City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Troy City Council. We are going to be having a public hearing, but before we do that, I'd like to ask you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

It is 531, and I would like to call this public hearing to order. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Council Member DiLorenzo.

Present.

Council Member Struber. Present. Council Member Spain-McLaren.

Present.

Council Member McKee. Present. Council Member Favreau. Present. Council Member Campbell-Cohen.

Present.

Council President Steele.

Present. All members are present. Council President, I move that the Council resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole for the purpose of conducting a public hearing.

Clerk, would you please read the Notice of Call?

Notice of public hearing regarding proposed local law number three of 2026, establishing standards governing the city's use of automatic license plate reader ALPR systems. The public hearing will be held on June 4th, 2026 at 530 PM at City Council Chambers Troy City Hall, at which time all interested parties may be heard.

The public hearing regarding Local Law Number 3 is now open. Just to remind folks, this law is currently under a bit of a pause while we await data that will help us to continue to craft the language of the law. but we are conducting this hearing based on the law that we have before us, the proposed law that we have before us. The rules of the chair are as follows. No one but a citizen or a taxpayer of the city or an attorney at law representing a citizen uh shall be allowed to speak provided however the president may in her discretion allow other interested persons to speak the person wishing to speak shall upon being recognized by the chair give his or her name and residence and if an attorney the names and addresses of every person whom he or she represents all remarks shall be directed to the chair and there will be no discussion between persons present no person shall extend his or her remarks beyond five minutes but if the person represents several others the chair may waive that the allowance of any rebuttal remarks shall be solely with the discretion of the chair at this point anyone who is interested in speaking As part of the public hearing is invited forward to the podium.

Okay.

Hi, I do not live in Troy, but I do work here. Can I?

The chair will waive that rule.

Okay, I appreciate it. I'm a member of the Troy community. I work here and my wife and I walk our dogs here and attend the Saturday farmer markets regularly. Firstly, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the Troy City Council for their efforts regarding proper usage of the ALPRs in our community. I know your job is often thankless and I sincerely express my gratitude. And I regretfully must ask for more. Local law number three is an essential step to codify usage of ALPRs. It outlines a clear purpose and definite standards. However, it still allows ALPR usage, which I and many in the Troy community are strictly against. Mayor Mantello's emergency declaration notes that these cameras are required to keep the public safe. We disagree. In Aurora, Colorado, 2020, Brittany Gilliam, her six-year-old daughter and three other girls were held at gunpoint and handcuffed by officers who mistakenly believed that the car was stolen due to ALPR data. They were not safe. In Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 2021, Michael McSherry pled guilty to stalking charges after using ALPR readers to track his estranged wife, Alexandria Griffith, and her family members. Griffith read a victim impact statement in which she noted McSherry tracked her and her family for nearly a decade. Over 250 times tracking my license plate, said Griffith. She was not safe. And these are not isolated cases. The Institute for Justice has compiled a list of 16 reported cases where ALPRs have been used to stock romantic interests. This technology has also been used to attract vulnerable groups, such as immigrants, women seeking reproductive healthcare, and even political protesters. In five years, when the same arguments are made for facial recognition software on our streets, will we allow that as well? Are we willing to allow technology that at all times knows where you were, are, and are most likely to be? And now is the time to ask, how many of our liberties are we willing to sacrifice in the name of safety? Safety, which is the inevitable justification of any manipulative campaign. There's not a person here who doesn't care about safety, but this technology is not safety. It's surveillance. It's removing privacy and freedom of Troy residents and using 80,000 of their tax dollars annually to do it. AOPRs will be at best an unconsented tool and at worst a weapon. Regardless, if we allow them, that choice would not be up to those whom it impacts and the people of Troy deserve better. Thank you for your time.

For the record, would you please share your name?

Patrick Fitzgerald and I live in Schenectady.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Akiva Benbow. I'm a resident of Troy. I've lived in Troy.

I'm sorry, could you speak closer to the mic? You can take it off if it's easier for you.

Hi, my name is Akiva Benbow. I've lived in Troy all my life. I'm a part of Troy for Black Lives. We have a statement. Troy for Black Lives strongly supports the demand for Troy to immediately remove the flock cameras and not replace them with a different brand of surveillance. For our black and other BIPOC communities, there is no harmless surveillance. There is no period of time to keep surveillance records that is short enough to prevent them from being mined for data that will be used to criminalize, disrupt, and disadvantage our people. There is no brand of surveillance that is designed for us to monitor our officials instead of them monitoring us. Surveillance only works in one direction, those with power over those without. Troy for Black Lives organizes for more power for communities instead of more power for cops. We call on the city council to reject the use of AI power surveillance in the city and invest in community-led safety. Also, I want to add, this is just my addition. Officer French would have been caught on this flock camera or our flock camera. And I don't know if that would have changed anything. So I don't know if it's to protect or who is, who is the fly cameras to protect.

Thank you.

We have one individual online who was asked to speak. Um, are they still there? They haven't raised their hand if the person online wishes to address the Council as part of the public hearing, please use the raise your hand feature. Is there anyone else who wishes to participate in the public hearing.

My name is John Cutro. I'm from Troy originally and went to Troy High, class of 70. I don't want to bury the lead. I'm an investigator and worked as a homicide investigator for the state of New York. in death penalty cases, and I've also done undercover work in tracking serial killers as basically a confidential informant. As an investigator, I love information. I find that the availability of information as an investigator is incredibly attractive to how you get your job done to the extent that I'm not going to make any disclosures against myself here however um let's just suffice to say i have directly witnessed when i've needed information and been told you need a warrant for that and then an officer that i know will call me over and hypothetically turn the uh turn the monitor around and say i'm going for a cup of coffee happen more than once in my practice and in other people's practices it is hard to resist getting your job done in a very highly efficient manner and my concern with regard to flock cameras and this is where i don't want to bury the lead i don't think that they need to necessarily be eliminated but they need to be stopped now until guidelines can be put in place particularly ones where the data evaporates in some communities it evaporates in a matter of minutes or hours unless you've got a judicial warrant and a darn good reason that is surveilled by citizens not just the police and people in power but that is surveilled by citizens as well to say no this is justified this is to solve an important crime that protects public safety and so until those kinds of things can be in place to where data evaporates unless it's really needed we don't have enough protection for them to be here. And that is not the case. So until those kinds of guidelines are there, as well as the kind of guidelines that will hold people who violate the rules, including investigators and others, and hold people who bend the rules in order to get their job done more efficiently, which is extremely tempting to any investigator, particularly homicide investigators who are trying to prevent someone else from being harmed. Thank you. Thank you very much, John.

Hello, my name is Emma Della Pia. I live on Euclid Avenue here in Troy, and I am opposed to mass surveillance generally, including Fox Safety, and I do support the law being put forwards. The idea of creating a mass surveillance state, while it kind of seems science fictiony, In the mid 2000s, the country of China had created the largest comprehensive mass surveillance system in history in any nation. And now they famously, you may have heard, have turned this into a social credit score where they can monitor an individual across multiple systems and use that to track them and place a value on their contributions to society. I would oppose the creation of a system like that here in our country. And it starts with systems like these. Once every municipality has adapted some sort of flock or comprehensive mass surveillance system, they can be used nationally to track us. And I know part of this legislation is stopping the sharing, but I don't necessarily trust the companies that are behind mass surveillance for that because they have a financial incentive to share and sell our information. And they also kind of get us coming and going because we pay the subscription fee and then not only do we pay them to surveil us, they can then take our information and sell it to others. And while they can say and have all of these policies saying that they will respect that, they've shown in practice that they don't. So our faith has to be placed into billionaire owners of surveillance companies and into the incorruptibility of people like Mark Wayne Mullen and Kash Patel. And I don't necessarily trust them. And I don't necessarily advocate that anyone trusts them. these systems are dangerous just to exist because they collect such a comprehensive amount of information on any single citizen they can track us doing anything any political activity say they want to crack down on people advocating for lgbtq rights in pride month that is enabled by a system such as the block camera system but would also be enabled by any master balance system because they would be incentivized to share information with their competitors in order to sweeten the deal for selling their own system So I really support this legislation, and I encourage you to prohibit any kind of mass surveillance in our city forevermore.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon members of the City Council. My name is Brian Paz-Hernandez. I live in District 5. Hope everyone's having a great Thursday. I'm a teacher and I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the proposed local law establishing standards governing the city's use of ALPR. On March 19th, Councilmember Stuber asked the Mantella administration for an SOC2 audit report of the police's use of the FLOG camera system. This report would allow you folks to know the date and time of the FLOG data query or access by the police. the stated purpose of the query, the geographic scope of the query, and much more important information. The City Council never received that audit from the Montello administration. That is shameful. It's been 77 days since the request was made, 77 days that the public has been kept in the dark by the Troy Police, 77 days that the Troy Police Department and the Mayor Montello have willingly ignored the requests of an elected official and spat on the face of transparency the people of troy deserve to know how this flock tech is being used and whether or not the police have used it at any point in the last six years for immigration enforcement purposes so shame on mayor montello and my message to the mayor and her administration is that if you don't want the public to know what you do with their tax dollars then perhaps you shouldn't be in public service I'd like to also mention some things I think that can be improved with the legislation. It can be strengthened by adding a cybersecurity section requiring all AOPR vendors used by the city to comply with security standards designed to protect against hacking, unauthorized access, and data breaches. I understand that the city truly has a limited ability to regulate the inner workings of a private vendor like Flock. However, I think the law could institute requirements for private ALPR vendors like Flock and require annual reporting that demonstrates that those cybersecurity requirements are in fact being met. And honestly, if an ALPR vendor can't prove that they're safe and secure online, then we shouldn't do business with them. That's one of the reasons why many of us here today are demanding a full cancellation of the FLOC contract. I also think this local law should have a shutdown provision where the Troy Police Department would shut down the FLOC system or any ALPR vendor if a breach in cybersecurity is found to have occurred. And additionally, I mentioned this two weeks ago, we should talk about ALPR data sharing outside of the city. I'm glad that the legislation requires judicial warrants for access to data, but like John just mentioned, police unofficially, law enforcement unofficially shares data with each other under the table. And ICE, Trump's Gestapo has been known to access ALPR data in other cities through backdoor channels. So this legislation should address that fact. And the last thing I'll mention is that there's a section of the proposed law that says that ALPR use is prohibited in certain cases, except if it's allowed for parking enforcement. I think this exemption is too broad. Parking enforcement should not be included as an exception to expanded surveillance retention. And I think parking violations are not really a serious threat to public safety and therefore should not be a good exception to use this flawed ALPR technology. The 48-hour deletion rule also contains a parking-related exception that could potentially apply to a large number of ordinary residents of our city. Nearly everyone receives parking tickets, including myself at some point, which creates unnecessary opportunities for prolonged data retention. So thanks to the sponsors of this proposed law, and I strongly encourage you to adopt the mentioned changes to make this the best law that it can be and address the worst effects of flock and all ALPR cameras. Montello should resign. Flock cameras should be taken down. This local law should be passed with improvements. Thank you.

I would ask that in comments we do not do any kind of direct derogatory language, please. Let's stick to the comments, stick to the subject matter. Thank you.

Hello, City Council. Thanks for hearing our comments. My name is Daniel Pfeiffer and I live on Ninth Street in Troy. I used to work at a publication called The Markup. an investigative journalism outlet that specializes in tech and privacy issues. I now work at ProPublica. I'm not a reporter, but I have a few points to make. I want to be quick. In short, I support this legislation. I think there's some improvements you could make to it. uh my position when i've done occasionally trainings on digital security and privacy at the sanctuary for independent media most recently um and one thing that i tell people in these workshops is that surveillance is to modify behavior and you should understand it as such When you see a flat camera mounted in the city, you should understand that as an implicit modification of your behavior. And for that reason, I think we shouldn't have them at all. I would support taking them down entirely. Another example you might be more familiar with is if you want to prevent vandalism or something, you put up a camera, even a fake camera. It serves the same purpose when you're reading license plates. It will cause certain populations to drive less because of the ALPR technology. It will have a chilling effect. A second point is I think that It's unclear what happens, even with strong protections, what the recourse is if ICE were to send someone to a third country, deport them, through the use of this technology. If it was derived from this technology, what is the recourse at that point? I'm not sure what the law would do for that person and their family. And then lastly, just on one point of improvement, perhaps we could consider on-site storage of the material if it's required to have this tool. I haven't seen evidence that the data supports that it's actually reducing crime, but that's one way that we could... avoid the abuse of cloud-based storage and a company providing it to people who are unauthorized. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel.

Good afternoon council members. My name is Frankie and I'm a resident of Troy. I'm here today to express my opposition to the normalization of mass surveillance and to challenge the assertion that automated license plate readers are harmless public safety tools that Troy simply can't live without. i want to make sure that the city council doesn't get caught up in debating the legislative language around alprs and you forget that the devices you're discussing are actually tools that support the unconstitutional policing practice of drag netting or trawling the masses for criminals Yes, the general public has grown accustomed to cameras being everywhere, which is why we're out of touch with what's really going on with these license plate readers, that we're all being surveilled without a warrant all the time. We wouldn't tolerate police officers or other people watching us in these intrusive ways, but we've definitely gotten very comfortable letting technology do it 24-7. And police departments, including the Troy PD, have quickly adopted new surveillance products without pausing to recognize that they bypass reasonable suspicion, warrants, and the checks and balances of our justice system. But just because cameras have become ubiquitous in our world, and just because the police have made mass data collection part of their routine, doesn't mean this surveillance practice shouldn't be subjected to intense scrutiny as it relates to our constitutional rights. Many other unconstitutional actions have been normalized in the past and were later abandoned after further analysis or litigation. So we as a society and you as our representatives shouldn't just accept this mass warrantless monitoring as normal practice without giving it some much deeper consideration. Physical police dragnets are known to cause harm to innocent bystanders, and that's why they're generally considered illegal and unconstitutional. As we know from examples previously presented, digital police dragnets, which is what ALPRs are, can also negatively impact innocent people in serious and sometimes even life-threatening ways. This collateral damage is a known flaw of mass surveillance systems, as is the hacking and misuse of the data collected, which also puts innocent citizens at risk. The bottom line is that mass surveillance and ALPRs are not harmless. I recognize that our nation is steadily marching toward a surveillance state, but I want us all to stop and think about what that means, especially for minority or marginalized groups. A surveillance state means that the government is watching us, not the other way around, the way it should be in a representative democracy. It means that mass data collection can ultimately be used for control, to inhibit political dissent, or to infringe on individual freedoms. And why do so many of us care about that? Because when you're in a minority or marginalized group, you have to care. We don't have the luxury of placing trust in government because government has repeatedly been used against us. Many of us have spent our entire lives fearing and fighting against government sanctioned profiling, discrimination, and harassment. We've developed a very different perspective on these things because we've often had to battle our own government for the most basic rights, including sometimes the right to simply exist. So for me and many others, this isn't just about cameras and data. It's about the ability to live freely without the relentless intrusion and overreach of the government. This constant tracking is deeply objectionable, and no meticulously crafted legislative language can soften the impact of yet another infringement on our fundamental rights. in your deliberations and negotiations on this proposed law please don't lose sight of the fact that privacy and freedom always have been and always will be at the core of the alpr issue and please carefully consider whether the city council should be trading those constitutional rights for dragnet data collection and government approved stalking versus simply saying no to the very concept of warrantless mass surveillance it's a lot to think about and the stakes are high and i'm hoping you'll give it your full attention thank you thank you frankie

Hi. Deirdre Shea, South Central Troy. Thanks to everybody who's spoken so far. There's people saying some really powerful things about this. And I know you all are listening and hearing us, and I really appreciate that. And I have a lot of gratitude for the fact that this law has even been introduced. I've talked about this issue ad nauseum for almost every city council meeting since March 5th. But some things are worth repeating today in regards to local law number three. I repeat the need to remove the surveillance tax on our neighbors who are under-resourced. Civil violations are an unnecessary allowance in this bill, and I encourage you to consider removing that. And I would like to ask the council to consider adding a review board with subpoena power that includes community members. and to consider appointing a board to oversee all AI enabled surveillance technologies. Maybe not in this bill, but something to consider. I'd like to remind the council and the public that open sharing through FLOC is still possible via regional sharing. While TPD said last week that other municipalities can't search their network, I'd like to repeat that there are multiple documented cases of access to FLOC network data without the knowledge or consent of local law enforcement. It has been documented by the Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition that on May 27th, a community member was apprehended by ICE in collaboration with North Greenbush Police, who do not have a 287G agreement. And just yesterday, Steve McLaughlin told the press that Rensselaer County will not comply with the local cops' local crimes law and will continue working with ICE. If we have local municipalities who are refusing to follow state law, how do we expect them to comply with the requirement for a warrant before accessing Troy PD's ALPR data? Let's go a little bit further. What happens if the executive branch of our city refuses to follow proposed local law number four and continues to fund flock through emergency funding? If TPD wants us to meet them in good faith and to trust the data that they are collecting in the next 60 days, they need to provide adequate transparency, third-party auditing for the data that they are collecting in the next 60 days, release the block network audits Many, many law enforcement agencies across the country have done that. In contrast, TPD has not only not provided city council with network audits, they are meeting legal FOIL requests with denials, claiming search records are confidential because if disclosed, they could easily constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. They're talking about their personal privacy, and they're not talking about the public's personal privacy. This is an entire column in a spreadsheet that could easily be redacted. Non-compliance and non-transparency is the continued theme here. And I actually don't entirely blame the police. I also blame the administration for obscuring information intentionally. This 60-day period is an opportunity for TPD and by proxy the administration to push for data retention times that will render this law ineffective. And when they come back with this claim that the data should be retained for 21 days or 25 or 30 or actually 60, What does this law do for us here in Troy? Without a short retention data period, like the 48 hours proposed, this law is not effective against the harm caused, not just with Fox surveillance systems, but all cloud-based LPR systems, as mentioned by many speakers before me. There are people in this community who feel that surveillance causes them, all surveillance causes them harm. And there are some who feel that some surveillance is okay. But overwhelmingly, the public agrees that this technology cannot be taken at face value and cannot be trusted. And everyone agrees that we are not getting the full story here. If TPD wants good faith cooperation and agreement from the public, perhaps they should earn that trust through transparency. Lastly, I urge you to include a requirement for, at the very least, a public forum before any type of ALPR system or surveillance system is implemented in Troy, and maybe not surveillance broadly in this law, but at least ALPR system. This means a requirement for city council approval and an opportunity for the public to give feedback before surveillance systems are implemented in our community. We don't get the opportunity to collect data about how flock can harm us because by the time that it does, it will be too late. We can only share our lived experience and what we want to see for our community. Flock is not it. And these ALPR systems are not it. And we are all here saying that overwhelmingly, city council meeting after city council meeting. If we must have these systems, we need to keep these restrictions intact with strict guidelines or else why else have the law? And we need to anticipate an executive branch that may not follow it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi there. My name is Brianna Harrington. I'm in district four and I just have a few little bits to talk about today. Um, So I think it's really important to emphasize Block as a company itself as being a very unreputable, shady, non-transparent company. I know that there's a lot of things, there's like dozens of things we have to focus on right now with the current issue. But it's really important to remember the company itself is not to be trusted and really should not be operating its tech here at all right now. I'm just going to read a couple of pieces from other places across the country who are also in the news, maybe not as much as us, but they're also in the news and dealing with their flock issues as well. Last month, the Dayton Ohio Police Department announced the city would no longer use flocks data after it found more than 7000 cases of searches related to immigration enforcement made by outside entities. City officials called the cases egregious violations of policy that prohibited data from the devices being used for immigration enforcement or shared with agencies whose primary purpose is to enforce immigration laws. Dayton appropriated an extra $30,000 for an audit of flock camera data logs. Oxford, California similarly suspended its flock technology after an audit found the vendor enabled a nationwide query that gave agencies outside of California access to the Oxnard Police Department's data without the department's approval or knowledge, despite the security settings being set to California-only access. In Dunwoody, Georgia, that's the city where they found that flock employees were accessing the cameras to look at a children's gymnastics studio. There is a father there, his name is Jason Hunyar, and he's been leading the charge down there for fighting against these cameras. He's been doing a lot of great research. And one of the things he uncovered i'll read to you done what do you cyber security review a flock was run by someone soliciting money from them, and then she asked them to help bring the score up and change the scoring rubric. I'll read a little bit of what he says about that. I'm a dad in Dunwoody who was reviewing the security assessment Dunwoody presented to city council on March 23rd and something fell off. There were dozens of items where Flock provided no evidence, but they were being scored as acceptable. So I started digging and what I found was worse than I expected. Back in January, Dunwoody's technology director used her city email to solicit a $2,000 sponsorship from Flock for a professional organization she sits on on the committee. I don't have confirmation flock paid, but she was asking a vendor she would later independently evaluate for money two months before the evaluation. then i found an email where she asked flox account executive to help bring the score up on the assessment she was supposed to be conducting independently most concerningly i found that the scoring rubric presented to city council wasn't the same one she started with a new color category yellow had been inserted between green and amber under the local original rubric items without evidence are read by definition The new yellow category absorbed most of those findings before council ever saw them. 34 red findings were presented to council as two. We're dealing with a bad company. The polls out there, the cameras out there on our city streets that are looking at our citizens day after day, this is how they maneuver and this is how they operate. Okay? They bribe city officials. They don't turn off their programs even after municipalities decide to cancel their contracts. Our sister city, Ithaca, who's been doing amazing work, they were actually able to convince their council to terminate their contract. That was a couple months ago now. The cameras are still up. They haven't been taken down. That's what flock is even after municipalities say, Hey, we're done with this flock. Doesn't take them down. And then we don't know if they're still rolling. They most likely are because they're data mining machines. That's what they're there for. They're not there for safety. They're not there for surveillance to catch things. They're there for mining data. So Ithaca, the people of Ithaca took it upon themselves to bag those cameras just this past week. And honestly, right now with Troy's situation, with the pending Article 78, with the 60 days, we're kind of in a limbo period right now. So I suggest, and I think a lot of people behind me would agree, that we too bag the cameras for the time being. If any of you on the Council are looking for the articles that I mentioned, I can gladly send them to you at a future date. And thank you for your time. Thank you.

Hi, Riley Studebaker, Professor Studebaker, Troy resident. I'd like to just share a data point that I've heard personally from a family member with y'all, maybe with y'all. Someone in Grand Junction who has rabbit ears, so the three channels, I guess, on the scroll bar below the news, whatever, D-Flock Troy came across there, and this person reached out to me and said, hey, block like a Troy thing he had heard of flock he knows that I live in Troy uh and so the data point I'd like to share is that block and Troy or at least one person has become synonymous is that something that well do with that what you will thank you

Good evening. My name is Marcella Luongo. I'd like to thank all of the council members for having this public hearing. And I would just like to ask you to consider what else could we do with the money that's being spent for this contract and these cameras? We have every city has limited resources as taxpayers. We're feeling the squeeze everywhere. And just think about could something be done for children? Could something else be done for public safety for something could be done for people with limited means that are struggling? Thank you. Thank you much.

Hi, my name is Frances Sweet from District 6. I wanted to go over a couple of discrepancies first. specifically from the mayor. When this was first introduced as an issue on March 5th, her claim was that the contract had gone before the council, had been approved by the council. She claimed that with absolute certainty. But by the 19th, All of a sudden, she was the first mayor who had ever brought this to the council. So which is it? Because we all know it was never brought before the council. We've scoured the records. There are no meeting agendas or minutes that ever mention it. And maybe it was in a budget line under miscellaneous, but not the actual contract. No one actually knew what was going on here. with that in mind she has been against this law for months as soon as it was introduced it was horrifying it was an aberration it was any bad word you could think of in every newspaper on every radio show in every interview she was against this law And then suddenly they come up with a policy and the policy is fantastic. She's championing the policy. The policy is fantastic and amazing and does everything. And we don't need this law after all. And she knows that it's not enforceable. Local law three is enforceable. It's a law. Policy means nothing. Policy means that internally they're going to slap someone on the wrist if they go out of line, if they even bother to do that. It's meaningless. It gives no redress for anyone harmed. It gives no Yeah, so we need this law, and we need it to be strong. We need to tighten up this law, not weaken it. And last time, I've already spoken about what I think could be fixed about the law, so I'm not going into that again. But one thing I know is that we need a strong law, not an unenforceable policy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Frances.

Good evening, Council. Bex Cahill, District 6. I'm sick of talking about Flock. You're sick of talking about Flock. We're all sick of hearing about Flock. And we're going to stay sick of hearing about Flock until the cameras are removed. I'm here tonight to talk about the law, but also the larger issue within the city administration. that the law and flock are just a part of. And that is the continued refusal to listen to the will of constituents. March 5th, 11 constituents stood here, condemned the city's use of flock and demanded termination of the contract. March 19th, 41 constituents stood here before you and called for the termination of the flock contracts. Tonight, how many have come up here and again demanded the termination of the contract and the removal of the cameras? Not once in the last three months has one single constituent given any support for the cameras. Not a single word of support has been given. We don't want flock in our city. And yet, council has agreed to give Troy Police Department 60 days to gather data. Why? Constituents didn't spend the last three months asking for Troy to provide data, although we have repeatedly encouraged the police department to share. As for the collection of data, who's collecting the data? A third party or the same biased individuals fighting to keep it? You're giving Troy PD 60 days to cherry pick the information that best fits their narrative and leave out all the rest. And who are they presenting this data to? The public who has shown the utmost concern and demand for answers? Do we get a public review? Do we get a chance to ask questions and have our concerns met yet? We've presented data and sources time and time and time again. For months, we have come forth with the same concerns, the same data, new data, because Flock is consistently causing more harm. Why doesn't that count? Flock offers a free transparency portal. Where's ours? Why don't we have that set up? It's free and Flock does it for you. If Troy Beattie gets 60 days to make a decision, then I demand that we follow suit of other cities that are stuck in this prolonged will they, won't they with flock cameras, such as Dayton, Ohio and Ithaca, New York. Bag the cameras. I am sincerely volunteering myself to do it. I will bring my own garbage bags. I will bring my own zip ties. It won't cost the city a penny. If we can't remove them due to the state of emergency, we can at least stop our data from being harvested and sold to data brokers, which again, Flock has been doing since they updated their terms of service in February of 2026. We can stop these cameras from being used by ICE. National lookup is turned off, but regional sharing is still on, which means without consent from local police, without any knowledge given to the jurisdiction, Our flock data can still be accessed by other departments in the area, such as Rensselaer County Sheriff's Department, proud participant of the 287G program. So even with national lookup off, ICE is still accessing our data, just so we're clear. If another kidnapping happens in Troy, you do not know for sure if these cameras were used for it or not, unless you bag them. Now, as for the law itself, the legislation is a start. Warrants would be required, except police could still share information under the table, but only for 48 hours. But 48 hours is still a long time to do harm. But if they cause harm, they'll be fined $1,000. Flock is an $8 billion company. $1,000 is nothing to them. most often the police are the ones misusing the flock cameras that's the taxpayers one thousand dollars being used to pay this fine and no actual accountability for those causing harm what about the possibility of future installment of other surveillance equipment where's the requirement for public notification for public input where's the proper procedure to be followed for preventing exactly this scenario from happening again City Council does not serve the mayor. City Council is not here to serve Troy PD. City Council is here to serve the constituents of Troy, New York. The constituents deserve to be included in these conversations. We have the right to be heard. And the public says, Brock, no. Bag the cameras. Protect your constituents.

Hi, good evening City Council. My name is Echo Gough. I'm a Troy resident and I work here and own a business as well. I grew up here. I'm very invested in this community and I'm here today to speak in strong support of local law number three and to ask that we take down the flock cameras. A few things in regard to the law. The Troy PD has not shown a record of transparency, especially when it comes to flock cameras. We have been asking for an audit for over two months now and we know that it's easy to procure and possible to do it without revealing sensitive information as demonstrated by neighboring counties, Albany and Saratoga. Troy PD has not. What do they not want us to see? This is the type of evasion that displays that we need law and not policy to hold police accountable. I'd like to add that I believe the data collected within the 60-day window will not be reliable for deciding anything in relation to this law. We want 48 hours for folks who have done nothing warranting surveillance, and the police want 30 days. And they are the ones collecting the data. In any type of scientific data gathering, that would be compromised unusable. This is like if you held a study over 30 days on how much cat food was ideal for my cat, and the study was conducted by my fat cat. I'd ask that the audit from before the 60 days started is used to inform that law. And we have seen the clear abuse of power from the mayor in her state of emergency, but suing her apparently wasn't enough because she just created an $80,000 a year position for her friend as a political operative, which is an insultingly blatant misuse of taxpayer funds. That amount of abuse of power and lack of transparency, and they're the ones who say they need to surveil us? We have provided endless amounts of facts and figures against flocks. We've shared how there are new technology that makes many deadly mistakes, including events like the innocent family held at gunpoint in Aurora, Colorado, and the 40% of flock stops in Oak Park, which were found to be mistakes due to data issues. We've covered that we, the city of Troy, is liable for these deadly mistakes. The family in Aurora, Colorado was awarded $1.9 million. What would that do to Troy to have us give that to someone who was woefully caused harm by these flock cameras? That's a fiscal irresponsibility there. We've covered the extreme security issues and how it puts people and everyone's privacy in danger. The list of extreme issues goes on and on and on. We are clear, we do not want flaw cameras. This issue is so much bigger than just Troy. We have become an example for other small cities to follow. I never thought I would be reading as much about Dayton, Ohio or Bloomington, Indiana as I have in the last month. But every city that takes down these cameras because a beacon of hope in the fight against mass surveillance. Let's show the rest of the country that it is worth it to be persistent, loud, and communal in fighting against the many rights-violating dystopian atrocities like Flock. Thank you very much for your time.

Does anyone else wish to address the council as part of the public hearing? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing motion. Second. All in favor. We are. The public hearing is closed. We will go right into the finance meeting if that's okay with folks. all members are present um does anyone wish to address the council on any agenda item as a member of the on the finance committee agenda again the first public forum is related to the finance committee agenda does anyone wish to address the council on any agenda items seeing none we'll move along ordinances ordinance 20 ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit marquis r copeland plaintiff versus the city of Troy at all defendants, U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, civil action number 124-CV-1425, Council President Steele. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McLaren? Second. By Council Member Struver. Discussion on the ordinance? all in favor aye opposed the ordinance is adopted unanimously resolution 59 resolution honoring the life service and memory of Owen Goldfarb Council President Steele is there a motion motion Council Member Struber second seconded by Council Member McKee discussion We will have the honor later to present to the family a copy of this. So we'll move on to the vote. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution 59 is adopted unanimously. Resolution 60, resolution approving the appointment of Cheryl Christensen as assistant to the city clerk and setting the annual salary of the assistant to the city clerk. Council President Steele, is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McLaren with a second by Council Member DiLorenzo. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution 60 is adopted unanimously. Resolution 61. Resolution approving and confirming the City Clerk's appointment of Michael Gregg as Deputy City Clerk and setting the annual salary of the Deputy City Clerk, Council President Steele. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member Favreau with a second by Council Member Struber. Discussion? all in favor aye opposed resolution 61 is adopted unanimously resolution 62 resolution of the city of troy recognizing juneteenth council member spain mclaren is there a motion motion council member mckee second second by council member struber discussion on the resolution all in favor aye opposed resolution 62 is adopted unanimously. Resolution 63 resolution of the Troy city council scheduling public hearing on proposed local on number four of 2026, amending the city charter by repealing and replacing article three, part three, article seven section C 40. Sorry. Council member Struber. motion oh sorry council member mclaren moves is there a second second council member lorenzo um we need to come up with a date for this do we have a proposal um we will have let's see a meeting on the 18th We could have it that night or we could have it before the July regular.

Your preference is probably more time before the July meeting, right? July 9th. Yeah, yeah.

OK, why don't we say July 9th at 530?

Sure, that's a president. Yes, I think there should be 2026. 2022.

yeah um apparently the uh date in the resolution doesn't have 2026 it has 2022. so um we will make that air change uh as we insert the date it will happen proactively not posthumously um okay so we are set for July 9th at 5 30. any other discussion on this resolution all in favor aye opposed resolution 63 is adopted unanimously resolution 64 honoring the life service and enduring legacy of Michael Pickles Piccirillo Council President Steele Councilmember Spain McLaren at the request of the administration is there a motion motion Councilmember McKee second second Councilmember Campbell Cohen discussions We too will have the opportunity for a special presentation later. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution is adopted unanimously. Resolution 65. I would need a motion from the floor to adopt this to unanimous consent of the body to move this to the agenda. Is there a motion of unanimous consent?

Motion. Yes.

President, Council Member Campbell-Cohen, seconded by, maybe that's, I may be foreshadowing there, who knows?

And second by?

Second. Council Member Struber. So we have a motion made and seconded to move this to the agenda. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Now, on Resolution 65, resolution appointing Ian Silverman as legislative counsel to the Troy City Council and setting the annual salary of the legislative counsel, Council President Steele. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McLaren, seconded by Council Member McKee.

Discussion?

All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Resolution 65 is adopted unanimously.

that concludes the finance meeting agenda um i would entertain a motion to adjourn motion second mclaren with a second by councilmember de lorenzo all in favor opposed we're adjourned we have a few moments to recall Welcome to the Troy City Council. It is our June regular meeting. This evening, before we get underway, our community lost two very important people recently, and it is our privilege and honor tonight to recognize their contributions and all that they meant to our community so before we get underway i'd ask the mayor to please come forward and join me and the council

Okay. My love.

Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you all. Tony, come on. All the family, don't be shy. Come on. We would first like to ask the Buchanan and the Piccirillo family to please come up. Please. Yep, come on up. Yeah, this is your city council. And if you could just gather around us, that'd be awesome. Come on up. Come on. Don't be shy. Believe me, Pickles is looking down right now saying, come on, family. Come on, you got to rep Pickles. Come on, Tony. Come on, man. Come on, whole family.

Jacob and Santa.

So we first and foremost, we lost a very valuable member of the Troy and Rensselaer County community. Let's all welcome the Piccirillo, the Buchanan family. So, Council President Steele and myself and the City Council, first and foremost, Mike Piccirillo, also known as Pickles, meant a lot to the people of Troy. He dedicated nearly 40 years on the... action team and uh street supervisor and mike um was just one of those guys he lived breathed loved the city of torrey um we'd like to introduce mike's family i'm samantha vicky and how are you really his sister his granddaughter-in-law maria his sister gina hi sue

Melanie, his daughter. Melissa, his daughter. Ashley, his daughter. Mandy, his niece.

Matt, son-in-law. Jake, grandson.

Kim, brother-in-law. Carrie, baby sister.

Tony, favorite nephew.

Only nephew.

Kyle, brother-in-law. I'm Katie McLaren. Kelly Redder?s iPhone 2.

Kelly Redder?s iPhone 2.

Kelly Redder?s iPhone 2. Kelly Redder?s iPhone

Piccirillo and Buchanan family, no. Michael is going to be truly missed. I got to know Mike not only as the street supervisor at that time under Bob Murch, also known as the cat, but I got to know Mike very well during that time. I happened to be a council member when I was very, very young in the 90s. When Mike, yeah, it feels like a million years ago, but Mike was just a go-to person. You called Mike. He didn't care, you know, what party you were from, where you live. That was not Mike. Mike loved Troy. He loved serving Troy and he loved the people. of Troy and we all know Pickles uh you know he was known people over politics and and that's why everybody loved Mike and Mike is a true example of not just the old school but what Troy is all about and Troy is all about the people and we can talk about just the assets of Troy the architecture the history you name it Mike exemplified what Troy is all about, and that's our people. And Mike, he loved Troy, but what he loved more than Troy was his family. And I know that Mike is looking down right now, and I know he is just so thankful to all of you. I know he loves you. Mike, we will never, ever forget you. I'll let Sue speak, and then I'd love to read this proclamation.

As I always say, following the mayor is a difficult job. But I did have the pleasure and honor of knowing Mike. He was the consummate city employee, took his job very seriously, and when you needed something done, you went to Mike. And so it's my pleasure and honor to join the mayor in in tonight's presentation. And I hope, you know, as members of all of members of the family, how much we really, really do and did think of Mike or Pickles.

So for everyone, Pickles, if you're up there, man. Whereas the City of Torrey mourns the passing of Michael Pickles Piccirillo, a beloved public servant, devoted family man, respected community leader, and lifelong resident whose contributions to the City of Torrey and Rensselaer County span decades. And whereas Mike dedicated nearly 40 years of distinguished service to the city of Torrey DPW, serving as supervisor of streets, where his leadership, work ethic, and commitment to maintaining and improving the city's infrastructure earned him the respect and admiration of his colleagues, of the residents of Torrey, and elected officials alike. And whereas, in addition to his municipal service, Mike was a successful business owner and co-owner, a lot of people didn't know, of a painting business, providing quality workmanship and creating lasting relationships throughout the Capital Region. And whereas Mike further answered the call to public service as a member of the Rensselaer County Legislature, where he worked tirelessly on behalf of his constituents and advocated for the betterment of the communities he proudly represented. And whereas Mike's dedication and service extended beyond government and business, as he generously volunteered countless hours to community organizations, charitable causes, neighborhood initiatives, and civic activities, always willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. And whereas Mike's greatest source of pride though, was his family and you can see that tonight and he shared 45 years of marriage with his beloved wife tammy who passed away in 2021 together raising four children and building a family rooted in love hard work and community values and whereas known affectionately throughout tour and beyond as pickles mike's larger than life personality unwavering loyalty sense of humor and he did have one boy and genuine compassion touched the lives of countless individuals and left an incredible mark on the community he loved so dearly. And whereas Mike Piccirillo's legacy of public service, community involvement, and dedication to his family serves as an enduring example for future generations of Troy residents. Now, therefore, Tony, I'm kidding. No pizzas, okay? Mike would, Pickles would appreciate that. No pepperoni pizzas here. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Mayor of the City of Troy and the Tracy Council hereby honor and celebrate the life and legacy of Michael Pickles Piccirillo, for his extraordinary contributions to the City of Troy, Rensselaer County, and the countless lives he impacted throughout his service, his friendship, and his generosity. And be it further resolved that the Mayor of the City of Troy and the Troy City Council extends its deepest condolences to his children his grandchildren, his extended family, his favorite nephew, his friends, and all those who mourn in Mike's passing. And be it finally resolved that a copy of this resolution be spread upon the official minutes of the Tracy Council and presented to the Piccirillo family as a lasting tribute to a man whose legacy will forever remain a part of the fabric of the city of Troy. We love you, Mike. And just on a side note, when I ran for mayor, Mike was always willing to give me a sign location, give me advice, but he would always say, hey, kid, just always be there for the people. Thank you, Mike Pickles Piccirillo. Thank you to the Buchanan and Piccirillo family. We love you and believe me, Mike's looking down very proud right now with Tammy. Thank you. Here we go 1, 2. I was hoping a family would please, you know, I'm going to have all right.

Thank you to the console and to the mayor and to all my family who showed up tonight for my brother and for Vicki getting this all set up tonight. we do want to um donate a memorial bench somewhere in troy and we're working on that we'll be contacting carmela for that in memory of michael i belong to an organization who donated a lot of money the capital region nurses honor guard and they would like a memory bench for us to go and sit on and remember mike so hopefully that will come thank you all for being the people of troy thank you anyone else anyone come on though you go come on

Thank you.

Thank you very much for everything tonight. We really appreciate everything you've done for our brother.

Thank you.

Thank you everyone. Thank you for sharing Mike with us for all those years.

Thank you.

thank you thank you at this time i'd like to ask priscilla to come forward and mark and mario do you want to join her Please do. We have two mayors in the house tonight. How could we forget Mayor Pattison? I'm not going to read this entirely, but I would like to say a few words about someone who Well, certainly is very special to me in my formative years of government service. Owen Goldfarb, who was someone kind of behind the scenes and wasn't out there for the headlines, but truly impacted our city in amazing ways. And I first met him when he was your father's assistant. Your father was county treasurer. So he impacted both county and city budgets along the way. And then when your father went to Congress, you guys joined him. And so there was work on the national level and international level as well. I don't have my glasses with me tonight, so that's why I'm not going to be reading this. It is a tremendous tribute, though, for us to be here tonight with you to honor Owen Goldfarb, a longtime resident of Post and Kill, beloved husband of Priscilla Fairbank and budget troubleshooter and financial consultant par excellence. who died on April 3rd, 2026 at the age of 81. I can go through some of this, but I think Mark would be a better person to talk.

Well, first, let me also express my appreciation for Mike Pickerello. It was 30 years ago, so I was on the watch when Mike was there, and he certainly was an exemplary public servant. My picture in my head of him was always on the paving machine because he loved running that paving machine and, uh, people would always come up to him and, you know, make sure he did a good job, uh, doing it. And he loved doing that. So, uh, thank you for, uh, letting us have benefit of his service. Um, uh, Owen, I actually met Owen when, uh, he babysat for me when my parents went away on vacation. Uh, he worked with my father, I think initially, uh, uh, when my father ran for a McCarthy delegate, there was a kid. effort there that was an era when people who came to rpi came from other places uh stayed and contributed to the community and we've just joe fama living in la para there's some others that were very active when they came to rpi and continued to be active as was said owen was my father's assistant when he was county treasurer he was also ran his first congressional campaign with a couple other guys I went to, ran it again in 74 when my father was elected to Congress and went to Washington. Later, he worked for the Congressional Clearinghouse of the Future and the Management Information Systems and SRI doing economic development in China and throughout the world. And he moved back to this area with Priscilla. When I was elected, and I know you probably didn't have this experience, Mayor, but it took me a couple weeks to figure out that I was actually elected. And then when I realized I was elected, my first thought was, oh, shit, now what? I can't do this alone. And Owen was one of the first people that came by. He certainly had... a wealth of experience and at that time Troy's issues were financial financial problems we had a control board took off took over the day we went into office uh and Owen really was someone with unique uh skills he just didn't know just no budgets he looked at them in a way where he would look at numbers and say there's something not right about that and then start asking questions and dig deep uh mario was his deputy budget director so uh you know it was when we had to really dig down deep find the depth of the financial problems uh owen was essential in uh crafting a plan for us to recover and establish budget balance in the first three years, which allowed us to get out from the auspices of the financial control board. He went on later to do international work, but he was always more than just my budget director or my father's assistant. He was a friend and we continued a relationship ever since then. So it's sad to lose him, but it was a long fight. And so we're in a better place. And again, like others have said, we're grateful for his service to the city of Troy.

thank you um I've worked for Owen I had known him before but didn't really know him very well until I came to work for him here at City Hall and I don't know if everybody in this room remembers or has read about the deep financial problems the city was in when Mayor Patterson took office and and we came in to uh try to help Owen had I think the clearest eye in looking at the long-term vision he knew we weren't going to fix these problems in a month or in a year whatever but he always focused on making sure that the solutions that came forward that the city council worked on that the mayor of course proposed would deal with the problems in the longterm and actually get rid of them, not paper over them, not hide them, but take them up head on, get it done. So a lot of the improvements we see in the city of Troy now really are because of the work that he did in your administration. And that's why I think people owe a debt of gratitude, so.

That is truly his legacy, and we are grateful every day for that. Did you want to say something, Stu?

You know, in the hallway, Priscilla and I were talking, and, you know, our job as leaders, obviously, is to think about today, but more importantly, you know, Mark and Mario and Owen knew best. Think about 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now. Priscilla... Owen built that foundation. We were on the brink of disaster, as Mark mentioned. I came into the council, the control board took over. Fast forward, Owen got us out from under the control board. Fast forward, I got back involved in local government 2016. Once again, not as bad as the 90s, but we were on the verge of potentially another bankruptcy. Owen, I believe, held pro bono at that time. and here we are today we are better off because of owen owen built the foundation we have today and today we have to build that foundation so 25 years from now whoever has had the city council etc can look back and say they did the right thing so thank you for sharing known with us He was a super humble, just very, very quiet person, a wonderful person who really loved Troy and so worldly. So thank you for sharing them with us.

Do you like to say something?

I'll just say. Oh, thank you for this. Owen would be very touched. He cared deeply about Troy. He cared deeply about Rensselaer County. Governance and how government operates meant a lot to him. And it was always important that the process be followed. And because of that, that the long term fix the problem. Don't just push it down the road. And so, yes, he cared and was always hoping that there would be future leaders who would carry on that same desire, take care of things, because that helps take care of all the people who live here. Thank you for this.

I have to say that even when he was sick, he still sent emails. And the very last email I got from him was regarding flock. That was a resident of Postonkill. He was very passionate about that topic and made sure I knew about it. So thank you for sharing Owen with us for so many years. 54? 54.

Yeah.

Well, thank you. And share this with the family.

OK. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Alex, can you get a picture of us?

Could you take a picture, please?

Thank you. Here we go.

I think I got everybody. One, two, three.

Well, that was a bittersweet opening to our regular meeting. Um, we have already pledged allegiance to the flag. We have taken roll call. Um, now we have a public forum on any agenda item. Does anyone wish to speak on any item on tonight's agenda?

It has a mind of its own. Yeah, we're good. My name is Francis. I'm from District 6. I wanted to say that I support the Local Law 4 being introduced tonight. I think that it's a huge oversight that we were not in compliance with state law. So I'm glad that that's happening. I hope that it prevents things like nine states of emergency in someone's term as mayor. And maybe they actually would be real emergencies under this new law. So thank you. Thank you, Frances.

Good evening council, council, president, city council members. I want to talk about a resolution. I can just find it, 62, passing resolution of the city of Troy recognizing Juneteenth. I want to say thank you. Again, my name is Victor Patterson, pastor of Fifth Avenue Amy Zion Church, District 2. Take this day as a Juneteenth is a very momental day for the African American and everywhere in America. In case you did not know, Abraham Lincoln signed the Declaration of Independence in 1863. It was not until 1865 that everyone who were in the African American community, especially in Galveston, Texas, found out that their freedom was still intact. As we look around the country today, we have the question, where are we going to? So to see the city of Troy, the city, the council saying that we want to support Juneteenth. I want to thank you for my community, but also thank you as the oldest pastor or the oldest black church in this county as being a forefront for that. I do have one, one, one ask. I saw one person's name on here. There is African-American community, African-Americans that live in every community in this city. And so I think it would be avid cases that everyone that can to also endorse this resolution. So thank you.

Thank you, Victor.

Does anyone else wish to address the council on any agenda item?

Hello, my name is Emma Della Pia. I live on Euclid Road and sorry, Euclid Avenue. And I want to speak on local law number four. I support it and I support bringing us into alignment with the public state of emergencies by New York State executive law. In our city, it seems like inconveniences have become emergencies. So I appreciate you rectifying that. And I also want to speak in support of your resolution declaring support for Pride Month. Thank you. Thank you, Emma.

Now, this is too high for me. marie gavazzi i live in the central business district on fifth avenue i'm here to talk about ordinance 19. i fully support not towing for street cleaning i where i live we have alternate side of the street parking four to six a.m is what's referred to as street cleaning i think that's a misnomer may be confusing to people it's really for street main maintenance it's reservation reserving that time for whatever street maintenance is necessary, whether it be street cleaning or snow plowing. In reading the ordinance, I was concerned that the way it was worded might result in a delay or an interference with plowing for snow, and I would not want to see that. So please make sure that any snow plowing can proceed without delay. Thank you.

Thank you, Marie.

That felt really good. I don't usually get to raise this thing. That's all I wanted to say. hi everybody um i'm brad hansen i live on 6th and 106 in lansingburg i wanted to come up to set voice my support uh for council member greg campbell cohen's um towing amendment i have been someone who has been has their car towed i admit it um i've said someone that uh at times in my life where I was not making as much money as I am now, where I was dealing with deep levels of financial insecurity and precarity, got my car towed during a snow emergency. And I know actually, and this was pointed out, that's not what this applies to, but let me explain the impact. um of that that uh the this was in Albany the police did not actually have a record of my car getting towed and so when I called I tried to say I tried to figure out where's my car I was working I was like 4 a.m working at a pizza shop that was my job throughout college um and every penny counted I hope people can try to remember a time where they didn't have money and to understand when you lose your source of transportation, the key thing that you need to get to work, to make money, to make ends meet, to pay bills, and you step out and it's gone. how that alone raises the temperature of you as a person. And now you're wondering where it's gonna be. What happened was they just didn't take a record of it. They put it in the impound. So I go and I asked them what's going on. They don't know where it is. And they're actually think, so now I'm thinking I have to file a police report. Did someone steal my 2004 Ford Focus And that went on for five days. I don't know if anyone has this experience. So five days in a lot at that time, I think it was like 2009, that's $75 a day. on top of the original ticket, on top of the original tow. And so I was out as a broke, trying to graduate and get a job college student, about $550. And all that time, I didn't have my car. I'm begging for rides, I'm taking public transit, losing hours of my day, precious time. And that was me then. And I want to call out that in the city of Troy, nearly a quarter of people are living in poverty. They don't make much money. There are people who are 30 to 50% rent burdened. And what that means is that they're spending 50% of their income just to pay landlords. And so that person working, trying to make ends meet, many of them parents, can't afford to lose their vehicle. The primary way they get to and from work where they'll work their wages, they lose that whole day. I would implore anyone that's having this public freak out about this very common and pro working class measure to try to put yourself in those other people's shoes. Fellow Trojans, fellow working class people whose relationship to survival depends on getting a paycheck. This is a common sense move that many cities in our region have already come to understand and show compassion for people. What kind of city are we? That's a question maybe not for you all, because I don't think you're going to oppose this, but maybe for the mayor, maybe for anyone who's more concerned about, oh, they have to do the right thing, they have to follow the rules. and consider the fact that people are struggling right now. Consider the fact that thousands and thousands of people are about to lose their SNAP benefits, that in about a month, 450,000 New Yorkers are going to lose their Medicaid and essential health plan benefits, all that coming down from above, but yet we're the ones that are gonna have to deal with it. There are working families, working class families who are raising children in this city And thanks to this provision that I hope gets passed and I hope gets passed soon, one less thing that they'll have to deal with is having their car towed. Thanks.

Thank you, Brad.

Hi, my name is Emma. I am a NAPRTA. I'm from District 1. And just going off of the previous speaker, I literally had my car towed today and it was 212 dollars total and unfortunately with our economy i was laid off and like you know that's a lot for me right now so um as the previous speaker said like i feel and i hope that you guys will pass that resolution but it would really help people like me and there were three other people in line before me that also had their cars towed at Vaughn's and like all of us were like we don't know how we're gonna pay this but um yeah so that's my personal experience and I hope you guys amend it thank you very much thank you Emma

BEX CAHILL, DISTRICT 6. I JUST WANTED TO EXPRESS MY SUPPORT FOR LOCAL LAW 4. I DID READ THROUGH IT. IT WAS VERY THOROUGH, AND I DO APPRECIATE THAT YOU ARE WORKING TO PREVENT YET ANOTHER 77-DAY STATE OF EMERGENCY FROM HAPPENING. Ordinance 19, addressing the predatory and classist towing tactics. Thank you for that. Full support. And then resolutions 56 and... I didn't have a pen on me. I should have circled it. 56 and 62. Just generally... having uh the ability to show empathy when our administration struggles with that it is really nice to see it on city council so thank you for that

Good evening City Council. My name is Sylva Menard and I'm in District 4. I am coming up to say thank you all for your time every month, every week that you show up and I appreciate the work that's gone into Local Law No. 4. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to seeing that progress and thank you for ordinance 19. I think that's much needed. I have tenants that have had similar stories to those of folks who've come up tonight and I myself have obsessively have alarms on my phone to ensure that once a week, because in my neighborhood it's once a week, it's not every day, that I'm not towed. And the folks that show up, they know me and I'll run out and I'll be like, don't tow my neighbor's car. But I live here. I live right here and I work right here, so I can come out in the middle of the day. And most people don't have that. um and i'm looking forward to having the pools this summer so i'm excited to see that on the agenda for tonight um i've got one teenager who's actually going to be doing a third summer working at the pool so you know it's great to have more lifeguards if you know any one 16 or older 15 actually some of the employees can be 15. get them out, get them involved because it's a great place to work. And resolution 56, 59, 62, 65. Thank you. Have a great night.

Thank you, Sylvia.

Hello again. Echo Gough. I live in District 5. I just wanted to quickly say that I'm in strong favor and support of local law number four, amending the charter of the city of Troy. We should absolutely be in line with state law. I also wanted to quickly say a couple of anecdotes of my own experience with towing in Troy in regards to ordinance number 19. Even if someone does everything right, it will always slip through the cracks one or two times in our years of living here. Like, I have a million alarms on my phone. So many. And I've still been towed something like four times. And there was one point where I was in Washington Park. It was Friday at 5. and my alarm went off telling me it was noon, in the time it took me to get my shoes on, to put down what I was doing, to pause the work I was doing, and go out to move my car, I was already in the process of being towed, and it was 12.02, and a ticket had already been issued. And I went up to the gentleman working and was like, hey, I'm right here. Please don't tow. Please don't give me a ticket. He was like, it's 12.02. You got one and we're going to tow. Because it was already on the truck. I also at one point, I was parked in an area that had to be moved at 5 a.m. Well, I was sitting on my couch and at 2 p.m. a bug went into my ear and I had to go to the emergency room. As we all know, going to the Samaritan emergency room can take an incredibly long time and I did not come back until 6 a.m. or so. My car had been towed. There are always unseen circumstances things that happen the thing that you get stopped at where you get stopped you know something is happening and your car ends up getting towed and for so many people as stated before that can be a drastic impact on your life it's a i'm forgetting the exact statistic but it's something around 30 of people cannot afford a 500 emergency a 250 ticket if you get that twice in a month or a 250 towing and ticket you get that twice in a month that's that 500 emergency that could put someone unable to get rent get groceries all of those things so let's do the right thing for the citizens of troy and pass this ordinance thank you so much appreciate your time thank you thank you welcome does anyone else wish to address the council on any agenda item seeing none we'll move along to local law number four

Local law number four, a local law amending the charter of the city of Troy by repealing and replacing section C-40 public emergencies to align it with state of New York executive law article 2B regarding emergency declarations for introduction only. Council member Schruber.

I don't think we have to do anything, right?

No.

Ordinances, moving on to ordinance 14.

Ordinance 14, ordinance amending the 2026 general fund budget. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion? Council Member McLaren. Second by Council Member Struber. Discussion on ordinance 14? All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? seven eyes zero knows the resolution or the ordinance passes ordinance 15. ordinance 15 an ordinance amending the 2026 sewer and capital fund budget council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member second by council member de lorenzo discussion all in favor aye opposed seven eyes zero knows the ordinance passes Ordinance number 19 ordinance, 19 ordinance, amending chapter 273 of the choice city code council member Campbell Cohen.

Is there a motion motion council member? 2nd, 2nd, by council member favor. All in favor I post, or actually I should offer does anyone discuss it council president council member Campbell Cohen.

I would like to make a motion to amend ordinance 19 to read as it appears and everybody's regular meeting packets. um and with the following additional amendment to section 2bf um such that it reads parked in violation of a provision of 275 270-25 snow emergency or in a place or manner that obstructs properly not a snow clearing okay we have a motion that has been made is there a second yes seconded by council member mckee

Discussion on the amendment.

Um, that's the president council member favor. Can you just please read it 1 more time?

The addition the addition is parked for 2 B. F. the addition is parked in violation of a provision of 27025. snow emergency. and the addition is or in a place or manner that obstructs properly noticed snow clearing, addressing Marie's concern earlier today. And a handful of the prior changes that appear in the regular meeting came from constituents like Mark Backus who had a very thoughtful point that I was grateful for and following from a discussion with the administration where we didn't agree on everything but there was quite a lot of common ground and hopefully this addresses most of their concerns thank you any other comments Council President Councilmember McLaren

I would just like to echo the people who thanked you, Councilmember Campbell-Cohen. You know, I think something like this has been a long time coming. I, too, and an old residents of mine had to move once a week and, you know, forgot more than once and was towed. And it does. You know, someone talked about how much money you make back then. I mean, I don't know too many people who aren't in a situation like that now where, you know, a ticket in a toe, while it might not affect you the way it did 10 years ago or when you were a college student, it's not just a drop in the bucket. So I think this is a great thing for all residents, but especially those who are, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. So thank you.

Okay, well, we'll have a vote on the we have a motion to amend, which has been made and seconded. Is everyone clear on the amendment? Okay, a vote on the amendment. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The amendment passes. Now on the amended ordinance. Is there discussion?

Council President?

Councilman Campbell Cohen.

It's no secret that I was planning on tackling this issue. I'm grateful to my colleagues on the council for taking this seriously and getting it moving early and you were one. I think the earlier speakers really hit the nail on the head. A ticket is a punishment, and it takes three before you can get towed. A ticket is not a warning. It's not a slap on the wrist. It's $50, and $50 also hurts people's pocketbooks. And the notion that this is sort of encouraging lawlessness in Troy, I think, is psychotic. I will also say that there are parking restrictions throughout Troy that are very painful um and that there are like people mentioned a lot of good reasons why you wouldn't move your car um when you're parked in a restricted zone um and that's not to say that it's good behavior but that it happens and that there are proportionate punishments you know there's downtown restrictions from four to six pm or four to six a.m uh four to eight a.m you know those are functionally attacks on having a girlfriend for a lot of people it's it's or you know people go to the bar and um they just have a drink or two they stand up they're feeling woozy maybe they're feeling dehydrated and they do the right thing they call an uber and they go home and that was a 225 mistake um you know there's there's a number of of reasons why you get sick your family gets sick you need to go to the hospital there's a number of reasons why and even if there weren't it's important that the punishment be proportionate to the mistake um i i do not think that towing is proportionate at all to a first-time mistake uh so for all these reasons i'm very grateful to the speakers i'm very grateful to my council colleagues and i look forward to seeing this implemented thank you thank you anyone else wish to comment

Okay, on the amended ordinance, all in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero nos, the ordinance passes.

Ordinance 20.

Ordinance 20, an ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit Marquise R. Copeland, plaintiff versus the City of Troy et al., defendants, U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, Civil Action No. 124-CV-1425, Council President Steele.

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McLaren? Second. Second. Council Member Campbell-Cohen? Discussion? Discussion. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Seven ayes, zero noes. The ordinance passes.

I just want to say for those who might be watching or those in the audience, it may seem like we're rushing through without much discussion. All of these items have been discussed and questioned in committee prior to the regular meeting. So we have actually done our homework. Resolution 55.

Resolution 55, a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with the Boys and Girls Club of the Capital Area, Inc. for the purpose of providing trained personnel to administer and operate the South Troy Pool Facility and the Knickerbocker Pool Facility through September 8, 2026. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member DiLorenzo? Second? Second. Council Member Struver? Discussion?

Council President?

Council Member Favreau?

Yeah. Is there somebody from the administration that would be able to answer our financial question? Thank you in the last email that I had sent, I had requested just to know what the original budgeted amount was not the final spending amount that for last year. So, which line are you referring to or the South Troy pool?

So, I think in the email you wrote 7110. And I just noticed that today the actual correct budget line is 7310. It's under youth.

Youth. Okay. And so what was the original? I know you had broken it down for me of 180,000 for personnel for last year. Correct. What was that the total amount spent or was that the total budgeted spent?

That was a total amount spent, but it was projected to be spent for 230. So that's what the but that's what Boys and Girls Club gave us preseason. And the actual budget was around 217. So it was budgeted for 217,000.

It was paid for 217,000. Correct.

The budget in our budget was 260 in that line. 260 or 216? 260. 260. The actual line is 7310-409.

I feel like we're going in circles here. So it was budgeted total of 260. Okay.

That was what was spent. No, that's just what's in my budget line to allocate this specific bill. So there's other things coming out of that line as well.

Correct. And 180 of that was for personnel. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what was the total budgeted amount for personnel for 2025 and what did we end up paying for personnel in 2026? I'm just trying to ensure that we have enough money this year going forward because at the last meeting you had indicated that we had gone over budget by $20,000 and it was... We found a grant to cover that.

So we will have an amount of money this year. We have 400,000 this year. We are going to be working with the county youth department. They are going to be on board in certain amount of spotters to offset this budget. The county through federal dollars, we paying that. So this 599 projected budget for 26 is absolute worst case scenario so situations like that with the county youth that can help us offset that we also have about a hundred thousand dollars in cdbg money to offset that so we will have ample amount of money okay thank you you're welcome uh council president council member dean lorenzo hey joe just a quick question uh a couple weeks ago at the finance meeting i asked um there was a

Well, it looked like South Troy Pool was budgeted for $214,000, and then Nick Pool was budgeted for $187,000. Did you guys get an answer on that?

Yeah, so I talked to Patrick. They are not going to be doing swim lessons at Nick for the first year just to check out how operations work, but they will do that the following year.

Excellent. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions, comments? Thank you.

You're welcome.

I would also offer up, if anyone wants to join, these were put on, and I'm sponsoring, but if anyone would like to join the sponsorship, feel free to let the clerk know as soon as possible. Resolution 55, all in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes.

resolution 56 resolution 56 a resolution declaring support for lgbtqia 2s plus pride season in troy new york council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member campbell cohen or council member d lorenzo it was great it was great okay i was right okay and council member strober thank you

um discussion on resolution 56 council president council member mclaren um i would like to um be added as a sponsor on this um and i just you know now more than ever um this community needs our support um we've seen it in the division just within our city um that The organization that operates out of our city and directly impacts and helps, especially the youth, but all members of this community was not invited to the first flag raising and needed to hold their own. I think that's That's not what we want to see in our city. We want to see people coming together. I think if we are declaring support for Pride season, that we need to truly show allyship and support to every member of the LGBTQIA2S plus community, and not just the members that are approved of by the administration. On the City Hall's page, showing the pride um flag raising um i don't think anybody is listening from the administration alex could you could you just listen to what she's saying this pertains to the website um i realize there's free speech um but there were some horrific comments left on the city hall um you know the pictures of the flag raising um i know you can't limit free speech but some of these comments bordered on hate speech um and i wonder if there's a way to make a statement you know realizing that free speech is um you know respected but that you know that these comments are not okay um i just think it's this is a population of our city of our community that is already discriminated against already um you know the i guess the subject of hate crimes and we don't need to um allow i guess that that sentiment that comments like that are okay i'm not and i'm not saying that you do that i'm just asking if there's a way to kind of make a statement as an administration that you know intolerance is intolerance no matter how the statements are made and that it's not acceptable thank you i appreciate that thanks

any other comments council president council member campbell cohen i would also like to join as a co-sponsor and that's my comment council member mckee you can put me down as co-sponsor too please okay i think we're all going i i think so uh everybody would you please add accounts the complete council yes okay Thank you. Then I think this is a moot question, but all in favor? Aye. Opposed?

7 ayes, 0 noes. The resolution passes.

Resolution 57?

Resolution 57, a resolution determining that proposed action is a type 2 action for purposes of the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McLaren with a second by Council Member McKee. Discussion on the resolution? All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes. Resolution 58, resolution 58, a bond resolution of the city of Troy, New York, authorizing the issuance of 2Million dollars, serial bonds to finance the purchase of a fire rescue vehicle apparatus. Council President steel at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion motion council member McKee with a 2nd by council member. Discussion.

council president council member McLaren um very happy that we're able to do this um I know it takes a long time for the truck to come in but I'm looking forward to being able to replace the one that's in use now

And I appreciate the information that was provided to us so that we could have an informed vote. Unfortunately, that didn't happen last year, so I'm glad we have it this year. Any other comments? All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

7 ayes, 0 noes. The resolution passes.

Resolution 59.

Resolution 59, a resolution honoring the life, service, and memory of Owen Goldfarb, Council President Steele.

Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McKee with a second by Council Member Strueger. Any discussion? I think we've sent Owen off in good fashion.

Agreed.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes.

Resolution 60.

Resolution 60, a resolution approving the appointment of Cheryl Christensen as assistant to the city clerk and setting the annual salary of the assistant to the city clerk. Council President Steele. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member DiLorenzo, second. Second. Council Member McLaren. Discussion?

Council President, Council Member McLaren. Just like to thank Cheryl for stepping into a role that was not originally expected.

She's here tonight and I want to, as we vote, clap her in. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes. resolution sixty one resolution sixty one resolution approving and confirming the city clerk's appointment of Michael Greg is deputy city clerk and setting the annual salary of the deputy city clerk council president steel is there a motion councilmember McKee second second councilmember McLaren discussion.

Council President. Council Member McClaren. Same. I don't know if Michael's here, but I would like to thank him for stepping into the role.

Yeah, we're very fortunate to have an excellent staff. I don't believe Michael could be here tonight, but all in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes.

Yay, Michael. Wherever you are.

62. Resolution 62, a resolution of the City of Troy recognizing Juneteenth Councilmember Spain McLaren.

is it a motion motion council member struber second council member favreau discussion council president council member campbell cohen i'd like to join on as a co-sponsor and maybe do a show of hands just for who else would like to do that right on happy to say we have the entire councils supporting resolution 62. council positive council member mclaren

I was very proud to bring this forward. And I think it's really important for us to recognize that we still have a lot of work to do. um you know we recognize black history month i think we brought it you know talked a little bit about it then um you know i think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what juneteenth is um you know the the emancipation emancipation proclamation in theory, freed all the enslaved people. But it wasn't until two and a half years later that the people in the South learned that that was what had happened and that they were now free. I think we have to do a lot of work around the discrimination that still exists. from the federal level down you know things like ending dei um just this week um promotions in the military of our um our our black you know, service people were pulled. That's disgraceful. In the year 2026, that is disgraceful. So I would just ask, you know, everyone to read over the resolution and do what you can to encourage allyship, to encourage, you know, ending the discrimination that is still happening. Thank you. Thank you.

Well said, Council Member McKee.

Not to mention the assault on the Voting Rights Act that has really been eviscerated by our Supreme Court. It's a tragedy, and I never thought we would live to see this after the struggles of during the Civil Rights Movement. We made so much progress and it's a tragedy. So I'm glad that we are recognizing Juneteenth and as we move forward, we need to work together to restore and promote the rights of everyone in this country.

Indeed.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes.

63.

Resolution 63, a resolution of Troy City Council scheduling public hearings on proposed Local Law No. 4 of 2026, amending the city charter by repealing and replacing Part 3, Article 8, Section C-40. Council Member Struber.

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McLaren?

Second. Second.

Council Member McKee? We have, excuse me, Schedule the public hearing on local off for for 530 on July 9 9th.

Yes Council president council member Schruber

I am a firm believer in setting and communicating expectations. I find it makes projects more efficient, relationships smoother, and helps reduce confusion and anxiety overall. Section C40 of the current city charter is vague at best, and I'm happy to present these proposed updates to bring it in line with existing state laws and set some clear objectives for the city. Now, I didn't come up with this myself. I simply pulled information from state laws and adjusted the formatting and the language to fit Troy's city charter. The only difference for those who looked at state law is that the state does not mandate notifying residents via the website or standard email notification system. I added those because not everybody reads the paper every day. And I understand that this is just a small part of the charter and that other sections may need attention as well. I have a few on my list to tackle next. But for now, though, I hope that the administration, the council, and residents will join me in getting Troy's charter in line with the state.

Thank you. I also want to thank our friends at NICOM who provided us with a number of resources on the whole issue of local emergency declarations. It was very valuable in our discussions. Any other comments? All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes. resolution 64 resolution 64 resolution honoring the life service and enduring legacy of michael pickles piccarello council president steele council member spain mclaren at the request of the administration is there a motion motion um council member you may second it though so counseling seconded by council member mclaren um discussion i think we've done our discussion and we also sent mike pickles off in good fashion all in favor aye opposed seven eyes zero knows the resolution passes resolution 65 resolution 65 a resolution appointing ian silverman as legislative council to the troy city council and setting the annual salary of the legislative council council president steele

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McLaren? Second. Second. Council Member DiLorenzo? Discussion on the resolution? All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The resolution passes.

At this point of our evening, we have a public forum on any item. does not have to be agenda related. It could be any subject matter. Please come forward and give your name and place of risk.

Victor Patterson again dishes to thank you counsel for putting your all your names on that resolution. I was told to make this announcement from a few of the people that are not here tonight. 1st, I want to thank the mayor and the administration for helping us to put on our June teeth event for this this month. There are several different activities that's happening. on Juneteenth that the public is more than welcome to come to. This event is also being sponsored by CEO, City of Troy, again with the mayor, NAACP, and also with Troy Drug Free Community Coalition. On the 19th from 10 o'clock a.m. to 12.30 p.m., and afternoon I should say is first stop is Shades of Cocoa and they are doing it at 313 10th Street that is Oakwood Community. Then the second is hosted by Team Hero. That's from 12 to three. That is going to be at the Team Hero site. The third one is Troy Look, which is ran by Kevin Pryor. That is going to be at Geneva Park from two to four. uh four to six will be at Fifth Avenue Amy Zion Church we have a community uh celebration there uh food trucks as well as tents I believe there's a proclamation it's going to be given there that's from four to six and then at night at six o'clock would be the fifth stop which would be uh the movie the hate you give that's going to be shown at 12th Park uh Terrell Street Park so I want to again thank you um City Council thank you to the mayor uh for supporting this event thank you thank you Victor

Hi, good evening. My name is H2 Warner. I am in District 4 and I come to bring the result of a petition that I have created using the website change.org. So I would like to read first of all the petition and then read some selected comments and then I'd like to read through the names of the signatures that were given on this petition. And I'd like to also just note for the record that as the petition creator, I can see that at least 75% of signatures did come from Troy zip codes. So this petition is on change.org and it is entitled demand the immediate resignation of Troy, New York mayor, Carmela Montello. The issue. We, the people of Troy, New York, have been prohibited from exercising our constitutional right to freedom of information and freedom from harassment. Whereas the mayor has used the city's social media to spew targeted harassment against her own constituents and other members of local government. Whereas the mayor's office, including the deputy mayor, have leveraged personal attacks against city residents, including by referring to town hall commentary as disgusting. Whereas the mayor has blocked members of the public from accessing city information, including by blocking them on social media profiles such as Instagram and Facebook. Whereas the administration has failed to provide city council with a timely and civil discourse in several matters, including by passing multiple contracts in a manner that prohibits debate. Whereas the mayor has been convicted of offenses that threaten the public safety of the community. For these reasons and more, we, the residents of Troy, New York, demand an immediate resignation by Troy Mayor Carmela Montello. I don't have time to read all of the comments. There were a great many, but these are just a few. This one from three weeks ago was by Elijah Fowler and states, I never overheard a mayor leveraging death threats against her own citizens with a smile on her face until I attended a public event last month and heard those words from Montello herself. As said, citizens spoke on behalf of their communities that she's allowed any sort of power isn't just worrying, it's sick. His words, not mine. This comment was from the beginning. This was the first comment left on the petition. It was by Joshua Brutcher. And it reads Carmela Montello will not listen to her constituents who do not want flock cameras spying on them and has consistently demonstrated poor decision making skills and misallocations of funds. And with that, I will now read the names that are inscribed on the signature. I'd like to just point out there are 310 verified signatures. I'll get through as many as I can. The first, of course, being my own, H.G. Wernder, that's me. And let me just, sorry, it glitched out a little bit. Oh, there it is, perfect. Okay.

Could you forward the names to us?

I could, but how much of my time do I have left? Okay, great. Thank you. H.G. Warner, Atlas King, Carly Gunter, Nicholas Cathers, Jane Ferguson, Ray Orcutt, Donald Larson, Jason Santiago, Jacob Jenkins, Margo Walker, Faria Rashid, Loretta Piles, Jake Teranian, Matt Malone, Sam Collins, Elizabeth Podbielski, Alexander Hans, Kirsten Bombard, Bex Cahill, Jason Pugh, Julie Berlinski, Candice Moon, Ivan Joseph, Aaron Cook, Christopher Pace, Emily McAdams, Brittany Sweet, Ethan Botwick, Jennifer T, Joshua Brutcher, Ed Pattinson, Jayden Lem, Mary Elizabeth Mosher, Liz Buchhaus, Francis Sweet, Jessica Minitor, Montana Dunn, Carlotta Gonsalves, Michael Holcomb, Brandon Fulbin, Catherine Lefevre, Benjamin Andrews, Sadie Hartman, Kit Bishop, Nick Mudry, Claire Swart, samuel barber james hefty jessica karan alexander mastrioni sorry if i'm pronouncing things wrong uh pete perry amelia allen rob nazarian christine bazant ryan shenan blake servin alexandria lambert margaret brooks alexander siervin jack foland noah lerner maxine reyes gomez philip sundling anna foodie harry regal cricket keating rachel seward Naomi Lynch, Jared Crack, Theo Moore, Annika Mirabella, Julia Marcantonio, Jewel LaCour, Jade Lee, Michelle, or I'm sorry, Michael Mullen, Ron Bernhout, Morgan Milholm Dukes, Anna Verashigna, Leah McCrea, that's an awesome name, John Arbuckle, Brian Augsbury, Samantha Mahoski, Patrick Sable, Josh Maxson, Johnny Johns, Justin Isaac, D.K., Alyssa Anderson, Nicole Allen, Jacob Grabois, Arden Nuber-Eddy, Allie Lukes, Mark Lorcher, Dara Goldstein, Megan Nolesko, Brian Donnelly, Ro Delacqua, Alex Fieldman, Jack McCarthy, Timothy Server, Sean Sheffer, Ashley Morales, Lou Feig, Michael McElroy, and I'll have my partner read as many more as we can. I will forward the names to you as well, but I feel that this is the only way to guarantee that the mayor will actually listen and read through all of them without discarding those signatures, and I want everybody's name to be given the weight that it deserves behind each name that i read is a real person if we packed them all into this room right now we would probably run out of space so i just ask you to bear that in mind and i thank you again for your time thank you

sorry she's gonna forward the rest to you yeah i don't think we can get through them all okay yeah thank you very much um i just wanted to say thank you to council member um spain mclaren for mentioning the post on the social media i try not to let things like you know i try not to get let social media get to me personally But opening that on the first day of Pride and seeing those comments, I know that the City Hall can't control what other people say, but to have a post talking about community and acceptance and something so close to home. Also, I understand Facebook, it's going to spread. People from other communities might see it, but these are names in our community that I see in seeing it. you know it just it does hurt a little bit so i appreciate i just appreciate you bringing that up and asking them asking administration for that thank you thank you thank you

Marie Gavazzi, District 4. I'd like to speak once again on the removal of the benches from downtown. I'd like to request that they be replaced. In addition to what I've said before, people are now sitting on the concrete planters that try and bloom plants because there are not alternative places for them to sit.

Thank you. Thank you, Marie.

Frances Sweet, again, from D6. I wanted to respond to a news story that I saw from the mayor in response to the people who spoke last time about the issues at Columbus Square. One of the things that she said in that was that maybe cutting down the trees would be an appropriate way to deal with the crime in the area. which has been proven in studies to have the opposite effect. Cutting down trees increases crime. Cutting down low bushes does have a positive effect on crime. That is not what is in that area. What is in that area is an enormous monument that blocks people's view of things. and a bunch of vacant buildings that are proven the more vacant buildings the more neglect there is the more crime there is so i think there are a lot of solutions that can be implemented and cutting down trees is not one of them thank you thank you francis

Howdy, Council. My name is Alexandria Lambert, and I'm actually here on behalf of one of my friends. who lives in your district, Katie. Sorry, I can't remember which one that is. But it's about a recent fence that's been put in on his street, North Lake Ave. A few months ago, no parking signs got put up, and then suddenly there's a fence, and this is actually blocking all of his walking space, and it kind of like corrals his whole neighborhood into having to walk on the street and the speed limit there is kind of high. And he recently had had a very small little baby growing family and he cannot use his stroller and he cannot get to Fear Park. And that is all. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Bex Cahill, District 6, in case you forgot. I'd like to talk about the position of Deputy Director of Operations with a salary of $80,000. First off, Rockin' on the Riverfront, which costs $40,000, according to one person on Reddit, and honestly, I trust them, but I have not fact-checked it yet. Rockin' on the Riverfront was canceled because the bid couldn't get a large enough increase in funds for the annual budget. Rockin' on the Riverfront is a popular annual event that builds community and drives tourism. Riverfest, a separate event, is a huge opportunity for local businesses and vendors, especially local artists. Both of these events were canceled this year due to a lack of funds and a lack of last year's city council not approving a high enough increase in funds for the bid. Frankly, I'm here to say if the city can't afford Rockin' on the Riverfront or Riverfest, which directly supports our community members and businesses, we can't afford a deputy director of operations with an unknown job description. What is a deputy director of operations doing for the city? What are the responsibilities of the role? Where is the job description? What criteria are expected to be met and in what time frame? Why was no one else except the mayor's close personal friend given the opportunity to get this job? The city should be required to take time to review multiple candidates and assure that the right person is chosen for the job. How was Sarah McDermott chosen? Who chose her? Why? What are her qualifications? Surely it's more than just being friends with the mayor, right? Right? Is it appropriate to provide this position to someone who spends her free time making AI slop smearing city council? Is it appropriate to give this position to someone who is openly a cyber bully and posts with hate towards her community members on a daily basis? And I wanna be clear that she is posting queer-phobic, transphobic content and comments and interacting and encouraging others to do so because she runs the Troy Republican Committee page. That is her posting that. And I did an event back in March that was covered by the record. And Sarah McDermott shared that record, shared that to the Troy Republican Committee page. And I encourage you to go read what she said and what the people in those comments were saying and how she interacted. Because as we're sitting here talking about Pride Month and talking about supporting LGBT members, I clearly had they, them pronouns used to refer to me in the article. And she clearly intentionally misgendered me and encouraged others to speak with hate. Additionally to that, she's also the one who started the position started the petition for the city council president's resignation. That petition only got, I think, maybe 100 signatures. It did not do nearly as well as the one for Mantello's resignation, as we just heard. But that was also Sarah McDermott. And you can go to that petition and scroll down and see who the creator was. And that's who just got hired to work for the city. Before having this position created, Sarah McDermott also did gig work delivery service and used private orders of customers to make social media posts that also were mean-spirited. Her social media is all public. If you just look up her name, you can see this. If she's using private orders... to make social media posts, does that really seem like someone to be trusted with potentially sensitive information? Again, that's assuming because there isn't really a job description for what she does. This is just another gross executive overreach and abuse of power from Mantello. Surely there has to be something city council can do about that. There has to be some sort of reform to policy. $80,000 of taxpayers' money to pay someone to be the mayor's friend? That is downright heinous, asinine, disgusting, and embarrassing. Resolution 60 and 61 of tonight's meeting were to approve and confirm individuals and salaries of positions of public service. Why doesn't she have to do that? What is the exception that the mayor can just make jobs and give them to her friends? I ask that you do not carefully scrutinize work performance after the fact. I ask that you say no, absolutely not. This is beyond an unreasonable ask. If there is to be a new position in city administration, there needs to be an allotted window of time for applicants. There needs to be multiple candidates to be considered. They need to be picked based off of their qualifications, not just who they know. And if someone with a close personal connection is in the position to choose who's picking that person for that job, you should probably have someone else be the one picking who's getting that job then, because that's just a blatant abuse of power yet again. As once again, I did also sign the petition asking her to resign, and this is just another reason why. So I ask you, City Council, please pick someone other than a transphobic, hate speech spreading, dear friend of the mayor, to work for the deputy director of operations, whatever that means. Thank you.

Hello, Avi Menard, District 4. I would like to thank the whole council for taking up local law number four, adding regulations around, and expanding on the blah. It was overlooked for a while, and I would also like to thank the mayor for teaching us a lesson on not overlooking the charter and making sure it's up to date and you can't do whatever you want. And I really like the legislation. It puts actual rules and what can and cannot be done in an emergency. Thank you.

Hi, again. It's Emma Naprita from District 1. I just wanted to, well, first of all, I really agree with everything everyone has been saying this whole evening, and I appreciate you guys amending so many things tonight. I did want to bring up Flock one more time. I guess I didn't have the bravery before, but I am really worried about data centers and the impact that they're having on communities and on their environment and usually it's like an environmental justice issue their place of marginalized communities just um and i know it's kind of like Maybe it's a little bit of a stretch, but Flock does use AI. And I know that there's a proposed data center in Albany right now, in Kenwood, something like that. I just wanted to bring that to your guys' attention. I'm not sure that... A lot of people have talked about the issues with Flock, but I don't know that in a general environmental issue, With the system has been brought up, so I just wanted to present that to you guys, thank you, thank you.

Does anyone else wish to address the Council on any item. Seeing none, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion.

Council Member Campbell-Cohen. Second. Seconded by Council Member Spain-McClaren. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you, everyone.