City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah, yeah. They must be having their meeting before their meeting. Pre-meetings. Yeah. Who's in 645? 545. 545, please.

Okay, I go for it. Open the meeting. What are we doing to the pledge?

Good evening.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the Public Safety Committee meeting. I hereby call the Public Safety Committee meeting to order. And I'll take the roll call first. Committee members, Council Member McKee, present. Council Member Struver, present. Council Member Favreau, present. Council Member DiLorenzo, present. Council Member Spain McLaren. Present. Council Member Campbell Cohen.

Present.

Council President Steele. Present. Okay. I shouldn't call him. Let me do that.

Totally up to you.

This is a working session of the Public Safety Committee. The agenda is limited to two items, a review of the FLOC network audit logs and the results of the 60-day test period. Both reports were released to the public yesterday. Participation is limited to committee members and the invited police department personnel. Members of the public are welcome to observe. Chief DeWolf and Deputy Chief Barker, Assistant Chief Mason, and Captain Dean, please come in and take a seat.

I need another chair. There is one over there.

I'm going to get right into it, Chief, when you're ready. And I've sent you these questions, so I'm going to go ahead and get started. And in terms of the data deletion policy, the ALPR data, it's my understanding that the retained data is, the data is retained for 30 days and then deleted. The audit log shows several searches conducted more than 30 days after the incident or report date. Please explain the department's current deletion policy and how those searches were possible.

Sure. So the data is deleted after 30 days. We've had occasions where we were looking for something and it was past the 30 days and you can't look it up. It's not there to look back the 30 days. So what you're seeing is an existing case and then searching again. You know what I mean? So like say, suppose we had this homicide in February and now we're still looking for the guy. And in May, we get a clue that, hey, he was in this vehicle or whatever. We run that under that case number, but it's only for that time that we're, it doesn't go back. You know what I mean? It goes forward, not forward, but I mean, it doesn't go back to the original case date, but you're able to continue to run a plate or run a vehicle if you get a clue on your investigation?

So I have a couple of searches. I think they were shots fired. And the search on 6-22 went back 90 days to March 16th.

So the incident or the first time that we went into the system maybe was 90 days ago, but we're not going to see 90 days of data.

We can only see 30 days. You can go back to the 316 data.

No.

No.

We can't. No.

Okay. So what does the 316 represent?

It must have any of the data of the incident or the data report.

No, it wasn't. It's not what I had.

Let's say we have an incident in February. In May, like the chief said, we developed some information that we want to look at whatever that vehicle may be. We can put any search parameters on it. You can type in. You want to look from January 1st until this May date. You're only going to see from 30 days prior to your search date. So if we search on May 15th, you're only going to see April 15th in Ford. Just like any other search parameter, there's a date box that you can type in any dates you wish. The only data that we have access to and that exists is 30 days prior from the time that person is sitting at that computer or mobile device to search that data.

Okay.

No matter what they type in as the filters.

Okay. And how does the data get deleted?

Just automatically deleted.

You do it from your... No. It's at the flock servers?

It's just removed from the system.

So they delete the data from their servers?

Correct. And they do because we've We've tried like with a very important case, like, Hey, this data has gotta be somewhere. You know what I mean? Like, can we subpoena it? Can we do, it's not there. It's gone.

Okay.

After 30 days.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, so we, my, my understanding is that you have 137 sharing agreements with New York state agencies.

uh but during the test period may 23rd to july 23rd there were a number of searches listed that listed more than 200 networks yeah i'm going to try to explain explain that yeah i'll try to explain that and then i might lean on captain dean he's next to me here um so there is only 137 organizations agencies whatever that that we have sharing agreements with within those 137 Some of those have multiple networks. So like Home Depot, for instance, has 100 different networks, but it's only but they're only one organization. So it's so it's still there's never more than 137 different things that are people or organizations that we're sharing with. But within those organizations, they have multiple, some of them have multiple networks.

Well, I noticed that Home Depot has 100, 101. Yeah. And Lowe's, 99. So does that mean... You have access to all those 99 Lowe's stores, the ALPR system?

At any given time, that fluctuates because if a camera's down or if a network is down, but essentially, yeah, if we were to search for that. Now, if we want to search Waterville, Icohoes, and Troy, because we know that's the only parameter that we put in. But the ability is there to search that.

It is. Okay. Are they all within New York State? Yes. These Home Depots? Okay. Why would you need to search Home Depot or Lowe's?

Maybe the suspect works there. You know what I mean? Or a wanted person works there. There could be a number of reasons. Or they were seen in that area after they committed a crime in the city. You know what I mean? So it's...

Well, you know ICE has targeted Home Depots.

I've heard that. I'm not really familiar with it, but I've heard that.

Okay.

Because we don't have a Home Depot here, so it doesn't – we haven't had to deal with that, you know what I mean, in our jurisdiction.

Okay. And why the Baldwinsville Central School District? Live video.

U.S.A.

I think when we're searching for criminal information, we don't know where that suspect or that potential lead is going to be. So could it have potentially been at the Baldwin'sville? I guess the counter question is why would we not, if we have access to that, why would we not be searching that data to try and develop some sort of lead for the victim or criminal complainant?

How would you originally get access to that?

Through a sharing agreement within FLOC.

Okay. So you have a sharing agreement with Baldwinville?

We would connect our systems internally to FLOC.

Okay. So you turned off the feature, the national lookup feature, on March 18th?

Correct.

The network logs for the prior two years show numerous outside agencies searching Troy's ALPR data, most notably the Houston, Texas Police Department. which conducted over 1.1 million searches of Troy's data. Can you explain why Houston PD had this access and what it was searching for?

Well, because we had the national lookup. So when you have the national lookup, your sharing agreement is with everybody else that has the national lookup.

I know. There are like 6,000 agencies.

Something like that, yeah.

And so you wouldn't know when one of those agencies is searching our data.

Well, if you ran an audit log, you would know that they were searching, but you won't know it at the moment they're doing it now.

Well, I'm glad you turned that off. Yeah.

Unless we have a murder suspect that flies to Houston in a car.

That way.

Right.

So you would turn it back. You could.

No, no, we're not. I'm just saying you said, I'm glad we turned that off. And my reply was, yeah, unless we have a murder suspect that flees to Houston in a car, you know.

All right. okay on terms of outcome tracking the department was unable to provide the council with the number of crimes solved using alpr data uh for example we wanted you know this block markets this tool as um being a crime solving tool especially for violent crimes and still like stolen vehicles and i was surprised that you were not able to go back and give us the number of stolen vehicles or crimes violent crimes that were solved using the alpr data and um why is that why haven't you been tracking or why aren't you able to track it you want to it's at the time it's just not something that we actively track it's uh

an administratively complex thing to track just between somebody filing a report say for a stolen vehicle uh person who takes that report i'm sorry could you put the mic close to you yes so people can hear you thank you say for a stolen report the person who uh the officer who takes that stolen report uh stolen vehicle report may not necessarily be the same person who uh takes the report of that vehicle recovery. So to have some sort of administrative function in place to track both the report, the recovery, and if there was some sort of ALPR used in between, just wasn't something that we had in place. And it was something that we had to put in place for the 60-day tracking. And if we were to continue to do it, it was something that we would have to continue to probably work on a little bit more to continue to track it.

Go ahead.

For that, I mean, it's not easy. It's very cumbersome. And we would probably need additional personnel administrator, you know, I mean, someone in a clerical job or something like that, to go through all that stuff. Because it's too much of a burden on the captain who already has a whole bunch of other duties. I mean, I wish it was automated, but

Yeah, I'm surprised it's not, but.

I think it's just important to note, representing the people that I work alongside, the detectives, FLOC is one tool and maybe a dozen or so other just investigative measures that they would use. And so while it may have impact, as was demonstrated in the report that was sent to you, It's not only the the only material thing that may impact the case and to what extent it does. Maybe it provides lead, but it doesn't corroborate the lead or maybe it provides no lead. And so that removes a specific information. And so I think to to benefit from that data, which would always I think everybody wants more data, like if DPW, I want to know how many water main breaks are solved with a shovel versus an excavator versus a back or whatever it may be, because it will better influence future decision making. i think in this case you'd potentially have flock you'd have witness interviews you'd have suspect interviews you'd have all these different measures and it's certainly something we'd benefit from but it's not something that is would to the chief's point be specifically real efficient for the detective to do with every single metric that they're being then requested to track right but we we need to um figure out if it's worth the cost and to do that we need to have

number of information about the crimes you're solving with it i mean appreciate it very much captain dean what you did for the 60 days i know i could tell it was a lot of work but that should be somehow um incorporated into uh the transparency and accountability for this um

I agree and I love the data. If there's some way to accomplish getting a non-police entity to provide that data, then it would benefit all of us. But when we talk about cost, I think we've demonstrated in that 60-day, even from the snapshot you were providing 60 days, it's going to be very difficult for all of us to assign a cost to the product that it's providing and the victims and the complainants and the police officers that it's aiding. And so I think when we get a cost discussion, it's important for all of us to be mindful of cost. But that's not necessarily where I think the benefit of the data would be. It would be, is this tool more effective than that tool? Or is this company more effective than that company? Because we're not attached to any one company. This is the company we have today. Maybe it's not the company that we have tomorrow or next year. But for simply just purposes of cost, I don't know that that would be

But you feel that it's beneficial to you.

I think by our submission for that, the crimes that were solved, at least even in part of this last 60 days that we've demonstrated to you, that you asked for after we had brought anecdotal evidence, but you wanted more fine-tuned evidence, which I can appreciate, and that's what was done. I think we've demonstrated that ALPRs are an asset that are important to law enforcement.

Chair, is it okay if I ask a question? I just want to clarify what I heard about why you're unable to give the number. You can't definitively say, this case, ALP solved it, check, right? Because there are so many other tools. So yes, it was involved. That's why it's on the log. But you can't say that it was

solved because of an alpr it was just used in correct the process of solving that crime okay yeah i mean it's a it's a it's a piece of the piece of the pie right basically okay thank you but the alprs uh that's been sold as um solving uh stolen vehicles and that to me makes a lot of sense you know you put in the alp and you put in the license yeah you're right vehicle and in that in that instance that that makes it easy that one that's an easy one but like suppose how many stolen vehicles you've been able to recover using this David, that's what I'm trying to get at. This is a tool that you say is effective, but I have to say it's not significantly demonstrated in the data that we have for this reason, because you're not tracking.

It still would only be a part of it. It's not like the ALPR arrested the person with a stolen vehicle. There could have been information generated from a witness. I mean, it's used. It's a part of it, but it's not the end all.

That's important for us to know.

That's what I'm telling you.

but i need numbers well we can only go for we can only go forward you know and then we'll we'll need we'll need support in order to do that all right well um come up with a proposal but if i really think if you're going to use this tool we need to know how effective it is. You say it's effective, but we need to have data. That's my point. And now I'm going to turn it over to the other committee members who would like to share.

I'm going to pivot completely. So if you have things direct, okay. Hello. Thank you for being here as always. I have updates on FLOX specifically that we have not had a public safety meeting since I got that information. So this is going to be a lot more me talking than you answering questions. There's like two questions for you, but I wanted to update you guys and the public so that we're all on the same page with the new information since our last meeting. And I emailed some of these findings to you guys previously so that you had them. I did get the SOC 2 report from Flock. It was a very dense 92 pages, but made it through. I have some highlights that I just wanna go over. The report and the audit in general is only for the cloud-based Flock system, not the cameras themselves, the firmware on the cameras or the transmission of the data from the cameras to the cloud. So for those who are less technologically inclined, everything on the camera itself could be very open. There are not audits published on the security of the cameras themselves and how the data gets up to the cloud, which is where you guys can search. So that was very important finding from the report. The off-board process for anyone who no longer subscribes to the FLOX system doesn't include anything about what's done with your data. So sure, it only keeps it for 30 days, soon to be seven days, but there's nothing in writing from the audit that says, you know, you end your subscription, your data is gone. That is something I find to be very important because once the subscription ends, they no longer have any kind of, no reason to do what we want them to do. Like we're not paying them anymore. Even if a customer decides to change the retention period of the data, it only applies moving forward. So if we decide that we want something less than 30 days, soon to be seven, everything that's already there stays there until that previous retention period is over. It's only moving forward that it gets changed. AI is not mentioned a single time in the report. which I've found to be disconcerting considering AI is used a lot in the system. Some other items of note that were not in my email previously, but is important for anybody who does security. Flock is the only company I've ever encountered in my entire career. Like I do this for a living. I've reviewed hundreds of SOC reports of hundreds of different vendors. Flock is the only one that requires you to enter an email address of a Flock employee to get approved to get the report. You have to already know somebody at Flock. I've never experienced that before. Similarly, they're also the only company I've ever encountered that does not allow you to download a PDF version of the report. Some companies actually require having a PDF version on file, bank specifically, or they can't use your product. Within the report, none of the pages are numbered, which might not seem like a big deal until you're trying to cite something in the report. You can't cite anything without a page number. That is incredibly sketchy. I'm sure lawyers are not super happy with that. For SOC reviews in general, Backing up a little higher level because not everybody does technology things like I do. A SOC report is based on a third-party audit. They have to get a certain third party. It's usually big accounting firms who do these audits, EY, things like that. The third party looks at documentation provided by the company against standards it's being reviewed against. So for example, a common standard is that a company ensures logical access limitations based on least privilege. So that's like saying, you know, only certain people in TPD have access to flock. You have documentation showing only certain people have access. The third party auditor looks at that, gives you a thumbs up. Cool. You're doing great. Usually when I'm reviewing these, most companies will have one or two exceptions where what the company says they're doing doesn't match the documentation. It happens. We're all human. There's always a note about why it doesn't match. Flock had more exceptions than I've ever seen in my career. And I don't think I'm allowed to say how many because they have an NDA required to read this, but they have more exceptions in their report than I've ever seen. So those are the high-level findings based on the cybersecurity report from Flock. I had only really had one question for TPD, and that is what integrations do we have set up with our Flock system right now? Do you know?

Just that, just Axon.

Just Axon, which is the car ones, you know, they're in the cars.

OK. But it is an actual integration, like it's feeding data back and forth. OK. Bidirectional or One Direction?

It was at one point One Directional. I believe the companies have not severed their relationship, but temporarily paused that as presumably Axon is launching their own products of similar. But it was unidirectional from Axon into Flock. So all our reads would be in one spot. Okay.

Thank you. I don't know if you guys have questions or comments for any of that. I know it was a lot.

No.

All right. Thank you. Chair. Circling back to the Lowe's and Home Depot, we have the ability to search their data. Do they have the ability to search our data with that agreement? no private agent you have to be a law enforcement agency in order to to search another law enforcement agency okay and when we were reviewing the audit reports in one of the search criteria boxes um the word bike showed up can you explain why we were searching for a bike

Well, it could have been part of a search. So like there was a bike rack on the vehicle. There was a bike in the back of the pickup truck. There was a bike attached to the vehicle. So it could have been that. OK, so I'm just because we don't we don't search for bikes. So.

Right.

But but it is like just like there's a ladder rack on it. There's a there's a dent in the side. There's a there's a bike in the back of it. There's you know, I mean, so it's.

So it's pulling not only like it's pulling by license plate, but also by the features of the vehicle.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, because sometimes you don't have a plate and you only have a witness saying, you know, it was a white sedan with a bumper sticker and a dent in it or, you know, so you have something to go by. You know what I mean? That was in this area at this time. So that you could look for that and that's all, you know, you would put those parameters in and that's all you would get. And you might get nothing because maybe it didn't pick that up.

I guess I'm confused because I have never seen what the photos actually look like when they're taking these pictures. I assumed it was just the license plate and maybe like the coloring around it, but it is an actual vehicle. And how much within the picture is it capturing? So if this is positioned by somebody's house, are people being photographed?

I don't believe so. It's just the, the vehicle in the.

It would be the lane of travel. Like if there's someone in that lane, it captures the entire vehicle. You see the entire vehicle. Um, they're typically pointed at the roadways. So is it possible that something is captured in the background potentially, but there's no facial recognition. There's no identity identification of that person. It's focused on the vehicle and that's what's activating the snapshot.

Okay. And, um, How many times was Flock used to find the panhandler sticker bandit?

I see the summary that it was presumed it was 90. I'm not sure where you got that number from. I believe the search across all the different sites was somewhere in the low 30s. In this report, it's mentioned that it was 14 was the conclusion you made with the case number. I think when we took a look at that, it was 32.

I think from the analysis that we did, I mean, it's just some assumption by looking through. We thought it was a little bit higher at 79. And what specific crime were you pursuing in that case? Like, what would the charge be?

The charge for that, if suspects are located and identified as criminal tampering.

Is that a felony?

No, it's a misdemeanor.

And I don't know if this is a question for you or for the committee, because there's been so much information the last seven days. But you had mentioned... With Flock's news last week that it would go down 30 to seven days, my interpretation of that was that it was seven days for all new clients signing up with Flock, but it was optional for existing customers. Is that correct?

Yeah. You can set it. I mean, there are agencies across the nation. Some of them retain that data for a year or more. So you can set it however you want, you know, but they're, But if you go by their default, then it'll be seven days.

For new contracts. For new contracts, yeah. And what is your official opinion of that news that came out last week?

I still think that seven days is too short. There's a new kind of a new norm out there for a 21-day retention period from 30 down to 21 days. but seven is still kind of iffy. I mean, we're not talking about some kind of a widget or something, you know what I mean? These are people, these are victims, you know what I mean? we need to help find justice for them you know and it's like okay well sorry uh it's it's day number eight and um i know that you just told us that hey it just came to you that it's this car or this plate or some witness comes out of the out of the blue you know i mean obviously there has to be an end point there has to be a an end point for for the for the data retention but seven days just seems like it's really not that long especially like you you have like say sexual assault victims they may not report that for four or five days You know, for years or yeah, or even but I'm but I'm saying, you know, it's you know, it's it's it's such a useful tool. I know you want these numbers and we'll work on that, you know, I mean, in the future so you can see. But it's not just the numbers and sense thing. It's people's lives. You know, I mean, that we're that we're trying to affect and try and. try and get them whole. That's what it's about for us. It's not just, as I've heard some people from the gallery say, a toy. It's not a toy at all. It's an investigative tool that has helped us immensely and helped other agencies across the nation immensely.

Yeah, no, I understand. I just spent, um, anybody that sent me an email, you've got a kickback that I wasn't in the office this week. And I just spent the last six days with a homicide detective from New York city. And I've had a lot of lengthy conversations over the last six days about the usefulness of this tool. Um, so I completely understand and I'm not discrediting any of that. Um, have you spoken to anybody? So for those who are listening, um, maybe unfamiliar, but in New Hampshire, They use ALPRs, but they only hold the data for three minutes.

Yeah, I don't even know how it's useful.

So essentially how it's used is they already have somebody on a hot list. And so if a vehicle passes one of the ALPRs and the vehicle's already on a hot list, they're alerted and then it's used for... immediate arrest or the next step in in your case um but after that it's deleted so i didn't know if you had ever had conversations with anybody in new hampshire using that system no i mean i read about it but but uh i haven't talked to anybody there i think it's only used in new hampshire for hot list yeah yeah um not for active searches yeah because i was going to say it doesn't really that's not very helpful for an investigation really i mean only a tiny bit

you know well they're still solving crimes in new hampshire i don't think you can compare now excuse me mayor please this is i i know this is i'm the mayor stop this is stop you you cannot

Okay, everyone, please. Let's have some respect for the chair of the committee who is attempting to have some quorum here. I think we've concluded the questions.

No, I have a couple more. Okay. I just want to understand the dashboard, the Axon dashboard cameras, how are they collecting? Are they just continually collecting data? Are the cars, when they're going through town,

Yes, that's exactly right.

Because there are a lot of scans. I think it was 20-some million. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And where is that stored? So does that get integrated into Flux servers?

No, Axon. It's stored with Axon.

Okay. And how long is that kept?

That is also 30 days.

Okay. And it gets deleted. So do we have a contract with Axon? Yes. We do. Okay. I could look at that. Big contract. Oh. I know I have a couple of cases that I'm sure you don't want me to talk about. These are ongoing cases, but I was curious and these are in the 30 tracked cases that you gave that you gave us. uh why the search the initial search of the alpr system wasn't done in some of these cases for 29 days after the um crime took place and one of them is is uh you know it's a very serious crime that is still and you're

We don't have all the information to search at the incident date. Sometimes it takes a detective to start to build leads. And then once they have that information, then they can search for it on that day.

So if you have a crime, a very serious crime that takes place, for instance, a murder, you wouldn't try to, on a specific day, around a specific time of day, you wouldn't try to capture the cars in that area or coming into the city or out of the city during that time, during a certain time period?

No, for the exact purpose that we say, we don't just cast a wide net. If we just have a homicide, we don't just freeze all the cars in the city and say, all right, well, it's probably one of these. We'll just hope to have that data in the future. We wait until we build the information and then search against that information.

Okay, but you can't just isolate it into a specific area?

There is times with the mobile LPRs that if we have a homicide on a certain block and for some reason we think that maybe the suspects arrived in a vehicle, left it there, wasn't used in the homicide, that we'll have a mobile LPR maybe spin that block. But no, we wouldn't freeze data for the entire city or the north end because of a violent crime.

So you have to have a lead...

before you would search any any cars and we have to know what we're searching for okay or have some idea to the chief's point if we know it's a white sedan then we would start those searches but if we get to a scene you don't have that information yet then we have nothing to search for okay okay and i just um one more i just wanted to make a uh observation uh what a good job we're doing is that

I do think you are doing a good job. We don't dispute that. And I would also say we are trying to give you this tool to use. We just need to put some parameters on it. And I hope you can understand.

I understand. I also, you can go first or I can go first. I had a couple of things I wanted to bring up about the legislation too.

Okay. just i just wanted to make this observation that based on approximately 50 million scans 96 to 97 of the hot list hits over two years were for suspended plate or suspended or revoked plates that means that only three or four percent of the alerts related to the serious crimes that this tool is marketed as so it's when i see data like that it says to me

We don't use it as a traffic enforcement tool. So if there's a dozen suspended regs driving the city of Troy, is it concerning to us as a community? Maybe. Is there police there sitting at flock ready to say, oh, there's a suspended registration on Hoosick Street? No. What in large part, as demonstrated by the data we provided for the 60 days and then just our anecdotal retelling, is we use as an investigative tool for the more serious crimes. And so we typically don't populate a hot list. It's it's Not necessarily. We don't use it extremely as that tool where we know what vehicle we're looking for. Now we put it in there and then we wait for it to hit. What we use it more as is as investigative tools to develop the lead. And then once we know what vehicle we're looking for, potentially we'll put it into a hot list. But maybe we wouldn't because we don't want necessarily any patrol officer stopping this vehicle. Maybe once we have it identified, we want detectives to sit on it for a while or further develop that lead. While there's many reads and a fraction of them are for suspended registration or a stolen plate, it's just not something that we're utilizing it for.

Most of them are for suspended. And so we're not using- 97%.

And we're not using it for that. So while that's important to us, not really. And to the point of this continued discussion of that most of the cases are within the 48-hour window, it's because most of the work, the reactive work we do, is solved in that uh in the most of the arrests are at the scene of the total arrests that we make but we cannot discount just because most of them were in 48 hours that those ones that were in excess of 48 hours are not important to us or we're making this balance of well we can't we have to cut those out because these things may happen i think to some of the other council members points you would just put in necessary safeguards to protect the data so that you would still have it post 48 hours. But to the same extent, if there is misuse, you have these tools and this accessibility to hold those accountable because no one wants it to be misused. People want it to be used for good. And I think to the chief's point, it's not for the material benefit of the officers. Do the officers get contentment out of solving a case? Of course they do. But we have to recognize that, and I believe you do, that the people that we're doing this for, the people that the officers are then working for, are the people that are coming to the officers to solicit help from them. And so that's why the argument, and sometimes potentially we get a little too passionate, that yes, the majority are within 48 hours. We cannot discount the ones that are in excess of 48 hours.

Okay. Go ahead, Chief. I'm finished.

So, thank you. So, in the legislation, there's no mention of misdemeanors at all. And there's quite a few violent misdemeanors out there. You know what I mean? And I just think, I mean, there's... We made a little handout for you guys to have, too, before we're done. But say, like, assault in the third degree... Sexual misconduct, criminal obstruction of breathing, custodial interference, obstructing governmental administration, criminal contempt, which is whenever you have a violation of moral protection, endangering the welfare of a child, unlawfully dealing with a child, and so on and so on. I have a list here, and there's many more than this. We just compiled about 30 of them. And also, you don't even know what you're going to have when you're starting your investigation. It could become a felony. And now you're like, oh, darn. You know what I mean? We thought it was going to be a misdemeanor. So we weren't able to run this, run the plate. Now it's a felony and we don't have that evidence for the prosecutor or that that tidbit of being able to find the person or, you know what I mean? So it's like I think you should really rethink that. the misdemeanors and put them back in, or maybe you can take a portion of them and put them in, you know, the really serious ones. You know, even a DWI suspect or something, you know what I mean? It's like, that's only a misdemeanor. You know, it's important. Those are important crimes.

But you have tools that you can use, right? I mean, you've said that tonight.

We don't have, no, I'm talking about the LPRs specifically. So if this person's fleeing in a vehicle and it's a misdemeanor, well, then you can't use the LPR to assist in solving that case. And then you find out that, oh, guess what? It's not a misdemeanor, that the custodial interference becomes a kidnapping, and you've lost that ability that you would have had if we were able to run the plate as a misdemeanor. I mean, it's very important. I'm kind of passionate about that because a lot of things start out one way and they end up another way. And to lose that ability to find that person or to find that kid whose parents stole them or, you know what I mean, or that person that was just raped. You know, it starts out as sexual misconduct and then you find, oh, no, he really forced me, you know, because now she feels better a couple of days later. Oh, sorry, we're not able to do that because you told us it was a misdemeanor. And now that data is gone. You know, so it's I don't know, it's just very important.

But are you saying you couldn't solve that crime without this data?

No, it's it's. we might be able to solve it but I mean my God it's it's a huge help it's it's an assistance at times sometimes it's no assistance at all but sometimes it is assistance to us you know thank you sure may I ask a question sure um with regards to the panhandling signs would you say that the criminal tampering is a serious misdemeanor no

no but it was it depends though i mean like in this instance criminal tampering a lot of things fall under that i mean it could be messing with somebody's utilities that could be and it's serious it's criminal tampering of an anti-pain handling side now but as you said it could evolve into something like tipping over cows in a field it could but we don't have any cows here so i'd say no right okay but it was used flock was used in pursuit of that do you think that that is an appropriate practice going forward

I leave that up to you. You know, I mean, it's it's it's used for all kinds of things. You know, I mean, it's used for like you said, it's used for suspended vehicles. It's used for for a stolen plate. Those aren't felonies either. You know, I mean, it's.

Yeah, we're trying to.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

But I definitely, you know, like I said, we can compile a list of misdemeanors that are serious misdemeanors that I just think we're really missing the boat here. I mean, if we don't include those, it's going to be very detrimental to a lot of victims out there that we're not going to have evidence for. And like you said, I know. Could we solve it without it? Maybe we could, maybe we couldn't. I mean, I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball, but I know that this helps us.

Okay. Thank you. Anything else you'd like to offer?

There's different points in the legislation. You talk about really outlawing any sort of sharing whatsoever. That's a tricky road to go on. And I understand some of it's outlined through the necessary for necessity per search warrant. But if you don't have the information to support the search warrant, then you wouldn't have access to that data. And with how transient crime can be, murder in lansingburg would not have we would not have access to certain data as part of that investigation nor be able to have obtained a search warrant for that data without the local sharing that we have in place so i think these are just considerations separate from retention obviously it's lengthy legislation other parts of it that need to be addressed and then specifically to the chief's point of misdemeanor verse felony you're also requesting of the initial responding officers to be making that delineation in their head while they're doing all these other things whether they're allowed to do this and if they're not they're immediately under punishment as legislated i think it's just dangerous work it's a dangerous road to go down to to the chief's point of a list of misdemeanors if they're going to a shots fired complaint a newer supervisor or police officer may assume oh i have a felony i can use this but just an immediate shots fired response is not necessarily a felony. That's not necessarily, doesn't potentially rise to level of felony until we have some more information about that, that would involve the felonious charges. So I think it's, when you get that granular, it's getting more significantly difficult for everyone involved, whether it's the responding police or the prosecutors, or certainly the people that, because I understand we're all in the same position here. We're all trying to pull in the same direction of making this community safe. that's hamstringing you as well.

Well, we're trying to balance your ability to use this tool with protection of Fourth Amendment rights. And people's awareness of their rights being attacked is heightened. I think you'd agree with that during these past couple of years. And we're seeing voting rights may be attacked in November. And we've got masked agents kidnapping people off the streets. People are very, very concerned about protecting their privacy. So we're trying to thread the needle here. And it's very, very difficult. And I appreciate the work that you do. And we thank you for the work you do. And I hope we can come to some agreement on this on this legislation.

I hope so, too. I hope this isn't the end of it before you move forward with your current legislation, because we would certainly talk more about it.

We are going to make some amendments to the current legislation. And I think we're ready to adjourn.

What about putting the city on... it kind of in a in a bad position with the with the enforcement section you know what i mean with the liability on the city you don't have teeth um you know yeah i mean yeah i mean it's it's for the it's for the plaintiff it's not it's not going to necessarily affect us unless unless it's found that they were harmed as a result of a police officer running it um but uh

We'll be keeping that in.

Okay.

Do I get a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second. Second. Okay.

Excuse me. Approval for the JAG grant funding is also on the agenda for this evening while we're here. Sorry? Approval for the JAG grant funding is also on the agenda for this evening. Would you like to address any questions now while we're here or have us come back when you get to that?

Yeah.

it was on the finance committee but if if uh if anyone if you'd like to if you don't want to stick around um I can ask if does anyone have any questions off the top of your heads at the moment at this moment um then I guess we'll uh consider it in finance but it apparently there are no questions

Thank you.

And you said you had a handout for us with the misdemeanors?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We'll be taking a five-minute recess before we begin the Finance Committee meeting. We would ask you folks to kindly take your seats. We're going to get underway. We've got a busy night ahead of us. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Council Member DiLorenzo. Present. Council Member Struber.

Present.

Council Member Spain-McClaren.

Present.

Council Member McKee. Council Member Favreau.

Present.

Council Member Campbell-Cohen. Present. And Council President Steele also present. Our agenda this evening was going to include um or includes one local law and a number of ordinances given the information we received during the public safety committee meeting the local law number three uh will not be considered this evening we want to take into consideration that information have discussions among ourselves so that will be coming up at a future date and at this point We have a public forum where anyone can speak on any agenda item. If you're interested in what is on the agenda, there are copies in the rear of the chambers. But if you are interested in speaking on any item that is on the agenda, please come forward and state your name and your place of residence. Does anyone wish to speak on any agenda item?

Just to clarify, does this include the agenda items that were previously discussed?

In public safety?

In public safety, yes. No. No. Okay. Okay.

Sorry, I forgot the resolution number.

Someone else can go because I don't remember the resolution number that I had. I had it written down and I lost it. One second, sorry.

Good evening council members. My name is Frankie and I'm a resident of Troy and I'd like to express my full support for local law number four for all the reasons I previously stated at the public hearings. I also want to commend council member Struber for crafting such an airtight comprehensive law. It was clearly well researched, well circulated and well thought out. I appreciate the professionalism and the attention to detail and I hope we can see more legislation of this caliber in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Frankie.

Okay, mine was also local law number 4. I just I was looking under resolutions for some reason. Hi, I also wanted to express support for local law number 4. I think that it is very important that we are consistent with the New York State executive law. I also. was just wanted to make the remark that we've been in a state of emergency since april 1st and i don't really understand why i know that at several meetings people have requested clarity about that and what it is about the specific state of emergency that we're in right now that justifies still being under that state of emergency but to my understanding that information hasn't been completely disclosed. And it seems that between the different leadership members of the city, there's a lot of discord and kind of nasty remarks made, especially by the mayor's office, that I think are not conducive to allowing the public to understand what it is that's going on people come to you know social media pages email lists and things of that nature to get information and instead are met with personal attacks um ai generated videos of you council member mckee that have been circulating on the Facebook page of a Troy City official that I was a little bit alarmed to see because I thought they were real at first, and then I realized they were in fact AI generated, and that concerns me greatly. So I feel personally that it is very important not only that Local Law 4 be passed, but that It becomes sort of a guiding light into a standard of decorum that we should all come to expect from all city officials. And unfortunately, I have not been able to access a lot of the information that I personally had hoped to see about the state of emergency because the mayor has me blocked. Thank you.

For the record, would you please state your name?

Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought I did. I'm HG Warner and I live in downtown. Thank you.

Does anyone else wish to address the council on an agenda item? Seeing none, we'll move along. 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 declaration. Council Member Struber. Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member Spade. Second. Seconded by Council Member McKee.

Discussion on the local law.

Chair. Council Member Struber.

I'm not going to repeat my remarks from previous times, but I did want to put states of emergencies into perspective to shed some light on the importance of outlining the proper procedures per state law. Troy's current mayor has been in office since January of 2024 and has declared eight emergencies. Mayor Cram of Binghamton, in office since 2022, has declared two states of emergency, both for large snowstorms. Mayor Owens of Syracuse has been in office since December of 2025, has declared zero states of emergency. Previous Mayor Walsh of Syracuse was in office from 2018 to 2025 and declared two states of emergency. Mayor Noble of Kingston has been in office since 2016, which is over 10 years, and has declared three states of emergency, one of which was for COVID precautions. Mayor Appalachias of Albany has only been in office since January of 2026 and has not had any emergency declarations. Previous Mayor Sheehan was in office from 2014 to 2025 for 11 years and had 17 emergency declarations. The COVID state of emergency was renewed monthly per state law 16 times. These are just some of our neighboring municipalities, similar size, similar makeup of Troy. But the overarching theme that can be seen is that Troy has a suspiciously high number of emergency declarations that has cost the city money. Clear communication and defined processes are essential during an emergency. State executive law is not necessarily easy to read or easy to find the pertinent sections, especially when there's an emergency happening. Outlining the same requirements that exist in New York State executive law in Troy's own charter allows for much simpler access for reference. And if defining a process causes an executive to assume that their power is being curtailed, that is a good indication that they may have been misusing the spirit and intent of that statute. in order to protect the city its finances and its residents i'm recommending the proposed changes under local law number four to bring troy in line with existing new york state law thank you does anyone else have a comment okay all in favor aye opposed local law four is adopted unanimously seven zero

Ordinances.

Ordinance 31. Ordinance amending Chapter 285 of the Troy City Code to include battery energy storage systems. Councilmember Struber, is there a motion?

Motion.

Councilmember McKee, second. Second. Councilmember Favreau, discussion on the ordinance. Chair. Councilmember Struber.

I noticed a couple of typos, so I... I would like to make a motion to make the following amendments to the ordinance. Amending Section 2A to define Tier 1 batteries as less than 600 kilowatt hours. Amending Section 4D1 to add zones BD, MF, and TF And amending section 4F14 to change 1% to 10% as the requirement for emergency operations funds.

There's a motion made on the floor. Is there a second? Second.

Second by Councilmember Favreau.

Discussion on the motion to amend.

Chair.

Councilmember Campbell-Cohen.

For the zoning districts that you're adding to the list, can you just repeat those and say what the acronyms are?

BD, business district, MF, multifamily, and TF, two-family.

Thank you.

Any other questions or discussions on the amendment? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The amendment carries. On the amended ordinance, any discussion? Rick, did you want to share something?

We need a mic for you.

I did email Councilperson Struber. on several occasions. The council cannot act on the ordinance because no seeker has been done. This is a type one seeker action. Also, it probably requires a referral to the county planning agency. And under our amendment process for the zoning code it requires a referral to the planning board doesn't all of that happen after it goes through finance i thought that's what we had talked about the finance was first and then you can't take any action under seeker you can't take any action until uh on the on the legislation until you've done the seeker analysis so someone has to be it's a type one you have to be declared lead agency you have to send out notices for 30 days the only thing I think you probably could do is refer to the planning board because that is not a substantive action and can you walk us through the process of whom does these steps well the lead agency does

No, but submitting it to them. How am I submitting this to SECRA? Are you doing that? How does that work?

There's no submission to SECRA. I don't quite understand your question. SECRA is a process of review for environmental impacts.

Yes. So how do they know this is happening?

Who's they? The planning board. Pardon? The planning board. No, you can refer this to the planning board, and you have to, but I don't think the planning board would be appropriate to act as a lead agency.

Can we name ourselves lead agency? Yes, you can. And we can do the short form?

No, you can't.

So can you walk us through the process of best steps of seeker?

Okay, what you have to do is you would have to resolve to act as lead agency. Then you would have to send out notices to all the involved agencies of what you're proposing to do. In addition, you'd have to refer it to the county planning agency. After waiting 30 days, you can then declare yourself the lead agency and act on the legislation. However, you have to prepare a full environmental assessment form. so is there a reason that that was not provided when i asked it via email and this so when i i mentioned it to you several times and i asked you the process and i gave you the process for and i mentioned that the i could have the email with me okay so i mean i gave you the process and i told you that i didn't know what you were planning to do with seeker and i asked you exactly what i just asked you right now which is the process There was not a response. I specifically gave you a process, ma'am. I did not try to hide anything or anything like that. But if I answered the questions that were asked me.

I think we have a communication problem. It could be on both ends. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it serves any purpose to go back and forth. Would you please put what you just stated, the steps, in writing to the entire council?

I can do that.

Thank you. Thank you. Motion to table? Yeah. I would entertain a motion to table. Motion. Councilmember McLaren with a second by Councilmember Favreau. Thank you, Rick. We have a motion to table or discussion on the motion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Ordinance 31 is tabled. Ordinance 34. Ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit Ajit Kanuja et al. versus City of Troy et al. United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. Civil action number 126CV1019. 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 ordinance all in favor aye opposed ordinance 34 is adopted unanimously 7-0 ordinance 35 ordinance amending the 2026 capital fund budget council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member struber with a second by second council member favreau discussion on the ordinance all in favor aye opposed Ordinance 35 is adopted unanimously, 7-0. Ordinance 36, ordinance amending the 2026 general fund budget. Council President Steele, at the request of the administration, is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McKee, with a second, by? Second. Council Member DiLorezzo. discussion on the ordinance chair councilmember Campbell Cohen is the controller available for comment hey Mike how are you can Anasha can we move the podium around so folks have someplace to put their papers

Sort of similar to, I think it was ordinance 16 with the water fund. I'm seeing in this, in ordinance 36, the revenue that's getting added is through the appropriated fund balance. That's $1 million. What is that?

That's an actual revenue line just to budget the appropriated fund balance.

I understand. But where is that money coming from?

From the unassigned fund balance. Okay. In theory, yes. I mean, we're appropriating fund balance. So in theory, if need be, if expenditures outperform revenues, then yeah, we'll have to pull from the unassigned overall.

Where are we at with the unassigned fund balance at the moment?

I honestly don't have that number in front of me.

I know that the fund, whatever, the total fund balance, I'd be lying if I could recall it. It's in the teens.

total fund balance the other side i don't know but i can get it to you okay i'm gonna ask that when we're appropriating something from another fund if we can know what's in that fund going forward with these kind of ordinances well this is from the same fund but yeah you want to know what's right but we're adding we're putting one million in revenue from something else i'd like to know yeah from there i'd like to know how much is in that something else understood okay

and your confidence were it's it's i'd say i hate to throw a number out it's the total fund balance including the unassigned and the restricted and such i want to say 12 14 i'm sorry i haven't looked at the it was in the afr it was submitted you can see it there

okay i could i could if you want i could go probably retrieve such um well we are voting on this again at the special meeting it would it be too much to ask that you back on it yeah it was just before whatever was reported in the afr i'll get you the total fund balance all right okay well thank you any other questions for mike

all in favor aye opposed ordinance 36 is adopted 7-0 ordinance 37 ordinance amending the 2026 capital fund budget council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion council member struber with a second by council member mckee discussion on ordinance 37. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Ordinance is adopted unanimously, 7-0. Ordinance 38, ordinance amending the 2026 capital fund budget. Council President Steele, the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McLaren? Second. Seconded by Council Member McKee. Discussion on ordinance 38.

Chair?

Council Member DiLorenzo? i'd just like to ask to be added as co-sponsor to uh ordinance 38 and i'd ask that the clerk reflect that in legislation okay we're adding council member dean lorenzo as a co-sponsor any other comments or discussion all in favor aye opposed Ordinance 38, adopted unanimously, 7-0. Ordinance 39, ordinance amending the 2026 capital fund budget. Council President Steele, at the request of the administration, is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McKee with a second by Council Member McLaren. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Ordinance 39 is adopted unanimously, 7-0. Ordinance 40, ordinance amending the 2026 Miscellaneous Special Revenue Fund to accept funds from the United States Department of Justice as part of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant, Council President Steele at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member Struber? Second. Council Member McKee? Second. Sure. Discussion on the ordinance. all in favor aye ordinance is adopted 7-0 ordinance 41 ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit Joseph Martinez versus the City of Troy and Towers on the Hudson Rensselaer County Supreme Court index number EF 2023 273522 Council President Steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member mclaren with a second by council member di lorenzo discussion on the ordinance all in favor aye opposed ordinance is adopted unanimously 7-0 ordinance 42 ordinance amending the 2026 general fund budget council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion Councilmember McLaren second second by Councilmember McKee discussion all in favor aye opposed ordinances adopted 7-0 ordinance 43 ordinance amending the general fund capital projects fund and miscellaneous special grants fund budgets to appropriate funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. Council President Steele, at the request of the administration, is there a motion?

Motion. Council Member Favreau?

Second. Seconded by Council Member McLaren. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ordinance is adopted unanimously 7-0. Ordinance 44. ordinance amending the general fund, garbage fund, water fund, and sewer fund budgets. Council President Steele, at the request of the administration, is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McKee? Second. Second. Council Member McLaren? Discussion on the ordinance? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Ordinance is adopted 7-0. Moving on to resolutions. Resolution 82. 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, second. Second. Council Member Struber, discussion? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution 82 is adopted 7-0. resolution 83 bond resolution of the city of troy new york authorizing the issuance of 650 000 in serial bonds to finance the purchase of machinery and apparatus for construction and maintenance council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member mclaren second seconded by council member mckee discussion chair council member struber

Is anybody from the administration here for questions? Thank you very much for including most of what I was going to ask in your memo of support.

You're welcome.

The item that I'm not seeing, though, do these new trucks have backup cameras?

They should. If they're not in the spec, then I can update.

We can update the specs for that for sure. OK.

That's all I had.

Great question. Very pertinent. Any other comments, questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution 83 is adopted 7-0. Resolution 84, resolution honoring honorary street Designation of Kevin Pryor Way. Council President Steele, Council Member Spain McLaren at the request of the administration. Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McKee? Second.

Second.

Council Member DiLorenzo? Discussion on the resolution? Chair. Council Member Struber?

I was supposed to email Addie earlier this week to ask to co-sponsor and I forgot.

Please add Council Member Struver as co-sponsor. Chair. Council Member McKee. I would also like to co-sponsor this. Is there anyone who wouldn't want to go? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution 84 is adopted 7-0. resolution 85 resolution of the troy city council authorizing a change of traffic direction on jacob street between river and king street council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member mckee with a second by council member mclaren um under discussion we've received um a lot of comments about this resolution I'm concerned and think we need time to consider it and follow up with their concerns. So I would entertain a motion. I would move that we table. Second. Second. We have a motion that made and seconded to table. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Resolution 85 is tabled. That concludes our agenda for the Finance Committee meeting.

Do you want a five-minute break?

Yes. Okay. Could I have a motion to adjourn first?

Motion.

Council Member McLaren, seconded by Council Member Struber. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned for a five-minute break. OK, thank you everyone. We're going to get back in gear here after our break. We're going to be listening to the controller present the Q2. Financial report as prescribed by the Charter. Mike, do you have just to answer Council Member Campbell Cohen's question? Do you have the fund balance tally?

19 and a half.

Thank you, Comptroller.

You got it. We work as a team. We're not honed in on one person. okay we have questions for mike folks if i may chair i wanted to uh quickly just give an overview a couple quick things first and foremost just kudos to the team to the comptroller to our treasurer gabrielle Mahoney, our Comptroller Mike McNaff, Deputy Mayor Seamus Donnelly, to all the department heads. They have just done an incredible job over the last two years controlling expenditures, literally providing more services, quality services and efficient. Going into quarter two to recap the last two and a half years, just huge kudos to our team. We continue to remain under budget. We continue to have superior credit and bond ratings. We also acknowledge when the LDC for Proctor City Hall used the city as the backing for some of the The information for the bonding on that showed the strong capacity of our bonding rating, our bond rating, strong capacity to pay debt service. The report in front of you truly continues to demonstrate our commitment to fiscal responsibility, controlling our expenditures, maintaining that strong credit rating, and more importantly strategic investments throughout the community. Once again, 2024-25 we've added to our budget surplus we're on track to do so again this year we are currently under budget you'll see q2 continues to maintain that all across our expenditure funds contractual expenses are down by more than three hundred thousand dollars As I mentioned, we continue our strong credit and BOM rating. In July, we received the highest short-term BOM rating from S&P, global ratings, superior credit quality, excellent protection from established cash flows, broad access to financial markets, And we continue to have a very strong capacity to pay principal, interest, and debt service. This is all predicated on being efficient, continuing. My staff hates when I say more with less. We continue though to provide more services. we continue to control expenditures many of the projects in fact tonight for a park improvement project continues to move forward many of the long overdue projects are happening because of that strong financial status The brand-new, state-of-the-art firehouse in Lansenburg. Obviously, you need a strong bond rating, credit rating to make that happen. It's happening now. Our annual infrastructure improvement plan. Continue to make incredible invest, critical investments, I should say, in our road and infrastructure. And then just lastly, The $42 million in ARPA funding, that doesn't happen overnight. We know it began several years ago during COVID, post-COVID, but that ARPA money going out the door, I cannot say enough about our deputy mayor, and gabrielle our treasurer who have overseen the disbursements track the expenditures reviewed invoices literally hundreds of phone calls because several municipalities decided to appropriate arpa money for five or six projects. As you know, we took a different tactic years ago while I was council president in the prior administration. We have several projects, I think over 70 maybe, yep if not more so saying that just kudos to our team uh we will be finished with arpa money every penny will get out the door by the end of this year december 31st 2026 and i want to thank the council for working with us um obviously uh this evening was a huge step reappropriating some of that arpa money Additionally, the first time since the garbage fee, which we all know was temporary than permanent, first time that we've reduced the annual garbage fee. I talk about increasing our services. Once again, last week we finished the free at home bulk first time in decades that we've provided that to the residents of troy once again we're just looking for more services quality services efficient services for every taxpayer dollar that goes out that door we'll continue to not only picking up new people who now are coming back to the city because of the quality, the efficiency. I want to give kudos to our General Services Commissioner, Joe Mazzarello, who has just done a remarkable job with the Quality of Life Action Task Force and all of our general services and all of our team. But once again, we continue investing in our city, protecting our assets. And I can't say enough about the team. We look forward to going over Q2 with you. And we're open to any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. That's why we're here. Council members. Mike, did you have a opening statement as well? Or can we just jump into our... No, we can roll right into it. Okay, let's do that.

Council President Council member Campbell Cohen um I've got a handful of questions maybe just go page by page so that we're not jumping back and forth um for licenses and permits I'm seeing a pretty substantial drop off from this time last year and there's a bunch of different codes lumped in do you know which licenses or permits have dropped off

The decrease is primarily building permits. However, we do have a couple of big projects in the hopper that obviously you haven't reflected yet. And we're guessing about between $400,000 to $600,000 in permit fees sometime this year. So that should come pick up.

so a council member it's not a decrease we're just waiting on those two big projects the fees coming in which will be in by the end of the year okay yeah it's just relative to this time last year I understand nothing's like on track all the time um and then similarly for fines and forfeitures it's not as dramatic but um do you know which which okay account for that drop off uh looks like parking and traffic or bolt down okay and my last question for the first page is looking at the sales tax is um nothing it's not a dramatic drop off from last year but it is dramatically lower than where it would have to be to hit the budget projection Are we going to see an amendment to those revenue projections before the end?

Well, unfortunately, we don't know the end result of sales tax so well into the following year. In fact, that's only one of four distributions that is reflected in this report. is part of the problem you know it's yeah i do see it's down um i just want to note that the state overall i just you know i'm a miss on this number because the state overall was up six percent for the same reporting period our friends across the river looks like they were up about 11 so yeah i'm i think county is up as well so it's interesting that the city is not oh yeah the the county is up no yeah not for this reporting period otherwise we would have been we would have seen a

There's a lag, right, for what comes in. It's like, okay, I think Q2 was better for the county than Q1.

Correct. Well, unfortunately, that's what's so tough, and we've talked about it. The sales tax for the end of the year does not come in until March, April, the following year. So we're always a quarter behind. Okay.

we anticipate those numbers going up i'm going to address this to you all because that's the structure of this conversation but it's really for the benefit of the public the the way that our sales tax agreement is set up with the county Things really plateau. So the county can pull in way more money and that's barely reflected in what we're actually seeing for revenue. It's an old agreement. I'm hoping, I know that it has to be written.

Actually, I believe it's up this year.

Yeah, February, I think is when it's done.

Yeah, no, it's a very aggressive revenue sharing formula.

I'm pleased to hear you say that.

Because we continually do receive a smaller and smaller piece of the pie as they grow. Exactly.

But sort of the practical impact of that for this year in particular is when we're projecting big jumps in sales taxes, it would have to be like astronomical jumps in county sales tax collections for it to even grow.

come close yeah we're cautiously optimistic still but yeah it's and we've seen we've seen we've seen we're out yeah we've seen we've seen quarters with dramatic increases but so yeah well obviously we don't have a crystal ball and you know the looks like inflation's still out there so unfortunately that normally boost sales tax revenues up but anyhow

Okay, well, thank you. That's it for page one on my end.

Thank you, Council President, Council Member McClaren.

Just piggybacking off of that, when does that agreement... You said it's up this coming year.

I believe it. I don't have it in front of me. I believe it is up this year.

And is that something that is negotiated or is it just kind of dictated?

I'd have to defer. I'm assuming it should be.

It's definitely something that's negotiated and it is definitely something that we've been discussing. Like that was noted here that we, of course, like every agreement, are always going to look at it for what the best interest of Troy is. I mean, look, we're the largest municipality in the county. So I think that, you know, that should play into a factor, of course, when we're trying to get our fair share of our sales tax that we're producing.

Yeah. Could I also make the suggestion that it be brought up that we also provide hazmat rescue services, ropes rescue at no cost to the county throughout the county at a cost to our fire department?

We do. That's correct as well. If you were on the Rensselaer County end, they would talk about different ways that they helped implement our new radio system that they paid for too. But we understand. We fostered what I would believe is the most beneficial relationship yet between the county and the city and different things that we've done so far. We want to build off of that more and just going down a little bit of the direction. Like it's been brought up. We'd love to negotiate our spend on 911 as well, because again, there's different angles that you can look at that as well. So those are conversations that we have ongoingly with the county as we get closer to this tax agreement. I think we can all agree. We definitely want to see it. Improve for the city of Troy, since I would imagine that worry was such a driver of sales tax in the county, being its largest municipality, and just the best place to be around. So thank you.

Council member Mickey.

there any way that we can get um an idea or an exact figure of the sales tax generated by the city of troy i mean how do how do we know what so the only and mike you can chime in everything that i i've seen i don't uh i don't know and this would be something that we approach when we get in with rencer county i know osc provides a report that breaks it down uh as the county as a whole but to your point there as well that's another thing that we could uh look into explore to see i'd have to imagine somewhere i don't know if that's where the percentage system came from originally because it's so archaic to try to track it exactly to troy that's what i've always assumed frankly but that would definitely be something that we'd look towards if we can and maybe that there's other ways to try to aggregate it kind of forensically to see exactly where we are and what we'd really be driving. So, but again, that's something that we've had discussions on that we intend on looking into as we get closer to that agreement expiring.

Thank you. I just have, and Mayor, you mentioned that the bond rate, short-term bond rating has been upgraded. Can you tell me what it is? No, there's nothing else.

It's an SP1 plus, I believe, is the... SMP1 plus? It says SP-1 plus, I believe, is the official... Which is the highest level they provide.

That's correct.

For a short-term rating, that's correct.

Yep. Do you have any more questions? No. Council Member Campbell-Cohen.

To the point about the sales tax numbers, I've been talking to a couple of state agencies about it, and what we can get is going to take some work to make legible in any way. And the margin of error is huge. But I can only speak for myself. I am very happy to be a partner on that. You have my full support if you are renegotiating City of Troy. And I just want to make that clear that I hope that we are brought in as partners because

i think we're probably pretty simpatico on the we appreciate that we really do because um you know it's like as the deputy mayor stated we have definitely improved the relationship with the county in terms of projects the ice rink and other projects uh board of elections moved um uh stayed in troy they talked about leaving troy so things like that i mean the good news relationships partnerships have improved this sales tax agreement is archaic and i can remember back in the late 90s when i was council member the council and the city manager at the time was stating the very same thing that we're stating today, that Troy is just not getting its fair share. So we do plan to do everything humanly possible, and we appreciate your support with that.

Are there any other questions on page one?

Council President. Council Member Favreau. Circling back to the fines and forfeitures, where are the redemptions and dog fines included? Is that line as well?

I believe that would be in license and permits because those actually get handled through the city clerk's office. So they should be in that category.

So if like a dog is picked up and doesn't have a license and then they get a fine for not having that, that would go through permits and license?

Maybe I misunderstood that. So that fine... I'd have to get back to you on that one to make sure I'm not sure where that funnels into because ultimately, I would imagine if that person either paid or went through the court system, I that might end up dumping back into fines, but I'm not sure. And we can look into that.

Yeah. And then the only other question that I had for that category is HBO. Do we charge them or like the current crew that's here now, are we charging them a permit B for using and closing down our space?

Yes and yes to both movie entities, our television show and movie entity. So, yes, we did. The Gilded Age, as we all know, we're very happy to see them. They have a lot of benefits coming here to the city of Troy outside. It's really cool to watch the show and really see your neighbor's house in it. But outside of that, they always would reimburse the city for using our police and all of our other services. um i want to say maybe in years past they also were willing to donate um to say to the arts um this this season this year of the gilded age i do believe is the first time the city actually just charged them an amount just generally for being here um and that was uh that was charged to the gilded age um and uh a similar not necessarily in dollar amounts just because of the scale Same thing with the Conjuring moving going on. They will reimburse our city services that are used and also pay a permit fee as well, which another thing we do, staff tracks what they spend, what overtime police are using, what everybody's using. they open up a hydrant you know uh for one of their rain scenes uh they're paying a hydrant opening fee so they pay every fee that any other business or resident would pay uh or organization to utilize the services here and then on top of that and they also i can speak for the gilded age and hbo um i think then they also even went a little further they might have supported the downtown bid i believe um we're willing to plant some trees a couple different things so you know they really are uh would are great to work with of course there's a couple bumps in the road um with with all types big uh big operations like that but otherwise they've been great to work with is donate you mentioned donating trees are those the trees they cut down or more trees on top so on top they they always are going to replace anything in kind that they might you know say damage or disrupt um but i do believe and again i not 100 sure but i i believe especially through the downtown bid there was a discussion of donation um and i do think one of those issues and as i see council member mckee not in her head so i believe i'm heading in the right direction

that part of that was going to be get used to plant some trees as well i don't believe necessarily just trees that were taken down also not 100 percent where of trees that were taken down there were a couple of trees i believe at least two trees cut down in district four um for the filming um i do know that those two were placed um but um The only other question that I had is on this spreadsheet it does show a line for the appropriated fund balances and that would be really useful to have in the future moving forward because I know the AFR is referenced and that's reflecting as of December 2025 and I know we have them pulling money from those funds.

no so if we had we this would get populated as such that we actually pulled from appropriated fund balance oh okay if we recognize appropriated but we have right no no we budgeted refund okay no welcome sorry but even then you're not going to see It's a budgeting mechanism to set up an appropriated fund balance revenue line. It's forced out by pulling from fund balance when the revenues and or expenditures outperform each other, and it nets out that way. So if we move it out of the fund, then you would see something as such.

So we did that today. Yes. We see it in Q3, right? Yeah.

That's it for page one. Yeah. Anyone else have anything on page one?

okay let's move on to two sure Council member Campbell Cohen um looking at the temporary positions uh it looks like there's about a 20 jump um and I was just curious what is driving that that I don't have an answer for him unfortunately but we got like a loose sense of just what temporary positions do exist within the so

Oh, just, I mean, an example of a temporary position. I know something that, you know, that we did, we did budget for, for example, is that we have a hotspot crew in our part of our streets crew. They're, they're part-time work. Basically when you see temporary, it's going to refer to part-time staff usually. So that would be an example where there's part-time on top of are manning uh and um job positions that are in that those uh in the streets department for example we have a crew that goes out um part-time weekends in certain areas to try to tackle certain hot spots not sure if that's the exact reasoning for the jump there um but that is also uh that's like an example as well are there other departments besides dpw where there are temporary employees We might have, I'm sure that there is a couple in other departments as well. Sometimes too, usually, although sometimes when staff might stay on after they retire, they sometimes are either part of a contracted consultant agreement or they stay on part-time.

exactly how many and where they are off the top of my head i wouldn't be able to provide that okay i would love to double back to that but we can just email about it we'll follow up with you right thank you and council member um if you're looking for straight up um parks department obviously knickerbocker ice rink there's part-time uh there's part-time at the golf course um they're seasonal um so in terms of not the additional the hot spots were added um god bless you um but those are example of part-timers so to give you an idea okay thank you

That's it. Thank you.

Council Member Favreau. I'm sorry, I'm jumping back to page one. Real property taxes. I can see that the full 29 mil has been billed. How much have we actually received?

We've collected about 57% of the levy through June.

Okay, final payment was in July, right? Am I getting correct? Yeah, so we'll see that jump up. And then now comparing the two pages, I see the total budget for 2026 is $90,147,000. And the 2026 budget for expenses for this general account is $90,437,000. So we would be...

Those are adjusted. We're using adjusted budget figures in the report.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have for these pages.

Council President, Council Member McLaren.

Can you talk about the huge change in the fixed assets?

Fixed assets.

Back on page two. Sorry. Code two. Okay. that was uh police vehicle purchases is basically what drives that it was a okay so will we see another big because we just approved purchasing the construction vehicles for dpw will we see a similar that would go through our capital projects oh okay thank you

Council President. Council Member DeLorenzo.

On June 18th, we approved a transfer for the Little Italy project. It was $400,000. It was from appropriated fund balance to equipment and other capital outlay Little Italy. Would that also be a capital project or is that going to be something that's reflected on page two here? And because it was in.

So what was that from appropriated fund balance? yes so um that when the transfer actually takes place we've probably created the budget when the funds move that will trigger a That'll actually populate the transfer to other funds.

Okay.

So that transfer. You won't see it. It's nothing called appropriated fund balance. It'll be transfer, the interfund transfer line, your code nine on the expenditure list. Okay.

Okay. All right, so that has not happened yet?

I'm not aware of it. I don't believe I have, no.

In case, because I feel like this is part of your question, that is in a capital account. The Little Italy project gets tracked through a capital project account.

While we're on it, I was just thinking, I believe part of that discussion we had back in June was that there was some grant money from the state that was funding most of that. Did that cover the entire cost of the project?

That budget transfer that we're talking about right now that you're referring to plus additional state funding and the federal funding all cover that project completely.

Okay. So the $400,000 that we have not transferred yet, that was kind of like a cushion, if I remember correctly. Is that full amount going to be transferred, even if the full cost of the project isn't required?

No, it will not. And sometimes when you see... You know, where different budget transfers that come before the council say, whatever we can make up there's 50,000 dollars left there or something. You know, you might see that we take those dollar amounts out of those capital accounts and put them again into another capital project as a transfer capital accounts. Unlike our operating budget carry over. um unlike our operating budget that's just for that fiscal year capital accounts will continue year after year over and over so uh that that the money doesn't get lost or go anywhere necessarily and yeah we only in those capital accounts pay for ultimately what the pro what the projects cost and then what that close out of close out amount will be um and the money either sits there or ends up you know getting transferred into another project

okay i think i'm following thank you council president council member struber i see the insurance line item is fully paid per the budget are we actually fully paid for insurance like we have no more payments and we just estimated 62 less than what we needed or there are more payments pending i'd assume

I mean, most of the insurance is paid obviously upfront, but I can't honestly say I researched such, so I can't give you an honest answer whether we have additional billing coming through or not. But normally insurance, as you know, I'll just say as you know, we're assuming we're paid to the end of the year.

Okay. Great job budgeting. $62 is not a great difference than what we expected.

Any other questions from council members? Sure.

Just one last one.

Sure. Council Member DeLorenzo. Thank you.

Just I'm looking at while we're on it. Code 8 under benefits. I'm seeing workers comp that the percent change is 100% increase over last year. Just wondering if we could get an overview of why that's happening.

It's all driven by claims.

Yeah.

So we don't have much control over it. We obviously try to limit injuries on the job.

Okay.

But it's similar to the health insurance. I mean, it's all claim driven.

Okay. you and just to follow along with that topic too not a bad time to give an update i know that we've discussed this with the council but we do have that risk management consultant that is on workers comp claims is also something that that consultant is part of their scope that they've been working with our personnel as well as uh going out to our facilities working with our crews for the basic safety needs that you would think of making sure hard hats are on but also the way that we track our workers comp claims how we go about it they've been very helpful with that as well and they're still in the middle of going through that process working directly with our personnel department on that as well okay that's we're all good on page two let's move on to page three sure

Council Member Campbell-Cohen.

On outside community sales, I'm seeing an 85% jump from last year. Did the thirstiest man in America, Matt Taffman?

Yeah, no, that's a timing issue. So we actually had a billing go out. in july of last year that went out in the end of june this year literally a couple day difference so just where it landed okay and so that's gonna just move out over it is it's about yeah about 1.3 million was uh building june this year that if you do it in relation if you're looking year over year uh-huh so when would it typically have gone out i believe june is the Actually, I don't know. I'd have to look at the billing setup. I don't have a real handle on, but it's obviously the end of June or the beginning of July is when we typically try to get it out for the municipalities. Okay.

Thank you. Council President. Depending on the municipality. Similar question. I can see 3.3 mil has been billed. Do we have a total of what's actually been collected?

that I don't, or that you're talking for the city water sales, yeah, that's, because there's so many billings, depending on your setup here. Various districts are billed at different times. It's a myriad, I don't know how many bills, roughly, yeah. council president so there's five sequences quarter done quarterly so it's a lot of billing obviously going on at different times it's a and i'm not well versed with the it's an old system that's in our old standee the kbs standard which is a very um unuser friendly system i've come to discover

And I imagine it helps the staff too, though, having different billing cycles and then the amount of checks that the staff is processing, I guess. Yeah. and I guess this is overall, um, as we head into budget season, I'm curious how much we actually receive versus what's billed, um, to see if there is a deficit for all of these funds, um, for that will help us moving forward. Just, um, so if we bill a total of,

uh five and a half million what are we really expecting are you in relation to the water billing i guess all of them but we can break it down by department because they do we do re-levy so i mean in the end it's i mean i might get strung out and so it's more of a cash flow issue it's what you're looking for i guess so yeah but there's a budgeting we're still going to bill it so we're hoping to collect it all But we do hold till the, obviously the end game here would be you guys foreclose on your properties, which is a unique setup.

Is there a percentage of how many bills that we do levy each year?

i don't i don't have that information at the end of the year we come to you uh before the 31st with the whole list so you'll get that whole list that gets re-levied and then in 26 obviously they're built so 27 okay thank you councilmember mclaren um

The permits down quite a bit from this time last year. Actually, the number isn't that big, but it's considerably less than what we projected.

It's got to be a timing issue. Let me see what's next. I don't have any detail other than the number you're looking at.

Okay.

can you tell me how long we hold uh residents checks before they're actually deposited i received a call um this week from someone who check it's been over a month hasn't been cashed uh we try to process them as soon as they're supposed to process them the next day

So, I mean, obviously there's a backlog with the postage for one. And obviously there might be a two-day lag if they get slammed all at once.

If I could jump in, the postage snail mail, it has been very rough. As you know, the Postmaster sent out a huge notice at the end of last year. You actually contacted us, Council President, and we didn't even receive anything. a couple of the people that you mentioned, a couple of those checks until weeks later. I sent a check up to Scroon Lake. It took them three weeks. They called me. I sent another check. My second check actually got to them quicker than the first check. The whole postal system has changed and we have noticed. a major lag with the postal system but you know i can let gabrielle vouch the checks are um put in as quickly as possible correct yeah and our residents being penalized like our interest or fees accruing um if it's if it's you can see it's definitely posted this post postmarked correctly it's or within the time frame it needs to be yeah then we honor that

why a lot of folks come personally to pay their bills like me yeah yeah yeah okay all all done with page three moving on to page four council member Campbell Cohen um

can looking at the insurance line um can you explain that dramatic shift relative to this time last year yeah there will be some adjustments as far as allocating insurance out it's a a an accounting entry that's done typically at the end of the year probably a prepaid that needs to be unwound but that you'll see that level off to I mean insurance didn't go up dramatically so they should fall in line by the end by fourth quarter you should see these everything line up okay that we're aware of yeah this wasn't there wasn't some incident or something that no we would hopefully it looks too good to be true there right now but uh-huh it's just a an accounting entry it needs to be posted

okay and um uh the other sort of noteworthy one to me in this area is um the taxes city and other governments 413 can you walk us through what's going on there so that's because it's in relation to the the the

second quarter report from last year skewed to a degree depending on who was at was part of my my taking the job here so we had a few hands in the ledger so it's just an inter-fund transfer that um was booked either early in 25 or because i believe it's basically a a journal entry issue it's again another accounting move that was done last year versus this year without me auditing 1225 again you know it's a no I follow you're totally fine um okay that is going to smooth out them but yeah that's yeah that those those lines should net out to budgeted to a large degree if need be okay excellent thank you foreign

Anyone have anything else on this page? Okay. Let's move on to page 5.

Council President Council member favor a very similar question for the sewer rents. I just didn't know if you had an actual.

no they're they're tied directly to the water billing so and that's why you should see a similar change in uh this the rent income posted on this report i believe they should they should be in line anyway without me looking at them this is part of one billing getting some council president

Council Member DiLorenzo.

Just to satisfy my own curiosity here, what might constitute a miscellaneous sewer revenue?

I should, you know, and I made a late post to that.

That should be any type of what's considered shop work. Okay, same with the water department. So you're building a new building or something and you need to hook up to the sewer system, something like that. Thank you.

Council President, Council Member McLaren.

Similar question of use of money and property. There was nothing last year. Still, it's a small number, but still.

Yeah, it's just where we're going to recognize the interest income, depending on the makeup of the fund that the funds are sitting in. Some of them are multifund accounts. We're trying to segregate them out better, but it's mostly recognizing the general fund.

Any others page 6. Are there any questions on page 6?

Council President Council Member Struber can you go over why the utilities line is so low

um yeah i'd have to drill into the ledger to see it i mean it's not that far a couple hundred bucks versus last year difference you know i don't know i'd have to drill into the ledger to see what's driving those expenditure posts okay thank you like a very minimal budget chair yes

Thank you. I just really wanted to once again express just the work by our department heads. As you can see, we're doing everything humanly possible to control expenditures at the same time, you know, increase services. They've really done a remarkable job watching the dollars and cents.

Ready to move on to page seven?

Council President? Council Member Favreau? Same question. Do we have an actual what's been collected versus invoiced?

Unfortunately, I don't have that. We're hoping with the new system I'll be able to pick up numbers like that you know with a simple click yeah it's just a a cumbersome now with yeah do we have something yeah that one i don't assume because that's a one i think it's a

It's two times, so two installments. And the second installment is until the end of September. So a third quarter should be able to give you a good read. A better at least, better read. And to dovetail what Mike just said, yes, Tyler, it's a huge undertaking. It's worth it. It is taking time, but at the end of the day, it's just going to be much more efficient and so much easier with these reports kvs is literally a 1980s program and it's very difficult but saying that you know we will get there with the new accounting uh system which will be great do we have a timeline of when that will be because i think some arpa funds are being used for that no

Correct. We're hoping to go live with a piece in early 27. We're currently just working on the chart of accounts. In fact, we have a four hour meeting tomorrow with Tyler to try to iron out some of the chart of account issues. But once we get that base in, then we can start really rolling.

And looking at page 7, the budget for the garbage fund, if you look at the budget versus the revenue versus expenses, it's spot on. But included in that is a $1.1 million interfund transfer. the folks who are listening essentially the garbage fund does not pay for itself like we have to transfer money in from other funds to cover the ex the department essentially um

There's funds being transferred amongst the malls, but yes.

Right. I think this is the department that has one of the highest. And the only reason why I'm bringing this up is I'm a homeowner. I don't enjoy paying extra fees, but it concerns me cutting some of the fees, like the garbage fee. If we continue to cut that fee from the residents, how are we going to cover the expenses for the department?

Yeah. So and to your point there, I mean, keep in mind, I think for since we're giving public knowledge here, I mean, the fact that all of these are separate funds, just like some of us might do in our own households, we sock some money away for our mortgage or our car payment or, you know, what we're going to go have fun with spending downtown Troy, stuff like that. And, you know, that's really what this is. It's the way to look at The whole, the whole budget and another part of it to be clear with those Interfund transfers, the Interfund transfers into the garbage fund have always occurred. It is a larger one this past year. You're correct there. But again, that's kind of that budgeting strategy that you go for that when You're looking at the whole entire picture, not just those individual funds. Part of the way that we cut the fee is not just by making an increase in an inter-fund transfer. It's also making sure that you're you know cutting your expenses watching those expenses as well it's also making sure that you're holding people accountable that are violating um those are all things that add up good budgeting things like that so it's not just to be clear we're not necessarily just saying okay we're going to charge you a little bit more taxes but then lower your your uh fee there as well um but you're we always have to be mindful make sure that we're not cutting fees just like i'm sure including everybody up there everybody would like to see um a tax decrease somewhere fortunately in a city like ours we're never going to have that luxury uh you know so it's constantly a balance by not continuing to burden the taxpayers of the city uh that have been burdened for a long time while also still providing them the best service um and and those are by utilizing different uh strategic budgeting uh policies you know that's how we do that's how we do end up getting there but i do just want to be clear that it's not it's not like we're taking money increasing taxes to then to supplement the the fund um it's also like where we do the other inner fund transfers um and inner fund revenues across the whole budgets in between all the various funds Every one of them has that. Again, it's just those budgeting practices that help you get to that whole number. That ultimately what matters is that bill that lands in every resident of Troy taxpayer's mailbox of what the money they owe Troy. They don't really differentiate between the different funds and stuff. And it's making sure what is the best balance for the resident taxpayer of Troy.

Yeah.

Now I understand. And I see like the water fund transfers out like 1.3 million because they essentially earn enough and then can be transferred out to help cover probably the garbage fund. It's all commingling, but it just raised a question to me is there's like constantly water main breaks and system upgrades that need to be happening in our water department and i just think to myself how are we going to continue to fund those projects but then also funnel the money out and i know i'm getting ahead of myself this is like budgeting season question that's you know it's we're here halfway through the year is a good time to look to see okay where are we um heading into the budget season of what could be increased and what can be cut

Again, back to the balance of that chapter, you have to make sure clearly that we've made a effort to make sure that we're stabilizing, fixing our assets, improving those assets like the water plant that has been left to rot for decades, frankly. So those are things that we're constantly going after state funding for, that we're mindful for. We're trying to get as creative in every single funding source that we possibly can, utilizing our CHIPS funding to try to do things more than just paving like used to been done before and not just milling, also doing the ADA ramps, also doing retaining walls, also replacing water mains that constantly 10 times a year burst. You know, we have to start looking at things that way. We have to start looking at those assets and planning for it. I mean, nobody, everybody hates you're paving a street or if you live on a street that is just so prone to water main breaks. That's why we want to go and fix those. But I just want to be clear again, those Interfund transfers are not necessarily doesn't mean, okay, we're fixing less water main breaks now or we have less money to do that as well. Other cities have the benefit of other funds that do perform well. We do have that water from that is profitable. It doesn't mean you just take every dollar out of there either, of course. But again, going back to those budgeting practices to make sure that the residents and taxpayers get the best value for their dollar.

If I could just add two things. One, on the garbage fund, we are working very hard through Seamus, through Joe, through our departments to incentivize a lot of folks that we lost. when that fee went into place to the private sector. We are now in competition with the private sector. We are picking up folks because our services have better quality. They're more efficient. And we really have second to none departments that we continue to provide that service better. Secondly, as Seamus just mentioned, You have to look at government much differently now than we looked back at the 80s, the 90s, the early 2000s. You can't just put a circle in a circle, a square in a square. You have to really look at things much differently. How do we provide those services differently? And that's very rude for people to be laughing while we're really talking about something very serious, saying that the budget, we are very uh council president please thank you please um so saying that we have to look at government differently we have to look at providing services differently and that's what we strive to do 24 7. we're doing it with the police department the fire our garbage service sanitation streets quality of life action task force the list goes on but we have to continue every day to think differently when providing those services you're seeing in Albany you're seeing in other munis you cannot just look at numbers and service we have to look at things differently do we have any more questions for page eight we're moving to page eight okay

Council President, Council Member McLaren.

I see that the tipping fee is pretty much in line with where we were this time last year. What the bulk pickup that we just finished, is that going to affect the tipping fee differently than we've seen in past years?

It's a great question. The answer is no. If you recall last year, we provided free Alamo. This year, instead of providing multiple free Alamos, we tried as something new, the bulk pickup. um it was so incredibly successful we are going to debrief in the fall we want to tweak it for next year just how we provide that service maybe go three weeks instead two weeks saying that um i cannot say enough about our deputy mayor jomez the crews when i say that they were working 24-7 on the bulk pickup. It was one of the best services I believe that we've provided to taxpayers in decades. So just kudos to the crews. They really, really did an amazing job.

So you think that will even out? You think that bulk pickup compares to what people would bring?

It'll be in the Alamo. Okay. Sorry to interrupt. Yes. So last year we just provided more Alamo drop-offs. And what we did find from the bulk pickup council member is a lot of seniors, a lot of folks who just wouldn't have made it to the Alamo. I even had one guy tell me, he's been wanting to redo his basement for like decades he now literally you know bulk picked up the basement he's redoing the basement so i think what we're going to also see our homes actually you know their property values increase because of that we saw people cleaning up their property it was a real domino effect of really taking pride in our neighborhoods

Thank you.

Any other questions.

So just for clarification member favor sorry for clarification. What i'm hearing is this was very successful, but we won't be offering additional alamo pickups if residents reach out for that.

to take a look at it and um see how much the bulk pickup was you know we'd love to provide one more we'll have to weigh that out obviously with the cost okay council member campbell-cohen

Tom Preston- To jump back to the first page some very second page, something that I encourage you to ask. Tom Preston- For overtime, there was a pretty substantial jump from this time last year, I assume a substantial amount of that was the winter storms right.

the snow plowing you were talking about. Correct. Um, it was one of those years where the two, three inches were worse than prior years. We'll take a 15 incher over 10, two inchers. Um, but saying that, and I'll let Shane plop in on the overtime on snow plowing. If I missed anything, I'll plop right in there.

So, uh, Yeah. So but yeah, no, I mean, that's just all just like some of these obligations, these overtime obligations. But that is something that as we get towards snow season again to you, you will be seeing us coming for a budget transfer before we get to that season, because we'll have to account for towards the end of the year and what what may be coming.

Are we expecting some of the overtime from say like the MEO heavies to drop off a little bit with the new towing rules?

Not. Yeah, I don't believe so. No, like.

Now that's probably going to stay in line.

That should stay in line because we are still trying to clean our streets the best as we possibly can with those towing restrictions. Obviously, they cause some issues without the way that the towing has changed, but that doesn't really change our effort to continue to keep the streets as clean as possible and our staff separate, of course.

And do we have a loose sense of how much overtime is spent on the street cleaning and towing process?

um well so i mean the street clean because i don't so when you're in regard to street cleaning where it starts in our 4am areas and those um the separation of that we can look into that for you um i that's what but the coalition between the correlation between the 4am shift and the towing or not towing i don't really see how that would make a difference because like i said they're still out there trying to uh still trying to clean the streets as best they can even if cars can't be towed just yet and for an MEO heavy do you have do you have an idea of like what the salary band is well off the top of my head I wouldn't especially if it's varies between the different years and things like that but that's information we can provide you too would it surprise you if the take if I told you that the take-home pay with overtime was well into the six figures for MEO heavies I do know that some of our union staff definitely with the overtime in the way that seniority contractually works can make six figures. They're usually folks that have been on work for the city for 20 years. They're at a higher tier. They're at a higher level when it comes to seniority. frankly they're also more willing to go grab the overtime compared to some folks that are younger than them that would rather the time off first than going after the overtime so that's why sometimes you can see that get concentrated um because of those factors so as a as a city we can't control i mean we can influence but we can't control who's gonna grab that over time but we can't control how much is needed and how much is That's correct too. Like I always remember first coming into office for some reason, there was overtime in streets and sanitation on the weekends, cleaning CDA bus stops. Why? We don't own them. CDTA should clean them. There was a lot of different weird, I don't know if they're verbal agreements. Arrangements is probably better for years. So those we've definitely cut out. But again, you know, Like the mayor was going over here, too. We try to control the expenditures as much as we can. Some of the stuff that we're not going to sacrifice, like cleaning our streets, making sure that police and fire can respond to calls, snowstorms. Those are things that we don't consider sacrificing, even though we're contractually obligated to pay the certain rate that you're leaning into.

Great.

Thank you.

Wendy Gaertner- councilmember de la president Thank you just jumping back to the garbage fund expenses, my apologies, so. Wendy Gaertner- The tipping. Is this not on? Can you hear?

We're not close enough.

Sorry, I was leaning back. Okay, the tipping fees. So yeah, up until this point, it looks like we're on track here. If I'm understanding what we're saying correctly about the tipping fees, the bulk pickup was budgeted for, and so we should not be expecting an inter-fund transfer this year to cover those tipping fees. Am I correct in saying that?

I have to say we're performing well right now.

Okay.

Just looking at the overall budget, I'm not tuned into that depth.

Maybe next quarter is a better time to ask.

Okay. Sure.

All right. Thank you.

Okay, I think we that just about wraps it up for everyone. Thank you all for your help. Looking forward to the next quarter for the charter. Hoping it's on time. And do we need to take a five minute break? No, no, we can go right in. Okay. At this point, is there anyone who wishes to address the council on any one of those four ordinances? Again, I'll ask, is there anyone who wishes to speak on any agenda item for the special meeting?

Seeing none, we'll move right along.

Ordinance 34.

Ordinance 34, an ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit Ajit K. Kanuja et al. v. City of Troy et al. United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. Civil action number 126-CV-1019. Council President Steele at the request of the administration. Is there a motion?

Motion. Council Member McLaren, second. Second. Council Member McKee, discussion on the ordinance. Council President.

Council Member McLaren. I just wanted to say that I appreciate that this was done. I guess in terms of other lawsuits, this settlement was agreed upon pretty quickly. And I'm glad for the family that it is resolved.

Any other comments? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? 7 ayes, 0 noes. The ordinance passes.

Ordinance 36.

Ordinance 36, an ordinance amending the 2026 general fund budget. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member McLaren, second? Second. Council Member Struber, discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Seven ayes, zero nos. The ordinance passes. Ordinance 41. Ordinance 41, an ordinance authorizing settlement of claim to wit Joseph Martinez versus the City of Troy and Towers on the Hudson, Rensselaer County Supreme Court index number EF 2023-273522. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member McKee with a second by Council Member McLaren. Discussion on the ordinance. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

7 ayes, 0 noes. The ordinance passes.

Ordinance 43.

Ordinance 43, an ordinance amending the General Fund, Capital Projects Fund, and Miscellaneous Special Grants Fund budgets to appropriate funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member Favreau, second? Second. Council Member Struber? Second.

discussion council president council member favre um i'd just like to say as a member of the arpa steering committee um that a number of projects were discussed during this meeting i know at least seven or eight residents throughout the city had reached out to me to bring some smaller projects forward and i did bring every single one of those projects forward And I understand that it would have been difficult for the city to complete all of the necessary steps to get those projects and these money spent by the end of the year. That's our deadline. And we have a responsibility, I think, to spend every single penny so that it's not clawed back. And that is why the committee had decided to fund these two projects. And I am thrilled that North Lake, even though it's not in my district, will be focused on because I understand that is heavily used and I'm looking forward to the continued CONVERSATION WITH THE ADMINISTRATION NEXT MONTH IN GENERAL SERVICES SO THAT WE CAN FURTHER DISCUSS THE PAVILION THAT A PORTION OF THESE FUNDS WILL BE GOING TOWARD.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT. COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLAREN.

I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT AS A LIFELONG RESIDENT OF THE FREER PARK NEIGHBORHOOD, I AM GRATEFUL TO THE COMMITTEE THAT THESE PROJECTS ARE GOING TO BE SEEN THROUGH.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The ordinance passes.

At this point, I'll waive the rules a bit. And if anyone wishes to address the council on any item, we'd be happy to hear from you. Seeing none, I'll...

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Never sleeping.

What have I opened up?

It reminds me of the corporate meetings where we all sit at the end of the meeting and does anyone have anything to add? And everybody sits there until people get up and then we talk. My name is Jim Altier, District 5. I think tonight you're going to hear from many of my friends and neighbors who have broken down the data on the TPD audit. I trust them and admire their thoroughness. I'll say that in advance. What I see are numbers, lots of numbers, large numbers of searches and data being collected. Including in those numbers is the astonishing amount of data Axon has collected. Our conversation cannot be limited to flock. The number of entities outside of Troy looking at our data also is a concern. We are clearly under surveillance. What I don't see in all these numbers is that flock devices add significantly to our safety. What I keep coming back to are these frightening numbers reflecting how we are being watched. While significant, that most police response to notices happens within 48 hours, I don't find this metric inspires any sort of confidence. And from what I heard tonight, I'm not gathering any more confidence in what Flock is doing to keep us safe. My stand on this is simply get the Flock out of Troy. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim.

Sorry, my phone locked.

Okay. Francis Sweet, District 6. When I heard that TPD was going to collect data on itself to prove whether or not they needed more than 48 hours of plate retention, I was skeptical. I thought the data would be skewed and unreliable. Instead, it turns out most of the important information is just missing. And what is there proves that there is no need to keep data beyond 48 hours. The claim was that data was needed to be kept longer for cases that weren't reported until 48 hours after the incident. But 96% were reported within 48 hours. TBD searched for plates within 48 hours of the incident only 64% of the time. The lag seems to be on the department side, not the public's. However, no case outcomes were provided that prove ALPR data helps solve cases. Of the 30 they provided information about, there's no numbers provided on how many of those cases were solved. And in that number, how many used plate data as crucial evidence. In Atlanta, Sorry. In Atlanta, they have 5,000 flock cameras blanketing the area, yet they only solve 10% of the motor vehicle crime there, something you'd think ALPRs would help the most with. In Troy, if you look at the FBI's crime statistics, the number of solved cases for motor vehicle theft has remained consistently low for the past five years since we got flock cameras, regardless of how many vehicles were reported stolen. At its highest in 2024, 21 vehicles, and they only solved two cases. At its lowest of three in January, 2026, they solved one case. In fact, they solved the most cases in February 2020 before we got flock cameras. None of the information provided by TPD and none of the information I've researched has convinced me we even need ALPRs at all, let alone shady companies like Flock or Axon. Unless TPD can prove that it needs 5 million plate reads a month to solve their cases, I don't think that they should have this mass surveillance technology. They already have however many Eclipse cameras watching us in real time. By the way, that company has now upgraded its model to match flock, including AI and cloud networks on software hosted by Amazon. When Amazon services were hacked a couple of years ago and half the internet went down, would that now include Eclipse surveillance cameras? Also, despite the recent fanfare, Flock didn't change its data retention to seven days instead of 30. It says on their website they changed their default setting to seven days and recommend using that, meaning 30 is still possible with a few extra clicks. The movement is called deflock because flock is the most egregious, but that doesn't mean the other companies are squeaky clean. All APRs are tracking us wherever we've gone. Any ALPR tech that uses AI will go above and beyond to predict where we'll go next. I am convinced that ALPRs amount to warrantless searches, especially after the recent Supreme Court decision, Christie versus United States, and I think that they should all be banned. Until that happens, in the meantime, I would rather have a local law tightly regulating their use compared to the nothing we currently have. tpd changed their stated policy in spring after public pressure in the same way that flock claims to of this month they are only superficial changes without a law thank you thank you francis

I'm Evelyn Saley, District 3. I wanted to impress upon the council the importance of Local Law Number 3. This law is a vital protection for the members of this community. It defines critical reporting requirements and prevents the use of the technology as comprehensive surveillance infrastructure. In her memo in support of law number three, Councilwoman McKee cites a 2018 Supreme Court case, Carpenter v. United States. In the court opinion, Justice Roberts states concisely enough, a person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public spirit. I have to agree. Later on, he comments, police need not even know in advance whether they want to follow a particular individual or when. Whoever the suspect turns out to be, he has effectively been tailed every moment of every day for five years. Justice Roberts was discussing the use of cell phone tracking data. He believed that the police should at least need a warrant before getting access to that information. Again, I have to agree. The difference now is that the police don't even have to bother sending an email to a service provider to retrieve the info. Without this law, there is a question as to whether any officer would need to confer with their superior before querying the data. There's a question as to how the data will be guarded and who will have access. There is a question as to who the government could convey the information to and for what purpose. Mayor Mantello calls the technology proven. In fact, the technology is proven to result in the arrest of innocent people. A study by the IPVM research demonstrated an about 1 in 10 failure rate, whereas in Lee Schmidt versus City of Norfolk, among the undisputed facts is that flock cameras have a 7% failure rate. If you're like me and you drive past three camera installations just commuting to work, then it's safe to say your plate is misidentified at least a couple times a week. This is not a hypothetical issue. When Brandon Upchurch's plate was misread by a flock camera, he suffered an attack by a canine unit and guns drawn on him, resulting in a $35,000 sentiment. In Tennessee, JC and Carolyn Herron faced guns drawn with their three-year-old granddaughter in the backseat for the same non-reason. Six months ago, in February, another couple faced guns drawn due to flock cameras' mistake, this time with a one-month-old in the backseat. Mayor Montello also calls this law reckless, as if the police are being handicapped. This law places small guardrails on a very new technology, and the police are nonetheless the beneficiaries of ever-expanding discretion. This law represents vital guardrails in protecting this community's Fourth Amendment rights and their relationship with law enforcement. Clearly, the reckless thing would be to allow this technology to proliferate unrestricted. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Anthony.

Hi, Deirdre, Deirdre Shea, District 4. I'll try to be quick. Thank you for the work you have done so far bringing forward local law number three and working with us on our concerns about flock and automated surveillance such as ALPRs. And I kind of have two things to say here. The first thing is that Wired Magazine just published an article this week documenting Flock's latest pilot program, which is called OS Investigate. And they found that with this new software, law enforcement can now write a prompt that includes a place, a stretch of time, and a pattern of behavior. And then the system is designed to hand back a list of people who fit or cars that fit that description license plates. So let's say cars on Hoosick that stop at Stewart's between 4 and 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, it will sift through the 4.8 million plates that it scanned for the month. And then it will basically come back with a list for the officer of the potential cars that fit that pattern or behavior. This is not safety. This is using an automated system to profile us based on how we live our lives. That's a pattern of life. I use that example because this technology over the past several months has already continued to evolve very quickly beyond our expertise and faster than we expect. The only way to be ahead of that is to go deliberately and to go slowly. We have to require public input before any of these technologies are implemented and public review after they are. Regular public review. And this should be included in the proposed law. The second thing I wanted to share is an experience I have had with FLOC this summer. On June 9th, the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Office hosted a live demonstration of FLOC's new drone as first responder with FLOC representatives present and they invited one or two of the community members opposed to FLOC to attend. So I saw a lot that troubled me in this demonstration, but there is one particular feature that I can't stop thinking about. um as they broadcast a live feed of the drone flying down fourth street south of the post and kill which is my neighborhood greg's neighborhood one of the flock representatives proudly announced that if desired you could click on any vehicle live from the mobile app that first responders would use on their own personal phones to manually fly the drone or to observe the automatic drone And then the drone would automatically begin to follow that car. So he clicked on a white early 2004 truck with a black bed rack. And I could observe and see all of those details about this truck. I recognized the truck. It drives around the neighborhood a lot. Just from the live feed, as it was making a right onto Madison towards the neighborhood woods. And I told him that I thought automatically following a car live by clicking on it in a phone app seemed like a Fourth Amendment violation and asked if they had any restrictions built into their user interface for that. And he said, no, but they could potentially maybe do some one-off customization if a municipality had a law about it and requested it. But it was up to the municipality to take responsibility for what is legal and not legal to do with their technology. And they are right. So in our role, it is our role here in Troy to limit this type of technology by passing a law. And local law number three is that law. Despite the fact that this technology was implemented without our consent or our knowledge as the public, we are taking action now and saying no flock, no ALPRs or restricted flock, restricted ALPRs. And this law is a very meaningful first step towards that. So thank you for that. There are concerns that this law doesn't go far enough, and I agree. Looking at the flock data, 4.8 million scans a month, and reading TPD's description of what is documented and what isn't, there's clearly no regular procedure for collecting auditable information. And we can't hold the police department or these private companies accountable, even if we do have a PORB, if we can't perform audits that illustrate patterns of use. And I caution that even if we resolve the issue of ALPRs as surveillance, there will be more technologies that will emerge in the name of safety and crime solving that are in actuality here to assert power over our communities, whether it's for data collection and sale or for control. And I implore the city council to respond to these unknowns by implementing requirements for public forum before any of these types of technologies are implemented by the police or any other body in this community. Thank you.

Thank you, Deidre.

Hello, I'm Greg Lyons. I live there on Second Street in downtown Troy. I emailed some of you what I was going to be talking about today. So I wanted to start off with thank you for the audit, right? However incomplete it is, that's much better than the first audit that we received. And without all you here today, we wouldn't have got that, right? None of that would be visible. And so one of the things I want us to keep in mind while drafting Local Law 3 is how we got here, because how we got here matters. History matters. That's how we learn to improve and go forward. In 2021, the first flock agreement was signed on December 19th by the Troy Police Department. In 2022, it was expanded by the police department. and there's no quite no one can answer the question when it was brought to council if it was brought to council and when did the people approve it nobody answers that question the buck is passed left right center when citizens brought up their concerns in 2025 well beginning this year What happened? I mean, to Troy Peay's credit, they turned off the national search, but then in the same breath, the administration declared a public emergency to override the council's decision to table it, because just wanted questions answered by the public here. So again here, no dialogue has been happening since this, since these concerns have been brought up, right? They got 60 days, and then, bless all your hearts, you gave them another 60 days, And then they gave us that audit, the first audit, which was wholly incomplete and unacceptable. So this is the history that we're working from here. So I highly encourage local law three must include binding legislation that governs the use of these technologies, such as FLOC or any of this, by government entities like the Troy PD, and by third party vendors like Flock. We need that in law. We must be a nation of laws. Without that, I don't know what we've been doing. It's not going to protect us otherwise.

Thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

I'm Heather. I live in District 2. And I want to start by saying that first, I think we shouldn't have the APLRs at all. I think they're an egregious violation.

I'm sorry. Could you speak into the mic? Yes. I'm too short. My apologies. I am too, so I understand.

It's lower now. So I just want to start off by saying that, first, I am completely opposed to the use of any passive gathering of mass surveillance data like this. But given that it's here, I do want to say that I appreciate the efforts to put guardrails around the use of these license plate readers, and I support Local Law 3 conceptually. I just wanted to speak on one particular issue that I noticed. My concern with the way the law is drafted now is that there's permission for searches against hot lists. And I know earlier in the meeting, there was some discussion of how New Hampshire does it, and they only use hot lists, and isn't that better? I'm very concerned about hot lists and what they mean, right? Because they can be created, and the way the law defines them, they can be created by any local, state, or federal law enforcement agency, right? And so by outsourcing the what can we check against to law enforcement, all this law enforcement, right, We're relying on them to create these lists in good faith. I think this is really dangerous. Unfortunately, we just don't live in a world where I have any confidence at all that any existing list maintained by any law enforcement agency anywhere is not actively and intentionally racist, first. I also don't think it's farfetched to imagine the federal government, for example, creating and sharing hot lists that are composed entirely of transgender people, or people who said something spicy about them on the internet, or people who practice a certain religion, or immigrants, right? So you get the idea of where I'm going with like, what is on the hot list? Like, you just make a new hot list, and then we pull all those people over, and who knows what happens there? I see hot lists as just a way to automate bias, and I think it's very dangerous, and it's an exception that's going to swallow the rule. um sort of as an aside but related to this i think keeping and maintaining any mass surveillance data that can be even possibly accessed by any federal law enforcement agency at the moment is incredibly dangerous right in the capital region lately and especially in the month of august we've seen a massive escalation of ice tactics, right, both in terms of the number of detentions and the strategies they're using. This isn't Albany only. This is also in Troy, including today, including reckless driving, including staging on public property, including the Ingalls Ave boat launch. And I think any Any data we're collecting that could contribute to that is diminishing all of our safety. So we should get rid of the cameras. We should not share data with fascists and we should do better. But if we can't do that, we should have a good local law and it shouldn't include the hot list. So thank you.

Thank you, Heather.

Hey everybody, Bree Harrington, District 4. Yeah, so thank you again for continuing your thoroughness with trying to deconstruct all of the challenges the city has been facing with the flock dilemma. I think we can all agree after the audit results have come in, It has further emboldened our feelings that flock in general is not necessary in our city. There has been no concrete proof, as you have went over with the PD, that flock has directly helped and, you know, solve a crime. Yes, it is tool in certain respects for certain crimes, but the audit was so poorly done and really did not prove that flock was a really important tool you know, priority as far as crime solving is concerned. I think more of the alarming data that came through was the amount of hits as has been already touched upon. Millions and millions of hits. Now the ratio to me doesn't feel quite right as far as the amount of hits versus how much has been successfully done in crime solving. So with that being said, it just further proves that Flock is not necessary in our city. Flock should be taken out of our city. And sure, there can be alternatives put in place. We're all looking for safety, but there are other things that could be done instead of this technology, especially a technology that we've heard time and time again is owned by a very nefarious company that does things in very deceptive, nefarious ways. So thank you again. And hopefully as time goes on, we will get this state of emergency thing figured out, which we are doing, thank goodness. And we will get these cameras out of our city once and for all. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good evening council members. My name is Frankie and I'm a resident of Troy. I honestly don't know where to start. There are so many elements of the 60-day flock report that need to be addressed. The stunning revelation of the sheer scope of Troy's warrantless mass surveillance program. The collection of millions of data points on our individual movements. The inherent bias in a self-audit rather than a neutral third-party review. The fact that our local law enforcement agency is willingly and purposefully breaking constitutional law in an attempt to enforce other laws. The astonishing fact that we are still in a citywide public safety state of emergency when flock data demonstrates no such emergency conditions exist. and the truly unbelievable fact that our city administration and police department have greater allegiance to a private data broker than to private citizens and our constitutional rights. I'm going to let others pick apart the report. There's plenty to dissect. I just want to focus on some of the deeper principles that underpin this whole discussion. First, the more I look at the Flock Report, the more I understand the deep intrusiveness of AI-powered surveillance technology and the shocking level to which these mass surveillance systems infringe on our constitutional rights on a daily basis. In a free country, our movements are none of the government's business unless and until we're reasonably suspected of committing a crime. And even then, we're entitled to due process and a judicial warrant before we're tracked and monitored by the police. But with these cameras, the daily movements of perfectly innocent people are being tracked in Troy every single day. That's a dangerous practice that erodes our basic freedoms and eventually creates a police state in which we're presumed guilty, even though the law says we're entitled to the presumption of innocence. Due process, something we all should hold sacred, is simply out the window with these mass surveillance systems. And the sheer volume of data collected on each of us in Troy should give us all pause. Over 80 million private vehicle scans in a year. Out of state agencies searching Troy's data millions of times. Thousands of searches of Troy's data by federal agencies. This is a massive amount of data collected in the name of public safety, and there isn't even any assurance that this illegally obtained data is kept safe. We know from several recent accounts that flock data has already been misused by hackers, government officials, and law enforcement staff. It's law enforcement's job to protect the public. So why aren't they protecting us from this misuse? And why aren't they protecting us from unconstitutional tracking of our every movement? because they are the stalkers. They fell for a smooth sales pitch from Flock, and now they believe they're on a righteous quest to fight crime with technology, perfectly willing to sacrifice citizens' rights in the process.

But here's the truth.

Flock, which is a private for-profit company, identified municipal governments and local police departments as sales targets. They researched their target audience, they marketed their product in ways that they hoped would be irresistible, and they promoted their product relentlessly. They tried to make Flock a household name in law enforcement. Every other city has this. You need it, too. It's Marketing 101, and cities and police departments across the nation bought into it with very few questions asked, and the city of Troy bought into it, too. Well, now cities large and small are having buyer's remorse. They're realizing that everything in Flock's polished sales pitch wasn't as perfect as it seemed, that this system has a lot of flaws. We've all seen the stories of reader errors, data hacking, politically motivated tracking, police misuse, and more. they're also now waking up to the fact that private citizens don't actually appreciate infringement of their constitutional rights and don't actually enjoy being surveilled 24 7 without reasonable suspicion and due process but when these concerns surfaced flock didn't address the problems they just helped police departments and city officials defend the product which our mayor and police chief have dutifully done What I would like to see our local government do is remember that the United States Constitution legally protects us from warrantless dragnet surveillance and then defend our rights instead of defending a product. Flock systems are not a necessity. They're a product the city purchased with taxpayer dollars. In the simplest term, Flock is basically just a Netflix subscription for local law enforcement, and we're all uncompensated cast members in a reality show, having our movements filmed and shared with agencies and businesses across the nation without our input or consent. the mayor and the troy police department can't spin this information in any other way they can't deny that every single movement in and out of our city is being tracked and recorded 24 7 without due process and officials around the nation are also accessing our data without clear purpose or audit trails that's the undeniable truth of this report I'm not comfortable with that truth, and I would expect that the average citizen who values their rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution would not be comfortable with it either. The mayor and the police chief's faith and flock, this intrusive, profit-driven data brokerage company is clearly misplaced. The mass warrantless surveillance they sell is not legal, it's not appropriate, and it's not welcome in our community. Please join other smart cities in rejecting this and any other similar product. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Frankie. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. motion council member mclaren council member mckee seconds all in favor aye aye we are