General Services, Health and Environment Committee - Regular Meeting

Great. Good evening everyone. Welcome to caucus. Um, if we could if I could have our legislative director read through who is here and staff get started. Adams Anan, he was here. Ballerin here. Brody Frell here. Flynn Hoey present. Johnson present. Keegan here. Lumpin present.

Powell Robinson was here. Uh Williamson present. Zamr here. Eight currently present. Uh believe two members outstanding. We're also joined by council president Kelly Kimbro, city clerka Jackson, uh research council Robert Winter, legislative director Brian Amen, and junior legislative aid Carly Johnson.

Thank you so much. So, we're going to run through the agenda. Um in local laws held we have moving on um moving voting on local law D but the human rights and human resources committee meeting is postponed. So if that does not pass through committee we'll bring that up in a future committee meeting or future council meeting in ordinances introduced. Um, we have council member Adams ordinance 43126. Um, that is an ordinance to change the zoning class classification of a portal parcels. Um, that will go to planning. We also have council member Balorin's ordinance 53126 um which is the affordable housing requirement that will go to planning. Do you want to say anything on that council member Valerin?

Uh thank you uh President PMP. U this was something that took quite a bit of time to get here and uh I look forward to the discussion in planning committee. Thank you very much and thank you so much for your continued work on that. Um, we have an ordinances held. We're voting on ordinance 12126. Um, I'm assuming the discussion was not March 3rd because that has not yet happened.

Oh, pending discussion. Got it. Right. We're looking. Isn't that after Monday's meeting? That's what I thought. That's why I was little. The meeting's on Thursday. Purum is on Monday. Oh, okay. Megan, we were in the same space. Um,

so that once that passes through committee, we'll be voting on that. Then with resolutions introduced, we'll be um introducing and voting on uh resolution 133126 commemorating Women's History Month. Um we'll check before the meeting, but I know all of the women on the council are co-sponsors. I'm assuming that we will be this will go to a voice vote, but we'll confirm it when there's more members here on the Thursday meeting. Um and just a note for approval of minutes from previous meetings, we will be voting on the February 19th minutes that was sent out. Um, one of the things that we wanted to discuss tonight was, um, we with Alyssa moving on, um, we do have a position opening within our staff and, um, just wanted to have a bit of a discussion with members to see if there were some different things that they were hoping to get from staff that was somewhat different. Um, in the past, Council Member Kanti had always encouraged us to have a finance focused person. We've had requests for somebody that um has more experience with communications. Um, there's a lot of potential things. Our staff will remain, our staffing levels will remain the same. So this is not something to necessarily say unfortunately that they will be picking up writing letters for you or doing individual things. We still have to do that as members but as a whole as a council um we thought it would be a good idea on leadership to see if members had any input. um we can go out with the same exact, you know, we can say we want the same position that we have open, but

we can also potentially go out for a different position. So, I just wanted to open that up if anybody had any thoughts, ideas. This could be new members or existing members. Council member Robinson,

thank you. Um, we totally understand that as three um different branches of government. We got a legislative branch and I respect leadership bringing this conversation to the full body and my concern or what upsets me is that why wasn't we for why wasn't we afforded the same opportunity for discussion before leadership decided to put a position that was in our budget already over to the mayor's office. It wasn't no discussion with new members or the full body that hey, we have this violence coordinating position open. How do we want to proceed with this? You know what I'm saying? seeing that we are a legislative body and we got and we can and is already allocated in our budget and we can react on this and worked hand in hand with the mayor's office and what they got coming down the pipe to be in a meeting today and hear that you know what I'm saying leadership have already gave um um um the administr I mean the the yeah the administrative branch you know what I'm saying the power to take a position that was allocated in our budget and move it over to the mayor's office. That was disheartening. Council member Robinson, we haven't moved any. There has been no movement on the violence prevention.

Not even the movement. I'm just talking about the discussion. The just like you just like you just like you sit here and you give us the discussion or give us the opportunity to discuss what's happening with a position that need to be filled that's in our budget. New council members, you know, we have ideals. You know what I'm saying? Our communities is affected the most by this balance. But that's the only thing I'm saying is even though it wasn't voted on, then I think that the mayor's office spoke out of out of term by saying that it was already, you know, I'm saying I'm being moving over to her her office.

I'm not sure where you heard that, but the discussion that leadership has had is that that would be a discussion within the committee structure. Um, we actually wanted the public safety committee before there was any legislation to discuss the entire violence prevention coordinator, especially in light of going to Baltimore. Um, and that so there is a discussion that we hope to have on that. I'm not sure, as far as I know, there isn't anything planned. We've the mayor's office has shown an interest in that. Um, and we respect that, but we do think that there needs to be a fuller discussion. So,

as as far as I know, unless there's been discussions that I'm not aware of, um, but there is no plan yet and there will be, we've talked to council member Hoey about having before there's any legislation because there were different pieces of legislation discussed and different potential iterations. Um, we do want to support the mayor in what she's doing with the concept of like looking at Baltimore doing that, but to your point, it does need to be a broader discussion with council members. Thank you for the clarification.

Um, Council Member Keegan, I believe you had your hand up about the staffing of the council.

I I did. Um, first I just want to say that I truly appreciate Brian's work on behalf of the council in terms of the budget, but I am curious about the possible applications of um shifting to a budget analyst position. Both that would help facilitate our ability to provide better analysis and more nimleness with regards to the city budget, but also the state and the federal budget and how those three sort of fiscal entities are interplaying and impacting the city rather than being heavily reliant upon the city's budget director for information. And this is nothing against you, Brian, because you are fantastic and phenomenal. Um, but I I know that Richard had shot an email out to the council and I wanted to hear everybody else's thoughts about that particular proposition. Council member Zamer.

Um, I don't know if you were going to respond to Megan. I have a different thought. I if anybody has any I I think right now we can just share different ideas on the topic. So if you want to offer something else you can.

Sure. I would just ask that leadership um when you're trying to when you're figuring out our staffing um speak to get gets input. I'm not saying that you haven't already, but I just want to reinforce that you get input from our current staff, our city clerk, and our deputy city clerk um to see sort of what pieces might be missing and and where they need support. We we definitely have um and this is something we've actually asked Brian to and he's got he actually is very excited about it about potentially looking at different options of a slight restructure um to just be more efficient in all of our different offices and provide the services that we need. Um and making sure that we're not too much on staff. Um, every office has a different demand. So, I just I always want to make sure that we're being aware of the clerk because the clerk has to be here sometimes before 9:00 a.m. um every day and they're continually providing service very public facing services. Um, and council staff often has to be here later. So, I, you know, making sure that we're not being too much on the clerk's office, which this is not to say that the clerk's office has not done an incredible job. They have. Um, and we're incredibly lucky to have Chenika Jackson as our clerk. Um, but I think that we also have to be very careful with the amount of pressure that we're putting on people and if it's something that, you know, if a restructure can happen where we can allow people to not be in city hall 24/7. Um, because I'm convinced that Shenika actually has a secret bed back there that she just stays in. Um,

but yeah, thank you. Thank you. Council member Robinson.

Thank you. And you know I concur with my colleague. You know we have 15 members right and we overwhelmed. You know we you know every council member need attention with properly uh possibly drawing legislation um doing research um you know and we need a aid there to assist us. you know, we need somebody there that's going to be able to take care, you know, things that would lessen the burden so we can do our work in the community. So, I I do feel the restructuring is to happen that it should be the full body in included within this discussion.

Thank you, Council Member Robinson. Does anybody else have any interest? Yeah. I in leadership before we we've had the discussions about maybe the budget piece being a contracted service. I mean I've had those conversations with Richard and me and you've talked about maybe doing something like that. Um com I mean if we I don't know. So we're looking for a legislative aid with a budget background. Is that kind of what we're we're doing here? Because I I do

potentially. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it is something that we'd have to look at the title that we have uh things like that. Um and the pay scale that Alyssa was, you know, like see what our options are within that pay scale. Obviously, we know that there the budget is tight, so any changes could be um but it's also entirely possible that we could change the title and have a slightly different pay scale, but not have a budget hit because um of where our legis our other junior legislative aid does um at that time. So just based we'd have to look into it basically to kind of see where things are. Um obviously the desire is not to have any budget impact with this. Um but it's possible just using a different title or something like that can fit or we can use the same one and change tweak things slightly. Um it just it was more of an idea to get an I see what people were interested in. Um when Brian and I were talking about it, we're he even brought up the idea which I thought was somewhat genius. It might need to be a future thing, but um the PEG board coordinator um that is a part-time position. Looking into potentially making that a full-time position, actually utilizing it a lot more. It has a lot of um equipment and things like that. and we could use more of a communications side too. Um, but that would have to be obviously a future conversation when we look in terms of the budget. Um, but another potential

thing where we could flush things out. Um, but it seems like there is an interest in more of a budget spent focus thing. Council member Keegan, I mean, don't don't just base it on me. I mean, I'm the finance chair, so of course I'm going to want to have lots of attention to what's happening, but I also um do think that there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of things that are not as reliable right now, at least until we have another round of federal elections in 2028 and potential change in leadership. And so that's one of the reasons why I personally am interested because it's I I can't keep up with it all. I don't think the city can necessarily keep up with it all. Um and as things shift and impact the state of New York, so do things shift and impact the city to a certain extent. No, that makes a lot of sense. And um we can also send an email out. This is something we are looking to do sooner rather than later, but we also have a bit of time. So, um, we can request at our next, you know, maybe send an email out and get a little bit more feedback on things. Um, I do want to be mindful of the dinner downstairs if anybody is interested in attending that. But, does anybody have anything else that they'd like to bring up this evening? No.

Yeah. Go ahead, Councilman.

Yeah. I sent out to everybody. Um I did look into the uh dog poop uh problem in the city and what I found out is um through Darius's office. There hasn't been any fines given out and the fine is $250 is what he said. Um but the police chief said that if we want we can concentrate animal control who's responsible for handing out the uh the fines in the area. Um one of the problems is of course you got to catch the dog in the act and that's maybe why we have a law on the books that's kind of very difficult to enforce. So I just you know if we can think about it maybe there's some some other way we can figure that out. But I just wanted to pass that along to everybody. Thank you.

And just as a followup with that, because enforcement's really hard with this, if you you can't just see the person, you have to actually have proof of it. So even if it's something where you see the dog and the person and they just let it happen, if you don't have proof of it, which in is the dog pooping, not just the dog there. Um it's it's just difficult to enforce. Um they I know in a different municipality there was somebody got really frustrated that actually paid for DNA testing on like they had to it it can get dramatic. But with ring cameras it's actually I will say if you have a Ring camera that can be used for it uh pretty effectively. So it's not outrageous to have it. A lot of people have those but it is complicated to enforce. If I might, it might make more sense to um discuss another sort of public education campaign um an awareness campaign. The possibility of can you have uh plastic bags, you know, the dispensers that they have in parks? Are are is the possibility of having those more um available throughout the city? Um and maybe a a campaign on buses and whatnot. So that's something that we could discuss.

So with that, and just a note, our leadership meeting with the mayor's office was uh not able to happen this week. Um just snow and scheduling things. So no updates from that. And with that, I uh motion to adjurnn. And motion adjourn. I hope everyone has a great night. Thank you.