven Wormwood. Yeah, I'm short. Thank you. As a resident of Utica, I do not support the installation of flock cameras anywhere in the city, and I ask that the current flock cameras be removed. Data from these cameras is accessible to outside agencies without explicit local authorization. That alone makes many residents, including myself, feel less safe living in our home city. Furthermore, it diminishes the privacy of Utica citizens. If your goal has ever been to gain the trust of the people, this will only serve to accomplish the opposite. I do not want myself nor my neighbors to live in a place where we are treated like criminals at best and cattle at worst who need to be under constant surveillance. Doing so would put us in an Orwellian dystopia and for some of the members on the council, I'm certain that if you could read, you would understand the gravity of that statement. given that the data leaks are inevitable that immediately puts everyone in danger including everyone on this council if data gets leaked you have given complete access to videos and pictures of yourselves your homes your habits your children to anyone who call who can access it and it's up to them what they do with that information there is nothing secure about flock cameras and It's incredibly easy to hack into their systems and once hacked, that information can be sold and it can be exploited by individuals and organizations with malicious intent. I would have used this time to offer an abundance of examples of how this technology is currently being misused and abused all across the country and with statistics to appeal to your common sense. But as one of the board members expressed in a recent meeting, you're all very aware of how these cameras are costing people their security and in some cases their lives. And that same council member concluded that they just don't care. So allow me to remind you that this isn't a behind the scenes politics issue. It's personal and it's personal to all of us. You say that this is for the purpose of protecting us, but it just makes it easier for us to be stalked, targeted and attacked. This is not in our best interest and it's definitely not in your best interest. Do not forget that you are also a part of this city. You are as vulnerable as you make the rest of us.

Thank you.

Peter Bianco? Peter, the Common Council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you, Peter.

So I got invited by Patrick Johnson to come to one of the call-ins here, I believe it was in this room, with the most dangerous men in Utica. And to my surprise, they were 17 years old and less. So these are the people in the community who are the shooters. And now it's getting even worse where they're trying to recruit younger children to be the shooters because they know that they have a certain type of immunity from prosecution. So instead of having spot shooters, I think we should be investing in the community having programs for the children not just in Corn Hill but also on the west side. There's no programming on the west side for the children. So that's my first concern. And then secondly with this technology of the flock, the plates are connected to the people who own the vehicles and the system can locate when and where these vehicles are. So, you know, for the last 30 days. So it tracks it for 30 days and then it wipes it out of the system if nobody downloads it. for use. So you can, you know, be looking after people in that way. And this new tool offers unprecedented level of surveillance power. And I believe that's too much power to be trusted within a corrupt power structure that favors corporate interests. And now think about the opioid epidemic. So in the opioid epidemic, we were trusting that these pharmaceutical companies, when they told doctors and they overtook them and were able to say that these are safe, there's nothing wrong, they're not addictive, this is not just something that happens in the pharmaceutical industry. It happens in a pattern throughout our culture. So the contract with Flock states that the data will be shared when required to do so by law. And so back in the time in New York State, if people remember, there was a big debate over whether or not we were going to allow fracking in New York State. At that time, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI made people who were opposed to fracking on a watch list. That also happened more recently in the last administration with parents who wanted to go to school board meetings and were concerned about their children being masked at school. They were considered threats to be on a watch list. And now I hear that it's also happening with people who are opposed to data centers. So there's various corporate interests that somehow get people to be on different watch lists. So then this type of technology can be used to track and surveil people who are protesting against those sorts of things, even in a legal way. So now think about this. In 2020, the governor created a masking policy.

Peter, you're going to have to finish up, please.

sure i'm asking policy that was not the law it was color law and the county sheriff enforced it he's not a lawmaker and it took until 2022 for that uh bad law to be overturned so we could all be subject to this increased surveillance on laws that aren't even legitimate thank you i'm sorry could you just repeat your name i didn't i didn't hear enough peter bianco thank you peter

Last name, Franchelle. Franchelle. Please state your name.

Lincoln Franchelle.

Lincoln Common Council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lincoln Franchell. I live on Lower Higbee Road. I've been there since 1968-69, and I'm looking for help from the Common Council here. Recently, in the last three years, the body shop has changed hands. It went from somebody that was calm and easygoing to now people that really don't care about the people that live on Higbee Road. Bright lights from their trucks going off in their windows, the loud exhaust systems on their Dodge trucks in the middle of the night after 10 o'clock, sometimes a little earlier. and the large amount of cars that now have shown up. I've counted as little as 30. I've seen as many as 45 besides the trailers and who knows how many are in the garages themselves. So I'm here to ask for help for speeding signs to try to get them to slow down on economy drive and go from there. I'm just looking for help.

Next speaker, Rosario Salvo. Lee Arthur. Lee, the Common Council has provided you a copy of section 3244, public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you, Lee.

So again, this is Lee Arthur. I'm a hotel manager from the Delta Marriott Utica. Talking about city bed tax, which is a little bit of a topic that maybe many people don't care about, but it has been around for a long time, hotel occupancy taxes. chris distito senior was uh probably one of the most respected members of the community over the last 50 years everybody has amazing things to say about him he started on 90 county tourism in 1980 and he was a founding member of mohawk valley edge helping to you know bring back the business park at griffiths one reason everybody was so fond of him is collaboration discussion getting people together at the same table um you know he was the one who kind of started the occupancy tax to collect tourism tax from hotel visitors which you know it's not money from residents but the purpose of that was to start on it county tourism to bring more visitors to bring more visibility to oneida county to hopefully get more people to come and stay. That was kind of the purpose of it. And I think, you know, he also brought in hotel operators to the discussion, brought them on the board of directors. He brought in Oneida County legislators as well as Utica and Rome. So that that's, that was a successful way to implement the new occupancy tax. The city of Utica did not bring in community members to discuss. I'm sure they had a public hearing like this one, which is not the easiest to get up and speak about. They did not have an open dialogue with hotel operators. They did not reach out to Oneida County or Oneida County Tourism to have a discussion on how a city tax or occupancy tax should be done. You know, why was the tax added would be my question. Many people might say, you know, Mr. Beatrice, you're a respectable man. Mr. Druse, I respect you as well. You know, you may say it's 3%. Nobody's going to notice. Have you seen New York City? Have you seen New York City's taxes? They're so much higher than Utica. Yes, they are. I agree, but what does Utica have that some other neighboring mid-sized cities have? What does Utica have that Albany doesn't have, Rochester doesn't have, Saratoga doesn't have? Do we have an amphitheater? Do we have someplace that can house a major concert? Do we have downtown shopping? Do we have department stores? Can you buy a pair of jeans in Utica unless you go up to Walmart? So these are some things that I'm asking, why do we have a Utica city tax? Is it to bring more tourists or is it just because we need more money for our budget? Did you know if somebody visits a town for one day and they're spending, a day tripper, they may spend 70 to $150 for that trip in a mid-sized city like Utica. If they stay overnight, it's two to three times that. So that's 150 to 300. That's from the National Travel Center data. So they are spending money in our restaurants and our stores. I WOULD ASK THE COUNCILMEMBERS WHY DO YOU NOT VALUE THEIR VISITING SO MUCH? WHY DO YOU WANT TO JUST REACH IN THEIR POCKET AND TAKE FIVE MORE DOLLARS? YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FINISH UP, LEE. I THINK THAT'S IT. WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO TAKE FIVE MORE DOLLARS? BECAUSE 3%, THAT'S ABOUT WHAT IT IS GOING TO BE EVERY NIGHT. SO THAT WOULD BE MY QUESTION.

THANK YOU, LEE. ALLIE AND JEN, YOU WANT TO COME UP TOGETHER? Please state your name.

My name's Allie Sponger-Degan.

Okay.

Jan will probably go after me, I think. Or do you wanna come up too? Sure. Perfect.

My name's Jandy Amichis. Okay, thank you.

Hello everyone. Thank you for having me here. Council members, staff, council president. My name is Allie and this is Jan. We're here to talk about the Harriet Tubman Byway that I know that request for a resolution has been in front of the city of Utica. So we're here just to give a little quick information here to everybody in the room. and also request that the City of Utica move forward on adopting that resolution. We kindly request that. I'm here to give a little bit of an update. Last week, Jan and I both spoke to the Oneida County Legislature also to make our request there for passing of the resolution. And before I get into just a very quick background of what the byway is, I do also want to update that the final step of designating a byway is the governor to sign it into law. And the first part of the Harriet Tubman Byway was signed into law by the governor on Saturday. So we have made a huge milestone marker in this process. And so I want to put that out first. Now I'll back up a little bit and say, so that was for phase one, which is Auburn to Niagara Falls. Over here in Oneida County, this is part of phase two of the Harriet Tubman Byway. We're seeking designation in 2027 for that. In order to do that, we have to complete the remaining resolutions by July, August in order to get everything in on time for the full byway phase one and two. The requirement for that is there's 172 municipalities and out of those 172 municipalities resolutions that we need, we only have 18 left. And so that has been a huge feat over the last year and a half that we've worked on. Jan and I and many other colleagues across the state have spoken at many of these meetings, giving information, asking questions about what this process means. So the resolution of support that we're asking for is required by Department of Transportation from the municipalities. There is a template that's been, I think, provided previously, but happy to provide anything else again, from DOT that is approved by them. There's some language in there that is non-negotiable, so to speak, from them, and that's required, again, from all municipalities. It's about off-premise signage. Um, basically the municipality is saying we will not approve permits for any off premise signage along that byway route, which for here, for the city of Utica is five south, uh, to 12, uh, coming out of, um, hurt from Herkimer county and going into new Hartford is the next jurisdiction. If I have that just right there. So, um, that usually begs a lot of questions. So again, you know, I'm here to answer any questions if that's the case on, on the billboard or off premise signage issue. that only pertains to any new billboards and it's anything that's not happening on the site. So that would be, you know, maybe at Joe's Deli, it would be if there was a sign for something happening 10 miles away, advertising that in the very traditional sense of how you might see a billboard, typically more on throughways and things like that. So that's kind of the thing that we usually have to talk about in terms of the logistics of getting the resolution passed. And I just want to also kind of say like the importance of this, as I mentioned, phase one, uh being designated just a final process this past saturday is a huge accomplishment and so we want to be able to bring phase two bring oneida county bring the city of utica in that there's so much history here so i want to turn it over to jan just to talk about that and whatever else you'd like to say too

I'm Jandy Meaches, I'm co-chair of the Oneida County Freedom Trail Commission. We've been around for about 25 years, commissioned by Oneida County in 2001, and we studied the Underground Railroad and abolition movement in Oneida County, and Oneida County is rich in this kind of history. But what I'm really happy to say is I want to say thank you guys, because the City of Utica has been a real booster for our program of designing an Underground Railroad walking tour of Utica. And I've never had a chance to say thank you for the help that Mr. Sokolowski gave us in putting up all those signs and making sure that it's all done properly and so forth. And about a month ago, I saw Mayor Galimi leading another person around to the walking tour, talking about each one of those things. And you all ought to know that Utica is in the center of the study of the abolition movement and Underground Railroad in the entire Northeast. We got a lot of history to brag about, and you folks have helped make this possible. So thank you, guys.

Francis Brown? Tony Myers. Tony Myers first. Hi, Tony. Common Council has provided you a copy of Section 3244, Public Comment Period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you, Tony.

uh thank you for the opportunity i'm speaking on the good cause eviction uh against it i'm a landlord um i moved here 30 something years ago you only have a couple minutes because i've already spoke on this it's going to be short believe it or not it doesn't sound like it but um and i and i got into this business because it was a great opportunity and over those these 30 years Over and over again, New York State has continued to cut the feet off of landlords, pass legislation to make it more and more difficult to do business. And the result, like everything else that New York State does to hinder small business, is that the cost of doing business goes up. And every time a piece of legislation is passed, it makes things more difficult. This good cause eviction is going to make things even that much more difficult than they already are, and it's going to cause the cost of rents to go up, the cost of doing business to go up. So I would ask you, members of the Common Council, to vote no should this legislation come up, that you vote no, we don't need it. There's already plenty of legislation on the books to protect tenants. They're a codes department to keep landlords in check. We now have a lead registry in New York State to deal with the lead issue. So no, the good cause eviction law is not going to deal with the lead issue. We have a lead registry. So I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Tony.

Francis Brown, our last speaker. Hi, Francis. The County Council has provided you a copy of section 3244 public comment period. Are you in agreement? Yes. Thank you, Francis.

Utica summertime. Summer officially starts June 21st. The youth will be out of school and looking for something to do. Utica has plenty to offer, including having the third largest municipal park system in New York State. Frederick Proctor Park offers 62 acres. Thomas R. Proctor, another 112 acres. Rosalind Conklin Park south of Memorial Parkway from Valley View Road to Oneida Street provides another 625 acres of parkland. The park includes the Utica Zoo, the Valley View Golf Course, the Ski Hill, the Parkway Recreation Center, South Utica Switchback Trails, which a lot of people don't know about, and many memorials and statues, including the eagle that offers a grand view of Utica. Utica also has many other smaller parks, like Edison Miller, Seymour, Pixley, Hurt, Chancellor, with a new splash pad. Utica City, the Utica Youth Bureau is offering several free programs as well, most at the rec center. Utica Zoo has a new coral reef exhibit and by the Yaks with a new calf has another fine view of Utica. Utica also has direct access to the Erie Canal Trail on North John C Street. If you head west, you can venture into the Utica Marsh Wildlife Management Area. Utica boasts the Munson Museum. Coming up in July is the Festival Art Show. This also includes a car show in which Utica and the surrounding areas offers many free shows for viewers. In August, there will be the Utica's 7th Annual Purple Heart Veterans Show. Unfortunately, there's no more ant on Monday nights, but if you are in a local history, the landmark society of greater Utica is offering Monday night walk and talks this Saturday, both mansions at the Rector park will be doing tours. Many other events are around Utica and are free or at low cost. Remember, remember it's not about the price, but it's about making the memories that you create. It is on you, Utica, to help maintain these parks and the precious jewels that we have here in Utica. Between the Parks Department and DPW, we only have about 60 hardworking employees. So do not litter. Carry in, carry out, and leave no trace. Also, happy National Root Beer Day. Who's buying?

Thank you, Francis. we have no guest speaker no communication from the mayor report of city officers we'll start with um lieutenant colonel lieutenant curly from the upd so captain curly cap i'm sorry buddy and i knew that congratulations deputy chief holt so real quick um

Police departments been so special events fall under my purview. So we've seen a huge influx of special event applications. Um, so with that said, I just want to offer some insight into the process, um, for anyone who wishes to host an event which encumbers on city land. Um, you know, it could be a park, you want to use a park, you want to use a pavilion, You want to close a roadway, you want to use the band shell, et cetera. So anybody who wishes to host an event that encumbers city property must first file a special event application with the city clerk's office. With that application, you're going to need to provide a plan, proof of insurance so that the city can ensure that they're not going to encumber any undue liability. And then once that application is submitted, the city will start the approval process. That approval process goes out to all the department heads. So police, fire, parks, DPW, and then finally the mayor's office. Just want to quickly hit on why that process has to happen. If you're planning on a huge event, there's more than 5,000 people that you believe are going to attend your event, you have to have a mass gathering permit. You're going to need security. In this day and age, even if you have 100 people that are going to come to your event, you're going to need security. With that, you're going to have to have an incident action plan. You might want to provide liquor. or alcohol you're going to have to have a liquor license and with that liquor license is going to come a resolution is going to need you're going to need a resolution from the common council potentially because it is on public land to you know to waive the public consumption laws fire and i'm not going to you know speak for the for the fire chief but there could be some hazmat there's definitely going to be some fire and ems considerations parks department again Bancho, they're going to need to mow the grass if you're looking to use a park. Bathrooms, lighting, DPW cleanup, et cetera, et cetera. So I just wanted to talk about that because we're getting just a huge influx of special events. applications. I just want everybody to know that if if somebody does come to you for um you know wishes to host uh any type of event on any type of land that that is city property um that's the process and please forward them to the city clerk's office with the understanding they're going to need um you know a plan they're going to need insurance and then with that comes an approval process um That's really all I had to do. I wanted to just get out there. We've been getting a ton of those applications and wanted to make sure that everybody knew the process. That's all.

Thank you, Chief. Stephanie DiGiorgio, Corporation Counsel.

Nothing further. I guess I'll just echo Deputy Chief's comments about the applications. Law does typically review them occasionally as well with respect to the insurance. I just would echo that obviously we do this for every application. It's the same process for each one, and obviously any of the department heads can make modifications to that plan so that it fits the needs of the applicant, but also it fits the criteria that we need for the city. So not every approval is granted. Some of them are contingent upon meeting certain specifications, but we work our way through them and try to get those done.

thank you brian thomas urban renewal nothing to report dave shore parks commissioner i'd like to remind everybody that next monday we start our summer youth program that means the pools will be open and the playgrounds will be open so everybody have a good time and be safe thank you our fire chief angus uh yeah i just want to go over uh may of 2026 um fire department responded to 1 370 incidents

which was over 2 422 apparatus responses uh over 816 ems incidents and over 700 patient transports to local hospitals our ambulances are extremely busy they continue to be we also report responded to 18 reported structure fires with three being um working fires or a major fire unfortunately we did experience a fatality on john street um That was a tragic fire. That was the second fire in less than 24 hours. Both of those fires, the one on Lansing Street and the one on John Street, were major fires that really taxed our system. Again, folks, thank you for the support on the Safer Grant, and I look forward to continuing to work on that.

Chief, will that building have to come down? I changed my mind.

on john street yeah we're just waiting for the structural engineer report but um we would like i would like to see that building come down sooner than later thank you chief yep um our dpw commissioner mark sokolowski yeah just two things first of all i want to

say last friday we had a lot of rain come in a short period of time and we had some serious flooding and our guys did what they always i saw first hand they did a great job and i want to thank them for the hard work they did and second of all francis i'll buy your root beer after the meeting yeah i did see uh mark's uh guys in action and within five minutes when they got there because the road was flooded and within five minutes it was

than posting on Facebook first so that we can address the issue. Our city engineer, Nick Brannenbecker.

Repairs started this week. Our mill and fill program starts next week. We have various locations of sewer lining, so if you're getting an odor in your basement and you're in one of those affected areas, don't be alarmed. Be patient on the roads and watch out for construction.

I have a quick question on the fence at Proctor Park.

The fence is being worked on today. I was told that it's going to be in action maybe tomorrow.

Beautiful. Thank you. Our budget director, Almer Kaltek.

I just want to let the council know we've got the bond ordinance for the capital plan being written up right now by... the bond council the clerk's office has a copy of it so please review it we need to meet our july 1st deadline to send it to have it published because the council is not meeting until at the end of august so i just asked for the council's cooperation if you guys have any questions just reach out to me it is the bare minimum that the departments do need we'll be sitting with the one of the things that that does include is the station for repair to reopen that and after this bond ordinance we'll be sitting with the fire department to address any additional needs for that station or any other station thank you we do have a cash report city of utica cash report for may 2026 totals 27.706 million

Thank You mr. president I'm all set this evening second district councilmember Robert Burmaster Thank You mr. president I want to thank everybody for coming tonight I want to give a shout out to the mayor and He did a great job at Hertz Playground. They had the ribbon cutting today. I went over, and I was really impressed with the new facility, and it looks great. It looks safe. If you get a chance, if you want to come over and see it, you're welcome to. I want to give a shout-out to my fellow councilman, Frank, his birthday is tomorrow. and my grandson's birthday's tomorrow, so it's a good day and that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Third District Council Member, President Pro Temp and Committee of the Hall, Joseph Pitar.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you to everyone who came and spoke today. Something I want to note, so Lincoln, who lives on Higbee Road in the area that he discussed, this is something I had the chance to speak with our codes commissioner about, our police department, and part of the petition request was a speed limit sign of 10 miles an hour. Had the chance to speak with Deputy Chief Holt. They'll be looking at that. And there's also a request for a children at play sign on the little cut through there. And I'll have the opportunity to speak with our DPW or commissioner about that. So we'll be taking steps for that. And then beyond that, we'll continue to work with codes and the police department as well. Other than that, I also do want to say condolences to our clerk Melissa's father on the passing. We're all very sad to hear that news. So our prayers are with her and her family right now.

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

Yes, I'd like to say my condolences to Melissa also. You know, the last couple council meetings and we had a lot of speakers here on the flock and the spot shooter and a couple council people and people are pointing everything that they think is bad about it. There's a lot of good things to it. There's a lot of agencies and towns that aren't going away with it. And it's a very, very good tool for victims. If you go on spotsafety.com, you'll see a girl that was kidnapped that was saved three blocks later that might have never came back to her family. I do see your concerns about the privacy, but each time these tools are used, they have items numbers put to them. People that use them have clearance to use them. If they use them improperly, they are punished. Is it possible to use them properly? Yes, but they will be punished. If you take these tools away from our police with the shortest of police we have, stores are going to be closing down. I already had one close in my area, Walgreens. I heard one of the landlords say that Dunkin' Donuts was closed because of crime. Our police need these tools for the criminals, for the victims. I don't hear anybody get up on that podium and say anything about the victims of these crimes, just of, oh, they might be misused. Well, that's why we put case numbers on every time it's used. So hopefully it's not misused. Let's weigh what it does to save people. and let's do a little more homework on it than just how bad it is. We need it. That's it.

Thank you.

Fifth District Council Member Van Ness Ervin. Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, thank you, Deputy Chief Holt. I've been driving you crazy because some of the residents in my neighborhood have been driving me crazy. You know what I'm talking about. And you took care of the problem, so that's going to be good for me come tomorrow. I'm Juneteenth is this Friday and Saturday for anybody that wants to come out I think it's supposed to rain hopefully the rain to hold off so they can still get some of the activities that they want to do done that'll be the nineteenth and the twentieth the impact center on west and right off west and south street is moving along if you go by there you'll see a big hole but you'll see the workers out there working all the time and And they don't work in the rain because the construction workers, I'm sorry, they fall a little bit behind. But every time it rains and, you know, we've been getting a lot of rain, you're not going to see them out there. And when I do see them, I yell at them all the time that they can't work in a little rain. But it's coming along. If you drive by there, you see it. It's coming along pretty good. And that's about it. Thank you, Mr. President.

thank you council member sixth district council member joseph beatrice thank you mr president um just a couple of things um i want to pass my condolences on to melissa and her family i'd also like to wish my mom a happy birthday or second year in heaven mr terribly um is what it is and just monday um 622 is our north utica neighborhood meeting we have jenna watson from the mohawk valley water association will be speaking and also chet lecranti will be speaking uh about the youth bureau thank you mr president thank you councilmember

Council Member At-Large, Heather Roslewski.

Nothing for tonight, thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Council Member At-Large, Minority Leader, Samantha Colasimo-Testa.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm just gonna pick on Deputy Commissioner Sokolowski. very briefly and just kind of explain the process that you go go through to clean up encampments who do you have to call what is and how how many times a week and so on and so forth do you do you clean up the same encampments i think that that's kind of important because i don't think people realize the job that you do and if they picked up the phone and called you once in a while they would know well basically it's three to four times a week that we hit the same areas and once we clean them up we we get calls from upd we get calls from council people we get calls from the mayor's office

and basically we go there we clean it up we go with the parks department we go with dpw sometimes with bigger equipment than smaller equipment and we clean it up but the problem is within three to four days we're back there again so it's just a non non-going there's no solution and just kind of explain what you clean out of those encampments and what the city has to do how many needles needles I mean, other stuff that they don't want to take. I mean, it's everything. I mean, we're doing that two, I would say at least two to three times a week besides the other stuff we are doing.

Right, and I think that maybe sometimes, you know, obviously if people don't talk to you or call you and find out what's going on, if they have an encampment that needs to be cleaned up, they don't realize the work that you've got going on.

Well, everybody has my number and everybody in this room has called me. And they know I will react as fast as I can. And if anybody doesn't believe that, then they're lying because I do it.

I appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner Sokolowski. That's it, Mr. President.

Thank you.

And last, council member at large, majority leader, Jack Lamentico.

Thank you, Mr. President. I have to lead off with my condolences for Melissa and her family. I met her father a couple times. He was a wonderful man. So very, very sorry for that. On the good side, I do wish my buddy Frank over there a happy birthday.

Thanks, Jack. Many more.

What's that? I'll give you a kiss later. Tonight we had some great speakers today, and it's very, very hard to balance out what we need to do, what's right and what's wrong, and how it's going to work out at the end. That's one of the things I need to ponder here. Mark, thank you again for handling all my calls that I do for you, that I give you. You're spot on with all of them. I'd like to thank the fire department. My partner's mother was sick. She was taken by the Utah Fire Department Ambulance Service there and got her there right away. She had double pneumonia, septus, a UTI, and a heart condition. And she's 95 years old. And she made it home. I don't know how, but she made it home again. But God bless her. She's stronger than I get every day. So it's good to see her home again.

And it's good to see that the... We're getting the fence finally put up at Proctor Park.

It's been down way too long. Deputy Chief, thank you for handling that traffic issue today on that. Everybody's been great. Steph, I appreciate the couple of minutes you gave me today. We're going to try to work that out and get things straightened. Other than that, thank you very much.

mr. president I thank you wish I forgot one thing I'd like to wish Sim Williams a happy birthday he's one of my umpires he's a good friend of mine and he's a good guy so happy birthday thank you can I have a motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number one motion

I wish to say that Mr. George and I are going to look over the last ordinance that became a subject for the council to think about that ended up in an override, et cetera. I'd just like to say that The flag has to be, and any application, has to be something that's recognized as being a legitimate representation of something. The flag was never really meant to be a government function, it was really to recognize certain groups in the community, like the Italian, the German, the Polish, and so on and so forth. So, any application process has to be something recognized, and to the councilman in the 5th District, if there is an event like the one he's talking about, there has to be, and they think there is a flag that the whole country recognizes, That is usually raised wherever it was raised. And then, of course, that's one thing. But to have 15 groups tell you, I got one, or somebody draws something up in their cellar and wants to put it up at City Hall, it's not going to happen. So I think practicality is going to be what Mr. Giorgio and I are going to look at with the permission of the council.

and uh we've been asked to do that we'll do our job and we'll see what comes of it and that's all i want to say in the subject thank you judge motion a second to introduce proposed resolution number one motion second yeah a resolution approving the granting of an easement to niagara mohawk

Nine yeas adopted.

We have a motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number two. Motion.

Second.

Authorizing sale of barren wine at the Canal Cities Classic, Greater Utica Chamber of Commerce, FX, Matt Brewery, Canal Cities Classic, post-race party, Saturday, September 19th, 2026, 2 PM to 7.30 PM, Utica Harbor.

Your votes, please.

Nine years adopted.

Motion is second to introduce proposed resolution number three. Motion. Second. Authorizing sale of barren wine to Olmstead City of Greater Utica Inc. Olmstead City of Greater Utica Incorporated Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Thursday, September 10th, 2026, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Ring date will be Thursday, September 17th. proctor park one two five four dash 1260 culver ave utica new york one three five oh one nine days adopted you have a motion a second to introduce proposed resolution number four motion a resolution to approve and endorse the city's new york plays application for the mlk dream park in cornhill Whereas Governor Hochul announced the New York Places for Learning, Activity, and Youth Socialization Initiative to support design, construction, and renovation of playgrounds that are open to the public and communities across the state. Whereas New York Plays is overseen by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, Historical Preservation and administered by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. Whereas the city is requesting $528,806 in funding with the required 20% match provided by CDBG funding now therefore be it resolved that the Common Council of the City of Utica hereby does approve and endorse the submission of a grant request by the city under New York plays program to fund a new playground in MLK Dream Park in Cornhill votes please nine a's adopted motion a second to introduce proposed resolution number five motion Authorizing sale of barren wine to Mary, Mother of Our Savior, Mary, Mother of Our Savior Parish, Annual Bazaar, Thursday, September 3rd, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Friday, September 4th, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday, September 5th, 12 p.m. to 10 p.m., Mary, Mother of Our Savior Parish, 2 Barton Ave, Utica, New York.

Nine yeas adopted.

Motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number six.

Motion. I'll sponsor this as well. Can we do poll council?

Yeah. celebrating the 100th anniversary of John F. Hughes Elementary School whereas John F. Hughes Elementary School is celebrating its 100th anniversary marking a century of service to the children and families of the city of Utica whereas established in 1925 John F. Hughes Elementary School stands as one of the oldest continuously operating public schools in the city of Utica and the second oldest school building currently serving students in the Utica City School District Whereas for the past century, John F. Hughes Elementary School has served generations of students Families helping shape an educational cultural community life of Utica in the Greater Mohawk Valley Whereas the school proudly bears the name of John F Hughes who immigrated from North Wales to the United States in 1872 and went on to become the respected Utica civic and business leader director of the Utica Chamber of Commerce and Commissioner of Utica school board from 1896 to 1903 whereas jennifer's contributions to public education and modernization of utica made his name a fitting and lasting symbol for the school dedicated to learning service and community progress proclaim the city of utica common council hereby recognizes the celebrates the 100th anniversary of john f u's elementary school and extends its sincere appreciation to the entire john fu's elementary school community for its century of service to the city of utica be it further proclaimed that this proclamation will forever be inscribed into the minutes of the city of the common council meeting on the 17th day of june 2026. votes please NINE YEARS ADULT. YEAH, I JUST WANTED TO SAY I'M A PRODUCT OF JENNIFUSE K THROUGH EIGHT. ONE OF THE BEST TIMES OF MY LIFE. IT WAS A GREAT, GREAT SCHOOL. I'M SURE TIMMY JULIAN, ANOTHER ONE. IT REALLY WAS. JENNIFUSE IS AN AMAZING SCHOOL, AND, YOU KNOW, I GOT THE GREATEST MEMORIES AND BEST TEACHERS.

really hopefully your memory is going to be better because you left the money in the register mondays yeah i had to throw that out there once you said memory your votes please did they put up yeah okay motion is second to introduce proposed resolution number seven motion mr president before we make a motion we just got to make an amendment to the date of the event it's friday june 19th

Okay. All right. I just wanted to make a motion on the floor.

Thank you. Motion and a second? Motion. Authorizing sale of Barron Wine to Valley View Golf Course. Valley View Golf Course Golf Tournament, Friday, June 19th, PBA Tournament, Friday, August 7th, Junior Comets Tournament, Saturday, August 15th, St. Jude Tournament, Valley View Golf Course, 620 Memorial Parkway, Utica, New York, 13501. Votes, please.

Nine yeas adopted.

Motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number eight.

Motion.

Authorizing sale of Barron Wine to FX Matt Brewing Company. FX Matt Brewing Company, summer concert, Thursday, July 16th, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. FX Matt Brewery, 811 Edwards Street, Utica, New York, 13502. Votes, please.

Nine yays adopted.

motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number nine motion a resolution approving inter-municipal agreement with the school district for school security officers votes please nine yeas adopted motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number one motion yep resolution authorize an application for safer grant whereas the city of utica will be submitting the application for grant funding to the federal government for a safer grant for the purpose of hiring eight firefighters now therefore be resolved that the mayor is authorized to direct to file an application for monies to fund the creation of eight new positions of firefighters and firefighters emt in the city of utica department of public safety Bureau fire upon approval of the side request your vote to go full council Thank you.

Mr. President. I just want to make a correction. That's proposed resolution number 11 I just want to make sure that we're voting on the right resolution

It's 11.

It's 11. Not one. It's fine. That's it. It's on there. I want to make sure that we're pulling it out, the correct resolution, because you never know. Thank you, Mr. President. Yep.

Do we have a motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution 12?

Nine yeas adopted.

Motion. A resolution, a proven agreement with the county of Oneida for the funding for Dick Miller basketball program. Your votes, please.

Nine yeas adopted.

I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO INTRODUCE PROPOSED RESOLUTION NUMBER 13.

MOTION.

SECOND. A RESOLUTION APPROVING AGREEMENT WITH THE COUNTY OF ONEIDA FOR THE FUNDING FOR JUVENILE AID PROGRAM. MOTION, PLEASE.

9 YES, ADOPTED.

We have a motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number 14. Motion. Motion.

Thank you.

Thank you. Resolution approving agreement with the county of Oneida for the funding for the recreation safety program. Votes please.

Nine nays adopted.

Do we have a motion and a second to introduce proposed resolution number 15? Motion. Resolution approving inter-municipal agreement with the county stop DWI program. Your votes please.

Nine nays, adopted.

motion and second to introduce proposed resolution number 16 hang out for a second right interrupting are we voting on this motion to introduce

okay so the judge just spoke for 43 times so can i qualify my vote on this mr president yes you sure okay so last week when this the legislation came out regarding flags and all that i spoke on it why i was against it had nothing to do with gay pride has nothing to do with juneteenth it has to do with the wording and obviously the way i spoke i must be right because after our first meeting tonight we had mad confusion on what it's going to entail we just listened to the judge say he's going to work with uh council um council person i'm sorry uh mr georgio um so last week after i voted i was accused by a certain person that i was against gay pride when i mentioned that i have gay members of my family i think i've been on this council for seven years and i'm personally friends with all of you well most of you and i think you all know what i stand for tonight i was accused that i didn't want to see the juneteenth flag risen so if anybody doesn't realize i have a biracial grandson and i have a biracial grandson coming in two weeks so the bottom line out of any of what i stand for is obviously doing the right thing okay obviously there's mass confusion here regarding this flag legislation we've seen what we went through tonight the first week so i was all set to vote on this resolution because it's a national holiday until my fellow council person his district spoke up against different flags that's what we thought we're talking about that's what I was concerned about when we vote for one and the next person comes up we open ourself up to saying no to a certain flag and we open the city up for a lawsuit so you people need to realize that so i'm for all the organizations do it the right way and anybody wants to sit with a stupid smile on their face feel happy to do that because i've about had it being accused of stuff that i don't belong doing that i've never disrespected any of you people on the floor and i don't need to get disrespected on this floor either thank you mr president mr president i'd like to offer you just guys if you want to speak you have to ask you just can't shout out

council person the only thing i would offer i would like to offer an amendment to the proclamation stating that it doesn't relate to the flag ordinance that we passed and i think that that would make me feel more comfortable voting on the proclamation that it doesn't tie it to the ordinance and i would be okay with the proclamation i mean that's that's all it comes down to if the council doesn't feel okay to offer that motion but i just don't want it tied to any flag that city hall is not even open on friday and just if you can make a motion to say that it state that the proclamation has no correlation to the ordinance that the council passed i would be okay with that So I'd like to offer that motion. Are we going to be voting on this?

I want to know, well, if I can have the floor next for my qualification. This legislation says nothing about the flag. This was just about the proclamation for Juneteenth. Let her speak. That's why I made it like that. I knew this room was split and divided on flag raisings. This is just to honor Juneteenth and Utica's place in it. Of course, I wouldn't vote for that amendment because you can't cancel city expression for one of these. That's why it doesn't make sense to me. I think the judge already touched on this. This is already a federal holiday. The city already recognizes federal expression and federal flags at that. You can try and say this one legislation doesn't have any effect, but it's just about the proclamation. It's not that deep.

Councilman?

I'm not gonna vote on anything that's gonna start having us vote on votes every time we have a meeting, on flags every time we have a meeting now. So if this proclamation is gonna lead to us voting on a flag a week from now, I'm not gonna vote for it.

so we're gonna we're gonna vote I'd like to make my resolution I'd like to carry my motion and I'd like to take a vote on it there was a motion in a second to make that amendment sitting there has no correlation to the flag who's the second if that's the case I mean I don't know why anybody would have a problem with that the amendment that it doesn't correlate to the ordinance this is for the amendment thank you votes please

Two nays, amendment carries.

So the amendment was that if we pass this proclamation on behalf of Juneteenth, that it has zero to do with the ordinance that you passed last week in regards to the flag ordinance. This is just a proclamation to recognize Juneteenth. And they cannot tie it to the application in regards to that.

Those are all the texts that you're saying. I'm just saying logistically, what is Drew going to?

Sam and Katie, you're not going to do it. I'm not, but it's common sense.

it's it I can't go any further with that I'm right she's left I mean I just voted on an amendment without actually having the technicality of the words and our clerks then have to go back and make up what we just said it was amendments the president may make a suggestion yes it's unrelated to section 2- thank you was it one I couldn't remember whatever the law was

So I'll read it. City of Utica proclamation honoring Juneteenth, whereas Juneteenth commemorates June 19th. 1865, the day of the Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce and enforce the freedom of enslaved African Americans more than two years after the issuance of emancipation and proclamation. Whereas Juneteenth stands as a celebration of freedom and resiliency while reminding us of the fulfillment of justice often requires continued action long after promises are made. whereas the city of Utica holds a proud place in the history of the abolitionist movement and the struggle for human freedom, whereas in 1835, Utica hosted the founding convention of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, bringing together advocates who sought to end the institution of slavery and advance the cause of human rights. whereas utica's black residents abolitionist allies play an important role in assisting freedom seekers and supporting the underground railroad helping hundreds of individuals on the journey toward liberty whereas the leaders of the abolitionist movement including frederick douglas and others found support in audiences in utica as they advanced the cause of freedom and equality throughout the nation whereas Juneteenth provides an opportunity for all residents to reflect upon our shared history, celebrate the contributions of black Americans, and recommit ourselves to the principles of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Utica Common Council hereby recognizes and celebrates June 19th, 2026 as Juneteenth encourages all residents to participate in educational cultural and community activities that honor this important day and its enduring significance yeah further proclaim

I would take Councilman Bitter's amendment that is unrelated to the section I would just say further proclaim this proclamation is unrelated to section 2-18 of the city code whatever the flag ordinance was I can't remember it off the top of my head 2.18

City of Utica Code of Ordinances. Your votes please.

Eight yeas adopted.

We have a motion and a second to introduce proposed ordinance 17.

Make a motion.

No parking at all times. Section 2-16-360, Schedule D, no parking at all times on Johnson Park from West Street to Johnson Park along the curvature of the roadway, which runs northerly to westerly direction, ending at Johnson Park and Square Street, 14 Johnson Park. Quotes, please.

Nine yeas adopted.

You have a motion and a second to introduce proposed ordinance number 18? Motion. Second. No parking at all times, section 216, 360, schedule D, no parking at all times, Wynn Hospital, 111 Hospital Drive on the Columbia Street side, CNY Cardiology, 601 State Street on the Columbia Street side along the southern curve line adjacent CNY Cardiology on Columbia Street from the crosswalk with State Street, 420 feet. 420 feet eastbound to the rare driveway access to CNY Cardiology along the northern curb line adjacent to Wynn Hospital on Columbia Street from the crosswalk with State Street. 311 feet eastbound to the driveway access to the Wynn Hospital emergency room.

Nine years adopted.

I have a motion and a second to introduce proposed ordinance number 19 motion second ENA transfer fiscal year 2025-2026 exclamation Johnson controls to replace fire alarm system in Utica garage Bertelli clubhouse restroom had pipe burst over the winter 9 nays adopted Motion and second to introduce proposed ordinance number 20. Motion.

Second.

ENA transfer fiscal year 2025-2026. New York State CHIP funding, New York State CHIP funding, $3,920,285.55. Votes, please. Nine nays adopted.

Motion to pull ordinance 20, I don't even know, resolution eight from committee for February 4th, 2026.

Second. Second.

Thank you. Resolution number eight, City of Utica resolution designating Mrs. McClendon's fifth grade class whereas the city of utica is proud to celebrate its students who are the future leaders creators and dreamers of our community whereas mrs mcclendon's fifth grade class at albany elementary school is made up of hard-working curious and determined students who show up each day ready to learn and do their best Whereas these fifth graders have had an outstanding school year, excelling in reading, math, science, and social studies, and all areas of learning. Whereas the students have shown teamwork, kindness, respect, responsibility, creating a classroom where everyone feels supported and encouraged. WHEREAS MRS. MCCLENDON HAS INSPIRED HER STUDENTS THROUGH HER DEDICATION, ENCOURAGEMENT, AND BELIEF IN EACH CHILD'S ABILITY TO SUCCEED, WHEREAS IT IS IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE, CELEBRATE STUDENTS WHO WORK HARD, HELP ONE ANOTHER, AND MAKE THEIR SCHOOL AND CITY PROUD. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE CITY OF UTICA HEREBY PROCLAIMS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6TH, AS MRS. MCCLENDON'S 5TH GRADE CLASS DAY. be it further resolved that the city of utica congratulates the students of mrs mcclendon's fifth grade class at albany elementary school for their hard work great attitudes and excellent achievements during the school year be it further resolved that the city encourages these students to continue learning dreaming big and believing in themselves as they move on to their next adventures votes please Nine yeas adopted. Just want to give a shout out to my three boys along with Sam's son, Mello, Testa, that we won our third championship in four years in Little League Baseball, a little dynasty there. But congratulations to the boys and Mello.

Motion to adjourn.

You got it.