City Council - Regular Meeting

you can open me to. I will, but I'm waiting for 615. Okay. Um Oh, yeah. Kevin is 6:15.

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Troy City Council. Um, I would ask that you please help us open up with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with justice for all.

This is what we have uh dubbed committee night and tonight the law committee is first up. So, I'm going to turn the gavl over to the chair of the law committee, Katie Spain McLaren. Thank you. We are calling to order at 6:15 p.m.

Can you hear me? Okay. Um, we have Council Member McKe and Council Member Campbell Cohen. Uh, members of the law committee. Also present are Council Member Dorenzo, Council Member Struber, Council Member Favro, and Exeicio Council President Steel. Um, I do not see the administration. Um move on to the next.

We'll move on to the next. So our first agenda item was um foil requests which we would need to have um our corporation council and our foil officer here. So we will move on to um the CSEA contract is our next item. Um so I believe there are some people who would like to come up um and kind of explain to us a little bit about the contract.

Uh, thank you, law committee and city council. Um, is there anything you'd like to ask me before we begin? Is there any context that you need or that you believe it would be helpful to provide? Um I think we just like to hear from you. Okay.

So I'll provide a little bit of context for what we're talking about. What we're talking about is the process of collective bargaining in uh you know a union context. uh parties come together and meet in several dates, pass proposals across, you know, haggle a little bit over those proposals and eventually they come to an agreement about how they want the terms and conditions of employment to be structured called the memorandum of agreement. It outlines all the changes to be made to the contract. They sign that that goes to get ratified by the membership of the union and public employment, the legislature, in this case the city council. Uh from there the contract is in effect but what is necessary is an actual printed contract that actually goes out to all the members. They have a reference to understand what the terms and conditions of their employment are. This is an important part of the process. It's it's uh kind of fundamental to contracts that both parties need to agree that the text of the contract is correct before they sign it. And I uh little bit about me. I work with the employees of several municipalities about what we call units 20 20 to 22 units a mix of state agencies municipalities one school district one county I've uh been involved with and and involved with bargaining contracts and it can take a little bit of time because you know somebody has to type up a draft send it around for comment uh hear back from you know what what uh the other side thinks of that draft. It can take a little time, but it's a process that's mediated by communication. So, we have not the contract term actually begins in 2025 and we're now going to 2026 and we still don't have a printed contract. The city has had a draft of the contract with all the changes incorporated and agreed to since November. And I have had a devil of a time getting the city to commit to or even explain what its stance is on that draft. Uh since I came to city council a few weeks ago, there have been a few comments from the city in the press about, you know, this process. There

have been claims such as communication is a two-way street and CSEA is also not communicating. Uh we uh uh sent tried to schedule meetings, they refused. We have a very reasonable proposal. They refused to do, you know, to go along with it. And we just need to meet to get it done. So I want to actually address a few of those things so you understand the situation that we find ourselves in. Now I'm going to start with communication. And I'm going to go through every communication that I have sent to the city and received about the contract. On November 4th, 2025, I sent the draft for comment to both both parties. Only CSA responded to let me know there was a typo. I fixed it. On November 6, I sent the corrected draft out, and I got no response from the city. On November 13, 2525, I asked the city if it was ready to meet sign on the assumption that 2 weeks is plenty of time to look it over. The first response I got from a representative of the city was from the corporation council who said, "No, we are not ready to sign." So, okay. The same day I reached out and said, "Okay, do you have an estimate of when you might be ready or what's going on?" And I got no response. On uh December 8th, 2025, I asked for an update and got no response. On December 31st, I suggested meeting to discuss the draft and also got no response. Uh it wasn't just these are these are mostly email communications. I figured, okay, maybe not everyone's an email person. That's fine. I called at least one or two times the corporation council's number and left a voicemail and it was not returned. At one point, uh, Vice President Bill French and I actually tried to go and meet with Rick Morrisy and went to his office. Um, he was not in his office. His lunch was though. I distinctly remember there being a halfeaten plate of Chinese food on the desk. Maybe I just missed him. I don't know. But, you know, tried to reach out in person, tried to reach out by phone. Um, at a certain point I just sort of realized, okay, and this is something I'll come back to. the city kind of has a habit of not doing things unless it feels compelled to do it. So, what I'm going to do is a tailor law information request. So, a bit more context, the terror law is the law that governs public employee unionization and, you

know, employee organizing in New York State. Uh, under it, unions can request information that's necessary to do their jobs from the employer and the employer, as long as it's actually, you know, a bonafideed uh thing the union needs, has to provide it within a reasonable time frame. This is a extremely basic part of labor relations in the public sector is sending these information requests, getting information back. I do this with all of the employers that I work with. Um, some are slower than others to respond, but all of them will at least talk to me about what's going on. If they think there's something unreasonable what I've requested, they'll get on the phone sometimes the next day. Uh, the city has a habit of just ignoring these two. But if an employer ignores an information request, you can file an improper practice charge against them. So, I sent this information request basically asking one of two things. When will you be ready to sign? And if you're not ready to sign, what's wrong with the contract that you won't sign it? I gave them two weeks starting on uh February 23rd, 2026. I gave them a deadline of March 9th. And two weeks go by and I don't hear anything until March 6 when I get a communication from the city asking where in the law does it require us to sign the contract in the time frame you specified. Uh for the record it's section 209A1D that's uh due to bargain in good faith which I let them know. And on March 9th, 2026, the deadline for the information request, the day I indicated I'd be filing charges, the corporation council reached out to me to let me know that he does not believe there is any legal obligation to either sign the contract or review it in the time frame I specified. But what he considers a an ordinary practice is I'm going to try and you know, I'm kind of paraphrasing but also quoting a little bit. uh that he would move forward under the condition that I meet with him to review the proposed new CBA line by line in what he called a laborious process that takes substantial time of several

persons which entails reading the draft aloud word for word. So I want to put this in the context of some other context uh comments from the city which sort of go to the idea that well we're just so busy we just have so much going on now CSC filing all these charges and going to be even harder to get things done. The only thing that needed to happen was for someone to spend a few hours reading the draft and highlighting things they thought were a problem. That could have been done in an afternoon. The city's too busy to do that. But apparently they want several people to meet in a laborious process of reading the draft out loud. That doesn't add up. So, is there a communication problem? Is there a two-way communication problem? I would have loved for there to be two-way communication. If communication is a two-way street, the city hasn't even left their driveway. Uh, I don't have this problem with my other employers and I don't really know what the difference is that the size and scale and nature of the employer. I work with several municipalities. I don't have a problem communicating with them. I work with a big school district in an entire county. I don't have a problem communicating with them. I work with tiny little towns uh out in the country. I don't have these problems communicating with them. Is it partisan? Is there a party affiliation issue? Frankly, most of the administrations I work with are Republicans. I work with Republican administrations and Democratic administrations. It doesn't matter. they can communicate when they when we need to communicate to discuss labor relations. Uh it's only Troy that seems to have an issue with this. So, is it reasonable to engage in a laborious process involving several people reading the draft out loud? Uh I actually asked around other LRS if they ever heard of a practice like this and they thought I was joking. This is just not how it's done. The only thing that needs to happen, as I said, is for somebody to read the draft, highlight the things they have a problem with and bring it to the attention of the person who wrote the draft. You can then meet to go over those problems, but this is just not that involved the process. It can take a while because we're all very

busy, but again, even things that take a while are mediated by communication. If I'm taking a while, the type of a draft, I let the other side know, hey, I'm having a bit of trouble, but I'm hoping to get it to you soon. People communicate. They let each other know what's going on. If I had gotten this request in November when I first broached the subject of the contract draft or indeed in December when I suggested meeting uh I would have found it annoying maybe but I at least sort of work with them like all right you want to do this this seems a little weird but okay let's talk about it coming when it did the day that I indicated I would file charges I can only regard it as a stalling tactic something about an improper practice charge is that you have four months from the incident that prompts the charges to file. So, if I say sure, I'll read the contract to you out loud. That's four more months for the city to stall and sandbag and waste time. And frankly, it's not reasonable at that point. By that point, they had had four months of sitting on the draft that they could have reviewed at any time. So, why did I file an info request? Why did I take why am I filing all these charges? One reason is that I spent months trying to respectfully communicate with the city and getting basically ignored. only when I file charges and paperwork and get a little bit mean about it do I get any sort of response. That is a pattern with the city. Uh while the main issue that behind the charge is the fact that they haven't, you know, communicated or reviewed the contract in a timely fashion. Uh one other issue is that they ignore the information request. This is one of three improper practice charges filed against the city by CSA for ignoring information requests. We might be up to four. I'm talking to a lawyer at CSA who's assigned to a disciplinary case and she was telling me that yeah, they're not responding to information requests. Might have to file charges. So, we might be up to four improper practice charges filed against the city for ignoring information requests. The most basic of basic aspects of labor relations. The city has decided that it's going to ignore that and uh force to spring charges against them. Waste the city's time and capacity. And that capacity is important. Whether it is billable hours or a salary, time is money. and the city

is choosing to spend that time uh litigating the idea that it doesn't have to respond to things rather than just responding to things. It's part of a larger pattern of lawlessness from the city, frankly, when it comes to labor relations. I'll give you one example without going into too many details. The contract does not allow the city to suspend an employee prior to the end of the disciplinary appeal process unless it is for the purpose of, you know, safety or the employees causing disruption. Basically, the contract lets the city send someone home without pay if they're being disruptive. But the city will routinely penalize people with a suspension. So, you could be, you know, commit some sort of, you know, misconduct on February 3rd and the city will say you're suspended on February 10th prior to the imple imposition of discipline. Uh, we've called the city out in this and said the contract doesn't let you do that. And the corporation council's response was essentially, well, the contract gives the city the right to determine when it should suspend someone and CSE has the option of arbitrating it. So the city's position is that when it suspends someone on February 10th for an infraction on February 5th, that's for the purposes of safety and disruption. And if CSA doesn't like it, we can go to arbitration. Now CSEA is a member-funded organization. Our members expect us to use those funds to defend their rights. Uh arbitration can cost thousands of dollars. The city's position is that for the privilege of violating their own contract, they will charge Troy's taxpayers thousands of dollars in arbitration fees. So overall, the city has shown that it does not respect labor law, does not respect the contract, and will only do things when it feels compelled. That's why I took this uh course of action. Uh should we just meet to get it done? We already met. We had several meetings in in negotiation process. We had one final meeting over the memorandum of agreement that was signed. No further meetings are necessary unless the city can tell me there's a problem with the draft. They want to tell me there's a problem with the draft. I'll meet to go over them. But the only thing that really needs to happen now is for someone to spend a few hours reading that draft and making sure it conforms to the MOA. Any lawyer

should be able to do this in a few hours. Laborous and timeconuming read aloud sessions are not required. This is an extremely unusual practice. So my message here is that if the city does not consider it worthwhile to spend its time meeting its basic legal obligations to CSEA, then CSA will ensure that it has to spend its time answering legal charges for its failure to do its legal obligations. Like I said, time is money. It's up to the city to decide whether Troyy's taxpayers will have their money spent on the admin doing its job or defending itself for not doing its job. Thank you. Um, I have a question about um the stipulation in the contract about um Yep.

the suspension or is that something that's spelled out in this contract? Yes. So, the members don't even have that in writing because they don't have a copy of their contract. So, they wouldn't even be able to look that up.

So, that is actually in the old version of the contract. if they have an old version of the contract, they could find it there. This actually, this actually brings to mind another interesting thing that I read. I think it was in the Troy record. I think the deputy mayor indicated that it's not true that the employees are without a reference for the terms and conditions. They have the old contract and they have the MOA and the MOA spells it out. Which makes me wonder if honestly one resolution of this is that CSEA just sends the draft to print without the city's signature and puts the MOA in the back. Apparently, if it's good enough for employees to, you know, check up on that because the city can't be bothered, that should be fine, right? But no, for that what what you're talking about that is in the old contract. And if employees had questions about the new contract, they could talk to me or another officer, but they shouldn't have to. They should have a printed contract.

I know I carry mine with me um the the teachers union and I contract in my school bag because there are a lot of times I need to refer to it and don't want to have to ask someone. You got it. You got it. Um so the current contract was in effect once the um council and the CSEA ratified it.

Once they ratified the M memor of agreement, it was in effect. Yes, it is effective dated I think January 1st, 2025. Some provisions are retroactive to July 2025, but it is in effect and you know to the extent that the city honors the contract, it's not as if it's ignoring anything that's new. It's not ignoring anything that's new. I want to be very clear. It's not as if the city is not honoring the new terms of the agreement specifically, right? I just want to make sure on the record that's clear. Okay. So, it's in effect. Um, which I guess you could um arguably assume that if it's been in effect that long, it's acceptable, right?

Yeah. Uh, nobody has raised any problem with the effective contract they've been operating under, either the city or CSA. Uh, that actually can happen. You can come into a situation where the contract's unclear or there's an implication of it someone didn't expect. the sides can negotiate over, you know, further memorandum of agreement or understanding to clarify that. I have heard nothing from the city about the need to update the contract. I've heard nothing about the draft. So, okay. Have you found yourself having to answer questions from union members because they didn't, you know, they weren't sure did the MOA cover this or um I have not. I don't know. You have? Yes. You have?

Yes. Yes, we have. uh members call constantly asking for questions about what's in the new contract and how it's been upgraded. So, we're constantly asking answering questions. Okay. Thank you. Can you is there anything else that you wanted to add about how you feel like this is affecting um the membership?

Well, you know, I think it's Bill Wangler, you president. Um, I think it's imperative that we have this in their hands and uh, everybody uh, all of our uh, union brothers and sisters want it and they have the right to have it. And this was never tedious a process. Um, I've never really seen anything like this before. Frankly, we've always gotten this done and uh, it may take a little bit of time sometimes, but we do get it done. And this one basically there's not a lot of additions or subtractions. it's mostly, you know, money and stuff like that. So, it should be pretty easy to do. But we do have the right to have a contract on our hands and that's what, you know, primarily I believe the issue is.

Okay. Just something I want to add based on what Bill said, I want to point out the MOA specifying all the changes. It's like three or four pages long. It is not a big document. This is not an extensive set of changes. I just want to put that out there, too. So, so the draft that you created that you're waiting for um is the new contract with the MOA kind of incorporated into correct. It's the full contract. Uh basically take the old contract draft, update the sections need to be updated, then you have a new contract. That document I want to say is about 25 pages long. I'm not entirely sure though. Okay. Does anybody else have questions?

Chair. Um, can you remind me, did you say that you currently have three and possibly an additional one pending information request? Uh, improper practice charges pertaining to information requests.

Correct. There are, to my knowledge, three, uh, improper practice charges filed against the city of Troy for failure to respond to information request. Uh, one is in the context of a disciplinary proceeding. Uh, one is in the context of my attempt to get information about a possible grievance based on mandatory overtime. Uh, another is based on their failure to respond to my request for information about the contract draft. The fourth, if it had been filed by now, it would also be about disciplinary matters. Usually, that's you're you're looking for information basically. Uh, it's almost like discovery. You're trying to defend someone against some charge, disciplinary charges against them. You need to know certain pieces of information to defend them. So, you do an information request to get that from the city or the employer, whoever the employer is. Uh, the city doesn't respond to those. If we we have to end up filing charges to get any motion on it.

And um have there been improper practice charges filed for matters other than information requests? Not okay. Yes. In in Troy specifically? Yes.

This is before I came on at Troy, but during the last contract negotiation, Bill French and Bill Wangler might know about more about this. Uh we had heard some uh uh there were reports of the administration engaging in behavior that was various forms of you know so one example is direct dealing. We had heard that I think it was the deputy mayor talked to some employees specifically about their their raises something like that. Um the mayor apparently tried to get Bill Wangler to resign. There were various bits of um uh actions that seemed like they were bargaining in bad faith or attempting to you know coerc the union. Those are other forms of improper practice charge. We had those filed against the city and that was still pending in the summer when we were trying to finalize the contract. That's actually another interesting side note. This isn't the first time we've had problems with the contract. The memorandum agreement specifying all the changes. My understanding is that it was done in May. The city had committed to having it signed by the beginning of August, but at the beginning of August, it still hadn't been signed. I have a few notes about this. um to get them to respond to us about the MOA, we essentially had to indicate that we would roll their lack of response into the ongoing improper practice charge about those other issues. Um as I recall, only the assigned judge overseeing the improper practice charge, you know, only having that person's eyes on the issue got a response from the corporation council. Uh even then, the city continued to stall. Uh the unit president was out on leave when we were about to, you know, get ready to sign and we have a vice president and we indicated, okay, that's no problem. the vice president signed. Uh we were asked by the corporation council what bylaw or statute allows the vice president to substitute for the president. Now if you know anything about the term vice president, you know that's a pretty core feature of the position of vice president. We were asked to justify that and eventually we we kind of had a plan to get it signed. We felt the need to schedule the ratification vote just as a code to keep the city on schedule. So that was a whole process too. uh that improper practice charge we ultimately withdrew because it seemed like it would

be very difficult to prove. A lot of these were things a lot of it concerned things people heard not things that we could prove. So that has been withdrawn. I do not want to indicate that I am here charging the city with those things. Those are allegations that we heard about. We didn't pursue that improper practice charge ultimately but it had been filed. See, and in the other 20 or so municipalities where you represent a unit, how many charges have you been filing on average in any given year? On average, uh, outside of Troy, I think I filed two. Um, outside of Troy, yeah, two two total. Troy represents 66% of the charges you've filed in your career. Uh, I I I think that math might be correct. Yeah.

Excellent. Um my final question uh at least on the union side obviously there's the preparing the charge and then there's the preparation for arbitration and there's the arbitration itself and the wrapup roughly how much time does that take you?

Um just a quick note arbitration is not necessarily part of the improper practice process. The first part is that there's a hearing before an administrative law judge to try and resolve the issue before it goes to a hearing in front of uh the public employee relations board. I think arbitration may happen after that, but arbitration is not the first step in that. But to your question, um it can take a few hours to write up the paperwork. It depends on how extensive it is. Um one charge I filed not against Troy was pretty extensive because I had to collect like 10 or so exhibits um put them together. So it's a lot of collecting documents, a lot of putting it together. Um then there's preparation for the hearings themselves. Then there in the case of Troy is the workload of trying to actually get answers from the city about scheduling and things like that. That can also be a problem.

Is it a lot more time than just reconciling a memorandum of agreement with a contract? Yes. It would take significantly less time for someone to just read the contract draft and either say it's okay or highlight things that are wrong within reach out to me. Okay, that's it on my end. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. By the way, I never stated my name. I think I should do that actually. Uh Jordan Helen, labor relations specialist for CSA. Thank you. Bill French, vice president, CSEA. Any other questions?

Okay. Um, well, I I thank you for for coming and uh, you know, letting us know about all of this. Um, I'm hoping by the end of the night we can perhaps have a date set for or or have a conversation happening about uh being able to set a date that we can uh you know get this resolved. Um I don't want to speak for anyone, but that's that's my hope. Thank you. Thank you. Who's next?

Do we have anyone from the administration who would like to speak about this? Um, you know, give context or or add anything.

Hi, Deputy Mayor. And before you get started, good evening. I just want to say that um I think we all know how much you value um the work that CSEA does that I mean I've heard you say it before that you know the workers are the backbone of the city that every certainly um so I just wanted to to state that we are we are aware of that. So, is there anything that you heard that you want to um maybe shed some light on or or help us, you know, understand why this has gone on so long?

So, I will and I I believe our corp council is on their way to join me. Um, you know, again, some stuff just to reiterate for the public. um you know this the MOA that was approved by the city council um you know signed off on October 3rd of 2025 um you know that is still in effect. All the benefits, salary increases, what we feel was a very uh fair and favorable contract that was negotiated um is still in effect for every CSEA member. Um, I I was partially listening in the back to some of it and I I think one of the union representatives noted, you know, that there hasn't been a problem with any of the CSEA members receiving any of these benefits. Uh, we are talking about an integrated contract um that is a organized version of the bargaining agreement. Um, it's one that I've uh stated multiple times. Look, we as administrators, we benefit from having that in an organized place. All the other unions that the city works with um that work for the city, you know, all have uh MOAS um you know uh put together instead of kind of an integrated contract with everything that is in there. Um I I do think here I don't want to we we could spend all night kind of going back and forth and saying that you know at one point the corp council or the administration said one thing and at one point the union said the other you know I would like to say that you know with some of the stuff when it's talking about improper practices and I think I heard direct dealing get mentioned and different things too there there is context behind that of that you know keep in mind here some of the folks in the union leadership you know also were doing different things, you know, spreading misinformation that I don't think any of our employees are worth anything. Stuff like that that is just categorically a lie, you know, and those

are things that as an administrator, as the COO of our city, that I'm totally allowed to address with our staff because I do value our staff. You know, I think I've it's pretty well known. I'm born and raised here in the city. Um, I've came along for this ride with our mayor to make our city a better place. I think that any administration were worth were any administrator worth anything that it's common sense that I'm not out there picking our garbage up. I'm not out there shoveling when it's snowing. I'm not out there responding to police or fire calls. I understand all of that. You know, we value our staff. We have a great staff here. And that great staff that, you know, belongs to CSEA. I've yet to hear any one of them, any one of them stop me in the hallway or when I'm at a water mane break or at anything complain that this agreement has not uh this integrated uh agreement that we really need to do a proofreading exercise for uh has not been finalized. That being said, never never in any correspondent uh you know and I have stuff here too. I have also, you know, where uh uh Jordan, I have absolutely no interest at this point in taking up my time for such an unusual practice kind of, you know, again, rejecting meeting, wanting to move forward with the perb charge. At no point on the city end did we say we refused to sit uh that we weren't willing to that we didn't want to get to this. As I think everybody knows, our city, especially on the administration side, you know, we're a little light. I think all of you are aware that we have one attorney, one corporation council. Is that a problem we want to solve? Most certainly. Please go find me another attorney that wants to come here for $90,000 a year. I'm more than I'd love to I'd love for somebody to help us with that. Rick Morrisy works 12-hour days. Me and him here are here on Saturdays. Again, I'm not going to come here just to tell you about what the hard work we

do because that speaks for itself. but to to to act as though that there's some kind of malicious intent behind getting this this document done. We want to get it done. We really do. And again, I think that it's counterproductive to do some of the things that the union is taking on. Um, you know, when it's coming to us sitting around a table and working together, you know, at one of the previous council meetings, the vice president or the president, I'm not sure who's who right now, uh, you know, comes here and says, "We don't have a signed agreement." lie. That's a lie. Of course, we have a signed agreement. Everybody's benefiting from it. That is a fact. I just want to stress that harder. I also want I also heard that um we're recanting of that this is the only municipality that the certain uh rep has problems with. Well, then I'll beg to say that uh we get along pretty well with. Uh we don't have these issues with UFA or PBA or some of these other unions. didn't have these issues out of negotiating and formalizing their agreements. Um, UPS, those types of unions, too. Again, I'm not saying that on our end that uh CSEA that um, you know, we go looking to have an issue with them at all. That's not the case. We're too busy doing the good work to do that. But again, to note as if that we're just out here trying to stir up trouble when it comes to union business, again, it's inaccurate. Um, you know, so those are those are just the things that I would like to address. Um, when it comes to this, the city is still willing to sit down, hash this out, read through it. Um, I think speaking to some folks that you have to understand that, you know, this document once that integrated contract is signed off on, that then supersedes the MOA that we're operating under. So if a if if a shall turns into a may or a may turns into a shall or a one turns into a two, those are all

things uh that need to be corrected. Basic errors that are already in the existing one, stuff like that. So you know it's something that definitely has to get done, has to get right. Is it the hardest thing in the world to achieve? Not necessarily. But it does require time and that is something again we're willing to sit down with the union and go over it and but again when the response is we have no interest in sitting down at this point because you didn't operate uh you know off our timeline is unfair to do to the city end of it you know. So that's what I have to say about that for now. I don't know if you

um since the the contract and the MOA have been in effect, right? They they're fully in effect. Pay scale is what it was was agreed to. Um is it are you comfortable saying that at this point there's probably not an issue with it? like a as far as could it just be integrated or is it something that everyone has to sit at the table and do together?

I know Mr. Hillen has called this an unusual procedure. My what my suggestion it is precisely the same procedure that we did last time. Both Mr. French and Mr. Wangler know that because they sat in the room with me and Miss Mahoney as did Miss Wah and as did the prior district representative Miss Bwater. So Mr. Halen wasn't there at that time but it's not an unusual procedure. It is a past practice for the city of Troy.

Is that how has that been with every contract that's been signed in your in your tenure? The only other integrated agreement I've done in my tenure was with UFA and that was done also in very similar manner. Um so we we integrated I was burned once before a long time ago when um a bargaining unit in the city of the Troy deleted certain portions of a contract that they did not like in order to get to an integrated agreement. I did not have the uh responsibility to read those sections of the agreement and they were discovered uh before the agreement was finalized and we ended up at perb uh disputing it. We ended up ultimately settling it and restoring those sections to the but me once that's all you're ever going to do and if Mr. Halen doesn't want to sit down that's fine. We really don't need him there. We can do it with the union representatives. right now he's by filing the improper practice charge which is not a legitimate request for information. It's an ultimatum to the city and they're the ones who are refusing a bargain in my view uh by filing improper practice charge. He has probably delayed resolution of this matter by at least two months. Any other questions?

Chair. Um yes council president did I understand you to say that the other unions do not have an integrated contract they are working withus we are working with moas however you want to say it we are working with uhus and moas with pba um coat I think and uh UFCa no UFA is integrated I believe maybe the maybe the very most recent MOA hasn't been fully integrated but UFA caught up through 25 I think

and has it been the practice with the other unions that the similar scenario of sitting down and getting it together as I just told um uh council person McLaren that spay McLaren that is what we did with UFA and that is my practice and that has been the practice with two other units well with one other unit and with CSEA on the prior contract.

Okay. Thank you. And um I don't think anyone here wants this to be a he said she said kind of thing. I think the objective as stated by the chair initially uh this evening was to come to a resolution where we could get this signed and and is there

well right now we've got an improper practice charge pending. So, you know, it depends on what CSC's attitude is toward that charge. Uh but I'm not going to compromise the city's position on that. I'm willing to I'm perfectly willing to sit down with them. We did it last time, I think, in three or four sessions, maybe an hour, an hour and a half each or something like that. Um, you know, I think in my email I said we read it word for word. Sometimes we come to a page, we all agree it's the page is the same, so we don't actually read it word for word. But I'm sorry that Mr. Halen is not familiar with the past practice in this unit. He should be because he should have talked to the members about it.

Thank you, chair. So, at this time, any any other questions? Okay. So, at this time, um until the charge is resolved one way or another, you're not able to sit down and and go through this and get it signed. Is that I just want to make sure I understand. Yeah. Not without some kind of uh agreement that the charge would be withdrawn or something like that because I don't think we did anything wrong. I think CSA refused to bargain with the city and just gave us an ultimatum. Do it on our timeline. Do it our way or we're not or we're just going to charge you. Chair.

Yes. Respectfully, it sounds to me like you're doing the very same thing. Um so, no. I I believe that I'm following the practice that we have established in the city of Troy. Past practice is a your way or no other way. No, it's the way we did it before.

I see. That's a just council president the like I noted earlier in the in the last stream of emails back to March 9th uh when when Rick acknowledged uh this past practice in wanting to exercise it with CSCA again as to your suggestion I have absolutely no interest at this point in to in taking up my time on such an unusual practice that's what we're sitting here telling you that we were willing to go to the table. That's what these exchanges would show. That was the last communication uh before filing the improper practice from the CSCA representative. No interest at this point taking up my Rick did not email him and say, "It's my way or the highway, buddy." He did not say that. He did not say, "I'm unwilling to sit with you." Not said.

No, but he said it's got to be this way or it's no other way. It's the way it's the way what I'm hearing. No, but you're it's No, he's he was offering to sit down and work through the exercise that has been customary here at the city of Troy when ironing out this type of integrated agreement with CSA.

In addition, I should say the time we did it before, we not only integrated the new language, we uh as a committee uh corrected mistakes, obvious mistakes in the printing. Um, I think we agreed that certain language was no longer applicable and should not be in the contract. We made we made adjustments that uh, you know, made streamlined and modernized the document.

The type of due diligence that that process is is not just beneficial for the city, it's most certainly beneficial to the CSEA members. I would, you know, I would take a wild guess that if you pulled the average CSA, one of our hardworking CSEA members, staff members here, and said, "You have all your benefits, everything's in place, would you like this little booklet, or would you like there to be some gross errors that could possibly affect the benefits you negotiated for?" I think it would be a pretty simple answer. Again, benefits both sides. Making sure everybody's on the same page, that it's accurate, and moving forward. That's the document that gets referenced when it comes to uh those benefits for our employees.

You've mentioned one one of uh Jordan's emails. You have not referenced the numerous emails that were sent uh prior to that. Can you speak to the delay and the lack of response to those emails? October. So, yeah. I mean, again, I I did not I I did not print every single email that went back and forth between the two. He referenced them.

Yes. Just like you're referencing mine. I I understand. But so, what I'm trying to say is that there most certainly from the time of this being passed, uh there's definitely been communication between both sides. um if it's not as expeditious uh and as quick as the regional or the representative from CSA would like, you know, I'm sure we could say we'd we'd like to get back to everybody as soon as we possibly can. Um but that's, you know, we try to get back to everybody in due course. Never unequivocally the city has never stated or not said we are unwilling to partake in this process and that we are unwilling to sign. Those are two things that never happened at all and there is no document that would show that. There's no conversation that would reflect that. That is the truth. Chair I can't speak to intent but for this conversation I guess the prior foil conversation um again not speaking to intent whatsoever but the absence of communication is what is termed like constructive denial. I don't know what the labor term is in perb but certainly in foil that's exactly what what that sort of doctrine lays out is is if you are not if you are not proactively communicating and and working towards a resolution then even if it's the negative space that is the denial um and uh you know whether that was the intent of the administration or not I can't say um but certainly that's how a lot of people exper experience that that lack of communication and resolution. Um, and that's why there's sort of a legal framework for addressing it as such.

Well, and and council member um and I know not to and not that uh to mix up the conversations between foil and this too, but um would I agree that a no communication at all would would would show an interest or intent in not not doing what's requested? Again, I just referenced um the most recent communication was March. Um there has been strings of communication all the way. I would like in a situation where if CSCA reached out to us uh requesting us to to go through the integrated contract and they never heard from the city ever at all or if they heard from us once and went 6 months or 3 months without communication whatsoever. uh you know those are things but again there this wide gap of time with lack of communication the uh allegation of not communicating at all refusing to sign refusing to sit all those are not not anything that I have seen from um I'm not on every single one of these email threads too but it is something of course keep track of that that's just not the case that's not what I've seen it it sounds like more of it's a it's a um it's a not coming to the table on how uh the process has been done before the the CSA uh rep not liking that process. Um and again, maybe that's something we could have worked through. Um like uh Rick, our corporation council noted, he does not necessarily have to be present for this. It doesn't sound like I'm sorry actually uh Bywater was part of the last one, Angelique, but um again, I don't know if that's necessary. We definitely could have figured out ways to try to work through it. So, both sides felt comfortable um ironing this out. Um but that that just that did not occur, but but it's not like we did not communicate at all or um you know, after this was signed, they they we never answered their emails or calls or

communications. I guess my question for followup is if the city's position is that this is um an illegitimate and sort of frivolous proper practice charge, why does it then preclude resolution of the issue at hand? Okay. Why why would you not be able Can you speak into your mind? Sure. The question is if if the city's position is that this is a frivolous improper practice charge, why would it why would it be an obstacle to resolving the issue at hand with reconciling the

because the charge is pending and I won't sitting down with CSEA to do this is essentially a bargaining session. You know, we talk about the the language and where we're going to put it, how it's going to go in, stuff like that. I'm not going to do that with a gun to my head. They want to hold the charge in obeyance with a commitment to dismiss it upon finalization of the agreement. That's fine. Is that might work. Is there within the context of bargaining? Is is that a defense for not bargaining um upon requests that there's a pending charge?

We have not refused to bargain. We are, you know, we So, so far the only person who's refused to sit down is Mr. Healing. Okay. He hasn't taken me up on my offer. I see. Chair. Yes. Um just curious when was the first time that you raised this process going through the contract line by line with the union with Mr. Halen? Yes, I guess that's that was in March 6, I believe.

March 6. And they've been trying to work with you since day. Like I say, each of the the the principles of the union all know how it was done before when one, two, three. Mr. Mr. Wangler was there. Mr. French was there. Can I finish what I was saying? Mr. French was there. Answering my question. I Well, let me finish my answer and then I'll try to answer your question if it comes up. But Mr. Wangler was there, Mr. French was there, Miss Bwater was there, and I believe Miss Wall was there. So the first time you raised it was in March. That is the first time I raised trying to do this since October, I believe.

I don't think it was October because I don't think the council passed it until November perhaps. October 3rd. October 3rd of 2025. October 3rd. Was that the final pass? Okay. All right. October 3rd. Thank you.

You're welcome. And I just do point out there because I think that gets um I think just to to clarify a little bit is that that's when the actual process itself seemed to become of some contention. I think that um the city was under the assumption seeing that it had the same board and officers that were intact when this process happened previously that when we were discussing about sitting down that was implied. That's the process that's been used.

Okay, no more questions. So clearly a meeting has to happen whether it's tomorrow or whenever something has to give and something has to happen. Um would it be okay with all of you if you know we we take a day to kind of think about what's been said and and maybe I don't know I'd be happy to talk to um you know all of you and and see if we could come up with a a solution. I mean I

I think I think the solution is there was presented in an offer to sit down and review this document and and the union refused to take part in a unusual practice. Uh so okay that can't happen at this point because of the charge that's pending. So, let's just say for argument sake that that charge was put on hold. Could this meeting happen soon? And I I'll just speak from where I am. I don't know how much the city really wants to ga engage whatif situations about contract bargaining

at a city council meeting frankly. So, I think the city has stated we are we have been in were willing to sit down. At this point, the union has refused to do that and like our corporation council said there's a fair case of that's uh you know that's a refusal to bargain and we they have then filed an improper practice that the the city has to see through as well. So with those two situations, I I I don't really see until th those are resol if if both of those situations get resolved uh then like I've stated multiple times we are here willing to sit down get this done uh and review it that you know but there's those two situ an unwillingness by the union and a pending improper practice charge are definitely a uh roadblock to getting there.

Okay. Okay. Well, thank you both for uh for your time with this and uh

um if it's okay with everyone because we've got representatives from the Nick board here. Um if we go ahead and start that before we circle back to the the foil. Is that okay gentlemen? Good with me. Thank you.

Hello. If you wanted to just take a second to introduce yourselves. My name is Adam Tigard. I'm the current president of the Nickerbacher Board of Trustees. Adam, I'm not sure your mic is on. Is it at the bottom? You turn it. Hold on. There it is.

My name is Adam Tuscott. I'm the current president of the Nickerbacher board of trustees. Uh I'm joined by Joe Hankle, our vice president, and our corp council, Project Moore. Um I'd like to thank you guys for having us here tonight. Um we appreciate you guys setting this up. Um, so the purpose of us coming to this meeting tonight is we want to address some security and uh safety concerns that are within the park and then also the current lease agreement we're trying to work to and some breaches that have occurred. Um, currently the Nickerbacher Park is privately owned. It was set up in a trust in 1936 by John Nickerbacher in memory of his parents. Um, we are the owners of the ice rink. I know that in the 1992 lease agreement that's spelled out and I know there's been some questions and concerns about the ownership of that facility. So in around 2017 after the rink went down for the second time, the Nickerbacher board decided that it was time that we needed to address the deferred maintenance issues that we've had in the park. The general state that the park was in, the current playground was very unsafe. the graffiti, the grass was not kept, just general maintenance. Um, we provided an open letter to the city. Um, both the city council at the time and the mayor agreed to enter into the 2020 agreement. Um, at that point it was decided we set forth like a maintenance plan and how we would move forward. Part of that moving forward was to make improvements to the park, replace and repair existing facilities, and then also part of which is starting to pay a monthly rent um fee. Um since then, the city has uh

um repaired the ice skating rink. The ice skating rink is now up and running. Um, we do have a pool that's going in. We're very happy and very excited to see that opening up. I hear it's going to be sometime miday. They should be looking to get it open, which would be great. Um, with that, in pursuance to the 2020 agreement, we submitted a lease agreement to the city to incorporate the now working facilities into an agreement so that we could work forward and continue to have the park run by the city. Um the present status the city is uh currently in the rears since December on rent. They continue to remain in possession of the park and operate the park. We are seeking your assistance and helping with getting that contract negotiated and a new lease signed. Um currently there's a couple breaches that we would like to uh have addressed. We do perform a quarterly walkthrough um every 3 months. Uh the city's always invited. Whether or not they appear or not is different. Um current things that we have issues with the lease. The uh plans to the pool. We were under the current lease agreement. We were supposed to be provided plans and drawings for the pool. We've requested that multiple times. We have still yet to receive any of those plans. We were given a conceptual drawing in the beginning. Um, and other than that we have it's been radio silent since. Um, another is

I'm sorry. Is that the agreement that has not yet been No, these are all under the 2020 agreement. The 2020 2020 agreement. Yes. Um, does that have an expiration date? So, there is there was a clause in there that the city did not exercise with the first 120 days. If they did not want to be in that agreement any longer, they had the option. That option was never exercised and for the next five plus years the city continued to pay rent on time and we didn't have So you've been operating on under that one? Been oper under that agreement? Yeah. For over 60 months. Yeah. Thank you.

Um another one of the issues we were having with the city is the ice rink when they made improvements to it. when they brought the facility back up and running, they did make some changes to our lobby area. Um, they never came to the board um when it was brought up to them. The board did not approve the changes made to the lobby area and they have yet to remediate that issue as well. Um, sure. Like, could you just elaborate on that a little bit, Adam? Um, what was there something in the lease agreement that said that the city had to check with the board for any major changes?

So, in all of our lease agreements, everyone that we've entered entered with the city, there is a clause in there that says any significant changes to the facility structures has to be approved by has to be brought to the board and approved prior to that process being started. So, this was a clear violation of the lease. a clear violation of the lease, the 2020 agreement, and anyone that we've ever worked with previously. I was wondering, are there do you guys have like a list of all the violations uh to the 2020 lease that the city has made? We or could or or if you don't, could you, you know, maybe speak about a couple of the examples?

So, no, we don't we don't have a comprehensive list at this time. uh our objective has been and continues to be to have the landlord tenant relationship restored with the city of Troy by the execution of the new lease. So no, we have not taken the steps of going through previous lease agreements and previous infractions and putting together a list of grievances that we have with that relationship. So, it sounds like it's the board's intention to uh continue to try to work with the city to iron these problems out.

Yeah. So, we reached out so we had a meeting with the city. Um it was not productive at that point. We reached out to the council and uh we're seeking your assistance and help us remediate the issues that we have in the park. Is there anything significant that's different in what you would like to see in the new lease agreement.

The lease agreement, the 2020 lease agreement and the 2025 lease agreement that we submitted, it's substantially equivalent. Um, the only things that are added is it does address the ice gate rink being an operating facility and it discusses the pool being an operating facility and just general maintenance with those chair. Yes. Um, so it's it sounds like the Nick board is under the impression and uh for for good reason that you're still that the city is still uh in agreement uh with the 2020 lease that you've been operating under for the last 60 months. Is that correct? Yeah, that's Yeah, that's correct.

I think I would add one clarification. Uh so there was a previous lease from 2007 and so when we started having the problems in 2017 that led to the 2020 what I would consider anou so that's a memorandum of understanding lease agreement where we changed some of the terms so that we could restore that relationship attend to the park needs um collect some rent to pay for those park needs. And so it was never the intention to have the 2020 lease operate for as long as it has. It was more of a bridge to basically say, hey, look what happened in 20 2007 is over. Here's 2020. Of course, COVID hits, things get delayed. And just to elaborate a little bit on what Adam has said here, um, so I've been working with the board since early last year. And, uh, we went through uh, some of these previous leases and the intentions that were put together in 2020 to generate the 2025 lease proposal. Uh that lease was finally approved by the board in July of 2025. It was at that time that the proposed lease was submitted to uh the city and was asked for comments and asked for a meeting and ask for some steps to move forward. It was not until December of 2025 where we had a meeting where um not trying to speak out of turn, but they basically said it was a non-starter and they had no interest in negotiating with us whatsoever. So, we've been at a standstill since uh considering the options that we have available to us.

Okay. And how many months has the city not been paying the month monthly payment, the rent payment to the board? Since December of 2025. So, December, January, February, March, and now April. So, five months at $5,000 per month. So, I guess I Where does this leave the board? Uh, how does this leave the board feeling about the relationship with the city? Complicated.

Yeah, sounds like it. We we we understand that municipalities come with bureaucracy and with politics and and so we're not looking to step on any toes. We're looking to continue this relationship. This has been something that's been happening um for over 50 years, over 70 years. We have no real intentions of changing that or destroying that relationship. This park is an important part of the community for the city and we'd like to fulfill that. And so our objectives are to come back to the table, figure out a lease that works for everybody, respects the private rights, but restores the park to that which the city can benefit from.

Okay. And just to kind of rehash, uh, what are the sounds like the new 2025 proposed lease, it seems like it's not that different from what's currently, uh, you know, the 2020U like you said.

Correct. Well, it integrates a lot of the previous leases going back negotiated by multiple attorneys, some of whom were judges and sitting on council here. Uh so that 2025 lease is a comprehensive uh combination of all of those leases and incorporates standard operating procedures for property ownership. Uh at the end of the day we have an obligation a fiduciary obligation to this trust to maintain this property and that lease fulfills that. Uh and so the new lease wants to or the intention is uh solidify everything uh protect the uh organization and update it so that there's new uh not protections but new uh stipulations surrounding things like the you know the newly up and running ice rink and the pool that's going to be coming in this summer. Is that right? It would define it would define the rights and responsibilities. It would provide respect for the city and would and provide a benefit to the citizens of the city of Troy.

Did the city give any reasons uh when you guys met at all uh in December uh what their uh concerns were with the lease?

No. Okay. I I'm not I'm not here to speak poorly of of meetings that may have gone the way that they shouldn't have gone. Um I'm aware of the social posts that have been placed. Um but ideally we do have that obligation as fiduciaries to do what's right for the city and we want to do that. Okay.

Chair. Yes. Um, will not having this updated lease impact the opening of the pool that's expected to be available next month? Short answer, no. But it is possible because technically you own the land that the pool is being installed on. Correct. Yes. Yes. But do you own the pool or is that owned by the city because of the grant funding that's been received?

So part of the 2020 agreement um at the expiration of the 2020 agreement, ownership of the pool facility would fall to the Nickerbacher Park. Um, also too, I'm not sure what would happen if the city's no longer a tenant of the park and the grant funding that you secured if that would potentially threaten the grant funding the city secured for the boom. That's kind of what I was thinking in my head is if they're not paying rent, um, are we still eligible for that grand fun, that money? We have not filed any like legal papers saying that they're in default of the lease. That's going to be my question. But if we're audited,

you're audit, you are technically in default of the lease and there is a potential that grant could be threatened and we are trying to work with the city to make sure that that does not happen. That's not our intent. That's not something we want to happen.

Right. Thank you. Can can you um speak to um the playground, the park, and what um you said there was some uh maintenance that uh was in violation of the lease agreement. So, under the the current lease agreement, there was a couple of stipulations were um put in place. There was a schedule a um part of that was to maintain the fence lines, make sure that they're clear, make sure they're intact to help secure the park. One of the bigger issues we have in the park, everybody knows, are the dirt bikes that just kind of run right straight through the park. Uh we worked with the Troy police a little bit and they were saying it was basically an exit ramp for them. they were able to come into the park in either the north or south end and then leave on the bike path or vice versa. So, it was always this place where they could ditch like any kind of chase. Um, we've had issues with motorbikes going straight through soccer games for like U5 soccer. Um, another one of those uh removal of the dead limbs and overgrown brush in and around the trees. Uh, people use that hill for sleigh riding. It's currently um crowded over with dead branches, trees, limbs that have been down. Um there's also some safety concerns with tree branches being less all tree branches less than six feet being trimmed up so kids don't climb in the trees and fall out and break arms and limbs. Um resurfacing the basketball courts was another um schedule A. And then also maintaining the lights and the softball and the baseball fields. Um, and then just to go through like a quick little punch list that comes up every time we do a quarterly walkthrough. Um, the uh the city interfered with us using a local vendor to make improvements to

our locks and doors. Um, they did the unimproved modifications to the re the rink. Uh, failure to secure the property. Um, we put over a half a million dollars into the parks, playgrounds, and the pavilion area. improvements to the baseball fields and softball fields, the graffiti and the vandalism, the, you know, we bought picnic tables, they've been smashed, they disappear. Um, we have homeless encampments. Currently, there is a tent that's existing in the northeastern corner of the park. Um, we've tried to address that with the city, getting those removed. um part of the 2020 agreement, there was a quick claim deed for the area of where the old pool was that was supposed to be provided to the to the um park. That's just a few of the the issues that we're currently trying to work through.

Okay. So, at this point Oh, did you have a I don't you mentioned something about um the opening of the pool. Okay. We're all pretty excited about that. And uh we have asked for staffing um trained staff, what hours it would be open, and that's kind of as a lease tenant relationship. That's kind of where we're at. We don't have any of that information yet. Oh wow.

We don't know if it's going to be staffed by trained people. What happens if trained people don't show up? What are the hours of the pool? Who's going to be watching it? Who's going to be maintaining it? It's a It's a big risk for us at this point. And are you guys covering insurance for the pool as well? Yeah, city covers the liability for the pool. And I'm sure um we do know that there was a accident at the pool several years ago where and we lost we lost someone. Yeah. All right. For well whatever reasons.

So those are the concerns that we have about the pool. We're excited about it, but we would like to see those things documented and presented to our board so we know what's going on. Okay.

Have you contemplated termination of the lease? It has been a discussion that's come up multiple times. Uh how we got into the 2020 agreement um was the discussion whether or not we should terminate the lease or not. Um which then we entered into the 2020 agreement um and we've been working towards an end of that agreement a little bit longer than it was supposed to live, but we understand the process it takes to get some of these larger facilities up and running and we've been trying to work with the city. um it's not our intent, but if that's what has to happen to for us to maintain our fiduciary responsibility to the trust, then that's unfortunately what will have to be.

Okay. So, it sounds like at the bare minimum, you want to renegotiate the proposed lease and that you you need plans.

Yep. And clearly you need to know who's going to be running the pool and and um you know what trained staff will will be there to oversee kids um swimming. Are there any other kind of non-negotiables that you need to see? other than your rent.

I I think I think well and so I think what it what it boils down to is we need communication. I think that really to us is the only non-negotiable. Everything else is is flexible. Everything else is to achieve the objectives of this long-standing relationship, right? Um, our immediate concerns are for the safety and well-being of the park. And so there are concerns that have to be addressed and we would like the city to at least acknowledge them and give us a game plan. And if part of that plan is we simply don't have the manpower, we don't have the money to do that, then we know where we stand and we can figure out how to address that. um you know and as far as the lease is concerned I mean that's more legal than it is practical but every good relationship is dictated by boundaries and the landlord tenant relationship is has a benefit to having a written word uh that we can all point to and rely upon and um as I understand it right now the city's position is it's a non-starter non-negotiable we're not interested in communicating with Well, that's unfortunate. Does anyone else have questions? Is there anything else that you want to make sure we know before we move on?

Yeah. Just just to clarify, so the rent that we do collect from the city, every dollar that does go back into park, we put on six week summer camp kids. Uh we do a probably the largest trunk or treat in the capital district at this point. We have Easter egg hunt that we just finished up. Another great event. These events cost money. Nick night out, another great event. Um, and then the improvements that we do make, like I said, over since 2017, we put over a half million dollars from our own trust in the super parks and making ADA compliant uh playgrounds in addition to our playground. One of the biggest concerns the public had was there's no shade for us to sit while our kids play or for our kids to take a break. We have to go back home, you know, nowhere for us to sit. So, we we put a pavilion in. Uh we're always open to making any improvements to the park that people see that they might want to have done. Um and we're we're willing to talk to anybody. We keep an open door policy. So bring offers,

right? Well, thank you gentlemen very much for Thank you for all you do.

Thank you. Is there anyone from the administration here who would like to come up and speak to this? Yeah, unfortunately for some reason they don't they won't sit in the chambers during the meeting.

Hello again. alone. So, from what I just heard, I'm just going to give you my kind of my thoughts about it. Um, it sounds like there needs to be a lease renewal with some terms that would now include the pool because that's a new um development since the old lease. um skating rink is too. Um but you know information like who's going to be running the pool and um you know the plans that were asked for are there specific reasons I guess I'm wondering that those things have not been provided

specific reasons that plans to the pool and who would be running the pool have just the general information like what are the hours going to be? Who's I usually plans are provided after the build was complete. They're called as builds. Um it's not done yet. Usually plans are provided uh after the pool is complete. They're called as built. Okay. And uh you can't do those until it's built essentially. But there aren't there aren't working plans. Oh, there are working plans. There's lots of plans. Okay. And it's is are they not possible to be shared um with the owner of the land?

Um I'm not not necessarily that they don't I think um referring there's been some back and forth here with the Nickerbacher board. Um, you know, I think that some of those plans, I know there might have been a question about, you know, is it a little irregular to release some of those types of plans? We're well aware who the owner of the Nickerbacher Park is. Uh, that's but um, you know, so that's definitely something I can look further into. I don't know if there's been a direct rejection of sending those over, but I know there was some talk about do we do we release those type of plans, you know?

Okay. And I'm not off the top of my head, I'm not sure contractually if we're necessarily obligated to release those either. Um I do know that one of my first meetings um after meeting with the engineering firm uh that did the design for the Nickerbacher pool, which we're very proud of. That was a project that was dead. Um not happening. Um there's lack of funding and sometimes a willingness I think in the past to get that park there. So, uh, we were fortunate enough to jump right on New York Swim's grant, uh, very committed. The our mayor, uh, was one of the things that she, you know, was throughout her campaign was we're going to get the pool back in, uh, in Lancingburg. We're very proud to get that pool, um, to get that scene that that pool's going to be open this summer. Um, actually, one of my first meetings before, uh, even becoming deputy mayor was going to the Nickerbacher and walking around with the Nick board. Uh then there was a meeting uh charging uh CHA with getting the plans back up and running and really trying to expedite getting this project going which helped us get that funding. Uh now we're seeing that through as well. The Nickerbacher board was part of um at least the members that we were allowed to speak with um were you know part of uh multiple conversations when it came to design and color choices and a lot of different things. there was multiple meetings at the Nickerbacher uh and up here discussing the pool. So, um you know, I just want to be clear about that as well.

Okay. And it doesn't sound to me now like that's at the top of the priority list. It sounds to me like communication is what it sounds like there was kind of a breakdown in communication. And is that something that we're I is there a reason why the 2025 proposed contract is still not has still not been negotiated?

Well, I think there were some things situations that did lead lead up to that. Again, we've uh the administration really the mayor herself included really have tried to have again it's on city floor down at the Nickerbacher uh a couple I mean handfuls of meetings of really trying to get on the same page and move forward um in a positive direction. It is it it is odd to have confrontation with this board at this time when the city has had an unprecedented investment into it. a $2.5 million ice rink dormant. Uh not used. That's something that's uh happened since this administration's been here. Uh the Nickerbacher pool finally being realized again. It's Nickerbacher on the north end of our city is a gem and uh and seeing some of the stuff the board has done. The pavilion and things are great for the city, for the youth and the families of Lancenburg. So that's all of of course stuff that we support, but um you know there is and I can let our corp council uh you know elaborate a little bit on this. I don't know how far we want to really get into it, but um you know there is some question of uh what the agreement that the city has been historically operate in the past several years have been operating on um called into question and there's been some things in actions that the Nick board have threatened like you know changing the locks you know you're going to change the locks on the city of Troy for the ice rink when we just invested with the Rener county $2.5 million um so you know that's again a a relationship that we would wish really to work forward with. Um, and I do recall probably our last meeting um, sitting down with their their attorney and um, you know, it did did not end well. I believe their attorney got up from the table and left, you know, said, "I'm ready to take on Troy." And then walked out. So, uh, it, you know, again, we'd love to move forward with the

Nickerbacher board. U there is some questions under the existing agreement that they that they've been operating under. Okay. Is now is that why the rent is in a rears? Is that because of a disagreement with the the lease? From our interpret, from our stance, it's not in a rears because uh that rent falls under uh an agreement that you could boil down to an offer letter and not a not a a a lease uh that is supersedes that document.

I'm sorry. Could you I'm I'm not sure I understood what you meant by that. Yeah. Though the the agreement that occurred in 2020 is denominated a term offer sheet. Uh it is not a lease. Uh it contemplated the parties entering into a lease. Parties never have. Uh there is a subsisting lease already. It expires 2030 maybe 2035. I can't remember exactly offhand. uh which uh is a signed and duly uh binding document on the parties. And was there no rent involved in that?

The rent was $1 for the term of the lease 30 years, which was reasonable given the But wasn't the city paying rent $5,000 in rent for years?

So the term offer sheet con had a $5,000 annual monthly monthly payment. I'm sorry. Okay. U uh which the city continued to follow until negotiations between the parties broke down. So the term offer sheet expires by its own terms. The fact that we continue to honor it for a period of time does not make it go on forever. What about the 120day clause that uh was not enacted um to keep the 2020 agreement current? So the the clause I think that you're referring to says that the parties will negotiate a successor agreement within 120 days or the lease will expire or the excuse me this term offer sheet shall expire. Is that the one you're referring to?

That wasn't my understanding of what it was. So do you have it there with you? Because I didn't I don't I don't Okay. Because I thought we were talking about the pool today. Otherwise I would have brought it. Oh yeah. the agenda reflected uh we came prepared with the Nickerbacher Aquatic Center contract because that's what the agenda that was released a day ago um said. So, we didn't necessarily come with this uh terminal offer. But, you know, again, it's something reviewed that we're close to recalling, but yeah, we we we don't have it in front of us because we didn't we we didn't realize uh that was your objective. My apologies. That was probably my wording. Um, but I'm sure Oh, go ahead.

Oh, okay. I So, uh, yeah, let's talk about the pool. Um, that's a great point and I honestly I'm super excited about uh seeing the pool come in as as we all are and you guys are. Uh, it's going to be great. Uh, when's it opening? In July, right? Be open this summer. Yep.

Um, it So, I I don't know if you guys were listening. It sounded like the board was contemplating lease termination. Um, and so I decided to read through the uh DSNY New York Swims grant and it sounded like uh one of the stipulations for receiving that grant money uh which of which we are counting on $6 million or roughly maybe 5.8 million. Uh, one of the stipulations is a lease agreement that uh, either site ownership uh, or city or town ownership of the property, which is not what's happening, or a lease agreement that extends uh, more than 10 years after uh, the pool goes in. And so, you know, is there not concern from the city that maybe we won't be eligible for that grant money and the city might be on the hook for $6 million if the Nick board were to pull out of or terminate the lease?

Both documents were provided to Dazzy, the term offer sheet and the underlying lease. Okay. They approved it. They approved it as site control for the grant. Now he's not follow. So is that the same sheet that you said is no longer valid? So at the time they were provided to Dazzy, we were still operating under the term offer sheet, but

we still we still were honoring the term offer sheet, but we have we have a subsisting lease. I can't tell you exactly when it was is going to expire because I did not believe we were discussing that today, but it's at least 2030. I I believe it goes on longer than that, but I'm not quite sure when it expires. And Rick, if I just So, both went over to Dazzy, though, the term offer and the That's my That's my recol just to be clear. Yeah. Both recollection because we we we had an issue with whether or not we had sufficient sight control.

Yes. And just for the public's clarification here, um that aren't familiar with the Nickerbacher uh playground and and facility, that is uh land that's held in a trust, Thomas and Helen Nickerbacher. Uh the city has historically uh they built the uh original ice rink. The city then recently rehabbed it, brought it back to life. The city built the old swimming pool. The city is now building the new swimming pool. Um the city has consistently invested into that park. We uh we uh clean up the park. We staff the park. Um you know, in all intents and purp and purposes, we operate the park. Um I know that. And just also for the public to be clear, um if you are anywhat so familiar with the Nickerbacher, there has been a lot of animosity between the board and the city going on decades upon decades. And you know, so I just to be absolutely clear with this, um, you know, it is a shame seeing that an unprecedented investment has been made into the park that you know, now that relationship is, um, is is is going down another path. But again, like Rick said, we did check that with Dazzy as well, too. And I do think that it's worth noting that this is a board that's charged with ensuring generations of folks from Lancingberg and Troy enjoy it and we have a board that is threatening we're you just opened up with it council member that well maybe they'll cancel the lease and your pool you know that will be done with the pool and the kids won't have anywhere to swim and that's our goal. I I doubt that's what Thomas and Helen Nickerbach are envisioned. Uh and and you could even go back to the lease that uh Rick references. Clearly those folks, they did it for a dollar. It wasn't a a money grab. And although I will just be clear with everybody that money uh is in all intents and purposes paid to the Nickerbacher is supposed to go back into

the park. Um we have seen a playground and pavilion go back into the park. The Nickerbacher board operates kind of with a a curtain of secrecy. There's really um you know there's there's no bylaws anywhere. the exact membership is nowhere when they necessarily meet. And again, um you know, I I'm not sure if they're filed properly, anything like that. I'm not I don't know if they're charged with having necessarily public meetings, but it it's not an organization that um operates um you know, fully transparently either. So, I just do want that to be clear. I'm sure the many generations of folks on the Nickerbacher board, including yourself, council member, have good intentions, want to see the best for the park, just like us. I really do believe that. Of course, that's we want to we would not invest over almost $11 million in the park in hopes that uh some secret board pulls it out from under the family and the use of the city of Troy. So again, and just to be clear here, you know, when it comes to these situations that, you know, maybe some folks aren't used to, the city and this administration is not going to be held hostage by uh certain folks that have another alternative agenda. Our job here is to provide the best services and amenities and uh places for our our folks to recreate. That's what we're here to do and hopefully we can all agree that's what we should all be concerned about here.

Thank you for that context and thank you for bringing up. I'm I'm I'm proud of my service to the board and I'm no longer on the board. So, um thank you for bringing that up and thank you for providing that context. But I guess I wanted to you know I don't think we were that question was really about the Nick board. It was kind of about the payment that for the for the pool. So, uh, you know, is that Dazzy money in Troy's accounts right now? Like, do we have control of that money that's supposed to pay for the pool or is that something that comes later because, you know, it sounds like it might not be in our pocket. It sounds like we might not be in compliance with that grant.

Yeah, it sounds like that's your I mean, if you want I don't I don't agree with that. I think that um you know DNE uh not DNE and you know when they review these types of things those are the folks that do that every single day uh we were very fully transparent with them like our corporate council stated sent both documents and that was approved. Um, you know, of course, the way most grants go, if you're not familiar, we spend and then we draw down from that those uh there's no no one from a legal stance or a practical stance uh sees that DASE funding um in jeopardy. It's, you know, again, we we we satisfied the site control element um to to get that uh those awards contracted.

Okay. you know, uh, yes,

council member or chair, may I, uh, dovetail just something that was said. Um, Dazznney is looking forward to the pool opening. Uh, we joke about it and talk about how we're going to get in speedos, minus Sheamus. Um, and Cannonball into the pool. Um, but in all seriousness, I guess what is shocking tonight, as Sheamus mentioned, the deputy mayor, is the fact I didn't plan to speak, but I literally I'm listening to a council member who literally publicly is essentially like begging Das to listen to this council meeting to pull a $6 million grant. Why would the council litigate or even speculate on is this legal or is that legal? Why why are we in a law committee meeting bringing up legalities instead of really truly talking about the project about opening the pool about how critical this is to Lancinger. I guess what's blowing me away is I have never seen a council more willing to put the city in legal jeopardy. Mayor, can I please chair? I was council president as you know and to me it's shocking that we're trying to litigate at a law committee meeting and pit the board against the administration and this if you really want to get the facts we'll give the facts but to have the attorney who basically said I'm going to take on Troy without and and we were and we were

well you would have a completely different tone from the board. They are willing to come to the table. They want to meet uh if you had been in the room and heard you would have not had a version that the deputy mayor portrayed. You would have heard a very willing board. you would have learned how that $5,000 is critical to programs such as the summer camp, which I hope will go through because it was a tremendous success last year. That's something they run. The city doesn't

very much that money should be provided to them. We are breaking a contract and I know the corporation council will tell me it's not a contract. Well, it was good enough to get the DASE money, so it should be good enough to pay the board and to litigate those contracts publicly. This this isn't the ability of this hearing. You are making it that

that is what you are doing. You don't realize it. We're so saying that uh the corporation council can answer the question in terms of the 30-year lease and the letter that was sent that is not a lease. We're willing to negotiate. We've made that. I literally no other mayor has gone to more of the Nicabacher board meetings. I literally sat at their board meetings when I was first elected numerous times with the deputy mayor only to have the board essentially tell us after meeting with them, "Sorry, we're going to take your uh wall down. Sorry, uh we're going to vote to not do this." That is the disappointment here. I have literally bent over backwards and offered to meet with them, work with them, attended meetings. I attend every event that unfortunately has gone sideways. But I must tell you, it is not the full board. What we have seen by the leadership is truly unacceptable. The board is fabulous.

Out of context. Okay. So I think the point of us being here is that it's clear that uh communication has broken down and we want to see it come back. Great. Um I had a question about um and I know you had asked to ask a question. Would you if you want to go now I can save mine. Go ahead. Um, so in order to fulfill uh Dazznney's requirements, we the contract you said goes till 2030. You I know that you said you don't have it exactly, but

why don't I go? But in the meantime, I guess the $5,000 a month had been negotiated and it had been being paid, right? I understand that this statement expired and it reverted back to a dollar for the life of the lease. How how do you go from $5,000 a month to a dollar period and think that they're still going to have the funding that they need to provide all of the activities that they fund? Chair M.

Since we're waiting for an answer to your question, um I I really think we need to take a step back and and understand that the purpose of this hearing, this committee meeting was to hear both sides and to try to bring those sides together. And that is that is the intent. It certainly was what I heard from the board and I would implore this administration to come again. Just because you had one bad meeting doesn't doesn't end it. It should not end it. It should it should encourage you to come back and try again. And that's what we're asking. the um I'm going by uh the lease actually runs out 2037.

Okay. Okay. So that's so that is that gives us the we need

my memory is and and sometimes my memory is not perfect but my memory is is that my predecessor sent in the site control agreement referencing the 2020 um term offer sheet. My memory is that that the DASE grant administrator kicked it back some at some point, right? And that we resubmitted using the um with the with the agreement, the 30-year lease, which does which is more than 10 years from now, or at least from when we when we submitted it, which doesn't expire until 2037. Right. So, right.

And that that original lease had, as I said, a $1 rent for the term. Okay. So, the original one that was $5,000 a month is what was kicked back. Correct. That's the one that that Dne kicked back because they wondered if that gave us sufficient side control.

Okay. I guess I'm still stuck on. We went from $5,000 a month, which the Nick board probably counted on as income um to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility, used it to put right back into the park, and now that money is no longer coming in. Um, I I hope that, you know, like Council President Steel said, that we can come back to the table um and negotiate something that's a little bit more reasonable.

So, I have the same hope.

Okay. Uh the I did feel that the 25 agreement the 2025 agreement that the Nick board proposed that Patrick drafted was adhesive and one-sided and failed to take account of the city's massive contributions to this operation. The day-to-day contributions we have all our employees working there. We have our employees taking care of the premises and things like that. and that there just it just wasn't a fair and equitable agreement and I rejected it as a basis for negotiation. I am certainly willing to start with the older agreement and see if that works as a basis for negotiation. And then also I need to point out there were a number of terms of the term offer sheet that were not complied with. I mean, there was supposed to be a committee that would decide how that $60,000 annual contribution to the Nick Wart would be spent, and the mayor was supposed to have a representative on that committee. I don't think that happened. I don't think there was any consultation as to how that money would be spent. I think, you know, I mean, and and but you know what, I'll fault both sides. I mean, we we don't always get along. Uh but uh we've had a working relationship at least since 1977. And I suspect there there was a working relationship before then without probably any written documentation. Uh and I think that the parties the city loves having a park in the city in that area of the city. It's a great facility. Uh we've obviously invested a lot of money and I think the board takes its responsibility seriously also and they want to ensure that you know the the park has long life and continues. But I mean, we all have good intentions, but we we've had difficulty agreeing.

Okay. And council member, I just want to make one it it's to your previous thing that you read about the summer program for the children and um it in in throughout these different conversations um at least since I've been here with the board um and you know the board president uh it it was made apparent that you know without knowing the exact number because like I said they don't you know have to really operate in transparency like other boards or at least they don't but uh you know it's been known that they have a very healthy uh fund. So, so I just want to make it clear for everybody that never never uh was it told to the city that if you uh if you stop paying this, this program is going to be in jeopardy. Now, um again, we're I don't know if that's the case or not. I think we can all definitely agree on one thing. We want to see the kids and the summer programs happen. Um, you know, but I do just want to make it clear, uh, never with when switching, uh, when going, uh, you know, falling back on the more legitimate lease was it as if we were, uh, welcoming the the the end of a potential program that helps youth. I just want to be clear and and and answer that answer your question.

I can appreciate it. I mean, I think it's very clear that everybody involved wants this to be successful, right? We all care about the youth. We all care about um having these recreational activities for our families um for the residents of Troy. Um I just I think we just need to remedy this breakdown in communication. I wasn't meaning to say that, you know, you were denying programming. Um, and I don't think it matters how healthy their budget is. If if if for years and years this payment was being made to them, I think in in some form, you know, maybe not the whole amount, I I suppose that would be something that would be part of the negotiation. Um, but the simple fact is, but for them agreeing to having a pool and opening up the rink again, those things wouldn't be happening, right? I mean,

yeah, it's a it's a partnership and it it's a great partnership and it's one that really could work to the benefit of everyone. So, I'm hoping that we can get back to having it become a good partnership again. I think that's our ultimate goal

and that is exactly what we asked for from day one. We literally we I I grew up at the Nick Park, played softball, swam in the pool, skated the ice rink before the pool was gone, before the ice rink became dormant. We literally have invested more monies into the Nick Park than any other administration. We literally met with the board to talk to them and unfortunately it was flown into our face. We have a healthy trust fund. We essentially don't need you. Um we want to get back to that partnership, but it's not a one-way street. It's a partnership. We're there. we've offered many many times. But there's reality and there's also, you know, the fact that the board and the leadership and their attorney has to work with us. It's not a take it or leave it. So, it is a partnership. you know, our folks do all the maintenance, all the groundskeeping, all the operations of the ice rink, operations of the pool. At the end of the day, it's not about us. It is about the kids. It's about building that foundation for the present and the future, not just for Berg, for the city. And it's literally a huge passion of mine. I'm super psyched. We're all excited. But saying that the board cannot just you know take us for granted and and treat us um like they did. So saying that the attorney literally said I'm going to

take on Troy. Um we recommended changing attorneys that didn't happen. Saying that though, we do hope that there is, you know, just a a new beginning, but um, you know, that's yet to be seen. So hopefully it happens. Okay. Well, I thank you for your time and I'm hoping that going forward we can kind of open up those lines of communication and get this get this problem solved. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you Rick, you need Rick to stay, don't you? Yes, I will need Rick to stay. You need to say that. Oh, um, Corporation council.

Sorry.

Hopefully that we can make this brief. And is our foil officer available as well? Thank you again, gentlemen. Welcome, Mr. Horton. Um, so I guess the reason that we're opening this up again is um I have been and I think others of us have been approached by several people who are um less than thrilled I guess maybe I would say with their results from their foils. um whether it be timeliness, whether it be um denials, um the length of um the appeals, things like that. And I just I wonder if you can walk me. So my understanding, and it's a very basic understanding, um is that once a foil request is made, there is an automatic kind of thank you, we received your request from the GovQa portal. And then within 5 days a person is supposed to receive some kind of a response. Is that accurate?

That's correct. Okay. And then going forward from there, if it's something that might take a while, they should get something saying um you know, I'll have this to you. It this might take us a while. We'll have you this information say you know on X date or something like that. Is that also accurate? That's correct. It's called time extension.

Okay. Um and then how does an appeal work? So, so an appeal works, at least to my best knowledge, an appeal works if anybody feels that they have been um wronged in any case or they didn't get the necessary information they were looking for, um they are supposed to either handwrite a letter that is to be delivered to the corporation council or they can deliver it electronically via email to the corporation council. Okay. And then is there a time frame by which that has to um in which that has to be answered? 10.

10. Okay. I knew there was a 10 somewhere. Okay. Um Okay. And how do you feel like these requests are you getting them at a very large volume? That is I mean I know you are getting them at a large volume. You've seen it. Yes. Yes, I have. Um are is there an issue with fulfilling these in a timely manner? define the timely manner. Well, are people getting a response within five days? Depends on the subscri the summary of the request. Okay. Um,

and is that there has to be some kind of response is what my understanding is. Even if it's to say this is a really big request, we need more time. Yes. Okay. Um, now I appreciate that you sent me over this information and never did I think in six months it was going to be a

385 page document. Yes. But I I learned quickly although some of them are very long. I I did see that. Um, now these, as far as I could tell, all the ones that were sent were completed or closed. Are there some that are still pending that aren't in this document? Um, I'm not sure if they're included in the document that are in there. I didn't look through all 385. I just ran the report. We do have some foils that are still pending and in progress. Okay. And are the people who filed those foils being notified or being apprised of, you know, what's what the what the holdup is or Yes.

Okay. Thank you. So, I'm I am one of the uh people that I heard from talked about um requesting data and being told that it was because of the man-hour that it was going to take like $483 or something like that um to fulfill the request because of the the number of hours it was going to take a staff person to compile all that information. Um it's my understanding from the information that I found in um the you know committee on open government that you're not allowed to charge for data. I mean, is it is it possible that some of those things are being either misread or

um section 87 of the public officers law I can't remember the subse subtitles. Okay. uh offhand I just wrote a decision in another case uh allows a an agency to charge for the preparation of the records. Uh the courts have not defined what preparation means. The committee on open government's opinions uh may be binding on state agencies but I do not believe that they are binding on municipalities. Um, we are only allowed to charge for the lowest paid qualified staff employee who can uh fulfill the requests, who can prepare the records to be disclosed. We're not allowed to just charge any willy-nilly. Uh, so in one recent appeal that which probably may get appealed to court, I don't know because it was a nightclue request. Um, we had uh I think an hour of a chief's time from the police department, two captains, some hours of their time, and then uh largely hours of a of a confidential assistant

getting the records ready. But I mean that uh right now I mean I don't think there is binding precedent that prevents us from charging when we have these voluminous requests extensive that require enormous amounts of time to prepare the records for disclosure. How often does that happen?

Far too often. I think if you look through that uh uh PDF that you were provided with, you're going to see quite a few. Yeah. Sometimes they we're sometimes we're able to deny them for various exemp exemption reasons. Uh but uh other times uh we have to comply and it just takes a long time. It takes a a deep commitment of staff and uh the only people who are not bound by foil are the people who pass the law. Um, I've heard from a couple of people that they feel like um their request was denied um for lack of information. You know, no, there was no information available to meet your request or however that's worded. Um, but they feel like they know that those records existed. Is there

they may they may know more than we do. I don't know. I mean uh with under foil you are not required to answer questions and you're not required to create records. So either the records if if you're not invent something just because of a foil request. Excuse me. Say it. No, I get that. You you're not going to invent a file because it was requested through foil if it's not already there. But we're also not going to say that a record does not exist if we know it exists. I mean it may be that it after a reasonable search it could not be located or could not be found. Okay.

But if if people are certain and have information and want to give us further information about where those records are located, we could find them. Okay. Does anybody else have a question? Yeah. Um, for that question in particular, when it says after a diligent search, we found no records pursuant to your request or whatever the phrasing is typically. What does after a diligent search mean in that sentence you?

Well, I I I hate to be logical, but it kind of means what it says. You know, we've conducted a as thorough a search as we could under the circumstances that was reasonable. Okay. So, what I'm asking is what what do you consider to be reasonable? Depends on the what the record is and where it is. I mean, I don't we don't go over to the to the archives uh every time we get a records request and go through a thousand boxes of documents to see on the off chance that a record might be there. Mhm.

A reasonable search is is I think a diligent search is a reasonable search whereby you check likely places or department uh or file cabinets where records might be located. So you're talking like or computers or computers search a hard drive ask the most relevant staff members. If nothing comes back then you say exactly you know I'll appeal it if you but it's it's not just say whoops I don't know where that is. I mean it's more much more than that. Right. Okay. And for the exemptions that are cited in the initial denials, is that is corporation council involved in making those decisions? Sometimes. Okay.

I try I try to teach Alex and uh there are a couple other people who are sort of involved with foil uh which exemptions exemptions might be applicable, how they're you know when they apply, when they don't. Uhhuh. And then when the appeal comes, it comes to you again. The appeal does come to me again. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Um well, I think that's all on my end. Chair. Chair. No, you I have a couple of questions.

Um has the um I guess it's called the records access officer. Is that your title in this regard? Um have have you ever received training in foil compliance? Yes. When was the last time? I don't recall. Find out for you if you'd like. I'm sorry. Can find out for you if you'd like. Great. Okay. Yeah. Um but it was one time or it was once. I mean, you go through training all the time. That's part of the exercise, right? I mean, you do them every single day. Um Well,

yeah, Cindy. Yeah. when I when I first came in, I mean, the person um I'm not sure of her exact title, but she sat through me a bunch of times with running through the portal, how the portal works. So, okay. So, that was it. I mean, somebody in house was training you on basically how to do the job. Yeah.

Okay. And what disciplinary mechanism exists for a records access officer who fails to comply with foil? Under what circumstances? Any circumstances? Well, any I mean there's difference between something like an intentional failure, an inadvertent failure. Speak to that. What what are the disciplinary? I wouldn't discipline someone for an inadvertent failure unless it was repeated numerous times. What if there's a intentional failure?

I'm not aware of one. So, we haven't had that circumstance as far as I'm aware. Uh if we had, we would probably have to approach as any breach of duty. You know, you might you might have to get you might start with a counseling memo and then you might start, you know, go on to a warning, a verbal warning or something like that if someone was intentionally ignoring their duty. I mean, yes, progressive discipline. That's what we follow here. Okay. So, there's no formal

It's all I mean, there's no formal discipline. I mean, there's no if a I mean, Alex is is not a CSEA member, but if a CSEA member breaches uh their duty, it starts out usually with a counseling and then a warning of some sort. And if it repeats again, then there might be time off. Uh but there's no when you say it's not formal, I don't know what that means exactly.

Nothing written down in policy. I yeah, I I I we do have a um non-represented employees policy. I'm not sure if something is in there or not, but I tend to think since Gabrielle wrote it that there probably is. Okay. Um do you provide an annual report, compliance report? I have not provided an annual compliance report. No. Nor have I been asked to. Would there be any objection to to doing those in the Yeah, I don't I What does that mean?

An annual compliance report to whom? To the city council. That includes what? So, I think you were just provided with uh six months worth of of foil requests and their statuses. Um, a report could be run from gov QA every six months, every three months, something like that. You can look at all the Have you read it because it was sent to you? No. Oh, you didn't read it. I'm sorry. No, I didn't. Oh, it wasn't sent to you. Oh, maybe it wasn't sent to you. I forwarded it to everybody, but Oh, no one's read it yet. Okay. It was sent to It was sent to the chair of the law committee. Yeah. She said to us all of you

and it was a tigar to go last minute and I appreciate that I got it knowledge. It's a large large. Oh, absolutely. Why wasn't does it have all the uh obviously the requests that were made and how many were fulfilled or u not? Okay. Absolutely. And what I asked for was the last six months. So that's okay. Um, there's no secrets with G QA. Um, okay. I think that's it. Thank you, Chair. Yes.

Um, Alex, how many hours would you estimate you uh devote to fulfilling foil requests per week? Did you say per week? Mhm. I would say anywhere I try my very best to take at least one to two hours a day. Um and that is a full if it's two it takes me a full two hours to go through a few different ones depending on the complexity of them. Um, I I I would say multiple several hours a week easily.

And in this day and age of uh technological advances, shall we say, um, most of the records that are requested are electronically available. Correct. That's correct. We do once in a while. Sorry. And you can't charge for that.

I we we do. The great majority of the requests that we get are electronic. Yes. But we do occasionally get the person that comes to our front window in the mayor's office and there are paper um applications that you can fill out. Um I've received those. Um the mayor's confidential assistant has received those. A few other folks um so what I do if it's me that intercepts the person at the window. Um I ask them if it's okay if I file it electronically for expediency. Um and uh so that we don't have to mail it to them. Um and if they give me that confirmation and consent, that's what I'll do. But if they request it by mail, I've done that before as well, but very minimal times. But the records themselves for the most part are electronic.

Well, if someone is asking is if someone is asking for I I I don't even know. But uh it a police files files are for the most part now electronic. They're not hard copies. Everything is everything is available electronically. You wish but they're not totally

many files are in hard copy. Many records requests involve searching through hard files. So that's the way it goes. A lot of records are electronic. You said something a moment ago. You said you can't charge for electronic records. There's two basis of lawful charges under foil. One is 25 cents per copy if you have a photo copy. The other basis is if it takes more than two hours to prepare the records for disclosure, you can charge for the hourly rate of the lowest qualified employee for the number of hours that it will take to provide the records. But a lot of records are electronic and more and more every day, but a lot are not.

I did foils for eight years at the state, so I'm very familiar with that. Cool. Okay. Yep. Now, I hope you're sympathetic then, too, because it is a burden. Um, I I juggled my job and was able to do it and was proud of our record.

I do think it's worth noting too, just when um even though if you're dealing in the case of certain digital records, are all those records again housed in the right place? I think that um you know, and depending on what the request is, do they have to be reviewed for privacy? there there is just more than that too. Um I would imagine that if there's a a whole document very easily readily available that's digital and can just be forwarded over that's probably an example of a foil that gets satisfied faster than one where you have to dig around and find stuff. I know I spend my day uh going through trying to find different records because a certain project started somewhere and it ended somewhere else and different documents when it listen um it's I will just to to not to take up your time venting but I definitely thought coming in here as deputy mayor one of the first things we would do is try to try to modernize and I know we have Tyler Technologies and various things but we are so so behind. I tell this story to off often to people. I first came into office. I go into my actual physical office. There's documents in piles and different things all over the place. I had to do a month or so long exercise of organizing. I had reports that had um you know Harry Tatun's name on it to current ARPA reports. And again, I'm not trying to slight any specific person. It's just the the recordkeeping here for for many many years. um you know is like a lot of the systems that we're working to update very outdated um you can have certain agreements are in paper certain agreements are digitized like our corp council noted everything now I think over many recent years everybody will digitize that much but even say my own records that I keep on my computer although that you have access to them that's I store them the way that I'm used to just like we all have our own little way of doing it I'm not here um and you know someone has to come in and try to decipher that we've dealt with that in many other ways. So, I do just

want that to be clear that access to information um is something that the public is is deserves and that's something that we're committed to. It's just not I think sometimes if you're not as acquainted with the city of Troy, not as acquainted with our outdated systems, you think, well, can't they just click it as if we're text messaging one one another? And I just that that's just not the case, you know. So, some things really do take a lot longer. Um, and every request uh is different. To be fair, then you made your own mess. And Rick, just for the record, noted. And then I went ahead and made my my office a bigger mess than I probably found it. So, you know, I'm guilty, too. But

I had a question about um this the document that you sent. Are are the dates all a skew because it's in the order of when they were fulfilled and some of them took longer? To be quite honest with you, I don't know. I saw that myself. It's just how the report gets run. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But I noticed that as well. And if someone comes in and files a paper request, does that get do you have to log it in here into the portal? I don't have to. No. But I do that is what I prefer for expediency like I said before. So if I get that consent from the person face to face, I will do that.

Okay. And do you note that? Just I haven't come across any that were noted that they were filed in person. I'm not I'm just curious. Um it's possible that some in there are listed. It's not included in the report because just doesn't have that feature. Um but when you add in a new request, it's either a walk-in or electronically filed. Okay. Thank you. I don't know if everyone saw the article about Boston Spa. Um, hiring someone, and I'm not suggesting we do that, but do you think something like that down the line would be helpful? Yeah,

probably. You're asking the wrong question. As the person that handles all of this daytoday 365 days a year, I would welcome that. Okay. But it it sounds like you have a couple people who routinely assist with this who who know the know how it works. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. Yeah, there's there's people in different departments throughout city hall um that are in charge of foils for their specific department. So, that's the person I would go to if that's what the uh uh requested documents, records lead me to go. Yeah. Gotcha. Thank you. Any other questions? Sure.

Yes. Um, for appeals, do you recognize email appeals as being as legitimate as a appeal that is written and sent by certified mail? I've been answering them to the best of my ability.

Okay. Some are some are more substantive than others. I see. Um and um one of the things that I don't know if it was in their present capacity or after the fact just because a lot of folks stay in town after working in the city. Uh but something that a lot of past communications directors have mentioned is how challenging it can be to be the person who both represents the city to the press and then is also responsible for the release of information. Most of which is totally innocuous. some portion of which either like the intent of the requester is to embarrass you or that like may actually be embarrassing whether it's not or not it's your fault. I'm curious, do you ever feel that tension when when you're stuck in that sort of dual role of like on the one hand being the communications director who puts out press releases and you know part of your job is is presenting the city in a good light and then in the other having to fulfill requests where some people are are looking for problems.

Not at all. Not at all. I'm bound by the law as well when I'm doing the foils as well. Okay, great.

Thank you. Well, I thank you for for sharing the information um and enlightening me at least on some things I didn't know. Um you know, I there's always going to be unhappy people. I think um I'm hoping that, you know, there the complaints that I've received are maybe um you know, a one-off oversight or or something like that. Um, but I do appreciate very much uh the information that you give us. Thank you. So, I get

it is except we're going to start our regular or our finance meeting now. Oh, we still have a take a seat, Rick. Yeah. Right. So, uh law committee meeting is adjourned. Do I have a motion to adjourn? I guess motion motion by motion by Councilman Campbell Cohen, seconded by Council Person McKe. So we are adjourned. Should we take a break? Yeah, I would suggest uh that we take a a brief break while we remove the table and move up the podium for finance. Good idea.

Please. Oh, I'm waiting for her. She's She's in the chambers. Yeah. Good evening everyone. Uh we'll proceed with the uh finance committee. Council member Dorenzo, present. Council member Stuber, present. Council member McLaren, present. Council member McKe, present. Council member Fabro, present. Council member Campbell Cohen, present.

And Council President Steel, also present. Um the agenda includes uh a number of ordinances and resolutions. If you're interested in a copy of the agenda, you would find it in the back of the chambers. Um at this time, if there's anyone who wishes to speak on any item on the agenda, you're welcome to come forward to the podium and um speak. It has to be something that's on the agenda. We would ask that you would come forward, give your name, place of residence. I'm not seeing anyone. Um Oh, one more time. Anyone wish to speak? Oh, okay.

Um the uh I just uh uh is it on

Hey uh uh uh David Banks uh uh 46 Bell Avenue um in in the back the the agendas are for the law committee so I'm not completely sure what is on is is anything to do with the uh CSA contract on the finance committee I apologize. Okay, thank you. All right, we'll move along then uh with the agenda. Ordinances. Ordinance 7, ordinance amending the rules and regulations of the city of Troy Department of Public Utilities. Council member Campbell Cohen, Council President Steel. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member McLaren. Second.

Second. Council member Struber. Discussion on the ordinance. Council President, Council Member Campbell Cohen,

I was offering other people an opportunity to ask questions or anything. Um, at a at a very high level for folks who don't have it in front of you, it is available online. Um, but what this ordinance does is it updates the Department of Public Utilities rules and regulations, mostly just housekeeping issues, um, uh, that have sort of accumulated over the years. Um and the the biggest issue that it is looking to resolve is the matter of um how sewer billing works for for properties that are not currently um actively connected um to our sewer system. Um uh in this ordinance the interaction is minimal. It's just referencing um what's going to happen in the city code afterwards. in uh ordinance 8. Um so I guess I'll leave that discussion to that, but um the administration has been very cooperative um while putting this together. I know we have a meeting in about a week um to see if there's anything that needs to be ironed out, but this has been um I think a long time coming and um a huge relief to definitely my constituents. I can't speak for anyone else's, but um who have sort of been navigating this issue for about eight years now um trying to trying to reach a resolution as to um how to go about dealing with their billing issues. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? I just have one or council member Fra. Yes. Um I just had a question for the administration. I was curious if there was any delay. I know there's some requirements here of having um email addresses where complaints could be directed printed on everybody's bills. Is that an issue or will that be a delay with the next round that's going out?

Could you state your question again, please? Sure. Yeah. No. Um I'm just noticing that there's a requirement that some updates have to happen to the physical bills that are being sent out. So I didn't know if um so Marne who is the sort of the chief biller for uh sword water

um has raised an has raised an issue with respect to the amount of space that there is on billing and that is one of the topics to be addressed at this sort of meet at this meeting where we try to figure out how we can implement these changes but right now because of our system KVS prints the bills Apparently, there's no space or no, but you know, maybe there's a workaround. Maybe maybe an insert with entire technologies. Hopefully, it won't be a problem.

But, you know, there's all these little glitches that occur uh when you're trying to, you know, turn the aircraft carrier, I guess. So, yeah, somebody who works with a system that's also antiquated, that's where my mind went because I knew there would be an issue. And when are we expected to have Tyler Technologies up and running? That I don't know. Okay. It takes I know when we bought it about half a year ago or maybe a little longer maybe nine months ago. I know it was at least a year of implementation and probably more like two two years. Okay.

Yeah. And and to that point, as sort of one of the drafters and sponsors, um I'm totally amendable to changing to make sure that we hit implementation timelines. I'm not eager to do that. But if it turns out that, you know, this just isn't doable along this timeline, I would rather us pass a law that can work um than the one that's like nominally more ambitious. Um, and so I'm I'm looking forward to that meeting in about a week, but um, it it is possible that there are going to have to be some slight changes here. All in favor? I I

opposed. Ordinance 7 adopted unanimously. Ordinance 8. Ordinance amending chapter 264 of the Troy City Code. Council member Campbell Cohen. Council President Steel. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Stuber. Second. Second. Council member Favro. Discussion on the ordinance. All in favor? I.

Opposed? Adopted. 70. Ordinance 10. Ordinance authorizing the reconveyance of real property acquired by Inrem foreclosure 34 Center View Drive. Council President Steel at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member McKe. Second. Second. Council member McLaren. Discussion on the ordinance. All in favor?

Opposed? Adopted. 70. Ordinance 11. Ordinance approving a grant of easement to Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation and Verizon New York, Inc. Council President Steel at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. We have a tie on that one. We can give it to Council Member McLaren with a second by Council Member McKe. Discussion on the ordinance. All in favor? I

opposed. Adopted. 70. Ordinance 12. Ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit New York Central Mutual Fire Insurance Company, ASO Anna L. Hughes versus Michael Bordon and the City of Troy, Renser County Supreme Court index number EF 2022-271535, Council President Steel at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Dorenzo. Second. Second. Council member McLaren. Discussion.

All in favor? I opposed. The ordinance is adopted. 70. Ordinance 13. Ordinance authorizing awards of neighborhood improvement project funds. Council President Steel, Council Member Spain McLaren, Council Member Stuber. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Dorenzo. Second. Second. Council member Stuber. discussion. Council President, Council Member McLaren.

Um I just want to thank everybody who submitted um these grant applications. Um a lot of people interested in improving their neighborhoods and you know uh we appreciate every little bit to beautify our city. I would echo that. I would also say it was interesting. There are a number of repeat uh applicants and that shows a a real commitment uh an ongoing love of your neighborhood, your city and wanting to continue in that effort. So, uh that was interesting to see. Council President, Council Member Stuber,

I also want to say thank you to everybody who submitted. Uh, reading all of the applications actually gave me ideas for things that can be done more in my neighborhood. So, I appreciate the creativity and the willingness of the community to step up and improve things for everybody. Thank you. Any other comments? Council member Campbakoa. I also want to express gratitude to um I think all of these proposals are great, but um I'm a homer for district 6 and um I think people really came out strong this year with quite a lot of proposals that um look great and

you know some of them are ongoing projects that um you're sort of reaping the world awards of more year over year over year and especially with those tree canopies you know walking on Third Street is night and day from walking on Third Street even a couple years ago or walking on other streets where um you don't have that kind of shade and as a dog walker that puts on like five or six miles every day, it's a huge difference and I'm just so grateful for having such an active neighborhood that um you know keeps coming back and doing more. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed.

Ordinance 13 is adopted 70. We move on to resolutions. Resolution 41, resolution of the Troy City Council accepting Main Street Grant in the amount of $200,000 for the Lancingberg building renovation program and authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with TAP, Inc. to administer the grant. Council President Steel, Council Member Dorenzo at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member McLaren. Second. Second. Council member Struber. Discussion on the resolution. Council President. Council member Dorenzo.

I just want to again, as my colleagues are doing with uh the previous ordinance, I want to express my gratitude uh to everyone who was involved in uh getting this $200,000 grant. Uh going to be very important for the Second A corridor in Lancingburg. Uh really looking forward to uh the work that's going to go into that and uh seeing the results. So, thank you. Thank you, Council President. Council member Stuber, is anybody from the administration here to answer questions about the grant as proposed? D is here.

Hello. Uh so for clarification, we applied for $500,000, but we were awarded 200. Correct. And in the original uh resolution for this, it mentions that each building is eligible for $50,000 unless it's residential and then it's $100,000. So what what does that mean for only getting $200,000? Like have what does that mean? Um, well, we had to be creative, but we did, um, give everybody an application and we tried to spread it out as much as we could. We have three possible projects. One of them is larger. It has a lot of residential and three commercial units, so that eats up a lot of the funding, but the other two are um really good alternatives. So we have to complete at least two resident uh two residential and three commercial storefronts. So our hope is to spread it out between a few buildings. But if it happens where just the one, you know, gets a majority of the funding, then that's how it'll be.

So there's application So there's applications that they submitted and then there's a a committee that decides. Yeah. Yeah. We kind of already did that part. um we had to backtrack a little to find some admin help to really get the pro or the project moving and completed within their time frame. So we reached out and we did an RFP and got some two selections back. One was local, one was not. So the committee that chose that one went for the local one.

I'm glad you mentioned timelines. That is my next question. Uh it it says in the resolution and the other items submitted that if TAP isn't under contract with the city by April 1st that the schedule needs to be adjusted and it's clearly after April 1st. So what does that mean for the project in general? Um we've been in communication with uh the New York State Homes and Community Renewal people checking in with them. So we will have to meet with them. they don't like to extend things and we were trying to keep it within the time frame but they said that if it happens where it has to be extended then we can do that. Okay.

It's a conversation we have to have with them. Okay. And then I also see in here um a note from TAP under section 4 where there's a $5 million insurance requirement and they typically only carry a $4 million rider. Where did that $5 million number come from? that probably from the RFP because I like five million more than four, but I'm willing to wave it and reduce it.

Awesome. That was my followup because they mentioned extra dollars if they needed to add insurance. So, it sounds like we're talking to TAP and we're going to wave that so we don't have to pay extra dollars. Correct. I think four million would cover their liability. Perfect. That's all I had. Thank you. You all in favor? I opposed.

Resolution 41 is adopted unanimously. Resolution 42, resolution ratifying acceptance of a grant from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation to undertake engineering planning activities at the city of Troy John F. John P. Buckley Water Treatment Plant, Council President Steel at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Favro. Second. Second. Second. Second by Council Member McKe. discussion on the resolution. Council President, Council Member Favra,

is there anybody from the administration um that can answer a couple questions?

Thank you. Um, so I'm going to start on the resolution page. The third whereas it mentions, so for the folks in the room who don't have an agenda in front of you, um, basically we've received a $50,000 grant from EFC, Environmental Facilities Corporation. Um, and there's some requirements here, but the third whereas mentions that we've had some civil penalties. I'm just curious what those have been. Yeah, there there was a uh I do believe there was a fine at one point for the uh for the excessive uh levels in the lagoon behind the water plant and that's just been one time.

Okay. Um it mentions in here that it requires a local match of $10,000. Yep. Yeah. 20% of the of the total 50,000. And that where is that coming from in our current budget? Do you know? I was just curious how that's being funded. Yeah, we could look into that. Yeah, but I I we have plenty of of uh money for that. We just could find a fund to take that out of. Okay. From that from your department. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um the biggest question that I had um is we have an award letter here dated August 6th of 2025 um to Mayor Mantel and part of this letter states um please confirm your acceptance of the grant award and intent to proceed with this project by completing and signing the enclosed form which is attached here. No later than August 29th of 2025. She did. Oh, she did? Yeah. We just don't have a copy. I neglected to provide it to you.

Okay. No further question.

Thank you. Council President, Council Member Struber, are there, it's not directly part of the grant, but in reading through the grant and the reason that we have to do this, um, are there any plans for preventing this in the future, like past the onetime cleanup? Yeah. So the the engineering study that would come with this, the engineering planning grant is to provide us with funding to hire an engineer to do a full study and analysis of how to prevent this from being an ongoing, you know, event.

They're going to come up with up to four different solutions. Oh, sorry. They're going to come up with uh four different solutions that we could look at to to fix the problem long term. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Council President, I' I've been up to the water plant. Um I don't think I've seen the sludge lagoon, but when it mentions Oil Mill Creek, is that an actual creek that this is contaminating? Oil Mill Creek is just south of the lagoons and runs down to the Hudson River.

Oh, okay. Thank you. That's it. Yeah. Guess that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. All in favor? I

opposed. Resolution 42 is adopted 70. Resolution 43, resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the city to enter into a contractual agreement with CDM Smith to investigate the city's sledge lagoons and sledge handling processes and to identify solutions that will bring them into regulatory compliance. Council Steele at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Stuber with a second by Council Member McKe. Discussion. All in favor?

I opposed. Resolution 43 is adopted. 70. 44. Resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the city to enter into a contractual agreement with Finch Turf, Inc. to purchase Foley Grinders. Council President Steel at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member McLaren. Second by Council Member Dorenzo. Discussion on the resolution. Council President. Council member Favra.

I just had a question for the administration. I was just curious what budget line this was coming out of for the G um golf course. So, it's actually coming out of the uh 2020 capital plan budget. I don't have the specifics, but it's out of recreational department. Okay. There's no uh nothing tied to the funds at all. So, we verified that with the controller. Okay.

Any other questions? Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Resolution 44 is adopted. 70 45 resolution of the city Troy City Council ratifying acceptance of a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation urban and community forestry grant and authorizing administration of the grant. Council President Steel at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Struber. Second. Second. Council member McLaren. discussion. You can go first. Council President, I will recognize council member McLaren.

Thank you. Our president prom. Is there um someone who can answer questions about this?

Hello. Hello. Um so we as um a council um at on different occasions have been approached by people offering arborists you know certified arborists offering their services to make sure that um the you know the just offering their help. Do do we we don't currently have anyone who's considered to be an arborist on staff in the city? Correct. No.

Okay. Would the administration be willing to work with an arborist in conjunction with this project? Yes. Proono, by the way. I honestly don't know. I mean, I'm not sure about what the grant requirements are. I haven't read it uh through in its entirety. Uh but I think the grant requires an RFP of sort. Yeah. To be uh contracted. So, but that may be for the actual work trimming and the pruning and things like that,

right? Um I I don't know if someone wants to if if you know an arborist who wants to volunteer their services to the city, they should probably write a letter to the administration. Okay. Offering same and and I guess it has to be uh vetted by the DEC forest in charge. Okay, that makes sense. Could the RFP include that that that you know the the companies applying to do this work employ arborists or use the you know the expertise of arborists to do this work? I just think you know it's important trees are important obviously. Um

I think this actually arose out of a study that was previously performed by an arborist in Prospect Park. Okay. um which identified certain trees that should be pruned or removed. Okay. Not I'm not fully aware of all the parameters because I'm not an expert in the grant. Yeah. This is based on this is an implementation grant from uh a grant that was previously uh awarded to a city in 2019 I guess. Uh and it's based on the uh community forest management plan. Okay. So this grant is specifically implementing that and based on work uh specifically for prospect park. Okay. So they we have identified certain trees that need to be uh worked on. Okay. Already. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Council member Stuper, you mentioned uh things that this grant is based off of. Do you know if using native trees is one of the requirements for this project? No. You don't know or they're not? The DEC has given us u list of trees to be used to plant because we are this grant includes the planting of 20 trees and so they have uh list of trees that has to be uh used in this park and I'm not sure if I'm not sure if it has to

I guess you're not sure if they're all native or Yeah. Right. It is a DEC approved list that we have to follow in order to collect the money for the reimbursement. So would there be an objection to adding to the resolution to use native trees as practical based on this list?

Yes. The natives are always highly recommended. They are, but I think we have to double check with the fun in aspect of it for their specific list. But I don't see an issue if we all decide to pick just native trees. Okay.

Amendment. You're right. Uh my last thing is a motion to amend uh to add a paragraph after the third resolved paragraph stating be it further resolved that the administration shall choose native trees for the project per section 4.1.9 of the 2018 comprehensive plan to the maximum extent practicable with species and locations recommended by a local professional Arburest. We have a motion on the floor. I'll second that. Seconded by council member McLaren. Is the clerk clear on the

amendment? Just wait. Yeah. You said to the maximum extent practical, could you add perhaps consistent with the grant requirements? Yes, that makes sense. Okay. Okay, we have a motion that's been made and seconded. Uh on the motion, uh any questions, discussion? All in favor? I opposed. The amendment has been adopted unanimously. Um now on the amended resolution, any further discussion? Uh Council President, Council Member Favro,

uh for the I'm looking at the work plan that came with the grant. Um and there the fourth objective is to ensure the public is part of the project including making decisions and the task is to at least send out a public notice to residents once the work is completed. Um and then for the performance measures the second part states a report of meeting held with the public and their comments. So I just wanted to confirm that it was your intention to hold a public meeting. Yes. And um do you have an idea of when that'll be at this point? At this point, no, I don't have an but within the next six months. Okay. Yeah.

So the work will be after the RFP after we've conducted our RFP and we have a contractor. Okay. We involve the locals to and the work will be completed in 2026 or is this for next year? Next year. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you very much. All in favor? I opposed. And I just to clarify that was on the amended resolution.

And that amended resolution was adopted 70. Resolution 46, resolution of the Troy City Council proclaiming May 1st, 2026 to be International Workers Day in the city of Troy. Council member Campbell Cohen. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member McLaren. Second. Second. Council member Favro. Discussion on the resolution. Council President.

Council member Campbell Cohen. Um I most folks are aware of International Workers Day at this point for one reason or another, but um uh for context um for anyone who isn't. Um in the United States, we generally celebrate Labor Day. In the rest of the world, it's International Workers Day and it's it's Mayday, May 1st. Um and uh there's a lot of history behind that change that we don't have to get into. um uh some of us are a little salty about it, but um uh Troy has a really special place sort of at the crossroads of um labor and government and politics and um I thought it was important for us to honor Mayday in this city as well as Labor Day. Um uh it's something that a lot of municipalities around the state do and um this is a very difficult time for a number of reasons for organized workers across the country. Um you know a lot of the laws that protect their rights are under attack. Uh the people who are interpreting those laws are not as friendly as they once were to workers. And um a lot of employers see this moment as a bit of a jailbreak to see what they can get away with. Um and speaking for myself, um I I find this really upsetting. Um, but I'm also so inspired by workers who are fighting back um and taking this as an opportunity uh to not just hold the line but also organize um you know tease out the tensions in the workplaces and and create bonding opportunities with their fellow co-workers. And uh that was the purpose of this resolution here this year. I hope we can celebrate this day every year going forward. Thank you.

Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Resolution 46 is adopted 70. Resolution 47, resolution of the Troy City Council proclaiming May 22, 2026 to be Harvey Milk Day in the city of Troy, Council Member Campbell Cohen, Council Member Dorenzo, Council Member Spain McLaren. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Stuart. Second. Second. Council member McLaren. Discussion on the resolution. Council President,

member Campbell Cohen.

Um, for folks who might be um less familiar with Harvey Mil, he's the first uh elected elected openly gay man in American history um to public office. um and he was tragically assassinated by one of his co-workers um on the board of supervisors in San Francisco a year later, but uh not before he got an awful lot done in public office and as an activist beforehand. Um, one of the really special things I think about Harvey Mil was the way that he inspired a sort of new version of solidarity. Um, that really took flight not just in the United States but across the world really. I mean, you've saw very very very similar templates of organizing in like Welsh mines, Welsh coal mines not that long after. Um but what what he basically saw was um beyond sort of superficial differences that we might have with our neighbors that um we are all sort of bound together and and struggle for um the better day. And um you know when we see that with clarity and work together, we overcome a lot of our prejudices. Um and um you know I'm not a personally a member of the LGBTQ plus community, but I am a member of um a labor union um proudly and a labor delegate and um I have so much respect for my LGBTQ plus colleagues both in this role and in the labor movement and just kind of wanted to honor that with this resolution. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Oh, oh, Council Member McLaren,

I was just going to say, um, I am proud to co-sponsor this. Um, I honestly had never heard of Harvey Mil until um, someone brought him up at a meeting around about a year ago because we were talking about um, Pride and we were talking about um, you know, notable people who were part of the um, the LGBTQ plus community. Um, I'm also uh the daughter of a a Navy a Navy guy. Um, and I think it's well, Greg put it so nicely, but it's kind of a, you know, solidarity in the pride movement as well as solidarity in the labor movement. Two of which are so important. um and they're kind of um intertwined uh in this resolution. So, I'm proud to co-sponsor. All in favor?

I opposed. Resolution 47 is adopted 70. 48. Resolution of the Troy City Council urging the state of New York to preserve the Martin Dunham reservoir and dam in Grafton Lake State Park. Council member Campbell Cohen, Council Member Fabro. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member McLaren. Second by Council Member Dorenzo. Discussion. Council President.

Council member Fatro. Um I just wanted to say um I'm proud to sponsor this. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with the dam up in Grafton, it was a significant um part of our history here in Troy. only because it was uh our water supply for a time for a time being. Uh and I know recreationally the uh reservoir has been a great resource for not only the p the residents up in Grafton but also in Troy. It's a short drive up. Um, but being in district 5, we've seen what's happened when dams have failed, and I know a lot of residents are very upset that that dam wasn't restored um with all of the impacts that it's had ecologically. So, I am proud to support this and I would like to urge the state to support and fund this dam.

Thank you, Mr. President Council Member Campbell Cohen.

I'm also a sponsor of this resolution. It's been a busy few weeks. Um uh you know, I go out sometimes. Um, but I I was motivated to put this forward not just by um uh residents and um of both my district and neighboring districts that uh were asking for it, but also uh what tremendous recreational value uh this place holds for um so many people in Troy. um my center of gravity doesn't really lend itself to stand up paddle boarding. Um but uh for a lot of people it's like the place to go and stuff like that. You know it sounds like a small thing but um having those opportunities if it's important to you it's the difference between whether you stay or where you go if you are able to sort of practice the hobbies that make you feel whole. Um, and it would be really tragic to me if if we lost that. Um, and um, I would be devastated if we lost the people who who care about it. Um, because they wanted to go someplace where that was an option. Thank you.

Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Resolution 48 adopted 70 49. Resolution to commend the North Central Community Solidarity Group for continued service to the community. Council member Struber. Is there a motion? Motion. Council member Dorenzo. Second. Second. Council member McLaren. Discussion. Council President. Council member Strer.

I just wanted to thank the North Central Solid North Central Community Solidarity Group for everything that they have been doing for the North Central community for quite a while. I've been at many of their events. Uh they do a lot of grassroots work, so not as big or as known as a Boys and Girls Club. uh but doing a lot of a lot of similar things getting at risk youth involved in productive things like basketball tournaments, egg hunts, uh giving out pajamas around Christmas, giving out backpacks around the start of school, and really just being in the community with the youth. Um it takes a lot to put yourself out there for the benefit of children's lives. So, I appreciate the work that they do. Um, I also was told Priscilla might be here and want to speak. Do you want to say anything?

You don't have to. I just wanted to give you the opportunity.

Hi, I'm Priscilla. Um I am a part of the North Central Community Solidarity Group. Um yes, we are not a big organization. Um our work does not look like um any of the other um smaller organizations out there working with kids and youth. Um but I am proud of what we do. We do little things to help. And um like a lot of you would probably never know that seven kids are living in a hallway because it's cold outside and I don't know if they have a home. I don't know if their home is um abusive or anything. So, um that's the type of um work and that's the type of help that we want to give and we are still striving to to do it.

Thank you. And you're doing great. Thank you. Thank you so much. All in favor?

I opposed. Resolution 49 is adopted 70. Now, according to the rules of the council, there is no public forum during a committee meeting. However, there do seem to be a few folks in the chambers who I think have some things to say. So, I'm going to wave that rule tonight and allow a another public forum on any topic. And if you're interested in speaking, please come forward. Give us your name, place of residence.

Uh David Banks, 46 Bell Avenue, uh 16 years uh uh next month uh in Troy. Um uh uh thank you for for opening this uh this uh unscheduled public comment. Uh I am also the uh the secretary of the Troy area labor council and I first wanted to extend thanks uh uh for resolutions 46 and 47 that means a lot to our organized union siblings um in uh in Troy and Wler County. It's um particularly you know important given you know some of the statements you know regarding the the Harvey Milk um resolution. It's very important that, you know, given past statements from this from previous council members that we kind of reset relations on that. I I I really appreciate that. Um I I I I came here tonight also just uh to um reiterate some points in a letter that um our president Sean Collins um sent to the administration regarding the CSEA contract. Uh I I I'll just note that, you know, sitting through the the two meetings tonight, it seemed pretty clear that, you know, we we heard very similar things between the uh our um unionized workforce and the Nickerbacher board. The we both in both cases we hear uh that you know like no one no one's answering emails, phone calls, that there was a disturbing lack of professional communication there. And so I I I I I tend to believe that two points make a line in that regard. So, you know, I I think if the mayor has uh time to take pictures with with the workers, to comment on Facebook about what's going to happen to the pork store, you know, that she has time to sit down with her own city workers and get a final updated contract. I I I I found it confusing that the deputy mayor

also said that um all bargaining units seem to work off of a contract with an MOA attached to it. Uh this wouldn't be sustainable after the next contract. You know what I mean? Like there has to be like a contract and then you attach an MOA to it. You're just going to keep attaching MOAs to it. That's not really how contract how how contracts work. Um but then later we also heard that this particular problem had um it happens to all uh of our bargaining units. They said their MOAs in almost all of them. Uh but then said that the problem that we were facing with this with CSEA refusing to bargain after they never answered any emails was only because of of of this disagreement. So like it's kind of hard to tell which is which. And then UFA apparently does have an integrated contract. So it raise a question of why no one else does. So um and and then just you know person just finally like there there's just no reason for CSA to delay its own contract. Like that just doesn't make any sense. No there's no one in the bargaining unit would benefit from delaying their own contract that they voted on and ratified. So, um I I I I think that this is um uh you know, just nothing short of a of of a disgrace to uh and uh to our our our city's workers that deserve just just so much more the the basic decency of a signed contract. Thank you very much.

Thank you, David. Hi, my name is Dear Dasher, uh, District 4, South Central Troy. Um, first I wanted to thank the city council for all the mundane yet essential work you've been doing to help the city get more organized and communicate clearly to residents. I think it was pretty great. Um, I'm here to bring up the block cameras again. Thank you, city council, for hearing our concerns and responding to them. I know that you are actively working on this issue and I appreciate your hard work. I would however like to complain about the emergency declaration that the mayor's office made three weeks ago which felt like a dramatic escalation of events after a very measured approach from the city council to take some time to learn more about the issue. Um and mayorello our def group would love to sit down with your office to talk about our concerns with flock and alpr cameras. Your office invoked a declaration of emergency to pay for these surveillance cameras, even though an overwhelming number of your city con constituents showed up here and asked for their removal. Instead of taking some time to learn about more about them or understand the community's concerns, you immediately responded with a no. But I'm not sure that you truly understand how these cameras work and what is at stake as we keep them running in Troy. And I won't bore everyone with the same information that we've been sharing for the past few months now, but there are three points that I would like to bring to the attention of the office of the mayor. And I emailed these you to you a few days ago um so you can reference them later. We have not seen any audit of any kind from Troy PD sharing who has accessed Troy drivers data through Flock's National Flocks National Search feature. We have not seen any audit of any kind of which crimes have been solved using flock cameras and how these cameras were useful. And we have not seen any

evidence of due process before accessing the TPD flock database, which logs every car's pattern of movement within the city of Troy and beyond. And the mayor's office has not shared any concrete evidence of how effective and safe these cameras actually are, despite claiming that they are worth emergency funding. And by concrete evidence, I don't mean anecdotes from the police. We want to see statistics. Show us records. Taking your word for it is not enough. We need to see proof. We are concerned about the safety of our neighbors and you have said repeatedly that ICE is not access, but we haven't seen any evidence to support that claim. A couple of weeks ago, the Saratoga Springs Police Department shared their flock transparency portal, which while deficient, is at least some information. And that transparency transparency portal revealed that over a thousand agencies nationwide have access to their data. One of which is Florida Fish and Wildlife. Why does Fish and Wildlife Department need access to ALPR data in upstate New York? Investigative journalism has revealed that they are working with ICE to search municipalities far outside of Florida. And we only know this because hundreds of searches for hundreds of searches they wrote immigrant under reasons for search or immigration. And this was first discovered by a flock audit performed by Ball State University in Indiana, which is not even a police municipality or police department, excuse me. The only way for us to know that what the mayor's office and TPD claim are true is a comprehensive audit. A declaration of emergency to pay for the system does not seem valid or legal. and sure as hell doesn't shouldn't be paying for something that we don't know that we know doesn't protect us. And by declaring an emergency, the mayor has bypassed accountability and the democratic process. The public was has not been allowed to weigh in just like we were not allowed to weigh in when this these cameras were first implemented in 2021 and then renewed in 2023. But it's not too late to change your

mind and it's not too late to learn something new. And so we are asking you to please, if you'd like, sit down with us or at least produce these audits to back up your claims. And we thank you for this public forum and this opportunity to say so.

Thank you, Deedra. camera. Sorry. Having a a day today. Um I have uh two things I wanted to comment on and sorry

hear your name. Sorry, Francis sweet uh district 6. Um and because flock was on uh because foil was on the agenda of the law committee. Um I wanted to comment on how it's been affecting flock uh in this area. Um there's been an ongoing problem with foil in Troy regarding flock. Um, in 2023 there was a request for information and the person was told in June of that year that nothing existed. And yet we know that isn't true. The contract was originally signed in July of 2021 by then Captain Barker and was renewed in December 2022 by Captain Kylie. So why was the information not given in 2023 in accordance with foil law? Two other people foiled in February of this year, but were only given back a poorly copied procurement form, not the contract. And yet, the contract was revealed just before the March 19th council meeting since then, we've submitted a lot more, and I sure hope we receive more information than was given in 2023 or this past February. um and on flock and actually on the mayor's state of emergency specifically when the mayor declared a state of emergency in order to pay the flock contract that she was not authorized to sign. I was shocked. I hadn't occurred to me that an executive could declare an emergency for anything other than an actual emergency. Um, but when I looked into it, apparently Carmemella Mantel has declared an emergency 10 times since she's been mayor. The first was only 6 days into her term

and was for the station pump fa pump pump station failure. But actually, according to the WAMC news article, public works feared a failure, but there had at the time been none. Mantel said she was working proactively. I didn't know you could declare an emergency before the emergency had actually happened because but was she even doing that? Because according to the same article, most of the parts had already been ordered and the work was already scheduled. In fact, the direct quote from Mantel is, "It'll allow us to immediately go into action rather than having to go out to bid and wait 30 days." That doesn't sound like an emergency. That just sounds like she was trying to get around the rules. The second was 5 days later for the demolition of a condemned building, which was only announced on Facebook as far as I can find. The third was for the controller vacancy over a month after his departure to pay proexus. Can't have been that much of an emergency if it took a month to declare it. And in fact, that emergency lasted six months. Former Councilman Barra said that it's certainly been enough time to come to the council and authorize additional spending without the need to use that mechanism. And I agree. There were two in March of that year. One for a winter storm, again only listed on Facebook. The other was for the landslide on Spring A that took out five power poles. And somehow that emergency required that they landscape and quote, "Make it look nice." They added a welcome sign and a couple benches. Were those paid for out of emergency funds? The sixth was in November of 2024 to

demolish another building, which only rushed along something that was already in progress through the planning board usurping their authority. The seventh was February 2025 to bypass procurement to purchase more road salt despite the shortage in 2024. Her budget proposal for 2025 included $50,000 less for salt. In August 2025, there were another two. One, an actual emergency was for a water mane break, but the other was to knock down another building. And 10 brings us back to the beginning. a state of emergency to override the city council regarding payment of the flock contract. An obvious and gross misuse of executive power. On this list are three emergencies declared to get around procurement. This is a pattern for her and it needs to be stopped in its tracks. Real emergencies exist. This is not one of them. Please find a way to end this and take back your power as a legislative body. Thank you. Thank you, Francis. Always have to move it down. Uh, good evening. My name is Silva Manard, 2100 block of Fifth A. Thank you, city council. It's been a busy couple months and I appreciate your dedication to your responsibilities to the community. Others have spoken about the emergency declaration made by the mayor and have questioned the legality of this emergency declaration. So, I will not go into this in more detail. I will instead bring up some fairly new information. The last 20 the last 48 hours in

Oshkosh, Wisconsin revealed significant developments about Flock safety. A council member asked Flock a direct question two nights ago. The answer was false. The police chief found out the lies the next morning, told the city manager immediately, and under short notice, the council held a special session last night and rescended the approval of the flock contract 70 apologizing to their community. Troy's council deserves the same quality of information. I ask Mayor Mantel and our chief and deputy chief of police to reconsider their support of the flock contract and the cameras that are in our city and to contact their counterparts in Oshkosh directly to understand what changed their minds. I support the council as you continue your work to protect our residents privacy rights. I have transcripts from both council meetings in Oshkosh available for reference as well as the related resolutions. Good night. Thank you, Silva. Hi, I'm Beex Cahill of District 6. Uh, first I want to thank the council uh for recognizing May 22nd as Harvey Milk Day. Um, as we're watching the queer community be persecuted across the country, it is reassuring to see the support for the queer community on a local level. Um, but now, uh, what I'm really up here for is first off, I'd like to wish all of Troy a happy 23rd day of state of emergency. Um, and I'd like to congratulate, uh, Mayor Mantel on a nice even 10 states of emergencies in less than two years, uh, as mayor.

Um, as per Troy City Charter under section C40, a state of emergency would be confflaguration, riot, storm, earthquake, or other unusual peril to the lives and properties or both to the citizens of Troy. Mayor Mantel cited continuation of the flight contract as reason for the current state of emergency. Now, despite many requests and ample opportunity, the police department has not provided any statistics or data supporting claims that flock has a positive impact on public safety. The state of emergency is simply an illegal act of executive overreach. Interestingly, you could argue that 32 illegal ICE kidnappings right here in Troy would be considered a state of emergency. Uh, we know various entities such as Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation have performed flock database searches on behalf of ICE and we know that Saratoga Springs, the nearest city with a flock transparency portal, has had their flock database searched by Florida Fish and Wildlife. We do not know if Troy's national lookup feature is still paused. We do not know or we do not have a transparency portal for Troy and we don't know what entities have access Troy's database. If Troy administration actually prioritized safety, they would terminate the flock contract and remove the cameras given the evidence that has been repeatedly presented to them. If they prioritized revenue and the local economy, they would not be we would not be in a continued state of emergency. After all, who wants to come to a city three weeks into an active crisis to patron businesses? Who wants to move to a city with an indefinite state of emergency? So, I'm here tonight to request that Mantel saves a city's time

and budget and concede. Instead of forcing litigation, she could immediately end the state of emergency, terminate the flock contract, and remove the cameras, allowing an annual $78,000 to be added to the Troy Police Department budget. This would be instead of replacing a human being officer, with AI. So, Mayor Mantel, will you cease your active efforts to defund the police? We would like to know. or do you want to This is not a back and forth. This is the public forum. I just think that's a rhetorical very telling. Thank you. Thank you.

Does anyone else wish to address the council on any item as part of the public forum? Seeing none.

Hello. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Hi, I'm Brianna Biden. I'm in District 6. I don't really have anything to be prepared, but after I noticed the thing with the flock, I was like, "Wow, let me get down in here. I've never been here before." So, so nice to meet all of you. So, um, about a year ago, I had a situation in which is I'm sorry. Is your mic on? Is it on? It is. Let's see. Then you need to speak into it a closer maybe. Hello. Yeah, you guys can hear me. Yeah, when I said hello earlier, you didn't say hi back. That's why. Got it.

So, I'm Brianna. I'm from District 6. I've never been here before. So, nice to meet everyone. Um, so pretty much a year ago or maybe two years ago, um, I decided I got locked out of my home and I was like, "Okay, um, I need to get my keys now. My mother doesn't live super far away." So, I asked her to Uber it over. So, she's like, "No problem. I'll Uber it over." So, she puts in the Uber. The Uber driver uh begins to drive over, but um then doesn't come. No worries. I can see where the driver is. I can see a picture of where they're at. Um I will find out later that they went home with my keys and also know my address. So, I contact Uber and as you know, Uber doesn't exactly have live support. Uh they get back to you when they get back to you. Uh the night passes. Um, I decide to go ahead and head to uh Troy's Police Department. I go there. Uh, I I let them know uh what happened. They said, "Oh, well, you know, you have to talk to Uber." And I said, "I did talk to Uber." I had at that point. And they were like, "Well, we'll need a license plate." And I'll say, "Okay, well, I do have the license plate as provided by Uber, and here's the screenshot. I provide that to them." They're like, "Okay, well, I just don't think that this license plate is actually going to match to where the address is, where the person's living." They go ahead, they do that. It matches not only the place where they live, but actually on my screenshot of where they stop the drive because they currently have my keys in their home, right? Um, and they're like, "Well, there's really nothing we can do, but if we ever do stop them at a traffic stop, then we'll be able to do something." So I said, "Okay, well, uh, what do I expect from the police?" Um,

and now to realize that that same police have access to my, you know, flock data, I just, it's not exactly great. And, um, if you guys are wondering, no, I never got back my keys. Thank you.

Thank you, Brianna. Hello, my name is Ule Laour. I live in District 4 and this is my first time addressing the city council. Um, like many of the other constituents in Troy, I am here to oppose the state of emergency that Carmela Mantel has declared 23 days ago. I think it is a gross overreach of executive power and I think it's very telling how there has been no transparency and no audits of the flock data. So we don't know if there is an emergency to be reacting to or not. I would ask that you the council um help us the citizens to address this overreach of power and I thank your efforts in doing so.

Thank you. You Does anyone else wish to address the council at this time? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Motion second made by council member McLaren, second by council member Dorren. All in favor? I opposed. We're adjourned. Thank you all.