Common Council - Special Meeting

The meeting will come to order. The city clerk will call the roll.

Aiello, Burmaster, Bittar, Carcone, Urban, Beatrice, Wazluski, Colasimo-Testa, Lamedico, Drudzi, all present.

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

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

the purpose of this meeting will be regarding the proposed local law number four of 2026 a local law amending section 2.045 of the utica city charter to establish the temporary suspension of the residency requirement for newly appointed members of the utica police department we do have a public hearing on the local law it's now open we have a speaker francis brown

All right. It is pretty disappointing that even officers that want to swear to protect the city of Utica do not want to even take up residency in Utica. Why? Is it because taxes are too high or do not want to raise their family in open illegal drug use like what you see at the local parks in the United Square? Doing away or pausing this residency requirement is just the first step. What is really needed is better pay and benefits to compete with the surrounding municipalities, counties, and the state. Someone also needs to stop stalling and come to the table on renewing the contract that expired earlier this year. Or is this plan to have it sit on the table like the fire department? If the residence requirement stays in place, then you will need to give housing options. Not that Utica has much to choose from. Most of the Utica neighborhoods are run down. Is that another reason candidates do not want to move into Utica? Even if the residency rule is waived or done away with, it still will not help local recruitment. What is needed are programs in the local schools and colleges to become police officers. Proctor has an ROTC program. Could there be a way to branch off of that? What happened to the Utica Junior Public Safety Academy? The youth needs to learn the benefits of public safety over the fear of the police. It's not about who you are, but who you could be. I know. I try every day. What is also needed is a reason to stay after 20 years of service. Some ideas I have are simple and easy to provide to members of the force of 20 years or more. Fees waived or reduced for golf, skiing, local sporting events, Stanley events, many more. You can always just put it into the contracts. When, even if this local law is paused for five years, my opinion should just do away with it altogether because it's more of a pain in the rear than I am when it comes to recruitment. That is all I have to say on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Francis. Do we have any other speakers? Public comment period is closed. Yep. local law amending section 2.045 of the utica city charter presented right on july 22nd 2026 laid on the table july 22nd 2006 be enacted the common council of the city of utica new york as follows legislative findings the common council hereby finds determines that whereas protecting the health and safety and welfare of the residents of the City of Utica is among the highest responsibility of the Common Council whereas the Utica Police Department is experiencing significant recruitment and retention challenges that have resulted in staffing shortages affecting the department's ability to maintain appropriate staffing levels for the protection of the public Whereas despite extensive recruitment efforts, the available pool of qualified applicants residing within the city of Utica has been insufficient to meet the current staffing needs of the Utica Police Department. whereas the Chief of Police has requested that the Common Council provide temporary flexibility regarding the residency requirement in order to expand the pool of qualified applicants while maintaining adequate staffing levels necessary to fulfill the department's public safety responsibilities. and whereas the common council finds that maintaining adequate staffing within the utica police department is essential to protecting the lives property and constitutional rights and welfare of the residents of the city of utica and ensuring appropriate emergency response patrol operations and public safety services whereas the common council further finds that under the current staffing conditions ensuring that the department can recruit and hire qualified police officers is a greater immediate importance to the health safety and welfare of the public that requiring newly appointed officers to reside within the city of utica whereas the common council recognizes that the residency requirements established by section 2.045 of the uticus city charter remains an important long-term policy of the of the city and that this legislation is attended only as a temporary recruitment measure and not as a permanent repeal or elimination of those residency requirements Whereas the Common Council intends that the period during which qualifying appointments may be made shall expire after five years, but that an officer appointed during that period shall continue to receive the residency exemption for the duration of the officer's continuous employment within the Utica Police Department. temporary appointment and period residency exemption for newly appointed officers notwithstanding any other provisions of section 2.045 individuals appointed to the position of public officer with the utica police department during the five-year appointment period established by the subdivision should not be required to establish or maintain residency within the city of Utica as a condition of employment. Such an officer should continuously reside within Oneida County or any other county adjoining Oneida County during the officer's employment within the Utica Police Department. this subdivision should apply to only individuals appointed to the position of utica police officer during the five-year appointment period commencing on the effective date of this local law and should not alter any other qualifications for appointment or continued employment an officer appointed during the five-year appointment period should remain exempt from the city residency requirement for the duration of the officer's continuous employment within the utica police department notwithstanding the subsequent expiration of the appointment period or repeal of this subdivision an individual appointed after the expiration of the five-year appointment period should be subject to the residency requirements otherwise contained in section 2.045 unless otherwise provided by law. Nothing contained herein should affect or diminish the rights previously granted under local law number three of 2020. This subdivision enacted solely to address the current police recruitment and staffing shortages identified by the chief of police and the common council should not be constructed to as repeal or elimination of the generally applicable residency requirements contained in section 2.045 of the Utica City Charter. The authority to appoint additional police officers pursuant to the exemption established by this subdivisions should automatically expire five years after the effective date of this local law. Upon expiration of this subdivision, no additional police officers should qualify for the exemption established by the subdivision. The expiration should not terminate or otherwise affect the exemption of an officer appointed during the five year appointment period. any continuation renewal or extension of the five-year appointment period should require the adoption of new local law by a future common council in accordance with the requirements of the utica city charter for the codes of ordinances and applicable provisions of the municipal home rule law Except as expressly provided herein, nothing contained in the subdivision should alter the residency rights or obligations of an individual appointed to the Utica Police Department before the effective date of this local law. If any clause, sentence, paragraph, subdivision, section, or part of this local law should be judged invalid by a court of contempt jurisdiction, such judgment should not affect the validity of the remaining portions which show... remain in full force and effect this local law should take effect in accordance with the provisions governing adoption of effectiveness of local laws under the utica municipal charter of the code of ordinances of the city of utica and the applicable provisions of the municipal home rule law

public hearing uh we're going to close the public hearing sure the only thing that i have and i think some comments are made is that anybody appointed you know it's not that they they don't want to live in the city of utica steve can you kind of reiterate why we're doing this if people that own homes outside the city of utica and trying to get people to take the police test in order to to want to be a police officer in the city of utica because i think that that's the most important part to reiterate is that people that live in the city of utica will come first And I just want to reiterate that because I think that that's the most important part to this waiver of this law.

No, we find ourselves with a lot of other police agencies in this area competing for a small pool of candidates. And although I would like to hire all city residents, it's just not possible based on the pool of candidates that we are given every year. What we are finding during our recruiting efforts is that there are I think we're missing out on a group of more mature candidates that are in their late 20s, early 30s. They have some life experience that want to work in the city, but already established roots where they currently live. Whether their spouse being lived nearby, where they're employed, or their kids are currently going to schools. And it's just too difficult, from what they tell us, to uproot their family, just to take this employment with us.

again, can we reiterate that there will become a first come basis first come first serve basis. And I hate to use that terminology when somebody applies for a police desk, but you want to hire a pool of candidates that live in the side and live inside the city of Utica first.

So whenever we hire cancer, we're looking at qualifications and we're always looking to hire the best person for the position regardless. But I will tell you this much, if it comes down to two candidates and you're relatively equal, I definitely want the Utica resident because they're more familiar with the city than the non-city resident. But at this point, we're not even getting to that point. I'll give you an example. This last hiring class that just started the academy last month, we needed to fill 12 vacancies. And we ran out of our list. We could only hire six of those 12 vacancies. And again, when we give these civil service tests, I'll give you an example. We just got the results back from the May civil service exam. We only had 82 people signed up to take that examination. As of Friday, talking to Jennifer Carbone in civil service, only 42 have confirmed they're actually going to show up to take the physical agility test. What we generally see is about half of those will pass that examination for the physical agility test. And then we are in competition with four other agencies locally for those same candidates. And they're gonna be looking at things like pay and they're gonna be looking at residency and they're gonna be looking at a lot of different things.

And I mean to interrupt you, but can you kind of compare when you took the police test and maybe Deputy Chief Holt can kind of explain what was the, what were the results like when you took the test? How competitive was it and how many people actually took the test during that time?

There were well over 500 people that took my examination. I will tell you this, we don't even come close to that amount anymore. Despite our best efforts, we tried having recruiting specialists. We utilize all the best practices that are out there. We have heavily advertisement going. Despite doing all those best practices, we're just not drawing the candidates. And it's not just Utica Police. This is a nationwide problem and a statewide issue as well. Just to give you an example, some of our nearby cities. Syracuse is down 64 police officers. City of Albany just started their police academy and they're still down 45 officers. And Rochester, to last my knowledge, there are over 100 vacancies they couldn't fill.

And one last thing. I think that the Utica Police Department is ahead of the times when it comes to, obviously, the issues that are going on through other municipalities across the state, across the country. And can you kind of touch base on the training that you go through and how those recruitment efforts help into your training and what you do and how those best efforts come first before anything else? And you're always ahead of the times, and the Utica Police Department is one of the best. So I appreciate that.

One of the things I take pride in is that we're accredited police department. Giddey's state accreditation is not easy. Not only do you have to create policies, but you have to show every five years that you're actually following your policies. And there's also your yearly audits to make sure you're doing it as well. But what I always take to pride, since I've been chief of police, is that there are multiple training opportunities for the officers in this department. In addition to that, one of the selling points that I could offer any local candidate that wants to be on the Euclid Police Department, we have a multitude of different opportunities that they can become part of. We have a crisis response team, a dedicated domestic violence unit. We have drug units. We have criminal investigation units. We have a traffic unit, just to name a few. But I'm very proud of the work that the men and women of the Yucca Police Department do on a daily basis. And actually, they make us command staff look good.

Thank you, Chief. Any other council members?

votes please so first of all you do have a great team over there I was excited to be able to do the crisis response team and no I was excited and they have a dog and the dogs fantastic but we brought this what now is this our third time bringing it doing this third time bringing the five-year plan no sir first time but we've done it similar Are there anything else that you're looking to improve on besides us doing this and putting this through? What else are you guys looking to improve to get more people interested and joining? Is there anything you're looking at marketing or things that...

For example, we just paid for two billboards on the Richmond Boulevard, one by the auditorium, one down the fitness mill. We got free advertisement from the Talk About Town. We're also in the process of getting advertisement on television through WKTV. In addition to that, we are gonna be, social media we are finding is the best way to recruit candidates. There's no question about it. So we have a heavy presence both on Twitter as well as facebook and we're in a current process of doing the officer testimonials where they actually talk about their current role in the police department and what they do and what we find with those testimonials they go a long way to helping recruits see if they may be interested in doing a job in addition we're updating our photographs of the officers and the performance of their duty and the last thing is we do is we offer ride-alongs for any interested candidate wants to join the Yucca police department there's probably more to it that we're doing I just can't think of right now but I think we followed the best practices that were out there okay well thank you appreciate it can I have a motion and second to introduce this local law motion second votes please

90s adopted city clerk can you just do me a favor can you explain the process after this is passed what the process is with the mayor and so on and so forth on the timeline for that yeah so um we're gonna get a hold of the mayor we're gonna see when he holds his public hearing um once that's posted um from there whatever date that is anyone's welcome to come and attend if they want to speak for that and then we'll do the vote and the only reason why i say that is because there is a civil service exam out and there might be there might be a contingency to the civil service exam pending that this legislation's passed that they could have an exemption you know based on this local law being passed since this is passed after the civil service exam was already advertised so i just wanted to say that um i think the council As much as we disagree to agree on some things, this was a lengthy process, but we got it done, and I just want to thank everybody for that. Thank you, and thank you, Chief, for your... Can I just make one comment?

Yeah. It's a sales pitch. We are giving another civil service test. This could be held October 17th. with the deadline to sign up for our civil service test being September 2nd. So we encourage any young men and women that want to become a Yucca police officer to please join us. I will tell you this much. Being out of this job almost 39 years, this has been one of the most rewarding professions that any young men and women can get into. There's a lot of opportunities for anybody that want to show the interest to become a police officer. Come join us and we have a dedicated website called joinuticaPD.com and I'm going to hand out some business cards with the QR code on it to each of the common council people. If you know anybody interested that wants to be a police officer, please pass on this card to them. We have a dedicated recruitment website. And what's nice about the website, they don't have to come to City Hall necessarily to apply. They can do the application online through a tablet, desktop computer, or their own cell phone. So I'd appreciate your help with this.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Chief. Now, the other piece of legislation that we have tonight is a yield sign that goes in front of the county building under Park Ave. It's at the crosswalk intersection.

Can I have a motion and a second to introduce this proposed ordinance number one?

Does anybody else have a problem with this going forward? UPD recommended it. I get an email from the chief. If anybody has any objections, I have no problem putting it in the committee, but we would like to see it passed.

WE'RE GOOD WITH IT?

HANG ON, GUYS.

WE'LL GO AROUND. COUNCILWOMAN IOLA?

BURMASTER?

did this did this start as a recommended stop sign so we did it did and then we kind of went through the the actual laws and it was kind of convoluted and what they originally wanted as far as the crosswalk went was was there gonna be a like a median put in and it kind of just went to the wayside just they wanted a crosswalk and obviously with the crosswalk they already have the yield signs we just don't have it legislated for and they've been up, and I don't know, maybe that was an oversight on our part, but.

This is where the existing crosswalks are, correct? Correct. So how does this play in, if at all, so there's already, I think, state law stop for pedestrian signs there.

There's not, and it's not legislated through the local level, so I could actually. Those small signs aren't there?

I could read you the local law that was sent,

um no i'm just saying physically what's there though small you know the the new york state law stop for pedestrian signs in the crosswalk there's there there's pedestrian crossing signs there that have lights on them that have already been that have been installed you can hit the button and they'll activate New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law doesn't allow stop signs to be there in the middle of a block. They have to be at an intersection. So those signs that are there are, so essentially yield to pedestrian signs, which are allowed to be put in the middle of a street. And so they just were never legislated, that's all.

Any other council members? so um proposed ordinance number one yield sides be it ordained that section 216 359 schedule d yield signs be amended to include the following 800 park avenue at the crosswalk intersection be it further ordained that the proper signage be erected can i get them to introduce motion second to introduce votes please

Nine yays, adopted.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Adjourned.